24933	----	None 
11328	----	THE HUNTED WOMAN BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD Author of KAZAN, Etc. Illustrated by FRANK B. HOFFMAN 1915 TO MY WIFE AND OUR COMRADES OF THE TRAIL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "'Look at MacDonald.... It's not the gold, but MacDonald, that's taking me North, Ladygray.... Up there, another grave is calling MacDonald.'" A tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure.... "'Another o' them Dotty Dimples come out to save the world. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little, an' so I sent her to Bill's place'" "A crowd was gathering.... A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a huge brown bear" "'The tunnel is closed,' she whispered.... 'That means we have just forty-five minutes to live.... Let us not lie to one another.'" CHAPTER I It was all new--most of it singularly dramatic and even appalling to the woman who sat with the pearl-gray veil drawn closely about her face. For eighteen hours she had been a keenly attentive, wide-eyed, and partly frightened bit of humanity in this onrush of "the horde." She had heard a voice behind her speak of it as "the horde"--a deep, thick, gruff voice which she knew without looking had filtered its way through a beard. She agreed with the voice. It was the Horde--that horde which has always beaten the trails ahead for civilization and made of its own flesh and blood the foundation of nations. For months it had been pouring steadily into the mountains--always in and never out, a laughing, shouting, singing, blaspheming Horde, every ounce of it toughened sinew and red brawn, except the Straying Angels. One of these sat opposite her, a dark-eyed girl with over-red lips and hollowed cheeks, and she heard the bearded man say something to his companions about "dizzy dolls" and "the little angel in the other seat." This same voice, gruffened in its beard, had told her that ten thousand of the Horde had gone up ahead of them. Then it whispered something that made her hands suddenly tighten and a hot flush sweep through her. She lifted her veil and rose slowly from her seat, as if to rearrange her dress. Casually she looked straight into the faces of the bearded man and his companion in the seat behind. They stared. After that she heard nothing more of the Straying Angels, but only a wildly mysterious confabulation about "rock hogs," and "coyotes" that blew up whole mountains, and a hundred and one things about the "rail end." She learned that it was taking five hundred steers a week to feed the Horde that lay along the Grand Trunk Pacific between Hogan's Camp and the sea, and that there were two thousand souls at Tête Jaune Cache, which until a few months before had slumbered in a century-old quiet broken only by the Indian and his trade. Then the train stopped in its twisting trail, and the bearded man and his companion left the car. As they passed her they glanced down. Again the veil was drawn close. A shimmering tress of hair had escaped its bondage; that was all they saw. [Illustration: "Look at MacDonald.... It's not the gold, but MacDonald, that's taking me north, Ladygray.... Up there, another grave is calling MacDonald."] The veiled woman drew a deeper breath when they were gone. She saw that most of the others were getting off. In her end of the car the hollow-cheeked girl and she were alone. Even in their aloneness these two women had not dared to speak until now. The one raised her veil again, and their eyes met across the aisle. For a moment the big, dark, sick-looking eyes of the "angel" stared. Like the bearded man and his companion, she, too, understood, and an embarrassed flush added to the colour of the rouge on her cheeks. The eyes that looked across at her were blue--deep, quiet, beautiful. The lifted veil had disclosed to her a face that she could not associate with the Horde. The lips smiled at her--the wonderful eyes softened with a look of understanding, and then the veil was lowered again. The flush in the girl's cheek died out, and she smiled back. "You are going to Tête Jaune?" she asked. "Yes. May I sit with you for a few minutes? I want to ask questions--so many!" The hollow-cheeked girl made room for her at her side. "You are new?" "Quite new--to this." The words, and the manner in which they were spoken, made the other glance quickly at her companion. "It is a strange place to go--Tête Jaune," she said. "It is a terrible place for a woman." "And yet you are going?" "I have friends there. Have you?" "No." The girl stared at her in amazement. Her voice and her eyes were bolder now. "And without friends you are going--_there?_" she cried. "You have no husband--no brother----" "What place is this?" interrupted the other, raising her veil so that she could look steadily into the other's face. "Would you mind telling me?" "It is Miette," replied the girl, the flush reddening her cheeks again. "There's one of the big camps of the railroad builders down on the Flats. You can see it through the window. That river is the Athabasca." "Will the train stop here very long?" The Little Angel shrugged her thin shoulders despairingly. "Long enough to get me into The Cache mighty late to-night," she complained. "We won't move for two hours." "I'd be so glad if you could tell me where I can go for a bath and something to eat. I'm not very hungry--but I'm terribly dusty. I want to change some clothes, too. Is there a hotel here?" Her companion found the question very funny. She had a giggling fit before she answered. "You're sure new," she explained. "We don't have hotels up here. We have bed-houses, chuck-tents, and bunk-shacks. You ask for Bill's Shack down there on the Flats. It's pretty good. They'll give you a room, plenty of water, and a looking-glass--an' charge you a dollar. I'd go with you, but I'm expecting a friend a little later, and if I move I may lose him. Anybody will tell you where Bill's place is. It's a red an' white striped tent--and it's respectable." The stranger girl thanked her, and turned for her bag. As she left the car, the Little Angel's eyes followed her with a malicious gleam that gave them the strange glow of candles in a sepulchral cavern. The colours which she unfurled to all seeking eyes were not secret, and yet she was filled with an inward antagonism that this stranger with the wonderful blue eyes had dared to see them and recognize them. She stared after the retreating form--a tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure that filled her with envy and a dull sort of hatred. She did not hear a step behind her. A hand fell familiarly on her shoulder, and a coarse voice laughed something in her ear that made her jump up with an artificial little shriek of pleasure. The man nodded toward the end of the now empty car. "Who's your new friend?" he asked. "She's no friend of mine," snapped the girl. "She's another one of them Dolly Dimples come out to save the world. She's that innocent she wonders why Tête Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!" She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized the opportunity to look out of the window. The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face. Then she stepped lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the mountains. She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned wonderingly, for a moment forgetful. It was the first time she had left the train since entering the mountains, and she understood now why some one in the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshine Pool. Where-ever she looked the mountains fronted her, with their splendid green slopes reaching up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or gleaming summits of snow. Into this "pool"--this pocket in the mountains--the sun descended in a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in him. The train had stopped at the edge of the big fill overlooking the Flats. It was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to make history--a combination of freight, passenger, and "cattle." It had averaged eight miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel. The "cattle" had already surged from their stifling and foul-smelling cars in a noisy inundation of curiously mixed humanity. They were of a dozen different nationalities, and as the girl looked at them it was not with revulsion or scorn but with a sudden quickening of heartbeat and a little laugh that had in it something both of wonder and of pride. This was the Horde, that crude, monstrous thing of primitive strength and passions that was overturning mountains in its fight to link the new Grand Trunk Pacific with the seaport on the Pacific. In that Horde, gathered in little groups, shifting, sweeping slowly toward her and past her, she saw something as omnipotent as the mountains themselves. They could not know defeat. She sensed it without ever having seen them before. For her the Horde now had a heart and a soul. These were the builders of empire--the man-beasts who made it possible for Civilization to creep warily and without peril into new places and new worlds. With a curious shock she thought of the half-dozen lonely little wooden crosses she had seen through the car window at odd places along the line of rail. And now she sought her way toward the Flats. To do this she had to climb over a track that was waiting for ballast. A car shunted past her, and on its side she saw the big, warning red placards--Dynamite. That one word seemed to breathe to her the spirit of the wonderful energy that was expending itself all about her. From farther on in the mountains came the deep, sullen detonations of the "little black giant" that had been rumbling past her in the car. It came again and again, like the thunderous voice of the mountains themselves calling out in protest and defiance. And each time she felt a curious thrill under her feet and the palpitant touch of something that was like a gentle breath in her ears. She found another track on her way, and other cars slipped past her crunchingly. Beyond this second track she came to a beaten road that led down into the Flats, and she began to descend. [Illustration: A tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure.... "Another o' them Dotty Dimples come out to save the world. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little, an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!"] Tents shone through the trees on the bottom. The rattle of the cars grew more distant, and she heard the hum and laughter of voices and the jargon of a phonograph. At the bottom of the slope she stepped aside to allow a team and wagon to pass. The wagon was loaded with boxes that rattled and crashed about as the wheels bumped over stones and roots. The driver of the team did not look at her. He was holding back with his whole weight; his eyes bulged a little; he was sweating, in his face was a comedy of expression that made the girl smile in spite of herself. Then she saw one of the bobbing boxes and the smile froze into a look of horror. On it was painted that ominous word--DYNAMITE! Two men were coming behind her. "Six horses, a wagon an' old Fritz--blown to hell an' not a splinter left to tell the story," one of them was saying. "I was there three minutes after the explosion and there wasn't even a ravelling or a horsehair left. This dynamite's a dam' funny thing. I wouldn't be a rock-hog for a million!" "I'd rather be a rock-hog than Joe--drivin' down this hill a dozen times a day," replied the other. The girl had paused again, and the two men stared at her as they were about to pass. The explosion of Joe's dynamite could not have startled them more than the beauty of the face that was turned to them in a quietly appealing inquiry. "I am looking for a place called--Bill's Shack," she said, speaking the Little Sister's words hesitatingly. "Can you direct me to it, please?" The younger of the two men looked at his companion without speaking. The other, old enough to regard feminine beauty as a trap and an illusion, turned aside to empty his mouth of a quid of tobacco, bent over, and pointed under the trees. "Can't miss it--third tent-house on your right, with canvas striped like a barber-pole. That phonnygraff you hear is at Bill's." "Thank you." She went on. Behind her, the two men stood where she had left them. They did not move. The younger man seemed scarcely to breathe. "Bill's place!" he gasped then. "I've a notion to tell her. I can't believe----" "Shucks!" interjected the other. "But I don't. She isn't that sort. She looked like a Madonna--with the heart of her clean gone. I never saw anything so white an' so beautiful. You call me a fool if you want to--I'm goin' on to Bill's!" He strode ahead, chivalry in his young and palpitating heart. Quickly the older man was at his side, clutching his arm. "Come along, you cotton-head!" he cried. "You ain't old enough or big enough in this camp to mix in with Bill. Besides," he lied, seeing the wavering light in the youth's eyes, "I know her. She's going to the right place." At Bill's place men were holding their breath and staring. They were not unaccustomed to women. But such a one as this vision that walked calmly and undisturbed in among them they had never seen. There were half a dozen lounging there, smoking and listening to the phonograph, which some one now stopped that they might hear every word that was spoken. The girl's head was high. She was beginning to understand that it would have been less embarrassing to have gone hungry and dusty. But she had come this far, and she was determined to get what she wanted--if it was to be had. The colour shone a little more vividly through the pure whiteness of her skin as she faced Bill, leaning over his little counter. In him she recognized the Brute. It was blazoned in his face, in the hungry, seeking look of his eyes--in the heavy pouches and thick crinkles of his neck and cheeks. For once Bill Quade himself was at a loss. "I understand that you have rooms for rent," she said unemotionally. "May I hire one until the train leaves for Tête Jaune Cache?" The listeners behind her stiffened and leaned forward. One of them grinned at Quade. This gave him the confidence he needed to offset the fearless questioning in the blue eyes. None of them noticed a newcomer in the door. Quade stepped from behind his shelter and faced her. "This way," he said, and turned to the drawn curtains beyond them. She followed. As the curtains closed after them a chuckling laugh broke the silence of the on-looking group. The newcomer in the doorway emptied the bowl of his pipe, and thrust the pipe into the breast-pocket of his flannel shirt. He was bareheaded. His hair was blond, shot a little with gray. He was perhaps thirty-eight, no taller than the girl herself, slim-waisted, with trim, athletic shoulders. His eyes, as they rested on the still-fluttering curtains, were a cold and steady gray. His face was thin and bronzed, his nose a trifle prominent. He was a man far from handsome, and yet there was something of fascination and strength about him. He did not belong to the Horde. Yet he might have been the force behind it, contemptuous of the chuckling group of rough-visaged men, almost arrogant in his posture as he eyed the curtains and waited. What he expected soon came. It was not the usual giggling, the usual exchange of badinage and coarse jest beyond the closed curtains. Quade did not come out rubbing his huge hands, his face crinkling with a sort of exultant satisfaction. The girl preceded him. She flung the curtains aside and stood there for a moment, her face flaming like fire, her blue eyes filled with the flash of lightning. She came down the single step. Quade followed her. He put out a hand. "Don't take offence, girly," he expostulated. "Look here--ain't it reasonable to s'pose----" He got no farther. The man in the door had advanced, placing himself at the girl's side. His voice was low and unexcited. "You have made a mistake?" he said. She took him in at a glance--his clean-cut, strangely attractive face, his slim build, the clear and steady gray of his eyes. "Yes, I have made a mistake--a terrible mistake!" "I tell you it ain't fair to take offence," Quade went on. "Now, look here----" In his hand was a roll of bills. The girl did not know that a man could strike as quickly and with as terrific effect as the gray-eyed stranger struck then. There was one blow, and Quade went down limply. It was so sudden that he had her outside before she realized what had happened. "I chanced to see you go in," he explained, without a tremor in his voice. "I thought you were making a mistake. I heard you ask for shelter. If you will come with me I will take you to a friend's." "If it isn't too much trouble for you, I will go," she said. "And for that--in there--thank you!" CHAPTER II They passed down an aisle through the tall trees, on each side of which faced the vari-coloured and many-shaped architecture of the little town. It was chiefly of canvas. Now and then a structure of logs added an appearance of solidity to the whole. The girl did not look too closely. She knew that they passed places in which there were long rows of cots, and that others were devoted to trade. She noticed signs which advertised soft drinks and cigars--always "soft drinks," which sometimes came into camp marked as "dynamite," "salt pork," and "flour." She was conscious that every one stared at them as they passed. She heard clearly the expressions of wonder and curiosity of two women and a girl who were spreading out blankets in front of a rooming-tent. She looked at the man at her side. She appreciated his courtesy in not attempting to force an acquaintanceship. In her eyes was a ripple of amusement. "This is all strange and new to me--and not at all uninteresting," she said. "I came expecting--everything. And I am finding it. Why do they stare at me so? Am I a curiosity?" "You are," he answered bluntly. "You are the most beautiful woman they have ever seen." His eyes encountered hers as he spoke. He had answered her question fairly. There was nothing that was audacious in his manner or his look. She had asked for information, and he had given it. In spite of herself the girl's lips trembled. Her colour deepened. She smiled. "Pardon me," she entreated. "I seldom feel like laughing, but I almost do now. I have encountered so many curious people and have heard so many curious things during the past twenty-four hours. You don't believe in concealing your thoughts out here in the wilderness, do you?" "I haven't expressed _my_ thoughts," he corrected. "I was telling you what _they_ think." "Oh-h-h--I beg your pardon again!" "Not at all," he answered lightly, and now his eyes were laughing frankly into her own. "I don't mind informing you," he went on, "that I am the biggest curiosity you will meet between this side of the mountains and the sea. I am not accustomed to championing women. I allow them to pursue their own course without personal interference on my part. But--I suppose it will give you some satisfaction if I confess it--I followed you into Bill's place because you were more than ordinarily beautiful, and because I wanted to see fair play. I knew you were making a mistake. I knew what would happen." They had passed the end of the street, and entered a little green plain that was soft as velvet underfoot. On the farther side of this, sheltered among the trees, were two or three tents. The man led the way toward these. "Now, I suppose I've spoiled it all," he went on, a touch of irony in his voice. "It was really quite heroic of me to follow you into Bill's place, don't you think? You probably want to tell me so, but don't quite dare. And I should play up to my part, shouldn't I? But I cannot--not satisfactorily. I'm really a bit disgusted with myself for having taken as much interest in you as I have. I write books for a living. My name is John Aldous." With a little cry of amazement, his companion stopped. Without knowing it, her hand had gripped his arm. "You are John Aldous--who wrote 'Fair Play,' and 'Women!'" she gasped. "Yes," he said, amusement in his face. "I have read those books--and I have read your plays," she breathed, a mysterious tremble in her voice. "You despise women!" "Devoutly." She drew a deep breath. Her hand dropped from his arm. "This is very, very funny," she mused, gazing off to the sun-capped peaks of the mountains. "You have flayed women alive. You have made them want to mob you. And yet----" "Millions of them read my books," he chuckled. "Yes--all of them read your books," she replied, looking straight into his face. "And I guess--in many ways--you have pointed out things that are true." It was his turn to show surprise. "You believe that?" "I do. More than that--I have always thought that I knew your secret--the big, hidden thing under your work, the thing which you do not reveal because you know the world would laugh at you. And so--_you despise me!_" "Not you." "I am a woman." He laughed. The tan in his cheeks burned a deeper red. "We are wasting time," he warned her. "In Bill's place I heard you say you were going to leave on the Tête Jaune train. I am going to take you to a real dinner. And now--I should let those good people know your name." A moment--unflinching and steady--she looked into his face. "It is Joanne, the name you have made famous as the dreadfulest woman in fiction. Joanne Gray." "I am sorry," he said, and bowed low. "Come. If I am not mistaken I smell new-baked bread." As they moved on he suddenly touched her arm. She felt for a moment the firm clasp of his fingers. There was a new light in his eyes, a glow of enthusiasm. "I have it!" he cried. "You have brought it to me--the idea. I have been wanting a name for _her_--the woman in my new book. She is to be a tremendous surprise. I haven't found a name, until now--one that fits. I shall call her Ladygray!" He felt the girl flinch. He was surprised at the sudden startled look that shot into her eyes, the swift ebbing of the colour from her cheeks. He drew away his hand at the strange change in her. He noticed how quickly she was breathing--that the fingers of her white hands were clasped tensely. "You object," he said. "Not enough to keep you from using it," she replied in a low voice. "I owe you a great deal." He noted, too, how quickly she had recovered herself. Her head was a little higher. She looked toward the tents. "You were not mistaken," she added. "I smell new-made bread!" "And I shall emphasize the first half of it--_Lady_gray," said John Aldous, as if speaking to himself. "That diminutizes it, you might say--gives it the touch of sentiment I want. You can imagine a lover saying 'Dear little _Lady_gray, are you warm and comfy?' He wouldn't say Ladygray as if she wore a coronet, would he?" "Smell-o'-bread--fresh bread!" sniffed Joanne Gray, as if she had not heard him. "It's making me hungry. Will you please hurry me to it, John Aldous?" They were approaching the first of the three tent-houses, over which was a crudely painted sign which read "Otto Brothers, Guides and Outfitters." It was a large, square tent, with weather-faded red and blue stripes, and from it came the cheerful sound of a woman's laughter. Half a dozen trampish-looking Airedale terriers roused themselves languidly as they drew nearer. One of them stood up and snarled. "They won't hurt you," assured Aldous. "They belong to Jack Bruce and Clossen Otto--the finest bunch of grizzly dogs in the Rockies." Another moment, and a woman had appeared in the door. "And that is Mrs. Jack Otto," he added under his breath. "If all women were like her I wouldn't have written the things you have read!" He might have added that she was Scotch. But this was not necessary. The laughter was still in her good-humoured face. Aldous looked at his companion, and he found her smiling back. The eyes of the two women had already met. Briefly Aldous explained what had happened at Quade's, and that the young woman was leaving on the Tête Jaune train. The good-humoured smile left Mrs. Otto's face when he mentioned Quade. "I've told Jack I'd like to poison that man some day," she cried. "You poor dear, come in, I'll get you a cup of tea." "Which always means dinner in the Otto camp," added Aldous. "I'm not so hungry, but I'm tired--so tired," he heard the girl say as she went in with Mrs. Otto, and there was a new and strangely pathetic note in her voice. "I want to rest--until the train goes." He followed them in, and stood for a moment near the door. "There's a room in there, my dear," said the woman, drawing back a curtain. "Make yourself at home, and lie down on the bed until I have the tea ready." When the curtain had closed behind her, John Aldous spoke in a low voice to the woman. "Will you see her safely to the train, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "It leaves at a quarter after two. I must be going." He felt that he had sufficiently performed his duty. He left the tent, and paused for a moment outside to touzle affectionately the trampish heads of the bear dogs. Then he turned away, whistling. He had gone a dozen steps when a low voice stopped him. He turned. Joanne had come from the door. For one moment he stared as if something more wonderful than anything he had ever seen had risen before him. The girl was bareheaded, and she stood in a sun mellowed by a film of cloud. Her head was piled with lustrous coils of gold-brown hair that her hat and veil had hidden. Never had he looked upon such wonderful hair, crushed and crumpled back from her smooth forehead; nor such marvellous whiteness of skin and pure blue depths of eyes! In her he saw now everything that was strong and splendid in woman. She was not girlishly sweet. She was not a girl. She was a woman--glorious to look at, a soul glowing out of her eyes, a strength that thrilled him in the quiet and beautiful mystery of her face. "You were going without saying good-bye," she said. "Won't you let me thank you--a last time?" Her voice brought him to himself again. A moment he bent over her hand. A moment he felt its warm, firm pressure in his own. The smile that flashed to his lips was hidden from her as he bowed his blond-gray head. "Pardon me for the omission," he apologized. "Good-bye--and may good luck go with you!" Their eyes met once more. With another bow he had turned, and was continuing his way. At the door Joanne Gray looked back. He was whistling again. His careless, easy stride was filled with a freedom that seemed to come to her in the breath of the mountains. And then she, too, smiled strangely as she reëntered the tent. CHAPTER III If John Aldous had betrayed no visible sign of inward vanquishment he at least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life--the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his heart--and this was his own secret--he did not even despise women. But he had seen their weaknesses and their frailties as perhaps no other man had ever seen them, and he had written of them as no other man had ever written. This had brought him the condemnation of the host, the admiration of the few. His own personal veneer of antagonism against woman was purely artificial, and yet only a few had guessed it. He had built it up about him as a sort of protection. He called himself "an adventurer in the mysteries of feminism," and to be this successfully he had argued that he must destroy in himself the usual heart-emotions of the sex-man and the animal. How far he had succeeded in this he himself did not know--until these last moments when he had bid good-bye to Joanne Gray. He confessed that she had found a cleft in his armour, and there was an uneasy thrill in his blood. It was not her beauty alone that had affected him. He had trained himself to look at a beautiful woman as he might have looked at a beautiful flower, confident that if he went beyond the mere admiration of it he would find only burned-out ashes. But in her he had seen something that was more than beauty, something that for a flashing moment had set stirring every molecule in his being. He had felt the desire to rest his hand upon her shining hair! He turned off into a winding path that led into the thick poplars, restraining an inclination to look back in the direction of the Otto camp. He pulled out the pipe he had dropped into his shirt pocket, filled it with fresh tobacco, and began smoking. As he smoked, his lips wore a quizzical smile, for he was honest enough to give Joanne Gray credit for her triumph. She had awakened a new kind of interest in him--only a passing interest, to be sure--but a new kind for all that. The fact amused him. In a large way he was a humourist--few guessing it, and he fully appreciated the humour of the present situation--that he, John Aldous, touted the world over as a woman-hater, wanted to peer out through the poplar foliage and see that wonderful gold-brown head shining in the sun once more! He wandered more slowly on his way, wondering with fresh interest what his friends, the women, would say when they read his new book. His title for it was "Mothers." It was to be a tremendous surprise. Suddenly his face became serious. He faced the sound of a distant phonograph. It was not the phonograph in Quade's place, but that of a rival dealer in soft drinks at the end of the "street." For a moment Aldous hesitated. Then he turned in the direction of the camp. Quade was bolstered up on a stool, his back against the thin partition, when John Aldous sauntered in. There was still a groggy look in his mottled face. His thick bulk hung a bit limply. In his heavy-lidded eyes, under-hung by watery pouches of sin and dissipation, there was a vengeful and beastlike glare. He was surrounded by his friends. One of them was taking a wet cloth from his head. There were a dozen in the canvas-walled room, all with their backs to the door, their eyes upon their fallen and dishonoured chief. For a moment John Aldous paused in the door. The cool and insolent smile hovered about his lips again, and little crinkles had gathered at the corners of his eyes. "Did I hit you pretty hard, Bill?" he asked. Every head was turned toward him. Bill Quade stared, his mouth open. He staggered to his feet, and stood dizzily. "You--damn you!" he cried huskily. Three or four of the men had already begun to move toward the stranger. Their hands were knotted, their faces murderously dark. "Wait a minute, boys," warned Aldous coolly. "I've got something to say to you--and Bill. Then eat me alive if you want to. Do you want to be square enough to give me a word?" Quade had settled back sickly on his stool. The others had stopped, waiting. The quiet and insolently confident smile had not left Aldous' lips. "You'll feel better in a few minutes, Bill," he consoled. "A hard blow on the jaw always makes you sick at the pit of the stomach. That dizziness will pass away shortly. Meanwhile, I'm going to give you and your pals a little verbal and visual demonstration of what you're up against, and warn you to bait no traps for a certain young woman whom you've lately seen. She's going on to Tête Jaune. And I know how your partner plays his game up there. I'm not particularly anxious to butt into your affairs and the business of this pretty bunch that's gathered about you, but I've come to give you a friendly warning for all that. If this young woman is embarrassed up at Tête Jaune you're going to settle with me." Aldous had spoken without a tremor of excitement in his voice. Not one of the men noticed his speaking lips, his slim hands, or his careless posture as he leaned in the door. They were looking straight into his eyes, strangely scintillating and deadly earnest. In such a man mere bulk did not count. "That much--for words," he went on. "Now I'm going to give you the visual demonstration. I know your game, Bill. You're already planning what you're going to do. You won't fight fair--because you never have. You've already decided that some morning I'll turn up missing, or be dug out from under a fall of rock, or go peacefully floating down the Athabasca. See! There's nothing in that hand, is there?" He stretched out an empty hand toward them, palm up. "And now!" A twist of the wrist so swift their eyes could not follow, a metallic click, and the startled group were staring into the black muzzle of a menacing little automatic. "That's known as the sleeve trick, boys," explained Aldous with his imperturbable smile. "It's a relic of the old gun-fighting days when the best man was quickest. From now on, especially at night, I shall carry this little friend of mine just inside my wristband. There are eleven shots in it, and I shoot fairly straight. Good-day!" Before they had recovered from their astonishment he was gone. He did not follow the road along which Joanne had come a short time before, but turned again into the winding trail that led riverward through the poplars. Where before he had been a little amused at himself, he was now more seriously disgusted. He was not afraid of Quade, who was perhaps the most dangerous man along the line of rail. Neither was he afraid of the lawless men who worked his ends. But he knew that he had made powerful enemies, and all because of an unknown woman whom he had never seen until half an hour before. It was this that disturbed his equanimity--the _woman_ of it, and the knowledge that his interference had been unsolicited and probably unnecessary. And now that he had gone this far he found it not easy to recover his balance. Who was this Joanne Gray? he asked himself. She was not ordinary--like the hundred other women who had gone on ahead of her to Tête Jaune Cache. If she had been that, he would soon have been in his little shack on the shore of the river, hard at work. He had planned work for himself that afternoon, and he was nettled to discover that his enthusiasm for the grand finale of a certain situation in his novel was gone. Yet for this he did not blame her. He was the fool. Quade and his friends would make him feel that sooner or later. His trail led him to a partly dry muskeg bottom. Beyond this was a thicker growth of timber, mostly spruce and cedar, from behind which came the rushing sound of water. A few moments more and he stood with the wide tumult of the Athabasca at his feet. He had chosen this spot for his little cabin because the river ran wild here among the rocks, and because pack-outfits going into the southward mountains could not disturb him by fording at this point. Across the river rose the steep embankments that shut in Buffalo Prairie, and still beyond that the mountains, thick with timber rising billow on billow until trees looked like twigs, with gray rock and glistening snow shouldering the clouds above the last purple line. The cabin in which he had lived and worked for many weeks faced the river and the distant Saw Tooth Range, and was partly hidden in a clump of jack-pines. He opened the door and entered. Through the window to the south and west he could see the white face of Mount Geikie, and forty miles away in that wilderness of peaks, the sombre frown of Hardesty; through it the sun came now, flooding his work as he had left it. The last page of manuscript on which he had been working was in his typewriter. He sat down to begin where he had left off in that pivotal situation in his masterpiece. He read and re-read the last two or three pages of the manuscript, struggling to pick up the threads where he had dropped them. With each reading he became more convinced that his work for that afternoon was spoiled. And by whom? By _what?_ A little fiercely he packed his pipe with fresh tobacco. Then he leaned back, lighted it, and laughed. More and more as the minutes passed he permitted himself to think of the strange young woman whose beauty and personality had literally projected themselves into his workshop. He marvelled at the crudity of the questions which he asked himself, and yet he persisted in asking them. Who was she? What could be her mission at Tête Jaune Cache? She had repeated to him what she had said to the girl in the coach--that at Tête Jaune she had no friends. Beyond that, and her name, she had offered no enlightenment. In the brief space that he had been with her he had mentally tabulated her age as twenty-eight--no older. Her beauty alone, the purity of her eyes, the freshness of her lips, and the slender girlishness of her figure, might have made him say twenty, but with those things he had found the maturer poise of the woman. It had been a flashlight picture, but one that he was sure of. Several times during the next hour he turned to his work, and at last gave up his efforts entirely. From a peg in the wall he took down a little rifle. He had found it convenient to do much of his own cooking, and he had broken a few laws. The partridges were out of season, but temptingly fat and tender. With a brace of young broilers in mind for supper, he left the cabin and followed the narrow foot-trail up the river. He hunted for half an hour before he stirred a covey of birds. Two of these he shot. Concealing his meat and his gun near the trail he continued toward the ford half a mile farther up, wondering if Stevens, who was due to cross that day, had got his outfit over. Not until then did he look at his watch. He was surprised to find that the Tête Jaune train had been gone three quarters of an hour. For some unaccountable reason he felt easier. He went on, whistling. At the ford he found Stevens standing close to the river's edge, twisting one of his long red moustaches in doubt and vexation. "Damn this river," he growled, as Aldous came up. "You never can tell what it's going to do overnight. Look there! Would you try to cross?" "I wouldn't," replied Aldous. "It's a foot higher than yesterday. I wouldn't take the chance." "Not with two guides, a cook, and a horse-wrangler on your pay-roll--and a hospital bill as big as Geikie staring you in the face?" argued Stevens, who had been sick for three months. "I guess you'd pretty near take a chance. I've a notion to." "I wouldn't," repeated Aldous. "But I've lost two days already, and I'm taking that bunch of sightseers out for a lump sum, guaranteeing 'em so many days on the trail. This ain't what you might call _on the trail_. They don't expect to pay for this delay, and that outfit back in the bush is costing me thirty dollars a day. We can get the dunnage and ourselves over in the flat-boat. It'll make our arms crack--but we can do it. I've got twenty-seven horses. I've a notion to chase 'em in. The river won't be any lower to-morrow." "But you may be a few horses ahead." Stevens bit off a chunk of tobacco and sat down. For a few moments he looked at the muddy flood with an ugly eye. Then he chuckled, and grinned. "Came through the camp half an hour ago," he said. "Hear you cleaned up on Bill Quade." "A bit," said Aldous. Stevens rolled his quid and spat into the water slushing at his feet. "Guess I saw the woman when she got off the train," he went on. "She dropped something. I picked it up, but she was so darned pretty as she stood there looking about I didn't dare go up an' give it to her. If it had been worth anything I'd screwed up my courage. But it wasn't--so I just gawped like the others. It was a piece of paper. Mebby you'd like it as a souvenir, seein' as you laid out Quade for her." As he spoke, Stevens fished a crumpled bit of paper from his pocket and gave it to his companion. Aldous had sat down beside him. He smoothed the page out on his knee. There was no writing on it, but it was crowded thick with figures, as if the maker of the numerals had been doing some problem in mathematics. The chief thing that interested him was that wherever monetary symbols were used it was the "pound" and not the "dollar" sign. The totals of certain columns were rather startling. "Guess she's a millionaire if that's her own money she's been figgering," said Stevens. "Notice that figger there!" He pointed with a stubby forefinger. "Pretty near a billion, ain't it?" "Seven hundred and fifty thousand," said Aldous. He was thinking of the "pound" sign. She had not looked like the Englishwomen he had met. He folded the slip of paper and put it in his pocket. Stevens eyed him seriously. "I was coming over to give you a bit of advice before I left for the Maligne Lake country," he said. "You'd better move. Quade won't want you around after this. Besides----" "What?" "My kid heard something," continued the packer, edging nearer. "You was mighty good to the kid when I was down an' out, Aldous. I ought to tell you. It wasn't an hour ago the kid was behind the tent an' he heard Quade and Slim Barker talking. So far as I can find from the kid, Quade has gone nutty over her. He's ravin'. He told Slim that he'd give ten thousand dollars to get her in his hands. What sent the boy down to me was Quade tellin' Slim that he'd get _you_ first. He told Slim to go on to Tête Jaune--follow the girl!" "The deuce you say!" cried Aldous, clutching the other's arm suddenly. "He's done that?" "That's what the kid says." Aldous rose to his feet slowly. The careless smile was playing about his mouth again. A few men had learned that in those moments John Aldous was dangerous. "The kid is undoubtedly right," he said, looking down at Stevens. "But I am quite sure the young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has a tremendous amount of nerve, setting Slim to follow her, hasn't he? Slim may run up against a husband or a brother." Stevens haunched his shoulders. "It's not the woman I'm thinking about. It's you. I'd sure change my location." "Why wouldn't it be just as well if I told the police of his threat?" asked Aldous, looking across the river with a glimmer of humour in his eyes. "Oh, hell!" was the packer's rejoinder. Slowly he unwound his long legs and rose to his feet. "Take my advice--move!" he said. "As for me, I'm going to cross that cussed river this afternoon or know the reason why." He stalked away in the direction of his outfit, chewing viciously at his quid. For a few moments Aldous stood undecided. He would liked to have joined the half-dozen men he saw lounging restfully a distance beyond the grazing ponies. But Stevens had made him acutely aware of a new danger. He was thinking of his cabin--and the priceless achievement of his last months of work, his manuscript. If Quade should destroy that---- He clenched his hands and walked swiftly toward his camp. To "burn out" an enemy was one of Quade's favourite methods of retaliation. He had heard this. He also knew that Quade's work was done so cleverly that the police had been unable to call him to account. Quade's status had interested Aldous from the beginning. He had discovered that Quade and Culver Rann, his partner at Tête Jaune, were forces to be reckoned with even by the "powers" along the line of rail. They were the two chiefs of the "underground," the men who controlled the most dangerous element from Miette to Fort George. He had once seen Culver Rann, a quiet, keen-eyed, immaculately groomed man of forty--the cleverest scoundrel that had ever drifted into the Canadian west. He had been told that Rann was really the brain of the combination, and that the two had picked up a quarter of a million in various ways. But it was Quade with whom he had to deal now, and he began to thank Stevens for his warning. He was filled with a sense of relief when he reached his cabin and found it as he had left it. He always made a carbon copy of his work. This copy he now put into a waterproof tin box, and the box he concealed under a log a short distance back in the bush. "Now go ahead, Quade," he laughed to himself, a curious, almost exultant ring in his voice. "I haven't had any real excitement for so long I can't remember, and if you start the fun there's going to _be_ fun!" He returned to his birds, perched himself behind a bush at the river's edge, and began skinning them. He had almost finished when he heard hoarse shouts from up the river. From his position he could see the stream a hundred yards below the ford. Stevens had driven in his horses. He could see them breasting the first sweep of the current, their heads held high, struggling for the opposite shore. He rose, dropped his birds, and stared. "Good God, what a fool!" he gasped. He saw the tragedy almost before it had begun. Still three hundred yards below the swimming horses was the gravelly bar which they must reach on the opposite side. He noted the grayish strip of smooth water that marked the end of the dead-line. Three or four of the stronger animals were forging steadily toward this. The others grouped close together, almost motionless in their last tremendous fight, were left farther and farther behind. Then came the break. A mare and her yearling colt had gone in with the bunch. Aldous saw the colt, with its small head and shoulders high out of the water, sweep down like a chip with the current. A cold chill ran through him as he heard the whinneying scream of the mother--a warning cry that held for him the pathos and the despair of a creature that was human. He knew what it meant. "Wait--I'm coming--I'm coming!" was in that cry. He saw the mare give up and follow resistlessly with the deadly current, her eyes upon her colt. The heads behind her wavered, then turned, and in another moment the herd was sweeping down to its destruction. Aldous felt like turning his head. But the spectacle fascinated him, and he looked. He did not think of Stevens and his loss as the first of the herd plunged in among the rocks. He stood with white face and clenched hands, leaning over the water boiling at his feet, cursing softly in his helplessness. To him came the last terrible cries of the perishing animals. He saw head after head go under. Out of the white spume of a great rock against which the flood split itself with the force of an avalanche he saw one horse pitched bodily, as if thrown from a huge catapault. The last animal had disappeared when chance turned his eyes upstream and close in to shore. Here flowed a steady current free of rock, and down this--head and shoulders still high out of the water--came the colt! What miracle had saved the little fellow thus far Aldous did not stop to ask. Fifty yards below it would meet the fate of the others. Half that distance in the direction of the maelstrom below was the dead trunk of a fallen spruce overhanging the water for fifteen or twenty feet. In a flash Aldous was racing toward it. He climbed out on it, leaned far over, and reached down. His hand touched the water. In the grim excitement of rescue he forgot his own peril. There was one chance in twenty that the colt would come within his reach, and it did. He made a single lunge and caught it by the ear. For a moment after that his heart turned sick. Under the added strain the dead spruce sagged down with a warning crack. But it held, and Aldous hung to his grip on the ear. Foot by foot he wormed his way back, until at last he had dragged the little animal ashore. And then a voice spoke behind him, a voice that he would have recognized among ten thousand, low, sweet, thrilling. "That was splendid, John Aldous!" it said. "If I were a man I would want to be a man like you!" He turned. A few steps from him stood Joanne Gray. Her face was as white as the bit of lace at her throat. Her lips were colourless, and her bosom rose and fell swiftly. He knew that she, too, had witnessed the tragedy. And the eyes that looked at him were glorious. CHAPTER IV To John Aldous Joanne's appearance at this moment was like an anti-climax. It plunged him headlong for a single moment into what he believed to be the absurdity of a situation. He had a quick mental picture of himself out on the dead spruce, performing a bit of mock-heroism by dragging in a half-drowned colt by one ear. In another instant this had passed, and he was wondering why Joanne Gray was not on her way to Tête Jaune. "It was splendid!" she was saying again, her eyes glowing at him. "I know men who would not have risked that for a human!" "Perhaps they would have been showing good judgment," replied Aldous. He noticed now that she was holding with one hand the end of a long slender sapling which a week or two before he had cut and trimmed for a fish-pole. He nodded toward it, a half-cynical smile on his lips. "Were you going to fish me out--or the colt?" he asked. "You," she replied. "I thought you were in danger." And then she added, "I suppose you are deeply grateful that fate did not compel you to be saved by a woman." "Not at all. If the spruce had snapped, I would have caught at the end of your sapling like any drowning rat--or man. Allow me to thank you." She had stepped down to the level strip of sand on which the colt was weakly struggling to rise to its feet. She was breathing quickly. Her face was still pale. She was without a hat, and as she bent for a moment over the colt Aldous felt his eyes drawn irresistibly to the soft thick coils of her hair, a glory of colour that made him think of the lustrous brown of a ripe wintelberry. She looked up suddenly and caught his eyes upon her. "I came quite by accident," she explained quickly. "I wanted to be alone, and Mrs. Otto said this path would lead to the river. When I saw you I was about to turn back. And then I saw the other--the horses coming down the stream. It was terrible. Are they all drowned?" "All that you saw. It wasn't a pretty sight, was it?" There was a suggestive inquiry in his voice as he added, "If you had gone to Tête Jaune you would have missed the unpleasantness of the spectacle." "I would have gone, but something happened. They say it was a cave-in, a slide--something like that. The train cannot go on until to-morrow." "And you are to stay with the Ottos?" She nodded. Quick as a flash she had seemed to read his thoughts. "I am sorry," she added, before he could speak. "I can see that I have annoyed you. I have literally projected myself into your work, and I am afraid that I have caused you trouble. Mrs. Otto has told me of this man they call Quade. She says he is dangerous. And I have made him your enemy." "I am, not afraid of Quade. The incident was nothing more than an agreeable interruption to what was becoming a rather monotonous existence up here. I have always believed, you know, that a certain amount of physical excitement is good oil for our mental machinery. That, perhaps, was why you caught me hauling at His Coltship's ear." He had spoken stiffly. There was a hard note in his voice, a suggestion of something that was displeasing in his forced laugh. He knew that in these moments he was fighting against his inner self--against his desire to tell her how glad he was that something had held back the Tête Jaune train, and how wonderful her hair looked in the afternoon sun. He was struggling to keep himself behind the barriers he had built up and so long maintained in his writings. And yet, as he looked, he felt something crumbling into ruins. He knew that he had hurt her. The hardness of his words, the coldness of his smile, his apparently utter indifference to her had sent something that was almost like a quick, physical pain into her eyes. He drew a step nearer, so that he caught the soft contour of her cheek. Joanne Gray heard him, and lowered her head slightly, so that he could not see. She was a moment too late. On her cheek Aldous saw a single creeping drop--a tear. In an instant he was at her side. With a quick movement she brushed the tear away before she faced him. "I've hurt you," he said, looking her straight in the eyes. "I've hurt you, and God knows I'm a brute for doing it. I've treated you as badly as Quade--only in a different way. I know how I've made you feel--that you've been a nuisance, and have got me into trouble, and that I don't want to have anything more to do with you. Have I made you feel that?" "I am afraid--you have." He reached out a hand, and almost involuntarily her own came to it. She saw the change in his face, regret, pain, and then that slow-coming, wonderful laughter in his eyes. "That's just how I set out to make you feel," he confessed, the warmth of her hand sending a thrill through him. "I might as well be frank, don't you think? Until you came I had but one desire, and that was to finish my book. I had planned great work for to-day. And you spoiled it. I couldn't get you out of my mind. And it made me--ugly." "And that was--all?" she whispered, a tense waiting in her eyes. "You didn't think----" "What Quade thought," he bit in sharply. The grip of his fingers hurt her hand. "No, not that. My God, I didn't make you think _that?_" "I'm a stranger--and they say women don't go to Tête Jaune alone," she answered doubtfully. "That's true, they don't--not as a general rule. Especially women like you. You're alone, a stranger, and too beautiful. I don't say that to flatter you. You are beautiful, and you undoubtedly know it. To let you go on alone and unprotected among three or four thousand men like most of those up there would be a crime. And the women, too--the Little Sisters. They'd blast you. If you had a husband, a brother or a father waiting for you it would be different. But you've told me you haven't. You have made me change my mind about my book. You are of more interest to me just now than that. Will you believe me? Will you let me be a friend, if you need a friend?" To Aldous it seemed that she drew herself up a little proudly. For a moment she seemed taller. A rose-flush of colour spread over her cheeks. She drew her hand from him. And yet, as she looked at him, he could see that she was glad. "Yes, I believe you," she said. "But I must not accept your offer of friendship. You have done more for me now than I can ever repay. Friendship means service, and to serve me would spoil your plans, for you are in great haste to complete your book." "If you mean that you need my assistance, the book can wait." "I shouldn't have said that," she cut in quickly, her lips tightening slightly. "It was utterly absurd of me to hint that I might require assistance--that I cannot take care of myself. But I shall be proud of the friendship of John Aldous." "Yes, you can take care of yourself, Ladygray," said Aldous softly, looking into her eyes and yet speaking as if to himself. "That is why you have broken so curiously into my life. It's _that_--and not your beauty. I have known beautiful women before. But they were--just women, frail things that might snap under stress. I have always thought there is only one woman in ten thousand who would not do that--under certain conditions. I believe you are that one in ten thousand. You can go on to Tête Jaune alone. You can go anywhere alone--and care for yourself." He was looking at her so strangely that she held her breath, her lips parted, the flush in her cheeks deepening. "And the strangest part of it all is that I have always known you away back in my imagination," he went on. "You have lived there, and have troubled me. I could not construct you perfectly. It is almost inconceivable that you should have borne the same name--Joanne. Joanne, of 'Fair Play.'" She gave a little gasp. "Joanne was--terrible," she cried. "She was bad--bad to the heart and soul of her!" "She was splendid," replied Aldous, without a change in his quiet voice. "She was splendid--but bad. I racked myself to find a soul for her, and I failed. And yet she was splendid. It was my crime--not hers--that she lacked a soul. She would have been my ideal, but I spoiled her. And by spoiling her I sold half a million copies of the book. I did not do it purposely. I would have given her a soul if I could have found one. She went her way." "And you compare me to--_her?_" "Yes," said Aldous deliberately. "You are that Joanne. But you possess what I could not give to her. Joanne of 'Fair Play' was splendid without a soul. You have what she lacked. You may not understand, but you have come to perfect what I only partly created." The colour had slowly ebbed from Joanne's face. There was a mysterious darkness in her eyes. "If you were not John Aldous I would--strike you," she said. "As it is--yes--I want you as a friend." She held out her hand. For a moment he felt its warmth again in his own. He bowed over it. Her eyes rested steadily on his blond head, and again she noted the sprinkle of premature gray in his hair. For a second time she felt almost overwhelmingly the mysterious strength of this man. Perhaps each took three breaths before John Aldous raised his head. In that time something wonderful and complete passed between them. Neither could have told the other what it was. When their eyes met again, it was in their faces. "I have planned to have supper in my cabin to-night," said Aldous, breaking the tension of that first moment. "Won't you be my guest, Ladygray?" "Mrs. Otto----" she began. "I will go to her at once and explain that you are going to eat partridges with me," he interrupted. "Come--let me show you into my workshop and home." He led her to the cabin and into its one big room. "You will make yourself at home while I am gone, won't you?" he invited. "If it will give you any pleasure you may peel a few potatoes. I won't be gone ten minutes." Not waiting for any protest she might have, Aldous slipped back through the door and took the path up to the Ottos'. CHAPTER V As soon as he had passed from the view of the cabin door Aldous shortened his pace. He knew that never in his life had he needed to readjust himself more than at the present moment. A quarter of an hour had seen a complete and miraculous revolution within him. It was a change so unusual and apparently so impossible that he could not grasp the situation and the fact all at once. But the truth of it swept over him more and more swiftly as he made his way along the dark, narrow trail that led up to the Miette Plain. It was something that not only amazed and thrilled him. First--as in all things--he saw the humour of it. He, John Aldous of all men, had utterly obliterated himself, and for a _woman_. He had even gone so far as to offer the sacrifice of his most important work. Frankly he had told Joanne that she interested him more just now than his book. Again he repeated to himself that it had not been a surrender--but an obliteration. With a pair of lovely eyes looking quietly into him, he had wiped the slate clean of the things he had preached for ten years and the laws he had made for himself. And as he came in sight of the big Otto tent, he found himself smiling, his breath coming quickly, strange voices singing within him. He stopped to load and light his pipe before he faced Mrs. Otto, and he clouded himself in as much smoke as possible while he explained to her that he had almost forced Joanne to stop at his cabin and eat partridges with him. He learned that the Tête Jaune train could not go on until the next day, and after Mrs. Otto had made him take a loaf of fresh bread and a can of home-made marmalade as a contribution to their feast, he turned back toward the cabin, trying to whistle in his old careless way. The questions he had first asked himself about Joanne forced themselves back upon him now with deeper import. Almost unconsciously he had revealed himself to her. He had spread open for her eyes and understanding the page which he had so long hidden. He had as much as confessed to her that she had come to change him--to complete what he had only half created. It had been an almost inconceivable and daring confession, and he believed that she understood him. More than that, she had read about him. She had read his books. She knew John Aldous--the man. But what did he know about her beyond the fact that her name was Joanne Gray, and that the on-sweeping Horde had brought her into his life as mysteriously as a storm might have flung him a bit of down from a swan's breast? Where had she come from? And why was she going to Tête Jaune? It must be some important motive was taking her to a place like Tête Jaune, the rail-end, a place of several thousand men, with its crude muscle and brawn and the seven passions of man. It was an impossible place for a young and beautiful woman unprotected. If Joanne had known any one among the engineers or contractors, or had she possessed a letter of introduction to them, the tense lines would not have gathered so deeply about the corners of Aldous' mouth. But these men whose brains were behind the Horde--the engineers and the contractors--knew what women alone and unprotected meant at Tête Jaune. Such women floated in with the Horde. And Joanne was going in with the Horde. There lay the peril--and the mystery of it. So engrossed was Aldous in his thoughts that he had come very quietly to the cabin door. It was Joanne's voice that roused him. Sweet and low she was singing a few lines from a song which he had never heard. She stopped when Aldous appeared at the door. It seemed to him that her eyes were a deeper, more wonderful blue as she looked up at him, and smiled. She had found a towel for an apron, and was peeling potatoes. "You will have some unusual excuses to make very soon," she greeted him. "We had a visitor while you were gone. I was washing the potatoes when I looked up to find a pair of the fiercest, reddest moustaches I have ever seen, ornamenting the doorway. The man had two eyes that seemed about to fall out when he saw me. He popped away like a rabbit--and--and--there's something he left behind in his haste!" Joanne's eyes were flooded with laughter as she nodded at the door. On the sill was a huge quid of tobacco. "Stevens!" Aldous chuckled. "God bless my soul, if you frightened him into giving up a quid of tobacco like that you sure _did_ startle him some!" He kicked Stevens' lost property out with the toe of his boot and turned to Joanne, showing her the fresh bread and marmalade. "Mrs. Otto sent these to you," he said. "And the train won't leave until to-morrow." In her silence he pulled a chair in front of her, sat down close, and thrust the point of his hunting knife into one of the two remaining potatoes. "And when it does go I'm going with you," he added. He expected this announcement would have some effect on her. As she jumped up with the pan of potatoes, leaving the one still speared on the end of his knife, he caught only the corner of a bewitching smile. "You still believe that I will be unable to take care of myself up at this terrible Tête Jaune?" she asked, bending for a moment over the table. "Do you?" "No. You can care for yourself anywhere, Ladygray," he repeated. "But I am quite sure that it will be less troublesome for me to see that no insults are offered you than for you to resent those insults when they come. Tête Jaune is full of Quades," he added. The smile was gone from her face when she turned to him. Her blue eyes were filled with a tense anxiety. "I had almost forgotten that man," she whispered. "And you mean that you would fight for me--again?" "A thousand times." The colour grew deeper in her cheeks. "I read something about you once that I have never forgotten, John Aldous," she said. "It was after you returned from Thibet. It said that you were largely made up of two emotions--your contempt for woman and your love of adventure; that it would be impossible for you not to see a flaw in one, and that for the other--physical excitement--you would go to the ends of the earth. Perhaps it is this--your desire for adventure--that makes you want to go with me to Tête Jaune?" "I am beginning to believe that it will be the greatest adventure of my life," he replied, and something in his quiet voice held her silent. He rose to his feet, and stood before her. "It is already the Great Adventure," he went on. "I feel it. And I am the one to judge. Until to-day I would have staked my life that no power could have wrung from me the confession I am going to make to you voluntarily. I have laughed at the opinion the world has held of me. To me it has all been a colossal joke. I have enjoyed the hundreds of columns aimed at me by excited women through the press. They have all asked the same question: Why do you not write of the good things in women instead of always the bad? I have never given them an answer. But I answer you now--here. I have not picked upon the weaknesses of women because I despise them. Those weaknesses--the destroying frailties of womankind--I have driven over rough-shod through the pages of my books because I have always believed that Woman was the one thing which God came nearest to creating _perfect_. I believe they should be perfect. And because they have not quite that perfection which should be theirs I have driven the cold facts home as hard as I could. I have been a fool and an iconoclast instead of a builder. This confession to you is proof that you have brought me face to face with the greatest adventure of all." The colour in her cheeks had centred in two bright spots. Her lips formed words which came slowly, strangely. "I guess--I understand," she said. "Perhaps I, too, would have been that kind of an iconoclast--if I could have put the things I have thought into written words." She drew a deep breath, and went on, her eyes full upon him, speaking as if out of a dream. "The Great Adventure--for you. Yes; and perhaps for both." Her hands were drawn tightly to her breast. Something about her as she stood there, her back to the table, drew John Aldous to her side, forced the question from his lips: "Tell me, Ladygray--why are you going to Tête Jaune?" In that same strange way, as if her lips were framing words beyond their power to control, she answered: "I am going--to find--my husband." CHAPTER VI Silent, his head bowed a little, John Aldous stood before her after those last words. A slight noise outside gave him the pretext to turn to the door. She was going to Tête Jaune--to find her husband! He had not expected that. For a breath, as he looked out toward the bush, his mind was in a strange daze. A dozen times she had given him to understand there was no husband, father, or brother waiting for her at the rail-end. She had told him that she was alone--without friends. And now, like a confession, those words had come strangely from her lips. What he had heard was one of Otto's pack-horses coming down to drink. He turned toward her again. Joanne stood with her back still to the table. She had slipped a hand into the front of her dress and had drawn forth a long thick envelope. As she opened it, Aldous saw that it contained banknotes. From among these she picked out a bit of paper and offered it to him. "That will explain--partly," she said. It was a newspaper clipping, worn and faded, with a date two years old. It had apparently been cut from an English paper, and told briefly of the tragic death of Mortimer FitzHugh, son of a prominent Devonshire family, who had lost his life while on a hunting trip in the British Columbia Wilds. "He was my husband," said Joanne, as Aldous finished. "Until six months ago I had no reason to believe that the statement in the paper was not true. Then--an acquaintance came out here hunting. He returned with a strange story. He declared that he had seen Mr. FitzHugh alive. Now you know why I am here. I had not meant to tell you. It places me in a light which I do not think that I can explain away--just now. I have come to prove or disprove his death. If he is alive----" For the first time she betrayed the struggle she was making against some powerful emotion which she was fighting to repress. Her face had paled. She stopped herself with a quick breath, as if knowing that she had already gone too far. "I guess I understand," said Aldous. "For some reason your anxiety is not that you will find him dead, Ladygray, but that you may find him alive." "Yes--yes, that is it. But you must not urge me farther. It is a terrible thing to say. You will think I am not a woman, but a fiend. And I am your guest. You have invited me to supper. And--the potatoes are ready, and there is no fire!" She had forced a smile back to her lips. John Aldous whirled toward the door. "I will have the partridges in two seconds!" he cried. "I dropped them when the horses went through the rapids." The oppressive and crushing effect of Joanne's first mention of a husband was gone. He made no effort to explain or analyze the two sudden changes that swept over him. He accepted them as facts, and that was all. Where a few moments before there had been the leaden grip of something that seemed to be physically choking him, there was now again the strange buoyancy with which he had gone to the Otto tent. He began to whistle as he went to the river's edge. He was whistling when he returned, the two birds in his hand. Joanne was waiting for him in the door. Again her face was a faintly tinted vision of tranquil loveliness; her eyes were again like the wonderful blue pools over the sunlit mountains. She smiled as he came up. He was amazed--not that she had recovered so completely from the emotional excitement that had racked her, but because she betrayed in no way a sign of grief--of suspense or of anxiety. A few minutes ago he had heard her singing. He could almost believe that her lips might break into song again as she stood there. From that moment until the sun sank behind the mountains and gray shadows began to creep in where the light had been, there was no other reference to the things that had happened or the things that had been said since Joanne's arrival. For the first time in years John Aldous completely forgot his work. He was lost in Joanne. With the tremendous reaction that was working out in him she became more and more wonderful to him with each breath that he drew. He made no effort to control the change that was sweeping through him. His one effort was to keep it from being too apparent to her. The way in which Joanne had taken his invitation was as delightful as it was new to him. She had become both guest and hostess. With her lovely arms bared halfway to the shoulders she rolled out a batch of biscuits. "Hot biscuits go so well with marmalade," she told him. He built a fire. Beyond that, and bringing in the water, she gave him to understand that his duties were at an end, and that he could smoke while she prepared the supper. With the beginning of dusk he closed the cabin door that he might have an excuse for lighting the big hanging lamp a little earlier. He had imagined how its warm glow would flood down upon the thick soft coils of her shining hair. Every fibre in him throbbed with a keen and exquisite satisfaction as he sat down opposite her. During the meal he looked into the quiet, velvety blue of her eyes a hundred times. He found it a delightful sensation to talk to her and look into those eyes at the same time. He told her more about himself than he had ever told another soul. It was she who spoke first of the manuscript upon which he was working. He had spoken of certain adventures that had led up to the writing of one of his books. "And this last book you are writing, which you call 'Mothers,'" she said. "Is it to be like 'Fair Play?'" "It was to have been the last of the trilogy. But it won't be now, Ladygray. I've changed my mind." "But it is so nearly finished, you say?" "I would have completed it this week. I was rushing it to an end at fever heat when--you came." He saw the troubled look in her eyes, and hastened to add: "Let us not talk about that manuscript, Ladygray. Some day I will let you read it, and then you will understand why your coming has not hurt it. At first I was unreasonably disturbed because I thought that I must finish it within a week from to-day. I start out on a new adventure then--a strange adventure, into the North." "That means--the wild country?" she asked. "Up there in the North--there are no people?" "An occasional Indian, perhaps a prospector now and then," he said. "Last year I travelled a hundred and twenty-seven days without seeing a human face except that of my Cree companion." She had leaned a little over the table, and was looking at him intently, her eyes shining. "That is why I have understood you, and read between the printed lines in your books," she said. "If I had been a man, I would have been a great deal like you. I love those things--loneliness, emptiness, the great spaces where you hear only the whisperings of the winds and the fall of no other feet but your own. Oh, I should have been a man! It was born in me. It was a part of me. And I loved it--loved it." A poignant grief had shot into her eyes. Her voice broke almost in a sob. Amazed, he looked at her in silence across the table. "You have lived that life, Ladygray?" he said after a moment. "You have seen it?" "Yes," she nodded, clasping and unclasping her slim white hands. "For years and years, perhaps even more than you, John Aldous! I was born in it. And it was my life for a long time--until my father died." She paused, and he saw her struggling to subdue the quivering throb in her throat. "We were inseparable," she went on, her voice becoming suddenly strange and quiet. "He was father, mother--everything to me. It was too wonderful. Together we hunted out the mysteries and the strange things in the out-of-the-way places of the earth. It was his passion. He had given birth to it in me. I was always with him, everywhere. And then he died, soon after his discovery of that wonderful buried city of Mindano, in the heart of Africa. Perhaps you have read----" "Good God," breathed Aldous, so low that his voice did not rise above a whisper. "Joanne--Ladygray--you are not speaking of Daniel Gray--Sir Daniel Gray, the Egyptologist, the antiquarian who uncovered the secrets of an ancient and wonderful civilization in the heart of darkest Africa?" "Yes." "And you--are his daughter?" She bowed her head. Like one in a dream John Aldous rose from his chair and went to her. He seized her hands and drew her up so that they stood face to face. Again that strange and beautiful calmness filled her eyes. "Our trails have strangely crossed, Lady Joanne," he said. "They have been crossing--for years. While Sir Daniel was at Murja, on the eve of his great discovery, I was at St. Louis on the Senegal coast. I slept in that little Cape Verde hotel, in the low whitewashed room overlooking the sea. The proprietor told me that Sir Daniel had occupied it before me, and I found a broken fountain pen in the drawer of that sickly black teakwood desk, with the carved serpent's head. And I was at Gampola at another time, headed for the interior of Ceylon, when I learned that I was travelling again one of Sir Daniel's trails. And you were with him!" "Always," said Joanne. For a few tense moments they had looked steadily into each other's eyes. Swiftly, strangely, the world was bridging itself for them. Their minds swept back swiftly as the fire in a thunder-sky. They were no longer strangers. They were no longer friends of a day. The grip of Aldous' hands tightened. A hundred things sprang to his lips. Before he could speak, he saw a sudden, startled change leap into Joanne's face. She had turned her face a little, so that she was looking toward the window. A frightened cry broke from her lips. Aldous whirled about. There was nothing there. He looked at Joanne again. She was white and trembling. Her hands were clutched at her breast. Her eyes, big and dark and staring, were still fixed on the window. "That man!" she panted. "His face was there--against the glass--like a devil's!" "Quade?" "Yes." She caught at his arm as he sprang toward the door. "Stop!" she cried. "You mustn't go out----" For a moment he turned at the door. He was as she had seen him in Quade's place, terribly cool, a strange, quiet smile on his lips. His eyes were gray, smiling steel. "Close the door after me and lock it until I return," he said. "You are the first woman guest I ever had, Ladygray. I cannot allow you to be insulted!" As he went out she saw him slip something from his pocket. She caught the glitter of it in the lamp-glow. CHAPTER VII It was in the blood of John Aldous to kill Quade. He ran with the quickness of a hare around the end of the cabin, past the window, and then stopped to listen, his automatic in his hand, his eye piercing the gloom for some moving shadow. He had not counted on an instant's hesitation. He would shoot Quade, for he knew why the mottled beast had been at the window. Stevens' boy had been right. Quade was after Joanne. His ugly soul was disrupted with a desire to possess her, and Aldous knew that when roused by passion he was more like a devil-fish than a man--a creeping, slimy, night-seeking creature who had not only the power of the underworld back of him, but wealth as well. He did not think of him as a man as he stood listening, but as a beast. He was ready to shoot. But he saw nothing. He heard no sound that could have been made by a stumbling foot or a moving body. An hour later, the moon would have been up, but it was dark now except for the stars. He heard the hoot of an owl a hundred yards away. Out in the river something splashed. From the timber beyond Buffalo Prairie came the yapping bark of a coyote. For five minutes he stood as silent as one of the rocks behind him. He realized that to go on--to seek blindly for Quade in the darkness, would be folly. He went back, tapped at the door, and reëntered the cabin when Joanne threw back the lock. She was still pale. Her eyes were bright. "I was coming--in a moment," she said, "I was beginning to fear that----" "--he had struck me down in the dark?" added Aldous, as she hesitated. "Well, he would like to do just that, Joanne." Unconsciously her name had slipped from him. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to call her Joanne now. "Is it necessary for me to tell you what this man Quade is--why he was looking through the window?" She shuddered. "No--no--I understand!" "Only partly," continued Aldous, his face white and set. "It is necessary that you should know more than you have guessed, for your own protection. If you were like most other women I would not tell you the truth, but would try to shield you from it. As it is you should know. There is only one other man in the Rocky Mountains more dangerous than Bill Quade. He is Culver Rann, up at Tête Jaune. They are partners--partners in crime, in sin, in everything that is bad and that brings them gold. Their influence among the rougher elements along the line of rail is complete. They are so strongly entrenched that they have put contractors out of business because they would not submit to blackmail. The few harmless police we have following the steel have been unable to touch them. They have cleaned up hundreds of thousands, chiefly in three things--blackmail, whisky, and women. Quade is the viler of the two. He is like a horrible beast. Culver Rann makes me think of a sleek and shining serpent. But it is this man Quade----" He found it almost impossible to go on with Joanne's blue eyes gazing so steadily into his. "--whom we have made our enemy," she finished for him. "Yes--and more than that," he said, partly turning his head away. "You cannot go on to Tête Jaune alone, Joanne. You must go nowhere alone. If you do----" "What will happen?" "I don't know. Perhaps nothing would happen. But you cannot go alone. I am going to take you back to Mrs. Otto now. And to-morrow I shall go on to Tête Jaune with you. It is fortunate that I have a place up there to which I can take you, and where you will be safe." As they were preparing to go, Joanne glanced ruefully at the table. "I am ashamed to leave the dishes in that mess," she said. He laughed, and tucked her hand under his arm as they went through the door. When they had passed through the little clearing, and the darkness of the spruce and balsam walls shut them in, he took her hand. "It is dark and you may stumble," he apologized. "This isn't much like the shell plaza in front of the Cape Verde, is it?" "No. Did you pick up any of the little red bloodshells? I did, and they made me shiver. There were strange stories associated with them." He knew that she was staring ahead into the blank wall of gloom as she spoke, and that it was not thought of the bloodshells, but of Quade, that made her fingers close more tightly about his own. His right hand was gripping the butt of his automatic. Every nerve in him was on the alert, yet she could detect nothing of caution or preparedness in his careless voice. "The bloodstones didn't trouble me," he answered. "I can't remember anything that upset me more than the snakes. I am a terrible coward when it comes to anything that crawls without feet. I will run from a snake no longer than your little finger--in fact, I'm just as scared of a little grass snake as I am of a python. It's the _thing_, and not its size, that horrifies me. Once I jumped out of a boat into ten feet of water because my companion caught an eel on his line, and persisted in the argument that it was a fish. Thank Heaven we don't have snakes up here. I've seen only three or four in all my experience in the Northland." She laughed softly in spite of the uneasy thrill the night held for her. "It is hard for me to imagine you being afraid," she said. "And yet if you were afraid I know it would be of just some little thing like that. My father was one of the bravest men in the world, and a hundred times I have seen him show horror at sight of a spider. If you were afraid of snakes, why did you go up the Gampola, in Ceylon?" "I didn't know the snakes were there," he chuckled. "I hadn't dreamed there were a half so many snakes in the whole world as there were along that confounded river. I slept sitting up, dressed in rubber wading boots that came to my waist, and wore thick leather gloves. I got out of the country at the earliest possible moment." When they entered the edge of the Miette clearing and saw the glow of lights ahead of them, Aldous caught the sudden upturn of his companion's face, laughing at him in the starlight. "Kind, thoughtful John Aldous!" she whispered, as if to herself. "How nice of you it was to talk of such pleasant things while we were coming through that black, dreadful swamp--with a Bill Quade waiting for us on the side!" A low ripple of laughter broke from her lips, and he stopped dead in his tracks, forgetting to put the automatic back in his pocket. At sight of it the amusement died in her face. She caught his arm, and one of her hands seized the cold steel of the pistol. "Would he--_dare?_" she demanded. "You can't tell," replied Aldous, putting the gun in his pocket. "And that was a creepy sort of conversation to load you down with, wasn't it, Ladygray? I imagine you'll catch me in all sorts of blunders like that." He pointed ahead. "There's Mrs. Otto now. She's looking this way and wondering with all her big heart if you ought not to be at home and in bed." The door of the Otto home was wide open, and silhouetted in the flood of light was the good-natured Scotchwoman. Aldous gave the whistling signal which she and her menfolk always recognized, and hurried on with Joanne. Before they had quite reached the tent-house, Joanne put a detaining hand on his arm. "I don't want you to go back to the cabin to-night," she said. "The face at the window--was terrible. I am afraid. I don't want you to be there alone." Her words sent a warm glow through him. "Nothing will happen," he assured her. "Quade will not come back." "I don't want you to return to the cabin," she persisted. "Is there no other place where you can stay?" "I might go down and console Stevens, and borrow a couple of his horse blankets for a bed if that will please you." "It will," she cried quickly. "If you don't return to the cabin you may go on to Tête Jaune with me to-morrow. Is it a bargain?" "It is!" he accepted eagerly. "I don't like to be chased out, but I'll promise not to sleep in the cabin to-night." Mrs. Otto was advancing to meet them. At the door he bade them good-night, and walked on in the direction of the lighted avenue of tents and shacks under the trees. He caught a last look in Joanne's eyes of anxiety and fear. Glancing back out of the darkness that swallowed him up, he saw her pause for a moment in the lighted doorway, and look in his direction. His heart beat faster. Joyously he laughed under his breath. It was strangely new and pleasing to have some one thinking of him in that way. He had not intended to go openly into the lighted avenue. From the moment he had plunged out into the night after Quade, his fighting blood was roused. He had subdued it while with Joanne, but his determination to find Quade and have a settlement with him had grown no less. He told himself that he was one of the few men along the line whom it would be difficult for Quade to harm in other than a physical way. He had no business that could be destroyed by the other's underground methods, and he had no job to lose. Until he had seen Joanne enter the scoundrel's red-and-white striped tent he had never hated a man as he now hated Quade. He had loathed him before, and had evaded him because the sight of him was unpleasant; now he wanted to grip his fingers around his thick red throat. He had meant to come up behind Quade's tent, but changed his mind and walked into the lighted trail between the two rows of tents and shacks, his hands thrust carelessly into his trousers pockets. The night carnival of the railroad builders was on. Coarse laughter, snatches of song, the click of pool balls and the chink of glasses mingled with the thrumming of three or four musical instruments along the lighted way. The phonograph in Quade's place was going incessantly. Half a dozen times Aldous paused to greet men whom he knew. He noted that there was nothing new or different in their manner toward him. If they had heard of his trouble with Quade, he was certain they would have spoken of it, or at least would have betrayed some sign. For several minutes he stopped to talk with MacVeigh, a young Scotch surveyor. MacVeigh hated Quade, but he made no mention of him. Purposely he passed Quade's tent and walked to the end of the street, nodding and looking closely at those whom he knew. It was becoming more and more evident to him that Quade and his pals were keeping the affair of the afternoon as quiet as possible. Stevens had heard of it. He wondered how. Aldous retraced his steps. As though nothing had happened, he entered Quade's place. There were a dozen men inside, and among them he recognized three who had been there that afternoon. He nodded to them. Slim Barker was in Quade's place behind the counter. Barker was Quade's right-hand man at Miette, and there was a glitter in his rat-like eyes as Aldous leaned over the glass case at one end of the counter and asked for cigars. He fumbled a bit as he picked out half a dollar's worth from the box. His eyes met Slim's. "Where is Quade?" he asked casually. Barker shrugged his shoulders. "Busy to-night," he answered shortly. "Want to see him?" "No, not particularly. Only--I don't want him to hold a grudge." Barker replaced the box in the case and turned away. After lighting a cigar Aldous went out. He was sure that Quade had not returned from the river. Was he lying in wait for him near the cabin? The thought sent a sudden thrill through him. In the same breath it was gone. With half a dozen men ready to do his work, Aldous knew that Quade would not redden his own hands or place himself in any conspicuous risk. During the next hour he visited the places where Quade was most frequently seen. He had made up his mind to walk over to the engineers' camp, when a small figure darted after him out of the gloom of the trees. It was Stevens' boy. "Dad wants to see you down at the camp," he whispered excitedly. "He says right away--an' for no one to see you. He said not to let any one see me. I've been waiting for you to come out in the dark." "Skip back and tell him I'll come," replied Aldous quickly. "Be sure you mind what he says--and don't let any one see you!" The boy disappeared like a rabbit. Aldous looked back, and ahead, and then dived into the darkness after him. A quarter of an hour later he came out on the river close to Stevens' camp. A little nearer he saw Stevens squatted close to a smouldering fire about which he was drying some clothes. The boy was huddled in a disconsolate heap near him. Aldous called softly, and Stevens slowly rose and stretched himself. The packer advanced to where he had screened himself behind a clump of bush. His first look at the other assured him that he was right in using caution. The moon had risen, and the light of it fell in the packer's face. It was a dead, stonelike gray. His cheeks seemed thinner than when Aldous had seen him a few hours before and there was despair in the droop of his shoulders. His eyes were what startled Aldous. They were like coals of fire, and shifted swiftly from point to point in the bush. For a moment they stood silent. "Sit down," Stevens said then. "Get out of the moonlight. I've got something to tell you." They crouched behind the bush. "You know what happened," Stevens said, in a low voice. "I lost my outfit." "Yes, I saw what happened, Stevens." The packer hesitated for a moment. One of his big hands reached out and gripped John Aldous by the arm. "Let me ask you something before I go on," he whispered. "You won't take offence--because it's necessary. She looked like an angel to me when I saw her up at the train. But you _know_. Is she good, or----You know what we think of women who come in here alone. That's why I ask." "She's what you thought she was, Stevens," replied Aldous. "As pure and as sweet as she looks. The kind we like to fight for." "I was sure of it, Aldous. That's why I sent the kid for you. I saw her in your cabin--after the outfit went to hell. When I come back to camp, Quade was here. I was pretty well broken up. Didn't talk to him much. But he seen I had lost everything. Then he went on down to your place. He told me that later. But I guessed it soon as he come back. I never see him look like he did then. I'll cut it short. He's mad--loon mad--over that girl. I played the sympathy act, thinkin' of you--an' _her_. He hinted at some easy money. I let him understand that at the present writin' I'd be willing to take money most any way, and that I didn't have any particular likin' for you. Then it come out. He made me a proposition." Stevens lowered his voice, and stopped to peer again about the bush. "Go on," urged Aldous. "We're alone." Stevens bent so near that his tobacco-laden breath swept his companion's cheek. "He said he'd replace my lost outfit if I'd put you out of the way some time day after to-morrow!" "Kill me?" "Yes." For a few moments there was a silence broken only by their tense breathing. Aldous had found the packer's hand. He was gripping it hard. "Thank you, old man," he said. "And he believes you will do it?" "I told him I would--day after to-morrow--an' throw your body in the Athabasca." "Splendid, Stevens! You've got Sherlock Holmes beat by a mile! And does he want you to do this pretty job because I gave him a crack on the jaw?" "Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Stevens quickly. "He knows the girl is a stranger and alone. You've taken an interest in her. With you out of the way, she won't be missed. Dammit, man, don't you know his system? And, if he ever wanted anything in his life he wants her. She's turned that poison-blood of his into fire. He raved about her here. He'll go the limit. He'll do anything to get her. He's so crazy I believe he'd give every dollar he's got. There's just one thing for you to do. Send the girl back where she come from. Then you get out. As for myself--I'm goin' to emigrate. Ain't got a dollar now, so I might as well hit for the prairies an' get a job on a ranch. Next winter I guess me 'n the kid will trap up on the Parsnip River." "You're wrong--clean wrong," said Aldous quietly. "When I saw your outfit going down among the rocks I had already made up my mind to help you. What you've told me to-night hasn't made any difference. I would have helped you anyway, Stevens. I've got more money than I know what to do with right now. Roper has a thirty-horse outfit for sale. Buy it to-morrow. I'll pay for it, and you needn't consider yourself a dollar in debt. Some day I'll have you take me on a long trip, and that will make up for it. As for the girl and myself--we're going on to Tête Jaune to-morrow." Aldous could see the amazed packer staring at him in the gloom. "You don't think I'm sellin' myself, do you, Aldous?" he asked huskily. "That ain't why you're doin' this--for me 'n the kid--is it?" "I had made up my mind to do it before I saw you to-night," repeated Aldous. "I've got lots of money, and I don't use but a little of it. It sometimes accumulates so fast that it bothers me. Besides, I've promised to accept payment for the outfit in trips. These mountains have got a hold on me, Stevens. I'm going to take a good many trips before I die." "Not if you go on to Tête Jaune, you ain't," replied Stevens, biting a huge quid from a black plug. Aldous had risen to his feet. Stevens stood up beside him. "If you go on to Tête Jaune you're a bigger fool than I was in tryin' to swim the outfit across the river to-day," he added. "Listen!" He leaned toward Aldous, his eyes gleaming. "In the last six months there's been forty dead men dragged out of the Frazer between Tête Jaune an' Fort George. You know that. The papers have called 'em accidents--the 'toll of railroad building.' Mebby a part of it is. Mebby a half of them forty died by accident. The other half didn't. They were sent down by Culver Rann and Bill Quade. Once you go floatin' down the Frazer there ain't no questions asked. Somebody sees you an' pulls you out--mebby a Breed or an Indian--an' puts you under a little sand a bit later. If it's a white man he does likewise. There ain't no time to investigate floaters over-particular in the wilderness. Besides, you git so beat up in the rocks you don't look like much of anything. I know, because I worked on the scows three months, an' helped bury four of 'em. An' there wasn't anything, not even a scrap of paper, in the pockets of two of 'em! Is that suspicious, or ain't it? It don't pay to talk too much along the Frazer. Men keep their mouths shut. But I'll tell you this: Culver Rann an' Bill Quade know a lot." "And you think I'll go in the Frazer?" "Egzactly. Quade would rather have you in there than in the Athabasca. And then----" "Well?" Stevens spat into the bush, and shrugged his shoulders. "This beautiful lady you've taken an interest in will turn up missing, Aldous. She'll disappear off the face of the map--just like Stimson's wife did. You remember Stimson?" "He was found in the Frazer," said Aldous, gripping the other's arm in the darkness. "Egzactly. An' that pretty wife of his disappeared a little later. Up there everybody's too busy to ask where other people go. Culver Rann an' Bill Quade know what happened to Stimson, an' they know what happened to Stimson's wife. You don't want to go to Tête Jaune. You don't want to let _her_ go. I know what I'm talking about. Because----" There fell a moment's silence. Aldous waited. Stevens spat again, and finished in a whisper: "Quade went to Tête Jaune to-night. He went on a hand-car. He's got something he wants to tell Culver Rann that he don't dare telephone or telegraph. An' he wants to get that something to him ahead of to-morrow's train. Understand?" CHAPTER VIII John Aldous confessed to himself that he did not quite understand, in spite of the effort Stevens had made to impress upon him, the importance of not going to Tête Jaune. He was bewildered over a number of things, and felt that he needed to be alone for a time to clear his mind. He left Stevens, promising to return later to share a couple of blankets and a part of his tepee, for he was determined to keep his promise to Joanne, and not return to his own cabin, even though Quade had left Miette. He followed a moonlit trail along the river to an abandoned surveyors' camp, knowing that he would meet no one, and that in this direction he would have plenty of unbroken quiet in which to get some sort of order out of the chaotic tangle of events through which he had passed that day. Aldous had employed a certain amount of caution, but until he had talked with Stevens he had not believed that Quade, in his twofold desire to avenge himself and possess Joanne, would go to the extraordinary ends predicted by the packer. His point of view was now entirely changed. He believed Stevens. He knew the man was not excitable. He was one of the coolest heads in the mountains. And he had abundant nerve. Thought of Stimson and Stimson's wife had sent the hot blood through Aldous like fire. Was Stevens right in that detail? And was Quade actually planning the same end for him and Joanne? Why had Quade stolen on ahead to Tête Jaune? Why had he not waited for to-morrow's train? He found himself walking swiftly along the road, where he had intended to walk slowly--a hundred questions pounding through his brain. Suddenly a thought came to him that stopped him in the trail, his unseeing eyes staring down into the dark chasm of the river. After all, was it so strange that Quade would do these things? Into his own life Joanne had come like a wonderful dream-creature transformed into flesh and blood. He no longer tried to evade the fact that he could not think without thinking of Joanne. She had become a part of him. She had made him forget everything but her, and in a few hours had sent into the dust of ruin his cynicism and aloneness of a lifetime. If Joanne had come to him like this, making him forget his work, filling him more and more with the thrilling desire to fight for her, was it so very strange that a beast like Quade would fight--in another way? He went on down the trail, his hands clenched tightly. After all, it was not fear of Quade or of what he might attempt that filled him with uneasiness. It was Joanne herself, her strange quest, its final outcome. With the thought that she was seeking for the man who was her husband, a leaden hand seemed gripping at his heart. He tried to shake it off, but it was like a sickness. To believe that she had been the wife of another man or that she could ever belong to any other man than himself seemed like shutting his eyes forever to the sun. And yet she had told him. She had belonged to another man; she might belong to him even now. She had come to find if he was alive--or dead. And if alive? Aldous stopped again, and looked down into the dark pit through which the river was rushing a hundred feet below him. It tore in frothing maelstroms through a thousand rocks, filling the night with a low thunder. To John Aldous the sound of it might have been a thousand miles away. He did not hear. His eye saw nothing in the blackness. For a few moments the question he had asked himself obliterated everything. If they found Joanne's husband alive at Tête Jaune--what then? He turned back, retracing his steps over the trail, a feeling of resentment--of hatred for the man he had never seen--slowly taking the place of the oppressive thing that had turned his heart sick within him. Then, in a flash, came the memory of Joanne's words--words in which, white-faced and trembling, she had confessed that her anxiety was not that she would find him dead, but that _she would find him alive_. A joyous thrill shot through him as he remembered that. Whoever this man was, whatever he might have been to her once, or was to her now, Joanne did not want to find him alive! He laughed softly to himself as he quickened his pace. The tense grip of his fingers loosened. The grim, almost ghastly part of it did not occur to him--the fact that deep in his soul he was wishing a man dead and in his grave. He did not return at once to the scenes about Quade's place, but went to the station, three quarters of a mile farther up the track. Here, in a casual way, he learned from the little pink-faced Cockney Englishman who watched the office at night that Stevens had been correct in his information. Quade had gone to Tête Jaune. Although it was eleven o'clock, Aldous proceeded in the direction of the engineers' camp, still another quarter of a mile deeper in the bush. He was restless. He did not feel that he could sleep that night. The engineers' camp he expected to find in darkness, and he was surprised when he saw a light burning brightly in Keller's cabin. Keller was the assistant divisional engineer, and they had become good friends. It was Keller who had set the first surveyor's line at Tête Jaune, and it was he who had reported it as the strategic point from which to push forward the fight against mountain and wilderness, both by river and rail. He was, in a way, accountable for the existence of Tête Jaune just where it did exist, and he knew more about it than any other man in the employ of the Grand Trunk Pacific. For this reason Aldous was glad that Keller had not gone to bed. He knocked at the door and entered without waiting for an invitation. The engineer stood in the middle of the floor, his coat off, his fat, stubby hands thrust into the pockets of his baggy trousers, his red face and bald cranium shining in the lamplight. A strange fury blazed in his eyes as he greeted his visitor. He began pacing back and forth across the room, puffing volumes of smoke from a huge bowled German pipe as he motioned Aldous to a chair. "What's the matter, Peter?" "Enough--an' be damned!" growled Peter. "If it wasn't enough do you think I'd be out of bed at this hour of the night?" "I'm sure it's enough," agreed Aldous. "If it wasn't you'd be in your little trundle over there, sleeping like a baby. I don't know of any one who can sleep quite as sweetly as you, Peter. But what the devil _is_ the trouble?" "Something that you can't make me feel funny over. You haven't heard--about the bear?" "Not a word, Peter." Keller took his hands from his pockets and the big, bowled pipe from his mouth. "You know what I did with that bear," he said. "More than a year ago I made friends with her up there on the hill instead of killing her. Last summer I got her so she'd eat out of my hands. I fed her a barrel of sugar between July and November. We used to chum it an hour at a time, and I'd pet her like a dog. Why, damn it, man, I thought more of that bear than I did of any human in these regions! And she got so fond of me she didn't leave to den up until January. This spring she came out with two cubs, an' as soon as they could waddle she brought 'em out there on the hillside an' waited for me. We were better chums than ever. I've got another half barrel of sugar--lump sugar--on the way from Edmonton. An' now what do you think that damned C.N.R. gang has done?" "They haven't shot her?" "No, they haven't shot her. I wish to God they had! They've _blown her up!_" The little engineer subsided into a chair. "Do you hear?" he demanded. "They've blown her up! Put a stick of dynamite under some sugar, attached a battery wire to it, an' when she was licking up the sugar touched it off. An' I can't do anything, damn 'em! Bears ain't protected. The government of this province calls 'em 'pests.' Murder 'em on sight, it says. An' those fiends over there think it's a good joke on me--an' the bear!" Keller was sweating. His fat hands were clenched, and his round, plump body fairly shook with excitement and anger. "When I went over to-night they laughed at me--the whole bunch," he went on thickly. "I offered to lick every man in the outfit from A to Z, an' I ain't had a fight in twenty years. Instead of fighting like men, a dozen of them grabbed hold of me, chucked me into a blanket, an' bounced me for fifteen minutes straight! What do you think of _that_, Aldous? Me--assistant divisional engineer of the G.T.P.--_bounced in a blanket_!" Peter Keller hopped from his chair and began pacing back and forth across the room again, sucking truculently on his pipe. "If they were on our road I'd--I'd chase every man of them out of the country. But they're not. They belong to the C.N.R. They're out of my reach." He stopped, suddenly, in front of Aldous. "What can I do?" he demanded. "Nothing," said Aldous. "You've had something like this coming to you, Peter. I've been expecting it. All the camps for twenty miles up and down the line know what you thought of that bear. You fired Tibbits because, as you said, he was too thick with Quade. You told him that right before Quade's face. Tibbits is now foreman of that grading gang over there. Two and two make four, you know. Tibbits--Quade--the blown-up bear. Quade doesn't miss an opportunity, no matter how small it is. Tibbits and Quade did this to get even with you. You might report the blanket affair to the contractors of the other road. I don't believe they would stand for it." Aldous had guessed correctly what the effect of associating Quade's name with the affair would be. Keller was one of Quade's deadliest enemies. He sat down close to Aldous again. His eyes burned deep back. It was not Keller's physique, but his brain, and the fearlessness of his spirit, that made him dangerous. "I guess you're right, Aldous," he said. "Some day--I'll even up on Quade." "And so shall I, Peter." The engineer stared into the other's eyes. "You----" Aldous nodded. "Quade left for Tête Jaune to-night, on a hand-car. I follow him to-morrow, on the train. I can't tell you what's up, Peter, but I don't think it will stop this side of death for Quade and Culver Rann--or me. I mean that quite literally. I don't see how more than one side can come out alive. I want to ask you a few questions before I go on to Tête Jaune. You know every mountain and trail about the place, don't you?" "I've tramped them all, afoot and horseback." "Then perhaps you can direct me to what I must find--a man's grave." Peter Keller paused in the act of relighting his pipe. For a moment he stared in amazement. "There are a great many graves up at Tête Jaune," he said, at last. "A great many graves--and many of them unmarked. If it's a _Quade_ grave you're looking for, Aldous, it will be unmarked." "I am quite sure that it is marked--or _was_ at one time," said Aldous. "It's the grave of a man who had quite an unusual name, Peter, and you might remember it--Mortimer FitzHugh." "FitzHugh--FitzHugh," repeated Keller, puffing out fresh volumes of smoke. "Mortimer FitzHugh----" "He died, I believe, before there was a Tête Jaune, or at least before the steel reached there," added Aldous. "He was on a hunting trip, and I have reason to think that his death was a violent one." Keller rose and fell into his old habit of pacing back and forth across the room, a habit that had worn a path in the bare pine boards of the floor. "There's graves an' graves up there, but not so many that were there before Tête Jaune came," he began, between puffs. "Up on the side of White Knob Mountain there's the grave of a man who was torn to bits by a grizzly. But his name was Humphrey. Old Yellowhead John--Tête Jaune, they called him--died years before that, and no one knows where his grave is. We had five men die before the steel came, but there wasn't a FitzHugh among 'em. Crabby--old Crabby Tompkins, a trapper, is buried in the sand on the Frazer. The last flood swept his slab away. There's two unmarked graves in Glacier Canyon, but I guess they're ten years old if a day. Burns was shot. I knew him. Plenty died after the steel came, but before that----" Suddenly he stopped. He faced Aldous. His breath came in quick jerks. "By Heaven, I do remember!" he cried. "There's a mountain in the Saw Tooth Range, twelve miles from Tête Jaune--a mountain with the prettiest basin you ever saw at the foot of it, with a lake no bigger than this camp, and an old cabin which Yellowhead himself must have built fifty years ago. There's a blind canyon runs out of it, short an' dark, on the right. We found a grave there. I don't remember the first name on the slab. Mebby it was washed out. But, so 'elp me God, _the last name was FitzHugh_!" With a sudden cry, Aldous jumped to his feet and caught Keller's arm. "You're sure of it, Peter?" "Positive!" It was impossible for Aldous to repress his excitement. The engineer stared at him even harder than before. "What can that grave have to do with Quade?" he asked. "The man died before Quade was known in these regions." "I can't tell you now, Peter," replied Aldous, pulling the engineer to the table. "But I think you'll know quite soon. For the present, I want you to sketch out a map that will take me to the grave. Will you?" On the table were pencil and paper. Keller seated himself and drew them toward him. "I'm damned if I can see what that grave can have to do with Quade," he said; "but I'll tell you how to find it!" For several minutes they bent low over the table, Peter Keller describing the trail to the Saw Tooth Mountain as he sketched it, step by step, on a sheet of office paper. When it was done, Aldous folded it carefully and placed it in his wallet. "I can't go wrong, and--thank you, Keller!" After Aldous had gone, Peter Keller sat for some time in deep thought. "Now I wonder what the devil there can be about a grave to make him so happy," he grumbled, listening to the whistle that was growing fainter down the trail. And Aldous, alone, with the moon straight above him as he went back to the Miette Plain, felt, in truth, this night had become brighter for him than any day he had ever known. For he knew that Peter Keller was not a man to make a statement of which he was not sure. Mortimer FitzHugh was dead. His bones lay under the slab up in that little blind canyon in the shadow of the Saw Tooth Mountain. To-morrow he would tell Joanne. And, blindly, he told himself that she would be glad. Still whistling, he passed the Chinese laundry shack on the creek, crossed the railroad tracks, and buried himself in the bush beyond. A quarter of an hour later he stole quietly into Stevens' camp and went to bed. CHAPTER IX Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the river, slept uneasily. He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John Aldous on his knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into a frying-pan. The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and face and the listless droop of his shoulders. John Aldous, with three hours between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire itself. He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour. Seeing Stevens, he began now. "I wasn't going to rouse you until breakfast was ready," he interrupted himself to say. "I heard you groaning, Stevens. I know you had a bad night. And the kid, too. He couldn't sleep. But I made up my mind you'd have to get up early. I've got a lot of business on to-day, and we'll have to rouse Curly Roper out of bed to buy his pack outfit. Find the coffee, will you? I couldn't." For a moment Stevens stood over him. "See here, Aldous, you didn't mean what you said last night, did you? You didn't mean--that?" "Confound it, yes! Can't you understand plain English, Stevens? Don't you believe a man when he's a gentleman? Buy that outfit! Why, I'd buy twenty outfits to-day, I'm--I'm feeling so fine, Stevens!" For the first time in forty-eight hours Stevens smiled. "I was wondering if I hadn't been dreaming," he said. "Once, a long time ago, I guess I felt just like you do now." With which cryptic remark he went for the coffee. Aldous looked up in time to see the boy stagger sleepily out of the tepee. There was something pathetic about the motherlessness of the picture, and he understood a little of what Stevens had meant. An hour later, with breakfast over, they started for Curly's. Curly was pulling on his boots when they arrived, while his wife was frying the inevitable bacon in the kitchen. "I hear you have some horses for sale, Curly," said Aldous. "Hi 'ave." "How many?" "Twenty-nine, 'r twenty-eight--mebby twenty-seven." "How much?" Curly looked up from the task of pulling on his second boot. "H'are you buying 'orses or looking for hinformation?" he asked. "I'm buying, and I'm in a hurry. How much do you want a head?" "Sixty, 'r six----" "I'll give you sixty dollars apiece for twenty-eight head, and that's just ten dollars apiece more than they're worth," broke in Aldous, pulling a check-book and a fountain pen from his pocket. "Is it a go?" A little stupefied by the suddenness of it all, Curly opened his mouth and stared. "Is it a go?" repeated Aldous. "Including blankets, saddles, pack-saddles, ropes, and canvases?" Curly nodded, looking from Aldous to Stevens to see if he could detect anything that looked like a joke. "Hit's a go," he said. Aldous handed him a check for sixteen hundred and eighty dollars. "Make out the bill of sale to Stevens," he said. "I'm paying for them, but they're Stevens' horses. And, look here, Curly, I'm buying them only with your agreement that you'll say nothing about who paid for them. Will you agree to that?" Curly was joyously looking at the check. "Gyve me a Bible," he demanded. "Hi'll swear Stevens p'id for them! I give you the word of a Hinglish gentleman!" Without another word Aldous opened the cabin door and was gone, leaving Stevens quite as much amazed as the little Englishman whom everybody called Curly, because he had no hair. Aldous went at once to the station, and for the first time inquired into the condition that was holding back the Tête Jaune train. He found that a slide had given way, burying a section of track under gravel and rock. A hundred men were at work clearing it away, and it was probable they would finish by noon. A gang boss, who had come back with telegraphic reports, said that half a dozen men had carried Quade's hand-car over the obstruction about midnight. It was seven o'clock when Aldous left for the Miette bottom. He believed that Joanne would be up. At this season of the year the first glow of day usually found the Ottos at breakfast, and for half an hour the sun had been shining on the top of Pyramid Mountain. He was eager to tell her what had passed between him and Keller. He laughed softly when he confessed to himself how madly he wanted to see her. He always liked to come up to the Otto home very early of a morning, or in the dusk of evening. Very frequently he was filled with a desire to stand outside the red-and-white striped walls of the tent-house and listen unseen. Inside there was always cheer: at night the crackle of fire and the glow of light, the happy laughter of the gentle-hearted Scotchwoman, and the affectionate banter of her "big mountain man," who looked more like a brigand than the luckiest and most contented husband in the mountains--the luckiest, quite surely, with the one exception of his brother Clossen, who had, by some occult strategy or other, induced a sweet-faced and aristocratic little woman to look upon his own honest physiognomy as the handsomest and finest in the world. This morning Aldous followed a narrow path that brought him behind the tent-house. He heard no voices. A few steps more and he emerged upon a scene that stopped him and set his heart thumping. Less than a dozen paces away stood Mrs. Otto and Joanne, their backs toward him. They were gazing silently and anxiously in the direction of the thick, low bush across the clearing, through which led the trail to his cabin. He did not look toward the bush. His eyes were upon Joanne. Her slender figure was full in the golden radiance of the morning sun, and Aldous felt himself under the spell of a joyous wonder as he looked at her. For the first time he saw her hair as he had pictured it--as he had given it to that other _Joanne_ in the book he had called "Fair Play." She had been brushing it in the sun when he came, but now she stood poised in that tense and waiting attitude--silent--gazing in the direction of the bush, with that marvellous mantle sweeping about her in a shimmering silken flood. He would not have moved, nor would he have spoken, until Joanne herself broke the spell. She turned, and saw him. With a little cry of surprise she flung back her hair. He could not fail to see the swift look of relief and gladness that had come into her eyes. In another instant her face was flushing crimson. "I beg your pardon for coming up like an eavesdropper," he apologized. "I thought you would just about be at breakfast, Mrs. Otto." The Scotchwoman heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. "Goodness gracious, but I'm glad to see you!" she exclaimed thankfully. "Jack and Bruce have just gone out to see if they could find your dead body!" "We thought perhaps something might have happened," said Joanne, who had moved nearer the door. "You will excuse me, won't you, while I finish my hair?" Without waiting for him to answer, she ran into the tent. No sooner had she disappeared than the good-natured smile left Mrs. Otto's face. There was a note of alarm in her low voice as she whispered: "Jack and Bruce went to the barn last night, and she slept with me. She tried to be quiet, but I know she didn't sleep much. And she cried. I couldn't hear her, but the pillow was wet. Once my hand touched her cheek, and it was wet. I didn't ask any questions. This morning, at breakfast, she told us everything that happened, all about Quade--and your trouble. She told us about Quade looking in at the window, and she was so nervous thinking something might have happened to you last night that the poor dear couldn't even drink her coffee until Jack and Bruce went out to hunt for you. But I don't think that was why she cried!" "I wish it had been," said Aldous. "It makes me happy to think she was worried about--me." "Good Lord!" gasped Mrs. Otto. He looked for a moment into the slow-growing amazement and understanding in her kind eyes. "You will keep my little secret, won't you, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "Probably you'll think it's queer. I've only known her a day. But I feel--like that. Somehow I feel that in telling this to you I am confiding in a mother, or a sister. I want you to understand why I'm going on to Tête Jaune with her. That is why she was crying--because of the dread of something up there. I'm going with her. She shouldn't go alone." Voices interrupted them, and they turned to find that Jack and Bruce Otto had come out of the bush and were quite near. Aldous was sorry that Joanne had spoken of his trouble with Quade. He did not want to discuss the situation, or waste time in listening to further advice. He was anxious to be alone again with Joanne, and tell her what he had learned from Peter Keller. For half an hour he repressed his uneasiness. The brothers then went on to their corral. A few minutes later Joanne was once more at his side, and they were walking slowly over the trail that led to the cabin on the river. He could see that the night had made a change in her. There were circles under her eyes which were not there yesterday. When she looked at him their velvety blue depths betrayed something which he knew she was struggling desperately to keep from him. It was not altogether fear. It was more a betrayal of pain--a torment of the soul and not of the body. He noticed that in spite of the vivid colouring of her lips her face was strangely pale. The beautiful flush that had come into it when she first saw him was gone. Then he began to tell her of his visit to Peter Keller. His own heart was beating violently when he came to speak of the grave and the slab over it that bore the name of FitzHugh. He had expected that what he had discovered from Keller would create some sort of a sensation. He had even come up to the final fact gradually, so that it would not appear bald and shocking. Joanne's attitude stunned him. She looked straight ahead. When she turned to him he did not see in her eyes what he had expected to see. They were quiet, emotionless, except for that shadow of inward torture which did not leave them. "Then to-morrow we can go to the grave?" she asked simply. Her voice, too, was quiet and without emotion. He nodded. "We can leave at sunrise," he said. "I have my own horses at Tête Jaune and there need be no delay. We were to start into the North from there." "You mean on the adventure you were telling me about?" She had looked at him quickly. "Yes. Old Donald, my partner, has been waiting for me a week. That's why I was so deuced anxious to rush the book to an end. I'm behind Donald's schedule, and he's growing nervous. It's rather an unusual enterprise that's taking us north this time, and Donald can't understand why I should hang back to write the tail end of a book. He has lived sixty years in the mountains. His full name is Donald MacDonald. Sometimes, back in my own mind, I've called him History. He seems like that--as though he'd lived for ages in these mountains instead of sixty years. If I could only write what he has lived--even what one might imagine that he has lived! But I cannot. I have tried three times, and have failed. I think of him as The Last Spirit--a strange wandering ghost of the mighty ranges. His kind passed away a hundred years ago. You will understand--when you see him." She put her hand on his arm and let it rest there lightly as they walked. Into her eyes had returned some of the old warm glow of yesterday. "I want you to tell me about this adventure," she entreated softly. "I understand--about the other. You have been good--oh! so good to me! And I should tell you things; you are expecting me to explain. It is only fair and honest that I should. I know what is in your mind, and I only want you to wait--until to-morrow. Will you? And I will tell you then, when we have found the grave." Involuntarily his hand sought Joanne's. For a single moment he felt the warm, sweet thrill of it in his own as he pressed it more closely to his arm. Then he freed it, looking straight ahead. A soft flush grew in Joanne's cheeks. "Do you care a great deal for riches?" he asked. "Does the golden pot at the end of the rainbow hold out a lure for you?" He did not realize the strangeness of his question until their eyes met. "Because if you don't," he added, smiling, "this adventure of ours isn't going to look very exciting to you." She laughed softly. "No, I don't care for riches," she replied. "I am quite sure that just as great education proves to one how little one knows, so great wealth brings one face to face with the truth of how little one can enjoy. My father used to say that the golden treasure at the end of the rainbow in every human life was happiness, and that is something which you cannot buy. So why crave riches, then? But please don't let my foolish ideas disappoint you. I'll promise to be properly excited." She saw his face suddenly aflame with enthusiasm. "By George, but you're a--a brick, Joanne!" he exclaimed. "You are! And I--I----" He was fumbling in his breast pocket. He brought out his wallet and extracted from it the bit of paper Stevens had given him. "You dropped that, and Stevens found it," he explained, giving it to her. "I thought those figures might represent your fortune--or your income. Don't mind telling you I went over 'em carefully. There's a mistake in the third column. Five and four don't make seven. They make nine. In the final, when you come to the multiplication part of it, that correction will make you just thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars richer." "Thanks," said Joanne, lowering her eyes, and beginning to tear the paper into small pieces. "And will it disappoint you, Mr. John Aldous, if I tell you that all these figures stand for riches which some one else possesses? And won't you let me remind you that we're getting a long way from what I want to know--about your trip into the North?" "That's just it: we're hot on the trail," chuckled Aldous, deliberately placing her hand on his arm again. "You don't care for riches. Neither do I. I'm delighted to know we're going tandem in that respect. I've never had any fun with money. It's the money that's had fun with me. I've no use for yachts and diamonds and I'd rather travel afoot with a gun over my shoulder than in a private car. Half the time I'm doing my own cooking, and I haven't worn a white shirt in a year. My publishers persist in shoving more money my way than I know what to do with. "You see, I pay only ten cents a plug for my smoking tobacco, and other things accordingly. Somebody has said something about the good Lord sitting up in Heaven and laughing at the jokes He plays on men. Well, I'm sitting back and laughing now and then at the tussle between men and money over all creation. There's a whole lot of humour in the way men and women fight and die for money, if you only take time to stand out on the side and look on. There's nothing big or dramatic about it. I may be a heathen, but to my mind the funniest of all things is to see the world wringing its neck for a dollar. And Donald--old History--needs even less money than I. So that puts the big element of humour in this expedition of ours. We don't want money, particularly. Donald wouldn't wear more than four pairs of boots a year if he was a billionaire. And yet----" He turned to Joanne. The pressure of her hand was warmer on his arm. Her beautiful eyes were glowing, and her red lips parted as she waited breathlessly for him to go on. "And yet, we're going to a place where you can scoop gold up with a shovel," he finished. "That's the funny part of it." "It isn't funny--it's tremendous!" gasped Joanne. "Think of what a man like you could do with unlimited wealth, the good you might achieve, the splendid endowments you might make----" "I have already made several endowments," interrupted Aldous. "I believe that I have made a great many people happy, Ladygray--a great many. I am gifted to make endowments, I think, above most people. Not one of the endowments I have made has failed of complete success." "And may I ask what some of them were?" "I can't remember them all. There have been a great, great many. Most conspicuous among them were three endowments which I made to some very worthy people at various times for seven salted mines. I suppose you know what a salted mine is, Ladygray? At other times I have endowed railroad stocks which were very much in need of my helping mite, two copper companies, a concern that was supposed to hoist up pure asbestos from the stomach of Popocatapetl, and a steamship company that never steamed. As I said before, they were all very successful endowments." "And how many of the other kind have you made?" she asked gently, looking down the trail. "Like--Stevens', for instance?" He turned to her sharply. "What the deuce----" "Did you succeed in getting the new outfit from Mr. Curly?" she asked. "Yes. How did you know?" She smiled at the amazement which had gathered in his face. A glad, soft light shone in her eyes. "I guess Mrs. Otto has been like a mother to that poor little boy," she explained. "When you and Mr. Stevens went up to buy the outfit this morning Jimmy ran over to tell her the news. We were all there--at breakfast. He was so excited he could scarcely breathe. But it all came out, and he ran back to camp before you came because he thought you wouldn't want me to know. Wasn't that funny? He told me so when I walked a little way up the path with him." "The little reprobate!" chuckled Aldous. "He's the best publicity man I ever had, Ladygray. I did want you to know about this, and I wanted it to come to you in just this way, so that I wouldn't be compelled to tell you myself of the big and noble act I have done. It was my hope and desire that you, through some one else, would learn of it, and come to understand more fully what a generous and splendid biped I am. I even plotted to give this child of Stevens' a silver dollar if he would get the news to you in some one of his innocent ways. He's done it. And he couldn't have done it better--even for a dollar. Ah, here we are at the cabin. Will you excuse me while I pick up a few things that I want to take on to Tête Jaune with me?" Between two trees close to the cabin he had built a seat, and here he left Joanne. He was gone scarcely five minutes when he reappeared with a small pack-sack over his shoulders, locked the door, and rejoined her. "You see it isn't much of a task for me to move," he said, as they turned back in the direction of the Ottos'. "I'll wash the dishes when I come back next October." "Five months!" gasped Joanne, counting on her fingers. "John Aldous, do you mean----" "I do," he nodded emphatically. "I frequently leave dishes unwashed for quite a spell at a time. That's the one unpleasant thing about this sort of life--washing dishes. It's not so bad in the rainy season, but it's fierce during a dry spell. When it rains I put the dishes out on a flat rock, dirty side up, and the good Lord does the scrubbing." He looked at Joanne, face and eyes aglow with the happiness that was sweeping in a mighty tumult within him. Half an hour had worked a transformation in Joanne. There was no longer a trace of anguish or of fear in her eyes. Their purity and limpid beauty made him think of the rock violets that grew high up on the mountains. Her lips and cheeks were flushed, and the soft pressure of her hand again resting on his arm filled him with the exquisite thrill of possession and joy. He did not speak of Tête Jaune again until they reached the Otto tent-house, and then only to assure her that he would call for her half an hour before the train was ready to leave. As soon as possible after that he went to the telegraph office and sent a long message to MacDonald. Among other things he told him to prepare their cabin for a lady guest. He knew this would shock the old mountain wanderer, but he also knew that Donald would follow his instructions in spite of whatever alarm he might have. There were other women at Tête Jaune, the wives of men he knew, to whom he might have taken Joanne. Under the conditions, however, he believed his own cabin would be her best refuge, at least for a day or so. In that time he could take some one into his confidence, probably Blackton and his wife. In fact, as he thought the circumstances over, he saw the necessity of confiding in the Blacktons that very night. He left the station, growing a bit nervous. Was it right for him to take Joanne to his cabin at all? He had a tremendous desire to do so, chiefly on account of Quade. The cabin was a quarter of a mile in the bush, and he was positive if Joanne was there that Quade, and perhaps Culver Rann, would come nosing about. This would give him the opportunity of putting into execution a plan which he had already arranged for himself and old MacDonald. On the other hand, was this arrangement fair to Joanne, even though it gave him the chance to square up accounts with Quade? He stopped abruptly, and faced the station. All at once there swept upon him a realization of how blind he had been, and what a fool he had almost made of himself. Blackton was one of the contractors who were working miracles in the mountains. He was a friend who would fight for him if necessary. Mrs. Blackton, who preferred to be on the firing line with her husband than in her luxurious city home, was the leader of all that was decent and womanly in Tête Jaune. Why not have these friends meet them at the train and take Joanne direct to their house? Such recognition and friendship would mean everything to Joanne. To take her to his cabin would mean---- Inwardly he swore at himself as he hurried back to the station, and his face burned hotly as he thought of the chance such a blunder on his part would have given Quade and Culver Rann to circulate the stories with which they largely played their scoundrelly game. He sent another and longer telegram. This time it was to Blackton. He ate dinner with Stevens, who had his new outfit ready for the mountains. It was two o'clock before he brought Joanne up to the station. She was dressed now as he had first seen her when she entered Quade's place. A veil covered her face. Through the gray film of it he caught the soft warm glow of her eyes and the shimmer of gold-brown tendrils of her hair. And he knew why she wore that veil. It set his heart beating swiftly--the fact that she was trying to hide from all eyes but his own a beauty so pure and wonderful that it made her uncomfortable when under the staring gaze of the Horde. The hand that rested on his arm he pressed closer to his side as they walked up the station platform, and under his breath he laughed softly and joyously as he felt the thrill of it. He spoke no word. Not until they were in their seat in the coach did Joanne look at him after that pressure of her hand, and then she did not speak. But in the veiled glow of her eyes there was something that told him she understood--a light that was wonderfully gentle and sweet. And yet, without words, she asked him to keep within his soul the things that were pounding madly there for speech. As the train rolled on and the babble of voices about them joined the crunching rumble of the wheels, he wanted to lean close to her and tell her how a few hours had changed the world for him. And then, for a moment, her eyes turned to him again, and he knew that it would be a sacrilege to give voice to the things he wanted to say. For many minutes he was silent, gazing with her upon the wild panorama of mountain beauty as it drifted past the car window. A loud voice two seats ahead of them proclaimed that they were about to make Templeton's Curve. The man was talking to his companion. "They shot up a hundred thousand pounds of black powder an' dynamite to make way for two hundred feet of steel on that curve," he explained in a voice heard all over the car. "They say you could hear the explosion fifty miles away. Jack Templeton was near-sighted, an' he didn't see a rock coming down on him that was half as big as a house. I helped scrape up what was left of 'im an' we planted him at this end of the curve. It's been Templeton's Curve ever since. You'll see his grave--with a slab over it!" It was there almost as he spoke, marked by a white-painted cross in a circle of whitewashed stones. John Aldous felt a sudden shiver pass through his companion. She turned from the window. Through her veil he saw her lips tighten. Until he left the car half an hour later the man in the second seat ahead talked of Templeton's grave and a dozen other graves along the right of way. He was a rock-hog, and a specialist on the subject of graves. Inwardly Aldous cursed him roundly. He cursed him all the way to Tête Jaune, for to him he attributed the change which had again come over Joanne. This change she could only partly conceal from him under her veil. She asked him many questions about Tête Jaune and the Blacktons, and tried to take an interest in the scenery they were passing. In spite of this he could see that she was becoming more and more nervous as they progressed toward the end of their journey. He felt the slow dampening of his own joy, the deadening clutch of yesterday at his heart. Twice she lifted her veil for a moment and he saw she was pale and the tense lines had gathered about her mouth again. There was something almost haggard in her look the second time. In the early dusk of evening they arrived at Tête Jaune. Aldous waited until the car had emptied itself before he rose from his seat. Joanne's hand clutched at his arm as they walked down the aisle. He felt the fierce pressure of her fingers in his flesh. On the car platform they paused for a moment, and he felt her throbbing beside him. She had taken her hand from his arm, and he turned suddenly. She had raised her veil. Her face was dead white. And she was staring out over the sea of faces under them in a strange questing way, and her breath came from between her slightly parted lips as if she had been running. Amazed for the moment, John Aldous did not move. Somewhere in that crowd _Joanne expected to find a face she knew!_ The truth struck him dumb--made him inert and lifeless. He, too, stared as if in a trance. And then, suddenly, every drop of blood in his body blazed into fierce life. In the glow of one of the station lamps stood a group of men. The faces of all were turned toward them. One he recognized--a bloated, leering face grinning devilishly at them. It was Quade! A low, frightened cry broke from Joanne's lips, and he knew that she, too, had seen him. But it was not Quade that she had looked for. It was not his face that she had expected to see nor because of him that she had lifted her veil for the mob! He stepped down from the car and gave her his hand. Her fingers clutched his convulsively. And they were cold as the fingers of the dead. CHAPTER X A moment later some one came surging through the crowd, and called Aldous by name. It was Blackton. His thin, genial face with its little spiked moustache rose above the sea of heads about him, and as he came he grinned a welcome. "A beastly mob!" he exclaimed, as he gripped his friend's hand. "I'm sorry I couldn't bring my wife nearer than the back platform." Aldous turned to Joanne. He was still half in a daze. His heart was choking him with its swift and excited beating. Even as he introduced her to Blackton the voice kept crying in his brain that she had expected to find some one in this crowd whom she knew. For a space it was as if the Joanne whom he had known had slipped away from him. She had told him about the grave, but this other she had kept from him. Something that was almost anger surged up in him. His face bore marks of the strain as he watched her greet Blackton. In an instant, it seemed to him, she had regained a part of her composure. Blackton saw nothing but the haggard lines about her eyes and the deep pallor in her face, which he ascribed to fatigue. "You're tired, Miss Gray," he said. "It's a killing ride up from Miette these days. If we can get through this mob we'll have supper within fifteen minutes!" With a word to Aldous he began worming his long, lean body ahead of them. An instant Joanne's face was very close to Aldous', so close that he felt her breath, and a tendril of her hair touched his lips. In that instant her eyes looked into his steadily, and he felt rush over him a sudden shame. If she was seeking and expecting, it was to him more than ever that she was now looking for protection. The haunting trouble in her eyes, their entreaty, their shining faith in him told him that, and he was glad that she had not seen his sudden fear and suspicion. She clung more closely to him as they followed Blackton. Her little fingers held his arm as if she were afraid some force might tear him from her. He saw that she was looking quickly at the faces about them with that same questing mystery in her search. At the thin outer edge of the crowd Blackton dropped back beside them. A few steps more and they came to the end of the platform, where a buckboard was waiting in the dim light of one of the station lamps. Blackton introduced Joanne, and assisted her into the seat beside his wife. "We'll leave you ladies to become acquainted while we rustle the baggage," he said. "Got the checks, Aldous?" Joanne had given Aldous two checks on the train, and he handed them to Blackton. Together they made their way to the baggage-room. "Thought Miss Gray would have some luggage, so I had one of my men come with another team," he explained. "We won't have to wait. I'll give him the checks." Before they returned to the buckboard, Aldous halted his friend. "I couldn't say much in that telegram," he said. "If Miss Gray wasn't a bit tired and unstrung I'd let her explain. I want you to tell Mrs. Blackton that she has come to Tête Jaune on a rather unpleasant mission, old man. Nothing less than to attend to the grave of a--a near relative." "I regret that--I regret it very much," replied Blackton, flinging away the match he had lighted without touching it to his cigar. "I guessed something was wrong. She's welcome at our place, Aldous--for as long as she remains in Tête Jaune. Perhaps I knew this relative. If I can assist you--or her----" "He died before the steel came," said Aldous. "FitzHugh was his name. Old Donald and I are going to take her to the grave. Miss Gray is an old friend of mine," he lied boldly. "We want to start at dawn. Will that be too much trouble for you and your wife?" "No trouble at all," declared Blackton. "We've got a Chinese cook who's more like an owl than a human. How will a four o'clock breakfast suit you?" "Splendidly!" As they went on, the contractor said: "I carried your word to MacDonald. Hunted him down out in the bush. He is very anxious to see you. He said he would not be at the depot, but that you must not fail him. He's kept strangely under cover of late. Curious old ghost, isn't he?" "The strangest man in the mountains," said Aldous "And, when you come to know him, the most lovable. We're going North together." This time it was Blackton who stopped, with a hand on his companion's arm. A short distance from them they could see the buckboard in the light of the station lamp. "Has old Donald written you lately?" he asked. "No. He says he hasn't written a letter in twenty years." Blackton hesitated. "Then you haven't heard of his--accident?" The strange look in the contractor's face as he lighted a cigar made John Aldous catch him sharply by the arm. "What do you mean?" "He was shot. I happened to be in Dr. Brady's office when he dragged himself in, late at night. Doc got the bullet out of his shoulder. It wasn't a bad wound. The old man swore it was an accident, and asked us to say nothing about it. We haven't. But I've been wondering. Old Donald said he was careless with his own pistol. But the fact is, Aldous--_he was shot from behind!_" "The deuce you say!" "There was no perforation except from _behind_. In some way the bullet had spent itself before it reached him. Otherwise it would have killed him." For a moment Aldous stared in speechless amazement into Blackton's face. "When did this happen?" he asked then. "Three days ago. Since then I have not seen old Donald until to-night. Almost by accident I met him out there in the timber. I delivered the telegram you sent him. After he had read it I showed him mine. He scribbled something on a bit of paper, folded it, and pinned it with a porcupine quill. I've been mighty curious, but I haven't pulled out that quill. Here it is." From his pocket he produced the note and gave it to Aldous. "I'll read it a little later," said Aldous. "The ladies may possibly become anxious about us." He dropped it in his pocket as he thanked Blackton for the trouble he had taken in finding MacDonald. As he climbed into the front seat of the buckboard his eyes met Joanne's. He was glad that in a large measure she had recovered her self-possession. She smiled at him as they drove off, and there was something in the sweet tremble of her lips that made him almost fancy she was asking his forgiveness for having forgotten herself. Her voice sounded more natural to him as she spoke to Mrs. Blackton. The latter, a plump little blue-eyed woman with dimples and golden hair, was already making her feel at home. She leaned over and placed a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Let's drive home by way of town, Paul," she suggested. "It's only a little farther, and I'm quite sure Miss Gray will be interested in our Great White Way of the mountains. And I'm crazy to see that bear you were telling me about," she added. Nothing could have suited Aldous more than this suggestion. He was sure that Quade, following his own and Culver Rann's old methods, had already prepared stories about Joanne, and he not only wanted Quade's friends--but all of Tête Jaune as well--to see Joanne in the company of Mrs. Paul Blackton and her husband. And this was a splendid opportunity, for the night carnival was already beginning. "The bear is worth seeing," said Blackton, turning his team in the direction of the blazing light of the half-mile street that was the Broadway of Tête Jaune. "And the woman who rides him is worth seeing, too," he chuckled. "He's a big fellow--and she plays the Godiva act. Rides him up and down the street with her hair down, collecting dimes and quarters and half dollars as she goes." A minute later the length of the street swept out ahead of them. It is probable that the world had never before seen a street just like this Broadway in Tête Jaune--the pleasure Mecca of five thousand workers along the line of steel. There had been great "camps" in the building of other railroads, but never a city in the wilderness like this--a place that had sprung up like magic and which, a few months later, was doomed to disappear as quickly. For half a mile it blazed out ahead of them, two garishly lighted rows of shacks, big tents, log buildings, and rough board structures, with a rough, wide street between. To-night Tête Jaune was like a blazing fire against the darkness of the forest and mountain beyond. A hundred sputtering "jacks" sent up columns of yellow flame in front of places already filled with the riot and tumult of the night. A thousand lamps and coloured lanterns flashed like fireflies along the way, and under them the crowd had gathered, and was flowing back and forth. It was a weird and fantastic sight--this one strange and almost uncanny street that was there largely for the play and the excitement of men. Aldous turned to Joanne. He knew what this town meant. It was the first and the last of its kind, and its history would never be written. The world outside the mountains knew nothing of it. Like the men who made up its transient life it would soon be a forgotten thing of the past. Even the mountains would forget it. But more than once, as he had stood a part of it, his blood had warmed at the thought of the things it held secret, the things that would die with it, the big human drama it stood for, its hidden tragedies, its savage romance, its passing comedy. He found something of his own thought in Joanne's eyes. "There isn't much to it," he said, "but to-night, if you made the hunt, you could find men of eighteen or twenty nationalities in that street." "And a little more besides," laughed Blackton. "If you could write the complete story of how Tête Jaune has broken the law, Aldous, it would fill a volume as big as Peggy's family Bible!" "And after all, it's funny," said Peggy Blackton. "There!" she cried suddenly. "Isn't _that_ funny?" The glare and noisy life were on both sides of them now. Half a dozen phonographs were going. From up the street came the softer strains of a piano, and from in between the shrieking notes of bagpipe. Peggy Blackton was pointing to a brilliantly lighted, black-tarpaulined shop. Huge white letters on its front announced that Lady Barbers were within. They could see two of them at work through the big window. And they were pretty. The place was crowded with men. Men were waiting outside. "Paul says they charge a dollar for a haircut and fifty cents for a shave," explained Peggy Blackton. "And the man over there across the street is going broke because he can't get business at fifteen cents a shave. _Isn't_ it funny?" As they went on Aldous searched the street for Quade. Several times he turned to the back seat, and always he found Joanne's eyes questing in that strange way for the some one whom she expected to see. Mrs. Blackton was pointing out lighted places, and explaining things as they passed, but he knew that in spite of her apparent attention Joanne heard only a part of what she was saying. In that crowd she hoped--or feared--to find a certain face. And again Aldous told himself that it was not Quade's face. Near the end of the street a crowd was gathering, and here, for a moment, Blackton stopped his team within fifty feet of the objects of attraction. A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a huge brown bear. Her sleek black hair, shining as if it had been oiled, fell in curls about her shoulders. Her rouged lips were smiling. Even at that distance her black eyes sparkled like diamonds. She had evidently just finished taking up a collection, for she was fastening the cord of a silken purse about her neck. In another moment she bestrode the bear, the crowd fell apart, and as the onlookers broke into a roar of applause the big beast lumbered slowly up the street with its rider. "One of Culver Rann's friends," said Blackton _sotto voce_, as he drove on. "She takes in a hundred a night if she makes a cent!" [Illustration: A slim, exquisitely formed woman in shimmering silk was standing beside a huge brown bear. In another moment she bestrode the bear, and the big beast lumbered up the street with its rider.] Blackton's big log bungalow was close to the engineers' camp half a mile distant from the one lighted street and the hundreds of tents and shacks that made up the residential part of the town. Not until they were inside, and Peggy Blackton had disappeared with Joanne for a few moments, did Aldous take old Donald MacDonald's note from his pocket. He pulled out the quill, unfolded the bit of paper, and read the few crudely written words the mountain man had sent him. Blackton turned in time to catch the sudden amazement in his face. Crushing the note in his hand, Aldous looked at the other, his mouth tightening. "You must help me make excuses, old man," he said quietly. "It will seem strange to them if I do not stay for supper. But--it is impossible. I must see old Donald as quickly as I can get to him." His manner more than his words kept Blackton from urging him to remain. The contractor stared at him for a moment, his own eyes growing harder and more direct. "It's about the shooting," he said. "If you want me to go with you, Aldous----" "Thanks. That will be unnecessary." Peggy Blackton and Joanne were returning. Aldous turned toward them as they entered the room. With the note still in his hand he repeated to them what he had told Blackton--that he had received word which made it immediately urgent for him to go to MacDonald. He shook hands with the Blacktons, promising to be on hand for the four o'clock breakfast. Joanne followed him to the door and out upon the veranda. For a moment they were alone, and now her eyes were wide and filled with fear as he clasped her hands closely in his own. "I saw him," she whispered, her fingers tightening convulsively. "I saw that man--Quade--at the station. He followed us up the street. Twice I looked behind--and saw him. I am afraid--afraid to let you go back there. I believe he is somewhere out there now--waiting for you!" She was frightened, trembling; and her fear for him, the fear in her shining eyes, in her throbbing breath, in the clasp of her fingers, sent through John Aldous a joy that almost made him free her hands and crush her in his arms in the ecstasy of that wonderful moment. Then Peggy Blackton and her husband appeared in the door. He released her hands, and stepped out into the gloom. The cheery good-nights of the Blacktons followed him. And Joanne's good-night was in her eyes--following him until he was gone, filled with their entreaty and their fear. A hundred yards distant, where the trail split to lead to the camp of the engineers, there was a lantern on a pole. Here Aldous paused, out of sight of the Blackton bungalow, and in the dim light read again MacDonald's note. In a cramped and almost illegible hand the old wanderer of the mountains had written: Don't go to cabin. Culver Rann waiting to kill you. Don't show yorself in town. Cum to me as soon as you can on trail striking north to Loon Lake. Watch yorself. Be ready with yor gun. DONALD MacDONALD. Aldous shoved the note in his pocket and slipped back out of the lantern-glow into deep shadow. For several minutes he stood silent and listening. CHAPTER XI As John Aldous stood hidden in the darkness, listening for the sound of a footstep, Joanne's words still rang in his ears. "I believe he is out there--waiting for you," she had said; and, chuckling softly in the gloom, he told himself that nothing would give him more satisfaction than an immediate and material proof of her fear. In the present moment he felt a keen desire to confront Quade face to face out there in the lantern-glow, and settle with the mottled beast once for all. The fact that Quade had seen Joanne as the guest of the Blacktons hardened him in his determination. Quade could no longer be in possible error regarding her. He knew that she had friends, and that she was not of the kind who could be made or induced to play his game and Culver Rann's. If he followed her after this---- Aldous gritted his teeth and stared up and down the black trail. Five minutes passed and he heard nothing that sounded like a footstep, and he saw no moving shadow in the gloom. Slowly he continued along the road until he came to where a narrow pack-trail swung north and east through the thick spruce and balsam in the direction of Loon Lake. Remembering MacDonald's warning, he kept his pistol in his hand. The moon was just beginning to rise over the shoulder of a mountain, and after a little it lighted up the more open spaces ahead of him. Now and then he paused, and turned to listen. As he progressed with slowness and caution, his mind worked swiftly. He knew that Donald MacDonald was the last man in the world to write such a message as he had sent him through Blackton unless there had been a tremendous reason for it. But why, he asked himself again and again, should Culver Rann want to kill him? Rann knew nothing of Joanne. He had not seen her. And surely Quade had not had time to formulate a plot with his partner before MacDonald wrote his warning. Besides, an attempt had been made to assassinate the old mountaineer! MacDonald had not warned him against Quade. He had told him to guard himself against Rann. And what reason could this Culver Rann have for doing him injury? The more he thought of it the more puzzled he became. And then, in a flash, the possible solution of it all came to him. Had Culver Rann discovered the secret mission on which he and the old mountaineer were going into the North? Had he learned of the gold--where it was to be found? And was their assassination the first step in a plot to secure possession of the treasure? The blood in Aldous' veins ran faster. He gripped his pistol harder. More closely he looked into the moonlit gloom of the trail ahead of him. He believed that he had guessed the meaning of MacDonald's warning. It was the gold! More than once thought of the yellow treasure far up in the North had thrilled him, but never as it thrilled him now. Was the old tragedy of it to be lived over again? Was it again to play its part in a terrible drama of men's lives, as it had played it more than forty years ago? The gold! The gold that for nearly half a century had lain with the bones of its dead, alone with its terrible secret, alone until Donald MacDonald had found it again! He had not told Joanne the story of it, the appalling and almost unbelievable tragedy of it. He had meant to do so. But they had talked of other things. He had meant to tell her that it was not the gold itself that was luring him far to the north--that it was not the gold alone that was taking Donald MacDonald back to it. And now, as he stood for a moment listening to the low sweep of the wind in the spruce-tops, it seemed to him that the night was filled with whispering voices of that long-ago--and he shivered, and held his breath. A cloud had drifted under the moon. For a few moments it was pitch dark. The fingers of his hand dug into the rough bark of a spruce. He did not move. It was then that he heard something above the caressing rustle of the wind in the spruce-tops. It came to him faintly, from full half a mile deeper in the black forest that reached down to the bank of the Frazer. It was the night call of an owl--one of the big gray owls that turned white as the snow in winter. Mentally he counted the notes in the call. One, two, three, _four_--and a flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated faintly back to him through the forest. Continuing to hold his pistol, he went on, this time more swiftly. MacDonald did not signal again. The moon was climbing rapidly into the sky, and with each passing minute the night was becoming lighter. He had gone half a mile when he stopped again and signalled softly. MacDonald's voice answered, so near that for an instant the automatic flashed in the moonlight. Aldous stepped out where the trail had widened into a small open spot. Half a dozen paces from him, in the bright flood of the moon, stood Donald MacDonald. The night, the moon-glow, the tense attitude of his waiting added to the weirdness of the picture which the old wanderer of the mountains made as Aldous faced him. MacDonald was tall; some trick of the night made him appear almost unhumanly tall as he stood in the centre of that tiny moonlit amphitheatre. His head was bowed a little, and his shoulders drooped a little, for he was old. A thick, shaggy beard fell in a silvery sheen over his breast. His hair, gray as the underwing of the owl whose note he forged, straggled in uncut disarray from under the drooping rim of a battered and weatherworn hat. His coat was of buckskin, and it was short at the sleeves--four inches too short; and the legs of his trousers were cut off between the knees and the ankles, giving him a still greater appearance of height. In the crook of his arm MacDonald held a rifle, a strange-looking, long-barrelled rifle of a type a quarter of a century old. And Donald MacDonald, in the picture he made, was like his gun, old and gray and ghostly, as if he had risen out of some graveyard of the past to warm himself in the yellow splendour of the moon. But in the grayness and gauntness of him there was something that was mightier than the strength of youth. He was alert. In the crook of his arm there was caution. His eyes were as keen as the eyes of an animal. His shoulders spoke of a strength but little impaired by the years. Ghostly gray beard, ghostly gray hair, haunting eyes that gleamed, all added to the strange and weird impressiveness of the man as he stood before Aldous. And when he spoke, his voice had in it the deep, low, cavernous note of a partridge's drumming. "I'm glad you've come, Aldous," he said. "I've been waiting ever since the train come in. I was afraid you'd go to the cabin!" Aldous stepped forth and gripped the old mountaineer's outstretched hand. There was intense relief in Donald's eyes. "I got a little camp back here in the bush," he went on, nodding riverward. "It's safer 'n the shack these days. Yo're sure--there ain't no one following?" "Quite certain," assured Aldous. "Look here, MacDonald--what in thunder has happened? Don't continue my suspense! Who shot you? Why did you warn me?" Deep in his beard the old hunter laughed. "Same fellow as would have shot you, I guess," he answered. "They made a bad job of it, Johnny, an awful bad job, an' mebby there'd been a better man layin' for you!" He was pulling Aldous in the bush as he spoke. For ten minutes he dived on ahead through a jungle in which there was no trail. Suddenly he turned, led the way around the edge of a huge mass of rock, and paused a moment later before a small smouldering fire. Against the face of a gigantic boulder was a balsam shelter. A few cooking utensils were scattered about. It was evident that MacDonald had been living here for several days. "Looks as though I'd run away, don't it, Johnny?" he asked, laughing in his curious, chuckling way again. "An' so I did, boy. From the mountain up there I've been watching things through my telescope--been keepin' quiet since Doc pulled the bullet out. I've been layin' for the Breed. I wanted him to think I'd vamoosed. I'm goin' to kill him!" He had squatted down before the fire, his long rifle across his knees, and spoke as quietly as though he was talking of a partridge or a squirrel instead of a human being. He wormed a hand into one of his pockets and produced a small dark object which he handed to Aldous The other felt an uncanny chill as it touched his fingers. It was a mis-shapened bullet. "Doc gave me the lead," continued MacDonald coolly, beginning to slice a pipeful of tobacco from a tar-black plug. "It come from Joe's gun. I've hunted with him enough to know his bullet. He fired through the window of the cabin. If it hadn't been for the broom handle--just the end of it stickin' up"--he shrugged his gaunt shoulders as he stuffed the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe--"I'd been dead!" he finished tersely. "You mean that Joe----" "Has sold himself to Culver Rann!" exclaimed MacDonald. He sprang to his feet. For the first time he showed excitement. His eyes blazed with repressed rage. A hand gripped the barrel of his rifle as if to crush it. "He's sold himself to Culver Rann!" he repeated. "He's sold him our secret. He's told him where the gold is, Johnny! He's bargained to guide Rann an' his crowd to it! An' first--they're goin' to kill _us!_" With a low whistle Aldous took off his hat. He ran a hand through his blond-gray hair. Then he replaced his hat and drew two cigars from his pocket. MacDonald accepted one. Aldous' eyes were glittering; his lips were smiling. "They are, are they, Donald? They're going to kill us?" "They're goin' to try," amended the old hunter, with another curious chuckle in his ghostly beard. "They're goin' to try, Johnny. That's why I told you not to go to the cabin. I wasn't expecting you for a week. To-morrow I was goin' to start on a hike for Miette. I been watching through my telescope from the mountain up there. I see Quade come in this morning on a hand-car. Twice I see him and Rann together. Then I saw Blackton hike out into the bush. I was worrying about you an' wondered if he had any word. So I laid for him on the trail--an' I guess it was lucky. I ain't been able to set my eyes on Joe. I looked for hours through the telescope--an' I couldn't find him. He's gone, or Culver Rann is keeping him out of sight." For several moments Aldous looked at his companion in silence. Then he said: "You're sure of all this, are you, Donald? You have good proof--that Joe has turned traitor?" "I've been suspicious of him ever since we come down from the North," spoke MacDonald slowly. "I watched him--night an' day. I was afraid he'd get a grubstake an' start back alone. Then I saw him with Culver Rann. It was late. I heard 'im leave the shack, an' I followed. He went to Rann's house--an' Rann was expecting him. Three times I followed him to Culver Rann's house. I knew what was happening then, an' I planned to get him back in the mountains on a hunt, an' kill him. But I was too late. The shot came through the window. Then he disappeared. An'--Culver Rann is getting an outfit together! Twenty head of horses, with grub for three months!" "The deuce! And our outfit? Is it ready?" "To the last can o' beans!" "And your plan, Donald?" All at once the old mountaineer's eyes were aflame with eagerness as he came nearer to Aldous. "Get out of Tête Jaune to-night!" he cried in a low, hissing voice that quivered with excitement. "Hit the trail before dawn! Strike into the mountains with our outfit--far enough back--and then wait!" "Wait?" "Yes--wait. If they follow us--_fight!_" Slowly Aldous held out a hand. The old mountaineer's met it. Steadily they looked into each other's eyes. Then John Aldous spoke: "If this had been two days ago I would have said yes. But to-night--it is impossible." The fingers that had tightened about his own relaxed. Slowly a droop came into MacDonald's shoulders. Disappointment, a look that was almost despair settled in his eyes. Seeing the change, Aldous held the old hunter's hand more firmly. "That doesn't mean we're not going to fight," he said quickly. "Only we've got to plan differently. Sit down, Donald. Something has been happening to me. And I'm going to tell you about it." A little back from the fire they seated themselves, and Aldous told Donald MacDonald about Joanne. He began at the beginning, from the moment his eyes first saw her as she entered Quade's place. He left nothing out. He told how she had come into his life, and how he intended to fight to keep her from going out of it. He told of his fears, his hopes, the mystery of their coming to Tête Jaune, and how Quade had preceded them to plot the destruction of the woman he loved. He described her as she had stood that morning, like a radiant goddess in the sun; and when he came to that he leaned nearer, and said softly: "And when I saw her there, Donald, with her hair streaming about her like that, I thought of the time you told me of that other woman--the woman of years and years ago--and how you, Donald, used to look upon her in the sun, and rejoice in your possession. Her spirit has been with you always. You have told me how for nearly fifty years you have followed it over these mountains. And this woman means as much to me. If she should die to-night her spirit would live with me in that same way. You understand, Donald. I can't go into the mountains to-night. God knows when I can go--now. But you----" MacDonald had risen. He turned his face to the black wall of the forest. Aldous thought he saw a sudden quiver pass through the great, bent shoulders. "And I," said MacDonald slowly, "will have the horses ready for you at dawn. We will fight this other fight--later." CHAPTER XII For an hour after Donald MacDonald had pledged himself to accompany Joanne and Aldous on their pilgrimage to the grave in the Saw Tooth Range the two men continued to discuss the unusual complications in which they had suddenly become involved, and at the same time prepared themselves a supper of bacon and coffee over the fire. They agreed upon a plan of action with one exception. Aldous was determined to return to the town, arguing there was a good strategic reason for showing himself openly and without fear. MacDonald opposed this apprehensively. "Better lay quiet until morning," he expostulated. "You'd better listen to me, an' do that, Johnny. I've got something in my shoulder that tells me you'd better!" In the face of the old hunter's misgiving, Aldous prepared to leave. It was nearly ten o'clock when he set back in the direction of Tête Jaune, Donald accompanying him as far as the moonlit amphitheatre in the forest. There they separated, and Aldous went on alone. He believed that Joanne and the Blacktons would half expect him to return to the bungalow after he had seen MacDonald. He was sure that Blackton, at least, would look for him until quite late. The temptation to take advantage of their hospitality was great, especially as it would bring him in the company of Joanne again. On the other hand, he was certain that this first night in Tête Jaune held very large possibilities for him. The detective instinct in him was roused, and his adventurous spirit was alive for action. First of all, he wanted proof of what MacDonald had told him. That an attempt had been made to assassinate the old mountaineer he did not for an instant doubt. But had Joe DeBar, the half-breed, actually betrayed them? Had he sold himself to Culver Rann, and did Rann hold the key to the secret expedition they had planned into the North? He did not, at first, care to see Rann. He made up his mind that if he did meet him he would stop and chat casually with him, as though he had heard and seen nothing to rouse his suspicions. He particularly wanted to find DeBar; and, next to DeBar, Quade himself. The night carnival was at its height when Aldous re-entered the long, lighted street. From ten until eleven was the liveliest hour of the night. Even the restaurants and soup-kitchens were crowded then. He strolled slowly down the street until he came to a little crowd gathered about the bear equestrienne. The big canvas dance-hall a few doors away had lured from her most of her admirers by this time, and Aldous found no difficulty in reaching the inner circle. He looked first for the half-breed. Failing to find him, he looked at the woman, who stood only a few feet from him. Her glossy black curls were a bit dishevelled, and the excitement of the night had added to the vivid colouring of her rouged lips and cheeks. Her body was sleek and sinuous in its silken vesture; arms and shoulders were startlingly white; and when she turned, facing Aldous, her black eyes flashed fires of deviltry and allurement. For a moment he stared into her face. If he had not been looking closely he would not have caught the swift change that shot into the siren-like play of her orbs. It was almost instantaneous. Her slow-travelling glance stopped as she saw him. He saw the quick intake of her breath, a sudden compression of her lips, the startled, searching scrutiny of a pair of eyes from which, for a moment, all the languor and coquetry of her trade were gone. Then she passed him, smiling again, nodding, sweeping a hand and arm effectively through her handsome curls as she flung a shapely limb over the broad back of the bear. In a garish sort of way the woman was beautiful, and this night, as on all others, her beauty had nearly filled the silken coin-bag suspended from her neck. As she rode down the street Aldous recalled Blackton's words: She was a friend of Culver Rann's. He wondered if this fact accounted for the strangeness of the look she had given him. He passed on to the dance-hall. It was crowded, mostly with men. But here and there, like so many faces peering forth from living graves, he saw the Little Sisters of Tête Jaune Cache. Outnumbered ten to one, their voices rang out in shrill banter and delirious laughter above the rumble of men. At the far end, a fiddle, a piano, and a clarinet were squealing forth music. The place smelled strongly of whisky. It always smelled of that, for most of the men who sought amusement here got their whisky in spite of the law. There were rock-hogs from up the line, and rock-hogs from down the line, men of all nationalities and of almost all ages; teamsters, trail-cutters, packers, and rough-shod navvies; men whose daily task was to play with dynamite and giant powder; steel-men, tie-men, and men who drilled into the hearts of mountains. More than once John Aldous had looked upon this same scene, and had listened to the trample and roar and wild revelry of it, marvelling that to-morrow the men of this saturnalia would again be the builders of an empire. The thin, hollow-cheeked faces that passed and repassed him, rouged and smiling, could not destroy in his mind the strength of the picture. They were but moths, fluttering about in their own doom, contending with each other to see which should quickest achieve destruction. For several minutes Aldous scanned the faces in the big tent-hall, and nowhere did he see DeBar. He dropped out, and continued leisurely along the lighted way until he came to Lovak's huge black-and-white striped soup-tent. At ten o'clock, and until twelve, this was as crowded as the dance-hall. Aldous knew Lovak, the Hungarian. Through Lovak he had found the key that had unlocked for him many curious and interesting things associated with that powerful Left Arm of the Empire Builders--the Slav. Except for a sprinkling of Germans, a few Italians, and now and then a Greek or Swiss, only the Slavs filled Lovak's place!--Slavs from all the Russias and the nations south: the quick and chattering Polak; the thick-set, heavy-jowled Croatian; the silent and dangerous-eyed Lithuanian. All came in for Lovak's wonderful soup, which he sold in big yellow bowls at ten cents a bowl--soup of barley, rice, and cabbage, of beef and mutton, of everything procurable out of which soup could be made, and, whether of meat or vegetable, smelling to heaven of garlic. Fifty men were eating when Aldous went in, devouring their soup with the utter abandon and joy of the Galician, so that the noise they made was like the noise of fifty pigs at fifty troughs. Now and then DeBar, the half-breed, came here for soup, and Aldous searched quickly for him. He was turning to go when his friend, Lovak, came to him. No, Lovak had not seen DeBar. But he had news. That day the authorities--the police--had confiscated twenty dressed hogs, and in each porcine carcass they had found four-quart bottles of whisky, artistically imbedded in the leaf-lard fat. The day before those same authorities had confiscated a barrel of "kerosene." They were becoming altogether too officious, Lovak thought. Aldous went on. He looked in at a dozen restaurants, and twice as many soft-drink emporiums, where phonographs were worked until they were cracked and dizzy. He stopped at a small tobacco shop, and entered to buy himself some cigars. There was one other customer ahead of him. He was lighting a cigar, and the light of a big hanging lamp flashed on a diamond ring. Over his sputtering match his eyes met those of John Aldous. They were dark eyes, neither brown nor black, but dark, with the keenness and strange glitter of a serpent's. He wore a small, clipped moustache; his hands were white; he was a man whom one might expect to possess the _sang froid_ of a devil in any emergency. For barely an instant he hesitated in the operation of lighting his cigar as he saw Aldous. Then he nodded. "Hello, John Aldous," he said. "Good evening, Culver Rann," replied Aldous. For a moment his nerves had tingled--the next they were like steel. Culver Rann's teeth gleamed. Aldous smiled back. They were cold, hard, rapierlike glances. Each understood now that the other was a deadly enemy, for Quade's enemies were also Culver Rann's. Aldous moved carelessly to the glass case in which were the cigars. With the barest touch of one of his slim white hands Culver Rann stopped him. "Have one of mine, Aldous," he invited, opening a silver case filled with cigars. "We've never had the pleasure of smoking together, you know." "Never," said Aldous, accepting one of the cigars. "Thanks." As he lighted it, their eyes met again. Aldous turned to the case. "Half a dozen 'Noblemen,'" he said to the man behind the counter; then, to Rann: "Will you have one on me?" "With pleasure," said Rann. He added, smiling straight into the other's eyes, "What are you doing up here, Aldous? After local colour?" "Perhaps. The place interests me." "It's a lively town." "Decidedly. And I understand that you've played an important part in the making of it," replied Aldous carelessly. For a flash Rann's eyes darkened, and his mouth hardened, then his white teeth gleamed again. He had caught the insinuation, and he had scarcely been able to ward off the shot. "I've tried to do my small share," he admitted. "If you're after local colour for your books, Aldous, I possibly may be able to assist you--if you're in town long." "Undoubtedly you could," said Aldous. "I think you could tell me a great deal that I would like to know, Rann. But--will you?" There was a direct challenge in his coldly smiling eyes. "Yes, I think I shall be quite pleased to do so," said Rann. "Especially--if you are long in town." There was an odd emphasis on those last words. He moved toward the door. "And if you are here very long," he added, his eyes gleaming significantly, "it is possible you may have experiences of your own which would make very interesting reading if they ever got into print. Good-night, Aldous!" For two or three minutes after Rann had gone Aldous loitered in the tobacco shop. Then he went out. All at once it struck him that he should have kept his eyes on Quade's partner. He should have followed him. With the hope of seeing him again he walked up and down the street. It was eleven o'clock when he went into Big Ben's pool-room. Five minutes later he came out just as a woman hurried past him, carrying with her a strong scent of perfume. It was the Lady of the Bear. She was in a street dress now, her glossy curls still falling loose about her--probably homeward bound after her night's harvest. It struck Aldous that the hour was early for her retirement, and that she seemed somewhat in a hurry. The woman was going in the direction of Rann's big log bungalow, which was built well out of town toward the river. She had not seen him as he stood in the pool-room doorway, and before she had passed out of sight he was following her. There were a dozen branch trails and "streets" on the way to Rann's, and into the gloom of some one of these the woman disappeared, so that Aldous lost her entirely. He was not disappointed when he found she had left the main trail. Five minutes later he stood close to Rann's house. From the side on which he had approached it was dark. No gleam of light showed through the windows. Slowly he walked around the building, and stopped suddenly on the opposite side. Here a closely drawn curtain was illuminated by a glow from within. Cautiously Aldous made his way along the log wall of the house until he came to the window. At one side the curtain had caught against some object, leaving perhaps a quarter of an inch of space through which the light shone. Aldous brought his eyes on a level with this space. A half of the room came within his vision. Directly in front of him, lighted by a curiously shaped iron lamp suspended from the ceiling, was a dull red mahogany desk-table. At one side of this, partly facing him, was Culver Rann. Opposite him sat Quade. Rann was speaking, while Quade, with his bullish shoulders hunched forward and his fleshy red neck, rolling over the collar of his coat, leaned across the table in a tense and listening attitude. With his eyes glued to the aperture, Aldous strained his ears to catch what Rann was saying. He heard only the low and unintelligible monotone of his voice. A mocking smile was accompanying Rann's words. To-night, as at all times, this hawk who preyed upon human lives was immaculate. In all ways but one he was the antithesis of the beefy scoundrel who sat opposite him. On the hand that toyed carelessly with the fob of his watch flashed a diamond; another sparkled in his cravat. His dark hair was sleek and well brushed; his bristly little moustache was clipped in the latest fashion. He was not large. His hands, as he made a gesture toward Quade, were of womanish whiteness. Casually, on the street or in a Pullman, Aldous would have taken him for a gentleman. Now, as he stared through the narrow slit between the bottom of the curtain and the sill, he knew that he was looking upon one of the most dangerous men in all the West. Quade was a villain. Culver Rann, quiet and cool and suave, was a devil. Behind his depravity worked the brain which Quade lacked, and a nerve which, in spite of that almost effeminate immaculateness, had been described to Aldous as colossal. Suddenly Quade turned, and Aldous saw that he was flushed and excited. He struck the desk a blow with his fist. Culver Rann leaned back and smiled. And John Aldous slipped away from the window. His nerves were quivering; in the darkness he unbuttoned the pocket that held his automatic. Through the window he had seen an open door behind Rann, and his blood thrilled with the idea that had come to him. He was sure the two partners in crime were discussing himself and MacDonald--and Joanne. To hear what they were saying, to discover their plot, would be three quarters of the fight won, if it came to a fight. The open door was an inspiration. Swiftly and silently he went to the rear of the house. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Softly he opened it, swinging it inward an inch at a time, and scarcely breathing as he entered. It was dark, and there was a second closed door ahead of him. From beyond that he heard voices. He closed the outer door so that he would not be betrayed by a current of air or a sound from out of the night. Then, even more cautiously and slowly, he began to open the second door. An inch at first, then two inches, three inches--a foot--he worked the door inward. There was no light in this second room, and he lay close to the floor, head and shoulders thrust well in. Through the third and open door he saw Quade and Culver Rann. Rann was laughing softly as he lighted a fresh cigar. His voice was quiet and good humoured, but filled with a banter which it was evident Quade was not appreciating. "You amaze me," Rann was saying. "You amaze me utterly. You've gone mad--mad as a rock-rabbit, Quade! Do you mean to tell me you're on the square when you offer to turn over a half of your share in the gold if I help you to get this woman?" "I do," replied Quade thickly. "I mean just that! And we'll put it down in black an' white--here, now. You fix the papers, same as any other deal, and I'll sign!" For a moment Culver Rann did not reply. He leaned back in his chair, thrust the thumbs of his white hands in his vest, and sent a cloud of smoke above his head. Then he looked at Quade, a gleam of humour in his eyes. "Nothing like a woman for turning a man's head soft," he chuckled. "Nothing in the world like it, 'pon my word, Quade. First it was DeBar. I don't believe we'd got him if he hadn't seen Marie riding her bear. Marie and her curls and her silk tights, Quade--s'elp me, it wouldn't have surprised me so much if you'd fallen in love with _her!_ And over this other woman you're as mad as Joe is over Marie. At first sight he was ready to sell his soul for her. So--I gave Marie to him. And now, for some other woman, you're just as anxious to surrender a half of your share of what we've bought through Marie. Good heaven, man, if you were in love with Marie----" "Damn Marie!" growled Quade. "I know the time when you were bugs over her yourself, Rann. It wasn't so long ago. If I'd looked at her then----" "Of course, not then," interrupted Rann smilingly. "That would have been impolite, Quade, and not at all in agreement with the spirit of our brotherly partnership. And, you must admit, Marie is a devilish good-looking girl. I've surrendered her only for a brief spell to DeBar. After he has taken us to the gold--why, the poor idiot will probably have been sufficiently happy to----" He paused, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders. "--go into cold storage," finished Quade. "Exactly." Again Quade leaned over the table, and for a moment there was silence, a silence in which Aldous thought the pounding of his heart must betray him. He lay motionless on the floor. The nails of his fingers dug into the bare wood. Under the palm of his right hand lay his automatic. Then Quade spoke. There must have been more in his face than was spoken in his words, for Culver Rann took the cigar from between his lips, and a light that was deadly serious slowly filled his eyes. "Rann, we'll talk business!" Quade's voice was harsh, deep, and quivering. "I want this woman. I may be a fool, but I'm going to have her. I might get her alone, but we've always done things together--an' so I made you that proposition. It ain't a hard job. It's one of the easiest jobs we ever had. Only that fool of a writer is in the way--an' he's got to go anyway. We've got to get rid of him on account of the gold, him an' MacDonald. We've got that planned. An' I've showed you how we can get the woman, an' no one ever know. Are you in on this with me?" Culver Rann's reply was as quick and sharp as a pistol shot. "I am." For another moment there was silence. Then Quade asked: "Any need of writin', Culver?" "No. There can't be a written agreement in this deal because--it's dangerous. There won't be much said about old MacDonald. But questions, a good many of them, will be asked about this man Aldous. As for the woman----" Rann shrugged his shoulders with a sinister smile. "She will disappear like the others," he finished. "No one will ever get on to that. If she doesn't make a pal like Marie--after a time, why----" Again Aldous saw that peculiar shrug of his shoulders. Quade's head nodded on his thick neck. "Of course, I agree to that," he said. "After a time. But most of 'em have come over, ain't they, Culver? Eh? Most of 'em have," he chuckled coarsely. "When you see her you won't call me a fool for going dippy over her, Culver. And she'll come round all right after she's gone through what we've got planned for her. I'll make a pal of her!" In that moment, as he listened to the gloating passion and triumph in Quade's brutal voice, something broke in the brain of John Aldous. It filled him with a fire that in an instant had devoured every thought or plan he had made, and in this madness he was consumed by a single desire--the desire to kill. And yet, as this conflagration surged through him, it did not blind or excite him. It did not make him leap forth in animal rage. It was something more terrible. He rose so quietly that the others did not see or hear him in the dark outer room. They did not hear the slight metallic click of the safety on his pistol. For the space of a breath he stood and looked at them. He no longer sensed the words Quade was uttering. He was going in coolly and calmly to kill them. There was something disagreeable in the flashing thought that he might kill them from where he stood. He would not fire from the dark. He wanted to experience the exquisite sensation of that one first moment when they would writhe back from him, and see in him the presence of death. He would give them that one moment of life--just that one. Then he would kill. With his pistol ready in his hand he stepped out into the lighted room. "Good evening, gentlemen!" he said. CHAPTER XIII For a space of perhaps twenty seconds after John Aldous announced himself there was no visible sign of life on the part of either Quade or Culver Rann. The latter sat stunned. Not the movement of a finger broke the stonelike immobility of his attitude. His eyes were like two dark coals gazing steadily as a serpent's over Quade's hunched shoulders and bowed head. Quade seemed as if frozen on the point of speaking to Rann. One hand was still poised a foot above the table. It was he who broke the tense and lifeless tableau. Slowly, almost as slowly as Aldous had opened the door, Quade turned his head, and stared into the coldly smiling face of the man whom he had plotted to kill, and saw the gleaming pistol in his hand. A curious look overcame his pouchy face, a look not altogether of terror--but of shock. He knew Aldous had heard. He accepted in an instant, and perceptibly, the significance of the pistol in his hand. But Culver Rann sat like a rock. His face expressed nothing. Not for the smallest part of a second had he betrayed any emotion that might be throbbing within him. In spite of himself Aldous admired the man's unflinching nerve. "Good evening, gentlemen!" he repeated. Then Rann leaned slowly forward over the table. One hand rose to his moustache. It was his right hand. The other was invisible. Quade pulled himself together and stepped to the end of the table, his two empty hands in front of him. Aldous, still smiling, faced Rann's glittering eyes and covered him with his automatic. Culver Rann twisted the end of his moustache, and smiled back. "Well?" he said. "Is it checkmate?" "It is," replied Aldous. "I've promised you scoundrels one minute of life. I guess that minute is about up." The last word was scarcely out of his mouth when the room was in darkness--a darkness so complete and sudden that for an instant his hand faltered, and in that instant he heard the overturning of a chair and the falling of a body. Twice his automatic sent a lightning-flash of fire where Culver Rann had sat; twice it spat threadlike ribbons of flame through the blackness where Quade had stood. He knew what had happened, and also what to expect if he lost out now. The curiously shaped iron lamp had concealed an electric bulb, and Rann had turned off the switch-key under the table. He had no further time to think. An object came hurtling through the thick gloom and fell with terrific force on his outstretched pistol arm. His automatic flew from his hand and struck against the wall. Unarmed, he sprang back toward the open door--full into the arms of Quade! Aldous knew that it was Quade and not Culver Rann, and he struck out with all the force he could gather in a short-arm blow. His fist landed against Quade's thick neck. Again and again he struck, and Quade's grip loosened. In another moment he would have reached the door if Rann had not caught him from behind. Never had Aldous felt the clutch of hands like those of the womanish hands of Culver Rann. It was as if sinuous fingers of steel were burying themselves in his flesh. Before they found his throat he flung himself backward with all his weight, and with a tremendous effort freed himself. Both Quade and Culver Rann now stood between him and the door. He could hear Quade's deep, panting breath. Rann, as before, was silent as death. Then he heard the door close. A key clicked in the lock. He was trapped. "Turn on the light, Billy," he heard Rann say in a quiet, unexcited voice. "We've got this house-breaker cornered, and he's lost his gun. Turn on the light--and I'll make one shot do the business!" Aldous heard Quade moving, but he was not coming toward the table. Somewhere in the room was another switch connected with the iron lamp, and Aldous felt a curious chill shoot up his spine. Without seeing through that pitch darkness of the room he sensed the fact that Culver Rann was standing with his back against the locked door, a revolver in his hand. And he knew that Quade, feeling his way along the wall, held a revolver in his hand. Men like these two did not go unarmed. The instant the light was turned on they would do their work. As he stood, silent as Culver Rann, he realized the tables were turned. In that moment's madness roused by Quade's gloating assurance of possessing Joanne he had revealed himself like a fool, and now he was about to reap the whirlwind of his folly. Deliberately he had given himself up to his enemies. They, too, would be fools if they allowed him to escape alive. He heard Quade stop. His thick hand was fumbling along the wall. Aldous guessed that he was feeling for the switch. He almost fancied he could see Rann's revolver levelled at him through the darkness. In that thrilling moment his mind worked with the swiftness of a powder flash. One of his hands touched the edge of the desk-table, and he knew that he was standing directly opposite the curtained window, perhaps six feet from it. If he flung himself through the window the curtain would save him from being cut to pieces. No sooner had the idea of escape come to him than he had acted. A flood of light filled the room as his body crashed through the glass. He heard a cry--a single shot--as he struck the ground. He gathered himself up and ran swiftly. Fifty yards away he stopped, and looked back. Quade and Rann were in the window. Then they disappeared, and a moment later the room was again in gloom. For a second time Aldous hurried in the direction of MacDonald's camp. He knew that, in spite of the protecting curtain, the glass had cut him. He felt the warm blood dripping over his face; both hands were wet with it, The arm on which he had received the blow from the unseen object in the room gave him considerable pain, and he had slightly sprained an ankle in his leap through the window, so that he limped a little. But his mind was clear--so clear that in the face of his physical discomfort he caught himself laughing once or twice as he made his way along the trail. Aldous was not of an ordinary type. To a curious and superlative degree he could appreciate a defeat as well as a triumph. His adventures had been a part of a life in which he had not always expected to win, and in to-night's game he admitted that he had been hopelessly and ridiculously beaten. Tragedy, to him, was a first cousin of comedy; to-night he had set out to kill, and, instead of killing, he had run like a jack-rabbit for cover. Also, in that same half-hour Rann and Quade had been sure of him, and he had given them the surprise of their lives by his catapultic disappearance through the window. There was something ludicrous about it all--something that, to him, at least, had turned a possible tragedy into a very good comedy-drama. Nor was Aldous blind to the fact that he had made an utter fool of himself, and that the consequences of his indiscretion might prove extremely serious. Had he listened to the conspirators without betraying himself he would have possessed an important advantage over them. The knowledge he had gained from overhearing their conversation would have made it comparatively easy for MacDonald and him to strike them a perhaps fatal blow through the half-breed DeBar. As the situation stood now, he figured that Quade and Culver Rann held the advantage. Whatever they had planned to do they would put into quick execution. They would not lose a minute. It was not for himself that Aldous feared. Neither did he fear for Joanne. Every drop of red fighting blood in him was ready for further action, and he was determined that Quade should find no opportunity of accomplishing any scheme he might have against Joanne's person. On the other hand, unless they could head off DeBar, he believed that Culver Rann's chances of reaching the gold ahead of them would grow better with the passing of each hour. To protect Joanne from Quade he must lose no time. MacDonald would be in the same predicament, while Rann, assisted by as many rascals of his own colour as he chose to take with him, would be free to carry out the other part of the conspirators' plans. The longer he thought of the mess he had stirred up the more roundly Aldous cursed his imprudence. And this mess, as he viewed it in these cooler moments, was even less disturbing than the thought of what might have happened had he succeeded in his intention of killing both Quade and Rann. Twenty times as he made his way through the darkness toward MacDonald's camp he told himself that he must have been mad. To have killed Rann or Quade in self-defence, or in open fight, would have been playing the game with a shadow of mountain law behind it. But he had invaded Rann's home. Had he killed them he would have had but little more excuse than a house-breaker or a suspicious husband might have had. Tête Jaune would not countenance cold-blooded shooting, even of criminals. He should have taken old Donald's advice and waited until they were in the mountains. An unpleasant chill ran through him as he thought of the narrowness of his double escape. To his surprise, John Aldous found MacDonald awake when he arrived at the camp in the thickly timbered coulee. He was preparing a midnight cup of coffee over a fire that was burning cheerfully between two big rocks. Purposely Aldous stepped out into the full illumination of it. The old hunter looked up. For a moment he stared into the blood-smeared face of his friend; then he sprang to his feet, and caught him by the arm. "Yes, I got it," nodded Aldous cheerfully. "I went out for it, Mac, and I got it! Get out your emergency kit, will you? I rather fancy I need a little patching up." MacDonald uttered not a word. From the balsam lean-to he brought out a small rubber bag and a towel. Into a canvas wash-basin he then turned a half pail of cold water, and Aldous got on his knees beside this. Not once did the old mountaineer speak while he was washing the blood from Aldous' face and hands. There was a shallow two-inch cut in his forehead, two deeper ones in his right cheek, and a gouge in his chin. There were a dozen cuts on his hands, none of them serious. Before he had finished MacDonald had used two thirds of a roll of court-plaster. Then he spoke. "You can soak them off in the morning," he said. "If you don't, the lady'll think yo're a red Indian on the warpath. Now, yo' fool, what have yo' gone an' done?" Aldous told him what had happened, and before MacDonald could utter an expression of his feelings he admitted that he was an inexcusable idiot and that nothing MacDonald might say could drive that fact deeper home. "If I'd come out after hearing what they had to say, we could have got DeBar at the end of a gun and settled the whole business," he finished. "As it is, we're in a mess." MacDonald stretched his gaunt gray frame before the fire. He picked up his long rifle, and fingered the lock. "You figger they'll get away with DeBar?" "Yes, to-night." MacDonald threw open the breech of his single-loader and drew out a cartridge as long as his finger. Replacing it, he snapped the breech shut. "Don't know as I'm pertic'lar sad over what's happened," he said, with a curious look at Aldous. "We might have got out of this without what you call strenu'us trouble. Now--it's _fight!_ It's goin' to be a matter of guns an' bullets, Johnny--back in the mountains. You figger Rann an' the snake of a half-breed'll get the start of us. Let 'em have a start! They've got two hundred miles to go, an' two hundred miles to come back. Only--they won't come back!" Under his shaggy brows the old hunter's eyes gleamed as he looked at Aldous. "To-morrow we'll go to the grave," he added. "Yo're cur'ous to know what's goin' to happen when we find that grave, Johnny. So am I. I hope----" "What do you hope?" MacDonald shook his great gray head in the dying firelight. "Let's go to bed, Johnny," he rumbled softly in his beard. "It's gettin' late." CHAPTER XIV To sleep after the excitement through which he had passed, and with to-morrow's uncertainties ahead of him, seemed to Aldous a physical impossibility. Yet he slept, and soundly. It was MacDonald who roused him three hours later. They prepared a quick breakfast over a small fire, and Aldous heated water in which he soaked his face until the strips of court-plaster peeled off. The scratches were lividly evident, but, inasmuch as he had a choice of but two evils, he preferred that Joanne should see these instead of the abominable disfigurement of court-plaster strips. Old Donald took one look at him through half-closed eyes. "You look as though you'd come out of a tussle with a grizzly," he grinned. "Want some fresh court-plaster?" "And look as though I'd come out of a circus--no!" retorted Aldous. "I'm invited to breakfast at the Blacktons', Mac. How the devil am I going to get out of it?" "Tell 'em you're sick," chuckled the old hunter, who saw something funny in the appearance of Aldous' face. "Good Lord, how I'd liked to have seen you come through that window--in daylight!" Aldous led off in the direction of the trail. MacDonald followed close behind him. It was dark--that almost ebon-black hour that precedes summer dawn in the northern mountains. The moon had long ago disappeared in the west. When a few minutes later they paused in the little opening on the trail Aldous could just make out the shadowy form of the old mountaineer. "I lost my gun when I jumped through the window, Mac," he explained. "There's another thirty-eight automatic in my kit at the corral. Bring that, and the .303 with the gold-bead sight--and plenty of ammunition. You'd better take that forty-four hip-cannon of yours along, as well as your rifle. Wish I could civilize you, Mac, so you'd carry one of the Savage automatics instead of that old brain-storm of fifty years ago!" MacDonald gave a grunt of disgust that was like the whoof of a bear. "It's done business all that time," he growled good humouredly. "An' it ain't ever made me jump through any window as I remember of, Johnny!" "Enough," said Aldous, and in the gloom he gripped the other's hand. "You'll be there, Mac--in front of the Blacktons'--just as it's growing light?" "That means in three quarters of an hour, Johnny. I'll be there. Three saddle-horses and a pack." Where the trail divided they separated. Aldous went directly to the Blacktons'. As he had expected, the bungalow was alight. In the kitchen he saw Tom, the Oriental cook, busy preparing breakfast. Blackton himself, comfortably dressed in duck trousers and a smoking-jacket, and puffing on a pipe, opened the front door for him. The pipe almost fell from his mouth when he saw his friend's excoriated face. "What in the name of Heaven!" he gasped. "An accident," explained Aldous, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders. "Blackton, I want you to do me another good turn. Tell the ladies anything you can think of--something reasonable. The truth is, I went through a window--a window with plenty of glass in it. Now how the deuce can I explain going through a window like a gentleman?" With folded arms, Blackton inspected him thoughtfully for a moment. "You can't," he said. "But I don't think you went through a window. I believe you fell over a cliff and were caught in an armful of wait-a-bit bushes. They're devilish those wait-a-bits!" They shook hands. "I'm ready to blow up with curiosity again," said Blackton. "But I'll play your game, Aldous." A few minutes later Joanne and Peggy Blackton joined them. He saw again the quick flush of pleasure in Joanne's lovely face when she entered the room. It changed instantly when she saw the livid cuts in his skin. She came to him quickly, and gave him her hand. Her lips trembled, but she did not speak. Blackton accepted this as the psychological moment. "What do you think of a man who'll wander off a trail, tumble over a ledge, and get mixed up in a bunch of wait-a-bit like _that?_" he demanded, laughing as though he thought it a mighty good joke on Aldous. "Wait-a-bit thorns are worse than razors, Miss Gray," he elucidated further. "They're--they're perfectly devilish, you know!" "Indeed they _are_," emphasized Peggy Blackton, whom her husband had given a quick look and a quicker nudge, "They're dreadful!" Looking straight into Joanne's eyes, Aldous guessed that she did not believe, and scarcely heard, the Blacktons. "I had a presentiment something was going to happen," she said, smiling at him. "I'm glad it was no worse than that." She withdrew her hand, and turned to Peggy Blackton. To John's delight she had arranged her wonderful shining hair in a braid that rippled in a thick, sinuous rope of brown and gold below her hips. Peggy Blackton had in some way found a riding outfit for her slender figure, a typical mountain outfit, with short divided skirt, loose blouse, and leggings. She had never looked more beautiful to him. Her night's rest had restored the colour to her soft cheeks and curved lips; and in her eyes, when she looked at him again, there was a strange, glowing light that thrilled him. During the next half-hour he almost forgot his telltale disfigurements. At breakfast Paul and Peggy Blackton were beautifully oblivious of them. Once or twice he saw in Joanne's clear eyes a look which made him suspect that she had guessed very near to the truth. MacDonald was prompt to the minute. Gray day, with its bars of golden tint, was just creeping over the shoulders of the eastern mountains when he rode up to the Blacktons'. The old hunter was standing close to the horse which Joanne was to ride when Aldous brought her out. Joanne gave him her hand, and for a moment MacDonald bowed his shaggy head over it. Five minutes later they were trailing up the rough wagon-road, MacDonald in the lead, and Joanne and Aldous behind, with the single pack horse between. For several miles this wagon-trail reached back through the thick timber that filled the bottom between the two ranges of mountains. They had travelled but a short distance when Joanne drew her horse close in beside Aldous. "I want to know what happened last night," she said. "Will you tell me?" Aldous met her eyes frankly. He had made up his mind that she would believe only the truth, and he had decided to tell her at least a part of that. He would lay his whole misadventure to the gold. Leaning over the pommel of his saddle he recounted the occurrences of the night before, beginning with his search for Quade and the half-breed, and his experience with the woman who rode the bear. He left out nothing--except all mention of herself. He described the events lightly, not omitting those parts which appealed to him as being very near to comedy. In spite of his effort to rob the affair of its serious aspect his recital had a decided effect upon Joanne. For some time after he had finished one of her small gloved hands clutched tightly at the pommel of her saddle; her breath came more quickly; the colour had ebbed from her cheeks, and she looked straight ahead, keeping her eyes from meeting his. He began to believe that in some way she was convinced he had not told her the whole truth, and was possibly displeased, when she again turned her face to him. It was tense and white. In it was the fear which, for a few minutes, she had tried to keep from him. "They would have killed you?" she breathed. "Perhaps they would only have given me a good scare," said Aldous. "But I didn't have time to wait and find out. I was very anxious to see MacDonald again. So I went through the window!" "No, they would have killed you," said Joanne. "Perhaps I did wrong, Mr. Aldous, but I confided--a little--in Peggy Blackton last night. She seemed like a sister. I love her. And I wanted to confide in some one--a woman, like her. It wasn't much, but I told her what happened at Miette: about you, and Quade, and how I saw him at the station, and again--later, following us. And then--she told me! Perhaps she didn't know how it was frightening me, but she told me all about these men--Quade and Culver Rann. And now I'm more afraid of Culver Rann than Quade, and I've never seen him. They can't hurt me. But I'm afraid for you!" At her words a joy that was like the heat of a fire leaped into his brain. "For me?" he said. "Afraid--for me?" "Yes. Why shouldn't I be, if I know that you are in danger?" she asked quietly. "And now, since last night, and the discovery of your secret by these men, I am terrified. Quade has followed you here. Mrs. Blackton told me that Culver Rann was many times more dangerous than Quade. Only a little while ago you told me you did not care for riches. Then why do you go for this gold? Why do you run the risk? Why----" He waited. The colour was flooding back into her face in an excited, feverish flush. Her blue eyes were dark as thunder-clouds in their earnestness. "Don't you understand?" she went on. "It was because of me that you incurred this deadly enmity of Quade's. If anything happens to you, I shall hold myself responsible!" "No, you will not be responsible," replied Aldous, steadying the tremble in his voice. "Besides, nothing is going to happen. But you don't know how happy you have made me by taking this sort of an interest in me. It--it feels good," he laughed. For a few paces he dropped behind her, where the overhead spruce boughs left but the space for a single rider between. Then, again, he drew up close beside her. "I was going to tell you about this gold," he said. "It isn't the gold we're going after." He leaned over until his hand rested on her saddle-bow. "Look ahead," he went on, a curious softness in his voice. "Look at MacDonald!" The first shattered rays of the sun were breaking over the mountains and reflecting their glow in the valley. Donald MacDonald had lifted his face to the sunrise; out from under his battered hat the morning breeze sweeping through the valley of the Frazer tossed his shaggy hair; his great owl-gray beard swept his breast; his broad, gaunt shoulders were hunched a little forward as he looked into the east. Again Aldous looked into Joanne's eyes. "It's not the gold, but MacDonald, that's taking me north, Ladygray. And it's not the gold that is taking MacDonald. It is strange, almost unbelievedly strange--what I am going to tell you. To-day we are seeking a grave--for you. And up there, two hundred miles in the north, another grave is calling MacDonald. I am going with him. It just happens that the gold is there. You wouldn't guess that for more than forty years that blessed old wanderer ahead of us has loved a dead woman, would you? You wouldn't think that for nearly half a century, year in and year out, winter and summer alike, he has tramped the northern mountains--a lost spirit with but one desire in life--to find at last her resting-place? And yet it is so, Ladygray. I guess I am the only living creature to whom he has opened his heart in many a long year. A hundred times beside our campfire I have listened to him, until at last his story seems almost to be a part of my own. He may be a little mad, but it is a beautiful madness." He paused. "Yes," whispered Joanne. "Go on--John Aldous." "It's--hard to tell," he continued. "I can't put the feeling of it in words, the spirit of it, the wonder of it. I've tried to write it, and I couldn't. Her name was Jane. He has never spoken of her by any other name than that, and I've never asked for the rest of it. They were kids when their two families started West over the big prairies in Conestoga wagons. They grew up sweethearts. Both of her parents, and his mother, died before they were married. Then, a little later, his father died, and they were alone. I can imagine what their love must have been. I have seen it still living in his eyes, and I have seen it in his strange hour-long dreams after he has talked of her. They were always together. He has told me how they roamed the mountains hand in hand in their hunts; how she was comrade and chum when he went prospecting. He has opened his lonely old heart to me--a great deal. He's told me how they used to be alone for months at a time in the mountains, the things they used to do, and how she would sing for him beside their campfire at night. 'She had a voice sweet as an angel,' I remember he told me once. Then, more than forty years ago, came the gold-rush away up in the Stikine River country. They went. They joined a little party of twelve--ten men and two women. This party wandered far out of the beaten paths of the other gold-seekers. And at last they found gold." Ahead of them Donald MacDonald had turned in his saddle and was looking back. For a moment Aldous ceased speaking. "Please--go on!" said Joanne. "They found gold," repeated Aldous. "They found so much of it, Ladygray, that some of them went mad--mad as beasts. It was placer gold--loose gold, and MacDonald says that one day he and Jane filled their pockets with nuggets. Then something happened. A great storm came; a storm that filled the mountains with snow through which no living creature as heavy as a man or a horse could make its way. It came a month earlier than they had expected, and from the beginning they were doomed. Their supplies were almost gone. "I can't tell you the horrors of the weeks and months that followed, as old Donald has told them to me, Joanne. You must imagine. Only, when you are deep in the mountains, and the snow comes, you are like a rat in a trap. So they were caught--eleven men and three women. They who could make their beds in sheets of yellow gold, but who had no food. The horses were lost in the storm. Two of their frozen carcasses were found and used for food. Two of the men set out on snowshoes, leaving their gold behind, and probably died. "Then the first terrible thing happened. Two men quarrelled over a can of beans, and one was killed. He was the husband of one of the women. The next terrible thing happened to her--and there was a fight. On one side there were young Donald and the husband of the other woman; on the other side--the beasts. The husband was killed, and Donald and Jane sought refuge in the log cabin they had built. That night they fled, taking what little food they possessed, and what blankets they could carry. They knew they were facing death. But they went together, hand in hand. "At last Donald found a great cave in the side of a mountain. I have a picture of that cave in my brain--a deep, warm cave, with a floor of soft white sand, a cave into which the two exhausted fugitives stumbled, still hand in hand, and which was home. But they found it a little too late. Three days later Jane died. And there is another picture in my brain--a picture of young Donald sitting there in the cave, clasping in his arms the cold form of the one creature in the world that he loved; moaning and sobbing over her, calling upon her to come back to life, to open her eyes, to speak to him--until at last his brain cracked and he went mad. That is what happened. He went mad." Joanne's breath was coming brokenly through her lips. Unconsciously she had clasped her fingers about the hand Aldous rested on her pommel. "How long he remained in the cave with his dead, MacDonald has never been able to say," he resumed. "He doesn't know whether he buried his wife or left her lying on the sand floor of the cave. He doesn't know how he got out of the mountains. But he did, and his mind came back. And since then, Joanne--for a matter of forty years--his life has been spent in trying to find that cave. All those years his search was unavailing. He could find no trace of the little hidden valley in which the treasure-seekers found their bonanza of gold. No word of it ever came out of the mountains; no other prospector ever stumbled upon it. Year after year Donald went into the North; year after year he came out as the winter set in, but he never gave up hope. "Then he began spending winter as well as summer in that forgotten world--forgotten because the early gold-rush was over, and the old Telegraph trail was travelled more by wolves than men. And always, Donald has told me, his beloved Jane's spirit was with him in his wanderings over the mountains, her hand leading him, her voice whispering to him in the loneliness of the long nights. Think of it, Joanne! Forty years of that! Forty years of a strange, beautiful madness, forty years of undying love, of faith, of seeking and never finding! And this spring old Donald came almost to the end of his quest. He knows, now; he knows where that little treasure valley is hidden in the mountains, he knows where to find the cave!" "He found her--he found her?" she cried. "After all those years--he found her?" "Almost," said Aldous softly. "But the great finale in the tragedy of Donald MacDonald's life is yet to come, Ladygray. It will come when once more he stands in the soft white sand of that cavern floor, and sometimes I tremble when I think that when that moment comes I will be at his side. To me it will be terrible. To him it will be--what? That hour has not quite arrived. It happened this way: Old Donald was coming down from the North on the early slush snows this spring when he came to a shack in which a man was almost dead of the smallpox. It was DeBar, the half-breed. "Fearlessly MacDonald nursed him. He says it was God who sent him to that shack. For DeBar, in his feverish ravings, revealed the fact that he had stumbled upon that little Valley of Gold for which MacDonald had searched through forty years. Old Donald knew it was the same valley, for the half-breed raved of dead men, of rotting buckskin sacks of yellow nuggets, of crumbling log shacks, and of other things the memories of which stabbed like knives into Donald's heart. How he fought to save that man! And, at last, he succeeded. "They continued south, planning to outfit and go back for the gold. They would have gone back at once, but they had no food and no horses. Foot by foot, in the weeks that followed, DeBar described the way to the hidden valley, until at last MacDonald knew that he could go to it as straight as an eagle to its nest. When they reached Tête Jaune he came to me. And I promised to go with him, Ladygray--back to the Valley of Gold. He calls it that; but I--I think of it as The Valley of Silent Men. It is not the gold, but the cavern with the soft white floor that is calling us." In her saddle Joanne had straightened. Her head was thrown back, her lips were parted, and her eyes shone as the eyes of a Joan of Arc must have shone when she stood that day before the Hosts. "And this man, the half-breed, has sold himself--for a woman?" she said, looking straight ahead at the bent shoulders of old MacDonald. "Yes, for a woman. Do you ask me why I go now? Why I shall fight, if fighting there must be?" She turned to him. Her face was a blaze of glory. "No, no, no!" she cried. "Oh, John Aldous! if I were only a man, that I might go with you and stand with you two in that Holy Sepulchre--the Cavern----If I were a man, I'd go--and, yes, I would fight!" And Donald MacDonald, looking back, saw the two clasping hands across the trail. A moment later he turned his horse from the broad road into a narrow trail that led over the range. CHAPTER XV From the hour in which she had listened to the story of old MacDonald a change seemed to have come over Joanne. It was as if she had risen out of herself, out of whatever fear or grief she might have possessed in her own heart. John Aldous knew that there was some deep significance in her visit to the grave under the Saw Tooth Mountain, and that from the beginning she had been fighting under a tremendous mental and physical strain. He had expected this day would be a terrible day for her; he had seen her efforts to strengthen herself for the approaching crisis that morning. He believed that as they drew nearer to their journey's end her suspense and uneasiness, the fear which she was trying to keep from him, would, in spite of her, become more and more evident. For these reasons the change which he saw in her was not only delightfully unexpected but deeply puzzling. She seemed to be under the influence of some new and absorbing excitement. Her cheeks were flushed. There was a different poise to her head; in her voice, too, there was a note which he had not noticed before. It struck him, all at once, that this was a new Joanne--a Joanne who, at least for a brief spell, had broken the bondage of oppression and fear that had fettered her. In the narrow trail up the mountain he rode behind her, and in this he found a pleasure even greater than when he rode at her side. Only when her face was turned from him did he dare surrender himself at all to the emotions which had transformed his soul. From behind he could look at her, and worship without fear of discovery. Every movement of her slender, graceful body gave him a new and exquisite thrill; every dancing light and every darkening shadow in her shimmering hair added to the joy that no fear or apprehension could overwhelm within him now. Only in those wonderful moments, when her presence was so near, and yet her eyes did not see him, could he submerge himself completely in the thought of what she had become to him and of what she meant to him. During the first hour of their climb over the break that led into the valley beyond they had but little opportunity for conversation. The trail was an abandoned Indian path, narrow, and in places extremely steep. Twice Aldous helped Joanne from her horse that she might travel afoot over places which he considered dangerous. When he assisted her in the saddle again, after a stiff ascent of a hundred yards, she was panting from her exertion, and he felt the sweet thrill of her breath in his face. For a space his happiness obliterated all thoughts of other things. It was MacDonald who brought them back. They had reached the summit of the break, and through his long brass telescope the old mountaineer was scanning the valley out of which they had come. Under them lay Tête Jaune, gleaming in the morning sun, and it dawned suddenly upon Aldous that this was the spot from which MacDonald had spied upon his enemies. He looked at Joanne. She was breathing quickly as she looked upon the wonder of the scene below them. Suddenly she turned, and encountered his eyes. "They might--follow?" she asked. He shook his head. "No danger of that," he assured her. MacDonald had dismounted, and now he lay crouched behind a rock, with his telescope resting over the top of it. He had leaned his long rifle against the boulder; his huge forty-four, a relic of the old Indian days, hung at his hip. Joanne saw these omens of preparedness, and her eyes shifted again to Aldous. His .303 swung from his saddle. At his waist was the heavy automatic. She smiled. In her eyes was understanding, and something like a challenge. She did not question him again, but under her gaze Aldous flushed. A moment later MacDonald closed his telescope and without a word mounted his horse. Where the descent into the second valley began he paused again. To the north through the haze of the morning sun gleamed the snow-capped peaks of the Saw Tooth Range. Apparently not more than an hour's ride distant rose a huge red sandstone giant which seemed to shut in the end of the valley MacDonald stretched forth a long arm in its direction. "What we're seekin' is behind that mountain," he said. "It's ten miles from here." He turned to the girl. "Are you gettin' lame, Mis' Joanne?" Aldous saw her lips tighten. "No. Let us go on, please." She was staring fixedly at the sombre red mass of the mountain. Her eyes did not take in the magnificent sweep of the valley below. They saw nothing of the snow-capped peaks beyond. There was something wild and unnatural in their steady gaze. Aldous dropped behind her as they began the gradual descent from the crest of the break and his own heart began to beat more apprehensively; the old question flashed back upon him, and he felt again the oppression that once before had held him in its grip. His eyes did not leave Joanne. And always she was staring at the mountain behind which lay the thing they were seeking! It was not Joanne herself that set his blood throbbing. Her face had not paled. Its colour was like the hectic flush of a fever. Her eyes alone betrayed her; their strange intensity--the almost painful steadiness with which they hung to the distant mountain, and a dread of what was to come seized upon him. Again he found himself asking himself questions which he could not answer. Why had Joanne not confided more fully in him? What was the deeper significance of this visit to the grave, and of her mission in the mountains? Down the narrow Indian trail they passed into the thick spruce timber. Half an hour later they came out into the grassy creek bottom of the valley. During that time Joanne did not look behind her, and John Aldous did not speak. MacDonald turned north, and the sandstone mountain was straight ahead of them. It was not like the other mountains. There was something sinister and sullen about it. It was ugly and broken. No vegetation grew upon it, and through the haze of sunlight its barren sides and battlemented crags gleamed a dark and humid red after the morning mists, as if freshly stained with blood. Aldous guessed its effect upon Joanne, and he determined to put an end to it. Again he rode up close beside her. "I want you to get better acquainted with old Donald," he said. "We're sort of leaving him out in the cold, Ladygray. Do you mind if I tell him to come back and ride with you for a while?" "I've been wanting to talk with him," she replied. "If you don't mind----" "I don't," he broke in quickly. "You'll love old Donald, Ladygray. And, if you can, I'd like to have you tell him all that you know about--Jane. Let him know that I told you." She nodded. Her lips trembled in a smile. "I will," she said. A moment later Aldous was telling MacDonald that Joanne wanted him. The old mountaineer stared. He drew his pipe from his mouth, beat out its half-burned contents, and thrust it into its accustomed pocket. "She wants to see me?" he asked. "God bless her soul--what for?" "Because she thinks you're lonesome up here alone, Mac. And look here"--Aldous leaned over to MacDonald--"her nerves are ready to snap. I know it. There's a mighty good reason why I can't relieve the strain she is under. But you can. She's thinking every minute of that mountain up there and the grave behind it. You go back, and talk. Tell her about the first time you ever came up through these valleys--you and Jane. Will you, Mac? Will you tell her that?" MacDonald did not reply, but he dropped behind. Aldous took up the lead. A few minutes later he looked back, and laughed softly under his breath. Joanne and the old hunter were riding side by side in the creek bottom, and Joanne was talking. He looked at his watch. He did not look at it again until the first gaunt, red shoulder of the sandstone mountain began to loom over them. An hour had passed since he left Joanne. Ahead of him, perhaps a mile distant, was the cragged spur beyond which--according to the sketch Keller had drawn for him at the engineers' camp--was the rough canyon leading back to the basin on the far side of the mountain. He had almost reached this when MacDonald rode up. "You go back, Johnny," he said, a singular softness in his hollow voice. "We're a'most there." He cast his eyes over the western peaks, where dark clouds were shouldering their way up in the face of the sun, and added: "There's rain in that. I'll trot on ahead with Pinto and have a tent ready when you come. I reckon it can't be more'n a mile up the canyon." "And the grave, Mac?" "Is right close to where I'll pitch the tent," said MacDonald, swinging suddenly behind the pack-horse Pinto, and urging him into a trot. "Don't waste any time, Johnny." Aldous rode back to Joanne. "It looks like rain," he explained. "These Pacific showers come up quickly this side of the Divide, and they drench you in a jiffy. Donald is going on ahead to put up a tent." By the time they reached the mouth of the canyon MacDonald was out of sight. A little creek that was a swollen torrent in spring time trickled out of the gorge. Its channel was choked with a chaotic confusion of sandstone rock and broken slate, and up through this Aldous carefully picked his way, followed closely by Joanne. The sky continued to darken above them, until at last the sun died out, and a thick and almost palpable gloom began to envelop them. Low thunder rolled through the mountains in sullen, rumbling echoes. He looked back at Joanne, and was amazed to see her eyes shining, and a smile on her lips as she nodded at him. "It makes me think of Henrik Hudson and his ten-pin players," she called softly. "And ahead of us--is Rip Van Winkle!" The first big drops were beginning to fall when they came to an open place. The gorge swung to the right; on their left the rocks gave place to a rolling meadow of buffalo grass, and Aldous knew they had reached the basin. A hundred yards up the slope was a fringe of timber, and as he looked he saw smoke rising out of this. The sound of MacDonald's axe came to them. He turned to Joanne, and he saw that she understood. They were at their journey's end. Perhaps her fingers gripped her rein a little more tightly. Perhaps it was imagination that made him think there was a slight tremble in her voice when she said: "This--is the place?" "Yes. It should be just above the timber. I believe I can see the upper break of the little box canyon Keller told me about." She rode without speaking until they entered the timber. They were just in time. As he lifted her down from her horse the clouds opened, and the rain fell in a deluge. Her hair was wet when he got her in the tent. MacDonald had spread out a number of blankets, but he had disappeared. Joanne sank down upon them with a little shiver. She looked up at Aldous. It was almost dark in the tent, and her eyes were glowing strangely. Over them the thunder crashed deafeningly. For a few minutes it was a continual roar, shaking the mountains with mighty reverberations that were like the explosions of giant guns. Aldous stood holding the untied flap against the beat of the rain. Twice he saw Joanne's lips form words. At last he heard her say: "Where is Donald?" He tied the flap, and dropped down on the edge of the blankets before he answered her. "Probably out in the open watching the lightning, and letting the rain drench him," he said. "I've never known old Donald to come in out of a rain, unless it was cold. He was tying up the horses when I ran in here with you." He believed she was shivering, yet he knew she was not cold. In the half gloom of the tent he wanted to reach over and take her hand. For a few minutes longer there was no break in the steady downpour and the crashing of the thunder. Then, as suddenly as the storm had broken, it began to subside. Aldous rose and flung back the tent-flap. "It is almost over," he said. "You had better remain in the tent a little longer, Ladygray. I will go out and see if MacDonald has succeeded in drowning himself." Joanne did not answer, and Aldous stepped outside. He knew where to find the old hunter. He had gone up to the end of the timber, and probably this minute was in the little box canyon searching for the grave. It was a matter of less than a hundred yards to the upper fringe of timber, and when Aldous came out of this he stood on the summit of the grassy divide that separated the tiny lake Keller had described from the canyon. It was less than a rifle shot distant, and on the farther side of it MacDonald was already returning. Aldous hurried down to meet him. He did not speak when they met, but his companion answered the question in his eyes, while the water dripped in streams from his drenched hair and beard. "It's there," he said, pointing back. "Just behind that big black rock. There's a slab over it, an' you've got the name right. It's Mortimer FitzHugh." Above them the clouds were splitting asunder. A shaft of sunlight broke through, and as they stood looking over the little lake the shaft broadened, and the sun swept in golden triumph over the mountains. MacDonald beat his limp hat against his knee, and with his other hand drained the water from his beard. "What you goin' to do?" he asked. Aldous turned toward the timber. Joanne herself answered the question. She was coming up the slope. In a few moments she stood beside them. First she looked down upon the lake. Then her eyes turned to Aldous. There was no need for speech. He held out his hand, and without hesitation she gave him her own. MacDonald understood. He walked down ahead of them toward the black rock. When he came to the rock he paused. Aldous and Joanne passed him. Then they, too, stopped, and Aldous freed the girl's hand. With an unexpectedness that was startling they had come upon the grave. Yet not a sound escaped Joanne's lips. Aldous could not see that she was breathing. Less than ten paces from them was the mound, protected by its cairn of stones; and over the stones rose a weather-stained slab in the form of a cross. One glance at the grave and Aldous riveted his eyes upon Joanne. For a full minute she stood as motionless as though the last breath had left her body. Then, slowly, she advanced. He could not see her face. He followed, quietly, step by step as she moved. For another minute she leaned over the slab, making out the fine-seared letters of the name. Her body was bent forward; her two hands were clenched tightly at her side. Even more slowly than she had advanced she turned toward Aldous and MacDonald. Her face was dead white. She lifted her hands to her breast, and clenched them there. "It is his name," she said, and there was something repressed and terrible in her low voice. "It is his name!" She was looking straight into the eyes of John Aldous, and he saw that she was fighting to say something which she had not spoken. Suddenly she came to him, and her two hands caught his arm. "It is terrible--what I am going to ask of you," she struggled. "You will think I am a ghoul. But I must have proof! I must--I must!" She was staring wildly at him, and all at once there leapt fiercely through him a dawning of the truth. The name was there, seared by hot iron in that slab of wood. The name! But under the cairn of stones---- Behind them MacDonald had heard. He towered beside them now. His great mountain-twisted hands drew Joanne a step back, and strange gentleness was in his voice as he said: "You an' Johnny go back an' build a fire, Mis' Joanne. I'll find the proof!" "Come," said Aldous, and he held out his hand again. MacDonald hurried on ahead of them. When they reached the camp he was gone, so that Joanne did not see the pick and shovel which he carried back. She went into the tent and Aldous began building a fire where MacDonald's had been drowned out. There was little reason for a fire; but he built it, and for fifteen minutes added pitch-heavy fagots of storm-killed jack-pine and spruce to it, until the flames leapt a dozen feet into the air. Half a dozen times he was impelled to return to the grave and assist MacDonald in his gruesome task. But he knew that MacDonald had meant that he should stay with Joanne. If he returned, she might follow. He was surprised at the quickness with which MacDonald performed his work. Not more than half an hour had passed when a low whistle drew his eyes to a clump of dwarf spruce back in the timber. The mountaineer was standing there, holding something in his hand. With a backward glance to see that Joanne had not come from the tent, Aldous hastened to him. What he could see of MacDonald's face was the lifeless colour of gray ash. His eyes stared as if he had suffered a strange and unexpected shock. He went to speak, but no words came through his beard. In his hand he held his faded red neck-handkerchief. He gave it to Aldous. "It wasn't deep," he said. "It was shallow, turribly shallow, Johnny--just under the stone!" His voice was husky and unnatural. There was something heavy in the handkerchief, and a shudder passed through Aldous as he placed it on the palm of his hand and unveiled its contents. He could not repress an exclamation when he saw what MacDonald had brought. In his hand, with a single thickness of the wet handkerchief between the objects and his flesh, lay a watch and a ring. The watch was of gold. It was tarnished, but he could see there were initials, which he could not make out, engraved on the back of the case. The ring, too, was of gold. It was one of the most gruesome ornaments Aldous had ever seen. It was in the form of a coiled and writhing serpent, wide enough to cover half of one's middle finger between the joints. Again the eyes of the two men met, and again Aldous observed that strange, stunned look in the old hunter's face. He turned and walked back toward the tent, MacDonald following him slowly, still staring, his long gaunt arms and hands hanging limply at his side. Joanne heard them, and came out of the tent. A choking cry fell from her lips when she saw MacDonald. For a moment one of her hands clutched at the wet canvas of the tent, and then she swayed forward, knowing what John Aldous had in his hand. He stood voiceless while she looked. In that tense half-minute when she stared at the objects he held it seemed to him that her heart-strings must snap under the strain. Then she drew back from them, her eyes filled with horror, her hands raised as if to shut out the sight of them, and a panting, sobbing cry broke from between her pallid lips. "Oh, my God!" she breathed. "Take them away--take them away!" She staggered back to the tent, and stood there with her hands covering her face. Aldous turned to the old hunter and gave him the things he held. A moment later he stood alone where the three had been, staring now as Joanne had stared, his heart beating wildly. For Joanne, in entering the tent, had uncovered her face; it was not grief that he saw there, but the soul of a woman new-born. And as his own soul responded in a wild rejoicing, MacDonald, going over the summit and down into the hollow, mumbled in his beard: "God ha' mercy on me! I'm doin' it for her an' Johnny, an' because she's like my Jane!" CHAPTER XVI Plunged from one extreme of mental strain to another excitement that was as acute in its opposite effect, John Aldous stood and stared at the tent-flap that had dropped behind Joanne. Only a flash he had caught of her face; but in that flash he had seen the living, quivering joyousness of freedom blazing where a moment before there had been only horror and fear. As if ashamed of her own betrayal, Joanne had darted into the tent. She had answered his question a thousand times more effectively than if she had remained to tell him with her lips that MacDonald's proofs were sufficient--that the grave in the little box canyon had not disappointed her. She had recognized the ring and the watch; from them she had shrank in horror, as if fearing that the golden serpent might suddenly leap into life and strike. In spite of the mightiest efforts she might have made for self-control Aldous had seen in her tense and tortured face a look that was more than either dread or shock--it was abhorrence, hatred. And his last glimpse of her face had revealed those things gone, and in their place the strange joy she had run into the tent to hide. That she should rejoice over the dead, or that the grim relics from the grave should bring that new dawn into her face and eyes, did not strike him as shocking. In Joanne his sun had already begun to rise and set. He had come to understand that for her the grave must hold its dead; that the fact of death, death under the slab that bore Mortimer FitzHugh's name, meant life for her, just as it meant life and all things for him. He had prayed for it, even while he dreaded that it might not be. In him all things were now submerged in the wild thought that Joanne was free, and the grave had been the key to her freedom. A calmness began to possess him that was in singular contrast to the perturbed condition of his mind a few minutes before. From this hour Joanne was his to fight for, to win if he could; and, knowing this, his soul rose in triumph above his first physical exultation, and he fought back the almost irresistible impulse to follow her into the tent and tell her what this day had meant for him. Following this came swiftly a realization of what it had meant for her--the suspense, the terrific strain, the final shock and gruesome horror of it. He was sure, without seeing, that she was huddled down on the blankets in the tent. She had passed through an ordeal under which a strong man might have broken, and the picture he had of her struggle in there alone turned him from the tent filled with a determination to make her believe that the events of the morning, both with him and MacDonald, were easily forgotten. He began to whistle as he threw back the wet canvas from over the camp outfit that had been taken from Pinto's back. In one of the two cow-hide panniers he saw that thoughtful old Donald had packed materials for their dinner, as well as utensils necessary for its preparation. That dinner they would have in the valley, well beyond the red mountain. He began to repack, whistling cheerily. He was still whistling when MacDonald returned. He broke off sharply when he saw the other's face. "What's the matter, Mac?" he asked. "You sick?" "It weren't pleasant, Johnny." Aldous nodded toward the tent. "It was--beastly," he whispered. "But we can't let her feel that way about it, Mac. Cheer up--and let's get out of this place. We'll have dinner somewhere over in the valley." They continued packing until only the tent remained to be placed on Pinto's back. Aldous resumed his loud whistling as he tightened up the saddle-girths, and killed time in half a dozen other ways. A quarter of an hour passed. Still Joanne did not appear. Aldous scratched his head dubiously, and looked at the tent. "I don't want to disturb her, Mac," he said in a low voice. "Let's keep up the bluff of being busy. We can put out the fire." Ten minutes later, sweating and considerably smokegrimed, Aldous again looked toward the tent. "We might cut down a few trees," suggested MacDonald. "Or play leap-frog," added Aldous. "The trees'd sound more natcherel," said MacDonald. "We could tell her----" A stick snapped behind them. Both turned at the same instant. Joanne stood facing them not ten feet away. "Great Scott!" gasped Aldous. "Joanne, I thought you were in the tent!" The beautiful calmness in Joanne's face amazed him. He stared at her as he spoke, forgetting altogether the manner in which he had intended to greet her when she came from the tent. "I went out the back way--lifted the canvas and crawled under just like a boy," she explained. "And I've walked until my feet are wet." "And the fire is out!" "I don't mind wet feet," she hurried to assure him. Old Donald was already at work pulling the tent-pegs. Joanne came close to Aldous, and he saw again that deep and wonderful light in her eyes. This time he knew that she meant he should see it, and words which he had determined not to speak fell softly from his lips. "You are no longer afraid, Ladygray? That which you dreaded----" "Is dead," she said. "And you, John Aldous? Without knowing, seeing me only as you have seen me, do you think that I am terrible?" "No, could not think that." Her hand touched his arm. "Will you go out there with me, in the sunlight, where we can look down upon the little lake?" she asked. "Until to-day I had made up my mind that no one but myself would ever know the truth. But you have been good to me, and I must tell you--about myself--about him." He found no answer. He left no word with MacDonald. Until they stood on the grassy knoll, with the lakelet shimmering in the sunlight below them, Joanne herself did not speak again. Then, with a little gesture, she said: "Perhaps you think what is down there is dreadful to me. It isn't. I shall always remember that little lake, almost as Donald remembers the cavern--not because it watches over something I love, but because it guards a thing that in life would have destroyed me! I know how you must feel, John Aldous--that deep down in your heart you must wonder at a woman who can rejoice in the death of another human creature. Yet death, and death alone, has been the key from bondage of millions of souls that have lived before mine; and there are men--men, too--whose lives have been warped and destroyed because death did not come to save them. One was my father. If death had come for him, if it had taken my mother, that down there would never have happened--for me!" She spoke the terrible words so quietly, so calmly, that it was impossible for him entirely to conceal their effect upon him. There was a bit of pathos in her smile. "My mother drove my father mad," she went on, with a simple directness that was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard come from human lips. "The world did not know that he was mad. It called him eccentric. But he was mad--in just one way. I was nine years old when it happened, and I can remember our home most vividly. It was a beautiful home. And my father! Need I tell you that I worshipped him--that to me he was king of all men? And as deeply as I loved him, so, in another way, he worshipped my mother. She was beautiful. In a curious sort of way I used to wonder, as a child, how it was possible for a woman to be so beautiful. It was a dark beauty--a recurrence of French strain in her English blood. "One day I overheard my father tell her that, if she died, he would kill himself. He was not of the passionate, over-sentimental kind; he was a philosopher, a scientist, calm and self-contained--and I remembered those words later, when I had outgrown childhood, as one of a hundred proofs of how devoutly he had loved her. It was more than love, I believe. It was adoration. I was nine, I say, when things happened. Another man, a divorce, and on the day of the divorce this woman, my mother, married her lover. Somewhere in my father's brain a single thread snapped, and from that day he was mad--mad on but one subject; and so deep and intense was his madness that it became a part of me as the years passed, and to-day I, too, am possessed of that madness. And it is the one greatest thing in the world that I am proud of, John Aldous!" Not once had her voice betrayed excitement or emotion. Not once had it risen above its normal tone; and in her eyes, as they turned from the lake to him, there was the tranquillity of a child. "And that madness," she resumed, "was the madness of a man whose brain and soul were overwrought in one colossal hatred--a hatred of divorce and the laws that made it possible. It was born in him in a day, and it lived until his death. It turned him from the paths of men, and we became wanderers upon the face of the earth. Two years after the ruin of our home my mother and the man she had married died in a ship that was lost at sea. This had no effect upon my father. Possibly you will not understand what grew up between us in the years and years that followed. To the end he was a scientist, a man seeking after the unknown, and my education came to be a composite of teachings gathered in all parts of the world. We were never apart. We were more than father and daughter; we were friends, comrades--he was my world, and I was his. "I recall, as I became older, how his hatred of that thing that had broken our home developed more and more strongly in me. His mind was titanic. A thousand times I pleaded with him to employ it in the great fight I wanted him to make--a fight against the crime divorce. I know, now, why he did not. He was thinking of me. Only one thing he asked of me. It was more than a request. It was a command. And this command, and my promise, was that so long as I lived--no matter what might happen in my life--I would sacrifice myself body and soul sooner than allow that black monster of divorce to fasten its clutches on me. It is futile for me to tell you these things, John Aldous. It is impossible--you cannot understand!" "I can," he replied, scarcely above a whisper. "Joanne, I begin--to understand!" And still without emotion, her voice as calm as the unruffled lake at their feet, she continued: "It grew in me. It is a part of me now. I hate divorce as I hate the worst sin that bars one from Heaven. It is the one thing I hate. And it is because of this hatred that I suffered myself to remain the wife of the man whose name is over that grave down there--Mortimer FitzHugh. It came about strangely--what I am going to tell you now. You will wonder. You will think I was insane. But remember, John Aldous--the world had come to hold but one friend and comrade for me, and he was my father. It was after Mindano. He caught the fever, and he was dying." For the first time her breath choked her. It was only for an instant. She recovered herself, and went on: "Out of the world my father had left he had kept one friend--Richard FitzHugh; and this man, with his son, was with us during those terrible days of fever. I met Mortimer as I had met a thousand other men. His father, I thought, was the soul of honour, and I accepted the son as such. We were much together during those two weeks of my despair, and he seemed to be attentive and kind. Then came the end. My father was dying. And I--I was ready to die. In his last moments his one thought was of me. He knew I was alone, and the fear of it terrified him. I believe he did not realize then what he was asking of me. He pleaded with me to marry the son of his old friend before he died. And I--John Aldous, I could not fight his last wish as he lay dying before my eyes. We were married there at his bedside. He joined our hands. And the words he whispered to me last of all were: 'Remember--Joanne--thy promise and thine honour!'" For a moment Joanne stood facing the little lake, and when she spoke again there was a note of thankfulness, of subdued joy and triumph, in her voice. "Before that day had ended I had displeased Mortimer FitzHugh," she said, and Aldous saw the fingers of her hands close tightly. "I told him that until a month had passed I would not live with him as a wife lives with her husband. And he was displeased. And my father was not yet buried! I was shocked. My soul revolted. "We went to London and I was made welcome in the older FitzHugh's wifeless home, and the papers told of our wedding. And two days later there came from Devonshire a woman--a sweet-faced little woman with sick, haunted eyes; in her arms she brought a baby; and that baby _was Mortimer FitzHugh's!_ "We confronted him--the mother, the baby, and I; and then I knew that he was a fiend. And the father was a fiend. They offered to buy the woman off, to support her and the child. They told me that many English gentlemen had made mistakes like this, and that it was nothing--that it was quite common. Mortimer FitzHugh had never touched me with his lips, and now, when he came to touch me with his hands, I struck him. It was a serpent's house, and I left it. "My father had left me a comfortable fortune, and I went into a house of my own. Day after day they came to me, and I knew that they feared I was going to secure a divorce. During the six months that followed I learned other things about the man who was legally my husband. He was everything that was vile. Brazenly he went into public places with women of dishonour, and I hid my face in shame. "His father died, and for a time Mortimer FitzHugh became one of the talked-about spendthrifts of London. Swiftly he gambled and dissipated himself into comparative poverty. And now, learning that I would not get a divorce, he began to regard me as a slave in chains. I remember, one time, that he succeeded in laying his hands on me, and they were like the touch of things that were slimy and poisonous. He laughed at my revulsion. He demanded money of me, and to keep him away from me I gave it to him. Again and again he came for money; I suffered as I cannot tell you, but never once in my misery did I weaken in my promise to my father and to myself. But--at last--I ran away. "I went to Egypt, and then to India. A year later I learned that Mortimer FitzHugh had gone to America, and I returned to London. For two years I heard nothing of him; but day and night I lived in fear and dread. And then came the news that he had died, as you read in the newspaper clipping. I was free! For a year I believed that; and then, like a shock that had come to destroy me, I was told that he _was not dead_ but that he was alive, and in a place called Tête Jaune Cache, in British Columbia. I could not live in the terrible suspense that followed. I determined to find out for myself if he was alive or dead. And so I came, John Aldous. And he is dead. He is down there--dead. And I am glad that he is dead!" "And if he was not dead," said Aldous quietly, "I would kill him!" He could find nothing more to say than that. He dared trust himself no further, and in silence he held out his hands, and for a moment Joanne gave him her own. Then she withdrew them, and with a little gesture, and the smile which he loved to see trembling about her mouth, she said: "Donald will think this is scandalous. We must go back and apologize!" She led him down the slope, and her face was filled with the pink flush of a wild rose when she ran up to Donald, and asked him to help her into her saddle. John Aldous rode like one in a dream as they went back into the valley, for with each minute that passed Joanne seemed more and more to him like a beautiful bird that had escaped from its prison-cage, and in him mind and soul were absorbed in the wonder of it and in his own rejoicing. She was free, and in her freedom she was happy! Free! It was that thought that pounded steadily in his brain. He forgot Quade, and Culver Rann, and the gold; he forgot his own danger, his own work, almost his own existence. Of a sudden the world had become infinitesimally small for him, and all he could see was the soft shimmer of Joanne's hair in the sun, the wonder of her face, the marvellous blue of her eyes--and all he could hear was the sweet thrill of her voice when she spoke to him or old Donald, and when, now and then, soft laughter trembled on her lips in the sheer joy of the life that had dawned anew for her this day. They stopped for dinner, and then went on over the range and down into the valley where lay Tête Jaune. And all this time he fought to keep from flaming in his own face the desire that was like a hot fire within him--the desire to go to Joanne and tell her that he loved her as he had never dreamed it possible for love to exist in the whole wide world. He knew that to surrender to that desire in this hour would be something like sacrilege. He did not guess that Joanne saw his struggle, that even old MacDonald mumbled low words in his beard. When they came at last to Blackton's bungalow he thought that he had kept this thing from her, and he did not see--and would not have understood if he had seen--the wonderful and mysterious glow in Joanne's eyes when she kissed Peggy Blackton. Blackton had come in from the work-end, dust-covered and jubilant. "I'm glad you folks have returned," he cried, beaming with enthusiasm as he gripped Aldous by the hand. "The last rock is packed, and to-night we're going to shake the earth. We're going to blow up Coyote Number Twenty-seven, and you won't forget the sight as long as you live!" Not until Joanne had disappeared into the house with Peggy Blackton did Aldous feel that he had descended firmly upon his feet once more into a matter-of-fact world. MacDonald was waiting with the horses, and Blackton was pointing over toward the steel workers, and was saying something about ten thousand pounds of black powder and dynamite and a mountain that had stood a million years and was going to be blown up that night. "It's the best bit of work I've ever done, Aldous--that and Coyote Number Twenty-eight. Peggy was going to touch the electric button to Twenty-seven to-night, but we've decided to let Miss Gray do that, and Peggy'll fire Twenty-eight to-morrow night. Twenty-eight is almost ready. If you say so, the bunch of us will go over and see it in the morning. Mebby Miss Gray would like to see for herself that a coyote isn't only an animal with a bushy tail, but a cavern dug into rock an' filled with enough explosives to play high jinks with all the navies in the world if they happened to be on hand at the time. What do you say?" "Fine!" said Aldous. "And Peggy wants me to say that it's a matter of only common, every-day decency on your part to make yourself our guest while here," added the contractor, stuffing his pipe. "We've got plenty of room, enough to eat, and a comfortable bed for you. You're going to be polite enough to accept, aren't you?" "With all my heart," exclaimed Aldous, his blood tingling at the thought of being near Joanne. "I've got some business with MacDonald and as soon as that's over I'll domicile myself here. It's bully of you, Blackton! You know----" "Why, dammit, of course I know!" chuckled Blackton, lighting his pipe. "Can't I see, Aldous? D'ye think I'm blind? I was just as gone over Peggy before I married her. Fact is, I haven't got over it yet--and never will. I come up from the work four times a day regular to see her, and if I don't come I have to send up word I'm safe. Peggy saw it first. She said it was a shame to put you off in that cabin with Miss Gray away up here. I don't want to stick my nose in your business, old man, but--by George!--I congratulate you! I've only seen one lovelier woman in my life, and that's Peggy." He thrust out a hand and pumped his friend's limp arm, and Aldous felt himself growing suddenly warm under the other's chuckling gaze. "For goodness sake don't say anything, or act anything, old man," he pleaded. "I'm--just--hoping." Blackton nodded with prodigious understanding in his eyes. "Come along when you get through with MacDonald," he said. "I'm going in and clean up for to-night's fireworks." A question was in Aldous' mind, but he did not put it in words. He wanted to know about Quade and Culver Rann. "Blackton is such a ridiculously forgetful fellow at times that I don't want to rouse his alarm," he said to MacDonald as they were riding toward the corral a few minutes later. "He might let something out to Joanne and his wife, and I've got reasons--mighty good reasons, Mac--for keeping this affair as quiet as possible. We'll have to discover what Rann and Quade are doing ourselves." MacDonald edged his horse in nearer to Aldous. "See here, Johnny, boy--tell me what's in your mind?" Aldous looked into the grizzled face, and there was something in the glow of the old mountaineer's eyes that made him think of a father. "You know, Mac." Old Donald nodded. "Yes, I guess I do, Johnny," he said in a low voice. "You think of Mis' Joanne as I used to--to--think of _her_. I guess I know. But--what you goin' to do?" Aldous shook his head, and for the first time that afternoon a look of uneasiness and gloom overspread his face. "I don't know, Mac. I'm not ashamed to tell you. I love her. If she were to pass out of my life to-morrow I would ask for something that belonged to her, and the spirit of her would live in it for me until I died. That's how I care, Mac. But I've known her such a short time. I can't tell her yet. It wouldn't be the square thing. And yet she won't remain in Tête Jaune very long. Her mission is accomplished. And if--if she goes I can't very well follow her, can I, Mac?" For a space old Donald was silent. Then he said, "You're thinkin' of me, Johnny, an' what we was planning on?" "Partly." "Then don't any more. I'll stick to you, an' we'll stick to her. Only----" "What?" "If you could get Peggy Blackton to help you----" "You mean----" began Aldous eagerly. "That if Peggy Blackton got her to stay for a week--mebby ten days--visitin' her, you know, it wouldn't be so bad if you told her then, would it, Johnny?" "By George, it wouldn't!" "And I think----" "Yes----" "Bein' an old man, an' seein' mebby what you don't see----" "Yes----" "That she'd take you, Johnny." In his breast John's heart seemed suddenly to give a jump that choked him. And while he stared ahead old Donald went on. "I've seen it afore, in a pair of eyes just like her eyes, Johnny--so soft an' deeplike, like the sky up there when the sun's in it. I seen it when we was ridin' behind an' she looked ahead at you, Johnny. I did. An' I've seen it afore. An' I think----" Aldous waited, his heart-strings ready to snap. "An' I think--she likes you a great deal, Johnny." Aldous reached over and gripped MacDonald's hand. "The good Lord bless you, Donald! We'll stick! As for Quade and Culver Rann----" "I've been thinkin' of them," interrupted MacDonald. "You haven't got time to waste on them, Johnny. Leave 'em to me. If it's only a week you've got to be close an' near by Mis' Joanne. I'll find out what Quade an' Rann are doing, and what they're goin' to do. I've got a scheme. Will you leave 'em to me?" Aldous nodded, and in the same breath informed MacDonald of Peggy Blackton's invitation. The old hunter chuckled exultantly. He stopped his horse, and Aldous halted. "It's workin' out fine, Johnny!" he exclaimed. "There ain't no need of you goin' any further. We understand each other, and there ain't nothin' for you to do at the corral. Jump off your horse and go back. If I want you I'll come to the Blacktons' 'r send word, and if you want me I'll be at the corral or the camp in the coulee. Jump off, Johnny!" Without further urging Aldous dismounted. They shook hands again, and MacDonald drove on ahead of him the saddled horses and the pack. And as Aldous turned back toward the bungalow old Donald was mumbling low in his beard again, "God ha' mercy on me, but I'm doin' it for her an' Johnny--for her an' Johnny!" CHAPTER XVII Half an hour later Blackton had shown Aldous to his room and bath. It was four o'clock when he rejoined the contractor in the lower room, freshly bathed and shaven and in a change of clothes. He had not seen Joanne, but half a dozen times he had heard her and Peggy Blackton laughing and talking in Mrs. Blackton's big room at the head of the stairs, and he heard them now as they sat down to smoke their cigars. Blackton was filled with enthusiasm over the accomplishment of his latest work, and Aldous tried hard not to betray the fact that the minutes were passing with gruelling slowness while he waited for Joanne. He wanted to see her. His heart was beating like an excited boy's. He could hear her footsteps over his head, and he distinguished her soft laughter, and her sweet voice when she spoke. There was something tantalizing in her nearness and the fact that she did not once show herself at the top of the stair. Blackton was still talking about "coyotes" and dynamite when, an hour later, Aldous looked up, and his heart gave a big, glad jump. Peggy Blackton, a plump little golden-haired vision of happiness, was already half a dozen steps down the stairs. At the top Joanne, for an instant, had paused. Through that space, before the contractor had turned, her eyes met those of John Aldous. She was smiling. Her eyes were shining at him. Never had he seen her look at him in that way, he thought, and never had she seemed such a perfect vision of loveliness. She was dressed in a soft, clinging something with a flutter of white lace at her throat, and as she came down he saw that she had arranged her hair in a marvellous way. Soft little curls half hid themselves in the shimmer of rich coils she had wreathed upon her head, and adorable little tendrils caressed the lovely flush in her cheeks, and clung to the snow-whiteness of her neck. For a moment, as Peggy Blackton went to her husband, he stood very close to Joanne, and into his eyes she was smiling, half laughing, her beautiful mouth aquiver, her eyes glowing, the last trace of their old suspense and fear vanished in a new and wondrous beauty. He would not have said she was twenty-eight now. He would have sworn she was twenty. "Joanne," he whispered, "you are wonderful. Your hair is glorious!" "Always--my hair," she replied, so low that he alone heard. "Can you never see beyond my hair, John Aldous?" "I stop there," he said. "And I marvel. It is glorious!" "Again!" And up from her white throat there rose a richer, sweeter colour. "If you say that again now, John Aldous, I shall never make curls for you again as long as I live!" "For me----" His heart seemed near bursting with joy. But she had left him, and was laughing with Peggy Blackton, who was showing her husband where he had missed a stubbly patch of beard on his cheek. He caught her eyes, turned swiftly to him, and they were laughing at him, and there came a sudden pretty upturn to her chin as he continued to stare, and he saw again the colour deepening in her face. When Peggy Blackton led her husband to the stair, and drove him up to shave off the stubbly patch, Joanne found the opportunity to whisper to him: "You are rude, John Aldous! You must not stare at me like that!" And as she spoke the rebellious colour was still in her face, in spite of the tantalizing curve of her red lips and the sparkle in her eyes. "I can't help it," he pleaded. "You are--glorious!" During the next hour, and while they were at supper, he could see that she was purposely avoiding his eyes, and that she spoke oftener to Paul Blackton than she did to him, apparently taking the keenest interest in his friend's enthusiastic descriptions of the mighty work along the line of steel. And as pretty Peggy Blackton never seemed quite so happy as when listening to her husband, he was forced to content himself by looking at Joanne most of the time, without once receiving her smile. The sun was just falling behind the western mountains when Peggy and Joanne, hurried most incontinently by Blackton, who had looked at his watch, left the table to prepare themselves for the big event of the evening. "I want to get you there before dusk," he explained. "So please hurry!" They were back in five minutes. Joanne had slipped on a long gray coat, and with a veil that trailed a yard down her back she had covered her head. Not a curl or a tress of her hair had she left out of its filmy prison, and there was a mischievous gleam of triumph in her eyes when she looked at Aldous. A moment later, when they went ahead of Blackton and his wife to where the buckboard was waiting for them, he said: "You put on that veil to punish me, Ladygray?" "It is a pretty veil," said she. "But your hair is prettier," said he. "And you embarrassed me very much by staring as you did, John Aldous!" "Forgive me. It is--I mean you are--so beautiful." "And you are sometimes--most displeasing," said she. "Your ingenuousness, John Aldous, is shocking!" "Forgive me," he said again. "And you have known me but two days," she added. "Two days--is a long time," he argued. "One can be born, and live, and die in two days. Besides, our trails have crossed for years." "But--it displeases me." "What I have said?" "Yes." "And the way I have looked at you?" "Yes." Her voice was low and quiet now, her eyes were serious, and she was not smiling. "I know--I know," he groaned, and there was a deep thrill in his voice. "It's been only two days after all, Ladygray. It seems like--like a lifetime. I don't want you to think badly of me. God knows I don't!" "No, no. I don't," she said quickly and gently. "You are the finest gentleman I ever knew, John Aldous. Only--it embarrasses me." "I will cut out my tongue and put out my eyes----" "Nothing so terrible," she laughed softly. "Will you help me into the wagon? They are coming." She gave him her hand, warm and soft; and Blackton forced him into the seat between her and Peggy, and Joanne's hand rested in his arm all the way to the mountain that was to be blown up, and he told himself that he was a fool if he were not supremely happy. The wagon stopped, and he helped her out again, her warm little hand again close in his own, and when she looked at him he was the cool, smiling John Aldous of old, so cool, and strong, and unemotional that he saw surprise in her eyes first, and then that gentle, gathering glow that came when she was proud of him, and pleased with him. And as Blackton pointed out the mountain she unknotted the veil under her chin and let it drop back over her shoulders, so that the last light of the day fell richly in the trembling curls and thick coils of her hair. "And that is my reward," said John Aldous, but he whispered it to himself. They had stopped close to a huge flat rock, and on this rock men were at work fitting wires to a little boxlike thing that had a white button-lever. Paul Blackton pointed to this, and his face was flushed with excitement. "That's the little thing that's going to blow it up, Miss Gray--the touch of your finger on that little white button. Do you see that black base of the mountain yonder?--right there where you can see men moving about? It's half a mile from here, and the 'coyote' is there, dug into the wall of it." The tremble of enthusiasm was in his voice as he went on, pointing with his long arm: "Think of it! We're spending a hundred thousand dollars going through that rock that people who travel on the Grand Trunk Pacific in the future will be saved seven minutes in their journey from coast to coast! We're spending a hundred thousand there, and millions along the line, that we may have the smoothest roadbed in the world when we're done, and the quickest route from sea to sea. It looks like waste, but it isn't. It's science! It's the fight of competition! It's the determination behind the forces--the determination to make this road the greatest road in the world! Listen!" The gloom was thickening swiftly. The black mountain was fading slowly away, and up out of that gloom came now ghostly and far-reaching voices of men booming faintly through giant megaphones. "_Clear away! Clear away! Clear away!_" they said, and the valley and the mountain-sides caught up the echoes, until it seemed that a hundred voices were crying out the warning. Then fell a strange and weird silence, and the echoes faded away like the voices of dying men, and all was still save the far-away barking of a coyote that answered the mysterious challenges of the night. Joanne was close to the rock. Quietly the men who had been working on the battery drew back. "It is ready!" said one. "Wait!" said Blackton, as his wife went to speak, "Listen!" For five minutes there was silence. Then out of the night a single megaphone cried the word: "_Fire!_" "All is clear," said the engineer, with a deep breath. "All you have to do, Miss Gray, is to move that little lever from the side on which it now rests to the opposite side. Are you ready?" In the darkness Joanne's left hand had sought John's. It clung to his tightly. He could feel a little shiver run through her. "Yes," she whispered. "Then--if you please--press the button!" Slowly Joanne's right hand crept out, while the fingers of her left clung tighter to Aldous. She touched the button--thrust it over. A little cry that fell from between her tense lips told them she had done the work, and a silence like that of death fell on those who waited. A half a minute--perhaps three quarters--and a shiver ran under their feet, but there was no sound; and then a black pall, darker than the night, seemed to rise up out of the mountain, and with that, a second later, came the explosion. There was a rumbling and a jarring, as if the earth were convulsed under foot; volumes of dense black smoke shot upward, and in another instant these rolling, twisting volumes of black became lurid, and an explosion like that of a thousand great guns rent the air. As fast as the eye could follow sheets of flame shot up out of the sea of smoke, climbing higher and higher, in lightning flashes, until the lurid tongues licked the air a quarter of a mile above the startled wilderness. Explosion followed explosion, some of them coming in hollow, reverberating booms, others sounding as if in midair. Unseen by the watchers, the heavens were filled with hurtling rocks; solid masses of granite ten feet square were thrown a hundred feet away; rocks weighing a ton were hurled still farther, as if they were no more than stones flung by the hands of a giant; chunks that would have crashed from the roof to the basement of a skyscraper dropped a third of a mile away. For three minutes the frightful convulsions continued, and the tongues of flame leaped into the night. Then the lurid lights died out, shorter and shorter grew the sullen flashes, and then again fell--silence! During those appalling moments, unconscious of the act, Joanne had shrank close to Aldous, so that he felt the soft crush of her hair and the swift movement of her bosom. Blackton's voice brought them back to life. He laughed, and it was the laugh of a man who had looked upon work well done. "It has done the trick," he said. "To-morrow we will come and see. And I have changed my plans about Coyote Number Twenty-eight. Hutchins, the superintendent, is passing through in the afternoon, and I want him to see it." He spoke now to a man who had come up out of the darkness. "Gregg, have Twenty-eight ready at four o'clock to-morrow afternoon--four o'clock--sharp!" Then he said: "Dust and a bad smell will soon be settling about us. Come, let's go home!" And as they went back to the buckboard wagon through the gloom John Aldous still held Joanne's hand in his own, and she made no effort to take it from him. CHAPTER XVIII The next morning, when Aldous joined the engineer in the dining-room below, he was disappointed to find the breakfast table prepared for two instead of four. It was evident that Peggy Blackton and Joanne were not going to interrupt their beauty nap on their account. Blackton saw his friend's inquiring look, and chuckled. "Guess we'll have to get along without 'em this morning, old man. Lord bless me, did you hear them last night--after you went to bed?" "No." "You were too far away," chuckled Blackton again, "I was in the room across the hall from them. You see, old man, Peggy sometimes gets fairly starved for the right sort of company up here, and last night they didn't go to bed until after twelve o'clock. I looked at my watch. Mebby they were in bed, but I could hear 'em buzzing like two bees, and every little while they'd giggle, and then go on buzzing again. By George, there wasn't a break in it! When one let up the other'd begin, and sometimes I guess they were both going at once. Consequently, they're sleeping now." When breakfast was finished Blackton looked at his watch. "Seven o'clock," he said. "We'll leave word for the girls to be ready at nine. What are you going to do meantime, Aldous?" "Hunt up MacDonald, probably." "And I'll run down and take a look at the work." As they left the house the engineer nodded down the road. MacDonald was coming. "He has saved you the trouble," he said. "Remember, Aldous--nine o'clock sharp!" A moment later Aldous was advancing to meet the old mountaineer. "They've gone, Johnny," was Donald's first greeting. "Gone?" "Yes. The whole bunch--Quade, Culver Rann, DeBar, and the woman who rode the bear. They've gone, hide and hair, and nobody seems to know where." Aldous was staring. "Also," resumed old Donald slowly, "Culver Rann's outfit is gone--twenty horses, including six saddles. An' likewise others have gone, but I can't find out who." "Gone!" repeated Aldous again. MacDonald nodded. "And that means----" "That Culver Rann ain't lost any time in gettin' under way for the gold," said Donald. "DeBar is with him, an' probably the woman. Likewise three cut-throats to fill the other saddles. They've gone prepared to fight." "And Quade?" Old Donald hunched his shoulders, and suddenly John's face grew dark and hard. "I understand," he spoke, half under his breath. "Quade has disappeared--but he isn't with Culver Rann. He wants us to believe he has gone. He wants to throw us off our guard. But he's watching, and waiting--somewhere--like a hawk, to swoop down on Joanne! He----" "That's it!" broke in MacDonald hoarsely. "That's it, Johnny! It's his old trick--his old trick with women. There's a hunderd men who've got to do his bidding--do it 'r get out of the mountains--an' we've got to watch Joanne. We have, Johnny! If she should disappear----" Aldous waited. "You'd never find her again, so 'elp me God, you wouldn't, Johnny!" he finished. "We'll watch her," said Aldous quietly. "I'll be with her to-day, Mac, and to-night I'll come down to the camp in the coulee to compare notes with you. They can't very well steal her out of Blackton's house while I'm gone." For an hour after MacDonald left him he walked about in the neighbourhood of the Blackton bungalow smoking his pipe. Not until he saw the contractor drive up in the buckboard did he return. Joanne and Peggy were more than prompt. They were waiting. If such a thing were possible Joanne was more radiantly lovely than the night before. To Aldous she became more beautiful every time he looked at her. But this morning he did not speak what was in his heart when, for a moment, he held her hand, and looked into her eyes. Instead, he said: "Good morning, Ladygray. Have you used----" "I have," she smiled. "Only it's Potterdam's Tar Soap, and not the other. And you--have not shaved, John Aldous!" "Great Scott, so I haven't!" he exclaimed, rubbing his chin. "But I did yesterday afternoon, Ladygray!" "And you will again this afternoon, if you please," she commanded. "I don't like bristles." "But in the wilderness----" "One can shave as well as another can make curls," she reminded him, and there came an adorable little dimple at the corner of her mouth as she looked toward Paul Blackton. Aldous was glad that Paul and Peggy Blackton did most of the talking that morning. They spent half an hour where the explosion of the night before had blown out the side of the mountain, and then drove on to Coyote Number Twenty-eight. It was in the face of a sandstone cliff, and all they could see of it when they got out of the wagon was a dark hole in the wall of rock. Not a soul was about, and Blackton rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "Everything is completed," he said. "Gregg put in the last packing this morning, and all we are waiting for now is four o'clock this afternoon." The hole in the mountain was perhaps four feet square. Ten feet in front of it the engineer paused, and pointed to the ground. Up out of the earth came two wires, which led away from the mouth of the cavern. "Those wires go down to the explosives," he explained. "They're battery wires half a mile long. But we don't attach the battery until the final moment, as you saw last night. There might be an accident." He bent his tall body and entered the mouth of the cavern, leading his wife by the hand. Observing that Joanne had seen this attention on the contractor's part, Aldous held out his own hand, and Joanne accepted it. For perhaps twenty feet they followed the Blacktons with lowered heads. They seemed to have entered a black, cold pit, sloping slightly downward, and only faintly could they see Blackton when he straightened. His voice came strange and sepulchral: "You can stand up now. We're in the chamber. Don't move or you might stumble over something. There ought to be a lantern here." He struck a match, and as he moved slowly toward a wall of blackness, searching for the lantern, he called back encouragingly through the gloom: "You folks are now standing right over ten tons of dynamite, and there's another five tons of black powder----" A little shriek from Peggy Blackton stopped him, and his match went out. "What in heaven's name is the matter?" he asked anxiously. "Peggy----" "Why in heaven's name do you light a match then, with us standing over all those tons of dynamite?" demanded Peggy. "Paul Blackton, you're----" The engineer's laughter was like a giant's roar in the cavern, and Joanne gave a gasp, while Peggy shiveringly caught Aldous by the arm. "There--I've got the lantern!" exclaimed Blackton. "There isn't any danger, not a bit. Wait a minute and I'll tell you all about it." He lighted the lantern, and in the glow of it Joanne's and Peggy's faces were white and startled. "Why, bless my soul, I didn't mean to frighten you!" he cried. "I was just telling you facts. See, we're standing on a solid floor--four feet of packed rock and cement. The dynamite and black powder are under that. We're in a chamber--a cave--an artificial cavern. It's forty feet deep, twenty wide, and about seven high." He held the lantern even with his shoulders and walked deeper into the cavern as he spoke. The others followed. They passed a keg on which was a half-burned candle. Close to the keg was an empty box. Beyond these things the cavern was empty. "I thought it was full of powder and dynamite," apologized Peggy. "You see, it's like this," Blackton began. "We put the powder and dynamite down there, and pack it over solid with rock and cement. If we didn't leave this big air-chamber above it there would be only one explosion, and probably two thirds of the explosive would not fire, and would be lost. This chamber corrects that. You heard a dozen explosions last night, and you'll hear a dozen this afternoon, and the biggest explosion of all is usually the fourth or fifth. A 'coyote' isn't like an ordinary blast or shot. It's a mighty expensive thing, and you see it means a lot of work. Now, if some one were to touch off those explosives at this minute---- What's the matter, Peggy? Are you cold? You're shivering!" "Ye-e-e-e-s!" chattered Peggy. Aldous felt Joanne tugging at his hand. "Let's take Mrs. Blackton out," she whispered. "I'm--I'm--afraid she'll take cold!" In spite of himself Aldous could not restrain his laughter until they had got through the tunnel. Out in the sunlight he looked at Joanne, still holding her hand. She withdrew it, looking at him accusingly. "Lord bless me!" exclaimed Blackton, who seemed to understand at last. "There's no danger--not a bit!" "But I'd rather look at it from outside, Paul, dear," said Mrs. Blackton. "But--Peggy--if it went off now you'd be in just as bad shape out here!" "I don't think we'd be quite so messy, really I don't, dear," she persisted. "Lord bless me!" he gasped. "And they'd probably be able to find something of us," she added. "Not a button, Peggy!" "Then I'm going to move, if you please!" And suiting her action to the word Peggy led the way to the buckboard. There she paused and took one of her husband's big hands fondly in both her own. "It's perfectly wonderful, Paul--and I'm proud of you!" she said. "But, honestly, dear, I can enjoy it so much better at four o'clock this afternoon." Smiling, Blackton lifted her into the buckboard. "That's why I wish Paul had been a preacher or something like that," she confided to Joanne as they drove homeward. "I'm growing old just thinking of him working over that horrid dynamite and powder all the time. Every little while some one is blown into nothing." "I believe," said Joanne, "that I'd like to do something like that if I were a man. I'd want to be a man, not that preachers aren't men, Peggy, dear--but I'd want to do things, like blowing up mountains for instance, or finding buried cities, or"--she whispered, very, very softly under her breath--"writing books, John Aldous!" Only Aldous heard those last words, and Joanne gave a sharp little cry; and when Peggy asked her what the matter was Joanne did not tell her that John Aldous had almost broken her hand on the opposite side--for Joanne was riding between the two. "It's lame for life," she said to him half an hour later, when he was bidding her good-bye, preparatory to accompanying Blackton down to the working steel. "And I deserve it for trying to be kind to you. I think some writers of books are--are perfectly intolerable!" "Won't you take a little walk with me right after dinner?" he was asking for the twentieth time. "I doubt it very, very much." "Please, Ladygray!" "I may possibly think about it." With that she left him, and she did not look back as she and Peggy Blackton went into the house. But as they drove away they saw two faces at the window that overlooked the townward road, and two hands were waving good-bye. Both could not be Peggy Blackton's hands. "Joanne and I are going for a walk this afternoon, Blackton," said Aldous, "and I just want to tell you not to worry if we're not back by four o'clock. Don't wait for us. We may be watching the blow-up from the top of some mountain." Blackton chuckled. "Don't blame you," he said. "From an observer's point of view, John, it looks to me as though you were going to have something more than hope to live on pretty soon!" "I--I hope so." "And when I was going with Peggy I wouldn't have traded a quiet little walk with her--like this you're suggesting--for a front seat look at a blow-up of the whole Rocky Mountain system!" "And you won't forget to tell Mrs. Blackton that we may not return by four o'clock?" "I will not. And"--Blackton puffed hard at his pipe--"and, John--the Tête Jaune preacher is our nearest neighbour," he finished. From then until dinner time John Aldous lived in an atmosphere that was not quite real, but a little like a dream. His hopes and his happiness were at their highest. He knew that Joanne would go walking with him that afternoon, and in spite of his most serious efforts to argue to the contrary he could not keep down the feeling that the event would mean a great deal for him. Almost feverishly he interested himself in Paul Blackton's work. When they returned to the bungalow, a little before noon, he went to his room, shaved himself, and in other ways prepared for dinner. Joanne and the Blacktons were waiting when he came down. His first look at Joanne assured him. She was dressed in a soft gray walking-suit. Never had the preparation of a dinner seemed so slow to him, and a dozen times he found himself inwardly swearing at Tom, the Chinese cook. It was one o'clock before they sat down at the table and it was two o'clock when they arose. It was a quarter after two when Joanne and he left the bungalow. "Shall we wander up on the mountain?" he asked. "It would be fine to look down upon the explosion." "I have noticed that in some things you are very observant," said Joanne, ignoring his question. "In the matter of curls, for instance, you are unapproachable; in others you are--quite blind, John Aldous!" "What do you mean?" he asked, bewildered. "I lost my scarf this morning, and you did not notice it. It is quite an unusual scarf. I bought it in Cairo, and I don't want to have it blown up." "You mean----" "Yes. I must have dropped it in the cavern. I had it when we entered." "Then we'll return for it," he volunteered. "We'll still have plenty of time to climb up the mountain before the explosion." Twenty minutes later they came to the dark mouth of the tunnel. There was no one in sight, and for a moment Aldous searched for matches in his pocket. "Wait here," he said. "I won't be gone two minutes." He entered, and when he came to the chamber he struck a match. The lantern was on the empty box. He lighted it, and began looking for the scarf. Suddenly he heard a sound. He turned, and saw Joanne standing in the glow of the lantern. "Can you find it?" she asked. "I haven't--yet." They bent over the rock floor, and in a moment Joanne gave a little exclamation of pleasure as she caught up the scarf. In that same moment, as they straightened and faced each other, John Aldous felt his heart cease beating, and Joanne's face had gone as white as death. The rock-walled chamber was atremble; they heard a sullen, distant roaring, and as Aldous caught Joanne's hand and sprang toward the tunnel the roar grew into a deafening crash, and a gale of wind rushed into their faces, blowing out the lantern, and leaving them in darkness. The mountain seemed crumbling about them, and above the sound of it rang out a wild, despairing cry from Joanne's lips. For there was no longer the brightness of sunshine at the end of the tunnel, but darkness--utter darkness; and through that tunnel there came a deluge of dust and rock that flung them back into the blackness of the pit, and separated them. "John--John Aldous!" "I am here, Joanne! I will light the lantern!" His groping hands found the lantern. He relighted it, and Joanne crept to his side, her face as white as the face of the dead. He held the lantern above him, and together they stared at where the tunnel had been. A mass of rock met their eyes. The tunnel was choked. And then, slowly, each turned to the other; and each knew that the other understood--for it was Death that whispered about them now in the restless air of the rock-walled tomb, a terrible death, and their lips spoke no words as their eyes met in that fearful and silent understanding. CHAPTER XIX Joanne's white lips spoke first. "The tunnel is closed!" she whispered. Her voice was strange. It was not Joanne's voice. It was unreal, terrible, and her eyes were terrible as they looked steadily into his. Aldous could not answer; something had thickened in his throat, and his blood ran cold as he stared into Joanne's dead-white face and saw the understanding in her eyes. For a space he could not move, and then, as suddenly as it had fallen upon him, the effect of the shock passed away. [Illustration: "The tunnel is closed," she whispered.... "That means we have just forty-five minutes to live.... Let us not lie to one another."] He smiled, and put out a hand to her. "A slide of rock has fallen over the mouth of the tunnel," he said, forcing himself to speak as if it meant little or nothing. "Hold the lantern, Joanne, while I get busy." "A slide of rock," she repeated after him dumbly. She took the lantern, her eyes still looking at him in that stricken way, and with his naked hands John Aldous set to work. Five minutes and he knew that it was madness to continue. Hands alone could not clear the tunnel. And yet he worked, tearing into the rock and shale like an animal; rolling back small boulders, straining at larger ones until the tendons of his arms seemed ready to snap and his veins to burst. For a few minutes after that he went mad. His muscles cracked, he panted as he fought with the rock until his hands were torn and bleeding, and over and over again there ran through his head Blackton's last words--_Four o'clock this afternoon!--Four o'clock this afternoon!_ Then he came to what he knew he would reach very soon, a solid wall! Rock and shale and earth were packed as if by battering rams. For a few moments he fought to control himself before facing Joanne. Over him swept the grim realization that his last fight must be for her. He steadied himself, and wiped the dust and grime from his face with his handkerchief. For the last time he swallowed hard. His soul rose within him almost joyously now in the face of this last great fight, and he turned--John Aldous, the super-man. There was no trace of fear in his face as he went to her. He was even smiling in that ghostly glow of the lantern. "It is hard work, Joanne." She did not seem to hear what he had said. She was looking at his hands. She held the lantern nearer. "Your hands are bleeding, John!" It was the first time she had spoken his name like that, and he was thrilled by the calmness of her voice, the untrembling gentleness of her hand as it touched his hand. From his bruised and bleeding flesh she raised her eyes to him, and they were no longer the dumb, horrified eyes he had gazed into fifteen minutes before. In the wonder of it he stood silent, and the moment was weighted with an appalling silence. It came to them both in that instant--the _tick-tick-tick_ of the watch in his pocket! Without taking her eyes from his face she asked: "What time is it. John?" "Joanne----" "I am not afraid," she whispered. "I was afraid this afternoon, but I am not afraid now. What time is it, John?" "My God--they'll dig us out!" he cried wildly. "Joanne, you don't think they won't dig us out, do you? Why, that's impossible! The slide has covered the wires. They've got to dig us out! There is no danger--none at all. Only it's chilly, and uncomfortable, and I'm afraid you'll take cold!" "What time is it?" she repeated softly. For a moment he looked steadily at her, and his heart leaped when he saw that she must believe him, for though her face was as white as an ivory cross she was smiling at him--yes! she was smiling at him in that gray and ghastly death-gloom of the cavern! He brought out his watch, and in the lantern-glow they looked at it. "A quarter after three," he said. "By four o'clock they will be at work--Blackton and twenty men. They will have us out in time for supper." "A quarter after three," repeated Joanne, and the words came steadily from her lips. "That means----" He waited. "_We have forty-five minutes in which to live!_" she said. Before he could speak she had thrust the lantern into his hand, and had seized his other hand in both her own. "If there are only forty-five minutes let us not lie to one another," she said, and her voice was very close. "I know why you are doing it, John Aldous. It is for me. You have done a great deal for me in these two days in which one 'can be born, and live, and die.' But in these last minutes I do not want you to act what I know cannot be the truth. You know--and I know. The wires are laid to the battery rock. There is no hope. At four o'clock--we both know what will happen. And I--am not afraid." She heard him choking for speech. In a moment he said: "There are other lanterns--Joanne. I saw them when I was looking for the scarf. I will light them." He found two lanterns hanging against the rock wall. He lighted them, and the half-burned candle. "It is pleasanter," she said. She stood in the glow of them when he turned to her, tall, and straight, and as beautiful as an angel. Her lips were pale; the last drop of blood had ebbed from her face; but there was something glorious in the poise of her head, and in the wistful gentleness of her mouth and the light in her eyes. And then, slowly, as he stood looking with a face torn in its agony for her, she held out her arms. "John--John Aldous----" "Joanne! Oh, my God!--Joanne!" She swayed as he sprang to her, but she was smiling--smiling in that new and wonderful way as her arms reached out to him, and the words he heard her say came low and sobbing: "John--John, if you want to, now--you can tell me that my hair is beautiful!" And then she was in his arms, her warm, sweet body crushed close to him, her face lifted to him, her soft hands stroking his face, and over and over again she was speaking his name while from out of his soul there rushed forth the mighty flood of his great love; and he held her there, forgetful of time now, forgetful of death itself; and he kissed her tender lips, her hair, her eyes--conscious only that in the hour of death he had found life, that her hands were stroking his face, and caressing his hair, and that over and over again she was whispering sobbingly his name, and that she loved him. The pressure of her hands against his breast at last made him free her. And now, truly, she was glorious. For the triumph of love had overridden the despair of death, and her face was flooded with its colour and in her eyes was its glory. And then, as they stood there, a step between them, there came--almost like the benediction of a cathedral bell--the soft, low tinkling chime of the half-hour bell in Aldous' watch! It struck him like a blow. Every muscle in him became like rigid iron, and his torn hands clenched tightly at his sides. "Joanne--Joanne, it is impossible!" he cried huskily, and he had her close in his arms again, even as her face was whitening in the lantern-glow. "I have lived for you, I have waited for you--all these years you have been coming, coming, coming to me--and now that you are mine--_mine_--it is impossible! It cannot happen----" He freed her again, and caught up a lantern. Foot by foot he examined the packed tunnel. It was solid--not a crevice or a break through which might have travelled the sound of his voice or the explosion of a gun. He did not shout. He knew that it would be hopeless, and that his voice would be terrifying in that sepulchral tomb. Was it possible that there might be some other opening--a possible exit--in that mountain wall? With the lantern in his hand he searched. There was no break. He came back to Joanne. She was standing where he had left her. And suddenly, as he looked at her, all fear went out of him, and he put down the lantern and went to her. "Joanne," he whispered, holding her two hands against his breast, "you are not afraid?" "No, I am not afraid." "And you know----" "Yes, I know," and she leaned forward so that her head lay partly against their clasped hands and partly upon his breast. "And you love me, Joanne?" "As I never dreamed that I should love a man, John Aldous," she whispered. "And yet it has been but two days----" "And I have lived an eternity," he heard her lips speak softly. "You would be my wife?" "Yes." "To-morrow?" "If you wanted me then, John." "I thank God," he breathed in her hair. "And you would come to me without reservation, Joanne, trusting me, believing in me--you would come to me body, and heart, and soul?" "In all those ways--yes." "I thank God," he breathed again. He raised her face. He looked deep into her eyes, and the glory of her love grew in them, and her lips trembled as she lifted them ever so little for him to kiss. "Oh, I was happy--so happy," she whispered, putting her hands to his face. "John, I knew that you loved me, and oh! I was fighting so hard to keep myself from letting you know how happy it made me. And here, I was afraid you wouldn't tell me--before it happened. And John--John----" She leaned back from him, and her white hands moved like swift shadows in her hair, and then, suddenly, it billowed about her--her glorious hair--covering her from crown to hip; and with her hands she swept and piled the lustrous masses of it over him until his face, and head, and shoulders were buried in the flaming sheen and sweet perfume of it. He strained her closer. Through the warm richness of her tresses his lips pressed her lips, and they ceased to breathe. And up to their ears, pounding through that enveloping shroud of her hair came the _tick-tick-tick_ of the watch in his pocket. "Joanne," he whispered. "Yes, John." "You are not afraid of--death?" "No, not when you are holding me like this, John." He still clasped her hands, and a sweet smile crept over her lips. "Even now you are splendid," she said. "Oh, I would have you that way, my John!" Again they stood up in the unsteady glow of the lanterns. "What time is it?" she asked. He drew out his watch, and as they both looked his blood ran cold. "Twelve minutes," she murmured, and there was not a quiver in her voice. "Let us sit down, John--you on this box, and I on the floor, at your feet--like this." He seated himself on the box, and Joanne nestled herself at his knees, her hands clasped in his. "I think, John," she said softly, "that very, very often we would have visited like this--you and I--in the evening." A lump choked him, and he could not answer. "I would very often have come and perched myself at your feet like this." "Yes, yes, my beloved." "And you would always have told me how beautiful my hair was--always. You would not have forgotten that, John--or have grown tired?" "No, no--never!" His arms were about her. He was drawing her closer. "And we would have had beautiful times together, John--writing, and going adventuring, and--and----" He felt her trembling, throbbing, and her arms tightened about him. And now, again up through the smother of her hair, came the _tick-tick-tick_ of his watch. He felt her fumbling at his watch pocket, and in a moment she was holding the timepiece between them, so that the light of the lantern fell on the face of it. "It is three minutes of four, John." The watch slipped from her fingers, and now she drew herself up so that her arms were about his neck, and their faces touched. "Dear John, you love me?" "So much that even now, in the face of death, I am happy," he whispered. "Joanne, sweetheart, we are not going to be separated. We are going--together. Through all eternity it must be like this--you and I, together. Little girl, wind your hair about me--tight!" "There--and there--and there, John! I have tied you to me, and you are buried in it! Kiss me, John----" And then the wild and terrible fear of a great loneliness swept through him. For Joanne's voice had died away in a whispering breath, and the lips he kissed did not kiss him back, and her body lay heavy, heavy, heavy in his arms. Yet in his loneliness he thanked God for bringing her oblivion in these last moments, and with his face crushed to hers he waited. For he knew that it was no longer a matter of minutes, but of seconds, and in those seconds he prayed, until up through the warm smother of her hair--with the clearness of a tolling bell--came the sound of the little gong in his watch striking the Hour of Four! In space other worlds might have crumbled into ruin; on earth the stories of empires might have been written and the lives of men grown old in those first century-long seconds in which John Aldous held his breath and waited after the chiming of the hour-bell in the watch on the cavern floor. How long he waited he did not know; how closely he was crushing Joanne to his breast he did not realize. Seconds, minutes, and other minutes--and his brain ran red in dumb, silent madness. And the watch! It _ticked, ticked, ticked!_ It was like a hammer. He had heard the sound of it first coming up through her hair. But it was not in her hair now. It was over him, about him--it was no longer a ticking, but a throb, a steady, jarring, beating throb. It grew louder, and the air stirred with it. He lifted his head. With the eyes of a madman he stared--and listened. His arms relaxed from about Joanne, and she slipped crumpled and lifeless to the floor. He stared--and that steady _beat-beat-beat_--a hundred times louder than the ticking of a watch--pounded in his brain. Was he mad? He staggered to the choked mouth of the tunnel, and then there fell shout upon shout, and shriek upon shriek from his lips, and twice, like a madman now, he ran back to Joanne and caught her up in his arms, calling and sobbing her name, and then shouting--and calling her name again. She moved; her eyes opened, and like one gazing upon the spirit of the dead she looked into the face of John Aldous, a madman's face in the lantern-glow. "John--John----" She put up her hands, and with a cry he ran with her in his arms to the choked tunnel. "Listen! Listen!" he cried wildly. "Dear God in Heaven, Joanne--can you not hear them? It's Blackton--Blackton and his men! Hear--hear the rock-hammers smashing! Joanne--Joanne--we are saved!" She did not sense him. She swayed, half on her feet, half in his arms, as consciousness and reason returned to her. Dazedly her hands went to his face in their old, sweet way. Aldous saw her struggling to understand--to comprehend; and he kissed her soft upturned lips, fighting back the excitement that made him want to raise his voice again in wild and joyous shouting. "It is Blackton!" he said over and over again. "It is Blackton and his men! Listen!--you can hear their picks and the pounding of their rock-hammers!" CHAPTER XX At last Joanne realized that the explosion was not to come, that Blackton and his men were working to save them. And now, as she listened with him, her breath began to come in sobbing excitement between her lips--for there was no mistaking that sound, that steady _beat-beat-beat_ that came from beyond the cavern wall and seemed to set strange tremors stirring in the air about their ears. For a few moments they stood stunned and silent, as if not yet quite fully comprehending that they had come from out of the pit of death, and that men were fighting for their rescue. They asked themselves no questions--why the "coyote" had not been fired? how those outside knew they were in the cavern. And, as they listened, there came to them a voice. It was faint, so faint that it seemed to whisper to them through miles and miles of space--yet they knew that it was a voice! "Some one is shouting," spoke Aldous tensely. "Joanne, my darling, stand around the face of the wall so flying rock will not strike you and I will answer with my pistol!" When he had placed her in safety from split lead and rock chips, he drew his automatic and fired it close up against the choked tunnel. He fired five times, steadily, counting three between each shot, and then he placed his ear to the mass of stone and earth and listened. Joanne slipped to him like a shadow. Her hand sought his, and they held their breaths. They no longer heard sounds--nothing but the crumbling and falling of dust and pebbles where the bullets had struck, and their own heart-beats. The picks and rock-hammers had ceased. Tighter and tighter grew the clasp of Joanne's fingers, and a terrible thought flashed into John's brain. Perhaps a, rock from the slide had cut a wire, and they had found the wire--had repaired it! Was that thought in Joanne's mind, too? Her finger-nails pricked his flesh. He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tense and gray. And then her eyes shot open--wide and staring. They heard, faintly though it came to them--once, twice, three times, four, five--the firing of a gun! John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips. "Five times!" he said. "It is an answer. There is no longer doubt." He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer. Where those picks and rock-hammers fell a score of men were working like fiends: Blackton, his arms stripped to the shoulders; Gregg, sweating and urging the men; and among them--lifting and tearing at the rock like a madman--old Donald MacDonald, his shirt open, his great hands bleeding, his hair and beard tossing about him in the wind. Behind them, her hands clasped to her breast--crying out to them to hurry, _hurry_--stood Peggy Blackton. The strength of five men was in every pair of arms. Huge boulders were rolled back. Men pawed earth and shale with their naked hands. Rock-hammers fell with blows that would have cracked the heart of a granite obelisk. Half an hour--three quarters--and Blackton came back to where Peggy was standing, his face black and grimed, his arms red-seared where the edges of the rocks had caught them, his eyes shining. "We're almost there, Peggy," he panted. "Another five minutes and----" A shout interrupted him. A cloud of dust rolled out of the mouth of the tunnel, and into that dust rushed half a dozen men led by old Donald. Before the dust had settled they began to reappear, and with a shrill scream Peggy Blackton darted forward and flung her arms about the gold-shrouded figure of Joanne, swaying and laughing and sobbing in the sunshine. And old Donald, clasping his great arms about Aldous, cried brokenly: "Oh, Johnny, Johnny--something told me to foller ye--an' I was just in time--just in time to see you go into the coyote!" "God bless you, Mac!" said Aldous, and then Paul Blackton was wringing his hands; and one after another the others shook his hand, but Peggy Blackton was crying like a baby as she hugged Joanne in her arms. "MacDonald came just in time," explained Blackton a moment later; and he tried to speak steadily, and tried to smile. "Ten minutes more, and----" He was white. "Now that it has turned out like this I thank God that it happened, Paul," said Aldous, for the engineer's ears alone. "We thought we were facing death, and so--I told her. And in there, on our knees, we pledged ourselves man and wife. I want the minister--as quick as you can get him, Blackton. Don't say anything to Joanne, but bring him to the house right away, will you?" "Within half an hour," replied Blackton. "There comes Tony with the buckboard. We'll hustle up to the house and I'll have the preacher there in a jiffy." As they went to the wagon, Aldous looked about for MacDonald. He had disappeared. Requesting Gregg to hunt him up and send him to the bungalow, he climbed into the back seat, with Joanne between him and Peggy. Her little hand lay in his. Her fingers clung to him. But her hair hid her face, and on the other side of her Peggy Blackton was laughing and talking and crying by turns. As they entered the bungalow, Aldous whispered to Joanne: "Will you please go right to your room, dear? I want to say something to you--alone." When she went up the stair, Peggy caught a signal from her husband. Aldous remained with them. In two minutes he told the bewildered and finally delighted Peggy what was going to happen, and as Blackton hustled out for the minister's house he followed Joanne. She had fastened her door behind her. He knocked. Slowly she opened it. "John----" "I have told them, dear," he whispered happily. "They understand. And, Joanne, Paul Blackton will be back in ten minutes--with the minister. Are you glad?" She had opened the door wide, and he was heading out his arms to her again. For a moment she did not move, but stood there trembling a little, and deeper and sweeter grew the colour in her face, and tenderer the look in her eyes. "I must brush my hair," she answered, as though she could think of no other words. "I--I must dress." Laughing joyously, he went to her and gathered the soft masses of her hair in his hands, and piled it up in a glorious disarray about her face and head, holding it there, and still laughing into her eyes. "Joanne, you are mine!" "Unless I have been dreaming--I am, John Aldous!" "Forever and forever." "Yes, forever--and ever." "And because I want the whole world to know, we are going to be married by a minister." She was silent. "And as my wife to be," he went on, his voice trembling with his happiness, "you must obey me!" "I think that I shall, John." "Then you will not brush your hair, and you will not change your dress, and you will not wash the dust from your face and that sweet little beauty-spot from the tip of your nose," he commanded, and now he drew her head close to him, so that he whispered, half in her hair: "Joanne, my darling, I want you _wholly_ as you came to me there, when we thought we were going to die. It was there you promised to become my wife, and I want you as you were then--when the minister comes." "John, I think I hear some one coming up the front steps!" They listened. The door opened. They heard voices--Blackton's voice, Peggy's voice, and another voice--a man's voice. Blackton's voice came up to them very distinctly. "Mighty lucky, Peggy," he said. "Caught Mr. Wollaver just as he was passing the house. Where's----" "Sh-h-hh!" came Peggy Blackton's sibilant whisper. Joanne's hands had crept to John's face. "I think," she said, "that it is the minister, John." Her warm lips were near, and he kissed them. "Come, Joanne. We will go down." Hand in hand they went down the stair; and when the minister saw Joanne, covered in the tangle and glory of her hair; and when he saw John Aldous, with half-naked arms and blackened face; and when, with these things, he saw the wonderful joy shining in their eyes, he stood like one struck dumb at sight of a miracle descending out of the skies. For never had Joanne looked more beautiful than in this hour, and never had man looked more like entering into paradise than John Aldous. Short and to the point was the little mountain minister's service, and when he had done he shook hands with them, and again he stared at them as they went back up the stair, still hand in hand. At her door they stopped. There were no words to speak now, as her heart lay against his heart, and her lips against his lips. And then, after those moments, she drew a little back, and there came suddenly that sweet, quivering, joyous play of her lips as she said: "And now, my husband, may I dress my hair?" "My hair," he corrected, and let her go from his arms. Her door closed behind her. A little dizzily he turned to his room. His hand was on the knob when he heard her speak his name. She had reopened her door, and stood with something in her hand, which she was holding toward him. He went back, and she gave him a photograph. "John, you will destroy this," she whispered. "It is his photograph--Mortimer FitzHugh's. I brought it to show to people, that it might help me in my search. Please--destroy it!" He returned to his room and placed the photograph on his table. It was wrapped in thin paper, and suddenly there came upon him a most compelling desire to see what Mortimer FitzHugh had looked like in life. Joanne would not care. Perhaps it would be best for him to know. He tore off the paper. And as he looked at the picture the hot blood in his veins ran cold. He stared--stared as if some wild and maddening joke was being played upon his faculties. A cry rose to his lips and broke in a gasping breath, and about him the floor, the world itself, seemed slipping away from under his feet. For the picture he held in his hand was the picture of Culver Rann! CHAPTER XXI For a minute, perhaps longer, John Aldous stood staring at the photograph which he held in his hand. It was the picture of Culver Rann--not once did he question that fact, and not once did the thought flash upon him that this might be only an unusual and startling resemblance. It was assuredly Culver Rann! The picture dropped from his hand to the table, and he went toward the door. His first impulse was to go to Joanne. But when he reached the door he locked it, and dropped into a chair, facing the mirror in his dresser. The reflection of his own face was a shock to him. If he was pale, the dust and grime of his fight in the cavern concealed his pallor. But the face that stared at him from out of the glass was haggard, wildly and almost grotesquely haggard, and he turned from it with a grim laugh, and set his jaws hard. He returned to the table, and bit by bit tore the photograph into thin shreds, and then piled the shreds on his ash-tray and burned them. He opened a window to let out the smoke and smell of charring paper, and the fresh, cool air of early evening struck his face. He could look off through the fading sunshine of the valley and see the mountain where Coyote Number Twenty-eight was to have done its work, and as he looked he gripped the window-sill so fiercely that the nails of his fingers were bent and broken against the wood. And in his brain the same words kept repeating themselves over and over again. Mortimer FitzHugh was not dead. He was alive. He was Culver Rann. And Joanne--Joanne was not _his_ wife; she was still the wife of Mortimer FitzHugh--of Culver Rann! He turned again to the mirror, and there was another look in his face. It was grim, terribly grim--and smiling. There was no excitement, nothing of the passion and half-madness with which he had faced Quade and Rann the night before. He laughed softly, and his nails dug as harshly into the palms of his hands as they had dug into the sills of the window. "You poor, drivelling, cowardly fool!" he said to his reflection. "And you dare to say--you dare to _think_ that she is not your wife?" As if in reply to his words there came a knock at the door, and from the hall Blackton called: "Here's MacDonald, Aldous. He wants to see you." Aldous opened the door and the old hunter entered. "If I ain't interruptin' you, Johnny----" "You're the one man in the world I want to see, Mac. No, I'll take that back; there's one other I want to see worse than you--Culver Rann." The strange look in his face made old Donald stare. "Sit down," he said, drawing two chairs close to the table. "There's something to talk about. It was a terribly close shave, wasn't it?" "An awful close shave, Johnny. As close a shave as ever was." Still, as if not quite understanding what he saw, old Donald was staring into John's face. "I'm glad it happened," said Aldous, and his voice became softer. "She loves me, Mac. It all came out when we were in there, and thought we were going to die. Not ten minutes ago the minister was here, and he made us man and wife." Words of gladness that sprang to the old man's lips were stopped by that strange, cold, tense look in the face of John Aldous. "And in the last five minutes," continued Aldous, as quietly as before, "I have learned that Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband, is not dead. Is it very remarkable that you do not find me happy, Mac? If you had come a few minutes ago----" "Oh, my God! Johnny! Johnny!" MacDonald had pitched forward over the table, and now he bowed his great shaggy head in his hands, and his gaunt shoulders shook as his voice came brokenly through his beard. "I did it, Johnny; I did it for you an' her! When I knew what it would mean for her--I _couldn't_, Johnny, I couldn't tell her the truth, 'cause I knew she loved you, an' you loved her, an' it would break her heart. I thought it would be best, an' you'd go away together, an' nobody would ever know, an' you'd be happy. I didn't lie. I didn't say anything. But Johnny--Johnny, _there weren't no bones in the grave!_" "My God!" breathed Aldous. "There were just some clothes," went on MacDonald huskily, "an' the watch an' the ring were on top. Johnny, there weren't nobody ever buried there, an' I'm to blame--I'm to blame." "And you did that for us," cried Aldous, and suddenly he reached over and gripped old Donald's hands. "It wasn't a mistake, Mac. I thank God you kept silent. If you had told her that the grave was empty, that it was a fraud, I don't know what would have happened. And now--she is _mine!_ If she had seen Culver Rann, if she had discovered that this scoundrel, this blackmailer and murderer, was Mortimer FitzHugh, her husband----" "Johnny! John Aldous!" Donald MacDonald's voice came now like the deep growling roar of a she-bear, and as he cried the other's name he sprang to his feet, and his eyes gleamed in their deep sockets like raging fires. "Johnny!" Aldous rose, and he was smiling. He nodded. "That's it," he said. "Mortimer FitzHugh is Culver Rann!" "An'--an' you know this?" "Absolutely. Joanne gave me Mortimer FitzHugh's photograph to destroy. I am sorry that I burned it before you saw it. But there is no doubt. Mortimer FitzHugh and Culver Rann are the same man." Slowly the old mountaineer turned to the door. Aldous was ahead of him, and stood with his hand on the knob. "I don't want you to go yet, Mac." "I--I'll see you a little later," said Donald clumsily. "Donald!" "Johnny!" For a full half minute they looked steadily into each other's eyes. "Only a week, Johnny," pleaded Donald. "I'll be back in a week." "You mean that you will kill him?" "He'll never come back. I swear it, Johnny!" As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back to the chair. "That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer. I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hired assassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day--very soon--I will tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life, and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald. And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great game, Mac--and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because Joanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love. "Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me. Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatest desire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall give him the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance, and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have an advantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that the sun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should step in, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands--why, then you may deal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than One against One." "It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon, Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the woman are with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. There are five of 'em--five men." "And we are two," smiled Aldous. "So there _is_ an advantage on their side, isn't there, Mac? And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn't it?" "Johnny, we're good for the five!" cried old Donald in a low, eager voice. "If we start now----" "Can you have everything ready by morning?" "The outfit's waiting. It's ready now, Johnny." "Then we'll leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not let Joanne know. She must suspect nothing--absolutely nothing." "Nothing," repeated MacDonald as he went to the door. There he paused and, hesitating for a moment, leaned close to Aldous, and said in a low voice: "Johnny, I've been wondering why the grave were empty. I've been wondering why there weren't somebody's bones there just t' give it the look it should 'a' had an' why the clothes were laid out so nicely with the watch an' the ring on top!" With that he was gone, and Aldous closed and relocked the door. He was amazed at his own composure as he washed himself and proceeded to dress for supper. What had happened had stunned him at first, had even terrified him for a few appalling moments. Now he was superbly self-possessed. He asked himself questions and answered them with a promptness which left no room for doubt in his mind as to what his actions should be. One fact he accepted as absolute: Joanne belonged to him. She was his wife. He regarded her as that, even though Mortimer FitzHugh was alive. In the eyes of both God and man FitzHugh no longer had a claim upon her. This man, who was known as Culver Rann, was worse than Quade, a scoundrel of the first water, a procurer, a blackmailer, even a murderer--though he had thus far succeeded in evading the rather loose and poorly working tentacles of mountain law. Not for an instant did he think of Joanne as Culver Rann's wife. She was _his_ wife. It was merely a technicality of the law--a technicality that Joanne might break with her little finger--that had risen now between them and happiness. And it was this that he knew was the mountain in his path, for he was certain that Joanne would not break that last link of bondage. She would know, with Mortimer FitzHugh alive, that the pledge between them in the "coyote," and the marriage ceremony in the room below, meant nothing. Legally, she was no more to him now than she was yesterday, or the day before. And she would leave him, even if it destroyed her, heart and soul. He was sure of that. For years she had suffered her heart to be ground out of her because of the "bit of madness" that was in her, because of that earlier tragedy in her life--and her promise, her pledge to her father, her God, and herself. Without arguing a possible change in her because of her love for him, John Aldous accepted these things. He believed that if he told Joanne the truth he would lose her. His determination not to tell her, to keep from her the secret of the grave and the fact that Mortimer FitzHugh was alive, grew stronger in him with each breath that he drew. He believed that it was the right thing to do, that it was the honourable and the only thing to do. Now that the first shock was over, he did not feel that he had lost Joanne, or that there was a very great danger of losing her. For a moment it occurred to him that he might turn the law upon Culver Rann, and in the same breath he laughed at this absurdity. The law could not help him. He alone could work out his own and Joanne's salvation. And what was to happen must happen very soon--up in the mountains. When it was all over, and he returned, he would tell Joanne. His heart beat more quickly as he finished dressing. In a few minutes more he would be with Joanne, and in spite of what had happened, and what might happen, he was happy. Yesterday he had dreamed. To-day was reality--and it was a glorious reality. Joanne belonged to him. She loved him. She was his wife, and when he went to her it was with the feeling that only a serpent lay in the path of their paradise--a serpent which he would crush with as little compunction as that serpent would have destroyed her. Utterly and remorselessly his mind was made up. The Blacktons' supper hour was five-thirty, and he was a quarter of an hour late when he tapped at Joanne's door. He felt the warmth of a strange and delightful embarrassment flushing his face as the door opened, and she stood before him. In her face, too, was a telltale riot of colour which the deep tan partly concealed in his own. "I--I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked. "You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse than a woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!" "Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne----" "You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now! You mustn't kiss me again--until after supper----" "Only once," he pleaded. "If you will promise--just once----" A moment later she gasped: "Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as I live!" They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy over some growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forced and incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that had happened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldous saw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keep themselves out of sight--and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could stand it no longer, and grinned broadly. "For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'll explode!" The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two men were shaking hands. "We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just like you do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're not hungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing a mouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?" "And I--I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places at the table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat, Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those people until I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering----" "If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm as hungry as a bear!" And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she sat opposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. He told her so when the meal was finished, and they were following the Blacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefully drilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for in spite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait a while, he pulled out his watch, and said: "It isn't at all surprising if you people have forgotten that to-morrow is Sunday. Peggy and I always do some Saturday-night shopping, and if you don't mind, we'll leave you to care for the house while we go to town. We won't be gone more than an hour." A few minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Aldous led Joanne to a divan, and sat down beside her. "I couldn't have arranged it better myself, dear," he exclaimed. "I have been wondering how I could have you alone for a few minutes, and tell you what is on my mind before I see MacDonald again to-night. I'm afraid you will be displeased with me, Joanne. I hardly know how to begin. But--I've got to." A moment's uneasiness came into her eyes as she saw how seriously he was speaking. "You don't mean, John--there's more about Quade--and Culver Rann?" "No, no--nothing like that," he laughed, as though amused at the absurdity of her question. "Old Donald tells me they have skipped the country, Joanne. It's not that. It's you I'm thinking of, and what you may think of me a minute from now. Joanne, I've given my word to old Donald. He has lived in my promise. I've got to keep that promise--I must go into the North with him." She had drawn one of his hands into her lap and was fondling it with her own soft palm and fingers. "Of course, you must, John. I love old Donald." "And I must go--soon," he added. "It is only fair to him that you should," she agreed. "He--he is determined we shall go in the morning," he finished, keeping his eyes from her. For a moment Joanne did not answer. Her fingers interweaved with his, her warm little palm stroked the rough back of his hand. Then she said, very softly: "And why do you think that will displease me, John, dear? I will be ready!" "You!" Her eyes were on him, full, and dark, and glowing, and in them were both love and laughter. "You dear silly John!" she laughed. "Why don't you come right out and tell me to stay at home, instead of--of--'beating 'round the bush'--as Peggy Blackton says? Only you don't know what a terrible little person you've got, John. You really don't. So you needn't say any more. We'll start in the morning--and I am going with you!" In a flash John Aldous saw his whole scheme shaking on its foundation. "It's impossible--utterly impossible!" he gasped. "And why utterly?" she asked, bending her head so that her soft hair touched his face and lips. "John, have you already forgotten what we said in that terrible cavern--what we told ourselves we would have done if we had lived? We were going adventuring, weren't we? And we are not dead--but alive. And this will be a glorious trip! Why, John, don't you see, don't you understand? It will be our honeymoon trip!" "It will be a long, rough journey," he argued. "It will be hard--hard for a woman." With a little laugh, Joanne sprang up and stood before him in a glow of light, tall, and slim, and splendid, and there was a sparkle of beautiful defiance and a little of triumph in her eyes as she looked down on him. "And it will be dangerous, too? You are going to tell me that?" "Yes, it will be dangerous." She came to him and rumpled up his hair, and turned his face up so that she could look into his eyes. "Is it worse than fever, and famine, and deep swamps, and crawling jungles?" she asked. "Are we going to encounter worse things than beasts, and poisonous serpents, and murderous savages--even hunger and thirst, John? For many years we dared those together--my father and I. Are these great, big, beautiful mountains more treacherous than those Ceylon jungles from which you ran away--even you, John? Are they more terrible to live in than the Great African Desert? Are your bears worse than tigers, your wolves more terrible than lions? And if, through years and years, I faced those things with my father, do you suppose that I want to be left behind now, and by my husband?" So sweet and wonderful was the sound of that name as it came softly from her lips, that in his joy he forgot the part he was playing, and drew her close down in his arms, and in that moment all that remained of the scheme he had built for keeping her behind crumbled in ruin about him. Yet in a last effort he persisted. "Old Donald wants to travel fast--very fast, Joanne. I owe a great deal to him. Even you I owe to him--for he saved us from the 'coyote.'" "I am going, John." "If we went alone we would be able to return very soon." "I am going." "And some of the mountains--it is impossible for a woman to climb them!" "Then I will let you carry me up them, John. You are so strong----" He groaned hopelessly. "Joanne, won't you stay with the Blacktons, to please me?" "No. I don't care to please you." Her fingers were stroking his cheek. "John?" "Yes." "Father taught me to shoot, and as we get better acquainted on our honeymoon trip I'll tell you about some of my hunting adventures. I don't like to shoot wild things, because I love them too well. But I can shoot. And I want a gun!" "Great Scott!" "Not a toy--but a real gun," she continued. "A gun like yours. And then, if by any chance we should have trouble--with Culver Rann----" She felt him start, and her hands pressed harder against his face. "Now I know," she whispered. "I guessed it all along. You told me that Culver Rann and the others were after the gold. They've gone--and their going isn't quite 'skipping the country' as you meant me to understand it, John Aldous! So please let's not argue any more. If we do we may quarrel, and that would be terrible. I'm going. And I will be ready in the morning. And I want a gun. And I want you to be nice to me, and I want it to be our honeymoon--even if it is going to be exciting!" And with that she put her lips to his, and his last argument was gone. Two hours later, when he went to the coulee, he was like one who had come out of a strange and disturbing and altogether glorious dream. He had told Joanne and the Blacktons that it was necessary for him to be with MacDonald that night. Joanne's good-night kiss was still warm on his lips, the loving touch of her hands still trembled on his face, and the sweet perfume of her hair was in his nostrils. He was drunk with the immeasurable happiness that had come to him, every fibre in him was aquiver with it--and yet, possessed of his great joy, he was conscious of a fear; a fear that was new and growing, and which made him glad when he came at last to the little fire in the coulee. He did not tell MacDonald the cause of this fear at first. He told the story of Mortimer FitzHugh and Joanne, leaving no part of it unbared, until he could see Donald MacDonald's great gaunt hands clenching in the firelight, and his cavernous eyes flaming darkly through the gloom. Then he told what had happened when the Blacktons went to town, and when he had finished, and rose despairingly beside the fire, Donald rose, too, and his voice boomed in a sort of ecstasy. "My Jane would ha' done likewise," he cried in triumph. "She would that, Johnny--she would!" "But this is different!" groaned Aldous. "What am I going to do, Mac? What can I do? Don't you see how impossible it is! Mac, Mac--she isn't my wife--not entirely, not absolutely, not in the last and vital sense of being a wife by law! If she knew the truth, she wouldn't consider herself my wife; she would leave me. For that reason I can't take her. I can't. Think what it would mean!" Old Donald had come close to his side, and at the look in the gray old mountaineer's face John Aldous paused. Slowly Donald laid his hands on his shoulders. "Johnny," he said gently, "Johnny, be you sure of yourself? Be you a man, Johnny?" "Good heaven, Donald. You mean----" Their eyes met steadily. "If you are, Johnny," went on MacDonald in a low voice, "I'd take her with me. An' if you ain't, I'd leave these mount'ins to-night an' never look in her sweet face again as long as I lived." "You'd take her along?" demanded Aldous eagerly. "I would. I've been thinkin' it over to-night. An' something seemed to tell me we mustn't dare leave her here alone. There's just two things to do, Johnny. You've got to stay with her an' let me go on alone or--you've got to take her." Slowly Aldous shook his head. He looked at his watch. It was a little after ten. "If I could make myself believe that she would not be safe here--I would take her," he said. "But I can't quite make up my mind to that, Mac. She will be in good hands with the Blacktons. I will warn Paul. Joanne is determined to go, and I know she will think it pretty indecent to be told emphatically that she can't go. But I've got to do it. I can't see----" A break in the stillness of the night stopped him with the suddenness of a bullet in his brain. It was a scream--a woman's scream, and there followed it shriek after shriek, until the black forest trembled with the fear and agony of the cries, and John Aldous stood as if suddenly stripped of the power to move or act. Donald MacDonald roused him to life. With a roar in his beard, he sprang forth into the darkness. And Aldous followed, a hot sweat of fear in his blood where a moment before had been only a chill of wonder and horror. For in Donald's savage beastlike cry he had caught Joanne's name, and an answering cry broke from his own lips as he followed the great gaunt form that was tearing with the madness of a wounded bear ahead of him through the night. CHAPTER XXII Not until they had rushed up out of the coulee and had reached the pathlike trail did the screaming cease. For barely an instant MacDonald paused, and then ran on with a speed that taxed Aldous to keep up. When they came to the little open amphitheatre in the forest MacDonald halted again. Their hearts were thumping like hammers, and the old mountaineer's voice came husky and choking when he spoke. "It wasn't far--from here!" he panted. Scarcely had he uttered the words when he sped on again. Three minutes later they came to where the trail crossed the edge of a small rock-cluttered meadow, and with a sudden spurt Aldous darted ahead of MacDonald into this opening, where he saw two figures in the moonlight. Half a dozen feet from them he stopped with a cry of horror. They were Paul and Peggy Blackton! Peggy was dishevelled and sobbing, and was frantically clutching at her husband. It was Paul Blackton who dragged the cry from his lips. The contractor was swaying. He was hatless; his face was covered with blood, and his eyes were only half open, as if he were fighting to pull himself back into consciousness after a terrible blow. Peggy's hair was down, her dress was torn at the throat, and she was panting so that for a moment she could not speak. "They've got--Joanne!" she cried then. "They went--there!" She pointed, and Aldous ran where she pointed--into the timber on the far side of the little meadow. MacDonald caught his arm as they ran. "You go straight in," he commanded. "I'll swing--to right--toward river----" For two minutes after that Aldous tore straight ahead. Then for barely a moment he stopped. He had not paused to question Peggy Blackton. His own fears told him who Joanne's abductors were. They were men working under instructions from Quade. And they could not be far away, for scarcely ten minutes had passed since the first scream. He listened, and held his breath so that the terrific beating of his heart would not drown the sound of crackling brush. All at once the blood in him was frozen by a fierce yell. It was MacDonald, a couple of hundred yards to his right, and after that yell came the bellowing shout of his name. "Johnny! Johnny! Oh, Johnny!" He dashed in MacDonald's direction, and a few moments later heard the crashing of bodies in the undergrowth. Fifty seconds more and he was in the arena. MacDonald was fighting three men in a space over which the spruce-tops grew thinly. The moon shone upon them as they swayed in a struggling mass, and as Aldous sprang to the combat one of the three reeled backward and fell as if struck by a battering-ram. In that same moment MacDonald went down, and Aldous struck a terrific blow with the butt of his heavy Savage. He missed, and the momentum of his blow carried him over MacDonald. He tripped and fell. By the time he had regained his, feet the two men had disappeared into the thick shadows of the spruce forest. Aldous whirled toward the third man, whom he had seen fall. He, too, had disappeared. A little lamely old Donald brought himself to his feet. He was smiling. "Now, what do 'ee think, Johnny?" "Where is she? Where is Joanne?" demanded Aldous. "Twenty feet behind you, Johnny, gagged an' trussed up nice as a whistle! If they hadn't stopped to do that work you wouldn't ha' seen her ag'in, Johnny--s'elp me, God, you wouldn't! They was hikin' for the river. Once they had reached the Frazer, and a boat----" He broke off to lead Aldous to a clump of dwarf spruce. Behind this, white and still in the moonlight, but with eyes wide open and filled with horror, lay Joanne. Hands and feet were bound, and a big handkerchief was tied over her mouth. Twenty seconds later Aldous held her shivering and sobbing and laughing hysterically by turns in his arms, while MacDonald's voice brought Paul and Peggy Blackton to them. Blackton had recovered from the blow that had dazed him. Over Joanne's head he stared at Aldous. And MacDonald was staring at Blackton. His eyes were burning a little darkly. "It's all come out right," he said, "but it ain't a special nice time o' night to be taking a' evening walk in this locality with a couple o' ladies!" Blackton was still staring at Aldous, with Peggy clutching his arm as if afraid of losing him. It was Peggy who answered MacDonald. "And it was a nice time of night for you to send a message asking us to bring Joanne down the trail!" she cried, her voice trembling. "We----" began Aldous, when he saw a sudden warning movement on MacDonald's part, and stopped. "Let us take the ladies home," he said. With Joanne clinging to him, he led the way. Behind them all MacDonald growled loudly: "There's got t' be something done with these damned beasts of furriners. It's gettin' so no woman ain't safe at night!" Twenty minutes later they reached the bungalow. Leaving Joanne and Peggy inside, now as busily excited as two phoebe birds, and after Joanne had insisted upon Aldous sleeping at the Blacktons' that night, the two men accompanied MacDonald a few steps on his way back to camp. As soon as they were out of earshot Blackton began cursing softly under his breath. "So you didn't send that damned note?" he asked. "You haven't said so, but I've guessed you didn't send it!" "No, we didn't send a note." "And you had a reason--you and MacDonald--for not wanting the girls to know the truth?" "A mighty good reason," said Aldous. "I've got to thank MacDonald for closing my mouth at the right moment. I was about to give it away. And now, Blackton, I've got to confide in you. But before I do that I want your word that you will repeat nothing of what I say to another person--even your wife." Blackton nodded. "Go on," he said. "I've suspected a thing or two, Aldous. I'll give you my word. Go on." As briefly as possible, and without going deeply into detail, Aldous told of Quade and his plot to secure possession of Joanne. "And this is his work," he finished. "I've told you this, Paul, so that you won't worry about Peggy. You can see from to-night's events that they were not after her, but wanted Joanne. Joanne must not learn the truth. And your wife must not know. I am going to settle with Quade. Just how and where and when I'm going to settle with him I don't care to say now. But he's going to answer to me. And he's going to answer soon." Blackton whistled softly. "A boy brought the note," he said. "He stood in the dark when he handed it to me. And I didn't recognize any one of the three men who jumped out on us. I didn't have much of a chance to fight, but if there's any one on the face of the earth who has got it over Peggy when it comes to screaming, I'd like to know her name! Joanne didn't have time to make a sound. But they didn't touch Peggy until she began screaming, and then one of the men began choking her. They had about laid me out with a club, so I was helpless. Good God----" He shuddered. "They were river men," said MacDonald. "Probably some of Tomman's scow-men. They were making for the river." A few minutes later, when Aldous was saying good-night to MacDonald, the old hunter said again, in a whisper: "Now what do 'ee think, Johnny?" "That you're right, Mac," replied Aldous in a low voice. "There is no longer a choice. Joanne must go with us. You will come early?" "At dawn, Johnny." He returned to the bungalow with Blackton, and until midnight the lights there burned brightly while the two men answered a thousand questions about the night's adventure, and Aldous told of his and Joanne's plans for the honeymoon trip into the North that was to begin the next day. It was half-past twelve when be locked the door of his and sat down to think. CHAPTER XXIII There was no doubt in the mind of John Aldous now. The attempt upon Joanne left him but one course to pursue: he must take her with him, in spite of the monumental objections which he had seen a few hours before. He realized what a fight this would mean for him, and with what cleverness and resource he must play his part. Joanne had not given herself to him as she had once given herself to Mortimer FitzHugh. In the "coyote," when they had faced death, she had told him that were there to be a to-morrow in life for them she would have given herself to him utterly and without reservation. And that to-morrow had dawned. It was present. She was his wife. And she had come to him as she had promised. In her eyes he had seen love and trust and faith--and a glorious happiness. She had made no effort to hide that happiness from him. Consciousness of it filled him with his own great happiness, and yet it made him realize even more deeply how hard his fight was to be. She was his wife. In a hundred little ways she had shown him that she was proud of her wifehood. And again he told himself that she had come to him as she had promised, that she had given into his keeping all that she had to give. And yet--_she was not his wife!_ He groaned aloud, and his fingers dug into the flesh of his knees as he thought of that. Could he keep that terrible truth from her? If she went with him into the North, would she not guess? And, even though he kept the truth from her until Mortimer FitzHugh was dead, would he be playing fair with her? Again he went over all that he had gone over before. He knew that Joanne would leave him to-morrow, and probably forever, if he told her that FitzHugh was alive. The law could not help him, for only death--and never divorce--would free her. Within himself he decided for the last time. He was about to do the one thing left for him to do. And it was the honourable thing, for it meant freedom for her and happiness for them both. To him, Donald MacDonald had become a man who lived very close to the heart and the right of things, and Donald had said that he should take her. This was the greatest proof that he was right. But could he keep Joanne from guessing? Could he keep her from discovering the truth until it was time for her to know that truth? In this necessity of keeping her from suspecting that something was wrong he saw his greatest fight. Compared with it, the final settlement with Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh sank into a second importance. He knew what would happen then. But Joanne--Joanne on the trail, as his wife---- He began pacing back and forth in his room, clouding himself in the smoke of his pipe. Frequently Joanne's mind had filled him with an exquisite delight by its quickness and at times almost magic perceptiveness, and he realized that in these things, and the fineness of her woman's intuition, now lay his greatest menace. He was sure that she understood the meaning of the assault upon her that night, though she had apparently believed what he and Blackton had told them--that it had been the attack of irresponsible and drunken hoodlums. Yet he was certain that she had already guessed that Quade had been responsible. He went to bed, dreading what questions and new developments the morning might bring forth. And when the morning came, he was both amazed and delighted. The near tragedy of the previous night might never have happened in so far as he could judge from Joanne's appearance. When she came out of her room to meet him, in the glow of a hall lamp, her eyes were like stars, and the colour in her cheeks was like that of a rose fresh from its slumber in dew. "I'm so happy, and what happened last night seems so like a bad dream," she whispered, as he held her close to him for a few moments before descending the stairs. "I shall worry about Peggy, John. I shall. I don't understand how her husband dares to bring her among savages like these. You wouldn't leave me among them, would you?" And as she asked the question, and his lips pressed hers, John Aldous still believed that in her heart she knew the truth of that night attack. If she did know, she kept her secret from him all that day. They left Tête Jaune before sunrise with an outfit which MacDonald had cut down to six horses. Its smallness roused Joanne's first question, for Aldous had described to her an outfit of twenty horses. He explained that a large outfit made travel much more difficult and slow, but he did not tell her that with six horses instead of twenty they could travel less conspicuously, more easily conceal themselves from enemies, and, if necessary, make quick flight or swift pursuit. They stopped to camp for the night in a little basin that drew from Joanne an exclamation of joy and wonder. They had reached the upper timber-line, and on three sides the basin was shut in by treeless and brush-naked walls of the mountains. In the centre of the dip was a lake fed by a tiny stream that fell in a series of ribbonlike cataracts a sheer thousand feet from the snow-peaks that towered above them. Small, parklike clumps of spruce dotted the miniature valley; over it hung a sky as blue as sapphire and under their feet was a carpet of soft grass sprayed with little blue forget-me-nots and wild asters. "I have never seen anything a half so beautiful as this!" cried Joanne, as Aldous helped her from her horse. As her feet touched the ground she gave a little cry and hung limply in his arms. "I'm lame--lame for life!" she laughed in mock humour. "John, I can't stand. I really can't!" Old Donald was chuckling in his beard as he came up. "You ain't nearly so lame as you'll be to-morrow," he comforted her. "An' you won't be nearly so lame to-morrow as you'll be next day. Then you'll begin to get used to it, Mis' Joanne." "_Mrs. Aldous_, Donald," she corrected sweetly. "Or--just Joanne." At that Aldous found himself holding her so closely that she gave a little gasp. "Please don't," she expostulated. "Your arms are terribly strong, John!" MacDonald had turned away, still chuckling, and began to unpack. Joanne looked behind her, then quickly held up her softly pouted lips. Aldous kissed her, and would have kissed her again but she slipped suddenly from his arms and going to Pinto began to untie a dishpan that was fastened to the top of his pack. "Get to work, John Aldous!" she commanded. MacDonald had camped before in the basin, and there were tepee poles ready cut, as light and dry as matchwood. Joanne watched them as they put up the tent, and when it was done, and she looked inside, she cried delightedly: "It's the snuggest little home I ever had, John!" After that she busied herself in a way that was a constantly growing pleasure to him. She took possession at once of pots and pans and kettles. She lost no time in impressing upon both Aldous and MacDonald the fact that while she was their docile follower on the trail she was to be at the head of affairs in camp. While they were straightening out the outfit, hobbling the horses, and building a fire, she rummaged through the panniers and took stock of their provisions. She bossed old Donald in a manner that made him fairly glow with pleasure. She bared her white arms to the elbows and made biscuits for the "reflector" instead of bannock, while Aldous brought water from the lake, and MacDonald cut wood. Her cheeks were aflame. Her eyes were laughing, joyous, happy. MacDonald seemed years younger. He obeyed her like a boy, and once Aldous caught him looking at her in a way that set him thinking again of those days of years and years ago, and of other camps, and of another woman--like Joanne. MacDonald had thought of this first camp--and there were porterhouse steaks for supper, which he had brought packed in a kettle of ice. When they sat down to the meal, Joanne was facing a distant snow-capped ridge that cut the skyline, and the last of the sun, reflected from the face of the mountain on the east, had set brown-and-gold fires aglow in her hair. They were partly through when her eyes rested on the distant snow-ridge. Aldous saw her looking steadily. Suddenly she pointed beyond him. "I see something moving over the snow on that mountain!" she cried a little excitedly. "It is hurrying toward the summit--just under the skyline! What is it?" Aldous and MacDonald looked toward the ridge. Fully a mile away, almost even with the skyline now, a small dark object was moving over the white surface of the snow. "It ain't a goat," said MacDonald, "because a goat is white, and we couldn't see it on the snow. It ain't a sheep, 'cause it's too dark, an' movin' too slow. It must be a bear, but why in the name o' sin a bear would be that high, I don't know!" He jumped up and ran for his telescope. "A grizzly," whispered Joanne tensely. "Would it be a grizzly, John?" "Possibly," he answered. "Indeed, it's very likely. This is a grizzly country. If we hurry you can get a look at him through the telescope." MacDonald was already studying the object through his long glass when they joined him. "It's a bear," he said. "Please--please let me look at him," begged Joanne. The dark object was now almost on the skyline. Half A minute more and it would pass over and out of sight. MacDonald still held his eye to the telescope, as though he had not heard Joanne. Not until the moving object had crossed the skyline, and had disappeared, did he reply to her. "The light's bad, an' you couldn't have made him out very well," he said. "We'll show you plenty o' grizzlies, an' so near you won't want a telescope. Eh, Johnny?" As he looked at Aldous there was a strange look in his eyes, and during the remainder of the supper he was restless, and ate hurriedly. When he had finished he rose and picked up his long rifle. "There's sheep somewhere near this basin, Johnny," he explained. "An' I reckon Joanne'll scold us if we don't keep her in fresh meat. I'm goin' to bring in some mutton if there's any to be got, an' I probably won't be back until after dark." Aldous knew that he had more to say, and he went with him a few steps beyond the camp. And MacDonald continued in a low, troubled voice: "Be careful, Johnny. Watch yo'rself. I'm going to take a look over into the next valley, an' I won't be back until late. It wasn't a goat, an' it wasn't a sheep, an' it wasn't a bear. It was two-legged! It was a man, Johnny, an' he was there to watch this trail, or my name ain't Donald MacDonald. Mebby he came ahead of us last night, an' mebby he was here before that happened. Anyway, be on your guard while I look over into the next range." With that he struck off in the direction of the snow-ridge, and for a few moments Aldous stood looking after the tall, picturesque figure until it disappeared behind a clump of spruce. Swiftly he was telling himself that it was not the hunting season, and that it was not a prospector whom they had seen on the snow-ridge. As a matter of caution, there could be but one conclusion to draw. The man had been stationed there either by Quade or FitzHugh, or both, and had unwittingly revealed himself. He turned toward Joanne, who had already begun to gather up the supper things. He could hear her singing happily, and as he looked she pressed a finger to her lips and threw a kiss to him. His heart smote him even as he smiled and waved a hand in response. Then he went to her. How slim and wonderful she looked in that glow of the setting sun, he thought. How white and soft were her hands, how tender and fragile her lovely neck! And how helpless--how utterly helpless she would be if anything happened to him and MacDonald! With an effort he flung the thought from him. On his knees he wiped the dishes and pots and pans for Joanne. When this was done, he seized an axe and showed her how to gather a bed. This was a new and delightful experience for Joanne. "You always want to cut balsam boughs when you can get them," he explained, pausing before two small trees. "Now, this is a cedar, and this is a balsam. Notice how prickly and needlelike on all sides these cedar branches are. And now look at the balsam. The needles lay flat and soft. Balsam makes the best bed you can get in the North, except moss, and you've got to dry the moss." For fifteen minutes he clipped off the soft ends of the balsam limbs and Joanne gathered them in her arms and carried them into the tepee. Then he went in with her, and showed her how to make the bed. He made it a narrow bed, and a deep bed, and he knew that Joanne was watching him, and he was glad the tan hid the uncomfortable glow in his face when he had finished tucking in the end of the last blanket. "You will be as cozy as can be in that," he said. "And you, John?" she asked, her face flushing rosily. "I haven't seen another tent for you and Donald." "We don't sleep in a tent during the summer," he said. "Just our blankets--out in the open." "But--if it should rain?" "We get under a balsam or a spruce or a thick cedar." A little later they stood beside the fire. It was growing dusk. The distant snow-ridge was swiftly fading into a pale and ghostly sheet in the gray gloom of the night. Up that ridge Aldous knew that MacDonald was toiling. Joanne put her hands to his shoulders. "Are you sorry--so very, very sorry that you let me come, John?" "I didn't let you come," he laughed softly, drawing her to him. "You came!" "And are you sorry?" "No." It was deliciously sweet to have her tilt up her head and put her soft lips to his, and it was still sweeter when her tender hands stroked his cheeks, and eyes and lips smiled their love and gladness. He stood stroking her hair, with her face laying warm and close against him, and over her head he stared into the thickening darkness of the spruce and cedar copses. Joanne herself had piled wood on the fire, and in its glow they were dangerously illuminated. With one of her hands she was still caressing his cheek. "When will Donald return?" she asked. "Probably not until late," he replied, wondering what it was that had set a stone rolling down the side of the mountain nearest to them. "He hunted until dark, and may wait for the moon to come up before he returns." "John----" "Yes, dear?----" And mentally he measured the distance to the nearest clump of timber between them and the mountain. "Let's build a big fire, and sit down on the pannier canvases." His eyes were still on the timber, and he was wondering what a man with a rifle, or even a pistol, might do at that space. He made a good target, and MacDonald was probably several miles away. "I've been thinking about the fire," he said. "We must put it out, Joanne. There are reasons why we should not let it burn. For one thing, the smoke will drive any game away that we may hope to see in the morning." Her hands lay still against his cheek. "I--understand, John," she replied quickly, and there was the smallest bit of a shudder in her voice. "I had forgotten. We must put it out!" Five minutes later only a few glowing embers remained where the fire had been. He had spread out the pannier canvases, and now he seated himself with his back to a tree. Joanne snuggled close to him. "It is much nicer in the dark," she whispered, and her arms reached up about him, and her lips pressed warm and soft against his hand. "Are you just a little ashamed of me, John?" "Ashamed? Good heaven----" "Because," she interrupted him, "we have known each other such a very short time, and I have allowed myself to become so very, very well acquainted with you. It has all been so delightfully sudden, and strange, and I am--just as happy as I can be. You don't think it is immodest for me to say these things to my husband, John--even if I have only known him three days?" He answered by crushing her so closely in his arms that for a few moments afterward she lay helplessly on his breast, gasping for breath. His brain was afire with the joyous madness of possession. Never had woman come to man more sweetly than Joanne had come to him, and as he felt her throbbing and trembling against him he was ready to rise up and shout forth a challenge to a hundred Quades and Culver Ranns hiding in the darkness of the mountains. For a long time he held her nestled close in his arms, and at intervals there were silences between them, in which they listened to the glad tumult of their own hearts, and the strange silence that came to them from out of the still night. It was their first hour alone--of utter oblivion to all else but themselves; to Joanne the first sacrament hour of her wifehood, to him the first hour of perfect possession and understanding. In that hour their souls became one, and when at last they rose to their feet, and the moon came up over a crag of the mountain and flooded them in its golden light, there was in Joanne's face a tenderness and a gentle glory that made John Aldous think of an angel. He led her to the tepee, and lighted a candle for her, and at the last, with the sweet demand of a child in the manner of her doing it, she pursed up her lips to be kissed good-night. And when he had tied the tent-flap behind her, he took his rifle and sat down with it across his knees in the deep black shadow of a spruce, and waited and listened for the coming of Donald MacDonald. CHAPTER XXIV For an hour after Joanne had gone into her tent Aldous sat silent and watchful. From where he had concealed himself he could see over a part of the moonlit basin, and guard the open space between the camp and the clump of timber that lay in the direction of the nearest mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared in the moonlight not twenty paces from him. With an ejaculation of amazement he jumped to his feet and went to him. "How the deuce did you get here?" he demanded. "Were you asleep, Johnny?" "I was awake--and watching!" The old hunter chuckled. "It was so still when I come to those trees back there that I thought mebby something had 'appened," he said. "So, I sneaked up, Johnny." "Did you see anything over the range?" asked Aldous anxiously. "I found footprints in the snow, an' when I got to the top I smelled smoke, but couldn't see a fire. It was dark then." MacDonald nodded toward the tepee. "Is she asleep, Johnny?" "I think so. She must be very tired." They drew back into the shadow of the spruce. It was a simultaneous movement of caution, and both, without speaking their thoughts, realized the significance of it. Until now they had had no opportunity of being alone since last night. MacDonald spoke in a low, muffled voice: "Quade an' Culver Rann are goin' the limit, Johnny," he said. "They left men on the job at Tête Jaune, and they've got others watching us. Consequently, I've hit on a scheme--a sort of simple and unreasonable scheme, mebby, but an awful good scheme at times." "What is it?" "Whenever you see anything that ain't a bear, or a goat, or a sheep, don't wait to change the time o' day--but shoot!" said MacDonald. Aldous smiled grimly. "If I had any ideas of chivalry, or what I call fair play, they were taken out of me last night, Mac," he said. "I'm ready to shoot on sight!" MacDonald grunted his satisfaction. "They can't beat us if we do that, Johnny. They ain't even ordinary cut-throats--they're sneaks in the bargain; an' if they could walk in our camp, smilin' an' friendly, and brain us when our backs was turned, they'd do it. We don't know who's with them, and if a stranger heaves in sight meet him with a chunk o' lead. They're the only ones in these mountains, an' we won't make any mistake. See that bunch of spruce over there?" The old hunter pointed to a clump fifty yards beyond the tepee toward the little lake. Aldous nodded. "I'll take my blankets over there," continued MacDonald. "You roll yourself up here, and the tepee'll be between us. You see the system, Johnny? If they make us a visit during the night we've got 'em between us, and there'll be some real burying to do in the morning!" Back under the low-hanging boughs of the dwarf spruce Aldous spread out his blanket a few minutes later. He had made up his mind not to sleep, and for hours he lay watchful and waiting, smoking occasionally, with his face close to the ground so that the odour of tobacco would cling to the earth. The moon rose until it was straight overhead, flooding the valley in a golden splendour that he wished Joanne might have seen. Then it began sinking into the west; slowly at first, and then more swiftly, its radiance diminished. He looked at his watch before the yellow orb effaced itself behind the towering peak of a distant mountain. It was a quarter of two. With deepening darkness, his eyes grew heavier. He closed them for a few moments at a time; and each time the interval was longer, and it took greater effort to force himself into wakefulness. Finally he slept. But he was still subconsciously on guard, and an hour later that consciousness was beating and pounding within him, urging him to awake. He sat up with a start and gripped his rifle. An owl was hooting--softly, very softly. There were four notes. He answered, and a little later MacDonald came like a shadow out of the gloom. Aldous advanced to meet him, and he noticed that over the eastern mountains there was a break of gray. "It's after three, Johnny," MacDonald greeted him. "Build a fire and get breakfast. Tell Joanne I'm out after another sheep. Until it's good an' light I'm going to watch from that clump of timber up there. In half an hour it'll be dawn." He moved toward the timber, and Aldous set about building a fire. He was careful not to awaken Joanne. The fire was crackling cheerily when he went to the lake for water. Returning he saw the faint glow of candlelight in Joanne's tepee. Five minutes later she appeared, and all thought of danger, and the discomfort of his sleepless night, passed from him at sight of her. Her eyes were still a little misty with sleep when he took her in his arms and kissed her, but she was deliciously alive, and glad, and happy. In one hand she had brought a brush and in the other a comb. "You slept like a log," he cried happily. "It can't be that you had very bad dreams, little wife?" "I had a beautiful dream, John," she laughed softly, and the colour flooded up into her face. She unplaited the thick silken strands of her braid and began brushing her hair in the firelight, while Aldous sliced the bacon. Some of the slices were thick, and some were thin, for he could not keep his eyes from her as she stood there like a goddess, buried almost to her knees in that wondrous mantle. He found himself whistling with a very light heart as she braided her hair, and afterward plunged her face in a bath of cold water he had brought from the lake. From that bath she emerged like a glowing Naiad. Her eyes sparkled. Her cheeks were pink and her lips full and red. Damp little tendrils of hair clung adorably about her face and neck. For another full minute Aldous paused in his labours, and he wondered if MacDonald was watching them from the clump of timber. The bacon was sputtering when Joanne ran to it and rescued it from burning. Dawn followed quickly after that first break of day in the east, but not until one could see a full rifle-shot away did MacDonald return to the camp. Breakfast was waiting, and as soon as he had finished the old hunter went after the horses. It was five o'clock, and bars of the sun were shooting over the tops of the mountains when once more they were in the saddle and on their way. Most of this day Aldous headed the outfit up the valley. On the pretext of searching for game MacDonald rode so far in advance that only twice during the forenoon was he in sight. When they stopped to camp for the night his horse was almost exhausted, and MacDonald himself showed signs of tremendous physical effort. Aldous could not question him before Joanne. He waited. And MacDonald was strangely silent. The proof of MacDonald's prediction concerning Joanne was in evidence this second night. Every bone in her body ached, and she was so tired that she made no objection to going to her bed as soon as it was dark. "It always happens like this," consoled old Donald, as she bade him good-night. "To-morrow you'll begin gettin' broke in, an' the next day you won't have any lameness at all." She limped to the tepee with John's arm snugly about her slim waist. MacDonald waited patiently until he returned. He motioned Aldous to seat himself close at his side. Both men lighted their pipes before the mountaineer spoke. "We can't both sleep at once to-night, Johnny," he said. "We've got to take turns keeping watch." "You've discovered something to-day?" "No. It's what I haven't discovered that counts. There weren't no tracks in this valley, Johnny, from mount'in to mount'in. They haven't travelled through this range, an' that leaves just two things for us to figger on. They're behind us--or DeBar is hitting another trail into the north. There isn't no danger ahead right now, because we're gettin' into the biggest ranges between here an' the Yukon. If Quade and Rann are in the next valley they can't get over the mount'ins to get at us. Quade, with all his flesh, couldn't climb over that range to the west of us inside o' three days, if he could get over it at all. They're hikin' straight for the gold over another trail, or they're behind us, an' mebby both." "How--both?" asked Aldous. "Two parties," explained MacDonald, puffing hard at his pipe. "If there's an outfit behind us they were hid in the timber on the other side of the snow-ridge, and they're pretty close this minute. Culver Rann--or FitzHugh, as you call him--is hustling straight on with DeBar. Mebby Quade is with him, an' mebby he ain't. Anyway, there's a big chance of a bunch behind us with special instructions from Quade to cut our throats and keep Joanne." That day Aldous had been turning a question over in his own mind. He asked it now. "Mac, are you sure you can go to the valley of gold without DeBar?" For a long half minute MacDonald looked at him, and then his voice rumbled in a low, exultant laugh in his beard. "Johnny," he said, with a strange quiver in his voice, "I can go to it now straighter an' quicker than DeBar! I know why I never found it. DeBar helped me that much. The trail is mapped right out in my brain now, Johnny. Five years ago I was within ten miles of the cavern--an' didn't know it!" "And we can get there ahead of them?" "We could--if it wasn't for Joanne. We're makin' twenty miles a day. We could make thirty." "If we could beat them to it!" exclaimed Aldous, clenching his hands. "If we only could, Donald--the rest would be easy!" MacDonald laid a heavy hand on his knee. "You remember what you told me, Johnny, that you'd play the game fair, and give 'em a first chance? You ain't figgerin' on that now, be you?" "No, I'm with you now, Donald. It's----" "Shoot on sight!" "Yes." Aldous rose from his seat as he spoke. "You turn in, Mac," he said. "You're about bushed after the work you've done to-day. I'll keep first watch. I'll conceal myself fifty or sixty yards from camp, and if we have visitors before midnight the fun will all be mine." He knew that MacDonald was asleep within fifteen minutes after he had stationed himself at his post. In spite of the fact that he had had almost no sleep the preceding night, he was more than usually wakeful. He was filled with a curious feeling that events were impending. Yet the hours passed, the moon flooded the valley again, the horses grazed without alarm, and nothing happened. He had planned not to awaken old Donald at midnight, but MacDonald roused himself, and came to take his place a little before twelve. From that hour until four Aldous slept like the dead. He was tremendously refreshed when he arose, to find that the candle was alight in Joanne's tepee, and that MacDonald had built a fire. He waited for Joanne, and went with her to the tiny creek near the camp, where both bathed their faces in the snow-cold water from the mountain tops. Joanne had slept soundly for eight hours, and she was as fresh and as happy as a bird. Her lameness was almost gone, and she was eager for the day's journey. As they filed again up the valley that morning, with the early sun transfiguring the great snow-topped ranges about them into a paradise of colour and warmth, Aldous found himself mentally wondering if it were really possible that a serious danger menaced them. He did not tell MacDonald what was in his mind. He did not confess that he was about ready to believe that the man on the snow-ridge had been a hunter or a prospector returning to his camp in the other valley, and that the attack in Tête Jaune was the one and only effort Quade would make to secure possession of Joanne. While a few hours before he had almost expected an immediate attack, he was now becoming more and more convinced that Quade, to a large extent, had dropped out of the situation. He might be with Mortimer FitzHugh, and probably was--a dangerous and formidable enemy to be accounted for when the final settlement came. But as an immediate menace to Joanne, Aldous was beginning to fear him less as the hours passed. Joanne, and the day itself, were sufficient to disarm him of his former apprehension. In places they could see for miles ahead and behind them. And Joanne, each time that he looked at her, was a greater joy to him. Constantly she was pointing out the wonders of the mountains to him and MacDonald. Each new rise or fall in the valley held fresh and delightful surprises for her; in the craggy peaks she pointed out castlements, and towers, and battlemented strongholds of ancient princes and kings. Her mind was a wild and beautiful riot of imagination, of wonder, and of happiness, and in spite of the grimness of the mission they were on even MacDonald found himself rejoicing in her spirit, and he laughed and talked with them as they rode into the North. They were entering now into a hunter's paradise. For the first time Joanne saw white, moving dots far up on a mountain-side, which MacDonald told her were goats. In the afternoon they saw mountain sheep feeding on a slide half a mile away, and for ten breathless minutes Joanne watched them through the telescope. Twice caribou sped over the opens ahead of them. But it was not until the sun was settling toward the west again that Joanne saw what she had been vainly searching the sides of the mountains to find. MacDonald had stopped suddenly in the trail, motioning them to advance. When they rode up to him he pointed to a green slope two hundred yards ahead. "There's yo'r grizzly, Joanne," he said. A huge, tawny beast was ambling slowly along the crest of the slope, and at sight of him Joanne gave a little cry of excitement. "He's hunting for gophers," explained MacDonald. "That's why he don't seem in a hurry. He don't see us because a b'ar's eyes are near-sighted, but he could smell us half a mile away if the wind was right." He was unslinging his long rifle as he spoke. Joanne was near enough to catch his arm. "Don't shoot--please don't shoot!" she begged. "I've seen lions, and I've seen tigers--and they're treacherous and I don't like them. But there's something about bears that I love, like dogs. And the lion isn't a king among beasts compared with him. Please don't shoot!" "I ain't a-goin' to," chuckled old Donald. "I'm just getting ready to give 'im the proper sort of a handshake if he should happen to come this way, Joanne. You know a grizzly ain't pertic'lar afraid of anything on earth as I know of, an' they're worse 'n a dynamite explosion when they come head-on. There--he's goin' over the slope!" "Got our wind," said Aldous. They went on, a colour in Joanne's face like the vivid sunset. They camped two hours before dusk, and MacDonald figured they had made better than twenty miles that day. The same precautions were observed in guarding the camp as the night before, and the long hours of vigil were equally uneventful. The next day added still more to Aldous' peace of mind regarding possible attack from Quade, and on the night of this day, their fourth in the mountains, he spoke his mind to MacDonald. For a few moments afterward the old hunter smoked quietly at his pipe. Then he said: "I don't know but you're right, Johnny. If they were behind us they'd most likely have tried something before this. But it ain't in the law of the mount'ins to be careless. We've got to watch." "I agree with you there, Mac," replied Aldous. "We cannot afford to lose our caution for a minute. But I'm feeling a deuced sight better over the situation just the same. If we can only get there ahead of them!" "If Quade is in the bunch we've got a chance of beating them," said MacDonald thoughtfully. "He's heavy, Johnny--that sort of heaviness that don't stand up well in the mount'ins; whisky-flesh, I call it. Culver Rann don't weigh much more'n half as much, but he's like iron. Quade may be a drag. An' Joanne, Lord bless her!--she's facing the music like an' 'ero, Johnny!" "And the journey is almost half over." "This is the fourth day. I figger we can make it in ten at most, mebby nine," said old Donald. "You see we're in that part of the Rockies where there's real mount'ins, an' the ranges ain't broke up much. We've got fairly good travel to the end." On this night Aldous slept from eight until twelve. The next, their fifth, his watch was from midnight until morning. As the sixth and the seventh days and nights passed uneventfully the belief that there were no enemies behind them became a certainty. Yet neither Aldous nor MacDonald relaxed their vigilance. The eighth day dawned, and now a new excitement took possession of Donald MacDonald. Joanne and Aldous saw his efforts to suppress it, but it did not escape their eyes. They were nearing the tragic scenes of long ago, and old Donald was about to reap the reward of a search that had gone faithfully and untiringly through the winters and summers of forty years. He spoke seldom that day. There were strange lights in his eyes. And once his voice was husky and strained when he said to Aldous: "I guess we'll make it to-morrow, Johnny--jus' about as the sun's going down." They camped early, and Aldous rolled himself in his blanket when Joanne extinguished the candle in her tent. He found that he could not sleep, and he relieved MacDonald at eleven o'clock. "Get all the rest you can, Mac," he urged. "There may be doings to-morrow--at about sundown." There was but little moonlight now, but the stars were clear. He lighted his pipe, and with his rifle in the crook of his arm he walked slowly up and down over a hundred-yard stretch of the narrow plain in which they had camped. That night they had built their fire beside a fallen log, which was now a glowing mass without flame. Finally he sat down with his back to a rock fifty paces from Joanne's tepee. It was a splendid night. The air was cool and sweet. He leaned back until his head rested against the rock, and there fell upon him the fatal temptation to close his eyes and snatch a few minutes of the slumber which had not come to him during the early hours of the night. He was in a doze, oblivious to movement and the softer sounds of the night, when a cry pierced the struggling consciousness of his brain like the sting of a dart. In an instant he was on his feet. In the red glow of the log stood Joanne in her long white night robe. She seemed to be swaying when he first saw her. Her hands were clutched at her bosom, and she was staring--staring out into the night beyond the burning log, and in her face was a look of terror. He sprang toward her, and out of the gloom beyond her rushed Donald MacDonald. With a cry she turned to Aldous and flung herself shivering and half-sobbing into his arms. Gray-faced, his eyes burning like the smouldering coals in the fire, Donald MacDonald stood a step behind them, his long rifle in his hands. "What is it?" cried Aldous. "What has frightened you, Joanne?" She was shuddering against his breast. "It--it must have been a dream," she said. "It--it frightened me. But it was so terrible, and I'm--I'm sorry, John. I didn't know what I was doing." "What was it, dear?" insisted Aldous. MacDonald had drawn very close. Joanne raised her head. "Please let me go back to bed, John. It was only a dream, and I'll tell it to you in the morning, when there's sunshine--and day." Something in MacDonald's tense, listening attitude caught Aldous' eyes. "What was the dream?" he urged. She looked from him to old Donald, and shivered. "The flap of my tepee was open," she said slowly. "I thought I was awake. I thought I could see the glow of the fire. But it was a dream--a _dream_, only it was horrible! For as I looked I saw a face out there in the light, a white, searching face--and it was his face!" "Whose face?" "Mortimer FitzHugh's," she shuddered. Tenderly Aldous led her back to the tent. "Yes, it was surely an unpleasant dream, dear," he comforted her. "Try and sleep again. You must get all the rest you can." He closed the flap after her, and turned back toward MacDonald. The old hunter had disappeared. It was ten minutes before he came in from out of the darkness. He went straight to Aldous. "Johnny, you was asleep!" "I'm afraid I was, Mac--just for a minute." MacDonald's fingers gripped his arm. "Jus' for a minute, Johnny--an' in that minute you lost the chance of your life!" "What do you mean?" "I mean"--and old Donald's voice was filled with a low, choking tremble that Aldous had never heard in it before--"I mean that it weren't no dream, Johnny! Mortimer FitzHugh was in this camp to-night!" CHAPTER XXV Donald MacDonald's startling assertion that Mortimer FitzHugh had been in the camp, and that Joanne's dream was not a dream, but reality, brought a gasp of astonishment and disbelief from Aldous. Before he had recovered sufficiently from his amazement to speak, MacDonald was answering the question in his mind. "I woke quicker'n you, Johnny," he said. "She was just coming out of the tepee, an' I heard something running off through the brush. I thought mebby it was a wolverine, or a bear, an' I didn't move until she cried out your name an' you jumped up. If she had seen a bear in the fire-glow she wouldn't have thought it was Mortimer FitzHugh, would she? It's possible, but it ain't likely, though I do say it's mighty queer why he should be in this camp alone. It's up to us to watch pretty close until daylight." "He wouldn't be here alone," asserted Aldous. "Let's get out of the light, Mac. If you're right, the whole gang isn't far away!" "They ain't in rifle-shot," said MacDonald. "I heard him running a hundred yards out there. That's the queer thing about it! Why didn't they jump on us when they had the chance?" "We'll hope that it was a dream," replied Aldous. "If Joanne was dreaming of FitzHugh, and while still half asleep saw something in camp, she might easily imagine the rest. But we'll keep watch. Shall I move out there?" MacDonald nodded, and the two men separated. For two hours they patrolled the darkness, waiting and listening. With dawn Aldous returned to camp to arouse Joanne and begin breakfast. He was anxious to see what effect the incident of the night had on her. Her appearance reassured him. When he referred to the dream, and the manner in which she had come out into the night, a lovely confusion sent the blushes into her face. He kissed her until they grew deeper, and she hid her face on his neck. And then she whispered something, with her face still against his shoulder, that drove the hot blood into his own cheeks. "You are my husband, John, and I don't suppose I should be ashamed to let you see me in my bare feet. But, John--you have made me feel that way, and I am--your wife!" He held her head close against him so that she could not see his face. "I wanted to show you--that I loved you--'that much," he said, scarcely knowing what words he was speaking. "Joanne, my darling----" A soft hand closed his lips. "I know, John," she interrupted him softly. "And I love you so for it, and I'm so proud of you--oh, so proud, John!" He was glad that MacDonald came crashing through the bush then. Joanne slipped from his arms and ran into the tepee. In MacDonald's face was a grim and sullen look. "You missed your chance, all right, Johnny," he growled. "I found where a horse was tied out there. The tracks lead to a big slide of rock that opens a break in the west range. Whoever it was has beat it back into the other valley. I can't understand, s'elp me God, I can't, Johnny! Why should FitzHugh come over into this valley alone? And he _rode_ over! I'd say the devil couldn't do that!" He said nothing more, but went out to lead in the hobbled horses, leaving Aldous in half-stunned wonderment to finish the preparation of breakfast. Joanne reappeared a little later, and helped him. It was six o'clock before breakfast was over and they were ready to begin their day's journey. As they were throwing the hitch over the last pack, MacDonald said in a low voice to Aldous: "Everything may happen to-day, Johnny. I figger we'll reach the end by sundown. An' what don't happen there may happen along the trail. Keep a rifle-shot behind with Joanne. If there's unexpected shooting, we want what you might call a reserve force in the rear. I figger I can see danger, if there is any, an' I can do it best alone." Aldous knew that in these last hours Donald MacDonald's judgment must be final, and he made no objection to an arrangement which seemed to place the old hunter under a more hazardous risk than his own. And he realized fully that these were the last hours. For the first time he had seen MacDonald fill his pockets with the finger-long cartridges for his rifle, and he had noted how carefully he had looked at the breech of that rifle. Without questioning, he had followed the mountaineer's example. There were fifty spare cartridges in his own pockets. His .303 was freshly cleaned and oiled. He had tested the mechanism of his automatic. MacDonald had watched him, and both understood what such preparations meant as they set out on this last day's journey into the North. They had not kept from Joanne the fact that they would reach the end before night, and as they rode the prescribed distance behind the old hunter Aldous wondered how much she guessed, and what she knew. They had given her to understand that they were beating out the rival party, but he believed that in spite of all their efforts there was in Joanne's mind a comprehension which she did not reveal in voice or look. To-day she was no different than yesterday, or the day before, except that her cheeks were not so deeply flushed, and there was an uneasy questing in her eyes. He believed that she sensed the nearness of tragedy, that she was conscious of what they were now trying to hide from her, and that she did not speak because she knew that he and MacDonald did not want her to know. His heart throbbed with pride. Her courage inspired him. And he noticed that she rode closer to him--always at his side through that day. Early in the afternoon MacDonald stopped on the crest of a swell in the valley and waited for them. When they came up he was facing the north. He did not look at them. For a few moments he did not speak. His hat was pulled low, and his beard was twitching. They looked ahead. At their feet the valley broadened until it was a mile in width. Half a mile away a band of caribou were running for the cover of a parklike clump of timber. MacDonald did not seem to notice them. He was still looking steadily, and he was gazing at a mountain. It was a tremendous mountain, a terrible-looking, ugly mountain, perhaps three miles away. Aldous had never seen another like it. Its two huge shoulders were of almost ebon blackness, and glistened in the sunlight as if smeared with oil. Between those two shoulders rose a cathedral-like spire of rock and snow that seemed to tip the white fleece of the clouds. MacDonald did not turn when he spoke. His voice was deep and vibrant with an intense emotion. Yet he was not excited. "I've been hunting for that mount'in for forty years, Johnny!" "Mac!" Aldous leaned over and laid a hand on the old mountaineer's shoulder. Still MacDonald did not look at him. "Forty years," he repeated, as if speaking to himself. "I see how I missed it now, just as DeBar said. I hunted from the west, an' on that side the mount'in ain't black. We must have crossed this valley an' come in from the east forty years ago, Johnny----" He turned now, and what Joanne and Aldous saw in his face was not grief; it was not the sorrow of one drawing near to his beloved dead, but a joy that had transfigured him. The fire and strength of the youth in which he had first looked upon this valley with Jane at his side burned again in the sunken eyes of Donald MacDonald. After forty years he had come into his own. Somewhere very near was the cavern with the soft white floor of sand, and for a moment Aldous fancied that he could hear the beating of MacDonald's heart, while from Joanne's tender bosom there rose a deep, sobbing breath of understanding. And MacDonald, facing the mountain again, pointed with a long, gaunt arm, and said: "We're almost there, Johnny. God ha' mercy on them if they've beat us out!" CHAPTER XXVI They rode on into the Valley of Gold. Again MacDonald took the lead, and he rode straight into the face of the black mountain. Aldous no longer made an effort to keep Joanne in ignorance of what might be ahead of them. He put a sixth cartridge into the chamber of his rifle, and carried the weapon across the pommel of his saddle. He explained to her now why they were riding behind--that if their enemies were laying in wait for them, MacDonald, alone, could make a swift retreat. Joanne asked no questions. Her lips were set tight. She was pale. At the end of three quarters of an hour it seemed to them that MacDonald was riding directly into the face of a wall of rock. Then he swung sharply to the left, and disappeared. When they came to the point where he had turned they found that he had entered a concealed break in the mountain--a chasm with walls that rose almost perpendicular for a thousand feet above their heads. A dark and solemn gloom pervaded this chasm, and Aldous drew nearer to MacDonald, his rifle held in readiness, and his bridle-rein fastened to his saddle-horn. The chasm was short. Sunlight burst upon them suddenly, and a few minutes later MacDonald waited for them again. Even Aldous could not restrain an exclamation of surprise when he rode up with Joanne. Under them was another valley, a wide-sweeping valley between two rugged ranges that ran to the southwest. Up out of it there came to their ears a steady, rumbling roar; the air was filled with that roar; the earth seemed to tremble with it under their feet--and yet it was not loud. It came sullenly, as if from a great distance. And then they saw that MacDonald was not looking out over the sweep of the valley, but down. Half a mile under them there was a dip--a valley within a valley--and through it ran the silver sheen of a stream. MacDonald spoke no word now. He dismounted and levelled his long telescope at the little valley. Aldous helped Joanne from her horse, and they waited. A great breath came at last from the old hunter. Slowly he turned. He did not give the telescope to Aldous, but to Joanne. She looked. For a full minute she seemed scarcely to breathe. Her hands trembled when she turned to give the glass to Aldous. "I see--log cabins!" she whispered. MacDonald placed a detaining hand on her arm. "Look ag'in--Joanne," he said in a low voice that had in it a curious quiver. Again she raised the telescope to her eyes. "You see the little cabin--nearest the river?" whispered Donald. "Yes, I see it." "That was our cabin--Jane's an' mine--forty years ago," he said, and now his voice was husky. Joanne's breath broke sobbingly as she gave Aldous the glass. Something seemed to choke him as he looked down upon the scene of the grim tragedy in which Donald MacDonald and Jane had played their fatal part. He saw the cabins as they had stood for nearly half a century. There were four. Three of them were small, and the fourth was large. They might have been built yesterday, for all that he could see of ruin or decay. The doors and windows of the larger cabin and two of the smaller ones were closed. The roofs were unbroken. The walls appeared solid. Twice he looked at the fourth cabin, with its wide-open door and window, and twice he looked at the cabin nearest the stream, where had lived Donald MacDonald and Jane. Donald had moved, and Joanne was watching him tensely, when he took the glass from his eyes. Mutely the old mountaineer held out a hand, and Aldous gave him the telescope. Crouching behind a rock he slowly swept the valley. For half an hour he looked through the glass, and in that time scarce a word was spoken. During the last five minutes of that half-hour both Joanne and Aldous knew that MacDonald was looking at the little cabin nearest the stream, and with hands clasped tightly they waited in silence. At last old Donald rose, and his face and voice were filled with a wonderful calm. "There ain't been no change," he said softly. "I can see the log in front o' the door that I used to cut kindling on. It was too tough for them to split an' burn after we left. An' I can see the tub I made out o' spruce for Jane. It's leaning next the door, where I put it the day before we went away. Forty years ain't very long, Johnny! It ain't very long!" Joanne had turned from them, and Aldous knew that she was crying. "An' we've beat 'em to it, Johnny--we've beat 'em to it!" exulted MacDonald. "There ain't a sign of life in the valley, and we sure could make it out from here if there was!" He climbed into his saddle, and started down the slope of the mountain. Aldous went to Joanne. She was sobbing. Her eyes were blinded by tears. "It's terrible, terrible," she whispered brokenly. "And it--it's beautiful, John. I feel as though I'd like to give my life--to bring Jane back!" "You must not betray tears or grief to Donald," said Aldous, drawing her close in his arms for a moment. "Joanne--sweetheart--it is a wonderful thing that is happening with him! I dreaded this day--I have dreaded it for a long time. I thought that it would be terrible to witness the grief of a man with a heart like Donald's. But he is not filled with grief, Joanne. It is joy, a great happiness that perhaps neither you nor I can understand--that has come to him now. Don't you understand? He has found her. He has found their old home. To-day is the culmination of forty years of hope, and faith, and prayer. And it does not bring him sorrow, but gladness. We must rejoice with him. We must be happy with him. I love you, Joanne. I love you above all else on earth or in heaven. Without you I would not want to live. And yet, Joanne, I believe that I am no happier to-day than is Donald MacDonald!" With a sudden cry Joanne flung her arms about his neck. "John, is it _that?_" she cried, and joy shone through her tears. "Yes, yes, I understand now! His heart is not breaking. It is life returning into a heart that was empty. I understand--oh, I understand now! And we must be happy with him. We must be happy when we find the cavern--and Jane!" "And when we go down there to the little cabin that was their home." "Yes--yes!" They followed behind MacDonald. After a little a spur of the mountain-side shut out the little valley from them, and when they rounded this they found themselves very near to the cabins. They rode down a beautiful slope into the basin, and when he reached the log buildings old Donald stopped and dismounted. Again Aldous helped Joanne from her horse. Ahead of them MacDonald went to the cabin nearest the stream. At the door he paused and waited for them. "Forty years!" he said, facing them. "An' there ain't been so very much change as I can see!" Years had dropped from his shoulders in these last few minutes, and even Aldous could not keep quite out of his face his amazement and wonder. Very gently Donald put his hand to the latch, as though fearing to awaken some one within; and very gently he pressed down on it, and put a bit of his strength against the door. It moved inward, and when it had opened sufficiently he leaned forward so that his head and a half of his shoulders were inside; and he looked--a long time he looked, without a movement of his body or a breath that they could see. And then he turned to them again, and his eyes were shining as they had never seen them shine before. "I'll open the window," he said. "It's dark--dark inside." He went to the window, which was closed with a sapling barricade that had swung on hinges; and when he swung it back the rusted hinges gave way, and the thing crashed down at his feet. And now through the open window the sun poured in a warm radiance, and Donald entered the cabin, with Joanne and Aldous close behind him. There was not much in the cabin, but what it held was earth, and heaven, and all else to Donald MacDonald. A strange, glad cry surged from his chest as he looked about him, and now Joanne saw and understood what John Aldous had told her--for Donald MacDonald, after forty years, had come back to his home! "Oh, my Gawd, Johnny, they didn't touch anything! They didn't touch anything!" he breathed in ecstasy. "I thought after we ran away they'd come in----" He broke off, and his hat dropped from his hand, and he stood and stared; and what he was looking at, the sun fell upon in a great golden splash, and Joanne's hand gripped John's, and held to it tightly. Against the wall, hanging as they had hung for forty years, were a woman's garments: a hood, a shawl, a dress, and an apron that was half in tatters; and on the floor under these things were _a pair of shoes_. And as Donald MacDonald went to them, his arms reaching out, his lips moving, forgetful of all things but that he had come home, and Jane was here, Joanne drew Aldous softly to the door, and they went out into the day. Joanne did not speak, and Aldous did not urge her. He saw her white throat throbbing as if there were a little heart beating there, and her eyes were big and dark and velvety, like the eyes of a fawn that had been frightened. There was a thickness in his own throat, and he found that it was difficult for him to see far out over the plain. They waited near the horses. Fifty yards from them ran the stream; a clear, beautiful stream which flowed in the direction from which the mysterious ramble of thunder seemed to come. This, Aldous knew, was the stream of gold. In the sand he saw wreckage which he knew were the ancient rockers; a shovel, thrust shaft-deep, still remained where it had last been planted. Perhaps for ten minutes Donald MacDonald remained in the cabin. Then he came out. Very carefully he closed the door. His shoulders were thrown back. His head was held high. He looked like a monarch. And his voice was calm. "Everything is there, Johnny--everything but the gold," he said. "They took that." Now he spoke to Joanne. "You better not go with us into the other cabins," he said. "Why?" she asked softly. "Because--there's death in them all." "I am going," she said. From the window of the largest cabin MacDonald pulled the sapling shutter, and, like the other, it fell at his feet. Then they opened the door, and entered; and here the sunlight revealed the cabin's ghastly tragedy. The first thing that they saw, because it was most terrible, was a rough table, half over which lay the shrunken thing that had once been a man. A part of its clothes still remained, but the head had broken from its column, and the white and fleshless skull lay facing them. Out of tattered and dust-crumbling sleeves reached the naked bones of hands and arms. And on the floor lay another of these things, in a crumpled and huddled heap, only the back of the skull showing, like the polished pate of a bald man. These things they saw first, and then two others: on the table were a heap of age-blackened and dusty sacks, and out of the back of the crumbling thing that guarded them stuck the long buckhorn hilt of a knife. "They must ha' died fighting," said MacDonald. "An' there, Johnny, is their gold!" White as death Joanne stood in the door and watched them. MacDonald and Aldous went to the sacks. They were of buckskin. The years had not aged them. When Aldous took one in his hands he found that it was heavier than lead. With his knife MacDonald cut a slit in one of them, and the sun that came through the window flashed in a little golden stream that ran from the bag. "We'll take them out and put 'em in a pannier," said MacDonald. "The others won't be far behind us, Johnny." Between them they carried out the seven sacks of gold. It was a load for their arms. They put it in one of the panniers, and then MacDonald nodded toward the cabin next the one that had been his own. "I wouldn't go in there, Joanne," he said. "I'm going," she whispered again. "It was _their_ cabin--the man an' his wife," persisted old Donald. "An' the men was beasts, Joanne! I don't know what happened in there--but I guess." "I'm going," she said again. MacDonald pulled down the barricade from the window--a window that also faced the south and west, and this time he had to thrust against the door with his shoulder. They entered, and now a cry came from Joanne's lips--a cry that had in it horror, disbelief, a woman's wrath. Against the wall was a pile of something, and on that pile was the searching first light of day that had fallen upon it for nearly half a century. The pile was a man crumpled down; across it, her skeleton arms thrown about it protectingly, was a woman. This time Aldous did not go forward. MacDonald was alone, and Aldous took Joanne from the cabin, and held her while she swayed in his arms. Donald came out a little later, and there was a curious look of exultation and triumph in his face. "She killed herself," he said. "That was her husband. I know him. I gave him the rock-nails he put in the soles of his boots--and the nails are still there." He went alone into the remaining two cabins, while Aldous stood with Joanne. He did not stay long. From the fourth cabin he brought an armful of the little brown sacks. He returned, and brought a second armful. "There's three more in that last cabin," he explained. "Two men, an' a woman. She must ha' been the wife of the man they killed. They were the last to live, an' they starved to death. An' now, Johnny----" He paused, and he drew in a great breath. He was looking to the west, where the sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains. "An' now, Johnny, if you're ready, an' if Joanne is ready, we'll go," he said. CHAPTER XXVII As they went up out of the basin into the broad meadows of the larger valley, MacDonald rode between Aldous and Joanne, and the pack-horses, led by Pinto, trailed behind. Again old Donald said, as he searched the valley: "We've beat 'em, Johnny. Quade an' Rann are coming up on the other side of the range, and I figger they're just about a day behind--mebby only hours, or an hour. You can't tell. There's more gold back there. We got about a hunderd pounds in them fifteen sacks, an' there was twice that much. It's hid somewhere. Calkins used to keep his'n under the floor. So did Watts. We'll find it later. An' the river, an' the dry gulches on both sides of the valley--they're full of it! It's all gold, Johnny--gold everywhere!" He pointed ahead to where the valley rose in a green slope between two mountains half a mile away. "That's the break," he said. "It don't seem very far now, do it, Joanne?" His silence seemed to have dropped from him like a mantle, and there was joy in what he was telling. "But it was a distance that night--a tumble distance," he continued, before she could answer. "That was forty-one years ago, coming November. An' it was cold, an' the snow was deep. It was bitter cold--so cold it caught my Jane's lungs, an' that was what made her go a little later. The slope up there don't look steep now, but it was steep then--with two feet of snow to drag ourselves through. I don't think the cavern is more'n five or six miles away, Johnny, mebby less, an' it took us twenty hours to reach it. It snowed so heavy that night, an' the wind blowed so, that our trail was filled up or they might ha' followed." Many times Aldous had been on the point of asking old Donald a question. For the first time he asked it now, even as his eyes swept slowly and searchingly over the valley for signs of Mortimer FitzHugh and Quade. "I've often wondered why you ran away with Jane," he said. "I know what threatened her--a thing worse than death. But why did you run? Why didn't you stay and fight?" A low growl rumbled in MacDonald's beard. "Johnny, Johnny, if I only ha' could!" he groaned. "There was five of them left when I ran into the cabin an' barricaded myself there with Jane. I stuck my gun out of the window an' they was afraid to rush the cabin. They was _afraid_, Johnny, all that afternoon--_an' I didn't have a cartridge left to fire!_ That's why we went just as soon as we could crawl out in the dark. I knew they'd come that night. I might ha' killed one or two hand to hand, for I was big an' strong in them days, Johnny, but I knew I couldn't beat 'em all. So we went." "After all, death isn't so very terrible," said Joanne softly, and she was riding so close that for a moment she laid one of her warm hands on Donald MacDonald's. "No, it's sometimes--wunnerful--an' beautiful," replied Donald, a little brokenly, and with that he rode ahead, and Joanne and Aldous waited until the pack-horses had passed them. "He's going to see that all is clear at the summit," explained Aldous. They seemed to be riding now right into the face of that mysterious rumble and roar of the mountains. It was an hour before they all stood together at the top of the break, and here MacDonald swung sharply to the right, and came soon to the rock-strewn bed of a dried-up stream that in ages past had been a wide and rushing torrent. Steadily, as they progressed down this, the rumble and roar grew nearer. It seemed that it was almost under their feet, when again MacDonald turned, and a quarter of an hour later they found themselves at the edge of a small plain; and now all about them were cold and towering mountains that shut out the sun, and a hundred yards to their right was a great dark cleft in the floor of the plain, and up out of this came the rumble and roar that was like the sullen anger of monster beasts imprisoned deep down in the bowels of the earth. MacDonald got off his horse, and Aldous and Joanne rode up to him. In the old man's face was a look of joy and triumph. "It weren't so far as I thought it was, Johnny!" he cried. "Oh, it must ha' been a turrible night--a turrible night when Jane an' I come this way! It took us twenty hours, Johnny!" "We are near the cavern?" breathed Joanne. "It ain't more'n half a mile farther on, I guess. But we'll camp here. We're pretty well hid. They can't find us. An' from that summit up there we can keep watch in both valleys." Knowing the thoughts that were in MacDonald's mind, and how full his heart was with a great desire, Aldous went to him when they had dismounted. "You go on alone if there is time to-night, Mac," he said, knowing that the other would understand him. "I will make camp." "There ain't no one in the valley," mused the old man, a little doubtfully at first. "It would be safe--quite safe, Johnny." "Yes, it will be safe." "And I will stand guard while John is working," said Joanne, who had come to them. "No one can approach us without being seen." For another moment MacDonald hesitated. Then he said: "Do you see that break over there across the plain? It's the open to a gorge. Johnny, it do seem unreasonable--it do seem as though I must ha' been dreamin'--when I think that it took us twenty hours! But the snow was to my waist in this plain, an' it was slow work--turrible slow work! I think the cavern--ain't on'y a little way up that gorge." "You can make it before the sun is quite gone." "An' I could hear you shout, or your gun. I could ride back in five minutes--an' I wouldn't be gone an hour." "There is no danger," urged Aldous. A deep breath came from old Donald's breast. "I guess--I'll go, Johnny, if you an' Joanne don't mind." He looked about him, and then he pointed toward the face of a great rock. "Put the tepee up near that," he said. "Pile the saddles, an' the blankets, an' the panniers around it, so it'll look like a real camp, Johnny. But it won't be a real camp. It'll be a dummy. See them thick spruce an' cedar over there? Build Joanne a shelter of boughs in there, an' take in some grub, an' blankets, an' the gold. See the point, Johnny? If anything should happen----" "They'd tackle the bogus camp!" cried Aldous with elation. "It's a splendid idea!" He set at once about unpacking the horses, and Joanne followed close at his side to help him. MacDonald mounted his horse and rode at a trot in the direction of the break in the mountain. The sun had disappeared, but its reflection was still on the peaks; and after he had stripped and hobbled the horses Aldous took advantage of the last of day to scrutinize the plain and the mountain slopes through the telescope. After that he found enough dry poles with which to set up the tepee, and about this he scattered the saddles and panniers, as MacDonald had suggested. Then he cleared a space in the thick spruce, and brought to it what was required for their hidden camp. It was almost dark when he completed the spruce and cedar lean-to for Joanne. He knew that to-night they must build no fire, not even for tea; and when they had laid out the materials for their cold supper, which consisted of beans, canned beef and tongue, peach marmalade, bread bannock, and pickles and cheese, he went with Joanne for water to a small creek they had crossed a hundred yards away. In both his hands, ready for instant action, he carried his rifle. Joanne carried the pail. Her eyes were big and bright and searching in that thick-growing dusk of night. She walked very close to Aldous, and she said: "John, I know how careful you and Donald have been in this journey into the North. I know what you have feared. Culver Rann and Quade are after the gold, and they are near. But why does Donald talk as though we are _surely_ going to be attacked by them, or are _surely_ going to attack them? I don't understand it, John. If you don't care for the gold so much, as you told me once, and if we find Jane to-morrow, or to-night, why do we remain to have trouble with Quade and Culver Rann? Tell me, John." He could not see her face fully in the gloom, and he was glad that she could not see his. "If we can get away without fighting, we will, Joanne," he lied. And he knew that she would have known that he was lying if it had not been for the darkness. "You won't fight--over the gold?" she asked, pressing his arm. "Will you promise me that, John?" "Yes, I promise that. I swear it!" he cried, and so forcefully that she gave a glad little laugh. "Then if they don't find us to-morrow, we'll go back home?" She trembled, and he knew that her heart was filled with a sudden lightness. "And I don't believe they will find us. They won't come beyond that terrible place--and the gold! Why should they, John? Why should they follow us--if we leave them everything? Oh-h-h-h!" She shuddered, and whispered: "I wish we had not brought the gold, John. I wish we had left it behind!" "What we have is worth thirty or forty thousand dollars," he said reassuringly, as he filled his pail with water and they began to return. "We can do a great deal of good with that. Endowments, for instance," he laughed. As he spoke, they both stopped, and listened. Plainly they heard the approaching thud of hoofs. MacDonald had been gone nearer two hours than one, and believing that it was him, Aldous gave the owl signal. The signal floated back to them softly. Five minutes later MacDonald rode up and dismounted. Until he had taken the saddle off, and had hobbled his horse, he did not speak. Neither Joanne nor Aldous asked the question that was in their hearts. But even in the darkness they felt something. It was as if not only the torrent rushing through the chasm, but MacDonald's heart as well, was charging the air with a strange and subdued excitement. And when MacDonald spoke, that which they had felt was in his voice. "You ain't seen or heard anything, Johnny?" "Nothing. And you--Donald?" In the darkness, Joanne went to the old man, and her hand found one of his, and clasped it tightly; and she found that Donald MacDonald's big hand was trembling in a strange and curious way, and she could feel him quivering. "You found Jane?" she whispered. "Yes, I found her, little Joanne." She did not let go of his hand until they entered the open space which Aldous had made in the spruce. Then she remembered what Aldous had said to her earlier in the day, and cheerfully she lighted the two candles they had set out, and forced Aldous down first upon the ground, and then MacDonald, and began to help them to beans and meat and bannock, while all the time her heart was crying out to know about the cavern--and Jane. The candleglow told her a great deal, for in it Donald MacDonald's face was very calm, and filled with a great peace, despite the trembling she had felt. Her woman's sympathy told her that his heart was too full on this night for speech, and when he ate but little she did not urge him to eat more; and when he rose and went silently and alone out into the darkness she held Aldous back; and when, still a little later, she went into her nest for the night, she whispered softly to him: "I know that he found Jane as he wanted to find her, and he is happy. I think he has gone out there alone--to cry." And for a time after that, as he sat in the gloom, John Aldous knew that Joanne was sobbing like a little child in the spruce and cedar shelter he had built for her. CHAPTER XXVIII If MacDonald slept at all that night Aldous did not know it. The old mountaineer watched until a little after twelve in the deep shadow of a rock between the two camps. "I can't sleep," he protested, when Aldous urged him to take his rest. "I might take a little stroll up the plain, Johnny--but I can't sleep." The plain lay in a brilliant starlight at this hour; they could see the gleam of the snow-peaks--the light was almost like the glow of the moon. "There'll be plenty of sleep after to-morrow," added MacDonald, and there was a finality in his voice and words which set the other's blood stirring. "You think they will show up to-morrow?" "Yes. This is the same valley the cabins are in, Johnny. That big mountain runs out an' splits it, an' it curves like a horseshoe. From that mount'in we can see them, no matter which way they come. They'll go straight to the cabins. There's a deep little run under the slope. You didn't see it when we came out, but it'll take us within a hunderd yards of 'em. An' at a hunderd yards----" He shrugged his shoulders suggestively in the starlight, and there was a smile on his face. "It seems almost like murder," shuddered Aldous. "But it ain't,'" replied MacDonald quickly. "It's self-defence! If we don't do it, Johnny--if we don't draw on them first, what happened there forty years ago is goin' to happen again--with Joanne!" "A hundred yards," breathed Aldous, his jaws setting hard. "And there are five!" "They'll go into the cabins," said MacDonald. "At some time there will be two or three outside, an' we'll take them first. At the sound of the shots the others will run out, and it will be easy. Yo' can't very well miss a man at a hunderd yards, Johnny?" "No, I won't miss." MacDonald rose. "I'm goin' to take a little stroll, Johnny." For two hours after that Aldous was alone. He knew why old Donald could not sleep, and where he had gone, and he pictured him sitting before the little old cabin in the starlit valley communing with the spirit of Jane. And during those two hours he steeled himself for the last time to the thing that was going to happen when the day came. It was nearly three o'clock when MacDonald returned. It was four o'clock before he roused Joanne; and it was five o'clock when they had eaten their breakfast, and MacDonald prepared to leave for the mountain with his telescope. Aldous had observed Joanne talking to him for several minutes alone, and he had also observed that her eyes were very bright, and that there was an unusual eagerness in her manner of listening to what the old man was saying. The significance of this did not occur to him when she urged him to accompany MacDonald. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one, John," she said, "and I cannot possibly be in danger here. I can see you all the time, and you can see me--if I don't run away, or hide." And she laughed a little breathlessly. "There is no danger, is there, Donald?" The old hunter shook his head. "There's no danger, but--you might be lonesome," he said. Joanne put her pretty mouth close to Aldous' ear. "I want to be alone for a little while, dear," she whispered, and there was that mystery in her voice which kept him from questioning her, and made him go with MacDonald. In three quarters of an hour they had reached the spur of the mountain from which MacDonald had said they could see up the valley, and also the break through which they had come the preceding afternoon. The morning mists still hung low, but as these melted away under the sun mile after mile of a marvellous panorama spread out swiftly under them, and as the distance of their vision grew, the deeper became the disappointment in MacDonald's face. For half an hour after the mists had gone he neither spoke nor lowered the telescope from his eyes. A mile away Aldous saw three caribou crossing the valley. A little later, on a green slope, he discerned a moving hulk that he knew was a bear. He did not speak until old Donald lowered the glass. "I can see for eight miles up the valley, an' there ain't a soul in sight," said MacDonald in answer to his question. "I figgered they'd be along about now, Johnny." A dozen times Aldous had looked back at the camp. Twice he had seen Joanne. He looked now through the telescope. She was nowhere in sight. A bit nervously he returned the telescope to MacDonald. "And I can't see Joanne," he said. MacDonald looked. For five minutes he levelled the glass steadily at the camp. Then he shifted it slowly westward, and a low exclamation broke from his lips as he lowered the glass, and looked at Aldous. "Johnny, she's just goin' into the gorge! She was just disappearin' when I caught her!" "Going into--the gorge!" gasped Aldous, jumping to his feet. "Mac----" MacDonald rose and stood at his side. There was something reassuring in the rumbling laugh that came from deep in his chest. "She's beat us!" he chuckled. "Bless her, she's beat us! I didn't guess why she was askin' me all them questions. An' I told her, Johnny--told her just where the cavern was up there in the gorge, an' how you wouldn't hardly miss it if you tried. An' she asked me how long it would take to _walk_ there, an' I told her half an hour. An' she's going to the cavern, Johnny!" He was telescoping his long glass as he spoke, and while Aldous was still staring toward the gorge in wonderment and a little fear, he added: "We'd better follow. Quade an' Rann can't get here inside o' two or three hours, an' we'll be back before then." Again he rumbled with that curious chuckling laugh. "She beat us, Johnny, she beat us fair! An' she's got spirrit, a wunnerful spirrit, to go up there alone!" Aldous wanted to run, but he held himself down to MacDonald's stride. His heart trembled apprehensively as they hurriedly descended the mountain and cut across the plain. He could not quite bring himself to MacDonald's point of assurance regarding Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh. The old mountaineer was positive that the other party was behind them. Aldous asked himself if it were not possible that Quade and FitzHugh were _ahead_ of them, and already waiting and watching for their opportunity. He had suggested that they might have swung farther to the west, with the plan of descending upon the valley from the north, and MacDonald had pointed out how unlikely this was. In spite of this, Aldous was not in a comfortable frame of mind as they hurried after Joanne. She had half an hour's start of them when they reached the mouth of the gorge, and not until they had travelled another half-hour up the rough bed of the break between the two mountains, and MacDonald pointed ahead, and said: "There's the cavern!" did he breathe easier. They could see the mouth of the cavern when they were yet a couple of hundred yards from it. It was a wide, low cleft in the north face of the chasm wall, and in front of it, spreading out like the flow of a stream, was a great spatter of white sand, like a huge rug that had been spread out in a space cleared of its chaotic litter of rock and broken slate. At first glance Aldous guessed that the cavern had once been the exit of a subterranean stream. The sand deadened the sound of their footsteps as they approached. At the mouth of the cave they paused. It was perhaps forty or fifty feet deep, and as high as a nine-foot room. Inside it was quite light. Halfway to the back of it, upon her knees, and with her face turned from them, was Joanne. They were very close to her before she heard them. With a startled cry she sprang to her feet, and Aldous and MacDonald saw what she had been doing. Over a long mound in the white sand still rose the sapling stake which Donald had planted there forty years before; and about this, and scattered over the grave, were dozens of wild asters and purple hyacinths which Joanne had brought from the plain. Aldous did not speak, but he took her hand, and looked down with her on the grave. And then something caught his eyes among the flowers, and Joanne drew him a step nearer, her eyes shining like velvet stars, while his heart beat faster when he saw what the object was. It was a book, open in the middle, and it lay face downward on the grave. It was old, and looked as though it might have fallen into dust at the touch of his finger. Joanne's voice was low and filled with a whispering awe. "It was her Bible, John!" He turned a little, and noticed that Donald had gone to the mouth of the cavern, and was looking toward the mountain. "It was her Bible," he heard Joanne repeating; and then MacDonald turned toward them, and he saw in his face a look that seemed strange and out of place in this home of his dead. He went to him, and Joanne followed. MacDonald had turned again--was listening--and holding his breath. Then he said, still with his face toward the mountain and the valley: "I may be mistaken, Johnny, but I think I heard--a rifle-shot!" For a full minute they listened. "It seemed off there," said MacDonald, pointing to the south. "I guess we'd better get back to camp, Johnny." He started ahead of them, and Aldous followed as swiftly as he could with Joanne. She was panting with excitement, but she asked no questions. MacDonald began to spring more quickly from rock to rock; over the level spaces he began to run. He reached the edge of the plain four or five hundred yards in advance of them, and was scanning the valley through his telescope when they came up. "They're not on this side," he said. "They're comin' up the other leg of the valley, Johnny. We've got to get to the mount'in before we can see them." He closed the glass with a snap and swung it over his shoulder. Then he pointed toward the camp. "Take Joanne down there," he commanded. "Watch the break we came through, an' wait for me. I'm goin' up on the mount'in an' take a look!" The last words came back over his shoulder as he started on a trot down the slope. Only once before had Aldous seen MacDonald employ greater haste, and that was on the night of the attack on Joanne. He was convinced there was no doubt in Donald's mind about the rifle-shot, and that the shot could mean but one thing--the nearness of Mortimer FitzHugh and Quade. Why they should reveal their presence in that way he did not ask himself as he hurried down into the plain with Joanne. By the time they reached the camp old Donald had covered two thirds of the distance to the mountain. Aldous looked at his watch and a curious thrill shot through him. Only a little more than an hour had passed since they had left the mountain to follow Joanne, and in that time it would have been impossible for their enemies to have covered more than a third of the eight-mile stretch of valley which they had found empty of human life under the searching scrutiny of the telescope! He was right--and MacDonald was wrong! The sound of the shot, if there had been a shot, must have come from some other direction! He wanted to shout his warning to MacDonald, but already too great a distance separated them. Besides, if he was right, MacDonald would run into no danger in that direction. Their menace was to the north--beyond the chasm out of which came the rumble and roar of the stream. When Donald had disappeared up the slope he looked more closely at the rugged walls of rock that shut them in on that side. He could see no break in them. His eyes followed the dark streak in the floor of the plain, which was the chasm. It was two hundred yards below where they were standing; and a hundred yards beyond the tepee he saw where it came out of a great rent in the mountain. He looked at Joanne. She had been watching him, and was breathing quickly. "While Donald is taking his look from the mountain, I'm going to investigate the chasm," he said. She followed him, a few steps behind. The roar grew in their ears as they advanced. After a little solid rock replaced the earth under their feet, and twenty paces from the precipice Aldous took Joanne by the hand. They went to the edge and looked over. Fifty feet below them the stream was caught in the narrow space between the two chasm walls, and above the rush and roar of it Aldous heard the startled cry that came from Joanne. She clutched his hand fiercely. Fascinated she gazed down. The water, speeding like a millrace, was a lather of foam; and up through this foam there shot the crests of great rocks, as though huge monsters of some kind were at play, whipping the torrent into greater fury, and bellowing forth thunderous voices. Downstream Aldous could see that the tumult grew less; from the rent in the mountain came the deeper, more distant-rolling thunder that they had heard on the other side of the range. And then, as he looked, a sharper cry broke from Joanne, and she dragged him back from the ledge, and pointed toward the tepee. Out from among the rocks had appeared a human figure. It was a woman. Her hair was streaming wildly about her, and in the sun it was black as a crow's wing. She rushed to the tepee, opened the flap, and looked in. Then she turned, and a cry that was almost a scream rang from her lips. In another moment she had seen Aldous and Joanne, and was running toward them. They advanced to meet her. Suddenly Aldous stopped, and with a sharp warning to Joanne he threw his rifle half to his shoulder, and faced the rocks from which the speeding figure had come. In that same instant they both recognized her. It was Marie, the woman who had ridden the bear at Tête Jaune, and with whom Mortimer FitzHugh had bought Joe DeBar! She staggered up to them, panting, exhausted, her breath coming in gulping sobs. For a moment she could not speak. Her dress was torn; her waist was ripped so that it exposed her throat and shoulder; and the front of the waist and her face were stained with blood. Her black eyes shone like a madwoman's. Fiercely she fought to get her breath, and all the time she clung to Joanne, and looked at Aldous. She pointed toward the rocks--the chaotic upheaval that lay between the tepee and the chasm--and words broke gaspingly from her lips. "They're coming!--coming!" she cried. "They killed Joe--murdered him--and they're coming--to kill you!" She clutched a hand to her breast, and then pointed with it to the mountain where MacDonald had gone. "They saw him go--and they sent two men to kill him; and the rest are coming through the rocks!" She turned sobbingly to Joanne. "They killed Joe," she moaned. "They killed Joe, and they're coming--for _you!_" The emphasis on that final word struck like a blow in the ears of John Aldous. "Run for the spruce!" he commanded. "Joanne, run!" Marie had crumpled down in a moaning heap at Joanne's feet, and sat swaying with her face in her hands. "They killed him--they murdered my Joe!" she was sobbing. "And it was my fault--my fault! I trapped him! I sold him! And, oh, my God, I loved him--I loved him!" "Run, Joanne!" commanded Aldous a second time. "Run for the spruce!" Instead of obeying him, Joanne knelt down beside Marie. He went to speak again, but there came an interruption--a thing that was like the cold touch of lead in his own heart. From up on the mountain where the old mountaineer had walked into the face of death there came the sharp, splitting report of a rifle; and in that same instant it was followed by another and still a third--quick, stinging, whiplike reports--and he knew that not one of them had come from the gun of Donald MacDonald! And then he saw that the rocks behind the tepee had become suddenly alive with men! CHAPTER XXIX Sheer amazement made Aldous hold his fire in that first moment. Marie had said that two men were after MacDonald. He had heard three shots nearly a mile away, and she was still sobbing that DeBar was dead. That accounted for _three_. He had expected to see only Quade, and FitzHugh, and one other behind the tepee. And there were six! He counted them as they came swiftly out from the shelter of the rocks to the level of the plain. He was about to fire when he thought of Joanne and Marie. They were still behind him, crouching upon the ground. To fire from where he stood would draw a fusillade of bullets in their direction, and with another warning cry to Joanne, he sped twenty paces to one side so that they would not be within range. Not until then did the attacking party see him. At a hundred and fifty yards he had no time to pick out Quade or Mortimer FitzHugh. He fired first at a group of three, and one of the three crumpled down as though his skull had been crushed from above. A rifle spat back at him and the bullet sang like a ripping cloth close over his head. He dropped to his knees before he fired again, and a bullet clove the air where he had stood. The crack of rifles did not hurry him. He knew that he had six cartridges, and only six, and he aimed deliberately. At his second shot the man he had fired at ran forward three or four steps, and then pitched flat on his face. For a flash Aldous thought that it was Mortimer FitzHugh. Then, along his gun barrel, he saw FitzHugh--and pulled the trigger. It was a miss. Two men had dropped upon their knees and were aiming more carefully. He swung his sight to the foremost, and drove a bullet straight through his chest. The next moment something seemed to have fallen upon him with crushing weight. A red sea rose before his eyes. In it he was submerged; the roar of it filled his ears; it blinded him; and in the suffocating embrace of it he tried to cry out. He fought himself out of it, his eyes cleared, and he could see again. His rifle was no longer in his hands, and he was standing. Twenty feet away men were rushing upon him. His brain recovered itself with the swiftness of lightning. A bullet had stunned him, but he was not badly hurt. He jerked out his automatic, but before he could raise it, or even fire from his hip, the first of his assailants was upon him with a force that drove it from his hand. They went down together, and as they struggled on the bare rock Aldous caught for a fraction of a second a scene that burned itself like fire in his brain. He saw Mortimer FitzHugh with a revolver in his hand. He had stopped; he was staring like one looking upon the ghost of the dead, and as he stared there rose above the rumbling roar of the chasm a wild and terrible shriek from Joanne. Aldous saw no more then. He was not fighting for his life, but for her, and he fought with the mad ferocity of a tiger. As he struck, and choked, and beat the head of his assailant on the rock, he heard shriek after shriek come from Joanne's lips; and then for a flash he saw them again, and Joanne was struggling in the arms of Quade! He struggled to his knees, and the man he was fighting struggled to his knees; and then they came to their feet, locked in a death-grip on the edge of the chasm. From Quade's clutch he saw Joanne staring at Mortimer FitzHugh; then her eyes shot to him, and with another shriek she fought to free herself. For thirty seconds of that terrible drama Mortimer FitzHugh stood as if hewn out of rock. Then he sprang toward the fighters. In the arms of John Aldous was the strength of ten men. He twisted the head of his antagonist under his arm; he braced his feet--in another moment he would have flung him bodily into the roaring maelstrom below. Even as his muscles gathered themselves for the final effort he knew that all was lost. Mortimer FitzHugh's face leered over his shoulder, his demoniac intention was in his eyes before he acted. With a cry of hatred and of triumph he shoved them both over the edge, and as Aldous plunged to the depths below, still holding to his enemy, he heard a last piercing scream from Joanne. As the rock slid away from under his feet his first thought was that the end had come, and that no living creature could live in the roaring maelstrom of rock and, flood into which he was plunging. But quicker than he dashed through space his mind worked. Instinctively, without time for reasoning, he gripped at the fact that his one chance lay in the close embrace of his enemy. He hung to him. It seemed to him that they turned over and over a hundred times in that distance of fifty feet. Then a mass of twisting foam broke under him, and up out of it shot the head of one of the roaring monsters of rock that he and Joanne had looked upon. They struck it fairly, and Aldous was uppermost. He felt the terrific impact of the other's body. The foam boiled upward again, and they slipped off into the flood. Still Aldous held to his enemy. He could feel that he was limp now; he no longer felt the touch of the hands that had choked him, or the embrace of the arms that had struggled with him. He believed that his antagonist was dead. The fifty-foot fall, with the rock splitting his back, had killed him. For a moment Aldous still clung to him as they sank together under the surface, torn and twisted by the whirling eddies and whirlpools. It seemed to him that they would never cease going down, that they were sinking a vast distance. Dully he felt the beat of rocks. Then it flashed upon him that the dead man was sinking like a weighted thing. He freed himself. Fiercely he struggled to bring himself to the surface. It seemed an eternity before he rose to the top. He opened his mouth and drew a great gulp of air into his lungs. The next instant a great rock reared like a living thing in his face; he plunged against it, was beaten over it, and again he was going down--down--in that deadly clutch of maelstrom and undertow. Again he fought, and again he came to the surface. He saw a black, slippery wall gliding past him with the speed of an express train. And now it seemed as though a thousand clubs were beating him. Ahead of him were rocks--nothing but rocks. He shot through them like a piece of driftwood. The roaring in his ears grew less, and he felt the touch of something under his feet. Sunlight burst upon him. He caught at a rock, and hung to it. His eyes cleared a little. He was within ten feet of a shore covered with sand and gravel. The water was smooth and running with a musical ripple. Waist-deep he waded through it to the shore, and fell down upon his knees, with his face buried in his arms. He had been ten minutes in the death-grip of the chasm. It was another ten minutes before he staggered to his feet and looked about him. His face was beaten until he was almost blind. His shirt had been torn from his shoulders and his flesh was bleeding. He advanced a few steps. He raised one arm and then the other. He limped. One arm hurt him when he moved it, but the bone was sound. He was terribly mauled, but he knew that no bones were broken, and a gasp of thankfulness fell from his lips. All this time his mind had been suffering even more than his body. Not for an instant, even as he fought for life between the chasm walls, and as he lay half unconscious on the rock, had he forgotten Joanne. His one thought was of her now. He had no weapon, but as he stumbled in the direction of the camp in the little plain he picked up a club that lay in his path. That MacDonald was dead, Aldous was certain. There would be four against him--Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh and the two men who had gone to the mountain. His brain cleared swiftly as a part of his strength returned, and it occurred to him that if he lost no time he might come upon Joanne and her captors before the two men came from killing old Donald. He tried to run. Not until then did he fully realize the condition he was in. Twice in the first hundred yards his legs doubled under him and he fell down among the rocks. He grew steadily stronger, though each time he tried to run or spring a distance of a few feet his legs doubled under him like that. It took him twenty minutes to get back to the edge of the plain, and when he got there it was empty. There was no sign of Quade or FitzHugh, or of Joanne and Marie; and there was no one coming from the direction of the mountain. He tried to run again, and he found that over the level floor of the valley he could make faster time than among the rocks. He went to where he had dropped his rifle. It was gone. He searched for his automatic. That, too, was gone. There was one weapon left--a long skinning-knife in one of the panniers near the tepee. As he went for this, he passed two of the men whom he had shot. Quade and FitzHugh had taken their weapons, and had turned them over to see if they were alive or dead. They were dead. He secured the knife, and behind the tepee he passed the third body, its face as still and white as the others. He shuddered as he recognized it. It was Slim Barker. His rifle was gone. More swiftly now he made his way into the break out of which his assailants had come a short time before. The thought came to him again that he had been right, and that Donald MacDonald, in spite of all his years in the mountains, had been fatally wrong. Their enemies had come down from the north, and this break led to their hiding-place. Through it Joanne must have been taken by her captors. As he made his way over the rocks, gaining a little more of his strength with each step, his mind tried to picture the situation that had now arisen between Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh. How would Quade, who was mad for possession of Joanne, accept FitzHugh's claim of ownership? Would he believe his partner? Would he even believe Joanne if, to save herself from him, she told him FitzHugh was her husband? Even if he believed them, _would he give her up?_ Would Quade allow Mortimer FitzHugh to stand between him and the object for which he was willing to sacrifice everything? As Aldous asked himself these questions his blood ran hot and cold by turns. And the answer to them drew a deep breath of fear and of anguish from him as he tried again to run among the rocks. There could be but one answer: Quade would fight. He would fight like a madman, and if this fight had happened and FitzHugh had been killed Joanne had already gone utterly and helplessly into his power. He believed that FitzHugh had not revealed to Quade his relationship to Joanne while they were on the plain, and the thought still more terrible came to him that he might not reveal it at all, that he might repudiate Joanne even as she begged upon her knees for him to save her. What a revenge it would be to see her helpless and broken in the arms of Quade! And then, both being beasts---- He could think no farther. The sweat broke out on his face as he hobbled faster over a level space. The sound of the water between the chasm walls was now a thunder in his ears. He could not have heard a rifle-shot or a scream a hundred yards away. The trail he was following had continually grown narrower. It seemed to end a little ahead of him, and the fear that he had come the wrong way after all filled him with dread. He came to the face of the mountain wall, and then, to his left, he saw a crack that was no wider than a man's body. In it there was sand, and the, sand was beaten by footprints! He wormed his way through, and a moment later stood at the edge of the chasm. Fifty feet above him a natural bridge of rock spanned the huge cleft through which the stream was rushing. He crossed this, exposing himself openly to a shot if it was guarded. But it was not guarded. This fact convinced him that MacDonald had been killed, and that his enemies believed he was dead. If MacDonald had escaped, and they had feared a possible pursuit, some one would have watched the bridge. The trail was easy to follow now. Sand and grassy earth had replaced rock and shale; he could make out the imprints of feet--many of them--and they led in the direction of a piece of timber that apparently edged a valley running to the east and west. The rumble of the torrent in the chasm grew fainter as he advanced. A couple of hundred yards farther on the trail swung to the left again; it took him around the end of a huge rock, and as he appeared from behind this, his knife clutched in his hand, he dropped suddenly flat on his face, and his heart rose like a lump in his throat. Scarcely fifty yards above him was the camp of his enemies! There were two tepees and piles of saddles and panniers and blankets about them, but not a soul that he could see. And then, suddenly, there rose a voice bellowing with rage, and he recognized it as Quade's. It came from beyond the tepee, and he rose quickly from where he had thrown himself and ran forward, with the tepee between him and those on the other side. Close to the canvas he dropped on his knees and crawled out behind a pile of saddles and panniers. From here he could see. So near that he could almost have touched them were Joanne and Marie, seated on the ground, with their backs toward him. Their hands were tied behind them. Their feet were bound with pannier ropes. A dozen paces beyond them were Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh. The two men were facing each other, a yard apart. Mortimer FitzHugh's face was white, a deadly white, and he was smiling. His right hand rested carelessly in his hunting-coat pocket. There was a sneering challenge on his lips; in his eyes was a look that Aldous knew meant death if Quade moved. And Quade was like a great red beast ready to spring. His eyes seemed bulging out on his cheeks; his great hands were knotted; his shoulders were hunched forward, and his mottled face was ablaze with passion. In that moment's dramatic tableau Aldous glanced about swiftly. The men from the mountain had not returned. He was alone with Quade and Mortimer FitzHugh. Then FitzHugh spoke, very quietly, a little laughingly; but his voice trembled, and Aldous knew what the hand was doing in the hunting-coat pocket. "You're excited, Billy," he said. "I'm not a liar, as you've very impolitely told me. And I'm not playing you dirt, and I haven't fallen in love with the lady myself, as you seem to think. But she belongs to me, body and soul. If you don't believe me--why, ask the lady herself, Billy!" As he spoke, he turned his sneering eyes for the fraction of a second toward Joanne. The movement was fatal. Quade was upon him. The hand in the coat pocket flung itself upward, there followed a muffled report, but the bullet flew wide. In all his life Aldous had never heard a sound like the roar that came from Quade's throat then. He saw Mortimer FitzHugh's hand appear with a pistol in it, and then the pistol was gone. He did not see where it went to. He gripped his knife and waited, his heart beating with what seemed like smothered explosions as he watched for the opportunity which he knew would soon come. He expected to see FitzHugh go down under Quade's huge bulk. Instead of that, a small, iron fist shot upward and Quade's head went back as if broken from his neck. FitzHugh sprang a step backward, and in the movement his heel caught the edge of a pack-saddle. He stumbled, almost fell, and before he could recover himself Quade was at him again. This time there was something in the red brute's hand. It rose and fell once--and Mortimer FitzHugh reeled backward with a moaning cry, swayed for a second or two on his feet, and fell to the ground. Quade turned. In his hand was a bloody knife. Madness and passion and the triumphant joy of a demon were in his face as he glared at his helpless prey. As Aldous crouched lower his shoulder touched one of the saddles. It slipped from the pile, one of the panniers followed it, and Quade saw him. There was no longer reason for concealment, and as Quade stood paralyzed for a moment Aldous sprang forth into the space between him and Joanne. He heard the cry that broke strangely from her lips but he did not turn his head. He advanced upon Quade, his head lowered, the long skinning-knife gleaming in his hand. John Aldous knew that words would avail nothing in these last few minutes between him and Quade. The latter had already hunched himself forward, the red knife in his hand poised at his waistline. He was terrible. His huge bulk, his red face and bull neck, his eyes popping from behind their fleshy lids, and the dripping blade in the shapeless hulk of his hand gave him the appearance as he stood there of some monstrous gargoyle instead of a thing of flesh and blood. And Aldous was terrible to look at, but in a way that wrung a moaning cry from Joanne. His face was livid from the beat of the rocks; it was crusted with blood; his eyes were partly closed, and what remained of his shirt was drenched with blood that still ran from the deep cuts in his arms and shoulders. But it was he who advanced, and Quade who stood and waited. Aldous knew little or nothing of knife-fighting; and he realized, also, that there was a strange weakness in his arms and body caused by his battle with the maelstroms in the chasm. But he had wrestled a great deal with the Indians of the north, who fought as their half-wolf sledgedogs fought, and he employed their methods now. Slowly and deliberately he began to circle around Quade, so that Quade became the pivot of that circle, and as he circled he drew nearer and nearer to his enemy, but never in a frontal advance. He edged inward, with his knife-arm on the outside. His deadly deliberateness and the steady glare of his eyes discomfited Quade, who suddenly took a step backward. It was always when the Indian made this step that his opponent darted in; and Aldous, with this in mind, sprang to the attack. Their knives clashed in midair. As they met, hilt to hilt, Aldous threw his whole weight against Quade, darted sidewise, and with a terrific lunge brought the blade of his knife down between Quade's shoulders. A straight blade would have gone from back to chest through muscle and sinew, but the knife which Aldous held scarcely pierced the other's clothes. Not until then did he fully realize the tremendous odds against him. The curved blade of his skinning-knife would not penetrate! His one hope was to cut with it. He flung out his arm before Quade had fully recovered, and blind luck carried the keen edge of the knife across his enemy's pouchy cheek. The blood came in a spurt, and with a terrible cry Quade leaped back toward the pile of saddles and panniers. Before Aldous could follow his advantage the other had dropped his knife and had snatched up a four-foot length of a tepee pole. For a moment he hesitated while the blood ran in a hot flood down his thick neck. Then with a bellow of rage he rushed upon Aldous. It was no time for knife-work now. As the avalanche of brute strength descended upon him Aldous gathered himself for the shock. He had already measured his own weakness. Those ten minutes among the rocks of the chasm had broken and beaten him until his strength was gone. He was panting from his first onset with Quade, but his brain was working. And he knew that Quade was no longer a reasoning thing. He had ceased to think. He was blind with the passion of the brute, and his one thought was to crush his enemy down under the weight of the club in his huge hands. Aldous waited. He heard Joanne's terrified scream when Quade was almost upon him--when less than five feet separated them. The club was descending when he flung himself forward, straight for the other's feet. The club crashed over him, and with what strength he had he gripped Quade at the knees. With a tremendous thud Quade came to earth. The club broke from the grip of his hands. For a moment he was stunned, and in that moment Aldous was at his throat. He would have sold the best of his life for the skinning-knife. But he had lost it in gripping Quade. And now he choked--with every ounce of strength in him he choked at the thick red neck of his enemy. Quade's hands reached for his own throat. They found it. And both choked, lying there gasping and covered with blood! while Joanne struggled vainly to free herself, and scream after scream rang from her lips. And John Aldous knew that at last the end had come. For there was no longer strength in his arms, and there was something that was like a strange cramp in his fingers, while the clutch at his own throat was turning the world black. His grip relaxed. His hands fell limp. The last that he realized was that Quade was over him, and that he must be dying. Then it was, as he lay within a final second or two of death, no longer conscious of physical attack or of Joanne's terrible cries, that a strange and unforeseen thing occurred. Beyond the tepee a man had risen from the earth. He staggered toward them, and it was from Marie that the wildest and strangest cry of all came now. For the man was Joe DeBar! In his hand he held a knife. Swaying and stumbling he came to the fighters--from behind. Quade did not see him, and over Quade's huge back he poised himself. The knife rose; for the fraction of a second it trembled in midair. Then it descended, and eight inches of steel went to the heart of Quade. And as DeBar turned and staggered toward Joanne and Marie, John Aldous was sinking deeper and deeper into a black and abysmal night. CHAPTER XXX In that chaotic night in which he was drifting, light as a feather floating on the wind, John Aldous experienced neither pain nor very much of the sense of life. And yet, without seeing or feeling, he seemed to be living, All was dead in him but that last consciousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years might have passed in that dream. For a long time he seemed to be sinking through the blackness; and then something stopped him, without jar or shock, and he was rising. He could hear nothing. There was a vast silence about him, a silence as deep and as unbroken as the abysmal pit in which he seemed to be softly floating. After a time Aldous felt himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took shape in his struggling brain--he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed a very long time before day broke, and then it was a strange day. Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shot like flashes of weblike lightning through the darkness, and after that he saw for an instant a strange glare. It was gone in one big, powderlike flash, and he was in night again. These days and nights seemed to follow one another swiftly now, and the nights grew less dark, and the days brighter. He was conscious of sounds and buffetings, and it was very hot. Out of this heat there came a cool, soft breeze that was continually caressing his face, and eyes, and head. It was like the touch of a spirit hand. It became more and more real to him. It caressed him into a dark and comfortable oblivion. Out of this oblivion a still brighter day roused him. His brain seemed clear. He opened his eyes. A white cloud was hovering over them; it fell softly; it was cool and gentle. Then it rose again, and it was not a cloud, but a hand! The hand moved away, and he was looking into a pair of wide-open, staring, prayerful eyes, and a little cry came to him, and a voice. "John--John----" He was drifting again, but now he knew that he was alive. He heard movement. He heard voices. They were growing nearer and more distinct. He tried to cry out Joanne's name, and it came in a whispering breath between his lips. But Joanne heard; and he heard her calling to him; he felt her hands; she was imploring him to open his eyes, to speak to her. It seemed many minutes before he could do this, but at last he succeeded. And this time his vision was not so blurred. He could see plainly. Joanne was there, hovering over him, and just beyond her was the great bearded face of Donald MacDonald. And then, before words had formed on his lips, he did a wonderful thing. He smiled. "O my God, I thank Thee!" he heard Joanne cry out, and then she was on her knees, and her face was against his, and she was sobbing. He knew that it was MacDonald who drew her away. The great head bent over him. "Take this, will 'ee, Johnny boy?" Aldous stared. "Mac, you're--alive," he breathed. "Alive as ever was, Johnny. Take this." He swallowed. And then Joanne hovered over him again, and he put up his hands to her face, and her glorious eyes were swimming seas as she kissed him and choked back the sobs in her throat. He buried his fingers in her hair. He held her head close to him, and for many minutes no one spoke, while MacDonald stood and looked down on them. In those minutes everything returned to him. The fight was over. MacDonald had come in time to save him from Quade. But--and now his eyes stared upward through the sheen of Joanne's hair--he was in a cabin! He recognized it. It was Donald MacDonald's old home. When Joanne raised her head he looked about him without speaking. He was in the wide bunk built against the wall. Sunlight was filtering through a white curtain at the window, and in the open door he saw the anxious face of Marie. He tried to lift himself, and was amazed to find that he could not. Very gently Joanne urged him back on his pillow. Her face was a glory of life and of joy. He obeyed her as he would have obeyed the hand of the Madonna. She saw all his questioning. "You must be quiet, John," she said, and never had he heard in her voice the sweetness of love that was in it now. "We will tell you everything--Donald and I. But you must be quiet. You were terribly beaten among the rocks. We brought you here at noon, and the sun is setting--and until now you have not opened your eyes. Everything is well. But you must be quiet. You were terribly bruised by the rocks, dear." It was sweet to lie under the caresses of her hand. He drew her face down to him. "Joanne, my darling, you understand now--why I wanted to come alone into the North?" Her lips pressed warm and soft against his. "I know," she whispered, and he could feel her arras trembling, and her breath coming quickly. Gently she drew away from him. "I am going to make you some broth," she said then. He watched her as she went out of the cabin, one white hand lifted to her throat. Old Donald MacDonald seated himself on the edge of the bunk. He looked down at Aldous, chuckling in his beard; and Aldous, with his bruised and swollen face and half-open eyes, grinned like a happy fiend. "It was a wunerful, wunerful fight, Johnny!" said old Donald. "It was, Mac. And you came in fine on the home stretch!" "What d'ye mean--home stretch?" queried Donald leaning over. "You saved me from Quade." Donald fairly groaned. "I didn't, Johnny--I didn't! DeBar killed 'im. It was all over when I come. On'y--Johnny--I had a most cur'ous word with Culver Rann afore he died!" In his eagerness Aldous was again trying to sit up when Joanne appeared in the doorway. With a little cry she darted to him, forced him gently back, and brushed old Donald off the edge of the bunk. "Go out and watch the broth, Donald," she commanded firmly. Then she said to Aldous, stroking back his hair, "I forbade you to talk. John, dear, aren't you going to mind me?" "Did Quade get me with the knife?" he asked. "No, no." "Am I shot?" "No, dear." "Any bones broken?" "Donald says not." "Then please give me my pipe, Joanne--and let me get up. Why do you want me to lie here when I'm strong like an ox, as Donald says?" Joanne laughed happily. "You _are_ getting better every minute," she cried joyously. "But you were terribly beaten by the rocks, John. If you will wait until you have the broth I will let you sit up." A few minutes later, when he had swallowed his broth, Joanne kept her promise. Only then did he realize that there was not a bone or a muscle in his body that did not have its own particular ache. He grimaced when Joanne and Donald bolstered him up with blankets at his back. But he was happy. Twilight was coming swiftly, and as Joanne gave the final pats and turns to the blankets and pillows, MacDonald was lighting half a dozen candles placed around the room. "Any watch to-night, Donald?" asked Aldous. "No, Johnny, there ain't no watch to-night," replied the old mountaineer. He came and seated himself on a bench with Joanne. For half an hour after that Aldous listened to a recital of the strange things that had happened--how poor marksmanship had saved MacDonald on the mountain-side, and how at last the duel had ended with the old hunter killing those who had come to slay him. When they came to speak of DeBar, Joanne leaned nearer to Aldous. "It is wonderful what love will sometimes do," she spoke softly. "In the last few hours Marie has bared her soul to me, John. What she has been she has not tried to hide from me, nor even from the man she loves. She was one of Mortimer FitzHugh's tools. DeBar saw her and loved her, and she sold herself to him in exchange for the secret of the gold. When they came into the North the wonderful thing happened. She loved DeBar--not in the way of her kind, but as a woman in whom had been born a new heart and a new soul and a new joy. She defied FitzHugh; she told DeBar how she had tricked him. "This morning FitzHugh attempted his old familiarity with her, and DeBar struck him down. The act gave them excuse for what they had planned to do. Before her eyes Marie thought they had killed the man she loved. She flung herself on his breast, and she said she could not feel his heart beat, and his blood flowed warm against her hands and face. Both she and DeBar had determined to warn us if they could. Only a few minutes before DeBar was stabbed he had let off his rifle--an accident, he said. But it was not an accident. It was the shot Donald heard in the cavern. It saved us, John! And Marie, waiting her opportunity, fled to us in the plain. DeBar was not killed. He says my screams brought him back to life. He came out--and killed Quade with a knife. Then he fell at our feet. A few minutes later Donald came. DeBar is in another cabin. He is not fatally hurt, and Marie is happy." She was stroking his hand when she finished. The curious rumbling came softly in MacDonald's beard and his eyes were bright with a whimsical humour. "I pretty near bored a hole through poor Joe when I come up," he chuckled. "But you bet I hugged him when I found what he'd done, Johnny! Joe says their camp was just over the range from us that night FitzHugh looked us up, an' Joanne thought she'd been dreamin'. He didn't have any help, but his intention was to finish us alone--murder us asleep--when Joanne cried out. Joe says it was just a devil's freak that took 'im to the top of the mountain alone that night. He saw our fire an' came down to investigate." A low voice was calling outside the door. It was Marie. As Joanne went to her a quick gleam came into old Donald's eyes. He looked behind him cautiously to see that she had disappeared, then he bent over Aldous, and whispered hoarsely: "Johnny, I had a most cur'ous word with Rann--or FitzHugh--afore he died! He wasn't dead when I went to him. But he knew he was dyin'; an' Johnny, he was smilin' an' cool to the end. I wanted to ask 'im a question, Johnny. I was dead cur'ous to know _why the grave were empty!_ But he asked for Joanne, an' I couldn't break in on his last breath. I brought her. The first thing he asked her was how people had took it when they found out he'd poisoned his father! When Joanne told him no one had ever thought he'd killed his father, FitzHugh sat leanin' against the saddles for a minit so white an' still I thought he 'ad died with his eyes open. Then it came out, Johnny. He was smilin' as he told it. He killed his father with poison to get his money. Later he came to America. He didn't have time to tell us how he come to think they'd discovered his crime. He was dyin' as he talked. It came out sort o' slobberingly, Johnny. He thought they'd found 'im out. He changed his name, an' sent out the report that Mortimer FitzHugh had died in the mount'ins. But Johnny, he died afore I could ask him about the grave!" There was a final note of disappointment in old Donald's voice that was almost pathetic. "It was such a cur'ous grave," he said. "An' the clothes were laid out so prim an' nice." Aldous laid his hand on MacDonald's. "It's easy, Mac," he said, and he wanted to laugh at the disappointment that was still in the other's face. "Don't you see? He never expected any one to dig _into_ the grave. And he put the clothes and the watch and the ring in there to get rid of them. They might have revealed his identity. Why, Donald----" Joanne was coming to them again. She laid a cool hand on his forehead and held up a warning finger to MacDonald. "Hush!" she said gently, "Your head is very hot, dear, and there must be no more talking. You must lie down and sleep. Tell John good-night, Donald!" Like a boy MacDonald did as she told him, and disappeared through the cabin door. Joanne levelled the pillows and lowered John's head. "I can't sleep, Joanne," he protested. "I will sit here close at your side and stroke your face and hair," she said gently. "And you will talk to me?" "No, I must not talk. But, John----" "Yes, dear." "If you will promise to be very, very quiet, and let me be very quiet----" "Yes." "I will make you a pillow of my hair." "I--will be quiet," he whispered. She unbound her hair, and leaned over so that it fell in a flood on his pillow. With a sigh of contentment he buried his face in the rich, sweet masses of it. Gently, like the cooling breeze that had come to him in his hours of darkness, her hand caressed him. He closed his eyes; he drank in the intoxicating perfume of her tresses; and after a little he slept. For many hours Joanne sat at his bedside, sleepless, and rejoicing. When Aldous awoke it was dawn in the cabin. Joanne was gone. For a few minutes he continued to lie with his face toward the window. He knew that he had slept a long time, and that the day was breaking. Slowly he raised himself. The terrible ache in his body was gone; he was still lame, but no longer helpless. He drew himself cautiously to the edge of the bunk and sat there for a time, testing himself before he got up. He was delighted at the result of the experiments. He rose to his feet. His clothes were hanging against the wall, and he dressed himself. Then he opened the door and walked out into the morning, limping a little as he went. MacDonald was up. Joanne's tepee was close to the cabin. The two men greeted each other quietly, and they talked in low voices, but Joanne heard them, and a few moments later she ran out with her hair streaming about her and went straight into the arms of John Aldous. This was the beginning of the three wonderful days that yet remained for Joanne and John Aldous in Donald MacDonald's little valley of gold and sunshine and blue skies. They were strange and beautiful days, filled with a great peace and a great happiness, and in them wonderful changes were at work. On the second day Joanne and Marie rode alone to the cavern where Jane lay, and when they returned in the golden sun of the afternoon they were leading their horses, and walking hand in hand. And when they came down to where DeBar and Aldous and Donald MacDonald were testing the richness of the black sand along the stream there was a light in Marie's eyes and a radiance in Joanne's face which told again that world-old story of a Mary Magdalene and the dawn of another Day. And now, Aldous thought, Marie had become beautiful; and Joanne laughed softly and happily that night, and confided many things into the ears of Aldous, while Marie and DeBar talked for a long time alone out under the stars, and came back at last hand in hand, like two children. Before they went to bed Marie whispered something to Joanne, and a little later Joanne whispered it to Aldous. "They want to know if they can be married with us, John," she said. "That is, if you haven't grown tired of trying to marry me, dear," she added with a happy laugh. "Have you?" His answer satisfied her. And when she told a small part of it to Marie, the other woman's dark eyes grew as soft as the night, and she whispered the words to Joe. The third and last day was the most beautiful of all. Joe's knife wound was not bad. He had suffered most from a blow on the head. Both he and Aldous were in condition to travel, and plans were made to begin the homeward journey on the fourth morning. MacDonald had unearthed another dozen sacks of the hidden gold, and he explained to Aldous what must be done to secure legal possession of the little valley. His manner of doing this was unnatural and strained. His words came haltingly. There was unhappiness in his eyes. It was in his voice. It was in the odd droop of his shoulders. And finally, when they were alone, he said to Aldous, with almost a sob in his voice: "Johnny--Johnny, if on'y the gold were not here!" He turned his eyes to the mountain, and Aldous took one of his big gnarled hands in both his own. "Say it, Mac," he said gently. "I guess I know what it is." "It ain't fair to you, Johnny," said old Donald, still with his eyes on the mountains. "It ain't fair to you. But when you take out the claims down there it'll start a rush. You know what it means, Johnny. There'll be a thousand men up here; an' mebby you can't understand--but there's the cavern an' Jane an' the little cabin here; an' it seems like desecratin' _her_." His voice choked, and as Aldous gripped the big hand harder in his own he laughed. "It would, Mac," he said. "I've been watching you while we made the plans. These cabins and the gold have been here for more than forty years without discovery, Donald--and they won't be discovered again so long as Joe DeBar and John Aldous and Donald MacDonald have a word to say about it. We'll take out no claims, Mac. The valley isn't ours. It's Jane's valley and yours!" Joanne, coming up just then, wondered what the two men had been saying that they stood as they did, with hands clasped. Aldous told her. And then old Donald confessed to them what was in his mind, and what he had kept from them. At last he had found his home, and he was not going to leave it again. He was going to stay with Jane. He was going to bring her from the cavern and bury her near the cabin, and he pointed out the spot, covered with wild hyacinths and asters, where she used to sit on the edge of the stream and watch him while he worked for gold. And they could return each year and dig for gold, and he would dig for gold while they were away, and they could have it all. All that he wanted was enough to eat, and Jane, and the little valley. And Joanne turned from him as he talked, her face streaming with tears, and in John's throat was a great lump, and he looked away from MacDonald to the mountains. So it came to pass that on the fourth morning, when they went into the south, they stopped on the last knoll that shut out the little valley from the larger valley, and looked back. And Donald MacDonald stood alone in front of the cabin waving them good-bye. THE END 
34318	----	============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== LIFE BLOOD It lies hidden deep in the mist-shrouded rain forest of Central America. A place where a brilliant doctor fulfills dreams for some--and creates chilling nightmares for others. Now, filmmaker Morgan James is about to journey straight into the heart of a dark conspiracy. Where a bizarre human experiment comes at a terrible price, and where she may be the next to pay with her . . . Life Blood BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info PINNACLE BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright © 2000 by Thomas Hoover All rights reserved. First Printing: December, 2000 10 987654321 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-7860-1313-3 Key words: THOMAS HOOVER (Author) LIFE BLOOD (Novel: Medical Thriller) In Vitro, Independent Film, Adoption, Fertility, Human Eggs, Guatemala, Peten, Maya, Mayan Pyramid, Vision Serpent, Jaguar, Baalum, Mayan Mothers, Movie Making, Copal LIFE BLOOD Chapter One New York, New York. A blissful spring morning beckoned, cloudless and blue and pure. I was driving my high-mileage Toyota down Seventh Avenue, headed for the location shoot that was supposed to wind up principal photography for my first feature film, _Baby Love_. It was about the pain and joy of adoption. I guess directing your first feature is something like giving birth to your first child, but that gets us way, way ahead of the story. My name, by the way, is Morgan Smyth James, after two grandmothers, and I'm thirty-eight and single and strive to be eternally optimistic. That morning, however, in spite of everything else, I was missing Steve terribly and feeling like I'd screwed up essential components of my life. To try for some perspective, let me say I'd always planned to have a normal, loving family. Really. Find an emotionally present soul mate who cared about things I care about--okay, slim and smart and spectacular in bed wouldn't be a minus--get married on a lawn with lots of white roses some sunny June afternoon, work one or even two perfect kids into our fulfilling, giving lives. But somehow I'd managed to have none of that. I'd messed up at every turn. In reality I had nobody to blame but myself. Eighteen years ago, just out of college, I turned down two really nice guys. My body was fertile and hormone-driven--was it ever!--but grad school loomed and my greatest fear (instead of, as now, my fondest hope) was getting "trapped" into motherhood. Also, I had the youthful delusion that life was forever. There was, in truth, one simpatico young director I met at NYU film school whom I would have married in a minute, but after Jason won my heart he dumped me for his undergraduate sweetheart who had skillfully gotten herself knocked up during his Christmas break. Which was when I first developed my fallback strategy for coping with bad news. After moping around in sweats for two days, cutting class and hiding in a revival house showing a Goddard retrospective, not understanding half the French and too bleary-eyed to read the subtitles, I decided to build a defense system. From that day on, I'd put all heartbreak in a special box, nail down the lid, and act as though it wasn't there. It worked then and it still works, more or less, now. People sometimes accuse me of living in selective denial (they're right), but it makes me one heck of a survivor. And something else. I decided then and there to focus my life: I'd concentrate on learning to make movies and let the family part just play out naturally. I had the idea that whereas men's affections couldn't be controlled, a career could. Even then I realized it was only a partial truth, but I decided to go with it anyway. Which brings us down to three years back. And a funny thing was happening. Almost without realizing it, I'd started lingering in stores to look at little pink jumpers, begun gazing into the baby carriages that suddenly seemed to be sprouting everywhere. The phrase "my baby" became the most powerful one I could imagine, made my throat swell till I'd half choke. At which precise time, like a _deus ex machina_, enter Steve Abrams, the man who gave me hope. He came along just as I was noticing that infinite stream of wonderful guys had dwindled down to relationship dropouts, men with distant eyes and former wives in other states. We discovered each other at the reopened Oloffson Hotel in Haiti, where I was shooting a documentary about voodoo and he was photographing that country's ragged, plucky children for National Geographic. No ex-spouses, no need for psychic pampering. Okay, he wasn't going to win a Mr. Universe contest any time soon; he had a couple of extra pounds that, actually, I kind of liked. But he was my age, had great brown eyes, sandy hair thinning only just a bit. No Greek god but definitely a man. He could tune a Jeep carburetor with his eyes closed or fix a cranky hotel lock, then recite Byron (sort of) and proceed to snare the perfect Chilean red for crawfish _etouffee_ (yes!). But I knew I loved him when I realized it was more than any of that. I felt as if I'd found the other half of myself. Just one glance across the table and we each knew what the other was thinking, feeling. We'd laugh at the same instant, then as though on cue, half cry together over the miseries of that wretched island. Sometimes it was almost eerie. And as for lovemaking, let me just say Steve didn't need a how-to manual. We were made for each other. Maybe it's un-PC to mention it, but I also felt safe around him. And I think he felt the same. We liked that feeling. Us fending off the world. When we got back to New York, we had to see each other every day. We still had separate apartments--thanks to the New York real-estate squeeze--but we were scouting in our spare time for an affordable loft in lower Manhattan that could accommodate Steve's darkroom, my office, and--yes--a baby. We evolved into parents-to-be, pricing baby carriages. Who could have predicted it? The joy of sharing a need. It was a total high. Before long we decided to stop waiting for the perfect space. We'd start on the baby anyway, our first joint project--which, we believed, would only be the first of many. But nothing happened. Over a year and still nothing. That was when life began to feel like a cruel bait-and-switch. When you aren't ready, you can produce a baby in a momentary absence-of-mind, whereas once you're finally an adult, accomplished, lots-to-offer woman, ready to be the mother you wish you'd had, your body has closed down your baby-making equipment like an unused Rust Belt factory. Fertility has calculatingly abandoned you for the Sun Belt of youth. "Well," Dr. Hannah Klein, my long-time ob/gyn, declared, "our tests all indicate you're both fertile, so just keep trying, under optimum conditions." Optimum conditions. There followed almost a year of "optimum conditions." Do it upside down; wait and have a cold shower while I take my temperature; no, not that way, not tonight. My mucus is thicker: Quick! Eventually we both began feeling like laboratory rats. Our once-incredible love life drifted into something only a boot-camp sergeant with Nazi leanings could be turned on by. I think that's what finally caused Steve to go over the edge. Three months ago--a Friday morning I shall never forget--he stepped out of my shower, swathed himself in a white towel, and announced he was going to Central America to do a book. He needed time to think. The move, he explained, wasn't about us. He really wanted to spend a year down there with his Nikon, capturing the region's tentative processes of democratic transition. Besides, he was beginning to think we'd both gone a little mental about the baby. Out came that special box of heartbreak again. I consoled myself we were just having a seventh-inning stretch, but the wisdom in that box told me I'd somehow blown it. The baby we hadn't created had become a specter hovering in the ether between us, ever a reminder of failure. As a parting gesture, the never-say-die long shot, he left a "deposit" with Dr. Klein--for her liquid-nitrogen womb-in-waiting--enough for two final intrauterine inseminations. Later on today I was going to see her and find out if our last and final attempt had stuck. But nothing about my cycle was giving me any hope. In the meantime, though, I had a movie to finish. We were shooting an interview at a five-story condominium building in Greenwich Village belonging to a woman named Carly Grove, who'd recently adopted. Her story was intriguing, but now--with my own hopes of ever having a baby down to two outs in the bottom of the ninth--well, now I had more than one reason for wanting to meet her. . . . When I arrived, I lucked into a parking space right in front. Our security guy, Lou Crenshaw, was off today getting some city paperwork sorted out, but my crew was already upstairs--as director I get to arrive at a decent hour, though later on I also get to do lonely postproduction work till midnight--leaving our three vans double-parked, with a New York City Film Board permit prominently displayed inside each windshield. The building, formerly a Hertz parking garage, was near the end of Barrow Street, facing the Hudson River, and was filled with artists and entrepreneurs. The truth was, I wanted to get the interview on film as soon as possible. I was more than a little worried Carly might decide to get cold feet and back out. She'd started to hedge when I had one last confirming chat with her last night, something about a "no-disclosure" agreement she now remembered signing. This had to be a one-take, all-or-nothing shoot. Which was why I'd sent down the full gang this morning, not just the "key" personnel as I'd initially planned. Leading my (motley) crew was the director of photography, first cameraman Roger Drexel, a grizzled veteran with a ponytail who'd been with my producer, David Roth and his Applecore Productions, from back when he did beach movies and splatter films. He worked with the production manager, Erica Cole, our lipstick lesbian, who coordinated crew schedules. The second camera was handled by Greer Seiber, recently of NYU film school, who was so happy to have a job, any job, she acted as though David's previous string of low-budget, B-flick epics were remakes of _Gone With the Wind_. Scott Ventri, another Applecore old-timer, was key grip, the guy who got the gear on and off the vans, set it up, and signed off on safety regs. Today he also was responsible for blacking out windows and setting up lights. The chief electrician, gaffer, was Ralph Cafiero, who'd come down the previous day and temporarily hot-wired the circuit breaker in the apartment to make sure there was enough amperage. He and his lighting "crew," another bright-eyed (and cheap) NYU grad named Paul Nulty, had arrived this morning ahead of everybody else to pre-light the "set," a northeast corner of the apartment. I'm always a little hyper about sound, so I'd asked Tony Wills, who handled recording, to also come down the previous day and record the "tone" of the living room, the sound when there is no sound, in order to have it available for editing. Today he'd run the boom mike and be assisted by Sherry Moran, his latest girlfriend, who was mixer/recordist. For Carly's makeup and hair, I had Arlene Morris, an old friend from all the way back to my early days as an AD on the soaps. . . . I rang Carly's bell and she buzzed me right up. She doubtless had a closet full of Donna Karan suits, but she came to the door in pre-faded jeans and a striped sweater. A successful publicity agent, she was petite, with dark hair and eyes and an obvious don't-bug-me take on life. "Come on in. My nanny's here to help keep Kevin out of the way." She was sounding like she'd gotten her old spunk back, or so it seemed at first. "I've completely cleared the living room." I looked around the place, now a vision of setup pandemonium. "You're sure this is all right?" "Well . . ." She was biting at her lip. "Maybe we ought to talk first, okay? But come on in. I'll probably do it. Maybe I just need a good reason to. . . ." As her voice trailed off, I found myself mining my brain for a sales point. Finally, out of the blue, I settled on one. "Because you're totally crazy?" She laughed out loud. "Not a bad start. I live in total madness. It's the definition of my life." I laughed too and looked around. No kidding. Her loft apartment was a wild mixture of stairs and galleries and levels--unconventional in every way. Also, it had a lot of in-your-face decor, outrageous posters, and African fertility masks, signs of a wonderful, irreverent personality. Then too, stuffed animals and toys were strewn all over. "I can't really afford the rent," she declared, seeing me survey the place, "but I need the space for Kevin. I've just joined Bloomingdale's Anonymous. Twelve steps to shredding your charge plates." Her nanny, a Jehovah's Witness from Jamaica named Marcy (who reminded me of a cuddly voodoo doll, complete with cornrows), was bringing Carly's little boy Kevin down from his bath in the upstairs bathroom. He was definitely adopted, sandy-haired and peachy, nothing like Carly's dark, severe strands and Mediterranean skin. When Marcy put him down, he tried to walk, and I felt my envy ratchet upward a notch. He'd just started taking tentative steps, at eleven months old, and there was still a Frankenstein quality as he strode stiff-legged, arms out for balance. I walked over, picked him up, and gave him a kiss. He looked like a Scandinavian travel poster, a cherubic vision, and I felt a great void growing where my heart had been. Then Marcy reached out and pried him from me. I hated to let him go so much I almost pulled him back. "You're so lucky," I said to Carly, feeling a surge of yearning. "He's great." "You know," she said, "I've been thinking about that 'no disclosure' thing Children of Light made me sign. That's their name, by the way. Like a vow of silence about them. They seemed pretty serious about it." Dear God, I thought, don't let her chicken out. Don't, don't. "So, we won't mention them. Just never use their name." She stood a minute, mute, and then her eyes grew determined. "No, I've got a better idea. I like you. And I think more single women ought to know about adoption. So you know what? I think I'll use their name all over the damned place. I paid what they asked, and for that I ought to be able to do what I want. What are they going to do? Come and steal Kevin back?" Then she sighed and stared at me. "Maybe, though, you could run through again how exactly we fit into this movie." I liked to tell the story to people, just to get their reaction. There are always moments of doubt in the film-making process when you wonder if the audience for your picture is going to consist entirely of your immediate family, your backers, and your creditors. "Well, as I tried to explain before, it's a fictional construct intended to feel like a documentary, about a career slave named Gail Crea who's based on a hundred women I know. She's got a great career, manages fund-raising for a major museum, and work is going great. But then one day she finds herself suddenly daydreaming about babies, envying mothers. She yearns for someone to take care of, has a recurrent dream she's stealing a baby out of a carriage on the street. It's demeaning." "God," Carly said, "I know exactly what you're talking about. I've been there. Have I ever." The truth was, I also knew it all too well. It was poignant and demeaning at the same time. "Anyway, Gail's focused on career all through her twenties, and by her late thirties she's become a serious professional. But her personal life is still on hold. She 'meets people' at work, or some other way, and she has a couple of long-standing relationships that finally crater because the guys, make that commit-ophobes, 'need space.' Along the way, there're ghastly fix-ups and dismal dinners with what seem like a hundred thousand misfits. She becomes the Dating Queen of New York, but eventually she realizes all the men she's meeting are either assuaging their midlife crises with some pneumatic bombshell named Bambi, or they're divorced and whining and carrying a ton of emotional baggage. The fact is, she's become the sensible, successful professional she's been looking for all this time. This all sort of seeps in as back story." I perched on a stool at the breakfast bar and looked down at my jeans, and noticed that a rip was starting in the crotch. Shit, back to cottage cheese. Those horrible eight pounds I could never get rid of. I crossed my legs. "Finally, after she gets a couple more promotions, she wakes up one morning and realizes she's never going to have a family. All the stable, rational men have disappeared. Like there's a black hole or something. Nothing's left but the walking wounded. She concludes it's actually easier to get a baby than a decent guy--which is what she starts trying to do. High concept: This picture is about how adopting a baby can enrich the life of a childless human being and, not coincidentally, bring joy to an orphaned infant." I remembered when I'd first pitched it to David Roth of Applecore. His response had been; "Definitely art-house. Probably never get past the Angelika. A wide release is gonna be three screens where they serve iced cappuccino." I was dead set to prove him wrong. "So," I wound up, "I've shot the entire film, but now, thinking it over, I've decided there's one last thing I need to do. As I go through the story, at every step of the adoption process I want to cut to an interview, just talking heads, tight shot, of somebody who actually went through it. Nonfiction. The real-life happy ending. And that's where you come in." What I wasn't telling her was, I was increasingly concerned the picture might be slightly hollow without this punch of real life. "Well," Carly declared with a grin, "my ending couldn't be happier." "Okay, want to get started?" I looked around at Arlene, makeup, who always seemed to have more on her face than in her bag. I kidded her about that a lot. But she was actually the one who had found Carly, bumping into her at a gym in the Village. "Hey, let's go for it." Arlene grinned. I turned back to Carly. "So how's about we prep a little while you're getting the 'natural' look?" In the back of my mind I knew what I wanted for the interview. Something like the feeling I remembered from _The Thin Blue Line_, where people engaged in Hamlet-like monologues that told us more about them than they themselves knew, that let us really know their secrets and their fears. The interviewer was never seen or heard. Arlene ensconced Carly at the dining room table, a weathered country French, where she'd already unfolded and plugged in a mirror with lights. "Having Kevin has been wonderful," Carly began. "He's changed my life. Sure, being a single 'supermom' makes for a lot of bad-hair days, but no matter how much I complain, it's worth every burp." I thought momentarily about having her hold him during the interview, but instantly decided it would be too distracting. Kevin and his wonderful eyes would commandeer the camera. A kid this cute in a scene was nothing less than grand larceny. He came toddling in now, dragging a stuffed brown bear. Then he banged its head and tried to say its name. "Benny." His funny, awkward walk reminded me a little of Lou Crenshaw after a couple of drinks. God, he was fantastic. "Come here, sweetie." I picked him up, inhaling his fresh baby scent, and wanted to hold him forever--while he slammed the bear against my face. This child, I thought, is too good to be true. He was wearing a small bracelet around his left ankle, a tiny little chain, with a small silver medallion attached. It looked like the face of a cat. Funny. Carly didn't have a cat, wasn't a cat person, so why the little bracelet? And the back had a bunch of lines and dots, like a jumbled-up Morse code. Ask her about that, I thought. But later. Now Carly was caught up in the sound of her own voice and on a roll. While Arlene continued with the makeup, moving to her eyes, she bubbled on. "Like I told you on the phone, I tried and tried to adopt, through a whole bunch of lawyers, but it was a nightmare. One guy even helped me put ads in newspapers all around the country, but nothing worked. I kept getting scammed by women who wanted thousands of dollars up front, then backed out at the last minute." She was getting up, looking intense. "Let me have a minute. I want to make coffee for everybody." I followed her into the kitchen, which was the "country" type with a faux granite counter and lots of copper-bottomed pans hanging from the ceiling. She was right about the pain of adoption, which was why her story was such a burst of sunshine. As part of the start-up research for my picture, I'd actually gone to meet an adoption attorney out in Brooklyn, a sleazy-looking guy named Frank Brasco. I'd been pretending to be a client, to find out firsthand how tough it really was. What I heard was chilling. "I don't want to get your hopes up," he'd declared for cheery openers. "Finding a healthy, Caucasian, American baby is virtually out of the question, so naturally we focus on foreign-borns. All the same, it can take years, and there's incredible paperwork. Passports for the kid, an extended visa for you while you go there and then wait around to process everything in triplicate. Bribes, corruption, you can't imagine." He sighed and adjusted his toupee, as though the very thought made him weary. "And that's just the foreign end. Here you have the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They give bean-counting paper-pushers a bad name." He examined me closely. "Not Jewish, I take it. 'Cause if that's what you're looking for, you may have to wait for the Messiah." Now, almost a year and a lot of experience later, I knew full well how right he was. Which was what made Carly's story so fantastic. "So how did you manage to get Kevin? You said it only took a few months?" "Well, to go back to the beginning, I didn't start out wanting to adopt. But when the guy I was planning to marry got cold feet--after four and a half years, the louse--and there was nobody else on the horizon, I decided to just have a baby on my own. You know, find some smart, good-looking hunk, seduce him, and get things going the old-fashioned way, or if that didn't work, then I figured I'd just go to a sperm bank. Who needs an actual man, right?" She took out a white and green bag of coffee beans, labeled Balducci's on the side. I was still holding Kevin, who threw Benny onto the floor, then began to sniffle and point. But Carly seemed not to notice as she shook the coffee beans into the grinder. "Well, getting a baby the fun way turned out to be moot, because it seems I have some kind of uterine condition--which meant I couldn't get pregnant, or even do an in vitro. Bottom line, if I wanted a baby, I had to adopt." She pressed the button on the coffee grinder, sending a blast of whirring through the kitchen. In seconds it was over and she was tapping the batch into her Braun. "So that's when I started on the attorney thing, got worked over good trying to adopt as a single mom, and finally heard about Children of Light." "The adoption organization? What do you know about them?" "Tell you the main thing," she said, "they're the place that can make it happen." She reached over and poked Kevin's tummy. "Right, big guy?" Sure looked that way. What a cutie. By now the spacious living room had been turned into a mini film set, with two 35-mm Panaflex cameras set up, windows blanked out, lights and filters in place, and a video camera and monitor. Having tested the boom mike and the tape recorder, Tony and Sherry were ready. Carly announced to everybody that coffee was available, and I handed Kevin over to Marcy. Then together we marched into the living room. "Okay," I told her, "we're going to be filming, but ignore that fact. Just look into the back of the camera and talk to it as though it were me." "Hey." She grinned. "You're dealing with a pro. This is my thing." I looked around at the cameras and the grips. "Okay, guys. Roll sound." There was a retort as the clap stick used for synching whacked out the start of the shoot. "Scene one, take one, Carly Grove interview." She proceeded to hit the ground running, recounting in great detail her story of many disappointments. She finally got to the point where she was trying to adopt the baby of a woman in a Memphis jail, and then even that fell through. "Which was when my main lawyer, Chuck, just gave up and recommended I hock the family silver, take a Valium, and try this place called Children of Light. Where you go when all else fails. So I gave them a call." "And what happened?" It sounded too good to be true. "Did they seem . . . in any way unusual?" She looked at me, as though puzzled by the question. Then she shrugged it off. "Well, first they tried to get me to check into their clinic--it's this place up the Hudson--to let them see if my 'condition' could be cured somehow, using his special techniques." "His?" "Goddard. Dr. Alex Goddard. He's a kinda spacey guy, but he's the big-shot presiding guru there." She remembered the camera and turned back to it. "I told his staff I didn't have that kind of time, and anyway nothing could be done. They were pretty insistent, so I eventually ended up talking to the man himself. He sort of mesmerizes you, but I finally said, forget it, it's adoption or nothing. So he just sent me back to the peons. Checkbook time." I stared at her, hungry for details, but she didn't notice, just pressed on. "The money they wanted, I have to tell you, was staggering. Sixty thousand. And believe me, they don't give revolving credit." I thought about the figure. It was the highest I'd heard for getting a baby, but it wasn't totally off-the-wall. Terrific babies don't drop from trees. Carly was still going strong. "It took me almost half a year to scrounge it together. A lot of credit lines got maxed. But when I finally did plunk down the loot, sure enough, I had Kevin in less than three months. I don't even know where he came from. They took care of all that, but I do know it was probably out of the country, because of the blank INS forms I signed. But then, who cares? With a deal this good, you don't press for details, right?" Carly Grove had a mutual love affair with the camera. The footage was going to be fabulous. The only problem was, it sounded like an "infomercial" for the adoption miracle wrought by this doctor named Goddard. When the interview began to wind down, losing its punch, I suggested we call it a day. With the time pushing two o'clock, I wanted to get the film to the lab, get it developed, and take a look at the rushes. I also had a doctor's appointment, not to mention a meeting with David to bring him up to speed on what I was doing. But surely he was going to be pleased. The interview, with Carly's honest intensity, would give the picture spine and guts. Just as I'd hoped. You could always tell by the reaction of the crew. Even Roger Drexel, who usually hid his thoughts somewhere in his scraggly beard, was letting his eyes sparkle behind his Panaflex. Scott was also grinning as he struck the lights and Cafiero ripped up the power lines, now taped to the floor. Everybody was in wrap mode, flushed with a great shoot. I followed Carly into the kitchen, where Marcy was feeding Kevin some Gerber applesauce. The time had come, I thought, to spring the next big question, out of earshot of the crew. "I hate to put you on the spot, but do you know any other women like you, single, who've adopted through Children of Light?" I decided to experiment with the truth. "God knows, depending on what happens in my own situation, I'm . . . I'm thinking I might even want to check them out for myself." "What do you mean?" She gave me a quick, concerned look. "Maybe I'd like to talk to them about adopting too." I realized I was babbling, my usual prelude to obsessing. Carly's worried gaze eased up a bit, but she started twisting at her hair. "Well, I might have another name. When my lawyer first told me about them, he gave me the name of another woman who'd adopted from them, and I talked to her a little about how they worked. She'd just gotten her baby, so I guess she was about six months ahead of me in the process. Her name was . . . I think it was Pauline or Paula or something. She's probably not the kind of person who'd take their 'no disclosure' crap all that seriously. She was adopting a girl, and she lives somewhere on the Upper West Side." "Any idea how I could find her?" "You know, she wrote kids' books, and I think she gave me her card. In case I ever needed somebody to do some YA copy. Let me go look in my Rolodex. I filed her card under 'Y' for Young Adult. Right. It'll just take a second." The woman, whose name was Paula Marks, lived on West 83rd Street. The business card, a tasteful brown with a weave in the paper, described her as an author. The address included a "suite" number, which meant she worked out of her apartment. "Mind if I take down her phone number and address? I'd really like to look her up. To see if her experience was anything remotely like yours." Carly gazed at her fingernails a second. "Okay, but do me a favor. Don't tell her how you got her number." She bit her lip, stalling. "It's one thing for me to talk to you myself. It's something else entirely to go sticking my nose into other people's business." "Look, I'll respect her privacy just as much as I respect yours." I paused, listening to what I'd just said. The promise sounded pretty lame. I'd just filmed her, or hadn't she noticed? "Look, let me call Paula, see if she'll agree to be interviewed on camera. I'll keep your name entirely out if it, I promise." She reached down and plucked Kevin out of his high chair, kissed him on his applesauce-smeared cheek, then hugged him. "Sorry. Guess I'm being a little paranoid. I shouldn't invite you here, then give you a hard time about what you're going to do, or not do. I can't have it both ways." In the ensuing tumult and confusion of the wrap, I did manage to get one more item from Carly Grove. The address and phone number of Children of Light. But I completely forgot the one thing I'd been meaning to ask about. That little amulet, with the strange cat's face and the lines and dots on the back. Why was Kevin wearing it? And by the time I got to the street, surrounded by the clamor of crew and equipment, it seemed too inconsequential to go back and bother with. Chapter Two Moving on, my next stress-point was to meet with my young boss, the afore-noted David Roth, who was CEO and First Operating Kvetcher of Applecore Productions, a kinda-sexy guy whose heart was deeply engaged, often unsuccessfully, with bottom lines. The issue was, I'd done today's shoot, the interview with Carly, without troubling to secure his okay. Without, in fact, telling him zip--the reason being I was afraid he wouldn't green-light the idea. Now my next move was to try to convince him what I'd just done was brilliant. Actually I liked David a lot, and hoped the occasional tangles we'd had over the film wouldn't stand in the way of a friendship. The truth is, you don't meet that many interesting, stable men in my line of work. Our artistic goals weren't always in sync, but all the same, he'd done an enormous favor for somebody close to me and for that I'd vowed to walk through fire for him. When I marched into his cluttered, dimly lit office, my mind still churning over Carly's strange adoption story, what I saw sent my problem-detector straight into the red. There, sitting across from him, was Nicholas Russo, a five-seven smoothie in a charcoal Brioni double-breasted, the gentleman David sometimes referred to as Nicky the Purse. Another land mine in my life. He operated off and on as Applecore's "banker" when cash flow got dicey and real banks got nervous. It was an arrangement of last resort, since Nicky's loans had to be serviced at two percent a week. Do the numbers: He doubled his money in a year. I knew too that putting money out to independent filmmakers was part of Nicky's attempt at a legitimate front; the real cash went onto the streets of Hell's Kitchen, just outside our door, where he got five percent a week. And Nicky's overdue notices were not sent through the mail. He also had a piece of a video distributorship, Roma Exotics, that reputedly specialized in . . . guess what. It was all stuff I tried not to think about. I had a strong hunch what was under discussion. The $350,000 David had borrowed to finish my picture. We'd gotten the loan three months ago, when cash was tight, and we both figured we could pay it back later in the year, after we got a backup cable deal (though I was ultimately hoping for a theatrical distribution, my first). Shit! What did Nicky want? Were we behind on the weekly juice? I'd signed on with David partly to help his bottom line. Was I instead going to cause his ruin? At the moment he had his back to Nicky, seemed to be meditating out the window he loved, its vista being the grimy facades that lined the far west of Fifty-eighth Street. His office, with its wide windows and forest of freshly misted trees, told you he was a plant nut. Outside it was early April, the cruelest month, but inside, with all the trees, spring was in full cry. The place also felt like a storage room, with piles of scripts stacked around every pot. The office normally smelled like a greenhouse, but now the aroma was one of high anxiety. David revolved back and looked across the potted greenery, then broke into a relieved smile when he saw me. I could tell from his faraway stare that he was teetering on the verge of panic. "Hey, come on in," he said. "Nicky's just put a brand-new proposition on the table." David had a keen intelligence, causing me to sometimes wonder if he was in a line of work beneath him. (For that matter, maybe I was too.) He was dark-haired, trim, with serious gray eyes and strong cheekbones. This morning he was wearing his trademark black sweater, jeans, and white sneakers, a picture of the serious go-for-broke New York indy-prod hustler. He'd already made and lost and made several fortunes in his youthful career. My only sexual solace since Steve left was an occasional glance at his trim rear end. I also saluted his fiscal courage. His congenital shortfall, I regret to say, was in the matter of judgment. Exhibit A: Nicholas Russo's funny money. "Nicky, you remember Morgan James, the director on this project." "Yeah, we met. 'Bout four months back." Nicky rose and offered his manicured hand, a picture of Old World charm. His dark hair was parted down the middle and his Brioni, which probably fell off a truck somewhere in the Garment Center, had buttons on the cuffs that actually buttoned. "How ya doing?" "Hi." I disengaged myself as quickly as possible. The slimeball. Again, why was he here? The way I understood it, we'd signed a legitimate, ironclad note. Nicky wasn't exactly the Chase Manhattan Bank, but I assumed he was a "man of honor," would live by any deal David had with him. "Do we have some kind of problem?" "Nah," Nicky said, "I'm thinking of it more in the way of an opportunity. Dave, here, showed me some of your picture this morning, and it ain't too bad. Got me to thinking. You're gonna need a video distributor. So maybe I could help you out." Oh, shit and double-shit. I looked at him, realizing what he had in mind. "How's that? Applecore already has a video distributor. We use--" "Yeah, well, like I was telling Dave, I got a nose this picture's gonna do some serious business." He tried a smile. "Whenever I see one of these indy things that don't add up for me, like this one, I always know it's a winner. What I'm telling you is, I think you got something here. He says you're figuring on a cable deal, and maybe a theatrical release, but after that you gotta worry about video. I'm just thinking a way I could pitch in." Pitch in? The last thing I needed was some skin-flick wiseguy getting his sticky hands on my picture. Forget about it. "Well, I don't really see how. I'm shooting this one by the book. I've got a standard Screen Actors Guild contract, and everything is strictly by the rules. If we're current on the loan, then . . ." I looked at David, who appeared to be running on empty. Maybe, I thought, I didn't understand what was at stake. What had Nicky said to him? This was a man who could make people disappear with a phone call to guys nicknamed after body parts. "Look, let me talk to David about this. I don't know what--" "You two're just gonna 'talk' about it?" Russo's penetrating eyes dimmed. "Now that's a little disappointing, I gotta tell you, since I sent for my business manager, Eddie down there in the car, hoping we could reach a meeting of minds right here. Sign a few things. Roll that note I'm holding into a distribution deal and give everybody one less worry." He turned in his chair, boring in on me. "Like, for instance, I checked out your locations and I noticed there ain't no Teamsters nowhere. All you got's a bunch of fuckin' Mick scabs driving them vans. Now that can lead to circumstances. Inadequate safety procedures. Of course, that wouldn't have to be a concern if we was partners together. Then you'd have good security. The best." I looked at David, who seemed on the verge of a heart attack. Why was he letting this even be discussed? Get in bed with Nicky Russo and the next thing you know he's got somebody hanging you out the window by your ankles. Besides, ten to one the guy was bluffing, seeing if he could scare us. I refocused. "Mr. Russo, it may ease your mind to know that our security is managed by a former agent for the FBI. He was with them here in New York till about a year ago, when he came to us full time. His name is Agent Lou Crenshaw. You're welcome to check him out. He's familiar with union issues, and he carries a .38. He also has plenty of friends down at 26 Federal Plaza. So if you have any lingering concern about our security procedures, why don't you run it by him?" The mention of Lou seemed to brighten David's listless eyes. He leaned back in his chair and almost smiled. He had good reason. The favor he'd done for Lou, and indirectly for me, was enough to inspire eternal loyalty. Lou would face off against half of Hell's Kitchen for David Roth. "That ain't the point, exactly," Russo said, shifting uncomfortably. "Thing is, Roma could do good distribution for you. We work with a lot of people." "Then why not submit a formal proposal? In writing. I'm in charge and that's how I do business. If your numbers work, then we can talk." "Just trying to be helpful." He glared at me, then seemed to dismiss my presence. I disappeared from his radar as though lifted away by an alien spacecraft, and he turned back to David. "You know, Dave, me and you've kinda drifted apart lately. Old friends oughtn'ta do that. We ought to keep more in touch. I think we get along okay." In other words, get this pushy broad out of my face. "It's just business, Nicky," David said, trying to conjure an empty smile. "Business and pleasure don't always mix." Yes! David, tell the creep to leave us alone. Tell him. "Doing business with me ain't a pleasure?" Nicky Russo asked, hurt filling his voice. He'd brought out a large Havana and was rolling it in between his thumb and forefinger. "I figured we was best friends. _Paisans_." "We're not _not_ friends, Nicky. We've just got different goals in life. You know how it is." I worked my way around behind his desk and glanced out the window. The lingering day was beginning to cloud over, a perfect match for my state of mind. After this I had a late appointment with Dr. Hannah Klein. I feared she was going to end my baby hopes. "Yeah, well," Nicky Russo said finally, rising, "I gotta be downtown in a little while, so I guess we can talk about this later." "Okay, sure." David made a shrugging sign. Like: Women! What can you do? Then he got up too. "Look, Nicky, let me chew on this. Maybe I'll get back to you." "Yeah, you think about it, all right?" He rose without a further word and worked his way out the wide double doors, stumbling through the ficus forest as he struck a match to his cigar. "David, don't sign anything with him. Don't. I'll handle the Teamster stuff if it comes up. I know how to talk to them." "Okay, okay, calm down. He was just seeing if he could push me. I know him. You called his scam with that talk about Lou. By tomorrow he'll forget about the whole thing." He looked at me, his eyes not quite yet back in focus. "Thanks. You can say things to him I'd get cement shoes for. Nicky's not really ready for people like you. He has this macho front, but he doesn't know how to handle a professional woman with balls." "You're welcome. I guess." Balls? I adored those vulnerable male bits, but I preferred not to think of myself in those terms. Truth was, Nicky Russo played a large part in my personal anxieties. "But I mean it. N. O." "I hear you," he said, sighing. Then he snapped back to the moment. "So where do things stand otherwise?" I'd come for an after-the-fact green light of the day's shoot, but already I was thinking about Hannah Klein. "David, I'm going to find out in about an hour whether Steve and I are ever going to have a baby. But truthfully I don't think I'm pregnant. I think it's over." It hurt to say it. He knew about Steve and me--I'd written some language on maternity leave into my contract--and I think he was mildly rooting for us. Or maybe not. "Could be it's all for the best," he declared. He'd sat back down, picked up a pencil off his desk to distract himself, and was whirling it pensively, one of his few habits that made me crazy. "Maybe you were destined to make movies, not kids." I listened to his tone of voice, knowing he often hid his real feelings with safe, sympathy-card sentiments. He rose to eloquence only when nothing much was at stake. He'd even sent me flowers and a mea-culpa note twice as a makeup after we'd had a disagreement over costs and scheduling. And one of those times, I should have sent him flowers. Sometimes I wondered why we worked so well together. The truth was, we operated on very different wavelengths. Some history to illustrate. Over the past eight years, before I teamed up with David, I'd done three "highly praised" documentaries. But getting to that point meant busting my behind for years and years at the lower end of the professional food chain. After NYU, I toiled as a script supervisor on PBS documentaries, about as close to grunt work as it comes. Eventually I got a fling as a production assistant, assembling crews, but then the money dried up. (Thank you, Jesse Helms.) Whereupon I decided to try capitalism, working for three years as an AD on the soaps: first Guiding Light, then As the World Turns, then Search for Tomorrow. I can still hear the horrible music. Then a connection got me a slot at A&E as a line producer. Eight months later the series got canceled, which was when I decided the time had come to take my career into my own hands. I hocked every last credit card, went to Japan, and made a documentary. The result: I was an "overnight" success. Men started addressing me by my name. My first film was about the impact of Zen on Japanese business. As part of my research, I shaved my head and lived three months at a Kyoto temple, eating bean curd three meals a day, after which I had enough credibility to land long interviews with Tokyo CEOs. I then sold the edited footage to A&E. When it became a critical hit, they financed a second film, about the many gods of India and how they impact everything about the place. There, I also got caught up in the mystical sensuality of ragas, Indian classical music, and took up the violin (one of my major professional mistakes). Next I moved on to Mexico's southern Yucatan to film a day in the life of a Maya village for the Discovery Channel. They wanted me to add some footage from Guatemala, but I scouted the country and decided it was too scary. Instead, I spent several months in Haiti filming voodoo rituals, again for A&E. And met Steve. Then one day I checked my bank account and realized that, financially speaking, I was a "flop d'estime." I was doing the kind of work that does more for your reputation than your retirement plan. I decided to go more mainstream and see what happened. But to do that I needed a commercial partner, a backer. Ironically enough, when I first teamed up with David, he had bottom-line problems too, but from the opposite direction. He was busy disproving the adage that nobody ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American public. He knew something was wrong, but what? Apparently, when he started out, somebody told him cable audiences possessed an insatiable appetite for bare-skin-and-jiggle. Hey, he figured, that stuff he could grind out in his sleep. His first, and last, epic in the skin genre was _Wet T-Shirt Weekend_, whose title says it all. He explained the economics to me once, still baffled why the picture hadn't worked. He'd assumed all you had to do was find a bunch of nineteen-year-olds who looked like they're sixteen, go nonunion someplace down South with a beach, and take care the wardrobe trailer has nothing but string bikinis. "Cost only a million-eight to make," he declared with pride, "but every penny is on the screen." He insisted I watch it, perplexed that it was universally regarded as a turkey. It was a painful experience, so much so I actually began to wonder if his heart was really in it. (The great schlockmeisters secretly think they're Fellini; they're operating at the top of their form, not consciously pandering.) Chastened financially, he decided to move into low-budget action-adventure. His efforts, most notably _Virtual Cop_, had car chases, blue-screen explosions, buckets of fake blood. Somebody died creatively in every scene. They did business in Asia and Southern Europe, but he was dumbfounded when nobody at HBO or Showtime would return his calls. It gnawed at his self-esteem. That was the moment we found each other. He'd just concluded he needed somebody with a quality reputation to give Applecore an image makeover, and I'd realized I needed somebody who knew more than I did about the mechanics of making and distributing independent films. We were an odd couple. I finally shook hands on the partnership after he caved in and agreed I could do anything I wanted, so long as it looked mainstream enough to get picked up by Time-Warner or somebody else legit. Well, quasi-legit. We both agreed on no more bikinis and no more films about places that required cholera shots. It was something of a compromise on both our parts. Thus far, though, we were getting along. Maybe luck was part of it, but _Baby Love _was still on schedule and on budget. And I already had a deal nearly in the bag with Lifetime, the women's channel, that would just about cover the costs. Everything after that would be gravy. Again, hope hope. Maybe not the theatrical release I'd been praying for, but good enough--so he had to smile and not give me a hard time about the money I'd just spent. Had to, right? I took a deep breath. "David, I did a little extra shooting this morning that's kind of. . . outside the plan. But it's really important. Want to hear about it?" "What! I thought you were finished with principal photography." He looked disoriented, the deer in the headlights. Hints of extra crew time always had that effect on him. "You're saying this wasn't in the budget?" "Just listen first, okay?" Like a politician, I avoided giving him a direct answer. I told him about the interview with Carly and the reason for it. "Nice of you to share the news with me." His eyes narrowed. "I think we've got some big-time communication issues here." "Look, don't worry. I'll figure out how to save some money somewhere else." "Morgy, before we continue this unnerving conversation, we've got to have a serious review of the matter of cash flow." He frowned, then went back to whirling the pencil, his hair backlighted from the wide window, his eyes focused on its stubby eraser as though he'd just discovered a new strain of bacteria. "So let me break some news regarding the current budget." He put down the pencil, adjusted its location on his desk, and looked up. "I didn't want to have to upset you, since the picture seems to be going so well, but we've drawn down almost all our cash. I actually think that's why Nicky was here today, sniffing around, wanting to see a rough cut. He's got a keen nose for indy cash-flow trouble." "What are you saying?" It was unsettling to see David turning so serious. "Are we--?" "I'm saying we can cover the payroll here, all our fixed nut, even Nicky's vig, for maybe six more weeks, if you and I don't pay ourselves. Of course, if we can get an advance on some kind of cable deal, that would tide us over more comfortably till this thing is in the can. But right now we're sailing pretty close on the wind. I've bet Applecore on your picture, Morgan. We can't screw this up." I swallowed hard. I knew we were working on the edge, but I didn't know the edge was down to six weeks. "David, I'm all but ready for postproduction. I'm just thinking I may need one more interview. Just a one-day shoot. I'm going to make this picture work. You'll see." He sighed. "All right, if you think it's essential, get the footage. Maybe I can even shake another fifty out of Nicky, if I string him along about the distribution deal--don't look so alarmed, I won't go through with it. Anyway, I can tell he's impressed with the picture so far. Happy now?" No, I wasn't happy. What was I going to do if Hannah Klein had bad news? Adoption? I finally was facing the fact I'd possibly been making a movie about myself all this time. Like Yeats, penning his own tombstone. "Cast a cold eye, on life, on death. ." So why not give him the whole story? "David, if it turns out Steve and I can't have a baby, I've begun thinking about trying to adopt." There it was. More pain. "Maybe I'm about to become the heroine of my own picture." He stared at me incredulously. "Morgy, you of all people should know by now that adopting would take up all your energy, like a giant sponge. Come on. I've seen your dailies. I got it, about how hard it is. You telling me now you didn't get it?" He was right. Righter than he realized. But then I thought again about Carly Grove, who'd found Kevin in no time at all, with zero hassles. The only troubling part was that it was all so mysterious. . . . After I left David's office, I remembered I hadn't actually had lunch, so I grabbed two hot dogs with sauerkraut (okay, it was junk, but I secretly loved kosher franks) and a Diet Pepsi to go, from one of the striped-umbrella vendors, then hailed a cab clutching the grungy brown bag. I was heading for Hannah Klein's office on the Upper West Side. And now I had another clock ticking in addition to the biological one. The big money clock in the sky was suddenly on final countdown. Chapter Three It took only a few minutes for Hannah Klein's assistant, Lori, to run the pregnancy test that confirmed my suspicions and settled my future. Steve's and my final attempt, another intrauterine insemination (IUI, med-speak for an expensive "turkey baster") with the last of his deposit, had failed. The end. The bitter end. "Morgan," Hannah declared, staring over her desk, her raspy New York voice boring through me like a drill, "given how this has all turned out, maybe you ought to just start considering adoption--if having a child still means that much to you." Hannah Klein was pushing seventy, a chain smoker who should have been dead a decade ago, and she unfailingly spoke the truth. Her gaze carried only synthetic solace, but I was probably her fifteenth patient of the day and maybe she was running low on empathy. Oddly, though, sitting there in her office, miserable, I felt strangely liberated. I adored the woman, a child of the Holocaust, with layers of steel like a samurai sword, but I also loved the thought of never again having to go through the humiliation of cowering in her straight-backed office chair, like a so-so student on probation waiting to receive my failing grade. It was now time to come to grips with what I'd known in my heart for a long time. God had made me a theoretically functional reproductive machine that just wouldn't kick over. Translation: no cysts, fibroids, polyps, no ovulatory abnormalities. My uterus and Fallopian tubes were just fine, Steve's sperm counts were okay, but no baby was swimming into life inside me. Sometimes, however, reality asks too much. It's not easy getting your mind around the idea that some part of your life is over, finally over. The baby part. To admit that it's time to move on to Plan B, whatever that is. Such realizations can take a while, especially if you've been living with high-level hope, no matter how irrational. "I frankly don't know what else we can do," she went on, projecting through my abyss of gloom. She was shuffling papers on her ash-strewn desk, white hair in a bun, fine-tuned grit in her voice. Upper West Side, a fifty-year fixture. She never wore perfume, but to me she always smelled faintly of roses mixed with smoke. Earthy. "Aside from trying in vitro." We'd already discussed that, but it was definitely the bottom level of Hell. Besides, I was running out of money, and spirit. And now, with Steve gone, the whole idea seemed moot anyway. "So," she concluded, "barring that, we've done everything possible, run every test there is, both on you and on your . . ." "Steve," I inserted into her pause. She seemed to deliberately block his name at crucial moments. Maybe she thought I could have done better. Maybe a nice solid dentist who owned a suit instead of some freelance photo jock who showed up for his sperm counts wearing khaki safari shirts. Well, let her deal with it. ". . . and I can't find anything. Sometimes, the body just won't cooperate. We may never know why. You've got to face that. But still, adoption is always an option." Adoption. All along I'd told myself I didn't have the courage, or the heart. Making movies is a full-time job, not leaving time to go filling out forms and jumping through hoops for years and years. And to cap it off, I was just two years short of the big four-oh and financially struggling--hardly an adoption agency's profile of "ideal." But now, now I'd just discovered Carly Grove and the miracle of Children of Light. So maybe there really could be a way to adopt a beautiful child with no hassles. Maybe it would simplify everything to the point I could actually pull it off. Could this be my Plan B? Then what if Steve came back? Could we be a family finally? I wasn't used to being that lucky. And I still wanted Hannah Klein's thoughts, a reality test, which was why I pressed her on the point. "Truthfully, do you think adopting is really a workable idea for somebody like me? Would I--?" "Morgan, I know you're making a film about the realities of the adoption process. We both realize it's not easy." She must have seen something needful in my eyes, because she continued on, adding detail, letting the well-known facts convey the bad news. "As you're well aware, finding a young, healthy, American baby nowadays is all but impossible. At the very least it can take years." She was fiddling with some papers on her desk, avoiding my eyes. Then she stubbed out her cigarette in a gesture that seemed intended to gain time. "And even if you're willing to take a baby that's foreign-born, there still can be plenty of heartbreak. That's just how it is." "I'd always thought so too," I said. "It's actually the underlying motif of my picture. But today I had an incredible experience. I filmed an interview of a single woman, early forties, who just adopted a baby boy. It took less than three months and he's blond and blue-eyed and perfect. I saw him, I held him, and I can assure you he's as American as peach cobbler. The way she tells it, the whole adoption process was a snap. Zero hassles and red tape." "That's most exceptional." She peered at me dubiously. "Actually more like impossible. Frankly, I don't believe it. This child must have been kidnapped or something. How old, exactly, was he when she got him?" "I don't know. Just a few weeks, I think." Her eyes bored in. "This woman, whoever she is, was very, very lucky. If what she says is true." "The organization that got the baby for her is called Children of Light," I went on. "That's all I know, really. I think it's up the Hudson somewhere, past the Cloisters. Have you ever heard of them?" Dr. Hannah Klein, I knew, was pushing three score and ten, had traveled the world, seen virtually everything worth seeing. In younger years she was reputed to have had torrid liaisons with every notable European writer on the West Side. Her list of conquests read like an old New Yorker masthead. If only I looked half that great at her age. But whatever else, she was unflappable. Good news or bad, she took it and gave it with grace. Until this moment. Her eyes registered undisguised dismay. "You can't mean it. Not that place. All that so-called New Age . . . are you really sure you want to get involved in something like that?" I found myself deeply confused. Were we talking about the same thing? Then I remembered Carly had said something about an infertility clinic. "Frankly, nobody knows the first thing about that man," Hannah raged on. "All you get is hearsay. He's supposedly one of those alternative-medicine types, and a few people claim he's had some success, but it's all anecdotal. My own opinion is, it's what real physicians call the 'placebo effect.' If a patient believes hard enough something will happen, some of the time it actually might. For God's sake, I'm not even sure he's board-certified. Do yourself a favor and stay away. Oftentimes, people like that do more harm than good." Then her look turned inquisitive. "Did you say he's providing children for adoption now? That's peculiar. When did he start that?" Was I hearing some kind of professional jealousy slipping out? Hannah Klein was definitely Old School to the core. "He who?" I was trying to remember the name of the doctor Carly had mentioned. "You mean--" "He says his name is . . . what? Goddard? Yes, Alex Goddard. He's--" My pager chirped, interrupting her, and she paused, clearly annoyed. I looked down to see a number I knew well. It had to be Lou Crenshaw, our aforementioned security guard. He'd been off today, but there was only one reason he would page me: some kind of news from Lenox Hill. Maybe it was good news about Sarah! My hopes soared. Or maybe it was bad. Please, dear God. "I'm sorry, Dr. Klein. I've got to go. Right now. It could be a medical emergency." She nodded, then slid open the top drawer of her desk and handed me a list of adoption agencies. "All right, here, take this and look it over. I've dealt with some of them, letters of reference for patients like you." She must have realized the insensitivity of that last quip, because she took my hand and squeezed it, the closest we'd ever come to intimacy. "Let me know if I can help you, Morgan. Really." Grasping the lifeless paper, I ached for Steve all over again. Times like this, you need some support. I finally glanced down at the list as I headed out. Sure enough, Children of Light was nowhere to be seen. Why not? I wondered. They'd found Kevin, a lovely blond baby boy, for Carly, a single woman, in no time at all. They sounded like miracle-makers, and if there was ever a moment for miracles, this was it. Shouldn't they at least have been given a footnote? I wanted to stalk right back and demand to know the real reason she was so upset, but I truly didn't want to waste a moment. Lou had paged me from a pay phone--he didn't actually have a cell phone of his own--and I recognized the number as belonging to the phone next to the Lenox Hill Hospital's third-floor nurses' station. When I tried it, however, it was busy, so I decided to just get in my car and drive there as fast as I could. And as I battled the traffic down Broadway, I realized that by diverting my mind from my own trivial misery to the genuine tragedy of Sarah, I was actually getting my perspective back. That was one of the many things Sarah had done for me over the years. All right. Sarah and Lou, who figure so largely in this, deserve a full-dress introduction, so obviously I should start by admitting I'd known them all my life. Lou was my mother's half brother, three years younger than she was, who came along after my grandfather widowed my grandmother in a freak tractor rollover and she remarried a lifelong bachelor neighbor. (I have old snapshots of them, and I can tell you they all were cheerless, beady-eyed American Gothics.) I'd arranged for David to hire Lou eight months earlier, not too long after I came to Applecore. At that time he'd just taken early retirement from the FBI, because of an event that shook us all up pretty seriously. For some time now, Lou's been a rumpled, Willy Loman figure, like a traveling salesman on the skids, shirts frayed at the collars, face tinted from a truckload of Early Times. Over the past fifteen years I'd watched his waist size travel from about thirty-three inches to thirty-seven, and I'd guess it's been at least a decade since a barber asked him if he needed any off the top. Natalie Rose, his spirited, wiry wife of thirty-seven years, succumbed to ovarian cancer seven years ago last September, and I know for a fact she was the one who bought his shirts, provided him with general maintenance. My first memories of him were when he was a county sheriff in a little burg called Coleman, smack in the middle of Texas, some fifty-five long, dusty miles from the ranch where I grew up. When I was about fourteen, I remember he gave up on that and moved to Dallas, there to enter training for the FBI. He eventually ended up in New Orleans, and then, after Natalie Rose passed away and he more or less fell apart, he got transferred to New York, considered the elephant graveyard of an FBI career. Probably the reason I saw him as much as I did as a kid was because of my cousin Sarah, his and Rose's only child. She was six years younger than me, a lot when you're kids, but we were very special to each other, had a kind of bonding that I've never really known with anybody since. We spent a lot of time staying at each other's house, me the almost-grown-up, and truthfully, I loved her helplessly, like a little sister. I always wanted to think she needed me, which can be the most affirming feeling in the world. I do know I needed her. She was now lying in a coma, and the way she got there was the tragedy of my life, and Lou's. To begin with, though, let me say Sarah was a pretty blonde from the start, with sunshiny hair that defined her as perpetually optimistic--and who wouldn't be, given the heads she always turned. (I was--am--blond too, though with eyes more gray than her turquoise blues, but for me blond's always been, on balance, an affliction: Sexist film producers assume, dammit, that you're a failed showgirl, or worse. I've actually dyed it brunette from time to time in hopes of being taken more seriously.) Sarah and I had always had our own special chemistry, like a composite of opposites to make a complete, whole human being. Whereas I was the rational, left-brained slave of the concrete, she was a right-brained dweller in a world of what-might-be. For years and years, she seemed to live in a dream universe of her own making, one of imagination and fanciful states. Once, when she was five, Lou hid in his woodworking shop for a month and made an elaborate cutaway dollhouse to give her at Christmas. But when I offered to help her find little dolls that would fit into it, she declared she only wanted angels to live there. So we spent the rest of the winter--I dropped everything--hunting down Christmas tree ornaments that looked like heavenly creatures. She'd swathe them in tinsel and sit them in balls of cotton she said were little clouds. I always felt that just being around her opened my life to new dimensions, but her dream existence constantly drove Lou and Rose to distraction. I think it was one of the reasons he never got as close to her as he wanted, and his feelings about that were deep frustration, and hurt. He loved her so much, but he could never really find a common wavelength. Finally she came down to earth enough to start college, and eventually she graduated from SMU in biology, then enrolled at Columbia for premed. By then she was interested in the workings of the brain, in altered states. I didn't know if it was just more pursuit of fantasy, but at least she was going about it professionally. Anyway, when Lou got transferred to New York, he was actually delighted, since it gave him a chance to be closer to her. We all managed to get together for family reunions pretty often, though Lou and Sarah were talking past each other half the time. Then tragedy struck. She was just finishing her master's, and had been accepted by Cornell Medical--Lou was bursting with pride--when he suggested they use her Christmas break to drive back down to Texas together, there to visit Rose's grave. (I think he really wanted to show off his budding doctor-to-be to the family.) Sarah was driving when they crossed the state line into Louisiana and were side-swiped by a huge Mack eighteen-wheeler, which was in the process of jackknifing across a frozen patch of interstate. They were thrown into the path of an oncoming car, and when the blood and snow were cleared, a six-year-old girl in the other vehicle was dead. The result was Sarah decided she'd taken a human life. Her own minor facial cuts--which Lou immediately had repaired with plastic surgery--somehow evolved into a major disfigurement of her soul. All her mental eccentricities, which had been locked up somewhere when she started college, came back like a rush of demons loosed from some Pandora's box deep in her psyche. She dropped out of school, and before long she was in the throes of a full-scale mental meltdown. She disappeared, and in the following two years Lou got exactly one card from her, postmarked in San Francisco with no return address. He carried it with him at all times and we both studied it often, puzzling over the New Age astrological symbol on the front. The brief note announced she'd acquired "Divine Energy" and was living on a new plane of consciousness. Then eight months ago, the State Department notified Lou she was missing in Guatemala. She'd overstayed her visa and nobody knew where she was. So how did her "new plane of consciousness" land her in Central America? Was that part of the fantasy world she'd now returned to? Lou still worked downtown at 26 Federal Plaza, but he immediately took a leave of absence and, though he spoke not a syllable of Spanish, plunged down there to look for her. He was there a month, following false leads, till he finally ran into a Reverend Ben Jackson, late of a self-styled Protestant ministry in Mississippi, who was one of the ardent new Evangelicals swarming over Central America. The man mentioned that some chicle harvesters in the northwest Peten Department of Guatemala had found a young woman in an old dugout canoe on the Guatemala side of the wide Usumacinta River, near a tributary called the Rio Tigre, lodged in amongst overhanging trees. She'd been struck on the head and presumably set adrift somewhere upriver, left for dead. She was now in a coma, resting at Jackson's "Jesus es el Hombre" clinic, also located deep in the northwest Peten rain forest. He had no idea who she was. Lou rented a car and drove there, almost a day on unpaved roads. It was Sarah. Thus she was no longer missing; she was now the apparent victim of an attempted murder. However, rather than being helpful, the local _policia_ appeared annoyed she'd been found, thereby reopening the matter. A blond _gringa _was out hiking somewhere she had no business being in the first place and tripped and hit her head on something. Where's the crime? Lou brought her back to New York, using a medevac plane supplied by the State Department, which, wanting no more CIA-type scandals of American nationals being murdered in Guatemala, cooperated with great dispatch. After that, he needed a job that would afford him time flexibility, so he could be at her bedside as much as possible. David was looking for a security head, and I realized it would be a perfect match. Since we didn't really need a full-time person, Lou could spend a lot of hours at Lenox Hill, watching over Sarah. She was just lying there now, no sign of consciousness, her body being kept alive with IV I'd go by to visit her as much as I could, and almost as bad as seeing the comatose Sarah was seeing the grief in Lou's eyes. He would sit there at the hospital every day, sometimes several hours a day, fingering an old engraved locket that carried her high-school graduation picture, just rubbing it through his fingers like a rosary. We always made allowances when he wanted to take time off during one of our shooting schedules, figuring maybe he was helping her. . . . As I turned east, to go crosstown, I thought again about Sarah's condition. She and I looked a lot alike, dense blond hair for one thing, but to see her now you'd scarcely know it, since hers had been clipped down to nothing by the hospital. Her cheekbones, however, were still strong, a quality now exaggerated by her emaciated state, and her eyes, which I had not seen in years, were a deep languid, turquoise blue. But seeing her lying there inert, being kept alive with tubes and liquids, wearing pressure pants to help circulate blood through her legs, you'd scarcely realize she'd been a strikingly beautiful woman before the accident. What's worse, from what I knew, the horrific brain traumas that bring on a coma don't automatically go away when you regain consciousness. If the coma is the result of a head injury, and if it lasts more than a few days, the chances of regaining all your mental functions are up for grabs. Lou once said there's a scale of eight stages to full recovery. People who have short comas can sometimes come out of them and go through those stages quickly--from initial eye movement to full mental faculties. Others, who've been under for months or longer can require years to come back. Sometimes they can only blink their eyes to answer questions; sometimes they babble on incessantly. They can talk sense, or they can talk nonsense, incoherent fantasies, even strings of numbers. The brain is a complex, unpredictable thing. . . I always thought about this as I took the elevator up to Lenox Hill's third floor. The room where they kept Sarah was painted a pale, sterile blue, and made even more depressing by stark fluorescent lights. Everything was chrome and baked-on enamel, including the instruments whose CRT screens reported her bodily functions. None of the instruments, however, had ever shown the brain activity associated with consciousness. Lou was there when I walked in. He had a kind of wildness in his eyes, maybe what you get when you mix hope with despair. We hugged each other and he said, "She had a moment, Morgy. She knew me. I'm sure she did." Then he told me in detail what had happened. A nurse passing Sarah's room had happened to notice an unexpected flickering on one of her monitors. She'd immediately informed the nurses' station, where instructions included Lou's home number. He'd grabbed a cab and raced there. When he got to her room, he pushed his way past the Caribbean nurses and bent over her, the first time he had hoped a conversation with her would be anything but a monologue. "Honey, can you hear me?" There was no sign, save the faint flicker of an eyelid. It was enough. His own pulse rocketed. "Where's the damned doctor?" While the physician was being summoned, he had a chance to study her. Yes, there definitely was some movement behind her eyelids. And her regular breathing had become less measured, as though she were fighting to overcome her autonomic nervous system and challenge life on her own. Finally an overworked Pakistani intern arrived. He proceeded to fiddle with the monitors, doing something Lou did not understand. Then without warning--and certainly attributable to nothing the physician did--Sarah opened her eyes. Lou, who had not seen those eyes for several years, caught himself feasting on their rich, aquatic blue. He looked into them, but they did not look back. They were focused on infinity, adrift in a lost sea of their own making. They stared at him a moment, then vanished again behind her eyelids. He told me all this and then his voice trailed off, his despair returning. . . . "Lou, it's a start. Whatever happens is bound to be slow. But this could be the beginning. . . ." We both knew what I was saying was perilously close to wishful thinking, but nobody in the room was under oath. For the moment, though, she was back in her coma, as though nothing had changed. I waited around until eight o'clock, when I finally convinced myself that being there was not doing anybody any good. Lou, I later learned, stayed on till well past eleven, when they finally had to send security to evict him. Okay, I've been holding out on the most important detail. The truth is, I hardly knew what to make of it. At one point when I was bending over Sarah's seemingly unconscious face, her eyes had clicked open for just a fleeting moment, startling me the way those horror movies do when the "un-dead" suddenly come alive. Lou was in his chair and didn't see it, didn't notice me jump. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him about it, and I was still shivering as I shoved my key into the Toyota's ignition and headed for home. She'd looked directly into my eyes, a flicker of recognition, and then came the fear. She sort of moved her mouth, trying to speak, but all that came was a silent scream, after which her eyes went blank as death and closed again. She knew me, I was sure of it, but she had looked through me and seen a reminder of some horror now locked deep in her soul. Chapter Four Lou took the next few days off to spend by Sarah's side, but nothing more happened. I repeatedly called him at the hospital to check on her, though it was becoming clear her brush with consciousness had only been an interlude. Finally, I decided to show Carly's rushes to David (he loved them) and try to concentrate on postproduction for the rest of the week and the weekend, anything to make me not have to dwell on Sarah's ghostlike, soundless cry of anguish. Postproduction. When you're shooting a picture, you have to make all kinds of compromises; but in post, with luck and skill, you can transform that raw footage into art. You mix and cut the takes till the performances are taut; you loop in rerecorded dialogue where necessary to get just the right reading of a line; the Foley guys give you clear sound effects where the production sound is muddy; and you balance the hues of reds and blues, darks and lights till you get just the right color tone. All of the polishing that came with post still lay ahead. The first step was to go through the rough cut and "spot" the film, marking places where the sound effects or dialogue would need to be replaced with rerecorded studio sound--which meant several days, maybe weeks, of looping to edit out background noise and make the dialogue sound rich and crisp. For some of it, the actors would have to come back in and lip-synch themselves, which they always hate. It was daunting, to have to work back and forth between production sound tracks and loop tracks, blending alternate takes. You had to figure on only doing about ten minutes of film a day, and then, after all that, you had to get the "opticals" right, the fade-outs and dissolves and, finally, the credit sequences. Normally, once I started post, I would have exactly ten weeks to accomplish all that before the executive producer, David, got his hands on my picture. That was the prerogative that was part of the standard director's contract. Now, though, I figured that was out the window. With the money going fast, I had to produce a rough cut and get the picture sold to cable in six weeks, period. But first things first. I deeply needed at least one more interview--Carly's was too much of a happy one-note--which was why I needed to shoot Paula Marks. It was now on for Thursday, today. The appointment had taken all weekend, including a Sunday brunch, to set up, but by that time I was sure this second mother would be perfect. She was a tall, willowy woman, forty-three, who had let her hair start going to gray. Honesty, it was right there in her pale brown eyes. She wrote children's books, had never married--she now believed she never would--and had decided to adopt a child because she had a lot of extra love she felt was going to waste. Different from Carly Grove, maybe, but not in the matter of strength, and fearless independence. We arrived around ten A.M. to discover her apartment was in one of those sprawling prewar West Side monoliths, thick plaster walls and a rabbit's warren of halls and foyers, legacy of an age before "lofts" and open spaces. Terribly cramped for shooting. But Paula agreed to let the blue-jeaned crew move her old, overstuffed couch out of the living room, along with the piles of books that lined the walls. Another issue was makeup. At first Paula insisted she didn't want any. Never wore it, it was deceitful, and she didn't want to appear on camera looking like Barbie. (Small chance of that, I thought. A little war paint now and then might help your chances of landing a father for this child.) Eventually Arlene persuaded her that cameras lie and the only way to look like yourself is to enhance those qualities that make you you. It was a thin argument, but Arlene came from a long line of apparel proprietors who could unload sunlamps in the Sahara. Paula's adopted daughter Rachel, who was a year and a half old, was running around the apartment, blond tresses flowing, dragging a doll she had named Angie. Except the name came out "Ann-gee." She was immediately adopted by the crew, and Erica, the production manager, was soon teaching her how to play patty-cake. Then Rachel wanted to demonstrate her new skills at eating spaghetti. In five minutes she was covered head to toe in Ragu tomato sauce. When the Panaflex was finally rolling, the story Paula spun out was almost identical to the one told by Carly Grove. She'd spent hours with all the legal services recommended by NYSAC, New York Singles Adopting Children, listening to them describe a scenario of delays and paperwork and heartache. It could be done, but it could take years. Look, she'd declared, I'll cash in my IRA, do anything, just give me some hope. Okay, they'd replied, tighten your belt, scare up sixty big ones, and go to see Children of Light. We hear stories. . . . Soon after she called them, the skies had opened. A New Age physician and teacher there, a man with striking eyes named Alex Goddard, had made it happen. Rachel was hers in just four months, no paperwork. Sure, she declared, Children of Light was expensive, but Alex Goddard was a deeply spiritual man who really took the time to get to know you, even practically begged you to come to his clinic-commune and go through his course of mind-body fertility treatment. But when she insisted she just wanted to adopt, he obligingly found Rachel for her. How could she be anything but grateful? She was so happy, she wanted everybody in the world to know about him. As she bubbled on, I found my attention wandering to Rachel, who'd just escaped from the crew keeping her in the kitchen and was running through the living room, singing a song from Sesame Street. Something about the way she moved was very evocative. Where've I seen her before? Then it dawned on me. Her walk made me think of Kevin. Actually, everything about her reminded me of Kevin. Were all kids starting to look the same? God, I wanted them both. Yeah, I thought, daydreaming of holding her, she's Kevin all over again, clear as day. She's a dead ringer to be his older sister. It feels very strange. Or maybe I was just seeing things. To some extent all babies looked alike, right? That is, until you have one of your own. I had to swallow hard, to try to collect my thoughts. Carly and Paula scarcely even knew each other. If Rachel really was Kevin's sister, they'd never know anything about it. Incredible . . . it was just too big a coincidence. But still. . . and what about the film footage? Show close-ups of the kids, and anybody not legally blind was going to see the similarity. . . . Why would somebody give up two children for adoption? I found myself wondering. Giving up one was tragic enough. "Cut." I waved at everybody. "Take ten. We need to recharge here, take a break and stretch." Paula was caught off guard, in the middle of a sentence, and she let her voice trail off, puzzled. "Hey, I'm sorry Rachel came barging in," Paula finally said. "Guess she broke everybody's concentration, huh?" "Yeah, well, sometimes we all need to lean back and take a fresh run at things." I called to Rachel, who came trotting over, spaghetti sauce still on her face, and picked her up. I felt at a loss about what to do. Tell Paula her daughter had a younger brother in the Village, and she might fall apart. "I was actually curious about something. Do you know anything about Rachel's birth mother?" "I don't want to know. It would disrupt my life. And my peace of mind." Her eyes acquired a kind of sadness mingled with anxiety. "I'm reconciled to the fact she probably got into some kind of trouble, may not have exactly been Nobel Prize material, but I'm a big believer in nurture over nature. That's why I write books for kids. So I think Rachel's going to end up being a lot more like me than like her real mother." Brave words. But I'll bet you anything the story of Rachel's mother is a lot more complicated than you imagine. I glanced at my watch, the hour pushing four-thirty. Time to call it a wrap. Besides, if we shot any more today, the crew would end up on overtime, and David was getting increasingly nervous about my extra costs. I also needed a little downtime to reflect. "Look, I think I've got enough footage to work with for now. Let me just get the release signed take this film downtown, and get it processed. Maybe we can come back for another shoot when I figure out exactly where this is going." "Anytime. Just give me some notice and I'll try to have the place cleaned up more next time." "Don't worry. I like it to look real. Just sign the release and I'll take it from there." I was about to set Rachel back on the floor when something caught in my sweater. Looking down, I realized it was a tiny charm bracelet, with two little medallions on it. One was a little red plastic likeness of Pocahontas, the Disney character, and the other was a silver face of a cat, long and stylized. And on the back, those curious lines and dots again, only these were arranged differently from those on the one Carly's boy Kevin had. "Paula, what's this? This cat. Where'd you get it?" "Oh, that." She smiled. "She was wearing it when I got her, on a little silk cord around her waist, under her diaper. They told me it was a gift from her real mother, a keepsake. Sort of breaks your heart, but the way they said it, you want to keep it forever. . . ." At that moment Erica was just plugging the phone back in, and the second she did, the old, black Panasonic cordless began to ring. "Hang on a sec," Paula said. "Let me get that. My agent is supposed--" She'd picked up the phone and was plopping back onto the couch. "Hi." Then her look turned blank. "No, of course not." She fell into an uncomfortable pause, looking around at everybody. Then she continued. "Nobody's contacted me." She halted again, her face white, and stared directly at me. I abruptly sensed that I was the topic of the conversation. "Sure I'm sure. . . . Yes, I remember signing. . . . Don't worry. I'd have no reason to. . . . Okay, sure, I'll let you know." She clicked off the phone and looked up with startled eyes. "It was somebody who said they worked for Children of Light. She wanted to know if you'd contacted me." Her face collapsed. "You. She asked me specifically about _you_. By name. How did--?" "I have no idea." My hands were growing cold. Had Carly told them about me? Why would she do that? "Anyway, you handled it okay." Which made me wonder. If Children of Light was such a perfect organization, why was Paula so frightened she immediately felt compelled to lie, to swear she hadn't broken their rules? "Right." Her composure was slowly coming back. "Look, now that I think about it, why should they care? It doesn't make any sense. They got their money." She turned to me. "Let me have that release." She seized the paper and endorsed it with a flourish. My pulse was still in overdrive, but I hugged her, then signaled the crew that shooting was over for the day. "Okay, everybody. Time to wrap." The gang immediately began striking the lights and rolling up electrical cords. They would take the equipment back downtown and deliver the film to the lab, while I would head home. It had been a long day and lots of thinking was needed. Besides, it was starting to rain, a dismal spatter against Paula's grimy windows, as the gray spring afternoon had begun darkening toward sullen evening. "Listen, I enjoyed this." Paula had taken Rachel in her arms and was stroking her blond hair. "I really love talking about her. She's changed my life." I gave her another hug. "You're great. And you're going to be wonderful in the film." If I used her. The whole thing was getting unnerving. "You have no idea how much you've helped." Then I said good-bye to Rachel, who responded with a perfect "Bye, bye" through her haze of spaghetti sauce. Okay, get the superintendent. Crank up the freight elevator. Get out of here. Scott Ventri, key grip, took charge of handling the gear, dictating which equipment got loaded on first. I watched long enough to make sure everything was going okay, and then I joined Arlene, old friend and queen of outrageous makeup, on the other elevator. "You notice it?" she whispered. The door had just closed. "Notice what?" I knew full well what she was talking about. But it just felt too bizarre. "Those kids could almost be twins. That little boy last week, and this girl. They look just alike. It's spooky." "Guess their parents couldn't figure out what was causing those pregnancies. So they just kept having more babies." I decided to try to insert some humor, deflect the conversation. "Maybe we should tell Paula and Carly." "Very dumb." Arlene bit at a long, red, false fingernail, a perennial habit for as long as I'd known her. "We should mind our own business, that's what we should do." "Works for me. But it also proves we were smart not to shoot any footage of the kids. The whole world would realize something's funny." Then I had an idea. "Want to come downtown to my place after we unload? Have some deep thoughts over what all this means?" First the kids, then the call. What was this guy Alex Goddard, whoever he was, up to? Definitely time to talk to somebody. . . . "Gee, I'd love to," Arlene was saying, "but I can't. I gotta go out to Kew Gardens for my mom and dad's anniversary tonight. Their thirty-fifth, can you believe? Of course, I was a very late baby." She blinked her dark, languid eyes, as though rehearsing the line for a downtown club. "A miracle of modern fertility science, right?" Shit. Arlene, I need you. "Right." She giggled, then seemed to study the flashing lights on the elevator's control panel. "God, those kids, they're too good to be true. I'd love to have one like that." She impatiently pounded the number one a couple of times, perhaps hoping to speed our creaky descent. "I can get bonked every night of the week, but I can't get a serious boyfriend. New York's clubs aren't exactly brimming with the vine-covered-cottage-and-picket-fence type. And as for the pickings at work, given the kind of pictures David makes, forget it. Last thing I need is some twenty-year-old pothead who thinks with his wang." "I'm afraid I'm not helping you much with this one." I'd cast _Baby Love_ mostly with Off-Broadway unknowns. The actress Mary Gregg was a veteran of Joseph Papp's original Public Theater, the experimental enterprise downtown. The few male parts all went to guys who were either gay or married. "Oy, what can you do, right? If it happens, it happens." Arlene watched the door begin to stutter open as we bumped onto the lobby level. Then she zeroed in on me. "You really want a kid too, don't you? I mean, that's why you did this script, right? Which, by the way, is great. I mean the script." "I think most women do, down deep." She smiled. "Well, if I ever have one, it's going to be the old-fashioned way. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than adopting." She was heading out, into the front foyer. "Not to mention more fun getting there." On that I definitely had to agree. The lobby's prewar look was gray and dismal, and as we emerged onto the street, the rain had turned into a steady downpour. Lou was off again today, down at the hospital with Sarah, so I'd engaged a doorman from a new co-op across the street to keep an eye on our vans. A crisp twenty had extracted his solemn promise to do just that. At the moment, however, he was nowhere to be seen. Proving, I suppose, David's theory that we needed our own security guy at all location shoots. Lou, I thought, I hope you're finally getting through to her. "No limo, but at least we get first call on the vans," Arlene observed, her voice not hiding the sarcasm. "Just once I'd like to work for somebody who had serious VIP transportation." "David would walk before he'd get a limo." We were headed down the street, me digging out my keys, when I noticed the man standing in the rain. He was just behind our lead van, a three-year-old gray Ford, waiting for us. My first thought was he must be connected to Nicky Russo, David's wiseguy banker, here to bust my chops over the Teamster issue. Screw him. Just my luck he'd send somebody the very day Lou was not on hand. But then I realized I'd guessed wrong. The man was more Hispanic than Italian. He also was short, solidly built, late fifties maybe, with intense eyes and gray hair that circled his balding pate like the dirty snow around a volcano's rim. As he moved toward us, I thought I detected something military in his bearing, not so much the crispness of a soldier but rather the authoritative swagger of an officer. Well, maybe a retired officer. "The paper on your windshield says you are filming a movie," came a voice with a definite Spanish accent. No greetings, no hiya, how're you doin'? Just the blunt statement. Then, having established what was already clear to all at hand, he continued. "It says the title is _Baby Love_. Why are you making this movie here?" That was it. I glanced at Arlene, who'd turned white as a sheet. You get a lot of onlookers around a location shoot, but not too many who challenge your right to exist, which was exactly what was coming through in his menacing tone. I handed Arlene the keys. "Here, go ahead and open up. I'll handle this." Then I turned back to him. "What you saw in the windshield of the vans is a New York City Film Board permit. That's all the information we are required to provide. If you read it, you know everything I'm obliged to tell you." I returned his stare. "However, if people ask nicely, I'm happy to answer their questions." "Are you making this movie about a person in this building? Your other films have been documentaries." God help me, I thought. Is this what my fans are like? Then it hit me. I don't know how I'd missed the connection, but now it just leapt out. First the phone call, then this hood. Somebody was tracking me. "I'm scouting locations," I lied, feeling a chill go through me. "We're second unit for an action film, shooting some prep footage for the producers. Does the name Arnold Schwarzenegger mean anything to you?" "Then why is the film about babies?" "That's meant to be a joke. Remember the movie _Twins_? It's a joke title. Do you understand?" At that moment, Paul Nulty came barging out the door with a huge klieg light, followed by several other members of the crew carrying sound gear. Our cordial tete-a-tete was about to be disrupted. My new Hispanic friend saw them and abruptly drew up. That was when I noticed the shoulder holster under his jacket, containing some sort of snub-nosed pistol. Jesus, I thought, this must be what some kind of hired killer looks like. That gun's not a prop. "I think you are lying." He closed his jacket and, ignoring my crew, bored in relentlessly on me, his eyes dead and merciless. "That is a big mistake." It was the first time in my life I'd ever stood next to a man who had a gun and was deeply ticked at me. He'd wanted me to see his piece, just to make sure I took him seriously. He wasn't threatening me, per se. Rather he was letting me know how strongly he cared about what I was doing. Well, damn him, but I still was scared. I might have managed to bluff Nicky Russo, but he was a guy who operated by an age-old set of Sicilian rules. This thug didn't strike me as the rule-book type. Hand shaking, I pulled out my cell phone, flicked it open, and punched in 911. "Listen, if you're threatening me with a gun, I'm calling the cops. Whatever problem you have with the New York film industry, you can explain it to them." New York's police emergency number was still ringing as he abruptly turned and strode away. I clicked the phone shut and moved to get out of the way as a trolley loaded with more gear was rolled past me down the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I also took my eyes off him for a second, and when I looked up again, he seemed to have disappeared into the rain, though I did notice somebody who could have been him get into a long black car well down the block and speed off toward Broadway. "What did that creep want?" Arlene asked, coming back with the keys. I was only slowly returning to reality, and it took me a few moments to form a coherent answer through all the adrenaline surging into my brain. "I . . . I don't know. But I think I'd better warn everybody to keep an eye out for strangers. He's . . . he's wound a little tight, to put it mildly." I was still shaking, which she fortunately failed to notice. At that point, there seemed no great reason to spook her with mention of the gun. "Boy, he wasn't just some homeless junkie," she said. "He looked like a heavy in one of David's old action pictures. All he needed was a Mack-10." "Right." Jesus, Arlene, I think he might have had one. "So let's get moving." As I watched the vans being loaded, slowly calming down, I kept thinking about him. He was undoubtedly connected to the phone call, but why would anybody be so worried about what I was doing? I couldn't think of any serious reason. Half an hour later we were all headed downtown. Along the rain-swept streets the "All Beef" hot-dog vendors cowered under their red-and-yellow striped umbrellas, while departing office workers, briefcases perched above their heads as makeshift protection, scurried along the edges of buildings searching for cabs. While Arlene continued to chat nonstop, I tried to do a little mental processing. And my mind kept drifting back to the sight of little Rachel, and Kevin. What perfect kids. The way she was running. . . . Hey, wait a minute. How could they be siblings? Brother and sister? Rachel was almost exactly half a year older than Kevin. Biology didn't work that way. No way could they be related, but still . . . they looked so alike. I realized Arlene hadn't put it together about the ages. The brother/sister theory made absolutely no sense. Those kids were born six months apart. If that wasn't strange enough, why did they both have those tiny cat medallions with the lines and dots on the back? Which were actually kind of creepy, more like sacred amulets than little toys. Talk to Lou. He might have some insights. No, better yet, go to the source. Children of Light. Call Alex Goddard's adoption agency or clinic or whatever it is and make an appointment. Chapter Five I was feeling a bit off center that evening, but I explained it away as mental overload, the rain, and the implied threats. That diagnosis got revised the next morning when I awoke with a mind-numbing headache, chills alternating with a mild fever, and my chest feeling like it was caught in a compactor. It was a so-called common cold, but there was nothing common about my misery, which was truly exceptional. I made a cup of Echinacea tea and then washed down 2000 mg of Vitamin C with some aging orange juice from my fridge, after which I took a couple of Tylenol, put on yesterday's jeans, and headed uptown to work. I also treated myself to a cab. When I settled into the cluttered corner room that was my office, I told myself this was not a day to make any big decisions. Just stick to matters that required nothing more than autopilot. The first thing I did was call Lou to check on Sarah (no change), and then I told him about my Hispanic visitor. He made concerned sounds and promised to accompany me on any further location shoots. Next I pulled out my date book and punched in a phone number I'd scribbled in the back. I'd gotten it when I was winding up my interview with Carly Grove. "Children of Light," said an unctuous voice. "This is Ramala." I hesitated a moment before giving my name. They already knew who I was; Ramala or somebody had called Paula Marks and asked about me. Me. What would she do when she heard it was yours truly in the flesh? I tried to take a deep breath, working around the feeling my lungs were on fire, and identified myself. Ramala received the information as though she'd never heard of me. Maybe she hadn't. Then I asked for an appointment with Alex Goddard. As soon as it was convenient. "He leaves his Saturdays open," she said, more of the smiley voice, "so I could make a special appointment for you tomorrow. Would ten A.M. be all right?" Her accent was the kind of Delhi colonial-ruling-class you associate with expensive silk saris and ruby bracelets, yet at the same time her voice had an overlay of that melodious, touchy-feely unctuousness you hear on relaxation tapes. I half expected her to next say, inhale deeply and feel the love flowing through the universe. In any case, she couldn't have sounded more open and forthcoming. I had to remind myself immediately that it wasn't true. Given the inquisitive phone call to Paula Marks, Children of Light was an organization that deeply cherished its privacy. Presumably they had a reason, and that reason didn't necessarily have to be sinister, but still, I had every reason to think they were upset about me and it made me paranoid. And now Alex Goddard immediately had time for a "special appointment." "Ten o'clock will be fine," I said, just barely croaking the words out of my chest. She gave me directions for reaching the Riverdale clinic, called Quetzal Manor, and hung up. I felt so miserable I could barely remember afterward what she'd said, but fortunately I'd taken notes. Quetzal Manor. An odd choice for a name, I'd thought. Some kind of bird sacred to the Maya Indians of Central America. But then Paula had mentioned at one point that he was very interested in indigenous Third World herbs and remedies. So maybe it fit. But still, one big puzzle kept coming back to haunt: How do you produce perfectly healthy siblings six months apart? (I actually called Carly and Paula back to verify the ages.) The more I thought about Kevin and Rachel, the more I realized they were so unmistakably related. Puzzling over that, I began to wonder if maybe I was on the verge of uncovering a blockbuster documentary. Could we be talking something approaching science fiction here? Making documentaries, you're always on the lookout for the unexpected, the fresh. So how about an organization that could obtain beautiful Caucasian babies seemingly at will, including peas-in-a-pod born a few months apart? I was already framing a pitch to David in my mind. Anyway, the rest of the day, while I was busy battling my cold with antihistamines and lots of hot soup, I mounted a major phone inquiry just to make sure all the rules on adoption hadn't somehow changed when I wasn't looking. They hadn't. First off, to get a child in three or four months, you'd almost certainly have to go with foreign adoption. China was everybody's flavor of the month, because they favored older parents and also because the one-child-per-family policy there had ended up producing a wide-scale abandonment of girls (who were all those precious boys going to marry? I often found myself wondering). However, the shifting politics there made the process very unreliable. A few months? Don't even think about it. Pressing on, I satisfied myself that the country-specific organizations that found babies in the emerging parts of the world all still worked the same. Cradle of Hope specialized in orphaned Russian kids. Children and Families, Inc., provided adoptions for Equadorian children. International Adoption Assistance, Inc., handled Brazilian orphans. But they all were still fussy, and they could take ages. How about a brand-new healthy baby in just a few months? I'd ask. Some kind of new fast track? The question was always taken as a joke. . . . I would be driving up to Quetzal Manor in my old Toyota, and I dearly wished Steve could somehow materialize and be with me. In his absence, however, I convinced Lou to come along. I figured the change of scene would do him good, and I also wanted the security of having him with me, after the threatening phone call to Paula and the Hispanic thug who'd accosted me outside her apartment building. Besides, it'd just be a couple of hours. The next morning, as we trekked up Riverside Drive, then the Henry Hudson Parkway, the sky was a flawless blue and the wide Hudson seemed like an ardent highway leading into the heart of America. Still in elevated spirits over Sarah's momentary brush with consciousness, Lou had noticeably less of a hangover than was usual most mornings. Maybe he was looking forward to a little mental R&R. For my own part, I felt my curiosity growing. I'd gone to a lot of appointments over the years, but rarely did I suspect the person I was going to see already knew more about me than I knew about them. After we crossed the Henry Hudson Bridge, we left the highway and headed down a service road that led toward the river. Then there was an imposing gate, open, and a tree-shrouded driveway. Finally the place loomed in front of us. The physical appearance of Quetzal Manor was a study in European grandeur, translated with a few extra frills from the New World. Carly had told me it had once been a Carmelite convent, dating from sometime in the middle of the last century, and it was a monument to Church authority, with endless arches of cut stone, turrets, gargoyles. As we were motoring to the end of the long cobblestone drive, I felt as if I was approaching some Gothic movie set. Given its hovering sense of regal authority, the place could easily have been a castle, but it seemed more like a brooding homage to medieval torture. Let me just say it was truly magisterial, yet also more than a little creepy. As we parked under a huge oak tree in front, I surveyed the facade, trying to marshal my strength. Enough of my cold still lingered that I didn't feel as if my mind was working on all cylinders, and for a moment I merely sat looking, trying to breathe. "Want me to go in with you?" Lou asked finally. He was examining the building suspiciously, like a detective surveying a crime scene. I wanted him with me and then again I didn't. I longed for the company, a protector, but I didn't want the complications, more things to explain inside. Finally I made a snap decision. "Why don't you take a stroll around the grounds?" I suggested. "Commune with nature. The fresh air will do you good. This can't take long. Mainly I just want to get some literature and try to gain a feeling for the place." That wasn't entirely, or even partly, true. What I really wanted to find out was threefold: How did they manage to get beautiful healthy Caucasian babies for two single women in just a few months; how could those babies be only six months apart in age and still obviously be siblings; and (this was where my feelings got complicated) could they get a baby for me the same way, never mind how they did it. It was the third thing that actually bothered me the most, since I was far from sure I wanted to be a part of whatever was going on. Lou just shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "Take as long as you like. I'll just wait here in the car. I'm not the nature type." That was certainly the case. I walked across the cobblestones to an arched entryway that had no door. I wondered at this--most convents are like a fortress--and then I realized the front door had been removed, leaving only its ancient hinges still bolted into the stones. Perhaps it was intended to be a symbol of openness, inviting you in. There was no sign of anybody--the saccharine-voiced Ramala was not on hand to greet me--so I just headed on down a wide hallway, past a table of brochures. The place had been decorated with expensive good taste: tapestries all over the stone walls, perfect Persian rugs, classic church statuary--all of it calling forth powerful feelings from deep in the psyche. Then I entered a vast interior courtyard, where a central fountain splashed cheerily in the midday light. The courtyard was circled with a picturesque gallery of cells, all with massive wooden doors, most likely rooms once inhabited by chaste sisters. The place did seem to be a clinic-commune now, just as Paula had said. Not nuns this time around, but rather New Age acolytes whose tastes ran more to secular music than to religious chants, as witness the cacophony of sounds that wafted out from several of the cells. Only it wasn't any kind of conventional music; it seemed a mixture of Japanese flute, North Indian ragas, African drumming. I liked the ragas, even recognized my favorite, "Bhairavi." Then I spotted something that riveted my attention. At the back of the courtyard, just past a final wooden door, stood a huge South Indian bronze statue, about five feet high, of the Dancing Shiva. It appeared to be presiding over the arch way that led out into a dense natural garden behind the building. I walked across the cobblestones to examine and admire it. It seemed an odd item to find here in the courtyard of a once-cloistered convent. I was so enthralled I failed to hear the door behind me open. "Do you find my Shiva interesting, Ms. James?" said a soothing voice, just barely audible above the chirps of birds. I think I caught a breath in my phlegm-locked chest, but then I turned to see a tall man dressed in casual chinos and a dark sweater. He was trim, looked to be in his early sixties, with a mane of salt-and-pepper hair and lean features more craggy than handsome. But his eyes were everything, telling you he owned the space around him, owned in fact, the air he breathed. It had to be Alex Goddard. "Yes," I answered almost before I thought. "It just seems to be a little out of place here." I wondered if he was going to introduce himself. Then I realized that when you're used to being the master of a private domain, you probably never think to bother with such trivial formalities. Everybody knows who you are. "Well," he said, his voice disarmingly benign, "I suppose I must beg to differ. May I suggest you consider this Shiva for a moment and try to imagine he's a real god?" "He is a real god" I said immediately feeling patronized. Nothing makes me angry faster. "In India, he's--" "Yes," he said "I know you did a film about India--which I found quite extraordinary, by the way--but why wouldn't the Shiva fit right in here? You see, he's a very modern, universal figure. He incorporates everything that exists in the contemporary world. Space, time, matter, and energy. As well as all of human psychology and wisdom." "I'm aware of that," I said sensing my pique increase. We were not getting off to a great start. "Yes, well." He seemed not to hear me. Instead he started putting on the leather jacket he'd had slung over his shoulder. "Notice that Shiva has four arms, and he's dancing with one foot raised. He's also standing inside that great circle of flame, a sort of halo encompassing his whole body. That circle stands for the great, all-embracing material universe, all of it. Dark and light, good and evil. He knows and controls everything." Hey, I realized, this guy's got some kind of identity thing going with this ancient Indian god. He continued as he zipped up the jacket. "Shiva has four arms because--" "Let me tell you," I said, interrupting him. He looked startled, clearly not accustomed to a woman meeting him on his own ground. "He has four hands because he has a lot to do. That little drum in his upper right summons things into existence. And there in his upper left he holds a fire that destroys." Goddard was examining me curiously, but I just stared back and continued. "His lower right hand is held up in a kind of benediction, as if to say, 'Find your peace within,' and the lower left points down at his feet, where one foot is planted on the back of that repulsive little dwarf there, the human ego. Crush the ego and be free. The other foot is lifted to signify spiritual freedom." "You seem to know the Shiva well." He broke into a grudging smile, as though we'd just met. Chalk up round one as a draw. "I'm glad you came, Ms. James. I'm a great admirer of your work and I especially wanted to provide your orientation personally. It's a genuine pleasure to meet you at last." At last? I took his proffered hand and stared. All the questions I'd been brooding over for the past week sort of disappeared into a memory file somewhere. Instead all I could do was focus in on him. Meeting Carly and Paula's miracle worker in the flesh made me recall something Aldous Huxley once observed. He declared that the kind of man, and they are almost always men, who can control others with his mind needs to have certain qualities the rest of us can only envy. Of course he has to be intelligent and have a range of knowledge that can be used to impress people, but most of all, he has to have a will of iron, an unswerving tenacity of purpose, and an uncompromising self-confidence about who he is, what he wants. This means a slightly remote manner, a glittering eye, and a sympathetic gaze that bores in deeply on you one minute, then seems off in another realm, focused on infinity, the next. Perhaps most importantly of all, his voice must be that of a Pied Piper, a soft yet penetrating instrument that acts directly on the unconscious of his listeners. Even though he was doing a casual number with me, my first impression of Alex Goddard was that he perfectly embodied all those qualities. I also sensed a false note. What was it? Maybe he was being just a little too casual. "If you're here about doing a film," he began, "please be aware we do not encourage publicity. If you've come because of your infertility, as Ramala said you mentioned in your call, then I welcome you with open arms." Well, he knew how to cut to the chase. And after his phone call to try to intimidate Paula Marks, I was well aware he didn't "encourage publicity." But now I also realized he wouldn't be overly interested in my new idea of someday doing a documentary on this place. But then a lot of people say no at first and then come around. "I was actually interested in neither," I said, feeling my sinuses about to close down permanently. "I was actually hoping to find out about your adoption service, how it works." "Ah," he said, his eyes shifting from intense scrutiny to somewhere lost in the ozone, "that's not something I handle personally. In any case, you first must come and participate in our program. Then, if we fail to achieve your objectives, we can take the adoption matter under consideration." "I think I'd like to hear about it anyway." I took a deep breath, again groping for air. "For instance, where and how you get the children you place." "I see," he said calmly, as though my question were about the weather. Then he secured his coat tighter. "I'm thinking, how would you like to take a short walk? Down to the river. We could get to know each other better." I just nodded, not looking forward to the harsh wind that would assault my inflamed sinuses. But maybe I was getting somewhere. As we started out through the stone archway and into the rear garden, which seemed to extend for acres, he continued. "You seem to have a lot of questions about what I'm doing here. So let me try and put my efforts into perspective. As I like to point out to women when they first come here, we in the West are making do with only half the world's medical knowledge. We ignore all of the East. There's also the wisdom of the indigenous peoples here in the Western Hemisphere, the Native Americans. Who are we to say they don't have a lot to teach?" He smiled, as though embarrassed to be passing along such a commonplace. "For example, Western medical practice, virtually until this century, consisted mainly of using leeches to drain away 'humors' in the blood. At the same time, the indigenous peoples of this continent knew more about the curative powers of plants, even drugs, than Europe ever dreamed of. Yet they were deemed savages." I wasn't sure where he was leading, but the supreme self-confidence with which he spoke had the effect of sweeping me along. The engaging eyes, the voice, the well-used designer jacket, it all worked. He was good, very good. "So you see," he went on, "what I've tried to achieve here at Quetzal Manor is to integrate the knowledge of East and West, ancient and modern." "So what, exactly, do you--?" "Well, first let me explain that I studied in the Far East for over a decade, until I understood how to control the energy flows in the body, your Chi. Then I moved to Central America, where I learned all that is currently known about Native American practices and medicines. I still have a special place there, where I carry out pharmacological research on the rare plants of that area, studying their effects on human fertility, on the origins of life. I have no time to waste on disease and degeneration." We were well into his Eden-like rear garden now, which had lots of herbs and was also part orchard. There were apple trees and other fruit trees I couldn't readily identify, all just starting to show their first buds. When we came to the end, there was a cobblestone path leading west. In what seemed only a few moments, we'd reached a line of bluffs overlooking the Hudson. The early spring wind was cutting into my face, causing my nostrils to feel on fire. As we stood gazing down at the rippling waters of the Hudson below, where a lone sailboat was caught in the breeze, the moment took on a timelessness, feeling as though it could have been any place, any century. "Incidentally," he went on, turning slightly to me, "are you familiar with the name Asklepios?" I had to shake my head no. It sounded vaguely familiar, but . . . "He was the ancient Greek god of medicine. The physicians who revered him held that sickness could be cured using drugs and potions that came from outside the body, since they believed that's where disease originated. Now, of course, billion-dollar industries thrive by enhancing our arsenal of antibiotics." I listened to this, wondering where he was headed. Then he told me. "There was, however, another school of healing at that time, those who honored the daughter of Asklepios. She was Hygeia, their goddess of health. The Hygeians believed that wellness originated from properly governing your own body. For them, the greatest service of the physician was to learn how we can work with our bodies. Their ideal was healing from within rather than intervention from without." Again he was studying me, as though trying to determine whether I was going along with what he was saying. "Unfortunately," he continued, "the Hygeian school more or less died out in the West. However, it lives on in other places. For example, primitive peoples have no manufactured, synthetic drugs, so they use natural herbs to enhance their own immune system and stay healthy." He turned to study the river, dropping into silence. "Maybe I'm missing something," I declared finally. His hypnotic voice had drawn me in, in spite of myself. "How does this relate to infertility?" He turned back and caught me with his shining eyes. They seemed to be giving off heat of their own. "Just as the body is intended to heal itself, so is a woman's womb meant to create life. If she's childless, the reason more often than not is that her body is out of harmony with itself. What I do here is seek out each woman's unique energy flows and attempt to restore them, using Eastern practices and Hygeian herbal therapies." "Does it always succeed?" I abruptly wondered if his techniques might work for me. Face it, Western medicine had completely struck out. The problem was, the guy was just a little too smooth. "Not always. Some women's bodies are naturally unresponsive, just as all organisms are subject to random . . . irregularities. In those cases, I try to provide her a child by other means." "You mean adoption," I suggested. "By whatever means seems appropriate," he replied cryptically "Well, there's something I'd like to understand. Last week I met a woman who had adopted a baby boy through Children of Light. She got him in three months. Such a thing is, according to what I can find out, totally unheard of. So how did you manage that?" He stared down at the river. "I thought I'd explained that adoptions are not what we primarily do here. They're provided only as a last resort, in the few cases where my regimen of Hygeian therapies fails." "But in those cases, where do you find--?" "As I've said before we talk about adoption, first we need to satisfy ourselves that no other options are possible." Then his eyes clicked into me. "If you could come back next Saturday to begin your tests and receive an orientation, I could give you an opinion about your chances of bearing a child. It will require a thorough examination, but I can usually tell with a good degree of certainty whether my program can help someone or not. It's really important, though, that you stay at least . . ." He was staring at me. "Mind if I do something that might relieve some of the symptoms of that cold?" He reached out and touched my temples with his long, lean fingers. Then he placed his thumbs just above my eyebrows and pressed very hard. After a long moment, he slowly moved the pressure down to the bridge of my nose, then across under my eyes. Finally he put the heel of his hands just above my ears and pressed again. After a couple of seconds he stepped away and continued talking as though nothing had happened. "After I give you a full examination, we can discuss our next step." With that he turned, ready to head back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of research data to organize." I guess he assumed his juggernaut of arcane medical theory had rolled over me sufficiently that he could move on to other matters. I sensed he really wanted me to come back, but he was careful to wind down our mutual interview with a take-it-or-leave-it air. All the same, I felt intrigued as we moved back through the gardens and then into the courtyard. A baby. Maybe he could make it happen for Steve and me. In spite of myself, I felt a moment of hope. "Thank you for coming," he said by way of farewell, just brushing my hand, then turned and disappeared through one of the ancient wooden doors along the veranda, leaving me alone. Well, I thought, the calm voice and casual outfit are probably just part of his bedside manner, but you can't be near Alex Goddard and not feel a definite sense of carefully controlled power. But is his power being used for good? This was the man whose staff was trying to deny me interviews with mothers who'd adopted through Children of Light. And what about the Hispanic hood with the gun? Did Alex Goddard send him? If not, his appearance at Paula's building was one hell of a coincidence. So why should I trust . . . That was when I noticed it. My lingering cold had miraculously vanished, inflamed sinuses and all. I was breathing normally, and even my chest felt cleared. My God, I thought, what did he do? Hypnotize me? It was as though a week's healing had passed through my body. I had an epiphany, a moment that galvanizes your resolve. I had to do a documentary about this man, to find out what he was really up to. He'd mentioned he had a place in Central America. Was that the source of his special techniques, some kind of ancient Meso-American medical practices he'd discovered? He claimed he didn't want any publicity, but that's always just an opening move. When somebody says that, what they really mean is they don't want any bad publicity; they just want to have final say about what you produce. There're ways to handle the problem. I liberated a brochure from the hall table on my way out, thinking I would study it soon. Very closely. I had a nose for a good story, and this one felt right. When I got back to the car, Lou was nowhere to be seen. He'd given me the impression he intended merely to sit there and doze while I went inside, but now he was gone. Then he appeared emerging from the forest of trees. Actually, there was another building opposite the stone drive that I hadn't noticed at first. Hmmm, I thought, I wonder what that's all about. For some reason Alex Goddard hadn't offered me a tour; he'd taken me for a stroll in the opposite direction. . . . "That was fast," Lou said settling into the car. "You get what you came for?" The answer to that was both yes and no. In a sense I'd gotten considerably more than I bargained for. "He wants me to come back," I said. "And I think I might do it. There's a lot more going on with Alex Goddard than you'd know from just looking at this place. The trick is to stay in control when you're around him." I tossed the brochure into Lou's lap as I started the engine. He took it and immediately began looking through it. Lou, I knew, was a man always interested in facts and figures. As we headed toward the Parkway he was pouring through the brochure with intense interest, even as I tried to give him a brief reprise of Alex Goddard's medical philosophy. "It says here his patients come from all over the United States and Europe," he noted, finally interrupting me. I found nothing odd in that, and went back to rambling on about Quetzal Manor. Give the place its due, it was placid and tranquil and smacked of the benign spirituality Goddard claimed to put so much stock in. Still, I found it unsettling. However, Lou, as usual, chose to see matters his own way. He'd been studying the fine print at the back of the brochure, mumbling to himself, and then he emitted a grunt of discovery. "Ah, here's what I was looking for," he declared. "You know, as a registered New York State adoption agency, this outfit has got to divulge the number of babies they placed during their last yearly reporting period." "According to him, he only resorts to adoption if he can't cure your infertility with his special mind-body regimen," I reminded him. "Your energy flows--" "No shit," Lou observed, then went on. "Well, then I guess his mind-body, energy flows, whatever, bullshit must fail a lot. Because last year the number was just under two hundred. So at sixty thou a pop, like it says here, we're talking about twelve million smackeroos gross in a year. Not a bad way to fail, huh?" I caught myself emitting a soft whistle as he read out the number. There was definitely a lot more going on with Alex Goddard than met the eye. "So what's he do with all that dough?" Lou mused. "Better question still, where in the hell did he find two hundred fresh, orphaned babies, all listed here as Caucasian? And get this: The ages reported at final processing are all just a couple of months, give or take." Good questions, I thought. Maybe that's the reason he doesn't want publicity; it sounds a little too commercial for a mind-body guru. My other thought was, with so many babies somehow available, why was Alex Goddard so reluctant to even discuss adoption with me? The answer, I was sure, lay in the fact he already knew more about me than I knew about him. He knew I was making a film about adoption (how did he come by that knowledge? I kept wondering) and he was concerned he might be mentioned in it. I kept asking myself, why? On our drive back down the Henry Hudson Parkway, I decided I was definitely looking at a documentary in the making. I just had to decide whether to do it with or without his cooperation. Chapter Six After I dropped off Lou at his space in Soho, where he was house sitting for an estate now in the courts, I decided to head on home. The more I thought about Alex Goddard, the more I felt frustrated and even a little angry that I'd completely failed to find out any of the things I'd wanted to learn about him. I replayed our interview in my mind, got nowhere, and then decided to push away thoughts of Quetzal Manor for a while and dwell on something else: Sarah, my film, anything. It was Saturday, and unfortunately I had no plans for the evening. Translation: no Steve. Back to where I started. How many million stories in the naked city, and I was just so many million plus one. It's not a jungle out there, it's a desert. The truth was, after Steve took off, I hadn't really been trying all that hard to pick myself up off the canvas and look around. Besides, I didn't want some other guy, I wanted him. Added to that, I somehow felt that when you're on the short countdown for forty, you shouldn't have to be going out on blind dates, wondering whether that buttoned-down MBA sitting across from you in some trendy Italian restaurant thinks you're a blimp (even though you skipped lunch), telling yourself he's presentable, doesn't seem like a serial killer, has a job, only mentioned his mother once, and could qualify as an acceptable life's mate. There's no spark, but he's probably quite nice. You wanly remember that old Barney's ad jingle, "Select, don't settle," but at this stage of life you're ready to admit you've flunked out in Love 101 and should just go with Like. Which was one of the reasons I missed Steve so deeply. He was a lover, but he was also a best friend. And I was running low on those. Every woman needs a best pal. After my former best, Betsy, married Joel Aimes, Off-Broadway's latest contribution to Dreamworks, and moved to the Coast with him, I was noticing a lot of empty evenings. In the old days, we could talk for hours. It was funny, since we were actually very different. Betsy, who had forgotten more about clothes and makeup than most women would ever know, hung around the garment-center showrooms and always came away with samples of next season's couture, usually for a song. I envied her that, since I usually just pretended not to care and pulled on another pair of jeans every morning. But she shared my love of Asian music. Anyway, now she was gone and I could tell we weren't working hard enough at staying in touch. She and Joel had just moved to a new apartment and I didn't even have her latest phone number. . . . Which brought me back to Steve. I'd often wondered why we were so alike, and I'd finally decided it was because we both started from the same place spiritually. In his case, that place was a crummy childhood in New Haven--which he didn't want to talk about much because, I gathered, it was as lonely and deprived as my own, or at least as depressing. His father had owned a small candy store and had wanted all his four children to become "professionals." The oldest had become a lawyer, the next a teacher. When Steve's turn came, he was told he should become a doctor, or at the very least, a dentist. Didn't happen. He'd managed four years of premed at Yale, but then he rebelled, cashed in his med-school scholarship, and went to Paris to study photography. The result was he'd done what he wanted, been reasonably successful at it, and his father had never forgiven him. I think he was still striving for the old man's approval, even after all the years, but I doubted he'd ever get it. Steve was a guy still coming to grips with things that couldn't be changed, but in the meantime he lived in worlds that were as different from his own past as he could find. He deliberately avoided middle-class comforts, and was never happier than when he was in some miserable speck on the map where you couldn't drink the water. Whatever else it was, it wasn't New Haven. . . . Thinking about him at that moment, I had an almost irresistible desire to reach for my cell phone and call him. God, I missed him. Did he miss me the same way? I wanted so much to hear him say it. I had a contact number for him in Belize City, an old, Brit-like hotel called the Bellevue, where they still served high tea, but I always seemed to call when he was out somewhere in the rain forest, shooting. Do it. Don't be a wuss. But then I got cold feet. Did I want him to think I was chasing after him? I didn't want to sound needy . . . though that was exactly what I felt like at the moment. Finally I decided to just invent a phone conversation, recreating one from times past, one where we both felt secure enough to be flip. It was something I did more than I'd like to admit. Usually there'd be eight rings at his Park Slope loft and then a harried voice. Yes. Steve, talk to me. . . . "Yo. This is not a recording. I am just in a transcendent plane. And if that's you, Murray, I'll have the contact sheets there by six. Patience is a virtue." "Honey, it's me. Get out of the darkroom. Get a life." "Oh, hi, baby." Finally tuning in. "I'm working. In a quest for unrelenting pictorial truth. But mainly I'm thinking of you." "You're printing, right? Darling, it's lunch hour. Don't you feel guilty, working all the time?" The truth was, it was one of the reasons I respected him so much. He even did his own contacts. His fervor matched my drive. It's what made us perfect mates. "I've got tons of guilt. But I'm trying to get past it. Become a full human person. Go back to the dawn of man. Paint my face and dance in a thunderstorm." He'd pause, as though starting to get oriented. "Hey, look at the time. Christ. I've got a print shoot on Thirty-eighth Street at three." He was chasing a bit of fashion work to supplement his on-again, off-again magazine assignments. "Love," I said in my reverie, "can you come over tonight? I promise to make it worth your while. It involves a bubble bath, champagne, roses everywhere, sensuous ragas on the CD. And maybe some crispy oysters or something, sent in later on, just to keep us going." Then I'd listen to the tone of his voice, knowing he'd say yes but putting more stock in how he said it. Still, he always gave his lines a good read. "Then why don't we aim for about nine?" I'd go on, blissful. "That ought to give me a chance to get organized. And don't bring anything except your luscious self." The fantasy was coming together in my mind. Thinking back, I realized how much I missed him, all over again. . . . That was when the phone on the armrest beside me rang for real. For a moment I was so startled I almost hit the brakes. Then I clicked it on, my mind still buzzing about Steve, and also, in spite of my resolve, about the curious runaround I'd just gotten from Alex Goddard. "Listen, there was a message on my machine when I came in. I've got to go up to the hospital. Right now." Lou's voice was brimming with hope and exuberance. "They said Sarah was stirring. She's opened her eyes and started talking. They said she's not making much sense, but . . . oh, God." "That's wonderful." I felt my heart expanding with life. For some reason, I had a flash of memory of her climbing up into the rickety little tree house--well, more like a platform--I'd helped her build in my thirteenth summer, no boys invited to assist. A year later that part had seemed terminally dumb. "I'll meet you there." I was almost home, but I screeched the car around and headed east. Racing over, though, I tried not to wish for too much. I kept remembering all the stages to a complete recovery and telling myself that whatever had happened, it was only the first step on a very long, very scary journey. . . . I hadn't realized how scary till I walked into the room. Lou, who had gotten there just minutes before I did, was sitting by her side, holding her hand, his gaze transfixed on her. She was propped up slightly in her bed, two pillows fluffed behind her head, staring dreamily at the ceiling. Three attentive middle-aged nurses were standing around the sides of her bed, their eyes wide, as though Sarah were a ghost. I very quickly realized why. She was spinning out a fantasy that could only come from a deranged mind. Had she regained consciousness only to talk madness? "Lou, does she recognize you?" I asked. He just shook his head sadly, never taking his eyes off her face. She was weaving in and out of reality, pausing, stuttering, uncertain of her incoherent brain. Once, when she'd fallen off a swing and got knocked out for a brief moment, she came to talking nonsense. Now she seemed exactly the same way. "Lights ... so bright," she mumbled, starting up again to recount what seemed to be a faraway fantasy, ". . . like now. Why . . . why are there lights here?" Her lips were moving but her eyes were still fixed in a stare. Then, with that last, odd question, her gaze began to dart about the room, looking for someone who wasn't present. She settled on me for a moment, and I felt a chill from her plaintive vulnerability. When I tried to look back as benignly and lovingly as possible, I couldn't help noticing how drawn her cheeks were, doubtless from the constant IV feeding, and again my heart went out. "I'm scared," she went on, "but--" "I'm here, honey," Lou declared, bending over her, his eyes pained. "Do you know who I am?" "The jade face . . . a mask," she babbled on, still ignoring him. "All the colors. It's so . . . so beautiful." Her hallucination didn't relate to anything I could understand. She clearly was off in another world, like when she was a kid, weaving the lights of the room now into some kind of dream. I touched Lou's shoulder and asked permission to turn off the overhead fluorescents, but he just shrugged me off, his attention focused entirely on her. His eyes had grown puzzled, as though he wanted to believe she was returning to rationality but his common sense was telling him it wasn't true. I was having a different reaction. What she was saying was random babblings, all right, but I was beginning to think she was reliving something she had actually seen. However, she wasn't through. "I want to pray, but . . . the white tunnel . . . is coming." She shuddered, then almost tried to smile. "Take me . . ." She was gone, her eyelids fluttering uncontrollably. "Honey, talk to me," Lou pleaded. He was crying, something I'd never seen him do, something I was not even aware he was capable of. What he really was trying to say was, "Come back." It wasn't happening. She stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment, then slowly closed her eyes, a shutter descending over her soul. "She'll be okay," I whispered to him, almost believing it. Her brain had undergone a physical trauma, enough to cause a coma, but some kind of mental trauma must have preceded it. Was she now trying to exorcise that as part of her path to recovery? The nurses in the room stirred, perhaps not sure what to do. The overhead lights were still dazzlingly bright, and I moved to shut them off, leaving only a night-light behind the bed. Perhaps the lights had brought her awake, but I was convinced what she'd just gone through had tired her to the point that she would not revive again that day. Then one of the Caribbean nurses came over and placed her hand on Lou's shoulder. She had an experienced face, full of self-confidence. Something about her inspired trust. "I wouldn't let this upset you too much," she said, a lovely lilt in her voice. "What just happened may or may not mean anything. When patients first come out of a coma, they can sometimes talk just fine, and yet not make any sense. They ramble on about things they dreamed of like they were real." Then she smiled. "But it's a good first step. She could wake up perfectly fine tomorrow. Just don't pay any attention to what she says for a while. She's dreaming now." Lou grunted as though he believed her. I nodded in sympathy, though no one seemed to notice. I also thought that although what Sarah had said was bizarre, it sounded like something more than a dream. Or had she gone back to her child-state where imaginary worlds were real for her? Then in the dim glare of her bed light, Lou took a wrinkled blue booklet out of his inner pocket and stared at it. I had to stare at it a moment before I realized it was a passport. "What--?" "The American consulate in Merida, Mexico, sent it up to 26 Federal Plaza yesterday, because my name and office address are penciled on the inside cover as an emergency contact. The police down there said somebody, some gringo tourist fly-fishing way down on the Usumacinta River, near where the Rio Tigre comes in from Guatemala, snagged this floating in a plastic bag. He turned it in to the Mexican authorities there, and it ended up with our people." He opened the passport and stared at it. "The photo and ID page is ripped out, but it's definitely Sarah's." He handed it over. "Guy I know downtown dropped it off last night. I'm not sure if it has anything to tell us, but now, I was hoping it might help jog her memory." I took it, the cover so waterlogged its color was almost gone. However, it must have been kept dry in the plastic bag for at least some of its trip from wherever, since much of the damage seemed recent. Lou shook his head staring wistfully at me. "I still don't know how she got down there. She was in California. Remember that postcard? If she'd come back East, she'd have got in touch. Wouldn't she?" His eyes pleaded for my agreement. I didn't know what to say, so I just shrugged. I wanted to be sympathetic, but I refused to lie outright. He took my ambivalence as assent as he pulled out the locket containing her picture, his talisman. He fingered it for a moment, staring into space, and then he looked down and opened it, as if seeing her high school picture, from a time when she was well, would somehow ease his mind. "This whole thing doesn't sound like her," he went on. "Know what I think? She was being held down there against her will." My heart went out to him, and I reached over and took the locket for a moment, feeling the strong "SRC" engraved on its heart-shaped face. "Lou, she's going to come out of it. And when she does, she'll probably explain everything. She's going to be okay any day now, I've got a hunch. A gut feeling." I had a gut feeling, all right, but not that she was going to be fine. My real fear was she was going to wake up a fantasy-bound child again. Then I handed the locket back. He'd seemed to turn anxious without it. He took the silver heart and just stared down at it. In the silence that settled over us, I decided to take a closer look at the passport. I supposed Lou had already gone through it, but maybe he'd missed something. As I flipped through the waterlogged pages, I came across a smudgy imprint, caked with a thin layer of dried river clay, that was almost too dim to be noticed. "Lou, did you see this?" I held it under the light and beckoned him over. "Can you read it?" "Probably not without my specs." He took it and squinted helplessly. "My eyes aren't getting any better." I took it back and rubbed at the page, cleaning it. It was hard to make out, but it looked like "Delegacion de Migracion, Aeropuerto Internacional, Guatemala, C.A." "I think this is a Guatemalan tourist entry visa." I raised the passport up to backlight the page. "And see that faint bit there in the center? That's probably her entry date. Written in by hand." He took it and squinted again. "I can't read the damned thing, but you're right. There's some numbers, or something, scribbled in." I took it and rubbed the page till I could read it clearly. "It's March eleventh. And it was last year." "Hot damn, let me see that." He seized it back and squinted for a long moment, lifting the page even closer to the light. "You're right." He held it for a second more, then turned to me. "This is finally the thing I needed. Now I'm damned well going to find out what she was doing down there." "How do you think you can do that?" I just looked at him, my mind not quite taking in what he'd just said. "The airlines." He almost grinned. "If they can keep track of everybody's damned frequent-flyer miles for years and years, they undoubtedly got flight manifests stored away somewhere too. So my first step is to find out where she flew from." "But we don't know which--" "Doesn't matter." He squinted again at the passport. "Now we know for sure she showed up at the airport in Guatemala City on that date there. I know somebody downtown, smooth black guy named John Williams, the FBI's best computer nerd, who could bend a rule for me and do a little B&E in cyberspace. He owes me a couple. So, if she was on a manifest for a scheduled flight into Guatemala City that day, he'll find it. Then we'll know where she left from, who else was on the plane." He tapped the passport confidently with his forefinger. "Maybe she was traveling with some scumbag I ought to look up and get to know better." "Well, good luck." In a way I was wondering if we weren't both now grasping for a miracle: me half-hoping for a baby through some New Age process of "centering," Lou trying to reclaim Sarah from her mental abyss with his gruff love. But then again, miracles have been known to happen. Chapter Seven "Quetzal Manor could have the makings of a great documentary," I was explaining to David Roth. "I just need some more information-gathering first, to get a better feeling for what Alex Goddard is up to. So going back up there will be two birds with one stone. I'll learn more about him, and he might even be able to tell me why I haven't been able to get pregnant." He was frowning, his usual skeptical self. "How long--?" "It's just for the weekend, or maybe a little . . . I'm not sure exactly. I guess it depends on what kinds of tests he's going to run. But the thing is, I have to do it now, while he and I are still clicking. An 'iron is hot' kind of moment. The only possible problem might be if I have to push back my schedule for looping dialogue for _Baby Love _and then somebody's out of town." "You check with the sound studio to warn them about possible rescheduling?" He wanted to appear to be fuming. But since he'd invited me down to his Tribeca loft at least once every three months, now that I'd finally shown up, he also had a small gleam in his eye. What did that mean? "Yes, but I've already spotted most of the work print, and I've made tentative dates for people to come in. In a week and a half. Everything's still on schedule." He leaned back on his white couch, as though trying to regroup. It was Saturday morning and I'd already made the appointment to see Alex Goddard. I was going. I probably should have run it by David first, but damnit, it was my life. Truthfully, though, I'd been dreading telling him all week, so to try and make him as congenial as possible, I'd arranged to see him at home and relaxed. It seemed to be working, more or less. "Okay, okay, sometimes I guess it's best to just go with your gut," he said, beginning to calm down. He'd offered to whip up some brunch when I first arrived, and now I was feeling sorry I'd turned him down. I really did like him. But, alas, only as a friend. "Before I cave in totally, though, do me a favor and tell me some more about this . . . documentary? What, exactly, makes you think it's--" "Everything." Whereupon I laid on him the full story of Carly and Paula, the children, and my encounter with Alex Goddard. The only thing I left out was the story of the Hispanic hood since I didn't think he could handle it. "This Quetzal Manor sounds like a funny operation," he declared solemnly when I'd finished. "I say the less you have to do with a place like that, the better. Who knows what's going on." "But, David that's what makes it so interesting. The fact that it _is_ a 'funny' operation. I really can see a documentary here, after Baby Love is in the can. But I'll never have a chance if I don't get to know this guy while I've got a good excuse. That's how my business works." "So you're going to go back up there and . . . Is this like going undercover or something?" "Well . . ." What was I going to say? I was actually half beginning to believe that Alex Goddard might be able to figure out why Steve and I couldn't conceive. It was certainly worth a few days of my life, documentary or no documentary. "Look, I really want to find out what's going on. For a lot of reasons." He sighed and sipped at his coffee. "Morgy, this has got to be quick. Nicky Russo called again. The thing I've learned about loan sharks, they keep your books better than you do. He knows exactly how much money we've got left and how long we can last. He's licking his chops, getting ready to eat us whole." "What did you tell him?" The very thought of Nicky gave me a chill. If we missed so much as a week on the juice, he'd have the legal right to just seize my negative. When you're desperate, you sign those kinds of loans. "I told him something I haven't even told you yet." He smiled a wicked grin. "I know you've been schmoozing Lifetime about a cable deal, but before we put the ink to that, I want to finish some new talks I've started with Orion, their distribution people." I think I stopped breathing for a second or two. Was there a chance for a theatrical release for _Baby Love_, not just a cable deal? "When . . . You've actually met with them? How--?" "Late yesterday." He was still grinning. "I ran into Jerry Reiner at Morton's and pitched the picture. Actually, I heard he was in town, so I wore a tie and ambushed him at lunch. He wants to see a rough cut as soon as we've got something ready." "David, you're an angel." I was ecstatic. It was more than I'd dared hope for. "So stay focused, for chrissake, and finish your picture. We're this close to saving our collective asses, so don't blow it. I've gone over all the schedules pretty carefully, and I'd guess we can spare a day or two, but if you drag this out, I'm going to read you your contract, the fine print about due diligence, and then finish up the final cut myself. I mean it. Don't make me do that." "Don't you even think about that." Never! "This is my picture." "Just business. If it's a choice between doing what I gotta do, or having Nicky Russo chew me a new asshole and become the silent partner in Applecore, guess what it's gonna be." "David, you know I would never let that happen." I walked over and gave him the sweetest hug I knew how, still filled with joy. "And thanks so much for trying to get us a theatrical. You don't know how much that means to me." "Hey, don't try the charm bit on me. I'm serious. I'll cut you a weekend's slack, but then it's back to the salt mines. Either this picture's in the can inside of six weeks, or we're both going to be looking for new employment. So go the hell up there, do whatever it is you're going to do, and then get this damned picture finished. There'll be plenty of time after that to worry about our next project. With luck we might even have the money for it." With that ultimatum still ringing in my ears, I took my leave of David Roth and headed north, up the Henry Hudson Parkway. My life was getting too roller-coaster for words. . . . As I drove, I tried not to dwell on the practical aspects of what was coming. It was hard to imagine what tests Alex Goddard could perform that hadn't already been done by Hannah Klein. Just thinking back over that dismal sequence made me feel baby-despondent all over again. When I first mentioned I was thinking about trying to get pregnant, she looked me over, perhaps mentally calculating my age and my prospects, and then made a light suggestion. "Why don't I give you a prescription for Clomid. Clomiphene citrate enhances ovulation, and it might be a good idea in your case. You're still young, Morgan, but you're no longer in the first blush of youth." I took it for six months, but nothing happened. That was the beginning of my pregnancy depression. By that time, she'd decided I definitely had a problem, so she began what she called an "infertility workup." The main thing was to check my Fallopian tubes for blockages and look for ovulatory abnormalities. But everything turned out to be fine. Depression City. "Well," she said, "maybe your body just _thinks_ you've released an ovum. We need to do an ultrasound scan to make doubly sure an ovarian follicle has ruptured when it's scheduled to and dropped an egg." It turned out, however, that all those hormonal stop-and-go signals were working just fine. In the meantime, Steve and I were doing it like bunnies and still no pregnancy. Okay, she then declared, the problem may be with your Fallopian tubes after all. Time to test for abnormalities. "This is not going to be fun. First we have to dilate your cervix, after which we inject a dye and follow it with X-rays as it moves through the uterus and is ejected out of your Fallopian tubes. We'll know right away if there's any kind of blockage. If there is something, we can go in and fix it." "Sort of check out my pipes," I said, trying to come to grips with the procedure. I was increasingly sinking into despondency. She did it all, and for a while she suspected there might be some kind of anatomical problem. Which brought us to the next escalation of invasiveness. "We've got to go in and take a close-up look at everything," she said. "It's a procedure called laparoscopy. I'll have to make a small incision near your navel and insert a tiny optical device. In your case, I want to combine it with what's called a hysteroscopy, which will allow me to see directly inside your uterus for polyps and fibroids." But again everything looked fine. I began to wonder what had happened to everybody's mother's warning you could get pregnant just letting some pimply guy put his hand in your pants. Prior to all this, I should add, Steve had provided samples of sperm to be tested for number and vigor. (Both were just fine.) Then, toward the end of all the indignities, he actually paid to have some kind of test performed involving a hamster egg, to see if his sperm was lively enough to penetrate it. No wonder he finally went over the edge. Now I was reduced to Alex Goddard. I'd brought a complete set of my medical test records, as Ramala had requested on the phone. I'd also brought a deep curiosity about what exactly he could do that hadn't already been done. I further wondered how I was going to talk Steve into coming back long enough to share in the project. As I motored up the driveway to Quetzal Manor, I told myself he loved me still, wanted a baby as much as I did . . . Well, let me be safe and say almost as much. The problem was, he was so demoralized about the whole thing. And then what? What if nothing happened? I started to park my car where I had the last time, then noticed the place actually had a parking lot. It was located off to the left side of the driveway, near the second, modern building, and was more or less hidden in amongst the trees. The lot was filled with a lot of late-model but inexpensive cars, basic working-girl transportation, and it seemed a better bet for long-term parking. The front lobby, which had been empty the first time I was there, was now a minimalist reception area, a long metal desk rolled in from somewhere. I had the odd feeling it was there just for me. The woman behind the desk introduced herself as Ramala, the same person I'd talked to twice on the phone. She looked to be about my age, with long dark hair and quick Asian eyes, punctuated by a professional smile. She knew my name, used it the minute she saw me, and then abruptly handed me a twenty-page "application" to complete. "It's not just a formality," she explained, businesslike and earnest. "Dr. Goddard feels it's essential that he come to know you as a person. He'll read this carefully, believe me." She ushered me to a chair that had a retractable table for writing, then gave me a ballpoint pen. The document turned out to be the most prying, nosy thing I'd ever filled out. The pages demanded what amounted to a mini life history. One of the things that struck me as most strange was the part asking for a ten-year employment and residential history. If you've moved around as much as I have, worked freelance a lot, you'll understand how difficult it can be to reconstruct all those dates and places, but I did my best. There were, of course, plenty of health questions too. One page even asked whether there was anything out of the ordinary about my own birth: Was the delivery difficult, a cesarean, a breach baby? It was, as noted, a life history. "Why does he need all this information?" I asked finally, feeling the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. "I brought all my medical records." Ramala gave me a kindly smile, full of sympathy. "He must know you as a person. Then everything is possible. When I came here, I had given up on ever having a child, but I surrendered myself to him and now my husband and I have twin boys, three years old. That's why I stayed to help him. His program can work miracles, but you must give him your trust." Well, I thought, I might as well go with the flow and see where it leads. When I'd finished the form, she took it back, along with the pen, then ushered me into the wide central courtyard where I'd met Alex Goddard the first time. He was nowhere to be seen, but in the bright late-morning sunshine there was a line of about twenty women, from late twenties to early forties, all dressed in white pajama-like outfits of the kind you see in judo classes, doing coordinated, slow-motion Tai Chi-like exercises. They were intent, their eyes fixed on the fringes of infinity. These must be some of his acolytes, I thought, the ones I heard in their nuns' cells the first time I was here. What on earth does all this orientalism have to do with fertility? I then found myself wondering. I've studied the Far East enough to do "penetrating" documentaries about it, and I still can't get pregnant. I took one look at them--none of them looked at me--and my heart went out. They were so sincere, so sure of what they were doing. For somebody who's always questioning everything, like me, it was touching, and maybe a little daunting too. Without a word, Ramala led me past them and on to an entryway at the far end of the courtyard, past the giant Dancing Shiva. The door was huge and ornate, decorated with beaten-copper filigree--much like one I'd seen in a Mogul palace in Northern India. Definitely awe-inspiring. She pushed open the door without ceremony and there he was, dressed in white and looking for all the world like the miracle worker he claimed to be. He seemed to be meditating in his chair, but the moment I entered, his deep eyes snapped open. "Did you bring your records?" he asked, not getting up. While I was producing them from my briefcase, Ramala discreetly disappeared. "Please have a seat." He gestured me toward a wide chair. The room was a sterile baby blue, nothing to see. No diplomas, no photos, nothing. Except for another, smaller bronze statue of the Dancing Shiva, poised on a silver-inlaid table. I also noticed that his own flowing hair seemed to match that of the bronze figure. Yes, I thought, I was right. That's who he thinks he is. And he has complete power over the people around him. How many chances do you get to do a documentary about somebody like this? I should have brought a Betacam for some video. He studied my test records as a jeweler might examine a diamond, his serious eyes boring in as he flipped through the pages. The rest of his face, however, betrayed no particular interest. I finally felt compelled to break the awkward silence. "As you can see, I've had every test known to science. And none of them found anything wrong." He just nodded, saying nothing, and kept on reading. After a long, awkward silence, I decided to try and open things up a bit. "Tell me, do you have any children of your own?" The question seemed to be one he didn't get asked too often, because he stopped cold. "All those who come here are my children," he replied, putting aside my records, dismissively finished with them. "Well"--I pointed to them--"what do you think?" "I haven't examined you yet," he said, looking up and smiling, indeed beaming with confidence. "Nothing in those records tells me anything about what may be your problem. I look for different things than do most physicians." He fiddled with something beneath his desk, and the room was abruptly filled with the sound of a hypnotic drone. Perhaps its frequency matched one in my brain, because I instantly felt relaxed and full of hope. Much better than Muzak. Then he rose and came over. Is he going to do my exam right here? I wondered. Where's all the ob/gyn paraphernalia? The humiliating stirrups? Standing in front of me, he gently placed his hands on my heart, then bent over and seemed to be listening to my chest. His touch was warm, then cold, then warm, but the overall effect was to send a sense of well-being through my entire body. "You're not breathing normally," he said after a moment of unnerving silence. "I feel no harmony." How did he know that? But he was right. I felt the way I had the first time I tried to sit in Zen meditation in Kyoto. As then, my body was relaxing but my wayward brain was still coursing. "I'll try," I said, attempting to go along. What I really was feeling was the overwhelming sense of his presence, drawing me to him. Next he moved around behind me and cradled my head in his hands, placing his long fingertips on my forehead, sort of the same way he'd done when I was standing with him on the windy heath, nursing a killer cold. All the while, the drone seemed to be increasing to a piercing, overwhelming volume, as though a powerful electrical force were growing in the room, sending me into an alpha state of relaxation. "What are you doing? Is this how you do an exam for--?" "The medical tests you had showed there's nothing wrong with your uterus or your Fallopian tubes, nothing that should inhibit conception. There's no need to pursue that any further. But the mind and the body are a single entity that must be harmonized, must work as one. Although each individual has different energy flows, I think my regimen here could be very helpful to you. Already I can tell your problem is a self-inflicted trauma that has negated the natural condition wherein your mind and body work in unison." "What 'trauma'?" I asked. He didn't answer the question. Instead he began massaging my temples. "Breathe deeply. And do it slowly, very slowly." As I did, I felt a kind of dizziness gradually coming over me, the hypnotic drone seeming to take over my consciousness. Instead of growing slower, my breathing was actually becoming more rapid, as though I'd started to hyperventilate. But I no longer had any control over it. My autonomic nervous system had been handed over to him, as dizziness and a sense of disorientation settled over me. The room around me began to swirl, and I felt my conscious mind, my will, slipping out of my grasp. It was the very thing I'd vowed not to let happen. The same thing had occurred once before, after I broke my collarbone in the Pacific surf that slammed a Mexican beach south of Puerto Villarta. When a kindly Mexican doctor was later binding on a harness to immobilize my shoulder, the pain was such that I momentarily passed out while sitting on a stool in his office. I didn't fall over or collapse; it just seemed as though my mind, fleeing the incredible pain, drifted away in a haze of sensation. Now the pastel blue walls of the room slowly faded to white, and then I was somewhere else, a universe away, surrounded by blank nothingness. I tried to focus on the bronze Shiva directly across, but the ring of fire around him had become actual flames. The only reality left was the powerful touch of Alex Goddard's hands and a drone that could have been the music of the spheres. Chapter Eight Sometime thereafter, in a reverie, I felt myself in a magical forest whose lush vines reminded me of Kerala in India. It was a verdant, hazy paradise, another Eden. A child was with me, a child of my own, and I felt jubilation. I watched the child as she grew and became a resplendent orchid. But with childbearing came pain, and I seemed to be feeling that pain as I took up the flower and held it, joy flowing through me. Then Alex Goddard drifted into my dream, still all in white, and he was gentle and caring as he again moved his hands over me, leaving numbness in their wake. I thought I heard his voice talking of the miracle that he would make for me. A miracle baby, a beautiful flower of a child. I asked him how such a thing would happen. A miracle, he whispered back. It will be a miracle, just for you. When he said it, the orchid turned into the silver face of a cat, a vaguely familiar image, smiling benignly, then transmuted back into a blossom. Then he drifted out of my dream much as he had come, a wisp of white, leaving me holding the gorgeous flower against my breasts, which had begun to swell and spill out milk the color of gold. . . . A wet coolness washed across my face, and--as I faintly heard the sounds of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Glenn Gould's piano notes crisp and clear--I opened my eyes to see Ramala massaging my brow with a damp cloth. She smiled kindly and lovingly as she saw my eyes open, then widen with astonishment. "What--?" "Hey, how're you doing? Don't be alarmed. He's taking great care of you." "What. . . where am I?" I lifted my head off the pillow and tried to look around. I half expected Steve to be there, but of course he wasn't. "You're here. At Quetzal Manor." She reached and did something and the music slowly faded away. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. I think the doctor was trying to release your Chi, and when he did it was too strong for you." "What day is it?" I felt completely disoriented my bearings gone. "Sunday. It's Sunday morning." She reached and touched my brow as though giving me a blessing. Like, it's okay, really. At that moment, Alex Goddard strolled in, dressed again in white. Just as in the dream, I thought. "So, how's the patient?" He walked over--eyes benign and caring--and lifted my wrist, absently taking my pulse while he inserted a digital thermometer in my ear. For a flashback moment he merged into, then emerged from, my dream. "You're looking fine. I have to say, though, you had quite a time yesterday." "All I remember is passing out in your office," I mumbled glancing around at the gray plastic thermometer. And that strange dream, you telling me I would have a miracle baby. "You had an unusual reaction," he went on. "You remember I spoke to you about mind-body harmony. You see what can happen when I redirect the flows of energy, Chi, from your body to your mind." He smiled and settled my wrist back onto the bed. "Don't worry. I have a lot of hope for you. You're going to do fine." He looked satisfied as he consulted the thermometer, then jotted down my temperature on a chart. He's already started a medical record, I thought. Why? "I'm . . . I'm wondering if this really is working out," I said. It was dawning on me that I was getting into Alex Goddard's world a lot deeper and a lot faster than I'd expected. I'd come planning to be an observer and now I was the one being observed. That was exactly not how I'd intended it. Maybe, I thought, if I back off and make a new run, I can keep us on equal footing. "Perhaps I ought to just go back to the city for a few days and--" "I'd assumed you came to begin the program." He looked at me, a quick sadness flooding his eyes. "You struck me as a person who would follow through." "I need to think this over" I really feel terrible, I thought, trying to rise up. What did he do to me? "Maybe I'm just not right for your 'program'?" The idea of a documentary had momentarily retreated far into the depths of my mind. "On the contrary." He smiled. "We've shown that you're very responsive." "Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm too responsive." I rose and slipped my feet off the bed. The motion brought a piercing pain in my abdomen. "OUCH! What's . . ." I felt my pelvis, only to find it was very sensitive. Pulling aside my bed shift, I gazed in disbelief at my lower abdomen. There were red spots just above my pale blue panties. Alex Goddard modestly averted his eyes. "I didn't want to say anything," he explained to the wall above my head, "but you were in pretty delicate shape there for a while. Mild convulsions, and I think your digestive system had gone into shock. The stomach is a center of energy, because it's constantly active. So I gave you some shots of muscle relaxant. Nothing serious. It's an unusual treatment, but I've found it works. It . . . modulates the energy flows. I also took a blood sample for some tests, but the results were all normal." He then asked me about my menstrual cycle, exact days, saying he wanted to make sure it wasn't just routine cramps. "The seizure you had passed almost as soon as it came, but you might actually have been hallucinating a bit. You had a slight fever all night." "Well . . ." Something like that had happened to me years ago in rural Japan, when I stupidly ate some unwashed greens and my stomach went into shock. At one point a local doctor, Chinese, was trying acupuncture, which also left me sore. "Nothing to be worried about," he continued. "But if you're the least bit concerned, maybe we ought to do a quick sonogram, take a sound picture. Ease your mind that everything's okay." "That doesn't really seem necessary," I said. For a clinic specializing in "energy flows" and "mind-body" programs, there was a lot of modern equipment. Odd. "Won't do a bit of harm." He nodded at Ramala, who also seemed to think it was a good idea. "Come on, help me walk her down to the lab." He turned back. "It's totally noninvasive. You'll see for yourself that you're fine." Before I could protest, I found myself walking, with some dizziness, down the hallway. This part of Quetzal Manor, which I had not seen before, was a sterile, high-tech clinic. I realized I was in a different building from the old convent, probably the new one I'd noticed across the parking lot, the one he hadn't bothered to mention that first day. But all I could focus on were the blue walls and the new white tiles of the floor. The sonogram was as he described it, quick and noninvasive. He rubbed the ultrasound wand over my abdomen, watching the picture on a CRT screen, which showed my insides, a jumble of organs that he seemed to find extremely informative. "Look." He pointed. "Those lines there are your Fallopian tubes, and that's your uterus." He pushed a button to record a digital image. "Seems like whatever was upsetting your stomach is gone. Obviously nothing's wrong here." "Good," I said, "because I really need to take a few days and think this over." "You should stay," he said, reaching to touch my hand. "I think the worst is well behind us. From here on, we can work together. In fact, what I actually wish you would do is come with me to my clinic in Central America. It's truly a place of miracles." I assumed he was referring to the "special place" he'd mentioned during our first interview. If Quetzal Manor was on the exotic side, I thought, what must that place be like? A documentary that took in the totality of who and what he was could be-- "In fact," he went on, "I just learned I have to be going there later today. A quick trip to catch up on some things. So this would be an ideal time for you to come. We could go together." Well, I thought, I'd love to see what else he's up to, but this whole scene is getting out of control. When I first met Alex Goddard, we had a power balance, but now he's definitely calling the shots. "I don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment yet." "As you wish." He smiled with understanding. "But let me just say this. It's not going to be easy, but nothing I've seen so far suggests there's any physical reason why you can't have a child. We just need to get you in touch with the energy centers in your body. Rightness flows from that." "You really think so?" In spite of myself I felt my hopes rising, even though I had definite mixed feelings about his kind of "holistic" medicine. "I'm virtually certain. But whether you want to continue with the program or not is a decision you'll have to make for yourself." "Well, maybe when I'm feeling better we can talk some more about it." I definitely needed to reconsider my game plan. "For now, I think I'd better just get my things and--" "As you wish." He sighed. "Your clothes are in your room. There's a closet in the corner by the window." I shot a glance at him. "Does my Blue Cross cover this?" "On the house." A dismissive wave of his hand, and another kindly smile. I was still feeling shaky as I moved back down the vacant hallway, but I refused to let either of them help me. Instead I left him to oversee Ramala as she shut down the equipment. Oddly, the place still seemed vacant except for me, though there was a large white door that appeared to lead to another wing. What was in there? I wondered. The questions kept piling up. It soon turned out I was wrong about the clinic being empty. When I reached the door to the room where I'd been, I thought I heard a shuffling sound inside. I pushed it open gingerly and saw the room was dark. It hadn't been when I left. The shuffling noise--I realized it was somebody closing the Venetian blinds--immediately stopped. I began feeling along the wall for the light switch. "Please leave it off," said a spacey female voice. "It's nice when it's dark." As my eyes became accustomed to the eerie half-light, I finally made out a figure. It was a short woman, childlike but probably mid-twenties. "What are you doing in here?" "I just wanted to, like, be with you." She'd done her dark hair in multiple braids, with a red glass bead at the end of each. "You're special. We all know it. That's why he brought you over here, to this building. To be near them." "What do you mean, 'special'?" I asked, heading for the closet and my black jeans. Then I wondered. Near who? Now she was reaching into a fanny pack she had around her waist and taking out a baggie filled with plastic vials. "These are herbs I've started growing here. I picked them for you. If you'll--" "Slow down," I said, lifting my jeans off the hanger and starting to struggle into them. Finally I took the baggie, moved to the window, and tilted up the blind. Inside it were clear plastic medicine bottles containing various gray and green powders and flakes. My God, what's she trying to give me? And why? "Listen," she went on, insistent. "Take those. Put two teaspoons of each in water you've boiled and drink it. Every day for a week. They'll make you strong. Then you'll be--" "Hey, I'm going to be just fine, really." I set them aside and studied her, still a ghostlike figure in the semi dark. There was a wildness in her eyes that was very disturbing. At that moment, Alex Goddard appeared in the doorway. He clicked on the light, looking puzzled. "Couldn't find the switch?" Then he glanced around. "Tara, did you get lost? I thought you were doing your meditation. It's Sunday. Afterwards, though, you can weed the north herb boxes if you want." She nodded silently, then grabbed the baggie and glided out, her brown eyes filled with both reverence and what seemed like fear. "Who was that?" I asked, staring after her, feeling unsettled by the whole experience. "She seemed pretty intense." "Tara's been pretty intense for some time, perhaps for much of her life," he declared with a note of sadness as he closed the door behind her. "I've not been able to do anything for her, but I've let her stay on here since she has nowhere else to go. She loves the gardens, so I've let her work out there. It seems to improve her self-esteem, a kind of benign therapy, her own natural path toward centering." Well, I thought, she certainly could use some "centering." "Look, Dr. Goddard, let me get my things, and then I've got to be going. I can't start on anything right now. Not the way I'm feeling. And visiting your other clinic is completely out of the question, at least for the moment." "I have great hopes for you," he said again, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry we can't begin to work together immediately. But do promise me you'll reconsider and come back soon." "Maybe when I'm feeling better." Keep the option open, I told myself. For a lot of reasons. "In that case, Ramala can show you out. I've arranged for her to give you some herbal extracts from the rain forest that could well start you on the road to motherhood. Whether you decide to come back or not, I know they'll help you." And he was gone, a wisp of white moving out the doorway. It was only then that I realized I'd again been too preoccupied to ask him about Kevin and Rachel, the beautiful siblings born six months apart. Instead all I had left was a memory of those penetrating eyes. And the power, the absolute power. Chapter Nine After giving me a small bag with two bottles, Ramala led me out, and I discovered I really _had _been in a different building, the one situated across the long-term parking lot and all but hidden in the trees. It was new, one-story, and probably larger than it appeared from the front. Again I wondered what went on in there, since it seemed so empty. Check it out and soon, I told myself as I slipped my key into the ignition. You've got to find out a lot more about this place. On the drive back to the city, my main thought was that I'd lost a day of my life. It'd just sort of slipped away. But that wasn't all. I also began to meditate on the fact that Alex Goddard could have an immense influence over my body (or was it my mind?) with a simple touch. Give him his due, he could definitely make things happen. First my cold and now this. Perhaps he could give me a child, if I got "centered," whatever that meant. But why should I trust him? And there was another problem. For a baby I'd need Steve, the man I loved, the guy who'd promised to be with me through thick and thin. Did he really mean it? He'd have to fly in, which meant a serious piece of change for the airfare. Finally, could he face another chance of failure? My spirits sank at the prospect of having to ask him. Were we both just going to be humiliated one more time? He'd made his home base in Belize, that little Rhode Island of a country abutting big, bad Guatemala. He liked the fact they used English, more or less, as the official language and they hadn't gotten around to murdering two hundred thousand Maya, the way Guatemala had. In a romantic moment, I'd programmed his Belize hotel number into the memory of my cell phone--the telephones down there are amazingly good, maybe the Brit legacy--though I'd never actually tried it. (I'd called him from home about half a dozen times, but he was rarely there.) Well, I thought, the time has come. Maybe it was the sensual feelings released by all the Chi flowing around, but for some reason I found myself feeling very lonely. He hadn't called recently, though. . . . It took ten rings, but eventually the hotel answered. A moment later, they were trying his room. I guess I was half afraid a woman might pick up, but it was him and there were no hushed tones or cryptic monosyllables. I heaved a minor sigh of reassurance. "Baby, I can't believe it's you," he declared. "I've actually been trying to reach you for a day now." "You finally get around to missing me?" It was so good to hear his voice, full of life and energy. "All the time. Never didn't. You've just got to understand it's crazy down here. All last week I was in Honduras, haggling over permits. Don't ask." He paused. "So, when are you coming down? They've got a national park here that's a pure chunk of rain forest, jaguars everywhere." He laughed. "But forget that. If you come down, we'll never get out of the hotel. Just room service all day." "No immediate plans," I said, immediately wondering how I could swing it. "But you never know." I wasn't entirely sure how to approach Steve anymore. There was something about the abrupt way he took off that left things up in the air. A tiny sliver of uneasiness was slipping into my head-over-heels trust, the camel's nose under the tent. "First the good news," I declared. "David's talking to Orion about a theatrical release for _Baby Love_." Steve knew how deeply I longed for a theatrical--it would be my first--and he enthused appropriately. But he also knew I wouldn't call him early Sunday morning just to tell him that. There was only one other thing that would inspire such an unsocialized act. "Uh, should I be asking how the other baby project is going?" he said. For a moment I wasn't sure what to say, since I didn't really even know myself. "Still a work in progress," I said finally. Then; "Honey, I've just been to see a doctor who's . . . well, he's a little unconventional. And nervous-making. But everything else has failed." Whereupon I gave him a quick, cell-phone summary of what I'd just been through at Quetzal Manor. "So are you going to go back eventually?" He sounded uneasy. "For the full 'program'?" He had a way of zeroing in on essentials. The truth was, my baby hopes and my sense of self-preservation were at war with each other. . . . "Morgy, are you there?" "I'm here. And I guess the answer is, I'm still trying to decide. Like I said, he's into Eastern medicine and Native American . . . I'm not sure what. But if I need you, are you still in the project?" "What do you mean?" "Darlin', don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. Could you come back if I needed you? Really needed you?" There was a long pause, wherein the milliseconds dragged by like hours. Trees were gliding past, throwing shadows on my windshield, and I still felt vaguely dizzy. I also had a residual ache in my abdomen where Alex Goddard had given me those damned muscle-relaxant shots. Why was I even considering going back? Finally: "You're not making this easy, you know. Down here, without our . . . project on the front burner every day, I've been reassessing . . . well, a lot of things. If we had a baby, it would turn our lives upside down. I mean, it's not like we just bought a sheepdog and chipped in on the grooming. This is a human life we're talking about. Are we really prepared to do justice to a child?" There it was. I didn't know whether I wanted to burst into tears, or strangle the man. "Well, why don't you just think about it," I told him. "This doesn't sound like a conversation we should be having on a cell phone." Blast him. "If that's the way you feel now, then I might just have a baby on my own." How, I wasn't sure. I'd been so certain we were a couple, I'd not given it any real thought. "Or then again, I might just go ahead and adopt, with or without you." "Look, I'm not saying I won't do it. I'm just saying it's not a trivial thing." He paused. "So where does that leave us?" Translation: second thoughts. "I don't know where that leaves us, Steve. In the shit, I guess. But I'd still like to know if I can count on you, or am I going to have to go to a sperm bank or something?" "Jesus. Let me think about this, okay? Do I have to answer you now?" "No. But I'm not going to wait forever either." "All right." Then he paused. "Morgy, I miss you. I really do. I just need some time to think about our next step. Are you sure you're okay? You sound a little out of it." "Thanks for asking. I've just got a lot on my mind." Turmoil, dismay, and hope, all tossed together, that was what I had on my mind. I really didn't need mixed signals from Steve at the moment. A few more awkward pleasantries and I clicked off the phone, wiped the streaks from my cheeks, and abruptly sensed Alex Goddard's face floating through my psyche. Why was that? Then I looked down at the bottles on the seat beside me, the "herbal extracts" Ramala had given me on the way out. What, I wondered, should I do about them? For that matter, what were they anyway? And what did they have to do with "centering"? If I started on his homeopathic treatments, what would I be getting into? Then I lectured myself: Never take something when you don't know what it is. Hannah Klein. That's who I should ask. I was so focused, I pushed the number I had stored for her in my phone memory before I remembered it was Sunday. Instead of getting her office, I got an answering service. "Do you want to leave the doctor a message?" a southern-sounding voice enquired. Without thinking, I heard myself declaring, "No, this is an emergency." What am I saying? I asked myself. But before I could take it back, Hannah was on the line. I know how intruded on I feel when an actor calls me at home on Sunday to bitch. Better make this good, I told myself. "I was at an infertility clinic yesterday and passed out," I began. "And now I have some herbs to take, but I'm . . . well, I'm not sure about them." "What 'clinic'?" she asked. There was no reprimand for calling her on Sunday morning. When I told her about Alex Goddard, she said little, but she did not sound impressed. Looming there between us like the dead elephant on the living room floor was the fact that she'd specifically warned me not to go near him. And after what had just happened, there was a good case she might be right. "Can I buy you brunch?" I finally asked, hoping to lure her back onto my case. "I'd really like to show you these herbs he gave me and get your opinion." "I was just headed out to Zabar's to get something," she said, somewhat icily. Well, I suppose she thought she had good reason. "I'll get some bagels and meet you at my office." Sunday traffic on upper Broadway was light, and I lucked out and found a parking space roughly two blocks from her building. It was one of the low-overhead "professional" types with a single small elevator and no doorman. When I got there, the lobby was empty. Her suite was on the third floor, and I rang the bell before I realized the door was open. She was back in her office, behind the reception area, taking off her coat, when I marched in. While she was unwrapping her sesame bagels, smoked sturgeon, and cream cheese with chives, she got an earful. My feeling was I'd better talk fast, and I did. I told her everything I could think of about what had happened to me at Quetzal Manor. I didn't expect her to make sense of it from my secondhand account, but I wanted to set the background for my next move. "When I was leaving, his assistant gave me these two bottles of gel-caps. She said they're special herbal extracts he makes from plants in the rain forest. Do you think I ought to take them?" I suspected I already knew the answer. Given her previously voiced views on Alex Goddard, I doubted she would endorse any potions he might dispense. But plant medicine has a long history. At least she might know if they presented any real danger. She was schmearing cream cheese on the bagels, but she put down the plastic knife, took the two bottles, and examined them skeptically. "These are not 'herbal extracts,' " she declared giving her first analysis before even opening them. "They're both manufactured drugs. The gel-caps have names on them. It's a Latin American pharmaceutical company." Then she opened the first bottle, took out one of the caps, crushed it between her fingers, and sniffed. "Uh-huh, just what I thought." Then she touched a pinch of the white powder to her tongue. "Right." She made a face and wiped her tongue with a tissue. "Except it's much stronger than the usual version. I can tell you right now that this drug, in this potency, is illegal in the U.S." What was it? I wondered. Cocaine? And how could she tell its potency with just a taste? Then I reminded myself why I'd come to her in the first place: She'd been around the track many, many times. "It's gonadotropin," she said glaring at me. Like, you damned fool. "I'm virtually certain. The trade name here in the U.S. is Pergonal, though that's not what this is. This is a much stronger concoction, and I can see some impurities." She settled the bottle onto her desk with what seemed almost a shudder. "This is the pharmaceutical equivalent of hundred-and-ninety-proof moonshine." "What is it? What's it supposed it do?" Jesus, I thought, what's he giving me? "It's a hormone extracted from the urine of menopausal women. It triggers a greater than normal egg production and release. It's sometimes prescribed together with Lupron, which causes your body to release a similar hormone. Look, if you want to try Pergonal, the real version, I'll write you a prescription, though I honestly don't think it's going to do you the slightest bit of good." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'd almost been considering giving Alex Goddard the benefit of the doubt, at least till I found out more about him, and now he hands me this. Now we both were looking at the other bottle. "What do you think that is?" I asked, pointing. She broke the plastic seal, opened it, and looked in. It too was a white powder sealed in gel-caps, and she gave one a sniff, then the taste test. "I have no idea." She set the bottle back on her desk, and I stared at it, terrified of what it might be. Finally I got up my courage and reached for it. A white sticker had been wrapped around it, with directions for taking . . . whatever it was . . . written on it. Then I happened to notice that one corner showed the edge of another label, one beneath the hand-applied first one. I lifted a letter opener off her desk and managed to get it under the outer label. With a little scraping and tugging, I got it off. "Does this mean anything to you?" I asked her, handing it back. "It's in Spanish, but the contents seem to be HMG Massone." "I don't believe it," she said, taking the bottle as though lifting a cobra. I even got the distinct feeling she didn't want to leave any fingerprints on it. "That's an even more powerful drug to stimulate ovarian follicles and induce superovulation. It's highly illegal in this country. Anybody who gives these drugs in combination to a patient is flirting with an ethics charge, or worse." I think I gasped. What was he trying to put into my body? She settled the bottle back on the desk, her eyes growing narrow. "Since you say his 'nurse' or assistant or whatever she was gave you this, I suppose there's always the chance she made an innocent mistake. But still, what's he doing with this stuff at all? They manufacture it down in Mexico, and also, I've heard, somewhere in Central America, but it's not approved in the U.S. Anybody who dispenses this to a patient is putting their license at risk." She paused to give me one of those looks. "Assuming Alex Goddard even has a medical license. These 'alternative medicine' types sometimes claim they answer to a higher power, they're board-certified by God." "I don't for a minute think it was an 'innocent mistake.' " I was beginning to feel terribly betrayed and violated. I also was getting mad as hell, my fingertips tingling. "But why would he give me these drugs at all? Did he somehow--?" "I think you'd better ask him," she said passing me a bagel piled high with cream cheese and sturgeon. She bit into her own bagel and for a while we both just chewed in silence. I, however, had just lost all my appetite. Alex Goddard who might well be my last chance for a baby, had just dispensed massive doses of illegal drugs to me. Which, my longtime ob/gyn was warning me, were both unnecessary and unethical. "What do you think I should do?" I asked finally, breaking the silence but barely able to get my voice out. She didn't say anything. She'd finished her bagel, and now she'd begun wrapping up the container of cream cheese, folding the wax paper back over the remaining sturgeon. I thought her silent treatment was her way of telling me my brunch consultation was over. She clearly was exasperated with me. "Let me tell you a story," she said finally, as she carefully began putting the leftover sturgeon back into the Zabar's bag. "When I was eight years old all the Jews in our Polish ghetto were starving because the Nazis refused to give us food stamps. So my father bribed a Nazi officer to let him go out into the countryside to try to buy some eggs and flour, anything, just so we could eat. The farmer came that Saturday morning in a horse-drawn wagon to pick up my father. At the last minute, I asked to go with him and he let me. That night the Nazis liquidated our entire ghetto, almost five thousand people. No one else in my family survived. Not my mother, not my two sisters, not anyone." Her voice had become totally dispassionate, matter-of-fact, as though repression of the horror was the only way a sane person could deal with it. She could just as easily have been describing a country outing as she continued. I did notice, however, that her East European accent had suddenly become very prominent, as though she was returning there in her thoughts. "When we learned what had happened, my father asked the farmer we were visiting to go to a certain rural doctor we knew and beg him to give us some poison, so we could commit suicide before the Nazis got us too. The doctor, however, told him he had only enough poison for his own family. He did, however, give him a prescription for us. But when my father begged that farmer to go to a pharmacy and get the poison, he and his entire family refused. Instead, they hid us in their barn for over a year, even though they knew it meant a firing squad if the Nazis found us." She glared at me. "Do you understand what I'm saying? They told us that if we wanted to do something foolish because we were desperate, we would have to do it without their help." It was the first time I ever knew her real story. I was stunned. "What, exactly, are you driving at?" I think I already knew. The long, trusting relationship we'd shared was now teetering on the brink. By going to see Alex Goddard--even if it was partly a research trip to check him out--I had disappointed her terribly. She'd lost respect for me. She thought I was desperate and about to embark on something foolish. "I'm saying do whatever you want." She got up and lifted her coat off the corner rack. "But get those drugs out of here. I don't want them anywhere near this office. I tried everything legal there was to get you pregnant. If that wasn't good enough for you and now you want to go to some quack, that's your affair. Let me just warn you that combining gonadotropin and HMG Massone at these dosages is like putting your ovaries on steroids; you get massive egg production for a couple of cycles, but the long-term damage could be severe. I strongly advise you against it, but if you insist and then start having complications, I would appreciate not being involved." Translation: If you start fooling around with Alex Goddard, don't ever come back. It felt like a dagger in my chest. What was I going to do? One thought: Okay, so these drugs aren't the way, but you couldn't help me get pregnant. All I did was spend twenty thousand dollars on futile procedures. Not to mention the heartbreak. "You know," I said finally, maybe a little sharply, "I think we ought to be working together, not at cross-purposes." "You're welcome to think what you like," she bristled. "But I have to tell you I don't appreciate your tone." I guess I'd really ticked her off, and it hurt to do it. Then, finally, her own rejection of me was sinking in. "So that's it? You're telling me if I try anything except exactly what you want me to, then just don't ever come back." "I've said all I intend to." She was resolutely ushering me toward the door, her eyes abruptly blank. Well, I told myself, going from anger to despair, then back to anger, whatever else I might think about Alex Goddard, at least he doesn't kick people out because of their problems, even a sad soul like Tara. Still, what about these illegal drugs? There I was, caught in the middle--between an honorable woman who had failed, and Alex Goddard, who'd just lived up to my worst suspicions. Heading down in the elevator, alone, I could still hear Hannah Klein's rejection, and warning, ringing in my ears. Maybe she had just confirmed that still, small voice of rationality lecturing me from the back of my mind. I marched out onto the empty Sunday streets of upper Broadway, and when I got to the corner, I stood for a long moment looking up at the pitiless blue of the sky. The sun was there, but in my soul I felt all the light was gone. Finally I opened the first bottle and then, one by one, I began taking out the gel-caps and dropping them into the rainwater grate there at my feet, watching them bounce like the metal sphere in an old pinball machine before disappearing into the darkness below. When both bottles were empty, I tossed them into the wire trash basket I'd been standing next to. The next time I saw Alex Goddard, he was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Beginning with why he'd given me a glimmer of hope, only to then cruelly snatch it back. I found myself hating him with all my being. Chapter Ten I headed on back downtown, planning to take a bath, change clothes, and then recalibrate my game plan. Maybe, I thought, I ought to just go up to the editing room at Applecore, try some rote work to help tranquilize my thoughts. But first things first. About halfway there, at Thirty-eighth Street, I pulled over and double-parked by a Korean deli, and surveyed the flowers they had out front, an array of multicolored blooms that virtually blocked entry to the doorway of the tiny grocery. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, birds-of-paradise, but I wanted the pink roses. At ten dollars a bunch, they seemed the right touch. I dug out a twenty and picked two. Still standing on the street, I pulled them to me and inhaled deeply. As far back as I could remember, I'd always loved the scent of roses. I'd never really thought myself pretty, the natural-blond often-dyed-brown hair notwithstanding, but just having roses around somehow made me feel that way. I wanted to be engulfed in them, especially any time confusion threatened to get the upper hand. Five minutes later and I was at Twenty-first Street. I'd arrived. My refuge, my one-bedroom cocoon. Time to collapse into a hot bath, wonder why Alex Goddard had given me illegal drugs, and contemplate roses. I was looking for a parking space when my cell phone rang. No, don't bother, I told myself. Enough intrusion for one day. Then I remembered I'd sprung for the caller-ID feature, and I glanced down at the little liquid crystal slot. It was a number I happened to know, Lou's place downtown. One eye still on the street, I reached over and picked it up. "Finally got you," he boomed. "Where the heck are you?" "I just got home from--" "Yeah, I know where you been. Dave told me." He paused, as though he was holding off on some important announcement. "Hang on a sec. There's somebody here might like to speak to you." I thought about Lou's makeshift digs, lots of "heirloom"--worn-out--family furniture he'd lugged along with him. Sarah and I used to play on the couch, and it still had a dim mauve stain where I'd once dumped a glass of "grape" Kool-Aid on her head when she was six. Whatever else, definitely not a Soho look. Then I heard a whispery voice. "Hi, Morgy." It was a tentative utterance I'd heard only once before, when she was waking up after falling off a playground swing. She'd been knocked out cold for a moment and I'd been frantic, wetting a handkerchief in the nearby fountain and desperately rubbing it over her face. When she came to, she'd gazed up into my eyes and greeted me as though we'd just met. My God! Before I could recover and say anything, Lou came back on. "We're practicing eating chicken-noodle soup. And we're trying to do a little talking. Why don't you come on down? She asked about you earlier this morning, said, 'Where's Morgy?' " "Lou! This is incredible!" "You gotta believe in miracles, right? Just come on down." "Is she . . . God, you've got it." My hopes went into orbit as I clicked off the phone and revved my engine. I could have swamped him with a lot of questions then and there, but I immediately decided I wanted to see her first, with my own eyes. I still couldn't quite believe it was true. On the other hand, a weekend partial recovery was not totally beyond the realm of medical possibility. With a coma, so little is understood that anything's possible. Lou was right. This was definitely a weekend of the unexpected. I'd been close to the deaths of people near to me, both my parents for starters, but I'd never been close to the restoration of life. It's hard to explain the rush of joy when you think somebody is gone for good and then they pop up again, like they'd never been lost. And with Sarah that feeling was especially jarring. It was almost as though some part of me had come back alive. The fact is, since Sarah and I were both only children, we'd identified a lot with each other. True, we'd traveled our separate paths, each looking, perhaps, for something to fill the lonely void in our lives that a sibling might have taken. As a child of the dusty, empty plains of West Texas, I didn't see other kids very much during the summer, and I made up reasons why she and I should visit each other as often as possible. Once, when I was plowing, turning over oat stubble--yes, my dad warily let me do that if I asked--I unearthed a rabbit nest full of little baby cottontails. Sarah was coming to visit the next day, and I rescued the infants so we could play nursery. We fed them milk with little eyedroppers, and before long Sarah decided she was actually a reincarnated mother rabbit. That was when she became a vegetarian, and she remained so--by her account--till she finished college. It was just another of those magic moments of childhood I ended up sharing with her. I also sometimes wondered, as you might have guessed, what it would've been like to be born a boy. I was definitely a tomboy, had a real collie (my own version of Lassie), liked to climb trees and dig holes in the hardscrabble West Texas earth. Maybe that was why I felt so at home--free associating now--when I filmed my documentary of the Maya village in Mexico's Yucatan. It was hot and dry and lay under a pitiless sun, a blazing white bone in the sky that seared the spare landscape. None of my crew could understand how anybody could bear to live in such a place, but to me it seemed perfectly natural, almost like home. Thoughts of which now made me sad. I only wish my parents had lived long enough to see that documentary. Maybe then they'd have understood how terribly lonely I'd been as a child, a loneliness I shared so deeply with Sarah. Would we ever be together again? On my hurried trip downtown, I kept wondering what I was about to encounter. Was it going to be the fantasy-bound Sarah of her girlhood, perhaps the same Sarah who'd spun out some stuttering vision of a jade mask? Or would all that be past and would she again be the ambitious, sparkling pre-med student she'd become when she was in college? Getting to Soho took only about ten minutes, scant time to think. Lou's place was in what had once been a garment factory sweatshop. He'd rented it from another agent at the bureau, who had inherited it from a cousin, a well-known downtown artist, lately dead of AIDS. Lou paid virtually no rent, was there mainly to keep out squatters, and couldn't care less that he was living in one of New York's trendier sections. All he knew was that there was plenty of room, and free parking on the street for his old Buick. I'd been down many times before. Inside, the space was still inhabited spiritually by the dead artist, with acrylic paint spattered on walls and graffiti I didn't fully understand in the bathroom. The place seemed to be a broom-free area, with layers of the past littered on the floor like an archaeological excavation. And the old Kool-Aid-stained furniture, fitting right in. What always struck me, though, was the number of photos of Sarah. They were everywhere in the open space, on tables, the desk, several on the walls. Mostly they were old, several blown up and cropped from snapshots, grainy. The space felt like a shrine to her memory. When Lou let me in, I was greeted by a spectral face, a wheelchair, and a valiant attempt at smiling normalcy. Maybe Lou thought it was real, was progress, but I was immediately on guard. It was Sarah's eyes that caught me. They pierced into my soul and we seemed to click, just like always, only this time it was as though all our life together passed between us. I had the sense she was trying to tell me something with her eyes that went beyond words, that she was trying to reach out to me, perhaps to recapture that shared understanding we'd had years ago. Lou introduced me to a Mrs. Reilly, a kindly, Irish-looking practical nurse who was part of the outpatient package the hospital provided. She wore a white uniform and was around sixty, with short-bobbed gray hair and an air of total authority. She'd just finished feeding Sarah a bowl of soup, and was brushing out her cropped blond hair, what there was of it. Mrs. Reilly glanced at me, but never broke the rhythm of her strokes. "She's tired now, but she's already stronger than she was." Then Lou spoke up. "They called me early yesterday morning. But by the time I got around to trying to reach you, you'd vanished. So I rang Dave and he told me where you were, up there with that crackpot." He was grinning. No, make that beaming like the famous cat. "By last night, she was walking with some help, so they said she might as well be here. Like I said, it's a miracle." "You brought her home just this morning?" I couldn't believe the hospital would discharge her so soon, but this was the HMO Age of medical cost-cutting. "Only been here a couple of hours." He pointed to a shiny set of parallel steel railings in the corner. "That's for physical therapy. Right now she can only walk with somebody on either side holding her, but in a few days, I figure . . ." His voice trailed off, as though he didn't want to tempt fortune. Then he turned toward Sarah. "In a few days, right, honey?" She nodded, then finally spoke directly to me. "Morgy, I want some clothes. Please. I hate these horrible hospital things. I never want to see them again." I noticed that she'd started crying, a line of tears down each emaciated cheek. Was it something to do with seeing me? I wondered. Then she began trying to struggle out of the blue bed shift she was wearing, though she didn't have the strength. "I'll get you something great, Sar, don't worry." I reached to stay her hand. It was, I thought, extraordinarily cold, even though the loft itself was warm as toast. What kind of clothes should I buy for her? I found myself wondering. Blouses with buttons? Pullovers? What could she manage? Maybe I'd bring some items from home first and let her try them out. We used to be about the same size, though now she was all skin and bones. I moved a chair next to her, took her other hand, and leaned as close as I dared. I desperately wanted to put my arms around her, but I wasn't sure how she would respond to my touch. Her eyes, however, were clear and had never looked a deeper blue. "Sar, what's the matter? Why're you crying? You should be happy. Your dad's right here and he loves you and we're going to take wonderful care of you." "Who? Him?" she asked, looking straight at Lou, her blue eyes like an unblinking camera's lens. The plaintive question took my breath away. Hadn't they been talking for two days? "Don't pay any attention when she says things like that," Mrs. Reilly declared, her voice just above a whisper. "She's still not quite herself. She drifts in and out." She seemed to be drifting in and out at the moment, though it was mostly out. Then she looked directly at me, only now her eyes were losing their laser-like focus, were starting to seem glazed. "Who're you?" She reached out and touched my unwashed hair, running her hands through the tangled strands. Next she stared off, terrified, her eyes full of fear. "The smoke," she whispered. "The knife. I'm next." Abruptly she was off again in the reverie that had enfolded her that first time in the hospital. Or at least that was what I guessed. "What are you talking about?" I felt like shaking her, except I was too shook-up myself. She turned back, and for a moment she just stared glassy-eyed, first at me, next at Lou, and finally at Mrs. Reilly. Then she reached for a glass of orange juice on the table beside her. She looked at it as though it were some potion, then slowly drank it off, not pausing once. Outside, a faint police siren could be heard, and I was afraid it was distracting her. Anyway, something told me her momentary séance was played out. Her face had grown calm and rested, though I could barely repress a tremble. "Whatever you think," I said finally, slipping an arm around her shoulder, "we're both right here. And we love you and we want to help you get better." She didn't say anything more, just closed her eyes and drifted away. But it wasn't back into a coma, since her breathing was growing heavier. I wanted to grab her and yell at her and demand that she come back to us, but I was fearful of what effect it might have. "What the hell was she talking about?" Lou asked finally, his voice quavering. "I don't know," I said, as puzzled as he was. That was when Mrs. Reilly spoke up. She was the only one not upset. "When they come out of a coma, sometimes they're not right for a while." She patted Sarah's hand then gave it a solicitous squeeze. "I once had a man wake up and start talking about magic trips through the air, about how he was a dual citizen of the earth and the sea. He was talking like a lunatic. One day he would know his family, and the next he would look at them and start screaming they'd come to kill him. You just never know how these things will go at first. But she'll be herself before long." She lifted Sarah's limp hand up to her cheek, then kissed it. "You're going to be all right, dear. I've seen enough like you to know." "Then what do you make of what she just said?" Lou asked her, having given up on me. "Earlier this morning she was fine. Knew who I was, everything. Then the minute Morgan comes in, she starts making up that loony jabber." The sanguine Mrs. Reilly just shrugged as if it didn't really matter. For my own part, I didn't necessarily like him implying my arrival had caused her to relapse into her dream world of terror. It seemed to me that whenever I showed up, she started trying to tell me what was really eating away at her soul. Well, I told myself finally, maybe she's regressed back to when we were kids, when we only had each other to share our secrets with. What if we've rebonded in some new, spe cial way? It would be natural, actually. She's trying to reach out to me, like long ago. Now she appeared to be dozing off, exhausted, her head tipping downward toward her blue hospital shift. Mrs. Reilly took that as a hint, and slowly began wheeling her toward the bedroom, leaving me alone with Lou. I glanced over at him, thinking more and more that I had to do something, track down what had happened to her. I wanted to do it for me, but even more for him. I'd never seen him so despondent. Maybe it was the thing scholars call the curse of rising expectations. Back when she was hardly more than a vegetable, he was overjoyed by a flickering eyelid. Now that she was talking, he wanted all of her back. Instead, though, it seemed as if she had returned to us for a moment, only to be snatched away again. I could tell it was killing him. "Look, I'm sorry that when I showed up, she started going off the deep end." I wanted desperately to help, but at that moment I felt powerless. "Maybe I should just stay away for a while." "Nah, she loves having you here. Don't worry. But anyway, Dave said something about you taking a couple of days off. Maybe I can use that time to be here with her and settle her down." Then he grimly took out her locket and rubbed its worn silver in his fingers, his eyes brimming with his heartache. "This is all just so damned confusing." Was he telling me, indirectly, that I should go away and leave them alone? First Hannah Klein rejects me, and now _et tu_, Lou? Maybe, I thought, he's taking out his despair on me, blaming me for her relapse. Truthfully, I guess I was blaming myself a bit too. "Listen, I'm going to go home now and leave you two alone," I said. "But why don't you see if you can get her to talk some more? Without me around, maybe she'll make more sense." "If she wants to say something, I'll listen." He gave me a strong, absent embrace, his eyes still despondent. "But no way am I gonna start pushing her." I edged into the bedroom, unsure if I really should, to say good-bye to Sarah and to give her one last hug. Her eyes were open again and she just stared at me for a second, then whispered a word I couldn't quite make out. It might have sounded like "Babylon," but that made no sense at all. Finally she covered her eyes with her hands and turned away, gone from me, leaving me more alone than I'd ever felt. Chapter Eleven Heading home, finally, I told myself to try to calm down. I was determined to help Sarah get over her trauma, though truthfully I was too tired to really think straight at that moment. So instead I decided to let everything rest for a few hours and try for some distance. In fact, I began imagining myself in a hot bath, gazing at my now-wilting roses. Home Sweet Home. Mine was a standard one-bedroom in a building that had been turned into a co-op five years earlier, the owner offering the individual apartments to the tenants. I'd stayed a renter, however, passing up the "low" insider price, $138,000, because I didn't really have the money, and when I did have it someday I would want something bigger. I wished I had more space--a real dining room and a bigger bathroom would do for starters, along with some place for more bookcases. And if a baby should someday miraculously come along . . . I'd often thought you could tell a lot about somebody from where and how they lived; it's revealing as a Rorschach test. What, I often wondered, did my apartment say about me? A decorator might conclude I'd done up the place with love, then lazily let it go. They'd decide I cared about nice things, but once those nice things were there, I neglected them. It would be true. I'd covered the walls of the living room with pale blue cloth, then hung a lot of framed pictures and old movie posters. Okay, I like movies. For me even the posters are art. My couch was an off-white, more like dirt-colored actually, and covered with pillows for the "feminine" touch. I'd hoped you'd have to look twice to realize it was actually a storage cabinet in disguise, with drawers along the bottom of the front. The floor was polished hardwood, rugs from India here and there, in sore need of a vacuuming, and even a couple of deceased insects that'd been there for over a week. That sort of said it, I thought glumly. I'm a workaholic slob. The bedroom revealed even more about me. The bed was a brass four-poster, queen-size, partly covered by an heirloom quilt. It hadn't been made in a week. (Who has the time?) The room itself was long and divided into areas for work and sleep. Opposite the bed itself was an antique English desk, on which sat my old Macintosh, and next to that was my file cabinet, the indispensable part of the "home office" the IRS loves to hate. On top of it was a stack of marked-up scripts, notes scribbled all over them in six different colors. You never realize movies are so complicated till you see a breakdown sheet. Camera angles and voice-overs and . . . Next to the bed was a violin case and three books about Indian ragas. What was that about? somebody might wonder. Some kind of Indian music nut? I was, albeit a very minimally talented nut. The kitchen was the New York efficiency kind painted a glossy tan, the color of aerosol olive oil. The cabinets contained mostly packages of pasta, instant soup, and coffee filters. Not even any real food. I live on deli takeout these days. An inventory of my fridge at this moment would clock two cartons of "fresh squeezed" orange juice, a half quart of spoiling milk, a bag of coffee beans, plastic containers of wilting veggies from the corner salad bar, and three bottles of New York seltzer. That was it. God help me, I thought, my mind-state turning even more morose. This is my life. I had become that retrograde Woman of the Nineties: works ninety hours a week, makes ninety thou a year, weighs ninety pounds, and thinks (pardon my French) Cooking and Fucking are provinces in northern China. Well, the ninety-pounds part of that obscene quip didn't fit--and it wasn't the nineties anymore, anyway. In any case, was my apartment a place to raise a child? No earthly way. Like Carly, I'd have to spring for some decent space, preferably with a washing machine. . . . A parking slot was open right in front of my building, a minor miracle on this day of uncertain events. As I was pulling in, I glanced over to see a man walking past, not catching the face but sensing something familiar in the walk. He was in the process of unbuttoning a Federal Express uniform, peeling away the top to reveal a dark suit. He certainly seemed to be in a big hurry, carrying an unmarked shopping bag. Maybe, I thought, his shift was over and he was meeting his wife, or a friend. I wondered if he'd left a package for me, and told myself to check with the super. Not the usual delivery guy--did they come on Sunday now?--and also . . . Where was the truck? They always parked right here by the building. I was still so upset over Sarah, I couldn't immediately process those illogical observations, so I just grabbed my pink roses, dripping from the bottom of their paper wrapping, and opened the car door. It was definitely good to be home. I loved my Chelsea neighborhood, where you got to know the locals, running into them in the delis, the little restaurants, the dry cleaners. Just like a small town. If you worked at home, the way I sometimes did, you even got to know the mailman and the delivery guys for UPS and FedEx. . . . Hey! That guy. I finally placed the walk, a kind of a strut. He was the slimeball who'd been outside Paula Marks' building last week, carrying a gun and threatening me. What's he doing here? My pulse went off the charts. Was he one of Nicky Russo's wiseguy crew after all? Had he come back, with his pistol, to pay me a return engagement? My God. Chill out, I told myself, take a deep breath. He's leaving. Just try and find out who he is. Roses in one hand held up awkwardly around my face, I slowly ambled down the street after him. I didn't have to go far. Within about a hundred feet, he unlocked a long black Lincoln Towncar, stepped out of the FedEx camouflage, tossed it onto the seat along with the bag he was carrying, pulled the cap off his bald head got in, and sped away. The license plate looked different from the usual, but I got what I needed: DL and a string of numbers. Uh-oh, I thought. Was he leaving a package bomb for me? I turned back and let myself into the outer lobby, glancing around as I did. There were no parcels anywhere, just blank, brown tile. My apartment was 3A. The name on the bell was M. James. As I stepped through the inner lobby--still no package--a rumpled face appeared in the doorway just to my left. The sign on it, flaking, said SUPER. "Oh, hi." The voice was Patrick Mooney, our superintendent, who did not normally emerge to greet those arriving. But there had been complaints from the building's managing agent that he could never be found for emergencies, so he probably wanted to appear available, even on Sundays. His voice was slurred from some midday medicinal Irish whisky. "Thought you were home. FedEx guy was here earlier looking for you." Oh, boy. "Did he leave a package?" "He had something with him, if that's what you mean. Like a bag of some kind." "And you let him go up?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a rush of dismay. "Said he had to. Needed a signature." Patrick Mooney then shrugged and reached for the dooijamb to steady himself, his whisky breath wafting across the hall. Great security. I stepped into the elevator as the door was clanking shut, and watched as he rubbed his eyes and eased his own door closed. Now I was really puzzled. If the FedEx guy came "earlier," why was he just now leaving? A lot of scary theories went through my mind as I pushed the button for the third floor. I took a deep breath as the elevator opened, but again I saw no packages. So far so good. Getting off, I set down my roses on the hall carpet and fumbled for my key. When I inserted it, the lock felt a little rough, causing me to think for an instant I'd used the wrong key, but then it responded. What had caused that? I wondered. Had the guy been fiddling with my door, wiring a bomb? Using one hand I pushed it open, again holding my breath and standing aside, but it opened okay. I exhaled, then reached back to drag in the flowers. But if he didn't leave a package, what was he doing here? Casing out where I lived? Planting a bug in the elevator? And why was he here so long? The place was dark when I stepped in, the drapes drawn. I relocked the door, then surveyed the gloom. No explosions, so I guessed he didn't plan to kill me. Yet. Here I was, home, safe and sound. I just stood a minute, still uneasy. Then I remembered the flowers, my dripping bouquet, and headed for the kitchen. Deal with them, and then maybe get a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and sip some in the bath. After my unnerving sequence with Sarah, thoughts of going to the office had zero appeal. Time to lighten up, way up. Preoccupied, not looking around, I stuffed the roses into a vase by the sink, and then I thought again about the white wine and opened the refrigerator. I'd still not bothered to turn on any lights, but the kitchen and its ancient fridge were dimly illuminated by the tiny window just across. I wasn't sure where I'd put the bottle, since I'd had to rearrange things to make room for the dup of Carly's interview. (I was also planning to take home a safety dup of Paula's interview sometime later in the week.) Why was I doing that? Taking home copies? It was a sign of deep compulsion. You couldn't really make a professional-quality second negative from a first positive--by that time it would be third-generation--but I'd brought it anyway. Now and then I just have a raw instinct that keeping a safety backup around is a good idea. But the canister had ended up devouring the entire lower shelf of the fridge. I opened the white door and peered in. The light was out, and for a moment I stared numbly at the dark, half-filled shelves. The only thing that struck me as odd was that I could see the pure white of the empty bottom shelf. For a second I could only stand and stare, but then I backed away, trying to figure out what was wrong, and stumbled over something. I regained my balance and flipped on the overhead light. "What!" The floor around me was littered with bottles, my old toaster, my tiny microwave. It was a total shambles. I recoiled stumbling again, this time over cans strewn across the linoleum. My kitchen, it was slowly sinking in, had been completely trashed. I felt a visceral wave of nausea. It's the scariest thing in the world having your space invaded like a form of psychic rape. I sagged against the refrigerator as I gazed around. The cabinets had been emptied out, a hasty and haphazard search. Quick and extremely dirty, as glass containers of condiments, including an old bottle of dill pickles, were shattered and their contents smeared into the floor. "I don't believe this." I marched back into the living room and reached for the lights. This room too had been turned upside down. The TV, stereo, VCR, all had been swept onto the rug. But they were still there. That guy, that animal, who did this wasn't a thief. He'd been looking for something. My breath now coming in pulses, I edged into the bedroom and switched on the light. The bed was the way I'd left it, the covers thrown back and the pillows in a pile. The clock radio was there, and so was the old Mac, still on the table in the far corner, my "workstation." Again nothing seemed to be missing. I headed back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator door was still open. I gazed at the interior a moment, still puzzled, trying to figure out what wasn't right. . . . Shit! Shit! Shit! That's what was wrong. The field of white bottom shelf was empty. Totally empty. The film canister of Paula's interview was gone. For a moment I just leaned against the kitchen counter, barely pushing aside an impulse to throw up in the sink. Think, I told myself, get a grip and think. . . . It was the film he'd wanted. And he'd wanted it badly enough to pick the lock, then rip my home apart looking for it. I pulled at a tangle of hair, feeling my mind in chaos, and tried to reason out the situation. Why? Why would he steal a positive that couldn't be used for anything? Finally the real truth of what had happened hit me like a fist in the chest. My Home Sweet Home had been violated. Seething, I went into the living room and reached for the phone, the only thing not on the floor. My first instinct was to call David, but then I decided he'd just go into a tizzy of hysteria and be no support at all. So instead I called Lou, praying I wouldn't wake Sarah. In an unsteady voice, I tried to tell him what had happened. He seemed puzzled to hear from me again so soon, but then he quickly turned FBI, concerned for my safety. "Guy sounds like a professional," he declared. "Probably got in with an electric picker, like the Edge. Any asshole can buy one for a hundred and thirty bucks. It'll rake cylinders at a hundred times a second. Pro like that, you can be sure there'll be no prints." "But why would . . . ?" My voice was still a croak. "I mean, my God, all for a lousy reel of film?" "Fucker wants you to know he's in town. So how he did it's as important as what he did. It's a time-proven scare tactic." He paused. "Morgan, I don't like this one bit. There could be more before this is over." "Think I should call the cops?" "Damned right you should," he said, slowly and sadly, "but to tell you the truth, they ain't gonna do all that much. Somebody messed up your apartment and lifted a third-hand copy of a woman talking. They'll say it sounds more like malicious mischief than a crime. Then they'll write it up and that'll be the last you'll hear from them." "Well," I said, my anger welling up, "maybe I don't feel quite so laissez-faire. Tell me, you know anybody who can run a plate for you on a Sunday?" "You got the prick's license number?" he exclaimed. "Why the hell didn't you say so?" "Honestly, it sort of slipped my mind. I'm having a little trouble thinking straight right now." Fortunately my short-term memory is pretty good, even when I'm stressed, so I spewed it out. "Don't go anywhere," he declared. "I'll get back to you in five minutes." I hung up the phone and lay down, flat out on the carpet, trying a breathing exercise to calm down. The problem was, it wasn't working. Having had some experience with being robbed--I once got completely cleaned out when I had a ground-floor apartment down in the Village--I know you go through certain Kubler-Ross-like stages of anger, denial, depression, acceptance. You also go through a predictable series of recriminations: I should have had window bars and gates; I should have had a different lock; I should have had two different locks. In the instance just recalled, I'm virtually certain an apartment painter duplicated a set of my keys on his lunch break and then passed them on to a second-story artist. No way to prove that, mind you, but it had to be what happened. I also suspect he checked my appointments calendar to see when I was going to be out of town. But in this case the lock was definitely picked. Nobody had a set of my keys except the super, and Steve. So the guy with the Spanish accent knew how to slip through doors and he had no financial interest in my old VCR. He only had an interest in my film. What had he said there on the sidewalk outside Paula Marks's apartment? Something about how making this picture was a big mistake? I jumped as the phone erupted by my ear. "The name Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos Grijalva mean anything to you?" Lou asked. "How could it? I'm not sure I can even pronounce it." "Well, Colonel Ramos declares himself to be a military attaché at the Guatemalan Consulate here. You've got a big shot in the Guatemalan Army rummaging through your apartment. This is even worse than I thought. Those guys are killers." "Jesus." I was still coming to grips with the horrifying fact he'd been in my apartment, in my only refuge. "Think I could bring charges against him?" "Well, let's consider this a minute. Probably no prints, no credible witness. You'd have a damned hard time proving anything." He sighed. "Truth is, I doubt you could even get a restraining order, given what little you've got to work with." "The bastard." I sat a moment, feeling the logical, left side of my brain just shut down. My mind went back to its most primitive level, running on adrenaline. "Look, I need to check out something. I'll call you in the morning." "Well, be careful," he said warily. "And for God's sake don't go running off anyplace alone. I'm telling you you're not safe. Always be around people." "I'll keep it in mind." With that I gently hung up the phone and exhaled. Think. Some colonel from Guatemala just broke into my apartment looking for what I might know about Children of Light, where I've been going to see about having a baby. So why is he so interested in what I'm doing? I remembered Alex Goddard wanted me to go to a "clinic" he had somewhere in Central America. Ten to one that clinic was in Guatemala. That was what this whole thing was about. And now he'd just gone back there; at least that was what he'd said. Guatemala was a long way off, but his other operation was right up the river. I hadn't seen all of it this morning, but that was about to change. A lot of things were about to change. It was time to start getting the playing field level again. Chapter Twelve I arranged with Patrick Mooney to have his sister in Queens, a full-figured woman named Rosalyn, come in and finish the job of reconstructing my wrecked home. She arrived an hour and a half later, and was hard at work when I left. I also agonized over the police-report issue, but finally decided to forgo the bother. Lou was right: It would be a two-hour ordeal of futility. Besides, I had better things to do with my time. I was going to return the favor of an information-gathering expedition. Alex Goddard had said he'd be absent from Quetzal Manor--who knows for how long--and this time around I was going to do the place right, the next step in my undercover research. The first, and main, thing I wanted to do was explore the new high-tech clinic that sat nestled in the woods across from the old building. Everything about it was the exact opposite of a "Manor." Not a shred of New Age "spirituality," just a lot of digital equipment and ultrasound and . . . what else? Chief among my questions: What was behind that big, white door? Maybe I was being impulsive, but I was completely wired and the truth was, I wasn't going to sleep till I knew a lot more than I did. And if I went late tonight, Sunday, I probably wouldn't have to deal with Ramala. I called Roger Drexel, my unshaven cameraman, and asked him to come up and meet me at Applecore. It was Sunday and he was watching the third quarter of a Knicks game and into his second six-pack, but he agreed. After all, I was his current boss. All I really wanted was his Betacam and some metal tape, which would be broadcast quality. (I'd wanted to do it yesterday, but now the time had definitely come.) We met at the office, and he unlocked the room with the camera gear and loaded in a fresh tape. With any luck, he made it home for the end of the game. I then had a sinful cheeseburger and fries at a Greek diner two blocks down the avenue. It was my idea of a courage-bolstering indulgence. My watch read six thirty-five and daylight was waning when I revved my old Toyota and started my northbound trek back to Quetzal Manor. When I was passing the George Washington Bridge, the first drifting flakes of a freak late-season snowstorm began pelting my windshield. Good I thought, turning on my wipers, the less visibility, the better. At least I believed that till the road started getting slippery and I had to throttle back. It was only then I realized I'd been pushing eighty on the speedometer, passing a lot of cars. Lou's warning not to go anywhere alone was still filed in the back of my mind but I kept trying not to think about it. Sometimes there are things you've just got to do. The highway grew more treacherous the farther north I went, but the traffic was thinning out and by the time I reached the turnoff to Quetzal Manor, total darkness had set in, in addition to which the paving was covered with at least an inch of sparkling-new pristine snow. As I eased up the roadway, my headlights made the trees around me glisten with their light dusting of white, like frosting on the tips of a buzz cut. I switched off my lights as I made the last turn in the road but not before catching a glimpse of Quetzal Manor, and I must confess to feeling a shudder, of both anger and apprehension, run through me as I watched its magisterial turrets disappear into the snowy dark. I parked my car at the back of the lot and retrieved the flashlight I'd brought, a yellow plastic two-battery model. I hadn't realized there'd be snow when I left home, so I was just wearing some old sneakers, but they'd do. I then sat there in the dark for a long minute, listening to the silence and thinking. The first thing was to find out if anybody was guarding the place. The next was to get some video of the new building. I grabbed the bag carrying the Betacam, tested my flashlight against the floorboard, and then headed up the snowy driveway. I marched straight through the open arch that was the front door, and I was again in the drafty hallway where I'd met Ramala Saturday morning. It was empty and dark now, no lights anywhere, not even out in the courtyard beyond. The stony quiet--no music, no chants--felt unnatural, but it also suggested that Alex Goddard's adoring acolytes were safely tucked away. Early to bed . . . you know the rest. So maybe I really had come at the right time. A chilly wind was blowing in from the far end of the hallway, and I felt like I'd just entered a dank tomb, but I tightened my coat and pressed on. When I got to the end and looked out, the snowy courtyard was like a picture postcard. And completely empty. All right, I thought, move on to what you came for. But when I turned and headed back down the hallway, toward the entry arch, I caught a glimpse of a furtive form, dark and shadowy, lurking just outside. Shit! I froze in my tracks, but then the figure stepped inside, wearing something that made me think of Little Red Riding Hood, like a tiny ghost in a cowl. It was Tara, Alex Goddard's spacey waif, who was moving so oddly, I thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking. She wasn't, of course. She'd just been out strolling around the driveway in the snow. I soon realized she lived her life in something resembling a trance, as though she were a permanent denizen of the spirit world. For her it was a natural condition. "It's so beautiful like this," she mumbled dreamily, as though we'd been in the middle of a lifelong conversation. "I just love it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed to ricochet off the stone walls. "I want to take them out, show them God's paintbrush. Will you help me?" "Take who out?" I asked, immediately deciding to go with the moment. Finally she looked directly at me and realized whom she'd been talking to. "You were here before. I tried to give you herbs to help you, but then he came and . . ." Her voice trailed off as she walked back through the portico and out again into the drifting snow. Then she held up her hands, as though attempting to capture the flakes as keepsakes. "I so want to show them. They've never seen it before." She glanced back at me. "Come on. Let's do it." As I followed her out into the drifting white and across the parking lot, the accumulation of snow was growing denser, enough now to start covering the cars, but still, something told me the flurry was going to be short-lived. I took a long, misty breath of the moist air and clicked open the case holding the Betacam, readying myself to take it out the minute we got inside. Well, I thought, maybe I've gotten lucky. She was headed for the new clinic, which was exactly where I wanted to go. It was nestled in the trees, up a winding pathway, and as I slogged along I could feel the snow melting through my sneakers. When we got to the front door, large and made of glass, she just pushed it open. "We never lock anything," she declared, glancing back. "It's one of our rules." The hallway was dark, silent, and empty except for the two of us. Still, I felt a tinge of caution as we entered. At some level this was trespassing. "Come on," she said, casually flipping a switch on the right-hand wall and causing the overhead fluorescents to blink on. "He's away now, and everybody's in bed. But I'll bet they're still awake in here. It's a perfect time." I didn't feel anything was perfect, but I did know I wanted to learn what was behind the door I'd seen when I was leaving. It was at the end of the hallway, wide and steel and painted hospital white. And, sure enough, that was exactly where Tara was heading. She just kept talking nonstop, in her dreamy, little-girl voice. "We've got to try and make them understand it's okay. That it'll be just for a minute." She shoved open the door without knocking, and my ears were greeted by the faint strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," one of my favorites. For an instant I was caught up in the music, a poignant moment drawing me in. The room itself was spacious, with a row of white bassinets along one side and subdued lighting provided by small fluorescent bulbs along the walls. It was, I immediately realized, a no-frills nursery. Alongside the bassinets were tables with formula and boxes of Pampers and Handi-Wipes. Two short women of indefinable nationality--they looked vaguely Asian--were in attendance, and at the moment one was facing away and bouncing a baby on her shoulder. Her infant looked like a boy--or was that just my imagination?--and I felt my heart go out. The light was dim, but I could tell he was a gorgeous sandy-haired kid plump and peachy, so sublime in his tender vulnerability as he gazed around with eyes full of trust. He was staring directly back at me and before I could stop myself, I gave him a little wave and wrinkled my nose. He stared at me a second then responded with a tiny smile. Hey, I thought, I've got the touch. "Come on," Tara said ignoring the women, "let me show you. They're all so beautiful." By then my eyes were adjusting to the subdued light, and as we walked down the middle of the long room, I confirmed my assumption that the bassinets next to the tables all contained infants. I'm no expert on babies, but I'd guess they were all around six weeks old maybe a couple of months at most. This is the nest, I thought. Ground zero. Kevin and Rachel were both probably in this room at one time too. . . . "Aren't they wonderful?" Tara was saying, still in her squeaky, spaced-out voice. I was opening the Betacam bag when the first woman, the one holding and lightly bouncing her little boy, absently put her hand under his quilt, then spoke to the other in deeply accented English. "He's wet again." It was the first words either of them had uttered. Then she turned to me in exasperation, assuming, I suppose, that I was one of Alex Goddard's flock. "And I just changed him." Again the accent, but I still couldn't identify it. She made a face, then carried him over to a plywood changing table in the center of the room. I felt a great baby-yearning as I moved over beside her, but she was behaving like a typical hourly wage-earner, glumly going about her job, and I just stood there a moment, vainly wanting to hold him, then turned back to Tara. "Where do all these children come from?" "Ramala says they're orphans or abandoned or something. From overseas or wherever." She sighed. "They're so perfect." She was completely zombied-out. It felt like talking to a marshmallow on downers. "But how, exactly, do--?" "People bring them here." She seemed uninterested in the question, just plunging on as she wandered on down the line of bassinets. I'd finally come to my senses enough to take out the Betacam, though the light wasn't actually enough to really work with, certainly not broadcast quality. She stopped and picked up one of the infants out of its bassinet, then turned back to me, her eyes turning soft as she hugged it the way she might a small puppy. "Isn't this one cute? I'd so love to have him." Was she on some kind of drug that suppressed curiosity? I found myself wondering as I panned the camera around the room. There must have been at least twenty bassinets, all just alike, wicker with a white lace hood. A couple of the babies were sniffling, and the one Tara had picked up now began crying outright, much to her annoyance. The room itself smelled like baby powder. "And then what happens?" I asked finally, zooming in on one of the women. "What happens when?" Now Tara was twirling in a circle, humming futilely to the shrieking child. "You mean, after they come here?" "Right." God, getting answers from her was making me crazy. "The girls here take them to their new mothers." Her eyes had turned even more dreamy as she lightly bounced the bawling bundle she was holding one last time, after which she returned it to its bassinet. Then she gazed around the room. "It's so sad to see them leave." Did Paula and Carly get their babies that way? I found myself wondering. Probably, but it was one more thing I'd neglected to ask. "Come on," Tara continued. "Let's take some of them out. He makes the nurses try and speak English around the children, but they don't really know much. Maybe you could figure out a way to, like, explain--" "Tara, I don't think taking any of these babies out into the snow is a very hot idea. Not tonight. Maybe in the morning." Stall her, I thought. She's completely out of it. Then I looked at the woman changing the baby. Sure enough, I was right. It was a boy. "But I want to." Tara turned crestfallen. "To show them how beautiful--" "Well, I don't speak whatever language they're speaking," I said, cutting cut her off. "I'm not even sure I could make it sound reasonable in English. So you'll have to do it without my help." Then I turned to the woman who'd been changing the baby. "Do you know where this child came from?" Why not take a shot? She just stared at me, alarmed, then turned away. Nothing. She clearly wasn't going to tell me anything, even if she could. She and the others were just cheap hired help, probably illegal immigrants without a green card and scared to death for their jobs. They weren't going to be doing an in-depth tell-all to anybody. I thought about the situation for a moment, and decided I'd seen what I came to see. This was pay dirt. Alex Goddard was running a full-scale adoption mill, just as Lou had suspected. He was collecting beautiful white babies from "overseas or wherever," and selling them here at sixty thousand a pop. Which went a long way toward explaining why he didn't want Children of Light to be featured in my film. And the Guatemalan colonel who'd just trashed my home was almost certainly in on the operation. Alex Goddard might be a New Age miracle worker rediscovering ancient Native American herbal cures, but he also was running a very efficient money machine. Still, the big question kept coming back: Where did he get all the babies? To extract any more information about that from Quetzal Manor, I'd have to break into an office somewhere, and I wasn't quite up to that yet. I didn't have the nerve of Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos. "Tell you what, Tara, I think I'm out of here." I was returning the Betacam to its bag. Nothing I'd shot was remotely broadcast quality, but I did have proof of what was going on. My "undercover" investigation was making some headway. "Okay." She sighed her expression increasingly glazed. I took one last look around the room, at the row of bassinets, then gave her a parting pat and headed for the exit. "Look," I said turning back as I reached the door. "Don't say anything to anybody about me being here tonight, okay? Can we just let it be our secret?" "Sure, whatever." She shrugged absently. Like, why not. "And Tara, do yourself a favor. Get out of this place." "But there's nowhere else I can go," she said sadness in her eyes. As I slowly closed the door, the last thing I heard was the sound of the Beethoven sonata dying away. What a day . . . and night. As I walked down the hallway carrying the camera bag, I tried to process my new information. I'd just seen some of the most incredibly lovable babies ever. That part of it was a beautiful experience, one that pulled at my heartstrings more strongly than I'd ever imagined something like that could. The part that troubled me was, the babies were so alike, so fair, and . . . they all could have been perfect siblings for Kevin and Rachel. No, I told myself, surely that was my imagination. Though they did look amazingly related. . . . As I moved across the parking lot, I thought I saw a movement in the shadows just inside the entry archway, a quick change in the pattern of dark. Was it Ramala or one of the girls, I wondered, or was it just my paranoia? Keep walking, I told myself. Lose yourself in the snow. The only way they can stop you from exposing this racket now is to kill you. When I got back to my car, I gazed up at the imposing turrets of Quetzal Manor one last time, wishing there was enough light to film them, and collected my thoughts. Was the story about the babies being orphans or abandoned children or "whatever" really true? I didn't believe it, not for a minute. But as Carly Grove said, Alex Goddard could "make it happen." The problem for me was, he wouldn't tell me where he got the children, and nobody I'd talked to so far seemed to want to know, not really. I wanted to know. Chapter Thirteen In moments I was heading down the snowy drive, south toward my home (which had been hopefully put back together). I pushed the pace, mesmerized by the snow, and tried to decide what to do next. The thug Ramos had stolen some second-generation interview footage from me, but now I had a tape of something a lot more interesting. When I pulled into my street, the time was just past eleven and I was thinking about calling Lou, or Steve, or both. But then I saw something odd. A woman was walking down the steps from the lobby of my building, a woman I recognized from somewhere. Her hair was tangled and she was wearing black jeans and a black sweater. It took a second before I finally processed the fact it was Carly Grove. And she seemed frantic. I assumed she'd come in a cab, but she had my home phone number, so why would she come over if I didn't answer? New Yorkers don't just drop in. A social no-no. Maybe the reason had something to do with how she looked. I felt like I was seeing a specter. "Thank God you're here," she blurted out, striding up. She was actually shaking, and I could tell she'd been crying. Nothing like the gutsy woman I'd seen a few days earlier. "I kept getting your machine, but I thought maybe you were hiding." I looked at her, and forgot all about my own issues. It was hard to remember ever seeing a human being in such distress, except for Sarah. "Why would I be hiding?" I was taking out the Betacam bag and closing my car door, hoping to seem normal and professional. "They called me about six o'clock tonight. Children of Light." She could barely get the words out. "They'd seen my interview with you. How did they get it?" I looked down at the snowy--make that slushy--street and felt a chill go through me, followed immediately by anger. Ramos, that bastard. "They . . . Somebody took a copy this morning." Stated like that, it sounded pretty lame. "I'm so sorry--" "He threatened Kevin. He actually said if I signed a release to let you use the film, my child would 'meet with an accident.' And then he said something about you, that your own--" "Who? Who called you? Did he tell you his--?" "He wouldn't give a name. Just some man. He had a foreign accent." She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back as best I could. "Where's Kevin now?" I was so concerned about Carly that I'd repressed the information that he'd also mentioned me. "Marcy was there, so I told her to take him with her. To her mother's place in the Bronx, where she lives." Carly was still trembling as she loosened her grip on me. "I called a car service to drive them up." "Well, come on in. Let's talk." Truthfully, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell her about what I'd just seen at Quetzal Manor. It would probably just distress her more. Where had Kevin come from? Did I really want to de-legitimize him in her eyes? As I led her through the lobby, hoping to appear composed, Patrick Mooney greeted us, announcing that his sister, Rosalyn, had been gone for an hour and that she appreciated my memorable tip. The place looked like nothing had happened, and Carly immediately collapsed onto my "earth-tone" couch. I hadn't told her my apartment had been tossed along with the robbery and, thanks to Rosalyn, I didn't need to. In fact, it actually looked cleaner than it had in months. Maybe, I thought, I should reprioritize my life and hire her more often. Then I got a glass of water for Carly and sat down next to her. "I'm really sorry," I began, deeply meaning it. "If I'd known all this was going to happen, I'd never--" "It's not your fault." She took a long drink. I hadn't bothered with ice, and I immediately felt I'd been inhospitable. Kind of a vagrant, minor concern, considering. Then she went on. "I guess I knew down deep I shouldn't have given you that interview. But I wanted the world to know about Kevin. Now, though . . . should I call the police or something?" The short answer to that was yes, but my mind was already skipping on to a different topic. "Carly, do you know where Kevin came from? Really came from? Did you ever actually try to find out?" She sighed and took another sip. "I told you I don't care. When they brought him, all pink and helpless, I just--" "Who brought him?" I interrupted. "Well, I'd been up there the day before, signing all the papers. I was supposed to go up that day, but then somebody called and said one of the girls who was staying in the clinic or whatever it is was bringing him to me. So don't come." "You're saying one of the girls--?" "Yeah." She looked wistful for a moment, as though remembering. "Then she just showed up, looked like some blond college dropout. I guess a little more fanfare would've been nice, but Marcy was there to help me and that was it. That's the last contact I ever had with Children of Light." She shuddered involuntarily. "Till now." Well, I thought, the last thing I'm going to do is tell her about what I just saw. She's the ideal customer for Alex Goddard: She truly doesn't want to know details. "Carly, there's not much I can do about what's already happened, but I can try to keep you from getting into any more trouble. Why don't you call them in the morning and tell them you've yelled at me and rescinded your permission for Applecore to use the film? And say I've promised I won't. You've threatened to sue me or something. That should get you off the hook." "You really think so?" Her look brightened slightly. "Yes, it's me they're worried about, not you. I represent some threat to them, because of the film I'm making. Just bail out and you'll be okay." "Thanks. I did get the feeling that's all they really want." She took another drink of water. "But if they wanted to scare me, they're doing a hell of a good job." "Well, then, why not take Kevin and go away for a couple of weeks? On a vacation someplace? And while you're doing that, I'm going to have a one-on-one with Alex Goddard. I've got a little leverage now." She looked at me. "What . . . what are you going to do?" I couldn't tell her about my videotape of his baby cache without explaining a lot more about Children of Light than I thought she wanted to hear. "Don't you think the less you know the better?" I said, taking her hand. "I've caused you enough trouble already." "No, I caused myself trouble." She was getting up. "Can I use your bathroom?" "Sure." I pointed the way. While she was gone, I went to the kitchen and surveyed it, checking the cabinets. Again, the place was cleaner than it had been in ages. The look of it momentarily bucked me up. When Carly came back, she hugged me and then announced she wanted to go check on Kevin. "I'll do what you said about calling them," she concluded, reaching for her bag. "I think you're right. That ought to get them off my case. At least for the moment. As for the long run--" "Carly," I said, taking her hand again, "we'll get through this. Just trust me." We hugged one more time and then she was gone. I took the moment to double-lock the door, and then collapsed on the couch. What should be my next move? I closed my eyes and tried to review all the insidious things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The illegal drugs, the break-in and theft of my film, the suspicious nursery of Children of Light, the threats to Carly . . . Then it finally came back that she'd mentioned Ramos saying something about me. By now I was getting used to being threatened by the man, so one more time was hardly news. But I wished I'd asked her the specifics. That was when I roused myself and reached for the phone. The time was pushing eleven, but I still wanted to check in on Sarah, see how she was doing. Had she come back to reality after I left? I was listening to the phone ring, my mind drifting to thoughts of how to gently ask Lou about her, when I realized nobody was picking up. What's going on? I wondered, immediately coming alert. Mrs. Reilly had probably gone home for the day, but no way would Lou be in bed before midnight. He always had trouble settling into sleep. Maybe, I then hoped, I'd just dialed the wrong number. But when I tried again, still no answer. I clicked off the phone and felt a wave of concern. If Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos could find out I was making a movie, and then find out where I lived, he sure as hell could locate my extended family. Was that what he'd meant when he mentioned me to Carly? I grabbed the set of Lou's keys I had stored in my bedroom's desk drawer and flew out the door. The streets were plastered with a grimy veneer of city snow, melting fast, but I pushed the limits of safety and ran a couple of lights since the traffic was spotty. There was a parking space just across the street from Lou's building, and as I pulled in I looked over at his windows. Through the curtains I could tell a dim light was on, probably coming from Sarah's bedroom. The front room, however, was dark. My pulse was pounding as I raced up the steps to the street door. I thought about pushing his bell, but I didn't have the patience. Instead I just fumbled with the key set till I found the biggest one and shoved it into the lock. The building had no lobby, just a row of stairs leading up to the next floor, with Lou's own door set off to the left. I shoved his Medeco key into the deadlock and pushed it open. The room was pitch-dark. "Who . . ." said a startled voice, and I knew it was Lou, somewhere in the direction of the couch. I clicked on the light switch and saw him lying on the floor, leaning against the couch, blood everywhere, his eyes in shock. "My God! What happened?" "I'm afraid to move. The phone was ringing and I figured it was you, but I didn't dare get up. Knowing you, you'd come over if I didn't answer." He was holding his side as he looked at me. "Morgy, she's gone." At first what he said didn't sink in as I bent over him. The right side of his shirt, just above his belt, was soaked in blood. Taking care, I unbuttoned it and saw an open cut that looked as though he'd been stabbed with a knife. It also appeared to be reasonably superficial, as though a thin blade had pierced through a couple of layers of tread on his ample spare tire. But it was bleeding still, enough to make it look worse than it probably was. However, if it'd happened to me, I'd doubtless be in shock too. I got up, went to the bathroom, and pulled two towels off the rack, then doused water over one and came back. "Don't move. I'm going to pull your shirt away and try to clean you up, see how bad it is." He just groaned and stared at the ceiling. As I was swabbing his side, what he'd said finally registered. "Did you say . . . _Sarah_!" I dropped the towels and ran into the bedroom. It was empty, the bed rumpled and beige sheets on the floor. "No." I turned and feeling a hit of nausea, hurried back to his side. "What happened? Did--?" "Fat Hispanic guy. Spic bastard. He had a couple of young punks with him. Mrs. Reilly had just left and I went to the door, thinking it was probably you ringing my bell. He flashed a knife and they shoved their way in. Then one of his thugs went into the bedroom and carried her out. When I tried to stop them, the SOB knifed me. I guess I . . . swooned cause the next thing I remember is waking up here on the floor." It sounded garbled and probably didn't occur as quickly as he thought. But I knew immediately what had happened Ramos--of course that's who it was--had come to take Sarah. It was his one sure way to stop me from mentioning Children of Light in my film. She was a hostage. My first instinct was to kill him. "What else can you remember?" I was already dialing 911. Time to get an ambulance. And after that, the cops. After about ten rings I got somebody and, following an explanation that was longer than it needed to be, a woman with a southern accent told me the medics would be there in fifteen minutes. I took another look at Lou and ordered them to hurry, then hung up. I was going to call the police next, but first I needed to hear exactly what had happened before he got quarantined in some emergency room. His eyes were glazing over again, as shock and blood loss started to catch up with him. Clearly he would pull through, but right now, sitting there in a pool of blood, he could have been at death's door. "Look . . . at that." He was pointing, his rationality beginning to fail. For a second I didn't realize what he meant, but then I saw a fax lying beside the phone. I picked it up. The time on it was 9:08 P.M. and it was from somebody named John Williams. Then I remembered. Wasn't that the FBI computer whiz he'd talked about the other day at the hospital, after we'd deconstructed Sarah's waterlogged passport? There was no message, just a sheet with a date--two years old--and a list of names accompanied by numbers and a capital letter. Then I noticed the letterhead of Aviateca, the Guatemalan national airline, and it dawned on me I was looking at a flight manifest. I scanned down the page, and then I saw it. Sarah Crenshaw, 3B. Williams found her, I thought. And she was traveling First Class. What caught my eye next was the name of the person sitting in 3A, the seat right next to hers. A. Godford. Probably a computer misprint. Or maybe it was the name he used when he traveled. So if it was him, which it surely was, the bastard didn't even try to hide it. I just stood there, thinking. Maybe you get one big-time coincidence in life, and if so, this must be mine. Sarah and I had both found Alex Goddard. Or he'd found us. Other women came and went through Quetzal Manor, but we were different. She'd escaped from him, half dead but now he'd sent Ramos to bring her back. It was the one way he could be sure to keep me under his control. But again, why? Was it just to stop my film, or was there more to the story? "Morgy," Lou groaned "that son of a bitch took her tonight. I just know it." That was my conclusion precisely, though I hadn't been planning to say it to him, at least not yet. "How can you be so sure?" "Something they said. I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded like, 'He wants you back.' Then some word. It sounded like 'Babylon' or something." I stared at him a second trying to remember where I'd heard that before. Then it clicked in. That was the last thing Sarah had said she'd whispered that word when I was putting her to bed. What could she have been talking about? He wheezed and I went back to him and pressed the towel against his side. The bleeding was about stemmed but he was definitely due for a hospital stay. A siren was sounding down the street. Probably the ambulance. Thank God I thought. Now it's time to call the police. Then I noticed he was crying. What was that about? "Morgy, they didn't actually kidnap her. You see, she--" "What?" I guess I was trying to take it in. "What do you mean?" "Know what she said? Sarah?" He choked for a second, then continued. "She said, 'Yes, I want to go back.' " Chapter Fourteen Before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, the medics were ringing the doorbell. They strode in with a gurney, also rolling a portable plasma IV, young guys who looked like they'd be more at home at a Garden hockey game, followed immediately by two uniformed policemen, actually policewomen, one short and heavy, with reddish hair, the other a wiry young Hispanic. (I found out that ambulances called out for stabbing or gunshot wounds automatically get a cop escort.) In less than three minutes, Lou was in the blue-and-white ambulance and on his way to St. Vincent's emergency room. I rode in the backseat of the squad car as we followed them and tried to explain what little I knew of what had happened. It turned out to be an education in the mindless sticking points of the law. Long story short: The fact that I hadn't reported the burglary of my apartment that very same day immediately cast doubt on my seriousness as a truth-seeking citizen; I had no proof the unreported burglary of my apartment (if, indeed, such had actually occurred) was by some Guatemalan military attache named Jose Alvino Ramos; since Lou had never seen Colonel Ramos before tonight, he couldn't possibly identify him as that burglar either; accusing diplomats of a crime without ironclad proof was frowned on downtown; and when I stupidly repeated what Lou had said about Sarah's last words (well, he was going to tell them sooner or later, it would just come bubbling out at some point), the whole case that she was kidnapped went into revision mode. By the time we got to the hospital, I was getting questions that seemed to imply that maybe it was all a domestic affair--like most of their calls: some spaced-out chick who'd run away once and got brought back and then, still unstable and crazy, decided to knife her own dad and disappear again. Now he was understandably covering for her. Happened more than you'd think. I kept stressing that Lou was former FBI and not the sort to invent such a whopper, but this was listened to in skeptical silence. If it was a kidnapping, they then wondered aloud what was the motive and where were the demands of the perpetrators? I was ready to start yelling at them by the time we parked in the Seventh Avenue driveway of the emergency room at St. Vincent's. They next made me cool my heels in the waiting room while they went back to interrogate Lou. They were with him for almost an hour, then came back to where I was and asked me to read and sign the report they'd written. A troubled girl, who had emerged from a coma and apparently was suffering bouts of non-rationality, had disappeared and her father had been stabbed but not seriously. He was the only witness to the incident and claimed she'd been kidnapped. However, the girl had run away once previously, and there was no physical evidence she'd been taken against her will; in fact, her father admitted she had declared just the opposite. The whole incident would be investigated further after he came downtown and made a complete statement. "I'm not going to sign this." I handed it back, fuming. "Is there anything here that's not factually correct?" The Hispanic cop was looking me straight in the eye, her expression cold as Alaska. The question made me seethe. Sarah was probably already on her way out of the country, and here I was trying to reason with two women who practically thought she was the criminal. But I knew a lost cause when I saw one. "Forget about it. I want to see Lou." An intern was coming out and I snagged him, announced I was next of kin to a patient, and demanded to be taken through the official door and into the back. At that moment, the stout cop's radio crackled. They were being summoned to a Christopher Street gay bar where somebody had just been knifed in a back room. She looked at me, as though to say, "This sounds like a real crime," and then they hurried out for their squad car. Christ! The intern, a young black guy, led me past a row of gurneys and into a private room at the rear of the huge space. Lou was bandaged all around his chest and hooked up to an IV and a monitor. He looked better, but I wasn't sure he'd be ready for what I was about to tell him. "Hey, how're you feeling?" I asked as I walked in, trying to seem upbeat. "Fucking cops." He was boiling, his face actually red. "Where do they get them these days? McDonald's rejects?" "Easy, don't get your blood pressure up." I reached over and touched his brow. It felt like he had a mild temperature. "Let's all just calm down and try to think rationally." "Yeah, I'm thinking rationally. You saw that fax I got from Williams." "You think that was Alex Goddard seated next to her, right?" "Who else? When she was in her moonbeam phase, she must have heard about him and gone up there and ended up in his clutches. But why did she let him take her down to--?" "He told me he has a clinic in Central America. He called it 'a place of miracles.' And then Colonel Ramos shows up, part of the Guatemalan diplomatic corps. Put two and two together. That's got to be where they're taking her." "Who knows, but I'm going to get the boys downtown to put out a missing-persons APB nationwide. Gerry'll do it for me if I ask. Fuck New York's Finest. They ain't gonna do crap anyway." I listened wondering how to impress my bright idea upon him. The chances were Ramos was taking Sarah back to Guatemala. Probably right this minute. For some kind of unfinished business. Or just to hold her there as an insurance policy that Children of Light would never be mentioned in my picture. "I seriously doubt a missing-persons alert is going to do any good Lou, because I seriously doubt she's going to be walking the streets of this country. That bastard Ramos is taking her where he knows he can hide her." "You mean . . . Jesus." He stared at me as though the idea had never crossed his mind. I think he'd just repressed it. "What are we going to--?" "The only thing we can do. I'm going down there. I'm going to go straight down there and locate Alex Goddard." "That's an exceptionally lousy thought process." His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. "Why? Give me one good reason why. You think the police down there are going to bring charges against a colonel?" I really could have used some encouragement. "It's the only way--" "Morgan, you've always been high-strung." He sighed and then winced. "Ever since you were a kid. I worried about you then and I'm worried about you now. I don't want you to go down there and get into trouble. Because believe me, that's a seriously wrong place to get crossways with the pricks who make the rules. You don't know your way around that Third World craphole. Wouldn't be that hard to end up a statistic. We can alert the embassy. Have them start looking for her." "Listen, there's a lot more going on between Alex Goddard and me than you know." This was definitely not the time to tell him about the babies, or about Carly and the threats. "Trust me. I'm going down there. In the morning, if I can. Who knows? Sarah and Ramos might even be on the same plane." As I was finishing that pronouncement, two nurses came in rolling a gurney and announced that his room was ready. Then they gave him a sedative. Was I being irrational? The thing was, though, what would you do? I was absolutely sure Ramos had taken her. So it was obvious that was where he would go next. He was a "diplomat," apparently, so he could easily fudge the passport formalities. As the nurses were helping Lou onto the gurney, I stood there holding his hand and thinking about what lay ahead. Steve was in Belize and maybe not even reachable, but I decided to start by giving him a call the minute I got home. Then a middle-aged WASP, with dark hair, slightly balding, strode in the room. The photo ID on his chest read "Dr. M. Summers." "So, how's the patient?" he enquired cheerily, ignoring me as he immediately began checking the chart at the foot of Lou's bed. "Felt better," Lou said, not being taken in by his pro forma cheer. "Well, we're going to make sure you get a good night's rest." Dr. Summers finished with the chart and started taking his pulse. "What's left of it." "How long am I going to be in here, Doc?" Lou asked, flinching as the nurses removed the IV stuck in his arm. "A couple of days. For observation. To make sure there're no complications." He smiled again. "You're a lucky man, Mr. . . . Crenshaw. Just a superficial cut. But we don't want you out playing handball for a few days." He turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink, then glanced back. "Okay, up we go." "Can I come with him?" I asked, not optimistic but hoping. The doctor looked genuinely contrite. "I'm really sorry, but he's going to be fine and visiting hours are long past. You can call in the morning. And you can come up anytime after two P.M. tomorrow. Let's let him get some rest now." I walked around and took Lou's hand, hot and fevered, feeling so agitated. "Don't think about anything tonight, okay? Worrying won't help. Just get some sleep. I'm going to find her, I promise you." "Don't--" He mumbled some words, but I think the sedative the nurses had given him was seriously starting to kick "Look, you can call down to 26 Federal Plaza tomorrow. See what they can do. In the meantime, let me follow my nose." He tried to answer, but he was too far gone. I then watched wistfully as he disappeared down the sterile alley of beds. After I stopped by the desk and helped them fill out the insurance forms, I caught a cab downtown to retrieve my Toyota. The time was now two-fifteen in the morning, but I still had plenty to do. When I got home, the first thing I did after I walked in the door was grab a phone book and call American Airlines. They had a flight, in the morning at nine-thirty. I gave them my credit card specifics and made a reservation. I no longer thought that Alex Goddard's Children of Light and its Guatemalan accomplices were merely doing something shady. My hunch now was that it was completely illegal. They were getting hundreds of white babies in some way that couldn't bear the light of day, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to prevent me from highlighting them in my film. And with the Army involved, and now Sarah taken, their game was beginning to feel more and more like kidnapping. They certainly knew how. Sarah had become a pawn, and all because of me. I almost wondered if I'd been unconsciously led to him by her, though that was impossible. Whatever had happened, the remorse I now felt was overpowering. It was, in fact, an intensified version of the guilt that had dogged me for the past fifteen years, the horrible feeling I'd somehow let her down, not done enough for her. I could have flown back for her high school graduation, but I was cramming for grad school finals and didn't take the time. Things like that, which, looking back, seemed terribly selfish. And now I'd brought this on her. God. Okay, I thought, glancing at the clock, time to start making it up to her. Screw up your courage and wake Steve. The problem was, Lou had been right about one thing. It'd been years since I'd been to Guatemala, and I wasn't sure I knew beans about how things operated down there these days. I was high on motivation and only so-so in the area of modus operandi. I needed Steve's help in plying the tricky waters of that part of the planet. He was busy, but this was definitely "us against the world" time, so maybe he could drive over to Guatemala City and help. I picked up the phone again and punched in the number of his hotel in Belize City, which seemed to be embedded permanently in my brain. That wonderful accent at the desk mon, and then they were ringing his room. I had no reason on earth to assume he would be there, but . . . The click, the voice, it was him. "Sorry to call so late, love. You said you missed me, so I've decided to find out if it's true. Your coming attraction is about to arrive." I guess I was trying to keep it flip. After our talk that morning, I wasn't entirely sure where we stood anymore. "Who . . . Morgy, is that you? God it's two . . . Are you okay?" Then he started coming around, processing what I said. "You're coming . . . Honey, that's great." As I noted before, he always knew how to give a good reading, sound sincere, no matter what the occasion. "Actually, I've just made a plane reservation, and I'm going to be in Guatemala City tomorrow, just after noon." I hesitated then thought, why beat around the bush? "Care to meet me there?" "That's terrific," he declared coming fully awake. "But why don't you just come to Belize City? Can't you get flight? It's actually not nearly as wild here as the travel books--" "Well, I've . . . Look, I'd rather not talk about this on the phone. But do you think you could get free and drive over I really could use your help. I've got a situation." "Well . . ." He paused. "I could be there by late tomorrow assuming my rented Jeep still operates after last week and the roads haven't totally disintegrated. Where're you going to be staying?" "I don't know. Got any suggestions? I want to keep out of the limelight." "Then try the Camino Real. It's like a Holiday Inn with plastic palm trees. Definitely low maintenance and low profile. Hang on, I'll get you the number." Which he did, though I could hear him stumbling around the room in the dark. Then he continued. "But listen, here's the bad news. I've got to be back here day after tomorrow. I just got a special permit to do some night shooting in the jaguar preserve down by Victoria Peak--you remember the rain forest I told you about?--but it's only good for one night, and I hear rumors there's an off-season hurricane forming in the Caribbean, which means I've got to stick to schedule. After that, though, I'm free again." "We'll work it out." I was thrilled he would just drop everything and come. Maybe we were over the rough spot about the baby. He didn't bring that up and I didn't either. Instead we killed a few minutes, and then I let him go back to sleep. I wanted to say I love you, but I didn't want to push my luck. After that I called the hotel he'd recommended. The exchange was more Spanish than English, but they had a room. Apparently lots of rooms. Next I rang Paula Marks, even though it was terribly late. She must have had the phones off, but I left a message telling her to be careful, with a postscript that I'd explain everything later. Just stick close to home. Finally I called David's voice mail up at Applecore. I told him I had a personal crisis and was going to Guatemala City. I'd try to be back by the end of the week, hell or high water, but no guarantees. And if he touched so much as a frame of my work print while I was gone, I'd personally strangle him. I don't remember much of what happened next. I basically went on autopilot. It's as though I dropped into a trance, totally focused. I packed my passport, a good business suit, the tailored blue one, and also a set of mix-and-match separates, easy to roll and cram in. Finally a couple of pairs of good (clean) jeans, a few toiletries, and then, thinking ahead, I also threw in my yellow plastic flashlight. I almost always over pack, but not this time. Oh, and one other thing. For airplane reading I grabbed a Lonely Planet guide to Central America that Steve had left behind--I guess he figured he was at the stage of life to start writing them, not reading them--that turned out to be very helpful, particularly the map of Guatemala City and the northern Peten rain forest. I then collapsed and--images of Sarah's emaciated face haunting my consciousness--caught a couple of hours' sleep. The next thing I knew, it was 9:20 A.M. and I was settling into window seat 29F on American Airlines Flight 377--next to a two-hundred-pound executive busy ripping articles out of the business section of _El Diario_--headed for Guatemala City. Chapter Fifteen For once in my life, I took my time getting off an airplane. But the instant I felt that first burst of humid tropical air against my face, like a gush from a sauna, I found myself wondering what Sarah had felt the moment her feet first touched the ground of Guatemala. In fact, I'd decided to try to think like her, to better understand why she might want to come back. Truthfully I didn't have a clue. But first things first. Not knowing whether I was being stalked by Ramos or his proxies, I decided the idea was to see and not be seen--which actually was easier than I'd expected, at least during the initial pell-mell stages. Turned out the self-centeredness of Homo sapiens blossoms under those circumstances. Ignore thy neighbor, goes the credo. I just buried myself in the crush. When I got to "Inmigracion," I labored through the "formalities" (as all countries love to call the suspicious looks you get from their airport bureaucrats) along with all the other gringo passengers on AA Flight 377, paranoid I might be arrested on the spot for some spurious reason. The purpose of my visit, I declared, was tourism. Just a nod at my passport and a stamp, which looked exactly like the one in Sarah's. I stared at it and felt a renewed sense of purpose. In fact, the photo in my passport looked more than a little like her. Maybe, I thought, I'm getting carried away with the identity issue, but there it was. As I emerged through the wide glass doors of the arrival area, which fronted out onto the steps leading down to the parking lots and the humidity, I spotted a black Land Rover with tinted windows right in front. Uh-oh. That was, Steve once told me, a vehicle much favored by the notorious Guatemalan G-2 military secret police, who had retired the cup for murderous human-rights abuses over the past two decades. Then two middle-aged men with Latin mustaches and nondescript brown shirts began getting out through the door on the far side. They next walked around to the terminal side of the car and glanced up the steps in my direction, as though looking for somebody. It was a quick survey, after which they turned back and nodded to the vehicle before it sped away. What's that about? Am I imagining things already? By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, I was being besieged by clamoring cabbies, so it was difficult to keep an eye on the two men, who were now walking off to the side of the main commotion, toward a shady grove of palms at the end of the arrival drive, lighting cigarettes. Get out of here. Whether you're fantasizing or not, the thing to do is grab an unsuspecting cab and get going. I strolled toward the other end of the long row of concrete steps till I reached an area where cabs were parked, more drivers lurking in wait. They all looked the same way most cabbies in Third World lands look: shabby clothes, with beat-up cars, an expression in their eyes somewhere between aggression and desperation. Just pick one whose car looks like it might actually make it to downtown. I spotted a dark blue Chevy that seemed clean and well maintained, its driver young and full of male hormones as he beckoned me to his vehicle, all the while undressing me with his eyes. Yep, he was definitely my guy. I ambled by his car, acting as though I was ignoring the innuendos of his pitch. Then I bolted for the back door, opened it myself since he was too startled to help, threw in my carry-ons, piled in behind them, and yelled, "Let's go. Rapido." As we sped away, I realized his greatest surprise was that I hadn't raised the subject of price. At that point, it was the last thing on my mind. I looked back to see the two guys from the black Land Rover, together with two others, heading for a car that had been double-parked right in front. Had I been right after all? We made a high-speed turn onto the highway, and I immediately ordered the driver to take a service road that led off toward a cluster of gas stations and parking lots with falling-down barbed-wire fences. I figured I had about half a minute of lead time, whatever was going on. We dodged massive potholes and the loose gravel flew, but then we reached a ramshackle gas station and I ordered him to pull in. Then I watched the line of traffic speeding by on the main highway for several minutes. Nobody pulled off. Good. My driver finally got around to asking where I wanted to go, and as calmly as I could, I told him. "The Palacio Nacional." "_Si_." With that he gunned his engine and spun out. Jesus! "_Mas despacio, por favor_." "Okay," he said, showing off his English as he donned his sunglasses. "I go more slow. No problem." The initial destination was part of my new plan, hatched while I was on the plane. When I was reading my guidebook and filling out my entry card I'd had a bright idea. I knew exactly how I wanted to begin. Heading into town, the time now the middle of the afternoon, I leaned back in the seat and tried to absorb the view, to get a feeling for where I was. We first traveled through the suburban fringes, the heavily guarded luxurious mansions of the landholding and military elite, the one percent of Guatemala who own ninety-nine percent of the country. Iron fences and wide expanses of lawn, protected by Uzi-toting security, guarded whimsical architectural conceits topped by silver satellite dishes. A twenty-foot wall shielded their delicate eyes from the city's largest shanty-town, makeshift hovels of bamboo and rusted tin, with no signs of water or drains or toilets. Guatemala City: as Steve had put it once, a million doomed citizens, the rich and the poor, trapped together side by side in the most "modern" capital in Central America. Why on earth had Sarah decided to come here? Even if she did travel with the mesmerizing Alex Goddard it was hard to imagine a place less spiritual. Couldn't she feel that this was all wrong? One of us had to be missing something major. Fifteen minutes later I was passing through the fetid atmosphere of downtown, which seemed to be another world, Guatemala City's twin soul. It was an urban hodgepodge of Burger King, McDonald's, discount electronics emporia, an eye-numbing profusion of plastic signs, filthy parking lots, rattletrap buses and taxis, stalled traffic. Exhaust fumes thickened the air, and everywhere you looked teenage "guards" in uniforms loitered in front of stores and banks with sawed-off shotguns, boys so green and scared-looking you'd think twice about letting one of them park your car. But there they were, weapons at the ready, nervously monitoring passersby. Who were they defending all the wealth from? The ragged street children, with swollen bellies and skin disease, vending single cigarettes from open packs? Or the hordes of widows and orphans, beneficiaries of the Army's Mayan "pacification" program, who now begged for centavos or plaintively hawked half-rotten fruit from the safety of the shadows? My bright-idea destination was a government office in the Palacio Nacional, right in the center of town, where I hoped I could find Sarah's old landing card, the record of when tourists arrived and departed. When I'd filled mine out on the plane, I'd realized you were supposed to put down where you'd be staying in Guatemala. I figured the best way to locate her this time was to find out where she went last time. . . . As my cab pulled up in front, a black Land Rover was parked in a "Prohibido Estacionarse" zone by the front steps. To my eyes it looked like the same one I'd seen at the airport. Shit. But nobody was around, so I decided maybe I was just being paranoid again. The Palacio turned out to be a mixture of Moorish and faux Greek architecture, with a facade of light green imitation stone that gave off the impression of a large, rococo wedding cake. I took a long look, paid off the driver--who had turned out to be very nice--and headed in. It was, after all, a public building, open to tourist gringos. Nobody in the lobby appeared to take any particular notice of me, so after going through their very serious security, uniforms and guns everywhere, I checked the directory. It turned out the president, cabinet ministers, and high military officers all kept offices there, but it didn't take long to find the bureau I was looking for. Going down the marble-floored hallway on the third floor, I passed by the Sala de Recepcion, a vast wood-paneled room of enormous chandeliers, stained-glass windows, and a massive coat of arms. Quite a place, but not my destination. At the far end of the hallway, I found the door I wanted, went in, and tried out the Spanish question I'd been practicing in the cab. Not necessary: English worked fine. "_Senora_, the records for that time were only kept on paper," a Ladino woman declared shrugging, her nails colored a brash mauve, her hair a burst of red, "but you are welcome to look." She'd been on the phone, chatting in rapid-fire Spanish, but she quickly hung up and got out her glasses. "Thanks." The welcome mat was obviously a little thin. The woman was trying to be friendly, but very quickly her nervousness began to come through. "We're always glad to accommodate Americans searching for friends or relatives," she went on, attempting a smile. "Some of your American press has been printing distortions, that the Guatemalan Army conspired with the CIA to cover up murders. It's a total lie." Right. Maybe you ought to see some of the photos Steve has of the "Army-pacified" Maya villages up in the mountains. The search took an hour and a half of leafing through dusty boxes, which chafed my hands raw, but then . . . voila. There it was. The crucial piece of information Lou had missed. A hastily scribbled-in landing card for an American, with the name Sarah Crenshaw. I stared at it a moment, feeling a glow of success. Was it an omen? It was definitely her. She'd even dotted an "i" with a smiley face, one of her personal trademarks. Then I looked down the form. What I wanted was the address she'd put down as a destination in Guatemala. The answer: "Ninos del Mundo, Peten Department." My hopes sank. Great. That was like saying your address is Children of the World, lost somewhere in the state of Montana. The home address was equally vague. Just "New York." So much for the high level of curiosity at "Inmigracion." However, the carbon copy of the landing card, which you're supposed to surrender when you leave, was not stapled to it, the way it was on all the others in the box. Naturally, since she'd left in a medevac plane, half dead. "What does this mean?" I got up and walked over to the woman's desk, carrying the card. Mainly I just wanted to get a rise out of her. "The carbon copy is missing. Does that mean she could still be here?" Red alert. She glanced at the arrival date a moment and her eyes froze. Then, doubtless with visions of another CIA scandal looming in her consciousness, she brusquely announced that the office was getting ready to close for the day. "You'll have to pursue any further inquiries through the American embassy, Mrs. James, which handles all matters concerning U.S. nationals." "Well, thanks for all your help." I was finally getting the police-state runaround I'd expected all along. I guess I needed her to care, and it was obvious she didn't. Okay . . . I'd planned to go to the embassy anyway. Maybe they could tell me about this place she'd put on her landing card. Could it be the local name for Alex Goddard's clinic? As I picked up my things, I thought again about the prospect of showing my face on the streets of Guatemala City. Would there be more loitering men in grungy brown shirts waiting to watch my every move? More black Land Rovers? As I marched back out through the ornate lobby, I decided not to let my imagination get too active. It was now late afternoon, but I was making progress. I also was thinking about Steve, wondering if he'd gotten into town yet. Probably not for another couple of hours, but just thinking about seeing him again, and having him for support, was boosting my energy. A short cab ride later I arrived at the embassy of the all-powerful United States of America, a two-block-long concrete fortress on Reforma Avenue guarded by Yank Marines with heavy automatic weapons. When I explained myself to the PR people manning the reception desk, including my brush with Guatemalan bureaucracy, they told me to check with the Internal Security section. "In fact, if you're looking for an American national, this is where you should have come in the first place," said a very efficient-appearing young woman, with a business suit and dark, close-cropped hair. "A phone call from here works wonders at the Palacio Nacional." I had no proof Sarah was in Guatemala yet, and if she was, it would doubtless be under a different name. What's more, telling them my suspicion that she'd been kidnapped by a high official and brought here would definitely brand me as a conspiracy theorist. So for now, all I could really hope to get from them was an address for Alex Goddard's clinic, someplace to start. Where and what was "Ninos del Mundo"? Apparently the woman hadn't fully understood that. Moments later a thirtyish male attache showed up, looking very harried. He also could have been president of the local Young Republicans, with a cute haircut and preppie tie, knotted perfectly. "Hi, I'm Mel Olberg. How can I . . .?" I told him I wanted to see someone who was responsible for the records of missing American tourists. I also sensed he was edgy and trying to get it over with fast; all the while he kept checking his watch, only half listening. "Gee, I really wish you'd come earlier," he said. "Monday afternoons are a little nuts around here, weekly reports due and all, and it's getting late." When he glanced at his watch again, making sure I noticed, I found myself wanting to yell at the guy. "I mean it's been two years since this woman you're looking for filled out a landing card. We might have something in the files, but. . . would it be possible for you to come back tomorrow?" "No, it will not be possible," I lied. "I've got a plane back to New York tomorrow." I felt my frustration rising. I wanted to just grab him and shake him. My first thought was to tell him I make documentary films and maybe he'd like to end up in one about how my country's Guatemala City embassy didn't care about its citizens. But then I decided to go in a different, probably more productive, direction. "Just for five minutes," I declared, reaching for feigned helplessness. "Well, let me call upstairs," he muttered, realizing, I suppose, that the best way to get rid of me was to kick me up the chain of command, "and see if Mr. Morton can take a moment to meet with you." It worked. The next thing I knew, I was in the office of a good-looking diplomat named Barry Morton--gray temples, tailored suit, rugged face of a sixty-year-old soap-opera heartthrob who plays tennis and keeps a mistress. Chief Information Officer. "Actually, I do remember her, vaguely," Morton declared, flashing me his professional smile. "The Crenshaw girl was an unfortunate case. To begin with, anybody who overstays their visa that long gets us in a lot of hot water with the locals. They always tend to blame us, Ms. . . ." "James. My name's Morgan James." "Ms. James." Another of those smiles. "Frankly, I don't know what to tell you, though." He shrugged, exuding helplessness. "It's hard to keep track of every American tourist who comes and goes through this country. Some of the hippie types end up in a mountain village somewhere, gone native. In this instance, as I recall, we got her out on a medevac." "Her landing card gave her destination as someplace called 'Ninos del Mundo,' up to the Peten. That ring a bell? Any idea how I could find it?" "Niiios del Mundo?" He glanced up quickly. "That's a new one on me." He'd been fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk, giving me only half his attention, but he abruptly stopped. "You try the phone book?" "Like I said, it's in the Peten." I was getting the definite sense he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. The whole scene was feeling tense and off. "My understanding is that's mostly rain forest. Do they even have phones up there?" "Not many," he said, his tone starting to definitely acquire an "I have better things to do" edge. That was when he focused in on me, his look turning protective. "Let me speak candidly, Ms. James, strictly off the record. Down here people have been known to 'disappear' just for asking too many questions. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Between us, this place is still a police state in many regards. You want my advice, let sleeping dogs lie. Just forget about this Crenshaw girl. She's out of the country now, so . . . Let me put it like this: People who go poking around here are just asking for trouble." I felt a ring of sincerity in his voice. Maybe a little too much sincerity. Why was he so worried for me? "That may be true, but I'm still going to see what I can find out. My heart is pure. Why should anybody care?" "Do what you think best," he said with a sigh, "but I've told you everything we know. Which, I'm afraid, is actually very little." "By the way." Try one more thing on him, I thought, see what he'll say. "Since you're so concerned about Sarah, you'll be relieved to know she's regained consciousness and started to talk." There seemed no point in telling him any more. The rest was all still speculation. That stopped him cold. "What . . . what has she said?" His eyes appeared startled in the glaring light of the office fluorescents. At long last I had his undivided attention. "You're busy." I smiled at him. "I don't want to bore you with details. But it's just going to be a matter of time before she remembers exactly what happened down here." "She hasn't talked about it yet?" He was fiddling with an ornate letter opener, an onyx jaguar head on the handle. "She's getting there." I stared back at him, trying to read his mood. "We may soon find out who was behind whatever happened to her." Then I tried a long shot. "Maybe officialdom here had something to do with it." "Let me tell you something." He sighed again, seeming to regain his composure. "The sovereign state of Guatemala definitely plays by its own rules. Whenever foreigners down here meet with foul play, lower-level officials have developed a consensus over the years that sometimes it's better not be too industrious. Nobody's ever sure of what, or who, they might turn up." The meeting was definitely ending, and once again I had more questions than answers. Something about Barry Morton felt wrong, but I couldn't quite get a grip on what it was. One thing I was certain of: He knew more than he was telling me. Why was that? As I was exiting through his outer office, headed for the swarming streets below, I waved good-bye to his secretary, a stout, fiftyish Ladino matron with defiantly black-dyed hair, a hard look mitigated somewhat by the Zircon trim on her thick glasses and a small silver pendant nestled on her ample, low-cut sweater. It was the pendant that caught my eye, being the silver face of a cat, most likely the local jaguar. Looked just like the ones I'd seen you-know-where. I was staring so hard I almost stumbled over a chair. Yes. It was definitely like those I remembered from Kevin and Rachel. The only difference was, when she bent over to reach for her stapler, the medallion twisted around and the back, I could see, flashed blank silver, no engraving of lines and dots. So where did she get it? I started to ask her, but decided I'd just get more BS runaround. Then I had another thought: Maybe she handled a lot of things that never made it to Barry Morton's desk, the "don't waste the boss's valuable time" kind of secretary. Maybe she s the one I really should have been talking to, the kind of woman who takes care of everything while the high-paid senior supervisor is at long lunches. She looked at me, and our eyes met and held for a second. Had she been listening in on my chat with Morton? Did she know something I ought to know? By then, however, thoughts of Steve were weighing in. I hadn't seen him in three and a half months and I was realizing that was about my limit. I wanted to recapture the lost time. Our being together was going to make everything turn out right. Clinging to that thought, I grabbed a cab and headed for my hotel and a much-overdue hot bath. Chapter Sixteen "Come here," he said. Whoosh. There he was. He strode through the door, tan safari shirt, smelling like a man who'd just driven hundreds of miles through Central America in an open Jeep. I wanted to undress him with my teeth and lick off the sweat. Brown eyes, skin tan as leather, he threw his arms around me and I felt the weight of the world slip away. He was here. I was wearing a robe, fresh from the tub, but it was gone in a second. Steve, I gotta say, knew a thing or two about the bedroom. As we wound ourselves together for the next two hours, I had a refresher course in how much Id missed him, soul and body. His taste, his skin, his touch. Finally, we were both so exhausted we just lay there bathed in sweat, spooned together on the sagging bed. I hadn't felt so good in years. It was like another world. "God I've missed you," I said again, holding him closer. The air-conditioning was beginning to lose ground against the late sun, but I didn't care. After my solo nightmare of the last two days, I was remembering what it was like to be a couple again. The Camino Real, by the way, turned out to be an American-style hideaway with budget shag carpeting and flaking blue walls. In a way, though, the downtrodden decor actually made it more romantic, like we'd sneaked off to a garish hot-sheet motel for a twilight rendezvous. I finally dragged myself up and got us a bottle of water. Then, leaning against the rickety headboard, I recounted an abbreviated version of what had happened yesterday after we'd first talked--the theft of my film, and then Lou being assaulted and Sarah taken, apparently willingly, to be brought (I strongly suspected) back here. What I held out on were the details about a certain Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos, my belief that he was behind the crimes and in league with Alex Goddard and stalking me. I was afraid our room was bugged. "Morgy, we'll get through this," he said, reaching over to stroke my hair. "If somebody brought her back down here, we'll find her. And I apologize for being such a shit on the phone, about the baby. I'd just had a local lab lose three rolls of high-speed Kodachrome and I was seriously frosted at the world. We can keep trying if you want to." "Just hold me." I put down my glass and I reached around and ran my finger across his chest. It was so lovely to be this close to somebody you wanted so much. I loved his earnest brown eyes and his soft skin. I loved him. Just having him with me made such a difference. The unexpected part was, I'd asked him to come and help me, but now that he was here, I was starting to feel uneasy about luring him into my personal nightmare. Was that really fair? Also, I was getting hints he had problems of his own. The photo book, I gathered, was not coming together the way he'd hoped. He'd mumbled something about finding himself torn between a heartstrings essay about the children (his specialty; you've probably seen his work, whether you know it or not), a devastating portrayal of the latest crop of sleazy politicos, or a nature valentine to the vanishing rain forest. But whenever he agonized about his work, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and just listen. He didn't want bright ideas; he just wanted me to clam up and be there for him. Anyway, I knew he'd think his way through the problem. He had a deceptive air of vulnerability that always disappeared in a crunch. He was the master of ad hoc solutions. . . . At that moment, he reached for his watch, studied it, and abruptly bolted straight up. "Hey, I almost forgot my surprise. I hope you're still up for it. Did you know this is our anniversary? It was on this very day I first watched you dive into that grungy swimming pool at the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince." "My God you're right. I'm humiliated." I hugged him contritely, feeling like a self-centered twit. I guess I was too focused on Sarah. (I screw up a lot on birthdays too, always with an excuse.) "I don't even have a present for you. I've been so--" "That's okay." He grinned then stood up and headed for the shower. "Not the first time. But I've got one for both of us. We'll make it a gift to each other. It'll help start you thinking like a _guatemalteco_ insider." "What? You sneak. What did you get?" "A trip back into the void of prehistoric time," he yelled over his shoulder. "I am the possessor of a little-known secret about this town. I called from Belize City this morning and made dinner reservations for us downtown. You'll see." God I loved this man. But the last thing on my mind at that moment was food. "Honey, I don't know if I'm really--" "Hey, don't wimp out on me. If we're going to do this place, at least we can do it in style. Besides, you can't live on smog alone. You gotta eat." He had a point. Starving myself wasn't going to help find Sarah any sooner. And there were details I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to broadcast in the room. What if Colonel Ramos had long ears to match his long arm? "Come on," he pressed. "Just put on the slinkiest thing you've got and get ready to go native. It'll help you put this part of the world into perspective." Alas, I had nothing particularly "slinky," though fortunately I'd packed a silk blouse I could loosen and tie with a scarf around the waist. Don't laugh, it worked. I even brushed on some serious eye shadow, which normally I don't bother with much. I tried not to let him know how concerned I was as we walked down the driveway of the hotel and hailed a cab, while I furtively searched the shadows. Seeing the streets after dark made me sad all over again for Sarah. I still wanted to see and feel Guatemala the way she had, but when I got close to the realities of the place, it made me uneasy. It turned out the marvel he'd discovered was called Siriaco's, a wonderful old place with a patio and garden in back--both roofed by glittering tropical stars--which were down a stone pathway from the main dining room and bar. It appeared to be where a lot of VIPs, the ruling oligarchy, dined. It was romantic and perfect. When we arrived, his special anniversary surprise was already being laid out on a low stone table, attended by Mayan women all in traditional dress: the colorful _huipil _blouses of their villages, red and blue skirts, immense jade earrings. "They've reconstructed a kingly feast from old documents," he explained, beaming at my amazement. "Cuisine of the ancient rain forest. We're going to have a banquet of authentic _guatemalteco_ chow from eons ago." And the meal was definitely fit for royalty. Soon we were working our way through a long-forgotten medley of piquant flavors that swept through my senses as though I were in another world. There was pit-roasted deer, steamed fish, baked wild turkey. One calabash bowl set forth coriander-flavored kidney beans; another had half a dozen varieties of green legumes all in a rich turtle broth; a third offered vanilla-seasoned sweet potatoes; others had various forest tubers steamed with chiles. We even had a delicious honey wine, like heavenly nectar, served in red clay bowls, that made me want to have sex right on the table. There with Steve, the unexpected juxtaposition of spices and flavors made every bite, every aroma, a new sensual experience. (Let me say right here he's a cooking fanatic, whereas I've been known to burn water. I think it's the new division of labor in post-feminist America.) Finally the Mayan waitresses brought out cups of a chocolate dessert drink from ancient times, cocoa beans roasted, ground, and boiled with sugarcane. The whole event was pure heaven. Except for the occasional unwanted intrusions. Various dark-eyed low-cut Ladino divorcees, about half a dozen in all, hanging out at the bar with heavy perfume and too much jewelry, kept coming over purportedly to marvel over our private feast (or was it Steve's big brown eyes). He returned their attentions with his polite and perfect Spanish, but I despised them. In any case, they were shameless. Not remembering quite enough Espanol, however, the best I could do was just to put my hand on his and give them the evil eye. It seemed to work, though what I really wanted to do was hold up a cross the way you do to ward off vampires. . . . "Hey, check out Orion," he said finally leaning back, an easy, delicious finger aimed at that sprawling constellation. I looked up at the canopy of stars, and sure enough, the hunter and his sword dominated the starry sky above like a stalwart centurion, guarding us. "I always know I'm in the tropics when it's right overhead." "Honey, this has been wonderful," I declared. "Thank you so much." I moved around and kissed him. "It's exactly the attitude adjustment I needed." "Well"--he smiled back--"now I guess we've got some organizing to do. So tell me everything you left out back there at the hotel. I know you were holding off." I was feeling increasingly hyper, probably from the high-octane chocolate, but I proceeded to recount all my findings about Alex Goddard and Quetzal Manor. Then I moved on to Colonel Ramos and how he'd threatened Carly and me about my film. Finally, I told him my deep belief that Colonel Ramos and a couple of his goons were obviously the ones who'd roughed up Lou and taken Sarah. "Bad scene," he said when I finally paused for breath. He was toying with his cup and running his fingers through his sandy hair, in that "deep thought" mode of his. "Way I see it, this just sounds like a classic case of selling kids. To me, that's right up there with murder and grand larceny." "Well, I also firmly believe it's all tied in with Alex Goddard's clinic here, or whatever it is. The place Sarah called Ninos del Mundo on her landing card. I'll bet you anything that's where Ramos has taken her." "You know," he said, his brow a perfect furrow, eyes narrowed, "about the babies you saw, there've been press stories over the last few years about Americans being attacked in Guatemala on suspicion of trying to kidnap Maya children out in the villages, to put up for adoption. But I've never seen any proof of it. I've always thought it just might have been dumb gringos who don't know the culture. They go poking around out in the countryside and stupidly say the wrong thing. Maybe using schoolbook Spanish nobody out there really understands. But now this makes me wonder if--" "Love, those babies I saw up at Quetzal Manor are not kidnapped Indian children, trust me. They're Caucasian as vanilla snow cones. Try again." "I get your point," he said quickly. "But let me relate the facts of life down here. When you've got some Guatemalan colonel behind something, you'd better think twice about how many rocks you turn over." "Funny, but that's exactly what some guy at the embassy named Barry Morton said to me." "And you'd better listen. This is the country that turned the word 'disappear' into a new kind of verb. People get 'disappeared.' I actually knew some of them, back in the late eighties. One dark night an Army truck rolls into a village, and when the torture and . . . other things are over with, a few Maya are never heard from again." He looked at me. "You saw my pictures of that village in the Huehuetenango Department, Tzalala, where the Army mutilated and murdered half the--" "I know all about that." It was chilling to recall his gruesome photos. "But I'm going to track down Alex Goddard's clinic, no matter what. That's where they've taken Sarah, I'm sure of it. I just may need some help finding it." He grimaced. "Damn, I've got to head back to Belize by noon tomorrow." Then his look brightened. "But, hey, I finish my shoot Wednesday, so I can drive back here on Thursday. Then on Friday maybe we could--" "Come on, love, I can't just sit around till the end of the week. What am I going to do till then?" The very thought made me itchy. "I need to find out if Ninos del Mundo, the place Sarah put on her original landing card is for real. Her card said it's somewhere in the Peten, the rain forest. If I could find somebody who--" "Okay, look." He was thinking aloud. "How about this? There's a guy here in town who owes me a favor. A big one. He screwed me out of twenty grand in the U.S. We were going to start a travel magazine--I think I told you about that--but then he took my money and split the country. He ended up down here and went to work for the CIA--till they sacked him. After that he leased a helicopter and started some kind of bullshit tourist hustle. He sure as hell knows what's going on. Name's Alan Dupre. The prick. Maybe I could give him a call and we could get together for a late drink. He's got an easy number these days: 4-MAYAN." "How's he going to help?" "Trust me. He's our guy." I leaned back and closed my eyes, my imagination drifting. In that brief moment, my mind floated back to yesterday afternoon at Lou's loft, and Sarah. Her hallucinations still haunted me. What had happened to her in the rain forest? And why would she say she wanted to go back? Then I snapped back. "All right. Try and ring him if you think he can help. Right now I need all I can get." He got up and worked his way to the phone, past the crowded bar, while I tried to contemplate the night sky. I looked up again, hoping to see Orion, but now a dark cloud had moved in, leaving nothing but deepening blackness. He'd said there was a storm brewing, part of an out-of-season hurricane developing in the Caribbean, so I guessed this was the first harbinger. "Tonight's out, but tomorrow's okay." He was striding back. "Crack of dawn. Which for him is roughly about noon. We'll have a quick get-together and then I've got to run. Really. But if this guy doesn't know what's going on down here, nobody does. He's probably laid half those hot tomatillos there at the bar. The man has his sources, if you get my meaning." "Then let's go back to the glorious Camino Real." I took his hand. "We'll split the check. At the moment, even that seems romantic." "I'm still thinking about--" "Don't. Don't think." I touched his lips, soft and moist, then kissed him. An impulsive but deeply felt act. "We've all had enough thinking for one day." Chapter Seventeen Alan Dupre didn't ring till almost ten-thirty the next morning, and I had the feeling even that was a stretch. He then offered to meet us in the Parque Concordia, right downtown. As I watched him ambling toward our bench, my first impression was: Why'd we bother? The man appeared to be in his early forties, puffy-eyed and pink-cheeked with discount aviator shades, looking like a glad-handing tourist just down to Central America for a weekend of unchaperoned bacchanals. The flowered sport shirt, worn outside the belt, gave him the aura of a tout insufficiently attired without a can of Coors in hand. How can this be progress? I'm down here hoping to find Sarah, and I end up in a trash-filled park meeting some expat operator. Steve had explained that the main benefit of Alan Dupre's CIA gig was that he did learn how to fly a helicopter. With that skill he'd ended up starting a tourist agency in Guatemala City using an old Bell he leased: "Mayan Pyramids from the Air." Mainly, though, he was a self-styled bon vivant who knew people. "Steve the brave." On came Dupre's mirthless smile as he approached a jaunty spring entering his step. "Alan, any friend of yours has got to be brave." Steve just stared at him. Dupre had the kind of empty grin that looked like it'd been rehearsed in his high school bathroom mirror. It was thin, kind of forked and dangerous, and this morning its plaster quality undermined any attempts at honesty. Maybe dealing with complaining tourists every day of your life did that to you. "You called, I came." He was now shifting from foot to foot. "Guess it finally had to happen. What's the phrase? You can run but you can't hide? Surprise us both and pretend you're happy to see me." Steve looked like he was not entirely prepared for this moment. He used the awkward pause that followed to introduce me. Dupre shook hands like he was fearful of germs, then turned back. "Jesus, man, I'm still working on the money, honest to God. But do I get a last cigarette before the firing squad?" "Hey, Alan, ease up." Steve was deadpan. "Good to see you again. I mean it. Love that Waikiki shirt, by the way. Never knew you had such progressive taste." "This is actually my incognito attire. For secret missions. It's my objective today to look like some cruise-ship jerk." He glanced around nervously. "So how'm I doing?" "I'd say your years of training in undercover work have paid off." I listened, remembering Steve had explained that Alan Dupre's career as a CIA information-gatherer was hampered by his propensity to drink too much tequila and then brag about his occupation, hoping to impress whatever woman he had in his sights at the moment. "So bring me up to date." Steve was trying to hide his total contempt. "Why'd you get out of the spook business? Langley couldn't find a 'new mission' for you after the Evil Empire dissolved?" Dupre's face turned pensive. "Man, you don't get it, do you? Langley's still got plenty on its mind. Nothing has changed. Most people don't realize the U.S. isn't run by the folks they vote for. There's a permanent government that doesn't appear on Larry King, and I was part of it. The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. of A. will go on doing exactly what it's always done, guiding events in Third World toilets like this through whatever means are necessary to protect America's strategic concerns. Keeping the world safe for Microsoft and Ronald McDonald." He paused and glanced at me, as though slightly embarrassed. Then he continued. "What I'm saying is, all those Beltway turkeys with the briar pipes and gigabyte computers, sitting around wringing their hands, worried the Company needs a new mission, never really grasped its old mission." "You're right," Steve said going along with the shtick, the applause lines Dupre had doubtless used in a thousand bars. "I'm getting slow. What Langley needs nowadays is a new cover story." "Couldn't have phrased it better." Dupre smiled again too easily. "They're--" "Actually," Steve said cutting him off impatiently, all the while gazing up at the gathering dark clouds as though they were a hovering adversary, "the truth of the matter is, we called you to discuss a favor. A small helping hand." He seemed to be searching for a sales point. "For old times' sake." "For old times' sake?" Dupre appeared to be having trouble with the concept. "Yeah. All we want is to hear a little talk of the town." He gazed out over the square, Uzi-toting police still strolling by. "You know, local information of the kind that doesn't make the papers." "Right," I said. "For starters, how could a gringa sort of melt into the Peten rain forest, disappear for months and months, and then end up in a coma?" I'd decided to feel him out before going for the bigger questions. "People disappear down here all the time, and nobody in their right mind goes around inquiring why." Dupre seemed genuinely astonished that anyone would find such a thing unusual. He also was fingering a cigarette pack in his breast pocket, clearly nervous about the quick turn our conversation had taken. "Whatever's your problem in Guatemala, just forget about it. Drink some _cerveza_, take a few snapshots of the picturesque natives, and then move on to a civilized place. This is a land of mystery, lady, and the people who matter like it that way. There are those here who take their privacy very seriously." Just like Alex Goddard's Children of Light, I thought. Or Ninos del Mundo, or whatever it's called. It was chilling to hear Alan Dupre backing away so quickly from my question. The guy seemed truly scared under all the bluster. I also observed that his eyes were curiously small, out of proportion to his face. I hadn't noticed it at first. "Well," I went on, determined to push him, "an old landing card for the person I'm looking for said her destination was a place called Ninos del Mundo, up in the Peten. I assume that's somewhere in the northern rain forest, right? So I guess what I want to know is, does that name stir up any connections?" He looked around, then extracted a Gauloise from a blue pack and lit it with a wooden match, flicking the tip with his fingernail. He inhaled, taking his time. "Well, maybe I've heard a little something about a place some people call by that name." He drew again on the cigarette. "And the story might include a female American _tourista_ or two--about one a year, actually--who've sort of melted into the forest never to be seen more. I'm not exactly sure where it is, though. Or even if what you hear is true. But who cares? Come on, guys, this is Guatemala, for chrissake. Shit happens. Get a life." "The embassy, or the CIA, or anybody ever carry out an inquiry?" I felt my energy rising. "A woman every year or so? I went by Reforma Avenue yesterday and nobody there seems to have ever heard of any of this." "No kidding." He snorted. "Whatever happened that place, our caring embassy, ain't gonna do zip--don't faint at the news--and there's no way the Company's going to pull their old-time Yankee number, roll in with the beige sunglasses, and yell, 'Okay, you peons, we're here to take names and kick butt. What happened to our national?' They've recently acquired a habit of taking local situations at face value. Makes for a lot better tables at the tony supper clubs in town." This guy liked to talk, I realized but he had no interest in going beyond glib one-liners. I glanced at Steve, and I could tell he was having the same thoughts. "Tell you what," Steve said finally, "how about this? Tell us whatever you know about how to find this place, and maybe we can adjust the terms on the money you screwed me out of. I might settle for something less on the dollar and let bygones be bygones." "Hey, man, you'll get your money. I'm good for it." Dupre sighed and drew on his Gauloise. "It's just that things are a little tight right now, you know." He paused. "Matter of fact, I was hoping you might be able to spare a couple of bills for a week or so. But I guess . . ." His voice trailed off. Alan Dupre knew something I needed to know, or might know it. Steve had definitely found the right guy in that regard. But he clearly was cautious to the point of paralysis as he kept furtively glancing around. What was he so fearful of, and what could I do to convince him to help me? I stood gazing at the dark sky for a long moment, and then I had an off-the-wall idea, a long shot, the all-or-nothing take you go for when the sun is dying and the unions are looking at overtime. "You do tourist flights, right?" I started, still working on the idea. "So how about pretending I'm an eco nut? A lover of the rain forest. You can tell whoever you're so afraid of that you're taking me up into the wilds to show me jaguars or something. A regular tour. Just cruising around, taking in the sights. Totally innocent. And then if we accidentally scouted a little, maybe we could find the place." "Jesus, you're serious about this, aren't you?" Dupre nervously crushed out his cigarette, staring at me glassy-eyed. "Never been more." He extracted another Gauloise. "Okay, a counteroffer, Miss . . ." "James. Morgan James." "Right, Miss James. I'm beginning to think you've got no realistic sense of proportion about this part of the world. You--" "Fools rush in, right?" "My point precisely. But if Steve here means what he says, well, maybe there's a little room to negotiate. Maybe I could take you on a quick sightseeing trip. And just for laughs I could kind of inadvertently stray over the area I think you might find productive. Assuming we can locate it. But here're my terms. I do it and Steverino and me are square. Consider it a twenty-thousand-dollar cruise." "Fine with me." Steve didn't even blink, and I loved him all over again, right on the spot. Though the truth was, I knew he'd never planned on seeing a penny of the money again anyway. "And you think this place is Ninos del Mundo?" I was trying not to get my hopes up too much, but still . . . Dupre lit his new cigarette. "You didn't hear this from me, okay? You heard it from the embassy or some other damned place. But that's one name for it. Another is 'Jungle Disneyland.' Actually, I think the local name is _Baalum_, the old Maya word for jaguar. But everybody acts like it's a state secret, so all you get are rumors." "Well, assuming we find it, then how could I get in? I mean actually in." I was squinting at him, feeling my body tense. What was it Lou had said about a word he'd heard when they were taking Sarah? It sounded like "Babylon"? I also thought that was what she'd whispered to me. Could it be the word was actually Baalum? The gloomy morning skies abruptly flooded with the brilliant white light of hope. I glanced back at Steve, and our eyes locked for a long moment. "Morgy, for chrissake, what are you saying?" Steve took my hand. "Don't you realize this is Guatemala? Don't even think about it." "We're just talking now, okay?" I squeezed his hand then looked back at Dupre. "I was just wondering. Once we've found it, could I get a sneak look-see? Assuming I wanted to?" "Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Morgan James." Dupre was fingering his new cigarette, oblivious to my reaction. "Give no serious thought to just driving up. The Army'd be all over your butt in the time it takes to cock an AK-47." He glanced up at the sky again, though now a dense bank of dark clouds had swallowed what remained of the sun. A pre-rain gloom was enveloping the park, which was starting to empty out, the hawkers and loiterers headed home to wait out the weather. "But if we do find it, then as long as we're there, I might be able to drop you off for a quick glance somehow, say, if we did it around twilight time . . . that is, if that's what you want. But it's ten minutes tops, and that's my final offer. Frankly, I think you'd be ill-advised in the extreme to do it, but . . . in any case, it's got to be a low-profile enterprise all the way. We screw this up and we could easily swell the ranks of the 'disappeared.' " "But you think you could actually locate it?" "What I hear, the place is on a tributary of the Usumacinta River, a latrine they call the Rio Tigre. Way up in the northwest. Low-level Army types, you meet them in bars from time to time, like to BS about it. I've got a rough idea where it might be, though you don't know whether to believe a bunch of kid recruits after half-a-dozen beers." Then my mind clicked. The Rio Tigre? Didn't that have something to do with where Lou said Sarah was found? That was definitely where I wanted to go. "Morgy, have you lost your senses?" Steve had placed his hand on my shoulder. "If the Army's involved in something down here, you don't want to know about it. Don't lose sight of the fact those goons knocked off two hundred thousand villagers since the freedom-loving days of the Gipper, for fear they might be Commies, with the CIA practically flying in the ammo. This whole damned country's just one big mass grave. Yet another unclaimed corpse or two won't make a hell of a lot of difference." "Steve, I'll bet you anything that's where she is." Saying it, I had a vision of all the things that had happened to me, and to Sarah, because of Alex Goddard. I couldn't wait to confront the bastard. "He's brought her back." Steve just glared at me for a long moment, despairing. "Christ, you make me nuts. Okay, look, how about this? At least let me come with you. That way we'll face the unknown together." Though I had a lump-in-the-throat moment, I didn't say anything, just stood there glorying in the feeling of being together. It was so wonderful to have him with me and so difficult to think about pressing on without him. There was a long, awkward pause, and then he glanced at his watch. "Blast, I've got to hit the road if I'm going to get back in time to set up for tonight's shoot. I just pray I can beat the rain." Then he pulled me around and circled me fully in his arms. "Please, Morgy, I really don't like the sound of this. I'll move heaven and earth to get back here by Friday night, and if you still want to check out this '_Baalum' _place, then we'll figure out a way to do it together." "Just you stay safe." I hugged him back. "Nothing I do is going to mean much if I don't have you. Don't worry. I'll be okay." Alan Dupre had abruptly taken an even deeper interest in the darkening sky. I got the feeling he was uncomfortable being around two people capable of caring. "It's only for a couple of days," Steve went on. "We'll both be okay if we just stick together." "Right," I said, and kissed him harder than I ever had. Five minutes later, my heart and my head still at war with each other, I was alone in the virtually empty park with my brand-new best friend. Watching Steve's Jeep blend into the smoggy haze of the avenue made me feel like half of me had just disappeared into another dimension. "So that's that," I declared finally, turning back and taking a deep breath. I had to find Sarah before something else truly horrible happened to her. And the one thing I was determined to do was keep Steve as safely distant from my search as I could, even though it meant I was going to be terribly lonely for the next few days. "When can we leave?" "Hey, get real." Dupre choked, whirling around. "We can't go today. Case you hadn't noticed, there's a storm coming. If you really want to go . . . and I mean really want to, then maybe in a day or so. Preferably when Steve--" "I don't want to drag him into this," I said evenly. Truthfully, I was sounding braver than I felt. But then I remembered once going down into the four-hundred-year-old subterranean harem quarters of the Red Fort in Agra, seemingly miles underground and pitch black, with nothing but a flashlight, surrounded by screaming bats and knee-deep in guano, for no better reason than I was determined to see how the women there once lived. So how much scarier could this be? "Well, I say no way," Dupre told me. "Not today. Correction, make that no fucking way." He had removed his aviator shades and was cleaning them with a dirty hanky. "Besides, I don't think you have any business going up there in the first place. If you're not scared shitless, you ought to be." "Alan, I think you 're the one who's afraid to go." He almost reached for another cigarette, but then stopped himself. "I will definitely plead guilty to a deep-seated disquiet about the people who rule this placid paradise. But if it'll square things with Steve, then I'll take you up to have a quick look, for my sins. But it's got to be after the weather clears." I finally realized he was already thinking about his next loan. Steve, beware. "Tomorrow then?" I wasn't going to blink, because the Peten was where Sarah had ended up the first time and I was sure that was where Ramos had taken her now. _Baalum_. Dupre stared at the sky a moment longer, then caved. "Maybe we can shoot for tomorrow late. If I can convince myself this storm has done its worst." He looked back at me. "But I gotta tell you one thing, Ms. Morgan James. We blunder in up there and end up getting ourselves 'disappeared,' we won't even get our pictures in the papers. You'd better tell your immediate loved ones where you're going, and it wouldn't be the worst time in the world to think about making a will." The way he said it, I was sure for once he meant every word. Chapter Eighteen When I got back to the Camino Real, the time was early afternoon and the bed was freshly made, with all signs and scents of my and Steve's torrid reunion long gone. I tried to push aside thoughts of how much I was already missing him and focus on what I was getting myself into. I must admit I was having serious qualms about going up to the Peten, the part of Guatemala where Sarah had been left for dead, with my brand-new tour director, the flaky Alan Dupre. I'd never been in a helicopter before, much less one flying over a stormy rain forest. On the other hand, if that was where they'd taken Sarah, the sooner I got there, the better. Sitting there in the room, I found myself feeling right at home: Everything about it was so familiar to an expert on budget travel like me. Off-brand carpet the color of decaying vegetation, the usual two double beds (one totally unused, except as a suitcase shelf), the TV suspended over the dresser and bolted to the wall. Funny, but it was the first time I'd noticed half the things in the room. Okay, I told myself, the thing to do first is call St. Vincent's and check on Lou. Also, I wanted to tell him what was happening. I just hoped he wouldn't launch into a lecture about the recklessness of what I was planning. I needed support, not male advice. I got the desk to give me the local AT&T contact number, then rang right through to St. Vincent's. The next thing I knew, they were calling his room. "Hi. How's the patient?" "Morgan, what the hell are you up to? I've been trying to reach you. I finally called David and he said you'd left a message; something about Central America. Why the hell--?" "I was trying to explain that to you Sunday night, but you were pretty far gone." "Well, I ain't that far gone now, so I'm telling you to--" "By the way," I interrupted, hoping to change the subject, "how're you feeling?" "I guess I'll live. They let me get up and go to the bathroom now. They're saying I can probably go home tomorrow." "That's encouraging." Thank God he was going to be okay. "I also had a talk with Gerry, downtown. He believes Sarah was kidnapped, even if New York's Finest don't, so that means the FBI has jurisdiction. We're gonna get some action. They're trying to get a photo of that colonel, so maybe I can ID the bastard. But the consulate's giving us a lot of shit about it." "Well, I'm tracking something down here. Between the two of us, I think we'll find her." "So, what the hell are you doing?" I told him about finding the name of a destination on Sarah's old landing card, and about meeting a guy who was going to take me there as soon as the weather cleared. "And you think she could be there now?" He didn't sound hopeful. "There're reasons to check it out." I didn't want to elaborate. "Maybe we'll get lucky." I was attempting to say as little as possible, fearing the phone was tapped. In that spirit, I decided to get off the line as quickly as possible. "Lou, you get lots of rest, and I'll try and call you tomorrow." With a final warning to watch out for myself, he took down my hotel number and hung up. Truthfully, he was sounding pretty tired and weak, not nearly his old self. Well, he had a right to be. But at least there were no complications. My next call was going to be to David Roth, to check in on things at Applecore, but first I wanted to order up some_ huevos rancheros_, get some breakfast protein. I was becoming energized by the prospect of progress, and being that way always makes me ravenous. It's probably a primal female response that has a Latin name. I checked out the number for room service, and was literally reaching for the black phone when it rang of its own accord. Startled I picked up the receiver, wondering who had my number. "Hello." It was a man's voice that sounded vaguely familiar. "Thought I'd check in and see how things are going with your search." "Hi," I answered back after a pause, trying to place his intonation. "Oh, sorry. Barry Morton. Remember me? Fortress America. You came by the office yesterday." "How . . . ?" Why was he calling me? "How did you get this--?" "You must have accidentally put the wrong hotel on your landing card as your address in Guatemala City." He hesitated a second then said "But I had my secretary call around and . . . well, it happens all the time." "I see." It did have the ring of logic. And I had put down a different hotel. A safety measure. "Do you always take this much . . . interest in your fellow citizens?" "Only when they come to see me personally." He chuckled. "So how's it going?" "Well, thanks for calling," I said. "Everything's moving along." "Good, good." There was another pause, then, "Incidentally, you having any luck finding that Ninos del Mundo place you were looking for?" I hesitated, wondering why he would ask and also unsure what to say. "Not yet," I volunteered. My God, it finally dawned on me. The guy was tracking me. He wanted to know what I knew. "You come up with anything at your end?" "I've been busy, a string of meetings, but I still think you might want to check out the phone book." It was the second time he'd made the suggestion. He was practically ordering me to do it. Why? "You never know. I'm afraid that's about the best I can do." "Maybe I will," I said. "I've been a little busy too." The phone call was feeling stranger and stranger. He was sending me to see something, probably in hopes it would make me go away. It was actually more unnerving than if he'd done nothing at all. "Well, in any case, I hope you have a good visit," he declared diplomatically. Another pause. "Planning to be here long?" "I'm not sure yet." Why did he want to know that? "I see. Whatever happens, I hope you find what you're looking for. Best of luck." He hung up, leaving me with the feeling he already knew the answer to every question he'd asked. The guys at the airport, and now the embassy--I was the best-known tourist in the country. Okay, maybe I should just play along and see what happens. In any case, I'd just lost my appetite for fried eggs with hot sauce, but I had a definite interest in the phone book. And there they were. Ninos del Mundo. Complete with an address, way out the Boulevar R. Aguilar Batres. Well, why not see where it leads you? Sarah's card said the place was in the Peten, but who knows? I got up off the bed and went into the bathroom for a shampoo and shower. Despite the fact that Barry Morton wanted me to see this Ninos del Mundo place, whatever it was, I didn't want to show up looking and smelling like some bedraggled tourist. I'd wear my tailored blue suit, which, along with the dark blue heels, ought to make me look adequately businesslike. The shower was wonderful, purging away the soot of the park, and I was wrapping my hair in a large beige towel when the phone jangled again. I tucked in the edge to secure it and walked over. Maybe it was Lou ringing back. No such luck. The caller was none other than my brand-new partner Alan Dupre. I was not thrilled to hear his voice. Was he about to get cold feet and back out? "Morgan, listen," he said, not wasting time on niceties, "there's been a small change of plans. I've--" "Alan, don't do this to me." You shit. "You agreed--" "No, why I'm calling is, we've got to go ahead and go up today, storm or no, God help us. You happy now?" What? After that neurotic song-and-dance he'd just given me in the park? I should have been overjoyed, but something about the whole thing immediately felt synthetic. I paused a long moment, trying to think the situation through. What was going on? The answer to that was clear as day. I was being set up. Somebody wanted me out of town, and they'd just found a way. Or was I being paranoid again? Had the weather cleared? I reached over and pushed aside a curtain. Nope, it looked as threatening as ever. No question. This was definitely a setup. On the other hand why not use whoever had put him up to this? This told me for sure I was on the trail of Sarah, and the sooner I got going, the better. Aside from calling New York and then checking out the local Ninos del Mundo that Barry Morton wanted me to see so badly, I had no other pressing plans. . . . "Alan, I thought you declared no 'effing' way were you going to go today," I said testing him. "Why the sudden revision in scheduling?" "Yeah, well, something heavy's come up for tomorrow. I'm afraid it's gotta be now or forget it for at least a week." Unrefined bullshit. But somebody knew how badly I wanted to go. "Look, there's something I need to check out first. I just learned about a place here in town I want to at least see. It's also called Ninos del Mundo." "No shit." He paused. "Okay, we'll talk about it. Get the address and maybe we can cruise by if there's time. Thing is, we don't have all that much leeway here." "One last question." I thought I'd give him a final shot at the truth. "Just tell me honestly why it has to be today. The real story." "Like I said everything's changed." He wasn't budging. "So if we're doing this, I've got to pick you up now and get us on our merry way." He was too cheerful by half, which definitely told me he was lying. "All right, but I really need to make at least one phone call first." I wanted Steve to know where I was. "And if I walk out of here with a bag, I've got to let the desk know I'm not skipping on the bill." "Forget the phone call. No time. Do it after we get back. Just be out front in exactly nineteen minutes. This is not a dry run. The train is leaving. I'm outta here now." There was a click and he was gone. I sat there a moment staring at the floor. What was I getting into? Well, there's one way to find out. Play their game and beat them. There's no better way to get inside what's going on. The first thing I did was call Steve's hotel in Belize City. Of course he wasn't there, but I left a long message to the effect that I was taking a "sightseeing" trip up to the Peten with Alan Dupre today because of unforeseen new circumstances. The reasons were complicated, but I'd watch out for myself and therefore he shouldn't worry. That out of the way, I looked around the room. It was a disaster, but I quickly began cramming things into the small folding backpack I always took on trips. Then I rang the kitchen and told them to make up a quadruple egg sandwich (_quatro huevos, por favor_) to go, along with a large bottle of distilled water. By the time I got to the reception desk and explained I wasn't actually checking out for good, Alan Dupre was already waiting outside in his battered green Jeep, cleaning his scratchy shades and leaning on the horn. Let him wait. I wrote out a long note to Steve, on the chance he might come looking for me. Then with deliberate slowness, I wandered out to where Alan's Jeep was parked and tossed my backpack behind the seat. "First things first." I climbed in and handed him the address of Ninos del Mundo I'd copied onto some hotel stationery. "This is where we've got to go." He stared at it a moment, puzzling, and then seemed to figure out where it was. "Upscale part of this beautiful oasis." He shifted into gear. "But it's more or less on the way." He glanced up nervously at the sky. "We just don't have all day." Off we headed toward the suburbs, through a ganglia of downtown streets laced with pizza joints and frying-meat vendors, till we eventually ended up on a tree-lined avenue that looked as genteel as Oyster Bay. When we got to the address, I told him to park across the way, and just sat a moment staring. The building itself was a windowless compound surrounded by trees and a high wall of white stucco, with a guardhouse and wide iron gate (not unusual for Guatemala) protecting a long walkway. The whole thing looked like a fortress, except the view through the gate was a pastoral vista of neat flower beds and a pristine lawn. The guardhouse itself had a dozing teenager, undoubtedly with an Uzi resting across his lap. "Okay, Alan," I said "time to get with the program. How's your Spanish?" "Depends on who I'm trying to BS." He shrugged and began cleaning his sunglasses again. "Well, why don't you see if you can talk us past that guard." He stared at the entrance a moment. "Be a waste of our precious time. Tell you right now, kids like that only answer to one boss, the _jefe_, the big guy, whoever he is. That's how they retain their employment. A joint locked down this tight don't give Sunday tours." "Well, I think he's asleep. So I'm going to be creative and see if there's a back entrance of some kind. Maybe a service area that'll give me some idea of what's going on here." "Do what you want, but make it fast," he said, leaning back in the seat. "And try not to get shot." I carefully got out and walked down the empty street a way, then followed the stucco wall/fence--the building covered an entire city block--until I came across an alley entrance, with another large iron gate, padlocked shut. I peered up the driveway, shrouded in overhanging trees, but there was nothing in the parking lot except a couple of Army Jeeps. And a black Land Rover. Well, Barry Morton really wanted me to see this. But why? Is there a connection to the place in the Peten? And what are the Army vehicles all about? I sighed and made my way back to the street. When I reached the Jeep, Alan was gone, but then I realized he was over talking to the young guard, offering him a cigarette. A few moments later he waved good-bye and casually ambled back. "Okay." He settled in and hit the ignition. "Here's the official deal. This place is some kind of hospice for unwed mothers. They also take in orphans, or so he thinks. According to him, no American women have ever had anything to do with the place, which is probably why I'd never heard of it." He glanced at me as we sped off. "You happy now? Debriefing young Army dudes is a specialty of mine, so I think that's probably the straight scoop." "Did you ask if it's connected with something in the Peten?" I was still hoping. In any case, whatever it was, I was collecting more pieces of the puzzle. "Hey, give me a break." He shifted up, gaining speed. "I know when to push, and this wasn't the precise moment. The kid was itchy enough as it was. Like, who the fuck are you, gringo, and what are you doing here? I got all I could get without a cold _cerveza_." He glanced over. "You ask me, a little gratitude wouldn't be entirely out of place." "Okay. _Muchas gracias, amigo_. Happy now?" "Ecstatic." The Jeep was open and I checked out the sky, which was growing darker and more threatening by the minute. The promised foul weather still seemed to be just that, promised but it was definitely on the way. Alan Dupre must really be scared. Finally I leaned back in the torn plastic seat and closed my eyes. Was this Ninos del Mundo the Latin branch of Children of Light? The place where Alex Goddard's babies came from? Considering the interest Colonel Ramos had in my movie, the Army Jeeps could be a tip-off. Also, there seemed to be an even chance that Barry Morton was involved somehow. But it was all still guesswork. And anyway, this wasn't the place Sarah had put on her landing card. _That _Ninos del Mundo was somewhere up north, hidden in the rain forest. Ready or not, Sar, hang on. Chapter Nineteen "What did he say?" I asked, not quite catching the burst of rapid-fire Spanish from the cockpit. The explosion of expletives had included the word _navegacion_. Something about malfunction. God help us. Alan Dupre's helicopter reminded me of the disintegrating taxis on Guatemala City's potholed streets. The vibration in the passenger compartment was so violent it made my teeth chatter. My stomach felt like it was in a cocktail shaker, and the deafening roar could have been the voice of Hell. I was staring out the smudgy plastic window, where less than three hundred meters below I could just make out the top of the Peten rain forest of northwest Guatemala sweeping by beneath us. So this was what it looked like. Dense and impenetrable, it was a yawning, deciduous carpet enveloping the earth as far as the eye could see--if something ten stories high could be called carpet. I'd been in the forests of India's Kerala and seen some of the denser growth in southern Mexico, but this was like another planet. The main problem was, a violent downpour, the leading edge of the hurricane, was now sweeping across the Yucatan, stirring up the treetops of the jungles below. The rain, which had begun in earnest about ten minutes after we got airborne, had been steadily increasing to the point it was now almost blinding. This was the risk I'd chosen to take, but let me admit right here: The weather had me seriously scared, my fingernails digging into the armrests and my pulse erratic. And now was there something else? We'd only been in the air for thirty-five minutes, and already we had some kind of mechanical issue looming? What was left to go wrong? "Some of the lights went out or something." Dupre tried a shrug. "I'm not sure. No big deal, though. This old bird always gets the job done." His pilot, Lieutenant Villatoro, formerly of the Guatemalan Army, had just shouted the new development back to the cabin. "Probably nothing. Don't worry about it." Don't worry about it! His "tourist" helicopter was a Guatemalan candidate for the Air & Space Museum, an old Bell UH-1D patched together with chicle and corn masa. Surely the storm was pushing it far beyond its stress limits. "Right, but what exactly--?" "Sounds like the nav station." He clicked open his seat belt. "Something . . . Who knows? If you'd be happier, I'll go up and look." I felt my palms go cold. "Doesn't seem too much to ask, considering." The world down below us was a hostile mélange of towering trees, all straining for the sky, while the ground itself was a dark tangle of ferns, lianas, strangler vines, creepers--among which lurked Olympic scorpions and some of the Earth's most poisonous snakes. If we had to set down here--I didn't even want to think about it. To lower a helicopter into the waves of flickering green below us would be to confront the hereafter. "It's just the lights, like he said." Dupre yelled back from the cockpit's door, letting a tone of "I told you to chill out" seep through. He was peering past the opening, at the long line of instruments. He followed his announcement with a sigh as he moved back into the main cabin. "Relax." I wasn't relaxed and from the way his eyes were shifting and his Gauloise cigarettes were being chain-smoked he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In his case it wasn't just the weather. He was fidgeting like a trapped animal, giving me the distinct sense he was doing someone's invisible bidding and was terrified he might fail. "Well, why don't you try and fix it?" Was he trying to act calm just to impress me? "Can't you bang on the panel or something?" "Okay, okay, let me see what I can do. Jesus!" He edged back into the cockpit, next to Villatoro. The wind was shaking us so badly that, even bent over, he was having trouble keeping his balance. Then he halfheartedly slammed the dark instrument readouts with the heel of his open hand. When the effort produced no immediate electronic miracle, he settled into the copilot's seat. "_Que pasa_? " he yelled at Villatoro, his voice barely audible over the roar of the engine and the plastering of rain on the fuselage. Then he looked out the windscreen, at the torrent slamming against it, and rubbed at his chin. "_No se, mi comandante_," the Guatemalan shouted back. I sensed he was hoping to sound efficient and unperturbed. Dupre claimed his pilot had personally checked out the Bell and prepped it. Now, though . . . "_Mira_. Like I said the lights. On the nav station. Maybe the electrical--" "How about the backup battery?" Dupre was just barely keeping his cool. Villatoro scratched his chin. "I'll tell you the truth. The backup is _muerto_. I tested it before we left, but I couldn't find any replacements in Provisiones. I figure, no problem, but now, amigo . . ." I felt another wave of dismay, right into my churning stomach. "Well, keep your heading north." Dupre's voice was coming from a place of extreme pain. "And if you sight the Rio Tigre, then _Baalum_ or whatever should be more or less due west, according to what I'm assuming. Just keep your eyes open." He paused. "Problem is, with all this rain, the river's going to be tough to make out." I redoubled my efforts to peer out the window, searching, my breath coming in bursts. Still nothing. Dear God, what now? Finally Dupre headed back, bracing himself against the firewall as he crouched and passed through the door into the main cabin. When he settled into the seat across from me, he was glaring at me as though everything was my fault. "You know." He was yelling again. "I'm beginning to think maybe we ought to try to find a clearing and just sit out this crap till morning." He leaned over and peered down through the Bell's spattered side windows at the dense tangle of growth below. After a moment he got up and once more moved the toward the cockpit, still with the same troubled look. This time, however, he was beaming as he shouted back. "There may be a God after all. I think we just intersected the Rio Tigre. We can bear due west now, along the river. We could be getting close, if it's where I think it is." I turned and stared down again, barely making out the thread of the stream through the rain. Yes! Maybe there's hope. Still, below us the windblown treetops were a solid mass of pastel sparkles, a dancing sea of hungry green . . . But then I thought I saw something. Hey! It might even be a clearing. I quickly unbuckled and made my way up to the cockpit, hanging on to anything I could grasp. "Alan, look," I yelled, and pointed off to the side, out through the rain-obscured windscreen. "I think we just passed over something. Back there. See?" "Where?" He squinted. "You can still just make it out." I twisted and kept pointing. I was biting my lip, trying to hold together. "There . . . it looks like some kind of clearing. Maybe . . . I don't know, but what if we just set down there and let this storm blow over?" He ordered Villatoro to bank and go back for a look. A few moments later it was obvious there was an opening in the trees. "Yeah, let's check it out." He then said something to Villatoro and we started easing toward it, definitely a wide opening. The billowing ocean of trees below us seemed to be parting like the Red Sea as we settled in. There had to be solid ground down there somewhere. Had to be. "What's . . ." I was pointing. "There, over to the side, it's a kind of hill or something. It's--" "Where?" Dupre squinted again, his voice starting to crack. Then he focused in. "Yeah, maybe there's something there. Hard to tell what it is, though. But I guess we're about to find out." He gestured to the lieutenant, barking an order in quick Spanish. While the Bell kept moving lower through the opening, Dupre flicked on the landing lights, and appeared to be muttering a prayer of thanks. I was staring out, growing ever more puzzled. A "hill" was there, all right. The problem was, it was definitely man-made, topped by a stone building. I could just make it out in the glare of the lights. "What do you think that is?" "What do I think?" Dupre studied the scene for a moment longer, and then his face melted into the first smile I'd seen since we left. "I think we are lucky beyond belief. God help us, we may have found it. That could be the damned pyramid or whatever's supposed to be up here." He leaned back. "Yeah, congratulations. Look at that damned thing. Either this is the place, or we're about to become the archaeologists of the year. Cover of _Time_. The Nobel frigging Prize." At that moment I almost wanted to hug Alan Dupre, but not quite. Instead I moved farther into the cockpit, trying to get a look out the windscreen. By then we had lowered well through the opening in the trees, the helicopter's controls fighting against the blowing rain, and it felt as though we'd begun descending into the ocean's depths in a diving bell, surrounded by thrashing, wind-whipped branches. Now, though, I was staring at the ghostly rise of the pyramid emerging out of the rain. "It looks brand new." "Yeah, the whole place is 'Jungle Disneyland' remember? Except this deal ain't about Mickey Mouse, believe me. There's plenty of Army hanging out around here." Lieutenant Villatoro took us ever lower, gently guiding the chopper's descent, and now we were only a few feet above the ground. There certainly was no mistaking what was around us, even with the blowing rain. The pyramid loomed over one side of a large plaza, a big paved area that was mostly obscured from the skies since the swaying trees arched over and covered it from aerial view. "Okay, we're about to touch down." Dupre was clawing at his pocket, yearning for a cigarette. "So if you still want to get out, move over by the door. I'll disengage the main rotor once we're on the ground." As we settled in, the rotor began to cause surface effect, throwing a spray off the paving stones, which now glistened under the cold beam of the landing lights. And looming above us, off to the right, was a stepped pyramid in the classic Mayan style. We all lapsed into silence as the Bell's skids thumped onto the stones. The ex-Army pilot, Villatoro, kept glancing over at the pyramid as though he didn't want to admit even seeing it. Did he know something Alan and I didn't? This was the moment I'd been bracing for. I was increasingly convinced somebody wanted me to see this place, whatever it was, but now what should I do? Well, the first thing was to dip my toe in the water, do a quick reconnoiter on the ground. If this really was _Baalum_, Dupre's Maya Disneyland, could it also be part of Alex Goddard's clinic of "miracles," the location Sarah called Ninos del Mundo? If I knew that for sure, then I could start figuring how to find out if she was here--as I suspected--and get her out of his clutches. Maybe the see-no-evil embassy might even be prodded into helping an American citizen for a change. "I'm getting out, to look around a little, but not till you turn off the engine. I want to be able to use my ears." "All right, but don't take all day. This kind of weather, I want to keep it warm." He turned to Villatoro and shouted the order. In the sheets of pounding rain, I figured that no one could have heard us come in. That, at least, was positive. When the rpm's of the engine had died away, I clicked open the Bell's wide door, slid it back, and looked around. In the glare of the landing lights I realized at once that the stones were old, weathered, and worn, but the grout that sealed them was white and brand new. The plaza was free of moss, clean as the day it was done--which did not appear to be all that long ago. Above me, the pyramid, continuous recessed tiers of glistening stones, towered into the dim skyline of trees. I stepped out onto the pavement, holding my breath. The plaza was almost football-field in size, reminding me of an Italian piazza. Around me the rain was lessening slightly, and as my eyes adjusted . . . my God. There wasn't just a pyramid here; through the sparkle of raindrops at the edge of the helicopter's lights I could see what looked like a wide cobblestone walkway leading into the dense growth just off the edge of the square, probably toward the south, away from the river, connecting the plaza with distant groups of small, thatch-roofed houses, set in clusters. . . . Could Alex Goddard's "miracle" clinic be in some collection of primitive huts? It made no sense. But I decided to try to get a closer look. I'd walked about thirty feet away from the helicopter, across the slippery paving, when I saw a flash of lightning in the southeast, followed by a boom of thunder that echoed over the square. At least I thought it was thunder. Or maybe the Army was holding heavy artillery practice somewhere nearby. Abruptly the rain turned into a renewed torrent, and the next thing I heard was the helicopter's engine start up again. Then I sensed the main rotor engage, a sudden "whoom, whoom, whoom" quickly spiraling upward in frequency. Hey! I told him not to--! When I looked back at the Bell's open door, Dupre was standing there, frantically searching the dark as he heaved out my tan backback and what looked like a rolled-up sleeping bag, both splashing down onto the rain-soaked paving. What! For a moment I thought the thunder, or whatever it was, must have completely freaked him. Then what was actually happening hit me with a horrifying impact. "Alan, wait!" I started dashing back, but now the main rotor was creating a powerful downdraft, throwing the rain into me like a monsoon. By the time I managed to fight my way through the spray, the rotor was on full power and Alan Dupre and his Bell were already lifting off. I reached up, and just managed to brush one greasy skid as he churned away straight upward into the rainy night. "You shit!" I yelled up, but my final farewell was lost in the whine of the engine. My God, I thought, watching him disappear, I've just been abandoned hundreds of miles deep in a Central American rain forest. Then it all sank in. Whoever had gotten to him was playing a rough game. They didn't want me just to see _Baalum_, they wanted me delivered here. Probably to secure me in the same place Sarah was. Colonel Ramos, or whoever had frightened Dupre into bringing me, had wanted us both. So what now? Were we both going to be "disappeared"? Staring around at the pyramid and the empty square, I could feel my heart pounding. Then I tripped over the rolled sleeping bag and sank to my knees there in the middle of the rain-swept plaza, soaked to the skin and so angry I was actually trembling. Up above me, Alan Dupre, king of two-timers, had switched off his landing lights, and a few moments later the hum of the Bell was swallowed by the night sounds of the forest--the high-pitched din of crickets, the piercing call of night birds, the basso groan of frogs celebrating the storm. And something else, an eerie sense of the unnatural. I can't explain it. Even the night songs of the birds felt ominous, the primeval forest reasserting its will. It was haunting, like nature's mockery of my desolation. I pounded the sleeping bag and felt . . . shit, how did I let this happen? Get a grip. I finally stood up and looked around. Maybe when God wants to do you up right, She gives you what you want. You used Alan Dupre just like you intended: He got you here. But there's more to the plan of whoever's holding his puppet strings. So the thing now is, don't let yourself be manipulated any more. Get off your soggy butt and start taking control of the situation. . . . That was when I sighted a white form at the south, forested edge of the plaza. What! I ducked down, sure it was somebody lurking there, waiting to try to beat me to death as they had Sarah. Did Ramos intend to just murder me immediately? But there was no getting away. If I could see them, they surely could see me. And where would I escape to anyway? I dug my yellow plastic flashlight out of my backpack and my hand shaking, flicked it on. The beam, however, was just swallowed up in the rain. All right. I strapped on the pack and taking a deep breath, threw the rolled sleeping bag over my shoulder and headed across the slippery paving toward the white, which now glistened in the periodic sheets of distant lightning. Meet them straight on. Try and bluff. When I got closer, though, I realized what I was seeing was actually just the skin of a jaguar, bleached white, the head still on, fearsome teeth bared which had been hung beside the paved pathway. Thank God. But then, playing my light over it, I thought, Bad sign. My first encounter at _Baalum_ is with a spooky, dead cat. It felt like a chilling omen of . . . I wasn't sure what. I studied it a moment longer with my flashlight, shivering, then turned and headed quickly across the plaza toward the pyramid now barely visible in the rain. If there were jaguars, or God knows what else, around I figured I'd be safer up at the top. When I reached the base and shined my light up the steps, I saw they were steeper than I'd thought, but they also looked to be part of some meticulous restoration and brand-new, probably safe to climb. And there at the top was a stone hut, complete with what appeared to be a roof. Good. If there hadn't been anything taller than it around I think I might have just climbed a tree. On the way up I began trying to digest what the place really was. The pyramid was "fake". . . or was it? A hundred years ago the eccentric Brit archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans whimsically "reconstructed" the Palace of Minos on Crete with his own money, and it's still a tourist highlight. So why couldn't somebody do the same with a reclaimed Mayan pyramid in Central America? Still, this was different, had the feel of being somebody's crazed obsession. As I topped the steps, I realized the building that crowned the pyramid was also a "restoration" like everything else, including a decorated wooden lintel above the door that looked to be newly lacquered. Bizarre. I moved through the door and unloaded my gear, then extracted my water bottle, now half-empty, for a pull. Finally I unrolled Alan Dupre's sleeping bag on the (dry) stone floor, removed and spread out my wet clothes, peed off the edge, then took a new pair of underpants, jeans, and shirt out of my backpack, donned them, and uneasily crawled in. I was shivering--whether from the soaking rain or from fright, I didn't know--and my teeth were trying to chatter. Was I hidden away enough to be safe? I didn't know. All I did know was, I was in something deeper than I'd ever been in my life, and I had no idea how I was going to get out. And I was both scared to death and angry as hell. Sarah was here, though, I was certain. Like a sixth sense, I could feel her presence, out there somewhere in the rain. For a moment I was tempted to just plunge into the storm looking for her, but a split second's reflection told me that was the stupidest thing I could do. Instead, I should try and get some rest, till the storm cleared, and keep periodic watch on the plaza in case somebody showed up. Then, the minute there was light, I'd hit the ground and go find her. I suppose nothing ever happens the way you plan. My mind was racing and my nerves were in the red, but I was so exhausted from the teeth-rattling trip in the Bell I couldn't really stay alert very long. In spite of myself, I eventually drifted off into a dreamless doze, a victim of the narcotic song of wind in the giant Cebia trees and the insistent drumming of forest rain on the roof. Chapter Twenty I awoke as a sliver of sun flashed through the stone doorway of the room and forest birds erupted around me in celebration. As I pulled myself up and moved over to the opening, a quick tropical glare burned into my face. My God, the dawn was electric; it was the purest blue I'd ever seen, a swath of artist's cobalt. An azure radiance from the sky glistened off the rain forest leaves around me. Had I dreamed the stormy, haunted world of the night before? When I looked down, everywhere below me was a bank of dense, pastel mist. Was the plaza really there or had I imagined it? I felt like the top of the pyramid was floating on a cloud. "Babylon." That was what Sarah had called this place. Ancient and mysterious. I took a breath of the morning air and wondered what would draw her back here. Was _Baalum _the ultimate escape from her other life? Even so . . . why would she want to return after somebody had tried to murder her? What was waiting down there in the fog? Turning back, I noticed that the room's inside walls were embossed with rows and rows of classic Mayan glyphs, like little cartoon faces, all molded in newly set plaster. To my groggy sight they seemed playful, harmless little caricatures, though next to them were raised bas-reliefs of warriors in battle dress. It was both sublimely austere and eerie, even creepy. I knelt down and rolled my sleeping bag, trying to clear my head. Then I stuffed my still-moist clothes into my backpack and thought about the river, the Rio Tigre, down somewhere at the back of the pyramid. And I felt my pulse rate edging up. The first thing I wanted to do was see it in the light of day. It had been Sarah's way out, the only thing I knew for sure she'd touched. Get going and do it. I headed through the rear door and down the back steps. When I reached the ground, the dense forest closed in around me, but I was certain the river lay dead ahead, through the tangle of trees. As I moved down a path that grew ever steeper, the canopy up above thickened, arching over me till it blotted out the pure blue of the sky. And the air was filled with nature sounds--birdcalls, trills, songs, and clacks, all mingled with the hum and buzz of insects. Then suddenly, from somewhere up in the canopy, a pack of screeching spider monkeys began flinging rotten mangos down in my direction. I also thought I heard the asthmatic, territorial roar of a giant howler monkey, the lord of the upper jungle. And what about snakes? I kept an eye on the vines and tendrils alongside the path, expecting any moment to stumble across a deadly fer-de-lance, a little red-and-black operator whose poison heads straight for your nervous system. On the other hand, the birds, the forest birds, were everywhere, scarlet macaws and keel-billed toucans and darting flocks of Amazon parrots, brilliant and iridescent, their sweeping tails a psychedelic rainbow of green, yellow, red. Then the next thing I knew, the path I was on abruptly opened onto a mossy expanse of pea-soup green, surely the Rio Tigre, and . . . My God, those dark-brown bumps scattered everywhere . . . they're the eyes and snouts of . . . yes, crocodiles, lurking there in wait, hoping I'm dumb enough to wade in. Forget what Alan Dupre said. This is definitely not "Disneyland." Then I glanced upstream and caught sight of a string of mahogany dugout canoes tied along the shore. They were huge, about fifteen feet long and three feet wide, and clearly designed to be crocodile-resistant. They . . . Wait a minute. Lou said Sarah was found in a dugout canoe that had drifted all the way down the Rio Tigre to where it joins the Usumacinta. One more clue she might have been here. Maybe I was closing in. _Yes!_ I glared back at the crocodiles' unblinking reptile eyes and tried to get my mind around the fact Sarah could have stood right where I was standing, or been set adrift from here in a coma, to float downstream. Seeing that vision, I felt unbidden tears trailing down my cheeks. And the questions I had kept piling up. Was this the location of Alex Goddard's "miracle" clinic? Why was _Baalum _such a high-security secret? What was the connection between this place and Sarah's ravaged mind and body? I wanted to know all of it, and by God I would. This was the farthest I'd ever been from "civilization," though I was trying not to let that fact sink in too deeply. The water was green and full of small aquatic creations, but I managed to find a reasonably unmossy spot and--still keeping an eye on the leering crocodiles--splashed my face. It felt good, even if it was filthy. . . . Okay, I'd seen enough of the river. I raised up and stretched. Time to go. My hopes at war with my nerves, I turned my back on the scummy, fetid Rio Tigre and headed back up the jungle trail toward the plaza. When I got there, I was struck all over again by the vision of the pyramid. Something like it might have been here originally, but in any case it had been completely redone, with newly cut yellowish stones and white lime plaster, an exotic castle nestled in the green lap of the rain forest, rising above the square like a haunting presence. It must have been well over a hundred feet high, a stone wedding cake with a dozen steep tiers between the ground and the platform at the top, which also was square and roughly fifteen feet on the side. Standing there gazing at it, I think I'd never felt more disoriented. Sarah, Sarah, how could we both end up here, at the last outpost of the known world? But seeing is believing. I took a deep breath, then turned down the pathway toward the thatch-roofed huts. Through the mist it was gradually becoming clear that _Baalum_ actually was a village, and a sizable one. The walkway led past a string of clearings, each with clusters of one-room huts built in the ancient, classical style, with walls of mud over rows of vertical saplings, their roofs and porches peaked with yellow-green thatch weathering to browns and grays. The structures, outlined starkly against the towering green arbor of the forest above, were grouped around paved patios. It all was neat and meticulous, like a jungle Brigadoon. Although the effects of the storm were everywhere--blown thatch and bamboo--I still felt as if I'd fallen into a time warp where clocks had gone backward. What . . . ? Then I began to catch the outlines of people, as though they had materialized out of the pale fog. All pure Maya, short and brown, shiny black hair, they appeared to be just going about their daily lives. I was approaching a workshop area where, under a wide thatch shade, men with chipped-flint adzes were carving bowls, plows, various implements from mahogany and other rain forest woods. Next to them, potters were fashioning brown clay jugs. They all were wearing white loincloths and a large square cotton cloth knotted around their shoulders, their hair tied back in dense ponytails. It must have been how the Maya looked a thousand years ago. Their earnestness reminded me of the villagers I once filmed in the Yucatan for the Discovery Channel--with one big difference: There I was the big-shot gringo; here I felt like a powerless time traveler. The sense of being lost in another age was as compelling as the "colonial" mock-up at Williamsburg, but this was real and it was decidedly spooky. Finally one of the men looked up and noticed me. Our eyes locked for an instant--it seemed like forever--and then he reached over and, in a way that seemed breathless, shook the man next to him, gesturing toward me. Together they gazed back as though viewing a phantom, their brown faces intent, and then they turned and called out to the others, alerting them. What are they going to do with me? I wondered with a sudden chill. A stranger here in their hideaway midst. Would they just turn on me? Find some women. Get off the street. I turned and headed as fast as I could down the cobblestone central path, till I saw a cluster of females on a whitewashed stone porch, long hair falling over their shoulders as they bent to their tasks beneath the thatch overhangs. Some were stirring rugged clay pots of corn soaking in lime; others were grinding the softened maize to tortilla thinness on wide granite platters. Behind them was another group that appeared to be part of a sewing commune, young wives busy at their back-strap looms, layering thread after thread of dyed cotton. None of them was wearing a _huipil_--the traditional multicolored blouse I'd remembered from the waitresses in the restaurant. Instead, they all had on a kind of handloom-woven white shift I'd never seen before. Talk to them. Let them know you're no threat to anybody. As I moved down the hard clay pathway toward them, two looked up and took notice. Their first reaction seemed to be alarm, as they tensed and stared. But then I tried a smile and it seemed to work. Their looks turned to puzzlement, then embarrassed grins, as though they wanted to be friendly but weren't sure how to acknowledge my presence. When I reached the porch, several reached out to touch me. One older woman, short and wizened and extremely brown, even tried to stroke my hair. What was going on? I was taken aback, but I also was determined to get through to them. Why not just ask them point-blank if Sarah's here? Is there any chance they understand Spanish? "_Buenos dias_." I smiled and nodded. "_Dispenseme. Quiero descubrir . . . esta una gringa de los Estados Unidos aqui? _" They all returned uncomprehending looks, then glanced quickly at each other in confusion. Or at least that was how I read their faces. "Sarah," I said, pronouncing the name slowly. "Sarah Crenshaw." "Sara," one voiced, then others. They backed away and immediately began a heated dispute, which eventually involved all the women. Well, one thing was for sure: They damned well knew who I was asking about. But why were they so upset? Next, several of them grew testy, pointing at me as they continued to argue. Finally the two I'd first approached turned and began urging me to leave, gesturing at me with their hands as though sweeping me out of the compound. Yes, there was no mistaking. I was being dismissed. And I detected an odd nervousness as they glanced around, seemingly worried somebody might catch me there with them. I got the feeling they'd finally decided they didn't want me anywhere near them, since they kept pointing down the thoroughfare in the direction of the pyramid. I've blown it, I thought. They must have figured out I'm here to get her and decided they no longer want to have anything to do with me. What did that mean? And now what do I do? As I retreated back out to the main walkway, I felt a growing sense of defeat. Then, looking down it, I realized I'd literally been going in a circle. It was actually a large oval that curved back to the main square and the pyramid, where I'd started from. God, what a nightmare. I obviously had to rethink my game plan, find a way to communicate. And on top of that, I was dying of thirst. I fished out the almost-empty plastic container from my backpack, then walked across the square and settled myself on the first step leading up the steep front. As I drew on the bottle, my mind still swirling, I happened to notice an upright stone slab off to the side, like a tall, thin tombstone, with a bas-relief of a Maya warrior on it, next to some kind of two-headed serpent god--probably Kukulkan, one of the few Maya deities I knew. And then, down the side, were rows of lines and dots. I studied them a minute before realizing it was the classical Mayan number system, telling precisely when things happened to the ruler shown there: born on such and such a date, assumed the kingship, won great battles, etc., all carefully dated as career high-points. I knew that dots represented single years, horizontal lines the number five. The Maya loved numbers and numerology, so . . . That was when I glanced up to see a group of women approaching slowly across the square, with a bunch of the men watching from the forest arbors beyond, and they were huddled around something they were carrying. Whatever it was, they seemed to be delivering it to me. Then I realized they were the same ones who'd just kicked me out of their compound. What next? Are they coming to drive me from the plaza too? Should I try and forcibly search all the huts? But then they set down their load--it turned out to be a crude bamboo-and-thatch palanquin--and stepped aside as they beckoned me forward. For a moment I just stared, disbelieving. I felt like I was seeing someone I didn't want to recognize, perhaps because that someone looked so much like me. "Morgy, they told me a new one was here, and I hoped it was you." Sarah was swinging her skinny legs off the side, her voice bright. Her face was drawn, but her hair was neat and her eyes were radiant. "Isn't _Baalum_ the most wonderful place you've ever seen?" She was wearing a white shift that reminded me of the blue hospital smock she'd had on the last time I saw her, except here it seemed more like something that had a special significance, like the robes of an acolyte. Her shoes were soft brown slippers that looked brand-new, and around her waist was a braided leather band. As I stared at her, I wondered if she was really as transformed as she looked. She was undeniably stronger than two days ago, in spite of what that bastard Alex Goddard and his Guatemalan Army cronies had done to her to get her here. But still, she had to be half dead. Thank God Lou couldn't see her now. "Sar, oh, Sar." I rushed over and threw my arms around her. She'd been freshly bathed and perfumed--a fragrance like chocolate--but she felt like a bag of bones. "Are you okay?" "I was afraid _Baalum_ was all just a dream." She hugged me back, then started rising to her feet. God, could she walk? "But now I remember everything." "Sar, I've come to take you home." I grasped her hand, warm and soft, to help her stand--though it wasn't necessary. "You're not safe--" "No, it's wonderful now" Then she turned and said something to one of the women. It took me a moment to realize she was speaking their language; I guessed it was Kekchi Maya. I was stunned. How did she learn it? Finally she looked back at me and switched to English again. "I didn't understand before. I was . . . sick so much." "Sar, come on." I slipped my arm around her. "We're going to get you out of here." I'd never felt so helpless. Alan Dupre had said there was a road, but it was controlled by the Army. Right now, I didn't even know where it was. Maybe I could find a phone, or radio. Call the embassy. There must be something. Alex Goddard has to be here somewhere, but he's not going to stop me. I'll strangle him if he tries. I hugged her again, the feel of her skin-and-bones frame making my soul ache. But most hurtful of all, I wasn't sure she would want to leave. "Sar, can you understand me?" I tried to catch her deep blue eyes. "I'm taking you home. Your father's very worried about you." Mention of Lou seemed to finally get through to her. She turned and examined me with a quizzical look, and then her eyes hardened. "Morgy, he was never there for me." Her voice was filled with certainty, and pain. "But when I went to see Dr. Goddard he let me come here for the ceremony. It's so spiritual. After--" "Sar, come on." What did she mean by "ceremony"? Whatever it was, I had to get her out of this place. Immediately. "We've--" "Are you here for the ceremony?" Her face flooded with renewed joy. "It's two days from now. Maybe he'll let you--" "She should be resting." It was a harsh voice, directly behind us. I recoiled, then whirled around. Three men were standing there, two of them young privates in uniforms of the Guatemalan Army and carrying AK-47 assault rifles, the ones with the long, ominous curved clip Steve called _cuerno de cabrio_, the "horn of the goat." The third was in a black sweatshirt and black jeans, his long salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a ponytail. "They should have known better than to bring her out here," Alex Goddard said. "Not in her condition." The bastard. It was all coming together in my mind. He'd tried to kill her once before, and now he was going to finish the job. But he'd have to kill me first. "I'm here to take her home." I marched up to him. "You're not about to get away with kidnapping. I'm going to get the embassy to--" "She's here for important medical reasons." He met my eyes. "I hope you'll allow me the opportunity to help her." "What do you mean, 'help'?" "I'll explain if you'll give me a chance." He revolved and delivered some brusque orders in Kekchi Maya to the women, who nodded apologetically and began helping Sarah back onto the palanquin. After he admonished her in the same language, he then said something in quick Spanish to the two young Army privates, who gave him a firm salute, turned, and walked over to pick the palanquin up, to carry it for the women. The sense of authority he exuded reminded me of that first morning we met at Quetzal Manor. His eyes flashed from benign to demanding to benign in an instant. "No, damn it, _alto_!" I strode over, shoved the soldiers aside, and took her hand. "Sar, honey, don't you understand what's going on? Something terrible happened to you when you were here before. I'm so worried--" "But he says I need to stay, Morgy." She drew back. "It's best. He's helping me." As I watched the two privates carry her away, down the cobblestone pathway, AK-47's swung over their shoulders, I felt my helplessness become complete. The Army here was under his control, just like everything else. How was I going to tell Lou about this, that Sarah had been brainwashed? Whatever Alex Goddard had done to her had turned her into some kind of "Moonie," ready to denounce her own father. So now did I have two battles to wage: one with Alex Goddard and one with her? Then he walked over to me. "I'm not going to ask how you got here, though I assume it wasn't easy." He smiled, like a kindly priest, and put his hand on my shoulder. "But however you did it, I'm glad you decided to come. It's important for you to be here. She needs you now." Chapter Twenty-one "Cut the crap." I pulled away, still in shock from seeing Sarah so addled. I wanted more than anything else in the world just to slug him. "Why did you bring her here? Think about your answer. Kidnapping is a serious crime in the States." "I've been very concerned about her." He looked up at the groves of Cebia trees around the square, a quiet glance, as though to inhale the misty morning air. My legal threat had gone right past him--probably because here he was the only law. "But now she's receiving the treatment she needs. I expect she'll be fine before long." "Treatment?" I was caught off guard. Okay, let's start getting things straight. "When she was here before, somebody tried to beat her to death. How--?" "What happened then was beyond my control." He motioned me to join him as he settled onto the first step of the pyramid sadness in his eyes. We were alone in the square now, and I felt like I'd become his personal prisoner, trapped. "Sarah was . . . is very dear to me. I care for her deeply." "You cared so much for her she ended up in a coma, over on the Mexican border." I didn't sit. Instead I just bored in, hoping to stare him down, but his eyes had grown distant, that little trick he had of alternating between intimacy and remoteness. Again it reminded me of that first morning we'd met, looking out over the bluffs of the Hudson. "If you'll let me, I'd like to try and tell you something of the circumstances surrounding that tragedy." He was gazing off in the direction the women had gone. "You see, when Sarah first appeared at Quetzal Manor in New York, she was a very troubled young woman. She declared she was a person of pure spirit and she wanted to have a baby without so much as touching a man, some procedure that would produce a divine child created of cosmic energy." Cosmic energy. I had a flashback, hearing the words, to the time when she'd just turned six and we'd been sent by my mother to the hayloft to track down nests secreted there by rogue chicken hens. When we came across a cache of eggs, she asked if baby chicks came out of them. I assured her they did, and then she asked if human babies came from eggs too. My biology was pretty thin, but I told her I supposed they did, sort of, but then the eggs were probably hatched, or something, before babies were born. She thought about that a moment, scrunching up her face, then declared "No!" and bitterly began smashing the eggs. Babies and all living things came from another world, she declared, a special place we could not see. They came directly from God. . . . That was why she would seek out someone like Alex Goddard. For her, he must have seemed a messenger of the Unseen. Who better to create a child for her? The ironic part was, I'd found him for almost the same reason, seeking a miracle when all else had failed. Were Sarah and I even more alike than I'd realized? "So I began trying to work with her." He was turning back to me. "But then I discovered she'd been born with an abnormality of the uterus. It has a medical name, but suffice to say it's very rare, and afflicts only about one woman in twenty thousand. Even after my diagnosis, though, she refused to give up. She was a person of enormous tenacity." God, I thought. Why didn't she come home to us, to Lou and me? We loved her. I felt my guilt go out to her all over again. "She next declared she wanted to come here to _Baalum_, to the place of miracles. I told her that, yes, miracles can sometimes transpire here, but only at a great price. We would need to have an agreement and she would have to keep it no matter what." "What do you mean, an agree--?" "Truthfully, though," he went on, ignoring me, "I immediately regretted the offer, since I realized she was far too unstable for this . . . environment. Finally I forbade her to come, but just before my next scheduled trip she found out and booked herself on the same flight. There was literally nothing I could do to stop her." "She put Ninos del Mundo on her landing card." I was growing sick to my stomach at the rehearsed way he was recounting her story. "That's this place, right? _Baalum_." "My clinic here is known by that name. The village itself is called Baalum." He was easily meeting my eye, holding his own in our battle of wills. "Sarah was, I have to say, a very impressionable young person. Once here, she forgot all about her purpose for coming. She should have stayed up the hill there"--he was pointing off to the south--"where I could care for her, but instead she moved down here, into the compounds. Then she discovered a hallucinogenic substance they have here, began using it heavily, and I think it tipped her into a form of dementia." So, she was doing drugs, something I'd always secretly feared. Well, maybe she was still having flashbacks of some kind; maybe that explained why she was off in another world when she came out of her coma. "What . . . kind of 'hallucinogenic substance'?" He sighed then shrugged and answered. "Here in the rain forest there's an ugly three-pound toad the _Bufo marinus_--you'll see them around, near sunset--that has glands down its back that excrete a milky white poison." I knew about them. They were migrating north now, even into Florida. They were huge and looked like Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars. I hate toads of all varieties, but the thought of those monsters made me shudder. "My God, isn't their toxin lethal?" Was Sarah trying to destroy herself? Was that why her mind was so blitzed? "I've heard--" "Yes, it can kill you, but it can also--if processed correctly, with fermented honey--give you truly supernatural visions. The classical Maya used it for ceremonial purposes. I'd managed to reconstruct how they prepared it, and--something I now deeply regret--I showed the shamans here how to replicate the procedure. At the time it was just a minor part of my research into traditional pharmacology, but she heard about it and persuaded them to give her a vial. Then more and more." That did sound like Sarah. Always out on the edge, testing new realities. But then I thought a moment about what he'd actually said. Some of the people here in his "place of miracles" were doing heavy drugs, and she'd got caught up in it. "But why didn't you stop her?" You unfeeling bastard. "I tried, believe me. But I'm afraid she was far past listening to me. By then she was learning the Kekchi Maya dialect, becoming totally immersed in their world. She began having episodes of complete non-rationality, and then one day she told the women in her compound she was going over to Palenque, the Maya ruins in Mexico. It's where the classical Maya held their last kingship ceremony. Before anyone realized she was serious, she stole one of their _cayucos_, their mahogany dugout canoes, and headed down the Rio Tigre." His eyes had turned completely dark, the way he used to blank them out. "She just went missing. Everyone here was devastated. We all loved her." I stood there weighing his story. It didn't ring true. I supposed she was capable of something that crazy, but would she have actually done it? I didn't think so. Then I remembered something else he'd said. "You said you proposed an 'agreement.' What was that about?" He stared at me. "It's nothing that need concern us. Suffice to say I kept my part. Anyway, it's over and past now." Why wouldn't he tell me? Did she make some bargain with the Devil? "But regarding Sarah," he went on, "I only just learned she'd been found and brought to New York in a coma. Wanting to do what I could, I immediately called the hospital and, out of professional courtesy, they told me she'd shown early stages of coming out of it, but she appeared to be hallucinating. It was exactly what I'd feared. . . ." His voice trailed off. "I hope I did the right thing, but when I learned she'd been released, I arranged for her to be brought back here, where perhaps I can do something for her." "What?" "In rare cases, the hallucinogen she took permanently alters critical synapses in the brain. I'm fearful she may have abused it to the extent something like that could have occurred. No one in the U.S. would have the slightest idea what to do, but I think I may know of an herbal antidote they turned to in ancient times that can repair at least part of the damage. I also knew that getting her back here through normal channels would be impossible." "So you had Colonel Ramos and a bunch of his Guatemalan thugs just break in and take her?" I didn't know which part of the story horrified, and angered, me the most. "I have the misfortune to know him reasonably well, and I explained it was very important to me, and he agreed to assist. I honestly didn't know where else to turn. I understand there may have been some violence, for which I apologize, but these people have their own way of doing things." He rose and came over and put his hand on my shoulder. "I hope you'll understand." The son of a bitch was coming on oily and contrite, when he'd just subcontracted an outright kidnapping. I wanted to kill him. Finally I walked away, trying to get a grip on my anger. "You know, that bastard also broke into my apartment and stole a reel of a picture I'm shooting." I turned back. "I've also got a strong feeling he's the one who just threatened one of the women I filmed." "Well, if that happened, then let me say welcome to the paranoid harassment of the Guatemalan high command." He sighed against the morning sound of birds chirping all around us. "Unfortunately, I gather they've assumed you're documenting the operations of Children of Light in some way, doing a movie." His eyes drifted off into space, as though seeking a refuge. "You see, my project up here in the Peten is to carry out pharmaceutical research with as few distractions as possible. But in Guatemala City, I have what is, in effect, a hospice for girls in trouble--which is also called Niiios del Mundo, by the way--that's connected with my U.S. adoption service, Children of Light. However, any time Niiios del Mundo takes in an orphaned or abandoned infant and tries to provide it with a loving home through adoption in the States, the government here always threatens to hold up the paperwork if I don't give a bribe, what they call an 'expediting fee.' So if you were to probe too deeply . . . Let me just say it's not something they'd care to see lead off 60 Minutes." It sounded like more BS, but I couldn't prove that. Yet. "Well, why don't you just clear that up, and then I'll take Sarah and--" "But I've only now initiated her treatment. Surely you want to give it a chance." I looked out at the rain forest. This was the place she'd come to once, and--though I'd never admit it to Alex Goddard--it was the place she'd announced she wanted to return to. But something devastating had happened to her mind here. What should I do? The fact was, I didn't trust Alex Goddard any farther than I could throw him. I had to get Sarah and get us both out of here as soon as possible, though that meant I'd have to neutralize him and the Army, and then use my limited American dollars to try to buy our way back to Guatemala City. "But come." He turned his gaze toward the south. "Let me show you the thing I'm proudest of here. It's just up there." He was pointing toward a dense section of the rain forest, in the opposite direction from the river and up a steep incline. I couldn't see anything but trees, but then I still had the feeling I'd stepped through the looking glass and found Sarah trapped there. The next thing I knew, we were on an uphill forest trail, headed due south. "I think it's time you told me what's going on back there in the village," I said. What was it about this place that had seized such a claim on Sarah's mind? "_Baalum_ is difficult to explain to someone encountering it for the first time." He paused. "Much of it is so--" "I think I can handle it." "You have every right to know, but I don't really know where to start." "How about the beginning?" Why was he being so ambiguous? "Very well." He was taking out a pair of gray sunglasses, as though to gain time. "It actually goes back about ten years ago, when I was prospecting for rainforest plants up here in the Peten and accidentally stumbled across this isolated village, which clearly had been here since classical times. I immediately noticed a huge mound of dirt everybody said was haunted by 'the Old Ones,' and I knew right away it had to be a buried pyramid. They're more common down here than you'd think. So I struck a bargain with the village elders and acquired the site. But after I unearthed it and began the restoration, I became inspired with a vision. One day I found myself offering to restore anything else they could find--which eventually included, by the way, a magnificent old steam bath--in exchange for which they would help me by undertaking a grand experiment, a return to their traditional way of life." "So you deliberately closed them off to the modern world?" It told me Alex Goddard could control a Mayan village just as he controlled everything else he touched. It also confirmed he had a weakness for the grandiose gesture. Would a time come when I could exploit that? "I told them that together we would try to recreate the time of their glory, and perhaps in so doing we could also rediscover its long-lost spirit, and wisdom. On the practical side, they would help me by bringing me the rare plants I needed to try and rediscover the lost Native American pharmacologies, and in return I would build them a clinic where families can come for modern pediatric and public-health services. So _Baalum _became a project we share together. I call it a miracle." That still didn't begin to explain why it felt so eerie. Something else was going on just under the surface. What was he really doing here? Then the path uphill abruptly opened onto a clearing in which sat a large two-story building, its color a dazzling white, most likely plaster over cinder block, with a thatch roof and a wide, ornate mahogany door at the front. The building was nestled in a grove of trees whose vines and tendrils had embraced it so thoroughly, there was no telling how far it extended back into the forest. There also was a parking lot, paved and fed by a well-maintained gravel road leading south. Seeing it, I felt an immediate wave of relief. Even better, the lot itself contained half-a-dozen well-worn pickup trucks, while sunburned Maya men were lounging in the shade of a nearby tree and smoking cigarettes. They were not from Baalum. They wore machine-made clothes and they were speaking Spanish, unlike the men in loincloths down in the village. Yes! That's how I can get us out of here. A few dollars . . . Parked there also was a tan Humvee, the ultimate all-road vehicle, which I assumed belonged to Alex Goddard. Maybe I should just try to steal it. As we passed through the door and into the vestibule of the building, I glimpsed a cluster of Maya women and children crowded into a brilliantly lit reception area. Goddard smiled and waved at them, and several nodded back, timorously and with enormous reverence. They were being attended by a dark-eyed, attractive Maya woman in a blue uniform--the name lettered on her blouse was Marcelina--who was holding a tray of vials and hypodermic needles. She was pure _indigena_, all of five feet tall, with broad cheekbones and deep-set penetrating eyes. Unlike the other women in the room, however, there was no air of resignation about her. She was full of authority, a palpable inner fire. "One of my most successful programs here"--he nodded a greeting to her--"is to provide free vaccinations and general health resources for the villages in this part of the Peten Department." "I thought USAID already had public-health projects in Guatemala." The sight deeply depressed me. They all looked so poignant, the women with their shabby _huipils_ and lined faces, the children even more disheartening, sad waifs with runny noses and watery eyes. Which confirmed again that they'd come in the pickups parked outside, driven here by the men. I had six hundred cash in dollars. I could just buy one of those worn-out junkers for that. Alex Goddard glanced around, as though reluctant to respond in the presence of all the Maya. "You saw those 'security guards' down there just now. They're nothing but boys with guns, 'recruits' kidnapped by the government on market day and pressed into the Army. They're all around here. The powers that be in Guatemala City are very threatened by what I'm achieving, so they've got these Army kids hanging around, keeping an eye on me. They also hate the fact I can provide health services better than they can. But to answer your question, most of the AID money gets soaked up by the bureaucracy in Guatemala City, so the people up here have learned to rely on me. The Army, however, despises me and everything I'm doing." What a load of BS. You just admitted you had an inside track with Colonel Alvino Ramos. Anybody can see Children of Light or Ninos del Mundo, or whatever the hell other aliases you use, is thick as thieves with the Guatemalan Armed Forces. Don't insult my intelligence. It just makes me furious. I turned to Marcelina. She'd begun passing out hard-sugar candies to the mesmerized children, showing them how to remove the cellophane before putting them into their mouths. Though she was pure Maya, she looked educated. I instinctively liked her. Maybe she could tell me what was really going on here. "Do you speak English?" "Yes." She was gazing at me with a blend of curiosity and concern. "If--" "I've got a procedure scheduled shortly," Goddard interjected, urging me on down the tiled hallway. "But I need to take a moment and recharge. Come with me and we can talk some more." Near the end of the hall, we entered a spacious, country-style kitchen. He walked over and opened the refrigerator. "Care for a little something to eat?" He looked back, speckled white hair swinging across his shoulders as his ponytail came loose. "I had Marcelina whip up some gazpacho last night and I see there's some left. It's my own secret recipe, special herbs from around here. It's good and good for you." "I'm not hungry." It wasn't true. I was growing ravenous. But I was repressing the feeling because of everything else that was going on. His "village" was holding back its secrets, and now his clinic of "miracles" also felt suspiciously wrong. I'd seen plenty of rural public-health operations in developing countries, and this setup was far too big and fancy. The whole thing didn't begin to compute. "As you like." He gave an absent shrug. I looked around and noticed that just off the kitchen was another space, which was, I realized, his private dining room. There was a rustic table in the center that looked like it had been carved from the trunk of a large Cebia tree. I walked in, and moments later he followed carrying a tray with two calabash bowls of gazpacho and some crusty bread. "In case you change your mind and decide to join me." He placed a bowl opposite where he was planning to sit. "Like I said, there're unusual herbs around here with flavors you've never dreamed of." He began eating, while behind him I glimpsed Marcelina moving down the hall, carrying more trays of vaccine and headed out toward the vestibule again. I had to find a way to talk to her. As I settled into the rickety chair that faced my plate, I glanced down and saw a red lumpy mixture with a spray of indefinable green specks across the top like a scattering of jungle stars. No way. When I looked up again, he was swabbing his lips with a white napkin, his penetrating eyes boring in. "Now," he said, "it's time we started concentrating on you. Got you going with your program." Chapter Twenty-two "My program?" I stared back at him, feeling a jolt. With my thoughts completely focused on Sarah, the last thing on my mind was my own baby. "Now that you're here"--he smiled--"there's no reason we shouldn't proceed. This is, after all, a place of miracles." Right. You let Sarah destroy her mind and now you want me to . . . Don't even think about it. "I have to tell you, I'm not overly impressed thus far with your 'program,' " I said. "First I passed out in your clinic, and then my doctor in New York told me those drugs Ramala gave me are highly illegal, and for good reason." "What is 'legal' is more often than not the judgment of medical reactionaries." He dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand. "My work has moved far beyond anything the FDA has ever dreamed of." Then his look turned grave. "I hope you'll give me a chance to try to help you. I've been giving your case a lot of thought since our first examination, about what we should do. But first let me ask you . . . do you have a partner who could come here soon?" Okay, maybe the thing to do was appear to play along for a while, move under his radar, and then get Sarah and split. "It's a possibility." He smiled again. "Excellent. If this person can come here to the clinic for a . . . deposit, then we could put you on a fast-track schedule." "One thing at a time. First I'd like to know exactly what it is you have in mind." Would his "program" include stringing me out on the toad drug, the way he'd done with Sarah? "Of course." He leaned forward in his chair. "I believe that, given your history, an in-vitro procedure would have the highest chance of success. You undoubtedly know how it works. We remove a number of eggs by aspiration and grade them for maturity and viability, after which we fertilize them to begin embryos growing. Then we pick the most promising for implantation." "In vitro is invasive and dangerous and there's a lot that can go wrong." I genuinely hated the idea. "To some extent." He examined his watch for a moment, then looked up. "But let me just say this. Since any reproductive therapy, particularly in vitro, is strongly dependent on the factor of timing, I've developed experimental compounds down here that can regulate egg maturities very precisely. It minimizes a lot of uncertainties, which is why we're so lucky you're . . ." He paused. "Look, the first thing we need to do is put you on a strict regimen of diet and spiritual discipline, using my system for regulating your Chi, your energy flows. Then, if you respond we can start thinking about the procedure. And should you eventually decide you want to go ahead and you can have your partner come here, we could possibly have everything done in just a few days." "Well, you can forget about me taking any 'experimental compounds.' " How long could I stall him? "Morgan, there's more to this." His look grew pained. "It's awkward to bring it up, but your presence here creates no small difficulty for me. I told you certain people in the military high command have concerns about the film you're making. And then the next thing they know, you show up here. It's just going to heighten their paranoia. But if I can convince them you're here for fertility treatment . . . In any case, it's important that nothing you, or I, do is at odds with that presumption. I hope it's true, but even if you chose to forgo it, I still need to put you on my normal regimen. You understand." That's baloney. Somebody had me brought to _Baalum_. Whoever did it knows full well why I'm here. The problem is, I still don't know what they really want. "Well, you can say I've come to take Sarah home," I told him. "That seems reason enough." "The other story is simpler to explain." He took a last bite of gazpacho, then rested his pewter spoon on the table. "Take my word for it." "And what if I don't choose to go along with this charade?" "We would both be in jeopardy. They're entirely capable of . . . things I'd rather not have to elaborate on." I sat there, feeling a chill envelop the room. How was I going to get out of this place? "By the way, a while ago Sarah mentioned something about a 'ceremony.' What's that--?" "It's a special time here." His gaze shifted to the ceiling. "In fact, it's supposed to take place in three days, but the Army has informed me it has to be two days from now. That's the day they rotate the troops here, so there'll be double strength." "But why do they need--" "Things can get a bit frenzied." He smiled, though he seemed to be embarrassed. "However, the people will love the fact you're here to share it with them." Did he say "frenzied"? My mind immediately flashed on the Aztec rituals of ripping out beating hearts. But the Maya didn't go to that extreme, at least so far as I knew. Once again, though, I had the feeling I was only hearing what he wanted me to know, not the whole truth. It felt like a chess game where I didn't know the location of all the pieces or how they could move. "Tell you what." He was getting up, turning toward the hall. "Why don't you let me show you around the clinic? In fact, I'm scheduled to perform an in vitro this morning for a childless couple here. You're free to see it. Perhaps that could help you make your own decision." "Well . . . do you have a phone? I need to make some calls." Would he let me call out? That would be a first test of what his intentions were. It was all getting so insidious. I had Sarah to worry about, and the Army, and now some kind of "ceremony" that he'd managed to stay cannily vague about. I only knew I wanted the whole world to know where I was. "Of course," he said. "You're welcome to use my office." He was pointing down the hall. "It's right this way." Yes! Maybe I'm not completely his prisoner yet. I still have privileges. But I'd damned well better use them while I can. I walked out and felt a breeze, and then I studied the far end of the hallway, at the opposite end from the entrance, and noticed huge slatted windows. As we walked in their direction, I realized there was a stairway on one side, at the end of the hall, leading up to the second story of the building. "What's up there?" "Hygenic nursery rooms." He glanced at the stairs. "Unlike U.S. practice, new mothers here aren't sent home after a day or two. Women and their newborns are encouraged to stay here at the clinic for at least a week. It's actually very much a part of their tradition, a period of bonding. You're welcome to visit with them later if you like." I intended to. In fact, I found myself looking around and trying to memorize everything about the place. A two-story building, a marble stair, a nursery upstairs, downstairs rooms along either side of the hallway (what was in them?), and an office I was about to see. Could the clinic be locked down? What were the escape routes? How closely was the Army watching? The time would come, I was sure, when I'd need every scrap of intelligence I could collect. When we reached the end of the hall, the fresh cool wind still blowing against my face, he stopped in front of a large, ornate wooden door with a brass knob in the very center. There was no sign of a lock, just a sense of great gravity about its purpose. "The phone's in here." He pushed the door and it slowly swung inward on hinges that must have required ball bearings. It was indeed an office, dimly lighted by the moving screen-savers of two computers, each on a separate desk. He flicked on the overhead lights and I noticed that one computer was hooked to a fax machine, the other to a separate printer. An impressive assembly of data-management technology for out here in the rain forest. Then I focused on the central desk, on which sat an open, briefcase-looking box containing a mini-console labeled Magellan World Phone. A small satellite dish was bolted down next to it. "It uplinks to the Inmarsat Series 3 geostationary satellites." He indicated the dish. "But it works like a regular phone. The international codes all apply." Then he turned to leave. "I should be ready for the procedure in a few minutes." I picked up the handset and flicked it on. Three green diodes flashed, then two yellow ones, after which a white light came on and I heard a continuous hum, a dial tone. Hooray. But was his satellite phone tapped? Why would he let me just call out? Was this a feint in our game of cat-and-mouse, just to lull me into believing everything here was safe and benign? Remembering Sarah's drug experience, I already knew that couldn't be true. For now, though, I had to get an SOS out while I had the chance. I'd long since memorized the number of Steve's hotel in Belize City, and if I could reach him, he could go the embassy in Guatemala City and . . . I wasn't sure what. I still hoped to get out of here on my own, but if that failed . . . maybe some of those sturdy Marines . . . When I dialed the Belize number, however, the phone just rang and rang. Come on. Somebody please pick up. Then they did. Thank goodness. But when I asked for Steve-- "So sorry, mon," came the proud Caribbean voice, "but Mr. Abrams check out Monday. Early in the morning." "Right, I know that. But he came back last night, didn't he?" "No, mon. He say he be coming back, to hold his room, but--" "He didn't come back?" I felt my palms go icy. Who was going to know where Sarah and I were? "What do you mean?" "He not coming back here, mon." The man paused and mumbled something to another clerk, then came back on. "Nobody seen him since. You want leave a message, that's okay. But I don't know when--" "No." I didn't know what to say. The implication was only gradually sinking in. "No message. Thanks anyway. I'll try back later." "Any time, mon. No problem." I hung up, trying to stay calm. Steve, where are you? Okay, I told myself, you don't actually know something's wrong. It could be anything. Still, it was very worrying. Steve, my one and only . . . I was staring at the phone, wondering what my next move should be. Whatever else, I've got to try to reach Lou, tell him I've found Sarah. But then what? He certainly wasn't going to be any help in getting us out. If he blundered his way down here, there was a real chance he'd misread the delicacy of the situation and end up getting us all "disappeared" by the Army. But still, I had to tell him about her. I picked up the handset again, keyed in the U.S. country code, and tried the number for his place in Soho. He'd said he was going to be released from St. Vincent's today, so maybe he was home by now. The familiar ring jangled half a dozen times and then . . . "Crenshaw residence." It was the Irish tones of Mrs. Reilly, Sarah's day nurse. Hallelujah. I guessed she was there now taking care of Lou. "Uh, this is Morgan James. Mr. Crenshaw's niece. Remember? I came by. Is he home yet? I need to talk to him." "He's resting, dear. I was just about to go out and get some things, milk and soup and the like." "So . . . dare I ask? How is he?" "He's weak, but I think he's going to be fine. If people will just let him be." "Look, I hate to bother him, but it's really an emergency. I'm calling from Guatemala." "Oh. I truly don't know if he's awake, dear. He was napping a while ago." "Could you . . . could you go and see? Please. And take the phone?" "Just a minute." She sounded reluctant, but I could hear her movements as she shuffled across the loft. I listened, wondering how long Alex Goddard was going to be away, and then a moment later . . . "Yeah." There was a rustle as Lou got a grip on his cordless. "Morgan, is that you? Where the hell are you now?" It took me a second to even find my voice, I was so thrilled to hear him. He sounded just like always. "Hey, how's it going, champ?" I said. Come on, Lou. Get well. Fight. "I started having these migraines, but they gave me some medicine--" "Listen." I cut him off, and immediately felt guilty I'd been so impatient. "I'm up in northern Guatemala and I've found Sarah." "Oh, my God." That was followed by a long silence, probably an emotional meltdown. "Is she all right?" What was I going to say? That she'd been brainwashed or worse by Alex Goddard? That we were both in his clutches, cut off from the world, and in deep, deep trouble? "She's able to stand," I said. I don't remember what white lies I eventually managed to tell him. I think it was something like, "She's being treated for a post-coma syndrome by a medical specialist. I've found out that when she was in Guatemala before, she was given some very bad drugs, and someone here who knows about them is trying to reverse some of the damage." "Alex Goddard, right?" There was no BS-ing Lou for very long. "That bastard." "Lou, I'm going to get her out of here and back home as soon as possible. Everything's going to be all right. Don't worry. It's really too complicated to try and explain over the phone." "Yeah, well, I'm coming. Soon as I'm up. I'm gonna take that son of a bitch by the--" "Don't. Don't you go anywhere. I'm handling it, okay?" I heard him grunt, whether from pain or frustration I couldn't be sure. "Lou, listen, I'm going to try and phone you every day. If I miss a day, then you should call the embassy down here. Tell them you're FBI. That might get their attention. The place where I am, where Sarah is, is named Baalum. It's a . . . kind of village. In the northern Peten Department. I don't know if the U.S. has any clout up here, but that's where they should come looking." I got him to write it down, and then eased him off the line as gently as I could and hung up. I would have loved for him to be here, but I wanted to try to get Sarah out by stealth if I could. And stealth was scarcely Lou's style. My calls were one for two, and there still wasn't anybody to help me. The time had come to try David. I was having the glimmerings of a new strategy. It was lunchtime in New York, but on Wednesdays he usually just had a sandwich at his desk. Maybe I could catch him. "Hello," declared the British female voice he'd put on his machine, hoping it would sound like he had a classy secretary. "You've reached the office of David Roth, president of Applecore Productions. We're sorry Mr. Roth is not available at this time to--" "David," I barked into the phone. "If you're there, pick up. This is Morgan. I've got to talk to you." While the announcement kept running, noises erupted outside in the hall, voices and a clicking sound, as though something was being rolled along the tile floor. Shit. Was Alex Goddard about to walk in? My mouth went dry. Come on, David, I know you're there, hiding--Variety with a tuna salad on rye, extra pickle. Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda. "David damnit, pick up." I said it quieter this time, but I could feel my heart pounding. "This is an emergency." "Morgy, don't!" He yelled as I heard the receiver being lifted. "Jesus, I just walked in from the deli. Listen, thank God it's you. Drop whatever the hell you're not doing and get your butt in here. Jerry Reiner called, you know, the Orion distribution deal--and he wants a rough cut of _Baby Love_ yesterday so he can pitch it to the suits on the fifth floor. We could be staring at financial success here. I hope you can handle the vulgarity of that." "David, you're not going to believe where I am," I began, working out my game plan as I went along, trying to sound cool and control my racing pulse. "I'm in northern Guatemala, at a place that would make a terrific feature. It's like a Maya theme park, deep in the rain forest. But it's real. I want you to contact the embassy and get them to grease the way for my crew to come here. This is too good to pass up." I thought about the costs and then added, "At least one camera and sound." One sure way to get Sarah out was to blow the place open to the world. "What's . . . where are you again?" I gave him a glowing trailer of the Williamsburg-like qualities of Baalum--a beautiful, exciting recreation of times gone by that out-Disneyed Disney. The cable channels would be bidding for the footage. "Hey, look, all things in time." He wasn't buying. "I'm talking an actual deal here. You know, money? Fuck the jungle wonderland. You've got exactly one more day down there on the Tarzan set, or wherever the hell it is, and then I'm gonna start finishing final cut on this damned picture myself. Don't make me have to do that, Morgy. This is not a drill. Nicky Russo came by again yesterday. He's fully prepared to call our note and impound your original negative. It's here, under lock and key, but we've got to get this project in the can and sold." "You touch a frame of my movie and I won't be responsible for my actions." God, he was missing my SOS. "David do one thing for me, please. I can't tell you how important it is. I haven't explained everything. This situation is . . . It's very threatening. I need you to at least call the embassy down here and see if they'll send somebody. The Army's all over the place and--" A loud noise intervened followed by complete, absolute silence. The diodes on the panel all began flashing yellow. "Shit!" Had Alex Goddard been listening in and decided to cut me off before I could get word to the embassy? I slammed the box and went for the usual maneuver: I cut the connection and tried again, but nothing. Again, and still nothing. My hands were trembling. I'd just lost contact with the outside world. I was completely isolated in the middle of nowhere. How convenient. Alex Goddard let me tell a couple of people I was physically okay, and then he blocked the line. I exhaled settled into the padded chair next to the computers, and tried to think. David, David why wouldn't you listen? He was so excited he'd completely ignored my distress signal. Nobody was going to come and help me get out of here. I gazed around the room, wondering what to do next. Was there another phone, a radio, a box of flares, for godsake? That was when I spotted the outlines of another door--why hadn't I noticed it sooner?--this one steel, there on the left. Alex Goddard might walk in any second now, but I had to try to learn everything I could as fast as I could. What was going on besides what was going on? Alert for any new sounds from outside, I quickly went over and tried the knob. It was locked tight. Figured. Now I really wanted to know what was in there. When I glanced around the office, I noticed a ring of keys on the desk. Could he have forgotten them? More important, would I blow everything if he caught me snooping? In spite of his attempt at a cool veneer, he might go ballistic. I made a snap decision. Take the chance and give them a try. My hands were so moist I had trouble holding the slippery keys, but finally I managed to shove in the first one. It went in, but nothing would turn. Come on. I managed to wiggle the next one in, my hand trembling now, but again the knob wouldn't budge. Footsteps outside marched up to the door and I stopped breathing, but then they moved on. Hurry. I was rapidly losing hope when the fifth one slipped in and the knob turned. Yes! Taking a deep breath and working on a story in case Alex Goddard walked in, I clicked the lock and eased the door inward just enough to look inside. Hello, what's this? The space was a fully equipped medical research lab. The lights were off, but like the office, it was illuminated by the glow of several CRT screens stationed above a long lab bench. There also was a large machine, probably a gas chromatograph, with its own screen, flanked by rows of test tubes. Finally, there was a large electronic microscope complete with video screen. One non-medical thing stood out, though: There in the middle of the workbench was a two-foot-high bronze Dancing Shiva presiding over whatever was going on. It was breath-takingly beautiful. So . . . what was The Lord of the Dance giving his blessing to? Time to try and find out. Now clanking noises were filtering in from out in the hall, along with the pounding of heavy boots, and my pulse jumped again. Was the Army coming to drag me away? Just go in. Do it. The CRT screens were attached to black metal containers, their doors closed, that all were connected to a power supply, doubtless to maintain some temperature. It looked like Goddard was incubating something in a carefully controlled environment. The whole arrangement was very carefully organized and laid out. Finally I noticed a row of large steel jugs, six in all, near the back and covered with a sheet of black plastic, thin like a wrap. What could they be? Some kind of special gas for use in the lab? Voices in Spanish drifted in from the hallway. A woman and a man were arguing about something. Okay, get out of here. Come back and check this out when nobody's around. I stepped back into the office, clicked off the thumb latch on the door so it wouldn't lock, and closed it. I realized I was pouring sweat. What next? Well, see if the phone's working again and try calling the Camino Real and see if Steve's come back there for some reason, maybe a change in plans. It would be a long shot, but still . . . My hand was shaking as I opened up the phone case. Thank God, the diodes were all quiet. Maybe . . . The steel door I'd closed only moments before swung open and Alex Goddard walked through. Did he realize I'd left it unlocked? How did he get in there? Was there another door? He'd changed clothes and was wearing a pale blue surgical gown. I shut the phone case, as though just finishing with it. Could he tell I'd turned myself into a nervous wreck? I tried to smile and look normal, but my shirt was soaking. "Ah, I see you're finished," he said, not seeming to notice. "Good. As I said, I've got an in-vitro procedure scheduled now for one of the couples here in the village. You're welcome to observe. It might help you decide what you want to do in your own case." He was moving across the room. "You can watch on the closed circuit." He reached up and snapped on a monitor bolted to the wall in the corner. "Oh, just one small word of forewarning." He was turning back. "Down here I've made certain . . . cosmetic changes in the procedure to keep patients' anxiety levels as low as possible. It wouldn't be appropriate in your case, but . . . well, you'll see." Before I had time to wonder what he meant, he disappeared back through the steel door with a reassuring smile. Chapter Twenty-three The monitor's picture was in color, but the predominant hue was brown. Where was this? The OR had to be somewhere in the clinic, but still . . . The space looked flawlessly sterile, obviously an operating theater, but it was certainly like none other on earth. The walls were not white or pale blue; they had the shade of stone and were decorated with Maya picture writing and bas-reliefs. It was as though a sacred chapel had been converted into a surgery. I guessed this was what he meant by "cosmetic changes." A door was visible on the right side of the screen, and moments later Alex Goddard strode through, coming in from the hallway. So, it must be right next door. God, the place looked ancient and haunted. I watched as he walked over to a basin and scrubbed his hands, then donned a white surgical mask. Next he flipped various switches on the walls. Finally he put on a second mask that glistened like some green crystalline material. What was that for? Then it hit me. A "jade" mask . . . That was something Sarah had mentioned in her ramblings. So she must have seen this too. Which meant. . . not everything she described was just some drug-induced hallucination. The mask part was very real. . . . Now Marcelina was rolling a steel operating table, bearing a dark-haired Maya woman, through the doorway. The patient looked like all the others down in Baalum, except that she had a strange expression on her face. She appeared to be tense and very afraid, as her eyes kept darting around the room, then to the "jade" mask Alex Goddard was wearing--most likely papier-mache covered with shiny green granules. When she was in position, he walked to the corner and flipped another switch, whereupon there started the deep droning of a chant, probably from speakers in the walls, that sounded like Kekchi Maya. He bent over her and said something in the same language, after which Marcelina placed a rubber mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes still frightened, the patient uttered a few words, perhaps a final prayer, then inhaled deeply. As her eyelids fluttered, he turned and opened what appeared to be some kind of stone tableau, covered by its own bas-relief. It was, I finally realized, merely painted fiberglass--that was what the whole room was--and inside were CRT monitors designed to display various vital life functions. As Marcelina helped him, he began attaching sensors to the patient's body. When the woman's eyes had fully closed, he removed his green mask and tossed it into a box. It's all fake. The room, everything. Just like _Baalum_. But now he's got Sarah's mind caught in his thrall. I've got to make her understand nothing here is real. Marcelina was carefully watching the screens, her apprehension obvious as she fiddled uncertainly with the knobs. "Oxygen steady." Her voice was small and uneasy. "EKG stable." He immediately stripped away the sheet that had been covering the patient. Beneath it was an open-sided gown colored in brilliant stripes of red and blue. He pulled it back with absent precision, then turned to Marcelina. "Shave her and scrub her." With the woman now under sedation, Marcelina put on her own surgical garb: She pulled a blue plastic cap over her hair, then secured a white OR mask over her face. While she was finishing the preparations, he turned and walked to the far side of the room, where he abruptly seemed to disappear through the wall. What . . . There must be a panel there, a camouflaged door. He was gone for a moment, then reappeared carrying a long metal tube that looked to be emitting white vapor. He next opened yet another ersatz stone cabinet to reveal a microscope with a CRT screen above it. He took out three glass ampules from the tube--frozen embryos, undoubtedly--and placed them in a container. When he switched on the microscope, its CRT screen showed him whatever he needed to know. Interesting. In surgery, he was coldly efficient, no "human touch." Here he was the "scientist" Alex Goddard. Next, Marcelina activated an ultrasound scanner and began running the wand over the woman's stomach. The screen above the table showed her uterus and her Fallopian tubes with flickering clarity. He'd been readying the embryos, and now he walked over and carefully inserted a needle into the woman's abdomen--ouch--his eyes on the ultrasound scan, which indicated the precise location of the needle's tip. I watched as the screen showed the needle on its way to its destination, a thin, hard line amidst the pulsing gray mass of her uterus. Seconds later all three embryos had been implanted with such flawless precision it was scary. Did I want to undergo this deeply invasive procedure at the hands of Alex Goddard? The very thought left a dull ache in my stomach. While Marcelina bandaged her and began preparing her for return to wherever she'd been, he turned off the systems, then closed their "stone" cabinets. I thought back to some of the "hallucinations" Sarah had poured out. She'd mentioned the green mask, and she'd also relived some sinister event that seemed to her like disappearing down a long white tunnel. Was that her own anesthesia? Did he perform an in vitro on her too? I jumped as I heard the "bump, thump, bump" sound of the operating table being rolled out of the OR and back down the hall. For some reason I thought of the sound of fate knocking on the door, like death coming to take Don Giovanni. Did Alex Goddard have plans to take me, only with drugs and medical sleight of hand? It wasn't going to happen. I switched off the monitor and turned to stare at the computers. Why were they here in this "place of miracles"? What did they hold? Maybe that was where I should be. . . . That was the moment when the heavy office door swung open and Marcelina appeared. "Your room is ready now." Her English was heavily accented but sure. "He sent me to show you. And I can wash any of your things if you like." My room? Whoa! Since when had I checked in? "Marcelina, we need to talk. What happened to Sarah the last time she was here? Was she operated on like that woman just now?" I also planned to ask her about all the bizarre trappings surrounding the procedure. Why was the woman so sucked in by his phony Mardi Gras mysticism? Had Sarah fallen for it too? "Sara was one of the special ones. You are surely blessed too. You resemble her a lot." She looked at me, affection in her dark eyes, then turned and headed out the door. "But come, let me take you up." Of course I resembled her; she was my cousin. But so what? I didn't like the odd way she'd said it. And what about my question? Watching her walk away, clearly nervous, I realized this was the moment I'd been dreading--when I had to make a decision about how far to play along with Alex Goddard. Steve couldn't be reached, yet, but I still might be able to handle the situation on my own. The first thing to do was to get down to Sarah and talk some sense into her. Then I had to arrange for a way to get us both out. So . . . probably the best way to accomplish that was to go along with my own medical charade for a few more hours, to give me time to scout the scene and come up with a plan. A room would be a base to operate from. Still, I was feeling plenty of trepidation as we ascended the marble steps to the second floor, which had a long, carpeted hallway with doors along each side. Then, when we started down the hall, I caught the sound of a baby crying. "What's this floor for?" I remembered Alex Goddard had claimed it was to provide a postpartum bonding period, but I wanted to confirm that with my own eyes. "This is the recovery ward and nursery. Here, let me show you." She paused and pushed open the door nearest us. I looked in to see a Mayan woman resting on a high hospital bed and wearing a white shift, with an ornate wicker cradle, wide and deep, next to her. Marcelina smiled and said something to her that sounded like an apology for the intrusion. The room was lit only by candles, but I did make out how oddly the woman stared at me, as though she was seeing a spirit. Why was that? Because I was a _gringa _here in the middle of the forest? But it seemed something more. "The birth of a child is a sacred thing for us." Marcelina was discreetly closing the door again. "When a woman carries a child she will take walks to the _milpas_, to the river, to the orchards, just so her little one can be in its world. Then, after her baby is born, our tradition holds that she should be alone with it for a week and a day. So their life's breath can become one." I could sense her heart was deeply entwined with the people here at Baalum. "Marcelina, how long have--?" "Well, what do you think?" said a voice. I looked around to see Alex Goddard coming up the stairs behind us. And my anger welled up again. Everything about him was just too . . . manipulating. He'd changed back to his black sweatshirt and jeans and was carrying a tray. The costume event was over. In an instant Marcelina slipped quietly around him and headed back down the stairs, almost like a rabbit startled by a fox. He smiled and moved past me. "All those trappings just now, the fake green mask." I decided to challenge him head-on. Start forcing him to show his hand. "What's--?" "Merely a little harmless theater." He looked back. "The forest Maya like to think they're being ministered to by a shaman." Then he indicated I should follow him. "By the way, in case you do get hungry, I brought you something you can have in your room if you like. Then you can make yourself at home and rest a bit." Hold on. I was being given the illusion of freedom, but in reality I was nothing more than his prisoner. "That room next to your office. The steel door. What's in--?" "That's the heart of _Baalum_." Pride in his voice. "The real reason I'm here." "You mean drug research?" He nodded. "Did you know the Central American rain forest easily contains a hundred thousand plant species? Over half of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants, yet less than one percent of those here have been tested for pharmacological potential. Still, the old shamans and midwives all know of herbs they claim can cure everything from menstrual cramps to cancer." He smiled. "They also know which ones have powerful contraceptive properties, which is particularly helpful in my primary study, fertility and fetal viability. I take the specimens they bring and perform a rough screening in the lab to determine if they're actually pharmacologically active. If they do test positive, I then examine their effect on the blastocyst, the early form of embryonic cell formed just after fertilization, to see whether they affect cell division and viability and . . . the miscarriage rate here is very low, so some of these plants . . ." His voice trailed off as he pushed open the door of a suite at the end of the hall. It had a stone floor, a simple bed, and through the slatted windows the light of midday filtered through, along with the birdcalls of the rain forest. Any other time and place, I'd have felt like I was staying at a rustic nature retreat. But this wasn't some other time and place. And what about Steve? Where was he? Maybe he was somewhere worse. Thinking about him, I was startled to hear myself say . . . "Incidentally, I found out the man I've been trying to have a baby with didn't show up at his hotel in Belize last night. He was driving there from Guatemala City. I'm very worried. I keep hearing about how people get 'disappeared' in this country. He's--" "Could his name be Steve Abrams?" Goddard turned back, still holding the tray. It was a moment that stopped my heart. For a second I wasn't even able to speak. "How . . . did you know?" I finally managed to say. "I never mentioned--" "That's the name they gave me. I received a call this morning from Guatemala City. From Colonel Ramos's office, in fact. As you might suppose, he's well aware you're here, and he said you were seen dining night before last at a downtown restaurant with a man by that name. They think he's in the country because of you, and they're trying to locate him." I felt the life go entirely out of me. My God what was going on? Steve was now the subject of a manhunt in a police state. Did he even know? "I told them you were here for purely medical reasons." He sighed with frustration. "And that they were being irrationally paranoid but . . ." "So they don't actually know where he is, right?" I was still trying to breathe. "As of this morning. If they did they wouldn't have called up here." He walked over and set the tray down on a rustic table next to the bed. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. He's committed no crime. They just want to make sure you realize your presence has not gone unnoticed." Dear God. What had I dragged Steve into? If they found him, what would they do? I could only pray he was deft enough to elude them. If anybody could . . . Then I looked at the tray. An empty syringe was there. Also, there was a large bowl containing some kind of soup. I was finally growing ravenous, but still . . . "What's this for?" I indicated the syringe. "I just need to take a little blood for some tests. Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit." Hold on. How far do I have to play along to stay in his chess game? Then I glanced down again at the tray. "And what's in that bowl?" "Right now diet is crucial, so I've had Marcelina prepare you a healthy broth of soy extract and buckwheat and rainforest herbs that--" "What kind of rainforest herbs exactly?" I was starving, but no way in hell-- "Medicinal ones. Part of your program of wholeness." He turned, with that faraway look of his, and opened the window slats. Beyond them I could see foliage, now alive with flocks of multicolored birds. The forest was in full cry. "You know, so many drugs are waiting to be discovered up here." He was gazing out. "Beyond this window is a giant pharmacy, but if it goes like the rest of the Peten, it'll soon be bulldozed to make way for more cattle ranches." He came back and picked up the syringe. That was when I noticed it didn't seem to be entirely empty. It appeared to contain traces of a yellow substance, though maybe I was imagining. . . . "Look, about the blood test. I don't think--" "Consider it a free medical screening." He firmly gripped my arm as he plunged the needle into a vein. Seconds later he was capping off the syringe, red with my blood. "I'm running a batch of tests this afternoon, so one more sample won't make any difference." While he swabbed my arm with alcohol, I looked down again at the bowl of broth he'd brought. Forget about it. I'd find something in the kitchen later. "I want to go down and see Sarah." Get started immediately. Push and maybe I could catch him off guard. "I'm very worried about her." "Of course." He nodded. "Whenever you wish." "I was thinking, as soon as possible." "Then I'll send Marcelina to take you, the minute she's finished downstairs. But I assumed you might want to at least unpack first." With that he disappeared as quietly as he'd come. I walked over and stared out at the birds flitting past the slatted window, feeling my hopes go up. The colors and the freedom. I wanted to be one of them, to take Sarah and just fly away. . . . Then, feeling vaguely drowsy, I settled myself down on the edge of the bed. The next thing I knew, though, the chaotic music of the birds had begun to sound amplified as though they were swirling down a long, echoing hallway. In spite of myself, I felt my consciousness begin to drift. Shit, that needle he just slammed into my arm. It wasn't to take blood you idiot. You suspected that, but he was too fast. Shit. Shit. Shit. Don't let him do it. Stay awake. But now the tunnel was growing. I pulled myself up and staggered in slow motion to the door and tried it, but it seemed to be locked. I couldn't really tell, though, because the tunnel was swallowing me. No! I banged my head against the door, hoping the pain would bring me back, but the room just swirled even more. The tunnel. Now it was all around me, shadowy and dim. I thought I glimpsed Sarah at the end of it, wearing a white shift, beckoning me, but when I reached out for her, to take us away, all I could touch was empty mist. Chapter Twenty-four I'm on a bed, in a dreamscape room enveloped in pastel fog, watching a Melania butterfly the size of a man pump his massive orange and black wings above me. His voice is mellifluous, hypnotic, and I feel the soft wind of his wings against my face, cooling, scented, enveloping. It is the softness of eternal peace. "Your body is a realm of fertility," he is saying, his tones echoing in the shadowy haze around me, sonorous and caring. "You are special." Then, iridescent blues and purples shimmering off his wings, his face evolves into the orange and black mask of a jaguar. "You are one of the special ones. Together we will create life." Did he say "special"? Marcelina said I was . . . like Sarah . . . Now his eyes are boring in and I'm thinking of the Chinese . . . Am I human, dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I'm human? As he moves over me, the rest of his butterfly form disappears and he's become a lithe jaguar whose lips are touching mine. The sheet over me melts into my skin as the soft spotted fur of his underbelly presses onto me. And his face has turned even more feline and sensuous, with dark eyes that look directly through me. I can feel his whiskers against me as he sniffs down my body, then explores my groin with his probing tongue. Before I realize what's happening, his thighs press against mine and he knowingly insinuates himself into me. It all happens so naturally and effortlessly I scarcely . . . I see only an intense twitch of his animal ears, erect and directed toward me, as he enfolds me completely, his hot male breath urgent. As he grinds his thighs against mine, he emits growls, low in his throat, then nips lightly and lovingly at my cheek, his pale fangs benign and delicious. I cling to him, bathed in sweat, falling into him, wanting him, but now . . . He's changing. . . . My God. No! He's . . . His face is becoming a jade mask with eyes that burn a fiery red, a spirit of evil. He's plunging something deep into me, metal, cold and cutting. Far inside, reaching, while my mind fights through the waves of pain that course down my lower body. I struggle back, but my arms just pass through empty air. Stop. The eyes, the hard metal . . . Time turns fluid, minutes are hours, lost, and I don't know . . . Finally---it could be years later--he growls one last time and the room begins fading to darkness. Then a blessed numbness washes over me. He's gone. . . . And I dream I am dead. Sometime, probably hours later, I sensed my consciousness gradually returning. Around me the room was still dark and, remembering the "dream," I came fully awake with a start, my heart pounding. What had . . . it done to me? I was shivering, with a piercing, pointed ache in my groin. I needed air. I rose up unsteadily and reached out, and realized I was in a hospital bed with metal bars along one side. What! How did I come to be in this? Then I began remembering. I was at _Baalum_, in Alex Goddard's Ninos del Mundo clinic. And I'd been trying to get Sarah and take her home. Instead, I'd passed out and then . . . an attack, some unspeakably evil . . . Get out of here. Now. I settled my feet onto the floor with a surge of determination, and that was when I sensed I was in a different place from where I'd . . . Where--! I gazed around in the dark, then reached out and felt something on a table beside the bed. It was a clay bowl full of wax. What . . . a candle. And next to it I touched a plain book of matches. My hand was trembling from the pain in my groin, but I managed to light the candle, a flickering glow. My wristwatch was lying nearby on the table. Someone must have taken it off and placed it there. I picked it up and held it by the candle, and for a moment I was confused by the seconds ticking off. Then I realized the time was . . . How could that be! It read 4:57 A.M. Had I been out for hours? I gasped, then raised the candle and gazed around. The walls were brown stone--or maybe they just looked like stone. Yes, now I recognized it. I was in the fiberglass-walled operating room I'd seen on Alex Goddard's closed-circuit monitor. What was I doing in here? My arm brushed against the table and I felt an odd sensation. Glancing down, I realized there was a Band-Aid on the inside of my left wrist. What was that about? Earlier he'd taken blood from my right arm, but then he'd just swabbed it, so why this bandage? And what in hell was I doing in an operating room? I hadn't agreed to any procedures. Did he come back for a second--? Or . . . that was what he'd done. He'd injected me with an IV drug. The bizarre vision I'd had was his cover for some perverse invasion of my body. My God, I'd been unconscious since yesterday afternoon. During all that time, what could he have done to me? I was fist-clenching furious. Looking around the "operating room," I wanted to rip the place apart. When I tried to stand, I realized my groin was tender and sore as hell, all across my panty-line, only somewhere deep, deep inside, in my reproductive . . . It was like after he'd given me those shots up at Quetzal Manor. I checked and saw no red needle-punctures this time, but the pain was much worse. That sick butterfly-jaguar dream was no dream. I'd been raped by . . . The bastard. I pushed aside the pain, edged across to the door, and tested it. Unlocked. Good. Go find the SOB right now. Tear his head off. I pulled back the door, took a deep breath, and checked out the hallway. Whoa! How did they get here? In the dim light I made out two uniformed Army privates down at the end near the slatted windows, dozing in folding metal chairs, their AK-47's propped against the plaster wall. Why were they here? Just a cool, breezy place to hang out? Or were they in place to guard me? The breeze was causing the candle's flame to cast flickering shadows across the hall, so I quickly re-closed the door. Now what? I was trembling as I returned the candle bowl to the table and sat down on the bed. Soldiers with guns were outside my room at five in the morning. In the farthest end of Guatemala. What was I going to do? I gazed around at the "stone" walls and tried to think. My mind still felt clouded from whatever drug he'd given me, but it was beginning to . . . Wait. I saw Alex Goddard come into this very room with embryos from the lab, which is connected by the steel door to his office. . . . Where there was a phone. Time to call the embassy, get some help to get the hell out of here. I sat there thinking. All right. I'd need to wait an hour or so--now I'd get some low-level flunkie stuck with the graveyard shift--but there was something I was damned well going to do immediately. With the lab right next door, I could try to find out why Goddard had just performed medical rape on me. There had to be some connection. According to him, the lab was for "plant research." But if that was all he was doing, why was the Army here? Right outside my door? I felt a pump of adrenaline that made me forget all about my pain. Before I got the hell out of _Baalum_, I was going to know what he was really up to here. God, I feel miserable. I really hurt. All the more reason . . . I took the candle, stood up, and moved to the opposite wall to begin looking for an opening in the fiberglass "stone." It appeared to have been made from impressions from the room atop the pyramid, rows and rows of those little cartoon-face glyphs, mixed in with bas-reliefs, but there had to be a door somewhere. I'd seen him walk right through it. As I ran my hand along the surface, I was struck by how their hardness felt like stone. But it couldn't be. What was I looking for? There certainly were no doorknobs. I came across a hard crack, next to the bas-relief of a feather-festooned warrior, but as I slid my hand down, it ended and again there was more rough "stone." Solid. Damn. I stood back and studied the wall with my candle. He'd come in from the left, which would be about . . . I moved over and started again. This time my fingernail caught in a crevice that ran directly down to the floor. Then I discovered another, about two and a half feet farther along. It had to be the door. I felt along the side, wondering how to open it, till I noticed that one of the little "stone" glyphs gave way when I pressed it. When I put my hand against it harder and rotated it, the panel clicked backward, then swung inward. Yes! And there it was: the lab, CRT screens above the incubators, gas chromatograph in the corner. This, according to him, was where he tested the rainforest plants the shamans and midwives brought in. But what about what he'd just done to _me_? I was still worried about the Army guys outside, but I walked in, trying to be as quiet as I could. The first thing I did was head for the row of black boxes above the bench. Those, I assumed, were being used to maintain a micro-environment for incubating plant specimens. And sure enough, the dimly lit windows revealed rows and rows of petri dishes. They were clear, with circular indentations in the center. . . . But wait a minute. Those weren't just any old lab dishes. And no plant extracts were in them either, just clear liquid. That was odd, very fishy. I stood there puzzling, and then I remembered seeing pictures of lab dishes like these being used for artificially fertilized embryos. At the beginning, freshly extracted human ova are placed in an incubator for several hours, afloat in a medium that replicates the inside of a female Fallopian tube, to mature them in preparation for fertilization. Goddard had said something about tests on the blastocyst, the first cellular material created after fertilization. So was he using actual fetuses? My God. I felt like I was starting to know, or guess, a lot more than he wanted me to. My thoughts were churning as I looked up and studied the video screens above the boxes. It took a moment, but then I figured out the petri dishes and their chemicals had been placed in the incubators between 4:00 P.M. and 7:30 P.M. Last evening. What--? I started counting. They were in racks, stacked, in sets of four by four. Let's see. Five in this incubator, five in the next, five in the . . . There were over two hundred dishes in all! Impossible. I looked down at them again, feeling a chill. Nothing seemed to be in them yet, at least as far as I could tell, but then human eggs are microscopic. So if ova were . . . When he supposedly was doing that _in vitro _on the Mayan woman, was he actually extracting eggs? Get serious. That was not where they came from. By then I was well along the Kubler-Ross scale, past denial and closing in on anger, but still . . . so many! How could they all-- I turned and examined the row of plastic-covered jugs at the back of the lab, lined up, six in all. Now I had to know what was in them. I was still shaky, but I steadied myself, walked over, pulled back the plastic, and touched one. It was deathly cold, sweating in the moist air. When I flipped open its Frisbee-sized top, I saw a faint wisp of vapor emerge into the twilight of the room . . . Then it dawned on me. Of course. They were cryo-storage containers. He'd need them to preserve fertilized eggs, embryos. I lifted off the inside cover and placed it carefully onto the bench, where it immediately turned white, steaming with mist. Then I noticed a tiny metal rod hooked over the side of the opening. When I pulled it up, it turned out to be attached to a porous metal cylinder containing rows of glass tubes. What's . . .? Feeling like I was deep in a medical fourth dimension, I took out one of the freezing tubes. It was notched and marked with a code labeled along the side: "BL -1 la," "BL -1 lb," "BL-1 lc," and so it went, all the way to "g." But nothing was there. I began checking the other tubes. They all were empty too. So why was he freezing empty containers? Go with the simple answer. He's getting them ready for new embryos. I slid the rod back into the cryo-tank, then walked over and hoisted myself onto the lab bench next to the Dancing Shiva, creator and destroyer. And when I did, I again felt a stab of pain in my groin. The bastard. I was shaking, in the early stages of shock. More than anything, I just wanted to find him and kill him. . . . I thought I heard a scraping noise somewhere outside, in the hall, and I froze. Was he about to come in and check on his "experiments"? Then I realized it was just the building, his house of horrors, creaking from the wind. I took one final look at the incubators, and all the pain came back. The whole thing was too much for my body to take in. I sat there trying to muster my strength. Don't stop now. Keep going. I got back onto my feet. The phone. Use the telephone. Find Steve, alert the embassy, then get Sarah. Do it now, while you still can. I was holding my breath as I walked over and pushed open the door to the office and looked in. It was empty and dark. Good. I headed straight for the black case of the Magellan World Phone. When I picked up the handset and switched it on, the diodes went through their techno-dance of greens and yellows and then stabilized giving me a dial tone. Thank you, merciful God. I decided to start off by calling the hotel in Belize again, on the long shot that Steve had managed to get the hell out of Guatemala. Baby, please be there. My watch said the time was five-twenty in the morning, but he once told me they manned the desk around the clock. No problem getting through, though the connection had a lot of static. But then came the news I'd been dreading: no Steve Abrams. "He still not come back, mon." Where was he? I wanted to scream, but I was determined to keep a grip. All right, try the Camino Real and hope you can get somebody awake who speaks English. Maybe he went back. Please, God. I had the number memorized, so I plugged it in, and I recognized the voice of the guy who picked up, the owner's son, who was trying his best to learn English. "Hi, this is Morgan James. Remember me? I'm just calling to see if there's a Steve Abrams staying there now?" "Hey, _que pasa_, Senora James. Very early, yes? _Momento_." There was a pause as he checked. Come on, Steve, be there. Please, please be somewhere. Then the voice came back: "No, nobody by that name stays here." "Okay . . . _gracias_." Shit. It was like a pit had opened somewhere deep in my stomach. I replaced the handset, feeling grateful that at least the phone still worked, my last link to sanity. My next call was going to be to the embassy, but I couldn't risk using up my opening shot with the graveyard shift. Maybe by 6 A.M. somebody with authority to do something would be there. Just a few more minutes. Now what? I felt the aching soreness in my groin again, along with a wave of nausea. I had to do something, anything, just to keep going, to beat back an anxiety attack. That was when I turned and stared at the computers, the little ducks drifting across the screens. All right, you know what he's doing; now it's time to try and find out why. The real why. There must be records of what he's up to stored there. What else would he have them for? "Clang, clang, clang." A noise erupted from somewhere outside the window. In spite of myself, I jumped. Then I realized it was just the odd call of some forest bird. God, I wasn't cut out for this. Now my head was hurting, stabs of pain, but I rubbed at my temples and sat down at the first terminal. I'm a Mac fan, hate Windows, so I had to start out by experimenting. In the movies people always know how to do this, but I had to go with trial and error, error compounding error. After endless false starts that elicited utility screens I couldn't get rid of, I finally brought up an index of files, which included a long list of names. ALKALOIDS CARDIAC GLYCOSIDES PHENOLICS SAPONINS TERPENOIDS Biology 103--which I hated--was coming back. Plant-extract categories. Looks like he actually is doing research on the flora here. But . . . still, what does he need my ova for? I scrolled on. Scientific terms that meant nothing. Then, toward the end of the alphabetical list, I came to the word QUETZAL. What was that? I clicked on it and--lo and behold--up came a short list of names. Six in all, organized by dates about a year apart, and each a woman. My God. First I assumed they were patients from Quetzal Manor who'd come here for fertility treatment, though each was indicated "terminated" at the end, whatever that meant. But as I scanned down, I didn't want to see what I was seeing. The name next to the last was S. Crenshaw. She'd been "terminated" too. The bottom was M. James. But I hadn't been "terminated." Not yet. I slumped back in the chair, trying to breathe. How much more of this horror could I handle? Finally I leaned forward again and with a trembling hand clicked on S. Crenshaw. A lot of data popped up, including three important dates. The first was exactly three weeks after the one in her passport, the Guatemalan entry visa. The second was ten months ago, the third eight months ago. After each was a number: 268, followed by 153, and finally 31. The count of her extracted ova. Kill him. Just kill him. A lot of medical terminology I couldn't interpret followed each number, but the note at the end required no degree. "Blastocyst material from embryos after third extraction shows 84% decrease in cellular viability. No longer usable." My God, had he made her permanently sterile? While that obscenity was sinking in, I went back and clicked on my own name. The date was today, the number was 233. He'd just taken 233 of my ova. I stared at the screen and felt faint. No medical analysis had yet been entered, but it didn't matter. I stared at the screen, feeling numb, for a full minute before clicking back to Sarah's page. Yes, I was right. The last date was just six weeks before she was found in a coma, down the river from here. . . . No more mystery. He'd been using her eggs to create embryos, and they'd finally stopped working. Not "special" anymore. So her "program" had been "terminated." In the river. My stomach was churning, bile in my throat, and I thought I was going to throw up. I took a deep breath, slowly, and stopped myself. Before I got Sarah and we got the hell out of _Baalum_, I was going to smash everything in this lab. It all had just come together. Those shots of "muscle relaxant" he gave me up at Quetzal Manor, they had to be a cocktail of his "proprietary" ovulation drugs. Then, with my ovaries ripening, he'd lured me here using Sarah. He knew I'd come after her. Next he'd "arranged" with Alan Dupre to fly me here. Finally, a sedative, and he'd harvested 233 of my ova, which he now had out there in those incubators. . . . But what about proof? To show the world. Morning sounds were building up outside, so I was less worried whether the two soldiers in the hallway were still asleep or not. Truthfully, I was so wired I no longer cared. I clicked on a printer and began zipping off the files of each woman he'd violated, all six. Disgust flowed through me like a torrent. Heart of Darkness. "The horror, the horror." Alex Goddard had used Sarah in the most unspeakable way possible, then tried to have her murdered. Probably he'd just turned her over to Colonel Ramos. The same thing must have happened to those other women. All "disappeared" somewhere in Guatemala. But who would know? One thing I knew. I was next. . . . The printer was old and loud, but thankfully it was fast. Four minutes later I had what I'd need to nail the criminal. When I got out of here, somebody would have to believe me. While I was stacking the printouts, I resolved to call the embassy right then, the hour be damned. I was sweating like a gazelle when the lion is closing in. Alex Goddard had just performed primal, surgical rape on me, and now the Army was right outside. I had to get the embassy. And that was when I realized I didn't have the number. But it had to be in a phone book somewhere. A quick look around the office didn't turn up one. I considered ringing the Camino Real again, to ask them to look up the number, but then I had an inspired thought. Steve had said Alan Dupre's number was easy to remember because it promoted his business. What was it? I couldn't remember. Then it came back: 4-MAYAN, the six-digit number they used in Guatemala City. Call the sleazebag and ask him who can get me out of here. He's supposed to know everybody. Dawn was bringing more and more forest-morning songs through the thin slats of the windows. I walked over and pushed them open, running my fingers out into the air. It felt cool, the touch of freedom, and I thought for a moment about bursting through to escape. Just get Sarah now. Instead, I walked back to the phone, clenching my fists, and dialed Alan Dupre's number, praying and hoping it was where he lived. Steve had called him late in the evening, so it probably was. I'd thought I never wanted to speak to him again, but now . . . God, let him be there. The phone, however, just rang and rang and rang. Come on. Damn. It rang and rang some more. Then finally-- "Who the fuck is this? We don't open till nine." The first sound of his voice brought a wave of relief, but then his cocky attitude made me livid all over again. "It's Morgan James, you shit. Why did you leave me stranded up here? You have no idea what--" "Oh, you . . ." He paused for a cigarette cough. "You made me walk all the way downstairs just to bust my chops. What the--?" "Talk to me, you prick." I still intended to strangle him. "I need your help. You owe me. You have no idea what--" "Hey, lady, you didn't possibly believe taking off in that fucking hurricane was my . . . Let's just say I was acting under duress. I all but didn't get back." "Well, you can start making up for that right now by springing me the hell out of here." So, somebody had put him up to it, just like I'd thought all along. But who? "I want you to look up the number for the American embassy. And tell me the name of somebody there who--" "Jesus, you truly don't get the picture, do you?" He paused for another early-morning reefer hack. "I 'get' that you--" "Missy, it was a high official at that very establishment 'suggested' I fly you up there. Why the hell else would I do it, for chrissake? You know I'm not a citizen of this fun house. Said party noted that if I didn't, he could make a few phone calls about my residency status, my pilot's license . . . Let's just say it was an offer I didn't see fit to take issue with." "Oh, my God." I felt like a knife had just plunged into my back. "Was his name Barry Morton? Please tell me." "Taking the Fifth on that one," he said coughing again. "But you've got primal instincts." I heard a noise outside and sank lower in the chair. What was I going to do now? "Listen, do you have any idea where Steve is? They're looking--" "No shit, Madame Sherlock. I had a long, deeply uninspiring interrogation by a couple of upscale assholes who showed up here in an Army Jeep. They wanted to know where the fuck he was, when I'd supped with him last. Let me inform you, love, you got my old heartstrings buddy in some decided doo-doo." "I feel guilty enough about that as is, so stop." In spite of all Alex Goddard had done, I felt horrible about Steve, like a self-involved witch. "But do you know where he is now?" "Haven't the foggiest fucking idea, never heard of the jerk. Shit, hang on." The line went silent, and I could feel my pulse pounding. Outside the office door, I heard footsteps approaching down the hall. Please, God, please. But then they passed by, terminating where the two soldiers had been dozing. Next I heard the tones of a solid dressing-down in profane Spanish. "_Tu heres un pedaso de mierda!"_ Then came a familiar voice from the receiver. I couldn't believe it. "Morgy, why in hell did you let Alan take you up there by yourself?" His tone had a sadness, and a deserved pique, that cut me to the core. I think I stopped breathing. "Oh, baby, thank God you're . . ." I was expecting the door to burst open any moment. Men with AK-47's. "Do you know the Army's looking for--?" "You're completely nuts. I got halfway to Belize and called the motel to see how you were doing, and they told me you'd taken off with this asshole. So I turned around and drove back here. It was after midnight and the Army thugs had just left. Morgy, I'm coming to get you. Soon as the gas stations open. I know a back road to Mexico. We've got to get out of this fucking country immediately." "Don't try to drive up. It's too dangerous. Can you get Alan to fly you? Sarah's here and she's been turned into a space cadet. I don't know how I'm going to pry her away." I stopped to try to assemble my thoughts. "He's got soldiers watching me. I've got to smuggle her out somehow." I couldn't bring myself to tell him what was really going on. "Let me talk to Dupre a second. The fucker. I can't believe he did this to you. But maybe we can come up with something. Otherwise, I may just kill him with my bare hands." I heard a cough, which told me Alan had been listening in on an extension. It teed me off, but then--he did have to be in on this. Shit. The idea of relying on Alan Dupre for anything . . . "Well, do it fast. I broke into Alex Goddard's office to use this phone and . . . just hurry." "You got it." Now the sound of firm, officer-like boot steps stormed past the door, headed out this time, after which the two young soldiers began berating each other in high-pitched Spanish. "_Hace falta tener cojones!_" "_Hijo de tu chingada madre!_" More and more light was creeping through the slatted windows. A glance at my watch showed the time to be six sharp, but the embassy was no longer an option. "Listen," Steve said coming back on, "there's some rain due for tonight, but he says he thinks we can try. He claims there's a clearing about a quarter of a mile down a gravel road that goes south. With the rain as cover, maybe we can put down just after dark. Think you can find a way to get Sarah and meet us?" "I'm not even sure she can walk, at least not far, but we'll be there." I was flashing on her back in the square, proclaiming her happiness. Would I have to drag her out, carry her on my back? Well, I would. "There's some kind of 'ceremony' on for tomorrow morning. The Army's going to be here in double strength because of it, but maybe it'll make for some confusion that'll help. Still, she's--" "Damn, this is going to be big-time dicey." "Honey, let me tell you as much as I can about the layout of this place. Just in case." Which I did. The main problem was, I didn't know exactly where Sarah was. "Is there anybody there who could help you?" he asked when I'd finished. "I'm not hopeful." I paused. "Listen, can you get your hands on a gun or guns?" "What are you . . . Don't even think about it! That's the best way to guarantee we all get killed. I'm not taking on the Guatemalan Armed Forces. And you're not either. We've got to keep this very low-tech. The dark and the rain, that's what we use. They don't shoot back." At that moment I wanted nothing more than to shoot Alex Goddard. I'd have done it if I'd had the chance. Happily. But I knew Steve was right. "Okay, look, what time?" "We'll try to set down about, say--" There was a crackle as the yellow diodes on the phone erupted in a high-pitched whistle, cutting the connection. No! My God, had somebody been listening in? So when exactly was he coming? Around dark? That would probably be about eight o'clock. Or maybe nine . . . I was closing the phone case when I heard a sound from outside, as though someone had passed the door, then come back to listen. All right. Get going. I gathered the printouts, then headed back through the laboratory, where I took a long, last look at the petri dishes being incubated. Should I just dump them now? But then he'd know for sure that I knew. The time would come, and soon. As I eased myself back into the fake-stone OR and closed the door, the dawn outside was steeped in forest sounds, clacks and whistles and chirps. That was good, because I needed some stray noise to mask what I was going to do next. Take control. Chapter Twenty-five I began by feeling along the fake-stone walls to find where the crevices were, the doors that enclosed the medical instruments. Somewhere, I was sure, there was a cabinet that held a complete set of surgical equipment. When I found the first crevice, I gave the wall on either side a push and, sure enough, the panel was spring-loaded. Good. The side on the right of the crevice popped open to reveal the microscope Goddard had used. But nothing else was there. I moved on down the wall testing for cabinets, trying to remember what Marcelina had done when Alex Goddard told her to prep the Mayan woman. One after another the panels snapped open till . . . yes, this was the one I wanted. Hallelujah. The third drawer held the scalpels. I took out the largest I could find, heavy and steel, then wedged it into the metal sliding mechanism and snapped off the tip. Perfect. I felt like I was holding the key to my escape as I carefully reclosed all the panels. Since there were no windows in the OR room, I slipped back through the lab--it had now become a haunted place of monstrous obscenity to me--and checked out the office. It was still deserted, but now the hazy light of early day was mingling with the sounds of nature seeping through the slatted window. As I walked over to it, the cool, moist morning air once again felt like freedom. How long did I have before the clinic started stirring? I'd originally planned to try to unscrew some of the slats, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The strips of wood were held in with crude, rusty clamps, and one by one I began prying them out with the blunted scalpel. I figured five slats should give me enough space to squeeze through, and I'd already removed three when I heard a frustrated voice in Spanish just down the hail. Uh-oh. "_Tengo que mear que mis dientes flotan!_" It was followed by the sound of boots headed toward the office. I ducked down behind a desk, holding my breath, but then the footsteps marched past, headed for the front door of the clinic. That was when I finally processed what he'd said: "I've got to piss so bad my teeth are floating." So where was he headed? Moments later I knew. I heard the noise of someone kicking their way through the underbrush till they were right next to the window, followed by the sound of a zipper. My God, I thought, he's right here. Will he spot the missing slats? I bit my lip as I listened to a member of the Guatemalan Armed Forces vigorously urinate upon the north wall of Alex Goddard's clinic. Well, I told myself, that's probably what they think of him. I'd like to do the same. Then came a confirming re-zip, after which the sound of slashing boots faded back into the distance. If he'd noticed the window I'd just burgled, it hadn't alerted his curiosity. Moments later I heard his heavy footsteps returning up the hall. Jesus, two minutes more and I'd have been out there. I was trembling, but I managed to finish prying out the last two slats. I then pushed all five out onto the ground, hoping the clatter would be lost in forest music, and climbed through after them, trying to be as quiet as I could. I ended up going out headfirst and collapsing onto the ground in an unceremonious crumple. Thirty seconds later, though, the slats were wedged roughly back into place, and I'd discarded the broken scalpel in the jungle underbrush. Yes! Now the cool air of freedom was all around me. My first small step. How long before Alex Goddard discovers I'm missing? Will I have time to find Sarah, bring her to her senses, and hide her from him? A lot would depend on what kind of physical and mental shape she was in. As I passed around the parking lot, gray clouds were thickening overhead and I noticed that half a dozen new olive-green Jeeps were parked there. The Army was arriving in force, getting ready for God knows what. I took one look at them and felt my breath start coming in bursts. Steve, we're going to need our own kind of miracle. How are we going to get out of here? I skirted the edges of the lot and reached the trail leading down into the village. And I was trying to quell my pulse. What was down there? With the dense rain forest arching over me, I felt as though I was entering a domain of Maya dreamtime where the past lived again, only with a sinister twist. The air in the dark groves was thick with the buzzing of insects, harbingers of the coming rainstorm, but before long I caught a glimmer of daylight ahead. Soon I emerged into a wide arbor that, after another hundred feet, opened onto the central plaza and the pyramid. Now . . . It was daylight, but it also was . . . The sight took my breath away. What was going on? A milling horde of men was gathered in the square, and resinous torches were flaming on each of the pyramid's tiers of steps. A lot of drinking from clay jugs was getting under way, and the men were in the process of painting their faces, stripes of black and white, with dark circles around their eyes. Some also were applying rows of red-and-green-colored seeds to their cheeks with white glue. The bizarreness of the scene rippled through me like the shards of a dysfunctional dream. Jesus! Alex Goddard had said the ceremony got "frenzied," and now I was beginning to realize. . . . What were they getting ready to do? Had I been wrong in thinking the classical Maya never got around to ripping out hearts? Did that explain the half-dozen young Army privates loitering there at the far side, rifles slung over their shoulders? I melted back into the trees and studied the geometry of the plaza, reconsidering my situation. I needed to find some way to get around it and onto the cobblestone pathway at the far side, which led into the village. Finally I decided I could skirt the periphery if I was careful not to advertise my presence. Dawn had come and gone and the quick light of tropical day was arriving, but everybody appeared to be pre-occupied with their nightmarish preparations. Thank God it worked. I weaved in and among the trees and in five minutes I'd reached the central pathway, now deserted. Still barely letting myself breathe, I turned back and gazed up at the pyramid. I had no idea what was next, but I decided it would be my signpost, to help me keep my bearings as I moved through the confusing, tree-shrouded huts of _Baalum_. Except for the men in the square, the village now seemed deserted, though a pack of brown dogs, curious and annoying, had spotted me and now circled around to sniff. Don't bark, damn it. That was when I saw Marcelina, in her white shift, striding through the crowd of drinking men like an alpha lioness parting a posturing pride. My God. My heart stopped for a moment. Does Alex Goddard already know I've fled and has he sent her to lure me back? No way. I clenched my fists and kicked at the surly, long-tailed mutts, still circling and nuzzling. As she came closer, I saw she was smiling and carrying a brown wicker basket. What. . . "I've brought you something," she announced as she walked up, her dark eyes oddly kind. "You must be starving by now." "How did you know I was down here?" Looking at her earnest Mayan face, I suddenly wondered if she could have any idea what Alex Goddard had done to Sarah, and to me? "You were gone from your room," she declared, settling the basket onto the walkway and beginning to open it. "Where else would you be?" When I looked, I saw it had a sealed container of yogurt, a banana, and two eggs, presumably hard-boiled--traditional "safe" food for gringos in Third World places. "I'd been planning to bring you down today," she went on. "They all want to meet you." Was she coming to look after me? The more I examined her, the more I began to suspect something else was going on. Would she help me get Sarah out and away from Alex Goddard? "I want to find Sarah," I said. Why not start out with the truth? "Does he . . . Dr. Goddard know I'm here?" "He's not here now," she said, her eyes shifting down. "He left for Guatemala City early this morning. I think to meet with the Army. On business. . . ." Yes. His big Humvee hadn't been in the clinic's parking lot when I went by. Why hadn't I noticed that? For the first time I felt the odds were tipping. Now was going to be the perfect time to get Sarah. Yes. Yes. Yes. "If you want to see her, I can take you," Marcelina offered, replacing the lid on the basket. Yes, perfect. I wanted to hug her. "Then let's go right now" And while I was at it, I was determined to get through to this woman somehow, to enlist her help. As we headed down the central walkway of the village, we passed the rows of compounds where I'd seen the women that first morning. None was in evidence now, and the gardens were empty, as though the entire settlement had been evacuated. It felt very strange. And what about those bizarre proceedings now under way in the square? Was that going to interfere with getting Sarah out? "Marcelina." I pointed back toward the milling plaza. "What's that all about? The drinking and the--?" "It's begun," she answered, both simple and vague. "They're getting ready." I didn't like the way she said it. Her tone seemed to imply I was involved somehow. "Ready for--?" "The ceremony. They like to drink a tree-bark liquor we call _balche_. It's very strong and rancid." She smiled and touched me. "Take my advice and avoid it." "I plan to." Why did she think I'd even be offered it? As we hurried along, two women abruptly appeared on a porch, bowed, and greeted us. Marcelina waved back, then went over and spoke earnestly with them for a moment. Finally she turned and motioned for me. "They've invited you in." Something about the easy way it all just "happened" felt as though they'd been expecting me. Had Marcelina's trip down to the village been part of a setup, wittingly or unwittingly? "I told them we could only stay for a minute," she went on. I sensed she was reluctant, but felt we had no choice. The last thing I wanted to do was this. "Marcelina, can't you tell them we'll come back later?" "It's . . . it's important." She was beckoning for me. "Please." Well, I thought, this could give me the time I need, the personal moment, to get through to her. Even after I locate Sarah, spiriting her out isn't going to be simple. I've got to make Marcelina understand what's really going on, then get her to help us. As we headed through the yard, the women smiled, then politely led us under the thatch overhang and into the hut. They both were short and Maya-sturdy, with white shifts and broad faces, and they exuded a confident intensity in their bearing, a powerful sense of self-knowledge. I tried a phrase in Spanish, but they just stared at me as though they'd never heard the language. Then I remembered my first attempt to ask about Sarah. The women hadn't understood me then either. Or had they? The room they ushered us into had no windows, but there was cool, shadowy morning light filtering through the upright wooden slats of the walls, laying dim stripes across the earthen floor. A cooking fire smoldered in a central hearth, and from the smoke-blackened roof beams dangled dried gourds, bundles of tobacco, netted bags of onions and squash, and several leaf-wrapped blocks of salt. The room smelled of ancient smoke, sweet and pungent. They immediately produced a calabash bowl with a gray liquid inside, pronouncing the word _atole _as they urged it on me, smiling expectantly. "It's our special drink," Marcelina explained. She seemed to be wary, watching me closely as they handed it over. "It's how we welcome an honored guest." I wasn't sure how politic I ought to be. Third World food . . . "Marcelina," I said, taking the bowl and trying to smile. "I'm not really--" "You must have a little," she whispered back. "It would be very rude. . . ." Well, I thought, just a taste. I tried it and realized it was a dense gruel of cornmeal and honey-water, like a lukewarm gluey porridge, though with a bitter after-jolt. But I choked it down and tried to look pleased. Marcelina urged me to have more--I took another small sip--and then they produced corn dumplings wrapped in large leaves, together with a pile of fiery chiles and a bowl of squash, corn, and beans, all mixed together. After one bite, though, Marcelina reached out and--her eyes downcast--whisked the bowls away, passing them back to the women. She said something to them, then turned to me. "Eating too much would be as rude as not eating at all." That was a cultural norm I didn't remember, and I suspected she'd just changed her mind about the wisdom of my eating local food. I smiled at the women and used some of my so-so Spanish to offer them thanks. "_Muchas gracias_." I nodded toward the bowls. "_Esta es muy delicioso_." They beamed as though they understood me. Who could say? But they'd been intensely interested in watching me eat, even more than Marcelina. Work on her. Now. "Marcelina." I turned to her, only vaguely noticing she hadn't had a bite. "Do you understand why Dr. Goddard moved me down to the operating room yesterday? There in the clinic? What did he tell you?" "He said it was for special tests." Her voice was gentle through the gloom. "You were very . . . sleepy. You must have been very, very tired. But he told me something in your blood work was unusual, so he had me bring you down for a pelvic exam. I gave you a sedative"--she was pointing at the Band-Aid still on my arm--"the way we always do. But then he said you were fine." "Do you realize he did things to my body I didn't agree to?" I studied her trusting Mayan face and tried to get a sense of how much she knew about what was going on. That was when I first became sure of an increasing disquiet in her eyes, as she kept glancing away. Why was she so uncomfortable talking about Alex Goddard? "And I think he did some of those same things to Sarah." "Dr. Goddard tried to help her in many ways when she was here before." Marcelina's tone had become odd and distant. "Now he wants to help you too." Yes, there was definitely something uneasy in her eyes. "Before he came here," she went on, trying to look at me, "_Baalum _was just a poor, simple village. Many children died of diseases. So I left and went to Guatemala City to study. To become a public-health nurse. Then after he came here, I moved back to help him with his clinic, the children." She was trying to make a case for him, and I noticed she'd avoided the actual question. "Now _Baalum _has become a special place," she said finally. "A place of miracles. And if a woman from outside comes, she can be part of that. When Sara was here before, I started teaching her to speak our language, and the others did too. She truly wanted to be part of his miracles. Sometimes we don't understand how they happen, but he has great medical powers." One thing's for sure, I thought. He's got plenty of power over the people here, including you. The whole place has been brainwashed. I looked her over and realized she'd just gone on mental autopilot. She wants to be loyal to him, and she can't let herself believe there's something rotten in the "special" paradise of _Baalum_. "Listen," I said, getting up, "I need to go see Sarah right now. Her father's been in the hospital, and he's not well. I spoke with him yesterday, and he's very worried about her. I know Dr. Goddard is treating her, but it's better if I just take her home immediately." More and more I was beginning to suspect this detour for the two women had been a diversion, an attempt to stall. Marcelina had set it up. Maybe she wanted to tell me something, and she didn't have the nerve to do it point-blank. "Families are very important," she said, sounding sincere. "We'll go now." She spoke to the women briefly, an animated benediction that seemed to leave her even more disturbed. As we headed out and on down the path, I again wondered what was really happening. When we reached the end of the long "street," the arched arbors still above us, she stopped in front of an odd stone building unlike any of the others and pointed. "This is where she likes to be," she said quietly. "Except for the pyramid, it's the most sacred place in Baalum." The doorway was a stone arch about five feet high and pointed at the top like a tiny Gothic cathedral. "What . . . is this?" I felt as though I was about to enter something from the Temple of Doom. "It was once the royal bath," she explained. "In ancient times heated rocks were brought in, with spring water from a sacred _cenote_." We walked through the portal and entered a room whose roof was a stone latticework that let the gray daylight just filter through. The space was vast, with carved and colored glyphs all around the walls, while the air was filled with clouds of incense from pots along the floor. It felt like a smoky pagan church. At the far end was a large stone platform, and in the dappled, hazy light I could see it was embossed along its sides with carved and painted classical scenes and glyphs, glistening little red and green and blue pictures of faces and figures. My eyes finally started adjusting to the shadows, and I realized the platform had been fitted with a covering across the top, a jaguar skin over bundled straw, and a tiny form was lying on it, wearing a white shift. . . . Dear God. "Morgy, I've been so hoping you'd come," Sarah said, rising up and holding out her hands. Then she slid her feet around onto the rough stone floor and managed to steady herself. Her shift was wrinkled now, but she still was wearing the brown slippers and the braided leather waist-cinch. She appeared sleepy, though her eyes were sparkling and she seemed to have more strength than she'd had when I first saw her out in the square. I looked at her and weighed the chances she could walk. Possibly. But I'd carry her if I had to. "Sar, honey, we're going home now," I said, finally finding my voice. She didn't respond at first, just turned to caress the decorated sides of the platform. "I've been wanting to show you this, Morgy. It tells my story." Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way off, as though through a dense haze. "Please, we don't have time for stories." Was she hearing me at all? "Let's just--" "See," she went on, ignoring me as she pointed down, "that's the Cosmic Monster, that one there with maize sprouting out of his forehead. And that man next to him with a flint knife is my father, letting blood from his penis. He's the king. And that one there is me, Lady Jaguar. He gave my name to this place." She paused to reverently touch the carved stone. "Look, I've just stuck a stingray spine through my tongue and put my blood in the _copal_ censer there." "Sar, please--" "Here, see it?" She was pointing to a section at the very end. "That's the two-headed Vision Serpent up above me. He's the god Kukulkan . . . or something. I've made him come to me by giving him my blood. I'm--" "Sar, what in heaven's name is going on with you?" I grabbed her and in spite of myself, shook her. Jesus! The whole scene left me in shock. She was sinking back deeper into her fantasy world. Was she taking the drug again, I wondered and fantasizing she was some dead Mayan princess? Please, God no. That was when I saw Marcelina walk over to a shelf along the wall and lift down another clay-pot incense burner, along with a small white brick. What--? "Oh, yes!" Sarah exclaimed moving quickly over to her. "Let's do it for Morgy." Marcelina nodded warily and handed her the white brick, then turned to me. "She likes to do incense. It always calms her. This is _copal_, what the shamans use." I watched while Sarah shakily began crumbling pieces of the sticky substance into the pot. My God I thought, she's truly, truly lost it. Next she inserted dry tinder and began trying to knock sparks into it with a piece of hard black jade and a flint. But she was too weak, and finally Marcelina had to take the flint and do it for her. Then, as the gray smoke started billowing out, Marcelina began a long chant, shrill and strangely melodic. I felt a chill creep down my back. When she finished she turned her dark eyes on me sadly, waiting. "What were you saying?" I asked finally, sensing she wanted me to. "I was singing from the Popol Vuh." Then she translated. _Holy earth, giver of life, Help us in our struggle against The God of the House of Darkness. _ Wait a minute. What's she saying? "Who's the God of the House of Darkness?" Could she be talking about Alex Goddard? "I didn't want to do it," she blurted out, reaching out to me, her eyes even sadder. "But he said you're the new special one. We had to." What the hell was she talking about? Had to what? Did it have something to do with my "visit" to the women in the hut? "Please stay here with us," she pleaded as she took my hand. "Don't go." Stay? Don't even think about it. I had Sarah halfway to freedom. While the Army was still getting its act together, we could lose ourselves someplace in the forest where nobody would find us, and when Steve got here tonight . . . "Sar, come on, it's time." I pulled away from Marcelina and slipped my arm around her. "Nothing here is what you think it is." "Are we leaving?" she asked, her eyes blank. "Yes, honey, we're leaving. This very minute." The dense forest was all about us, and I'd just carry her into it if I had to. In the coming storm, nobody was going to find . . . That's when I noticed I was beginning to have gastric rumblings. Damn. Never, ever eat "native" food, no matter what the social pressure. That damned "visit" . . . When I turned to ask Marcelina if she would help me get Sarah outside, I noticed she'd been joined by the two women, both still in their white shifts, who'd just fed me the sickly sweet _atole_. And more women were behind them, all staring at me, expectant, as though wondering what I would do. Maybe it was my imagination, or the dizziness that was abruptly growing around me, but it also seemed they'd painted their faces with streaks of white, designs like the men in the square were putting on. "She's going to be all right," Marcelina was saying. "But we have to get you back now. You'll need your strength." I needed it then. My stomach had really begun to gyrate, and my vision had started growing colored. I noticed I was sweating, even though the day was cooling down. Actually, I felt as though I was about to pass out. What had those women fed me? It was finally dawning on me that Marcelina's fearfulness back in the hut had nothing to do with betraying Alex Goddard. It was because she knew she was betraying me. Well, damn her, I'm not going to let Alex Goddard win, no matter what. "Marcelina, please help me. I've got to get Sarah out of here. Now. I don't know what poison drug he's giving her, but he's driving her insane." "We'll take care of her," she said. But I could barely make out the words. They echoed bouncing around in my head. "I'm really getting dizzy." I glanced over again at the women standing by the door. "Please tell me what they--?" "The elixir," she said. "For tomorrow at sunup. That's when you'll see his real power." I'd begun experiencing white spots before my eyes--and for some reason I had a vision of the Army Jeeps parked up the hill. I didn't know how the two were connected but in my jumbled thoughts they seemed to be. Just get Sarah and get out into the air. Walk, don't think, and you can do it. . . . I pulled her next to me and struggled toward the door, the women studying us, unmoving. "Morgy, I've missed you so much," Sarah was saying, slipping her arms around my neck to help herself walk. "I'm . . . I'm ready to go home." "I've missed you too." I think my heart was bursting as I urged her on through the stone portico. At last. Had something clicked that freed her from Alex Goddard? Maybe her mind was finally becoming her own. When we got outside, the skies were growing ever more foreboding, storm clouds looming. Steve had been right about the coming rain, but now it seemed the perfect cover for us to just get out. I took a deep breath of the misty air and forced myself to start helping Sarah up the cobblestone path. "Sar, you can walk, I know you can. Be strong. For both of us. I'm . . ." I felt myself sinking slowly to the cold stones of the walkway, the hard abrasion against my knees, Sarah tumbling forward as I pulled her down on top of me, Marcelina's arms around me trying to hold me up. It was the last real sensation I would remember. Chapter Twenty-six Sarah was hovering around me, a sylphlike presence, as I watched myself drift up the steps of the pyramid there in the square, my senses waxing and waning like the waves on a distant ocean shore. There seemed to be rain, or fog, or smoke, but it had a luminous, purple cast one moment, a Day-Glo orange the next. In fact, all the colors were swirling and changing, shimmering from hue to hue. A pack of howler monkeys was cavorting up and down the steps on my left, like circus Harlequins in electric red-and-blue suits, doing pratfalls and huffing as they flew through the air and tumbled one over another. Sarah was floating silently beside me, but where was Steve? Had he come? Were we escaping? No. I sensed his face drifting across my sight like a cartoon cloud before dissolving into nothingness. He wasn't here. I was having the eeriest dream I'd ever had. When I reached the stone-paved platform at the pinnacle, I felt Alex Goddard clasp my arm and turn me around to face the plaza below. "They are waiting," he said, pointing toward the hazy square. I looked down, and at first I couldn't see anything except rain and smoke, but then slowly a crowd materialized. The scattering of men I'd seen earlier had become an undulating sea of upturned faces painted with stripes and swirling circles of blue and white and red, a torch-lit garden of brilliant blossoms. They all were looking up at us, at Sarah and me. Next he held out a mirror whose reflecting surface was a polished silver metal. "Behold yourself, Morgan. As befits a royal one, a special one, your nose has been built up with clay and pierced with lustrous blue feathers and a giant topaz. Your front teeth have been filed to a point and inlaid with jewels, your royal skull has been shaped back and flattened." I gazed into the mirror and gasped. I was monstrous, a Halloween harpy. Then he moved over to a waist-high censer stationed there on the edge of the platform and began adding balls of sticky white _copal_ resin, together with bark and grasses, which he ignited by the quick friction of a fire stick spun by a bow. Finally he turned to me and held out his hands. "Now we will make a miracle, the miracle of _Baalum_." Heavy smoke from the censer was pouring out into the rainy sky as we started a stiff _pas de deux_, the strains of a clay flute drifting around us. Was it the "ceremony"? Was I dreaming it? As the incense billowed, our Maya dreamtime dance became ever more intense, and then a faint form began to writhe up out of the haze between us, an undulating serpent the deep color of jade. As Alex Goddard wrapped his arms around it, it began to form into two dark heads, then pirouette above us. Finally, as the two-headed specter opened its mouths and gazed down on the platform, Sarah stepped toward it and held out her arms. "Sar, no!" I screamed to her to get back, but as I did, the . . . thing reached down and swallowed her in flames. It was the Vision-Serpent come to receive her. "Sarah . . ." "Can you get up now?" said a voice, cutting through the haze that enveloped my consciousness. At first I thought it was more of the dream, but then someone was touching me and I opened my eyes to see Marcelina standing beside the bed I was in, dressed in white and holding a candle. For a moment I thought I was still atop the rainy pyramid but then I felt the moistness of the sheets and realized the storm Id been dreaming of was being blown in through the slats of the windows. I was shivering. "Marcelina, where's Sarah?" The nightmare had seemed so real, and now I was hallucinating, having flashes of colors I didn't want to see. "I just had the most horrible dream. I was on the pyramid and there was smoke, rain and some kind of ghastly--" "It's the elixir. From the toad. It makes you dream dreams of the Old Ones." She took my hand. "She's resting now. He gave her something to calm her." More drugs, I thought angrily. Then I caught the "he." Alex Goddard must be back. Everything had gone wrong. "I've got to get her and--" "Not now," Marcelina went on, helping me up. "Come. I want to show you the true miracle of _Baalum_. Now is the time you should know." The upstairs hallway was dimly illuminated by rows of lights along the floor as she led me forward. There also was total silence, except for the occasional whimper of a baby in one of the rooms. Where was she taking me? When she stopped in front of the third door from the end of the hall, I tried to get my mental bearings. I was still hallucinating; in control of only half my mind to the point where I wasn't sure I could find my hand in front of my face. But then she tapped on the door and when she heard a voice inside, something in the Kekchi dialect, she gently pushed it open. When we moved inside, the room was dark and there was no sound, except a gasp from the bed when the woman realized I was a gringo. The dim slant of illumination from the doorway revealed a small night lamp just above the head of her bed, and Marcelina reached for it. As the light came on, a pale glow filling the room, I noticed the woman was staring at me, her eyes wide and frightened. "She's afraid you've come for her child," Marcelina whispered, pointing toward the bassinet. "She knows we have to give him back." The woman was pure Maya, a powerful visage straight off that upright stele in the square. I walked over and took her hand, hoping to calm her fears. Then I lifted her hand to my cheek and realized my face was moist with tears. I held it there for a long moment, till the alarm in her eyes diminished. Her newborn infant was sleeping quietly in a crib right next to her, on the opposite side from the table. When I looked closely at him, I finally understood everything. I laid her hand back onto the bed and walked around. While the woman watched, I pulled away the stripped red and green coverlet and lifted out her groggy little boy, tender and vulnerable. He made a baby's protest as I cradled him, then began sleepily probing my left breast, making me feel sad I had no milk. "It's okay," I whispered, first to him and then to his mother. "_Esta bien_." "_Tz'ac Tzotz_," the woman said, pointing at him. I could feel her deep, maternal love. "His name?" I asked in English, before I thought. When Marcelina translated, the woman smiled and nodded. Then the blond-haired Tz'ac Tzotz started to sniffle, so I kissed him gently, turned, and took the woman's hand again. There was nothing else I could do. Tz'ac Tzotz was Sarah incarnate. This was no hallucination. He had her special blue eyes and her steep cheeks, her high brow. I was holding her child. "They are sent from Kukulkan," Marcelina was saying, "the white god of the plumed serpent. Then there's the ceremony on the pyramid and they go back." The woman was staring at me, seemingly awestruck. Then she pointed at Tz'ac Tzotz and at me, saying something to Marcelina. Finally the woman bowed her head to me with great reverence. "She says he looks so much like you," Marcelina explained. "You are surely the special one. The new bride." I was still speechless, but then I noticed the baby had a little silver jaguar amulet tied around his wrist with a silken string, and on the back--as on Kevin's and Rachel's--were rows of lines and dots. It finally dawned on me. They were digits, written in the archaic Maya script. What could they be, maybe his birthday? No, I realized, that was far too simplistic. This was the original bar code; it was his _Baalum _"serial number." For a long moment it felt as if time had stopped. Sarah, and now me--we'd been lured here to provide the life force for Mayan surrogate mothers. This whole elaborate recreation wasn't about rainforest drugs and research into fertility; it was just a cover to use the bodies of these intensely believing Native Americans. Alex Goddard had perpetrated the greatest systematic exploitation of another race since slavery. The difference was, he'd found a way to get them to give themselves willingly. _Baalum_ was definitely a place of miracles. There could scarcely be another isolated spot on earth where he could find this many sincere, trusting people with powerful beliefs he could prostitute. And all of it hidden deep in an ancient rainforest. But I had to be sure. I turned around, leaving Marcelina to watch in confusion, and marched out into the hall and into the next room. The Maya mother there cried out in shock as I unceremoniously strode over to her crib and checked. Her baby was the same. Sarah stamped all over him. My God. When I went back, Marcelina was still trying to calm Tz'ac Tzotz's mother with her bedside manner. As I stood looking at them, the extent of what was going on finally settled in. All those new babies at Quetzal Manor, even Kevin and Rachel--they all looked alike because they all were from the same woman. The one who was here before Sarah. And now hers were ready. I was going to be next. The new "bride." Those fresh petri dishes down in the lab . . . My God, why didn't I destroy them when I had the chance? So whose sperm would he use? Of course. It would be from the man Alan Dupre was going to deliver to him. "Marcelina, don't you realize what's happening?" I wanted to pound some sense into her. They didn't have to let him do this to them. "I know that with miracles must come sadness," she said, reaching to touch Tz'ac Tzotz's tiny brow. "We all understand that." "It's not a miracle. It's science, don't you realize? _Ciencia_. He's using you." "We know he does many things that are magic. He makes powerful medicines from the plants we bring him, and when women want to bear a child--" "No, Marcelina." I felt my heart go out to her, and to all the others. "It's black magic. It's all a lie." The first thing to do was go down to the laboratory and dump every last one of my petri dishes into the sink, ova and all. Destroy the nest, then call Steve and warn him. . . . I glanced at my watch. NO! The time was 4:58 A.M. He was coming at nine o'clock last night. . . . I was standing there in horror, unnatural colors flitting across my vision, when I heard . . . "It's almost morning." I jumped as Alex Goddard walked into the room, dressed in white, hair falling around his shoulders. He took Tz'ac Tzotz from his crib, checked the number on his amulet, and then absently put him back. Next he examined me, his eyes brimming with concern. "How're you feeling?" He placed his hand on my brow. When I looked around for Marcelina, I realized she'd vanished. "Where's Steve?" I felt the bottom dropping out of my world, my whole body trembling. "If you've harmed so much as a hair on his head, I'll--" "He's here," he said quietly. "I want to see him." Dear God, what had I done? I wanted to die. "He's been given something to help him rest. Are you sure you want to disturb him?" "I told you I want to see him." I could barely get out the words. "Now." "If you insist. He's just downstairs." We slowly walked down the marble steps, my mind flooding with more and more hallucinations. When we reached the first floor, he opened the door of a room adjacent to his office. I realized the window slats were open, sending a rush of moist air across my face. Then he motioned me forward and clicked on the bedside light. Steve was there on the bed, comatose. I walked over and lifted his upper torso, then cradled his head in my arms. Baby, I love you. Please forgive me. Please. His eyes were firmly shut and he didn't stir in the slightest. He was in a deathlike stupor, and there were large bruises on his face and a bandage across his nose. Then his bed shift fell open and I noticed another bandage on his groin. "You've already done it!" I whirled back, ready to kill the bastard. "As I said, he was injected with a mild sedative." He had walked over and started taking Steve's pulse. "Given the . . . condition he was in, I decided to go with the simplest procedure possible. After he was brought in, I made a small incision in the _vas deferens _and extracted a substantial quantity of motile sperm." He was turning down the lights. "Don't worry. I've performed the procedure before. The last was a Swedish tourist who was in a car accident up by Lake Atitlan and then lay in a coma in Guatemala City for weeks on end." I listened to him, my mind racing. I'd thought Kevin and Rachel looked Nordic, big and blond. That Swede must have been their father. "Those ova of mine you took, the way you stole Sarah's, and all the other women you've brought here--you don't use them for research." "I have ample leftover embryonic material here for that." He started helping me onto the bed next to Steve. Now his face was undulating through my vision, as though I were seeing it in a wavy mirror. "Please understand, it's very expensive to run a laboratory up here. But the good I'm doing--" "You're a criminal." I remembered the frightened eyes of the women upstairs and felt myself seething with anger. "No! I am, in my special way, giving them back a small part of what they had taken away by people exactly like us. I'm providing them proof, living proof, their truths are still powerful." He strolled over to the window and looked out. "The women come to me for my blessing whenever they hope to bear a child. They know that if they wish, I can cause their first child to be a descendant of their white deity Kukulkan. For them it is a sacred event." "They believe that?" It was sickening. I felt a knot growing in my stomach, even as my hallucinations flashed ever bolder, bright rainbows that flitted about the room, then wound themselves around me. "A great philosopher once said, All religions are true.' Who are we to judge?" He paused. "Let me try and explain something. Those patterns you see the women weaving on the fabrics down in Baalum, those patterns are actually just like the designs on that thousand-year-old pyramid. But though that pyramid had been buried and lost to them for so many years, they still made the designs all those years, because those symbols are a road map of their unseen world. Not the forest here where we are now, but their real world, where the gods dwell who rule the lightning bolts, the germination of corn." He was at the door, preparing to leave, but he paused. "They also understand the . . . special infants who come are miracles that must be returned. They receive but they also must give. Now they wish you to be part of that." With that he closed the door with a swing of his long hair, a slam followed by a hard click. Chapter Twenty-seven As I watched him depart, hallucinations swirling through my brain like furious fireworks, I had a bizarre thought. In an ancient rainforest all things are still possible. The old fairy tales we grew up with mostly took place in a deep wood where evil could lurk unfettered. Today, though, the earth's forests no longer symbolize the unknowable dark within us. Nowadays, the ogres of our nightmares descend from outer space or even from our inner selves, places we can't physically know or subdue. Here, though, at this very moment, Steve and Sarah and I were marooned in a thousand-year-old forest where horror still lived. I got off the bed and steadied myself, breathing deeply, forcing my brain to clear. Steve was wearing a shift, but his clothes were hanging from a hook on the door. For a long moment I just stared at the bruises on his face. "God, baby, what did he do to you?" No answer. "Come on, love. Please wake up." He didn't move, but his breathing was normal, not labored. I immediately decided I'd slap him around if I had to, anything to get him going and able to walk. "Honey, wake up. Please." I pulled his feet out of the bed and slid them around and onto the linoleum floor. I didn't know what kind of sedative he'd been injected with, but if I had to shake him out of it, fine. This was no time for half measures. "Come _on_." I pulled him to his feet and dragged him across the floor to the slatted window at the rear of the room, where the predawn sounds of the forest beyond filled the air, mingled with the rain. What I needed was a gallon of black coffee, but the wet breeze would have to do. It took ten minutes of working on him, with me barely able to hold a grasp on my own reality, but then his eyelids began to flutter. I kept talking to him, pleading and badgering, and when he finally started coming around, I began to walk him back and forth in front of the window. Steve, I thought, I'm so sorry, so terribly sorry I dragged you into this. "Can I please lie down?" His timorous voice startled me, but it gave me a burst of hope. Come _on_. "Baby, just walk a little more. Try to get the blood flowing and flush the damned chemicals out of your brain." "Morgy, are you okay?" His eyes had finally started to focus. And the first thing he asked about was _me_. I impulsively hugged him. "I'm going to be." I pulled back and examined him. "You know where you are?" He grinned with only half his face, and I could tell even that hurt. Then he stared around the room. "Tell you one thing," he said, "this ain't Kansas anymore. Last thing I remember is, Alan and I were setting down. Then out of nowhere, your Colonel Ramos and about twenty kid soldiers with AK-47's were all over us." He groaned. "They took me and then he told Dupre to get back in the chopper and disappear. I think that son of a bitch tipped Ramos off we were coming. Then Ramos worked me over and gave me an injection. About five minutes later I passed out. It's the last thing I remember." Ramos. Was he going to kill us both, now that Alex Goddard had gotten everything he wanted? I thought about it and decided this was not the moment to share that possibility with Steve. Instead I turned him around and lifted up his head. "Are you really awake?" I loved this poor, beat-up man. More than anything, I just wanted to hold him. "I'm not . . . but I'd damned well better be." He tried unsteadily, to straighten up. "Morgy, before he put me away, that Ramos bastard was talking about me, and you, in the past tense. Like we'd already been 'disappeared.' He didn't know I speak Spanish. What the hell's going on?" I wasn't sure how to tell him. But I was getting that super energy God gives you when you realize life is no longer a game. We had to get focused. "Baby, where's your passport?" I asked. He looked around then pointed to his battered camera bag in the corner. "It's in there. Or was. Central America. Never leave home without it." He grimaced then lightly pushed me away and stood by himself. "Jesus, do you know what they're doing? You were right all along. They're selling kids in the States. That Ramos prick is running the operation, not to mention Alex Goddard's slice of the action. And somebody at the American embassy here is handling all the paperwork, so they can grease everything through the INS. But I still don't understand how it is we're--" "Honey, I know exactly what's happening." I'd long since figured out that Alex Goddard and Colonel Ramos were working hand in glove. But I still couldn't bring myself to tell him how he and I were going to be used. It was just too sick. "Listen, not long from now I think I'm supposed to be taken down there to the village for some kind of rite, as part of this whole disgusting operation, and then after that he's going to use . . . You don't want to hear. We've--" "You know, Ramos and a bunch of G-2 thugs are here to take away a batch of little kids," he rambled on, not seeming to hear anything I was saying. He was off in his own world, trying to sort out things in his head. "But what I can't figure is, how can they just take children from here and nobody tries to stop them? Are these _indigena_ so terrified--?" "Listen, please." Now my hallucinations were returning in spite of all I could do, trails of light that glimmered off all the objects in the room, and I didn't know how much longer I'd be coherent. I'd have to talk fast. "We've got to get Sarah before daylight. She's down in the village. I tried to get her out of there yesterday, but--" "Is she okay?" He stared at me and his eyes cleared for a moment. "I mean, is she able to--?" "No, she's not okay. She's hallucinating worse than ever. I'm sure he's giving her more drugs. Really heavy stuff." "So how--?" "Hopefully, we're going right this minute. There's a river. But if that doesn't work out, there's something I can do to buy us a month's time. Alex Goddard's got a laboratory here, just down the hall, in back of his office. It's the evil center of this place. So if I can get in there and dump all his petri dishes, his in-vitro culture mediums . . . Baby, it's all so disgusting. But I'm going to take care of it." I was starting to have real trouble just stringing words together into sentences. My hallucinations were still growing, the loud whispers of light, but I did manage to tell him how I thought we could get Sarah and elude the Army, if we did it before sunup, though my plan probably came out pretty jumbled. Yet I felt that if we did it together, we could take care of each other. . . . Then, with my remaining strength, I launched into action. "Let me check the hall. I just want to shut down his lab. Call it . . . call it insurance. Five minutes, and then we'll be out of here." It also would be a kind of justice, to even the score for what he'd done to Sarah and to me. I leaned Steve back against the wall, then walked slowly across the tile floor to the door and tested it. Surprise, surprise, it was locked. I again tried the knob, an old one, then again, but it wouldn't budge, just wiggled slightly. He'd locked us in. Now what? Then I remembered the time Steve and I were in a similar situation. When we got locked in my room at the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, he'd just taken his Swiss Army knife and unscrewed the knob, then clicked it open. He'd made it look like a piece of cake, but he had a way of doing that. He was barely conscious, so this time I'd have to do it myself. I glanced around at his bag. "Is your Swiss still in there?" "I think . . ." His mind seemed to be wandering. Then he gave a weak thumbs-up. I went over and zipped it open. Be there, I prayed. We really could use a break. I rummaged through telephoto lenses and film canisters and underwear. Then I found it, zipped inside a water-repellent baggie and stuck in a side pouch. I snapped it open and went to work, him watching me, his head nodding as he struggled to stay conscious. The main difference between this time and Haiti was, here I didn't know what was on the other side and I was having hallucinations of multicolored snakes. "You're doing great," he said finally, seeming to come a bit more alive. And I was. Out with the screws, off with the knob, in with the small blade, and click. Maybe we just think men's mechanical skills are genetically hard-wired. Maybe it's all a secret plot to elicit awe. I closed the knife and shoved it back into his bag, then turned to him. "Honey, I'm just going to be a second. While I'm gone, practice walking." "Be careful, please." He gave a cautionary wave. "They don't want us leaving here alive." "Just get ready." I quietly pulled back the door and peered out into the dark hallway. It was empty, abandoned, no snakes, with only a light breeze flowing through. When I stepped out, the fresh air hit my face and I had a moment of intensity that made me realize what I really wanted to do, first and foremost, was see Tz'ac Tzotz one last time. A last farewell to one of Sarah's children. Stupid, yes, a private folly of the heart, but I had to do it. I was halfway down the hall, experiencing flashes of color before my eyes, when I heard a voice. "They're all praying for you. It's almost time." I turned back, startled, barely able to see. Finally I made out Marcelina, in her white shift. We were standing a few feet from the stairs, where I wanted to go, and I was tripping, my reality almost gone. I think she knew that, because she reached out to help me stand. "Marcelina, where's Sarah?" I grasped her hand, which helped me to keep my balance. "Is she still down there in that . . . place?" "She's been so looking forward to the ceremony. She wants them to bring her--" "You don't know where she is?" I realized nothing was going to go the way I'd hoped it would. "They all love her. They're taking good care of her." "Well, I love her too. And I have to get her. Now." I was whispering to her, trying to save my strength. "Marcelina, promise me you'll stop all this. It's so horrible. So sad." "It's our life," she whispered back, then turned her face away. I didn't know what else to say, and I was terrified Alex Goddard might materialize, so without another word, I pulled away and started up the steps. When I reached the top of the stairs, the hallway was lighted by the string of bulbs along the floor, and I made my way as fast as I could to my room at the end. I pulled my passport out of my bag, along with a charge card, slipped them both into my pants pocket, and headed back down the hall. When I got to the door of the room where Tz'ac Tzotz and his mother were, I gave it a gentle push and peered in, but the glow from the lamp above the bed showed it and the crib were both empty. . . . No! They must have already taken the children. Next they'd be coming for me. I realized I'd been a fool not to head straight for the lab. I should have just gone-- The room went completely dark, together with the hallway, a pitch-black that felt like a liquid washing over me. The main power, somewhere, had abruptly died, or been deliberately shut off. Then I heard a thunder of footsteps pounding up the steps, hard boots on the marble. I made a dash, hoping to slip past them in the dark hall. I'd reached the top of the stairs when I felt a hand brush against my face, then a grip circle around my biceps. Somebody had been too quick. I brought my elbow around hoping to catch him in the face, bring him down, but instead it slammed against something metal, which clattered onto the floor. "_Chingado_!" came a muffled voice. I drew back and swung, and this time my arm scraped hard against the flesh of a face and the bastard staggered backward his grip loosening. I twisted away and dropped to the floor to begin searching for what had fallen. Surely it was a pistol. The marble was cold against my bare arms as I swept my hands across the floor. Then I ran my fingers down the edge of the stair. And there it was, on the first step. My left hand closed around the cold barrel of an automatic. I shifted it to my right, grasping the plastic grip, not entirely sure what I should do with it. But at least I had a gun. I'd never actually held a real one before, but it was heavy and I assumed it was ready to fire. I was halfway down the first set of stairs, on my way to the landing, when I felt an arm slip around my neck. I ducked and twisted away, stumbling down the last three or four steps, and landed on my feet, staggering back against the wall to regain my balance. All I knew was, the next steps loomed somewhere to my right. Just a few more feet . . . But he was there again, moving between me and the final stairs. Get around him, I told myself, but at that moment he grabbed me at the waist. Dancing in the dark, but the swirl had no music and no swing, just a quick, dizzying pirouette. I aimed the pistol as close as I could to his face and pulled the hard metal trigger. "_Mierda!_" Blinding light, a face lost in the burst of flame, stars filling my head. The fiery explosion tongued out past his ear like a brilliant sword of reds and yellows, sending a round off into space. The noise left a ringing in my ears and multicolored hues stuttering across my eyes. It hit me who I'd just seen. It was Ramos. With a gun! Shit. The flash of my pistol had given me the advantage for a second, since I knew it was coming, and with that edge I swung an elbow across his chin, then kneed him in the groin. It should have been enough to bring him down, but instead he merely sank to one knee and redoubled his grip. Hey, I thought, maybe I know something he doesn't. How to take a fall. I'd seen enough movie stunts to know what you're supposed to do. It'd be risky, but I knew I wasn't going to win a wrestling match. I opened up with the automatic, firing everywhere again and again and again, getting off five rounds in a crescendo of light and sound, like a huge firecracker in my hand, enough to illuminate the stairwell like a strobe and catch him off guard. In that fleeting moment I slipped a foot behind his ankle and shoved. I think I yelled as I felt myself being pulled forward. Then I realized he was wearing a heavy bracelet that had tangled in my hair. I'd been planning to roll down the remaining stairs, protecting my head, and let him bounce, but the pull of his bracelet ruined it. I felt myself being swept into empty space, my gun flying away. Then something glanced off my face, the wooden banister of the stair, which had mysteriously come up to meet me. I turned and felt his body beneath mine, arms flailing, a soft landing, till we rolled and I was beneath him again. I struck out, a right fist, and he fell away, his bracelet disentangling as he tumbled farther down the stairs. Then I rose and tried to take a step, but it wasn't there. In the pitch dark the angle was wrong, off by just inches, and as I toppled forward into empty space I reached out, taking a handful of dark air. Finally I felt something clenching my wrist, and the next thing I knew I was being swung around. I twisted sideways one last time, but then my head hit the wall. The hard marble caught me just above the ear, and I saw the darkness of the space grow brilliantly light, then transmute to vibrant colors. Or maybe the hall lights had come back on. I only know I felt a set of arms encircle me. "Come," Alex Goddard was saying as he lifted me up. "They're ready." Chapter Twenty-eight When we reached the parking lot, several more Army thugs were waiting, grown-ups now, khaki shirts and dense mustaches, the regulation G-2 sunglasses even though it was still dark, with 9mm automatics in holsters at their belt. I took one look at them and I think I blacked out. Steve and I were about to "disappear," and possibly Sarah too. Probably in another hour or two. My tattered mind finally just slipped away. Soon afterward, I sensed myself being transported in a large vehicle, and after that I was being carried, up, up, as though I were floating into the coming dawn. When I regained consciousness, I realized I was standing in a rainstorm near a small stone building. A dozen Army men were huddled inside, shielding their cigarettes from the blowing rain while they guarded a row of olive-green bassinets. Around me, censers were spewing _copal_ smoke into the soggy air. I became aware of the cooling sensation of the fresh rain across my face, and wondered if it might clear some of the toad venom (surely that was what it was) from my brain. Maybe it was working. Instead of seeing vivid colors everywhere, I was abruptly experiencing a hyper acute clarity of every sensation. The stones beneath my bare feet were becoming so articulated, I felt as though I could number every granule, every crystal, every atom. The paintings and carvings on the lintel above the door to the stone room--I recognized it as where I'd spent the first night--sparkled, leapt out at me. "Stand there on the edge of the platform," Alex Goddard commanded, urging me forward. It was only then I realized we'd come up the back steps of the pyramid, where the G-2 men had parked their black Land Rovers, unnoticed and ready. Looking down at the crowd of people gathered in the square, I realized they couldn't really see much of what was going on atop the pyramid. To them it was just a cloud of _copal_ smoke and foggy rain. Although the sun was starting to brighten the east, the only real light still came from the torches stationed around the plaza. Then like a ghost materializing out of the mist, Marcelina moved up the steep front steps, leading a line of Maya mothers from the clinic--I counted twelve--each carrying her newborn, the "special" baby she would give back to Kukulkan, perhaps the way Abraham of the Old Testament offered up his son Isaac in sacrifice to Jehovah. It was a sight I shall never forget, the sadness but also the unmistakable reverence in their eyes. I wanted to yell at them to run, to take Sarah's votive babies and disappear into the forest, but I didn't have the words. Next the women arrayed themselves in a line across the front of the pyramid, facing not the crowd below, but toward Alex Goddard and me. Then, holding out a jade-handled obsidian knife, he walked down the line, allowing each woman to touch her forehead against its flint blade. I assumed each one believed it was the instrument that would take her child's life, ceremonially sending it back to the Maya Otherworld whence it came. Had he drugged them too, I fleetingly wondered, hypnotized them or given them some potion to prevent them from comprehending what was really going on? I kept remembering . . . a hundred other insane episodes of immortal yearning leading to a mass "transport" to some other "plane." This, I thought, must be what it was like in the jungles of Jonestown that death-filled morning. And Alex Goddard was their "Jim Jones," the spiritual leader of the moral travesty he'd imposed upon the lost village of Baalum. I was going to stop it, somehow. By God, I was. I stared at the women and felt so sad at the sight of the hand-woven blankets they held their babies in, primary greens and reds and blues lovingly woven into shimmering patterns that mirrored the symbols across the sides of the stone room. Their faces, especially their eyes, were transcendent in a kind of chiaroscuro of darkest blacks and purest whites, as though all their humanity had been caught by their blankets and shawls, surely created for this ultimate moment. And the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz was there, carrying him, the baby I'd so wanted to hold one last time. Next Alex Goddard emerged from the stone room bearing a basket filled with sheets of white bark-paper. He approached Tz'ac Tzotz's mother, then took a wide section of the paper and secured it around her face with a silk cord, covering her vision. Down the line, one after another, he carefully blindfolded the women, while they stood passively, some crying--from joy or sorrow, I could not tell. Finally, at the last, he also covered Marcelina's face. So she's not supposed to know what's really happening. Nobody's supposed to know except him, and me. And, of course, Ramos and the G-2 secret police and whoever else is in on this crime. But, secretly, she does know. The God of the House of Darkness. When he finished, he put down the basket, then turned to me. "Stand at the front edge of the platform and lift your hands in benediction. They all want to see you, the new bride." I took a couple of steps, then looked back to see him adding more _copal_ to the main censer, sending a fresh cloud of smoke billowing out into the rain. As the incense poured around us, the Army thugs who'd been loitering at the back of the stone room began coming forward, each carrying one of the bassinets. They set them down on the stones, ready to start taking the children. My outraged mind flashed on Ghirlandajo's "Massacre of the Innocents." Here, though, Sarah's children weren't being stabbed to death; they were being--kidnapped and stolen. Revulsion pierced through me as though I'd been hit by a jagged shaft of lightning, but instead of being knocked down, I was energized. Or maybe the final effects of the toad venom were giving me a spurt of adrenaline. Letting his criminal charade continue one second longer became unbearable. What would happen to me, I didn't know, but I couldn't let it go on. "No," I yelled, startling myself by the sound of my own voice. "In God's name, stop." The rain was growing more intense, and I was soaked and bleary-eyed, but before I could think I found myself stalking over to Tz'ac Tzotz's mother, shouting at her. The next thing I knew I was ripping the paper from her frightened eyes. I hugged her as best I could, then yelled back at Marcelina. "Tell them all to take off their blindfolds. This is obscene." Then I went on autopilot, shutting out everything around me--the rain, the perilous sides of the pyramid, the pistol-carrying G-2 thugs, even Alex Goddard. The way I remember it now, it all took place in slow motion, like some underwater dream sequence, but surely it was just the opposite. Anyway, I do know I snapped. I started shouting again, and with the G-2 hoods momentarily frozen, I started flinging the still-empty bassinets down the steep side of the pyramid, where they just bounced away into the rain. As I watched them disappearing, one after another, I felt marvelously emboldened. I would throw one and watch it go flying, and then I would throw another. Yes, damn it, yes! I wanted to show anybody with two eyes that it was all a sham. Once they realized what was really happening, surely they would rise up and drive Alex Goddard from their home. For a moment it seemed to be working. A stunned silence was slowly spreading over the square, while everybody around me was paralyzed, like waxworks. Maybe it's the same way you're temporarily caught off guard when a stranger on the street goes berserk. By the time I'd flung away the last bassinet, the women had all removed their blindfolds and were staring at me, dumbfounded. Finally, Tz'ac Tzotz's mother whispered something to Marcelina, and she turned to me. "She wants to know why you're angry. You're the bride. They only want to please you." Angry? I was terrified, but also fighting mad. "Marcelina, this is all a ghastly lie." I'd finished throwing and I was moving to the next stage. Get control. Could he risk killing me in front of all these people? "Tell them to take their babies and hide in the forest." That was when I heard a cry that pierced through the rain and across the square beyond, and I turned back to see Alex Goddard shoving toward me. He's coming to murder me, since I've exposed him. But I wouldn't let it happen without a fight. I clenched my fists, waiting, feeling my adrenaline surge. Instead, though, he just brushed past me, headed toward the edge of the platform. At first I didn't know why, but he was intent on something off in the mist, his open hands thrust up at the rainy skies. That was when I heard the Guatemalan Army hoods yelling curses. "_Vete ala chingada!_" They also were staring off to the south, in the same direction. Hadn't they noticed I'd just dismantled their sick pageant? I wanted a reaction that would drive home the truth to Marcelina, to the mothers, to everyone. "Damn it, look at me," I yelled, first at him and then at the G-2 thugs. "_Mira!_" But their focus still was on something beyond the square. Finally I turned, following their gaze, and for a second I too forgot all about everything else. An intense red glow was illuminating the morning sky from the direction of the clinic, a vibrant electric rose weaving its hues in the mist. Then I saw spewing spikes of flame, orange and yellow, dancing over the top of the clinic. There was a finality about it that momentarily took my breath away. Then it hit me. Steve's in there. It was a horror that, in my initial shock, I couldn't actually process, the thought just hovering in the recesses of my brain defying me to accept it. Then Alex Goddard turned back, shouting at the Army men in rapid Spanish--I recognized the word for fire--that galvanized them to action. They snapped out of their mental paralysis and headed down the pyramid, toward two Land Rovers parked at the back. Next he turned around and fixed his gaze on me. At last he knew / knew he was capable of unspeakable evil, and I knew he knew I would do everything in my power to stop him. "All my records." His voice sounded as though it was coming from another world, and it held a sadness that touched even me. "You have no idea what's been lost." He was distraught, but also obsessed. With his wild mane of hair, he did, finally, look like Shiva the Destroyer. He stalked over and seized the obsidian knife, then turned toward me. I looked for something to defend myself with. The bassinets, which I might have used as a shield were gone. I only had my bare hands. I had to get away from him, get down the pyramid and find Sarah and Steve. But as I started toward the front steps, the women were all clustered there, blocking my way. Then, for no reason I could understand the mother of Tz'ac Tzotz stepped out of the group and handed me her baby, saying something in Kekchi Maya and reaching to touch my cheek. I was so startled I took the bundle that was Sarah's child. But then I thought, No! Alex Goddard will just kill him too. "She said he must not harm you," Marcelina whispered moving beside me. "You are the special one. She wants you to give her child back to Kukulkan." She still believes, I realized. They all do. Holding Tz'ac Tzotz, my eyes fixed on Alex Goddard, I'd entirely failed to notice a new presence on the pyramid a ghostlike waif in a white shift who now stood silently in the doorway of the stone room. Sarah! Marcelina had said she'd wanted to come for the ceremony. She was being helped to stand by the two Maya women who'd fed me the _atole_. Somehow, she'd gotten them to bring her. "Morgy, are you there?" Sarah asked gazing up at the rainy skies, the downpour soaking her blond hair, her eyes unblinking. At that moment, I felt we'd joined become one person--me the dogged rational half who'd just gone over the line, her the spiritual part that needed to float, to fly free. "I wanted to be with--" "Sar, get back," I yelled and started to go to her, but there wasn't time. Now Alex Goddard was moving toward me holding the knife, as though tracking a prey, oblivious to Sarah, to everything. He'd concentrated all his hatred on me and me alone, and I hated him back as much. Death hovered between us, waiting to see whom to take. But then the woman who had borne Tz'ac Tzotz said something in Kekchi Maya, pointing back at me and her child, and lunged at him. They collided together in the rain and next she slid down, first seizing his leg, then losing her grip and slipping onto the stones, her long black hair askew in the hovering smoke. She's trying to save me, I realized. Why--? Then I saw Sarah pull away from the women supporting her and slowly move across the platform. "Morgy . . ." She was walking in the direction of Alex Goddard, but then she stumbled over the fallen woman's leg and her hand went down as she sprawled across her. She must have touched something, because she recoiled backward, and only then did I notice the flare of a torch glinting off the obsidian knife now protruding from the woman's chest. Sarah rose up, her eyes full of anger, and awkwardly flung her arms, searching. I could feel the passion that had been pent up all those months she lay in the coma, feeding her madness. She managed to catch hold of Alex Goddard's arm, and they began an awkward minuet, neither realizing how close they were to the stone platform's edge. I stood mesmerized a moment, then dashed toward them, but only in time to watch them vanish into the rain and haze. It was as though there had been some sleight of hand. One second they were there and the next they weren't. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then I realized it was real. They were gone. "_Sarah!_" I reached the side in time to see them land on the first tier of stones below. She'd fallen near the edge, but she was solid and safe. Alex Goddard, however, hit with one foot on and one foot off, and the result was he slid away, then vanished into the dark rain. It's her final act of self-destruction. She's joined me in my rage, but we've both been spared. That's the miracle of _Baalum_. "Sar, don't move." I finally found my voice. I was still holding Tz'ac Tzotz, who'd begun to shriek, his blue eyes flooded with fear. Now several village men from the square were running, shouting, up the slippery steps. Their faces looked like they'd been painted at one time, but now the rain had washed most of it away. While I yelled down to Sarah, again begging her not to move, Marcelina was asking them something, and their answers were tumbling out. Finally I turned to look at her, the screaming Tz'ac Tzotz still in my arms. "No one knows where he is," she was saying as she looked down over the side. "He's gone into the forest." "Good." I pulled Tz'ac Tzotz to me and kissed him, trying to tell him to calm down. It wasn't working. "Marcelina, here, please hold him. I've got to get down to Sarah." She took him. Then I walked over to where his mother lay bleeding on the stones. The woman wasn't moving, the obsidian knife still protruding from her chest. She'd saved me, but now death had taken her. There was nothing anyone could do. I was trembling, but I turned and began easing myself over the side of the stone platform and onto the first tier of the pyramid. "Sar, don't move." I inched my way across to her. "Just stay still." The rain was pouring again, but the electric bloom of sparks and flames from the direction of the clinic was unabated. It would be completely gutted. Was Steve awake enough to get out? He'd seemed alert when I left him. "Morgy, is that you?" She was holding out her fingers. "I can't see you. Where are--?" "I'm here, Sar. Right here." I reached down and took her hand, which was deathly cold. "Come on. Let me help you get up." Carefully, leaning against the wet stones of the side of the pyramid, I gradually pulled her to her feet and away from the treacherous edge. Then it hit me what she'd said. "Sar, what do you mean, you can't see me?" "I'm okay. It's just . . ." She was gripping my hand now, and then she brushed against the stone side of the pyramid and put out her other hand to cling to it. "Morgy, I took it again. To go to their sacred place. But sometimes you can only see visions and then after a while everything goes blank." That bastard. Alex Goddard had given her the drug again. Now she was lost in a world of colored lights, a place I'd just traveled through myself. She probably had no idea she'd just pushed him off the pyramid and into the dark. "Your hand feels so soft," she was saying. "You're like warm honey." "Sar, try to walk. We're going to turn a corner and then we'll be at the back of the pyramid. Next we'll come to some steps, and then we're going down." As I inched our way along, scarcely able to keep our footing because of the rain, I wondered again about Steve. Please, God, let him be all right. When we finally got to the steps, Marcelina was there, standing expectantly, holding Tz'ac Tzotz. He was still crying, intermittent sobs. "He belongs to you now," she said, holding him out for me. "It's what she wished. "What--?" I took him before I realized what I was doing. As I cradled him, gazing down at his tender little face, I realized he truly was Sarah all over again. And I was so glad she couldn't see him. Never, I thought, she must never, ever know. I finally forced myself to place him back into Marcelina's arms. "You've got no idea how much I want him, but I can't. Let one of these women give him her milk, have a twin for her own child." For that wrenching moment I'd held the very baby my heart longed for. But he was the last one on earth I could have. Just go, take Sarah and find Steve and go as far from _Baalum_ as you can, before you lose your compass and do something terribly selfish. "Marcelina," I said, reaching to hug her, "tell them these 'sacred' children are all from his _medico_. Look up 'in vitro' in your dictionary. That's all it is." She hugged me back, though I wasn't sure whether she understood. Then I asked her to take Sarah's hand for a moment while I went back up the steps to the platform. I felt a primal anger as I took one last look at the women Alex Goddard had wronged, now clustered around the body of Tz'ac Tzotz's mother. Then I bade them a silent farewell, turned, and walked, holding my tears, back through the stone room. The rear of the pyramid was deserted, the steps slippery and dangerous, but it was our way out. I began leading Sarah down, step by treacherous step. Everything had happened so fast I'd barely had time to think about Steve. Those flames, my God. It was finally sinking in, truly hitting me. Had he gotten out in time? Then the slimy Rio Tigre, now swelling from the rain, came into view. I stared at it a second before I noticed the three young Army recruits leaning against the trunk of a giant Cebia tree next to the trail, their rifles covered in plastic against the rain. When they saw us, they stiffened, shifted their weapons, and glanced up at the top of the pyramid, as though seeking orders. Neither group had any idea why the other was there. Sarah and I were an unforeseen contingency they hadn't been briefed on. What are they going to do? They have no idea what just happened. "Morgy," Sarah said, gazing blankly at the sky, "the colors are so beautiful. Can we--?" "Shhh, we'll talk in a minute." I smiled and nodded and began walking past the young privates, holding my breath. Then a spectral form emerged out of the rain just behind them. It took me a moment to recognize who it was. I was hoping it might be Steve, but instead it was a man dressed in white, now covered with mud, and holding a knife, not obsidian this time but long and steel. His eyes were glazed, and I wasn't sure if he even knew exactly where he was. Why had he come down to the river? Had he known I'd come here, too? For a moment we just stood staring at each other, while the Army privates began edging up the hill, as though not wanting to witness what surely was coming next. "Why don't you put an end to all the evil?" I yelled at him finally, trying to project through the rain. "Just stop it right now." "_Baalum_ was my life's work," he said. Then he looked down at the knife a moment, as though unsure what it was. Finally he turned and flung it in the direction of the river. "It could have been beautiful," I said back. Thank God the knife was gone. But what would he do next? "But now--" "No," he said staring directly at me, his eyes seeming to plead. "It is. It will be again. To make a place like _Baalum _is to coin the riches of God. I want you to stay. To be part of it. Together, we . . ." But whatever else he said was lost in the cloudburst that abruptly swept over the embankment. In an instant it was a torrent, the last outpouring of the storm, powerful and unrelenting. Nature had unleashed its worst, as though Kukulkan was rendering his final judgment. "Morgy, I'm falling," Sarah screamed. The ground she and I had been standing on began turning to liquid as though it were a custard melting in the tropical heat. As we began slipping down the embankment toward him, I gripped her arm with my left hand and reached up to seize a low-lying branch of the Cebia with my right. Then, under the weight of the water, all the soil beneath us gave way, tons of wet riverbank that abruptly buckled outward. Alex Goddard made no sound as the mass of earth lifted him backward toward the river. His sullied garb of white blended into the gray sludge of mud and rain, then faded to darkness as the embankment dissolved into the swirling Rio Tigre. "Sar, hold on. Please hold on." I felt my grasp of the tree slipping, but now the mud slide had begun to stabilize. I managed to cling to the limb for a few seconds more, the bark cutting into my fingers, and then my hold slipped away, sending us both spiraling downward till we were temporarily snagged by the Cebia's newly exposed undergrowth. I still had her hand though just barely, but the torrent of rain and mud was subsiding, and finally we collapsed together into the gnarled network of roots. After a moment's rest, I managed to crawl out and pull her up. "Come on, Sar. Try and walk." Together we stumbled and slid down the last incline before the river's edge, then turned upstream along the bank. After about fifty yards, sure enough, the native _cayucos_, the hollowed-out mahogany canoes I'd told Steve about, were still there just as I'd seen them that first morning, bobbing and straining at their moorings. In the rain I couldn't tell how usable they were, but I figured going downriver was the only way we'd ever be able to get out. We'd have to flee the way Sarah had that first time. For a moment I thought they all were empty--dear God, no--but then I realized there was a drenched figure in the last one in the row. When I recognized who it was, I think I completely lost it; all the horror of the last two days swallowed me up. I grabbed Sarah and hugged her for dear life, feeling the tears coursing down my cheeks. I literally couldn't help myself. "They were tied up here just like you said." Steve wiped the rain from his eyes, then reached to take my hand. His bandaged nose was bleeding again, and he looked like he'd just been half killed. "I told those little Army _chicos_ I was a big amigo of _el doctor _and they saluted and showed me where these were tied up." "Thank God you're okay. What happened? Did--?" "Ramos, the son of a bitch. He came in and ... I guess it was time to finish me off. But I wasn't as drugged out as he thought." He was staring at Sarah, clearly relieved but asking no questions. "I brought along his nine-millimeter"--he indicated the silver automatic in his belt--"in case we run into problems." I wanted to kiss him, but I was still too shaken up. Instead I focused on helping Sarah in without capsizing everything. After I'd settled her, I pulled myself over the side and reached for a paddle. "If we go with the current," I said, "we'll get to the Usumacinta. Hopefully the flooding will help push us downstream." "Honestly, I didn't think the fire would get away from me like it did." He shoved off amidst the swirling debris. "Jesus. I heard them taking you away, and I assumed you didn't get to mess up his lab. So I figured there was one way . . . I just threw around some ether and pitched a match. The place was empty, so . . ." I looked around at the roiling waters, snakes and crocodiles lurking, and felt a lifetime of determination. Was Alex Goddard still alive? I no longer cared. . . . Sunrise was breaking through the last of the rain, laying dancing shadows on the water as we rowed for midstream. Someday, I knew, what was real about _Baalum _and what I'd dreamed here might well merge together, the way they had for Sarah. But for now, true daylight never looked better. Chapter Twenty-nine We got picked up by a ragged crew of Mexican fishermen just before dark. Aside from being sunburned to medium rare, we were physically okay. The fresh air and sunshine did a lot to bring Sarah back, though she did have lapses of non-rationality, and once tried to dive over the side of their fishing cutter. They dropped us off at the tourist site of Yaxchitan, a Mayan ruin on the western bank of the mighty Usumacinta, where we joined an American day-tour on its way back to San Cristobal de las Casas. There we caught a prop flight to Cancun, and then American Airlines to New York. We had no luggage, but I flew us first-class, and I still have the MasterCard slip to prove it. As things turned out, though, returning Sarah to normalcy--or me, for that matter--was another struggle entirely. For me, time, after that rainy morning in the Peten, became an essence that flowed around me as though I were aswim in the ether of interstellar space, pondering the conjunction of good and evil. I suffered flashbacks, late-night reveries of forests and children that must have been like those Sarah struggled to bury. For weeks after that, I had a lot of trouble remembering meetings, returning phone calls, giving David an honest day's editing. For her own part, Sarah just seemed to drift at first, to the point I sometimes wondered if she realized she was back at Lou's loft. Then abruptly, one day she snapped into her old self and started sending for re-registration materials from Columbia. I really needed to talk with her about our mutual nightmare, but she seemed to have erased all memories of _Baalum_, except for occasional mumbles in Kekchi Maya. Perhaps that was best, I consoled myself. Maybe it was wise for us all just to let the ghosts of that faraway place lie sleeping. As for Lou, I told him as little as I could about what happened to her there. He hadn't returned to work, had mainly stayed at his Soho place to be near her, as though he was fearful she might be snatched away from him once more. Frankly, I think all his enforced closeness was starting to grate on her nerves, though I dared not hint such a thing to him. In the meantime, Steve returned to Belize to wrap up his photo essay, and David submitted a (very) rough cut of _Baby Love _to the selection committee at Sundance (our hoped-for distribution deal with Orion was, alas, in temporary turnaround pending yet another management shuffle). We did, however, squeeze an advance from Lifetime that lowered the heat with Nicky Russo. Nevertheless, the story of how Alex Goddard touched all our lives still wasn't over. It was two months after we got back to the city that my dark dance with the man who thought he was Shiva, creator and destroyer, had its final pirouette, as though his ghost had returned from his rain-forest redoubt for one last sorcerer's turn. Truthfully, it all transpired so fast I could scarcely take it in, but here's the rough outline of what happened. I was working late that Thursday evening in the editing room at Applecore, around seven o'clock. And I was feeling particularly out of sorts, including a headache and stomach pains from the leftover pizza I'd microwaved to keep me going. I was re-cutting some new real-life interviews I'd filmed to replace those of Carly and Paula. (Children of Light had gone defunct, by the way, the phone at Quetzal Manor disconnected, but I didn't need any more excitement in my life of the colonel Ramos variety. The replacement interviews weren't nearly as bubbly and full of exuberance, but they were actually much truer to the realities of adoption.) Anyway, I listened to my stomach, and decided it was high time to toss in the towel. I got my things, locked up, and then I ran into David on the elevator, coming down from the floor above. "How's it going?" he asked, ostentatiously checking his watch, an approving gleam in his eyes. I was glad he wanted to let me know he'd noticed I was logging long hours. Then he looked at me again. "Hey, you feeling okay?" "I've been better," I said, thinking how nice it was that he cared. "Could be a couple of aspirin and a good night's sleep are called for." "So now you're a doctor?" he said, following me into the lobby, "Providing self-diagnosis--?" "David, give me a break. I just happen to feel a little off today, okay? It doesn't mean I'm at death's door." "Yeah, well, the way you look you coulda fooled me." He headed down the street, toward the avenue. Then he called back over his shoulder. "I don't want to see you in tomorrow unless you look like you might live through the day. I pay for your health insurance. Use it, for God's sake." After I found a cab, I began to think he might be right. This was no typical down day. So I decided I'd stop at the Duane Reade on my corner and talk to the pharmacist. The second-shift man was on, a gray-haired portly old guy who knew more about drugs than most doctors. The tag on his jacket said "Bernd" and that's all anybody ever knew of his name. I sometimes called him "Dr. Bernd" by way of banter, but nothing I could do would ever make him smile. The place was nearly empty and the pharmacy at the rear, with its spectral fluorescent lighting, looked like an out-take from a low-budget Wes Craven movie. Bernd, who was in back puttering, came out and looked me over. I know it sounds naive, but I trusted him more than I trust half the young, overworked interns you get at an emergency room these days. I poured out my symptoms, including the story about how I'd been given fertility drugs and toad venom. Was it all coming back to haunt me, the dark hand of Alex Goddard? He began by asking me some very perceptive questions, about things that had been puzzling me but I'd sort of managed to dismiss. Finally, he walked around the counter and lifted a small, shrink-wrapped box off a rack. "Try this," he said handing it over, "and then come back tomorrow. Maybe it's not such a big deal." You're kidding, I thought, looking at the box. I got home, collapsed onto the couch, and opened it. Believe it or not, I actually had to read the instructions. I did what they said, checked the time, and then decided to run a hot bath. I filled the tub, dumped in some bubble-bath, put the cordless on the toilet seat, and splashed in. It felt so good I wanted to dissolve. Then I reached for the phone. The clock above the sink read eight-thirty, and I figured rightly, that Steve would be back at his hotel in Belize City. Sure enough I got him on the first try. "Honey, you sitting down?" I said. "I'm lying down. You wouldn't believe my day." "You 're not going to believe what I just heard from the pharmacist at the corner. Remember I told you I've been feeling strange, and some things were a little behind schedule? Well, guess what. We're about to find out something. We can't be together, but we can share it over a satellite." "You mean . . ." "I'm doing the test right now. You know, you take the stick out of the glass holder and if it's turned pink. . . ." He was speechless for a long moment. Finally he just said, "Wow." I checked the clock again, then reached for the test tube. This, I realized, is the most incredible moment in any woman's life. Is your world going to go on being the same, or is it never, ever going to be the same again? When I pulled out the stick, it was a bright, beautiful pink. "Steve. I love you. It's--" "Max." He didn't realize it, but his voice had just gone up an octave. "What?" "That's my dad's middle name. I want to name him Max. It's an old family tradition." "And what if it's a girl? Don't say Maxine or I'll divorce you before you even make an honest woman of me." "Nope. If it's a girl, then you get to pick." I couldn't believe I was finally having this conversation. It was something I'd dreamed of for years. It then got too maudlin to repeat. He was coming home in eleven days, and we planned the celebration. Dinner at Le Cirque and then an evening at Cafe Carlyle. For a couple of would-be New York sophisticates, that was about as fancy-schmancy as this town gets. I was crying tears of triumph by the time we hung up. By then it was late enough I figured Arlene would be home from her exercise class, so I decided to call her and break the happy news once more. Who I really wanted to call was Betsy, on the Coast, but I knew she'd still be driving home from her temp job. Arlene would have to do. Telling her would be the equivalent of sending an urgent E-mail to the entire office, but I wanted everybody to know. Two birds with one stone. I looked down at my body, all the curves and soft skin, and tried to think about the miracle of a baby finally growing inside it, life recreating itself. God! Arlene was going to break my mood, but for some reason I had to call her. If only to bring me back to reality. I reached over and clicked open the cordless again. I was punching in her number when something made me pause. It was a nagging thought that I'd managed to repress for a while. Finally, though, it wouldn't stay down any more. There was something I had to check out. I slowly put down the handset, climbed out of the tub, dried off, then plodded into the bedroom to dig out my private calendar, which had long since become a record of everything relevant to my and Steve's baby project. It was buried at the bottom of the desk's second drawer, in amongst old bank statements. It was also, figuratively, covered by two months of dust, since that was how long it'd been since I'd bothered with it. I guess my attitude had been, what's the point? I placed it on the desk, trying not to get it wet. Then I wrapped the towel more firmly around me, switched on the desk lamp, and sat down. I think I was also holding my breath. I counted all the days twice, but there was no mistaking. The night Steve and I had spent so gloriously together in the Camino Real wasn't a fertile time. Not even close. I suppose that by then I'd become so despairing of ever getting pregnant, I hadn't even given it any thought. It was enough just to see him and hold him. I just sat there for a long time staring at the white page, unable to move, random thoughts coming too fast to contain inside my tangled brain. Finally, though, I managed to get up and numbly put the calendar away. Order, I needed order. I then worked my way into the kitchen to fix myself something. I had a glass of water, then pulled down a bottle of Red Label and poured myself half a tumbler. Okay, somewhere down deep I knew it was the worst possible thing I could do, but I wasn't thinking, just going on autopilot and dismay. I drank off a shot of the foul-tasting scotch, then realized how thoughtless that was and dumped the rest into the sink. Next, I moved into the living room and put on a raga, "Malkauns," concert volume, the one where the first note goes straight to your heart. Finally I collapsed onto the couch, the room now gloriously alive with all the spirituality and sensuality of the raga, notes piling on exquisite notes. For a while I just lay there numbly, enveloped in its lush eroticism. . . . Eventually I started to think. Alex Goddard had planned to take from me, but had he also given? Had his "proprietary" ovulation drugs . . . causing all those hundreds of eggs to mature simultaneously . . . inadvertently let me get pregnant? Then I had a dismaying counter-thought. Could he have done an _in vitro_ while I was under sedation, when he harvested my ova? The ultimate link to _Baalum_. Was my baby Sarah's too? One of those last frozen embryos in his . . .? Then I leaned back and closed my eyes. No, surely not. This baby was Steve's and mine. Ours. Had to be. His unintended, beautiful, ironic gift. Surely . . . Uh-uh. Go for a second take. Embrace life. Be Molly Bloom and shout it. Yes! _Yes_! * * * BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info 
34320	----	============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== PROJECT DAEDALUS Retired agent Michael Vance is approached for help on the same day by an old KGB adversary and a brilliant and beautiful NSA code breaker. While their problems seem at first glance to be different, Vance soon learns he's got a potentially lethal tiger by the tail - a Japanese tiger. A secret agreement between a breakaway wing of the Russian military and the Yakuza, the Japanese crime lords, bears the potential to shift the balance or world power. The catalyst is a superplane that skims the edge of space - the ultimate in death-dealing potential. In a desperate union with an international force of intelligence mavericks, with megabillions and global supremacy at stake, Vance has only a few days to bring down a conspiracy that threatens to ignite nuclear Armageddon. Publisher's Weekly _"Hoover's adept handling of convincing detail enhances this entertaining thriller as his characters deal and double-deal their way through settings ranging from the Acropolis to the inside of a spacecraft. Michael Vance, formerly of the CIA, is on his way to an archeological dig when some old friends show up. First comes KGB agent Alex Novosty, caught laundering money that the KGB claims was embezzled - and he wants Michael to take charge of the hot funds. Then National Security Agency cryptographer Eva Borodin (who is Michael's ex-lover) appears with an undecipherable but dangerous computer file: the co- worker who gave her the file has since vanished. Heavies from a Japanese crime syndicate attack Michael and Eva, who are rescued by Alex, but it looks like Alex and the syndicate aren't complete strangers. Moreover, the mysterious Daedalus Corporation seems to be a link between Alex's money and Eva's file. As Michael is drawn into this deadly web, he realizes there is a secret agreement between the Russians and the Japanese - and it has nothing to do with tea-brewing customs." _ BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info PROJECT DAEDALUS Thomas Hoover BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK -- TORONTO -- LONDON -- SYDNEY -- AUCKLAND -- PROJECT DAEDALUS A Bantam Falcon Book / August 1991 All rights reserved copyright © 1991 by Thomas Hoover Cover art copyright © 1991 by Alan Ayres ISBN 0-553-29108-4 Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 0987654321 Key Words: Author: Thomas Hoover Title: Project Daedalus Hypersonic, Superplane, Edge of Space, thermonuclear warhead, Supersonic, Space Plane, Crete, Minos, Palace of Minos, Greece, Greek Islands Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material. Ovid: The Metamorphoses, translated by Horace Gregory. New American Library. Copyright © 1958 by The Viking Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. _So Daedalus turned his mind to subtle craft, An unknown art that seemed to outwit nature. _Ovid_, The Metamorphoses PROLOGUE _ Thursday 8:40 A.M. _G-load is now eight point five. Pilot must acknowledge for power-up sequence to continue. _The cockpit computer was speaking in a simulated female voice, Russian with the Moscow accent heard on the evening TV newscast _Vremya_. The Soviet technicians all called her Petra, after that program's famous co-anchor. Yuri Andreevich Androv didn't need to be told the force weighing down on him had reached eight and a half times the earth's gravity. The oxygen mask beneath his massive flight helmet was crushed against his nose and the skin seemed to be sliding off his skull, while sweat from his forehead poured into his eyes and his lungs were plastered against his diaphragm. _Auto termination will commence in five seconds unless you acknowledge_. Petra paused for a beat, then spoke again: _Four seconds to shutdown . . . _He could sense the blood draining from his cerebral vascular system, his consciousness trying to drift away. He knew that against these forces the human heart could no longer pump enough oxygen to the brain. Already he was seeing the telltale black dots at the edge of his vision. It's begun, he thought. The "event." Don't, don't let it happen. Make your brain work. _Make it._ _Three seconds . . . _The liquid crystal video screens inside his flight helmet seemed to be fading from color to black and white, even as his vision closed to a narrow circle. The "tunnel" was shrinking to nothing. The first stage of a G-induced blackout was approximately two and a half seconds away. You've done this a hundred times before at the Ramenskoye Flight Test Center, he told himself. You're Russia's best test pilot. Now just _do_ it. He leaned back in the seat to lower his head another few millimeters, then grasped for the pressure control on his G-suit, the inflatable corset that squeezed critical blood paths. He ignored the pain as its internal pressure surged, gripping his torso and lower legs like a vise and forcing blood upward to counter the accumulation at his feet. _Two seconds . . . _With his right hand he rotated a black knob on the heavy sidestick grip and turned up the oxygen feed to his mask, an old trick from fighter training school that sometimes postponed the "event" for a few milliseconds. Most importantly, though, he strained as if constipated in the snow, literally pushing his blood higher--the best maneuver of all. He liked to brag that he had upped his tolerance three G's through years of attempting to crap in his blue cotton undersuit. It was working. The tunnel had begun to widen out again. He'd gained a brief reprieve. "Acknowledged." He spoke to Petra, then reached down with his left hand and flicked forward the second blue switch behind the throttle quadrant, initiating the simulated hydrogen feed to the outboard scramjet tridents, portside and starboard. Acceleration was still in- creasing as the flashing green number on the video screens in front of his eyes scrolled past Mach 4.6, over four and a half times the speed of sound, already faster than any air- breathing vehicle had ever flown. _Only a few seconds more. _He had to stay conscious long enough to push his speed past Mach 4.8, raising the fuel-injector strut temperature of the scramjets to the 3,000-degree-Fahrenheit regime and establishing full ignition. If the scramjets failed to stabilize and initiated auto shutdown, he would flame out--at almost twenty-five hundred miles per hour. _You are now experiencing nine G's_, the female voice continued, emotionless as ice. _Pilot will confirm vision periphery_. The fucking computer doesn't believe I can still see, he thought. Most men, of course, would have been functionally blind by then. Prolong the experience of ten G's and you went unconscious: the event. _Confirm_, Petra's voice insisted. "Thirty-eight degrees." He read off the video screens inside his helmet, temporarily quieting the computer. But now he had a demand of his own. "Report scramjet profile." _Inboard tridents at eighty-two percent power. Outboard tridents at sixty-eight percent power_, the voice responded. Get ready, Petra. Spread your legs. I'm coming home. The velocity scrolling on the right side of his helmet screen was about to pass through the barrier. Strut temperature was stabilizing. With engines in the scramjet mode, the vehicle should be able to push right on out to Mach 25, seventeen thousand miles per hour. From there it was only a short hop to low orbit. If-- _Inboard tridents at eighty-eight percent power. _The voice came again. _LAC compression nominal_. The liquid air cycle equipment would be using the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to chill and liquefy the rush of incoming air; oxygen would then be injected into the scramjets at pressures impossible to achieve in conventional engines. With a sigh he eased back lightly on the throttle grip in his left hand. As he felt the weight on his chest recede, the pressure in his G- suit automatically let up. He smiled to think that a less experienced pilot would now be slumped in his seat, head lolling side to side, eyes wide open and blank, his bloodless brain dreaming of a lunar landscape. He knew; he'd been there often enough himself. In the old days. _System monitors commencing full operation_. Good. From here on, the fuel controls would be handled by the in-flight computer, which would routinely monitor thrust and temperature by sampling every two milliseconds, then adjusting. But that was the machine stuff, the child's play. He'd just done what only a man could do. _Power-up complete for inboard and outboard tridents, portside and starboard, _Petra reported finally. _Hydrogen feed now in auto maintenance mode_. She'd taken full charge. He was out of the loop. But I just rode this space bird up your ice-cold _peredka_, silicon lady. He felt a burst of exhilaration and gave a long, basso whoop. It was a crow of triumph, a challenge to every male ape in the forest. Yuri Andreevich Androv lived for this, and only felt alive when he'd just pushed his body to the limit. He needed it, lusted for it. It was all he'd ever really cared about. It was, he knew, his primal need to dominate his world. He knew that, but so what? Other men merely dreamed it, played at it--in games, business, even politics. He did it. And he fully intended to go on doing it. "Roll down her audio, dammit," he yelled into his helmet mike. "She's driving me crazy." "She's supposed to," a radio voice sounded back in his ear. "Ramenskoye says all test pilots--you included, my friend--pay more attention to a female voice." A laugh. "Come to _matya_, darling." "I'd like to see her and--_Nayarevayet!_--just once." He smiled in spite of himself as the tunnel widened more and the screens before his eyes began to recolor, pale hues gradually darkening to primary shades. The blood was returning to his brain. Acceleration was stabilizing now, down to 4.7 G's. "She'd be a cold-hearted piece, Yuri. Guaranteed." "It's been so long, I probably wouldn't notice." That's what he really needed now--a woman. "You would, believe me," the radio continued. "By the way, congratulations. Your alpha was right across the oscilloscope, as always. Zero stress response. How do you do it, _tovarisch_? I think Petra was more worried than you were." "Shut off the tape, and cut the 'comrade' crap," he barked back. "Sergei, I nearly lost it there at nine point five." "No indication on the physio monitors." The flight technician sounded unconvinced. "The hell with the wavy lines. I know what was happening," he snapped again, still wired with tension. "Can we get another fifteen percent tilt out of this damned seat, help lower my head. There're no windows anyway, so who cares where I'm looking?" "We can send a memo to Engineering," the radio voice replied. "Though there may not be time." "Tell them they'd better make fucking time. Say I want it done." Not enough time? What in hell was going on? He took one last look at the high-definition video screens--one for each eye--inside the helmet that would be the vehicle's "windscreen," then flipped the snap and began shoving it up. He hated the damned thing, thought it made him look like a giant high-tech moth. "Shall we power-down the centrifuge now?" the voice continued, unfazed. "Take it down. I'm ready for lunch. And a bottle of juice. _'Peit budu ya!'_" "I read you," the radio voice chuckled once more, knowing there wasn't any vodka to be had for a hundred miles around the facility. Reports were the project director had heard too many stories about Russian drunkenness and somehow always forgot to include liquor in the supply requisition. "I hear there's borscht again in the mess today. Petyr just came in from the North Quadrant. Said it tastes like piss. Bastards still haven't learned--" "_Pomnyu, pomnyu_." He found himself longing for real food, seemingly impossible to produce here. Just like a drink. He waited a few seconds longer, till the huge white centrifuge had come to a complete stop, then shoved down the metal hatch release and stepped out. He looked up at the high-impact glass partition of the instrument room, waved to the medical team, and began unzipping his flight suit. It was only half open by the time the technicians marched in, anxious to remove quickly the rubber suction cups and wires he was wearing on his head and chest, the instrumentation probes for their body monitor system. They wanted to reclaim them before he ripped them off, something he frequently had been known to do. Androv always said he was there to fly whatever plane nobody else had the balls to, not take a physical, so he wanted the goddam things off, and fast. Air Force Major Yuri Andreevich Androv was thirty- seven, tall, with the studied swagger all Soviet test pilots seemed to acquire after a few years. His dark eyes and hair were set off by a high forehead and long, lean cheeks, and behind those cynical eyes lurked a penetrating intelligence. There was something else too, the most vital attribute a test pilot can have: a perfect, natural integration of the two sides of his brain. Soviet medical studies had shown that the best pilots were artists, because handling a plane at three times the speed of sound was primarily a function of the intuitive right side of the brain, the side that provides the instincts, the seat-of-the-pants judgment. The left brain, in contrast, handled a pilot's rational functions--it was his data management system, his computer. Flight instructors for tactical aircraft at the Ramenskoye Flight Test Center south of Moscow knew that a pilot lost his edge when his brain started getting its signals mixed, when it was no longer sure which side was in control. They called it the biology barrier. The result of information overload in a stress situation, it could lead to a total breakdown. The brain went haywire. Yuri Androv was one of the few Soviet test pilots who never reached the biology barrier. He was, in fact, the best. He knew that his gift was one of the reasons he had been specially selected for this project. Another was experience. Over the years, he'd flown them all--the Tupolev Blackjack, the MiG 25 Foxbat, even the ultra-secret new MiG 31 Foxhound. But this hydrogen-fueled, scramjet- powered monster opened the door to another world. Above Mach 5, you were no longer merely supersonic, you were hypersonic--where no air- breathing vehicle had ever ventured. Could it be done? He had to admit the technology was awesome--all the aerodynamic design by supercomputer, the new ceramic composites for the leading edges, the Mach 13 burst-tests in the hypersonic wind tunnel, the scramjet static-test power-ups at the aeropropulsion facility. . . . This was supposedly just a space-research vehicle, for godsake. But it had twelve engines. And whereas the MiG 25, the USSR's fastest fighter- interceptor, topped out well under two thousand miles per hour, this space-age creation was capable, theoretically, of speeds almost ten times that. The schedule agreed upon called for the certification of both the prototypes in their lower-speed, turboramjet mode, and then the commencement of hypersonic flight tests in the scramjet mode. That second phase wasn't supposed to begin for three months. But now the project director had ordered the test program accelerated, demanding the hypersonic test flights begin immediately with the one prototype now certified--in ten days. Maybe, just maybe, it could be done. Of course, everybody else would be sitting safely in Flight Control there in the East Quadrant when he kicked in the scramjets at sixty thousand feet. His ass would be the one in the cockpit. This was the riskiest project of his life. Until the operational shakedown, nobody actually knew whether or not those damned scramjets would produce a standing shock wave in their combustion chamber, creating a supersonic "compressor" the way the supercomputer promised they would. And what about somebody's brilliant idea of using the plane's liquid hydrogen fuel as coolant for the leading edges, to dissipate the intense heat of hypersonic flight? Had to do it, they claimed. Computer says there's no other way. But that was about as "brilliant" as filling your car radiator with frozen jet fuel! He'd be flying in a cocoon of liquid hydrogen . . . and, even scarier, he'd be doing it blind, with no windscreen. If he burned up he'd have to watch it on television. He glanced back one last time at the white centrifuge, a fifty-foot propeller with the simulated cockpit on one blade and a counterbalancing weight on the other. The centrifuge itself was pure white enamel, spotless, just like the room. A little honest Russian dirt would actually have made him feel better. Riding in that "cockpit" was like being strapped inside a video game, all lights and nothing real. Frowning, he shrugged and passed on through the door, greeted the milling technicians, and tossed his crumpled flight suit toward two medics from the foreign team who caught it in midair, bowed, and hurried it into the medical lab for . . . the devil take it, he didn't know and he didn't care. The fluorescent-lit hall was crowded with white-shirted technicians returning from the morning's test in Number One, the big hypersonic wind tunnel. Everybody was smiling, which told him the final run-up of the model must have gone without a hitch. That was the last segment of the revised schedule. The hypersonic test flight was on, in eighteen days. What in hell was the sudden rush? What was everybody's real agenda? Nobody was talking. That was what really bothered him, had bothered him from the start. This top-secret vehicle wasn't destined to be some kind of civilian space-research platform, regardless of what anybody claimed. Who were they fooling? The ultimate weapons delivery system had just been built here, a high-tech behemoth that married advanced Soviet thruster and guidance technology with a hypersonic airframe and scramjets created by the world's leading manufacturer of high-temperature alloys and supercomputers. And it was all being done here, the one place on earth with the technology. Here. The trouble was, this wasn't Russia. _So Daedalus devised his winding maze; And as one entered it, only a wary mind Could find an exit to the world again. . . . _Ovid_, The Metamorphoses _ BOOK ONE CHAPTER ONE Wednesday 7:33 A.M. _ _"You're lucky I love this spot," Vance said, gazing out over the city. "Nothing else on the planet could have got me up this early in the morning." "It's the one place I thought I could persuade you to meet me." The bearded man sighed, his dark eyes grim. The accent was Russian, the English flawless. "I have a problem, a very big problem." "The Cold War's over, Alex, or maybe you hadn't heard." He strolled on, tugging his trench coat tighter. "What have we got left to talk about?" "Please. We both did what we had to." "I still do. Life's too short for anything else." He turned back. "Now how about telling me what's on your mind." Vance was firm-muscled and lean, with the leathery skin of a man who drank his tequila straight and preferred spending his days in the sun, two habits that also had bestowed a network of threadlike smile lines at the corners of his sea-blue eyes. Aleksei Ilyich Novosty had phoned him at the Athenaeum Inter-Continental half an hour earlier, begging to meet him, saying it was of the utmost importance. A cab was downstairs. The driver had taken him to the old flea market at Monastiraki Square, where Alex's own black limo waited. But now Novosty was playing games, and the days for KGB games were supposed to be in the distant past. What did the man want? "My friend, give me a moment. . . ." Novosty wiped his brow, manicured nails glistening, then looked up and pointed. "By the way, I've always believed that one is the most exquisite female in the world. That one there. What do you think?" "Sexy, plenty of style." Vance swept his eyes over the figure, loving how the cloth was shaped by her breast, the vague hint of thigh as one leg brushed against the gauze of her tunic. "But the lady next to her's a looker too. Always seemed a tough call." Above them, the stone caryatids smiled down, their pale faces timeless and ethereal. They were Greek statues that served as columns for the south porch of the Erechtheum, the Ionic temple standing across from the Doric Parthenon. Down below the steep north wall of the Acropolis, the dark-glazed rooftops of Athens, city of Pericles, droused mutely in the early haze. "Yes, perhaps you're right." Novosty brushed awkwardly at his patchy stubble, searching for an opening. He knew Vance never made the first move, always waited for the other side to show its cards. "Michael, I ... is it true you occasionally still take an assignment? I mean, outside the usual work for ARM. I made some inquiries in Geneva last week. The word is--" "Hang on. I think you're getting your team colors mixed. I work for the other side, remember?" He stooped and picked up a handful of the grainy red soil at their feet, massaging it in his fingers and wondering why it had taken him so long to get back here, to Greece. This was where he belonged. This was the place, the ancient people, he still dreamed about. But could he fit in again after so many years away? Yes, he'd make it work. Michael Vance, Jr., had the sangfroid of one who moved easily among the decision-makers of two continents. He was to the manner born--Yale--and he'd long since concluded it was the way man was meant to live. In years past he'd been a field archaeologist, and a good one; then he'd had a brief consulting stint for the CIA. These days, he lived at the Nassau Yacht Club marina, where he moored his restored forty-four-foot Bristol racing yacht, the Ulysses, headquarters for his three-boat charter operation. He was mortgaged to the hilt, but he didn't really care. When things got tight, he could always take on a quick money job for the Association of Retired Mercenaries, ARM. "The situation is not necessarily what you're thinking," Novosty pressed. "So perhaps you would consider--" "Whatever it is, the answer's still no. The next three weeks are going to be spent working on a tan." Why tell Alex the facts? Today he was in Athens for only a few hours, a stopover on the way to Crete. He glanced at his watch--an old Eterna Chronomatic, the 1946 classic he loved--and calculated that the flight for Iraklion left in less than four hours. This time tomorrow morning he would be looking in on the crew from the University of Stuttgart's dig for the German Historical Society, part of the restoration of a Minoan palace near Crete's southern shore. Novosty and all he stood for were the last thing he needed right now. "Then at least let's have coffee," the Russian said finally, pointing. "I brought some. There in the bag." Vance needed it, to cut his hangover. Without a word he turned to the marble steps, pried open the white paper, and reached in. "Plastic." Dismay filled his voice as he lifted out one of the smooth Styrofoam cups and examined it, like an insect. "This nails it. Game over. Our side won all the chips. Now even Greek coffee comes American style." He frowned as he pried the white lid from the cup. "What's left?" "It's everywhere. Perhaps they'll wrap these statues in cellophane next, who knows." "I fear the worst." He took a sip, relishing the first hit of the dawn. It was dark and sweet, the real thing despite the container. "Michael, please . . . at least hear me out." He reached for a cigarette, extracting it filter-first from his trench coat. "I have a serious personal problem, and I don't know where else to turn." Could it be true? Vance examined him more closely. The beard wasn't the only change. The left side of his gray coat bulged as he searched for his lighter. Alex had never bothered to carry his own protection. At least never before. He knew Alex Novosty was part of KGB's T-Directorate, Russia's special organization for high-tech theft. In the old days he operated out of Sophia, arranging the laundering of underground Soviet funds by mingling them with the flight capital and drug money that made its way between Turkey's Ziraat Bank, the Vatican's Istituto per le Opere di Religione, and Geneva no-questions fronts with names like the Banco di Roma per la Svizzera. The truth was, Michael Vance, Jr., and Aleksei Ilyich Novosty had, over the years, often traveled the same paths. They used the same organizations and contacts--Novosty to conceal illicit monies, Vance to expose them. "You know, I always enjoyed our games." Novosty looked out over Athens, his voice trailing off. "But, as you say, that was the old days. The world's changed. Now perhaps we can just be two professionals. Do some business." He seated himself on a block of marble, still slightly moist with morning dew, and withdrew a wrinkled clipping. It was from The Times of London. "Here, read this, please." Vance glanced down at it, then realized he had already read it on the Reuters satellite news service. He had looked it over, stored it in his news-update computer file, and promptly forgotten about it. SOVIET PARTY OFFICIAL SOUGHT IN DISAPPEARANCE OF FUNDS MOSCOW, Mar. 18--The Central Committee today lodged formal charges against a CPSU official, Viktor Fedorovich Volodin, First Secretary of the oblast of Sakhalin, in connection with his alleged embezzle- ment of government funds and subsequent disappearance. The island of Sakhalin, together with the Kuril Islands, is an administrative district in the far eastern region of the Soviet Federated Socialist Republics. Since being taken from Japan in 1945, the southern Sakhalin oblast has been closed to all Western visitors. The island is said to have a major military airfield at Dolinsk and a naval base at Korsakov facing La Perouse Strait, the only year-round passage between Soviet warm-water ports in Asia and the North Pacific. It is an economically and strategically vital part of the Soviet Far East, with the only oil fields in the eastern regions. The amount embezzled is reported at twenty million rubles, which would make Party Secretary Volodin responsible for the largest outright theft of state monies in the history of the Soviet Union . . . Vance looked up. "The home team at play. Some ministry shell game, probably. Little budget scam. What's it got to do with you?" "My friend, this thing is no game." Novosty crumpled his cup. In his other hand, the cigarette remained unlit. "I was . . . involved. Of course, I didn't know then. But if Dzerzhinsky Square finds out I stupidly let myself be--" He flicked his black Italian lighter, then inhaled. "KGB will post me to Yakutsk piece by piece. In very small boxes." Vance stared into his dark eyes, trying to gauge the truth. None of it added up. "Alex, you're one of the sharpest guys in the business. So, assuming this is straight, why in hell would you let yourself even get close to it? The thing had to be some internal play." For a moment the bearded man said nothing, merely smoked quietly on his cigarette. The sun was beginning to illuminate the cloud bank in the east, harbinger of the midday Athens shower. "Perhaps I . . . yes, it was an unknown, but what is life without unknowns? The job looked simple, Michael. I just had to launder it. Easy enough. Of course, if I had realized . . ." Again his voice trailed into the morning haze. "So what's the inside story?" Novosty drew once more on his cigarette. Finally he spoke. "All right. The number of twenty million rubles? Of course it's 'disinformation.' Typical. The real amount, naturally, is classified. There is even a formal directive, signed by Chief, First Directorate Gribanov." "Guess KGB still has enough clout to write the rules." "The old ways die hard. They, and the military, are fighting a rearguard action to protect their turf--just as your CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense are doing now. Which is why they are so concerned about this. If they don't get to the bottom of it, they will once again be proved incompetent . . . as well as over-funded." He scratched at his beard. "More to the point, this operation went around them. That's a very bad precedent, if you understand what I'm saying. And the money, Michael, was almost three times what they admitted. In dollars it was over a hundred million." "Nice chunk of change." Vance whistled quietly. "Even now, though, I have to admit it was brilliant. Flawless. Viktor Fedorovich Volodin, first secretary of the State Committee for Sakhalin, Far Eastern District, got authority signed off, got his passport stamped vyezdnye, or suitable for travel, and then wired the sixty million rubles not to the district, but to the state bank of Poland, with instructions for conversion. A lot of money, yes, but it was not unprecedented. And he did it late Friday, around two in the afternoon, after all the _nomenklatura_ had left for their weekend _dachas_. By Monday morning he was in Warsaw, to clarify the 'mistake.' Next the money was sent to my old bank connection in Sophia . . . by then, of course, it's _zlotis ._ . . I just assumed it was something KGB wanted laundered." He paused. "They claim sometimes things have to be handled outside the _nomenklatura_, to avoid the paperwork bottleneck." "So how much did you end up cleaning?" "All of it," he sighed. "I converted it to deutsche marks, then bought pounds sterling and used those to acquire British gilts, the long-term government bonds. They're currently parked in a dummy account at Moscow Narodny Bank, in London." The momentary lilt drained from his voice. "But now, now what can I do? The funds are just sitting there, waiting. But if I show up and try to wire them out, I'm probably as good as dead." "The man who's tired of London is tired of life." "Michael, the moment I'm seen in London, I may not have a life. I think KGB already suspects I was somehow connected. If they find me, they will turn me into sausages. I'm trapped. You've got to help me move it again, make the trail just disappear." He tossed away his cigarette and immediately reached into his overcoat for another. "Seems to me the first thing you ought to do is try and locate Comrade Volodin. Maybe let a couple of your boys have a small heart-to-heart with him. Little socialist realism. Give him some incentive to straighten it out himself." "Michael, first directorate is already combing the toilets of the world for him. He's vanished. The ministry of defense, and the GRU--" "The military secret service." "Exactly. The minute either of them finds him, the man's a corpse." He shrugged, eyes narrowing. "If I don't find him first." Vance listened, wondering. "That's a very touching story. You could almost set it to music. Only trouble is, the punch line's missing. There's got to be more--too much money's involved. So who else is in on this? South Africa? Israel? Angola?" "What do you mean? I've told you everything I know. Volodin, the bastard, used me as part of his swindle. But now he's lost his nerve and run, disappeared, and left me to face--" "Sure, that's all there is to it." He cut in, laughing. "Incidentally, you take your standard cut up front? Back at the beginning?" "Michael, please, I am a businessman. Of course. The usual percentage. But now--" "Like you say, it's a problem." He turned to stub out his cigarette. "A nightmare. Think about it. A hundred million dollars U.S. That's starting to be real money, even for the USSR. Not even the czars ever managed to steal so much." Vance looked him over. Novosty was telling the story backward, inside out. "Look, whenever somebody gives me only half a setup, I just--" "Michael, no one knows better than you all the ways money can be moved in this world. Those funds must be made to just vanish from London, then reappear another place with no trail. I have already arranged for a bank, far away. After that the money can be returned, anonymously. What other solution is there?" He hesitated painfully. "You know, I have no friends I have not bought--the definition of a tragic life. But I remember you always were a man who kept his word. I can trust you. Besides, where else can I turn?" "Alex, forget it. I've already got all the fun I can handle." Vance sipped his coffee, now down to the black grounds and undissolved sugar. It was both bitter and sweet, contradictory sensations against his tongue. Just like Novosty's tale, part truth and part lie. Alex had no intention of returning the money, for chrisake. He was probably in the scam _with_ Volodin. And now the hounds were baying. The main problem was, who were the hounds? "Michael, do us both a favor. Help me move it." He pressed. "I'll take care of the rest. And I'll even give you half the two million that was my commission. Just take it. Gold. Tax free. It's yours. You'll be set for life. All you have to do is arrange to transfer the money to another bank I will tell you. I have an account already waiting, every- thing, but I can't do it myself. They're too close to me." A million dollars, he thought. Christ, with that you could pay off the four hundred thousand mortgage on the boats, free and clear. You'd also be helping Alex out of a jam, and the man looked like he could use all the help he could get. He stared out toward the encircling mountains, now swathed in fleecy clouds. . . . No. The deal had too many unknowns. The whole point of working for yourself was you could pick and choose your jobs. If you ever started going with the highest bidder, you were a fool. Guys who did that didn't last in this business. "Afraid I'll have to pass. There're plenty of other . . ." That was when he absently glanced down at the early sun glinting off the windows of Athens. In the parking lot below, a tan, late-model Audi had just pulled in. He watched as it idled. "Incidentally," he said as he thumbed at the car, "friends of yours? More art lovers?" Novosty took one look and stopped cold. "Michael, I'm sorry, I really must be going. But . . . perhaps you might wish to stay here for a few more minutes. Enjoy the women. . . . Though I hear you like them better in the flesh. . . ." He reached into his breast pocket. "Think about what I've said. And in the meantime, you should have this." He handed over a gray envelope. "It's the original authorization I received from Volodin . . . when he transferred the funds to the bank in Sophia." "Look, I'm not--" "Please, just take it. Incidentally, it probably means nothing, but there's a corporate name there. I originally assumed it was KGB's cover. Who knows. . . ." He continued to urge the envelope into Vance's hand. "I've written the London information you will need on the back. The account at Narodny, everything." He was turning. "Be reasonable, my friend. We can help each other, maybe more than you realize." "Hold on." Vance was opening the envelope. Then he lifted out a folded page, blue. "Good name for a dummy front. Nice mythic ring." "What . . .?" Novosty glanced back. "Ah, yes. From the old story." "Daedalus." "Yes, everything about this is a fiction. I realize that now. Of course The Daedalus Corporation does not exist." He paused. "Like you say, it's just a myth." Vance was examining the sheet, an ice blue reflecting the early light. Almost luminous. Something about it was very strange. Then he massaged it with his fingertips. It wasn't paper. Instead it was some sort of synthetic composition, smooth like silicon. Saying nothing, he turned away and extracted a booklet of hotel matches. He struck one, cupped it against the light wind, and with a quick motion touched the flame to the lower corner of the sheet. The fire made no mark. So his hunch was right. The "paper" was heat resistant. When he held it up, to examine it against the early sun, he noticed there was a "watermark," ever so faint, an opaque symbol that covered the entire page. It was so large he hadn't seen it at first; it could have been reflections in the paper. He stared a second before he recog- nized-- "Talk to me." He whirled around. "The truth, for a change. Do you know where I'm headed this afternoon?" "I confess my people did obtain your itinerary, Michael. But only in order to--" "When?" "Only yesterday." "That was after you got your hands on this, right?" "Of course. I just told you. That was the original authorization." "The Daedalus Corporation?" "That name is only a myth. Nothing but paper." He began walking briskly down the steps next to the Temple of Athena Nike, the Sacred Way, toward his black limousine in the parking lot. "We will finish this later. The final arrangements. I will be in touch." Vance watched as the black limo backed around and quickly headed toward the avenue. After a few moments, the tan Audi slowly pulled out of the parking lot to follow. He turned back to look at the temples, sorting through the story. Somebody in this world, this Daedalus Corporation or whomever it represented, had a hundred million dollars coming, dollars now all nicely laundered and ready to go. What did it add up to? In years past Alex Novosty had moved money with total impunity. So why would he turn up in Athens, bearing an elaborate and patently bogus story, begging for help? It couldn't be for the boys back at Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow. They never went outside with their own problems. Besides, they cleaned money all the time. Somebody, somewhere, was pulling a fast one. Don't touch it, he told himself. For once in your life just walk away. It's got to be hot. Bad news all around. Just forget it and go on to Crete. He could hardly wait. Eva Borodin was meeting him there; a decade-late reunion after all the stormy water under the bridge. Or was it going to be a rematch? Whichever, that was going to be a scene. He had vague hopes they might put together a rerun of years past, only this time with a happy ending. Still mulling over the pieces of Novosty's puzzle, he turned and headed for the northwest edge of the Acropolis. In the distance stood the ring of mountains that once served as Athens's natural fortress: Parnes, mantled in dark forests of fir; the marble face of Pentelikon; Hymettus, legendary haunt of the honeybee; Aigaleos, its noble twin crests rising up to greet the early sun. And directly below lay the excavated ruins of the ancient Agora, the city center where Socrates once misled the youth of Greece, teaching them to think. Now Vance needed to think. . . . Remembering it all later, he realized he'd been in precisely the wrong place to actually witness the accident. He just heard it--the screech of rubber, the sickening crunch of metal. He'd raced to look, but the intersection below was already a carpet of flame. What had happened? There was a gasoline truck, short and bulky, wheels spinning in the air, its hood crumpled against the remains of an automobile. He strained to see. Which was it? Alex's limo? The tan Audi? Then came the explosion, blotting out everything, an immense orange ball that seemed to roll upward into the morning sky like an emerging sun. Wednesday 8:23 A.M._ _Viktor Fedorovich Volodin was amazed he'd managed to make his way this far, from the fiery intersection at the base of the Acropolis all the way down Leoforos Amalias, without his frayed facade of calm completely disintegrating. He bit his lip, using the pain to hold back the panic. Traffic on the avenue was backed up as far as he could see, and firemen were still trying to reach the charred remains of the truck. On his right, the new Zapio conference center and its geometric gardens were shrouded in smoke. He scarcely noticed. Breathing was impossible anyway, since the diesel fumes of the bus settled in through its broken windows and drove out all oxygen. How had it come to this? He'd spent his entire life in the party apparatus of Sakhalin, rubber-stamping idiotic economic plans concocted in Moscow, trying to survive the infighting and intrigue of the oblast's State Committee. Then one day a personal aide of none other than the president, Mikhail Sergeevich himself, had secretly made an offer that sounded too good to be true. Help transfer some funds, do it for the Motherland. . . . It would be simple. KGB would never know. Nobody told him he'd be stepping into a nightmare. And now his worst fears had come true. To see your driver crushed alive, only inches away, then watch him incinerated. They were closing in. _Fsyo kanula ve vyechnost, _he thought, _kak ve prizrachnoy skazke_. Everything is gone now, like a fairy tale. He crouched down in the torn plastic seat as the ancient city bus bumped and coughed its way into the center of Syntagma Square. Around him were packed the usual morning commuters gripping briefcases and lunch bags, cursing the delays and blaming the incompetents in Parlia- ment. The air was rank with sweat. Finally the vehicle shuddered to a halt. End of the line. He rose, trembling, and worked his way to the forward exit, then dropped off. As his feet touched down on the warm pavement, he quickly glanced right and left, searching the crowded midmorning street for any telltale signs that he'd been followed. There was nobody, he concluded with relief. The milling Greeks didn't seem to notice he was there, or care. They were too busy complaining about the traffic, the smog, the latest round of inflation. Business as usual in Athens, the timeless city. This place, he told himself, should have been the perfect location to hide, to just disappear. Novosty was supposed to handle the final delivery. Maybe the crash had been an accident. Fate. _Sud'ba_. Things happened that way. He was sweating heavily now, whether from fear or the early morning sun he wasn't sure. Already it was a nascent ball of fire in the east, promising to bake the asphalt of the square by noon. He stepped over the curb and onto the sidewalk. The outdoor cafes were all thronged with workers and tourists having a quick coffee before taking on the city this spring day. He felt his knees tremble slightly and realized he only wanted to collapse. Any table would do. Just melt into the crowd, he told himself, then nothing can happen. _Nichevo nye sluchitsya_. He wiped at his brow and settled nervously into the first empty chair, plastic and dirty, hoping to look like just another tourist. The cafe, he noted, was Papaspyrou, in front of the American Express office. Perfect. Above all else, he wanted to pass for an American. But he was still trying to get it right. How did they look? "_Elleniko kafe_, my friend? Greek coffee?" He jumped at the sound of the voice over his shoulder, seizing the side of the table. The voice was speaking English, he finally realized. Maybe he did look American! It was an accident, he kept telling himself. The truck couldn't have-- Relax. Novosty made the arrangement with the American, didn't he? You saw him hand over the letter. Now the trail will just vanish. KGB will never be able to stop it. He turned, casually flashed an empty smile for the small, gray-haired waiter standing behind him, tray in hand, white towel over the sleeve of his tailored but frayed brown suit. "Sure, thanks." You're better every day, he told himself. You're even starting to get the accent right now. Keep working on it. The twang. And learn to saunter. The shoulders. Americans walk looser, swing their arms, seem not to have a care in the world. Learn to slouch. Act like you own the world, even if you no longer do. He'd been secretly practicing for weeks, getting ready to disappear after his part was over. Of course, he'd originally planned to go back home afterward. But that was before he had a taste of this. The good life, the freedom. For that matter, maybe he'd go to America. Why not? He'd heard how it worked. Defection, so the stories went, could be very rewarding. They'd open the golden gates for him at Langley. The tiny cup of murky black coffee appeared in front of him, together with the usual glass of tepid water. He reached for the water eagerly and drank it down. Something, anything, to moisten the cotton in his mouth. There, that was better. Now the hard part: something to quiet his mind. The cup rattled against the saucer as he gingerly picked it up. He could still see the cab of the truck coming out of nowhere, hurtling down on them, still feel the horror. Odd, but he couldn't remember anyone at the wheel. He wanted a face, but none was there. His own driver, the Afghanistan veteran Grigor Yanovich, had tried to swerve, but he hadn't been quick enough. He'd caught the first impact, the grind of metal that whipped the tan Audi around, flung open the door . . . Grigor, thirty years old, must have died without ever knowing what happened, if not from the impact, then from the wall of flaming gasoline that swept over the seat. He marveled at his own luck, the hand of chance that flung him from the car only a second ahead of the explosion. He remembered skidding across the pavement on his back, then tumbling into the grassy ditch that separated Amalias Avenue from the tiny side road of Thrassilou. Some of the raw gasoline had drenched his sleeve, but he'd been safely out of the way, his face down, when the explosion came. It could have been an accident. He swiped at his brow and told himself that anything was possible. Don't be a fool. They're closing in. How much do they know? He sipped at the gritty coffee and scanned the street. Just get through the next few days, he told himself. Once the transfer's complete, your part's over. He was reaching for his small white cup when he noticed the woman, striding directly toward his table, smiling, catching his eye. The way she was swinging her brown leather purse, the jaunty thrust of hips beneath the suede skirt, the carefully groomed auburn hair--all marked her as American. Rich American. Probably headed into American Express to cash a thousand or so in traveler's checks. America . . . He lounged back in his chair with a rakish air. He was, he knew, an attractive man. He had deep blue eyes, sandy hair, a practiced smile, a trim figure far younger than his fifty-six years. He'd divorced his wife Natasha three years ago, after she discovered his lunchtime liaisons with one of the girls in the State Committee typing pool. He had experience handling women. Three weeks in Athens, he thought, and maybe my luck is about to change. If you can get her, the nightmare could be over for a while. You can't go back to the hotel now; they may be watching. But if she's got a room somewhere? What better way to hide out till the transfer is complete? He was still trying to make his ragged mind function. Now was the time for a "pick-up" routine. The lonely traveler . . . _Kak grussno mnye, tak zhalostno mnye _. . . no, damn, not the sentimental Russian, think American. But where? He'd heard of New York, San Francisco, Miami, even Chicago. But what if she was from one of those places? All the careful preparation and he still didn't dare put himself to the test. So what would he say? Canada? Australia? Her eyes held his, interest growing as she continued to approach. They were darkened with kohl, sensual, inviting. And she was still smiling, even as she placed her hand on the chair across from him. Was this how the women . . .? America was the Promised Land. "_Etot stolnik osvobodetsya_, Viktor Fedorovich?" It took a second for the language to register. She was speaking Russian, calmly inquiring if the table was free, but his mind was rejecting it, refusing to accept the implications. "Perhaps you'd like to buy me a _kofye_, Comrade. I prefer it very sweet." Now she was settling her purse on the table, adjusting her tight skirt in preparation to sit. "Or would you rather take me shopping. I could help you spend some of the money." He'd never seen her before in his life. Your part will be routine. Somewhere in the back of his mind echoed the voice of the president's personal aide, the brisk young Muscovite who had come to his dacha that snowy evening last October. We will take care of any risks. It had all been a lie. Every word. They must have known where he was every minute. Then he spotted the two men approaching from opposite sides of the square. The suits that didn't quite fit, the trudging gait. Why must they always look like the stupid, brutal party hacks they are, he thought bitterly. The incompetent bastards. Who betrayed me? Was it Novosty? Did he do this, to get them off his trail? So be it. First I'll kill her, and then I kill him. Seething, he pulled his body erect while his right hand plunged for the snap on the holster at his belt. Simple. He'd just shoot her on the spot, then make a run for it. Through the cafe, out the back. They wouldn't dare start anything here, in the middle of Athens, that would cause an international "incident." The snap was open. He thumbed up the leather flap and realized the holster was empty. The crash. It must have jarred loose. His new Walther automatic had been incinerated, along with the Audi. His life began to flash before his eyes. Make a run for it, he heard his mind saying, commandeer the first taxi, any taxi. He shoved back from the table, sending his chair clattering across the patched sidewalk. She reached into her leather purse, now lying atop the table, next to his coffee. He heard the click of a safety sliding off. "Don't be impetuous, Viktor Fedorovich. You've been such a good boy this last week, showing us the sights. The perfect tour guide. But now your little vacation is over. We must talk." "About what?" She smiled. "Whatever you think we need to hear." "I don't know anything." He could feel the cold sweat on his palms. "Viktor Fedorovich." She brushed at her auburn hair as she continued in Russian. "You have the most valuable commodity in the world, knowledge. That makes you even richer than you think you are now." They didn't try to kill me this morning, he suddenly realized. It was Alex they were-- Is he planning to double- cross everybody? No, that's insane. He'd never get away with it. He has to deliver the payment. KGB wants me alive, he thought with a wave of relief. They think I'm the one who knows where it is. His pulse raced. "What do you want?" "We need you to answer certain questions. But not here. At a place where it's quieter." The two men were loitering closer now, only a few feet away, one on each side of the table. The first was overweight, with bushy eyebrows and pockmarked cheeks. He could be Ukrainian. The other was medium height, wearing a cheap polyester suit, balding and sallow. Neither looked as though he had smiled in the last decade. "Where do you want to go?" "We will take a stroll in the park." She gestured toward Amalias Avenue. On the other side was Ethnikos Kipos, the National Garden. Then she smiled again. "We thought you would like to take the morning air." She rose, purse in hand, and tossed a wad of drachmas onto the wooden table. The coffee drinkers around them did not look up from their newspapers and tourist maps. As they made their way past the Olympic Airways office on the corner and across the avenue, she said nothing. Her silence is deliberate, he told himself, part of a trick to unnerve me. It was working. He was learning something about himself he'd never before known. He was learning he was a coward. That was the reality. He wouldn't hold out. He'd tell them everything he knew, because they would hurt him badly. He couldn't bear pain; they probably knew that. And then they'd kill him anyway because he couldn't tell them the one thing they wanted to know. He didn't know it himself. Viktor Fedorovich Volodin realized he was about to die. All the years of pointless intrigue in the party, the fudging of production figures, the father-in-law who'd made his existence wretched, it all added up to a lifetime of nothing but misery, with the payoff a bullet. Rasstrel, a KGB execution. They were entering the national garden, a mirage of green in the desert of asphalt and cement that is central Athens. Its informal walkways were shady lanes of quiet and cool that seemed miles away from the smoke and glare and heat of the avenues. Finally she spoke. "We're running out of time, and patience, Viktor Fedorovich. Let's start with the money. Where have you deposited it? Next, we want to know the names of everyone--" "It--it's--I don't know where it is now." "You're lying." She did not break her pace. "The time for that is over." "But I don't have it. Someone else--" He heard himself blurting out the truth. "He's in charge of everything." "You are lying, again. You are the one who embezzled the funds." She was walking by his side as they entered a secluded alleyway of hedges, the other two trailed only inches behind. There was no escape. "The criminal is you, Viktor Fedorovich." "No, he--I--I don't know anything." How true was that? he asked himself. He knew where the money was supposed to go, but he didn't know what it was for, at least not specifically. That part had been classified. He had the small picture but not the big one. "If you know nothing, then telling us everything you do know should not take very long." The calm, the assurance in her voice sent chills through him. He knew he would talk and they knew it too. "However, the more you have to say, the longer we can linger." The early morning park, with its manicured footpaths and wandering cats, was empty except for a few gardeners trimming hedges, watering the grass, collecting loose papers. The sounds of the avenue were rapidly receding. Now the two men had moved directly alongside, one by each arm. He realized they were both taller than he was, and they smelled. "Wait. I don't know where it's deposited now; I wasn't supposed to know. But there's still time. I can help--" They were entering a long arbor, a high trellis bright with obscuring red flowers, when the first blow came into his left side, directly in his kidney. He groaned and sagged, breath gone, while the man on the right slipped an arm around and held him erect. "Yes, Viktor Fedorovich," the woman continued tonelessly, "you will help us, because you will want to die long before we let you. So, shall we try again? Where is the money?" "It's . . . I don't know, exactly. But--" He gasped and sagged again as another blow came. Already he wasn't sure how much more pain he could tolerate. How long before he would just blurt out everything he knew? A third blow, and his knees crumpled. He had never known the meaning of pain, or fear, until this moment. Why not just tell them? his frightened mind was pleading. Alex has already set it up with the American. "You are worse than a mere criminal," she went on, dark eyes filling with anger. "You are a traitor. You will tell us every detail of your involvement, from the very beginning." How much did they really know? he wondered. Were they bluffing? They were bluffing, he quickly concluded. Otherwise she wouldn't be asking him things she should already know. If you talk, you'll jeopardize everything. The most important thing now is to keep KGB from discovering the scenario. If they do, they still could stop it. Of course they were alarmed. They should be. In the New Russia being born, there was no place for them. But I can't endure pain. I'll talk if there's pain. He felt a surge of resolve. Whatever else happens, he told himself, I won't be the one responsible for making it fail. I can't let them know any more than they do now. I've-- Another blow struck him in the side and he felt his knees turn to butter. None of the gardeners in the park seemed aware that a man was about to be beaten to death. To them the four foreigners were merely huddled together as they strolled, enjoying the dubious beauty of modern Athens. Another blow came and he wheezed. "Please, let me just--" He'd been gathering his strength for this moment. Now he lunged forward, shutting out the stab of pain in his side, and wrenched at her open purse. The two men reached for him but not before he had it in his grasp. His hand plunged in as he rolled to the ground. They were on top of him now, shoving his face against the loose pebbles of the walkway, but they were too late. He felt the smooth metal of the grip. It was what he wanted. He recalled the triumphant words Fyodor Dostoyevski had uttered upon being released from prison. "Freedom, new life, resurrection. . . . What a glorious moment!" _Ya nye boyuc za sebya!_ he thought with joy. I have no more fear. . . . He heard the shot, faintly, as the bullet ripped through the back of his mouth and entered his brain. Viktor Fedorovich Volodin died with serene final knowledge. Daedalus, whatever it was, was still safe. And he was free. CHAPTER TWO Wednesday 3:29 P.M. "Michael, you look marvelous. It's so good to see you again. I really mean that. The years have treated you well." Eva Borodin leaned back against the gray fabric of the Saab's headrest and appraised him. "You don't look half bad yourself." Vance smiled to himself as he returned the favor. Vintage Eva, ladling on the flattery. But she was smashing, just as he remembered--the coal-black hair, the smoldering eyes, the high Slavic cheekbones. Then, too, her every gesture was spiked with the promise of Olympic sensuality; he remembered that as well. Everything about her spoke of a time and place far away, where there were no rules. Eva, the eternal Eva. With a Ph.D. "Everything's just the same." That part wasn't entirely true. There had been some changes, probably for the better. Instead of a plunging neckline and a fortune in gold accessories, she was wearing a blue silk blouse, form-fitting designer jeans with an eighty-dollar scarf for a belt, and lambskin boots. Far more demure than the old Eva. What had happened to the dangling turquoise earrings, enough musky perfume to obscure radar, at least one endangered fur draped somewhere? The years had definitely mellowed her. The Slavic passion seemed curbed today, the same way her hair had been trimmed down to a pageboy. Maybe, he thought, this was her new look: the Russian aristocrat of the nineties. "No, Michael, I'm different now. Or I'm trying to be." She laughed, flashed her come-on smile, and tried to toss her missing hair. Whoops, he thought. Sure, you've changed. "Being formally promoted to director of SIGINT brings responsibilities," she continued. "Congratulations." "It was two years ago." "Well, congratulations anyway." He was beginning to wonder if she really had mellowed. Back in the old days her Russianness was her way of making a statement. An identity. How much could she change, want to change? She'd always been a firebrand: throwing things was her preferred mode of communication. Not to suggest she wasn't verbal: she was always passionately happy to see him, passionately sad when bad things happened, passionately angry when she didn't get her way. Everything she said was flirtatious, carrying a sexual innuendo. Sometimes he thought she made Jean Harlow sound like Jeane Kirkpatrick. "Your call caught me a little off guard." He glanced over. "I never expected to hear from you again after you disappeared into the labyrinth of NSA." He knew she'd been with the National Security Agency for eight years now, but he hadn't heard that she'd been promoted to director of Soviet satellite intercepts. Of course, NSA didn't spend a lot of money on press releases. Still it was no surprise. Eva knew her stuff when it came to the Soviets, their satellites, their codes. "I must say, though, this is a hell of a long way to come for a catch-up chat." "It's been way too many years since we've seen each other. I've missed you." "Hope you mean that." Did she? he wondered. Even if she did, that wasn't the real reason she'd come. He knew her too well. "Guess you'll have to try and find out," she said, her voice holding an instinctive, automatic invitation. "Guess I will." Already it felt like the old days. How did she know so precisely where all his buttons were? The only thing I'm sure of so far today is that this morning's little accident was no accident." He'd told her about seeing Novosty, but not what they'd talked about. Why drag her into it? Besides, she'd known about Alex a lot longer than he had. Just one more piece of the past that didn't need to be stirred up. "Somebody got taken out. The question is, Who? We both know Novosty's a survivor, old school, but . . ." "I probably shouldn't say this, Michael, but I assume you're aware he's KGB, part of T-Directorate." Her voice had grown serious. "That executive VP slot he has with Techmashimport is just his cover. We've had a file of intercepts on him for years." "Of course I know about him. Good old Alex and I go back a while. You're slightly out of date concerning my most recent fun and games." "All right. I mean, I wouldn't even bring it up, but I think you should be warned. KGB's in a big turmoil, looking for something . . ." She paused. "Whenever this happens, there're plenty of stray arrows sure to be flying. Just stay out of the crossfire. A word to the wise." "I may already be in it. Thanks to Novosty's little 'welcome aboard' breakfast." He remembered the letter Alex had given him. "But I'm beginning to think I'd damn well better find out." She looked around sharply. "What happened? Did he say something?" "If you believe him, somebody in Moscow mislaid a few million dollars. Darndest thing." "It's better left alone, darling." "I'm on vacation, remember?" He winked at her. "With better things to do." "I should hope so." She leaned back again and studied his profile. "Well, at long last it's happened. I finally have to admit I need you for something." Her long, dark lashes fluttered. Warming me up, he thought. Now we're getting down to business. "Which is why I wanted to meet you here." They were five minutes out of Iraklion, on an unpaved back road he loved, headed for the palace at Knossos, and so far she'd done nothing but hint about what was on her mind. Everything was still a puzzle. For one thing, she never needed anybody. She was the stalwart Russian who'd ended their affair eleven years earlier just as casually as she had begun it. This afternoon, though, she seemed to be deliberately keeping the lid on, holding back. Uncharacteristic. "The truth is," she went on, "I've been thinking about us, the old times, and the palace." She'd called him in Nassau four days earlier, wanting to get together. It was the old Eva, darling this and darling that. When he said he was going to Crete, she'd grown strangely silent. Then she'd said--in a curious, tiny, voice--"Why don't I just meet you there? In fact, that's sort of why I rang. . . ." "So why's the palace suddenly so important to you?" He examined her, still trying to read her mood. "I need to go back out today. Try and brush up a bit. But that place was part of our problem back when, not part of the solution." She didn't answer. Instead she shifted the conversation sideways. "Speaking of the palace, I suppose I should congratulate you on finally being proved right. Did the Stuttgart team really ask you to look in on their dig?" "Call it the ultimate capitulation," he grinned. "Remember, they were the ones who led the critical fusillade when the book first came out. That makes it doubly sweet." "Right. I also remember that book of yours caused such a stink that no serious university would consider hiring you. Which, I assume, is why you ended up a part-time spook. Probably it was the only job you could get." "You're closer to the truth than you know." He laughed, wondering for the ten-thousandth time if he should have stuck out the academic slings and arrows. No, the secret truth was he was bored with the university regimen. He yearned for the real world. He knew it then and he knew it now. "Then the next thing I heard, you were down in the Bahamas, goofing off and renovating some old yacht." She looked him over once more, shaking her head. "What did you end up christening it? The Fuck Everybody?" "Crossed my mind. But then I chickened out and called her the _Ulysses_." He leaned back and reflected momentarily on the forty-four- foot Bristol racing sloop he'd restored, having picked it up for a song at a customs-house sale on Bay Street. Formerly the possession of a Colombian in the export business, it had a hull of one and three- quarter inch planked cedar, with a trim beam, did an easy fifteen knots in a decent breeze. He loved her. He'd installed a fortune in electronics, including a Micrologic Commander LORAN and a Navstar satellite navigation system. "It started out as a hobby, and three boats and a mortgage later it ended up a business." "And what do you do down there all day? Just sit around and drink margaritas?" "Sure. About once a month." He reached up and adjusted the open top of the car. "Hate to admit it, but on a typical day I'm usually out of bed by sunrise. Check the weather, then maybe take a short swim to get the oxygen flowing. After that I go to work. The 'office' is up forward in the _Ulysses_. My main discovery is that chartering is pretty much like any other business. Mostly problems." It was. There were always tourists who came to Nassau thinking they wanted more than the standard hotels, topless shows, and casinos on Paradise Island and Cable Beach. They wanted a taste of what it was like sailing through the Family Islands, away from the glitz, a feeling for the real Caribbean. Or so they thought. That was until they discovered the hard way that the real thing included broiling sun, jellyfish stings, nosy sharks, hangovers, seasickness, close-quarters quarrels with spouses and significant others, snapped fishing lines, generator failures, unexpected weather . . . "And you manage to do okay, right?" "Nobody ever got rich in the charter business, at least the kind I'm in. If you're not running high-priced South American produce, you have to do it for love, not money." His real livelihood, which he didn't bother to mention, came from elsewhere. In between managing Bahamian skippers and crews he also kept a hand in another occupation. In years past he'd served as a financial consultant for the CIA, helping monitor the flow of illicit drug and terrorist money passing through the banking laundries of Geneva and the Caribbean. When the Company finally formed its own section to handle that work, he'd moved on and hired out his expertise to a free-lance organization called ARM, the Association of Retired Mercenaries. They were retired, all right, but only from the antiterrorist units of a half dozen European nations. They still saw plenty of covert action, squelching those terrorist activities European governments wanted dealt with outside official channels. He was their money man and they paid him well, which was how he kept his three vessels shipshape and lived a yachtsman's life of "ease." "So after all these years, you ended up doing exactly what you wanted." She looked at him admiringly. "A lot of people would probably envy you that." "I like taking my own risks, if that's what you mean." "Well, all the same I suspect you're secretly very pleased with the fact you've been invited back to Crete. I always thought you'd return to archaeology sooner or later. If I know you, you couldn't stay away forever." Was she right? Even now he didn't know. "One thing's for sure. Crete's a world apart." That was an understatement. As he glanced back at the road, it was now blocked entirely by a herd of sheep, their shaggy brown fleeces suspended above dark, spindly legs. Around them the silence of the Cretan countryside was rent by bleats and the jangle of bells. The flock milled and darted about their rented Saab, but failed to move on down the road. Why bother? The shepherd, in dark hat and coat, lounged sidesaddle on his burro, oblivious, while his black-shawled wife trudged in his dusty wake, bringing up the rear. Strangers came, gazed upon the wonders of his land, then departed; he, possessor of donkey, sheep, and wife, would remain. And prevail. His weathered face contained all the worthwhile knowledge in the world. The parched hills and verdant valleys of Crete belonged to him alone. Now and forever. "Okay," he went on, "you're here, I'm here. Now how about telling me what's going on?" "That's just it. I don't know for sure. Everybody at NSA claims I'm starting to see things." She paused to examine a long red fingernail. "So don't you say it too. I need some moral support." "Maybe I'd better hear this first." "Michael, I . . . I don't want to talk about it yet. It's just--" "Well, give me a hint at least." "A few days back I decoded part of a transmission . . ." She leaned over and started to turn on the radio, then changed her mind and straightened. "Look, I just need you to help me get my thoughts organized." "Is that why you came all the way here? To organize your thoughts? You'll forgive me if I'd hoped for a little more." In spite of himself, he felt mildly annoyed. The truth was, he'd been looking forward to a reunion that wasn't about business. "You know, I sort of had the idea you wanted to . . . well, maybe try and piece things back together." He looked her over. "Being with you wasn't exactly the worst experience of my life." She sighed wistfully and smoothed back her hair. "Fixing Humpty Dumpty is tough work, darling. We both know that. It's been a long time. Life's never that simple." "Maybe not for you. But it seems very simple to me. We just lose the past. Pretend it never existed." He felt his pique growing. "Or then again, screw it. What are we doing here anyway?" Could it really work a second time around? he asked himself. Why not? Through all those years after things fell apart, he'd never once stopped remembering her. Her mind, her body, her excitement. Those memories dogged him now as they drove down the road he knew so well, had traveled so many times in his long-ago life. At times the ancient palace here on Crete had seemed almost a second home. After the publication of his book about it, Realm of the Spirit--to universal de- nunciations--he even began to dream about it. He thought he'd never come back, and now here he was with Eva. Life took strange turns sometimes. Eleven years ago in New Haven when he'd decided to work for himself, he'd actually been saying good-bye to this world and all it stood for. Back then it had seemed a golden moment to give academia the bird. Had it all come full circle now? Fortunately he'd kept up with the journals when he had the chance, tried to stay on top of what was happening. With any luck he'd have the pleasure of watching a lot of academics eat crow. All he had to do was just deal with whatever was bugging Eva and then get on down to Phaistos. He hoped the Stuttgart crew wouldn't realize he was over a decade out of date. "You know," she was searching in her purse, then stopped herself and looked up, "I always remember the palace when I think of you. It sort of tied us together." "Best I remember, it's what finally drove us apart. It turned into our 'irreconcilable difference.' " "Maybe you're right, and it was dumb of me. Given the lousy luck I've had with men, you're probably the best thing that ever came along. After that flap over your book, I let you get away." "Hold on a second. You announced you had to live your own life, and I was getting too emotionally involved in my work and it would be better all around if we just shook hands and called it quits. No hard feelings." "It wasn't quite like that." She laughed her alluring laugh, the one he remembered so well. "Oh, _no_?" "Okay, maybe it was a little like that." Out came the sunglasses. The old Eva again. "But I was changing, Michael, more every day. It was time to try and make it on my own." That was definitely what she'd decided to do. He'd always thought she broke things off because she was obsessed with finishing her own Ph.D. Self-centered and self-indulgent, that's what he'd called her at the time, just another pampered Russian blue blood. Only years later did he realize how self-centered he'd been. Maybe she'd been right; maybe they weren't ready for each other yet. She sighed, and then her voice came as a whisper. "You know, after you called this morning and told me about that nightmare with Alex, I just drank some retsina and went back to bed." She put on the shades, adjusted them, and looked his way. He thought they went well with her new forties hairstyle. "Michael, I know things I shouldn't. And the things I should know, I don't. The worse part of all is, none of it makes any sense." Her eyes seemed to soften behind the tinted plastic. "Do you remember the first time you and I talked about this place?" "Like it was yesterday." Who could forget? It was just after Realm was published, relating his theory that the palace, whatever it may have been originally, had eventually become a ceremonial necropolis, an abode of the dead. "We ended up having a terrific argument over the book. Nobody wanted to believe me, including you." "Come on, darling, it wasn't my opinion you cared about. It was your father's. The revered holder of Penn's Edelstein Chair of Classical Antiquities. Supposedly the world's living expert on Minoan Crete." Did he really care what the old man thought? he wondered. Not in the way she meant. He would have liked it, though, if everybody had gotten along a little better. Michael Vance, Sr., never quite knew what to make of Eva's Slavic intensity, since it contrasted so vividly with his own up-tight Anglo-Saxon instincts. That was a repressive family strain Mike had fought--successfully, he hoped--to undo all his life. Eva had looked to be the perfect soul mate in that battle. She was born unrepressed. Her own father, Count Serge Borodin, was president emeritus of the Russian Nobility Association in America, exiled aristocracy. They were a people apart. He recalled in particular a Russian Orthodox wedding they'd all attended once. The operative assumption that sunny afternoon in Oyster Bay was that the czar had been a living god, the Romanovs the world's last surviving cherubim. He still remembered the black-hatted Orthodox prelates and the incense and the tinny balalaikas and all the counts and countesses drunk and dancing and crying at the same time. Growing up in the middle of that, she had to be exuberant. "You'd gone off on your own and set the world of archaeology on its ear," she continued. "Typical Michael. But your father refused to stick up for you when all the shit came down. I guess I didn't support you very well either, I admit now. I'm truly sorry, darling, looking back." "No big deal. I could handle it." "Sure." She reached over and patted his thigh. "You handled it just great. You were disgusted. At me, at him, at all the 'stuffed-shirt' academics who never went out on a dig and got their hands dirty. You practically dragged me here to show me you were right. You were obsessed with the palace, admit it." "It wasn't that bad." He looked over at her. "Was it?" "Let's not talk about it anymore, all right?" She sighed. "Christ." "Fine with me." He was pulling off the main road, heading into the flower-lined trail, the arcade of magenta bougainvillea that led down toward the palace. "By the way, I brought along some ouzo." He indicated a pint bottle in his coat. "What's a picnic without a little rocket fuel?" "You think of everything." "I also think we should park up here, dodge the tour-bus mayhem. Keep the funny hats and loudspeakers to a minimum." "Yes, please. Besides, I could use the air." She inhaled deeply. Around them the few lingering white sprays of almond blossoms seemed like remnants of late spring snow, while the ground itself was blanketed with wild orchids, lavender and pink anemones, white narcissus. He watched as she climbed out of the car, then stopped to pluck a waxy yellow prickly pear flower, next an orange-blue Iris _cretica_. He loved the flowers of Crete, and the afternoon was fra- grant with the scent of jasmine and lemon blossoms. Ahead, down the hill, was the parking lot for the palace, with two tour busses in attendance, one just pulling out. "How long has it been since we were last here together?" She brushed her dark bangs back from her brow as she squinted into the waning sun, sniffing at her cactus flower. "It's beginning to seem like forever. But I think it's about--what?-- almost twelve years now." "And how old is the palace supposed to be? I've gotten a little rusty." "The latest theory going is that it was destroyed about fourteen hundred B.C. So we're talking roughly three and a half thousand years since it was last used." "Guess our little decade doesn't count for much in the grand scheme." "Time flies." He remembered how she'd been back then, that day so long ago when she had been in her mid-twenties, as inviting as the brazen ladies-in-waiting of the palace frescoes, and even more voluptuous. _Mais, ce sont des Parisiennes_, a dazzled French scholar had marveled. She was like that. Perfect sensuality. For a while he'd forgotten all about archaeology and just concentrated on beauty. The place where all this occurred was the Palace of Knossos, lovingly restored in the early part of the twentieth century by the wealthy English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. There an almost modern civilization had flowered to magnificent heights, then mysteriously vanished. The path leading to the palace down the hill was becoming wider as they walked, opening on the distant olive groves in the valley. The vista was stunning, probably the reason it had been built here. He looked over and noticed she was digging in her purse again. This time she drew out a pack of Dunhills. He watched while she flicked a gold lighter, the one he'd given her as a present so long ago, emblazoned with a lapis lazuli skull and crossbones. At the time, the hint had worked. She'd quit. "The return of the death wish? When did you start that again?" "Last week." She defiantly took a puff. "Any particular reason?" "No, darling, I just did it." She exhaled. "I'm wound up. I'm . . . I'm scared. Michael, for godsake, how many reasons am I supposed to need?" "Hey, lighten up." He'd quit a month after they met, but it hadn't been a big deal. "I've mellowed out from the old days. Life is like most other things--a lot more fun when you don't take it too seriously." They were moving across the empty parking lot, headed for the entrance to the palace. It had once been a twelve-hundred-room labyrinth, perhaps deliberately confusing. Now the upper courtyard and chambers lay exposed to the sky, their massive red-and-ocher columns glistening in the waning sunlight. The columns tapered downward, as though tree trunks had been planted upside down to prevent resprouting. It was a poetic place to meet Eva again, he thought. And thoroughly bizarre as well. She'd gotten her Ph.D. in linguistics, specializing in ancient Aegean languages, then a few months later she'd surprised everybody by accepting a slot at the National Security Agency, that sprawling electronic beehive of eavesdropping that lies midway between Washington and Baltimore, on the thousand acres of Fort Meade. It'd seemed a startling about-face at the time, but maybe it made sense. Besides, it was that or teaching. NSA was a midsized city, producing among other things forty tons of classified paper trash a day. Its official insignia, appropriately, was a fierce eagle clasping a key--whether to unlock the secrets of others or to protect its own was unclear. Eva's particular branch, SIGINT--for signals intelligence--was an operation so secret NSA refused even to admit it existed. Employing ten acres of mainframe computers, Eva's SIGINT group monitored and analyzed every Russian transmission anywhere: their satellite downlinks, the microwave telephone networks within the Soviet Union, the chatter of civilian and military pilots, missile telemetry far above the Pacific, the split-second bursts of submarines reporting to base, even the limousine radiophone trysts between Politburo members and their mistresses. The instant an electromagnetic pulse left the earth, no matter its form or frequency, it belonged to the giant electronic ears of the NSA. So why shouldn't Eva end up as the agency's top Russian codebreaker? She was a master at deciphering obscure texts, and she'd spoken Russian all her life. Who better to make a career of cracking secret Soviet communications. Her linguistics Ph.D. was being used to real purpose. "I want you to help me think some, love," she went on. "I know it may sound a little bizarre, but I'd like to talk about some of the legends surrounding this place. You know, try and sort out fact and fiction." Now they were headed side by side down the stairway leading into the central court, an expanse of sandstone and alabaster tile glinting golden in the pale sun. On their left a flight of stairs seemed to lead out, but in fact they led right back in again. The deceptions of the palace began at the very entrance. "The truth is, about all we have is stories, though sometimes stories can be more true than so-called history. The standard version is that this area was where the athletes performed ritual somersaults over the sacred bulls." The restored frescoes around them showed corridors crowded with lithe Minoan priestesses, eyes rounded with green malachite, faces powdered white, lips a blood red. They all were bare-breasted, wearing only diaphanous chemises, while their jewels glistened in the sunshine as they fanned themselves with ostrich plumes. There were no frescoes, however, of the powerful, bloodthirsty King Minos. "Michael," she called out, her voice echoing off the hard walls, "you know, this place has always felt a little sinister to me. None of the lightness and gaiety in those frescoes seems real." "That's part of what made me start wondering if the Minoans hadn't somehow managed to make a monkey out of every ponderous scholar on the planet." They were moving down the monumental grand staircase, three restored flights of which had originally been five, toward the rooms called the royal chambers. "Maybe the reason this place had no walls or fortifications was because you only came here when you were dead. Who the hell knows." Whatever the truth was, the eerie feeling of the palace seemed to make the ancient stories even more vivid. The legends told that King Minos's wife, Pasiphae, had a burning passion for one of the sacred white bulls he kept, so she arranged for his chief architect, Daedalus, to design a hollow wooden cow for her covered over with a hide. She concealed herself inside and, as luck would have it, lured one of the beasts. The progeny of that union was equally beastly--the Minotaur, a monster with a human body and a bull's head. Now they were rounding a final corner in the twisting maze of stairs. Directly ahead was the boudoir of the queen. The past welled up for him. The frescoes over the alabaster arches showed bold blue dolphins pirouetting in a pastel sea dotted with starfish and sea urchins. And just beneath them stood the famous bathroom of the queen, connected to the vast drainage complex of the palace, great stone channels curved in precise parabolas to control and dampen turbulence. Daedalus was an engineer-architect who had mastered the science of fluid dynamics thousands of years before the invention of wind tunnels and supercomputers. "My favorite spot. The bedroom." He slipped the small bottle of ouzo from his trench coat pocket. In the dank of the palace's lower depths, he needed its warmth. "I've had unspeakably erotic thoughts about this place--now it can be told--with you no small part of them." He handed her the bottle. "Want a hit of high octane?" "Glad to know I've had a place in your memory all these years, even if it was X-rated." She took the bottle with a knowing smile, then drank. "It's like licorice." He laughed. "Blended with JP-7." "Michael," she continued, looking around, "maybe this is the very room where Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur. What do you suppose?" "That would fit the story." He moved on, his eyes still adjusting to the shadows. "The only thing the legends actually say is that King Minos ordered Daedalus, resident genius, to create a secret labyrinth in the cellar of the palace to keep the beast. But nobody's ever located it." "You know, I think the labyrinth was no myth. It was real, only it was here. All around us. We're in it now." She handed back the bottle. "It was this whole sinister palace, this realm of the dead. After all these years, I finally think maybe you were right." Vindicated at last? Had even Eva come around? But why didn't he feel any satisfaction? Instead he found himself aware of the old chill, the almost occult intuition that had first told him the palace wasn't the happy playground everybody supposed it was. Once more it felt like death. But now something else was entering his senses. Was it imagination? In the encroaching dark the lower levels of the palace seemed to be totally deserted, with only a couple of persistent German tourists arguing out near the parking lot, and yet . . . They weren't alone. He could feel it. He knew it. Was it the spirits of the dead? No, it was far more real. Someone was with them, somewhere. In the shadows. They were being watched. He looked at Eva, trying to make out her eyes in the semidarkness. Did she sense it too? That somebody was nearby, waiting, maybe listening? "Darling, let's talk some more about the myth of Daedalus. In the version I remember he--" "Not much more to the tale. After a while a Greek prince called Theseus arrived, to brave the labyrinth and do battle with the man-eating Minotaur. When he showed up, King Minos's beautiful daughter, Ariadne, instantly fell in love with him, naturally." "I love myths. They're always so realistic." "Well, he dumped her later, so I guess he did turn out to be a creep. But anyway, she persuaded Daedalus to give him a ball of string. He attached it to the door of the labyrinth and unwound it as he went in. After he killed the beast, he followed the twine back out, and escaped. With Ariadne. Unfortunately, when Minos discovered what had happened, he was so mad he locked the great chief architect in a tower. But Daedalus managed to get out, hoping to escape from the island. However, it wasn't going to be easy, since Minos had clamped down on all the harbors, having the ships searched. That's when Daedalus declared, 'Minos may control the land and the sea, but he doesn't control the regions above.' And he constructed some wings, attached them to his shoulders with wax, and soared away into space. First human ever. Up till then, only the gods could just leave the earth anytime they wanted." "What?" She'd stopped dead still. "Daedalus. You remember. The first person to fly, mankind's ago-old dream. In fact, a few years back some Americans duplicated the feat with a human-powered glider. They made it from here on Crete over to the island of--" "No, you said 'space.' " "Did I?" He smiled. "Call it poetic license. But why not? Back in those days I guess the skies themselves could be considered outer space, if they even knew such a thing existed." Then he looked at her and sobered. "What's--?" "It's--it's just something that's been in the back of my mind." She moved on. With a shrug, he took another drink of the ouzo and followed her on down the hall toward the famous Throne Room. He was bracing himself now for what was next. Its walls were decorated with frescoes of the massive Minoan body shields, shaped as a figure-eight, that signified the men's quarters of Knossos. And incised in stone above King Minos's wide alabaster throne was his fearsome emblem of authority, symbol of his domination of the ancient world. There it was. He looked around, reassuring himself that it was everywhere, just as he'd remembered. He'd also been right about something else. It was precisely the same, right down to the smooth curves of the blade, as the "watermark" that had been on the sheet of "paper" Alex had given him. Almost four thousand years old, it was the insignia of the new Daedalus Corporation. The Minoan double ax. Wednesday 6:12 P.M. The dusk was settling majestically over Tokyo, after a rare smogless day. The view was particularly inspiring from the fifty-fifth-floor penthouse of the granite-clad Mino Industries building. The corner office was an earth-tone tan, carpeted in a thick wool shag the color of elm bark. The heavy doors at the far end of the office were emblazoned with a two-bladed ax, and in the center of the wide expanse between the door and the single desk, on a gleaming steel pedestal, stood a meter-long model of an airplane more advanced than any the world had yet seen. The temperature of the room was kept at a constant 59 degrees Fahrenheit, a frigid comfort-accommodation for the tawny, eight-foot snow leopard named Neko now resting on a pallet beside the window, gazing down. Remnant of an endangered species, she'd been rescued as a starving, motherless cub during an expedition in the Himalayas and raised for the past six years as a pampered pet of the penthouse's owner. Along the sound-proof walls were gilt-framed photographs of a Japanese executive jogging with Jimmy Carter in Tokyo, golfing with Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, receiving an accolade from Linus Pauling in San Francisco, dining with Henry Kissinger in Paris. He was the same man now sitting behind the massive slate desk. "You believe he was an American?" Tanzan Mino, president and CEO of the Daedalus Corporation, a paper creation of the Mino Industries Group, adjusted his pale silk tie and examined the subordinate now standing before him. He had just turned seventy-three, but the energy in his youthful frame made him seem at least a decade younger, perhaps two. "_Hai_, Mino-sama." The other man, in a dark suit, bowed. "We have reason to believe the Russian has . . . they were seen exchanging an envelope." "And your people failed to intercept either of them?" The man bowed again, more deeply. "An attempt was made, but unfortunately the Soviet escaped, and the American . . . my people were unsure what action to take. We do know the funds have not been deposited as scheduled." Tanzan Mino sighed and brushed at his silver temples. His dark eyes seemed to penetrate whatever they settled upon, and the uncomfortable vice-president now standing in front of him was receiving their full ire. Back in the old days, when he directed the Mino-gumi clan's operations at street level, finger joints were severed for this kind of incompetence. But now, now the organization had modernized; he operated in a world beholden to computers and financial printouts. It was a new age, one he secretly loathed. He'd been worried from the start that difficulties might arise. The idiocy of Japan's modern financial regulations had driven him to launder the payoffs thoroughly. In the old days, when he was Washington's man, controlling the Liberal Democratic Party, no meddling tax agency would have dared audit any of his shadow companies. But after a bastard maverick named Vance--with the CIA, no less!-- had blown the whistle on his and the Company's clandestine understanding . . . He had arranged the initial financing for the project, as well as the political accommodations, with letters of credit, promissory notes, and his word. And, eventually, if need be, the full financing could be raised by partial liquidation of his massive real estate holdings in Hawaii. But the near-term expenses--and the necessary payoffs in the LDP--that was different. In Japanese _kosaihi_, the "money politics" of gifts and outright bribes, secrecy was everything. He remembered how he'd had to arrange for the mighty Yoshio Kodama, a powerbroker who had once shared his virtual ownership of the Japanese Diet and the Japanese press, to accept responsibility for the CIA-Lockheed bribe affair. It was a close call. That had involved a mere twelve million of American cash to Japanese politicians, but it had changed the rules forever. These days-- particularly after the Recruit debacle had disgraced the LDP yet again-- money had to be laundered and totally untraceable. Promises had been made, schedules signed off, the veil of total secrecy kept intact. Everything was arranged. The Soviets, incompetents that they were, had no inkling of the larger plan. Now it all came down to the funds. He needed the money at once. He turned in his chair, pressed a gray button on his desk, and watched the window blinds disappear into their frame. Neko rose from her languorous pose, stretched her spotted white fur, and gazed down. This was the panoramic view she loved almost as much as he did, for her perhaps it was the memory of a snowy Himalayan crest; for him it was the sprawl of Tokyo, the elegant peak of Mount Fuji to the west, the bustling port of Yokohama to the south. From this vantage atop the powerful financial world of Japan, Tanzan Mino wanted two final triumphs to crown his career. He wanted to see Japan become the twenty- first century's leader in space, and he wanted his country finally to realize its historic wartime objective: economic domination of the continent of Asia, from Siberia to Malaysia, with freedom forever from the specter of energy and resource dependence. The plan now in motion would achieve both. He revolved again in his chair, ignored the subordinate standing before his desk, and studied the model. It was a perfect replica, one- hundredth the actual size, of the spaceplane that would revolutionize the future, the symbol that would soon signify his country's transcendence in the high-tech age to come. Then his gaze shifted. "You were 'unsure what action to take'?" He leaned back, touching his fingertips together, and sadness entered his voice. "You know, there was a time when I thought Japan might still one day recapture the spirit we have lost, the spirit of _bushido_. In centuries gone by, a samurai never had to ask himself 'what action to take.' He acted intu- itively. Instinctively. Do you understand?" "_Hai, wakarimasu_." The man bowed stiffly. "I am prepared to funnel trillions of yen into this project before it is over. Legitimate, clean funds. So the sum now in question is almost inconsequential. However, it is the bait we need to set the trap, and it must be handled exactly as I have specified." "_Hai_, Mino-sama." Again he bowed. "The next time you stand before me, I want to hear that the laundered Soviet funds have been deposited in the Shokin Gaigoku Bank as agreed. You have one week." He slowly turned back to the window. "Now, must I tell you what you have to do?" The man bowed low one last time. He knew exactly. CHAPTER THREE Wednesday 7:38 P.M. "Michael! And Eva! Again, after so long. _Pos iste!_ What a surprise!" The old Greek's sunburned face widened into a smile, his gray mustache opening above his last good teeth. "_Parakalo_, you must come in for a glass of _raki_ and some of Adriana's _meze_. She would never forgive me." They'd dropped by the hotel, then come here. Although Zeno's small taverna was in the center of _Iraklion_, its facade was still country style, covered with an arbor. A bare electric bulb hung incongruously in the middle of the porch, penetrating the dull glow of dusk now settling over the square called Platia Eleftherias, where the evening's _volta_ was just beginning. Once the chaste promenade of eligible young women, it was now a deafening flock of motorscooters, with girls in tight jeans riding on their backs. And the watchful mothers of old were conspicuously absent. Times had indeed changed since his last time here. "Zeno." Vance shook his hand, then accepted his warm embrace. As he was driving, he'd been wondering what the old Greek would think about the sudden reappearance of Eva. They hadn't been here together since that last trip, well over a decade ago. "Still pouring the meanest _raki_ in this town?" "But of course. Never that tequila you like, Michael." He chuckled with genuine pleasure, recalling that Vance could down his high-potency version of _ouzo_ like a native. "Ah, you know, Michael, your father would never touch it. You, though . . ." He beckoned them through the _kafeneion's_ doorway, leading the way with a limp. The interior was dark, redolent of Greek cigarettes and _retsina_ wine. Overwhelming it all were the smells of the kitchen-- pungent olive oil and onions and garlic and herbs, black pepper and oregano. Although lighting was minimal, around the rickety wooden tables could be seen clusters of aging Greeks drinking coffee and _raki_ and gossiping. The white clay walls resounded with the clacks of _komboloi_ worry beads and _tavli_, Greek backgammon. "But then," Zeno continued, "that last trip, your birthday present to him. On his retirement. Do you remember? When we three were sitting at that very table, there in the corner. He called for a bottle of my _raki_ and shared a glass with me. We both knew it was our good-bye." His eyes grew misty with emotion. "Yes, coming here finally with his famous son was a kind of benediction, Michael. He was passing the torch to you, to continue his work." This last was uttered with a slightly censorious tone. But it quickly evaporated as he turned and bowed to Eva, then took her hand in a courtly gesture. The old Greeks in the room would have preferred no women save an obedient mate in their male sanctuary, but traditional hospitality conquered all. "It is so good to see you two back together." He smiled warmly as he glanced up. "Welcome once again to our humble home." She bowed back, then complimented him in turn, in flawless Greek. "So beautiful, and so accomplished." He beamed. "You still are the treasure I remember. You are a goddess." He kissed her hand. "As I've told Michael before, you could well be from this island. No, even more. You could be Minoan. You bear a fine resemblance to the '_parisiennes'_ of the palace. Did he ever tell you?" "Not often enough." She flashed him her sexiest smile. "But then he never had your eye for women." "Ah," the old man blushed, "I have more than an eye. If I were thirty years younger, you and I--" "Zeno, before you drown Eva in that legendary charm, let me bring her up to date," Vance laughed. "She is now in the presence of the man who has probably become the richest tavern owner in all of Crete." It was true. Zeno Stantopoulos had indeed become a wealthy man, in many ways. His father had once farmed the land on which now stood the unearthed palace at Knossos. The handsome sum Sir Arthur Evans paid for the site was invested in bonds, which he then passed on to Zeno just before the war. Zeno had the foresight to convert them to gold and hide it in Switzerland during the German occupation of Crete. After the war, he used it to purchase miles and miles of impoverished olive groves in the south, which he nursed back to full production. These days oil went up, oil went down, but Zeno always made a profit. His real wealth, however, was of a different kind. Zeno Stantopoulos knew everything of importance that happened on Crete. His _kafeneion_ was the island's clearinghouse for gossip and information. "Don't listen to him, madam." He winked and gestured them toward the wide table in back, near the kitchen. It was known far and wide as the place of honor, the location where Zeno Stantopoulos held court. It had also been the nerve center of the Greek resistance during the Nazi occupation, when Zeno had done his share of killing and dynamiting. The limp, however, came from the fifties, when he was imprisoned and tortured by the right-wing colonels for organizing popular resistance against them. "Come, let us celebrate with a glass of my _raki_." He turned again to Eva. "I should remind you. You once called it liquid fire." He clapped for Adriana, who squinted through the kitchen door, her black shawl wrapped tightly about her shoulders. When she finally recognized them, she hobbled forward, her stern Greek eyes softening into a smile. "Neither of you has changed." Eva gave her a hug. "You both look marvelous." "Time, my friends, time. That has changed," Zeno went on. "I use a cane now, for long walks. The way Michael's father did his last time here. When I saw him I thought, old age must be God's vengeance on us sinners. And now it has happened to me." He smiled, with a light wink. "But I will tell you a secret. Ask Adriana. I do not yet need a cane for all my exercise." He nodded affectionately in her direction. "I can still make this beauty wake up in the mornings singing a song." It was true, Vance suspected. Adriana had hinted more than once that every night with him was still a honeymoon. "Ah, Michael," he sighed, "I still miss seeing your beloved father on his summer trips here. Together you two inspired our soul. The ancient soul of Crete." At that point Adriana bowed and announced she must return to the kitchen, where she was putting the final touches to her proprietary version of _kalamarakia_, fried squid. Her peasant face hid well her peasant thoughts. Almost. Vance had known her long enough to read her dark eyes. She didn't quite know what to make of Eva's reappearance yet. Speaking passable Greek, it was true, which counted for much, but she still wore no wedding band. _Adinato_! "Michael, don't let Adriana stuff you." Zeno watched her disappear, then turned. "To your health." He clicked their small glasses together. "_Eis hygeian_." "_Eis hygeian_." Vance took a sip, savoring the moment. Seeing old friends again, real friends, was one of life's most exquisite pleasures. "And tell me, how long will you two be visiting with us this time?" Zeno's Cretan hospitality flowed unabated. "Perhaps longer than the last? Have you finally decided to come back to stay, maybe make us famous all over again?" "Can't speak for Eva, but I've been asked to look in on the new German excavation down at Phaistos. A project to try and restore the palace there, the way Evans reconstructed Knossos." He glanced over. She was now sipping the tepid _raki_ with the gusto she normally reserved for ice-cold Stolichnaya. "Tonight, though, we're just tourists. Here to see you two again." At that moment, Adriana reappeared from the kitchen bearing an enormous oak tray. With a flourish she laid before them fried squid and goat cheese and stuffed grape leaves and octopus and wooden bowls of _melidzanosalata_, her baked eggplant puree flavored with garlic, onions and herbs, not forgetting her speciality, pink _taramasalata_ made of mullet roe and olive oil. "Incidentally, we were just out at Knossos, the palace, this afternoon." Vance took a bite of _kalamarakia_ while she looked on approvingly. "Ah, of course, the palace," Zeno smiled. "I love it still. I probably should go more myself, if only to remember the days of my childhood, during the restoration. But with all the tour buses. ..." He chewed on a sliver of octopus as he glanced out toward the music in the street. "Perhaps it should be better cared for these days. But, alas, we are not as rich now as King Minos was." He shrugged and reached for a roll of _dolmadakia_. "Still, we are not forgotten. Today, perhaps, we count for little in the eyes of the world, but your book brought us fleeting fame once again. Scholars from everywhere came--" "Hoping to prove me wrong." Vance laughed and took another sip of _raki_. "What does it matter, my friend. They came." He brightened. "Even today. Just to show you. Today, there was a man here, right here, who was carrying your famous work on the palace. He even--" "Today?" Vance glanced up. Had he been right? "Yes, this very day. Outside in the arbor. He even sampled some of Adriana's _meze_." He nodded at her. "I did not like him, and only our friends are welcome inside, book or no book." "Was he going out to Knossos?" Eva interjected suddenly, staring. "To the palace?" "He asked about it. Why else have the book?" He shrugged again, then examined the octopus bowl, searching for a plump piece. "You know, Michael, I could never finish that volume of yours entirely. But your pictures of the frescoes--" He paused to chew his octopus, then smoothed his gray mustache and turned again to Eva, "the frescoes of the women. I love them best of all. And every now and then I see a woman here in life who looks like them. Not often, but I do. And you are one of those rare creatures, my Eva. I swear you are Minoan." He turned back. "Look at her, Michael. Is it not true?" "Zeno," Eva reached for his gnarled hand. "It's not like you to forget. My people are Russian, remember. From the Steppes." "Ah, of course. Forgive me. But you see, that only goes to prove it." He nodded conclusively. "The Minoans, we are told, came from central Asia thousands of years ago. The 'brown-haired daughter of Minos' was an oriental beauty, just as you are. I'm sure of it. Look at the frescoes." "Zeno, tell me." Vance reached to pour more _raki_ into their glasses. "The man you mentioned just now. Was he Greek?" "No, he was a foreigner." He chewed thoughtfully. "I've never seen anyone quite like him. He had a strange way of speaking. In truth, Michael, I did not like him at all. Not a bit." "What exactly did he say?" "It wasn't that. It was something else. I don't know." "And he went? To the palace?" "I saw him hire a taxi, that was all. But whether he went there or somewhere in the south, only God could know." He looked away. "Perhaps tomorrow I could find out." "Did this man have a beard?" He pressed. "No, the thing I remember most was that part of one finger was missing. Curious. I focused on that. But his features, his features were almost Asian I would say." He paused, then turned and asked Adriana to fetch another bottle of _raki_. "Perhaps his accent was from that part of the world." He looked back at Eva. "I suppose you would have known, my marvelous Eva, my Minoan queen." His eyes lingered on her a moment longer, then he rose. "Enough. Now we must all have something for dinner. I'm sure you do not want to spend the rest of the night trapped here with a crippled old Greek." He disappeared into the kitchen to select the pick of the day's catch. And that smoky evening they dined on the island's best--_barbounia_, red mullet, which Adriana grilled with the head and served with wedges of Cretan lemon. Afterward came a dessert of grapes and soft, fresh _myzithra_ cheese blended with dark honey from the mountains near Sfakii. Then at the end she brought forth her own _soumada_, a rich nectar made of pressed almonds. After more _raki_, Zeno was persuaded to get out his ancient _bouzouki_, tune it, and play and sing some traditional songs. The music grew faster and more heated, and then-- with only the slightest urging--Eva cleared away the tables and began to dance. Her Russian gypsy movements seemed almost Greek. When they finally broke away the time was nearly midnight; the _volta_ had long-since disbanded; the sky above had changed from a canopy of island stars to a spring torrent. And Michael Vance and Eva Borodin were very, very drunk. Wednesday 11:34 P.M. "You know, there was something special about us in the old days," Vance said as they weaved down the rain-washed street toward the hotel. "How we used to be. All we did was eat, drink, and talk. And make love. Tonight it's three down and one to go." "You're pretty smashed, darling." Eva laughed and looked him over. "A girl learns to watch out for deceptive advertising." He slipped his arm around her. Eleven years, and in a way, this was like it was all happening over again. "I never shirk from a challenge." "I'll drink to that." Her voice indicated the challenge would not be overly daunting. "Do we have any--?" "There's still that bottle of _ouzo_ in the car." She stopped dead still, her hair plastered against her upturned face, and ran her hands down her body. "Minoan, that's what Zeno said. What if it's true?" She turned back. "What if I have the same hot blood as the queen who vamped a bull? Imagine what that would be like." "As best I remember, you could probably handle it." She performed another Russian gypsy whirl in the glistening street. "I want to be Minoan, Michael. I want to soar through time and space. Leap over bulls, maybe even . . ." She twirled again, drunkenly. "Then why not do it? The queen's bedroom." He stopped and stared at the Galaxy Hotel, ultramodern and garish, now towering upward in the rain. The pool was closed, but the disco still blared. "The hell with every- thing. I'm taking you back there. Tonight." Parked next to the lobby entrance was their rented Saab. He paused and looked in at the half bottle of ouzo lying on the seat, then reached and pulled her into his arms. "Come on. And get ready." "Is that a promise?" She curled around and met his lips. "Time's a wastin ." He kissed her again and began searching for his keys. She was unsteadily examining the darkened interior of her purse. "I think I've got an emergency candle in here. We'll use it for light. Just enough." "I just hope I'm not too wrecked to drive in the rain." "You'd better not be. I know I am." "Who cares? Let's just go for it." He was unlocking the car and helping her in, loving the feel of her body, her scent. He'd decided he was ready for anything and anybody, including some mysterious stranger carrying his book. The night was brisk, with flares of spring lightning over the mountains. As the Saab weaved through the narrow streets leading out of town, Eva climbed up and drunkenly unlatched its sunroof to let in the rain. By the time they reached the winding country road, headlights piercing the downpour, the wind was rushing around them, wild and free. When they pulled into the parking lot of Knossos it was deserted, and they easily discovered an opening in the guard fence. The palace lay before them. "Piece of cake." He took her hand and helped her through the wire. "I propose a toast right here. To the past and to the future." "If I drink much more of this, I may not be around to see the future, but I'll die happy." She reached for the slippery bottle. As they moved through the abandoned central court, eerie in the rain, he could almost hear the roars of the crowd four thousand years past, see the spotted bulls charging the nubile athletes. A heavy gust flickered her candle, adding mystery to the shadows dancing across the enigmatic women of the frescoes. "Now I really do feel Minoan." She headed down the grand staircase, brandishing the light. Then she called out, her voice resounding down the maze of windy hallways, "I am the queen. I am Pasiphae. Where's my white bull?" "Eva, you're drunk," he yelled after. "I'm intoxicated. It's different." She laughed, low in her throat. "I'm intoxicated by the palace. The thought of my bull, the eternal male." Her voice echoed more. "Know about eternal males, darling? They're like eternal females, only harder." She grinned at him, then proceeded, tracing the wide marble steps. As she floated down, carrying the candle, the moist air was scented with jasmine, alive with the music of crickets. They rounded the last curving steps, and the ornate vista of the queen's bedroom spread before them, its blue dolphins cavorting in their pastel sea. He walked over and patted the alabaster portico. "Hard as this, your eternal male? This is a real test for the eternal female bottom." She threw herself down, then reached and ran a drunken readiness check across his wet thigh. "I'm ready for something hard inside me." Her voice was strange, detached and ethereal. "When did you start talking like that?" He loved it. "Not even in the old days--" "When I became Minoan, darling. When I became the blood relation of Queen Pasiphae." She wiggled out of her soaked brown dress and tossed it onto the floor. As he watched her begin to sway before the fresco of the dolphins, he had the definite feeling time was in a warp, that the flow of centuries was in reverse. Maybe Eva was none other than Pasiphae reborn. The room was perfumed and serene, perfect for a queen. Then she bent down and carefully stationed her candle on the stone. Looking up she said, "Let me have some more of that _ouzo_. I love being here. It's shocking and wonderful." No, this was most assuredly the modern Eva. As she moved against him, her body felt the way he remembered it. Riper now perhaps, with a voluptuousness slightly more toward Rubens than Botticelli, but the skin of her breasts, her thighs, was soft as ever. And the dark triangle was still luxuriant, redolent with her scent. "Do it. Hard. Like a bull. I want to know what she felt." She drew back across the stone as he drove inside her. "Yes" While rain slammed against the courtyard above, the ancient, foreboding room began to engulf and rule their senses; the feel of her perfumed nipples against him was hard and urgent. It was an erotic moment outside of time. Now her head thrashed from side to side as quivering orgasms rippled through her, starting in her groin and welling upward as she arched and flung back her hair. Then she drew up, clinging, as though trying to consume him, herself, in a rite of pure bacchanalian frenzy. Her breath had become labored, not gasps of pleasure, but the need of one seeking air. Eva, Eva, he suddenly caught himself thinking, you're here for release, escape. I know you too well. You're not really in this room anymore. You want to be but you're not. You're somewhere in a realm of beasts and magic and the bloodthirsty Minotaur. But yet, yet . . . somehow he'd never felt closer . . . A final convulsion brought them together and then she fell back, dazed. The candlelight flickered across the alabaster, sending ghostly apparitions against the fresco of the dolphins. Still trying to catch her breath, she reached out and seized the bottle of ouzo, drank from it thirstily, then flung herself once more against the stone. After another long moment, she pulled him to her. "Michael, hold me." She snuggled into his arms. "Oh, darling, just hold me." He drew her against him, and the touch of her skin was erotic beyond anything he remembered. . . . But the palace . . . it was intruding darkly, insinuating its presence. Now it surrounded them like a tomb, ominous as death. Finally he turned her face up and examined her dark eyes. They were flooded with fear. "Look, you've got to tell me what's going on. I want to know the real reason you're here, and I want to know it now. I'd somehow begun to hope it was for us, but--" "That's part of it, darling. Truly." She kissed him deeply on the mouth, then reached and began fishing in her purse for the battered pack of Dunhills, trying to regain her bravado. "God, that was hot. I do love being here with you." "You're stalling. Whenever you don't--" "You're right." She took out a cigarette, flicked her lighter, and drew a lungful of smoke. "Now I see why Pasiphae was such a number. This room does something to you." "Not bad for starters." She looked down, then smiled. "No, darling, you're just bluffing. I remember that well enough. Plenty of time for a cigarette." "Some things improve with age." He studied her beautifully disheveled form. Now more than ever he realized she was scared. "Goddammit, enough. Talk to me." "All right." She sighed, then leaned back on the ledge of the portico. "Well, to begin at the beginning, I've been seeing somebody lately." "Make you a deal," he interrupted. "You spare me your stories and I'll spare you mine. This doesn't really seem the moment to start swapping indiscretions." "I'll bet you've got plenty to swap yourself." She looked him over. "Hold on a minute." Sure, there'd been women in and out of his life. He wasn't a priest. Besides, he liked women. "Darling, relax." She patted his thigh. "We're both adults. You said you wanted to hear this, so for godsake listen. His name was Jerry Ackerman and . . . it started back about nine months ago. Since he was new, he'd drop by my office now and then. You know, to learn the ropes." "What kind of ropes, exactly?" "Really, Michael. Anyway, he wasn't exactly world class in the boudoir, if that makes you feel any better. Though needless to say I never told him that. Our little scene tonight would have blown his Brooklyn mind. Now does that preserve your precious male ego? He was just nice, and interesting." "Was?" "I'll get to that." She was tracing small circles on the alabaster. "Week before last he dropped off a computer disk at my office. Said he couldn't figure it out. And it was old, maybe two weeks. Which was unusual, especially for satellite intercepts, which this was. Normally we get them the same day. So I ran it through my desk station, figuring it couldn't be that big a deal." She paused nervously, then went on. "Well, the first part was encoded using one of the standard Soviet encryption systems we've had cracked for years, and it had a lot of proper names. But the rest of it was just a string of numbers. No matter what I tried, I got nothing but garbage." "Really? I thought Fort Meade's football field of Cray supercomputers could crack anything." "I thought so too. But this encryption was either so clever, or so simple, nothing seemed to click. I couldn't do it. I even began to wonder, maybe it's not a cipher at all. Maybe it's just some obscure foreign language. So I matrixed it against some we have in the data base. And, love, we've got them. A zillion megabytes of memory. Serbo- Croatian, Urdu, Basque . . ." She drew on her cigarette, sending a glow into the dark. Above them the rain continued to pound. "But I still couldn't find anything that would crack it." "Doesn't sound like you." He drew her around and kissed her. "Half the time you're too smart for your own good." "Apparently not smart enough." She hugged him back automatically, then continued. "When I told Jerry I couldn't break the encryption, he suddenly got very nervous. Said okay, then he'd just take it and try again himself. So I asked him to sign it out on my log. Just routine. And that's when he started acting strange. At first he refused, but finally he did it when I said, 'It's like this, sweet buns. No tickee, no washee.' By then he'd stopped coming over to my place and things had gotten a little strained at the edges, to put it mildly. So I didn't think too much about it at the time." "Don't start telling me more about--" "Michael, that was the last time anybody saw him. He just vanished. That night. There was even something in the paper. 'Mysterious disappearance.' The apartment where he lived had been dismantled. Top to bottom. Somebody must have thought he was holding out." "And?" "Well, it just so happened I still had it in computer memory, though that's a blatant violation of security procedures. Anyway, the next day I called Control and said what's with a certain file? Gave them the NSCID number. And they said, 'We have no record of that number.' Quote. They'd never heard of it. So it must have been a free-lance job for somebody outside. Whoever it was must have paid Jerry, or maybe blackmailed him, into getting me to take a crack at it. Which is why it was two weeks old. It wasn't NSA material at all. Somebody else wanted it, and I'm known far and wide as Ms. Give-Her-the-Tough-Ones." "You always were the best." "Right." She laughed, then reached into her purse and retrieved a three and a half inch gray computer disk. "And here it is. A complete copy. I've also got it stored on the eighty-meg hard drive of my Zenith Turbo 486 laptop back at the hotel." She tossed it to him. "Jerry's file. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's still encrypted." He turned it in his fingers. Welcome to the new age, he thought, when thousands of pages can be packed onto a high-density disk the size of a casette tape. She took out a compact from her purse and powdered her nose in the light of the candle, then turned and searched the stone for her crumpled dress. He thought he heard a sound from the hallway outside, but then decided it was just more thunder. "So now what?" She finally found the dress and drew it loosely on, managing not to secure the bustline. "I've tried and tried to crack it, but nothing seems to click. After the preamble, there's nothing on there but a long string of numbers. Whatever it is, it's not any of the standard encryption systems." She reached to take it back. "Why am I telling you all this?" "Because we've agreed, no more games." "Darling, there're actually two reasons why I shouldn't. One is I hate to drag you into it, and the other . . . well, there's more." "I'm waiting." "Whatever's on here is part of something bigger. I know that because of the preamble, the section I can read." She pushed ahead, nervousness in her voice. "Anyway, that's when I decided I had to talk to you. About some of the things you used to work on." He inhaled. "What are you talking about?" "There were some proper names." "I don't get--" "In the preamble. One was 'Daedalus.' And another was 'Mino.' So I thought, why not talk to Michael? It sounded like something that you'd . . . I don't know . . . maybe you could help me think. Anyway, I finally decided to take a chance and ring you." "Great. Nice to finally learn exactly where I fit in." He lay silent for a moment, trying to suppress his annoyance. Finally he told himself, Be constructive. "All right, tell me what you think it's all about." "Well." She paused again, as though unsure. Finally she spoke, her voice faint above the rain. "Did you know the Soviet Union and Japan never actually signed a peace treaty after World War Two?" "It's because the Soviets kept some Japanese islands, right? Seem to recall they were the Kuriles, and also the southern half of Sakhalin." "Japan calls those the Northern Territories, and they've refused to sign because of them." She reached over and adjusted the candle, surveying the dark around them. The gloom was almost Stygian. "Well, hang on to your diplomatic pouch, because I think they're about to sign. Maybe as the first step toward . . . I'm still not sure what." He caught his breath. "How did you find out about this?" "Intelligence. I've been handling our intercepts. But we still haven't put together a briefing package for the president, and State. It just seems so implausible nobody wants to be the one to sign off on it. Besides, nothing's settled. Among other things, the Japanese Diet would eventually have to vote to approve it, and nothing's come through diplomatic channels. It's being closely handled by somebody big and anonymous over there. Anyway, my hunch is a vote in the Diet would be a squeaker. Your average Japanese man on the street still isn't too enthusiastic about the Soviets." He leaned back to think. Given today's global realities, a deal like that had to be the tip of some gigantic iceberg. In diplomacy, there was always give and take. "And you believe whatever's on this disk is somehow connected to the treaty?" "That's precisely what I believe," she sighed. "The treaty has a secret protocol involved. It's hinted at in the intercepts, but never described. And I've got a feeling, somehow, that this is it." "Doesn't sound like something that would delight Washington." He pondered. "On the other hand, what could the U.S. do anyway? The American military is a hell of a lot more worried about losing its bases in Japan, not to mention NSA's Soviet and Chinese listening posts, than the Japanese are about giving up our so-called protection. There's not a damned thing the U.S. could do about it." "I'd guess whoever's behind this fully realizes that." She paused, letting a roll of thunder from above die away. "But the protocol . . . nobody has any idea what's in it, not even the KGB. I also know that from our intercepts." "This is getting more interesting by the minute." "Well, stay tuned. There's more still. As it happens, I'm also on NSA's oversight panel, the Coordinating Committee. We assemble briefing packages that bring together reports from all the departments, including PHOTOINT, photo intelligence from satellite surveillance." "The 'spy in the sky' recon? Big Bird, KH-12, radar imaging?" "Well, we review all of that, sure. But think about it. The Soviets have surveillance satellites too. And p.s., their Cosmos series can now relay down digital imagery in real time." She paused. "It's classified, but put two and two together. If NSA intercepts Soviet voice and data communications . . ." "Stealing pictures from their spy satellites?" He knew about it. "Why not? All's fair in love and war, I think the saying goes." "Okay, just pretend you dreamed it up." She sighed. "Now, from here on it gets a little off-the-wall. So off-the-wall everybody at NSA refuses to take it seriously. The committee keeps wanting to study everything, but I think time's running out. Something's going to happen any day now, but--" "Something bad?" He tried to make out her eyes in the dark, wondering what she was still holding back. "Michael, I shouldn't . . ." She reached over and took another cigarette out of her purse. "Anyway, the reason I wanted you here was to help me find some answers. Before somebody decides to try and make me disappear too. Like Jerry." She flicked at her lighter three times before it finally flared. Maybe, he thought, she had good reason to be afraid. He remembered the odd sense that afternoon that they were being watched. And then Zeno mentioning a stranger carrying his book. It was beginning to seem less and less like a coincidence. "But, Jesus," she went on. "Now they've found me. And I've drawn you into it. I'm really--" "Just relax." Mainly now he wanted to calm her down. "Nobody's found--" "Don't you see? Alex. Just happens to call you this morning as you were on your way here to see me. Don't flatter yourself. That call was about me. Which means he knows I've got . . ." Her hand quavered as she dropped the lighter back into her purse. "There's already been one murder--" "Hey, slow down. Take it easy. Novosty's never scared me, even when he's tried. Just--" "It's not him I'm worried about. Michael, if even a TDirectorate sleaze like Alex knows, then who else . . ." The darkened room fell silent. "You'd better tell me all of it. Everything." Again he paused, thinking he heard a sound from somewhere in the dark. But it was impossible. Nobody could have followed them here. "All right." She let the words tumble out, finally. "Yes, we intercept all the Soviet satellite photos. Just the way you thought." She exhaled, then rose and paced the room a moment, its walls now ghostly in the candlelight. "Well, lately for some strange reason their Soyuz series always seems to have a temporary malfunction whenever they pass over one certain spot on the globe. Almost as though somebody were turning off their KFA-1000 high-resolution cameras. I kept noticing it, but nobody else in PHOTOINT thought it was anything but a coincidence. Still, it got me wondering. What if somebody over there is pulling a number on the KGB, or the GRU? Keeping them from seeing something. So I had some of our own photos of that grid sent over, from the new KH-12." "Where was it?" "Well, it wasn't necessarily where you'd think. It was the Japanese island of Hokkaido. And the high-resolution grid missing was just the northern tip." "So?" "I went back and checked a series of KH-12 recon photos, taken over the last two years. There's something new there now, Michael. Just this last year or so. It's been partly camouflaged, but I think it's a new runway. Or launch facility. Or something. And the radar maps show some funny surface irregularities. At least I think they do. Nobody else at NSA . . ." She looked away. "But put it together. Maybe that's part of the treaty somehow, their secret protocol. Some joint--" "A launch facility? Eva, that's impossible. The Japanese space program is all down on Tanegeshima Island, south of Tokyo. The island of Hokkaido is way up north. There's nothing up there but Holsteins and hay fields." But, he thought suddenly, it's also just across from Sakhalin. The Soviet Far East. The place the party secretary who embezzled . . . "This isn't hay fields, darling, believe me." Her voice seemed to drift out and blend with the rain. "Something you said this afternoon, that's what made it click. About the first man to leave the earth and soar into space . . ." "You mean--" "I didn't ask for this. Oh, Christ, how did I . . ." She paused again, uncertain. "You know, I finally think I've figured out what's happening, why it's so secret--the treaty, the protocol, cutting out their own intelligence. It's partly about space, all right. Has to be. Something's cooking, something they're eventually going to spring on the world like the first Sputnik." "You still haven't decoded the damned thing." "Okay, I'm guessing. But how's this? Somebody at the top, in the USSR, has decided to go for a giant gamble. To save their system, they've been forced to turn to some nutcakes in Japan who can loan them billions. And this project is part of it. The Soviets once cut a deal with Nazi Germany to buy time, so why not? The leadership needs time now desperately." "And you think--?" "Project Daedalus. That's the code name in the preamble. Think about it. You know what I believe? To get the money and technology they desperately need, the Russians have had to cave in and do the unthinkable. Form a new alliance. Michael, they're about to start rearming Japan." CHAPTER FOUR Thursday 7:28 A.M. "_Hai, so deshoo_," Taro Ikeda, project director, bowed into the red telephone receiver, using that breathy, clipped speech all Japanese reserve for their superiors. _"Kore wa honto ni muzakashi desu._ It has been difficult, but they have finally agreed on the revised schedule. In nine days--" He paused to listen, then continued. "_Hai, so_. There is no other way. _Hai_. The Diet will never approve the treaty unless there is some dramatic symbol of the advantages of the alliance." He halted. "_Hai_, security has been maintained here. With deepest respect, the problem would seem to be with your--" He paused again. Now tiny beads of sweat were glistening on his brow. "_Hai_, we are ready. The vehicle is . . . _hai_." He bowed again. "Of course, there will be no delay. The revised schedule is firm. _Hai_, Mino-sama, we--" He was bowing ever more rapidly into the phone. "_Hai_, we have pushed them as hard as we can." He bowed even deeper. "_Hai_, by tomorrow's report. Of course, Mino-sama. Thank you, _domo arigato gozaimashita_. . . ." The line, a high-security satellite link connecting the Hokkaido facility to the Mino Industries Building in the Ueno section of Tokyo, had gone dead. Tanzan Mino, CEO of Mino Industries Group, had other matters to concern himself with. Taro Ikeda repressed a tremble. The technical part, the project here on Hokkaido, was going well; what was happening on the Tokyo end? First the delay of the funds, and now a rumored breach of security. KGB had intercepted the protocol. That was the word from his informant close to the CEO in Tokyo. _Shigata ga nai_, he thought; sometimes things can't be helped. Taro Ikeda was proud he had been personally selected by the CEO to be project director for the top secret Hokkaido operation. He was fifty- four years of age, a graduate of Tokyo University Law School, a twenty- five-year veteran, now retired, of MITI, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. He was, in short, a mover in the New Japan and he looked it--elegantly graying temples, tailored silk suits, a small mustache to set off his high cheeks. At one time he had been the inside choice for MITI vice minister, before the CEO offered him a chance to fulfill a vision no official source in the ministry could ever admit existed. Overall, he told himself, the CEO should be pleased. He had carried out his own responsibilities flawlessly. And MITl was providing an unofficial umbrella of technical support, covering any unexpected requirements. Through this project the CEO had set into motion a plan that would soon alter dramatically Japan's place in the equation of world power. Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. The element of surprise. No one outside Mino Industries knew what was really planned, not even the prime contractors for the project. Security every step of the way. And now the drama was ready, the curtain poised. Only a few more days, and a technological miracle would soar upward from the earth, symbolizing the first step in the realization of Japan's age-old ambition. The world would know the twenty-first century had arrived, the Japanese century. Mino Industries had made it possible. The CEO's sense of timing was impeccable. Only last week he had approved Taro Ikeda's final briefing to Noburu Takahashi, executive director of the National Space Development Agency. NASDA, through contracts to the Space Systems Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in charge of the major hardware of the Japanese rocket program. Takahashi was also an executive of the new Daedalus Corporation, an unofficial "consultant." Together they had traveled to the agency's space center on Tanegeshima, the island six hundred miles south of Tokyo, to monitor the shakedown launch of Japan's new H-2 rocket series. Although that vehicle was far superior to both the American Titan 34D and the European Ariane 4, it was a technological dinosaur compared to this project. This was unlike anything the world had ever seen. The project had begun over two years earlier, when he was still director of MITI's Kokuki Buki-ka, the Aircraft and Ordnance Section. An "anonymous" scenario--conceived by the CEO of Mino Industries Group, Tanzan Mino--had arrived on his desk, detailing a revolutionary proposal. Every director in MITI had received a copy. The eventual "consensus"? It was too visionary, would aggravate Japan's already delicate relationship with America. The Liberal Democratic Party could never be seen to embrace such a project publicly. Accordingly, MITI's parliamentary vice minister turned it down. Officially. But that was merely _tatame_, his "public face." Afterward the classified moves, the real moves, began. Perhaps, it was hinted, if the idea were "explored" outside regular government channels. . . . Top-secret feelers were sent to the Soviets. With a green light, Tanzan Mino had immediately created the Daedalus Corporation, hiring away Taro Ikeda and forty-seven of his MITI aerospace engineers, the best and brightest, from Kokuki Buki-ka. Start-up financing had been provided by the CEO personally, with some matching contributions by the top executives of Japan's major _zaibatsu_, industrial groups. The scenario was an easy sell, since they all realized its payoff would be staggering. The only requirement was that it remain top secret until the appropriate moment, when the Diet would be formally notified. By that time, however, there would be no turning back. Everything would have to go forward as a package. Under the CEO's direction, Taro Ikeda and his forty- seven MITI engineers had relocated here on Hokkaido to oversee a secret, fast- track project. Forty-seven. Perhaps, he sometimes mused, that number was no coincidence. Perhaps it was an unconscious act of historical resonance. Forty-seven brilliant young technicians, just like the forty-seven ronin, the samurai of the famous legend. Those ronin had bided their time for many years, living in obscurity and ignominy until the moment when they rose up in triumph. _Bushido_. You must always make your opponent do battle on your own terms. And today money and technology were Japan's most powerful weapons. Why not use them strategically, the CEO had argued. The time had come to engage other unsuspecting nations with concentrated strength, in a forcible move to achieve Japan's long-term objectives. The Way of the Warrior. Taro Ikeda surveyed his office, his personal command center. The space was appointed like the headquarters of a field marshall: a deep metallic gray with video screens along one wall permitting him continuously to monitor activities in every sector of the facility. And across the top of his black slate desk was marshalled a line of gray telephones with scramblers, each a secure direct line to the offices of one of the project's prime contractors. The first was to Nagoya, to the head office of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Theirs was the initial contract let by the CEO after the project financing was in place. Indeed, Mitsubishi's Nagoya Aircraft Works was the ideal choice to manufacture the air-breathing turboramjets-scramjets for the vehicle. That conglomerate had produced over fifty thousand aircraft engines during the great Pacific war, and, more recently, their new Komaki North plant was responsible for the powerful oxygen-hydrogen engines that composed the first stage of the giant H-2 booster. The phone on his desk connected him directly to the office of Yoshio Matsunami, Mitsubishi's general manager for space systems. The massive scramjets for this project had been manufactured in Nagoya under a veil of total secrecy, then static-tested at their aeropropulsion test facility and individually shipped here to Hokkaido in unmarked railcars. Another line connected him to the head office of Nissan's aeronautical and space division in Tokyo, already in charge of all solid rocket boosters for the Japan Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science. The CEO had hired their senior propulsion engineers to resolve problems connected with air-breathing combustion of liquid hydrogen. The third connection was to Hitachi City, sixty miles from Tokyo. Hitachi, Limited manufactured the booster cases for the new H-2 vehicle, and their extensive experience with composite alloys at high- temperatures made them the obvious choice to create the hypersonic air- frame. There were other lines as well. The vehicle's inertial- guidance system and flight controls--both based on advanced Soviet designs--had been produced at Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory. Preliminary wind- tunnel tests had been assigned to the Kakuda Propulsion Center, whose rocket-engine development facilities were already being used to support NASDA's program in oxygen-hydrogen thruster R&D. The last high-security line connected him directly to Tsukuba Space Center at Tsukuba Science City, forty miles from Tokyo, the nerve center for all Japanese manned space-flight research. Their clean-rooms and deep-space tracking facilities were comparable to any in the world, and their Fujitsu SX-10 supercomputer--which, with 128 processors for parallel processing, performed nine billion calculations per second-- could provide realtime simulation of a complete hypersonic flight profile. Feeling impatient now to begin the day, Taro Ikeda settled back and reached for the phones. Each contractor would give him a quick morning update, and then he would outline any further component tests or retrofitting as required. In truth, these exchanges had long since be- come scarcely more than rituals, since the project was all but completed. The major components had already been designed, delivered, and assembled. The contractors had been paid, the reports and evidence of their participation declared top secret and locked away from any possible prying eyes. All traces of the project had been safely secured. There was, he reminded himself, only one major problem remaining. As part of the initial scenario, the Soviets had agreed to provide a laundered payment of one hundred million American dollars, to be used for Tanzan Mino's "incidental expenses" in the Liberal Democratic Party hierarchy. To avoid another Recruit-bribe fiasco like the one that brought down the prime minister in 1989, the money had to be scrupulously clean and totally untraceable. But the funds had not arrived. How the Soviets had secured the hard currency required outside of regular government channels, he could not imagine. There were even reports the money had been secretly "embezzled" from certain slipshod ministries. That it was, in fact, hot money. But if those funds didn't come through within eight days, fully laundered, the project would have to be put on hold, as a matter of strategy, and precaution. The treaty could not be placed before the Diet unless passage was assured. Promises had to be kept. What had happened to the money? Whatever it was, he thought with a worried sigh, the CEO had better solve it and soon. If he didn't, the whole project might have to be put on hold until next year's session of the Diet, and their secrecy would probably be impossible to maintain for another whole year. A disaster. He had just completed the last call when he noticed a flashing alert on the main computer terminal, advising him that the morning's hypersonic test in Number One was scheduled to begin at 0800 hours. He grunted and typed in an acknowledgment. In his view it was a waste of time, overkill. The SX-10's simulation had already taken them further than they needed to go. But, all right, humor the Soviet team. It would only require a morning. His contractor briefings now out of the way, he transferred all communication channels to the computer modems that lined the walls, then rose and walked back to the small alcove at the rear of his office. He paused a moment to calm his thoughts, then slid aside the _shoji_ screens to reveal what was, for him, the most important room in the facility. Here in the North Quadrant the CEO had constructed a traditional teahouse, _tatami_-floored with walls and ceiling of soft, fresh cedar and pine. In this refuge Taro Ikeda performed an essential morning ritual, the brief meditation that quieted his spirit. He knew well the famous adage of swordsmanship, that the true master lives with his mind in a natural state. The challenge ahead would require all the discipline of a samurai warrior, the Way of Zen. And the first rule, the very first, was your mind must be empty, natural, unattached, in order to succeed. As he seated himself on the reed surface of the _tatami_, _zazen_-style, he methodically began clearing his mind. The moment was sacred. But then, drifting through unasked, came an admonition of the great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. "Intelligence is everything. You must know your opponent's plan even before he knows it himself." It was true. The security for this project had been airtight, except for one minor breach. Someone in the Tokyo office had stupidly transmitted the final protocol over an unsecured satellite channel. It had been intercepted by Soviet intelligence. Fortunately, the Russian blunderers had been unable to decipher the encryption. But someone--either in the KGB or the GRU--had been so desperate he had secretly enlisted the assistance of the U.S. National Security Agency's top cryptographer. It was a brilliant move, because NSA's supercomputers might eventually be able to break the code. When Tanzan Mino learned of the breach, he had given orders that the NSA expert be neutralized, quickly, and the protocol retrieved. If it became public knowledge prematurely, the entire scenario could be destroyed. Now, happily, the NSA individual had been identified. The rest would be easy. An unfortunate price to pay, but a simple solution. With that thought to comfort him, he gazed at the polished natural woods of the teahouse and let his mind drift into perfect repose. Thursday 1:07 A.M. The first round went wide, nicking the edge of the dolphin fresco. Vance listened, startled, at the explosion, at first thinking it was a sharp crack of thunder from outside. Then he heard the bullet sing into the dark, a high-pitched hiss. For a moment he wondered if he was dreaming, his mind adrift in the bloody myths of the palace. Then a second explosion flared from the direction of the archway, grazing his neck. "_Eva!_" He threw his body across hers, slamming her against the alabaster portico. His free hand slapped awkwardly at the candle, crushing out the last sputter of flame. As he swung around, the empty ouzo bottle clattered into the dark, spinning, its revolving sound a beacon. Get it, he thought, and stretched across the stone to grope in the dark. Finally he felt the smoothness of the glass gliding at the edge of his reach. Slowly, carefully, his fingers circled the neck and he pulled it toward him. The room was black now, its silence deep as a tomb. Then the gun flamed once more, and again, the two rounds ricocheting off the ancient walls somewhere around them. After that, silence returned, no sound except for the heave of breathing, whose he wasn't sure. As he reached to quiet her, she whispered. "Michael, they want me." She tried to struggle up. "You've got to let--'" "No." He forced her back, whispering. "We can't leave when the party's just beginning." Still grasping the neck of the bottle, he moved silently across the floor. The stone slabs were icy, while the night music of the rain seemed to come from another world. He pressed against the wall, feeling for the doorway until he sensed a shadow slip past, slowly edging into the room. The muzzle of a pistol glinted against the flare of lightning outside, and he realized it was no more than a couple of feet away. _Now. _He swung the empty bottle with all his might, aiming for the tip of the muzzle. The impact coursed up his arm as the bottle splintered against the metal. The intruder's startled intake of breath was masked by the clatter of the weapon against the stone floor. He'll reach for it, Vance told himself. Lots of luck, pal. He brought the fractured bottle upward with all his strength, aiming for the face. Although the figure was still formless, he let instinct guide his hand. The rough feel of shirt fabric brushed past his fingers and then the softness of flesh. A scream of surprise pierced the dark. Bingo. Got the neck, he thought, and with a twist he drove the shattered bottle in. A warm wetness gushed against his hand. I hit an artery. Blind luck. The figure stumbled backward into the dim passageway. In a flash of lightning Vance saw hands clawing at a neck. Then came the sound of stumbling footsteps, retreating, and again silence. Still gripping the sticky neck of the bottle, he bent down and began to search the floor. Near his feet he felt a hot muzzle and followed it upward to the still-warm grip. It was, he realized, a 9mm Baretta. He kept an identical chrome-plated model on the Ulysses. All right, chum, now we'll have a rerun. Grasping it with both hands, in firing position, he turned and peered out the open archway. The glimmers of distant lightning showed nothing but stone walls and an empty passageway. All he could discern was the vertical shaftway connecting the many levels of the palace. He pressed against the cold stone wall and edged into the hallway leading toward the steps. Then he felt a sharp sensation against the ball of his left foot and reached down. A spent cartridge shell, still warm, lay up-ended on the icy floor. Pasiphae, he suddenly found himself thinking. It's as though Eva had lured the killer here, to this very room, like the white bull. And now he, they, who knows how many? want to kill us both. Somebody realized she knows too much. He tried to control his breathing, straining to hear as the adrenaline continued to pump. From the staircase up above, the crickets had resumed their high-pitched medley. He listened as they chorused, the sounds of centuries past, their hymn to the rain. There was nothing else. No, faint sounds ... far above, maybe in the central court. Men were arguing. It was a heated exchange. He heard them grow louder, and with that the metallic click of another automatic weapon being readied. He waited, holding his breath, as the voices became even more animated. What had happened? There must have been two, maybe even more. Good time to find a new place to party. He turned back to the silent room. It was, he suddenly realized, too silent. He felt his way back to the alabaster portico and reached across. "Eva." The quiet that followed told him he had been right; she'd panicked, run. No, he thought, she only wants to save you. She thinks she drew them here, and now she's trying to lure them away. Bad time to leave. Just when things were getting interesting. He reached down and felt for the right-hand pocket of his trousers, still lying crumpled in a pile on the floor. Finally he slid his hand in and searched. The keys were gone. She had taken them, slipped away, left nothing. No trace. Only the smashed candle remained. Annoyed, he located a box of hotel matches in his shirt and struck one. The room was empty, totally bare, its dolphins frisking alone in their placid sea. Across, on the other side, was the passageway leading through the queen's "bathroom." Beyond it lay the labyrinthine twists of the palace hallways. Perhaps by now Eva had found her way out and escaped. From the maze of Daedalus? He tried to think as he finished donning his wet clothes in the dark. Eva clearly had gotten too close to somebody's plans. Where would she go? Cautiously he moved out and began to mount the marble staircase, his rubber soles noiseless against the steps. The automatic was beginning to feel comfortable, even though it had nearly taken his life only minutes before. But he never trusted life to a chunk of metal, no matter how efficient. Above him the voices still quarreled, and he found himself straining to catch the language. What was it? Greek? no, maybe Russian. Whatever it was, a fierce argument was raging. Again he tried to guess how many there were. He checked the metal clip and decided he had enough rounds to take them all--if he had to. But that was getting ahead of the game. If she had eluded them, then why bother? The best thing would be to try to slip past the courtyard, get through the fence, maybe join her at the car. Then they could move the party back to the hotel, keep the momentum. . . . He moved carefully on through the hall of the procession, edging along the wall. Against his back he could feel the cold frescoes of the cup bearers, locked in their sterile march through time. Then he heard another voice, this time female. "_Pazdolba! Delaetye vcyo, shto vam yugodno--mnye vcyo_ ..." It was Eva yelling in rapidfire Russian. Arguing, shouting orders? He couldn't make it out. Now he edged through the final archway, grasping the Baretta. At that moment an eruption of gunfire splintered the silence, a fiery burst in the rainy night, while Eva was yelling for it to stop. It was over as quickly as it had come, but she was still screaming, swearing actually. Whoever was there, they were no more than thirty feet away. But she was still safe. He could hear her curses, now half muffled in the storm. Gingerly he edged on out through the entryway and stood at the edge of the courtyard, Baretta cocked and ready. A lighter blossomed in the rain, was brought upward to a cigarette, and momentarily framed a face. Alex Novosty. He was holding what appeared to be an Uzi, peering down at the glistening stones. Sprawled across from him were two bodies, both in dark raincoats. Now he was saying something to Eva in Russian, but she was staring past him, toward the entryway where Vance stood. In a flare of lightning their eyes locked, and he saw in hers anger and disbelief. At that moment the flame of the lighter was cut short, but not before Novosty whirled and followed her gaze. Instinctively Vance threw himself against the inside wall of the processionway. An instant later, the Uzi blazed again, drowning the sound of Novosty's challenge. He held his own automatic, barely breathing, while the rounds ricocheted against the stone walls. Was Eva part of it? What in hell . . . Then her voice rose again, through the dark, a mixture of Russian and English. She was screaming at Novosty. Finally she called out. "Michael." A pause, then her voice cracked. "You may as well stop the charade." Charade? That wasn't the game they'd been playing. He decided to wait. The moment seemed part of a giant contest where none of the players wore team colors. "Michael, old man, terribly sorry about that." This time the voice was Alex's. "It's been a trying night." "Novosty," he yelled back. "I've got an automatic too, chum. Touch one hair of her head and you're history. I swear to God. Now let her go, and then we'll talk." "My friend, my friend, I'm not keeping her." The hesitation in his voice belied his attempt at calm. "You don't understand. We have a problem here, very serious. And I am getting wet. Why don't you come out and let's discuss it somewhere dry." "No way. You and I have a little catching up to do. Let her go. She's not part of it." "Ah, but she is very much a part of it. Why do you think I am here tonight, risking everything? I need you now, Michael, more than ever. We are all in deep trouble because of her." As Vance started to respond, he felt a glancing blow against the side of his neck, powerful, numbing. Awkwardly he stumbled forward, cursing his own stupidity. Of course! The man he'd wounded had merely disappeared into the palace labyrinth. He'd been back there somewhere, waiting. Now they'd guided him here with all the shouting. He felt the Baretta slip from his grasp as his head slammed against the hard plaster of the fresco. His attacker was reaching for the gun, hands slippery with blood. There was hot breath against his face, the gurgle of labored breathing. It was a dying man with nothing to lose. Now Alex was shouting at Eva through the rain, telling her to run for it. Good, he thought, and turned to shove his fist into the face of the figure struggling to turn the pistol on him. The weapon fired, a lethal blast next to his ear, but the muzzle was still directed away. The round glanced off the stone archway and ricocheted down the hallway. As their struggle continued, he heard the sound of the Saab, its engine coughing to life. Too bad. I'll miss the ride back. With that he brought his knee against the assailant's groin, shoving him against the wall. Even then, though, he still could not see the face; it was darkened or swathed in a black cloth, he couldn't tell which. Suddenly the passageway flared, and he looked up to see Novosty, rain- soaked, holding his small Italian lighter. In his left hand. In his right was the black metallic shape of the Uzi. Just then the attacker, drenched in blood, finally wrenched away the Baretta and was turning, trying to speak. Vance noticed, absently, that blood streamed from a gash across the side of his neck. "I am sorry, my friend." Alex was lifting his weapon, calmly and with perfect precision. "Things have become complicated, but do not worry. I have handled it." And the Uzi erupted. The dying man actually managed to squeeze off a round, a shot that went wild, as the impact of the Uzi slammed him against the wall. Then he fired again, almost a death tremor, and pitched forward. Vance started to stretch for the pistol as it clattered across the floor toward him, but Novosty's voice sounded through the storm. "Michael, do us both a favor, just leave it. I've killed enough men tonight. Three. And I knew them all. I am very weary of it, so please . . ." He was walking over, still holding the Uzi. "Let's have a drink and talk. This is very unsettling to my nerves." "You and your friends screwed up a perfectly fine evening. You'd better have a good excuse." Vance watched him, very much wanting the pistol in his hands. Should he make a grab for it and take his chances? "As I tried to tell you just now, it is very complicated." Novosty was picking up the Baretta, grasping it carefully with a piece of wet cloth he'd ripped from the dead man's shirt. Then he looked up. "Are your prints on this?" "Sort of figures, doesn't it? I borrowed it from him." He pointed down at the blood-soaked corpse between them. "So we must clean it," he sighed. "What happened here tonight was a terrible accident, my friend. Obviously. How else can it be explained? There will be an international inquiry. We must now try and simplify the work of whoever has that unpleasant duty." "You've got some explaining of your own to do. What about Eva?" "Ah yes, Eva. She should have known better than to come here." He looked up. "Tonight simply need not have happened. It has always distressed me, the imprudence of some women." He sighed again. "I do not know if I can cover up this affair. It may well be the end for me." "No kidding. Killing those two men out there may dampen your welcome in these parts." "I regret to say it was necessary. They wanted to take her. But when I reasoned against it, they became suspicious. Which is why I had no choice." Was Novosty here protecting Eva, he suddenly wondered? After all, there was age-old blood connecting them; Eva Borodin and Alex Novosty went back centuries together, centuries of Russian history. Aristocrats both, they shared family, pain, and glory from an age long before the October Revolution. But would she turn to him for refuge? No, not likely. She'd never be that desperate. "Like you said this morning, Alex, it's unhealthy in this business to know too much. Tends to spoil all the interesting surprises." "Yes, I agree. Ignorance is often bliss, I think that's the expression. But having solved one problem, I then faced another. What to do about them? Happily our friend here was available to help. I honestly think he would have died anyway from his neck wound." He glanced up. "Did you do this?" "Spur of the moment." "You are still good, Michael." He bent over and examined the severed artery again. "My compliments. You haven't lost it. An excellent job. I believe this incision would have been fatal." He turned back and smiled. "You have a surgeon's touch." "Are you going to tell me who the hell he is, or do we play twenty questions?" "He was . . . a professional acquaintance. This was most regrettable. For everyone. Mine was a distasteful task, I assure you." He sighed once more as he laid both weapons against the wall. "I will trust you, Michael. In turn you must trust me. And help me. We need to move this poor unfortunate to a more plausible location." Vance now realized what Novosty was planning. He was about to pin the murder of the two outside on a dead man, this one. But who were they? Whoever this one was, one of his hands only had three fingers; the little finger had been cut away just below the knuckle. "Forget it. I'm not going to help you do anything. I'm going to walk out of here, try and find Eva, and get the hell away from all this. You're a negative influence, Alex." "My friend, be reasonable." He pointed toward the weapons. "We have work to do. We must remove all the prints from those, yours and mine, then create an accident." "Look, you broke up a small party I had going here tonight. But now that you've ruined my evening, I damned sure don't plan to help you clean up." "Michael, neither of us had anything to do with this unfortunate business. You or me. I wasn't even in Greece. It must have been some terrible misunderstanding among men of questionable livelihood. Tempers obviously flared. Who knows? Everybody is dead, so there can be no explanation beyond what appearances suggest." He shrugged and slipped his arms underneath the body. "Incidentally, they told me that Volodin was captured this morning. But he didn't talk. Instead he killed himself. So our situation is still secure." "You must have a hearing problem. Maybe you ought to get it checked. I just told you it's Eva I'm going to help, not you. You can take the money and--" "My friend, my friend, you are impetuous. Please. Everything is going as planned. But now we must move quickly." He smiled. "By the way, did you leave anything down below?" "Just a broken bottle." Vance stared out into the rain. "Then you might wish to make it disappear." He began dragging the body into the courtyard. "It will have prints. Glass preserves them perfectly." He's right for once, Vance thought. Rubbing at his neck, a glimmer of pain intruding, he turned and retraced his steps into the dark, into the labyrinth. As he descended, the chill of the palace enveloped him. He was bored with the place now, its ancient horrors and its modern ones. When the dark became too depressing, he extracted a folder of hotel matches and struck one. Its puny light flared and then expired, almost helpless against the blackness engulfing him. The sound of crickets followed as he entered the bedroom of the queen once more. He paused a moment in the dark, then struck another match and walked over to the stone bed. There was the neck of the splintered bottle, covered with bloody fingerprints. Novosty was right about one thing: It would have opened a whole new area of inquiry. Nobody at Interpol had his prints on file, at least as far as he knew. But that wasn't good enough. Leave nothing to chance. Carrying the fractured bottle, he began remounting the steps. This time he wanted the dark, needed it, to clear his mind, to mask the horrors of the palace. The confusion of the shootout swirled in his mind. Alex Novosty had killed three men as calmly as lighting a cigarette. Why? Was it just for the money? When he emerged, distant lightning glinted on the ancient stones of the courtyard, contrasting brightly with the darkness below. For an instant the palace seemed magical all over again. And there, perfectly choreographed on the wet pavement, was evidence of a lethal duel. Three bodies lay across from each other, two together and one opposite, gripping a weapon, his neck slashed. Perhaps it looked too pat, but who would know? Things happened that way. The only participant missing was Aleksei Ilyich Novosty. He gazed around, but he knew he would see nothing. Yes, Alex had gotten out quickly and cleanly. He'd always been hit and run. All right, Vance told himself, now it's time to answer a few questions. Who the hell is looking for Eva, and who wants to silence her? Are they the same people? Carefully, methodically he began to search the pockets of the two men Novosty had killed outside. He knew what he was looking for. The first appeared to be in his fifties, pockmarked cheeks, looked very Russian in spite of it all. He had a small Spanish Llama 9mm compact in a shoulder holster. The other man was younger, though already balding. His cheeks were drawn, and blood was already staining around the two holes in his cheap polyester suit. His last expression was one of disbelief frozen in time. He's the back-up, Vance told himself, number two. That's always how they work. He should have stayed back home, maybe digging potatoes. The passports were Bulgarian, a forgery, stamped with a Greek entry visa one week old. Port of entry: Athens. But they had to be KGB. No wonder Novosty was in trouble now. He was playing both sides of the game. Finally he pulled around the head of the other man, the one swathed in black, the one who had almost killed him twice. This was the one he'd been saving till last, trying to guess. A bloody, brutal face stared back at him, and through the torn shirt he could see a garish tattoo covering the back and chest. At first he couldn't believe it, so he lit a match and cupped it against the rain while he ripped open the rest of the cloth to be sure. History swirled around him. _Irezumi_. The rose-colored dragon-and-phoenix tattoo was regulation issue--insignia of a _kobun_ of the right-wing ultranationalist Mino- gumi, the foremost Yakuza crime syndicate of Japan. He knew it well. CHAPTER FIVE Thursday 7:30 A.M. Andrei Petrovich Androv, director of propulsion systems, gazed out across the windy strait, feeling the chill of the sea air cut through his fur-lined trench coat. Physically, he was almost mythic, a giant from Grimms' fairy tales. He had a heavy face nature should wish on no man, tousled gray hair, bushy eyebrows eternally cocked in skepticism, and a powerful taste for Beethoven's string quartets, which he played incessantly in the instrument room. He bore, in fact, more than a passing resemblance to that aging, half-mad genius. Now seventy-one, he, too, possessed a monumental mind and was acknowledged worldwide as the founding intellect behind the Soviet space program. Yes, he was thinking, this location had been ideal. Here in remote Hokkaido they had constructed a high-security facility surrounded by wind-swept wilderness--virgin forests and snow-covered volcanoes. Even for him, a man long used to the harsh winters of Baikonur, the almost Siberian weather along this coast was intimidating. This was the most isolated, austere, and yes, lonely spot he'd ever known. But it was the perfect site. Mino Industries had insisted, rightly, on this northernmost point of Japan for the facility, here in a national park on Cape Soya, fifty kilometers west of Wakkanai. The facility itself had been constructed entirely underground, excavated beneath this rocky northern coast in order to be secure and invisible to satellite reconnaisance, both Soviet and American. Such excessive precautions, hardly a problem in the New Mexico desert when the first atomic bomb was tested, were the order of the day in this new era of space photography. Nowadays you even had to find ways to mask telltale waste heat expulsion, which always betrayed an unmistakable infrared signature. In that respect, too, their choice of this spot was strategic, with the freezing currents of the La Perouse Strait between northern Hokkaido and Sakhalin providing a continuous and thermally stable 12 degrees Celsius feed for the heat exchangers. Only the ten-thousand-meter test runway could not be concealed full-time, but it had been carefully camouflaged and was used only at night. A massive breaker crashed against the rocks at the north end of the shore, sending ice-flecked spray upward into the morning mist. As he watched the freezing cloud and felt its ice collecting on his cheeks, he glanced at his watch. It was seven-forty. He took one last survey of the choppy gray sea and turned back. His daily morning walk down to the shore had achieved its purpose: His mind was as sharp as the icy wind whistling through the rocks. He needed to be at Number One by 0800 hours, when the final test run was scheduled to begin. As he did every morning, he retraced the concrete steps that led down to the stainless steel entry door leading into the West Quadrant. When he reached it, he inserted a coded plastic card into the slot, pronounced his name into the black microphone flush with the metal doorframe, and signaled the TV eye. Two seconds later a simulated voice from the computer granted him access, the door sliding aside. He nodded to the guards, then moved on down the long neon-lit, gray hallway. When he reached the unmarked door of Number One, he paused to listen. The whine of the fans was still a high growl as the engineers ran through the warm-up preparatory to bringing its six 25,000-horse- power motors to full power. Contenting himself that vibration in the fan housings remained at acceptable levels, he flashed his ID to the guard, inserted his magnetic card, and shoved open the door. Without a word, he marched to his desk by the main video panel and slipped a scratched old Melodiya disk onto his ancient turntable. Moments later, the first movement of Beethoven's Quartet in A Minor boomed from the speakers. "We are ready to switch on the laser field, Doktor Androv." A young Soviet technician approached gingerly. "If you wish, we can direct the holograms here to the master terminal." "More of your pretty pictures?" He was examining the data on the video screens. Then he nodded. "_Da. Ya gotov_. When you will." As he stared at the screens, he again found himself growing pensive. The project was all but finished now. His lifelong dream. He silently counted their breakthroughs. The new material being used for the leading edges and scramjet struts, a proprietary titanium alloy coated with a ceramic skin, had turned out to be much lighter than aluminum and eight times as strong. Full-scale sections of the leading edges of the wings and the engine struts had been subjected to ten- minute blasts of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit air at Mach 7 in the high- temperature tunnel with no deformation or structural failure. Then the turboramjet-scramjets, four meters in diameter and nine meters long, had all been given full-scale static tests at the aeropropulsion facility in the south, where they were operated to Mach 8 at temperatures ranging from minus 100 to over 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. Massive refrigeration units and gas heaters had been used to achieve the temperature range, while liquefied air was pumped into the intakes to duplicate a complete hypersonic duty cycle. Maybe, he thought, they were ready for a full-scale test flight. Only one problem remained: a hint of supersonic wave drag the low- temperature helium wind tunnel had shown could develop behind the leading edges. He had ordered the project director to run a computer simulation examining the performance of two new ceramic spoilers, modified canard foreplanes, and the preliminary results indicated the drag would be effectively damped. Still, he was determined to test that design modification with a full run-up here in Number One, the massive hypersonic tunnel that contained a ten-meter scale model of the vehicle. As he sat thinking, he neglected to acknowledge the arrival of the project director, now advancing down the concrete steps that led from the steel entry door. "_Dobriy utro_, Doktor Androv." Taro Ikeda's good-morning greeting was heavily accented. "_Kak pashaviatye_?" "_Khoroshau_." Andrei Petrovich Androv nodded absently, still engaged in his thoughts. "_Dobriy utro_." "Today I have more good news," Ikeda continued as he headed for the coffee urn. "My 0730 briefing included a report that during the night our Tsukuba team completed a simulation of the aerodynamic performance of your suggested modification all the way to Mach 25. Just as you envisioned, leading-edge deformation and vortex bursts were reduced to values well within the acceptable envelope." He looked back. "Which makes me question whether we really need to proceed with this morning's run." "Your SX-10 only tells us how a fuselage performs if airflows are ideal," Androv replied. "At hypersonic temperatures and velocities air doesn't behave predictably, like a perfect gas. Fluid dynamics models can only give us approximations of actual characteristics." He glanced up from the video control panel, his face determined. "It is my son, Yuri, who will be in the cockpit of these vehicles, and my experience is you never put your faith in simulations. In the hypersonic regime, computer simulations are just guesswork, a shortcut not worth a _drozhky _driver's fart." "As you wish," Ikeda replied evenly, taking his first sip of coffee. In truth, Andrei Androv did not dismiss simulations out of hand. He knew their Fujitsu supercomputer was truly a marvel, capable of replicating the aerodynamic characteristics of a given fuselage component, modifying it, testing it, over and over millions of times, iterating to the optimum design in almost the twinkling of an eye. In every respect the high technology available here was astonishing. Take their hypersonic wind tunnel. Its laser probes shone thin slices of coherent light through the swirling air currents, revealing complexities otherwise hidden amid whorls of turbulence. These data were then enhanced through holography, which used the laser light to create colored 3-D representations of the flow around the model. Finally those holograms were fed into the supercomputer and analyzed from all angles. This project would have been impossible anywhere else on earth. But here, the foreign team had created a feather-light hypersonic airframe that used turbo-ramjets for horizontal takeoff and then changed their geometry into fuel-injected supersonic combustion ramjets, or scramjets, which combusted fuel and atmospheric oxygen using an internal shock wave instead of conventional compressors to achieve orbital velocity, Mach 25. It was his dream come true. "Brief me again on the simulation." Androv turned back to Ikeda. "You say you went all the way to our maximum design objective?" "We ran through the entire flight profile in real time," the other man replied. "There were no stability problems whatsoever. Either during the power-up or during the switch-over to scramjet engine geometry at Mach 4.8." "Encouraging, encouraging." Androv turned back to his video panel as the fans continued to accelerate. The violins of the A Minor quartet, his favorite of all Beethoven's late works, washed over the room. "All the same, we must run a complete sequence here for any design alterations." He then fell silent, studying the screens. Mach 25. That was--yes--almost seventeen thousand miles per hour. A velocity greater than any existing missile. And it was air-breathing! Their supercomputer's revolutionary aerodynamic design had made it possible. Problem: at velocities higher than Mach 5 unprecedented airflows were required, due to heat buildup in the fuel-injection struts and the shortage of oxygen at rarified altitudes. Solution: the entire underside of the vehicle had been shaped to serve as an exten- sion of the intakes for the twelve massive scramjets. The fuselage of the plane itself was going to act as a giant funnel, scooping in air. And it had appeared to work, at least in the computer. Then finally the Japanese engineers had perfected the liquid-air-cycle process, permitting the cryogenic hydrogen fuel to be used to liquefy a portion of the incoming air and inject it under high pressure into the engine. The final, essential breakthrough. Andrei Androv was both an idealist and a pragmatist. In Russia you had to be. That education began almost half a century earlier when, as a student, he had been on hand to assist in the first free flight of a Russian-made liquid fuel rocket, at an army base just outside Moscow. He had experienced the exhilaration of a new frontier, and plunging himself into the new science of rocketry, he had become a self-taught expert who published theoretical works read and praised by men three times his age. Ironically, therefore, Andrei Petrovich Androv had not enjoyed the luxury of being ignored, as the American rocket pioneer Goddard had been. Joseph Stalin, always paranoid, decided that the rocket researchers' "fireworks" were "dangerous to the country." Consequently, Andrei Petrovich Androv was arrested, interrogated at Butyrskaya Prison in Moscow, and dispatched on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to a convict coal mine on the Pacific coast. Eventually the political winds shifted. As a recognized rocket expert, he was part of the 1946 Soviet team that shipped German scientists and V-2 launchers back to Russia. Finally, under Khrushchev, he rose to genuine prominence, since that general secretary believed that only rockets, not manned aircraft, had the range to drop bombs on the U.S. Nikita S. Khrushchev put Andrei Androv in charge of all Soviet rocketry, and Andrei Androv put Russia in space. He'd been in charge of constructing the sprawling Baikonur Cosmodrome, near Tyuratram in Kazakhstan, central Asia, still the world's largest space center. From it he orbited the world's first satellite, Sputnik, and the world's first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin. He knew the byways of that top-secret facility almost better than he knew his own living room--the gantry systems, the fueling apparatus, the clean rooms, the rocket assembly areas, the sectors where satellites were readied. Most recently, in 1987, he had been in charge of the successful first test launch of the most powerful vehicle the world had ever seen--the Energia, propelled by liquid hydrogen engines capable of lifting a hundred-ton space platform into orbit. Also during that time his only son, Yuri Andreevich, had become the Soviet Union's leading test pilot. Yuri was rarely home, and then, nine years ago, Andrei Androv's wife had died of pneumonia. Isolated in the long, snowy nights at Baikonur, he'd consoled himself with string quar- tets, his studies of classical Greek, and his designs, his dreams of the ultimate space vehicle. But he knew Russia would never be able to build it alone. Soviet computer and materials technology already was slipping behind those of the West. He grimaced to think how his country had been brought to today's humiliating state of affairs, reduced to bargaining with foreigners like Arabs in a medina. Eventually, though, pragmatism had overruled all. Underlying this bizarre new alliance was one simple reality: the USSR needed Japanese high technology desperately. And it needed that technology now. It had begun two years earlier, when the president himself had paid a surprise secret visit to the space complex at Baikonur, supposedly to review the Energia launch schedule. That, however, was merely the official excuse. He actually had an entirely different agenda. Without saying why, he had invited his old friend Andrei Petrovich Androv to join him at the secluded hunting lodge where he was staying-- to talk, one-on-one, about the future of Soviet science. As that long snowy evening wore on, wind whistling through the log walls and pine smoke clouding the air, their conversation had turned to hard truths and blunt language. In vino, Veritas. By midnight, the uniformed bodyguards outside were stamping their heavy boots to keep warm, and Andrei Petrovich and Mikhail Sergeevich were both drinking vodka directly from the bottle, had flung its tinfoil cap onto the rough-hewn boards of the cabin's floor. By then, too, the revered Andrei Petrovich Androv was boldly speaking his mind. "Mikhail Sergeevich, time has run out for Russia. There is nothing to buy, almost nothing to eat, and prices are soaring. There is so much corruption you will not leave a Russian hospital alive unless you've bribed everyone, right down to the drunken orderlies. And those bribes can't be money. Who wants rubles? They are worthless. These days you have to bribe with vodka." He'd laughed sadly, then picked up an old copy of Pravda there by the fireplace, waved it in the air, and tossed it into the crackling flames. "When we start cooperatives, they are immediately taken over by our new mafia, Russia's ruble millionaires. Everything--" "_Perestroika_ will succeed in time, Andrei Petrovich," the president had insisted perfunctorily, still not having explained why they were meeting. "We are moving as rapidly as circumstances will permit. The bureaucracy--" "_Perestroika_!" Androv had roared back. "Have you heard the latest joke from Moscow? _Perestroika_ is like a country where everyone is switching from driving on the left side to the right side--gradually. Our half-measure concessions to a market economy have produced the worst of both systems. We now have a land with socialist initiative and capitalist conscience." He paused to laugh again, then sobered. "And soon, very soon, we're going to find ourselves in the technological Third World. We need a vision. Even more, we need hard currency, and Western technology now. And we need massive amounts. Nothing less can save us." That was when the president had nodded silently, then lifted a top- secret document from his black leather briefcase. He explained that it was a proposal from a consortium of foreigners. He wanted Andrei Androv's honest assessment. "Read this, Andrei Petrovich," he said, passing it over, "and tell me what you think. It may well be a terrible thing even to consider, but I must know your view. You, my old friend, are one of the few men I know I can trust. This proposal, can it work?" As he squinted by the flickering light of the fire, Andrei Petrovich Androv almost couldn't believe what he was reading. Among other things, the dream he had dreamed so long was there, his for the taking. The dream of a bold venture in space achieved with a whole new level of technology. Along with it, the Soviet Union would receive everything it needed. The foreigners would provide billions and billions in long-term, low- interest loans and a flood of subsidized consumer goods to erase the pain of perestroika, providing the president with the badly needed financing, not to mention popular support, he needed to bring it off. But there were price tags, several of them. The first would be total access to all Soviet space and propulsion technology. That component would actually make sense technically, but the others were higher, much higher. Could it be done? Should it be done? "What do you think, Andrei Petrovich?" the president had finally spoken, his voice a whisper above the snap of embers and the howl of wind. "Do we dare?" The room had fallen silent for a long moment. Was this some kind of trap? he almost wondered, like the old days. No, he'd quickly concluded, this time Russia was different. He would have to trust Mikhail Sergeevich. Most of all, though, he was holding his life-long ambition in his hand. At last he replied, hope mingled with apprehension. "I think we have no choice." He had looked up at the president's troubled eyes. "You have no choice." "Unfortunately, I think you are right." He had sighed and turned his gaze to the blackness outside the snow- banked window. "_Ve tyomnuyu noch, ya znayu_. Yes, Andrei Petrovich. On this dark night, I finally know what we must do." After one final vodka, they had set about devising the scenario that would change the world forever. . . . The airflow around the model continued to accelerate, while laser holograms of its complex aerodynamics were now being converted by the computer into multi-colored graphic art. Androv watched the wall-size liquid crystal display screen in the control room begin generating a vivid depiction of the streams whirling past the model, simulating the incremental stages of hypersonic climb. It was like watching a hallucination, he thought, as colors swirled around the fuselage of an object seemingly composed of 3-D lines and curves. "We are now at Mach 6, Comrade Doktor Androv." The voice of a Soviet technician interrupted his thoughts. "The laser data show that the supersonic wave drag peaks at Mach 3.8, then subsides. Your new canard foreplanes appear to be working, at least for this portion of the flight envelope." Androv studied the screen, noncommittal. "Thus far it would appear to be so. Perhaps the SX-10 was correct. All the same, at Mach 7, I want to switch on the enhancer, then capture those data and analyze them to be doubly sure." The hypersonic enhancer permitted wind-tunnel burst tests at far higher velocities than a conventional facility could achieve. More high tech. "There could still be a problem," Androv continued, "when the vortex of air currents shed from the nose of the fuselage encounters the shock waves from the wings, particularly around Mach 11." He turned to Ikeda. "Those vortexes have been responsible for significant damage to several American space shuttles during reentry phase. I need to see the data." "As you wish." The director walked to the thick glass window that looked out onto the model suspended in the airstream. The crew of technicians hovered over the controls, watching for any signs of vibration. He studied the screens for a few moments, then spoke quietly to the head of the technical team, an intense young man in spectacles. This lieutenant turned and passed the order to his colleagues, who nodded gravely and stationed themselves at the switches. Above the roar, a brilliant arc of electricity suddenly exploded just in front of the nose of the model, adding an additional burst of pressure at Mach 6 to the velocity already passing across. It was a blinding, microsecond pulse that momentarily boosted simulated vehicle velocity to Mach 13. The lasers registered the data, then passed it directly, via microwave link, into the memory banks of the powerful SX- 10 operating hundreds of miles away. Seconds later the turbulence data appeared in visual form on the liquid crystal screen above them. As the colored numbers flashed, a cheer went up from the normally somber technicians. "Still no sign of any wave drag outside the theoretical envelope, not even at Mach 13," the young head-technician beamed. "Just as we simulated," Ikeda noted quietly. This time even the grave Androv smiled. "I must congratulate all of you." He was rising from his chair, the central one facing the main controls. "Then I will order the modification installed," Ikeda nodded, "if you formally authorize it." "Authorized. I think you are right. Perhaps we are ready for a hypersonic test flight." Androv reached to switch off his turntable. "I would like to go down to the hangar now myself, in fact. Perhaps celebrate this moment with a glass of tea." "Of course." Ikeda spoke quickly to his Japanese technicians, then followed the Russian out the door. The hallways were a connected maze of brilliantly lighted and scrupulously clean tunnels. They moved down the main corridor to the central checkpoint, then turned and entered the South Quadrant, passing the various assembly sections. Those sectors were mostly quiet now, since the final work had been completed several weeks earlier. Androv said nothing as they walked toward the doorways connecting the South Quadrant with the underground hangar. He merely whistled a portion of the third movement of the A Minor quartet, Beethoven's hymn of thanksgiving in the Greek, Lydian mode. He recalled that the English writer Aldous Huxley had once suggested that particular movement was proof of God's existence. Was there a God? He wasn't sure. The only miracles he knew of on this earth were performed by men. He was on the verge of performing one himself. The history of space exploration had been played out entirely in his lifetime. He himself had been the architect of much of that progress. But putting a man into space remained an expensive and dangerous proposition. Launch vehicles still exploded with alarming regularity. Man was trapped on this planet. God was still in the heavens. Man's hope of reaching God at will required a special creation, one that could taxi off a runway just like a normal aircraft, then accelerate to hypersonic speeds, reaching low-earth orbit. An air- breathing space vehicle. Its potential for the peaceful exploration of near-earth space defied imagination. Peace. All his life, Andrei Petrovich Androv had worked in the shadow of war. Now, at last, he had created the ultimate symbol of peace. The entry to the hangar was secured, but when the guards saw Dr. Androv and the project director approaching, they saluted and punched in the codes on the locks. Moments later the heavy steel doors slid aside, revealing the brilliant lights of the hangar. It was cavernous, over a hundred feet high, with gantries now standing idle along the walls. White-coated technicians swarmed over the two prototypes, checking the final seals, while others were on twenty-foot-high trucks servicing the engines. Looming above them were what appeared to be two giant prehistoric birds, streaks of gleaming silver over three hundred feet in length, with pen-sharp noses that dipped rakishly downward. Androv paused to admire them a moment, marveling in spite of himself. The long, sleek lines swept back in a clean curve, without the interruption of a windshield. The "cockpit," in fact, was deep inside the nose, where shock waves would not impact the computer guidance system. From the nose its lines burgeoned into a sharp, clean fan, and beneath the two abbreviated wings were suspended twelve massive turboramjet-scramjets. They had already been certified at Mach 4.5. In ten days one of these vehicles would achieve the ultimate. Mach 25, seventeen thousand miles per hour. The Americans had code-named their fledgling design for a hypersonic space plane--still at least a decade away-- the X-30. But no such mundane designation would satisfy Andrei Petrovich Androv, devoted disciple of the ancients. He had long believed the Americans were high-tech vulgarians with no poetry in their soul, no sense of history. Across the towering tail assembly of both aircraft was an insignia that symbolized the joining of two of the world's great superpowers, a double ax. And along their titanium-composite fuselage was lettered a single word, in Cyrillic characters. Andrei Androv had insisted on that name, in celebration of the first human ever to soar above the earth, the dream of ancient man. Now, he had declared, four thousand years later, there was another dream, his dream, a hypersonic vehicle that could loft man directly into space from anywhere on the planet. He had dreamed that dream. And the Mino Industries Group had permitted him to pick the name for the creation that would realize it, for the miracle that would master time and space, the earth itself . . . DAEDALUS Thursday 9:16 A.M. Yuri Androv stood at the far end of the flood-lit hangar, staring up at the underbelly of _Daedalus I _and thinking. This morning's run-up in the centrifuge had gone well. At last he was convinced there was no physiological barrier to hypersonic flight, at least none he couldn't handle. The scramjets had all been put through their paces at the aero- propulsion facility. On the test stand, at least, they met their specifications. Yes, he was thinking, this plane just might do it. He would ease through the Mach 4.8 barrier slowly, then convert to scramjet geometry, switch to liquid hydrogen, and go full throttle. It was scary, sure, but you only lived once. Fuck the danger. The prospect was exhilarating and chilling. He looked up, again awed. Even for someone who'd seen and flown them all, this was an inspiring creation. Not only was it easily the most technologically advanced flight vehicle in the world, it also was stunningly beautiful. Right now, however, there were two simple problems: first, without a hypersonic test flight nobody could really be sure it would do what it was supposed to; second, as of now both prototypes still belonged to Mino Industries and would continue to belong to Mino Industries until the final treaty and agreement were signed. Actually, taking the _Daedalus_ hypersonic might be the least of the project's worries. That was the part he knew how to handle. The unknowns lay in another direction entirely, the strategic direction. Strategically, he still didn't trust Russia's new partner. From what he'd heard, the conditions demanded in return for all their high technology had been heavy, and that was just the short-term price. The long-term cost might be even greater. Was the Soviet Union about to become the financial and technological captive of a shadowy group of foreigners, men whose identities remained, even now, shrouded in secrecy? Was this a Faustian bargain? Just then he noticed the doors at the far end of the hangar slide open and two men in white lab coats enter. Perfect timing, he thought. Even at that distance he knew immediately who they were: the joint venture's two top technical officers: his father, Andrei Petrovich Androv, and Taro Ikeda, the project director for the Japanese team. The men held equal authority. Supposedly. But in fact all the real decisions on this project were being made by somebody else entirely. The shots were actually being called from a skyscraper in Tokyo, by a mysterious CEO known as Tanzan Mino. Now Ikeda and the elder Androv were headed his way. As he watched Ikeda, he felt himself involuntarily stiffen. Perhaps his unease about the man was his intuitive, right brain working, trying to tell him something. But what? All communications with the CEO were channeled through Ikeda. Fair enough, he told himself, he was accustomed to secrecy. Maybe Japanese industrialists were as careful about protecting their asses as the Soviet _nomenklatura _were. Maybe it was just part of the landscape here too. But still . . . "_Strastvitya_, Yuri Andreevich." Ikeda smiled, extending his pale hand as he simultaneously bowed. "_Kak pashaviatye_?" "_Khoroshau. Spahcebo_." He shook Ikeda's hand, then nodded toward his father. "If this is a good time, I'd like to discuss the scramjet power-up sequence with Dr. Androv for a few moments." "If it's anything serious, then perhaps we should all confer with the prime contractors," Ikeda responded smoothly. "Right now, in my office. In fact, I was just on the phone with--" "No need to bring them in. Just a few technical items, nothing more." "Yuri Andreevich." Ikeda smiled and bowed again, his eyes trying to display a warmth they clearly did not possess. "Every issue here is of importance to us all. If--" "Not every nut and bolt," he interrupted. "I just have some sequencing questions, that's all." Ikeda bowed once more, quickly. "You know we are all depending on you. No one in Japan has the experience to take up a plane like this. At least not at this stage of the project. So be aware that any matter weighing upon the success of your test flight, or your safety--" he flashed another quick, concerned smile "--is naturally of gravest concern to me, and to the CEO." "Then you should be glad to hear the power-up simulation in the centrifuge this morning took me right through Mach 9.8 with no problems. Which means the scramjet ignition sequence looks like a go." "Congratulations." Ikeda nodded. "One last thing. I'll be sending a memo to Engineering about a modification of the cockpit, to permit more latitude in the seat. Nothing major. I think we could still reduce vascular stress in the high-G regime." Andrei Androv noticed the look of concern on his son's face. "Yuri, you seem troubled. This morning, did anything--?" "Of course, send Engineering your memo by all means," Ikeda interjected. "I'll personally see it's taken care of. We want nothing to go wrong. Not even the smallest--" "Good. That's all I want." Yuri turned and wrapped his arm around his father's aging shoulders, gently urging him in the direction of the trucks stationed beneath the silver nose of Daedalus I. He wanted to get rid of Ikeda so he could talk. After they moved a few feet, he yelled back over his shoulder. "But wait on the decision till you read my memo." "As you wish." Ikeda nodded farewell. "I'll be in my office until 1300 hours if we need contractor input." Which meant, Yuri knew, that no further communication with him was permissible after that time. Technical consultations were only held during mornings. Afternoons he seemed to have other pressing matters to attend to. "Yuri, the run-up in Number One went well this morning. I think we've finally eliminated the supersonic wave drag." The elder Androv was heading over to check the hydraulic lifts supporting the landing gear and its heavy 22-ply retractable tires. Then he glanced back and smiled. "I'm beginning to believe in miracles. We might just succeed." "If those damned scramjets up there," he pointed skyward, "actually achieve ignition when they're supposed to." "I've studied the static-test data carefully. At the propulsion facility they routinely achieved ignition at Mach 4.8. The numbers were there and they looked all right. Temperature regime, pounds thrust, all the rest." What's really happening, Yuri thought suddenly, is they've taken our engineering design and built it. But what if we're just being used somehow, having our brains picked, our expertise stolen? Then what? He said nothing, though, just listened quietly as the older man continued. "Also, the new ceramic composite they've come up with for the fuel injection struts was heated to thirty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit and repeatedly stress-tested. Those data were particularly impressive. You know, the struts have always been the Achilles heel for a scramjet, since the fuel has to be injected directly through them into the combustion chamber. They have to withstand shock waves, and thermal stresses, far beyond anything ever encountered in a conventional engine. Nobody else has ever come up with a material that can do it. Not us, not the Americans, not anybody. But now, their high-temperature materials and liquid air cycle have finally made the scramjet concept a reality. The last roadblock is gone." He looked up, still marveling. "All we or the Americans can do is make engineering drawings of those engines, just pictures." "I hope you're right. But when we switch over from JP-7 to liquid hydrogen, nobody knows what can happen. It's never been done before." "Are you really worried?" The old man studied him. "Damned right I am. Who wouldn't be?" He looked around at the milling Japanese technicians, then lowered his voice. "And I'll tell you something else. There're other things around here worrying me too, maybe even more. Something about this project is starting to feel wrong." "What do you mean?" Andrei stared. "I'm beginning to suspect ... I don't know. So far it's just a sense, but--" "Yuri, let me tell you a hard fact," the elder Androv interjected. "Like it or not, this project is the only chance the Soviet Union has to ever own a vehicle like this." "That may be true, but if we--" "Remember the sad fate of the TU-144," he went on, "the supersonic passenger plane we built based on some engineering drawings for the Concorde we managed to get hold of. We copied it, but we got it wrong, and in 1973 we had that horrible tragedy at the Paris Air Show, when it crashed in a ball of fire. That was the end of it. We failed, and it was humiliating. The Soviet Union couldn't even build a supersonic passenger jet. The real truth is, we didn't have the computers we needed to design it." He looked up, smiling. "But now, all that humiliation will be undone." Yuri suddenly realized his father was being swept up in his dreams. The same way he sometimes got lost in those damned string quartets, or reading Euripides in the original Greek. He was going off in his fantasy world again. He couldn't see that maybe he was being used. "Have you ever wondered where this project is going to lead? Where it has to lead?" "It will lead the way to peace. It will be a symbol of cooperation between two great nations, demonstrating that the human spirit can triumph." "_Moi otyets_, it could just as well 'lead the way' to something else entirely. Don't you realize what's happening here? We're giving away our thruster engineering, Russia's leading technology. It's the one area where we still lead the world. We've just handed it over . . . for the price of one fucking airplane. And even if we eventually get our hands on these prototypes, we can't build more without begging the materials from them. We can't fabricate these composite alloys in the Soviet Union." "But this is a joint venture. Everything will be shared." He smiled again, his face gnome-like beneath his mane of white hair. "It will also give us both a chance to overcome the lead of Europe and America in commercial passenger transport in the next century. That's what this is all about. The future of nonmilitary aviation, it's right here." "Do you really believe that?" He stifled a snort of incredulity. "Don't you see what this vehicle really is? Let me tell you. It's the most deadly weapons delivery system the world has ever seen. And we're showing them how to build it, even testing it for them to make sure it'll perform." "The Daedalus will never be a military plane. I would never have participated if I thought--" "Exactly. That's what they want us to believe. But it sure as hell could be. And Mino Industries will be the only company on earth that can actually build more of them." He sensed it was useless to argue further. Nothing mattered to Andrei Petrovich Androv except what he wanted to believe. At this point, nothing could be done to expose the dangers, because nobody on the Soviet team would listen. Or maybe there was something. Why not make a small revision in the test flight? Once he was aloft, what was anybody going to do? He would be up there, alone. If he could get around their flight computer, he might just show the world a thing or two. He'd been thinking about it for weeks now. "All right." He turned back. "If this thing is supposedly ready to fly, then I'll fly it. But get ready for some surprises." "Yuri, what are you planning?" "Just a small unscheduled maneuver." The hell with it, he thought. "They've got seven days, and then I take it up . . . and power-in the scramjets. I'm ready to go. Tell Ikeda to prepare to have liquid hydrogen pumped into the tanks." "But that's not how we've structured the test schedule." Andrei examined him, startled. Yuri had always been fiery, but never irrational. "We need ten--" "Fuck the schedule. I'm going to take this vehicle hypersonic in a week, or they can get themselves another test pilot." He turned away. "Reschedule, or forget it. We don't have much time left. Once all the agreements are signed--" "Yuri, I don't like this." His eyes were grave. "It's not--" "Just tell them to get _Daedalus I_ prepped. I think these bastards that call themselves Mino Industries have a whole agenda they're not telling us about. But I'm about to rearrange their timetable." CHAPTER Six Thursday 2:51 A.M. A very wet, very annoyed Michael Vance rapped on the door of Zeno Stantopoulos's darkened _kafeneion_. He'd walked the lonely back road into Iraklion in the dark, guiding himself by the rain-battered groves of plane trees, olive, and wild pear, trying to figure out what in hell was happening. To begin with, members of the intelligence services of major nations didn't go around knocking each other off; that was an unwritten rule among spooks. Very bad taste. Maybe you tried to get somebody to talk with sodium pentathol or scopolamine, but guns were stupid and every- body knew it. You could get killed with one of those things, for godsake. So this operation, whatever it was, was outside the system. Good. That was the way he had long since learned to work. There was a lot on his mind, and the walk, the isolation, gave him a chance to think over some of the past. In particular, the austere Cretan countryside brought to mind an evening five years ago when he'd traveled this little-used route with his father, Michael Vance, Sr. That occasion, autumn brisk with a first glimmering of starlight, they'd laughed and joked for much of the way, the old man occasionally tapping the packed earth sharply with his cane, almost as though he wanted to establish final authority over the island and make it his, once and for all. Finally, the conversation turned serious. "Michael, don't tell me you never miss academic life," his father had finally brought himself to say, masking the remark by casually brushing aside yet another pale stone with his cane. "More and more, your theory about the palace is gaining credence. You may find yourself famous all over again. It's an enviable position." "Maybe one turn in the snake pit was enough," he smiled. "Academia and I form a sort of mutual disrespect society." "Well," his father had gone on, "the choice is yours, but you know I'll be retiring from Penn at the end of this term. Naturally there'll be some vicious in-house jockeying to fill my shoes, but if you'd like, I could probably arrange things with the search committee." Vindicated at last, he'd realized. It seemed the only sin in academia greater than being wrong was being right too soon. But the small-minded universe of departmental politics was the last thing he wanted in his life. These days he played in the big time. "I'm afraid I'll have to pass." "I suppose university life is too limiting for you now," the old man had finally said, grudgingly but admiringly. He'd said that, and nothing more. Two months later he'd had a second stroke and retired permanently. These days he grew orchids in Darien, Connecticut, and penned impassioned longhand letters to the Times every day or so, just to keep his capacity for moral outrage honed. Vance had definitely gone his own way. First he'd published a book that rocked the scholarly world; then he'd compounded that offense by walking out on the brouhaha that followed and going free-lance, starting his own business. Next he'd become involved with the Washington intelligence community, and finally he'd begun working with the Association of Retired Mercenaries. It was a universe so alien to his father it might as well have been on Mars. But if the old man was disappointed that Michael Vance, Jr., hadn't turned out the way he'd planned, he still took pride in his son. Now, though, Stuttgart and the restoration of Phaistos would have to be put on hold till the latest game with Novosty was sorted out. The protocol. It was still running through his mind. Could there be some sort of alliance cooking between the Soviets and the Japanese mob? What in hell . . . ? "Michael, she is here." A hoarse whisper emerged as the rickety wooden door of the _kafeneion_ edged open. Zeno tugged down his nightshirt and carefully edged it wider, squinting out at the street. "Come in. Quickly. Before you are seen." So his guess had been right: she was avoiding the hotel. Good move. Smart and typical of Eva. She was handling this one exactly right. He stepped through the door. "Where is she now?" "She's in back. Adriana gave her something to make her sleep." Zeno was pulling out a chair from one of the empty tables. The room was shrouded in darkness, and the stale odor of the kitchen permeated the air. "She was not herself, Michael. What happened? She claimed someone was trying to murder her. At the palace. Did you two--?" "We tried throwing a party, but it started getting crowded." He looked around. "I could use some of that _raki _of yours. I just had a close encounter with a guy you wouldn't sit down next to on a bus. He refused to leave politely so . . . I had to make him disappear. Bad scene." "You killed him?" "He was shooting, at Eva and me. Very unsociable." He glanced toward the back of the darkened room. "Zeno, our party guest tonight was-- you're not going to believe this-- a Japanese hood. Tell me something. Is the Yakuza trying to get a foothold in Crete? You know, maybe buying up property? That's their usual style. It's more or less how they first moved in on Hawaii." "Michael, this country is so poor, there's nothing here for gangsters to steal." He laughed. "Let me tell you a secret. If a stranger came around here and tried to muscle me, or any of my friends, he would not live to see the sun tomorrow. Even the Sicilian Cosa Nostra is afraid of us. Crete is still a small village in many ways, in spite of the crazy tourists. We tolerate strangers, even open our homes to them if they are well behaved, but we know each other's secrets like a family. So, to answer your question, the idea of a Japanese syndicate coming here is impossible to imagine. You know that as well as I do." "That's what I thought. But I saw a _kobun _from the biggest Yakuza organization in Japan tonight. I know because I had a little tango with their godfather a few years back. Anyway, what's one of his street men doing here, shooting at Eva and me?" He paused as the implications of the night began to sink in. "This scene could start to get rough." "You did nothing more than anybody here would have done." He looked pensive in the dim light. "Years ago, when the colonels and their junta seized Greece, I once had to--" He hesitated. "Sometimes we do things we don't like to talk about afterwards. But you always remember the eyes of a man you must kill. You dream about them." "Our party lighting was pretty minimal. It was too dark to make out his eyes." "Then you are luckier than you know." He glanced away. "This was not somebody you knew from another job, Michael? Perhaps the mercenary group you sometimes--" "Never saw the guy before in my life, swear to God. Anyway, I think it was Eva he really wanted. But whatever's going on, I have to get her out of Crete now, before whoever it is finds her again." "I agree." He was turning toward the living quarters in the rear. "You should stay here tonight, and then tomorrow we can get you both passage on the car ferry to Athens, off the island. I will take care of everything. Tickets, all of it." He returned carrying two tumblers of _raki_. After setting them on the table, he continued. "I am very wor- ried for her, Michael. And for you. We all make enemies, but--" He took a sip from his glass. "By the way, do you have a pistol?" "Not with me." He reached for the glass, wishing it was tequila-- straight, with a twist of lime--and he was back on the Ulysses, trimming the genoa. "That's a mistake I may not make again soon." "Then I will arrange for one. Like I said, everything. I have many friends. Do not worry." He drank again. "By the way, she asked me go to the hotel and get something for you. She seemed to think it was important. One of your modern American inventions. She had it locked in the safe at the desk. And she gave me money to pay for her room." He sighed. "Why would she waste money on a hotel when she could have stayed here with us?" "What is it?" "I think it's a computer, though it's barely the size of a briefcase. Part of the new age that mercifully has passed us by. I have it in back, with the rest of her things." His voice disappeared into the darkened kitchen. Moments later he reappeared carrying Eva's laptop. With a worried look he settled it gingerly on the table. "Do you have any idea why she had this with her?" "I think she may have something stored in here." He settled it on the table and flipped up the top. Then he felt along the side for the switch, and a second later the screen glowed blue. After the operating system was in place, he punched up the files. A long line of names filled the screen, arranged alphabetically. But nothing seemed right. It was a stream of unclassified NSA memos, and then a lot of personal letters. He resisted the temptation to call them up and delve into her private life. How many men . . . ? Stick to business. Save the fun for later. Where's the file? Then he noticed the very first alphanumeric. "Ackerman." Hold on, he thought, wasn't that the name of the NSA guy she said gave her the disk? He highlighted the file on the screen and hit Retrieve. An instant later it appeared. Yep, this one had to be it. Clearly an NSA document, very carefully stored. (NSCID No. 37896) Page 1 of 28 Dept: Rl/SIGINT Classification: TOP SECRET Authorization: Dept/H/O/D only Analyst: Eva Borodin Init: EKB Encryption: PES/UNKNOWN Reference: Classified DAEDALUS PROTOCOL The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Mino Industries Group, hereinafter referred to as the Parties; MINDFUL of their obligation to strive for technological progress in both nations, CONVINCED that the technical and financial agreements specified in this Protocol will serve the long-range strategic interests of both Parties, CONSCIOUS that the success of Project Daedalus will lead to increased cooperation and mutual understanding between the peoples of the USSR and Japan, HAVE HEREBY AGREED AS FOLLOWS: Article I 4659830481867394210786980498673261559798093 0291870980798578367251426478966596983748586 7030945896970980549381738405401290487571092 3836142543495019294766477810298378578576924 8598504821273850956070971070901613386089274 765608021834860 . . . That was it. The stream of numbers filled three pages, and then came Article II. Thus it went, for ten articles. As he scrolled up page after page, he realized that the numbers continued for the rest of the document. She was right. Outside of occasional repetitions, there seemed to be no real pattern. He'd seen a lot of encryptions in the old days, but this one didn't look like anything standard. He sat staring at the screen. Mino Industries Group. That explained the _Mino-gumi _goon. The godfather was planning his biggest play yet, global. But what was it? What was in the deal? This was something he had to see. Eva had said she tried the Data Encryption Standard, the DES system, and got nowhere. Which meant NSA had been foiled. How had he done it? DES was a procedure whereby data were passed through a series of eight S-boxes, actually mathematical operations, that when combined with a unique user key converted it into what appeared to be alphanumeric gar- bage. The receiver also had a copy of the key, which could be used in combination with the same set of mathematical operations to convert it back. He knew that back when DES was being invented by IBM, the National Security Agency had purposely sabotaged Big Blue's original plan to make it uncrackable. NSA had insisted that the key, a string of zeroes and ones, be limited to 56 bits, rather than the proposed 128 bits, which would have made the system so complex it would have been safe forever. The reason, of course, was that NSA didn't want an unbreakable cipher loose on the planet; after all, their primary business was reading other people's mail. IBM didn't know it at the time, but the smaller key was already a pushover for NSA's Cray supercomputers, which could try a trillion random keys per second and routinely crack any 56- bit DES encryption in the world in half a day. Anybody familiar with the intelligence business was well aware of that. Which was, obviously, why somebody had turned to NSA. But Eva said she'd tried the usual random-key procedure and got nowhere. So what was the answer? His head was buzzing from the raki now, but he kept turning over in his mind the possibility that she'd been looking in the wrong place. Trying to find the DES key when in fact this encryption used some entirely different scheme. He rubbed at his temples and tried to run the scenario backward. _Project Daedalus_. The more he thought about it, the more . . . "Zeno." He looked up from the screen. "Do you still have that copy of Realm of the Spirit?" He'd sent the old Greek an autographed first edition the week it came out. "Your book, Michael? Of course I have it. I treasure it. It's in the bedroom, in back." "Mind getting it for me? I feel like a little light reading." "At four in the morning? Michael, I think--" "You know how it is when your mind gets filled up with garbage at bedtime." "You should be getting some sleep, like Eva. Tomorrow we have to--" "I need to relax a little first. And I need that book. There's a chart in the appendix guaranteed to put anybody to sleep." "Very well." He sighed, drank off the last of his _raki_, and pulled himself erect. "Sometimes you can be as headstrong as your father." As quiet settled over the room, Vance continued to stare at the screen. Why did he have a hunch he was right on this one? Could he really crack a cypher with a 486 portable when NSA's Cray supercomputers had bombed? Maybe. Stranger things had happened. The samurai swordsmen said you needed to know your opponent's mind. Here, in the waning hours before dawn in the middle of Crete, he was feeling a curious oneness with who- ever had devised this random-looking string of numbers. He'd created number strings just like this himself, back before the CIA had come into his life. "Here it is, Michael. Adriana said Eva is still asleep. I don't know what she gave her, perhaps one of her old wives potions." He chuckled quietly. "That's one of the reasons I love her so much. When you get ancient like I am, it's good to be married to a nurse." Vance took the book and, in spite of himself, weighed it in his hand. What was it? maybe two pounds? The glistening dust jacket, unusual for a university book back in those days, was still pristine. He smiled, realizing it was unread. "Thanks." He finally remembered Zeno. "This should do the trick. Now why don't you go on to bed? I'll just stretch out here on a table when I get sleepy." "Michael, sometimes I think you are a madman." He shrugged, then turned to hobble back toward the bedroom. "Just don't answer the door, whatever you do." "Get some sleep. I'll be doing the same." "Then good night. May God give you rest." He was gone. Vance barely nodded, since he was already turning to the appendix of the book and switching on the dim overhead light. The volume brought back a world long lost for him. Now he wanted it back, if only for a moment. He flipped to Appendix C. There he'd reproduced, as a dutiful scholar should, the standard numerical correlates for the syllabary of Linear B._ _ _Mycenaen Syllabary (after Ventris, 1953) da qa sa je o ra 01 16 31 46 61 76 ro za qo pu pte ka 02 17 32 47 62 77 pa zo ti du ta qe 03 18 33 48 63 78 _ The numbers continued on to ninety. He checked the files and, sure enough, she had a Lotus data management system on the hard disk. He quickly structured a format for his matrix, then began coding in the sounds. The setup was simple, but the next part would need some programming. The numbers in the protocol had to be converted to sounds. It looked easy, but what if they'd been deliberately garbled somehow? He'd be no better off than before. Think positive. As he finished coding in the grid, he could hear the tentative stirrings of early morning Iraklion outside. Trucks were starting up, birds coming alive. He began noticing the lack of sleep, but he pushed it aside and took another sip of _raki_. Just keep going, he told himself. You're about to find out if great minds really do think alike. . . . "Darling, what in the world are you doing with my computer?" The voice was like a whisper over his shoulder. "How about checking to see if you've got any video games?" He turned around, startled in spite of himself. What had woken her? She was probably wired. "Eva, why did you take off tonight? And what was that nonsense you were yelling at me?" "Maybe it wasn't nonsense. Alex said you were working for him. He said you two were partners. It's not really true, is it?" She slumped into a chair. She was wearing a light dressing gown, her hair tousled. With a groan she rubbed at her eyes. "I don't need this." "You can forget about Alex. He's playing way over his head. It's always bad judgment to underestimate the other team's strengths." He reached for her. "You've just got to decide who you trust. You might start with Zeno. He's offered to help me get you out of Crete." "And go where?" She moved against him. "Michael, they found me here. They'll find me anywhere." "Not if we turn this scene around and take the action to them. But that's the next move. Right now, you just have to be out of Crete while I do a little checking. How about flying to Miami, grabbing a plane down to Nassau, then--" "You're going to get me on the Ulysses or die trying, aren't you." He decided to let the crack pass. It was true, however. If she ever saw it, he was sure she'd start to understand. "You know," she went on, "this afternoon I was merely worried. Now I'm actually frightened. Guess I'm not as brave as I thought. I'm sorry about tonight, running off like that." "Not the first time I've had a woman give me the gate." He laughed, then reached out and stroked her hair, missing the long tresses of the old days. "Now, you can help me out with something. Does the name Yakuza mean anything to you?" "What are you talking about?" She studied him, puzzled. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, maybe it'll just upset your morning, but that wiseguy who broke up our party last night was a Japanese hood. From the _Mino-gumi_ syndicate. Back home they're Numero Uno. They run Tokyo and Osaka and they've got half the Liberal Democratic Party in their pocket. Then there's the old CIA connection, from days gone by." "How do you know?" "After you took off, our friend dropped in again. Uninvited as usual. That's when Novosty finished him off with his Uzi and I got a closer look." "Alex killed--! My God, that makes three." "By actual count. He's gone a little trigger happy in his old age. That or he's very, very scared." He rubbed at the scratch on his neck, remembering. "What if it's the Japanese mob that's behind this? They have the funding, that's for sure. Among other things, they run consumer loans in Japan, legalized loan sharking. They've got more money than God." "This is too much. I don't know anything about . . ." She rose, trembling. "I'll go with you to Nassau, Michael. Let's take the Ulysses and just disappear in the middle of the Atlantic." "It's a deal." He beamed. "But first we've got to answer some questions. You say the Yakuza are not part of anything you know about?" "I'm only vaguely aware they exist." "And you don't know who runs Mino Industries?" "Never heard of it before." "It's a bunch of nice, clean-cut mobsters. Problem is, one of the owner's _kobun_, street men, tried to kill us tonight. Maybe we're finally getting a little light at the end of the tunnel." He looked her over. Eva was always beautiful in the mornings. There was something wanton about her this time of day. "Come here a minute." He took her and cradled her in his arms, then brushed his lips against her brow. "You okay?" "I think so." She took a deep breath. "Never knew you to quit just because things got tough." He drew her around. "You're the cryptography expert. Why don't we try to find out what kind of phonetics Ventris's numerical correlates for Linear B would produce from these numbers?" "What are you talking about?" She rubbed at her eyes. "You know, in my travels I've discovered something. A great mind often has a touch of poetry. Sometimes, in order to think like the other guy, you need to be a little artistic. So, I wonder . . . about that cipher." "You mean--?" "Just a crazy, early morning idea." He patted the keyboard of the laptop. "What if the mind behind it is using a system no computer in the world would ever have heard of?" "There's no such thing, believe me." "Maybe yes, maybe no." He flipped open his book to the central section, a glossy portfolio of photos. He'd shot them himself with an old Nikon. "Take a look at this and refresh your memory." She looked down at the photo of a large Minoan clay jar from the palace, a giant _pithoi_, once a container for oil or unguents or water for the bath. Along the sides were inscribed rows of wavy lines and symbols. It was the Minoan written language, which, along with cuneiform and hieroglyphics, was among the oldest in the world. "You mean Linear B." "Language of King Minos. As you undoubtedly remember, it's actually a syllabary, and a damned good one. Each of these little pictures is a syllable, a consonant followed by a vowel. Come on, this was your thing, way back when. Look, this wavy flag here reads mi, and here, this little pitchfork with a tail reads no." He glanced up. "Anyway, surely you recall that Linear B has almost a hundred of these syllable signs. But Ventris assigned them numbers since they're so hard to reproduce in typeface. For example, this series here, _mi-no-ta-ro_ reads numerically as--" he checked the appendix, "13-52-59-02. Run them together and _minotaro_ reads 13525902. And just like the early Greeks, the Minoans didn't insert a space between words. If somebody was using Linear B, via Ventris' system, the thing would come out looking like an unintelligible string of numbers." "You don't really--" "You say you've tried everything else. NSA's Crays drew a blank. Maybe you were looking for some fancy new encryption system when it was actually one so old nobody would ever think of it. Almost four thousand years old, to be exact." "Darling, that's very romantic. You're improving in the romance department." She gazed at him a second, then flashed a wry smile. "But I can't say the same for the good-sense arena. No offense, but that's like the kind of thing kids write to us suggesting. Nobody employs anything remotely that simple these days." "I knew you'd think I was crazy. You're not the first." He rose. "But humor me. Just slice those number sequences into pairs and see what they look like phonetically. Something to take your mind off all the madness around here." "Well, all right." She sighed, then settled unsteadily into the rickety chair he'd just vacated. "Make you a proposition, sweetie. Get me some coffee, nice and strong, and I'll forget I have good sense and play with this a little." "You're a trooper." He turned and headed for the kitchen. "I remember that about you. Not to mention great in bed." "We strive for excellence in all things." Just as he reached the doorway, the kitchen light flicked on. It was Adriana, in blue robe and furry slippers, now reaching up to retrieve her coffee pan. While Eva was typing away behind him, he leaned against the doorframe in his still-wet clothes to watch a Greek grandmother shuffle about her private domain preparing a traditional breakfast. He suspected no male hand had ever touched those sparkling utensils. The Old World had its ways, yesterday and forever. While he drowsed against the doorjamb, the aroma of fresh Greek coffee began filling the room. _Sarakin_. That was the Japanese name for their homegrown loan sharks, the so-called salary-men financiers. He knew that the Yakuza's four largest _sarakin_ operations gave out more consumer loans than all of Japan's banks combined. If you added to that the profits in illegal amphetamines, prostitution, bars, shakedowns of businesses, protection rackets . . . the usual list, and you were talking multi multibillions. The major problem was washing all that dirty money. They routinely invested in respectable but losing propositions abroad, on the sound theory that one dollar cleaned was worth two unlaundered. Was that what the Soviet scam was all about? Money from the Japanese mob being laundered through loans to the USSR? What better way to wash it? Nobody would ever bother asking where it came from. But there was one major problem with that neat scenario. Politically the Yakuza were ultra-rightist hardliners. So why would they expose their money with the Soviets, laundered or not? Particularly now, with so much political instability there--hardliners, reformers, nationalists. Somehow it didn't compute. "Michael, come here a second." The voice had an edge of triumph. "What?" He glanced around groggily. "Just come here and take a look at this." She was staring at the screen. He turned and walked over, still entranced by the heady, pungent essence of fresh Greek coffee now flooding the room. "Is it anything--?" "Just look at it and tell me what you think." She leaned back from the screen and shifted the Zenith toward him. The ice-blue letters cast an eerie glow through the dull morning light. The color reflected off his eyes, matching them. "You did it already?" "I started with a one-to-one replacement of numbers with letters. But it's sequence-inverted, which means I had to . . . anyway, what do think so far? Am I a genius or what?" He drew a chair next to the screen and started to examine it. But at that moment Adriana set a tray of coffee down beside the computer, steaming and fresh, together with dark figs and two bowls of yogurt. "_Kafe evropaiko_," she commanded, then thrust a cup into his hand. "_Malista, efcharisto_." He absently nodded his thanks, took a sip of the steaming brew, then returned his attention to the screen. At first he thought he was just groggy, his vision playing tricks, but then the string of letters began to come into focus. Incredible! "Okay, what about this part here," he asked, pointing to the fourth line, where the letters turned to nonsensical garbage, "and then down here again?" "That's what I was talking about. The interlacing switches there. It happens every hundred numbers. They started by taking the second fifty digits and interlacing them back into the first fifty. Then they switched the algorithm and interlaced the third fifty digits ahead, into the fourth fifty, but backwards. Then it repeats again." "You figured all that out just fooling around with it?" "Darling, I do this for a living, for godsake. After a while you have good instincts." She tapped her fingers nervously on the wooden table, then remembered the coffee and reached for a cup. "Nice little trick. Standard but nice. Every so often you fold the data back into themselves somehow. That way there are no repetitions of number sequences--for words that are used a lot--to give you away. But once you've played with this stuff as much as I have . . . anyway, it's always the first thing I check for." "Congratulations." "Tell me the truth." She looked at him, sipping her coffee. "Can you really still read this? It's been years." "Memory like an elephant. Though you may have to help me along now and then." He pointed. "Look. I think that word's modern Greek. They've mixed it in where there's not an old word for something." He pushed around the computer. "Want to run the whole data file through your system? Clean it up?" "My pleasure." She was clearing the screen. "I can't believe it just fell apart like this. The reason our Crays didn't crack it was it's too simple by half." He reached for his coffee, feeling a surge of satisfaction. His hunch had been dead on. Whoever came up with this idea for an encryption must have been a fan of ancient Greek history, and a knowledgeable one. What better cipher for Project Daedalus communiques than the language Daedalus himself used? They'd taken that four-thousand-year-old tongue, an archaic forerunner of ancient Greek, and then scrambled it using a mathematical algorithm. Mino Industries was communicating with the Soviets using an encoded version of Minoan Linear B. It was absolutely poetic. It also appeared, upon first examination, to be very naive. Yet upon reflection it turned out to be brilliant. You convert a totally unheard-of language to numbers, throw in a few encryption tricks, and the result is something that would drive all the hotdog DES-oriented supercomputers crazy. All those chips would be trying trillions of keys when there actually was no key. Yes, you had to admit it was inspired. Except the Daedalus crowd was about to experience a problem, a small headache. Make that a major headache. Because their secret protocol was about to become headlines. He figured that ought to go a long way toward stopping any more shooting. "Okay. It's humming." She reached for her yogurt. "This time around all the garbage will be gone." She took a bite, then burst out laughing. "You know, this is wonderful, working with you. Darling, I've just decided. Let's do something together, maybe live on the Ulysses for a while. I might even get to like it. It sounds romantic." "I'm still looking for the romance in life." "Well, love, you've found it. It's me." She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. "End of quest." "Thought I'd never hear you say that. But first you have to help me translate this. I'm over a decade out of date. My modern Greek's a little rusty too, and a lot of the technical terms in this look to be transliterated--" "No, sweetie, that's not the first thing we have to do. The first thing is to make sure you've got a separate copy of anything you're working with. Not in the computer. I'll spare you my horror stories about erased files, hard disks going down, all the rest." She was rising, energized. "Cardinal computer rule number one. Always dupe anything you're working on, no matter how sure you are nothing can go wrong. Believe me." "Sounds good." He looked up. "What are you doing?" "I need that disk I showed you tonight. We can use it for the backup. It's in my purse, which I now realize I left in the car when I came in. I was slightly crazy at the time." She was turning. "God, it seems like ages." "Look, why don't you let me--?" "You don't know where I parked it. My secret hiding place." "Maybe we ought to send Zeno, or Adriana--" "Just sit tight. Only be a minute." She wrapped her coat about her and, before he could protest, disappeared out the door, humming. She was a marvel. Everything he'd remembered. "Are you still awake?" Zeno was trudging into the room, still wearing his frayed nightshirt. "We just solved the riddle of the sphinx, old friend. Except now we have to translate it." "You should be sleeping, Michael. Go now, catch an hour or so. I will start making arrangements. Get tickets for you both on the car ferry to Athens, a pistol, maybe new passports if you want. We have work to do." He reached and took the cup of coffee Adriana was urging on him. "All right. As soon as she gets back." "What?" He froze, then looked toward the back. "What do you mean? I thought she was still asleep." "She went out to the car, wherever it is." "I wish she had asked me. I would have been happy--" "You know how she is. There's no stopping her when she gets rolling." "This is not good." He turned and called to Adriana to bring his trousers and shoes. "We must find her." "You're right. It was stupid. Damned stupid." He was getting up. "Let's do it together." CHAPTER SEVEN Thursday 6:28 A.M. The morning air was sharp and she wished she'd grabbed one of Adriana's black knit shawls before going out. Could she pass for one of those stooped Greek peasant women? she wondered. Not likely. She shivered and pulled her thin coat around her. The rain was over now, leaving the air moist and fragrant, but the early morning gloom had an ominous undertone. They'd found the key to open the first box, but the message inside still had to be translated. What was it? What could possibly be in the protocol that would make somebody want to kill her? She stared down the vacant street leading away from the square, a mosaic of predawn shadows, and tried to think. Alex Novosty was the classic middleman, that much was a given. But then she'd known that for years. Yes, she'd known about Alex Novosty all her life--his work for the KGB, his laundering of Techmashimport funds. She knew about it because they were second cousins. Fortunately their family tie was distant enough not to have made its way into NSA's security file, but around the Russian expatriate dinner tables of Brighton Beach and Oyster Bay, Alex was very well known indeed. He was the Romanov descendant who'd sold out to the Soviets, an unforgivable lapse of breeding. But for all that, he wasn't an assassin. For him to do what he'd done tonight could only mean one thing: he was terrified. Very out of character. But why? The answer to that wasn't hard: He must be mixed up in Project Daedalus, whatever it was, right up to his shifty eyeballs. But what about Michael? What did Alex want from him? The answer to that could go a lot of ways. When she first met Michael Vance, Jr., she'd been smitten by the fact he was so different. Always kidding around, yet tough as steel when anybody crossed him. A WASP street fighter. She liked that a lot. He was somebody she felt she could depend on, no matter what. She still remembered her first sight of Mike as though it were yesterday. She was taking notes on Etruscan pottery in a black notebook, standing in a corner of the Yale art gallery on Chapel Street, when she looked up and--no, it couldn't be. She felt herself just gawking. He'd caught her look and strolled over with a puzzled smile. "Is my tie crooked, or--" Then he laughed. "Name's Mike Vance. I used to be part of this place. How about you?" "Vance?" She'd just kept on staring, still not quite believing her eyes. "My thesis adviser at Penn was . . . you look just like him." And he did. The same sharp chin, the same twinkle in the blue eyes. Even when he was angry, as Mike certainly had been that day, he seemed to be having fun. Thus it began. At first they were so right for each other it seemed as though she'd known Michael Vance for approximately a hundred years, give or take. She'd been one of his father's many ardent disciples, and after finishing her master's at Penn, she'd gone on to become a doctoral candidate at Yale, where she'd specialized in the linguistics of the ancient Aegean languages. She'd known but forgotten that Michael Vance, Sr., had a son who was finishing his own doctorate at Yale, writing a dissertation about Minoan Crete. That day in the museum he was steaming, declaring he'd dropped by one last time as part of a ritualistic, formal farewell to archaeology. The decision was connected with the hostile reception being given a book he'd just published, a commercial version of his dissertation. As of that day he'd decided to tell academia to stuff it. He'd be doing something else for a living. There'd been feelers from some agency in D.C. about helping trace hot money. In the brief weeks that followed they grew inseparable, the perfect couple. One weekend they'd scout the New England countryside for old- fashioned inns, the next they'd drive up to Boston to spend a day in the Museum of Fine Arts, then come back and argue and make love till dawn in her New Haven apartment. During all those days and nights, she came very close to talking him out of quitting university life. Close, but she didn't. He had put off everything for a couple of months, and they had traveled the world--London, Greece, Morocco, Moscow. Once their parents even met, at Count Sergei Borodin's sprawling Oyster Bay home. It was a convoca- tion of the Russian Nobility Association, with three hundred guests in attendance, and the air rang with Russian songs and balalaikas. Michael Vance, Sr., who arrived in his natty bowler, scarcely knew what to make of all the Slavic exuberance. Shortly after that, the intensity of Michael became too much for her. She felt herself being drawn into his orbit, and she wanted an orbit of her own. The next thing she knew, he'd departed for the Caribbean; her father had died; and she'd gone back to work on her own doctorate. Michael. He was driven, obsessive, always determined to do what he wanted, just as she was. But the tension that likeness brought to their relationship those many years ago now made everything seem to click. Why? she wondered. Maybe it was merely as simple as life cycles. Maybe back then they were just out of synch. He'd already survived his first midlife crisis, even though he was hardly thirty. When they split up, she'd been twenty-five and at the beginning of a campaign to test herself, find out what she could do. Well, she thought, she'd found out. She was good, very good. So now what? She was relieved to see the car was still parked on the side street, actually a little alley, where she'd left it. Thinking more clearly now, she realized she'd been a trifle careless, stashing the car in the first location she could find and then running for Zeno's. As she headed down the alley in between the white plaster houses, she suddenly felt her heart stop. Someone was standing next to the Saab, a dark figure waiting. She watched as it suddenly moved briskly toward her. Alex Novosty. "What?" She couldn't believe her eyes. "_Budetya ostorozhyi_!" He whispered the warning as he raised his hand and furtively tried to urge her back. "_Kak! Shto--?_" She froze. "How did you find the car?" "The hotel. They directed us to a _kafeneion _near here, but then I noticed your car. I thought . . ." He moved out of the shadows, quickly, still speaking in Russian. "Just tell me where you have the copies of the protocol, quickly. Maybe I can still handle it." "Handle what?" That's when she saw the two other men, in dark overcoats, against the shadow of the building. "The . . . situation." His eyes were intense. "They want it back, all copies. I've tried to tell them that killing you won't solve anything, but--" He glanced back with a small shiver. "You must tell them Michael has a copy, stall them." "It's true. He does." "No! Then say there's a copy back in your office. Just let me try and--" "Alex, I'm not going to play any more of your games." "Please," he continued in a whisper, "don't contradict anything I say. Let me do the talking. I'll--" "You're in it with them, aren't you?" She tried to push past. "Well, you can tell your friends we're onto their 'project.' If anything happens to me, Michael will track them down and personally take them apart. Tell them that." "You don't understand." He caught her arm. "One of their people was killed tonight." "The one trying to shoot Michael and me, you mean?" She was trying to calm the quaver in her voice. "He was killed by the KGB. I had nothing to do with--" "Is that what you told them?" "That's the way it happened. There was an argument." "Over what?" "Everybody wants you. It's the protocol." His look darkened. "Eva, they are in no mood for niceties." "Neither am I." She noticed the two men were now moving toward them. One was taller and seemed to be in charge, but they both were carrying what looked like small-caliber automatic weapons. The protocol, whatever it was, was still in code. She didn't know what she didn't know. How could she bargain? It was too late to think about it now. Their faces were hard and smooth, with the cold eyes of men who killed on command. My God, she thought, what had Michael said about the _Mino-gumi_? The Japanese mob. The taller man, she was soon to learn, was Kazuo Ina- gawa, who had been a London-based _kobun _for the _Mino-gumi _for the past decade. He had a thin, pasty face and had once been first _kobun_ for their entire Osaka organization, in charge of gambling and nightclub shakedowns. Even in the early dawn light, he wore sunglasses, masking his eyes. The shorter one was Takahashi Takenaka, whose pockmarked face was distinguished by a thin moustache, an aquiline nose, and the same sunglasses. Alex, she realized, must have lied to them, covering up what really happened out at the palace. Now he was bluffing for his life. "You can just tell them I don't know anything about it." She felt the cold air closing in. "Eva, that's impossible. They know you were given the protocol. Now where is it?" He clearly wanted her to say it was somewhere else. But why bother? "It's in the car. In my purse." She pointed. "Why don't they just go ahead and take it? By the way, it's still encrypted." She fumbled in her pockets. "Here's . . ." Then she realized she'd left the key in the car. There it dangled, inside the locked door. Her purse rested on the seat across from the driver's side. "Get it," Inagawa commanded his lieutenant. Takenaka bowed obediently, then turned and tried the door handle, without success. "_So_." He frowned. Inagawa muttered a curse and brutally slammed the butt of his automatic against the curved window. The sound of splintering glass rent the morning air. Quickly Novosty stepped forward and reached through to unlock the door. Then he pulled it open and leaned in. Why is he doing it? she wondered. Easy answer: He's trying to keep control of the situation. Whose side is he really on? Then he backed out and handed her the brown leather purse while he tried to catch her eye. She took it, snapped it open, and lifted out the gray computer disk. "There," she said as she handed it to Inagawa, "whatever's on it, you'll have to figure it out for yourself." "That can't be the only one," Novosty sputtered. "Surely there are other copies." "That's it, sweetheart." Inagawa turned it in his hand, then passed it to Takenaka and said something in Japanese. The other man took it, then barked _"Hai" _and bowed lightly. "Are you sure this is the only copy?" Inagawa asked. "The only one." He nodded to his lieutenant, who began screwing a dark silencer onto the barrel of his automatic. Oh my God, she thought. They're going to finish the job. "Wait." Novosty reached for his arm. "She's lying. This is a disk from a computer. There must be other copies." "Yes." She was finally coming to her senses. "There are plenty of other copies. In my computer. In--" "Where is it?" Inagawa looked at her. "It's--it's at the hotel. The Galaxy." She was trying desperately to think. "And then I left another--" "You're lying. We have been there. They said a tavern keeper came and took all your luggage." He was staring down the street, toward Zeno's place. "They also told us where he could be found. We will go there now." "My friends," Novosty interrupted again, "it would be most unwise to attempt any violence on a Greek national here. The consequences could be extremely awkward, for all of us." "We must retrieve it." "But why not do it the easy way?" He tried to smile. "There's another man here, traveling with her. We should work through him. I know he will deal. He's a professional." "Who is he?" "An American. If we hold her, keep her alive, we can use her to make him bring it to us. We can offer a trade." "No. We will just find him and take it." Inagawa started to move. "Now." "He's armed, my friends," Novosty continued evenly. "He's also experienced. There would be gunfire, I promise you. If that happened, you could have the entire street here filled with rifles in a minute. You do not know these people as I do. They still remember World War Two and the Resistance. Killing unfriendly foreigners became a way of life some of them have yet to forget." Alex is bluffing, she thought. Again. Michael doesn't have a gun. Does Zeno? Who knows? "Let me try and talk to him," Novosty continued. "Surely something can be worked out." "You will stay here, with us." Inagawa seized his arm, then turned and began a heated exchange with his partner. Again Takenaka bowed repeatedly, sucking in his breath and muttering hai. At last they seemed to arrive at a consensus, though it was the taller man who'd actually made the decision, whatever it was. "She comes with us." "Oh, no I don't." She looked at Novosty, who seemed defeated, then back at the Japanese. She suddenly realized she was on her own. Novosty had played all his cards. "If I don't reappear in Washington day after tomorrow, you'll have the entire U.S. National Security Agency looking for me. People know I'm here. So think about that." "That is not our concern." Inagawa reached for her. "We do not work for the American government." Then he turned to Novosty. "Tell your friend that this woman will be released when we have all copies of the protocol. All. Do you understand?" "But how can I tell him if you won't let me--?" "That is your problem." "Perhaps . . . perhaps we should just leave a message here," Novosty sputtered. "I'm sure he'll find the car." "Alex, I'm not going anywhere with these animals." She drew back. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything." "No, I'm not--" That was all she could say before a hand was roughly clapped against her mouth, her body shoved against the broken window. Mike Vance and Zeno Stantopoulos searched for over half an hour before they found the Saab. When they did, the left-hand window was broken, and Eva's purse was missing. She was missing too. The only thing remaining was a hastily scrawled note from Alex Novosty. CHAPTER EIGHT Saturday 6:13 P.M. "Vance?" The portly, balding desk clerk studied his computer screen at the Athenaeum Inter-Continental. Here in this teeming marble lobby the new world met the old. "Dr. M. Vance. Yes, we have your reservation." Good. Novosty had done exactly what he said. The play was going down. "Welcome back." The man looked up and smiled, his eyes mirroring the green numbers on the screen as he looked over Vance's shoulder. "Our records show you were just with us, four days ago. We still have your old room, if you like." "That would be fine." He was back in a city renowned as much for its hospitality as for its mind-numbing brown haze of smog. It was also said to be the safest city in Europe, with a miniscule crime rate. However, Michael Vance did not feel safe as he stood in the lobby of Athens's most luxurious hotel. "Were you on a bus tour of the Peloponnisos, perhaps?" the clerk continued with a pale smile, his voice trying for perfunctory brightness. "The Mycenean ruins in the south are always--" "Business." Vance tossed his passport onto the counter. They both knew he didn't look anything like a candidate for a four-day CHAT package tour on a bus. But the man seemed nervous, anxious to make conversation. "I'll be needing a car in the morning. Early. Is that in your reservation file too?" "No problem." The clerk ignored, or missed, his impatient tone. "We have a Hertz outlet now, just over there," he pointed, "next to the travel desk. I'm sure they will be happy to arrange for it." Vance tossed his Amex card onto the counter, then reached for the slate clipboard holding the registration slip. Dusk was falling outside, but here in the warm glow of chandeliers the moment felt like sleepwalking. His mental bearings kept shifting. Nothing was real. He wanted to think it was merely routine, like checking into a thousand other streamlined international hotels, something he'd done more times than he cared to count. But that was wrong; danger lurked somewhere nearby. His senses were warning him. He kept thinking about Eva. Was she serious about getting back together, sailing on the Ulysses? Maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought, which was troubling for a lot of reasons, not the least being that right now he needed to be able to think exactly the way she did. They'd have to work as a perfectly coordinated team tomorrow, with no rehearsals. "May I have someone take your bag?" The clerk glanced down at the new leather suitcase sitting on the floor, then reached to ring for a bellhop. "No." Vance lunged to stop his hand. Whoa, he lectured himself, chill out. Keep the lid on. Why not just let it happen? Here. Maybe you want them to do it here. Why wait? The clerk tried to hold his composure. "As you wish. Of course you know your room." "I can find it." He tried to smile, then thumbed over his shoulder. "You're busy anyway. The tour coming in . . ." "Yes." The clerk was shoving across the heavy brass key. "You remember our schedule. Breakfast is served until ten over there in the dining room, eleven in your room." "Thanks." He picked up the bag, heavy, and turned. The rental car desk was across the lobby, past the tour group now pouring through the revolving doors. They clearly were just off a Paris flight, chattering in French, brandishing tour badges, and quarreling about luggage with Gallic impatience. "I need a car for tomorrow. Early." The dark-haired woman at the desk looked up as he began fishing for his credit card and driver's license. Her Hertz uniform was unbuttoned down the front to display as much of her bosom as Greek propriety, perhaps even the law, would permit. A heavy silver chain nestled between her ample breasts. "Our pleasure." She swept back her hair as she mechanically shoved forward a typed sheet encased in smudged cellophane. "We have some new Austin subcompacts, or if you want a full-size--" "What's the best car you've got?" It would be a long drive, over uncertain Greek roads. He wanted to take no chances. "We do have an Alfa, sir. Only one. A Milano." She absently adjusted the V-neck of her uniform. "For VIPs. I should warn you it's expensive." She bent forward to whisper. "To tell you the truth, _ine poli akrivo_. It's a rip- off." She leaned back, proud of her new American slang. "Take my advice and--" "Can you have it here, out front, at six in the morning?" "I can check." She sniffed, then reached for the battered phone. A quick exchange in Greek followed, then she hung up. "They say it just came in. There should be no problem." He glanced around the lobby once more as she picked up the charge card and license to begin filling out the form. There was still no sign, no indication. And yet the whole scene felt wrong. Something, something was warning him. That's what it was. The man standing across the lobby, at the far side next to the elevators. He had a newspaper folded in his hand, but he wasn't reading. He was speaking into it. Hotel security? Not a chance. For one thing, he wasn't Greek. Although he was too far away to see his face, something about the way he stood gave him away. Where the hell was Novosty? This wasn't supposed to be the drill. He suddenly found himself wondering how much clout Alex had left. Maybe Novosty was out of the play. Maybe the rules had changed. "Could you please hurry that along." He turned back to the dark-haired girl. "You said you wouldn't be needing the car until tomorrow, sir." Formal now, abrupt. "I just changed my mind. I'd like it tonight. Right now, as a matter of fact." "Do you want the insurance? It will be an extra--" "No. Yes. Look, I don't care. Just let me sign that damned thing and give me the keys." "Well, give me a chance." She petulantly turned the form toward him and shoved it across the desk. "If you'll just initial here and here," she was pointing with her pen, "and sign there. And did you say you wanted the car now?" "Immediately." "I'm afraid that's not possible." She retrieved the form. "What?" "It's just--" "Then give me something else." He glanced toward the man, still speaking into his newspaper, then back. They would make their move any second now. "What's the problem with the car?" "I'm trying to tell you it just came in. Our people will need at least half an hour to clean it, go over the checklist. So if you'd like to have a cup of coffee in the dining room, I'll call you when--" "Where is it now?" "They said it's just been returned. It's probably parked somewhere outside." She gestured toward the glass revolving door. "Across the street. That's where they usually--" "An Alfa?" "That's right. Dark blue. But like I said, it's not--" "Give me the keys." "They're probably still in it. Our people--" "Thanks." He reached down for the suitcase. "Your card, sir, and your license." She pushed the items across with a tight smile, clearly happy to be rid of him. As he reached for them, out of the corner of his eye he saw the first movement. The man had stuffed the newspaper, and walkie-talkie, into his trench coat and was approaching across the marble lobby. Just as Vance expected, the garb was polyester, the hair a slicked-up punch- perm, but he still couldn't make out the face. He didn't need to. He knew who they were. The encounter at Knossos flashed through his mind. They know I've got a copy of their protocol. And until that gets iced, there's always a chance their secret is no longer a secret. But they can't know we've cracked the encryption. Unless she told them. Which she never would. No, they couldn't know that yet, which meant he still had the bargaining chip he'd need. Except for one problem. They were about to try and break the rules. Just like the old days. Maybe they'd forgot he knew how to break rules too. As he pushed through the milling crowd of French tourists, suitcases and knapsacks piling up near the entrance, he sensed the man was gaining. But only a few feet more and he'd be at the revolving door. Halfway home. This wasn't going to be easy. There'd be a backup. Probably just outside, at the entrance. As he reached for the rubber flange of the revolving door, he knew the man was just behind him, maybe two steps. Just right. He turned to see a hand emerge from the polyester suit jacket, grasping a Heckler & Koch KA1 machine pistol, a cut-down version of the MP5. The barrel was rising, the hard face closing in. But it was the suitcase he wanted. So why not give it to him? "Here." He jammed his foot into the revolving door, leaving a small opening, then wheeled around, hoisting the case. The quick turn brought just enough surprise to break his attacker's momentum. As the man involuntarily raised his left hand, Vance caught his right wrist, just back of the pistol's grip, and shoved it forward, into the door. Then he brought up his elbow and smashed it into the attacker's jaw. As the man groaned, he caught his other wrist and shoved him around. Now. He rammed his shoulder against the revolving door, closing it and wedging the gun inside. "Let's keep this simple, okay? No muss, no fuss." He threw his full weight against the man's body, bending him back around the curved metal and glass of the door. There was a snap and a muted groan as the wrist bones shattered. The machine pistol clattered to the marble floor inside the circular enclosure. "Sorry about that." Before the attacker could regain his balance, he kneed him into the next revolving partition and rammed it closed. Only one foot remained outside, kicking at an awkward angle across the floor. Now where's the other one? He glanced around as he drew away. There's sure to be two. Somebody was on the other end of that radio. Novosty? Did he set this up? He swept up the suitcase and shouldered his way through the auxiliary door on the side. Odd, but the scuffle had gone unnoticed amid the din of the arriving tour. Or maybe Parisians weren't ruffled by anything so everyday as an attempted murder. Now what? As he emerged onto the street, he saw what he was looking for. The other assailant was waiting just across the wide entryway, past the jumble of bellboys, taxi drivers, and the last straggle of tourists coming off the bus. Their eyes met, and the man's right hand darted inside his dark suit jacket. Use the crowd, Vance thought. Enough hand-to-hand heroics. These guys mean business. Since the pile of luggage coming off the bus separated them, he had an advantage now, if only for a second or so. Without thinking he seized the straps of a canvas knapsack sitting on the sidewalk with his free hand and flung it with all his strength. It caught his attacker squarely in the chest, breaking his rhythm and knocking him back half a step. It was only a moment's reprieve, but it was all Vance needed to disappear around the rear of the bus, which was pouring black exhaust into the evening air, blocking all view of the avenue. Maybe he could move fast enough to just disappear. As he dashed into the honking traffic, headlights half blinding him, he surveyed the street opposite looking for the Alfa. There? No. There? A pair of headlights swerved by, inches away, accompanied by honking and a cursing Greek driver. Only a few feet more now and he'd be across. There. A blue Alfa. It had to be the one. But it was already moving, its front wheels turning inward as the Hertz attendant backed it around to begin pulling out. He wrenched open the door and seized a brown sleeve. The arm inside belonged to a young Greek, barely twenty, his uniform grease-covered and wrinkled. He looked up, surprise in his eyes, and grabbed for the door handle. "Change of plans." Vance heard the Alfa's bumper slam against the car parked behind as the startled attendant's foot brushed against the accelerator. "_Den katalaveno!_" "Out." Vance yanked him around and shoved him toward the asphalt pavement. "And stay down." Now the bus had begun pulling out from the entryway across the street. Although traffic still clogged the avenue, he was a clear target. He threw the suitcase onto the seat, then slid in and reached to secure the door. As he pulled it shut, he heard the ping of a bullet ricochetting off metal somewhere. Next came a burst of automatic fire that seemed to splatter all around him. The young Greek pulled himself up off the pavement and reached . . . "Down." Vance waved him away as he shifted the transmission into drive. At that moment a slug caught the young attendant in the shoulder, spinning him around. He gave a yelp of surprise, then stumbled backward. But now he was out of the way, clear, with what was probably only a flesh wound. Vance shoved his foot against the accelerator, ramming the rear fender of the car in front, then again, knocking it clear. Another spray of bullets spattered through the back window as he pulled into the flow of traffic. Your time will come, friend, he told himself. Tomorrow, by God, we finish this little dance. He finally became aware of the pumping of his own heart as he made his way north up Syngrou Avenue, trying to urge the traffic forward by sheer will. The thing now was to get out of Athens, take Leoforos Athinon west, then head up the new Highway 1 toward the mountains, lose them in the country, find some place to spend the night. His final destination was only about two hundred kilometers away. He just had to be fresh and ready tomorrow, with everything in place. But at least he now knew the game had no rules. Maybe knowing that gave him an edge. And so far his timing was still intact. He'd handled it. Maybe not too well, maybe with too much risk, but he'd handled it. Novosty's note had said there would be a straight swap. But the other team clearly had no intention of bothering with niceties. Fine. That cut both ways. Sunday 11:45 A.M. The place was Delphi, the location Novosty had specified. Heading warily up the Sacred Way, Vance paused for a moment to take in the view. From where he stood, the vista was majestic, overwhelming humanity's puny scale. He'd always loved it. Toward the north the sheer granite cliffs of the Phaedriades Mountains towered almost two thousand feet skyward to form a semicircular barrier, while down below the river Pleistos meandered through mile after mile of dark olive groves. It was an eyeful of rugged grandeur, craggy peaks encircling a harsh plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. Greece in the midday sun: austere, timeless. His destination, the ancient temple of the Delphic oracle farther up the hill, overlooked this panorama, row center in a magnificient natural amphitheater. The Greek legends told that the great god Zeus had once dispatched two eagles, one flying east and one flying west, to find out where they would meet. They came together at the center of the earth, Delphi, whose main temple, the Sanctuary of Apollo, contained the domelike boulder Omphalos, thereafter named the "navel of the world." Here east and west met. He'd parked the Alfa on the roadway down below, and now as he stared up the mountainside, past the conical cypress trees, he could just make out the remains of the stone temple where almost three thousand years ago the priestess, the Delphic oracle, screamed her prophesies. She was a Pythia, an ancient woman innocent of mind who lived in the depths of the temple next to a fiery altar whose flame was attended night and day. There, perched on a high tripod poised over a vaporous fissure in the earth, she inhaled intoxicating gases, chewed laurel leaves, and issued wild, frenzied utterances. Those incoherent sounds were translated by priests into answers appropriate to the queries set before her. Delphi. He loved its remote setting, its sacred legends. Those stories, in fact, told that the god Apollo had once summoned priests from Crete, the ancient font of culture, to come here to create this Holy of Holies. Was he about to become a priest too? After sending off a telegram to the Stuttgart team, notifying them of a delay in his schedule, he'd journeyed from that island back to Athens via the ANEK Lines overnight car ferry from Iraklion. Not at all godlike. But it had a well-worn forward section it called first class, and it was a low-profile mode of travel, requiring no identity questions. He'd ended up in the bar of the tourist section for much of the trip, stretched out on a stained couch and napping intermittently during the twelve-hour voyage. It had cleared his mind. Then from Piraeus, the port of Athens, he'd taken a cab into the city. After that the hotel and the car. As he stared up the hill, he had in his possession a wallet with nine hundred American dollars and eighty thousand Greek drachmas, the suitcase, and a Spanish 9mm automatic from Zeno. He also had a translated version of the opening section of the protocol. His anger still simmering, he continued up the cobbled path of the Sacred Way, toward the exposed remains of the oracle's temple situated halfway up the hill. Nothing was left of the structure now except its stone floor and a few columns that had been re-erected, standing bare and wistful in the sunshine. In fact, the only building at Delphi that had been rebuilt to anything resembling its original glory was the small marble "treasure house" of the Athenians, a showplace of that city's wealth dating from 480 B.C. Today its simple white blocks glistened in the harsh midday glare, while tourists milled around speaking German, French, English, or Dutch. Even in the simmering heat of noon, Delphi still attracted visitors who revered the ancient Greeks as devoutly as those Greeks had once worshipped their own adulterous gods and goddesses. So where the hell was Novosty? Noon at the Temple of Apollo, his note had said. He searched the hillside looking for telltale signs of another ambush-- movement, color, anything. But there was nothing. Although tourists wandered about, the temple ruins seemed abandoned for thousands of years, their silence almost palpable. Even the sky was empty save for a few swooping hawks. If Alex is here waiting, he asked himself, where would he be? Then he looked again at the treasure house. Of course. Probably in there, taking a little respite from the blistering sun. It figured. The front, its columns, and porch were open, and the interior would be protected. Conveniently, the wide steps of the stone pathway led directly past. A natural rendezvous. In his belt, under his suede jacket, was Zeno's 9mm Llama. It was fully loaded, with fifteen rounds in the magazine plus one up the tube. He reached into his belt and eased off the safety. Holding it beneath his coat, he continued on up the cobbled pathway toward the front of the treasure house. As he moved into the shade of the portico, he thought for a moment he heard sounds from inside. He stopped, gripping the Llama, and listened. No, nothing. Slowly, carefully, he walked up the steps. When he reached the top, he paused, then gingerly stepped in through the open doorway. It was cool and dank inside. And empty. His footsteps rang hollow on the stone floor. Maybe Novosty's dead by now, he thought fleetingly. Maybe his luck finally ran out. He turned and walked back out to the porch, then settled himself on the steps. In the valley below, beyond the milling tourists, the dark green olive groves spread out toward the horizon. The protocol. The mind-boggling protocol. Something was afoot that would change the balance of world power. He'd translated the first page of Article I, but it had raised more questions than it answered. All the same, he'd taken action. Today he was ready. Novosty had to know the score. Had to. But now Vance knew at least part of the story too. He glanced down at the suitcase. It contained Eva's Zenith Turbo 486, of course, which undoubtedly was why it was such a popular item. But it also had a hard copy of the scrambled text of the protocol, courtesy of a printer Zeno had borrowed from a newspaper office in Iraklion, as well as a photocopy of Vance's partial translation. They didn't know it yet, but there was another full copy, which he'd transmitted by DataNet to his "office" computer in Nassau. It was waiting there in the silicon memory. Quite a document. Twenty-eight pages in length, it was the final version of a legally binding agreement that had been hammered out over a long period of time. From the page he'd translated, he could recognize the style. The text referred to the rights and obligations of two distinct entities--the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Mino Industries Group. As he seated himself beneath a lone almond tree and took a last look at the olive groves down below, he was tempted to pull out the translation and reread it one more time. But that was unnecessary; he'd memorized it, right down to the last comma. _Article I 1. For the full and complete compensation of one hundred million American dollars ($100,000,000.), to be deposited in the Shokin Gaigoku Bank of Tokyo on or before May 1, Mino Industries Group will legally transfer to the USSR full ownership of one operational prototype, this transfer to be executed on the agreed date, May 1, Mayday. At the time of this transfer the prototype will satisfy all technical performance criteria enumerated in Document 327-A, "Specifications." The USSR may thereafter, at its discretion, contract for production models at the price specified in Document 508-J. 2. Upon the USSR having satisfied the terms stipulated in Article II, Mino Industries Group will extend the USSR financial credits in the amount of five hundred billion American dollars ($500,000,000,000.), such credits to be provided in increments of one hundred billion dollars ($100,000,000,000.) annually for a period of five years. These credits will be arranged through Vneshekonombank, the Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs (Article IV). 3. Within one year of the satisfaction of all formalities pursuant to the above-designated credits, the USSR will . . . _ That's as far as he'd translated. The rest was still in Minoan Linear B. He took a deep breath, again trying to digest what it meant in the grand scheme of global strategic alliances. Most importantly, what was the "prototype"? Something was about to appear on the planet that would make its owner unassailable. But what? Eva's stumbled onto dynamite. Mayday. That means it explodes in less than a fortnight. No wonder Mino Industries wants her out of the way. Among the clusters of tourists on the road below, a white limousine was pulling to a stop, followed by a gray Saab. He watched as Novosty emerged from the Saab and glanced up the hill, then started the climb. Nobody got out of the limo. Vance watched as he slowly made his way along the cobbled path leading up the hill, puffing. He was almost out of breath by the time he reached the top. "Michael, I'm so glad you could manage to make it." He heaved a sigh as he trudged up the last remaining steps. "It was the lure of your scintillating company." "I'm sure." He looked around. "Is Eva down there? She'd damned well better be." "She is safe." Novosty sighed again. "It was most unwise for her to have gotten involved in all this, Michael. She is making matters difficult for us all." "Too bad." He removed the Llama from beneath his coat. "By the way, congratulations on your new clients. Mino Industries. That's a Yakuza front, partner. Guess you know. The CEO was a Class A war criminal. These days he owns the LDP and runs Japan. Alex, you asshole, you're way over your head here. Mino Industries is owned lock, stock, and hardware by _the _Japanese godfather. His _kobun_ make your KGB look like a Boy Scout troop." "Michael, please." "And here I was thinking you'd finished consorting with the criminal element, decided to live clean. Then the next thing I know, your client's gorillas are trying to kill Eva and me. Me, your new partner. Things like that tend to inspire mistrust, and just when we were starting to hit it off so well." He finally stood up, holding the Llama. Novosty was lounging nervously in the sunshine, fishing for a cigarette. "Where's your Uzi? You just may need it." "Michael, all this has nothing to do with me." His eyes were weary. "I'm operating independently this time." "Cash and carry. Maybe you should just post your prices, like a cheap cathouse." "I prefer to think of myself as an expediter. But this time I encountered more difficulties than reasonably could be anticipated. Which is why I need your help now to straighten it out." "What? The whole shoddy scene? Looks like the KGB's hot on the trail, say maybe about two feet in back of your ass. Or is it your client, who you're about to try and screw out of a hundred million dollars? Incidentally, that's probably a serious miscalculation, health-wise." "The situation _has_ grown awkward." "Of course that touching fable about returning the hundred million to Moscow was just the usual 'disinformation.' " "You are perfectly correct. It will not be returned. But any thought I might have had of keeping it now also seems out of the question." He sighed. "Instead I'm afraid we must--" "_We_? Now that's what I call balls of brass." He laughed. "Surely even a fevered imagination like yours can't suppose--" "Michael, I told you I would split the commission I took for cleaning it. That offer still holds. Fifty-fifty. I might even go sixty-forty. What more can you want? But those funds must be delivered. Given the new situation--" "Not by me." "Be a realist, my friend. I no longer have freedom of movement, so now you are my only hope. If those funds aren't transferred within the week, I'd prefer not to reflect on the consequences." "The consequences to your own neck, you mean." Vance stared at him. "By the way, just out of curiosity, what's the 'prototype'?" "That's the one thing I cannot possibly discuss, Michael." Novosty caught his breath. "But what if the contract for it is abrogated because of those funds not being delivered, what then? What if the USSR just makes a move to seize it? I fear there could be war, my friend. Bang, the apocalypse." He flicked his lighter. "Even worse though, as you say, both parties to the agreement would probably spend a week devising the most interesting way possible for me to depart this earth." "If the KGB somehow locates and freezes the embezzled funds before you can finish transferring them, it could scuttle the whole deal. Mino Industries would probably be very annoyed. Not to mention certain parties back home." "Precisely. You can see we are on a knife edge here. But first things first. You must return Eva's pirate copy of the protocol, please. I beg you. It must disappear. I have promised them that, as an act of good faith. I'm afraid the participants in Tokyo are near to losing patience with me." "And what about her?" "She's with them now." He pointed down the hill, to the long white limousine. "Unfortunately, they have taken over the situation." "Better buckle your seat belt, pal. It's about to be a bumpy afternoon." "She is safe, don't worry. They have assured me. It is only the protocol they care about. The matter of security. They know you have her only other copy, in the computer. Now please let me just give whatever you have to them. Then let's all try and forget she ever had it." "You know, those hoods down there tried a little number on me last night in Athens." He hadn't moved. "It took the edge off my evening." "Michael, I tried to tell them that was imprudent. But they are very concerned about time. Just be reasonable, my friend, and I'm sure everything can be straightened out." He sighed again. "You know, these tactics of kidnapping and such are very distasteful to me as well. But when she told them she didn't have all the material, that you still had a copy, they decided that taking her into their custody was the best way to ensure your cooperation." "They don't know me very well." He looked down the hill. "Tell your buddies they can go take a jump. Nobody blackmails me. Nobody. I plan to hang on to this little suitcase till she's out of danger. That's how we're going to work things. Tell them it's her insurance. They release her right now, or I'll personally blow their whole deal sky high." "Tell them yourself, Michael. I'm just here as an observer." He gestured toward the white limo parked below, nestled in among the line of tourist automobiles and busses. "And while you're doing that, perhaps you should ask her if that's her wish as well. They refuse to release her until they recover the materials she had. They are calling it 'protection.'" He stared down. "You've got a hell of a nerve. All of you. Alex, when this is over--" "Please. Let's just get this ghastly protocol affair sorted out." He rubbed at his beard. "Then we can all concern ourselves with what's really important. The money." "Right. I almost forgot." He scanned the hillside. Was everything set? He'd seen no sign. But then that's how it was supposed to be. The other problem was the tourists, everywhere, complicating the play. But maybe the tourists would be a help, would make it start out slow. Think. How can you use them? Clearly the other side had hoped for an abandoned place in the middle of nowhere. They had to be off balance now too. He hesitated a moment, then decided. Go for it. He had the Llama. Just settle it here and now. He took one last look at the temple as he rose. The Delphic oracle. That's what Eva had been all along. She'd somehow divined the outlines of the story, but after the disappearance of her old lover at the NSA she didn't dare speak it directly. Everything was coded language. So what better place than here on this mountain to finally have a little plain talk? As they passed down the last stone steps leading to the roadway, he found himself thinking about Mino Industries. Did they really have half a trillion dollars lying around? Not likely. To come up with that kind of money, even in Japan, you'd have to be deeply plugged into legitimate financial circles--pension funds, insurance companies, brokerage houses, banks, all the rest. But still, the _Mino-gumi_ had connections that went wide and deep, everywhere. Their _oyabun_, Tanzan Mino, had been in the game for a long, long time. Now, as he approached the limousine, one of its white doors slowly began to open. Then a Japanese emerged, dressed in a black polyester suit. He wore dark sunglasses, and his right wrist was in a cast. The eyes were very familiar. Also, one of his little fingers was missing. But Vance's gaze didn't linger long on the hands. His attention was riveted on what was in them. Yep, he'd seen it right last night. It was a Heckler & Koch machine pistol. One of those could lay down all thirty rounds in an eight- inch group at thirty yards. World-class hardware. It figured. The _Mino-gumi_ was known everywhere as the best-run Yakuza syndicate of them all. Hardened criminals, they considered themselves modern-day samurai, upholding some centuries-old code of honor. It was a contradiction only the Japanese mind could fully accommodate. Heavy-duty connections, Vance told himself, the very best. Which meant Novosty was in even bigger trouble than he probably imagined. The latest rumor in the world of hot money was that Tanzan Mino and his Yakuza had, through dummy fronts, just bought up half of Hawaii. If that were true, it meant he laundered real money these days. Who the hell needed a small-time operator like Alex? Then the man reached in and caught Eva's arm, pulling her into the midday glare. Thank God, he thought, she still looks vaguely okay. Will she be able to stay on top of this once it gets moving? He noticed she was wearing a new brown dress, but her short hair was tangled, her face streaked with pain. The bastards. They must have worked her over, trying to find out everything she knew. There were two "representatives," Novosty had said. So the other man was still in the limo, in the driver's seat, covering in case there was trouble. Good move. Because there was definitely going to be trouble. A lot of it. Tanzan Mino's goons were about to have all the trouble they could handle. "Michael, oh, Christ." She finally recognized him. "Thank God. Just give them--" "Can you understand what's going on here?" He raised his hand. "These guys are _kobun_, professional hit men. They have a very sick sense of humor. They also have no intention of--" "Please, they have given me their word." Novosty interrupted him, then glanced back. "You can see she is well." She didn't look well at all. She seemed drugged, standing shakily in the brilliant sunshine, a glazed stare from her eyes, hands twisting at her skirt. Eva, Eva, he thought, what did they do to you? Whatever it was, it worked. You look defeated, helpless. "Michael, just let them have the computer." She spoke again, her voice quivering. "They say it's all they want. Then they'll--" "Eva, it's all a lie. The big lie. So just lighten up and enjoy this. We're not giving them so much as the time of day until they let you go. First tell me, how badly did they rough you up? I want to know." "Michael, please." "You will be happy to learn that Dr. Michael Vance is a specialist in international finance," Novosty interrupted, addressing the tall Japanese. "He has kindly offered to serve as my agent in completing the final arrangements for the transfer of funds from London. He will resolve any remaining difficulties. As I said, he is my agent, and it is important that he not be harmed." "Alex, back off. I haven't agreed to anything." Vance turned to the Japanese. "How's the arm? Hope the damage wasn't permanent." "Where are the NSA materials." The man ignored Vance's question. His voice was sharp and his English almost perfect. "That is our first order of business." "Right here." He lifted the suitcase. "I assume we're all going to deal honorably for a change. Eva first, then we talk about this." "I'm sure Dr. Vance has brought everything you want," Novosty added quickly, glancing over. "Perhaps if he gave the materials to you now, the woman could be released. Then he and I can proceed immediately with the matter of the funds." "You are not involved," the Japanese snapped back. "We have been authorized to personally handle this breach of security." He stared at Novosty. "The funds, in fact, were your sole responsibility. They were to have been transferred to Shokin Gaigoku Bank in Tokyo over a week ago. You demanded an exorbitant commission, and you did not deliver. Consequently you will return that commission and our London _oyabun _will handle it himself." The _Mino-gumi_ probably should have handled it in the first place, Vance thought fieetingly. Alex was definitely out of his depth. "Just a couple of days more . . ." Novosty went pale. "I thought I had explained--" "Your 'explanations' are not adequate." The man cut him off, then pointed to the suitcase in Vance's hand. "Now give us that." "Why not." He settled the brown leather case onto the asphalt. "It's good business always to check out the merchandise, make sure it's what you're paying for." "She said it was a portable computer." The man walked over, then cradled the H&K automatic in his bandaged arm while he reached down to loosen the straps. Next he pulled the zipper around and laid open the case. "What is this?" He lifted out the pile of printed paper. "Guess she forgot to tell you. We cracked the encryption. I thought maybe you'd like to have a printed version, so I threw one in for free." He stared at it a second, almost disbelieving, then looked up. "This is a photocopy. Where is the original?" "Original? You mean that's not--?" Vanced looked at it. "Gee, my mistake. Guess I must have left it somewhere. Sorry you had to drive all the way out here from Athens for nothing." "Jesus, Michael," Eva blurted. "Don't start playing games with them. They'll--" "I need all the copies." The man's voice hardened, menacingly. "Where are they?" "I don't remember precisely. Tell you what, though. You put her on a plane back to the States and maybe my recollection might start improving." "We are wasting time." The door by the steering wheel opened and the second _kobun _emerged, also carrying an automatic. He was shorter, but the punch-perm hair and polyester suit appeared to have come from standard issue, just like the sunglasses. He gestured his weapon toward Vance. "There is a simple way to improve your memory. You have exactly ten seconds--" "My friend, be reasonable," Novosty interrupted, his voice still trying for calm. "There are people here." He motioned toward the crowd of gathering tourists. From their puzzled stares, they seemed to be thinking they were witnessing a rehearsal for some Greek gangster film. The first man motioned his partner back, then turned to Vance. "You realize we will be forced to kill her right now if you don't produce all originals and copies." "Don't really think you want to do that." Vance stared at him. "Because if anything happens to her, you're going to be reading about your 'prototype' all over the American newspapers. I can probably even swing some prime-time TV time for you. I'll take care of it personally." "No one will believe you." "Don't think so? My guess is the Washington Post will run your entire protocol on page one. I'll see they get a very literal translation into English. Then you won't need this. You can just buy all the copies you want." He picked up the laptop and walked over to where Eva was standing. "Here, take this, and get back in the car, now. I think these guys have got an attitude problem. So screw them." "Michael." She reached for the computer. "Get in that one." He pointed toward Alex's gray Saab. "And take the next plane out of Greece. That place we talked about. Anywhere. Just go." "We're getting nowhere," the second man barked again. Then he leveled his automatic at Vance's right knee and clicked off the safety. There was a gasp from the gawking tourists, and the crowd began stumbling backward for cover. "We have ways of extracting information." Oh, shit, he thought, whoa. The man's voice suddenly trailed off, while a quizzical expression spread through his eyes and a red spot appeared on his cheek. Next his head jerked back and his automatic slammed against the car door, then clattered across the asphalt. Not a second too soon, Vance thought. "No," Eva screamed, "what's happening?" She lurched backward, then turned and stumbled for the Saab, carrying the computer. The first _kobun_ glanced around, then raised the H&K in his left hand, trying to get a grip. He'll hit the ground and roll, Vance thought, like any pro under fire. And he did exactly that, with a quick motion over onto his back and then to his feet again, clicking off the safety as he came up. "You want to kill us both?" Vance was holding his Llama now, trained on the sunglasses that had been crushed by the roll, momentarily distorting the man's line of fire. "Then go for it." He squeezed the trigger. The walnut stock kicked slightly, but he just kept gripping the satin chrome trigger. Now the gunman's automatic came around, its muzzle erupting in flame. The crowd scattered, shouting in half a dozen languages, terrified. Vance just kept firing, dull thunks into the figure stumbling backward as the H&K machine pistol erupted spasmodically into the hot, dry air. "Kill him, Michael. Oh, God! Yes. The bastards." Eva was still yelling as she slammed shut the door of the Saab. Yelling, cursing, screaming. Less than a second later the motor roared to life. Now Novosty was diving across the pavement, toward the open front door of the limousine. "Michael, we've got to split up. Get out." He yelled over his shoulder. "I'll have to go to London now. There's nowhere left. They're going to come for the money." Vance scarcely heard him as he held the Llama steady and kept on squeezing until the magazine was empty and only vacant clicks coursed through his hand. The screech of tires brought him back. He looked up to see the white limousine careening along the edge of the road, barely avoiding the ditch, its door still open, Novosty at the wheel. Eva was already gone. He noticed that they'd removed the plates from the limousine, just as he'd done on his rented Alfa. There would be nothing but terrified tourists and two illegally armed, very dead Japanese hoods here when the Greek police finally arrived. The story would come out in a babel of languages and be totally inconsistent. Christ! he thought. It was supposed to be over by now, and instead it's just beginning. When word of this gets back to Tokyo, life's going to get very interesting, very fast. The _Mino-gumi _knows how to play for keeps. We've got to blow this thing. Across, on the hot asphalt, the two Japanese were sprawled askew, sunglasses crumpled. One body was bleeding profusely from the chest, the other from a single, perfect hole in the cheek. The _kobun_ who had come within moments of removing his kneecaps now lay with a small hole in front of one ear and the opposite side of the face half missing. What a shot! But why did he wait so long? We had them in the clear. I see now why the Greek Resistance scared hell out of . . . "Never look at the eyes, Michael." The voice sounded from the boulders of the hillside above, where the muzzle of a World War II German carbine, oiled and perfect, glinted. "Remember I told you. It gives you very bad dreams." BOOK TWO CHAPTER NINE Monday 12:08 A.M. The massive hulk of _Daedalus I _was being towed slowly through the hangar doors, now open to their full 250-foot span. As it rolled out, the titanium-composite skin glistened in the fluorescent lights of the hangar, then acquired a ghostly glow under the pale moonlight. First came the pen-sharp nose containing the navigational gear, radar, and video cameras for visible light and infrared; next the massive ramjet- scramjets, six beneath each swept-back, blunt wing; and finally the towering tail assembly, twin vertical stabilizers positioned high and outboard to avoid blanketing from the fuselage. The tow-truck drivers and watching technicians all thought it was the most beautiful creation they had ever seen. This would be Yuri Androv's last scheduled test flight before he took the vehicle hypersonic. In four more days. He wore a full pressure suit and an astronaut-style life-support unit rested next to him. As he finished adjusting the cockpit seat, he monitored the roll-out on his liquid crystal helmet screens, calling up the visual display that provided pre-takeoff and line-up checks of the instruments. Not surprisingly, the numbers were nominal--all hydraulic pressures stable, all temperatures ambient. As usual, the Japanese technicians had meticulously executed their own preflight prep, poring over the vehicle with their computerized checklists. Everything was in the green. All the same, this moment always brought a gut-tightening blend of anticipation and fear. This was the part he dreaded most in any test flight--when he was strapped in the cockpit but without operational control. He lived by control, and this was one of the few times when he knew he had none. It fed all the adrenaline surging through him, pressed his nerves to the limit. He flipped a switch under his hand and displayed the infrared cameras on his helmet screens, then absently monitored the massive white trucks towing him onto the darkened tarmac. The landing lights along the runway were off; they would be switched on only for final approach, when, guided by the radar installation, their focused beams would be invisible outside a hundred-yard perimeter of the nose cameras. The asphalt beneath him, swept by the freezing winds of Hokkaido, was a special synthetic, carefully camouflaged. He knew it well. Two nights earlier he'd come out here to have a talk with the project _kurirovat_, Ivan Semenovich Lemontov, the lean and wily Soviet officer-in-charge. Formerly that post had belonged to the CPSU's official spy, but now party control was supposed to be a thing of the past. So what was he doing here? Whatever it was, the isolated landing strip had seemed the most secure place for some straight answers. As they strolled in the moonlight, the harsh gale off the straits cutting into their skin, he'd demanded Lemontov tell him what was really going on. By the time they were finished, he'd almost wished he hadn't asked. "Yuri Andreevich, on this project you are merely the test pilot. Your job is to follow orders." Lemontov had paused to light a Russian cigarette, cupping his hands against the wind to reveal his thin, foxlike face. He was a hardliner left over from the old days, and occasionally it still showed. "Strategic matters should not concern you." "I was brought in late, only four months ago, after the prototypes were ready for initial flight testing. But if I'm flying the _Daedalus_, then I want to know its ultimate purpose. The truth. Nobody's told me anything. The only thing I'm sure of is that all the talk about near-space research is bullshit. Which means I'm being used." He had caught Lemontov's arm and drew him around. The officer's eyes were half hidden in the dark. "Now, dammit, I want to know what in hell is the real purpose of this vehicle." Lemontov had grunted, then pulled away and drew on his cigarette. Finally he spoke: "Yuri Andreevich, sometimes it's wiser to leave strategy to the professionals. You do your job and I'll do mine." Yuri remembered how he'd felt his anger boil. He'd begun to suspect that certain CPSU hardliners like Lemontov, together with the military or the KGB, had their own plans for the vehicle. But what were they up to? "Look, I'm doing my job. So how about a little openness, a little glasnost? This is not supposed to be like the old days." Lemontov had drawn a few paces ahead on the tarmac, walking briskly, with the quick energy that had brought him to his powerful party post. Finally he'd slowed and waited for Yuri to catch up. He had made a decision and he had made it quickly. That was characteristic. "Yuri Andreevich, in a way you represent part of our 'technology exchange' with Mino Industries. You have an indispensible role to play here. This whole program depends on you." "I'm well aware of that." However, it hadn't answered his questions. "Then you should also be aware of something else. This undertaking is a small, but highly crucial, part of something much larger. Nothing less than the fate of the Soviet Union in the next century rests on whether Project Daedalus succeeds." "What do you mean?" Yuri had watched him walk on, feeling his own impatience growing. Lemontov had turned back again, brusquely. "This hypersonic spacecraft is the symbol, the flagship, of a new Soviet alliance with the most technologically advanced nation on earth. Even a 'flyboy' like you should be able to grasp that. Through this alliance we eventually will find a way to tap all of Japan's new technology. The world of the future--advanced semiconductors, robots, biotechnology, superconductivity, all of it--is going to be controlled by Japan, and we must have access to it." Yuri had listened in silence, once more feeling he was being fed half- truths. Then Lemontov lowered his voice. "Yuri Andreevich, by forming what amounts to a strategic alliance with Mino Industries, we will achieve two objectives. We will gain access to Japanese technology and capital, to rejuvenate Soviet industry and placate our people. And we will strike a preemptive blow against the peril of a new China on our borders in the next century." "China?" Yuri had studied him, startled. "My friend, don't be fooled by summits and talks of reconciliation. Neither we nor China care a kopeck about the other. Think about it. In the long run, China can only be our nightmare. If America had to look across its Canadian border and see China, they too would be terrified. China has the numbers and, soon, the technology to threaten us. It's the worst nightmare you or I could ever have." Lemontov had paused to crush out his cigarette, grinding it savagely into the asphalt. "We must prepare for it now." The hardliners have just found a new enemy, Yuri had realized. The Cold War lives! "Like it or not," Lemontov had continued, "and just between us I'm not sure I do like it, we have no choice but to turn to Japan in order to have an ally in Asia to counter the new, frightening specter of a hostile China rising up on our flank." "So how does _Daedalus _figure into all this?" "As I said, it is the first step in our new alliance. From now on our space programs will be united as one." He had sighed into the icy wind. "It will be our mutual platform for near-earth space exploration." "With only peaceful intent?" Yuri had tried to study his eyes, but the dark obscured them. "I've told you all you need to know." A match had flared again as he lit another cigarette. In the tiny blaze of light he gave a small wink. "Even though the _Daedalus _could easily be converted to a . . first- strike platform, we naturally have no intention of outfitting these prototypes, or later production models, for any such purpose. The Japa- nese would never agree." What had he been saying? That the hardliners were planning to seize the vehicles and retrofit them as first- strike bombers? Maybe even make a preemptive strike against China? Were they planning to double-cross the Japanese? What they didn't seem to realize was that these vehicles didn't need to be retrofitted. _Daedalus _was already faster and more deadly than any existing missile. It couldn't be shot down, not by America's yet-to-be- built SDI, not by anything. And speed was only part of the story. What about the vehicle's other capabilities? He switched his helmet screens momentarily to the infrared cameras in the nose and studied the runway. Infrared. Pure military. And that was just the beginning. There also was phased-array radar and slit-scan radar, both equipped for frequency hopping and "squirt" emissions to evade detection. And how about the radar altimeter, which allowed subsonic maneuvering at low altitudes, "on the deck"? Or the auxiliary fuel capacity in the forward bay, which permitted long-distance sustained operation? No "space platform" needed all this radar-evasive, weapons-systems management capability. Or a hyper-accurate inertial navigation system. Kick in the scramjets and _Daedalus _could climb a hundred thousand miles straight up in seven minutes, reenter the lower atmosphere at will, loiter over an area, kick ass, then return to the untouchable safety of space. There was enough cruise missile capacity to take out fifty hardened sites. It could perform troop surveillance, deploy commandos to any firefight on the globe in two hours . . . you name it. He also suspected there was yet another feature, even more ominous, which he planned to check out tonight. While the Soviet military was secretly drooling to get its hands on this new bomber, sending the cream of Soviet propulsion engineers here to make sure it worked, they already had been outflanked. Typical idiocy. What they'd overlooked was that these two planes still belonged to Mino Industries, and only Mino Industries had access to the high- temperature ceramics and titanium composites required to build more. Tanzan Mino held all the cards. He surely knew the capabilities of this plane. Everything was already in place. Mino Industries now owned the ultimate weapon: they had built or subcontracted every component. Was Lemontov such a dumb party hack he couldn't see that? All the more reason to get the cards on the table. And soon. So far the plan was on track. He had demanded that the schedule be moved up, and Ikeda had reluctantly agreed. In four days Yuri Androv would take _Daedalus _into the region of near space using liquid hydrogen, the first full hypersonic test flight. And that's when he intended to blow everybody's neat scenario wide open. He felt the fuselage shudder as the trucks disengaged from the eyelets on the landing gear. Then the radio crackled. "This is control, _Daedalus I_. Do you read?" "_Daedalus I_. Preflight nominal." "Verified. Engine oil now heated to thirty degrees Celsius. Begin ignition sequence." "Check. _Daedalus I _starting engines." He scanned through the instrument readings on his helmet screens, then slipped his hand down the throttle quadrant and pushed the button on the left. He could almost feel the special low-flashpoint JP-7--originally developed for the high-altitude American SR-71 Blackbird--begin to flow from the wing tanks into the twelve turboramjets, priming them. Then the ground crew engaged the engines with their huge trolley-mounted starters. As the rpm began to surge, he reminded himself he was carrying only 2,100,000 pounds of fuel and it would burn fast. He switched his helmet screens to the priority-one display and scanned the master instrument panel: white bars showing engine rpm, fuel flow, turbine inlet temperature, exhaust temperature, oil pressure, hydraulics. Then he cut back to the infrared cameras and glanced over the tarmac stretching out in front of him. Since the American KH-12 satellite had passed twenty minutes earlier, flight conditions should now be totally secure. For tonight's program he was scheduled to take the vehicle to Mach 4, then terminate the JP-7 feeds in the portside outboard trident and let those three engines "unstart," after which he would manually switch them to scramjet geometry, all the while controlling pitch and yaw with the stability augmentation equipment. That would be the easy part. The next step required him to manually switch them back to turboramjet geometry and initiate restart. At sixty-three thousand feet. Forty minutes later he was scheduled to have her back safely in the hangar chocks, skin cooling. Nothing to it. He flipped his helmet screens back and looked over the readouts one final time. Fuel pressure was stable, engine nozzle control switches locked in Auto Alpha configuration, flaps and slats set to fifteen degrees for max performance takeoff. He ran through the checklist on the screen: "Fuel panel, check. Radar altimeter index, set. Throttle quadrant, auto lock." The thrust required to take _Daedalus I _airborne was less than that needed for a vertically launched space shuttle, since lift was gained from the wings, but still he was always amazed by the G-forces the vehicle developed on takeoff. The awesome power at his fingertips inspired a very deceptive sense of security. "Chase cars in place, Yuri. You're cleared for taxi. _Ne puzha, ne pera!"_ He started to respond, thinking it was the computer. But this time there was no computer. He'd deliberately shut it down. If he couldn't get this damned samolyot off a runway manually, he had no hopes for the next step. The voice was merely Sergei, in flight control. "Power to military thrust." He paused, toes on the brakes, and relished the splendid isolation, the pure energy at his command as _Daedalus_ began to quiver. Multibillions at his fingertips, the most advanced . . . Fuck it. This was the fun part. "Brake release." In full unstick, he rammed the heavy handles on the throttle quadrant to lock, commanding engines to max afterburner, and grinned ear to ear as the twelve turboramjets screamed instantly to a million pounds of thrust, slamming him against the cockpit supports. Sunday 7:29 P.M. "We are now cruising at twenty-nine thousand feet. However, the captain has requested all passengers to please remain seated, with their seat belts fastened." The female voice faltered as the plane dropped through another air pocket. "We may possibly be experiencing mild turbulence for the next hour." Michael Vance wanted a drink, for a lot of reasons. However, the service in first class was temporarily suspended, since attendants on the British Airways flight to London were themselves strapped into the flip-down seats adjacent to the 757's galley. The turbulence was more than "mild." What lay ahead, in the skies and on the sea below, was nothing less than a major storm. Why not, he sighed? Everything else in the last four days had gone wrong. He'd been shot at, he'd killed a mobster, and Eva had been kidnapped. Furthermore, the drive back to Athens, then down to the port of Piraeus to put Zeno onto the overnight ferry to Crete, had been a rain-swept nightmare. Yet another storm had blown up from the Aegean, engulfing the coast and even the mountains. When they finally reached the docks at Piraeus, the old Greek had just managed to slip onto the boat as it was pulling out, his German rifle wrapped in a soggy bundle of clothing. "Michael, I must hurry." He kissed Vance on both cheeks. "Be safe." "You too." He took his hand, then passed him the Llama, half glad to be rid of it and half wondering whether he might need it again. "Here, take this. And lose it." "It's final resting place will be in the depths of our wine dark sea, my friend." Zeno pocketed it without a glance. "No one will ever know what we had to do, not even Adriana. But we failed. She is still gone." "Don't worry. I'll find her. And thank you again, for saving my life." "You would have done the same for me. Now hurry. The airport. Perhaps there's still time to catch her." With a final embrace he disappeared into the milling throng of rain-soaked travelers. The downpour was letting up, but the trip still took almost an hour. When he finally pulled in at the aging Eastern terminal, he'd left the car in the first space he could find and raced in. It was bedlam now, with flights backed up by the storm, but he saw no sign of Eva. Where was she? Had she even come here? Planes had just started flying again. According to the huge schedule board over the center of the floor, the first departure was a British Air to Heathrow, leaving in five minutes. There was no chance of getting through passport control without a ticket, so he'd elbowed his way to the front of the British Airways desk. "That flight boarding. Three-seventy-one. I want a seat." "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait--" "Just sell me a ticket, dammit." The harried agent barely looked up. "I'm afraid that's out of the question. Now if you'll just take--" "There's a woman who may be on it," he lifted up the empty leather suitcase, "and she left this at the hotel." "The equipment is already preparing to leave the gate." He glanced at the screen, then turned to a pile of tickets he was methodically sorting. "So if you'd please--" "Let me check the manifest." He'd stepped over the baggage scale, nudging the agent aside. "To make double sure she's aboard. Maybe I can try and locate her in London." "Sir!" The young Englishman paled. "You're not allowed to--" "Just take a second." Vance ignored his protest and punched up the flight on the computer. It was a 757, completely full. And there she was, in seat 18A, second cabin. Thank God she'd made it. While the outraged British Airways agent was frantically calling for airport security, he scanned more of the file. Alex Novosty was aboard too. In the very last row. Christ! He'd even used his own name. His mind must be totally blown. Did she know? Did he know? What now? With the ticket agent still yelling, he'd quickly disappeared into the crowd, having no choice but to pace a departure lounge for an hour and a half, then take the only remaining London flight of the evening. All right, he'd thought after cooling down, Novosty wants to use you; maybe you can use him. But now he suspected things weren't going to be that simple. He remembered the two KGB operatives Alex had shot and killed at Knossos. They'd been there to find Eva, which meant they knew she had something. Now he realized that wasn't all they knew. Across the aisle in first class sat a tall, willowy woman who radiated all the self-confidence of a seasoned European traveler. She was also elegantly beautiful--with dark eyes, auburn hair, and pursed red lips-- and she carried a large brown leather purse, Florentine. She could have been a French fashion model, a high-paid American cosmetics executive, a Spanish diplomat's mistress. The problem was, Vance knew, she was none of those things. The French passport he'd seen her brandish at the Greek behind the glass windows at emigration control was a forgery. She was neither French, nor American, nor Spanish. She was an executive vice president with Techmashimport, the importing cover for T-Directorate. KGB. Vera Karanova was always a prominent presence at Western trade shows. But there was no trade show in London now, no new high-tech toys to be dangled before the wondering eyes of Techmashimport, which routinely arranged to try and obtain restricted computers, surveillance gear, weapons-systems blueprints. So why's Comrade Karanova on this flight? Off to buy a designer dress at a Sloane Street boutique? Catch the latest West End musical? How about the simplest answer of all: She's going to help them track Alex Novosty to earth. Or grab Eva. Or both. They're about to tighten the noose. So the nightmare was still on. The KGB must have had the airport under surveillance, and somebody spotted Novosty--or was it Eva?--getting on the British Air flight to London. Now they were closing in. Does she know me? Vance wondered. My photo's in their files somewhere, surely. But she'd betrayed no hint of recognition. So maybe not. He'd always worked away from the limelight as much as possible. Once more it had paid off. As the plane dipped and shuddered from the turbulence, he watched out of the corner of his eye as she lifted the fake French passport out of her open leather handbag, now nestled in the empty seat by the window, and began copying the number onto her landing card. Very unprofessional, he thought. You always memorize the numbers on a forgery. First rule. T-Directorate's getting sloppy these days. He waited till she'd finished, then leaned over and ran his hand roughly down the arm of her blue silk blouse. "_Etes-vous aller a Londres pour du commerce_?" He deliberately made his French as American-accented as possible. "_Comment_?" She glanced up, annoyed, and removed his hand. "_Excusez moi, que dites-vous_?" "_D'affaires_?" He grinned and craned to look at the front of her open neckline. "Business?" "_Oui_ . . . yes." She switched quickly to English, her relief almost too obvious. "Get over there often?" He pushed. "From time to time." No fooling, lady. You've been in London four times since '88, by actual count, setting up phony third-party pass-through deals. "Just business, huh?" He grinned again, then looked up at the liquor service being unveiled in the galley. The turbulence had subsided slightly and the attendants were trying to restore normality, at least in first class. "What do you say to a drink?" She beckoned the approaching steward, hoping to outflank this obnoxious American across the aisle. "Vodka and tonic, please." "Same as the lady's having, pal." He gave the young Englishman a wink and a thumbs-up sign, then turned back. "By the way, I'm booked in at the Holiday Inn over by Marble Arch. Great room service. Almost like home. You staying around there?" "No." She watched the steward pour her drink. "Sorry to hear that. I was wondering, maybe we . . . Do these 'business' trips of yours include taking some time off? Let you in on a secret, just between you and me. I know this little club in Soho where they have live--" he winked, "I got a membership. Tell you one thing, there's nothing like it in Chicago." "I'm afraid I'll be busy." "Too bad." He drew on his drink, then continued. "Long stay this trip?" "If you'll excuse me, Mr. --" "Warner. William J. Warner. Friends call me Bill." "Mr. Warner, I've had a very trying day. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to attempt to get some rest." "Sure. You make yourself comfortable, now." He watched as she shifted to the window seat, as far as possible from him, and stationed her leather handbag onto the aisle side. Just then the plane hit another air pocket, rattling the liquor bottles in the galley. "Maybe we'll catch up with each other in London," he yelled. "Most unlikely." She glared as she gulped the last of her drink, then carefully rotated to the window and adjusted her seat to full recline. Her face disappeared. Good riddance. After that the flight went smoothly for a few minutes, and Michael Vance began to worry. But then the turbulence resumed, shutting down drink service as their puny airplane again became a toy rattle in the hands of the gods, thirty thousand feet over the Mediterranean, buffeted by the powerful, unseen gusts of a spring storm. For a moment he found himself envying Zeno, who had only the churning sea to face. Almost hesitantly he unbuckled his seat belt and pulled himself up, balancing with one hand as he reached in the air to grapple drunkenly with the overhead baggage compartment. "Sir," the steward yelled down the aisle, "I'm sorry, but you really must remain--" "Take it easy, chum. I just need to--" Another burst of turbulence slammed the wings, tossing the cabin in a sickening lurch to the left. Now. He lunged backward, flinging his hand around to catch the leather purse and sweep it, upended, onto the floor. With a clatter the contents sprayed down the aisle. Comrade Karanova popped alert, reaching out too late to try and grab it. Her eyes were shooting daggers. "Ho, sorry about that. Damned thing just . . . Here, let me try and . . ." He bent over, blocking her view as he began sweeping up the contents off the carpeted aisle-- cosmetics, keys, and documents. The name in the passport was Helena Alsace. Inside the boarding packet was a hotel reservation slip issued by an Athens travel agent. The Savoy. Well, well, well. Looks like T-Directorate travels first class everywhere these days. Learning the ways of the capitalist West. "Here you go. Never understood why women carry so much junk in their purse." He was settling the bag back onto the seat. "Sure am sorry about that. Maybe I can buy you dinner to make amends. Or how about trying out that room service I told you about?" "That will not be necessary, Mr. Warner." She reached for the bag. "Well, just in case I'm in the neighborhood, what hotel you staying at?" "The Connaught," she answered without a blink. "Great. I'll try and make an excuse to catch you there." "Please, just let me . . ." She leaned back again, arms wrapped around her purse, and firmly closed her eyes. The Savoy, he thought again. Just my luck. That's where / always stay. Monday 9:43 A.M. "Michael, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear from you, old man. We must have lunch today." The voice emerged from the receiver in the crisp diction of London's financial district, the City, even though the speaker had been born on the opposite side of the globe. Vance noticed it betrayed a hint of unease. "Are you by any chance free around noon? We could do with a chat." "I think I can make it." He took a sip of coffee from the Strand Palace's cheap porcelain cup on the breakfast cart and leaned back. He'd known the London financial scene long enough to understand what the invitation meant. Lunch, in the private upstairs dining rooms of the City's ruling merchant banks, was the deepest gesture of personal confidence. It was a ritual believed to have the magical power to engender trust and cooperation--cementing a deal, stroking an overly inquisitive journalist, soothing a recalcitrant Labor politician. "We had him to lunch" often substituted for a character reference in the City, a confirmation that the individual in question had passed muster. "Superb." Kenji Nogami was trying hard to sound British. "What say you pop round about one-ish? I'll make sure my table is ready." "Ken, can we meet somewhere outside today? Anywhere but at the bank." "Pleasure not business, Michael? But that's how business works in this town, remember? It masquerades as pleasure. We 'new boys' have to have our perks these days, just like the 'old boys.'" He laughed. "Well then, how about that ghastly pub full of public-school jobbers down by the new Leadenhall Market. Know it? We could pop in for a pint. Nobody you or I know would be caught dead drinking there." "Across from that brokers club, right?" "That's the one. It's bloody loud at lunch, but we can still talk." Another laugh. "Matter of fact, I might even be asking a trifling favor of you, old man. So you'd best be warned." "What's a small favor between enemies. See you at one." "On the dot." As he cradled the receiver and poured the last dregs of caffeine into his cup, he listened to the blare of horns on the Strand and wondered what was wrong with the conversation that had just ended. Simple: Kenji Nogami was too quick and chipper. Which meant he was worried. Why? These days he should be on top of the world. He'd just acquired a controlling interest in the Westminster Union Bank, one of the top ten merchant banks in the City, after an unprecedented hostile takeover. Was the new venture suddenly in trouble? Not likely. Nogami had brought in a crackerjack Japanese team and dragged the bank kicking and screaming into the lucrative Eurobond business, the issuing of corporate debentures in currencies other than that of a company's home country. Eurocurrencies and Eurobonds now moved in wholesale amounts between governments, central banks, and large multinational firms. The trading of Eurobonds was centered in London, global leader in foreign exchange dealing, and they represented the world's largest debt market. In addition, Nogami had aggressively stepped up Westminster Union's traditional merchant bank operations by financing foreign trade, structuring corporate finance deals, and underwriting new issues of shares and bonds. He also excelled in the new game of corporate takeovers. None of the major London merchant bankers--the Rothschilds, Schroders, Hambros, Barings-- had originally been British, so maybe Kenji was merely following in the footsteps of the greats. Vance did know he was a first-class manager, a paragon of Japanese prudence here in the new booming, go-go London financial scene. This town used to be one of Michael Vance's sentimental favorites, a living monument to British dignity, reserve, fair play. But today it was changing fast. After the Big Bang, London had become a prisoner of the paper prosperity of its money changers, who'd been loosed in the Temple. Thanks to them the City, that square mile comprising London's old financial center, would never again be the same. After the Big Bang, the City had become a bustling beehive of brash, ambitious young men and women whose emblem, fittingly, seemed to be the outrageous new headquarters Lloyds had built for itself, a monstrous spaceship dropped remorselessly into the middle of Greek Revival facades and Victorian respectability. It was, to his mind, like watching the new money give the finger to the old. The staid headquarters of the Bank of England up the way, that grand Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, now seemed a doddering dowager at a rock concert. All the same, he liked to stay near the City, close to the action. The Savoy, a brisk ten-minute walk from the financial district, was his usual spot, but since that was out of the question this time, he'd checked into the refurbished Strand Palace, just across the street. Today he had work to do. He had to get word to the _Mino-gumi _to back off. And he was tired of dealing with lieutenants and enforcers, _kobun_. The time had come to go to the top, the Tokyo _oyabun_. The game of cat and mouse had to stop. Tokyo knew how to make deals. It was time to make one. Kenji Nogami, he figured, was just the man. Nogami, a wiry executive with appropriately graying hair and a smile of granite, was a consummate tactician who'd survived in the global financial jungle for almost three decades. When the Japanese finally got tired of the British financial club playing school tie and bowler hats and "old boy" with them, shutting them out, they'd picked Nogami to handle the hostile takeover of one of the pillars of London's merchant banking community. Japan might still be afraid to go that route with the Americans, who loved to rattle protectionist sabers, but England didn't scare them a whit. In years gone by, such attempts to violate British class privilege were squelched by a few of the Eton grads of the City chipping in to undermine the hostile bid. These days, however, nobody had the money to scare off Japan. The game was up. And after the deregulation of Big Bang, wholesale pursuit of profit had become the City's guiding principle. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a game Kenji Nogami and his Shokin Gaigoku Bank could play better than anybody in the world. Nogami saw himself as an advance man for the eventual Japanese domination of the globe's financial landscape. Maybe he was. Michael Vance knew him from a wholly different direction, now almost another life. In years gone by, Nogami had traveled with equal ease in two worlds--that of straight money and that of "hot" money. He'd always maintained the cover of a legitimate banker, but insiders knew he'd made his real fortune laundering Yakuza amphetamine receipts and importing small-caliber weapons. It was that second career that now made him the perfect pipeline for a message that needed to be delivered fast. Vance finished off the last of the coffee in his cup, then rose and strolled to the window to gaze down on the bustling Strand. The weather looked murky, typical for London. Where was Eva now? he wondered. What was she doing? Maybe she'd managed to lose Novosty and get back to thinking about the protocol. Well, he had some pressing business of his own, but the first thing was to try and find her. Maybe she was wondering right now how to get in touch with him. What places here had they been together, back in the old days? Maybe there was some location . . . the V&A? St. Pauls? or how about a restaurant? What was that one she'd loved so much? The place the IRA shot up a few years back? At that moment the white phone beside his bed interrupted his thoughts with its insistent British double chirp. He whirled around, startled. Who knew he was here? If it was the KGB, or the Japanese mob, they wouldn't bother ringing for an appointment. Finally, after the fifth burst, he decided to reach for it. Probably just the desk, calling about the breakfast things. The voice was the last one he expected. "Hello, darling." "Eva!" He almost shouted. "Where the hell are you?" "You really must stop shooting people, you know," she lectured. "You're getting to be a horrible menace to society." "What--?" "Michael." The voice hardened. "Christ, what a mess." "Are you okay?" "Yes, I think so." She paused to inhale. "But I'm literally afraid to move. I think KGB got Alex, there in Terminal Four at Heathrow. He was trying to bluff them, though, so maybe he pulled it off. Anyway, they were so tied up I just slipped past." "The hell with him. Where are--?" "I don't dare take a step outside this room now. Let's meet tonight. Besides, I want to work on translating . . . you know. I rang a scholarly bookshop I used to order from and they're delivering one of Ventris's books. Maybe I can make some headway." "I already did a bit of it." "I saw that in the files. A whole page." She laughed. "Congratulations." "Give me a break. It's been ten years." "Well, it looks like you're still able to fake the scholar bit. But just barely." "Thanks. What do you think of it so far?" "Scary. Very scary. But we have to do more. Enough so we can go public." "Exactly. Look, I've got to do a couple of things today. Can you--?" "That's fine, because I want to work on this." She sounded businesslike again, her old self. "Something to while away the empty hours. The saga inside my little Zenith has got to be the ticket out of this madness." "Maybe, but we need to put some more spin on the scenario. Just to be safe." "What?" "Not on the phone. Can you just sit tight? Play your game and let me take a shot at mine?" "It better be good." "That remains to be seen." Who knew how it would go? But if it proceeded as planned, the whole thing could be turned around. "Now where the hell are you?" "The place we always stayed, of course. Figuring you'd come here. But you stood me up, naturally. Same old Michael. So this morning I started calling around." "You mean you're--?" "At the Savoy, sweetie, our love nest of happy times past. Right across the street." CHAPTER TEN _Monday 6:32 P.M. _Tanzan Mino was dressed in a black three-quarter sleeved kimono, staring straight ahead as he knelt before the sword resting in front of him. His hands were settled lightly on his thighs, his face expressionless. Then he reached out and touched the scabbard, bowing low to it. Inside was a twelfth-century katana, a five-foot-long razor created by swordsmiths of the Mino School, from the town of Seki, near Gifu in the heart of old Honshu. It was, he believed, a perfect metaphor for Japanese excellence and discipline. The sword had now been reverenced; next he would use it to test his own centering. At this moment his mind was empty, knowing nothing, feeling nothing. As his torso drew erect, he grasped the upper portion of the scabbard with his right hand, its tip with his left, and pulled it around to insert it into the black sash at his waist. He sat rigid for a moment, poised, then thrust his right foot forward as he simultaneously grasped the hilt of the sword with his right hand, the upper portion of the scabbard with his left. In a lightning move he twisted the hilt a half- turn and drew the blade out and across, his right foot moving into the attack stance. The whip of steel fairly sang through the empty air as the sword and his body moved together. It was the _chudan no kamae _stroke, the tip of the blade thrust directly at an opponent's face, an exercise in precision, balance. Rising to a half kneel, he next lifted the sword above his head, his left hand moving up to seize the hilt in a powerful two-handed grip. An instant later he slashed downward with fierce yet controlled intensity, still holding the hilt at arm's length. It was the powerful _jodan no kamae_ stroke, known to sever iron. Finally, holding the hilt straight in front of him, he rotated the blade ninety degrees, then pulled his left hand back and grasped the mouth of the scabbard. As he rose to both feet, he raised the sword with his right hand and touched its _tsuba _handguard to his forehead in silent reverence, even as he shifted the scabbard forward. Then in a single motion he brought the blade around and caught it with his left hand just in front of the guard, still holding the scabbard. With ritual precision he guided the blade up its full length, until the tip met the opening of the sheath, and then he slowly slipped it in. This weapon, he reflected with pride, was crafted of the finest steel the world had ever seen, created by folding and hammering heated layers again and again until it consisted of hundreds of thousands of paper- thin sheets. The metallurgy of Japan had been unsurpassed for eight hundred years, and now the _Daedalus _spaceplane had once again reaffirmed that superiority. Building on centuries of expertise, he had succeeded in fashioning the heretofore-un known materials necessary to withstand the intense heat of scramjet operation. The remaining problems now lay in another direction entirely. The difficulty was not technology; it was human blundering. Lack of discipline. Discipline. The news he had just received had only served to assure him once again that discipline was essential in all of life. As he turned and stationed the sword across his desk, he surveyed his penthouse domain and understood why heads of state must feel such isolation, such impotence. You could have the best planning, the best organization, the tightest coordination, and yet your fate still rode on luck and chance. And on others. Overall, however, the scenario possessed an inescapable inevitability. A lifetime of experience told him he was right. He glanced at the sword one last time, again inspired by it, and settled himself at the desk. Tanzan Mino was known throughout Japan as a _kuromaku_, a man who made things happen. Named after the unseen stagehand who pulled the wires in Japanese theater, manipulating the stage and those on it from behind a black curtain, the _kuromaku_ had been a fixture in Japanese politics since the late nineteenth century. He fit the classic profile perfectly: He was an ultranationalist who coordinated the interests of the right-wing underworld with the on-stage players in industry and politics. In this role, he had risen from the ruins of World War II to become the most powerful man in Asia. It had been a long and difficult road. He'd begun as an Osaka street operator in the late thirties, a fervent nationalist and open admirer of Mussolini who made his followers wear black shirts in imitation of the Italian fascists. When the Pacific War began, he had followed the Japanese army into Shanghai where, under the guise of procuring "strategic materials" for the imperial Navy, he trafficked in booty looted from Chinese warehouses and operated an intelligence network for the Kempei Tai, the Japanese secret police. After Japan lost China, and the war, the occupying supreme commander for the allied powers (SCAP) labeled him a Class A war criminal and handed him a three-year term in Sugamo prison. The stone floors and hunger and rats gave him the incentive to plan for better things. The ruins of Japan, he concluded, offered enormous opportunity for men of determination. The country would be rebuilt, and those builders would rule. Thus it was that while still in Sugamo he set about devising the realization of his foremost ambition: to make himself oyabun of the Tokyo Yakuza. His first step, he had decided, would be to become Japan's gambling czar, and upon his release--he was thirty years old at the time--he had made a deal with various local governments to organize speedboat races and split the take on the accompanying wagering. It was an offer none chose to refuse, and over the next forty years he and his _Mino-gumi _Yakuza amassed a fortune from the receipts. While still in Sugamo prison he had yet another insight: That to succeed in the New Japan it would be necessary to align himself temporarily with the globe's powerful new player, America. Accordingly he began cultivating connections with American intelligence, and upon his release, he landed a job as an undercover agent for the occupa- tion's G-2 section, Intelligence. He'd specialized in black- bag operations for the Kempei Tai in Shanghai during the war, so he had the requisite skills. When SCAP's era of reconstruction wound down, he thoughtfully offered his services to the CIA, volunteering to help them crush any new Japanese political movements that smacked of leftism. It was love at first sight, and soon Tanzan Mino was fronting for the Company, putting to good use his _Mino-gumi _Yakuza as strikebreakers. With Tanzan Mino as _kuromaku_, the Yakuza and the American CIA had run postwar Japan during the early years, keeping it safe for capitalism. Then as prosperity returned, new areas of expansion beckoned. When goods could again be bought openly, the black market, long a Yakuza mainstay, began to wither away. But he had converted this into an opportunity, stepping in to fill the new Japanese consumer's need for cash by opening storefront loan services known as _sarakin_. Although his Yakuza charged interest rates as high as 70 percent, the average Japanese could walk into a side-street office and minutes later walk out with several thousand dollars, no questions asked. Unlike banks, he didn't bother with credit checks--he had well-proven collection techniques--and before long his _sarakin _were handling more consumer loans than all Japan's banks combined. His success was such that foreign bankers wanting to gain a foothold in Japan soon started coming to him. Bank of America, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan, American Express Bank--all began placing capital wholesale through the Yakuza's _sarakin_. When the CIA bankrolled the Corsican mob as strikebreakers in Marseilles in the fifties, they were merely financing heroin labs for the French Connection, but when they and America's leading banks hired on with Tanzan Mino's Yakuza, they were furthering the career of the man destined to become the world's richest right-winger. The CIA arrangement had lasted until a midlevel field consultant blew the whistle. The score for that had yet to be settled. He shrugged away the thought with a glimmer of anger and turned to study the column of green figures on the computer screen atop his desk, mentally running a total. The numbers, at least, pleased him. Capitalization for the first year was ready to be issued; the dummy corporations were in place, their paperwork impeccable. None of the financing packages was likely to raise eyebrows. The plan was as flawless as human ability could make it. As the pale light of dusk crept through the blinds, laying faint shadows across his silver hair, he reached over with a smile and touched the white stingray-skin binding on the sword's hilt. Yes, the plan was brilliant. A third world war, one of economics, had begun, but none of the other combatants fully realized it. The European trading nations of 1992 were banding together, also bringing in the new capitalists of Eastern Europe, to create a trade monolith. At the same time Japan had, through strategic planning, achieved its own Pacific trade bloc, finally realizing its aim during the war, a Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere. Now only one final target remained: the new consumers of the Soviet Union, who represented the world's largest untapped market for goods, technology, investment. The Europeans, the Americans, all the capitalists, were fighting for that prize, but Tanzan Mino was within a whisker of seizing it for Japan and Mino Industries. The Soviets would have no choice. He reached down to stroke Neko, the snow leopard who slept beside his desk, and reflected on the scenario. The Soviets had bought into it with eyes open. The plan was turning out to be absurdly easy. At the moment all he needed was the cleanly laundered payoff money. The political risks, the financial risks, everything had to be covered. The powers in the Liberal Democratic Party feared going out on a limb for such a risky strategic objective. They required encouragement. And certain prominent Japanese bankers, who would have to assist in the scenario, also needed inducement. But the money had to be cash and totally untraceable. No more Recruit-style fiascos. Where was it? He pushed that worry aside momentarily as he studied the gleaming model of the _Daedalus_, poised like a Greek statue in the center of his office. To think that the Soviets would agree not only to the hard financial and territorial terms he had demanded, but actually were willing to help Mino Industries develop the most advanced airplane the world had ever seen. Their plight was fully as desperate as he'd assumed. It was a game where he won everything. Yes, the _Daedalus _was as important as all the rest combined. It would leapfrog Japan to the undisputed ranks of the major powers, erasing forever the distinction between civilian and military technology. Still, though, there were problems. Always problems. First, the news he had just received: The laundered funds still had not been delivered. Then there was the matter of the NSA cryptographer who had been given an intercepted copy of the protocol. Three men had been lost attempting to retrieve it, but she remained at large. That was unacceptable. It had to be reclaimed, no matter the cost, lest there be a premature exposure of the plan. Timing was everything. Added to that was the puzzling matter of the Soviet test pilot, on whom the fate of the entire project hinged. He'd begun making outrageous demands, insisting on moving up the first hypersonic flight to Friday. Why? He'd once spent time in the United States as an exchange pilot. Could he be fully trusted? Tanzan Mino had finally, reluctantly, approved the schedule change, though his instincts told him to beware. His instincts rarely failed, but it was better not to appear too inflexible too soon. At this stage the test pilot had become the crucial component of the project. Sometimes you had to bend to get what you wanted, and instincts be damned. As if all that were not enough, he'd just heard an unsettling rumble out of London concerning Kenji Nogami, a _Mino-gumi kobun _for thirty years, a man he'd made rich. He turned his attention back to the computer screen and studied the numbers once more. However, he could not concentrate. The problems. He felt his anger rise, unbidden. He was too old for problems. Surmounting human incompetence was a young man's game. He had, he told himself, struggled enough for a dozen men. And now, having dedicated himself to fashioning Japan's twenty-first century ascen- dancy, he no longer really cared about money. No, what mattered now was the triumph of the Japanese people, the emperor, the Yamato spirit. His countrymen, he had always believed, shared a noble heritage with another race, one distant in time and place but brothers still. Both the modern Japanese and the ancient Greeks had pursued a mission to refine the civilizations around them, offering a powerful vision of human possibilities. They both were unique peoples chosen by the gods. He wanted, more than anything, for the entire world to at last understand that. With a sigh he turned and gave Neko a loving pat on her spotted muzzle, then touched the buzzer on his desk. Time to start solving the problems. Monday 1:03 P.M. "Michael, I'm terribly glad you could make it." Kenji Nogami smiled and reached for his pint of amber-colored lager. His tailoring was Savile Row via Bond Street, his accent Cambridge, his background well concealed. In a business where appearances counted for much, he had all the careful touches that separated the players from the pretenders-- cheeks sleek from a daily workout at his club, eyes penetrating and always alert, hair graying at the temples. Today he stood out like a beacon in the mob of chatting brokers and jobbers in the paneled gloom of the pub, his aloof bearing and dark pinstripe suit proclaiming INSIDER as clearly as neon. A Japanese to the core, he still looked as though he had belonged there for a hundred years. "By the way, congratulations on the takeover." Vance caught the pint of ale sliding across the beer-soaked mahogany, then lifted it. "I hear you scared hell out of the big players here in the City. Here's to going straight. Hope it doesn't take all the fun out of life." "It had to happen eventually, Michael." He nodded with innocent guile and raised his glass tankard in return. "Cheers." "To your health and wealth." Vance joined him in a sip. It was warm and bitter, the way he liked it. "No more intrigue." "Well . . . He winked and drank again, blowing back the foam. "We bankers still thrive on intrigue, old man. And secrecy. Otherwise somebody else would start making the money." The young brokers laughing, smoking, and drinking in the pub all looked as though they made buckets of money. Outside, the ocher-trimmed Doric columns of the refurbished Leadenhall Market looked down on the lunchtime crowds of the financial district, almost all men in white shirts and dark suits, the modern uniform of the money changer. "Trouble with secrets, though"--Vance settled his mug onto the wet bar and looked up--"is that eventually the word gets out." Nogami studied him. "Are you hinting at something? Something I should know?" "Maybe I'm just thinking out loud. But what if a guy like me came across some proprietary information, sort of by accident, and consequently an old friend of ours back home in Tokyo was very unhappy?" "If that 'friend' is who I think you mean, he's not someone either of us wants to see unhappy, do we?" He sipped solemnly at his beer. "Speak for yourself," Vance replied, and drank again. "But to continue, what if this hypothetical guy had decided to try and simplify the situation, get news back to Tokyo about a way to solve everybody's problem? Then he'd need an information conduit. One that's tried and true." Nogami reached for a tray of peanuts, took a small handful and shook them in his fist before popping one into his mouth. He chewed for a second, then smiled. "One way might be to have a drink with an old, shall we say, acquaintance, in hopes he might be able to help with some communication." "Sounds like we're making headway here." He paused. "Say this hypothetical guy wants to talk a deal." "What sort of deal?" Nogami chewed on more peanuts, his eyes noncommittal. "For instance, if Tokyo'll lay off, he'll see what he can do about some laundered funds our friend's been waiting for. He's in a position to make it happen. But if they keep on with the muscle, the deal's off. In other words, no play, no pay." "Supposing I know the individual in Tokyo you mean, as things stand now you've quite possibly come to the wrong man." He sighed. "This isn't the old days, my friend. I'm not wired in like I used to be. Times have changed, thank God. I'm out. I run an honest merchant bank, at least as honest as you can in this new day and age. And I like it that way." "Ken, don't start the runaround." Vance tried to keep his tone easy. "You're not talking to some bank examiner now. In Japan connections last forever. We both know that." "You were never more correct." Nogami examined his lager. "Obligations remain, even though influence wanes. Which is, in fact, one of the reasons I wanted to see you today. Michael, if I do you this favor, could you perhaps do one for me in return?" "Is it legit?" "I suppose that depends," he laughed. "Look, of course I'd be more than happy to send a secure telex, if that's all you want. Heaven knows I owe you that much." He paused to sip from his mug. "But I'll sound rather a fool if I don't know the first thing about the situation. Can't you at least give me some idea?" "Tokyo'll understand. And the less you know, the better for everybody." "All right. But my position right now is . . . well, I may not be able to help as much as I'd like." "I don't like the sound of that." "It's the problem I mentioned to you. That 'individual' is calling in favors with me now, not the other way around. So this could be a trifle awkward, if you see what I mean." "Ken, have you forgot I took care of you once? Remember the Toshiba milling-machine sale to the Soviets? All the posturing back in the U.S.? It could have been a lot worse for your team politically. Afterwards you said you owed me one." "Yes, and I still appreciate what you did, tipping me off about the French, the fact they'd already sold such machines to the Soviets years ago. It helped us dampen the fires of moral indignation on Capitol Hill." He took another sip. "I got a lot of points with the right people in the LDP." "I just got fed up with all the bullshit. No harm done." He leaned back. "But now it's your turn." "Fair enough." He gazed around the crowded, smoke- filled pub. "Michael, I don't know if we really should be talking here. Care to take a walk, down to the Thames? Get a bit of air. Maybe hope for some sunshine?" "All right." Vance tossed down a five-pound note and reached for his overcoat, draped across the stool next to them. "Weather's nice. At least for London." Nogami nodded as they pushed through the crowded doorway and into the street. "Don't say what you're thinking. Don't say you can't imagine why I moved here." "Never crossed my mind." Vance took a breath of the fresh air, expelling the residual smoke from his lungs. The lunchtime mob elbowed them from every side. "You know the reason as well as I do. It's all part of our overall strategy. Japan is a world player now, Michael. I'm part of the vanguard that's going to do to financial services worldwide what we did to semiconductors and electronics. You just watch and see." "I already believe it." He did. Japan's dominance of the world money scene was just a matter of time. They navigated their way through the midday throng. On every side lunchtime shoppers were munching sandwiches, lining up for knick-knacks to take back to the office. They strolled past the rear of the tubular- steel Lloyds building, then headed down a cobblestone side street to- ward the river. "But we had to come here and buy our base in order to be part of the financial game in Europe," Nogami continued, not missing a beat. "We expect to be major players before long." "I'd say you're already one. When the Plaza Accord sliced the greenback in half, it doubled the value of Japan's bankroll. Every yen you had was suddenly worth twice as many dollars, as if by magic." "We can't complain." He paused to inhale the gray, heavy air. "Of course the locals here in London are constantly enlisting their 'old boy' regulators to make up new rules to hamper us, but Tokyo invented that little ploy. It almost makes this place feel like home." "Word is you play all the games. I hear Westminster Union now handles more Eurodollar deals than anybody." "We pull our weight." He smiled and dodged a red double-decker bus as they crossed Lower Thames Street. "You name a major currency, we'll underwrite the debt offering." "Lots of action." "There is indeed. Sometimes perhaps too much. Which is why I wanted to talk down here, by the river. Shall we stroll out onto London Bridge?" "Sounds good." Spread before them now was the muddy, gray expanse of London's timeless waterway. Shakespeare had gazed on it. Handel had written music to accompany fireworks shot over it. Today a few tugs were moving slowly up the center channel, and a sightseeing boat was headed down to Greenwich. Cranes of the new Docklands development loomed over the horizon downriver. "So what's the problem?" Vance turned to study his face. There was worry there, and pain. "Michael, that 'individual' you spoke of. He has, in the famous phrase, 'made me an offer I can't refuse.' He wants me to handle a debt issue, corporate debentures, bigger than anything this town has ever seen. Anything Europe has ever seen." "You should be ordering champagne." "Not this time." He turned back to study the river. "The whole thing stinks." "Who're the players?" "It's supposedly to raise capital for the Mino Industries Group. I've been 'asked' to underwrite the bonds, then unload them with minimal fanfare and keep a low profile." He looked back. "But it's almost fraud, Michael. I don't think there's anything behind them at all. Nothing. The beneficiaries are just phony Mino Industries shadow corpo- rations. Only nobody will know it. You see, the bonds are zero-coupons, paying no interest till they mature ten years from now. So it will be a full decade before the buyers find out they've acquired paper with no backing." "Won't be the first time the sheep got sheared by a hustler." "Michael, I'm not a hustler," he snapped. "And there's more. They're so-called bearer bonds. Which means there's no record of who holds them. Just one more trick to keep this thing below the radar." "Typical. 'Bearer bonds' always sell like hotcakes in high-tax locales like the Benelux countries. That mythical Belgian dentist can buy them anonymously and screw the tax man." "Yes, that's part of what makes Eurocurrency ideal for this, all that homeless money floating around over here. No government is really responsible for keeping track of it. In fact, every effort has been made to ensure that these debentures appeal to greed. Their yield will float, pegged at two full points above the thirty-year British government bond, the gilt. As lead underwriter I'll have the main re- sponsibility, but I'm also supposed to form a syndicate of Japanese brokerage houses here--Nomura, Daiwa, Sumitomo, the others--to make sure the offering goes off without a hitch. But that precaution will hardly be necessary. At those interest rates, they should practically fly out the door." He sighed. "Which is a good thing, because . . . because, Michael, the amount I'm being asked to underwrite is a hundred billion dollars." "And that's just for the first year, right?" Nogami looked up, startled. "How did you know?" "Call it a lucky guess." He took a deep breath. So that's where the funding stipulated in the protocol was going to come from. European suckers. My God, he thought, the play is superb. "Michael, nobody could float an offering like that and have it covered with real assets. Nobody. Taken all together that's enough money to capitalize a dozen world-class corporations." He paused. "Of course, I won't be offering it all at once. The debentures will dribble out over the period of a year, and then the next year, it starts all over again. For five years." "So you're supposed to raise five hundred billion dollars in the Eurobond market over five years. Not impossible, but it's a tall order." "Especially since the ratings will be smoke and mirrors. It is, in effect, an unsecured loan." He looked away, down at the swirling brown surface of the Thames. "You know what it really means? He wants me to sell _junk bonds_. And I can't refuse." His voice came close to a quaver. "Just when I was well into earning the esteem of the European banking community, I'm suddenly about to become the Drexel Burnham of Eurobonds. I'll be operating the investment equivalent of a shell game." "Ken, why are you telling me all this?" Vance had never seen him this upset. "Because I have to find out what this is all about. What the money's going to be used for." "I take it the Tokyo _oyabun's_ not talking." "Michael, no one dares question him. You know that." His voice grew formal. "It's the Yakuza way." "Well, you're in London now. A free man." "It's not that simple. You may not know--it's a very well-kept secret-- that he capitalized my takeover of the Westminster Union Bank here. He put together a consortium of private financiers for me. A lot of the money was actually his. The whole thing had to be low profile, since none of our banks dared have its name associated with a hostile takeover in London. Our institutions are still squeamish about such things. They all cheered me on in private, but in public they didn't know anything about it." "Maybe he had this little return favor in mind all along." "To tell you the truth, I've since wondered that myself. Anyway, now he's calling in my obligation. We Japanese call it _giri_. I have to play. But either way I'm ruined. If I do it, I'll become a pariah in the European banking community. If I don't . . . well, the consequences are almost unthinkable." "Ken, I don't know how to say this, but there's a chance this whole scenario is bigger than anything you can imagine." Nogami turned to stare. "What do you know?" "Let's just say I hear things. But first we need to strike our deal." "Of course. As I said, I'll send a telex, from my secure trading room, for what good it may do. But you've got to help me too. Please." He turned back to the river. "You know, Michael, I like my life here. More and more. Even given all that's going on here these days, the pace is still much more civilized than Tokyo. For all our prosperity back home, I think we've traded something very valuable. Call it our soul perhaps. Here I feel almost free from the old days, part of a real, legitimate world. I hated all the money laundering, the shady deals. These days I can look myself in the face." "I was temporarily changing professions myself, until about a week ago. Then this problem came up." He waved to a pleasure boat slowly motoring up the river. It was only a thirty footer, but the lines reminded him of the _Ulysses_. It made him suddenly homesick for real sunshine and real air. "Michael, what's going on? We need to work together." "I'll just say this. I think the godfather's got a big surprise cooking. Maybe we're both caught in the middle." He smiled. "If that's true, we can help each other out. Though I can't push too hard." He took a deep breath and gazed at the murky London sky. "But still . . . I'll tell you the truth. I'm very seriously thinking I may just refuse to touch the whole thing. Tanzan Mino--yes, why not name names? He's even made vague threats against my family. The man has pushed me too far this time. Somewhere it has to end." "You're a brave man. He still runs some very persuasive muscle. Better have your life insurance paid up." "I'm well aware. But I don't want to jeopardize everything I've built here. My whole new life. So that's why I need you. If you could find out what's behind all this, I could decide whether I should risk everything and go ahead with the offering. Or just stand up to him at last. Otherwise . . ." "What's the timing?" "I have to list the first offering with the Issuing House Association day after tomorrow. We've already put together the paperwork, just in case." "Pretty tight." "Michael, I'll see what I can do about your problem. And if there's anything else, you know I'll try my best." "Depending on whether my message gets through, I could be needing somebody to handle some cash. A reasonably substantial sum. Maybe as part of our little quid pro quo you could arrange it." "Is this money . . .?" He paused awkwardly. "Well, you understand my question." "It's laundered. Clean as a hound's tooth." "Where is it now?" "Don't worry," Vance smiled. "It's liquid." "And the sum?" "Hang on to your bowler hat. It's around a hundred million U.S." "Is that all?" he laughed. "That figure is barely a blip on the screen these days. For a minute there I thought you were talking real money." "Seems a reasonably substantial sum." "It's scarcely more than walking-around money in our business, as you well know. Over two hundred billion passes through the foreign exchange markets every day, a large amount of it right here in London." "Well, there could be a small complication, if the KGB gets into the action." "KGB?" He pulled up sharply. "What in bloody hell do they--?" "It's a long story." "But why would Soviet intelligence be involved? They're supposed to be keeping a lower profile these days." "Rumor has it they let this one get past them. The money left home without a passport and now they look like fools for letting it happen." "I see." He grew silent, then glanced at his watch and pulled his overcoat tighter. "Well, perhaps I should send that cable now. Before Tokyo tucks in for the night." "The sooner the better." "And the matter of concern to me?" "Let me think it over." Vance spoke slowly. "But in the meantime, I'd strongly advise you to hold off with the offering." "You're not telling me what you know. Is that fair?" "No. But who said the world's got to be fair? There's a play about to go down. I know about part of it, not all. But before I'm through, well, let's just say that when somebody starts using muscle on me, I sort of lose my sense of proportion." "Is it that bad?" His stare carried alarm. "What am I supposed to do?" "Sit tight on the offering. Don't say yes or no, just find a way to postpone it. And send that telex. I'll dictate it for you. After that, you can reach me at my hotel. Strand Palace." "The Strand Palace? Michael, you?" He smiled. "Hardly up to your usual standards." "I don't do as much freelance these days as I used to. So I have to learn to live closer to my means." "I'll believe that when I see it," he said with a laugh. "You're not telling me the truth. About anything." "You're right. And it's for your own good. You just stall on the offering and let me play this my way. If things aren't straightened out in a day, two tops, we're both in a lot of trouble." "Two days?" "It has to happen by then. Too much is going on." "Now you're really starting to make me alarmed." "You should be." Because if this isn't settled in two days, he thought, somebody's probably going to be dead. CHAPTER ELEVEN Monday 8:05 P.M. She checked her watch, then took a last look around the spacious room. It was time. Her bag lay on the bed, packed and waiting to be sent later. The part of her luggage that mattered was the vinyl flight bag by the door, containing the Zenith. With a sigh she rose, threw on her light tan raincoat, and grabbed the bag. This was the part she'd been dreading, and she'd done her best to try and look inconspicuous--a dressy beige outfit and a few silver accessories. She'd also washed her hair, which always made her feel better. The carpeted hallway was clear as she closed the door, tugged to be certain it was secure, then took a deep breath, turned, and headed toward the elevator. She hadn't been outside the room for almost twenty-four hours. This, she told herself, must be what house arrest feels like. It was about to be over. All she had to do now was make her way through the Savoy lobby, walk diagonally across the Strand, then through another lobby, another elevator, and she'd be with Michael. The more she allowed herself to think about the whole situation, the angrier she got, at all the bean-counters at NSA who wouldn't listen to her, at the entire American intelligence establishment. How could everybody have missed what was happening? Maybe, she thought, the air outside would help cool her off. She definitely needed to get out of the Savoy, if only to counter the claustrophobia. Stretch your legs, sweetheart, and think. The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. The crisp, shiny, expensive fashions greeted her, the iridescence of diamonds; the night people of London were headed out for dinner and the clubs. A cross section of the jet set and the bored rich. Nobody seemed to be having fun. She looked at them as she stepped in, wondering what they would think if they knew what was in her vinyl bag. Michael used to say the only thing people like these were interested in was impressing headwaiters. He was probably dead right. The LOBBY light flashed above the doors, and they slid open to reveal muted wood paneling, English antiques, and sparkling mirrors. Gray- suited bellboys carrying baggage and opening elevator doors mingled with the bustling evening throng. It was a world unto itself. Not pausing, she strode past the pink marble columns and glowing chandeliers, then headed for the glassed entrance. Outside, the traffic on the Strand, the glitter of London at night, all of it beckoned. Being in Crete again had really made her think, about a lot of things. Mostly though, she'd thought about Michael Vance, Jr. Ex-archaeologist, ex-spook, ex- . . . God knew what. Still, she'd seen plenty worse . . . the paunchy assistant-this and vice-that, all divorced and paying alimony and whining. But in this man-short time, with hungry divorcees flocking the bars, they didn't have to bother keeping up appearances. Middle-aged decay was their inalienable right. Mike, whatever else you said about him, still looked as good as he had a decade ago. He was showing some mileage, sure, but on him it didn't look half bad. Maybe it was the tequila. Could they start over again, that new beginning he'd hinted about? Maybe it was at least worth a try. She moved on through the milling mob in the lobby, trying to be casual, to blend. He'd said she should get out of the Savoy as soon as possible, just send her things and move in with him. But why didn't he come over and stay with her? she'd asked. The Savoy was more romantic, more like the old days. That's when he'd abruptly switched the subject, saying they couldn't discuss it on the phone. Probably he had something working. Well, she had a few surprises too. She'd spent the day hacking away at the protocol, and she'd learned a lot more. It was even worse than she'd imagined. As she pushed through the revolving doors and into the driveway, the clack-clack of London taxi motors and the rush of cold air brought back all the adrenaline of that moment in Iraklion when she had first seen Alex. She grasped the flight bag more firmly and moved on down the left-hand sidewalk, past the National Westminster Bank at the corner and toward the street. Almost there. Just across waited the Strand Palace and safety. In her rush, she'd missed an important event. Mingled in among the lobby crowd was a couple she'd failed to notice. They'd been over on her left, by the desk. The man, in a rumpled brown jacket, was haggard, with bloodshot eyes. His beard was untrimmed, but it did disguise the bruises on his face. Unseen by Eva he'd suddenly raised his hand and pointed at her. Nor did she see the woman with him-- dark coiffure, elegant makeup, Oscar de la Renta cocktail dress--though she wouldn't have recognized her in any case. Only moments after Eva Borodin walked up the Savoy driveway, the woman was speaking into the radio she'd had in her shiny evening purse. Monday 8:08 P.M. He glanced at his watch, then looked out his smudgy hotel window and down at the Strand. Two more minutes and there should be a knock on the door. Would she believe him? That he'd set up the play? Maybe he couldn't quite believe it himself, but still, they had the biggest share of poker chips now. They were about to take control of the game. It was almost, almost time to relax. Then he saw her, moving briskly across the Strand while furtively looking left and right. Good. After he watched her disappear into the lobby down below, he turned back from the window and walked to the bar. Time to crack open the Sauza Tres Generaciones, Tequila Anejo--Mexico's well-aged contribution to the well-being of all humankind. Hard enough to come by anywhere, it was virtually unobtainable here in London, but his search had succeeded. He lifted it out of its tan box, admiring the coal black bottle, then gave the cork a twist and sniffed the fragrance, fresh as nectar, before settling it back on the bar. Next he removed a bottle of rare Stolichnaya Starka vodka from the freezer and stationed it beside the Sauza. This, he knew, was Eva's favorite, made with water from the Niva River and flavored with pear leaves and Crimean apples as well as a touch of brandy and a dash of port. A few moments later he heard a light knock on the door, and with a feeling of relief he stepped over. "Michael," the voice was a muted whisper, "hurry." He swung it inward and there she was. Without a word she moved into his arms. "Are you okay?" He touched her face, then lifted her lips to his. They were cold, tight. "Yes. I . . . I think so. God, what a day. I kept wanting to call you, darling." "I was out." "I assumed that. I can't wait to show you my translation." "Hey, slow down." He kissed her again. "Let's have a celebration drink first. Just you and me." "Michael, don't talk nonsense. We've got to think." "I got a bottle of your native wine, a little Tequila Anejo for me. Never hurt the mental processes. Come on, what do you say?" He turned and headed for the bar. She was unzipping the vinyl flight bag. "How can you . . .?" Then she caught herself and laughed. "It better be frozen, Like ice-cold syrup." "Cold as Siberia. It should go down well with the latest news item. We've now got a deal on the table with Tokyo." "What kind of deal?" She glanced over. "I told them if they'll call off the gorillas, I'll see about lightening up their money problems. The Alex Novosty imbroglio." "You're not really going to do it?" He laughed. "What do you think?" "Darling, whatever you're planning, it's not going to stop them." "Why don't we wait and see?" "I've seen enough already." "Stay mellow." He was handing her a tall, thin glass of clear liquid, already frosting on the sides. "Make any progress on the protocol?" "Nobody in the world is going to believe it. This is just too big. I almost wonder if a newspaper would touch it, at least until we have more than we have now." She'd set down her drink and was opening the flight bag. Out came the Zenith, and moments later a text was on the screen. "How much farther did you get?" "Only another page or so. This is tougher going than I thought. But here, look. This section picks up from where you left off. Mother Russia's practically giving away the store." _. . . 3. Within one year of the satisfaction of all formalities pursuant to the above-designated credits, the USSR will renounce sole proprietorship of the Kurile Islands and the Soviet oblast of Sakhalin. Those territories will thereafter be administered as a free-trade zone and joint protectorate of the USSR and Japan, with exclusive economic development rights extended to all designated corporations comprised in Mino Industries Group (MIG). 4. MIG is hereby granted full rights to engage in capital investment and manufacturing development in the USSR, which capital investment may comprise all or part of the financial credits specified in Item 1. MIG will be permitted to hold 51% or greater interest in all joint industrial facilities, and the operation and control of those facilities will rest solely with managers designated by MIG unless otherwise mutually agreed. 5. Within two years of the date of this agreement, the Soviet ruble will be declared a free-market currency, convertible to yen and other Western currencies at rates governed solely by the established world currency exchanges. Furthermore, from that time forward, Japanese- manufactured durables and consumer goods may be purchased directly in rubles, at prevailing rates of exchange. 6. Upon ratification of this Protocol by the Japanese Diet and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces will have full access, for purposes not hostile to the sovereign security of the USSR, to all military installations on Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands including facilities now used exclusively by the Soviet Navy and Soviet Air Force. The security of the Far Eastern oblast of the USSR will henceforth be a joint obligation of the USSR and the Japanese Self- Defense Forces. _ He looked up, his eyes narrowing. "So it's just what we thought. A global horsetrade. Tokyo supplies Moscow with half a trillion in loans and financing over the next five years, the money they need for 'restructuring,' and the Soviets cede back the territory they took after the war, the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin, that perennial thorn in the side of the Japanese right." "Not to mention which, Japan also gets a whole new target for all that excess capital burning a hole in its pocket. As well as first crack at Sakhalin's oil reserves. Michael, put it together and you realize Japan's about to wrap up what she's been angling for ever since the war--total economic dominance of the Far East, Russia and all." Right, he thought, but which Russians are making this secret deal? Could it be the hardliners, who're lining up a new military alliance? Is that what the "prototype" is all about. "By the way, did you look closely at the early part, the bit I translated?" He walked over and checked the traffic on the Strand below. "There's some kind of surprise package under the tree. I don't think it's Christmas chocolates." "You mean the prototype? Bothers me too." She took another sip of her freezing Stoly. "What do you think it is?" "My wild guess would be some kind of advanced weapons system. If the Soviets are planning to give back territory, they'd better be getting some goodies." "Well, any way you look at it, this whole thing is brilliant, synergistic. Everybody comes out with something they want." "World geopolitics is about to become a whole new ball game. But that other bit, the prototype, seems to be a really important part of it. There're specifications, a hard delivery date, the works. That's where the quid pro quo starts getting kinky." "It does sound like some entirely new kind of weapon," she agreed. "Who knows? Whatever it turns out to be, though, it's something they had to develop together. Which probably means high-tech. But we're going to find out, you and me." He studied the street below, where traffic was a blaze of headlights, then turned back. "Tell me again about those satellite photos you mentioned out at the palace." "You mean the ones of Hokkaido, the Japanese island up north?" "Right. What exactly was in them? You said it looked like a runway?" "I said that's what I thought it was. But nobody at NSA is authorized to be interested officially in what goes on in Japan, so the oversight committee wouldn't spring for a real analysis, an infrared overlay or anything. The budget cuts, et cetera." "Which is exactly what whoever planned this figured on, right? If you had some military surprise cooking, what better place to hide it than in the wilds of northern Japan, where nobody would bother to pay attention?" "Well, the location couldn't be more perfect for a joint project. Hokkaido is right across the straits from Sakhalin. All nice and convenient." She stared at her vodka as the room fell silent. "Maybe if we finished the translation." "Somehow I doubt it's going to spell out the details. The so-called prototype hasn't been described so far, at least as far as we've got. Probably a deliberate omission." "Our problem is, without the full text nobody's going to take our word for all this." She finished off her Stoly with a gulp, then got up to pour another. "Maybe there's a way." He caught her and pulled her into his arms. "But first things first. Why don't we forget about everything just for tonight?" She stared at him incredulously. "Darling, get serious. Right now there are people out there wanting to make us disappear because we know too much. They've already tried. That's very real." "Look, that's being handled. Why can't you trust me?" He hugged her again. "I think it's time we had an evening just for us. So how about a small intimate reunion tonight, right here, dinner for two? While we wait for the fish to bite." "I don't believe I'm hearing this." "We'll both slip into something comfortable, have the greatest meal in the world sent up, along with about a case of wine, then retire to that plush bed over there and spend the rest of the evening getting reacquainted?" "You're serious, aren't you?" She studied his eyes. They had a lascivious twinkle. "Of course." She hesitated, then thought, Why not call his bluff? "All right. If you can be insane, then I can too. But if we're going to do it, then let's go all the way. I'm sick of living off room service." She slapped down her glass. "Know what I really want? I want to go out somewhere expensive and splashy. With you. I want to do London." "Great!" He was beaming. Whoops. He hadn't been bluffing. "I dare you." She rose and threw her arms around him. Suddenly it was all too wonderful to forgo. "We'll put this Zenith in the hotel safe and act like real people for an evening. Then we'll come back here and you'll get totally ravished. That's a promise, sweetheart." "I sort of had it figured for the other way around." "Oh, yeah. We'll see, and may the best ravisher win." She clicked off the computer and shoved it into the flight bag, then turned back. "How about that wonderful restaurant we went to way back when? You know. That night we both got so drunk and you almost offered to make an hon- est woman of me." "An offer you saw fit to refuse in advance." He looked her over. "But I assume you mean that place up in Islington? What was it? The Wellington or something?" "Right. It was sort of out of the way. Down a little alley." She threw her arms around him. "That night was so wonderfully romantic, like a honeymoon." "It almost was," he smiled, remembering. "Let's call for a reservation and just go." "Darling, are we acting insane?" She looked up, eyes uncertain. "I'm half afraid." "Don't be." He touseled her hair before thinking. "Nobody's going to touch you, believe me. I've nailed the bastards. All of them." Monday 11:28 P.M. It was flawless. They dined in a Gothic, ivy-covered greenhouse in the garden of a maitre nineteenth-century inn where waiters scurried, the maitre d' hovered, and the wine steward nodded obsequiously every time he passed their table. It was even better than their first visit. After a roulade of red caviar, Eva had the ragout au gratin, Vance the boeuf a la ficelle, his favorite. For dessert they shared the house specialty, tulipe glacee aux fruits, after which they lingered over Stilton cheese and a World War I bottle of Lisbon port. And they talked and laughed and talked. They both tried to focus on the good times: trips they'd taken, places they'd shared, what they'd do next--together. She even agreed to spend August helping him sail the Ulysses over to Crete, his latest plan. The gap in time began slowly to drop away. It was as though they'd been reborn; everything felt new, fresh, and full of delight. Who said you couldn't start over? Neither wanted it to end, but finally, reluctantly, he signaled for the check. After a round of farewells from the staff, they staggered out into the brisk evening air. "Where to now?" He was helping her into a black London taxicab, after drunkenly handing the uniformed doorman a fiver. "God, I'm so giddy I can't think." She crashed into the seat and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Yanks?" The driver glanced back with a genuine smile. He wore a dark cap and sported a handlebar mustache of Dickensian proportions. "Been to New York myself, you know, with the missus. Two years back. Don't know how you lot can stand the bleedin' crime, though." "Worse every year," Vance nodded. "So, where'll it be, my lords and ladies?" He hit the ignition. "How about heading down to the Thames, say Victoria Embankment Gardens, around in there." "Lovely spot for a stroll. Private like, if you know what I mean." He winked, then revved the engine and started working the vehicle down the narrow street, headed toward the avenue. "Thing about the States, you'd be daft to walk in a park there after dark." He glanced back. "So how was it?" "What?" "The Wellington, mate. You know, I take plenty of Arabs there, bleedin' wogs, them and their fine Soho tarts." "We made do." "If you've got the quid, why not. That's what I always say." He smiled above his mustache. "Guess you know IRA bombed the front room about ten years back, bloody bastards. Lobbed one right through the big window." "We were hoping they'd never hit the same place twice." "With those bloodthirsty micks you never know, mate, you never know. Only good thing about the States, no bleedin' IRA." He made a right turn off Goswell Road onto Clerkenwell Road. Even at this late hour, the traffic was brisk, black taxis side by side. "Michael, I love Victoria Gardens." Eva reached up and bit his ear. "Can we dance in the moonlight?" "Why not. I think it's romantic as hell." He drew her closer. "Probably shouldn't tell you this, but back in my youth, when I was living in London one summer, I used to take a plump little Irish hotel maid down there. I confess to a series of failed assaults on her well-guarded Catholic virtue." "Maybe this time your luck will change," she giggled. And she bit him again. "I'll never be seventeen again, but I'm willing to give it one more try." He turned to study the traffic behind them. Had the play started already? Yep, there it was. A dark car was following them, had pulled out right behind as they left the restaurant's side street. It was trailing discreetly, but it was in place. Pretty much on schedule, he told himself. They must have found out by now. "Darling, I want to make you feel seventeen all over again." She snuggled closer. "I'm starting to feel good again. I'd almost forgot you could do that for me. Thank you." He kissed her, then leaned forward and spoke through the partition. "See those headlights behind us?" "I think they were waiting outside, at the restaurant. Noticed them there. Now they look to be going wherever you're going." The burly cabbie glanced into his side mirror. "Friends of yours?" "In a manner of speaking. I think we've just revised our destination. Make it the Savoy instead. The main entrance there on the Strand." "Whatever you say. Forget the park?" "You've got it. And try not to lose them. Just make sure they don't know that you know. Figure it out." "Having some sport with your friends, eh?" "Work on it." "Oh, Christ." Eva revolved to look. "Michael, what is it?" "My guess is somebody found out something, and they're very upset." She grasped his hand. "Why not try and lose them in the traffic?" "They probably know where we're staying. What's the point?" "I do hope you know what you're doing." "Trust me. The Savoy's a nice friendly place for a drink. We'll ask them in, maybe drop by the American bar, there on the mezzanine." "Why did we go out?" She threw her arms around him. "I knew it was a risk and still--" "Relax." He kissed her. "We're just headed home after a lovely dinner. And when we get there, maybe we'll ask them in for a nightcap." "Who do you think it is?" "This is a friendly town. Why don't we just wait and find out?" "Right. I'm dying to know who wants to kill us now." She turned to stare again at the headlights. "After all, it's been almost a day and a half since somebody's--" "Hey, we've had a great evening. Nobody's going to spoil that. This will just top it off." He looked back again, then leaned forward as the driver turned onto the Strand. "Be sure and take us all the way down the driveway." "Whatever you say." He flipped on his blinker, then checked the mirror. "Seems your friends are coming along." "That's the idea." Vance passed him a ten-pound note as they rolled to a halt. "Nice job, by the way." "Anything for a Yank." He checked the bill, then tipped his hat. "Many thanks, gov'nor." "Michael." Eva froze. "I'm not getting out." "Come on." He reached for her hand. "This is going to be the most fun we've had all night." He looked up at the gray-uniformed Savoy doorman approaching. "Trust me." The other car, a black Mercedes, had stopped just behind them, and now its doors swung out on both sides. The first to emerge were two surly men in heavy, bulging suits; next came an expensively dressed, dark- haired woman; and the last was a bearded man who had to be helped. He seemed weak and shaky. Vance waved to him and beckoned him forward. "Alex, what a surprise. Glad you brought your friends. I was starting to worry we might miss each other this time." "Michael." His voice faltered as he walked past the others, limping. "We must talk. Now." "Great idea. Let's ask everybody in for a drink." The woman was staring, cold as ice, while the two men flanked her on either side, waiting. Vance smiled and greeted her. "Vera, talk about luck. And I'll bet you were worried we wouldn't manage to meet up in London. Small world." The woman was trying to ignore him as she addressed Eva. "You have in your possession classified Soviet materials." "If I do, that's your problem." She glared back. "No, Ms. Borodin." The woman moved forward, carrying a leather purse. "It is your problem." "Well, now. Looks like we're all ready for a nightcap." Vance took Eva's hand, nodded at the doorman, and led her through the lobby doors. Over his shoulder he yelled back. "I honestly recommend the American bar upstairs. Terrific view." "Michael, please wait." Novosty limped after him, through the doorway, then grasped his arm. "We need to talk first." "About what?" "You know very well. The money. Michael, the game is up, can't you see? I've got to return it, all of it, and face the consequences, God help me. I have no choice. They--" "You know, Alex, that's probably a good idea. Things were getting too rough. This was a hustle you should have left to the big boys. I tried to tell you that back in Athens, the other morning. Just give it back." "What are you saying?" He went pale. "Just return the money. Try and make them see it was a misunderstanding. How were you supposed to know it was embezzled? You were just following orders, right? They can probably cover the whole thing over as just some kind of paperwork shuffle." "Michael, don't play games with me." He was clenching Vance's sleeve, his voice pleading. "Hey, we're partners, remember? I'll back you all the way." He urged Eva on past the gaggle of bellmen and into the marbled lobby. The chandeliers sparkled and the room still bustled with bejeweled evening people. "Now we're all just going to have a very civilized drink." The possibility of that seemed to be diminishing, however. The two men, clearly KGB "chauffeurs," had now moved alongside menacingly. "You will come with us." Vera Karanova was approaching Eva. "Both of you. A car is waiting, at the entrance on the river side." "Down by the park?" Vance kept urging Eva across the lobby, toward the staircase leading up to the bar. "Funny thing. We were just talking about the Embankment Gardens." Vera nodded toward the empty tearoom and the steps beyond, which led down toward the river side, then spoke quietly in Russian to the two men. They shouldered against Vance, the one on the right reaching for Eva's arm. "Easy with the muscle, hero." He caught the man's paisley tie and yanked him around, spinning him off balance, then kneed him onto the floor. "Michael, wait." Novosty stepped between them, then took Vance's arm and drew him farther ahead. "About the money. You've--" "What about it?" He looked puzzled. "Just return it, like I told you." Novosty's eyes twitched above his beard. "Michael, the entire sum was withdrawn from the Moscow Narodny Bank at eleven o'clock this morning. The whole hundred million. It's vanished." "Sounds like a problem. Now how do you suppose a thing like that could have happened?" "You know very well." His voice was almost a sob. "It was authorized right after the bank opened. Someone requested that the funds be converted into Eurodollar bearer bonds and open cashiers checks, all small denominations. Which were then picked up by a bonded courier service." His voice cracked again. "I don't know what to do. The bank claims they have no more responsibility." "Legally, I guess that's right. They're probably in the clear." "Michael, you must have arranged it. Using the account numbers and identification I gave you--" "Prove it." "But how? I have to return the funds, or they'll kill me. I told them only you could have done it, but they don't believe me." "Interesting thing about bearer bonds and open cashiers checks. They're same as cash. Everybody's favorite form of hot money. Very liquid and totally untraceable. For all we know your hundred million could be in Geneva by now, taking in the view of the lake." He turned and pecked Eva on the cheek. "Ready for that nightcap?" Novosty caught his arm and tried to pull him back. "You won't get away with this. I'm warning you. You're a dead man." "You know, I sort of look at it the other way around. I figure whoever copped that cash this morning got a hundred-million-dollar insurance policy. Because you see, if T-Directorate wants to kiss their hundred million _do svedania_, the best way possible would be to keep up with the muscle here tonight. That could make it just disappear forever. There'd be a lot of explaining to do. Probably make a very negative impression on certain people back at Dzerzhinsky Square. Vera here might even have to turn in all her gold cards." "What are you saying?" Now Comrade Karanova had moved closer. "Is it really true you have the embezzled funds?" She examined Vance with a startled look, then glanced at Novosty, as though to confirm. His eyes were defeated as he nodded. "You should check the desk here more often." Vance pointed toward the mahogany reception. "Photocopies of the open cashiers checks were dropped off for you at nine o'clock tonight. So maybe it's time everybody talked to me." He thumbed back at her two bodyguards. "For starters how about losing those two apes. Send them down to the park for a stroll. Then maybe we can talk. Over a drink. The vanguard of the proletariat sits down with the decadent capitalists. Could be there's a deal here yet. East meets West." "Tell me what you want," Vera Karanova said, without noticeable enthusiasm. "For starters, how about some protection. If these incompetents of yours can manage it." "From whom?" "Look, there's a deal cooking, and I think there's more to it than meets the eye. I do know there's a very smart individual, on the other side of the globe, who's got some very definite plans for Eva and me. As well as for Mother Russia. I would suggest it might be in your interest to help us stop him while we still can. He's never played straight, and I don't think he's about to start now." "I have my responsibilities too. Just return the money and we will handle the situation after that." "The best thing you can do right now is stay out of the way. I've seen too many screw-ups out of Dzerzhinsky Square to turn this thing over to Moscow." "Dr. Vance, you are playing a dangerous game." "If you want to see the money again, it's the only game going. Now do we play or what?" CHAPTER TWELVE Monday 11:32 P.M. "When did you receive this?" Tanzan Mino glanced over the cable message once again, then looked up. Although the time was near midnight, the aide had found him still behind his black slate desk. The lights in his penthouse office were turned low, muting the already dull earth tones of the walls. Neko paced across the expanse fronting the wide picture window, flicking her tail and anticipating her evening dinner of water buffalo _tartare_. "Fifteen minutes ago, Mino-sama." He eyed the leopard nervously. "It was logged in on the eleventh floor, over the secure telex. I was reluctant to bother you at this late hour." "When you live to my age, you no longer have the patience for sleep. There is so much to do and so little time. Two or three hours are all I allow myself now." He tossed the paper onto his desk, then rose, strolled to the darkened window and, gently pushing Neko aside, gazed down. Below, the neon-lighted streets of Tokyo's Ueno district blazed. "In a way this news is welcome. Perhaps the money is no longer in the hands of an incompetent. I have always preferred doing business with a professional." "You would consider dealing with him?" The subordinate, in dark suit and crisp white shirt, tried to mask the surprise in his voice. The _oyabun_ had never let himself be blackmailed. "You seem startled." He smiled, then walked over and extracted a raw steak from the cooler in the corner. Neko dropped to her haunches as he tossed it to her. "Don't be. I've spent a lifetime in negotiation." That much, his subordinate knew, was true. Tanzan Mino had seen more deals than most men would in a hundred lifetimes. The most important ones had been the back-room kind. For thirty-five years, he'd funneled vast chunks of laundered cash to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's leading politicians, and as a result, he enjoyed final say over all its major decisions, dictating the choice of cabinet ministers, even prime ministers. He was the undisputed godfather of Japan's _kuroi kiri_, "black mist," the unseen world of political deal making. The subordinate also admired Tanzan Mino's discretion. After his ascension to kingpin of the LDP, U.S. interests had funneled over $12 million in cash bribes through him to Japan's most powerful political figures, much of it handled by the Lockheed Corporation. In return, that corporation received over $1 billion in sales to Japan's government and civilian airlines, while the CIA got to sleep easy, knowing America's interests were receiving the close attention of Japan's decision makers. But then, when newspapers finally broke the story that Lockheed's American money had reached the highest levels of the LDP, Tanzan Mino arranged for a rival _kuromaku_, Yoshio Kodama, to take the fall. As befitted a true professional, he escaped without a hint of scandal. It was a deft move that brought him much prestige among those in the circles of power. Besides, with a Yakuza income in the billions, he certainly needed none of the Lockheed money himself. His perennial concern, as everyone also knew, was what to do with all his cash. By the late fifties, Mino Industries Group already owned real estate, shipping lines, construction companies, trucking concerns, newspapers, baseball teams, film companies, even banks. Eventually, when Japan couldn't absorb any more investment, he'd expanded abroad, opening luxurious offices in other Southeast Asian cities, including new digs in Manila's Makati, the Wall Street of Asia, in Hong Kong, in Singapore (a favorite Yakuza town for recruiting prostitutes), in Taipei, and on and on. But still, there was the money. And more money . . . Kenji Nogami's predecessor had finally suggested the perfect solution to Tanzan Mino's cash dilemma. The safest, most welcome haven for Mino Industries' excess money was just across the Pacific, on the island of Hawaii, where his investments could be protected by the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. In the early sixties he opened a branch of his shadow investment company, Shoshu Kagai, in Honolulu, and today he was, through dummy corporations, the largest landowner in the state. Having long since solidified his ties with former militarists and prominent rightists in the Japanese business community, Tanzan Mino turned abroad in the early seventies, offering deals and support to Pacific Rim strongmen such as Chiang Kai-shek, Syngman Rhee, Ferdinand Marcos. All of it, however, had merely been preparation for this, his final objective. He was about to reclaim Japanese territory lost in the war, open Soviet Asia for Japan, and pillage the world's leading space program--all in one synergistic strike. Best of all, he was going to do it using foreign, _gaijin _money. Any Yakuza understood well the truth of that classic banking precept: If a man owes you a hundred dollars, you have power over him; if he owes you a million dollars, he has power over you. Tanzan Mino, his subordinate knew, had no intention of handing over half a trillion dollars of Yakuza capital to the Soviet Union, Japan's long-time mili- tary adversary. Only a fool would risk that kind of financial exposure, and Tanzan Mino was no fool. Which was why he had arranged to tap into the most free-wheeling capital pool of them all: Eurodollars. The money would be raised in London from thousands of anonymous investors through a standard bait- and-switch, then passed through Tokyo banks. No one, least of all the stupid Soviets, would have the slightest idea what was going on. The scenario was brilliant: Japanese financial, industrial, and technological muscle used in concert to realize the ultimate strategic global coup. His lieutenants were unanimous in their admiration. "The man's name is Vance?" Tanzan Mino asked. "_Hai_, Mino-sama. Michael Vance. We ran his name through the computer on the eleventh floor, and the printout showed that he once was with the CIA. The open file ended almost exactly eight years ago, however, and all information subsequent to that--" "Vance? CIA?" He felt a sharp pain in his chest, a wrench. "_Hai_, Mino-sama. The file says he was involved in some difficulties that arose over a clandestine funding arrangement, but the rest of our data here are restricted, to be accessed only by your--" "Opening his file will not be necessary." Tanzan Mino's voice boomed from the shadows. "As you wish." The _kobun _bowed to the silhouette of his back, still puzzled. "In any case, we have reason to believe he is connected to the NSA cryptographer," he continued nervously, disturbed by the _oyabun's_ change of mood,"the woman we have--" "What?" He snapped back from his reverie, his voice still part of the shadows from the window. "We suspect that the terms he wants to discuss, in exchange for the funds, may involve her in some way. When our people questioned her in Greece, she claimed that a man named Vance had a duplicate copy of the protocol. At the time we had no idea--" "And now you think this is the same man?" His steely eyes narrowed again. "_Hai, so deshoo_. It does lend credibility to his claim he has access to the funds. If he is involved in both our problems--" "He has been involved in my 'problems' before." At last, he thought. This was going to be more poetic than he'd realized. "If he knows where the protocol is, then--" "Then he thinks he is dealing from a position of strength," Tanzan Mino allowed himself a tiny smile. "I would like to contact him directly, through the secure facilities at Westminster Union." "_Hai_, Mino-sama," the man bowed again. "I can so inform Nogami-san in London." Below, in the blazing streets of Ueno, the traffic continued to flow. Time. Time was slipping away. "Authorize it." He turned back, his silver hair backlighted from the window. "Once we have him . . . perhaps both problems can be solved at once." And, he told himself, I can finally settle an account that has been outstanding far too long. "But I want this solved. Now. No more delays and bungling." The sharpness in his voice momentarily startled Neko, who growled her readiness for another steak, then dropped into a defensive crouch. "_Hai_, Mino-sama." A sharp, crisp bow. "I will transmit your wishes to Nogami-san immediately." "What news do we have of the woman?" "We know she is in London. Our people there have located the hotel where she is staying." "Then don't waste any more time. Already two attempts by my London _oyabun _to recover the protocol have been mishandled. He sacrificed three men; two of them were like sons to me. Now I'm beginning to think Vance was responsible." "We still do not know what happened in Greece." The dark-eyed _kobun_ watched with relief as Neko returned her attention to the window, tail switching. "Authorities there advise that all our men were found shot, one in Crete and two at Delphi. They have an investigation underway, but they only will say that different weapons were used in each case." "They will be avenged." Tanzan Mino flexed his knuckles together thoughtfully, feeling his resolve strengthen. "I am sending four _kobun _to London tonight. My personal Boeing is being fueled and readied as we speak. Tell them I will radio initial instructions after they are in flight. Further orders will be channeled through the Docklands office." "But the man . . . Vance? If the woman is part of the 'deal' he wants in order to forward the funds, then--" "That is all." His dark eyes had grown strangely opaque. "As soon as I've completed my 'arrangement' with him, they will kill her." Tuesday 2:00 P.M. The meeting was in the North Quadrant of the Hokkaido facility, in the senior staff briefing room. The project _kurirovat_, Ivan Semenovich Lemontov, was at the head of the table as co-moderator. Flanked on his left was Petr Ivanovich Gladkov, the youthful director of aeronautics; Felix Vasilevich Budnikov, robust director of flight control systems; and Andrei Petrovich Androv, director of propulsion systems. On Lemontov's right was the other comoderator, the Japanese project director, Taro Ikeda. Seated across the metal table, facing them all, was Yuri Andreevich Androv. "We will begin today's agenda by reviewing Monday morning's test flight," Ikeda began, speaking in Russian. He was chairing the meeting as though by mutual consent. Soviet booster technology and aerodynamic know-how might be what made the project go, but when all was said and done, it was the money that talked. And the project financing was Japanese. "The pilot's report will be our first item." Yuri nodded and glanced at the notes on the table before him. Make this quick, he told himself. "I'm happy to report that, once again, the handling characteristics of the vehicle correlated closely with our up-and-away simulation in the Fujitsu SX-10. On takeoff the vehicle rotated very nicely into a lift- off attitude of six point five degrees. My target attitude was seven point five degrees, and once I'd captured that I accelerated out to seven hundred knots, then climbed to forty-nine thousand feet for the first series of maneuver blocks--the roll maneuvers, pitch maneuvers, and yaw maneuvers--intended to verify handling characteristics and control activity at high altitude. As on all other flights, the directional stability was excellent, with a very large restoring moment. In the yaw maneuvers, one rudder kick gave me an overshoot but the vehicle immediately steadied. And the pitch maneuvers again showed that her actuating system enhances stability very fast. In fact, all maneuvers matched our simulations within acceptable limits. I also did some banks up to fifty degrees to get the stick force as I pulled back. The turn performance matched specifications, with very little control activity required. I also carried out some bank-to- bank maneuvers, to get the roll rates; the block included quarter stick, half stick, and three-quarter stick. Very stable. The augmented controls did not move out, that is, move around a lot." He paused for breath, stealing a glance at the room. Just bury them in data overload, he thought. Don't give them time to ask questions. Before anyone could speak, he pressed on. "I also took the vehicle through the prescribed block of throttle maneuvers. Remember that in ramjet mode the engines are fan-controlled, with all controls in the initial stage. As scheduled, I pulled all the throttles to idle and then took them all the way up to rated thrust. And as always, they were very responsive and didn't have to hunt for their setting." "Good," Ikeda said, "but the main reason--" "Exactly. As scheduled, at 0210 hours I terminated JP-7 feed to the portside outboard trident, causing an unstart. With asymmetric thrust, I expected adverse yaw, as in the roll maneuver, but the control system stabilized it immediately. I also assumed there'd be some sideslip, so I put rudder in, but then I realized handling was going to be feet on the floor. This vehicle is a dream." He paused to smile. "Anyway, I then initiated restart at 0219 hours." He shoved forward the documents piled by his side. "These charts indicate that rpm achieved ninety percent nominal within eleven seconds. All the--" "I've already reviewed those," Ikeda interrupted, not looking down. "We are pleased with the results of your maneuver blocks, Major Androv, and also the vehicle's turboramjet restart characteristics." He cleared his throat. "However, there was another maneuver last night that does not please us." Here it comes, Yuri thought. The fucker wants to know what happened. Get your story ready. "As you are undoubtedly aware," Ikeda continued, "the Japanese space program has an advanced spacecraft tracking center at Tsukuba Science City, with two Facom M-380-R primary computers. The center is linked to a tracking antenna at Katsura, near Tokyo, as well as to one at the Masuda station, near our spacecraft launch pads on Tanegeshima." He glared at the younger Androv. "You are cognizant of that, are you not?" "I am." He met Ikeda's gaze. "We engage those tracking stations for your test flights because of the altitudes involved. When _Daedalus _is airborne, all their other assignments are temporarily shunted to our deep-space tracking facility on Okinawa, in the south." He paused again, as though to control his anger. "In other words, we have arranged it so that the stations at Katsura and Masuda are dedicated to your flights whenever you take her aloft. You are aware of that as well?" "Of course." Yuri started to smile, but stopped himself. "Then we are puzzled, Major Androv. How do you explain the following events? At 0230 hours you shut down your air-traffic-control transponder. That was proper, since you were scheduled to switch to classified frequencies. But you did not report immediately on those frequencies, as specified in the mission flight plan. For approximately twelve minutes we had no navigational information from you whatsoever. Also, radio and computer linkages were interrupted." "An inadvertent mistake," Yuri said, shifting. "We thought so at first. In fact, both our tracking stations automatically performed a computerized frequency scan, thinking you'd switched to the wrong channels by accident, but you had not. You deliberately terminated all communications. We want to know why." "I was pretty busy in the cockpit just then. I guess--" "Yes, we assumed you would be, since you insisted on shutting down the navigational computers," Ikeda continued, his voice like the icy wind whistling across the island. "We find your next action particularly troubling. At that time we still had you on tracking radar, and we observed that as soon as the transponder was turned off, you altered your heading one hundred forty degrees . . . south, over the Japan Sea. Then you performed some unscheduled maneuver, perhaps a snap-roll, and immediately began a rapid descent. At that moment we lost you on the radar. With no radio contact, we feared it was a flame-out, that you'd crashed the vehicle. But then, at exactly 0242 hours you reappeared on the Katsura radar, ascending at thirty- eight thousand feet. At that time radio contact also was resumed." Ikeda paused, trying to maintain his composure. "What explanation do you have for this occurrence, and for what appeared to be an explicit radar-evasion maneuver?" "I don't know anything about the radar. I just wanted to check out handling characteristics under different conditions. It was only a minor add-on to the scheduled maneuvers, which is why I didn't--" "Which is why you didn't include it in your flight report." Ikeda's dark eyes bored into him. "Is that what you expect us to assume?" The Soviet team was exchanging nervous glances. They all knew Yuri Androv was sometimes what the Americans called a cowboy, but this unauthorized hot-dogging sounded very irresponsible. None of them had heard about it until now. "An oversight. There was so much--" "Major Androv," Ikeda interrupted him, "you are on official leave from the Soviet Air Force. No one in this room has the military rank to discipline you. But I would like you to know that we view this infraction as a very grave circumstance." "You're right. It was stupid." Time to knuckle under, he thought. "Let me formally apologize to the project management, here and now. It was a grave lapse of judgment on my part." "Yuri Andreevich, I must say I'm astonished," the elder Androv finally spoke up. "I had no idea you would ever take it into your head to do something like this, to violate a formal test sequence." He smiled weakly. "I just . . . well, I always like to try and expand the envelope a little, see what a new bird's got in her." And, he told himself, I did. Just now. I found out two things. First, I can evade the bastards' tracking stations by switching off the transponder, then going "on the deck." I can defeat their network and disappear. I needed to find out if it could be done and now I have. Great! Ikeda's other little slip merely confirms what I'd begun to suspect. This fucking plane is designed to-- "Major Androv, this unacceptable behavior must not be repeated." Ikeda's eyes were filled with anger and his tone carried an unmistakable edge of threat. "Do you understand? Never. This project has far too much at stake to jeopardize it by going outside stipulated procedure." "I understand." Yuri bowed his head. "Do you?" The project director's voice rose, uncharacteristically. "If any such reckless action is ever repeated, I warn you now that there will be consequences. Very grave consequences." Bet your ass there'll be consequences, Yuri thought. Because the next time I do it, I'm going to smoke out Mino Industries' whole game plan. There'll be consequences like you never dreamed of, you smooth-talking, scheming son of a bitch. Tuesday 8:46 P.M. "What does it tell you?" Yuri shaded his eyes from the glare of the hangar fluorescents and pointed, directing his father's gaze toward the dark gray of the fuselage above them. The old man squinted and looked up. "Can you see it? The underside is darker, and it's honeycombed. The air scoops, even the engine housings, everywhere. Very faint, but it's there." Andrei Androv stared a moment before he spoke. "Interesting. Odd I hadn't noticed it before. But I assume that's just part of the skin undersupport." "Wrong. Just beneath the titanium-composite exterior is some kind of carbon-ferrite material, deliberately extruded into honeycombing. But you almost can't see it in direct light." He placed his hand on his father's shoulder. "Now come on and let me show you something else." He led the elder Androv toward the truck-mounted stair, gleaming steel, that led up into the open hatch just aft of the wide wings. "Let's go up into the aft cargo bay. That's where it's exposed." The Japanese technicians and mechanics were scurrying about, paying them virtually no heed as they mounted the steel steps and then disappeared into the cavernous underbelly of the Daedalus. The interior of the bay was lighted along the perimeter with high-voltage sodium lamps. "Have you ever been inside here?" Yuri's voice echoed slightly as he asked the question, then waited. He already suspected the answer. "Of course. The propulsion staff all had a quick tour, several months ago. Back before--" "Just what I suspected. A quick walk-through. Now I want you to see something else. I'm going to perform an experiment on this 'aluminum' strut." He extracted a pocket knife and quickly opened it. "This frame looks like metal, right? But watch." He rammed the blade into the supporting I-beam that ran along the side of the cargo bay. "Yuri, what--" It had passed through almost as though the beam were made of Styrofoam. "It's not metal. It's a layered carbon-carbon composite. Just like the flaps. A damned expensive material, even for them. For the leading edges, maybe even all the exterior, it makes sense, because of the skin temperature in the hypersonic regime. But why in here? Inside? Why use it for these interior structural components?" "Perhaps it was to economize on weight, I don't know." The old man wrinkled his already-wrinkled brow. "Wrong again. Now look up there." He directed his father's gaze to the ceiling of the bay. "Notice how the lining is sawtooth-shaped. I've seen this kind of design before. Weight's not the reason." "So what are you saying?" The old man's confusion was genuine. "You're out of touch with the real world." He smiled grimly. "Maybe you've been buried at Baikonur too long, with your head in string quartets and classical Greek. This carbon-carbon composite is used for all the structural elements. There's virtually no metal in this plane at all. And the shape of the fuselage, all those sweeping curves and streamlining. It's probably smart aerodynamic design, sure, but it serves another purpose too. This vehicle has been well thought out." "What do you mean?" "Don't you get it? _Radar._ The shape of the fuselage is deliberately designed to diffuse and deflect radar. And all that honeycombing on the underside is radar-absorbing. Then this in here. The carbon-carbon composites used for this airframe, and that saw-toothing up there, will just absorb what radar energy does get through." He turned back. "This vehicle is as radar-defeating as the U.S. Stealth bomber. Maybe more so. Some of our experimental planes use the same techniques." "But why? I don't understand. There's no reason." "You're right about that. There's no need for all this radar-evasive design, all these special materials. Unless . . ." He paused, then checked below to make sure that no technicians were within earshot. "Last night, when I took her down, I maintained the yaw at ninety degrees, making sure their tracking antenna at Katsura could only see the underside of the fuselage. And guess what. The real story slipped out there at the meeting. This plane just vanished off their radar screens. Disappeared. But now Ikeda knows I know." The elder Androv stared at him. For years people had told him his son was too smart to be a jet jockey. They were right. All these years he'd never given him enough credit. "I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. For a space platform to have--" "Exactly. The underside of this vehicle has an almost nonexistent radar signature. Probably about like a medium-sized bird. All you'd have to do is darken it some more and it's gone. Now what the hell's the purpose?" The elder Androv didn't respond immediately. He was still puzzling over the staff meeting. He'd never seen the project director so upset. Admittedly Yuri had violated procedures and violated them egregiously, but still . . . Ikeda's flare of anger was a side of the man not previously witnessed by anybody on the Soviet team. Also, he continued to wonder at their sudden rush to a hypersonic test flight. Pushing it ahead by months had created a lot of fast-track problems. Why was Mino Industries suddenly in such a hurry? And now, this mystery. Yuri was right. An air-breathing orbital platform for near-space research didn't need to evade radar. The world would be cheering it, not shooting at it. Very puzzling. And troubling. "Yuri, you've got a point. None of this makes any sense." "Damned right it doesn't. And there's more. You should see the ECM equipment on this thing, the electronic countermeasures for defeating hostile surveillance and defense systems. It's all state of the art." Andrei Androv's dark eyes clouded. "Why wasn't I informed of any of this?" "Your propulsion team, your aeronautics specialists, all your technical people have been given green eyeshades and assigned neat little compartments. Nobody's getting the whole picture. Besides, I don't know anybody here who's really on top of the latest classified Stealth technology." "Well, the truth is none of us has had time to think about it." The old man had never seemed older. "Let me tell you a secret." Yuri lowered his voice to something approaching a whisper. "Lemontov has thought about it. Our little project _kurirovat_, that CPSU hack, thinks he's going to take this plane back home and copy the design to build a fleet of hypersonic-- whatever you want to call these--invisible death machines, maybe. He hinted as much to me about four nights ago." "I absolutely won't hear of it." Andrei Androv's eyes were grim with determination. "My dear father," Yuri used the affectionate Russian diminutive, "you may not have a damned thing to say about it. I'm convinced Lemontov or whoever gives him his orders has every intention of trying to convert this vehicle into a weapons delivery system, and Mino Industries, I also now believe, has already built one. Right here. It's ready to go. But whichever way, space research is way down everybody's list. So the real question is, who's going to try and fuck who first?" "I guess the last person able to answer that question is me." The old man's eyes were despondent as he ran his fingers through his long mane of white hair. Yuri laughed and draped his arm around his father once again. "Well, nobody else around here seems to know either. Or care." "But what are we going to do?" "I've got a little plan cooking. I don't want to talk about it now, but let's just say I'm going to screw them all, count on it." CHAPTER THIRTEEN Tuesday 9:31 A.M. When Michael Vance walked into the third-floor trading room of Kenji Nogami's Westminster Union Bank, it had just opened for morning business. Computer screens were scrolling green numbers; traders in shirtsleeves were making their first calls to Paris and Zurich; the pounds and dollars and deutsche marks and yen were starting to flow. Nogami, in a conservative charcoal black suit, nervously led the way. His glassed-in office was situated on the corner, close to the floor action, with only a low partition to separate him from the yells of traders and the clack of computers. It was his Japanese style of hands- on management, a oneness with the troops. England, the land that virtually invented class privilege, had never seen anything remotely comparable with this. But there was something ominous about his mood as he rang for morning tea. Vance noticed it. The openness of the previous afternoon was gone, replaced by a transparent unease. A uniformed Japanese "office lady" brought their brew, dark and strong, on a silver service with thin Wedgewood cups. Vance needed it. His nightcap with Eva at the Savoy had lasted almost two hours, but when it was finished, part of the play was in place. First thing this morning, still recovering from last night's encounter, they had shared a pot of English Breakfast, and then she'd gone back to work on the translation of the protocol. He was still waking up. "Michael, I received a reply." All Nogami's synthetic British bonhomie had evaporated. "I think he is willing to talk. However, there are terms. And his people want to see you. He also mentioned 'all parties.' I take it others are involved." "There is someone else." His hangover was dissipating rapidly now, thanks to the tea. "But I think she's had all the contact she's going to have with his 'people.' " Nogami glanced up sharply. "I don't know what this is about, but the meeting could be held on neutral ground. I assure you there would be nothing to fear." "Tell him he can forget it." "You're free to telex back your own conditions." He shrugged, then tried to smile. "I'm merely the messenger here. I have no idea what this is about and I don't think I really want to know." "I'll try my best to keep you out of it, but that may not be entirely possible." "Michael, I've handled my part of our bargain. I've set up the dialogue." Nogami's voice was barely audible above the din of traders. "What about yours?" "I'm still working on it." "There isn't much time." His brow wrinkled. "Some kind of preliminary offering has to be scheduled tomorrow, the day after at the latest." "Well, why not get rolling? Doing that should help smoke out an answer for you. For everybody." "What do you mean?" "If the bonds are really--but first let's see what Tokyo's got to say. Is there a deal or not?" "Perhaps his reply will give you some idea." He removed a shiny sheet of paper from a manila envelope and passed it over. "It's why I rang you so early. It was telexed here, using our secure lines, during the night. See what you make of it. I must admit I find it a trifle cryptic." As Vance took the sheet, it reminded him fleetingly of the 'paper' Alex Novosty had given him that morning atop the Acropolis. The heading was exactly the same. Yep, he thought, we've hit paydirt. Across the top was one line of type, bold and assertive. _THE DAEDALUS CORPORATION Advisory received 2315 hours. CEO has reviewed and requests direct contact with all parties immediately. The money must be received by Shokin Gaigoku no later than close of business tomorrow, Tokyo time. Authorize reply through secure facilities at Westminster Union. No other communication channel acceptable. _ "Looks like he went for it." Vance handed back the sheet. "If you want to reply, you can use our telex here, just as he asks." "Ken, how good is his word? If he agrees to lay off, will he stick to it? Or should I be expecting a double cross?" "You know his style of operation pretty well. What do you think? For my own part, I've always been able to trust him. He has a reputation for doing what he says." "Maybe that's all about to change. He's always played for big stakes, but this time it's a whole new level. It's global, and I've got a feeling he's not going to let niceties stand in the way. It could be his last big score." "And the Eurodollar debentures he wants me to underwrite?" Nogami studied him. "You already know what they're for, don't you?" "I think I might have a rough idea." "I suspected as much," he sighed. "All right then, how do you want to handle this?" "To begin with, no direct contact. Everything goes through third parties. You can send the reply. I'm not going to start out using his rules. Bad precedent. And I want him to know that if anything happens to either of us, he gets nailed. The protocol goes to the newspapers." "The protocol?" Nogami's brow furrowed again. "He'll know what I mean. We just need to use the word." "As you wish. And the message?" "That if he'll keep his end of the bargain and lay off, then he can access the money. But part of the deal is, I plan to keep a line on it, at least for the time being." "What do you mean?" "To start out, it's going to be handled in the tried-and- true hot- money way. The hundred million will be used to purchase British gilts, which will then be held here at the bank and used as collateral for a loan." "The standard laundry cycle," Nogami smiled. "Almost makes me nostalgic for the old days." "It's only going to be standard up to a point. After that the setup gets a twist. The loan will then be used to acquire a special hundred- million first issue of those Mino Industries corporate debentures you're supposed to float, to be bought entirely by me." "And thus he gets his funds, all freshly laundered and clean and untraceable," Nogami nodded approvingly. "Style, Michael, style. You always--" "Yes and no. You see, I never really let go. Instead of ten- year zero- coupons, those debentures are going to be a little unique--they'll be redeemable at any time by the holder, on twenty-four hours' notice." "And you'll be the holder?" Nogami suddenly seemed considerably less pleased. "Only indirectly. I'll assign power-of-attorney to a third party. If any unfortunate 'accidents' happen to me or to another individual I'll specify, the bonds will be redeemed immediately. And if he defaults, doesn't pony up the full hundred million on the spot, he can kiss the rest of his big scheme good-bye, because a default by Mino Industries would make the front page of the Financial Times. He won't be able to give away the rest of that bogus paper. He's instant history in this town." "Michael." Nogami's frown deepened. "I've never heard of--" "He gets his money, all right, but I retain a firm grip on his _cojones_." "Those are pretty rugged terms. I doubt he'll agree." "It's the only way we play. He gets his money, cleaned, but I come away with a hundred-million-dollar insurance policy. I hope we can do business, because otherwise he'll never see those funds, period. Guaranteed." "Then if you'll word the language the way you want it, I'll transmit it." He paused. "But I can tell you right now he will not be happy. This is very irregular. Also, I'm not sure I want to start issuing those Mino Industries debentures, no matter what their maturities. Once on that road, how will I ever turn back? You're putting me on the spot here." "You'll be taken care of. Look, Ken, we can't stop the man from selling phony Mino Industries paper to European suckers. Nobody can. If you back away, he'll just make an end run around you and arrange it some other way. We both know that." "So what am I supposed to do?" "Set up what I want, to get me some leverage. I'll take it from there. It's not just the hundred million he'll have hanging over his head. There's also the protocol I mentioned. I want him to know I'm in a position to go public with it if he doesn't lay off. That, together with the threat of exposing his plan to defraud Eurodollar tax dodgers, should be enough to keep him in line." "Whatever you say." He looked dubious. "But I'm convinced nothing is going to go forward without a meeting. There'll be no getting around it." "Let's just send that telex and find out." Tuesday 12:54 P.M. "And we'll be doing it using Mino Industries debentures?" Novosty listened, startled. "Corporate bonds?" The black Mercedes--heavily tinted, bullet-proof windows--was parked on the side street behind the Savoy, just above Victoria Embankment Gardens. Vance and Alex Novosty were in the front seat. Vance had the keys; it was part of the deal. "That's going to be our collateral. We're going to put them up as surety with one of the go-go Japanese banks here and borrow back the hundred million." "If I understand this right, the money's going to be in two places at once. Michael, it's smoke and mirrors." "What do you care? If the Japanese banks here won't lend on bearer bonds from Mino Industries, what the hell will they do? You'll have your cash, clean, and be over the hill before the whole thing goes down the drain." "I have to do this, don't I?" he sighed. "I have to front the street action. Both this and the other part." "It's give and take, Alex. Nobody in this car's a virgin. You've done worse. Besides, think of it this way. In a couple of days, you'll have your hundred million back and maybe you can go home again in one piece. I'm saving your two-timing Russian ass, for chrissake, so I expect a little gratitude." "I suppose I should be thankful, but somehow . . ." He was lighting a cigarette. After the black lighter clicked shut, he peered through the cloud of smoke. "But what about you? Where can you go when this house of cards collapses? You know it will. It has to." "Eva and I'll both be out of here too, God willing." He paused, his mind racing. "Okay, now tell me what else you know about this prototype." Novosty's voice was weary. "You guessed correctly. I've been afraid to talk about it to anybody, but now . . . you're right, it's an advanced airplane. That's all I know for sure. The word I hear is that it's faster than anything the world has ever seen. Much faster. A marvel of high technology." "We suspected that, from the runway." He glanced out the tinted windows. The late morning above the Thames was still only a glimmer through the misty haze. "Exactly how fast is it supposed to be?" "Many, many times the speed of sound. Ten, maybe even twenty, who knows. I think the project is at least a decade ahead of the U.S. or Europe. It's almost ready for a first full test flight, or so I understand. Needless to say, it's supposedly intended for peaceful uses, space research, but--" "Get serious. Tanzan Mino plays for keeps, all the way. And you were laundering the seed money for the deal." "When I got involved I had no idea." Novosty drew on his cigarette. "I swear it. When Viktor Fedorovich Volodin asked me to help, he said it was merely part of a secret trade agreement. The hardliners were being kept out of it. Now I realize he probably didn't know the real story either." "Right." "It was only later that I pieced together the rest. About the prototype and its capabilities." "Figure it out. Mino Industries is about to become the ultimate arms supplier to the world, sole retailer of the newest must-have weapon, and the Soviets and the Americans get to join each other neck-and-neck in a 'debt race,' buying them up. Your military is just like ours; they never saw a new weapons system they didn't like." "Inevitably." He was trying to keep his composure. "But I don't see how you can stop it." "We're going to start by nailing the godfather in his tracks, and you're part of the team. So you've got to keep yourself together. Remember our agreement last night, what you have to do." "Michael, Tanzan Mino is running out of time. I hear that the prototype can't be unveiled, or the protocol brought before the Diet for a vote, until the powers in the Liberal Democratic Party are well placated. This time it's not just insider stock trading info he's giving out, it's laundered cash. Since the money's still here in London, he's very upset." "You say you think the whole thing is scheduled to go forward in less than a week." Vance studied him. "But it's possible only if the hundred million is there, in hand." "Bribes, my friend. Or as they call it, _kosaihi_. All the way up and down the line." He smiled wryly and rubbed at his beard. "Michael, you of all people should know how things work over there. Very little has changed, really, from the old days when the CIA was running half of Japan's politicians. It's an honorable tradition to take care of the right people. But the timing is crucial." "No _kosaihi_ payoffs, no deal." "That's what I hear. Everybody knows the Diet is a rubber stamp. Everything is decided at the top, a 'consensus' among the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party. But the behind-the-scenes powers in the LDP refuse to endorse such a controversial prospect, a partnership with Russia, unless it's worth their while. At least that's what I hear. So the payoff money must be distributed, in tidy untraceable bundles with fancy gift-wrappings and bows. It's the traditional way, Michael. The dictates of proper etiquette. You know the system." "Then it shouldn't be too hard to deal with the man at the top. He's in a bind." "I seriously doubt he will be in a mood for compromise this time. He's used to getting what he wants, no questions asked." Novosty's dark eyes were knowing. "I shouldn't think that would be news to you, considering how you--" "It has a familiar ring. But this time maybe it'll be different." "Michael, I'm in a hopeless position. You know that. If the funds aren't delivered to Tokyo, and soon, God only knows what will happen. But if I don't return the money to Moscow, I am also a dead man. I don't see any realistic way out of this. Either way I'm finished. There is no way a hundred million dollars can be in two places at once." "Smoke and mirrors, like you said, smoke and mirrors." He shoved the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life. "Look, we're dealing with perceptions now. And a tight schedule. When this thing explodes, the money's going to be the least of anybody's problems." "You're right. There's also the matter of the protocol. If it's leaked before the treaty is formally announced, I'll be blamed. We'll be blamed. He will track us to the ends of the earth. You know it and I know it." "It's a poker game. To win you just have to keep up the bluff." "The problem, Michael, is that he's not bluffing." Tuesday 1:23 P.M. "As you can see, it's all just numbers." Eva was speaking in Russian as she pointed to the screen. 'That's how I received it, and the NSA Cray supercomputer I ran it through couldn't find the DES key." "Interesting." Vera Karanova studied the lines of ice- blue numbers, then turned and gazed out the hotel room window. The late morning traffic blared on the Strand. "But I know what must be in it. It is a sellout. Otherwise our intelligence service would have been informed." "You're free to make any assumptions you like. I'm still trying to find something that will crack it." Vera studied her with dark, unbelieving eyes. "We know you are the best there is. I find it hard to believe that--" "Well, take it or leave it." Eva switched off the computer and turned around. "I'm still working on it. I haven't given up yet." With a sigh Comrade Karanova eased herself gracefully onto the plush couch in the sitting area. Then she exhaled impatiently. "We know something will happen any day now. Are you sure you did not break any part of the encryption?" She looked up. "No dates, no deadlines?" "Nothing." Eva poured more cold tea into her china cup. She did not bother offering seconds to her Russian guest. The time was approaching noon, and she'd only gotten two hours of translating done. The day was slipping away, and her head still hurt from the dregs of alcohol. "Then you have nothing to tell me. We are all wasting time," Vera declared finally, rising. "Michael will keep his end of the bargain, don't worry. Moving money is his specialty." "So I'm told. But if he does not return the embezzled funds by the end of the week . . ." "If he said he'll handle it, he'll handle it." Eva handed her the fur coat that had been tossed across their rumpled bed. It was real sable, the genuine article. She used to have one too. "Now if you don't mind . . ." "As we agreed, I have arranged for an . . . individual from our embassy to be here outside your door around the clock. The first shift came this morning with me and is here now." "Inconspicuous?" "He is wearing a tradesman's uniform." "How about the lobby?" "I have also arranged for one of our people to be there as well. We haven't informed the hotel staff, for obvious reasons, so we will rotate our people downstairs to avoid suspicion." "Is that the best you can do?" "It's the best I intend to do." Her voice was cold. "Getting even this much for you was not easy. None of this is happening officially. I had to pull strings." "It's appreciated." "I'll know the extent of your appreciation when the embezzled funds are returned." "Naturally," Eva said, and opened the door. As promised, there was indeed an overweight Russian security man standing there, wearing an ill-fitting telephone repairman's coveralls. His looks wouldn't have deceived anybody, but maybe that was the point. She waited till Vera Karanova disappeared into the elevator and then she turned back, flashing a thin smile at her new bodyguard. He didn't look very competent, but he was probably better than nothing. Probably. Unless he wasn't there to protect them, unless he was there to make sure they didn't check out and disappear. Okay, back to work. She closed the door and locked it. Then she took a deep breath, clicked on the Zenith, and called up the active file. The part of the protocol she'd translated this morning had begun expanding on the elements of the pending deal. The Soviets were agreeing to open their space program completely to the Japanese, effectively making it a joint venture. In return, Mino Industries and the Japanese government would join with the USSR to create a new trade bloc comprising all the Asian economic dynamos that currently were allies of the United States. Russia shared some islands, along with its space expertise, and in return it got bottomless financing--and a trading axis with Japan that would, eventually, totally undermine America's hegemony in the Pacific. The new economic alliance, an Orwellian Eastasia, would have the USSR as one superpower cornerstone, Japan the other. _. . . 7. Within sixty days of the formal delivery of the prototype, the USSR will provide representatives of Mino Industries Group with full and unrestricted access to all facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The space program of the USSR will be integrated with that of Japan--all personnel, equipment, and launch facilities being operated thereafter as a single, unified entity. Future costs of the combined space program will be borne equally by Japan and the USSR. Japanese satellites and Japanese astronauts subsequently will be launched from either the Baikonur Cosmodrome or the Tanegeshima Space Center as schedules mandate. 8. Although the level of Japanese-Soviet trade is currently twice that between the United States and the Soviet Union, it accounts for only 1.5 percent of total Japanese overseas trade. Through joint ventures arranged by Mino Industries Group, this amount will be increased over the ensuing five-year period to a sum representing not less than ten percent of all Japanese foreign trade. All tariff barriers between the USSR and Japan will be phased out over the same five-year period. 9. As part of an Asian trade and diplomatic initiative, the USSR will join with Mino Industries Croup to begin governmental and private steps toward establishing a Pacific Basin tariff-free trade zone encompassing the USSR, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia. All offices, contracts, and trade agreements currently held by Mino Industries Croup will henceforth be reopened to encompass the representatives and interests of the USSR. . . . _ It boggled Eva's mind. The alliance might be partly military, but the Japanese and the Soviets were no fools. They realized full well that the real battleground of the next century would be an economic struggle, with the ultimate aim of every country being to surpass the United States. She stared at the blue screen, mesmerized. This secret protocol was a detailed battle plan whereby the Soviets and the Japanese provided each other exactly what they'd need to emerge as the dominant superpowers of the twenty-first century. Synergism in high-tech, control of space, a trade bloc, a defense alliance--all of it was there. But governments weren't that smart. They usually had to be dragged into doing what was sensible strategically. Which meant that this whole scenario had to be the brainchild of some private genius. Only one man in Japan, according to Michael, had the money and clout to put a deal like this together. His name was Tanzan Mino. A Yakuza godfather. Incredible! What other bombshells did the protocol hold? she wondered. What was left? The answer to that last remaining question was the prototype. It had to be the weapon to end all weapons. Great. But did the Soviets really know what they were getting into? The euphoria of the night before was rapidly dissipating. There were too many chances for the plan to slip up. Mike always figured he could play these things close on the wind, tempt fate, but he hadn't always been lucky. Sometimes his luck ran out, and somehow she had a feeling this was about to be one of those times. Tuesday 1:28 P.M. "Sato-sama, _ohayo gozaimasu_." Kenji Nogami rose, then bowed low as Jiro Sato and his dark-suited bodyguard were ushered into the Westminster Union Bank's upstairs dining room. The walls were ice gray, with a gold-leafed Momoyama screen depicting a fierce eagle perched on a pine branch mounted on one side. On the other was a modern oil painting, an impressionistic rendering of the rising sun of the Japanese flag. Both were symbols intended to impress Nogami's City guests with Japan's new financial power. "_Ohayo_." Jiro Sato nodded lightly in return, signifying his superior rank. In the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the far end of the room his light-grey hair had turned to blue steel in the subdued lighting. It now matched the hardness of his eyes. Jiro Sato, born in Osaka sixty years ago, was the _Mino- gumi's _London _oyabun_, the man in charge. He had lean cheeks and wore a pin-striped suit and dark sunglasses that further camouflaged his already expressionless eyes. His dark felt hat almost looked like a bowler. Although that traditional City headwear was no longer de rigueur in London's financial district, had it been, he most certainly would have worn one. Blending in was what he was all about. Nogami waited until his guest had settled into one of the molded birch chairs at the end of the long oak table, then he seated himself and clapped for sake. The banker's personal chef, a licensed artisan he had stolen from Tokyo's exclusive Edo Club, was already preparing raw _fugu_, the sometimes-lethal blowfish, to be served with scorching _wasabi_ on rare Shino ware. It was a Japanese power lunch. Jiro Sato's career and that of Kenji Nogami had been entwined for thirty years. They had always been in charge of Tanzan Mino's financial matters, had never worked at street level. No tattoos, no missing finger digits. They were part of the brains, not the brawn, of the _Mino-gumi_. Although they both knew that a certain bond issue of a hundred billion Eurodollars was the purpose of the luncheon, they gave no hint as their traditional small talk began with saucers of sake and a learned discussion of the Momoyama screen on the wall, thought to have been commissioned by the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the end of the sixteenth century. From there their chat expanded to the glories of Momoyama art, then the "nightingale" floors of Shogun Hideyoshi's Kyoto palace--beveled boards designed to announce silent intruders--and finally to Hideyoshi's betrayal at the hands of Ieyasu Tokugawa. The oblique topics were standard, the Japanese way of beginning a business meeting. Jiro Sato's official position was CEO of the London-based Nippon Shipbuilding Company. In that role he supervised the _Mino-gumi's_ London interests with an iron hand, as was expected by those who served him, and by his superiors in Tokyo. Nippon Shipbuilding built no ships, nor had it for twenty years. Instead it laundered Tanzan Mino's hot money. Funds flashed daily over the satellite link from Tokyo, and investments ranged from real estate to British gilts to the most arcane products of the financial markets. Money laundering was but the latest enterprise of the Yakuza, an ancient brotherhood rooted in over three hundred years of Japanese history. The _kana _symbols for the syllables Ya-Ku-Za were the same as those for the numbers eight, nine, and three--a total of twenty, which was a losing number in Japanese gaming. The losers: that was what the Japanese underworld, with ironic humility, had chosen to call itself. In earlier centuries the Yakuza were carnival operators, gamblers, fast-moving purveyors of questionable wares. They also took it upon themselves to be a kind of private militia, protecting a defenseless citizenry from the predations of aristocratic warlords. They were, in their own minds at least, Robin Hoods who championed the common man, while also, not incidentally, catering to his penchant for entertainment, excitement, and sin. These days the Yakuza considered themselves the last heirs of the samurai, but they still supplied escapism, be it in the form of nightclubs, gambling, or amphetamines. And in so doing they had grown fabulously rich. Jiro Sato's job in London was to reinvest and clean a portion of that wealth. Nippon Shipbuilding was headquartered in an eight- story building in the new Docklands redevelopment, yet another expensive architectural nonentity in that multi-billion-dollar new city on the banks of the Thames downriver from the financial district. It was, in many ways, the perfect location for a Yakuza beachhead. Unlike the older parts of London, Docklands was ready-made for the parvenu, since everything there was new and anonymous, yet it stood only minutes away from the City--the best of both worlds. The London operation was going well, and with the recent construction of their new Docklands financial complex, at a cost of fifty million pounds sterling, matters were on a solid footing. Jiro Sato's relations with Kenji Nogami had, until today, been conducted within the strict social dictates of Yakuza etiquette. As the London _oyabun_, he had, in fact, bent the rules in journeying into the City for their meeting today. Convention required that Nogami should have come to him. However, a recent turn of events necessitated a new concern with discretion. A muckraking series in the Telegraph two months before had accused the Nippon Shipbuilding Company of being an organized-crime front. Consequently he now had to take pains not to connect his own operations with the workings of Westminster Union. It was better all around if Kenji Nogami were not seen entering the Docklands office by some snooping newspaper hack. Nogami was a useful asset who needed to be kept above press speculation. Also, Jiro Sato was beginning to wonder if the banker would actually have come. Kenji Nogami was rapidly losing touch with the old ways. None of this would ever have been known from the light talk at lunch. It was only when the meal was over, and the staffers had discreetly absented themselves with deep bows, that things finally got down to matters at hand. But even then, as tradition required, the opening was Japanese and indirect. "Nogami-san," Sato Jiro said as he leaned back and reached for his fifth go of sake, "do you recall the famous story comparing the three great shoguns who ruled during that unsettled period surrounding the Momoyama? The tale says they each were once asked what they would do if they had a nightingale who refused to sing." Nogami nodded and sipped from his sake saucer. Of course he knew the story. Every Japanese did. "You doubtless recall that Ieyasu Tokugawa replied, 'I will merely wait until it does sing.' He was a patient man. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, by contrast, said he would prefer to try and reason with the bird, hoping to convince it to sing." He paused and smiled. "Sometimes gentle persuasion does work. But the great warlord Oda Nobunaga declared he would just ring the wretched creature's neck. He had no patience with disobedience." "Perhaps Ieyasu Tokugawa's answer was the wisest, Sato-sama." The banker's eyes were defiant. "He also enjoyed the luxury of time, Nogami-san. I suppose the pace of affairs was more leisurely back then." Sato set down his black _raku_ sake saucer and lit a Peace cigarette, the unfiltered Japanese brand. "These days events do not always allow us such luxuries, no matter how much we might wish it. Sometimes it is necessary to proceed forcefully." "There is always a problem when the bird finds the song is . . . unsuitable." Nogami again sipped from his own saucer, meeting Sato's gaze. "When the notes are discordant." Jiro Sato listened thoughtfully, appreciating Nogami's indirect and poetic answer. Then the banker went on. "Ninjo, Sato-sama. For over three centuries _ninjo_ has been what made our brotherhood unique. Are we to forget that now?" They both knew what he meant. _Ninjo_ was uniquely Japanese, because no other people in the world had Japan's sense of tribal unity. The Western terms chivalry or compassion carried only a superficial sense of _ninjo_. It was the inborn golden rule of Japanese culture that surfaced daily in expressions of racial togetherness, support and cooperation. It also was a deep-seated part of the Yakuza tradition. Great _oyabun _of the past liked to point out that the Yakuza's honoring of _ninjo_ was what set their brotherhood apart from the American Mafia. "The Yakuza have historically served the people," Nogami went on. "Yakuza do not run dishonest gambling tables, even if the victims are to be gaijin. It is not the Yakuza way to perpetrate fraud, which is what the CEO's Eurobond issue amounts to." Jiro Sato did not offer to refute the assertion. Instead he replied from a different direction, his voice soft. "There is _ninjo_, Nogami-san. And there is _giri_. Which do you respect more?" He knew he had just presented Nogami with a hopeless dilemma. _Giri_. It was a word no _gaijin _could ever entirely comprehend. The closest a foreign language, or a foreign mind, could manage was "duty." But that pale concept missed entirely the reverberations of moral obligation in _giri_. One could never fully repay such indebtedness, even with one's life. A Japanese called it "the burden hardest to bear." A Yakuza's foremost expression of _giri_ was to honor and obey his _oyabun_. The great _oyabun_ of Japan's leading Yakuza syndicates were more than merely godfathers. They were Confucian elders, patriarchs, wisdom figures who embodied all the traditions of the clan. Their authority was absolute and unquestioned. Kenji Nogami owed as much _giri _to Tanzan Mino as any man could. The Tokyo _oyabun_ had made him everything he was; it was an obligation he could never fully discharge. One look at his face told how his heart was torn. But as Jiro Sato studied Nogami's pained eyes, he was torn as well. Tokyo was near to losing confidence in him. The CEO had just announced by telex that a team of _kobun _had been posted to London to "assist." But if the _oyabun's_ Tokyo people had to step in and solve the problem, a lot more would be lost than finger digits. Finally Nogami spoke, his voice firm. "Perhaps you will be pleased to learn, Sato-sama, that I am prepared to make certain preliminary accommodations. An initial offering of Eurobonds will be formally issued tomorrow." "That is a wise decision." Jiro Sato tried to disguise his surge of relief beneath a mask of unconcern. Nogami was going to go along after all! "It will be for one hundred million Eurodollars," the banker continued. "And it is already fully subscribed, in advance." "Only one hundred million?" Sato felt his iron facade crack. "What purpose--?" "It will provide the immediate funds I understand are now needed. After that, we can discuss further steps." Further steps? Sato thought. Yes, the Tokyo _oyabun _would definitely see to it that there were further steps. His bird would sing. Or else. Kenji Nogami was acting as though obligation, giri, had ceased to exist. But such things were not possible. Giri lasted forever. Did Nogami think the old ways no longer counted for anything? "The debentures will be purchased by an American investor," Nogami went on, his voice cutting through the silence. "His name is Vance." "I have heard of him already." Sato felt his anger boil. Vance, he knew, had the _oyabun's_ hundred million and was trying to hold the entire scenario ransom. What he hadn't known until this instant was that Kenji Nogami was helping him. Well, he thought, perhaps the two problems can be solved simultaneously. An example is going to be made of Vance, an example that will also serve to provide a certain recalcitrant bird a needed refresher course in _giri_. Yes, Jiro Sato thought, the CEO's _kobun _from Tokyo are going to arrive to find their work has been done. Enough face has been lost, not to mention three men. The situation is intolerable. The only way to regain the London office's tattered honor, to avenge its disgrace, is to resolve the Vance situation immediately. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Tuesday 5:31 P.M. "It's the best I can manage, Michael." Nogami's voice was apologetic. "Nobody knows I keep this place, not even my wife." "Afternoon business conferences." "You catch my meaning." He smiled and walked on up the sandstone steps. The townhouse was in the quiet residential South Kensington section of London. From the outside, it looked to be the perfect safe house. "So that's how the situation stands now," the banker continued. "Tanzan Mino has agreed to your terms. He even seemed to like the idea of laundering the hundred million one last time through a purchase of Mino Industries debentures." "Now we'll see if he sticks to his word." "You've got leverage at the moment." He was fishing for his keys. "Incidentally, I should tell you I broke the news to his London oyabun here this afternoon. About postponing the rest of the issue. He was not pleased. It's been a bad week for him." "Are you planning to make this break with the organization permanent?" Vance knew it was not something a Yakuza would do lightly. "I'm still not sure." His voice was pained. "I don't even know if I can." "The long arm of the Tokyo _oyabun_. Plenty of reach." "It's not just that." Nogami was inserting a large key into the front door, white with Georgian decorations and a leaded glass transom above. "You understand the kind of obligation we Japanese must bear for past favors. It's onerous, but all the same it's very real. We can't just say thanks for the memories." "_Giri_." Vance nodded. "The 'burden.' " "Ah, you know. Yes, it's called _giri _and there's nothing we can do about it." He was switching on the hall light. "_Giri _rules our lives." Vance noticed the floor had a pristine carpet in conservative gray. A polished mahogany staircase led to the upper floors. "Nice, Ken, very nice. The quintessential banker's pad." "I have the entire building, my little indulgence. I keep a few antiques here, some of my art. You know, special things. Unfortunately I don't have a chance to use it much these days. The . . . friend I used to meet here . . . well, her husband was transferred back to Osaka. And I haven't had time to come up with a replacement." "First things first, Ken. You should always make time for living. One of my few rules in life. You never get another shot." He laughed and opened the door leading from the hallway into the parlor suite. It smelled slightly musty from disuse. "I'm better at giving advice than taking it too, old man." "Touche." Vance shrugged, then looked around the spacious drawing room. It was furnished in standard English style, with overstuffed chairs, a Victorian fireplace, an oak tea caddy and bar. But the nineteenth- century appointments weren't what concerned him. Was it safe? "Michael, we both may need this place if your plan doesn't work. I don't know where else I can go." He walked to the bar, a collection of bottles on the bottom tray of the caddy, and selected a flask of cognac. "Now could you repeat that story again? About the protocol. I must confess I'm dazzled." In the limousine driving up from Westminster Union, Vance had finally told him the real purpose of the bond issue, what the money was going to be used for. The banker had listened in silence, stunned. "Well, to make a long story short, you're being used, in what's probably going to be the biggest shell game in history. Tanzan Mino steals unsecured billions from European tax evaders and uses it to finance the opening of Russia's markets for Mino Industries. You're right to bail out now. If he pulls it off, he'll look like a genius. But if it backfires and the truth comes out, you'll get full credit. Not exactly a terrific downside." "I didn't get this far exposing myself unnecessarily, and I don't intend to start now. Not for him or anybody." "Then we'll proceed with Plan A." "This reminds me a lot of the old days." He laughed and poured a snifter for each of them. "Here's to the end of _giri_." "And the beginning of a new life." Vance clicked their glasses, then took a sip. "Now, we need to get our coordination synchronized." "Everything is ready at my end. Tomorrow morning I'll issue the zero- coupon debentures you're going to purchase, and you'll make the trade. After that I'll wire your hundred million to Tokyo, and Tanzan Mino is taken care of. I've simultaneously arranged with Sumitomo Bank to accept that paper as collateral for a loan. You'll get the money from them on the spot. By the way, how do you want it?" "Just park it in gilts, through the trading desk at Moscow Narodny Bank, the new branch on Saint Swithins Lane." "Done," Nogami nodded. "Now how about the debentures that are Sumitomo's security? And mine. Who's holding them?" "We Japanese still act like gentlemen, Michael. At least up to a point. They've agreed to let me hold them until we close our books at the end of the month. I did them a similar favor last year." He sipped at his brandy with satisfaction. "So you can still call them anytime if, God help us, it comes to that. You'll have your leverage, and Tanzan Mino will know it. If you should have to call them and he defaults, he'll then have to answer to Sumitomo. And he wouldn't dare. I happen to know they hold a forty-million- dollar mortgage on his new office building down in the Docklands. They'd eat him and not even blink. There's some bad blood between them, though I don't know exactly what it is." "Okay, so far, so good." Vance looked around the room. "You're absolutely positive nobody knows about this place?" "It's been my little secret for four years now. I paid cash and I don't even report the expenses on my tax forms, which gives you some idea how I value my privacy. So there's absolutely no way anybody could know about it." "You never came here in your limo?" "Only if I came without a driver, the way we did today." "Then it sounds clean." "This place is the least of your worries, Michael." He settled into a chair. "After my meeting this afternoon, I have an idea that the London _oyabun_, Jiro Sato, has every intention of taking things into his own hands . . . to try and break me. He's going to push the pace--in swords- manship it's called _mukatsu kasuru to iu koto_. He's lost too much face. He can't let you get away with this and still control the organization. After the debacle in Greece, he's near to becoming a laughing stock among his own _kobun_." "Can't Tokyo manage him?" "Theoretically. But the organization is getting a little far-flung these days. I don't know. My instincts tell me he's going to undertake some face-saving on his own. Just temporarily overlook any agreement you may have with the front office." He rose and splashed some more brandy into his glass. "It's going to get rough, that's all I know for sure. So the sooner you proceed with the rest of your plan, the better." "Everything's ready." "Then I suppose it's time we wished each other well and got going." Nogami finished off his brandy and dug the keys from his pocket. He jangled them a moment in his hand, then tossed them over. "Take them now. You might as well secure the place as we leave and start getting used to that tricky front door lock. There won't be any time to practice." "Here's to you, Ken." Vance saluted him with the snifter, then drained it. "And many thanks. If you ever owed me any _giri_, consider it paid." "That works both ways. I'm doing myself a favor too. I had to make a break, if this financing double cross of his backfires, it could turn into a worldwide scandal. I'd be ruined. Not to mention Westminster Union, which the regulators here would probably padlock. With scarcely concealed glee. It would merely confirm what everybody here wants to think about those 'win-at-any-cost' Japanese these days." "Well, I appreciate it. I mean that. I'm sorry we didn't get to know each other better over the years." Vance tried locking the front door. It was difficult, as Nogami had warned, but finally it clicked securely. Outside the evening air was brisk, with a few of Nogami's neighbors stoically walking large dogs and pretending to enjoy the ambience of London's chilly dusk. "If we both live long enough, maybe we can try. You're one of the few Westerners I've known who ever really understood Japan." "I had a crash course several years back." "So I understand." He smiled as he opened the limo door. Vance would drive. "Which is one of the reasons I wonder if this arrangement is going to be as simple as we'd hoped. Tanzan Mino has a long memory, Michael. He doesn't forgive or forget. I'm sure he still remembers you were responsible for shutting down his cozy CIA arrangement." "I thought it was time the Company cleaned up its act. But hell, that was almost eight years ago." "That's a mere snap of the fingers in Japanese time, as you well know." "Well, fuck him if he can't take a joke." "A joke is the one thing he can't take, my friend. He never smiles unless there's a camera around." "Look, you say he's agreed to deal. Let's assume for now he means it, but in the meantime we proceed as planned. You trust your mother, but you cut the cards." Nogami settled into the seat and shut the door. Then he looked down quizzically. "What's this? I didn't notice it before." He reached down and picked up a black leather sachel off the floor, testing its weight. "Somehow I've got a feeling it's not a new tie from Harrods." "As it happens, that's a little housewarming gift from the Soviet embassy. Part of my deal, along with the car. It's registered and legal, or so they tell me." "My God." He settled it back on the floor. "I must be getting old. Hardware terrifies me these days. I'm not used to working this close to the street anymore." "It's only till we take care of business. You handle your end tomorrow and we're both clear. At least for now." "If it was really that simple, you wouldn't need this." "The point is not to need this." "My friend, if Jiro Sato breaks rank and moves on us, we're going to need twenty of these. And more." Tuesday 9:28 P.M. "A KGB security squad was posted at the hotel, around ten o'clock this morning, Sato-sama. They are armed." "_Saaa_," he hissed an exhale of displeasure and leaned forward, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. One of the black-suited _kobun _immediately stepped up and flicked a lighter. He inhaled, then leaned back. "I'd hoped this could be handled without any fuss. But we still must proceed." "Your decisions are always correct, Sato-sama." The second _kobun _bowed. "But perhaps it might be wise to discuss the possibility of waiting for the backup team from Tokyo, if only to convince ourselves they are not needed." "This office lost much face because of our problems in Greece. There's only one way to regain it. We have to act now." Worst of all, I've lost face too, Jiro Sato reminded himself, among my own _kobun_. An _oyabun _has to lead. The minute he shows weakness, he's through. Buddha only knows what would happen if I lost control here. There's no turning back. An example has to be made of the American meddlers, if only to make Nogami-san understand the organi- zation still means business. The Tokyo _oyabun's _daring project is going to succeed. In the long run it's inevitable. The problems now are short-term. But if anything else goes wrong with this office's responsibilities . . . The _kobun_, five in all, bowed respectfully. They understood his thoughts as clearly as if they had been projected in neon across the back wall. The office had already lost three men. Face was at stake. This problem could not be solved from Tokyo. It was time to draw together. The operation was scheduled to begin at 11:00 P.M. sharp. The five _kobun_ had already synchronized their digital watches and stashed their H&K automatics in the two gray Fords now waiting in the building's underground garage. No flashy limousines tonight; the operation would be lowest of low profiles. Three more of their team were already at the hotel, with walkie- talkies, monitoring the entrances. The KGB security in the lobby would be quietly diverted and then neutralized. The guard upstairs would simply be overpowered, or taken out with a silencer if the situation got out of hand. Since they were professionals, however, matters rarely went that far. The time had come to move. All five lined up in front of Jiro Sato's massive oak desk and bowed to the waist; then one by one they filed out. Tuesday 10:27 P.M. It was going to be a simple operation, that much he was sure of. No violence, no bloodshed. The bottle should take care of the situation. All the same, he had a 9mm automatic in a shoulder holster. Life had taught him that when something could go wrong, chances were good that it would. After this one last job, he was going to disappear. The situation had deteriorated far past where any reasonable man would want to touch it. The time had come to bail out and let the chips fall. One more day, that was all. Standing now at the side entrance of the Strand Palace, the small alleyway named Burleigh that curved around the rear of the hotel and met the main avenue, he pulled his overcoat tighter and glanced down at his Piaget. It read 10:28. Time to get started. Everything was synchronized down to seconds. He'd already made sure the service entrance was unlocked. He'd taped the latch on the metal door during the comings and goings of the staff during the evening shift change. Now all he had to do was slip through and the rest should go like clockwork. In he went. The neon-lit hallway was empty, again according to plan. This was a slow time for all the staff except room service and the kitchen. He slipped off his overcoat and threw it into a large laundry hamper parked halfway down the hall. Underneath he was wearing the uniform of a Strand Palace security man. He checked his watch. Sixty-five seconds . . . At that moment the door of the service elevator opened and a tall Irishman stepped off. He was wearing the same uniform. It was a Strand Palace security guard, a real one. The worst possible luck. The moment seemed frozen in time. However, one thing was certain: the security guard wasn't fooled for an instant by the intruder. He automatically grabbed one of his trouser legs and knelt with a practiced move, reaching for the holster strapped to his ankle. The intruder was quicker. As the guard dropped down, his knee came up, slamming against the man's square jaw. The Irishman toppled back against the side of the elevator with a groan, but not before his fist lashed out, aimed for the groin. It was a glancing blow, and it was too late. The intruder chopped down against his neck, disabling his left arm, then slammed his head against the steel strut running down the center of the elevator wall. He groaned and twitched backward. Should I just break his neck? he wondered. Just kill him now? One twist would do it. No, he lectured himself, be a professional. Instead he rammed the Irishman's head against the steel strut a second time, and a third, till he felt the body go fully limp. Not good enough, he told himself, and reached into his pocket for the bottle. The ether was going to get more use than he'd planned. He doused the heavy cloth he'd brought along and shoved it against the fallen figure's nostrils. He continued to hold it on the ruddy face as he closed the elevator door and pushed the button that would take him up. As the lift rose, he checked his watch and smiled to see that his timing was perfect. Ten seconds to go. Tuesday 10:29 P.M. "You bastard," Eva screamed as she slapped Vance with all her might, knocking him against the door of their room. The thin walls shook. "Don't ever do that again." He drew up and swung for her, missing and crashing against a chair. "Get away from me. You're drunk." She shoved him farther into the room, her voice trembling with anger. Then she wrenched open the hotel room door and stumbled into the hallway. "_Pomogethya mnye!_" Their KGB guard, Igor Borisovich, was already running down the hall, "_Shto _. . .?" "Help me." She seized his arm and pulled him in. Mike Vance was standing in the middle of the room, weaving shakily, now grasping a letter opener in his right hand. "Get the hell out of here." He started moving on the Russian, brandishing the weapon, but stumbled and had to pause to collect his balance. "He drank half a bottle of tequila and went crazy." She was shouting in Russian. "Do something!" Igor nodded knowingly. He came from a land where alcoholism easily edged out soccer as the national pastime. "What is problem?" The hulking Soviet moved forward, gingerly trying to retrieve the letter opener from Vance's hand. "Get away from me." Vance shoved him off, then stumbled back. "No, you must give me knife," the Russian demanded. "We want no trouble." Nobody noticed, but the time was 10:30. Exactly. The room was brought up sharp by the sound of the door slamming and a click of the lock. They turned to see a figure wearing a black ski mask and the uniform of a Strand Palace security guard. In his right hand was a 9mm automatic. "Who the hell . . . ?" Vance yelled drunkenly. Igor whirled to stare. His hand started for his shoulder holster, but then he thought better of it and instead he backed slowly against the wall, silently glaring. "Where is it?" the hooded figure demanded as he brandished his pistol toward Eva. "Fuck you, whoever you are." Vance tried to move toward him, still grasping the letter opener. "Shut up." The intruder shoved him backward, sending him sprawling onto the couch. Then he turned to Eva. "Where's the computer?" Almost at that moment he saw it, on the writing table by the window. Without waiting for an answer, he moved quickly and seized it by the handle. After he'd stationed it next to the door, he waved the weapon at Eva again and barked. "Get your things. And all copies of the protocol." "Listen, you son of a bitch," Vance sputtered as he drew himself up and moved again on the intruder. "She's not going anywhere. Now get out of here before I ram that goddam--" The intruder slammed the pistol across his face, sending him crumpling to the floor. But now his back was turned to Igor Borisovich, who lunged. The intruder saw the movement, reflected in the tall mirror above the dressing table. He easily sidestepped the lumbering Russian, then brought the pistol hard against his skull. Igor Borisovich groaned and staggered sideways flailing for balance. The hooded figure seemed prepared. His hand plunged into a pocket and out came a bottle whose stopper had been replaced by a wadded rag. He flung the contents of the bottle across the Russian's face, then shoved the soaking rag against his mouth and nostrils. Igor Borisovich struggled and clawed limply at his face for a few moments before lapsing unconscious. "You fucker." Vance pulled himself up off the floor, muttering. "Problem?" The intruder glanced at him. "One small one, yeah. You damned near broke my jaw." "This is the theater of the real, my friend," Alex Novosty laughed as he pulled off the ski mask. "If you're going to be kidnapped, it has to look authentic. I'm a professional. I never do these things by halves." "Any problem downstairs?" Eva was already collecting her scant belongings. "Yes, one very big problem. I had a small misunderstanding with one of the hotel's security people. The natives here are not friendly. He's on the service elevator now, sound asleep like this one." "Where did you park it?" She opened the room door and looked up and down the hall. "It should still be on this floor. I put it on Emergency Stop. But he's going to wake up any time now and sound the alarm." "Then we've got to finish here and get out fast." She slammed the door and turned back. They went to work, quickly turning over chairs, ripping curtains, leaving evidence of a violent struggle. Belongings were strewn across the bed and floor, as though there'd been a hasty search. It was done quietly and efficiently and took about a minute. Novosty thoughtfully positioned his black ski mask in the middle of the floor, just one more clue in what they hoped would be signs of an abrupt, forced departure. Then they grabbed what they needed, including the Zenith Turbo, locked the door, and made their way down the hallway. The Strand Palace security guard was still on the service elevator, unconscious but beginning to stir. "What do you propose we do with him?" Novosty gave the Irishman a shake. "How about a little more ether," Eva suggested. She was clasping the Zenith next to her. "And then let's get out of here." He obligingly gave the man a final dose from the almost- empty bottle, leaving the rag across his face. By the time he finished, the elevator had reached the service area in the basement. Their Soviet limousine was parked in the alley, ready. In seconds they were in it and gone. Tuesday 10:43 P.M. Michael Vance, Eva Borodin, and Aleksei Novosty were luckier than they knew. When they emerged, the Japanese guard Jiro Sato had stationed at the Burleigh entrance had momentarily been called away by radio to confer at the Strand corner. Since the alleyway was curved slightly, as London alleys invariably are, the huddled Yakuza team saw nothing but the tinted windows of a limousine with diplomatic license plates speeding past. They paid it no heed. Watches were checked one more time, and then the dark-suited men fanned out. The guard stationed down Burleigh returned to his post, while the five who had been in the Docklands office made their way into the teeming lobby on the Strand. While two started up the fire stairs, the other three converged on the KGB guard, disarmed him discreetly, and then informed him that he had pressing business outside. He was shoved into one of the waiting Fords, gagged, and handcuffed to the steering column. It took less than a minute to neutralize him. Then the three returned to the lobby and got on the elevator. On the eighth floor they met the other two, who had come in from the stairway at the opposite end of the hall. Together they swept the corridors. The KGB guard was nowhere to be seen. "Perhaps they pulled the security on this floor," one of them said. "Or he has gone into the room, to piss out some vodka," another suggested. "This will be easier than we thought," a third was heard to observe. Together they converged on the room registered in the name of Michael Vance, and then they stood aside as one knocked. When there was no answer, they elected to shoulder it in. As they rushed the room, they were met by a fusillade of automatic pistol fire from a boiling mad KGB security agent, nursing a headache and crouched just inside the bathroom door. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Wednesday 1:09 A.M. "Darling, do you think they'll figure out it was a ruse?" "Who knows." He looked up from stoking the fireplace, where nothing but embers remained. "Tanzan Mino may be a genius, but the rest of his Yakuza hoods are not exactly rocket scientists. Ditto T-Directorate's flunkies. With any luck both sides will think the other one's kidnapped us and they'll go after each other. That's the idea at least." "Well, we're pretty vulnerable." She kicked off her shoes and leaned back on the couch. "Look, after tomorrow Tanzan Mino won't dare send his goons after us . . . unless he's got something up his sleeve we don't know about." "That's just it,"she sighed. "If he manages to find us . . . why mince words, if he decides to try and kill us again, what then? Will this Japanese banker friend of yours stick with us? Whose side is he on, I mean really?" "Well, we're here, aren't we? Nobody knows about this place, not even Alex." They had ditched Novosty three blocks down the Strand. Trust had its limits. "Except, of course, your Japanese banker friend. He knows." "The only player we can rely on now is Ken. And he's the only one-- particularly after Novosty gets his money--who's got the slightest incentive to hang tough." "I'm wondering what's the best way to break the story. We've got to make sure it doesn't get away from us, get lost." He looked up from the fireplace. "I've already told you what I think. I say we just go see an editor friend of mine at the Financial Times, give him a big scoop concerning a forthcoming Mino Industries Eurobond offering. We point out there's no collateral at all behind the debentures, and we'll also hint there's more to it, but that angle we save for The Times of London, which will get a nicely translated copy of the protocol. We hit the godfather with a one-two press expose, then make ourselves scarce and let investigative journalism do its thing. Believe me, nobody's going to ignore what could be the biggest story of the decade. After that starts snowballing, Tanzan Mino'll have too much on his plate to bother eating us. We'll be out of it." "Michael," she sighed, "you're a dreamer. You don't really think it's going to be that easy." He rose and joined her on the couch, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "Maybe not, but we won't be a sitting target. We'll keep on the move. Why don't you come and join me on the boat. I may have to postpone visiting with the Stuttgart team down at Phaistos, but we'll find something. It'll be simple." "Sounds really simple." "All great ideas are basically that way." "Well, if life's as simple as you make out, then why did you insist on Alex's friends at the Soviet embassy lending you that thing?" She pointed to the black leather satchel stationed next to the fireplace. "Guess I'm nervous." He grinned weakly. "You mean you're scared. Cut the bull. I'm scared too." She got up, walked over and picked up the leather bag. "Now, I want you to show me how to work this." "What?" He didn't like the idea. "You sure?" "Absolutely. We're in this together." She settled the bag down on the carpet, unzipped the top, and drew out an object whose black matte- satin finish glistened in the soft glow of the coals. "This is an Uzi, right?" "The tried and true. Major Uziel Gal's contribution to the mayhem of the world." He reached over and took it. "You know, this is an instrument of sudden death. Do you really want your finger on the trigger?" "Sweetheart, just tell me what I need to know." She met his gaze. "Okay, here goes." He still hated the thought, for a lot of reasons. The mere sight of an Uzi reminded him of things in the past he preferred to forget. But there clearly was no stopping her. "A quick run-through of the care and feeding of your classic assault machine." "Good." She reached and took it, tugging at the collapsed metal stock a second before turning back to him. "By the way, is it loaded?" "No, but it probably should be. You can take care of that yourself in just a second. But first things first." He pointed down. "See this thumb button right here, on the left top of the grip? Notice there're three positions--all the way back is the safety, next is semiautomatic fire, and all the way forward is full-auto. There's also a backup safety here, at the top rear of the pistol grip. The action stays locked unless it's depressed, which happens when you squeeze down to deliver a round." "Two safeties?" "Don't knock it. This baby fires ten rounds a second on full-auto. We've only got five magazines." "How many rounds in a magazine?" "I insisted on the enlarged thirty-two-round version instead of the usual twenty-five. But still, with that little button forward on full- auto you can empty a magazine in about three seconds. It's a good way to get the attention of everybody in the room." "Can you actually hold your aim in full-auto?" "Well enough. The recoil's surprisingly minimal. Remember to fire in short bursts and you'll do okay." He pointed down. "Now, the cocking handle is this knurled knob here on the top. Notice it's got a slot cut in it so it doesn't block the sights. You yank it back to ready it. And don't forget, always use your left hand to cock the action and change magazines, and your right to operate the safety-selector switch." "Got it." "Okay, now you're ready to load." He picked one of the black rectangular metal cases out of the leather satchel on the floor. "This is a charged magazine. Always cock the action and set the thumb switch to safety before you insert one." She pulled the knob back firmly, then pushed her thumb against the switch. "Now feed the magazine into the bottom of the pistol grip" She shoved it in with a click and it was secured. "You're ready to party. Thumb off the safety and it's a go project." "How do you take the magazine out when it's empty?" She aimed into the fireplace. For a second he thought she was going to take out a few half-burnt logs. "There's a release catch on the bottom left side of the pistol grip. Just depress it." "And what about the stock? Should I bother?" He reached and took it back. "You push the butt downward to release it, and then you pull it back like this till it's fully extended and locks." He clicked it into place, a hard sound in the silence of the London night. "To retract it you just depress this locking button here on the left front and fold it back under again." "Okay, let me try," she said, taking it back. She folded and unfolded it twice. "Think I've got the hang of it. But do I need it?" "Use it if you want to. I've always thought that when they switched over from the original wooden stock to this metal contraption they positioned the damned thing too high. You have to bend your head down low to align the sights. My guess is, God forbid you should ever have to use this, you won't have time to bother with it." "Speaking of aiming, is this what I think it is?" She retrieved a small boxlike object from the bag. "LS-45 compact laser sight. Probably useless for our purposes, but I figured, what the hell." He reached out for her hand. "For now let's just think of all this hardware as life insurance. Something you'd as soon never use." He took the gun and laid it on the tea trolley. "In the meantime why don't we have one last nightcap and go on up to bed?" "Thought you'd never ask." She kissed him, deeply. The four-poster upstairs was canopied, the mattress downy as a cloud. They were both hungry for each other, exhausted but deliriously free. Perhaps it was the same relish with which a condemned prisoner consumes his last meal, the delight in every taste, every nuance. If tomorrow brings the prospect of death, then how much sweeter is life in the short hours before dawn. Wednesday 2:00 A.M. Kenji Nogami wandered alone through the bond-trading floor of Westminster Union Bank, staring at the blank computer screens. His bank was a member of Globex, a twenty-four-hour world-wide trading network for currency futures, but tonight he'd ordered all his traders to square their positions--neither short nor long--and take the night off. Then he had dismissed the cleaning crew. He wanted to have the space entirely to himself, to think and to reflect. Time was growing short. He settled in one of the traders' empty chairs, withdrew a stubby Cuban Montecristo, a thick No. 2, from the breast pocket of his coat, clipped the pointed end with a monogrammed implement, and swept a wooden match against the floor and up to the tip with a single gesture. If we're going to have a showdown, he thought, I might as well die with a good cigar in hand. Then from another pocket he took out the telex from Tokyo that had come through just after midnight. The Tokyo _oyabun _was in a rare frenzy. Tanzan Mino had never been thwarted like this--well, only once before, when a certain Michael Vance, Jr., had blown the whistle on his CIA connections. Tanzan Mino was demanding compliance. Somebody had to give in. The obvious question: Who'd be the first to blink? The worst he can do is kill me, Nogami thought. And he can't do that yet. If something happens to me tonight, he won't get his hundred million tomorrow. But then what? You've gone this far knowing full well the consequences, he told himself, so don't back down now. You're spitting on giri, and yet . . . and yet it's the first thing you've ever done in your life that's made you feel free. It's exhilarating. Did Michael arrive safely at the South Kensington flat? He'd toyed with the idea of calling but had decided against it. They wouldn't answer the phone. In fact, he never answered it himself when he was there. Thinking about it now, he wondered why he'd ever bothered to have one installed in the first place. He drew on the Montecristo, then studied its perfect ash. Waiting. Waiting. "Nogami-san, _sumimasen_," the voice sounded down the empty room, almost an echo. They'd arrived. Finally. Why had it taken so long? "_Kombanwa_," he replied without moving. The cigar remained poised above his head as he continued to examine it. "It is an honor to see you." There was no reply, only the sound of footsteps approaching. He revolved in his chair to see Jiro Sato, flanked by two of his _kobun_. "I see you are working late," Jiro Sato said, examining the cigar as he nodded a stiff, formal greeting. "I deeply apologize for this inconvenience." "I was expecting you," Nogami replied, nodding back. "Please allow me to make tea." "Thank you but it is not required." Jiro Sato stood before him, gray sunglasses glistening in the fluorescents. "One of my _kobun _was shot and killed tonight, Nogami-san, and two more wounded. I want to know where to find Vance and the woman. Now." "Were they responsible?" "With deepest apologies, that need not trouble you." He stood ramrod straight. "With deepest apologies, Sato-sama, it troubles me very much." Nogami examined his cigar. "This entire affair is very troublesome. In times past I remember a certain prejudice in favor of civility on the part of Tokyo. Have things really changed that much?" "The moment for soft words is past. Tonight ended that." Nogami drew on his cigar. "Assuming you locate Vance, what action do you propose taking?" "We have one last chance here to deal with this problem. Tomorrow the _oyabun's_ people arrive, and then they will be in control. The decisions will no longer be ours. Tonight I attempted to salvage the situation and failed. Surely you know what that means, for us both. But if you will give me Vance, perhaps we can both still be saved. If you refuse to cooperate, the _oyabun _will destroy you as well as Vance. We both know that. I am offering you a way out." "With deepest gratitude, I must tell you it is too late, Sato-sama, which I am sure you realize," Nogami said, drawing on his cigar and taking care not to disturb the ash. "So with due respect I must inquire concerning the purpose of this meeting." "I need to locate this man Vance. Before the _kobun _from Tokyo arrive. If you care about his well-being, then you should remember that his treatment at my hands will be more understanding than--" "When do they arrive?" "As I said, we received word that they will be here tomorrow, Nogami- san. With respect, you have befriended a man who is attempting to blackmail the Tokyo _oyabun_. That is a career decision which, I assure you, is most unwise." "It is made. And I am aware of the consequences. So it would appear we both know all there is to know about the future." "Perhaps not entirely. Someone has attempted to make us think Vance and the woman were kidnapped, that they are being held somewhere beyond our reach. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. But if the transaction for the hundred million is to take place tomorrow, then he must appear here. The _oyabun's _people may be here by then. If they are not, we will be." "But if he has been kidnapped," Nogami's brow furrowed as he studied his cigar, its ash still growing, "then there could be a problem with the transaction. Who do you suppose would want him, besides the Tokyo _oyabun_?" "That I could not speculate upon. The KGB seems to have a great interest in his activities. Perhaps they are guarding him in some more secure place. Or perhaps something else has happened." He bowed. "Again you must forgive me for this rude intrusion. It is important for you to be aware that the situation is not resolved. That you still have a chance to save yourself." "The CEO will receive his hundred million, if there is no interference. That much I have already arranged for. When that is completed, I will consider my responsibilities discharged." "Your responsibilities will never be discharged, Nogami-san. _Giri _lasts forever." His voice was cutting. "The sooner you realize that, the better." "After tomorrow, it will be over, Sato-sama." He stretched out his arm and tapped the inch-long ash into a trash basket beside the desk. "Tomorrow," Jiro Sato bowed, "it only begins." Wednesday 2:25 A.M. _ _Yuri Andreevich Androv stood facing the bulkhead that sealed the forward avionics bays, feeling almost as though he were looking at a bank vault. As in all high-security facilities, the access doors were controlled electronically. Since the final retrofits were now completed, the Japanese maintenance crews were only working two shifts; nobody was around at this hour except the security guards. He'd told them he'd thought of something and wanted to go up and take a look at the heavy-duty EN-15 turbo pumps, which transferred hydrogen to the scramjets after it was converted from liquid to gaseous phase for combustion. He'd been worrying about their pulse rating and couldn't sleep. He'd gone on to explain that although static testing had shown they would achieve operating pressure in twenty milliseconds if they were fully primed in advance, that was static testing, not flight testing, and he'd been unable to sleep wondering about the adhesive around the seals. It was just technical mumbo-jumbo, although maybe he should be checking them, he thought grimly. But he trusted the engineering team. He had to. Besides, the pumps had been developed specially for the massive Energia booster, and they'd functioned flawlessly in routine launchings of those vehicles at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Of course, at Baikonur they always were initiated while the Energia was on the launch pad, at full atmospheric pressure. On the _Daedalus_ they'd have to be powered in during flight, at sixty thousand feet and 2,700 miles per hour. But still . . . The late-night security team had listened sympathetically. They had no objection if Androv wanted to roll a stair-truck under the fuselage of _Daedalus /, _then climb into the underbay and inspect turbo pumps in the dead of night. Everybody knew he was eccentric. No, make that insane. You'd have to be to want to ride a rocket. They'd just waved him in. After all, the classified avionics in the forward bays were secured. He smiled grimly to think that he'd been absolutely right. Hangar Control was getting lax about security in these waning days before the big test. It always happened after a few months of mechanics trooping in and out. That also explained why he now had a full set of magnetic access cards for all the sealed forward bays. Just as he'd figured, the mechanics were now leaving them stuffed in the pockets of the coveralls they kept in their lockers in the changing room. Time to get started. There was, naturally, double security, with a massive airlock port opening onto a pressure bay, where three more secure ports sealed the avionics bays themselves. The airlock port was like an airplane door, double reinforced to withstand the near vacuum of space, and in the center was a green metallic slot for a magnetic card. He began trying cards, slipping them into the slot. The first, the second, the third, the fourth, and then, payoff. The three green diodes above the lock handle flashed. He quickly shoved down the grip and pushed. The door eased inward, then rotated to the side, opening onto the pressure bay. The temperature inside was a constant 5 degrees Celsius, kept just above freezing to extend the life of the sensitive electronic gear in the next three bays. The high-voltage sodium lamps along the sides of the fuselage now switched on automatically as the door swung inward. He fleetingly thought about turning them off, then realized they weren't manually operated. Through the clouds of his condensing breath he could see that the interior of the entry bay was a pale, military green. The color definitely seemed appropriate, given what he now knew about this vehicle. He quickly turned and, after making sure the outer door could be reopened from the inside, closed it behind him. When it clicked secure, the sodium lights automatically shut off with a faint hum. Just like a damned refrigerator, he thought. But the dark was what he wanted. He withdrew a small penlight from his pocket and scanned the three bulkhead hatches leading to the forward bays. The portside bay, on the left, contained electronics for the multimode phased array radar scanner in the nose, radar processors, radar power supply, radar transmitters and receivers, Doppler processor, shrouded scanner tracking mechanism, and an RF oscillator. He knew; he'd checked the engineering diagrams. He also knew the starboard equipment bay, the one on the right, contained signal processors for the inertial navigation system (INS), the instrument landing system (ILS), the foreplane hydraulic actuator, the structural mode control system (SMCS), station controller, and the pilot's liquid-oxygen tanks and evaporator. The third forward bay, located beneath the other two and down a set of steel stairs, was the one he needed to penetrate. It contained all the computer gear: flight control, navigation, and most importantly, the artificial intelligence (AI) system for pilot interface and backup. He suddenly found himself thinking a strange thought. Since no air- breathing vehicle had ever flown hypersonic, every component in this plane was, in a sense, untested. To his mind, though, that was merely one more argument for shutting down the damned AI system's override functions before he went hypersonic. If something did go wrong, he wanted this baby on manual. He only needed the computer to alert him to potential problems. The solutions he'd have to work out with his own brain. And balls. After all, that's why he was there. As he walked down the steel steps, he thumbed through the magnetic cards, praying he had the one needed to open the lower bay and access the computers. Then he began inserting them one by one into the green metallic slot, trying to keep his hand steady in the freezing cold. Finally one worked. The three encoded diodes blinked, and a hydraulic arm automatically slid the port open. Next the interior lights came on, an orange high-voltage sodium glow illuminating the gray walls. This third bay, like the two above it, was big enough to stand in. As he stepped in, he glanced back up the stairs, then quickly resealed the door. Off went the lights again, so he withdrew his penlight and turned to start searching for what he wanted. Directly in front of him was a steel monolith with banks of toggle switches: electrical power controls, communications controls, propulsion system controls, reaction-control systems. Okay, that's the command console, which was preset for each flight and then monitored from the cockpit. Now where's the damned on-board AI module? He scanned the bay. The AI system was the key to his plan. He had to make certain the computer's artificial intelligence functions could be completely shut down, disengaged, when the crucial moment came. He couldn't afford for the on-board system-override to abort his planned revision in the hypersonic flight plan. His job tonight was to make sure all the surprises were his, not somebody else's. There wouldn't be any margin for screw-ups. Everything had to go like clockwork. He edged his way on through the freezing bay, searching the banks of equipment for a clue, and then he saw what he was looking for. There, along the portside bulkhead. It was a white, rectangular console, and everything about it told him immediately it was what he wanted. He studied it a second, trying to decide where to begin. At that moment he also caught himself wondering fleetingly how he'd ever gotten into this crazy situation. Maybe he should have quit the Air Force years ago and gone to engineering school like his father had wanted. Right now, he had to admit, a little electrical engineering would definitely come in handy. He took out a pocket screwdriver and began carefully removing the AI console's faceplate, a bronzed rectangle. Eight screws later, he lifted it off and settled it on the floor. The penlight revealed a line of chips connected by neat sections of plastic-coated wires. Somewhere in this electronic ganglia there had to be a crucial node where he could attach the device he'd brought. It had taken some doing, but he'd managed to assemble an item that should take care of his problem beautifully when the moment came. It was a radio-controlled, electrically operated blade that, when clamped onto a strand of wires, could sever them in an instant. The radio range was fifty meters, which would be adequate; the transmitter, no larger than a small tape recorder, was going to be with him in his flight suit. The instant he switched the turboramjets over to the scramjet mode, he was going to activate it and blow their fucking AI module out of the system. Permanently. He figured he had ten minutes before one of the security team came looking to see what he was doing; he'd timed this moment to coincide with their regular tea break. Even the Japanese didn't work around the clock. Now, holding the penlight and shivering from the cold, he began carefully checking the wires. Carefully, so very carefully. He didn't have a diagram of their computer linkages, and he had to make sure he didn't accidentally interrupt the main power source, since the one thing he didn't want to do was disconnect any of the other flight control systems. He wanted to cut in somewhere between the AI module's power supply and its central processor. The power source led in here . . . and then up the side over to there, a high-voltage transformer . . . and then out from . . . There. Just after the step-up transformer and before the motherboard with the dedicated CPU and I/O. That should avoid any shorting in the main power system and keep the interruption nice and localized. The line was almost half an inch thick, double-stranded, copper grounded with a coaxial sheath. But there was a clear section that led directly down to the CPU. That's where he'd place the blade, and hope it'd at least short- circuit the power feed even if it didn't sever the wires completely. He tested the radio transmitter one last time, making sure it would activate the blade, then reached down and clamped the mechanism onto the wire, tightening it with thumb screws. When it was as secure as he could make it, he stood back and examined his handiwork. If somebody decided to remove the faceplate, they'd spot it in a second, but otherwise . . . Quickly, hands trembling from the cold, he fitted the cover back on the module and began replacing the screws with the tiny screwdriver. It wasn't magnetized, a deliberate choice, so the small screws kept slipping between his bulky fingers, a problem made more acute by the numbing cold. Three screws to go . . . then he heard the noise. Footsteps on the aluminum catwalk in the pressure bay above. . . . _Shit_. He kept working as fast as he could, grimly holding the screws secure and fighting back the numbness and pain in his freezing fingers. Only one more. Above, he could hear the sounds of someone checking each of the equipment bays, methodically opening and then resecuring them. First the starboard side bay was opened and closed, then the portside bay. Now he heard footsteps advancing down the metal stairs leading to the computer bay. They were five seconds away from discovering him. The last screw was in. He tried to stand, and realized his knees were numb. He staggered backward, grabbing for something to steady himself . . . and the light came on. "Yuri Andreevich, so this is where you are. What are you doing here?" It was the gravel voice of his father. He felt like a child again, caught with his hand in his pants. What should he do? tell the truth? "I'm--I'm checking over the consoles, passing the time. I couldn't sleep." "Don't lie to me." Andrei Androv's ancient eyebrows gathered into the skeptical furrow Yuri knew so well. "You're up to something, another of your tricks." Yuri stared at him a moment. How had he known? A sixth sense? "_Moi otyets_, why are you here? You should be getting your sleep." "I'm an old man. An old man worries. I had a feeling you might be in here tonight, tinkering with the vehicle. You told me you were planning something. I think the time has come to tell me what it is." Yuri took a deep breath and looked him over. No, it was too risky. For them both. His secret had to be ironclad. "It's better if you don't know." "As you wish," the old man sighed. "But if you do something foolish . . ." "I damned sure intend to try." He met his father's steely gaze. "So did you do it?" Andrei Androv examined him, his ancient face ashen beneath his mane of white hair. "Did you manage to sabotage the AI module?" He caught himself laughing out loud. Whatever else, his father was no fool. He'd been a Russian too long to believe anything he heard or half of what he saw. Intrigue was a way of life for him. "Let's go. They'll come looking for us soon. This is the wrong place to be found." "You're right." "Go back to the West Quadrant. Listen to a string quartet." He opened the port and waited for his father to step out. Then he followed, closing it behind them. "There's no reason for you to be involved. Heads are going to roll, but why should yours be one of them?" Andrei Petrovich Androv moved lightly up the metal stair, the spring in his step belying his age. At the top he paused and turned back. "You're acting out of principle, aren't you, Yuri? For once in your life." "I guess you could say that." He smiled, then moved on up the steps. "Someday, the Russian people will thank you." "Someday. Though I may not live to see it." Andrei Androv stopped, his ancient eyes tearing as his voice dropped to a whisper. "Of all the things you've ever done, my son, nothing could make me more proud of you than what you just said. I've thought it over, about the military uses for this vehicle, and I think the future of the world is about to be rewritten here. You must stop them. You're the only chance we have left." CHAPTER SIXTEEN Wednesday 10:05 A.M. The limousine had already left the Savoy and was headed down the Strand when Alex Novosty broke the silence. He leaned forward, pushed the button on the two-way microphone linking the passenger compartment to the driver, and spoke in Russian. "Igor Borisovich, there's been an alteration in our plans. We will not be going to Westminster Union. Take us to Moscow Narodny Bank. The trading branch on Saint Swithins Lane." "_Shto ve skazale_?" Igor, still nursing his head from the kidnapping, glanced into his rearview mirror. "The bank's main office is on King William Street. We always--" "Just do as you're told." Novosty cut him off, then killed the mike. Vera Karanova stared at him, her dark eyes flooding with concern. "But you said the transaction was scheduled for Westminster Union Bank, this morning at ten-thirty." "That was merely a diversion." Novosty leaned back. "The actual arrangement is turned around. For security reasons." "I don't like this." Her displeasure was obvious, and mounting. "There is no reason--" "It's better, I assure you." He withdrew a white tin of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes from his coat, snapped it open, and withdrew one. Made of fine Turkish Yenidje tobacco, they were what he always smoked on important days. This was an important day. As he flicked his lighter and drew in the first lungful of rich smoke, he thought about how much he hated the dark-haired woman seated beside him, dressed in a gray Armani business suit, sable coat, Cartier jewelry. The bad blood between them traced back over five years, begin- ning with a T-Directorate reshuffle in which she'd moved up to the number three slot, cutting him out of a well-deserved promotion. The rumor going around Dzerzhinsky Square was that she'd done it by making the right connections, so to speak. It was the kind of in-house screw- job Alex Novosty didn't soon forget, of forgive. Their black limo was now passing the Royal Courts of Justice, on the left, headed onto Fleet Street. Ahead was Cannon Street, which intersected the end of Saint Swithins Lane. Just a few blocks more. After today, he fully intended never to see her again. "We've arranged for the transaction to take place through MNB's bond trading desk," Novosty continued, almost as though to nobody in particular. "Michael and I have taken care of everything." "Who approved this change?" She angrily gripped the handrest. "I did," Novosty replied sharply. "We're in charge." He masked a smile, pleased to see her upset. The morning traffic was now almost at a standstill, but they would be on time. "After all, he still has the money." "And for all you know he may be in Brazil by now. Perhaps that's the reason he and the woman disappeared last night, with the help of an accomplice who assaulted Igor Borisovich." "Michael will be there," Novosty said. "Have no fear. He's not going anywhere till this is finished." "After this is completed," she said matter-of-factly, "he will be finished. I hope you have planned for that." Novosty glanced over, wondering what she meant. Had all the surprises been covered? He hoped so, because this deal was his gateway to freedom. The two million commission would mean a new beginning for him. Wednesday 10:18 A.M. Kenji Nogami sat upright at his wide oak desk, waiting for the phone to ring. How would Michael play it? Admittedly it was smart to keep everything close to the chest, but still. He would have felt better if Michael Vance, Jr., had favored him with a little more trust. On the other hand, keeping the details of the operation under wraps as long as possible was probably wise. It minimized the chance for some inadvertent slip-up. Yes, it was definitely best. Because he was staring across his desk at four of Tanzan Mino's Tokyo _kobun_, all dressed in shiny black leather jackets. They'd arrived at the Docklands office just after dawn, announcing they were there to hand-deliver the money to Tokyo. Jiro Sato had directed them to Westminster Union. The four all carried black briefcases, which did not contain business papers. They intended to accomplish their mission by whatever means necessary. Jiro Sato, the London _oyabun_, had not been invited to send his people along with them this morning. He was now humiliated and dis- graced, officially removed from the operation, on Tokyo's orders. The regional office had failed, so Tokyo had sent in a _Mino-gumi_ version of the Delta Force. They clearly had orders concerning what to do with Michael Vance. He didn't like this new twist. For everything to go according to plan, violence had to be kept out of it. There was no way he and Michael could go head to head with street enforcers. If Michael was thinking of doing that, the man was crazy. He glanced at his gold Omega, noting that it read ten- nineteen. In eleven more minutes he'd know how Michael intended to run the scenario. But whatever happened, he wasn't going to be intimidated by these _kobun_ hoods, dark sunglasses and automatics notwithstanding. Those days were over. Michael had given him a perfect opportunity to start building a new life. He didn't care if all hell was about to break loose. Wednesday 10:23 A.M. "_Polovena decyat_?" She examined him with her dark eyes. "_Da_." Novosty nodded. "They will be here at ten-thirty. That is the schedule." He was feeling nervous, which was unusual and he didn't like it. Whenever he got that way, things always started going off the track. They were now in the paneled elevator, heading up to the sixth floor of the Moscow Narodny Bank. The hundred million had been held overnight in the vault of Victoria Courier Service Limited, which was scheduled to deliver the satchels this morning at ten-thirty sharp. The location for the delivery, however, was known only to him and to Michael Vance. He wanted to be sure and arrive there ahead of the money. He also would have much preferred being without the company of Vera Karanova. One thing you had to say for Michael: He'd arranged the deal with great finesse. He didn't trust anybody. Until he notified Victoria Courier this morning, nobody knew where the money would be taken, not even the Japanese banker Nogami. Still, the instruments were negotiable, leaving the possibility of trouble if the timing went sour. He intended to make sure it didn't. The planning had been split-second up until now; this was no moment to relax his guard. Yes, it was good he was here. As he studied Comrade Karanova, he realized that something about her was still making him uneasy. So far it was merely a hunch, but his hunches had been right more often than he liked to think. He tried to push the feeling aside. Probably just paranoia. She obviously was here today for the same reason he was, to make sure the Soviet money was returned safely. She probably was also still worried about the protocol, but that problem was hers, not his. From today on, the KGB would have to work out their in-fighting back home the best way they could. The ground rules were changing fast in Moscow. Besides, Dzerzhinsky Square was about to become part of a previous life for him. If he could just clear this up, get his commission, he'd be set. Forever. Enough was enough. Maybe he'd end up in the Caribbean like Michael, drinking margaritas and counting string bikinis. The elevator door opened. Facing them were Michael Vance and Eva Borodin. "Glad you could make it." Vance glanced coldly at Vera. "Right on time. The money arrives in exactly seven minutes." She nodded a silent greeting, pulling her sable coat tighter as she strode past. The bank officials lined up along the corridor watched her with nervous awe. Even in London, T-Directorate brass had clout. They moved as a group down the long carpeted hallway leading to the counting room. On this floor everything was high-security, with uniformed guards at all the doorways. Negotiable instruments weren't handled casually. Wednesday 10:30 A.M. An armoured van with V.C.S., Ltd. lettered on its side pulled up to the black marble front of Moscow Narodny Bank's financial trading branch on Saint Swithins Lane. Everything was on schedule. "They're here." Eva was watching from the narrow window. Saint Swithins Lane down below, virtually an alley, was so narrow it could accommodate only one vehicle at a time. Across was Banque Worms, its unicorn insignia staring out, its lobby chandeliers glowing. Nobody there even bothered to notice. Just another armored truck interrupting the view. Then three blue-uniformed guards emerged from the cab and approached the rear doors from both sides, .38's in unsnapped holsters. "Mr. Vance, they had better have the money, all of it." Vera stepped over to the window and followed Eva's gaze down. "It'll be there." "For your sake I hope so," she replied as she turned back. "Just hang around and watch," Vance said. Just one more day, he told himself. One more lousy day. We'll have enough of the protocol translated by tomorrow, the press package ready. Then we drop it on the papers and blow town. From the hallway outside a bell chimed faintly as the elevator opened, a private lift that came directly up from the lobby. When he heard the heavy footsteps of the couriers, accompanied by MNB guards, he stepped over and quickly glanced out. The two blue-suits were each carrying a large satchel handcuffed to the left wrist. Obviously the third had stayed downstairs, guarding the van. "This way." The heavy-jowled director of the MNB bond trading desk stepped out and motioned them in. The play was on. Kenji Nogami's issue of Mino Industries debentures had been registered with the Issuing House Association the previous day. This morning they would be acquired by Vance, using a wire transfer between the Moscow Narodny Bank on Saint Swithins Lane and Westminster Union Bank's bond desk. After that there would be a second transaction, whereby Sumitomo Bank, Limited would accept the debentures as security for a loan of one hundred million dollars, to be wire-transferred back to Westminster Union and from there to Moscow Narodny Bank. Everything had been prearranged. The whole transaction would require only minutes. Unless there was a glitch. Vance had fully expected that Tanzan Mino would send a welcoming committee to Nogami's premises, which was why he'd arranged for the money to be delivered here at Moscow Narodny's side-street branch. He figured the Soviets, at least, would play it straight. KGB wanted its file closed. Then too, Eva still had the protocol. Their back-up insurance policy. "Mr. Vance." Vera Karanova watched as the two security men unlatched their satchels and began withdrawing the bundles of open cashiers checks and bearer bonds. "I want to recount these securities, now." "There're double-counted tallys already prepared"--he pointed toward the bundles--"yesterday by the main branch of Moscow Narodny. The printouts are attached." "That was their count," she replied. "I intend to make my own, before we go any further." Which means time lost, he thought. Doesn't she realize we've got to get this cash recycled, those bonds purchased and in place, before Tanzan Mino's _kobun _have a chance to move on us? If the deal to acquire Ken's new Mino Industries debentures doesn't go through, giving us something to hold over the godfather's head . . . She's literally playing into his hands. "The instruments are all here, all negotiable, and all ready to go," he said, stealing a quick glance toward Eva. One look at her eyes told him she also sensed trouble brewing. "Now, we're damn well going to move and move fast. We credit the funds here, then wire them to Westminster Union. And by God we do it immediately." "Mr. Vance, you are no longer giving the orders," she replied sharply. "I'm in charge here now. As a matter of fact, I have no intention of wiring the money anywhere. There will be no purchase of debentures. As far as I'm concerned, it has now been returned." She paused for emphasis. "But first we will count it." "Vera, my love," Eva said, cutting her off, "if you try and double- cross us, you're making a very big mistake. You seem to forget we've got that protocol. What we didn't get around to telling you is that we've deciphered it." "You--?" "That's right. As it happens, I don't think you're going to like what it's got to say, but you might at least want to know the story before you read about it in The Times day after tomorrow." Alex Novosty's face had turned ashen. "Michael, Tanzan Mino's people are probably headed here by now. Unless they go to the main office on King William Street first." He was nervously glancing out the window. "We're running out of time." The game's about to get rough, Vance thought. Better take charge. But before he could move, Novosty was gripping a Ruger P-85, a lightweight 9mm automatic, pulled from a holster under the back of his jacket. He'd worn it where the MNB guards would miss it. The two Victoria couriers were caught flat-footed. Bankers weren't supposed to start drawing weapons. They stared in astonishment as he gestured for them to turn and face the wall. "Michael," he said as he glanced over, "would you kindly give me a hand and take those two .38's? We really must get this party moving." Vera Karanova was smiling a thin smile. "I don't know how far you think you will get with this." "We seem to be working toward different objectives," Novosty answered. "Michael has a solution to everybody's problem. I regret very much you've chosen not to help facilitate it." "The only problem he solved was yours," she shot back. "Mr. Vance devised what amounts to an enormous check kiting scheme. You two planned to perpetrate fraud. You're nothing better than criminals, both of you, and I intend to make sure you haven't also given us a short count." "Comrade, fraud is a harsh word," Vance interjected. "You are not as amusing as you think," she replied. "Humor makes the world go round." 'This is not a joke. The negotiable instruments in this room are Soviet funds. I intend to make sure those funds are intact. There will be a full and complete count. Now." She's gone over the edge, he told himself. She's definitely going to try and screw us, either wittingly or unwittingly. But who in the room is going to help her? That huddled group of Russian bankers now staring terrified at Novosty's 9mm? Not damned likely. She's improvising, on her own. But her little stunt could well end up sinking the ship. The two couriers were now spread against the brown textured fabric of the wall, legs apart. He walked over and reached into the leather holsters at their hips, drawing out their revolvers. They were snub- nosed Smith & Wesson Bodyguards, .38 caliber. He looked them over, cocked them, and handed one to Eva. "How about covering the door? I think it's time we got down to business and traded some bonds." "With pleasure." She stepped over and glanced out. It was clear. "What do you think, Alex?" Vance turned back. "Word's going around there's a hot new issue of Mino Industries zero-coupons coming out today. What do you say we go long? In for a hundred. Just take the lot." "I heard the same rumor, this very morning," he smiled. "You're right. My instincts say it's a definite buy." "Fine." Vance turned to MNB's jowled branch chief. "We'd like to do a little trading here this morning. Mind getting the bond desk at Westminster Union on the line? Tell Nogami we're good for a hundred in Mino Industries debentures, the new issue. At par." "Michael." It was Eva's voice, suddenly alarmed. "What?" "We've got company. They look like field reps." "Good God." Novosty strode to the door and looked out. A group of four leather-jacketed Japanese were headed down the hallway, two disarmed MNB guards in front. Also with them was Kenji Nogami. Turning back, he looked imploringly at Vance. "What do we do?" "Figure they came prepared." He waved toward Eva. "Better lose that .38. Put it on the table for now. Maybe we can still talk this thing through." She nodded, then stepped over and laid her weapon beside the bundles of securities. Vance took one last look at the Smith & Wesson in his own hand and did the same. Even ex-archaeologists could do arithmetic. All this time Vera Karanova had said nothing. She merely stood watching the proceedings with a detached smile. Finally she spoke. "Now we can proceed with the counting," she said calmly. "Maybe you don't fully grasp the situation here, comrade." Vance stared at her. "Those gorillas aren't dropping in for tea. We've got to stand together." She burst out laughing. "Mr. Vance, you are truly naive. No, you're worse. You actually thought you could sabotage the most powerful new global alliance of the twentieth century." Her dark eyes were gradually turning glacial. "It will not be allowed to happen, believe me." My God, he realized, that's why she wanted to get her hands on the protocol. To deep-six it. She's been biding her time, stringing us along. And today she managed to stall us long enough for Mino's boys to figure out the switch. She's no longer working for T-Directorate; she's part of Tanzan Mino's operation. All this time she's been working with them. "The negotiable certificates in this room will be delivered to their rightful recipient by his personal jet," she continued. "Today." "Over my dead body." He found himself thinking it might well be true. "No, Mr. Vance, not exactly. Your contribution will be more substantial than that." He was speechless, for the first time. The Russian bankers in the room were taken totally by surprise. Double- dealing KGB games had always been part of the landscape, but this was confusing in the extreme. Whose money was it anyway? "Michael." Novosty's voice was trembling. "This cannot be allowed to happen." "I agree. We've definitely got a situation here." He glanced around to see the four _Mino-gumi kobun _poised in the doorway, all with H&K automatics now out of their briefcases. Kenji Nogami was standing behind them, his eyes defeated. Novosty still looked stunned. The range of options was rapidly narrowing to none. Vera indicated his Ruger. "You would be wise to put that away. Now." "If they take these securities, my life's not worth a _kopeck_." Novosty seemed to be thinking out loud. "What does it matter." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. Remembering it all later, Vance could barely recall the precise sequence of events. He did remember shoving Eva back against the wall as the fireworks began. Novosty's first round caught the lead _Mino-gumi kobun_ squarely between the eyes. As he pitched backward, arms flailing, he tumbled against the others, giving Novosty time to fire again. With deadly accuracy he caught another in the chest. Kenji Nogami had already thrown himself on the thick hallway carpet, safely avoiding the fusillade. The Russian bankers, too, had all hit the floor, along with the MNB guards and the two couriers. Then came a shot with a different sound--the dull thunk of a silencer. Novosty jerked in surprise, pain spreading through his eyes. The silencer thunked again, and again. It was Vera Karanova. She was holding a small .22 caliber Walther PP, with a specially equipped silencer. And her aim was flawless. Novosty had three slugs arranged neatly down the side of his head before he even realized what was happening. He collapsed forward, never knowing whose hand had been on the gun. She's probably wanted to get rid of him for years, Vance thought fleetingly. She finally got her golden opportunity, the double-crossing bitch. He briefly considered grabbing back one of the .38's and avenging Alex then and there, but he knew it would be suicidal. "Alex, no!" Eva's voice sobbed. "Both of you, hands on the wall." Comrade Karanova was definitely in charge. "Michael," Eva said, turning to comply, "what happened to our well-laid plans?" "Looks like too little, too late." He stretched beside her. "What did she mean just now? About our 'contribution'?" "Probably the protocol. My guess is she wants to see it destroyed. Let's hope that'll be the end of it. The godfather's got his money. And Alex's problem is solved permanently." Now Kenji Nogami was entering the room, an island of Zen-like calm amidst all the bedlam. "Michael, I'm so sorry." He stepped over. "When the money didn't show up as scheduled, they called Jiro Sato and he suggested they try here. There was nothing I could do." Vance nodded. "That's how I figured it'd be played. We didn't move fast enough on this end. It was my fault." "Too bad. We came close." He sighed. "But I'm not going to underwrite the rest of those bogus debentures. He'll have to kill me." "And he'll probably do just that. The hell with it. You tried, we all tried. Now it looks like Tanzan Mino's scam is going to go through whether we play or not. You might as well save your own skin. With any luck, we can still sort out our end, but you--you're going to have to be dealing with that bastard for years to come. Think about it." "I'm still deciding," he said finally. "Let's wait and see how things go." "Alex opted for suicide. You shouldn't follow his lead." "I'm not suicidal." He stepped back as Vera proceeded to pat them down. "I think very carefully about my options." "Get the money." She was directing the two remaining _Mino-gumi kobun _toward the table. "Gonna just rob the bank now, Comrade?" Vance turned and looked at her, then at the three bodies strewn on the floor. The _kobun _seemed to consider their late colleagues merely casualties of war. The dead men received almost no notice. "Pretty costly little enterprise, wouldn't you say. Not a very propitious start for your new era of world serenity." "You would be advised to shut up," she responded sharply. "I feel personally violated by all this." Nogami had turned to her and his voice was like steel. "As of this moment, you can put out of your mind any illusion I might cooperate further. This outrage is beyond acceptability." "We did what had to be done," Vera said. "We still expect your cooperation and I do not think we will be disappointed." "Then your expectation is sadly misplaced," he replied icily. His eyes signified he meant every word. "We will see." She dismissed him as she turned her attention to the money. The two _kobun_ had carefully removed their shiny black leather jackets now and laid them on the table. Underneath they wore tightly tailored white shirts, complete with underarm holsters containing 9mm Llamas. The automatics were back in their briefcases, positioned by the door. Stripped down for action, they were quickly and professionally tallying the certificates, one handling the open cashiers checks and the other the bearer bonds. Guess they intend to keep a close eye on the details, Vance thought. Well, screw them. We've still got the protocol. We've got some leverage left. But he was having trouble focusing on the future. He was still in shock from the sight of Novosty being gunned down in cold blood. Alex's abrupt death was a tragic end to an exceptional, if sometimes dubious, career. He'd really wanted Novosty to make this one last score. The man deserved it. He was an operator who lived at the edge, and Vance had always admired players who put everything on the table, no matter which side. Well, he told himself, the scenario had come close, damned close. But maybe it was doomed from the start. You only get so many chances to tempt the fates. Today everybody's number came up, Alex's for the last time. Rest in peace, Aleksei Ilyich. Then Vera turned back to them. "Now, I want the computer. We know it was moved to the house in Kensington, but our search this morning did not locate it." So they were on to us from the start, Vance realized. "Looks like you've got a problem." He strolled over and plopped down in one of the straight-backed chairs along the opposite wall. "Too bad." "No, you have a problem." She examined him confidently. "Because if those materials are not returned to us, we will be forced to take actions you may find harsh." "Give it your best shot," he went on, glancing at Eva and hoping they could keep up the bravado, "because we've got a few cards in our hand too. Forget the money--that's history now--but we could still be in a position to blow your whole project sky high." "You two are the only ones outside our organization who know about the protocol. That knowledge will not be allowed to go any farther." "Don't be so sure. For all you know, we've already stashed a copy somewhere. Left word that if anything happens to either one of us, the package gets sent to the papers. Made public. Think what some premature headlines would do for your little project." "We have thought about it, Mr. Vance. That contingency has been covered." "Well, if I don't know what the other player's got, I tend to trust my own cards." But why play at all? he suddenly found himself musing. Fold this hand and go for the next move. Before leaving Crete he'd transmitted a copy of the protocol, still in its encrypted form, to his office computer in Nassau. At the time it'd merely seemed like prudence; now it might turn out to be a lifeline. One phone call and it could be transmitted back here this very afternoon. The magic of satellites in space. Knock out another quick translation and they'd only have lost one day. What the hell. Use that as a fallback position. Time, that's all it would take, just a little more time. "But what does it matter? The game's up anyway." He nodded toward Vera, then turned to Eva, sending her a pointed signal. "What was it Shakespeare said about discretion and valor," she concurred, understanding exactly what he was thinking. "The man knew when to fish and when to cut bait." "True enough. Shall you tell them or shall I?" "You can do the honors." She walked over and picked up her briefcase. "You didn't really think we'd leave it, did you, Comrade? So just take it and good riddance. A little gift from the NSA. Who says America's getting stingy with its foreign aid?" Comrade Karanova motioned for the two _kobun _to take the case. "See if it's there." As they moved to comply, Vance found himself wondering if this really was going to turn off the heat. Somehow it no longer seemed adequate. "_Hai so_," he grunted through his teeth as he lifted it, "something is here." Vance noticed that two digits of the little finger on his left hand were missing, along with another digit on his ring finger. Good thing Ken was never a street man, he thought fleetingly. Guess bankers get to pay for their mistakes with something besides sections of fin- ger. "Then take it out," Vera commanded. "We are running out of time." You've got that right, lady, Vance thought. Three men were just killed. That personal Boeing of Tanzan Mino's better be warming up its Pratt & Whitney's right now. London's about to get too hot for you. One of the _kobun _withdrew the Zenith. He placed it on the mahogany table, then unlatched the top and lifted it up, only to stare at the blank gray screen, unsure what he was supposed to do next. Vera knew. She reached for the switch on the side and clicked it on, then stood back and turned to Eva. "Call up the file. I want to see if you have really broken the encryption, the way you said." "Truth time," she laughed, then punched up the translation. _Project Daedalus_. And there it was. Comrade Karanova studied it a moment, as though not quite believing her eyes. But she plainly had seen it before. "Congratulations. We were sure no one would be able to break the encryption, not even you." She glanced around. "You are very clever." "Okay," Vance interjected, "I'm sure we all have better things to do this morning. So why don't you take the damned thing and get out of here. It's what you wanted. Just go and we'll all try and forget any of this ever happened." She flipped down the computer's screen, then turned back. "Unfortunately nothing is ever that simple. I'm sorry to have to tell you two that we haven't seen the last of each other." She paused, then continued. "In fact, we are about to become much better acquainted." "What do you mean?" "You once told me, back when we met on the plane from Athens, you would welcome that. You should be happy that your wish is now about to be granted. You both are going to be our guests." "That's kind of you." He stared at her, startled. "But we can probably bear up to the separation." "No, I must insist. You were right about the difficulties. Your death now would be awkward, for a number of reasons. Alex will be trouble enough to explain, but that is purely an internal Soviet matter. Moscow Narodny can cover it. However, eliminating you two would raise awkward inquiries. On the other hand, you represent a security risk to the project. Consequently we have no option. Surely you understand." He understood all too well. This was the one turn he hadn't figured on. Almost eight years. It had been that long ago. But what had Ken said? The Tokyo _oyabun _never forgot. What this really meant was that Tanzan Mino wanted to settle the score first hand. What did he have planned? Vance had a sudden feeling he didn't want to know. It was going to be a zero-sum game. Everything on the table and winner take all. The Uzi. The goddam Uzi. Why hadn't they brought it? It was still back in Kensington, where they'd stashed it in the false bottom of a new suitcase. But if the _Mino-gumi_ had been searching only for a computer, maybe they'd missed it. So Tanzan Mino's hoods could still be in for a surprise. Just make an excuse to go back. Vera was aware an Uzi had been part of their deal for the limo, but maybe that fact had momentarily slipped her mind, what with all the important things she had to think about. Or maybe she'd assumed Alex had kept it, or maybe she thought it was still in the car. Whatever she thought, things were moving too fast now. "I get the picture," he said, rising from his chair. With a carefully feigned nonchalance, he strolled over to the table. "Guess it's time we got our toothbrushes." "You won't have to bother, Mr. Vance," Vera continued. "Your suitcases were sent to the plane an hour ago. We found them conveniently packed. Don't worry. Everything has already been taken care of." Okay, scratch the Uzi. Looks like it's now or never. Settle it here. He shot a glance at Eva, then at Ken, trying to signal them. They caught it, and they knew. She began strolling in the direction of Vera, who was now standing in the doorway, as though readying to depart. "We appreciate the snappy service," Vance said. He looked down at the computer, then bent over. When he came up, it was in his right hand, sailing in an arc. He brought it around with all his might, aimed for the nearest Japanese _kobun_. He was on target, catching the man squarely in the stomach. With a startled, disbelieving look the Japanese stumbled backward, crashing over a large chair positioned next to the table. The other _kobun_ instantly reached for his holstered Llama, but by then Kenji Nogami had moved, seizing him and momentarily pinning his arms with a powerful embrace. For her own part, Eva had lunged for Vera and her purse, to neutralize the Walther she carried. Comrade Karanova, however, had already anticipated everything. She whisked back the purse, then plunged her hand in. What she withdrew, though, was not a pistol but a shiny cylindrical object made of glass. It was three against three, a snapshot of desperation. We've got a chance, Vance thought. Keep him down. And get the Llama. As the _kobun_ tried to rise, gasping, Vance threw himself over the upturned chair, reaching to pin the man's arms. With a bear-like embrace he had him, the body small and muscular in his arms. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kenji Nogami still grappling with the other _kobun_. The computer now lay on the floor, open and askew. Where's Eva? He tried to turn and look for her, but there was no sound to guide him. Then the _kobun_ wrenched free one arm and brought a fist against the side of his face, diverting him back to matters at hand. Hold him down. Just get the gun. He tried to crush his larger frame against the other's slim body, forcing the air out of him. Focus. But the wiry man was stronger than he looked. With a twist he rolled over and pinned Vance's shoulders against the carpet. Vance felt the shag, soft against his skin, and couldn't believe how chilly it felt. But now he had his hand on the _kobun's_ throat, holding him in a powerful grip while jamming a free elbow against the holster. Cut off his oxygen. Don't let him breathe. The old moves were coming back, the shortcuts that would bring a more powerful opponent to submission. He pressed a thumb against the man's windpipe, shutting off his air. A look of surprise went through the _kobun's_ eyes as he choked, letting his hold on Vance's shoulders slacken. Now. He shoved the man's arm aside and reached for the holster. Then his hand closed around the hard grip of the Llama. The Japanese was weaker now, but still forcing his arm away from the gun, preventing him from getting the grip he needed. He rammed an elbow against the man's chin, then tightened his finger on the grip of the Llama. He almost had it. With his other hand he shoved the _kobun_'s face away, clawing at his eyes, and again they rolled over, with the Japanese once more against the carpet. But now he had the gun and he was turning. He felt a sharp jab in his back, a flash of pain that seemed to come from nowhere. It was both intense and numbing, as though his spine had been caught in a vise. Then he felt his heart constrict, his orientation spin. He rolled to the side, flailing an arm to try and recover his balance, but the room was in rotation, his vision playing tricks. The one thing he did see was Vera Karanova standing over him, a blurred image his mind tried vainly to correct. Her face was faltering, the indistinct outlines of a desert mirage. Was she real or was he merely dreaming? . . . Now the room was growing serene, a slow-motion phantasmagoria of pastel colors and soft, muted sounds. He tried to reach out, but there was nothing. Instead he heard faint music, dulcet beckoning tones. The world had entered another dimension, a seamless void. He wanted to be part of its emptiness, to swathe himself in the cascade of oblivion lifting him up. A perfect repose was drifting through him, a wave of darkness. He heard his own breathing as he was buoyed into a blood-red mist. He was floating, on a journey he had long waited to take, to a place far, far away. . . . BOOK THREE CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Thursday 2:28 P.M. "The hypersonic test flight must proceed as scheduled," Tanzan Mino said quietly. "Now that all the financial arrangements have been completed, the Coordinating Committee of the LDP has agreed to bring the treaty before the Diet next week. A delay is unthinkable." "The problem is not technical, Mino-sama," Taro Ikeda, the project director, continued, his tone ripe with deference. "It is the Soviet pilot. Perhaps he should be replaced." He looked down, searching for the right words. "I'm concerned. I think he has discovered the stealth capabilities of the vehicle. Probably accidentally, but all the same, I'm convinced he is now aware of them. Two nights ago he engaged in certain unauthorized maneuvers I believe were intended to verify those capabilities." "_So deshoo_." Tanzan Mino's eyes narrowed. "But he has said nothing?" "No. Not a word. At least to me." "Then perhaps he was merely behaving erratically. It would not be the first time." "The maneuvers. They were too explicit," Ikeda continued. "As I said, two nights ago, on the last test fight, he switched off the transponder, then performed a snap roll and took the vehicle into a power dive, all the way to the deck. It was intended to be a radar- evasive action." The project director allowed himself a faint, ironic smile. "At least we now know that the technology works. The vehicle's radar signature immediately disappeared off the tracking monitors at Katsura." "It met the specifications?" Ikeda nodded. "Yesterday I ordered a computer analysis of the data tapes. The preliminary report suggests it may even have exceeded them." Tanzan Mino listened in silence. He was sitting at his desk in the command sector wing of the North Quadrant at the Hokkaido facility. Although the sector was underground, like the rest of the facility, behind his desk was a twenty-foot-long "window" with periscope double mirrors that showed the churning breakers of La Perouse Strait. His jet had touched down on the facility's runway at 6:48 A.M. and been promptly towed into the hangar. Tanzan Mino intended to be in personal command when _Daedalus I_ went hypersonic, in just nineteen hours. The video monitors in his office were hard-wired directly to the main console in Flight Control, replicating its data displays, and all decisions passed across his desk. "Leave the pilot to me," he said without emotion, revolving to gaze out the wide window, which displayed the mid-afternoon sun catching the crests of whitecaps far at sea. "What he knows or doesn't know will not disrupt the schedule." Once again, he thought, I've got to handle a problem personally. Why? Because nobody else here has the determination to make the scenario succeed. First the protocol, and then the money. I had to intervene to resolve both. But, he reflected with a smile, it turned out that handling those difficulties personally had produced an unexpected dividend. "As you say, _Mino-sama_," Ikeda bowed. "I merely wanted to make you aware of my concern about the pilot. He should be monitored more closely from now on." "Which is precisely what I intend to do." Tanzan Mino's silver hair seemed to blend with the sea beyond. "There is an obvious solution. When he takes the vehicle hypersonic, he will not be alone." "What are you suggesting? No one else--" "Merely a simple security precaution. If he is not reliable, then steps must be taken. Two of our people will be in the cockpit with him." "You mean the scientists from Tsukuba? The cockpit was designed to accommodate a three-man crew, but MITI hasn't yet designated the two researchers." "No. I mean my personal pilot and copilot. From the Boeing. Then if Androv deviates from the prescribed test program in any way, they will be there, ready to take immediate action. The problem is solved." He revolved back from the window. "That will be all." Ikeda bowed, then turned and hurriedly made his way toward the door. He didn't like last-minute improvisations, but the CEO was now fully in command. Preparations for two additional life-support systems would have to be started immediately. After Tanzan Mino watched him depart, he reached down and activated a line of personal video monitors beside his desk. Thursday 2:34 P.M. Vance recognized the sound immediately. It was the harp-like plucking of a Japanese _koto_, punctuated by the tinkling of a wind chime. Without opening his eyes, he reached out and touched a hard, textured surface. It was, he realized, a straw mat, and from the firmness of the weave he knew it was _tatami_. Then he felt the soft cotton of the padded mat beneath him and guessed he was lying on a futon. The air in the room was faintly spiced with Mahayana Buddhist temple incense. I'm in Japan, he told himself. Or somebody wants me to think I am. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a rice-paper lamp on the floor next to his futon. Directly behind it, on the left, was a _tokonoma _art alcove, built next to a set of sliding doors. A small, round _shoji_ window in the _tokonoma _shed a mysterious glow on its hanging scroll, the painting an ink sketch of a Zen monk fording a shallow stream. Then he noticed an insignia that had been painted on the sliding doors with a giant brush. He struggled to focus, and finally grasped that it was the Minoan double ax, logo of the Daedalus Corporation. Jesus! He lay a minute, nursing the ache in his head and trying to remember what had happened. All he could recall was London, money, Eva . . . Eva. Where was she? He popped erect and surveyed the room. It was traditional Jap anese, the standard four-and-a-half tatami in size, bare and Spartan. A classic. But the music. It seemed to be coming through the walls. The walls. They all looked to be rice paper. He clambered up and headed for the fusuma with the double-ax logo. He tested it and realized that the paper was actually painted steel. And it was locked. The room was secure as a vault. But across, opposite the _tokonoma_, was another set of sliding doors. As he turned to walk over, he noticed he was wearing _tabi_, light cotton stockings split at the toe, and he was clad in a blue-patterned _yukata_ robe, cinched at the waist. He'd been stripped and re- dressed. This door was real, and he shoved it open. A suite of rooms lay beyond, and there on a second futon, still in a drugged sleep, lay Eva. He moved across, bent down, and shook her. She jerked away, her dreaming disrupted, and turned over, but she didn't come out of it. "Wake up." He shook her again. "The party just got moved. Wait'll you get a load of the decor." "What . . ." She rolled back and cracked open her bloodshot eyes. Then she rose on one elbow and gazed around the room. It was appointed identically to his, with only the hanging scroll in the _tokonoma_ different, hers being an angular, three-level landscape. "My God." "Welcome to the wonderful world of Tanzan Mino. I don't know where the hell we are, but it's definitely not Kansas, or London." "My head feels like I was at ground zero when the bomb hit. My whole body aches." She groaned and plopped back down on the futon. "What time do you think it is?" "Haven't a clue. How about starting with what day?" He felt for his watch and realized it was gone. "What does it matter anyway? Nobody has clocks in never-never land." Satisfied she was okay, he stood up and surveyed the room. Then he saw what he'd expected. There in the center of the ceiling, integrated into the pattern of light-colored woods, was the glass eye of a video camera. And the music. Still the faint music. He walked on down to the far end of her room and shoved aside another set of sliding doors, also painted with the double-ax insignia. He found himself looking at a third large space, this one paneled in raw cypress. It was vast, and in the center was a cedar hot tub, sunk into the floor. The water was fresh and steaming, and two tiny stools and rinsing pails were located conveniently nearby on the redwood decking. It was a traditional _o-furo_, one of the finest he'd ever seen. "You're not going to believe this." He turned back and waved her forward. In the soft rice-paper glow of the lamp she looked rakishly disheveled. Japanese architecture always made him think of lovemaking. "Our host probably figured we'd want to freshen up for the festivities. Check it out." "What?" She was shakily rising, pulling her yukata around her. "All the comforts of home. Too bad they forgot the geisha." She came over and stood beside him. "I don't believe this." "Want to see if it's real, or just a mirage?" She hesitantly stepped onto the decking, then walked out and bent down to test the water. "Feels wet." She glanced back. "So what the heck. I could use it." "I'm ready." He kicked off his tabi and walked on out. She pulled off his _yukata_, then picked up one of the pails and began filling it from a spigot on the wall. "Okay, exalted male," she laughed, "I'm going to scrub you. That's how they do it, right?" She stood up and reached for a sponge and soap. "They know how to live. Here, let me." He picked up a second sponge and began scrubbing her back in turn. "How does it feel?" "Maybe this is heaven." "Hope we didn't have to die to get here. But hang on. I've got a feeling the fun is just beginning." He splashed her off with one of the pails, then watched as she gingerly climbed down into the wooden tub. "Michael, where do you think we are?" She sighed as the steam enveloped her. "This has got to be Japan, but where?" "Got a funny feeling I know." He was settling into the water beside her. "But if I told you, you'd probably think I'm hallucinating." Above the tub, he suddenly noticed yet another video camera. As they lay soaking, the _koto _music around them abruptly stopped, its poignant twangs disappearing with an electronic click. "Are you finding the accommodations adequate?" The voice was coming from a speaker carefully integrated into the raw cypress ceiling. "All things considered, we'd sooner be in Philadelphia." Vance looked up. "I'm sorry to hear that," the voice continued. "No expense has been spared. My own personal quarters have been placed at your disposal." "Mind telling me who's watching me bathe?" Eva splashed a handful of water at the lens. "You have no secrets from me, Dr. Borodin. However, in the interest of propriety I have switched off the monitor for the bath. I'm afraid my people were somewhat overly zealous, installing one there in the first place." The voice chuckled. "But I should think you'd know. I am CEO of the Daedalus Corporation, an organization not unfamiliar to you." "All right," she said, "so where are we?" "Why, you are in the corporation's Hokkaido facility. As my guests. Since you two have taken such an interest in this project, I thought it only fitting you should have an opportunity to see it first hand." "Mind giving us a preview of the upcoming agenda?" Vance leaned back. "We need to plan our day." "Quite simply, I thought it was time you and I got reacquainted, Dr. Vance. It's been a long time." "Eight years." "Yes. Eight years . . ." There was a pause. "If you would excuse me a moment, I must take a call." The speaker clicked off. "Michael, I've got a very bad feeling about all this." She was rising from the bath, her back to the camera. "What do you think he's going to do?" He's going to kill us, Vance realized. After he's played with us a while. It's really quite simple. "I don't know," he lied. Then the speaker clicked on again. "Please forgive me. There are so many demands on my time. However, I was hoping you, Dr. Vance, would consent to join me this afternoon for tea. We have some urgent matters to discuss." "I'll see if I can work it into my schedule." "Given the hectic goings-on here at the moment, perhaps a quiet moment would be useful for us both." He paused again, speaking to someone else, then his voice came back. "Shall we say four o'clock." "What time is it now?" "Please forgive me. I forgot. Your world is not regimented by time, whereas mine regrettably is measured down to seconds. It is now almost three in the afternoon. I shall expect you in one hour. Your clothes are in the closet in your room. Now, if you will allow me. Affairs . . ." And the voice was gone. "Michael, are you really going to talk with that criminal?" "Wouldn't miss it for the world. There's a game going on here, and we have to stay in. Everybody's got a score to settle. We're about to see who settles up first." Thursday 3:29 P.M. "Zero minus eighteen hours." Yuri Andreevich Androv stared at the green screen, its numbers scrolling the computerized countdown. "Eighteen fucking hours." As he wheeled around, gazing over the beehive of activity in Flight Control, he could already feel the adrenaline beginning to build. Everything depended on him now. The vehicle was as ready as it was going to be: all the wind tunnel tests, all the computer simulations, even the supersonic test flights--everything said go. _Daedalus I_ was going to make history tomorrow morning. Except, he told himself, it's going to be a very different history from the one everybody expects. "Major Yuri Andreevich Androv, please report to Hangar Quadrant immediately." The stridency of the facility's paging system always annoyed him. He glanced at the long line of computer screens one last time, then shrugged and checked his watch. Who wanted him? Well, a new planeload of Soviet VIPs reportedly had flown in yesterday, though he hadn't seen any of them yet. He figured now that everything looked ready, the _nomenklatura _were flooding in to bask in triumph. Maybe after a day of vodka drinking and back slapping with the officials in Project Management, they'd sobered up and realized they were expected to file reports. So they were finally getting around to talking to the people who were doing the actual work. They'd summon in a few staffers who had hands-on knowledge of the project and commission a draft report, which they'd then file, unread, under their own names. Typical. He reached for his leather flight jacket, deciding on a brisk walk to work off the tension. The long corridor leading from the East Quadrant to the Hangar Quadrant took him directly past Checkpoint Central and the entry to West Quadrant, the Soviet sector, which also contained the flight simulator and the main wind tunnel, or Number One, both now quiet. As he walked, he thought again about the new rumor he'd heard in the commissary at lunch. Gossip kept the Soviet staff going--an instinct from the old days--but this one just might be true. Some lower-level staffers even claimed they'd seen him. The Chief. Word was Tanzan Mino himself--none other than the CEO of the Daedalus Corporation--had flown in this morning, together with his personal bodyguards and aides. The story was he wanted hands-on control of the first hypersonic test flight, wanted to be calling the shots in Flight Control when _Daedalus I _made history. Finally. The Big Man has decided to show his face. "Yuri Andreevich, just a minute. Slow down." He recognized the voice immediately and glanced around to see Nikolai Vasilevich Grishkov, the portly Soviet chief mechanic, just emerging from the West Quadrant. His bushy eyebrows hung like a pair of Siberian musk-ox horns above his gleaming dark eyes. "Have you seen her?" Grishkov was shuffling toward him. "Seen who?" He examined the mechanic's spotless white coveralls. Jesus! Even the support crews on this project were all sanitized, high-tech. "The new woman. _Kracevia, moi droog. Ochen kracevia_. Beautiful beyond words. And she is important. You can tell just by looking." "Nikolai, there's never been a woman in this facility." He laughed and continued on toward Security. "It's worse than a goddam troop ship. You've finally started hallucinating from lack of _pezdyonka_." "Yuri Andreevich, she's here and she's Soviet." The chief mechanic followed him. "Some believe she arrived this morning with the CEO, but nobody knows who she is. One rumor is she's Vera Karanova." "Who?" The name was vaguely familiar. "T-Directorate. Like I said, no one knows for sure, but that's what we've heard." "Impossible." He halted and turned back, frowning. "That's just it, Yuri Andreevich," he sighed. "Those KGB bastards are not supposed to even know about this project. That was everybody's strict understanding. We were to be free of them here. But now . . ." He caught the sleeve of Androv's flight jacket and pulled him aside, out of the flow of pedestrian traffic in the hallway. "My men were wondering. Maybe you could find a way to check her out? You have better access. Everybody wants to know what's going on." "KGB? It doesn't make any sense." "If she's really . . . I just talked to the project kurirovat, Ivan Semenovich, and he told me Karanova's now number three in T- Directorate." "Well, there's nothing we can do now, so the hell with her." He waved his hand and tried to move on. "We've both got better things to worry about." "Just keep your antenna tuned, my friend, that's all. Let me know if you can find out anything. Is she really Karanova? Because if she is, we damned well need to know the inside story." "Nikolai, if I see her, I'll be sure and ask." He winked. "And if she's the hot number you say, maybe I'll find time to warm her up a little. Get her to drop her . . . guard." "If you succeed in that, _moi droog_," he said as his heavy eyebrows lifted with a sly grin, "you'll be the envy of the facility. You've got to see her." "I can't wait." He shrugged and moved on toward the Hangar Security station, at the end of the long corridor. When he flashed his A-level priority ID for the two Japanese guards, he noticed they nervously made a show of scrutinizing it, even though they both knew him perfectly well, before saluting and authorizing entry. That nails it, he told himself. Out of nowhere we suddenly have all this rule-book crap. These guys are nervous as hell. No doubt about it, the big _nachalnik_ is on the scene. Great. Let all those assholes on the Soviet staff see the expression on his face when the truth comes out. That's the real history we're about to make here. As he walked into the glare of neon, the cavernous space had never seemed more vast, more imposing. He'd seen a lot of hangars, flown a lot of experimental planes over the years, but nothing to match this. Still, he always reminded himself, Daedalus was only hardware, just more fancy iron. What really counted was the balls of the pilot holding the flight stick. That's when he saw them, clustered around the vehicle and gazing up. He immediately recognized Colonel-General of Aviation Anatoly Savitsky, whose humorless face appeared almost weekly in Soviet Military Review; Major- General Igor Mikhailov, whose picture routinely graced the pages of Air Defense Herald; and also Colonel-General Pavel Ogarkov, a marshal of the Soviet air force before that rank was abolished by the general secretary. What are those Air Force neanderthals doing here? They're all notorious hardliners, the "bomb first, ask questions later" boys. And _Daedalus_ is supposed to be for space research, right? Guess the bullshit is about to be over. We're finally getting down to the real scenario. And there in the middle, clearly the man in charge, was a tall, silver- haired Japanese in a charcoal silk suit. He was showing off the vehicles as though he owned them, and he carried himself with an authority that made all the hovering Soviet generals look like bellboys waiting for a tip. Well, Yuri Andreevich thought, for the time being he does own them. They're bought and paid for, just like us. "_Tovarisch_, Major Androv, _kak pazhavatye_," came a voice behind him. He turned and realized it belonged to General Valentin Sokolov, commander of the MiG 31 wing at the Dolinsk air base on Sakhalin. Sokolov was three star, top man in all the Soviet Far East. Flanking him were half a dozen colonels and lieutenant colonels. "Comrade General Sokolov." He whipped off a quick salute. Brass. Brass everywhere. Shit. What in hell was this all about? Now the project director, Taro Ikeda, had broken away from the Soviet group and was approaching. "Yuri Andreevich, thank you for coming." He bowed deferentially. "You are about to receive a great honor. The CEO has asked for a private conference with you." Yuri stared over Ikeda's shoulder at the Man-in-Charge. All this right- wing brass standing around kissing his ass counted for nothing. He was the one calling the shots. Who was everybody kidding? Now the CEO looked his way, sizing him up with a quick glance. Yuri Androv assessed him in turn. It was one look, but they both knew there was trouble ahead. Then Tanzan Mino patted a colonel-general on the shoulder and headed over. "Yuri Andreevich Androv, I presume," he said in flawless Russian, bowing lightly. "A genuine pleasure to meet you at last. There's a most urgent matter we have to discuss." Thursday 4:00 P.M. At the precise hour, the _tokonoma _alcove off Vance's bedroom rotated ninety degrees, as though moved by an unseen hand, and what awaited beyond was a traditional Japanese sand-and-stone garden. It was, of course, lit artificially, but the clusters of green shrubs seemed to be thriving on the fluorescents. Through the garden's grassy center was a curving pathway of flat stepping stones placed artfully in irregular curves, and situated on either side of the walkway were towering rocks nestled in glistening sand that had been raked to represent ocean waves. The rocks were reminiscent of the soaring mountains in Chinese Sung landscape paintings. Vance's attention, however, was riveted on what awaited at the end of the stony walkway. It was a traditional teahouse, set in a grove of flowering azaleas. And standing in the doorway was a silver-haired figure dressed in a formal black kimono. He was beckoning. "Did I neglect to tell you I prefer Japanese _cha-no-yu _to the usual British afternoon tea?" Tanzan Mino announced. "It is a ritual designed to renew the spirit, to cleanse the mind. It goes back hundreds of years. I always enjoy it in the afternoon, and I find it has marvelously restorative powers. This seemed the ideal occasion for us to meet and chat." "Don't want to slight tradition." Vance slipped on the pair of wooden clogs that awaited at the bottom of the path. "My feelings entirely," the CEO continued, smiling as he watched him approach. "You understand the Japanese way, Dr. Vance, which is one reason we have so much to discuss." He bowed a greeting as Vance deposited his clogs on the stepping stone by the teahouse door. Together they stooped to enter. A light murmur of boiling water came from a brazier set into the _tatami_-matted floor, but otherwise the room was caught in an ethereal silence. The decor was more modern than most teahouses, with fresh cedar and pine for the ceiling and walls rather than the customary reed, bark, and bamboo. Tanzan Mino gestured for him to sit opposite as he immediately began the formalities of ritually cleaning the bamboo scoop, then elevating the rugged white tea bowl like an ancient chalance and ceremonially wiping it. All the while his eyes were emotionless, betraying no hint of what was in his mind. After the utensils were ceremonially cleansed, he wordlessly scooped a portion of pale-green powdered tea into the bowl, then lifted a dipperful of boiling water from the kettle and poured it in. Finally he picked up a bamboo whisk and began to whip the mixture, continuing until it had acquired the consistency of green foam. Authority, control, and--above all--discipline. Those things, Vance knew, were what this was really about. As was traditional and proper, not a word was spoken. This was the Zen equivalent of High Mass, and Tanzan Mino was silently letting him know he was a true master--of himself, of his world. Then the _oyabun _reached over and formally presented the bowl, placing it on the _tatami _in front of his guest. Vance lifted it up, rotated it a half turn in his hand, and took a reserved sip. As the bitter beverage assaulted his mouth, he found himself thinking this was probably intended to be his Last Supper. He hoped he remembered enough to get the moves right. He sipped one more time, then wiped the rim, formally repositioned the bowl on the _tatami_, and leaned back. "Perfectly done," Tanzan Mino smiled as he broke the silence. "I'm impressed." He nodded toward the white bowl. "Incidentally, you were just handling one of the finest pieces in all Japan." "Shino ware. Mino region, late sixteenth century. Remarkably fine glaze, considering those kilns had just started firing _chawan_." "You have a learned eye, Dr. Vance." He smiled again, glancing down to admire the rough, cracked surface of the rim. "The experts disagree on the age, some saying very early seventeenth century, but I think your assessment is correct. In any case, just handling it always soothes my spirit. The discipline of the samurai is in a _chawan_ like this. And in the _cha-no-yu_ ceremony itself. It's a test I frequently give my Western friends. To see if they can grasp its spirituality. I'm pleased to say that you handled the bowl exactly as you should have. You understand that Japanese culture is about shaping the randomness of human actions to a refined perfection. That's what we really should be discussing here this afternoon, not the world of affairs, but I'm afraid time is short. I often think of life in terms of a famous Haiku by the poet Shiki: _Hira-hira to Kaze ni nigarete Cho hitotsu. _ "Sounds more like your new airplane," Vance observed, then translated: A mortal butterfly Fluttering and drifting In the wind. "A passable enough rendering, if I may say, though I don't necessarily accept your analogy." He reached down and lifted a bottle of warmed sake from beside the brazier. "By the way, I know you prefer tequila, one of your odd quirks, but there was no time to acquire any. Perhaps this will suffice." He set down two black _raku_ saucers and began to pour. "Now, alas, we must proceed." Post time, Vance thought. "Dr. Michael Vance." He lifted his saucer in a toast. "A scholar of the lost Aegean civilizations, a former operative of the Central Intelligence Agency, and finally a private consultant affiliated with a group of mercenaries. I had your file updated when I first heard you were involved. I see you have not been entirely idle since our last encounter." "You haven't done too bad yourself." Vance toasted him back. "This new project is a big step up from the old days. Has a lot of style." "It does indeed," he nodded. "I'm quite proud of our achievement here." "You always thought big." Vance sipped again at his sake, warm and soothing. "It's kind of you to have remembered." Mino drank once more, then settled his saucer on the _tatami _and looked up. "Of course, any questions you have, I would be--" "Okay, how's this. What do you expect to get out of me?" He laughed. "Why nothing at all. Our reunion here is merely intended to serve as a tutorial. To remind you and others how upsetting I find intrusions into my affairs." "Then how about starting off this 'tutorial' with a look at your new plane?" Vance glanced around. "Guess I should call it _Daedalus_." "_Daedalus I _and_ II. _There actually are two prototypes, although only one is currently certified to operate in the hypersonic regime. Yes, I expected the _Daedalus_ would intrigue you. You are a man of insatiable intellectual appetite." "I'm not sure that's necessarily a compliment." "It wasn't necessarily meant to be. Sometimes curiosity needs to be curbed. But if we can agree on certain matters, I shall enjoy providing you a personal tour, to satisfy that curiosity. You are a man who can well appreciate both my technological achievement and my strategic coup." The old boy's finally gone off the deep end, Vance told himself. Megalomania. "Incidentally, by 'strategic coup' I suppose you're referring to the fact you've got them exactly where you want them. The Soviets." "What do you mean?" His eyes hardened slightly. "You know what I mean. They probably don't realize it yet, but you're going to end up with the Soviet Far East in your wallet. For the price of a hot airplane, you get to plunder the region. They're even going to be thanking you while you reclaim Sakhalin for Japan. This _Daedalus_ spaceship is going to cost them the ranch. Have to admit it's brilliant. Along with financing the whole scheme by swindling Benelux tax dodgers." "You are too imaginative for your own good, Dr. Vance," he said, a thin smile returning. "Nobody is going to believe your interpretation of the protocol." "You've got a point. Nobody appreciates the true brilliance of a criminal mind. Or maybe they just haven't known you as long as I have." "Really, I'd hoped we would not descend to trading insults." He reached to refill Vance's sake saucer. "It's demeaning. Instead I'd hoped we could proceed constructively." "Why not." "Well then, perhaps you'll forgive me if I'm somewhat blunt. I'm afraid my time is going to be limited over the next few hours. I may as well tell you now that we are about to have the first hypersonic test of the _Daedalus_. Tomorrow morning we will take her to Mach 25. Seventeen thousand miles per hour. A speed almost ten times greater than any air- breathing vehicle has ever before achieved." "The sky's the limit," he whistled quietly. Alex hadn't known the half of it. This was the ultimate plane. "Impressive, I think you'll agree." Mino smiled and poured more sake for himself. "Congratulations." "Thank you." "That ought to grease the way in the Diet for your deal. And the protocol's financial grab ought to sail through the Supreme Soviet. You prove this marvel can work and the rest is merely laundering your profits." "So I would like to think," he nodded. "Of course, one never knows how these things will eventually turn out." "So when do I get a look at it?" "Why, that all depends on certain agreements we need to make." "Then I guess it's time I heard the bottom line." "Most assuredly." He leaned back. "Dr. Vance, you have just caused me considerable hardship. Nor is this the first occasion you have done so. Yet, I have not achieved what I have to date without becoming something of a judge of men. The financial arrangements you put together in London demonstrated, I thought, remarkable ingenuity. There could be a place for you in my organization, despite all that has happened between us." "I don't work for the mob, if that's what you're hoping." "Don't be foolhardy. Those days are well behind me," he went on calmly, despite the flicker of anger in his eyes. "The completion of this project will require financial and strategic skills well beyond those possessed by the people who have worked for me in the past." "All those petty criminals and hoods, you mean." "I will choose to ignore that," he continued. "Whatever you may wish to call them, they are not proving entirely adequate to the task at hand. You bested my European people repeatedly and brought me a decided humiliation." Speaking of which, Vance found himself suddenly wondering, a thought out of the blue, what's happened to Vera? She's been European point woman for this whole scam. Where's she now? Mino continued. "Therefore I must now either take you into my organization or . . ." He paused. "It's that simple. Which, I wonder, will it be?" Vance studied him. "A lot depends on what happens to Eva." "The fate of Dr. Borodin depends largely on your decision. So perhaps I should give you some time to think it over." He leaned back. "Or perhaps some inducement." Vance didn't know what he meant. At first. Then he turned and looked behind him. There waiting on the stony walkway of the garden were three of Tanzan Mino's personal _kobun_, two of whom he recognized from London. The CEO's instructions to them were in rapid-fire Japanese, but he needed no translation as they moved forward. Thursday 5:18 P.M. Yuri Andreevich was mad as hell. After his one-on-one with Tanzan Mino, he knew he'd been screwed. Sticking a couple of "pilots" from Mino Industries in the cockpit. It was just the old GRU trick, surveillance under the specious guise of "support." He'd seen it all before. But he'd had an idea. A flash. What about the woman Nikolai had seen? The one he said was T-Directorate? A knockout. That's what Nikolai had claimed, so she shouldn't be hard to track down. He'd been methodically working the crowded corridors of the North Quadrant, checking every open doorway. Although the facility was huge and sprawling, he figured she'd probably be somewhere here close to Command Sector. Where the hell could she be? One thing was sure: Tanzan Mino was as sharp as all the rumors said. The bastard had been on-site for less than a day and already he'd suspected that something was brewing. So he'd made his own preemptive strike. The problem now was, how to outsmart him. This T-Directorate operative had to be the way. After he got her into a receptive mood, he'd lay out his case. Point out he had enough to worry about in the cockpit without playing flight instructor to a couple of Mino Industries greenhorns. He'd never flown an experimental plane with civilian copilots and he damned sure wasn't going to start now. Especially now. _Govno_! Where the hell was she? He continued methodically checking the North Quadrant offices just down from the Command Sector, hoping somebody there had seen her. The whole place was getting hectic now: last-minute briefings right and left. Whenever he'd spot a friendly Russian face, he'd collar its owner to inquire about her. Fortunately he had an A-level pass, so all he had to do was flash it to the security stiffs at each sector checkpoint and they'd wave him past. He'd just talked to a couple of flight engineers coming out of a briefing room who claimed they'd spotted her in the hallway no more than half an hour ago. But why was she here at all? It made no sense. Unless she'd defected, gone to work for Mino Industries. Which was exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from one of those opportunistic KGB bastards. _Konyechnaya! _There she was, shapely ass and all, just in front of him, headed for Sector Control and flanked by two Japanese security types. They were striding close by, probably showing her around. Maybe she was worried about safety here with all these sex-starved engineers. Odd, but her walk wasn't exactly what he'd expected. Seemed a little too knowing. Guess that's what happens when you spend too much time in the decadent capitalist West. He decided to just make his move right there in the hall. Truthfully she did look like a hot number. Nikolai wasn't kidding. This was going to be more interesting than he'd figured. _Zadroka!_ A piece! Thursday 5:27 P.M. "_Strasvetye_," came a voice behind Eva. "_Kak pazhavatye_." She whirled around. Moving in fast was a tall and--admit it--not bad- looking Soviet major. "_Ya _Yuri Andreevich Androv," he declared with a light, debonair bow. His Russian was cultivated, Moscow. "They tell me you just got here. Thought we should meet. You've probably heard of me." "I have no idea who you are," she heard herself saying. Where the hell did they take Michael? she was wondering. Right after he met with Tanzan Mino, he'd disappeared. And now she was being moved. She didn't know where, but she did know one thing: all the phony politeness was over. Things had gotten very rough, very fast. She was being relocated to a secure location in the Soviet section, or so she suspected, but she figured project management mainly just wanted to keep her out of the way. Right now, though, she had an agenda of her own. "I'm a servant of the people." The major who called himself Yuri Androv winked. "Like you. I'm frequently asked to try and kill myself in their behalf." "I don't know--" she tried to answer, but the Japanese guards were roughly pulling her on. "I'm the test pilot for the vehicle," he finally announced. "How lovely." She glared at him. "I hope it's going to be a smashing success." "I'm about to find out. Tomorrow morning. Right now all I want to do is try and get back in one piece. Which is why I need to talk to you." He caught her arm, temporarily blocking the two uniformed Mino Industries guards. Then he continued on in Russian. "I've got a problem. We've got a problem. I was hoping you could help me out." When the two security men tried to urge her on, he flashed his A-level at them and told them to lay the fuck off, in explicit Russian. Startled, they froze. That's when it finally dawned on her. This idiot must think I'm Vera. Now he was withdrawing a white packet of English cigarettes and offering her one. Instinctively, she reached out. "So how can I help you, Major Androv?" Eva flashed him a smile as he lit her English Oval with a match. "It's the test flight tomorrow. Nobody should be near that cockpit who hasn't been certified to at least ten G's in the simulator. I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen." "Ten G's?" She was trying to keep him talking. "That's--" "Damned dangerous. But we need it to bring the scramjets up to rated thrust, at least the first time. They've never been tested in flight. We just don't know." "And nobody else here has been certified?" She wasn't even sure exactly what "certified" meant, but she tried to look concerned. "Exactly. Now all of a sudden he wants to stick a couple of his Nips in the cockpit there with me, probably crop-duster screw-ups from Mino Industries." He finally lit his own cigarette, with a suggestive flourish. Christ, she thought, why do all Soviet pilots think they're God's gift to women. "I tell you it's idiotic." He exhaled through his nose. "You've got to help me make him see that, before it's too late." She glanced sideways at the two impatient Japanese. From their blank faces she realized they hadn't understood a word. Well, she thought, right now I've got nothing to lose. "What you're saying, Major, is very disturbing. Perhaps we should have a word with the CEO right away. We both know time's getting short." She glanced down the hall toward the wide doors at the end: Command Sector. "Why don't we just go in together and see him?" She'd noticed the major's A-level, which seemed to carry clout. "Maybe you can deal with these flunkies." She indicated the _Mino-gumi kobun _posing as her guards. "Since I neglected to bring my pass, they have no idea who I really am." He laughed. "Guess a few assholes around here are in for a surprise." No kidding, she thought. Mainly you, flyboy. God, nobody can strut like a Soviet Air Force pilot. Hard currency stores, scotch from Scotland, American cigarettes, French porno videos. They think they own the world. Bad luck, Romeo. You're about to have Tanzan Mino all over your case. Maybe you'll end up so rattled tomorrow you'll crash and burn. He turned and waved his pass at the two guards. "_Mino-san wa_. Important business _desu_." Then he seized her arm and pushed the guards aside. "Come on. Maybe you can get these fuck-ups fired after we're through." "I'll see what I can do." She smiled again. "By the way, you're confirming that the big test flight is still on? In the morning?" She paused, still not sure exactly what the test was all about. "Oh-nine-thirty hours. All the way." He was leading the way briskly down the crowded corridor. "And you're going to . . . " "Take her hypersonic. Mach 25. Straight to the edge. Brush the stars. And believe me, I've got to be alone. I can't be running a flight school." He was striding ahead of her now, talking over his shoulder. "Which is why you've got to help me talk some sense into that old fucker. Excuse me," he said, grinning in mock apology, "the CEO." The guards at the wide double doors leading into Tanzan Mino's suite just gaped as Yuri Andreevich Androv flourished his A-level at them and then shoved his way past, oblivious to the clamor of Japanese shouts now trailing in his wake. "_Mino-san, pazhalsta_," he said to the figure standing in the anteroom, scarcely noticing it was a woman, and too expensively dressed for a receptionist. Eva watched Vera Karanova lunge for a button on the desk as he pushed open the teakwood door leading into Tanzan Mino's inner office. The first thing she noticed was the wide window behind the desk opening on a stunning view of the straits, the setting sun glancing off the tips of the whitecaps. Seated behind the desk, monitoring a line of computer screens, was a silver-haired executive. So that's what he looks like, she thought. Perfect. Central casting couldn't have done better. "Yuri Andreevich, what . . . ?" he glanced up, glaring at Eva. "I see you've met one of our American guests." "American?" Androv stopped, then looked at her, puzzled. Better make this fast, she told herself. In about five seconds Comrade Karanova's going to take this Soviet hero's head off. "Listen, you bastard." She was storming the desk. "If you so much as lay a finger on Michael or me, either one of us, the National Security Agency is going to close you down so fast you'll think an H-bomb hit this fucking place. I want to see the American ambassador, and I want my belongings returned." "Everything is being taken care of, Dr. Borodin." Vera Karanova answered from the doorway. Eva glanced back and saw a platoon of eight _Mino-guchi kobun_, Mino's personal bodyguards, all with automatics. "You will come with us." Androv was staring blankly at her now, his swagger melting like springtime Georgian snow. "You're American? National Security?" "They kidnapped us. In London. They're going to screw you, everybody. We found out--" "We?" "My name is Eva Borodin. I'm director of Soviet SIGINT for the National Security Agency in Washington. And Mike Vance, CIA, is here too. God knows what these criminals are doing to him right now. But they're about to take you apart too, hotshot. So have a nice day. And while you're at it--" "Tovarisch Androv, you have just done a very foolish thing." Vera's voice was frigid. "I don't think you realize how foolish." "Dr. Borodin," Mino finally spoke, "you are even more resourceful than I'd expected. Resourcefulness, however, is not prudence. Dr. Vance is currently . . . reviewing a proposal I made him. You should be hoping he will accept. As for the National Security Agency, they believe you are still on holiday. After tomorrow, it will not matter. Nothing you can do will interfere with our schedule." "We'll see about that." "Trust me," he smiled. Then his look turned grave and shifted. "Major Androv, you will kindly remain after they have taken her away." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Friday 1:17 A.M. The room was cold. Just cold. That was the first thing he'd noticed when they shoved him in. It still was. For nine hours he'd been sitting on a hard, canvas-covered Soviet cot, shivering. The place was no larger than a small cell, with a tile floor, ice gray concrete walls, and two bare fluorescent bulbs for lighting. No heat. There was a slight vibration--it seemed to be part of the room itself-- emanating from the walls and floor. He'd tracked it to a large wall duct. Ventilation system could use adjusting, he'd thought, fan housing's loose somewhere. They also could turn up the damned heat. He was wearing only what he'd had on in London, and this definitely was not London. Hokkaido was a much colder part of the planet. The room had the feeling of a quick, slapped-together job. But it also looked like it could withstand a medium-sized nuclear detonation. One thing was sure, though: It wasn't built with comfort in mind. The door was steel, the same dull hue as the rest. It was bolted from the outside, naturally. But if isolation and cold were Tanzan Mino's idea of how to break his spirit, to see how tough he was, the man was in for some disappointment. What the Mino Industries CEO had unwittingly accomplished by moving him here, however, was to enlighten him about the layout of the place. As he was being escorted down the crowded facility corridors by the three leather-jacketed _kobun_, he'd passed a projection video screen suspended over the center of a main intersection. The location seemed to be some sort of central checkpoint, and the screen displayed a schematic of the whole facility. He'd faked a stumble and used the recovery time to quickly scan its essential features. He leaned back on the cot and ran through one more time what he'd seen on the screen, trying to imprint it in his memory. Insight number one: the facility was organized into four main quadrants, with a layout like a large X. Some of the writing was Japanese, but mostly it was Russian Cyrillic characters. He massaged his temples and visualized it again. The first thing he'd focused on was something called the North Quadrant, whose Russian designation was Komendant. It looked to be the command center, with a red-colored area labeled in both Japanese and Russian. Next to that were a lot of little rooms, probably living quarters or barracks. Kanji ideograms identified those, so that section was probably where the Japanese staffers bivouacked. That command section, he'd realized, was where he and Eva had been. They'd been quartered in a part of Tanzan Mino's private suites, the belly of the beast. It got even more interesting. The other three quadrants were where the real work was going on. On the right side of the screen was East Quadrant, whose label was _Komputer/ Kommunekatseon, _ which meant it contained the computers and communications set-up. Flight Control. And the South Quadrant, the _Assamblaya_, consisted of a lot of large open bays, probably where the two prototypes had been assembled. Those bays connected directly to a massive sector labeled _Angar_, the hangar. But the bays also had separate access to the runway, probably for delivery of prefabricated sections from somewhere else. The West Quadrant appeared to house test facilities; the one label he could read was _Laboratoraya_. Probably materials labs, next to a configuration that could have been a large wind tunnel. Made sense. That quadrant also had more small rooms with Russian labels. He'd studied the screen a second longer and . . . Bingo. He'd realized he was being moved into the Soviet sector, probably the barracks and laboratory area. This had to be the least used location in the facility now, he told himself. All the wind tunnel testing of sections and the materials research was probably wrapped up, meaning this area was history. Yesterday's news. So the CEO had shunted him to this obscure lock-up in the West Quadrant, the Soviet section. What better spot to discreetly dispose of somebody for a while? Time to brush up your Russian. Problem was--he grimaced at the realization--there wasn't a heck of a lot left to brush. He'd had a year at Yale, just enough to let him struggle along with a dictionary and squeak around some standard language requirement. That was it. He'd never given it a second thought afterward. Instead he'd gone on to his real love--ancient Greek. Then later, in CIA days, the action had been Asia. At one time he'd ended up doing some consulting for Langley's Far Eastern INTEL desk, helping coordinate American and Japanese fieldwork. He could swing the Japanese, but the Russian . . . Tanzan Mino probably knew that, yet another reason why he'd decided on this transfer. There'd be fewer people here to communicate with. Smart. The labyrinth of King Minos, brainchild of Daedalus, that's what he felt trapped in. But Theseus, the Greek prince who killed the monster, got some help from Minos's daughter, Ariadne. A ball of string to help him find his way out of the maze. This time around, though, where was help going to come from? Maybe the first job here was to kill the monster, then worry about what came next. Partly to generate a little body heat, he turned and braced himself at an angle against the door, starting some half push-ups. With his hands on the door, he also could sense some of the activity in the hallway outside. He figured it had to be after midnight by now, but there were still random comings and goings. Activity, but nothing . . . He felt a tremor, then heard a loud scraping and the sound of a bolt being slid aside. He quickly wheeled and flattened himself against the wall, looking futilely for something to use as a weapon. Aside from the cot, though, there was nothing. Okay, this would be hand to hand. He could use the exercise. Besides, he was mad enough. The gray steel door slowly began to swing inward; then a mane of white hair tentatively appeared, followed by a rugged ancient face as the visitor turned to stare at him through heavy glasses. "_Strasvitye_," the man said finally, uncertainty in his gravelly voice. "_Ya Doktor Andrei Petrovich Androv_." Friday 1:20 A.M. _ _Would the idea work? Yuri still didn't know. As he walked between the vehicles, the hangar's wide banks of fluorescents glaring down on the final preflight preps for _Daedalus I_, he was sure of only one thing: at this point, the revised plan was the only option left. Would the American help? The woman, the bitch, was no fool: An insight he'd come by the hard way. But maybe the CIA guy--what had she said his name was?--Vance? How the hell did he get here? However it had happened, he was being kept in the West Quadrant. It had been no trick to find him. He was a godsend; his help would make the scenario possible. Now it merely required split-second timing. He glanced up at the big liquid crystal display screen on the far wall, noting it read zero minus eight hours ten minutes. He should be back in the West Quadrant now, catching some sleep--if Taro Ikeda knew he was here in the hangar, there'd be hell to pay--but time was running out. Tanzan Mino had listened icily to his renewed arguments against additional personnel in the cockpit, then declared that the viability of the program depended on having backups. Merely an essential precaution. End of discussion. Bullshit. As soon as the political games were played out, the CEO was planning to get rid of him, probably by some "accident." Well, screw him. And that's where the American came in. The thing to do was just appear to be proceeding with the countdown normally, keep everything innocent. Then, at the last minute . . . He stared up at _Daedalus I _one last time, watching as the maintenance crews finished the last of the preflight scramjet preps. And he shook his head in amazement that Andrei Androv and all his damned propulsion engineers could create a genuine technological miracle and still be total bumblers when it came to what in hell was really happening. These technical types thought they were so brilliant! But if it had taken them all this time to realize they'd been fucked by Mino Industries, then how smart could they really be? Made him wonder how the Baikonur Cosmodrome ever managed to get so much as a turnip into orbit. Now these same geniuses had to get _Daedalus II _flight- ready in just a few hours, and had to do it without anyone suspecting what they were doing. Finally, they had to be ready to roll into action the instant the "accident" happened. No trial runs. He checked his watch and realized his father's propulsion team was already gathering at Number One, the final meeting. The question now was, could they really deliver? The American was the key. Friday 1:21 A.M. "Your name Vance?" The Russian voice, with its uncertain English, was the last thing he'd expected. "Who are you?" "For this vehicle, I am Director Propulsion System," he replied formally, and with pride, pulling at his white lab coat. "I must talk you. Please." Vance stepped away from the wall and looked the old man over more closely. Then it clicked. Andrei Petrovich Androv was a living legend. Ten years ago the CIA already had a tech file on him that filled three of those old-time reels of half-inch tape. These days, God knows what they had. He'd been the USSR's great space pioneer, a hero who'd gone virtually unrecognized by his own country. No Order of Lenin. Nothing. Nada. But maybe he'd preferred it that way, liked being a recluse. Nobody, least of all the CIA's Soviet specialists, could figure him. And now he was here in the wilds of northern Hokkaido, building a spaceplane. They'd sent over no less than the Grand Old Man to handle the propulsion. This project was top priority. A s it deserved to be. But the immediate question was, What was the dean of Soviet rocket research doing here visiting him? "Sorry I can't offer you a cup of tea. No samovar." He looked out the open door one last time. Several Soviet staffers were glancing in as they walked by, obviously puzzled why the famous Doktor Androv himself had come around to talk with some unknown civilian. "_Shto? Ya ne ponemayu._ . . . I not understand." "Tea. _Chai_." He shrugged. "Just a bad joke." He reached over and shoved the door closed, then gestured toward the cot. "In the wrong language. Please. Sit." "Thank you." The old man settled himself. "I did not come for _chai_." His hands were trembling. "I want--" Abruptly he hesitated, as though searching for words, and then his mind appeared to wander. "Your name is Vance?" "Mike Vance." "And you are with American CIA?" What's going on, he wondered? How did these Soviets find out? "Uh, right." He glanced away. "That's correct." "Mr. Vance, my son is test pilot for the _Daedalus_." He continued, running his gnarled hands nervously through his long white hair. "His name is Yuri Andreevich." "_Pozdravleneye_." Vance nodded. "Congratulations. Yuri Andreevich is about to make the cover of Newsweek. You should be proud." "We have serious problem, Mr. Vance." He seemed not to hear. "That is why I am come. I am very worried for my son." Vance looked him over more closely. Yes, he did appear worried. His severe, penetrating eyes were filled with anguish. "Got a problem with the CEO? Guess the godfather can be a hard man to warm up to, even for his new allies." "Mr. Vance, I do not know you, but there is very small time." He continued with a shrug, not understanding. "So please, I will tell you many things in very few minutes." Vance continued to study him. "Go ahead." "You may not realize, but this project is to be giant leap for our space program. Many of our best engineers are here. This vehicle, a reusable near-earth space platform, would save billions of rubles over many years. It is air-breathing vehicle that would lift research payloads directly into space. But my son never believe that its real purpose. Perhaps I was idealist, because I believe. I always think he was wrong. But more and more of things I have learned about its electronics--things we had nothing to do with--make me now believe he is right. And yesterday, when certain . . . _chelovek_ of the Soviet Air Force come, the worst . . ." He paused, his voice beginning to betray barely concealed rage. "I have work all my life for peaceful exploring of space. And now I have been betrayed. The engineers I bring with me here have been betrayed. I also believe, Mr. Vance, that the Soviet people have been betrayed. And along with them, Mikhail Sergeevich himself. This is part of a plot to . . . I don't know what secretly is plan, but I am now convinced this plane must be destroyed, before it is too late. And the world must be warned. That is why--" "Then why don't you warn somebody?" Vance interrupted him. "Matter of fact, there's a lot more to this setup than an airplane." "But why do you think I am here, talking to you? The facility now is completely sealed. I would warn Mikhail Sergeevich what is happening, but no communication is possible." He hesitated again, painfully. "They want to put my son in the airplane tomorrow with guards. He has been made prisoner, like you. He does not want to fly the vehicle for tomorrow's test, but the CEO is forcing him to do it." He looked up, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. "Mr. Vance, I think he will be killed as soon as this plane is certified hypersonic. They no longer trust him." "What about you? They probably won't think you're very trustworthy either if they find out you came to see me." "That is correct. But the time has come for risks." "So what do you want from me?" He stood back and looked the white- haired old man over one last time. Was he telling the truth? Were the Soviet engineers actually planning a mutiny? "We are going to stop it. Tomorrow morning, just before the test flight. It must be done." "Good luck." "Mr. Vance, you are with American intelligence. We are only engineers. We know nothing about the kind of things necessary to--" "Do you have any weapons?" "Nothing. The guards here are all from the corporation." He lowered his voice. "Frankly, most of them look like criminals." "They are." Vance laughed in spite of himself. "I don't understand." "I know you don't understand. If you did . . . but that's beside the point." "Then will you help us?" His wrinkled face was fixed in determination. "Do you know anything about explosives?" "Enough. But are you really sure that's the way you want to go?" He paused. "There's a lot that can go wrong in a big facility like this without anybody knowing what caused it." "All the sensitive areas are under heavy security now. They are impossible to penetrate." Terrific, Vance thought. "By the way, how does your son, the test pilot, figure into all this?" "All along he was planning to . . . I don't know. He refused to tell me. But it doesn't matter. Now that two Mino Industries guards are being put in the cockpit with him, whatever he was planning is impossible. So we have to do something here, on the ground." "Well, where is he?" "He is in the hangar now." "I'll need to see him." For one thing, Vance thought, he probably knows how to use a gun. All Soviet pilots carry an automatic and two seven-round clips for protection in case they have to ditch in the wilderness somewhere. Our first order of business is to jump some of these _Mino-gumi _goons who're posing as security men and get their weapons. "By the way, do you know where they're keeping the American woman who was brought here with me?" The old man's eyes grew vague. "I believe she's somewhere here in the West Quadrant. I think she was transferred here around eighteen hundred hours, and then a little later her suitcase arrive from hangar." "Her bag?" His pulse quickened. "Delivered by the facility's robot carts. The plane that brought you was being made ready for the CEO's trip back to Tokyo." "Where was it left?" "I don't know. I only--" "Okay, later. Right now maybe you'd better start by getting me out of here." "That is why I brought this." He indicated the brown paper package he was carrying. It was the first time Vance had noticed it. "I have in here an air force uniform. It belongs to my son." The parcel was carefully secured with white string--a methodical precision that came from years of engineering. "You will pose as one of us," the old man continued. "You do not speak Russian?" "Maybe enough to fool the _Mino-gumi_, but nobody else." He was watching as Androv began unwrapping the package. "Then just let me do all talk," he shrugged. "If anybody wonders who you are, I will be giving you tour of the West Quadrant. You should pretend to be drunk; it would surprise no one. You will frown a lot and mumble incoherent questions to me. We will go directly to my office, where I will tell you our plan." Now Andrei Androv was unfolding a new, form-fitting uniform intended for Yuri Andreevich. The shoulder boards had one wide gold chevron and two small rectangles, signifying the rank of major in the Soviet air force. Also included was a tall lamb's-wool cap, the kind officers wore. Vance took the hat and turned it in his hand. He'd never actually held one before. Nice. Seems I just got made air force major, and I've never flown anything bigger than a Lear jet. He slipped off the shirt he'd been wearing in London, happy to be rid of it, and put on the first half of the uniform. Not a bad fit. The trousers also seemed tailor-made. Then he slipped on the wool topper, completing the ensemble. "You would make a good officer, I think." Andrei Androv stood back and looked him over with a smile. "But you have to act like one too. Remember to be insulting." After the hours in solitary, freezing confinement, he wasn't sure he looked like anything except a bum. But he'd have no difficulty leading Doktor Andrei Androv along in the middle of the night and bombarding him with a steady stream of slurred Russian: _Shto eto? Ve chom sostoet vasha rabota?_ How did the Soviets find out he was here? he wondered. Must have been Eva. She'd got through to them somehow. Which meant she probably was still all right. That, at least, was a relief. After Andrei Androv clanged the steel door closed and bolted it, they headed together toward the old man's personal office, where he had smuggled drawings of the vehicle's cockpit. The hallways were lit with glaring fluorescents, bustling with technicians, and full of Soviets in uniform. Vance returned a few of the crisp salutes and strutted drunkenly along ahead. They wanted him to help blow up the plane! He was a little rusty with good old C-4, but he'd be happy to brush up fast. After that, it'd be a whole new ballgame. Friday 1:47 A.M. "Will he help?" Yuri Androv surveyed the eleven men in the darkened control room. The wall along the left side consisted entirely of heavy plate glass looking out on Number One. That wind tunnel, the video screens, the instrument panels, everything was dormant now. Aside from a few panel lights, the space was illuminated only by the massive eight-foot-by-twenty-foot liquid crystal screen at the far end now scrolling the launch countdown, green numbers blinking off the seconds. Except for Nikolai Vasilevich Grishkov, the Soviet chief mechanic, all those gathered were young engineers from Andrei Androv's propulsion design team. Grishkov, however, because of his familiarity with the layout of the hangar, was the man in charge. "I just spoke with Doktor Androv, and he believes the American will cooperate," Grishkov nodded. "He will bring him here as soon as he has been briefed." "I still wonder if I shouldn't just handle it myself." "It would be too dangerous for you, Yuri Andreevich. He knows about explosives. Besides, you have to be ready to fly the other plane,_ Daedalus II_, right after the explosion. Nobody else can take it up." He laughed. "Steal it, you mean." "Yuri Andreevich, we have made sure it's fueled and we will get you into the cockpit. After that, we will know nothing about--" "One other thing," he interjected, "I want it fueled with liquid hydrogen." "Impossible." Grishkov's expression darkened, his bushy eyebrows lifting. "I categorically refuse." "I don't care. I want it." "Absolutely out of the question. The engines on _Daedalus II _haven't been certified in the scramjet mode. You can't attempt to take it hypersonic. It would be too risky." He stopped, then smiled. "Don't worry. You can still outrun any chase plane on earth with those twelve engines in ramjet mode." "I tell you I want to go to scramjet geometry," Yuri Andreevich insisted, his eyes determined. If I can't do what I planned, he told himself, nobody's going to believe me. I've got to take one of those vehicles hypersonic tomorrow morning, ready or not. "Impossible. There's no way we can fuel _Daedalus II_ with liquid hydrogen. The Mino Industries ground crews would suspect something immediately. It's out of the question. I forged some orders and had it fueled with JP-7 late last night, at 2300 hours. That's the best I can do." _Chort_, Yuri thought. Well, maybe I can fake it. Push it out to Mach 5 with JP-7 and still . . . "And the two 'pilots' from Mino Industries," he turned back, "what about them?" "If the American plays his part, they will never suspect." Grishkov flashed a grin. "Unless somebody here screws up," he said, gazing around the room again, studying the white technician's uniforms, the innocent faces. "There'll be a lot of confusion. When we start pumping liquid hydrogen into _Daedalus /, _the site will be pandemonium," Grishkov continued. "All you have to do is get into the cockpit of the other plane." It would be a horrible accident, but accidents happened. They'd all heard whispered stories about the tragedy at Baikonur in October 1960, when almost a hundred men were killed because Nikita Khrushchev wanted a spectacular space shot while he was visiting the United Nations. When a giant rocket, a Mars probe, failed to achieve ignition, instead of taking the delay required to remove the fuel before checking the malfunction, the technicians were ordered to troubleshoot it immediately. Tech crews were swarming over it when it detonated. "Then I guess we're ready." Yuri Andreevich sighed. "We are." Grishkov nodded and reached for the phone beside the main console, quickly punching in four numbers. He spoke quietly for a few moments, then replaced the receiver. "They'll be here in five minutes. Doktor Androv has just completed his briefing on the cockpit configuration." "All right. I'm going now. Just get the hangar doors open, the runway cleared, and the truck-mounted starters ready. This is going to be tricky, so make sure everybody thinks we're merely taking _Daedalus II_ onto the runway as a safety precaution after the explosion." Yuri gazed over the group of engineers one last time. Would they do it? Whatever happened, he had to get out of there and start checking the cockpit of _Daedalus II _before the morning's preflight crews arrived. "Good luck. By 0900 hours I want everything set." He gave the room a final salute, out of habit, and headed for the security doors. In moments he'd disappeared into the corridor and was gone. "Let me do the talking," Grishkov said, turning back to the others. "And let Doktor Androv translate. Also remember, he has no idea Yuri Andreevich is going to steal the other plane." The men stirred, and nodded their assent. From here on, they all were thinking, the less they had to do with this plot the better. Then the door opened. Standing next to Dr. Andrei Petrovich Androv was a tall man dressed as a Soviet air force major. As Grishkov looked him over, he had the fleeting impression that Yuri Andreevich had unexpectedly returned, so similar was the American poseur to Andrei Androv's own son. In height and build, the resemblance was nothing short of miraculous. This was going to be easier than he'd dared to hope. Put the American in a pressure suit, complete with flight helmet, and he could easily pass. "He has agreed to set the explosives," Andrei said in Russian as he gestured toward the man standing beside him in a tight-fitting uniform. "Meet 'Major Yuri Andreevich Androv.'" Friday 7:58 A.M. The room appeared to be the quarters of a high-ranking member of the Soviet staff, now returned to the USSR. It was comfortably if sparely appointed and even had a computer terminal, a small NEC. She'd switched it on, tried to call up some files, but everything required a password. She could use it, however, as a clock. As she watched the time flashing on the corner of the screen, she tried to remember what the Soviet major had said about the schedule . . . the first hypersonic test of the Daedalus was scheduled for 0930. That was only an hour and a half away. She was wearing her London clothes again, but where the hell was her bag? She walked over and sat down on the side of the single bed, thinking. If she could get her hands on the suitcase, the Uzi might still be there. That's when she heard the sound of muted but crisp Japanese outside--the changing of the guard. The _Mino-gumi kobun _were keeping a strict schedule, a precision that seemed perfectly in keeping with everything else about the facility. Life here was measured out not in coffee spoons but in scrolling numbers on computers. The door opened and one of the new _kobun_ showed his head. At first she thought it was merely a bed check, but he stared at her mutely for a moment, then beckoned. She rose and walked over. This new goon, black suit and all, was armed with a 9mm Walther P88 automatic in a shoulder holster. Outside, the other _Mino-gumi _motioned for her to come with them. That's when she noticed her bag, sitting just outside the door. There goes my chance, she sighed. They want to keep me moving, make sure I'm not in one place long enough for anybody to get suspicious. This way I'll seem to be just another guest. Without a word they were directing her along the hallway toward Checkpoint Central. All Tanzan Mino's _kobun_ seemed to have free run of the facility, because the uniformed security staff didn't even bother to ask for a pass. They may have been new and alien visitors from outside this closed world, but they represented the CEO. Carte blanche. Now they were moving down the crowded corridor leading to the South Quadrant. The walls were still gray, but this was a new area, one she hadn't yet been in. No sign this time, however, of the Soviet major named Androv. Guess he wasn't kidding about an important test flight coming up. Something was definitely in the wind. The pace of activity was positively hectic. So why was she being moved, right in the middle of all this chaos? It didn't make sense. She looked up ahead and realized they were headed toward two massive, heavily guarded doors. What could this sector be? Once again the Japanese security guards merely bowed low and waved her Mino-gumi escorts past. The wide doors opened onto yet another hallway, and she was overwhelmed by a blast of sound. Motors were blaring, voices were shouting, escaping gasses were hissing. The din, the racket, engulfed her. And then she realized the reason: There was no ceiling! Even the "offices" along the side were merely high-walled cubicles that had been dropped here in the entryway of some vast space. It was the hangar. The actual entry at the end was sealed and guarded, but instead of passing through, they stopped at the last door on the right. Whoever had summoned her, it wasn't Tanzan Mino. His array of personal _kobun_ weren't lined up outside. In fact, there were no guards at all. The leather-jacketed escorts pulled open the door, and one entered ahead of her, one behind. Inside was a large metal desk, equipped with banks of phones and rows of buttons. Sitting behind the desk was Vera Karanova. "Did you sleep well?" She glanced up, then immediately signaled for the _kobun_ to absent themselves. "Did you?" Eva looked her over--the severe designer suit, black, topped off with a string of gray Mikimoto pearls. It was a striking contrast to the short-haired engineers bustling outside. What riveted her attention, however, was resting on the desk next to the banks of phones and switches. A Zenith. "We have some time this morning." Vera ignored the response as she brushed at her carefully groomed dark hair. "I thought we should use it productively." "Lots of luck, Comrade." "It is not in either of our interests to be at cross purposes," she continued, still speaking in Russian. It was a startling change in tone from the evening before. "You and I have much in common. We both have worked at high levels in the security apparatus of our respective countries. Consequently we both understand the importance of strategic thinking. That sets us apart." She reached out and touched the laptop computer. "Now, to begin, I would very much like for you to show me how you managed to break the encryption for the protocol. The CEO was most impressed." "If he wants to know, he can ask me himself." She helped herself to a metal chair. "He is very busy at the moment," Vera continued, "occupied elsewhere." This is a setup, Eva was thinking. She wanted to get me down here for some other reason. But it was hard to concentrate, given the din of activity filtering in from the open ceiling. Above them banks of floodlights were creating heavy shadows around the office, and out there somewhere, she realized, was the prototype. "Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind, Comrade? Or better yet, why you decided to throw in your lot with all these Yakuza criminals." Vera Karanova laughed. "You are a director with the National Security Agency. You obviously are very competent. And yet you and the rest of American intelligence seem completely blind. Oblivious to the significance of what is happening around you. In case you hadn't noticed, the Soviet military is being stripped, practically dismantled in the interest of economic restructuring." "High time, if you ask me." "That is a matter of opinion. The Cold War, whether we liked it or not, maintained a predictable structure in the world. Both East and West went out of their way to support and stabilize Third World countries in order to keep them out of each other's camp. But with the Cold War slackening, there's disintegration everywhere. Demilitarization is leading to political and economic anarchy worldwide." Right, Eva thought. But you left out one other interesting fact: Japan got rich while the superpowers were out there "stabilizing" everybody, squandering resources on matching sets of military toys instead of investing in their own infrastructure. They'd love to keep it going. "This plane," Vera went on, "can be used to serve the ultimate cause of restoring world order." She paused, then continued. "But only if it is in the hands of our air force, from today forward." "Purge the new thinking?" "The Soviet Union is on the verge of economic disaster. Perestroika has plunged our country into chaos. The time has come to admit revisionism has failed." "Where's good old Uncle Joe when you need him?" she smiled. "Stalin made the Gulag trains run on time." "Our restructuring has gone too far," Vera continued. "There are limits beyond which a society can no longer endure change." Eva stared at her. "I take it KGB and your military right- wingers are planning to try and stage a coup?" "There still are responsible people in the Soviet Union, Dr. Borodin, who believe our country is worth saving." My God, Eva thought, their hard-liners are planning to take control of this plane and use it to re-enflame the Cold War? Just like the race for the H-bomb, it'll rejuvenate the Soviet military. "This is our last chance," Vera continued as she reached down and flicked on the computer. "However, if we are to succeed, the terms of the protocol will require certain revisions." "Do you really think you can get away with this?" "That's where you come in," Vera went on. "But first perhaps I should show you something." She reached down and pushed a button on the desk, causing the set of blinds along the side of the office facing the hangar to slowly rise. "I'd like you to see the _Daedalus_." She pointed out the window. "Perhaps then you will better appreciate its significance." Through the glass was a massive hangar engulfed in white vapor, as cryogenic liquid hydrogen created clouds of artificial condensate, cold steam, that poured over the army of milling technicians. Above the haze, however, she could just make out two giant aircraft. Their wings started almost at the cockpit, then widened outward to the plane's full length, terminating abruptly just before the high tail assembly. Positioned side by side, they looked like huge gliders, except that beneath the wings were clusters of massive engines larger than any she'd ever seen before. "So that's the prototype, the vehicle specified in the protocol." They were stunningly beautiful. Maybe all high-performance aircraft looked sexy, but these possessed a unique elegance. The child's vision of the paper airplane reincarnated as the most powerful machine man had ever created. "I thought you would like to witness the final preparations for our first hypersonic flight," Vera proceeded. "Thus far one of the planes, that one there on the left"-- she pointed--"has been flown to Mach 4.5. Today's test will take it to the hypersonic regime, over fifteen thousand miles per hour." They've leapfrogged the West, Eva was suddenly realizing. It's the X-30 spaceplane America dreams of building in the next century, except it's here now. "From the looks of things, I'd say you're on schedule." Vera clicked something on the desk and a blinking number appeared at the top of a video screen. It was the countdown. Liftoff was less than an hour away. "Yes, so far there has been no hold. Even though today is overcast, with a low ceiling, we don't experience weather delays like the American space shuttle. In fact, this plane is virtually weather-proof, since it leaves from a runway just like a normal passenger jet." No wonder the test pilot Androv was swaggering, Eva thought. This must be a flyboy's wet dream. "One more question. Why are you showing me all this?" "I told you, there's something I need." She paused, and in the silence Eva listened to the increasing clamor of preparations in the hangar outside. "After the test flight this morning, the prototype is scheduled to be transferred to the Supreme Soviet. However, that cannot be allowed to happen. Consequently, there will need to be alterations in the protocol." She clicked on the laptop computer. It hummed lightly as the hard disk engaged, and then the screen began to glow. "Those revisions need to be kept out of the system computers here at the facility for now, so your copy of the text would be an ideal place to prepare a first draft." "You're going to pull a fast one." Eva stared at her. "You're going to tinker with the terms of the deal and turn this plane over to your air force. Very inventive." "That is correct. And you are going to help me, Dr. Borodin. You are going to call up your text and print a copy for me." Sweetie, you are a piece of work. "Why bother printing it again? Sorry to tell you, but I've already run off a copy. It's in my suitcase." "We searched your bag. There's nothing there." "You didn't look hard enough." Maybe this was her chance. "Send some of your thugs to fetch it." "Very well." She reached for a button on the desk. Eva turned to look out again through the white mist. Something was going on now. A motorized cart was pulling up and two men in pressure suits were getting off. Must be the pilots. The first to step off the cart was already waving his hands imperiously at the Japanese technicians. He had to be the Soviet pilot, Androv. Yep, it was him, swagger and all. Then the second pressure-suited figure stepped down. That one, she assumed, must be one of the Mino Industries recruits Androv had been complaining about. Guess he didn't get very far with his demand to be in the cockpit alone. _The walk. _Memories of a long-ago skin-diving trip to Cozumel flooded back. They were off the northern reefs, wearing oxygen tanks, admiring the multicolored banks of coral. Then later, as they staggered up the beach, she'd laughed at his frog-footed waddle. _Michael! _ CHAPTER NINETEEN Friday 8:37 A.M. As Vance stepped off the motorized cart, the hangar around him was shrouded in white vapor. The swirling cloud on the ground, the eerie chiaroscuro of the lights, the amplified voice that ticked off the countdown--all added to the other-worldliness of the scene. And above the turmoil two giant spaceplanes loomed, silver monoliths that seemed to hover atop the pale mist. Chariots of the gods, he thought, gazing up. The Russian technicians had carefully suited him exactly as Yuri Androv, right down to his boots. Next to his skin was the dark-blue flight suit and cotton-lined leather cap issued to all Soviet pilots, and over these came a pressurized G-suit fabricated from a heavy synthetic material; it felt like a mixture of nylon and Teflon. This was topped off with the flight helmet, complete with a removable reflecting visor, which conveniently prevented anyone from seeing his face. Although the helmet restricted his peripheral vision, he still could hear clearly through headphones miked on the outside, although they did make the din of the hangar sound tinny and artificial. A Velcro-backed insignia of the Minoan Double Ax adhered to his chest; he was posing as a Mino Industries pilot. For all its unfamiliarity, however, his gear felt very much like the rubber wet-suit he donned for scuba diving at depths. The two hoses fastened to his abdomen could have been connectors for compressed air tanks and his helmet the oxygen mask. He felt equally uncomfortable. Only the damned flippers were missing. Since his RX-10 G-suit was designed for high-altitude flight, intended to do double-duty as an emergency backup in case of cockpit decompression, he had to carry along his own personal environmental- control unit, a white, battery-powered air conditioner the size of a large briefcase. It hummed lightly as it cooled and dehumidified the interior of his suit, keeping his faceplate moisture-free. The recycled air he was breathing smelled stale and vaguely synthetic. The most uncomfortable part of all, however, not to mention the most nerve-racking, had to be the six sticks of C-4 plastic explosive and their radio-controlled detonators now secured against his chest. Since the Soviet engineers had suited him up in a separate room, avoiding any contact with the Mino Industries doctors who'd been giving Androv his preflight physical, he'd yet to see Yuri Andreevich Androv clearly. He had a partner and he hadn't even had a good look at him yet. "The other M-I pilot will be arriving in a few minutes," Androv was announcing to the white-jacketed Japanese technicians standing by the Personnel Module. "He was delayed in the briefing." For their benefit he was speaking English, which, to Vance's surprise and relief, was almost perfect. They nodded as he continued. "We'll just go on up in the module. I want to check over the cockpit one last time, make sure there're no last-minute glitches." The Personnel Module resembled a small mobile home, except its pneumatic lift could elevate it sixty feet straight into the air, permitting direct access to the cockpit's side hatch. It was worlds away from the fourteen-foot metal ladder used to access a MiG cockpit. "Flight deck." He was speaking through his helmet mike as he pointed up. "Understand? Cockpit." Then he turned and motioned for Vance to follow as he stepped in. _"Hai_." Vance nodded gravely, Japanese style. "_Wakarimasu_." Let's hope the haze keeps down visibility, he was thinking. This place is sure to have video monitors everywhere. And this fancy elevator is probably bugged too. Intelligence from Command Central was that Tanzan Mino's two Yakuza "pilots" were receiving a last-minute briefing from the CEO himself. Still, they were certain to show up soon. This was no time to dawdle. The technicians closed the door of the module, then activated the lift controls. As it began gliding upward, Androv glanced over and gave Vance a silent thumbs-up. He flashed it back, then set down the heavy air-conditioning unit and shifted his weight from foot to foot, still trying to get the feel of the suit. Maybe, he told himself, this test pilot game is easier than it looks. But only so long as you never actually have to leave terra firma. Then it's probably more excitement than the average person needs. The upward motion halted with a lurch and the module door automatically slid open. At first glance the open cockpit of the USSR's latest plane made him think of the inside of a giant computer. Nothing like the eye- soothing green of a MiG interior, it was a dull off-white in color and cylindrical, about ten feet in diameter and sixteen feet long. Three futuristic G-seats equally spaced down the center faced a bank of liquid crystal video screens along one wall, and lighting was provided by pale orange sodium vapor lamps integrated into the ceiling. The real action was clearly the middle G-seat, which was surrounded by instrument consoles and situated beneath a huge suspended helmet, white enamel and shaped like a bloated moth. Everything about the controls bespoke advanced design philosophy: Instead of the usual flight stick placed between the pilot's knees, it had a multiple-control sidestick, covered with switches and buttons, situated on the pilot's right, something only recently introduced in the ultramodern American F-16 Falcon. Although the throttle quadrant was still located on the left-hand console, in standard fashion, it, too, had a grip skillfully designed to incorporate crucial avionics: the multiple radars, identification- friend-or-foe (IFF) instrumentation, instrument landing system (ILS), and tactical air navigation (TACAN). He realized they'd utilized the new Hotas concept--hands on throttle and stick--that located all the important controls directly on the throttle and flight stick, enabling the pilot to command the instruments and flight systems purely by feel, like a virtuoso typist. Even the thin rudder pedals looked futuristic. The whole layout, in severe blacks and grays, was sleek as an arrow. In the end, however, maybe it was all redundant. According to Andrei Androv this vehicle incorporated an advanced control system called _equipment vocal pour aeronef_; it could be flown entirely by voice interface with an artificial intelligence computer. All flight and avionics interrogations, commands, and readouts could be handled verbally. You just talked to the damn thing and it talked back. The twenty-first century had arrived. The other two G-seats in the cockpit, intended for research scientists, were positioned on either side of the pilot, about four feet away, with no controls whatsoever. All this baby needed was Androv and his computer. There was more. The space was cylindrical, which could only mean one thing: It was designed to be rotated, again probably by the computer, adjusting the attitude or inclination of the pilot continuously to make sure the G-forces of acceleration and deceleration would always be acting down on him, like gravity, securing him into that special G- seat. And why not? Since there was no windscreen, the direction the pilot faced was irrelevant--up, down, or even backward; who cared? And the helmet, that massive space-moth intended to be lowered over the pilot's head. From the briefing, he knew that the screens inside were how the pilot "saw." Through voice command to the central computer he could summon any of the three dozen video terminals along the walls and project them on the liquid crystal displays before his eyes. "So far, so good," Androv said, stepping in and down. Vance followed, then reached back to secure the hatch. It closed with a tight, reassuring thunk. The silent blinking of computer screens engulfed them. "By the way, it's up there," Vance said quietly, shifting his head toward the newly installed video camera positioned just above the entry hatch. Androv glanced up, nodded, and together they turned away from it. Then without further conversation they each ripped off their Velcro-secured insignias--Androv's, the Soviet air force red star bordered in white; Vance's, the double ax--and exchanged them. "How much time?" Androv whispered. "Just give me ten minutes." He held up his heavy wrist-watch. Together they checked and synchronized. "Good luck." Androv nodded and gave another thumbs- up sign, then clasped him in an awkward Russian hug. Vance braced himself for the traditional male kiss, but thankfully it didn't come. "_Do svidania, moi droog_," he said finally, standing back and saluting. Then he grinned and continued in accented English, "Everything will be A-okay." Without another word he swung open the hatch, passed through, and stepped into the personnel module. Vance watched him depart, then turned back to examine the _Daedalus_ cockpit more closely. It was a bona fide marvel. Screens, banks of screens, all along the wall--almost like a TV station's control room. Everything was there. Looking across, left to right, he saw that the engine readouts were placed on top: white bars showing power level, fan rpm, engine temperatures, core rpm, oil pressure, hydraulics, complete power-plant status. The next row started on the navigation and avionics: the radar altimeter, the airspeed indicator, the attitude-director indicator (AID) for real-time readings of bank and dive angle, the horizontal situation indicator (HSD) for actual heading and actual track, and on and on. All the electronics modules were already operating in standby mode--the slit-scan radar, the scanners, the high-resolution doppler. Other screens showed the view of the hangar as seen by the video cameras on the landing gear, now switched over from their infrared mode to visible light. The avionics, all digital, were obviously keyed to the buttons and switches on the sidestick, the throttles, and the two consoles. Those controls, he realized upon closer inspection, could alter their function depending on which display was being addressed, thereby reducing the clutter of separate buttons and toggle switches on the handgrips. The cockpit was not over-designed the way so many modern ones tended to be: instead it had been entirely rethought. There were probably two hundred separate system readouts and controls, but the pilot's interface was simple and totally integrated. It was beautiful, a work of pure artistry. Which made him sad. He'd always been an aviation buff, and the thought of obliterating a creation this spectacular provoked a sigh. On the other hand, H-bombs were probably beautiful too. This was another vengeful Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. Ridding the planet of its first hypersonic weapons delivery system would be a public service to all humankind. But first things first. He had no intention of allowing his next moves to be on TV. The newly installed monitor, part of the "retrofit," was about to get a small adjustment. Strolling back toward the entry hatch, he quickly detached the reflecting outer visor that was designed to drop down over the front of his flight helmet. Then he reached up and wedged the silvered portion against the lens. The camera would continue to operate, relaying back no malfunction signals, but it would be sending a picture of the ceiling. Next he unzipped his flight suit and carefully unstrapped the package riding against his chest. Inside were the six taffy-colored bars of C-4 plastic explosive, each an inch square and six inches long, all wrapped in clear Cellophane. They almost looked like candy, but they could blow this entire plane through the hangar's roof. The charge had to be set before the two Mino-gumi pilots were delivered by the Personnel Module. When they arrived, he'd simply pretend to be Yuri Androv and say they all had to go back down for a final check of their pressure-suit environmental systems. The moment they were clear, he'd activate the radio and detonate. Then the fun would begin. There. The two consoles on either side of the central G-seat, that's where he'd wedge the charges. It was the perfect place, the central nervous system. After one last, wistful look at the banks of video displays along the wall, he set to work. Friday 8:43 A.M. "Do you understand?" Tanzan Mino asked. It sounded more like a command. They were in the Mino Industries Prep Section, a preflight briefing room that led directly into the hangar. The faceplates of the two pilots' flight helmets were raised, allowing him to see their eyes. "Any deviation from the prescribed maneuver blocks will signal a problem." "_Hai_, Mino-sama," both men nodded grimly. They had come here in the cockpit of his personal Boeing, and they were not happy with their new assignment. Neither had the slightest desire to risk his life in the service of the _oyabun s _megalomania. The command to serve as last- minute "co-pilots" in the _Daedalus_, however, was an offer they could not refuse. "Should anything happen, you will radio Flight Control immediately, and we will use the plane's artificial intelligence system, the AI module, to bring it back and land it." "_Hai_." They nodded again. "You will not be expected to take the controls," he went on. "The computer can override all commands from the cockpit. You will merely ensure the prescribed flight sequence is adhered to." He paused, intending to collect his thoughts, but an oddity on the newly installed cockpit monitor caught his notice. He cursed himself for not having kept an eye on it. He'd been too busy briefing the pilots and now . . . Something about the picture was strange. The perspective had changed. He reached over and, with the push of a button, transferred the image to the large liquid crystal screen on the side wall. Yes, it was definitely wrong. He couldn't quite tell . . . Had someone jostled the camera? There was still a full half hour before . . . Something had happened in the cockpit. The prep crews were scheduled to be finished by now--he glanced at a screen and confirmed that the checklists had already been punched--so no one had permission to be inside the plane. From this point on, only the pilots were authorized to be there. Androv. Where was he? He was supposed to be in the Soviet Flight-Prep Sector now, across the hangar. He turned to Taro Ikeda, who was monitoring a line of video screens. "Check with Flight Prep. Has the Soviet pilot completed his preflight physical? Has it been signed off?" "Let me see." He moved immediately to comply. After he tapped a keyboard, a number matrix appeared on his computer screen, showing the status of all the preflight sequences. Quickly he called up the pilot sequence. "His physical has been completed, Mino-sama. Everything is checked off. He logged out fifteen minutes ago." "Then where is he?" "I'll try and find out." He reached for a phone and punched in the main number for the Flight Prep sector. The conversation that followed was quick and, as it continued, caused a look of puzzlement to spread over his already- worried face. "_Hai, domo arigato gozaimashta_," he said finally and hung up. As he turned back he was growing pale. "Mino-sama, I think there may be a problem. They say he has already left the sector, but--" "All right then, where has he gone?" "Sector Security says he left with one of your pilots, Mino-sama, headed for the hangar." The room grew ominously silent. They were both now staring at the two Mino Industries pilots, standing directly in front of them. "There must be some mistake." Tanzan Mino inhaled lightly. "Are you sure you understood correctly?" "It's obviously impossible. I agree." "Then what's going on? Whatever it is, I think we'd better find out. Immediately." He motioned for the two pilots to accompany him as he rose and headed for the door. "Stay close by. We're going to the hangar." Taro Ikeda briskly followed after them into the corridor. If anything went wrong now, he would be the one held responsible. Some vandal tampering in the cockpit was the last thing he needed. Everything had gone smoothly with the countdown so far this morning; he shuddered at the prospect of a last-minute hold. Ahead of him, Tanzan Mino was striding down the hallway, _kobun_ bodyguards in tow, headed directly for the wide hangar doors. Friday 8:49 A.M. She was still having trouble thinking clearly. Michael was in the hangar, was actually in one of the planes. What was he doing here? She barely noticed when a _kobun _walked in and settled her suitcase on the metal desk. He glanced at it, said something in Japanese, and disappeared out the door. The case was heavy leather, acquired from a little side-street shop by Victoria Station. It looked just as it had when she and Michael stashed the Uzi back in London. They'd deliberately bought a case heavy enough to conceal a weapon inside. Had Mino's people gone through it? Discov- ered the automatic? "Is this it?" Vera was asking. "That's the one." She reached down. "No," Vera said, staying her hand, "I will open it myself." With a quick motion she pulled around the zipper, then flipped back the heavy leather top. There lay a battered map of Crete, under it Michael's book on the palace, piles of rumpled clothes . . . This isn't how it's supposed to happen, she was thinking. The automatic's down in the bottom, in a separate section, but if Vera probes a little she'll find it. I've got to make her-- "There's no printout here." Comrade Karanova finished digging through the clothes and looked up. "But then there never really was, was there, Dr. Borodin? Perhaps what you'd hoped to find was this . . ." She pulled open the top drawer of the metal desk and lifted out a shiny black automatic. It was an Uzi. "You didn't really think you could do something as amateurish as smuggle a weapon into this facility." She shoved it back into the drawer. "Congratulations. You've done your homework." So much for surprising Vera Karanova. Apparently that wasn't something easily managed. "Now we will print a new copy of the protocol," she said, shoving the suitcase over to one corner of her desk. "I don't want to waste any more time." "Right. Time is money." So now it was up to Michael. Maybe if she could stall Vera long enough, whatever he was involved in would start to happen. Glancing out again at the vapor-shrouded floor of the hangar, she fleetingly wondered if maybe she'd been seeing things. No, she was certain. That walk, that funny walk he always had when he didn't feel in control. She knew it all too well; she knew him all too well. He'd arrived on the hangar floor riding on that little motorized cart, together with the Soviet pilot, and they'd both entered the hydraulic personnel carrier and been raised up to the cockpit. Then the carrier had come back down and disgorged the Soviet pilot, who'd immediately disappeared into the haze. Which meant Michael still had to be up there. What was he doing? Had he somehow thrown in his lot with the Soviets? He certainly wouldn't work for Tanzan Mino, so that meant there had to be a revolt brewing. The thing now was to link up, join forces. It was hard to figure. Oh, shit. Coming through the wide hangar doors, headed for the same personnel transporter Vance had taken, was Tanzan Mino and a host of his _kobun_ bodyguards, followed by two more men in pressure suits. He looked as though he had every intention of--yes, now he was saying something to the operators of the personnel carrier. They all were going up. Whatever Michael was doing, Mino-san wasn't going to be pleased. The whole scene was about to get crazy. Did Mike have a weapon? Even if he did, he wouldn't stand a chance. Friday 8:52 A.M. "Take it up." Tanzan Mino was marching up the steps of the Personnel Module, accompanied by six _kobun _in black leather jackets and the M-I pilots. The operators glanced at each other, then moved to comply. One Japanese pilot had just come down and disappeared into the haze. Now two more had arrived, along with the CEO. Were there three Japanese pilots? Things were starting to get peculiar. But then this was no ordinary flight; it was the big one. The door clicked shut with a quiet, pneumatic whoosh, and the module began its ascent. As they rode, Tanzan Mino reflected that in less than an hour this vehicle would be setting new records for manned flight. The world would hear about it from a press conference he would hold in Tokyo, carried live around the globe. That press briefing would also announce a new alliance between Japan and the Soviet Union. It would be a double coup. The planet's geopolitics would never again be the same. The module glided to a halt and its door opened. He'd been right. The cockpit hatch was sealed, which meant somebody was inside. The Soviet pilot must be up to something. But what? Then, unbidden, the pressure hatch started opening, slowly swinging back and around, and standing there, just inside, was a man in a pressure suit. There was no reflecting visor on his helmet now to hide his face. Friday 8:53 A.M. Vance stared at the small army facing him, including Tanzan Mino and his two pilots. This definitely was not the drill. Something had gone very, very wrong. Had some of the Soviet ground crews lost their nerve and talked? Whatever had happened, things were headed off the track. The C-4 explosive was set. But this was hardly the moment to activate the detonators and blow the place. "How did you get here?" The CEO's eyes narrowed to slits. "I decided to take you up on that tour." "What do you think you're doing?" "Planning a vacation. Checking out the transportation." "Very amusing, Dr. Vance," he said, staring at a length of C-4, a glass and metal detonator shoved into its side, wedged next to the sidestick. "But who else is part of your scheme? You didn't arrange this unassisted." "Why would anybody else be involved? I just thought it'd be fun to kick off today's celebration with a bang." "I'm afraid you will have to be disappointed." He turned to the _kobun_. "Clear the cockpit. Sweep it. And then," he glanced up, "after Dr. Vance replaces the visor on his flight helmet, we will escort him to my office for a very brief and undoubtedly very illuminating interview." Friday 9:03 A.M. "What's happening?" Vera had turned to watch through the white haze as the last _kobun _dismounted from the personnel module, following Tanzan Mino and the three pilots. "Maybe there's been a glitch in the countdown after all." Eva was trying to sound casual. Vera couldn't know the tall pilot in the middle, the one being helped along by Tanzan Mino's musclemen, was Michael. "Looks like Major Androv has got himself into some trouble." She could tell Vance was mad as hell. They'd probably roughed him up a little there in the cockpit, just to get started, and now they were intending to really go to work on him. But he must be part of a group, so where was everybody else? "Androv has to fly the plane today. We have everything scheduled. Why are they taking him away?" Vera turned and stalked for the door. "This cannot be permitted. Whatever the problem is, it has to be solved right here. Now. The flight must go forward. Too much is riding on it." Eva watched her stride out into the white haze of the hangar. She wanted to follow, but then she thought of something better. Friday 9:05 A.M. He was wondering when to try and make a break. But how far could he get, encumbered with the pressure suit? Where's the backup? Are they going to let me just twist in the wind? The original scenario had fallen apart, but that didn't mean the game was over. The Soviet engineers he'd seen clearly wouldn't be any help in a crisis, but the test pilot Androv was another story. He'd surely try to pull something back together. Where was he? Probably still up in the other cockpit, getting _Daedalus II _ready. So now . . . That's when he saw her, coming out of an office whose doorway was only half visible through the clouds of mist. It looked like . . . Vera Karanova. She was striding directly toward them, intercepting Tanzan Mino's small procession. "Where are you taking him?" She pointed toward Vance, glancing at his Red Star insignia, as she addressed the godfather in English. "Are you attempting to interfere in my affairs now, too?" Tanzan Mino demanded as he paused to stare. "I just want to know what it is you're doing," she replied. "I am handling a problem," he said coldly as he examined her. "There is a traitor, or traitors, among the Soviets. I intend to find out who's involved." "What do you mean?" An edge of nervousness entered her voice. Vance was coming up. "Sorry I screwed up, Vera," he said in English. "So close yet so far. Somebody must have blown the whistle." "You're not--" She stared as he lifted the visor of his flight helmet. "But what the hell," he went on. "We gave it a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing--" "We?" She examined him, puzzled. "I suspected all along you could not be trusted." Tanzan Mino's calm facade seemed to crack as his face flushed with anger. "But I had no idea you would actually betray the entire project. Sabotage the vehicle." "I don't know anything about sabotage." She clearly was startled, attempting to maintain calm in her voice. "If Vance has--" "It appears I'm surrounded by treachery and traitors." His voice quavered as he stepped over to one of the _kobun_, then reached in and withdrew the 9mm Walther automatic from the man's shoulder holster. When he turned back, his eyes were opaque with anger and paranoia. He'd clearly snapped, lost it. "Mr. Vance, I want to know the names of everyone who was involved in this plot. Everyone. If I am satisfied you are telling the truth, then perhaps I will consider sparing your miserable life. Otherwise . . ." He turned back to Vera. She was staring at the gun, her face ashen, not letting herself believe what her eyes were telling her. The white mists of the hangar swirled around them, creating ghostly shadows across the expressionless faces of the _kobun_. "You made a very grave error in judgment," he was saying to her. "I don't yet know precisely what you were expecting to accomplish, but whatever it was, I can assure you I am not a man who tolerates disloyalty." His expression was strangely distant as he raised the pistol and fired, one precise round, a dull thunk barely audible above the din of the hangar. Vance watched in dismay as Vera Karanova stumbled backward, her dark eyes uncomprehending. It was a gangland-style execution, quick and preemptory, the time-honored way. No appeals or due process. He'd been hoping merely to gain some time for Androv, not cause her to be murdered on the spot. Now Tanzan Mino turned to him, still gripping the pistol. His face was distorted in irrational fury. "Perhaps I made a mistake just now, Dr. Vance. What do you think?" "Probably a pretty serious one." "Yes, now that I reflect on it, I'm inclined to agree. The culprit we seized red-handed was you. You are the one I should be making an example of." He was raising the Walther again. It began so quickly he almost didn't realize it was happening. From out of the swirl of mist that engulfed _Daedalus_ /'s landing gear a white- haired old man appeared, grasping a pistol. Tanzan Mino turned to stare, just in time to hear him yelling--in Russian. "Release him. Release my son. I order you." He was closing on the group, about twenty feet in front of them, brandishing the weapon uncertainly. Vance couldn't make out what caliber it was, but he doubted it mattered. Andrei Androv clearly had no idea how to use it. His was an act of desperation. Then another realization clicked. He said "my son." He thinks I'm Yuri. Before anybody could move, a white pressure suit materialized out of the distant haze around _Daedalus II_. It was Yuri Androv, running toward his father, shouting. "_Nyet_! Don't--" "Release him, I tell you." Andrei Androv didn't hear him as he continued to move menacingly on Tanzan Mino. The outcome was inevitable. Vance ducked and rolled for the Personnel Module just as the _kobun's_ line of H&K automatics flared. Andrei Androv lurched, gray hair flying, and managed to get off two rounds. But instead of hitting a _kobun_, he caught one of the Mino Industries pilots, visor up, directly in the face. Comrade Doktor Andrei Petrovich Androv, dean of Soviet propulsion technology, chief designer of the _Daedalus_, died instantly, his eyes still fixed in determination. However, Tanzan Mino's _kobun_ weren't tidy. One of them squeezed off a couple more rounds just as Yuri Androv ran up and leaned over his father's crumpled body. With a groan, he spun around and staggered against the huge 22-ply tires of _Daedalus _/'s starboard landing gear. It still wasn't over. As Vance scrambled against the Personnel Module, he caught a glimpse of something that, faintly visible through the clouds of cryogenic fog, apparently was escaping everybody else. Another woman was standing in the door of the office where Vera Karanova had been. Holding an Uzi. How had she managed to get her hands on that? Not a second too soon. She can sweep the floor. Just get out of the way and give her an opening. Maybe there's still time. He began scrambling for the base of the Personnel Module. Now the white mist was obscuring everything, and Tanzan Mino seemed to have enveloped himself in it. He was nowhere to be seen. However, his presence was not missed by his _kobun_, who were still taking care of business. The next agenda item, Vance realized, was himself. As he tried to roll under the module, one was turning, raising his automatic . . . Now Eva was yelling, "Michael, stay down." The _kobun_ all whirled back, but she was ready. Stock extended, full auto. Jesus, he thought, that hood in the back is holding enough C-4 to clear a small arena. If she hits one of the detonators . . . It was either a lucky or an unlucky shot. After eight rounds, less than a second's worth, a blinding ball of fire erupted where the _kobun_ had been, sending a shock wave rolling through the open space of the hangar, knocking over technicians almost a hundred feet away. As Vance was slammed under the Personnel Module, out of the corner of his eye he saw Eva being thrown against the doorframe of the office. The air blossomed with the smell of deadly C-4, like acrid Sterno. Not for nothing did the U.S. military swear by it. Now Yuri Androv was peeling himself off _Daedalus II's _landing gear, his flight suit blackened and smudged. Blood from a bullet wound was running down the right sleeve. They'll be coming for us all, Vance thought. Tanzan Mino's probably somewhere radioing for more guards right now. Eva was stalking through the smoke, still grasping the Uzi. "Michael, are you all right?" "Hell of a morning." He was pulling himself out from under the Personnel Module, awkwardly trying to straighten his flight helmet. "You took out the palace guard, everybody but Mr. Big. Congratulations. And I thought CIA had a patent on that kind of operation." Already emergency alarms had begun a high-pitched whine, blaring through the cavernous hangar. Everything around them was chaos. "You know," she yelled above the noise, "he's going to kill us immediately. There's no way he's going to--" "I figure we've got about two minutes to think of something," he yelled back and pointed. "Check on the pilot. His name is Androv." "I know. I met him last night." She turned and stared. "We had a small misunderstanding." "Well, let's see if he's still in any condition to fly." "You mean?" "How else? You got any better ideas, I'd like to hear them." Yuri Androv had worked his way through the carnage of the explosion, the scattered remains of Tanzan Mino's phalanx of _kobun_, to again bend over the form of his father. Once more the cloud of obscuring mist was flowing over the scene, blanking it. At that moment, however, a pale glow laid itself around them, the murky light of overcast dawn. Vance realized the Soviet technicians had thrown open the hangar doors and were scrambling out onto the tarmac. Good, let them. We might just follow suit. Now Yuri Andreevich Androv was approaching, clasping his right arm. "We've got to get him fixed," Vance said briskly, looking him over, "put on a tourniquet." "Think he can still fly?" "I say we make him fly." With his left hand Androv peeled back his helmet visor and kissed Eva. "_Spacebo_," he said in Russian, "you did what I would have done if I'd had a weapon. But now I don't know what--" "How's your arm?" Vance cut in. "We've got to make a decision right now. When the reinforcements arrive, it's game over. One little Uzi won't handle their firepower." Androv frowned. "Can you fly?" "Never handled anything bigger than a Lear," Vance replied. "And then only as copilot." It didn't seem to matter. Androv glanced at the open door of the Personnel Module and motioned to them. "Then come on. Let's hurry." Now he was searching the hangar. Finally he spotted the man he wanted. "Pavel," he yelled in Russian, "have the starter trolleys been engaged yet?" "_Da_," came the reply. "Then prepare _Daedalus I _for power-up and get the hell out. We're go for rpm." "What do you mean? The tow trucks haven't even been--" "Forget the tow trucks. It's going to be afterburners, right here. Get the rest of your people in the clear." Afterburners were rings of nozzles that sprayed fuel into the superheated exhaust gases of a jet engine, creating a burst of power. In military aircraft they were used to produce surges in thrust during takeoff and dogfights. "Afterburners! In the hangar. Yuri, all the hydrogen storage tanks could blow. You'd destroy_ Daedalus II_. Just incinerate it." "That's the idea." He was already mounting the steps of the Personnel Module, not looking back. "There's only going to be one plane left. The one I take." "The computer." Eva had started up the steps, but then she froze and turned back, handing Vance the Uzi. "I have to get it." "There's no time." He reached for the weapon, its muzzle still hot. "We've got--" "Michael, I didn't come this far just to let the protocol slip through our fingers." She was running past him now, back down. "Only take a second." He knew it was pointless to argue. And besides, maybe she was right. Who knew where they'd end up? Now Androv had faltered and was leaning shakily against the open doorway of the module, the right sleeve of his pressure suit covered in blood. Vance took advantage of the ticking moments to step up and examine it. "You need a bandage." He started tearing away the synthetic cloth. "Or better yet, a tourniquet." "No." Androv glanced at his arm and grimaced. "There's not--" "You're going on adrenaline right now, my friend. But when the shock wears off . . ." He looked around the interior of the module, but there was nothing to cut with, so he just ripped away a large portion of Androv's sleeve and parted the material. A savage furrow was sliced across his bicep. "I don't want you to pass out." He tore a section of the sleeve into a strip and then, struggling with his heavy gloves, began binding it above the wound. The hangar was still bedlam, people running and yelling on every side, alarms sounding. As he was finishing the tourniquet, Eva came bounding up the metal steps carrying her Zenith. They were ready. Androv quickly secured the door and activated the controls. Through a smoke-smeared window they watched the bloody hangar floor disappear into the haze. The world suddenly turned dreamlike, an unreality highlighted by the soft whoosh of the pneumatic lift beneath them. Then the module lurched to a halt. Vance led the way through the open hatch. "Looks like somebody forgot and left the lights on." "Pavel told me the starter trolleys were engaged," Androv said in Russian as he climbed through, then stepped down. He continued in English. "Petra can initiate power-up." "Petra?" Vance turned back. "You mean the--" "Our copilot." He pointed toward a large liquid crystal screen at the far end of the cabin, now blank. "I want to try and use her to override Flight Control for the rest of the sequence." "Short circuit the countdown?" "I've never done it, but . . ." He walked over and reached down to flip a square blue switch on the right-hand console. "Let's see if she's awake this morning." He glanced up as the screen blinked on and a large black-and-white double-ax logo materialized, set against the red and white of a Japanese flag. Next he pushed a button on the sidestick and spoke. "Petra, report countdown status." "_All preflight sequences nominal." _The eerie, mechanical sound of a woman's voice, speaking Russian, filled the space. "_Do you acknowledge?_" "Affirmative," he answered back. "You will now initiate ignition sequence. Bypass remaining countdown procedure." "_That is an override command. Please give authorization code."_ "Code P-18. Systems emergency." "_The countdown is now T minus nineteen minutes twenty-eight seconds. All systems are nominal. Therefore Code P-18 is not a valid command."_ "Shit," he whispered under his breath. "Petra, verify P-18 with Flight Control." He paused for a split second, then pushed a button on the console and commanded, "Abort instruction." Another pause, then, "Repeat verify abort command for N equals one over zero." "What was that?" Eva was wedging her laptop under the left-hand G-seat. "I think, I hope I just put her command-monitor function into an infinite loop. She'll just continuously start and stop the verification procedure. Maybe it'll render that subroutine incapable of blocking the other system functions." "You're going to confuse her head? Good luck." He settled himself in the central seat, then reached up and began unlatching the huge flight helmet. As he did, his eyes were suddenly flooded with grief. "They killed him." He paused for a moment and just stared. Vance thought he'd finally become befuddled from the shock. But then he choked back his emotion and continued. "We're going on the deck. Under their goddam radar." "What did you say?" Vance strained to catch his words. The English was slurred. He seemed to grow faint, his consciousness wane, but he finally revived as he finished yanking the giant helmet down over his head. Vance's headphones came alive as he heard the Russian. "_Daedalus I_ to Control. Do you read? I am now bringing up core rpm for starboard cluster, outboard trident." A second later, he continued, "We have S-O ignition." "Yuri," came a startled radio voice, "what in hell is going on! You can't--" "Portside cluster, outboard. Rpm up," he continued in Russian, his voice halting. "We have P-O ignition." "Yuri, you can't--?" "Starboard cluster, inboard. Bringing up. Portside cluster, inboard--" "Androv, for godsake, have you gone mad?" "Sergei, I told them to clear the hangar. I'm taking her to full power." "The liquid hydrogen tanks are in there. You could blow the whole hangar to hell if you use afterburners. You must be crazy!" "The bastards gunned him down, Sergei." He caught a sob. "It was my fault. I should have warned--" "What are you talking about? Gunned who down?" But Yuri Androv's mind was already elsewhere, drifting into a grief- obsessed dream state. "Engine start complete," he continued. "Beginning pre-takeoff sequence." Will he be able to get this thing off the ground? Vance was wondering. He's shot up and now he's falling apart. Guess we're about to find out. The fuselage cameras are showing an empty hangar. Everybody's run for cover. "Eva, want to take that seat? I'll take this one. No free drinks in this forward cabin section." He was speaking through his upraised helmet visor as he eased himself into the right-hand G-seat. "And buckle up for safety." She settled herself in the left. "Let's just hope he can still manage this monster. It's a Saturn V with wings." "He's got his talking computer, if she'll still cooperate. Do me a favor and translate now and then." "Machines are supposed to translate for people, not the other way around. We're in space warp." "I believe it." As he pulled down the overhead seat straps, he found himself wondering what _Daedalus _would feel like in full afterburner mode. Those turboramjets made a Boeing 747's massive JT-9Ds look like prime movers for a medium-sized lawnmower. "Power to military thrust." Androv was easing forward the twin throttles, spooling them up past three-quarters power. _Daedalus _had begun to quiver, shaking like a mighty mountain in tectonic upheaval. "Prepare for brake release." The screens on the wall above reported fuel consumption edging toward three hundred pounds of JP-7 a second. "Yuri," the radio crackled, "don't--" "Pavel's got his men out of the hangar, Sergei. I can see on my screen. I'm going cold mike now. No distractions. Just wish me luck." There was a click as he switched off the communications in his helmet. He missed a new radio voice by only a second. It was speaking in English. "Dr. Vance, what is going on? He's just cut his radio link with Flight Control. He's deranged. I order you to halt the flight sequence. He could destroy both planes by going to afterburners in the hangar. I demand this be stopped." Vance glanced up at the TV monitors. An auxiliary screen showed Tanzan Mino standing at the main Flight Control console, surrounded by more_ kobun_, who had muscled aside the Russian technicians. He also noticed that a lot of Soviet brass were there too. "Looks like you've got a problem." "I'm warning you I will shut you down. I can activate the automatic AI override three minutes after takeoff. The plane will return and land automatically." "Three minutes is a long time." Vance wondered if it was true, or a bluff. "We'll take our chances." "You'd leave me no choice." "May the best man win." "Petra, brake release." Yuri Androv's voice sounded from beneath his helmet. _"Acknowledged_." Vance looked across to see his left hand signal a thumbs-up sign, then reach down for the throttle quadrant. The vehicle was already rolling through the wide doors of the hangar, so if there were an explosion now, at least they'd be in the clear. Androv paused a second, mumbled something in Russian, then shoved the heavy handles forward to Lock, commanding all twelve engines to max afterburner. The JP-7 fuel reading whirled from a feed of three hundred pounds a second to twenty-one hundred, and an instant thereafter the cockpit was slammed by the hammer of God as the monitor image of the hangar dissolved in orange. CHAPTER TWENTY Friday 9:31 A.M. "One small step for man." Vance felt his lungs curve around his backbone, his face melt into his skull. He didn't know how many G's of acceleration they were experiencing, but it felt like a shuttle launch. He gripped the straps of the G-seat and watched the video feed from the landing-gear cameras, which showed the tarmac flashing by in a stream of gray. The screen above him had clicked up to 200 knots, and in what seemed only a second the _Daedalus _was a full kilometer down the runway. Then the monitors confirmed they were rotating to takeoff attitude, seven degrees. They were airborne. Next the screens reported a hard right-hand bank, five G's. The altimeter had become a whirling blur as attitude increased to twenty degrees, held just below stall-out by Petra's augmented control system. When the airspeed captured 400 knots, the landing gear cameras showed the wheels begin to fold forward, then rotate to lie flat in the fuselage. Next the doors snapped closed behind them, swallowing them in the underbelly and leaving the nose cameras as their only visual link to the outside. The screens displayed nothing but gray storm clouds. Landing gear up and locked, came Petra's disembodied voice. "Acknowledge gear secure," Androv said, quieting a flashing message on one of the screens. No abort so far, Vance thought. Maybe we're about to get away with this. The airspeed had already passed 600 knots, accelerating a tenth of a Mach number, about 60 knots, every five seconds. That's when he noticed they were still receiving wideband video transmissions from the Flight Center. The screen showing Tanzan Mino remained clear and crisp. Surely not for much longer, but now at least the uplink was intact. And the CEO was returning the favor, monitoring their lift-off via a screen of his own. Vance watched as he turned to some of the Soviet brass standing next to him and barked orders. What was that about? For now though the bigger question was, What do we do? Androv was still busy talking to Petra, issuing commands. Vance realized they were assuming a vector north by northeast, out over the ocean. They also were probably going to stay on the deck to avoid radar tracking, with only passive systems so that no EM emissions would betray their heading. He glanced up at the screens and realized he was half right. They were over the ocean now, at a breathtaking altitude of only five hundred meters, but Androv had just switched the phased-array radar altimeter over to start hopping frequencies, using "squirt" emissions. Pure Stealth technology. No conventional radar lock could track it. "Dr. Vance, I am giving you one more opportunity to reconsider." Tanzan Mino's voice sounded through the headphones. He was still standing at the main Flight Control console, though his image was finally starting to roll and break up. "You must return to base. The consequences of this folly could well be incalculable." "Why don't you take that up with the pilot?" Vance answered into his helmet mike. "His receiver has been turned off. It's impossible to communicate with him. He's clearly gone mad. I will give you another sixty seconds before I order the on-board guidance computer switched over to the AI mode. Flight Control here will override the on-board systems and just bring the vehicle back and land it." Again Vance wondered if he really could. Then a screen flashed, an emergency strobe, and Petra was speaking. The Russian was simple enough he could decipher it. Systems advisory. You are too low. Pull up. Acknowledge. Pull up. Androv tapped the sidestick lightly and boosted their altitude a hundred meters. "Michael," the voice was Eva's coming through his headphones. "She--it-- whoever, said--" "I figured it out. But did you hear the other news? Mino-san just advised he's going to override Petra. We're about to find out who's really flying this baby." "No." Androv was raising his flight helmet and gesturing, his wounded arm urging at something in his right pocket. "Please take. Do it quickly. And then . . ." Vance unstrapped his G-seat harness, rose, and moved over to the central console. Androv had raised his hydraulic helmet all the way up now and was trying to unzip the right side of his flight suit. Vance reached down and helped him, not sure exactly what he needed. "There." Yuri was trying to point. "The radio. Please, you must . . ." The English began to fail him again. "What's this?" Vance took out the transmitter, the size and shape of a small calculator. The answer was in Russian, complex and garbled. Something about computer. "He's wired something into the on-board computer, Michael," Eva began translating. "The radio will perform brain surgery on Petra, disabling her AI functions. It's supposed to prevent Flight Control from overriding . . . I didn't quite get it. But he wants you to help." Vance glanced up at the line of video screens. _Daedalus _was now skimming rapidly over the straits, banking in the direction of the archipelago known as the Kurile Islands, and the image of Tanzan Mino was breaking up, almost gone. Had he heard? Maybe it didn't matter. The allotted sixty seconds was ticking away and he could just make out the image of Tanzan Mino, holding a microphone, preparing to give orders. By the clock on the screens he saw that forty-one seconds had already passed. "Dr. Vance, we are preparing to initiate total systems override." The CEO's voice sounded through his headphones. "You have fifteen seconds remaining to acknowledge." "The code," Androv was saying. "It is one-nine-nine-nine." Vance stared at the small device in his flight glove. It had a number keypad and a liquid crystal display. "You have ten seconds," Tanzan Mino said. The image was ghostly, but the voice still rang loud and clear. He began fumbling with the device, but the numbers kept eluding him, slipping around the thick fingers of his gloves. Finally he caught the 1. Above him the screens were still scrolling. Eight seconds. Suddenly the cockpit seemed to sway, an air pocket that even the _Daedalus'_ advanced structural mode control system couldn't damp out entirely. Now Androv was talking to Petra, going for a sliver more altitude. Seven seconds. "Michael." Eva was watching, her face still drawn from the acceleration. "Is it--?" "It's the gloves. The damned gloves. I'm . . ." Then he punched in the first 9. In the back of his mind he noted that the cockpit was adjusting as _Daedalus _rotated, increasing attitude . . . He got another 9. But his grip on the "calculator" was slipping, pressing toward the floor as the G-forces of acceleration weighed against him. He checked the screens again and saw that three seconds remained. Now Androv was grappling to keep control of the throttle, while issuing instructions to Petra. Am I about to disable her? he wondered. If I do, can he manage this nightmare manually? What if Mino was only bluffing? Two seconds. A final, bright green 9 appeared on the liquid crystal readout. "_Alert. AI system malfunction_." It was the toneless voice of Petra. She sounded vaguely annoyed. Something had happened. Two of the screens on the wall above had just gone blank, but _Daedalus _continued to climb. "Dr. Vance, we are now going to recall the plane. We have ordered a wing of fighter-interceptors scrambled from the Dolinsk airbase on Sakhalin. They will escort you back." Whoops. So that was what he was telling the Soviet brass to do. Get up some hardware fast. This could well be the shortest flight since the Wright brothers'. Then he heard Androv's helmet mike click on. "This is _Daedalus I_. Do you copy me?" "Major, you--" Mino began. "Copy this, you bastard. Fuck you. Repeat. Fuck you. I've disabled your fucking AI module." "You disabled it?" "That's a roger. Do you read me, you murdering son-of-a-bitch? FUCK YOU!" He clicked off his mike Vance was moving slowly across the cockpit, headed back to his own G- seat. As he settled himself and reached for the straps, he glanced up at the screens to check their flight data--altitude, speed, vector, G- force, fuel consumption. They were still on the deck, with an airspeed just under a thousand knots, about eleven hundred miles per hour. Not quite Mach 2, but already it was risky. And their vector was 085, with coordinates of 46 degrees latitude, 143 degrees longitude. What now? _Daedalus_ had all the active radar systems known to modern avionics. Looking at the screens he saw forward-looking radar, sideways-looking radar, a four-beam multimode pulse-Doppler look-down radar, terrain-following radar, radar altimeter, mapping and navigational radar, and a host of high-powered ECM jammers. The problem was, they all emitted EM, electromagnetic radiation. Switch on any of those and they'd become a flying radio beacon, broadcasting their position. The next row of screens, however, provided readouts of their passive, non-emitting receivers and analyzers. That clearly was what they would have to use to monitor the threat from Sakhalin, scooping up any EM for lightning-fast computer processing. Surely Petra could spit out a fingerprint of everything in the skies. To begin with, there were the basic Radar Warning Receivers (RWRs) located aft, on the tailplanes, as well as infrared warning receivers (IRWRs) positioned high on the outboard stabilizers. The screens showed she could analyze basic frequency, operating mode, pulse repetition frequency, amplitude of pulse, time of arrival, direction of arrival--the full menu. "If it's true they've scrambled the base at Dolinsk, it probably means the new MiG 31s." Androv was now busy switching on all the passive systems, just the way Vance figured he would. "We have to decide what to do. But first I want to take her up and do a quick recon. Buckle in." "The latest Foxhound has a multimode pulse-Doppler look-down, shoot- down capability that's as good as any in the world," Vance heard himself saying. "We're the biggest target in the skies, and we're unarmed. We'd be a sitting duck for one of their AA-9 active homing missiles. They're launch-and-leave." "Let's check it out before we get too worried," Androv replied. "But this has to be fast. You're about to see a Mach 3 Immelmann. Don't try this in a 747." He laughed, then began lowering his high-tech helmet. "I hope I can still manage it." There was a surge of acceleration as he shoved forward the throttles, then yanked back on the sidestick. The Daedalus seemed to kick straight up. And up. And up. The instruments showed they were traveling skyward in a thin arc, as though sliding up the curve of an archer's bow. Now the altimeter was spinning, and in eighteen seconds they had already reached twenty thousand feet. But still Androv kept the stick in, and during the next five seconds, as Daedalus continued tracing the archer's curve, they almost began to fly upside down. At the last moment he performed an aileron half-roll and righted them. The Immelmann had, in effect, taken them straight up and headed their powerful forward-looking IR detectors and radar in the direction of Sakhalin. Vance glanced at the screens and realized they'd climbed thirty thousand feet in twenty-seven seconds. They'd just waxed the standing forty-eight-second time-to-climb record of the USAF F-15 Eagle, and Daedalus wasn't even breathing hard. Even though Androv had now chopped the power, they still were cruising at Mach 2. Effortlessly. No wonder he loves this bird. The only downside was, the fuel reading showed they'd burned twenty- three thousand pounds of JP-7 during the climb out. "Petra," Androv said into his helmet mike, "take VSD to standby and give me infrared laser." Petra's interrogation revealed a wing of eight MiG 31 interceptors, flying in formation at twenty-five thousand feet and closing. At Mach 2.4. Friday 9:43 A.M. "_Ya ponemaiyu_," Colonel-General Gregori Edmundovich Mochanov said into the secure phone, the pride of Dolinsk's Command Central. "I ordered a wing of the Fifteenth Squadron scrambled at 0938 hours. Fortunately we were planning an exercise this morning." He paused for the party at the other end, General Valentin Sokolov on a microwave link from the Hokkaido facility. "_Da_, if Androv maintains his altitude below six hundred meters, then he will probably have to keep her near Mach 2. The vehicle, as I understand it, is not designed for that operating regime. So with the MiG 31s on full afterburner, we can make up the distance. But we need his vector." He paused and listened. "Yes, they are fully armed. AA-9s. A kill perimeter of--" He listened again. "Of course, active homing radar and infrared, on the underfuselage--" He was impatiently gripping the receiver. "_Da_, but I can't work miracles. I must have a vector." He paused again. "_Da_, but I don't want to accidentally shoot down another KAL 747. I must have a confirmed target. I'm not going to order them to fire without it." He listened a second longer, then said, "Good," and slammed down the phone. Friday 9:44 A.M. Guess we'd better start playing hide-and-seek in earnest," Vance observed. "Stealth, my American friend," Androv replied. "The hostile radar signature of this fuselage is almost nothing. And we can defeat their infrared by taking her back on the deck, so the engines are masked from their look-down IR. Back we go. We'll pull out at five hundred meters, but it'll mean about three negative G's--blood to the brain, a redout. Very dangerous. Be ready." Then he shoved the sidestick forward and Daedalus plunged into a Mach 3 power dive. The infrared cameras showed the sea plunging toward them. The dive took even less time than the climb, with the altimeter scrolling. Suddenly the voice of Petra sounded. _"Pull up. Warning. Pull up. Pilot must acknowledge or auto-override will commence." _A ton of empty space slammed into them as Petra automatically righted the vehicle, pulling out of the dive at an altitude of four hundred meters. Vance looked over and saw Yuri Andreevich Androv's bandaged arm lying limp on the sidestick, lightly hemorrhaging. He'd passed out from the upward rush of blood. Friday 9:58 A.M. _ _"He has disappeared from the Katsura radar again, Mino-sama. I think he has taken the vehicle back on the deck." Ikeda's face was ashen as he typed in the computer AI override command one last time, still hoping. The Flight Control operations screen above him was reading "System Malfunction," while the engineers standing behind were exchanging worried glances. Who was going to be held responsible? The master screen above, the one with the Katsura radar, no longer showed the _Daedalus_. Androv had taken it to thirty thousand feet, then down again. He was playing games. Tanzan Mino was not wasting time marveling at the plane's performance specs. He turned and nodded to General Sokolov, who was holding a red phone in his hand. The MiG 31 wing wasn't flying military power; it was full afterburners, which was pushing them to Mach 2.4. If Daedalus stayed on the deck, they might still intercept. "We have no choice," he said in Russian. "Order them to give him a chance to turn back, and tell him if he refuses, they will shoot him down. Maybe the threat will be enough." Sokolov nodded gravely. But what if Androv was as insane as every indication suggested he was? What if he disobeyed the commands from the Sakhalin interceptors? What then? Who was going to give the command that unleashed AAMs to bring down the most magnificient airplane--make that spacecraft--the world had ever seen. The MiG 31, with its long- range Acrid AA-9 missiles, had a stand-off kill capability that matched the American F-14 Tomcat and its deadly AIM-54 Phoenix. Since the AA-9 had its own guidance system, the pilot need not even see his target. One of those could easily bring down an unarmed behemoth like the Daedalus as long as it was still in the supersonic mode, which it would have to be at that low altitude. A pall of sadness entered his voice as he issued the command. Androv, of all people, knew the look-down shoot-down capabilities of the MiG 31. Maybe there was still a chance to reason with him. The _Daedalus _had no pilot-ejection capability. His choice was to obey or die. Reports from the hangar said he'd taken some automatic-weapons fire from the CEO's bodyguards. How badly wounded was he? Hard to tell, but he'd got _Daedalus_ off the runway, then done an Immelmann to take her to ten thousand meters, followed by a power dive back to the deck. He was frolicking like a drunken dolphin. Pure Androv. How much longer could he last? Sokolov glanced at the screen in front of him. The computer was extrapolating, telling him that a due-east heading by _Daedalus_ would soon take her over international waters. If Androv kept that vector, at least there'd be no messy questions about violating foreign airspace. "How long before they can intercept?" Tanzan Mino asked, not taking his eyes from the screens. Now the Soviet interceptors were on the Katsura radar, speeding toward _Daedalus'_ last known vector coordinates. It should only be a matter of time. "In five minutes they will be within air-to-air range," Sokolov replied. He paused, then asked the question weighing on his mind. "If he refuses to turn back, do you really want that vehicle blown from the skies?" Now Tanzan Mino was thinking about the Stealth capabilities of the _Daedalus_. Was the design good enough to defeat the MiG-31s' pulse- Doppler radar? He suddenly found himself wishing the plane hadn't been so well designed. The stupid Soviets, of course, had no idea--yet-- that it could just disappear. "He could be headed for Alaskan air space. That's what the computer is projecting. You understand the ramifications if this vehicle falls into the hands of the Americans." The Soviet nodded gravely. That was, of course, unthinkable. There would be no going home again. Friday 9:57 A.M. "Yuri!" Eva was up like a shot. "Lean back. Breathe." She was pushing the button that raised the huge flight helmet. As she watched, his open eyes gradually resumed their focus. Then he snapped his head and looked around. "_Shto_ . . . what happened?" "I don't think you can handle heavy G-loads. You're weak from the wound, the tourniquet." He straightened up, then glanced again at the altimeter. They were cruising at three hundred meters, smooth as silk. And they were burning six hundred pounds of JP-7 a second. "Nothing has gone the way I planned." He rubbed at his temples, trying to clear the blood from his brain. "We're just buying a little breathing space now by staying down here. I think the radar noise of the choppy sea, together with all our Stealth capability, will keep us safe. But at this low altitude we're using fuel almost as though we were dumping it. If we continue to hold on the deck, we've got maybe half an hour's flying time left." "If we gained altitude," Vance wondered, "could we stretch it enough to make Alaska?" "Probably," Androv replied. "If we took her above fifty thousand feet, we might have a chance." "Then we've got no choice. The only solid ground between here and the U.S. is the Kurile Islands, and they're Soviet territory." "But if we did reach U.S. airspace, then what?" Eva asked. "We'd have to identify ourselves. Who's going to believe our story? Nobody even knows this monster exists." "Right," he laughed. "A top-secret Soviet hypersonic bomber comes cruising across the Bering Strait at sixty thousand feet and into the USAF's airspace. One hint of this thing and they'd roll out the SAMs." "Maybe we couid talk our way down." "Maybe." "There's no other choice." "You are getting ahead of things, both of you," Androv interrupted, staring at the screens on the wall. "We still have to handle the interceptors from Dolinsk. If we went for altitude, we'd show enough infrared signature to make us an easy target during ascent. Before we even reached two thousand meters, they'd have a lock on us." Vance glanced at the IRWR. Daedalus's infrared laser scanners were still tracking the wing of MiG interceptors, now at twenty-two thousand feet and closing. "It doesn't matter," he said. "We've got to get off the deck soon, while we still have fuel. Either that or we'll have to ditch at sea." "Comrade Vance, the Daedalus is a marvelous platform, but when we go for altitude, we're going to be vulnerable. There's no getting around it. This vehicle was intended to perform best at the edge of space, not down here." "All right," he said slowly. "Then why not take her there? Use the scramjets. We may be running out of JP-7, but we have a load of liquid hydrogen. Maybe this is the moment to finally find out if this thing can burn it." "I'm--I'm afraid. After what happened when we pulled out of the power dive, I'm not sure I could handle the G-load necessary to power in the scramjets." Yuri paused. "The tourniquet has almost paralyzed my arm. I don't have the kind of control and timing we'd need. If I thought I could--but no. I hate to say it, even think it, but maybe we have no choice but to give up and turn back." "Not yet," Vance said. "Maybe there's one other possibility." Friday 10:01 A.M. "They still are not acknowledging," Tanzan Mino said grimly. "We don't know their exact vector, but they will have to gain altitude soon. When they do . . ." He turned to General Sokolov. "Radio Dolinsk and confirm the order." This was the moment Valentin Sokolov had been dreading. The AA-9 missile, which was carried on the MiG 31's recessed underfuselage stations, came in two versions: the active radar homing model and the heat-seeking infrared design. He suspected that _Daedalus _had enough Stealth and ECM capabilities to partially defeat radar, but Stealth couldn't mask IR. Sooner or later, Androv would have to make his move, come off the deck. And when he did, the MiGs would pick him up and it would be over. But that was still preferable to letting Daedalus fall into the hands of the Americans. So if Androv refused to answer his radio and comply with the call-back, there'd be no choice. Friday 10:02 A.M. "What do you mean?" Androv asked, wiping at his brow. Vance took a deep breath. "We've got no choice. You know what I'm thinking." "We'll need ten G's of acceleration to power in the scramjets, my friend." He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. His face was now drawn with pain, but the bleeding had stopped. Above them, Petra silently flew the plane and flashed messages on the screens. "I've trained for years," he continued finally. "Even with your inflatable G- suit, you couldn't possibly take the G-loads and stay conscious." "What other choice is there? Either I try, or we ditch down there in the Sea of Okhotsk. Personally, I'd rather go out like a shooting star, taking our chances." "It's not that simple. The scramjets are designed to be powered in at Mach 4.8. We dare not risk that below at least forty thousand feet. There are aerodynamic reasons. In fact, they're not really intended to be used below sixty thousand." "Well," Vance said, "if we started our ascent at max throttle, what kind of airspeed could we capture by forty thousand? Could we achieve Mach 4.8?" "Only if we used afterburners. Which means we'd probably have only about ten minutes of JP-7 left for landing later." He laughed sadly. "Assuming there's anywhere we could land." "How about Heathrow? I know a Japanese banker who'd probably love to have this vehicle as collateral for a few billion in Eurodollar debentures he's being forced to underwrite. He's a friend of mine and I owe him a favor." "You want to turn this plane over to some banker?" He was visibly startled. "We can't ignore the fact that it still belongs, technically, to Mino Industries." "My friend's a big boy. He'll work it out, Yakuza-style. Don't worry." He glanced up at the fuel gauges. They now had twenty minutes left. Just enough to get back to the facility and give up? Or go all the way. "Eva, what do you say. Want to give it a shot?" "I'm game. One thing's for sure; I have no intention of going back to get ourselves murdered by Tanzan Mino. If we can make it to the other side of the world by burning hydrogen, then . . ." "Maybe, just maybe Petra could help enough for you to manage it." Androv paused to collect his strength. "I don't know if you can stay conscious through the ten G's of acceleration needed to initiate the scramjets. But I know for sure I can't, not in my current state. You might as well give it a try." He turned to Eva and continued in Russian. "There's an emergency back-up pressure suit in that locker beneath Petra's main screen. See if you can put it on. You'll still probably pass out, but don't worry, the 'event' is only temporary. After we go through the hypersonic barrier, acceleration will subside. Down to three, maybe four G's." "I'll get the suit," she said, starting to unbuckle her straps. "Okay, we'd better get started." Vance was crossing the cabin. The nose cameras were showing the spray of white- caps directly below them. If they'd passed any fishing vessels, he mused, there were probably stories of flying saucers already going around. The passive IRWR scanner was still tracking the wing of MiG 31s, now at a hundred and thirty kilometers, approximately eighty miles, and closing. Daedalus was almost within the kill perimeter of the MiG 31s and their AA-9 missiles. The radio crackled, something in Russian. Yuri Androv stared at the flight helmet, then looked down at the console and flipped a switch. "I copy you, Firefight One," he replied in Russian. "Over." "Androv, you idiot. What in hell are you doing? Defecting to the capitalists?" The voice laughed. "We don't know what the devil you're flying, but when you pulled that Immelmann, my IR thought you were an An-124 Condor transport turned into a high-performance Foxbat. One in- credible son-of-a-bitch." "It's a spaceship, Arkadi. Excuse me, Colonel Arkadi. Congratulations on the promotion." "_Spacebo_," he said, laughing again. Then he sobered. "Yuri, I don't know what this is all about, but I'm instructed by General Sokolov to escort you and that thing you're flying back to Hokkaido. If you're stupid enough to refuse, then I have orders to shoot you down." "Is that any way to treat an old friend?" "Yuri Andreevich, we go back a long way. To the Ramenskoye Flight Test Center. You were the best we ever had. Don't make me do this." "I'm thinking I may spare you the trouble." "Thank God." "Give me five minutes. If I don't turn back by then, give it your best." "Pull up. Show yourself on IR. We have no idea what your vector is." "I'll take her to three thousand meters. You'll have a lock on me. But I still want five minutes." "That's all I can give you, Yuri. After that . . ." His voice trailed off. "I'm going off this frequency. Talk to you in five." "Five minutes. Starting now." Androv pushed a switch on the console, then said, "Petra, stabilize at three thousand." _"Three thousand,"_ she repeated. _"Confirmed."_ He rose from the pilot's seat, motioning for Vance. There was a surge of acceleration as the vehicle changed pitch, the cockpit rotating to adjust for the G-forces. The weight of two and a half G's weighed against them as the altimeter screen started scrolling upward. Vance walked across to the central seat, studying the console. The throttle quadrant and sidestick he understood, but most of the other controls were new to him. Maybe it didn't matter. "Does Petra understand English?" "Of course," Androv nodded. "Russian, Japanese, and English. Interchangeable. She's programmed such that if you command her in Russian, she replies in Russian. If you use English, that's what you get back." "So far, so good." He looked at the large screen at the end of cabin, the one that displayed Petra's mindstate. She was dutifully announcing that she'd just taken the vehicle to three thousand meters. She also was reporting the IR interrogation of a wing of MIG 31s flying at twenty thousand feet, with a closure rate of three hundred knots. When Daedalus made her move, would she be able to outdistance their air-to- air missiles? We're about to find out, he thought, in--he glanced at the screens--three and a half minutes. Eva was zipping up her pressure suit now, readying to strap herself back into her seat. The helmet made her look like an ungainly astronaut. "Like I said, the scramjets become operable at Mach 4.8," Androv went on. "At forty thousand feet, that's about three thousand miles per hour. I've never taken her past Mach 4.5." He was grasping the side of the console to brace himself. "You probably know that scramjets require a modification in engine geometry. In the turboramjet mode, these engines have a fan that acts as a compressor, just like a conventional jet. However, when we switch them over to scramjet geometry, the turbines are shut down and their blades set to a neutral pitch. Next the aft section of each engine is constricted to form a combustion chamber--the shock wave inside becomes the 'compressor.' " He paused. "The unknown part comes when the fans are cut out and the engine geometry is modified. I've unstarted the fans and reconfigured, but I've never fed in the hydrogen. We simply don't know what will happen. Those damned turbines could just explode." "So we take the risk." "There's more," he continued. "The frictional heat at hypersonic speeds. Our liquid hydrogen is supposed to act as a heat sink, to dissipate thermal buildup on the leading edges, but who the hell knows if it'll work. We're now flying at about fifteen hundred miles per hour. When you give Petra the go-ahead, we could accelerate to ten, even fifteen thousand miles per hour. God help us, we may just melt." "If you were willing to give it a shot, then I am." Vance looked up at the screens. "We're now at ten thousand feet. I kick over to scramjets at forty thousand?" "The computer simulations all said that if we go hypersonic below sixty thousand feet, we could seriously overheat. But maybe if we climb out fast enough . . ." "We'll have to take our chances. We need to minimize that window of AAM vulnerability." "I agree." Androv gestured for him to sit, then glanced up at the screens. "We have two and a half minutes. I've set Petra for full auto. All you have to do is just talk her through the key intervals of the sequence." Vance settled in and examined the huge flight helmet looming above him, making him look like an alien insect from science fiction. Now the cabin had taken on an eerie quiet, with nothing but silent screens flashing data. He'd never talked to an airplane before, and the thought gave him some disquiet. Two minutes. "What do I do first?" "You probably should start by attaching that nozzle there on the legs of your G-suit to the pressure hose on the console. When the G-forces go above eight, tubules in the legs automatically inflate using bleed air from the engines. It's going to squeeze hell out of your lower extremities. If you begin to gray-out, try to grunt as hard as you can. The M-l maneuver, I think you Americans call it. If your vision begins to go entirely, just try and talk Petra through." "What else?" "Once you start pushing through the hypersonic barrier, keep an eye on screens B-5 and B-6, which report engine strut temperature and stress loads. Those are the most important data for the scramjet mode. But first check the C-2 screen. Core rpm has to be zeroed out before the scramjet geometry modification, since the compressors need to be completely shut down. If it's not, then instruct Petra to abort the sequence. It could cause a flameout." "And that's when I switch over to liquid hydrogen?" "Exactly. Petra will set the new engine geometry, then sample compression and temperature and tell you the precise moment. But the actual switch-over is manual. I insisted on it." He pointed. "It's those blue toggles right behind the throttle quadrant. Just flip them forward." "Got it." "After you toggle her over, just ease the throttle forward, and pray." He settled himself into the right-hand seat, tugging at the tourniquet. "When we enter the hypersonic regime, I don't know what will happen. Above Mach 6 or Mach 7 we may begin to critically overheat. Or the airframe stresses could just tear this damned _samolyot_ apart. Whatever happens, though, you've got to keep pushing her right on out, to stabilize the shock wave in the scramjets and bring them to full power." Vance glanced up at the screen--thirty seconds--and fingered the sidestick and the throttles, trying to get their feel. As he began lowering the massive flight helmet, he noted that with the engines on military power they had exactly eighteen minutes of JP-7 left. When he kicked in the afterburners to push them into the hypersonic regime, the fuel readings would start dropping like a stone. But this was their ball of string, their way out of the maze. Would it work? "Remember," Androv said with finality, "just talk Petra through any problems you have. And try to capture an attitude of sixty degrees alpha . . ." "Yuri, are you ready for us to escort you back?" The radio voice, speaking Russian, sounded through the cabin. "I'm still thinking it over," he answered. "Don't be a fool. I have orders to down you with AA-9s. My weapons system is already turned on. Warheads are locked. You're as good as dead. If I push the fire button here under my left thumb, you're gone in fifty seconds." "You just made up my mind," he said, and nodded toward Vance. "Go." "Firing one and two," was the radio response. Vance grabbed the throttles. "Petra, do you read me?" "_Yes,"_ she answered in English. "Give me alpha sixty." He rammed the throttles forward, clicking them into the Lock position, igniting the afterburners. Next he yanked the sidestick into position. The cockpit rotated upward, automatically shifting to compensate for the changing G-forces. In front of his eyes now was a wide liquid crystal screen that seemed to be in 3-D. The left side resembled the heads-up display, HUD, common to jet Fighters, providing altitude, heading, airspeed, G-forces in a single unified format. The right side showed a voice-activated menu listing all the screens along the wall. "Read me fuel," he said, testing it. Immediately the numbers appeared, in pounds of JP-7 and in minutes, with and without afterburners. The G-force was now at 3.5 and climbing, while the digital altimeter was spinning. _"Systems alert,"_ Petra announced suddenly, _"hostile radar lock. And hostile IR interrogation. Two bogies, closure rate nine hundred sixty knots." _They weren't kidding, Vance thought. He glanced at the altitude readout. Daedalus was hurtling through thirty thousand feet, afterburners sizzling. But an AA-9 had a terminal velocity well over Mach 3. Add that to the Foxhound's 2.4 . . . "Petra, give me estimated time of impact." _"Extrapolating closure rate, I estimate impact in forty- three seconds." _Their acceleration had reached 3.8 G's, but fuel was dwindling rapidly, already down to twelve minutes. "Give me RWR and IRWR, screen one," he commanded. The liquid crystal panorama inside the helmet immediately flashed, showing the unfriendly radar and infrared interrogations. The two Acrid AA-9s--that's what they had to be--were gaining altitude, tracking them like bloodhounds. One was radar locked, while the other showed active- homing IR guidance. The exhausts of Daedalus's afterburners must look like a fireball in the sky, he thought. He scanned the menu for electronic countermeasures (ECM) capabilities. "Petra, commence radar jamming." _"Commenced. Estimated time to impact, thirty-eight seconds." _The missiles were still closing. Even if the radar-guided AAM could be confused, Daedalus had no way to defeat infrared homing. The left-hand display now showed they had accelerated to Mach 4.2. The throttle quadrant was locked into the afterburner mode, but outrunning AAMs was like trying to outspeed a smart bullet. He watched the dials. Mach 4.3. Mach 4.4. _"Estimated time to impact twenty-eight seconds." _"I'm not sure we're going to make it," he said into his helmet mike. "We may have to try initiating the scramjets early." "No, it would be too risky," Androv replied. "The skin temperatures at this altitude. The air is still so dense the thermal stresses . . ." Vance checked the screen again. "Altitude is now thirty-eight thousand feet. I'm going to level out some, try and boost our Mach number. One thing's sure, we can't make it if we hold this attitude. Besides, we're burning too much fuel. Either we chance it now, or we get blown to smitherines. We've got no choice." He shoved the sidestick forward. For this he didn't plan to bother with Petra. _"Time to impact, twenty seconds,"_ she reported tonelessly. By trimming pitch, Daedalus started accelerating more rapidly. Airspeed scrolled quickly to Mach 4.6. "_Time to impact, fifteen seconds."_ Nine and a half minutes of JP-7 remained. Just enough to land, he thought, if we ever get the chance. Mach 4.7. "Eva, take a deep breath. We're about to try and enter the fourth dimension." "I . . . can't . . . talk." Then he remembered Androv had said she might pass out. Now he was starting to wonder if he wouldn't lose consciousness too. He was sensing his vision starting to fade to gray, breaking up into dots. The screen noted that their acceleration had reached eight G's and was still climbing. Fighting for consciousness, he reached down and increased his oxygen feed, then contracted every muscle in the lower half of his body, trying to shove the blood upward. The G-indicator on the left-hand screen had scrolled to 9.2. _"Time to impact, ten seconds." _Mach 4.8. He reached down and manually locked the pitch on the compressor fan blades into a neutral configuration. They immediately stalled out, causing _Daedalus _to shudder like a wounded animal. Then he heard the voice of Petra, and a new signal flashed on his helmet screen. _"We have nominal scramjet geometry. Commence ignition sequence." _She'd reconfigured the turbines, meaning _Daedalus _was go for hypersonic. He grappled blindly behind the throttle quadrant and flicked the large blue switches that initiated the hydrogen feed. But would the supersonic shock wave inside the engines fire it? "_Time to impact, six seconds."_ "Let's go." Reaching for the throttle quadrant, he depressed the side button and then shoved the heavy handles forward, sending a burst of hydrogen into the scramjets' combustion chambers. . . . _Daedalus _lurched, then seemed to be tearing apart, literally disintegrating rivet by rivet. Friday 9:57 A.M. "We have detonation," Colonel Arkadi reported into his helmet mike. His twin-engine Foxhound was already in a steep fifty-degree bank. "We copy you," General Sokolov replied. "Can you confirm the kill?" "The target is outside my radar and IR," he said, wishing he had some of the new American over-the-horizon electronics he'd heard about. "But both missiles reported impact. I've ordered the wing to chop power and return to base. We're already on auxiliary tanks as it is." "Roger," came the voice from Flight Control in Hokkaido. "We downed her, Comrade General. Whatever she was, there's no way she could have survived those AA-9s. The target is destroyed." CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Friday 10:16 A.M. Tanzan Mino closed his eyes and sighed. The financial portions of the protocol would still stand on their own; the arrangement could be salvaged somehow; it would merely require finesse. The shocked faces of the Soviet brass standing behind him told of their dismay. _Daedalus_, the most marvelous vehicle ever created, had literally been within their grasp, and now . . . both prototypes destroyed. But at least, at least it hadn't fallen into the hands of the Americans. No more humiliating episodes like that in 1976 when the traitorous Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected with a MiG 25 Foxbat, exposing all its secret electronics to the West. Friday 10:16 A.M. A slam of acceleration hit him, and he felt a circle of black close in on his vision. It was the darkness of eternal night, the music of the spheres. His last sight was the airspeed indicator scrolling past Mach 6.1. Almost four thousand miles per hour. The starship _Daedalus _had just gone hypersonic. He didn't see it, but look-down radar had shown the two Acrid AA-9s exploding a thousand feet below. When the scramjets powered in, the infrared-homing AAM lost its lock on them and detonated the other missile, sending a supersonic shock wave through _Daedalus_. AAMs, how- ever, were now the least of their problems. Skin temperature was pushing 2,200 degrees and the cockpit was becoming an incinerator. At forty-eight thousand feet they were rapidly turning into a meteorite. His vision was gone, but just before losing consciousness he shoved the hydrogen throttles all the way forward and yanked back on the sidestick, sending them straight up into the freezing black above. Friday 10:19 A.M. _Altitude seventy-three thousand feet. Airspeed nine thousand knots." _"Petra, raise helmet." He was slowly regaining his sight as the G- loads began to recede. The cockpit was an oven, overwhelming its environmental control equipment, clear evidence vehicle skin temperature had exceeded design. _"Confirmed. Helmet raising." _Although his vision was still black and white, he started easing back on the throttles and checking around the cock pit. Eva was beginning to stir now, rising and struggling with her safety straps, Androv remained slumped in his G-seat. "You okay?" He rose and moved toward her. "I think I blacked out there for a second or so." "I'm going to make it." She shifted her eyes right. "But I'm not so sure about . . ." "Don't worry." The Russian snapped conscious and immediately reached to begin loosening his straps. "I've been through heavy G-loads before." Suddenly he stared up at the screens, pointed, and yelled. "Hypersonic! _Zoloto_! You didn't tell me. I almost can't believe--" "We almost lost it. Skin temperatures reached--" "Japanese ceramic composites, my _droog_. No other material could have done it. And now the atmosphere is thinning. When we hit eighty thousand feet, or maybe eighty-five, skin temperature should stabilize down around a thousand degrees. That's 'room temperature' for this vehicle." He paused and grinned. "Liquid hydrogen. It's a fantastic fuel, and a terrific coolant. Of course, if this catches on and we stop using alcohol coolant in our MiGs, I don't know what the Soviet Air Force will all drink before payday." Vance glanced at their vector. They were over the Bering Sea now, with a heading for who knew where. Mach 11.3 and climbing. The Daedalus was pressing effortlessly toward the darkness above. Time to think about what was next. "How much of this wonderful liquid hydrogen do we have?" "Just enough to do what I've been planning for a long time." He edged over and touched Vance's shoulder. "I'm deeply in your debt. You made it possible. Now there's only one thing left. The ultimate!" Vance looked at him and realized immediately what he meant. Why not! "Do we have enough oxygen?" "Extra cannisters were loaded because of the two Mino Industries pilots. I think we have about ten hours." "Then I vote we give it a shot," he said, turning to Eva. "What do you think?" "What are you talking about?" He flipped up his helmet visor. "If we can achieve Mach 25 by around a hundred thousand feet, we can literally insert into orbit. It'd cause a diplomatic flap the size of World War Three." She slumped back in her G-seat. "Is it really possible?" "Of course," Androv said. Then he laughed. "Well, I hope so. I've been thinking about it for a couple of months now. I actually programmed Petra to compute the precise thrust required, orbital apogee and perigee, everything. The first Sputnik had an apogee of one hundred miles and a perogee of one hundred twenty-five miles. I've calculated that at Mach 25 I could propel this vehicle into roughly that orbit. To get out we can just do a de-orbit burn. Set the compressors on the ramjets for retrofire and cold-start them." "So we can hold Tanzan Mino's cojones hostage for a while and have some fun," Vance smiled. "What do we tell Petra?" "I'll give her the coordinates, but you've got to handle the stick. We need to hit Mach 25 above 98,600 feet, then shut down the engines with split-second timing. She'll tell you when. If I computed it right, we should just coast over the top." "Got it." He looked up at the screens on the front wall of the cockpit. Their altitude was now 87,000 feet, and then-speed had reached Mach 18, over ten thousand miles per hour. They were cracking world records every millisecond. And the cockpit was starting to cool off again as the thinner atmosphere reduced friction on the leading edges. They'd survived the thermal barrier. Coming up was the emptiness of space. He watched as Androv called the routine in Petra's silicon memory where he had stored the orbital data, then ordered her to coordinate it with their current acceleration, altitude, and attitude. _Confirmed_, she was saying. _Reducing alpha by two degrees._ She'd already begun modifying their flight profile. _ "You are approximately four minutes and thirty-seven seconds from the calculated orbit. Will fuel controls be manual or automatic?" _Vance glanced over at Androv. Here at the edge of space, were they really going to turn their destiny over to a talking computer? This game could turn serious if Petra somehow screwed up. "Let's keep the throttles on manual." "I agree," he nodded. "Too much could go wrong." "If we don't like the looks of anything, we can always abort." "Petra," Androv commanded, "throttles will be manual." _Affirmative_. If she felt slighted, she wasn't saying anything. _Four minutes._ "We'd all better strap in," Vance said, "till we see how this goes." The screens above them were still flashing flight data. The strut temperature in the scramjets, where a supersonic shock wave was providing the compression to combust hydrogen and the rush of thin air, had stabilized at 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Androv stood staring at the screens, and a moistness entered his eyes. "If my father could have seen this," he finally said in Russian. "Everything he designed has worked perfectly. He dreamed of this vehicle, talked of it for so many years, and now finally . . . to be murdered on his day of triumph." Eva looked at him. "Maybe his real dream was for you to fly it. To create something for you." He paused, as though uncertain how to respond. The look in his eyes said he knew it was true. The pain and anger seemed to flow through him like electricity. "Before we are finished, the world will know of his achievement. I intend to make sure of it." _"Three minutes,"_ Petra announced. _"Reducing alpha by three degrees."_ The screen above reported that they'd reached Mach 22.4. Their altitude was now ninety-three thousand feet. She's leveling out, Vance thought. Are we going to make it, or just fade in the stretch? The scramjets were punching through the isolation of near-space now, the underfuselage scooping in the last fringes of atmosphere. He doubted if there'd be enough oxygen above a hundred thousand feet to enable the engines to continue functioning, but if they could capture the vehicle's design speed, seventeen thousand miles per hour, they still could coast into the perigee curve of a huge orbital elipse. He looked at the screens again. They were now at Mach 23.7, with two and a half minutes left. The complex calculus being projected on Petra's main display now showed their rate of acceleration was diminishing rapidly as the atmosphere continued to thin. Maybe, he thought, there's a good reason why no one has ever inserted an air- breathing vehicle into orbit before. Maybe all the aerodynamic and propulsion tricks in the world can't compensate for the fact that turbines need to breathe. Petra seemed to sense they were in trouble. _"Constricting venturi by seven point three,"_ she said. _"Reducing alpha by four degrees."_ She was choking down the scramjets and leveling them out even more. Their thrust to weight ratio--which at thirty thousand feet had been greater than one, meaning they could actually fly straight up--was dropping like a stone. It was now down to 0.2. Daedalus was slowly smothering. But now their velocity had reached Mach 24.6. Almost, almost . . . _"Thirty seconds," _Petra said, as though trying to sound confident. She was busy sampling the combustion ratio in the scramjets and making micro adjustments to the hydrogen feed. Androv spoke into his helmet mike. "I'm beginning to think we won't make it. Petra is now probably estimating thrust based on faulty assumptions about oxygen intake. There's nothing left up here to burn. There'll be no need to abort. The edge of the atmosphere is going to do it for us." He looked up at the big screen and said, "Petra, project image from the nose camera, rotated to minus ninety." _"Confirmed,"_ she replied and flashed an image sprinkled with stars. Then the camera swept around, and the massive screen at the end of their cabin brought into view the edge of a wide globe that seemed to be composed of shimmering blue. It was the North Pacific. "I just wanted to see this," he said wistfully. "I once took a MiG 25 to seventy-three thousand feet, but it was nothing to compare. We're in space." "I've been eavesdropping on satellites for years," Eva commented. "But this gives it all a whole new perspective." _"Ten seconds. Prepare to terminate hydrogen feeds." _The airspeed indicator now read Mach 24.8. Closing. . . . Vance reached for the heavy throttle grips, watching the final seconds tick down. . . . four, three, two, one . . . _"Terminate hydrogen feeds." _He yanked back on the handles, feeling a dying tremor flow through the vehicle. The airspeed indicator had just hit 17,108 mph. In the unearthly silence that followed, Petra's synthetic voice cut through the cabin. _"Preliminary orbital coordinates are computed as perigee 101.3 miles, apogee 117.8 miles. Duration is one hour and twenty-seven minutes. Radar altimeter will provide data for second iteration of calculations in thirty-six minutes."_ The engines were completely shut down now as they coasted through the dark. Nothing could be heard but hydraulic pumps, air conditioners, light groans from zero-gravity-induced stresses in the massive fuselage. "_Zadroka!_" Androv shouted. "We've done it! Maybe there is a God." Now, as _Daedalus _began to slip sideways, like a liner adrift at sea, the nose camera showed they were passing over the ice-covered wilds of northern Alberta. Vance felt a sudden rush of fluids from his extremities, where they had been pooling because of the G-forces, upward into his face and torso. The sensation was one of falling, hanging on to his seat. Clumsily he unfastened his G-seat harness and pushed up to . . . He sailed. Across the cockpit. At the last instant he twisted, trying to right himself, but before he could he'd slammed into the bank of video monitors on the opposite wall. "Jesus!" "Sweetie, you look like a flying fish." Eva drifted back in her seat, loving him all over again. "I feel like a newborn deer trying to stand up." He rotated and carefully pushed himself off the ceiling, repressing the instinct to kick like a scuba diver. "But remember the old Chinese proverb. Don't criticize a man till you've floated in his shoes for a day." "Darling, it's a dream come true. I'm finally weightless," she laughed. "At last, no more dreading to get on a scale." "The pain in my arm is gone," Androv spoke up again, renewed satisfaction in his voice. "We've just performed our first medical experiment in space. It's good for gunshot wounds." "I'd like to perform another experiment," Eva said. She was slowly extracting herself from the G-seat. "What kind of electrical system do we have on board?" "We have a massive battery section, kept charged by the turbines," Androv replied. "All these electronics require a lot of power." "So we could transmit?" "Of course. We're designed for that." "What are you planning?" Vance looked over as he drifted back across the cockpit. "A small surprise for Tanzan Mino." She was twisting around as she floated next to her straps. "Let me start preparing the laptop. I knew there was a reason why I brought it." She reached down under the seat and pushed it out, where it floated. "I want to hook this into Petra." She reached up and awkwardly retrieved it. "Is there any way I can?" "There's provision for laptop interface. They worked so well on the American shuttles, our people installed an identical setup here." Androv swam slowly to the console, then flipped down a panel, revealing a serial port. "You can connect it there. The wiring's in place." Vance twisted and checked their coordinates. They were now at latitude 56 degrees, longitude 109 degrees, headed over central Canada. "Incidentally, so much for North American air defenses. No radar interrogations whatsoever." "That's because of our Stealth design," Androv said. "We have almost no radar signature. Not only are we a menace to the world, we're invisible." Vance floated down and settled into the central G-seat. The more he learned about the _Daedalus_, the more unsettling he found it. What should they do with this monster? Maybe turn it over to the UN as a monument to technology gone amuck, to high-tech excess. At last, he thought, man has achieved the ability to move anywhere on the planet, at speeds as fast as the laws of physics will allow, and do it invisibly. Maybe it should be called the Shadow. "Okay." Eva interrupted his thoughts. "I've finished tying in the Zenith. We're about to go live from the top, gentlemen, the very top. I'm going to send the protocol to every wire service in the world. What better credibility than to be downlinked live from space?" Vance looked at the picture from the nose camera. They were over the Atlantic now, which meant they'd soon be passing over the Soviet Union, with line-of-sight horizons that stretched from Europe to Asia. "Why settle for print?" He had a sudden thought. "How about television? With all this video gear, we should be able to put together something that would transmit. The Baikonur Cosmodrome has receiving facilities. We see Soviet cosmonauts in space all the time. And they'll be directly under us. We also could make the evening news all over Japan if we broadcast to the Katsura tracking facility." "Good thinking, but I've got an even better idea." She seemed to pirouette in weightlessness. "Japan already has DBS, direct broadcast satellites, and there are home satellite dishes all over the country. It's the Global Village. So why don't we just cut in for a special bulletin?" "Why not." He pointed to the ill-fated cockpit camera Tanzan Mino's technicians had installed above the entry hatch. "Matter of fact, we probably could just use that, if we could hook it into some of the electronics here on the console." He floated up, half drifting and half swimming, and inspected the camera, convincing himself that it was still in working condition. And it had to be wired into something. Maybe now all they needed to do was flip the right toggles. The console switches numbered, by his conservative estimate, approximately three hundred. "Let me see what I can do." Androv floated down and immediately started to work, toggling, testing, watching the display screens as various messages were scrolled. "Petra," he finally commanded in Russian, "give me a positive connect between UHF display-read and video output terminal 3-K." _"Interface confirmed." _Suddenly a video screen fluttered, ran through a test series of colored bars, then threw up a picture of the cockpit as seen from the camera above the hatch. Vance studied the image of three figures floating in a confined space outfitted with electronic hardware and a giant wing-shaped hood over the central seat. On TV their cockpit looked like the flight deck of some alien vessel in Star Trek IX. "We're on." Eva waved at the camera. Her image on the screen waved back. "Okay," Vance said. "Now for the tricky part. Transmission." Androv smiled as he drifted up again. "That's actually the easiest of all. Remember this vehicle was originally intended--supposedly--as a near-earth research platform. There're plenty of downlinks, in keeping with the need to transmit data, as well as general propaganda functions. We can use any frequency you want, even commercial broadcast channels." "So why don't we go live worldwide? Just give everybody an inside look at the planet's first radar-evasive space platform." "Petra has a listing of all commercial satellite channels, just to make sure she doesn't inadvertently violate one of them with a transmission. Let's pull them up and see what they are." He flipped several toggles on the wide console, then told Petra what he wanted. He'd no sooner finished speaking than the large screen that supplemented her voice was scrolling the off-limits frequencies. "Okay," Eva said. "Let's start with the data channels belonging to world-wide newsprint organizations-- Reuters, the Associated Press, all the rest--and send a copy of the protocol. It'll just appear on every green screen in the world. Then we can pick off frequencies used by television news organizations and broadcast a picture postcard from here in the cockpit." "Sounds good." Androv turned to look at the screen. Quickly he began selecting numbers from the banned list, moving them to a new file that would be used to specify parameters for the broadcasts. Vance watched, shifting his glance occasionally to the view from the nose camera. Below them clusters of light from central Europe's largest cities beamed up, twinkling lightly through the haze of atmosphere. He reached over and flipped the camera to infrared and sat watching the back-radiation of the North African deserts, now blots of deep red on the southern horizon; then back to visible again, noticing two parallel ribbons of light that signified habitations along the length of the Nile. The world, he was thinking, really is a Global Village. She was right. There's no longer any place you can hide from the truth. "Eva, when you feed the protocol to the wire services, note that there'll be a transmission of some live video at--" he glanced up at the digital readouts on the screens, "how about at 0800 hours, GMT?" "That's in twenty minutes." "Should be enough time, don't you think?" "Sounds good to me. And to show you I'm brave, I won't even fix my hair." "You never looked more beautiful, even that night out at the palace. Don't change a thing." He turned to Androv. "How about doing the talking? First in Russian and then in English? We'll write the English part for you." "It will be my pleasure, Comrade. My fucking pleasure." _"Daedalus," _Vance said, mostly to himself. "He found a way to escape the maze of Mino. We did too. It's easy. You just use your wings and fly." Friday 8:47 A.M. Kenji Nogami settled the telephone back into its cradle and reached for the television's remote selector. The set was currently scrolling a special text being distributed over the Reuters financial-service channel. Very interesting. He shoved aside the pile of new Mino Industries Eurobond debentures, to make room for his feet on the teakwood surface of his desk. BBC had just informed him they'd taped an accompanying video segment and were planning to broadcast it in thirteen minutes, at nine o'clock. At least that's what Sir Cecil Ashton, director general, had just warned. As the London banker for Mino Industries, he had told Sir Cecil he officially had no comment. No comment was required. He reached into a drawer and drew out a box of Montecristo Habana No. 2s, noting sadly there were only three left. With a frown he picked up his pocket Dictaphone and made a note to his secretary to stop off at the tobacconists on Threadneedle, just down from the Bank of England, and get another box. A hypersonic aircraft. So that was what it had been about all along. And now some Russian test pilot had stolen it, taken it to orbit, and was planning to land it at Heathrow in three hours, there to turn it over to Westminster Union Bank, the London financial representative of Mino Industries Group. Perfect timing. The thought immediately occurred to him that this would be ideal collateral for the billions in phony Eurodollar debentures he was being forced to issue for Tanzan Mino. Finally, finally he had the man by the bollocks. Who, he wondered, did he have to thank for this godsend? Yes, it was shaping up to be quite a morning. Perhaps a trifle early for a cigar, but . . . He flicked the TV off the Reuters text and onto BBC-1. ". . . would appear to be further evidence of the growing technological supremacy of Japanese industry. As this commentator has had occasion to note in times past, the lines between civilian and military technology are rapidly vanishing. That Japan's so-called civilian research sector could create the high-temperature ceramics required for such a vehicle, even as European and American military research has failed to do so, speaks eloquently of the emerging shift in world . . ." He rolled down the sound a bit. The commentator went on to mention that all Mino Industries representatives-- both here in London and in Tokyo-- named in the announcement from orbit had refused either to confirm or deny the story. He noted the time on his Omega, then smiled, leaned back, and snipped the end off his cigar. Friday 11:00 A.M. "Mino-sama." The man bowed low. "NHK just telephoned your office in Tokyo, asking for comment." "Comment about what?" "They have received some text off a satellite." "What? What did they receive?" "It was purportedly the English translation of a secret protocol, an agreement between Mino Industries and the Soviets. Naturally we denied it in the strongest possible terms." "It has to be some preposterous fabrication. I can't imagine how anything so absurd could have--" "That's actually the problem, Mino-sama. NHK says they received it from a manned space station, but they've checked with NASDA and have been assured there are currently no astronauts in orbit by any nation." "In orbit?" My God, he thought. _Daedalus_ didn't go down; she went up. With the protocol aboard. How did they manage to get her hypersonic? Androv was wounded. He couldn't possibly have handled the G-forces. Which meant-- Vance. "Tell NHK if they broadcast one word of this libelous, unsubstantiated hoax, they should be prepared to face legal action." His face had become a stone mask as a sepulchral hush settled over Flight Control. "I will inform them," the man bowed again. He hadn't had the courage to tell the _oyabun_ the rest of what NHK was now receiving . . . along with half of the citizens of Japan via their new direct-broadcast satellite dishes. Friday 9:00 A.M. Kenji Nogami thought the picture was a little indistinct at first, the hues slightly off. But then somebody in BBC's technical section corrected the color balance, making the tape's blues and greens and reds all blue and green and red. Yes, now he could make it out. A cosmonaut was drifting across the camera's view, suspended. It made him ponder briefly the phenomenon of weightlessness. Curious, really, that it was all a matter of where you were. One wall of the cockpit was lined with video terminals, and at the end was a massive screen currently displaying the Daedalus Corporation logo, a double ax. Nice advertising, he thought. Coca-Cola probably feels envious. Overall it was a classy job, no two ways about it. The _oyabun _didn't do things by halves. Well, this was one marvel Her Majesty's government would be happy to get their hands on. For his own part, not a bad piece of collateral. Must have cost billions in start-up investment. Then he got a better look at the figure and realized something was wrong. One side of his white environment suit was stained red. And he seemed to be nursing a bandaged arm as he drifted up toward the camera. "_Stradstyve_," he began, "_Ya Yuri Andreevich Androv_. . . ." The cosmonaut then proceeded to deliver a long-winded speech in Russian that Nogami could not follow and the BBC had not yet translated. He seemed to be growing angrier and angrier, and at one point he gave a long disquisition about someone named Andrei Petrovich Androv. He was obviously a Soviet test pilot. Who else could fly that creation? Given the looks of the cockpit, it was a quantum advance in high technology. Nogami leaned back, his match poised. The good part, the part in English, was coming up. That's what Sir Cecil had said. The Russian segment had been for broadcast in the Soviet Union, had the local spin. The English part was for the world. And for Tanzan Mino. Who was now in deep, deep trouble. Murder, fraud, a global conspiracy-- they all were there, and even more damning for the way the story had come to light. The medium was the message. About that time the cosmonaut who'd identified himself as Soviet Air Force Major Yuri Andreevich Androv drifted to the side, permitting a better view of the cockpit. That's when Nogami noticed two other individuals. One appeared to be a woman--leave it to the Soviets, he smiled, to know about good public relations--also wearing an environment suit, her helmet momentarily turned away. The third appeared to be male, also in an environment suit and flight helmet. Sir Cecil hadn't bothered mentioning them, since Air Force Major Androv had done all the talking. Then the male cosmonaut in the center drifted up and began opening his visor, some kind of curved glass that reflected the yellow sodium lights in the ceiling. He grappled with it a moment, then in annoyance just yanked it off and tossed it to drift across-- Nogami stared at the face. Mother of God! He was laughing so hard he almost missed his Montecristo when he finally whipped up his match. . . . * * * BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info 
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"A very clever, well-written novel, full of freshness and originality."--ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. "A book displaying considerable cleverness.... Very readable and clever."--ACADEMY. "'Philistia' is distinctly clever, and much may be learned from its perusal."--MORNING POST. BABYLON. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with twelve Illustrations by P. Macnab, 3_s_. 6_d_. "The book justifies itself amply. It is fresh, entertaining, and pleasant from beginning to end. The author has kept in check his peculiar power of weird and fantastic realism, but he has proved himself equally at home in the observation of commonplace character, and the reproduction of everyday life."--PALL MALL GAZETTE. "Very bright and very amusing.... That it stands far above the average of contemporary fiction goes without saying."--SPECTATOR. FOR MAIMIE'S SAKE. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6_s_. "'For Maimie's Sake' is a book that every one who has made acquaintance with the stories signed by 'J. Arbuthnot Wilson' will naturally take up with pleasure. Pleasurable anticipation soon becomes interest, and this interest must rapidly grow into absorbed attention. The humour throughout the first part of Mr. Allen's story is delightful. The reader falls in love with laughing, lovely, unconventional Maimie."--ACADEMY. "This is a very remarkable book. Maimie is essentially human, intensely womanly, and there is something so bewitching in her childish ignorance, something so innocent in her wickedness, that we can understand her friends' and her lovers' infatuation for her.... There is power of a very high order in writing which can so consistently, yet without the smallest effort, concentrate the reader's attention on the sinner as apart from the sin. There is not a character in the book which fails to interest us, and the writing is, of its kind, faultless."--TIME. IN ALL SHADES. 3 vols, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 31_s_. 6_d_. "Mr. Grant Allen could not write a dull story if he wished to do so.... The plot is capitally developed. There is one extremely fine character, Louis Delgado, who stirs up the negroes to revolt; and there is a scene where an attack is made by the negroes on a planter's home, which, for dramatic force, has rarely been equalled of late in fiction. The novel has, in addition to excellence of plot and situation, all the charm that comes of bright and easy dialogue and of character-drawing far above what is ordinarily found. In short, the novel is one to delight every one of good taste."--SCOTSMAN. "Nora Dupuy is a true, brave, eminently lovable woman, and stands out in the pages of 'In all Shades' as an eminently charming as well as characteristic figure.... On the whole, this is a story of unusual excellence."--PALL MALL GAZETTE. LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. * * * * * [Illustration: "I'M SO GLAD YOU BROUGHT NELLIE HOLT A FLOWER." See p. 134.] THE BECKONING HAND AND OTHER STORIES by GRANT ALLEN Author of "Strange Stories," "In All Shades," "Philistia," etc. [Illustration] With a Frontispiece by Townley Green London Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly 1887 PREFACE. Of the thirteen stories included in this volume, "The Gold Wulfric," "The Two Carnegies," and "John Cann's Treasure" originally appeared in the pages of the _Cornhill_; "The Third Time" and "The Search Party's Find" are from _Longman's Magazine_; "Harry's Inheritance" first saw the light in the _English Illustrated_; and "Lucretia," "My Uncle's Will," "Olga Davidoff's Husband," "Isaline and I," "Professor Milliter's Dilemma," and "In Strict Confidence," obtained hospitable shelter between the friendly covers of _Belgravia_. My title-piece, "The Beckoning Hand," is practically new, having only been published before as the Christmas supplement of a provincial newspaper. My thanks are due to Messrs. Smith and Elder, Longmans, Macmillan, and Chatto and Windus for kind permission to reprint most of the stories here. If anybody reads them and likes them, let me take this opportunity (as an unprejudiced person) of recommending to him my other volume of "Strange Stories," which I consider every bit as gruesome as this one. Should I succeed in attaining the pious ambition of the Fat Boy, and "making your flesh creep," then, as somebody once remarked before, "this work will not have been written in vain." G. A. THE NOOK, DORKING, _Christmas Day_, 1886. CONTENTS. THE BECKONING HAND 1 LUCRETIA 33 THE THIRD TIME 53 THE GOLD WULFRIC 74 MY UNCLE'S WILL 112 THE TWO CARNEGIES 128 OLGA DAVIDOFF'S HUSBAND 164 JOHN CANN'S TREASURE 188 ISALINE AND I 225 PROFESSOR MILLITER'S DILEMMA 245 IN STRICT CONFIDENCE 278 THE SEARCH PARTY'S FIND 299 HARRY'S INHERITANCE 318 _THE BECKONING HAND._ I. I first met Césarine Vivian in the stalls at the Ambiguities Theatre. I had promised to take Mrs. Latham and Irene to see the French plays which were then being acted by Marie Leroux's celebrated Palais Royal company. I wasn't at the time exactly engaged to poor Irene: it has always been a comfort to me that I wasn't engaged to her, though I knew Irene herself considered it practically equivalent to an understood engagement. We had known one another intimately from childhood upward, for the Lathams were a sort of second cousins of ours, three times removed: and we had always called one another by our Christian names, and been very fond of one another in a simple girlish and boyish fashion as long as we could either of us remember. Still, I maintain, there was no definite understanding between us; and if Mrs. Latham thought I had been paying Irene attentions, she must have known that a young man of two and twenty, with a decent fortune and a nice estate down in Devonshire, was likely to look about him for a while before he thought of settling down and marrying quietly. I had brought the yacht up to London Bridge, and was living on board in picnic style, and running about town casually, when I took Irene and her mother to see "Faustine," at the Ambiguities. As soon as we had got in and taken our places, Irene whispered to me, touching my hand lightly with her fan, "Just look at the very dark girl on the other side of you, Harry! Did you ever in your life see anybody so perfectly beautiful?" It has always been a great comfort to me, too, that Irene herself was the first person to call my attention to Césarine Vivian's extraordinary beauty. I turned round, as if by accident, and gave a passing glance, where Irene waved her fan, at the girl beside me. She was beautiful, certainly, in a terrible, grand, statuesque style of beauty; and I saw at a glimpse that she had Southern blood in her veins, perhaps Negro, perhaps Moorish, perhaps only Spanish, or Italian, or Provençal. Her features were proud and somewhat Jewish-looking; her eyes large, dark, and haughty; her black hair waved slightly in sinuous undulations as it passed across her high, broad forehead; her complexion, though a dusky olive in tone, was clear and rich, and daintily transparent; and her lips were thin and very slightly curled at the delicate corners, with a peculiarly imperious and almost scornful expression of fixed disdain. I had never before beheld anywhere such a magnificently repellent specimen of womanhood. For a second or so, as I looked, her eyes met mine with a defiant inquiry, and I was conscious that moment of some strange and weird fascination in her glance that seemed to draw me irresistibly towards her, at the same time that I hardly dared to fix my gaze steadily upon the piercing eyes that looked through and through me with their keen penetration. "She's very beautiful, no doubt," I whispered back to Irene in a low undertone, "though I must confess I don't exactly like the look of her. She's a trifle too much of a tragedy queen for my taste: a Lady Macbeth, or a Beatrice Cenci, or a Clytemnestra. I prefer our simple little English prettiness to this southern splendour. It's more to our English liking than these tall and stately Italian enchantresses. Besides, I fancy the girl looks as if she had a drop or two of black blood somewhere about her." "Oh, no," Irene cried warmly. "Impossible, Harry. She's exquisite: exquisite. Italian, you know, or something of that sort. Italian girls have always got that peculiar gipsy-like type of beauty." Low as we spoke, the girl seemed to know by instinct we were talking about her; for she drew away the ends of her light wrap coldly, in a significant fashion, and turned with her opera-glass in the opposite direction, as if on purpose to avoid looking towards us. A minute later the curtain rose, and the first act of Halévy's "Faustine" distracted my attention for the moment from the beautiful stranger. Marie Leroux took the part of the great empress. She was grand, stately, imposing, no doubt, but somehow it seemed to me she didn't come up quite so well as usual that evening to one's ideal picture of the terrible, audacious, superb Roman woman. I leant over and murmured so to Irene. "Don't you know why?" Irene whispered back to me with a faint movement of the play-bill toward the beautiful stranger. "No," I answered; "I haven't really the slightest conception." "Why," she whispered, smiling; "just look beside you. Could anybody bear comparison for a moment as a Faustine with that splendid creature in the stall next to you?" I stole a glance sideways as she spoke. It was quite true. The girl by my side was the real Faustine, the exact embodiment of the dramatist's creation; and Marie Leroux, with her stagey effects and her actress's pretences, could not in any way stand the contrast with the genuine empress who sat there eagerly watching her. The girl saw me glance quickly from her towards the actress and from the actress back to her, and shrank aside, not with coquettish timidity, but half angrily and half as if flattered and pleased at the implied compliment. "Papa," she said to the very English-looking gentleman who sat beyond her, "ce monsieur-ci...." I couldn't catch the end of the sentence. She was French, then, not Italian or Spanish; yet a more perfect Englishman than the man she called "papa" it would be difficult to discover on a long summer's day in all London. "My dear," her father whispered back in English, "if I were you...." and the rest of that sentence also was quite inaudible to me. My interest was now fully roused in the beautiful stranger, who sat evidently with her father and sister, and drank in every word of the play as it proceeded with the intensest interest. As for me, I hardly cared to look at the actors, so absorbed was I in my queenly neighbour. I made a bare pretence of watching the stage every five minutes, and saying a few words now and again to Irene or her mother; but my real attention was all the time furtively directed to the girl beside me. Not that I was taken with her; quite the contrary; she distinctly repelled me; but she seemed to exercise over me for all that the same strange and indescribable fascination which is often possessed by some horrible sight that you would give worlds to avoid, and yet cannot for your life help intently gazing upon. Between the third and fourth acts Irene whispered to me again, "I can't keep my eyes off her, Harry. She's wonderfully beautiful. Confess now: aren't you over head and ears in love with her?" I looked at Irene's sweet little peaceful English face, and I answered truthfully, "No, Irene. If I wanted to fall in love, I should find somebody----" "Nonsense, Harry," Irene cried, blushing a little, and holding up her fan before her nervously. "She's a thousand times prettier and handsomer in every way----" "Prettier?" "Than I am." At that moment the curtain rose, and Marie Leroux came forward once more with her imperial diadem, in the very act of defying and bearding the enraged emperor. It was a great scene. The whole theatre hung upon her words for twenty minutes. The effect was sublime. Even I myself felt my interest aroused at last in the consummate spectacle. I glanced round to observe my neighbour. She sat there, straining her gaze upon the stage, and heaving her bosom with suppressed emotion. In a second, the spell was broken again. Beside that tall, dark southern girl, in her queenly beauty, with her flashing eyes and quivering nostrils, intensely moved by the passion of the play, the mere actress who mouthed and gesticulated before us by the footlights was as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. My companion in the stalls was the genuine Faustine: the player on the stage was but a false pretender. As I looked a cry arose from the wings: a hushed cry at first, a buzz or hum; rising louder and ever louder still, as a red glare burst upon the scene from the background. Then a voice from the side boxes rang out suddenly above the confused murmur and the ranting of the actors "Fire! Fire!" Almost before I knew what had happened, the mob in the stalls, like the mob in the gallery, was surging and swaying wildly towards the exits, in a general struggle for life of the fierce old selfish barbaric pattern. Dense clouds of smoke rolled from the stage and filled the length and breadth of the auditorium; tongues of flame licked up the pasteboard scenes and hangings, like so much paper; women screamed, and fought, and fainted; men pushed one another aside and hustled and elbowed, in one wild effort to make for the doors at all hazards to the lives of their neighbours. Never before had I so vividly realized how near the savage lies to the surface in our best and highest civilized society. I had to realize it still more vividly and more terribly afterwards. One person alone I observed calm and erect, resisting quietly all pushes and thrusts, and moving with slow deliberateness to the door, as if wholly unconcerned at the universal noise and hubbub and tumult around her. It was the dark girl from the stalls beside me. For myself, my one thought of course was for poor Irene and Mrs. Latham. Fortunately, I am a strong and well-built man, and by keeping the two women in front of me, and thrusting hard with my elbows on either side to keep off the crush, I managed to make a tolerably clear road for them down the central row of stalls and out on to the big external staircase. The dark girl, now separated from her father and sister by the rush, was close in front of me. By a careful side movement, I managed to include her also in our party. She looked up to me gratefully with her big eyes, and her mouth broke into a charming smile as she turned and said in perfect English, "I am much obliged to you for your kind assistance." Irene's cheek was pale as death; but through the strange young lady's olive skin the bright blood still burned and glowed amid that frantic panic as calmly as ever. We had reached the bottom of the steps, and were out into the front, when suddenly the strange lady turned around and gave a little cry of disappointment. "Mes lorgnettes! Mes lorgnettes!" she said. Then glancing round carelessly to me she went on in English: "I have left my opera-glasses inside on the vacant seat. I think, if you will excuse me, I'll go back and fetch them." "It's impossible," I cried, "my dear madam. Utterly impossible. They'll crush you underfoot. They'll tear you to pieces." She smiled a strange haughty smile, as if amused at the idea, but merely answered, "I think not," and tried to pass lightly by me. I held her arm. I didn't know then she was as strong as I was. "Don't go," I said imploringly. "They will certainly kill you. It would be impossible to stem a mob like this one." She smiled again, and darted back in silence before I could stop her. Irene and Mrs. Latham were now fairly out of all danger. "Go on, Irene," I said loosing her arm. "Policeman, get these ladies safely out. I must go back and take care of that mad woman." "Go, go quick," Irene cried. "If you don't go, she'll be killed, Harry." I rushed back wildly after her, battling as well as I was able against the frantic rush of panic-stricken fugitives, and found my companion struggling still upon the main staircase. I helped her to make her way back into the burning theatre, and she ran lightly through the dense smoke to the stall she had occupied, and took the opera-glasses from the vacant place. Then she turned to me once more with a smile of triumph. "People lose their heads so," she said, "in all these crushes. I came back on purpose to show papa I wasn't going to be frightened into leaving my opera-glasses. I should have been eternally ashamed of myself if I had come away and left them in the theatre." "Quick," I answered, gasping for breath. "If you don't make haste, we shall be choked to death, or the roof itself will fall in upon us and crush us!" She looked up where I pointed with a hasty glance, and then made her way back again quickly to the staircase. As we hurried out, the timbers of the stage were beginning to fall in, and the engines were already playing fiercely upon the raging flames. I took her hand and almost dragged her out into the open. When we reached the Strand, we were both wet through, and terribly blackened with smoke and ashes. Pushing our way through the dense crowd, I called a hansom. She jumped in lightly. "Thank you so much," she said, quite carelessly. "Will you kindly tell him where to drive? Twenty-seven, Seymour Crescent." "I'll see you home, if you'll allow me," I answered. "Under these circumstances, I trust I may be permitted." "As you like," she said, smiling enchantingly. "You are very good. My name is Césarine Vivian. Papa will be very much obliged to you for your kind assistance." I drove round to the Lathams' after dropping Miss Vivian at her father's door, to assure myself of Irene's safety, and to let them know of my own return unhurt from my perilous adventure. Irene met me on the doorstep, pale as death still. "Thank heaven," she cried, "Harry, you're safe back again! And that poor girl? What has become of her?" "I left her," I said, "at Seymour Crescent." Irene burst into a flood of tears. "Oh, Harry," she cried, "I thought she would have been killed there. It was brave of you, indeed, to help her through with it." II. Next day, Mr. Vivian called on me at the Oxford and Cambridge, the address on the card I had given his daughter. I was in the club when he called, and I found him a pleasant, good-natured Cornishman, with very little that was strange or romantic in any way about him. He thanked me heartily, but not too effusively, for the care I had taken of Miss Vivian overnight; and he was not so overcome with parental emotion as not to smoke a very good Havana, or to refuse my offer of a brandy and seltzer. We got on very well together, and I soon gathered from what my new acquaintance said that, though he belonged to one of the best families in Cornwall, he had been an English merchant in Haiti, and had made his money chiefly in the coffee trade. He was a widower, I learned incidentally, and his daughters had been brought up for some years in England, though at their mother's request they had also passed part of their lives in convent schools in Paris and Rouen. "Mrs. Vivian was a Haitian, you know," he said casually: "Catholic of course. The girls are Catholics. They're good girls, though they're my own daughters; and Césarine, your friend of last night, is supposed to be clever. I'm no judge myself: I don't know about it. Oh, by the way, Césarine said she hadn't thanked you half enough herself yesterday, and I was to be sure and bring you round this afternoon to a cup of tea with us at Seymour Crescent." In spite of the impression Mdlle. Césarine had made upon me the night before, I somehow didn't feel at all desirous of meeting her again. I was impressed, it is true, but not favourably. There seemed to me something uncanny and weird about her which made me shrink from seeing anything more of her if I could possibly avoid it. And as it happened, I was luckily engaged that very afternoon to tea at Irene's. I made the excuse, and added somewhat pointedly--on purpose that it might be repeated to Mdlle. Césarine--"Miss Latham is a very old and particular friend of mine--a friend whom I couldn't for worlds think of disappointing." Mr. Vivian laughed the matter off. "I shall catch it from Césarine," he said good-humouredly, "for not bringing her cavalier to receive her formal thanks in person. Our West-Indian born girls, you know, are very imperious. But if you can't, you can't, of course, so there's an end of it, and it's no use talking any more about it." I can't say why, but at that moment, in spite of my intense desire not to meet Césarine again, I felt I would have given whole worlds if he would have pressed me to come in spite of myself. But, as it happened, he didn't. At five o'clock, I drove round in a hansom as arranged, to Irene's, having almost made up my mind, if I found her alone, to come to a definite understanding with her and call it an engagement. She wasn't alone, however. As I entered the drawing-room, I saw a tall and graceful lady sitting opposite her, holding a cup of tea, and with her back towards me. The lady rose, moved round, and bowed. To my immense surprise, I found it was Césarine. I noted to myself at the moment, too, that in my heart, though I had seen her but once before, I thought of her already simply as Césarine. And I was pleased to see her: fascinated: spell-bound. Césarine smiled at my evident surprise. "Papa and I met Miss Latham this afternoon in Bond Street," she said gaily, in answer to my mute inquiry, "and we stopped and spoke to one another, of course, about last night; and papa said you couldn't come round to tea with us in the Crescent, because you were engaged already to Miss Latham. And Miss Latham very kindly asked me to drive over and take tea with her, as I was so anxious to thank you once more for your great kindness to me yesterday." "And Miss Vivian was good enough to waive all ceremony," Irene put in, "and come round to us as you see, without further introduction." I stopped and talked all the time I was there to Irene; but, somehow, whatever I said, Césarine managed to intercept it, and I caught myself quite guiltily looking at her from time to time, with an inexpressible attraction that I could not account for. By-and-by, Mr. Vivian's carriage called for Césarine, and I was left a few minutes alone with Irene. "Well, what do you think of her?" Irene asked me simply. I turned my eyes away: I dare not meet hers. "I think she's very handsome," I replied evasively. "Handsome! I should think so. She's wonderful. She's splendid. And doesn't she talk magnificently, too, Harry?" "She's clever, certainly," I answered shuffling. "But I don't know why, I mistrust her, Irene." I rose and stood by the door with my hat in my hand, hesitating and trembling. I felt as if I had something to say to Irene, and yet I was half afraid to venture upon saying it. My fingers quivered, a thing very unusual with me. At last I came closer to her, after a long pause, and said, "Irene." Irene started, and the colour flushed suddenly into her cheeks. "Yes, Harry," she answered tremulously. I don't know why, but I couldn't utter it. It was but to say "I love you," yet I hadn't the courage. I stood there like a fool, looking at her irresolutely, and then-- The door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Latham entered and interrupted us. III. I didn't speak again to Irene. The reason was that three days later I received a little note of invitation to lunch at Seymour Crescent from Césarine Vivian. I didn't want to accept it, and yet I didn't know how to help myself. I went, determined beforehand as soon as ever lunch was over to take away the yacht to the Scotch islands, and leave Césarine and all her enchantments for ever behind me. I was afraid of her, that's the fact, positively afraid of her. I couldn't look her in the face without feeling at once that she exerted a terrible influence over me. The lunch went off quietly enough, however. We talked about Haiti and the West Indies; about the beautiful foliage and the lovely flowers; about the moonlight nights and the tropical sunsets; and Césarine grew quite enthusiastic over them all. "You should take your yacht out there some day, Mr. Tristram," she said softly. "There is no place on earth so wild and glorious as our own beautiful neglected Haiti." She lifted her eyes full upon me as she spoke. I stammered out, like one spell-bound, "I must certainly go, on your recommendation, Mdlle. Césarine." "Why Mademoiselle?" she asked quickly. Then, perceiving I misunderstood her by the start I gave, she added with a blush, "I mean, why not 'Miss Vivian' in plain English?" "Because you aren't English," I said confusedly. "You're Haitian, in reality. Nobody could ever for a moment take you for a mere Englishwoman." I meant it for a compliment, but Césarine frowned. I saw I had hurt her, and why; but I did not apologize. Yet I was conscious of having done something very wrong, and I knew I must try my best at once to regain my lost favour with her. "You will take some coffee after lunch?" Césarine said, as the dishes were removed. "Oh, certainly, my dear," her father put in. "You must show Mr. Tristram how we make coffee in the West Indian fashion." Césarine smiled, and poured it out--black coffee, very strong, and into each cup she poured a little glass of excellent pale neat cognac. It seemed to me that she poured the cognac like a conjuror's trick; but everything about her was so strange and lurid that I took very little notice of the matter at that particular moment. It certainly was delicious coffee: I never tasted anything like it. After lunch, we went into the drawing-room, and thence Césarine took me alone into the pretty conservatory. She wanted to show me some of her beautiful Haitian orchids, she said; she had brought the orchids herself years ago from Haiti. How long we stood there I could never tell. I seemed as if intoxicated with her presence. I had forgotten now all about my distrust of her: I had forgotten all about Irene and what I wished to say to her: I was conscious only of Césarine's great dark eyes, looking through and through me with their piercing glance, and Césarine's figure, tall and stately, but very voluptuous, standing close beside me, and heaving regularly as we looked at the orchids. She talked to me in a low and dreamy voice; and whether the Château Larose at lunch had got into my head, or whatever it might be, I felt only dimly and faintly aware of what was passing around me. I was unmanned with love, I suppose: but, however it may have been, I certainly moved and spoke that afternoon like a man in a trance from which he cannot by any effort of his own possibly awake himself. "Yes, yes," I overheard Césarine saying at last, as through a mist of emotion, "you must go some day and see our beautiful mountainous Haiti. I must go myself. I long to go again. I don't care for this gloomy, dull, sunless England. A hand seems always to be beckoning me there. I shall obey it some day, for Haiti--our lovely Haiti, is too beautiful." Her voice was low and marvellously musical. "Mademoiselle Césarine," I began timidly. She pouted and looked at me. "Mademoiselle again," she said in a pettish way. "I told you not to call me so, didn't I?" "Well, then, Césarine," I went on boldly. She laughed low, a little laugh of triumph, but did not correct or check me in any way. "Césarine," I continued, lingering I know not why over the syllables of the name, "I will go, as you say. I shall see Haiti. Why should we not both go together?" She looked up at me eagerly with a sudden look of hushed inquiry. "You mean it?" she asked, trembling visibly. "You mean it, Mr. Tristram? You know what you are saying?" "Césarine," I answered, "I mean it. I know it. I cannot go away from you and leave you. Something seems to tie me. I am not my own master.... Césarine, I love you." My head whirled as I said the words, but I meant them at the time, and heaven knows I tried ever after to live up to them. She clutched my arm convulsively for a moment. Her face was aglow with a wonderful light, and her eyes burned like a pair of diamonds. "But the other girl!" she cried. "Her! Miss Latham! The one you call Irene! You are ... in love with her! Are you not? Tell me!" "I have never proposed to Irene," I replied slowly. "I have never asked any other woman but you to marry me, Césarine." She answered me nothing, but my face was very near hers, and I bent forward and kissed her suddenly. To my immense surprise, instead of struggling or drawing away, she kissed me back a fervent kiss, with lips hard pressed to mine, and the tears trickled slowly down her cheeks in a strange fashion. "You are mine," she cried. "Mine for ever. I have won you. She shall not have you. I knew you were mine the moment I looked upon you. The hand beckoned me. I knew I should get you." "Come up into my den, Mr. Tristram, and have a smoke," my host interrupted in his bluff voice, putting his head in unexpectedly at the conservatory door. "I think I can offer you a capital Manilla." The sound woke me as if from some terrible dream, and I followed him still in a sort of stupor up to the smoking room. IV. That very evening I went to see Irene. My brain was whirling even yet, and I hardly knew what I was doing; but the cool air revived me a little, and by the time I reached the Lathams' I almost felt myself again. Irene came down to the drawing-room to see me alone. I saw what she expected, and the shame of my duplicity overcame me utterly. I took both her hands in mine and stood opposite her, ashamed to look her in the face, and with the terrible confession weighing me down like a burden of guilt. "Irene," I blurted out, without preface or comment, "I have just proposed to Césarine Vivian." Irene drew back a moment and took a long breath. Then she said, with a tremor in her voice, but without a tear or a cry, "I expected it, Harry. I thought you meant it. I saw you were terribly, horribly in love with her." "Irene," I cried, passionately and remorsefully flinging myself upon the sofa in an agony of repentance, "I do not love her. I have never cared for her. I'm afraid of her, fascinated by her. I love you, Irene, you and you only. The moment I'm away from her, I hate her, I hate her. For heaven's sake, tell me what am I to do! I do not love her. I hate her, Irene." Irene came up to me and soothed my hair tenderly with her hand. "Don't, Harry," she said, with sisterly kindliness. "Don't speak so. Don't give way to it. I know what you feel. I know what you think. But I am not angry with you. You mustn't talk like that. If she has accepted you, you must go and marry her. I have nothing to reproach you with: nothing, nothing. Never say such words to me again. Let us be as we have always been, friends only." "Irene," I cried, lifting up my head and looking at her wildly, "it is the truth: I do not love her, except when I am with her: and then, some strange enchantment seems to come over me. I don't know what it is, but I can't escape it. In my heart, Irene, in my heart of hearts, I love you, and you only. I can never love her as I love you, Irene. My darling, my darling, tell me how to get myself away from her." "Hush," Irene said, laying her hand on mine persuasively. "You're excited to-night, Harry. You are flushed and feverish. You don't know what you're saying. You mustn't talk so. If you do, you'll make me hate you and despise you. You must keep your word now, and marry Miss Vivian." V. The next six weeks seem to me still like a vague dream: everything happened so hastily and strangely. I got a note next day from Irene. It was very short. "Dearest Harry,--Mamma and I think, under the circumstances, it would be best for us to leave London for a few weeks. I am not angry with you. With best love, ever yours affectionately, Irene." I was wild when I received it. I couldn't bear to part so with Irene. I would find out where they were going and follow them immediately. I would write a note and break off my mad engagement with Césarine. I must have been drunk or insane when I made it. I couldn't imagine what I could have been doing. On my way round to inquire at the Latham's, a carriage came suddenly upon me at a sharp corner. A lady bowed to me from it. It was Césarine with her father. They pulled up and spoke to me. From that moment my doom was sealed. The old fascination came back at once, and I followed Césarine blindly home to her house to luncheon, her accepted lover. In six weeks more we were really married. The first seven or eight months of our married life passed away happily enough. As soon as I was actually married to Césarine, that strange feeling I had at first experienced about her slowly wore off in the closer, commonplace, daily intercourse of married life. I almost smiled at myself for ever having felt it. Césarine was so beautiful and so queenly a person, that when I took her down home to Devonshire, and introduced her to the old manor, I really found myself immensely proud of her. Everybody at Teignbury was delighted and struck with her; and, what was a great deal more to the point, I began to discover that I was positively in love with her myself, into the bargain. She softened and melted immensely on nearer acquaintance; the Faustina air faded slowly away, when one saw her in her own home among her own occupations; and I came to look on her as a beautiful, simple, innocent girl, delighted with all our country pleasures, fond of a breezy canter on the slopes of Dartmoor, and taking an affectionate interest in the ducks and chickens, which I could hardly ever have conceived even as possible when I first saw her in Seymour Crescent. The imperious, mysterious, terrible Césarine disappeared entirely, and I found in her place, to my immense relief, that I had married a graceful, gentle, tender-hearted English girl, with just a pleasant occasional touch of southern fire and impetuosity. As winter came round again, however, Césarine's cheeks began to look a little thinner than usual, and she had such a constant, troublesome cough, that I began to be a trifle alarmed at her strange symptoms. Césarine herself laughed off my fears. "It's nothing, Harry," she would say; "nothing at all, I assure you, dear. A few good rides on the moor will set me right again. It's all the result of that horrid London. I'm a country-born girl, and I hate big towns. I never want to live in town again, Harry." I called in our best Exeter doctor, and he largely confirmed Césarine's own simple view of the situation. "There's nothing organically wrong with Mrs. Tristram's constitution," he said confidently. "No weakness of the lungs or heart in any way. She has merely run down--outlived her strength a little. A winter in some warm, genial climate would set her up again, I haven't the least hesitation in saying." "Let us go to Algeria with the yacht, Reeney," I suggested, much reassured. "Why Algeria?" Césarine replied, with brightening eyes. "Oh, Harry, why not dear old Haiti? You said once you would go there with me--you remember when, darling; why not keep your promise now, and go there? I want to go there, Harry: I'm longing to go there." And she held out her delicately moulded hand in front of her, as if beckoning me, and drawing me on to Haiti after her. "Ah, yes; why not the West Indies?" the Exeter doctor answered meditatively. "I think I understood you that Mrs. Tristram is West Indian born. Quite so. Quite so. Her native air. Depend upon it, that's the best place for her. By all means, I should say, try Haiti." I don't know why, but the notion for some reason displeased me immensely. There was something about Césarine's eyes, somehow, when she beckoned with her hand in that strange fashion, which reminded me exactly of the weird, uncanny, indescribable impression she had made upon me when I first knew her. Still I was very fond of Césarine, and if she and the doctor were both agreed that Haiti would be the very best place for her, it would be foolish and wrong for me to interfere with their joint wisdom. Depend upon it, a woman often knows what is the matter with her better than any man, even her husband, can possibly tell her. The end of it all was, that in less than a month from that day, we were out in the yacht on the broad Atlantic, with the cliffs of Falmouth and the Lizard Point fading slowly behind us in the distance, and the white spray dashing in front of us, like fingers beckoning us on to Haiti. VI. The bay of Port-au-Prince is hot and simmering, a deep basin enclosed in a ringing semicircle of mountains, with scarce a breath blowing on the harbour, and with tall cocoa-nut palms rising unmoved into the still air above on the low sand-spits that close it in to seaward. The town itself is wretched, squalid, and hopelessly ramshackled, a despondent collection of tumbledown wooden houses, interspersed with indescribable negro huts, mere human rabbit-hutches, where parents and children herd together, in one higgledy-piggledy, tropical confusion. I had never in my days seen anything more painfully desolate and dreary, and I feared that Césarine, who had not been here since she was a girl of fourteen, would be somewhat depressed at the horrid actuality, after her exalted fanciful ideals of the remembered Haiti. But, to my immense surprise, as it turned out, Césarine did not appear at all shocked or taken aback at the squalor and wretchedness all around her. On the contrary, the very air of the place seemed to inspire her from the first with fresh vigour; her cough disappeared at once as if by magic; and the colour returned forthwith to her cheeks, almost as soon as we had fairly cast anchor in Haitian waters. The very first day we arrived at Port-au-Prince, Césarine said to me, with more shyness than I had ever yet seen her exhibit, "If you wouldn't mind it, Harry, I should like to go at once, this morning--and see my grandmother." I started with astonishment. "Your grandmother, Césarine!" I cried incredulously. "My darling! I didn't know you had a grandmother living." "Yes, I have," she answered, with some slight hesitation, "and I think if you wouldn't object to it, Harry, I'd rather go and see her alone, the first time at least, please dearest." In a moment, the obvious truth, which I had always known in a vague sort of fashion, but never thoroughly realized, flashed across my mind in its full vividness, and I merely bowed my head in silence. It was natural she should not wish me to see her meeting with her Haitian grandmother. She went alone through the streets of Port-au-Prince, without inquiry, like one who knew them familiarly of old, and I dogged her footsteps at a distance unperceived, impelled by the same strange fascination which had so often driven me to follow Césarine wherever she led me. After a few hundred yards, she turned out of the chief business place, and down a tumbledown alley of scattered negro cottages, till she came at last to a rather better house that stood by itself in a little dusty garden of guava-trees and cocoa-nuts. A rude paling, built negro-wise of broken barrel-staves, nailed rudely together, separated the garden from the compound next to it. I slipped into the compound before Césarine observed me, beckoned the lazy negro from the door of the hut, with one finger placed as a token of silence upon my lips, dropped a dollar into his open palm, and stood behind the paling, looking out into the garden beside me through a hole made by a knot in one of the barrel staves. Césarine knocked with her hand at the door, and in a moment was answered by an old negress, tall and bony, dressed in a loose sack-like gown of coarse cotton print, with a big red bandanna tied around her short grey hair, and a huge silver cross dangling carelessly upon her bare and wrinkled black neck. She wore no sleeves, and bracelets of strange beads hung loosely around her shrunken and skinny wrists. A more hideous old hag I had never in my life beheld before; and yet I saw, without waiting to observe it, that she had Césarine's great dark eyes and even white teeth, and something of Césarine's figure lingered still in her lithe and sinuous yet erect carriage. "Grand'mère!" Césarine said convulsively, flinging her arms with wild delight around that grim and withered gaunt black woman. It seemed to me she had never since our marriage embraced me with half the fervour she bestowed upon this hideous old African witch creature. "Hé, Césarine, it is thee, then, my little one," the old negress cried out suddenly, in her thin high voice and her muffled Haitian _patois_. "I did not expect thee so soon, my cabbage. Thou hast come early. Be the welcome one, my granddaughter." I reeled with horror as I saw the wrinkled and haggard African kissing once more my beautiful Césarine. It seemed to me a horrible desecration. I had always known, of course, since Césarine was a quadroon, that her grandmother on one side must necessarily have been a full-blooded negress, but I had never yet suspected the reality could be so hideous, so terrible as this. I crouched down speechless against the paling in my disgust and astonishment, and motioned with my hand to the negro in the hut to remain perfectly quiet. The door of the house closed, and Césarine disappeared: but I waited there, as if chained to the spot, under a hot and burning tropical sun, for fully an hour, unconscious of anything in heaven or earth, save the shock and surprise of that unexpected disclosure. At last the door opened again, and Césarine apparently came out once more into the neighbouring garden. The gaunt negress followed her close, with one arm thrown caressingly about her beautiful neck and shoulders. In London, Césarine would not have permitted anybody but a great lady to take such a liberty with her; but here in Haiti, she submitted to the old negress's horrid embraces with perfect calmness. Why should she not, indeed! It was her own grandmother. They came close up to the spot where I was crouching in the thick drifted dust behind the low fence, and then I heard rather than saw that Césarine had flung herself passionately down upon her knees on the ground, and was pouring forth a muttered prayer, in a tongue unknown to me, and full of harsh and uncouth gutturals. It was not Latin; it was not even the coarse Creole French, the negro _patois_ in which I heard the people jabbering to one another loudly in the streets around me: it was some still more hideous and barbaric language, a mass of clicks and inarticulate noises, such as I could never have believed might possibly proceed from Césarine's thin and scornful lips. At last she finished, and I heard her speaking again to her grandmother in the Creole dialect. "Grandmother, you will pray and get me one. You will not forget me. A boy. A pretty one; an heir to my husband!" It was said wistfully, with an infinite longing. I knew then why she had grown so pale and thin and haggard before we sailed away from England. The old hag answered in the same tongue, but in her shrill withered note, "You will bring him up to the religion, my little one, will you?" Césarine seemed to bow her head. "I will," she said. "He shall follow the religion. Mr. Tristram shall never know anything about it." They went back once more into the house, and I crept away, afraid of being discovered, and returned to the yacht, sick at heart, not knowing how I should ever venture again to meet Césarine. But when I got back, and had helped myself to a glass of sherry to steady my nerves, from the little flask on Césarine's dressing-table, I thought to myself, hideous as it all seemed, it was very natural Césarine should wish to see her grandmother. After all, was it not better, that proud and haughty as she was, she should not disown her own flesh and blood? And yet, the memory of my beautiful Césarine wrapped in that hideous old black woman's arms made the blood curdle in my very veins. As soon as Césarine returned, however, gayer and brighter than I had ever seen her, the old fascination overcame me once more, and I determined in my heart to stifle the horror I could not possibly help feeling. And that evening, as I sat alone in the cabin with my wife, I said to her, "Césarine, we have never spoken about the religious question before: but if it should be ordained we are ever to have any little ones of our own, I should wish them to be brought up in their mother's creed. You could make them better Catholics, I take it, than I could ever make them Christians of any sort." Césarine answered never a word, but to my intense surprise she burst suddenly into a flood of tears, and flung herself sobbing on the cabin floor at my feet in an agony of tempestuous cries and writhings. VII. A few days later, when we had settled down for a three months' stay at a little bungalow on the green hills behind Port-au-Prince, Césarine said to me early in the day, "I want to go away to-day, Harry, up into the mountains, to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours." I bowed my head in acquiescence. "I can guess why you want to go, Reeney," I answered gently. "You want to pray there about something that's troubling you. And if I'm not mistaken, it's the same thing that made you cry the other evening when I spoke to you down yonder in the cabin." The tears rose hastily once more into Césarine's eyes, and she cried in a low distressed voice, "Harry, Harry, don't talk to me so. You are too good to me. You will kill me. You will kill me." I lifted her head from the table, where she had buried it in her arms, and kissed her tenderly. "Reeney," I said, "I know how you feel, and I hope Notre Dame will listen to your prayers, and send you what you ask of her. But if not, you need never be afraid that I shall love you any the less than I do at present." Césarine burst into a fresh flood of tears. "No, Harry," she said, "you don't know about it. You can't imagine it. To us, you know, who have the blood of Africa running in our veins, it is not a mere matter of fancy. It is an eternal disgrace for any woman of our race and descent not to be a mother. I cannot help it. It is the instinct of my people. We are all born so: we cannot feel otherwise." It was the only time either of us ever alluded in speaking with one another to the sinister half of Césarine's pedigree. "You will let me go with you to the mountains, Reeney?" I asked, ignoring her remark. "You mustn't go so far by yourself, darling." "No, Harry, you can't come with me. It would make my prayers ineffectual, dearest. You are a heretic, you know, Harry. You are not Catholic. Notre Dame won't listen to my prayer if I take you with me on my pilgrimage, my darling." I saw her mind was set upon it, and I didn't interfere. She would be away all night, she said. There was a rest-house for pilgrims attached to the chapel, and she would be back again at Maisonette (our bungalow) the morning after. That afternoon she started on her way on a mountain pony I had just bought for her, accompanied only by a negro maid. I couldn't let her go quite unattended through those lawless paths, beset by cottages of half savage Africans; so I followed at a distance, aided by a black groom, and tracked her road along the endless hill-sides up to a fork in the way where the narrow bridle-path divided into two, one of which bore away to leftward, leading, my guide told me, to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours. At that point the guide halted. He peered with hand across his eyebrows among the tangled brake of tree-ferns with a terrified look; then he shook his woolly black head ominously. "I can't go on, Monsieur," he said, turning to me with an unfeigned shudder. "Madame has not taken the path of Our Lady. She has gone to the left along the other road, which leads at last to the Vaudoux temple." I looked at him incredulously. I had heard before of Vaudoux. It is the hideous African canibalistic witchcraft of the relapsing half-heathen Haitian negroes. But Césarine a Vaudoux worshipper! It was too ridiculous. The man must be mistaken: or else Césarine had taken the wrong road by some slight accident. Next moment, a horrible unspeakable doubt seized upon me irresistibly. What was the unknown shrine in her grandmother's garden at which Césarine had prayed in those awful gutturals? Whatever it was, I would probe this mystery to the very bottom. I would know the truth, come what might of it. "Go, you coward!" I said to the negro. "I have no further need of you. I will make my way alone to the Vaudoux temple." "Monsieur," the man cried, trembling visibly in every limb, "they will tear you to pieces. If they ever discover you near the temple, they will offer you up as a victim to the Vaudoux." "Pooh," I answered, contemptuous of the fellow's slavish terror. "Where Madame, a woman, dares to go, I, her husband, am certainly not afraid to follow her." "Monsieur," he replied, throwing himself submissively in the dust on the path before me, "Madame is Creole; she has the blood of the Vaudoux worshippers flowing in her veins. Nobody will hurt her. She is free of the craft. But Monsieur is a pure white and uninitiated.... If the Vaudoux people catch him at their rites, they will rend him in pieces, and offer his blood as an expiation to the Unspeakable One." "Go," I said, with a smile, turning my horse's head up the right-hand path toward the Vaudoux temple. "I am not afraid. I will come back again to Maisonette to-morrow." I followed the path through a tortuous maze, beset with prickly cactus, agave, and fern-brake, till I came at last to a spur of the hill, where a white wooden building gleamed in front of me, in the full slanting rays of tropical sunset. A skull was fastened to the lintel of the door. I knew at once it was the Vaudoux temple. I dismounted at once, and led my horse aside into the brake, though I tore his legs and my own as I went with the spines of the cactus plants; and tying him by the bridle to a mountain cabbage palm, in a spot where the thick underbrush completely hid us from view, I lay down and waited patiently for the shades of evening. It was a moonless night, according to the Vaudoux fashion; and I knew from what I had already read in West Indian books that the orgies would not commence till midnight. From time to time, I rubbed a fusee against my hand without lighting it, and by the faint glimmer of the phosphorus on my palm, I was able to read the figures of my watch dial without exciting the attention of the neighbouring Vaudoux worshippers. Hour after hour went slowly by, and I crouched there still unseen among the agave thicket. At last, as the hands of the watch reached together the point of twelve, I heard a low but deep rumbling noise coming ominously from the Vaudoux temple. I recognized at once the familiar sound. It was the note of the bull-roarer, that mystic instrument of pointed wood, whirled by a string round the head of the hierophant, by whose aid savages in their secret rites summon to their shrines their gods and spirits. I had often made one myself for a toy when I was a boy in England. I crept out through the tangled brake, and cautiously approached the back of the building. A sentinel was standing by the door in front, a powerful negro, armed with revolver and cutlas. I skulked round noiselessly to the rear, and lifting myself by my hands to the level of the one tiny window, I peered in through a slight scratch on the white paint, with which the glass was covered internally. I only saw the sight within for a second. Then my brain reeled, and my fingers refused any longer to hold me. But in that second, I had read the whole terrible, incredible truth: I knew what sort of a woman she really was whom I had blindly taken as the wife of my bosom. Before a rude stone altar covered with stuffed alligator skins, human bones, live snakes, and hideous sorts of African superstition, a tall and withered black woman stood erect, naked as she came from her mother's womb, one skinny arm raised aloft, and the other holding below some dark object, that writhed and struggled awfully in her hand on the slab of the altar, even as she held it. I saw in a flash of the torches behind it was the black hag I had watched before at the Port-au-Prince cottage. Beside her, whiter of skin, and faultless of figure, stood a younger woman, beautiful to behold, imperious and haughty still, like a Greek statue, unmoved before that surging horrid background of naked black and cringing savages. Her head was bent, and her hand pressed convulsively against the swollen veins in her throbbing brow; and I saw at once it was my own wife--a Vaudoux worshipper--Césarine Tristram. In another flash, I knew the black woman had a sharp flint knife in her uplifted hand; and the dark object in the other hand I recognized with a thrill of unspeakable horror as a negro girl of four years old or thereabouts, gagged and bound, and lying on the altar. Before I could see the sharp flint descend upon the naked breast of the writhing victim, my fingers in mercy refused to bear me, and I fell half fainting on the ground below, too shocked and unmanned even to crawl away at once out of reach of the awful unrealizable horror. But by the sounds within, I knew they had completed their hideous sacrifice, and that they were smearing over Césarine--my own wife--the woman of my choice--with the warm blood of the human victim. Sick and faint, I crept away slowly through the tangled underbrush, tearing my skin as I went with the piercing cactus spines; untied my horse from the spot where I had fastened him; and rode him down without drawing rein, cantering round sharp angles and down horrible ledges, till he stood at last, white with foam, by the grey dawn, in front of the little piazza at Maisonette. VIII. That night, the thunder roared and the lightning played with tropical fierceness round the tall hilltops away in the direction of the Vaudoux temple. The rain came down in fearful sheets, and the torrents roared and foamed in cataracts, and tore away great gaps in the rough paths on the steep hill-sides. But at eight o'clock in the morning Césarine returned, drenched with wet, and with a strange frown upon her haughty forehead. I did not know how to look at her or how to meet her. "My prayers are useless," she muttered angrily as she entered. "Some heretic must have followed me unseen to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours. The pilgrimage is a failure." "You are wet," I said, trembling. "Change your things, Césarine." I could not pretend to speak gently to her. She turned upon me with a fierce look in her big black eyes. Her instinct showed her at once I had discovered her secret. "Tell them, and hang me," she cried fiercely. It was what the law required me to do. I was otherwise the accomplice of murder and cannibalism. But I could not do it. Profoundly as I loathed her and hated her presence, now, I couldn't find it in my heart to give her up to justice, as I knew I ought to do. I turned away and answered nothing. Presently, she came out again from her bedroom, with her wet things still dripping around her. "Smoke that," she said, handing me a tiny cigarette rolled round in a leaf of fresh tobacco. "I will not," I answered with a vague surmise, taking it from her fingers. "I know the smell. It is manchineal. You cannot any longer deceive me." She went back to her bedroom once more. I sat, dazed and stupefied, in the bamboo chair on the front piazza. What to do, I knew not, and cared not. I was tied to her for life, and there was no help for it, save by denouncing her to the rude Haitian justice. In an hour or more, our English maid came out to speak to me. "I'm afraid, sir," she said, "Mrs. Tristram is getting delirious. She seems to be in a high fever. Shall I ask one of these poor black bodies to go out and get the English doctor?" I went into my wife's bedroom. Césarine lay moaning piteously on the bed, in her wet clothes still; her cheeks were hot, and her pulse was high and thin and feverish. I knew without asking what was the matter with her. It was yellow fever. The night's exposure in that terrible climate, and the ghastly scene she had gone through so intrepidly, had broken down even Césarine's iron constitution. I sent for the doctor and had her put to bed immediately. The black nurse and I undressed her between us. We found next her bosom, tied by a small red silken thread, a tiny bone, fresh and ruddy-looking. I knew what it was, and so did the negress. It was a human finger-bone--the last joint of a small child's fourth finger. The negress shuddered and hid her head. "It is Vaudoux, Monsieur!" she said. "I have seen it on others. Madame has been paying a visit, I suppose, to her grandmother." For six long endless days and nights I watched and nursed that doomed criminal, doing everything for her that skill could direct or care could suggest to me: yet all the time fearing and dreading that she might yet recover, and not knowing in my heart what either of our lives could ever be like if she did live through it. A merciful Providence willed it otherwise. On the sixth day, the fatal _vomito negro_ set in--the symptom of the last incurable stage of yellow fever--and I knew for certain that Césarine would die. She had brought her own punishment upon her. At midnight that evening she died delirious. Thank God, she had left no child of mine behind her to inherit the curse her mother's blood had handed down to her! IX. On my return to London, whither I went by mail direct, leaving the yacht to follow after me, I drove straight to the Lathams' from Waterloo Station. Mrs. Latham was out, the servant said, but Miss Irene was in the drawing-room. Irene was sitting at the window by herself, working quietly at a piece of crewel work. She rose to meet me with her sweet simple little English smile. I took her hand and pressed it like a brother. "I got your telegram," she said simply. "Harry, I know she is dead; but I know something terrible besides has happened. Tell me all. Don't be afraid to speak of it before me. I am not afraid, for my part, to listen." I sat down on the sofa beside her, and told her all, without one word of excuse or concealment, from our last parting to the day of Césarine's death in Haiti: and she held my hand and listened all the while with breathless wonderment to my strange story. At the end I said, "Irene, it has all come and gone between us like a hideous nightmare. I cannot imagine even now how that terrible woman, with all her power, could ever for one moment have bewitched me away from you, my beloved, my queen, my own heart's darling." Irene did not try to hush me or to stop me in any way. She merely sat and looked at me steadily, and said nothing. "It was fascination," I cried. "Infatuation, madness, delirium, enchantment." "It was worse than that, Harry," Irene answered, rising quietly. "It was poison; it was witchcraft; it was sheer African devilry." In a flash of thought, I remembered the cup of coffee at Seymour Crescent, the curious sherry at Port-au-Prince, the cigarette with the manchineal she had given me on the mountains, and I saw forthwith that Irene with her woman's quickness had divined rightly. It was more than infatuation; it was intoxication with African charms and West Indian poisons. "What a man does in such a woman's hands is not his own doing," Irene said slowly. "He has no more control of himself in such circumstances than if she had drugged him with chloroform or opium." "Then you forgive me, Irene?" "I have nothing to forgive, Harry. I am grieved for you. I am frightened." Then bursting into tears, "My darling, my darling; I love you, I love you!" _LUCRETIA._ I will acknowledge that I was certainly a very young man in the year '67; indeed, I was only just turned of twenty, and was inordinately proud of a slight downy fringe on my upper lip, which I was pleased to speak of as my moustache. Still, I was a sturdy young fellow enough, in spite of my consumptive tendencies, and not given to groundless fears in a general way; but I must allow that I was decidedly frightened by my adventure in the Richmond Hotel on the Christmas Eve of that aforesaid year of grace. It may be a foolish reminiscence, yet I dare say you won't mind listening to it. When I say the Richmond Hotel, you must not understand me to speak of the Star and Garter in the town of that ilk situated in the county of Surrey, England. The Richmond where I passed my uncomfortable Christmas Eve stands on the banks of the pretty St. Francis River in Lower Canada. I had gone out to the colony in the autumn of that year, to look after a small property of my mother's near Kamouraska; and I originally intended to spend the winter in Quebec. But as November and December wore away, and the snow grew deeper and deeper upon the plains of Abraham, I became gradually aware that a Canadian winter was not the best adapted tonic in the world for a hearty young man with a slight hereditary predisposition to consumption. I had seen enough of Arctic life in Quebec during those two initial months to give me a good idea of its pleasures and its drawbacks. I had steered by taboggan down the ice-cone at the Falls of Montmorenci; I had driven a sleigh, _tête-à-tête_ with a French Canadian belle, to a surprise picnic in a house at Sainte Anne; I had skated, snow-shoed, and curled to my heart's content; and I had caught my death of cold on the frozen St. Lawrence, not to mention such minor misfortunes as getting my nose, ears, and feet frostbitten during a driving party up the banks of the Chaudière. So a few days before Christmas, I determined to strike south. I would go for a tour through Virginia and the Carolinas, to escape the cold weather, waiting for the return of the summer sun to catch a glimpse of Niagara and the great lakes. For this purpose I must first go to Montreal; and, that being the case, what could be more convenient than to spend Christmas Day itself with the rector at Richmond, to whom I had letters of introduction, his wife being in fact a first cousin of my mother's? Richmond lies half-way on the Grand Trunk line between Quebec and Montreal, and it would be more pleasant, by breaking my journey there, to eat my turkey and plum-pudding in a friend's family than in that somewhat cheerless hotel, the Dominion Hall. So off I started from the Point Levy station, at four o'clock on the twenty-fourth of December, hoping to arrive at my journey's end about one o'clock on Christmas morning. Now, those were the days, just after the great American civil war, when gold was almost unknown either in the States or Canada, and everybody used greasy dollar notes of uncertain and purely local value. Hence I was compelled to take the money for expenses on my projected tour in the only form of specie which was available, that of solid silver. A hundred and fifty pounds in silver dollars amounts to a larger bulk and a heavier weight than you would suppose; and I thought it safer to carry the sum in my own hands, loosely bundled into a large leather reticule. _Hinc illoe lacrimoe_:--that was the real cause of my night's adventure and of the present story. When I got into the long open American railway-carriage, with its comfortable stove and warm foot-bricks, I found only one seat vacant, and that was a red velvet sofa, opposite to another occupied by a girl of singular beauty. I can remember to this day exactly how she was dressed. I dare say my lady readers will think it horribly old-fashioned at the present time, but it was the very latest and most enchanting style in the year '67. On her head was a coquettish little cheese-plate bonnet, bound round with one of those warm, soft, fleecy woollen veils or head-wraps which Canadian girls know as Nubias. Her dress was a short winter walking costume of the period, trimmed with fur, and vandyked at the bottom so as to show a glimpse of the quilted down petticoat underneath. Her little high-heeled boots, displayed by the short costume, were buttoned far above the ankle, and bound with fur to match the dress; while a tiny tassel at the side added just a suspicion of Parisian coquetry. Her cloak was lined with sable, or what seemed so to my undiscriminating eyes; and her rug was a splendid piece of wolverine skins. As to her eyes, her lips, her figure, I had rather not attempt them. I can manage clothes, but not goddesses. Altogether, quite a dream of Canadian beauty, not devoid of that indefinable grace which goes only with the French blood. I was not bold in '67, and I would have preferred to take any other seat rather than face this divine apparition; but there was no help for it, since all the others were filled: so I sat down a little sheepishly, I dare say. Almost before we were well out of the station we had got into a conversation, and it was she who began it. "You are an Englishman, I think?" she said, looking at me with a frank and pleasant smile. "Yes," I answered, colouring, though why I should have been ashamed of my nationality for that solitary moment of my life I cannot imagine,--unless, perhaps, because _she_ was a Canadian; "but how on earth did you discover it?" "You would have been more warmly wrapped up if you had lived long in Canada," she replied. "In spite of our stoves and hot bricks, you'll find yourself very cold before you get to your journey's end." "Yes," I said; "I suppose it's rather chilly late at night in these big cars." "Dreadfully; oh, quite terribly. You ought to have a rug, you really ought. Won't you let me lend you one? I have another under the seat here." "But you brought that for yourself," I interposed. "You will want it by-and-by, when it gets a little colder." "Oh no, I shan't. This is warm enough for me; it's wolverine. You have a mother?" What an extraordinary question, I thought, and what an unusually friendly girl! Was she really quite as simple-minded as she seemed, or could she be the "designing woman" of the novels? Yes, I admitted to her cautiously that I possessed a maternal parent, who was at that moment safely drinking her tea in a terrace at South Kensington. "_I_ have none," she said, with an emphasis on the personal pronoun, and a sort of appealing look in her big eyes. "But you should take care of yourself, for her sake. You really _must_ take my rug. _Hundreds_, oh, _thousands_ of young Englishmen come out here, and kill themselves their first winter by imprudence." Thus adjured, I accepted the rug with many thanks and apologies, and wrapped myself warmly up in the corner, with a splendid view of my _vis-à-vis_. Exactly at that moment, the ticket collector came round upon his official tour. Now, on American and Canadian railways, you do not take your ticket beforehand, but pay your fare to the collector, who walks up and down through the open cars from end to end, between every station. I lifted up my bag of silver, which lay on the seat beside me, and imprudently opened it to take out a few dollars full in sight of my enchanting neighbour. I saw her look with unaffected curiosity at the heap of coin within, and I was proud at being able to give such an unequivocal proof of my high respectability--for what better guarantee of all the noblest moral qualities can any man produce all the world over than a bag of dollars? "What a lot of money!" she said, as the collector passed on. "What can you want with it all in coin?" "I'm going on a tour in the Southern States," I confided in reply, "and I thought it better to take specie." (I was very proud ten or twelve years ago of that word _specie_.) "And I suppose those are your initials on the reticule? What a pretty monogram! Your mother gave you that for a birthday present." "You must be a conjurer or a clairvoyant," I said, smiling. "So she did;" and I added that the initials represented my humble patronymic and baptismal designations. "My name's Lucretia," said my neighbour artlessly, as a child might have said it, without a word as to surname or qualifying circumstances; and from that moment she became to me simply Lucretia. I think of her as Lucretia to the present day. As she spoke, she pointed to the word engraved in tiny letters on her pretty silver locket. I suppose she thought my confidence required a little more confidence in return, for after a slight pause she repeated once more, "My name's Lucretia, and I live at Richmond." "Richmond!" I cried. "Why, that's just where I'm going. Do you know the rector?" "Mr. Pritchard? Oh yes, intimately. He's our greatest friend. Are you going to stop with him?" "For a day or two at least, on my way to Montreal. Mrs. Pritchard is my mother's cousin." "How delightful! Then we may consider ourselves acquaintances. But you don't mean to knock them up to-night? They'll all be in bed long before one o'clock." "No, I haven't even written to tell them I was coming," I answered. "They gave me a general invitation, and said I might drop in whenever I pleased." "Then you must stop at the hotel to-night. I'm going there myself. My people keep the hotel." Was it possible! I was thunderstruck. I had pictured Lucretia to myself as at least a countess of the _ancien régime_, a few of whom still linger on in Montreal and elsewhere. Her locket, her rugs, her eyes, her chiselled features, all of them seemed to me redolent of the old French _noblesse_. And here it turned out that this living angel was only the daughter of an inn-keeper! But in that primitive and pleasant Canadian society such things, I thought, can easily be. No doubt she is the petted child of the house, the one heiress of the old man's savings; and after spending a winter holiday among the gaieties of Quebec, she is now returning to pass the Christmas season with her own family. I will not conceal the fact that I had already fallen over head and ears in love with Lucretia at first sight, and that frank avowal made me love her all the more. Besides, these Canadian hotel-keepers are often very rich; and was not her manner perfect, and was she not an intimate friend of the rector and his wife? All these things showed at least that she was accustomed to refined society. I caught myself already speculating as to what my mother would think of such a match. In five minutes it was all arranged about the hotel, and I had got into the midst of a swimming conversation with Lucretia. She told me about herself and her past; how she had been educated at a convent in Montreal, and loved the nuns, oh so dearly, though she was a Protestant herself, and only French on her mother's side. (This, I thought, was well, as a safeguard against parental prejudice.) She told me all the gossip of Richmond, and whom I should meet at the rector's, and what a dull little town it was. But Quebec was delightful, and Montreal--oh, if she could only live in Montreal, it would be perfect bliss. And so I thought myself, if only Lucretia would live there with me; but I prudently refrained from saying so, as I thought it rather premature. Or perhaps I blushed and stammered too much to get the words out. "Had she ever been in Europe?" No, never, but she would so like it. "Ah, it would be delightful to spend a month or two in Paris," I suggested, with internal pictures of a honeymoon floating through my brain. "Yes, that would be most enjoyable," she answered. Altogether, Lucretia and I kept chatting uninterruptedly the whole way to Richmond, and the other passengers must have voted us most unconscionable bores; for they evidently could not sleep by reason of our incessant talking. _We_ did not sleep, nor wish to sleep. And I am bound to say that a more frankly enchanting or seemingly guileless girl than Lucretia I have never met from that day to this. At last we reached Richmond Depôt (as the Canadians call the stations), very cold and tired externally, but lively enough as regards the internal fires. We got out, and looked after our luggage. A sleepy porter promised to bring it next morning to the hotel. There were no sleighs in waiting--Richmond is too much of a country station for that--so I took my reticule in my hand, threw Lucretia's rug across her shoulders, and proceeded to walk with her to the hotel. Now, the "Depôt" is in a suburb known as Melbourne, while Richmond itself lies on the other side of the river St. Francis, here crossed by a long covered bridge, a sort of rough wooden counterpart of the famous one at Lucerne. As we passed out into the cold night, it was snowing heavily, and the frost was very bitter. Lucretia took my arm without a word of prelude, as naturally as if she were my sister, and guided me through the snow-covered path to the bridge. When we got under the shelter of the wooden covering, we had to pass through the long dark gallery, as black as night, heading only for the dim square of moonlight at the other end. But Lucretia walked and chatted on as unconcernedly as if she had always been in the habit of traversing that lonely tunnel-like bridge with a total stranger every evening of her life. I confess I was surprised. I fancied a prim English girl in a similar situation, and I began to wonder whether all this artlessness was really as genuine as it looked. At the opposite end of the bridge we emerged upon a street of wooden frame houses. In one of them only was there a light. "That's the hotel!" said Lucretia, nodding towards it, and again I suffered a thrill of disappointment. I had pictured to myself a great solid building like the St. Lawrence Hall at Montreal, forgetting that Richmond was a mere country village; and here I found a bit of a frame cottage as the whole domain of Lucretia's supposed father. It was too awful! We reached the door and entered. Fresh surprises were in store for me. The passage led into a bar, where half-a-dozen French Canadians were sitting with bottles and glasses, playing some game of cards. One rather rough-looking young man jumped up in astonishment as we entered, and exclaimed, "Why, Lucretia, we didn't expect you for another hour. I meant to take the sleigh for you." I could have knocked him down for calling her by her Christian name, but the conviction flashed upon me that this was Lucretia's brother. He glanced up at the big Yankee clock on the mantelpiece, which pointed to a quarter past twelve, then pulled out his watch and whistled. "Stopped three quarters of an hour ago, by Jingo," was his comment. "Why, I forgot to wind it up. Upon my word, Lucretia, I'm awfully sorry. But who is the gentleman?" "A friend of the Pritchards, Tom dear, who wants a bed here to-night. I couldn't imagine why the sleigh didn't come for me. It's so unlike you not to remember it." And she gave him a look to melt adamant. Tom was profuse in his apologies, and made it quite clear that his intentions at least had been most excellent; besides, he kissed Lucretia with so much brotherly tenderness that I relented of my desire to knock him down. Then brother and sister retired for a while, apparently to see after my bedroom, and I was left alone in the bar. I cannot say I liked the look of it. The men were drinking whiskey and playing _écarté_--two bad things, I thought in my twenty-year-old propriety. My dear mother hated gambling, which hatred she had instilled into my youthful mind, and this was evidently a backwoods gambling-house. Moreover, I carried a bag of silver coin, quite large enough to make it well worth while, to rob me. The appearances were clearly against Lucretia's home; but surely Lucretia herself was a guarantee for anything. Presently Tom returned, and told me my room was ready. I followed him up the stairs with a beating heart and a heavy reticule. At the top of the landing Lucretia stood smiling, my candle in her hand, and showed me into the room. Tom and she looked around to see that all was comfortable, and then they both shook hands with me, which certainly seemed a curious thing for an inn-keeper and his sister. As soon as they were gone, I began to look about me and consider the situation. The room had two doors, but the key was gone from both. I opened one towards the passage, but found no key outside; the other, which probably communicated with a neighbouring bedroom, was locked from the opposite side. Moreover, there had once been a common bolt on this second door, but it had been removed. I looked close at the screw-holes, and was sure they were quite fresh. Could the bolt have been taken off while I was waiting in the bar? All at once it flashed upon my mind that I had been imprudently confiding in my disclosures to Lucretia. I had told her that I carried a hundred and fifty pounds in coin, an easy thing to rob and a difficult thing to identify. She had heard that nobody was aware of my presence in Richmond, except herself and her brother. I had not written to tell the Pritchards I was coming, and she knew that I had not told any one of my whereabouts, because I did not decide where I should go until I talked with her about the matter. No one in Canada would miss me. If these people chose to murder me for my money (and inn-keepers often murder their guests, I thought), nobody would think of inquiring or know where to inquire for me. Weeks would elapse before my mother wrote from England to ask my whereabouts, and by that time all traces might well be lost. I left Quebec only telling the people at my hotel that I was going to Montreal. Then I thought of Lucretia's eagerness to get into conversation, her observation about my money, her suggestion that I should come to the Richmond Hotel. And how could she, a small inn-keeper's daughter, afford to get all those fine furs and lockets by fair means? Did she really know the Pritchards, or was it likely, considering her position? All these things came across me in a moment. What a fool I had been ever to think of trusting such a girl! I got up and walked about the room. It was evidently Lucretia's own bedroom; "part of the decoy," said I to myself sapiently. But could so beautiful a girl really hurt one? A piece of music was lying on the dressing-table. I took it up and looked at it casually. Gracious heavens! it was a song from "Lucrezia Borgia!" Her very name betrayed her! She too was a Lucretia. I walked over to the mantelpiece. A little ivory miniature hung above the centre: I gave it a glance as I passed. Incredible! It was the Beatrice Cenci! Talk of beautiful women! Why, they poison one, they stab one, they burn one alive, with a smile on their lips. Lucretia must have a taste for murderesses. Evidently she is a connoisseur. At least, thought I, I shall sell my life dearly. I could not go to bed; but I pulled the bedstead over against one of the doors--the locked one--and I laid the mattress down in front of the other. Then I lay down on the mattress, my money-bag under my head, and put the poker conveniently by my side. If they came to rob and murder me, they should at least have a broken head to account for next day. But I soon got tired of this defensive attitude, and reflected that, if I must lie awake all night, I might as well have something to read. So I went over to the little book-case and took down the first book which came to hand. It bore on the outside the title "OEuvres de Victor Hugo. Tome I'er. Théâtre." "This, at any rate," said I to myself, "will be light and interesting." I returned to my mattress, opened the volume, and began to read _Le Roi s'amuse_. I had never before dipped into that terrible drama, and I devoured it with a horrid avidity. I read how Triboulet bribed the gipsy to murder the king; how the gipsy's sister beguiled him into the hut; how the plot was matured; and how the sack containing the corpse was delivered over to Triboulet. It was an awful play to read on such a night and in such a place, with the wind howling round the corners and the snow gathering deeply upon the window-panes. I was in a considerable state of fright when I began it: I was in an agony of terror before I had got half-way through. Now and then I heard footsteps on the stairs: again I could distinguish two voices, one a woman's, whispering outside the door; a little later, the other door was very slightly opened and then pushed back again stealthily by a man's hand. Still I read on. At last, just as I reached the point where Triboulet is about to throw the corpse into the river, my candle, a mere end, began to sputter in its socket, and after a few ineffectual flickers suddenly went out, leaving me in the dark till morning. I lay down once more, trembling but wearied out. A few minutes later the voices came again. The further door was opened a second time, and I saw dimly a pair of eyes (_not_, I felt sure, Lucretia's) peering in the gloom, and reflecting the light from the snow on the window. A man's voice said huskily in an undertone, "It's all right now;" and then there was a silence. I knew they were coming to murder me. I clutched the poker firmly, stood on guard over the dollars, and waited the assault. The moment that intervened seemed like a lifetime. A minute. Five minutes. A quarter of an hour. They are evidently trying to take me off my guard. Perhaps they saw the poker; in any case, they must have felt the bedstead against the door. That would show them that I expected them. I held my watch to my ear and counted the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours. When the candle went out it was three o'clock. I counted up till about half-past five. After that I must have fallen asleep from very weariness. My head glided back upon the reticule, and I dozed uneasily until morning. Every now and then I started in my sleep, but the murderers hung back. When I awoke it was eight o'clock, and the dollars were still safe under my head. I rose wearily, washed myself, and arranged the tumbled clothes in which I had slept, for my portmanteau had not yet arrived from the Depôt. Next, I put back the bed and mattress, and then I took the dollars and went downstairs to the bar, hardly knowing whether to laugh at my last night's terror, or to congratulate myself on my lucky escape from a den of robbers. At the foot of the stairs, whom should I come across but Lucretia herself! In a moment the doubt was gone. She was enchanting. Quite a different style of dress, but equally lovely and suitable. A long figured gown of some fine woollen material, giving very nearly the effect of a plain neat print, and made quite simply to fit her perfect little figure. A plain linen collar, and a quiet silver brooch. Hair tied in a single broad knot above the head, instead of yesterday's chignon and cheese-plate. Altogether, a model winter morning costume for a cold climate. And as she advanced frankly, holding out her hand with a smile, I could have cut my own throat with a pocket-knife as a merited punishment for daring to distrust her. Such is human nature at the ripe age of twenty! "We were so afraid you didn't sleep, Tom and I," she said with a little tone of anxiety; "we saw a light in your room till so very late, and Tom opened the door a wee bit once or twice to see if you were sleeping; but he said you seemed to have pulled the mattress on the floor. I _do_ hope you weren't ill." What on earth could I answer? Dare I tell this angel how I had suspected her? Impossible! "Well," I stammered out, colouring up to my eyes, "I _was_ rather over-tired, and couldn't get to rest, so I put the candle on a chair, took a book, and lay on the floor so as to have a light to read by. But I slept very well after the candle went out, thank you." "There were none but French books in the room, though," she said quickly: "perhaps you read French?" "I read _Le Roi s'amuse_, or part of it," said I. "Oh, what a dreadful play to read on Christmas Eve!" cried Lucretia, with a little deprecating gesture. "But you must come and have your breakfast." I followed her into the dining-room, a pretty little bright-looking room behind the bar. Frightened as I was during the night, I could not fail to notice how tastefully the bedroom was furnished; but this little _salle-à-manger_ was far prettier. The paper, the carpet, the furniture, were all models of what cheap and simple cottage decorations ought to be. They breathed of Lucretia. The Montreal nuns had evidently taught her what "art at home" meant. The table was laid, and the white table-cloth, with its bright silver and sprays of evergreen in the vase, looked delightfully appetising. I began to think I might manage a breakfast after all. "How pretty all your things are!" I said to Lucretia. "Do you think so?" she answered. "I chose them, and I laid the table." I looked surprised; but in a moment more I was fairly overwhelmed when Lucretia left the room for a minute, and then returned carrying a tray covered with dishes. These she rapidly and dexterously placed upon the table, and then asked me to take my seat. "But," said I, hesitating, "am I to understand.... You don't mean to say.... Are you ... going ... to _wait upon me_?" Lucretia's face was one smile of innocent amusement from her white little forehead to her chiselled little chin. "Why, yes," she answered, laughing, "of course I am. I always wait upon our guests when I'm at home. And I cooked these salmon cutlets, which I'm sure you'll find nice if you only try them while they're hot." With which recommendation she uncovered all the dishes, and displayed a breakfast that might have tempted St. Anthony. Not being St. Anthony, I can do Lucretia's breakfast the justice to say that I ate it with unfeigned heartiness. So my princess was, after all, the domestic manager and assistant cook of a small country inn! Not a countess, not even a murderess (which is at least romantic), but only a prosaic housekeeper! Yet she _was_ a princess for all that. Did she not read Victor Hugo, and play "Lucrezia Borgia," and spread her own refinement over the village tavern? In no other country could you find such a strange mixture of culture and simplicity; but it was new, it was interesting, and it was piquant. Lucretia in her morning dress officiously insisting upon offering me the buckwheat pancakes with her own white hands was Lucretia still, and I fell deeper in love than ever. After breakfast came a serious difficulty. I must go to the Pritchards, but before I went, I must pay. Yet, how was I to ask for my bill? I _couldn't_ demand it of Lucretia. So I sat a while ruminating, and at last I said, "I wonder how people do when they want to leave this house." "Why," said Lucretia, promptly, "they order the sleigh." "Yes," I answered sheepishly, "no doubt. But how do they manage about paying?" Lucretia smiled. She was so absolutely transparent, and so accustomed to her simple way of doing business, that I suppose she did not comprehend my difficulty. "They ask _me_, of course, and I tell them what they owe. You owe us half-a-dollar." Half-a-dollar--two shillings sterling--for a night of romance and terror, a bed and bedroom, a regal breakfast, and--Lucretia to wait upon one! It was _too_ ridiculous. And these were the good simple Canadian villagers whom I had suspected of wishing to rob and murder me! I never felt so ashamed of my own stupidity in the whole course of my life. I must pay it somehow, I supposed, but I could not bear to hand over two shilling pieces into Lucretia's outstretched palm. It was desecration, it was sheer sacrilege. But Lucretia took the half-dollar with the utmost calmness, and went out to order the sleigh. I drove to the rector's, after saying good-bye to Lucretia, with a clear determination that before I left Richmond she should have consented to become my wife. Of course there were social differences, but those would be forgotten in South Kensington, and nobody need ever know what Lucretia had been in Canada. Besides, she was fit to shine in the society of duchesses--a society into which I cannot honestly pretend that I habitually penetrate. The rector and his wife gave me a hearty welcome, and I found Mrs. Pritchard a good motherly sort of body--just the right woman for helping on a romantic love-match. So, in the course of the morning, as we walked back from church, I managed to mention to her casually that a very nice young woman had come down in the train with me from Quebec. "You don't mean Lucretia?" cried good Mrs. Pritchard. "Lucretia," I answered in a cold sort of way, "I think that _was_ her name. In fact, I remember she told me so." "Oh yes, everybody calls her Lucretia--indeed, she's hardly got any other name. She's the dearest creature in the world, as simple as a child, yet the most engaging and kind-hearted girl you ever met. She was brought up by some nuns at Montreal, and being a very clever girl, with a great deal of taste, she was their favourite pupil, and has turned out a most cultivated person." "Does she paint?" I asked, thinking of the Beatrice. "Oh, beautifully. Her ivory miniatures always take prizes at the Toronto Exhibition. And she plays and sings charmingly." "Are they well off?" "Very, for Canadians. Lucretia has money of her own, and they have a good farm besides the hotel." "She said she knew you very well," I ventured to suggest. "Oh yes; in fact, she's coming here this evening. We have an early dinner--you know our simple Canadian habits--and a few friends will drop in to high tea after evening service. She and Tom will be among them--you met Tom, of course?" "I had the pleasure of making Tom's acquaintance at one o'clock this morning," I answered. "But, excuse my asking it, isn't it a little odd for you to mix with people in their position?" The rector smiled and put in his word. "This is a democratic country," he said; "a mere farmer community, after all. We have little society in Richmond, and are very glad to know such pleasant intelligent people as Tom and Lucretia." "But then, the _convenances_," I urged, secretly desiring to have my own position strengthened. "When I got to the hotel last night, or rather this morning, there were a lot of rough-looking hulking fellows drinking whiskey and playing cards." "Ah, I dare say. Old Picard, and young Le Patourel from Melbourne, and the Post Office people sitting over a quiet game of _écarté_ while they waited for the last train. The English mail was in last night. As for the whiskey, that's the custom of the country. We Canadians do nothing without whiskey. A single glass of Morton's proof does nobody any harm." And these were my robbers and gamblers? A party of peaceable farmers and sleepy Post officials, sitting up with a sober glass of toddy and beguiling the time with _écarté_ for love, in expectation of Her Majesty's mails. I shall never again go to bed with a poker by my side as long as I live. About seven o'clock our friends came in. Lucretia was once more charming; this time in a long evening dress, a peach-coloured silk with square-cut boddice, and a little lace cap on her black hair. I dare say I saw almost the full extent of her wardrobe in those three changes; but the impression she produced upon me was still that of boundless wealth. However, as she had money of her own, I no longer wondered at the richness of her toilette, and I reflected that a comfortable little settlement might help to outweigh any possible prejudice on my mother's part. Lucretia was the soul of the evening. She talked, she flirted innocently with every man in the room (myself included), she played divinely, and she sang that very song from "Lucrezia Borgia" in a rich contralto voice. As she rose at last from the piano, I could contain myself no longer. I must find some opportunity of proposing to her there and then. I edged my way to the little group where she was standing, flushed with the compliments on her song, talking to our hostess near the piano. As I approached from behind, I could hear that they were speaking about me, and I caught a few words distinctly. I paused to listen. It was very wrong, but twenty is an impulsive age. "Oh, a very nice young man indeed," Lucretia was saying; "and we had a most enjoyable journey down. He talked so simply, and seemed such an innocent boy, so I took quite a fancy to him." (My heart beat about two hundred pulsations to the minute.) "Such a clever, intelligent talker too, full of wide English views and interests, so different from our narrow provincial Canadian lads." (Oh, Lucretia, I feel sure of you now. Love at first sight on both sides, evidently!) "And then he spoke to me so nicely about his mother. I was quite grieved to think he should be travelling alone on Christmas Eve, and so pleased when I heard he was to spend his Christmas with you, dear. I thought what I should have felt if----" I listened with all my ears. What could Lucretia be going to say? "If _one of my own dear boys was grown up_, and passing his Christmas alone in a strange land." I reeled. The room swam before me. It was too awful. So all that Lucretia had ever felt was a mere motherly interest in me as a solitary English boy away from his domestic turkey on the twenty-fifth of December! Terrible, hideous, blighting fact! Lucretia was married! The rector's refreshments in the adjoining dining-room only went to the length of sponge-cake and weak claret-cup. I managed to get away from the piano without fainting, and swallowed about a quart of the intoxicating beverage by tumblerfuls. When I had recovered sufficiently from the shock to trust my tongue, I ventured back into the drawing-room. It struck me then that I had never yet heard Lucretia's surname. When she and her brother arrived in the early part of the evening, Mrs. Pritchard had simply introduced them to me by saying, "I think you know Tom and Lucretia already." Colonial manners are so unceremonious. I joined the fatal group once more. "Do you know," I said, addressing Lucretia with as little tremor in my voice as I could easily manage, "it's very curious, but I have never heard your surname yet." "Dear me," cried Lucretia, "I quite forgot. Our name is Arundel." "And which is Mr. Arundel?" I continued. "I should like to make his acquaintance." "Why," answered Lucretia with a puzzled expression of face, "you've met him already. Here he is!" And she took a neighbouring young man in unimpeachable evening dress gently by the arm. He turned round. It required a moment's consideration to recognize in that tall and gentlemanly young fellow with the plain gold studs and turndown collar my rough acquaintance of last night, Tom himself! I saw it in a flash. What a fool I had been! I might have known they were husband and wife. Nothing but a pure piece of infatuated preconception could ever have made me take them for brother and sister. But I had so fully determined in my own mind to win Lucretia for myself that the notion of any other fellow having already secured the prize had never struck me. It was all the fault of that incomprehensible Canadian society, with its foolish removal of the natural barriers between classes. My mother was quite right. I should henceforth be a high-and-dry conservative in all matters matrimonial, return home in the spring with heart completely healed, and after passing correctly through a London season, marry the daughter of a general or a Warwickshire squire, with the full consent of all the high contracting parties, at St. George's, Hanover Square. With this noble and moral resolution firmly planted in my bosom, I made my excuses to the rector and his good little wife, and left Richmond for ever the very next morning, without even seeing Lucretia once again. But, somehow, I have never quite forgotten that journey from Quebec on Christmas Eve; and though I have passed through several London seasons since that date, and undergone increasingly active sieges from mammas and daughters, as my briefs on the Oxford Circuit grow more and more numerous, I still remain a bachelor, with solitary chambers in St. James's. I sometimes fancy it might have been otherwise if I could only once have met a second paragon exactly like Lucretia. _THE THIRD TIME._ I. If Harry Lewin had never come to Stoke Peveril, Edie Meredith would certainly have married her cousin Evan. For Evan Meredith was the sort of man that any girl of Edie's temperament might very easily fall in love with. Tall, handsome, with delicate, clear-cut Celtic face, piercing yet pensive black Welsh eyes, and the true Cymric gifts of music and poetry, Evan Meredith had long been his pretty cousin's prime favourite among all the young men of all Herefordshire. She had danced with him over and over again at every county ball; she had talked with him incessantly at every lawn-tennis match and garden-party; she had whispered to him quietly on the sofa in the far corner while distinguished amateurs were hammering away conscientiously at the grand piano; and all the world of Herefordshire took it for granted that young Mr. Meredith and his second cousin were, in the delightfully vague slang of society, "almost engaged." Suddenly, like a flaming meteor across the quiet evening skies, Harry Lewin burst in all his dashing splendour upon the peaceful and limited Herefordshire horizon. He came from that land of golden possibilities, Australia; but he was Irish by descent, and his father had sent him young to Eton and Oxford, where he picked up the acquaintance of everybody worth knowing, and a sufficient knowledge of things in general to pass with brilliant success in English society. In his vacations, having no home of his own to go to, he had loitered about half the capitals and spas of Europe, so that Vichy and Carlsbad, Monte Carlo and Spezzia, Berlin and St. Petersburg, were almost as familiar to him as London and Scarborough. Nobody knew exactly what his father had been: some said a convict, some a gold-miner, some a bush-ranger; but whatever he was, he was at least exceedingly rich, and money covers a multitude of sins quite as well and as effectually as charity. When Harry Lewin came into his splendid property at his father's death, and purchased the insolvent Lord Tintern's old estate at Stoke Peveril, half the girls and all the mothers in the whole of Herefordshire rose at once to a fever of anxiety in their desire to know upon which of the marriageable young women of the county the wealthy new-comer would finally bestow himself in holy matrimony. There was only one girl in the Stoke district who never appeared in the slightest degree flattered or fluttered by Harry Lewin's polite attentions, and that girl was Edie Meredith. Though she was only the country doctor's daughter--"hardly in our set at all, you know," the county people said depreciatingly--she had no desire to be the mistress of Peveril Court, and she let Harry Lewin see pretty clearly that she didn't care the least in the world for that distinguished honour. It was at a garden party at Stoke Peveril Rectory that Edie Meredith met one afternoon her cousin Evan and the rich young Irish-Australian. Harry Lewin had stood talking to her with his easy jaunty manner, so perfectly self-possessed, so full of Irish courtesy and Etonian readiness, when Evan Meredith, watching them half angrily out of his dark Welsh eyes from the corner by the laburnum tree, walked slowly over to interrupt their _tête-à-tête_ of set purpose. He chose certainly an awkward moment: for his earnest serious face and figure showed to ill advantage just then and there beside the light-hearted cheery young Oxonian's. Edie fancied as he strolled up to her that she had never seen her cousin Evan look so awkward, so countrified, and so awfully Welsh. (On the border counties, to look like a Welshman is of course almost criminal.) She wondered she had overlooked till now the fact that his was distinctly a local and rustic sort of handsomeness. He looked like a Herefordshire squireen gentleman, while Harry Lewin, with his Irish chivalry and his Oxford confidence, looked like a cosmopolitan and a man of society. As Evan came up, glancing blackly at him from under his dark eyebrows, Harry Lewin moved away carelessly, raising his hat and strolling off as if quite unconcerned, to make way for the new-comer. Evan nodded to him a distant nod, and then turned to his cousin Edie. "You've been talking a great deal with that fellow Lewin," he said sharply, almost angrily, glancing straight at her with his big black eyes. Edie was annoyed at the apparent assumption of a right to criticise her. "Mr. Lewin's a very agreeable man," she answered quietly, without taking the least notice of his angry tone. "I always like to have a chat with him, Evan. He's been everywhere and knows all about everything--Paris and Vienna, and I don't know where. So very different, of course, from our Stoke young men, who've never been anywhere in their whole lives beyond Bristol or Hereford." "Bristol and Hereford are much better places, I've no doubt, for a man to be brought up in than Paris or Vienna," Evan Meredith retorted hastily, the hot blood flushing up at once into his dusky cheek. "But as you seem to be so very much taken up with your new admirer, Edie, I'm sure I'm very sorry I happened at such an unpropitious moment to break in upon your conversation." "So am I," Edie answered, quietly and with emphasis. She hardly meant it, though she was vexed with Evan; but Evan took her immediately at her word. Without another syllable he raised his hat, turned upon his heel, and left her standing there alone, at some little distance from her mother, by the edge of the oval grass-plot. It was an awkward position for a girl to be left in--for everybody would have seen that Evan had retired in high dudgeon--had not Harry Lewin promptly perceived it, and with quiet tact managed to return quite casually to her side, and walk back with her to her mother's protection, so as to hide at once her confusion and her blushes. As for Evan, he wandered off moodily by himself among the lilacs and arbutus bushes of the lower shrubbery. He had been pacing up and down there alone for half an hour or more, nursing his wrath and jealousy in his angry heart, when he saw between the lilac branches on the upper walk the flash of Edie's pretty white dress, followed behind at a discreet distance by the rustle of Mrs. Meredith's black satin. Edie was walking in front with Harry Lewin, and Mrs. Meredith, attempting vainly to affect a becoming interest in the rector's conversation, was doing the proprieties at twenty paces. As they passed, Evan Meredith heard Harry Lewin's voice murmuring something in a soft, gentle, persuasive flow, not a word of which he could catch individually, though the general accent and intonation showed him at once that Harry was pleading earnestly with his cousin Edie. Evan could have written her verses--pretty enough verses, too--by the foolscap ream; but though he had the Welsh gift of rhyme, he hadn't the Irish gift of fluency and eloquence; and he knew in his own heart that he could never have poured forth to any woman such a steady, long, impassioned flood of earnest solicitation as Harry Lewin was that moment evidently pouring forth to his cousin Edie. He held his breath in silent expectation, and waited ten whole endless seconds--a long eternity--to catch the tone of Edie's answer. Instead of the mere tone, he caught distinctly the very words of that low soft musical reply. Edie murmured after a slight pause: "No, no, Mr. Lewin, I must not--I cannot. I do not love you." Evan Meredith waited for no more. He knew partly from that short but ominous pause, and still more from the half-hearted, hesitating way in which the nominal refusal was faintly spoken, that his cousin Edie would sooner or later accept his rival. He walked away, fiercely indignant, and going home, sat down to his desk, and wrote at white-heat an angry letter, beginning simply "Edith Meredith," in which he released her formally and unconditionally from the engagement which both of them declared had never existed. Whether his letter expedited Harry Lewin's wooing or not, it is at least certain that in the end Evan Meredith's judgment was approved by the result; and before the next Christmas came round again, Edie was married to Harry Lewin, and duly installed as mistress of Peveril Court. II. The first three months of Edie Lewin's married life passed away happily and pleasantly. Harry was always kindness itself to her; and as she saw more of him, she found in him what she had not anticipated, an unsuspected depth and earnestness of purpose. She had thought him at first a brilliant, dashing, clever Irishman; she discovered upon nearer view that he had something more within him than mere showy external qualities. He was deeply in love with her: he respected and admired her: and in the midst of all his manly chivalry of demeanour towards his wife there was a certain indefinable air of self-restraint and constant watchfulness over his own actions which Edie noticed with some little wifely pride and pleasure. She had not married a mere handsome rich young fellow; she had married a man of character and determination. About three months after their marriage, Harry Lewin was called away for the first time to leave his bride. An unexpected letter from his lawyer in London--immediate business--those bothering Australian shares and companies! Would Edie forgive him? He would run up for the day only, starting early and getting back late the same night. It's a long run from Stoke to London, but you can just manage it if you fit your trains with dexterous ingenuity. So Harry went, and Edie was left alone, for the first time in her life, in the big rooms of Peveril Court for a whole day. That very afternoon Evan Meredith and his father happened to call. It was Evan's first visit to the bride, for he couldn't somehow make up his mind to see her earlier. He was subdued, silent, constrained, regretful, but he said nothing in allusion to the past--nothing but praise of the Peveril Court grounds, the beauty of the house, the charm of the surroundings, the magnificence of the old Romneys and Sir Joshuas. "You have a lovely place, Edie," he said, hesitating a second before he spoke the old familiar name, but bringing it out quite naturally at last. "And your husband? I hope I may have the--the pleasure of seeing him again." Edie coloured. "He has gone up to town to-day," she answered simply. "By himself?" "By himself, Evan." Evan Meredith coughed uneasily, and looked at her with a silent look which said more plainly than words could have said it, "Already!" "He will be back this evening," Edie went on apologetically, answering aloud his unspoken thought. "I--I'm sorry he isn't here to see you, Evan." "I'm sorry too, very sorry," Evan answered with a half-stifled sigh. He didn't mean to let her see the ideas that were passing through his mind; but his quick, irrepressible Celtic nature allowed the internal emotions to peep out at once through the thin cloak of that conventionally polite expression of regret. Edie knew he meant he was very sorry that Harry should have gone away so soon and left her. That evening, about ten o'clock, as Edie, sitting alone in the blue drawing-room, was beginning to wonder when Harry's dogcart would be heard rolling briskly up the front avenue, there came a sudden double rap at the front door, and the servant brought in a sealed telegram. Edie tore it open with some misgiving. It was not from Harry. She read it hastily: "From Proprietor, Norton's Hotel, Jermyn Street, London, to Mrs. Lewin, Peveril Court, Stoke Peveril, Herefordshire. Mr. Lewin unfortunately detained in town by urgent business. He will not be able to return before to-morrow." Edie laid down the telegram with a sinking heart. In itself there was nothing so very strange in Harry's being detained by business; men are always being detained by business; she knew it was a way they had, a masculine peculiarity. But why had not Harry telegraphed himself? Why had he left the proprietor of Norton's Hotel to telegraph for him? Why was he at Norton's Hotel at all? And if he really was there, why could he not have written the telegram himself? It was very mysterious, perplexing, and inexplicable. Tears came into Edie's eyes, and she sat long looking at the flimsy pink Government paper, as if the mere inspection of the hateful message would help her to make out the meaning of the enclosed mystery. Soon the question began to occur to her, what should she do for the night's arrangements? Peveril Court was so big and lonely; she hated the idea of stopping there alone. Should she have out the carriage and drive round to spend the night as of old at her mother's? But no; it was late, and the servants would think it so very odd of her. People would talk about it; they would say Harry had stopped away from her unexpectedly, and that she had gone back in a pique to her own home. Young wives, she knew, are always doing those foolish things, and always regretting them afterwards when they find the whole county magnifying the molehill into a veritable mountain. Much as she dreaded it, she must spend the night alone in that big bedroom--the haunted bedroom where the last of the Peverils died. Poor little Edie! with her simple, small, village ways, she hated that great rambling house, and all its halls and staircases and corridors! But there was no help for it. She went tearfully up to her own room, and flung herself without undressing on the great bed with the heavy crimson tapestry hangings. There she lay all night, tossing and turning, crying and wondering, dozing off at times and starting up again fitfully, but never putting out the candles on the dressing-table, which had burned away deep in the sockets by the time morning began to peep through the grey Venetians of the east window. III. Next morning Evan Meredith heard accidentally that Harry Lewin had stopped for the night in London, and had telegraphed unexpectedly to Edie that he had been detained in town on business. Evan shook his head with an ominous look. "Poor child," he said to himself pityingly; "she _would_ marry a man who had been brought up in Paris and Vienna!" And when Harry came back that evening by the late train, Evan Meredith was loitering casually by the big iron gates of Peveril Court to see whether Edie's husband was really returning. There was a very grave and serious look on Harry's face that surprised and somewhat disconcerted Evan. He somehow felt that Harry's expression was not that of a careless, dissipated fellow, and he said to himself, this time a little less confidently: "Perhaps after all I may have been misjudging him." Edie was standing to welcome her husband on the big stone steps of the old manor house. He stepped from the dogcart, not lightly with a spring as was his usual wont, but slowly and almost remorsefully, like a man who has some evil tidings to break to those he loves dearest. But he kissed Edie as tenderly as ever--even more tenderly, she somehow imagined; and he looked at her with such a genuine look of love that Edie thought it was well worth while for him to go away for the sake of such a delightful meeting. "Well, darling," she asked, as she went with him into the great dining-room, "why didn't you come back to the little wifie, as you promised yesterday?" Harry looked her full in the face, not evasively or furtively, but with a frank, open glance, and answered in a very quiet voice, "I was detained on business, Edie." "What business?" Edie asked, a little piqued at the indefiniteness of the answer. "Business that absolutely prevented me from returning," Harry replied, with a short air of perfect determination. Edie tried in vain to get any further detail out of him. To all her questions Harry only answered with the one set and unaltered formula, "I was detained on important business." But when she had asked him for the fiftieth time in the drawing-room that evening, he said at last, not at all angrily, but very seriously, "It was business, Edie, closely connected with your own happiness. If I had returned last night, you would have been sorry for it, sooner or later. I stayed away for your own sake, darling. Please ask me no more about it." Edie couldn't imagine what he meant; but he spoke so seriously, and smoothed her hand with such a tender, loving gesture, that she kissed him fervently, and brushed away the tears from her swimming eyes without letting him see them. As for Harry, he sat long looking at the embers in the smouldering fire, and holding his pretty little wife's hand tight in his without uttering a single syllable. At last, just as they were rising to go upstairs, he laid his hand upon the mantelpiece as if to steady himself, and said very earnestly, "Edie, with God's help, I hope it shall never occur again." "What, Harry darling? What do you mean? What will never occur again?" He paused a moment. "That I should be compelled to stop a night away from you unexpectedly," he answered then very slowly. And when he had said it he took up the candle from the little side table and walked away, with two tears standing in his eyes, to his own dressing-room. From that day forth Edie Lewin noticed two things. First, that her husband seemed to love her even more tenderly and deeply than ever. And second, that his strange gravity and self-restraint seemed to increase daily upon him. And Evan Meredith, watching closely his cousin and her husband, thought to himself with a glow of satisfaction--for he was too generous and too true in his heart to wish ill to his rival--"After all, he loves her truly; he is really in love with her. Edie will be rich now, and will have a good husband. What could I ever have given her compared to what Harry Lewin can give her? It is better so. I must not regret it." IV. For five or six months more, life passed as usual at Peveril Court, or at Harry Lewin's new town house in Curzon Street, Mayfair. The season came and went pleasantly enough, with its round of dances, theatres, and dinners; and in the autumn Edie Lewin found herself once more back for the shooting in dear old Herefordshire. Harry was always by her side, the most attentive and inseparable of husbands; he seemed somehow to cling to her passionately, as if he could not bear to be out of her sight for a single moment. Edie noticed it, and felt grateful for his love. Evan Meredith noticed it too, and reproached himself bitterly more than once that he should ever so unworthily have distrusted the man who had been brought up in Paris and Vienna. One day, however, Harry had ridden from Stoke to Hereford, for the exercise alone, and Edie expected him back to dinner. But at half-past seven, just as the gong in the hall was burrr-ing loudly, a telegram arrived once more for Mrs. Lewin, which Edie tore open with trembling fingers. It was almost exactly the same mystifying message over again, only this time it was sent by Harry himself, not by an unknown hotel-keeping deputy. "I have been suddenly detained here by unexpected business. Do not expect me home before to-morrow. Shall return as early as possible. God bless you!" Those last words, so singular in a telegram, roused and accentuated all Edie's womanly terrors. "God bless you!"--what on earth could Harry mean by that solemn adjuration under such strange and mysterious circumstances? There was something very serious the matter, Edie felt sure; but what it could be she could not even picture to herself. Her instinctive fears did not take that vulgarly mistrustful form that they might have taken with many a woman of lower and more suspicious nature; she knew and trusted Harry far too well for that; she was too absolutely certain of his whole unshaken love and tenderness; but the very vagueness and indefiniteness of the fears she felt made them all the harder and more terrible to bear. When you don't know what it is you dread, your fancy can dress up its terrors afresh every moment in some still more painful and distressing disguise. If Harry had let her know where he was stopping, she would have ordered the carriage then and there, and driven over to Hereford, not to spy him out, but to be with him in his trouble or difficulty. That, however, was clearly impossible, for Harry had merely sent his telegram as from "H. Lewin, Hereford;" and to go about from hotel to hotel through the county town, inquiring whether her husband was staying there, would of course have been open to the most ridiculous misinterpretation. Everybody would have said she was indeed keeping a tight hand upon him! So with many bitter tears brushed hastily away, Edie went down in solemn and solitary state to dinner, hating herself for crying so foolishly, and burning hot with the unpleasant consciousness that the butler and footman were closely observing her face and demeanour. If she could have dined quite alone in her own boudoir very furtively it wouldn't have been quite so dreadful; but to keep up appearances with a sinking heart before those two eminently respectable and officious men-servants--it was really enough to choke one. That night again Edie Lewin never slept for more than a few troubled minutes together; and whenever she awoke, it was with a start and a scream, and a vague consciousness of some impending evil. When Harry came again next day he didn't laugh it off carelessly and lightly; he didn't soothe her fears and uneasiness with ready kisses and prompt excuses; he didn't get angry with her and tell her not to ask him too many questions about his own business: he met her as gravely and earnestly as before, with the same tender, loving, half self-reproachful tone, and yet with the same evident desire and intention to love and cherish her more fondly than ever. Edie was relieved, but she was by no means satisfied. She knew Harry loved her tenderly, devotedly; but she knew also there was some sort of shadow or secret looming ominously between them. Another wife, supposed dead? He would have trusted her and told her. Another love? Oh, no: she could trust him; it was impossible. And so the weeks wore away, and Edie wondered all to no purpose. At last, by dint of constant wondering, she almost wore out the faculty of wonder, and half ceased to think about it any longer. But she noticed that from day to day the old bright, brilliant Irish character was slowly fading out of Harry's nature, and that in its place there was growing up a settled, noble, not unbecoming earnestness. He seemed perhaps a trifle less striking and attractive than formerly, but a great deal worthier of any true woman's enduring love and admiration. Evan Meredith noticed the change as well. He and Harry had grown now into real friends. Harry saw and recognized the genuine depth of Evan's nature. Evan had made amends and apologies to Harry for a single passing rudeness or two. Both liked the other better for the momentary rivalry and for the way he had soon forgotten it. "He's a good fellow," Evan said to his father often, "and Edie, with her quiet, simple English nature, has made quite another man of him--given him the ballast and the even steadiness he once wanted." V. Spring came, and then summer; and with summer, the annual visitation of garden parties. The Trenches at Malbury Manor were going to give a garden party, and Harry and Edie drove across to it. Edie took her husband over in the pony-carriage with the two little greys she loved so well to drive herself: the very prettiest and best-matched ponies, everybody said, in the whole county of Hereford. As they walked about on the lawn together, they met Edie's father and mother. Somehow, Edie happened to fasten herself accidentally upon her mother, while Harry strolled away alone, and stood talking with something of his old brilliancy to one group or another of loungers independently. For awhile, Edie missed him; he had gone off to look at the conservatories or something. Then, she saw him chatting with Canon Wilmington and his daughters over by one of the refreshment tables, and handing them champagne cup and ices, while he talked with unusual volubility and laughter. Presently he came up to her again, and to her great surprise said, with a yawn, "Edie, this is getting dreadfully slow. I can't stand it any longer. I think I shall just slip away quietly and walk home; you can come after me whenever you like with the ponies! Good-bye till dinner. God bless you, darling!" It wasn't a usual form of address with him, and Edie vaguely noted it in passing, but thought nothing more about the matter after the first moment. "Good-bye, Harry," she said laughingly. "Perhaps Evan will see me home. Good-bye." Harry smiled rather sadly. "Evan has ridden over on one of my cobs," he answered quietly, "and so I suppose he'll have to ride back again." "He's the best fellow that ever lived," Evan said, as Harry turned away with a friendly nod. "Upon my word, I'm quite ashamed of the use I make of your husband's stables, Edie." "Nonsense, Evan; we're always both delighted when you will use anything of ours as if it were your own." At six o'clock the ponies were stopping the way, and Edie prepared to drive home alone. She took the bye-road at the back of the grounds in preference to the turnpike, because it wouldn't be so crowded or so dusty for her to drive upon. They had gone about a mile from the house, and had passed the Beehive, where a group of half-tipsy fellows was loitering upon the road outside the tavern, when a few hundred yards further Edie suddenly checked the greys for no immediately apparent reason. "Got a stone in his hoof, ma'am?" the groom asked, looking down curiously at the off horse, and preparing to alight for the expected emergency. "No," Edie answered with a sudden shake of her head. "Look there, William! On the road in front of us! What a disgusting brute. I nearly ran over him." The groom looked in the direction where Edie pointed with her whip, and saw lying on the ground, straight before the horses' heads, a drunken man, asleep and helpless, with a small pocket flask clasped in his hand, quite empty. "Pick him up!" Edie said in a tone of disgust. "Carry him over and lay him on the side of the road there, will you, William?" The man went off to do as he was directed. At that moment, Evan Meredith, coming up from behind on Harry's cob, called out lightly, "Can I help you, Edie? What's the matter? Ho! One of those beastly fellows from the Beehive yonder. Hold a minute, William, you've got a regular job there--more than an armful. Drunken men are heavy to carry. Wait a bit, and I'll come and help you." Ho rode forward, to the groom's side just as the groom raised in his arms the drunkard's head and exposed to view his down-turned face. Then, with a sudden cry of horror and pity, Evan Meredith, not faltering for a moment, drove his heel into his horse's flank, and rode off, speechless with conflicting emotions, leaving Edie there alone, face to face with her fallen husband. It was Harry Lewin. Apoplexy? Epilepsy? An accident? A sunstroke? No, no. Edie could comfort herself with none of those instantaneous flashes of conjecture, for his face and his breath would alone have told the whole story, even if the empty flask in his drunken hand had not at once confirmed the truth of her first apprehension. She sat down beside him on the green roadside, buried her poor face in her trembling hands, and cried silently, silently, silently, for twenty minutes. The groom, standing motionless officially beside her, let her tears have free vent, and knew not what to say or do under such extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances. One thing only Edie thought once or twice in the midst of that awful blinding discovery. Thank God that Evan Meredith had not stopped there to see her misery and degradation. An Englishman might have remained like a fool, with the clumsy notion of assisting her in her trouble, and getting him safely home to Peveril Court for her. Evan, with his quick Welsh perception, had seen in a second that the only possible thing for her own equals to do on such an occasion was to leave her alone with her unspeakable wretchedness. After a while, she came to a little, by dint of crying and pure exhaustion, and began to think that something must at least be done to hide this terrible disgrace from the prying eyes of all Herefordshire. She rose mechanically, without a word, and motioning the groom to take the feet, she lifted Harry's head--her own husband's head--that drunken wretch's head--great heavens, which was it? and helped to lay him silently on the floor of the pony carriage. He was helpless and motionless as a baby. Her eyes were dry now, and she hardly even shuddered. She got into the carriage again, covered over the breathing mass of insensible humanity at the bottom with her light woollen wrapper, and drove on in perfect silence till she reached Peveril Court. As she drew up in front of the door, the evening was beginning to close in rapidly. The groom, still silent, jumped from the carriage, and ran up the steps with his usual drilled accuracy to ring the bell. Edie beckoned to him imperiously with her hand to stop and come back to her. He paused, and turned down the steps again to hear what she wished. Edie's lips were dry; she couldn't utter a word: but she pointed mutely to her husband's prostrate form, and the groom understood at once that she wished him to lift Harry out of the carriage. Hastily and furtively they carried him in at the library door--the first room inside the house--and there they laid him out upon the sofa, Edie putting one white finger passionately on her lip to enjoin silence. As soon as that was done, she sat down to the table with marvellous resolution, and wrote out a cheque for twenty pounds from her own cheque-book. Then at last she found speech with difficulty. "William," she said, her dry husky throat almost choking with the effort, "take that, instead of notice. Go away at once--I'll drive you to the station--go to London, and never say a single word of this to any one." William touched his hat in silence, and walked back slowly to the carriage. Edie, now flushed and feverish, but dry of lips and erect of mien, turned the key haughtily in the door, and stalked out to the greys once more. Silently still she drove to the station, and saw William take the London train. "You shall have a character," she said, very quietly; "write to me for it. But never say a word of this for your life to anybody." William touched his hat once more, and went away, meaning conscientiously in his own soul to keep this strange and unexpected compact. Then Edie drove herself back to Peveril Court, feeling that only Evan Meredith knew besides; and she could surely count at least on Evan's honour. But to-morrow! to-morrow! what could she ever do to-morrow? Hot and tearless still, she rang the drawing-room bell. "Mr. Lewin will not be home to-night," she said, with no further word of explanation. "I shall not dine. Tell Watkins to bring me a cup of tea in my own bedroom." The maid brought it, and Edie drank it. It moistened her lips and broke the fever. Then she flung herself passionately upon the bed, and cried, and cried, and cried, wildly, till late in the evening. Eleven o'clock came. Twelve o'clock. One. She heard them tolling out from the old clock-tower, clanging loudly from the church steeple, clinking and tinkling from all the timepieces in all the rooms of Peveril Court. But still she lay there, and wept, and sobbed, and thought of nothing. She didn't even figure it or picture it to herself; her grief and shame and utter abasement were too profound for mind to fathom. She only felt in a dim, vague, half-unconscious fashion that Harry--the Harry she had loved and worshipped--was gone from her for ever and ever. In his place, there had come that irrational, speechless, helpless Thing that lay below, breathing heavily in its drunken sleep, down on the library sofa. VI. By half-past one the lights had long been out in all the rooms, and perfect silence reigned throughout the household. Impelled by a wild desire to see him once more, even though she loathed him, Edie took a bedroom candle in her hand, and stole slowly down the big staircase. Loathed him? Loved him--ay, loved him even so. Loved him, and the more she loved him, the more utterly loathed him. If it had been any lesser or lower man, she might have forgiven him. But _him_--Harry--it was too unspeakable. Creeping along the passage to the library door, she paused and listened. Inside, there was a noise of footsteps, pacing up and down the room hurriedly. He had come to himself, then! He had slept off his drunken helplessness! She paused and listened again to hear further. Harry was stalking to and fro across the floor with fiery eagerness, sobbing bitterly to himself, and pausing every now and then with a sort of sudden spasmodic hesitation. From time to time she heard him mutter aloud, "She must have seen me! She must have seen me! They will tell her, they will tell her! Oh, God! they will tell her!" Should she unlock the door, and fling herself wildly into his arms? Her instinct told her to do it, but she faltered and hesitated. A drunkard! a drunkard! Oh no! she could not. The evil genius conquered the good, and she checked the impulse that alone could have saved her. She crept up again, with heart standing still and failing within her, and flung herself once more upon her own bed. Two o'clock. Three. Half-past three. A quarter to four. How long the night seems when you are watching and weeping! Suddenly, at the quarter-hour just gone, a sharp ring at a bell disturbed her lethargy--a ring two or three times repeated, which waked the butler from his sound slumber. Edie walked out cautiously to the top of the stairs and listened. The butler stood at the library door and knocked in vain. Edie heard a letter pushed under the door, and in a muffled voice heard Harry saying, "Give that letter to your mistress, Hardy--to-morrow morning." A vague foreboding of evil overcame her. She stole down the stairs in the blank dark and took the letter without a word from the half-dressed and wondering butler. Then she glided back to her own room, sat down eagerly by the dressing-table, and began to read it. "EDIE, "This is the third time, and I determined with myself that the third time should be the last one. Once in London; once at Hereford; once now. I can stand it no longer. My father died a drunkard. My mother died a drunkard. I cannot resist the temptation. It is better I should not stop here. I have tried hard, but I am beaten in the struggle. I loved you dearly: I love you still far too much to burden your life by my miserable presence. I have left you everything. Evan will make you happier than I could. Forgive me. "HARRY." She dropped the letter with a scream, and almost would have fainted. But even before the faintness could wholly overcome her, another sound rang out sharper and clearer far from the room below her. It brought her back to herself immediately. It was the report of a pistol. Edie and the butler hurried back in breathless suspense to the library door. It was locked still. Edie took the key from her pocket and turned it quickly. When they entered, the candles on the mantelpiece were burning brightly, and Harry Lewin's body, shot through the heart, lay in a pool of gurgling blood right across the spattered hearthrug. _THE GOLD WULFRIC._ PART I. I. There are only two gold coins of Wulfric of Mercia in existence anywhere. One of them is in the British Museum, and the other one is in my possession. The most terrible incident in the whole course of my career is intimately connected with my first discovery of that gold Wulfric. It is not too much to say that my entire life has been deeply coloured by it, and I shall make no apology therefore for narrating the story in some little detail. I was stopping down at Lichfield for my summer holiday in July, 1879, when I happened one day accidentally to meet an old ploughman who told me he had got a lot of coins at home that he had ploughed up on what he called the "field of battle," a place I had already recognized as the site of the Mercian kings' wooden palace. I went home with him at once in high glee, for I have been a collector of old English gold and silver coinage for several years, and I was in hopes that my friendly ploughman's find might contain something good in the way of Anglo-Saxon pennies or shillings, considering the very promising place in which he had unearthed it. As it turned out, I was not mistaken. The little hoard, concealed within a rude piece of Anglo-Saxon pottery (now No. 127 in case LIX. at the South Kensington Museum), comprised a large number of common Frankish Merovingian coins (I beg Mr. Freeman's pardon for not calling them Merwings), together with two or three Kentish pennies of some rarity from the mints of Ethelbert at Canterbury and Dover. Amongst these minor treasures, however, my eye at once fell upon a single gold piece, obviously imitated from the imperial Roman aureus of the pretender Carausius, which I saw immediately must be an almost unique bit of money of the very greatest numismatic interest. I took it up and examined it carefully. A minute's inspection fully satisfied me that it was indeed a genuine mintage of Wulfric of Mercia, the like of which I had never before to my knowledge set eyes upon. I immediately offered the old man five pounds down for the whole collection. He closed with the offer forthwith in the most contented fashion, and I bought them and paid for them all upon the spot without further parley. When I got back to my lodgings that evening I could do nothing but look at my gold Wulfric. I was charmed and delighted at the actual possession of so great a treasure, and was burning to take it up at once to the British Museum to see whether even in the national collection they had got another like it. So being by nature of an enthusiastic and impulsive disposition, I determined to go up to town the very next day, and try to track down the history of my Wulfric. "It'll be a good opportunity," I said to myself, "to kill two birds with one stone. Emily's people haven't gone out of town yet. I can call there in the morning, arrange to go to the theatre with them at night, and then drive at once to the Museum and see how much my find is worth." Next morning I was off to town by an early train, and before one o'clock I had got to Emily's. "Why, Harold," she cried, running down to meet me and kiss me in the passage (for she had seen me get out of my hansom from the drawing-room window), "how on earth is it that you're up in town to-day? I thought you were down at Lichfield still with your Oxford reading party." "So I am," I answered, "officially at Lichfield; but I've come up to-day partly to see you, and partly on a piece of business about a new coin I've just got hold of." "A coin!" Emily answered, pretending to pout. "Me and a coin! That's how you link us together mentally, is it? I declare, Harold, I shall be getting jealous of those coins of yours some day, I'm certain. You can't even come up to see me for a day, it seems, unless you've got some matter of a coin as well to bring you to London. Moral: never get engaged to a man with a fancy for collecting coins and medals." "Oh, but this is really such a beauty, Emily," I cried enthusiastically. "Just look at it, now. Isn't it lovely? Do you notice the inscription--'Wulfric Rex!' I've never yet seen one anywhere else at all like it." Emily took it in her hands carelessly. "I don't see any points about that coin in particular," she answered in her bantering fashion, "more than about any other old coin that you'd pick up anywhere." That was all we said then about the matter. Subsequent events engrained the very words of that short conversation into the inmost substance of my brain with indelible fidelity. I shall never forget them to my dying moment. I stopped about an hour altogether at Emily's, had lunch, and arranged that she and her mother should accompany me that evening to the Lyceum. Then I drove off to the British Museum, and asked for leave to examine the Anglo-Saxon coins of the Mercian period. The superintendent, who knew me well enough by sight and repute as a responsible amateur collector, readily gave me permission to look at a drawerful of the earliest Mercian gold and silver coinage. I had brought one or two numismatic books with me, and I sat down to have a good look at those delightful cases. After thoroughly examining the entire series and the documentary evidence, I came to the conclusion that there was just one other gold Wulfric in existence besides the one I kept in my pocket, and that was the beautiful and well-preserved example in the case before me. It was described in the last edition of Sir Theophilus Wraxton's "Northumbrian and Mercian Numismatist" as an absolutely unique gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, in imitation of the well-known aureus of the false emperor Carausius. I turned to the catalogue to see the price at which it had been purchased by the nation. To my intense surprise I saw it entered at a hundred and fifty pounds. I was perfectly delighted at my magnificent acquisition. On comparing the two examples, however, I observed that, though both struck from the same die and apparently at the same mint (to judge by the letter), they differed slightly from one another in two minute accidental particulars. My coin, being of course merely stamped with a hammer and then cut to shape, after the fashion of the time, was rather more closely clipped round the edge than the Museum specimen; and it had also a slight dent on the obverse side, just below the W of Wulfric. In all other respects the two examples were of necessity absolutely identical. I stood for a long time gazing at the case and examining the two duplicates with the deepest interest, while the Museum keeper (a man of the name of Mactavish, whom I had often seen before on previous visits) walked about within sight, as is the rule on all such occasions, and kept a sharp look-out that I did not attempt to meddle with any of the remaining coins or cases. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I had not mentioned to the superintendent my own possession of a duplicate Wulfric; nor had I called Mactavish's attention to the fact that I had pulled a coin of my own for purposes of comparison out of my waistcoat pocket. To say the truth, I was inclined to be a little secretive as yet about my gold Wulfric, because until I had found out all that was known about it I did not want anybody else to be told of my discovery. At last I had fully satisfied all my curiosity, and was just about to return the Museum Wulfric to its little round compartment in the neat case (having already replaced my own duplicate in my waistcoat pocket), when all at once, I can't say how, I gave a sudden start, and dropped the coin with a jerk unexpectedly upon the floor of the museum. It rolled away out of sight in a second, and I stood appalled in an agony of distress and terror in the midst of the gallery. Next moment I had hastily called Mactavish to my side, and got him to lock up the open drawer while we two went down on hands and knees and hunted through the length and breadth of the gallery for the lost Wulfric. It was absolutely hopeless. Plain sailing as the thing seemed, we could see no trace of the missing coin from one end of the room to the other. At last I leaned in a cold perspiration against the edge of one of the glass cabinets, and gave it up in despair with a sinking heart. "It's no use, Mactavish," I murmured desperately; "the thing's lost, and we shall never find it." Mactavish looked me quietly in the face. "In that case, sir," he answered firmly, "by the rules of the Museum I must call the superintendent." He put his hand, with no undue violence, but in a strictly official manner, upon my right shoulder. Then he blew a whistle. "I'm sorry to be rude to you, sir," he went on, apologetically, "but by the rules of the Museum I can't take my hand off you till the superintendent gives me leave to release you." Another keeper answered the whistle. "Send the superintendent," Mactavish said quietly. "A coin missing." In a minute the superintendent was upon the spot. When Mactavish told him I had dropped the gold Wulfric of Mercia he shook his head very ominously. "This is a bad business, Mr. Tait," he said gloomily. "A unique coin, as you know, and one of the most valuable in the whole of our large Anglo-Saxon collection." "Is there a mouse-hole anywhere," I cried in agony; "any place where it might have rolled down and got mislaid or concealed for the moment?" The superintendent went down instantly on his own hands and knees, pulled up every piece of the cocoa-nut matting with minute deliberation, searched the whole place thoroughly from end to end, but found nothing. He spent nearly an hour on that thorough search; meanwhile Mactavish never for a moment relaxed his hold upon me. At last the superintendent desisted from the search as quite hopeless, and approached me very politely. "I'm extremely sorry, Mr. Tait," he said in the most courteous possible manner, "but by the rules of the Museum I am absolutely compelled either to search you for the coin or to give you into custody. It may, you know, have got caught somewhere about your person. No doubt you would prefer, of the two, that I should look in all your pockets and the folds of your clothing." The position was terrible. I could stand it no longer. "Mr. Harbourne," I said, breaking out once more from head to foot into a cold sweat, "I must tell you the truth. I have brought a duplicate gold Wulfric here to-day to compare with the Museum specimen, and I have got it this very moment in my waistcoat pocket." The superintendent gazed back at me with a mingled look of incredulity and pity. "My dear sir," he answered very gently, "this is altogether a most unfortunate business, but I'm afraid I must ask you to let me look at the duplicate you speak of." I took it, trembling, out of my waistcoat pocket and handed it across to him without a word. The superintendent gazed at it for a moment in silence; then, in a tone of the profoundest commiseration, he said slowly, "Mr. Tait, I grieve to be obliged to contradict you. This is our own specimen of the gold Wulfric!" The whole Museum whirled round me violently, and before I knew anything more I fainted. II. When I came to I found myself seated in the superintendent's room, with a policeman standing quietly in the background. As soon as I had fully recovered consciousness, the superintendent motioned the policeman out of the room for a while, and then gently forced me to swallow a brandy and soda. "Mr. Tait," he said compassionately, after an awkward pause, "you are a very young man indeed, and, I believe, hitherto of blameless character. Now, I should be very sorry to have to proceed to extremities against you. I know to what lengths, in a moment of weakness, the desire to possess a rare coin will often lead a connoisseur, under stress of exceptional temptation. I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that you did really accidentally drop this coin; that you went down on your knees honestly intending to find it; that the accident suggested to you the ease with which you might pick it up and proceed to pocket it; that you yielded temporarily to that unfortunate impulse; and that by the time I arrived upon the scene you were already overcome with remorse and horror. I saw as much immediately in your very countenance. Nevertheless, I determined to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I searched over the whole place in the most thorough and conscientious manner.... As you know, I found nothing.... Mr. Tait, I cannot bear to have to deal harshly with you. I recognize the temptation and the agony of repentance that instantly followed it. Sir, I give you one chance. If you will retract the obviously false story that you just now told me, and confess that the coin I found in your pocket was in fact, as I know it to be, the Museum specimen, I will forthwith dismiss the constable, and will never say another word to any one about the whole matter. I don't want to ruin you, but I can't, of course, be put off with a falsehood. Think the matter carefully over with yourself. Do you or do you not still adhere to that very improbable and incredible story?" Horrified and terror-stricken as I was, I couldn't avoid feeling grateful to the superintendent for the evident kindness with which he was treating me. The tears rose at once into my eyes. "Mr. Harbourne," I cried passionately, "you are very good, very generous. But you quite mistake the whole position. The story I told you was true, every word of it. I bought that gold Wulfric from a ploughman at Lichfield, and it is not absolutely identical with the Museum specimen which I dropped upon the floor. It is closer clipped round the edges, and it has a distinct dent upon the obverse side, just below the W of Wulfric." The superintendent paused a second, and scanned my face very closely. "Have you a knife or a file in your pocket?" he asked in a much sterner and more official tone. "No," I replied, "neither--neither." "You are sure?" "Certain." "Shall I search you myself, or shall I give you in custody?" "Search me yourself," I answered confidently. He put his hand quietly into my left-hand breast pocket, and to my utter horror and dismay drew forth, what I had up to that moment utterly forgotten, a pair of folding pocket nail-scissors, in a leather case, of course with a little file on either side. My heart stood still within me. "That is quite sufficient, Mr. Tait," the superintendent went on, severely. "Had you alleged that the Museum coin was smaller than your own imaginary one you might have been able to put in the facts as good evidence. But I see the exact contrary is the case. You have stooped to a disgraceful and unworthy subterfuge. This base deception aggravates your guilt. You have deliberately defaced a valuable specimen in order if possible to destroy its identity." What could I say in return? I stammered and hesitated. "Mr. Harbourne," I cried piteously, "the circumstances seem to look terribly against me. But, nevertheless, you are quite mistaken. Tho missing Wulfric will come to light sooner or later and prove me innocent." He walked up and down the room once or twice irresolutely, and then he turned round to me with a very fixed and determined aspect which fairly terrified me. "Mr. Tait," he said, "I am straining every point possible to save you, but you make it very difficult for me by your continued falsehood. I am doing quite wrong in being so lenient to you; I am proposing, in short, to compound a felony. But I cannot bear, without letting you have just one more chance, to give you in charge for a common robbery. I will let you have ten minutes to consider the matter; and I beseech you, I beg of you, I implore you to retract this absurd and despicable lie before it is too late for ever. Just consider that if you refuse I shall have to hand you over to the constable out there, and that the whole truth must come out in court, and must be blazoned forth to the entire world in every newspaper. The policeman is standing here by the door. I will leave you alone with your own thoughts for ten minutes." As he spoke he walked out gravely, and shut the door solemnly behind him. The clock on the chimney-piece pointed with its hands to twenty minutes past three. It was an awful dilemma. I hardly knew how to act under it. On the one hand, if I admitted for the moment that I had tried to steal the coin, I could avoid all immediate unpleasant circumstances; and as it would be sure to turn up again in cleaning the Museum, I should be able at last to prove my innocence to Mr. Harbourne's complete satisfaction. But, on the other hand, the lie--for it _was_ a lie--stuck in my throat; I could not humble myself to say I had committed a mean and dirty action which I loathed with all the force and energy of my nature. No, no! come what would of it, I must stick by the truth, and trust to that to clear up everything. But if the superintendent really insisted on giving me in charge, how very awkward to have to telegraph about it to Emily! Fancy saying to the girl you are in love with, "I can't go with you to the theatre this evening, because I have been taken off to gaol on a charge of stealing a valuable coin from the British Museum." It was too terrible! Yet, after all, I thought to myself, if the worst comes to the worst, Emily will have faith enough in me to know it is ridiculous; and, indeed, the imputation could in any case only be temporary. As soon as the thing gets into court I could bring up the Lichfield ploughman to prove my possession of a gold Wulfric; and I could bring up Emily to prove that I had shown it to her that very morning. How lucky that I had happened to take it out and let her look at it! My case was, happily, as plain as a pikestaff. It was only momentarily that the weight of the evidence seemed so perversely to go against me. Turning over all these various considerations in my mind with anxious hesitancy, the ten minutes managed to pass away almost before I had thoroughly realized the deep gravity of the situation. As the clock on the chimney-piece pointed to the half-hour, the door opened once more, and the superintendent entered solemnly. "Well, Mr. Tait," he said in an anxious voice, "have you made up your mind to make a clean breast of it? Do you now admit, after full deliberation, that you have endeavoured to steal and clip the gold Wulfric?" "No," I answered firmly, "I do not admit it; and I will willingly go before a jury of my countrymen to prove my innocence." "Then God help you, poor boy," the superintendent cried despondently. "I have done my best to save you, and you will not let me. Policeman, this is your prisoner. I give him in custody on a charge of stealing a gold coin, the property of the trustees of this Museum, valued at a hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling." The policeman laid his hand upon my wrist. "You will have to go along with me to the station, sir," he said quietly. Terrified and stunned as I was by the awfulness of the accusation, I could not forget or overlook the superintendent's evident reluctance and kindness. "Mr. Harbourne," I cried, "you have tried to do your best for me. I am grateful to you for it, in spite of your terrible mistake, and I shall yet be able to show you that I am innocent." He shook his head gloomily. "I have done my duty," he said with a shudder. "I have never before had a more painful one. Policeman, I must ask you now to do yours." III. The police are always considerate to respectable-looking prisoners, and I had no difficulty in getting the sergeant in charge of the lock-up to telegraph for me to Emily, to say that I was detained by important business, which would prevent me taking her and her mother to the theatre that evening. But when I explained to him that my detention was merely temporary, and that I should be able to disprove the whole story as soon as I went before the magistrates, he winked most unpleasantly at the constable who had brought me in, and observed in a tone of vulgar sarcasm, "We have a good many gentlemen here who says the same, sir--don't we, Jim? but they don't always find it so easy as they expected when they stands up afore the beak to prove their statements." I began to reflect that even a temporary prison is far from being a pleasant place for a man to stop in. Next morning they took me up before the magistrate; and as the Museum authorities of course proved a _primâ facie_ case against me, and as my solicitor advised me to reserve my defence, owing to the difficulty of getting up my witness from Lichfield in reasonable time, I was duly committed for trial at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court. I had often read before that people had been committed for trial, but till that moment I had no idea what a very unpleasant sensation it really is. However, as I was a person of hitherto unblemished character, and wore a good coat made by a fashionable tailor, the magistrate decided to admit me to bail, if two sureties in five hundred pounds each were promptly forthcoming for the purpose. Luckily, I had no difficulty in finding friends who believed in my story; and as I felt sure the lost Wulfric would soon be found in cleaning the museum, I suffered perhaps a little less acutely than I might otherwise have done, owing to my profound confidence in the final triumph of the truth. Nevertheless, as the case would be fully reported next morning in all the papers, I saw at once that I must go straight off and explain the matter without delay to Emily. I will not dwell upon that painful interview. I will only say that Emily behaved as I of course knew she would behave. She was horrified and indignant at the dreadful accusation; and, woman like, she was very angry with the superintendent. "He ought to have taken your word for it, naturally, Harold," she cried through her tears. "But what a good thing, anyhow, that you happened to show the coin to me. I should recognize it anywhere among ten thousand." "That's well, darling," I said, trying to kiss away her tears and cheer her up a little. "I haven't the slightest doubt that when the trial comes we shall be able triumphantly to vindicate me from this terrible, groundless accusation." IV. When the trial did actually come on, the Museum authorities began by proving their case against me in what seemed the most horribly damning fashion. The superintendent proved that on such and such a day, in such and such a case, he had seen a gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, the property of the Museum. He and Mactavish detailed the circumstances under which the coin was lost. The superintendent explained how he had asked me to submit to a search, and how, to avoid that indignity, I had myself produced from my waistcoat-pocket a gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, which I asserted to be a duplicate specimen, and my own property. The counsel for the Crown proceeded thus with the examination:-- "Do you recognize the coin I now hand you?" "I do." "What is it?" "The unique gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, belonging to the Museum." "You have absolutely no doubt as to its identity?" "Absolutely none whatsoever." "Does it differ in any respect from the same coin as you previously saw it?" "Yes. It has been clipped round the edge with a sharp instrument, and a slight dent has been made by pressure on the obverse side, just below the W of Wulfric." "Did you suspect the prisoner at the bar of having mutilated it?" "I did, and I asked him whether he had a knife in his possession. He answered no. I then asked him whether he would submit to be searched for a knife. He consented, and on my looking in his pocket I found the pair of nail-scissors I now produce, with a small file on either side." "Do you believe the coin might have been clipped with those scissors?" "I do. The gold is very soft, having little alloy in its composition; and it could easily be cut by a strong-wristed man with a knife or scissors." As I listened, I didn't wonder that the jury looked as if they already considered me guilty: but I smiled to myself when I thought how utterly Emily's and the ploughman's evidence would rebut this unworthy suspicion. The next witness was the Museum cleaner. His evidence at first produced nothing fresh, but just at last, counsel set before him a paper, containing a few scraps of yellow metal, and asked him triumphantly whether he recognized them. He answered yes. There was a profound silence. The court was interested and curious. I couldn't quite understand it all, but I felt a terrible sinking. "What are they?" asked the hostile barrister. "They are some fragments of gold which I found in shaking the cocoa-nut matting on the floor of gallery 27 the Saturday after the attempted theft." I felt as if a mine had unexpectedly been sprung beneath me. How on earth those fragments of soft gold could ever have got there I couldn't imagine; but I saw the damaging nature of this extraordinary and inexplicable coincidence in half a second. My counsel cross-examined all the witnesses for the prosecution, but failed to elicit anything of any value from any one of them. On the contrary, his questions put to the metallurgist of the Mint, who was called to prove the quality of the gold, only brought out a very strong opinion to the effect that the clippings were essentially similar in character to the metal composing the clipped Wulfric. No wonder the jury seemed to think the case was going decidedly against me. Then my counsel called his witnesses. I listened in the profoundest suspense and expectation. The first witness was the ploughman from Lichfield. He was a well-meaning but very puzzle-headed old man, and he was evidently frightened at being confronted by so many clever wig-wearing barristers. Nevertheless, my counsel managed to get the true story out of him at last with infinite patience, dexterity, and skill. The old man told us finally how he had found the coins and sold them to me for five pounds; and how one of them was of gold, with a queer head and goggle eyes pointed full face upon its surface. When he had finished, the counsel for the Crown began his cross-examination. He handed the ploughman a gold coin. "Did you ever see that before?" he asked quietly. "To be sure I did," the man answered, looking at it open-mouthed. "What is it?" "It's the bit I sold Mr. Tait there--the bit as I got out o' the old basin." Counsel turned triumphantly to the judge. "My lord," he said, "this thing to which the witness swears is a gold piece of Ethelwulf of Wessex, by far the commonest and cheapest gold coin of the whole Anglo-Saxon period." It was handed to the jury side by side with the Wulfric of Mercia; and the difference, as I knew myself, was in fact extremely noticeable. All that the old man could have observed in common between them must have been merely the archaic Anglo-Saxon character of the coinage. As I heard that, I began to feel that it was really all over. My counsel tried on the re-examination to shake the old man's faith in his identification, and to make him transfer his story to the Wulfric which he had actually sold me. But it was all in vain. The ploughman had clearly the dread of perjury for ever before his eyes, and wouldn't go back for any consideration upon his first sworn statement. "No, no, mister," he said over and over again in reply to my counsel's bland suggestion, "you ain't going to make me forswear myself for all your cleverness." The next witness was Emily. She went into the box pale and red-eyed, but very confident. My counsel examined her admirably; and she stuck to her point with womanly persistence, that she had herself seen the clipped Wulfric, and no other coin, on the morning of the supposed theft. She knew it was so, because she distinctly remembered the inscription, "Wulfric Rex," and the peculiar way the staring open eyes were represented with barbaric puerility. Counsel for the Crown would only trouble the young lady with two questions. The first was a painful one, but it must be asked in the interests of justice. Were she and the prisoner at the bar engaged to be married to one another? The answer came, slowly and timidly, "Yes." Counsel drew a long breath, and looked her hard in the face. Could she read the inscription on that coin now produced?--handing her the Ethelwulf. Great heavens! I saw at once the plot to disconcert her, but was utterly powerless to warn her against it. Emily looked at it long and steadily. "No," she said at last, growing deadly pale and grasping the woodwork of the witness-box convulsively; "I don't know the character in which it is written." Of course not: for the inscription was in the peculiar semi-runic Anglo-Saxon letters! She had never read the words "Wulfric Rex" either. I had read them to her, and she had carried them away vaguely in her mind, imagining no doubt that she herself had actually deciphered them. There was a slight pause, and I felt my blood growing cold within me. Then the counsel for the Crown handed her again the genuine Wulfric, and asked her whether the letters upon it which she professed to have read were or were not similar to those of the Ethelwulf. Instead of answering, Emily bent down her head between her hands, and burst suddenly into tears. I was so much distressed at her terrible agitation that I forgot altogether for the moment my own perilous position, and I cried aloud, "My lord, my lord, will you not interpose to spare her any further questions?" "I think," the judge said to the counsel for the Crown, "you might now permit the witness to stand down." "I wish to re-examine, my lord," my counsel put in hastily. "No," I said in his ear, "no. Whatever comes of it, not another question. I had far rather go to prison than let her suffer this inexpressible torture for a single minute longer." Emily was led down, still crying bitterly, into the body of the court, and the rest of the proceedings went on uninterrupted. The theory of the prosecution was a simple and plausible one. I had bought a common Anglo-Saxon coin, probably an Ethelwulf, valued at about twenty-two shillings, from the old Lichfield ploughman. I had thereupon conceived the fraudulent idea of pretending that I had a duplicate of the rare Wulfric. I had shown the Ethelwulf, clipped in a particular fashion, to the lady whom I was engaged to marry. I had then defaced and altered the genuine Wulfric at the Museum into the same shape with the aid of my pocket nail-scissors. And I had finally made believe to drop the coin accidentally upon the floor, while I had really secreted it in my waistcoat pocket. The theory for the defence had broken down utterly. And then there was the damning fact of the gold scrapings found in the cocoa-nut matting of the British Museum, which was to me the one great inexplicable mystery in the whole otherwise comprehensible mystification. I felt myself that the case did indeed look very black against me. But would a jury venture to convict me on such very doubtful evidence? The jury retired to consider their verdict. I stood in suspense in the dock, with my heart loudly beating. Emily remained in the body of the court below, looking up at me tearfully and penitently. After twenty minutes the jury retired. "Guilty or not guilty?" The foreman answered aloud, "Guilty." There was a piercing cry in the body of the court, and in a moment Emily was carried out half fainting and half hysterical. The judge then calmly proceeded to pass sentence. He dwelt upon the enormity of my crime in one so well connected and so far removed from the dangers of mere vulgar temptations. He dwelt also upon the vandalism of which I had been guilty--myself a collector--in clipping and defacing a valuable and unique memorial of antiquity, the property of the nation. He did not wish to be severe upon a young man of hitherto blameless character; but the national collection must be secured against such a peculiarly insidious and cunning form of depredation. The sentence of the court was that I should be kept in-- Five years' penal servitude. Crushed and annihilated as I was, I had still strength to utter a single final word. "My lord," I cried, "the missing Wulfric will yet be found, and will hereafter prove my perfect innocence." "Remove the prisoner," said the judge, coldly. They took me down to the courtyard unresisting, where the prison van was standing in waiting. On the steps I saw Emily and her mother, both crying bitterly. They had been told the sentence already, and were waiting to take a last farewell of me. "Oh, Harold!" Emily cried, flinging her arms around me wildly, "it's all my fault! It's my fault only! By my foolish stupidity I've lost your case. I've sent you to prison. Oh, Harold, I can never forgive myself. I've sent you to prison. I've sent you to prison." "Dearest," I said, "it won't be for long. I shall soon be free again. They'll find the Wulfric sooner or later, and then of course they'll let me out again." "Harold," she cried, "oh, Harold, Harold, don't you see? Don't you understand? This is a plot against you. It isn't lost. It isn't lost. That would be nothing. It's stolen; it's stolen!" A light burst in upon me suddenly, and I saw in a moment the full depth of the peril that surrounded me. PART II. I. It was some time before I could sufficiently accustom myself to my new life in the Isle of Portland to be able to think clearly and distinctly about the terrible blow that had fallen upon me. In the midst of all the petty troubles and discomforts of prison existence, I had no leisure at first fully to realize the fact that I was a convicted felon with scarcely a hope--not of release; for that I cared little--but of rehabilitation. Slowly, however, I began to grow habituated to the new hard life imposed upon me, and to think in my cell of the web of circumstance which had woven itself so irresistibly around me. I had only one hope. Emily knew I was innocent. Emily suspected, like me, that the Wulfric had been stolen. Emily would do her best, I felt certain, to heap together fresh evidence, and unravel this mystery to its very bottom. Meanwhile, I thanked Heaven for the hard mechanical daily toil of cutting stone in Portland prison. I was a strong athletic young fellow enough. I was glad now that I had always loved the river at Oxford; my arms were stout and muscular. I was able to take my part in the regular work of the gang to which I belonged. Had it been otherwise--had I been set down to some quiet sedentary occupation, as first-class misdemeanants often are, I should have worn my heart out soon with thinking perpetually of poor Emily's terrible trouble. When I first came, the Deputy-Governor, knowing my case well (had there not been leaders about me in all the papers?), very kindly asked me whether I would wish to be given work in the book-keeping department, where many educated convicts were employed as clerks and assistants. But I begged particularly to be put into an outdoor gang, where I might have to use my limbs constantly, and so keep my mind from eating itself up with perpetual thinking. The Deputy-Governor immediately consented, and gave me work in a quarrying gang, at the west end of the island, near Deadman's Bay on the edge of the Chesil. For three months I worked hard at learning the trade of a quarryman, and succeeded far better than any of the other new hands who were set to learn at the same time with me. Their heart was not in it; mine was. Anything to escape that gnawing agony. The other men in the gang were not agreeable or congenial companions. They taught me their established modes of intercommunication, and told me several facts about themselves, which did not tend to endear them to me. One of them, 1247, was put in for the manslaughter of his wife by kicking; he was a low-browed, brutal London drayman, and he occupied the next cell to mine, where he disturbed me much in my sleepless nights by his loud snoring. Another, a much slighter and more intelligent-looking man, was a skilled burglar, sentenced to fourteen years for "cracking a crib" in the neighbourhood of Hampstead. A third was a sailor, convicted of gross cruelty to a defenceless Lascar. They all told me the nature of their crimes with a brutal frankness which fairly surprised me; but when I explained to them in return that I had been put in upon a false accusation, they treated my remarks with a galling contempt that was absolutely unsupportable. After a short time I ceased to communicate with my fellow-prisoners in any way, and remained shut up with my own thoughts in utter isolation. By-and-by I found that the other men in the same gang were beginning to dislike me strongly, and that some among them actually whispered to one another--what they seemed to consider a very strong point indeed against me--that I must really have been convicted by mistake, and that I was a regular stuck-up sneaking Methodist. They complained that I worked a great deal too hard, and so made the other felons seem lazy by comparison; and they also objected to my prompt obedience to our warder's commands, as tending to set up an exaggerated and impossible standard of discipline. Between this warder and myself, on the other hand, there soon sprang up a feeling which I might almost describe as one of friendship. Though by the rules of the establishment we could not communicate with one another except upon matters of business, I liked him for his uniform courtesy, kindliness, and forbearance; while I could easily see that he liked me in return, by contrast with the other men who were under his charge. He was one of those persons whom some experience of prisons then and since has led me to believe less rare than most people would imagine--men in whom the dreary life of a prison warder, instead of engendering hardness of heart and cold unsympathetic sternness, has engendered a certain profound tenderness and melancholy of spirit. I grew quite fond of that one honest warder, among so many coarse and criminal faces; and I found, on the other hand, that my fellow-prisoners hated me all the more because, as they expressed it in their own disgusting jargon, I was sucking up to that confounded dog of a barker. It happened once, when I was left for a few minutes alone with the warder, that he made an attempt for a moment, contrary to regulations, to hold a little private conversation with me. "1430," he said in a low voice, hardly moving his lips, for fear of being overlooked, "what is your outside name?" I answered quietly, without turning to look at him, "Harold Tait." He gave a little involuntary start. "What!" he cried. "Not him that took a coin from the British Museum?" I bridled up angrily. "I did not take it," I cried with all my soul. "I am innocent, and have been put in here by some terrible error." He was silent for half a second. Then he said musingly, "Sir, I believe you. You are speaking the truth. I will do all I can to make things easy for you." That was all he said then. But from that day forth he always spoke to me in private as "Sir," and never again as "1430." An incident arose at last out of this condition of things which had a very important effect upon my future position. One day, about three months after I was committed to prison, we were all told off as usual to work in a small quarry on the cliff-side overhanging the long expanse of pebbly beach known as the Chesil. I had reason to believe afterwards that a large open fishing boat lying upon the beach below at the moment had been placed there as part of a concerted scheme by the friends of the Hampstead burglar; and that it contained ordinary clothing for all the men in our gang, except myself only. The idea was evidently that the gang should overpower the warder, seize the boat, change their clothes instantly, taking turns about meanwhile with the navigation, and make straight off for the shore at Lulworth, where they could easily disperse without much chance of being recaptured. But of all this I was of course quite ignorant at the time, for they had not thought well to intrust their secret to the ears of the sneaking virtuous Methodist. A few minutes after we arrived at the quarry, I was working with two other men at putting a blast in, when I happened to look round quite accidentally, and to my great horror, saw 1247, the brutal wife-kicker, standing behind with a huge block of stone in his hands, poised just above the warder's head, in a threatening attitude. The other men stood around waiting and watching. I had only just time to cry out in a tone of alarm, "Take care, warder, he'll murder you!" when the stone descended upon the warder's head, and he fell at once, bleeding and half senseless, upon the ground beside me. In a second, while he shrieked and struggled, the whole gang was pressing savagely and angrily around him. There was no time to think or hesitate. Before I knew almost what I was doing, I had seized his gun and ammunition, and, standing over his prostrate body, I held the men at bay for a single moment. Then 1247 advanced threateningly, and tried to put his foot upon the fallen warder. I didn't wait or reflect one solitary second. I drew the trigger, and fired full upon him. The bang sounded fiercely in my ears, and for a moment I could see nothing through the smoke of the rifle. With a terrible shriek he fell in front of me, not dead, but seriously wounded. "The boat, the boat," the others cried loudly. "Knock him down! Kill him! Take the boat, all of you." At that moment the report of my shot had brought another warder hastily to the top of the quarry. "Help, help!" I cried. "Come quick, and save us. These brutes are trying to murder our warder!" The man rushed back to call for aid; but the way down the zigzag path was steep and tortuous, and it was some time before they could manage to get down and succour us. Meanwhile the other convicts pressed savagely around us, trying to jump upon the warder's body and force their way past to the beach beneath us. I fired again, for the rifle was double-barrelled; but it was impossible to reload in such a tumult, so, after the next shot, which hit no one, I laid about me fiercely with the butt end of the gun, and succeeded in knocking down four of the savages, one after another. By that time the warders from above had safely reached us, and formed a circle of fixed bayonets around the rebellious prisoners. "Thank God!" I cried, flinging down the rifle, and rushing up to the prostrate warder. "He is still alive. He is breathing! He is breathing!" "Yes," he murmured in a faint voice, "I am alive, and I thank you for it. But for you, sir, these fellows here would certainly have murdered me." "You are badly wounded yourself, 1430," one of the other warders said to me, as the rebels were rapidly secured and marched off sullenly back to prison. "Look, your own arm is bleeding fiercely." Then for the first time I was aware that I was one mass of wounds from head to foot, and that I was growing faint from loss of blood. In defending the fallen warder I had got punched and pummelled on every side, just the same as one used to get long ago in a bully at football when I was a boy at Rugby, only much more seriously. The warders brought down seven stretchers: one for me; one for the wounded warder; one for 1247, whom I had shot; and four for the convicts whom I had knocked over with the butt end of the rifle. They carried us up on them, strongly guarded, in a long procession. At the door of the infirmary the Governor met us. "1430," he said to me, in a very kind voice, "you have behaved most admirably. I saw you myself quite distinctly from my drawing-room windows. Your bravery and intrepidity are well deserving of the highest recognition." "Sir," I answered, "I have only tried to do my duty. I couldn't stand by and see an innocent man murdered by such a pack of bloodthirsty ruffians." The Governor turned aside a little surprised. "Who is 1430?" he asked quietly. A subordinate, consulting a book, whispered my name and supposed crime to him confidentially. The Governor nodded twice, and seemed to be satisfied. "Sir," the wounded warder said faintly from his stretcher, "1430 is an innocent man unjustly condemned, if ever there was one." II. On the Thursday week following, when my wounds were all getting well, the whole body of convicts was duly paraded at half-past eleven in front of the Governor's house. The Governor came out, holding an official-looking paper in his right hand. "No. 1430," he said in a loud voice, "stand forward." And I stood forward. "No. 1430, I have the pleasant duty of informing you, in face of all your fellow-prisoners, that your heroism and self-devotion in saving the life of Warder James Woollacott, when he was attacked and almost overpowered on the twentieth of this month by a gang of rebellious convicts, has been reported to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department; and that on his recommendation Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to grant you a Free Pardon for the remainder of the time during which you were sentenced to penal servitude." For a moment I felt quite stunned and speechless. I reeled on my feet so much that two of the warders jumped forward to support me. It was a great thing to have at least one's freedom. But in another minute the real meaning of the thing came clearer upon me, and I recoiled from the bare sound of those horrid words, a free pardon. I didn't want to be pardoned like a convicted felon: I wanted to have my innocence proved before the eyes of all England. For my own sake, and still more for Emily's sake, rehabilitation was all I cared for. "Sir," I said, touching my cap respectfully, and saluting the Governor according to our wonted prison discipline, "I am very greatly obliged to you for your kindness in having made this representation to the Home Secretary; but I feel compelled to say I cannot accept a free pardon. I am wholly guiltless of the crime of which I have been convicted; and I wish that instead of pardoning me the Home Secretary would give instructions to the detective police to make a thorough investigation of the case, with the object of proving my complete innocence. Till that is done, I prefer to remain an inmate of Portland Prison. What I wish is not pardon, but to be restored as an honest man to the society of my equals." The Governor paused for a moment, and consulted quietly in an undertone with one or two of his subordinates. Then he turned to me with great kindness, and said in a loud voice, "No. 1430, I have no power any longer to detain you in this prison, even if I wished to do so, after you have once obtained Her Majesty's free pardon. My duty is to dismiss you at once, in accordance with the terms of this document. However, I will communicate the substance of your request to the Home Secretary, with whom such a petition, so made, will doubtless have the full weight that may rightly attach to it. You must now go with these warders, who will restore you your own clothes, and then formally set you at liberty. But if there is anything further you would wish to speak to me about, you can do so afterward in your private capacity as a free man at two o'clock in my own office." I thanked him quietly and then withdrew. At two o'clock I duly presented myself in ordinary clothes at the Governor's office. We had a long and confidential interview, in the course of which I was able to narrate to the Governor at full length all the facts of my strange story exactly as I have here detailed them. He listened to me with the greatest interest, checking and confirming my statements at length by reference to the file of papers brought to him by a clerk. When I had finished my whole story, he said to me quite simply, "Mr. Tait, it may be imprudent of me in my position and under such peculiar circumstances to say so, but I fully and unreservedly believe your statement. If anything that I can say or do can be of any assistance to you in proving your innocence, I shall be very happy indeed to exert all my influence in your favour." I thanked him warmly with tears in my eyes. "And there is one point in your story," he went on, "to which I, who have seen a good deal of such doubtful cases, attach the very highest importance. You say that gold clippings, pronounced to be similar in character to the gold Wulfric, were found shortly after by a cleaner at the Museum on the cocoa-nut matting of the floor where the coin was examined by you?" I nodded, blushing crimson. "That," I said, "seems to me the strangest and most damning circumstance against me in the whole story." "Precisely," the Governor answered quietly. "And if what you say is the truth (as I believe it to be), it is also the circumstance which best gives us a clue to use against the real culprit. The person who stole the coin was too clever by half, or else not quite clever enough for his own protection. In manufacturing that last fatal piece of evidence against you he was also giving you a certain clue to his own identity." "How so?" I asked, breathless. "Why, don't you see? The thief must in all probability have been somebody connected with the Museum. He must have seen you comparing the Wulfric with your own coin. He must have picked it up and carried it off secretly at the moment you dropped it. He must have clipped the coin to manufacture further hostile evidence. And he must have dropped the clippings afterwards on the cocoa-nut matting in the same gallery on purpose in order to heighten the suspicion against you." "You are right," I cried, brightening up at the luminous suggestion--"you are right, obviously. And there is only one man who could have seen and heard enough to carry out this abominable plot--Mactavish!" "Well, find him out and prove the case against him, Mr. Tait," the Governor said warmly, "and if you send him here to us I can promise you that he will be well taken care of." I bowed and thanked him, and was about to withdraw, but he held out his hand to me with perfect frankness. "Mr. Tait," he said, "I can't let you go away so. Let me have your hand in token that you bear us no grudge for the way we have treated you during your unfortunate imprisonment, and that I, for my part, am absolutely satisfied of the truth of your statement." III. The moment I arrived in London I drove straight off without delay to Emily's. I had telegraphed beforehand that I had been granted a free pardon, but had not stopped to tell her why or under what conditions. Emily met me in tears in the passage. "Harold! Harold!" she cried, flinging her arms wildly around me. "Oh, my darling! my darling! how can I ever say it to you? Mamma says she won't allow me to see you here any longer." It was a terrible blow, but I was not unprepared for it. How could I expect that poor, conventional, commonplace old lady to have any faith in me after all she had read about me in the newspapers? "Emily," I said, kissing her over and over again tenderly, "you must come out with me, then, this very minute, for I want to talk with you over matters of importance. Whether your mother wishes it or not, you must come out with me this very minute." Emily put on her bonnet hastily and walked out with me into the streets of London. It was growing dark, and the neighbourhood was a very quiet one; or else perhaps even my own Emily would have felt a little ashamed of walking about the streets of London with a man whose hair was still cropped short around his head like a common felon's. I told her all the story of my release, and Emily listened to it in profound silence. "Harold!" she cried, "my darling Harold!" (when I told her the tale of my desperate battle over the fallen warder), "you are the bravest and best of men. I knew you would vindicate yourself sooner or later. What we have to do now is to show that Mactavish stole the Wulfric. I know he stole it; I read it at the trial in his clean-shaven villain's face. I shall prove it still, and then you will be justified in the eyes of everybody." "But how can we manage to communicate meanwhile, darling?" I cried eagerly. "If your mother won't allow you to see me, how are we ever to meet and consult about it?" "There's only one way, Harold--only one way; and as things now stand you mustn't think it strange of me to propose it. Harold, you must marry me immediately, whether mamma will let us or not!" "Emily!" I cried, "my own darling! your confidence and trust in me makes me I can't tell you how proud and happy. That you should be willing to marry me even while I am under such a cloud as this gives me a greater proof of your love than anything else you could possibly do for me. But, darling, I am too proud to take you at your word. For your sake, Emily, I will never marry you until all the world has been compelled unreservedly to admit my innocence." Emily blushed and cried a little. "As you will, Harold, dearest," she answered, trembling, "I can afford to wait for you. I know that in the end the truth will be established." IV. A week or two later I was astonished one morning at receiving a visit in my London lodgings from the warder Woollacott, whose life I had been happily instrumental in saving at Portland Prison. "Well, sir," he said, grasping my hand warmly and gratefully, "you see I haven't yet entirely recovered from that terrible morning. I shall bear the marks of it about me for the remainder of my lifetime. The Governor says I shall never again be fit for duty, so they've pensioned me off very honourable." I told him how pleased I was that he should have been liberally treated, and then we fell into conversation about myself and the means of re-establishing my perfect innocence. "Sir," said he, "I shall have plenty of leisure, and shall be comfortably off now. If there's anything that I can do to be of service to you in the matter, I shall gladly do it. My time is entirely at your disposal." I thanked him warmly, but told him that the affair was already in the hands of the regular detectives, who had been set to work upon it by the Governor's influence with the Home Secretary. By-and-by I happened to mention confidentially to him my suspicions of the man Mactavish. An idea seemed to occur to the warder suddenly; but he said not a word to me about it at the time. A few days later, however, he came back to me quietly and said, in a confidential tone of voice, "Well, sir, I think we may still manage to square him." "Square who, Mr. Woollacott? I don't understand you." "Why, Mactavish, sir. I found out he had a small house near the Museum, and his wife lets a lodging there for a single man. I've gone and taken the lodging, and I shall see whether in the course of time something or other doesn't come out of it." I smiled and thanked him for his enthusiasm in my cause; but I confess I didn't see how anything on earth of any use to me was likely to arise from this strange proceeding on his part. V. It was that same week, I believe, that I received two other unexpected visitors. They came together. One of them was the Superintendent of Coins at the British Museum; the other was the well-known antiquary and great authority upon the Anglo-Saxon coinage, Sir Theophilus Wraxton. "Mr. Tait," the superintendent began, not without some touch of natural shamefacedness in his voice and manner, "I have reason to believe that I may possibly have been mistaken in my positive identification of the coin you showed me that day at the Museum as our own specimen of the gold Wulfric. If I _was_ mistaken, then I have unintentionally done you a most grievous wrong; and for that wrong, should my suspicions turn out ill-founded, I shall owe you the deepest and most heartfelt apologies. But the only reparation I can possibly make you is the one I am doing to-day by bringing here my friend Sir Theophilus Wraxton. He has a communication of some importance to make to you; and if he is right, I can only beg your pardon most humbly for the error I have committed in what I believed to be the discharge of my duties." "Sir," I answered, "I saw at the time you were the victim of a mistake, as I was the victim of a most unfortunate concurrence of circumstances; and I bear you no grudge whatsoever for the part you bore in subjecting me to what is really in itself a most unjust and unfounded suspicion. You only did what you believed to be your plain duty; and you did it with marked reluctance, and with every desire to leave me every possible loophole of escape from what you conceived as a momentary yielding to a vile temptation. But what is it that Sir Theophilus Wraxton wishes to tell me?" "Well, my dear sir," the old gentleman began, warmly, "I haven't the slightest doubt in the world myself that you have been quite unwarrantably disbelieved about a plain matter of fact that ought at once to have been immediately apparent to anybody who knew anything in the world about the gold Anglo-Saxon coinage. No reflection in the world upon you, Harbourne, my dear friend--no reflection in the world upon you in the matter; but you must admit that you've been pig-headedly hasty in jumping to a conclusion, and ignorantly determined in sticking to it against better evidence. My dear sir, I haven't the very slightest doubt in the world that the coin now in the British Museum is _not_ the one which I have seen there previously, and which I have figured in the third volume of my 'Early Northumbrian and Mercian Numismatist!' Quite otherwise; quite otherwise, I assure you." "How do you recognize that it is different, sir?" I cried excitedly. "The two coins were struck at just the same mint from the same die, and I examined them closely together, and saw absolutely no difference between them, except the dent and the amount of the clipping." "Quite true, quite true," the old gentleman replied with great deliberation. "But look here, sir. Here is the drawing I took of the Museum Wulfric fourteen years ago, for the third volume of my 'Northumbrian Numismatist.' That drawing was made with the aid of careful measurements, which you will find detailed in the text at page 230. Now, here again is the duplicate Wulfric--permit me to call it _your_ Wulfric; and if you will compare the two you'll find, I think, that though your Wulfric is a great deal smaller than the original one, taken as a whole, yet on one diameter, the diameter from the letter U in Wulfric to the letter R in Rex, it is nearly an eighth of an inch broader than the specimen I have there figured. Well, sir, you may cut as much as you like off a coin, and make it smaller; but hang me if by cutting away at it for all your lifetime you can make it an eighth of an inch broader anyhow, in any direction." I looked immediately at the coin, the drawing, and the measurements in the book, and saw at a glance that Sir Theophilus was right. "How on earth did you find it out?" I asked the bland old gentleman, breathlessly. "Why, my dear sir, I remembered the old coin perfectly, having been so very particular in my drawing and measurement; and the moment I clapped eyes on the other one yesterday, I said to my good friend Harbourne, here: 'Harbourne,' said I, 'somebody's been changing your Wulfric in the case over yonder for another specimen.' 'Changing it!' said Harbourne: 'not a bit of it; clipping it, you mean.' 'No, no, my good fellow,' said I: 'do you suppose I don't know the same coin again when I see it, and at my time of life too? This is another coin, not the same one clipped. It's bigger across than the old one from there to there.' 'No, it isn't,' says he. 'But it is,' I answer. 'Just you look in my "Northumbrian and Mercian" and see if it isn't so.' 'You must be mistaken,' says Harbourne. 'If I am, I'll eat my head,' says I. Well, we get down the 'Numismatist' from the bookshelf then and there; and sure enough, it turns out just as I told him. Harbourne turned as white as a ghost, I can tell you, as soon as he discovered it. 'Why,' says he, 'I've sent a poor young fellow off to Portland Prison, only three or four months ago, for stealing that very Wulfric.' And then he told me all the story. 'Very well,' said I, 'then the only thing you've got to do is just to go and call on him to-morrow, and let him know that you've had it proved to you, fairly proved to you, that this is not the original Wulfric.'" "Sir Theophilus," I said, "I'm much obliged to you. What you point out is by far the most important piece of evidence I've yet had to offer. Mr. Harbourne, have you kept the gold clippings that were found that morning on the cocoa-nut matting?" "I have, Mr. Tait," the superintendent answered anxiously. "And Sir Theophilus and I have been trying to fit them upon the coin in the Museum shelves; and I am bound to admit I quite agree with him that they must have been cut off a specimen decidedly larger in one diameter and smaller in another than the existing one--in short, that they do not fit the clipped Wulfric now in the Museum." VI. It was just a fortnight later that I received quite unexpectedly a telegram from Rome directed to me at my London lodgings. I tore it open hastily; it was signed by Emily, and contained only these few words: "We have found the Museum Wulfric. The superintendent is coming over to identify and reclaim it. Can you manage to run across immediately with him?" For a moment I was lost in astonishment, delight, and fear. How and why had Emily gone over to Rome? Who could she have with her to take care of her and assist her? How on earth had she tracked the missing coin to its distant hiding-place? It was all a profound mystery to me; and after my first outburst of joy and gratitude, I began to be afraid that Emily might have been misled by her eagerness and anxiety into following up the traces of the wrong coin. However, I had no choice but to go to Rome and see the matter ended; and I went alone, wearing out my soul through that long journey with suspense and fear; for I had not managed to hit upon the superintendent, who, through his telegram being delivered a little the sooner, had caught a train six hours earlier than the one I went by. As I arrived at the Central Station at Rome, I was met, to my surprise, by a perfect crowd of familiar faces. First, Emily herself rushed to me, kissed me, and assured me a hundred times over that it was all right, and that the missing coin was undoubtedly recovered. Then, the superintendent, more shamefaced than ever, and very grave, but with a certain moisture in his eyes, confirmed her statement by saying that he had got the real Museum Wulfric undoubtedly in his pocket. Then Sir Theophilus, who had actually come across with Lady Wraxton on purpose to take care of Emily, added his assurances and congratulations. Last of all, Woollacott, the warder, stepped up to me and said simply, "I'm glad, sir, that it was through me as it all came out so right and even." "Tell me how it all happened," I cried, almost faint with joy, and still wondering whether my innocence had really been proved beyond all fear of cavil. Then Woollacott began, and told me briefly the whole story. He had consulted with the superintendent and Sir Theophilus, without saying a word to me about it, and had kept a close watch upon all the letters that came for Mactavish. A rare Anglo-Saxon coin is not a chattel that one can easily get rid of every day; and Woollacott shrewdly gathered from what Sir Theophilus had told him that Mactavish (or whoever else had stolen the coin) would be likely to try to dispose of it as far away from England as possible, especially after all the comments that had been made on this particular Wulfric in the English newspapers. So he took every opportunity of intercepting the postman at the front door, and looking out for envelopes with foreign postage stamps. At last one day a letter arrived for Mactavish with an Italian stamp and a cardinal's red hat stamped like a crest on the flap of the envelope. Woollacott was certain that things of that sort didn't come to Mactavish every day about his ordinary business. Braving the penalties for appropriating a letter, he took the liberty to open this suspicious communication, and found it was a note from Cardinal Trevelyan, the Pope's Chamberlain, and a well-known collector of antiquities referring to early Church history in England, and that it was in reply to an offer of Mactavish's to send the Cardinal for inspection a rare gold coin not otherwise specified. The Cardinal expressed his readiness to see the coin, and to pay a hundred and fifty pounds for it, if it proved to be rare and genuine as described. Woollacott felt certain that this communication must refer to the gold Wulfric. He therefore handed the letter to Mrs. Mactavish when the postman next came his rounds, and waited to see whether Mactavish any day afterwards went to the post to register a small box or packet. Meanwhile he communicated with Emily and the superintendent, being unwilling to buoy me up with a doubtful hope until he was quite sure that their plan had succeeded. The superintendent wrote immediately to the Cardinal, mentioning his suspicions, and received a reply to the effect that he expected a coin of Wulfric to be sent him shortly. Sir Theophilus, who had been greatly interested in the question of the coin, kindly offered to take Emily over to Rome, in order to get the criminating piece, as soon as it arrived, from Cardinal Trevelyan. That was, in turn, the story that they all told me, piece by piece, in the Central Station at Rome that eventful morning. "And Mactavish?" I asked of the superintendent eagerly. "Is in custody in London already," he answered somewhat sternly. "I had a warrant out against him before I left town on this journey." At the trial the whole case was very clearly proved against him, and my innocence was fully established before the face of all my fellow-countrymen. A fortnight later my wife and I were among the rocks and woods at Ambleside; and when I returned to London, it was to take a place in the department of coins at the British Museum, which the superintendent begged of me to accept as some further proof in the eyes of everybody that the suspicion he had formed in the matter of the Wulfric was a most unfounded and wholly erroneous one. The coin itself I kept as a memento of a terrible experience; but I have given up collecting on my own account entirely, and am quite content nowadays to bear my share in guarding the national collection from other depredators of the class of Mactavish. _MY UNCLE'S WILL._ I. "My dear Mr. Payne," said my deceased uncle's lawyer with an emphatic wag of his forefinger, "I assure you there's no help for it. The language of the will is perfectly simple and explicit. Either you must do as your late uncle desired, or you must let the property go to the representative of his deceased wife's family." "But surely, Blenkinsopp," I said deprecatingly, "we might get the Court of Chancery to set it aside, as being contrary to public policy, or something of that sort. I know you can get the Court of Chancery to affirm almost anything you ask them, especially if it's something a little abstruse and out of the common; it gratifies the Court's opinion of its own acumen. Now, clearly, it's contrary to public policy that a man should go and make his own nephew ridiculous by his last will and testament, isn't it?" Mr. Blenkinsopp shook his head vigorously. "Bless my soul, Mr. Payne," he answered, helping himself to a comprehensive pinch from his snuff-box (an odious habit, confined, I believe, at the present day to family solicitors), "bless my soul, my dear sir, the thing's simply impossible. Here's your uncle, the late Anthony Aikin, Esquire, deceased, a person of sound mind and an adult male above the age of twenty-one years--to be quite accurate, _oetatis suoe_, seventy-eight--makes his will, and duly attests the same in the presence of two witnesses; everything quite in order: not a single point open to exception in any way. Well, he gives and bequeaths to his nephew, Theodore Payne, gentleman--that's you--after a few unimportant legacies, the bulk of his real and personal estate, provided only that you adopt the surname of Aikin, prefixed before and in addition to your own surname of Payne. But,--and this is very important,--if you don't choose to adopt and use the said surname of Aikin, in the manner hereinbefore recited, then and in that case, my dear sir--why, then and in that case, as clear as currant jelly, the whole said residue of his real and personal estate is to go to the heir or heirs-at-law of the late Amelia Maria Susannah Aikin, wife of the said Anthony Aikin, Esquire, deceased. Nothing could be simpler or plainer in any way, and there's really nothing on earth for you to do except to choose between the two alternatives so clearly set before you by your deceased uncle." "But look here, you know, Blenkinsopp," I said appealingly, "no fellow can really be expected to go and call himself Aikin-Payne, now can he? It's positively too ridiculous. Mightn't I stick the Payne before the Aikin, and call myself Payne-Aikin, eh? That wouldn't be quite so absurdly suggestive of a perpetual toothache. But Aikin-Payne! Why, the comic papers would take it up immediately. Every footman in London would grin audibly when he announced me. I fancy I hear the fellows this very moment: flinging open the door with a violent attempt at seriousness, and shouting out, 'Mr. Haching-Pain, ha, ha, ha!' with a loud guffaw behind the lintel. It would be simply unendurable!" "My dear sir," answered the unsympathetic Blenkinsopp (most unsympathetic profession, an attorney's, really), "the law doesn't take into consideration the question of the probable conduct of footmen. It must be Aikin-Payne or nothing. I admit the collocation does sound a little ridiculous, to be sure; but your uncle's will is perfectly unequivocal upon the subject--in fact, ahem! I drew it up myself, to say the truth; and unless you call yourself Aikin-Payne, 'in the manner hereinbefore recited,' then and in that case, observe (there's no deception), then and in that case the heir or heirs-at-law of the late Amelia Maria Susannah aforesaid will be entitled to benefit under the will as fully in every respect as if the property was bequeathed directly to him, her, or them, by name, and to no other person." "And who the dickens are these heirs-at-law, Blenkinsopp?" I ventured to ask after a moment's pause, during which the lawyer had refreshed himself with another prodigious sniff from his snuff-box. "Who the dickens are they, Mr. Payne? I should say Mr. Aikin-Payne, ahem--why, how the dickens should I know, sir? You don't suppose I keep a genealogical table and full pedigree of all the second cousins of all my clients hung up conspicuously in some spare corner of my brain, do you, eh? Upon my soul I really haven't the slightest notion. All I know about them is that the late Mrs. Amelia Maria Susannah Aikin, deceased, had one sister, who married somebody or other somewhere, against Mr. Anthony Aikin's wishes, and that he never had anything further to say to her at any time. 'But where she's gone and how she fares, nobody knows and nobody cares,' sir, as the poet justly remarks." I was not previously acquainted with the poet's striking observation on this matter, but I didn't stop to ask Mr. Blenkinsopp in what author's work these stirring lines had originally appeared. I was too much occupied with other thoughts at that moment to pursue my investigations into their authorship and authenticity. "Upon my word, Blenkinsopp," I said, "I've really half a mind to shy the thing up and go on with my schoolmastering." Mr. Blenkinsopp shrugged his shoulders. "Believe me, my dear young friend," he said sententiously, "twelve hundred a year is not to be sneezed at. Without inquiring too precisely into the exact state of your existing finances, I should be inclined to say your present engagement can't be worth to you more than three hundred a year." I nodded acquiescence. "The exact figure," I murmured. "And your private means are?" "Non-existent," I answered frankly. "Then, my dear sir, excuse such plainness of speech in a man of my profession; but if you throw it up you will be a perfect fool, sir; a perfect fool, I assure you." "But perhaps, Blenkinsopp, the next-of-kin won't step in to claim it!" "Doesn't matter a bit, my dear fellow. Executors are bound to satisfy themselves before paying you over your legacy that you have assumed and will use the name of Aikin before and in addition to your own name of Payne, in the manner hereinbefore recited. There's no getting over that in any way." I sighed aloud. "Twelve hundred a year is certainly very comfortable," I said. "But it's a confounded bore that one should have a condition tacked on to it which will make one a laughing-stock for life to all the buffoons and idiots of one's acquaintance." Blenkinsopp nodded in modified assent. "After all," he answered, "I wouldn't mind taking it on the same terms myself." "Well," said I, "_che sara sara_. If it must be, it must be; and you may put an advertisement into the _Times_ accordingly. Tell the executors that I accept the condition." II. "I won't stop in town," said I to myself, "to be chaffed by all the fellows at the club and in the master's room at St. Martin's. I'll run over on the Continent until the wags (confound them) have forgotten all about it. I'm a sensitive man, and if there's anything on earth I hate it's cheap and easy joking and punning on a name or a personal peculiarity which lays itself open obviously to stupid buffoonery. Of course I shall chuck up the schoolmastering now;--it's an odious trade at any time--and I may as well take a pleasant holiday while I'm about it. Let me see--Nice or Cannes or Florence would be the best thing at this time of year. Escape the November fogs and January frosts. Let's make it Cannes, then, and try the first effect of my new name upon the _corpus vile_ of the Cannois." So I packed up my portmanteau hurriedly, took the 7.45 to Paris, and that same evening found myself comfortably ensconced in a _wagon lit_, making my way as fast as the Lyons line would carry me _en route_ for the blue Mediterranean. The Hôtel du Paradis at Cannes is a very pleasant and well managed place, where I succeeded in making myself perfectly at home. I gave my full name to the _concierge_ boldly. "Thank Heaven," I thought, "Aikin-Payne will sound to her just as good a label to one's back as Howard or Cholmondely. She won't see the absurdity of the combination." She was a fat Vaudoise Swiss by origin, and she took it without moving a muscle. But she answered me in very tolerable English--me, who thought my Parisian accent unimpeachable! "Vary well, sirr, your lettares shall be sent to your apartments." I saw there was the faintest twinkle of a smile about the corner of her mouth, and I felt that even she, a mere foreigner, a Swiss _concierge_, perceived at once the incongruity of the two surnames. Incongruity! that's the worst of it! Would that they were incongruous! But it's their fatal and obvious congruity with one another that makes their juxtaposition so ridiculous. Call a man Payne, and I venture to say, though I was to the manner born, and it's me that says it as oughtn't to say it, you couldn't find a neater or more respectable surname in all England: call him plain Aikin, and though that perhaps is less aristocratic, it's redeemed by all the associations of childhood with the earliest literature we imbibed through the innocuous pages of "Evenings at Home:" but join the two together, in the order of alphabetical precedence, and you get an Aikin-Payne, which is a thing to make a sensitive man, compelled to bear it for a lifetime, turn permanently red like a boiled lobster. My uncle must have done it on purpose, in order to inflict a deadly blow on what he would doubtless have called my confounded self-conceit! However, I changed my tourist suit for a black cutaway, and made my way down to the _salle-à-manger_. The dinner was good in itself, and was enlivened for me by the presence of an extremely pretty girl of, say nineteen, who sat just opposite, and whose natural protector I soon managed to draw casually into a general conversation. I say her natural protector, because, though I took him at the time for her father, I discovered afterwards that he was really her uncle. Experience has taught me that when you sit opposite a pretty girl at an hotel, you ought not to open fire by directing your observations to herself in person; you should begin diplomatically by gaining the confidence of her male relations through the wisdom or the orthodoxy of your political and social opinions. Mr. Shackleford--that, I found afterwards, was the uncle's name--happened to be a fiery Tory, while I have the personal misfortune to be an equally rabid Radical: but on this occasion I successfully dissembled, acquiescing with vague generality in his denunciation of my dearest private convictions; and by the end of dinner we had struck up quite an acquaintance with one another. "Ruby," said the aunt to the pretty girl, as soon as dinner was over, "shall we take a stroll out in the gardens?" Ruby! what a charming name really. I wonder, now, what is her surname? And what a beautiful graceful figure, as she rises from the table, and throws her little pale blue Indian silk scarf around her pretty shoulders! Clearly, Ruby is a person whose acquaintance I ought to cultivate. "Uncle won't come, of course," said Ruby, with a pleasant smile (what teeth!). "The evening air would be too much for him. You know," she added, looking across to me, "almost everybody at Cannes is in the invalid line, and mustn't stir out after sunset. Aunt and I are unfashionable enough to be quite strong, and to go in for a stroll by moonlight." "I happen to be equally out of the Cannes fashion," I said, directing my observation, with great strategic skill, rather to the aunt than to Miss Ruby in person; "and if you will allow me I should be very glad to accompany you." So we turned out on the terrace of the Paradis, and walked among the date-palms and prickly pears that fill the pretty tropical garden. It was a lovely moonlight evening in October; and October is still almost a summer month in the Riviera. The feathery branches of the palms stood out in clear-cut outline against the pale moonlit sky; the white houses of Cannes gleamed with that peculiarly soft greenish Mediterranean tint in the middle distance; and the sea reflected the tremulous shimmer in the background, between the jagged sierra of the craggy Esterel and the long low outline of the Ile Ste. Marguerite. Altogether, it was an ideal poet's evening, the very evening to stroll for the first time with a beautiful girl through the charmed alleys of a Provençal garden! Ruby Estcourt--she gave me her name before long--was quite as pleasant to talk to as she was beautiful and graceful to behold. Fortunately, her aunt was not one of the race of talkative old ladies, and she left the mass of the conversation entirely to Ruby and myself. In the course of half an hour or so spent in pacing up and down that lovely terrace, I had picked out, bit by bit, all that I most wanted to know about Ruby Estcourt. She was an orphan, without brothers or sisters, and evidently without any large share of this world's goods; and she lived with her aunt and uncle, who were childless people, and who usually spent the summer in Switzerland, retiring to the Riviera every winter for the benefit of Mr. Shackleford's remaining lung. Quite simple and unaffected Ruby seemed, though she had passed most of her lifetime in the too-knowing atmosphere of Continental hotels, among that cosmopolitan public which is so very sharp-sighted that it fancies it can see entirely through such arrant humbug as honour in men and maidenly reserve in women. Still, from that world Ruby Estcourt had somehow managed to keep herself quite unspotted; and a simpler, prettier, more natural little fairy you wouldn't find anywhere in the English villages of half a dozen counties. It was all so fresh and delightful to me--the palms, the Mediterranean, the balmy evening air, the gleaming white town, and pretty Ruby Estcourt--that I walked up and down on the terrace as long as they would let me; and I was really sorry when good Mrs. Shackleford at last suggested that it was surely getting time for uncle's game of cribbage. As they turned to go, Ruby said good evening, and then, hesitating for a moment as to my name, said quite simply and naturally, "Why, you haven't yet told us who you are, have you?" I coloured a little--happily invisible by moonlight--as I answered, "That was an omission on my part, certainly. When you told me you were Miss Estcourt, I ought to have mentioned in return that my own name was Aikin-Payne, Theodore Aikin-Payne, if you please: may I give you a card?" "Aching Pain!" Ruby said, with a smile. "Did I hear you right? Aching Pain, is it? Oh, what a very funny name!" I drew myself up as stiffly as I was able. "Not Aching Pain," I said, with a doleful misgiving in my heart--it was clear everybody would put that odd misinterpretation upon it for the rest of my days. "Not Aching Pain, but Aikin-Payne, Miss Estcourt. A-i-k-i-n, Aikin, the Aikins of Staffordshire; P-a-y-n-e, Payne, the Paynes of Surrey. My original surname was Payne, a surname that I venture to say I'm a little proud of; but my uncle, Mr. Aikin, from whom I inherit property," I thought that was rather a good way of putting it, "wished me to adopt his family name in addition to my own--in fact, made it a condition, _sine quâ non_, of my receiving the property." "Payne--Aikin," Ruby said, turning the names over to herself slowly. "Ah, yes, I see. Excuse my misapprehension, Mr.--Mr. Aikin-Payne. It was very foolish of me; but really, you know, it _does_ sound so very ludicrous, doesn't it now?" I bit my lip, and tried to smile back again. Absurd that a man should be made miserable about such a trifle; and yet I will freely confess that at that moment, in spite of my uncle's twelve hundred a year, I felt utterly wretched. I bowed to pretty little Ruby as well as I was able, and took a couple more turns by myself hurriedly around the terrace. Was it only fancy, or did I really detect, as Ruby Estcourt said the two names over to herself just now, that she seemed to find the combination a familiar one? I really didn't feel sure about it; but it certainly did sound as if she had once known something about the Paynes or the Aikins. Ah, well! there are lots of Paynes and Aikins in the world, no doubt; but alas! there is only one of them doomed to go through life with the absurd label of an Aikin-Payne fastened upon his unwilling shoulders. III. "Good morning, Mr.--Mr. Aikin-Payne," said Ruby Estcourt, stumbling timidly over the name, as we met in the _salle-à-manger_ at breakfast next day. "I hope you don't feel any the worse for the chilly air last evening." I bowed slightly. "You seem to have some difficulty in remembering my full name, Miss Estcourt," I said suggestively. "Suppose you call me simply Mr. Payne. I've been accustomed to it till quite lately, and to tell you the truth, I don't altogether relish the new addition." "I should think not, indeed," Ruby answered frankly. "I never heard such a ridiculous combination in all my life before. I'm sure your uncle must have been a perfect old bear to impose it upon you." "It was certainly rather cruel of him," I replied, as carelessly as I could, "or at least rather thoughtless. I dare say, though, the absurdity of the two names put together never struck him. What are you going to do with yourselves to-day, Mr. Shackleford? Everybody at Cannes has nothing to do but to amuse themselves, I suppose?" Mr. Shackleford answered that they were going to drive over in the morning to Vallauris, and that if I cared to share a carriage with them, he would be happy to let me accompany his party. Nothing could have suited my book better. I was alone, I wanted society and amusement, and I had never seen a prettier girl than Ruby Estcourt. Here was the very thing I needed, ready cut out to my hand by propitious fortune. I found out as time went on that Mr. Shackleford, being a person of limited income, and a bad walker, had only one desire in life, which was to get somebody else to pay half his carriage fares for him by arrangement. We went to a great many places together, and he always divided the expenses equally between us, although I ought only to have paid a quarter, as his party consisted of three people, while I was one solitary bachelor. This apparent anomaly he got over on the ingenious ground that if I had taken a carriage by myself it would have cost me just twice as much. However, as I was already decidedly anxious for pretty little Ruby Estcourt's society, this question of financial detail did not weigh heavily upon me. Besides, a man who has just come into twelve hundred a year can afford to be generous in the matter of hackney carriages. We had a delightful drive along the shore of that beautiful blue gulf to Vallauris, and another delightful drive back again over the hills to the Paradis. True, old Mr. Shackleford proved rather a bore through his anxiety to instruct me in the history and technical nature of keramic ware in general, and of the Vallauris pottery in particular, when I wanted rather to be admiring the glimpses of Bordighera and the Cap St. Martin and the snow-clad summits of the Maritime Alps with Ruby Estcourt. But in spite of all drawbacks--and old Mr. Shackleford with his universal information really _was_ a serious drawback--I thoroughly enjoyed that first morning by the lovely Mediterranean. Ruby herself was absolutely charming. Such a light, bright, fairy-like little person, moving among the priceless vases and tazzas at Clément Massier's as if she were an embodied zephyr, too gentle even to knock them over with a whiff of her little Rampoor shawl--but there, I can't describe her, and I won't attempt it. Ruby, looking over my shoulder at this moment, says I always was an old stupid: so that, you see, closes the question. An old stupid I certainly was for the next fortnight. Old Mr. Shackleford, only too glad to have got hold of a willing victim in the carriage-sharing fraud, dragged me about the country to every available point of view or object of curiosity within ten miles of the Square Brougham. Ruby usually accompanied us; and as the two old people naturally occupied the seat of honour at the back of the carriage, why, of course Ruby and I had to sit together with our backs to the horses--a mode of progression which I had never before known to be so agreeable. Every evening, Ruby and I walked out on the terrace in the moonlight; and I need hardly say that the moon, in spite of her pretended coldness, is really the most romantic and sentimental satellite in the whole solar system. To cut a long story short, by the end of the fortnight I was very distinctly in love with Ruby; and if you won't think the avowal a conceited one, I venture to judge by the sequel that Ruby was almost equally in love with me. One afternoon, towards the close of my second week at Cannes, Ruby and I were sitting together on the retired seat in the grounds beside the pond with the goldfish. It was a delicious sunny afternoon, with the last touch of southern summer in the air, and Ruby was looking even prettier than usual, in her brocade pattern print dress, and her little straw hat with the scarlet poppies. (Ruby always dressed--I may say dresses--in the very simplest yet most charming fashion). There was something in the time and place that moved me to make a confession I had for some time been meditating; so I looked straight in her face, and not being given to long speeches, I said to her just this, "Ruby, you are the sweetest girl I ever saw in my life. Will you marry me?" Ruby only looked at me with a face full of merriment, and burst out laughing. "Why, Mr. Payne," she said (she had dropped that hideous prefix long ago), "you've hardly known me yet a fortnight, and here you come to me with a regular declaration. How can I have had time to think about my answer to such a point-blank question?" "If you like, Ruby," I answered, "we can leave it open for a little; but it occurs to me you might as well say 'yes' at once: for if we leave it open, common sense teaches me that you probably mean to say yes in the long-run." And to clench the matter outright, I thought it best to stoop across and kiss Ruby just once, by way of earnest. Ruby took the kiss calmly and sedately; so then I knew the matter was practically settled. "But there's one thing, Mr. Payne, I must really insist upon," Ruby said very quietly; "and that is that I mustn't be called Mrs. Aikin-Payne. If I marry you at all, I must marry you as plain Mr. Payne without any Aikin. So that's clearly understood between us." Here was a terrible condition indeed! I reasoned with Ruby, I explained to Ruby, I told Ruby that if she positively insisted upon it I must go back to my three hundred a year and my paltry schoolmastership, and must give up my uncle Aikin's money. Ruby would hear of no refusal. "You have always the alternative of marrying somebody else, you know, Mr. Payne," she said with her most provoking and bewitching smile; "but if you really do want to marry me, you know the conditions." "But, Ruby, you would never care to live upon a miserable pittance of three hundred a year! I hate the name as much as you do, but I think I should try to bear it for the sake of twelve hundred a year and perfect comfort." No, Ruby was inexorable. "Take me or leave me," she said with provoking calmness, "but if you take me, give up your uncle's ridiculous suggestion. You can have three days to make your mind up. Till then, let us hear no more about the subject." IV. During those three days I kept up a brisk fire of telegrams with old Blenkinsopp in Chancery Lane; and at the end of them I came mournfully to the conclusion that I must either give up Ruby or give up the twelve hundred a year. If I had been a hero of romance I should have had no difficulty at all in deciding the matter: I would have nobly refused the money off-hand, counting it as mere dross compared with the loving heart of a beautiful maiden. But unfortunately I am not a hero of romance; I am only an ordinary graduate of an English university. Under these circumstances, it did seem to me very hard that I must throw away twelve hundred a year for a mere sentimental fancy. And yet, on the other hand, not only did I hate the name myself, but I couldn't bear to impose it on Ruby; and as to telling Ruby that I wouldn't have her, because I preferred the money, that was clearly quite impossible. The more I looked the thing in the face, the more certain it appeared that I must relinquish my dream of wealth and go back (with Ruby) to my schoolmastering and my paltry three hundred. After all, lots of other fellows marry on that sum; and to say the truth, I positively shrank myself from going through life under the ridiculous guise of an Aikin-Payne. The upshot of it all was that at the end of the three days, I took Ruby a little walk alone among the olive gardens behind the shrubbery. "Ruby," I said to her, falteringly, "you're the most fantastic, self-willed, imperious little person I ever met with, and I want to make just one more appeal to you. Won't you reconsider your decision, and take me in spite of the surname?" Ruby grubbed up a little weed with the point of her parasol, and looked away from me steadfastly as she answered with her immovable and annoying calmness, "No, Mr. Payne, I really can't reconsider the matter in any way. It was you who took three days to make your mind up. Have you made it up yet or not, pray?" "I _have_ made it up, Ruby." "And you mean----?" she said interrogatively, with a faint little tremor in her voice which I had never before noticed, and which thrilled through me with the ecstasy of a first discovery. "And I mean," I answered, "to marry you, Ruby, if you will condescend to take me, and let my Uncle Aikin's money go to Halifax. Can you manage, Ruby, to be happy, as a poor schoolmaster's wife in a very tiny cottage?" To my joy and surprise, Ruby suddenly seized both my hands in hers, kissed me twice of her own accord, and began to cry as if nothing could stop her. "Then you do really and truly love me," she said through her tears, holding fast to my hands all the time; "then you're really willing to make this great sacrifice for me!" "Ruby," I said, "my darling, don't excite yourself so. And indeed it isn't a very great sacrifice either, for I hate the name so much I hardly know whether I could ever have endured to bear it." "You shan't bear it," Ruby cried, eagerly, now laughing and clapping her hands above me. "You shan't bear it, and yet you shall have your Uncle Aikin's money all the same for all that." "Why, what on earth do you mean, Ruby?" I asked in amazement. "Surely, my darling, you can't understand how strict the terms of the will actually are. I'm afraid you have been deluding yourself into a belief in some impossible compromise. But you must make your mind up to one thing at once, that unless I call myself Aikin-Payne, you'll have to live the rest of your life as a poor schoolmaster's wife. The next-of-kin will be sharp enough in coming down upon the money." Ruby looked at me and laughed and clapped her hands again. "But what would you say, Mr. Payne," she said with a smile that dried up all her tears, "what would you say if you heard that the next-of-kin was--who do you think?--why me, sir, me, Ruby Estcourt?" I could hardly believe my ears. "You, Ruby?" I cried in my astonishment. "You! How do you know? Are you really sure of it?" Ruby put a lawyer's letter into my hand, signed by a famous firm in the city. "Read that," she said simply. I read it through, and saw in a moment that what Ruby said was the plain truth of it. "So you want to do your future husband out of the twelve hundred a year!" I said, smiling and kissing her. "No," Ruby answered, as she pressed my hand gently. "It shall be settled on you, since I know you were ready to give it up for my sake. And there shall be no more Aikin-Paynes henceforth and for ever." There was never a prettier or more blushing bride than dear little Ruby that day six weeks. _THE TWO CARNEGIES._ I. "Harold," said Ernest Carnegie to his twin-brother at breakfast one morning, "have you got a tooth aching slightly to-day?" "Yes, by Jove, I have!" Harold answered, laying down the _Times_, and looking across the table with interest to his brother; "which one was yours?" "The third from the canine on the upper left side," Ernest replied quickly. "And yours?" "Let me see. This is the canine, isn't it? One, two, three; yes. The same, of course. It's really a very singular coincidence. How about the time? Was that as usual?" "I'll tell you in a minute. Mine came on the day of the Guthries' hop. I was down at Brighton that morning. What date? Let me think; why, the 9th, I'm certain. To-day's what, mother?" "The 23rd," said Harold, glancing for confirmation at the paper. "The law works itself out once more as regularly as if by machinery. I'm just a fortnight later than you, Ernest, as always." Ernest drummed upon the table with his finger for a minute. "I'm afraid you'll have it rather badly to-day, Harold," he said, after a pause. "Mine got unbearable towards midday, and if I hadn't had it looked to in the afternoon, I couldn't have danced a single dance to save my life that evening. I advise you to go round to the dentist's immediately, and try to get it stopped before it goes any further." Harold finished his cup of coffee, and looked out of the window blankly at the fog outside. "It's an awful thought," he said at last, "this living, as we two do, by clockwork! Everybody else lives exactly the same way, but they don't have their attention called to it, as we do. Just to think that from the day you and I were born, Ernest, it was written in the very fabric of our constitutions that when we were twenty-three years and five months old, the third molar in our upper left jaws should begin to fail us! It's really appalling in its unanswerable physical fatalism, when ones comes to think upon it." "So I said to myself at the Guthries', the morning it began to give me a twinge," said Ernest, in the self-same tone. "It seemed to me such a terrible idea that in a fortnight's time, as certain as the sun, the very same tooth in your head would begin to go, as the one that was going in mine. It's too appalling, really." "But do you actually mean to say," asked pretty little Nellie Holt, the visitor, newly come the day before from Cheshire, "that whenever one of you gets a toothache, the other one gets a toothache in the same tooth a fortnight later?" "Not a toothache only," Ernest answered--he was studying for his degree as a physician, and took this department upon himself as by right--"but every other disease or ailment whatsoever. We're like two clocks wound up to strike at fixed moments; only, we're not wound up to strike exactly together. I'm fourteen days in advance of Harold, so to speak, and whatever happens to me to-day will happen to him, in all probability, exactly a fortnight later." "How very extraordinary!" said Nellie, looking quickly, from one handsome clear-cut face to its exact counterpart in the other. "And yet not so extraordinary, after all,--when one comes to think how very much alike you both are." "Ah, that's not all," said Ernest, slowly; "it's something that goes a good deal deeper than that, Miss Holt. Consider that every one of us is born with a certain fixed and recognizable constitution, which we inherit from our fathers and mothers. In us, from our birth upward, are the seeds of certain diseases, the possibilities of certain actions and achievements. One man is born with hereditary consumption; another man with hereditary scrofula; a third with hereditary genius or hereditary drunkenness, each equally innate in the very threads and strands of his system. And it's all bound to come out, sooner or later, in its own due and appointed time. Here's a fellow whose father had gout at forty: he's born with such a constitution that, as the hands on his life-dial reach forty, out comes the gout in his feet, wherever he may be, as certain as fate. It's horrible to think of, but it's the truth, and there's no good in disguising it." Nellie Holt shuddered slightly. "What a dreadful materialistic creed, Mr. Carnegie," she said, looking at him with a half-frightened air. "It's almost as bad as Mohammedan fatalism." "No, not so bad as that," Ernest Carnegie answered; "not nearly so bad as that. The Oriental belief holds that powers above you compel your life against your will: we modern scientific thinkers only hold that your own inborn constitution determines your whole life for you, will included. But whether we like it or dislike it, Miss Holt, there are the facts, and nobody can deny them. If you'd lived with a twin-sister, as Harold and I have lived together for twenty-three years, you'd see that the clocks go as they are set, with fixed and predestined regularity. Twins, you know, are almost exactly alike in all things, and in the absolute coincidence of their constitutions you can see the inexorable march of disease, and the inexorable unfolding of the predetermined life-history far better than in any other conceivable case. I'm a scientific man myself, you see, and I have such an opportunity of watching it all as no other man ever yet had before me." "My dear," said Mrs. Carnegie, the mother, from the head of the table, "you've no idea how curiously their two lives have always resembled one other. When they were babies, they were so much alike that we had to tie red and blue ribbons round their necks to distinguish them. Ernest was red and Harold blue--no, Ernest was blue and Harold red: at least, I'm not quite certain which way it was, but I know we have a note of it in the family Bible, for Mr. Carnegie made it at the time for fear we should get confused between them when we were bathing them. So we put the ribbons on the moment they were christened, and never took them both off together for a second, even to bathe them, so as to prevent accidents. Well, do you know, dear, from the time they were babies, they were always alike in everything; but Ernest was always a fortnight before Harold. He said "Mamma" one day, and just a fortnight later Harold said the very same word. Then Ernest said "sugar," and so did Harold in another fortnight. Ernest began to toddle a fortnight the earliest. They took the whooping cough and the measles in the same order; and they cut all their teeth so, too, the same teeth first on each side, and just at a fortnight's distance from one another. It's really quite an extraordinary coincidence." "The real difficulty would be," said Harold, "to find anything in which we didn't exactly resemble one another. Well, now I must be off to this horrid office with the Pater. Are you ready, Pater? I'll call in at Estwood's in the course of the morning, Ernest, and tell him to look after my teeth. I don't want to miss the Balfours' party this evening. Curious that we should be going to a party this evening too. _That_ isn't fated in our constitutions, anyhow, is it, Ernest? Good morning, Miss Holt; the first waltz, remember. Come along, Pater." And he went out, followed immediately by his father. "I must be going too," said Ernest, looking at his watch; "I have an appointment with Dowson at Guy's at half-past ten--a very interesting case: hereditary cataract; three brothers, all of them get it, each as he reaches twelve years old, and Dowson has performed the operation on two, and is going to perform it on the other this very day. Good morning, Miss Holt; the second waltz for me; you won't forget, will you?" "How awfully alike they really are, Mrs. Carnegie," said Nellie, as they were left alone. "I'm sure I shall never be able to tell them apart. I don't even know their names yet. The one that has just gone out, the one that's going to be a doctor--that's Mr. Harold, isn't it?" "Oh no, dear," Mrs. Carnegie answered, putting her arm round Nellie's waist affectionately, "that's Ernest. Harold's the lawyer. You'll soon learn the difference between them. You can tell Ernest easily, because he usually wears a horrid thing for a scarf-pin, an ivory skull and cross-bones: he wears it, he says, just to distinguish him professionally from Harold. Indeed, that was partly why Mr. Carnegie was so anxious that Harold should go into his own office; so as to make a distinction of profession between them. If Harold had followed his own bent, he would have been a doctor too; they're both full of what they call physiological ideas--dreadful things, I think them. But Mr. Carnegie thought as they were so very much alike already we ought to do something to give them some individuality, as he says: for if they were both to be doctors or both solicitors, you know, there'd really be no knowing them apart, even for ourselves; and I assure you, my dear, as it is now even they're exactly like one person." "Are they as alike in character, then, as they are in face?" asked Nellie. "Alike in character! My dear, they're absolutely identical. Whatever the one thinks, or says, or does, the other thinks, says, and does at the same time, independently. Why, once Ernest went over to Paris for a week's holiday, while Harold went on some law business of his father's to Brussels. Would you believe it, when they came back they'd each got a present for the other. Ernest had seen a particular Indian silver cigar-case in a shop on the Boulevards, and he brought it home as a surprise for Harold. Well, Harold had bought an exactly similar one in the Montagne de la Cour, and brought it home as a surprise for Ernest. And what was odder still, each of them had had the other's initials engraved upon the back in some sort of heathenish Oriental characters." "How very queer," said Nellie. "And yet they seem very fond of one another. As a rule, one's always told that people who are exactly alike in character somehow don't get on together." "My dear child, they're absolutely inseparable. Their devotion to one another's quite unlimited. You see they've been brought up together, played together, sympathized with one another in all their troubles and ailments, and are sure of a response from each other about everything. It was the greatest trouble of their lives when Mr. Carnegie decided that Harold must become a solicitor for the sake of the practice. They couldn't bear at first to be separated all day; and when they got home in the evening, Ernest from the hospital and Harold from the office, they met almost like a pair of lovers. They've talked together about their work so much that Harold knows almost as much medicine now as Ernest, while Ernest's quite at home, his father declares, in 'Benjamin on Sales,' and 'Chitty on Contract.' It's quite delightful to see how fond they are of one another." At five o'clock Ernest Carnegie returned from his hospital. He brought two little bunches of flowers with him--some lilies of the valley and a carnation--and he handed them with a smile, one to his sister and one to pretty little Nellie. "I thought you'd like them for this evening, Miss Holt," he said. "I chose a carnation on purpose, because I fancied it would suit your hair." "Oh, Ernest," said his sister, "you ought to have got a red camelia. That's the proper thing for a brunette like Nellie." "Nonsense, Edie," Ernest answered, "I hate camelias. Ugliest flowers out: so stiff and artificial. One might as well wear a starchy gauze thing from the milliner's." "I'm so glad you brought Nellie Holt a flower. She's a sweet girl, Ernest, isn't she?" said Mrs. Carnegie a minute or two later, as Edie and Nelly ran upstairs. "I wish either of you two boys could take a fancy to a nice girl like her, now." "My dear mother," Ernest answered, turning up his eyes appealingly. "A little empty-headed, pink-and-white thing like that! I don't know what Harold thinks, but she'd never do for me, at any rate. Very pretty to look at, very timid to talk to, very nice and shrinking, and all that kind of thing, I grant you; but nothing in her. Whenever I marry, I shall marry a real live woman, not a dainty piece of delicate empty drapery." At six o'clock, Mr. Carnegie and Harold came in from the office. Harold carried in his hand two little button-hole bouquets, of a few white lilies and a carnation. "Miss Holt," he said, as he entered the drawing-room, "I've brought you and Edie a flower to wear at the Balfours' this evening. This is for you, Edie, with the pale pink; the dark will suit Miss Holt's hair best." Edie looked at Ernest, and smiled significantly. "Why didn't you get us camelias, Harold?" she asked, with a faint touch of mischief in her tone. "Camelias! My dear girl, what a question! I gave Miss Holt credit for better taste than liking camelias. Beastly things, as stiff and conventional as dahlias or sunflowers. You might just as well have a wax rose from an artificial flower-maker while you are about it." Edie laughed and looked at Nellie. "See here," she said, taking up Ernest's bunches from the little specimen vases where she had put them to keep them fresh in water, "somebody else has thought of the flowers already." Harold laughed, too, a little uneasily. "Aha," he said, "I see Ernest has been beforehand with me as usual. I'm always a day too late. It seems to me I'm the Esau of this duet, and Ernest's the Jacob. Well, Miss Holt, you must take the will for the deed; and after all, one will do for your dress and the other for your hair, won't they?" "Harold," said his father, as they went upstairs together to dress for dinner, "Nellie Holt's a very nice girl, and I've reason to believe--you know I don't judge these matters without documentary evidence--I have reason to believe that she'll come into the greater part of old Stanley Holt's money. She's his favourite niece, and she benefits largely, as I happen to know, under his will. _Verbum sap._, my dear boy; she's a pretty girl, and has sweet manners. In my opinion, she'd make----" "My dear Pater," Harold exclaimed, interrupting him, "for Heaven's sake don't say so. Pretty enough, I grant you; and no doubt old Stanley Holt's money would be a very nice thing in its way; but just seriously consider now, if you were a young man yourself, what on earth could you see in Nellie Holt to attract your love or admiration? Why, she shrinks and blushes every time she speaks to you. No, no, whenever I marry I should like to marry a girl of some presence and some character." "Well, well," said his father, pausing a second at his bedroom door, "perhaps if she don't suit you, Harold, she'll suit Ernest." "I should have thought, Pater, you knew us two better than that by this time." "But, my dear Harold, you can't both marry the same woman!" "No, we can't, Pater, but it's my opinion we shall both fall unanimously in love with her, at any rate, whenever we happen to see her." II. The Balfours were very rich people--city people; "something in the stockbroking or bankruptcy line, I believe," Ernest Carnegie told Nelly Holt succinctly as they drove round in the brougham with his sister; and their dance was of the finest modern moneyed fashion. "Positively reeks with Peruvian bonds and Deferred Egyptians, doesn't it?" said Harold, as they went up the big open staircase and through the choice exotic flowers on the landing. "Old Balfour has so much money, they say, that if he tries his hardest he can't spend his day's income in the twenty-four hours. He had a good hard try at it once. Prince of Wales or somebody came to a concert for some sort of public purpose--hospital, or something--and old B. got the whole thing up on the tallest possible scale of expenditure. Spent a week in preparation. Had in dozens of powdered footmen; ordered palms and orange-trees in boxes from Nice; hung electric lights all over the drawing-room; offered Pattalini and Goldoni three times as much for their services as the total receipts for the charity were worth; and at the end of it all he called in a crack accountant to reckon up the cost of the entertainment. Well, he found, with all his efforts, he'd positively lived fifty pounds within his week's income. Extraordinary, isn't it?" "Very extraordinary indeed," said Nellie, "if it's quite true, you know." "You owe me the first waltz," Harold said, without noticing the reservation. "Don't forget it, please, Miss Holt." "I say, Balfour," Ernest Carnegie observed to the son of the house, shortly after they had entered the ballroom, "who's that beautiful tall dark girl over there? No, not the pink one, that other girl behind her in the deep red satin." "She? oh, she's nothing in particular," Harry Balfour answered carelessly (the girl in pink was worth eighty thousand, and her figure cast into the shade all her neighbours in Harry Balfour's arithmetical eyes). "Her name's Walters, Isabel Walters, daughter of a lawyer fellow--no offence meant to your profession, Carnegie. Let me see: you _are_ the lawyer, aren't you? No knowing you two fellows apart, you know, especially when you've got white ties on." "No, I'm not the lawyer fellow," Ernest answered quietly; "I'm the doctor fellow. But it doesn't at all matter; we're used to it. Would you mind introducing me to Miss Walters?" "Certainly not. Come along. I believe she's a very nice girl in her way, you know, and dances capitally; but not exactly in our set, you see; not exactly in our set." "I should have guessed as much to look at her," Ernest answered, with a faint undertone of sarcasm in his voice that was quite thrown away upon Harry Balfour. And he walked across the room after his host to ask Isabel Walters for the first waltz. "Tall," he thought to himself as he looked at her: "dark, fine face, beautiful figure, large eyes; makes her own dresses; strange sort of person to meet at the Balfours' dances." Isabel Walters danced admirably. Isabel Walters talked cleverly. Isabel Walters had a character and an individuality of her own. In five minutes she had told Ernest Carnegie that she was the Poor Relation, and in that quality she was asked once yearly to one of the Balfours' Less Distinguished dances. "This is a Less Distinguished," she said quickly; "but I suppose you go to the More Distinguished too?" "On the contrary," Ernest answered, laughing; "though I didn't know the nature of the difference before, I've no doubt that I have to thank the fact of my being Less Distinguished myself for the pleasure of meeting you here this evening." Isabel smiled quietly. "It's a family distinction only," she said. "Of course the Balfours wouldn't like the people they ask to know it. But we always notice the difference ourselves. My mother, you know, was the first Mrs. Balfour's half-sister. But in those days, I need hardly tell you, Mr. Balfour hadn't begun to do great things in Grand Trunk Preferences. Do you know anything about Grand Trunk Preferences?" "Absolutely nothing," Ernest replied. "But, to come down to a more practical question: Are you engaged for the next Lancers?" "A square dance. Oh, why a square dance? I hate square dances." "I like them," said Ernest. "You can talk better." "And yet you waltz capitally. As a rule, I notice the men who like square dances are the sticks who can't waltz without upsetting one. No, I'm not engaged for the next Lancers. Yes, with pleasure." Ernest went off to claim little Nellie Holt from his brother. "By Jove, Ernest," Harold said, as he met him again a little later in the evening, "that's a lovely girl you were dancing with just now. Who is she?" "A Miss Walters," Ernest answered drily. "I'll go and get introduced to her," Harold went on, looking at his brother with a searching glance. "She's the finest girl in the room, and I should like to dance with her." "You think so?" said Ernest. And he turned away a little coldly to join a group of loungers by the doorway. "This is not _our_ Lancers yet, Mr. Carnegie," Isabel said, as Harold stalked up to her with her cousin by his side. "Ours is number seven." "I'm not the same Mr. Carnegie," Harold said, smiling, "though I see I need no introduction now. I'm number seven's brother, and I've come to ask whether I may have the pleasure of dancing number six with you." Isabel looked up at him in doubt. "You are joking, surely," she said. "You danced with me just now, the first waltz." "You see my brother over by the door," Harold answered. "But we're quite accustomed to be taken for one another. Pray don't apologize; we're used to it." Before the end of the evening Isabel Walters had danced three times with Ernest Carnegie, and twice with Harold. Before the end of the evening, too, Ernest and Harold were both at once deeply in love with her. She was not perhaps what most men would call a lovable girl; but she was handsome, clever, dashing, and decidedly original. Now, to both the Carnegies alike, there was no quality in a woman so admirable as individuality. Perhaps it was their own absolute identity of tastes and emotions that made them prize the possession of a distinct personality by others so highly; but in any case, there was no denying the fact that they were both head over ears in love with Isabel Walters. "She's a splendid girl, Edie," said Harold, as he went down with his sister to the cab in which he was to take her home; "a splendid girl; just the sort of girl I should like to marry." "Not so nice by half as Nellie Holt," said Edie simply. "But there, brothers never do marry the girls their sisters want them to." "Very unreasonable of the brothers, no doubt," Harold replied, with a slight curl of his lip: "but possibly explicable upon the ground that a man prefers choosing a wife who'll suit himself to choosing one who'll suit his sisters." "Mother," said Ernest, as he took her down to the brougham, with little Nellie Holt on his other arm, "that's a splendid girl, that Isabel Walters. I haven't met such a nice girl as that for a long time." "I know a great many nicer," his mother answered, glancing half unconsciously towards Nellie, "but boys never do marry as their parents would wish them." "They do not, mother dear," said Ernest quietly. "It's a strange fact, but I dare say it's partly dependent upon the general principle that a man is more anxious to live happily with his own wife than to provide a model daughter-in-law for his father and mother." "Isabel," Mrs. Walters said to her daughter, as they took their seats in the cab that was waiting for them at the door, "what on earth did you mean by dancing five times in one evening with that young man with the light moustache? And who on earth is he, tell me?" "He's two people, mamma," Isabel answered seriously; "and I danced three times with one of him, and twice with the other, I believe; at least so he told me. His name's Carnegie, and half of him's called Ernest and the other half Harold, though which I danced with which time I'm sure I can't tell you. He's a pair of twins, in fact, one a doctor and one a lawyer; and he talks just the same sort of talk in either case, and is an extremely nice young man altogether. I really like him immensely." "Carnegie!" said Mrs. Walters, turning the name over carefully. "Two young Carnegies! How very remarkable! I remember somebody was speaking to me about them, and saying they were absolutely indistinguishable. Not sons of Mr. Carnegie, your uncle's solicitor, are they?" "Yes; so Harry Balfour told me." "Then, Isabel, they're very well off, I understand. I hope people won't think you danced five times in the evening with only one of them. They ought to wear some distinctive coat or something to prevent misapprehensions. Which do you like best, the lawyer or the doctor?" "I like them both exactly the same, mamma. There isn't any difference at all between them, to like one of them better than the other for. They both seem very pleasant and very clever. And as I haven't yet discovered which is which, and didn't know from one time to another which I was dancing with, I can't possibly tell you which I prefer of two identicals. And as to coats, mamma, you know you couldn't expect one of them to wear a grey tweed suit in a ballroom, just to show he isn't the other one." In the passage at the Carnegies', Ernest and Harold stopped one moment, candle in hand, to compare notes with one another before turning into their bedrooms. There was an odd constraint about their manner to each other that they had never felt before during their twenty-three years of life together. "Well?" said Ernest, inquiringly, looking in a hesitating way at his brother. "Well?" Harold echoed, in the same tone. "What did you think of it all, Harold?" "I think, Ernest, I shall propose to Miss Walters." There was a moment's silence, and a black look gathered slowly on Ernest Carnegie's brow. Then he said very deliberately, "You are in a great hurry coming to conclusions, Harold. You've seen very little of her yet; and remember, it was I who first discovered her!" Harold glanced at him angrily and half contemptuously. "_You_ discovered her first!" he said. "Yes, and you are always beforehand with me; but you shall not be beforehand with me this time. I shall propose to her at once, to prevent your anticipating me. So now you know my intentions plainly, and you can govern yourself accordingly." Ernest looked back at him with a long look from head to foot. "It is war then," he said, "Harold; war, you will have it? We are rivals?" "Yes, rivals," Harold answered; "and war to the knife if so you wish it." "War?" "War!" "Good night, Harold." "Good night, Ernest." And they turned in to their bedrooms, in anger with one another, for the first time since they had quarrelled in boyish fashion over tops and marbles years ago together. III. That night the two Carnegies slept very little. They were both in love, very seriously in love; and anybody who has ever been in the same condition must have noticed that the symptoms, which may have been very moderate or undecided during the course of the evening, become rapidly more pronounced and violent as you lie awake in the solitude of your chamber through the night watches. But more than that, they had both begun to feel simultaneously the stab of jealousy. Each of them had been very much taken indeed by Isabel Walters; still, if they had seen no chance of a rival looming in the distance, they might have been content to wait a little, to see a little more of her, to make quite sure of their own affection before plunging headlong into a declaration. After all, it's very absurd to ask a girl to be your companion for life on the strength of an acquaintanceship which has extended over the time occupied by three dances in a single evening. But then, thought each, there was the chance of Ernest's proposing to her, or of Harold's proposing to her, before I do. That idea made precipitancy positively imperative; and by the next morning each of the young men had fully made up his mind to take the first opportunity of asking Isabella Walters to be his wife. Breakfast passed off very silently, neither of the twins speaking much to one another; but nobody noticed their reticence much; for the morning after the occasional orgy or dance is apt to prove a very limp affair indeed in professional homes, where dances are not of nightly occurrence. After breakfast, Harold went off quickly to the office, and Ernest, having bespoken a holiday at the hospital, joined his sister and Nellie Holt in the library. "Do you know, Ernest," Edie said to him, mindful of her last night's conversation with her other brother, "I really believe Harold has fallen desperately in love at first sight with that tall Miss Walters." "I can easily believe it," Ernest answered testily; "she's very handsome and very clever." Edie raised her eyebrows a little. "But it's awfully foolish, Ernest, to fall in love blindfold in that way, isn't it now?" she said, with a searching look at her brother. "He can't possibly know what sort of a girl she really is from half an hour's conversation in a ballroom." "For my part, I don't at all agree with you, Edie," said Ernest, in his coldest manner. "I don't believe there's any right way of falling in love except at first sight. If a girl is going to please you, she ought to please you instantaneously and instinctively; at least, so I think. It isn't a thing to be thought about and reasoned about, but a thing to be felt and apprehended intuitively. I couldn't reason myself into marrying a girl, and what's more, I don't want to." He sat down to the table, took out a sheet or two of initialed notepaper, and began writing a couple of letters. One of them, which he marked "Private" in the corner, ran as follows:-- "MY DEAR MISS WALTERS, "Perhaps you will think it very odd of me to venture upon writing to you on the strength of such a very brief and casual acquaintance as that begun last night; but I have a particular reason for doing so, which I think I can justify to you when I see you. You mentioned to me that you were asked to the Montagus' steam-launch expedition up the river from Surbiton to-morrow; but I understood you to say you did not intend to accept the invitation. I write now to beg of you to be there, as I am going, and I am particularly anxious to meet you and have a little conversation with you on a subject of importance. I know you are not a very conventional person, and therefore I think you will excuse me for asking this favour of you. Please don't take the trouble to write in reply; but answer by going to the Montagus', and I shall then be able to explain this very queer letter. In haste, "Yours very truly, "ERNEST CARNEGIE." He read this note two or three times over to himself, looking not very well satisfied with its contents; and then at last, with the air of a man who determines to plunge and stake all upon a single venture, he folded it up and put it in its envelope. "It'll mystify her a little, no doubt," he thought to himself; "and being a woman, she'll be naturally anxious to unravel the mystery. But of course she'll know I mean to make her an offer, and perhaps she'll think me a perfect idiot for not doing it outright, instead of beating about the bush in this incomprehensible fashion. However, it's too cold-blooded, proposing to a girl on paper; I very much prefer the _vivâ voce_ system. It's only till to-morrow; and I doubt if Harold will manage to be beforehand with me in that time. He'll be deep in business all morning, and have no leisure to think about her. Anyhow, all's fair in love and war; he said it should be war; and I'll try to steal a march upon him, for all his lawyer's quibbles and quiddits." He took another sheet from his blotting-book, and wrote a second note, much more rapidly than the first one. It ran after this fashion-- "DEAR MRS. MONTAGU,-- "Will you think it very rude of me if I ask you to let me be one of your party on your expedition up the river to-morrow? I heard of it from your son Algernon last night at the Balfours', and I happen to be _very_ anxious to meet one of the ladies you have invited. Now, I know you're kindness itself to all your young friends in all these little matters, and I'm sure you won't be angry with me for so coolly inviting myself. If I hadn't felt perfect confidence in your invariable goodness, I wouldn't have ventured to do so. Please don't answer unless you've no room for me, but expect me to turn up at half-past two. "Yours very sincerely, "ERNEST CARNEGIE. "P.S.--We might call at Lady Portlebury's lawn, and look over the conservatories." "Now, that's bold, but judicious," Ernest said to himself, admiringly, as he held the letter at arm's-length, after blotting it. "She might have been angry at my inviting myself, though I don't think she would be; but I'm sure she'll be only too delighted if I offer to take her guests over Aunt Portlebury's conservatories. The postscript's a stroke of genius. What a fuss these people will make, even over the widow of a stupid old cavalry officer, because her husband happens to have been knighted. It's all the better that she's a widow, indeed. The delicious vagueness of the title 'Lady' is certainly one of its chief recommendations. Sir Antony being out of the way, Mrs. Montagu's guests can't really tell but that poor dear old Aunt Portlebury may be a real live Countess." And he folded his second letter up with the full satisfaction of an approving conscience. When Isabel Walters received Ernest Carnegie's mysterious note, she was certainly mystified by it as he had expected, and also not a little gratified. He meant to propose to her, that was certain; and there was never a woman in the whole world who was not flattered by a handsome young man's marked attentions. It was a very queer letter, no doubt; but it had been written skilfully enough to suit the particular personality of Isabel Walters: for Ernest Carnegie was a keen judge of character, and he flattered himself that he knew how to adapt his correspondence to the particular temperament of the persons he happened to be addressing. And though Isabel had no very distinct idea of what the two Carnegies were severally like (it could hardly have been much more distinct if she had known them both intimately), she felt they were two very good-looking, agreeable young men, and she was not particularly averse to the attentions of either. After all, upon what straws we all usually hang our love-making! We see one another once or twice under exceptionally deceptive circumstances; we are struck at first sight with something that attracts us on either side; we find the attraction is mutual; we flounder at once into a declaration of undying attachment; we get married, and on the whole we generally find we were right after all, in spite of our precipitancy, and we live happily ever afterwards. So it was not really very surprising that Isabel Walters, getting such a note from one of the two handsome young Mr. Carnegies, should have been in some doubt which of the two identicals it actually was, and yet should have felt indefinitely pleased and flattered at the implied attention. Which was Ernest and which Harold could only mean to her, when she came to think on it, which was the one she danced with first last night, and which the one she danced with second. She decided in her own mind that it would be better for her to go to the Montagus' picnic to-morrow, but to say nothing about it to her mother. "Mamma wouldn't understand the letter," she said to herself complacently; "she's so conventional; and when I come back to-morrow I can tell her one of the young Carnegies was there, and that he proposed to me. She need never know there was any appointment." IV. At six o'clock, Harold Carnegie returned from the office. He, too, had been thinking all day of Isabel Walters, and the moment he got home he went into the library to write a short note to her, before Ernest had, as usual, forestalled him. As he did so he happened to see a few words dimly transferred to the paper in the blotting-book. They were in Ernest's handwriting, and he was quite sure the four first words read, "My dear Miss Walters." Then Ernest had already been beforehand with him, after all! But not by a fortnight: that was one good point; not this time by a fortnight! He would be even with him yet; he would catch up this anticipatory twin-brother of his, by force or fraud, rather than let him steal away Isabel Walters from him once and for ever. "All's fair in love and war," he muttered to himself, taking up the blotting-book carefully, and tearing out the tell-tale leaf in a furtive fashion. "Thank Heaven, Ernest writes a thick black hand, the same as I do; and I shall probably be able to read it by holding it up to the light." In his own soul Harold Carnegie loathed himself for such an act of petty meanness; but he did it; with love and jealousy goading him on, and the fear of his own twin-brother stinging him madly, he did it; remorsefully and shamefacedly, but still did it. He took the page up to his own bedroom, and held it up to the window-pane. Blurred and indistinct, the words nevertheless came out legibly in patches here and there, so that with a little patient deciphering Harold could spell out the sense of both letters, though they crossed one another obliquely at a slight angle. "Very brief and casual acquaintance ... Montagus' steam-launch expedition up the river from Surbiton to-morrow ... am going and am particularly anxious to meet you ... this favour of you...." "So that's his plan, is it?" Harold said to himself. "Softly, softly, Mr. Ernest, I think I can checkmate you! What's this in the one to Mrs. Montagu? 'Expect me to turn up at half-past two.' Aha, I thought so! Checkmate, Mr. Ernest, checkmate: a scholar's mate for you! He'll be at the hospital till half-past one; then he'll take the train to Clapham Junction, expecting to catch the South-Western at 2.10. But to-morrow's the first of the month; the new time-tables come into force; I've got one and looked it out already. The South-Western now leaves at 2.4, three minutes before Mr. Ernest's train arrives at Clapham Junction. I have him now, I have him now, depend upon it. I'll go down instead of him. I'll get the party under way at once. I'll monopolize Isabel, pretty Isabel. I'll find my opportunity at Aunt Portlebury's, and Ernest won't get down to Surbiton till the 2.50 train. Then he'll find his bird flown already. Aha! that'll make him angry. Checkmate, my young friend, checkmate. You said it should be war, and war you shall have it. I thank thee, friend, for teaching me that word. Rivals now, you said; yes, rivals. 'Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?' Why, that comes out of the passage about Androgeos! An omen, a good omen. There's nothing like war for quickening the intelligence. I haven't looked at a Virgil since I was in the sixth form; and yet the line comes back to me now, after five years, as pat as the Catechism." Chuckling to himself at the fraud to stifle conscience (for he had a conscience), Harold Carnegie dressed hastily for dinner, and went down quickly in a state of feverish excitement. Dinner passed off grimly enough. He knew Ernest had written to Isabel; and Ernest guessed from the other's excited, triumphant manner (though he tried hard to dissemble the note of triumph in it) that Harold must have written too--perhaps forestalling him by a direct proposal. In a dim way Mrs. Carnegie guessed vaguely that some coldness had arisen between her two boys, the first time for many years; and so she held her peace for the most part, or talked in asides to Nellie Holt and her daughter. The conversation was therefore chiefly delegated to Mr. Carnegie himself, who discoursed with much animation about the iniquitous nature of the new act for reducing costs in actions for the recovery of small debts--a subject calculated to arouse the keenest interest in the minds of Nellie and Edie. Next morning, Harold Carnegie started for the office with prospective victory elate in his very step, and yet with the consciousness of his own mean action grinding him down to the pavement as he walked along it. What a dirty, petty, dishonourable subterfuge! and still he would go through with it. What a self-degrading bit of treachery! and yet he would carry it out. "Pater," he said, as he walked along, "I mean to take a holiday this afternoon. I'm going to the Montagus' water-party." "Very inconvenient, Harold, my boy; 'Wilkins _versus_ the Great Northern Railway Company' coming on for hearing; and, besides, Ernest's going there too. They won't want a pair of you, will they?" "Can't help it, Pater," Harold answered. "I have particular business at Surbiton, much more important to me than 'Wilkins versus the Great Northern Railway Company.'" His father looked at him keenly. "Ha!" he said, "a lady in the case, is there? Very well, my boy, if you must you must, and that's the end of it. A young man in love never does make an efficient lawyer. Get it over quickly, pray; get it over quickly, that's all I beg of you." "I shall get it over, I promise you," Harold answered, "this very afternoon." The father whistled. "Whew," he said, "that's sharp work, too, Harold, isn't it? You haven't even told me her name yet. This is really very sudden." But as Harold volunteered no further information, Mr. Carnegie, who was a shrewd man of the world, held it good policy to ask him nothing more about it for the present; and so they walked on the rest of the way to the father's office in unbroken silence. At one o'clock, Harold shut up his desk at the office and ran down to Surbiton. At Clapham Junction he kept a sharp look-out for Ernest, but Ernest was not there. Clearly, as Harold anticipated, he hadn't learnt the alteration in the time-tables, and wouldn't reach Clapham Junction till the train for Surbiton had started. At Surbiton, Harold pushed on arrangements as quickly as possible, and managed to get the party off before Ernest arrived upon the scene. Mrs. Montagu, seeing "one of the young Carnegies" duly to hand, and never having attempted to discriminate between them in any way, was perfectly happy at the prospect of getting landed at Lady Portlebury's without any minute investigation of the intricate question of Christian names. The Montagus were _nouveaux riches_ in the very act of pushing themselves into fashionable society; and a chance of invading the Portlebury lawn was extremely welcome to them upon any terms whatsoever. Isabel Walters was looking charming. A light morning dress became her even better than the dark red satin of the night before last; and she smiled at Harold with the smile of a mutual confidence when she took his hand, in a way that made his heart throb fast within him. From that moment forward, he forgot Ernest and the unworthy trick he was playing, and thought wholly and solely of Isabel Walters. What a handsome young man he was, really, and how cleverly and brilliantly he talked all the way up to Portlebury Lodge! Everybody listened to him; he was the life and soul of the party. Isabel felt more flattered than ever at his marked attention. He was the doctor, wasn't he? No, the lawyer. Well, really, how impossible it was to distinguish and remember them. And so well connected, too. If he were to propose to her, now, she could afford to be so condescending to Amy Balfour. At Lady Portlebury's lawn the steam-launch halted, and Harold managed to get Isabel alone among the walks, while his aunt escorted the main body of visitors thus thrust upon her hands over the conservatories. Eager and hasty, now, he lost no time in making the best of the situation. "I guessed as much, of course, from your letter, Mr. Carnegie," Isabel said, playing with her fan with downcast eyes, as he pressed his offer upon her; "and I really didn't know whether it was right of me to come here without showing it to mamma and asking her advice about it. But I'm quite sure I oughtn't to give you an answer at once, because I've seen so very little of you. Let us leave the question open for a little. It's asking so much to ask one for a definite reply on such a very short acquaintance." "No, no, Miss Walters," Harold said quickly. "For Heaven's sake, give me an answer now, I beg of you--I implore you. I must have an answer at once, immediately. If you can't love me at first sight, for my own sake--as I loved you the moment I saw you--you can never, never, never love me! Doubt and hesitation are impossible in true love. Now, or refuse me for ever! Surely you must know in your own heart whether you can love me or not; if your heart tells you that you can, then trust it--trust it--don't argue and reason with it, but say at once you will make me happy for ever." "Mr. Carnegie," Isabel said, lifting her eyes for a moment, "I do think, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps, after a little while, I could love you. I like you very much; won't that do for the present? Why are you in such a hurry for an answer? Why can't you give me a week or two to decide in?" "Because," said Harold, desperately, "if I give you a week my brother will ask you, and perhaps you will marry him instead of me. He's always before me in everything, and I'm afraid he'll be before me in this. Say you'll have me, Miss Walters--oh, do say you'll have me, and save me from the misery of a week's suspense!" "But, Mr. Carnegie, how can I say anything when I haven't yet made up my own mind about it? Why, I hardly know you yet from your brother." "Ah, that's just it," Harold cried, in a voice of positive pain. "You won't find any difference at all between us, if you come to know us; and then perhaps you'll be induced to marry my brother. But you know this much already, that here am I, begging and pleading before you this very minute, and surely you won't send me away with my prayer unanswered!" There was such a look of genuine anguish and passion in his face that Isabel Walters, already strongly prepossessed in his favour, could resist no longer. She bent her head a little, and whispered very softly, "I will promise, Mr. Carnegie; I will promise." Harold seized her hand eagerly, and covered it with kisses. "Isabel," he cried in a fever of joy, "you have promised. You are mine--mine--mine. You are mine, now and for ever!" Isabel bowed her head, and felt a tear standing dimly in her eye, though she brushed it away hastily. "Yes," she said gently; "I will be yours. I think--I think--I feel sure I can love you." Harold took her ungloved hand tenderly in his, and drew a ring off her finger. "Before I give you mine," he said, "you will let me take this one? I want it for a keepsake and a memorial." Isabel whispered, "Yes." Harold drew another ring from his pocket and slipped it softly on her third finger. Isabel saw by the glitter that there was a diamond in it. Harold had bought it the day before for that very purpose. Then he took from a small box a plain gold locket, with the letter H raised on it. "I want you to wear this," he said, "as a keepsake for me." "But why H?" Isabel asked him, looking a little puzzled. "Your name's Ernest, isn't it?" Harold smiled as well as he was able. "How absurd it is!" he said, with an effort at gaiety. "This ridiculous similarity pursues us everywhere. No, my name's Harold." Isabel stood for a moment surprised and hesitating. She really hardly knew for the second which brother she ought to consider herself engaged to. "Then it wasn't you who wrote to me?" she said, with a tone of some surprise and a little start of astonishment. "No, I certainly didn't write to you; but I came here to-day expecting to see you, and meaning to ask you to be my wife. I learned from my brother ("there can be no falsehood in putting it that way," he thought vainly to himself) that you were to be here; and I determined to seize the opportunity. Ernest meant to have come, too, but I believe he must have lost the train at Clapham Junction." That was all literally true, and yet it sounded simple and plausible enough. Isabel looked at him with a puzzled look, and felt almost compelled to laugh, the situation was so supremely ridiculous. It took a moment to think it all out rationally. Yet, after all, though the letter came from the other brother, Ernest, it was this particular brother, Harold, she had been talking to and admiring all the day; it was this particular brother, Harold, who had gained her consent, and whom she had promised to love and to marry. And at that moment it would have been doing Isabel Walters an injustice not to admit that in her own soul she did then and there really love Harold Carnegie. "Harold," she said slowly, as she took the locket and hung it round her neck, "Harold. Yes, now I know. Then, Harold Carnegie, I shall take your locket and wear it always as a keepsake from you." And she looked up at him with a smile in which there was something more than mere passing coquettish fancy. You see, he was really terribly in earnest; and the very fact that he should have been so anxious to anticipate his brother, and should have anticipated him successfully, made her woman's heart go forth toward him instinctively. As Harold himself said, he was there bodily present before her; while Ernest, the writer of the mysterious letter, was nothing more to her in reality than a name and a shadow. Harold had asked her, and won her; and she was ready to love and cleave to Harold from that day forth for that very reason. What woman of them all has a better reason to give in the last resort for the faith that is in her? V. Meanwhile, at Clapham Junction, Ernest Carnegie had arrived three minutes too late for the Surbiton train, and had been forced to wait for the 2.40. Of that he thought little: they would wait for him, he knew, if they waited an hour; for Mrs. Montagu would not for worlds have missed the chance of showing her guests round Lady Portlebury's gardens. So he settled himself down comfortably in the snug corner of his first-class carriage, and ran down by the later train in perfect confidence that he would find the steam launch waiting. "No, sir, they've gone up the river in the launch, sir," said the man who opened the door for him; "and, I beg pardon, sir, but I thought you were one of the party." In a moment Ernest's fancy, quickened by his jealousy, jumped instinctively at the true meaning of the man's mistake. "What," he said, "was there a gentleman very like me, in a grey coat and straw hat--same ribbon as this one?" "Yes, sir. Exactly, sir. Well, indeed, I should have said it was yourself, sir; but I suppose it was the other Mr. Carnegie." "It was!" Ernest answered between his clenched teeth, almost inarticulate with anger. "It was he. Not a doubt of it. Harold! I see it all. The treachery--the base treachery! How long have they been gone, I say? How long, eh?" "About half an hour, sir; they went up towards Henley, sir." Ernest Carnegie turned aside, reeling with wrath and indignation. That his brother, his own familiar twin-brother, should have played him this abominable, disgraceful trick! The meanness of it! The deceit of it! The petty spying and letter-opening of it! For somehow or other--inconceivable how--Harold must have opened his brother's letters. And then, quick as lightning, for those two brains jumped together, the thought of the blotting-book flashed across Ernest's mind. Why, he had noticed this morning that a page was gone out of it. He must have read the letters. And then the trains! Harold always got a time-table on the first of each month, with his cursed methodical lawyer ways. And he had never told him about the change of service. The dirty low trick! The mean trick! Even to think of it made Ernest Carnegie sick at heart and bitterly indignant. In a minute he saw it all and thought it all out. Why did he--how did he? Why, he knew as clearly as if he could read Harold's thoughts, exactly how the whole vile plot had first risen upon him, and worked itself out within his traitorous brain. How? Ah, how? That was the bitterest, the most horrible, the deadliest part of it all. Ernest Carnegie knew, because he felt in his own inmost soul that, had he been put in the same circumstances, he would himself have done exactly as Harold had done. Yes, exactly in every respect. Harold must have seen the words in the blotting-book, "My dear Miss Walters"--Ernest remembered how thickly and blackly he had written--must have seen those words; and in their present condition, either of the twins, jealous, angry, suspicious, half driven by envy of one another out of their moral senses, would have torn out the page then and there and read it all. He, too, would have kept silence about the train; he would have gone down to Surbiton; he would have proposed to Isabel Walters; he would have done in everything exactly as he knew Harold must have done it; but that did not make his anger and loathing for his brother any the weaker. On the contrary, it only made them all the more terrible. His consciousness of his own equal potential meanness roused his rage against Harold to a white heat. He would have done the same himself, no doubt; yes; but Harold, the mean, successful, actually accomplishing villain--Harold had really gone down and done it all in positive fact and reality. Flushing scarlet and blanching white alternately with the fierceness of his anger, Ernest Carnegie turned down, all on fire, to the river's edge. Should he take a boat and row up after them to prevent the supplanter at least from proposing to Isabel unopposed? That would at any rate give him something to do--muscular work for his arms, if nothing else, to counteract the fire within him; but on second thoughts, no, it would be quite useless. The steam launch had had a good start of him, and no oarsman could catch up with it now by any possibility. So he walked about up and down near the river, chafing in soul and nursing his wrath against Harold for three long weary hours. And all that time Harold, false-hearted, fair-spoken, mean-spirited Harold, was enjoying himself and playing the gallant to Isabel Walters! Minute by minute the hours wore away, and with every minute Ernest's indignation grew deeper and deeper. At last he heard the snort of the steam-launch ploughing its way lustily down the river, and he stood on the bank waiting for the guilty Harold to disembark. As Harold stepped from the launch, and gave his hand to Isabel, he saw the white and bloodless face of his brother looking up at him contemptuously and coldly from beside the landing. Harold passed ashore and close by him, but Ernest never spoke a word. He only looked a moment at Isabel, and said to her with enforced calmness, "You got my letter, Miss Walters?" Isabel, hardly comprehending the real solemnity of the occasion, answered with a light smile, "I did, Mr. Carnegie, but you didn't keep your appointment. Your brother came, and he has been beforehand with you." And she touched his hand lightly and went on to join her hostess. Still Ernest Carnegie said nothing, but walked on, as black as night, beside his brother. Neither spoke a word; but after the shaking of hands and farewells were over, both turned together to the railway station. The carriage was crowded, and so Ernest still held his tongue. At last, when they reached home and stood in the passage together, Ernest looked at his brother with a look of withering scorn, and, livid with anger, found his voice at last. "Harold Carnegie," he said, in a low husky tone, "you are a mean intercepter of other men's letters; a sneaking supplanter of other men's appointments; a cur and a traitor whom I don't wish any longer to associate with. I know what you have done, and I know how you have done it. You have kept my engagement with Isabel Walters by reading the impression of my notes on the blotting-book. You are unfit for a gentleman to speak to, and I cast you off, now and for ever." Harold looked at him defiantly, but said never a word. "Harold Carnegie," Ernest said again, "I could hardly believe your treachery until it was forced upon me. This is the last time I shall ever speak to you." Harold looked at him again, this time perhaps with a tinge of remorse in his expression, and said nothing but, "Oh, Ernest." Ernest made a gesture with his hands as though he would repel him. "Don't come near me," he said; "Harold Carnegie, don't touch me! Don't call me by my name! I will have nothing more to say or do with you." Harold turned away in dead silence, and went to his own room, trembling with conscious humiliation and self-reproach. But he did not attempt to make the only atonement in his power by giving up Isabel Walters. That would have been too much for human nature. VI. When Harold Carnegie was finally married to Isabel Walters, Ernest stopped away from the wedding, and would have nothing whatever to say either to bride or bridegroom. He would leave his unnatural brother, he said, solely and entirely to the punishment of his own guilty conscience. Still, he couldn't rest quiet in his father's house after Harold was gone, so he took himself small rooms near the hospital, and there he lived his lonely life entirely by himself, a solitary man, brooding miserably over his own wrongs and Harold's treachery. There was only one single woman in the world, he said, with whom he could ever have been really happy--Isabel Walters: and Harold had stolen Isabel Walters away from him by the basest treason. Once he could have loved Isabel, and her only; now, because she was Harold's wife, he bitterly hated her. Yes, hated her! With a deadly hatred he hated both of them. Months went by slowly for Ernest Carnegie, in the dull drudgery of his hopeless professional life, for he cared nothing now for ambition or advancement; he lived wholly in the past, nursing his wrath, and devouring his own soul in angry regretfulness. Months went by, and at last Harold's wife gave birth to a baby--a boy, the exact image of his father and his uncle. Harold looked at the child in the nurse's arms, and said remorsefully, "We will call him Ernest. It is all we can do now, Isabel. We will call him Ernest, after my dear lost brother." So they called him Ernest, in the faint hope that his uncle's heart might relent a little; and Harold wrote a letter full of deep and bitter penitence to his brother, piteously begging his forgiveness for the grievous wrong he had wickedly and deliberately done him. But Ernest still nursed his righteous wrath silently in his own bosom, and tore up the letter into a thousand fragments, unanswered. When the baby was five months old, Edie Carnegie came round hurriedly one morning to Ernest's lodgings near the hospital. "Ernest, Ernest," she cried, running up the stairs in great haste, "we want you to come round and see Harold. We're afraid he's very ill. Don't say you won't come and see him!" Ernest Carnegie listened and smiled grimly. "Very ill," he muttered, with a dreadful gleam in his eyes. "Very ill, is he? and I have had nothing the matter with me! How curious! Very ill! I ought to have had the same illness a fortnight ago. Ha, ha! The cycle is broken! The clocks have ceased to strike together! His marriage has altered the run of his constitution--mine remains the same steady striker as ever. I thought it would! I thought it would! Perhaps he'll die, now, the mean, miserable traitor!" Edie Carnegie looked at him in undisguised horror. "Oh, Ernest," she cried, with the utmost dismay; "your own brother! Your own brother! Surely you'll come and see him, and tell us what's the matter." "Yes, I'll come and see him," Ernest answered, unmoved, taking up his hat. "I'll come and see him, and find out what's the matter." But there was an awful air of malicious triumph in his tone, which perfectly horrified his trembling sister. When Ernest reached his brother's house, he went at once to Harold's bedside, and without a word of introduction or recognition he began inquiring into the nature of his symptoms, exactly as he would have done with any unknown and ordinary patient. Harold told him them all, simply and straightforwardly, without any more preface than he would have used with any other doctor. When Ernest had finished his diagnosis, he leaned back carelessly in his easy chair, folded his arms sternly, and said in a perfectly cold, clear, remorseless voice, "Ah, I thought so; yes, yes, I thought so. It's a serious functional disorder of the heart; and there's very little hope indeed that you'll ever recover from it. No hope at all, I may say; no hope at all, I'm certain. The thing has been creeping upon you, creeping upon you, evidently, for a year past, and it has gone too far now to leave the faintest hope of ultimate recovery." Isabel burst into tears at the words--calmly spoken as though they were perfectly indifferent to both speaker and hearers; but Harold only rose up fiercely in the bed, and cried in a tone of the most imploring agony, "Oh, Ernest, Ernest, if I must die, for Heaven's sake, before I die, say you forgive me, do say, do say you forgive me. Oh, Ernest, dear Ernest, dear brother Ernest, for the sake of our long, happy friendship, for the sake of the days when we loved one another with a love passing the love of women, do, do say you will at last forgive me." Ernest rose and fumbled nervously for a second with the edge of his hat. "Harold Carnegie," he said at last, in a voice trembling with excitement, "I can never forgive you. You acted a mean, dirty part, and I can never forgive you. Heaven may, perhaps it will; but as for me, I can never, never, never forgive you!" Harold fell back feebly and wearily upon the pillows. "Ernest, Ernest," he cried, gasping, "you might forgive me! you ought to forgive me! you must forgive me! and I'll tell you why. I didn't want to say it, but now you force me. I know it as well as if I'd seen you do it. In my place, I know to a certainty, Ernest, you'd have done exactly as I did. Ernest Carnegie, you can't look me straight in the face and tell me that you wouldn't have acted exactly as I did." That terrible unspoken truth, long known, but never confessed, even to himself, struck like a knife on Ernest's heart. He raised his hat blindly, and walked with unsteady steps out of the sick-room. At that moment, his own conscience smote him with awful vividness. Looking into the inmost recesses of his angry heart, he felt with a shudder that Harold had spoken the simple truth, and he dared not lie by contradicting him. In Harold's place he would have done exactly as Harold did! And that was just what made his deathless anger burn all the more fiercely and fervidly against his brother! Groping his way down the stairs alone in a stunned and dazzled fashion, Ernest Carnegie went home in his agony to his lonely lodgings, and sat there solitary with his own tempestuous thoughts for the next eight-and-forty hours. He did not undress or lie down to sleep, though he dozed a little at times uneasily in his big arm-chair; he did not eat or drink much; he merely paced up and down his room feverishly, and sent his boy round at intervals of an hour or two to know how the doctor thought Mr. Harold Carnegie was getting on. The boy returned every time with uniformly worse and worse reports. Ernest rubbed his hands in horrid exultation: "Ah," he said to himself, eagerly, "he will die! he will die! he will pay the penalty of his dirty treachery! He has brought it all upon himself by marrying that wicked woman! He deserves it every bit for his mean conduct." On the third morning, Edie came round again, this time with her mother. Both had tears in their eyes, and they implored Ernest with sobs and entreaties to come round and see Harold once more before he died. Harold was raving and crying for him in his weakness and delirium. But Ernest was like adamant. He would not go to see him, he said, not if they went down bodily on their knees before him. At midday, the boy went again, and stayed a little longer than usual. When he returned, he brought back word that Mr. Harold Carnegie had died just as the clock was striking the hour. Ernest listened with a look of terror and dismay, and then broke down into a terrible fit of sobbing and weeping. When Edie came round a little later to tell him that all was over, she found him crying like a child in his own easy chair, and muttering to himself in a broken fashion how dearly he and Harold had loved one another years ago, when they were both happy children together. Edie took him round to his brother's house, and there, over the deaf and blind face that lay cold upon the pillows, he cried the cry that he would not cry over his living, imploring brother. "Oh, Harold, Harold," he groaned in his broken agony, "I forgive you, I forgive you. I too sinned as you did. What you would do, I would do. It was bound up in both our natures. In your place I would have done as you did. But now the curse of Cain is upon me! A worse curse than Cain's is upon me! I have more than killed my brother!" For a day or two Ernest went back, heart-broken, to his father's house, and slept once more in the old room where he used to sleep so long, next door to Harold's. At the end of three days, he woke once from one of his short snatches of sleep with a strange fluttering feeling in his left side. He knew in a moment what it was. It was the same disease that Harold had died of. "Thank Heaven!" he said to himself eagerly, "thank Heaven, thank Heaven for that! Then I didn't wholly kill him! His blood isn't all upon my poor unhappy head. After all, his marriage didn't quite upset the harmony of the two clocks; it only made the slower one catch up for a while and pass the faster. I'm a fortnight later in striking than Harold this time; that's all. In three days more the clock will run down, and I shall die as he did." And, true to time, in three days more, as the clock struck twelve, Ernest Carnegie died as his brother Harold had done before him, with the agonized cry for forgiveness trembling on his fevered lips--who knows whether answered or unanswered? _OLGA DAVIDOFF'S HUSBAND._ I. Tobolsk, though a Siberian metropolis, is really a very pleasant place to pass a winter in. Like the western American cities, where everybody has made his money easily and spends it easily, it positively bubbles over with bad champagne, cheap culture, advanced thought, French romances, and all the other most recent products of human industry and ingenuity. Everybody eats _pâté de foie gras_, quotes Hartmann and Herbert Spencer, uses electric bells, believes in woman's rights, possesses profound views about the future of Asia, and had a grandfather who was a savage Samoyede or an ignorant Buriat. Society is extremely cultivated, and if you scratch it ever so little, you see the Tartar. Nevertheless, it considers itself the only really polite and enlightened community on the whole face of this evolving terrestrial planet. The Davidoffs, however, who belonged to the most advanced section of mercantile society in all Tobolsk, were not originally Siberians, or even Russians, by birth or nationality. Old Mr. Davidoff, the grandfather, who founded the fortunes of the family in St. Petersburg, was a Welsh Davids; and he had altered his name by the timely addition of a Slavonic suffix in order to conciliate the national susceptibilities of Orthodox Russia. His son, Dimitri, whom for the same reason he had christened in honour of a Russian saint, removed the Russian branch of the house to Tobolsk (they were in the Siberian fur-trade), and there marrying a German lady of the name of Freytag, had one daughter and heiress, Olga Davidoff, the acknowledged belle of Tobolskan society. It was generally understood in Tobolsk that the Davidoffs were descended from Welsh princes (as may very likely have been the case--though one would really like to know what has become of all the descendants of Welsh subjects), if indeed they were not even remotely connected with the Prince of Wales himself in person. The winter of 1873 (as everybody will remember) was a very cold one throughout Siberia. The rivers froze unusually early, and troikas had entirely superseded torosses on all the roads as early as the very beginning of October. Still, Tobolsk was exceedingly gay for all that; in the warm houses of the great merchants, with their tropical plants kept at summer heat by stoves and flues all the year round, nobody noticed the exceptional rigour of that severe season. Balls and dances followed one another in quick succession, and Olga Davidoff, just twenty, enjoyed herself as she had never before done in all her lifetime. It was such a change to come to the concentrated gaities and delights of Tobolsk after six years of old Miss Waterlow's Establishment for Young Ladies, at The Laurels, Clapham. That winter, for the first time, Baron Niaz, the Buriat, came to Tobolsk. Exquisitely polished in manners, and very handsome in face and bearing, there was nothing of the Tartar anywhere visible about Baron Niaz. He had been brought up in Paris, at a fashionable Lycée, and he spoke French with perfect fluency, as well as with some native sparkle and genuine cleverness. His taste in music was unimpeachable: even Madame Davidoff, _née_ Freytag, candidly admitted that his performances upon the violin were singularly brilliant, profound, and appreciative. Moreover, though a Buriat chief, he was a most undoubted nobleman: at the Governor's parties he took rank, by patent of the Emperor Nicholas, as a real Russian baron of the first water. To be sure, he was nominally a Tartar; but what of that? His mother and his grandmother, he declared, had both been Russian ladies; and you had only to look at him to see that there was scarcely a drop of Tartar blood still remaining anywhere in him. If the half-caste negro is a brown mulatto, the quarter-caste a light quadroon, and the next remove a practically white octoroon, surely Baron Niaz, in spite of his remote Buriat great-grandfathers, might well pass for an ordinary everyday civilized Russian. Olga Davidoff was fairly fascinated by the accomplished young baron. She met him everywhere, and he paid her always the most marked and flattering attention. He was a Buriat, to be sure: but at Tobolsk, you know----. Well, one mustn't be too particular about these little questions of origin in an Asiatic city. It was at the Governor's dance, just before Christmas, that the Baron got his first good chance of talking with her for ten minutes alone among the fan palms and yuccas in the big conservatory. There was a seat in the far corner beside the flowering oleander, where the Baron led her after the fourth waltz, and leant over her respectfully as she played with her Chinese fan, half trembling at the declaration she knew he was on the point of making to her. "Mademoiselle Davidoff," the Baron began in French, with a lingering cadence as he pronounced her name, and a faint tremor in his voice that thrilled responsively through her inmost being; "Mademoiselle Davidoff, I have been waiting long for this opportunity of speaking to you alone, because I have something of some importance--to me at least, mademoiselle--about which I wish to confer with you. Mademoiselle, will you do me the honour to listen to me patiently a minute or two? The matter about which I wish to speak to you is one that may concern yourself, too, more closely than you at first imagine." What a funny way to begin proposing to one! Olga Davidoff's heart beat violently as she answered as unconcernedly as possible, "I shall be glad, M. le Baron, I'm sure, to listen to any communication that you may wish to make to me." "Mademoiselle," the young man went on almost timidly--how handsome he looked as he stood there bending over her in his semi-barbaric Tartar uniform!--"mademoiselle, the village where I live in our own country is a lonely one among the high mountains. You do not know the Buriat country--it is wild, savage, rugged, pine-clad, snow-clad, solitary, inaccessible, but very beautiful. Even the Russians do not love it; but we love it, we others, who are to the manner born. We breathe there the air of liberty, and we prefer our own brawling streams and sheer precipices to all the artificial stifling civilization of Paris and St. Petersburg." Olga looked at him and smiled quietly. She saw at once how he wished to break it to her, and held her peace like a wise maiden. "Yes, mademoiselle," the young man went on, flooding her each moment with the flashing light from his great luminous eyes; "my village in the Buriat country lies high up beside the eternal snows. But though we live alone there, so far from civilization that we seldom see even a passing traveller, our life is not devoid of its own delights and its own interests. I have my own people all around me; I live in my village as a little prince among his own subjects. My people are few, but they are very faithful. Mademoiselle has been educated in England, I believe?" "Yes," Olga answered. "In London, M. le Baron. I am of English parentage, and my father sent me there to keep up the connection with his old fatherland, where one branch of our House is still established." "Then, mademoiselle, you will doubtless have read the tales of Walter Scott?" Olga smiled curiously. "Yes," she said, amused at his _naïveté_, "I have certainly read them." She began to think that after all the handsome young Buriat couldn't mean really to propose to her. "Well, you know, in that case, what was the life of a Highland chieftain in Scotland, when the Highland chieftains were still practically all but independent. That, mademoiselle, is exactly the life of a modern Buriat nobleman under the Russian empire. He has his own little territory and his own little people; he lives among them in his own little antiquated fortress; he acknowledges nominally the sovereignty of the most orthodox Czar, and even perhaps exchanges for a Russian title the Tartar chieftainship handed down to him in unbroken succession from his earliest forefathers. But in all the rest he still remains essentially independent. He rules over a little principality of his own, and cares not a fig in his own heart for czar, or governor, or general, or minister." "This is rather treasonable talk for the Governor's palace," Olga put in, smiling quietly. "If we were not already in Tobolsk we might both, perhaps, imagine we should be sent to Siberia." The Baron laughed, and showed his two rows of pearly white teeth to the best advantage. "They might send me to the mines," he said, "for aught I care, mademoiselle. I could get away easily enough from village to village to my own country; and once there, it would be easier for the Czar to take Constantinople and Bagdad and Calcutta than to track and dislodge Alexander Niaz in his mountain fortress." Alexander Niaz! Olga noted the name to herself hurriedly. He was converted then! he was an orthodox Christian! That at least was a good thing, for so many of these Buriats are still nothing more than the most degraded Schamanists and heathens! "But, mademoiselle," the young man went on again, playing more nervously now than ever with the jewelled hilt of his dress sword, "there is one thing still wanting to my happiness among our beautiful Siberian mountains. I have no lovely châtelaine to help me guard my little feudal castle. Mademoiselle, the Buriat women are not fit allies for a man who has been brought up among the civilization and the learning of the great Western cities. He needs a companion who can sympathize with his higher tastes: who can speak with him of books, of life, of art, of music. Our Buriat women are mere household drudges; to marry one of them would be utterly impossible. Mademoiselle, my father and my grandfather came away from their native wilds to seek a lady who would condescend to love them, in the polite society of Tobolsk. I have gone farther afield: I have sought in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg. But I saw no lady to whose heart my heart responded, till I came back once more to old Tobolsk. There, mademoiselle, there I saw one whom I recognized at once as fashioned for me by heaven. Mademoiselle Davidoff,--I tremble to ask you, but--I love you,--will you share my exile?" Olga looked at the handsome young man with unconcealed joy and admiration. "Your exile!" she murmured softly, to gain time for a moment. "And why your exile, M. le Baron?" "Mademoiselle," the young Buriat continued very earnestly, "I do not wish to woo or wed you under false pretences. Before you give me an answer, you must understand to what sort of life it is that I venture to invite you. Our mountains are very lonely: to live there would be indeed an exile to you, accustomed to the gaieties and the vortex of London." (Olga smiled quietly to herself, as she thought for a second of the little drawing-room at The Laurels, Clapham.) "But if you can consent to live in it with me, I will do my best to make it as easy for you as possible. You shall have music, books, papers, amusements--but not society--during the six months of summer which we must necessarily pass at my mountain village; you shall visit Tobolsk, Moscow, Petersburg, London--which you will--during the six months of holiday in winter; above all, you shall have the undying love and devotion of one who has never loved another woman--Alexander Niaz.... Mademoiselle, you see the conditions. Can you accept them? Can you condescend of your goodness to love me--to marry me?" Olga Davidoff lifted her fan with an effort and answered faintly, "M. le Baron, you are very flattering. I--I will try my best to deserve your goodness." Niaz took her pretty little hand in his with old-fashioned politeness, and raised it chivalrously to his trembling lips. "Mademoiselle," he said, "you have made me eternally happy. My life shall be passed in trying to prove my gratitude to you for this condescension." "I think," Olga answered, shaking from head to foot, "I think, M. le Baron, you had better take me back into the next room to my mother." II. Olga Davidoff's wedding was one of the most brilliant social successes of that Tobolsk season. Davidoff père surpassed himself in the costliness of his exotics, the magnificence of his presents, the reckless abundance of his Veuve Clicquot. Madame Davidoff successfully caught the Governor and the General, and the English traveller from India _viâ_ the Himalayas. The Baron looked as gorgeous as he was handsome in his half Russian, half Tartar uniform and his Oriental display of pearls and diamonds. Olga herself was the prettiest and most blushing bride ever seen in Tobolsk, a simple English girl, fresh from the proprieties of The Laurels at Clapham, among all that curious mixed cosmopolitan society of semi-civilized Siberians, Catholic Poles, and orthodox Russians. As soon as the wedding was fairly over, the bride and bridegroom started off by toross to make their way across the southern plateau to the Baron's village. It was a long and dreary drive, that wedding tour, in a jolting carriage over Siberian roads, resting at wayside posting-houses, bad enough while they were still on the main line of the Imperial mails, but degenerating into true Central-Asian caravanserais when once they had got off the beaten track into the wild neighbourhood of the Baron's village. Nevertheless, Olga Davidoff bore up against the troubles and discomforts of the journey with a brave heart, for was not the Baron always by her side? and who could be kinder, or gentler, or more thoughtful than her Buriat husband? Yes, it was a long and hard journey, up among those border mountains of the Chinese and Tibetan frontier; but Olga felt at home at last when, after three weeks of incessant jolting, they arrived at the Buriat mountain stronghold, under cover of the night; and Niaz led her straightway to her own pretty little European boudoir, which he had prepared for her beforehand at immense expense and trouble in his upland village. The moment they entered, Olga saw a pretty little room, papered and carpeted in English fashion, with a small piano over in the corner, a lamp burning brightly on the tiny side-table, and a roaring fire of logs blazing and crackling upon the simple stone hearth. A book or two lay upon the shelf at the side: she glanced casually at their titles as she passed, and saw that they were some of Tourgénieff's latest novels, a paper-covered Zola fresh from Paris, a volume each of Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, and Swinburne, a Demidoff, an Emile Augier, a _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and a late number of an English magazine. She valued these things at once for their own sakes, but still more because she felt instinctively that Niaz had taken the trouble to get them there for her beforehand in this remote and uncivilized corner. She turned to the piano: a light piece by Sullivan lay open before her, and a number of airs from Chopin, Schubert, and Mendelssohn were scattered loosely on the top one above the other. Her heart was too full to utter a word, but she went straight up to her husband, threw her arms tenderly around his neck, and kissed him with the utmost fervour. Niaz smoothed her wavy fair hair gently with his hand, and his eyes sparkled with conscious pleasure as he returned her caress and kissed her forehead. After a while, they went into the next room to dinner--a small hall, somewhat barbaric in type, but not ill-furnished; and Olga noticed that the two or three servants were very fierce and savage-looking Buriats of the most pronounced Tartar type. The dinner was a plain one, plainly served, of rough country hospitality; but the appointments were all European, and, though simple, good and sufficient. Niaz had said so much to her of the discomforts of his mountain stronghold that Olga was quite delighted to find things on the whole so comparatively civilized, clean, and European. A few days' sojourn in the fort--it was rather that than a castle or a village--showed Olga pretty clearly what sort of life she was henceforth to expect. Her husband's subjects numbered about a hundred and fifty (with as many more women and children); they rendered him the most implicit obedience, and they evidently looked upon him entirely as a superior being. They were trained to a military discipline, and regularly drilled every morning by Niaz in the queer old semi-Chinese courtyard of the mouldering castle. Olga was so accustomed to a Russian military _régime_ that this circumstance never struck her as being anything extraordinary; she regarded it only as part of the Baron's ancestral habits as a practically independent Tartar chieftain. Week after week rolled away at the fort, and though Olga had absolutely no one to whom she could speak except her own husband (for the Buriats knew no Russian save the word of command), she didn't find time hang heavily on her hands in the quaint, old-fashioned village. The walks and rides about were really delightful; the scenery was grand and beautiful to the last degree; the Chinese-looking houses and Tartar dress were odd and picturesque, like a scene in a theatre. It was all so absurdly romantic. After all, Olga said to herself with a smile more than once, it isn't half bad being married to a Tartar chieftain up in the border mountains, when you actually come to try it. Only, she confessed in her own heart that she would probably always be very glad when the winter came again, and she got back from these mountain solitudes to the congenial gaiety of Tobolsk or Petersburg. And Niaz--well, Niaz loved her distractedly. No husband on earth could possibly love a woman better. Still, Olga could never understand why he sometimes had to leave her for three or four days together, and why during his absence, when she was left all alone at night in the solitary fort with those dreadful Buriats, they kept watch and ward so carefully all the time, and seemed so relieved when Niaz came back again. But whenever she asked him about it, Niaz only looked grave and anxious, and replied with a would-be careless wave of the hand that part of his duty was to guard the frontier, and that the Czar had not conferred a title and an order upon him for nothing. Olga felt frightened and disquieted on all such occasions, but somehow felt, from Niaz's manner, that she must not question him further upon the matter. One day, after one of these occasional excursions, Niaz came back in high spirits, and kissed her more tenderly and affectionately than ever. After dinner, he read to her out of a book of French poems a grand piece of Victor Hugo's, and then made her sit down to the piano and play him his favourite air from _Der Freischütz_ twice over. When she had finished, he leant back in his chair and murmured quietly in French (which they always spoke together), "And this is in the mountains of Tartary! One would say a soirée of St. Petersburg or of Paris." Olga turned and looked at him softly. "What is the time, dearest Niaz?" she said with a smile. "Shall I be able to play you still that dance of Pinsuti's?" Niaz pulled out his watch and answered quickly, "Only ten o'clock, darling. You have plenty of time still." Something in the look of the watch he held in his hand struck Olga as queer and unfamiliar. She glanced at it sideways, and noticed hurriedly that Niaz was trying to replace it unobserved in his waistcoat pocket. "I haven't seen that watch before," she said suddenly; "let me look at it, dear, will you?" Niaz drew it out and handed it to her with affected nonchalance; but in the undercurrent of his expression Olga caught a glimpse of a hang-dog look she had never before observed in it. She turned over the watch and looked on the back. To her immense surprise, it bore the initials "F. de K." engraved upon the cover. "These letters don't belong to you, Niaz," she said, scanning it curiously. Niaz moved uneasily in his chair. "No," he answered, "not to me, Olga. It's--it's an old family relic--an heirloom, in fact. It belonged to my mother's mother. She was--a Mademoiselle de Kérouac, I believe, from Morbihan, in Brittany." Olga's eyes looked him through and through with a strange new-born suspicion. What could it all mean? She knew he was telling her a falsehood. Had the watch belonged--to some other lady? What was the meaning of his continued absences? Could he----but no. It was a man's watch, not a lady's. And if so--why, if so, then Niaz had clearly told her a falsehood in that too, and must be trying to conceal something about it. That night, for the first time, Olga Davidoff began to distrust her Buriat husband. Next morning, getting up a little early and walking on the parapet of the queer old fortress, she saw Niaz in the court below, jumping and stamping in a furious temper upon something on the ground. To her horror, she saw that his face was all hideously distorted by anger, and that as he raged and stamped the Tartar cast in his features, never before visible, came out quite clearly and distinctly. Olga looked on, and trembled violently, but dared not speak to him. A few minutes later Niaz came in to breakfast, gay as usual, with a fresh flower stuck prettily in the button-hole of his undress coat and a smile playing unconcernedly around the clear-cut corners of his handsome thin-lipped mouth. "Niaz," his wife said to him anxiously, "where is the watch you showed me last night?" His face never altered for a moment as he replied, with the same bland and innocent smile as ever, "My darling, I have broken it all to little pieces. I saw it annoyed you in some way when I showed it to you yesterday, and this morning I took it out accidentally in the lower courtyard. The sight of it put me in a violent temper. 'Cursed thing,' I said, 'you shall never again step in so cruelly between me and my darling. There, take that, and that, and that, rascal!' and I stamped it to pieces underfoot in the courtyard." Olga turned pale, and looked at him horrified. He smiled again, and took her wee hand tenderly in his. "Little one," he said, "you needn't be afraid; it's only our quick Buriat fashion. We lose our tempers sometimes, but it is soon over. It is nothing. A little whirlwind--and, pouf, it passes." "But, Niaz, you said it was a family heirloom!" "Well, darling, and for your sake I ground it to powder. Voilà, tout! Come, no more about it; it isn't worth the trouble. Let us go to breakfast." III. Some days later Niaz went on an expedition again, "on the Czar's service for the protection of the frontier," and took more than half his able-bodied Tartars on the journey with him. Olga had never felt so lonely before, surrounded now by doubt and mystery in that awful solitary stronghold. The broken watch weighed gloomily upon her frightened spirits. Niaz was gone for three days, as often happened, and on the fourth night, after she had retired to her lonely bedroom, she felt sure she heard his voice speaking low somewhere in the courtyard. At the sound she sprang from her bed and went to the window. Yes, there, down in the far corner of the yard, without lights or noise, and treading cautiously, she saw Niaz and his men filing quietly in through the dim gloom, and bringing with them a number of boxes. Her heart beat fast. Could it be some kind of smuggling? They lay so near the passes into Turkestan and China, and she knew that the merchant track from Yarkand to Semi-palatinsk crossed the frontier not far from Niaz's village. Huddling on her dress hastily, she issued out alone and terrified, into the dark courtyard, and sought over the whole place in the black night for sight of Niaz. She could find him nowhere. At last she mounted the staircase to the mouldering rampart. Generally the Tartar guards kept watch there constantly, but to-night the whole place seemed somehow utterly deserted. She groped her way along till she reached the far corner by a patch of ground which Niaz had told her was the Tartar burial-place. There she came suddenly upon a great crowd of men below on the plain, running about and shouting wildly, with links and torches. Niaz stood in the midst, erect and military, with his Russian uniform gleaming fitfully in the flickering torchlight. In front of him six Turcoman merchants, with their hands bound behind their backs, knelt upon the ground, and beside him two Tartars held by either arm a man in European dress, whom Olga recognized at once as the English traveller from India by way of the Himalayas. Her heart stood still within her with terror, and she hung there, mute and unseen, upon the rampart above, wondering what in Heaven's name this extraordinary scene was going to end in. What could it mean? What could Niaz be doing in it? Great God, it was too horrible! A Tartar came forward quietly from the crowd with a curved sword. At a word from Niaz he raised the sword aloft in the air. One second it glanced bright in the torchlight; the next second a Turcoman's head lay rolling in the dust, and a little torrent of blood spurted suddenly from the still kneeling corpse. Olga opened her mouth to scream at the horrid sight, but happily her voice at once forsook her as in a dream, and she stood fixed to the spot in a perfect fascination of awe and terror. Then the Tartar moved on, obedient to a word and a nod from Niaz, and raised his sword again above the second Turcoman. In a moment, the second head too rolled down quietly beside the other. Without a minute's delay, as though it formed part of his everyday business, the practised headsman went on quietly to the next in order, and did not stop till all six heads lay grim and ghastly scattered about unheeded in the dust together. Olga shut her eyes, sickening, but still could not scream for very horror. Next, Niaz turned to the English traveller, and said something to him in his politest manner. Olga couldn't catch the words themselves because of the distance, but she saw from his gestures that he was apologizing to the Englishman for his rough treatment. The Englishman in reply drew out and handed to Niaz a small canvas bag, a purse, and a watch. Niaz took them, bowing politely. "Hands off," he cried to the Tartars in Russian, and they loosed their prisoner. Then he made a sign, and the Englishman knelt. In a minute more his head lay rolling in the dust below, and Niaz, with a placid smile upon his handsome face, turned to give orders to the surrounding Tartars. Olga could stand it no more. She dared not scream or let herself be seen; but she turned round, sick at heart, and groped her way, half paralyzed by fear, along the mouldering rampart, and then turned in at last to her own bedroom, where she flung herself upon the bed in her clothes, and lay, tearless but terrified, the whole night through in blinding misery. She did not need to have it all explained to her. Niaz was nothing more, after all, than a savage Buriat robber chieftain. IV. What a terribly long hypocrisy and suspense those six weeks of dreary waiting, before an answer to her letter could come from Tobolsk, and the Governor could send a detachment of the military to rescue her from this nest of murderous banditti! How Olga hated herself for still pretending to keep on terms with Niaz! How she loathed and detested the man with whom she must yet live as wife for that endless time till the day of her delivery! And Niaz couldn't help seeing that her manner was changed towards him, though he flattered himself that she had as yet only a bare suspicion, and no real knowledge of the horrible truth. What a sad thing that she should ever even have suspected it! What a pity if he could not keep her here to soothe and lighten his winter solitude!--for he loved her: yes, he really loved her, and he needed sympathy and companionship in all the best and highest instincts of his inner nature. These Buriats, what were they? a miserable set of brutal savages: mere hard-working robbers and murderers, good enough for the practical rough work of everyday life (such as knocking Turcoman merchants on the head), but utterly incapable of appreciating or sympathizing with the better tastes of civilized humanity. It was a hard calling, that of chieftain to these Tartar wretches, especially for a man of musical culture brought up in Paris; and he had hoped that Olga might have helped him through with it by her friendly companionship. Not, of course, that he ever expected to be able to tell her the whole truth: women will be women; and coming to a rough country, they can't understand the necessities laid upon one for rough dealing. No, he could never have expected her to relish the full details of a borderer's profession, but he was vexed that she should already begin to suspect its nature on so very short an acquaintance. He had told her he was like a Highland chieftain of the old times: did she suppose that the Rob Roys and Roderick Dhus of real life used to treat their Lowland captives with rose-water and chivalry? After all, women have really no idea of how things must be managed in the stern realities of actual existence. So the six weeks passed slowly away, and Olga waited and watched, with smiles on her lips, in mute terror. At last, one day, in broad daylight, without a moment's warning, or a single premonitory symptom, Olga saw the courtyard suddenly filled with men in Russian uniforms, and a friend of hers, a major of infantry at Tobolsk, rushing in at the head of his soldiers upon the Tartar barrack. In one second, as if by magic, the courtyard had changed into a roaring battlefield, the Cossacks were firing at the Tartars, and the Tartars were firing at the Cossacks. There was a din of guns and a smoke of gunpowder; and high above all, in the Buriat language, she heard the voice of Niaz, frantically encouraging his men to action, and shouting to them with wild energy in incomprehensible gutturals. The surprise had been so complete that almost before Olga realized the situation the firing began to die away. The fort was carried, and Niaz and his men stood, disarmed and sullen, with bleeding faces, in the midst of a hastily formed square of stout Cossacks, among the dead and dying strewn upon the ground. Handsome as ever, but how she hated him! His arm was wounded; and the Russian surgeon led him aside to bind it up. To Olga's amazement, while the surgeon was actually engaged in binding it, Niaz turned upon him like a savage dog, and bit his arm till the teeth met fiercely in the very middle. She shut her eyes, and half fainted with disgust and horror. The surgeon shook him off, with an oath; and two Cossacks, coming up hastily, bound his hands behind his back, and tied his legs, quite regardless of his wounded condition. Meanwhile, the Russian major had sought out Olga, "Madame la Baronne," he said respectfully, "I congratulate you upon your safety and your recovered freedom. Your father is with us; he will soon be here. Your letter reached him safely, in spite of its roundabout direction; and the Governor of Tobolsk despatched us at once upon this errand of release. Baron Niaz had long been suspected: your letter removed all doubts upon the subject." A minute or two later, the Cossacks marched their prisoners out of the courtyard, two and two, into the great hall of the stronghold. "I wish to bid farewell to my wife," Niaz cried to the major, in a loud voice. "I shall be sent to the mines, I suppose, and I shall never see her again in this world most probably." The major allowed him to come near within speaking distance, under guard of two Cossacks. "Madame la Baronne," he hissed out between his clenched teeth, "this is your hand. It was your hand that you gave me in marriage; it was your hand that wrote to betray me. Believe me, madame, come what may, your hand shall pay the penalty." So much he said, passionately indeed, but with the offended dignity of a civilized being. Then the Tartar in him broke through the thin veneer of European culture, and he lolled his tongue out at her in savage derision, with a hideous menacing leer like an untamed barbarian. Till that moment, in spite of the horrible massacre she had seen with her own eyes, Olga had never suspected what profound depths of vulgar savagery lay unperceived beneath Alexander Niaz's handsome and aristocratic European features. One more word he uttered coarsely: a word of foul reproach unfit to be repeated, which made Olga's cheek turn crimson with wrath and indignation even in that supreme moment of conflicting passions. She buried her face between her two hands wildly, and burst into a sudden flood of uncontrollable tears. "March him away," cried the major in a stern voice. And they marched him away, still mocking, with the other prisoners. That was the last Olga Davidoff then saw of her Buriat husband. V. After Niaz had been tried and condemned for robbery and murder, and sent with the usual Russian clemency to the mines of Oukboul, Olga Davidoff could not bear any longer to live at Tobolsk. It was partly terror, partly shame, partly pride; but Tobolsk or even St. Petersburg she felt to be henceforth utterly impossible for her. So she determined to go back to her kinsfolk in that dear old quiet England, where there are no Nihilists, and no Tartars, and no exiles, and where everybody lived so placidly and demurely. She looked back now upon The Laurels, Clapham, as the ideal home of repose and happiness. It was not at Clapham, however, that Madame Niaz (as she still called herself) settled down, but in a quiet little Kentish village, where the London branch of the Davids family had retired to spend their Russian money. Frank Davids, the son of the house, was Olga's second cousin; and when Olga had taken the pretty little rose-covered cottage at the end of the village, Frank Davids found few things more pleasant in life than to drop in of an afternoon and have a chat with his Russian kinswoman. Olga lived there alone with her companion, and in spite of the terrible scenes she had so lately gone through, she was still a girl, very young, very attractive, and very pretty. What a wonderfully different life, the lawn-tennis with Frank and the curate and the Davids girls up at the big house, from the terror and isolation of the Buriat stronghold! Under the soothing influence of that placid existence, Olga Davidoff began at last almost to outlive the lasting effects of that one great horror. Stamped as it was into the very fabric of her being, she felt it now less poignantly than of old, and sometimes for an hour or two she even ventured to be careless and happy. Yet all the time the awful spectre of that robber and murderer Niaz, who was nevertheless still her wedded husband, rose up before her, day and night, to prevent her happiness from being ever more than momentary. And Frank, too, was such a nice, good fellow! Frank had heard from Madame Davidoff all her story (for madame had come over to see Olga fairly settled), and he pitied her for her sad romance in such a kind, brotherly fashion. Once, and once only, Frank said a word to her that was not exactly brotherly. They were walking together down the footpath by the mill, and Olga had been talking to him about that great terror, when Frank asked her, in a quiet voice, "Olga, why don't you try to get a divorce from that horrible Niaz?" Olga looked at him in blank astonishment, and asked in return, "Why, Frank, what would be the use of that? It would never blot out the memory of the past, or make that wretch any the less my wedded husband." "But, Olga, you need a protector sorely. You need somebody to soothe and remove your lasting terror. And I think I know some one, Olga,--I know some one who would give his whole life to save you, dearest, from a single day's fear or unhappiness." Olga looked up at him like a startled child. "Frank," she cried, "dear, dear Frank, you good cousin, never say again another word like that, or you will make me afraid to walk with you or talk with you any longer. You are the one friend I have whom I can trust and confide in: don't drive me away by talking to me of what is so impossible. I hate the man: I loathe and abhor him with all my heart; but I can never forget that he is still my husband. I have made my choice, and I must abide by it. Frank, Frank, promise me,--promise me, that you will never again speak upon the subject." Frank's face grew saddened in a moment with a terrible sadness; but he said in a firm voice, "I promise," and he never broke his word from that day onward. VI. Three years passed away quietly in the Kentish village, and every day Olga's unreasoning terror of Niaz grew gradually fainter and fainter. If she had known that Niaz had escaped from the mines, after eight months' imprisonment, and made his way by means of his Tartar friends across the passes to Tibet and Calcutta, she would not have allowed the sense of security to grow so strong upon her. Meanwhile Frank, often in London, had picked up the acquaintance of a certain M. de Vouillemont, a French gentleman much about at the clubs, of whose delightful manners and wide acquaintance with the world and men he was never tired of talking to Olga. "A most charming man, indeed, De Vouillemont, and very anxious to come down here and see Hazelhurst. Besides, Olga, he has been even in Russia, and he knows how to talk admirably about everybody and everything. I've asked him down for Friday evening. Now, do, like a good girl, break your rule for once, and come and dine with us, although there's to be a stranger. It's only one, you know, and the girls would be so delighted if you'd help entertain him, for he speaks hardly any English, and their French, poor things, is horribly insular and boarding-schooly." At last, with much reluctance, Olga consented, and on the Friday she went up to the big house at eight punctually. Mrs. Davids and the girls were not yet in the drawing-room when she arrived; but M. de Vouillemont had dressed early, and was standing with his back to the room, looking intently at some pictures on the wall, as Olga entered. As she came in, and the servant shut the door behind her, the stranger turned slowly. In a moment she recognized him. His complexion was disguised, so as to make him look darker than before; his black moustache was shaved off; his hair was differently cut and dressed; but still, as he looked her in the face, she knew him at once. It was Alexander Niaz! Petrified with fear, she could neither fly nor scream. She stood still in the middle of the drawing-room, and stared at him fixedly in an agony of terror. Niaz had evidently tracked her down, and come prepared for his horrid revenge. Without a moment's delay, his face underwent a hideous change, and from the cultivated European gentleman in evening clothes that he looked when she entered, he was transformed as if by magic into a grinning, gibbering Tartar savage, with his tongue lolling out once more, as of old in Siberia, in hateful derision of her speechless terror. Seizing her roughly by the arm, he dragged her after him, not so much unresisting as rigid with horror, to the open fireplace. A marble fender ran around the tiled hearth. Laying her down upon the rug as if she were dead, he placed her small right hand with savage glee upon that ready-made block, and then proceeded deliberately to take out a small steel hatchet from inside his evening coat. Olga was too terrified even to withdraw her hand. He raised the axe on high--it flashed a second in the air--a smart throb of pain--a dreadful crunching of bone and sinew--and Olga's hand fell white and lifeless upon the tiled hearthplace. Without stopping to look at her for a second, he took it up brutally in his own, and flung it with a horrible oath into the blazing fire. At that moment, the door opened, and Frank entered. Olga, lying faint and bleeding on the hearth rug, was just able to look up at him imploringly and utter in a sharp cry of alarm the one word "Niaz." Frank sprang upon him like an angry lion. "I told her her hand should pay the penalty," the Tartar cried, with a horrible joy bursting wildly from his livid features; "and now it burns in the fire over yonder, as she herself shall burn next minute for ever and ever in fire and brimstone." As he spoke he drew a pistol from his pocket, and pointed it at her with his finger on the trigger. Next moment, before he could fire, Frank had seized his hand, flung the pistol to the farther end of the drawing-room, and forced the Tartar down upon the floor in a terrible life-and-death struggle. Niaz's face, already livid, grew purpler and purpler as they wrestled with one another on the carpet in that deadly effort. His wrath and vindictiveness gave a mad energy to his limbs and muscles. Should he be baulked of his fair revenge at last? Should the woman who had betrayed him escape scot-free with just the loss of a hand, and he himself merely exchange a Siberian for an English prison? No, no, never! by St. Nicholas, never! Ha, madame! I will murder you both! The pistol! the pistol! A thousand devils! let me go! I will kill you yet! I will kill you! I will kill you! Then he gasped, and grew blacker and purpler--blacker and purpler--blacker--blacker--blacker--ever blacker. Presently he gasped again. Frank's hand was now upon his mumbling throat. They rolled over and over in their frantic struggles. Then a long, slow inspiration. After that, his muscles relaxed. Frank loosed him a little, but knelt upon his breast heavily still, lest he should rise again in another paroxysm. But no: he lay quite motionless--quite motionless, and never stirred a single finger. Frank felt his heart--no movement; his pulse--quite quiet; his lips--not a breath perceptible! Then he rose, faint and staggoring, and rang for the servants. When the doctor came hurriedly from the village to bandage up the Russian lady's arm, he immediately pronounced that M. de Vouillemont was dead--stone dead--not a doubt about it. Probably apoplexy under stress of violent emotion. The inquest was a good deal hushed up, owing to the exceedingly painful circumstances of the case; and to this day very few people about Torquay (where she now lives) know how Mrs. Frank Davids, the quiet lady who dresses herself always in black, and has such a beautiful softened half-frightened expression, came to lose her right hand. But everybody knows that Mr. Davids is tenderness itself to her, and that she loves him in return with the most absolute and childlike devotion. It was worth cutting off her right hand, after all, to be rid of that awful spectre of Niaz, and to have gained the peaceful love of Frank Davids. _JOHN CANN'S TREASURE._ Cecil Mitford sat at a desk in the Record Office with a stained and tattered sheet of dark dirty-brown antique paper spread before him in triumph, and with an eager air of anxious inquiry speaking forth from every line in his white face and every convulsive twitch at the irrepressible corners of his firm pallid mouth. Yes, there was no doubt at all about it; the piece of torn and greasy paper which he had at last discovered was nothing more or less than John Cann's missing letter. For two years Cecil Mitford had given up all his spare time, day and night, to the search for that lost fragment of crabbed seventeenth-century handwriting; and now at length, after so many disappointments and so much fruitless anxious hunting, the clue to the secret of John Cann's treasure was lying there positively before him. The young man's hand trembled violently as he held the paper fast unopened in his feverish grasp, and read upon its back the autograph endorsement of Charles the Second's Secretary of State--"Letter in cypher from Io. Cann, the noted Buccaneer, to his brother Will'm, intercepted at Port Royal by his Ma'ties command, and despatched by General Ed. D'Oyley, his Ma'ties Captain-Gen'l and Governor-in-Chief of the Island of Jamaica, to me, H. NICHOLAS." That was it, beyond the shadow of a doubt; and though Cecil Mitford had still to apply to the cypher John Cann's own written key, and to find out the precise import of the directions it contained, he felt at that moment that the secret was now at last virtually discovered, and that John Cann's untold thousands of buried wealth were potentially his very own already. He was only a clerk in the Colonial Office, was Cecil Mitford, on a beggarly income of a hundred and eighty a year--how small it seemed now, when John Cann's money was actually floating before his mind's eye; but he had brains and industry and enterprise after a fitful adventurous fashion of his own; and he had made up his mind years before that he would find out the secret of John Cann's buried treasure, if he had to spend half a lifetime on the almost hopeless quest. As a boy, Cecil Mitford had been brought up at his father's rectory on the slopes of Dartmoor, and there he had played from his babyhood upward among the rugged granite boulders of John Cann's rocks, and had heard from the farm labourers and the other children around the romantic but perfectly historical legend of John Cann's treasure. Unknown and incredible sums in Mexican doubloons and Spanish dollars lay guarded by a strong oaken chest in a cavern on the hilltop, long since filled up with flints and mould from the neighbouring summits. To that secure hiding-place the great buccaneer had committed the hoard gathered in his numberless piratical expeditions, burying all together under the shadow of a petty porphyritic tor that overhangs the green valley of Bovey Tracy. Beside the bare rocks that mark the site, a perfectly distinct pathway is worn by footsteps into the granite platform underfoot; and that path, little Cecil Mitford had heard with childish awe and wonder, was cut out by the pacing up and down of old John Cann himself, mounting guard in the darkness and solitude over the countless treasure that he had hidden away in the recesses of the pixies' hole beneath. As young Mitford grew up to man's estate, this story of John Cann's treasure haunted his quick imagination for many years with wonderful vividness. When he first came up to London, after his father's death, and took his paltry clerkship in the Colonial Office--how he hated the place, with its monotonous drudgery, while John Cann's wealth was only waiting for him to take it and floating visibly before his prophetic eyes!--the story began for a while to fade out under the disillusioning realities of respectable poverty and a petty Government post. But before he had been many months in the West India department (he had a small room on the third floor, overlooking Downing Street) a casual discovery made in overhauling the archives of the office suddenly revived the boyish dream with all the added realism and cool intensity of maturer years. He came across a letter from John Cann himself to the Protector Oliver, detailing the particulars of a fierce irregular engagement with a Spanish privateer, in which the Spaniard had been captured with much booty, and his vessel duly sold to the highest bidder in Port Royal harbour. This curious coincidence gave a great shock of surprise to young Mitford. John Cann, then, was no mythical prehistoric hero, no fairy-king or pixy or barrow-haunter of the popular fancy, but an actual genuine historical figure, who corresponded about his daring exploits with no less a personage than Oliver himself! From that moment forth, Cecil Mitford gave himself up almost entirely to tracing out the forgotten history of the old buccaneer. He allowed no peace to the learned person who took care of the State Papers of the Commonwealth at the Record Office, and he established private relations, by letter, with two or three clerks in the Colonial Secretary's Office at Kingston, Jamaica, whom he induced to help him in reconstructing the lost story of John Cann's life. Bit by bit Cecil Mitford had slowly pieced together a wonderful mass of information, buried under piles of ragged manuscript and weary reams of dusty documents, about the days and doings of that ancient terror of the Spanish Main. John Cann was a Devonshire lad, of the rollicking, roving seventeenth century, born and bred at Bovey Tracy, on the flanks of Dartmoor, the last survivor of those sea-dogs of Devon who had sallied forth to conquer and explore a new Continent under the guidance of Drake, and Raleigh, and Frobisher, and Hawkins. As a boy, he had sailed with his father in a ship that bore the Queen's letters of marque and reprisal against the Spanish galleons; in his middle life, he had lived a strange roaming existence--half pirate and half privateer, intent upon securing the Protestant religion and punishing the King's enemies by robbing wealthy Spanish skippers and cutting off the recusant noses of vile Papistical Cuban slave traders; in his latter days, the fierce, half-savage old mariner had relapsed into sheer robbery, and had been hunted down as a public enemy by the Lord Protector's servants, or later still by the Captains-General and Governors-in-Chief of his Most Sacred Majesty's Dominions in the West Indies. For what was legitimate warfare in the spacious days of great Elizabeth, had come to be regarded in the degenerate reign of Charles II. as rank piracy. One other thing Cecil Mitford had discovered, with absolute certainty; and that was that in the summer of 1660, "the year of his Ma'tie's most happy restoration," as John Cann himself phrased it, the persecuted and much misunderstood old buccaneer had paid a secret visit to England, and had brought with him the whole hoard which he had accumulated during sixty years of lawful or unlawful piracy in the West Indies and the Spanish Main. Concerning this hoard, which he had concealed somewhere in Devonshire, he kept up a brisk vernacular correspondence in cypher with his brother William, at Tavistock; and the key to that cypher, marked outside "A clew to my Bro. John's secret writing," Cecil Mitford had been fortunate enough to unearth among the undigested masses of the Record Office. But one letter, the last and most important of the whole series, containing as he believed the actual statement of the hiding-place, had long evaded all his research: and that was the letter which, now at last, after months and months of patient inquiry, lay unfolded before his dazzled eyes on the little desk in his accustomed corner. It had somehow been folded up by mistake in the papers relating to the charge against Cyriack Skinner, of complicity in the Rye House Plot. How it got there nobody knows, and probably nobody but Cecil Mitford himself could ever have succeeded in solving the mystery. As he gazed, trembling, at the precious piece of dusty much-creased paper, scribbled over in the unlettered schoolboy hand of the wild old sea-dog, Cecil Mitford could hardly restrain himself for a moment from uttering a cry. Untold wealth swam before his eyes: he could marry Ethel now, and let her drive in her own carriage! Ah, what he would give if he might only shout in his triumph. He couldn't even read the words, he was so excited. But after a minute or two, he recovered his composure sufficiently to begin deciphering the crabbed writing, which constant practice and familiarity with the system enabled him to do immediately, without even referring to the key. And this was what, with a few minutes' inspection, Cecil Mitford slowly spelled out of the dirty manuscript:-- "From Jamaica. This 23rd day of Jan'y, "in the Yeare of our Lord 1663. "My deare Bro.,--I did not think to have written you againe, after the scurvie Trick you have played me in disclosing my Affairs to that meddlesome Knight that calls himself the King's Secretary: but in truth your last Letter hath so moved me by your Vileness that I must needs reply thereto with all Expedicion. These are to assure you, then, that let you pray how you may, or gloze over your base treatment with fine cozening Words and fair Promises, you shall have neither lot nor scot in my Threasure, which is indeed as you surmise hidden away in England, but the Secret whereof I shall impart neither to you nor to no man. I have give commands, therefore that the Paper whereunto I have committed the place of its hiding shall be buried with my own Body (when God please) in the grave-yarde at Port Royal in this Island: so that you shall never be bettered one Penny by your most Damnable Treachery and Double-facedness. For I know you, my deare Bro., in very truth for a prating Coxcomb, a scurvie cowardlie Knave, and a lying Thief of other Men's Reputations. Therefore, no more herewith from your very humble Ser'vt., and Loving Bro., "IOHN CANN, Capt'n" Cecil Mitford laid the paper down as he finished reading it with a face even whiter and paler than before, and with the muscles of his mouth trembling violently with suppressed emotion. At the exact second when he felt sure he had discovered the momentous secret, it had slipped mysteriously through his very fingers, and seemed now to float away into the remote distance, almost as far from his eager grasp as ever. Even there, in the musty Record Office, before all the clerks and scholars who were sitting about working carelessly at their desks at mere dilettante historical problems--the stupid prigs, how he hated them!--he could hardly restrain the expression of his pent-up feelings at that bitter disappointment in the very hour of his fancied triumph. Jamaica! How absolutely distant and unapproachable it sounded! How hopeless the attempt to follow up the clue! How utterly his day-dream had been dashed to the ground in those three minutes of silent deciphering! He felt as if the solid earth was reeling beneath him, and he would have given the whole world if he could have put his face between his two hands on the desk and cried like a woman before the whole Record Office. For half an hour by the clock he sat there dazed and motionless, gazing in a blank disappointed fashion at the sheet of coffee-coloured paper in front of him. It was late, and workers were dropping away one after another from the scantily peopled desks. But Cecil Mitford took no notice of them: he merely sat with his arms folded, and gazed abstractedly at that disappointing, disheartening, irretrievable piece of crabbed writing. At last an assistant came up and gently touched his arm. "We're going to close now, sir," he said in his unfeeling official tone--just as if it were a mere bit of historical inquiry he was after--"and I shall be obliged if you'll put back the manuscripts you've been consulting into F. 27." Cecil Mitford rose mechanically and sorted out the Cyriack Skinner papers into their proper places. Then he laid them quietly on the shelf, and walked out into the streets of London, for the moment a broken-hearted man. But as he walked home alone that clear warm summer evening, and felt the cool breeze blowing against his forehead, he began to reflect to himself that, after all, all was not lost; that in fact things really stood better with him now than they had stood that very morning, before he lighted upon John Cann's last letter. He had not discovered the actual hiding-place of the hoard, to be sure, but he now knew on John Cann's own indisputable authority, first, that there really was a hidden treasure; second, that the hiding-place was really in England; and third, that full particulars as to the spot where it was buried might be found in John Cann's own coffin at Port Royal, Jamaica. It was a risky and difficult thing to open a coffin, no doubt; but it was not impossible. No, not impossible. On the whole, putting one thing with another, in spite of his terrible galling disappointment, he was really nearer to the recovery of the treasure now than he had ever been in his life before. Till to-day, the final clue was missing; to-day, it had been found. It was a difficult and dangerous clue to follow, but still it had been found. And yet, setting aside the question of desecrating a grave, how all but impossible it was for him to get to Jamaica! His small funds had long ago been exhausted in prosecuting the research, and he had nothing on earth to live upon now but his wretched salary. Even if he could get three or six months' leave from the Colonial Office, which was highly improbable, how could he ever raise the necessary money for his passage out and home, as well as for the delicate and doubtful operation of searching for documents in John Cann's coffin? It was tantalising, it was horrible, it was unendurable; but here, with the secret actually luring him on to discover it, he was to be foiled and baffled at the last moment by a mere paltry, petty, foolish consideration of two hundred pounds! Two hundred pounds! How utterly ludicrous! Why, John Cann's treasure would make him a man of fabulous wealth for a whole lifetime, and he was to be prevented from realizing it by a wretched matter of two hundred pounds! He would do anything to get it--for a loan, a mere loan; to be repaid with cent. per cent. interest; but where in the world, where in the world, was he ever to get it from? And then, quick as lightning, the true solution of the whole difficulty flashed at once across his excited brain. He could borrow all the money if he chose from Ethel! Poor little Ethel; she hadn't much of her own; but she had just enough to live very quietly upon with her Aunt Emily; and, thank Heaven, it wasn't tied up with any of those bothering, meddling three-per-cent.-loving trustees! She had her little all at her own disposal, and he could surely get two or three hundred pounds from her to secure for them both the boundless buried wealth of John Cann's treasure. Should he make her a confidante outright, and tell her what it was that he wanted the money for? No, that would be impossible, for though she had heard all about John Cann over and over again, she had not faith enough in the treasure--women are so unpractical--to hazard her little scrap of money on it; of that he felt certain. She would go and ask old Mr. Cartwright's opinion; and old Mr. Cartwright was one of those penny-wise, purblind, unimaginative old gentlemen who will never believe in anything until they've seen it. Yet here was John Cann's money going a-begging, so to speak, and only waiting for him and Ethel to come and enjoy it. Cecil had no patience with those stupid, stick-in-the-mud, timid people who can see no further than their own noses. For Ethel's own sake he would borrow two or three hundred pounds from her, one way or another, and she would easily forgive him the harmless little deception when he paid her back a hundredfold out of John Cann's boundless treasure. II. That very evening, without a minute's delay, Cecil determined to go round and have a talk with Ethel Sunderland. "Strike while the iron's hot," he said to himself. "There isn't a minute to be lost; for who knows but somebody else may find John Cann's treasure before I do?" Ethel opened the door to him herself; theirs was an old engagement of long standing, after the usual Government clerk's fashion; and Aunt Emily didn't stand out so stiffly as many old maids do for the regular proprieties. Very pretty Ethel looked with her pale face and the red ribbon in her hair; very pretty, but Cecil feared, as he looked into her dark hazel eyes, a little wearied and worn-out, for it was her music-lesson day, as he well remembered. Her music-lesson day! Ethel Sutherland to give music-lessons to some wretched squealing children at the West-end, when all John Cann's wealth was lying there, uncounted, only waiting for him and her to take it and enjoy it! The bare thought was a perfect purgatory to him. He must get that two hundred pounds to-night, or give up the enterprise altogether. "Well, Ethel darling," he said tenderly, taking her pretty little hand in his; "you look tired, dearest. Those horrid children have been bothering you again. How I wish we were married, and you were well out of it!" Ethel smiled a quiet smile of resignation. "They _are_ rather trying, Cecil," she said gently, "especially on days when one has got a headache; but, after all, I'm very glad to have the work to do; it helps such a lot to eke out our little income. We have so _very_ little, you know, even for two lonely women to live upon in simple little lodgings like these, that I'm thankful I can do something to help dear Aunt Emily, who's really goodness itself. You see, after all, I get very well paid indeed for the lessons." "Ethel," Cecil Mitford said suddenly, thinking it better to dash at once into the midst of business; "I've come round this evening to talk with you about a means by which you can add a great deal with perfect safety to your little income. Not by lessons, Ethel darling; not by lessons. I can't bear to see you working away the pretty tips off those dear little fingers of yours with strumming scales on the piano for a lot of stupid, gawky school-girls; it's by a much simpler way than that; I know of a perfectly safe investment for that three hundred that you've got in New Zealand Four per Cents. Can you not have heard that New Zealand securities are in a very shaky way just at present?" "Very shaky, Cecil?" Ethel answered in surprise. "Why, Mr. Cartwright told me only a week ago they were as safe as the Bank of England!" "Mr. Cartwright's an ignorant old martinet," Cecil replied vigorously. "He thinks because the stock's inscribed and the dividends are payable in Threadneedle Street that the colony of New Zealand's perfectly solvent. Now, I'm in the Colonial Office, and I know a great deal better than that. New Zealand has over-borrowed, I assure you; quite over-borrowed; and a serious fall is certain to come sooner or later. Mark my words, Ethel darling; if you don't sell out those New Zealand Fours, you'll find your three hundred has sunk to a hundred and fifty in rather less than half no time!" Ethel hesitated, and looked at him in astonishment. "That's very queer," she said, "for Mr. Cartwright wants me to sell out my little bit of Midland and put it all into the same New Zealands. He says they're so safe and pay so well." "Mr. Cartwright indeed!" Cecil cried contemptuously. "What means on earth has he of knowing? Didn't he advise you to buy nothing but three per cents., and then let you get some Portuguese Threes at fifty, which are really sixes, and exceedingly doubtful securities? What's the use of trusting a man like that, I should like to know? No, Ethel, if you'll be guided by me--and I have special opportunities of knowing about these things at the Colonial Office--you'll sell out your New Zealands, and put them into a much better investment that I can tell you about. And if I were you, I'd say nothing about it to Mr. Cartwright." "But, Cecil, I never did anything in business before without consulting him! I should be afraid of going quite wrong." Cecil took her hand in his with real tenderness. Though he was trying to deceive her--for her own good--he loved her dearly in his heart of hearts, and hated himself for the deception he was remorsefully practising upon her. Yet, for her sake, he would go through with it. "You must get accustomed to trusting me instead of him, darling," he said softly. "When you are mine for ever, as I hope you will be soon, you will take my advice, of course, in all such matters, won't you? And you may as well begin by taking it now. I have great hopes, Ethel, that before very long my circumstances will be so much improved that I shall be able to marry you--I hardly know how quickly; perhaps even before next Christmas. But meanwhile, darling, I have something to break to you that I dare say will grieve you a little for the moment, though it's for your ultimate good, birdie--for your ultimate good. The Colonial Office people have selected me to go to Jamaica on some confidential Government business, which may keep me there for three months or so. It's a dreadful thing to be away from you so long, Ethel; but if I manage the business successfully--and I shall, I know--I shall get promoted when I come back, well promoted, perhaps to the chief clerkship in the Department; and then we could marry comfortably almost at once." "To Jamaica! Oh, Cecil! How awfully far! And suppose you were to get yellow fever or something." "But I won't, Ethel; I promise you I won't, and I'll guarantee it with a kiss, birdie; so now, that's settled. And then, consider the promotion! Only three months, probably, and when I come back, we can be actually married. It's a wonderful stroke of luck, and I only heard of it this morning. I couldn't rest till I came and told you." Ethel wiped a tear away silently, and only answered, "If you're glad, Cecil dearest, I'm glad too." "Well now, Ethel," Cecil Mitford went on as gaily as he could, "that brings me up to the second point. I want you to sell out these wretched New Zealands, so as to take the money with me to invest on good mortgages in Jamaica. My experience in West Indian matters--after three years in the Department--will enable me to lay it out for you at nine per cent.--nine per cent., observe, Ethel,--on absolute security of landed property. Planters want money to improve their estates, and can't get it at less than that rate. Your three hundred would bring you in twenty-seven pounds, Ethel; twenty-seven pounds is a lot of money!" What could poor Ethel do? In his plausible, affectionate manner--and all for her own good, too--Cecil talked her over quickly between love and business experience, coaxing kisses and nine per cent. interest, endearing names and knowledge of West Indian affairs, till helpless little Ethel willingly promised to give up her poor little three hundred, and even arranged to meet Cecil secretly on Thursday at the Bank of England, about Colonial Office dinner-hour, to effect the transfer on her own account, without saying a single word about it to Aunt Emily or Mr. Cartwright. Cecil's conscience--for he _had_ a conscience, though he did his best to stifle it--gave him a bitter twinge every now and then, as one question after another drove him time after time into a fresh bit of deceit; but he tried to smile and smile and be a villain as unconcernedly and lightly as possible. Once only towards the end of the evening, when everything was settled, and Cecil had talked about his passage, and the important business with which he was entrusted, at full length, a gleam of suspicion seemed to flash for a single second across poor Ethel's deluded little brains. Jamaica--promotion--three hundred pounds--it was all so sudden and so connected; could Cecil himself be trying to deceive her, and using her money for his wild treasure hunt? The doubt was horrible, degrading, unworthy of her or him; and yet somehow for a single moment she could not help half-unconsciously entertaining it. "Cecil," she said, hesitating, and looking into the very depths of his truthful blue eyes; "you're not concealing anything from me, are you? It's not some journey connected with John Cann?" Cecil coughed and cleared his throat uneasily, but by a great effort he kept his truthful blue eyes still fixed steadily on hers. (He would have given the world if he might have turned them away, but that would have been to throw up the game incontinently.) "My darling Ethel," he said evasively, "how on earth could the Colonial Office have anything to do with John Cann?" "Answer me 'yes' or 'no,' Cecil. Do please answer me 'yes' or 'no.'" Cecil kept his eyes still fixed immovably on hers, and without a moment's hesitation answered quickly "no." It was an awful wrench, and his lips could hardly frame the horrid falsehood, but for Ethel's sake he answered "no." "Then I know I can trust you, Cecil," she said, laying her head for forgiveness on his shoulder. "Oh, how wrong it was of me to doubt you for a second!" Cecil sighed uneasily, and kissed her white forehead without a single word. "After all," he thought to himself, as he walked back to his lonely lodgings late that evening, "I need never tell her anything about it. I can pretend, when I've actually got John Cann's treasure, that I came across the clue accidently while I was in Jamaica; and I can lay out three hundred of it there in mortgages; and she need never know a single word about my innocent little deception. But indeed in the pride and delight of so much money, all our own, she'll probably never think at all of her poor little paltry three hundred." III. It was an awfully long time, that eighteen days at sea, on the Royal Mail Steamship _Don_, bound for Kingston, Jamaica, with John Cann's secret for ever on one's mind, and nothing to do all day, by way of outlet for one's burning energy, but to look, hour after hour, at the monotonous face of the seething water. But at last the journey was over; and before Cecil Mitford had been twenty-four hours at Date Tree Hall, the chief hotel in Kingston, he had already hired a boat and sailed across the baking hot harbour to Port Royal, to look in the dreary, sandy cemetery for any sign or token of John Cann's grave. An old grey-haired negro, digging at a fresh grave, had charge of the cemetery, and to him Cecil Mitford at once addressed himself, to find out whether any tombstone about the place bore the name of John Cann. The old man turned the name over carefully in his stolid brains, and then shook his heavy grey head with a decided negative. "Massa John Cann, sah," he said dubiously, "Massa John Cann; it don't nobody buried here by de name ob Massa John Cann. I sartin, sah, becase I's sexton in dis here cemetry dese fifty year, an' I know de grabe ob ebbery buckra gentleman dat ebber buried here since I fuss came." Cecil Mitford tossed his head angrily. "Since _you_ first came, my good man," he said with deep contempt. "Since you first came! Why, John Cann was buried here ages and ages before you yourself were ever born or thought of." The old negro looked up at him inquiringly. There is nothing a negro hates like contempt; and he answered back with a disdainful tone, "Den I can find out if him ebber was buried here at all, as well as you, sah. We has register here, we don't ignorant heathen. I has register in de church ob every pusson dat ebber buried in dis cemetry from de berry beginnin--from de year ob de great earthquake itself. What year dis Massa John Cann him die, now? What year him die?" Cecil pricked up his ears at the mention of the register, and answered eagerly, "In the year 1669." The old negro sat down quietly on a flat tomb, and answered with a smile of malicious triumph, "Den you is ignorant know-nuffin pusson for a buckra gentleman, for true, sah, if you tink you will find him grabe in dis here cemetry. Don't you nebber read your history book, dat all Port Royal drowned in de great earthquake ob de year 1692? We has register here for ebbery year, from de year 1692 downward; but de grabes, and de cemetry, and de register, from de year 1692 upward, him all swallowed up entirely in de great earthquake, bress de Lord!" Cecil Mitford felt the earth shivering beneath him at that moment, as verily as the Port Royal folk had felt it shiver in 1692. He clutched at the headstone to keep him from falling, and sat down hazily on the flat tomb, beside the grey-headed old negro, like one unmanned and utterly disheartened. It was all only too true. With his intimate knowledge of John Cann's life, and of West Indian affairs generally, how on earth could he ever have overlooked it? John Cann's grave lay buried five fathoms deep, no doubt, under the blue waters of the Caribbean. And it was for this that he had madly thrown up his Colonial Office appointment, for this that he had wasted Ethel's money, for this that he had burdened his conscience with a world of lies; all to find in the end that John Cann's secret was hidden under five fathoms of tropical lagoon, among the scattered and waterlogged ruins of Old Port Royal. His fortitude forsook him for a single moment, and burying his face in his two hands, there, under the sweltering midday heat of that deadly sandbank, he broke down utterly, and sobbed like a child before the very eyes of the now softened old negro sexton. IV. It was not for long, however. Cecil Mitford had at least one strong quality--indomitable energy and perseverance. All was not yet lost: if need were, he would hunt for John Cann's tomb in the very submerged ruins of Old Port Royal. He looked up once more at the puzzled negro, and tried to bear this bitter downfall of all his hopes with manful resignation. At that very moment, a tall and commanding-looking man, of about sixty, with white hair but erect figure, walked slowly from the cocoa-nut grove on the sand-spit into the dense and tangled precincts of the cemetery. He was a brown man, a mulatto apparently, but his look and bearing showed him at once to be a person of education and distinction in his own fashion. The old sexton rose up respectfully as the stranger approached, and said to him in a very different tone from that in which he had addressed Cecil Mitford, "Marnin, sah; marnin, Mr. Barclay. Dis here buckra gentleman from Englan', him come 'quiring in de cemetry after de grabe of pusson dat dead before de great earthquake. What for him come here like-a-dat on fool's errand, eh, sah? What for him not larn before him come dat Port Royal all gone drowned in de year 1692?" The new-comer raised his hat slightly to Cecil Mitford, and spoke at once in the grave gentle voice of an educated and cultivated mulatto. "You wanted some antiquarian information about the island, sir; some facts about some one who died before the Port Royal earthquake? You have luckily stumbled across the right man to help you; for I think if anything can be recovered about anybody in Jamaica, I can aid you in recovering it. Whose grave did you want to see?" Cecil hardly waited to thank the polite stranger, but blurted out at once, "The grave of John Cann, who died in 1669." The stranger smiled quietly. "What! John Cann, the famous buccaneer?" he said, with evident delight. "Are you interested in John Cann?" "I am," Cecil answered hastily. "Do you know anything about him?" "I know all about him," the tall mulatto replied. "All about him in every way. He was not buried at Port Royal at all. He intended to be, and gave orders to that effect; but his servants had him buried quietly elsewhere, on account of some dispute with the Governor of the time being, about some paper which he desired to have placed in his coffin." "Where, where?" Cecil Mitford gasped out eagerly, clutching at this fresh straw with all the anxiety of a drowning man. "At Spanish Town," the stranger answered calmly. "I know his grave there well to the present day. If you are interested in Jamaican antiquities, and would like to come over and see it, I shall be happy to show you the tomb. That is my name." And he handed Cecil Mitford his card, with all the courteous dignity of a born gentleman. Cecil took the card and read the name on it: "The Hon. Charles Barclay, Leigh Caymanas, Spanish Town." How his heart bounded again that minute! Proof was accumulating on proof, and luck on luck! After all, he had tracked down John Cann's grave; and the paper was really there, buried in his coffin. He took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his damp brow with a feeling of unspeakable relief. Ethel was saved, and they might still enjoy John Cann's treasure. Mr. Barclay sat down beside him on the stone slab, and began talking over all he knew about John Cann's life and actions. Cecil affected to be interested in all he said, though really he could think of one thing only: the treasure, the treasure, the treasure. But he managed also to let Mr. Barclay see how much he too knew about the old buccaneer: and Mr. Barclay, who was a simple-minded learned enthusiast for all that concerned the antiquities of his native island, was so won over by this display of local knowledge on the part of a stranger and an Englishman, that he ended by inviting Cecil over to his house at Spanish Town, to stop as long as he was able. Cecil gladly accepted the invitation, and that very afternoon, with a beating heart, he took his place in the lumbering train that carried him over to the final goal of his Jamaican expedition. V. In a corner of the Cathedral graveyard at Spanish Town, overhung by a big spreading mango tree, and thickly covered by prickly scrub of agave and cactus, the white-haired old mulatto gentleman led Cecil Mitford up to a water-worn and weathered stone, on which a few crumbling letters alone were still visible. Cecil kneeled down on the bare ground, regardless of the sharp cactus spines that stung and tore his flesh, and began clearing the moss and lichen away from the neglected monument. Yes, his host was right! right, right, right, indubitably. The first two letters were IO, then a blank where others were obliterated, and then came ANN. That stood clearly for IOHN CANN. And below he could slowly make out the words, "Born at ... vey Tra ... Devon...." with an illegible date, "Died at P ... Royal, May 12, 1669." Oh, great heavens, yes. John Cann's grave! John Cann's grave! John Cann's grave! Beyond any shadow or suspicion of mistake, John Cann and his precious secret lay buried below that mouldering tombstone. That very evening Cecil Mitford sought out and found the Spanish Town gravedigger. He was a solemn-looking middle-aged black man, with a keen smart face, not the wrong sort of man, Cecil Mitford felt sure, for such a job as the one he contemplated. Cecil didn't beat about the bush or temporise with him in any way. He went straight to the point, and asked the man outright whether he would undertake to open John Cann's grave, and find a paper that was hidden in the coffin. The gravedigger stared at him, and answered slowly, "I don't like de job, sah; I don't like de job. Perhaps Massa John Cann's ghost, him come and trouble me for dat: I don't going to do it. What you gib me, sah; how much you gib me?" Cecil opened his purse and took out of it ten gold sovereigns. "I will give you that," he said, "if you can get me the paper out of John Cann's coffin." The negro's eyes glistened, but he answered carelessly, "I don't tink I can do it. I don't want to open grabe by night, and if I open him by day, de magistrates dem will hab me up for desecration ob interment. But I can do dis for you, sah. If you like to wait till some buckra gentleman die--John Cann grabe among de white man side in de grabeyard--I will dig grabe alongside ob John Cann one day, so let you come yourself in de night and take what you like out ob him coffin. I don't go meddle with coffin myself, to make de John Cann duppy trouble me, and magistrate send me off about me business." It was a risky thing to do, certainly, but Cecil Mitford closed with it, and promised the man ten pounds if ever he could recover John Cann's paper. And then he settled down quietly at Leigh Caymanas with his friendly host, waiting with eager, anxious expectation--till some white person should die at Spanish Town. What an endless aimless time it seemed to wait before anybody could be comfortably buried! Black people died by the score, of course: there was a small-pox epidemic on, and they went to wakes over one another's dead bodies in wretched hovels among the back alleys, and caught the infection and sickened and died as fast as the wildest imagination could wish them: but then, they were buried apart by themselves in the pauper part of the Cathedral cemetery. Still, no white man caught the small-pox, and few mulattoes: they had all been vaccinated, and nobody got ill except the poorest negroes. Cecil Mitford waited with almost fiendish eagerness to hear that some prominent white man was dead or dying. A month, six weeks, two months, went slowly past, and still nobody of consequence in all Spanish Town fell ill or sickened. Talk about tropical diseases! why, the place was abominably, atrociously, outrageously healthy. Cecil Mitford fretted and fumed and worried by himself, wondering whether he would be kept there for ever and ever, waiting till some useless nobody chose to die. The worst of it all was, he could tell nobody his troubles: he had to pretend to look unconcerned and interested, and listen to all old Mr. Barclay's stories about Maroons and buccaneers as if he really enjoyed them. At last, after Cecil had been two full months at Spanish Town, he heard one morning with grim satisfaction that yellow fever had broken out at Port Antonio. Now, yellow fever, as he knew full well, attacks only white men, or men of white blood: and Cecil felt sure that before long there would be somebody white dead in Spanish Town. Not that he was really wicked or malevolent or even unfeeling at heart; but his wild desire to discover John Cann's treasure had now overridden every better instinct of his nature, and had enslaved him, body and soul, till he could think of nothing in any light save that of its bearing on his one mad imagination. So he waited a little longer, still more eagerly than before, till yellow fever should come to Spanish Town. Sure enough the fever did come in good time, and the very first person who sickened with it was Cecil Mitford. That was a contingency he had never dreamt of, and for the time being it drove John Cann's treasure almost out of his fevered memory. Yet not entirely, even so, for in his delirium he raved of John Cann and his doubloons till good old Mr. Barclay, nursing at his bedside like a woman, as a tender-hearted mulatto always will nurse any casual young white man, shook his head to himself and muttered gloomily that poor Mr. Mitford had overworked his brain sadly in his minute historical investigations. For ten days Cecil Mitford hovered fitfully between life and death, and for ten days good old Mr. Barclay waited on him, morning, noon, and night, as devotedly as any mother could wait upon her first-born. At the end of that time he began to mend slowly; and as soon as the crisis was over he forgot forthwith all about his illness, and thought once more of nothing on earth save only John Cann's treasure. Was anybody else ill of the fever in Spanish Town? Yes, two, but not dangerously. Cecil's face fell at that saving clause, and in his heart he almost ventured to wish it had been otherwise. He was no murderer, even in thought; but John Cann's treasure! John Cann's treasure! John Cann's treasure! What would not a man venture to do or pray, in order that he might become the possessor of John Cann's treasure! As Cecil began to mend, a curious thing happened at Leigh Caymanas, contrary to almost all the previous medical experience of the whole Island. Mr. Barclay, though a full mulatto of half black blood, suddenly sickened with the yellow fever. He had worn himself out with nursing Cecil, and the virus seemed to have got into his blood in a way that it would never have done under other circumstances. And when the doctor came to see him, he declared at once that the symptoms were very serious. Cecil hated and loathed himself for the thought; and yet, in a horrid, indefinite way he gloated over the possibility of his kind and hospitable friend's dying. Mr. Barclay had tended him so carefully that he almost loved him; and yet, with John Cann's treasure before his very eyes, in a dim, uncertain, awful fashion, he almost looked forward to his dying. But where would he be buried? that was the question. Not, surely, among the poor black people in the pauper corner. A man of his host's distinction and position would certainly deserve a place among the most exalted white graves--near the body of Governor Modyford, and not far from the tomb of John Cann himself. Day after day Mr. Barclay sank slowly but surely, and Cecil, weak and hardly convalescent himself, sat watching by his bedside, and nursing him as tenderly as the good brown man had nursed Cecil himself in his turn a week earlier. The young clerk was no hard-hearted wretch who could see a kind entertainer die without a single passing pang; he felt for the grey old mulatto as deeply as he could have felt for his own brother, if he had had one. Every time there was a sign of suffering or feebleness, it went to Cecil's heart like a knife--the very knowledge that on one side of his nature he wished the man to die made him all the more anxious and careful on the other side to do everything he could to save him, if possible, or at least to alleviate his sufferings. Poor old man! it was horrible to see him lying there, parched with fever and dying by inches; but then--John Cann's treasure! John Cann's treasure! John Cann's treasure! every shade that passed over the good mulatto's face brought Cecil Mitford a single step nearer to the final enjoyment of John Cann's treasure. VI. On the evening when the Hon. Charles Barclay died, Cecil Mitford went out, for the first time after his terrible illness, to speak a few words in private with the negro sexton. He found the man lounging in the soft dust outside his hut, and ready enough to find a place for the corpse (which would be buried next morning, with the ordinary tropical haste), close beside the spot actually occupied by John Cann's coffin. All the rest, the sexton said with a horrid grin, he would leave to Cecil. At twelve o'clock of a dark moonless night, Cecil Mitford, still weak and ill, but trembling only from the remains of his fever, set out stealthily from the dead man's low bungalow in the outskirts of Spanish Town, and walked on alone through the unlighted, unpaved streets of the sleeping city to the Cathedral precinct. Not a soul met or passed him on the way through the lonely alleys; not a solitary candle burned anywhere in a single window. He carried only a little dark lantern in his hand, and a very small pick that he had borrowed that same afternoon from the negro sexton. Stumbling along through the unfamiliar lanes, he saw at last the great black mass of the gaunt ungainly Cathedral, standing out dimly against the hardly less black abyss of night that formed the solemn background. But Cecil Mitford was not awed by place or season; he could think only of one subject, John Cann's treasure. He groped his way easily through scrub and monuments to the far corner of the churchyard; and there, close by a fresh and open grave he saw the well-remembered, half-effaced letters that marked the mouldering upright slab as John Cann's gravestone. Without a moment's delay, without a touch of hesitation, without a single tinge of womanish weakness, he jumped down boldly into the open grave and turned the light side of his little lantern in the direction of John Cann's undesecrated coffin. A few strokes of the pick soon loosened the intervening earth sufficiently to let him get at a wooden plank on the nearer side of the coffin. It had mouldered away with damp and age till it was all quite soft and pliable; and he broke through it with his hand alone, and saw lying within a heap of huddled bones, which he knew at once for John Cann's skeleton. Under any other circumstances, such a sight, seen in the dead of night, with all the awesome accessories of time and place, would have chilled and appalled Cecil Mitford's nervous blood; but he thought nothing of it all now; his whole soul was entirely concentrated on a single idea--the search for the missing paper. Leaning over toward the breach he had made into John Cann's grave, he began groping about with his right hand on the floor of the coffin. After a moment's search his fingers came across a small rusty metal object, clasped, apparently, in the bony hand of the skeleton. He drew it eagerly out; it was a steel snuff-box. Prising open the corroded hinge with his pocket-knife, he found inside a small scrap of dry paper. His fingers trembled as he held it to the dark lantern; oh heavens, success! success! it was, it was--the missing document! He knew it in a moment by the handwriting and the cypher! He couldn't wait to read it till he went home to the dead man's house; so he curled himself up cautiously in Charles Barclay's open grave, and proceeded to decipher the crabbed manuscript as well as he was able by the lurid light of the lantern. Yes, yes, it was all right: it told him with minute and unmistakable detail the exact spot in the valley of the Bovey where John Cann's treasure lay securely hidden. Not at John Cann's rocks on the hilltop, as the local legend untruly affirmed--John Cann had not been such an unguarded fool as to whisper to the idle gossips of Bovey the spot where he had really buried his precious doubloons--but down in the valley by a bend of the river, at a point that Cecil Mitford had known well from his childhood upward. Hurrah! hurrah! the secret was unearthed at last, and he had nothing more to do than to go home to England and proceed to dig up John Cann's treasure! So he cautiously replaced the loose earth on the side of the grave, and walked back, this time bold and erect, with his dark lantern openly displayed (for it mattered little now who watched or followed him), to dead Charles Barclay's lonely bungalow. The black servants were crooning and wailing over their master's body, and nobody took much notice of the white visitor. If they had, Cecil Mitford would have cared but little, so long as he carried John Cann's last dying directions safely folded in his leather pocket-book. Next day, Cecil Mitford stood once more as a chief mourner beside the grave he had sat in that night so strangely by himself: and before the week was over, he had taken his passage for England in the Royal Mail Steamer _Tagus_, and was leaving the cocoa-nut groves of Port Royal well behind him on the port side. Before him lay the open sea, and beyond it, England, Ethel, and John Cann's treasure. VII. It had been a long job after all to arrange fully the needful preliminaries for the actual search after John Cann's buried doubloons. First of all, there was Ethel's interest to pay, and a horrid story for Cecil to concoct--all false, of course, worse luck to it--about how he had managed to invest her poor three hundred to the best advantage. Then there was another story to make good about three months' extra leave from the Colonial Office. Next came the question of buying the land where John Cann's treasure lay hidden, and this was really a matter of very exceptional and peculiar difficulty. The owner--pig-headed fellow!--didn't want to sell, no matter how much he was offered, because the corner contained a clump of trees that made a specially pretty element in the view from his dining-room windows. His dining-room windows, forsooth! What on earth could it matter, when John Cann's treasure was at stake, whether anything at all was visible or otherwise from his miserable dining-room windows? Cecil was positively appalled at the obstinacy and narrow-mindedness of the poor squireen, who could think of nothing at all in the whole world but his own ridiculous antiquated windows. However, in the end, by making his bid high enough, he was able to induce this obstructive old curmudgeon to part with his triangular little corner of land in the bend of the river. Even so, there was the question of payment: absurd as it seemed, with all John Cann's money almost in his hands, Cecil was obliged to worry and bother and lie and intrigue for weeks together in order to get that paltry little sum in hard cash for the matter of payment. Still, he raised it in the end: raised it by inducing Ethel to sell out the remainder of her poor small fortune, and cajoling Aunt Emily into putting her name to a bill of sale for her few worthless bits of old-fashioned furniture. At last, after many delays and vexatious troubles, Cecil found himself the actual possessor of the corner of land wherein lay buried John Cann's treasure. The very first day that Cecil Mitford could call that coveted piece of ground his own, he could not restrain his eagerness (though he knew it was imprudent in a land where the unjust law of treasure-trove prevails), but he must then and there begin covertly digging under the shadow of the three big willow trees, in the bend of the river. He had eyed and measured the bearings so carefully already that he knew the very spot to a nail's breadth where John Cann's treasure was actually hidden. He set to work digging with a little pick as confidently as if he had already seen the doubloons lying there in the strong box that he knew enclosed them. Four feet deep he dug, as John Cann's instructions told him; and then, true to the inch, his pick struck against a solid oaken box, well secured with clamps of iron. Cecil cleared all the dirt away from the top, carefully, not hurriedly, and tried with all his might to lift the box out, but all in vain. It was far too heavy, of course, for one man's arms to raise: all that weight of gold and silver must be ever so much more than a single pair of hands could possibly manage. He must try to open the lid alone, so as to take the gold out, a bit at a time, and carry it away with him now and again, as he was able, covering the place up carefully in between, for fear of the Treasury and the Lord of the Manor. How abominably unjust it seemed to him at that moment--the legal claim of those two indolent hostile powers! to think that after he, Cecil Mitford, had borne the brunt of the labour in adventurously hunting up the whole trail of John Cann's secret, two idle irresponsible participators should come in at the end, if they could, to profit entirely by _his_ ingenuity and _his_ exertions! At last, by a great effort, he forced the rusty lock open, and looked eagerly into the strong oak chest. How his heart beat with slow, deep throbs at that supreme moment, not with suspense, for he _knew_ he should find the money, but with the final realization of a great hope long deferred! Yes, there it lay, in very truth, all before him--great shining coins of old Spanish gold--gold, gold, gold, arranged in long rows, one coin after another, over the whole surface of the broad oak box. He had found it, he had found it, he had really found it! After so much toilsome hunting, after so much vain endeavour, after so many heart-breaking disappointments, John Cann's treasure in very truth lay open there actually before him! For a few minutes, eager and frightened as he was, Cecil Mitford did not dare even to touch the precious pieces. In the greatness of his joy, in the fierce rush of his overpowering emotions, he had no time to think of mere base everyday gold and silver. It was the future and the ideal that he beheld, not the piled-up heaps of filthy lucre. Ethel was his, wealth was his, honour was his! He would be a rich man and a great man now and henceforth for ever! Oh, how he hugged himself in his heart on the wise successful fraud by which he had induced Ethel to advance him the few wretched hundreds he needed for his ever-memorable Jamaican journey! How he praised to himself his own courage, and ingenuity, and determination, and inexhaustible patience! How he laughed down that foolish conscience of his that would fain have dissuaded him from his master-stroke of genius. He deserved it all, he deserved it all! Other men would have flinched before the risk and expense of the voyage to Jamaica, would have given up the scent for a fool's errand in the cemetery at Port Royal, would have shrunk from ransacking John Cann's grave at dead of night in the Cathedral precincts at Spanish Town, would have feared to buy the high-priced corner of land at Bovey Tracy on a pure imaginative speculation. But he, Cecil Mitford, had had the boldness and the cleverness to do it every bit, and now, wisdom was justified of all her children. He sat for five minutes in profound meditation on the edge of the little pit he had dug, gloating dreamily over the broad gold pieces, and inwardly admiring his own bravery and foresight and indomitable resolution. What a magnificent man he really was--a worthy successor of those great freebooting, buccaneering, filibustering Devonians of the grand Elizabethan era! To think that the worky-day modern world should ever have tried to doom him, Cecil Mitford, with his splendid enterprise and glorious potentialities, to a hundred and eighty a year and a routine clerkship at the Colonial Office! After a while, however, mere numerical cupidity began to get the better of this heroic mood, and Cecil Mitford turned somewhat languidly to the vulgar task of counting the rows of doubloons. He counted up the foremost row carefully, and then for the first time perceived, to his intense surprise, that the row behind was not gold, but mere silver Mexican pistoles. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the fact was unmistakable; there was only one row of yellow gold in the top layer, and all the rest was merely bright and glittering silver. Strange that John Cann should have put coins of such small value near the top of his box: the rest of the gold must certainly be in successive layers down further. He lifted up the big gold doubloons in the first row, and then, to his blank horror and amazement, came to--not more gold, not more silver, but--but--but--ay, incredible as it seemed, appalling, horrifying--a wooden bottom! Had John Cann, in his care and anxiety, put a layer of solid oak between each layer of gold and silver? Hardly that, the oak was too thick. In a moment Cecil Mitford had taken out all the coins of the first tier, and laid bare the oaken bottom. A few blows of the pick loosened the earth around, and then, oh horror, oh ghastly disappointment, oh unspeakable heart-sickening revelation, the whole box came out entire. It was only two inches deep altogether, including the cover--it was, in fact, a mere shallow tray or saucer, something like the sort of thin wooden boxes in which sets of dessert-knives or fish-knives are usually sold for wedding presents! For the space of three seconds Cecil Mitford could not believe his eyes, and then, with a sudden flash of awful vividness, the whole terrible truth flashed at once across his staggering brain. He had found John Cann's treasure indeed--the John Cann's treasure of base actual reality; but the John Cann's treasure of his fervid imagination, the John Cann's treasure he had dreamt of from his boyhood upward, the John Cann's treasure he had risked all to find and to win, did not exist, could not exist, and never had existed at all anywhere! It was all a horrible, incredible, unthinkable delusion! The hideous fictions he had told would every one be now discovered; Ethel would be ruined; Aunt Emily would be ruined; and they would both know him, not only for a fool, a dreamer, and a visionary, but also for a gambler, a thief, and a liar. In his black despair he jumped down into the shallow hole once more, and began a second time to count slowly over the accursed dollars. The whole miserable sum--the untold wealth of John Cann's treasure--would amount altogether to about two hundred and twenty pounds of modern sterling English money. Cecil Mitford tore his hair as he counted it in impotent self punishment; two hundred and twenty pounds, and he had expected at least as many thousands! He saw it all in a moment. His wild fancy had mistaken the poor outcast hunted-down pirate for a sort of ideal criminal millionaire; he had erected the ignorant, persecuted John Cann of real life, who fled from the king's justice to a nest of chartered outlaws in Jamaica, into a great successful naval commander, like the Drake or Hawkins of actual history. The whole truth about the wretched solitary old robber burst in upon him now with startling vividness; he saw him hugging his paltry two hundred pounds to his miserly old bosom, crossing the sea with it stealthily from Jamaica, burying it secretly in a hole in the ground at Bovey, quarrelling about it with his peasant relations in England, as the poor will often quarrel about mere trifles of money, and dying at last with the secret of that wretched sum hidden in the snuff-box that he clutched with fierce energy even in his lifeless skeleton fingers. It was all clear, horribly, irretrievably, unmistakably clear to him now; and the John Cann that he had once followed through so many chances and changes had faded away at once into absolute nothingness, now and for ever! If Cecil Mitford had known a little less about John Cann's life and exploits he might still perhaps have buoyed himself up with the vain hope that all the treasure was not yet unearthed--that there were more boxes still buried in the ground, more doubloons still hidden further down in the unexplored bosom of the little three-cornered field. But the words of John Cann's own dying directions were too explicit and clear to admit of any such gloss or false interpretation. "In a strong oaken chest, bound round with iron, and buried at four feet of depth in the south-western angle of the Home Croft, at Bovey," said the document, plainly; there was no possibility of making two out of it in any way. Indeed, in that single minute, Cecil Mitford's mind had undergone a total revolution, and he saw the John Cann myth for the first time in his life now in its true colours. The bubble had burst, the halo had vanished, the phantom had faded away, and the miserable squalid miserly reality stood before him with all its vulgar nakedness in their place. The whole panorama of John Cann's life, as he knew it intimately in all its details, passed before his mind's eye like a vivid picture, no longer in the brilliant hues of boyish romance, but in the dingy sordid tones of sober fact. He had given up all that was worth having in this world for the sake of a poor gipsy pirate's penny-saving hoard. A weaker man would have swallowed the disappointment or kept the delusion still to his dying day. Cecil Mitford was made of stronger mould. The ideal John Cann's treasure had taken possession of him, body and soul; and now that John Cann's treasure had faded into utter nonentity--a paltry two hundred pounds--the whole solid earth had failed beneath his feet, and nothing was left before him but a mighty blank. A mighty blank. Blank, blank, blank. Cecil Mitford sat there on the edge of the pit, with his legs dangling over into the hollow where John Cann's treasure had never been, gazing blankly out into a blank sky, with staring blank eyeballs that looked straight ahead into infinite space and saw utterly nothing. How long he sat there no one knows; but late at night, when the people at the Red Lion began to miss their guest, and turned out in a body to hunt for him in the corner field, they found him sitting still on the edge of the pit he had dug for the grave of his own hopes, and gazing still with listless eyes into blank vacancy. A box of loose coin lay idly scattered on the ground beside him. The poor gentleman had been struck crazy, they whispered to one another; and so indeed he had: not raving mad with acute insanity, but blankly, hopelessly, and helplessly imbecile. With the loss of John Cann's treasure the whole universe had faded out for him into abject nihilism. They carried him home to the inn between them on their arms, and put him to bed carefully in the old bedroom, as one might put a new-born baby. The Lord of the Manor, when he came to hear the whole pitiful story, would have nothing to do with the wretched doubloons; the curse of blood was upon them, he said, and worse than that; so the Treasury, which has no sentiments and no conscience, came in at the end for what little there was of John Cann's unholy treasure. VIII. In the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum for Devon there was one quiet impassive patient, who was always pointed out to horror-loving visitors, because he had once been a gentleman, and had a strange romance hanging to him still, even in that dreary refuge of the destitute insane. The lady whom he had loved and robbed--all for her own good--had followed him down from London to Devonshire; and she and her aunt kept a small school, after some struggling fashion, in the town close by, where many kind-hearted squires of the neighbourhood sent their little girls, while they were still very little, for the sake of charity, and for pity of the sad, sad story. One day a week there was a whole holiday--Wednesday it was--for that was visiting day at the County Asylum; and then Ethel Sutherland, dressed in deep mourning, walked round with her aunt to the gloomy gateway at ten o'clock, and sat as long as she was allowed with the faded image of Cecil Mitford, holding his listless hand clasped hard in her pale white fingers, and looking with sad eager anxious eyes for any gleam of passing recognition in his. Alas, the gleam never came (perhaps it was better so), Cecil Mitford looked always straight before him at the blank whitewashed walls, and saw nothing, heard nothing, thought of nothing, from week's end to week's end. Ethel had forgiven him all; what will not a loving woman forgive? Nay, more, had found excuses and palliations for him, which quite glossed over his crime and his folly. He must have been losing his reason long before he ever went to Jamaica, she said; for in his right mind he would never have tried to deceive her or himself in the way he had done. Did he not fancy he was sent out by the Colonial Office, when he had really gone without leave or mission? And did he not persuade her to give up her money to him for investment, and after all never invest it? What greater proofs of insanity could you have than those? And then that dreadful fever at Spanish Town, and the shock of losing his kind entertainer, worn out with nursing him, had quite completed the downfall of his reason. So Ethel Sutherland, in her pure beautiful woman's soul, went on believing, as steadfastly as ever, in the faith and the goodness of that Cecil Mitford that had never been. _His_ ideal had faded out before the first touch of disillusioning fact; _hers_ persisted still, in spite of all the rudest assaults that the plainest facts could make upon it. Thank heaven for that wonderful idealising power of a good woman, which enables her to walk unsullied through this sordid world, unknowing and unseeing. At last one night, one terrible windy night in December, Ethel Sutherland was wakened from her sleep in the quiet little school-house by a fearful glare falling fiercely upon her bedroom window. She jumped up hastily and rushed to the little casement to look out towards the place whence the glare came. One thought alone rose instinctively in her white little mind--Could it be at Cecil's Asylum? Oh, horror, yes; the whole building was in flames, and if Cecil were taken--even poor mad imbecile Cecil--what, what on earth would then be left her? Huddling on a few things hastily, anyhow, Ethel rushed out wildly into the street, and ran with incredible speed where all the crowd of the town was running together, towards the blazing Asylum. The mob knew her at once, and recognized her sad claim; they made a little lane down the surging mass for her to pass through, till she stood beside the very firemen at the base of the gateway. It was an awful sight--poor mad wretches raving and imploring at the windows, while the firemen plied their hose and brought their escapes to bear as best they were able on one menaced tier after another. But Ethel saw or heard nothing, save in one third floor window of the right wing, where Cecil Mitford stood, no longer speechless and imbecile, but calling loudly for help, and flinging his eager arms wildly about him. The shock had brought him back his reason, for the moment at least: oh, thank God, thank God, he saw her, he saw her! With a sudden wild cry Ethel burst from the firemen who tried to hold her back, leaped into the burning building and tore up the blazing stairs, blinded and scorched, but by some miracle not quite suffocated, till she reached the stone landing on the third story. Turning along the well-known corridor, now filled with black wreaths of stifling smoke, she reached at last Cecil's ward, and flung herself madly, wildly into his circling arms. For a moment they both forgot the awful death that girt them round on every side, and Cecil, rising one second superior to himself, cried only "Ethel, Ethel, Ethel, I love you; forgive me!" Ethel pressed his hand in hers gently, and answered in an agony of joy, "There is nothing to forgive, Cecil; I can die happy now, now that I have once more heard you say you love me, you love me." Hand in hand they turned back towards the blazing staircase, and reached the window at the end where the firemen were now bringing their escape-ladder to bear on the third story. The men below beckoned them to come near and climb out on to the ladder, but just at that moment something behind seemed incomprehensibly to fascinate and delay Cecil, so that he would not move a step nearer, though Ethel led him on with all her might. She looked back to see what could be the reason, and beheld the floor behind them rent by the flames, and a great gap spreading downward to the treasurer's room. On the tiled floor a few dozen pence and shillings and other coins lay, white with heat, among the glowing rubbish; and the whole mass, glittering like gold in the fierce glare, seemed some fiery cave filled to the brim with fabulous wealth. Cecil's eye was riveted upon the yawning gap, and the corners of his mouth twitched horribly as he gazed with intense interest upon the red cinders and white hot coin beneath him. Instinctively Ethel felt at once that all was lost, and that the old mania was once more upon him. Clasping her arm tight round his waist, while the firemen below shouted to her to leave him and come down as she valued her life, she made one desperate effort to drag him by main force to the head of the ladder. But Cecil, strong man that he was, threw her weak little arm impetuously away, as he might have thrown a two-year-old baby's, and cried to her in a voice trembling with excitement, "See, see, Ethel, at last, at last; there it is, there it is in good earnest. JOHN CANN'S TREASURE!" Ethel seized his arm imploringly once more. "This way, darling," she cried, in a voice choked by sobs and half stifled with the smoke. "This way to the ladder." But Cecil broke from her fiercely, with a wild light in his big blue eyes, and shouting aloud, "The treasure, the treasure!" leaped with awful energy into the very centre of the seething fiery abyss. Ethel fell, fainting with terror and choked by the flames, on to the burning floor of the third story. The firemen, watching from below, declared next day that that crazy madman must have died stifled before he touched the heap of white hot ruins in the central shell, and the poor lady was insensible or dead with asphyxia full ten minutes before the flames swept past the spot where her lifeless body was lying immovable. _ISALINE AND I._ I. "Well, Mademoiselle Isaline," I said, strolling out into the garden, "and who is the young _cavalier_ with the black moustache?" "What, monsieur," answered Isaline; "you have seen him? You have been watching from your window? We did not know you had returned from the Aiguille." "Oh, yes, I've been back for more than an hour," I replied; "the snow was so deep on the Col that I gave it up at last, and made up my mind not to try it without a guide." "I am so glad," Isaline said demurely. "I had such fears for monsieur. The Aiguille is dangerous, though it isn't very high, and I had been very distractedly anxious till monsieur returned." "Thanks, mademoiselle," I answered, with a little bow. "Your solicitude for my safety flatters me immensely. But you haven't told me yet who is the gentleman with the black moustache." Isaline smiled. "His name is M. Claude," she said; "M. Claude Tirard, you know; but we don't use surnames much among ourselves in the Pays de Vaud. He is the schoolmaster of the commune." "M. Claude is a very happy man, then," I put in. "I envy his good fortune." Isaline blushed a pretty blush. "On the contrary," she answered, "he has just been declaring himself the most miserable of all mankind. He says his life is not worth having." "They always say that under those peculiar circumstances," I said. "Believe me, mademoiselle, there are a great many men who would be glad to exchange their own indifferently tolerable lot for M. Claude's unendurable misery." Isaline said nothing, but she looked at me with a peculiar inquiring look, as if she would very much like to know exactly what I meant by it, and how much I meant it. And what _did_ I mean by it? Not very much after all, I imagine; for when it comes to retrospect, which one of us is any good at analyzing his own motives? The fact is, Isaline was a very pretty little girl, and I had nothing else to do, and I might just as well make myself agreeable to her as gain the reputation of being a bear of an Englishman. Besides, if there was the safeguard of M. Claude, a real indigenous suitor, in the background, there wasn't much danger of my polite attentions being misunderstood. However, I haven't yet told you how I came to find myself on the farm at Les Pentes at all. This, then, is how it all came about. I was sick of the Temple; I had spent four or five briefless years in lounging about Brick Court and dropping in casually at important cases, just to let the world see I was the proud possessor of a well-curled wig; but even a wig (which suits my complexion admirably) palls after five years, and I said to myself that I would really cut London altogether, and live upon my means somewhere on the Continent. Very small means, to be sure, but still enough to pull through upon in Switzerland or the Black Forest. So, just by way of experiment as to how I liked it, I packed up my fishing-rod and my portmanteau (the first the most important), took the 7.18 express from the Gare de Lyon for Geneva, and found myself next afternoon comfortably seated on the verandah of my favourite hotel at Vevay. The lake is delightful, that we all know; but I wanted to get somewhere where there was a little fishing; so I struck back at once into the mountain country round Château d'Oex and Les Avants, and came soon upon the exact thing I wanted at Les Pentes. Picture to yourself a great amphitheatre of open alp or mountain pasture in the foreground, with peaks covered by vivid green pines in the middle distance, and a background of pretty aiguilles, naked at their base, but clad near the summit with frozen masses of sparkling ice. Put into the midst of the amphitheatre a clear green-and-white torrent, with a church surrounded by a few wooden farmhouses on its slope, and there you have the commune of Les Pentes. But what was most delightful of all was this, that there was no hotel, no _pension_, not even a regular lodging-house. I was the first stranger to discover the capabilities of the village, and I was free to exploit them for my own private advantage. By a stroke of luck, it so happened that M. Clairon, the richest farmer of the place, with a pretty old-fashioned Vaudois farmhouse, and a pretty, dainty little Vaudoise daughter, was actually willing to take me in for a mere song per week. I jumped at the chance; and the same day saw me duly installed in a pretty little room, under the eaves of the pretty little farmhouse, and with the pretty little daughter politely attending to all my wants. Do you know those old-fashioned Vaudois houses, with their big gable-ends, their deep-thatched roofs, their cobs of maize, and smoked hams, and other rural wealth, hanging out ostentatiously under the protecting ledges? If you don't, you can't imagine what a delightful time I had of it at Les Pentes. The farm was a large one for the Pays de Vaud, and M. Clairon actually kept two servants; but madame would have been scandalized at the idea of letting "that Sara" or "that Lisette" wait upon the English voyager; and the consequence was that Mademoiselle Isaline herself always came to answer my little tinkling hand-bell. It was a trifle awkward, for Mademoiselle Isaline was too much of a young lady not to be treated with deferential politeness; and yet there is a certain difficulty in being deferentially polite to the person who lays your table for dinner. However, I made the best of it, and I'm bound to say I managed to get along very comfortably. Isaline was one of those pretty, plump, laughing-eyed, dimple-cheeked, dark little girls that you hardly ever see anywhere outside the Pays de Vaud. It was almost impossible to look at her without smiling; I'm sure it was quite impossible for her to look at any one else and not smile at them. She wore the prettiest little Vaudois caps you ever saw in your life; and she looked so coquettish in them that you must have been very hard-hearted indeed if you did not straightway fall head over ears in love with her at first sight. Besides, she had been to school at Lausanne, and spoke such pretty, delicate, musical French. Now, my good mother thought badly of my French accent; and when I told her I meant to spend a summer month or two in western Switzerland, she said to me, "I _do_ hope, Charlie dear, you will miss no opportunity of conversing with the people, and improving yourself in colloquial French a little." I am certainly the most dutiful of sons, and I solemnly assure you that whenever I was not fishing or climbing I missed no opportunity whatsoever of conversing with pretty little Isaline. "Mademoiselle Isaline," I said on this particular afternoon, "I should much like a cup of tea; can Sara bring me one out here in the garden?" "Perfectly, monsieur; I will bring you out the little table on to the grass plot," said Isaline. "That will arrange things for you much more pleasantly." "Not for worlds," I said, running in to get it myself; but Isaline had darted into the house before me, and brought it out with her own white little hands on to the tiny lawn. Then she went in again, and soon reappeared with a Japanese tray--bought at Montreux specially in my honour--and a set of the funniest little old China tea-things ever beheld in a London bric-à-brac cabinet. "Won't you sit and take a cup with me, mademoiselle?" I asked. "_Ma foi_, monsieur," answered Isaline, blushing again, "I have never tasted any except as _pthisane_. But you other English drink it so, don't you? I will try it, for the rest: one learns always." I poured her out a cup, and creamed it with some of that delicious Vaudois cream (no cream in the world so good as what you get in the Pays de Vaud--you see I am an enthusiast for my adopted country--but that is anticipating matters), and handed it over to her for her approval. She tasted it with a little _moue_. English-women don't make the _moue_, so, though I like sticking to my mother tongue, I confess my inability to translate the word. "Brrrr," she said. "Do you English like that stuff! Well, one must accommodate one's self to it, I suppose;" and to do her justice, she proceeded to accommodate herself to it with such distinguished success that she asked me soon for another cup, and drank it off without even a murmur. "And this M. Claude, then," I asked; "he is a friend of yours? Eh?" "Passably," she answered, colouring slightly. "You see, we have not much society at Les Pontes. He comes from the Normal School at Geneva. He is instructed, a man of education. We see few such here. What would you have?" She said it apologetically, as though she thought she was bound to excuse herself for having made M. Claude's acquaintance. "But you like him very much?" "Like him? Well, yes; I liked him always well enough. Bat he is too haughty. He gives himself airs. To-day he is angry with me. He has no right to be angry with me." "Mademoiselle," I said, "have you ever read our Shakespeare?" "Oh, yes, in English I have read him. I can read English well enough, though I speak but a little." "And have you read the 'Tempest'?" "How? Ariel, Ferdinand, Miranda, Caliban? Oh, yes. It is beautiful." "Well, mademoiselle," I said, "do you remember how Miranda first saw Ferdinand?" She smiled and blushed again--she was such a little blusher. "I know what you would say," she said. "You English are blunt. You talk to young ladies so strangely." "Well, Mademoiselle Isaline, it seems to me that you at Les Pentes are like Miranda on the island. You see nobody, and there is nobody here to see you. You must not go and fall in love, like Miranda, with the very first man you happen to meet with, because he comes from the Normal School at Geneva. There are plenty of men in the world, believe me, beside M. Claude." "Ah, but Miranda and Ferdinand both loved one another," said Isaline archly; "and they were married, and both lived happily ever afterward." I saw at once she was trying to pique me. "How do you know that?" I asked. "It doesn't say so in the play. For all I know, Ferdinand lost the crown of Naples through a revolution, and went and settled down at a country school in Savoy or somewhere, and took to drinking, and became brutally unsociable, and made Miranda's life a toil and a burden to her. At any rate, I'm sure of one thing; he wasn't worthy of her." What made me go on in this stupid way? I'm sure I don't know. I certainly didn't mean to marry Isaline myself: ... at least, not definitely: and yet when you are sitting down at tea on a rustic garden seat, with a pretty girl in a charming white crimped cap beside you, and you get a chance of insinuating that other fellows don't think quite as much of her as you do, it isn't human nature to let slip the opportunity of insinuating it. "But you don't know M. Claude," said Isaline practically, "and so you can't tell whether _he_ is worthy of _me_ or not." "I'm perfectly certain," I answered, "that he can't be, even though he were a very paragon of virtue, learning, and manly beauty." "If monsieur talks in that way," said Isaline, "I shall have to go back at once to mamma." "Wait a moment," I said, "and I will talk however you wish me. You know, you agree to give me instruction in conversational French. That naturally includes lessons in conversation with ladies of exceptional personal attractions. I must practise for every possible circumstance of life.... So you have read Shakespeare, then. And any other English books?" "Oh, many. Scott, and Dickens, and all, except Byron. My papa says a young lady must not read Byron. But I have read what he has said of our lake, in a book of extracts. It is a great pleasure to me to look down among the vines and chestnuts, there, and to think that our lake, which gleams so blue and beautiful below, is the most famous in poetry of all lakes. You know, Jean Jacques says, 'Mon lac est le premier,' and so it is." "Then you have read Jean Jacques too?" "Oh, mon Dieu, no. My papa says a young lady must especially not read Jean Jacques. But I know something about him--so much as is _convenable_. Hold here! do you see that clump of trees down there by the lake, just above Clarens? That is Julie's grove--'le bosquet de Julie' we call it. There isn't a spot along the lake that is not thus famous, that has not its memories and its associations. It is for that that I could not choose ever to leave the dear old Pays de Vaud." "You would not like to live in England, then?" I asked. (What a fool I was, to be sure.) "Oh, ma foi, no. That would make one too much shiver, with your chills, and your fogs, and your winters. I could not stand it. It is cold here, but at any rate it is sunny.... Well, at least, it would not be pleasant.... But, after all, that depends.... You have the sun, too, sometimes, don't you?" "Isaline!" cried madame from the window. "I want you to come and help me pick over the gooseberries!" And, to say the truth, I thought it quite time she should go. II. A week later, I met M. Claude again. He was a very nice young fellow, there was not a doubt of that. He was intelligent, well educated, manly, with all the honest, sturdy, independent Swiss nature clearly visible in his frank, bright, open face. I have seldom met a man whom I liked better at first sight than M. Claude, and after he had gone away I felt more than a little ashamed of myself to think I had been half trying to steal away Isaline's heart from this good fellow, without really having any deliberate design upon it myself. It began to strike me that I had been doing a very dirty, shabby thing. "Charlie, my boy," I said to myself, as I sat fishing with bottom bait and dangling my legs over the edge of a pool, "you've been flirting with this pretty little Swiss girl; and what's worse, you've been flirting in a very bad sort of way. She's got a lover of her own; and you've been trying to make her feel dissatisfied with him, for no earthly reason. You've taken advantage of your position and your fancied London airs and graces to run down by implication a good fellow who really loves her and would probably make her an excellent husband. Don't let this occur again, sir." And having thus virtuously resolved, of course I went away and flirted with Isaline next morning as vigorously as ever. During the following fortnight, M. Claude came often, and I could not disguise from myself the fact that M. Claude did not quite like me. This was odd, for I liked him very much. I suppose he took me for a potential rival: men are so jealous when they are in love. Besides, I observed that Isaline tried not to be thrown too much with him alone; tried to include me in the party wherever she went with him. Also, I will freely confess that I felt myself every day more fond of Isaline's society, and I half fancied I caught myself trepidating a little inwardly now and then when she happened to come up to me. Absurd to be so susceptible; but such is man. One lovely day about this time I set out once more to try my hand (or rather my feet) alone upon the Aiguille. Isaline put me up a nice little light lunch in my knapsack, and insisted upon seeing that my alpenstock was firmly shod, and my pedestrian boots in due climbing order. In fact, she loudly lamented my perversity in attempting to make the ascent without a guide; and she must even needs walk with me as far as the little bridge over the torrent beside the snow line, to point me out the road the guides generally took to the platform at the summit. For myself, I was a practised mountaineer, and felt no fear for the result. As I left her for the ice, she stood a long time looking and waving me the right road with her little pocket-handkerchief; while as long as I could hear her voice she kept on exhorting me to be very careful. "Ah, if monsieur would only have taken a guide! You don't know how dangerous that little Aiguille really is." The sun was shining brightly on the snow; the view across the valley of the Rhone towards the snowy Alps beyond was exquisite; and the giants of the Bernese Oberland stood out in gloriously brilliant outline on the other side against the clear blue summer sky. I went on alone, enjoying myself hugely in my own quiet fashion, and watching Isaline as she made her way slowly along the green path, looking round often and again, till she disappeared in the shadow of the pinewood that girt round the tiny village. On, farther still, up and up and up, over soft snow for the most part; with very little ice, till at last, after three hours' hard climbing, I stood on the very summit of the pretty Aiguille. It was not very high, but it commanded a magnificent view over either side--the Alps on one hand, the counterchain of the Oberland on the other, and the blue lake gleaming and glowing through all its length in its green valley between them. There I sat down on the pure snow in the glittering sunlight, and ate the lunch that Isaline had provided for me, with much gusto. Unfortunately, I also drank the pint of white wine from the head of the lake--Yvorne, we call it, and I grow it now in my own vineyard at Pic de la Baume--but that is anticipating again: as good a light wine as you will get anywhere in Europe in these depressing days of blight and phylloxera. Now, a pint of _vin du pays_ is not too much under ordinary circumstances for a strong young man in vigorous health, doing a hard day's muscular work with legs, arms, and sinews: but mountain air is thin and exhilarating in itself, and it lends a point to a half-bottle of Yvorne which the wine's own body does not by any means usually possess. I don't mean to say so much light wine does one any positive harm; but it makes one more careless and easy-going; gives one a false sense of security, and entices one into paying less heed to one's footsteps or to suspicious-looking bits of doubtful ice. Well, after lunch I took a good look at the view with my field-glass; and when I turned it towards Les Pentes I could make out our farmhouse distinctly, and even saw Isaline standing on the balcony looking towards the Aiguille. My heart jumped a little when I thought that she was probably looking for me. Then I wound my way down again, not by retracing my steps, but by trying a new path, which seemed to me a more practicable one. It was not the one Isaline had pointed out, but it appeared to go more directly, and to avoid one or two of the very worst rough-and-tumble pieces. I was making my way back, merrily enough, when suddenly I happened to step on a little bit of loose ice, which slid beneath my feet in a very uncomfortable manner. Before I knew where I was, I felt myself sliding rapidly on, with the ice clinging to my heel; and while I was vainly trying to dig my alpenstock into a firm snowbank, I became conscious for a moment of a sort of dim indefinite blank. It was followed by a sensation of empty space; and then I knew I was falling over the edge of something. Whrrr, whrrr, whrrr, went the air at my ear for a moment; and the next thing I knew was a jar of pain, and a consciousness of being enveloped in something very soft. The jar took away all other feeling for a few seconds; I only knew I was stunned and badly hurt. After a time, I began to be capable of trying to realize the position; and when I opened my eyes and looked around me, I recognized that I was lying on my back, and that there was a pervading sensation of whiteness everywhere about. In point of fact, I was buried in snow. I tried to move, and to get on my legs again, but two things very effectually prevented me. In the first place, I could not stir my legs without giving myself the most intense pain in my spine; and in the second place, when I did stir them I brought them into contact on the one hand with a solid wall of rock, and on the other hand with vacant space, or at least with very soft snow unsupported by a rocky bottom. Gradually, by feeling about with my arms, I began exactly to realize the gravity of the position. I had fallen over a precipice, and had lighted on a snow-covered ledge half-way down. My back was very badly hurt, and I dared not struggle up on to my legs for fear of falling off the ledge again on the other side. Besides, I was half smothered in the snow, and even if anybody ever came to look for me (which they would not probably do till to-morrow) they would not be able to see me, because of the deep-covering drifts. If I was not extricated that night, I should probably freeze to death before morning, especially after my pint of wine. "Confound that Yvorne!" I said to myself savagely. "If ever I get out of this scrape I'll never touch a drop of the stuff again as long as I live." I regret to say that I have since broken that solemn promise twice daily for the past three years. My one hope was that Isaline might possibly be surprised at my delay in returning, and might send out one of the guides to find me. So there I lay a long time, unable even to get out of the snow, and with every movement causing me a horrid pain in my injured back. Still, I kept on moving my legs every now and then to make the pain shoot, and so prevent myself from feeling drowsy. The snow half suffocated me, and I could only breathe with difficulty. At last, slowly, I began to lose consciousness, and presently I suppose I fell asleep. To fall asleep in the snow is the first stage of freezing to death. III. Noises above me, I think, on the edge of the precipice. Something coming down, oh, how slowly. Something comes, and fumbles about a yard or so away. Then I cry out feebly, and the something approaches. M. Claude's hearty voice calls out cheerily, "Enfin, le voilà!" and I am saved. They let down ropes and pulled me up to the top of the little crag, clumsily, so as to cause me great pain: and then three men carried me home to the farmhouse on a stretcher. M. Claude was one of the three, the others were labourers from the village. "How did you know I was lost, M. Claude?" I asked feebly, as they carried me along on the level. He did not answer for a moment; then he said, rather gloomily, in German, "The Fräulein was watching you with a telescope from Les Pentes." He did not say Fräulein Isaline, and I knew why at once: he did not wish the other carriers to know what he was talking about. "And she told you?" I said, in German too. "She sent me. I did not come of my own accord. I came under orders." He spoke sternly, hissing out his gutturals in an angry voice. "M. Claude," I said, "I have done very wrong, and I ask your forgiveness. You have saved my life, and I owe you a debt of gratitude for it. I will leave Les Pentes and the Fräulein to-morrow, or at least as soon as I can safely be moved." He shook his head bitterly. "It is no use now," he answered, with a sigh; "the Fräulein does not wish for me. I have asked her, and she has refused me. And she has been watching you up and down the Aiguille the whole day with a telescope. When she saw you had fallen, she rushed out like one distracted, and came to tell me at the school in the village. It is no use, you have beaten me." "M. Claude," I said, "I will plead for you. I have done you wrong, and I ask your forgiveness." "I owe you no ill-will," he replied, in his honest, straightforward, Swiss manner. "It is not your fault if you too have fallen in love with her. How could any man help it? Living in the same house with her, too! Allons," he went on in French, resuming his alternative tongue (for he spoke both equally), "we must get on quick and send for the doctor from Glion to see you." By the time we reached the farmhouse, I had satisfied myself that there was nothing very serious the matter with me after all. The soft snow had broken the force of the concussion. I had strained my spine a good deal, and hurt the tendons of the thighs and back, but had not broken any bones, nor injured any vital organ. So when they laid me on the old-fashioned sofa in my little sitting-room, lighted a fire in the wide hearth, and covered me over with a few rugs, I felt comparatively happy and comfortable under the circumstances. The doctor was sent for in hot haste; but on his arrival, he confirmed my own view of the case, and declared I only needed rest and quiet and a little arnica. I was rather distressed, however, when madame came up to see me an hour later, and assured me that she and monsieur thought I ought to be moved down as soon as possible into more comfortable apartments at Lausanne, where I could secure better attendance. I saw in a moment what that meant: they wanted to get me away from Isaline. "There are no more comfortable quarters in all Switzerland, I am sure, madame," I said: but madame was inflexible. There was an English doctor at Lausanne, and to Lausanne accordingly I must go. Evidently, it had just begun to strike those two good simple people that Isaline and I could just conceivably manage to fall in love with one another. Might I ask for Mademoiselle Isaline to bring me up a cup of tea? Yes, Isaline would bring it in a minute. And when she came in, those usually laughing black eyes obviously red with crying, I felt my heart sink within me when I thought of my promise to M. Claude; while I began to be vaguely conscious that I was really and truly very much in love with pretty little Isaline on my own account. She laid the tray on the small table by the sofa, and was going to leave the room immediately. "Mademoiselle Isaline," I said, trying to raise myself, and falling back again in pain, "won't you sit with me a little while? I want to talk with you." "My mamma said I must come away at once," Isaline replied demurely. "She is without doubt busy and wants my aid." And she turned to go towards the door. "Oh, do come back, mademoiselle," I cried, raising myself again, and giving myself, oh, such a wrench in the spine: "don't you see how much it hurts me to sit up?" She turned back, indecisively, and sat down in the big chair just beyond the table, handing me the cup, and helping me to cream and sugar. I plunged at once _in medias res_. "You have been crying, mademoiselle," I said, "and I think I can guess the reason. M. Claude has told me something about it. He has asked you for your hand, and you have refused him. Is it not so?" This was a little bit of hypocrisy on my part, I confess, for I knew what she had been crying about perfectly: but I wished to be loyal to M. Claude. Isaline blushed and laughed. "I do not cry for M. Claude," she said. "I may have other matters of my own to cry about. But M. Claude is very free with his confidences, if he tells such things to a stranger." "Listen to me, Mademoiselle Isaline," I said. "Your father and mother have asked me to leave here to-morrow and go down to Lausanne. I shall probably never see you again. But before I go, I want to plead with you for M. Claude. He has saved my life, and I owe him much gratitude. He loves you; he is a brave man, a good man, a true and earnest man; why will you not marry him? I feel sure he is a noble fellow, and he will make you a tender husband. Will you not think better of your decision? I cannot bear to leave Les Pentes till I know that you have made him happy." "Truly?" "Truly." "And you go away to-morrow?" "Yes, to-morrow." "Oh, monsieur!" There isn't much in those two words; but they may be pronounced with a good deal of difference in the intonation; and Isaline's intonation did not leave one in much doubt as to how she used them. Her eyes filled again with tears, and she half started up to go. Ingrate and wretch that I was, forgetful of my promise to M. Claude, my eyes filled responsively, and I jumped to catch her and keep her from going, of course at the expense of another dreadful wrench to my poor back. "Isaline," I cried, unconsciously dropping the mademoiselle, and letting her see my brimming eyelids far too obviously, "Isaline, do wait awhile, I implore you, I beseech you! I have something to say to you." She seated herself once more in the big chair. "Well, mon pauvre monsieur," she cried, "what is it?" "Isaline," I began, trying it over again; "why won't you marry M. Claude?" "Oh, that again. Well," answered Isaline boldly, "because I do not love him, and I love somebody else. You should not ask a young lady about these matters. In Switzerland, we do not think it _comme il faut_." "But," I went on, "why do you not love M. Claude? He has every good quality, and----" "Every good quality, and--he bores me," answered Isaline. "Monsieur," she went on archly, "you were asking me the other day what books I had read in English. Well, I have read Longfellow. Do you remember Miles Standish?" I saw what she was driving at, and laughed in spite of myself. "Yes," I said, "I know what you mean. When John Alden is pleading with Priscilla on behalf of Miles Standish, Priscilla cuts him short by saying----" Isaline finished the quotation herself in her own pretty clipped English, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" I laughed. She laughed. We both looked at one another; and the next thing I remember was that I had drawn down Isaline's plump little face close to mine, and was kissing it vigorously, in spite of an acute darting pain at each kiss all along my spine and into my marrow-bones. Poor M. Claude was utterly forgotten. In twenty minutes I had explained my whole position to Isaline: and in twenty minutes more, I had monsieur and madame up to explain it all to them in their turn. Monsieur listened carefully while I told him that I was an English advocate in no practice to speak of; that I had a few hundreds a year of my own, partly dependent upon my mother; that I had thoughts of settling down permanently in Switzerland; and that Isaline was willing, with her parents' consent, to share my modest competence. Monsieur replied with true Swiss caution that he would inquire into my statements, and that if they proved to be as represented, and if I obtained in turn my mother's consent, he would be happy to hand me over Isaline. "Toutefois," he added quietly, "it will be perhaps better to rescind your journey to Lausanne. The Glion doctor is, after all, a sufficiently skilful one." So I waited on in peace at Les Pontes. Madame had insisted upon telegraphing the news of my accident to my mother, lest it should reach her first in the papers ("Je suis mère moi-même, monsieur," she said, in justification of her conduct). And next morning we got a telegram in reply from my mother, who evidently imagined she must hurry over at once if she wished to see her son alive, or at least must nurse him through a long and dangerous illness. Considering the injuries were a matter of about three days' sofa, in all probability, this haste was a little overdone. However, she would arrive by the very first _rapide_ from Paris; and on the whole I was not sorry, for I was half afraid she might set her face against my marrying "a foreigner," but I felt quite sure any one who once saw Isaline could never resist her. That afternoon, when school was over, M. Claude dropped in to see how I was getting on. I felt more like a thief at that moment than I ever felt in my whole life before or since. I knew I must tell him the simple truth; but I didn't know how to face it. However, as soon as I began, he saved me the trouble by saying, "You need not mind explaining. Mademoiselle Isaline has told me all. Yon did your best for me, I feel sure; but she loves you, and she does not love me. We cannot help these things; they come and go without our being able to govern them. I am sorry, more than sorry; but I thank you for your kind offices. Mademoiselle Isaline tells me you said all you could on my behalf, and nothing on your own. Accept my congratulations on having secured the love of the sweetest girl in all Switzerland." And he shook my hand with an honest heartiness that cost me several more twinges both in the spine and the half-guilty conscience. Yet, after all, it was not my fault. "Monsieur Claude," I said, "you are an honest fellow, and a noble fellow, and I trust you will still let me be your friend." "Naturally," answered M. Claude, in his frank way. "I have only done my duty. You have been the lucky one, but I must not bear you a grudge for that; though it has cost my heart a hard struggle;" and, as he spoke, the tears came for a moment in his honest blue eyes, though he tried to brush them away unseen. "Monsieur Claude," I said, "you are too generous to me. I can never forgive myself for this." Before many days my mother came to hand duly; and though her social prejudices were just a trifle shocked, at first, by the farmhouse, with its hams and maize, which I had found so picturesque, I judged rightly that Isaline would soon make an easy conquest of her. My mother readily admitted that my accent had improved audibly to the naked ear; that Isaline's manners were simply perfect; that she was a dear, pretty, captivating little thing; and that on the whole she saw no objections, save one possible one, to my marriage. "Of course, Charlie," she said, "the Clairons are Protestants; because, otherwise, I could never think of giving my consent." This was a poser in its way; for though I knew the village lay just on the borderland, and some of the people were Catholics while others were Reformed, I had not the remotest notion to which of the two churches Isaline belonged. "Upon my soul, mother dear," I said, "it has never struck me to inquire into Isaline's private abstract opinion on the subject of the Pope's infallibility or the Geneva Confession. You see, after all, it could hardly be regarded as an important or authoritative one. However, I'll go at once and find out." Happily, as it turned out, the Clairons were Reformed, and so my mother's one objection fell to the ground immediately. M. Clairon's inquiries were also satisfactory; and the final result was that Isaline and I were to be quietly married before the end of the summer. The good father had a nice little vineyard estate at Pic de la Baume, which he proposed I should undertake to cultivate; and my mother waited to see us installed in one of the prettiest little toy châlets to be seen anywhere at the Villeneuve end of the lovely lake. A happier or sweeter bride than Isaline I defy the whole world, now or ever, to produce. From the day of our wedding, almost, Isaline made it the business of her life to discover a fitting wife for good M. Claude; and in the end she succeeded in discovering, I will freely admit (since Isaline is not jealous), the second prettiest and second nicest girl in the whole Pays de Vaud. And what is more, she succeeded also in getting M. Claude to fall head over ears in love with her at first sight; to propose to her at the end of a week; and to be accepted with effusion by Annette herself, and with coldness by her papa, who thought the question of means a trifle unsatisfactory. But Isaline and I arranged that Claude should come into partnership in our vineyard business on easy terms, and give up schoolmastering for ever; and the consequence is that he and his wife have now got the companion châlet to ours, and between our two local connections, in Switzerland and England, we are doing one of the best trades in the new export wine traffic of any firm along the lake. Of course we have given up growing Yvorne, except for our own use, confining ourselves entirely to a high-priced vintage-wine, with very careful culture, for our English business: and I take this opportunity of recommending our famous phylloxera-proof white Pic de la Baume, London Agents ----. But Isaline says that looks too much like an advertisement, so I leave off. Still, I can't help saying that a dearer little wife than Isaline, or a better partner than Claude, never yet fell to any man's lot. They certainly are an excellent people, these Vaudois, and I think you would say so too if only you knew them as well as I do. _PROFESSOR MILLITER'S DILEMMA._ The Gospel Evangelists were naturally very proud of Professor Milliter. A small and despised sect, with not many great, not many rich, not many noble among them, they could comfort themselves at least with the reflection that they numbered in their fold one of the most learned and justly famous of modern English scientific thinkers. It is true, their place of meeting at Mortiscombe was but an upper chamber in a small cottage; their local congregation consisted of hardly more than three score members; and their nickname among their orthodox churchy neighbours was the very opprobrious and very ridiculous one of "the Shivering Ranters." Still, the Gospel Evangelists felt it was a great privilege to be permitted the ministrations of so learned and eloquent a preacher as Professor Milliter. The rector of the parish was an Oxford M.A., of the usual decorously stereotyped conventional pattern; but in point even of earthly knowledge and earthly consideration, said the congregation at Patmos Chapel, "he is not worthy to unloose the latchet of our pastor's shoe." For Professor Milliter was universally allowed to be the greatest living authority in England on comparative anatomy, the rising successor of Cuvier, and Owen, and Milne-Edwards, and Carpenter, in the general knowledge of animal structure. Mortiscombe, as everybody knows, is the favourite little suburban watering-place, close by the busy streets and noisy wharves of a great English manufacturing centre. It is at Mortiscombe that the Western Counties College of Science is situated, away from the smoke and bustle of the whirring city: and it was in the Western Counties College of Science that Cyril Milliter ably filled the newly founded chair of Comparative Anatomy. When he was first appointed, indeed, people grumbled a little at the idea of a Professor at the College undertaking every Sunday to preach in a common conventicle to a low assembly of vulgar fanatics, as in their charitable Christian fashion they loved to call the Gospel Evangelists. But Cyril Milliter was a man of character and determination: he had fully made up his own mind upon theological questions; and having once cast in his lot with the obscure sect of Gospel Evangelists, to which his parents had belonged before him, he was not to be turned aside from his purpose by the coarse gibes of the ordinary public or the cynical incredulity of more cultivated but scarcely more tolerant polite society. "Not a Gospel Evangelist really and truly: you must surely be joking, Mr. Milliter," young ladies said to him at evening parties with undisguised astonishment; "why, they're just a lot of ignorant mill-hands, you know, who meet together in an upper room somewhere down in Ford's Passage to hear sermons from some ignorant lay preacher." "Quite so," Cyril Milliter would answer quietly; "and _I_ am the ignorant lay preacher who has been appointed to deliver those sermons to them. I was brought up among the Gospel Evangelists as a child, and now that I am a man my mature judgment has made me still continue among them." Mortiscombe is well known to be a very advanced and liberal-minded place; so, after a time, people ceased to talk about the curious singularity of Cyril Milliter's Sunday occupation. All through the week the young professor lectured to his class on dry bones and the other cheerful stock-in-trade of his own department; and on Sundays he walked down erect, Bible in hand, to his little meeting-room, and there fervently expounded the Word, as it approved itself to his soul and conscience, before the handful of earnest artisans who composed his faithful but scanty congregation. A fiery and enthusiastic preacher was Cyril Milliter, devoured with zeal for what seemed to him the right doctrine. "There is only one thing worth living for in this fallen world," he used to say to his little group of attentive hearers, "and that is Truth. Truth, as it reveals itself in the book of nature, must be our quest during the working week: Truth, as it reveals itself in the written Word, must be our quest on these happy blessed seventh-day Sabbaths." There was a high eager light in his eye as he spoke, mingled with a clear intellectual honesty in his sharply cut features, which gave at once the stamp of reality to that plain profession of his simple, manly, earnest creed. One other subject, however, beside the pursuit of truth, just at that moment deeply interested Cyril Milliter; and that subject assumed bodily form in the pretty little person of Netta Leaworthy. Right in front of Cyril, as he expounded the Word every Sunday morning, sat a modest, demure, dimpled English girl, with a complexion like a blushing apple-blossom, and a mouth like the sunny side of a white-heart cherry. She was only the daughter of an intelligent mill-hand, a foreman at one of the great factories in the neighbouring city, was dainty, whitefingered, sweet-voiced little Netta; but there was a Puritan freshness and demureness and simplicity about her that fairly won the heart of the enthusiastic young professor. Society at Mortiscombe had made itself most agreeable to Cyril Milliter, in spite of his heterodoxy, as Society always does to eligible young bachelors of good education; and it had thrown its daughters decorously in his way, by asking him to all its dinners, dances, and at-homes, with most profuse and urgent hospitality. But in spite of all the wiles of the most experienced among Society's mothers, Cyril Milliter had positively had the bad taste to fix his choice at last upon nobody better than simple, unaffected, charming little Netta. For one sunny Sunday morning, after worship, Cyril had turned out into the fields behind the Common, for a quiet stroll among the birds and flowers: when, close by the stile in the upper meadow, he came unexpectedly upon Netta Leaworthy, alone upon the grass with her own fancies. She was pulling an ox-eye daisy carelessly to pieces as he passed, and he stopped a minute unperceived beside the hedge, to watch her deft fingers taking out one ray after another quickly from the blossom to the words of a foolish childish charm. Netta blushed crimson when she saw she was observed at that silly pastime, and Cyril thought to himself he had never seen anything in his life more lovely than the blushing girl at that moment. Learned and educated as he was, he had sprung himself from among the ranks of the many, and his heart was with them still rather than with the rich, the noble, and the mighty. "I will never marry among the daughters of Heth," he said to himself gently, as he paused beside her: "I will take to myself rather a wife and a helpmate from among the Lord's own chosen people." "Ah, Miss Leaworthy," he went on aloud, smiling sympathetically at her embarrassment, "you are following up the last relics of a dying superstition, are you? 'One for money, two for health, Three for love, and four for wealth.' Is that how the old saw goes? I thought so. And which of the four blessings now has your daisy promised you I wonder?" The tone he spoke in was so very different from that which he had just been using in the chapel at worship that Netta felt instinctively what it foreboded; and her heart fluttered tremulously as she answered in the quietest voice she could command, "I haven't finished it yet, Mr. Milliter; I have made five rounds already, and have a lot of rays left still in the middle of the daisy." Cyril took it from her, laughingly, and went on with the rhyme--his conscience upbraiding him in an undertone of feeling meanwhile for such an unworthy paltering with old-world superstition--till he had gone twice round the spell, and finished abruptly with "Three for love!" "Love it is!" he cried gaily. "A good omen! Miss Leaworthy, we none of us love superstition: but perhaps after all it is something more than that; there may be a Hand guiding us from above, even in these everyday trifles! We must never forget, you know, that every hair of our heads is numbered." Netta's heart fluttered still more violently within her as he looked at her so closely. Could it be that really, in spite of everything, the great, learned, good, clever young professor was going to ask her to be his wife? Netta had listened to him with joy Sunday after Sunday from his simple platform pulpit, and had felt in her heart that no man never expounded the gospel of love as beautifully as he did. She had fancied sometimes--girls cannot help fancying, be they as modest and retiring as they may--that he really did like her just a little. And she--she had admired and wondered at him from a distance. But she could hardly believe even now that that little vague day-dream which had sometimes floated faintly before her eyes was going to be actually realized in good earnest. She could answer nothing, her heart beat so; but she looked down to the ground with a flushed and frightened look which was more eloquent in its pretty simplicity than all the resources of the most copious language. Cyril Milliter's mind, however, was pretty well made up already on this important matter, and he had been waiting long for just such an opportunity of asking Netta whether she could love him. And now, even without asking her, he could feel at once by some subtle inner sense that his eager question was answered beforehand, and that modest, maidenly little Netta Leaworthy was quite prepared to love him dearly. For a moment he stood there looking at her intently, and neither of them spoke. Then Netta raised her eyes from the ground for a second's flash; and Cyril's glance caught hers one instant before she bent them down again in haste to play nervously with the mangled daisy. "Netta," he said, the name thrilling through his very marrow as he uttered it, "Netta, I love you." She stood irresolute for a while, listening to the beating of her own heart, and then her eye caught his once more, timidly, but she spoke never a syllable. Cyril took her wee white hand in his--a lady's hand, if ever you saw one--and raised it with chivalrous tenderness to his lips. Netta allowed him to raise it and kiss it without resistance. "Then you will let me love you?" he asked quickly. Netta still did not answer, but throwing herself back on the bank by the hedgerow began to cry like a frightened child. Cyril sat down, all tremulous beside her, took the white hand unresisted in his, and said to her gently, "Oh, Netta, what is this for?" Then Netta answered with an effort, through her tears, "Mr. Milliter, Mr. Milliter, how can you ever tell me of this?" "Why not, Netta? Why not, my darling? May I not ask you to be my wife? Will you have me, Netta?" Netta looked at him timidly, with another blush, and said slowly, "No, Mr. Milliter; I cannot. I must not." "Why not, Netta? Oh, why not? Tell me a reason." "Because it wouldn't be right. Because it wouldn't be fair to you. Because it wouldn't be true of me. You ought to marry a lady--some one in your own rank of life, you know. It would be wrong to tie your future down to a poor nameless nobody like me, when you might marry--marry--almost any lady you chose in all Mortiscombe." "Netta, you pain me. You are wronging me. You know I care nothing for such gewgaws as birth or wealth or rank or station. I would not marry one of those ladies even if she asked me. And, as to my own position in life, why, Netta, my position is yours. My parents were poor God-fearing people, like your parents; and if you will not love me, then, Netta, Netta, I say it solemnly, I will never, never marry anybody." Netta answered never a word; but, as any other good girl would do in her place, once more burst into a flood of tears, and looked at him earnestly from her swimming eyes in speechless doubt and trepidation. Perhaps it was wrong of Cyril Milliter--on a Sunday, and in the public pathway too--but he simply put his strong arm gently round her waist, and kissed her a dozen times over fervidly without let or hindrance. Then Netta put him away from her, not too hastily, but with a lingering hesitation, and said once more, "But, Mr. Milliter, I can never marry you. You will repent of this yourself by-and-by at your leisure. Just think, how could I ever marry you, when I should always be too frightened of you to call you anything but 'Mr. Milliter!'" "Why, Netta," cried the young professor, with a merry laugh, "if that's all, you'll soon learn to call me, 'Cyril.'" "To call you 'Cyril,' Mr. Milliter! Oh dear, no, never. Why, I've looked at you so often in meeting, and felt so afraid of you, because you were so learned, and wise, and terrible: and I'm sure I should never learn to call you by your Christian name, whatever happened." "And as you can't do that, you won't marry me! I'm delighted to hear it, Netta--delighted to hear it; for if that's the best reason you can conjure up against the match, I don't think, little one, I shall find it very hard to talk you over." "But, Mr. Milliter, are you quite sure you won't regret it yourself hereafter? Are you quite sure you won't repent, when you find Society doesn't treat you as it did, for my sake? Are you quite sure nothing will rise up hereafter between us, no spectre of class difference, or class prejudice, to divide our lives and make us unhappy?" "Never!" Cyril Milliter answered, seizing both her hands in his eagerly, and looking up with an instinctive glance to the open heaven above them as witness. "Never, Netta, as long as I live and you live, shall any shadow of such thought step in for one moment to put us asunder." And Netta, too proud and pleased to plead against her own heart any longer, let him kiss her once again a lover's kiss, and pressed his hand in answer timidly, and walked back with him blushing towards Mortiscombe, his affianced bride before the face of high heaven. When Society at Mortiscombe first learnt that that clever young Professor Milliter was really going to marry the daughter of some factory foreman, Society commented frankly upon the matter according to the various idiosyncrasies and temperaments of its component members. Some of it was incredulous; some of it was shocked; some of it was cynical; some of it was satirical; and some of it, shame to say, was spitefully free with suggested explanations for such very strange and unbecoming conduct. But Cyril Milliter himself was such a transparently honest and straightforward man, that, whenever the subject was alluded to in his presence, he shamed the cynicism and the spitefulness of Society by answering simply, "Yes, I'm going to marry a Miss Leaworthy, a very good and sweet girl, the daughter of the foreman at the Tube Works, who is a great friend of mine and a member of my little Sunday congregation." And, somehow, when once Cyril Milliter had said that in his quiet natural way to anybody, however cynical, the somebody never cared to talk any more gossip thenceforward for ever on the subject of the professor's forthcoming marriage. Indeed, so fully did the young professor manage to carry public sentiment with him in the end, that when the wedding-day actually arrived, almost every carriage in all Mortiscombe was drawn up at the doors of the small chapel where the ceremony was performed; and young Mrs. Milliter had more callers during the first fortnight after her honeymoon than she knew well how to accommodate in their tiny drawing-room. In these matters, Society never takes any middle course. Either it disapproves of a "mixed marriage" altogether, in which case it crushes the unfortunate offender sternly under its iron heel; or else it rapturously adopts the bride into its own magic circle, in which case she immediately becomes a distinct somebody, in virtue of the very difference of original rank, and is invited everywhere with _empressement_ as a perfect acquisition to the local community. This last was what happened with poor simple blushing little Netta, who found herself after a while so completely championed by all Mortiscombe that she soon fell into her natural place in the college circle as if to the manner born. All nice girls, of whatever class, are potentially ladies (which is more than one can honestly say for all women of the upper ranks), and after a very short time Netta became one of the most popular young married women in all Mortiscombe. When once Society had got over its first disappointment because Cyril Milliter had not rather married one of its own number, it took to Netta with the greatest cordiality. After all, there is something so very romantic, you know, in a gentleman marrying a foreman's daughter; and something so very nice and liberal, too, in one's own determination to treat her accordingly in every way like a perfect equal. And yet, happy as she was, Netta could never be absolutely free from a pressing fear, a doubt that Cyril might not repent his choice, and feel sorry in the end for not having married a real lady. That fear pursued her through all her little triumph, and almost succeeded in making her half jealous of Cyril whenever she saw him talking at all earnestly (and he was very apt to be earnest) with other women. "They know so much more than I do," she thought to herself often; "he must feel so much more at home with them, naturally, and be able to talk to them about so many things that he can never possibly talk about with poor little me." Poor girl, it never even occurred to her that from the higher standpoint of a really learned man like Cyril Milliter the petty smattering of French and strumming of the piano, wherein alone these grand girls actually differed from her, were mere useless surface accomplishments, in no way affecting the inner intelligence or culture, which were the only things that Cyril regarded in any serious light as worthy of respect or admiration. As a matter of fact, Netta had learnt infinitely more from her Bible, her English books, her own heart, and surrounding nature, than any of these well-educated girls had learnt from their parrot-trained governesses; and she was infinitely better fitted than any of them to be a life companion for such a man as Cyril Milliter. For the first seven or eight months of Netta's married life all went smoothly enough with the young professor and his pretty wife. But at the end of that time an event came about which gave Netta a great deal of unhappiness, and caused her for the very first time since she had ever known him to have serious doubts about Cyril's affection. And this was just how it all happened. One Sunday morning, in the upper chamber at Patmos, Cyril had announced himself to preach a discourse in opposition to sundry wicked scientific theories which were then just beginning seriously to convulse the little world of religious Mortiscombe. Those were the days when Darwin's doctrine of evolution had lately managed to filter down little by little to the level of unintelligent society; and the inquiring working-men who made up Cyril Milliter's little congregation in the upper chamber were all eagerly reading the "Origin of Species" and the "Descent of Man." As for Cyril himself, in his austere fashion, he doubted whether any good could come even of considering such heterodox opinions. They were plainly opposed to the Truth, he held, both to the Truth as expressed in the written Word, and to the Truth as he himself clearly read it in the great open book of nature. This evolution they talked about so glibly was a dream, a romance, a mere baseless figment of the poor fallible human imagination; all the plain facts of science and of revelation were utterly irreconcilable with it, and in five years' time it would be comfortably dead and buried for ever, side by side with a great load of such other vague and hypothetical rubbish. He could hardly understand, for his part, how sensible men could bother their heads about such nonsense for a single moment. Still, as many of his little flock had gone to hear a brilliant young lecturer who came down from London last week to expound the new doctrine at the Literary and Philosophical Institute, and as they had been much shaken in their faith by the lecturer's sophistical arguments and obvious misrepresentations of scientific principles, he would just lay before them plainly what science had to say in opposition to these fantastic and immature theorists. So on Sunday morning next, with Bible in one hand and roll of carefully executed diagrams in the other (for Cyril Milliter was no conventional formalist, afraid of shocking the sense of propriety in his congregation), he went down in militant guise to the upper chamber and delivered a fervent discourse, intended to smite the Darwinians hip and thigh with the arms of the Truth--both Scriptural and scientific--to slay the sophists outright with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Cyril took for his text a single clause from the twenty-first verse of the first chapter of Genesis--"Every winged fowl after his kind." That, he said impressively, was the eternal and immutable Truth upon the matter. He would confine his attention that morning entirely to this one aspect of the case--the creation of the class of birds. "In the beginning," the Word told us, every species of bird had been created as we now see it, perfect and fully organized after its own kind. There was no room here for their boasted "development," or their hypothetical "evolution." The Darwinians would fain force upon them some old wife's tale about a monstrous lizard which gradually acquired wings and feathers, till at last, by some quaint Ovidian metamorphosis (into such childish heathenism had we finally relapsed), it grew slowly into the outward semblance of a crow or an ostrich. But that was not what the Truth told them. On the fourth day of creation, simultaneously with the fish and every living creature that moveth in the ocean, the waters brought forth "fowl that might fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." Such on this subject was the plain and incontrovertible statement of the inspired writer in the holy Scripture. And now, how did science confirm this statement, and scatter at once to the winds the foolish, brain-spun cobwebs of our windy, vaporous, modern evolutionists? These diagrams which he held before him would sufficiently answer that important question. He would show them that there was no real community of structure in any way between the two classes of birds and reptiles. Let them observe the tail, the wings, the feathers, the breast-bone, the entire anatomy, and they would see at once that Darwin's ridiculous, ill-digested theory was wholly opposed to all the plain and demonstrable facts of nature. It was a very learned discourse, certainly; very crushing, very overwhelming, very convincing (when you heard one side only), and not Netta alone, but the whole congregation of intelligent, inquiring artisans as well, was utterly carried away by its logic, its clearness, and its eloquent rhetoric. Last of all, Cyril Milliter raised his two white hands solemnly before him, and uttered thus his final peroration. "In conclusion, what proof can they offer us of their astounding assertions?" he asked, almost contemptuously. "Have they a single fact, a single jot or tittle of evidence to put in on this matter, as against the universal voice of authoritative science, from the days of Aristotle, of Linnæus, or of Cuvier, to the days of Owen, of Lyell, and of Carpenter? Not one! Whenever they can show me, living or fossil, an organism which unites in itself in any degree whatsoever the characteristics of birds and reptiles--an organism which has at once teeth and feathers; or which has a long lizard-like tail and true wings; or which combines the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned to the one class with the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned to the other: then, and then only, will I willingly accede to their absurd hypothesis. But they have not done it. They cannot do it. They will never do it. A great gulf eternally separates the two classes. A vast gap intervenes impassably between them. That gulf will never be lessened, that gap will never be bridged over, until Truth is finally confounded with falsehood, and the plain facts of nature and the Word are utterly forgotten in favour of the miserable, inconsistent figments of the poor fallible human imagination." As they walked home from worship that morning, Netta felt she had never before so greatly admired and wondered at her husband. How utterly he had crushed the feeble theory of these fanciful system-mongers, how clearly he had shown the absolute folly of their presumptuous and arrogant nonsense! Netta could not avoid telling him so, with a flush of honest pride in her beautiful face: and Cyril flushed back immediately with conscious pleasure at her wifely trust and confidence. But he was tired with the effort, he said, and must go for a little walk alone in the afternoon: a walk among the fields and the Downs, where he could commune by himself with the sights and sounds of truth-telling nature. Netta was half-piqued, indeed, that he should wish even so to go without her; but she said nothing: and so after their early dinner, Cyril started away abstractedly by himself, and took the lane behind the village that led up by steep inclines on to the heavy moorland with its fresh bracken and its purple heather. As he walked along hastily, his mind all fiery-full of bones and fossils, he came at last to the oolite quarry on the broken hillside. Feeling tired, he turned in to rest awhile in the shade on one of the great blocks of building stone hewn out by the workmen; and by way of occupation he began to grub away with his knife, half-unconsciously as he sat, at a long flat slab of slaty shale that projected a little from the sheer face of the fresh cutting. As he did so, he saw marks of something very like a bird's feather on its upper surface. The sight certainly surprised him a little. "Birds in the oolite," he said to himself quickly; "it's quite impossible! Birds in the oolite! this is quite a new departure. Besides, such a soft thing as a feather could never conceivably be preserved in the form of a fossil." Still, the queer object interested him languidly, by its odd and timely connection with the subject of his morning sermon; and he looked at it again a little more closely. By Jove, yes, it was a feather, not a doubt in the world of that now; he could see distinctly the central shaft of a tail-quill, and the little barbed branches given off regularly on either side of it. The shale on which it was impressed was a soft, light-brown mudstone; in fact, a fragment of lithographic slate, exactly like that employed by lithographers for making pictures. He could easily see how the thing had happened; the bird had fallen into the soft mud, long ages since, before the shale had hardened, and the form of its feathers had been distinctly nature-printed, while it was still moist, upon its plastic surface. But a bird in the oolite! that was a real discovery; and, as the Gospel Evangelists were no Sabbatarians, Cyril did not scruple in the pursuit of Truth to dig away at the thin slab with his knife, till he egged it out of the rock by dexterous side pressure, and laid it triumphantly down at last for further examination on the big stone that stood before him. Gazing in the first delight of discovery at his unexpected treasure, he saw in a moment that it was a very complete and exquisitely printed fossil. So perfect a pictorial representation of an extinct animal he had never seen before in his whole lifetime; and for the first moment or two he had no time to do anything else but admire silently the exquisite delicacy and extraordinary detail of this natural etching. But after a minute, the professional interest again asserted itself, and he began to look more carefully into the general nature of its curious and unfamiliar anatomical structure. As he looked, Cyril Milliter felt a horrible misgiving arise suddenly within him. The creature at which he was gazing so intently was not a bird, it was a lizard. And yet--no--it was not a lizard--it was a bird. "Why--these are surely feathers--yes, tail feathers--quite unmistakable.... But they are not arranged in a regular fan; the quills stand in pairs, one on each side of each joint in a long tail, for all the world exactly like a lizard's.... Still, it must be a bird; for, see, these are wings ... and that is certainly a bird's claw.... But here's the head; great heavens! what's this?... A jaw, with teeth in it...." Cyril Milliter leaned back, distractedly, and held his beating forehead between his two pale hands. To most scientific men it would have been merely the discovery of an interesting intermediate organism--something sure to make the reputation of a comparative anatomist; to him, it was an awful and sudden blow dealt unexpectedly from the most deadly quarter at all his deepest and most sacred principles. Religion, honour, Truth, the very fundamental basis of the universe itself--all that makes life worth living for, all that makes the world endurable--was bound up implicitly that moment for Cyril Milliter in the simple question whether the shadowy creature, printed in faint grey outline on the slab of shaly oolite before him, was or was not half bird and half lizard. It may have been foolish of him: it may have been wrong: it may have been madness almost; but at that instant he felt dazzled and stunned by the crushing weight of the blow thus unexpectedly dealt at his whole preconceived theory of things, and at his entire mental scheme of science and theology. The universe seemed to swim aimlessly before him: he felt the solid ground knocked at once from beneath his feet, and found himself in one moment suspended alone above an awful abyss, a seething and tossing abyss of murky chaos. He had pinned all his tottering faith absolutely on that single frail support; and now the support had given way irretrievably beneath him, and blank atheism, nihilism, utter nothingness, stared him desperately in the face. In one minute, while he held his head tight between his two palms to keep it from bursting, and looked with a dull, glazed, vacant eye at the ghastly thing before him--only a few indistinct fossil bones, but to him the horridest sight he had ever beheld--a whole world of ideas crowded itself on the instant into his teeming, swimming brain. If we could compress an infinity of thought into a single second, said Shelley once, that second would be eternity; and on the brink of such a compressed eternity Cyril Milliter was then idly sitting. It seemed to him, as he clasped his forehead tighter and tighter, that the Truth which he had been seeking, and for which he had been working and fighting so long, revealed itself to him now and there, at last, in concrete form, as a visible and tangible Lie. It was no mere petrified lizard that he saw beneath his eyes, but a whole ruined and shattered system of philosophic theology. His cosmogony was gone; his cosmos itself was dispersed and disjointed; creation, nay, the Creator Himself, seemed to fade away slowly into nonentity before him. He beheld dimly an awful vision of a great nebulous mist, drifting idly before the angry storm-cyclones of the masterless universe--drifting without a God or a ruler to guide it; bringing forth shapeless monstrosities one after another on its wrinkled surface; pregnant with ravine, and rapine, and cruelty; vast, powerful, illimitable, awful; but without one ray of light, one gleam of love, one hope of mercy, one hint of divine purpose anywhere to redeem it. It was the pessimistic nightmare of a Lucretian system, translated hastily into terms of Cyril Milliter's own tottering and fading theosophy. He took the thing up again into his trembling hands, and examined it a second time more closely. No, there could be no shadow of a doubt about it: his professional skill and knowledge told him that much in a single moment. Nor could he temporize and palter with the discovery, as some of his elder brethren would have been tempted to do; his brain was too young, and fresh, and vigorous, and logical not to permit of ready modification before the evidence of new facts. Come what might, he must be loyal to the Truth. This thing, this horrid thing that he held visibly before him, was a fact, a positive fact: a set of real bones, representing a real animal, that had once lived and breathed and flown about veritably upon this planet of ours, and that was yet neither a true bird nor a true lizard, but a half-way house and intermediate link between those two now widely divergent classes. Cyril Milliter's mind was at once too honest and too intelligent to leave room for any doubts, or evasions, or prevarications with itself upon that fundamental subject. He saw quite clearly and instantly that it was the very thing the possibility of whose existence he had so stoutly denied that self-same morning. And he could not go back upon his own words, "Whenever they show me an organism which unites in itself the characteristics of birds and reptiles, then, and then only, will I accede to their absurd hypothesis." The organism he had asked for lay now before him, and he knew himself in fact a converted evolutionist, encumbered with all the other hideous corollaries which his own peculiar logic had been accustomed to tack on mentally to that hated creed. He almost felt as if he ought in pure consistency to go off at once and murder somebody, as the practical outcome of his own theories. For had he not often boldly asserted that evolutionism was inconsistent with Theism, and that without Theism, any real morality or any true right-doing of any kind was absolutely impossible? At last, after long sitting and anxious pondering, Cyril Milliter rose to go home, carrying a heavy heart along with him. And then the question began to press itself practically upon him, What could he ever do with this horrible discovery? His first impulse was to dash the thing to pieces against the rock, and go away stealthily, saying naught about the matter to any man. But his inborn reverence for the Truth made him shrink back in horror, a moment later, from this suggestion of Satan, as he thought it--this wicked notion of suppressing a most important and conclusive piece of scientific evidence. His next idea was simply to leave it where it was, thus shuffling off the responsibility of publishing it or destroying it upon the next comer who chanced by accident to enter the quarry. After all, he said to himself, hypocritically, he wasn't absolutely bound to tell anybody else a word about it; he could leave it there, and it would be in much the same position, as far as science was concerned, as it would have been if he hadn't happened to catch sight of it accidentally as it lay that morning in the mother stone. But again his conscience told him next moment that such casuistry was dishonest and unworthy; he had found the thing, and, come what might, he ought to abide by the awful consequences. If he left it lying there in the quarry, one of the workmen would probably smash it up carelessly with a blow of his pick to-morrow morning--this unique survivor of a forgotten world--and to abandon it to such a fate as that would be at least as wicked as to break it to pieces himself of set purpose, besides being a great deal more sneakish and cowardly. No, whatever else he did, it was at any rate his plain duty to preserve the specimen, and to prevent it from being carelessly or wilfully destroyed. On the other hand, he couldn't bear, either, to display it openly, and thereby become, as the matter envisaged itself to his mind, a direct preacher of evolutionism--that is to say, of irreligion and immorality. With what face could he ever rise and exhibit at a scientific meeting this evident proof that the whole universe was a black chaos, a gross materialistic blunder, a festering mass of blank corruption, without purpose, soul, or informing righteousness? His entire moral being rose up within him in bitter revolt at the bare notion of such cold-blooded treachery. To give a long-winded Latin classificatory name, forsooth, to a thing that would destroy the faith of ages! At last, after long pondering, he determined to carry the slab carefully home inside his coat, and hide it away sedulously for the present in the cupboard of his little physiological laboratory. He would think the matter over, he would take time to consider, he would ask humbly for light and guidance. But of whom? Well, well, at any rate, there was no necessity for precipitate action. To Cyril Milliter's excited fancy, the whole future of human thought and belief seemed bound up inextricably at that moment in the little slab of lithographic slate that lay before him; and he felt that he need be in no hurry to let loose the demon of scepticism and sin (as it appeared to him) into the peaceful midst of a still happily trusting and unsuspecting humanity. He put his hand into his pocket, casually, to pull out his handkerchief for a covering to the thing, and, as he did so, his fingers happened to touch the familiar clasp of his little pocket Bible. The touch thrilled him strangely, and inspired him at once with a fresh courage. After all, he had the Truth there also, and he couldn't surely be doing wrong in consulting its best and most lasting interests. It was for the sake of the Truth that he meant for the present to conceal his compromising fossil. So he wrapped up the slab as far as he was able in his handkerchief, and hid it away, rather clumsily, under the left side of his coat. It bulged a little, no doubt; but by keeping his arm flat to his side he was able to cover it over decently somehow. Thus he walked back quickly to Mortiscombe, feeling more like a thief with a stolen purse in his pocket than he had ever before felt in the whole course of his earthly existence. When he reached his own house, he would not ring, lest Netta should run to open the door for him, and throw her arms round him, and feel the horrid thing (how could he show it even to Netta after this morning's sermon?), but he went round to the back door, opened it softly, and glided as quietly as he could into the laboratory. Not show it to Netta--that was bad: he had always hitherto shown her and told her absolutely everything. How about the Truth? He was doing this, he believed, for the Truth's sake; and yet, the very first thing that it imposed upon him was the necessity for an ugly bit of unwonted concealment. Not without many misgivings, but convinced on the whole that he was acting for the best, he locked the slab of oolite up, hurriedly and furtively, in the corner cupboard. He had hardly got it safely locked up out of sight, and seated himself as carelessly as he could in his easy chair, when Netta knocked softly at the door. She always knocked before entering, by force of habit, for when Cyril was performing delicate experiments it often disturbed him, or spoilt the result, to have the door opened suddenly. Netta had seen him coming, and wondered why he had slunk round by the back door: now she wondered still more why he did not "report himself," as he used to call it, by running to kiss her and announce his return. "Come in," he said gravely, in answer to the knock; and Netta entered. Cyril jumped up and kissed her tenderly, but her quick woman's eye saw at once that there was something serious the matter. "You didn't ring, Cyril darling," she said, half reproachfully, "and you didn't come to kiss your wifie." "No," Cyril answered, trying to look quite at his ease (a thing at which the most innocent man in the world is always the worst possible performer), "I was in a hurry to get back here, as there was something in the way of my work I wanted particularly to see about." "Why, Cyril," Netta answered in surprise; "your work! It's Sunday." Cyril blushed crimson. "So it is," he answered hastily; "upon my word, I'd quite forgotten it. Goodness gracious, Netta, shall I have to go down to meeting and preach again to those people this evening?" "Preach again? Of course you will, Cyril. You always do, dear, don't you?" Cyril started back with a sigh. "I can't go to-night, Netta darling," he said wearily. "I can't preach to-night. I'm too tired and out of sorts--I'm not at all in the humour for preaching. We must send down somehow or other, and put off the brethren." Netta looked at him in blank dismay. She felt in her heart there was something wrong, but she wouldn't for worlds ask Cyril what it was, unless he chose to tell her of his own accord. Still, she couldn't help reading in his eyes that there was something the matter: and the more she looked into them, the more poor Cyril winced and blinked and looked the other way in the vain attempt to seem unconcerned at her searching scrutiny. "I'll send Mary down with a little written notice," she said at last, "to fix on the door: 'Mr. Milliter regrets he will be unable, through indisposition, to attend worship at Patmos this evening.' Will that do, Cyril?" "Yes," he answered uneasily. "That'll do, darling. I don't feel quite well, I'm afraid, somehow, after my unusual exertions this morning." Netta looked at him hard, but said nothing. They went into the drawing-room and for a while they both pretended to be reading. Then the maid brought up the little tea-tray, and Cyril was obliged to lay down the book he had been using as a screen for his crimson face, and to look once more straight across the room at Netta. "Cyril," the little wife began again, as she took over his cup of tea to his easy chair by the bow window, and set it down quietly on the tiny round table beside him, "where did you go this afternoon?" "On the Downs, darling." "And whom did you meet there?" "Nobody, Netta." "Nobody, Cyril?" "No, nobody." Netta knew she could trust his word implicitly, and asked him no further. Still, a dreadful cloud was slowly rising up before her. She felt too much confidence in Cyril to be really jealous of him in any serious way; but her fears, womanlike, took that personal shape in which she fancied somebody or something must be weaning away her husband's love gradually from her. Had he seen some girl at a distance on the Downs, some one of the Mortiscombe ladies, with whom perhaps he had had some little flirtation in the days gone by--some lady whom he thought now would have made him a more suitable, companionable wife than poor little Netta? Had he wandered about alone, saying to himself that he had thrown himself away, and sacrificed his future prospects for a pure, romantic boyish fancy? Had he got tired of her little, simple, homely ways? Had he come back to the house, heartsick and disappointed, and gone by himself into the working laboratory on purpose to avoid her? Why was he so silent? Why did he seem so preoccupied? Why would he not look her straight in the face? Cyril could have done nothing to be ashamed of, that Netta felt quite sure about, but why did he behave as if he was ashamed of himself--as if there was something or other in his mind he couldn't tell her? Meanwhile, poor Cyril was not less unhappy, though in a very different and more masculine fashion. He wasn't thinking so much of Netta (except when she looked at him so hard and curiously), but of the broken gods of his poor little scientific and theological pantheon. He was passing through a tempest of doubt and hesitation, compelled to conceal it under the calm demeanour of everyday life. That horrid, wicked, system-destroying fossil was never for a moment out of his mind. At times he hated and loathed the godless thing with all the concentrated force of his ardent nature. Ought he to harbour it under the shelter of his hospitable roof? Ought he to give it the deadly chance of bearing its terrible witness before the eyes of an innocent world? Ought he not to get up rather in the dead of night, and burn it to ashes or grind it to powder--a cruel, wicked, deceiving, anti-scriptural fossil that it was? Then again at other times the love of Truth came uppermost once more to chill his fiery indignation. Could the eternal hills lie to him? Could the evidence of his own senses deceive him? Was not the creature there palpably and visibly present, a veritable record of real existence; and ought he not loyally and reverently to accept its evidence, at whatever violence to his own most cherished and sacred convictions? If the universe was in reality quite other than what he had always hitherto thought it; if the doctrines he had first learned and then taught as certain and holy were proved by plain facts to be mere ancient and fading delusions, was it not his bounden duty manfully to resign his life-long day-dream, and to accept the Truth as it now presented itself to him by the infallible evidence of mute nature, that cannot possibly or conceivably lie to us? The evening wore away slowly, and Cyril and Netta said little to one another, each absorbed in their own thoughts and doubts and perplexities. At last bedtime came, but not much sleep for either. Cyril lay awake, looking out into the darkness which seemed now to involve the whole physical and spiritual world; seeing in fancy a vast chaotic clashing universe, battling and colliding for ever against itself, without one ray of hope, or light, or gladness left in it anywhere. Netta lay awake, too, wondering what could have come over Cyril; and seeing nothing but a darkened world, in which Cyril's love was taken away from her, and all was cold, and dull, and cheerless. Each in imagination had lost the keystone of their own particular special universe. Throughout the next week, Cyril went on mechanically with his daily work, but struggling all the time against the dreadful doubt that was rising now irresistibly within him. Whenever he came home from college, he went straight to his laboratory, locked the door, and took the skeleton out of the cupboard. It was only a very small skeleton indeed, and a fossil one at that; but if it had been a murdered man, and he the murderer, it could hardly have weighed more terribly than it actually did upon Cyril Milliter's mind and conscience. Yet it somehow fascinated him; and in all his spare time he was working away at the comparative anatomy of his singular specimen. He had no doubts at all about it now: he knew it perfectly for what it was--an intermediate form between birds and reptiles. Meanwhile, he could not dare to talk about it even to Netta; and Netta, though the feeling that there was something wrong somewhere deepened upon her daily, would not say a word upon the subject to Cyril. But she had discovered one thing--that the secret, whatever it was, lay closed up in the laboratory cupboard; and as her fears exaggerated her doubts, she grew afraid at last almost to enter the room which held that terrible, unspeakable mystery. Thus more than a fortnight passed away, and Cyril and Netta grew daily less and less at home with one another. At last, one evening, when Cyril seemed gloomier and more silent than ever, Netta could bear the suspense no longer. Rising up hastily from her seat, without one word of warning, she went over to her husband with a half-despairing gesture of alarm, and, flinging her arms around him with desperate force, she cried passionately through her blinding tears, "Cyril, Cyril, Cyril, you _must_ tell me all about it." "About what, darling?" Cyril asked, trembling with half-conscious hypocrisy, for he knew in his heart at once what she meant as well as she did. "Cyril," she cried again, looking him straight in the face steadily, "you have a secret that you will not tell me." "Darling," he answered, smoothing her hair tenderly with his hand, "it is no secret. It is nothing. You would think nothing of it if you knew. It's the merest trifle possible. But I can't tell you. I can _not_ tell you." "But you must, Cyril," Netta cried bitterly. "You had never any secret from me, I know, till that dreadful Sunday, when you went out alone, and wouldn't even let me go with you. Then you came back stealthily by the back door, and never told me. And you brought something with you: of that I'm certain. And you've got the something locked up carefully in the laboratory cupboard. I don't know how I found it all out exactly, but I have found it out, and I can't bear the suspense any longer, and so you _must_ tell me all about it. Oh, Cyril, dear Cyril, do, do tell me all about it!" Cyril faltered--faltered visibly; but even so, he dare not tell her. His own faith was going too terribly fast already; could he let hers go too, in one dreadful collapse and confusion? It never occurred to him that the fossil would mean little or nothing to poor Netta; he couldn't help thinking of it as though every human being on earth would regard it with the same serious solemnity and awe as he himself did. "I cannot tell you, Netta," he said, very gently but very firmly. "No, I dare not tell you. Some day, perhaps, but not now. I must not tell you." The answer roused all Netta's worst fears more terribly than ever. For a moment she almost began to doubt Cyril. In her terror and perplexity she was still too proud to ask him further; and she went back from her husband, feeling stung and repulsed by his cruel answer, and made as though she did not care at all for his strange refusal. She took up a scientific paper from the heap on the table, and pretended to begin reading it. Cyril rose and tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away with an impatient gesture. "Never," she said haughtily. "Never, Cyril, until you choose to tell me your private secret." Cyril sank back gloomily into his chair, folded his hands into one another in a despondent fashion, and looked hard at the vacant ceiling without uttering a single word. As Netta held the paper aimlessly before her that minute, by the merest chance her eye happened to fall upon her husband's name printed in the article that lay open casually at the middle page. Even at that supreme moment of chagrin and torturing doubt, she could not pass by Cyril's name in print without stopping to read what was said about him. As she did so, she saw that the article began by hostile criticism of the position he had taken up on the distinction between birds and reptiles in a recent paper contributed to the Transactions of the Linnæan Society. She rose from her place silently, put the paper into his hands and pointed to the paragraph with her white forefinger, but never uttered a single syllable. Cyril took it from her mechanically, and read on, not half thinking what he was reading, till he came to a passage which attracted his attention perforce, because it ran somewhat after this fashion-- "Professor Milliter would have written a little less confidently had he been aware that almost while his words were passing through the press a very singular discovery bearing upon this exact subject was being laid before the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Dr. Hermann von Meyer has just exhibited to that body a slab of lithographic slate from the famous oolitic quarry at Solenhofen, containing the impression of a most remarkable organism, which he has named _Archæopteryx lithographica_. This extraordinary creature has the feathers of a bird with the tail of a lizard; it is entirely destitute of an _os coccygis_; it has apparently two conical teeth in the upper jaw; and its foot is that of a characteristic percher." And so forth for more than a column, full of those minute anatomical points which Cyril had himself carefully noticed in the anatomy of his own English specimen. As he read and re-read that awful paragraph, Netta looking on at him half angrily all the time, he grew more and more certain every moment that the German professor had simultaneously made the very same discovery as himself. He drew a long sigh of relief. The worst was over; the murder was out, then; it was not to be he who should bear the responsibility of publishing to the world the existence and peculiarities of that wicked and hateful fossil. A cold-blooded German geologist had done so already, with no more trace of remorse and punctiliousness in the business than if it had been the merest old oyster-shell or spider or commonplace cockroach! He could hardly keep in his excited feelings; the strain of personal responsibility at least was lightened; and though the universe remained as black as ever, he could at any rate wash his own hands of the horrid creature. Unmanly as it may seem, he burst suddenly into tears, and stepped across the room to throw his arms round Netta's neck. To his surprise--for he scarcely remembered that she could not yet realize the situation--Netta repelled him with both hands stretched angrily before her, palm outwards. "Netta," he said, imploringly, recognizing immediately what it was she meant, "come with me now into the laboratory, and see what it is that I have got in the cupboard." Netta, all trembling and wondering, followed him in a perfect flutter of doubt and anxiety. Cyril slowly unlocked the cupboard, then unfastened a small drawer, and last of all took out a long flat object, wrapped up mysteriously in a clean handkerchief. He laid it down reluctantly upon the table, and Netta, amazed and puzzled, beheld a small smooth slab of soft clay-stone, scored with what seemed like the fossil marks of a few insignificant bones and feathers. The little woman drew a long breath. "Well, Cyril?" she said interrogatively, looking at it in a dubious mood. "Why, Netta," cried her husband, half angry at her incomprehensible calmness, "don't you see what it is? It's terrible, terrible!" "A fossil, Cyril, isn't it? A bird, I should say." "No, not a bird, Netta; nor yet a lizard; but that half-way thing, that intermediate link you read about just now over yonder in the paper." "But why do you hide it, Cyril? You haven't taken it anywhere from a museum." "Oh, Netta! Don't you understand? Don't you see the implications? It's a creature, half bird and half reptile, and it proves, absolutely proves, Netta, beyond the faintest possibility of a doubt, that the evolutionists are quite right--quite scientific. And if it once comes to be generally recognized, I don't know, I'm sure, what is ever to become of religion and of science. We shall every one of us have to go and turn evolutionists!" It is very sad to relate, but poor Netta, her pent-up feelings all let loose by the smallness of the evil, as it seemed to her, actually began to smile, and then to laugh merrily, in the very face of this awful revelation. "Then you haven't really got tired of me, Cyril?" she cried eagerly. "You're not in love with somebody else? You don't regret ever having married me?" Cyril stared at her in mute surprise. What possible connection could these questions have with the momentous principles bound up implicitly in the nature-printed skeleton of _Archæopteryx lithographica_? It was a moment or so before he could grasp the association of ideas in her womanly little brain, and understand the real origin of her natural wife-like fears and hesitations. "Oh, Cyril," she said again, after a minute's pause, looking at the tell-tale fossil with another bright girlish smile, "is it only that? Only that wretched little creature? Oh, darling, I am so happy!" And she threw her arms around his neck of her own accord, and kissed him fervently twice or thrice over. Cyril was pleased indeed that she had recovered her trust in him so readily, but amazed beyond measure that she could look at that horrible anti-scriptural fossil absolutely without the slightest symptom of flinching. "What a blessed thing it must be," he thought to himself, "to be born a woman! Here's the whole universe going to rack and ruin, physically and spiritually, before her very eyes, and she doesn't care a fig as soon as she's quite satisfied in her own mind that her own particular husband hasn't incomprehensibly fallen in love with one or other of the Mortiscombe ladies!" It was gratifying to his personal feelings, doubtless; but it wasn't at all complimentary, one must admit, to the general constitution of the universe. "What ought I to do with it, Netta?" he asked her simply, pointing to the fossil; glad to have any companionship, even if so unsympathetic, in his hitherto unspoken doubts and difficulties. "Do with it? Why, show it to the Geological Society, of course, Cyril. It's the Truth, you know, dearest, and why on earth should you wish to conceal it? The Truth shall make you perfect." Cyril looked at her with mingled astonishment and admiration. "Oh, Netta," he answered, sighing profoundly, "if only I could take it as quietly as you do! If only I had faith as a grain of mustard-seed! But I have been reduced almost to abject despair by this crushing piece of deadly evidence. It seems to me to proclaim aloud that the evolutionists are all completely right at bottom, and that everything we have ever loved and cherished and hoped for, turns out an utter and absolute delusion." "Then I should say you were still bound, for all that, to accept the evidence," said Netta quietly. "However, for my part, I may be very stupid and silly, and all that sort of thing, you know, but it doesn't seem to me as if it really mattered twopence either way." Cyril looked at her again with fresh admiration. That was a point of view that had not yet even occurred to him as within the bounds of possibility. He had gone on repeating over and over again to his congregation and to himself that if evolution were true, religion and morality were mere phantoms, until at last he had ceased to think any other proposition on the subject could be even thinkable. That a man might instantly accept the evidence of his strange fossil, and yet be after all an indifferent honest citizen in spite of it, was an idea that had really never yet presented itself to him. And he blushed now to think that, in spite of all his frequent professions of utter fidelity, Netta had proved herself at last more loyal to the Truth in both aspects than he himself had done. Her simple little womanly faith had never faltered for a moment in either direction. That night was a very happy one for Netta: it was a somewhat happier one than of late, even for Cyril. He had got rid of the cloud between himself and his wife: he had made at least one person a confidante of his horrid secret: and, above all, he had learnt that some bold and ruthless German geologist had taken off his own shoulders the responsibility of announcing the dreadful discovery. Still, it was some time before Cyril quite recovered from the gloomy view of things generally into which his chance unearthing of the strange fossil had temporarily thrown him. Two things mainly contributed to this result. The first was that a few Sundays later he made up his mind he ought in common honesty to exhibit his compromising fossil to the congregation in the upper chamber, and make a public recantation of his recent confident but untenable statements. He did so with much misgiving, impelled by a growing belief that after all he must trust everything implicitly to the Truth. It cost him a pang, too, to go back upon his own deliberate words, so lately spoken; but he faced it out, for the Truth's sake, like an honest man, as he had always tried to be--save for those few days when the wicked little slab of slate lay carefully hidden away in the inmost recesses of the laboratory cupboard. To his immense surprise, once more, the brethren seemed to think little more of it than Netta herself had done. Perhaps they were not so logical or thorough-going as the young professor: perhaps they had more of unquestioning faith: perhaps they had less of solid dogmatic leaven; but in any case they seemed singularly little troubled by the new and startling geological discovery. However, they were all much struck by the professor's honesty of purpose in making a straightforward recantation of his admitted blunder; he had acted honest and honourable, they said, like a man, and they liked him better for it in the end, than if he'd preached, and hedged, and shilly-shallied to them about it for a whole year of Sundays together. Now, the mere fact that his good congregation didn't mind the fossil much reacted healthily on Cyril Milliter, who began to suspect that perhaps after all he had been exaggerating the religious importance of speculative opinions on the precise nature of the cosmogony. The second thing was that, shortly after the great discovery, he happened to make the acquaintance of the brilliant young evolutionist from London, and found to his surprise that on the whole most of their opinions agreed with remarkable unanimity. True, the young evolutionist was not a Gospel Evangelist, and did not feel any profound interest in the literal or mystical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. But in all essentials he was as deeply spiritual as Cyril Milliter himself; and the more Cyril saw of him and talked with him, the more did he begin to suspect that the truth may in reality have many facets, and that all men may not happen to see it in exactly the self-same aspect. It dawned upon him slowly that all the illumination in the world might not be entirely confined to the narrow circle of the Gospel Evangelists. Even those terrible evolutionists themselves, it seemed, were not necessarily wholly given over to cutting throats or robbing churches. They might have their desires and aspirations, their faith and their hope and their charity, exactly like other people, only perhaps in a slightly different and more definite direction. In the end, Cyril and his former bugbear became bosom friends, and both worked together amicably side by side in the self-same laboratory at the College of Science. To this day, Professor Milliter still continues to preach weekly to the Gospel Evangelists, though both he and they have broadened a good deal, in a gradual and almost imperceptible fashion, with the general broadening of ideas and opinions that has been taking place by slow degrees around us during the last two decades. His views are no doubt a good deal less dogmatic and a good deal more wide and liberal now than formerly. Netta and he live happily and usefully together; and over the mantelpiece of his neat little study, in the cottage at Mortiscombe, stands a slab of polished slate containing a very interesting oolitic fossil, of which the professor has learnt at last to be extremely proud, the first discovered and most perfect existing specimen of _Archæopteryx lithographica_. He can hardly resist a quiet smile himself, nowadays, when he remembers how he once kept that harmless piece of pictured stone wrapt up carefully in a folded handkerchief in his laboratory cupboard for some weeks together, as though it had been a highly dangerous and very explosive lump of moral dynamite, calculated to effect at one fell swoop the complete religious and ethical disintegration of the entire divine universe. _IN STRICT CONFIDENCE._ I. Harry Pallant was never more desperately in love with his wife Louie than on the night of that delightful dance at the Vernon Ogilvies'. She wore her pale blue satin, with the low bodice, and her pretty necklet of rough amber in natural lumps, which her husband had given her for a birthday present just three days earlier. Harry wasn't rich, and he wasn't able to do everything that he could have wished for Louie--a young barrister, with no briefs to speak of, even if he ekes out his petty professional income with literary work, can't afford to spend very much in the way of personal adornment upon the ladies of his family--but he loved his pretty little wife dearly, and nothing pleased him better than to see Louie admired as she ought to be by other people. And that evening, to be sure, she was looking her very sweetest and prettiest. Flushed a little with unwonted excitement, in the glow of an innocent girlish flirtation, as she stood there talking to Hugh Ogilvie in the dim recess by the door of the conservatory, Harry, watching her unobserved from a nook of the refreshment-room, thought he had never in his life seen her look more beautiful or more becomingly animated. Animation suited Louie Pallant, and Hugh Ogilvie thought so too, as he half whispered his meaningless compliments in her dainty little ear, and noted the blush that rose quickly to her soft cheek, and the sudden droop of her long eyelashes above her great open hazel-grey eyes. "Hugh's saying something pretty to Louie, I'm sure," Harry thought to himself with a smile of pleasure, as he looked across at the sweet little graceful girlish figure. "I can see it at once in her face, and in her hands, playing so nervously with the edge of her fan. Dear child, how she lets one read in her eyes and cheeks her every tiny passing feeling! Her pretty wee mouth is like an open book! Hugh's telling her confidentially now that she's the belle of the evening. And so she is; there's not a doubt about it. Not a girl in the place fit to hold a candle to my Louie; especially when she blushes--she's sweet when she blushes. Now she's colouring up again. By Jove, yes, he must be positively making love to her. There's nothing I enjoy so much as seeing Louie enjoying herself, and being made much of. Too many girls, bright young girls, when they marry early, as Louie has done, settle down at once into household drudges, and never seem to get any happiness worth mentioning out of their lives in any way. I won't let it be so with Louie. Dear little soul, she shall flit about as much as she likes, and enjoy herself as the fancy seizes her, like a little butterfly, just like a butterfly. I love to see it!" And he hugged one clasped hand upon the other silently. Whence the astute reader will readily infer that Harry Pallant was still more or less in love with his wife Louie, although they had been married for five years and upwards. Presently Louie and Hugh went back into the ballroom, and for the first time Harry noticed that the music had struck up some minutes since for the next waltz, for which he was engaged to Hugh's sister, Mrs. Wetherby Ferrand. He started hastily at the accusing sound, for in watching his wife he had forgotten his partner. Returning at once in search of Mrs. Ferrand, he found her sitting disconsolate in a corner waiting for him, and looking (as was natural) not altogether pleased at his ungallant treatment. "So you've come at last, Harry!" Mrs. Ferrand said, with evident pique. They had been friends from childhood, and knew one another well enough to use both their Christian names and the critical freedom of old intimacy. "Yes, Dora, I've come at last," Harry answered, with an apologetic bow, as he offered her his arm, "and I'm so sorry I've kept you waiting; but the fact is I was watching Louie. She's been dancing with Hugh, and she looks perfectly charming, I think, this evening." Mrs. Ferrand bit her lip. "She does," she answered coldly, with half a pout. "And you were so busy watching her, it seems, you forgot all about _me_, Harry." Harry laughed. "It was pardonable under the circumstances, you know, Dora," he said lightly. "If it had been the other way, now, Louie might have had some excuse for being jealous." "Who said I was jealous?" Mrs. Ferrand cried, colouring up. "Jealous of you, indeed! What right have I got to be jealous of you, Harry? She may dance with Hugh all night long, for all I care for it. She's danced with him now three times already, and I dare say she'll dance with him as often again. You men are too conceited. You always think every woman on earth is just madly in love with you." "My dear child," Harry answered, with a faint curl of his lip, "you quite misunderstand me. Heaven knows I at least am not conceited. What on earth have I got to be conceited of? I never thought any woman was in love with me in all my life except Louie; and what in the name of goodness even she can find to fall in love with in me--a fellow like me--positively passes my humble comprehension." "She's going to dance the next waltz but one with Hugh, he tells me," Mrs. Ferrand replied drily, as if changing the conversation. "Is she? Hugh's an excellent fellow," Harry answered carelessly, resting for a moment a little aside from the throng, and singling out Louie at once with his eye among the whirling dancers. "Ah, there she is, over yonder. Do you see?--there, with that Captain Vandeleur. How sweetly she dances, Dora! And how splendidly she carries herself! I declare, she's the very gracefullest girl in all the room here." Mrs. Ferrand dropped half a mock curtsey. "A polite partner would have said 'bar one,' Harry," she murmured petulantly. "How awfully in love with her you are, my dear boy. It must be nice to have a man so perfectly devoted to one.... And I don't believe either she half appreciates you. Some women would give their very eyes, do you know, to be as much loved by any man as she's loved by you, Harry." And she looked at him significantly. "Well, but Ferrand----" "Ah, poor Wetherby! Yes, yes; of course, of course, I quite agree with you. You're always right, Harry. Poor Wetherby is the worthiest of men, and in his own way does his very best, no doubt, to make me happy. But there is devotion and devotion, Harry. _Il y a fagots et fagots._ Poor dear Wetherby is no more capable----" "Dora, Dora, for Heaven's sake, I beg of you, no confidences. As a legal man, I must deprecate all confidences, otherwise than strictly in the way of business. What got us first into this absurd groove, I wonder? Oh yes, I remember--Louie's dancing. Shall we go on again? You must have got your breath by this time. Why, what's the matter, Dora? You look quite pale and flurried." "Nothing, Harry. Nothing--nothing, I assure you. Not quite so tight, please; go quietly--I'm rather tired.... Yes, that'll do, thank you. The room's so very hot and close this evening. I can hardly breathe, I feel so stifled. Tight-lacing, I suppose poor dear Wetherby would say. I declare, Louie isn't dancing any longer. How very odd! She's gone back again now to sit by Hugh there. What on earth can be the reason, I wonder!" "Captain Vandeleur's such an awfully bad waltzer, you know," Harry answered unconcernedly. "I dare say she was glad enough to make some excuse or other to get away from him. The room's so very hot and stifling." "Oh, you think so," and Dora Ferrand gave a quiet little smile, as one who sees clearly below the surface. "I dare say. And she's not sorry either to find some good reason for another ten minutes' chat with Hugh, I fancy." But Harry, in his innocence, never noticed her plain insinuation. "He's as blind as a bat," Dora Ferrand thought to herself, half contemptuously. "Just like poor dear Wetherby! Poor dear Wetherby never suspects anything! And that girl Louie doesn't half appreciate Harry either. Just like me, I suppose, with that poor dear stupid old stockbroker. Stockbroker, indeed! What in the name of all that's sensible could ever have induced me to go and marry a blind old stick of a wealthy stockbroker? If Harry and I had only our lives to live again--but there, what's the use of bothering one's head about it? We've only got one life apiece, and that we generally begin by making a mull of." II. Three days later Harry Pallant went down as usual to his rooms in the Temple, and set to work upon his daily labour. The first envelope he opened of the batch upon his table was from the editor of the _Young People's Monitor_. It contained the week's correspondence. Harry Pallant glanced over the contents hastily, and singled out a few enclosures from the big budget with languid curiosity. Of course everybody knows the _Young People's Monitor_. It is one of the most successful among the penny weeklies, and in addition to its sensational stories and moral essays, it gives advice gratis to all and sundry in its correspondence columns upon every conceivable subject that our common peccant or ignorant humanity can possibly inquire about. Now, Harry Pallant happened to be the particular person employed by the editor of this omniscient journal to supply the answers to the weekly shoals of anxious interrogators _de omni scibili_. His legal learning came in handy for the purpose, and being a practised London journalist as well, his knowledge of life stood him in good stead at this strange piece of literary craftsmanship. But the whole affair was "in strict confidence," as the _Monitor_ announced. It was a point of honour between himself and the editor that the secret of the correspondence column should be jealously guarded from all and several; so Harry Pallant, accustomed, lawyer-like, to keeping secrets, had never mentioned his connection with the _Monitor_ in this matter even to Louie. It came as part of his week's work at his chambers in the Temple, and it was duly finished and sent off to press, without note or comment, on the same day, in true business-like barrister fashion. The first letter that Harry opened and listlessly glanced through with his experienced eye was one of the staple _Monitor_ kind--Stella or Euphemia had quarrelled, in a moment of pique, with her lover, and was now dying of anxiety to regain his affections. Harry scribbled a few words of kindly chaff and sound advice in reply upon a blank sheet of virgin foolscap, and tossed the torn fragments of letter number one into the capacious mouth of his waste-paper basket. The second letter requested the editor's candid opinion upon a short set of amateur verses therewith enclosed. Harry's candid opinion, muttered to himself beneath his moustache, was too unparliamentary for insertion in full; but he toned its verbal expression down a little in his written copy, and passed on hastily to the others in order. "Camilla" would like to know, in strict confidence (thrice underlined), what is the editor's opinion of her style of handwriting. "A Draper's Assistant" is desirous to learn how the words "heterogeneous" and "Beethoven" are usually pronounced in the best society. "Senex," having had a slight difference as to the buttered toast with his present landlady (in whose house he has lodged for forty years), would be glad of any advice as to how, at his age, he is to do without her. "H. J. K." has just read with much surprise a worthless pamphlet, proving that the inhabitants of the northern divisions of Staffordshire and Warwickshire are the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and cannot imagine how this reckless assertion can be scripturally reconciled with the plain statements of the prophet Habakkuk, which show that the descendants of Manasseh are really to be looked for in the county of Sligo. And so forth, though every variety of male feebleness and feminine futility, in answer to all which Harry turned off his hasty rejoinder with the dexterous ease acquired of long practice and familiar experience. At last he came in due course to a small white envelope, of better paper and style than the others, marked "17" in red pencil on the back in the formal hand of the systematic editor. He turned it over with mechanical carelessness. To his immense amusement and no little surprise, he saw at once, by the writing of the address, that the note came from his own Louie! What could Louie have to ask of advice or information from the anonymous editor of the _Young People's Monitor_? He stood for a moment, with a quiet smile playing about his lips, thinking to himself that he had often wondered whether he should ever get a letter thus incognito from any person among his private acquaintances. And now he had got one from Louie herself. How very funny! How truly ridiculous! And how odd too that she shouldn't even have told him beforehand she was going to write for counsel or assistance to the _Young People's Monitor_! And then a strange doubt flashed idly for a moment across his mind--a doubt that he felt immediately ashamed of. What possible subject could there be on which Louie could want advice and aid from an editor, a stranger, an unknown and anonymous impersonal entity, rather than from him, Harry, her own husband, her natural guide, assistant, and counsellor? It was odd, very odd--nay, even disquieting. Harry hardly knew what to make of the unexpected episode. But next moment he had dismissed his doubts, though he stood still toying with the unopened envelope. He was half afraid to look inside it. Louie had only written, he felt sure, about some feminine trifle or other, some foolish point of petty etiquette--how to fold napkins mitre-fashion, or whether "P.P.O." cards should be turned down at the upper right or the lower left-hand corner--some absurd detail about which she would have laughed outright at his personal opinion, but would defer at once to the dignity of print, and the expressed verdict of the _Young People's Monitor_. So great is the power of printer's ink, that if you say a thing face to face, your own wife even will take no notice of it; but if you set it up in type anonymously, she, and the world at large to boot, will treat it like an inspired oracle in stone fallen down direct from the seventh heaven. And yet somehow Harry Pallant couldn't make up his mind at once to break open the tiny envelope of that mysterious, incomprehensible letter. At last he broke it, and read it hurriedly. As he did so a terrible, ominous pang came across his heart, and the writing, familiar as it was, swam illegibly in dancing lines before his strained and aching vision. "Dear Mr. Editor," the letter began, somewhat shakily, "you give your advice and assistance to many people. Will you give it to me? Will you help me? Will you save me? "This is my position. I was married young to a man I did not love, but liked and respected. I thought love would come afterwards. It never came. On the contrary, the longer I have lived with him the less I care for him. Not that he is unkind to me--he is good enough and generous enough in all conscience; but he inspires me with no affection and no enthusiasm. Till lately this was all I felt. I did not love him, but I jogged along comfortably somehow. "Now, however, I find to my dismay that I am in love--not with him, but with another man a hundred times more congenial to my tastes and feelings in every way. I have done no wrong, but I think of him and live in him all my time. I cannot for a moment dismiss him from my thoughts. Oh, what am I to do? Tell me, help me! "I can never love my husband--of that I am certain. I can never leave off loving the other--of that I am still more confident. Can you advise me? Can you relieve me? This torture is too terrible. It is killing me--killing me. "Yours ever, in strict confidence, "EGERIA." Harry Pallant gazed at that awful accusing letter in blank horror and speechless bewilderment. He could not even cry or groan. He could not utter a word or shed a tear. The shock was so sudden, so crushing, so unexpected, so irretrievable! He had never till that moment in the faintest degree doubted that Louie loved him as he loved her--devotedly, distractedly. Why, that very morning, before he came away on his journey to the Temple, Louie had kissed him so tenderly and affectionately, and called him "darling," and wished he hadn't always to go to that horrid City. How the memory stung him! Yes; that was the hardest thought of all. If Louie wrote it, Louie was a hypocrite. Not only did she not now love him--not only had she never loved him, but, lowest depth of misery and shame, she had pretended to love him when in her heart of hearts she hated and despised him. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. In her own words, it was too terrible! If Louie wrote it? He turned the letter over once more. Ah, yes, there was no denying it. It was Louie's handwriting--Louie's, Louie's. His brain reeled, but he could not doubt it or palter over it for a moment. Not even disguised--her very own handwriting. It was the seal of doom for him, yet he could not even pretend to disbelieve it. He sat there long, incapable of realizing the full horror of that crushing, destroying, annihilating disclosure. It was useless trying to realize it--thank God for that! It so dazed and stunned and staggered and bewildered him that he fell for a time into a sort of hopeless lethargy, and felt and saw and thought of nothing. At last he roused himself. He must go out. He rose from the table by the dingy window, took up his hat dreamily in his hand, and walked down the stairs, out of the gateway, and into the full tide of life and bustle in busy Fleet Street. The cooler air upon his forehead and the sight of so many hurrying, active figures sobered and steadied him. He walked with rapid strides as far as Charing Cross Station, and then back again. After that, he came into his chambers once more, sat down resolutely at his table by himself, and began to write in a trembling shaky hand his answer to "Egeria." How often he had written a different answer to just the same type of tragic little letter--an answer of the commonplace conventional morality, a small set sermon on the duties of wives and the rights of husbands--as though there was nothing more in that fearful disclosure than the merest fancy; and now, when at last it touched himself, how profoundly awful in their mockery of the truth those baldly respectable answers seemed to him! "EGERIA.--Your letter shall be treated, as you wish, in strict confidence. No one but ourselves shall ever know of it. You need not fear that H. P. will any longer prove a trouble to you. By the time you read this you will have learnt, or will shortly learn, that he is not in a position to cause you further discomfort. This is the only intimation you will receive of his intention. You will understand what it all means soon after you read this communication." He rang the hand-bell on the table for his boy, put the answers into a long blue envelope, and said mechanically in a dry voice, "To the _Young People's Monitor_. For press immediately." The boy nodded a mute assent, and took them off to the office in silent obedience. As soon as he was gone Harry Pallant locked the door, flung himself upon the table with his head buried madly in his arms, and sobbed aloud in terrible despondency. He had found at least the relief of tears. There was only one comfort. He was fully insured, and Hugh Ogilvie was a rich man. Louie at least would be well provided for. He cared for nothing except for Louie. If Louie was happier--happier without him, what further need had he got for living? He had never thought before of Hugh, but now, now, Dora's words came back to him at once, and he saw it all--he saw it all plainly. Heaven be praised, they had no children! If they had had children--well, well, as things now stood, he could do what was best for Louie's happiness. III. For the next two days Louie could not imagine what sudden change had come so inexplicably over Harry Pallant. He was quite as tender and as gentle as ever, but so silent, sad, and incomprehensible. Louie coaxed him and petted him in vain; the more she made of him the more Harry seemed to retreat within himself, and the less could she understand what on earth he was thinking of. On the Thursday night, when Harry came back from his work in the City, he said to Louie in an off-hand tone, "Louie, I think of running down to-morrow to dear old Bilborough." "What for, darling?" "Well, you know, I've been fearfully out of sorts lately--worried or something--and I think three or four days at the seaside would be all the better for me--and for you too, darling. Let's go to the Red Lion, Louie. I've telegraphed down to-night for rooms, and I dare say--I shall get rid there of whatever's troubling me." The Red Lion at Bilborough was the hotel at which they had passed their honeymoon, and where they had often gone at various times since for their summer holiday. Louie was delighted at the proposed trip, and smoothed her husband's hair softly with her hand. "My darling," she said, "I'm so glad you're going there. I've noticed for the last few days you looked fagged and worried. But Bilborough's just the right place. Bilborough always sets you up again." Harry smiled a faint, unhappy smile. "I've no doubt," he answered evasively, "I shall leave all my trouble behind at Bilborough." They started by the early train next day, Louie hastily packing their little portmanteau overnight, and got down to Bilborough before noon. As soon as they were fairly settled in at the Lion, Harry kissed his wife tenderly, and, with a quiet persistence in his voice said, on a sudden, "Louie, I think I shall go and have a swim before lunch-time." "A swim, Harry! So soon?--already?" "Yes," Harry answered, with a twitching mouth, and looking at her nervously. "There's nothing like a swim you know, Louie, to wash away the cobwebs of London." "Well, don't be long, darling," Louie said, with some undisguised anxiety. "I've ordered lunch, remember, for one." "For one, Louie?" Harry cried with a start. "Why for one, dearest? I don't understand you.... Oh, I see. How very stupid of me! Yes, yes, I'll be back by one o'clock.... That is to say, if I'm not back, don't you wait lunch for me." He moved uneasily to the door, and then he turned back again with a timid glance, and drew a newspaper slowly from his pocket. "I've brought down this morning's _Young People's Monitor_ with me, Louie," he said, in a tremulous voice, after a short pause. "I know you sometimes like to see it." He watched her narrowly to observe the effect, but Louie took it from him without a visible tremor. "Oh, I'm so glad, Harry," she said in her natural tone, without betraying the least excitement. "How awfully kind of you to get it for me! There's something in it I wanted to see about." Something in it she wanted to see about! Harry's heart stood still for a second within him! What duplicity! What temerity! What a terrible mixture of seeming goodness and perfect composure! And yet it was Louie, and he couldn't help loving her! He kissed her once more--a long, hard kiss--upon the forehead, and went out, leaving her there with the paper clasped tightly in her small white fingers. Though she said nothing he could see that her fingers trembled as she held it. Yes yes, there could be no doubt about it; she was eagerly expecting the answer--the fatal answer--the answer to "Egeria" in the correspondence column. IV. Louie stood long at the window, with the paper still clutched eagerly in her hand, afraid to open it and read the answer, and yet longing to know what the _Young People's Monitor_ had to say in reply to "Egeria." So she watched Harry go down to the bathing machines and enter one--it was still early in the season, and he had no need to wait; and then she watched them turning the windlass and letting it run down upon the shelving beach; and then she watched Harry swimming out and stemming the waves in his bold, manly fashion--he was a splendid swimmer; and after that, unable any longer to restrain her curiosity, she tore the paper open with her finger, and glanced down the correspondence column till she reached the expected answer to "Egeria." She read it over wondering and trembling, with a sudden awful sense of the editor's omniscience as she saw the letters "H. P."--her husband's initials--Harry Pallant. "H. P.!" what could he mean by it? And then a vague dread came across her soul. What could "Egeria" and the editor of the _Young People's Monitor_ have to do with Harry Pallant? She read it over again and again. How terrifying! how mysterious! how dimly incomprehensible! Who on earth could have told the editor--that impersonal entity--that "Egeria's" letter had any connection with her own husband, Harry Pallant? And yet he must have known it--evidently known it. And she herself had never suspected the allusion. Yes, yes, it was clear to her now; the man about whom "Egeria" had written was Harry--Harry--Harry--Harry. Could it have been that that had so troubled him of late? She couldn't bear to distrust Harry; but it must have been that, and nothing else. Harry was in love with Dora Ferrand; or, if not, Dora Ferrand was in love with Harry, and Harry knew it, and was afraid he might yield to her, and had ran away from her accordingly. He had come to Bilborough on purpose to escape her--to drag himself away from her--to try to forget her. Oh, Harry, Harry!--and she loved him so truly. To think he should deceive her--to think he should keep anything from her! It was too terrible--too terrible! She couldn't bear to think it, and yet the evidence forced it upon her. But how did the editor ever come to know about it? And what was this mysterious, awful message that he gave Dora about Harry Pallant? "You need not fear that H. P. will any longer prove a trouble to you." Why? Did Harry mean to leave London altogether? Was he afraid to trust himself there with Dora Ferrand? Did he fear that she would steal his heart in spite of him? Oh, Dora, Dora! the shameless creature! When Louie came to think it all over, her effrontery and her wickedness were absolutely appalling. She sat there long, turning the paper over helplessly in her hand, reading its words every way but the right way, pondering over what Harry had said to her that morning, putting her own interpretation upon everything, and forgetting even to unpack her things and make herself ready for lunch in the coffee-room. Presently, a crowd upon the beach below languidly attracted her passing attention. The coastguard from the look-out was gesticulating frantically, and a group of sailors were seizing in haste upon a boat on the foreshore. They launched it hurriedly and pulled with all their might outward, the people on the beach gathering thicker meanwhile, and all looking eagerly towards some invisible object far out to sea, in the direction of the Race with the dangerous current. Louie's heart sank ominously within her. At that very moment the chambermaid of the hotel rushed in with a pale face, and cried out in merciless haste, "Oh, ma'am, Mrs. Pallant! quick! quick!--he's drowning! he's drowning! Mr. Pallant's swum too far out, and's got into the Race, and they've put the boat off to try and save him!" In a second, half the truth flashed terribly upon Louie Pallant's distracted intelligence. She saw that it was Harry himself who wrote the correspondence for the _Young People's Monitor_, and that he had swum out to sea of his own accord to the end of his tether, on purpose to drown himself as if by accident. But she didn't yet perceive, obvious as it seemed, that Harry thought she herself had written "Egeria's" letter in her own person. She thought still he was in love with Dora, and had drowned himself because he couldn't tear himself away from her for ever. V. They brought Harry Pallant ashore, cold and lifeless, and carried him up in haste to the hotel. There the village doctor saw him at once, and detected a faint tremor of the heart. At the end of an hour the lungs began to act faintly of themselves, and the heart beat a little in some feeble fashion. With care Harry Pallant came round, but it took a week or two before he was himself again, and Louie nursed him meanwhile in fear and trembling, with breathless agony. She had one consolation--Harry loved her. In the long nights the whole truth dawned upon her, clear and certain. She saw how Harry had opened the letter, had jumped at once to the natural conclusion, and had tried to drown himself in order to release her. Oh, why had he not trusted her? Why had he not asked her? A woman naturally thinks like that; a man knows in his own soul that a man could never possibly do so. She dared not tell him yet, for fear of a relapse. She could only wait and watch, and nurse him tenderly. And all the time she knew he distrusted her--knew he thought her a hypocrite and a traitor. For Harry's sake she had to bear it. At last, one day, when he was getting very much stronger, and could sit up in a chair and look bitterly out at the sea, she said to him in a gentle voice, very tentatively, "Harry, Dora Ferrand and her husband have gone to spend the summer in Norway." Harry groaned. "How do you know?" he asked. "Has Hugh written to you? What is it to us? Who told you about it?" Louie bit her lip hard to keep back the tears. "Dora telegraphed to me herself," she answered softly. "She telegraphed to me as soon as ever"--she hesitated a moment--"as soon as ever she saw your answer to her in the _Monitor_." Harry's face grew white with horror. "My answer to _her_!" he cried in a ghastly voice, not caring to ask at the moment how Louie came to know it was he who wrote the answers in the _Young People's Monitor_. "My answer to _you_, you mean, Louie. It was your letter--yours, not Dora's. You can't deceive me. I read it myself. My poor child, I saw your handwriting." It was an awful thing that, in spite of all, he must have it out with her against his will; but he would not flinch from it--he would settle it then and there, once and for ever. She had introduced it herself; she had brought it down upon her own head. He would not flinch from it. It was his duty to tell her. Louie laid her hand upon his arm. He did not try to cast it off. "Harry," she said, imploringly, persuasively, "there is a terrible mistake here--a terrible misunderstanding. It was unavoidable; you could not possibly have thought otherwise. But oh, Harry, if you knew the suffering you have brought upon me, you would not speak so, darling--you would not speak so." Harry turned towards her passionately and eagerly. "Then you didn't want me to die, Louie?" he cried in a hoarse voice. "You didn't really want to get rid of me?" Louie withdrew her hand hastily as if she had been stung. "Harry," she gasped, as well as she was able, "you misunderstood that letter altogether. It was not mine--it was Dora Ferrand's. Dora wrote it, and I only copied it. If you will listen a minute I will tell you all, all about it." Harry flung himself back half incredulously on his chair, but with a new-born hope lighting up in part the gloom of his recovered existence. "I went over to Dora Ferrand's the day after the Ogilvies' dance," Louie began tremulously, "and I found Dora sitting in her boudoir writing a letter. I walked up without being announced, and when Dora saw me she screamed a little, and then she grew as red as fire, and burst out crying, and tried to hide the letter she was writing. So I went up to her and began to soothe her, and asked her what it was, and wanted to read it. And Dora cried for a long time, and wouldn't tell me, and was dreadfully penitent, and said she was very, very miserable. So I said, 'Dora, is there anything wrong between you and Mr. Ferrand?' And she said, 'Nothing, Louie; I give you my word of honour, nothing. Poor Wetherby's as kind to me as anybody could be. But----' And then she began crying again as if her heart would burst, worse than ever. And I took her head on my shoulder, and said to her, 'Dora, is it that you feel you don't love him?' And Dora was in a dreadfully penitent fit, and she flung herself away from me, and said to me, 'Oh, Louie, don't touch me! Don't kiss me! Don't come near me! I'm not fit to associate with a girl like you, dear.... Oh, Louie, I don't love him; and--what's worse--I love somebody else, darling.' Well, then, of course, I was horribly shocked, and I said, 'Dora, Dora, this is awfully wicked of you!' And Dora cried worse than before, and sobbed away, and wouldn't be comforted. And there was a copy of the _Monitor_ lying on the table, and I saw it open at the correspondence, and I said, 'Were you writing for advice to the _Monitor_, Dora?' And she looked up and nodded 'Yes.' So I coaxed her and begged her to show me the letter, and at last she showed it to me; but she wouldn't tell me who she was in love with, Harry; and, oh, Harry, my darling, my darling, I never so much as dreamt of its being you, dear--the thought never even crossed my mind. I ran over everybody I could imagine she'd taken a fancy to, but I never for a moment thought of you, darling. I suppose, Harry, I loved you too dearly even to suspect it. And then, I dare say, Dora saw I didn't suspect it; but, anyhow, she went on and finished the letter--it was nearly done when I came in to her--and after that she said she couldn't bear to send it in her own handwriting, for fear anybody should know her and recognize it. So I said if she liked I'd copy it out for her, for by that time I was crying just as hard as she was, and so sorry for her and for poor Mr. Ferrand; and it never struck me that anybody could ever possibly think that I wrote it about myself. And--and--and that's all, Harry." Harry listened, conscience-smitten, to the artless recital, which bore its own truth on the very surface of it, as it fell from Louie's trembling lips, and then he held her off at arm's length when she tried to fall upon his neck and kiss him, whispering in a loud undertone, "Oh, Louie, Louie, don't, don't! I don't deserve it! I have been too wicked--too mistrustful!" Louie drew forth a letter from her pocket and handed it to him silently. It was in Dora's handwriting. He read it through in breathless anxiety. "Louie,--I dare not call you anything else now. You know it all by this time. We have heard about Harry's accident from your sister. Nobody but ourselves knows it was not an accident. And I have seen the answer in the _Monitor_. Of course Harry wrote it. I see it all now. You can never forgive me. It is I who have brought all this misery upon you. I am a wretched woman. Do not reproach me--I reproach myself more bitterly than anything you could say would ever reproach me. But don't forgive me and pity me either. If you forgive me I shall have to kill myself. It's all over now. I will do the only thing that remains for me--keep out of your way and his for ever. Poor Wetherby is going to take me for the summer to Norway, as I telegraphed to you. We are just starting. When we return we shall winter in Italy. I will leave London in future altogether. Nobody but our three selves need ever know or suspect the reason. Harry will recover, and you two will be happy yet. But I--I shall be as miserable for ever, as I truly deserve to be. "Your wretched friend, "D. F." Harry crumpled up the letter bitterly in his hand. "Poor soul," he said. "Louie, I forgive her. Can I myself ever hope for forgiveness?" Louie flung herself fiercely upon him. "My darling," she cried, "we will always trust one another in future. You couldn't help it, Harry. It was impossible for you to have judged otherwise. But oh, my darling, what I have suffered! Let us forgive her. Harry, and let us love one another better now." _THE SEARCH PARTY'S FIND._ I can stand it no longer. I must put down my confession on paper, since there is no living creature left to whom I can confess it. The snow is drifting fiercer than ever to-day against the cabin; the last biscuit is almost finished; my fingers are so pinched with cold I can hardly grasp the pen to write with. But I _will_ write, I must write, and I am writing. I cannot die with the dreadful story unconfessed upon my conscience. It was only an accident, most of you who read this confession perhaps will say; but in my own heart I know better than that--I know it was a murder, a wicked murder. Still, though my hands are very numb, and my head swimming wildly with delirium, I will try to be coherent, and to tell my story clearly and collectedly. * * * * * I was appointed surgeon of the _Cotopaxi_ in June, 1880. I had reasons of my own--sad reasons--for wishing to join an Arctic expedition. I didn't join it, as most of the other men did, from pure love of danger and adventure. I am not a man to care for that sort of thing on its own account. I joined it because of a terrible disappointment. For two years I had been engaged to Dora--I needn't call her anything but Dora; my brother, to whom I wish this paper sent, but whom I daren't address as "Dear Arthur"--how could I, a murderer?--will know well enough who I mean; and as to other people, it isn't needful they should know anything about it. But whoever you are, whoever finds this paper, I beg of you, I implore you, I adjure you, do not tell a word of it to Dora. I cannot die unconfessed, but I cannot let the confession reach _her_; if it does, I know the double shock will kill her. Keep it from her. Tell her only he is dead--dead at his post, like a brave man, on the _Cotopaxi_ exploring expedition. For mercy's sake don't tell her that he was murdered, and that I murdered him. I had been engaged, I said, two years to Dora. She lived in Arthur's parish, and I loved her--yes, in those days I loved her purely, devotedly, innocently. I was innocent then myself, and I really believe good and well-meaning. I should have been genuinely horrified and indignant if anybody had ventured to say that I should end by committing a murder. It was a great grief to me when I had to leave Arthur's parish, and my father's parish before him, to go up to London and take a post as surgeon to a small hospital. I couldn't bear being so far away from Dora. And at first Dora wrote to me almost every day with the greatest affection. (Heaven forgive me, if I still venture to call her Dora! her, so good and pure and beautiful, and I, a murderer.) But, after a while, I noticed slowly that Dora's tone seemed to grow colder and colder, and her letters less and less frequent. Why she should have begun to cease loving me, I cannot imagine; perhaps she had a premonition of what possibility of wickedness was really in me. At any rate, her coldness grew at last so marked that I wrote and asked Arthur whether he could explain it. Arthur answered me, a little regretfully, and with brotherly affection (he is a good fellow, Arthur), that he thought he could. He feared--it was painful to say so--but he feared Dora was beginning to love a newer lover. A young man had lately come to the village of whom she had seen a great deal, and who was very handsome and brave and fascinating. Arthur was afraid he could not conceal from me his impression that Dora and the stranger were very much taken with one another. At last, one morning, a letter came to me from Dora. I can put it in here, because I carried it away with me when I went to Hammerfest to join the _Cotopaxi_, and ever since I have kept it sadly in my private pocket-book. "Dear Ernest" (she had always called me Ernest since we had been children together, and she couldn't leave it off even now when she was writing to let me know she no longer loved me), "Can you forgive me for what I am going to tell you? I thought I loved you till lately; but then I had never discovered what love really meant. I have discovered it now, and I find that, after all, I only liked you very sincerely. You will have guessed before this that I love somebody else, who loves me in return with all the strength of his whole nature. I have made a grievous mistake, which I know will render you terribly unhappy. But it is better so than to marry a man whom I do not really love with all my heart and soul and affection; better in the end, I am sure, for both of us. I am too much ashamed of myself to write more to you. Can you forgive me? "Yours, "DORA." I could not forgive her then, though I loved her too much to be angry; I was only broken-hearted--thoroughly stunned and broken-hearted. I can forgive her now, but she can never forgive me, Heaven help me! I only wanted to get away, anywhere, anywhere, and forget all about it in a life of danger. So I asked for the post of surgeon to Sir Paxton Bateman's _Cotopaxi_ expedition a few weeks afterwards. They wanted a man who knew something about natural history and deep-sea dredging, and they took me on at once, on the recommendation of a well-known man of science! The very day I joined the ship at Hammerfest, in August, I noticed immediately there was one man on board whose mere face and bearing and manner were at first sight excessively objectionable to me. He was a handsome young fellow enough--one Harry Lemarchant, who had been a planter in Queensland, and who, after being burned up with three years of tropical sunshine was anxious to cool himself apparently by a long winter of Arctic gloom. Handsome as he was, with his black moustache and big dark eyes rolling restlessly, I took an instantaneous dislike to his cruel thin lip and cold proud mouth the moment I looked upon him. If I had been wise, I would have drawn back from the expedition at once. It is a foolish thing to bind one's self down to a voyage of that sort unless you are perfectly sure beforehand that you have at least no instinctive hatred of any one among your messmates in that long forced companionship. But I wasn't wise, and I went on with him. From the first moment, even before I had spoken to him, I disliked Lemarchant; very soon I grew to hate him. He seemed to me the most recklessly cruel and devilish creature (God forgive me that I should say it!) I had ever met with in my whole lifetime. On an Arctic expedition, a man's true nature soon comes out--mine did certainly--and he lets his companions know more about his inner self in six weeks than they could possibly learn about him in years of intercourse under other circumstances. And the second night I was on board the _Cotopaxi_ I learnt enough to make my blood run cold about Harry Lemarchant's ideas and feelings. We were all sitting on deck together, those of us who were not on duty, and listening to yarns from one another, as idle men will, when the conversation happened accidentally to turn on Queensland, and Lemarchant began to enlighten us about his own doings when he was in the colony. He boasted a great deal about his prowess as a disperser of the black fellows, which he seemed to consider a very noble sort of occupation. There was nobody in the colony, he said, who had ever dispersed so many blacks as he had; and he'd like to be back there, dispersing again, for, in the matter of sport, it beat kangaroo-hunting, or any other kind of shooting he had ever yet tried his hand at, all to pieces. The second-lieutenant, Hepworth Paterson, a nice kind-hearted young Scotchman, looked up at him a little curiously, and said, "Why, what do you mean by dispersing, Lemarchant? Driving them off into the bush, I suppose: isn't that it? Not much fun in that, that I can see, scattering a lot of poor helpless black naked savages." Lemarchant curled his lip contemptuously (he didn't think much of Paterson, because his father was said to be a Glasgow grocer), and answered in his rapid, dare-devil fashion: "No fun! Isn't there, just! that's all you know about it, my good fellow. Now I'll give you one example. One day, the inspector came in and told us there were a lot of blacks camping out on our estate down by the Warramidgee river. So we jumped on our horses like a shot, went down there immediately, and began dispersing them. We didn't fire at them, because the grass and ferns and things were very high, and we might have wasted our ammunition; but we went at them with native spears, just for all the world like pig-sticking. You should have seen those black fellows run for their lives through the long grass--men, women, and little ones together. We rode after them, full pelt; and as we came up with them, one by one, we just rolled them over, helter-skelter, as if they'd been antelopes or bears or something. By-and-by, after a good long charge or two, we'd cleared the place of the big blacks altogether; but the gins and the children, some of them, lay lurking in among the grass, you know, and wouldn't come out and give us fair sport, as they ought to have done, out in the open: children will pack, you see, whenever they're hard driven, exactly like grouse, after a month or two's steady shooting. Well, to make them start and show game, of course we just put a match to the grass; and in a minute the whole thing was in a blaze, right down the corner to the two rivers. So we turned our horses into the stream, and rode alongside, half a dozen of us on each river; and every now and then, one of the young ones would break cover, and slide out quietly into the stream, and try to swim across without being perceived, and get clean away into the back country. Then we just made a dash at them with the pig-spears; and sometimes they'd dive--and precious good divers they are, too, those Queenslanders, I can tell you; but we waited around till they came up again, and then we stuck them as sure as houses. That's what we call dispersing the natives over in Queensland: extending the blessings of civilization to the unsettled parts of the back country." He laughed a pleasant laugh to himself quietly as he finished this atrocious, devilish story, and showed his white teeth all in a row, as if he thought the whole reminiscence exceedingly amusing. Of course, we were all simply speechless with horror and astonishment. Such deliberate brutal murderousness--gracious heavens! what am I saying? I had half forgotten for the moment that I, too, am a murderer. "But what had the black fellows done to you?" Paterson asked with a tone of natural loathing, after we had all sat silent and horror-stricken in a circle for a moment. "I suppose they'd been behaving awfully badly to some white people somewhere--massacring women or something--to get your blood up to such a horrid piece of butchery." Lemarchant laughed again, a quiet chuckle of conscious superiority, and only answered: "Behaving badly! Massacring white women! Lord bless your heart, I'd like to see them! Why, the wretched creatures wouldn't ever dare to do it. Oh, no, nothing of that sort, I can tell you. And our blood wasn't up either. We went in for it just by way of something to do, and to keep our hands in. Of course you can't allow a lot of lazy hulking blacks to go knocking around in the neighbourhood of an estate, stealing your fowls and fruit and so forth, without let or hindrance. It's the custom in Queensland to disperse the black fellows. I've often been out riding with a friend, and I've seen a nigger skulking about somewhere down in a hollow among the tree-ferns; and I've just drawn my six-shooter, and said to my friend, 'You see me disperse that confounded nigger!' and I've dispersed him right off--into little pieces, too, you may take your oath upon it." "But do you mean to tell me, Mr. Lemarchant," Paterson said, looking a deal more puzzled and shocked, "that these poor creatures had been doing absolutely nothing?" "Well, now, that's the way of all you home-sticking sentimentalists," Lemarchant went on, with an ugly simper. "You want to push on the outskirts of civilization and to see the world colonized, but you're too squeamish to listen to anything about the only practicable civilizing and colonizing agencies. It's the struggle for existence, don't you see: the plain outcome of all the best modern scientific theories. The black man has got to go to the wall; the white man, with his superior moral and intellectual nature, has got to push him there. At bottom, it's nothing more than civilization. Shoot 'em off at once, I say, and get rid of 'em forthwith and for ever." "Why," I said, looking at him, with my disgust speaking in my face (Heaven forgive me!), "I call it nothing less than murder." Lemarchant laughed, and lit his cigar; but after that, somehow, the other men didn't much care to talk to him in an ordinary way more than was necessary for the carrying out of the ship's business. And yet he was a very gentlemanly fellow, I must admit, and well read and decently educated. Only there seemed to be a certain natural brutality about him, under a thin veneer of culture and good breeding, that repelled us all dreadfully from the moment we saw him. I dare say we shouldn't have noticed it so much if we hadn't been thrown together so closely as men are on an Arctic voyage, but then and there it was positively unendurable. We none of us held any communications with him whenever we could help it; and he soon saw that we all of us thoroughly disliked and distrusted him. That only made him reckless and defiant. He knew he was bound to go the journey through with us now, and he set to work deliberately to shock and horrify us. Whether all the stories he told us by the ward-room fire in the evenings were true or not, I can't tell you--I don't believe they all were; but at any rate he made them seem as brutal and disgusting as the most loathsome details could possibly make them. He was always apologizing--nay, glorying--in bloodshed and slaughter, which he used to defend with a show of cultivated reasoning that made the naked brutality of his stories seem all the more awful and unpardonable at bottom. And yet one couldn't deny, all the time, that there was a grace of manner and a show of polite feeling about him which gave him a certain external pleasantness, in spite of everything. He was always boasting that women liked him; and I could easily understand how a great many women who saw him only with his company manners might even think him brave and handsome and very chivalrous. I won't go into the details of the expedition. They will be found fully and officially narrated in the log, which I have hidden in the captain's box in the hut beside the captain's body. I need only mention here the circumstances immediately connected with the main matter of this confession. * * * * * One day, a little while before we got jammed into the ice off the Liakov Islands, Lemarchant was up on deck with me, helping me to remove from the net the creatures that we had dredged up in our shallow soundings. As he stooped to pick out a _Leptocardium boreale_, I happened to observe that a gold locket had fallen out of the front of his waistcoat, and showed a lock of hair on its exposed surface. Lemarchant noticed it too, and with an awkward laugh put it back hurriedly. "My little girl's keepsake!" he said in a tone that seemed to me disagreeably flippant about such a subject. "She gave it to me just before I set off on my way to Hammerfest." I started in some astonishment. He had a little girl then--a sweetheart he meant, obviously. If so, Heaven help her! poor soul, Heaven help her! For any woman to be tied for life to such a creature as that was really quite too horrible. I didn't even like to think upon it. I don't know what devil prompted me, for I seldom spoke to him, even when we were told off on duty together; but I said at last, after a moment's pause, "If you are engaged to be married, as I suppose you are from what you say, I wonder you could bear to come away on such a long business as this, when you couldn't get a word or a letter from the lady you're engaged to for a whole winter." He went on picking out the shells and weeds as he answered in a careless, jaunty tone, "Why, to tell you the truth, Doctor, that was just about the very meaning of it. We're going to be married next summer, you see, and for reasons of her papa's--the deuce knows what!--my little girl couldn't possibly be allowed to marry one week sooner. There I'd been, knocking about and spooning with her violently for three months nearly; and the more I spooned, and the more tired I got of it, the more she expected me to go on spooning. Well, I'm not the sort of man to stand billing and cooing for a whole year together. At last the thing grew monotonous. I wanted to get an excuse to go off somewhere, where there was some sort of fun going on, till summer came, and we could get spliced properly (for she's got some tin, too, and I didn't want to throw her over); but I felt that if I'd got to keep on spooning and spooning for a whole winter, without intermission, the thing would really be one too many for me, and I should have to give it up from sheer weariness. So I heard of this precious expedition, which is just the sort of adventure I like; I wrote and volunteered for it; and then I managed to make my little girl and her dear papa believe that as I was an officer in the naval reserve I was compelled to go when asked, willy-nilly. 'It's only for half a year, you know, darling,' and all that sort of thing--you understand the line of country; and meanwhile I'm saved the bother of ever writing to her, or getting any letters from her either, which is almost in its way an equal nuisance." "I see," said I shortly. "Not to put too fine a point upon it, you simply lied to her." "Upon my soul," he answered, showing his teeth again, but this time by no means pleasantly, "you fellows on the _Cotopaxi_ are really the sternest set of moralists I ever met with outside a book of sermons or a Surrey melodrama. You ought all to have been parsons, every man Jack of you; that's just about what you're fit for." * * * * * On the fourteenth of September we got jammed in the ice, and the _Cotopaxi_ went to pieces. You will find in the captain's log how part of us walked across the pack to the Liakov Islands, and settled ourselves here on Point Sibiriakoff in winter quarters. As to what became of the other party, which went southwards to the mouth of the Lena, I know nothing. It was a hard winter, but by the aid of our stores and an occasional walrus shot by one of the blue-jackets, we managed to get along till March without serious illness. Then, one day, after a spell of terrible frost and snow, the Captain came to me, and said, "Doctor, I wish you'd come and see Lemarchant, in the other hut here. I'm afraid he's got a bad fever." I went to see him. So he had. A raging fever. Fumbling about among his clothes to lay him down comfortably on the bearskin (for of course we had saved no bedding from the wreck), I happened to knock out once more the same locket that I had seen when he was emptying the drag-net. There was a photograph in it of a young lady. The seal-oil lamp didn't give very much light in the dark hut (it was still the long winter night on the Liakov Islands), but even so I couldn't help seeing and recognizing the young lady's features. Great Heaven support me! uphold me! I reeled with horror and amazement. It was Dora. Yes; his little girl, that he spoke of so carelessly, that he lied to so easily, that he meant to marry so cruelly, was my Dora. I had pitied the woman who was to be Harry Lemarchant's wife even when I didn't know who she was in any way; I pitied her terribly, with all my heart, when I knew that she was Dora--my own Dora. If I have become a murderer, after all, it was to save Dora--to save Dora from that unutterable, abominable ruffian. I clutched the photograph in the locket eagerly, and held it up to the man's eyes. He opened them dreamily. "Is that the lady you are going to marry?" I asked him, with all the boiling indignation of that terrible discovery seething and burning in my very face. He smiled, and took it all in in half a minute. "It is," he answered, in spite of the fever, with all his old dare-devil carelessness. "And now I recollect they told me the fellow she was engaged to was a doctor in London, and a brother of the parson. By Jove, I never thought of it before that your name, too, was actually Robinson. That's the worst of having such a deuced common name as yours; no one ever dreams of recognizing your relations. Hang it all, if you're the man, I suppose now, out of revenge, you'll be wanting next to go and poison me." "You judge others by yourself, I'm afraid," I answered sternly. Oh, how the words seem to rise up in judgment against me at last, now the dreadful thing is all over! I doctored him as well as I was able, hoping all the time in my inmost soul (for I will confess all now) that he would never recover. Already in wish I had become a murderer. It was too horrible to think that such a man as that should marry Dora. I had loved her once and I loved her still; I love her now; I shall always love her. Murderer as I am, I say it nevertheless, I shall always love her. But at last, to my grief and disappointment, the man began to mend and get better. My doctoring had done him good; and the sailors, though even they did not love him, had shot him once or twice a small bird, of which we made fresh soup that seemed to revive him. Yes, yes, he was coming round; and my cursed medicines had done it all. He was getting well, and he would still go back to marry Dora. The very idea put me into such a fever of terror and excitement that at last I began to exhibit the same symptoms as Lemarchant himself had done. The Captain saw I was sickening, and feared the fever might prove an epidemic. It wasn't: I knew that. Mine was brain, Lemarchant's was intermittent; but the Captain insisted upon disbelieving me. So he put me and Lemarchant into the same hut, and made all the others clear out, so as to turn it into a sort of temporary hospital. Every night I put out from the medicine-chest two quinine powders apiece, for myself and Lemarchant. One night, it was the 7th of April (I can't forget it), I woke feebly from my feverish sleep, and noticed in a faint sort of fashion that Lemarchant was moving about restlessly in the cabin. "Lemarchant," I cried authoritatively (for as surgeon I was, of course, responsible for the health of the expedition), "go back and lie down upon your bearskin this minute! You're a great deal too weak to go getting anything for yourself as yet. Go back this minute, sir, and if you want anything, I'll pull the string, and Paterson'll come and see what you're after." For we had fixed up a string between the two huts, tied to a box at the end, as a rough means of communication. "All right, old fellow," he answered, more cordially than I had ever yet heard him speak to me. "It's all square, I assure you. I was only seeing whether you were quite warm and comfortable on your rug there." "Perhaps," I thought, "the care I've taken of him has made him really feel a little grateful to me." So I dozed off and thought nothing more at the moment about it. Presently, I heard a noise again, and woke up quietly, without starting, but just opened my eyes and peered about as well as the dim light of the little oil-lamp would allow me. To my great surprise, I could make out somehow that Lemarchant was meddling with the bottles in the medicine-chest. "Perhaps," thought I again, "he wants another dose of quinine. Anyhow, I'm too tired and sleepy to ask him anything just now about it." I knew he hated me, and I knew he was unscrupulous, but it didn't occur to me to think he would poison the man who had just helped him through a dangerous fever. At four I woke, as I always did, and proceeded to take one of my powders. Curiously enough, before I tasted it, the grain appeared to me to be rather coarser and more granular than the quinine I had originally put there. I took a pinch between my finger and thumb, and placed it on my tongue by way of testing it. Instead of being bitter, the powder, I found, was insipid and almost tasteless. Could I possibly in my fever and delirium (though I had not consciously been delirious) have put some other powder instead of the quinine into the two papers? The bare idea made me tremble with horror. If so, I might have poisoned Lemarchant, who had taken one of his powders already, and was now sleeping quietly upon his bearskin. At least, I thought so. Glancing accidentally to his place that moment, I was vaguely conscious that he was not really sleeping, but lying with his eyes held half open, gazing at me cautiously and furtively through his closed eyelids. Then the horrid truth flashed suddenly across me. Lemarchant was trying to poison me. Yes, he had always hated me; and now that he knew I was Dora's discarded lover, he hated me worse than ever. He had got up and taken a bottle from the medicine-chest, I felt certain, and put something else instead of my quinine inside my paper. I knew his eyes were fixed upon me then, and for the moment I dissembled. I turned round and pretended to swallow the contents of the packet, and then lay down upon my rug as if nothing unusual had happened. The fever was burning me fiercely, but I lay awake, kept up by the excitement, till I saw that he was really asleep, and then I once more undid the paper. Looking at it closely by the light of the lamp, I saw a finer powder sticking closely to the folded edges. I wetted my finger, put it down and tasted it. Yes, that was quite bitter. That was quinine, not a doubt about it. I saw at once what Lemarchant had done. He had emptied out the quinine and replaced it by some other white powder, probably arsenic. But a little of the quinine still adhered to the folds in the paper, because he had been obliged to substitute it hurriedly; and that at once proved that it was no mistake of my own, but that Lemarchant had really made the deliberate attempt to poison me. This is a confession, and a confession only, so I shall make no effort in any way to exculpate myself for the horrid crime I committed the next moment. True, I was wild with fever and delirium; I was maddened with the thought that this wretched man would marry Dora; I was horrified at the idea of sleeping in the same room with him any longer. But still, I acknowledge it now, face to face with a lonely death upon this frozen island, it was murder--wilful murder. I meant to poison him, and I did it. "He has set this powder for me, the villain," I said to myself, "and now I shall make him take it without knowing it. How do I know that it's arsenic or anything else to do him any harm? His blood be upon his own head, for aught I know about it. What I put there was simply quinine. If anybody has changed it, he has changed it himself. The pit that he dug for another, he himself shall fall therein." I wouldn't even test it, for fear I should find it was arsenic, and be unable to give it to him innocently and harmlessly. I rose up and went over to Lemarchant's side. Horror of horrors, he was sleeping soundly! Yes, the man had tried to poison me; and when he thought he had seen me swallow his poisonous powder, so callous and hardened was his nature that he didn't even lie awake to watch the effect of it. He had dropped off soundly, as if nothing had happened, and was sleeping now, to all appearance, the sleep of innocence. Being convalescent, in fact, and therefore in need of rest, he slept with unusual soundness. I laid the altered powder quietly by his pillow, took away his that I had laid out in readiness for him, and crept back to my own place noiselessly. There I lay awake, hot and feverish, wondering to myself hour after hour when he would ever wake and take it. At last he woke, and looked over towards me with unusual interest. "Hullo, Doctor," he said quite genially, "how are you this morning, eh? getting on well, I hope." It was the first time during all my illness that he had ever inquired after me. I lied to him deliberately to keep the delusion up. "I have a terrible grinding pain in my chest," I said, pretending to writhe. I had sunk to his level, it seems. I was a liar and a murderer. He looked quite gay over it, and laughed. "It's nothing," he said, grinning horribly. "It's a good symptom. I felt just like that myself, my dear fellow, when I was beginning to recover." Then I knew he had tried to poison me, and I felt no remorse for my terrible action. It was a good deed to prevent such a man as that from ever carrying away Dora--my Dora--into a horrid slavery. Sooner than that he should marry Dora, I would poison him--I would poison him a thousand times over. He sat up, took the spoon full of treacle, and poured the powder as usual into the very middle of it. I watched him take it off at a single gulp without perceiving the difference, and then I sank back exhausted upon my roll of sealskins. * * * * * All that day I was very ill; and Lemarchant, lying tossing beside me, groaned and moaned in a fearful fashion. At last the truth seemed to dawn upon him gradually, and he cried aloud to me: "Doctor, Doctor, quick, for Heaven's sake! you must get me out an antidote. The powders must have got mixed up somehow, and you've given me arsenic instead of quinine, I'm certain." "Not a bit of it, Lemarchant," I said, with some devilish malice; "I've given you one of my own packets, that was lying here beside my pillow." He turned as white as a sheet the moment he heard that, and gasped out horribly, "That--that--why, that was arsenic!" But he never explained in a single word how he knew it, or where it came from. I knew. I needed no explanation, and I wanted no lies, so I didn't question him. I treated him as well as I could for arsenic poisoning, without saying a word to the captain and the other men about it; for if he died, I said, it would be by his own act, and if my skill could still avail, he should have the benefit of it; but the poison had had full time to work before I gave him the antidote, and he died by seven o'clock that night in fearful agonies. Then I knew that I was really a murderer. My fingers are beginning to get horribly numb, and I'm afraid I shan't be able to write much longer. I must be quick about it, if I want to finish this confession. * * * * * After that came my retribution. I have been punished for it, and punished terribly. As soon as they all heard Lemarchant was dead--a severe relapse, I called it--they set to work to carry him out and lay him somewhere. Then for the first time the idea flashed across my mind that they couldn't possibly bury him. The ice was too deep everywhere, and underneath it lay the solid rock of the bare granite islands. There was no snow even, for the wind swept it away as it fell, and we couldn't so much as decently cover him. There was nothing for it but to lay him out upon the icy surface. So we carried the stark frozen body, with its hideous staring eyes wide open, out by the jutting point of rock behind the hut, and there we placed it, dressed and upright. We stood it up against the point exactly as if it were alive, and by-and-by the snow came and froze it to the rock; and there it stands to this moment, glaring for ever fiercely upon me. Whenever I went in or out of the hut, for three long months, that hideous thing stood there staring me in the face with mute indignation. At night, when I tried to sleep, the murdered man stood there still in the darkness beside me. O God! I dared not say a word to anybody: but I trembled every time I passed it, and I knew what it was to be a murderer. In May, the sun came back again, but still no open water for our one boat. In June, we had the long day, but no open water. The captain began to get impatient and despondent, as you will read in the log: he was afraid now we might never get a chance of making the mouth of the Lena. By-and-by, the scurvy came (I have no time now for details, my hands are so cramped with cold), and then we began to run short of provisions. Soon I had them all down upon my hands, and presently we had to place Paterson's corpse beside Lemarchant's on the little headland. Then they sank, one after another--sank of cold and hunger, as you will read in the log--till I alone, who wanted least to live, was the last left living. I was left alone with those nine corpses propped up awfully against the naked rock, and one of the nine the man I had murdered. May Heaven forgive me for that terrible crime; and for pity's sake, whoever you may be, keep it from Dora--keep it from Dora! My brother's address is in my pocket-book. The fever and remorse alone have given me strength to hold the pen. My hands are quite numbed now. I can write no longer. * * * * * There the manuscript ended. Heaven knows what effect it may have upon all of you, who read it quietly at home in your own easy-chairs in England; but we of the search party, who took those almost illegible sheets of shaky writing from the cold fingers of the one solitary corpse within the frozen cabin on the Liakov Islands--we read them through with such a mingled thrill of awe and horror and sympathy and pity as no one can fully understand who has not been upon an Arctic expedition. And when we gathered our sad burdens up to take them off for burial at home, the corpse to which we gave the most reverent attention was certainly that of the self-accused murderer. _HARRY'S INHERITANCE._ I. Colonel Sir Thomas Woolrych, K.C.B. (retired list), was a soldier of the old school, much attached to pipe-clay and purchase, and with a low opinion of competitive examinations, the first six books of Euclid, the local military centres, the territorial titles of regiments, the latest regulation pattern in half-dress buttons, and most other confounded new-fangled radical fal-lal and trumpery in general. Sir Thomas believed as firmly in the wisdom of our ancestors as he distrusted the wisdom of our nearest descendants, now just attaining to years of maturity and indiscretion. Especially had he a marked dislike for this nasty modern shopkeeping habit of leaving all your loose money lying idly at your banker's, and paying everybody with a dirty little bit of crumpled paper, instead of pulling out a handful of gold, magnificently, from your trousers pocket, and flinging the sovereigns boldly down before you upon the counter like an officer and a gentleman. Why should you let one of those bloated, overfed, lazy banker-fellows grow rich out of borrowing your money from you for nothing, without so much as a thank-you, and lending it out again to some other poor devil of a tradesman (probably in difficulties) at seven per cent. on short discount? No, no; that was not the way Sir Thomas Woolrych had been accustomed to live when he was an ensign (sub-lieutenant they positively call it nowadays) at Ahmednuggur, in the North-West Provinces. In those days, my dear sir, a man drew his monthly screw by pay-warrant, took the rupees in solid cash, locked them up carefully in the desk in his bungalow, helped himself liberally to them while they lasted, and gave IOU's for any little trifle of cards or horses he might happen to have let himself in for meanwhile with his brother-officers. IOU's are of course a gentlemanly and recognized form of monetary engagement, but for bankers' cheques Sir Thomas positively felt little less than contempt and loathing. Nevertheless, in his comfortable villa in the park at Cheltenham (called Futteypoor Lodge, after that famous engagement during the Mutiny which gave the Colonel his regiment and his K.C.B.-ship) he stood one evening looking curiously at his big devonport, and muttered to himself with more than one most military oath, "Hanged if I don't think I shall positively be compelled to patronize these banker-fellows after all. Somebody must have been helping himself again to some of my sovereigns." Sir Thomas was not by nature a suspicious man--he was too frank and open-hearted himself to think ill easily of others--but he couldn't avoid feeling certain that somebody had been tampering unjustifiably with the contents of his devonport. He counted the rows of sovereigns over once more, very carefully; then he checked the number taken out by the entry in his pocket-book; and then he leaned back in his chair with a puzzled look, took a meditative puff or two at the stump of his cigar, and blew out the smoke, in a long curl that left a sort of pout upon his heavily moustached lip as soon as he had finished. Not a doubt in the world about it--somebody must have helped himself again to a dozen sovereigns. It was a hateful thing to put a watch upon your servants and dependents, but Sir Thomas felt he must really do it. He reckoned up the long rows a third time with military precision, entered the particulars once more most accurately in his pocket-book, sighed a deep sigh of regret at the distasteful occupation, and locked up the devonport at last with the air of a man who resigns himself unwillingly to a most unpleasant duty. Then he threw away the fag-end of the smoked-out cigar, and went up slowly to dress for dinner. Sir Thomas's household consisted entirely of himself and his nephew Harry, for he had never been married, and he regarded all womankind alike from afar off, with a quaint, respectful, old-world chivalry; but he made a point of dressing scrupulously every day for dinner, even when alone, as a decorous formality due to himself, his servants, society, the military profession, and the _convenances_ in general. If he and his nephew dined together they dressed for one another; if they dined separately they dressed all the same, for the sake of the institution. When a man once consents to eat his evening meal in a blue tie and a morning cutaway, there's no drawing a line until you finally find him an advanced republican and an accomplice of those dreadful War Office people who are bent upon allowing the service to go to the devil. If Colonel Sir Thomas Woolrych, K.C.B., had for a single night been guilty of such abominable laxity, the whole fabric of society would have tottered to its base, and gods and footmen would have felt instinctively that it was all up with the British constitution. "Harry," Sir Thomas said, as soon they sat down to dinner together, "are you going out anywhere this evening, my boy?" Harry looked up a little surlily, and answered after a moment's hesitation, "Why, yes, uncle, I thought--I thought of going round and having a game of billiards with Tom Whitmarsh." Sir Thomas cleared his throat, and hemmed dubiously. "In that case," he said at last, after a short pause, "I think I'll go down to the club myself and have a rubber. Wilkins, the carriage at half-past nine. I'm sorry, Harry, you're going out this evening." "Why so, uncle? It's only just round to the Whitmarshes', you know." Sir Thomas shut one eye and glanced with the other at the light through his glass of sherry, held up between finger and thumb critically and suspiciously. "A man may disapprove _in toto_ of the present system of competitive examinations for the army," he said slowly; "for my part, I certainly do, and I make no secret of it; admitting a lot of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers plump into the highest ranks of the service: no tone, no character, no position, no gentlemanly feeling; a great mistake--a great mistake; I told them so at the time. I said to them, 'Gentlemen, you are simply ruining the service.' But they took no notice of me; and what's the consequence? Competitive examination has been the ruin of the service, exactly as I told them. Began with that; then abolition of purchase; then local centres; then that abominable strap with the slip buckle--there, there, Harry, upon my soul, my boy, I can't bear to think of it. But a man may be opposed, as I said, to the whole present system of competitive examination, and yet, while that system still unfortunately continues to exist (that is to say, until a European War convinces all sensible people of the confounded folly of it), he may feel that his own young men, who are reading up for a direct commission, ought to be trying their hardest to get as much of this nonsensical humbug into their heads as possible during the time just before their own examinations. Now, Harry, I'm afraid you're not reading quite as hard as you ought to be doing. The crammer's all very well in his way, of course, but depend upon it, the crammer by himself won't get you through it. What's needed is private study." Harry turned his handsome dark eyes upon his uncle--a very dark, almost gipsy-looking face altogether, Harry's--and answered deprecatingly, "Well, sir, and don't I go in for private study? Didn't I read up _Samson Agonistes_ all by myself right through yesterday?" "I don't know what Samson Something-or-other is," the old gentleman replied testily. "What the dickens has Samson Something-or-other got to do with the preparation of a military man, I should like to know, sir?" "It's the English Literature book for the exam., you know," Harry answered, with a quiet smile. "We've got to get it up, you see, with all the allusions and what-you-may-call-its, for direct commission. It's a sort of a play, I think I should call it, by John Milton." "Oh, it's the English Literature, is it?" the old Colonel went on, somewhat mollified. "In my time, Harry, we weren't expected to know anything about English literature. The Articles of War, and the Officer's Companion, By Authority, that was the kind of literature we used to be examined in. But nowadays they expect a soldier to be read up in Samson Something-or-other, do they really? Well, well, let them have their fad, let them have their fad, poor creatures. Still, Harry, I'm very much afraid you're wasting your time, and your money also. If I thought you only went to the Whitmarshes' to see Miss Milly, now, I shouldn't mind so much about it. Miss Milly is a very charming, sweet young creature, certainly--extremely pretty, too, extremely pretty--I don't deny it. You're young yet to go making yourself agreeable, my boy, to a pretty girl like that; you ought to wait for that sort of thing till you've got your majority, or at least, your company--a young man reading for direct commission has no business to go stuffing his head cram full with love and nonsense. No, no; he should leave it all free for fortification, and the general instructions, and Samson Something-or-other, if soldiers can't be made nowadays without English literature. But still, I don't so much object to that, I say--a sweet girl, certainly, Miss Milly--what I do object to is your knocking about so much at billiard-rooms, and so forth, with that young fellow Whitmarsh. Not a very nice young fellow, or a good companion for you either, Harry. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, my boy, he makes you spend a great deal too much money." "I've never yet had to ask you to increase my allowance, sir," the young man answered haughtily, with a curious glance sideways at his uncle. "Wilkins," Sir Thomas put in, with a nod to the butler, "go down and bring up a bottle of the old Madeira. Harry, my boy, don't let us discuss questions of this sort before the servants. My boy, I've never kept you short of money in any way, I hope; and if I ever do, I trust you'll tell me of it, tell me of it immediately." Harry's dark cheeks burned bright for a moment, but he answered never a single word, and went on eating his dinner silently, with a very hang-dog look indeed upon his handsome features. II. At half-past nine Sir Thomas drove down to the club, and, when he reached the door, dismissed the coachman. "I shall walk back, Morton," he said. "I shan't want you again this evening. Don't let them sit up for me. I mayn't be home till two in the morning." But as soon as the coachman had had full time to get back again in perfect safety, Sir Thomas walked straight down the club steps once more, and up the Promenade, and all the way to Futteypoor Lodge. When he got there, he opened the door silently with his latch-key, shut it again without the slightest noise, and walked on tip-toe into the library. It was an awkward sort of thing to do, certainly, but Sir Thomas was convinced in his own mind that he ought to do it. He wheeled an easy chair into the recess by the window, in front of which the curtains were drawn, arranged the folds so that he could see easily into the room by the slit between them, and sat down patiently to explore this mystery to the very bottom. Sir Thomas was extremely loth in his own mind to suspect anybody; and yet it was quite clear that some one or other must have taken the missing sovereigns. Twice over money had been extracted. It couldn't have been cook, of that he felt certain; nor Wilkins either. Very respectable woman, cook--very respectable butler, Wilkins. Not Morton; oh dear no, quite impossible, certainly not Morton. Not the housemaid, or the boy: obviously neither; well-conducted young people, every one of them. But who the dickens could it be then? for certainly somebody had taken the money. The good old Colonel felt in his heart that for the sake of everybody's peace of mind it was his bounden duty to discover the real culprit before saying a single word to anybody about it. There was something very ridiculous, of course, not to say undignified and absurd, in the idea of an elderly field officer, late in Her Majesty's service, sitting thus for hour after hour stealthily behind his own curtains, in the dark, as if he were a thief or a burglar, waiting to see whether anybody came to open his devonport. Sir Thomas grew decidedly wearied as he watched and waited, and but for his strong sense of the duty imposed upon him of tracking the guilty person, he would once or twice in the course of the evening have given up the quest from sheer disgust and annoyance at the absurdity of the position. But no; he must find out who had done it: so there he sat, as motionless as a cat watching a mouse-hole, with his eye turned always in the direction of the devonport, through the slight slit between the folded curtains. Ten o'clock struck upon the clock on the mantelpiece--half-past ten--eleven. Sir Thomas stretched his legs, yawned, and muttered audibly, "Confounded slow, really." Half-past eleven. Sir Thomas went over noiselessly to the side table, where the decanters were standing, and helped himself to a brandy and seltzer, squeezing down the cork of the bottle carefully with his thumb, to prevent its popping, till all the gas had escaped piecemeal. Then he crept back, still noiselessly, feeling more like a convicted thief himself than a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and wondering when the deuce this pilfering lock-breaker was going to begin his nightly depredations. Not till after Harry came back most likely. The thief, whoever he or she was, would probably be afraid to venture into the library while there was still a chance of Harry returning unexpectedly and disturbing the whole procedure. But when once Harry had gone to bed, they would all have heard from Morton that Sir Thomas was going to be out late, and the thief would then doubtless seize so good an opportunity of helping himself unperceived to the counted sovereigns. About half past eleven, there was a sound of steps upon the garden-walk, and Harry's voice could be heard audibly through the half-open window. The colonel caught the very words against his will. Harry was talking with Tom Whitmarsh, who had walked round to see him home; his voice was a little thick, as if with wine, and he seemed terribly excited (to judge by his accent) about something or other that had just happened. "Good night, Tom," the young man was saying, with an outward show of carelessness barely concealing a great deal of underlying irritation. "I'll pay you up what I lost to-morrow or the next day. You shall have your money, don't be afraid about it." "Oh, it's all right," Tom Whitmarsh's voice answered in an off-hand fashion. "Pay me whenever you like, you know, Woolrych. It doesn't matter to me when you pay me, this year or next year, so long as I get it sooner or later." Sir Thomas listened with a sinking heart. "Play," he thought to himself. "Play, play, play, already! It was his father's curse, poor fellow, and I hope it won't be Harry's. It's some comfort to think, anyhow, that it's only billiards." "Well, good night, Tom," Harry went on, ringing the bell as he spoke. "Good night, Harry. I hope next time the cards won't go so persistently against you." The cards! Phew! That was bad indeed. Sir Thomas started. He didn't object to a quiet after-dinner rubber on his own account, naturally: but this wasn't whist; oh, no; nothing of the sort. This was evidently serious playing. He drew a long breath, and felt he must talk very decidedly about the matter to Harry to-morrow morning. "Is my uncle home yet, Wilkins?" "No, sir; he said he wouldn't be back probably till two o'clock, and we wasn't to sit up for him." "All right then. Give me a light for a minute in the library. I'll take a seltzer before I go upstairs, just to steady me." Sir Thomas almost laughed outright. This was really too ridiculous. Suppose, after all the waiting, Harry was to come over and discover him sitting there in the darkness by the window, what a pretty figure he would cut before him. And besides, the whole thing would have to come out then, and after all the thief would never be discovered and punished. The Colonel grew hot and red in the face, and began to wish to goodness he hadn't in the first place let himself in, in any way, for this ridiculous amateur detective business. But Harry drank his seltzer standing by the side table, with no brandy, either; that was a good thing, no brandy. If he'd taken brandy, too, in his present excited condition, when he'd already certainly had quite as much as was at all good for him, Sir Thomas would have been justly and seriously angry. But, after all, Harry was a good boy at bottom, and knew how to avoid such ugly habits. He took his seltzer and his bedroom candle. Wilkins turned out the light in the room, and Harry went upstairs by himself immediately. Then Wilkins turned the key in the library door, and the old gentleman began to reflect that this was really a most uncomfortable position for him to be left in. Suppose they locked him in there till to-morrow morning! Ah! happy thought; if the worst came to the worst he could get out of the library window and let himself in at the front door by means of his latch-key. The servants all filed upstairs, one by one, in an irregular procession; their feet died away gradually upon the upper landings, and a solemn silence came at last over the whole household. Sir Thomas's heart began to beat faster: the excitement of plot interest was growing stronger upon him. This was the time the thief would surely choose to open the devonport. He should know now within twenty minutes which it was of all his people, whom he trusted so implicitly, that was really robbing him. And he treated them all so kindly, too. Ha, the rascal! he should catch it well, that he should, whoever he was, as soon as ever Sir Thomas discovered him. Not if it were Wilkins, though; not if it were Wilkins. Sir Thomas hoped it wasn't really that excellent fellow Wilkins. A good old tried and trusty servant. If any unexpected financial difficulties---- Hush, hush! Quietly now. A step upon the landing. Coming down noiselessly, noiselessly, noiselessly. Not Wilkins; not heavy enough for him, surely; no, no, a woman's step, so very light, so light and noiseless. Sir Thomas really hoped in his heart it wasn't that pretty delicate-looking girl, the new housemaid. If it was, by Jove, yes, he'd give her a good lecture then and there, that very minute, about it, offer to pay her passage quietly out to Canada, and--recommend her to get married decently, to some good young fellow, on the earliest possible opportunity. The key turned once more in the lock, and then the door opened stealthily. Somebody glided like a ghost into the middle of the room. Sir Thomas, gazing intently through the slit in the curtains, murmured to himself that now at last he should fairly discover the confounded rascal. Ha! How absurd! He could hardly help laughing once more at the ridiculous collapse to his high-wrought expectations. And yet he restrained himself. It was only Harry! Harry come down, candle in hand, no doubt to get another glass of seltzer. The Colonel hoped not with brandy. No; not with brandy. He put the glass up to his dry lips--Sir Thomas could see they were dry and feverish even from that distance; horrid thing, this gambling!--and he drained it off at a gulp, like a thirsty man who has tasted no liquor since early morning. Then he took up his candle again, and turned--not to the door. Oh, no. The old gentleman watched him now with singular curiosity, for he was walking not to the door, but over in the direction of the suspected devonport. Sir Thomas could hardly even then guess at the truth. It wasn't, no it wasn't, it couldn't be Harry! not Harry that ... that borrowed the money! The young man took a piece of stout wire from his pocket with a terrible look of despair and agony. Sir Thomas's heart melted within him as he beheld it. He twisted the wire about in the lock with a dexterous pressure, and it opened easily. Sir Thomas looked on, and the tears rose into his eyes slowly by instinct; but he said never a word, and watched intently. Harry held the lid of the devonport open for a moment with one hand, and looked at the rows of counted gold within. The fingers of the other hand rose slowly and remorsefully up to the edge of the desk, and there hovered in an undecided fashion. Sir Thomas watched still, with his heart breaking. Then for a second Harry paused. He held back his hand and appeared to deliberate. Something within seemed to have affected him deeply. Sir Thomas, though a plain old soldier, could read his face well enough to know what it was; he was thinking of the kind words his uncle had said to him that very evening as they sat together down there at dinner. For half a minute the suspense was terrible. Then, with a sudden impulse, Harry shut the lid of the devonport down hastily; flung the wire with a gesture of horror and remorse into the fireplace; took up his candle wildly in his hand; and rushed from the room and up the stairs, leaving the door open behind him. Then Sir Thomas rose slowly from his seat in the window corner; lighted the gas in the centre burner; unlocked the devonport, with tears still trickling slowly down his face; counted all the money over carefully to make quite certain; found it absolutely untouched; and flung himself down upon his knees wildly, between shame, and fear, and relief, and misery. What he said or what he thought in that terrible moment of conflicting passions is best not here described or written; but when he rose again his eyes were glistening, more with forgiveness than with horror (anger there never had been); and being an old-fashioned old gentleman, he took down his big Bible from the shelf, just to reassure himself about a text which he thought he remembered somewhere in Luke: "Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." "Ah, yes," he said to himself; "he repented; he repented. He didn't take it. He felt he couldn't after what I said to him." And then, with the tears still rolling silently down his bronzed checks, he went up stairs to bed, but not to sleep; for he lay restless on his pillow all night through with that one terrible discovery weighing like lead upon his tender old bosom. III. Next morning, after breakfast, Sir Thomas said in a quiet tone of command to Harry, "My boy, I want to speak to you for a few minutes in the library." Harry's cheek grew deadly pale and he caught his breath with difficulty, but he followed his uncle into the library without a word, and took his seat at the table opposite him. "Harry," the old soldier began, as quietly as he was able, after an awkward pause, "I want to tell you a little--a little about your father and mother." Harry's face suddenly changed from white to crimson, for he felt sure now that what Sir Thomas was going to talk about was not the loss of the money from the devonport a week earlier; and on the other hand, though he knew absolutely nothing about his own birth and parentage, he knew at least that there must have been some sort of mystery in the matter, or else his uncle would surely long since have spoken to him quite freely of his father and mother. "My dear boy," the Colonel went on again, in a tremulous voice, "I think the time has now come when I ought to tell you that you and I are no relations by blood; you are--you are my nephew by adoption only." Harry gave a sudden start of surprise, but said nothing. "The way it all came about," Sir Thomas went on, playing nervously with his watch-chain, "was just this. I was in India during the Mutiny, as you know, and while I was stationed at Boolundshahr, in the North-West Provinces, just before those confounded niggers--I mean to say, before the sepoys revolted, your father was adjutant of my regiment at the same station. He and your mother--well, Harry, your mother lived in a small bungalow near the cantonments, and there you were born; why, exactly eight months before the affair at Meerut, you know--the beginning of the Mutiny. Your father, I'm sorry to say, was a man very much given to high play--in short, if you'll excuse my putting it so, my boy, a regular gambler. He owed money to almost every man in the regiment, and amongst others, if I must tell you the whole truth, to me. In those days I sometimes played rather high myself, Harry; not so high as your poor father, my boy, for I was always prudent, but a great deal higher than a young man in a marching regiment has any right to do--a great deal higher. I left off playing immediately after what I'm just going to tell you; and from that day to this, Harry, I've never touched a card, except for whist or cribbage, and never will do, my boy, if I live to be as old as Methuselah." The old man paused and wiped his brow for a second with his capacious handkerchief, while Harry's eyes, cast down upon the ground, began to fill rapidly with something or other that he couldn't for the life of him manage to keep out of them. "On the night before the news from Meerut arrived," the old soldier went on once more, with his eye turned half away from the trembling lad, "we played together in the major's rooms, your father and I, with a few others; and before the end of the evening your father had lost a large sum to one of his brother-officers. When we'd finished playing, he came to me to my quarters, and he said 'Woolrych, this is a bad job. I haven't got anything to pay McGregor with.' "'All right, Walpole,' I answered him--your father's name was Captain Walpole, Harry--'I'll lend you whatever's necessary.' "'No, no, my dear fellow,' he said, 'I won't borrow and only get myself into worse trouble. I'll take a shorter and easier way out of it all, you may depend upon it.' "At the moment I hadn't the slightest idea what he meant, and so I said no more to him just then about it. But three minutes after he left my quarters I heard a loud cry, and saw your father in the moonlight out in the compound. He had a pistol in his hand. Next moment, the report of a shot sounded loudly down below in the compound, and I rushed out at once to see what on earth could be matter. "Your father was lying in a pool of blood, just underneath a big mango-tree beside the door, with his left jaw shattered to pieces, and his brain pierced through and through from one side to the other by a bullet from the pistol. "He was dead--stone dead. There was no good doctoring him. We took him up and carried him into the surgeon's room, and none of us had the courage all that night to tell your mother. "Next day, news came of the rising at Meerut. "That same night, while we were all keeping watch and mounting guard, expecting our men would follow the example of their companions at head-quarters, there was a sudden din and tumult in the lines, about nine in the evening, when the word was given to turn in, and McGregor, coming past me, shouted at the top of his voice, 'It's all up, Woolrych. These black devils have broken loose at last, and they're going to fire the officers' quarters.' "Well, Harry, my boy, I needn't tell you all about it at full length to-day; but in the end, as you know, we fought the men for our own lives, and held our ground until the detachment came from Etawah to relieve us. However, before we could get to the Bibi's bungalow--the sepoys used to call your mother the Bibi, Harry--those black devils had broken in there, and when next morning early I burst into the ruined place, with three men of the 47th and a faithful havildar, we found your poor mother--well, there, Harry, I can't bear to think of it, even now, my boy: but she was dead, too, quite dead, with a hundred sabre-cuts all over her poor blood-stained, hacked-about body. And in the corner, under the cradle, the eight-month-old baby was lying and crying--crying bitterly; that was you, Harry." The young man listened intently, with a face now once more ashy white, but still he answered absolutely nothing. "I took you in my arms, my boy," the old Colonel continued in a softer tone; "and as you were left all alone in the bungalow there, with no living soul to love or care for you, I carried you away in my arms myself, to my own quarters. All through the rest of that terrible campaign I kept you with me, and while I was fighting at Futteypoor, a native ayah was in charge of you for me. Your poor father had owed me a trifling debt, and I took you as payment in full, and have kept you with me as my nephew ever since. That is all your history, Harry." The young man drew a deep breath, and looked across curiously to the bronzed face of the simple old officer. Then he asked, a little huskily, "And why didn't my father's or mother's relations reclaim me, sir? Do they know that I am still living?" Sir Thomas coughed, and twirled his watch-chain more nervously and uneasily than ever. "Well, you see, my boy," he answered at last, after a long pause, "your mother--I must tell you the whole truth now, Harry--your mother was a Eurasian, a half-caste lady--very light, almost white, but still a half-caste, you know, and--and--well, your father's family--didn't exactly acknowledge the relationship, Harry." Harry's face burnt crimson once more, and the hot blood rushed madly to his cheeks, for he felt in a moment the full force of the meaning that the Colonel wrapped up so awkwardly in that one short embarrassed sentence. There was another long pause, during which Harry kept his burning eyes fixed fast upon Sir Thomas, and Sir Thomas looked down uncomfortably at his boots and said nothing. Then the young man found voice again feebly to ask, almost in a whisper, one final question. "Had you ... had you any particular reason for telling me this story about my birth and my parents at this exact time ... just now, uncle?" "I had, Harry. I--I have rather suspected of late ... that ... that you are falling somehow into ... into your poor father's unhappy vice of gambling. My boy, my boy, if you inherit his failings in that direction, I hope his end will be some warning to you to desist immediately." "And had you ... any reason to suspect me of ... of any other fault ... of ... of any graver fault ... of anything really very serious, uncle?" The Colonel held his head between his hands, and answered very slowly, as if the words were wrung from him by torture: "If you hadn't yourself asked me the question point-blank, Harry, I would never have told you anything about it. Yes, my boy, my dear boy, my poor boy; I know it all ... all ... all ... absolutely." Harry lifted up his voice in one loud cry and wail of horror, and darted out of the room without another syllable. "I know that cry," the Colonel said in his own heart, trembling. "I have heard it before! It's the very cry poor Walpole gave that night at Boolundshahr, just before he went out and shot himself!" IV. Harry had rushed out into the garden; of that, Sir Thomas felt certain. He followed him hastily, and saw him by the seat under the lime-trees in the far corner; he had something heavy in his right hand. Sir Thomas came closer and saw to his alarm and horror that it was indeed the small revolver from the old pistol-stand on the wall of the vestibule. Even as the poor old soldier gazed, half petrified, the lad pushed a cartridge home feverishly into one of the chambers, and raised the weapon, with a stern resolution, up to his temple. Sir Thomas recognized in that very moment of awe and terror that it was the exact attitude and action of Harry's dead father. The entire character and tragedy seemed to have handed itself down directly from father to son without a single change of detail or circumstance. The old man darted forward with surprising haste, and caught Harry's hand just as the finger rested upon the trigger. "My boy! my boy!" he cried, wrenching the revolver easily from his trembling grasp, and flinging it, with a great curve, to the other end of the garden. "Not that way! Not that way! I haven't reproached you with one word, Harry; but this is a bad return, indeed, for a life devoted to you. Oh, Harry! Harry! not by shuffling off your responsibilities and running away from them like a coward, not by that can you ever mend matters in the state you have got them into, but by living on, and fighting against your evil impulses and conquering them like a man--that's the way, the right way, to get the better of them. Promise me, Harry, promise me, my boy, that whatever comes you won't make away with yourself, as your father did; for my sake, live on and do better. I'm an old man, an old man, Harry, and I have but you in the world to care for or think about. Don't let me be shamed in my old age by seeing the boy I have brought up and loved as a son dying in disgrace, a poltroon and a coward. Stand by your guns, my boy; stand by your guns, and fight it out to the last minute." Harry's arm fell powerless to his side, and he broke down utterly, in his shame and self-abasement flinging himself wildly upon the seat beneath the lime-trees and covering his face with his hands to hide the hot tears that were bursting forth in a feverish torrent. "I will go," he said at last, in a choking voice, "I will go, uncle, and talk to Milly." "Do," the Colonel said, soothing his arm tenderly. "Do, my boy. She's a good girl, and she'll advise you rightly. Go and speak to her; but before you go, promise me, promise me." Harry rose, and tried to shake off Sir Thomas's heavy hand, laid with a fatherly pressure upon his struggling shoulder. But he couldn't; the old soldier was still too strong for him. "Promise me," he said once more caressingly, "promise me; promise me!" Harry hesitated for a second, in his troubled mind; then, with an effort, he answered slowly, "I promise, uncle." Sir Thomas released him, and he rushed wildly away. "Remember," the Colonel cried aloud, as he went in at the open folding windows, "remember, Harry, you are on your honour. If you break parole I shall think very badly, very badly indeed, of you." But as the old man turned back sadly into his lonely library, he thought to himself, "I wonder whether I oughtn't to have dealt more harshly with him! I wonder whether I was right in letting him off so easily for two such extremely--such extremely grave breaches of military discipline!" V. "Then you think, Milly, that's what I ought to do? You think I'd better go and never come back again till I feel quite sure of myself?" "I think so, Harry, I think so.... I think so.... And yet ... it's very hard not to see you for so long, Harry." "But I shall write to you every day, Milly, however long it may be; and if I conquer myself, why, then, Milly, I shall feel I can come back fit to marry you. I'm not fit now, and unless I feel that I've put myself straight with you and my uncle, I'll never come back again--never, never, never!" Milly's lip trembled, but she only answered bravely, "That's well, Harry; for then you'll make all the more effort, and for my sake I'm sure you'll conquer. But, Harry, I wish before you go you'd tell me plainly what else it is that you've been doing besides playing and losing your uncle's money." "Oh, Milly, Milly, I can't--I mustn't. If I were to tell you that you could never again respect me--you could never love me." Milly was a wise girl, and pressed him no further. After all, there are some things it is better for none of us to know about one another, and this thing was just one of them. So Harry Walpole went away from Cheltenham, nobody knew whither, except Milly; not daring to confide the secret of his whereabouts even to his uncle, nor seeing that sole friend once more before he went, but going away that very night, on his own resources, to seek his own fortune as best he might in the great world of London. "Tell my uncle why I have gone," he said to Milly; "that it is in order to conquer myself; and tell him that I'll write to you constantly, and that you will let him know from time to time whether I am well and making progress." It was a hard time for poor old Sir Thomas, no doubt, those four years that Harry was away from him, he knew not where, and he was left alone by himself in his dreary home; but he felt it was best so; he knew Harry was trying to conquer himself. How Harry lived or what he was doing he never heard; but once or twice Milly hinted to him that Harry seemed sorely in want of money, and Sir Thomas gave her some to send him, and every time it was at once returned, with a very firm but gentle message from Harry to say that he was able, happily, to do without it, and would not further trouble his uncle. It was only from Milly that Sir Thomas could learn anything about his dear boy, and he saw her and asked her about him so often that he learned at last to love her like a daughter. Four years rolled slowly away, and at the end of them Sir Thomas was one day sitting in his little library, somewhat disconsolate, and reflecting to himself that he ought to have somebody living with him at his time of life, when suddenly there came a ring and a knock that made him start with surprise and pleasure, for he recognized them at once as being Harry's. Next moment, the servant brought him a card, on which was engraved in small letters, "Dr. H. Walpole," and down in the left-hand corner, "Surrey Hospital." Sir Thomas turned the card over and over with a momentary feeling of disappointment, for he had somehow fancied to himself that Harry had gone off covering himself with glory among Zulus or Afghans, and he couldn't help feeling that beside that romantic dream of soldierly rehabilitation a plain doctor's life was absurdly prosaic. Next moment, Harry himself was grasping his hand warmly, and prose and poetry were alike forgotten in that one vivid all-absorbing delight of his boy recovered. As soon as the first flush of excitement was fairly over, and Harry had cried regretfully, "Why, uncle, how much older you're looking!" and Sir Thomas had exclaimed in his fatherly joy, "Why, Harry, my boy, what a fine fellow you've turned out, God bless me!" Harry took a little bank bag of sovereigns from his coat pocket and laid it down, very red, upon the corner of the table. "These are yours, uncle," he said simply. Sir Thomas's first impulse was to say, "No, no, my boy; keep them, keep them, and let us forget all about it," but he checked himself just in time, for he saw that the best thing all round was to take them quietly and trouble poor Harry no more with the recollection. "Thank you, my boy," the old soldier answered, taking them up and pocketing them as though it were merely the repayment of an ordinary debt. ("The School for the Orphan Children of Officers in the Army will be all the richer for it," he thought to himself) "And now tell me, Harry, how have you been living, and what have you been doing ever since I last saw you?" "Uncle," Harry cried--he hadn't unlearnt to think of him and call him by that fond old name, then--"uncle, I've been conquering myself. From the day I left you I've never touched a card once--not once, uncle." "Except, I suppose, for a quiet rubber?" the old Colonel put in softly. "Not even for a rubber, uncle," Harry answered, half smiling; "nor a cue nor a dice-box either, nor anything like them. I've determined to steer clear of all the dangers that surround me by inheritance, and I'm not going to begin again as long as I live, uncle." "That's well, Harry, that's well. And you didn't go in for a direct commission, then? I was in hopes, my boy, that you would still, in spite of everything, go into the Queen's service." Harry's face fell a little. "Uncle," he said, "I'm sorry to have disappointed you; sorry to have been compelled to run counter to any little ambitions you might have had for me in that respect; but I felt, after all you told me that day, that the army would be a very dangerous profession for me; and though I didn't want to be a coward and run away from danger, I didn't want to be foolhardy and heedlessly expose myself to it. So I thought on the whole it would be wiser for me to give up the direct commission business altogether, and go in at once for being a doctor. It was safer, and therefore better in the end both for me and for you, uncle." Sir Thomas took the young man's hand once more, and pressed it gently with a fatherly pressure. "My boy," he said, "you are right, quite right--a great deal more right, indeed, than I was. But how on earth have you found money to keep yourself alive and pay for your education all these years--tell me Harry?" Harry's face flushed up again, this time with honest pride, as he answered bravely, "I've earned enough by teaching and drawing to pay my way the whole time, till I got qualified. I've been qualified now for nine months, and got a post as house-surgeon at our hospital; but I've waited to come and tell you till I'd saved up that money, you know, out of my salary, and now I'm coming back to settle down in practice here, uncle." Sir Thomas said nothing, but he rose from his chair and took both Harry's hands in his with tears. For a few minutes, he looked at him tenderly and admiringly, then he said in his simple way, "God bless you! God bless you! I couldn't have done it myself, my boy. I couldn't have done it myself, Harry." There was a minute's pause, and then Sir Thomas began again, "What a secretive little girl that dear little Miss Milly must be, never to have told me a word of all this, Harry. She kept as quiet about all details as if she was sworn to the utmost secrecy." Harry rose and opened the library door. "Milly!" he called out, and a light little figure glided in from the drawing-room opposite. "We expect to be married in three weeks, uncle--as soon as the banns can be published," Harry went on, presenting his future wife as it were to the Colonel. 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18640	----	The original illustrations were generously provided by Internet Archive (https://archive.org). Editorial Note: _Phineas Redux_ was published first in serial form in the _Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper_ from July, 1873, to January, 1874, and then in book form by Chapman and Hall in 1874. The _Graphic_ version contained 26 illustrations by Frank (Francis Montague) Holl (1845-1888). Twenty-four of those were published in the Chapman and Hall first edition and are included in this e-book. They can be seen by viewing the HTML version of this file. See 18640-h.htm or 18640-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h/18640-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h.zip) Images of the original illustrations are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich PHINEAS REDUX by ANTHONY TROLLOPE CONTENTS VOLUME I I. TEMPTATION II. HARRINGTON HALL III. GERARD MAULE IV. TANKERVILLE V. MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE VI. PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS VII. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING VIII. THE ADDRESS IX. THE DEBATE X. THE DESERTED HUSBAND XI. THE TRUANT WIFE XII. KÖNIGSTEIN XIII. "I HAVE GOT THE SEAT" XIV. TRUMPETON WOOD XV. "HOW WELL YOU KNEW!" XVI. COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES XVII. MADAME GOESLER'S STORY XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON HALL XIX. SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY XX. PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON XXI. MR. MAULE, SENIOR XXII. "PURITY OF MORALS, FINN" XXIII. MACPHERSON'S HOTEL XXIV. MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR XXV. "I WOULD DO IT NOW" XXVI. THE DUKE'S WILL XXVII. AN EDITOR'S WRATH XXVIII. THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT XXIX. THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE XXX. REGRETS XXXI. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN XXXII. THE WORLD BECOMES COLD XXXIII. THE TWO GLADIATORS XXXIV. THE UNIVERSE XXXV. POLITICAL VENOM XXXVI. SEVENTY-TWO XXXVII. THE CONSPIRACY XXXVIII. ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE XXXIX. CAGLIOSTRO XL. THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED VOLUME II XLI. "I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED" XLII. BOULOGNE XLIII. THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT XLIV. THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL XLV. SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS XLVI. THE QUARREL XLVII. WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL XLVIII. MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT XLIX. SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN L. WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER LI. "YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL" LII. MR. KENNEDY'S WILL LIII. NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR LIV. THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL LV. PHINEAS IN PRISON LVI. THE MEAGER FAMILY LVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT LVIII. THE TWO DUKES LIX. MRS. BONTEEN LX. TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL LXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL LXII. LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE LXIII. MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE LXIV. CONFUSION IN THE COURT LXV. "I HATE HER!" LXVI. THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON LXVII. THE VERDICT LXVIII. PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL LXIX. THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN LXX. "I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER" LXXI. PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED LXXII. THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE LXXIII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES LXXIV. AT MATCHING LXXV. THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED LXXVI. MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY LXXVII. PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS LXXVIII. THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY LXXIX. AT LAST--AT LAST LXXX. CONCLUSION ILLUSTRATIONS LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY. CHAPTER II. "WELL, THEN, I WON'T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN." CHAPTER VI. ADELAIDE PALLISER. CHAPTER VII. THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER. CHAPTER X. "I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF." CHAPTER XV. "YOU KNOW IT'S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL." CHAPTER XVIII. HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL. CHAPTER XIX. "THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH." CHAPTER XXIII. "I WOULD; I WOULD." CHAPTER XXV. "LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE CHAPTER XXX. VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE." "I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT, CHAPTER XXXI. I SUPPOSE." "I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU." CHAPTER XXXVIII. "THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN MUST CHAPTER XLV. BE PRIME MINISTER." "WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN WHO CHAPTER XLVIII. DOES NOT WANT YOU?" "HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW. CHAPTER XLIX. "HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART." CHAPTER LII. OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA. CHAPTER LV. LIZZIE EUSTACE. CHAPTER LIX. "VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM." CHAPTER LXI. THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON. CHAPTER LXVI. AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER CHAPTER LXVIII. FATHER'S HOUSE. LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS. CHAPTER LXX. "YES, THERE SHE IS." CHAPTER LXXIV. THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM, CHAPTER LXXIX. THROWING HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK. VOLUME I. CHAPTER I. TEMPTATION. The circumstances of the general election of 18-- will be well remembered by all those who take an interest in the political matters of the country. There had been a coming in and a going out of Ministers previous to that,--somewhat rapid, very exciting, and, upon the whole, useful as showing the real feeling of the country upon sundry questions of public interest. Mr. Gresham had been Prime Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years previous had not received their share of State honours or State emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party was entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the Government within its own hands. Let a man be of what side he may in politics,--unless he be much more of a partisan than a patriot,--he will think it well that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord Lieutenant of a county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the administration of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal? Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England in India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might have endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to them, the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the Conservatives was spoliation when the privilege of cutting was found to have so much exceeded what had been expected. Were not they, the Liberals, the real representatives of the people, and, therefore, did not the cake in truth appertain to them? Had not they given up the cake for a while, partly, indeed, through idleness and mismanagement, and quarrelling among themselves; but mainly with a feeling that a moderate slicing on the other side would, upon the whole, be advantageous? But when the cake came to be mauled like that--oh, heavens! So the men who had quarrelled agreed to quarrel no more, and it was decided that there should be an end of mismanagement and idleness, and that this horrid sight of the weak pretending to be strong, or the weak receiving the reward of strength, should be brought to an end. Then came a great fight, in the last agonies of which the cake was sliced manfully. All the world knew how the fight would go; but in the meantime lord-lieutenancies were arranged; very ancient judges retired upon pensions; vice-royal Governors were sent out in the last gasp of the failing battle; great places were filled by tens, and little places by twenties; private secretaries were established here and there; and the hay was still made even after the sun had gone down. In consequence of all this the circumstances of the election of 18-- were peculiar. Mr. Daubeny had dissolved the House, not probably with any idea that he could thus retrieve his fortunes, but feeling that in doing so he was occupying the last normal position of a properly-fought Constitutional battle. His enemies were resolved, more firmly than they were resolved before, to knock him altogether on the head at the general election which he had himself called into existence. He had been disgracefully out-voted in the House of Commons on various subjects. On the last occasion he had gone into his lobby with a minority of 37, upon a motion brought forward by Mr. Palliser, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting decimal coinage. No politician, not even Mr. Palliser himself, had expected that he would carry his Bill in the present session. It was brought forward as a trial of strength; and for such a purpose decimal coinage was as good a subject as any other. It was Mr. Palliser's hobby, and he was gratified at having this further opportunity of ventilating it. When in power, he had not succeeded in carrying his measure, awed, and at last absolutely beaten, by the infinite difficulty encountered in arranging its details. But his mind was still set upon it, and it was allowed by the whole party to be as good as anything else for the purpose then required. The Conservative Government was beaten for the third or fourth time, and Mr. Daubeny dissolved the House. The whole world said that he might as well have resigned at once. It was already the end of July, and there must be an autumn Session with the new members. It was known to be impossible that he should find himself supported by a majority after a fresh election. He had been treated with manifest forbearance; the cake had been left in his hands for twelve months; the House was barely two years old; he had no "cry" with which to meet the country; the dissolution was factious, dishonest, and unconstitutional. So said all the Liberals, and it was deduced also that the Conservatives were in their hearts as angry as were their opponents. What was to be gained but the poor interval of three months? There were clever men who suggested that Mr. Daubeny had a scheme in his head--some sharp trick of political conjuring, some "hocus-pocus presto" sleight of hand, by which he might be able to retain power, let the elections go as they would. But, if so, he certainly did not make his scheme known to his own party. He had no cry with which to meet the country, nor, indeed, had the leaders of the Opposition. Retrenchment, army reform, navy excellence, Mr. Palliser's decimal coinage, and general good government gave to all the old-Whig moderate Liberals plenty of matter for speeches to their future constituents. Those who were more advanced could promise the Ballot, and suggest the disestablishment of the Church. But the Government of the day was to be turned out on the score of general incompetence. They were to be made to go, because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents, and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that was almost ferocious. A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if it have to be sought afresh every other Session. One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament, but a majority of good men--of men good and true. There must be no more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness. Was it to be borne that an unprincipled so-called Conservative Prime Minister should go on slicing the cake after such a fashion as that lately adopted? Old bishops had even talked of resigning, and Knights of the Garter had seemed to die on purpose. So there was a great stir at the Liberal political clubs, and every good and true man was summoned to the battle. Now no Liberal soldier, as a young soldier, had been known to be more good and true than Mr. Finn, the Irishman, who had held office two years ago to the satisfaction of all his friends, and who had retired from office because he had found himself compelled to support a measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal party in a certain very private room not far removed from our great seat of parliamentary warfare; and when the capabilities, and expediencies, and possibilities were tossed to and fro among these active members, it came to pass that the name of Mr. Finn was mentioned more than once. Mr. Phineas Finn was the gentleman's name--which statement may be necessary to explain the term of endearment which was occasionally used in speaking of him. "He has got some permanent place," said Mr. Ratler, who was living on the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new dispensation; "and of course he won't leave it." It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas Finn. "He'll lave it fast enough, if you'll make it worth his while," said the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations. "But he married when he went away, and he can't afford it," said Mr. Bonteen, another keen expectant. "Devil a bit," said the Honourable Laurence; "or, anyways, the poor thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn't an impidiment, no more than I have." "He's the best Irishman we ever got hold of," said Barrington Erle--"present company always excepted, Laurence." "Bedad, you needn't except me, Barrington. I know what a man's made of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can't do. I'm not bad at the outside skirmishing. I'm worth me salt. I say that with a just reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man. Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come back again after dinner. He's had money left him, too, and 'd like to spend some of it on an English borough." "You never can quite trust him," said Bonteen. Now Mr. Bonteen had never loved Mr. Finn. "At any rate we'll try him again," said Barrington Erle, making a little note to that effect. And they did try him again. Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place under Government in his own country, with something of a shattered ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing Street. There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity. He had revelled in the gas-light, and could not lie quiet on a sunny bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging in Dublin the routine duties of his office,--as to which there was no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face of the country,--he became sick at heart and discontented. Like the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle and the noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to him, and cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners; but he found that men and women in Dublin were different from those to whom he had been accustomed in London. He had lived among lords, and the sons and daughters of lords; and though the official secretaries and assistant commissioners among whom his lot now threw him were for the most part clever fellows, fond of society, and perhaps more than his equals in the kind of conversation which he found to be prevalent, still they were not the same as the men he had left behind him,--men alive with the excitement of parliamentary life in London. When in London he had often told himself that he was sick of it, and that he would better love some country quiet life. Now Dublin was his Tibur, and the fickle one found that he could not be happy unless he were back again at Rome. When, therefore, he received the following letter from his friend, Barrington Erle, he neighed like the old warhorse, and already found himself shouting "Ha, ha," among the trumpets. ---- Street, 9th July, 18--. MY DEAR FINN, Although you are not now immediately concerned in such trifling matters you have no doubt heard that we are all to be sent back at once to our constituents, and that there will be a general election about the end of September. We are sure that we shall have such a majority as we never had before; but we are determined to make it as strong as possible, and to get in all the good men that are to be had. Have you a mind to try again? After all, there is nothing like it. Perhaps you may have some Irish seat in your eye for which you would be safe. To tell the truth we know very little of the Irish seats--not so much as, I think, we ought to do. But if you are not so lucky I would suggest Tankerville in Durham. Of course there would be a contest, and a little money will be wanted; but the money would not be much. Browborough has sat for the place now for three Parliaments, and seems to think it all his own. I am told that nothing could be easier than to turn him out. You will remember the man--a great, hulking, heavy, speechless fellow, who always used to sit just over Lord Macaw's shoulder. I have made inquiry, and I am told that he must walk if anybody would go down who could talk to the colliers every night for a week or so. It would just be the work for you. Of course, you should have all the assistance we could give you, and Molescroft would put you into the hands of an agent who wouldn't spend money for you. £500 would do it all. I am very sorry to hear of your great loss, as also was Lady Laura, who, as you are aware, is still abroad with her father. We have all thought that the loneliness of your present life might perhaps make you willing to come back among us. I write instead of Ratler, because I am helping him in the Northern Counties. But you will understand all about that. Yours, ever faithfully, BARRINGTON ERLE. Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has spent a fortune there. But I do not think that that need dishearten you. You will go there with clean hands. It must be understood that there shall not be as much as a glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be afraid to do it heavily after all that has come and gone. If he does you'll have him out on a petition. Let us have an answer as soon as possible. He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length of the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that, when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money, there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it. Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a canon set, which some men still fear to disobey. The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his wants. His work was light; he lived among men and women with whom he was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what? He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence. The reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he liked best. It was suggested to him that he should again have within his reach that parliamentary renown which had once been the very breath of his nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations, antagonistic to prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in rashness. "None but the brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a will there's a way." "Nothing venture nothing have." "The sword is to him who can use it." "Fortune favours the bold." But on the other side there is just as much to be said. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." "Look before you leap." "Thrust not out your hand further than you can draw it back again." All which maxims of life Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if not carefully, at least frequently, as he walked up and down the long pier of Kingston Harbour. But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when he before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment of his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in London, he was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits in Dublin? Did he not owe himself to his country? And then, again, what might not London do for him? Men who had begun as he begun had lived to rule over Cabinets, and to sway the Empire. He had been happy for a short twelvemonth with his young bride,--for a short twelvemonth,--and then she had been taken from him. Had she been spared to him he would never have longed for more than Fate had given him. He would never have sighed again for the glories of Westminster had his Mary not gone from him. Now he was alone in the world; and, though he could look forward to possible and not improbable events which would make that future disposition of himself a most difficult question for him, still he would dare to try. As the first result of Erle's letter Phineas was over in London early in August. If he went on with this matter, he must, of course, resign the office for holding which he was now paid a thousand a year. He could retain that as long as he chose to earn the money, but the earning of it would not be compatible with a seat in Parliament. He had a few thousand pounds with which he could pay for the contest at Tankerville, for the consequent petition which had been so generously suggested to him, and maintain himself in London for a session or two should he be so fortunate as to carry his election. Then he would be penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again opened, and he knew,--no one better,--that this oyster becomes harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself now, and here had come to him the chance of trying again. Early in August he went over to England, saw Mr. Molescroft, and made his first visit to Tankerville. He did not like the look of Tankerville; but nevertheless he resigned his place before the month was over. That was the one great step, or rather the leap in the dark,--and that he took. Things had been so arranged that the election at Tankerville was to take place on the 20th of October. When the dissolution had been notified to all the world by Mr. Daubeny an earlier day was suggested; but Mr. Daubeny saw reasons for postponing it for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny's enemies were again very ferocious. It was all a trick. Mr. Daubeny had no right to continue Prime Minister a day after the decided expression of opinion as to unfitness which had been pronounced by the House of Commons. Men were waxing very wrath. Nevertheless, so much power remained in Mr. Daubeny's hand, and the election was delayed. That for Tankerville would not be held till the 20th of October. The whole House could not be chosen till the end of the month,--hardly by that time--and yet there was to be an autumn Session. The Ratlers and Bonteens were at any rate clear about the autumn Session. It was absolutely impossible that Mr. Daubeny should be allowed to remain in power over Christmas, and up to February. Mr. Molescroft, whom Phineas saw in London, was not a comfortable counsellor. "So you are going down to Tankerville?" he said. "They seem to think I might as well try." "Quite right;--quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt. It would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed to walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint of money and brass." "You think we can unseat him?" "I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to his brass that is positively without end." "But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been done?" "None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?" "They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like to have the things said of me that have been said of them." "I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who knows whose turn it may be next?" "He'll play the old game, then?" "Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?" "Certainly I do." "Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him. He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because you try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low interloper. But you won't care about that." "Not in the least, if I can get the seat." "But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action. However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly is possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening, but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand. CHAPTER II. HARRINGTON HALL. Phineas, on his first arrival in London, found a few of his old friends, men who were still delayed by business though the Session was over. He arrived on the 10th of August, which may be considered as the great day of the annual exodus, and he remembered how he, too, in former times had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse, and what he had done there besides shooting. He had been a welcome guest at Loughlinter, the magnificent seat of Mr. Kennedy, and indeed there had been that between him and Mr. Kennedy which ought to make him a welcome guest there still. But of Mr. Kennedy he had heard nothing directly since he had left London. From Mr. Kennedy's wife, Lady Laura, who had been his great friend, he had heard occasionally; but she was separated from her husband, and was living abroad with her father, the Earl of Brentford. Has it not been written in a former book how this Lady Laura had been unhappy in her marriage, having wedded herself to a man whom she had never loved, because he was rich and powerful, and how this very Phineas had asked her to be his bride after she had accepted the rich man's hand? Thence had come great trouble, but nevertheless there had been that between Mr. Kennedy and our hero which made Phineas feel that he ought still to be welcomed as a guest should he show himself at the door of Loughlinter Castle. The idea came upon him simply because he found that almost every man for whom he inquired had just started, or was just starting, for the North; and he would have liked to go where others went. He asked a few questions as to Mr. Kennedy from Barrington Erle and others, who had known him, and was told that the man now lived quite alone. He still kept his seat in Parliament, but had hardly appeared during the last Session, and it was thought that he would not come forward again. Of his life in the country nothing was known. "No one fishes his rivers, or shoots his moors, as far as I can learn," said Barrington Erle. "I suppose he looks after the sheep and says his prayers, and keeps his money together." "And there has been no attempt at a reconciliation?" Phineas asked. "She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order that she may be safe. Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest." In September Finn was back in Ireland, and about the end of that month he made his first visit to Tankerville. He remained there for three or four days, and was terribly disgusted while staying at the "Yellow" inn, to find that the people of the town would treat him as though he were rolling in wealth. He was soon tired of Tankerville, and as he could do nothing further, on the spot, till the time for canvassing should come on, about ten days previous to the election, he returned to London, somewhat at a loss to know how to bestir himself. But in London he received a letter from another old friend, which decided him:-- "My dear Mr. Finn," said the letter, of course you know that Oswald is now master of the Brake hounds. Upon my word, I think it is the place in the world for which he is most fit. He is a great martinet in the field, and works at it as though it were for his bread. We have been here looking after the kennels and getting up the horses since the beginning of August, and have been cub-hunting ever so long. Oswald wants to know whether you won't come down to him till the election begins in earnest. We were so glad to hear that you were going to appear again. I have always known that it would be so. I have told Oswald scores of times that I was sure you would never be happy out of Parliament, and that your real home must be somewhere near the Treasury Chambers. You can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master of hounds, and you were born to be a Secretary of State. He works the hardest and gets the least pay for it; but then, as he says, he does not run so great a risk of being turned out. We haven't much of a house, but we have plenty of room for you. As for the house, it was a matter of course, whether good or bad. It goes with the kennels, and I should as little think of having a choice as though I were one of the horses. We have very good stables, and such a stud! I can't tell you how many there are. In October it seems as though their name were legion. In March there is never anything for any body to ride on. I generally find then that mine are taken for the whips. Do come and take advantage of the flush. I can't tell you how glad we shall be to see you. Oswald ought to have written himself, but he says--; I won't tell you what he says. We shall take no refusal. You can have nothing to do before you are wanted at Tankerville. I was so sorry to hear of your great loss. I hardly know whether to mention it or to be silent in writing. If you were here of course I should speak of her. And I would rather renew your grief for a time than allow you to think that I am indifferent. Pray come to us. Yours ever most sincerely, VIOLET CHILTERN. Harrington Hall, Wednesday. Phineas Finn at once made up his mind that he would go to Harrington Hall. There was the prospect in this of an immediate return to some of the most charming pleasures of the old life, which was very grateful to him. It pleased him much that he should have been so thought of by this lady,--that she should have sought him out at once, at the moment of his reappearance. That she would have remembered him, he was quite sure, and that her husband, Lord Chiltern, should remember him also, was beyond a doubt. There had been passages in their joint lives which people cannot forget. But it might so well have been the case that they should not have cared to renew their acquaintance with him. As it was, they must have made close inquiry, and had sought him at the first day of his reappearance. The letter had reached him through the hands of Barrington Erle, who was a cousin of Lord Chiltern, and was at once answered as follows:-- Fowler's Hotel, Jermyn Street, October 1st. MY DEAR LADY CHILTERN, I cannot tell you how much pleasure the very sight of your handwriting gave me. Yes, here I am again, trying my hand at the old game. They say that you can never cure a gambler or a politician; and, though I had very much to make me happy till that great blow came upon me, I believe that it is so. I am uneasy till I can see once more the Speaker's wig, and hear bitter things said of this "right honourable gentleman," and of that noble friend. I want to be once more in the midst of it; and as I have been left singularly desolate in the world, without a tie by which I am bound to aught but an honourable mode of living, I have determined to run the risk, and have thrown up the place which I held under Government. I am to stand for Tankerville, as you have heard, and I am told by those to whose tender mercies I have been confided by B. E. that I have not a chance of success. Your invitation is so tempting that I cannot refuse it. As you say, I have nothing to do till the play begins. I have issued my address, and must leave my name and my fame to be discussed by the Tankervillians till I make my appearance among them on the 10th of this month. Of course, I had heard that Chiltern has the Brake, and I have heard also that he is doing it uncommonly well. Tell him that I have hardly seen a hound since the memorable day on which I pulled him out from under his horse in the brook at Wissindine. I don't know whether I can ride a yard now. I will get to you on the 4th, and will remain if you will keep me till the 9th. If Chiltern can put me up on anything a little quieter than Bonebreaker, I'll go out steadily, and see how he does his cubbing. I may, perhaps, be justified in opining that Bonebreaker has before this left the establishment. If so I may, perhaps, find myself up to a little very light work. Remember me very kindly to him. Does he make a good nurse with the baby? Yours, always faithfully, PHINEAS FINN. I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look forward to seeing you both again. The next few days went very heavily with him. There had, indeed, been no real reason why he should not have gone to Harrington Hall at once, except that he did not wish to seem to be utterly homeless. And yet were he there, with his old friends, he would not scruple for a moment in owning that such was the case. He had fixed his day, however, and did remain in London till the 4th. Barrington Erle and Mr. Ratler he saw occasionally, for they were kept in town on the affairs of the election. The one was generally full of hope; but the other was no better than a Job's comforter. "I wouldn't advise you to expect too much at Tankerville, you know," said Mr. Ratler. "By no means," said Phineas, who had always disliked Ratler, and had known himself to be disliked in return. "I expect nothing." "Browborough understands such a place as Tankerville so well! He has been at it all his life. Money is no object to him, and he doesn't care a straw what anybody says of him. I don't think it's possible to unseat him." "We'll try at least," said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off, though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing the gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken to him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at Tankerville. He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet during the period she had undergone that great change which turns a girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into the room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,--as a loved and loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping dogs?" [Illustration: Lady Chiltern and her baby.] "Only that the yelping dogs depend on you." "It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now. Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back. They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was ever known to break, and they won't be home till six." "Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat. "The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew her?" "Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?" "She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs. Attenbury." "I remember Mrs. Attenbury." "Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the _Times_." "Writes for the _Times_!" "I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other thing about her. She's engaged to be married." "To whom?" "I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her." "You must know, if she's your friend." "Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to bed." "Go to bed!" "We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three." "He doesn't get up at three now." "Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know so well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit altered." "I feel to be changed in everything." "Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;--or perhaps a miserable spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs." "Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?" "Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,--which is not just what a mother looks for." "That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler." "Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than ours." Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped by the noise of an arrival in the hall. "There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the drawing-room. Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped, and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not gone altogether straight. "Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know." "What was it, Oswald?" "Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again." "I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself." "Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull,' but we make it do." Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that that life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at any rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which, as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear friends of that period of feverish success would for the future be to him as--nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any tidings. He had expected to receive none,--had known that in the common course of things none was to be expected. There were many others with whom he had been intimate--Barrington Erle, Laurence Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had banished himself from the political world;--from none of these had he received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the battle. There had never been a time during his late life in Dublin at which he had complained to himself that on this account his former friends had forgotten him. If they had not written to him, neither had he written to them. But on his first arrival in England he had, in the sadness of his solitude, told himself that he was forgotten. There would be no return, so he feared, of those pleasant intimacies which he now remembered so well, and which, as he remembered them, were so much more replete with unalloyed delights than they had ever been in their existing realities. And yet here he was, a welcome guest in Lord Chiltern's house, a welcome guest in Lady Chiltern's drawing-room, and quite as much at home with them as ever he had been in the old days. Who is there that can write letters to all his friends, or would not find it dreary work to do so even in regard to those whom he really loves? When there is something palpable to be said, what a blessing is the penny post! To one's wife, to one's child, one's mistress, one's steward if there be a steward; one's gamekeeper, if there be shooting forward; one's groom, if there be hunting; one's publisher, if there be a volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But what has a man to say to his friend,--or, for that matter, what has a woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if the Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by his Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is naught. Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will diminish friendship. It is a rule of nature that it should be so, and thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he can best enjoy. If your friend leave you, and seek a residence in Patagonia, make a niche for him in your memory, and keep him there as warm as you may. Perchance he may return from Patagonia and the old joys may be repeated. But never think that those joys can be maintained by the assistance of ocean postage, let it be at never so cheap a rate. Phineas Finn had not thought this matter out very carefully, and now, after two years of absence, he was surprised to find that he was still had in remembrance by those who had never troubled themselves to write to him a line during his absence. When he went down into the drawing-room he was surprised to find another old friend sitting there alone. "Mr. Finn," said the old lady, "I hope I see you quite well. I am glad to meet you again. You find my niece much changed, I dare say?" "Not in the least, Lady Baldock," said Phineas, seizing the proffered hand of the dowager. In that hour of conversation, which they had had together, Lady Chiltern had said not a word to Phineas of her aunt, and now he felt himself to be almost discomposed by the meeting. "Is your daughter here, Lady Baldock?" Lady Baldock shook her head solemnly and sadly. "Do not speak of her, Mr. Finn. It is too sad! We never mention her name now." Phineas looked as sad as he knew how to look, but he said nothing. The lamentation of the mother did not seem to imply that the daughter was dead; and, from his remembrance of Augusta Boreham, he would have thought her to be the last woman in the world to run away with the coachman. At the moment there did not seem to be any other sufficient cause for so melancholy a wagging of that venerable head. He had been told to say nothing, and he could ask no questions; but Lady Baldock did not choose that he should be left to imagine things more terrible than the truth. "She is lost to us for ever, Mr. Finn." "How very sad." "Sad, indeed! We don't know how she took it." "Took what, Lady Baldock?" "I am sure it was nothing that she ever saw at home. If there is a thing I'm true to, it is the Protestant Established Church of England. Some nasty, low, lying, wheedling priest got hold of her, and now she's a nun, and calls herself--Sister Veronica John!" Lady Baldock threw great strength and unction into her description of the priest; but as soon as she had told her story a sudden thought struck her. "Oh, laws! I quite forgot. I beg your pardon, Mr. Finn; but you're one of them!" "Not a nun, Lady Baldock." At that moment the door was opened, and Lord Chiltern came in, to the great relief of his wife's aunt. CHAPTER III. GERARD MAULE. "Why didn't you tell me?" said Phineas that night after Lady Baldock was gone to bed. The two men had taken off their dress coats, and had put on smoking caps,--Lord Chiltern, indeed, having clothed himself in a wonderful Chinese dressing-gown, and they were sitting round the fire in the smoking-room; but though they were thus employed and thus dressed the two younger ladies were still with them. "How could I tell you everything in two minutes?" said Lady Chiltern. "I'd have given a guinea to have heard her," said Lord Chiltern, getting up and rubbing his hands as he walked about the room. "Can't you fancy all that she'd say, and then her horror when she'd remember that Phineas was a Papist himself?" "But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?" "I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home," said the lord. "They couldn't well be heavier." "Dear old aunt!" "Does she never go to see Sister Veronica?" asked Miss Palliser. "She has been once," said Lady Chiltern. "And fumigated herself first so as to escape infection," said the husband. "You should hear Gerard Maule imitate her when she talks about the filthy priest." "And who is Gerard Maule?" Then Lady Chiltern looked at her friend, and Phineas was almost sure that Gerard Maule was the man who was dying for Adelaide Palliser. "He's a great ally of mine," said Lady Chiltern. "He's a young fellow who thinks he can ride to hounds," said Lord Chiltern, "and who very often does succeed in riding over them." "That's not fair, Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser. "Just my idea of it," replied the Master. "I don't think it's at all fair. Because a man has plenty of horses, and nothing else to do, and rides twelve stone, and doesn't care how he's sworn at, he's always to be over the scent, and spoil every one's sport. I don't call it at all fair." "He's a very nice fellow, and a great friend of Oswald's. He is to be here to-morrow, and you'll like him very much. Won't he, Adelaide?" "I don't know Mr. Finn's tastes quite so well as you do, Violet. But Mr. Maule is so harmless that no one can dislike him very much." "As for being harmless, I'm not so sure," said Lady Chiltern. After that they all went to bed. Phineas remained at Harrington Hall till the ninth, on which day he went to London so that he might be at Tankerville on the tenth. He rode Lord Chiltern's horses, and took an interest in the hounds, and nursed the baby. "Now tell me what you think of Gerard Maule," Lady Chiltern asked him, the day before he started. "I presume that he is the young man that is dying for Miss Palliser." "You may answer my question, Mr. Finn, without making any such suggestion." "Not discreetly. Of course if he is to be made happy, I am bound at the present moment to say all good things of him. At such a crisis it would be wicked to tinge Miss Palliser's hopes with any hue less warm than rose colour." "Do you suppose that I tell everything that is said to me?" "Not at all; but opinions do ooze out. I take him to be a good sort of a fellow; but why doesn't he talk a bit more?" "That's just it." "And why does he pretend to do nothing? When he's out he rides hard; but at other times there's a ha-ha, lack a-daisical air about him which I hate. Why men assume it I never could understand. It can recommend them to nobody. A man can't suppose that he'll gain anything by pretending that he never reads, and never thinks, and never does anything, and never speaks, and doesn't care what he has for dinner, and, upon the whole, would just as soon lie in bed all day as get up. It isn't that he is really idle. He rides and eats, and does get up, and I daresay talks and thinks. It's simply a poor affectation." "That's your rose colour, is it?" "You've promised secrecy, Lady Chiltern. I suppose he's well off?" "He is an eldest son. The property is not large, and I'm afraid there's something wrong about it." "He has no profession?" "None at all. He has an allowance of £800 a year, which in some sort of fashion is independent of his father. He has nothing on earth to do. Adelaide's whole fortune is four thousand pounds. If they were to marry what would become of them?" "That wouldn't be enough to live on?" "It ought to be enough,--as he must, I suppose, have the property some day,--if only he had something to do. What sort of a life would he lead?" "I suppose he couldn't become a Master of Hounds?" "That is ill-natured, Mr. Finn." "I did not mean it so. I did not indeed. You must know that I did not." "Of course Oswald had nothing to do, and, of course, there was a time when I wished that he should take to Parliament. No one knew all that better than you did. But he was very different from Mr. Maule." "Very different, indeed." "Oswald is a man full of energy, and with no touch of that affectation which you described. As it is, he does work hard. No man works harder. The learned people say that you should produce something, and I don't suppose that he produces much. But somebody must keep hounds, and nobody could do it better than he does." "You don't think that I meant to blame him?" "I hope not." "Are he and his father on good terms now?" "Oh, yes. His father wishes him to go to Saulsby, but he won't do that. He hates Saulsby." Saulsby was the country seat of the Earl of Brentford, the name of the property which must some day belong to this Lord Chiltern, and Phineas, as he heard this, remembered former days in which he had ridden about Saulsby Woods, and had thought them to be anything but hateful. "Is Saulsby shut up?" he asked. "Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was anything more sad or desolate. You would find him altered, Mr. Finn. He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or two;--in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. He and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have." "Does she write?" "Yes; and keeps up all her interest about politics. I have already told her that you are to stand for Tankerville. No one,--no other human being in the world will be so interested for you as she is. If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend's welfare, she will feel such an interest for you. If you were to succeed it would give her a hope in life." Phineas sat silent, drinking in the words that were said to him. Though they were true, or at least meant to be true, they were full of flattery. Why should this woman of whom they were speaking love him so dearly? She was nothing to him. She was highly born, greatly gifted, wealthy, and a married woman, whose character, as he well knew, was beyond the taint of suspicion, though she had been driven by the hard sullenness of her husband to refuse to live under his roof. Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy had not seen each other for two years, and when they had parted, though they had lived as friends, there had been no signs of still living friendship. True, indeed, she had written to him, but her letters had been short and cold, merely detailing certain circumstances of her outward life. Now he was told by this woman's dearest friend that his welfare was closer to her heart than any other interest! "I daresay you often think of her?" said Lady Chiltern. "Indeed, I do." "What virtues she used to ascribe to you! What sins she forgave you! How hard she fought for you! Now, though she can fight no more, she does not think of it all the less." "Poor Lady Laura!" "Poor Laura, indeed! When one sees such shipwreck it makes a woman doubt whether she ought to marry at all." "And yet he was a good man. She always said so." "Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this Mr. Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of living if he marries her." "Then they are to be married?" "I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.'" "I suppose she likes him?" "Of course she does. A girl almost always likes a man who is in love with her,--unless indeed she positively dislikes him. But why should she like him? He is good-looking, is a gentleman, and not a fool. Is that enough to make such a girl as Adelaide Palliser think a man divine?" "Is nobody to be accepted who is not credited with divinity?" "The man should be a demigod, at least in respect to some part of his character. I can find nothing even demi-divine about Mr. Maule." "That's because you are not in love with him, Lady Chiltern." Six or seven very pleasant days Phineas Finn spent at Harrington Hall, and then he started alone, and very lonely, for Tankerville. But he admitted to himself that the pleasure which he had received during his visit was quite sufficient to qualify him in running any risk in an attempt to return to the kind of life which he had formerly led. But if he should fail at Tankerville what would become of him then? CHAPTER IV. TANKERVILLE. The great Mr. Molescroft himself came over to Tankerville for the purpose of introducing our hero to the electors and to Mr. Ruddles, the local Liberal agent, who was to be employed. They met at the Lambton Arms, and there Phineas established himself, knowing well that he had before him ten days of unmitigated vexation and misery. Tankerville was a dirty, prosperous, ungainly town, which seemed to exude coal-dust or coal-mud at every pore. It was so well recognised as being dirty that people did not expect to meet each other with clean hands and faces. Linen was never white at Tankerville, and even ladies who sat in drawing-rooms were accustomed to the feel and taste and appearance of soot in all their daintiest recesses. We hear that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum is hardly considered to be disagreeable, and so it was with the flavour of coal at Tankerville. And we know that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum must not be openly declared to be objectionable, and so it was with coal at Tankerville. At Tankerville coal was much loved, and was not thought to be dirty. Mr. Ruddles was very much begrimed himself, and some of the leading Liberal electors, upon whom Phineas Finn had already called, seemed to be saturated with the product of the district. It would not, however, in any event be his duty to live at Tankerville, and he had believed from the first moment of his entrance into the town that he would soon depart from it, and know it no more. He felt that the chance of his being elected was quite a forlorn hope, and could hardly understand why he had allowed himself to be embarrassed by so very unprofitable a speculation. Phineas Finn had thrice before this been chosen to sit in Parliament--twice for the Irish borough of Loughshane, and once for the English borough of Loughton; but he had been so happy as hitherto to have known nothing of the miseries and occasional hopelessness of a contested election. At Loughton he had come forward as the nominee of the Earl of Brentford, and had been returned without any chance of failure by that nobleman's influence. At Loughshane things had nearly been as pleasant with him. He had almost been taught to think that nothing could be easier than getting into Parliament if only a man could live when he was there. But Loughton and Loughshane were gone, with so many other comfortable things of old days, and now he found himself relegated to a borough to which, as it seemed to him, he was sent to fight, not that he might win, but because it was necessary to his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure, and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly more encouraging than Mr. Molescroft. "Browborough has been at work for the last three days," said Mr. Ruddles, in a tone of reproach. Mr. Ruddles had always thought that no amount of work could be too heavy for his candidates. "Will that make much difference?" asked Mr. Molescroft. "Well, it does. Of course, he has been among the colliers,--when we ought to have been before him." "I came when I was told," said Phineas. "I'd have telegraphed to you if I'd known where you were. But there's no help for spilt milk. We must get to work now,--that's all. I suppose you're for disestablishing the Church?" "Not particularly," said Phineas, who felt that with him, as a Roman Catholic, this was a delicate subject. "We needn't go into that, need we?" said Mr. Molescroft, who, though a Liberal, was a good Churchman. Mr. Ruddles was a Dissenter, but the very strong opinion which Mr. Ruddles now expressed as to the necessity that the new candidate should take up the Church question did not spring at all from his own religious convictions. His present duty called upon him to have a Liberal candidate if possible returned for the borough with which he was connected, and not to disseminate the doctrines of his own sect. Nevertheless, his opinion was very strong. "I think we must, Mr. Molescroft," said he; "I'm sure we must. Browborough has taken up the other side. He went to church last Sunday with the Mayor and two of the Aldermen, and I'm told he said all the responses louder than anybody else. He dined with the Vicar of Trinity on Monday. He has been very loud in denouncing Mr. Finn as a Roman Catholic, and has declared that everything will be up with the State if Tankerville returns a friend and supporter of the Pope. You'll find that the Church will be the cry here this election. You can't get anything by supporting it, but you may make a strong party by pledging yourself to disendowment." "Wouldn't local taxation do?" asked Mr. Molescroft, who indeed preferred almost any other reform to disendowment. "I have made up my mind that we must have some check on municipal expenditure," said Phineas. "It won't do--not alone. If I understand the borough, the feeling at this election will altogether be about the Church. You see, Mr. Finn, your being a Roman Catholic gives them a handle, and they're already beginning to use it. They don't like Roman Catholics here; but if you can manage to give it a sort of Liberal turn,--as many of your constituents used to do, you know,--as though you disliked Church and State rather than cared for the Pope, may be it might act on our side rather than on theirs. Mr. Molescroft understands it all." "Oh, yes; I understand." Mr. Ruddles said a great deal more to the same effect, and though Mr. Molescroft did not express any acquiescence in these views, neither did he dissent. The candidate said but little at this interview, but turned the matter over in his mind. A seat in Parliament would be but a barren honour, and he could not afford to offer his services for barren honour. Honest political work he was anxious to do, but for what work he did he desired to be paid. The party to which he belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great change. There is a consciousness on the minds of leading politicians that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures, drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which will certainly be at last effective by its own strength. The best carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against the coach as it trundles down the hill. All this Phineas knew, and was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years. Once already in his career he had chosen to be in advance of his party, and the consequences had been disastrous to him. On that occasion his feelings had been strong in regard to the measure upon which he broke away from his party; but, when he first thought of it, he did not care much about Church disendowment. But he found that he must needs go as he was driven or else depart out of the place. He wrote a line to his friend Erle, not to ask advice, but to explain the circumstances. "My only possible chance of success will lie in attacking the Church endowments. Of course I think they are bad, and of course I think that they must go. But I have never cared for the matter, and would have been very willing to leave it among those things which will arrange themselves. But I have no choice here." And so he prepared himself to run his race on the course arranged for him by Mr. Ruddles. Mr. Molescroft, whose hours were precious, soon took his leave, and Phineas Finn was placarded about the town as the sworn foe to all Church endowments. In the course of his canvass, and the commotions consequent upon it, he found that Mr. Ruddles was right. No other subject seemed at the moment to have any attraction in Tankerville. Mr. Browborough, whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life, repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now adopted--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people." He was not an orator. Indeed, it might be hard to find a man, who had for years been conversant with public life, less able to string a few words together for immediate use. Nor could he learn half-a-dozen sentences by rote. But he could stand up with unabashed brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times over--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people." Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only could he not have answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question. But the words as they came from his mouth had a weight which seemed to ensure their truth, and many men in Tankerville thought that Mr. Browborough was eloquent. Phineas, on the other hand, made two or three great speeches every evening, and astonished even Mr. Ruddles by his oratory. He had accepted Mr. Ruddles's proposition with but lukewarm acquiescence, but in the handling of the matter he became zealous, fiery, and enthusiastic. He explained to his hearers with gracious acknowledgment that Church endowments had undoubtedly been most beneficent in past times. He spoke in the interests of no special creed. Whether in the so-called Popish days of Henry VIII and his ancestors, or in the so-called Protestant days that had followed, the state of society had required that spiritual teaching should be supplied from funds fixed and devoted to the purpose. The increasing intelligence and population of the country made this no longer desirable,--or, if desirable, no longer possible. Could these endowments be increased to meet the needs of the increasing millions? Was it not the fact that even among members of the Church of England they were altogether inefficient to supply the wants of our great towns? Did the people of Tankerville believe that the clergymen of London, of Liverpool, and of Manchester were paid by endowments? The arguments which had been efficacious in Ireland must be efficacious in England. He said this without reference to one creed or to another. He did believe in religious teaching. He had not a word to say against a Protestant Episcopal Church. But he thought, nay he was sure, that Church and State, as combined institutions, could no longer prevail in this country. If the people of Tankerville would return him to Parliament it should be his first object to put an end to this anomaly. The Browboroughites were considerably astonished by his success. The colliers on this occasion did not seem to regard the clamour that was raised against Irish Papists. Much dirt was thrown and some heads were broken; but Phineas persevered. Mr. Ruddles was lost in admiration. They had never before had at Tankerville a man who could talk so well. Mr. Browborough without ceasing repeated his well-worn assurance, and it was received with the loudest exclamations of delight by his own party. The clergymen of the town and neighbourhood crowded round him and pursued him, and almost seemed to believe in him. They were at any rate fighting their battle as best they knew how to fight it. But the great body of the colliers listened to Phineas, and every collier was now a voter. Then Mr. Ruddles, who had many eyes, began to perceive that the old game was to be played. "There'll be money going to-morrow after all," he whispered to Finn the evening before the election. "I suppose you expected that." "I wasn't sure. They began by thinking they could do without it. They don't want to sacrifice the borough." "Nor do I, Mr. Ruddles." "But they'll sooner do that than lose the seat. A couple of dozen of men out of the Fallgate would make us safe." Mr. Ruddles smiled as he said this. And Phineas smiled as he answered, "If any good can be done by talking to the men at the Fallgate, I'll talk to them by the hour together." "We've about done all that," said Mr. Ruddles. Then came the voting. Up to two o'clock the polling was so equal that the numbers at Mr. Browborough's committee room were always given in his favour, and those at the Liberal room in favour of Phineas Finn. At three o'clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ten ahead. He himself was surprised at his own success, and declared to himself that his old luck had not deserted him. "They're giving £2 10_s._ a vote at the Fallgate this minute," said Ruddles to him at a quarter-past three. "We shall have to prove it." "We can do that, I think," said Ruddles. At four o'clock, when the poll was over, Browborough was declared to have won on the post by seven votes. He was that same evening declared by the Mayor to have been elected sitting member for the borough, and he again assured the people in his speech that the prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people. "We shall carry the seat on a scrutiny as sure as eggs," said Mr. Ruddles, who had been quite won by the gallant way in which Phineas had fought his battle. CHAPTER V. MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE. The whole Liberal party was taken very much by surprise at the course which the election ran. Or perhaps it might be more proper to say that the parliamentary leaders of the party were surprised. It had not been recognised by them as necessary that the great question of Church and State should be generally discussed on this occasion. It was a matter of course that it should be discussed at some places, and by some men. Eager Dissenters would, of course, take advantage of the opportunity to press their views, and no doubt the entire abolition of the Irish Church as a State establishment had taught Liberals to think and Conservatives to fear that the question would force itself forward at no very distant date. But it had not been expected to do so now. The general incompetence of a Ministry who could not command a majority on any measure was intended to be the strong point of the Liberal party, not only at the election, but at the meeting of Parliament. The Church question, which was necessarily felt by all statesmen to be of such magnitude as to dwarf every other, was not wanted as yet. It might remain in the background as the future standing-point for some great political struggle, in which it would be again necessary that every Liberal should fight, as though for life, with his teeth and nails. Men who ten years since regarded almost with abhorrence, and certainly with distrust, the idea of disruption between Church and State in England, were no doubt learning to perceive that such disruption must come, and were reconciling themselves to it after that slow, silent, inargumentative fashion in which convictions force themselves among us. And from reconciliation to the idea some were advancing to enthusiasm on its behalf. "It is only a question of time," was now said by many who hardly remembered how devoted they had been to the Established Church of England a dozen years ago. But the fruit was not yet ripe, and the leaders of the Liberal party by no means desired that it should be plucked. They were, therefore, surprised, and but little pleased, when they found that the question was more discussed than any other on the hustings of enthusiastically political boroughs. Barrington Erle was angry when he received the letter of Phineas Finn. He was at that moment staying with the Duke of St. Bungay, who was regarded by many as the only possible leader of the Liberal party, should Mr. Gresham for any reason fail them. Indeed the old Whigs, of whom Barrington Erle considered himself to be one, would have much preferred the Duke to Mr. Gresham, had it been possible to set Mr. Gresham aside. But Mr. Gresham was too strong to be set aside; and Erle and the Duke, with all their brethren, were minded to be thoroughly loyal to their leader. He was their leader, and not to be loyal was, in their minds, treachery. But occasionally they feared that the man would carry them whither they did not desire to go. In the meantime heavy things were spoken of our poor friend, Finn. "After all, that man is an ass," said Erle. "If so, I believe you are altogether responsible for him," said the Duke. "Well, yes, in a measure; but not altogether. That, however, is a long story. He has many good gifts. He is clever, good-tempered, and one of the pleasantest fellows that ever lived. The women all like him." "So the Duchess tells me." "But he is not what I call loyal. He cannot keep himself from running after strange gods. What need had he to take up the Church question at Tankerville? The truth is, Duke, the thing is going to pieces. We get men into the House now who are clever, and all that sort of thing, and who force their way up, but who can't be made to understand that everybody should not want to be Prime Minister." The Duke, who was now a Nestor among politicians, though very green in his age, smiled as he heard remarks which had been familiar to him for the last forty years. He, too, liked his party, and was fond of loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but that which Erle called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave without danger to himself. But if discontent was felt at the eagerness with which this subject was taken up at certain boroughs, and was adopted by men whose votes and general support would be essentially necessary to the would-be coming Liberal Government, absolute dismay was occasioned by a speech that was made at a certain county election. Mr. Daubeny had for many years been member for East Barsetshire, and was as sure of his seat as the Queen of her throne. No one would think of contesting Mr. Daubeny's right to sit for East Barsetshire, and no doubt he might have been returned without showing himself to the electors. But he did show himself to the electors; and, as a matter of course, made a speech on the occasion. It so happened that the day fixed for the election in this division of the county was quite at the close of this period of political excitement. When Mr. Daubeny addressed his friends in East Barsetshire the returns throughout the kingdom were nearly complete. No attention had been paid to this fact during the elections, but it was afterwards asserted that the arrangement had been made with a political purpose, and with a purpose which was politically dishonest. Mr. Daubeny, so said the angry Liberals, had not chosen to address his constituents till his speech at the hustings could have no effect on other counties. Otherwise,--so said the Liberals,--the whole Conservative party would have been called upon to disavow at the hustings the conclusion to which Mr. Daubeny hinted in East Barsetshire that he had arrived. The East Barsetshire men themselves,--so said the Liberals,--had been too crass to catch the meaning hidden under his ambiguous words; but those words, when read by the light of astute criticism, were found to contain an opinion that Church and State should be dissevered. "By G----! he's going to take the bread out of our mouths again," said Mr. Ratler. The speech was certainly very ambiguous, and I am not sure that the East Barsetshire folk were so crass as they were accused of being, in not understanding it at once. The dreadful hint was wrapped up in many words, and formed but a small part of a very long oration. The bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from the strength of his arguments. When he would explain to them that he had discovered a new, or rather hitherto unknown, Conservative element in the character of his countrymen, which he could best utilise by changing everything in the Constitution, he manipulated his words with such grace, was so profound, so broad, and so exalted, was so brilliant in mingling a deep philosophy with the ordinary politics of the day, that the bucolic mind could only admire. It was a great honour to the electors of that agricultural county that they should be made the first recipients of these pearls, which were not wasted by being thrown before them. They were picked up by the gentlemen of the Press, and became the pearls, not of East Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention; but it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms of government,--between our daily religion and our daily politics, between the Crown and the Mitre." The East Barsetshire clergymen and the East Barsetshire farmers like to hear something of the mitre in political speeches at the hustings. The word sounds pleasantly in their ears, as appertaining to good old gracious times and good old gracious things. As honey falls fast from the mouth of the practised speaker, the less practised hearer is apt to catch more of the words than of the sense. The speech of Mr. Daubeny was taken all in good part by his assembled friends. But when it was read by the quidnuncs on the following day it was found to contain so deep a meaning that it produced from Mr. Ratler's mouth those words of fear which have been already quoted. Could it really be the case that the man intended to perform so audacious a trick of legerdemain as this for the preservation of his power, and that if he intended it he should have the power to carry it through? The renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists between the Crown and the Mitre, when the bran was bolted, could only mean the disestablishment of the Church. Mr. Ratler and his friends were not long in bolting the bran. Regarding the matter simply in its own light, without bringing to bear upon it the experience of the last half-century, Mr. Ratler would have thought his party strong enough to defy Mr. Daubeny utterly in such an attempt. The ordinary politician, looking at Mr. Daubeny's position as leader of the Conservative party, as a statesman depending on the support of the Church, as a Minister appointed to his present place for the express object of defending all that was left of old, and dear, and venerable in the Constitution, would have declared that Mr. Daubeny was committing political suicide, as to which future history would record a verdict of probably not temporary insanity. And when the speech was a week old this was said in many a respectable household through the country. Many a squire, many a parson, many a farmer was grieved for Mr. Daubeny when the words had been explained to him, who did not for a moment think that the words could be portentous as to the great Conservative party. But Mr. Ratler remembered Catholic emancipation, had himself been in the House when the Corn Laws were repealed, and had been nearly broken-hearted when household suffrage had become the law of the land while a Conservative Cabinet and a Conservative Government were in possession of dominion in Israel. Mr. Bonteen was disposed to think that the trick was beyond the conjuring power even of Mr. Daubeny. "After all, you know, there is the party," he said to Mr. Ratler. Mr. Ratler's face was as good as a play, and if seen by that party would have struck that party with dismay and shame. The meaning of Mr. Ratler's face was plain enough. He thought so little of that party, on the score either of intelligence, honesty, or fidelity, as to imagine that it would consent to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead it. "If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr. Bonteen. "There's something they like a great deal better than the Church," said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another that they don't care now for anything beyond their places." "It's only a few of them get anything, after all." "Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting the counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't hang on somewhere,--or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill for the Corn Laws?" "There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen. "And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's too many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up among them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things slide,--as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they reconcile it to their conscience,--that's what I can't understand." Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr. Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter, "but I think it'll be too heavy." They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no less astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their disgust as plainly. Mr. Gresham was staying in the country with his friend, Lord Cantrip, when the tidings reached them of Mr. Daubeny's speech to the electors of East Barsetshire. Mr. Gresham and Lord Cantrip had long sat in the same Cabinet, and were fast friends, understanding each other's views, and thoroughly trusting each other's loyalty. "He means it," said Lord Cantrip. "He means to see if it be possible," said the other. "It is thrown out as a feeler to his own party." "I'll do him the justice of saying that he's not afraid of his party. If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him no other credit, but I give him that." Mr. Gresham paused for a few moments before he answered. "I do not know," said he, "whether we are justified in thinking that one man will always be the same. Daubeny has once been very audacious, and he succeeded. But he had two things to help him,--a leader, who, though thoroughly trusted, was very idle, and an ill-defined question. When he had won his leader he had won his party. He has no such tower of strength now. And in the doing of this thing, if he means to do it, he must encounter the assured conviction of every man on his own side, both in the upper and lower House. When he told them that he would tap a Conservative element by reducing the suffrage they did not know whether to believe him or not. There might be something in it. It might be that they would thus resume a class of suffrage existing in former days, but which had fallen into abeyance, because not properly protected. They could teach themselves to believe that it might be so, and those among them who found it necessary to free their souls did so teach themselves. I don't see how they are to free their souls when they are invited to put down the State establishment of the Church." "He'll find a way for them." "It's possible. I'm the last man in the world to contest the possibility, or even the expediency, of changes in political opinion. But I do not know whether it follows that because he was brave and successful once he must necessarily be brave and successful again. A man rides at some outrageous fence, and by the wonderful activity and obedient zeal of his horse is carried over it in safety. It does not follow that his horse will carry him over a house, or that he should be fool enough to ask the beast to do so." "He intends to ride at the house," said Lord Cantrip; "and he means it because others have talked of it. You saw the line which my rash young friend Finn took at Tankerville." "And all for nothing." "I am not so sure of that. They say he is like the rest. If Daubeny does carry the party with him, I suppose the days of the Church are numbered." "And what if they be?" Mr. Gresham almost sighed as he said this, although he intended to express a certain amount of satisfaction. "What if they be? You know, and I know, that the thing has to be done. Whatever may be our own individual feelings, or even our present judgment on the subject,--as to which neither of us can perhaps say that his mind is not so made up that it may not soon be altered,--we know that the present union cannot remain. It is unfitted for that condition of humanity to which we are coming, and if so, the change must be for good. Why should not he do it as well as another? Or rather would not he do it better than another, if he can do it with less of animosity than we should rouse against us? If the blow would come softer from his hands than from ours, with less of a feeling of injury to those who dearly love the Church, should we not be glad that he should undertake the task?" "Then you will not oppose him?" "Ah;--there is much to be considered before we can say that. Though he may not be bound by his friends, we may be bound by ours. And then, though I can hint to you at a certain condition of mind, and can sympathise with you, feeling that such may become the condition of your mind, I cannot say that I should act upon it as an established conviction, or that I can expect that you will do so. If such be the political programme submitted to us when the House meets, then we must be prepared." Lord Cantrip also paused a moment before he answered, but he had his answer ready. "I can frankly say that I should follow your leading, but that I should give my voice for opposition." "Your voice is always persuasive," said Mr. Gresham. But the consternation felt among Mr. Daubeny's friends was infinitely greater than that which fell among his enemies, when those wonderful words were read, discussed, criticised, and explained. It seemed to every clergyman in England that nothing short of disestablishment could be intended by them. And this was the man to whom they had all looked for protection! This was the bulwark of the Church, to whom they had trusted! This was the hero who had been so sound and so firm respecting the Irish Establishment, when evil counsels had been allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still sacred vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered among themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of the Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against this Cæsar! And yet, if not, what was the meaning of those words? And then men and women began to tell each other,--the men and women who are the very salt of the earth in this England of ours,--that their Brutus, in spite of his great qualities, had ever been mysterious, unintelligible, dangerous, and given to feats of conjuring. They had only been too submissive to their Brutus. Wonderful feats of conjuring they had endured, understanding nothing of the manner in which they were performed,--nothing of their probable results; but this feat of conjuring they would not endure. And so there were many meetings held about the country, though the time for combined action was very short. Nothing more audacious than the speaking of those few words to the bucolic electors of East Barsetshire had ever been done in the political history of England. Cromwell was bold when he closed the Long Parliament. Shaftesbury was bold when he formed the plot for which Lord Russell and others suffered. Walpole was bold when, in his lust for power, he discarded one political friend after another. And Peel was bold when he resolved to repeal the Corn Laws. But in none of these instances was the audacity displayed more wonderful than when Mr. Daubeny took upon himself to make known throughout the country his intention of abolishing the Church of England. For to such a declaration did those few words amount. He was now the recognised parliamentary leader of that party to which the Church of England was essentially dear. He had achieved his place by skill, rather than principle,--by the conviction on men's minds that he was necessary rather than that he was fit. But still, there he was; and, though he had alarmed many,--had, probably, alarmed all those who followed him by his eccentric and dangerous mode of carrying on the battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider. His utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England as an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it was believed that he was sound. To that mast it was supposed he had nailed his own colours and those of his party. In defending that fortress it was thought that he would be ready to fall, should the defence of it require a fall. It was because he was so far safe that he was there. And yet he spoke these words without consulting a single friend, or suggesting the propriety of his new scheme to a single supporter. And he knew what he was doing. This was the way in which he had thought it best to make known to his own followers, not only that he was about to abandon the old Institution, but that they must do so too! As regarded East Barsetshire itself, he was returned, and fêted, and sent home with his ears stuffed with eulogy, before the bucolic mind had discovered his purpose. On so much he had probably calculated. But he had calculated also that after an interval of three or four days his secret would be known to all friends and enemies. On the day after his speech came the report of it in the newspapers; on the next day the leading articles, in which the world was told what it was that the Prime Minister had really said. Then, on the following day, the startled parsons, and the startled squires and farmers, and, above all, the startled peers and members of the Lower House, whose duty it was to vote as he should lead them, were all agog. Could it be that the newspapers were right in this meaning which they had attached to these words? On the day week after the election in East Barsetshire, a Cabinet Council was called in London, at which it would, of course, be Mr. Daubeny's duty to explain to his colleagues what it was that he did purpose to do. In the meantime he saw a colleague or two. "Let us look it straight in the face," he said to a noble colleague; "we must look it in the face before long." "But we need not hurry it forward." "There is a storm coming. We knew that before, and we heard the sound of it from every husting in the country. How shall we rule the storm so that it may pass over the land without devastating it? If we bring in a bill--" "A bill for disestablishing the Church!" said the horror-stricken lord. "If we bring in a bill, the purport of which shall be to moderate the ascendancy of the Church in accordance with the existing religious feelings of the population, we shall save much that otherwise must fall. If there must be a bill, would you rather that it should be modelled by us who love the Church, or by those who hate it?" That lord was very wrath, and told the right honourable gentleman to his face that his duty to his party should have constrained him to silence on that subject till he had consulted his colleagues. In answer to this Mr. Daubeny said with much dignity that, should such be the opinion of his colleagues in general, he would at once abandon the high place which he held in their councils. But he trusted that it might be otherwise. He had felt himself bound to communicate his ideas to his constituents, and had known that in doing so some minds must be shocked. He trusted that he might be able to allay this feeling of dismay. As regarded this noble lord, he did succeed in lessening the dismay before the meeting was over, though he did not altogether allay it. Another gentleman who was in the habit of sitting at Mr. Daubeny's elbow daily in the House of Commons was much gentler with him, both as to words and manner. "It's a bold throw, but I'm afraid it won't come up sixes," said the right honourable gentleman. "Let it come up fives, then. It's the only chance we have; and if you think, as I do, that it is essentially necessary for the welfare of the country that we should remain where we are, we must run the risk." With another colleague, whose mind was really set on that which the Church is presumed to represent, he used another argument. "I am convinced at any rate of this," said Mr. Daubeny; "that by sacrificing something of that ascendancy which the Establishment is supposed to give us, we can bring the Church, which we love, nearer to the wants of the people." And so it came about that before the Cabinet met, every member of it knew what it was that was expected of him. CHAPTER VI. PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS. Phineas Finn returned from Tankerville to London in much better spirits than those which had accompanied him on his journey thither. He was not elected; but then, before the election, he had come to believe that it was quite out of the question that he should be elected. And now he did think it probable that he should get the seat on a petition. A scrutiny used to be a very expensive business, but under the existing law, made as the scrutiny would be in the borough itself, it would cost but little; and that little, should he be successful, would fall on the shoulders of Mr. Browborough. Should he knock off eight votes and lose none himself, he would be member for Tankerville. He knew that many votes had been given for Browborough which, if the truth were known of them, would be knocked off; and he did not know that the same could be said of any one of those by which he had been supported. But, unfortunately, the judge by whom all this would be decided might not reach Tankerville in his travels till after Christmas, perhaps not till after Easter; and in the meantime, what should he do with himself? As for going back to Dublin, that was now out of the question. He had entered upon a feverish state of existence in which it was impossible that he should live in Ireland. Should he ultimately fail in regard to his seat he must--vanish out of the world. While he remained in his present condition he would not even endeavour to think how he might in such case best bestow himself. For the present he would remain within the region of politics, and live as near as he could to the whirl of the wheel of which the sound was so dear to him. Of one club he had always remained a member, and he had already been re-elected a member of the Reform. So he took up his residence once more at the house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Bunce, in Great Marlborough Street, with whom he had lodged when he first became a member of Parliament. "So you're at the old game, Mr. Finn?" said his landlord. "Yes; at the old game. I suppose it's the same with you?" Now Mr. Bunce had been a very violent politician, and used to rejoice in calling himself a Democrat. "Pretty much the same, Mr. Finn. I don't see that things are much better than they used to be. They tell me at the People's Banner office that the lords have had as much to do with this election as with any that ever went before it." "Perhaps they don't know much about it at the People's Banner office. I thought Mr. Slide and the People's Banner had gone over to the other side, Bunce?" "Mr. Slide is pretty wide-awake whatever side he's on. Not but what he's disgraced himself by what he's been and done now." Mr. Slide in former days had been the editor of the People's Banner, and circumstances had arisen in consequence of which there had been some acquaintance between him and our hero. "I see you was hammering away at the Church down at Tankerville." "I just said a word or two." "You was all right, there, Mr. Finn. I can't say as I ever saw very much in your religion; but what a man keeps in the way of religion for his own use is never nothing to me;--as what I keeps is nothing to him." "I'm afraid you don't keep much, Mr. Bunce." "And that's nothing to you, neither, is it, sir?" "No, indeed." "But when we read of Churches as is called State Churches,--Churches as have bishops you and I have to pay for, as never goes into them--" "But we don't pay the bishops, Mr. Bunce." "Oh yes, we do; because, if they wasn't paid, the money would come to us to do as we pleased with it. We proved all that when we pared them down a bit. What's an Ecclesiastical Commission? Only another name for a box to put the money into till you want to take it out again. When we hear of Churches such as these, as is not kept up by the people who uses them,--just as the theatres are, Mr. Finn, or the gin shops,--then I know there's a deal more to be done before honest men can come by their own. You're right enough, Mr. Finn, you are, as far as churches go, and you was right, too, when you cut and run off the Treasury Bench. I hope you ain't going to sit on that stool again." Mr. Bunce was a privileged person, and Mrs. Bunce made up for his apparent rudeness by her own affectionate cordiality. "Deary me, and isn't it a thing for sore eyes to have you back again! I never expected this. But I'll do for you, Mr. Finn, just as I ever did in the old days; and it was I that was sorry when I heard of the poor young lady's death; so I was, Mr. Finn; well, then, I won't mention her name never again. But after all there's been betwixt you and us it wouldn't be natural to pass it by without one word; would it, Mr. Finn? Well, yes; he's just the same man as ever, without a ha'porth of difference. He's gone on paying that shilling to the Union every week of his life, just as he used to do; and never got so much out of it, not as a junketing into the country. That he didn't. It makes me that sick sometimes when I think of where it's gone to, that I don't know how to bear it. Well, yes; that is true, Mr. Finn. There never was a man better at bringing home his money to his wife than Bunce, barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does, I think I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And young Jack writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn, which is a comfort,"--Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law stationer's,--"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money, nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the house now,--only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn." [Illustration: "Well, then, I won't mention her name again."] And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his very intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender whom he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to no other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for the gauds which he had left. While his young wife was living he had kept his sighs down, so that she should not hear them; but he had been forced to acknowledge that his new life had been vapid and flavourless. Now he had been tempted back again to the old haunts. Would the Countesses' cards be showered upon him again? One card, or rather note, had reached him while he was yet at Tankerville, reminding him of old days. It was from Mrs. Low, the wife of the barrister with whom he had worked when he had been a law student in London. She had asked him to come and dine with them after the old fashion in Baker Street, naming a day as to which she presumed that he would by that time have finished his affairs at Tankerville, intimating also that Mr. Low would then have finished his at North Broughton. Now Mr. Low had sat for North Broughton before Phineas left London, and his wife spoke of the seat as a certainty. Phineas could not keep himself from feeling that Mrs. Low intended to triumph over him; but, nevertheless, he accepted the invitation. They were very glad to see him, explaining that, as nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet him. In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in pretended surprise when Phineas explained that he had thrown up his place, and then they settled down on the question of the day. "And so," said Mrs. Low, "you've begun to attack the Church?" It must be remembered that at this moment Mr. Daubeny had not as yet electrified the minds of East Barsetshire, and that, therefore, Mrs. Low was not disturbed. To Mrs. Low, Church and State was the very breath of her nostrils; and if her husband could not be said to live by means of the same atmosphere it was because the breath of his nostrils had been drawn chiefly in the Vice-Chancellor's Court in Lincoln's Inn. But he, no doubt, would be very much disturbed indeed should he ever be told that he was required, as an expectant member of Mr. Daubeny's party, to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England. "You don't mean that I am guilty of throwing the first stone?" said Phineas. "They have been throwing stones at the Temple since first it was built," said Mrs. Low, with energy; "but they have fallen off its polished shafts in dust and fragments." I am afraid that Mrs. Low, when she allowed herself to speak thus energetically, entertained some confused idea that the Church of England and the Christian religion were one and the same thing, or, at least, that they had been brought into the world together. "You haven't thrown the first stone," said Mr. Low; "but you have taken up the throwing at the first moment in which stones may be dangerous." "No stones can be dangerous," said Mrs. Low. "The idea of a State Church," said Phineas, "is opposed to my theory of political progress. What I hope is that my friends will not suppose that I attack the Protestant Church because I am a Roman Catholic. If I were a priest it would be my business to do so; but I am not a priest." Mr. Low gave his old friend a bottle of his best wine, and in all friendly observances treated him with due affection. But neither did he nor did his wife for a moment abstain from attacking their guest in respect to his speeches at Tankerville. It seemed, indeed, to Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expressing her abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing, why should she scream so loudly? Between the two he was a good deal crushed and confounded, and Mrs. Low was very triumphant when she allowed him to escape from her hands at ten o'clock. But, at that moment, nothing had as yet been heard in Baker Street of Mr. Daubeny's proposition to the electors of East Barsetshire! Poor Mrs. Low! We can foresee that there is much grief in store for her, and some rocks ahead, too, in the political career of her husband. Phineas was still in London, hanging about the clubs, doing nothing, discussing Mr. Daubeny's wonderful treachery with such men as came up to town, and waiting for the meeting of Parliament, when he received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:-- Dresden, November 18, ----. MY DEAR MR. FINN, I have heard with great pleasure from my sister-in-law that you have been staying with them at Harrington Hall. It seems so like old days that you and Oswald and Violet should be together,--so much more natural than that you should be living in Dublin. I cannot conceive of you as living any other life than that of the House of Commons, Downing Street, and the clubs. Nor do I wish to do so. And when I hear of you at Harrington Hall I know that you are on your way to the other things. Do tell me what life is like with Oswald and Violet. Of course he never writes. He is one of those men who, on marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do a duty which has always hitherto been neglected. Violet does write, but tells me little or nothing of themselves. Her letters are very nice, full of anecdote, well written,--letters that are fit to be kept and printed; but they are never family letters. She is inimitable in discussing the miseries of her own position as the wife of a Master of Hounds; but the miseries are as evidently fictitious as the art is real. She told me how poor dear Lady Baldock communicated to you her unhappiness about her daughter in a manner that made even me laugh; and would make thousands laugh in days to come were it ever to be published. But of her inside life, of her baby, or of her husband as a husband, she never says a word. You will have seen it all, and have enough of the feminine side of a man's character to be able to tell me how they are living. I am sure they are happy together, because Violet has more common sense than any woman I ever knew. And pray tell me about the affair at Tankerville. My cousin Barrington writes me word that you will certainly get the seat. He declares that Mr. Browborough is almost disposed not to fight the battle, though a man more disposed to fight never bribed an elector. But Barrington seems to think that you managed as well as you did by getting outside the traces, as he calls it. We certainly did not think that you would come out strong against the Church. Don't suppose that I complain. For myself I hate to think of the coming severance; but if it must come, why not by your hands as well as by any other? It is hardly possible that you in your heart should love a Protestant ascendant Church. But, as Barrington says, a horse won't get oats unless he works steady between the traces. As to myself, what am I to say to you? I and my father live here a sad, sombre, solitary life, together. We have a large furnished house outside the town, with a pleasant view and a pretty garden. He does--nothing. He reads the English papers, and talks of English parties, is driven out, and eats his dinner, and sleeps. At home, as you know, not only did he take an active part in politics, but he was active also in the management of his own property. Now it seems to him to be almost too great a trouble to write a letter to his steward; and all this has come upon him because of me. He is here because he cannot bear that I should live alone. I have offered to return with him to Saulsby, thinking that Mr. Kennedy would trouble me no further,--or to remain here by myself; but he will consent to neither. In truth the burden of idleness has now fallen upon him so heavily that he cannot shake it off. He dreads that he may be called upon to do anything. To me it is all one tragedy. I cannot but think of things as they were two or three years since. My father and my husband were both in the Cabinet, and you, young as you were, stood but one step below it. Oswald was out in the cold. He was very poor. Papa thought all evil of him. Violet had refused him over and over again. He quarrelled with you, and all the world seemed against him. Then of a sudden you vanished, and we vanished. An ineffable misery fell upon me and upon my wretched husband. All our good things went from us at a blow. I and my poor father became as it were outcasts. But Oswald suddenly retricked his beams, and is flaming in the forehead of the morning sky. He, I believe, has no more than he has deserved. He won his wife honestly;--did he not? And he has ever been honest. It is my pride to think I never gave him up. But the bitter part of my cup consists in this,--that as he has won what he has deserved, so have we. I complain of no injustice. Our castle was built upon the sand. Why should Mr. Kennedy have been a Cabinet Minister;--and why should I have been his wife? There is no one else of whom I can ask that question as I can of you, and no one else who can answer it as you can do. Of Mr. Kennedy it is singular how little I know, and how little I ever hear. There is no one whom I can ask to tell me of him. That he did not attend during the last Session I do know, and we presume that he has now abandoned his seat. I fear that his health is bad,--or perhaps, worse still, that his mind is affected by the gloom of his life. I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From time to time I am implored by him to return to my duty beneath his roof. He grounds his demand on no affection of his own, on no presumption that any affection can remain with me. He says no word of happiness. He offers no comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises of future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and on the feeling of duty which thence ought to weigh upon me. He has never even told me that he loves me; but he is persistent in declaring that those whom God has joined together nothing human should separate. Since I have been here I have written to him once,--one sad, long, weary letter. Since that I am constrained to leave his letters unanswered. And now, my friend, could you not do for me a great kindness? For a while, till the inquiry be made at Tankerville, your time must be vacant. Cannot you come and see us? I have told Papa that I should ask you, and he would be delighted. I cannot explain to you what it would be to me to be able to talk again to one who knows all the errors and all the efforts of my past life as you do. Dresden is very cold in the winter. I do not know whether you would mind that. We are very particular about the rooms, but my father bears the temperature wonderfully well, though he complains. In March we move down south for a couple of months. Do come if you can. Most sincerely yours, LAURA KENNEDY. If you come, of course you will have yourself brought direct to us. If you can learn anything of Mr. Kennedy's life, and of his real condition, pray do. The faint rumours which reach me are painfully distressing. CHAPTER VII. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING. Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,--presuming it to be granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England. Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period. Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and, perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman understands it,--in that branch of the science which refers simply to the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own huntsman in that respect,--but he knew exactly what men should do, and what they should not. In regard to all those various interests with which he was brought in contact, he knew when to hold fast to his own claims, and when to make no claims at all. He was afraid of no one, but he was possessed of a sense of justice which induced him to acknowledge the rights of those around him. When he found that the earths were not stopped in Trumpeton Wood,--from which he judged that the keeper would complain that the hounds would not or could not kill any of the cubs found there,--he wrote in very round terms to the Duke who owned it. If His Grace did not want to have the wood drawn, let him say so. If he did, let him have the earths stopped. But when that great question came up as to the Gartlow coverts--when that uncommonly disagreeable gentleman, Mr. Smith, of Gartlow, gave notice that the hounds should not be admitted into his place at all,--Lord Chiltern soon put the whole matter straight by taking part with the disagreeable gentleman. The disagreeable gentleman had been ill used. Men had ridden among his young laurels. If gentlemen who did hunt,--so said Lord Chiltern to his own supporters,--did not know how to conduct themselves in a matter of hunting, how was it to be expected that a gentleman who did not hunt should do so? On this occasion Lord Chiltern rated his own hunt so roundly that Mr. Smith and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were re-opened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country. It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by the men who ride with him. There should be much awe mixed with the love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet distinctly honest man; one who can be tyrannical, but will tyrannise only over the evil spirits; a man capable of intense cruelty to those alongside of him, but who will know whether his victim does in truth deserve scalping before he draws his knife. He should be savage and yet good-humoured; severe and yet forbearing; truculent and pleasant in the same moment. He should exercise unflinching authority, but should do so with the consciousness that he can support it only by his own popularity. His speech should be short, incisive, always to the point, but never founded on argument. His rules are based on no reason, and will never bear discussion. He must be the most candid of men, also the most close;--and yet never a hypocrite. He must condescend to no explanation, and yet must impress men with an assurance that his decisions will certainly be right. He must rule all as though no man's special welfare were of any account, and yet must administer all so as to offend none. Friends he must have, but not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in purpose, and strong in purse. He must be economical and yet lavish; generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost. He should be assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of all living things a fox is the most valuable. He must so train his heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate. And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws, which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have been made to be a Master of Hounds. Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?" [Illustration: Adelaide Palliser.] "No; I don't." "What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet I never find any man contented." "In the first place we didn't kill." "You know you're short of foxes at Gartlow," said Miss Palliser, who, as is the manner with all hunting ladies, liked to show that she understood the affairs of the hunt. "If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that one fox, I would like to kill that one fox,--barring a vixen in March." "I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody." "You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very sharply to him." "I heard you, Lord Chiltern." "And I suppose you thought I was a brute." "Who? I? No, I didn't;--not particularly, you know. Men do say such things to each other!" "He doesn't mind it, I fancy." "I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be taken home." "Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without us." "Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack. "Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind us." "That is hard upon you." "Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon you. Why should it be hard upon me?" "Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours." "Certainly." "And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet talks to me about you both." "No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the world as far as I am concerned." "There is nothing in it, then?" "Nothing at all." "Honour bright?" "Oh,--honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these." "I am sorry for that,--very sorry." "Why so, Lord Chiltern?" "Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might have induced him to ride a little less forward." "Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again speak to you a word on any subject except hunting." At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said. "Very good." "And the hounds hunted him well to the end." "Very well." "It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse." "Not a field." "Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him." "Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I think, when he chooses to be." "You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern." "Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it. There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if I went away?" "I hope that you won't try the experiment." "I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you really do care for him?" "Not in the least." "Or he for you." "Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as things go, people have to play at caring for each other." "That's what we call flirting." "Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage. This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection." "If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come to like him." "In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the chance is small." Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a baccy, Chiltern?" he said. "No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped behind. Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last. "Who likes what, Mr. Maule?" "Chiltern likes blowing fellows up." "It's a part of his business." "That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it." "He is very energetic." "Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing." "I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule." "A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy, but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who keeps his ground." "You don't stand still when you're out hunting." "No;--I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool sometimes." "And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the hunting-field?" "I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me just as well as though you told me." "What do I think of you?" "That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated, slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious." "Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule." "And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition? There's the man they were talking about last night,--that Irishman." "Mr. Finn?" "Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve, according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I can't do any good." "You are sensible, I admit." "Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course. You have that privilege." "I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not feel." "But I want you to approve it." "Ah!--there, I fear, I cannot oblige you." "I want you to approve it, though no one else may." "Though all else should do so, I cannot." "Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening the weak one, into your own hands. If you will teach, perhaps I may learn." "I have no mission for teaching, Mr. Maule." "You once said that,--that--" "Do not be so ungenerous as to throw in my teeth what I once said,--if I ever said a word that I would not now repeat." "I do not think that I am ungenerous, Miss Palliser." "I am sure you are not." "Nor am I self-confident. I am obliged to seek comfort from such scraps of encouragement as may have fallen in my way here and there. I once did think that you intended to love me." "Does love go by intentions?" "I think so,--frequently with men, and much more so with girls." "It will never go so with me. I shall never intend to love any one. If I ever love any man it will be because I am made to do so, despite my intentions." "As a fortress is taken?" "Well,--if you like to put it so. Only I claim this advantage,--that I can always get rid of my enemy when he bores me." "Am I boring you now?" "I didn't say so. Here is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the rattle of his horse's feet that something is the matter." Lord Chiltern came up full of wrath. One of the men's horses was thoroughly broken down, and, as the Master said, wasn't worth the saddle he carried. He didn't care a ---- for the horse, but the man hadn't told him. "At this rate there won't be anything to carry anybody by Christmas." "You'll have to buy some more," said Gerard Maule. "Buy some more!" said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at the man. "He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!" Then they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall door. CHAPTER VIII. THE ADDRESS. Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet, the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph were perhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those who declared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actual present truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after a fashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,--as great fires, great famines, and great wars are called divine,--a mighty hand had been stretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition, priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto been labouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church of England was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion. And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. The political feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked that it is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep from the goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for the supporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another. Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or to combat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. But now it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accredited leader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, but no one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to a man,--without a single exception,--were certainly opposed to the measure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certain that they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservative side in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cry Ichabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such private opinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guide the body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never with such intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than Free Trade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed to Conservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yet the party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first and lesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stood forth in opposition,--but nothing had come of it to those true Britons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion. When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,--a measure which twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by the advanced Liberals of the day,--the Conservatives had learned to acknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and had swallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Every man,--with but an exception or two,--took the measure up, some with faces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with an assumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in the double process the party had become used to this mode of carrying on the public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as the doom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruled by the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the few wise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,--seeing, as they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country? Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them power,--but such power they could only use by carrying measures which they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried in standing aloof,--in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in remembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a party cannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to be practical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters, lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the country were ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party had been supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of stars and Garters,--thanks to the individual skill and strategy of that great English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny. And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of the Church? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad to sacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies! Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr. Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshire that an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some rural nook of his Boeotia he should suggest in ambiguous language to the farmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable of a logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl, and Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishops as a rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid to say anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so truly beloved;--surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there crept through the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr. Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby of the House of Commons. But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writer depict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feeling odious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feeling that the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. The pay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government were all due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, who always saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fighting majority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. They have no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There's nothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaring that he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the whole Liberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberals they were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erle said this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yet decided on their ground of action. There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had been asserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only a question of time, that the intelligence of the country had gradually so learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and did not inquire;--but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons with sad hearts,--men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure, pious, and useful,--whispered them in the dead of the night to the wives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contact with the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged their heads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests. Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny that they were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships the matter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Press teemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Some fervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;--some hard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put an end to the anomaly:--a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustings with an anathema that the present Session should see the deposition from her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon. But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainly had expected it from this hand. But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr. Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive and chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years. Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as he thought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of his own leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, when the house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited to enter with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were all a little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, it would be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words had been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them; but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men, not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general followers. The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed to possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of the words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the connection which still exists between, and which binds together, the Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been more fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had been quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country. And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute, apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the Opposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound was heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in a deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country had such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in the uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that in nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good ceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, and it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a State Church. Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, which are uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly be that lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourable gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And yet, from their construction, style, and general tone,--from the platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety and good sense of the remarks,--from the absence of any attempt to improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in the matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter of language. And then it always seems that either of the four might have made the speech of any of the others. It could not have been the case that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for West Bustard, had really elaborated out of his own head that theory of the status pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer, or a sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist; but he certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting the religious education of his country. When he is at home with his family, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it. And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition were unloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Gresham rose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he had hitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards that in discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, Lord Cantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greed for power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but he had acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedly that he thought it better to leave the matter to the House without instruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and before his speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment to the Address for two reasons,--first because this was no moment for bringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment, when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself on the subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly because any measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come to them from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the first objection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggested had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn quotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again; _Quod minime reris,--Graiâ pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexion of his voice at the word _Graiâ_ were certainly very wonderful. He ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support equally from one side of the House as from the other. When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not been made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--in which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him. As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence it might, even _Graiâ ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back to the clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty. Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned. CHAPTER IX. THE DEBATE. The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything can be done with another man,--he can be made to fit almost any hole,--because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith. Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party. And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. Lord Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr. Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr. Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked for no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning, or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings of regret, and almost of remorse. The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief, as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade, did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in the House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had certainly not joined the present Ministry,--so he said,--with the view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly, and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been specially serviceable. But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they were ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr. Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis, and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers. There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised, though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less known to fame than was Mr. Boffin. What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House, who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them. It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest and most patriotic politician of the day. The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear. There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in England by the disseverance of the Church and State. Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs, and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion; and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr. Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms, that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at it or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in the taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should willingly take this bribe. Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he said, feel himself justified in refusing the Address to the Crown proposed by Ministers, simply because that Address was founded on the proposition of a future reform, as to the expediency of which he had not for many years entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be said of him that he had voted for the permanence of the Church establishment, and he must therefore support the Government. Then Ratler whispered a few words to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd run when Gresham insisted on poor old Mildmay's taking him into the Cabinet." "The whole thing has gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On the fourth night the House was divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner of a majority of fifteen. Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham. There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St. Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf of the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the so-called Prime Minister be who he may. CHAPTER X. THE DESERTED HUSBAND. Phineas Finn had been in the gallery of the House throughout the debate, and was greatly grieved at Mr. Daubeny's success, though he himself had so strongly advocated the disestablishment of the Church in canvassing the electors of Tankerville. No doubt he had advocated the cause,--but he had done so as an advanced member of the Liberal party, and he regarded the proposition when coming from Mr. Daubeny as a horrible and abnormal birth. He, however, was only a looker-on,--could be no more than a looker-on for the existing short session. It had already been decided that the judge who was to try the case at Tankerville should visit that town early in January; and should it be decided on a scrutiny that the seat belonged to our hero, then he would enter upon his privilege in the following Session without any further trouble to himself at Tankerville. Should this not be the case,--then the abyss of absolute vacuity would be open before him. He would have to make some disposition of himself, but he would be absolutely without an idea as to the how or where. He was in possession of funds to support himself for a year or two; but after that, and even during that time, all would be dark. If he should get his seat, then again the power of making an effort would at last be within his hands. He had made up his mind to spend the Christmas with Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy at Dresden, and had already fixed the day of his arrival there. But this had been postponed by another invitation which had surprised him much, but which it had been impossible for him not to accept. It had come as follows:-- November 9th, Loughlinter. DEAR SIR, I am informed by letter from Dresden that you are in London on your way to that city with the view of spending some days with the Earl of Brentford. You will, of course, be once more thrown into the society of my wife, Lady Laura Kennedy. I have never understood, and certainly have never sanctioned, that breach of my wife's marriage vow which has led to her withdrawal from my roof. I never bade her go, and I have bidden her return. Whatever may be her feelings, or mine, her duty demands her presence here, and my duty calls upon me to receive her. This I am and always have been ready to do. Were the laws of Europe sufficiently explicit and intelligible I should force her to return to my house,--because she sins while she remains away, and I should sin were I to omit to use any means which the law might place in my hands for the due control of my own wife. I am very explicit to you although we have of late been strangers, because in former days you were closely acquainted with the condition of my family affairs. Since my wife left me I have had no means of communicating with her by the assistance of any common friend. Having heard that you are about to visit her at Dresden I feel a great desire to see you that I may be enabled to send by you a personal message. My health, which is now feeble, and the altered habits of my life render it almost impossible that I should proceed to London with this object, and I therefore ask it of your Christian charity that you should visit me here at Loughlinter. You, as a Roman Catholic, cannot but hold the bond of matrimony to be irrefragable. You cannot, at least, think that it should be set aside at the caprice of an excitable woman who is not able and never has been able to assign any reason for leaving the protection of her husband. I shall have much to say to you, and I trust you will come. I will not ask you to prolong your visit, as I have nothing to offer you in the way of amusement. My mother is with me; but otherwise I am alone. Since my wife left me I have not thought it even decent to entertain guests or to enjoy society. I have lived a widowed life. I cannot even offer you shooting, as I have no keepers on the mountains. There are fish in the river doubtless, for the gifts of God are given let men be ever so unworthy; but this, I believe, is not the month for fishermen. I ask you to come to me, not as a pleasure, but as a Christian duty. Yours truly, ROBERT KENNEDY. Phineas Finn, Esq. As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no alternative but to go. The visit would be very disagreeable, but it must be made. So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week, and explaining the cause of its postponement. As soon as the debate on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter. A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey. Various circumstances had in his early life,--in that period of his life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his days by so clear a line,--thrown him into close connection with this man, and with the man's wife. He had first gone to Loughlinter, not as Lady Laura's guest,--for Lady Laura had not then been married, or even engaged to be married,--but on her persuasion rather than on that of Mr. Kennedy. When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of the owner of that domain. He remembered the blow as though it had been struck but yesterday, and yet the pain of the blow had not been long enduring. But though then rejected he had always been the chosen friend of the woman,--a friend chosen after an especial fashion. When he had loved another woman this friend had resented his defection with all a woman's jealousy. He had saved the husband's life, and had then become also the husband's friend, after that cold fashion which an obligation will create. Then the husband had been jealous, and dissension had come, and the ill-matched pair had been divided, with absolute ruin to both of them, as far as the material comforts and well-being of life were concerned. Then he, too, had been ejected, as it were, out of the world, and it had seemed to him as though Laura Standish and Robert Kennedy had been the inhabitants of another hemisphere. Now he was about to see them both again, both separately; and to become the medium of some communication between them. He knew, or thought that he knew, that no communication could avail anything. It was dark night when he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter House in a fly from the town of Callender. When he first made the journey, now some six or seven years since, he had done so with Mr. Ratler, and he remembered well that circumstance. He remembered also that on his arrival Lady Laura had scolded him for having travelled in such company. She had desired him to seek other friends,--friends higher in general estimation, and nobler in purpose. He had done so, partly at her instance, and with success. But Mr. Ratler was now somebody in the world, and he was nobody. And he remembered also how on that occasion he had been troubled in his mind in regard to a servant, not as yet knowing whether the usages of the world did or did not require that he should go so accompanied. He had taken the man, and had been thoroughly ashamed of himself for doing so. He had no servant now, no grandly developed luggage, no gun, no elaborate dress for the mountains. On that former occasion his heart had been very full when he reached Loughlinter, and his heart was full now. Then he had resolved to say a few words to Lady Laura, and he had hardly known how best to say them. Now he would be called upon to say a few to Lady Laura's husband, and the task would be almost as difficult. The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall, which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress. And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room. Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of the richest commoners of Great Britain. But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where he should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr. Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey? Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr. Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented, therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner. A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish, as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with it after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit of the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many men by whom the tenuis ratio saporum has not been achieved, that the Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow are almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking. He played with his fish without thinking much about it. He worked manfully at the steak. He gave another crumple to the tart, and left it without a pang. But when the old man urged him, for the third time, to take that pernicious draught with his cheese, he angrily demanded a glass of beer. The old man toddled out of the room, and on his return he proffered to him a diminutive glass of white spirit, which he called usquebaugh. Phineas, happy to get a little whisky, said nothing more about the beer, and so the dinner was over. He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was indeed made, would he "visit the laird out o' hand, or would he bide awee?" Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was at once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been known as the "laird's ain room." Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive him. Phineas knew the man's age well. He was still under fifty, but he looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed as though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his proper height. "You find me a much altered man," he said. The change had been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas muttered something of regret that his host's health should be so bad. "It is trouble of the mind,--not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is her doing,--her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are the obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and my flesh,--knowing that they are not with God but still subject elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a sound man? Had she died I could have borne it. I hope they have made you comfortable, Mr. Finn?" "Oh, yes," said Phineas. "Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words, or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest the interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous. "I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye, and thrusting his chin forward. [Illustration: The Laird of Loughlinter.] "I imagine that she was not happy." "Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look for happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me, Mr. Finn?" "Nothing but this,--that your temper and hers were incompatible." "I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?" "Never!" "She told you about it?" "Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things were unpleasant." "How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only an acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased. They rebel against the yoke because it is a yoke. And yet they accept the yoke, knowing it to be a yoke. It comes of the devil. You think a priest can put everything right." "No, I don't," said Phineas. "Nothing can put you right but the fear of God; and when a woman is too proud to ask for that, evils like these are sure to come. She would not go to church on Sunday afternoon, but had meetings of Belial at her father's house instead." Phineas well remembered those meetings of Belial, in which he with others had been wont to discuss the political prospects of the day. "When she persisted in breaking the Lord's commandment, and defiling the Lord's day, I knew well what would come of it." "I am not sure, Mr. Kennedy, that a husband is justified in demanding that a wife shall think just as he thinks on matters of religion. If he is particular about it, he should find all that out before." "Particular! God's word is to be obeyed, I suppose?" "But people doubt about God's word." "Then people will be damned," said Mr. Kennedy, rising from his chair. "And they will be damned." "A woman doesn't like to be told so." "I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother." Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being really preferred a long sermon to a short one,--except the being who preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?" "I know nothing more than I have said." "I did think once that she was--" "There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly, fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you happy." "I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once, Mr. Finn?" "Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish." "Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know." "I should hope not." "But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;--I mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr. Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it." Phineas felt that he had been grossly taken in. He had been asked to come to Loughlinter in order that he might take a message from the husband to the wife, and now the husband made use of his compliance to forbid the visit on some grotesque score of jealousy. He knew that the man was mad, and that therefore he ought not to be angry; but the man was not too mad to require a rational answer, and had some method in his madness. "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," said Phineas. "Pshaw;--dotard!" "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," repeated Phineas; "and I am going to the house of the Earl of Brentford." "Who was it wrote and asked you?" "The letter was from Lady Laura." "Yes;--from my wife. What right had my wife to write to you when she will not even answer my appeals? She is my wife;--my wife! In the presence of God she and I have been made one, and even man's ordinances have not dared to separate us. Mr. Finn, as the husband of Lady Laura Kennedy, I desire that you abstain from seeking her presence." As he said this he rose from his chair, and took the poker in his hand. The chair in which he was sitting was placed upon the rug, and it might be that the fire required his attention. As he stood bending down, with the poker in his right hand, with his eye still fixed on his guest's face, his purpose was doubtful. The motion might be a threat, or simply have a useful domestic tendency. But Phineas, believing that the man was mad, rose from his seat and stood upon his guard. The point of the poker had undoubtedly been raised; but as Phineas stretched himself to his height, it fell gradually towards the fire, and at last was buried very gently among the coals. But he was never convinced that Mr. Kennedy had carried out the purpose with which he rose from his chair. "After what has passed, you will no doubt abandon your purpose," said Mr. Kennedy. "I shall certainly go to Dresden," said Phineas. "If you have a message to send, I will take it." "Then you will be accursed among adulterers," said the laird of Loughlinter. "By such a one I will send no message. From the first moment that I saw you I knew you for a child of Apollyon. But the sin was my own. Why did I ask to my house an idolater, one who pretends to believe that a crumb of bread is my God, a Papist, untrue alike to his country and to his Saviour? When she desired it of me I knew that I was wrong to yield. Yes;--it is you who have done it all, you, you, you;--and if she be a castaway, the weight of her soul will be doubly heavy on your own." To get out of the room, and then at the earliest possible hour of the morning out of the house, were now the objects to be attained. That his presence had had a peculiarly evil influence on Mr. Kennedy, Phineas could not doubt; as assuredly the unfortunate man would not have been left with mastery over his own actions had his usual condition been such as that which he now displayed. He had been told that "poor Kennedy" was mad,--as we are often told of the madness of our friends when they cease for awhile to run in the common grooves of life. But the madman had now gone a long way out of the grooves;--so far, that he seemed to Phineas to be decidedly dangerous. "I think I had better wish you good night," he said. "Look here, Mr. Finn." "Well?" "I hope you won't go and make more mischief." "I shall not do that, certainly." "You won't tell her what I have said?" "I shall tell her nothing to make her think that your opinion of her is less high than it ought to be." "Good night." "Good night," said Phineas again; and then he left the room. It was as yet but nine o'clock, and he had no alternative but to go to bed. He found his way back into the hall, and from thence up to his own chamber. But there was no fire there, and the night was cold. He went to the window, and raised it for a moment, that he might hear the well-remembered sound of the Fall of Linter. Though the night was dark and wintry, a dismal damp November night, he would have crept out of the house and made his way up to the top of the brae, for the sake of auld lang syne, had he not feared that the inhospitable mansion would be permanently closed against him on his return. He rang the bell once or twice, and after a while the old serving man came to him. Could he have a cup of tea? The man shook his head, and feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand, Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr. Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall. CHAPTER XI. THE TRUANT WIFE. Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,--and to the saving of money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr. Daubeny, he started for Dresden. He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town. Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere. Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth. Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost daily as to the climate and manners of the people. Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether he had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in going to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been very fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl's house, but the happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the Earl's son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he found himself at the door of the Earl's house. He had travelled all night, and was very cold. At Leipsic there had been a nominal twenty minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten, and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to an hotel in the first instance. He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however, little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his lips and had taken both his hands. "Oh, my friend," she said; "oh, my friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!" And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. "How cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know; exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on any ceremonies." And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he knew that she was crying. "Then I will show you to your room," she said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. "Yes, I will,--my own self. And I'd fetch the water for you, only I know it is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And you would like tea best, wouldn't you?" "Certainly, I should like tea best." "I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?" "Yes, I have been there." "How very good of you; but I won't ask a question now. You must put up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I hope you will be comfortable. Don't be more than half an hour, as I shall be impatient." Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life,--that life with which he had been conversant,--she had generally been opposed to him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had said severe things to him,--telling him that he was cold, heartless, and uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She had then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions to the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it all, he began to understand it. How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had been for his little personal wants,--that he should be warmed, and fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep, and love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter, and hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true, genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself visited the room prepared for a man in her mother's house, then I knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it. Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by his coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as meaning aught that it did not mean,--too generous, and intrinsically too manly. In his character there was much of weakness, much of vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was grateful. Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known her she had been a woman with a noble presence--not soft and feminine as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing. That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could not think of her as of a young woman. When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and met him at the door of the room. "Now sit down," she said, "and be comfortable--if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The station at Leipsic is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than you it is to make an omelette. Yes,--that is genuine German sausage. There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won't you? I breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then I thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we last parted;--when you were going back to Ireland?" "I remember it well." "Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems. I dare say you don't remember the first day I met you, at Mr. Mildmay's,--when I asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that you were clever?" "I remember well going to Portman Square." "That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have come upon me." "Misfortune has not always been deserved." "I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like." This Phineas persistently refused to do. "You may if you please. Papa never comes in here, and I don't mind it. You'll settle down in a day or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first about Violet. She is happy?" "Quite happy, I think." "I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?" "Oh, yes." "She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is the finest fellow in the world." "I dare say he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they don't talk much about him." "No; they wouldn't. Had you a child you would have talked about him, Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so Oswald is quite tame?" "I don't know that he is very tame out hunting." "But to her?" "I should think always. She, you know, is very clever." "So clever!" "And would be sure to steer clear of all offence," said Phineas, enthusiastically. "While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything about the journey to Flanders?" "Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him the place where he hit me." "How like Oswald!" "And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me, only Colepepper wouldn't let him go on. He half quarrelled with his second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the thing must drop. 'It's better as it is, you know,' he said. And I agreed with him." "And how did Violet receive you?" "Like an angel,--as she is." "Well, yes. I'll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old angel before you were on with the new,--as far at least as I knew." "Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?" "No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word. And I told myself more than that!" "What more?" "That you had never deserved it,--at least from me. But surely you were the most simple of men." "I dare say." "Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell, and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges others by himself,--almost without reflection. A woman can be true as steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?" "She never deceived me,--if you mean that. She never cared a straw about me, and told me so to my face very plainly." "She did care,--many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a great risk, but I knew she would never marry any one else. How little Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at Oswald's house!" "Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!" "How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her complaint to you." "I pitied her with all my heart." "Of course you did,--because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about him." CHAPTER XII. KÖNIGSTEIN. Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the affairs of the past till the servant told them that "My Lord" was in the next room, and ready to receive Mr. Finn. "You will find him much altered," said Lady Laura, "even more than I am." "I do not find you altered at all." "Yes, you do,--in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old man,--not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to see you." So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in furs. He got up to receive his guest, and Phineas saw at once that during the two years of his exile from England Lord Brentford had passed from manhood to senility. He almost tottered as he came forward, and he wrapped his coat around him with that air of studious self-preservation which belongs only to the infirm. "It is very good of you to come and see me, Mr. Finn," he said. "Don't call him Mr. Finn, Papa. I call him Phineas." "Well, yes; that's all right, I dare say. It's a terrible long journey from London, isn't it, Mr. Finn?" "Too long to be pleasant, my lord." "Pleasant! Oh, dear. There's no pleasantness about it. And so they've got an autumn session, have they? That's always a very stupid thing to do, unless they want money." "But there is a money bill which must be passed. That's Mr. Daubeny's excuse." "Ah, if they've a money bill of course it's all right. So you're in Parliament again?" "I'm sorry to say I'm not." Then Lady Laura explained to her father, probably for the third or fourth time, exactly what was their guest's position. "Oh, a scrutiny. We didn't use to have any scrutinies at Loughton, did we? Ah, me; well, everything seems to be going to the dogs. I'm told they're attacking the Church now." Lady Laura glanced at Phineas; but neither of them said a word. "I don't quite understand it; but they tell me that the Tories are going to disestablish the Church. I'm very glad I'm out of it all. Things have come to such a pass that I don't see how a gentleman is to hold office now-a-days. Have you seen Chiltern lately?" After a while, when Phineas had told the Earl all that there was to tell of his son and his grandson, and all of politics and of Parliament, Lady Laura suddenly interrupted them. "You knew, Papa, that he was to see Mr. Kennedy. He has been to Loughlinter, and has seen him." "Oh, indeed!" "He is quite assured that I could not with wisdom return to live with my husband." "It is a very grave decision to make," said the Earl. "But he has no doubt about it," continued Lady Laura. "Not a shadow of doubt," said Phineas. "I will not say that Mr. Kennedy is mad; but the condition of his mind is such in regard to Lady Laura that I do not think she could live with him in safety. He is crazed about religion." "Dear, dear, dear," exclaimed the Earl. "The gloom of his house is insupportable. And he does not pretend that he desires her to return that he and she may be happy together." "What for then?" "That we might be unhappy together," said Lady Laura. "He repudiates all belief in happiness. He wishes her to return to him chiefly because it is right that a man and wife should live together." "So it is," said the Earl. "But not to the utter wretchedness of both of them," said Lady Laura. "He says," and she pointed to Phineas, "that were I there he would renew his accusation against me. He has not told me all. Perhaps he cannot tell me all. But I certainly will not return to Loughlinter." "Very well, my dear." "It is not very well, Papa; but, nevertheless, I will not return to Loughlinter. What I suffered there neither of you can understand." That afternoon Phineas went out alone to the galleries, but the next day she accompanied him, and showed him whatever of glory the town had to offer in its winter dress. They stood together before great masters, and together examined small gems. And then from day to day they were always in each other's company. He had promised to stay a month, and during that time he was petted and comforted to his heart's content. Lady Laura would have taken him into the Saxon Switzerland, in spite of the inclemency of the weather and her father's rebukes, had he not declared vehemently that he was happier remaining in the town. But she did succeed in carrying him off to the fortress of Königstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend. When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a matter of course that he should return to public life,--so said Lady Laura;--and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower without a child. "Whether it be a bad life or a good life," said Lady Laura, "you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth having after it. We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare." As she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they bore upon herself. She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now she was self-banished into absolute obscurity. "You could not have been content with your life in Dublin," she said. "Are you content with your life in Dresden?" "Certainly not. We all like exercise; but the man who has had his leg cut off can't walk. Some can walk with safety; others only with a certain peril; and others cannot at all. You are in the second position, but I am in the last." "I do not see why you should not return." "And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that." "All those general rules mean nothing," said Phineas. "I should try it." "No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for ever." "I know the day that did it." "When I accepted him?" "Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no secret between us." "There need be no secret between us certainly,--and on my part there shall be none. On my part there has been none." "Nor on mine." "There has been nothing for you to tell,--since you blurted out your short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard to stop you." "How was I to be stopped then?" "No; you were too simple. You came there with but one idea, and you could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that I was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank for me." A feeling came upon him which half-choked him, so that he could ask her no further question. "You know that, Phineas." "It was your marriage," he said, gruffly. "It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable, unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so little given to vanity,"--she leaned upon his arm as she spoke,--"so pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told you. Has it not been so?" "I do not wish to believe it now." "But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken." Though she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could not allude to them;--how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really am,--as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will. I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon you." He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. "When I was young," she continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty to him. Now we see what has come of it." "It has been his fault; not yours," said Phineas. "It was my fault,--mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom I loved. And I knew too,--I almost knew that you would ask me to be your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had no money then,--nor had you." "I would have worked for you." "Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had for me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall not excuse yourself. You were right,--always right. When you had failed to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first woman with the tale of your love for the second." "To whom was I to go but to a friend?" "You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man and wife, I would have helped you because that other purpose of serving you in all things had become more fixed. But it was to no good end that I sang your praises. Violet Effingham was not the girl to marry this man or that at the bidding of any one;--was she?" "No, indeed." "It is of no use now talking of it; is it? But I want you to understand me from the beginning;--to understand all that was evil, and anything that was good. Since first I found that you were to me the dearest of human beings I have never once been untrue to your interests, though I have been unable not to be angry with you. Then came that wonderful episode in which you saved my husband's life." "Not his life." "Was it not singular that it should come from your hand? It seemed like Fate. I tried to use the accident, to make his friendship for you as thorough as my own. And then I was obliged to separate you, because,--because, after all I was so mere a woman that I could not bear to have you near me. I can bear it now." "Dear Laura!" "Yes; as your sister. I think you cannot but love me a little when you know how entirely I am devoted to you. I can bear to have you near me now and think of you only as the hen thinks of her duckling. For a moment you are out of the pond, and I have gathered you under my wing. You understand?" "I know that I am unworthy of what you say of me." "Worth has nothing to do with it,--has no bearing on it. I do not say that you are more worthy than all whom I have known. But when did worth create love? What I want is that you should believe me, and know that there is one bound to you who will never be unbound, one whom you can trust in all things,--one to whom you can confess that you have been wrong if you go wrong, and yet be sure that you will not lessen her regard. And with this feeling you must pretend to nothing more than friendship. You will love again, of course." "Oh, no." "Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and I failed,--because I was a woman. A woman should marry only for love. You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this too,--that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything with safety. You will tell me everything?" "If there be anything to tell, I will." "I will never stand between you and your wife,--though I would fain hope that she should know how true a friend I am. Now we have walked here till it is dark, and the sentry will think we are taking plans of the place. Are you cold?" "I have not thought about the cold." "Nor have I. We will go down to the inn and warm ourselves before the train comes. I wonder why I should have brought you here to tell you my story. Oh, Phineas." Then she threw herself into his arms, and he pressed her to his heart, and kissed first her forehead and then her lips. "It shall never be so again," she said. "I will kill it out of my heart even though I should crucify my body. But it is not my love that I will kill. When you are happy I will be happy. When you prosper I will prosper. When you fail I will fail. When you rise,--as you will rise,--I will rise with you. But I will never again feel the pressure of your arm round my waist. Here is the gate, and the old guide. So, my friend, you see that we are not lost." Then they walked down the very steep hill to the little town below the fortress, and there they remained till the evening train came from Prague, and took them back to Dresden. Two days after this was the day fixed for Finn's departure. On the intermediate day the Earl begged for a few minutes' private conversation with him, and the two were closeted together for an hour. The Earl, in truth, had little or nothing to say. Things had so gone with him that he had hardly a will of his own left, and did simply that which his daughter directed him to do. He pretended to consult Phineas as to the expediency of his returning to Saulsby. Did Phineas think that his return would be of any use to the party? Phineas knew very well that the party would not recognise the difference whether the Earl lived at Dresden or in London. When a man has come to the end of his influence as the Earl had done he is as much a nothing in politics as though he had never risen above that quantity. The Earl had never risen very high, and even Phineas, with all his desire to be civil, could not say that the Earl's presence would materially serve the interests of the Liberal party. He made what most civil excuses he could, and suggested that if Lord Brentford should choose to return, Lady Laura would very willingly remain at Dresden alone. "But why shouldn't she come too?" asked the Earl. And then, with the tardiness of old age, he proposed his little plan. "Why should she not make an attempt to live once more with her husband?" "She never will," said Phineas. "But think how much she loses," said the Earl. "I am quite sure she never will. And I am quite sure that she ought not to do so. The marriage was a misfortune. As it is they are better apart." After that the Earl did not dare to say another word about his daughter; but discussed his son's affairs. Did not Phineas think that Chiltern might now be induced to go into Parliament? "Nothing would make him do so," said Phineas. "But he might farm?" "You see he has his hands full." "But other men keep hounds and farm too," said the Earl. "But Chiltern is not like other men. He gives his whole mind to it, and finds full employment. And then he is quite happy, and so is she. What more can you want for him? Everybody respects him." "That goes a very great way," said the Earl. Then he thanked Phineas cordially, and felt that now as ever he had done his duty by his family. There was no renewal of the passionate conversation which had taken place on the ramparts, but much of tenderness and of sympathy arose from it. Lady Laura took upon herself the tone and manners of an elder sister,--of a sister very much older than her brother,--and Phineas submitted to them not only gracefully but with delight to himself. He had not thanked her for her love when she expressed it, and he did not do so afterwards. But he accepted it, and bowed to it, and recognised it as constituting one of the future laws of his life. He was to do nothing of importance without her knowledge, and he was to be at her command should she at any time want assistance in England. "I suppose I shall come back some day," she said, as they were sitting together late on the evening before his departure. "I cannot understand why you should not do so now. Your father wishes it." "He thinks he does; but were he told that he was to go to-morrow, or next summer, it would fret him. I am assured that Mr. Kennedy could demand my return,--by law." "He could not enforce it." "He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under cover. I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will remain till I am stronger. How terribly anxious you must be about Tankerville!" "I am anxious." "You will telegraph to me at once? You will be sure to do that?" "Of course I will, the moment I know my fate." "And if it goes against you?" "Ah,--what then?" "I shall at once write to Barrington Erle. I don't suppose he would do much now for his poor cousin, but he can at any rate say what can be done. I should bid you come here,--only that stupid people would say that you were my lover. I should not mind, only that he would hear it, and I am bound to save him from annoyance. Would you not go down to Oswald again?" "With what object?" "Because anything will be better than returning to Ireland. Why not go down and look after Saulsby? It would be a home, and you need not tie yourself to it. I will speak to Papa about that. But you will get the seat." "I think I shall," said Phineas. "Do;--pray do! If I could only get hold of that judge by the ears! Do you know what time it is? It is twelve, and your train starts at eight." Then he arose to bid her adieu. "No," she said; "I shall see you off." "Indeed you will not. It will be almost night when I leave this, and the frost is like iron." "Neither the night nor the frost will kill me. Do you think I will not give you your last breakfast? God bless you, dear." And on the following morning she did give him his breakfast by candle-light, and went down with him to the station. The morning was black, and the frost was, as he had said, as hard as iron, but she was thoroughly good-humoured, and apparently happy. "It has been so much to me to have you here, that I might tell you everything," she said. "You will understand me now." "I understand, but I know not how to believe," he said. "You do believe. You would be worse than a Jew if you did not believe me. But you understand also. I want you to marry, and you must tell her all the truth. If I can I will love her almost as much as I do you. And if I live to see them, I will love your children as dearly as I do you. Your children shall be my children;--or at least one of them shall be mine. You will tell me when it is to be." "If I ever intend such a thing, I will tell you." "Now, good-bye. I shall stand back there till the train starts, but do not you notice me. God bless you, Phineas." She held his hand tight within her own for some seconds, and looked into his face with an unutterable love. Then she drew down her veil, and went and stood apart till the train had left the platform. "He has gone, Papa," Lady Laura said, as she stood afterwards by her father's bedside. "Has he? Yes; I know he was to go, of course. I was very glad to see him, Laura." "So was I, Papa;--very glad indeed. Whatever happens to him, we must never lose sight of him again." "We shall hear of him, of course, if he is in the House." "Whether he is in the House or out of it we must hear of him. While we have aught he must never want." The Earl stared at his daughter. The Earl was a man of large possessions, and did not as yet understand that he was to be called upon to share them with Phineas Finn. "I know, Papa, you will never think ill of me." "Never, my dear." "I have sworn that I will be a sister to that man, and I will keep my oath." "I know you are a very good sister to Chiltern," said the Earl. Lady Laura had at one time appropriated her whole fortune, which had been large, to the payment of her brother's debts. The money had been returned, and had gone to her husband. Lord Brentford now supposed that she intended at some future time to pay the debts of Phineas Finn. CHAPTER XIII. "I HAVE GOT THE SEAT." When Phineas returned to London, the autumn Session, though it had been carried on so near to Christmas as to make many members very unhappy, had already been over for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny had played his game with consummate skill to the last. He had brought in no bill, but had stated his intention of doing so early in the following Session. He had, he said, of course been aware from the first that it would have been quite impossible to carry such a measure as that proposed during the few weeks in which it had been possible for them to sit between the convening of Parliament and the Christmas holidays; but he thought that it was expedient that the proposition should be named to the House and ventilated as it had been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which must be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened, the unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of the great reform which it was the object of his ambition to complete. They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual and inconvenient period of the year, because the service of the country had demanded that certain money bills should be passed. He, however, rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after the general election had been completed? Was it not notorious to the country that the first hint of it had been given when the Right Honourable gentleman was elected for East Barsetshire, and was it not equally notorious that that election had been so arranged that the marvellous proposition of the Right Honourable gentleman should not be known even to his own party till there remained no possibility of the expression of any condemnation from the hustings? It might be that the Right Honourable could so rule his own followers in that House as to carry them with him even in a matter so absolutely opposite to their own most cherished convictions. It certainly seemed that he had succeeded in doing so for the present. But would any one believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party, and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful. He had been supported on the Address; and he went home to East Barsetshire at Christmas, perhaps with some little fear of the parsons around him; but with a full conviction that he would at least carry the second reading of his bill. London was more than usually full and busy this year immediately after Christmas. It seemed as though it were admitted by all the Liberal party generally that the sadness of the occasion ought to rob the season of its usual festivities. Who could eat mince pies or think of Twelfth Night while so terribly wicked a scheme was in progress for keeping the real majority out in the cold? It was the injustice of the thing that rankled so deeply,--that, and a sense of inferiority to the cleverness displayed by Mr. Daubeny! It was as when a player is checkmated by some audacious combination of two pawns and a knight, such being all the remaining forces of the victorious adversary, when the beaten man has two castles and a queen upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this,--for the adversary had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by them only because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance. It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time. And then,--so they all said, and so some of them believed,--the country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness, with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment's warning, and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro's wickedness,--and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn as it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas impossible to Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen. "The one thing incredible to me," said Mr. Ratler, "is that Englishmen should be so mean." He was alluding to the Conservatives who had shown their intention of supporting Mr. Daubeny, and whom he accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage, without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of the country. Mr. Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds of the men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should have done with his experience, how little there was among them of concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of them; but then, so also was it a duty to support his party. And each one could see his way to the one duty, whereas the other was vague, and too probably ultimately impossible. If it were proper to throw off the incubus of this conjuror's authority, surely some wise, and great, and bold man would get up and so declare. Some junto of wise men of the party would settle that he should be deposed. But where were they to look for the wise and bold men? where even for the junto? Of whom did the party consist?--Of honest, chivalrous, and enthusiastic men, but mainly of men who were idle, and unable to take upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their leaders had been selected from the outside,--clever, eager, pushing men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be and what should not be the _casus belli_. There was not so much meanness as Mr. Ratler supposed in the Conservative ranks, but very much more unhappiness. Would it not be better to go home and live at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on this occasion. At the instance of Lady Laura, Phineas called upon the Duke of St. Bungay soon after his return, and was very kindly received by his Grace. In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs should be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue. There remain of it, however, some traces, so that among the nobler born Liberals of the day there is still a good deal of agreeable family connection. In this way the St. Bungay Fitz-Howards were related to the Mildmays and Standishes, and such a man as Barrington Erle was sure to be cousin to all of them. Lady Laura had thus only sent her friend to a relation of her own, and as the Duke and Phineas had been in the same Government, his Grace was glad enough to receive the returning aspirant. Of course there was something said at first as to the life of the Earl at Dresden. The Duke recollected the occasion of such banishment, and shook his head; and attempted to look unhappy when the wretched condition of Mr. Kennedy was reported to him. But he was essentially a happy man, and shook off the gloom at once when Phineas spoke of politics. "So you are coming back to us, Mr. Finn?" "They tell me I may perhaps get the seat." "I am heartily glad, for you were very useful. I remember how Cantrip almost cried when he told me you were going to leave him. He had been rather put upon, I fancy, before." "There was perhaps something in that, your Grace." "There will be nothing to return to now beyond barren honours." "Not for a while." "Not for a long while," said the Duke;--"for a long while, that is, as candidates for office regard time. Mr. Daubeny will be safe for this Session at least. I doubt whether he will really attempt to carry his measure this year. He will bring it forward, and after the late division he must get his second reading. He will then break down gracefully in Committee, and declare that the importance of the interests concerned demands further inquiry. It wasn't a thing to be done in one year." "Why should he do it at all?" asked Phineas. "That's what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain! Because he can do it, and we can't. He will get from our side much support, and we should get none from his." "There is something to me sickening in their dishonesty," said Phineas energetically. "The country has the advantage; and I don't know that they are dishonest. Ought we to come to a deadlock in legislation in order that parties might fight out their battle till one had killed the other?" "I don't think a man should support a measure which he believes to be destructive." "He doesn't believe it to be destructive. The belief is theoretic,--or not even quite that. It is hardly more than romantic. As long as acres are dear, and he can retain those belonging to him, the country gentleman will never really believe his country to be in danger. It is the same with commerce. As long as the Three per Cents. do not really mean Four per Cent.,--I may say as long as they don't mean Five per Cent.,--the country will be rich, though every one should swear that it be ruined." "I'm very glad, at the same time, that I don't call myself a Conservative," said Phineas. "That shows how disinterested you are, as you certainly would be in office. Good-bye. Come and see the Duchess when she comes to town. And if you've nothing better to do, give us a day or two at Longroyston at Easter." Now Longroyston was the Duke's well-known country seat, at which Whig hospitality had been dispensed with a lavish hand for two centuries. On the 20th January Phineas travelled down to Tankerville again in obedience to a summons served upon him at the instance of the judge who was to try his petition against Browborough. It was the special and somewhat unusual nature of this petition that the complainants not only sought to oust the sitting member, but also to give the seat to the late unsuccessful candidate. There was to be a scrutiny, by which, if it should be successful, so great a number of votes would be deducted from those polled on behalf of the unfortunate Mr. Browborough as to leave a majority for his opponent, with the additional disagreeable obligation upon him of paying the cost of the transaction by which he would thus lose his seat. Mr. Browborough, no doubt, looked upon the whole thing with the greatest disgust. He thought that a battle when once won should be regarded as over till the occasion should come for another battle. He had spent his money like a gentleman, and hated these mean ways. No one could ever say that he had ever petitioned. That was his way of looking at it. That Shibboleth of his as to the prospects of England and the Church of her people had, no doubt, made the House less agreeable to him during the last Short session than usual; but he had stuck to his party, and voted with Mr. Daubeny on the Address,--the obligation for such vote having inconveniently pressed itself upon him before the presentation of the petition had been formally completed. He had always stuck to his party. It was the pride of his life that he had been true and consistent. He also was summoned to Tankerville, and he was forced to go, although he knew that the Shibboleth would be thrown in his teeth. Mr. Browborough spent two or three very uncomfortable days at Tankerville, whereas Phineas was triumphant. There were worse things in store for poor Mr. Browborough than his repudiated Shibboleth, or even than his lost seat. Mr. Ruddles, acting with wondrous energy, succeeded in knocking off the necessary votes, and succeeded also in proving that these votes were void by reason of gross bribery. He astonished Phineas by the cool effrontery with which he took credit to himself for not having purchased votes in the Fallgate on the Liberal side, but Phineas was too wise to remind him that he himself had hinted at one time that it would be well to lay out a little money in that way. No one at the present moment was more clear than was Ruddles as to the necessity of purity at elections. Not a penny had been misspent by the Finnites. A vote or two from their score was knocked off on grounds which did not touch the candidate or his agents. One man had personated a vote, but this appeared to have been done at the instigation of some very cunning Browborough partisan. Another man had been wrongly described. This, however, amounted to nothing. Phineas Finn was seated for the borough, and the judge declared his purpose of recommending the House of Commons to issue a commission with reference to the expediency of instituting a prosecution. Mr. Browborough left the town in great disgust, not without various publicly expressed intimations from his opponents that the prosperity of England depended on the Church of her people. Phineas was gloriously entertained by the Liberals of the borough, and then informed that as so much had been done for him it was hoped that he would now open his pockets on behalf of the charities of the town. "Gentlemen," said Phineas, to one or two of the leading Liberals, "it is as well that you should know at once that I am a very poor man." The leading Liberals made wry faces, but Phineas was member for the borough. The moment that the decision was announced, Phineas, shaking off for the time his congratulatory friends, hurried to the post-office and sent his message to Lady Laura Standish at Dresden: "I have got the seat." He was almost ashamed of himself as the telegraph boy looked up at him when he gave in the words, but this was a task which he could not have entrusted to any one else. He almost thought that this was in truth the proudest and happiest moment of his life. She would so thoroughly enjoy his triumph, would receive from it such great and unselfish joy, that he almost wished that he could have taken the message himself. Surely had he done so there would have been fit occasion for another embrace. He was again a member of the British House of Commons,--was again in possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh since the moment in which he lost it. A drunkard or a gambler may be weaned from his ways, but not a politician. To have been in the House and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily a state of discontent. But now he had worked his way up again, and he was determined that no fears for the future should harass him. He would give his heart and soul to the work while his money lasted. It would surely last him for the Session. He was all alone in the world, and would trust to the chapter of accidents for the future. "I never knew a fellow with such luck as yours," said Barrington Erle to him, on his return to London. "A seat always drops into your mouth when the circumstances seem to be most forlorn." "I have been lucky, certainly." "My cousin, Laura Kennedy, has been writing to me about you." "I went over to see them, you know." "So I heard. She talks some nonsense about the Earl being willing to do anything for you. What could the Earl do? He has no more influence in the Loughton borough than I have. All that kind of thing is clean done for,--with one or two exceptions. We got much better men while it lasted than we do now." "I should doubt that." "We did;--much truer men,--men who went straighter. By the bye, Phineas, we must have no tricks on this Church matter. We mean to do all we can to throw out the second reading." "You know what I said at the hustings." "D---- the hustings. I know what Browborough said, and Browborough voted like a man with his party. You were against the Church at the hustings, and he was for it. You will vote just the other way. There will be a little confusion, but the people of Tankerville will never remember the particulars." "I don't know that I can do that." "By heavens, if you don't, you shall never more be officer of ours,--though Laura Kennedy should cry her eyes out." CHAPTER XIV. TRUMPETON WOOD. In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much for the next twelve months,--and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours, the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood. It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in writing to the Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels. The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes. Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad, was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could be received,--and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again,--a cutting letter; and then came from the Duke's man of business, Mr. Fothergill, a very short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging to him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is murder of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in his heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country. His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old women's poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused to interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr. Fothergill and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr. Fothergill's orders, at any rate in furtherance of his wishes, and, could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr. Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying at Lord Chiltern's house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin to the heir. "They are nothing to me," she said once, when Lord Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on her relatives. "I haven't seen the Duke since I was a little child, and I shouldn't know my cousin were I to meet him." "So much the more gracious is your condition," said Lady Chiltern,--"at any rate in Oswald's estimation." "I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them," said Lord Chiltern. "The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself greater airs than any other man in England,--and as far as I can see, with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be reckoned as being both men." "And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?" "Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there yesterday, and found three separate traps." "What did he do with the traps?" said Lady Chiltern. "I wasn't fool enough to ask him, but I don't in the least doubt that he threw them into the water--or that he'd throw Palliser there too if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton again, I wouldn't do it if there were not another covert in the country." "Then leave it so, and have done with it," said his wife. "I wouldn't fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for all the foxes in England." "That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man's property is his own in one sense, but isn't his own in another. A man can't do what he likes with his coverts." "He can cut them down." "But he can't let another pack hunt them, and he can't hunt them himself. If he's in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes." "What binds him, Oswald? A man can't be bound without a penalty." "I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are you going to do about Phineas Finn?" "I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets." "And is that woman coming?" "There are two or three women coming." "She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?" "Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they will stand at Doggett's." "They can't stand here, for there is not a stall." "I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you," said Miss Palliser. "You're a licensed offender,--though, upon my honour, I don't know whether I ought to give a feed of oats to any one having a connection with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?" "He shall ride my horses," said Lady Chiltern, whose present condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her. "Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an animal as you can put him upon. I don't know what I'm to do. It's all very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted." "You wouldn't refuse to give Mr. Finn a mount!" said Lady Chiltern, almost with dismay. "I'd give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do." "Then I'd better write to Mr. Finn, and tell him," said Lady Chiltern, very gravely. "Oh, Phineas Finn!" said Lord Chiltern; "oh, Phineas Finn! what a pity it was that you and I didn't see the matter out when we stood opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!" "Oswald," said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his shoulder, "you know you would give your best horse to Mr. Finn, as long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey yourself." "I know that if I didn't, you would," said Lord Chiltern. And so the matter was settled. At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. "Is Gerard Maule to come back?" asked the husband. "I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett's, you know." "I didn't know." "I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can't really mean that you care about his riding?" "It isn't that. You must have some whipping post, and he's as good as another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that stuff like poison." "All men are not so--abrupt shall I say?--as you were." "I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen times, I got to have it believed. He doesn't say it as though he meant to have it believed." "You were always in earnest, Oswald." "I was." "To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It sufficed, however;--did it not? You are glad you persevered?" "What fools women are." "Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me be a fool if I will." "What made you so obstinate?" "I don't know. I never could tell. It wasn't that I didn't dote upon you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could be any other one than you." "I've no doubt it was all right;--only you very nearly made me shoot a fellow, and now I've got to find horses for him. I wonder whether he could ride Dandolo?" "Don't put him up on anything very hard." "Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn't got a child, nor yet an acre of property. I don't know who is entitled to break his neck if he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable, if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start to-morrow at nine, for it's all eighteen miles." And so the Master of the Brake Hounds took himself to his repose. Lady Laura Kennedy had written to Barrington Erle respecting her friend's political interests, and to her sister-in-law, Lady Chiltern, as to his social comfort. She could not bear to think that he should be left alone in London till Parliament should meet, and had therefore appealed to Lady Chiltern as to the memory of many past events. The appeal had been unnecessary and superfluous. It cannot be said that Phineas and his affairs were matters of as close an interest to Lady Chiltern as to Lady Laura. If any woman loved her husband beyond all things Lord Chiltern's wife did, and ever had done so. But there had been a tenderness in regard to the young Irish Member of Parliament, which Violet Effingham had in old days shared with Lady Laura, and which made her now think that all good things should be done for him. She believed him to be addicted to hunting, and therefore horses must be provided for him. He was a widower, and she remembered of old that he was fond of pretty women, and she knew that in coming days he might probably want money;--and therefore she had asked Madame Max Goesler to spend a fortnight at Harrington Hall. Madame Max Goesler and Phineas Finn had been acquainted before, as Lady Chiltern was well aware. But perhaps Lady Chiltern, when she summoned Madame Max into the country, did not know how close the acquaintance had been. Madame Max came a couple of days before Phineas, and was taken out hunting on the morning after her arrival. She was a lady who could ride to hounds,--and who, indeed, could do nearly anything to which she set her mind. She was dark, thin, healthy, good-looking, clever, ambitious, rich, unsatisfied, perhaps unscrupulous,--but not without a conscience. As has been told in a former portion of this chronicle, she could always seem to be happy with her companion of the day, and yet there was ever present a gnawing desire to do something more and something better than she had as yet achieved. Of course, as he took her to the meet, Lord Chiltern told her his grievance respecting Trumpeton Wood. "But, my dear Lord Chiltern, you must not abuse the Duke of Omnium to me." "Why not to you?" "He and I are sworn friends." "He's a hundred years old." "And why shouldn't I have a friend a hundred years old? And as for Mr. Palliser, he knows no more of your foxes than I know of his taxes. Why don't you write to Lady Glencora? She understands everything." "Is she a friend of yours, too?" "My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear Duke between us." "I can understand why she should sacrifice herself." "But not why I do. I can't explain it myself; but so it has come to pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady Glencora about it?" "Certainly,--if you please; but not as giving her any message from me. Her uncle's property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose to tell her that I say so you can. I'm not going to ask anything as a favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the hunting, or they should let it alone;--and they should say what they mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies." "I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern." "These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always going in for the people. I'm told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting barbarous. Why doesn't he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood and grow corn?" "Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him." "I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping foxes." When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be seen gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they were telling something new or something old as to the iniquities perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood. On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her hostess that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady Baldock,--not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor Phineas, but her son's wife. They were drinking tea together over the fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler during one moment of embarrassment. "An old friend of yours is coming here to-morrow," said Lady Chiltern. "An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?" "You remember Mr. Finn?" That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. "Surely," she said, confining herself at first to the single word. "He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine." "He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern." "And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think, was Mr. Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him." "Oh, dear, yes." "I thought him very nice," said Adelaide Palliser. "I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know," said Lady Baldock, "that Mr. Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist, and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?" "Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died." "And now here he is beginning all over again," said Lady Baldock. "And as pleasant as ever," said her cousin. "You know he has done all manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr. Kennedy when men were murdering him." "That was questionable kindness," said Lady Baldock. "And he sat for Lord Brentford's borough." "How good of him!" said Miss Palliser. "And he has done all manner of things," said Lady Chiltern. "Didn't he once fight a duel?" asked Madame Goesler. "That was the grandest thing of all," said his friend, "for he didn't shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been as bloodthirsty as somebody else. And now he has come back to Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he's coming here to hunt. I hope you'll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler." "I shall be very glad to see him," said Madame Goesler, slowly; "I heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet him somewhere." CHAPTER XV. "HOW WELL YOU KNEW!" It was necessary also that some communication should be made to Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares. Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at the trying moment. Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone for a moment on his arrival. "Who do you think is here?" "Lady Laura has not come!" "Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!" "I cannot guess;--not Lord Fawn?" "Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don't you know that Lord Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It's a friend of yours, not of mine." "Madame Goesler?" whispered Phineas. "How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame Goesler is here,--not altered in the least." "Madame Goesler!" "Does it annoy you?" "Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?" "You never quarrelled with her?" "Never!" "There is no reason why you should not meet her?" "None at all;--only I was surprised. Did she know that I was coming?" "I told her yesterday. I hope that I have not done wrong or made things unpleasant. I knew that you used to be friends." "And as friends we parted, Lady Chiltern." He had nothing more to say in the matter; nor had she. He could not tell the story of what had taken place between himself and the lady, and she could not keep herself from surmising that something had taken place, which, had she known it, would have prevented her from bringing the two together at Harrington. Madame Goesler, when she was dressing, acknowledged to herself that she had a task before her which would require all her tact and all her courage. She certainly would not have accepted Lady Chiltern's invitation had she known that she would encounter Phineas Finn at the house. She had twenty-four hours to think of it, and at one time had almost made up her mind that some sudden business should recall her to London. Of course, her motive would be suspected. Of course Lady Chiltern would connect her departure with the man's arrival. But even that, bad as it would be, might be preferable to the meeting! What a fool had she been,--so she accused herself,--in not foreseeing that such an accident might happen, knowing as she did that Phineas Finn had reappeared in the political world, and that he and the Chiltern people had ever been fast friends! As she had thought about it, lying awake at night, she had told herself that she must certainly be recalled back to London by business. She would telegraph up to town, raising a question about any trifle, and on receipt of the answer she could be off with something of an excuse. The shame of running away from the man seemed to be a worse evil than the shame of meeting him. She had in truth done nothing to disgrace herself. In her desire to save a man whom she had loved from the ruin which she thought had threatened him, she had--offered him her hand. She had made the offer, and he had refused it! That was all. No; she would not be driven to confess to herself that she had ever fled from the face of man or woman. This man would be again in London, and she could not always fly. It would be only necessary that she should maintain her own composure, and the misery of the meeting would pass away after the first few minutes. One consolation was assured to her. She thoroughly believed in the man,--feeling certain that he had not betrayed her, and would not betray her. But now, as the time for the meeting drew near, as she stood for a moment before the glass,--pretending to look at herself in order that her maid might not remark her uneasiness, she found that her courage, great as it was, hardly sufficed her. She almost plotted some scheme of a headache, by which she might be enabled not to show herself till after dinner. "I am so blind that I can hardly see out of my eyes," she said to the maid, actually beginning the scheme. The woman assumed a look of painful solicitude, and declared that "Madame did not look quite her best." "I suppose I shall shake it off," said Madame Goesler; and then she descended the stairs. [Illustration: "I suppose I shall shake it off."] The condition of Phineas Finn was almost as bad, but he had a much less protracted period of anticipation than that with which the lady was tormented. He was sent up to dress for dinner with the knowledge that in half an hour he would find himself in the same room with Madame Goesler. There could be no question of his running away, no possibility even of his escaping by a headache. But it may be doubted whether his dismay was not even more than hers. She knew that she could teach herself to use no other than fitting words; but he was almost sure that he would break down if he attempted to speak to her. She would be safe from blushing, but he would assuredly become as red as a turkey-cock's comb up to the roots of his hair. Her blood would be under control, but his would be coursing hither and thither through his veins, so as to make him utterly unable to rule himself. Nevertheless, he also plucked up his courage and descended, reaching the drawing-room before Madame Goesler had entered it. Chiltern was going on about Trumpeton Wood to Lord Baldock, and was renewing his fury against all the Pallisers, while Adelaide stood by and laughed. Gerard Maule was lounging on a chair, wondering that any man could expend such energy on such a subject. Lady Chiltern was explaining the merits of the case to Lady Baldock,--who knew nothing about hunting; and the other guests were listening with eager attention. A certain Mr. Spooner, who rode hard and did nothing else, and who acted as an unacknowledged assistant-master under Lord Chiltern,--there is such a man in every hunt,--acted as chorus, and indicated, chiefly with dumb show, the strong points of the case. "Finn, how are you?" said Lord Chiltern, stretching out his left hand. "Glad to have you back again, and congratulate you about the seat. It was put down in red herrings, and we found nearly a dozen of them afterwards,--enough to kill half the pack." "Picked up nine," said Mr. Spooner. "Children might have picked them up quite as well,--and eaten them," said Lady Chiltern. "They didn't care about that," continued the Master. "And now they've wires and traps over the whole place. Palliser's a friend of yours--isn't he, Finn?" "Of course I knew him,--when I was in office." "I don't know what he may be in office, but he's an uncommon bad sort of fellow to have in a county." "Shameful!" said Mr. Spooner, lifting up both his hands. "This is my first cousin, you know," whispered Adelaide, to Lady Baldock. "If he were my own brother, or my grandmother, I should say the same," continued the angry lord. "We must have a meeting about it, and let the world know it,--that's all." At this moment the door was again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room. When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural. A clever actor,--or more frequently a clever actress,--will assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in the arrangement of all little social difficulties, and, had she thought less about it, might probably have managed the present affair in an easy and graceful manner. But the thing had weighed upon her mind, and she had decided that it would be expedient that she should say something when those two old friends first met each other again in her drawing-room. "Madame Max," she said, "you remember Mr. Finn." Lord Chiltern for a moment stopped the torrent of his abuse. Lord Baldock made a little effort to look uninterested, but quite in vain. Mr. Spooner stood on one side. Lady Baldock stared with all her eyes,--with some feeling of instinct that there would be something to see; and Gerard Maule, rising from the sofa, joined the circle. It seemed as though Lady Chiltern's words had caused the formation of a ring in the midst of which Phineas and Madame Goesler were to renew their acquaintance. "Very well indeed," said Madame Max, putting out her hand and looking full into our hero's face with her sweetest smile. "And I hope Mr. Finn will not have forgotten me." She did it admirably--so well that surely she need not have thought of running away. But poor Phineas was not happy. "I shall never forget you," said he; and then that unavoidable blush suffused his face, and the blood began to career through his veins. "I am so glad you are in Parliament again," said Madame Max. "Yes;--I've got in again, after a struggle. Are you still living in Park Lane?" "Oh, yes;--and shall be most happy to see you." Then she seated herself,--as did also Lady Chiltern by her side. "I see the poor Duke's iniquities are still under discussion. I hope Lord Chiltern recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him." For the moment Madame Max had got through her difficulty, and, indeed, had done so altogether till the moment should come in which she should find herself alone with Phineas. But he slunk back from the gathering before the fire, and stood solitary and silent till dinner was announced. It became his fate to take an old woman into dinner who was not very clearsighted. "Did you know that lady before?" she asked. "Oh, yes; I knew her two or three years ago in London." "Do you think she is pretty?" "Certainly." "All the men say so, but I never can see it. They have been saying ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his deathbed, but I don't suppose there can be anything in it." "Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?" asked Phineas. CHAPTER XVI. COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES. After all, the thing had not been so very bad. With a little courage and hardihood we can survive very great catastrophes, and go through them even without broken bones. Phineas, when he got up to his room, found that he had spent the evening in company with Madame Goesler, and had not suffered materially, except at the very first moment of the meeting. He had not said a word to the lady, except such as were spoken in mixed conversation with her and others; but they had been together, and no bones had been broken. It could not be that his old intimacy should be renewed, but he could now encounter her in society, as the Fates might direct, without a renewal of that feeling of dismay which had been so heavy on him. He was about to undress when there came a knock at the door, and his host entered the room. "What do you mean to do about smoking?" Lord Chiltern asked. "Nothing at all." "There's a fire in the smoking-room, but I'm tired, and I want to go to bed. Baldock doesn't smoke. Gerard Maule is smoking in his own room, I take it. You'll probably find Spooner at this moment established somewhere in the back slums, having a pipe with old Doggett, and planning retribution. You can join them if you please." "Not to-night, I think. They wouldn't trust me,--and I should spoil their plans." "They certainly wouldn't trust you,--or any other human being. You don't mind a horse that baulks a little, do you?" "I'm not going to hunt, Chiltern." "Yes, you are. I've got it all arranged. Don't you be a fool, and make us all uncomfortable. Everybody rides here;--every man, woman, and child about the place. You shall have one of the best horses I've got;--only you must be particular about your spurs." "Indeed, I'd rather not. The truth is, I can't afford to ride my own horses, and therefore I'd rather not ride my friends'." "That's all gammon. When Violet wrote she told you you'd be expected to come out. Your old flame, Madame Max, will be there, and I tell you she has a very pretty idea of keeping to hounds. Only Dandolo has that little defect." "Is Dandolo the horse?" "Yes;--Dandolo is the horse. He's up to a stone over your weight, and can do any mortal thing within a horse's compass. Cox won't ride him because he baulks, and so he has come into my stable. If you'll only let him know that you're on his back, and have got a pair of spurs on your heels with rowels in them, he'll take you anywhere. Good-night, old fellow. You can smoke if you choose, you know." Phineas had resolved that he would not hunt; but, nevertheless, he had brought boots with him, and breeches, fancying that if he did not he would be forced out without those comfortable appurtenances. But there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too, might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen to sacrifice himself for money. On the next morning they started in a huge waggonette for Copperhouse Cross,--a meet that was suspiciously near to the Duke's fatal wood. Spooner had explained to Phineas over night that they never did draw Trumpeton Wood on Copperhouse Cross days, and that under no possible circumstances would Chiltern now draw Trumpeton Wood. But there is no saying where a fox may run. At this time of the year, just the beginning of February, dog-foxes from the big woods were very apt to be away from home, and when found would go straight for their own earths. It was very possible that they might find themselves in Trumpeton Wood, and then certainly there would be a row. Spooner shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head, and seemed to insinuate that Lord Chiltern would certainly do something very dreadful to the Duke or to the Duke's heir if any law of venery should again be found to have been broken on this occasion. The distance to Copperhouse Cross was twelve miles, and Phineas found himself placed in the carriage next to Madame Goesler. It had not been done of fixed design; but when a party of six are seated in a carriage, the chances are that one given person will be next to or opposite to any other given person. Madame Max had remembered this, and had prepared herself, but Phineas was taken aback when he found how close was his neighbourhood to the lady. "Get in, Phineas," said his lordship. Gerard Maule had already seated himself next to Miss Palliser, and Phineas had no alternative but to take the place next to Madame Max. "I didn't know that you rode to hounds?" said Phineas. "Oh, yes; I have done so for years. When we met it was always in London, Mr. Finn; and people there never know what other people do. Have you heard of this terrible affair about the Duke?" "Oh, dear, yes." "Poor Duke! He and I have seen a great deal of each other since,--since the days when you and I used to meet. He knows nothing about all this, and the worst of it is, he is not in a condition to be told." "Lady Glencora could put it all right." "I'll tell Lady Glencora, of course," said Madame Max. "It seems so odd in this country that the owner of a property does not seem at all to have any exclusive right to it. I suppose the Duke could shut up the wood if he liked." "But they poisoned the hounds." "Nobody supposes the Duke did that,--or even the Duke's servants, I should think. But Lord Chiltern will hear us if we don't take care." "I've heard every word you've been saying," exclaimed Lord Chiltern. "Has it been traced to any one?" "No,--not traced, I suppose." "What then, Lord Chiltern? You may speak out to me. When I'm wrong I like to be told so." "Then you're wrong now," said Lord Chiltern, "if you take the part of the Duke or of any of his people. He is bound to find foxes for the Brake hunt. It is almost a part of his title deeds. Instead of doing so he has had them destroyed." "It's as bad as voting against the Church establishment," said Madame Goesler. There was a very large meet at Copperhouse Cross, and both Madame Goesler and Phineas Finn found many old acquaintances there. As Phineas had formerly sat in the House for five years, and had been in office, and had never made himself objectionable either to his friends or adversaries, he had been widely known. He now found half a dozen men who were always members of Parliament,--men who seem, though commoners, to have been born legislators,--who all spoke to him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they knew nothing of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get a fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event having been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor Browborough,--whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many a year,--but by no means recognising that the event of which they spoke had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was there, who was at this moment Mr. Daubeny's head whip and patronage secretary. If any one should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr. Browborough from the House,--any one beyond the sufferer himself,--it should have been Mr. Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. "So you've beat poor Browborough in his own borough," said Mr. Roby. "I've beat him," said Phineas; "but not, I hope, in a borough of his own." "He's been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He's awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn't have thought he'd have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows than Browborough, let me tell you. What's all this I hear about the Duke poisoning the foxes?" But the crowd had begun to move, and Phineas was not called upon to answer the question. Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It was easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts, and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,--so called by the hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above were once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man who would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b's. Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually kneel to fire, and there was a hum of merry voices, and the bright colouring of pink coats, and the sheen of ladies' hunting toilettes, and that mingled look of business and amusement which is so peculiar to our national sports. Two hundred men and women had come there for the chance of a run after a fox,--for a chance against which the odds are more than two to one at every hunting day,--for a chance as to which the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there, not less than £5 a head will have been spent for this one day's amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music. When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your opera. Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of women's voices? At Copperhouse Cross almost every one was talking, but the feeling left upon the senses was that of an amalgam of feminine laughter, feminine affectation, and feminine eagerness. Perhaps at Copperhouse Cross the determined perseverance with which Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley addressed herself to Lord Chiltern, to Cox the huntsman, to the two whips, and at last to Mr. Spooner, may have specially led to the remark on this occasion. Lord Chiltern was very short with her, not loving Lady Gertrude. Cox bestowed upon her two "my lady's," and then turned from her to some peccant hound. But Spooner was partly gratified, and partly incapable, and underwent a long course of questions about the Duke and the poisoning. Lady Gertrude, whose father seemed to have owned half the coverts in Ireland, had never before heard of such enormity. She suggested a round robin and would not be at all ashamed to put her own name to it. "Oh, for the matter of that," said Spooner, "Chiltern can be round enough himself without any robin." "He can't be too round," said Lady Gertrude, with a very serious aspect. At last they moved away, and Phineas found himself riding by the side of Madame Goesler. It was natural that he should do so, as he had come with her. Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser, and Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective duties. Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have seemed to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter of course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank,--then another gorse also blank,--and two or three little fringes of wood, such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o'clock they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease. The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude's voice was heard above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in the field dared to speak to him. Phineas had never seen his horse till he reached the meet, and there found a fine-looking, very strong, bay animal, with shoulders like the top of a hay-stack, short-backed, short-legged, with enormous quarters, and a wicked-looking eye. "He ought to be strong," said Phineas to the groom. "Oh, sir; strong ain't no word for him," said the groom; "'e can carry a 'ouse." "I don't know whether he's fast?" inquired Phineas. "He's fast enough for any 'ounds, sir," said the man with that tone of assurance which always carries conviction. "And he can jump?" "He can jump!" continued the groom; "no 'orse in my lord's stables can't beat him." "But he won't?" said Phineas. "It's only sometimes, sir, and then the best thing is to stick him at it till he do. He'll go, he will, like a shot at last; and then he's right for the day." Hunting men will know that all this was not quite comfortable. When you ride your own horse, and know his special defects, you know also how far that defect extends, and what real prospect you have of overcoming it. If he be slow through the mud, you keep a good deal on the road in heavy weather, and resolve that the present is not an occasion for distinguishing yourself. If he be bad at timber, you creep through a hedge. If he pulls, you get as far from the crowd as may be. You gauge your misfortune, and make your little calculation as to the best mode of remedying the evil. But when you are told that your friend's horse is perfect,--only that he does this or that,--there comes a weight on your mind from which you are unable to release it. You cannot discount your trouble at any percentage. It may amount to absolute ruin, as far as that day is concerned; and in such a circumstance you always look forward to the worst. When the groom had done his description, Phineas Finn would almost have preferred a day's canvass at Tankerville under Mr. Ruddles's authority to his present position. When the hounds entered Broughton Spinnies, Phineas and Madame Goesler were still together. He had not been riding actually at her side all the morning. Many men and two or three ladies had been talking to her. But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and now he was again close by her horse's head. Broughton Spinnies were in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth. There was always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get away into those big woods belonging to the Duke,--where, as the Brake sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely end. "If we draw this blank I don't know what we are to do," said Mr. Spooner, addressing himself to Madame Goesler with lachrymose anxiety. "Have you nothing else to draw?" asked Phineas. "In the common course of things we should take Muggery Gorse, and so on to Trumpeton Wood. But Muggery is on the Duke's land, and Chiltern is in such a fix! He won't go there unless he can't help it. Muggery Gorse is only a mile this side of the big wood." "And foxes of course go to the big wood?" asked Madame Max. "Not always. They often come here,--and as they can't hang here, we have the whole country before us. We get as good runs from Muggery as from any covert in the country. But Chiltern won't go there to-day unless the hounds show a line. By George, that's a fox! That's Dido. That's a find!" And Spooner galloped away, as though Dido could do nothing with the fox she had found unless he was there to help her. Spooner was quite right, as he generally was on such occasions. He knew the hounds even by voice, and knew what hound he could believe. Most hounds will lie occasionally, but Dido never lied. And there were many besides Spooner who believed in Dido. The whole pack rushed to her music, though the body of them would have remained utterly unmoved at the voice of any less reverenced and less trustworthy colleague. The whole wood was at once in commotion,--men and women riding hither and thither, not in accordance with any judgment; but as they saw or thought they saw others riding who were supposed to have judgment. To get away well is so very much! And to get away well is often so very difficult! There are so many things of which the horseman is bound to think in that moment. Which way does the wind blow? And then, though a fox will not long run up wind, he will break covert up wind, as often as not. From which of the various rides can you find a fair exit into the open country, without a chance of breaking your neck before the run begins? When you hear some wild halloa, informing you that one fox has gone in the direction exactly opposite to that in which the hounds are hunting, are you sure that the noise is not made about a second fox? On all these matters you are bound to make up your mind without losing a moment; and if you make up your mind wrongly the five pounds you have invested in that day's amusement will have been spent for nothing. Phineas and Madame Goesler were in the very centre of the wood when Spooner rushed away from them down one of the rides on hearing Dido's voice; and at that time they were in a crowd. Almost immediately the fox was seen to cross another ride, and a body of horsemen rushed away in that direction, knowing that the covert was small, and there the animal must soon leave the wood. Then there was a shout of "Away!" repeated over and over again, and Lord Chiltern, running up like a flash of lightning, and passing our two friends, galloped down a third ride to the right of the others. Phineas at once followed the master of the pack, and Madame Goesler followed Phineas. Men were still riding hither and thither; and a farmer, meeting them, with his horse turned back towards the centre of the wood which they were leaving, halloaed out as they passed that there was no way out at the bottom. They met another man in pink, who screamed out something as to "the devil of a bank down there." Chiltern, however, was still going on, and our hero had not the heart to stop his horse in its gallop and turn back from the direction in which the hounds were running. At that moment he hardly remembered the presence of Madame Goesler, but he did remember every word that had been said to him about Dandolo. He did not in the least doubt but that Chiltern had chosen his direction rightly, and that if he were once out of the wood he would find himself with the hounds; but what if this brute should refuse to take him out of the wood? That Dandolo was very fast he soon became aware, for he gained upon his friend before him as they neared the fence. And then he saw what there was before him. A new broad ditch had been cut, with the express object of preventing egress or ingress at that point; and a great bank had been constructed with the clay. In all probability there might be another ditch on the other side. Chiltern, however, had clearly made up his mind about it. The horse he was riding went at it gallantly, cleared the first ditch, balanced himself for half a moment on the bank, and then, with a fresh spring, got into the field beyond. The tail hounds were running past outside the covert, and the master had placed himself exactly right for the work in hand. How excellent would be the condition of Finn if only Dandolo would do just as Chiltern's horse had done before him! And Phineas almost began to hope that it might be so. The horse was going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to be as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his ears which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to remember that awful warning given by the groom, "It's only sometimes, sir." And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle? He did not like to strike a horse that seemed to be going well, and was unwilling, as are all good riders, to use his heels. So he spoke to him, and proposed to lift him at the ditch. To the very edge the horse galloped,--too fast, indeed, if he meant to take the bank as Chiltern's horse had done,--and then stopping himself so suddenly that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his fore feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down, quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute's neck head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her horse. "Oh, Mr. Finn, are you hurt?" But Phineas, happily, was not hurt. He was shaken and dirty, but not so shaken, and not so dirty, but that he was on his legs in a minute, imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. "Going on doesn't seem to be so easy," said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential than any other to the horseman in general, it is that he, and not the animal which he rides, shall be the master. "The best thing is to stick him at it till he do," the groom had said; and Phineas resolved to be guided by the groom. But his first duty was to attend on Madame Goesler. With very little assistance she was again in her saddle, and she at once declared herself certain that her horse could take the fence. Phineas again instantly jumped into his saddle, and turning Dandolo again at the ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse's sides. But Dandolo would not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to his former position. "What an infernal brute!" said Phineas, gnashing his teeth. "He is a little obstinate, Mr. Finn; I wonder whether he'd jump if I gave him a lead." But Phineas was again making the attempt, urging the horse with spurs, whip, and voice. He had brought himself now to that condition in which a man is utterly reckless as to falling himself,--or even to the kind of fall he may get,--if he can only force his animal to make the attempt. But Dandolo would not make the attempt. With ears down and head outstretched, he either stuck obstinately on the brink, or allowed himself to be forced again and again into the ditch. "Let me try it once, Mr. Finn," said Madame Goesler in her quiet way. She was riding a small horse, very nearly thoroughbred, and known as a perfect hunter by those who habitually saw Madame Goesler ride. No doubt he would have taken the fence readily enough had his rider followed immediately after Lord Chiltern; but Dandolo had baulked at the fence nearly a dozen times, and evil communications will corrupt good manners. Without any show of violence, but still with persistent determination, Madame Goesler's horse also declined to jump. She put him at it again and again, and he would make no slightest attempt to do his business. Phineas raging, fuming, out of breath, miserably unhappy, shaking his reins, plying his whip, rattling himself about in the saddle, and banging his legs against the horse's sides, again and again plunged away at the obstacle. But it was all to no purpose. Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his rider, even in the ruck of the hunt. In the meantime the hounds and the leading horsemen were far away,--never more to be seen on that day by either Phineas Finn or Madame Max Goesler. For a while, during the frantic efforts that were made, an occasional tardy horseman was viewed galloping along outside the covert, following the tracks of those who had gone before. But before the frantic efforts had been abandoned as utterly useless every vestige of the morning's work had left the neighbourhood of Broughton Spinnies, except these two unfortunate ones. At last it was necessary that the defeat should be acknowledged. "We're beaten, Madame Goesler," said Phineas, almost in tears. "Altogether beaten, Mr. Finn." "I've a good mind to swear that I'll never come out hunting again." "Swear what you like, if it will relieve you, only don't think of keeping such an oath. I've known you before this to be depressed by circumstances quite as distressing as these, and to be certain that all hope was over;--but yet you have recovered." This was the only allusion she had yet made to their former acquaintance. "And now we must think of getting out of the wood." "I haven't the slightest idea of the direction of anything." "Nor have I; but as we clearly can't get out this way we might as well try the other. Come along. We shall find somebody to put us in the right road. For my part I'm glad it is no worse. I thought at one time that you were going to break your neck." They rode on for a few minutes in silence, and then she spoke again. "Is it not odd, Mr. Finn, that after all that has come and gone you and I should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?" CHAPTER XVII. MADAME GOESLER'S STORY. "After all that has come and gone, is it not odd that you and I should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?" That was the question which Madame Goesler asked Phineas Finn when they had both agreed that it was impossible to jump over the bank out of the wood, and it was, of course, necessary that some answer should be given to it. "When I saw you last in London," said Phineas, with a voice that was gruff, and a manner that was abrupt, "I certainly did not think that we should meet again so soon." "No;--I left you as though I had grounds for quarrelling; but there was no quarrel. I wrote to you, and tried to explain that." "You did;--and though my answer was necessarily short, I was very grateful." "And here you are back among us; and it does seem so odd. Lady Chiltern never told me that I was to meet you." "Nor did she tell me." "It is better so, for otherwise I should not have come, and then, perhaps, you would have been all alone in your discomfiture at the bank." "That would have been very bad." "You see I can be quite frank with you, Mr. Finn. I am heartily glad to see you, but I should not have come had I been told. And when I did see you, it was quite improbable that we should be thrown together as we are now,--was it not? Ah;--here is a man, and he can tell us the way back to Copperhouse Cross. But I suppose we had better ask for Harrington Hall at once." The man knew nothing at all about Harrington Hall, and very little about Copperhouse; but he did direct them on to the road, and they found that they were about sixteen miles from Lord Chiltern's house. The hounds had gone away in the direction of Trumpeton Wood, and it was agreed that it would be useless to follow them. The waggonette had been left at an inn about two miles from Copperhouse Cross, but they resolved to abandon that and to ride direct to Harrington Hall. It was now nearly three o'clock, and they would not be subjected to the shame which falls upon sportsmen who are seen riding home very early in the day. To get oneself lost before twelve, and then to come home, is a very degrading thing; but at any time after two you may be supposed to have ridden the run of the season, and to be returning after an excellent day's work. Then Madame Goesler began to talk about herself, and to give a short history of her life during the last two-and-a-half years. She did this in a frank natural manner, continuing her tale in a low voice, as though it were almost a matter of course that she should make the recital to so old a friend. And Phineas soon began to feel that it was natural that she should do so. "It was just before you left us," she said, "that the Duke took to coming to my house." The duke spoken of was the Duke of Omnium, and Phineas well remembered to have heard some rumours about the Duke and Madame Max. It had been hinted to him that the Duke wanted to marry the lady, but that rumour he had never believed. The reader, if he has duly studied the history of the age, will know that the Duke did make an offer to Madame Goesler, pressing it with all his eloquence, but that Madame Goesler, on mature consideration, thought it best to decline to become a duchess. Of all this, however, the reader who understands Madame Goesler's character will be quite sure that she did not say a word to Phineas Finn. Since the business had been completed she had spoken of it to no one but to Lady Glencora Palliser, who had forced herself into a knowledge of all the circumstances while they were being acted. "I met the Duke once at Matching," said Phineas. "I remember it well. I was there, and first made the Duke's acquaintance on that occasion. I don't know how it was that we became intimate;--but we did, and then I formed a sort of friendship with Lady Glencora; and somehow it has come about that we have been a great deal together since." "I suppose you like Lady Glencora?" "Very much indeed,--and the Duke, too. The truth is, Mr. Finn, that let one boast as one may of one's independence,--and I very often do boast of mine to myself,--one is inclined to do more for a Duke of Omnium than for a Mr. Jones." "The Dukes have more to offer than the Joneses;--I don't mean in the way of wealth only, but of what one enjoys most in society generally." "I suppose they have. At any rate, I am glad that you should make some excuse for me. But I do like the man. He is gracious and noble in his bearing. He is now very old, and sinking fast into the grave; but even the wreck is noble." "I don't know that he ever did much," said Phineas. "I don't know that he ever did anything according to your idea of doing. There must be some men who do nothing." "But a man with his wealth and rank has opportunities so great! Look at his nephew!" "No doubt Mr. Palliser is a great man. He never has a moment to speak to his wife or to anybody else; and is always thinking so much about the country that I doubt if he knows anything about his own affairs. Of course he is a man of a different stamp,--and of a higher stamp, if you will. But I have an idea that such characters as those of the present Duke are necessary to the maintenance of a great aristocracy. He has had the power of making the world believe in him simply because he has been rich and a duke. His nephew, when he comes to the title, will never receive a tithe of the respect that has been paid to this old fainéant." "But he will achieve much more than ten times the reputation," said Phineas. "I won't compare them, nor will I argue; but I like the Duke. Nay;--I love him. During the last two years I have allowed the whole fashion of my life to be remodelled by this intimacy. You knew what were my habits. I have only been in Vienna for one week since I last saw you, and I have spent months and months at Matching." "What do you do there?" "Read to him;--talk to him;--give him his food, and do all that in me lies to make his life bearable. Last year, when it was thought necessary that very distinguished people should be entertained at the great family castle,--in Barsetshire, you know--" "I have heard of the place." "A regular treaty or agreement was drawn up. Conditions were sealed and signed. One condition was that both Lady Glencora and I should be there. We put our heads together to try to avoid this; as, of course, the Prince would not want to see me particularly,--and it was altogether so grand an affair that things had to be weighed. But the Duke was inexorable. Lady Glencora at such a time would have other things to do, and I must be there, or Gatherum Castle should not be opened. I suggested whether I could not remain in the background and look after the Duke as a kind of upper nurse,--but Lady Glencora said it would not do." "Why should you subject yourself to such indignity?" "Simply from love of the man. But you see I was not subjected. For two days I wore my jewels beneath royal eyes,--eyes that will sooner or later belong to absolute majesty. It was an awful bore, and I ought to have been at Vienna. You ask me why I did it. The fact is that things sometimes become too strong for one, even when there is no real power of constraint. For years past I have been used to have my own way, but when there came a question of the entertainment of royalty I found myself reduced to blind obedience. I had to go to Gatherum Castle, to the absolute neglect of my business; and I went." "Do you still keep it up?" "Oh, dear, yes. He is at Matching now, and I doubt whether he will ever leave it again. I shall go there from here as a matter of course, and relieve guard with Lady Glencora." "I don't see what you get for it all." "Get;--what should I get? You don't believe in friendship, then?" "Certainly I do;--but this friendship is so unequal. I can hardly understand that it should have grown from personal liking on your side." "I think it has," said Madame Goesler, slowly. "You see, Mr. Finn, that you as a young man can hardly understand how natural it is that a young woman,--if I may call myself young,--should minister to an old man." "But there should be some bond to the old man." "There is a bond." "You must not be angry with me," said Phineas. "I am not in the least angry." "I should not venture to express any opinion, of course,--only that you ask me." "I do ask you, and you are quite welcome to express your opinion. And were it not expressed, I should know what you thought just the same. I have wondered at it myself sometimes,--that I should have become as it were engulfed in this new life, almost without will of my own. And when he dies, how shall I return to the other life? Of course I have the house in Park Lane still, but my very maid talks of Matching as my home." "How will it be when he has gone?" "Ah,--how indeed? Lady Glencora and I will have to curtsey to each other, and there will be an end of it. She will be a duchess then, and I shall no longer be wanted." "But even if you were wanted--?" "Oh, of course. It must last the Duke's time, and last no longer. It would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see;--we are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?" "Just because this brute would not jump over the fence." "I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I dare say our host is all right in what he says; but I don't like it. You'll come and see me in London, Mr. Finn?" "But you'll be at Matching?" "I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for the present,--or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief together in Broughton Spinnies." Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away with the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not daring to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground. Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said, had been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong. He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite, numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of some great and laborious master of hounds. "And they did nothing more?" asked Phineas. "Yes;--they chopped another fox before they left the place,--so that in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn't mean it." When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall they were able to give their own story of the day's sport to Lady Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned. CHAPTER XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON HALL. Adelaide Palliser was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with every feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always the warranty of her birth in her appearance; but with no special loveliness of face. Let not any reader suppose that therefore she was plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to justify her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had been generally allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palliser was always spoken of as a girl to be admired; but she was not one whose countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and, being in truth green, might, perhaps with propriety, be described as grey. Her nose was well formed. Her mouth was, perhaps, too small. Her teeth were perfect. Her chin was somewhat too long, and was on this account the defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and plentiful; but in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon; but if so she wore it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable in reference to her head-dress. Such as she was,--beauty or no beauty--her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved long since that the gift of personal loveliness had not been bestowed upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also that she had all that command of herself which health and strength can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation. Lady Chiltern, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she talked Italian, and wrote for the _Times_. The former assertion was, no doubt, true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her childhood in Florence; but the latter statement was made probably with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady Chiltern intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better educated than young ladies in general that she was able to express herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated, and would, no doubt, have done the _Times_ credit had the _Times_ chosen to employ her. She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr. Plantagenet Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother. And as her mother had been a Bavilard there could be no better blood. But Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty Pallisers and lofty Bavilards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone to the custody of a much older half-sister, Mrs. Atterbury, whose mother had been not a Bavilard, but a Brown. And Mr. Atterbury was a mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly-accomplished gentleman, whose father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had been a country clergyman. Mrs. Atterbury, with her husband, was still living at Florence; but Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with Florence life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her friend Lady Chiltern. In Florence she had met Gerard Maule, and the acquaintance had not been viewed with favour by the Atterburys. Mrs. Atterbury knew the history of the Maule family, and declared to her sister that no good could come from any intimacy. Old Mr. Maule, she said, was disreputable. Mrs. Maule, the mother,--who, according to Mr. Atterbury, had been the only worthy member of the family,--was long since dead. Gerard Maule's sister had gone away with an Irish cousin, and they were now living in India on the professional income of a captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maule's younger brother had gone utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him. Maule Abbey, the family seat in Herefordshire, was,--so said Mrs. Atterbury,--absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world knew, had been sold by the squire's creditors under the sheriff's order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into the house since that time. The property, which was small,--£2,000 a year at the outside,--was, no doubt, entailed on the eldest son; and Gerard, fortunately, had a small fortune of his own, independent of his father. But then he was also a spendthrift,--so said Mrs. Atterbury,--keeping a stable full of horses, for which he could not afford to pay; and he was, moreover, the most insufferably idle man who ever wandered about the world without any visible occupation for his hours. "But he hunts," said Adelaide. "Do you call that an occupation?" asked Mrs. Atterbury with scorn. Now Mrs. Atterbury painted pictures, copied Madonnas, composed sonatas, corresponded with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy,--and was supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And, moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had, indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and had left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something like a quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking Adelaide to be his wife,--but still pursuing her, as though he wanted her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring, however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide, though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand times that she would not be dictated to by her sister;--but was she prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas of his own as to what he ought to do with himself? Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said, was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. "You had better let them fight it out somewhere else," Lord Chiltern had said when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if "fought out" at all, it must be fought out at Harrington Hall. "We have asked him to come back," she said to Adelaide, "in order that you may make up your mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnest; and then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be taken." Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had not as yet quite made up her mind. Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the facility,--it may almost be said audacity,--with which they do make up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman's hand in marriage, because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly between the dances;--and the young woman gives it, almost with gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and, by the very nature of the joint life they propose to lead, must take her to his sphere of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work still. If he was idle before he will be idle still; and he probably does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority of her friends and acquaintances, frightened, perhaps by those representations of her sister to which she would not altogether yield, had paused, and was still pausing. "Where should we go and live if I did marry him?" she said to Lady Chiltern. "I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject?" "Not in the least, I should think." "Has he never said anything about it?" "Oh dear no. Matters have not got so far as that at all;--nor would they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to the train he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for when he got to the station." "Couldn't you manage to live at Maule Abbey?" "Perhaps we might; only there is no furniture, and, as I am told, only half a roof." "It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind, just as other people do," said Lady Chiltern. "Of course he is not a rich man, but you have known that all along." "It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly lack-a-daisical indifference to everything in the world." "He is not indifferent to you." "That is the marvellous part of it," said Miss Palliser. This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinnies, and late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that another episode was about to occur in the life of their friend. "What do you think Spooner has just asked me?" "Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr. Palliser?" "No,--it's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind his staying here three or four days longer." "What a very odd request!" "It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's no objection." "Of course not if you like to have him." "I don't like it a bit," said Lord Chiltern; "but I couldn't turn him out. And I know what it means." "What does it mean?" "You haven't observed anything?" "I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner, except an awe-struck horror at the trapping of a fox." "He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser." "Oswald! You are not in earnest." "I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out now." "He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does," said Lady Chiltern. Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule. That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maule was not a man of very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very pretty property of his own,--which was all his own. There was no doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He was not so young as he once had been;--but he was still a young man, only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers, and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to hunting. Mr. Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails. He asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting Gerard Maule, but did not get much information. "I don't know where he lives;" said Phineas; "I never saw him till I met him here." "Don't you think he seems sweet upon that girl?" "I shouldn't wonder if he is." "She's an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn't she?" said Mr. Spooner; "but it seems to me she don't care much for Master Maule. Did you see how he was riding to-day?" "I didn't see anything, Mr. Spooner." "No, no; you didn't get away. I wish he'd been with you. But she went uncommon well." After that he made his request to Lord Chiltern, and Lord Chiltern, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the coming event to his wife. There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr. Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr. Spooner's assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood, and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because he did not take the matter up. "You know it's the keepers do it all," said Mr. Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great wisdom. "You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall coverts blank I'd dismiss my man the next day." [Illustration: "You know it's the keepers do it all."] "It mightn't be his fault." "He knows my mind, and he'll take care that there are foxes. They've been at my stick covert three times this year, and put a brace out each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it." Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true, and Mr. Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing most heavily upon his mind. On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandolo. There was a fair run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of Dandolo in the afternoon by Lord Chiltern himself. He had determined that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the brute against a thick hedge, with a ditch at the other side of it, and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made a buck leap and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home Lord Chiltern sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds;--and that was the end of Dandolo as far as the Harrington Hall stables were concerned. This took place on the Friday, the 8th of February. It was understood that Mr. Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday, and on Monday, the 11th, Phineas was to go to London. On the 12th the Session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in Parliament. "I give you my word and honour, Lady Chiltern," Gerard Maule said to his hostess, "I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide." Mr. Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern, and came to her habitually in all his troubles. "Chiltern has told me the same thing." "No!" "Why shouldn't he see it, as well as you? But I wouldn't believe it." "Upon my word I believe it's true. But, Lady Chiltern--" "Well, Mr. Maule." "You know her so well." "Adelaide, you mean?" "You understand her thoroughly. There can't be anything in it; is there?" "How anything?" "She can't really--like him?" "Mr. Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question as that I don't believe that she'd ever speak a word to you again; and it would serve you right. Didn't you call him an oaf?" "I did." "And how long has she known him?" "I don't believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday." "And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her husband to-morrow! Do you call that respect?" "Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent ass he must be!" "I don't see that at all. He may be an ass and yet not impudent, or impudent and yet not an ass. Of course he has a right to speak his mind,--and she will have a right to speak hers." CHAPTER XIX. SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY. The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; but the hunting party on this Saturday was very small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule. "Where's Spooner?" he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who, when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. "He must be coming," said Maule; "suppose you send up to him." The servant was sent, and came down with Mr. Spooner's compliments. Mr. Spooner didn't mean to hunt to-day. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord Chiltern at the meet on Monday. Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. "I don't care about your knowing," said Gerard. "Oh,--I know. Don't you be an ass." "I don't see why I should give him an opportunity." "You're to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why shouldn't he have an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any good, you may afford to be very indifferent." "It's a piece of d---- impertinence," said Maule, with most unusual energy. "Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We've twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his morning." At ten o'clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party were assembled. "Mr. Spooner!" said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman, who was the last to enter the room. "This is a marvel!" He was dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself. But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when the circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the coloured neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and some one, most maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable. "Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes," said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the table; "wonders never cease, do they?" He had prepared himself even for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments. "What will Lord Chiltern do without you?" one of the ladies asked. "He'll have to do his best." "He'll never kill a fox," said Miss Palliser. "Oh, yes; he knows what he's about. I was so fond of my pillow this morning that I thought I'd let the hunting slide for once. A man should not make a toil of his pleasure." Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing. Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat he always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his appearance was now that of an amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured, about a hog in armour, and old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed to Mr. Spooner's frock coat. But what was to be done with him when breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide his time. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser," he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly in the same way to the same man on a former occasion. "Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her yourself." "Who? I! Oh, no--I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I shall marry some day. I've a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top to bottom, linen and all. And my property's my own." "That's a comfort." "I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that a man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment. There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course, but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work. If you like schooling a young 'un, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself; but I've come to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit altogether mostly all the morning?" "I fancy they do." "I suppose there's some way of dividing them. They tell me you know all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you manage it?" "In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?" "Any way;--in the morning, you know." "Just to say a few words to her?" "Exactly that;--just to say a few words. I don't mind asking you, because you've done this kind of thing before." "I should watch my opportunity," said Phineas, remembering a period of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very difficult to get an opportunity. "But I must go after lunch," said Mr. Spooner; "I'm expected home to dinner, and I don't know much whether they'll like me to stop over Sunday." "If you were to tell Lady Chiltern--" "I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won't tell anybody?" "Oh dear no." "I think I shall propose to that girl. I've about made up my mind to do it, only a fellow can't call her out before half-a-dozen of them. Couldn't you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she are as thick as thieves." "I should think Miss Palliser was rather difficult to be managed." Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure Mr. Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never succeeded. He went in and settled himself to the work of answering correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr. Spooner hung about the drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor Lady Chiltern, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chiltern was determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come all the party knew what was to happen,--except Adelaide herself. She, too, perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event expected which made them all uneasy;--and she did connect it with the presence of Mr. Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts that were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more pleasant as soon as Mr. Spooner should have taken his departure. He was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a latitude, and "after lunch" may be stretched at any rate to the five o'clock tea. At three o'clock Mr. Spooner was still hanging about. Madame Goesler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the fire and gossiped. Lady Chiltern had retired to her baby;--when on a sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the village. "Might I accompany you, Miss Palliser?" said Mr. Spooner; "I want a walk above all things." He was very brave, and persevered though it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company. Adelaide said something about an old woman whom she intended to visit; whereupon Mr. Spooner declared that visiting old women was the delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very brave, and persevered in such a fashion that he carried his point. Lady Chiltern from her nursery window saw them start through the shrubbery together. "I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr. Spooner, gallantly. But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known, almost from breakfast time, that he had been waiting for something, still she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr. Spooner was still young, being barely over forty years of age; but he had unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take "his whack of wine," as he called it, sit up smoking half the night, and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man, with broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on which incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been; but the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the Brake hounds. It was not within the compass of Miss Palliser's imagination to conceive that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover. "I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr. Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you'll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this occasion. "Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so much taken by you that,--that,--in point of fact, I love you better than all the women in the world I ever saw; and will you,--will you be Mrs. Spooner?" He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no craning,--no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on the path, and he stood opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons of his frock-coat. "Mr. Spooner!" exclaimed Adelaide. "I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser; no man ever was more in earnest. I can offer you a comfortable well-furnished home, an undivided heart, a good settlement, and no embarrassment on the property. I'm fond of a country life myself, but I'll adapt myself to you in everything reasonable." "You are mistaken, Mr. Spooner; you are indeed." "How mistaken?" "I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You have surprised me so much that I couldn't stop you sooner; but pray do not speak of it again." "It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do? If you will only think of it--" "I can't think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really, Mr. Spooner, I can't go on with you. If you wouldn't mind turning back I'll walk into the village by myself." Mr. Spooner, however, did not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and, when she moved on, walked on beside her. "I must insist on being left alone," she said. "I haven't done anything out of the way," said the lover. "I think it's very much out of the way. I have hardly ever spoken to you before. If you will only leave me now there shall not be a word more said about it." But Mr. Spooner was a man of spirit. "I'm not in the least ashamed of what I've done," he said. "But you might as well go away, when it can't be of any use." "I don't know why it shouldn't be of use. Miss Palliser, I'm a man of good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and we've been there ever since. My mother was one of the Platters of Platter House. I don't see that I've done anything out of the way. As for shilly-shallying, and hanging about, I never knew any good come from it. Don't let us quarrel, Miss Palliser. Say that you'll take a week to think of it." "But I won't think of it at all; and I won't go on walking with you. If you'll go one way, Mr. Spooner, I'll go the other." Then Mr. Spooner waxed angry. "Why am I to be treated with disdain?" he said. "I don't want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away." "You seem to think that I'm something,--something altogether beneath you." And so in truth she did. Miss Palliser had never analysed her own feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society; but she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but who were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have anything in common,--who were her inferiors, as completely as were the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr. Spooner, while in her heart of hearts she loved Gerard Maule, it would be difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age,--nor of good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Maule was by no means wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting. Neither of them did anything useful. In that respect Mr. Spooner stood the higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Maule so wore his clothes, and so carried his limbs, and so pronounced his words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any lady; whereas poor Mr. Spooner was not justified in proposing to marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at least, were Adelaide Palliser's ideas. "I don't think anything of the kind," she said, "only I want you to go away. I shall go back to the house, and I hope you won't accompany me. If you do, I shall turn the other way." Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left standing in the path. There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he had read, in his younger days, that lovers in novels generally do persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In affairs of the heart, such perseverance was, he thought, the correct thing. But in this instance the conduct of the lady had not given him the slightest encouragement. When a horse balked with him at a fence, it was his habit to force the animal till he jumped it,--as the groom had recommended Phineas to do. But when he had encountered a decided fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at the same place again. There was probably some occult cause for failure. He could not but own that he had been thrown on the present occasion,--and upon the whole, he thought that he had better give it up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chiltern or any of her guests. [Illustration: He sat down for a moment to think of it all.] "What has become of Mr. Spooner?" Maule asked, as soon as he returned to Harrington Hall. "Nobody knows," said Lady Chiltern, "but I believe he has gone." "Has anything happened?" "I have heard no tidings; but, if you ask for my opinion, I think something has happened. A certain lady seems to have been ruffled, and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that a few unsuccessful words have been spoken." Gerard Maule saw that there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied. "My dear, what did Mr. Spooner say to you during his walk?" This question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of nearly all the party. "We were talking of hunting," said Adelaide. "And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign?" "No;--he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was tired and came back." "Poor old woman;--and poor Mr. Spooner!" Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr. Spooner's discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his valour; but Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that special hour. CHAPTER XX. PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON. Phineas, on his return to London, before he had taken his seat in the House, received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:-- Dresden, Feb. 8, 1870. DEAR FRIEND,-- I thought that perhaps you would have written to me from Harrington. Violet has told me of the meeting between you and Madame Goesler, and says that the old friendship seems to have been perfectly re-established. She used to think once that there might be more than friendship, but I never quite believed that. She tells me that Chiltern is quarrelling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you. He always did. I write now especially because I have just received so dreadful a letter from Mr. Kennedy! I would send it you were it not that there are in it a few words which on his behalf I shrink from showing even to you. It is full of threats. He begins by quotations from the Scriptures, and from the Prayer-Book, to show that a wife has no right to leave her husband,--and then he goes on to the law. One knows all that of course. And then he asks whether he ever ill-used me? Was he ever false to me? Do I think, that were I to choose to submit the matter to the iniquitous practices of the present Divorce Court, I could prove anything against him by which even that low earthly judge would be justified in taking from him his marital authority? And if not,--have I no conscience? Can I reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate and wretched simply because duties which I took upon myself at my marriage have become distasteful to me? These questions would be very hard to answer, were there not other questions that I could ask. Of course I was wrong to marry him. I know that now, and I repent my sin in sackcloth and ashes. But I did not leave him after I married him till he had brought against me horrid accusations,--accusations which a woman could not bear, which, if he believed them himself, must have made it impossible for him to live with me. Could any wife live with a husband who declared to her face that he believed that she had a lover? And in this very letter he says that which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how I can have dared to receive you, and desires me never either to see you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent for you to Loughlinter before you came, in order that you might act as a friend between us. How could I possibly return to a man whose power of judgment has so absolutely left him? I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that is very far from being at ease. I have done wrong, and have shipwrecked every hope in this world. No woman was ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me, and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin,--a sin unlike other sins,--not to be avoided, of daily occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom she loathes. I couldn't live with him. If it were simply to go and die, so that his pride would be gratified by my return, I would do it; but I should not die. There would come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to him than I am while living here. He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that unless I return to him he will put into some of the papers a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort that now remains to me. And he might say things that would be prejudicial to others,--especially to you. Could this in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers would publish anything; and you know how greedily people will read slander about those whose names are in any way remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane; but it is very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of Queen's Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to send me back to England in the custody of the police, but that I do not believe. I had the opinion of Sir Gregory Grogram before I came away, and he told me that it was not so. I do not fear his power over my person, while I remain here, but that the matter should be dragged forward before the public. I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter to Papa. I hardly liked to tell you when you were here, but I almost fear to talk to Papa about it. He never urges me to go back, but I know that he wishes that I should do so. He has ideas about money, which seem singular to me, knowing, as I do, how very generous he has been himself. When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just used in paying Chiltern's debts. Mr. Kennedy had declared himself to be quite indifferent about it, though the sum was large. The whole thing was explained to him, and he was satisfied. Before a year was over he complained to Papa, and then Papa and Chiltern together raised the money,--£40,000,--and it was paid to Mr. Kennedy. He has written more than once to Papa's lawyer to say that, though the money is altogether useless to him, he will not return a penny of it, because by doing so he would seem to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him to return it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account since I left him. But Papa continues to say that the money should not be lost to the family. I cannot, however, return to such a husband for the sake of £40,000. Papa is very angry about the money, because he says that if it had been paid in the usual way at my marriage, settlements would have been required that it should come back to the family after Mr. Kennedy's death in the event of my having no child. But, as it is now, the money would go to his estate after my death. I don't understand why it should be so, but Papa is always harping upon it, and declaring that Mr. Kennedy's pretended generosity has robbed us all. Papa thinks that were I to return this could be arranged; but I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does it matter? Chiltern and Violet will have enough; and of what use would it be to such a one as I am to have a sum of money to leave behind me? I should leave it to your children, Phineas, and not to Chiltern's. He bids me neither see you nor write to you,--but how can I obey a man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will not obey him in the greater matter by returning to him it would be absurd were I to attempt to obey him in smaller details. I don't suppose I shall see you very often. His letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it would be impossible for me to return to England, and it is not likely that you will soon come here again. I will not even ask you to do so, though your presence gave a brightness to my life for a few days which nothing else could have produced. But when the lamp for a while burns with special brightness there always comes afterwards a corresponding dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the comfort of my confession to you at Königstein. I was determined that you should know it all; but, having told you, I do not want to see you again. As for writing, he shall not deprive me of the consolation,--nor I trust will you. Do you think that I should answer his letter, or will it be better that I should show it to Papa? I am very averse to doing this, as I have explained to you; but I would do so if I thought that Mr. Kennedy really intended to act upon his threats. I will not conceal from you that it would go nigh to kill me if my name were dragged through the papers. Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were known to be mad of course the papers would not publish his statements; but I suppose that if he were to send a letter from Loughlinter with his name to it they would print it. It would be very, very cruel. God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am Your friend, L. K. This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat up for nearly an hour thinking of it after he read it. He must answer it at once. That was a matter of course. But he could give her no advice that would be of any service to her. He was, indeed, of all men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency. It seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person, she need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present condition she could take no steps whatever in regard to the money. That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to the threat of publicity, the probability, he thought, was that it would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper would insert such a statement as that suggested. Were it published, the evil must be borne. No diligence on her part, or on the part of her lawyers, could prevent it. But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be avoided, of sin repeated daily which nevertheless weighed her to the ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration of affection for himself which she had made at Königstein, and which had pervaded her whole life since some period antecedent to her wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, tried to analyse the nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a matured kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back, as it were, as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr. Kennedy. Could it be that at that moment she could have loved him as she now said she did, and that she should have been so cold, so calm, and so kind; while, at that very moment, this coldness, calmness, and kindness was but a thin crust over so strong a passion? How different had been his own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself for a day or two to be so terribly knocked about that the world was nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man peculiarly circumstanced,--marked for misfortune and for a solitary life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months were passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that he knew,--that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman,--a weakness showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was a woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days and marry a man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence to be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay strength of character and on which side weakness? Was he strong or was she? And he tried to examine his own feelings in regard to her. The thing was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt, or sister, so much the elder as to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself in her service, could he serve her by any work of his. He was,--or would be, devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she free to marry again to-morrow, he knew that he could not marry her. She herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make known to her his wife, should he ever marry again. She had declared that she was incapable of further jealousy;--and yet she now told him of daily sin of which her conscience could not assoil itself. "Phineas," said a voice close to his ears, "are you repenting your sins?" "Oh, certainly;--what sins?" It was Barrington Erle. "You know that we are going to do nothing to-morrow," continued he. "So I am told." "We shall let the Address pass almost without a word. Gresham will simply express his determination to oppose the Church Bill to the knife. He means to be very plain-spoken about it. Whatever may be the merits of the Bill, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort to retain power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands as those of Mr. Daubeny. I take it he will go at length into the question of majorities, and show how inexpedient it is on behalf of the nation that any Ministry should remain in power who cannot command a majority in the House on ordinary questions. I don't know whether he will do that to-morrow or at the second reading of the Bill." "I quite agree with him." "Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have a doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of Church Reform. Dear old Mildmay, who taught me all I know, hates it too. But Mr. Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes Church Reform in my time, or anything else, I shall support him." "I know those are your ideas." "Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force of circumstances any government in this country would be impossible. Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter." "She must submit to advice, certainly." "Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington, energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of the House of Commons?" "I think not." "We are all agreed about that. Not a single man in either House would dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think of running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do so with pen and ink in his closet." "I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again after what I did about the Irish land question," said Phineas. "A first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects been useful. The long and the short of it is that you must vote with us against Daubeny's bill. Browborough sees it plainly enough. He supported his chief in the teeth of all his protestations at Tankerville." "I am not Browborough." "Nor half so good a man if you desert us," said Barrington Erle, with anger. "I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine. But I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall ask advice; but you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must seek it from some one who is less distinctly a partisan than you are." "From Monk?" "Yes;--from Mr. Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that this measure should come from the hands of Mr. Daubeny." "Then why the d---- should you support it, and oppose your own party at the same time? After that you can't do it. Well, Ratler, my guide and philosopher, how is it going to be?" Mr. Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amicable intercourse with a man as to whom he did not yet know whether to regard him as a friend or foe. "We shall be very quiet for the next month or six weeks," said Ratler. "And then?" asked Phineas. "Well, then it will depend on what may be the number of a few insane men who never ought to have seats in the House." "Such as Mr. Monk and Mr. Turnbull?" Now it was well known that both those gentlemen, who were recognised as leading men, were strong Radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill, come whence it might, which would separate Church and State. "Such as Mr. Monk," said Ratler. "I will grant that Turnbull may be an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has once been in office,--why then--" "When he has taken the shilling?" said Phineas. "Just so. I confess I do not like a deserter." "Phineas will be all right," said Barrington Erle. "I hope so," said Mr. Ratler, as he passed on. "Ratler and I run very much in the same groove," said Barrington, "but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power." "Ratler wants place." "And so do I." "He wants it just as most men want professional success," said Phineas. "But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the maintenance of the old-established political power of the Whigs. You believe in families?" "I do believe in the patriotism of certain families. I believe that the Mildmays, FitzHowards, and Pallisers have for some centuries brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been generally efficacious. Of course, there have been failures. Every child won't learn its lesson however well it may be taught. But the school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you a scholar yet." The House met on the following day, and the Address was moved and seconded; but there was no debate. There was not even a full House. The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously, that the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that nothing would in fact be done. Mr. Gresham, as leader of his side of the House, confined himself to asserting that he should give his firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was, it seemed, so popular with the gentlemen who sat on the other side, and who supported the so-called Conservative Government of the day. His reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not, therefore, now trouble the House with them. He did not on this occasion explain his ideas as to majorities, and the Address was carried by seven o'clock in the evening. Mr. Daubeny named a day a month hence for the first reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some member on a back bench. "Because it cannot be ready sooner," said Mr. Daubeny. "When the honourable gentleman has achieved a position which will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward some great measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably find it expedient to devote some little time to details. If he do not, he will be less anxious to avoid attack than I am." A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect. Mr. Monk's advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He intended to support Mr. Gresham, and of course counselled his friend to do the same. "But you supported Mr. Daubeny on the Address before Christmas," said Phineas. "And shall therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him now;--but the task will not be difficult. The Queen's speech to Parliament was in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the Address. But I certainly cannot trust Mr. Daubeny with Church Reform. I do not know that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so." Phineas soon found himself sitting in the House as though he had never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over asking some question of some Minister, and of course insinuating as he did so that the Minister in question had been guilty of some enormity of omission or commission. It all came back upon him as though he had been born to the very manner. And as it became known to the Ratlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming question,--to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings at Tankerville,--everybody was civil to him. Mr. Bonteen did express an opinion to Mr. Ratler that it was quite impossible that Phineas Finn should ever again accept office, as of course the Tankervillians would never replace him in his seat after manifest apostasy to his pledge; but Mr. Ratler seemed to think very little of that. "They won't remember, Lord bless you;--and then he's one of those fellows that always get in somewhere. He's not a man I particularly like; but you'll always see him in the House;--up and down, you know. When a fellow begins early, and has got it in him, it's hard to shake him off." And thus even Mr. Ratler was civil to our hero. Lady Laura Kennedy's letter had, of course, been answered,--not without very great difficulty. "My dear Laura," he had begun,--for the first time in his life. She had told him to treat her as a brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection. He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He assured her that no power could be used to enforce her return. He expressed his belief that Mr. Kennedy would abstain from making any public statement, but suggested that if any were made the answering of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chiltern, and something also of himself. When the letter was written he found that it was cold and almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which it had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against her and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to any woman he might do her an irreparable injury; and yet the tone of his own letter was odious to him. CHAPTER XXI. MR. MAULE, SENIOR. The life of Mr. Maurice Maule, of Maule Abbey, the father of Gerard Maule, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great things,--winning prizes, spouting speeches on Speech days, playing in elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly succeeded in running away with the young lady before he went to college. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth. At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set,--men of fashion who were also given to talking of books,--who spent money, read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the Tracts and Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an idle man with a moderate income,--a life which should be luxurious, refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to do, as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a magistrate in his county; but he would not interest himself with the price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow,--nor did he ever care how a score of ewes went at any fair. There is no harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work, though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life, and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good eating and drinking; but conceived of himself that in his love for them he was an artist, and not a glutton. He had married early, and his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than had attended his father. Mr. Maule was now something about fifty-five years of age, and almost considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there was no whist, no society,--it may almost be said no dinner. He had tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;--but all had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period of the year must always be endured without relaxation, and without comfort. Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground for meeting. They did not belong to the same clubs. They did not live in the same circles. They did not follow the same pursuits. They were interested in the same property;--but, as on that subject there had been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The father believed himself to be a poorer man than his son, and was very sore on the subject; but he had nothing beyond a life interest in his property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding,--lest absolute starvation and the poorhouse should befall him. There still remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very considerable amount of self-indulgence. He dined out a great deal, and was known everywhere as Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. He was a slight, bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man, who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for love;--probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend. This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for such a mode of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and he was still on the look out. There are women always in the market ready to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real gentleman. That Mr. Maurice Maule was a real gentleman no judge in such matters had ever doubted. On a certain morning just at the end of February Mr. Maule was sitting in his library,--so-called,--eating his breakfast, at about twelve o'clock; and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard. Gerard had written to say that he would call on that morning, and the promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in his dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper in his hand. When his newspaper and breakfast should be finished,--as they would be certainly at the same moment,--there were in store for him two cigarettes, and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and saunter out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would see a picture, or perhaps some china-vase, of which news had reached him, and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer. Everybody knew that he never bought anything;--but he was a man whose opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on some lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to him;--for that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle unexcited manner till seven. He never played for high points, and would never be enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club stakes. Were he to lose £10 or £20 at a sitting his arrangements would be greatly disturbed, and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well, taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that his whist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes. He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner he would occasionally play another rubber; but twelve o'clock always saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maule that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires great accuracy in living. Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded candle-ends of age. But such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him. He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now rarely anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been a spendthrift; but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied, had been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked tenants, but with punctual, though inimical, trustees, who paid to him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented with the ambition of a splendid marriage it might be said of him that he was completely at his ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been thoroughly comfortable, were it not that he was threatened with disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him, and thus break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course his son would not come to him without having some business in hand which must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his son,--and yet, as they were on amicable terms, he could not deny himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced. "Well, Gerard!" "Well, father,--how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir." "Thanks for the compliment, if you mean one. I am pretty well. I thought you were hunting somewhere." "So I am; but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have been smoking;--may I light a cigar?" "I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette." The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug. "But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say." "Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going to be married!" "To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business. "Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes." "No doubt;--and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of having done." "Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you." "Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large fortune,--" "She has no fortune." "No fortune!" "Two or three thousand pounds perhaps." "Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the trouble be what it may." "I certainly shall not do that, sir." "Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and don't ask me to see her." "You haven't heard her name yet." "I do not care one straw what her name is." "It is Adelaide Palliser." "Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me. My dear Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor, embarrassed, and half-famished man." "Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not got a quarter of that sum." "No doubt you will." "Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income." "And on less than a quarter of it. The very respectable man who brushes my clothes no doubt does so. But then you see he has been brought up in that way. I suppose that you as a bachelor put by every year at least half your income?" "I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds." "And yet you expect to keep a house over your head, and an expensive wife and family, with lady's maid, nurses, cook, footman, and grooms, on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own wants! I didn't think you were such an idiot, my boy." "Thank you, sir." "What will her dress cost?" "I have not the slightest idea." "I dare say not. Probably she is a horsewoman. As far as I know anything of your life that is the sphere in which you will have made the lady's acquaintance." "She does ride." "No doubt, and so do you; and it will be very easy to say whither you will ride together if you are fools enough to get married. I can only advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else?" There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his father to hear him. Mr. Maule, who had hitherto been standing, seated himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which had been prepared for his morning's delectation. It was evidently his intention that his son should leave him. The news had been communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general view of the matter, and to avoid details,--which might be personal to himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined, almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when Miss Palliser had suddenly,--almost suddenly,--accepted him; and when he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in her presence and in that of Lady Chiltern, the question of the Maule Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maule Abbey there might be found a home for the married couple, and,--so thought Lady Chiltern,--the only fitting home. Mr. Maule, the father, certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's money. Then, if Gerard Maule would be prudent, and give up hunting, and farm a little himself,--and if Adelaide would do her own housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the more so as a leg of mutton roast or boiled would be the beginning and the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward to a new life at Maule Abbey. After all there could be no such great difficulty for a young married couple to live on £800 a year, with a house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no man servant till,--till old Mr. Maule was dead. The suggestion as to the ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words. "The property must be yours some day," suggested Lady Chiltern. "If I outlive my father." "We take that for granted; and then, you know--" So Lady Chiltern went on, dilating upon a future state of squirearchal bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic; but Gerard Maule,--after he had assented to the abandonment of his hunting, much as a man assents to being hung when the antecedents of his life have put any option in the matter out of his power,--had sat silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were described to him. Lady Chiltern, however, had been urgent in pointing out to him that the scheme of living at Maule Abbey could not be carried out without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr. Maule himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also knew that he had but very little power in reference to the property. But the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him. Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. "I wanted to speak to you about the property," said Gerard. He had been specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point. "And what about the property?" "Of course my marriage will not affect your interests." "I should say not. It would be very odd if it did. As it is, your income is much larger than mine." "I don't know how that is, sir; but I suppose you will not refuse to give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your own comfort." "In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be managed better by the lawyer? If there is a thing I hate, it is business." Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chiltern, did persevere, though the perseverance went much against the grain with him. "We thought, sir, that if you would consent we might live at Maule Abbey." "Oh;--you did; did you?" "Is there any objection?" "Simply the fact that it is my house, and not yours." "It belongs, I suppose, to the property; and as--" "As what?" asked the father, turning upon the son with sharp angry eyes, and with something of real animation in his face. Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. "And as," he continued,--"as it must come to me, I suppose, some day, and it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then, I thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it would be a good sort of thing to do." "That was your idea?" "We talked it over with our friend, Lady Chiltern." "Indeed! I am so much obliged to your friend, Lady Chiltern, for the interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady Chiltern, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as Maule Abbey." "But you don't think of living there." "My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may happen to know who understand the world better than Lady Chiltern seems to do, they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his father the abandonment of the family property, because the father may--probably--soon--be conveniently got rid of under ground." "There was no thought of such a thing," said Gerard. "It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men do. I care less about it than most men, but even I object to such a proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might probably have earned his bread on the stage. "Nobody thought of your being old, sir." "I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor feeble creature. But while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own house,--if Lady Chiltern could be induced to consent to such an arrangement. My doctor seems to think that I might linger on for a year or two,--with great care." "Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind." "We won't act the king and the prince any further, if you please. The prince protested very well, and, if I remember right, the father pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me. If you have no objection I would choose to be left to recover myself a little." "And is that all that you will say to me?" "Good heavens;--what more can you want? I will not--consent--to give up--my house at Maule Abbey for your use,--as long as I live. Will that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think that any reason why I should starve too. Will that do? And your friend, Lady Chiltern, may--go--and be d----d. Will that do?" "Good morning, sir." "Good morning, Gerard." So the interview was over, and Gerard Maule left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately lit another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had been really disturbed, and could not easily compose himself. The cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maule rose almost impetuously from his chair, and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the proposition that had been made to him. It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Though he was a man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with good digestion,--who might live to be ninety,--he did not like to be warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had been put forward to Maule Abbey by his son had rested on the fact that when he should die the place must belong to his son;--and the fact was unpleasant to him. Lady Chiltern had spoken of him behind his back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an impertinence. Maule Abbey, no doubt, was a ruined old house, in which he never thought of living,--which was not let to a tenant by the creditors of his estate, only because its condition was unfit for tenancy. But now Mr. Maule began to think whether he might not possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death, by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maule Abbey if this successful marriage could be effected? He almost knew himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maule Abbey would destroy him; but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of being Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage that was to come he must be so known. To be spoken of as the father of Maule of Maule Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore when the communication was made to him he had managed to be very unpleasant. As for giving up Maule Abbey,--! He fretted and fumed as he thought of the proposition through the hour which should have been to him an hour of enjoyment; and his anger grew hot against his son as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however, he composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his luxurious furred great coat, and then he sallied forth in quest of the lady. CHAPTER XXII. "PURITY OF MORALS, FINN." Mr. Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People's Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His newspaper was still the People's Banner, and Mr. Slide still professed to protect the existing rights of the people, and to demand new rights for the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called upon him to be the organ of Mr. Daubeny. This duty he performed with great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility, was eased by Mr. Daubeny's newly-declared views on Church matters. The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner in reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost entirely confined to the lauding of Mr. Daubeny instead of Mr. Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr. Daubeny was the head of the Conservative party in the kingdom, and though Mr. Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that Mr. Daubeny's organ should support the Conservative party all round. It became Mr. Slide's duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots whom he had designated a month or two since as bloated aristocrats and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course remarks were made by his brethren of the press,--remarks which were intended to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to divide a column of its own into double columns, printing on one side of the inserted line remarks made by the People's Banner in September respecting the Duke of ----, and the Marquis of ----, and Sir ---- ----, which were certainly very harsh; and on the other side remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled politicians. But a journalist, with the tact and experience of Mr. Quintus Slide, knew his business too well to allow himself to be harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity, the immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of the editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which he rowed it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct. "And then," said he at the close of a very virulent and successful article, "the hirelings of ---- dare to accuse me of inconsistency!" The readers of the People's Banner all thought that their editor had beaten his adversary out of the field. Mr. Quintus Slide was certainly well adapted for his work. He could edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which would best conduce to its success, and he could write telling leading articles himself. He was indefatigable, unscrupulous, and devoted to his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which his readers would be satisfied. A highly-wrought moral strain would he knew well create either disgust or ridicule. "If there is any beastliness I 'ate it is 'igh-faluting," he has been heard to say to his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the "Point de zèle" of Talleyrand. "Let's 'ave no d----d nonsense," he said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article a passage in praise of the patriotism of a certain public man. "Mr. Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt; what we want to know is whether he's along with us." Mr. Gresham was not along with Mr. Slide at present, and Mr. Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr. Gresham. Mr. Slide one Sunday morning called at the house of Mr. Bunce in Great Marlborough Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr. Slide and Mr. Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scrivener before he was shown up to the member of Parliament. Mr. Bunce was an outspoken, eager, and honest politician,--with very little accurate knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded, but with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a sober, hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should be put down, and that all property in land should be taken away from men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness. What should be done with the land when so taken away was a question which he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he was accustomed to say very hard words of Mr. Slide behind his back, because of the change which had been effected in the People's Banner, and he certainly was not the man to shrink from asserting in a person's presence aught that he said in his absence. "Well, Mr. Conservative Slide," he said, stepping into the little back parlour, in which the editor was left while Mrs. Bunce went up to learn whether the member of Parliament would receive his visitor. "None of your chaff, Bunce." "We have enough of your chaff, anyhow; don't we, Mr. Slide? I still sees the Banner, Mr. Slide,--most days; just for the joke of it." "As long as you take it, Bunce, I don't care what the reason is." "I suppose a heditor's about the same as a Cabinet Minister. You've got to keep your place;--that's about it, Mr. Slide." "We've got to tell the people who's true to 'em. Do you believe that Gresham 'd ever have brought in a Bill for doing away with the Church? Never;--not if he'd been Prime Minister till doomsday. What you want is progress." "That's about it, Mr. Slide." "And where are you to get it? Did you ever hear that a rose by any other name 'd smell as sweet? If you can get progress from the Conservatives, and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives for it? Who repealed the corn laws? Who gave us 'ousehold suffrage?" "I think I've been told all that before, Mr. Slide; them things weren't given by no manner of means, as I look at it. We just went in and took 'em. It was hall a haccident whether it was Cobden or Peel, Gladstone or Disraeli, as was the servants we employed to do our work. But Liberal is Liberal, and Conservative is Conservative. What are you, Mr. Slide, to-day?" "If you'd talk of things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not talk quite so much nonsense." At this moment Mrs. Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a quarrel, and offered to usher Mr. Slide up to the young member's room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman, remembering that when they had last met the intercourse had not been pleasant,--but he knew that enmities are foolish things, and that it did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr. Quintus Slide. "I remember him very well, Mrs. Bunce." "I know you didn't like him, Sir." "Not particularly." "No more don't I. No more don't Bunce. He's one of them as 'd say a'most anything for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That's what Bunce says." "It won't hurt me to see him." "No, sir; it won't hurt you. It would be a pity indeed if the likes of him could hurt the likes of you." And so Mr. Quintus Slide was shown up into the room. The first greeting was very affectionate, at any rate on the part of the editor. He grasped the young member's hand, congratulated him on his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. "Now you want to know what I'm come about; don't you?" "No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr. Slide." "It's an important matter;--and so you'll say when you do hear. And it's one in which I don't know whether you'll be able to see your way quite clear." "I'll do my best, if it concerns me." "It does." So saying, Mr. Slide, who had seated himself in an arm-chair by the fireside opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs, folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side, and sat for a few moments in silence, with his eyes fixed on his companion's face. "It does concern you, or I shouldn't be here. Do you know Mr. Kennedy,--the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, of Loughlinter, in Scotland?" "I do know Mr. Kennedy." "And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife?" "Certainly I do." "So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take it, father to the lady in question?" "Of course I do. You know that I do." For there had been a time in which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the People's Banner could inflict upon him, because of his adherence to Lord Brentford, and the vials of wrath had been poured out by the hands of Mr. Quintus Slide himself. "Very well. It does not signify what I know or what I don't. Those preliminary questions I have been obliged to ask as my justification for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr. Kennedy has I believe been greatly wronged." "I am not prepared to talk about Mr. Kennedy's affairs," said Phineas gravely. "But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That's the rub. He has been ill-used, and he has come to the People's Banner for redress. Will you have the kindness to cast your eye down that slip?" Whereupon the editor handed to Phineas a long scrap of printed paper, amounting to about a column and a half of the People's Banner, containing a letter to the editor dated from Loughlinter, and signed Robert Kennedy at full length. "You don't mean to say that you're going to publish this," said Phineas before he had read it. "Why not?" "The man is a madman." "There's nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It's what we do to dogs when we want to hang them. I believe Mr. Kennedy has the management of his own property. He is not too mad for that. But just cast your eye down and read it." Phineas did cast his eye down, and read the whole letter;--nor as he read it could he bring himself to believe that the writer of it would be judged to be mad from its contents. Mr. Kennedy had told the whole story of his wrongs, and had told it well,--with piteous truthfulness, as far as he himself knew and understood the truth. The letter was almost simple in its wailing record of his own desolation. With a marvellous absence of reticence he had given the names of all persons concerned. He spoke of his wife as having been, and being, under the influence of Mr. Phineas Finn;--spoke of his own former friendship for that gentleman, who had once saved his life when he fell among thieves, and then accused Phineas of treachery in betraying that friendship. He spoke with bitter agony of the injury done him by the Earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his wife, when her proper home was at Loughlinter. And then declared himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. "That she had sinned is certain," he said; "I do not believe she has sinned as some sin; but, whatever be her sin, it is for a man to forgive as he hopes for forgiveness." He expatiated on the absolute and almost divine right which it was intended that a husband should exercise over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public sympathy, through the public press, because, owing to some gross insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his erring wife. But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words could not produce. "I wonder very greatly that you should put such a letter as that into type," said Phineas when he had read it all. "Why shouldn't we put it into type?" "You don't mean to say that you'll publish it." "Why shouldn't we publish it?" "It's a private quarrel between a man and his wife. What on earth have the public got to do with that?" "Private quarrels between gentlemen and ladies have been public affairs for a long time past. You must know that very well." "When they come into court they are." "In court and out of court! The morale of our aristocracy,--what you call the Upper Ten,--would be at a low ebb indeed if the public press didn't act as their guardians. Do you think that if the Duke of ---- beats his wife black and blue, nothing is to be said about it unless the Duchess brings her husband into court? Did you ever know of a separation among the Upper Ten, that wasn't handled by the press one way or the other? It's my belief that there isn't a peer among 'em all as would live with his wife constant, if it was not for the press;--only some of the very old ones, who couldn't help themselves." "And you call yourself a Conservative?" "Never mind what I call myself. That has nothing to do with what we're about now. You see that letter, Finn. There is nothing little or dirty about us. We go in for morals and purity of life, and we mean to do our duty by the public without fear or favour. Your name is mentioned there in a manner that you won't quite like, and I think I am acting uncommon kind by you in showing it to you before we publish it." Phineas, who still held the slip in his hand, sat silent thinking of the matter. He hated the man. He could not endure the feeling of being called Finn by him without showing his resentment. As regarded himself, he was thoroughly well inclined to kick Mr. Slide and his Banner into the street. But he was bound to think first of Lady Laura. Such a publication as this, which was now threatened, was the misfortune which the poor woman dreaded more than any other. He, personally, had certainly been faultless in the matter. He had never addressed a word of love to Mr. Kennedy's wife since the moment in which she had told him that she was engaged to marry the Laird of Loughlinter. Were the letter to be published he could answer it, he thought, in such a manner as to defend himself and her without damage to either. But on her behalf he was bound to prevent this publicity if it could be prevented;--and he was bound also, for her sake, to allow himself to be called Finn by this most obnoxious editor. "In the ordinary course of things, Finn, it will come out to-morrow morning," said the obnoxious editor. "Every word of it is untrue," said Phineas. "You say that, of course." "And I should at once declare myself willing to make such a statement on oath. It is a libel of the grossest kind, and of course there would be a prosecution. Both Lord Brentford and I would be driven to that." "We should be quite indifferent. Mr. Kennedy would hold us harmless. We're straightforward. My showing it to you would prove that." "What is it you want, Mr. Slide?" "Want! You don't suppose we want anything. If you think that the columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure and immaculate. That is, the morning papers are. Want, indeed! What do you think I want?" "I have not the remotest idea." "Purity of morals, Finn;--punishment for the guilty;--defence for the innocent;--support for the weak;--safety for the oppressed;--and a rod of iron for the oppressors!" "But that is a libel." "It's very heavy on the old Earl, and upon you, and upon Lady Laura;--isn't it?" "It's a libel,--as you know. You tell me that purity of morals can be supported by such a publication as this! Had you meant to go on with it, you would hardly have shown it to me." "You're in the wrong box there, Finn. Now I'll tell you what we'll do,--on behalf of what I call real purity. We'll delay the publication if you'll undertake that the lady shall go back to her husband." "The lady is not in my hands." "She's under your influence. You were with her over at Dresden not much more than a month ago. She'd go sharp enough if you told her." "You never made a greater mistake in your life." "Say that you'll try." "I certainly will not do so." "Then it goes in to-morrow," said Mr. Quintus Slide, stretching out his hand and taking back the slip. "What on earth is your object?" "Morals! Morals! We shall be able to say that we've done our best to promote domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife. You've no notion, Finn, in your mind of what will soon be the hextent of the duties, privileges, and hinfluences of the daily press;--the daily morning press, that is; for I look on those little evening scraps as just so much paper and ink wasted. You won't interfere, then?" "Yes, I will;--if you'll give me time. Where is Mr. Kennedy?" "What has that to do with it? Do you write over to Lady Laura and the old lord and tell them that if she'll undertake to be at Loughlinter within a month this shall be suppressed. Will you do that?" "Let me first see Mr. Kennedy." Mr. Slide thought a while over that matter. "Well," said he at last, "you can see Kennedy if you will. He came up to town four or five days ago, and he's staying at an hotel in Judd Street." "An hotel in Judd Street?" "Yes;--Macpherson's in Judd Street. I suppose he likes to keep among the Scotch. I don't think he ever goes out of the house, and he's waiting in London till this thing is published." "I will go and see him," said Phineas. "I shouldn't wonder if he murdered you;--but that's between you and him." "Just so." "And I shall hear from you?" "Yes," said Phineas, hesitating as he made the promise. "Yes, you shall hear from me." "We've got our duty to do, and we mean to do it. If we see that we can induce the lady to go back to her husband, we shall habstain from publishing, and virtue will be its own reward. I needn't tell you that such a letter as that would sell a great many copies, Finn." Then, at last, Mr. Slide arose and departed. CHAPTER XXIII. MACPHERSON'S HOTEL. Phineas, when he was left alone, found himself greatly at a loss as to what he had better do. He had pledged himself to see Mr. Kennedy, and was not much afraid of encountering personal violence at the hands of that gentleman. But he could think of nothing which he could with advantage say to Mr. Kennedy. He knew that Lady Laura would not return to her husband. Much as she dreaded such exposure as was now threatened, she would not return to Loughlinter to avoid even that. He could not hold out any such hope to Mr. Kennedy;--and without doing so how could he stop the publication? He thought of getting an injunction from the Vice-Chancellor;--but it was now Sunday, and he had understood that the publication would appear on the morrow, unless stopped by some note from himself. He thought of finding some attorney, and taking him to Mr. Kennedy; but he knew that Mr. Kennedy would be deterred by no attorney. Then he thought of Mr. Low. He would see Mr. Kennedy first, and then go to Mr. Low's house. Judd Street runs into the New Road near the great stations of the Midland and Northern Railways, and is a highly respectable street. But it can hardly be called fashionable, as is Piccadilly; or central, as is Charing Cross; or commercial, as is the neighbourhood of St. Paul's. Men seeking the shelter of an hotel in Judd Street most probably prefer decent and respectable obscurity to other advantages. It was some such feeling, no doubt, joined to the fact that the landlord had originally come from the neighbourhood of Loughlinter, which had taken Mr. Kennedy to Macpherson's Hotel. Phineas, when he called at about three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, was at once informed by Mrs. Macpherson that Mr. Kennedy was "nae doubt at hame, but was nae willing to see folk on the Saaboth." Phineas pleaded the extreme necessity of his business, alleging that Mr. Kennedy himself would regard its nature as a sufficient justification for such Sabbath-breaking,--and sent up his card. Then there came down a message to him. Could not Mr. Finn postpone his visit to the following morning? But Phineas declared that it could not be postponed. Circumstances, which he would explain to Mr. Kennedy, made it impossible. At last he was desired to walk up stairs, though Mrs. Macpherson, as she showed him the way, evidently thought that her house was profaned by such wickedness. Macpherson in preparing his house had not run into that extravagance of architecture which has lately become so common in our hotels. It was simply an ordinary house, with the words "Macpherson's Hotel" painted on a semi-circular board over the doorway. The front parlour had been converted into a bar, and in the back parlour the Macphersons lived. The staircase was narrow and dirty, and in the front drawing-room,--with the chamber behind for his bedroom,--Mr. Kennedy was installed. Mr. Macpherson probably did not expect any customers beyond those friendly Scots who came up to London from his own side of the Highlands. Mrs. Macpherson, as she opened the door, was silent and almost mysterious. Such a breach of the law might perhaps be justified by circumstances of which she knew nothing, but should receive no sanction from her which she could avoid. So she did not even whisper the name. Mr. Kennedy, as Phineas entered, slowly rose from his chair, putting down the Bible which had been in his hands. He did not speak at once, but looked at his visitor over the spectacles which he wore. Phineas thought that he was even more haggard in appearance and aged than when they two had met hardly three months since at Loughlinter. There was no shaking of hands, and hardly any pretence at greeting. Mr. Kennedy simply bowed his head, and allowed his visitor to begin the conversation. "I should not have come to you on such a day as this, Mr. Kennedy--" "It is a day very unfitted for the affairs of the world," said Mr. Kennedy. "Had not the matter been most pressing in regard both to time and its own importance." "So the woman told me, and therefore I have consented to see you." "You know a man of the name of--Slide, Mr. Kennedy?" Mr. Kennedy shook his head. "You know the editor of the People's Banner?" Again he shook his head. "You have, at any rate, written a letter for publication to that newspaper." "Need I consult you as to what I write?" "But he,--the editor,--has consulted me." "I can have nothing to do with that." "This Mr. Slide, the editor of the People's Banner, has just been with me, having in his hand a printed letter from you, which,--you will excuse me, Mr. Kennedy,--is very libellous." "I will bear the responsibility of that." "But you would not wish to publish falsehood about your wife, or even about me." "Falsehood! sir; how dare you use that word to me? Is it false to say that she has left my house? Is it false to say that she is my wife, and cannot desert me, as she has done, without breaking her vows, and disregarding the laws both of God and man? Am I false when I say that I gave her no cause? Am I false when I offer to take her back, let her faults be what they may have been? Am I false when I say that her father acts illegally in detaining her? False! False in your teeth! Falsehood is villany, and it is not I that am the villain." "You have joined my name in the accusation." "Because you are her paramour. I know you now;--viper that was warmed in my bosom! Will you look me in the face and tell me that, had it not been for you, she would not have strayed from me?" To this Phineas could make no answer. "Is it not true that when she went with me to the altar you had been her lover?" "I was her lover no longer, when she once told me that she was to be your wife." "Has she never spoken to you of love since? Did she not warn you from the house in her faint struggle after virtue? Did she not whistle you back again when she found the struggle too much for her? When I asked you to the house, she bade you not come. When I desired that you might never darken my eyes again, did she not seek you? With whom was she walking on the villa grounds by the river banks when she resolved that she would leave all her duties and desert me? Will you dare to say that you were not then in her confidence? With whom was she talking when she had the effrontery to come and meet me at the house of the Prime Minister, which I was bound to attend? Have you not been with her this very winter in her foreign home?" "Of course I have,--and you sent her a message by me." "I sent no message. I deny it. I refused to be an accomplice in your double guilt. I laid my command upon you that you should not visit my wife in my absence, and you disobeyed, and you are an adulterer. Who are you that you are to come for ever between me and my wife?" "I never injured you in thought or deed. I come to you now because I have seen a printed letter which contains a gross libel upon myself." "It is printed then?" he asked, in an eager tone. "It is printed; but it need not, therefore, be published. It is a libel, and should not be published. I shall be forced to seek redress at law. You cannot hope to regain your wife by publishing false accusations against her." "They are true. I can prove every word that I have written. She dare not come here, and submit herself to the laws of her country. She is a renegade from the law, and you abet her in her sin. But it is not vengeance that I seek. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'" "It looks like vengeance, Mr. Kennedy." "Is it for you to teach me how I shall bear myself in this time of my great trouble?" Then suddenly he changed; his voice falling from one of haughty defiance to a low, mean, bargaining whisper. "But I'll tell you what I'll do. If you will say that she shall come back again I'll have it cancelled, and pay all the expenses." "I cannot bring her back to you." "She'll come if you tell her. If you'll let them understand that she must come they'll give way. You can try it at any rate." "I shall do nothing of the kind. Why should I ask her to submit herself to misery?" "Misery! What misery? Why should she be miserable? Must a woman need be miserable because she lives with her husband? You hear me say that I will forgive everything. Even she will not doubt me when I say so, because I have never lied to her. Let her come back to me, and she shall live in peace and quiet, and hear no word of reproach." "I can have nothing to do with it, Mr. Kennedy." "Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath." With that he sprang quickly round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy, though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however; and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped down the stairs, and, finding the front door closed, took shelter within Mrs. Macpherson's bar. "The man is mad," he said; "did you not hear the shot?" The woman was too frightened to reply, but stood trembling, holding Phineas by the arm. There was nobody in the house, she said, but she and the two lasses. "Nae doobt the Laird's by ordinaire," she said at last. She had known of the pistol; but had not dared to have it removed. She and Macpherson had only feared that he would hurt himself,--and had at last agreed, as day after day passed without any injury from the weapon, to let the thing remain unnoticed. She had heard the shot, and had been sure that one of the two men above would have been killed. [Illustration: "Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath."] Phineas was now in great doubt as to what duty was required of him. His first difficulty consisted in this,--that his hat was still in Mr. Kennedy's room, and that Mrs. Macpherson altogether refused to go and fetch it. While they were still discussing this, and Phineas had not as yet resolved whether he would first get a policeman or go at once to Mr. Low, the bell from the room was rung furiously. "It's the Laird," said Mrs. Macpherson, "and if naebody waits on him he'll surely be shooting ane of us." The two girls were now outside the bar shaking in their shoes, and evidently unwilling to face the danger. At last the door of the room above was opened, and our hero's hat was sent rolling down the stairs. It was clear to Phineas that the man was so mad as to be not even aware of the act he had perpetrated. "He'll do nothing more with the pistol," he said, "unless he should attempt to destroy himself." At last it was determined that one of the girls should be sent to fetch Macpherson home from the Scotch Church, and that no application should be made at once to the police. It seemed that the Macphersons knew the circumstances of their guest's family, and that there was a cousin of his in London who was the only one with whom he seemed to have any near connection. The thing that had occurred was to be told to this cousin, and Phineas left his address, so that if it should be thought necessary he might be called upon to give his account of the affair. Then, in his perturbation of spirit, he asked for a glass of brandy; and having swallowed it, was about to take his leave. "The brandy wull be saxpence, sir," said Mrs. Macpherson, as she wiped the tears from her eyes. Having paid for his refreshment, Phineas got into a cab, and had himself driven to Mr. Low's house. He had escaped from his peril, and now again it became his strongest object to stop the publication of the letter which Slide had shown him. But as he sat in the cab he could not hinder himself from shuddering at the danger which had been so near to him. He remembered his sensation as he first saw the glimmer of the barrel of the pistol, and then became aware of the man's first futile attempt, and afterwards saw the flash and heard the hammer fall at the same moment. He had once stood up to be fired at in a duel, and had been struck by the ball. But nothing in that encounter had made him feel sick and faint through every muscle as he had felt just now. As he sat in the cab he was aware that but for the spirits he had swallowed he would be altogether overcome, and he doubted even now whether he would be able to tell his story to Mr. Low. Luckily perhaps for him neither Mr. Low nor his wife were at home. They were out together, but were expected in between five and six. Phineas declared his purpose of waiting for them, and requested that Mr. Low might be asked to join him in the dining-room immediately on his return. In this way an hour was allowed him, and he endeavoured to compose himself. Still, even at the end of the hour, his heart was beating so violently that he could hardly control the motion of his own limbs. "Low, I have been shot at by a madman," he said, as soon as his friend entered the room. He had determined to be calm, and to speak much more of the document in the editor's hands than of the attempt which had been made on his own life; but he had been utterly unable to repress the exclamation. "Shot at?" "Yes; by Robert Kennedy; the man who was Chancellor of the Duchy;--almost within a yard of my head." Then he sat down and burst out into a fit of convulsive laughter. The story about the pistol was soon told, and Mr. Low was of opinion that Phineas should not have left the place without calling in policemen and giving an account to them of the transaction. "But I had something else on my mind," said Phineas, "which made it necessary that I should see you at once;--something more important even than this madman's attack upon me. He has written a most foul-mouthed attack upon his wife, which is already in print, and will I fear be published to-morrow morning." Then he told the story of the letter. "Slide no doubt will be at the People's Banner office to-night, and I can see him there. Perhaps when I tell him what has occurred he will consent to drop the publication altogether." But in this view of the matter Mr. Low did not agree with his visitor. He argued the case with a deliberation which to Phineas in his present state of mind was almost painful. If the whole story of what had occurred were told to Quintus Slide, that worthy protector of morals and caterer for the amusement of the public would, Mr. Low thought, at once publish the letter and give a statement of the occurrence at Macpherson's Hotel. There would be nothing to hinder him from so profitable a proceeding, as he would know that no one would stir on behalf of Lady Laura in the matter of the libel, when the tragedy of Mr. Kennedy's madness should have been made known. The publication would be as safe as attractive. But if Phineas should abstain from going to him at all, the same calculation which had induced him to show the letter would induce him to postpone the publication, at any rate for another twenty-four hours. "He means to make capital out of his virtue; and he won't give that up for the sake of being a day in advance. In the meantime we will get an injunction from the Vice-Chancellor to stop the publication." "Can we do that in one day?" "I think we can. Chancery isn't what it used to be," said Mr. Low, with a sigh. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go this very moment to Pickering." Mr. Pickering at this time was one of the three Vice-Chancellors. "It isn't exactly the proper thing for counsel to call on a judge on a Sunday afternoon with the direct intention of influencing his judgment for the following morning; but this is a case in which a point may be strained. When such a paper as the People's Banner gets hold of a letter from a madman, which if published would destroy the happiness of a whole family, one shouldn't stick at a trifle. Pickering is just the man to take a common-sense view of the matter. You'll have to make an affidavit in the morning, and we can get the injunction served before two or three o'clock. Mr. Septimus Slope, or whatever his name is, won't dare to publish it after that. Of course, if it comes out to-morrow morning, we shall have been too late; but this will be our best chance." So Mr. Low got his hat and umbrella, and started for the Vice-Chancellor's house. "And I tell you what, Phineas;--do you stay and dine here. You are so flurried by all this, that you are not fit to go anywhere else." "I am flurried." "Of course you are. Never mind about dressing. Do you go up and tell Georgiana all about it;--and have dinner put off half-an-hour. I must hunt Pickering up, if I don't find him at home." Then Phineas did go upstairs and tell Georgiana--otherwise Mrs. Low--the whole story. Mrs. Low was deeply affected, declaring her opinion very strongly as to the horrible condition of things, when madmen could go about with pistols, and without anybody to take care against them. But as to Lady Laura Kennedy, she seemed to think that the poor husband had great cause of complaint, and that Lady Laura ought to be punished. Wives, she thought, should never leave their husbands on any pretext; and, as far as she had heard the story, there had been no pretext at all in the case. Her sympathies were clearly with the madman, though she was quite ready to acknowledge that any and every step should be taken which might be adverse to Mr. Quintus Slide. CHAPTER XXIV. MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR. When the elder Mr. Maule had sufficiently recovered from the perturbation of mind and body into which he had been thrown by the ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much was told some few chapters back, but the name of the lady was not then disclosed. Starting from Victoria Street, Westminster, he walked slowly across St. James's Park and the Green Park till he came out in Piccadilly, near the bottom of Park Lane. As he went up the Lane he looked at his boots, at his gloves, and at his trousers, and saw that nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr. Maule hated cabs in the morning,--preferring never to move beyond the tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to dinner was a necessity;--but his income would not stand two or three cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river. The regions of South Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a man as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked at the door of a very small house,--a house that might almost be called tiny by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and then asked for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone into the country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some surprise, having understood that she had not long since returned from Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that the Duke of Omnium was poorly. "Oh! indeed;--I am sorry to hear that," said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that the Duke of Omnium's condition to-day was much the same as yesterday; but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but now aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching Priory. "So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last," said Mr. Maule to a club acquaintance. The club acquaintance was in Parliament, and looked at the matter from a strictly parliamentary point of view. "Yes, indeed. It has given a deal of trouble." Mr. Maule was not parliamentary, and did not understand. "Why trouble,--except to himself? He'll leave his Garter and strawberry-leaves, and all his acres behind him." "What is Gresham to do about the Exchequer when he comes in? I don't know whom he's to send there. They talk of Bonteen, but Bonteen hasn't half weight enough. They'll offer it to Monk, but Monk 'll never take office again." "Ah, yes. Planty Pall was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suppose he must give that up now?" The parliamentary acquaintance looked up at the unparliamentary man with that mingled disgust and pity which parliamentary gentlemen and ladies always entertain for those who have not devoted their minds to the constitutional forms of the country. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer can't very well sit in the House of Lords, and Palliser can't very well help becoming Duke of Omnium. I don't know whether he can take the decimal coinage question with him, but I fear not. They don't like it at all in the city." "I believe I'll go and play a rubber of whist," said Mr. Maule. He played his whist, and lost thirty points without showing the slightest displeasure, either by the tone of his voice or by any grimace of his countenance. And yet the money which passed from his hands was material to him. But he was great at such efforts as these, and he understood well the fluctuations of the whist table. The half-crowns which he had paid were only so much invested capital. He dined at his club this evening, and joined tables with another acquaintance who was not parliamentary. Mr. Parkinson Seymour was a man much of his own stamp, who cared not one straw as to any difficulty which the Prime Minister might feel in filling the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were men by dozens ready and willing, and no doubt able,--or at any rate, one as able as the other,--to manage the taxes of the country. But the blue riband and the Lord Lieutenancy of Barsetshire were important things,--which would now be in the gift of Mr. Daubeny; and Lady Glencora would at last be a duchess,--with much effect on Society, either good or bad. And Planty Pall would be a duke, with very much less capability, as Mr. Parkinson Seymour thought, for filling that great office, than that which the man had displayed who was now supposed to be dying at Matching. "He has been a fine old fellow," said Mr. Parkinson Seymour. "Very much so. There ain't many of that stamp left." "I don't know one," continued the gentleman, with enthusiasm. "They all go in for something now, just as Jones goes in for being a bank clerk. They are politicians, or gamblers, or, by heaven, tradesmen, as some of them are. The Earl of Tydvil and Lord Merthyr are in partnership together working their own mines,--by the Lord, with a regular deed of partnership, just like two cheesemongers. The Marquis of Maltanops has a share in a bitter beer house at Burton. And the Duke of Discount, who married old Ballance's daughter, and is brother-in-law to young George Advance, retains his interest in the house in Lombard Street. I know it for a fact." "Old Omnium was above that kind of thing," said Mr. Maule. "Lord bless you;--quite another sort of man. There is nothing left like it now. With a princely income I don't suppose he ever put by a shilling in his life. I've heard it said that he couldn't afford to marry, living in the manner in which he chose to live. And he understood what dignity meant. None of them understand that now. Dukes are as common as dogs in the streets, and a marquis thinks no more of himself than a market-gardener. I'm very sorry the old duke should go. The nephew may be very good at figures, but he isn't fit to fill his uncle's shoes. As for Lady Glencora, no doubt as things go now she's very popular, but she's more like a dairy-maid than a duchess to my way of thinking." There was not a club in London, and hardly a drawing-room in which something was not said that day in consequence of the two bulletins which had appeared as to the condition of the old Duke;--and in no club and in no drawing-room was a verdict given against the dying man. It was acknowledged everywhere that he had played his part in a noble and even in a princely manner, that he had used with a becoming grace the rich things that had been given him, and that he had deserved well of his country. And yet, perhaps, no man who had lived during the same period, or any portion of the period, had done less, or had devoted himself more entirely to the consumption of good things without the slightest idea of producing anything in return! But he had looked like a duke, and known how to set a high price on his own presence. To Mr. Maule the threatened demise of this great man was not without a peculiar interest. His acquaintance with Madame Goesler had not been of long standing, nor even as yet had it reached a close intimacy. During the last London season he had been introduced to her, and had dined twice at her house. He endeavoured to make himself agreeable to her, and he flattered himself that he had succeeded. It may be said of him generally, that he had the gift of making himself pleasant to women. When last she had parted from him with a smile, repeating the last few words of some good story which he had told her, the idea struck him that she after all might perhaps be the woman. He made his inquiries, and had learned that there was not a shadow of a doubt as to her wealth,--or even to her power of disposing of that wealth as she pleased. So he wrote to her a pretty little note, in which he gave to her the history of that good story, how it originated with a certain Cardinal, and might be found in certain memoirs,--which did not, however, bear the best reputation in the world. Madame Goesler answered his note very graciously, thanking him for the reference, but declaring that the information given was already so sufficient that she need prosecute the inquiry no further. Mr. Maule smiled as he declared to himself that those memoirs would certainly be in Madame Goesler's hands before many days were over. Had his intimacy been a little more advanced he would have sent the volume to her. But he also learned that there was some romance in the lady's life which connected her with the Duke of Omnium. He was diligent in seeking information, and became assured that there could be no chance for himself, or for any man, as long as the Duke was alive. Some hinted that there had been a private marriage,--a marriage, however, which Madame Goesler had bound herself by solemn oaths never to disclose. Others surmised that she was the Duke's daughter. Hints were, of course, thrown out as to a connection of another kind,--but with no great vigour, as it was admitted on all hands that Lady Glencora, the Duke's niece by marriage, and the mother of the Duke's future heir, was Madame Goesler's great friend. That there was a mystery was a fact very gratifying to the world at large; and perhaps, upon the whole, the more gratifying in that nothing had occurred to throw a gleam of light upon the matter since the fact of the intimacy had become generally known. Mr. Maule was aware, however, that there could be no success for him as long as the Duke lived. Whatever might be the nature of the alliance, it was too strong to admit of any other while it lasted. But the Duke was a very old,--or, at least, a very infirm man. And now the Duke was dying. Of course it was only a chance. Mr. Maule knew the world too well to lay out any great portion of his hopes on a prospect so doubtful. But it was worth a struggle, and he would so struggle that he might enjoy success, should success come, without laying himself open to the pangs of disappointment. Mr. Maule hated to be unhappy or uncomfortable, and therefore never allowed any aspiration to proceed to such length as to be inconvenient to his feelings should it not be gratified. In the meantime Madame Max Goesler had been sent for, and had hurried off to Matching almost without a moment's preparation. As she sat in the train, thinking of it, tears absolutely filled her eyes. "Poor dear old man," she said to herself; and yet the poor dear old man had simply been a trouble to her, adding a most disagreeable task to her life, and one which she was not called on to perform by any sense of duty. "How is he?" she said anxiously, when she met Lady Glencora in the hall at Matching. The two women kissed each other as though they had been almost sisters since their birth. "He is a little better now, but he was very uneasy when we telegraphed this morning. He asked for you twice, and then we thought it better to send." "Oh, of course it was best," said Madame Goesler. CHAPTER XXV. "I WOULD DO IT NOW." Though it was rumoured all over London that the Duke of Omnium was dying, his Grace had been dressed and taken out of his bed-chamber into a sitting-room, when Madame Goesler was brought into his presence by Lady Glencora Palliser. He was reclining in a great arm-chair, with his legs propped up on cushions, and a respectable old lady in a black silk gown and a very smart cap was attending to his wants. The respectable old lady took her departure when the younger ladies entered the room, whispering a word of instruction to Lady Glencora as she went. "His Grace should have his broth at half-past four, my lady, and a glass and a half of champagne. His Grace won't drink his wine out of a tumbler, so perhaps your ladyship won't mind giving it him at twice." "Marie has come," said Lady Glencora. "I knew she would come," said the old man, turning his head round slowly on the back of his chair. "I knew she would be good to me to the last." And he laid his withered hand on the arm of his chair, so that the woman whose presence gratified him might take it within hers and comfort him. "Of course I have come," said Madame Goesler, standing close by him and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and worn and pale,--a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face there was a remnant of that look of graceful fainéant nobility which had always distinguished him. He had never done any good, but he had always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried himself to the end. "He is decidedly better than he was this morning," said Lady Glencora. "It is pretty nearly all over, my dear. Sit down, Marie. Did they give you anything after your journey?" "I could not wait, Duke." "I'll get her some tea," said Lady Glencora. "Yes, I will. I'll do it myself. I know he wants to say a word to you alone." This she added in a whisper. But sick people hear everything, and the Duke did hear the whisper. "Yes, my dear;--she is quite right. I am glad to have you for a minute alone. Do you love me, Marie?" It was a foolish question to be asked by a dying old man of a young woman who was in no way connected with him, and whom he had never seen till some three or four years since. But it was asked with feverish anxiety, and it required an answer. "You know I love you, Duke. Why else should I be here?" "It is a pity you did not take the coronet when I offered it you." "Nay, Duke, it was no pity. Had I done so, you could not have had us both." "I should have wanted only you." "And I should have stood aloof,--in despair to think that I was separating you from those with whom your Grace is bound up so closely. We have ever been dear friends since that." "Yes;--we have been dear friends. But--" Then he closed his eyes, and put his long thin fingers across his face, and lay back awhile in silence, still holding her by the other hand. "Kiss me, Marie," he said at last; and she stooped over him and kissed his forehead. "I would do it now if I thought it would serve you." She only shook her head and pressed his hand closely. "I would; I would. Such things have been done, my dear." [Illustration: "I would; I would."] "Such a thing shall never be done by me, Duke." They remained seated side by side, the one holding the other by the hand, but without uttering another word, till Lady Glencora returned bringing a cup of tea and a morsel of toast in her own hand. Madame Goesler, as she took it, could not help thinking how it might have been with her had she accepted the coronet which had been offered. In that case she might have been a duchess herself, but assuredly she would not have been waited upon by a future duchess. As it was, there was no one in that family who had not cause to be grateful to her. When the Duke had sipped a spoonful of his broth, and swallowed his allowance of wine, they both left him, and the respectable old lady with the smart cap was summoned back to her position. "I suppose he whispered something very gracious to you," Lady Glencora said when they were alone. "Very gracious." "And you were gracious to him,--I hope." "I meant to be." "I'm sure you did. Poor old man! If you had done what he asked you I wonder whether his affection would have lasted as it has done." "Certainly not, Lady Glen. He would have known that I had injured him." "I declare I think you are the wisest woman I ever met, Madame Max. I am sure you are the most discreet. If I had always been as wise as you are!" "You always have been wise." "Well,--never mind. Some people fall on their feet like cats; but you are one of those who never fall at all. Others tumble about in the most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own. Think of that poor Lady Laura." "Yes, indeed." "I suppose it's true about Mr. Kennedy. You've heard of it of course in London." But as it happened Madame Goesler had not heard the story. "I got it from Barrington Erle, who always writes to me if anything happens. Mr. Kennedy has fired a pistol at the head of Phineas Finn." "At Phineas Finn!" "Yes, indeed. Mr. Finn went to him at some hotel in London. No one knows what it was about; but Mr. Kennedy went off in a fit of jealousy, and fired a pistol at him." "He did not hit him?" "It seems not. Mr. Finn is one of those Irish gentlemen who always seem to be under some special protection. The ball went through his whiskers and didn't hurt him." "And what has become of Mr. Kennedy?" "Nothing, it seems. Nobody sent for the police, and he has been allowed to go back to Scotland,--as though a man were permitted by special Act of Parliament to try to murder his wife's lover. It would be a bad law, because it would cause such a deal of bloodshed." "But he is not Lady Laura's lover," said Madame Goesler, gravely. "That would make the law difficult, because who is to say whether a man is or is not a woman's lover?" "I don't think there was ever anything of that kind." "They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I believe these kind of things generally are Platonic. And as for Lady Laura;--heavens and earth!--I suppose it must have been Platonic. What did the Duke say to you?" "He bade me kiss him." "Poor dear old man. He never ceases to speak of you when you are away, and I do believe he could not have gone in peace without seeing you. I doubt whether in all his life he ever loved any one as he loves you. We dine at half-past seven, dear: and you had better just go into his room for a moment as you come down. There isn't a soul here except Sir Omicron Pie, and Plantagenet, and two of the other nephews,--whom, by the bye, he has refused to see. Old Lady Hartletop wanted to come." "And you wouldn't have her?" "I couldn't have refused. I shouldn't have dared. But the Duke would not hear of it. He made me write to say that he was too weak to see any but his nearest relatives. Then he made me send for you, my dear;--and now he won't see the relatives. What shall we do if Lady Hartletop turns up? I'm living in fear of it. You'll have to be shut up out of sight somewhere if that should happen." During the next two or three days the Duke was neither much better nor much worse. Bulletins appeared in the newspapers, though no one at Matching knew from whence they came. Sir Omicron Pie, who, having retired from general practice, was enabled to devote his time to the "dear Duke," protested that he had no hand in sending them out. He declared to Lady Glencora every morning that it was only a question of time. "The vital spark is on the spring," said Sir Omicron, waving a gesture heavenward with his hand. For three days Mr. Palliser was at Matching, and he duly visited his uncle twice a day. But not a syllable was ever said between them beyond the ordinary words of compliments. Mr. Palliser spent his time with his private secretary, working out endless sums and toiling for unapproachable results in reference to decimal coinage. To him his uncle's death would be a great blow, as in his eyes to be Chancellor of the Exchequer was much more than to be Duke of Omnium. For herself Lady Glencora was nearly equally indifferent, though she did in her heart of hearts wish that her son should go to Eton with the title of Lord Silverbridge. On the third morning the Duke suddenly asked a question of Madame Goesler. The two were again sitting near to each other, and the Duke was again holding her hand; but Lady Glencora was also in the room. "Have you not been staying with Lord Chiltern?" "Yes, Duke." "He is a friend of yours." "I used to know his wife before they were married." "Why does he go on writing me letters about a wood?" This he asked in a wailing voice, as though he were almost weeping. "I know nothing of Lord Chiltern. Why does he write to me about the wood? I wish he wouldn't write to me." "He does not know that you are ill, Duke. By-the-bye, I promised to speak to Lady Glencora about it. He says that foxes are poisoned at Trumpeton Wood." "I don't believe a word of it," said the Duke. "No one would poison foxes in my wood. I wish you'd see about it, Glencora. Plantagenet will never attend to anything. But he shouldn't write to me. He ought to know better than to write letters to me. I will not have people writing letters to me. Why don't they write to Fothergill?" and then the Duke began in truth to whimper. "I'll put it all right," said Lady Glencora. "I wish you would. I don't like them to say there are no foxes; and Plantagenet never will attend to anything." The wife had long since ceased to take the husband's part when accusations such as this were brought against him. Nothing could make Mr. Palliser think it worth his while to give up any shred of his time to such a matter as the preservation of foxes. On the fourth day the catastrophe happened which Lady Glencora had feared. A fly with a pair of horses from the Matching Road station was driven up to the door of the Priory, and Lady Hartletop was announced. "I knew it," said Lady Glencora, slapping her hand down on the table in the room in which she was sitting with Madame Goesler. Unfortunately the old lady was shown into the room before Madame Goesler could escape, and they passed each other on the threshold. The Dowager Marchioness of Hartletop was a very stout old lady, now perhaps nearer to seventy than sixty-five years of age, who for many years had been the intimate friend of the Duke of Omnium. In latter days, during which she had seen but little of the Duke himself, she had heard of Madame Max Goesler, but she had never met that lady. Nevertheless, she knew the rival friend at a glance. Some instinct told her that that woman with the black brow and the dark curls was Madame Goesler. In these days the Marchioness was given to waddling rather than to walking, but she waddled past the foreign female,--as she had often called Madame Max,--with a dignified though duck-like step. Lady Hartletop was a bold woman; and it must be supposed that she had some heart within her or she would hardly have made such a journey with such a purpose. "Dear Lady Hartletop," said Lady Glencora, "I am so sorry that you should have had this trouble." "I must see him," said Lady Hartletop. Lady Glencora put both her hands together piteously, as though deprecating her visitor's wrath. "I must insist on seeing him." "Sir Omicron has refused permission to any one to visit him." "I shall not go till I've seen him. Who was that lady?" "A friend of mine," said Lady Glencora, drawing herself up. "She is--, Madame Goesler." "That is her name, Lady Hartletop. She is my most intimate friend." "Does she see the Duke?" Lady Glencora, when expressing her fear that the woman would come to Matching, had confessed that she was afraid of Lady Hartletop. And a feeling of dismay--almost of awe--had fallen upon her on hearing the Marchioness announced. But when she found herself thus cross-examined, she resolved that she would be bold. Nothing on earth should induce her to open the door of the Duke's room to Lady Hartletop, nor would she scruple to tell the truth about Madame Goesler. "Yes," she said, "Madame Goesler does see the Duke." "And I am to be excluded!" "My dear Lady Hartletop, what can I do? The Duke for some time past has been accustomed to the presence of my friend, and therefore her presence now is no disturbance. Surely that can be understood." "I should not disturb him." "He would be inexpressibly excited were he to know that you were even in the house. And I could not take it upon myself to tell him." Then Lady Hartletop threw herself upon a sofa, and began to weep piteously. "I have known him for more than forty years," she moaned, through her choking tears. Lady Glencora's heart was softened, and she was kind and womanly; but she would not give way about the Duke. It would, as she knew, have been useless, as the Duke had declared that he would see no one except his eldest nephew, his nephew's wife, and Madame Goesler. That evening was very dreadful to all of them at Matching,--except to the Duke, who was never told of Lady Hartletop's perseverance. The poor old woman could not be sent away on that afternoon, and was therefore forced to dine with Mr. Palliser. He, however, was warned by his wife to say nothing in the lady's presence about his uncle, and he received her as he would receive any other chance guest at his wife's table. But the presence of Madame Goesler made the chief difficulty. She herself was desirous of disappearing for that evening, but Lady Glencora would not permit it. "She has seen you, my dear, and asked about you. If you hide yourself, she'll say all sorts of things." An introduction was therefore necessary, and Lady Hartletop's manner was grotesquely grand. She dropped a very low curtsey, and made a very long face, but she did not say a word. In the evening the Marchioness sat close to Lady Glencora, whispering many things about the Duke; and condescending at last to a final entreaty that she might be permitted to see him on the following morning. "There is Sir Omicron," said Lady Glencora, turning round to the little doctor. But Lady Hartletop was too proud to appeal to Sir Omicron, who, as a matter of course, would support the orders of Lady Glencora. On the next morning Madame Goesler did not appear at the breakfast-table, and at eleven Lady Hartletop was taken back to the train in Lady Glencora's carriage. She had submitted herself to discomfort, indignity, fatigue, and disappointment; and it had all been done for love. With her broad face, and her double chin, and her heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing round her lips, she did not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance and a duck-like waddle may go together. The memory of those forty years had been strong upon her, and her heart was heavy because she could not see that old man once again. Men will love to the last, but they love what is fresh and new. A woman's love can live on the recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly. "What an episode!" said Lady Glencora, when the unwelcome visitor was gone;--"but it's odd how much less dreadful things are than you think they will be. I was frightened when I heard her name; but you see we've got through it without much harm." A week passed by, and still the Duke was living. But now he was too weak to be moved from one room to another, and Madame Goesler passed two hours each day sitting by his bedside. He would lie with his hand out upon the coverlid, and she would put hers upon it; but very few words passed between them. He grumbled again about the Trumpeton Woods, and Lord Chiltern's interference, and complained of his nephew's indifference. As to himself and his own condition, he seemed to be, at any rate, without discomfort, and was certainly free from fear. A clergyman attended him, and gave him the sacrament. He took it,--as the champagne prescribed by Sir Omicron, or the few mouthfuls of chicken broth which were administered to him by the old lady with the smart cap; but it may be doubted whether he thought much more of the one remedy than of the other. He knew that he had lived, and that the thing was done. His courage never failed him. As to the future, he neither feared much nor hoped much; but was, unconsciously, supported by a general trust in the goodness and the greatness of the God who had made him what he was. "It is nearly done now, Marie," he said to Madame Goesler one evening. She only pressed his hand in answer. His condition was too well understood between them to allow of her speaking to him of any possible recovery. "It has been a great comfort to me that I have known you," he said. "Oh no!" "A great comfort;--only I wish it had been sooner. I could have talked to you about things which I never did talk of to any one. I wonder why I should have been a duke, and another man a servant." "God Almighty ordained such difference." "I'm afraid I have not done it well;--but I have tried; indeed I have tried." Then she told him he had ever lived as a great nobleman ought to live. And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she knew that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived. CHAPTER XXVI. THE DUKE'S WILL. On the ninth day after Madame Goesler's arrival the Duke died, and Lady Glencora Palliser became Duchess of Omnium. But the change probably was much greater to Mr. Palliser than to his wife. It would seem to be impossible to imagine a greater change than had come upon him. As to rank, he was raised from that of a simple commoner to the very top of the tree. He was made master of almost unlimited wealth, Garters, and lord-lieutenancies; and all the added grandeurs which come from high influence when joined to high rank were sure to be his. But he was no more moved by these things than would have been a god, or a block of wood. His uncle was dead; but his uncle had been an old man, and his grief on that score was moderate. As soon as his uncle's body had been laid in the family vault at Gatherum, men would call him Duke of Omnium; and then he could never sit again in the House of Commons. It was in that light, and in that light only, that he regarded the matter. To his uncle it had been everything to be Duke of Omnium. To Plantagenet Palliser it was less than nothing. He had lived among men and women with titles all his life, himself untitled, but regarded by them as one of themselves, till the thing, in his estimation, had come to seem almost nothing. One man walked out of a room before another man; and he, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had, during a part of his career, walked out of most rooms before most men. But he cared not at all whether he walked out first or last,--and for him there was nothing else in it. It was a toy that would perhaps please his wife, but he doubted even whether she would not cease to be Lady Glencora with regret. In himself this thing that had happened had absolutely crushed him. He had won for himself by his own aptitudes and his own industry one special position in the empire,--and that position, and that alone, was incompatible with the rank which he was obliged to assume! His case was very hard, and he felt it;--but he made no complaint to human ears. "I suppose you must give up the Exchequer," his wife said to him. He shook his head, and made no reply. Even to her he could not explain his feelings. I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a pedestal from which, as Lady Glencora, nothing could have moved her. She was by no means sure that the same pedestal would be able to carry the Duchess of Omnium. She must begin again, and such beginnings are dangerous. As Lady Glencora she had almost taken upon herself to create a rivalry in society to certain very distinguished, and indeed illustrious, people. There were only two houses in London, she used to say, to which she never went. The "never" was not quite true;--but there had been something in it. She doubted whether as Duchess of Omnium she could go on with this. She must lay down her mischief, and abandon her eccentricity, and in some degree act like other duchesses. "The poor old man," she said to Madame Goesler; "I wish he could have gone on living a little longer." At this time the two ladies were alone together at Matching. Mr. Palliser, with the cousins, had gone to Gatherum, whither also had been sent all that remained of the late Duke, in order that fitting funeral obsequies might be celebrated over the great family vault. "He would hardly have wished it himself, I think." "One never knows,--and as far as one can look into futurity one has no idea what would be one's own feelings. I suppose he did enjoy life." "Hardly, for the last twelve months," said Madame Goesler. "I think he did. He was happy when you were about him; and he interested himself about things. Do you remember how much he used to think of Lady Eustace and her diamonds? When I first knew him he was too magnificent to care about anything." "I suppose his nature was the same." "Yes, my dear; his nature was the same, but he was strong enough to restrain his nature, and wise enough to know that his magnificence was incompatible with ordinary interests. As he got to be older he broke down, and took up with mere mortal gossip. But I think it must have made him happier." "He showed his weakness in coming to me," said Madame Goesler, laughing. "Of course he did;--not in liking your society, but in wanting to give you his name. I have often wondered what kind of things he used to say to that old Lady Hartletop. That was in his full grandeur, and he never condescended to speak much then. I used to think him so hard; but I suppose he was only acting his part. I used to call him the Grand Lama to Plantagenet when we were first married,--before Planty was born. I shall always call him Silverbridge now instead of Planty." "I would let others do that." "Of course I was joking; but others will, and he will be spoilt. I wonder whether he will live to be a Grand Lama or a popular Minister. There cannot be two positions further apart. My husband, no doubt, thinks a good deal of himself as a statesman and a clever politician,--at least I suppose he does; but he has not the slightest reverence for himself as a nobleman. If the dear old Duke were hobbling along Piccadilly, he was conscious that Piccadilly was graced by his presence, and never moved without being aware that people looked at him, and whispered to each other,--'There goes the Duke of Omnium.' Plantagenet considers himself inferior to a sweeper while on the crossing, and never feels any pride of place unless he is sitting on the Treasury Bench with his hat over his eyes." "He'll never sit on the Treasury Bench again." "No;--poor dear. He's an Othello now with a vengeance, for his occupation is gone. I spoke to him about your friend and the foxes, and he told me to write to Mr. Fothergill. I will as soon as it's decent. I fancy a new duchess shouldn't write letters about foxes till the old Duke is buried. I wonder what sort of a will he'll have made. There's nothing I care twopence for except his pearls. No man in England had such a collection of precious stones. They'd been yours, my dear, if you had consented to be Mrs. O." The Duke was buried and the will was read, and Plantagenet Palliser was addressed as Duke of Omnium by all the tenantry and retainers of the family in the great hall of Gatherum Castle. Mr. Fothergill, who had upon occasion in former days been driven by his duty to remonstrate with the heir, was all submission. Planty Pall had come to the throne, and half a county was ready to worship him. But he did not know how to endure worship, and the half county declared that he was stern and proud, and more haughty even than his uncle. At every "Grace" that was flung at him he winced and was miserable, and declared to himself that he should never become accustomed to his new life. So he sat all alone, and meditated how he might best reconcile the forty-eight farthings which go to a shilling with that thorough-going useful decimal, fifty. But his meditations did not prevent him from writing to his wife, and on the following morning, Lady Glencora,--as she shall be called now for the last time,--received a letter from him which disturbed her a good deal. She was in her room when it was brought to her, and for an hour after reading it hardly knew how to see her guest and friend, Madame Goesler. The passage in the letter which produced this dismay was as follows:--"He has left to Madame Goesler twenty thousand pounds and all his jewels. The money may be very well, but I think he has been wrong about the jewellery. As to myself I do not care a straw, but you will be sorry; and then people will talk. The lawyers will, of course, write to her, but I suppose you had better tell her. They seem to think that the stones are worth a great deal of money; but I have long learned never to believe any statement that is made to me. They are all here, and I suppose she will have to send some authorised person to have them packed. There is a regular inventory, of which a copy shall be sent to her by post as soon as it can be prepared." Now it must be owned that the duchess did begrudge her friend the duke's collection of pearls and diamonds. About noon they met. "My dear," she said, "you had better hear your good fortune at once. Read that,--just that side. Plantagenet is wrong in saying that I shall regret it. I don't care a bit about it. If I want a ring or a brooch he can buy me one. But I never did care about such things, and I don't now. The money is all just as it should be." Madame Goesler read the passage, and the blood mounted up into her face. She read it very slowly, and when she had finished reading it she was for a moment or two at a loss for her words to express herself. "You had better send one of Garnett's people," said the Duchess, naming the house of a distinguished jeweller and goldsmith in London. "It will hardly need," said Madame Goesler. "You had better be careful. There is no knowing what they are worth. He spent half his income on them, I believe, during part of his life." There was a roughness about the Duchess of which she was herself conscious, but which she could not restrain, though she knew that it betrayed her chagrin. Madame Goesler came gently up to her and touched her arm caressingly. "Do you remember," said Madame Goesler, "a small ring with a black diamond,--I suppose it was a diamond,--which he always wore?" "I remember that he always did wear such a ring." "I should like to have that," said Madame Goesler. "You have them all,--everything. He makes no distinction." "I should like to have that, Lady Glen,--for the sake of the hand that wore it. But, as God is great above us, I will never take aught else that has belonged to the Duke." "Not take them!" "Not a gem; not a stone; not a shilling." "But you must." "I rather think that I can be under no such obligation," she said, laughing. "Will you write to Mr. Palliser,--or I should say, to the Duke,--to-night, and tell him that my mind is absolutely made up?" "I certainly shall not do that." "Then I must. As it is, I shall have pleasant memories of his Grace. According to my ability I have endeavoured to be good to him, and I have no stain on my conscience because of his friendship. If I took his money and his jewels,--or rather your money and your jewels,--do you think I could say as much?" "Everybody takes what anybody leaves them by will." "I will be an exception to the rule, Lady Glen. Don't you think that your friendship is more to me than all the diamonds in London?" "You shall have both, my dear," said the Duchess,--quite in earnest in her promise. Madame Goesler shook her head. "Nobody ever repudiates legacies. The Queen would take the jewels if they were left to her." "I am not the Queen. I have to be more careful what I do than any queen. I will take nothing under the Duke's will. I will ask a boon which I have already named, and if it be given me as a gift by the Duke's heir, I will wear it till I die. You will write to Mr. Palliser?" "I couldn't do it," said the Duchess. "Then I will write myself." And she did write, and of all the rich things which the Duke of Omnium had left to her, she took nothing but the little ring with the black stone which he had always worn on his finger. CHAPTER XXVII. AN EDITOR'S WRATH. On that Sunday evening in London Mr. Low was successful in finding the Vice-Chancellor, and the great judge smiled and nodded, listened to the story, and acknowledged that the circumstances were very peculiar. He thought that an injunction to restrain the publication might be given at once upon Mr. Finn's affidavit; and that the peculiar circumstances justified the peculiarity of Mr. Low's application. Whether he would have said as much had the facts concerned the families of Mr. Joseph Smith and his son-in-law Mr. John Jones, instead of the Earl of Brentford and the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, some readers will perhaps doubt, and may doubt also whether an application coming from some newly-fledged barrister would have been received as graciously as that made by Mr. Low, Q.C. and M.P.,--who would probably himself soon sit on some lofty legal bench. On the following morning Phineas and Mr. Low,--and no doubt also Mr. Vice-Chancellor Pickering,--obtained early copies of the People's Banner, and were delighted to find that Mr. Kennedy's letter did not appear in it. Mr. Low had made his calculation rightly. The editor, considering that he would gain more by having the young member of Parliament and the Standish family, as it were, in his hands than by the publication of a certain libellous letter, had resolved to put the document back for at least twenty-four hours, even though the young member neither came nor wrote as he had promised. The letter did not appear, and before ten o'clock Phineas Finn had made his affidavit in a dingy little room behind the Vice-Chancellor's Court. The injunction was at once issued, and was of such potency that should any editor dare to publish any paper therein prohibited, that editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors of newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race of men who believe much in themselves and little in anything else, with no feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are august enough to other men;--but an injunction from a Court of Chancery is a power which even an editor respects. At about noon Vice-Chancellor Pickering's injunction was served at the office of the People's Banner in Quartpot Alley, Fleet Street. It was done in duplicate,--or perhaps in triplicate,--so that there should be no evasion; and all manner of crumpling was threatened in the event of any touch of disobedience. All this happened on Monday, March the first, while the poor dying Duke was waiting impatiently for the arrival of his friend at Matching. Phineas was busy all the morning till it was time that he should go down to the House. For as soon as he could leave Mr. Low's chambers in Lincoln's Inn he had gone to Judd Street, to inquire as to the condition of the man who had tried to murder him. He there saw Mr. Kennedy's cousin, and received an assurance from that gentleman that Robert Kennedy should be taken down at once to Loughlinter. Up to that moment not a word had been said to the police as to what had been done. No more notice had been taken of the attempt to murder than might have been necessary had Mr. Kennedy thrown a clothes-brush at his visitor's head. There was the little hole in the post of the door with the bullet in it, just six feet above the ground; and there was the pistol, with five chambers still loaded, which Macpherson had cunningly secured on his return from church, and given over to the cousin that same evening. There was certainly no want of evidence, but nobody was disposed to use it. At noon the injunction was served in Quartpot Alley, and was put into Mr. Slide's hands on his arrival at the office at three o'clock. That gentleman's duties required his attendance from three till five in the afternoon, and then again from nine in the evening till any hour in the morning at which he might be able to complete the People's Banner for that day's use. He had been angry with Phineas when the Sunday night passed without a visit or letter at the office, as a promise had been made that there should be either a visit or a letter; but he had felt sure, as he walked into the city from his suburban residence at Camden Town, that he would now find some communication on the great subject. The matter was one of most serious importance. Such a letter as that which was in his possession would no doubt create much surprise, and receive no ordinary attention. A People's Banner could hardly ask for a better bit of good fortune than the privilege of first publishing such a letter. It would no doubt be copied into every London paper, and into hundreds of provincial papers, and every journal so copying it would be bound to declare that it was taken from the columns of the People's Banner. It was, indeed, addressed "To the Editor of the People's Banner" in the printed slip which Mr. Slide had shown to Phineas Finn, though Kennedy himself had not prefixed to it any such direction. And the letter, in the hands of Quintus Slide, would not simply have been a letter. It might have been groundwork for, perhaps, some half-dozen leading articles, all of a most attractive kind. Mr. Slide's high moral tone upon such an occasion would have been qualified to do good to every British matron, and to add virtues to the Bench of Bishops. All this he had postponed with some inadequately defined idea that he could do better with the property in his hands by putting himself into personal communication with the persons concerned. If he could manage to reconcile such a husband to such a wife,--or even to be conspicuous in an attempt to do so; and if he could make the old Earl and the young Member of Parliament feel that he had spared them by abstaining from the publication, the results might be very beneficial. His conception of the matter had been somewhat hazy, and he had certainly made a mistake. But, as he walked from his home to Quartpot Alley, he little dreamed of the treachery with which he had been treated. "Has Phineas Finn been here?" he asked as he took his accustomed seat within a small closet, that might be best described as a glass cage. Around him lay the debris of many past newspapers, and the germs of many future publications. To all the world except himself it would have been a chaos, but to him, with his experience, it was admirable order. No; Mr. Finn had not been there. And then, as he was searching among the letters for one from the Member for Tankerville, the injunction was thrust into his hands. To say that he was aghast is but a poor form of speech for the expression of his emotion. He had been "done"--"sold,"--absolutely robbed by that wretchedly-false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,--the greater is the sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom they do not hesitate to publish almost the severest words that can be uttered;--but let an editor be himself attacked, even without his name, and he thinks that the thunderbolts of heaven should fall upon the offender. Let his manners, his truth, his judgment, his honesty, or even his consistency be questioned, and thunderbolts are forthcoming, though they may not be from heaven. There should certainly be a thunderbolt or two now, but Mr. Slide did not at first quite see how they were to be forged. He read the injunction again and again. As far as the document went he knew its force, and recognised the necessity of obedience. He might, perhaps, be able to use the information contained in the letter from Mr. Kennedy, so as to harass Phineas and Lady Laura and the Earl, but he was at once aware that it must not be published. An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than they are to individuals. Of fighting with Chancery he had no notion; but it should go hard with him if he did not have a fight with Phineas Finn. And then there arose another cause for deep sorrow. A paragraph was shown to him in a morning paper of that day which must, he thought, refer to Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn. "A rumour has reached us that a member of Parliament, calling yesterday afternoon upon a right honourable gentleman, a member of a late Government, at his hotel, was shot at by the latter in his sitting room. Whether the rumour be true or not we have no means of saying, and therefore abstain from publishing names. We are informed that the gentleman who used the pistol was out of his mind. The bullet did not take effect." How cruel it was that such information should have reached the hands of a rival, and not fallen in the way of the People's Banner! And what a pity that the bullet should have been wasted! The paragraph must certainly refer to Phineas Finn and Kennedy. Finn, a Member of Parliament, had been sent by Slide himself to call upon Kennedy, a member of the late Government, at Kennedy's hotel. And the paragraph must be true. He himself had warned Finn that there would be danger in the visit. He had even prophesied murder,--and murder had been attempted! The whole transaction had been, as it were, the very goods and chattels of the People's Banner, and the paper had been shamefully robbed of its property. Mr. Slide hardly doubted that Phineas Finn had himself sent the paragraph to an adverse paper, with the express view of adding to the injury inflicted upon the Banner. That day Mr. Slide hardly did his work effectively within his glass cage, so much was his mind affected, and at five o'clock, when he left his office, instead of going at once home to Mrs. Slide at Camden Town, he took an omnibus, and went down to Westminster. He would at once confront the traitor who had deceived him. It must be acknowledged on behalf of this editor that he did in truth believe that he had been hindered from doing good. The whole practice of his life had taught him to be confident that the editor of a newspaper must be the best possible judge,--indeed the only possible good judge,--whether any statement or story should or should not be published. Not altogether without a conscience, and intensely conscious of such conscience as did constrain him, Mr. Quintus Slide imagined that no law of libel, no injunction from any Vice-Chancellor, no outward power or pressure whatever was needed to keep his energies within their proper limits. He and his newspaper formed together a simply beneficent institution, any interference with which must of necessity be an injury to the public. Everything done at the office of the People's Banner was done in the interest of the People,--and, even though individuals might occasionally be made to suffer by the severity with which their names were handled in its columns, the general result was good. What are the sufferings of the few to the advantage of the many? If there be fault in high places, it is proper that it be exposed. If there be fraud, adulteries, gambling, and lasciviousness,--or even quarrels and indiscretions among those whose names are known, let every detail be laid open to the light, so that the people may have a warning. That such details will make a paper "pay" Mr. Slide knew also; but it is not only in Mr. Slide's path of life that the bias of a man's mind may lead him to find that virtue and profit are compatible. An unprofitable newspaper cannot long continue its existence, and, while existing, cannot be widely beneficial. It is the circulation, the profitable circulation,--of forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred thousand copies through all the arteries and veins of the public body which is beneficent. And how can such circulation be effected unless the taste of the public be consulted? Mr. Quintus Slide, as he walked up Westminster Hall, in search of that wicked member of Parliament, did not at all doubt the goodness of his cause. He could not contest the Vice-Chancellor's injunction, but he was firm in his opinion that the Vice-Chancellor's injunction had inflicted an evil on the public at large, and he was unhappy within himself in that the power and majesty and goodness of the press should still be hampered by ignorance, prejudice, and favour for the great. He was quite sure that no injunction would have been granted in favour of Mr. Joseph Smith and Mr. John Jones. He went boldly up to one of the policemen who sit guarding the door of the lobby of our House of Commons, and asked for Mr. Finn. The Cerberus on the left was not sure whether Mr. Finn was in the House, but would send in a card if Mr. Slide would stand on one side. For the next quarter of an hour Mr. Slide heard no more of his message, and then applied again to the Cerberus. The Cerberus shook his head, and again desired the applicant to stand on one side. He had done all that in him lay. The other watchful Cerberus standing on the right, observing that the intruder was not accommodated with any member, intimated to him the propriety of standing back in one of the corners. Our editor turned round upon the man as though he would bite him;--but he did stand back, meditating an article on the gross want of attention to the public shown in the lobby of the House of Commons. Is it possible that any editor should endure any inconvenience without meditating an article? But the judicious editor thinks twice of such things. Our editor was still in his wrath when he saw his prey come forth from the House with a card,--no doubt his own card. He leaped forward in spite of the policeman, in spite of any Cerberus, and seized Phineas by the arm. "I want just to have a few words," he said. He made an effort to repress his wrath, knowing that the whole world would be against him should he exhibit any violence of indignation on that spot; but Phineas could see it all in the fire of his eye. "Certainly," said Phineas, retiring to the side of the lobby, with a conviction that the distance between him and the House was already sufficient. "Can't you come down into Westminster Hall?" "I should only have to come up again. You can say what you've got to say here." "I've got a great deal to say. I never was so badly treated in my life;--never." He could not quite repress his voice, and he saw that a policeman looked at him. Phineas saw it also. "Because we have hindered you from publishing an untrue and very slanderous letter about a lady!" "You promised me that you'd come to me yesterday." "I think not. I think I said that you should hear from me,--and you did." "You call that truth,--and honesty!" "Certainly I do. Of course it was my first duty to stop the publication of the letter." "You haven't done that yet." "I've done my best to stop it. If you have nothing more to say I'll wish you good evening." "I've a deal more to say. You were shot at, weren't you?" "I have no desire to make any communication to you on anything that has occurred, Mr. Slide. If I stayed with you all the afternoon I could tell you nothing more. Good evening." "I'll crush you," said Quintus Slide, in a stage whisper; "I will, as sure as my name is Slide." Phineas looked at him and retired into the House, whither Quintus Slide could not follow him, and the editor of the People's Banner was left alone in his anger. "How a cock can crow on his own dunghill!" That was Mr. Slide's first feeling, as with a painful sense of diminished consequence he retraced his steps through the outer lobbies and down into Westminster Hall. He had been browbeaten by Phineas Finn, simply because Phineas had been able to retreat within those happy doors. He knew that to the eyes of all the policemen and strangers assembled Phineas Finn had been a hero, a Parliamentary hero, and he had been some poor outsider,--to be ejected at once should he make himself disagreeable to the Members. Nevertheless, had he not all the columns of the People's Banner in his pocket? Was he not great in the Fourth Estate,--much greater than Phineas Finn in his estate? Could he not thunder every night so that an audience to be counted by hundreds of thousands should hear his thunder;--whereas this poor Member of Parliament must struggle night after night for an opportunity of speaking; and could then only speak to benches half deserted; or to a few Members half asleep,--unless the Press should choose to convert his words into thunderbolts. Who could doubt for a moment with which lay the greater power? And yet this wretched Irishman, who had wriggled himself into Parliament on a petition, getting the better of a good, downright English John Bull by a quibble, had treated him with scorn,--the wretched Irishman being for the moment like a cock on his own dunghill. Quintus Slide was not slow to tell himself that he also had an elevation of his own, from which he could make himself audible. In former days he had forgiven Phineas Finn more than once. If he ever forgave Phineas Finn again might his right hand forget its cunning, and never again draw blood or tear a scalp. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT. It was not till after Mr. Slide had left him that Phineas wrote the following letter to Lady Laura:-- House of Commons, 1st March, 18--. MY DEAR FRIEND, I have a long story to tell, which I fear I shall find difficult in the telling; but it is so necessary that you should know the facts that I must go through with it as best I may. It will give you very great pain; but the result as regards your own position will not I think be injurious to you. Yesterday, Sunday, a man came to me who edits a newspaper, and whom I once knew. You will remember when I used to tell you in Portman Square of the amenities and angers of Mr. Slide,--the man who wanted to sit for Loughton. He is the editor. He brought me a long letter from Mr. Kennedy himself, intended for publication, and which was already printed, giving an elaborate and, I may say, a most cruelly untrue account of your quarrel. I read the letter, but of course cannot remember the words. Nor if I could remember them should I repeat them. They contained all the old charges with which you are familiar, and which your unfortunate husband now desired to publish in consummation of his threats. Why Mr. Slide should have brought me the paper before publishing it I can hardly understand. But he did so;--and told me that Mr. Kennedy was in town. We have managed among us to obtain a legal warrant for preventing the publication of the letter, and I think I may say that it will not see the light. When Mr. Slide left me I called on Mr. Kennedy, whom I found in a miserable little hotel, in Judd Street, kept by Scotch people named Macpherson. They had come from the neighbourhood of Loughlinter, and knew Mr. Kennedy well. This was yesterday afternoon, Sunday, and I found some difficulty in making my way into his presence. My object was to induce him to withdraw the letter;--for at that time I doubted whether the law could interfere quickly enough to prevent the publication. I found your husband in a very sad condition. What he said or what I said I forget; but he was as usual intensely anxious that you should return to him. I need not hesitate now to say that he is certainly mad. After a while, when I expressed my assured opinion that you would not go back to Loughlinter, he suddenly turned round, grasped a revolver, and fired at my head. How I got out of the room I don't quite remember. Had he repeated the shot, which he might have done over and over again, he must have hit me. As it was I escaped, and blundered down the stairs to Mrs. Macpherson's room. They whom I have consulted in the matter, namely, Barrington Erle and my particular friend, Mr. Low,--to whom I went for legal assistance in stopping the publication,--seem to think that I should have at once sent for the police, and given Mr. Kennedy in charge. But I did not do so, and hitherto the police have, I believe, no knowledge of what occurred. A paragraph appeared in one of the morning papers to-day, giving almost an accurate account of the matter, but mentioning neither the place nor any of the names. No doubt it will be repeated in all the papers, and the names will soon be known. But the result will be simply a general conviction as to the insanity of poor Mr. Kennedy,--as to which they who know him have had for a long time but little doubt. The Macphersons seem to have been very anxious to screen their guest. At any other hotel no doubt the landlord would have sent for the police;--but in this case the attempt was kept quite secret. They did send for George Kennedy, a cousin of your husband's, whom I think you know, and whom I saw this morning. He assures me that Robert Kennedy is quite aware of the wickedness of the attempt he made, and that he is plunged in deep remorse. He is to be taken down to Loughlinter to-morrow, and is,--so says his cousin,--as tractable as a child. What George Kennedy means to do, I cannot say; but for myself, as I did not send for the police at the moment, as I am told I ought to have done, I shall now do nothing. I don't know that a man is subject to punishment because he does not make complaint. I suppose I have a right to regard it all as an accident if I please. But for you this must be very important. That Mr. Kennedy is insane there cannot now, I think, be a doubt; and therefore the question of your returning to him,--as far as there has been any question,--is absolutely settled. None of your friends would be justified in allowing you to return. He is undoubtedly mad, and has done an act which is not murderous only on that conclusion. This settles the question so perfectly that you could, no doubt, reside in England now without danger. Mr. Kennedy himself would feel that he could take no steps to enforce your return after what he did yesterday. Indeed, if you could bring yourself to face the publicity, you could, I imagine, obtain a legal separation which would give you again the control of your own fortune. I feel myself bound to mention this; but I give you no advice. You will no doubt explain all the circumstances to your father. I think I have now told you everything that I need tell you. The thing only happened yesterday, and I have been all the morning busy, getting the injunction, and seeing Mr. George Kennedy. Just before I began this letter that horrible editor was with me again, threatening me with all the penalties which an editor can inflict. To tell the truth, I do feel confused among them all, and still fancy that I hear the click of the pistol. That newspaper paragraph says that the ball went through my whiskers, which was certainly not the case;--but a foot or two off is quite near enough for a pistol ball. The Duke of Omnium is dying, and I have heard to-day that Madame Goesler, our old friend, has been sent for to Matching. She and I renewed our acquaintance the other day at Harrington. God bless you. Your most sincere friend, PHINEAS FINN. Do not let my news oppress you. The firing of the pistol is a thing done and over without evil results. The state of Mr. Kennedy's mind is what we have long suspected; and, melancholy though it be, should contain for you at any rate this consolation,--that the accusations made against you would not have been made had his mind been unclouded. Twice while Finn was writing this letter was he rung into the House for a division, and once it was suggested to him to say a few words of angry opposition to the Government on some not important subject under discussion. Since the beginning of the Session hardly a night had passed without some verbal sparring, and very frequently the limits of parliamentary decorum had been almost surpassed. Never within the memory of living politicians had political rancour been so sharp, and the feeling of injury so keen, both on the one side and on the other. The taunts thrown at the Conservatives, in reference to the Church, had been almost unendurable,--and the more so because the strong expressions of feeling from their own party throughout the country were against them. Their own convictions also were against them. And there had for a while been almost a determination through the party to deny their leader and disclaim the bill. But a feeling of duty to the party had prevailed, and this had not been done. It had not been done; but the not doing of it was a sore burden on the half-broken shoulders of many a man who sat gloomily on the benches behind Mr. Daubeny. Men goaded as they were, by their opponents, by their natural friends, and by their own consciences, could not bear it in silence, and very bitter things were said in return. Mr. Gresham was accused of a degrading lust for power. No other feeling could prompt him to oppose with a factious acrimony never before exhibited in that House,--so said some wretched Conservative with broken back and broken heart,--a measure which he himself would only be too willing to carry were he allowed the privilege of passing over to the other side of the House for the purpose. In these encounters, Phineas Finn had already exhibited his prowess, and, in spite of his declarations at Tankerville, had become prominent as an opponent to Mr. Daubeny's bill. He had, of course, himself been taunted, and held up in the House to the execration of his own constituents; but he had enjoyed his fight, and had remembered how his friend Mr. Monk had once told him that the pleasure lay all on the side of opposition. But on this evening he declined to speak. "I suppose you have hardly recovered from Kennedy's pistol," said Mr. Ratler, who had, of course, heard the whole story. "That, and the whole affair together have upset me," said Phineas. "Fitzgibbon will do it for you; he's in the House." And so it happened that on that occasion the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon made a very effective speech against the Government. On the next morning from the columns of the People's Banner was hurled the first of those thunderbolts with which it was the purpose of Mr. Slide absolutely to destroy the political and social life of Phineas Finn. He would not miss his aim as Mr. Kennedy had done. He would strike such blows that no constituency should ever venture to return Mr. Finn again to Parliament; and he thought that he could also so strike his blows that no mighty nobleman, no distinguished commoner, no lady of rank should again care to entertain the miscreant and feed him with the dainties of fashion. The first thunderbolt was as follows:-- We abstained yesterday from alluding to a circumstance which occurred at a small hotel in Judd Street on Sunday afternoon, and which, as we observe, was mentioned by one of our contemporaries. The names, however, were not given, although the persons implicated were indicated. We can see no reason why the names should be concealed. Indeed, as both the gentlemen concerned have been guilty of very great criminality, we think that we are bound to tell the whole story,--and this the more especially as certain circumstances have in a very peculiar manner placed us in possession of the facts. It is no secret that for the last two years Lady Laura Kennedy has been separated from her husband, the Honourable Robert Kennedy, who, in the last administration, under Mr. Mildmay, held the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and we believe as little a secret that Mr. Kennedy has been very persistent in endeavouring to recall his wife to her home. With equal persistence she has refused to obey, and we have in our hands the clearest possible evidence that Mr. Kennedy has attributed her obstinate refusal to influence exercised over her by Mr. Phineas Finn, who three years since was her father's nominee for the then existing borough of Loughton, and who lately succeeded in ousting poor Mr. Browborough from his seat for Tankerville by his impetuous promises to support that very measure of Church Reform which he is now opposing with that venom which makes him valuable to his party. Whether Mr. Phineas Finn will ever sit in another Parliament we cannot, of course, say, but we think we can at least assure him that he will never again sit for Tankerville. On last Sunday afternoon Mr. Finn, knowing well the feeling with which he is regarded by Mr. Kennedy, outraged all decency by calling upon that gentleman, whose address he obtained from our office. What took place between them no one knows, and, probably, no one ever will know. But the interview was ended by Mr. Kennedy firing a pistol at Mr. Finn's head. That he should have done so without the grossest provocation no one will believe. That Mr. Finn had gone to the husband to interfere with him respecting his wife is an undoubted fact,--a fact which, if necessary, we are in a position to prove. That such interference must have been most heartrending every one will admit. This intruder, who had thrust himself upon the unfortunate husband on the Sabbath afternoon, was the very man whom the husband accuses of having robbed him of the company and comfort of his wife. But we cannot, on that account, absolve Mr. Kennedy of the criminality of his act. It should be for a jury to decide what view should be taken of that act, and to say how far the outrageous provocation offered should be allowed to palliate the offence. But hitherto the matter has not reached the police. Mr. Finn was not struck, and managed to escape from the room. It was his manifest duty as one of the community, and more especially so as a member of Parliament, to have reported all the circumstances at once to the police. This was not done by him, nor by the persons who keep the hotel. That Mr. Finn should have reasons of his own for keeping the whole affair secret, and for screening the attempt at murder, is clear enough. What inducements have been used with the people of the house we cannot, of course, say. But we understand that Mr. Kennedy has been allowed to leave London without molestation. Such is the true story of what occurred on Sunday afternoon in Judd Street, and, knowing what we do, we think ourselves justified in calling upon Major Mackintosh to take the case into his own hands. Now Major Mackintosh was at this time the head of the London constabulary. It is quite out of the question that such a transaction should take place in the heart of London at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and be allowed to pass without notice. We intend to keep as little of what we know from the public as possible, and do not hesitate to acknowledge that we are debarred by an injunction of the Vice-Chancellor from publishing a certain document which would throw the clearest light upon the whole circumstance. As soon as possible after the shot was fired Mr. Finn went to work, and, as we think, by misrepresentations, obtained the injunction early on yesterday morning. We feel sure that it would not have been granted had the transaction in Judd Street been at the time known to the Vice-Chancellor in all its enormity. Our hands are, of course, tied. The document in question is still with us, but it is sacred. When called upon to show it by any proper authority we shall be ready; but, knowing what we do know, we should not be justified in allowing the matter to sleep. In the meantime we call upon those whose duty it is to preserve the public peace to take the steps necessary for bringing the delinquents to justice. The effect upon Mr. Finn, we should say, must be his immediate withdrawal from public life. For the last year or two he has held some subordinate but permanent place in Ireland, which he has given up on the rumour that the party to which he has attached himself is likely to return to office. That he is a seeker after office is notorious. That any possible Government should now employ him, even as a tide-waiter, is quite out of the question; and it is equally out of the question that he should be again returned to Parliament, were he to resign his seat on accepting office. As it is, we believe, notorious that this gentleman cannot maintain the position which he holds without being paid for his services, it is reasonable to suppose that his friends will recommend him to retire, and seek his living in some obscure, and, let us hope, honest profession. Mr. Slide, when his thunderbolt was prepared, read it over with delight, but still with some fear as to probable results. It was expedient that he should avoid a prosecution for libel, and essential that he should not offend the majesty of the Vice-Chancellor's injunction. Was he sure that he was safe in each direction? As to the libel, he could not tell himself that he was certainly safe. He was saying very hard things both of Lady Laura and of Phineas Finn, and sailing very near the wind. But neither of those persons would probably be willing to prosecute; and, should he be prosecuted, he would then, at any rate, be able to give in Mr. Kennedy's letter as evidence in his own defence. He really did believe that what he was doing was all done in the cause of morality. It was the business of such a paper as that which he conducted to run some risk in defending morals, and exposing distinguished culprits on behalf of the public. And then, without some such risk, how could Phineas Finn be adequately punished for the atrocious treachery of which he had been guilty? As to the Chancellor's order, Mr. Slide thought that he had managed that matter very completely. No doubt he had acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read by the letter, and not by the spirit. It was open to him to publish anything he pleased respecting Mr. Kennedy and his wife, subject, of course, to the general laws of the land in regard to libel. The Vice-Chancellor's special order to him referred simply to a particular document, and from that document he had not quoted a word, though he had contrived to repeat all the bitter things which it contained, with much added venom of his own. He felt secure of being safe from any active anger on the part of the Vice-Chancellor. The article was printed and published. The reader will perceive that it was full of lies. It began with a lie in that statement that "we abstained yesterday from alluding to circumstances" which had been unknown to the writer when his yesterday's paper was published. The indignant reference to poor Finn's want of delicacy in forcing himself upon Mr. Kennedy on the Sabbath afternoon, was, of course, a tissue of lies. The visit had been made almost at the instigation of the editor himself. The paper from beginning to end was full of falsehood and malice, and had been written with the express intention of creating prejudice against the man who had offended the writer. But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand was accustomed, and he had been led by practice to believe that the use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but also beneficial to the public. Had anybody suggested to him that he was stabbing his enemy in the dark, he would have averred that he was doing nothing of the kind, because the anonymous accusation of sinners in high rank was, on behalf of the public, the special duty of writers and editors attached to the public press. Mr. Slide's blood was running high with virtuous indignation against our hero as he inserted those last cruel words as to the choice of an obscure but honest profession. Phineas Finn read the article before he sat down to breakfast on the following morning, and the dagger went right into his bosom. Every word told upon him. With a jaunty laugh within his own sleeve he had assured himself that he was safe against any wound which could be inflicted on him from the columns of the People's Banner. He had been sure that he would be attacked, and thought that he was armed to bear it. But the thin blade penetrated every joint of his harness, and every particle of the poison curdled in his blood. He was hurt about Lady Laura; he was hurt about his borough of Tankerville; he was hurt by the charges against him of having outraged delicacy; he was hurt by being handed over to the tender mercies of Major Mackintosh; he was hurt by the craft with which the Vice-Chancellor's injunction had been evaded; but he was especially hurt by the allusions to his own poverty. It was necessary that he should earn his bread, and no doubt he was a seeker after place. But he did not wish to obtain wages without working for them; and he did not see why the work and wages of a public office should be less honourable than those of any other profession. To him, with his ideas, there was no profession so honourable, as certainly there were none which demanded greater sacrifices or were more precarious. And he did believe that such an article as that would have the effect of shutting against him the gates of that dangerous Paradise which he desired to enter. He had no great claim upon his party; and, in giving away the good things of office, the giver is only too prone to recognise any objections against an individual which may seem to relieve him from the necessity of bestowing aught in that direction. Phineas felt that he would almost be ashamed to show his face at the clubs or in the House. He must do so as a matter of course, but he knew that he could not do so without confessing by his visage that he had been deeply wounded by the attack in the People's Banner. He went in the first instance to Mr. Low, and was almost surprised that Mr. Low should not have yet even have heard that such an attack had been made. He had almost felt, as he walked to Lincoln's Inn, that everybody had looked at him, and that passers-by in the street had declared to each other that he was the unfortunate one who had been doomed by the editor of the People's Banner to seek some obscure way of earning his bread. Mr. Low took the paper, read, or probably only half read, the article, and then threw the sheet aside as worthless. "What ought I to do?" "Nothing at all." "One's first desire would be to beat him to a jelly." "Of all courses that would be the worst, and would most certainly conduce to his triumph." "Just so;--I only allude to the pleasure one would have, but which one has to deny oneself. I don't know whether he has laid himself open for libel." "I should think not. I have only just glanced at it, and therefore can't give an opinion; but I should think you would not dream of such a thing. Your object is to screen Lady Laura's name." "I have to think of that first." "It may be necessary that steps should be taken to defend her character. If an accusation be made with such publicity as to enforce belief if not denied, the denial must be made, and may probably be best made by an action for libel. But that must be done by her or her friends,--but certainly not by you." "He has laughed at the Vice-Chancellor's injunction." "I don't think that you can interfere. If, as you believe, Mr. Kennedy be insane, that fact will probably soon be proved, and will have the effect of clearing Lady Laura's character. A wife may be excused for leaving a mad husband." "And you think I should do nothing?" "I don't see what you can do. You have encountered a chimney sweeper, and of course you get some of the soot. What you do do, and what you do not do, must depend at any rate on the wishes of Lady Laura Kennedy and her father. It is a matter in which you must make yourself subordinate to them." Fuming and fretting, and yet recognising the truth of Mr. Low's words, Phineas left the chambers, and went down to his club. It was a Wednesday, and the House was to sit in the morning; but before he went to the House he put himself in the way of certain of his associates in order that he might hear what would be said, and learn if possible what was thought. Nobody seemed to treat the accusations in the newspaper as very serious, though all around him congratulated him on his escape from Mr. Kennedy's pistol. "I suppose the poor man really is mad," said Lord Cantrip, whom he met on the steps of one of the clubs. "No doubt, I should say." "I can't understand why you didn't go to the police." "I had hoped the thing would not become public," said Phineas. "Everything becomes public;--everything of that kind. It is very hard upon poor Lady Laura." "That is the worst of it, Lord Cantrip." "If I were her father I should bring her to England, and demand a separation in a regular and legal way. That is what he should do now in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of the press." "You have read that article?" "Yes;--I saw it but a minute ago." "I need not tell you that there is not the faintest ground in the world for the imputation made against Lady Laura there." "I am sure that there is none;--and therefore it is that I tell you my opinion so plainly. I think that Lord Brentford should be advised to bring Lady Laura to England, and to put down the charges openly in Court. It might be done either by an application to the Divorce Court for a separation, or by an action against the newspaper for libel. I do not know Lord Brentford quite well enough to intrude upon him with a letter, but I have no objection whatever to having my name mentioned to him. He and I and you and poor Mr. Kennedy sat together in the same Government, and I think that Lord Brentford would trust my friendship so far." Phineas thanked him, and assured him that what he had said should be conveyed to Lord Brentford. CHAPTER XXIX. THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE. It will be remembered that Adelaide Palliser had accepted the hand of Mr. Maule, junior, and that she and Lady Chiltern between them had despatched him up to London on an embassy to his father, in which he failed very signally. It had been originally Lady Chiltern's idea that the proper home for the young couple would be the ancestral hall, which must be theirs some day, and in which, with exceeding prudence, they might be able to live as Maules of Maule Abbey upon the very limited income which would belong to them. How slight were the grounds for imputing such stern prudence to Gerard Maule both the ladies felt;--but it had become essential to do something; the young people were engaged to each other, and a manner of life must be suggested, discussed, and as far as possible arranged. Lady Chiltern was useful at such work, having a practical turn of mind, and understanding well the condition of life for which it was necessary that her friend should prepare herself. The lover was not vicious, he neither drank nor gambled, nor ran himself hopelessly in debt. He was good-humoured and tractable, and docile enough when nothing disagreeable was asked from him. He would have, he said, no objection to live at Maule Abbey if Adelaide liked it. He didn't believe much in farming, but would consent at Adelaide's request to be the owner of bullocks. He was quite ready to give up hunting, having already taught himself to think that the very few good runs in a season were hardly worth the trouble of getting up before daylight all the winter. He went forth, therefore, on his embassy, and we know how he failed. Another lover would have communicated the disastrous tidings at once to the lady; but Gerard Maule waited a week before he did so, and then told his story in half-a-dozen words. "The governor cut up rough about Maule Abbey, and will not hear of it. He generally does cut up rough." "But he must be made to hear of it," said Lady Chiltern. Two days afterwards the news reached Harrington of the death of the Duke of Omnium. A letter of an official nature reached Adelaide from Mr. Fothergill, in which the writer explained that he had been desired by Mr. Palliser to communicate to her and the relatives the sad tidings. "So the poor old man has gone at last," said Lady Chiltern, with that affectation of funereal gravity which is common to all of us. "Poor old Duke!" said Adelaide. "I have been hearing of him as a sort of bugbear all my life. I don't think I ever saw him but once, and then he gave me a kiss and a pair of earrings. He never paid any attention to us at all, but we were taught to think that Providence had been very good to us in making the Duke our uncle." "He was very rich?" "Horribly rich, I have always heard." "Won't he leave you something? It would be very nice now that you are engaged to find that he has given you five thousand pounds." "Very nice indeed;--but there is not a chance of it. It has always been known that everything is to go to the heir. Papa had his fortune and spent it. He and his brother were never friends, and though the Duke did once give me a kiss I imagine that he forgot my existence immediately afterwards." "So the Duke of Omnium is dead," said Lord Chiltern when he came home that evening. "Adelaide has had a letter to tell her so this afternoon." "Mr. Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;--"the man who is so wicked about the foxes." "I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else." "The Duke is dead;--long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it." "Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide. "Women do," said Lord Chiltern. "Lady Glencora will be delighted to reign,--though I can hardly fancy her by any other name. By the bye, Adelaide, I have got a letter for you." "A letter for me, Lord Chiltern!" "Well,--yes; I suppose I had better give it you. It is not addressed to you, but you must answer it." "What on earth is it?" "I think I can guess," said Lady Chiltern, laughing. She had guessed rightly, but Adelaide Palliser was still altogether in the dark when Lord Chiltern took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. As he did so he left the room, and his wife followed him. "I shall be upstairs, Adelaide, if you want advice," said Lady Chiltern. The letter was from Mr. Spooner. He had left Harrington Hall after the uncourteous reception which had been accorded to him by Miss Palliser in deep disgust, resolving that he would never again speak to her, and almost resolving that Spoon Hall should never have a mistress in his time. But with his wine after dinner his courage came back to him, and he began to reflect once more that it is not the habit of young ladies to accept their lovers at the first offer. There was living with Mr. Spooner at this time a very attached friend, whom he usually consulted in all emergencies, and to whom on this occasion he opened his heart. Mr. Edward Spooner, commonly called Ned by all who knew him, and not unfrequently so addressed by those who did not, was a distant cousin of the Squire's, who unfortunately had no particular income of his own. For the last ten years he had lived at Spoon Hall, and had certainly earned his bread. The Squire had achieved a certain credit for success as a country gentleman. Nothing about his place was out of order. His own farming, which was extensive, succeeded. His bullocks and sheep won prizes. His horses were always useful and healthy. His tenants were solvent, if not satisfied, and he himself did not owe a shilling. Now many people in the neighbourhood attributed all this to the judicious care of Mr. Edward Spooner, whose eye was never off the place, and whose discretion was equal to his zeal. In giving the Squire his due, one must acknowledge that he recognised the merits of his cousin, and trusted him in everything. That night, as soon as the customary bottle of claret had succeeded the absolutely normal bottle of port after dinner, Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall opened his heart to his cousin. "I shall have to walk, then," said Ned. "Not if I know it," said the Squire. "You don't suppose I'm going to let any woman have the command of Spoon Hall?" "They do command,--inside, you know." "No woman shall ever turn you out of this house, Ned." "I'm not thinking of myself, Tom," said the cousin. "Of course you'll marry some day, and of course I must take my chance. I don't see why it shouldn't be Miss Palliser as well as another." "The jade almost made me angry." "I suppose that's the way with most of 'em. 'Ludit exultim metuitque tangi'." For Ned Spooner had himself preserved some few tattered shreds of learning from his school days. "You don't remember about the filly?" "Yes I do; very well," said the Squire. "'Nuptiarum expers.' That's what it is, I suppose. Try it again." The advice on the part of the cousin was genuine and unselfish. That Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall should be rejected by a young lady without any fortune seemed to him to be impossible. At any rate it is the duty of a man in such circumstances to persevere. As far as Ned knew the world, ladies always required to be asked a second or a third time. And then no harm can come from such perseverance. "She can't break your bones, Tom." There was much honesty displayed on this occasion. The Squire, when he was thus instigated to persevere, did his best to describe the manner in which he had been rejected. His powers of description were not very great, but he did not conceal anything wilfully. "She was as hard as nails, you know." "I don't know that that means much. Horace's filly kicked a few, no doubt." "She told me that if I'd go one way, she'd go the other!" "They always say about the hardest things that come to their tongues. They don't curse and swear as we do, or there'd be no bearing them. If you really like her--" "She's such a well-built creature! There's a look of blood about her I don't see in any of 'em. That sort of breeding is what one wants to get through the mud with." Then it was that the cousin recommended a letter to Lord Chiltern. Lord Chiltern was at the present moment to be regarded as the lady's guardian, and was the lover's intimate friend. A direct proposal had already been made to the young lady, and this should now be repeated to the gentleman who for the time stood in the position of her father. The Squire for a while hesitated, declaring that he was averse to make his secret known to Lord Chiltern. "One doesn't want every fellow in the country to know it," he said. But in answer to this the cousin was very explicit. There could be but little doubt that Lord Chiltern knew the secret already; and he would certainly be rather induced to keep it as a secret than to divulge it if it were communicated to him officially. And what other step could the Squire take? It would not be likely that he should be asked again to Harrington Hall with the express view of repeating his offer. The cousin was quite of opinion that a written proposition should be made; and on that very night the cousin himself wrote out a letter for the Squire to copy in the morning. On the morning the Squire copied the letter,--not without additions of his own, as to which he had very many words with his discreet cousin,--and in a formal manner handed it to Lord Chiltern towards the afternoon of that day, having devoted his whole morning to the finding of a proper opportunity for doing so. Lord Chiltern had read the letter, and had, as we see, delivered it to Adelaide Palliser. "That's another proposal from Mr. Spooner," Lady Chiltern said, as soon as they were alone. "Exactly that." "I knew he'd go on with it. Men are such fools." "I don't see that he's a fool at all;" said Lord Chiltern, almost in anger. "Why shouldn't he ask a girl to be his wife? He's a rich man, and she hasn't got a farthing." "You might say the same of a butcher, Oswald." "Mr. Spooner is a gentleman." "You do not mean to say that he's fit to marry such a girl as Adelaide Palliser?" "I don't know what makes fitness. He's got a red nose, and if she don't like a red nose,--that's unfitness. Gerard Maule's nose isn't red, and I dare say therefore he's fitter. Only, unfortunately, he has no money." "Adelaide Palliser would no more think of marrying Mr. Spooner than you would have thought of marrying the cook." "If I had liked the cook I should have asked her, and I don't see why Mr. Spooner shouldn't ask Miss Palliser. She needn't take him." In the meantime Miss Palliser was reading the following letter:-- Spoon Hall, 11th March, 18--. MY DEAR LORD CHILTERN,-- I venture to suppose that at present you are acting as the guardian of Miss Palliser, who has been staying at your house all the winter. If I am wrong in this I hope you will pardon me, and consent to act in that capacity for this occasion. I entertain feelings of the greatest admiration and warmest affection for the young lady I have named, which I ventured to express when I had the pleasure of staying at Harrington Hall in the early part of last month. I cannot boast that I was received on that occasion with much favour; but I know that I am not very good at talking, and we are told in all the books that no man has a right to expect to be taken at the first time of asking. Perhaps Miss Palliser will allow me, through you, to request her to consider my proposal with more deliberation than was allowed to me before, when I spoke to her perhaps with injudicious hurry. So far the Squire adopted his cousin's words without alteration. I am the owner of my own property,--which is more than everybody can say. My income is nearly £4,000 a year. I shall be willing to make any proper settlement that may be recommended by the lawyers,--though I am strongly of opinion that an estate shouldn't be crippled for the sake of the widow. As to refurnishing the old house, and all that, I'll do anything that Miss Palliser may please. She knows my taste about hunting, and I know hers, so that there need not be any difference of opinion on that score. Miss Palliser can't suspect me of any interested motives. I come forward because I think she is the most charming girl I ever saw, and because I love her with all my heart. I haven't got very much to say for myself, but if she'll consent to be the mistress of Spoon Hall, she shall have all that the heart of a woman can desire. Pray believe me, My dear Lord Chiltern, Yours very sincerely, THOMAS PLATTER SPOONER. As I believe that Miss Palliser is fond of books, it may be well to tell her that there is an uncommon good library at Spoon Hall. I shall have no objection to go abroad for the honeymoon for three or four months in the summer. The postscript was the Squire's own, and was inserted in opposition to the cousin's judgment. "She won't come for the sake of the books," said the cousin. But the Squire thought that the attractions should be piled up. "I wouldn't talk of the honeymoon till I'd got her to come round a little," said the cousin. The Squire thought that the cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be taken abroad when they're married. The second half of the body of the letter was very much disfigured by the Squire's petulance; so that the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by a touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake of the widow was very much questioned by the cousin. "Such a word as 'widow' never ought to go into such a letter as this." But the Squire protested that he would not be mealy-mouthed. "She can bear to think of it, I'll go bail; and why shouldn't she hear about what she can think about?" "Don't talk about furniture yet, Tom," the cousin said; but the Squire was obstinate, and the cousin became hopeless. That word about loving her with all his heart was the cousin's own, but what followed, as to her being mistress of Spoon Hall, was altogether opposed to his judgment. "She'll be proud enough of Spoon Hall if she comes here," said the Squire. "I'd let her come first," said the cousin. We all know that the phraseology of the letter was of no importance whatever. When it was received the lady was engaged to another man; and she regarded Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall as being guilty of unpardonable impudence in approaching her at all. "A red-faced vulgar old man, who looks as if he did nothing but drink," she said to Lady Chiltern. "He does you no harm, my dear." "But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him encouragement." "I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,--the same people,--whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry with them." "But you didn't have Mr. Spooner." "Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask. There are disparities of course which may make the privilege questionable,--disparities of age, rank, and means." "And of tastes," said Adelaide. "I don't know about that.--A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess, nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who habitually sits in his company." "I don't agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?" "The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can lay down, and I think that girls should understand that they have to fight their battles subject to that law. It's very easy to say, 'No.'" "But a man won't take 'No.'" "And it's lucky for us sometimes that they don't," said Lady Chiltern, remembering certain passages in her early life. The answer was written that night by Lord Chiltern after much consultation. As to the nature of the answer,--that it should be a positive refusal,--of course there could be no doubt; but then arose a question whether a reason should be given, or whether the refusal should be simply a refusal. At last it was decided that a reason should be given, and the letter ran as follows:-- MY DEAR MR. SPOONER, I am commissioned to inform you that Miss Palliser is engaged to be married to Mr. Gerard Maule. Yours faithfully, CHILTERN. The young lady had consented to be thus explicit because it had been already determined that no secret should be kept as to her future prospects. "He is one of those poverty-stricken wheedling fellows that one meets about the world every day," said the Squire to his cousin--"a fellow that rides horses that he can't pay for, and owes some poor devil of a tailor for the breeches that he sits in. They eat, and drink, and get along heaven only knows how. But they're sure to come to smash at last. Girls are such fools nowadays." "I don't think there has ever been much difference in that," said the cousin. "Because a man greases his whiskers, and colours his hair, and paints his eyebrows, and wears kid gloves, by George, they'll go through fire and water after him. He'll never marry her." "So much the better for her." "But I hate such d---- impudence. What right has a man to come forward in that way who hasn't got a house over his head, or the means of getting one? Old Maule is so hard up that he can barely get a dinner at his club in London. What I wonder at is that Lady Chiltern shouldn't know better." CHAPTER XXX. REGRETS. Madame Goesler remained at Matching till after the return of Mr. Palliser--or, as we must now call him, the Duke of Omnium--from Gatherum Castle, and was therefore able to fight her own battle with him respecting the gems and the money which had been left her. He brought to her with his own hands the single ring which she had requested, and placed it on her finger. "The goldsmith will soon make that all right," she said, when it was found to be much too large for the largest finger on which she could wear a ring. "A bit shall be taken out, but I will not have it reset." "You got the lawyer's letter and the inventory, Madame Goesler?" "Yes, indeed. What surprises me is that the dear old man should never have spoken of so magnificent a collection of gems." "Orders have been given that they shall be packed." "They may be packed or unpacked, of course, as your Grace pleases, but pray do not connect me with the packing." "You must be connected with it." "But I wish not to be connected with it, Duke. I have written to the lawyer to renounce the legacy, and, if your Grace persists, I must employ a lawyer of my own to renounce them after some legal form. Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won't take it in, and I won't have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please." [Illustration: "Lady Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."] Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler's assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly. He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making light of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler; and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills. "You can't make a person take a thing because you write it down on a thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table. I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn't want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she won't have the money and jewels. You can't make her take them, and I'm quite sure you can't talk her over." The young Duke was not persuaded, but had to give the battle up,--at any rate, for the present. On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole, done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last three years of her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there had existed a warm friendship between them;--but of what nature could have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had been in his dotage? What words of the Duke's speaking had she ever heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love? The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her,--and had then offered to make her his wife. This,--which would have conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and wealth, and a great name,--she had refused, thinking that the price to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have something better in store for her. After that she had permitted herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and in that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of her youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had accepted payment for the three years' service by taking a casket of jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was there had been something of romance in it,--though the romance of friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly been satisfactory. Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had not her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support, fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things,--on condition that she never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora,--had enjoyed her friend's society, and been happy in her friend's company,--but she had always felt that Lady Glencora's attraction to herself had been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To keep the Duke out of harm's way Lady Glencora had opened her arms to Madame Goesler. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Madame Goesler chose to give to the history of the last three years. They had not, she thought, quite understood her. When once she had made up her mind not to marry the Duke, the Duke had been safe from her;--as his jewels and money should be safe now that he was dead. Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet,--so she declared to herself now,--the world had done but little for her. Two old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had asked to become so;--and to both she had done her duty. To both she had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses, dinner-parties and drawing-rooms,--what did they all amount to? What was it that she wanted? She was ashamed to tell herself that it was love. But she knew this,--that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end. As an end themselves they were nothing. She had devoted herself to this old man who was now dead, and there had been moments in which she had thought that that sufficed. But it had not sufficed, and instead of being borne down by grief at the loss of her friend, she found herself almost rejoicing at relief from a vexatious burden. Had she been a hypocrite then? Was it her nature to be false? After that she reflected whether it might not be best for her to become a devotee,--it did not matter much in what branch of the Christian religion, so that she could assume some form of faith. The sour strictness of the confident Calvinist or the asceticism of St. Francis might suit her equally,--if she could only believe in Calvin or in St. Francis. She had tried to believe in the Duke of Omnium, but there she had failed. There had been a saint at whose shrine she thought she could have worshipped with a constant and happy devotion, but that saint had repulsed her from his altar. Mr. Maule, Senior, not understanding much of all this, but still understanding something, thought that he might perhaps be the saint. He knew well that audacity in asking is a great merit in a middle-aged wooer. He was a good deal older than the lady, who, in spite of all her experiences, was hardly yet thirty. But then he was,--he felt sure,--very young for his age, whereas she was old. She was a widow; he was a widower. She had a house in town and an income. He had a place in the country and an estate. She knew all the dukes and duchesses, and he was a man of family. She could make him comfortably opulent. He could make her Mrs. Maule of Maule Abbey. She, no doubt, was good-looking. Mr. Maule, Senior, as he tied on his cravat, thought that even in that respect there was no great disparity between them. Considering his own age, Mr. Maule, Senior, thought there was not perhaps a better-looking man than himself about Pall Mall. He was a little stiff in the joints and moved rather slowly, but what was wanting in suppleness was certainly made up in dignity. He watched his opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after Madame Goesler's return. There was already between them an amount of acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had been on the lady's part something of that cordiality of manner which is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the conversation about the "dear Duke." Mr. Maule could afford to talk about the Duke, and to lay aside for a short time his own cause, as he had not suggested to himself the possibility of becoming pressingly tender on his own behalf on this particular occasion. Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his virtues. "I heard that you had gone to Matching, as soon as the poor Duke was taken ill," he said. She was in mourning, and had never for a moment thought of denying the peculiarity of the position she had held in reference to the old man. She could not have been content to wear her ordinary coloured garments after sitting so long by the side of the dying man. A hired nurse may do so, but she had not been that. If there had been hypocrisy in her friendship the hypocrisy must be maintained to the end. "Poor old man! I only came back yesterday." "I never had the pleasure of knowing his Grace," said Mr. Maule. "But I have always heard him named as a nobleman of whom England might well be proud." Madame Goesler was not at the moment inclined to tell lies on the matter, and did not think that England had much cause to be proud of the Duke of Omnium. "He was a man who held a very peculiar position," she said. "Most peculiar;--a man of infinite wealth, and of that special dignity which I am sorry to say so many men of rank among us are throwing aside as a garment which is too much for them. We can all wear coats, but it is not every one that can carry a robe. The Duke carried his to the last." Madame Goesler remembered how he looked with his nightcap on, when he had lost his temper because they would not let him have a glass of curaçoa. "I don't know that we have any one left that can be said to be his equal," continued Mr. Maule. "No one like him, perhaps. He was never married, you know." "But was once willing to marry," said Mr. Maule, "if all that we hear be true." Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule's words had escaped her. "A grand old gentleman! I don't know that anybody will ever say as much for his heir." "The men are very different." "Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr. Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men." "I don't think we are near that yet." "Upon my word, Madame Goesler, I am not so sure about it. Here are sons of noblemen going into trade on every side of us. We have earls dealing in butter, and marquises sending their peaches to market. There was nothing of that kind about the Duke. A great fortune had been entrusted to him, and he knew that it was his duty to spend it. He did spend it, and all the world looked up to him. It must have been a great pleasure to you to know him so well." Madame Goesler was saved the necessity of making any answer to this by the announcement of another visitor. The door was opened, and Phineas Finn entered the room. He had not seen Madame Goesler since they had been together at Harrington Hall, and had never before met Mr. Maule. When riding home with the lady after their unsuccessful attempt to jump out of the wood, Phineas had promised to call in Park Lane whenever he should learn that Madame Goesler was not at Matching. Since that the Duke had died, and the bond with Matching no longer existed. It seemed but the other day that they were talking about the Duke together, and now the Duke was gone. "I see you are in mourning," said Phineas, as he still held her hand. "I must say one word to condole with you for your lost friend." "Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him," she said, as she introduced the two gentlemen. "Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule." "I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?" "After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence." "He never forgot any one," said Madame Goesler. "I don't know that I was ever introduced to him," continued Mr. Maule, "and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler how profound a reverence I had for the Duke's character." Phineas bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he should be able to advance his cause on that occasion, took his leave. The moment he was gone Madame Goesler's manner changed altogether. She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former days. "I am so glad to see you," she said. "Is it not odd that he should have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?" "You thought then that he would not last long." "Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me, Mr. Finn." "I can understand that." "And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was colour." "The house will be open to you just the same." "I shall not go there. I shall see Lady Glencora in town, of course; but I shall not go to Matching; and as to Gatherum Castle, I would not spend another week there, if they would give it me. You haven't heard of his will?" "No;--not a word. I hope he remembered you,--to mention your name. You hardly wanted more." "Just so. I wanted no more than that." "It was made, perhaps, before you knew him." "He was always making it, and always altering it. He left me money, and jewels of enormous value." "I am so glad to hear it." "But I have refused to take anything. Am I not right?" "I don't know why you should refuse." "There are people who will say that--I was his mistress. If a woman be young, a man's age never prevents such scandal. I don't know that I can stop it, but I can perhaps make it seem to be less probable. And after all that has passed, I could not bear that the Pallisers should think that I clung to him for what I could get. I should be easier this way." "Whatever is best to be done, you will do it;--I know that." "Your praise goes beyond the mark, my friend. I can be both generous and discreet;--but the difficulty is to be true. I did take one thing,--a black diamond that he always wore. I would show it you, but the goldsmith has it to make it fit me. When does the great affair come off at the House?" "The bill will be read again on Monday, the first." "What an unfortunate day!--You remember young Mr. Maule? Is he not like his father? And yet in manners they are as unlike as possible." "What is the father?" Phineas asked. "A battered old beau about London, selfish and civil, pleasant and penniless, and I should think utterly without a principle. Come again soon. I am so anxious to hear that you are getting on. And you have got to tell me all about that shooting with the pistol." Phineas as he walked away thought that Madame Goesler was handsomer even than she used to be. CHAPTER XXXI. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN. At the end of March the Duchess of Omnium, never more to be called Lady Glencora by the world at large, came up to London. The Duke, though he was now banished from the House of Commons, was nevertheless wanted in London; and what funereal ceremonies were left might be accomplished as well in town as at Matching Priory. No old Ministry could be turned out and no new Ministry formed without the assistance of the young Duchess. It was a question whether she should not be asked to be Mistress of the Robes, though those who asked it knew very well that she was the last woman in England to hamper herself by dependence on the Court. Up to London they came; and, though of course they went into no society, the house in Carlton Gardens was continually thronged with people who had some special reason for breaking the ordinary rules of etiquette in their desire to see how Lady Glencora carried herself as Duchess of Omnium. "Do you think she's altered much?" said Aspasia Fitzgibbon, an elderly spinster, the daughter of Lord Claddagh, and sister of Laurence Fitzgibbon, member for one of the western Irish counties. "I don't think she was quite so loud as she used to be." Mrs. Bonteen was of opinion that there was a change. "She was always uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a cat if you offended her." "And won't she scratch now?" asked Miss Fitzgibbon. "I'm afraid she'll scratch oftener. It was always a trick of hers to pretend to think nothing of rank;--but she values her place as highly as any woman in England." This was Mrs. Bonteen's opinion; but Lady Baldock, who was present, differed. This Lady Baldock was not the mother, but the sister-in-law of that Augusta Boreham who had lately become Sister Veronica John. "I don't believe it," said Lady Baldock. "She always seems to me to be like a great schoolgirl who has been allowed too much of her own way. I think people give way to her too much, you know." As Lady Baldock was herself the wife of a peer, she naturally did not stand so much in awe of a duchess as did Mrs. Bonteen, or Miss Fitzgibbon. "Have you seen the young Duke?" asked Mr. Ratler of Barrington Erle. "Yes; I have been with him this morning." "How does he like it?" "He's bothered out of his life,--as a hen would be if you were to throw her into water. He's so shy, he hardly knows how to speak to you; and he broke down altogether when I said something about the Lords." "He'll not do much more." "I don't know about that," said Erle. "He'll get used to it, and go into harness again. He's a great deal too good to be lost." "He didn't give himself airs?" "What!--Planty Pall! If I know anything of a man he's not the man to do that because he's a duke. He can hold his own against all comers, and always could. Quiet as he always seemed, he knew who he was, and who other people were. I don't think you'll find much difference in him when he has got over the annoyance." Mr. Ratler, however, was of a different opinion. Mr. Ratler had known many docile members of the House of Commons who had become peers by the death of uncles and fathers, and who had lost all respect for him as soon as they were released from the crack of the whip. Mr. Ratler rather despised peers who had been members of the House of Commons, and who passed by inheritance from a scene of unparalleled use and influence to one of idle and luxurious dignity. Soon after their arrival in London the Duchess wrote the following very characteristic letter:-- DEAR LORD CHILTERN, Mr. Palliser-- [Then having begun with a mistake, she scratched the word through with her pen.] The Duke has asked me to write about Trumpeton Wood, as he knows nothing about it, and I know just as little. But if you say what you want, it shall be done. Shall we get foxes and put them there? Or ought there to be a special fox-keeper? You mustn't be angry because the poor old Duke was too feeble to take notice of the matter. Only speak, and it shall be done. Yours faithfully, GLENCORA O. Madame Goesler spoke to me about it; but at that time we were in trouble. The answer was as characteristic:-- DEAR DUCHESS OF OMNIUM, Thanks. What is wanted, is that keepers should know that there are to be foxes. When keepers know that foxes are really expected, there always are foxes. The men latterly have known just the contrary. It is all a question of shooting. I don't mean to say a word against the late Duke. When he got old the thing became bad. No doubt it will be right now. Faithfully yours, CHILTERN. Our hounds have been poisoned in Trumpeton Wood. This would never have been done had not the keepers been against the hunting. Upon receipt of this she sent the letter to Mr. Fothergill, with a request that there might be no more shooting in Trumpeton Wood. "I'll be shot if we'll stand that, you know," said Mr. Fothergill to one of his underlings. "There are two hundred and fifty acres in Trumpeton Wood, and we're never to kill another pheasant because Lord Chiltern is Master of the Brake Hounds. Property won't be worth having at that rate." The Duke by no means intended to abandon the world of politics, or even the narrower sphere of ministerial work, because he had been ousted from the House of Commons, and from the possibility of filling the office which he had best liked. This was proved to the world by the choice of his house for a meeting of the party on the 30th of March. As it happened, this was the very day on which he and the Duchess returned to London; but nevertheless the meeting was held there, and he was present at it. Mr. Gresham then repeated his reasons for opposing Mr. Daubeny's bill; and declared that even while doing so he would, with the approbation of his party, pledge himself to bring in a bill somewhat to the same effect, should he ever again find himself in power. And he declared that he would do this solely with the view of showing how strong was his opinion that such a measure should not be left in the hands of the Conservative party. It was doubted whether such a political proposition had ever before been made in England. It was a simple avowal that on this occasion men were to be regarded, and not measures. No doubt such is the case, and ever has been the case, with the majority of active politicians. The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician's life. And by practice this becomes extended to so many branches, that the delights,--and also the disappointments,--are very widespread. Great satisfaction is felt by us because by some lucky conjunction of affairs our man, whom we never saw, is made Lord-Lieutenant of a county, instead of another man, of whom we know as little. It is a great thing to us that Sir Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of justice, instead of that time-serving Conservative, Sir Alexander McSilk. Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places. Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny's Bill. So he told his friends at the Duke's house. The Bill was full of faults,--went too far in one direction, and not far enough in another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the sin of sins consisted in this,--that it was to be passed, if passed at all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences by each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be expected from an army in which every officer, and every private, was called upon to fight against his convictions? The meeting passed off without dissension, and it was agreed that the House of Commons should be called upon to reject the Church Bill simply because it was proposed from that side of the House on which the minority was sitting. As there were more than two hundred members present on the occasion, by none of whom were any objections raised, it seemed probable that Mr. Gresham might be successful. There was still, however, doubt in the minds of some men. "It's all very well," said Mr. Ratler, "but Turnbull wasn't there, you know." But from what took place the next day but one in Park Lane it would almost seem that the Duchess had been there. She came at once to see Madame Goesler, having very firmly determined that the Duke's death should not have the appearance of interrupting her intimacy with her friend. "Was it not very disagreeable,"--asked Madame Goesler,--"just the day you came to town?" "We didn't think of that at all. One is not allowed to think of anything now. It was very improper, of course, because of the Duke's death;--but that had to be put on one side. And then it was quite contrary to etiquette that Peers and Commoners should be brought together. I think there was some idea of making sure of Plantagenet, and so they all came and wore out our carpets. There wasn't above a dozen peers; but they were enough to show that all the old landmarks have been upset. I don't think any one would have objected if I had opened the meeting myself, and called upon Mrs. Bonteen to second me." "Why Mrs. Bonteen?" "Because next to myself she's the most talkative and political woman we have. She was at our house yesterday, and I'm not quite sure that she doesn't intend to cut me out." "We must put her down, Lady Glen." "Perhaps she'll put me down now that we're half shelved. The men did make such a racket, and yet no one seemed to speak for two minutes except Mr. Gresham, who stood upon my pet footstool, and kicked it almost to pieces." "Was Mr. Finn there?" "Everybody was there, I suppose. What makes you ask particularly about Mr. Finn?" "Because he's a friend." "That's come up again, has it? He's the handsome Irishman, isn't he, that came to Matching, the same day that brought you there?" "He is an Irishman, and he was at Matching, that day." "He's certainly handsome. What a day that was, Marie! When one thinks of it all,--of all the perils and all the salvations, how strange it is! I wonder whether you would have liked it now if you were the Dowager Duchess." "I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose." [Illustration: "I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."] "I don't know that it would have done us any harm, and yet how keen I was about it. We can't give you the rank now, and you won't take the money." "Not the money, certainly." "Plantagenet says you'll have to take it;--but it seems to me he's always wrong. There are so many things that one must do that one doesn't do. He never perceives that everything gets changed every five years. So Mr. Finn is the favourite again?" "He is a friend whom I like. I may be allowed to have a friend, I suppose." "A dozen, my dear;--and all of them good-looking. Good-bye, dear. Pray come to us. Don't stand off and make yourself disagreeable. We shan't be giving dinner parties, but you can come whenever you please. Tell me at once;--do you mean to be disagreeable?" Then Madame Goesler was obliged to promise that she would not be more disagreeable than her nature had made her. CHAPTER XXXII. THE WORLD BECOMES COLD. A great deal was said by very many persons in London as to the murderous attack which had been made by Mr. Kennedy on Phineas Finn in Judd Street, but the advice given by Mr. Slide in The People's Banner to the police was not taken. No public or official inquiry was made into the circumstance. Mr. Kennedy, under the care of his cousin, retreated to Scotland; and, as it seemed, there was to be an end of it. Throughout the month of March various smaller bolts were thrust both at Phineas and at the police by the editor of the above-named newspaper, but they seemed to fall without much effect. No one was put in prison; nor was any one ever examined. But, nevertheless, these missiles had their effect. Everybody knew that there had been a "row" between Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn, and that the "row" had been made about Mr. Kennedy's wife. Everybody knew that a pistol had been fired at Finn's head; and a great many people thought that there had been some cause for the assault. It was alleged at one club that the present member for Tankerville had spent the greater part of the last two years at Dresden, and at another that he had called on Mr. Kennedy twice, once down in Scotland, and once at the hotel in Judd Street, with a view of inducing that gentleman to concede to a divorce. There was also a very romantic story afloat as to an engagement which had existed between Lady Laura and Phineas Finn before the lady had been induced by her father to marry the richer suitor. Various details were given in corroboration of these stories. Was it not known that the Earl had purchased the submission of Phineas Finn by a seat for his borough of Loughton? Was it not known that Lord Chiltern, the brother of Lady Laura, had fought a duel with Phineas Finn? Was it not known that Mr. Kennedy himself had been as it were coerced into quiescence by the singular fact that he had been saved from garotters in the street by the opportune interference of Phineas Finn? It was even suggested that the scene with the garotters had been cunningly planned by Phineas Finn, that he might in this way be able to restrain the anger of the husband of the lady whom he loved. All these stories were very pretty; but as the reader, it is hoped, knows, they were all untrue. Phineas had made but one short visit to Dresden in his life. Lady Laura had been engaged to Mr. Kennedy before Phineas had ever spoken to her of his love. The duel with Lord Chiltern had been about another lady, and the seat at Loughton had been conferred upon Phineas chiefly on account of his prowess in extricating Mr. Kennedy from the garotters,--respecting which circumstance it may be said that as the meeting in the street was fortuitous, the reward was greater than the occasion seemed to require. While all these things were being said Phineas became something of a hero. A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration. A man who was asked out to dinner twice a week before such rumours were afloat, would probably receive double that number of invitations afterwards. And then to have been shot at by a madman in a room, and to be the subject of the venom of a People's Banner, tends also to Fame. Other ladies besides Madame Goesler were anxious to have the story from the very lips of the hero, and in this way Phineas Finn became a conspicuous man. But Fame begets envy, and there were some who said that the member for Tankerville had injured his prospects with his party. It may be very well to give a dinner to a man who has caused the wife of a late Cabinet Minister to quarrel with her husband; but it can hardly be expected that he should be placed in office by the head of the party to which that late Cabinet Minister belonged. "I never saw such a fellow as you are," said Barrington Erle to him. "You are always getting into a mess." "Nobody ought to know better than you how false all these calumnies are." This he said because Erle and Lady Laura were cousins. "Of course they are calumnies; but you had heard them before, and what made you go poking your head into the lion's mouth?" Mr. Bonteen was very much harder upon him than was Barrington Erle. "I never liked him from the first, and always knew he would not run straight. No Irishman ever does." This was said to Viscount Fawn, a distinguished member of the Liberal party, who had but lately been married, and was known to have very strict notions as to the bonds of matrimony. He had been heard to say that any man who had interfered with the happiness of a married couple should be held to have committed a capital offence. "I don't know whether the story about Lady Laura is true." "Of course it's true. All the world knows it to be true. He was always there; at Loughlinter, and at Saulsby, and in Portman Square after she had left her husband. The mischief he has done is incalculable. There's a Conservative sitting in poor Kennedy's seat for Dunross-shire." "That might have been the case anyway." "Nothing could have turned Kennedy out. Don't you remember how he behaved about the Irish Land Question? I hate such fellows." "If I thought it true about Lady Laura--" Lord Fawn was again about to express his opinion in regard to matrimony, but Mr. Bonteen was too impetuous to listen to him. "It's out of the question that he should come in again. At any rate if he does, I won't. I shall tell Gresham so very plainly. The women will do all that they can for him. They always do for a fellow of that kind." Phineas heard of it;--not exactly by any repetition of the words that were spoken, but by chance phrases, and from the looks of men. Lord Cantrip, who was his best friend among those who were certain to hold high office in a Liberal Government, did not talk to him cheerily,--did not speak as though he, Phineas, would as a matter of course have some place assigned to him. And he thought that Mr. Gresham was hardly as cordial to him as he might be when they met in the closer intercourse of the House. There was always a word or two spoken, and sometimes a shaking of hands. He had no right to complain. But yet he knew that something was wanting. We can generally read a man's purpose towards us in his manner, if his purposes are of much moment to us. Phineas had written to Lady Laura, giving her an account of the occurrence in Judd Street on the 1st of March, and had received from her a short answer by return of post. It contained hardly more than a thanksgiving that his life had not been sacrificed, and in a day or two she had written again, letting him know that she had determined to consult her father. Then on the last day of the month he received the following letter:-- Dresden, March 27th, 18--. MY DEAR FRIEND,-- At last we have resolved that we will go back to England,--almost at once. Things have gone so rapidly that I hardly know how to explain them all, but that is Papa's resolution. His lawyer, Mr. Forster, tells him that it will be best, and goes so far as to say that it is imperative on my behalf that some steps should be taken to put an end to the present state of things. I will not scruple to tell you that he is actuated chiefly by considerations as to money. It is astonishing to me that a man who has all his life been so liberal should now in his old age think so much about it. It is, however, in no degree for himself. It is all for me. He cannot bear to think that my fortune should be withheld from me by Mr. Kennedy while I have done nothing wrong. I was obliged to show him your letter, and what you said about the control of money took hold of his mind at once. He thinks that if my unfortunate husband be insane, there can be no difficulty in my obtaining a separation on terms which would oblige him or his friends to restore this horrid money. Of course I could stay if I chose. Papa would not refuse to find a home for me here. But I do agree with Mr. Forster that something should be done to stop the tongues of ill-conditioned people. The idea of having my name dragged through the newspapers is dreadful to me; but if this must be done one way or the other, it will be better that it should be done with truth. There is nothing that I need fear,--as you know so well. I cannot look forward to happiness anywhere. If the question of separation were once settled, I do not know whether I would not prefer returning here to remaining in London. Papa has got tired of the place, and wants, he says, to see Saulsby once again before he dies. What can I say in answer to this, but that I will go? We have sent to have the house in Portman Square got ready for us, and I suppose we shall be there about the 15th of next month. Papa has instructed Mr. Forster to tell Mr. Kennedy's lawyer that we are coming, and he is to find out, if he can, whether any interference in the management of the property has been as yet made by the family. Perhaps I ought to tell you that Mr. Forster has expressed surprise that you did not call on the police when the shot was fired. Of course I can understand it all. God bless you. Your affectionate friend, L. K. Phineas was obliged to console himself by reflecting that if she understood him of course that was everything. His first and great duty in the matter had been to her. If in performing that duty he had sacrificed himself, he must bear his undeserved punishment like a man. That he was to be punished he began to perceive too clearly. The conviction that Mr. Daubeny must recede from the Treasury Bench after the coming debate became every day stronger, and within the little inner circles of the Liberal party the usual discussions were made as to the Ministry which Mr. Gresham would, as a matter of course, be called upon to form. But in these discussions Phineas Finn did not find himself taking an assured and comfortable part. Laurence Fitzgibbon, his countryman,--who in the way of work had never been worth his salt,--was eager, happy, and without a doubt. Others of the old stagers, men who had been going in and out ever since they had been able to get seats in Parliament, stood about in clubs, and in lobbies, and chambers of the House, with all that busy, magpie air which is worn only by those who have high hopes of good things to come speedily. Lord Mount Thistle was more sublime and ponderous than ever, though they who best understood the party declared that he would never again be invited to undergo the cares of office. His lordship was one of those terrible political burdens, engendered originally by private friendship or family considerations, which one Minister leaves to another. Sir Gregory Grogram, the great Whig lawyer, showed plainly by his manner that he thought himself at last secure of reaching the reward for which he had been struggling all his life; for it was understood by all men who knew anything that Lord Weazeling was not to be asked again to sit on the Woolsack. No better advocate or effective politician ever lived; but it was supposed that he lacked dignity for the office of first judge in the land. That most of the old lot would come back was a matter of course. There would be the Duke,--the Duke of St. Bungay, who had for years past been "the Duke" when Liberal administrations were discussed, and the second Duke, whom we know so well; and Sir Harry Coldfoot, and Legge Wilson, Lord Cantrip, Lord Thrift, and the rest of them. There would of course be Lord Fawn, Mr. Ratler, and Mr. Erle. The thing was so thoroughly settled that one was almost tempted to think that the Prime Minister himself would have no voice in the selections to be made. As to one office it was acknowledged on all sides that a doubt existed which would at last be found to be very injurious,--as some thought altogether crushing,--to the party. To whom would Mr. Gresham entrust the financial affairs of the country? Who would be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer? There were not a few who inferred that Mr. Bonteen would be promoted to that high office. During the last two years he had devoted himself to decimal coinage with a zeal only second to that displayed by Plantagenet Palliser, and was accustomed to say of himself that he had almost perished under his exertions. It was supposed that he would have the support of the present Duke of Omnium,--and that Mr. Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed. The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life. But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us,--when we find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race of life. When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it very acutely. The rise of a Pitt can have caused no heart-burning. But Mr. Bonteen had been a hack among the hacks, had filled the usual half-dozen places, had been a junior Lord, a Vice-President, a Deputy Controller, a Chief Commissioner, and a Joint Secretary. His hopes had been raised or abased among the places of £1,000, £1,200, or £1,500 a year. He had hitherto culminated at £2,000, and had been supposed with diligence to have worked himself up to the top of the ladder, as far as the ladder was accessible to him. And now he was spoken of in connection with one of the highest offices of the State! Of course this created much uneasiness, and gave rise to many prophecies of failure. But in the midst of it all no office was assigned to Phineas Finn; and there was a general feeling, not expressed, but understood, that his affair with Mr. Kennedy stood in his way. Quintus Slide had undertaken to crush him! Could it be possible that so mean a man should be able to make good so monstrous a threat? The man was very mean, and the threat had been absurd as well as monstrous; and yet it seemed that it might be realised. Phineas was too proud to ask questions, even of Barrington Erle, but he felt that he was being "left out in the cold," because the editor of The People's Banner had said that no government could employ him; and at this moment, on the very morning of the day which was to usher in the great debate, which was to be so fatal to Mr. Daubeny and his Church Reform, another thunderbolt was hurled. The "we" of The People's Banner had learned that the very painful matter, to which they had been compelled by a sense of duty to call the public attention in reference to the late member for Dunross-shire and the present member for Tankerville, would be brought before one of the tribunals of the country, in reference to the matrimonial differences between Mr. Kennedy and his wife. It would be in the remembrance of their readers that the unfortunate gentleman had been provoked to fire a pistol at the head of the member for Tankerville,--a circumstance which, though publicly known, had never been brought under the notice of the police. There was reason to hope that the mystery might now be cleared up, and that the ends of justice would demand that a certain document should be produced, which they,--the "we,"--had been vexatiously restrained from giving to their readers, although it had been most carefully prepared for publication in the columns of The People's Banner. Then the thunderbolt went on to say that there was evidently a great move among the members of the so-called Liberal party, who seemed to think that it was only necessary that they should open their mouths wide enough in order that the sweets of office should fall into them. The "we" were quite of a different opinion. The "we" believed that no Minister for many a long day had been so firmly fixed on the Treasury Bench as was Mr. Daubeny at the present moment. But this at any rate might be inferred;--that should Mr. Gresham by any unhappy combination of circumstances be called upon to form a Ministry, it would be quite impossible for him to include within it the name of the member for Tankerville. This was the second great thunderbolt that fell,--and so did the work of crushing our poor friend proceed. There was a great injustice in all this; at least so Phineas thought;--injustice, not only from the hands of Mr. Slide, who was unjust as a matter of course, but also from those who ought to have been his staunch friends. He had been enticed over to England almost with a promise of office, and he was sure that he had done nothing which deserved punishment, or even censure. He could not condescend to complain,--nor indeed as yet could he say that there was ground for complaint. Nothing had been done to him. Not a word had been spoken,--except those lying words in the newspapers which he was too proud to notice. On one matter, however, he was determined to be firm. When Barrington Erle had absolutely insisted that he should vote upon the Church Bill in opposition to all that he had said upon the subject at Tankerville, he had stipulated that he should have an opportunity in the great debate which would certainly take place of explaining his conduct,--or, in other words, that the privilege of making a speech should be accorded to him at a time in which very many members would no doubt attempt to speak and would attempt in vain. It may be imagined,--probably still is imagined by a great many,--that no such pledge as this could be given, that the right to speak depends simply on the Speaker's eye, and that energy at the moment in attracting attention would alone be of account to an eager orator. But Phineas knew the House too well to trust to such a theory. That some preliminary assistance would be given to the travelling of the Speaker's eye, in so important a debate, he knew very well; and he knew also that a promise from Barrington Erle or from Mr. Ratler would be his best security. "That will be all right, of course," said Barrington Erle to him on the evening the day before the debate: "We have quite counted on your speaking." There had been a certain sullenness in the tone with which Phineas had asked his question as though he had been labouring under a grievance, and he felt himself rebuked by the cordiality of the reply. "I suppose we had better fix it for Monday or Tuesday," said the other. "We hope to get it over by Tuesday, but there is no knowing. At any rate you shan't be thrown over." It was almost on his tongue,--the entire story of his grievance, the expression of his feeling that he was not being treated as one of the chosen; but he restrained himself. He liked Barrington Erle well enough, but not so well as to justify him in asking for sympathy. Nor had it been his wont in any of the troubles of his life to ask for sympathy from a man. He had always gone to some woman;--in old days to Lady Laura, or to Violet Effingham, or to Madame Goesler. By them he could endure to be petted, praised, or upon occasion even pitied. But pity or praise from any man had been distasteful to him. On the morning of the 1st of April he again went to Park Lane, not with any formed plan of telling the lady of his wrongs, but driven by a feeling that he wanted comfort, which might perhaps be found there. The lady received him very kindly, and at once inquired as to the great political tournament which was about to be commenced. "Yes; we begin to-day," said Phineas. "Mr. Daubeny will speak, I should say, from half-past four till seven. I wonder you don't go and hear him." "What a pleasure! To hear a man speak for two hours and a half about the Church of England. One must be very hard driven for amusement! Will you tell me that you like it?" "I like to hear a good speech." "But you have the excitement before you of making a good speech in answer. You are in the fight. A poor woman, shut up in a cage, feels there more acutely than anywhere else how insignificant a position she fills in the world." "You don't advocate the rights of women, Madame Goesler?" "Oh, no. Knowing our inferiority I submit without a grumble; but I am not sure that I care to go and listen to the squabbles of my masters. You may arrange it all among you, and I will accept what you do, whether it be good or bad,--as I must; but I cannot take so much interest in the proceeding as to spend my time in listening where I cannot speak, and in looking when I cannot be seen. You will speak?" "Yes; I think so." "I shall read your speech, which is more than I shall do for most of the others. And when it is all over, will your turn come?" "Not mine individually, Madame Goesler." "But it will be yours individually;--will it not?" she asked with energy. Then gradually, with half-pronounced sentences, he explained to her that even in the event of the formation of a Liberal Government, he did not expect that any place would be offered to him. "And why not? We have been all speaking of it as a certainty." He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I can hardly tell;--but I don't think I shall be asked to join them." "You would wish it?" "Yes;--talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so." "Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my friends. Whose doing is it?" "I do not know that it is any man's doing." "But it must be. Everybody said that you were to be one of them if you could get the other people out. Is it Mr. Bonteen?" "Likely enough. Not that I know anything of the kind; but as I hate him from the bottom of my heart, it is natural to suppose that he has the same feeling in regard to me." "I agree with you there." "But I don't know that it comes from any feeling of that kind." "What does it come from?" "You have heard all the calumny about Lady Laura Kennedy." "You do not mean to say that a story such as that has affected your position." "I fancy it has. But you must not suppose, Madame Goesler, that I mean to complain. A man must take these things as they come. No one has received more kindness from friends than I have, and few perhaps more favours from fortune. All this about Mr. Kennedy has been unlucky,--but it cannot be helped." "Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?" said Madame Goesler, almost laughing. "Lord Fawn, you know, is very particular. In sober earnest one cannot tell how these things operate; but they do operate gradually. One's friends are sometimes very glad of an excuse for not befriending one." "Lady Laura is coming home?" "Yes." "That will put an end to it." "There is nothing to put an end to except the foul-mouthed malice of a lying newspaper. Nobody believes anything against Lady Laura." "I'm not so sure of that. I believe nothing against her." "I'm sure you do not, Madame Goesler. Nor do I think that anybody does. It is too absurd for belief from beginning to end. Good-bye. Perhaps I shall see you when the debate is over." "Of course you will. Good-bye, and success to your oratory." Then Madame Goesler resolved that she would say a few judicious words to her friend, the Duchess, respecting Phineas Finn. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TWO GLADIATORS. The great debate was commenced with all the solemnities which are customary on such occasions, and which make men think for the day that no moment of greater excitement has ever blessed or cursed the country. Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The specially clerical clubs,--the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old University, and the Athenaeum,--were black with them. The bishops and deans, as usual, were pleasant in their manner and happy-looking, in spite of adverse circumstances. When one sees a bishop in the hours of the distress of the Church, one always thinks of the just and firm man who will stand fearless while the ruins of the world are falling about his ears. But the parsons from the country were a sorry sight to see. They were in earnest with all their hearts, and did believe,--not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would last to the end,--but that the Evil One was to be made welcome upon the earth by Act of Parliament. It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which they,--especially they,--hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so with men who are conscious of no higher influence than that exercised over the bodies and minds of their fellow creatures, how much stronger must be the feeling when the influence affects the soul! To the outsider, or layman, who simply uses a cab, or receives a letter, or goes to law, or has to be tried, these pretensions are ridiculous or annoying, according to the ascendancy of the pretender at the moment. But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling. The fight has been going on since the idea of a mitre first entered the heart of a priest,--since dominion in this world has found itself capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to come. We do believe,--the majority among us does so,--that if we live and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment, and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord, perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen and purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his parish or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach him will come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he begins to tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country. But to the parson himself,--to the honest, hardworking, conscientious priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the souls of men,--this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world has been broken to pieces in the same way often;--but extreme Chaos does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by the disestablishment of the Church. Of all good fellows he is the best good fellow. He is genial, hospitable, well-educated, and always has either a pretty wife or pretty daughters. But he has so extreme a belief in himself that he cannot endure to be told that absolute Chaos will not come at once if he be disturbed. And now disturbances,--ay, and utter dislocation and ruin were to come from the hands of a friend! Was it wonderful that parsons should be seen about Westminster in flocks with _"Et tu, Brute"_ written on their faces as plainly as the law on the brows of a Pharisee? The Speaker had been harassed for orders. The powers and prowess of every individual member had been put to the test. The galleries were crowded. Ladies' places had been ballotted for with desperate enthusiasm, in spite of the sarcasm against the House which Madame Goesler had expressed. Two royal princes and a royal duke were accommodated within the House in an irregular manner. Peers swarmed in the passages, and were too happy to find standing room. Bishops jostled against lay barons with no other preference than that afforded to them by their broader shoulders. Men, and especially clergymen, came to the galleries loaded with sandwiches and flasks, prepared to hear all there was to be heard should the debate last from 4 P.M. to the same hour on the following morning. At two in the afternoon the entrances to the House were barred, and men of all ranks,--deans, prebends, peers' sons, and baronets,--stood there patiently waiting till some powerful nobleman should let them through. The very ventilating chambers under the House were filled with courteous listeners, who had all pledged themselves that under no possible provocation would they even cough during the debate. A few minutes after four, in a House from which hardly more than a dozen members were absent, Mr. Daubeny took his seat with that air of affected indifference to things around him which is peculiar to him. He entered slowly, amidst cheers from his side of the House, which no doubt were loud in proportion to the dismay of the cheerers as to the matter in hand. Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise. Mr. Daubeny having sat down and covered his head just raised his hat from his brows, and then tried to look as though he were no more than any other gentleman present. But the peculiar consciousness of the man displayed itself even in his constrained absence of motion. You could see that he felt himself to be the beheld of all beholders, and that he enjoyed the position,--with some slight inward trepidation lest the effort to be made should not equal the greatness of the occasion. Immediately after him Mr. Gresham bustled up the centre of the House amidst a roar of good-humoured welcome. We have had many Ministers who have been personally dearer to their individual adherents in the House than the present leader of the Opposition and late Premier, but none, perhaps, who has been more generally respected by his party for earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there was a fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to the fire of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add fuel,--the friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be more thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For, indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham could be very indiscreet. A certain small amount of ordinary business was done, to the disgust of expectant strangers, which was as trivial as possible in its nature,--so arranged, apparently, that the importance of what was to follow might be enhanced by the force of contrast. And, to make the dismay of the novice stranger more thorough, questions were asked and answers were given in so low a voice, and Mr. Speaker uttered a word or two in so quick and shambling a fashion, that he, the novice stranger, began to fear that no word of the debate would reach him up there in his crowded back seat. All this, however, occupied but a few minutes, and at twenty minutes past four Mr. Daubeny was on his legs. Then the novice stranger found that, though he could not see Mr. Daubeny without the aid of an opera glass, he could hear every word that fell from his lips. Mr. Daubeny began by regretting the hardness of his position, in that he must, with what thoroughness he might be able to achieve, apply himself to two great subjects, whereas the right honourable gentleman opposite had already declared, with all the formality which could be made to attach itself to a combined meeting of peers and commoners, that he would confine himself strictly to one. The subject selected by the right honourable gentleman opposite on the present occasion was not the question of Church Reform. The right honourable gentleman had pledged himself with an almost sacred enthusiasm to ignore that subject altogether. No doubt it was the question before the House, and he, himself,--the present speaker,--must unfortunately discuss it at some length. The right honourable gentleman opposite would not, on this great occasion, trouble himself with anything of so little moment. And it might be presumed that the political followers of the right honourable gentleman would be equally reticent, as they were understood to have accepted his tactics without a dissentient voice. He, Mr. Daubeny, was the last man in England to deny the importance of the question which the right honourable gentleman would select for discussions in preference to that of the condition of the Church. That question was a very simple one, and might be put to the House in a very few words. Coming from the mouth of the right honourable gentleman, the proposition would probably be made in this form:--"That this House does think that I ought to be Prime Minister now, and as long as I may possess a seat in this House." It was impossible to deny the importance of that question; but perhaps he, Mr. Daubeny, might be justified in demurring to the preference given to it over every other matter, let that matter be of what importance it might be to the material welfare of the country. He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave,--but the resolve to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they should come hot from the heart. There was much neatness and some acuteness in Mr. Daubeny's satire, but there was no heat, and it was prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham,--as was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled his feet. A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber, one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler, and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each other's throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators, they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through the joints of the harness. What is there with us to create the divergence necessary for debate but the pride of personal skill in the encounter? Who desires among us to put down the Queen, or to repudiate the National Debt, or to destroy religious worship, or even to disturb the ranks of society? When some small measure of reform has thoroughly recommended itself to the country,--so thoroughly that all men know that the country will have it,--then the question arises whether its details shall be arranged by the political party which calls itself Liberal,--or by that which is termed Conservative. The men are so near to each other in all their convictions and theories of life that nothing is left to them but personal competition for the doing of the thing that is to be done. It is the same in religion. The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who differ about a saint or a surplice. Mr. Daubeny, having thus attacked and wounded his enemy, rushed boldly into the question of Church Reform, taking no little pride to himself and to his party that so great a blessing should be bestowed upon the country from so unexpected a source. "See what we Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. 'Quod minime reris Graiâ pandetur ab urbe.'" It was exactly the reverse of the complaint which Mr. Gresham was about to make. On the subject of the Church itself he was rather misty but very profound. He went into the question of very early Churches indeed, and spoke of the misappropriation of endowments in the time of Eli. The establishment of the Levites had been no doubt complete; but changes had been effected as circumstances required. He was presumed to have alluded to the order of Melchisedek, but he abstained from any mention of the name. He roamed very wide, and gave many of his hearers an idea that his erudition had carried him into regions in which it was impossible to follow him. The gist of his argument was to show that audacity in Reform was the very backbone of Conservatism. By a clearly pronounced disunion of Church and State the theocracy of Thomas à Becket would be restored, and the people of England would soon again become the faithful flocks of faithful shepherds. By taking away the endowments from the parishes, and giving them back in some complicated way to the country, the parishes would be better able than ever to support their clergymen. Bishops would be bishops indeed, when they were no longer the creatures of a Minister's breath. As to the deans, not seeing a clear way to satisfy aspirants for future vacancies in the deaneries, he became more than usually vague, but seemed to imply that the Bill which was now with the leave of the House to be read a second time, contained no clause forbidding the appointment of deans, though the special stipend of the office must be matter of consideration with the new Church Synod. The details of this part of his speech were felt to be dull by the strangers. As long as he would abuse Mr. Gresham, men could listen with pleasure; and could keep their attention fixed while he referred to the general Conservatism of the party which he had the honour of leading. There was a raciness in the promise of so much Church destruction from the chosen leader of the Church party, which was assisted by a conviction in the minds of most men that it was impossible for unfortunate Conservatives to refuse to follow this leader, let him lead where he might. There was a gratification in feeling that the country party was bound to follow, even should he take them into the very bowels of a mountain, as the pied piper did the children of Hamelin;--and this made listening pleasant. But when Mr. Daubeny stated the effect of his different clauses, explaining what was to be taken and what left,--with a fervent assurance that what was to be left would, under the altered circumstances, go much further than the whole had gone before,--then the audience became weary, and began to think that it was time that some other gentleman should be upon his legs. But at the end of the Minister's speech there was another touch of invective which went far to redeem him. He returned to that personal question to which his adversary had undertaken to confine himself, and expressed a holy horror at the political doctrine which was implied. He, during a prolonged Parliamentary experience, had encountered much factious opposition. He would even acknowledge that he had seen it exercised on both sides of the House, though he had always striven to keep himself free from its baneful influence. But never till now had he known a statesman proclaim his intention of depending upon faction, and upon faction alone, for the result which he desired to achieve. Let the right honourable gentleman raise a contest on either the principles or the details of the measure, and he would be quite content to abide the decision of the House; but he should regard such a raid as that threatened against him and his friends by the right honourable gentleman as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. He felt sure that an opposition so based, and so maintained, even if it be enabled by the heated feelings of the moment to obtain an unfortunate success in the House, would not be encouraged by the sympathy and support of the country at large. By these last words he was understood to signify that should he be beaten on the second reading, not in reference to the merits of the Bill, but simply on the issue as proposed by Mr. Gresham, he would again dissolve the House before he would resign. Now it was very well understood that there were Liberal members in the House who would prefer even the success of Mr. Daubeny to a speedy reappearance before their constituents. Mr. Daubeny spoke till nearly eight, and it was surmised at the time that he had craftily arranged his oratory so as to embarrass his opponent. The House had met at four, and was to sit continuously till it was adjourned for the night. When this is the case, gentlemen who speak about eight o'clock are too frequently obliged to address themselves to empty benches. On the present occasion it was Mr. Gresham's intention to follow his opponent at once, instead of waiting, as is usual with a leader of his party, to the close of the debate. It was understood that Mr. Gresham would follow Mr. Daubeny, with the object of making a distinct charge against Ministers, so that the vote on this second reading of the Church Bill might in truth be a vote of want of confidence. But to commence his speech at eight o'clock when the House was hungry and uneasy, would be a trial. Had Mr. Daubeny closed an hour sooner there would, with a little stretching of the favoured hours, have been time enough. Members would not have objected to postpone their dinner till half-past eight, or perhaps nine, when their favourite orator was on his legs. But with Mr. Gresham beginning a great speech at eight, dinner would altogether become doubtful, and the disaster might be serious. It was not probable that Mr. Daubeny had even among his friends proclaimed any such strategy; but it was thought by the political speculators of the day that such an idea had been present to his mind. But Mr. Gresham was not to be turned from his purpose. He waited for a few moments, and then rose and addressed the Speaker. A few members left the House;--gentlemen, doubtless, whose constitutions, weakened by previous service, could not endure prolonged fasting. Some who had nearly reached the door returned to their seats, mindful of Messrs. Roby and Ratler. But for the bulk of those assembled the interest of the moment was greater even than the love of dinner. Some of the peers departed, and it was observed that a bishop or two left the House; but among the strangers in the gallery, hardly a foot of space was gained. He who gave up his seat then, gave it up for the night. Mr. Gresham began with a calmness of tone which seemed almost to be affected, but which arose from a struggle on his own part to repress that superabundant energy of which he was only too conscious. But the calmness soon gave place to warmth, which heated itself into violence before he had been a quarter of an hour upon his legs. He soon became even ferocious in his invective, and said things so bitter that he had himself no conception of their bitterness. There was this difference between the two men,--that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be the wish not only of that House, but of the country at large. Would any gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable gentleman himself,--and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the Government,--get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform, this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was possessed of any one strong political conviction. He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the right honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he would defy the right honourable gentleman himself, to point to any period of his career in which he had been unwilling to succumb to a majority when he himself had belonged to the minority. He himself would regard the vote on this occasion as a vote of want of confidence. He took the line he was now taking because he desired to bring the House to a decision on that question. He himself had not that confidence in the right honourable gentleman which would justify him in accepting a measure on so important a subject as the union or severance of Church and State from his hands. Should the majority of the House differ from him and support the second reading of the Bill, he would at once so far succumb as to give his best attention to the clauses of the bill, and endeavour with the assistance of those gentlemen who acted with him to make it suitable to the wants of the country by omissions and additions as the clauses should pass through Committee. But before doing that he would ask the House to decide with all its solemnity and all its weight whether it was willing to accept from the hands of the right honourable gentleman any measure of reform on a matter so important as this now before them. It was nearly ten when he sat down; and then the stomach of the House could stand it no longer, and an adjournment at once took place. On the next morning it was generally considered that Mr. Daubeny had been too long and Mr. Gresham too passionate. There were some who declared that Mr. Gresham had never been finer than when he described the privileges of the House of Commons; and others who thought that Mr. Daubeny's lucidity had been marvellous; but in this case, as in most others, the speeches of the day were generally thought to have been very inferior to the great efforts of the past. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE UNIVERSE. Before the House met again the quidnuncs about the clubs, on both sides of the question, had determined that Mr. Gresham's speech, whether good or not as an effort of oratory, would serve its intended purpose. He would be backed by a majority of votes, and it might have been very doubtful whether such would have been the case had he attempted to throw out the Bill on its merits. Mr. Ratler, by the time that prayers had been read, had become almost certain of success. There were very few Liberals in the House who were not anxious to declare by their votes that they had no confidence in Mr. Daubeny. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical, and, perhaps, some two dozen with him, would support the second reading, declaring that they could not reconcile it with their consciences to record a vote in favour of a union of Church and State. On all such occasions as the present Mr. Turnbull was sure to make himself disagreeable to those who sat near to him in the House. He was a man who thought that so much was demanded of him in order that his independence might be doubted by none. It was nothing to him, he was wont to say, who called himself Prime Minister, or Secretary here, or President there. But then there would be quite as much of this independence on the Conservative as on the Liberal side of the House. Surely there would be more than two dozen gentlemen who would be true enough to the cherished principles of their whole lives to vote against such a Bill as this! It was the fact that there were so very few so true which added such a length to the faces of the country parsons. Six months ago not a country gentleman in England would have listened to such a proposition without loud protests as to its revolutionary wickedness. And now, under the sole pressure of one man's authority, the subject had become so common that men were assured that the thing would be done even though of all things that could be done it were the worst. "It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything," one parson said to another, as they sat together at their club with their newspapers in their hands. "Nothing frightens any one,--no infidelity, no wickedness, no revolution. All reverence is at an end, and the Holy of Holies is no more even to the worshipper than the threshold of the Temple." Though it became known that the Bill would be lost, what comfort was there in that, when the battle was to be won, not by the chosen Israelites to whom the Church with all its appurtenances ought to be dear, but by a crew of Philistines who would certainly follow the lead of their opponents in destroying the holy structure? On the Friday the debate was continued with much life on the Ministerial side of the House. It was very easy for them to cry Faction! Faction! and hardly necessary for them to do more. A few parrot words had been learned as to the expediency of fitting the great and increasing Church of England to the growing necessity of the age. That the CHURCH OF ENGLAND would still be the CHURCH OF ENGLAND was repeated till weary listeners were sick of the unmeaning words. But the zeal of the combatants was displayed on that other question. Faction was now the avowed weapon of the leaders of the so-called Liberal side of the House, and it was very easy to denounce the new doctrine. Every word that Mr. Gresham had spoken was picked in pieces, and the enormity of his theory was exhibited. He had boldly declared to them that they were to regard men and not measures, and they were to show by their votes whether they were prepared to accept such teaching. The speeches were, of course, made by alternate orators, but the firing from the Conservative benches was on this evening much the louder. It would have seemed that with such an issue between them they might almost have consented to divide after the completion of the two great speeches. The course on which they were to run had been explained to them, and it was not probable that any member's intention as to his running would now be altered by anything that he might hear. Mr. Turnbull's two dozen defaulters were all known, and the two dozen and four true Conservatives were known also. But, nevertheless, a great many members were anxious to speak. It would be the great debate of the Session, and the subject to be handled,--that, namely, of the general merits and demerits of the two political parties,--was wide and very easy. On that night it was past one o'clock when Mr. Turnbull adjourned the House. "I'm afraid we must put you off till Tuesday," Mr. Ratler said on the Sunday afternoon to Phineas Finn. "I have no objection at all, so long as I get a fair place on that day." "There shan't be a doubt about that. Gresham particularly wants you to speak, because you are pledged to a measure of disestablishment. You can insist on his own views,--that even should such a measure be essentially necessary--" "Which I think it is," said Phineas. "Still it should not be accepted from the old Church-and-State party." There was something pleasant in this to Phineas Finn,--something that made him feel for the moment that he had perhaps mistaken the bearing of his friend towards him. "We are sure of a majority, I suppose," he said. "Absolutely sure," said Ratler. "I begin to think it will amount to half a hundred,--perhaps more." "What will Daubeny do?" "Go out. He can't do anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful, but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has given him a six months' run, and six months is something." "Is it true that Grogram is to be Chancellor?" Phineas asked the question, not from any particular solicitude as to the prospects of Sir Gregory Grogram, but because he was anxious to hear whether Mr. Ratler would speak to him with anything of the cordiality of fellowship respecting the new Government. But Mr. Ratler became at once discreet and close, and said that he did not think that anything as yet was known as to the Woolsack. Then Phineas retreated again within his shell, with a certainty that nothing would be done for him. And yet to whom could this question of place be of such vital importance as it was to him? He had come back to his old haunts from Ireland, abandoning altogether the pleasant safety of an assured income, buoyed by the hope of office. He had, after a fashion, made his calculations. In the present disposition of the country it was, he thought, certain that the Liberal party must, for the next twenty years, have longer periods of power than their opponents; and he had thought also that were he in the House, some place would eventually be given to him. He had been in office before, and had been especially successful. He knew that it had been said of him that of the young debutants of latter years he had been the best. He had left his party by opposing them; but he had done so without creating any ill-will among the leaders of his party,--in a manner that had been regarded as highly honourable to him, and on departing had received expressions of deep regret from Mr. Gresham himself. When Barrington Erle had wanted him to return to his old work, his own chief doubt had been about the seat. But he had been bold and had adventured all, and had succeeded. There had been some little trouble about those pledges given at Tankerville, but he would be able to turn them even to the use of his party. It was quite true that nothing had been promised him; but Erle, when he had written, bidding him to come over from Ireland, must have intended him to understand that he would be again enrolled in the favoured regiment, should he be able to show himself as the possessor of a seat in the House. And yet,--yet he felt convinced that when the day should come it would be to him a day of disappointment, and that when the list should appear his name would not be on it. Madame Goesler had suggested to him that Mr. Bonteen might be his enemy, and he had replied by stating that he himself hated Mr. Bonteen. He now remembered that Mr. Bonteen had hardly spoken to him since his return to London, though there had not in fact been any quarrel between them. In this condition of mind he longed to speak openly to Barrington Erle, but he was restrained by a feeling of pride, and a still existing idea that no candidate for office, let his claim be what it might, should ask for a place. On that Sunday evening he saw Bonteen at the club. Men were going in and out with that feverish excitement which always prevails on the eve of a great parliamentary change. A large majority against the Government was considered to be certain; but there was an idea abroad that Mr. Daubeny had some scheme in his head by which to confute the immediate purport of his enemies. There was nothing to which the audacity of the man was not equal. Some said that he would dissolve the House,--which had hardly as yet been six months sitting. Others were of opinion that he would simply resolve not to vacate his place,--thus defying the majority of the House and all the ministerial traditions of the country. Words had fallen from him which made some men certain that such was his intention. That it should succeed ultimately was impossible. The whole country would rise against him. Supplies would be refused. In every detail of Government he would be impeded. But then,--such was the temper of the man,--it was thought that all these horrors would not deter him. There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr. Daubeny if he could stand as the centre figure,--the great pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces. The anticipation that some such display might take place made men busy and eager; so that on that Sunday evening they roamed about from one place of meeting to another, instead of sitting at home with their wives and daughters. There was at this time existing a small club,--so called though unlike other clubs,--which had entitled itself the Universe. The name was supposed to be a joke, as it was limited to ninety-nine members. It was domiciled in one simple and somewhat mean apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was a member, and so was Phineas Finn. On this Sunday evening the club was open, and Phineas, as he entered the room, perceived that his enemy was seated alone on a corner of a sofa. Mr. Bonteen was not a man who loved to be alone in public places, and was apt rather to make one of congregations, affecting popularity, and always at work increasing his influence. But on this occasion his own greatness had probably isolated him. If it were true that he was to be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer,--to ascend from demi-godhead to the perfect divinity of the Cabinet,--and to do so by a leap which would make him high even among first-class gods, it might be well for himself to look to himself and choose new congregations. Or, at least, it would be becoming that he should be chosen now instead of being a chooser. He was one who could weigh to the last ounce the importance of his position, and make most accurate calculations as to the effect of his intimacies. On that very morning Mr. Gresham had suggested to him that in the event of a Liberal Government being formed, he should hold the high office in question. This, perhaps, had not been done in the most flattering manner, as Mr. Gresham had deeply bewailed the loss of Mr. Palliser, and had almost demanded a pledge from Mr. Bonteen that he would walk exactly in Mr. Palliser's footsteps;--but the offer had been made, and could not be retracted; and Mr. Bonteen already felt the warmth of the halo of perfect divinity. There are some men who seem to have been born to be Cabinet Ministers,--dukes mostly, or earls, or the younger sons of such,--who have been trained to it from their very cradles, and of whom we may imagine that they are subject to no special awe when they first enter into that august assembly, and feel but little personal elevation. But to the political aspirant not born in the purple of public life, this entrance upon the counsels of the higher deities must be accompanied by a feeling of supreme triumph, dashed by considerable misgivings. Perhaps Mr. Bonteen was revelling in his triumph;--perhaps he was anticipating his misgivings. Phineas, though disinclined to make any inquiries of a friend which might seem to refer to his own condition, felt no such reluctance in regard to one who certainly could not suspect him of asking a favour. He was presumed to be on terms of intimacy with the man, and he took his seat beside him, asking some question as to the debate. Now Mr. Bonteen had more than once expressed an opinion among his friends that Phineas Finn would throw his party over, and vote with the Government. The Ratlers and Erles and Fitzgibbons all knew that Phineas was safe, but Mr. Bonteen was still in doubt. It suited him to affect something more than doubt on the present occasion. "I wonder that you should ask me," said Mr. Bonteen. "What do you mean by that?" "I presume that you, as usual, will vote against us." "I never voted against my party but once," said Phineas, "and then I did it with the approbation of every man in it for whose good opinion I cared a straw." There was insult in his tone as he said this, and something near akin to insult in his words. "You must do it again now, or break every promise that you made at Tankerville." "Do you know what promise I made at Tankerville? I shall break no promise." "You must allow me to say, Mr. Finn, that the kind of independence which is practised by you and Mr. Monk, grand as it may be on the part of men who avowedly abstain from office, is a little dangerous when it is now and again adopted by men who have taken place. I like to be sure that the men who are in the same boat with me won't take it into their heads that their duty requires them to scuttle the ship." Having so spoken, Mr. Bonteen, with nearly all the grace of a full-fledged Cabinet Minister, rose from his seat on the corner of the sofa and joined a small congregation. Phineas felt that his ears were tingling and that his face was red. He looked round to ascertain from the countenances of others whether they had heard what had been said. Nobody had been close to them, and he thought that the conversation had been unnoticed. He knew now that he had been imprudent in addressing himself to Mr. Bonteen, though the question that he had first asked had been quite commonplace. As it was, the man, he thought, had been determined to affront him, and had made a charge against him which he could not allow to pass unnoticed. And then there was all the additional bitterness in it which arose from the conviction that Bonteen had spoken the opinion of other men as well as his own, and that he had plainly indicated that the gates of the official paradise were to be closed against the presumed offender. Phineas had before believed that it was to be so, but that belief had now become assurance. He got up in his misery to leave the room, but as he did so he met Laurence Fitzgibbon. "You have heard the news about Bonteen?" said Laurence. "What news?" "He's to be pitchforked up to the Exchequer. They say it's quite settled. The higher a monkey climbs--; you know the proverb." So saying Laurence Fitzgibbon passed into the room, and Phineas Finn took his departure in solitude. And so the man with whom he had managed to quarrel utterly was to be one in the Cabinet, a man whose voice would probably be potential in the selection of minor members of the Government. It seemed to him to be almost incredible that such a one as Mr. Bonteen should be chosen for such an office. He had despised almost as soon as he had known Mr. Bonteen, and had rarely heard the future manager of the finance of the country spoken of with either respect or regard. He had regarded Mr. Bonteen as a useful, dull, unscrupulous politician, well accustomed to Parliament, acquainted with the bye-paths and back doors of official life,--and therefore certain of employment when the Liberals were in power; but there was no one in the party he had thought less likely to be selected for high place. And yet this man was to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer, while he, Phineas Finn, very probably at this man's instance, was to be left out in the cold. He knew himself to be superior to the man he hated, to have higher ideas of political life, and to be capable of greater political sacrifices. He himself had sat shoulder to shoulder with many men on the Treasury Bench whose political principles he had not greatly valued; but of none of them had he thought so little as he had done of Mr. Bonteen. And yet this Mr. Bonteen was to be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer! He walked home to his lodgings in Marlborough Street, wretched because of his own failure;--doubly wretched because of the other man's success. He laid awake half the night thinking of the words that had been spoken to him, and after breakfast on the following morning he wrote the following note to his enemy:-- House of Commons, 5th April, 18--. DEAR MR. BONTEEN, It is matter of extreme regret to me that last night at the Universe I should have asked you some chance question about the coming division. Had I guessed to what it might have led, I should not have addressed you. But as it is I can hardly abstain from noticing what appeared to me to be a personal charge made against myself with a great want of the courtesy which is supposed to prevail among men who have acted together. Had we never done so my original question to you might perhaps have been deemed an impertinence. As it was, you accused me of having been dishonest to my party, and of having "scuttled the ship." On the occasion to which you alluded I acted with much consideration, greatly to the detriment of my own prospects,--and as I believed with the approbation of all who knew anything of the subject. If you will make inquiry of Mr. Gresham, or Lord Cantrip who was then my chief, I think that either will tell you that my conduct on that occasion was not such as to lay me open to reproach. If you will do this, I think that you cannot fail afterwards to express regret for what you said to me last night. Yours sincerely, PHINEAS FINN. Thos. Bonteen, Esq., M.P. He did not like the letter when he had written it, but he did not know how to improve it, and he sent it. CHAPTER XXXV. POLITICAL VENOM. On the Monday Mr. Turnbull opened the ball by declaring his reasons for going into the same lobby with Mr. Daubeny. This he did at great length. To him all the mighty pomp and all the little squabbles of office were, he said, as nothing. He would never allow himself to regard the person of the Prime Minister. The measure before the House ever had been and ever should be all in all to him. If the public weal were more regarded in that House, and the quarrels of men less considered, he thought that the service of the country would be better done. He was answered by Mr. Monk, who was sitting near him, and who intended to support Mr. Gresham. Mr. Monk was rather happy in pulling his old friend, Mr. Turnbull, to pieces, expressing his opinion that a difference in men meant a difference in measures. The characters of men whose principles were known were guarantees for the measures they would advocate. To him,--Mr. Monk,--it was matter of very great moment who was Prime Minister of England. He was always selfish enough to wish for a Minister with whom he himself could agree on the main questions of the day. As he certainly could not say that he had political confidence in the present Ministry, he should certainly vote against them on this occasion. In the course of the evening Phineas found a letter addressed to himself from Mr. Bonteen. It was as follows:-- House of Commons, April 5th, 18--. DEAR MR. FINN, I never accused you of dishonesty. You must have misheard or misunderstood me if you thought so. I did say that you had scuttled the ship;--and as you most undoubtedly did scuttle it,--you and Mr. Monk between you,--I cannot retract my words. I do not want to go to any one for testimony as to your merits on the occasion. I accused you of having done nothing dishonourable or disgraceful. I think I said that there was danger in the practice of scuttling. I think so still, though I know that many fancy that those who scuttle do a fine thing. I don't deny that it's fine, and therefore you can have no cause of complaint against me. Yours truly, J. BONTEEN. He had brought a copy of his own letter in his pocket to the House, and he showed the correspondence to Mr. Monk. "I would not have noticed it, had I been you," said he. "You can have no idea of the offensive nature of the remark when it was made." "It's as offensive to me as to you, but I should not think of moving in such a matter. When a man annoys you, keep out of his way. It is generally the best thing you can do." "If a man were to call you a liar?" "But men don't call each other liars. Bonteen understands the world much too well to commit himself by using any word which common opinion would force him to retract. He says we scuttled the ship. Well;--we did. Of all the political acts of my life it is the one of which I am most proud. The manner in which you helped me has entitled you to my affectionate esteem. But we did scuttle the ship. Before you can quarrel with Bonteen you must be able to show that a metaphorical scuttling of a ship must necessarily be a disgraceful act. You see how he at once retreats behind the fact that it need not be so." "You wouldn't answer his letter." "I think not. You can do yourself no good by a correspondence in which you cannot get a hold of him. And if you did get a hold of him you would injure yourself much more than him. Just drop it." This added much to our friend's misery, and made him feel that the weight of it was almost more than he could bear. His enemy had got the better of him at every turn. He had now rushed into a correspondence as to which he would have to own by his silence that he had been confuted. And yet he was sure that Mr. Bonteen had at the club insulted him most unjustifiably, and that if the actual truth were known, no man, certainly not Mr. Monk, would hesitate to say that reparation was due to him. And yet what could he do? He thought that he would consult Lord Cantrip, and endeavour to get from his late Chief some advice more palatable than that which had been tendered to him by Mr. Monk. In the meantime animosities in the House were waxing very furious; and, as it happened, the debate took a turn that was peculiarly injurious to Phineas Finn in his present state of mind. The rumour as to the future promotion of Mr. Bonteen, which had been conveyed by Laurence Fitzgibbon to Phineas at the Universe, had, as was natural, spread far and wide, and had reached the ears of those who still sat on the Ministerial benches. Now it is quite understood among politicians in this country that no man should presume that he will have imposed upon him the task of forming a Ministry until he has been called upon by the Crown to undertake that great duty. Let the Gresham or the Daubeny of the day be ever so sure that the reins of the State chariot must come into his hands, he should not visibly prepare himself for the seat on the box till he has actually been summoned to place himself there. At this moment it was alleged that Mr. Gresham had departed from the reticence and modesty usual in such a position as his, by taking steps towards the formation of a Cabinet, while it was as yet quite possible that he might never be called upon to form any Cabinet. Late on this Monday night, when the House was quite full, one of Mr. Daubeny's leading lieutenants, a Secretary of State, Sir Orlando Drought by name,--a gentleman who if he had any heart in the matter must have hated this Church Bill from the very bottom of his heart, and who on that account was the more bitter against opponents who had not ceased to throw in his teeth his own political tergiversation,--fell foul of Mr. Gresham as to this rumoured appointment to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. The reader will easily imagine the things that were said. Sir Orlando had heard, and had been much surprised at hearing, that a certain honourable member of that House, who had long been known to them as a tenant of the Ministerial bench, had already been appointed to a high office. He, Sir Orlando, had not been aware that the office had been vacant, or that if vacant it would have been at the disposal of the right honourable gentleman; but he believed that there was no doubt that the place in question, with a seat in the Cabinet, had been tendered to, and accepted by, the honourable member to whom he alluded. Such was the rabid haste with which the right honourable gentleman opposite, and his colleagues, were attempting, he would not say to climb, but to rush into office, by opposing a great measure of Reform, the wisdom of which, as was notorious to all the world, they themselves did not dare to deny. Much more of the same kind was said, during which Mr. Gresham pulled about his hat, shuffled his feet, showed his annoyance to all the House, and at last jumped upon his legs. "If," said Sir Orlando Drought,--"if the right honourable gentleman wishes to deny the accuracy of any statements that I have made, I will give way to him for the moment, that he may do so." "I deny utterly, not only the accuracy, but every detail of the statement made by the right honourable gentleman opposite," said Mr. Gresham, still standing and holding his hat in his hand as he completed his denial. "Does the right honourable gentleman mean to assure me that he has not selected his future Chancellor of the Exchequer?" "The right honourable gentleman is too acute not to be aware that we on this side of the House may have made such selection, and that yet every detail of the statement which he has been rash enough to make to the House may be--unfounded. The word, sir, is weak; but I would fain avoid the use of any words which, justifiable though they might be, would offend the feelings of the House. I will explain to the House exactly what has been done." Then there was a great hubbub--cries of "Order," "Gresham," "Spoke," "Hear, hear," and the like,--during which Sir Orlando Drought and Mr. Gresham both stood on their legs. So powerful was Mr. Gresham's voice that, through it all, every word that he said was audible to the reporters. His opponent hardly attempted to speak, but stood relying upon his right. Mr. Gresham said he understood that it was the desire of the House that he should explain the circumstances in reference to the charge that had been made against him, and it would certainly be for the convenience of the House that this should be done at the moment. The Speaker of course ruled that Sir Orlando was in possession of the floor, but suggested that it might be convenient that he should yield to the right honourable gentleman on the other side for a few minutes. Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course, succeeded. Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant. No one in all that assembly knew the House better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly he had no right to do so. The House, he said, was aware, that by the most unfortunate demise of the late Duke of Omnium, a gentleman had been removed from this House to another place, whose absence from their counsels would long be felt as a very grievous loss. Then he pronounced a eulogy on Plantagenet Palliser, so graceful and well arranged, that even the bitterness of the existing opposition was unable to demur to it. The House was well aware of the nature of the labours which now for some years past had occupied the mind of the noble duke; and the paramount importance which the country attached to their conclusion. The noble duke no doubt was not absolutely debarred from a continuance of his work by the change which had fallen upon him; but it was essential that some gentleman, belonging to the same party with the noble duke, versed in office, and having a seat in that House, should endeavour to devote himself to the great measure which had occupied so much of the attention of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt it must be fitting that the gentleman so selected should be at the Exchequer, in the event of their party coming into office. The honourable gentleman to whom allusion had been made had acted throughout with the present noble duke in arranging the details of the measure in question; and the probability of his being able to fill the shoes left vacant by the accession to the peerage of the noble duke had, indeed, been discussed;--but the discussion had been made in reference to the measure, and only incidentally in regard to the office. He, Mr. Gresham, held that he had done nothing that was indiscreet,--nothing that his duty did not demand. If right honourable gentlemen opposite were of a different opinion, he thought that that difference came from the fact that they were less intimately acquainted than he unfortunately had been with the burdens and responsibilities of legislation. There was very little in the dispute which seemed to be worthy of the place in which it occurred, or of the vigour with which it was conducted; but it served to show the temper of the parties, and to express the bitterness of the political feelings of the day. It was said at the time, that never within the memory of living politicians had so violent an animosity displayed itself in the House as had been witnessed on this night. While Mr. Gresham was giving his explanation, Mr. Daubeny had arisen, and with a mock solemnity that was peculiar to him on occasions such as these, had appealed to the Speaker whether the right honourable gentleman opposite should not be called upon to resume his seat. Mr. Gresham had put him down with a wave of his hand. An affected stateliness cannot support itself but for a moment; and Mr. Daubeny had been forced to sit down when the Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say of him that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of witnesses, the bane of judges,--who was gall and wormwood to all opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters. "At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself, he triumphed at the moment, and exulted in his triumph. Phineas Finn heard it all, and was disgusted to find that his enemy thus became the hero of the hour. It was, indeed, the opinion generally of the Liberal party that Mr. Gresham had not said much to flatter his new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In praise of Plantagenet Palliser he had been very loud, and he had no doubt said that which implied the capability of Mr. Bonteen, who, as it happened, was sitting next to him at the time; but he had implied also that the mantle which was to be transferred from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Bonteen would be carried by its new wearer with grace very inferior to that which had marked all the steps of his predecessor. Ratler, and Erle, and Fitzgibbon, and others had laughed in their sleeves at the expression, understood by them, of Mr. Gresham's doubt as to the qualifications of his new assistant, and Sir Orlando Drought, in continuing his speech, remarked that the warmth of the right honourable gentleman had been so completely expended in abusing his enemies that he had had none left for the defence of his friend. But to Phineas it seemed that this Bonteen, who had so grievously injured him, and whom he so thoroughly despised, was carrying off all the glories of the fight. A certain amount of consolation was, however, afforded to him. Between one and two o'clock he was told by Mr. Ratler that he might enjoy the privilege of adjourning the debate,--by which would accrue to him the right of commencing on the morrow,--and this he did at a few minutes before three. CHAPTER XXXVI. SEVENTY-TWO. On the next morning Phineas, with his speech before him, was obliged for a while to forget, or at least to postpone, Mr. Bonteen and his injuries. He could not now go to Lord Cantrip, as the hours were too precious to him, and, as he felt, too short. Though he had been thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent, and knew accurately the line which he would take, he had not as yet prepared a word of his speech. But he had resolved that he would not prepare a word otherwise than he might do by arranging certain phrases in his memory. There should be nothing written; he had tried that before in old days, and had broken down with the effort. He would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort. After a late breakfast he walked out far away, into the Regent's Park, and there, wandering among the uninteresting paths, he devised triumphs of oratory for himself. Let him resolve as he would to forget Mr. Bonteen, and that charge of having been untrue to his companions, he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the matter after some fashion into his speech. Dim ideas of a definition of political honesty crossed his brain, bringing with him, however, a conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out than it could be on that day before he might venture to give it birth in the House of Commons. He knew that he had been honest two years ago in separating himself from his colleagues. He knew that he would be honest now in voting with them, apparently in opposition to the pledges he had given at Tankerville. But he knew also that it would behove him to abstain from speaking of himself unless he could do so in close reference to some point specially in dispute between the two parties. When he returned to eat a mutton chop at Great Marlborough Street at three o'clock he was painfully conscious that all his morning had been wasted. He had allowed his mind to run revel, instead of tying it down to the formation of sentences and construction of arguments. He entered the House with the Speaker at four o'clock, and took his seat without uttering a word to any man. He seemed to be more than ever disjoined from his party. Hitherto, since he had been seated by the Judge's order, the former companions of his Parliamentary life,--the old men whom he had used to know,--had to a certain degree admitted him among them. Many of them sat on the front Opposition bench, whereas he, as a matter of course, had seated himself behind. But he had very frequently found himself next to some man who had held office and was living in the hope of holding it again, and had felt himself to be in some sort recognised as an aspirant. Now it seemed to him that it was otherwise. He did not doubt but that Bonteen had shown the correspondence to his friends, and that the Ratlers and Erles had conceded that he, Phineas, was put out of court by it. He sat doggedly still, at the end of a bench behind Mr. Gresham, and close to the gangway. When Mr. Gresham entered the House he was received with much cheering; but Phineas did not join in the cheer. He was studious to avoid any personal recognition of the future giver-away of places, though they two were close together; and he then fancied that Mr. Gresham had specially and most ungraciously abstained from any recognition of him. Mr. Monk, who sat near him, spoke a kind word to him. "I shan't be very long," said Phineas; "not above twenty minutes, I should think." He was able to assume an air of indifference, and yet at the moment he heartily wished himself back in Dublin. It was not now that he feared the task immediately before him, but that he was overcome by the feeling of general failure which had come upon him. Of what use was it to him or to any one else that he should be there in that assembly, with the privilege of making a speech that would influence no human being, unless his being there could be made a step to something beyond? While the usual preliminary work was being done, he looked round the House, and saw Lord Cantrip in the Peers' gallery. Alas! of what avail was that? He had always been able to bind to him individuals with whom he had been brought into close contact; but more than that was wanted in this most precarious of professions, in which now, for a second time, he was attempting to earn his bread. At half-past four he was on his legs in the midst of a crowded House. The chance,--perhaps the hope,--of some such encounter as that of the former day, brought members into their seats, and filled the gallery with strangers. We may say, perhaps, that the highest duty imposed upon us as a nation is the management of India; and we may also say that in a great national assembly personal squabbling among its members is the least dignified work in which it can employ itself. But the prospect of an explanation,--or otherwise of a fight,--between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it. An aptitude for such encounters is almost a necessary qualification for a popular leader in Parliament, as is a capacity for speaking for three hours to the reporters, and to the reporters only,--a necessary qualification for an Under-Secretary of State for India. Phineas had the advantage of the temper of the moment in a House thoroughly crowded, and he enjoyed it. Let a man doubt ever so much his own capacity for some public exhibition which he has undertaken; yet he will always prefer to fail,--if fail he must,--before a large audience. But on this occasion there was no failure. That sense of awe from the surrounding circumstances of the moment, which had once been heavy on him, and which he still well remembered, had been overcome, and had never returned to him. He felt now that he should not lack words to pour out his own individual grievances were it not that he was prevented by a sense of the indiscretion of doing so. As it was, he did succeed in alluding to his own condition in a manner that brought upon him no reproach. He began by saying that he should not have added to the difficulty of the debate,--which was one simply of length,--were it not that he had been accused in advance of voting against a measure as to which he had pledged himself at the hustings to do all that he could to further it. No man was more anxious than he, an Irish Roman Catholic, to abolish that which he thought to be the anomaly of a State Church, and he did not in the least doubt that he should now be doing the best in his power with that object in voting against the second reading of the present bill. That such a measure should be carried by the gentlemen opposite, in their own teeth, at the bidding of the right honourable gentleman who led them, he thought to be impossible. Upon this he was hooted at from the other side with many gestures of indignant denial, and was, of course, equally cheered by those around him. Such interruptions are new breath to the nostrils of all orators, and Phineas enjoyed the noise. He repeated his assertion that it would be an evil thing for the country that the measure should be carried by men who in their hearts condemned it, and was vehemently called to order for this assertion about the hearts of gentlemen. But a speaker who can certainly be made amenable to authority for vilipending in debate the heart of any specified opponent, may with safety attribute all manner of ill to the agglomerated hearts of a party. To have told any individual Conservative,--Sir Orlando Drought for instance,--that he was abandoning all the convictions of his life, because he was a creature at the command of Mr. Daubeny, would have been an insult that would have moved even the Speaker from his serenity; but you can hardly be personal to a whole bench of Conservatives,--to bench above bench of Conservatives. The charge had been made and repeated over and over again, till all the Orlando Droughts were ready to cut some man's throat,--whether their own, or Mr. Daubeny's, or Mr. Gresham's, they hardly knew. It might probably have been Mr. Daubeny's for choice, had any real cutting of a throat been possible. It was now made again by Phineas Finn,--with the ostensible object of defending himself,--and he for the moment became the target for Conservative wrath. Some one asked him in fury by what right he took upon himself to judge of the motives of gentlemen on that side of the House of whom personally he knew nothing. Phineas replied that he did not at all doubt the motives of the honourable gentleman who asked the question, which he was sure were noble and patriotic. But unfortunately the whole country was convinced that the Conservative party as a body was supporting this measure, unwillingly, and at the bidding of one man;--and, for himself, he was bound to say that he agreed with the country. And so the row was renewed and prolonged, and the gentlemen assembled, members and strangers together, passed a pleasant evening. Before he sat down, Phineas made one allusion to that former scuttling of the ship,--an accusation as to which had been made against him so injuriously by Mr. Bonteen. He himself, he said, had been called impractical, and perhaps he might allude to a vote which he had given in that House when last he had the honour of sitting there, and on giving which he resigned the office which he had then held. He had the gratification of knowing that he had been so far practical as to have then foreseen the necessity of a measure which had since been passed. And he did not doubt that he would hereafter be found to have been equally practical in the view that he had expressed on the hustings at Tankerville, for he was convinced that before long the anomaly of which he had spoken would cease to exist under the influence of a Government that would really believe in the work it was doing. There was no doubt as to the success of his speech. The vehemence with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success. But nothing occurred then or at the conclusion of the debate to make him think that he had won his way back to Elysium. During the whole evening he exchanged not a syllable with Mr. Gresham,--who indeed was not much given to converse with those around him in the House. Erle said a few good-natured words to him, and Mr. Monk praised him highly. But in reading the general barometer of the party as regarded himself, he did not find that the mercury went up. He was wretchedly anxious, and angry with himself for his own anxiety. He scorned to say a word that should sound like an entreaty; and yet he had placed his whole heart on a thing which seemed to be slipping from him for the want of asking. In a day or two it would be known whether the present Ministry would or would not go out. That they must be out of office before a month was over seemed to him the opinion of everybody. His fate,--and what a fate it was!--would then be absolutely in the hands of Mr. Gresham. Yet he could not speak a word of his hopes and fears even to Mr. Gresham. He had given up everything in the world with the view of getting into office; and now that the opportunity had come,--an opportunity which if allowed to slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him,--the prize was to elude his grasp! But yet he did not say a word to any one on the subject that was so near his heart, although in the course of the night he spoke to Lord Cantrip in the gallery of the House. He told his friend that a correspondence had taken place between himself and Mr. Bonteen, in which he thought that he had been ill-used, and as to which he was quite anxious to ask His Lordship's advice. "I heard that you and he had been tilting at each other," said Lord Cantrip, smiling. "Have you seen the letters?" "No;--but I was told of them by Lord Fawn, who has seen them." "I knew he would show them to every newsmonger about the clubs," said Phineas angrily. "You can't quarrel with Bonteen for showing them to Fawn, if you intend to show them to me." "He may publish them at Charing Cross if he likes." "Exactly. I am sure that there will have been nothing in them prejudicial to you. What I mean is that if you think it necessary, with a view to your own character, to show them to me or to another friend, you cannot complain that he should do the same." An appointment was made at Lord Cantrip's house for the next morning, and Phineas could but acknowledge to himself that the man's manner to himself had been kind and constant. Nevertheless, the whole affair was going against him. Lord Cantrip had not said a word prejudicial to that wretch Bonteen; much less had he hinted at any future arrangements which would be comfortable to poor Phineas. They two, Lord Cantrip and Phineas, had at one period been on most intimate terms together;--had worked in the same office, and had thoroughly trusted each other. The elder of the two,--for Lord Cantrip was about ten years senior to Phineas,--had frequently expressed the most lively interest in the prospects of the other; and Phineas had felt that in any emergency he could tell his friend all his hopes and fears. But now he did not say a word of his position, nor did Lord Cantrip allude to it. They were to meet on the morrow in order that Lord Cantrip might read the correspondence;--but Phineas was sure that no word would be said about the Government. At five o'clock in the morning the division took place, and the Government was beaten by a majority of 72. This was much higher than any man had expected. When the parties were marshalled in the opposite lobbies it was found that in the last moment the number of those Conservatives who dared to rebel against their Conservative leaders was swelled by the course which the debate had taken. There were certain men who could not endure to be twitted with having deserted the principles of their lives, when it was clear that nothing was to be gained by the party by such desertion. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE CONSPIRACY. On the morning following the great division Phineas was with his friend, Lord Cantrip, by eleven o'clock; and Lord Cantrip, when he had read the two letters in which were comprised the whole correspondence, made to our unhappy hero the following little speech. "I do not think that you can do anything. Indeed, I am sure that Mr. Monk is quite right. I don't quite see what it is that you wish to do. Privately,--between our two selves,--I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Bonteen has intended to be ill-natured. I fancy that he is an ill-natured--or at any rate a jealous--man; and that he would be willing to run down a competitor in the race who had made his running after a fashion different from his own. Bonteen has been a useful man,--a very useful man; and the more so perhaps because he has not entertained any high political theory of his own. You have chosen to do so,--and undoubtedly when you and Monk left us, to our very great regret, you did scuttle the ship." "We had no intention of that kind." "Do not suppose that I blame you. That which was odious to the eyes of Mr. Bonteen was to my thinking high and honourable conduct. I have known the same thing done by members of a Government perhaps half-a-dozen times, and the men by whom it has been done have been the best and noblest of our modern statesmen. There has generally been a hard contest in the man's breast between loyalty to his party and strong personal convictions, the result of which has been an inability on the part of the struggler to give even a silent support to a measure which he has disapproved. That inability is no doubt troublesome at the time to the colleagues of the seceder, and constitutes an offence hardly to be pardoned by such gentlemen as Mr. Bonteen." "For Mr. Bonteen personally I care nothing." "But of course you must endure the ill-effects of his influence,--be they what they may. When you seceded from our Government you looked for certain adverse consequences. If you did not, where was your self-sacrifice? That such men as Mr. Bonteen should feel that you had scuttled the ship, and be unable to forgive you for doing so,--that is exactly the evil which you knew you must face. You have to face it now, and surely you can do so without showing your teeth. Hereafter, when men more thoughtful than Mr. Bonteen shall have come to acknowledge the high principle by which your conduct has been governed, you will receive your reward. I suppose Mr. Daubeny must resign now." "Everybody says so." "I am by no means sure that he will. Any other Minister since Lord North's time would have done so, with such a majority against him on a vital measure; but he is a man who delights in striking out some wonderful course for himself." "A prime minister so beaten surely can't go on." "Not for long, one would think. And yet how are you to turn him out? It depends very much on a man's power of endurance." "His colleagues will resign, I should think." "Probably;--and then he must go. I should say that that will be the way in which the matter will settle itself. Good morning, Finn;--and take my word for it, you had better not answer Mr. Bonteen's letter." Not a word had fallen from Lord Cantrip's friendly lips as to the probability of Phineas being invited to join the future Government. An attempt had been made to console him with the hazy promise of some future reward,--which however was to consist rather of the good opinion of good men than of anything tangible and useful. But even this would never come to him. What would good men know of him and of his self-sacrifice when he should have been driven out of the world by poverty, and forced probably to go to some New Zealand or back Canadian settlement to look for his bread? How easy, thought Phineas, must be the sacrifices of rich men, who can stay their time, and wait in perfect security for their rewards! But for such a one as he, truth to a principle was political annihilation. Two or three years ago he had done what he knew to be a noble thing;--and now, because he had done that noble thing, he was to be regarded as unfit for that very employment for which he was peculiarly fitted. But Bonteen and Co. had not been his only enemies. His luck had been against him throughout. Mr. Quintus Slide, with his People's Banner, and the story of that wretched affair in Judd Street, had been as strong against him probably as Mr. Bonteen's ill-word. Then he thought of Lady Laura, and her love for him. His gratitude to Lady Laura was boundless. There was nothing he would not do for Lady Laura,--were it in his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as proof of the accusation that had been made against him. As he thought of all this he was walking towards Park Lane in order that he might call upon Madame Goesler according to his promise. As he went up to the drawing-room he met old Mr. Maule coming down, and the two bowed to each other on the stairs. In the drawing-room, sitting with Madame Goesler, he found Mrs. Bonteen. Now Mrs. Bonteen was almost as odious to him as was her husband. "Did you ever know anything more shameful, Mr. Finn," said Mrs. Bonteen, "than the attack made upon Mr. Bonteen the night before last?" Phineas could see a smile on Madame Goesler's face as the question was asked;--for she knew, and he knew that she knew, how great was the antipathy between him and the Bonteens. "The attack was upon Mr. Gresham, I thought," said Phineas. "Oh, yes; nominally. But of course everybody knows what was meant. Upon my word there is twice more jealousy among men than among women. Is there not, Madame Goesler?" "I don't think any man could be more jealous than I am myself," said Madame Goesler. "Then you're fit to be a member of a Government, that's all. I don't suppose that there is a man in England has worked harder for his party than Mr. Bonteen." "I don't think there is," said Phineas. "Or made himself more useful in Parliament. As for work, only that his constitution is so strong, he would have killed himself." "He should take Thorley's mixture,--twice a day," said Madame Goesler. "Take!--he never has time to take anything. He breakfasts in his dressing-room, carries his lunch in his pocket, and dines with the division bell ringing him up between his fish and his mutton chop. Now he has got their decimal coinage in hand, and has not a moment to himself, even on Sundays!" "He'll be sure to go to Heaven for it,--that's one comfort." "And because they are absolutely obliged to make him Chancellor of the Exchequer,--just as if he had not earned it,--everybody is so jealous that they are ready to tear him to pieces!" "Who is everybody?" asked Phineas. "Oh! I know. It wasn't only Sir Orlando Drought. Who told Sir Orlando? Never mind, Mr. Finn." "I don't in the least, Mrs. Bonteen." "I should have thought you would have been so triumphant," said Madame Goesler. "Not in the least, Madame Goesler. Why should I be triumphant? Of course the position is very high,--very high indeed. But it's no more than what I have always expected. If a man give up his life to a pursuit he ought to succeed. As for ambition, I have less of it than any woman. Only I do hate jealousy, Mr. Finn." Then Mrs. Bonteen took her leave, kissing her dear friend, Madame Goesler, and simply bowing to Phineas. "What a detestable woman!" said Phineas. "I know of old that you don't love her." "I don't believe that you love her a bit better than I do, and yet you kiss her." "Hardly that, Mr. Finn. There has come up a fashion for ladies to pretend to be very loving, and so they put their faces together. Two hundred years ago ladies and gentlemen did the same thing with just as little regard for each other. Fashions change, you know." "That was a change for the worse, certainly, Madame Goesler." "It wasn't of my doing. So you've had a great victory." "Yes;--greater than we expected." "According to Mrs. Bonteen, the chief result to the country will be that the taxes will be so very safe in her husband's hands! I am sure she believes that all Parliament has been at work in order that he might be made a Cabinet Minister. I rather like her for it." "I don't like her, or her husband." "I do like a woman that can thoroughly enjoy her husband's success. When she is talking of his carrying about his food in his pocket she is completely happy. I don't think Lady Glencora ever cared in the least about her husband being Chancellor of the Exchequer." "Because it added nothing to her own standing." "That's very ill-natured, Mr. Finn; and I find that you are becoming generally ill-natured. You used to be the best-humoured of men." "I hadn't so much to try my temper as I have now, and then you must remember, Madame Goesler, that I regard these people as being especially my enemies." "Lady Glencora was never your enemy." "Nor my friend,--especially." "Then you wrong her. If I tell you something you must be discreet." "Am I not always discreet?" "She does not love Mr. Bonteen. She has had too much of him at Matching. And as for his wife, she is quite as unwilling to be kissed by her as you can be. Her Grace is determined to fight your battle for you." "I want her to do nothing of the kind, Madame Goesler." "You will know nothing about it. We have put our heads to work, and Mr. Palliser,--that is, the new Duke,--is to be made to tell Mr. Gresham that you are to have a place. It is no good you being angry, for the thing is done. If you have enemies behind your back, you must have friends behind your back also. Lady Cantrip is to do the same thing." "For Heaven's sake, not." "It's all arranged. You'll be called the ladies' pet, but you mustn't mind that. Lady Laura will be here before it's arranged, and she will get hold of Mr. Erle." "You are laughing at me, I know." "Let them laugh that win. We thought of besieging Lord Fawn through Lady Chiltern, but we are not sure that anybody cares for Lord Fawn. The man we specially want now is the other Duke. We're afraid of attacking him through the Duchess because we think that he is inhumanly indifferent to anything that his wife says to him." "If that kind of thing is done I shall not accept place even if it is offered me." "Why not? Are you going to let a man like Mr. Bonteen bowl you over? Did you ever know Lady Glen fail in anything that she attempted? She is preparing a secret with the express object of making Mr. Ratler her confidant. Lord Mount Thistle is her slave, but then I fear Lord Mount Thistle is not of much use. She'll do anything and everything,--except flatter Mr. Bonteen." "Heaven forbid that anybody should do that for my sake." "The truth is that he made himself so disagreeable at Matching that Lady Glen is broken-hearted at finding that he is to seem to owe his promotion to her husband's favour. Now you know all about it." "You have been very wrong to tell me." "Perhaps I have, Mr. Finn. But I thought it better that you should know that you have friends at work for you. We believe,--or rather, the Duchess believes,--that falsehoods have been used which are as disparaging to Lady Laura Kennedy as they are injurious to you, and she is determined to put it right. Some one has told Mr. Gresham that you have been the means of breaking the hearts both of Lord Brentford and Mr. Kennedy,--two members of the late Cabinet,--and he must be made to understand that this is untrue. If only for Lady Laura's sake you must submit." "Lord Brentford and I are the best friends in the world." "And Mr. Kennedy is a madman,--absolutely in custody of his friends, as everybody knows; and yet the story has been made to work." "And you do not feel that all this is derogatory to me?" Madame Goesler was silent for a moment, and then she answered boldly, "Not a whit. Why should it be derogatory? It is not done with the object of obtaining an improper appointment on behalf of an unimportant man. When falsehoods of that kind are told you can't meet them in a straightforward way. I suppose I know with fair accuracy the sort of connection there has been between you and Lady Laura." Phineas very much doubted whether she had any such knowledge; but he said nothing, though the lady paused a few moments for reply. "You can't go and tell Mr. Gresham all that; nor can any friend do so on your behalf. It would be absurd." "Most absurd." "And yet it is essential to your interests that he should know it. When your enemies are undermining you, you must countermine or you'll be blown up." "I'd rather fight above ground." "That's all very well, but your enemies won't stay above ground. Is that newspaper man above ground? And for a little job of clever mining, believe me, that there is not a better engineer going than Lady Glen;--not but what I've known her to be very nearly 'hoist with her own petard,'"--added Madame Goesler, as she remembered a certain circumstance in their joint lives. All that Madame Goesler said was true. A conspiracy had been formed, in the first place at the instance of Madame Goesler, but altogether by the influence of the young Duchess, for forcing upon the future Premier the necessity of admitting Phineas Finn into his Government. On the Wednesday following the conclusion of the debate,--the day on the morning of which the division was to take place,--there was no House. On the Thursday, the last day on which the House was to sit before the Easter holidays, Mr. Daubeny announced his intention of postponing the declaration of his intentions till after the adjournment. The House would meet, he said, on that day week, and then he would make his official statement. This communication he made very curtly, and in a manner that was thought by some to be almost insolent to the House. It was known that he had been grievously disappointed by the result of the debate,--not probably having expected a majority since his adversary's strategy had been declared, but always hoping that the deserters from his own standard would be very few. The deserters had been very many, and Mr. Daubeny was majestic in his wrath. Nothing, however, could be done till after Easter. The Ratlers of the Liberal party were very angry at the delay, declaring that it would have been much to the advantage of the country at large that the vacation week should have been used for constructing a Liberal Cabinet. This work of construction always takes time, and delays the business of the country. No one can have known better than did Mr. Daubeny how great was the injury of delay, and how advantageously the short holiday might have been used. With a majority of seventy-two against him, there could be no reason why he should not have at once resigned, and advised the Queen to send for Mr. Gresham. Nothing could be worse than his conduct. So said the Liberals, thirsting for office. Mr. Gresham himself did not open his mouth when the announcement was made;--nor did any man, marked for future office, rise to denounce the beaten statesman. But one or two independent Members expressed their great regret at the unnecessary delay which was to take place before they were informed who was to be the Minister of the Crown. But Mr. Daubeny, as soon as he had made his statement, stalked out of the House, and no reply whatever was made to the independent Members. Some few sublime and hot-headed gentlemen muttered the word "impeachment." Others, who were more practical and less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister "ought to have his head punched." It thus happened that all the world went out of town that week,--so that the Duchess of Omnium was down at Matching when Phineas called at the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace on Friday. With what object he had called he hardly knew himself; but he thought that he intended to assure the Duchess that he was not a candidate for office, and that he must deprecate her interference. Luckily,--or unluckily,--he did not see her, and he felt that it would be impossible to convey his wishes in a letter. The whole subject was one which would have defied him to find words sufficiently discreet for his object. The Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were at Matching for the Easter,--as also was Barrington Erle, and also that dreadful Mr. Bonteen, from whose presence the poor Duchess of Omnium could in these days never altogether deliver herself. "Duke," she said, "you know Mr. Finn?" "Certainly. It was not very long ago that I was talking to him." "He used to be in office, you remember." "Oh yes;--and a very good beginner he was. Is he a friend of Your Grace's?" "A great friend. I'll tell you what I want you to do. You must have some place found for him." "My dear Duchess, I never interfere." "Why, Duke, you've made more Cabinets than any man living." "I fear, indeed, that I have been at the construction of more Governments than most men. It's forty years ago since Lord Melbourne first did me the honour of consulting me. When asked for advice, my dear, I have very often given it. It has occasionally been my duty to say that I could not myself give my slender assistance to a Ministry unless I were supported by the presence of this or that political friend. But never in my life have I asked for an appointment as a personal favour; and I am sure you won't be angry with me if I say that I cannot begin to do so now." "But Mr. Finn ought to be there. He did so well before." "If so, let us presume that he will be there. I can only say, from what little I know of him, that I shall be happy to see him in any office to which the future Prime Minister may consider it to be his duty to appoint him." "To think," said the Duchess of Omnium afterwards to her friend Madame Goesler,--"to think that I should have had that stupid old woman a week in the house, and all for nothing!" "Upon my word, Duchess," said Barrington Erle, "I don't know why it is, but Gresham seems to have taken a dislike to him." "It's Bonteen's doing." "Very probably." "Surely you can get the better of that?" "I look upon Phineas Finn, Duchess, almost as a child of my own. He has come back to Parliament altogether at my instigation." "Then you ought to help him." "And so I would if I could. Remember I am not the man I used to be when dear old Mr. Mildmay reigned. The truth is, I never interfere now unless I'm asked." "I believe that every one of you is afraid of Mr. Gresham." "Perhaps we are." "I'll tell you what. If he's passed over I'll make such a row that some of you shall hear it." "How fond all you women are of Phineas Finn." "I don't care that for him," said the Duchess, snapping her fingers--"more than I do, that is, for any other mere acquaintance. The man is very well, as most men are." "Not all." "No, not all. Some are as little and jealous as a girl in her tenth season. He is a decently good fellow, and he is to be thrown over, because--" "Because of what?" "I don't choose to name any one. You ought to know all about it, and I do not doubt but you do. Lady Laura Kennedy is your own cousin." "There is not a spark of truth in all that." "Of course there is not; and yet he is to be punished. I know very well, Mr. Erle, that if you choose to put your shoulder to the wheel you can manage it; and I shall expect to have it managed." "Plantagenet," she said the next day to her husband, "I want you to do something for me." "To do something! What am I to do? It's very seldom you want anything in my line." "This isn't in your line at all, and yet I want you to do it." "Ten to one it's beyond my means." "No, it isn't. I know you can if you like. I suppose you are all sure to be in office within ten days or a fortnight?" "I can't say, my dear. I have promised Mr. Gresham to be of use to him if I can." "Everybody knows all that. You're going to be Privy Seal, and to work just the same as ever at those horrible two farthings." "And what is it you want, Glencora?" "I want you to say that you won't take any office unless you are allowed to bring in one or two friends with you." "Why should I do that? I shall not doubt any Cabinet chosen by Mr. Gresham." "I'm not speaking of the Cabinet; I allude to men in lower offices, lords, and Under-Secretaries, and Vice-people. You know what I mean." "I never interfere." "But you must. Other men do continually. It's quite a common thing for a man to insist that one or two others should come in with him." "Yes. If a man feels that he cannot sustain his own position without support, he declines to join the Government without it. But that isn't my case. The friends who are necessary to me in the Cabinet are the very men who will certainly be there. I would join no Government without the Duke; but--" "Oh, the Duke--the Duke! I hate dukes--and duchesses too. I'm not talking about a duke. I want you to oblige me by making a point with Mr. Gresham that Mr. Finn shall have an office." "Mr. Finn!" "Yes, Mr. Finn. I'll explain it all if you wish it." "My dear Glencora, I never interfere." "Who does interfere? Everybody says the same. Somebody interferes, I suppose. Mr. Gresham can't know everybody so well as to be able to fit all the pegs into all the holes without saying a word to anybody." "He would probably speak to Mr. Bonteen." "Then he would speak to a very disagreeable man, and one I'm as sick of as I ever was of any man I ever knew. If you can't manage this for me, Plantagenet, I shall take it very ill. It's a little thing, and I'm sure you could have it done. I don't very often trouble you by asking for anything." The Duke in his quiet way was an affectionate man, and an indulgent husband. On the following morning he was closeted with Mr. Bonteen, two private secretaries, and a leading clerk from the Treasury for four hours, during which they were endeavouring to ascertain whether the commercial world of Great Britain would be ruined or enriched if twelve pennies were declared to contain fifty farthings. The discussion had been grievously burdensome to the minds of the Duke's assistants in it, but he himself had remembered his wife through it all. "By the way," he said, whispering into Mr. Bonteen's private ear as he led that gentleman away to lunch, "if we do come in--" "Oh, we must come in." "If we do, I suppose something will be done for that Mr. Finn. He spoke well the other night." Mr. Bonteen's face became very long. "He helped to upset the coach when he was with us before." "I don't think that that is much against him." "Is he--a personal friend of Your Grace's?" "No--not particularly. I never care about such things for myself; but Lady Glencora--" "I think the Duchess can hardly know what has been his conduct to poor Kennedy. There was a most disreputable row at a public-house in London, and I am told that he behaved--very badly." "I never heard a word about it," said the Duke. "I'll tell you just the truth," said Mr. Bonteen. "I've been asked about him, and I've been obliged to say that he would weaken any Government that would give him office." "Oh, indeed!" That evening the Duke told the Duchess nearly all that he had heard, and the Duchess swore that she wasn't going to be beaten by Mr. Bonteen. CHAPTER XXXVIII. ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE. On the Wednesday in Easter week Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy reached Portman Square from Dresden, and Phineas, who had remained in town, was summoned thither by a note written at Dover. "We arrived here to-day, and shall be in town to-morrow afternoon, between four and five. Papa wants to see you especially. Can you manage to be with us in the Square at about eight? I know it will be inconvenient, but you will put up with inconvenience. I don't like to keep Papa up late; and if he is tired he won't speak to you as he would if you came early.--L. K." Phineas was engaged to dine with Lord Cantrip; but he wrote to excuse himself,--telling the simple truth. He had been asked to see Lord Brentford on business, and must obey the summons. He was shown into a sitting-room on the ground floor, which he had always known as the Earl's own room, and there he found Lord Brentford alone. The last time he had been there he had come to plead with the Earl on behalf of Lord Chiltern, and the Earl had then been a stern self-willed man, vigorous from a sense of power, and very able to maintain and to express his own feelings. Now he was a broken-down old man,--whose mind had been, as it were, unbooted and put into moral slippers for the remainder of its term of existence upon earth. He half shuffled up out of his chair as Phineas came up to him, and spoke as though every calamity in the world were oppressing him. "Such a passage! Oh, very bad, indeed! I thought it would have been the death of me. Laura thought it better to come on." The fact, however, had been that the Earl had so many objections to staying at Calais, that his daughter had felt herself obliged to yield to him. "You must be glad at any rate to have got home," said Phineas. "Home! I don't know what you call home. I don't suppose I shall ever feel any place to be home again." "You'll go to Saulsby;--will you not?" "How can I tell? If Chiltern would have kept the house up, of course I should have gone there. But he never would do anything like anybody else. Violet wants me to go to that place they've got there, but I shan't do that." "It's a comfortable house." "I hate horses and dogs, and I won't go." There was nothing more to be said on that point. "I hope Lady Laura is well." "No, she's not. How should she be well? She's anything but well. She'll be in directly, but she thought I ought to see you first. I suppose this wretched man is really mad." "I am told so." "He never was anything else since I knew him. What are we to do now? Forster says it won't look well to ask for a separation only because he's insane. He tried to shoot you?" "And very nearly succeeded." "Forster says that if we do anything, all that must come out." "There need not be the slightest hesitation as far as I am concerned, Lord Brentford." "You know he keeps all her money." "At present I suppose he couldn't give it up." "Why not? Why shouldn't he give it up? God bless my soul! Forty thousand pounds and all for nothing. When he married he declared that he didn't care about it! Money was nothing to him! So she lent it to Chiltern." "I remember." "But they hadn't been together a year before he asked for it. Now there it is;--and if she were to die to-morrow it would be lost to the family. Something must be done, you know. I can't let her money go in that way." "You'll do what Mr. Forster suggests, no doubt." "But he won't suggest anything. They never do. He doesn't care what becomes of the money. It never ought to have been given up as it was." "It was settled, I suppose." "Yes;--if there were children. And it will come back to her if he dies first. But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact. They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever. It'll all go to some cousin of his that nobody ever saw." "Not as long as Lady Laura lives." "But she does not get a penny of the income;--not a penny. There never was anything so cruel. He has published all manner of accusations against her." "Nobody believes a word of that, my lord." "And then when she is dragged forward by the necessity of vindicating her character, he goes mad and keeps all her money! There never was anything so cruel since the world began." This continued for half-an-hour, and then Lady Laura came in. Nothing had come, or could have come, from the consultation with the Earl. Had it gone on for another hour, he would simply have continued to grumble, and have persevered in insisting upon the hardships he endured. Lady Laura was in black, and looked sad, and old, and careworn; but she did not seem to be ill. Phineas could not but think at the moment how entirely her youth had passed away from her. She came and sat close by him, and began at once to speak of the late debate. "Of course they'll go out," she said. "I presume they will." "And our party will come in." "Oh, yes;--Mr. Gresham, and the two dukes, and Lord Cantrip,--with Legge Wilson, Sir Harry Coldfoot, and the rest of them." "And you?" Phineas smiled, and tried to smile pleasantly, as he answered, "I don't know that they'll put themselves out by doing very much for me." "They'll do something." "I fancy not. Indeed, Lady Laura, to tell the truth at once, I know that they don't mean to offer me anything." "After making you give up your place in Ireland?" "They didn't make me give it up. I should never dream of using such an argument to any one. Of course I had to judge for myself. There is nothing to be said about it;--only it is so." As he told her this he strove to look light-hearted, and so to speak that she should not see the depth of his disappointment;--but he failed altogether. She knew him too well not to read his whole heart in the matter. "Who has said it?" she asked. "Nobody says things of that kind, and yet one knows." "And why is it?" "How can I say? There are various reasons,--and, perhaps, very good reasons. What I did before makes men think that they can't depend on me. At any rate it is so." "Shall you not speak to Mr. Gresham?" "Certainly not." "What do you say, Papa?" "How can I understand it, my dear? There used to be a kind of honour in these things, but that's all old-fashioned now. Ministers used to think of their political friends; but in these days they only regard their political enemies. If you can make a Minister afraid of you, then it becomes worth his while to buy you up. Most of the young men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in office the other half,--if you care about it." "May I speak to Barrington Erle?" asked Lady Laura. "I had rather you did not. Of course I must take it as it comes." "But, my dear Mr. Finn, people do make efforts in such cases. I don't doubt but that at this moment there are a dozen men moving heaven and earth to secure something. No one has more friends than you have." Had not her father been present he would have told her what his friends were doing for him, and how unhappy such interferences made him; but he could not explain all this before the Earl. "I would so much rather hear about yourself," he said, again smiling. "There is but little to say about us. I suppose Papa has told you?" But the Earl had told him nothing, and indeed, there was nothing to tell. The lawyer had advised that Mr. Kennedy's friends should be informed that Lady Laura now intended to live in England, and that they should be invited to make to her some statement as to Mr. Kennedy's condition. If necessary he, on her behalf, would justify her departure from her husband's roof by a reference to the outrageous conduct of which Mr. Kennedy had since been guilty. In regard to Lady Laura's fortune, Mr. Forster said that she could no doubt apply for alimony, and that if the application were pressed at law she would probably obtain it;--but he could not recommend such a step at the present moment. As to the accusation which had been made against her character, and which had become public through the malice of the editor of The People's Banner, Mr. Forster thought that the best refutation would be found in her return to England. At any rate he would advise no further step at the present moment. Should any further libel appear in the columns of the newspaper, then the question might be again considered. Mr. Forster had already been in Portman Square, and this had been the result of the conference. "There is not much comfort in it all,--is there?" said Lady Laura. "There is no comfort in anything," said the Earl. When Phineas took his leave Lady Laura followed him out into the hall, and they went together into the large, gloomy dining-room,--gloomy and silent now, but which in former days he had known to be brilliant with many lights, and cheerful with eager voices. "I must have one word with you," she said, standing close to him against the table, and putting her hand upon his arm. "Amidst all my sorrow, I have been so thankful that he did not--kill you." [Illustration: "I must have one word with you."] "I almost wish he had." "Oh, Phineas!--how can you say words so wicked! Would you have had him a murderer?" "A madman is responsible for nothing." "Where should I have been? What should I have done? But of course you do not mean it. You have everything in life before you. Say some word to me more comfortable than that. You cannot think how I have looked forward to meeting you again. It has robbed the last month of half its sadness." He put his arm round her waist and pressed her to his side, but he said nothing. "It was so good of you to go to him as you did. How was he looking?" "Twenty years older than when you saw him last." "But how in health?" "He was thin and haggard." "Was he pale?" "No; flushed and red. He had not shaved himself for days; nor, as I believe, had he been out of his room since he came up to London. I fancy that he will not live long." "Poor fellow;--unhappy man! I was very wrong to marry him, Phineas." "I have never said so;--nor, indeed, thought so." "But I have thought so; and I say it also,--to you. I owe him any reparation that I can make him; but I could not have lived with him. I had no idea, before, that the nature of two human beings could be so unlike. I so often remember what you told me of him,--here; in this house, when I first brought you together. Alas, how sad it has been!" "Sad, indeed." "But can this be true that you tell me of yourself? "It is quite true. I could not say so before your father, but it is Mr. Bonteen's doing. There is no remedy. I am sure of that. I am only afraid that people are interfering for me in a manner that will be as disagreeable to me as it will be useless." "What friends?" she asked. He was still standing with his arm round her waist, and he did not like to mention the name of Madame Goesler. "The Duchess of Omnium,--whom you remember as Lady Glencora Palliser." "Is she a friend of yours?" "No;--not particularly. But she is an indiscreet woman, and hates Bonteen, and has taken it into her stupid head to interest herself in my concerns. It is no doing of mine, and yet I cannot help it." "She will succeed." "I don't want assistance from such a quarter; and I feel sure that she will not succeed." "What will you do, Phineas?" "What shall I do? Carry on the battle as long as I can without getting into debt, and then--vanish." "You vanished once before,--did you not,--with a wife?" "And now I shall vanish alone. My poor little wife! It seems all like a dream. She was so good, so pure, so pretty, so loving!" "Loving! A man's love is so easily transferred;--as easily as a woman's hand;--is it not, Phineas? Say the word, for it is what you are thinking." "I was thinking of no such thing." "You must think it--You need not be afraid to reproach me. I could bear it from you. What could I not bear from you? Oh, Phineas;--if I had only known myself then, as I do now!" "It is too late for regrets," he said. There was something in the words which grated on her feelings, and induced her at length to withdraw herself from his arm. Too late for regrets! She had never told herself that it was not too late. She was the wife of another man, and therefore, surely it was too late. But still the word coming from his mouth was painful to her. It seemed to signify that for him at least the game was all over. "Yes, indeed," she said,--"if our regrets and remorse were at our own disposal! You might as well say that it is too late for unhappiness, too late for weariness, too late for all the misery that comes from a life's disappointment." "I should have said that indulgence in regrets is vain." "That is a scrap of philosophy which I have heard so often before! But we will not quarrel, will we, on the first day of my return?" "I hope not." "And I may speak to Barrington?" "No; certainly not." "But I shall. How can I help it? He will be here to-morrow, and will be full of the coming changes. How should I not mention your name? He knows--not all that has passed, but too much not to be aware of my anxiety. Of course your name will come up?" "What I request,--what I demand is, that you ask no favour for me. Your father will miss you,--will he not? I had better go now." "Good night, Phineas." "Good night, dear friend." "Dearest, dearest friend," she said. Then he left her, and without assistance, let himself out into the square. In her intercourse with him there was a passion the expression of which caused him sorrow and almost dismay. He did not say so even to himself, but he felt that a time might come in which she would resent the coldness of demeanour which it would be imperative upon him to adopt in his intercourse with her. He knew how imprudent he had been to stand there with his arm round her waist. CHAPTER XXXIX. CAGLIOSTRO. It had been settled that Parliament should meet on the Thursday in Easter week, and it was known to the world at large that Cabinet Councils were held on the Friday previous, on the Monday, and on the Tuesday; but nobody knew what took place at those meetings. Cabinet Councils are, of course, very secret. What kind of oath the members take not to divulge any tittle of the proceedings at these awful conferences, the general public does not know; but it is presumed that oaths are taken very solemn, and it is known that they are very binding. Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly at the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all know, not a council is held as to which the editor of The People's Banner does not inform its readers next day exactly what took place. But as to these three Cabinet Councils there was an increased mystery abroad. Statements, indeed, were made, very definite and circumstantial, but then they were various,--and directly opposed one to another. According to The People's Banner, Mr. Daubeny had resolved, with that enduring courage which was his peculiar characteristic, that he would not be overcome by faction, but would continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was at heart divorced from its leaders,--and a party without leaders is powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr. Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;--but as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most of them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads beneath it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been staunch,--they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with the affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On the other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire for immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy which was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their opponents. With the Liberal leaders,--such men as Mr. Gresham and the two dukes,--the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf of the country. It is right, according to our constitution, that the Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its trust to do battle in season and out of season,--to carry on war internecine,--till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of a minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears of those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the clamour became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of a Minister would dare to remain in office till the end of a hurried Session, and then again dissolve Parliament? Men talked of rows in London,--even of revolution, and there were meetings in open places both by day and night. Petitions were to be prepared, and the country was to be made to express itself. When, however, Thursday afternoon came, Mr. Daubeny "threw up the sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very slowly,--almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its performances, and took his seat at about half-past four. Every man there felt that there was insolence in his demeanour,--and yet there was nothing on which it was possible to fasten in the way of expressed complaint. There was a faint attempt at a cheer,--for good soldiers acknowledge the importance of supporting even an unpopular general. But Mr. Daubeny's soldiers on this occasion were not very good. When he had been seated about five minutes he rose, still very languidly, and began his statement. He and his colleagues, he said, in their attempt to legislate for the good of their country had been beaten in regard to a very great measure by a large majority, and in compliance with what he acknowledged to be the expressed opinion of the House, he had considered it to be his duty--as his colleagues had considered it to be theirs--to place their joint resignations in the hands of Her Majesty. This statement was received with considerable surprise, as it was not generally known that Mr. Daubeny had as yet even seen the Queen. But the feeling most predominant in the House was one almost of dismay at the man's quiescence. He and his colleagues had resigned, and he had recommended Her Majesty to send for Mr. Gresham. He spoke in so low a voice as to be hardly audible to the House at large, and then paused,--ceasing to speak, as though his work were done. He even made some gesture, as though stepping back to his seat;--deceived by which Mr. Gresham, at the other side of the table, rose to his legs. "Perhaps," said Mr. Daubeny,--"Perhaps the right honourable gentleman would pardon him, and the House would pardon him, if still, for a moment, he interposed between the House and the right honourable gentleman. He could well understand the impatience of the right honourable gentleman,--who no doubt was anxious to reassume that authority among them, the temporary loss of which he had not perhaps borne with all the equanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have hated each other;--and it is supposed that they were no more than human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been carefully prepared. Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It was his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty. But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,--of his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He had been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles by men who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did not set himself up as an apostle of constant change must therefore be bound always to stand still and see his country perish from stagnation. It might be that there were gentlemen in that House whose timid natures could not face the dangers of any movement; but for himself he would say that no word had ever fallen from his lips which justified either his friends or his adversaries in classing him among the number. If a man be anxious to keep his fire alight, does he refuse to touch the sacred coals as in the course of nature they are consumed? Or does he move them with the salutary poker and add fresh fuel from the basket? They all knew that enemy to the comfort of the domestic hearth, who could not keep his hands for a moment from the fire-irons. Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,--as, alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others had arisen in the world,--but had been openly avowed and put forward as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply this;--'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our hands!'" Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed to continue his statement. Mr. Gresham rose to his feet, but sat down again instantly, without having spoken a word that was audible. Two or three voices were heard calling upon the Speaker for protection. It was, however, asserted afterwards that nothing had been said which demanded the Speaker's interference. But all moderate voices were soon lost in the enraged clamour of members on each side. The insolence showered upon those who generally supported Mr. Daubeny had equalled that with which he had exasperated those opposed to him; and as the words had fallen from his lips, there had been no purpose of cheering him from the conservative benches. But noise creates noise, and shouting is a ready and easy mode of contest. For a while it seemed as though the right side of the Speaker's chair was only beaten by the majority of lungs on the left side;--and in the midst of it all Mr. Daubeny still stood, firm on his feet, till gentlemen had shouted themselves silent,--and then he resumed his speech. The remainder of what he said was profound, prophetic, and unintelligible. The gist of it, so far as it could be understood when the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated the national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation, as a nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be treated as he should choose to treat it;--but that the incubus of Mr. Gresham, backed by an unworthy House of Commons, had prevented, and was preventing, the nation from having its own way. Therefore the nation must be destroyed. Mr. Daubeny as soon as he had completed his speech took up his hat and stalked out of the House. It was supposed at the time that the retiring Prime Minister had intended, when he rose to his legs, not only to denounce his opponents, but also to separate himself from his own unworthy associates. Men said that he had become disgusted with politics, disappointed, and altogether demoralized by defeat, and great curiosity existed as to the steps which might be taken at the time by the party of which he had hitherto been the leader. On that evening, at any rate, nothing was done. When Mr. Daubeny was gone, Mr. Gresham rose and said that in the present temper of the House he thought it best to postpone any statement from himself. He had received Her Majesty's commands only as he had entered that House, and in obedience to those commands, he should wait upon Her Majesty early to-morrow. He hoped to be able to inform the House at the afternoon sitting, what was the nature of the commands with which Her Majesty might honour him. "What do you think of that?" Phineas asked Mr. Monk as they left the House together. "I think that our Chatham of to-day is but a very poor copy of him who misbehaved a century ago." "Does not the whole thing distress you?" "Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman, whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro. Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror;--but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man. It is essential that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror,--and I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men this afternoon." "He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?" "Yes, I did,--very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to atoms." "Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he did when he got home." "Had some gruel and went to bed," said Bonteen. "They say these scenes in the House never disturb him at home." From which conversations it may be inferred that Mr. Monk and Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen did not agree in their ideas respecting political conjurors. CHAPTER XL. THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED. It can never be a very easy thing to form a Ministry. The one chosen chief is readily selected. Circumstances, indeed, have probably left no choice in the matter. Every man in the country who has at all turned his thoughts that way knows very well who will be the next Prime Minister when it comes to pass that a change is imminent. In these days the occupant of the throne can have no difficulty. Mr. Gresham recommends Her Majesty to send for Mr. Daubeny, or Mr. Daubeny for Mr. Gresham,--as some ten or a dozen years since Mr. Mildmay told her to send for Lord de Terrier, or Lord de Terrier for Mr. Mildmay. The Prime Minister is elected by the nation, but the nation, except in rare cases, cannot go below that in arranging details, and the man for whom the Queen sends is burdened with the necessity of selecting his colleagues. It may be,--probably must always be the case,--that this, that, and the other colleagues are clearly indicated to his mind, but then each of these colleagues may want his own inferior coadjutors, and so the difficulty begins, increases, and at length culminates. On the present occasion it was known at the end of a week that Mr. Gresham had not filled all his offices, and that there were difficulties. It was announced that the Duke of St. Bungay could not quite agree on certain points with Mr. Gresham, and that the Duke of Omnium would do nothing without the other Duke. The Duke of St. Bungay was very powerful, as there were three or four of the old adherents of Mr. Mildmay who would join no Government unless he was with them. Sir Harry Coldfoot and Lord Plinlimmon would not accept office without the Duke. The Duke was essential, and now, though the Duke's character was essentially that of a practical man who never raised unnecessary trouble, men said that the Duke was at the bottom of it all. The Duke did not approve of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Gresham, so it was said, insisted on Mr. Bonteen,--appealing to the other Duke. But that other Duke, our own special Duke, Planty Pall that was, instead of standing up for Mr. Bonteen, was cold and unsympathetic. He could not join the Ministry without his friend, the Duke of St. Bungay, and as to Mr. Bonteen, he thought that perhaps a better selection might be made. Such were the club rumours which took place as to the difficulties of the day, and, as is generally the case, they were not far from the truth. Neither of the dukes had absolutely put a veto on poor Mr. Bonteen's elevation, but they had expressed themselves dissatisfied with the appointment, and the younger duke had found himself called upon to explain that although he had been thrown much into communication with Mr. Bonteen he had never himself suggested that that gentleman should follow him at the Exchequer. This was one of the many difficulties which beset the Prime Minister elect in the performance of his arduous duty. Lady Glencora, as people would still persist in calling her, was at the bottom of it all. She had sworn an oath inimical to Mr. Bonteen, and did not leave a stone unturned in her endeavours to accomplish it. If Phineas Finn might find acceptance, then Mr. Bonteen might be allowed to enter Elysium. A second Juno, she would allow the Romulus she hated to sit in the seats of the blessed, to be fed with nectar, and to have his name printed in the lists of unruffled Cabinet meetings,--but only on conditions. Phineas Finn must be allowed a seat also, and a little nectar,--though it were at the second table of the gods. For this she struggled, speaking her mind boldly to this and that member of her husband's party, but she struggled in vain. She could obtain no assurance on behalf of Phineas Finn. The Duke of St. Bungay would do nothing for her. Barrington Erle had declared himself powerless. Her husband had condescended to speak to Mr. Bonteen himself, and Mr. Bonteen's insolent answer had been reported to her. Then she went sedulously to work, and before a couple of days were over she did make her husband believe that Mr. Bonteen was not fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. This took place before Mr. Daubeny's statement, while the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were still at Matching,--while Mr. Bonteen, unconscious of what was being done, was still in the House. Before the two days were over, the Duke of St. Bungay had a very low opinion of Mr. Bonteen, but was quite ignorant of any connection between that low opinion and the fortunes of Phineas Finn. "Plantagenet, of all your men that are coming up, your Mr. Bonteen is the worst. I often think that you are going down hill, both in character and intellect, but if you go as low as that I shall prefer to cross the water, and live in America." This she said in the presence of the two dukes. "What has Mr. Bonteen done?" asked the elder, laughing. "He was boasting this morning openly of whom he intended to bring with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he doesn't allow some one to tell him the truth." She did not press the matter any further then, but what she had said was not thrown away. "Your wife is almost right about that man," the elder Duke said to the younger. "It's Mr. Gresham's doing,--not mine," said the younger. "She is right about Gresham, too," said the elder. "With all his immense intellect and capacity for business no man wants more looking after." That evening Mr. Bonteen was singled out by the Duchess for her special attention, and in the presence of all who were there assembled he made himself an ass. He could not save himself from talking about himself when he was encouraged. On this occasion he offended all those feelings of official discretion and personal reticence which had been endeared to the old duke by the lessons which he had learned from former statesmen and by the experience of his own life. To be quiet, unassuming, almost affectedly modest in any mention of himself, low-voiced, reflecting always more than he resolved, and resolving always more than he said, had been his aim. Conscious of his high rank, and thinking, no doubt, much of the advantages in public life which his birth and position had given him, still he would never have ventured to speak of his own services as necessary to any Government. That he had really been indispensable to many he must have known, but not to his closest friend would he have said so in plain language. To such a man the arrogance of Mr. Bonteen was intolerable. There is probably more of the flavour of political aristocracy to be found still remaining among our liberal leading statesmen than among their opponents. A conservative Cabinet is, doubtless, never deficient in dukes and lords, and the sons of such; but conservative dukes and lords are recruited here and there, and as recruits, are new to the business, whereas among the old Whigs a halo of statecraft has, for ages past, so strongly pervaded and enveloped certain great families, that the power in the world of politics thus produced still remains, and is even yet efficacious in creating a feeling of exclusiveness. They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with strange bedfellows." The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must, no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with strange neighbours at their elbows. But still with them something of the feeling of high blood, of rank, and of living in a park with deer about it, remains. They still entertain a pride in their Cabinets, and have, at any rate, not as yet submitted themselves to a conjuror. The Charles James Fox element of liberality still holds its own, and the fragrance of Cavendish is essential. With no man was this feeling stronger than with the Duke of St. Bungay, though he well knew how to keep it in abeyance,--even to the extent of self-sacrifice. Bonteens must creep into the holy places. The faces which he loved to see,--born chiefly of other faces he had loved when young,--could not cluster around the sacred table without others which were much less welcome to him. He was wise enough to know that exclusiveness did not suit the nation, though human enough to feel that it must have been pleasant to himself. There must be Bonteens;--but when any Bonteen came up, who loomed before his eyes as specially disagreeable, it seemed to him to be a duty to close the door against such a one, if it could be closed without violence. A constant, gentle pressure against the door would tend to keep down the number of the Bonteens. "I am not sure that you are not going a little too quick in regard to Mr. Bonteen," said the elder duke to Mr. Gresham before he had finally assented to a proposition originated by himself,--that he should sit in the Cabinet without a portfolio. "Palliser wishes it," said Mr. Gresham, shortly. "He and I think that there has been some mistake about that. You suggested the appointment to him, and he felt unwilling to raise an objection without giving the matter very mature consideration. You can understand that." "Upon my word I thought that the selection would be peculiarly agreeable to him." Then the duke made a suggestion. "Could not some special office at the Treasury be constructed for Mr. Bonteen's acceptance, having special reference to the question of decimal coinage?" "But how about the salary?" asked Mr. Gresham. "I couldn't propose a new office with a salary above £2,000." "Couldn't we make it permanent," suggested the duke;--"with permission to hold a seat if he can get one?" "I fear not," said Mr. Gresham. "He got into a very unpleasant scrape when he was Financial Secretary," said the Duke. But whither would'st thou, Muse? Unmeet For jocund lyre are themes like these. Shalt thou the talk of Gods repeat, Debasing by thy strains effete Such lofty mysteries? The absolute words of a conversation so lofty shall no longer be attempted, but it may be said that Mr. Gresham was too wise to treat as of no account the objections of such a one as the Duke of St. Bungay. He saw Mr. Bonteen, and he saw the other duke, and difficulties arose. Mr. Bonteen made himself very disagreeable indeed. As Mr. Bonteen had never absolutely been as yet more than a demigod, our Muse, light as she is, may venture to report that he told Mr. Ratler that "he'd be d---- if he'd stand it. If he were to be thrown over now, he'd make such a row, and would take such care that the fat should be in the fire, that his enemies, whoever they were, should wish that they had kept their fingers off him. He knew who was doing it." If he did not know, his guess was right. In his heart he accused the young duchess, though he mentioned her name to no one. And it was the young duchess. Then there was made an insidious proposition to Mr. Gresham,--which reached him at last through Barrington Erle,--that matters would go quieter if Phineas Finn were placed in his old office at the Colonies instead of Lord Fawn, whose name had been suggested, and for whom,--as Barrington Erle declared,--no one cared a brass farthing. Mr. Gresham, when he heard this, thought that he began to smell a rat, and was determined to be on his guard. Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some woman's fingers in the pie. Now Mr. Gresham was firmly resolved that no woman's fingers should have anything to do with his pie. How the thing went from bad to worse, it would be bootless here to tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr. Bonteen, and were joined in it by Lord Plinlimmon and Sir Harry Coldfoot. It was in vain that Mr. Gresham urged that he had no other man ready and fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That excuse could not be accepted. There was Legge Wilson, who twelve years since had been at the Treasury, and would do very well. Now Mr. Gresham had always personally hated Legge Wilson,--and had, therefore, offered him the Board of Trade. Legge Wilson had disgusted him by accepting it, and the name had already been published in connection with the office. But in the lists which had appeared towards the end of the week, no name was connected with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and no office was connected with the name of Mr. Bonteen. The editor of The People's Banner, however, expressed the gratification of that journal that even Mr. Gresham had not dared to propose Mr. Phineas Finn for any place under the Crown. At last Mr. Bonteen was absolutely told that he could not be Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he would consent to give his very valuable services to the country with the view of carrying through Parliament the great measure of decimal coinage he should be President of the Board of Trade,--but without a seat in the Cabinet. He would thus become the Right Honourable Bonteen, which, no doubt, would be a great thing for him,--and, not busy in the Cabinet, must be able to devote his time exclusively to the great measure above-named. What was to become of "Trade" generally, was not specially explained; but, as we all know, there would be a Vice-President to attend to details. The proposition very nearly broke the man's heart. With a voice stopped by agitation, with anger flashing from his eyes, almost in a convulsion of mixed feelings, he reminded his chief of what had been said about his appointment in the House. Mr. Gresham had already absolutely defended it. After that did Mr. Gresham mean to withdraw a promise that had so formally been made? But Mr. Gresham was not to be caught in that way. He had made no promise;--had not even stated to the House that such appointment was to be made. A very improper question had been asked as to a rumour,--in answering which he had been forced to justify himself by explaining that discussions respecting the office had been necessary. "Mr. Bonteen," said Mr. Gresham, "no one knows better than you the difficulties of a Minister. If you can act with us I shall be very grateful to you. If you cannot, I shall regret the loss of your services." Mr. Bonteen took twenty-four hours to consider, and was then appointed President of the Board of Trade without a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Legge Wilson became Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the lists were completed, no office whatever was assigned to Phineas Finn. "I haven't done with Mr. Bonteen yet," said the young duchess to her friend Madame Goesler. The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen's high ambition had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his head. But before the Ministry had been a week in office almost everybody knew that it was so. The rumours were full of falsehood, but yet they contained the truth. The duchess had done it. The duchess was the bosom friend of Lady Laura Kennedy, who was in love with Phineas Finn. She had gone on her knees to Mr. Gresham to get a place for her friend's favourite, and Mr. Gresham had refused. Consequently, at her bidding, half-a-dozen embryo Ministers--her husband among the number--had refused to be amenable to Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham had at last consented to sacrifice Mr. Bonteen, who had originally instigated him to reject the claims of Phineas Finn. That the degradation of the one man had been caused by the exclusion of the other all the world knew. "It shuts the door to me for ever and ever," said Phineas to Madame Goesler. "I don't see that." "Of course it does. Such an affair places a mark against a man's name which will never be forgotten." "Is your heart set upon holding some trifling appointment under a Minister?" "To tell you the truth, it is;--or rather it was. The prospect of office to me was more than perhaps to any other expectant. Even this man, Bonteen, has some fortune of his own, and can live if he be excluded. I have given up everything for the chance of something in this line." "Other lines are open." "Not to me, Madame Goesler. I do not mean to defend myself. I have been very foolish, very sanguine, and am now very unhappy." "What shall I say to you?" "The truth." "In truth, then, I do not sympathise with you. The thing lost is too small, too mean to justify unhappiness." "But, Madame Goesler, you are a rich woman." "Well?" "If you were to lose it all, would you not be unhappy? It has been my ambition to live here in London as one of a special set which dominates all other sets in our English world. To do so a man should have means of his own. I have none; and yet I have tried it,--thinking that I could earn my bread at it as men do at other professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been silly." "What will you do?" "Ah,--what? Another friend asked me that the other day, and I told her that I should vanish." "Who was that friend?" "Lady Laura." "She is in London again now?" "Yes; she and her father are in Portman Square." "She has been an injurious friend to you." "No, by heaven," exclaimed Phineas. "But for her I should never have been here at all, never have had a seat in Parliament, never have been in office, never have known you." "And might have been the better without any of these things." "No man ever had a better friend than Lady Laura has been to me. Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has not been her fault." "You are energetic in defending her." "And so would she be in defending me. Circumstances threw us together and made us friends. Her father and her brother were my friends. I happened to be of service to her husband. We belonged to the same party. And therefore--because she has been unfortunate in her marriage--people tell lies of her." "It is a pity he should--not die, and leave her," said Madame Goesler slowly. "Why so?" "Because then you might justify yourself in defending her by making her your wife." She paused, but he made no answer to this. "You are in love with her," she said. "It is untrue." "Mr. Finn!" "Well, what would you have? I am not in love with her. To me she is no more than my sister. Were she as free as air I should not ask her to be my wife. Can a man and woman feel no friendship without being in love with each other?" "I hope they may," said Madame Goesler. Had he been lynx-eyed he might have seen that she blushed; but it required quick eyes to discover a blush on Madame Goesler's face. "You and I are friends." "Indeed we are," he said, grasping her hand as he took his leave. VOLUME II. CHAPTER XLI. "I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED." Gerard Maule, as the reader has been informed, wrote three lines to his dearest Adelaide to inform her that his father would not assent to the suggestion respecting Maule Abbey which had been made by Lady Chiltern, and then took no further steps in the matter. In the fortnight next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint, was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner,--with all its rich offers, and Adelaide's mind was for a while occupied with wrath against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr. Spooner,--for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were egregiously foolish,--died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he not write? She had received from Lady Chiltern an invitation to remain with them,--the Chilterns,--till her marriage. "But, dear Lady Chiltern, who knows when it will be?" Adelaide had said. Lady Chiltern had good-naturedly replied that the longer it was put off the better for herself. "But you'll be going to London or abroad before that day comes." Lady Chiltern declared that she looked forward to no festivities which could under any circumstances remove her four-and-twenty hours travelling distance from the kennels. Probably she might go up to London for a couple of months as soon as the hunting was over, and the hounds had been drafted, and the horses had been coddled, and every covert had been visited. From the month of May till the middle of July she might, perhaps, be allowed to be in town, as communications by telegram could now be made day and night. After that, preparations for cub-hunting would be imminent, and, as a matter of course, it would be necessary that she should be at Harrington Hall at so important a period of the year. During those couple of months she would be very happy to have the companionship of her friend, and she hinted that Gerard Maule would certainly be in town. "I begin to think it would have been better that I should never have seen Gerard Maule," said Adelaide Palliser. This happened about the middle of March, while hunting was still in force. Gerard's horses were standing in the neighbourhood, but Gerard himself was not there. Mr. Spooner, since that short, disheartening note had been sent to him by Lord Chiltern, had not been seen at Harrington. There was a Harrington Lawn Meet on one occasion, but he had not appeared till the hounds were at the neighbouring covert side. Nevertheless he had declared that he did not intend to give up the pursuit, and had even muttered something of the sort to Lord Chiltern. "I am one of those fellows who stick to a thing, you know," he said. "I am afraid you had better give up sticking to her, because she's going to marry somebody else." "I've heard all about that, my lord. He's a very nice sort of young man, but I'm told he hasn't got his house ready yet for a family." All which Lord Chiltern repeated to his wife. Neither of them spoke to Adelaide again about Mr. Spooner; but this did cause a feeling in Lady Chiltern's mind that perhaps this engagement with young Maule was a foolish thing, and that, if so, she was in a great measure responsible for the folly. "Don't you think you'd better write to him?" she said, one morning. "Why does he not write to me?" "But he did,--when he wrote you that his father would not consent to give up the house. You did not answer him then." "It was two lines,--without a date. I don't even know where he lives." "You know his club?" "Yes,--I know his club. I do feel, Lady Chiltern, that I have become engaged to marry a man as to whom I am altogether in the dark. I don't like writing to him at his club." "You have seen more of him here and in Italy than most girls see of their future husbands." "So I have,--but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don't you understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he does not mean any harm." "Certainly he does not." "But then he hardly means any good." "I never saw a man more earnestly in love," said Lady Chiltern. "Oh yes,--he's quite enough in love. But--" "But what?" "He'll just remain up in London thinking about it, and never tell himself that there's anything to be done. And then, down here, what is my best hope? Not that he'll come to see me, but that he'll come to see his horse, and that so, perhaps, I may get a word with him." Then Lady Chiltern suggested, with a laugh, that perhaps it might have been better that she should have accepted Mr. Spooner. There would have been no doubt as to Mr. Spooner's energy and purpose. "Only that if there was not another man in the world I wouldn't marry him, and that I never saw any other man except Gerard Maule whom I even fancied I could marry." About a fortnight after this, when the hunting was all over, in the beginning of April, she did write to him as follows, and did direct her letter to his club. In the meantime Lord Chiltern had intimated to his wife that if Gerard Maule behaved badly he should consider himself to be standing in the place of Adelaide's father or brother. His wife pointed out to him that were he her father or her brother he could do nothing,--that in these days let a man behave ever so badly, no means of punishing was within reach of the lady's friends. But Lord Chiltern would not assent to this. He muttered something about a horsewhip, and seemed to suggest that one man could, if he were so minded, always have it out with another, if not in this way, then in that. Lady Chiltern protested, and declared that horsewhips could not under any circumstances be efficacious. "He had better mind what he is about," said Lord Chiltern. It was after this that Adelaide wrote her letter:-- Harrington Hall, 5th April. DEAR GERARD,-- I have been thinking that I should hear from you, and have been surprised,--I may say unhappy,--because I have not done so. Perhaps you thought I ought to have answered the three words which you wrote to me about your father; if so, I will apologise; only they did not seem to give me anything to say. I was very sorry that your father should have "cut up rough," as you call it, but you must remember that we both expected that he would refuse, and that we are only therefore where we thought we should be. I suppose we shall have to wait till Providence does something for us,--only, if so, it would be pleasanter to me to hear your own opinion about it. The Chilterns are surprised that you shouldn't have come back, and seen the end of the season. There were some very good runs just at last;--particularly one on last Monday. But on Wednesday Trumpeton Wood was again blank, and there was some row about wires. I can't explain it all; but you must come, and Lord Chiltern will tell you. I have gone down to see the horses ever so often;--but I don't care to go now as you never write to me. They are all three quite well, and Fan looks as silken and as soft as any lady need do. Lady Chiltern has been kinder than I can tell you. I go up to town with her in May, and shall remain with her while she is there. So far I have decided. After that my future home must, sir, depend on the resolution and determination, or perhaps on the vagaries and caprices, of him who is to be my future master. Joking apart, I must know to what I am to look forward before I can make up my mind whether I will or will not go back to Italy towards the end of the summer. If I do, I fear I must do so just in the hottest time of the year; but I shall not like to come down here again after leaving London,--unless something by that time has been settled. I shall send this to your club, and I hope that it will reach you. I suppose that you are in London. Good-bye, dearest Gerard. Yours most affectionately, ADELAIDE. If there is anything that troubles you, pray tell me. I ask you because I think it would be better for you that I should know. I sometimes think that you would have written if there had not been some misfortune. God bless you. Gerard was in London, and sent the following note by return of post:-- ---- Club, Tuesday. DEAREST ADELAIDE, All right. If Chiltern can take me for a couple of nights, I'll come down next week, and settle about the horses, and will arrange everything. Ever your own, with all my heart, G. M. "He will settle about his horses, and arrange everything," said Adelaide, as she showed the letter to Lady Chiltern. "The horses first, and everything afterwards. The everything, of course, includes all my future happiness, the day of my marriage, whether to-morrow or in ten years' time, and the place where we shall live." "At any rate, he's coming." "Yes;--but when? He says next week, but he does not name any day. Did you ever hear or see anything so unsatisfactory?" "I thought you would be glad to see him." "So I should be,--if there was any sense in him. I shall be glad, and shall kiss him." "I dare say you will." "And let him put his arm round my waist and be happy. He will be happy because he will think of nothing beyond. But what is to be the end of it?" "He says that he will settle everything." "But he will have thought of nothing. What must I settle? That is the question. When he was told to go to his father, he went to his father. When he failed there the work was done, and the trouble was off his mind. I know him so well." "If you think so ill of him why did you consent to get into his boat?" said Lady Chiltern, seriously. "I don't think ill of him. Why do you say that I think ill of him? I think better of him than of anybody else in the world;--but I know his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat. Why does any girl get into a man's boat? Why did you get into Lord Chiltern's?" "I promised to marry him when I was seven years old;--so he says." "But you wouldn't have done it, if you hadn't had a sort of feeling that you were born to be his wife. I haven't got into this man's boat yet; but I never can be happy unless I do, simply because--" "You love him." "Yes;--just that. I have a feeling that I should like to be in his boat, and I shouldn't like to be anywhere else. After you have come to feel like that about a man I don't suppose it makes any difference whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He's just my own,--at least I hope so;--the one thing that I've got. If I wear a stuff frock, I'm not going to despise it because it's not silk." "Mr. Spooner would be the stuff frock." "No;--Mr. Spooner is shoddy, and very bad shoddy, too." On the Saturday in the following week Gerard Maule did arrive at Harrington Hall,--and was welcomed as only accepted lovers are welcomed. Not a word of reproach was uttered as to his delinquencies. No doubt he got the kiss with which Adelaide had herself suggested that his coming would be rewarded. He was allowed to stand on the rug before the fire with his arm round her waist. Lady Chiltern smiled on him. His horses had been specially visited that morning, and a lively report as to their condition was made to him. Not a word was said on that occasion which could distress him. Even Lord Chiltern when he came in was gracious to him. "Well, old fellow," he said, "you've missed your hunting." "Yes; indeed. Things kept me in town." "We had some uncommonly good runs." "Have the horses stood pretty well?" asked Gerard. "I felt uncommonly tempted to borrow yours; and should have done so once or twice if I hadn't known that I should have been betrayed." "I wish you had, with all my heart," said Gerard. And then they went to dress for dinner. In the evening, when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,--as was the case at present,--the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern went very discreetly upstairs, and Adelaide, with equal discretion, followed her. It had been arranged beforehand that Lord Chiltern should say a salutary word or two to the young man. Maule began about the hunting, asking questions about this and that, but his host stopped him at once. Lord Chiltern, when he had a task on hand, was always inclined to get through it at once,--perhaps with an energy that was too sudden in its effects. "Maule," he said, "you ought to make up your mind what you mean to do about that girl." "Do about her! How?" "You and she are engaged, I suppose?" "Of course we are. There isn't any doubt about it." "Just so. But when things come to be like that, all delays are good fun to the man, but they're the very devil to the girl." "I thought it was always the other way up, and that girls wanted delay?" "That's only a theoretical delicacy which never means much. When a girl is engaged she likes to have the day fixed. When there's a long interval the man can do pretty much as he pleases, while the girl can do nothing except think about him. Then it sometimes turns out that when he's wanted, he's not there." "I hope I'm not distrusted," said Gerard, with an air that showed that he was almost disposed to be offended. "Not in the least. The women here think you the finest paladin in the world, and Miss Palliser would fly at my throat if she thought that I said a word against you. But she's in my house, you see; and I'm bound to do exactly as I should if she were my sister." "And if she were your sister?" "I should tell you that I couldn't approve of the engagement unless you were prepared to fix the time of your marriage. And I should ask you where you intended to live." "Wherever she pleases. I can't go to Maule Abbey while my father lives, without his sanction." "And he may live for the next twenty years." "Or thirty." "Then you are bound to decide upon something else. It's no use saying that you leave it to her. You can't leave it to her. What I mean is this, that now you are here, I think you are bound to settle something with her. Good-night, old fellow." CHAPTER XLII. BOULOGNE. Gerard Maule, as he sat upstairs half undressed in his bedroom that night didn't like it. He hardly knew what it was that he did not like,--but he felt that there was something wrong. He thought that Lord Chiltern had not been warranted in speaking to him with a tone of authority, and in talking of a brother's position,--and the rest of it. He had lacked the presence of mind for saying anything at the moment; but he must say something sooner or later. He wasn't going to be driven by Lord Chiltern. When he looked back at his own conduct he thought that it had been more than noble,--almost romantic. He had fallen in love with Miss Palliser, and spoken his love out freely, without any reference to money. He didn't know what more any fellow could have done. As to his marrying out of hand, the day after his engagement, as a man of fortune can do, everybody must have known that that was out of the question. Adelaide of course had known it. It had been suggested to him that he should consult his father as to living at Maule Abbey. Now if there was one thing he hated more than another, it was consulting his father; and yet he had done it. He had asked for a loan of the old house in perfect faith, and it was not his fault that it had been refused. He could not make a house to live in, nor could he coin a fortune. He had £800 a-year of his own, but of course he owed a little money. Men with such incomes always do owe a little money. It was almost impossible that he should marry quite at once. It was not his fault that Adelaide had no fortune of her own. When he fell in love with her he had been a great deal too generous to think of fortune, and that ought to be remembered now to his credit. Such was the sum of his thoughts, and his anger spread itself from Lord Chiltern even on to Adelaide herself. Chiltern would hardly have spoken in that way unless she had complained. She, no doubt, had been speaking to Lady Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern had passed it on to her husband. He would have it out with Adelaide on the next morning,--quite decidedly. And he would make Lord Chiltern understand that he would not endure interference. He was quite ready to leave Harrington Hall at a moment's notice if he were ill-treated. This was the humour in which Gerard Maule put himself to bed that night. On the following morning he was very late at breakfast,--so late that Lord Chiltern had gone over to the kennels. As he was dressing he had resolved that it would be fitting that he should speak again to his host before he said anything to Adelaide that might appear to impute blame to her. He would ask Chiltern whether anything was meant by what had been said over-night. But, as it happened, Adelaide had been left alone to pour out his tea for him, and,--as the reader will understand to have been certain on such an occasion,--they were left together for an hour in the breakfast parlour. It was impossible that such an hour should be passed without some reference to the grievance which was lying heavy on his heart. "Late; I should think you are," said Adelaide laughing. "It is nearly eleven. Lord Chiltern has been out an hour. I suppose you never get up early except for hunting." "People always think it is so wonderfully virtuous to get up. What's the use of it?" "Your breakfast is so cold." "I don't care about that. I suppose they can boil me an egg. I was very seedy when I went to bed." "You smoked too many cigars, sir." "No, I didn't; but Chiltern was saying things that I didn't like." Adelaide's face at once became very serious. "Yes, a good deal of sugar, please. I don't care about toast, and anything does for me. He has gone to the kennels, has he?" "He said he should. What was he saying last night?" "Nothing particular. He has a way of blowing up, you know; and he looks at one just as if he expected that everybody was to do just what he chooses." "You didn't quarrel?" "Not at all; I went off to bed without saying a word. I hate jaws. I shall just put it right this morning; that's all." "Was it about me, Gerard?" "It doesn't signify the least." "But it does signify. If you and he were to quarrel would it not signify to me very much? How could I stay here with them, or go up to London with them, if you and he had really quarrelled? You must tell me. I know that it was about me." Then she came and sat close to him. "Gerard," she continued, "I don't think you understand how much everything is to me that concerns you." When he began to reflect, he could not quite recollect what it was that Lord Chiltern had said to him. He did remember that something had been suggested about a brother and sister which had implied that Adelaide might want protection, but there was nothing unnatural or other than kind in the position which Lord Chiltern had declared that he would assume. "He seemed to think that I wasn't treating you well," said he, turning round from the breakfast-table to the fire, "and that is a sort of thing I can't stand." "I have never said so, Gerard." "I don't know what it is that he expects, or why he should interfere at all. I can't bear to be interfered with. What does he know about it? He has had somebody to pay everything for him half-a-dozen times, but I have to look out for myself." "What does all this mean?" "You would ask me, you know. I am bothered out of my life by ever so many things, and now he comes and adds his botheration." "What bothers you, Gerard? If anything bothers you, surely you will tell me. If there has been anything to trouble you since you saw your father why have you not written and told me? Is your trouble about me?" "Well, of course it is, in a sort of way." "I will not be a trouble to you." "Now you are going to misunderstand me! Of course, you are not a trouble to me. You know that I love you better than anything in the world." "I hope so." "Of course I do." Then he put his arm round her waist and pressed her to his bosom. "But what can a man do? When Lady Chiltern recommended that I should go to my father and tell him, I did it. I knew that no good could come of it. He wouldn't lift his hand to do anything for me." "How horrid that is!" "He thinks it a shame that I should have my uncle's money, though he never had any more right to it than that man out there. He is always saying that I am better off than he is." "I suppose you are." "I am very badly off, I know that. People seem to think that £800 is ever so much, but I find it to be very little." "And it will be much less if you are married," said Adelaide gravely. "Of course, everything must be changed. I must sell my horses, and we must cut and run, and go and live at Boulogne, I suppose. But a man can't do that kind of thing all in a moment. Then Chiltern comes and talks as though he were Virtue personified. What business is it of his?" Then Adelaide became still more grave. She had now removed herself from his embrace, and was standing a little apart from him on the rug. She did not answer him at first; and when she did so, she spoke very slowly. "We have been rash, I fear; and have done what we have done without sufficient thought." "I don't say that at all." "But I do. It does seem now that we have been imprudent." Then she smiled as she completed her speech. "There had better be no engagement between us." "Why do you say that?" "Because it is quite clear that it has been a trouble to you rather than a happiness." "I wouldn't give it up for all the world." "But it will be better. I had not thought about it as I should have done. I did not understand that the prospect of marrying would make you--so very poor. I see it now. You had better tell Lord Chiltern that it is--done with, and I will tell her the same. It will be better; and I will go back to Italy at once." "Certainly not. It is not done with, and it shall not be done with." "Do you think I will marry the man I love when he tells me that by--marrying--me, he will be--banished to--Bou--logne? You had better see Lord Chiltern; indeed you had." And then she walked out of the room. Then came upon him at once a feeling that he had behaved badly; and yet he had been so generous, so full of intentions to be devoted and true! He had never for a moment thought of breaking off the match, and would not think of it now. He loved her better than ever, and would live only with the intention of making her his wife. But he certainly should not have talked to her of his poverty, nor should he have mentioned Boulogne. And yet what should he have done? She would cross-question him about Lord Chiltern, and it was so essentially necessary that he should make her understand his real condition. It had all come from that man's unjustifiable interference,--as he would at once go and tell him. Of course he would marry Adelaide, but the marriage must be delayed. Everybody waits twelve months before they are married; and why should she not wait? He was miserable because he knew that he had made her unhappy;--but the fault had been with Lord Chiltern. He would speak his mind frankly to Chiltern, and then would explain with loving tenderness to his Adelaide that they would still be all in all to each other, but that a short year must elapse before he could put his house in order for her. After that he would sell his horses. That resolve was in itself so great that he did not think it necessary at the present moment to invent any more plans for the future. So he went out into the hall, took his hat, and marched off to the kennels. At the kennels he found Lord Chiltern surrounded by the denizens of the hunt. His huntsman, with the kennelman and feeder, and two whips, and old Doggett were all there, and the Master of the Hounds was in the middle of his business. The dogs were divided by ages, as well as by sex, and were being brought out and examined. Old Doggett was giving advice,--differing almost always from Cox, the huntsman, as to the propriety of keeping this hound or of cashiering that. Nose, pace, strength, and docility were all questioned with an eagerness hardly known in any other business; and on each question Lord Chiltern listened to everybody, and then decided with a single word. When he had once resolved, nothing further urged by any man then could avail anything. Jove never was so autocratic, and certainly never so much in earnest. From the look of Lord Chiltern's brow it almost seemed as though this weight of empire must be too much for any mere man. Very little notice was taken of Gerard Maule when he joined the conclave, though it was felt in reference to him that he was sufficiently staunch a friend to the hunt to be trusted with the secrets of the kennel. Lord Chiltern merely muttered some words of greeting, and Cox lifted the old hunting-cap which he wore. For another hour the conference was held. Those who have attended such meetings know well that a morning on the flags is apt to be a long affair. Old Doggett, who had privileges, smoked a pipe, and Gerard Maule lit one cigar after another. But Lord Chiltern had become too thorough a man of business to smoke when so employed. At last the last order was given,--Doggett snarled his last snarl,--and Cox uttered his last "My lord." Then Gerard Maule and the Master left the hounds and walked home together. The affair had been so long that Gerard had almost forgotten his grievance. But now as they got out together upon the park, he remembered the tone of Adelaide's voice as she left him, and remembered also that, as matters stood at present, it was essentially necessary that something should be said. "I suppose I shall have to go and see that woman," said Lord Chiltern. "Do you mean Adelaide?" asked Maule, in a tone of infinite surprise. "I mean this new Duchess, who I'm told is to manage everything herself. That man Fothergill is going on with just the old game at Trumpeton." "Is he, indeed? I was thinking of something else just at that moment. You remember what you were saying about Miss Palliser last night." "Yes." "Well;--I don't think, you know, you had a right to speak as you did." Lord Chiltern almost flew at his companion, as he replied, "I said nothing. I do say that when a man becomes engaged to a girl, he should let her hear from him, so that they may know what each other is about." "You hinted something about being her brother." "Of course I did. If you mean well by her, as I hope you do, it can't fret you to think that she has got somebody to look after her till you come in and take possession. It is the commonest thing in the world when a girl is left all alone as she is." "You seemed to make out that I wasn't treating her well." "I said nothing of the kind, Maule; but if you ask me--" "I don't ask you anything." "Yes, you do. You come and find fault with me for speaking last night in the most good-natured way in the world. And, therefore, I tell you now that you will be behaving very badly indeed, unless you make some arrangement at once as to what you mean to do." "That's your opinion," said Gerard Maule. "Yes, it is; and you'll find it to be the opinion of any man or woman that you may ask who knows anything about such things. And I'll tell you what, Master Maule, if you think you're going to face me down you'll find yourself mistaken. Stop a moment, and just listen to me. You haven't a much better friend than I am, and I'm sure she hasn't a better friend than my wife. All this has taken place under our roof, and I mean to speak my mind plainly. What do you propose to do about your marriage?" "I don't propose to tell you what I mean to do." "Will you tell Miss Palliser,--or my wife?" "That is just as I may think fit." "Then I must tell you that you cannot meet her at my house." "I'll leave it to-day." "You needn't do that either. You sleep on it, and then make up your mind. You can't suppose that I have any curiosity about it. The girl is fond of you, and I suppose that you are fond of her. Don't quarrel for nothing. If I have offended you, speak to Lady Chiltern about it." "Very well;--I will speak to Lady Chiltern." When they reached the house it was clear that something was wrong. Miss Palliser was not seen again before dinner, and Lady Chiltern was grave and very cold in her manner to Gerard Maule. He was left alone all the afternoon, which he passed with his horses and groom, smoking more cigars,--but thinking all the time of Adelaide Palliser's last words, of Lord Chiltern's frown, and of Lady Chiltern's manner to him. When he came into the drawing-room before dinner, Lady Chiltern and Adelaide were both there, and Adelaide immediately began to ask questions about the kennel and the huntsmen. But she studiously kept at a distance from him, and he himself felt that it would be impossible to resume at present the footing on which he stood with them both on the previous evening. Presently Lord Chiltern came in, and another man and his wife who had come to stay at Harrington. Nothing could be more dull than the whole evening. At least so Gerard found it. He did take Adelaide in to dinner, but he did not sit next to her at table, for which, however, there was an excuse, as, had he done so, the new-comer must have been placed by his wife. He was cross, and would not make an attempt to speak to his neighbour, and, though he tried once or twice to talk to Lady Chiltern--than whom, as a rule, no woman was ever more easy in conversation--he failed altogether. Now and again he strove to catch Adelaide's eye, but even in that he could not succeed. When the ladies left the room Chiltern and the new-comer--who was not a sporting man, and therefore did not understand the question--became lost in the mazes of Trumpeton Wood. But Gerard Maule did not put in a word; nor was a word addressed to him by Lord Chiltern. As he sat there sipping his wine, he made up his mind that he would leave Harrington Hall the next morning. When he was again in the drawing-room, things were conducted in just the same way. He spoke to Adelaide, and she answered him; but there was no word of encouragement--not a tone of comfort in her voice. He found himself driven to attempt conversation with the strange lady, and at last was made to play whist with Lady Chiltern and the two new-comers. Later on in the evening, when Adelaide had gone to her own chamber, he was invited by Lady Chiltern into her own sitting-room upstairs, and there the whole thing was explained to him. Miss Palliser had declared that the match should be broken off. "Do you mean altogether, Lady Chiltern?" "Certainly I do. Such a resolve cannot be a half-and-half arrangement." "But why?" "I think you must know why, Mr. Maule." "I don't in the least. I won't have it broken off. I have as much right to have a voice in the matter as she has, and I don't in the least believe it's her doing." "Mr. Maule!" "I do not care; I must speak out. Why does she not tell me so herself?" "She did tell you so." "No, she didn't. She said something, but not that. I don't suppose a man was ever so used before; and it's all Lord Chiltern;--just because I told him that he had no right to interfere with me. And he has no right." "You and Oswald were away together when she told me that she had made up her mind. Oswald has hardly spoken to her since you have been in the house. He certainly has not spoken to her about you since you came to us." "What is the meaning of it, then?" "You told her that your engagement had overwhelmed you with troubles." "Of course; there must be troubles." "And that--you would have to be banished to Boulogne when you were married." "I didn't mean her to take that literally." "It wasn't a nice way, Mr. Maule, to speak of your future life to the girl to whom you were engaged. Of course it was her hope to make your life happier, not less happy. And when you made her understand--as you did very plainly--that your married prospects filled you with dismay, of course she had no other alternative but to retreat from her engagement." "I wasn't dismayed." "It is not my doing, Mr. Maule." "I suppose she'll see me?" "If you insist upon it she will; but she would rather not." Gerard, however, did insist, and Adelaide was brought to him there into that room before he went to bed. She was very gentle with him, and spoke to him in a tone very different from that which Lady Chiltern had used; but he found himself utterly powerless to change her. That unfortunate allusion to a miserable exile at Boulogne had completed the work which the former plaints had commenced, and had driven her to a resolution to separate herself from him altogether. "Mr. Maule," she said, "when I perceived that our proposed marriage was looked upon by you as a misfortune, I could do nothing but put an end to our engagement." "But I didn't think it a misfortune." "You made me think that it would be unfortunate for you, and that is quite as strong a reason. I hope we shall part as friends." "I won't part at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke--" "It was not in joke when you said that troubles had come heavy on you since you were engaged." "A man may be allowed to know, himself, whether he was in joke or not. I suppose the truth is you don't care about me?" "I hope, Mr. Maule, that in time it may come--not quite to that." "I think that you are--using me very badly. I think that you are--behaving--falsely to me. I think that I am--very--shamefully treated--among you. Of course I shall go. Of course I shall not stay in this house. A man can't make a girl keep her promise. No--I won't shake hands. I won't even say good-bye to you. Of course I shall go." So saying he slammed the door behind him. "If he cares for you he'll come back to you," Lady Chiltern said to Adelaide that night, who at the moment was lying on her bed in a sad condition, frantic with headache. "I don't want him to come back; I will never make him go to Boulogne." "Don't think of it, dear." "Not think of it! how can I help thinking of it? I shall always think of it. But I never want to see him again--never! How can I want to marry a man who tells me that I shall be a trouble to him? He shall never,--never have to go to Boulogne for me." CHAPTER XLIII. THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT. The quarrel between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most engrossing. There was the personal phase,--which had reference to the direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen, and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours abroad, very little was known. It was reported in some circles that the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking each other; in some, again, that a blow had passed,--and in others, further removed probably from the House of Commons and the Universe Club, that the Irishman had struck the Englishman, and that the Englishman had given the Irishman a thrashing. This was a phase that was very disagreeable to Phineas Finn. And there was a third, --which may perhaps be called the general social phase, and which unfortunately dealt with the name of Lady Laura Kennedy. They all, of course, worked into each other, and were enlivened and made interesting with the names of a great many big persons. Mr. Gresham, the Prime Minister, was supposed to be very much concerned in this matter. He, it was said, had found himself compelled to exclude Phineas Finn from the Government, because of the unfortunate alliance between him and the wife of one of his late colleagues, and had also thought it expedient to dismiss Mr. Bonteen from his Cabinet,--for it had amounted almost to dismissal,--because Mr. Bonteen had made indiscreet official allusion to that alliance. In consequence of this working in of the first and third phase, Mr. Gresham encountered hard usage from some friends and from many enemies. Then, of course, the scene at Macpherson's Hotel was commented on very generally. An idea prevailed that Mr. Kennedy, driven to madness by his wife's infidelity, which had become known to him through the quarrel between Phineas and Mr. Bonteen,--had endeavoured to murder his wife's lover, who had with the utmost effrontery invaded the injured husband's presence with a view of deterring him by threats from a publication of his wrongs. This murder had been nearly accomplished in the centre of the metropolis,--by daylight, as if that made it worse,--on a Sunday, which added infinitely to the delightful horror of the catastrophe; and yet no public notice had been taken of it! The would-be murderer had been a Cabinet Minister, and the lover who was so nearly murdered had been an Under-Secretary of State, and was even now a member of Parliament. And then it was positively known that the lady's father, who had always been held in the highest respect as a nobleman, favoured his daughter's lover, and not his daughter's husband. All which things together filled the public with dismay, and caused a delightful excitement, giving quite a feature of its own to the season. No doubt general opinion was adverse to poor Phineas Finn, but he was not without his party in the matter. To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself. We have already seen how the young Duchess failed in her attempt to obtain an appointment for Phineas, and also how she succeeded in destroying the high hopes of Mr. Bonteen. Having done so much, of course she clung heartily to the side which she had adopted;--and, equally of course, Madame Goesler did the same. Between these two ladies there was a slight difference of opinion as to the nature of the alliance between Lady Laura and their hero. The Duchess was of opinion that young men are upon the whole averse to innocent alliances, and that, as Lady Laura and her husband certainly had long been separated, there was probably--something in it. "Lord bless you, my dear," the Duchess said, "they were known to be lovers when they were at Loughlinter together before she married Mr. Kennedy. It has been the most romantic affair! She made her father give him a seat for his borough." "He saved Mr. Kennedy's life," said Madame Goesler. "That was one of the most singular things that ever happened. Laurence Fitzgibbon says that it was all planned,--that the garotters were hired, but unfortunately two policemen turned up at the moment, so the men were taken. I believe there is no doubt they were pardoned by Sir Henry Coldfoot, who was at the Home Office, and was Lord Brentford's great friend. I don't quite believe it all,--it would be too delicious; but a great many do." Madame Goesler, however, was strong in her opinion that the report in reference to Lady Laura was scandalous. She did not believe a word of it, and was almost angry with the Duchess for her credulity. It is probable that very many ladies shared the opinion of the Duchess; but not the less on that account did they take part with Phineas Finn. They could not understand why he should be shut out of office because a lady had been in love with him, and by no means seemed to approve the stern virtue of the Prime Minister. It was an interference with things which did not belong to him. And many asserted that Mr. Gresham was much given to such interference. Lady Cantrip, though her husband was Mr. Gresham's most intimate friend, was altogether of this party, as was also the Duchess of St. Bungay, who understood nothing at all about it, but who had once fancied herself to be rudely treated by Mrs. Bonteen. The young Duchess was a woman very strong in getting up a party; and the old Duchess, with many other matrons of high rank, was made to believe that it was incumbent on her to be a Phineas Finnite. One result of this was, that though Phineas was excluded from the Liberal Government, all Liberal drawing-rooms were open to him, and that he was a lion. Additional zest was given to all this by the very indiscreet conduct of Mr. Bonteen. He did accept the inferior office of President of the Board of Trade, an office inferior at least to that for which he had been designated, and agreed to fill it without a seat in the Cabinet. But having done so he could not bring himself to bear his disappointment quietly. He could not work and wait and make himself agreeable to those around him, holding his vexation within his own bosom. He was dark and sullen to his chief, and almost insolent to the Duke of Omnium. Our old friend Plantagenet Palliser was a man who hardly knew insolence when he met it. There was such an absence about him of all self-consciousness, he was so little given to think of his own personal demeanour and outward trappings,--that he never brought himself to question the manners of others to him. Contradiction he would take for simple argument. Strong difference of opinion even on the part of subordinates recommended itself to him. He could put up with apparent rudeness without seeing it, and always gave men credit for good intentions. And with it all he had an assurance in his own position,--a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect, his industry, his rank, and his wealth,--which made him altogether fearless of others. When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable. Mr. Bonteen snarled a good deal, and the new Lord Privy Seal thought that the new President of the Board of Trade was not comfortable within himself. But at last the little dog took the big dog by the ear, and then the big dog put out his paw and knocked the little dog over. Mr. Bonteen was told that he had--forgotten himself; and there arose new rumours. It was soon reported that the Lord Privy Seal had refused to work out decimal coinage under the management, in the House of Commons, of the President of the Board of Trade. Mr. Bonteen, in his troubled spirit, certainly did misbehave himself. Among his closer friends he declared very loudly that he didn't mean to stand it. He had not chosen to throw Mr. Gresham over at once, or to make difficulties at the moment;--but he would not continue to hold his present position or to support the Government without a seat in the Cabinet. Palliser had become quite useless,--so Mr. Bonteen said,--since his accession to the dukedom, and was quite unfit to deal with decimal coinage. It was a burden to kill any man, and he was not going to kill himself,--at any rate without the reward for which he had been working all his life, and to which he was fully entitled, namely, a seat in the Cabinet. Now there were Bonteenites in those days as well as Phineas Finnites. The latter tribe was for the most part feminine; but the former consisted of some half-dozen members of Parliament, who thought they saw their way in encouraging the forlorn hope of the unhappy financier. A leader of a party is nothing without an organ, and an organ came forward to support Mr. Bonteen,--not very creditable to him as a Liberal, being a Conservative organ,--but not the less gratifying to his spirit, inasmuch as the organ not only supported him, but exerted its very loudest pipes in abusing the man whom of all men he hated the most. The People's Banner was the organ, and Mr. Quintus Slide was, of course, the organist. The following was one of the tunes he played, and was supposed by himself to be a second thunderbolt, and probably a conclusively crushing missile. This thunderbolt fell on Monday, the 3rd of May:-- Early in last March we found it to be our duty to bring under public notice the conduct of the member for Tankerville in reference to a transaction which took place at a small hotel in Judd Street, and as to which we then ventured to call for the interference of the police. An attempt to murder the member for Tankerville had been made by a gentleman once well known in the political world, who,--as it is supposed,--had been driven to madness by wrongs inflicted on him in his dearest and nearest family relations. That the unfortunate gentleman is now insane we believe we may state as a fact. It had become our special duty to refer to this most discreditable transaction, from the fact that a paper, still in our hands, had been confided to us for publication by the wretched husband before his senses had become impaired,--which, however, we were debarred from giving to the public by an injunction served upon us in sudden haste by the Vice-Chancellor. We are far from imputing evil motives, or even indiscretion, to that functionary; but we are of opinion that the moral feeling of the country would have been served by the publication, and we are sure that undue steps were taken by the member for Tankerville to procure that injunction. No inquiries whatever were made by the police in reference to that attempt at murder, and we do expect that some member will ask a question on the subject in the House. Would such culpable quiescence have been allowed had not the unfortunate lady whose name we are unwilling to mention been the daughter of one of the colleagues of our present Prime Minister, the gentleman who fired the pistol another of them, and the presumed lover, who was fired at, also another? We think that we need hardly answer that question. One piece of advice which we ventured to give Mr. Gresham in our former article he has been wise enough to follow. We took upon ourselves to tell him that if, after what has occurred, he ventured to place the member for Tankerville again in office, the country would not stand it;--and he has abstained. The jaunty footsteps of Mr. Phineas Finn are not heard ascending the stairs of any office at about two in the afternoon, as used to be the case in one of those blessed Downing Street abodes about three years since. That scandal is, we think, over,--and for ever. The good-looking Irish member of Parliament who had been put in possession of a handsome salary by feminine influences, will not, we think, after what we have already said, again become a burden on the public purse. But we cannot say that we are as yet satisfied in this matter, or that we believe that the public has got to the bottom of it,--as it has a right to do in reference to all matters affecting the public service. We have never yet learned why it is that Mr. Bonteen, after having been nominated Chancellor of the Exchequer,--for the appointment to that office was declared in the House of Commons by the head of his party,--was afterwards excluded from the Cabinet, and placed in an office made peculiarly subordinate by the fact of that exclusion. We have never yet been told why this was done;--but we believe that we are justified in saying that it was managed through the influence of the member for Tankerville; and we are quite sure that the public service of the country has thereby been subjected to grievous injury. It is hardly our duty to praise any of that very awkward team of horses which Mr. Gresham drives with an audacity which may atone for his incapacity if no fearful accident should be the consequence; but if there be one among them whom we could trust for steady work up hill, it is Mr. Bonteen. We were astounded at Mr. Gresham's indiscretion in announcing the appointment of his new Chancellor of the Exchequer some weeks before he had succeeded in driving Mr. Daubeny from office;--but we were not the less glad to find that the finances of the country were to be entrusted to the hands of the most competent gentleman whom Mr. Gresham has induced to follow his fortunes. But Mr. Phineas Finn, with his female forces, has again interfered, and Mr. Bonteen has been relegated to the Board of Trade, without a seat in the Cabinet. We should not be at all surprised if, as the result of this disgraceful manoeuvring, Mr. Bonteen found himself at the head of the Liberal party before the Session be over. If so, evil would have worked to good. But, be that as it may, we cannot but feel that it is a disgrace to the Government, a disgrace to Parliament, and a disgrace to the country that such results should come from the private scandals of two or three people among us by no means of the best class. CHAPTER XLIV. THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL. There was another matter of public interest going on at this time which created a great excitement. And this, too, added to the importance of Phineas Finn, though Phineas was not the hero of the piece. Mr. Browborough, the late member for Tankerville, was tried for bribery. It will be remembered that when Phineas contested the borough in the autumn, this gentleman was returned. He was afterwards unseated, as the result of a petition before the judge, and Phineas was declared to be the true member. The judge who had so decided had reported to the Speaker that further inquiry before a commission into the practices of the late and former elections at Tankerville would be expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of January and February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, and many who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, being new brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough, whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted. That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny's great bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling about Mr. Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member of Parliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, who wanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom a seat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It could not be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slow step in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one of the upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side of the House, that such a man should really be punished. When the new laws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of members revolted from the cruelty,--the hearts even of members on the other side of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battle should of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusation might then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practice imputed. It had been known to all the world,--known as a thing that was a matter of course,--that at every election Mr. Browborough had bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying it,--a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics, entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a one recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money in his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in his hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it--like a gentleman. Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put down bribery with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against bribery with more fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, as Attorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. He was now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Gresham had at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to the woolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecution of Mr. Browborough. But it was observed by many that the job was not much to his taste. The House had been very hot against bribery,--and certain members of the existing Government, when the late Bill had been passed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignation against the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slight undercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of which only they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House was bound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices at elections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of the House, as individuals, knew very well what had taken place at their own elections, and were aware of the cheques which they had drawn. Public-houses had been kept open as a matter of course, and nowhere perhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the borough for which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter of individual prosecution against one whom they had all known, and who, as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive, against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, many thought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members of Parliament generally. The recommendation for this prosecution was made to the House when Mr. Daubeny was in the first agonies of his great Bill, and he at once resolved to ignore the matter altogether, at any rate for the present. If he was to be driven out of power there could be no reason why his Attorney-General should prosecute his own ally and follower,--a poor, faithful creature, who had never in his life voted against his party, and who had always been willing to accept as his natural leader any one whom his party might select. But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough must certainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,--for there could be no final neglecting of the Commissioners' report,--it would be better that he should be dealt with by natural friends than by natural enemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry the matter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take place at the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir Gregory Grogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and he undertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends, and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would be the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His lawyers thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on, and were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would be extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel, and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the best chance of acquittal lay in postponement. And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was to appear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could be no doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr. Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty. When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared in the newspapers,--when first the facts of this and other elections at Tankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common it had been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,--how clearly the knowledge of the corruption had been brought home to himself,--there had for a short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three London papers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salient points of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a conviction that now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But this had died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even on the part of the most virtuous of the public press, had become no more than lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculed the Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogether an absurdity. The People's Banner, setting at defiance with an admirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners' report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence against Mr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up by the malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. But men who knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr. Quintus Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these were both unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believed to be quite safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of his prosecutors,--certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent in affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man may not look over a hedge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, and had repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it all was forthcoming,--had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir Gregory Grogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might be condoned. Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within the last two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville. The Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicals remembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seat again on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might have been returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county the prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as a martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney, everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his case, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browborough was about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr. Baron Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his younger days, and who knew well how things were done. We are all aware how impassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused of crimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all are men, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, could not but have thought of the old days. It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should be conducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidence should be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over from Tankerville,--miners, colliers, and the like,--having a very good turn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must be examined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as when it was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweeping Commissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of Sir Gregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphere of our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint of corruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on the subject, and a verdict had gone forth that there should be no more bribery at elections. At the last election at Tankerville, and, as he feared, at some former elections, there had been manifest bribery. It would be for the jury to decide whether Mr. Browborough himself had been so connected with the acts of his agents as to be himself within the reach of the law. If it were found that he had brought himself within the reach of the law, the jury would no doubt say so, and in such case would do great service to the cause of purity; but if Mr. Browborough had not been personally cognisant of what his agents had done, then the jury would be bound to acquit him. A man was not necessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because bribery had been committed, even though the bribery so committed had been sufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he would otherwise have enjoyed. Nothing could be clearer than the manner in which Sir Gregory explained it all to the jury; nothing more eloquent than his denunciations against bribery in general; nothing more mild than his allegations against Mr. Browborough individually. In regard to the evidence Sir Gregory, with his two assistants, went through his work manfully. The evidence was given,--not to the same length as at Tankerville before the Commissioners,--but really to the same effect. But yet the record of the evidence as given in the newspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville there had been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which had communicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavour of the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr. Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for the prosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,--wrath righteous on behalf of injured innocence,--which is so common with gentlemen employed in the defence of criminals; but bowed and simpered, and nodded at Sir Gregory in a manner that was quite pleasant to behold. Nobody scolded anybody. There was no roaring of barristers, no clenching of fists and kicking up of dust, no threats, no allusions to witnesses' oaths. A considerable amount of gentle fun was poked at the witnesses by the defending counsel, but not in a manner to give any pain. Gentlemen who acknowledged to have received seventeen shillings and sixpence for their votes at the last election were asked how they had invested their money. Allusions were made to their wives, and a large amount of good-humoured sparring was allowed, in which the witnesses thought that they had the best of it. The men of Tankerville long remembered this trial, and hoped anxiously that there might soon be another. The only man treated with severity was poor Phineas Finn, and luckily for himself he was not present. His qualifications as member of Parliament for Tankerville were somewhat roughly treated. Each witness there, when he was asked what candidate would probably be returned for Tankerville at the next election, readily answered that Mr. Browborough would certainly carry the seat. Mr. Browborough sat in the Court throughout it all, and was the hero of the day. The judge's summing up was very short, and seemed to have been given almost with indolence. The one point on which he insisted was the difference between such evidence of bribery as would deprive a man of his seat, and that which would make him subject to the criminal law. By the criminal law a man could not be punished for the acts of another. Punishment must follow a man's own act. If a man were to instigate another to murder he would be punished, not for the murder, but for the instigation. They were now administering the criminal law, and they were bound to give their verdict for an acquittal unless they were convinced that the man on his trial had himself,--wilfully and wittingly,--been guilty of the crime imputed. He went through the evidence, which was in itself clear against the old sinner, and which had been in no instance validly contradicted, and then left the matter to the jury. The men in the box put their heads together, and returned a verdict of acquittal without one moment's delay. Sir Gregory Grogram and his assistants collected their papers together. The judge addressed three or four words almost of compliment to Mr. Browborough, and the affair was over, to the manifest contentment of every one there present. Sir Gregory Grogram was by no means disappointed, and everybody, on his own side in Parliament and on the other, thought that he had done his duty very well. The clean-sweeping Commissioners, who had been animated with wonderful zeal by the nature and novelty of their work, probably felt that they had been betrayed, but it may be doubted whether any one else was disconcerted by the result of the trial, unless it might be some poor innocents here and there about the country who had been induced to believe that bribery and corruption were in truth to be banished from the purlieus of Westminster. Mr. Roby and Mr. Ratler, who filled the same office each for his own party, in and out, were both acquainted with each other, and apt to discuss parliamentary questions in the library and smoking-room of the House, where such discussions could be held on most matters. "I was very glad that the case went as it did at Durham," said Mr. Ratler. "And so am I," said Mr. Roby. "Browborough was always a good fellow." "Not a doubt about it; and no good could have come from a conviction. I suppose there has been a little money spent at Tankerville." "And at other places one could mention," said Mr. Roby. "Of course there has;--and money will be spent again. Nobody dislikes bribery more than I do. The House, of course, dislikes it. But if a man loses his seat, surely that is punishment enough." "It's better to have to draw a cheque sometimes than to be out in the cold." "Nevertheless, members would prefer that their seats should not cost them so much," continued Mr. Ratler. "But the thing can't be done all at once. That idea of pouncing upon one man and making a victim of him is very disagreeable to me. I should have been sorry to have seen a verdict against Browborough. You must acknowledge that there was no bitterness in the way in which Grogram did it." "We all feel that," said Mr. Roby,--who was, perhaps, by nature a little more candid than his rival,--"and when the time comes no doubt we shall return the compliment." The matter was discussed in quite a different spirit between two other politicians. "So Sir Gregory has failed at Durham," said Lord Cantrip to his friend, Mr. Gresham. "I was sure he would." "And why?" "Ah;--why? How am I to answer such a question? Did you think that Mr. Browborough would be convicted of bribery by a jury?" "No, indeed," answered Lord Cantrip. "And can you tell me why?" "Because there was no earnestness in the matter,--either with the Attorney-General or with any one else." "And yet," said Mr. Gresham, "Grogram is a very earnest man when he believes in his case. No member of Parliament will ever be punished for bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally look upon bribery as a crime. We are very far from that as yet. I should have thought a conviction to be a great misfortune." "Why so?" "Because it would have created ill blood, and our own hands in this matter are not a bit cleaner than those of our adversaries. We can't afford to pull their houses to pieces before we have put our own in order. The thing will be done; but it must, I fear, be done slowly,--as is the case with all reforms from within." Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and who consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity, felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been almost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would have thought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to the offence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me so much," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk. "I can't go along with you there." "If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!" "I don't doubt it for a moment." "And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict." "Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such as that,--political and not social in its nature,--a jury is sure to be guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be the feeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, and yet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all those who have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive." "Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas. "I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them. They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have been had they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in private life, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;--and they will be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are still circumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue with no more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himself at his front door though he happen to be at home." "What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?" "That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can think anything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and the jury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In political matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his neighbours,--and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have found that out before to-day." With Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas did find some sympathy;--but then she would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. If he would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to the top of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Square as little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolution by the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town in reference to himself and herself. But still he went. He never left her till some promise of returning at some stated time had been extracted from him. He had even told her of his own scruples and of her danger,--and they had discussed together that last thunderbolt which had fallen from the Jove of The People's Banner. But she had laughed his caution to scorn. Did she not know herself and her own innocence? Was she not living in her father's house, and with her father? Should she quail beneath the stings and venom of such a reptile as Quintus Slide? "Oh, Phineas," she said, "let us be braver than that." He would much prefer to have stayed away,--but still he went to her. He was conscious of her dangerous love for him. He knew well that it was not returned. He was aware that it would be best for both that he should be apart. But yet he could not bring himself to wound her by his absence. "I do not see why you should feel it so much," she said, speaking of the trial at Durham. "We were both on our trial,--he and I." "Everybody knows that he bribed and that you did not." "Yes;--and everybody despises me and pats him on the back. I am sick of the whole thing. There is no honesty in the life we lead." "You got your seat at any rate." "I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the dirty wretched place," said he. "Oh, Phineas, do not say that." "But I do say it. Of what use is the seat to me? If I could only feel that any one knew--" "Knew what, Phineas?" "It doesn't matter." "I understand. I know that you have meant to be honest, while this man has always meant to be dishonest. I know that you have intended to serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannot expect that it should all be roses." "Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made of garlick and dandelions!" CHAPTER XLV. SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS. The writer of this chronicle is not allowed to imagine that any of his readers have read the wonderful and vexatious adventures of Lady Eustace, a lady of good birth, of high rank, and of large fortune, who, but a year or two since, became almost a martyr to a diamond necklace which was stolen from her. With her history the present reader has but small concern, but it may be necessary that he should know that the lady in question, who had been a widow with many suitors, at last gave her hand and her fortune to a clergyman whose name was Joseph Emilius. Mr. Emilius, though not an Englishman by birth,--and, as was supposed, a Bohemian Jew in the earlier days of his career,--had obtained some reputation as a preacher in London, and had moved,--if not in fashionable circles,--at any rate in circles so near to fashion as to be brought within the reach of Lady Eustace's charms. They were married, and for some few months Mr. Emilius enjoyed a halcyon existence, the delights of which were, perhaps, not materially marred by the necessity which he felt of subjecting his young wife to marital authority. "My dear," he would say, "you will know me better soon, and then things will be smooth." In the meantime he drew more largely upon her money than was pleasing to her and to her friends, and appeared to have requirements for cash which were both secret and unlimited. At the end of twelve months Lady Eustace had run away from him, and Mr. Emilius had made overtures, by accepting which his wife would be enabled to purchase his absence at the cost of half her income. The arrangement was not regarded as being in every respect satisfactory, but Lady Eustace declared passionately that any possible sacrifice would be preferable to the company of Mr. Emilius. There had, however, been a rumour before her marriage that there was still living in his old country a Mrs. Emilius when he married Lady Eustace; and, though it had been supposed by those who were most nearly concerned with Lady Eustace that this report had been unfounded and malicious, nevertheless, when the man's claims became so exorbitant, reference was again made to the charge of bigamy. If it could be proved that Mr. Emilius had a wife living in Bohemia, a cheaper mode of escape would be found for the persecuted lady than that which he himself had suggested. It had happened that, since her marriage with Mr. Emilius, Lady Eustace had become intimate with our Mr. Bonteen and his wife. She had been at one time engaged to marry Lord Fawn, one of Mr. Bonteen's colleagues, and during the various circumstances which had led to the disruption of that engagement, this friendship had been formed. It must be understood that Lady Eustace had a most desirable residence of her own in the country,--Portray Castle in Scotland,--and that it was thought expedient by many to cultivate her acquaintance. She was rich, beautiful, and clever; and, though her marriage with Mr. Emilius had never been looked upon as a success, still, in the estimation of some people, it added an interest to her career. The Bonteens had taken her up, and now both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were hot in pursuit of evidence which might prove Mr. Emilius to be a bigamist. When the disruption of conjugal relations was commenced, Lady Eustace succeeded in obtaining refuge at Portray Castle without the presence of her husband. She fled from London during a visit he made to Brighton with the object of preaching to a congregation by which his eloquence was held in great esteem. He left London in one direction by the 5 P.M. express train on Saturday, and she in the other by the limited mail at 8.45. A telegram, informing him of what had taken place, reached him the next morning at Brighton while he was at breakfast. He preached his sermon, charming the congregation by the graces of his extempore eloquence,--moving every woman there to tears,--and then was after his wife before the ladies had taken their first glass of sherry at luncheon. But her ladyship had twenty-four hours' start of him,--although he did his best; and when he reached Portray Castle the door was shut in his face. He endeavoured to obtain the aid of blacksmiths to open, as he said, his own hall door,--to obtain the aid of constables to compel the blacksmiths, of magistrates to compel the constables,--and even of a judge to compel the magistrates; but he was met on every side by a statement that the lady of the castle declared that she was not his wife, and that therefore he had no right whatever to demand that the door should be opened. Some other woman,--so he was informed that the lady said,--out in a strange country was really his wife. It was her intention to prove him to be a bigamist, and to have him locked up. In the meantime she chose to lock herself up in her own mansion. Such was the nature of the message that was delivered to him through the bars of the lady's castle. How poor Lady Eustace was protected, and, at the same time, made miserable by the energy and unrestrained language of one of her own servants, Andrew Gowran by name, it hardly concerns us now to inquire. Mr. Emilius did not succeed in effecting an entrance; but he remained for some time in the neighbourhood, and had notices served on the tenants in regard to the rents, which puzzled the poor folk round Portray Castle very much. After a while Lady Eustace, finding that her peace and comfort imperatively demanded that she should prove the allegations which she had made, fled again from Portray Castle to London, and threw herself into the hands of the Bonteens. This took place just as Mr. Bonteen's hopes in regard to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer were beginning to soar high, and when his hands were very full of business. But with that energy for which he was so conspicuous, Mr. Bonteen had made a visit to Bohemia during his short Christmas holidays, and had there set people to work. When at Prague he had, he thought, very nearly unravelled the secret himself. He had found the woman whom he believed to be Mrs. Emilius, and who was now living somewhat merrily in Prague under another name. She acknowledged that in old days, when they were both young, she had been acquainted with a certain Yosef Mealyus, at a time in which he had been in the employment of a Jewish moneylender in the city; but,--as she declared,--she had never been married to him. Mr. Bonteen learned also that the gentleman now known as Mr. Joseph Emilius of the London Chapel had been known in his own country as Yosef Mealyus, the name which had been borne by the very respectable Jew who was his father. Then Mr. Bonteen had returned home, and, as we all know, had become engaged in matters of deeper import than even the deliverance of Lady Eustace from her thraldom. Mr. Emilius made no attempt to obtain the person of his wife while she was under Mr. Bonteen's custody, but he did renew his offer to compromise. If the estate could not afford to give him the two thousand a year which he had first demanded, he would take fifteen hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was, of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle; but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence of a former marriage and of the present existence of the former wife would certainly be forthcoming, he defied Mr. Bonteen and his evidence,--and swore that if his claims were not satisfied, he would make use of the power which the English law gave him for the recovery of his wife's person. And as to her property,--it was his, not hers. From this time forward if she wanted to separate herself from him she must ask him for an allowance. Now, it certainly was the case that Lady Eustace had married the man without any sufficient precaution as to keeping her money in her own hands, and Mr. Emilius had insisted that the rents of the property which was hers for her life should be paid to him, and on his receipt only. The poor tenants had been noticed this way and noticed that till they had begun to doubt whether their safest course would not be to keep their rents in their own hands. But lately the lawyers of the Eustace family,--who were not, indeed, very fond of Lady Eustace personally,--came forward for the sake of the property, and guaranteed the tenants against all proceedings until the question of the legality of the marriage should be settled. So Mr. Emilius,--or the Reverend Mealyus, as everybody now called him,--went to law; and Lady Eustace went to law; and the Eustace family went to law;--but still, as yet, no evidence was forthcoming sufficient to enable Mr. Bonteen, as the lady's friend, to put the gentleman into prison. It was said for a while that Mealyus had absconded. After his interview with Mr. Bonteen he certainly did leave England and made a journey to Prague. It was thought that he would not return, and that Lady Eustace would be obliged to carry on the trial, which was to liberate her and her property, in his absence. She was told that the very fact of his absence would go far with a jury, and she was glad to be freed from his presence in England. But he did return, declaring aloud that he would have his rights. His wife should be made to put herself into his hands, and he would obtain possession of the income which was his own. People then began to doubt. It was known that a very clever lawyer's clerk had been sent to Prague to complete the work there which Mr. Bonteen had commenced. But the clerk did not come back as soon as was expected, and news arrived that he had been taken ill. There was a rumour that he had been poisoned at his hotel; but, as the man was not said to be dead, people hardly believed the rumour. It became necessary, however, to send another lawyer's clerk, and the matter was gradually progressing to a very interesting complication. Mr. Bonteen, to tell the truth, was becoming sick of it. When Emilius, or Mealyus, was supposed to have absconded, Lady Eustace left Mr. Bonteen's house, and located herself at one of the large London hotels; but when the man came back, bolder than ever, she again betook herself to the shelter of Mr. Bonteen's roof. She expressed the most lavish affection for Mrs. Bonteen, and professed to regard Mr. Bonteen as almost a political god, declaring her conviction that he, and he alone, as Prime Minister, could save the country, and became very loud in her wrath when he was robbed of his seat in the Cabinet. Lizzie Eustace, as her ladyship had always been called, was a clever, pretty, coaxing little woman, who knew how to make the most of her advantages. She had not been very wise in her life, having lost the friends who would have been truest to her, and confided in persons who had greatly injured her. She was neither true of heart or tongue, nor affectionate, nor even honest. But she was engaging; she could flatter; and could assume a reverential admiration which was very foreign to her real character. In these days she almost worshipped Mr. Bonteen, and could never be happy except in the presence of her dearest darling friend Mrs. Bonteen. Mr. Bonteen was tired of her, and Mrs. Bonteen was becoming almost sick of the constant kisses with which she was greeted; but Lizzie Eustace had got hold of them, and they could not turn her off. "You saw The People's Banner, Mrs. Bonteen, on Monday?" Lady Eustace had been reading the paper in her friend's drawing-room. "They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister before long." [Illustration: "They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister."] "I don't think he expects that, my dear." "Why not? Everybody says The People's Banner is the cleverest paper we have now. I always hated the very name of that Phineas Finn." "Did you know him?" "Not exactly. He was gone before my time; but poor Lord Fawn used to talk of him. He was one of those conceited Irish upstarts that are never good for anything." "Very handsome, you know," said Mrs. Bonteen. "Was he? I have heard it said that a good many ladies admired him." "It was quite absurd; with Lady Laura Kennedy it was worse than absurd. And there was Lady Glencora, and Violet Effingham, who married Lady Laura's brother, and that Madame Goesler, whom I hate,--and ever so many others." "And is it true that it was he who got Mr. Bonteen so shamefully used?" "It was his faction." "I do so hate that kind of thing," said Lady Eustace, with righteous indignation; "I used to hear a great deal about Government and all that when the affair was on between me and poor Lord Fawn, and that kind of dishonesty always disgusted me. I don't know that I think so much of Mr. Gresham after all." "He is a very weak man." "His conduct to Mr. Bonteen has been outrageous; and if he has done it just because that Duchess of Omnium has told him, I really do think that he is not fit to rule the nation. As for Mr. Phineas Finn, it is dreadful to think that a creature like that should be able to interfere with such a man as Mr. Bonteen." This was on Wednesday afternoon,--the day on which members of Parliament dine out,--and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and so worried, Mr. Bonteen." "Worried;--I should think so." "Is there anything fresh?" asked his wife. "That fellow Finn is spreading all manner of lies about me." "What lies, Mr. Bonteen?" asked Lady Eustace. "Not new lies, I hope." "It all comes from Carlton Terrace." The reader may perhaps remember that the young Duchess of Omnium lived in Carlton Terrace. "I can trace it all there. I won't stand it if it goes on like this. A clique of stupid women to take up the cudgels for a coal-heaving sort of fellow like that, and sting one like a lot of hornets! Would you believe it?--the Duke almost refused to speak to me just now--a man for whom I have been working like a slave for the last twelve months!" "I would not stand it," said Lady Eustace. "By the bye, Lady Eustace, we have had news from Prague." "What news?" said she, clasping her hands. "That fellow Pratt we sent out is dead." "No!" "Not a doubt but what he was poisoned; but they seem to think that nothing can be proved. Coulson is on his way out, and I shouldn't wonder if they served him the same." "And it might have been you!" said Lady Eustace, taking hold of her friend's arm with almost frantic affection. Yes, indeed. It might have been the lot of Mr. Bonteen to have died at Prague--to have been poisoned by the machinations of the former Mrs. Mealyus, if such really had been the fortune of the unfortunate Mr. Pratt. For he had been quite as busy at Prague as his successor in the work. He had found out much, though not everything. It certainly had been believed that Yosef Mealyus was a married man, but he had brought the woman with him to Prague, and had certainly not married her in the city. She was believed to have come from Cracow, and Mr. Bonteen's zeal on behalf of his friend had not been sufficient to carry him so far East. But he had learned from various sources that the man and woman had been supposed to be married,--that she had borne the man's name, and that he had taken upon himself authority as her husband. There had been written communications with Cracow, and information was received that a man of the name of Yosef Mealyus had been married to a Jewess in that town. But this had been twenty years ago, and Mr. Emilius professed himself to be only thirty-five years old, and had in his possession a document from his synagogue professing to give a record of his birth, proving such to be his age. It was also ascertained that Mealyus was a name common at Cracow, and that there were very many of the family in Galicia. Altogether the case was full of difficulty, but it was thought that Mr. Bonteen's evidence would be sufficient to save the property from the hands of the cormorant, at any rate till such time as better evidence of the first marriage could be obtained. It had been hoped that when the man went away he would not return; but he had returned, and it was now resolved that no terms should be kept with him and no payment offered to him. The house at Portray was kept barred, and the servants were ordered not to admit him. No money was to be paid to him, and he was to be left to take any proceedings at law which he might please,--while his adversaries were proceeding against him with all the weapons at their disposal. In the meantime his chapel was of course deserted, and the unfortunate man was left penniless in the world. Various opinions prevailed as to Mr. Bonteen's conduct in the matter. Some people remembered that during the last autumn he and his wife had stayed three months at Portray Castle, and declared that the friendship between them and Lady Eustace had been very useful. Of these malicious people it seemed to be, moreover, the opinion that the connection might become even more useful if Mr. Emilius could be discharged. It was true that Mrs. Bonteen had borrowed a little money from Lady Eustace, but of this her husband knew nothing till the Jew in his wrath made the thing public. After all it had only been a poor £25, and the money had been repaid before Mr. Bonteen took his journey to Prague. Mr. Bonteen was, however, unable to deny that the cost of that journey was defrayed by Lady Eustace, and it was thought mean in a man aspiring to be Chancellor of the Exchequer to have his travelling expenses paid for him by a lady. Many, however, were of opinion that Mr. Bonteen had been almost romantic in his friendship, and that the bright eyes of Lady Eustace had produced upon this dragon of business the wonderful effect that was noticed. Be that as it may, now, in the terrible distress of his mind at the political aspect of the times, he had become almost sick of Lady Eustace, and would gladly have sent her away from his house had he known how to do so without incurring censure. CHAPTER XLVI. THE QUARREL. On that Wednesday evening Phineas Finn was at The Universe. He dined at the house of Madame Goesler, and went from thence to the club in better spirits than he had known for some weeks past. The Duke and Duchess had been at Madame Goesler's, and Lord and Lady Chiltern, who were now up in town, with Barrington Erle, and,--as it had happened,--old Mr. Maule. The dinner had been very pleasant, and two or three words had been spoken which had tended to raise the heart of our hero. In the first place Barrington Erle had expressed a regret that Phineas was not at his old post at the Colonies, and the young Duke had re-echoed it. Phineas thought that the manner of his old friend Erle was more cordial to him than it had been lately, and even that comforted him. Then it was a delight to him to meet the Chilterns, who were always gracious to him. But perhaps his greatest pleasure came from the reception which was accorded by his hostess to Mr. Maule, which was of a nature not easy to describe. It had become evident to Phineas that Mr. Maule was constant in his attentions to Madame Goesler; and, though he had no purpose of his own in reference to the lady,--though he was aware that former circumstances, circumstances of that previous life to which he was accustomed to look back as to another existence, made it impossible that he should have any such purpose,--still he viewed Mr. Maule with dislike. He had once ventured to ask her whether she really liked "that old padded dandy." She had answered that she did like the old dandy. Old dandies, she thought, were preferable to old men who did not care how they looked;--and as for the padding, that was his affair, not hers. She did not know why a man should not have a pad in his coat, as well as a woman one at the back of her head. But Phineas had known that this was her gentle raillery, and now he was delighted to find that she continued it, after a still more gentle fashion, before the man's face. Mr. Maule's manner was certainly peculiar. He was more than ordinarily polite,--and was afterwards declared by the Duchess to have made love like an old gander. But Madame Goesler, who knew exactly how to receive such attentions, turned a glance now and then upon Phineas Finn, which he could now read with absolute precision. "You see how I can dispose of a padded old dandy directly he goes an inch too far." No words could have said that to him more plainly than did these one or two glances;--and, as he had learned to dislike Mr. Maule, he was gratified. Of course they all talked about Lady Eustace and Mr. Emilius. "Do you remember how intensely interested the dear old Duke used to be when we none of us knew what had become of the diamonds?" said the Duchess. "And how you took her part," said Madame Goesler. "So did you,--just as much as I; and why not? She was a most interesting young woman, and I sincerely hope we have not got to the end of her yet. The worst of it is that she has got into such--very bad hands. The Bonteens have taken her up altogether. Do you know her, Mr. Finn?" "No, Duchess;--and am hardly likely to make her acquaintance while she remains where she is now." The Duchess laughed and nodded her head. All the world knew by this time that she had declared herself to be the sworn enemy of the Bonteens. And there had been some conversation on that terribly difficult question respecting the foxes in Trumpeton Wood. "The fact is, Lord Chiltern," said the Duke, "I'm as ignorant as a child. I would do right if I knew how. What ought I to do? Shall I import some foxes?" "I don't suppose, Duke, that in all England there is a spot in which foxes are more prone to breed." "Indeed. I'm very glad of that. But something goes wrong afterwards, I fear." "The nurseries are not well managed, perhaps," said the Duchess. "Gipsy kidnappers are allowed about the place," said Madame Goesler. "Gipsies!" exclaimed the Duke. "Poachers!" said Lord Chiltern. "But it isn't that we mind. We could deal with that ourselves if the woods were properly managed. A head of game and foxes can be reared together very well, if--" "I don't care a straw for a head of game, Lord Chiltern. As far as my own tastes go, I would wish that there was neither a pheasant nor a partridge nor a hare on any property that I own. I think that sheep and barn-door fowls do better for everybody in the long run, and that men who cannot live without shooting should go beyond thickly-populated regions to find it. And, indeed, for myself, I must say the same about foxes. They do not interest me, and I fancy that they will gradually be exterminated." "God forbid!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern. "But I do not find myself called upon to exterminate them myself," continued the Duke. "The number of men who amuse themselves by riding after one fox is too great for me to wish to interfere with them. And I know that my neighbours in the country conceive it to be my duty to have foxes for them. I will oblige them, Lord Chiltern, as far as I can without detriment to other duties." "You leave it to me," said the Duchess to her neighbour, Lord Chiltern. "I'll speak to Mr. Fothergill myself, and have it put right." It unfortunately happened, however, that Lord Chiltern got a letter the very next morning from old Doggett telling him that a litter of young cubs had been destroyed that week in Trumpeton Wood. Barrington Erle and Phineas went off to The Universe together, and as they went the old terms of intimacy seemed to be re-established between them. "Nobody can be so sorry as I am," said Barrington, "at the manner in which things have gone. When I wrote to you, of course, I thought it certain that, if we came in, you would come with us." "Do not let that fret you." "But it does fret me,--very much. There are so many slips that of course no one can answer for anything." "Of course not. I know who has been my friend." "The joke of it is, that he himself is at present so utterly friendless. The Duke will hardly speak to him. I know that as a fact. And Gresham has begun to find something is wrong. We all hoped that he would refuse to come in without a seat in the Cabinet;--but that was too good to be true. They say he talks of resigning. I shall believe it when I see it. He'd better not play any tricks, for if he did resign, it would be accepted at once." Phineas, when he heard this, could not help thinking how glorious it would be if Mr. Bonteen were to resign, and if the place so vacated, or some vacancy so occasioned, were to be filled by him! They reached the club together, and as they went up the stairs, they heard the hum of many voices in the room. "All the world and his wife are here to-night," said Phineas. They overtook a couple of men at the door, so that there was something of the bustle of a crowd as they entered. There was a difficulty in finding places in which to put their coats and hats,--for the accommodation of The Universe is not great. There was a knot of men talking not far from them, and among the voices Phineas could clearly hear that of Mr. Bonteen. Ratler's he had heard before, and also Fitzgibbon's, though he had not distinguished any words from them. But those spoken by Mr. Bonteen he did distinguish very plainly. "Mr. Phineas Finn, or some such fellow as that, would be after her at once," said Mr. Bonteen. Then Phineas walked immediately among the knot of men and showed himself. As soon as he heard his name mentioned, he doubted for a moment what he would do. Mr. Bonteen when speaking had not known of his presence, and it might be his duty not to seem to have listened. But the speech had been made aloud, in the open room,--so that those who chose might listen;--and Phineas could not but have heard it. In that moment he resolved that he was bound to take notice of what he had heard. "What is it, Mr. Bonteen, that Phineas Finn will do?" he asked. Mr. Bonteen had been--dining. He was not a man by any means habitually intemperate, and now any one saying that he was tipsy would have maligned him. But he was flushed with much wine, and he was a man whose arrogance in that condition was apt to become extreme. _"In vino veritas!"_ The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest. Mr. Bonteen looked Phineas full in the face a second or two before he answered, and then said,--quite aloud--"You have crept upon us unawares, sir." "What do you mean by that, sir?" said Phineas. "I have come in as any other man comes." "Listeners at any rate never hear any good of themselves." Then there were present among those assembled clear indications of disapproval of Bonteen's conduct. In these days,--when no palpable and immediate punishment is at hand for personal insolence from man to man,--personal insolence to one man in a company seems almost to constitute an insult to every one present. When men could fight readily, an arrogant word or two between two known to be hostile to each other was only an invitation to a duel, and the angry man was doing that for which it was known that he could be made to pay. There was, or it was often thought that there was, a real spirit in the angry man's conduct, and they who were his friends before became perhaps more his friends when he had thus shown that he had an enemy. But a different feeling prevails at present;--a feeling so different, that we may almost say that a man in general society cannot speak even roughly to any but his intimate comrades without giving offence to all around him. Men have learned to hate the nuisance of a row, and to feel that their comfort is endangered if a man prone to rows gets among them. Of all candidates at a club a known quarreller is more sure of blackballs now than even in the times when such a one provoked duels. Of all bores he is the worst; and there is always an unexpressed feeling that such a one exacts more from his company than his share of attention. This is so strong, that too often the man quarrelled with, though he be as innocent as was Phineas on the present occasion, is made subject to the general aversion which is felt for men who misbehave themselves. "I wish to hear no good of myself from you," said Phineas, following him to his seat. "Who is it that you said,--I should be after?" The room was full, and every one there, even they who had come in with Phineas, knew that Lady Eustace was the woman. Everybody at present was talking about Lady Eustace. "Never mind," said Barrington Erle, taking him by the arm. "What's the use of a row?" "No use at all;--but if you heard your name mentioned in such a manner you would find it impossible to pass it over. There is Mr. Monk;--ask him." Mr. Monk was sitting very quietly in a corner of the room with another gentleman of his own age by him,--one devoted to literary pursuits and a constant attendant at The Universe. As he said afterwards, he had never known any unpleasantness of that sort in the club before. There were many men of note in the room. There was a foreign minister, a member of the Cabinet, two ex-members of the Cabinet, a great poet, an exceedingly able editor, two earls, two members of the Royal Academy, the president of a learned society, a celebrated professor,--and it was expected that Royalty might come in at any minute, speak a few benign words, and blow a few clouds of smoke. It was abominable that the harmony of such a meeting should be interrupted by the vinous insolence of Mr. Bonteen, and the useless wrath of Phineas Finn. "Really, Mr. Finn, if I were you I would let it drop," said the gentleman devoted to literary pursuits. Phineas did not much affect the literary gentleman, but in such a matter would prefer the advice of Mr. Monk to that of any man living. He again appealed to his friend. "You heard what was said?" "I heard Mr. Bonteen remark that you or somebody like you would in certain circumstances be after a certain lady. I thought it to be an ill-judged speech, and as your particular friend I heard it with great regret." "What a row about nothing!" said Mr. Bonteen, rising from his seat. "We were speaking of a very pretty woman, and I was saying that some young fellow generally supposed to be fond of pretty women would soon be after her. If that offends your morals you must have become very strict of late." There was something in the explanation which, though very bad and vulgar, it was almost impossible not to accept. Such at least was the feeling of those who stood around Phineas Finn. He himself knew that Mr. Bonteen had intended to assert that he would be after the woman's money and not her beauty; but he had taste enough to perceive that he could not descend to any such detail as that. "There are reasons, Mr. Bonteen," he said, "why I think you should abstain from mentioning my name in public. Your playful references should be made to your friends, and not to those who, to say the least of it, are not your friends." When the matter was discussed afterwards it was thought that Phineas Finn should have abstained from making the last speech. It was certainly evidence of great anger on his part. And he was very angry. He knew that he had been insulted,--and insulted by the man whom of all men he would feel most disposed to punish for any offence. He could not allow Mr. Bonteen to have the last word, especially as a certain amount of success had seemed to attend them. Fate at the moment was so far propitious to Phineas that outward circumstances saved him from any immediate reply, and thus left him in some degree triumphant. Expected Royalty arrived, and cast its salutary oil upon the troubled waters. The Prince, with some well-known popular attendant, entered the room, and for a moment every gentleman rose from his chair. It was but for a moment, and then the Prince became as any other gentleman, talking to his friends. One or two there present, who had perhaps peculiarly royal instincts, had crept up towards him so as to make him the centre of a little knot, but, otherwise, conversation went on much as it had done before the unfortunate arrival of Phineas. That quarrel, however, had been very distinctly trodden under foot by the Prince, for Mr. Bonteen had found himself quite incapacitated from throwing back any missile in reply to the last that had been hurled at him. Phineas took a vacant seat next to Mr. Monk,--who was deficient perhaps in royal instincts,--and asked him in a whisper his opinion of what had taken place. "Do not think any more of it," said Mr. Monk. "That is so much more easily said than done. How am I not to think of it?" "Of course I mean that you are to act as though you had forgotten it." "Did you ever know a more gratuitous insult? Of course he was talking of that Lady Eustace." "I had not been listening to him before, but no doubt he was. I need not tell you now what I think of Mr. Bonteen. He is not more gracious in my eyes than he is in yours. To-night I fancy he has been drinking, which has not improved him. You may be sure of this, Phineas,--that the less of resentful anger you show in such a wretched affair as took place just now, the more will be the blame attached to him and the less to you." "Why should any blame be attached to me?" "I don't say that any will unless you allow yourself to become loud and resentful. The thing is not worth your anger." "I am angry." "Then go to bed at once, and sleep it off. Come with me, and we'll walk home together." "It isn't the proper thing, I fancy, to leave the room while the Prince is here." "Then I must do the improper thing," said Mr. Monk. "I haven't a key, and I musn't keep my servant up any longer. A quiet man like me can creep out without notice. Good night, Phineas, and take my advice about this. If you can't forget it, act and speak and look as though you had forgotten it." Then Mr. Monk, without much creeping, left the room. The club was very full, and there was a clatter of voices, and the clatter round the Prince was the noisiest and merriest. Mr. Bonteen was there, of course, and Phineas as he sat alone could hear him as he edged his words in upon the royal ears. Every now and again there was a royal joke, and then Mr. Bonteen's laughter was conspicuous. As far as Phineas could distinguish the sounds no special amount of the royal attention was devoted to Mr. Bonteen. That very able editor, and one of the Academicians, and the poet, seemed to be the most honoured, and when the Prince went,--which he did when his cigar was finished,--Phineas observed with inward satisfaction that the royal hand, which was given to the poet, to the editor, and to the painter, was not extended to the President of the Board of Trade. And then, having taken delight in this, he accused himself of meanness in having even observed a matter so trivial. Soon after this a ruck of men left the club, and then Phineas rose to go. As he went down the stairs Barrington Erle followed him with Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the three stood for a moment at the door in the street talking to each other. Finn's way lay eastward from the club, whereas both Erle and Fitzgibbon would go westwards towards their homes. "How well the Prince behaves at these sort of places!" said Erle. "Princes ought to behave well," said Phineas. "Somebody else didn't behave very well,--eh, Finn, my boy?" said Laurence. "Somebody else, as you call him," replied Phineas, "is very unlike a Prince, and never does behave well. To-night, however, he surpassed himself." "Don't bother your mind about it, old fellow," said Barrington. "I tell you what it is, Erle," said Phineas. "I don't think that I'm a vindictive man by nature, but with that man I mean to make it even some of these days. You know as well as I do what it is he has done to me, and you know also whether I have deserved it. Wretched reptile that he is! He has pretty nearly been able to ruin me,--and all from some petty feeling of jealousy." "Finn, me boy, don't talk like that," said Laurence. "You shouldn't show your hand," said Barrington. "I know what you mean, and it's all very well. After your different fashions you two have been true to me, and I don't care how much you see of my hand. That man's insolence angers me to such an extent that I cannot refrain from speaking out. He hasn't spirit enough to go out with me, or I would shoot him." "Blankenberg, eh!" said Laurence, alluding to the now notorious duel which had once been fought in that place between Phineas and Lord Chiltern. "I would," continued the angry man. "There are times in which one is driven to regret that there has come an end to duelling, and there is left to one no immediate means of resenting an injury." As they were speaking Mr. Bonteen came out from the front door alone, and seeing the three men standing, passed on towards the left, eastwards. "Good night, Erle," he said. "Good night, Fitzgibbon." The two men answered him, and Phineas stood back in the gloom. It was about one o'clock and the night was very dark. "By George, I do dislike that man," said Phineas. Then, with a laugh, he took a life-preserver out of his pocket, and made an action with it as though he were striking some enemy over the head. In those days there had been much garotting in the streets, and writers in the Press had advised those who walked about at night to go armed with sticks. Phineas Finn had himself been once engaged with garotters,--as has been told in a former chronicle,--and had since armed himself, thinking more probably of the thing which he had happened to see than men do who had only heard of it. As soon as he had spoken, he followed Mr. Bonteen down the street, at the distance of perhaps a couple of hundred yards. "They won't have a row,--will they?" said Erle. "Oh, dear, no; Finn won't think of speaking to him; and you may be sure that Bonteen won't say a word to Finn. Between you and me, Barrington, I wish Master Phineas would give him a thorough good hiding." CHAPTER XLVII. WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL. On the next morning at seven o'clock a superintendent of police called at the house of Mr. Gresham and informed the Prime Minister that Mr. Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The body had been recognised, and information had been taken to the unfortunate widow at the house Mr. Bonteen had occupied in St. James's Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr. Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at night,--or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found. There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen, coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on the steps leading up from the passage to the level of the ground above that the body was found. The passage was almost as near a way as any from the club to Mr. Bonteen's house in St. James's Place; but the superintendent declared that gentlemen but seldom used the passage after dark, and he was disposed to think that the unfortunate man must have been forced down the steps by the ruffian who had attacked him from the level above. The murderer, so thought the superintendent, must have been cognizant of the way usually taken by Mr. Bonteen, and must have lain in wait for him in the darkness of the mouth of the passage. The superintendent had been at work on his inquiries since four in the morning, and had heard from Lady Eustace,--and from Mrs. Bonteen, as far as that poor distracted woman had been able to tell her story,--some account of the cause of quarrel between the respective husbands of those two ladies. The officer, who had not as yet heard a word of the late disturbance between Mr. Bonteen and Phineas Finn, was strongly of opinion that the Reverend Mr. Emilius had been the murderer. Mr. Gresham, of course, coincided in that opinion. What steps had been taken as to the arrest of Mr. Emilius? The superintendent was of opinion that Mr. Emilius was already in custody. He was known to be lodging close to the Marylebone Workhouse, in Northumberland Street, having removed to that somewhat obscure neighbourhood as soon as his house in Lowndes Square had been broken up by the running away of his wife and his consequent want of means. Such was the story as told to the Prime Minister at seven o'clock in the morning. At eleven o'clock, at his private room at the Treasury Chambers, Mr. Gresham heard much more. At that time there were present with him two officers of the police force, his colleagues in the Cabinet, Lord Cantrip and the Duke of Omnium, three of his junior colleagues in the Government, Lord Fawn, Barrington Erle, and Laurence Fitzgibbon,--and Major Mackintosh, the chief of the London police. It was not exactly part of the duty of Mr. Gresham to investigate the circumstances of this murder; but there was so much in it that brought it closely home to him and his Government, that it became impossible for him not to concern himself in the business. There had been so much talk about Mr. Bonteen lately, his name had been so common in the newspapers, the ill-usage which he had been supposed by some to have suffered had been so freely discussed, and his quarrel, not only with Phineas Finn, but subsequently with the Duke of Omnium, had been so widely known,--that his sudden death created more momentary excitement than might probably have followed that of a greater man. And now, too, the facts of the past night, as they became known, seemed to make the crime more wonderful, more exciting, more momentous than it would have been had it been brought clearly home to such a wretch as the Bohemian Jew, Yosef Mealyus, who had contrived to cheat that wretched Lizzie Eustace into marrying him. As regarded Yosef Mealyus the story now told respecting him was this. He was already in custody. He had been found in bed at his lodgings between seven and eight, and had, of course, given himself up without difficulty. He had seemed to be horror-struck when he heard of the man's death,--but had openly expressed his joy. "He has endeavoured to ruin me, and has done me a world of harm. Why should I sorrow for him?"--he said to the policeman when rebuked for his inhumanity. But nothing had been found tending to implicate him in the crime. The servant declared that he had gone to bed before eleven o'clock, to her knowledge,--for she had seen him there,--and that he had not left the house afterwards. Was he in possession of a latch-key? It appeared that he did usually carry a latch-key, but that it was often borrowed from him by members of the family when it was known that he would not want it himself,--and that it had been so lent on this night. It was considered certain by those in the house that he had not gone out after he went to bed. Nobody in fact had left the house after ten; but in accordance with his usual custom Mr. Emilius had sent down the key as soon as he had found that he would not want it, and it had been all night in the custody of the mistress of the establishment. Nevertheless his clothes were examined minutely, but without affording any evidence against him. That Mr. Bonteen had been killed with some blunt weapon, such as a life-preserver, was assumed by the police, but no such weapon was in the possession of Mr. Emilius, nor had any such weapon yet been found. He was, however, in custody, with no evidence against him except that which was afforded by his known and acknowledged enmity to Mr. Bonteen. So far, Major Mackintosh and the two officers had told their story. Then came the united story of the other gentlemen assembled,--from hearing which, however, the two police officers were debarred. The Duke and Barrington Erle had both dined in company with Phineas Finn at Madame Goesler's, and the Duke was undoubtedly aware that ill blood had existed between Finn and Mr. Bonteen. Both Erle and Fitzgibbon described the quarrel at the club, and described also the anger which Finn had expressed against the wretched man as he stood talking at the club door. His gesture of vengeance was remembered and repeated, though both the men who heard it expressed their strongest conviction that the murder had not been committed by him. As Erle remarked, the very expression of such a threat was almost proof that he had not at that moment any intention on his mind of doing such a deed as had been done. But they told also of the life-preserver which Finn had shown them, as he took it from the pocket of his outside coat, and they marvelled at the coincidences of the night. Then Lord Fawn gave further evidence, which seemed to tell very hardly upon Phineas Finn. He also had been at the club, and had left it just before Finn and the two other men had clustered at the door. He had walked very slowly, having turned down to Curzon Street and Bolton Row, from whence he made his way into Piccadilly by Clarges Street. He had seen nothing of Mr. Bonteen; but as he crossed over to Clarges Street he was passed at a very rapid pace by a man muffled in a top coat, who made his way straight along Bolton Row towards the passage which has been described. At the moment he had not connected the person of the man who passed him with any acquaintance of his own; but he now felt sure,--after what he had heard,--that the man was Mr. Finn. As he passed out of the club Finn was putting on his overcoat, and Lord Fawn had observed the peculiarity of the grey colour. It was exactly a similar coat, only with its collar raised, that had passed him in the street. The man, too, was of Mr. Finn's height and build. He had known Mr. Finn well, and the man stepped with Mr. Finn's step. Major Mackintosh thought that Lord Fawn's evidence was--"very unfortunate as regarded Mr. Finn." "I'm d---- if that idiot won't hang poor Phinny," said Fitzgibbon afterwards to Erle. "And yet I don't believe a word of it." "Fawn wouldn't lie for the sake of hanging Phineas Finn," said Erle. "No;--I don't suppose he's given to lying at all. He believes it all. But he's such a muddle-headed fellow that he can get himself to believe anything. He's one of those men who always unconsciously exaggerate what they have to say for the sake of the importance it gives them." It might be possible that a jury would look at Lord Fawn's evidence in this light; otherwise it would bear very heavily, indeed, against Phineas Finn. Then a question arose as to the road which Mr. Bonteen usually took from the club. All the members who were there present had walked home with him at various times,--and by various routes, but never by the way through the passage. It was supposed that on this occasion he must have gone by Berkeley Square, because he had certainly not turned down by the first street to the right, which he would have taken had he intended to avoid the square. He had been seen by Barrington Erle and Fitzgibbon to pass that turning. Otherwise they would have made no remark as to the possibility of a renewed quarrel between him and Phineas, should Phineas chance to overtake him;--for Phineas would certainly go by the square unless taken out of his way by some special purpose. The most direct way of all for Mr. Bonteen would have been that followed by Lord Fawn; but as he had not turned down this street, and had not been seen by Lord Fawn, who was known to walk very slowly, and had often been seen to go by Berkeley Square,--it was presumed that he had now taken that road. In this case he would certainly pass the end of the passage towards which Lord Fawn declared that he had seen the man hurrying whom he now supposed to have been Phineas Finn. Finn's direct road home would, as has been already said, have been through the square, cutting off the corner of the square, towards Bruton Street, and thence across Bond Street by Conduit Street to Regent Street, and so to Great Marlborough Street, where he lived. But it had been, no doubt, possible for him to have been on the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen the man; for, although in his natural course thither from the club he would have at once gone down the street to the right,--a course which both Erle and Fitzgibbon were able to say that he did not take, as they had seen him go beyond the turning,--nevertheless there had been ample time for him to have retraced his steps to it in time to have caught Lord Fawn, and thus to have deceived Fitzgibbon and Erle as to the route he had taken. When they had got thus far Lord Cantrip was standing close to the window of the room at Mr. Gresham's elbow. "Don't allow yourself to be hurried into believing it," said Lord Cantrip. "I do not know that we need believe it, or the reverse. It is a case for the police." "Of course it is;--but your belief and mine will have a weight. Nothing that I have heard makes me for a moment think it possible. I know the man." "He was very angry." "Had he struck him in the club I should not have been much surprised; but he never attacked his enemy with a bludgeon in a dark alley. I know him well." "What do you think of Fawn's story?" "He was mistaken in his man. Remember;--it was a dark night." "I do not see that you and I can do anything," said Mr. Gresham. "I shall have to say something in the House as to the poor fellow's death, but I certainly shall not express a suspicion. Why should I?" Up to this moment nothing had been done as to Phineas Finn. It was known that he would in his natural course of business be in his place in Parliament at four, and Major Mackintosh was of opinion that he certainly should be taken before a magistrate in time to prevent the necessity of arresting him in the House. It was decided that Lord Fawn, with Fitzgibbon and Erle, should accompany the police officer to Bow Street, and that a magistrate should be applied to for a warrant if he thought the evidence was sufficient. Major Mackintosh was of opinion that, although by no possibility could the two men suspected have been jointly guilty of the murder, still the circumstances were such as to justify the immediate arrest of both. Were Yosef Mealyus really guilty and to be allowed to slip from their hands, no doubt it might be very difficult to catch him. Facts did not at present seem to prevail against him; but, as the Major observed, facts are apt to alter considerably when they are minutely sifted. His character was half sufficient to condemn him;--and then with him there was an adequate motive, and what Lord Cantrip regarded as "a possibility." It was not to be conceived that from mere rage Phineas Finn would lay a plot for murdering a man in the street. "It is on the cards, my lord," said the Major, "that he may have chosen to attack Mr. Bonteen without intending to murder him. The murder may afterwards have been an accident." It was impossible after this for even a Prime Minister and two Cabinet Ministers to go about their work calmly. The men concerned had been too well known to them to allow their minds to become clear of the subject. When Major Mackintosh went off to Bow Street with Erle and Laurence, it was certainly the opinion of the majority of those who had been present that the blow had been struck by the hand of Phineas Finn. And perhaps the worst aspect of it all was that there had been not simply a blow,--but blows. The constables had declared that the murdered man had been struck thrice about the head, and that the fatal stroke had been given on the side of his head after the man's hat had been knocked off. That Finn should have followed his enemy through the street, after such words as he had spoken, with the view of having the quarrel out in some shape, did not seem to be very improbable to any of them except Lord Cantrip;--and then had there been a scuffle, out in the open path, at the spot at which the angry man might have overtaken his adversary, it was not incredible to them that he should have drawn even such a weapon as a life-preserver from his pocket. But, in the case as it had occurred, a spot peculiarly traitorous had been selected, and the attack had too probably been made from behind. As yet there was no evidence that the murderer had himself encountered any ill-usage. And Finn, if he was the murderer, must, from the time he was standing at the club door, have contemplated a traitorous, dastardly attack. He must have counted his moments;--have returned slyly in the dark to the corner of the street which he had once passed;--have muffled his face in his coat;--and have then laid wait in a spot to which an honest man at night would hardly trust himself with honest purposes. "I look upon it as quite out of the question," said Lord Cantrip, when the three Ministers were left alone. Now Lord Cantrip had served for many months in the same office as Phineas Finn. "You are simply putting your own opinion of the man against the facts," said Mr. Gresham. "But facts always convince, and another man's opinion rarely convinces." "I'm not sure that we know the facts yet," said the Duke. "Of course we are speaking of them as far as they have been told to us. As far as they go,--unless they can be upset and shown not to be facts,--I fear they would be conclusive to me on a jury." "Do you mean that you have heard enough to condemn him?" asked Lord Cantrip. "Remember what we have heard. The murdered man had two enemies." "He may have had a third." "Or ten; but we have heard of but two." "He may have been attacked for his money," said the Duke. "But neither his money nor his watch were touched," continued Mr. Gresham. "Anger, or the desire of putting the man out of the way, has caused the murder. Of the two enemies one,--according to the facts as we now have them,--could not have been there. Nor is it probable that he could have known that his enemy would be on that spot. The other not only could have been there, but was certainly near the place at the moment,--so near that did he not do the deed himself, it is almost wonderful that it should not have been interrupted in its doing by his nearness. He certainly knew that the victim would be there. He was burning with anger against him at the moment. He had just threatened him. He had with him such an instrument as was afterwards used. A man believed to be him is seen hurrying to the spot by a witness whose credibility is beyond doubt. These are the facts such as we have them at present. Unless they can be upset, I fear they would convince a jury,--as they have already convinced those officers of the police." "Officers of the police always believe men to be guilty," said Lord Cantrip. "They don't believe the Jew clergyman to be guilty," said Mr. Gresham. "I fear that there will be enough to send Mr. Finn to a trial," said the Duke. "Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Gresham. "And yet I feel as convinced of his innocence as I do of my own," said Lord Cantrip. CHAPTER XLVIII. MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT. About three o'clock in the day the first tidings of what had taken place reached Madame Goesler in the following perturbed note from her friend the Duchess:--"Have you heard what took place last night? Good God! Mr. Bonteen was murdered as he came home from his club, and they say that it was done by Phineas Finn. Plantagenet has just come in from Downing Street, where everybody is talking about it. I can't get from him what he believes. One never can get anything from him. But I never will believe it;--nor will you, I'm sure. I vote we stick to him to the last. He is to be put in prison and tried. I can hardly believe that Mr. Bonteen has been murdered, though I don't know why he shouldn't as well as anybody else. Plantagenet talks about the great loss; I know which would be the greatest loss, and so do you. I'm going out now to try and find out something. Barrington Erle was there, and if I can find him he will tell me. I shall be home by half-past five. Do come, there's a dear woman; there is no one else I can talk to about it. If I'm not back, go in all the same, and tell them to bring you tea. "Only think of Lady Laura,--with one mad and the other in Newgate! G. P." This letter gave Madame Goesler such a blow that for a few minutes it altogether knocked her down. After reading it once she hardly knew what it contained beyond a statement that Phineas Finn was in Newgate. She sat for a while with it in her hands, almost swooning; and then with an effort she recovered herself, and read the letter again. Mr. Bonteen murdered, and Phineas Finn,--who had dined with her only yesterday evening, with whom she had been talking of all the sins of the murdered man, who was her special friend, of whom she thought more than of any other human being, of whom she could not bring herself to cease to think,--accused of the murder! Believe it! The Duchess had declared with that sort of enthusiasm which was common to her, that she never would believe it. No, indeed! What judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him." "Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself. "What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her, yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real distress,--in absolutely dire sorrow,--she would cling to him with a constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a murderer to the last. [Illustration: "What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?"] But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only too probable that there might have been such result. But murder, secret midnight murder, could not have been committed by the man she had chosen as her friend. And yet, through it all, there was a resolve that even though he should have committed murder she would be true to him. If it should come to the very worst, then would she declare the intensity of the affection with which she regarded the murderer. As to Mr. Bonteen, what the Duchess said was true enough; why should not he be killed as well as another? In her present frame of mind she felt very little pity for Mr. Bonteen. After a fashion a verdict of "served him right" crossed her mind, as it had doubtless crossed that of the Duchess when she was writing her letter. The man had made himself so obnoxious that it was well that he should be out of the way. But not on that account would she believe that Phineas Finn had murdered him. Could it be true that the man after all was dead? Marvellous reports, and reports marvellously false, do spread themselves about the world every day. But this report had come from the Duke, and he was not a man given to absurd rumours. He had heard the story in Downing Street, and if so it must be true. Of course she would go down to the Duchess at the hour fixed. It was now a little after three, and she ordered the carriage to be ready for her at a quarter past five. Then she told the servant, at first to admit no one who might call, and then to come up and let her know, if any one should come, without sending the visitor away. It might be that some one would come to her expressly from Phineas, or at least with tidings about this affair. Then she read the letter again, and those few last words in it stuck to her thoughts like a burr. "Think of Lady Laura, with one mad and the other in Newgate." Was this man,--the only man whom she had ever loved,--more to Lady Laura Kennedy than to her; or rather, was Lady Laura more to him than was she herself? If so, why should she fret herself for his sake? She was ready enough to own that she could sacrifice everything for him, even though he should be standing as a murderer in the dock, if such sacrifice would be valued by him. He had himself told her that his feelings towards Lady Laura were simply those of an affectionate friend; but how could she believe that statement when all the world were saying the reverse? Lady Laura was a married woman,--a woman whose husband was still living,--and of course he was bound to make such an assertion when he and she were named together. And then it was certain,--Madame Goesler believed it to be certain,--that there had been a time in which Phineas had asked for the love of Lady Laura Standish. But he had never asked for her love. It had been tendered to him, and he had rejected it! And now the Duchess,--who, with all her inaccuracies, had that sharpness of vision which enables some men and women to see into facts,--spoke as though Lady Laura were to be pitied more than all others, because of the evil that had befallen Phineas Finn! Had not Lady Laura chosen her own husband; and was not the man, let him be ever so mad, still her husband? Madame Goesler was sore of heart, as well as broken down with sorrow, till at last, hiding her face on the pillow of the sofa, still holding the Duchess's letter in her hand, she burst into a fit of hysteric sobs. Few of those who knew Madame Max Goesler well, as she lived in town and in country, would have believed that such could have been the effect upon her of the news which she had heard. Credit was given to her everywhere for good nature, discretion, affability, and a certain grace of demeanour which always made her charming. She was known to be generous, wise, and of high spirit. Something of her conduct to the old Duke had crept into general notice, and had been told, here and there, to her honour. She had conquered the good opinion of many, and was a popular woman. But there was not one among her friends who supposed her capable of becoming a victim to a strong passion, or would have suspected her of reckless weeping for any sorrow. The Duchess, who thought that she knew Madame Goesler well, would not have believed it to be true, even if she had seen it. "You like people, but I don't think you ever love any one," the Duchess had once said to her. Madame Goesler had smiled, and had seemed to assent. To enjoy the world,--and to know that the best enjoyment must come from witnessing the satisfaction of others, had apparently been her philosophy. But now she was prostrate because this man was in trouble, and because she had been told that his trouble was more than another woman could bear! She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below, waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once that Mr. Maule had met Phineas at her table on the previous evening, and, thinking that he must have come with tidings respecting this great event, desired that he might be shown up to her. But, as it happened, Mr. Maule had not yet heard of the death of Mr. Bonteen. He had remained at home till nearly four, having a great object in view, which made him deem it expedient that he should go direct from his own rooms to Madame Goesler's house, and had not even looked in at his club. The reader will, perhaps, divine the great object. On this day he proposed to ask Madame Goesler to make him the happiest of men,--as he certainly would have thought himself for a time, had she consented to put him in possession of her large income. He had therefore padded himself with more than ordinary care,--reduced but not obliterated the greyness of his locks,--looked carefully to the fitting of his trousers, and spared himself those ordinary labours of the morning which might have robbed him of any remaining spark of his juvenility. Madame Goesler met him more than half across the room as he entered it. "What have you heard?" said she. Mr. Maule wore his sweetest smile, but he had heard nothing. He could only press her hand, and look blank,--understanding that there was something which he ought to have heard. She thought nothing of the pressure of her hand. Apt as she was to be conscious at an instant of all that was going on around her, she thought of nothing now but that man's peril, and of the truth or falsehood of the story that had been sent to her. "You have heard nothing of Mr. Finn?" "Not a word," said Mr. Maule, withdrawing his hand. "What has happened to Mr. Finn?" Had Mr. Finn broken his neck it would have been nothing to Mr. Maule. But the lady's solicitude was something to him. "Mr. Bonteen has been--murdered!" "Mr. Bonteen!" "So I hear. I thought you had come to tell me of it." "Mr. Bonteen murdered! No;--I have heard nothing. I do not know the gentleman. I thought you said--Mr. Finn." "It is not known about London, then?" "I cannot say, Madame Goesler. I have just come from home, and have not been out all the morning. Who has--murdered him?" "Ah! I do not know. That is what I wanted you to tell me." "But what of Mr. Finn?" "I also have not been out, Mr. Maule, and can give you no information. I thought you had called because you knew that Mr. Finn had dined here." "Has Mr. Finn been murdered?" "Mr. Bonteen! I said that the report was that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered." Madame Goesler was now waxing angry,--most unreasonably. "But I know nothing about it, and am just going out to make inquiry. The carriage is ordered." Then she stood, expecting him to go; and he knew that he was expected to go. It was at any rate clear to him that he could not carry out his great design on the present occasion. "This has so upset me that I can think of nothing else at present, and you must, if you please, excuse me. I would not have let you take the trouble of coming up, had not I thought that you were the bearer of some news." Then she bowed, and Mr. Maule bowed; and as he left the room she forgot to ring the bell. "What the deuce can she have meant about that fellow Finn?" he said to himself. "They cannot both have been murdered." He went to his club, and there he soon learned the truth. The information was given to him with clear and undoubting words. Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had quarrelled at The Universe. Mr. Bonteen, as far as words went, had got the best of his adversary. This had taken place in the presence of the Prince, who had expressed himself as greatly annoyed by Mr. Finn's conduct. And afterwards Phineas Finn had waylaid Mr. Bonteen in the passage between Bolton Row and Berkeley Street, and had there--murdered him. As it happened, no one who had been at The Universe was at that moment present; but the whole affair was now quite well known, and was spoken of without a doubt. "I hope he'll be hung, with all my heart," said Mr. Maule, who thought that he could read the riddle which had been so unintelligible in Park Lane. When Madame Goesler reached Carlton Terrace, which she did before the time named by the Duchess, her friend had not yet returned. But she went upstairs, as she had been desired, and they brought her tea. But the teapot remained untouched till past six o'clock, and then the Duchess returned. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry for being late. Why haven't you had tea?" "What is the truth of it all?" said Madame Goesler, standing up with her fists clenched as they hung by her side. "I don't seem to know nearly as much as I did when I wrote to you." "Has the man been--murdered?" "Oh dear, yes. There's no doubt about that. I was quite sure of that when I sent the letter. I have had such a hunt. But at last I went up to the door of the House of Commons, and got Barrington Erle to come out to me." "Well?" "Two men have been arrested." "Not Phineas Finn?" "Yes; Mr. Finn is one of them. Is it not awful? So much more dreadful to me than the other poor man's death! One oughtn't to say so, of course." "And who is the other man? Of course he did it." "That horrid Jew preaching man that married Lizzie Eustace. Mr. Bonteen had been persecuting him, and making out that he had another wife at home in Hungary, or Bohemia, or somewhere." "Of course he did it." "That's what I say. Of course the Jew did it. But then all the evidence goes to show that he didn't do it. He was in bed at the time; and the door of the house was locked up so that he couldn't get out; and the man who did the murder hadn't got on his coat, but had got on Phineas Finn's coat." "Was there--blood?" asked Madame Goesler, shaking from head to foot. "Not that I know. I don't suppose they've looked yet. But Lord Fawn saw the man, and swears to the coat." "Lord Fawn! How I have always hated that man! I wouldn't believe a word he would say." "Barrington doesn't think so much of the coat. But Phineas had a club in his pocket, and the man was killed by a club. There hasn't been any other club found, but Phineas Finn took his home with him." "A murderer would not have done that." "Barrington says that the head policeman says that it is just what a very clever murderer would do." "Do you believe it, Duchess?" "Certainly not;--not though Lord Fawn swore that he had seen it. I never will believe what I don't like to believe, and nothing shall ever make me." "He couldn't have done it." "Well;--for the matter of that, I suppose he could." "No, Duchess, he could not have done it." "He is strong enough,--and brave enough." "But not enough of a coward. There is nothing cowardly about him. If Phineas Finn could have struck an enemy with a club, in a dark passage, behind his back, I will never care to speak to any man again. Nothing shall make me believe it. If I did, I could never again believe in any one. If they told you that your husband had murdered a man, what would you say?" "But he isn't your husband, Madame Max." "No;--certainly not. I cannot fly at them, when they say so, as you would do. But I can be just as sure. If twenty Lord Fawns swore that they had seen it, I would not believe them. Oh, God, what will they do with him!" The Duchess behaved very well to her friend, saying not a single word to twit her with the love which she betrayed. She seemed to take it as a matter of course that Madame Goesler's interest in Phineas Finn should be as it was. The Duke, she said, could not come home to dinner, and Madame Goesler should stay with her. Both Houses were in such a ferment about the murder, that nobody liked to be away. Everybody had been struck with amazement, not simply,--not chiefly,--by the fact of the murder, but by the double destruction of the two men whose ill-will to each other had been of late so often the subject of conversation. So Madame Goesler remained at Carlton Terrace till late in the evening, and during the whole visit there was nothing mentioned but the murder of Mr. Bonteen and the peril of Phineas Finn. "Some one will go and see him, I suppose," said Madame Goesler. "Lord Cantrip has been already,--and Mr. Monk." "Could not I go?" "Well, it would be rather strong." "If we both went together?" suggested Madame Goesler. And before she left Carlton Terrace she had almost extracted a promise from the Duchess that they would together proceed to the prison and endeavour to see Phineas Finn. CHAPTER XLIX. SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN. "We have left Adelaide Palliser down at the Hall. We are up here only for a couple of days to see Laura, and try to find out what had better be done about Kennedy." This was said to Phineas Finn in his own room in Great Marlborough Street by Lord Chiltern, on the morning after the murder, between ten and eleven o'clock. Phineas had not as yet heard of the death of the man with whom he had quarrelled. Lord Chiltern had now come to him with some proposition which he as yet did not understand, and which Lord Chiltern certainly did not know how to explain. Looked at simply, the proposition was one for providing Phineas Finn with an income out of the wealth belonging, or that would belong, to the Standish family. Lady Laura's fortune would, it was thought, soon be at her own disposal. They who acted for her husband had assured the Earl that the yearly interest of the money should be at her ladyship's command as soon as the law would allow them so to plan it. Of Robert Kennedy's inability to act for himself there was no longer any doubt whatever, and there was, they said, no desire to embarrass the estate with so small a disputed matter as the income derived from £40,000. There was great pride of purse in the manner in which the information was conveyed;--but not the less on that account was it satisfactory to the Earl. Lady Laura's first thought about it referred to the imminent wants of Phineas Finn. How might it be possible for her to place a portion of her income at the command of the man she loved so that he should not feel disgraced by receiving it from her hand? She conceived some plan as to a loan to be made nominally by her brother,--a plan as to which it may at once be said that it could not be made to hold water for a minute. But she did succeed in inducing her brother to undertake the embassy, with the view of explaining to Phineas that there would be money for him when he wanted it. "If I make it over to Papa, Papa can leave it him in his will; and if he wants it at once there can be no harm in your advancing to him what he must have at Papa's death." Her brother had frowned angrily and had shaken his head. "Think how he has been thrown over by all the party," said Lady Laura. Lord Chiltern had disliked the whole affair,--had felt with dismay that his sister's name would become subject to reproach if it should be known that this young man was supported by her bounty. She, however, had persisted, and he had consented to see the young man, feeling sure that Phineas would refuse to bear the burden of the obligation. But he had not touched the disagreeable subject when they were interrupted. A knocking of the door had been heard, and now Mrs. Bunce came upstairs, bringing Mr. Low with her. Mrs. Bunce had not heard of the tragedy, but she had at once perceived from the barrister's manner that there was some serious matter forward,--some matter that was probably not only serious, but also calamitous. The expression of her countenance announced as much to the two men, and the countenance of Mr. Low when he followed her into the room told the same story still more plainly. "Is anything the matter?" said Phineas, jumping up. "Indeed, yes," said Mr. Low, who then looked at Lord Chiltern and was silent. "Shall I go?" said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Low did not know him, and of course was still silent. "This is my friend, Mr. Low. This is my friend, Lord Chiltern," said Phineas, aware that each was well acquainted with the other's name. "I do not know of any reason why you should go. What is it, Low?" Lord Chiltern had come there about money, and it occurred to him that the impecunious young barrister might already be in some scrape on that head. In nineteen cases out of twenty, when a man is in a scrape, he simply wants money. "Perhaps I can be of help," he said. "Have you heard, my Lord, what happened last night?" said Mr. Low, with his eyes fixed on Phineas Finn. "I have heard nothing," said Lord Chiltern. "What has happened?" asked Phineas, looking aghast. He knew Mr. Low well enough to be sure that the thing referred to was of great and distressing moment. "You, too, have heard nothing?" "Not a word--that I know of." "You were at The Universe last night?" "Certainly I was." "Did anything occur?" "The Prince was there." "Nothing has happened to the Prince?" said Chiltern. "His name has not been mentioned to me," said Mr. Low. "Was there not a quarrel?" "Yes;"--said Phineas. "I quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen." "What then?" "He behaved like a brute;--as he always does. Thrashing a brute hardly answers nowadays, but if ever a man deserved a thrashing he does." "He has been murdered," said Mr. Low. [Illustration: "He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.] The reader need hardly be told that, as regards this great offence, Phineas Finn was as white as snow. The maintenance of any doubt on that matter,--were it even desirable to maintain a doubt,--would be altogether beyond the power of the present writer. The reader has probably perceived, from the first moment of the discovery of the body on the steps at the end of the passage, that Mr. Bonteen had been killed by that ingenious gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, who found it to be worth his while to take the step with the view of suppressing his enemy's evidence as to his former marriage. But Mr. Low, when he entered the room, had been inclined to think that his friend had done the deed. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had been one of the first to hear the story, and who had summoned Erle to go with him and Major Mackintosh to Downing Street, had, in the first place, gone to the house in Carey Street, in which Bunce was wont to work, and had sent him to Mr. Low. He, Fitzgibbon, had not thought it safe that he himself should warn his countryman, but he could not bear to think that the hare should be knocked over on its form, or that his friend should be taken by policemen without notice. So he had sent Bunce to Mr. Low, and Mr. Low had now come with his tidings. "Murdered!" exclaimed Phineas. "Who has murdered him?" said Lord Chiltern, looking first at Mr. Low and then at Phineas. "That is what the police are now endeavouring to find out." Then there was a pause, and Phineas stood up with his hand on his forehead, looking savagely from one to the other. A glimmer of an idea of the truth was beginning to cross his brain. Mr. Low was there with the object of asking him whether he had murdered the man! "Mr. Fitzgibbon was with you last night," continued Mr. Low. "Of course he was." "It was he who has sent me to you." "What does it all mean?" asked Lord Chiltern. "I suppose they do not intend to say that--our friend, here--murdered the man." "I begin to suppose that is what they intend to say," rejoined Phineas, scornfully. Mr. Low had entered the room, doubting indeed, but still inclined to believe,--as Bunce had very clearly believed,--that the hands of Phineas Finn were red with the blood of this man who had been killed. And, had he been questioned on such a matter, when no special case was before his mind, he would have declared of himself that a few tones from the voice, or a few glances from the eye, of a suspected man would certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he was quite sure,--almost quite sure,--that Phineas was as innocent as himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. "You don't mean to tell us, Mr. Low, that any one says that Finn killed the man?" "I have come as his friend," said Low, "to put him on his guard. The accusation will be made against him." To Phineas, not clearly looking at it, not knowing very accurately what had happened, not being in truth quite sure that Mr. Bonteen was actually dead, this seemed to be a continuation of the persecution which he believed himself to have suffered from that man's hand. "I can believe anything from that quarter," he said. "From what quarter?" asked Lord Chiltern. "We had better let Mr. Low tell us what really has happened." Then Mr. Low told the story, as well as he knew it, describing the spot on which the body had been found. "Often as I go to the club," said Phineas, "I never was through that passage in my life." Mr. Low went on with his tale, telling how the man had been killed with some short bludgeon. "I had that in my pocket," said Finn, producing the life-preserver. "I have almost always had something of the kind when I have been in London, since that affair of Kennedy's." Mr. Low cast one glance at it,--to see whether it had been washed or scraped, or in any way cleansed. Phineas saw the glance, and was angry. "There it is, as it is. You can make the most of it. I shall not touch it again till the policeman comes. Don't put your hand on it, Chiltern. Leave it there." And the instrument was left lying on the table, untouched. Mr. Low went on with his story. He had heard nothing of Yosef Mealyus as connected with the murder, but some indistinct reference to Lord Fawn and the top-coat had been made to him. "There is the coat, too," said Phineas, taking it from the sofa on which he had flung it when he came home the previous night. It was a very light coat,--fitted for May use,--lined with silk, and by no means suited for enveloping the face or person. But it had a collar which might be made to stand up. "That at any rate was the coat I wore," said Finn, in answer to some observation from the barrister. "The man that Lord Fawn saw," said Mr. Low, "was, as I understand, enveloped in a heavy great coat." "So Fawn has got his finger in the pie!" said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Low had been there an hour, Lord Chiltern remaining also in the room, when there came three men belonging to the police,--a superintendent and with him two constables. When the men were shown up into the room neither the bludgeon or the coat had been moved from the small table as Phineas had himself placed them there. Both Phineas and Chiltern had lit cigars, and they were all there sitting in silence. Phineas had entertained the idea that Mr. Low believed the charge, and that the barrister was therefore an enemy. Mr. Low had perceived this, but had not felt it to be his duty to declare his opinion of his friend's innocence. What he could do for his friend he would do; but, as he thought, he could serve him better now by silent observation than by protestation. Lord Chiltern, who had been implored by Phineas not to leave him, continued to pour forth unabating execrations on the monstrous malignity of the accusers. "I do not know that there are any accusers," said Mr. Low, "except the circumstances which the police must, of course, investigate." Then the men came, and the nature of their duty was soon explained. They must request Mr. Finn to go with them to Bow Street. They took possession of many articles besides the two which had been prepared for them,--the dress coat and shirt which Phineas had worn, and the boots. He had gone out to dinner with a Gibus hat, and they took that. They took his umbrella and his latch-key. They asked, even, as to his purse and money;--but abstained from taking the purse when Mr. Low suggested that they could have no concern with that. As it happened, Phineas was at the moment wearing the shirt in which he had dined out on the previous day, and the men asked him whether he had any objection to change it in their presence,--as it might be necessary, after the examination, that it should be detained as evidence. He did so, in the presence of all the men assembled; but the humiliation of doing it almost broke his heart. Then they searched among his linen, clean and dirty, and asked questions of Mrs. Bunce in audible whispers behind the door. Whatever Mrs. Bunce could do to injure the cause of her favourite lodger by severity of manner, snubbing the policeman, and determination to give no information, she did do. "Had a shirt washed? How do you suppose a gentleman's shirts are washed? You were brought up near enough to a washtub yourself to know more than I can tell you!" But the very respectable constable did not seem to be in the least annoyed by the landlady's amenities. He was taken to Bow Street, going thither in a cab with the two policemen, and the superintendent followed them with Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low. "You don't mean to say that you believe it?" said Lord Chiltern to the officer. "We never believe and we never disbelieve anything, my Lord," replied the man. Nevertheless, the superintendent did most firmly believe that Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen. At the police-office Phineas was met by Lord Cantrip and Barrington Erle, and soon became aware that both Lord Fawn and Fitzgibbon were present. It seemed that everything else was made to give way to this inquiry, as he was at once confronted by the magistrate. Everybody was personally very civil to him, and he was asked whether he would not wish to have professional advice while the charge was being made against him. But this he declined. He would tell the magistrate, he said, all he knew, but, at any rate for the present, he would have no need of advice. He was, at last, allowed to tell his own story,--after repeated cautions. There had been some words between him and Mr. Bonteen in the club; after which, standing at the door of the club with his friends, Mr. Erle and Mr. Fitzgibbon, who were now in court, he had seen Mr. Bonteen walk away towards Berkeley Square. He had soon followed, but had never overtaken Mr. Bonteen. When reaching the Square he had crossed over to the fountain standing there on the south side, and from thence had taken the shortest way up Bruton Street. He had seen Mr. Bonteen for the last time dimly, by the gaslight, at the corner of the Square. As far as he could remember, he himself had at the moment passed the fountain. He had not heard the sound of any struggle, or of words, round the corner towards Piccadilly. By the time that Mr. Bonteen would have reached the head of the steps leading into the passage, he would have been near Bruton Street, with his back completely turned to the scene of the murder. He had walked faster than Mr. Bonteen, having gradually drawn near to him; but he had determined in his own mind that he would not pass the man, or get so near him as to attract attention. Nor had he done so. He had certainly worn the grey coat which was now produced. The collar of it had not been turned up. The coat was nearly new, and to the best of his belief the collar had never been turned up. He had carried the life-preserver now produced with him because it had once before been necessary for him to attack garotters in the street. The life-preserver had never been used, and, as it happened, was quite new. It had been bought about a month since,--in consequence of some commotion about garotters which had just then taken place. But before the purchase of the life-preserver he had been accustomed to carry some stick or bludgeon at night. Undoubtedly he had quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen before this occasion, and had bought this instrument since the commencement of the quarrel. He had not seen any one on his way from the Square to his own house with sufficient observation to enable him to describe such person. He could not remember that he had passed a policeman on his way home. This took place after the hearing of such evidence as was then given. The statements made both by Erle and Fitzgibbon as to what had taken place in the club, and afterwards at the door, tallied exactly with that afterwards given by Phineas. An accurate measurement of the streets and ways concerned was already furnished. Taking the duration of time as surmised by Erle and Fitzgibbon to have passed after they had turned their back upon Phineas, a constable proved that the prisoner would have had time to hurry back to the corner of the street he had passed, and to be in the place where Lord Fawn saw the man,--supposing that Lord Fawn had walked at the rate of three miles an hour, and that Phineas had walked or run at twice that pace. Lord Fawn stated that he was walking very slow,--less he thought than three miles an hour, and that the man was hurrying very fast,--not absolutely running, but going as he thought at quite double his own pace. The two coats were shown to his lordship. Finn knew nothing of the other coat,--which had, in truth, been taken from the Rev. Mr. Emilius,--a rough, thick, brown coat, which had belonged to the preacher for the last two years. Finn's coat was grey in colour. Lord Fawn looked at the coats very attentively, and then said that the man he had seen had certainly not worn the brown coat. The night had been dark, but still he was sure that the coat had been grey. The collar had certainly been turned up. Then a tailor was produced who gave it as his opinion that Finn's coat had been lately worn with the collar raised. It was considered that the evidence given was sufficient to make a remand imperative, and Phineas Finn was committed to Newgate. He was assured that every attention should be paid to his comfort, and was treated with great consideration. Lord Cantrip, who still believed in him, discussed the subject both with the magistrate and with Major Mackintosh. Of course the strictest search would be made for a second life-preserver, or any such weapon as might have been used. Search had already been made, and no such weapon had been as yet found. Emilius had never been seen with any such weapon. No one about Curzon Street or Mayfair could be found who had seen the man with the quick step and raised collar, who doubtless had been the murderer, except Lord Fawn,--so that no evidence was forthcoming tending to show that Phineas Finn could not have been that man. The evidence adduced to prove that Mr. Emilius,--or Mealyus, as he was henceforth called,--could not have been on the spot was so very strong, that the magistrate told the constables that that man must be released on the next examination unless something could be adduced against him. The magistrate, with the profoundest regret, was unable to agree with Lord Cantrip in his opinion that the evidence adduced was not sufficient to demand the temporary committal of Mr. Finn. CHAPTER L. WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER. When the House met on that Thursday at four o'clock everybody was talking about the murder, and certainly four-fifths of the members had made up their minds that Phineas Finn was the murderer. To have known a murdered man is something, but to have been intimate with a murderer is certainly much more. There were many there who were really sorry for poor Bonteen,--of whom without a doubt the end had come in a very horrible manner; and there were more there who were personally fond of Phineas Finn,--to whom the future of the young member was very sad, and the fact that he should have become a murderer very awful. But, nevertheless, the occasion was not without its consolations. The business of the House is not always exciting, or even interesting. On this afternoon there was not a member who did not feel that something had occurred which added an interest to Parliamentary life. Very soon after prayers Mr. Gresham entered the House, and men who had hitherto been behaving themselves after a most unparliamentary fashion, standing about in knots, talking by no means in whispers, moving in and out of the House rapidly, all crowded into their places. Whatever pretence of business had been going on was stopped in a moment, and Mr. Gresham rose to make his statement. "It was with the deepest regret,--nay, with the most profound sorrow,--that he was called upon to inform the House that his right honourable friend and colleague, Mr. Bonteen, had been basely and cruelly murdered during the past night." It was odd then to see how the name of the man, who, while he was alive and a member of that House, could not have been pronounced in that assembly without disorder, struck the members almost with dismay. "Yes, his friend Mr. Bonteen, who had so lately filled the office of President of the Board of Trade, and whose loss the country and that House could so ill bear, had been beaten to death in one of the streets of the metropolis by the arm of a dastardly ruffian during the silent watches of the night." Then Mr. Gresham paused, and every one expected that some further statement would be made. "He did not know that he had any further communication to make on the subject. Some little time must elapse before he could fill the office. As for adequately supplying the loss, that would be impossible. Mr. Bonteen's services to the country, especially in reference to decimal coinage, were too well known to the House to allow of his holding out any such hope." Then he sat down without having as yet made an allusion to Phineas Finn. But the allusion was soon made. Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much graceful and mysterious circumlocution asked the Prime Minister whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade. He--Mr. Daubeny--had been given to understand that such a charge had been made against an honourable member of that House, who had once been a colleague of Mr. Bonteen's, and who had always supported the right honourable gentleman opposite. Then Mr. Gresham rose again. "He regretted to say that the honourable member for Tankerville was in custody on that charge. The House would of course understand that he only made that statement as a fact, and that he was offering no opinion as to who was the perpetrator of the murder. The case seemed to be shrouded in great mystery. The two gentlemen had unfortunately differed, but he did not at all think that the House would on that account be disposed to attribute guilt so black and damning to a gentleman they had all known so well as the honourable member for Tankerville." So much and no more was spoken publicly, to the reporters; but members continued to talk about the affair the whole evening. There was nothing, perhaps, more astonishing than the absence of rancour or abhorrence with which the name of Phineas was mentioned, even by those who felt most certain of his guilt. All those who had been present at the club acknowledged that Bonteen had been the sinner in reference to the transaction there; and it was acknowledged to have been almost a public misfortune that such a man as Bonteen should have been able to prevail against such a one as Phineas Finn in regard to the presence of the latter in the Government. Stories which were exaggerated, accounts worse even than the truth, were bandied about as to the perseverance with which the murdered man had destroyed the prospects of the supposed murderer, and robbed the country of the services of a good workman. Mr. Gresham, in the official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course, said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen. A man can always have fine things said about him for a few hours after his death. But in the small private conferences which were held the fine things said all referred to Phineas Finn. Mr. Gresham had spoken of a "dastardly ruffian in the silent watches," but one would have almost thought from overhearing what was said by various gentlemen in different parts of the House that upon the whole Phineas Finn was thought to have done rather a good thing in putting poor Mr. Bonteen out of the way. And another pleasant feature of excitement was added by the prevalent idea that the Prince had seen and heard the row. Those who had been at the club at the time of course knew that this was not the case; but the presence of the Prince at The Universe between the row and the murder had really been a fact, and therefore it was only natural that men should allow themselves the delight of mixing the Prince with the whole concern. In remote circles the Prince was undoubtedly supposed to have had a great deal to do with the matter, though whether as abettor of the murdered or of the murderer was never plainly declared. A great deal was said about the Prince that evening in the House, so that many members were able to enjoy themselves thoroughly. "What a godsend for Gresham," said one gentleman to Mr. Ratler very shortly after the strong eulogium which had been uttered on poor Mr. Bonteen by the Prime Minister. "Well,--yes; I was afraid that the poor fellow would never have got on with us." "Got on! He'd have been a thorn in Gresham's side as long as he held office. If Finn should be acquitted, you ought to do something handsome for him." Whereupon Mr. Ratler laughed heartily. "It will pretty nearly break them up," said Sir Orlando Drought, one of Mr. Daubeny's late Secretaries of State to Mr. Roby, Mr. Daubeny's late patronage secretary. "I don't quite see that. They'll be able to drop their decimal coinage with a good excuse, and that will be a great comfort. They are talking of getting Monk to go back to the Board of Trade." "Will that strengthen them?" "Bonteen would have weakened them. The man had got beyond himself, and lost his head. They are better without him." "I suppose Finn did it?" asked Sir Orlando. "Not a doubt about it, I'm told. The queer thing is that he should have declared his purpose beforehand to Erle. Gresham says that all that must have been part of his plan,--so as to make men think afterwards that he couldn't have done it. Grogram's idea is that he had planned the murder before he went to the club." "Will the Prince have to give evidence?" "No, no," said Mr. Roby. "That's all wrong. The Prince had left the club before the row commenced. Confucius Putt says that the Prince didn't hear a word of it. He was talking to the Prince all the time." Confucius Putt was the distinguished artist with whom the Prince had shaken hands on leaving the club. Lord Drummond was in the Peers' Gallery, and Mr. Boffin was talking to him over the railings. It may be remembered that those two gentlemen had conscientiously left Mr. Daubeny's Cabinet because they had been unable to support him in his views about the Church. After such sacrifice on their parts their minds were of course intent on Church matters. "There doesn't seem to be a doubt about it," said Mr. Boffin. "Cantrip won't believe it," said the peer. "He was at the Colonies with Cantrip, and Cantrip found him very agreeable. Everybody says that he was one of the pleasantest fellows going. This makes it out of the question that they should bring in any Church bill this Session." "Do you think so?" "Oh yes;--certainly. There will be nothing else thought of now till the trial." "So much the better," said his Lordship. "It's an ill wind that blows no one any good. Will they have evidence for a conviction?" "Oh dear yes; not a doubt about it. Fawn can swear to him," said Mr. Boffin. Barrington Erle was telling his story for the tenth time when he was summoned out of the Library to the Duchess of Omnium, who had made her way up into the lobby. "Oh, Mr. Erle, do tell me what you really think," said the Duchess. "That is just what I can't do." "Why not?" "Because I don't know what to think." "He can't have done it, Mr. Erle." "That's just what I say to myself, Duchess." "But they do say that the evidence is so very strong against him." "Very strong." "I wish we could get that Lord Fawn out of the way." "Ah;--but we can't." "And will they--hang him?" "If they convict him, they will." "A man we all knew so well! And just when we had made up our minds to do everything for him. Do you know I'm not a bit surprised. I've felt before now as though I should like to have done it myself." "He could be very nasty, Duchess!" "I did so hate that man. But I'd give,--oh, I don't know what I'd give to bring him to life again this minute. What will Lady Laura do?" In answer to this, Barrington Erle only shrugged his shoulders. Lady Laura was his cousin. "We mustn't give him up, you know, Mr. Erle." "What can we do?" "Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he must be innocent,--so that everybody should be made to think so? And if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to--to destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do. There's no getting hold of a judge, I know." "No, Duchess. The judges are stone." "Not that they are a bit better than anybody else,--only they like to be safe." "They do like to be safe." "I'm sure we could do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. I don't believe, you know, for a moment that he murdered him. It was done by Lizzie Eustace's Jew." "It will be sifted, of course." "But what's the use of sifting if Mr. Finn is to be hung while it's being done? I don't think anything of the police. Do you remember how they bungled about that woman's necklace? I don't mean to give him up, Mr. Erle; and I expect you to help me." Then the Duchess returned home, and, as we know, found Madame Goesler at her house. Nothing whatever was done that night, either in the Lords or Commons. A "statement" about Mr. Bonteen was made in the Upper as well as in the Lower House, and after that statement any real work was out of the question. Had Mr. Bonteen absolutely been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the Cabinet when he was murdered, and had Phineas Finn been once more an Under-Secretary of State, the commotion and excitement could hardly have been greater. Even the Duke of St. Bungay had visited the spot,--well known to him, as there the urban domains meet of two great Whig peers, with whom and whose predecessors he had long been familiar. He also had known Phineas Finn, and not long since had said civil words to him and of him. He, too, had, of late days, especially disliked Mr. Bonteen, and had almost insisted that the man now murdered should not be admitted into the Cabinet. He had heard what was the nature of the evidence;--had heard of the quarrel, the life-preserver, and the grey coat. "I suppose he must have done it," said the Duke of St. Bungay to himself as he walked away up Hay Hill. CHAPTER LI. "YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL." The tidings of what had taken place first reached Lady Laura Kennedy from her brother on his return to Portman Square after the scene in the police court. The object of his visit to Finn's lodgings has been explained, but the nature of Lady Laura's vehemence in urging upon her brother the performance of a very disagreeable task has not been sufficiently described. No brother would willingly go on such a mission from a married sister to a man who had been publicly named as that sister's lover;--and no brother could be less likely to do so than Lord Chiltern. But Lady Laura had been very stout in her arguments, and very strong-willed in her purpose. The income arising from this money,--which had been absolutely her own,--would again be exclusively her own should the claim to it on behalf of her husband's estate be abandoned. Surely she might do what she liked with her own. If her brother would not assist her in making this arrangement, it must be done by other means. She was quite willing that it should appear to come to Mr. Finn from her father and not from herself. Did her brother think any ill of her? Did he believe in the calumnies of the newspapers? Did he or his wife for a moment conceive that she had a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared that he had no suspicion of the kind. "No;--indeed," said Lady Laura. "I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not I as much entitled to help a friend as you might be? You need not even mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her name would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil things. "They cannot say worse than they have said," she continued. "And yet what harm have they done to me,--or you?" Then he demanded why she desired to go so far out of her way with the view of spending her money upon one who was in no way connected with her. "Because I like him better than any one else," she answered, boldly. "There is very little left for which I care at all;--but I do care for his prosperity. He was once in love with me and told me so,--but I had chosen to give my hand to Mr. Kennedy. He is not in love with me now,--nor I with him; but I choose to regard him as my friend." He assured her over and over again that Phineas Finn would certainly refuse to touch her money;--but this she declined to believe. At any rate the trial might be made. He would not refuse money left to him by will, and why should he not now enjoy that which was intended for him? Then she explained how certain it was that he must speedily vanish out of the world altogether, unless some assurance of an income were made to him. So Lord Chiltern went on his mission, hardly meaning to make the offer, and confident that it would be refused if made. We know the nature of the new trouble in which he found Phineas Finn enveloped. It was such that Lord Chiltern did not open his mouth about money, and now, having witnessed the scene at the police-office, he had come back to tell his tale to his sister. She was sitting with his wife when he entered the room. "Have you heard anything?" he asked at once. "Heard what?" said his wife. "Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered." "What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn has been--killed!" Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her. "Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one whom we knew?" "I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last night in the streets." "Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern. "Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr. Bonteens were nothing to her. "Yes;--the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better if there were no such talk." "And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming close to her brother. "Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply interested to keep her seat. "They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern;--"that Jew who married Lady Eustace, and--" But there he paused. He had determined beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he found it almost impossible to mention the name. "Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife. "Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura. "Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from the court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do not faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me through, Laura?" said he. "You do not think he did it?" said his wife. "I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern. The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs, heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact was not altered to her,--nor the condition of the man she loved. She had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he should have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the circumstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It might be that Phineas had killed the man, bringing himself within the reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit her reproaches;--hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow;--but not the shame with which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the good opinion of the world. "You hear what he says, Laura." "They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her tears. "They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern. "It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You disgrace yourself by sprawling there." "Do not be hard to her, Oswald." "I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They cannot make my life worse than it is." Then he told all the story,--of the quarrel, and the position of the streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern. "It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied. "And they will let him go again?" "They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further to be done." "And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly. Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take her message about the money, he had assured her that he suspected her of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved of the separation, and had even offered to assist her should she be in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and his wife that her lot in life had been very hard. When these calumnies about her and Phineas Finn had reached his ears,--or his eyes,--as such calumnies always will reach the ears and eyes of those whom they are most capable of hurting, he had simply felt a desire to crush some Quintus Slide, or the like, into powder for the offence. He had received Phineas in his own house with all his old friendship. He had even this morning been with the accused man as almost his closest friend. But, nevertheless, there was creeping into his heart a sense of the shame with which he would be afflicted, should the world really be taught to believe that the man had been his sister's lover. Lady Laura's distress on the present occasion was such as a wife might show, or a girl weeping for her lover, or a mother for her son, or a sister for a brother; but was extravagant and exaggerated in regard to such friendship as might be presumed to exist between the wife of Mr. Robert Kennedy and the member for Tankerville. He could see that his wife felt this as he did, and he thought it necessary to say something at once, that might force his sister to moderate at any rate her language, if not her feelings. Two expressions of face were natural to him; one eloquent of good humour, in which the reader of countenances would find some promise of coming frolic;--and the other, replete with anger, sometimes to the extent almost of savagery. All those who were dependent on him were wont to watch his face with care and sometimes with fear. When he was angry it would almost seem that he was about to use personal violence on the object of his wrath. At the present moment he was rather grieved than enraged; but there came over his face that look of wrath with which all who knew him were so well acquainted. "You cannot see him," he said. "Why not I, as well as you?" "If you do not understand, I cannot tell you. But you must not see him;--and you shall not." "Who will hinder me?" "If you put me to it, I will see that you are hindered. What is the man to you that you should run the risk of evil tongues, for the sake of visiting him in gaol? You cannot save his life,--though it may be that you might endanger it." "Oswald," she said very slowly, "I do not know that I am in any way under your charge, or bound to submit to your orders." "You are my sister." "And I have loved you as a sister. How should it be possible that my seeing him should endanger his life?" "It will make people think that the things are true which have been said." "And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her sister-in-law's waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life to me." "Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern. "I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man, because,--because--" But she was too noble to tell her brother even then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had married the rich man, rejecting the poor man's hand, because she had given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother's debts. And he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this. "And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed her finger out at her brother. "I love him,--as a mother might love her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none;--none. When I am with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once;--but then I could not afford to be so loved." "You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother. "But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished to strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands it all;--but you understand nothing." "Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all that can be done." "But they will hang him." "Nonsense!" said her brother. "He has not been as yet committed for his trial. Heaven knows how much has to be done. It is as likely as not that in three days' time he will be out at large, and all the world will be running after him just because he has been in Newgate." "But who will look after him?" "He has plenty of friends. I will see that he is not left without everything that he wants." "But he will want money." "He has plenty of money for that. Do you take it quietly, and not make a fool of yourself. If the worst comes to the worst--" "Oh, heavens!" "Listen to me, if you can listen. Should the worst come to the worst, which I believe to be altogether impossible,--mind, I think it next to impossible, for I have never for a moment believed him to be guilty,--we will,--visit him,--together. Good-bye now. I am going to see that friend of his, Mr. Low." So saying Lord Chiltern went, leaving the two women together. "Why should he be so savage with me?" said Lady Laura. "He does not mean to be savage." "Does he speak to you like that? What right has he to tell me of shame? Has my life been so bad, and his so good? Do you think it shameful that I should love this man?" She sat looking into her friend's face, but her friend for a while hesitated to answer. "You shall tell me, Violet. We have known each other so well that I can bear to be told by you. Do not you love him?" "I love him!--certainly not." "But you did." "Not as you mean. Who can define love, and say what it is? There are so many kinds of love. We say that we love the Queen." "Psha!" "And we are to love all our neighbours. But as men and women talk of love, I never at any moment of my life loved any man but my husband. Mr. Finn was a great favourite with me,--always." "Indeed he was." "As any other man might be,--or any woman. He is so still, and with all my heart I hope that this may be untrue." "It is false as the Devil. It must be false. Can you think of the man,--his sweetness, the gentle nature of him, his open, free speech, and courage, and believe that he would go behind his enemy and knock his brains out in the dark? I can conceive it of myself, that I should do it, much easier than of him." "Oswald says it is false." "But he says it as partly believing that it is true. If it be true I will hang myself. There will be nothing left among men or women fit to live for. You think it shameful that I should love him." "I have not said so." "But you do." "I think there is cause for shame in your confessing it." "I do confess it." "You ask me, and press me, and because we have loved one another so well I must answer you. If a woman,--a married woman,--be oppressed by such a feeling, she should lay it down at the bottom of her heart, out of sight, never mentioning it, even to herself." "You talk of the heart as though we could control it." "The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I am not passionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control my heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been tempted. Laura, do not think I am preaching to you." "Oh no;--but your husband; think of him, and think of mine! You have babies." "May God make me thankful. I have every good thing on earth that God can give." "And what have I? To see that man prosper in life, who they tell me is a murderer; that man who is now in a felon's gaol,--whom they will hang for ought we know,--to see him go forward and justify my thoughts of him! that yesterday was all I had. To-day I have nothing,--except the shame with which you and Oswald say that I have covered myself." "Laura, I have never said so." "I saw it in your eye when he accused me. And I know that it is shameful. I do know that I am covered with shame. But I can bear my own disgrace better than his danger." After a long pause,--a silence of probably some fifteen minutes,--she spoke again. "If Robert should die,--what would happen then?" "It would be--a release, I suppose," said Lady Chiltern in a voice so low, that it was almost a whisper. "A release indeed;--and I would become that man's wife the next day, at the foot of the gallows;--if he would have me. But he would not have me." CHAPTER LII. MR. KENNEDY'S WILL. Mr. Kennedy had fired a pistol at Phineas Finn in Macpherson's Hotel with the manifest intention of blowing out the brains of his presumed enemy, and no public notice had been taken of the occurrence. Phineas himself had been only too willing to pass the thing by as a trifling accident, if he might be allowed to do so, and the Macphersons had been by far too true to their great friend to think of giving him in charge to the police. The affair had been talked about, and had come to the knowledge of reporters and editors. Most of the newspapers had contained paragraphs giving various accounts of the matter; and one or two had followed the example of The People's Banner in demanding that the police should investigate the matter. But the matter had not been investigated. The police were supposed to know nothing about it,--as how should they, no one having seen or heard the shot but they who were determined to be silent? Mr. Quintus Slide had been indignant all in vain, so far as Mr. Kennedy and his offence had been concerned. As soon as the pistol had been fired and Phineas had escaped from the room, the unfortunate man had sunk back in his chair, conscious of what he had done, knowing that he had made himself subject to the law, and expecting every minute that constables would enter the room to seize him. He had seen his enemy's hat lying on the floor, and, when nobody would come to fetch it, had thrown it down the stairs. After that he had sat waiting for the police, with the pistol, still loaded in every barrel but one, lying by his side,--hardly repenting the attempt, but trembling for the result,--till Macpherson, the landlord, who had been brought home from chapel, knocked at his door. There was very little said between them; and no positive allusion was made to the shot that had been fired; but Macpherson succeeded in getting the pistol into his possession,--as to which the unfortunate man put no impediment in his way, and he managed to have it understood that Mr. Kennedy's cousin should be summoned on the following morning. "Is anybody else coming?" Robert Kennedy asked, when the landlord was about to leave the room. "Naebody as I ken o', yet, laird," said Macpherson, "but likes they will." Nobody, however, did come, and the "laird" had spent the evening by himself in very wretched solitude. On the following day the cousin had come, and to him the whole story was told. After that, no difficulty was found in taking the miserable man back to Loughlinter, and there he had been for the last two months in the custody of his more wretched mother and of his cousin. No legal steps had been taken to deprive him of the management either of himself or of his property,--so that he was in truth his own master. And he exercised his mastery in acts of petty tyranny about his domain, becoming more and more close-fisted in regard to money, and desirous, as it appeared, of starving all living things about the place,--cattle, sheep, and horses, so that the value of their food might be saved. But every member of the establishment knew that the laird was "nae just himself," and consequently his orders were not obeyed. And the laird knew the same of himself, and, though he would give the orders not only resolutely, but with imperious threats of penalties to follow disobedience, still he did not seem to expect compliance. While he was in this state, letters addressed to him came for a while into his own hands, and thus more than one reached him from Lord Brentford's lawyer, demanding that restitution should be made of the interest arising from Lady Laura's fortune. Then he would fly out into bitter wrath, calling his wife foul names, and swearing that she should never have a farthing of his money to spend upon her paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows, throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had brought him,--as he now said,--to the verge of the grave, he would still give her shelter and room for repentance. He recognised his vows, though she did not. She should still be his wife, though she had utterly disgraced both herself and him. She should still be his wife, though she had so lived as to make it impossible that there should be any happiness in their household. It was thus he spoke when first one and then another letter came from the Earl's lawyer, pointing out to him the injustice to which Lady Laura was subjected by the loss of her fortune. No doubt these letters would not have been written in the line assumed had not Mr. Kennedy proved himself to be unfit to have the custody of his wife by attempting to shoot the man whom he accused of being his wife's lover. An act had been done, said the lawyer, which made it quite out of the question that Lady Laura should return to her husband. To this, when speaking of the matter to those around him,--which he did with an energy which seemed to be foreign to his character,--Mr. Kennedy made no direct allusion; but he swore most positively that not a shilling should be given up. The fear of policemen coming down to Loughlinter to take account of that angry shot had passed away; and, though he knew, with an uncertain knowledge, that he was not in all respects obeyed as he used to be,--that his orders were disobeyed by stewards and servants, in spite of his threats of dismissal,--he still felt that he was sufficiently his own master to defy the Earl's attorney and to maintain his claim upon his wife's person. Let her return to him first of all! But after a while the cousin interfered still further; and Robert Kennedy, who so short a time since had been a member of the Government, graced by permission to sit in the Cabinet, was not allowed to open his own post-bag. He had written a letter to one person, and then again to another, which had induced those who received them to return answers to the cousin. To Lord Brentford's lawyer he had used a few very strong words. Mr. Forster had replied to the cousin, stating how grieved Lord Brentford would be, how much grieved would be Lady Laura, to find themselves driven to take steps in reference to what they conceived to be the unfortunate condition of Mr. Robert Kennedy; but that such steps must be taken unless some arrangement could be made which should be at any rate reasonable. Then Mr. Kennedy's post-bag was taken from him; the letters which he wrote were not sent;--and he took to his bed. It was during this condition of affairs that the cousin took upon himself to intimate to Mr. Forster that the managers of Mr. Kennedy's estate were by no means anxious of embarrassing their charge by so trumpery an additional matter as the income derived from Lady Laura's forty thousand pounds. But things were in a terrible confusion at Loughlinter. Rents were paid as heretofore on receipts given by Robert Kennedy's agent; but the agent could only pay the money to Robert Kennedy's credit at his bank. Robert Kennedy's cheques would, no doubt, have drawn the money out again;--but it was almost impossible to induce Robert Kennedy to sign a cheque. Even in bed he inquired daily about his money, and knew accurately the sum lying at his banker's; but he could be persuaded to disgorge nothing. He postponed from day to day the signing of certain cheques that were brought to him, and alleged very freely that an attempt was being made to rob him. During all his life he had been very generous in subscribing to public charities; but now he stopped all his subscriptions. The cousin had to provide even for the payment of wages, and things went very badly at Loughlinter. Then there arose the question whether legal steps should be taken for placing the management of the estate in other hands, on the ground of the owner's insanity. But the wretched old mother begged that this might not be done;--and Dr. Macnuthrie, from Callender, was of opinion that no steps should be taken at present. Mr. Kennedy was very ill,--very ill indeed; would take no nourishment, and seemed to be sinking under the pressure of his misfortunes. Any steps such as those suggested would probably send their friend out of the world at once. In fact Robert Kennedy was dying;--and in the first week of May, when the beauty of the spring was beginning to show itself on the braes of Loughlinter, he did die. The old woman, his mother, was seated by his bedside, and into her ears he murmured his last wailing complaint. "If she had the fear of God before her eyes, she would come back to me." "Let us pray that He may soften her heart," said the old lady. "Eh, mother;--nothing can soften the heart Satan has hardened, till it be hard as the nether millstone." And in that faith he died believing, as he had ever believed, that the spirit of evil was stronger than the spirit of good. [Illustration: "He may soften her heart."] For some time past there had been perturbation in the mind of that cousin, and of all other Kennedys of that ilk, as to the nature of the will of the head of the family. It was feared lest he should have been generous to the wife who was believed by them all to have been so wicked and treacherous to her husband;--and so it was found to be when the will was read. During the last few months no one near him had dared to speak to him of his will, for it had been known that his condition of mind rendered him unfit to alter it; nor had he ever alluded to it himself. As a matter of course there had been a settlement, and it was supposed that Lady Laura's own money would revert to her; but when it was found that in addition to this the Loughlinter estate became hers for life, in the event of Mr. Kennedy dying without a child, there was great consternation among the Kennedys generally. There were but two or three of them concerned, and for those there was money enough; but it seemed to them now that the bad wife, who had utterly refused to acclimatise herself to the soil to which she had been transplanted, was to be rewarded for her wicked stubbornness. Lady Laura would become mistress of her own fortune and of all Loughlinter, and would be once more a free woman, with all the power that wealth and fashion can give. Alas, alas! it was too late now for the taking of any steps to sever her from her rich inheritance! "And the false harlot will come and play havoc here, in my son's mansion," said the old woman with extremest bitterness. The tidings were conveyed to Lady Laura through her lawyer, but did not reach her in full till some eight or ten days after the news of her husband's death. The telegram announcing that event had come to her at her father's house in Portman Square, on the day after that on which Phineas had been arrested, and the Earl had of course known that his great longing for the recovery of his wife's fortune had been now realised. To him there was no sorrow in the news. He had only known Robert Kennedy as one who had been thoroughly disagreeable to himself, and who had persecuted his daughter throughout their married life. There had come no happiness,--not even prosperity,--through the marriage. His daughter had been forced to leave the man's house,--and had been forced also to leave her money behind her. Then she had been driven abroad, fearing persecution, and had only dared to return when the man's madness became so notorious as to annul his power of annoying her. Now by his death, a portion of the injury which he had inflicted on the great family of Standish would be remedied. The money would come back,--together with the stipulated jointure,--and there could no longer be any question of return. The news delighted the old Lord,--and he was almost angry with his daughter because she also would not confess her delight. "Oh, Papa, he was my husband." "Yes, yes, no doubt. I was always against it, you will remember." "Pray do not talk in that way now, Papa. I know that I was not to him what I should have been." "You used to say it was all his fault." "We will not talk of it now, Papa. He is gone, and I remember his past goodness to me." She clothed herself in the deepest of mourning, and made herself a thing of sorrow by the sacrificial uncouthness of her garments. And she tried to think of him;--to think of him, and not to think of Phineas Finn. She remembered with real sorrow the words she had spoken to her sister-in-law, in which she had declared, while still the wife of another man, that she would willingly marry Phineas at the foot even of the gallows if she were free. She was free now; but she did not repeat her assertion. It was impossible not to think of Phineas in his present strait, but she abstained from speaking of him as far as she could, and for the present never alluded to her former purpose of visiting him in his prison. From day to day, for the first few days of her widowhood, she heard what was going on. The evidence against him became stronger and stronger, whereas the other man, Yosef Mealyus, had been already liberated. There were still many who felt sure that Mealyus had been the murderer, among whom were all those who had been ranked among the staunch friends of our hero. The Chilterns so believed, and Lady Laura; the Duchess so believed, and Madame Goesler. Mr. Low felt sure of it, and Mr. Monk and Lord Cantrip; and nobody was more sure than Mrs. Bunce. There were many who professed that they doubted; men such as Barrington Erle, Laurence Fitzgibbon, the two Dukes,--though the younger Duke never expressed such doubt at home,--and Mr. Gresham himself. Indeed, the feeling of Parliament in general was one of great doubt. Mr. Daubeny never expressed an opinion one way or the other, feeling that the fate of two second-class Liberals could not be matter of concern to him;--but Sir Orlando Drought, and Mr. Roby, and Mr. Boffin, were as eager as though they had not been Conservatives, and were full of doubt. Surely, if Phineas Finn were not the murderer, he had been more ill-used by Fate than had been any man since Fate first began to be unjust. But there was also a very strong party by whom no doubt whatever was entertained as to his guilt,--at the head of which, as in duty bound, was the poor widow, Mrs. Bonteen. She had no doubt as to the hand by which her husband had fallen, and clamoured loudly for the vengeance of the law. All the world, she said, knew how bitter against her husband had been this wretch, whose villainy had been exposed by her dear, gracious lord; and now the evidence against him was, to her thinking, complete. She was supported strongly by Lady Eustace, who, much as she wished not to be the wife of the Bohemian Jew, thought even that preferable to being known as the widow of a murderer who had been hung. Mr. Ratler, with one or two others in the House, was certain of Finn's guilt. The People's Banner, though it prefaced each one of its daily paragraphs on the subject with a statement as to the manifest duty of an influential newspaper to abstain from the expression of any opinion on such a subject till the question had been decided by a jury, nevertheless from day to day recapitulated the evidence against the Member for Tankerville, and showed how strong were the motives which had existed for such a deed. But, among those who were sure of Finn's guilt, there was no one more sure than Lord Fawn, who had seen the coat and the height of the man,--and the step. He declared among his intimate friends that of course he could not swear to the person. He could not venture, when upon his oath, to give an opinion. But the man who had passed him at so quick a pace had been half a foot higher than Mealyus;--of that there could be no doubt. Nor could there be any doubt as to the grey coat. Of course there might be other men with grey coats besides Mr. Phineas Finn,--and other men half a foot taller than Yosef Mealyus. And there might be other men with that peculiarly energetic step. And the man who hurried by him might not have been the man who murdered Mr. Bonteen. Of all that Lord Fawn could say nothing. But what he did say,--of that he was sure. And all those who knew him were well aware that in his own mind he was convinced of the guilt of Phineas Finn. And there was another man equally convinced. Mr. Maule, Senior, remembered well the manner in which Madame Goesler spoke of Phineas Finn in reference to the murder, and was quite sure that Phineas was the murderer. For a couple of days Lord Chiltern was constantly with the poor prisoner, but after that he was obliged to return to Harrington Hall. This he did a day after the news arrived of the death of his brother-in-law. Both he and Lady Chiltern had promised to return home, having left Adelaide Palliser alone in the house, and already they had overstayed their time. "Of course I will remain with you," Lady Chiltern had said to her sister-in-law; but the widow had preferred to be left alone. For these first few days,--when she must make pretence of sorrow because her husband had died; and had such real cause for sorrow in the miserable condition of the man she loved,--she preferred to be alone. Who could sympathise with her now, or with whom could she speak of her grief? Her father was talking to her always of her money;--but from him she could endure it. She was used to him, and could remember when he spoke to her of her forty thousand pounds, and of her twelve hundred a year of jointure, that it had not always been with him like that. As yet nothing had been heard of the will, and the Earl did not in the least anticipate any further accession of wealth from the estate of the man whom they had all hated. But his daughter would now be a rich woman; and was yet young, and there might still be splendour. "I suppose you won't care to buy land," he said. "Oh, Papa, do not talk of buying anything yet." "But, my dear Laura, you must put your money into something. You can get very nearly 5 per cent. from Indian Stock." "Not yet, Papa," she said. But he proceeded to explain to her how very important an affair money is, and that persons who have got money cannot be excused for not considering what they had better do with it. No doubt she could get 4 per cent. on her money by buying up certain existing mortgages on the Saulsby property,--which would no doubt be very convenient if, hereafter, the money should go to her brother's child. "Not yet, Papa," she said again, having, however, already made up her mind that her money should have a different destination. She could not interest her father at all in the fate of Phineas Finn. When the story of the murder had first been told to him, he had been amazed,--and, no doubt, somewhat gratified, as we all are, at tragic occurrences which do not concern ourselves. But he could not be made to tremble for the fate of Phineas Finn. And yet he had known the man during the last few years most intimately, and had had much in common with him. He had trusted Phineas in respect to his son, and had trusted him also in respect to his daughter. Phineas had been his guest at Dresden; and, on his return to London, had been the first friend he had seen, with the exception of his lawyer. And yet he could hardly be induced to express the slightest interest as to the fate of this friend who was to be tried for murder. "Oh;--he's committed, is he? I think I remember that Protheroe once told me that, in thirty-nine cases out of forty, men committed for serious offences have been guilty of them." The Protheroe here spoken of as an authority in criminal matters was at present Lord Weazeling, the Lord Chancellor. "But Mr. Finn has not been guilty, Papa." "There is always the one chance out of forty. But, as I was saying, if you like to take up the Saulsby mortgages, Mr. Forster can't be told too soon." "Papa, I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura. And then she rose and walked out of the room. At the end of ten days from the death of Mr. Kennedy, there came the tidings of the will. Lady Laura had written to Mrs. Kennedy a letter which had taken her much time in composition, expressing her deep sorrow, and condoling with the old woman. And the old woman had answered. "Madam, I am too old now to express either grief or anger. My dear son's death, caused by domestic wrong, has robbed me of any remaining comfort which the undeserved sorrows of his latter years had not already dispelled. Your obedient servant, Sarah Kennedy." From which it may be inferred that she had also taken considerable trouble in the composition of her letter. Other communications between Loughlinter and Portman Square there were none, but there came through the lawyers a statement of Mr. Kennedy's will, as far as the interests of Lady Laura were concerned. This reached Mr. Forster first, and he brought it personally to Portman Square. He asked for Lady Laura, and saw her alone. "He has bequeathed to you the use of Loughlinter for your life, Lady Laura." "To me!" "Yes, Lady Laura. The will is dated in the first year of his marriage, and has not been altered since." "What can I do with Loughlinter? I will give it back to them." Then Mr. Forster explained that the legacy referred not only to the house and immediate grounds,--but to the whole estate known as the domain of Loughlinter. There could be no reason why she should give it up, but very many why she should not do so. Circumstanced as Mr. Kennedy had been, with no one nearer to him than a first cousin, with a property purchased with money saved by his father,--a property to which no cousin could by inheritance have any claim,--he could not have done better with it than to leave it to his widow in fault of any issue of his own. Then the lawyer explained that were she to give it up, the world would of course say that she had done so from a feeling of her own unworthiness. "Why should I feel myself to be unworthy?" she asked. The lawyer smiled, and told her that of course she would retain Loughlinter. Then, at her request, he was taken to the Earl's room and there repeated the good news. Lady Laura preferred not to hear her father's first exultations. But while this was being done she also exulted. Might it not still be possible that there should be before her a happy evening to her days; and that she might stand once more beside the falls of Linter, contented, hopeful, nay, almost glorious, with her hand in his to whom she had once refused her own on that very spot? CHAPTER LIII. NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR. Though Mr. Robert Kennedy was lying dead at Loughlinter, and though Phineas Finn, a member of Parliament, was in prison, accused of murdering another member of Parliament, still the world went on with its old ways, down in the neighbourhood of Harrington Hall and Spoon Hall as at other places. The hunting with the Brake hounds was now over for the season,--had indeed been brought to an auspicious end three weeks since,--and such gentlemen as Thomas Spooner had time on their hands to look about their other concerns. When a man hunts five days a week, regardless of distances, and devotes a due proportion of his energies to the necessary circumstances of hunting, the preservation of foxes, the maintenance of good humour with the farmers, the proper compensation for poultry really killed by four-legged favourites, the growth and arrangement of coverts, the lying-in of vixens, and the subsequent guardianship of nurseries, the persecution of enemies, and the warm protection of friends,--when he follows the sport, accomplishing all the concomitant duties of a true sportsman, he has not much time left for anything. Such a one as Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall finds that his off day is occupied from breakfast to dinner with grooms, keepers, old women with turkeys' heads, and gentlemen in velveteens with information about wires and unknown earths. His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon, and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him. Many a large fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner. Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he was so true to the one great object of his existence. He had wisely endeavoured to prevent wrack and ruin among the affairs of Spoon Hall,--and had thoroughly succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with himself in the administration of his estate,--but there were things which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what they want," he said to his cousin Ned. "I suppose it is," said Ned. "I was fond of a girl once myself, and I hung about a good deal. But we hadn't sixpence between us." "That was Polly Maxwell. I remember. You behaved very badly then." "Very badly, Tom; about as bad as a man could behave,--and she was as bad. I loved her with all my heart, and I told her so. And she told me the same. There never was anything worse. We had just nothing between us, and nobody to give us anything." "It doesn't pay; does it, Ned, that kind of thing?" "It doesn't pay at all. I wouldn't give her up,--nor she me. She was about as pretty a girl as I remember to have seen." "I suppose you were a decent-looking fellow in those days yourself. They say so, but I never quite believed it." "There wasn't much in that," said Ned. "Girls don't want a man to be good-looking, but that he should speak up and not be afraid of them. There were lots of fellows came after her. You remember Blinks, of the Carabineers. He was full of money, and he asked her three times. She is an old maid to this day, and is living as companion to some crusty crochetty countess." "I think you did behave badly, Ned. Why didn't you set her free?" "Of course, I behaved badly. And why didn't she set me free, if you come to that? I might have found a female Blinks of my own,--only for her. I wonder whether it will come against us when we die, and whether we shall be brought up together to receive punishment." "Not if you repent, I suppose," said Tom Spooner, very seriously. "I sometimes ask myself whether she has repented. I made her swear that she'd never give me up. She might have broken her word a score of times, and I wish she had." "I think she was a fool, Ned." "Of course she was a fool. She knows that now, I dare say. And perhaps she has repented. Do you mean to try it again with that girl at Harrington Hall?" Mr. Thomas Spooner did mean to try it again with the girl at Harrington Hall. He had never quite trusted the note which he had got from his friend Chiltern, and had made up his mind that, to say the least of it, there had been very little friendship shown in the letter. Had Chiltern meant to have stood to him "like a brick," as he ought to have stood by his right hand man in the Brake country, at any rate a fair chance might have been given him. "Where the devil would he be in such a country as this without me,"--Tom had said to his cousin,--"not knowing a soul, and with all the shooting men against him? I might have had the hounds myself,--and might have 'em now if I cared to take them. It's not standing by a fellow as he ought to do. He writes to me, by George, just as he might do to some fellow who never had a fox about his place." "I suppose he didn't put the two things together," said Ned Spooner. "I hate a fellow that can't put two things together. If I stand to you you've a right to stand to me. That's what you mean by putting two things together. I mean to have another shy at her. She has quarrelled with that fellow Maule altogether. I've learned that from the gardener's girl at Harrington." Yes,--he would make another attempt. All history, all romance, all poetry and all prose, taught him that perseverance in love was generally crowned with success,--that true love rarely was crowned with success except by perseverance. Such a simple little tale of boy's passion as that told him by his cousin had no attraction for him. A wife would hardly be worth having, and worth keeping, so won. And all proverbs were on his side. "None but the brave deserve the fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner. "Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,--so, at least, Mr. Spooner asserted, and expressed an undoubting opinion that this imperative dismissal had come from the fact that Gerard Maule, when "put through his facings" about income was not able to "show the money." "She's not one of your Polly Maxwells, Ned." Ned said that he supposed she was not one of that sort. "Heaven knows I couldn't show the money," said Ned, "but that didn't make her any wiser." Then Tom gave it as his opinion that Miss Palliser was one of those young women who won't go anywhere without having everything about them. "She could have her own carriage with me, and her own horses, and her own maid, and everything." "Her own way into the bargain," said Ned. Whereupon Tom Spooner winked, and suggested that that might be as things turned out after the marriage. He was quite willing to run his chance for that. But how was he to get at her to prosecute his suit? As to writing to her direct,--he didn't much believe in that. "It looks as though one were afraid of her, you know;--which I ain't the least. I stood up to her before, and I wasn't a bit more nervous than I am at this moment. Were you nervous in that affair with Miss Maxwell?" "Ah;--it's a long time ago. There wasn't much nervousness there." "A sort of milkmaid affair?" "Just that." "That is different, you know. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just drive slap over to Harrington and chance it. I'll take the two bays in the phaeton. Who's afraid?" "There's nothing to be afraid of," said Ned. "Old Chiltern is such a d---- cantankerous fellow, and perhaps Lady C. may say that I oughtn't to have taken advantage of her absence. But, what's the odds? If she takes me there'll be an end of it. If she don't, they can't eat me." "The only thing is whether they'll let you in." "I'll try at any rate," said Tom, "and you shall go over with me. You won't mind trotting about the grounds while I'm carrying on the war inside? I'll take the two bays, and Dick Farren behind, and I don't think there's a prettier got-up trap in the county. We'll go to-morrow." And on the morrow they did start, having heard on that very morning of the arrest of Phineas Finn. "By George, don't it feel odd," said Tom just as they started,--"a fellow that we used to know down here, having him out hunting and all that, and now he's--a murderer! Isn't it a coincidence?" "It startles one," said Ned. "That's what I mean. It's such a strange thing that it should be the man we know ourselves. These things always are happening to me. Do you remember when poor Fred Fellows got his bad fall and died the next year? You weren't here then." "I've heard you speak of it." "I was in the very same field, and should have been the man to pick him up, only the hounds had just turned to the left. It's very odd that these coincidences always are happening to some men and never do happen to others. It makes one feel that he's marked out, you know." "I hope you'll be marked out by victory to-day." "Well;--yes. That's more important just now than Mr. Bonteen's murder. Do you know, I wish you'd drive. These horses are pulling, and I don't want to be all in a flurry when I get to Harrington." Now it was a fact very well known to all concerned with Spoon Hall, that there was nothing as to which the Squire was so jealous as the driving of his own horses. He would never trust the reins to a friend, and even Ned had hardly ever been allowed the honour of the whip when sitting with his cousin. "I'm apt to get red in the face when I'm overheated," said Tom as he made himself comfortable and easy in the left hand seat. There were not many more words spoken during the journey. The lover was probably justified in feeling some trepidation. He had been quite correct in suggesting that the matter between him and Miss Palliser bore no resemblance at all to that old affair between his cousin Ned and Polly Maxwell. There had been as little trepidation as money in that case,--simply love and kisses, parting, despair, and a broken heart. Here things were more august. There was plenty of money, and, let affairs go as they might, there would be no broken heart. But that perseverance in love of which Mr. Spooner intended to make himself so bright an example does require some courage. The Adelaide Pallisers of the world have a way of making themselves uncommonly unpleasant to a man when they refuse him for the third or fourth time. They allow themselves sometimes to express a contempt which is almost akin to disgust, and to speak to a lover as though he were no better than a footman. And then the lover is bound to bear it all, and when he has borne it, finds it so very difficult to get out of the room. Mr. Spooner had some idea of all this as his cousin drove him up to the door, at what he then thought a very fast pace. "D---- it all," he said, "you needn't have brought them up so confoundedly hot." But it was not of the horses that he was really thinking, but of the colour of his own nose. There was something working within him which had flurried him, in spite of the tranquillity of his idle seat. Not the less did he spring out of the phaeton with a quite youthful jump. It was well that every one about Harrington Hall should know how alert he was on his legs; a little weather-beaten about the face he might be; but he could get in and out of his saddle as quickly as Gerard Maule even yet; and for a short distance would run Gerard Maule for a ten-pound note. He dashed briskly up to the door, and rang the bell as though he feared neither Adelaide nor Lord Chiltern any more than he did his own servants at Spoon Hall. "Was Miss Palliser at home?" The maid-servant who opened the door told him that Miss Palliser was at home, with a celerity which he certainly had not expected. The male members of the establishment were probably disporting themselves in the absence of their master and mistress, and Adelaide Palliser was thus left to the insufficient guardianship of young women who were altogether without discretion. "Yes, sir; Miss Palliser is at home." So said the indiscreet female, and Mr. Spooner was for the moment confounded by his own success. He had hardly told himself what reception he had expected, or whether, in the event of the servant informing him at the front door that the young lady was not at home he would make any further immediate effort to prolong the siege so as to force an entry; but now, when he had carried the very fortress by surprise, his heart almost misgave him. He certainly had not thought, when he descended from his chariot like a young Bacchus in quest of his Ariadne, that he should so soon be enabled to repeat the tale of his love. But there he was, confronted with Ariadne before he had had a moment to shake his godlike locks or arrange the divinity of his thoughts. "Mr. Spooner," said the maid, opening the door. "Oh dear!" exclaimed Ariadne, feeling the vainness of her wish to fly from the god. "You know, Mary, that Lady Chiltern is up in London." "But he didn't ask for Lady Chiltern, Miss." Then there was a pause, during which the maid-servant managed to shut the door and to escape. "Lord Chiltern is up in London," said Miss Palliser, rising from her chair, "and Lady Chiltern is with him. They will be at home, I think, to-morrow, but I am not quite sure." She looked at him rather as Diana might have looked at poor Orion than as any Ariadne at any Bacchus; and for a moment Mr. Spooner felt that the pale chillness of the moon was entering in upon his very heart and freezing the blood in his veins. "Miss Palliser--" he began. But Adelaide was for the moment an unmitigated Diana. "Mr. Spooner," she said, "I cannot for an instant suppose that you wish to say anything to me." "But I do," said he, laying his hand upon his heart. "Then I must declare that--that--that you ought not to. And I hope you won't. Lady Chiltern is not in the house, and I think that--that you ought to go away. I do, indeed." But Mr. Spooner, though the interview had been commenced with unexpected and almost painful suddenness, was too much a man to be driven off by the first angry word. He remembered that this Diana was but mortal; and he remembered, too, that though he had entered in upon her privacy he had done so in a manner recognised by the world as lawful. There was no reason why he should allow himself to be congealed,--or even banished out of the grotto of the nymph,--without speaking a word on his own behalf. Were he to fly now, he must fly for ever; whereas, if he fought now,--fought well, even though not successfully at the moment,--he might fight again. While Miss Palliser was scowling at him he resolved upon fighting. "Miss Palliser," he said, "I did not come to see Lady Chiltern; I came to see you. And now that I have been happy enough to find you I hope you will listen to me for a minute. I shan't do you any harm." "I'm not afraid of any harm, but I cannot think that you have anything to say that can do anybody any good." She sat down, however, and so far yielded. "Of course I cannot make you go away, Mr. Spooner; but I should have thought, when I asked you--" Mr. Spooner also seated himself, and uttered a sigh. Making love to a sweet, soft, blushing, willing, though silent girl is a pleasant employment; but the task of declaring love to a stony-hearted, obdurate, ill-conditioned Diana is very disagreeable for any gentleman. And it is the more so when the gentleman really loves,--or thinks that he loves,--his Diana. Mr. Spooner did believe himself to be verily in love. Having sighed, he began: "Miss Palliser, this opportunity of declaring to you the state of my heart is too valuable to allow me to give it up without--without using it." "It can't be of any use." "Oh, Miss Palliser,--if you knew my feelings!" "But I know my own." "They may change, Miss Palliser." "No, they can't." "Don't say that, Miss Palliser." "But I do say it. I say it over and over again. I don't know what any gentleman can gain by persecuting a lady. You oughtn't to have been shown up here at all." Mr. Spooner knew well that women have been won even at the tenth time of asking, and this with him was only the third. "I think if you knew my heart--" he commenced. "I don't want to know your heart." "You might listen to a man, at any rate." "I don't want to listen. It can't do any good. I only want you to leave me alone, and go away." "I don't know what you take me for," said Mr. Spooner, beginning to wax angry. "I haven't taken you for anything at all. This is very disagreeable and very foolish. A lady has a right to know her own mind, and she has a right not to be persecuted." She would have referred to Lord Chiltern's letter had not all the hopes of her heart been so terribly crushed since that letter had been written. In it he had openly declared that she was already engaged to be married to Mr. Maule, thinking that he would thus put an end to Mr. Spooner's little adventure. But since the writing of Lord Chiltern's letter that unfortunate reference had been made to Boulogne, and every particle of her happiness had been destroyed. She was a miserable, blighted young woman, who had quarrelled irretrievably with her lover, feeling greatly angry with herself because she had made the quarrel, and yet conscious that her own self-respect had demanded the quarrel. She was full of regret, declaring to herself from morning to night that, in spite of all his manifest wickedness in having talked of Boulogne, she never could care at all for any other man. And now there was this aggravation to her misery,--this horrid suitor, who disgraced her by making those around her suppose it to be possible that she should ever accept him; who had probably heard of her quarrel, and had been mean enough to suppose that therefore there might be a chance for himself! She did despise him, and wanted him to understand that she despised him. "I believe I am in a condition to offer my hand and fortune to any young lady without impropriety," said Mr. Spooner. "I don't know anything about your condition." "But I will tell you everything." "I don't want to know anything about it." "I have an estate of--" "I don't want to know about your estate. I won't hear about your estate. It can be nothing to me." "It is generally considered to be a matter of some importance." "It is of no importance to me, at all, Mr. Spooner; and I won't hear anything about it. If all the parish belonged to you, it would not make any difference." "All the parish does belong to me, and nearly all the next," replied Mr. Spooner, with great dignity. "Then you'd better find some lady who would like to have two parishes. They haven't any weight with me at all." At that moment she told herself how much she would prefer even Bou--logne, to Mr. Spooner's two parishes. "What is it that you find so wrong about me?" asked the unhappy suitor. Adelaide looked at him, and longed to tell him that his nose was red. And, though she would not quite do that, she could not bring herself to spare him. What right had he to come to her,--a nasty, red-nosed old man, who knew nothing about anything but foxes and horses,--to her, who had never given him the encouragement of a single smile? She could not allude to his nose, but in regard to his other defects she would not spare him. "Our tastes are not the same, Mr. Spooner." "You are very fond of hunting." "And our ages are not the same." "I always thought that there should be a difference of age," said Mr. Spooner, becoming very red. "And,--and,--and,--it's altogether quite preposterous. I don't believe that you can really think it yourself." "But I do." "Then you must unthink it. And, indeed, Mr. Spooner, since you drive me to say so,--I consider it to be very unmanly of you, after what Lord Chiltern told you in his letter." "But I believe that is all over." Then her anger flashed up very high. "And if you do believe it, what a mean man you must be to come to me when you must know how miserable I am, and to think that I should be driven to accept you after losing him! You never could have been anything to me. If you wanted to get married at all, you should have done it before I was born." This was hard upon the man, as at that time he could not have been much more than twenty. "But you don't know anything of the difference in people if you think that any girl would look at you, after having been--loved by Mr. Maule. Now, as you do not seem inclined to go away, I shall leave you." So saying, she walked off with stately step, out of the room, leaving the door open behind her to facilitate her escape. She had certainly been very rude to him, and had treated him very badly. Of that he was sure. He had conferred upon her what is commonly called the highest compliment which a gentleman can pay to a lady, and she had insulted him;--had doubly insulted him. She had referred to his age, greatly exaggerating his misfortune in that respect; and she had compared him to that poor beggar Maule in language most offensive. When she left him, he put his hand beneath his waistcoat, and turned with an air almost majestic towards the window. But in an instant he remembered that there was nobody there to see how he bore his punishment, and he sank down into human nature. "Damnation!" he said, as he put his hands into his trousers pockets. Slowly he made his way down into the hall, and slowly he opened for himself the front door, and escaped from the house on to the gravel drive. There he found his cousin Ned still seated in the phaeton, and slowly driving round the circle in front of the hall door. The squire succeeded in gaining such command over his own gait and countenance that his cousin divined nothing of the truth as he clambered up into his seat. But he soon showed his temper. "What the devil have you got the reins in this way for?" "The reins are all right," said Ned. "No they ain't;--they're all wrong." And then he drove down the avenue to Spoon Hall as quickly as he could make the horses trot. "Did you see her?" said Ned, as soon as they were beyond the gates. "See your grandmother." "Do you mean to say that I'm not to ask?" "There's nothing I hate so much as a fellow that's always asking questions," said Tom Spooner. "There are some men so d----d thick-headed that they never know when they ought to hold their tongue." For a minute or two Ned bore the reproof in silence, and then he spoke. "If you are unhappy, Tom, I can bear a good deal; but don't overdo it,--unless you want me to leave you." "She's the d----t vixen that ever had a tongue in her head," said Tom Spooner, lifting his whip and striking the poor off-horse in his agony. Then Ned forgave him. CHAPTER LIV. THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL. Phineas Finn, when he had been thrice remanded before the Bow Street magistrate, and four times examined, was at last committed to be tried for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. This took place on Wednesday, May 19th, a fortnight after the murder. But during those fourteen days little was learned, or even surmised, by the police, in addition to the circumstances which had transpired at once. Indeed the delay, slight as it was, had arisen from a desire to find evidence that might affect Mr. Emilius, rather than with a view to strengthen that which did affect Phineas Finn. But no circumstance could be found tending in any way to add to the suspicion to which the converted Jew was made subject by his own character, and by the supposition that he would have been glad to get rid of Mr. Bonteen. He did not even attempt to run away,--for which attempt certain pseudo-facilities were put in his way by police ingenuity. But Mr. Emilius stood his ground and courted inquiry. Mr. Bonteen had been to him, he said, a very bitter, unjust, and cruel enemy. Mr. Bonteen had endeavoured to rob him of his dearest wife;--had charged him with bigamy;--had got up false evidence in the hope of ruining him. He had undoubtedly hated Mr. Bonteen, and might probably have said so. But, as it happened, through God's mercy, he was enabled to prove that he could not possibly have been at the scene of the murder when the murder was committed. During that hour of the night he had been in his own bed; and, had he been out, could not have re-entered the house without calling up the inmates. But, independently of his alibi, Mealyus was able to rely on the absolute absence of any evidence against him. No grey coat could be traced to his hands, even for an hour. His height was very much less than that attributed by Lord Fawn to the man whom he had seen hurrying to the spot. No weapon was found in his possession by which the deed could have been done. Inquiry was made as to the purchase of life-preservers, and the reverend gentleman was taken to half-a-dozen shops at which such instruments had lately been sold. But there had been a run upon life-preservers, in consequence of recommendations as to their use given by certain newspapers;--and it was found as impossible to trace one particular purchase as it would be that of a loaf of bread. At none of the half-dozen shops to which he was taken was Mr. Emilius remembered; and then all further inquiry in that direction was abandoned, and Mr. Emilius was set at liberty. "I forgive my persecutors from the bottom of my heart," he said,--"but God will requite it to them." In the meantime Phineas was taken to Newgate, and was there confined, almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the people,--the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls, Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen, Judges, Bishops, and Queen's Counsellors, beautiful women, and women of highest fashion, seemed for a while to think of but little else than the fate of Mr. Bonteen and the fate of Phineas Finn. People became intimately acquainted with each other through similar sympathies in this matter, who had never before spoken to or seen each other. On the day after the full committal of the man, Mr. Low received a most courteous letter from the Duchess of Omnium, begging him to call in Carlton Terrace if his engagements would permit him to do so. The Duchess had heard that Mr. Low was devoting all his energies to the protection of Phineas Finn; and, as a certain friend of hers,--a lady,--was doing the same, she was anxious to bring them together. Indeed, she herself was equally prepared to devote her energies for the present to the same object. She had declared to all her friends,--especially to her husband and to the Duke of St. Bungay,--her absolute conviction of the innocence of the accused man, and had called upon them to defend him. "My dear," said the elder Duke, "I do not think that in my time any innocent man has ever lost his life upon the scaffold." "Is that a reason why our friend should be the first instance?" said the Duchess. "He must be tried according to the laws of his country," said the younger Duke. "Plantagenet, you always speak as if everything were perfect, whereas you know very well that everything is imperfect. If that man is--is hung, I--" "Glencora," said her husband, "do not connect yourself with the fate of a stranger from any misdirected enthusiasm." "I do connect myself. If that man be hung--I shall go into mourning for him. You had better look to it." Mr. Low obeyed the summons, and called on the Duchess. But, in truth, the invitation had been planned by Madame Goesler, who was present when the lawyer, about five o'clock in the afternoon, was shown into the presence of the Duchess. Tea was immediately ordered, and Mr. Low was almost embraced. He was introduced to Madame Goesler, of whom he did not before remember that he had heard the name, and was at once given to understand that the fate of Phineas was now in question. "We know so well," said the Duchess, "how true you are to him." "He is an old friend of mine," said the lawyer, "and I cannot believe him to have been guilty of a murder." "Guilty!--he is no more guilty than I am. We are as sure of that as we are of the sun. We know that he is innocent;--do we not, Madame Goesler? And we, too, are very dear friends of his;--that is, I am." "And so am I," said Madame Goesler, in a voice very low and sweet, but yet so energetic as to make Mr. Low almost rivet his attention upon her. "You must understand, Mr. Low, that Mr. Finn is a man horribly hated by certain enemies. That wretched Mr. Bonteen hated his very name. But there are other people who think very differently of him. He must be saved." "Indeed I hope he may," said Mr. Low. "We wanted to see you for ever so many reasons. Of course you understand that--that any sum of money can be spent that the case may want." "Nothing will be spared on that account certainly," said the lawyer. "But money will do a great many things. We would send all round the world if we could get evidence against that other man,--Lady Eustace's husband, you know." "Can any good be done by sending all round the world?" "He went back to his own home not long ago,--in Poland, I think," said Madame Goesler. "Perhaps he got the instrument there, and brought it with him." Mr. Low shook his head. "Of course we are very ignorant;--but it would be a pity that everything should not be tried." "He might have got in and out of the window, you know," said the Duchess. Still Mr. Low shook his head. "I believe things can always be found out, if only you take trouble enough. And trouble means money;--does it not? We wouldn't mind how many thousand pounds it cost; would we, Marie?" "I fear that the spending of thousands can do no good," said Mr. Low. "But something must be done. You don't mean to say that Mr. Finn is to be hung because Lord Fawn says that he saw a man running along the street in a grey coat." "Certainly not." "There is nothing else against him;--nobody else saw him." "If there be nothing else against him he will be acquitted." "You think then," said Madame Goesler, "that there will be no use in tracing what the man Mealyus did when he was out of England. He might have bought a grey coat then, and have hidden it till this night, and then have thrown it away." Mr. Low listened to her with close attention, but again shook his head. "If it could be shown that the man had a grey coat at that time it would certainly weaken the effect of Mr. Finn's grey coat." "And if he bought a bludgeon there, it would weaken the effect of Mr. Finn's bludgeon. And if he bought rope to make a ladder it would show that he had got out. It was a dark night, you know, and nobody would have seen it. We have been talking it all over, Mr. Low, and we really think you ought to send somebody." "I will mention what you say to the gentlemen who are employed on Mr. Finn's defence." "But will not you be employed?" Then Mr. Low explained that the gentlemen to whom he referred were the attorneys who would get up the case on their friend's behalf, and that as he himself practised in the Courts of Equity only, he could not defend Mr. Finn on his trial. "He must have the very best men," said the Duchess. "He must have good men, certainly." "And a great many. Couldn't we get Sir Gregory Grogram?" Mr. Low shook his head. "I know very well that if you get men who are really,--really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low,--and pay them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury. I daresay it is very dreadful to say so, Mr. Low; but, nevertheless, I believe it, and as this man is certainly innocent it ought to be done. I daresay it's very shocking, but I do think that twenty thousand pounds spent among the lawyers would get him off." "I hope we can get him off without expending twenty thousand pounds, Duchess." "But you can have the money and welcome;--cannot he, Madame Goesler?" "He could have double that, if double were necessary." "I would fill the court with lawyers for him," continued the Duchess. "I would cross-examine the witnesses off their legs. I would rake up every wicked thing that horrid Jew has done since he was born. I would make witnesses speak. I would give a carriage and pair of horses to every one of the jurors' wives, if that would do any good. You may shake your head, Mr. Low; but I would. And I'd carry Lord Fawn off to the Antipodes, too;--and I shouldn't care if you left him there. I know that this man is innocent, and I'd do anything to save him. A woman, I know, can't do much;--but she has this privilege, that she can speak out what men only think. I'd give them two carriages and two pairs of horses a-piece if I could do it that way." Mr. Low did his best to explain to the Duchess that the desired object could hardly be effected after the fashion she proposed, and he endeavoured to persuade her that justice was sure to be done in an English court of law. "Then why are people so very anxious to get this lawyer or that to bamboozle the witnesses?" said the Duchess. Mr. Low declared it to be his opinion that the poorest man in England was not more likely to be hung for a murder he had not committed than the richest. "Then why would you, if you were accused, have ever so many lawyers to defend you?" Mr. Low went on to explain. "The more money you spend," said the Duchess, "the more fuss you make. And the longer a trial is about and the greater the interest, the more chance a man has to escape. If a man is tried for three days you always think he'll get off, but if it lasts ten minutes he is sure to be convicted and hung. I'd have Mr. Finn's trial made so long that they never could convict him. I'd tire out all the judges and juries in London. If you get lawyers enough they may speak for ever." Mr. Low endeavoured to explain that this might prejudice the prisoner. "And I'd examine every member of the House of Commons, and all the Cabinet, and all their wives. I'd ask them all what Mr. Bonteen had been saying. I'd do it in such a way as a trial was never done before;--and I'd take care that they should know what was coming." "And if he were convicted afterwards?" "I'd buy up the Home Secretary. It's very horrid to say so, of course, Mr. Low; and I dare say there is nothing wrong ever done in Chancery. But I know what Cabinet Ministers are. If they could get a majority by granting a pardon they'd do it quick enough." "You are speaking of a liberal Government, of course, Duchess." "There isn't twopence to choose between them in that respect. Just at this moment I believe Mr. Finn is the most popular member of the House of Commons; and I'd bring all that to bear. You can't but know that if everything of that kind is done it will have an effect. I believe you could make him so popular that the people would pull down the prison rather than have him hung;--so that a jury would not dare to say he was guilty." "Would that be justice, ladies?" asked the just man. "It would be success, Mr. Low,--which is a great deal the better thing of the two." "If Mr. Finn were found guilty, I could not in my heart believe that that would be justice," said Madame Goesler. Mr. Low did his best to make them understand that the plan of pulling down Newgate by the instrumentality of Phineas Finn's popularity, or of buying up the Home Secretary by threats of Parliamentary defection, would hardly answer their purpose. He would, he assured them, suggest to the attorneys employed the idea of searching for evidence against the man Mealyus in his own country, and would certainly take care that nothing was omitted from want of means. "You had better let us put a cheque in your hands," said the Duchess. But to this he would not assent. He did admit that it would be well to leave no stone unturned, and that the turning of such stones must cost money;--but the money, he said, would be forthcoming. "He's not a rich man himself," said the Duchess. Mr. Low assured her that if money were really wanting he would ask for it. "And now," said the Duchess, "there is one other thing that we want. Can we see him?" "You, yourself?" "Yes;--I myself, and Madame Goesler. You look as if it would be very wicked." Mr. Low thought that it would be wicked;--that the Duke would not like it; and that such a visit would occasion ill-natured remarks. "People do visit him, I suppose. He's not locked up like a criminal." "I visit him," said Mr. Low, "and one or two other friends have done so. Lord Chiltern has been with him, and Mr. Erle." "Has no lady seen him?" asked the Duchess. "Not to my knowledge." "Then it's time some lady should do so. I suppose we could be admitted. If we were his sisters they'd let us in." "You must excuse me, Duchess, but--" "Of course I will excuse you. But what?" "You are not his sisters." "If I were engaged to him, to be his wife?--" said Madame Goesler, standing up. "I am not so. There is nothing of that kind. You must not misunderstand me. But if I were?" "On that plea I presume you could be admitted." "Why not as a friend? Lord Chiltern is admitted as his friend." "Because of the prudery of a prison," said the Duchess. "All things are wrong to the lookers after wickedness, my dear. If it would comfort him to see us, why should he not have that comfort?" "Would you have gone to him in his own lodgings?" asked Mr. Low. "I would,--if he'd been ill," said Madame Goesler. "Madam," said Mr. Low, speaking with a gravity which for a moment had its effect even upon the Duchess of Omnium, "I think, at any rate, that if you visit Mr. Finn in prison, you should do so through the instrumentality of his Grace, your husband." "Of course you suspect me of all manner of evil." "I suspect nothing;--but I am sure that it should be so." "It shall be so," said the Duchess. "Thank you, sir. We are much obliged to you for your wise counsel." "I am obliged to you," said Madame Goesler, "because I know that you have his safety at heart." "And so am I," said the Duchess, relenting, and giving him her hand. "We are really ever so much obliged to you. You don't quite understand about the Duke; and how should you? I never do anything without telling him, but he hasn't time to attend to things." "I hope I have not offended you." "Oh dear, no. You can't offend me unless you mean it. Good-bye,--and remember to have a great many lawyers, and all with new wigs; and let them all get in a great rage that anybody should suppose it possible that Mr. Finn is a murderer. I'm sure I am. Good-bye, Mr. Low." "You'll never be able to get to him," said the Duchess, as soon as they were alone. "I suppose not." "And what good could you do? Of course I'd go with you if we could get in;--but what would be the use?" "To let him know that people do not think him guilty." "Mr. Low will tell him that. I suppose, too, we can write to him. Would you mind writing?" "I would rather go." "You might as well tell the truth when you are about it. You are breaking your heart for him." "If he were to be condemned, and--executed, I should break my heart. I could never appear bright before the world again." "That is just what I told Plantagenet. I said I would go into mourning." "And I should really mourn. And yet were he free to-morrow he would be no more to me than any other friend." "Do you mean you would not marry him?" "No;--I would not. Nor would he ask me. I will tell you what will be his lot in life,--if he escapes from the present danger." "Of course he will escape. They don't really hang innocent men." "Then he will become the husband of Lady Laura Kennedy." "Poor fellow! If I believed that, I should think it cruel to help him escape from Newgate." CHAPTER LV. PHINEAS IN PRISON. Phineas Finn himself, during the fortnight in which he was carried backwards and forwards between his prison and the Bow Street Police-office, was able to maintain some outward show of manly dignity,--as though he felt that the terrible accusation and great material inconvenience to which he was subjected were only, and could only be, temporary in their nature, and that the truth would soon prevail. During this period he had friends constantly with him,--either Mr. Low, or Lord Chiltern, or Barrington Erle, or his landlord, Mr. Bunce, who, in these days, was very true to him. And he was very frequently visited by the attorney, Mr. Wickerby, who had been expressly recommended to him for this occasion. If anybody could be counted upon to see him through his difficulty it was Wickerby. But the company of Mr. Wickerby was not pleasant to him, because, as far as he could judge, Mr. Wickerby did not believe in his innocence. Mr. Wickerby was willing to do his best for him; was, so to speak, moving heaven and earth on his behalf; was fully conscious that this case was a great affair, and in no respect similar to those which were constantly placed in his hands; but there never fell from him a sympathetic expression of assurance of his client's absolute freedom from all taint of guilt in the matter. From day to day, and ten times a day, Phineas would express his indignant surprise that any one should think it possible that he had done this deed, but to all these expressions Mr. Wickerby would make no answer whatever. At last Phineas asked him the direct question. "I never suspect anybody of anything," said Mr. Wickerby. "Do you believe in my innocence?" demanded Phineas. "Everybody is entitled to be believed innocent till he has been proved to be guilty," said Mr. Wickerby. Then Phineas appealed to his friend Mr. Low, asking whether he might not be allowed to employ some lawyer whose feelings would be more in unison with his own. But Mr. Low adjured him to make no change. Mr. Wickerby understood the work and was a most zealous man. His client was entitled to his services, but to nothing more than his services. And so Mr. Wickerby carried on the work, fully believing that Phineas Finn had in truth murdered Mr. Bonteen. But the prisoner was not without sympathy and confidence. Mr. Low, Lord Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern, who, on one occasion, came to visit him with her husband, entertained no doubts prejudicial to his honour. They told him perhaps almost more than was quite true of the feelings of the world in his favour. He heard of the friendship and faith of the Duchess of Omnium, of Madame Goesler, and of Lady Laura Kennedy,--hearing also that Lady Laura was now a widow. And then at length his two sisters came over to him from Ireland, and wept and sobbed, and fell into hysterics in his presence. They were sure that he was innocent, as was every one, they said, throughout the length and breadth of Ireland. And Mrs. Bunce, who came to see Phineas in his prison, swore that she would tear the judge from his bench if he did not at once pronounce a verdict in favour of her darling without waiting for any nonsense of a jury. And Bunce, her husband, having convinced himself that his lodger had not committed the murder, was zealous in another way, taking delight in the case, and proving that no jury could find a verdict of guilty. During that week Phineas, buoyed up by the sympathy of his friends, and in some measure supported by the excitement of the occasion, carried himself well, and bore bravely the terrible misfortune to which he had been subjected by untoward circumstances. But when the magistrate fully committed him, giving the first public decision on the matter from the bench, declaring to the world at large that on the evidence as given, prima facie, he, Phineas Finn, must be regarded as the murderer of Mr. Bonteen, our hero's courage almost gave way. If such was now the judicial opinion of the magistrate, how could he expect a different verdict from a jury in two months' time, when he would be tried before a final court? As far as he could understand, nothing more could be learned on the matter. All the facts were known that could be known,--as far as he, or rather his friends on his behalf, were able to search for facts. It seemed to him that there was no tittle whatever of evidence against him. He had walked straight home from his club with the life-preserver in his pocket, and had never turned to the right or to the left. Till he found himself committed, he would not believe that any serious and prolonged impediment could be thrown in the way of his liberty. He would not believe that a man altogether innocent could be in danger of the gallows on a false accusation. It had seemed to him that the police had kept their hold on him with a rabid ferocity, straining every point with the view of showing that it was possible that he should have been the murderer. Every policeman who had been near him, carrying him backward and forward from his prison, or giving evidence as to the circumstances of the locality and of his walk home on that fatal night, had seemed to him to be an enemy. But he had looked for impartiality from the magistrate,--and now the magistrate had failed him. He had seen in court the faces of men well known to him,--men known in the world,--with whom he had been on pleasant terms in Parliament, who had sat upon the bench while he was standing as a culprit between two constables; and they who had been his familiar friends had appeared at once to have been removed from him by some unmeasurable distance. But all that he had, as it were, discounted, believing that a few hours,--at the very longest a few days,--would remove the distance; but now he was sent back to his prison, there to await his trial for the murder. And it seemed to him that his committal startled no one but himself. Could it be that even his dearest friends thought it possible that he had been guilty? When that day came, and he was taken back to Newgate on his last journey there from Bow Street, Lord Chiltern had returned for a while to Harrington Hall, having promised that he would be back in London as soon as his business would permit; but Mr. Low came to him almost immediately to his prison room. "This is a pleasant state of things," said Phineas, with a forced laugh. But as he laughed he also sobbed, with a low, irrepressible, convulsive movement in his throat. "Phineas, the time has come in which you must show yourself to be a man." "A man! Oh, yes, I can be a man. A murderer you mean. I shall have to be--hung, I suppose." "May God, in His mercy, forbid." "No;--not in His mercy; in His justice. There can be no need for mercy here,--not even from Heaven. When they take my life may He forgive my sins through the merits of my Saviour. But for this there can be no mercy. Why do you not speak? Do you mean to say that I am guilty?" "I am sure that you are innocent." "And yet, look here. What more can be done to prove it than has been done? That blundering fool will swear my life away." Then he threw himself on his bed, and gave way to his sobs. That evening he was alone,--as, indeed, most of his evenings had been spent, and the minutes were minutes of agony to him. The external circumstances of his position were as comfortable as circumstances would allow. He had a room to himself looking out through heavy iron bars into one of the courts of the prison. The chamber was carpeted, and was furnished with bed and chairs and two tables. Books were allowed him as he pleased, and pen and ink. It was May, and no fire was necessary. At certain periods of the day he could walk alone in the court below,--the restriction on such liberty being that at other certain hours the place was wanted for other prisoners. As far as he knew no friend who called was denied to him, though he was by no means certain that his privilege in that respect would not be curtailed now that he had been committed for trial. His food had been plentiful and well cooked, and even luxuries, such as fish and wine and fruit, had been supplied to him. That the fruit had come from the hot-houses of the Duchess of Omnium, and the wine from Mr. Low's cellar, and the fish and lamb and spring vegetables, the cream and coffee and fresh butter from the unrestricted orders of another friend, that Lord Chiltern had sent him champagne and cigars, and that Lady Chiltern had given directions about the books and stationery, he did not know. But as far as he could be consoled by such comforts, there had been the consolation. If lamb and salad could make him happy he might have enjoyed his sojourn in Newgate. Now, this evening, he was past all enjoyment. It was impossible that he should read. How could a man fix his attention on any book, with a charge of murder against himself affirmed by the deliberate decision of a judge? And he knew himself to be as innocent as the magistrate himself. Every now and then he would rise from his bed, and almost rush across the room as though he would dash his head against the wall. Murder! They really believed that he had deliberately murdered the man;--he, Phineas Finn, who had served his country with repute, who had sat in Parliament, who had prided himself on living with the best of his fellow-creatures, who had been the friend of Mr. Monk and of Lord Cantrip, the trusted intimate of such women as Lady Laura and Lady Chiltern, who had never put his hand to a mean action, or allowed his tongue to speak a mean word! He laughed in his wrath, and then almost howled in his agony. He thought of the young loving wife who had lived with him little more than for one fleeting year, and wondered whether she was looking down upon him from Heaven, and how her spirit would bear this accusation against the man upon whose bosom she had slept, and in whose arms she had gone to her long rest. "They can't believe it," he said aloud. "It is impossible. Why should I have murdered him?" And then he remembered an example in Latin from some rule of grammar, and repeated it to himself over and over again.--"No one at an instant,--of a sudden,--becomes most base." It seemed to him that there was such a want of knowledge of human nature in the supposition that it was possible that he should have committed such a crime. And yet--there he was, committed to take his trial for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. The days were long, and it was daylight till nearly nine. Indeed the twilight lingered, even through those iron bars, till after nine. He had once asked for candles, but had been told that they could not be allowed him without an attendant in the room,--and he had dispensed with them. He had been treated doubtless with great respect, but nevertheless he had been treated as a prisoner. They hardly denied him anything that he asked, but when he asked for that which they did not choose to grant they would annex conditions which induced him to withdraw his request. He understood their ways now, and did not rebel against them. On a sudden he heard the key in the door, and the man who attended him entered the room with a candle in his hand. A lady had come to call, and the governor had given permission for her entrance. He would return for the light,--and for the lady, in half an hour. He had said all this before Phineas could see who the lady was. And when he did see the form of her who followed the gaoler, and who stood with hesitating steps behind him in the doorway, he knew her by her sombre solemn raiment, and not by her countenance. She was dressed from head to foot in the deepest weeds of widowhood, and a heavy veil fell from her bonnet over her face. "Lady Laura, is it you?" said Phineas, putting out his hand. Of course it was Lady Laura. While the Duchess of Omnium and Madame Goesler were talking about such a visit, allowing themselves to be deterred by the wisdom of Mr. Low, she had made her way through bolts and bars, and was now with him in his prison. [Illustration: Of course it was Lady Laura.] "Oh, Phineas!" She slowly raised her veil, and stood gazing at him. "Of all my troubles this,--to see you here,--is the heaviest." "And of all my consolations to see you here is the greatest." He should not have so spoken. Could he have thought of things as they were, and have restrained himself, he should not have uttered words to her which were pleasant but not true. There came a gleam of sunshine across her face as she listened to him, and then she threw herself into his arms, and wept upon his shoulder. "I did not expect that you would have found me," he said. She took the chair opposite to that on which he usually sat, and then began her tale. Her cousin, Barrington Erle, had brought her there, and was below, waiting for her in the Governor's house. He had procured an order for her admission that evening, direct from Sir Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary,--which, however, as she admitted, had been given under the idea that she and Erle were to see him together. "But I would not let him come with me," she said. "I could not have spoken to you, had he been here;--could I?" "It would not have been the same, Lady Laura." He had thought much of his mode of addressing her on occasions before this, at Dresden and at Portman Square, and had determined that he would always give her her title. Once or twice he had lacked the courage to be so hard to her. Now as she heard the name the gleam of sunshine passed from her altogether. "We hardly expected that we should ever meet in such a place as this?" he said. "I cannot understand it. They cannot really think you killed him." He smiled, and shook his head. Then she spoke of her own condition. "You have heard what has happened? You know that I am--a widow?" "Yes;--I had heard." And then he smiled again. "You will have understood why I could not come to you,--as I should have done but for this little accident." "He died on the day that they arrested you. Was it not strange that such a double blow should fall together? Oswald, no doubt, told you all." "He told me of your husband's death." "But not of his will? Perhaps he has not seen you since he heard it." Lord Chiltern had heard of the will before his last visit to Phineas in Newgate, but had not chosen then to speak of his sister's wealth. "I have heard nothing of Mr. Kennedy's will." "It was made immediately after our marriage,--and he never changed it, though he had so much cause of anger against me." "He has not injured you, then,--as regards money." "Injured me! No, indeed. I am a rich woman,--very rich. All Loughlinter is my own,--for life. But of what use can it be to me?" He in his present state could tell her of no uses for such a property. "I suppose, Phineas, it cannot be that you are really in danger?" "In the greatest danger, I fancy." "Do you mean that they will say--you are guilty?" "The magistrates have said so already." "But surely that is nothing. If I thought so, I should die. If I believed it, they should never take me out of the prison while you are here. Barrington says that it cannot be. Oswald and Violet are sure that such a thing can never happen. It was that Jew who did it." "I cannot say who did it. I did not." "You! Oh, Phineas! The world must be mad when any can believe it!" "But they do believe it?" This, he said, meaning to ask a question as to that outside world. "We do not. Barrington says--" "What does Barrington say?" "That there are some who do;--just a few, who were Mr. Bonteen's special friends." "The police believe it. That is what I cannot understand;--men who ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it. I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that they believed it. Mr. Monk was here yesterday." "Does he believe it?" "I asked him, and he told me--no. But I did not quite trust him as he told me. There are two or three who believe me innocent." "Who are they?" "Low, and Chiltern, and his wife;--and that man Bunce, and his wife. If I escape from this,--if they do not hang me,--I will remember them. And there are two other women who know me well enough not to think me a murderer." "Who are they, Phineas?" "Madame Goesler, and the Duchess of Omnium." "Have they been here?" she asked, with jealous eagerness. "Oh, no. But I hear that it is so,--and I know it. One learns to feel even from hearsay what is in the minds of people." "And what do I believe, Phineas? Can you read my thoughts?" "I know them of old, without reading them now." Then he put forth his hand and took hers. "Had I murdered him in real truth, you would not have believed it." "Because I love you, Phineas." Then the key was again heard in the door, and Barrington Erle appeared with the gaolers. The time was up, he said, and he had come to redeem his promise. He spoke cordially to his old friend, and grasped the prisoner's hand cordially,--but not the less did he believe that there was blood on it, and Phineas knew that such was his belief. It appeared on his arrival that Lady Laura had not at all accomplished the chief object of her visit. She had brought with her various cheques, all drawn by Barrington Erle on his banker,--amounting altogether to many hundreds of pounds,--which it was intended that Phineas should use from time to time for the necessities of his trial. Barrington Erle explained that the money was in fact to be a loan from Lady Laura's father, and was simply passed through his banker's account. But Phineas knew that the loan must come from Lady Laura, and he positively refused to touch it. His friend, Mr. Low, was managing all that for him, and he would not embarrass the matter by a fresh account. He was very obstinate, and at last the cheques were taken away in Barrington Erle's pocket. "Good-night, old fellow," said Erle, affectionately. "I'll see you again before long. May God send you through it all." "Good-night, Barrington. It was kind of you to come to me." Then Lady Laura, watching to see whether her cousin would leave her alone for a moment with the object of her idolatry, paused before she gave him her hand. "Good-night, Lady Laura," he said. "Good-night!" Barrington Erle was now just outside the door. "I shall not forget your coming here to me." "How should we, either of us, forget it?" "Come, Laura," said Barrington Erle, "we had better make an end of it." "But if I should never see him again!" "Of course you will see him again." "When! and where! Oh, God,--if they should murder him!" Then she threw herself into his arms, and covered him with kisses, though her cousin had returned into the room and stood over her as she embraced him. "Laura," said he, "you are doing him an injury. How should he support himself if you behave like this! Come away." "Oh, my God, if they should kill him!" she exclaimed. But she allowed her cousin to take her in his arms, and Phineas Finn was left alone without having spoken another word to either of them. CHAPTER LVI. THE MEAGER FAMILY. On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse. Here lived Mrs. and Miss Meager,--and also on occasions Mr. Meager, who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance in the world, going about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse places, and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked women,--mother and daughter,--who endeavoured to get their living by letting lodgings. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who do are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be considered in the rent. But Mr. Emilius, when the cruelty of his wife's friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs. and Miss Meager for all his domestic comforts. Mr. Emilius was always a favourite with new friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss rubbed altogether off him when Mr. Bonteen was murdered. As it happened, on that night,--or rather early in the day, for Meager had returned to the bosom of his family after a somewhat prolonged absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially remarkable in the Meager family from the double event,--Mr. Meager had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out of the question. Whereupon Mr. Meager had endeavoured to force the lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some slight personal encounter,--after which he had had some gin and had gone to bed. Mrs. Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted for her black eye by a tragical account of a fall she had had against the bed-post in the dark. Up to that period Mr. Emilius had been everything that was sweet and good,--an excellent, eloquent clergyman, who was being ill-treated by his wife's wealthy relations, who was soft in his manners and civil in his words, and never gave more trouble than was necessary. The period, too, would have been one of comparative prosperity to the Meager ladies,--but for that inopportune return of the head of the family,--as two other lodgers had been inclined to look out upon the dead wall, or else into the cheerful back-yard; which circumstance came to have some bearing upon our story, as Mrs. Meager had been driven by the press of her increased household to let that good-natured Mr. Emilius know that if "he didn't mind it" the latch-key might be an accommodation on occasions. To give him his due, indeed, he had, when first taking the rooms, offered to give up the key when not intending to be out at night. After the murder Mr. Emilius had been arrested, and had been kept in durance for a week. Miss Meager had been sure that he was innocent; Mrs. Meager had trusted the policemen, who evidently thought that the clergyman was guilty. Of the policemen who were concerned on the occasion, it may be said in a general way that they believed that both the gentlemen had committed the murder,--so anxious were they not to be foiled in the attempts at discovery which their duty called upon them to make. Mr. Meager had left the house on the morning of the arrest, having arranged that little matter of the five-pound note by a compromise. When the policeman came for Mr. Emilius, Mr. Meager was gone. For a day or two the lodger's rooms were kept vacant for the clergyman till Mrs. Meager became quite convinced that he had committed the murder, and then all his things were packed up and placed in the passage. When he was liberated he returned to the house, and expressed unbounded anger at what had been done. He took his two boxes away in a cab, and was seen no more by the ladies of Northumberland Street. But a further gleam of prosperity fell upon them in consequence of the tragedy which had been so interesting to them. Hitherto the inquiries made at their house had had reference solely to the habits and doings of their lodger during the last few days; but now there came to them a visitor who made a more extended investigation; and this was one of their own sex. It was Madame Goesler who got out of the cab at the workhouse corner, and walked from thence to Mrs. Meager's house. This was her third appearance in Northumberland Street, and at each coming she had spoken kind words, and had left behind her liberal recompense for the trouble which she gave. She had no scruples as to paying for the evidence which she desired to obtain,--no fear of any questions which might afterwards be asked in cross-examination. She dealt out sovereigns--womanfully, and had had Mrs. and Miss Meager at her feet. Before the second visit was completed they were both certain that the Bohemian converted Jew had murdered Mr. Bonteen, and were quite willing to assist in hanging him. "Yes, Ma'am," said Mrs. Meager, "he did take the key with him. Amelia remembers we were a key short at the time he was away." The absence here alluded to was that occasioned by the journey which Mr. Emilius took to Prague, when he heard that evidence of his former marriage was being sought against him in his own country. "That he did," said Amelia, "because we were put out ever so. And he had no business, for he was not paying for the room." "You have only one key." "There is three, Ma'am. The front attic has one regular because he's on a daily paper, and of course he doesn't get to bed till morning. Meager always takes another, and we can't get it from him ever so." "And Mr. Emilius took the other away with him?" asked Madame Goesler. "That he did, Ma'am. When he came back he said it had been in a drawer,--but it wasn't in the drawer. We always knows what's in the drawers." "The drawer wasn't left locked, then?" "Yes, it was, Ma'am, and he took that key--unbeknownst to us," said Mrs. Meager. "But there is other keys that open the drawers. We are obliged in our line to know about the lodgers, Ma'am." This was certainly no time for Madame Goesler to express disapprobation of the practices which were thus divulged. She smiled, and nodded her head, and was quite sympathetic with Mrs. Meager. She had learned that Mr. Emilius had taken the latch-key with him to Bohemia, and was convinced that a dozen other latch-keys might have been made after the pattern without any apparent detection by the London police. "And now about the coat, Mrs. Meager." "Well, Ma'am?" "Mr. Meager has not been here since?" "No, Ma'am. Mr. Meager, Ma'am, isn't what he ought to be. I never do own it up, only when I'm driven. He hasn't been home." "I suppose he still has the coat." "Well, Ma'am, no. We sent a young man after him, as you said, and the young man found him at the Newmarket Spring." "Some water cure?" asked Madame Goesler. "No, Ma'am. It ain't a water cure, but the races. He hadn't got the coat. He does always manage a tidy great coat when November is coming on, because it covers everything, and is respectable, but he mostly parts with it in April. He gets short, and then he--just pawns it." "But he had it the night of the murder?" "Yes, Ma'am, he had. Amelia and I remembered it especial. When we went to bed, which we did soon after ten, it was left in this room, lying there on the sofa." They were now sitting in the little back parlour, in which Mrs. and Miss Meager were accustomed to live. "And it was there in the morning?" "Father had it on when he went out," said Amelia. "If we paid him he would get it out of the pawnshop, and bring it to us, would he not?" asked the lady. To this Mrs. Meager suggested that it was quite on the cards that Mr. Meager might have been able to do better with his coat by selling it, and if so, it certainly would have been sold, as no prudent idea of redeeming his garment for the next winter's wear would ever enter his mind. And Mrs. Meager seemed to think that such a sale would not have taken place between her husband and any old friend. "He wouldn't know where he sold it," said Mrs. Meager. "Anyways he'd tell us so," said Amelia. "But if we paid him to be more accurate?" said Madame Goesler. "They is so afraid of being took up themselves," said Mrs. Meager. There was, however, ample evidence that Mr. Meager had possessed a grey great coat, which during the night of the murder had been left in the little sitting-room, and which they had supposed to have lain there all night. To this coat Mr. Emilius might have had easy access. "But then it was a big man that was seen, and Emilius isn't no ways a big man. Meager's coat would be too long for him, ever so much." "Nevertheless we must try and get the coat," said Madame Goesler. "I'll speak to a friend about it. I suppose we can find your husband when we want him?" "I don't know, Ma'am. We never can find him; but then we never do want him,--not now. The police know him at the races, no doubt. You won't go and get him into trouble, Ma'am, worse than he is? He's always been in trouble, but I wouldn't like to be means of making it worse on him than it is." Madame Goesler, as she again paid the woman for her services, assured her that she would do no injury to Mr. Meager. All that she wanted of Mr. Meager was his grey coat, and that not with any view that could be detrimental either to his honour or to his safety, and she was willing to pay any reasonable price,--or almost any unreasonable price,--for the coat. But the coat must be made to be forthcoming if it were still in existence, and had not been as yet torn to pieces by the shoddy makers. "It ain't near come to that yet," said Amelia. "I don't know that I ever see father more respectable,--that is, in the way of a great coat." CHAPTER LVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT. When Madame Goesler revealed her plans and ideas to Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, who had been employed to bring Phineas Finn through his troubles, that gentleman evidently did not think much of the unprofessional assistance which the lady proposed to give him. "I'm afraid it is far-fetched, Ma'am,--if you understand what I mean," said Mr. Wickerby. Madame Goesler declared that she understood very well what Mr. Wickerby meant, but that she could hardly agree with him. "According to that the gentleman must have plotted the murder more than a month before he committed it," said Mr. Wickerby. "And why not?" "Murder plots are generally the work of a few hours at the longest, Madame Goesler. Anger, combined with an indifference to self-sacrifice, does not endure the wear of many days. And the object here was insufficient. I don't think we can ask to have the trial put off in order to find out whether a false key may have been made in Prague." "And you will not look for the coat?" "We can look for it, and probably get it, if the woman has not lied to you; but I don't think it will do us any good. The woman probably is lying. You have been paying her very liberally, so that she has been making an excellent livelihood out of the murder. No jury would believe her. And a grey coat is a very common thing. After all, it would prove nothing. It would only let the jury know that Mr. Meager had a grey coat as well as Mr. Finn. That Mr. Finn wore a grey coat on that night is a fact which we can't upset. If you got hold of Meager's coat you wouldn't be a bit nearer to proof that Emilius had worn it." "There would be the fact that he might have worn it." "Madame Goesler, indeed it would not help our client. You see what are the difficulties in our way. Mr. Finn was on the spot at the moment, or so near it as to make it certainly possible that he might have been there. There is no such evidence as to Emilius, even if he could be shown to have had a latch-key. The man was killed by such an instrument as Mr. Finn had about him. There is no evidence that Mr. Emilius had such an instrument in his hand. A tall man in a grey coat was seen hurrying to the spot at the exact hour. Mr. Finn is a tall man and wore a grey coat at the time. Emilius is not a tall man, and, even though Meager had a grey coat, there is no evidence to show that Emilius ever wore it. Mr. Finn had quarrelled violently with Mr. Bonteen within the hour. It does not appear that Emilius ever quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, though Mr. Bonteen had exerted himself in opposition to Emilius." "Is there to be no defence, then?" "Certainly there will be a defence, and such a defence as I think will prevent any jury from being unanimous in convicting my client. Though there is a great deal of evidence against him, it is all--what we call circumstantial." "I understand, Mr. Wickerby." "Nobody saw him commit the murder." "Indeed no," said Madame Goesler. "Although there is personal similarity, there is no personal identity. There is no positive proof of anything illegal on his part, or of anything that would have been suspicious had no murder been committed,--such as the purchase of poison, or carrying of a revolver. The life-preserver, had no such instrument been unfortunately used, might have been regarded as a thing of custom." "But I am sure that that Bohemian did murder Mr. Bonteen," said Madame Goesler, with enthusiasm. "Madame," said Mr. Wickerby, holding up both his hands, "I can only wish that you could be upon the jury." "And you won't try to show that the other man might have done it?" "I think not. Next to an alibi that breaks down;--you know what an alibi is, Madame Goesler?" "Yes, Mr. Wickerby; I know what an alibi is." "Next to an alibi that breaks down, an unsuccessful attempt to affix the fault on another party is the most fatal blow which a prisoner's counsel can inflict upon him. It is always taken by the jury as so much evidence against him. We must depend altogether on a different line of defence." "What line, Mr. Wickerby?" "Juries are always unwilling to hang,"--Madame Goesler shuddered as the horrid word was broadly pronounced,--"and are apt to think that simply circumstantial evidence cannot be suffered to demand so disagreeable a duty. They are peculiarly averse to hanging a gentleman, and will hardly be induced to hang a member of Parliament. Then Mr. Finn is very good-looking, and has been popular,--which is all in his favour. And we shall have such evidence on the score of character as was never before brought into one of our courts. We shall have half the Cabinet. There will be two dukes." Madame Goesler, as she listened to the admiring enthusiasm of the attorney while he went on with his list, acknowledged to herself that her dear friend, the Duchess, had not been idle. "There will be three Secretaries of State. The Secretary of State for the Home Department himself will be examined. I am not quite sure that we mayn't get the Lord Chancellor. There will be Mr. Monk,--about the most popular man in England,--who will speak of the prisoner as his particular friend. I don't think any jury would hang a particular friend of Mr. Monk's. And there will be ever so many ladies. That has never been done before, but we mean to try it." Madame Goesler had heard all this, and had herself assisted in the work. "I rather think we shall get four or five leading members of the Opposition, for they all disliked Mr. Bonteen. If we could manage Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Gresham, I think we might reckon ourselves quite safe. I forgot to say that the Bishop of Barchester has promised." "All that won't prove his innocence, Mr. Wickerby." Mr. Wickerby shrugged his shoulders. "If he be acquitted after that fashion men then will say--that he was guilty." "We must think of his life first, Madame Goesler," said the attorney. Madame Goesler when she left the attorney's room was very ill-satisfied with him. She desired some adherent to her cause who would with affectionate zeal resolve upon washing Phineas Finn white as snow in reference to the charge now made against him. But no man would so resolve who did not believe in his innocence,--as Madame Goesler believed herself. She herself knew that her own belief was romantic and unpractical. Nevertheless, the conviction of the guilt of that other man, towards which she still thought that much could be done if that coat were found and the making of a secret key were proved, was so strong upon her that she would not allow herself to drop it. It would not be sufficient for her that Phineas Finn should be acquitted. She desired that the real murderer should be hung for the murder, so that all the world might be sure,--as she was sure,--that her hero had been wrongfully accused. "Do you mean that you are going to start yourself?" the Duchess said to her that same afternoon. "Yes, I am." "Then you must be very far gone in love, indeed." "You would do as much, Duchess, if you were free as I am. It isn't a matter of love at all. It's womanly enthusiasm for the cause one has taken up." "I'm quite as enthusiastic,--only I shouldn't like to go to Prague in June." "I'd go to Siberia in January if I could find out that that horrid man really committed the murder." "Who are going with you?" "We shall be quite a company. We have got a detective policeman, and an interpreter who understands Czech and German to go about with the policeman, and a lawyer's clerk, and there will be my own maid." "Everybody will know all about it before you get there." "We are not to go quite together. The policeman and the interpreter are to form one party, and I and my maid another. The poor clerk is to be alone. If they get the coat, of course you'll telegraph to me." "Who is to have the coat?" "I suppose they'll take it to Mr. Wickerby. He says he doesn't want it,--that it would do no good. But I think that if we could show that the man might very easily have been out of the house,--that he had certainly provided himself with means of getting out of the house secretly,--the coat would be of service. I am going at any rate; and shall be in Paris to-morrow morning." "I think it very grand of you, my dear; and for your sake I hope he may live to be Prime Minister. Perhaps, after all, he may give Plantagenet his 'Garter.'" When the old Duke died, a Garter became vacant, and had of course fallen to the gift of Mr. Gresham. The Duchess had expected that it would be continued in the family, as had been the Lieutenancy of Barsetshire, which also had been held by the old Duke. But the Garter had been given to Lord Cantrip, and the Duchess was sore. With all her Radical propensities and inclination to laugh at dukes and marquises, she thought very much of Garters and Lieutenancies;--but her husband would not think of them at all, and hence there were words between them. The Duchess had declared that the Duke should insist on having the Garter. "These are things that men do not ask for," the Duke had said. "Don't tell me, Plantagenet, about not asking. Everybody asks for everything nowadays." "Your everybody is not correct, Glencora. I never yet asked for anything,--and never shall. No honour has any value in my eyes unless it comes unasked." Thereupon it was that the Duchess now suggested that Phineas Finn, when Prime Minister, might perhaps bestow a Garter upon her husband. And so Madame Goesler started for Prague with the determination of being back, if possible, before the trial began. It was to be commenced at the Old Bailey towards the end of June, and people already began to foretell that it would extend over a very long period. The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter than upon its own nature. Now it was already perceived that no trial of modern days had ever been so interesting as would be this trial. It was already known that the Attorney-General, Sir Gregory Grogram, was to lead the case for the prosecution, and that the Solicitor-General, Sir Simon Slope, was to act with him. It had been thought to be due to the memory and character of Mr. Bonteen, who when he was murdered had held the office of President of the Board of Trade, and who had very nearly been Chancellor of the Exchequer, that so unusual a task should be imposed on these two high legal officers of the Government. No doubt there would be a crowd of juniors with them, but it was understood that Sir Gregory Grogram would himself take the burden of the task upon his own shoulders. It was declared everywhere that Sir Gregory did believe Phineas Finn to be guilty, but it was also declared that Sir Simon Slope was convinced he was innocent. The defence was to be entrusted to the well-practised but now aged hands of that most experienced practitioner Mr. Chaffanbrass, than whom no barrister living or dead ever rescued more culprits from the fangs of the law. With Mr. Chaffanbrass, who quite late in life had consented to take a silk gown, was to be associated Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt,--who was said to be employed in order that the case might be in safe hands should the strength of Mr. Chaffanbrass fail him at the last moment; and Mr. Snow, who was supposed to handle a witness more judiciously than any of the rising men, and that subtle, courageous, eloquent, and painstaking youth, Mr. Golightly, who now, with no more than ten or fifteen years' practice, was already known to be earning his bread and supporting a wife and family. But the glory of this trial would not depend chiefly on the array of counsel, nor on the fact that the Lord Chief Justice himself would be the judge, so much as on the social position of the murdered man and of the murderer. Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen and the noble lords. The importance of such an affair increases like a snowball as it is rolled on. Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more. The under-sheriffs of the City, praiseworthy gentlemen not hitherto widely known to fame, became suddenly conspicuous and popular, as being the dispensers of admissions to seats in the court. It had been already admitted by judges and counsel that sundry other cases must be postponed, because it was known that the Bonteen murder would occupy at least a week. It was supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass would consume a whole day at the beginning of the trial in getting a jury to his mind,--a matter on which he was known to be very particular,--and another whole day at the end of the trial in submitting to the jury the particulars of all the great cases on record in which circumstantial evidence was known to have led to improper verdicts. It was therefore understood that the last week in June would be devoted to the trial, to the exclusion of all other matters of interest. When Mr. Gresham, hard pressed by Mr. Turnbull for a convenient day, offered that gentleman Thursday, the 24th of June, for suggesting to the House a little proposition of his own with reference to the English Church establishment, Mr. Turnbull openly repudiated the offer, because on that day the trial of Phineas Finn would be commenced. "I hope," said Mr. Gresham, "that the work of the country will not be impeded by that unfortunate affair." "I am afraid," said Mr. Turnbull, "that the right honourable gentleman will find that the member for Tankerville will on that day monopolise the attention of this House." The remark was thought to have been made in very bad taste, but nobody doubted its truth. Perhaps the interest was enhanced among politicians by the existence very generally of an opinion that though Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen, he would certainly be acquitted. Nothing could then prevent the acquitted murderer from resuming his seat in the House, and gentlemen were already beginning to ask themselves after what fashion it would become them to treat him. Would the Speaker catch his eye when he rose to speak? Would he still be "Phineas" to the very large number of men with whom his general popularity had made him intimate? Would he be cold-shouldered at the clubs, and treated as one whose hands were red with blood? or would he become more popular than ever, and receive an ovation after his acquittal? In the meantime Madame Goesler started on her journey for Prague. CHAPTER LVIII. THE TWO DUKES. It was necessary that the country should be governed, even though Mr. Bonteen had been murdered;--and in order that it should be duly governed it was necessary that Mr. Bonteen's late place at the Board of Trade should be filled. There was some hesitation as to the filling it, and when the arrangement was completed people were very much surprised indeed. Mr. Bonteen had been appointed chiefly because it was thought that he might in that office act as a quasi House of Commons deputy to the Duke of Omnium in carrying out his great scheme of a five-farthinged penny and a ten-pennied shilling. The Duke, in spite of his wealth and rank and honour, was determined to go on with his great task. Life would be nothing to him now unless he could at least hope to arrange the five farthings. When his wife had bullied him about the Garter he had declared to her, and with perfect truth, that he had never asked for anything. He had gone on to say that he never would ask for anything; and he certainly did not think that he was betraying himself with reference to that assurance when he suggested to Mr. Gresham that he would himself take the place left vacant by Mr. Bonteen--of course retaining his seat in the Cabinet. "I should hardly have ventured to suggest such an arrangement to your Grace," said the Prime Minister. "Feeling that it might be so, I thought that I would venture to ask," said the Duke. "I am sure you know that I am the last man to interfere as to place or the disposition of power." "Quite the last man," said Mr. Gresham. "But it has always been held that the Board of Trade is not incompatible with the Peerage." "Oh dear, yes." "And I can feel myself nearer to this affair of mine there than I can elsewhere." Mr. Gresham of course had no objection to urge. This great nobleman, who was now asking for Mr. Bonteen's shoes, had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would have remained Chancellor of the Exchequer had not the mantle of his nobility fallen upon him. At the present moment he held an office in which peers are often temporarily shelved, or put away, perhaps, out of harm's way for the time, so that they may be brought down and used when wanted, without having received crack or detriment from that independent action into which a politician is likely to fall when his party is "in" but he is still "out". He was Lord Privy Seal,--a Lordship of State which does carry with it a status and a seat in the Cabinet, but does not necessarily entail any work. But the present Lord, who cared nothing for status, and who was much more intent on his work than he was even on his seat in the Cabinet, was possessed by what many of his brother politicians regarded as a morbid dislike to pretences. He had not been happy during his few weeks of the Privy Seal, and had almost envied Mr. Bonteen the realities of the Board of Trade. "I think upon the whole it will be best to make the change," he said to Mr. Gresham. And Mr. Gresham was delighted. But there were one or two men of mark,--one or two who were older than Mr. Gresham probably, and less perfect in their Liberal sympathies,--who thought that the Duke of Omnium was derogating from his proper position in the step which he was now taking. Chief among these was his friend the Duke of St. Bungay, who alone perhaps could venture to argue the matter with him. "I almost wish that you had spoken to me first," said the elder Duke. "I feared that I should find you so strongly opposed to my resolution." "If it was a resolution." "I think it was," said the younger. "It was a great misfortune to me that I should have been obliged to leave the House of Commons." "You should not feel it so." "My whole life was there," said he who, as Plantagenet Palliser, had been so good a commoner. "But your whole life should certainly not be there now,--nor your whole heart. On you the circumstances of your birth have imposed duties quite as high, and I will say quite as useful, as any which a career in the House of Commons can put within the reach of a man." "Do you think so, Duke?" "Certainly I do. I do think that the England which we know could not be the England that she is but for the maintenance of a high-minded, proud, and self-denying nobility. And though with us there is no line dividing our very broad aristocracy into two parts, a higher and a lower, or a greater and a smaller, or a richer and a poorer, nevertheless we all feel that the success of our order depends chiefly on the conduct of those whose rank is the highest and whose means are the greatest. To some few, among whom you are conspicuously one, wealth has been given so great and rank so high that much of the welfare of your country depends on the manner in which you bear yourself as the Duke of Omnium." "I would not wish to think so." "Your uncle so thought. And, though he was a man very different from you, not inured to work in his early life, with fewer attainments, probably a slower intellect, and whose general conduct was inferior to your own,--I speak freely because the subject is important,--he was a man who understood his position and the requirements of his order very thoroughly. A retinue almost Royal, together with an expenditure which Royalty could not rival, secured for him the respect of the nation." "Your life has not been as was his, and you have won a higher respect." "I think not. The greater part of my life was spent in the House of Commons, and my fortune was never much more than the tenth of his. But I wish to make no such comparison." "I must make it, if I am to judge which I would follow." "Pray understand me, my friend," said the old man, energetically. "I am not advising you to abandon public life in order that you may live in repose as a great nobleman. It would not be in your nature to do so, nor could the country afford to lose your services. But you need not therefore take your place in the arena of politics as though you were still Plantagenet Palliser, with no other duties than those of a politician,--as you might so well have done had your uncle's titles and wealth descended to a son." "I wish they had," said the regretful Duke. "It cannot be so. Your brother perhaps wishes that he were a Duke, but it has been arranged otherwise. It is vain to repine. Your wife is unhappy because your uncle's Garter was not at once given to you." "Glencora is like other women,--of course." "I share her feelings. Had Mr. Gresham consulted me, I should not have scrupled to tell him that it would have been for the welfare of his party that the Duke of Omnium should be graced with any and every honour in his power to bestow. Lord Cantrip is my friend, almost as warmly as are you; but the country would not have missed the ribbon from the breast of Lord Cantrip. Had you been more the Duke, and less the slave of your country, it would have been sent to you. Do I make you angry by speaking so?" "Not in the least. I have but one ambition." "And that is--?" "To be the serviceable slave of my country." "A master is more serviceable than a slave," said the old man. "No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from the statesman to the tyrant." "We misunderstand each other, my friend. Pitt, and Peel, and Palmerston were not tyrants, though each assumed and held for himself to the last the mastery of which I speak. Smaller men who have been slaves, have been as patriotic as they, but less useful. I regret that you should follow Mr. Bonteen in his office." "Because he was Mr. Bonteen." "All the circumstances of the transfer of office occasioned by your uncle's death seem to me to make it undesirable. I would not have you make yourself too common. This very murder adds to the feeling. Because Mr. Bonteen has been lost to us, the Minister has recourse to you." "It was my own suggestion." "But who knows that it was so? You, and I, and Mr. Gresham--and perhaps one or two others." "It is too late now, Duke; and, to tell the truth of myself, not even you can make me other than I am. My uncle's life to me was always a problem which I could not understand. Were I to attempt to walk in his ways I should fail utterly, and become absurd. I do not feel the disgrace of following Mr. Bonteen." "I trust you may at least be less unfortunate." "Well;--yes. I need not expect to be murdered in the streets because I am going to the Board of Trade. I shall have made no enemy by my political success." "You think that--Mr. Finn--did do that deed?" asked the elder Duke. "I hardly know what I think. My wife is sure that he is innocent." "The Duchess is enthusiastic always." "Many others think the same. Lord and Lady Chiltern are sure of that." "They were always his best friends." "I am told that many of the lawyers are sure that it will be impossible to convict him. If he be acquitted I shall strive to think him innocent. He will come back to the House, of course." "I should think he would apply for the Hundreds," said the Duke of St. Bungay. "I do not see why he should. I would not in his place. If he be innocent, why should he admit himself unfit for a seat in Parliament? I tell you what he might do;--resign, and then throw himself again upon his constituency." The other Duke shook his head, thereby declaring his opinion that Phineas Finn was in truth the man who had murdered Mr. Bonteen. When it was publicly known that the Duke of Omnium had stepped into Mr. Bonteen's shoes, the general opinion certainly coincided with that given by the Duke of St. Bungay. It was not only that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have consented to fill so low an office, or that the Duke of Omnium should have better known his own place, or that he should not have succeeded a man so insignificant as Mr. Bonteen. These things, no doubt, were said,--but more was said also. It was thought that he should not have gone to an office which had been rendered vacant by the murder of a man who had been placed there merely to assist himself. If the present arrangement was good, why should it not have been made independently of Mr. Bonteen? Questions were asked about it in both Houses, and the transfer no doubt did have the effect of lowering the man in the estimation of the political world. He himself felt that he did not stand so high with his colleagues as when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; not even so high as when he held the Privy Seal. In the printed lists of those who attended the Cabinets his name generally was placed last, and an opponent on one occasion thought, or pretended to think, that he was no more than Postmaster-General. He determined to bear all this without wincing,--but he did wince. He would not own to himself that he had been wrong, but he was sore,--as a man is sore who doubts about his own conduct; and he was not the less so because he strove to bear his wife's sarcasms without showing that they pained him. "They say that poor Lord Fawn is losing his mind," she said to him. "Lord Fawn! I haven't heard anything about it." "He was engaged to Lady Eustace once, you remember. They say that he'll be made to declare why he didn't marry her if this bigamy case goes on. And then it's so unfortunate that he should have seen the man in the grey coat; I hope he won't have to resign." "I hope not, indeed." "Because, of course, you'd have to take his place as Under-Secretary." This was very awkward;--but the husband only smiled, and expressed a hope that if he did so he might himself be equal to his new duties. "By the bye, Plantagenet, what do you mean to do about the jewels?" "I haven't thought about them. Madame Goesler had better take them." "But she won't." "I suppose they had better be sold." "By auction?" "That would be the proper way." "I shouldn't like that at all. Couldn't we buy them ourselves, and let the money stand till she choose to take it? It's an affair of trade, I suppose, and you're at the head of all that now." Then again she asked him some question about the Home Secretary, with reference to Phineas Finn; and when he told her that it would be highly improper for him to speak to that officer on such a subject, she pretended to suppose that the impropriety would consist in the interference of a man holding so low a position as he was. "Of course it is not the same now," she said, "as it used to be when you were at the Exchequer." All which he took without uttering a word of anger, or showing a sign of annoyance. "You only get two thousand a year, do you, at the Board of Trade, Plantagenet?" "Upon my word, I forget. I think it's two thousand five hundred." "How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?" "Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer." "When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;--will it?" "What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the Treasury, what difference would the salary make?" "Not the least;--nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige, or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if--the service of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone of voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on occasions. "I would even allow you to clean them,--if the service of the country required it," said the Duke. But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well if her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas had been guilty. The murder had clearly been committed by a personal enemy, not by a robber. Two men were known to have entertained feelings of enmity against Mr. Bonteen; as to one of whom he was assured that it was impossible that he should have been on the spot. As to the other it seemed equally manifest that he must have been there. If it were so, it would have been much better that his wife should not display her interest publicly in the murderer's favour. But the Duchess, wherever she went, spoke of the trial as a persecution; and seemed to think that the prisoner should already be treated as a hero and a martyr. "Glencora," he said to her, "I wish that you could drop the subject of this trial till it be over." "But I can't." "Surely you can avoid speaking of it." "No more than you can avoid your decimals. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, and my heart is very full. What harm do I do?" "You set people talking of you." "They have been doing that ever since we were married;--but I do not know that they have made out much against me. We must go after our nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units." He did not deem it wise to say anything further,--knowing that to this evil also of Phineas Finn the gods would at last vouchsafe an ending. CHAPTER LIX. MRS. BONTEEN. At the time of the murder, Lady Eustace, whom we must regard as the wife of Mr. Emilius till it be proved that he had another wife when he married her, was living as the guest of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Bonteen had pledged himself to prove the bigamy, and Mrs. Bonteen had opened her house and her heart to the injured lady. Lizzie Eustace, as she had always been called, was clever, rich, and pretty, and knew well how to ingratiate herself with the friend of the hour. She was a greedy, grasping little woman, but, when she had before her a sufficient object, she could appear to pour all that she had into her friend's lap with all the prodigality of a child. Perhaps Mrs. Bonteen had liked to have things poured into her lap. Perhaps Mr. Bonteen had enjoyed the confidential tears of a pretty woman. It may be that the wrongs of a woman doomed to live with Mr. Emilius as his wife had touched their hearts. Be that as it might, they had become the acknowledged friends and supporters of Lady Eustace, and she was living with them in their little house in St. James's Place on that fatal night. [Illustration: Lizzie Eustace.] Lizzie behaved herself very well when the terrible tidings were brought home. Mr. Bonteen was so often late at the House or at his club that his wife rarely sat up for him; and when the servants were disturbed between six and seven o'clock in the morning, no surprise had as yet been felt at his absence. The sergeant of police who had brought the news sent for the maid of the unfortunate lady, and the maid, in her panic, told her story to Lady Eustace before daring to communicate it to her mistress. Lizzie Eustace, who in former days had known something of policemen, saw the man, and learned from him all that there was to learn. Then, while the sergeant remained on the landing place, outside, to support her, if necessary, with the maid by her side to help her, kneeling by the bed, she told the wretched woman what had happened. We need not witness the paroxysms of the widow's misery, but we may understand that Lizzie Eustace was from that moment more strongly fixed than ever in her friendship with Mrs. Bonteen. When the first three or four days of agony and despair had passed by, and the mind of the bereaved woman was able to turn itself from the loss to the cause of the loss, Mrs. Bonteen became fixed in her certainty that Phineas Finn had murdered her husband, and seemed to think that it was the first and paramount duty of the present Government to have the murderer hung,--almost without a trial. When she found that, at the best, the execution of the man she so vehemently hated could not take place for two months after the doing of the deed, even if then, she became almost frantic in her anger. Surely they would not let him escape! What more proof could be needed? Had not the miscreant quarrelled with her husband, and behaved abominably to him but a few minutes before the murder? Had he not been on the spot with the murderous instrument in his pocket? Had he not been seen by Lord Fawn hastening on the steps of her dear and doomed husband? Mrs. Bonteen, as she sat enveloped in her new weeds, thirsting for blood, could not understand that further evidence should be needed, or that a rational doubt should remain in the mind of any one who knew the circumstances. It was to her as though she had seen the dastard blow struck, and with such conviction as this on her mind did she insist on talking of the coming trial to her inmate, Lady Eustace. But Lizzie had her own opinion, though she was forced to leave it unexpressed in the presence of Mrs. Bonteen. She knew the man who claimed her as his wife, and did not think that Phineas Finn was guilty of the murder. Her Emilius,--her Yosef Mealyus, as she had delighted to call him, since she had separated herself from him,--was, as she thought, the very man to commit a murder. He was by no means degraded in her opinion by the feeling. To commit great crimes is the line of life that comes naturally to some men, and was, as she thought, a line less objectionable than that which confines itself to small crimes. She almost felt that the audacity of her husband in doing such a deed redeemed her from some of the ignominy to which she had subjected herself by her marriage with a runaway who had another wife living. There was a dash of adventure about it which was almost gratifying. But these feelings she was obliged, at any rate for the present, to keep to herself. Not only must she acknowledge the undoubted guilt of Phineas Finn for the sake of her friend, Mrs. Bonteen; but she must consider carefully whether she would gain or lose more by having a murderer for her husband. She did not relish the idea of being made a widow by the gallows. She was still urgent as to the charge of bigamy, and should she succeed in proving that the man had never been her husband, then she did not care how soon they might hang him. But for the present it was better for all reasons that she should cling to the Phineas Finn theory,--feeling certain that it was the bold hand of her own Emilius who had struck the blow. She was by no means free from the solicitations of her husband, who knew well where she was, and who still adhered to his purpose of reclaiming his wife and his wife's property. When he was released by the magistrate's order, and had recovered his goods from Mr. Meager's house, and was once more established in lodgings, humbler, indeed, than those in Northumberland Street, he wrote the following letter to her who had been for one blessed year the partner of his joys, and his bosom's mistress:-- 3, Jellybag Street, Edgware Road, May 26, 18--. DEAREST WIFE,-- You will have heard to what additional sorrow and disgrace I have been subjected through the malice of my enemies. But all in vain! Though princes and potentates have been arrayed against me [the princes and potentates had no doubt been Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low], innocence has prevailed, and I have come out from the ordeal white as bleached linen or unsullied snow. The murderer is in the hands of justice, and though he be the friend of kings and princes [Mr. Emilius had probably heard that the Prince had been at the club with Phineas], yet shall justice be done upon him, and the truth of the Lord shall be made to prevail. Mr. Bonteen has been very hostile to me, believing evil things of me, and instigating you, my beloved, to believe evil of me. Nevertheless, I grieve for his death. I lament bitterly that he should have been cut off in his sins, and hurried before the judgment seat of the great Judge without an hour given to him for repentance. Let us pray that the mercy of the Lord may be extended even to him. I beg that you will express my deepest commiseration to his widow, and assure her that she has my prayers. And now, my dearest wife, let me approach my own affairs. As I have come out unscorched from the last fiery furnace which has been heated for me by my enemies seven times hot, so shall I escape from that other fire with which the poor man who has gone from us endeavoured to envelop me. If they have made you believe that I have any wife but yourself they have made you believe a falsehood. You, and you only, have my hand. You, and you only, have my heart. I know well what attempts are being made to suborn false evidence in my old country, and how the follies of my youth are being pressed against me,--how anxious are proud Englishmen that the poor Bohemian should be robbed of the beauty and wit and wealth which he had won for himself. But the Lord fights on my side, and I shall certainly prevail. If you will come back to me all shall be forgiven. My heart is as it ever was. Come, and let us leave this cold and ungenial country and go to the sunny south; to the islands of the blest,-- Mr. Emilius during his married life had not quite fathomed the depths of his wife's character, though, no doubt, he had caught some points of it with sufficient accuracy. --where we may forget these blood-stained sorrows, and mutually forgive each other. What happiness, what joys can you expect in your present mode of life? Even your income,--which in truth is my income,--you cannot obtain, because the tenants will not dare to pay it in opposition to my legal claims. But of what use is gold? What can purple do for us, and fine linen, and rich jewels, without love and a contented heart? Come, dearest, once more to your own one, who will never remember aught of the sad rupture which enemies have made, and we will hurry to the setting sun, and recline on mossy banks, and give up our souls to Elysium. As Lizzie read this she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost as much as she respected him for the murder. If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at your feet in a moment. Till the solemnity with which the late tragical event must have filled you shall have left you leisure to think of all this, I will not force myself into your presence, or seek to secure by law rights which will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your own sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that the income shall be drawn, provided that it be equally divided between us. I have been sorely straitened in my circumstances by these last events. My congregation is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is with difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary head. I am ahungered and athirst;--and my very garments are parting from me in my need. Can it be that you willingly doom me to such misery because of my love for you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been otherwise. Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take steps about the money if you will agree. Your truly most loving husband, JOSEPH EMILIUS. To Lady Eustace, wife of the Rev. Joseph Emilius. When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she would show it to her friend. "I know it will reopen the floodgates of your grief," she said; "but unless you see it, how can I ask from you the advice which is so necessary to me?" But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman sincere at any rate in this,--that the loss of her husband had been to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was not that her tears were ever flowing, but that her heart had never yet for a moment ceased to feel that its misery was incapable of alleviation. No utterances concerning her husband could make her more wretched than she was. She took the letter and read it through. "I daresay he is a bad man," said Mrs. Bonteen. "Indeed he is," said the bad man's wife. "But he was not guilty of this crime." "Oh, no;--I am sure of that," said Lady Eustace, feeling certain at the same time that Mr. Bonteen had fallen by her husband's hands. "And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no doubt now about it." "Everybody knows who did it now," said Lady Eustace. "Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us." "Of course he'll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen." "Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh, yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a ruin." "It has been very terrible." "Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of Omnium is to take my husband's place; but the Duke cannot do what he did. Every one knows that for real work there was no one like him. Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime Minister,--oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death with red-hot tweezers." But Lady Eustace was anxious at the present moment to talk about her own troubles. "Of course, Mr. Emilius did not commit the murder." "Phineas Finn committed it," said the half-maddened woman, rising from her chair. "And Phineas Finn shall hang by his neck till he is dead." "But Emilius has certainly got another wife in Prague." "I suppose you know. He said it was so, and he was always right." "I am sure of it,--just as you are sure of this horrid Mr. Finn." "The two things can't be named together, Lady Eustace." "Certainly not. I wouldn't think of being so unfeeling. But he has written me this letter, and what must I do? It is very dreadful about the money, you know." "He cannot touch your money. My dear one always said that he could not touch it." "But he prevents me from touching it. What they give me only comes by a sort of favour from the lawyer. I almost wish that I had compromised." "You would not be rid of him that way." "No;--not quite rid of him. You see I never had to take that horrid name because of the title. I suppose I'd better send the letter to the lawyer." "Send it to the lawyer, of course. That is what he would have done. They tell me that the trial is to be on the 24th of June. Why should they postpone it so long? They know all about it. They always postpone everything. If he had lived, there would be an end of that before long." Lady Eustace was tired of the virtues of her friend's martyred lord, and was very anxious to talk of her own affairs. She was still holding her husband's letter open in her hand, and was thinking how she could force her friend's dead lion to give place for a while to her own live dog, when a servant announced that Mr. Camperdown, the attorney, was below. In former days there had been an old Mr. Camperdown, who was vehemently hostile to poor Lizzie Eustace; but now, in her new troubles, the firm that had ever been true to her first husband had taken up her case for the sake of the family and her property--and for the sake of the heir, Lizzie Eustace's little boy; and Mr. Camperdown's firm had, next to Mr. Bonteen, been the depository of her trust. He had sent clerks out to Prague,--one who had returned ill,--as some had said poisoned, though the poison had probably been nothing more than the diet natural to Bohemians. And then another had been sent. This, of course, had all been previous to Madame Goesler's self-imposed mission,--which, though it was occasioned altogether by the suspected wickednesses of Mr. Emilius, had no special reference to his matrimonial escapades. And now Mr. Camperdown was down stairs. "Shall I go down to him, dear Mrs. Bonteen?" "He may come here if you please." "Perhaps I had better go down. He will disturb you." "My darling lost one always thought that there should be two present to hear such matters. He said it was safer." Mr. Camperdown, junior, was therefore shown upstairs to Mrs. Bonteen's drawing-room. "We have found it all out, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown. "Found out what?" "We've got Madame Mealyus over here." "No!" said Mrs. Bonteen, with her hands raised. Lady Eustace sat silent, with her mouth open. "Yes, indeed;--and photographs of the registry of the marriage from the books of the synagogue at Cracow. His signature was Yosef Mealyus, and his handwriting isn't a bit altered. I think we could have proved it without the lady; but of course it was better to bring her if possible." "Where is she?" asked Lizzie, thinking that she would like to see her own predecessor. "We have her safe, Lady Eustace. She's not in custody; but as she can't speak a word of English or French, she finds it more comfortable to be kept in private. We're afraid it will cost a little money." "Will she swear that she is his wife?" asked Mrs. Bonteen. "Oh, yes; there'll be no difficulty about that. But her swearing alone mightn't be enough." "Surely that settles it all," said Lady Eustace. "For the money that we shall have to pay," said Mr. Camperdown, "we might probably have got a dozen Bohemian ladies to come and swear that they were married to Yosef Mealyus at Cracow. The difficulty has been to bring over documentary evidence which will satisfy a jury that this is the woman she says she is. But I think we've got it." "And I shall be free!" said Lady Eustace, clasping her hands together. "It will cost a good deal, I fear," said Mr. Camperdown. "But I shall be free! Oh, Mr. Camperdown, there is not a woman in all the world who cares so little for money as I do. But I shall be free from the power of that horrid man who has entangled me in the meshes of his sinful life." Mr. Camperdown told her that he thought that she would be free, and went on to say that Yosef Mealyus had already been arrested, and was again in prison. The unfortunate man had not therefore long enjoyed that humbler apartment which he had found for himself in Jellybag Street. When Mr. Camperdown went, Mrs. Bonteen followed him out to the top of the stairs. "You have heard about the trial, Mr. Camperdown?" He said that he knew that it was to take place at the Central Criminal Court in June. "Yes; I don't know why they have put it off so long. People know that he did it--eh?" Mr. Camperdown, with funereal sadness, declared that he had never looked into the matter. "I cannot understand that everybody should not know it," said Mrs. Bonteen. CHAPTER LX. TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL. There was a scene in the private room of Mr. Wickerby, the attorney in Hatton Garden, which was very distressing indeed to the feelings of Lord Fawn, and which induced his lordship to think that he was being treated without that respect which was due to him as a peer and a member of the Government. There were present at this scene Mr. Chaffanbrass, the old barrister, Mr. Wickerby himself, Mr. Wickerby's confidential clerk, Lord Fawn, Lord Fawn's solicitor,--that same Mr. Camperdown whom we saw in the last chapter calling upon Lady Eustace,--and a policeman. Lord Fawn had been invited to attend, with many protestations of regret as to the trouble thus imposed upon him, because the very important nature of the evidence about to be given by him at the forthcoming trial seemed to render it expedient that some questions should be asked. This was on Tuesday, the 22nd June, and the trial was to be commenced on the following Thursday. And there was present in the room, very conspicuously, an old heavy grey great coat, as to which Mr. Wickerby had instructed Mr. Chaffanbrass that evidence was forthcoming, if needed, to prove that that coat was lying on the night of the murder in a downstairs room in the house in which Yosef Mealyus was then lodging. The reader will remember the history of the coat. Instigated by Madame Goesler, who was still absent from England, Mr. Wickerby had traced the coat, and had purchased the coat, and was in a position to prove that this very coat was the coat which Mr. Meager had brought home with him to Northumberland Street on that day. But Mr. Wickerby was of opinion that the coat had better not be used. "It does not go far enough," said Mr. Wickerby. "It don't go very far, certainly," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. "And if you try to show that another man has done it, and he hasn't," said Mr. Wickerby, "it always tells against you with a jury." To this Mr. Chaffanbrass made no reply, preferring to form his own opinion, and to keep it to himself when formed. But in obedience to his instructions, Lord Fawn was asked to attend at Mr. Wickerby's chambers, in the cause of truth, and the coat was brought out on the occasion. "Was that the sort of coat the man wore, my lord?" said Mr. Chaffanbrass as Mr. Wickerby held up the coat to view. Lord Fawn walked round and round the coat, and looked at it very carefully before he would vouchsafe a reply. "You see it is a grey coat," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, not speaking at all in the tone which Mr. Wickerby's note had induced Lord Fawn to expect. "It is grey," said Lord Fawn. "Perhaps it's not the same shade of grey, Lord Fawn. You see, my lord, we are most anxious not to impute guilt where guilt doesn't lie. You are a witness for the Crown, and, of course, you will tell the Crown lawyers all that passes here. Were it possible, we would make this little preliminary inquiry in their presence;--but we can hardly do that. Mr. Finn's coat was a very much smaller coat." "I should think it was," said his lordship, who did not like being questioned about coats. "You don't think the coat the man wore when you saw him was a big coat like that? You think he wore a little coat?" "He wore a grey coat," said Lord Fawn. "This is grey;--a coat shouldn't be greyer than that." "I don't think Lord Fawn should be asked any more questions on the matter till he gives his evidence in court," said Mr. Camperdown. "A man's life depends on it, Mr. Camperdown," said the barrister. "It isn't a matter of cross-examination. If I bring that coat into court I must make a charge against another man by the very act of doing so. And I will not do so unless I believe that other man to be guilty. It's an inquiry I can't postpone till we are before the jury. It isn't that I want to trump up a case against another man for the sake of extricating my client on a false issue. Lord Fawn doesn't want to hang Mr. Finn if Mr. Finn be not guilty." "God forbid!" said his lordship. "Mr. Finn couldn't have worn that coat, or a coat at all like it." "What is it you do want to learn, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked Mr. Camperdown. "Just put on the coat, Mr. Scruby." Then at the order of the barrister, Mr. Scruby, the attorney's clerk, did put on Mr. Meager's old great coat, and walked about the room in it. "Walk quick," said Mr. Chaffanbrass;--and the clerk did "walk quick." He was a stout, thick-set little man, nearly half a foot shorter than Phineas Finn. "Is that at all like the figure?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I think it is like the figure," said Lord Fawn. "And like the coat?" "It's the same colour as the coat." "You wouldn't swear it was not the coat?" "I am not on my oath at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "No, my lord;--but to me your word is as good as your oath. If you think it possible that was the coat--" "I don't think anything about it at all. When Mr. Scruby hurries down the room in that way he looks as the man looked when he was hurrying under the lamp-post. I am not disposed to say any more at present." "It's a matter of regret to me that Lord Fawn should have come here at all," said Mr. Camperdown, who had been summoned to meet his client at the chambers, but had come with him. "I suppose his lordship wishes us to know all that he knew, seeing that it's a question of hanging the right man or the wrong one. I never heard such trash in my life. Take it off, Mr. Scruby, and let the policeman keep it. I understand Lord Fawn to say that the man's figure was about the same as yours. My client, I believe, stands about twelve inches taller. Thank you, my lord;--we shall get at the truth at last, I don't doubt." It was afterwards said that Mr. Chaffanbrass's conduct had been very improper in enticing Lord Fawn to Mr. Wickerby's chambers; but Mr. Chaffanbrass never cared what any one said. "I don't know that we can make much of it," he said, when he and Mr. Wickerby were alone, "but it may be as well to bring it into court. It would prove nothing against the Jew even if that fellow,"--he meant Lord Fawn,--"could be made to swear that the coat worn was exactly similar to this. I am thinking now about the height." "I don't doubt but you'll get him off." "Well;--I may do so. They ought not to hang any man on such evidence as there is against him, even though there were no moral doubt of his guilt. There is nothing really to connect Mr. Phineas Finn with the murder,--nothing tangible. But there is no saying nowadays what a jury will do. Juries depend a great deal more on the judge than they used to do. If I were on trial for my life, I don't think I'd have counsel at all." "No one could defend you as well as yourself, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "I didn't mean that. No;--I shouldn't defend myself. I should say to the judge, 'My lord, I don't doubt the jury will do just as you tell them, and you'll form your own opinion quite independent of the arguments.'" "You'd be hung, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "No; I don't know that I should," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, slowly. "I don't think I could affront a judge of the present day into hanging me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that. It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,--to be mealy-mouthed and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion, and almost always shirk a verdict when they can." "But we do get verdicts." "Yes; the judges give them. And they are mealy-mouthed verdicts, tending to equalise crime and innocence, and to make men think that after all it may be a question whether fraud is violence, which, after all, is manly, and to feel that we cannot afford to hate dishonesty. It was a bad day for the commercial world, Mr. Wickerby, when forgery ceased to be capital." "It was a horrid thing to hang a man for writing another man's name to a receipt for thirty shillings." "We didn't do it, but the fact that the law held certain frauds to be hanging matters operated on the minds of men in regard to all fraud. What with the joint-stock working of companies, and the confusion between directors who know nothing and managers who know everything, and the dislike of juries to tread upon people's corns, you can't punish dishonest trading. Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from dishonest stony-hearted Rome. With such a motto as that to guide us no man dare trust his brother. Caveat lex,--and let the man who cheats cheat at his peril." "You'd give the law a great deal to do." "Much less than at present. What does your Caveat emptor come to? That every seller tries to pick the eyes out of the head of the purchaser. Sooner or later the law must interfere, and Caveat emptor falls to the ground. I bought a horse the other day; my daughter wanted something to look pretty, and like an old ass as I am I gave a hundred and fifty pounds for the brute. When he came home he wasn't worth a feed of corn." "You had a warranty, I suppose?" "No, indeed! Did you ever hear of such an old fool?" "I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the sake of his character." "Any dealer would; but--I bought him of a gentleman." "Mr. Chaffanbrass!" "I ought to have known better, oughtn't I? Caveat emptor." "It was just giving away your money, you know." "A great deal worse than that. I could have given the--gentleman--a hundred and fifty pounds, and not have minded it much. I ought to have had the horse killed, and gone to a dealer for another. Instead of that,--I went to an attorney." "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass;--the idea of your going to an attorney." "I did then. I never had so much honest truth told me in my life." "By an attorney!" "He said that he did think I'd been born long enough to have known better than that! I pleaded on my own behalf that the gentleman said the horse was all right. 'Gentleman!' exclaimed my friend. 'You go to a gentleman for a horse; you buy a horse from a gentleman without a warranty; and then you come to me! Didn't you ever hear of Caveat emptor, Mr. Chaffanbrass? What can I do for you?' That's what my friend, the attorney, said to me." "And what came of it, Mr. Chaffanbrass? Arbitration, I should say?" "Just that;--with the horse eating his head off every meal at ever so much per week,--till at last I fairly gave in from sheer vexation. So the--gentleman--got my money, and I added something to my stock of experience. Of course, that's only my story, and it may be that the gentleman could tell it another way. But I say that if my story be right the doctrine of Caveat emptor does not encourage trade. I don't know how we got to all this from Mr. Finn. I'm to see him to-morrow." "Yes;--he is very anxious to speak to you." "What's the use of it, Wickerby? I hate seeing a client.--What comes of it?" "Of course he wants to tell his own story." "But I don't want to hear his own story. What good will his own story do me? He'll tell me either one of two things. He'll swear he didn't murder the man--" "That's what he'll say." "Which can have no effect upon me one way or the other; or else he'll say that he did,--which would cripple me altogether." "He won't say that, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "There's no knowing what they'll say. A man will go on swearing by his God that he is innocent, till at last, in a moment of emotion, he breaks down, and out comes the truth. In such a case as this I do not in the least want to know the truth about the murder." "That is what the public wants to know." "Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because he committed the murder,--as to which no positive knowledge is attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the murder,--as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to hang Palmer,--but we don't know that he killed Cook. A learned man who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he didn't. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which he is tried." "There really seems to be a doubt in this case." "I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so, he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation, everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is unfortunate, but he can't assist me in liberating him from his misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him,--that he walked home on that night without meddling with any one. But I can't see that, or make others see it, because he sees it." "His manner of telling you may do something." "If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business. If he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent; and, therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a client says to me,--unless he confess his guilt, in which case my services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he asks it. We had better meet there,--say at half-past ten." Whereupon Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas Finn might be informed of the visit. Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two of his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him every day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again; but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister,--alluding to her merely in connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came to him from various quarters,--as to which he hardly knew whence they came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered for him,--while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from hour to hour that it was not death he feared,--not even death from the hangman's hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known him that was so terrible to him--the feeling that they with whom he had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day, Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had sat;--that these should think that, after all, he had been a base adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a failure. Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;--but he had persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one but himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to defend him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed, and with him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously as he entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. "I am sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn," said the barrister. "It's a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode." "It has to be thought of, certainly," said the barrister. "Let us hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services shall not be wanting to make it so." "We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Wickerby. "Mr. Chaffanbrass," said Phineas, "there is one special thing that I want you to do." The old man, having his own idea as to what was coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and looked meek. "I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of this crime." This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. "I trust that we may succeed in making twelve men believe it," said he. "Comparatively I do not care a straw for the twelve men. It is not to them especially that I am anxious that you should address yourself--" "But that will be my bounden duty, Mr. Finn." "I can well believe, sir, that though I have myself been bred a lawyer, I may not altogether understand the nature of an advocate's duty to his client. But I would wish something more to be done than what you intimate." "The duty of an advocate defending a prisoner is to get a verdict of acquittal if he can, and to use his own discretion in making the attempt." "But I want something more to be attempted, even if in the struggle something less be achieved. I have known men to be so acquitted that every man in court believed them to be guilty." "No doubt;--and such men have probably owed much to their advocates." "It is not such a debt that I wish to owe. I know my own innocence." "Mr. Chaffanbrass takes that for granted," said Mr. Wickerby. "To me it is a matter of astonishment that any human being should believe me to have committed this murder. I am lost in surprise when I remember that I am here simply because I walked home from my club with a loaded stick in my pocket. The magistrate, I suppose, thought me guilty." "He did not think about it, Mr. Finn. He went by the evidence;--the quarrel, your position in the streets at the time, the colour of the coat you wore and that of the coat worn by the man whom Lord Fawn saw in the street; the doctor's evidence as to the blows by which the man was killed; and the nature of the weapon which you carried. He put these things together, and they were enough to entitle the public to demand that a jury should decide. He didn't say you were guilty. He only said that the circumstances were sufficient to justify a trial." "If he thought me innocent he would not have sent me here." "Yes, he would;--if the evidence required that he should do so." "We will not argue about that, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "Certainly not, Mr. Finn." "Here I am, and to-morrow I shall be tried for my life. My life will be nothing to me unless it can be made clear to all the world that I am innocent. I would be sooner hung for this,--with the certainty at my heart that all England on the next day would ring with the assurance of my innocence, than be acquitted and afterwards be looked upon as a murderer." Phineas, when he was thus speaking, had stepped out into the middle of the room, and stood with his head thrown back, and his right hand forward. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who was himself an ugly, dirty old man, who had always piqued himself on being indifferent to appearance, found himself struck by the beauty and grace of the man whom he now saw for the first time. And he was struck, too, by his client's eloquence, though he had expressly declared to the attorney that it was his duty to be superior to any such influence. "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for the love of Heaven, let there be no quibbling." "We never quibble, I hope, Mr. Finn." "No subterfuges, no escaping by a side wind, no advantage taken of little forms, no objection taken to this and that as though delay would avail us anything." "Character will go a great way, we hope." "It should go for nothing. Though no one would speak a word for me, still am I innocent. Of course the truth will be known some day." "I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Finn." "It will certainly be known some day. That it should not be known as yet is my misfortune. But in defending me I would have you hurl defiance at my accusers. I had the stick in my pocket,--having heretofore been concerned with ruffians in the street. I did quarrel with the man, having been insulted by him at the club. The coat which I wore was such as they say. But does that make a murderer of me?" "Somebody did the deed, and that somebody could probably say all that you say." "No, sir;--he, when he is known, will be found to have been skulking in the streets; he will have thrown away his weapon; he will have been secret in his movements; he will have hidden his face, and have been a murderer in more than the deed. When they came to me in the morning did it seem to them that I was a murderer? Has my life been like that? They who have really known me cannot believe that I have been guilty. They who have not known me, and do believe, will live to learn their error." He then sat down and listened patiently while the old lawyer described to him the nature of the case,--wherein lay his danger, and wherein what hope there was of safety. There was no evidence against him other than circumstantial evidence, and both judges and jury were wont to be unwilling to accept such, when uncorroborated, as sufficient in cases of life and death. Unfortunately, in this case the circumstantial evidence was very strong against him. But, on the other hand, his character, as to which men of great mark would speak with enthusiasm, would be made to stand very high. "I would not have it made to stand higher than it is," said Phineas. As to the opinion of the world afterwards, Mr. Chaffanbrass went on to say, of that he must take his chance. But surely he himself might fight better for it living than any friend could do for him after his death. "You must believe me in this, Mr. Finn, that a verdict of acquittal from the jury is the one object that we must have before us." "The one object that I shall have before me is the verdict of the public," said Phineas. "I am treated with so much injustice in being thought a murderer that they can hardly add anything to it by hanging me." When Mr. Chaffanbrass left the prison he walked back with Mr. Wickerby to the attorney's chambers in Hatton Garden, and he lingered for awhile on the Viaduct expressing his opinion of his client. "He's not a bad fellow, Wickerby." "A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "I never did,--and I never will,--express an opinion of my own as to the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over. But I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do now." "It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said Mr. Wickerby. "People think that the special branch of the profession into which I have chanced to fall is a very low one,--and I do not know whether, if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into an exclusive practice in criminal courts." "Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,--savage to witnesses." "You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass." "It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me." CHAPTER LXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL. The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the Court would call "one of the swells,"--so as to enjoy the privilege of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed, the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been talking about for the last nine days, face to face; and of being seen in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark; but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come up to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below. And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabinets were to be called in evidence, you would not attend the trial, though the seat of honour next to the judge were accorded to you. Those be-wigged ones, who are the performers, are so insufferably long in their parts, so arrogant in their bearing,--so it strikes you, though doubtless the fashion of working has been found to be efficient for the purposes they have in hand,--and so uninteresting in their repetition, that you first admire, and then question, and at last execrate the imperturbable patience of the judge, who might, as you think, force the thing through in a quarter of the time without any injury to justice. And it will probably strike you that the length of the trial is proportioned not to the complicity but to the importance, or rather to the public interest, of the case,--so that the trial which has been suggested of a disappointed and bloody-minded ex-Prime Minister would certainly take at least a fortnight, even though the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Chancellor had seen the blow struck, whereas a collier may knock his wife's brains out in the dark and be sent to the gallows with a trial that shall not last three hours. And yet the collier has to be hung,--if found guilty,--and no one thinks that his life is improperly endangered by reckless haste. Whether lives may not be improperly saved by the more lengthened process is another question. But the honours of such benchfellowship can be accorded but to few, and the task becomes very tiresome when the spectator has to enter the Court as an ordinary mortal. There are two modes open to him, either of which is subject to grievous penalties. If he be the possessor of a decent coat and hat, and can scrape any acquaintance with any one concerned, he may get introduced to that overworked and greatly perplexed official, the under-sheriff, who will stave him off if possible,--knowing that even an under-sheriff cannot make space elastic,--but, if the introduction has been acknowledged as good, will probably find a seat for him if he persevere to the end. But the seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you. It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real sheriff, how different it might have been with you! But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right, walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public. You will have to stand of course,--and to commence standing very early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good deal knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by those who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will regard you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the officialities of the work on hand. Upon the whole it may be better for you, perhaps, to stay at home and read the record of the affair as given in the next day's Times. Impartial reporters, judicious readers, and able editors between them will preserve for you all the kernel, and will save you from the necessity of having to deal with the shell. At this trial there were among the crowd who succeeded in entering the Court three persons of our acquaintance who had resolved to overcome the various difficulties. Mr. Monk, who had formerly been a Cabinet Minister, was seated on the bench,--subject, indeed, to the heat and stenches, but priviledged to eat the lunch. Mr. Quintus Slide, of The People's Banner,--who knew the Court well, for in former days he had worked many an hour in it as a reporter,--had obtained the good graces of the under-sheriff. And Mr. Bunce, with all the energy of the British public, had forced his way in among the crowd, and had managed to wedge himself near to the dock, so that he might be able by a hoist of the neck to see his lodger as he stood at the bar. Of these three men, Bunce was assured that the prisoner was innocent,--led to such assurance partly by belief in the man, and partly by an innate spirit of opposition to all exercise of restrictive power. Mr. Quintus Slide was certain of the prisoner's guilt, and gave himself considerable credit for having assisted in running down the criminal. It seemed to be natural to Mr. Quintus Slide that a man who had openly quarrelled with the Editor of The People's Banner should come to the gallows. Mr. Monk, as Phineas himself well knew, had doubted. He had received the suspected murderer into his warmest friendship, and was made miserable even by his doubts. Since the circumstances of the case had come to his knowledge, they had weighed upon his mind so as to sadden his whole life. But he was a man who could not make his reason subordinate to his feelings. If the evidence against his friend was strong enough to send his friend for trial, how should he dare to discredit the evidence because the man was his friend? He had visited Phineas in prison, and Phineas had accused him of doubting. "You need not answer me," the unhappy man had said, "but do not come unless you are able to tell me from your heart that you are sure of my innocence. There is no person living who could comfort me by such assurance as you could do." Mr. Monk had thought about it very much, but he had not repeated his visit. At a quarter past ten the Chief Justice was on the bench, with a second judge to help him, and with lords and distinguished commoners and great City magnates crowding the long seat between him and the doorway; the Court was full, so that you would say that another head could not be made to appear; and Phineas Finn, the member for Tankerville, was in the dock. Barrington Erle, who was there to see,--as one of the great ones, of course,--told the Duchess of Omnium that night that Phineas was thin and pale, and in many respects an altered man,--but handsomer than ever. "He bore himself well?" asked the Duchess. "Very well,--very well indeed. We were there for six hours, and he maintained the same demeanour throughout. He never spoke but once, and that was when Chaffanbrass began his fight about the jury." "What did he say?" "He addressed the judge, interrupting Slope, who was arguing that some man would make a very good juryman, and declared that it was not by his wish that any objection was raised against any gentleman." "What did the judge say?" "Told him to abide by his counsel. The Chief Justice was very civil to him,--indeed better than civil." "We'll have him down to Matching, and make ever so much of him," said the Duchess. "Don't go too fast, Duchess, for he may have to hang poor Phineas yet." "Oh dear; I wish you wouldn't use that word. But what did he say?" "He told Finn that as he had thought fit to employ counsel for his defence,--in doing which he had undoubtedly acted wisely,--he must leave the case to the discretion of his counsel." "And then poor Phineas was silenced?" "He spoke another word. 'My lord,' said he, 'I for my part wish that the first twelve men on the list might be taken.' But old Chaffanbrass went on just the same. It took them two hours and a half before they could swear a jury." "But, Mr. Erle,--taking it altogether,--which way is it going?" "Nobody can even guess as yet. There was ever so much delay besides that about the jury. It seemed that somebody had called him Phinees instead of Phineas, and that took half an hour. They begin with the quarrel at the club, and are to call the first witness to-morrow morning. They are to examine Ratler about the quarrel, and Fitzgibbon, and Monk, and, I believe, old Bouncer, the man who writes, you know. They all heard what took place." "So did you?" "I have managed to escape that. They can't very well examine all the club. But I shall be called afterwards as to what took place at the door. They will begin with Ratler." "Everybody knows there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Bonteen had been drinking, and that he behaved as badly as a man could behave." "It must all be proved, Duchess." "I'll tell you what, Mr. Erle. If,--if,--if this ends badly for Mr. Finn I'll wear mourning to the day of my death. I'll go to the Drawing Room in mourning, to show what I think of it." Lord Chiltern, who was also on the bench, took his account of the trial home to his wife and sister in Portman Square. At this time Miss Palliser was staying with them, and the three ladies were together when the account was brought to them. In that house it was taken as doctrine that Phineas Finn was innocent. In the presence of her brother, and before her sister-in-law's visitor, Lady Laura had learned to be silent on the subject, and she now contented herself with listening, knowing that she could relieve herself by speech when alone with Lady Chiltern. "I never knew anything so tedious in my life," said the Master of the Brake hounds. "They have not done anything yet." "I suppose they have made their speeches?" said his wife. "Sir Gregory Grogram opened the case, as they call it; and a very strong case he made of it. I never believe anything that a lawyer says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much the thousand. I know he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him. There can be no doubt of that." "Oswald, you don't mean to say that it's going against him!" exclaimed Lady Chiltern. "It's not going any way at present. The witnesses have not been examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself at that moment where the man was seen." "How very dreadful!" said Miss Palliser. "And yet I feel that I know it was that other man," said Lady Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her eyes intent on her brother's face, with her elbow on the table and her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a word. "Violet, they will murder him!" Lady Chiltern endeavoured to comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. "I know they will murder him," she said, "and then when it is too late they will find out what they have done!" [Illustration: "Violet, they will murder him."] On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr. Ratler and Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses;--and not a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying that he had heard that morning for the first time that one of his witnesses had been,--"tampered with" was the word that he unfortunately used,--by his learned friend on the other side. He alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up there on the seat of honour, visible to all the world, became very hot and very uncomfortable. Then there arose a vehement dispute between Sir Gregory, assisted by Sir Simon, and old Mr. Chaffanbrass, who rejected with disdain any assistance from the gentler men who were with him. "Tampered with! That word should be recalled by the honourable gentleman who was at the head of the bar, or--or--" Had Mr. Chaffanbrass declared that as an alternative he would pull the Court about their ears, it would have been no more than he meant. Lord Fawn had been invited,--not summoned to attend; and why? In order that no suspicion of guilt might be thrown on another man, unless the knowledge that was in Lord Fawn's bosom, and there alone, would justify such a line of defence. Lord Fawn had been attended by his own solicitor, and might have brought the Attorney-General with him had he so pleased. There was a great deal said on both sides, and something said also by the judge. At last Sir Gregory withdrew the objectionable word, and substituted in lieu of it an assertion that his witness had been "indiscreetly questioned." Mr. Chaffanbrass would not for a moment admit the indiscretion, but bounced about in his place, tearing his wig almost off his head, and defying every one in the Court. The judge submitted to Mr. Chaffanbrass that he had been indiscreet.--"I never contradicted the Bench yet, my lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,--at which there was a general titter throughout the bar,--"but I must claim the privilege of conducting my own practice according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench. In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land." The judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the profession at large. Mr. Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on one side, so that it nearly fell on Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt's face, muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When the little affair was over, everybody felt that Sir Gregory had been vanquished. Mr. Ratler, and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Mr. Monk, and Mr. Bouncer were examined about the quarrel at the club, and proved that the quarrel had been a very bitter quarrel. They all agreed that Mr. Bonteen had been wrong, and that the prisoner had had cause for anger. Of the three distinguished legislators and statesmen above named Mr. Chaffanbrass refused to take the slightest notice. "I have no question to put to you," he said to Mr. Ratler. "Of course there was a quarrel. We all know that." But he did ask a question or two of Mr. Bouncer. "You write books, I think, Mr. Bouncer?" "I do," said Mr. Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity in a witness to which Mr. Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an assumption of dignity. "What sort of books, Mr. Bouncer?" "I write novels," said Mr. Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to make such a question necessary. "You mean fiction." "Well, yes; fiction,--if you like that word better." "I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't you?" Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel it is necessary to construct a plot." "Where do you get 'em from?" "Where do I get 'em from?" "Yes,--where do you find them? You take them from the French mostly;--don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way our English writers get their plots?" "Sometimes,--perhaps." "Your's ain't French then?" "Well;--no;--that is--I won't undertake to say that--that--" "You won't undertake to say that they're not French." "Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the judge. "Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us, my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?" "Certainly," said Mr. Bouncer. "You have murders in novels?" "Sometimes," said Mr. Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in his time. "Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder ten minutes before he committed it;--with whom the cause of the murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?" Mr. Bouncer stood thinking for a while. "We will give you your time, because an answer to the question from you will be important testimony." "I don't think I do," said Mr. Bouncer, who in his confusion had been quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel. "And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that you would borrow?" "Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer. "Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bouncer?" "Oh yes;--I read a great deal of poetry." "Shakespeare, perhaps?" Mr. Bouncer did not condescend to do more than nod his head. "There is a murder described in _Hamlet_. Was that supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?" "I should say not." "So should I, Mr. Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the murder in _Macbeth_? That took a little time in concocting;--didn't it?" "No doubt it did." "And when Othello murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?" "I suppose he had." "Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr. Bouncer?" The unfortunate author again nodded his head. "When Amy Robsart was lured to her death, there was some time given to the preparation,--eh?" "Of course there was." "Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in Bulwer's novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?" "He was thinking a long time about it, I believe." "Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man's brain without premeditation?" "Not that I can remember." "Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn't a Dutch smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?" "Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossop in _The Antiquary_ very suddenly;--but he did it from passion." "Just so, Mr. Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?" "He was chained." "So he was; chained like a dog;--and like a dog he flew at his enemy. If I understand you, then, Mr. Bouncer, you would not dare so to violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the public who should contrive a secret hidden murder,--contrive it and execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?" Mr. Bouncer, after another minute's consideration, said that he thought he would not do so. "Mr. Bouncer," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for having given us the advantage of your evidence." CHAPTER LXII. LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE. A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr. Chaffanbrass had done with Mr. Bouncer, but none of them were of much interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the state of the dead man's head when he was picked up, and as to the nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and the fact of Phineas Finn's life-preserver was proved,--in the middle of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket. "We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. "We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey coat." But that happened towards the close of the second day, and they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey coat was commenced on the third morning,--on the Saturday,--which day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that Mr. Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. "I'll tamper with him by-and-bye," Mr. Chaffanbrass had whispered to Mr. Wickerby, and the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr. Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday, was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table, just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took his seat on the bench his heart failed him. He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the bench, but to this Mr. Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware, he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench. In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the witness-box. His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so as almost to reassure the witness; and very quickly,--only too quickly,--obtained from him all the information that was needed on the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club, had seen both Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Finn preparing to follow him, but he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr. Bonteen since. He walked very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there, as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street,--as he believed, just as he was crossing the street,--he saw a man come at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row, opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat,--as far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him; he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height. He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along, nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors of his cross-examination. But there he was,--in the clutches of the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey barrister,--and yet fearing him with so intense a fear! Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him,--as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters could hardly hear his first question,--"I believe you are an Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbrass extracted from his witness,--not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the victim to his persecutor; for Mr. Chaffanbrass, even when asking the simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name, and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. "Then," continued Mr. Chaffanbrass, "you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of your business?" "I suppose I did,--sometimes." "Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?" "We didn't sit in the same House." "I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same club with him." "I don't go much to the clubs," said Lord Fawn. "But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a club in your presence?" Lord Fawn assented. "In fact you cannot but have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?" "I never was intimate with him." Mr. Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly. "I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be intimate with this gentleman,--as to whom, however, I shall be able to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not familiar to you?" Lord Fawn at last said that it was. "Do you know his height? What should you say was his height?" Lord Fawn altogether refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr. Finn was over six feet high. "In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?" Lord Fawn did look, but wouldn't give an answer. "I'll undertake to say, my lord, that there isn't a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who wouldn't be ready to express an opinion on his oath that Mr. Finn is a tall man. Mr. Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from the dock for a moment. He won't run away. I must have his lordship's opinion as to Mr. Finn's height." Poor Phineas, when this was said, clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court in the manner proposed. But the need for exhibition passed away. "I know that he is a very tall man," said Lord Fawn. "You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man,--with whose personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal appearance?" After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last acknowledged that it had been so. "Now we shall get on like a house on fire," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming out of the mews wearing a grey great coat,--as to his attitude, and as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man's attitude, and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man. "My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, very solemnly, "look at your late friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw--murdered Mr. Bonteen. With all my experience in such matters,--which is great; and with all my skill,--which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence,--by sifting what you say to-day, and by comparing it with what you have already said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was or was not one and the same with the prisoner?" In all the crowd then assembled there was no man more thoroughly under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give. Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have been horrible to him, but the sanctity of an oath was imperative to him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how to speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the innocence of Phineas Finn,--not for the love of Phineas, but for the love of innocence;--but not even to do that would he have lied. But he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition. Mr. Chaffanbrass saw it all, and intended without the slightest scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all, and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the jury. "I didn't think of Mr. Finn at the time," said Lord Fawn in answer to the last question. "So I understand. The man didn't strike you as being tall." "I don't think that he did." "But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw running out of the mews was Mr. Finn?" Lord Fawn was again silent. "I am asking your lordship a question to which I must request an answer. Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in jeopardy of his life." "I am not aware of anything of the kind," said the witness. "Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence, whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take what time you please for recollection." Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the newspaper which had been handed to him. "I cannot remember what words I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by running round." "Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give such evidence as is there reported?" "And the colour of the coat," said Lord Fawn. "In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?" "Then there had been the quarrel." "My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man,--as we all believe,--whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?" "I didn't identify him." "At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man's life, which is in great jeopardy,--is in great jeopardy because of the evidence given by you before the magistrate,--do not be ashamed to speak the truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said before with ill-advised haste." "My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?" said the witness, appealing to the Bench. "Mr. Chaffanbrass," said the judge, again looking at the barrister over his spectacles, "I think you are stretching the privilege of your position too far." "I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion that the man he saw was Mr. Finn;--and on that evidence Mr. Finn was committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury,--when Mr. Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his hopes in life before the country,--whether he thinks as then he thought, and on what grounds he thinks so." "I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat." "For no other reasons?" "No;--for no other reasons." "Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?" "And the quarrel," said Lord Fawn. "My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not understand the meaning of the word." Lord Fawn looked up at the judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. "At any rate we have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the coat." "I don't think there was," said Lord Fawn, slowly. Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbrass, while Lord Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the table before him,--this coat being in truth the identical garment which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby's clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on the coat,--which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbrass then asked permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr. Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,--a conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,--smiling very blandly for him,--suggested that the impropriety of the conference, let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr. Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Bonteen himself, and had since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr. Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr. Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed. "You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby's chambers." Lord Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. "We'll take care to have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet. You saw that man wear a coat like that." "Yes; I did." "And you see him now." "Yes, I do." "Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the mews?" Lord Fawn paused. "We can't make him move about here as we did in Mr. Wickerby's room; but remembering that as you must do, does he look like the man?" "I don't remember what the man looked like." "Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby's room that Mr. Scruby with the grey coat on was like the figure of the man?" Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some faint ambiguous fashion, acknowledge it in his present evidence. "My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down, "you have no doubt taken a note of Mr. Scruby's height." Whereupon the judge nodded his head. CHAPTER LXIII. MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE. The case for the prosecution was completed on the Saturday evening, Mrs. Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side. She was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the habit of letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with a latch-key;--but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge and the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr. Finn had murdered anybody they didn't know anything about the world in general. Whereupon Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he would like to ask her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the least likely to do such a bloody-minded action. Mr. Chaffanbrass was, perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable as that of the lords and countesses. During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk of the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no one;--but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At the clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever. There was a very common opinion that Mr. Chaffanbrass had admitted too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed, than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case was going against the prisoner. "You have read it all, of course," said the Duchess of Omnium to her husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying a very extended circulation. "I wish you would not think so much about it," said the Duke. "That's very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it? Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging." "I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr. Finn did commit the murder it is right that he should be convicted." "But if he didn't?" "It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take their verdict as correct." "If they find him guilty, their verdict will be damnable and false," said the Duchess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial,--which resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was over. "What do you think about it, Mr. Erle?" asked the other Duke. "I don't know what to think;--I only hope." "That he may be acquitted?" "Of course." "Whether guilty or innocent?" "Well;--yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been innocent. Your Grace thinks--?" "I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr. Erle." It was thus that people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been put in peril of his life. On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day was taken up by the address which Mr. Chaffanbrass made to the jury. He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated. It was not his intention, he said, to accuse any one of the murder. It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others. But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as soon as the murder had been discovered,--two persons totally unknown to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted together,--and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man had also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony. But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what would be called a gentleman's fashionable walking coat, and the other the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least have resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbrass would not tell the jury that this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took upon himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder the thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. "His lordship is an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth, but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought that there must be identity, because he believed from other reasons that Mr. Finn was the man in the street. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered;--according to Lord Fawn's thinking had probably been murdered by Mr. Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact, as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lordship's evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner." There were many other points on which Mr. Chaffanbrass insisted at great length;--but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should have entered into a man's head, have been completed and executed, all within a few minutes. "But under no hypothesis compatible with the allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the club. No, gentlemen;--the murderer had been at his work for days. He had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done the deed." Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door. Was it probable,--was it possible,--that a man intending to commit a murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the night's work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner's favour. Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr. Chaffanbrass, who had been speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled. He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves of the eager mind,--for he was convinced that the idea of attacking Mr. Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate evidence as to what he had himself seen,--for he was convinced that Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it,--unless his client should be hung. After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury, and of course to the whole assembled Court, the details of about two dozen cases, in which apparently strong circumstantial evidence had been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned; in one pardoned after many years of punishment;--and in one the poor victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and spoke with tears in his eyes,--real unaffected tears,--of the misery of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty, had been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this long recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with his list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon, went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the character of such a nature,--so strong, so convincing, so complete, and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his speech, and it was computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly seven hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle of port in his bedroom, that he then slept,--refusing to stir even when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court in half an hour. At ten o'clock he was in his place, and nobody knew that he was any the worse for the previous day's exertion. This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the whole perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished persons,--of women as well as men,--was brought up to give to the jury their opinion as to the character of Mr. Finn. Mr. Low was the first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar, knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number, all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr. Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister. But before them came Lady Cantrip,--and Lady Chiltern, whom we once knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and who had never before entered a public Court. There had of course been much question as to the witnesses to be selected. The Duchess of Omnium had been anxious to be one, but the Duke had forbidden it, telling his wife that she really did not know the man, and that she was carried away by a foolish enthusiasm. Lady Cantrip when asked had at once consented. She had known Phineas Finn when he had served under her husband, and had liked him much. Then what other woman's tongue should be brought to speak of the man's softness and tender bearing! It was out of the question that Lady Laura Kennedy should appear. She did not even propose it when her brother with unnecessary sternness told her it could not be so. Then his wife looked at him. "You shall go," said Lord Chiltern, "if you feel equal to it. It seems to be nonsense, but they say that it is important." "I will go," said Violet, with her eyes full of tears. Afterwards when her sister-in-law besought her to be generous in her testimony, she only smiled as she assented. Could generosity go beyond hers? Lord Chiltern preceded his wife. "I have," he said, "known Mr. Finn well, and have loved him dearly. I have eaten with him and drank with him, have ridden with him, have lived with him, and have quarrelled with him; and I know him as I do my own right hand." Then he stretched forth his arm with the palm extended. "Irrespectively of the evidence in this case you would not have thought him to be a man likely to commit such a crime?" asked Serjeant Birdbolt. "I am quite sure from my knowledge of the man that he could not commit a murder," said Lord Chiltern; "and I don't care what the evidence is." Then came his wife, and it certainly was a pretty sight to see as her husband led her up to the box and stood close beside her as she gave her evidence. There were many there who knew much of the history of her life,--who knew that passage in it of her early love,--for the tale had of course been told when it was whispered about that Lady Chiltern was to be examined as a witness. Every ear was at first strained to hear her words;--but they were audible in every corner of the Court without any effort. It need hardly be said that she was treated with the greatest deference on every side. She answered the questions very quietly, but apparently without nervousness. "Yes; she had known Mr. Finn long, and intimately, and had very greatly valued his friendship. She did so still,--as much as ever. Yes; she had known him for some years, and in circumstances which she thought justified her in saying that she understood his character. She regarded him as a man who was brave and tender-hearted, soft in feeling and manly in disposition. To her it was quite incredible that he should have committed a crime such as this. She knew him to be a man prone to forgive offences, and of a sweet nature." And it was pretty too to watch the unwonted gentleness of old Chaffanbrass as he asked the questions, and carefully abstained from putting any one that could pain her. Sir Gregory said that he had heard her evidence with great pleasure, but that he had no question to ask her himself. Then she stepped down, again took her husband's arm, and left the Court amidst a hum of almost affectionate greeting. And what must he have thought as he stood there within the dock, looking at her and listening to her? There had been months in his life when he had almost trusted that he would succeed in winning that fair, highly-born, and wealthy woman for his wife; and though he had failed, and now knew that he had never really touched her heart, that she had always loved the man whom,--though she had rejected him time after time because of the dangers of his ways,--she had at last married, yet it must have been pleasant to him, even in his peril, to hear from her own lips how well she had esteemed him. She left the Court with her veil down, and he could not catch her eye; but Lord Chiltern nodded to him in his old pleasant familiar way, as though to bid him take courage, and to tell him that all things would even yet be well with him. The evidence given by Lady Cantrip and her husband and by Mr. Monk was equally favourable. She had always regarded him as a perfect gentleman. Lord Cantrip had found him to be devoted to the service of the country,--modest, intelligent, and high-spirited. Perhaps the few words which fell from Mr. Monk were as strong as any that were spoken. "He is a man whom I have delighted to call my friend, and I have been happy to think that his services have been at the disposal of his country." Sir Gregory Grogram replied. It seemed to him that the evidence was as he had left it. It would be for the jury to decide, under such directions as his lordship might be pleased to give them, how far that evidence brought the guilt home to the prisoner. He would use no rhetoric in pushing the case against the prisoner; but he must submit to them that his learned friend had not shown that acquaintance with human nature which the gentleman undoubtedly possessed in arguing that there had lacked time for the conception and execution of the crime. Then, at considerable length, he strove to show that Mr. Chaffanbrass had been unjustly severe upon Lord Fawn. It was late in the afternoon when Sir Gregory had finished his speech, and the judge's charge was reserved for a sixth day. CHAPTER LXIV. CONFUSION IN THE COURT. On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took their seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner much more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done. As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but, almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent, cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feet before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the first to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in his hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires. "I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Court before I begin my charge." "Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask your ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the jury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for another week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit the prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury can convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that the judge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat looking at the old barrister over his spectacles. Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had heard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least know on what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolently confident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying week with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place of shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind. The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court. He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but during the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it had begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare, without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that the trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to acquit him. "This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr. Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the key to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police, as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so after a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow the case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram; and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their command, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insist upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal." Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less than four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same effect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the Duchess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory, rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the evidence as against the prisoner." "Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on the telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man in prison on a charge of bigamy." "I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr. Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know, from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friendship with which it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the bar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But it proves nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr. Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is fictitious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?" "I defy you to ignore it, my lord." "I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "that you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to a postponement of my charge." Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman, under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City was known to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as this had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken. One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then the Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court were to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he doesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nor disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory. "Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried to explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in the lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically. "My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper that the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams. Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the house in Northumberland Street. Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not really affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the facts against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture of that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless the jury were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered in evidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and that therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of their country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which they would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and as the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunate jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged. The trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague. If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed, a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland, Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,--with the object of looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty. The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not exactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a public reception. And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge. According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to have read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdict of guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted a respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended this respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of the latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others, however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances, have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to declare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned to death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in the House, even if re-elected. Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived. The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived to be made for him? And how would this new information have been received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged that the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidence against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been the last day of their unmerited martyrdom. Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life. He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence. But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to be a murderer." And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been very sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men nor women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life, much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man specially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip, than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent. "It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes, indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledged to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she should do more for him even than she yet had done. CHAPTER LXV. "I HATE HER!" Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the manifestations of friendship which at this time were made on behalf of Phineas Finn. She had, indeed, gone to him in his prison, and made daily efforts to administer to his comfort; but she could not go up into the Court and speak for him. And now this other woman, whom she hated, would have the glory of his deliverance! She already began to see a fate before her, which would make even her past misery as nothing to that which was to come. She was a widow,--not yet two months a widow; and though she did not and could not mourn the death of a husband as do other widows,--though she could not sorrow in her heart for a man whom she had never loved, and from whom she had been separated during half her married life,--yet the fact of her widowhood and the circumstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a passionate devotion of which the other woman could know nothing she was quite sure. Love him! Had she not been true to him and to his interests from the very first day in which he had come among them in London, with almost more than a woman's truth? She knew and recalled to her memory over and over again her own one great sin,--the fault of her life. When she was, as regarded her own means, a poor woman, she had refused to be this poor man's wife, and had given her hand to a rich suitor. But she had done this with a conviction that she could so best serve the interests of the man in regard to whom she had promised herself that her feeling should henceforth be one of simple and purest friendship. She had made a great effort to carry out that intention, but the effort had been futile. She had striven to do her duty to a husband whom she disliked,--but even in that she had failed. At one time she had been persistent in her intercourse with Phineas Finn, and at another had resolved that she would not see him. She had been madly angry with him when he came to her with the story of his love for another woman, and had madly shown her anger; but yet she had striven to get for him the wife he wanted, though in doing so she would have abandoned one of the dearest purposes of her life. She had moved heaven and earth for him,--her heaven and earth,--when there was danger that he would lose his seat in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of her husband with scorn,--and had then deserted him because he was jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned. To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and abominable, because she had known,--and had therefore felt that he should have known,--that she would never disgrace him by that which the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,--though she admitted her own folly and knew her own shipwreck,--yet she had always drawn some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy. He had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,--never from her mind,--and then he had returned a widower. Through silence, absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to his old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him. Everything that was hers should be his,--if only he would open his hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,--let him know every corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,--not because he loved her, but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,--but yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not assure her of his love,--but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing at herself in the glass and saw that there was nothing there to attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,--of one who was himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sadness there was some cure, some possibility of consolation in the fact that she was a wife. Why speak of love at all when marriage was so far out of the question? But now she was a widow and as free as he was,--a widow endowed with ample wealth; and she was the woman to whom he had sworn his love when they had stood together, both young, by the falls of the Linter! How often might they stand there again if only his constancy would equal hers? She had seen him once since Fate had made her a widow; but then she had been but a few days a widow, and his life had at that moment been in strange jeopardy. There had certainly been no time then for other love than that which the circumstances and the sorrow of the hour demanded from their mutual friendship. From that day, from the first moment in which she had heard of his arrest, every thought, every effort of her mind had been devoted to his affairs. So great was his peril and so strange, that it almost wiped out from her mind the remembrance of her own condition. Should they hang him,--undoubtedly she would die. Such a termination to all her aspirations for him whom she had selected as her god upon earth would utterly crush her. She had borne much, but she could never bear that. Should he escape, but escape ingloriously;--ah, then he should know what the devotion of a woman could do for a man! But if he should leave his prison with flying colours, and come forth a hero to the world, how would it be with her then? She could foresee and understand of what nature would be the ovation with which he would be greeted. She had already heard what the Duchess was doing and saying. She knew how eager on his behalf were Lord and Lady Cantrip. She discussed the matter daily with her sister-in-law, and knew what her brother thought. If the acquittal were perfect, there would certainly be an ovation,--in which, was it not certain to her, that she would be forgotten? And she heard much, too, of Madame Goesler. And now there came the news. Madame Goesler had gone to Prague, to Cracow,--and where not?--spending her wealth, employing her wits, bearing fatigue, openly before the world on this man's behalf; and had done so successfully. She had found this evidence of the key, and now because the tracings of a key had been discovered by a woman, people were ready to believe that he was innocent, as to whose innocence she, Laura Kennedy, would have been willing to stake her own life from the beginning of the affair! Why had it not been her lot to go to Prague? Would not she have drunk up Esil, or swallowed a crocodile against any she-Laertes that would have thought to rival and to parallel her great love? Would not she have piled up new Ossas, had the opportunity been given her? Womanlike she had gone to him in her trouble,--had burst through his prison doors, had thrown herself on his breast, and had wept at his feet. But of what avail had been that? This strange female, this Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,--and everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been any one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been declared of her that she was a pushing, dangerous, scheming creature? And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,--not the ravages of age,--but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival foully;--in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened, Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two. But Lady Laura was a blonde, and trouble had told upon her outwardly, as it is wont to do upon those who are fair-skinned, and, at the same time, high-hearted. But Madame Goesler was a brunette,--swarthy, Lady Laura would have called her,--with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best. Lady Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the dark woman who keeps it. "What made her think of the key?" said Lady Chiltern. "I don't believe she did think of it. It was an accident." "Then why did she go?" "Oh, Violet, do not talk to me about that woman any more, or I shall be mad." "She has done him good service." "Very well;--so be it. Let him have the service. I know they would have acquitted him if she had never stirred from London. Oswald says so. But no matter. Let her have her triumph. Only do not talk to me about her. You know what I have thought about her ever since she first came up in London. Nothing ever surprised me so much as that you should take her by the hand." "I do not know that I took her specially by the hand." "You had her down at Harrington." "Yes; I did. And I do like her. And I know nothing against her. I think you are prejudiced against her, Laura." "Very well. Of course you think and can say what you please. I hate her, and that is sufficient." Then, after a pause, she added, "Of course he will marry her. I know that well enough. It is nothing to me whom he marries--only,--only,--only, after all that has passed it seems hard upon me that his wife should be the only woman in London that I could not visit." "Dear Laura, you should control your thoughts about this young man." "Of course I should;--but I don't. You mean that I am disgracing myself." "No." "Yes, you do. Oswald is more candid, and tells me so openly. And yet what have I done? The world has been hard upon me, and I have suffered. Do I desire anything except that he shall be happy and respectable? Do I hope for anything? I will go back and linger out my life at Dresden, where my disgrace can hurt no one." Her sister-in-law with all imaginable tenderness said what she could to console the miserable woman;--but there was no consolation possible. They both knew that Phineas Finn would never renew the offer which he had once made. CHAPTER LXVI. THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON. In the meantime Madame Goesler, having accomplished the journey from Prague in considerably less than a week, reached London with the blacksmith, the attorney's clerk, and the model of the key. The trial had been adjourned on Wednesday, the 24th of June, and it had been suggested that the jury should be again put into their box on that day week. All manner of inconvenience was to be endured by various members of the legal profession, and sundry irregularities were of necessity sanctioned on this great occasion. The sitting of the Court should have been concluded, and everybody concerned should have been somewhere else, but the matter was sufficient to justify almost any departure from routine. A member of the House of Commons was in custody, and it had already been suggested that some action should be taken by the House as to his speedy deliverance. Unless a jury could find him guilty, let him be at once restored to his duties and his privileges. The case was involved in difficulties, but in the meantime the jury, who had been taken down by train every day to have a walk in the country in the company of two sheriff's officers, and who had been allowed to dine at Greenwich one day and at Richmond on another in the hope that whitebait with lamb and salad might in some degree console them for their loss of liberty, were informed that they would be once again put into their box on Wednesday. But Madame Goesler reached London on the Sunday morning, and on the Monday the whole affair respecting the key was unravelled in the presence of the Attorney-General, and with the personal assistance of our old friend, Major Mackintosh. Without a doubt the man Mealyus had caused to be made for him in Prague a key which would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street. A key was made in London from the model now brought which did open the door. The Attorney-General seemed to think that it would be his duty to ask the judge to call upon the jury to acquit Phineas Finn, and that then the matter must rest for ever, unless further evidence could be obtained against Yosef Mealyus. It would not be possible to hang a man for a murder simply because he had fabricated a key,--even though he might possibly have obtained the use of a grey coat for a few hours. There was no tittle of evidence to show that he had ever had the great coat on his shoulders, or that he had been out of the house on that night. Lord Fawn, to his infinite disgust, was taken to the prison in which Mealyus was detained, and was confronted with the man, but he could say nothing. Mealyus, at his own suggestion, put on the coat, and stalked about the room in it. But Lord Fawn would not say a word. The person whom he now saw might have been the man in the street, or Mr. Finn might have been the man, or any other man might have been the man. Lord Fawn was very dignified, very reserved, and very unhappy. To his thinking he was the great martyr of this trial. Phineas Finn was becoming a hero. Against the twelve jurymen the finger of scorn would never be pointed. But his sufferings must endure for his life--might probably embitter his life to the very end. Looking into his own future from his present point of view he did not see how he could ever again appear before the eye of the public. And yet with what persistency of conscience had he struggled to be true and honest! On the present occasion he would say nothing. He had seen a man in a grey coat, and for the future would confine himself to that. "You did not see me, my lord," said Mr. Emilius with touching simplicity. So the matter stood on the Monday afternoon, and the jury had already been told that they might be released on the following Tuesday,--might at any rate hear the judge's charge on that day,--when another discovery was made more wonderful than that of the key. And this was made without any journey to Prague, and might, no doubt, have been made on any day since the murder had been committed. And it was a discovery for not having made which the police force generally was subjected to heavy censure. A beautiful little boy was seen playing in one of those gardens through which the passage runs with a short loaded bludgeon in his hand. He came into the house with the weapon, the maid who was with him having asked the little lord no question on the subject. But luckily it attracted attention, and his little lordship took two gardeners and a coachman and all the nurses to the very spot at which he found it. Before an hour was over he was standing at his father's knee, detailing the fact with great open eyes to two policemen, having by this time become immensely proud of his adventure. This occurred late on the Monday afternoon, when the noble family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might easily have been thrown by any one attempting to pitch it over the wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now considered certain that the real murderer would be discovered. [Illustration: The boy who found the bludgeon.] But the renewal of the trial was again postponed till the Wednesday, as it was necessary that an entire day should be devoted to the bludgeon. The instrument was submitted to the eyes and hands of persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the police could succeed in tracing the bludgeon into his hands, or in proving that he had purchased any such instrument, then,--so it was thought,--there would be evidence to justify a police magistrate in sending Mr. Emilius to occupy the place so lately and so long held by poor Phineas Finn. But till that had been done, there could be nothing to connect the preacher with the murder. All who had heard the circumstances of the case were convinced that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by the weapon lately discovered, and not by that which Phineas had carried in his pocket,--but no one could adduce proof that it was so. This second bludgeon would no doubt help to remove the difficulty in regard to Phineas, but would not give atonement to the shade of Mr. Bonteen. Mealyus was confronted with the weapon in the presence of Major Mackintosh, and was told its story;--how it was found in the nobleman's garden by the little boy. At the first moment, with instant readiness, he took the thing in his hand, and looked at it with feigned curiosity. He must have studied his conduct so as to have it ready for such an occasion, thinking that it might some day occur. But with all his presence of mind he could not keep the tell-tale blood from mounting. "You don't know anything about it, Mr. Mealyus?" said one of the policemen present, looking closely into his face. "Of course you need not criminate yourself." "What should I know about it? No;--I know nothing about the stick. I never had such a stick, or, as I believe, saw one before." He did it very well, but he could not keep the blood from rising to his cheeks. The policemen were sure that he was the murderer,--but what could they do? "You saved his life, certainly," said the Duchess to her friend on the Sunday afternoon. That had been before the bludgeon was found. "I do not believe that they could have touched a hair of his head," said Madame Goesler. "Would they not? Everybody felt sure that he would be hung. Would it not have been awful? I do not see how you are to help becoming man and wife now, for all the world are talking about you." Madame Goesler smiled, and said that she was quite indifferent to the world's talk. On the Tuesday after the bludgeon was found, the two ladies met again. "Now it was known that it was the clergyman," said the Duchess. "I never doubted it." "He must have been a brave man for a foreigner,--to have attacked Mr. Bonteen all alone in the street, when any one might have seen him. I don't feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved." "Mr. Finn will surely be acquitted now." "Of course he'll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even over to-day. I should think they'll make him a peer, and give him a pension,--or at the very least appoint him secretary to something. I do wish Plantagenet hadn't been in such a hurry about that nasty Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn't very well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn't mind,--would you, my dear?" "I think you'll find that they will console Mr. Finn with something less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of course?" "Plantagenet wouldn't let me, but I know who did." "Some lady?" "Oh, yes,--a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I believe." "Who was she?" "You won't be ill-natured?" "I'll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess." "It was Lady Laura." "I supposed so." "They say she is frantic about him, my dear." "I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men in these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him." "Of course you know that she is a widow." "Oh, yes;--Mr. Kennedy had died long before I left England." "And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she offers to share it with him." "It may be so," said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the world suffused her cheek. "And I'll make you another bet, and give you any odds." "What is that?" "That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is better understood now." "Such things have been done, I do not doubt," said Madame Goesler, who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion apparent to her friend. "When this is all over we'll get him down to Matching, and manage better than that. I should think they'll hardly go on with the Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr. Finn has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether. Even Plantagenet doesn't work above twelve hours a day, and I'm told that poor Lord Fawn hasn't been near his office for the last fortnight. When the excitement is over they'll never be able to get back to their business before the grouse. There'll be a few dinners of course, just as a compliment to the great man,--but London will break up after that, I should think. You won't come in for so much of the glory as you would have done if they hadn't found the stick. Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know." "It's the most singular case I ever knew," said Sir Simon Slope that night to one of his friends. "We certainly should have hanged him but for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer to hanging any one else." "What a pity!" "It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence,--and yet without it one never could get at any murder. I'm very glad, you know, that the key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat." CHAPTER LXVII. THE VERDICT. On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling that he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said, to have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this occasion Mr. Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two Dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were forced to subject themselves to the benevolence of the Under-Sheriff. Phineas himself was pale and haggard. It was observed that he leaned forward on the rail of the dock all the day, not standing upright as he had done before; and they who watched him closely said that he never once raised his eyes on this day to meet those of the men opposite to him on the bench, although heretofore throughout the trial he had stood with his face raised so as to look directly at those who were there seated. On this occasion he kept his eyes fixed upon the speaker. But the whole bearing of the man, his gestures, his gait, and his countenance were changed. During the first long week of his trial, his uprightness, the manly beauty of his countenance, and the general courage and tranquillity of his deportment had been conspicuous. Whatever had been his fatigue, he had managed not to show the outward signs of weariness. Whatever had been his fears, no mark of fear had disfigured his countenance. He had never once condescended to the exhibition of any outward show of effrontery. Through six weary days he had stood there, supported by a manhood sufficient for the terrible emergency. But now it seemed that at any rate the outward grace of his demeanour had deserted him. But it was known that he had been ill during the last few days, and it had been whispered through the Court that he had not slept at nights. Since the adjournment of the Court there had been bulletins as to his health, and everybody knew that the confinement was beginning to tell upon him. On the present occasion the proceedings of the day were opened by the Attorney-General, who began by apologising to the jury. Apologies to the jury had been very frequent during the trial, and each apology had called forth fresh grumbling. On this occasion the foreman expressed a hope that the Legislature would consider the condition of things which made it possible that twelve gentlemen all concerned extensively in business should be confined for fourteen days because a mistake had been made in the evidence as to a murder. Then the Chief Justice, bowing down his head and looking at them over the rim of his spectacles with an expression of wisdom that almost convinced them, told them that he was aware of no mistake in the evidence. It might become their duty, on the evidence which they had heard and the further evidence which they would hear, to acquit the prisoner at the bar; but not on that account would there have been any mistake or erroneous procedure in the Court, other than such error on the part of the prosecution in regard to the alleged guilt of the prisoner as it was the general and special duty of jurors to remedy. Then he endeavoured to reconcile them to their sacrifice by describing the importance and glorious British nature of their position. "My lord," said one of the jurors, "if you was a salesman, and hadn't got no partner, only a very young 'un, you'd know what it was to be kept out of your business for a fortnight." Then that salesman wagged his head, and put his handkerchief up to his eyes, and there was pity also for him in the Court. After that the Attorney-General went on. His learned friend on the other side,--and he nodded to Mr. Chaffanbrass,--had got some further evidence to submit to them on behalf of the prisoner who was still on his trial before them. He now addressed them with the view of explaining to them that if that evidence should be such as he believed, it would become his duty on behalf of the Crown to join with his learned friend in requesting the Court to direct the jury to acquit the prisoner. Not the less on that account would it be the duty of the jury to form their own opinion as to the credibility of the fresh evidence which would be brought before them. "There won't be much doubt about the credibility," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, rising in his place. "I am not a bit afraid about the credibility, gentlemen; and I don't think that you need be afraid either. You must understand, gentlemen, that I am now going on calling evidence for the defence. My last witness was the Right Honourable Mr. Monk, who spoke as to character. My next will be a Bohemian blacksmith named Praska,--Peter Praska,--who naturally can't speak a word of English, and unfortunately can't speak a word of German either. But we have got an interpreter, and I daresay we shall find out without much delay what Peter Praska has to tell us." Then Peter Praska was handed up to the rostrum for the witnesses, and the man learned in Czech and also in English was placed close to him, and sworn to give a true interpretation. Mealyus the unfortunate one was also in Court, brought in between two policemen, and the Bohemian blacksmith swore that he had made a certain key on the instructions of the man he now saw. The reader need not be further troubled with all the details of the evidence about the key. It was clearly proved that in a village near to Prague a key had been made such as would open Mr. Meager's door in Northumberland Street, and it was also proved that it was made from a mould supplied by Mealyus. This was done by the joint evidence of Mr. Meager and of the blacksmith. "And if I lose my key," said the reverend gentleman, "why should I not have another made? Did I ever deny it? This, I think, is very strange." But Mr. Emilius was very quickly walked back out of the Court between the two policemen, as his presence would not be required in regard to the further evidence regarding the bludgeon. Mr. Chaffanbrass, having finished his business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden. There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the garden, and the wall,--with the steps on which it was supposed that the blow had been struck; and the spot was indicated on which the child had said that he had found the weapon. Then certain workers in leather were questioned, who agreed in asserting that no such instrument as that handed to them had ever been made in England. After that, two scientific chemists told the jury that they had minutely examined the knob of the instrument with reference to the discovery of human blood,--but in vain. They were, however, of opinion that the man might very readily have been killed by the instrument without any effusion of blood at the moment of the blows. This seemed to the jury to be the less necessary, as three or four surgeons who had examined the murdered man's head had already told them that in all probability there had been no such effusion. When the judges went out to lunch at two o'clock the jury were trembling as to their fate for another night. The fresh evidence, however, had been completed, and on the return of the Court Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he should only speak a very few words. For a few words he must ask indulgence, though he knew them to be irregular. But it was the speciality of this trial that everything in it was irregular, and he did not think that his learned friend the Attorney-General would dispute the privilege. The Attorney-General said nothing, and Mr. Chaffanbrass went on with his little speech,--with which he took up the greatest part of an hour. It was thought to have been unnecessary, as nearly all that he said was said again--and was sure to have been so said,--by the judge. It was not his business,--the business of him, Mr. Chaffanbrass,--to accuse another man of the murder of Mr. Bonteen. It was not for him to tell the jury whether there was or was not evidence on which any other man should be sent to trial. But it was his bounden duty in defence of his client to explain to them that a collection of facts tending to criminate another man,--which when taken together made a fair probability that another man had committed the crime,--rendered it quite out of the question that they should declare his client to be guilty. He did not believe that there was a single person in the Court who was not now convinced of the innocence of his client;--but it was not permitted to him to trust himself solely to that belief. It was his duty to show them that, of necessity, they must acquit his client. When Mr. Chaffanbrass sat down, the Attorney-General waived any right he might have of further reply. It was half-past three when the judge began his charge. He would, he said, do his best to enable the jury to complete their tedious duty, so as to return to their families on that night. Indeed he would certainly finish his charge before he rose from the seat, let the hour be what it might; and though time must be occupied by him in going through the evidence and explaining the circumstances of this very singular trial, it might not be improbable that the jury would be able to find their verdict without any great delay among themselves. "There won't be any delay at all, my lord," said the suffering and very irrational salesman. The poor man was again rebuked, mildly, and the Chief Justice continued his charge. As it occupied four hours in the delivery, of which by far the greater part was taken up in recapitulating and sifting evidence with which the careful reader, if such there be, has already been made too intimately acquainted, the account of it here shall be very short. The nature of circumstantial evidence was explained, and the truth of much that had been said in regard to such evidence by Mr. Chaffanbrass admitted;--but, nevertheless, it would be impossible,--so said his lordship,--to administer justice if guilt could never be held to have been proved by circumstantial evidence alone. In this case it might not improbably seem to them that the gentleman who had so long stood before them as a prisoner at the bar had been the victim of a most singularly untoward chain of circumstances, from which he would have to be liberated, should he be at last liberated, by another chain of circumstances as singular; but it was his duty to inform them now, after they had heard what he might call the double evidence, that he could not have given it to them as his opinion that the charge had been brought home against the prisoner, even had those circumstances of the Bohemian key and of the foreign bludgeon never been brought to light. He did not mean to say that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the thread of the evidence against Mr. Finn had been incomplete,--or, he would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment, insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that key never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought, have fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the guilty,--that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the opposite evil was fortunately more common. He said so much because he would not wish that this case should be quoted hereafter as showing the possible danger of circumstantial evidence. It had been a case in which the evidence given as to character alone had been sufficient to make him feel that the circumstances which seemed to affect the prisoner injuriously could not be taken as establishing his guilt. But now other and imposing circumstances had been brought to light, and he was sure that the jury would have no difficulty with their verdict. A most frightful murder had no doubt been committed in the dead of the night. A gentleman coming home from his club had been killed,--probably by the hand of one who had himself moved in the company of gentlemen. A plot had been made,--had probably been thought of for days and weeks before,--and had been executed with extreme audacity, in order that an enemy might be removed. There could, he thought, be but little doubt that Mr. Bonteen had been killed by the instrument found in the garden, and if so, he certainly had not been killed by the prisoner, who could not be supposed to have carried two bludgeons in his pocket, and whose quarrel with the murdered man had been so recent as to have admitted of no preparation. They had heard the story of Mr. Meager's grey coat, and of the construction of the duplicate key for Mr. Meager's house-door. It was not for him to tell them on the present occasion whether these stories, and the evidence by which they had been supported, tended to affix guilt elsewhere. It was beyond his province to advert to such probability or possibility; but undoubtedly the circumstances might be taken by them as an assistance, if assistance were needed, in coming to a conclusion on the charge against the prisoner. "Gentlemen," he said at last, "I think you will find no difficulty in acquitting the prisoner of the murder laid to his charge," whereupon the jurymen put their heads together; and the foreman, without half a minute's delay, declared that they were unanimous, and that they found the prisoner Not Guilty. "And we are of opinion," said the foreman, "that Mr. Finn should not have been put upon his trial on such evidence as has been brought before us." The necessity of liberating poor Phineas from the horrors of his position was too urgent to allow of much attention being given at the moment to this protest. "Mr. Finn," said the judge, addressing the poor broken wretch, "you have been acquitted of the odious and abominable charge brought against you, with the concurrence, I am sure, not only of those who have heard this trial, but of all your countrymen and countrywomen. I need not say that you will leave that dock with no stain on your character. It has, I hope, been some consolation to you in your misfortune to hear the terms in which you have been spoken of by such friends as they who came here to give their testimony on your behalf. It is, and it has been, a great sorrow to me to see such a one as you subjected to so unmerited an ignominy; but a man educated in the laws of his country, as you have been, and understanding its constitution fundamentally, as you do, will probably have acknowledged that, great as has been the misfortune to you personally, nothing more than a proper attempt has been made to execute justice. I trust that you may speedily find yourself able to resume your place among the legislators of the country." Thus Phineas Finn was acquitted, and the judges, collecting up their robes, trooped off from the bench, following the long line of their assessors who had remained even to that hour to hear the last word of the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass collected his papers, with the assistance of Mr. Wickerby,--totally disregardful of his junior counsel, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General congratulated each other on the successful termination of a very disagreeable piece of business. And Phineas was discharged. According to the ordinary meaning of the words he was now to go about his business as he pleased, the law having no further need of his person. We can understand how in common cases the prisoner discharged on his acquittal,--who probably in nine cases out of ten is conscious of his own guilt,--may feel the sweetness of his freedom and enjoy his immunity from danger with a light heart. He is received probably by his wife or young woman,--or perhaps, having no wife or young woman to receive him, betakes himself to his usual haunts. The interest which has been felt in his career is over, and he is no longer the hero of an hour;--but he is a free man, and may drink his gin-and-water where he pleases. Perhaps a small admiring crowd may welcome him as he passes out into the street, but he has become nobody before he reaches the corner. But it could not be so with this discharged prisoner,--either as regarded himself and his own feelings, or as regarded his friends. When the moment came he had hardly as yet thought about the immediate future,--had not considered how he would live, or where, during the next few months. The sensations of the moment had been so full, sometimes of agony and at others of anticipated triumph, that he had not attempted as yet to make for himself any schemes. The Duchess of Omnium had suggested that he would be received back into society with an elaborate course of fashionable dinners; but that view of his return to the world had certainly not occurred to him. When he was led down from the dock he hardly knew whither he was being taken, and when he found himself in a small room attached to the Court, clasped on one arm by Mr. Low and on the other by Lord Chiltern, he did not know what they would propose to him,--nor had he considered what answer he would make to any proposition. "At last you are safe," said Mr. Low. "But think what he has suffered," said Lord Chiltern. Phineas looked round to see if there was any other friend present. Certainly among all his friends he had thought most of her who had travelled half across Europe for evidence to save him. He had seen Madame Goesler last on the evening preceding the night of the murder, and had not even heard from her since. But he had been told what she had done for him, and now he had almost fancied that he would have found her waiting for him. He smiled first at the one man and then at the other, and made an effort to carry himself with his ordinary tranquillity. "It will be all right now, I dare say," he said. "I wonder whether I could have a glass of water." He sat down while the water was brought to him, and his two friends stood over him, hardly knowing how to do more than support him by their presence. Then Lord Cantrip made his way into the room. He had sat on the bench to the last, whereas the other two had gone down to receive the prisoner when acquitted;--and with him came Sir Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary. "My friend," said the former, "the bitter day has passed over you, and I hope that the bitterness will soon pass away also." Phineas again attempted to smile as he held the hand of the man with whom he had formerly been associated in office. "I should not intrude, Mr. Finn," said Sir Harry, "did I not feel myself bound in a special manner to express my regret at the great trouble to which you have been subjected." Phineas rose, and bowed stiffly. He had conceived that every one connected with the administration of the law had believed him to be guilty, and none in his present mood could be dear to him but they who from the beginning trusted in his innocence. "I am requested by Mr. Gresham," continued Sir Harry, "to express to you his entire sympathy, and his joy that all this is at last over." Phineas tried to make some little speech, but utterly failed. Then Sir Harry left them, and he burst out into tears. "Who can be surprised?" said Lord Cantrip. "The marvel is that he should have been able to bear it so long." "It would have crushed me utterly, long since," said the other lord. Then there was a question asked as to what he would do, and Mr. Low proposed that he should be allowed to take Phineas to his own house for a few days. His wife, he said, had known their friend so long and so intimately that she might perhaps be able to make herself more serviceable than any other lady, and at their house Phineas could receive his sisters just as he would at his own. His sisters had been lodging near the prison almost ever since the committal, and it had been thought well to remove them to Mr. Low's house in order that they might meet their brother there. "I think I'll go to my--own room--in Marlborough Street." These were the first intelligible words he had uttered since he had been led out of the dock, and to that resolution he adhered. Lord Cantrip offered the retirements of a country house belonging to himself within an hour's journey of London, and Lord Chiltern declared that Harrington Hall, which Phineas knew, was altogether at his service,--but Phineas decided in favour of Mrs. Bunce, and to Great Marlborough Street he was taken by Mr. Low. "I'll come to you to-morrow,--with my wife,"--said Lord Chiltern, as he was going. "Not to-morrow, Chiltern. But tell your wife how deeply I value her friendship." Lord Cantrip also offered to come, but was asked to wait awhile. "I am afraid I am hardly fit for visitors yet. All the strength seems to have been knocked out of me this last week." Mr. Low accompanied him to his lodgings, and then handed him over to Mrs. Bunce, promising that his two sisters should come to him early on the following morning. On that evening he would prefer to be quite alone. He would not allow the barrister even to go upstairs with him; and when he had entered his room, almost rudely begged his weeping landlady to leave him. "Oh, Mr. Phineas, let me do something for you," said the poor woman. "You have not had a bit of anything all day. Let me get you just a cup of tea and a chop." In truth he had dined when the judges went out to their lunch,--dined as he had been wont to dine since the trial had been commenced,--and wanted nothing. She might bring him tea, he said, if she would leave him for an hour. And then at last he was alone. He stood up in the middle of the room, stretching forth his hands, and putting one first to his breast and then to his brow, feeling himself as though doubting his own identity. Could it be that the last week had been real,--that everything had not been a dream? Had he in truth been suspected of a murder and tried for his life? And then he thought of him who had been murdered, of Mr. Bonteen, his enemy. Was he really gone,--the man who the other day was to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer,--the scornful, arrogant, loud, boastful man? He had hardly thought of Mr. Bonteen before, during these weeks of his own incarceration. He had heard all the details of the murder with a fulness that had been at last complete. The man who had oppressed him, and whom he had at times almost envied, was indeed gone, and the world for awhile had believed that he, Phineas Finn, had been the man's murderer! And now what should be his own future life? One thing seemed certain to him. He could never again go into the House of Commons, and sit there, an ordinary man of business, with other ordinary men. He had been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar, so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness, that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public utility. Then he remembered certain lines which had long been familiar to him, and he repeated them aloud, with some conceit that they were apposite to him:-- The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-- For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds in the river. He sat drinking his tea, still thinking of himself,--knowing how infinitely better it would be for him that he should indulge in no such thought, till an idea struck him, and he got up, and, drawing back the blinds from the open window, looked out into the night. It was the last day of June, and the weather was very sultry; but the night was dark, and it was now near midnight. On a sudden he took his hat, and feeling with a smile for the latch-key which he always carried in his pocket,--thinking of the latch-key which had been made at Prague for the lock of a house in Northumberland Street, New Road, he went down to the front door. "You'll be back soon, Mr. Finn, won't you now?" said Mrs. Bunce, who had heard his step, and had remained up, thinking it better this, the first night of his return, not to rest till he had gone to his bed. "Why should I be back soon?" he said, turning upon her. But then he remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him, and he took her hand and was gracious to her. "I will be back soon, Mrs. Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little I have had of liberty lately. I have not even had a walk for six weeks. You cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little." Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone out all alone on that night. He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home from the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he trembled as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who would recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came to the spot at which the steps descend from the street into the passage,--the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy,--the wretch for whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens!--that men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature, so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews opposite to it,--the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry. The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never thought whither it had led when passing it on his way up from Piccadilly to the club. But now he entered the mews so as to test the evidence that had been given, and found that it brought him by a turn close up to the spot at which he had been described as having been last seen by Erle and Fitzgibbon. When there he went on, and crossed the street, and looking back saw the club was lighted up. Then it struck him for the first time that it was the night of the week on which the members were wont to assemble. Should he pluck up courage, and walk in among them? He had not lost his right of entry there because he had been accused of murder. He was the same now as heretofore,--if he could only fancy himself to be the same. Why not go in, and have done with all this? He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it. He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous, how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been possible to him! He again repeated the lines to himself-- The reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds in the river. He felt sure that never again would he enter that room, in which no doubt all those assembled were now talking about him. As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for his future life,--but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend; and though no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take it. He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that it was so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her devotion to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a future;--and yet could her devotion avail him nothing! But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that had passed between them, to consent to be his wife,--and it might be that she would consent,--how would the world be with him then? He would be known as Madame Goesler's husband, and have to sit at the bottom of her table,--and be talked of as the man who had been tried for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. Look at it in which way he might, he thought that no life could any longer be possible to him in London. CHAPTER LXVIII. PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL. Ten days passed by, and Phineas Finn had not been out of his lodgings till after daylight, and then he only prowled about in the manner described in the last chapter. His sisters had returned to Ireland, and he saw no one, even in his own room, but two or three of his most intimate friends. Among those Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were the most frequently with him, but Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, and Mr. Monk had also been admitted. People had called by the hundred, till Mrs. Bunce was becoming almost tired of her lodger's popularity; but they came only to inquire,--because it had been reported that Mr. Finn was not well after his imprisonment. The Duchess of Omnium had written to him various notes, asking when he would come to her, and what she could do for him. Would he dine, would he spend a quiet evening, would he go to Matching? Finally, would he become her guest and the Duke's next September for the partridge shooting? They would have a few friends with them, and Madame Goesler would be one of the number. Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would of course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks,--a letter which had in truth cost him some pains. "I know," he said, "for how much I have to thank you, but I do not know in what words to do it. I ought to be with you telling you in person of my gratitude; but I must own to you that for the present what has occurred has so unmanned me that I am unfit for the interview. I should only weep in your presence like a school-girl, and you would despise me." It was a long letter, containing many references to the circumstances of the trial, and to his own condition of mind throughout its period. Her answer to him, which was very short, was as follows:-- Park Lane, Sunday--. MY DEAR MR. FINN, I can well understand that for a while you should be too agitated by what has passed to see your friends. Remember, however, that you owe it to them as well as to yourself not to sink into seclusion. Send me a line when you think that you can come to me that I may be at home. My journey to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly going to Vienna on business connected with my own property there. Prague lies but a few hours out of the route. Most sincerely yours, M. M. G. His friends who did see him urged him constantly to bestir himself, and Mr. Monk pressed him very much to come down to the House. "Walk in with me to-night, and take your seat as though nothing had happened," said Mr. Monk. "But so much has happened." "Nothing has happened to alter your outward position as a man. No doubt many will flock round you to congratulate you, and your first half-hour will be disagreeable; but then the thing will have been done. You owe it to your constituents to do so." Then Phineas for the first time expressed an opinion that he would resign his seat,--that he would take the Chiltern Hundreds, and retire altogether from public life. "Pray do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Monk. "I do not think you quite understand," said Phineas, "how such an ordeal as this works upon a man, how it may change a man, and knock out of him what little strength there ever was there. I feel that I am broken, past any patching up or mending. Of course it ought not to be so. A man should be made of better stuff;--but one is only what one is." "We'll put off the discussion for another week," said Mr. Monk. "There came a letter to me when I was in prison from one of the leading men in Tankerville, saying that I ought to resign. I know they all thought that I was guilty. I do not care to sit for a place where I was so judged,--even if I was fit any longer for a seat in Parliament." He had never felt convinced that Mr. Monk had himself believed with confidence his innocence, and he spoke with soreness, and almost with anger. "A letter from one individual should never be allowed to create interference between a member and his constituents. It should simply be answered to that effect, and then ignored. As to the belief of the townspeople in your innocence,--what is to guide you? I believed you innocent with all my heart." "Did you?" "But there was always sufficient possibility of your guilt to prevent a rational man from committing himself to the expression of an absolute conviction." The young member's brow became black as he heard this. "I can see that I offend you by saying so,--but if you will think of it, I must be right. You were on your trial; and I as your friend was bound to await the result,--with much confidence, because I knew you; but with no conviction, because both you and I are human and fallible. If the electors at Tankerville, or any great proportion of them, express a belief that you are unfit to represent them because of what has occurred, I shall be the last to recommend you to keep your seat;--but I shall be surprised indeed if they should do so. If there were a general election to-morrow, I should regard your seat as one of the safest in England." Both Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were equally urgent with him to return to his usual mode of life,--using different arguments for their purpose. Lord Chiltern told him plainly that he was weak and womanly,--or rather that he would be were he to continue to dread the faces of his fellow-creatures. The Master of the Brake hounds himself was a man less gifted than Phineas Finn, and therefore hardly capable of understanding the exaggerated feelings of the man who had recently been tried for his life. Lord Chiltern was affectionate, tender-hearted, and true;--but there were no vacillating fibres in his composition. The balance which regulated his conduct was firmly set, and went well. The clock never stopped, and wanted but little looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during the dark time, and might now say what he pleased. "I am womanly," said Phineas. "I begin to feel it. But I can't alter my nature." "I never was so much surprised in my life," said Lord Chiltern. "When I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck and strength." "I was burning up the stock of coals, Chiltern." "You'll come all right after a few weeks. You've been knocked out of time;--that's the truth of it." Mr. Low treated his patient with more indulgence; but he also was surprised, and hardly understood the nature of the derangement of the mechanism in the instrument which he was desirous of repairing. "I should go abroad for a few months if I were you," said Mr. Low. "I should stick at the first inn I got to," said Phineas. "I think I am better here. By and bye I shall travel, I dare say,--all over the world, as far as my money will last. But for the present I am only fit to sit still." Mrs. Low had seen him more than once, and had been very kind to him; but she also failed to understand. "I always thought that he was such a manly fellow," she said to her husband. "If you mean personal courage, there is no doubt that he possesses it,--as completely now, probably, as ever." "Oh yes;--he could go over to Flanders and let that lord shoot at him; and he could ride brutes of horses, and not care about breaking his neck. That's not what I mean. I thought that he could face the world with dignity;--but now it seems that he breaks down." "He has been very roughly used, my dear." "So he has,--and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I thought he would have been more manly." The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood,--which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon the subject. The woman's error, occasioned by her natural desire for a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments, a would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an unreal assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as this,--however well the garment may be worn with practice,--can never be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in women's eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these,--joined, of course, with personal bravery,--are supposed to constitute manliness. That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women's virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may be honest, may be generous, may be pious;--but surely he cannot be manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner, the striving to add,--even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to the height,--is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him so must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are his bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a garment for the nonce,--as may a little learning. A man cannot become faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly with servants, tender-hearted with all,--and at the same time be frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies,--simply because he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness, must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring, posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that _nil admirari_, self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so. Mrs. Low was wrong when she accused our hero of being unmanly. Had his imagination been less alert in looking into the minds of men, and in picturing to himself the thoughts of others in reference to the crime with which he had been charged, he would not now have shrunk from contact with his fellow-creatures as he did. But he could not pretend to be other than he was. During the period of his danger, when men had thought that he would be hung,--and when he himself had believed that it would be so,--he had borne himself bravely without any conscious effort. When he had confronted the whole Court with that steady courage which had excited Lord Chiltern's admiration, and had looked the Bench in the face as though he at least had no cause to quail, he had known nothing of what he was doing. His features had answered the helm from his heart, but had not been played upon by his intellect. And it was so with him now. The reaction had overcome him, and he could not bring himself to pretend that it was not so. The tears would come to his eyes, and he would shiver and shake like one struck by palsy. Mr. Monk came to him often, and was all but forgiven for the apparent defection in his faith. "I have made up my mind to one thing," Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days. "And what is the one thing?" "I will give up my seat." "I do not see a shadow of a reason for it." "Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr. Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down at Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation. I suppose it wouldn't do for you to move for the new writ." "Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return you again." "If so, they'll have to do it without my presence." Mr. Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville, and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there was any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr. Gresham and Mr. Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr. Monk said a few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind, and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament. Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord Brentford's house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word. One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home,--as a matter of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not passed an evening away from her father's house since Mr. Kennedy's death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and there he found her--alone. "Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come." "I have done as I said, you see." "I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will have understood all that?" "Yes; I understand." "People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up your seat." "Yes,--I am no longer a Member of Parliament." "Barrington says that they will certainly re-elect you." "We shall see. You may be sure at any rate of this,--that I shall never ask them to do so. Things seem to be so different now from what they did. I don't care for the seat. It all seems to be a bore and a trouble. What does it matter who sits in Parliament? The fight goes on just the same. The same falsehoods are acted. The same mock truths are spoken. The same wrong reasons are given. The same personal motives are at work." "And yet, of all believers in Parliament, you used to be the most faithful." "One has time to think of things, Lady Laura, when one lies in Newgate. It seems to me to be an eternity of time since they locked me up. And as for that trial, which they tell me lasted a week, I look back at it till the beginning is so distant that I can hardly remember it. But I have resolved that I will never talk of it again. Lady Chiltern is out probably." "Yes;--she and Oswald are dining with the Baldocks." "She is well?" "Yes;--and most anxious to see you. Will you go to their place in September?" He had almost made up his mind that if he went anywhere in September he would go to Matching Priory, accepting the offer of the Duchess of Omnium; but he did not dare to say so to Lady Laura, because she would have known that Madame Goesler also would be there. And he had not as yet accepted the invitation, and was still in doubt whether he would not escape by himself instead of attempting to return into the grooves of society. "I think not;--I am hardly as yet sufficiently master of myself to know what I shall do." "They will be much disappointed." "And you?--what will you do?" "I shall not go there. I am told that I ought to visit Loughlinter, and I suppose I shall. Oswald has promised to go down with me before the end of the month, but he will not remain above a day or two." "And your father?" "We shall leave him at Saulsby. I cannot look it all in the face yet. It is not possible that I should remain all alone in that great house. The people all around would hate and despise me. I think Violet will come down with me, but of course she cannot remain there. Oswald must go to Harrington because of the hunting. It has become the business of his life. And she must go with him." "You will return to Saulsby." "I cannot say. They seem to think that I should live at Loughlinter;--but I cannot live there alone." He soon took leave of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father's house. When he had come to her during her husband's lifetime at Dresden, or even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than this. [Illustration: And she sat weeping alone in her father's house.] CHAPTER LXIX. THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN. Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last saw under the affliction of Mr. Spooner's love,--but who before that had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own lover. She had desired him to free her,--and he had gone. Indeed, as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern's house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern had said something about "his roof." Now, when a host questions the propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing,--not because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve, he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide Palliser,--but simply because to do nothing was customary with him. "What is a man to do?" he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain Boodle at the club. "Let her out on the grass for a couple of months," said Captain Boodle, "and she'll come up as clean as a whistle. When they get these humours there's nothing like giving them a run." Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something, full of regrets,--but very idle. In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two, suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr. Spooner,--of any number of Mr. Spooners; but how should she get back to her the man she loved? When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed, especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs that Mr. Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all. If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well pleased,--probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he wishes,--to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her as a "trouble," and had lamented that prospect of "Boulogne" which marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged;--but, as far as she was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she to get him back again? When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But, nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman, pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and he was,--or rather had been,--her lover. She did not wish to change. She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover,--without the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There could be no further prospect should he take her at her word. Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with any one, there was he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came,--or was coming; but she knew that "the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love." At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. "You'll see him in London," Lady Chiltern had said to her friend. "I do not want to see him," said Adelaide proudly. "But he'll want to see you, and then,--after a time,--you'll want to see him. I don't believe in quarrels, you know." "It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will cause him--dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be married." "A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course people can't be equally rich. You'll do very well if you'll only be patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you." This was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr. Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be desirable that Mr. Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go away to Italy,--altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when married, they must live at Boulogne. The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was, however, large, and now the two families,--if the Earl and his daughter can be called a family,--were lodging there together. The Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend. When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel--was to be a quarrel. Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the Duchess of Omnium's. This had been given after the acquittal of Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. "Nothing on earth should have made me have it while he was in prison," the Duchess had said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand. Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler, who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of course taken Adelaide. "We are first cousins," the Duke said to Miss Palliser,--for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to walk through his wife's drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. "I hope we shall see more of each other than we have done," said the Duke. "We have all been sadly divided, haven't we?" Then he said a word to his wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl, and asking her to be civil to so near a relative. The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a question or two from Lady Chiltern. "Do you know," she said, "I have an appointment to-morrow with your husband?" "I did not know;--but I won't interfere to prevent it, now you are generous enough to tell me." "I wish you would, because I don't know what to say to him. He is to come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won't get themselves born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I'd send down a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would do any good." "Lord Chiltern thinks it's the shooting." "But where is a person to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?--for he tells me that I must settle it." "Lord Chiltern says that Mr. Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I suppose Mr. Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him permission." "I hate Mr. Fothergill, if that'll do any good," said the Duchess; "and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know, is impossible. When one has an old man on one's shoulders one never can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood is such a long way from us at Matching that I can't say I want the shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it. Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?" "Lord Chiltern would take it at once." "But the Duke wouldn't really let it, you know. I'll lay awake at night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is she to be married?" "I hope so,--sooner or later." "There's a quarrel or something;--isn't there? She's the Duke's first cousin, and we should be so sorry that things shouldn't go pleasantly with her. And she's a very good-looking girl, too. Would she like to come down to Matching?" "She has some idea of going back to Italy." "And leaving her lover behind her! Oh, dear, that will be very bad. She'd much better come to Matching, and then I'd ask the man to come too. Mr. Maud, isn't he?" "Gerard Maule." "Ah, yes; Maule. If it's the kind of thing that ought to be, I'd manage it in a week. If you get a young man down into a country house, and there has been anything at all between them, I don't see how he is to escape. Isn't there some trouble about money?" "They wouldn't be very rich, Duchess." "What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they'd be very poor." "They would be rather poor." "Which is not a blessing. Isn't there some proverb about going safely in the middle? I'm sure it's true about money,--only perhaps you ought to be put a little beyond the middle. I don't know why Plantagenet shouldn't do something for her." As to this conversation Lady Chiltern said very little to Adelaide, but she did mention the proposed visit to Matching. "The Duchess said nothing to me," replied Adelaide, proudly. "No; I don't suppose she had time. And then she is so very odd; sometimes taking no notice of one, and at others so very loving." "I hate that." "But with her it is neither impudence nor affectation. She says exactly what she thinks at the time, and she is always as good as her word. There are worse women than the Duchess." "I am sure I wouldn't like going to Matching," said Adelaide. Lady Chiltern was right in saying that the Duchess of Omnium was always as good as her word. On the next day, after that interview with Lord Chiltern about Mr. Fothergill and the foxes,--as to which no present further allusion need be made here,--she went to work and did learn a good deal about Gerard Maule and Miss Palliser. Something she learned from Lord Chiltern,--without any consciousness on his lordship's part, something from Madame Goesler, and something from the Baldock people. Before she went to bed on the second night she knew all about the quarrel, and all about the money. "Plantagenet," she said the next morning, "what are you going to do about the Duke's legacy to Marie Goesler?" "I can do nothing. She must take the things, of course." "She won't." "Then the jewels must remain packed up. I suppose they'll be sold at last for the legacy duty, and, when that's paid, the balance will belong to her." "But what about the money?" "Of course it belongs to her." "Couldn't you give it to that girl who was here last night?" "Give it to a girl!" "Yes;--to your cousin. She's as poor as Job, and can't get married because she hasn't got any money. It's quite true; and I must say that if the Duke had looked after his own relations instead of leaving money to people who don't want it and won't have it, it would have been much better. Why shouldn't Adelaide Palliser have it?" "How on earth should I give Adelaide Palliser what doesn't belong to me? If you choose to make her a present, you can, but such a sum as that would, I should say, be out of the question." The Duchess had achieved quite as much as she had anticipated. She knew her husband well, and was aware that she couldn't carry her point at once. To her mind it was "all nonsense" his saying that the money was not his. If Madame Goesler wouldn't take it, it must be his; and nobody could make a woman take money if she did not choose. Adelaide Palliser was the Duke's first cousin, and it was intolerable that the Duke's first cousin should be unable to marry because she would have nothing to live upon. It became, at least, intolerable as soon as the Duchess had taken it into her head to like the first cousin. No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor,--married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess. "My dear," said the Duchess to her friend, Madame Goesler, "you know all about those Maules?" "What makes you ask?" "But you do?" "I know something about one of them," said Madame Goesler. Now, as it happened, Mr. Maule, senior, had on that very day asked Madame Goesler to share her lot with his, and the request had been--almost indignantly, refused. The general theory that the wooing of widows should be quick had, perhaps, misled Mr. Maule. Perhaps he did not think that the wooing had been quick. He had visited Park Lane with the object of making his little proposition once before, and had then been stopped in his course by the consternation occasioned by the arrest of Phineas Finn. He had waited till Phineas had been acquitted, and had then resolved to try his luck. He had heard of the lady's journey to Prague, and was acquainted of course with those rumours which too freely connected the name of our hero with that of the lady. But rumours are often false, and a lady may go to Prague on a gentleman's behalf without intending to marry him. All the women in London were at present more or less in love with the man who had been accused of murder, and the fantasy of Madame Goesler might be only as the fantasy of others. And then, rumour also said that Phineas Finn intended to marry Lady Laura Kennedy. At any rate a man cannot have his head broken for asking a lady to marry him,--unless he is very awkward in the doing of it. So Mr. Maule made his little proposition. "Mr. Maule," said Madame, smiling, "is not this rather sudden?" Mr. Maule admitted that it was sudden, but still persisted. "I think, if you please, Mr. Maule, we will say no more about it," said the lady, with that wicked smile still on her face. Mr. Maule declared that silence on the subject had become impossible to him. "Then, Mr. Maule, I shall have to leave you to speak to the chairs and tables," said Madame Goesler. No doubt she was used to the thing, and knew how to conduct herself well. He also had been refused before by ladies of wealth, but had never been treated with so little consideration. She had risen from her chair as though about to leave the room, but was slow in her movement, showing him that she thought it was well for him to leave it instead of her. Muttering some words, half of apology and half of self-assertion, he did leave the room; and now she told the Duchess that she knew something of one of the Maules. "That is, the father?" "Yes,--the father." "He is one of your tribe, I know. We met him at your house just before the murder. I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because he's a hundred and fifty years old;--and what there is of him comes chiefly from the tailor." "He's as good as any other old man." "I dare say,--and I hope Mr. Finn will like his society. But he has got a son." "So he tells me." "Who is a charming young man." "He never told me that, Duchess." "I dare say not. Men of that sort are always jealous of their sons. But he has. Now I am going to tell you something and ask you to do something." "What was it the French Minister said. If it is simply difficult it is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done." "The easiest thing in the world. You saw Plantagenet's first cousin the other night,--Adelaide Palliser. She is engaged to marry young Mr. Maule, and they neither of them have a shilling in the world. I want you to give them five-and-twenty thousand pounds." "Wouldn't that be peculiar?" "Not in the least." "At any rate it would be inconvenient." "No it wouldn't, my dear. It would be the most convenient thing in the world. Of course I don't mean out of your pocket. There's the Duke's legacy." "It isn't mine, and never will be." "But Plantagenet says it never can be anybody else's. If I can get him to agree, will you? Of course there will be ever so many papers to be signed; and the biggest of all robbers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will put his fingers into the pudding and pull out a plum, and the lawyers will take more plums. But that will be nothing to us. The pudding will be very nice for them let ever so many plums be taken. The lawyers and people will do it all, and then it will be her fortune,--just as though her uncle had left it to her. As it is now, the money will never be of any use to anybody." Madame Goesler said that if the Duke consented she also would consent. It was immaterial to her who had the money. If by signing any receipt she could facilitate the return of the money to any one of the Duke's family, she would willingly sign it. But Miss Palliser must be made to understand that the money did not come to her as a present from Madame Goesler. "But it will be a present from Madame Goesler," said the Duke. "Plantagenet, if you go and upset everything by saying that, I shall think it most ill-natured. Bother about true! Somebody must have the money. There's nothing illegal about it." And the Duchess had her own way. Lawyers were consulted, and documents were prepared, and the whole thing was arranged. Only Adelaide Palliser knew nothing about it, nor did Gerard Maule; and the quarrels of lovers had not yet become the renewal of love. Then the Duchess wrote the two following notes:-- MY DEAR ADELAIDE, We shall hope to see you at Matching on the 15th of August. The Duke, as head of the family, expects implicit obedience. You'll meet fifteen young gentlemen from the Treasury and the Board of Trade, but they won't incommode you, as they are kept at work all day. We hope Mr. Finn will be with us, and there isn't a lady in England who wouldn't give her eyes to meet him. We shall stay ever so many weeks at Matching, so that you can do as you please as to the time of leaving us. Yours affectionately, G. O. Tell Lord Chiltern that I have my hopes of making Trumpeton Wood too hot for Mr. Fothergill,--but I have to act with the greatest caution. In the meantime I am sending down dozens of young foxes, all labelled Trumpeton Wood, so that he shall know them. The other was a card rather than a note. The Duke and Duchess of Omnium presented their compliments to Mr. Gerard Maule, and requested the honour of his company to dinner on,--a certain day named. When Gerard Maule received this card at his club he was rather surprised, as he had never made the acquaintance either of the Duke or the Duchess. But the Duke was the first cousin of Adelaide Palliser, and of course he accepted the invitation. CHAPTER LXX. "I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER." The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy should go to Loughlinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the house, and the lands, and the dependents whom her husband had left in her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Loughlinter, and when last she had left it, she had made up her mind that she would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished with the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall, the noise of which could be heard from the front-door, that Phineas Finn had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert Kennedy she had known that she had not loved him; but from the moment in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had gone one way, whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of married happiness,--not a month, not an hour. From the moment in which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her was distasteful to her. Things which before had seemed worthy to her, and full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father, and many of her friends,--and, by weight of his own character and her influence, was himself placed high in office; but in his house politics lost all the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress of a great household, and as the benevolent lady of a great estate; but household duties under the tutelage of Mr. Kennedy had been impossible to her, and that part of a Scotch Lady Bountiful which she had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure had fallen to the ground, and nothing had been left to her. But she would not sin. Though she could not bring herself to love her husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that other love. Having so resolved, she became as weak as water. She at one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved,--a sort of devoted elder sister, intending him to be the intimate friend of her husband; then she had told him not to come to her house, and had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. He had shown her that he, too, had discovered the truth, and then she had become indignant, and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited with him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had been so odious, that she had asked her intimate friends to come to her in that occupied by her father. But, of all spots upon earth, Loughlinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that the sermons had been the longest, the lessons in accounts the most obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels of Dr. Macnuthrie's gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly broken. It was there that, with spirit not broken, she had determined to face all that the world might say of her, and fly from a tyranny which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was told that she must go there as its owner;--go there and be potential, and beneficent, and grandly bland with persons, all of whom knew what had been the relations between her and her husband. And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she had left him,--throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he had accused her of the truth; though she had felt him to be a tyrant and herself to be a thrall; though the sermons, and the lessons, and the doctor had each, severally, seemed to her to be horrible cruelties; yet she had known through it all that the fault had been hers, and not his. He only did that which she should have expected when she married him;--but she had done none of that which he was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the fraud,--the sin had been with her,--and she knew it. Her life had been destroyed,--but not by him. His life had also been destroyed, and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his people,--the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand,--with a persistency which had driven him mad,--he had died; and now the place was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there! It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to himself,--with an earnest belief in his own assertion,--that all the joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see. She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her. All the joys of the world were over,--and had been lost by her own fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her husband was dead! Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with a gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young,--or young enough. She was two and thirty, and had known many women,--women still honoured with the name of girls,--who had commenced the world successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world, had returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them? But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man was too well known to her. Fickle he might be;--or rather capable of change than fickle; but he was incapable of pretending to love when he did not love. She felt that in all the moments in which he had been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him the state of her feelings at Königstein,--meaning to be true in what she said, but not having been even then true throughout,--she had acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her she would have rebuked him, and told him that he must go from her,--but it would have warmed the blood in all her veins, and brought back to her a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited him in the prison;--the same again when he came to her after his acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his services, were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her. All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her cause,--but he would never again say he loved her. She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the hideous widow's cap which she now wore, and told herself that it was natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years her features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought herself to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all gone;--but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror, and pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs. [Illustration: Lady Laura at the glass.] She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother's wife, leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to remain with her for one week, and no more. His presence was demanded in the Brake country, and it was with difficulty that he had been induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house, thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel in demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father had shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to Loughlinter; but her father was one of those who insisted on the propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered over the braes. She saw him a day or two before her journey, when she told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady Chiltern and her father had been present, and there had been no special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit from him to the North. She would not have dared to suggest it in the presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her brother's wife. But when she was alone, on the eve of her departure, she wrote to him as follows:-- Sunday, 1st August, ----. DEAR FRIEND, I thought that perhaps you might have come in this afternoon, and I have not left the house all day. I was so wretched that I could not go to church in the morning;--and when the afternoon came, I preferred the chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We two were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up till nearly ten. I dare say you were right not to come. I should only have bored you with my complaints, and have grumbled to you of evils which you cannot cure. We start at nine to-morrow, and get to Saulsby in the afternoon. Such a family party as we shall be! I did fancy that Oswald would escape it; but, like everybody else, he has changed,--and has become domestic and dutiful. Not but that he is as tyrannous as ever; but his tyranny is now that of the responsible father of a family. Papa cannot understand him at all, and is dreadfully afraid of him. We stay two nights at Saulsby, and then go on to Scotland, leaving papa at home. Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come with me,--if, as they say, it be necessary for me to go at all. As to living there by myself, it seems to me to be impossible. You know the place well, and can you imagine me there all alone, surrounded by Scotch men and women, who, of course, must hate and despise me, afraid of every face that I see, and reminded even by the chairs and tables of all that is past? I have told papa that I know I shall be back at Saulsby before the middle of the month. He frets, and says nothing; but he tells Violet, and then she lectures me in that wise way of hers which enables her to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness. She asks me why I do not take a companion with me, as I am so much afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a companion who would not be worse than solitude? I do feel now that I have mistaken life in having so little used myself to the small resources of feminine companionship. I love Violet dearly, and I used to be always happy in her society. But even with her now I feel but a half sympathy. That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am, because after the first half-hour I grow tired about her babies. I have never known any other woman with whom I cared to be alone. How then shall I content myself with a companion, hired by the quarter, perhaps from some advertisement in a newspaper? No companionship of any kind seems possible to me,--and yet never was a human being more weary of herself. I sometimes wonder whether I could go again and sit in that cage in the House of Commons to hear you and other men speak,--as I used to do. I do not believe that any eloquence in the world would make it endurable to me. I hardly care who is in or out, and do not understand the things which my cousin Barrington tells me,--so long does it seem since I was in the midst of them all. Not but that I am intensely anxious that you should be back. They tell me that you will certainly be re-elected this week, and that all the House will receive you with open arms. I should have liked, had it been possible, to be once more in the cage to see that. But I am such a coward that I did not even dare to propose to stay for it. Violet would have told me that such manifestation of interest was unfit for my condition as a widow. But in truth, Phineas, there is nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on from a distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once more to care for the questions of the day. When you have succeeded, as I know you will, it will be some consolation to me to think that I also helped a little. I suppose I must not ask you to come to Loughlinter? But you will know best. If you will do so I shall care nothing for what any one may say. Oswald hardly mentions your name in my hearing, and of course I know of what he is thinking. When I am with him I am afraid of him, because it would add infinitely to my grief were I driven to quarrel with him; but I am my own mistress as much as he is his own master, and I will not regulate my conduct by his wishes. If you please to come you will be welcome as the flowers in May. Ah, how weak are such words in giving any idea of the joy with which I should see you! God bless you, Phineas. Your most affectionate friend, LAURA KENNEDY. Write to me at Loughlinter. I shall long to hear that you have taken your seat immediately on your re-election. Pray do not lose a day. I am sure that all your friends will advise you as I do. Throughout her whole letter she was struggling to tell him once again of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would not come to Loughlinter. She felt that were he to do so he could come only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit, in these early days of her widowhood, carried on in her late husband's house, would be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced all that for the sake of the thing to be attained. But she knew that he would not come. He had become wise by experience, and would perceive the result of such coming,--and would avoid it. His answer to her letter reached Loughlinter before she did:-- Great Marlborough Street, Monday night. DEAR LADY LAURA,-- I should have called in the Square last night, only that I feel that Lady Chiltern must be weary of the woes of so doleful a person as myself. I dined and spent the evening with the Lows, and was quite aware that I disgraced myself with them by being perpetually lachrymose. As a rule I do not think that I am more given than other people to talk of myself, but I am conscious of a certain incapability of getting rid of myself what has grown upon me since those weary weeks in Newgate and those frightful days in the dock; and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again have a seat in the House I shall be afraid to get up upon my legs, lest I should find myself talking of the time in which I stood before the judge with a halter round my neck. I sympathise with you perfectly in what you say about Loughlinter. It may be right that you should go there and show yourself,--so that those who knew the Kennedys in Scotland should not say that you had not dared to visit the place, but I do not think it possible that you should live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot conceive that your presence there should do good, unless you took delight in the place. I will not go to Loughlinter myself, although I know how warm would be my welcome. When he had got so far with his letter he found the difficulty of going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland? "People would say that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that has been spoken of us;--and would be specially eager in saying so were I now to visit you, so lately made a widow, and to sojourn with you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how eloquent would be the indignation of The People's Banner were it known that I was at Loughlinter." Could he have spoken the truth openly, such were the reasons that he would have given; but it was impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell her of a visit which he had resolved to make. But the letter must be completed, and at last the words were written. I could be of no real service to you there, as will be your brother and your brother's wife, even though their stay with you is to be so short. Were I you I would go out among the people as much as possible, even though they should not receive you cordially at first. Though we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands, I think the Highlanders are prone to cling to any one who has territorial authority among them. They thought a great deal of Mr. Kennedy, but they had never heard his name fifty years ago. I suppose you will return to Saulsby soon, and then, perhaps, I may be able to see you. In the meantime I am going to Matching. [This difficulty was worse even than the other.] Both the Duke and Duchess have asked me, and I know that I am bound to make an effort to face my fellow-creatures again. The horror I feel at being stared at, as the man that was not--hung as a murderer, is stronger than I can describe; and I am well aware that I shall be talked to and made a wonder of on that ground. I am told that I am to be re-elected triumphantly at Tankerville without a penny of cost or the trouble of asking for a vote, simply because I didn't knock poor Mr. Bonteen on the head. This to me is abominable, but I cannot help myself, unless I resolve to go away and hide myself. That I know cannot be right, and therefore I had better go through it and have done with it. Though I am to be stared at, I shall not be stared at very long. Some other monster will come up and take my place, and I shall be the only person who will not forget it all. Therefore I have accepted the Duke's invitation, and shall go to Matching some time in the end of August. All the world is to be there. This re-election,--and I believe I shall be re-elected to-morrow,--would be altogether distasteful to me were it not that I feel that I should not allow myself to be cut to pieces by what has occurred. I shall hate to go back to the House, and have somehow learned to dislike and distrust all those things that used to be so fine and lively to me. I don't think that I believe any more in the party;--or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a faith that now seems to me to be marvellous. Even twelve months ago, when I was beginning to think of standing for Tankerville, I believed that on our side the men were patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his friends were all fiends or idiots,--mostly idiots, but with a strong dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to one common level of poor human interests. I doubt whether patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying at each other's throats, thrusting and parrying, making false accusations and defences equally false, lying and slandering,--sometimes picking and stealing,--till they themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own position, and forget that they are expected to be great. Little tricks of sword-play engage all their skill. And the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any man in the House,--none of that feeling which we used to entertain for Mr. Mildmay. Of course I write--and feel--as a discontented man; and what I say to you I would not say to any other human being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession. But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give it up,--as I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own feelings. And I am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities. But still the conviction remains with me that parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,--and if they will make me a joint lord to-morrow I shall be in heaven! I do not know why I should write all this to you except that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There is no one else who would give a moment of time to such lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and will want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call on the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room. "I never could really bring myself to think that you did it, Mr. Finn," he said. I looked at him and smiled, but I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother. One expects it from a woman;--both the truth and the discernment. I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when one's mind is full such relief is sometimes better than talking. Pray answer it before long, and let me know what you intend to do. Yours most affectionately, PHINEAS FINN. She did read the letter through,--read it probably more than once; but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring interest. "I will not go to Loughlinter myself." Though she had known that he would not come her heart sank within her, as though now, at this moment, the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But, in truth, there was another sentence as a complement to the first, which rivetted the dagger in her bosom. "In the meantime I am going to Matching." Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been arranged in order that they two might be brought together. She told herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it; but she read it all in connection with the beauty, and the wealth, and the art,--and the cunning of Madame Max Goesler. CHAPTER LXXI. PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED. The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for the borough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of English elections. When the news reached the town that their member was to be tried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty. It is the natural assumption when the police and magistrates and lawyers, who have been at work upon the matter carefully, have come to that conclusion, and nothing but private knowledge or personal affection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there was nothing of either, and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty. There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full of excitement, and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillians. Of course the borough, as a borough, would never again hold up its head. There had never been known such an occurrence in the whole history of this country as the hanging of a member of the House of Commons. And this Member of Parliament was to be hung for murdering another member, which, no doubt, added much to the importance of the transaction. A large party in the borough declared that it was a judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs by sending a Roman Catholic to Parliament, and had done so at the very moment in which the Church of England was being brought into danger. This was what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honest Mr. Browborough! There was a moment,--just before the trial was begun,--in which a large proportion of the electors was desirous of proceeding to work at once, and of sending Mr. Browborough back to his own place. It was thought that Phineas Finn should be made to resign. And very wise men in Tankerville were much surprised when they were told that a member of Parliament cannot resign his seat,--that when once returned he is supposed to be, as long as that Parliament shall endure, the absolute slave of his constituency and his country, and that he can escape from his servitude only by accepting some office under the Crown. Now it was held to be impossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even to the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The House, no doubt, could expel a member, and would, as a matter of course, expel the member for Tankerville,--but the House could hardly proceed to expulsion before the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. So it came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from any part of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthy choice, and some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinion that no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics. Then, quite suddenly, there came into the borough the tidings that Phineas Finn was an innocent man. This happened on the morning on which the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The news conveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as in the Court at the Old Bailey, and was believed as readily. The name of the lady who had travelled all the way to Bohemia on behalf of their handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman in Tankerville, and a most delightful romance was composed. Some few Protestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their Roman Catholic enemy, and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt that the whole murder had been arranged by Divine Providence to bring down the scarlet woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing that Providence should interfere directly to punish a town in which the sins of the scarlet woman were not held to be abominable! But the multitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent; and as it was certain that he had been in great peril,--as it was known that he was still in durance, and as it was necessary that the trial should proceed, and that he should still stand at least for another day in the dock,--he became more than ever a hero. Then came the further delay, and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial. When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville and might have walked into the House on that very night. Instead of doing so he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from his servitude, and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most loving friends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was not a chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolving that it would return no one as its member but the man who had been unjustly accused of murder. Mr. Ruddles was at once despatched to London with two other political spirits,--so that there might be a real deputation,--and waited upon Phineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was very anxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of an entry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had ever been known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf. At first he declined even to be put in nomination. "You can't escape from it, Mr. Finn, you can't indeed," said Ruddles. "You don't at all understand the enthusiasm of the borough; does he, Mr. Gadmire?" "I never knew anything like it in my life before," said Gadmire. "I believe Mr. Finn would poll two-thirds of the Church party to-morrow," said Mr. Troddles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville, who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation. "I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose," pleaded Phineas. "Well, no;--at least I don't know," said Ruddles. "It would be throwing us over a good deal, and I'm sure you are not the gentleman to do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you have been knocked about a little lately--" "By George, he has,--most cruel," said Troddles. "You'll miss the House if you give it up; you will, after a bit, Mr. Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn,--if I may be so bold as to say so, and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of coming round comfortably." Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles, and consented. Though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted with the world, and sick of humanity,--though every joint in his body was still sore from the rack on which he had been stretched, yet he knew that it would not be so with him always. As others recovered so would he, and it might be that he would live to "miss the House," should he now refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he did so with a positive assurance that no consideration should at present take him to Tankerville. "We ain't going to charge you, not one penny," said Mr. Gadmire, with enthusiasm. "I feel all that I owe to the borough," said Phineas, "and to the warm friends there who have espoused my cause; but I am not in a condition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forward anywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal." "Most cruel!" said Troddles. "And am quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in my present position to serve the borough." "We can't admit that," said Gadmire, raising his left hand. "We mean to have you," said Troddles. "There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Finn," said Ruddles. "I am very grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one of you gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present condition I am unable to visit the borough." Messrs. Ruddles, Gadmire, and Troddles returned to Tankerville,--disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them him whose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement of their native town,--but still with a comparative sense of their own importance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade that he should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an idea that he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictions as to the futility of hoping for such a blessing; but spoke of him as a personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had been made to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course. He was proposed by Mr. Ruddles himself, and was absolutely seconded by the rector of Tankerville,--the staunchest Tory in the place, who on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as an Englishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or even any religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr. Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation, and it was, the rector thought, for the honour of the borough that the seat should be restored to him. So Phineas Finn was re-elected for Tankerville without opposition and without expense; and for six weeks after the ceremony parcels were showered upon him by the ladies of the borough who sent him worked slippers, scarlet hunting waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs, with "P.F." beautifully embroidered, and chains made of their own hair. In this conjunction of affairs the editor of The People's Banner found it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of life with Mr. Quintus Slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at any time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be trodden on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once to make a friend of Phineas Finn; but Phineas Finn had been conceited and stiff-necked. Phineas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies, and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, by every principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Phineas to the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial he had written various short articles with the view of declaring how improper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of the guilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial; and he gave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned in the matter; but in all these articles he had contrived to insinuate that the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, be dealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful to recapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finn to hate the murdered man, and had more than once related the story of the firing of the pistol at Macpherson's Hotel. Then came the telegram from Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. The acquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled to join in the general satisfaction evinced at the escape of an innocent man. Then came the re-election for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide felt that there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enough had been done for Phineas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows. There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a political chaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few other remarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in the columns of The People's Banner:-- We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on which Mr. Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so much enthusiasm,--free of expense,--and without that usual compliment to the constituency which is implied by the personal appearance of the candidate. We have more than once expressed our belief that he was wrongly accused in the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed our readers will do us the justice to remember that, during the trial and before the trial, we were always anxious to allay the very strong feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public mind was then imbued, not only by the facts of the murder, but also by the previous conduct of that gentleman. But we cannot understand why the late member should be thought by the electors of Tankerville to be especially worthy of their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired from Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career during the last twelve months has not enhanced his credit, and cannot, we should think, have increased his comfort. We ventured to suggest after that affair in Judd Street, as to which the police were so benignly inefficient, that it would not be for the welfare of the nation that a gentleman should be employed in the public service whose public life had been marked by the misfortune which had attended Mr. Finn. Great efforts were made by various ladies of the old Whig party to obtain official employment for him, but they were made in vain. Mr. Gresham was too wise, and our advice,--we will not say was followed,--but was found to agree with the decision of the Prime Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite of his great friends,--and then came the murder of Mr. Bonteen. Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for Parliamentary duties has been increased by Mr. Bonteen's unfortunate death, or by the fact that Mr. Bonteen was murdered by other hands than his own? We think not. The wretched husband, who, in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at this young man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim to consideration? We think not;--and we think also that the electors of Tankerville would have done better had they allowed Mr. Finn to return to that obscurity which he seems to have desired. The electors of Tankerville, however, are responsible only to their borough, and may do as they please with the seat in Parliament which is at their disposal. We may, however, protest against the employment of an unfit person in the service of his country,--simply because he has not committed a murder. We say so much now because rumours of an arrangement have reached our ears, which, should it come to pass,--would force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of referring very forcibly to past circumstances, which may otherwise, perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten. CHAPTER LXXII. THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE. The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He, a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,--as every one was now very careful to call him,--had come to England, had got himself to be ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,--our old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,--would be rescued from his clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young and pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than Yosef Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;--but would law, and justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great Britain. The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that his testimony would probably be required at another trial,--which intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries. But he would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A man hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to now,--professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man, as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of the key,--though it was that which made every one feel sure that Mealyus was the murderer,--did not, in truth, afford the slightest evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen had been his enemy,--and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy. But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to touch him. Nobody doubted;--but then but few had doubted before as to the guilt of Phineas Finn. There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped, still be reached. Mr. Bonteen had, of course, been killed by the weapon which had been found in the garden. As to that a general certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meager and Miss Meager, and the maid-of-all-work belonging to the Meagers, and even Lady Eustace, were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever been seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been so sly that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and cupboards which he used, Mrs. Meager had always possessed duplicate keys, and Miss Meager frankly acknowledged that she had a general and fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles; but there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock,--a lock which required that even if you had the key you should be acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could open it,--and of that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter of course, the weapon, when brought to London, had been kept altogether hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man cannot be hung because he has had a secret hiding place in which a murderous weapon may have been stowed away. But might it not be possible to trace the weapon? Mealyus, on his return from Prague, had certainly come through Paris. So much was learned,--and it was also learned as a certainty that the article was of French,--and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be proved that the man had bought this weapon, or even such a weapon, in Paris then,--so said all the police authorities,--it might be worth while to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skilful in unravelling such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs. A young woman and an old man who thought that they could recollect something of a special sale were brought over,--and saw the splendour of London under very favourable circumstances;--but when confronted with Mr. Emilius, neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money was expended,--no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr. Bonteen had filled in the counsels of the nation; but it was expended in vain. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered in the streets at the West End of London. The murderer was known to everybody. He had been seen a minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning with which he had endeavoured to prove that he was in bed at home had been unravelled, and the criminal purpose of his cunning made altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from the moment in which the murderer crept out of Mrs. Meager's house with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and the life-preserver in his pocket, till he was seen by Lord Fawn hurrying out of the mews to his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen. And yet nothing could be done. "It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on circumstantial evidence," said Sir Gregory Grogram, who, a couple of months since, had felt almost sure that his honourable friend Phineas Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police and magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless, and indeed wrong, to send the case before a jury. But there had been quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn! In the meantime the trial for bigamy proceeded in order that poor little Lizzie Eustace might be freed from the incubus which afflicted her. Before the end of July she was made once more a free woman, and the Rev. Joseph Emilius,--under which name it was thought proper that he should be tried,--was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury by a learned serjeant, who declared that his client was to lose his wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a bigamist, because it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of murder. There was, perhaps, some truth in what the learned serjeant said, but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Emilius was found guilty as quickly as Phineas Finn had been acquitted, and was, perhaps, treated with a severity which the single crime would hardly have elicited. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts which were being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon, and when men hoped two or five or twenty-five years of threatened incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Emilius. Could they have succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon, his years of penal servitude would have afflicted him but little. They did not succeed; and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached to the Bonteen murder, it has remained one of those crimes which are unavenged by the flagging law. And so the Rev. Mr. Emilius will pass away from our story. There must be one or two words further respecting poor little Lizzie Eustace. She still had her income almost untouched, having been herself unable to squander it during her late married life, and having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo husband. And she had her title, of which no one could rob her, and her castle down in Ayrshire,--which, however, as a place of residence she had learned to hate most thoroughly. Nor had she done anything which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of society. As a married woman she had had no lovers; and, when a widow, very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bonteen had been her best friend, and, while it was still thought that Phineas Finn had committed the murder, with Mrs. Bonteen she had remained. But it was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it became known,--for it was known,--that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by the man who was still Lizzie's reputed husband. Not that Lizzie perceived this,--though she was averse to the idea of her husband having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bonteen perceived it, and told her friend that she must--go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched widow changed her faith as to the murderer; but at last she found herself bound to believe as the world believed; and then she hinted to the wife of Mr. Emilius that she had better find another home. "I don't believe it a bit," said Lizzie. "It is not a subject I can discuss," said the widow. "And I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband. You have said that yourself very often, Mrs. Bonteen." "It is better that we shouldn't be together, Lady Eustace." "Oh, I can go, of course, Mrs. Bonteen. There needn't be the slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be convenient; but of course you know best." She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street, close to the scene of the murder, and was once more alone in the world. She had a child indeed, the son of her first husband, as to whom it behoved many to be anxious, who stood high in rank and high in repute; but such had been Lizzie's manner of life that neither her own relations nor those of her husband could put up with her, or endure her contact. And yet she was conscious of no special sins, and regarded herself as one who with a tender heart of her own, and a too-confiding spirit, had been much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown. Now she was alone, weeping in solitude, pitying herself with deepest compassion; but it never occurred to her that there was anything in her conduct that she need alter. She would still continue to play her game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still, at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace! Was it nature or education which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie! CHAPTER LXXIII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES. The election at Tankerville took place during the last week in July; and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10th of August, there was ample time for Phineas to present himself and take the oaths before the Session was finished. He had calculated that this could hardly be so when the matter of re-election was first proposed to him, and had hoped that his reappearance might be deferred till the following year. But there he was, once more member for Tankerville, while yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to be done, pressed by his friends, and told by one or two of those whom he most trusted, that he would neglect his duty and show himself to be a coward, if he abstained from taking his place. "Coward is a hard word," he said to Mr. Low, who had used it. "So men think when this or that other man is accused of running away in battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of that kind. But there is moral cowardice as well as physical." "As when a man lies. I am telling no lie." "But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow-creatures." "Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters the name, if the charge be true? I have been so treated that I am afraid to meet the eyes of my fellow-creatures. I am like a man who has had his knees broken, or his arms cut off. Of course I cannot be the same afterwards as I was before." Mr. Low said a great deal more to him on the subject, and all that Mr. Low said was true; but he was somewhat rough, and did not succeed. Barrington Erle and Lord Cantrip also tried their eloquence upon him; but it was Mr. Monk who at last drew from him a promise that he would go down to the House and be sworn in early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. "I am quite sure of this," Mr. Monk had said, "that the sooner you do it the less will be the annoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. The trouble is all in the anticipation, and is therefore only increased and prolonged by delay." "Of course it is your duty to go at once," Mr. Monk had said again, when his friend argued that he had never undertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. "You did consent to be put in nomination, and you owe your immediate services just as does any other member." "If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted." "But your grandmother has not died, and your sorrow is not of the kind that requires or is supposed to require retirement." He gave way at last, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs. Bunce's house, and went down with him to Westminster. They reached their destination somewhat too soon, and walked the length of Westminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justify himself. "I don't think," said he, "that Low quite understands my position when he calls me a coward." "I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that." "Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal too much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well." "But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again." "And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the disease shouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it by simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake myself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it is to stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all men fixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one there believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the belief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behind me a name that would make every one who has known me shudder." "God in His mercy has delivered you from that." "He has;--and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bear the weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in? There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate me, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to say something about his murdered colleague. Very well;--I'll follow you. Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr. Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurrying along the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House. Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almost ghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered word of recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walked up the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side were empty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker had not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the oath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway, with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasing numbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not a single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open gentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came and sat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a word to him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage of the day's proceedings; and after half an hour he almost ceased to be afraid. Then came up an irregular debate on the great Church question of the day, as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering with which Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. He had thrown out Mr. Daubeny by opposing that gentleman's stupendous measure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether, although,--as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Daubeny and his friends,--he was himself in favour of such total disestablishment. Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was in favour of disestablishment, protesting that he had opposed Mr. Daubeny's Bill without any reference to its merits,--solely on the ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such a quarter. He had been stout enough, and, as his enemies had said, insolent enough, in making these assurances. But still he was accused of keeping his own hand dark, and of omitting to say what bill he would himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the next Session. It was essentially necessary,--so said Mr. Daubeny and his friends,--that the country should know and discuss the proposed measure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal of retaliation. Mr. Daubeny had not given the country, or even his own party, much time to discuss his Church Bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr. Daubeny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measure that should change the religious position of every individual in the country, and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries, altogether complete out of his own unaided brain; and he went on to say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should find himself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom he usually worked. On this occasion he declared that the magnitude of the subject and the immense importance of the interests concerned forbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of general Church reform in the next Session. He was undoubtedly in favour of Church reform, but was by no means sure that the question was one which required immediate settlement. Of this he was sure,--that nothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injurious to the country, as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measure on this most momentous of all questions. The debate was irregular, as it originated with a question asked by one of Mr. Daubeny's supporters,--but it was allowed to proceed for a while. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Daubeny himself spoke, accusing Mr. Gresham of almost every known Parliamentary vice in having talked of a measure coming, like Minerva, from his, Mr. Daubeny's, own brain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation might naturally be refuted would be unparliamentary; but it would not be unparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd, monstrous, and incredible. Then there were various very spirited references to Church matters, which concern us chiefly because Mr. Daubeny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholic gentleman with whom they were all well acquainted, and whose presence in the House was desired by each side alike, again take his seat for an English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time take the liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manly dignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of the cruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combination of circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Daubeny did the thing very well, and that he was right in doing it;--but during the doing of it poor Phineas winced in agony. Of course every member was looking at him, and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know at the moment whether it behoved him to rise and make some gesture to the House, or to say a word, or to keep his seat and make no sign. There was a general hum of approval, and the Prime Minister turned round and bowed graciously to the newly-sworn member. As he said afterwards, it was just this which he had feared. But there must surely have been something of consolation in the general respect with which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with natural instinctive dignity, though himself doubting the propriety of his own conduct. He said not a word, and made no sign, but sat with his eyes fixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Daubeny went on with his tirade, and was called violently to order. The Speaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular, but had been allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the general will of the House. Then the two leaders of the two parties composed themselves, throwing off their indignation while they covered themselves well up with their hats,--and, in accordance with the order of the day, an honourable member rose to propose a pet measure of his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans. He had made a calculation that the annual average mortality of England would be reduced one and a half per cent., or in other words that every English subject born would live seven months longer if the action of the Legislature could provide that the publicans should sell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there was such a rush of members to the door that not a word said by the philanthropic would-be purifier of the national beverage could be heard. The quarrels of rival Ministers were dear to the House, and as long as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemen enthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from that to private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos which gentlemen could not endure; and so the House was emptied, and at about half-past seven there was a count-out. That gentleman whose statistics had been procured with so much care, and who had been at work for the last twelve months on his effort to prolong the lives of his fellow-countrymen, was almost broken-hearted. But he knew the world too well to complain. He would try again next year, if by dint of energetic perseverance he could procure a day. Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others, slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that they should leave the House early, so that they might dine together at Mr. Monk's house. Though Phineas had been released from his prison now for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his own rooms. He had not been inside a club, and hardly ventured during the day into the streets about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. He had been frequently to Portman Square, but had not even seen Madame Goesler. Now he was to dine out for the first time; but there was to be no guest but himself. "It wasn't so bad after all," said Mr. Monk, when they were seated together. "At any rate it has been done." "Yes;--and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr. Daubeny, as you know; but he is happy at that kind of thing." "I hate men who are what you call happy, but who are never in earnest," said Phineas. "He was earnest enough, I thought." "I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that it was suitable to the occasion that he should say something, and he said it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions, who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,--having, however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,--but whose words never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at this time,--as was so probable,--Mr. Daubeny would have devoted one of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered words against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal grace of such an occasion would have become him even better than the generosity of his congratulations." "It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas." "Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always running through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung in mistake;--how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether men would think about it as they went home from The Universe at night. I had various questions to ask and answer for myself,--whether they would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground is used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P. for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet." "Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole." "Perhaps it was;--though I used to feel assured that the explicit tablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny's words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment doubted that the truth would be known before long,--but did doubt so very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr. Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve, at any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more." CHAPTER LXXIV. AT MATCHING. For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word to any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old Bailey, and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at the club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,--not, however, finding the lady at home. Once, and once only, did he break down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Erle, and was asked by him to go to The Universe. At the moment he became very pale, but he at once said that he would go. Had Erle carried him off in a cab the adventure might have been successful; but as they walked, and as they went together through Clarges Street and Bolton Row and Curzon Street, and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so graphically described in Court appeared before him one after another, his heart gave way, and he couldn't do it. "I know I'm a fool, Barrington; but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me, but just go on." Then he turned and walked home, passing through the passage in which the murder had been committed. "I brought him as far as the next street," Barrington Erle said to one of their friends at the club, "but I couldn't get him in. I doubt if he'll ever be here again." It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached Matching Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a brougham should be waiting for him at the nearest station, and on arriving there he found that he had the brougham to himself. He had thought a great deal about it, and had endeavoured to make his calculations. He knew that Madame Goesler would be at Matching, and it would be necessary that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first meeting. But how should he meet her,--and in what way should he greet her when they met? Would any arrangement be made, or would all be left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber,--so as to show himself first when dressed for dinner, or should he allow himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those women whose minds were always engaged on such matters, and who are able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her that her delicacy was untainted, or her taste perfect; but she was clever,--discreet in the midst of indiscretions,--thoughtful, and good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all, and given her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall,--the brougham with the luggage having been taken round to some back door,--he was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke used to take delight. Here he found two ladies,--but only two ladies,--waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome him, while Madame Goesler remained in the background, with composed face,--as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had chanced to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was thinking of her much more than of her companion, though he knew also how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she had done for him had come from caprice, whereas the other had been instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that, and must have shown his feeling on his countenance. "Yes, there she is," said the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome to Matching, and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his safe deliverance from his troubles. "If ever one friend was grateful to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Finn." He did not speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie Goesler stood, took her right hand in his, and passing his left arm round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other. The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not speak, or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace. As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till the moment came. "Excellently well done," said the Duchess, still laughing with silent pleasant laughter. "And now tell us how you are, after all your troubles." [Illustration: "Yes, there she is."] He remained with them for half an hour, till the ladies went to dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show him his room. "The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course," said the Duchess; "but you know official matters too well to expect a President of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine at eight; five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his last row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures, I think. You only managed colonies." So they parted till dinner, and Phineas remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Goesler, and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had thought, but contented to listen to her friend the Duchess. She, the Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts, and made many statements; and he had found that with those two women he could speak without discomfort, almost with pleasure, on subjects which he could not bear to have touched by men. "Of course you knew all along who killed the poor man," the Duchess had said. "We did;--did we not, Marie?--just as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out of the house and back into it, and that he must have had a key. So she started off to Prague to find the key; and she found it. And we were quite sure too about the coat;--weren't we. That poor blundering Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather. We discussed it all over so often;--every point of it. Poor Lord Fawn! They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those policemen who didn't find the life-preserver; I only think that something ought to be done to them." "I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess." "Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius;--poor dear Lady Eustace's Mr. Emilius? I do think that you ought to desire that an end should be put to his enterprising career! I'm sure I do." This was said while the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon in Paris. "We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to meet you, and you must fraternise with him immediately, to show that you bear no grudge." "He only did his duty." "Exactly;--though I think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government before long, we thought that things had better be made straight between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but women did see it clearly? Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce. You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day,--or take me to her." "Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough," said Phineas. "My dear Mr. Finn, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because you ride to hounds. If it had been found possible to accuse poor Mr. Fothergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fothergill committed the murder, because Mr. Fothergill thinks more of his shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and I mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him,--and all for your sake. If foxes can be had, he shall have foxes. We must go and dress now, Mr. Finn, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room." Phineas, as soon as he was alone, thought, not of what the Duchess had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friend, Madame Goesler. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed. Had she been angry with him, and intended to show her anger by her silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Goesler been alone in the room together. The Duchess had applauded him,--but yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between him and Marie Goesler of which he was quite sure that the Duchess knew nothing. When he went downstairs he found a crowd in the drawing-room, from among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. "I am particularly happy to see you at Matching," said the Duke. "I wish we had shooting to offer you, but we are too far south for the grouse. That was a bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of bitterness in debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the House of Commons. I must confess that I do." The Duke did not say a word about the trial, and the Duke's guests followed their host's example. The house was full of people, most of whom had before been known to Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him. Lord and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk, and Sir Gregory his accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife. Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero, and was now of course hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who had been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by which Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate as to Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he prosecuted an innocent and very popular young Member of Parliament to the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in comfort. Barrington Erle was there, of course, intending, however, to return to the duties of his office on the following day,--and our old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon with a newly-married wife, a lady possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs for ever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also,--the Duke's first cousin,--on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning, and had been much flurried by the news. "But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left town, I know," she said. "Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square." "Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and all alone?" "She is alone now, I believe." "How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her. I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think that she is very unhappy?" "She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his insanity;--and now she is a widow." "I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say, and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence. Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared for him," he said, "though I do not think it was a well-assorted marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old friend, Mr. Spooner?" "Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn." "I rather like Mr. Spooner;--and as for hunting the country, I don't think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your cousin the Duke is." "I hardly know him." "He is such a gentleman;--and, at the same time, the most abstract and the most concrete man that I know." "Abstract and concrete!" "You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if you mean to be anybody in conversation." "But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak to him, I know." "No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass." "Is that abstract or concrete?" "That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed. "What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the evening. "I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose." "The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain there. He can't touch it. There's about £2,000 a-year, which will have to go back to her family unless they have children." "I suppose she's--forty?" "Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time, poor fellow,--and had other things to think of; but all the interest we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless she was to be asked here." "And who managed it?" "Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the invitation at once." "Who told you?" "Not the Duchess,--nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you know;--but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We must all come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but the question is whether we could do better than an annuity of £2,000 a year on the life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to attend the House above six months a year, while you can't get away from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in appearance very much, I think." "A man always looks changed when he's married." "I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge," said Sir Gregory, the Attorney-General. "Not in the least; why should I?" "It was a very painful duty that I had to perform,--the most painful that ever befel me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like a hound running down his game, and anxious for blood. The habitual and almost necessary acrimony of the defence creates acrimony in the attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts you would observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth." "The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?" "So he does;--and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict which must animate those engaged on the defence." "Then I suppose you wanted to--hang me, Sir Gregory." "Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must have regarded me as a bloodhound." "I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that I was guilty." "You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you," said Sir Gregory, "and to assure you that I should have lived a broken-hearted man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been done." Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory. Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him. Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir Gregory,--who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking him to have been guilty,--should come to him and make peace with him by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon him;--and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received the information about the key,--that also was natural. A few days ago he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and chatted, and was quiet and at ease. "Good-night, Mr. Finn," the Duchess said to him, "I know the people have been boring you." "Not in the least." "I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was talking about." "I like Sir Gregory, Duchess." "That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it had to be done, hadn't it?--And now there will be an end of it." "Everybody has treated me very well," said Phineas, almost in tears. "Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it should have been so." "Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We,--that is, Marie and I, you know,--thought it would be the best thing for you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you weren't driven too hard. By the bye, you have hardly seen her,--have you?" "Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace." "My Grace will manage better for you to-morrow. I didn't like to tell you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't grateful you must be a wretch." "But I am grateful." "Well; we shall see. Good-night. You'll find a lot of men going to smoke somewhere, I don't doubt." CHAPTER LXXV. THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED. In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not, to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders,--to Americans, let us say, or Frenchmen,--there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the Duke's own,--to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are, no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the doer of them to be the enemy of his species,--and this destruction of foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them. The Duke might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly do so and remain a popular magnate in England. If he chose to put himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people among whom his property was situated, he must live as a "man forbid." That was the general argument, and then there was the argument special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpeton Wood was, and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side of the Brake country. Gorse coverts make, no doubt, the charm of hunting, but gorse coverts will not hold foxes unless the woodlands be preserved. The fox is a travelling animal. Knowing well that "home-staying youths have ever homely wits," he goes out and sees the world. He is either born in the woodlands, or wanders thither in his early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison, and wires, and traps, and hostile keepers await them there instead of the tender welcome of the loving fox-preserver, the gorse coverts will soon be empty, and the whole country will be afflicted with a wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became so loud in his complaint against the Duke. But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, Planty Pall as he was lately called, devoted to work and to Parliament, an unselfish, friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not hunt himself,--but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards. He recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had been his distraction;--but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke's agent had gradually acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property; and as the Duke's heir would not shoot himself, or pay attention to the shooting, and as the Duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr. Fothergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. Now Mr. Fothergill was not a hunting man,--but the mischief did not at all lie there. Lord Chiltern would not communicate with Mr. Fothergill. Lord Chiltern would write to the Duke, and Mr. Fothergill became an established enemy. Hinc illæ iræ. From this source sprung all those powerfully argued articles in _The Field_, _Bell's Life_, and _Land and Water_;--for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one mind. There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred, and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so acute and his remorse so great that, in their pity, they had resolved to spare him; and then, on the spot, entered into a solemn compact that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness, the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend, the owner of the wood, hoping that, in spite of the sacrilege committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant of his crime. As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the deed, went along the corridor to his room, one maid-servant whispered to another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the words--"That's he as shot the fox!" The gentleman did not appear at dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts. Mr. Fothergill had become angry. Lord Chiltern, as we know, had been very angry. And even the Duke was angry. The Duke was angry because Lord Chiltern had been violent;--and Lord Chiltern had been violent because Mr. Fothergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only sacrilegious, but one continued course of wilful sacrilege. It may be said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds he had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number of foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to him the one great study of life;--and he did it with an energy equal to that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was always well mounted, with two horses; but Lord Chiltern would give up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the day's sport. He worked as men work only at pleasure. He never missed a day, even when cub-hunting required that he should leave his bed at 3 A.M. He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about it. He devoted his life to the Brake Hounds. And it was too much for him that such a one as Mr. Fothergill should be allowed to wire foxes in Trumpeton Wood! The Duke's property, indeed! Surely all that was understood in England by this time. Now he had consented to come to Matching, bringing his wife with him, in order that the matter might be settled. There had been a threat that he would give up the country, in which case it was declared that it would be impossible to carry on the Brake Hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters, subscribers, owners of coverts, or farmers, unless a different order of things should be made to prevail in regard to Trumpeton Wood. The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady Chiltern,--as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed, at the Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And she did prevent it. "And now, Lord Chiltern," she said, "how about the foxes?" She had taken care there should be a council of war around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were present, and also Phineas Finn. "Well;--how about them?" said the lord, showing by the fiery eagerness of his eye, and the increased redness of his face, that though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could not really be any joke about it. "Why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers?" "I don't write the newspapers, Duchess. I can't help the newspapers. When two hundred men ride through Trumpeton Wood, and see one fox found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers will say that the foxes are trapped." "We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern." "Certainly;--only say so, and we shall know where we are." He looked very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. "The Duke can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt," said the lord. "But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern;--nor yet poison, nor anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew how, wouldn't I, Marie?" "They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months," said Madame Goesler. "And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated, they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one do?" "Change your keepers," said Lord Chiltern energetically. "It is easy to say,--change your keepers. How am I to set about it? To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested interests mean, Lord Chiltern?" "Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?" "Nobody can,--unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with the Government,--with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just the thing for Mr. Finn." "There would be a salary, of course," said Phineas. "Then I suppose that nothing can be done," said Lord Chiltern. "My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory of the Brake Hunt. It won't cost the Duke above a thousand or two a year." "I should be very sorry indeed to put the Duke to any unnecessary expense," said Lord Chiltern solemnly,--still fearing that the Duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the amusement of a whole county. "Do not think of it. We have pensioned poor Mr. Fothergill, and he retires from the administration." "Then it'll be all right," said Lord Chiltern. "I am so glad," said his wife. "And so the great Mr. Fothergill falls from power, and goes down into obscurity," said Madame Goesler. "He was an impudent old man, and that's the truth," said the Duchess;--"and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him,--and all on account of Trumpeton Wood,--you'd send me every brush taken in the Brake country during the next season." "Your Grace shall at any rate have one of them," said Lord Chiltern. On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall. When the end of August comes, a Master of Hounds,--who is really a master,--is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at present; and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a little speech to Phineas Finn. "You'll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn?" "I should like." "You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed, regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was impossible to me that my old friend should have been--" "Oh, Lady Chiltern!" "Of course you'll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this? If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much the better. If it should be so, of course there will be letters written?" To this question, however, Phineas Finn made no answer. CHAPTER LXXVI. MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY. One morning, very shortly after her return to Harrington, Lady Chiltern was told that Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall had called, and desired to see her. She suggested that the gentleman had probably asked for her husband,--who, at that moment, was enjoying his recovered supremacy in the centre of Trumpeton Wood; but she was assured that on this occasion Mr. Spooner's mission was to herself. She had no quarrel with Mr. Spooner, and she went to him at once. After the first greeting he rushed into the subject of the great triumph. "So we've got rid of Mr. Fothergill, Lady Chiltern." "Yes; Mr. Fothergill will not, I believe, trouble us any more. He is an old man, it seems, and has retired from the Duke's service." "I can't tell you how glad I am, Lady Chiltern. We were afraid that Chiltern would have thrown it up, and then I don't know where we should have been. England would not have been England any longer, to my thinking, if we hadn't won the day. It'd have been just like a French revolution. Nobody would have known what was coming or where he was going." That Mr. Spooner should be enthusiastic on any hunting question was a matter of course; but still it seemed to be odd that he should have driven himself over from Spoon Hall to pour his feelings into Lady Chiltern's ear. "We shall go on very nicely now, I don't doubt," said she; "and I'm sure that Lord Chiltern will be glad to find that you are pleased." "I am very much pleased, I can tell you." Then he paused, and the tone of his voice was changed altogether when he spoke again. "But I didn't come over only about that, Lady Chiltern. Miss Palliser has not come back with you, Lady Chiltern?" "We left Miss Palliser at Matching. You know she is the Duke's cousin." "I wish she wasn't, with all my heart." "Why should you want to rob her of her relations, Mr. Spooner?" "Because-- because--. I don't want to say a word against her, Lady Chiltern. To me she is perfect as a star;--beautiful as a rose." Mr. Spooner as he said this pointed first to the heavens and then to the earth. "But perhaps she wouldn't have been so proud of her grandfather hadn't he been a Duke." "I don't think she is proud of that." "People do think of it, Lady Chiltern; and I don't say that they ought not. Of course it makes a difference, and when a man lives altogether in the country, as I do, it seems to signify so much more. But if you go back to old county families, Lady Chiltern, the Spooners have been here pretty nearly as long as the Pallisers,--if not longer. The Desponders, from whom we come, came over with William the Conqueror." "I have always heard that there isn't a more respectable family in the county." "That there isn't. There was a grant of land, which took their name, and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss Palliser does not know all that." "I doubt whether she cares about those things." "Women do care about them,--very much. Perhaps she has heard of the two spoons crossed, and doesn't know that that was a stupid vulgar practical joke. Our crest is a knight's head bowed, with the motto, 'Desperandum.' Soon after the Conquest one of the Desponders fell in love with the Queen, and never would give it up, though it wasn't any good. Her name was Matilda, and so he went as a Crusader and got killed. But wherever he went he had the knight's head bowed, and the motto on the shield." "What a romantic story, Mr. Spooner!" "Isn't it? And it's quite true. That's the way we became Spooners. I never told her of it, but, somehow I wish I had now. It always seemed that she didn't think that I was anybody." "The truth is, Mr. Spooner, that she was always thinking that somebody else was everything. When a gentleman is told that a lady's affections have been pre-engaged, however much he may regret the circumstances, he cannot, I think, feel any hurt to his pride. If I understand the matter, Miss Palliser explained to you that she was engaged when first you spoke to her." "You are speaking of young Gerard Maule." "Of course I am speaking of Mr. Maule." "But she has quarrelled with him, Lady Chiltern." "Don't you know what such quarrels come to?" "Well, no. That is to say, everybody tells me that it is really broken off, and that he has gone nobody knows where. At any rate he never shows himself. He doesn't mean it, Lady Chiltern." "I don't know what he means." "And he can't afford it, Lady Chiltern. I mean it, and I can afford it. Surely that might go for something." "I cannot say what Mr. Maule may mean to do, Mr. Spooner, but I think it only fair to tell you that he is at present staying at Matching, under the same roof with Miss Palliser." "Maule staying at the Duke's!" When Mr. Spooner heard this there came a sudden change over his face. His jaw fell, and his mouth was opened, and the redness of his cheeks flew up to his forehead. "He was expected there yesterday, and I need hardly suggest to you what will be the end of the quarrel." "Going to the Duke's won't give him an income." "I know nothing about that, Mr. Spooner. But it really seems to me that you misinterpret the nature of the affections of such a girl as Miss Palliser. Do you think it likely that she should cease to love a man because he is not so rich as another?" "People, when they are married, want a house to live in, Lady Chiltern. Now at Spoon Hall--" "Believe me, that is in vain, Mr. Spooner." "You are quite sure of it?" "Quite sure." "I'd have done anything for her,--anything! She might have had what settlements she pleased. I told Ned that he must go, if she made a point of it. I'd have gone abroad, or lived just anywhere. I'd come to that, that I didn't mind the hunting a bit." "I'm sorry for you,--I am indeed." "It cuts a fellow all to pieces so! And yet what is it all about? A slip of a girl that isn't anything so very much out of the way after all. Lady Chiltern, I shouldn't care if the horse kicked the trap all to pieces going back to Spoon Hall, and me with it." "You'll get over it, Mr. Spooner." "Get over it! I suppose I shall; but I shall never be as I was. I've been always thinking of the day when there must be a lady at Spoon Hall, and putting it off, you know. There'll never be a lady there now;--never. You don't think there's any chance at all?" "I'm sure there is none." "I'd give half I've got in all the world," said the wretched man, "just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to." Though he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr. Spooner's future prospects. "It'll be two bottles of champagne at dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope she'll know that she did it. Good-bye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that perhaps you'd have helped me." "I cannot help you." "Good-bye." So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently home,--without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let us hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled. In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory. "We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again," the Duchess had answered,--and there had been an end of it. Nothing more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured to herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old maiden lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist in looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And now she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing had been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty to have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take her to the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest relative,--of him and also of her who were bound to see that things were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a word;--so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour whether the world would not come to an end. The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house, and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people, and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when she knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn't care much for Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with money would not consent to marry the aristocratic pauper except on condition that she should be received at Matching, the Duchess at once gave the invitation. And now, though she couldn't go into the "fal-lallery,"--as she called it, to Madame Goesler,--of settling a meeting between two young people who had fallen out, she worked hard till she accomplished something perhaps more important to their future happiness. "Plantagenet," she said, "there can be no objection to your cousin having that money." "My dear!" "Oh come; you must remember about Adelaide, and that young man who is coming here to-day." "You told me that Adelaide is to be married. I don't know anything about the young man." "His name is Maule, and he is a gentleman, and all that. Some day when his father dies he'll have a small property somewhere." "I hope he has a profession." "No, he has not. I told you all that before." "If he has nothing at all, Glencora, why did he ask a young lady to marry him?" "Oh, dear; what's the good of going into all that? He has got something. They'll do immensely well, if you'll only listen. She is your first cousin." "Of course she is," said Plantagenet, lifting up his hand to his hair. "And you are bound to do something for her." "No; I am not bound. But I'm very willing,--if you wish it. Put the thing on a right footing." "I hate footings,--that is, right footings. We can manage this without taking money out of your pocket." "My dear Glencora, if I am to give my cousin money I shall do so by putting my hand into my own pocket in preference to that of any other person." "Madame Goesler says that she'll sign all the papers about the Duke's legacy,--the money, I mean,--if she may be allowed to make it over to the Duke's niece." "Of course Madame Goesler may do what she likes with her own. I cannot hinder her. But I would rather that you should not interfere. Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money." "You won't take it." "Certainly not." "Nor will Madame Goesler; and therefore there can be no reason why these young people should not have it. Of course Adelaide being the Duke's niece does make a difference. Why else should I care about it? She is nothing to me,--and as for him, I shouldn't know him again if I were to meet him in the street." And so the thing was settled. The Duke was powerless against the energy of his wife, and the lawyer was instructed that Madame Goesler would take the proper steps for putting herself into possession of the Duke's legacy,--as far as the money was concerned,--with the view of transferring it to the Duke's niece, Miss Adelaide Palliser. As for the diamonds, the difficulty could not be solved. Madame Goesler still refused to take them, and desired her lawyer to instruct her as to the form by which she could most thoroughly and conclusively renounce that legacy. Gerard Maule had his ideas about the meeting which would of course take place at Matching. He would not, he thought, have been asked there had it not been intended that he should marry Adelaide. He did not care much for the grandeur of the Duke and Duchess, but he was conscious of certain profitable advantages which might accrue from such an acknowledgement of his position from the great relatives of his intended bride. It would be something to be married from the house of the Duchess, and to receive his wife from the Duke's hand. His father would probably be driven to acquiesce, and people who were almost omnipotent in the world would at any rate give him a start. He expected no money; nor did he possess that character, whether it be good or bad, which is given to such expectation. But there would be encouragement, and the thing would probably be done. As for the meeting,--he would take her in his arms if he found her alone, and beg her pardon for that cross word about Boulogne. He would assure her that Boulogne itself would be a heaven to him if she were with him,--and he thought that she would believe him. When he reached the house he was asked into a room in which a lot of people were playing billiards or crowded round a billiard-table. The Chilterns were gone, and he was at first ill at ease, finding no friend. Madame Goesler, who had met him at Harrington, came up to him, and told him that the Duchess would be there directly, and then Phineas, who had been playing at the moment of his entrance, shook hands with him, and said a word or two about the Chilterns. "I was so delighted to hear of your acquittal," said Maule. "We never talk about that now," said Phineas, going back to his stroke. Adelaide Palliser was not present, and the difficulty of the meeting had not yet been encountered. They all remained in the billiard-room till it was time for the ladies to dress, and Adelaide had not yet ventured to show herself. Somebody offered to take him to his room, and he was conducted upstairs, and told that they dined at eight,--but nothing had been arranged. Nobody had as yet mentioned her name to him. Surely it could not be that she had gone away when she heard that he was coming, and that she was really determined to make the quarrel perpetual? He had three quarters of an hour in which to get ready for dinner, and he felt himself to be uncomfortable and out of his element. He had been sent to his chamber prematurely, because nobody had known what to do with him; and he wished himself back in London. The Duchess, no doubt, had intended to be good-natured, but she had made a mistake. So he sat by his open window, and looked out on the ruins of the old Priory, which were close to the house, and wondered why he mightn't have been allowed to wander about the garden instead of being shut up there in a bedroom. But he felt that it would be unwise to attempt any escape now. He would meet the Duke or the Duchess, or perhaps Adelaide herself, in some of the passages,--and there would be an embarrassment. So he dawdled away the time, looking out of the window as he dressed, and descended to the drawing room at eight o'clock. He shook hands with the Duke, and was welcomed by the Duchess, and then glanced round the room. There she was, seated on a sofa between two other ladies,--of whom one was his friend, Madame Goesler. It was essentially necessary that he should notice her in some way, and he walked up to her, and offered her his hand. It was impossible that he should allude to what was past, and he merely muttered something as he stood over her. She had blushed up to her eyes, and was absolutely dumb. "Mr. Maule, perhaps you'll take our cousin Adelaide out to dinner," said the Duchess, a moment afterwards, whispering in his ear. "Have you forgiven me?" he said to her, as they passed from one room to the other. "I will,--if you care to be forgiven." The Duchess had been quite right, and the quarrel was all over without any arrangement. On the following morning he was allowed to walk about the grounds without any impediment, and to visit the ruins which had looked so charming to him from the window. Nor was he alone. Miss Palliser was now by no means anxious as she had been yesterday to keep out of the way, and was willingly persuaded to show him all the beauties of the place. "I shouldn't have said what I did, I know," pleaded Maule. "Never mind it now, Gerard." "I mean about going to Boulogne." "It did sound so melancholy." "But I only meant that we should have to be very careful how we lived. I don't know quite whether I am so good at being careful about money as a fellow ought to be." "You must take a lesson from me, sir." "I have sent the horses to Tattersall's," he said in a tone that was almost funereal. "What!--already?" "I gave the order yesterday. They are to be sold,--I don't know when. They won't fetch anything. They never do. One always buys bad horses there for a lot of money, and sells good ones for nothing. Where the difference goes to I never could make out." "I suppose the man gets it who sells them." "No; he don't. The fellows get it who have their eyes open. My eyes never were open,--except as far as seeing you went." "Perhaps if you had opened them wider you wouldn't have to go to--" "Don't, Adelaide. But, as I was saying about the horses, when they're sold of course the bills won't go on. And I suppose things will come right. I don't owe so very much." "I've got something to tell you," she said. "What about?" "You're to see my cousin to-day at two o'clock." "The Duke?" "Yes,--the Duke; and he has got a proposition. I don't know that you need sell your horses, as it seems to make you so very unhappy. You remember Madame Goesler?" "Of course I do. She was at Harrington." "There's something about a legacy which I can't understand at all. It is ever so much money, and it did belong to the old Duke. They say it is to be mine,--or yours rather, if we should ever be married. And then you know, Gerard, perhaps, after all, you needn't go to Boulogne." So she took her revenge, and he had his as he pressed his arm round her waist and kissed her among the ruins of the old Priory. Precisely at two to the moment he had his interview with the Duke, and very disagreeable it was to both of them. The Duke was bound to explain that the magnificent present which was being made to his cousin was a gift, not from him, but from Madame Goesler; and, though he was intent on making this as plain as possible, he did not like the task. "The truth is, Mr. Maule, that Madame Goesler is unwilling, for reasons with which I need not trouble you, to take the legacy which was left to her by my uncle. I think her reasons to be insufficient, but it is a matter in which she must, of course, judge for herself. She has decided,--very much, I fear, at my wife's instigation, which I must own I regret,--to give the money to one of our family, and has been pleased to say that my cousin Adelaide shall be the recipient of her bounty. I have nothing to do with it. I cannot stop her generosity if I would, nor can I say that my cousin ought to refuse it. Adelaide will have the entire sum as her fortune, short of the legacy duty, which, as you are probably aware, will be ten per cent., as Madame Goesler was not related to my uncle. The money will, of course, be settled on my cousin and on her children. I believe that will be all I shall have to say, except that Lady Glencora,--the Duchess, I mean,--wishes that Adelaide should be married from our house. If this be so I shall, of course, hope to have the honour of giving my cousin away." The Duke was by no means a pompous man, and probably there was no man in England of so high rank who thought so little of his rank. But he was stiff and somewhat ungainly, and the task which he was called upon to execute had been very disagreeable to him. He bowed when he had finished his speech, and Gerard Maule felt himself bound to go, almost without expressing his thanks. "My dear Mr. Maule," said Madame Goesler, "you literally must not say a word to me about it. The money was not mine, and under no circumstances would or could be mine. I have given nothing, and could not have presumed to make such a present. The money, I take it, does undoubtedly belong to the present Duke, and, as he does not want it, it is very natural that it should go to his cousin. I trust that you may both live to enjoy it long, but I cannot allow any thanks to be given to me by either of you." After that he tried the Duchess, who was somewhat more gracious. "The truth is, Mr. Maule, you are a very lucky man to find twenty thousand pounds and more going begging about the country in that way." "Indeed I am, Duchess." "And Adelaide is lucky, too, for I doubt whether either of you are given to any very penetrating economies. I am told that you like hunting." "I have sent my horses to Tattersall's." "There is enough now for a little hunting, I suppose, unless you have a dozen children. And now you and Adelaide must settle when it's to be. I hate things to be delayed. People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better." "I hope the romance and poetry do not all vanish." "Romance and poetry are for the most part lies, Mr. Maule, and are very apt to bring people into difficulty. I have seen something of them in my time, and I much prefer downright honest figures. Two and two make four; idleness is the root of all evil; love your neighbour like yourself, and the rest of it. Pray remember that Adelaide is to be married from here, and that we shall be very happy that you should make every use you like of our house until then." We may so far anticipate in our story as to say that Adelaide Palliser and Gerard Maule were married from Matching Priory at Matching Church early in that October, and that as far as the coming winter was concerned, there certainly was no hunting for the gentleman. They went to Naples instead of Boulogne, and there remained till the warm weather came in the following spring. Nor was that peremptory sale at Tattersall's countermanded as regarded any of the horses. What prices were realised the present writer has never been able to ascertain. CHAPTER LXXVII. PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS. When Phineas Finn had been about a week at Matching, he received a letter, or rather a very short note, from the Prime Minister, asking him to go up to London; and on the same day the Duke of Omnium spoke to him on the subject of the letter. "You are going up to see Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham has written to me, and I hope that we shall be able to congratulate ourselves in having your assistance next Session." Phineas declared that he had no idea whatever of Mr. Gresham's object in summoning him up to London. "I have his permission to inform you that he wishes you to accept office." Phineas felt that he was becoming very red in the face, but he did not attempt to make any reply on the spur of the moment. "Mr. Gresham thinks it well that so much should be said to you before you see him, in order that you may turn the matter over in your own mind. He would have written to you probably, making the offer at once, had it not been that there must be various changes, and that one man's place must depend on another. You will go, I suppose." "Yes; I shall go, certainly. I shall be in London this evening." "I will take care that a carriage is ready for you. I do not presume to advise, Mr. Finn, but I hope that there need be no doubt as to your joining us." Phineas was somewhat confounded, and did not know the Duke well enough to give expression to his thoughts at the moment. "Of course you will return to us, Mr. Finn." Phineas said that he would return and trespass on the Duke's hospitality for yet a few days. He was quite resolved that something must be said to Madame Goesler before he left the roof under which she was living. In the course of the autumn she purposed, as she had told him, to go to Vienna, and to remain there almost up to Christmas. Whatever there might be to be said should be said at any rate before that. He did speak a few words to her before his journey to London, but in those words there was no allusion made to the great subject which must be discussed between them. "I am going up to London," he said. "So the Duchess tells me." "Mr. Gresham has sent for me,--meaning, I suppose, to offer me the place which he would not give me while that poor man was alive." "And you will accept it of course, Mr. Finn?" "I am not at all so sure of that." "But you will. You must. You will hardly be so foolish as to let the peevish animosity of an ill-conditioned man prejudice your prospects even after his death." "It will not be any remembrance of Mr. Bonteen that will induce me to refuse." "It will be the same thing;--rancour against Mr. Gresham because he had allowed the other man's counsel to prevail with him. The action of no individual man should be to you of sufficient consequence to guide your conduct. If you accept office, you should not take it as a favour conferred by the Prime Minister; nor if you refuse it, should you do so from personal feelings in regard to him. If he selects you, he is presumed to do so because he finds that your services will be valuable to the country." "He does so because he thinks that I should be safe to vote for him." "That may be so, or not. You can't read his bosom quite distinctly;--but you may read your own. If you go into office you become the servant of the country,--not his servant, and should assume his motive in selecting you to be the same as your own in submitting to the selection. Your foot must be on the ladder before you can get to the top of it." "The ladder is so crooked." "Is it more crooked now than it was three years ago;--worse than it was six months ago, when you and all your friends looked upon it as certain that you would be employed? There is nothing, Mr. Finn, that a man should fear so much as some twist in his convictions arising from a personal accident to himself. When we heard that the Devil in his sickness wanted to be a monk, we never thought that he would become a saint in glory. When a man who has been rejected by a lady expresses a generally ill opinion of the sex, we are apt to ascribe his opinions to disappointment rather than to judgment. A man falls and breaks his leg at a fence, and cannot be induced to ride again,--not because he thinks the amusement to be dangerous, but because he cannot keep his mind from dwelling on the hardship that has befallen himself. In all such cases self-consciousness gets the better of the judgment." "You think it will be so with me?" "I shall think so if you now refuse--because of the misfortune which befell you--that which I know you were most desirous of possessing before that accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Finn, I wish Mr. Gresham had delayed his offer till the winter." "And why?" "Because by that time you will have recovered your health. Your mind now is morbid, and out of tune." "There was something to make it so, Madame Goesler." "God knows there was; and the necessity which lay upon you of bearing a bold front during those long and terrible weeks of course consumed your strength. The wonder is that the fibres of your mind should have retained any of their elasticity after such an ordeal. But as you are so strong, it would be a pity that you should not be strong altogether. This thing that is now to be offered to you is what you have always desired." "A man may have always desired that which is worthless." "You tried it once, and did not find it worthless. You found yourself able to do good work when you were in office. If I remember right, you did not give it up then because it was irksome to you, or contemptible, or, as you say, worthless; but from difference of opinion on some political question. You can always do that again." "A man is not fit for office who is prone to do so." "Then do not you be prone. It means success or failure in the profession which you have chosen, and I shall greatly regret to see you damage your chance of success by yielding to scruples which have come upon you when you are hardly as yet yourself." She had spoken to him very plainly, and he had found it to be impossible to answer her, and yet she had hardly touched the motives by which he believed himself to be actuated. As he made his journey up to London he thought very much of her words. There had been nothing said between them about money. No allusion had been made to the salary of the office which would be offered to him, or to the terrible shortness of his own means of living. He knew well enough himself that he must take some final step in life, or very shortly return into absolute obscurity. This woman who had been so strongly advising him to take a certain course as to his future life, was very rich;--and he had fully decided that he would sooner or later ask her to be his wife. He knew well that all her friends regarded their marriage as certain. The Duchess had almost told him so in as many words. Lady Chiltern, who was much more to him than the Duchess, had assured him that if he should have a wife to bring with him to Harrington, the wife would be welcome. Of what other wife could Lady Chiltern have thought? Laurence Fitzgibbon, when congratulated on his own marriage, had returned counter congratulations. Mr. Low had said that it would of course come to pass. Even Mrs. Bunce had hinted at it, suggesting that she would lose her lodger and be a wretched woman. All the world had heard of the journey to Prague, and all the world expected the marriage. And he had come to love the woman with excessive affection, day by day, ever since the renewal of their intimacy at Broughton Spinnies. His mind was quite made up;--but he was by no means so sure of her mind as the rest of the world might be. He knew of her, what nobody else in all the world knew,--except himself. In that former period of his life, on which he now sometimes looked back as though it had been passed in another world, this woman had offered her hand and fortune to him. She had done so in the enthusiasm of her love, knowing his ambition and knowing his poverty, and believing that her wealth was necessary to the success of his career in life. He had refused the offer,--and they had parted without a word. Now they had come together again, and she was certainly among the dearest of his friends. Had she not taken that wondrous journey to Prague in his behalf, and been the first among those who had striven,--and had striven at last successfully,--to save his neck from the halter? Dear to her! He knew well as he sat with his eyes closed in the railway carriage that he must be dear to her! But might it not well be that she had resolved that friendship should take the place of love? And was it not compatible with her nature,--with all human nature,--that in spite of her regard for him she should choose to be revenged for the evil which had befallen her, when she offered her hand in vain? She must know by this time that he intended to throw himself at her feet; and would hardly have advised him as she had done as to the necessity of following up that success which had hitherto been so essential to him, had she intended to give him all that she had once offered him before. It might well be that Lady Chiltern, and even the Duchess, should be mistaken. Marie Goesler was not a woman, he thought, to reveal the deeper purposes of her life to any such friend as the Duchess of Omnium. Of his own feelings in regard to the offer which was about to be made to him he had hardly succeeded in making her understand anything. That a change had come upon himself was certain, but he did not at all believe that it had sprung from any weakness caused by his sufferings in regard to the murder. He rather believed that he had become stronger than weaker from all that he had endured. He had learned when he was younger,--some years back,--to regard the political service of his country as a profession in which a man possessed of certain gifts might earn his bread with more gratification to himself than in any other. The work would be hard, and the emolument only intermittent; but the service would in itself be pleasant; and the rewards of that service,--should he be so successful as to obtain reward,--would be dearer to him than anything which could accrue to him from other labours. To sit in the Cabinet for one Session would, he then thought, be more to him than to preside over the Court of Queen's Bench as long as did Lord Mansfield. But during the last few months a change had crept across his dream,--which he recognized but could hardly analyse. He had seen a man whom he despised promoted, and the place to which the man had been exalted had at once become contemptible in his eyes. And there had been quarrels and jangling, and the speaking of evil words between men who should have been quiet and dignified. No doubt Madame Goesler was right in attributing the revulsion in his hopes to Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Bonteen's enmity; but Phineas Finn himself did not know that it was so. He arrived in town in the evening, and his appointment with Mr. Gresham was for the following morning. He breakfasted at his club, and there he received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:-- Saulsby, 28th August, 18--. MY DEAR PHINEAS, I have just received a letter from Barrington in which he tells me that Mr. Gresham is going to offer you your old place at the Colonies. He says that Lord Fawn has been so upset by this affair of Lady Eustace's husband, that he is obliged to resign and go abroad. [This was the first intimation that Phineas had heard of the nature of the office to be offered to him.--] But Barrington goes on to say that he thinks you won't accept Mr. Gresham's offer, and he asks me to write to you. Can this possibly be true? Barrington writes most kindly,--with true friendship,--and is most anxious for you to join. But he thinks that you are angry with Mr. Gresham because he passed you over before, and that you will not forgive him for having yielded to Mr. Bonteen. I can hardly believe this possible. Surely you will not allow the shade of that unfortunate man to blight your prospects? And, after all, of what matter to you is the friendship or enmity of Mr. Gresham? You have to assert yourself, to make your own way, to use your own opportunities, and to fight your own battle without reference to the feelings of individuals. Men act together in office constantly, and with constancy, who are known to hate each other. When there are so many to get what is going, and so little to be given, of course there will be struggling and trampling. I have no doubt that Lord Cantrip has made a point of this with Mr. Gresham;--has in point of fact insisted upon it. If so, you are lucky to have such an ally as Lord Cantrip. He and Mr. Gresham are, as you know, sworn friends, and if you get on well with the one you certainly may with the other also. Pray do not refuse without asking for time to think about it;--and if so, pray come here, that you may consult my father. I spent two weary weeks at Loughlinter, and then could stand it no longer. I have come here, and here I shall remain for the autumn and winter. If I can sell my interest in the Loughlinter property I shall do so, as I am sure that neither the place nor the occupation is fit for me. Indeed I know not what place or what occupation will suit me! The dreariness of the life before me is hardly preferable to the disappointments I have already endured. There seems to be nothing left for me but to watch my father to the end. The world would say that such a duty in life is fit for a widowed childless daughter; but to you I cannot pretend to say that my bereavements or misfortunes reconcile me to such a fate. I cannot cease to remember my age, my ambition, and I will say, my love. I suppose that everything is over for me,--as though I were an old woman, going down into the grave, but at my time of life I find it hard to believe that it must be so. And then the time of waiting may be so long! I suppose I could start a house in London, and get people around me by feeding and flattering them, and by little intrigues,--like that woman of whom you are so fond. It is money that is chiefly needed for that work, and of money I have enough now. And people would know at any rate who I am. But I could not flatter them, and I should wish the food to choke them if they did not please me. And you would not come, and if you did,--I may as well say it boldly,--others would not. An ill-natured sprite has been busy with me, which seems to deny me everything which is so freely granted to others. As for you, the world is at your feet. I dread two things for you,--that you should marry unworthily, and that you should injure your prospects in public life by an uncompromising stiffness. On the former subject I can say nothing to you. As to the latter, let me implore you to come down here before you decide upon anything. Of course you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is what you should do unless the office proposed to you be unworthy of you. No friend of yours will think that your old place at the Colonies should be rejected. But if your mind is still turned towards refusing, ask Mr. Gresham to give you three or four days for decision, and then come here. He cannot refuse you,--nor after all that is passed can you refuse me. Yours affectionately, L. K. When he had read this letter he at once acknowledged to himself that he could not refuse her request. He must go to Saulsby, and he must do so at once. He was about to see Mr. Gresham immediately, --within half an hour; and as he could not expect at the most above twenty-four hours to be allowed to him for consideration, he must go down to Saulsby on the same evening. As he walked to the Prime Minister's house he called at a telegraph office and sent down his message. "I will be at Saulsby by the train arriving at 7 P.M. Send to meet me." Then he went on, and in a few minutes found himself in the presence of the great man. The great man received him with an excellent courtesy. It is the special business of Prime Ministers to be civil in detail, though roughness, and perhaps almost rudeness in the gross, becomes not unfrequently a necessity of their position. To a proposed incoming subordinate a Prime Minister is, of course, very civil, and to a retreating subordinate he is generally more so,--unless the retreat be made under unfavourable circumstances. And to give good things is always pleasant, unless there be a suspicion that the good thing will be thought to be not good enough. No such suspicion as that now crossed the mind of Mr. Gresham. He had been pressed very much by various colleagues to admit this young man into the Paradise of his government, and had been pressed very much also to exclude him; and this had been continued till he had come to dislike the name of the young man. He did believe that the young man had behaved badly to Mr. Robert Kennedy, and he knew that the young man on one occasion had taken to kicking in harness, and running a course of his own. He had decided against the young man,--very much no doubt at the instance of Mr. Bonteen,--and he believed that in so doing he closed the Gates of Paradise against a Peri most anxious to enter it. He now stood with the key in his hand and the gate open,--and the seat to be allotted to the re-accepted one was that which he believed the Peri would most gratefully fill. He began by making a little speech about Mr. Bonteen. That was almost unavoidable. And he praised in glowing words the attitude which Phineas had maintained during the trial. He had been delighted with the re-election at Tankerville, and thought that the borough had done itself much honour. Then came forth his proposition. Lord Fawn had retired, absolutely broken down by repeated examinations respecting the man in the grey coat, and the office which Phineas had before held with so much advantage to the public, and comfort to his immediate chief, Lord Cantrip, was there for his acceptance. Mr. Gresham went on to express an ardent hope that he might have the benefit of Mr. Finn's services. It was quite manifest from his manner that he did not in the least doubt the nature of the reply which he would receive. Phineas had come primed with his answer,--so ready with it that it did not even seem to be the result of any hesitation at the moment. "I hope, Mr. Gresham, that you will be able to give me a few hours to think of this." Mr. Gresham's face fell, for, in truth, he wanted an immediate answer; and though he knew from experience that Secretaries of State, and First Lords, and Chancellors, do demand time, and will often drive very hard bargains before they will consent to get into harness, he considered that Under-Secretaries, Junior Lords, and the like, should skip about as they were bidden, and take the crumbs offered them without delay. If every underling wanted a few hours to think about it, how could any Government ever be got together? "I am sorry to put you to inconvenience," continued Phineas, seeing that the great man was but ill-satisfied, "but I am so placed that I cannot avail myself of your flattering kindness without some little time for consideration." "I had hoped that the office was one which you would like." "So it is, Mr. Gresham." "And I was told that you are now free from any scruples,--political scruples, I mean,--which might make it difficult for you to support the Government." "Since the Government came to our way of thinking,--a year or two ago,--about Tenant Right, I mean,--I do not know that there is any subject on which I am likely to oppose it. Perhaps I had better tell you the truth, Mr. Gresham." "Oh, certainly," said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of disagreeable truths. "When you came into office, after beating Mr. Daubeny on the Church question, no man in Parliament was more desirous of place than I was,--and I am sure that none of the disappointed ones felt their disappointment so keenly. It was aggravated by various circumstances,--by calumnies in newspapers, and by personal bickerings. I need not go into that wretched story of Mr. Bonteen, and the absurd accusation which grew out of those calumnies. These things have changed me very much. I have a feeling that I have been ill-used,--not by you, Mr. Gresham, specially, but by the party; and I look upon the whole question of office with altered eyes." "In filling up the places at his disposal, a Prime Minister, Mr. Finn, has a most unenviable task." "I can well believe it." "When circumstances, rather than any selection of his own, indicate the future occupant of any office, this abrogation of his patronage is the greatest blessing in the world to him." "I can believe that also." "I wish it were so with every office under the Crown. A Minister is rarely thanked, and would as much look for the peace of heaven in his office as for gratitude." "I am sorry that I should have made no exception to such thanklessness." "We shall neither of us get on by complaining;--shall we, Mr. Finn? You can let me have an answer perhaps by this time to-morrow." "If an answer by telegraph will be sufficient." "Quite sufficient. Yes or No. Nothing more will be wanted. You understand your own reasons, no doubt, fully; but if they were stated at length they would perhaps hardly enlighten me. Good-morning." Then as Phineas was turning his back, the Prime Minister remembered that it behoved him as Prime Minister to repress his temper. "I shall still hope, Mr. Finn, for a favourable answer." Had it not been for that last word Phineas would have turned again, and at once rejected the proposition. From Mr. Gresham's house he went by appointment to Mr. Monk's, and told him of the interview. Mr. Monk's advice to him had been exactly the same as that given by Madame Goesler and Lady Laura. Phineas, indeed, understood perfectly that no friend could or would give him any other advice. "He has his troubles, too," said Mr. Monk, speaking of the Prime Minister. "A man can hardly expect to hold such an office without trouble." "Labour of course there must be,--though I doubt whether it is so great as that of some other persons;--and responsibility. The amount of trouble depends on the spirit and nature of the man. Do you remember old Lord Brock? He was never troubled. He had a triple shield,--a thick skin, an equable temper, and perfect self-confidence. Mr. Mildmay was of a softer temper, and would have suffered had he not been protected by the idolatry of a large class of his followers. Mr. Gresham has no such protection. With a finer intellect than either, and a sense of patriotism quite as keen, he has a self-consciousness which makes him sore at every point. He knows the frailty of his temper, and yet cannot control it. And he does not understand men as did these others. Every word from an enemy is a wound to him. Every slight from a friend is a dagger in his side. But I can fancy that self-accusations make the cross on which he is really crucified. He is a man to whom I would extend all my mercy, were it in my power to be merciful." "You will hardly tell me that I should accept office under him by way of obliging him." "Were I you I should do so,--not to oblige him, but because I know him to be an honest man." "I care but little for honesty," said Phineas, "which is at the disposal of those who are dishonest. What am I to think of a Minister who could allow himself to be led by Mr. Bonteen?" CHAPTER LXXVIII. THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY. Phineas, as he journeyed down to Saulsby, knew that he had in truth made up his mind. He was going thither nominally that he might listen to the advice of almost his oldest political friend before he resolved on a matter of vital importance to himself; but in truth he was making the visit because he felt that he could not excuse himself from it without unkindness and ingratitude. She had implored him to come, and he was bound to go, and there were tidings to be told which he must tell. It was not only that he might give her his reasons for not becoming an Under-Secretary of State that he went to Saulsby. He felt himself bound to inform her that he intended to ask Marie Goesler to be his wife. He might omit to do so till he had asked the question,--and then say nothing of what he had done should his petition be refused; but it seemed to him that there would be cowardice in this. He was bound to treat Lady Laura as his friend in a special degree, as something more than his sister,--and he was bound above all things to make her understand in some plainest manner that she could be nothing more to him than such a friend. In his dealings with her he had endeavoured always to be honest,--gentle as well as honest; but now it was specially his duty to be honest to her. When he was young he had loved her, and had told her so,--and she had refused him. As a friend he had been true to her ever since, but that offer could never be repeated. And the other offer,--to the woman whom she was now accustomed to abuse,--must be made. Should Lady Laura choose to quarrel with him it must be so; but the quarrel should not be of his seeking. He was quite sure that he would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer, although by doing so he would himself throw away the very thing which he had devoted his life to acquire. In a foolish, soft moment,--as he now confessed to himself,--he had endeavoured to obtain for his own position the sympathy of the Minister. He had spoken of the calumnies which had hurt him, and of his sufferings when he found himself excluded from place in consequence of the evil stories which had been told of him. Mr. Gresham had, in fact, declined to listen to him;--had said Yes or No was all that he required, and had gone on to explain that he would be unable to understand the reasons proposed to be given even were he to hear them. Phineas had felt himself to be repulsed, and would at once have shown his anger, had not the Prime Minister silenced him for the moment by a civilly-worded repetition of the offer made. But the offer should certainly be declined. As he told himself that it must be so, he endeavoured to analyse the causes of this decision, but was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income. For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital, and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which was bright enough. If Marie Goesler accepted him, he need not, at any rate, look about for the means of earning a living. But he assured himself with perfect confidence that no hope in that direction would have any influence upon the answer he would give to Mr. Gresham. Had not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,--would any further softening be necessary,--by his obstinate refusal to comply with her advice? The two things had no reference to each other,--and should be regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer,--not because he hoped that he might live in idleness on the wealth of the woman he loved,--but because the chicaneries and intrigues of office had become distasteful to him. "I don't know which are the falser," he said to himself, "the mock courtesies or the mock indignations of statesmen." He found the Earl's carriage waiting for him at the station, and thought of many former days, as he was carried through the little town for which he had sat in Parliament, up to the house which he had once visited in the hope of wooing Violet Effingham. The women whom he had loved had all, at any rate, become his friends, and his thorough friendships were almost all with women. He and Lord Chiltern regarded each other with warm affection; but there was hardly ground for real sympathy between them. It was the same with Mr. Low and Barrington Erle. Were he to die there would be no gap in their lives;--were they to die there would be none in his. But with Violet Effingham,--as he still loved to call her to himself,--he thought it would be different. When the carriage stopped at the hall door he was thinking of her rather than of Lady Laura Kennedy. He was shown at once to his bedroom,--the very room in which he had written the letter to Lord Chiltern which had brought about the duel at Blankenberg. He was told that he would find Lady Laura in the drawing-room waiting for dinner for him. The Earl had already dined. "I am so glad you are come," said Lady Laura, welcoming him. "Papa is not very well and dined early, but I have waited for you, of course. Of course I have. You did not suppose I would let you sit down alone? I would not see you before you dressed because I knew that you must be tired and hungry, and that the sooner you got down the better. Has it not been hot?" "And so dusty! I only left Matching yesterday, and seem to have been on the railway ever since." "Government officials have to take frequent journeys, Mr. Finn. How long will it be before you have to go down to Scotland twice in one week, and back as often to form a Ministry? Your next journey must be into the dining-room;--in making which will you give me your arm?" She was, he thought, lighter in heart and pleasanter in manner than she had been since her return from Dresden. When she had made her little joke about his future ministerial duties the servant had been in the room, and he had not, therefore, stopped her by a serious answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner,--anxious that he should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious under her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as he did, that he must say that before long which would turn all her playfulness either to anger or to grief. "And who had you at Matching?" she asked. "Just the usual set." "Minus the poor old Duke?" "Yes; minus the old Duke certainly. The greatest change is in the name. Lady Glencora was so specially Lady Glencora that she ought to have been Lady Glencora to the end. Everybody calls her Duchess, but it does not sound half so nice." "And is he altered?" "Not in the least. You can trace the lines of lingering regret upon his countenance when people be-Grace him; but that is all. There was always about him a simple dignity which made it impossible that any one should slap him on the back; and that of course remains. He is the same Planty Pall; but I doubt whether any man ever ventured to call him Planty Pall to his face since he left Eton." "The house was full, I suppose?" "There were a great many there; among others Sir Gregory Grogram, who apologised to me for having tried to--put an end to my career." "Oh, Phineas!" "And Sir Harry Coldfoot, who seemed to take some credit to himself for having allowed the jury to acquit me. And Chiltern and his wife were there for a day or two." "What could take Oswald there?" "An embassy of State about the foxes. The Duke's property runs into his country. She is one of the best women that ever lived." "Violet?" "And one of the best wives." "She ought to be, for she is one of the happiest. What can she wish for that she has not got? Was your great friend there?" He knew well what great friend she meant. "Madame Max Goesler was there." "I suppose so. I can never quite forgive Lady Glencora for her intimacy with that woman." "Do not abuse her, Lady Laura." "I do not intend,--not to you at any rate. But I can better understand that she should receive the admiration of a gentleman than the affectionate friendship of a lady. That the old Duke should have been infatuated was intelligible." "She was very good to the old Duke." "But it was a kind of goodness which was hardly likely to recommend itself to his nephew's wife. Never mind; we won't talk about her now. Barrington was there?" "For a day or two." "He seems to be wasting his life." "Subordinates in office generally do, I think." "Do not say that, Phineas." "Some few push through, and one can almost always foretell who the few will be. There are men who are destined always to occupy second-rate places, and who seem also to know their fate. I never heard Erle speak even of an ambition to sit in the Cabinet." "He likes to be useful." "All that part of the business which distresses me is pleasant to him. He is fond of arrangements, and delights in little party successes. Either to effect or to avoid a count-out is a job of work to his taste, and he loves to get the better of the Opposition by keeping it in the dark. A successful plot is as dear to him as to a writer of plays. And yet he is never bitter as is Ratler, or unscrupulous as was poor Mr. Bonteen, or full of wrath as is Lord Fawn. Nor is he idle like Fitzgibbon. Erle always earns his salary." "When I said he was wasting his life, I meant that he did not marry. But perhaps a man in his position had better remain unmarried." Phineas tried to laugh, but hardly succeeded well. "That, however, is a delicate subject, and we will not touch it now. If you won't drink any wine we might as well go into the other room." Nothing had as yet been said on either of the subjects which had brought him to Saulsby, but there had been words which made the introduction of them peculiarly unpleasant. His tidings, however, must be told. "I shall not see Lord Brentford to-night?" he asked, when they were together in the drawing-room. "If you wish it you can go up to him. He will not come down." "Oh, no. It is only because I must return to-morrow." "To-morrow, Phineas!" "I must do so. I have pledged myself to see Mr. Monk,--and others also." "It is a short visit to make to us on my first return home! I hardly expected you at Loughlinter, but I thought that you might have remained a few nights under my father's roof." He could only reassert his assurance that he was bound to be back in London, and explain as best he might that he had come to Saulsby for a single night, only because he would not refuse her request to him. "I will not trouble you, Phineas, by complaints," she said. "I would give you no cause for complaint if I could avoid it." "And now tell me what has passed between you and Mr. Gresham," she said as soon as the servant had given them coffee. They were sitting by a window which opened down to the ground, and led on to the terrace and to the lawns below. The night was soft, and the air was heavy with the scent of many flowers. It was now past nine, and the sun had set; but there was a bright harvest moon, and the light, though pale, was clear as that of day. "Will you come and take a turn round the garden? We shall be better there than sitting here. I will get my hat; can I find yours for you?" So they both strolled out, down the terrace steps, and went forth, beyond the gardens, into the park, as though they had both intended from the first that it should be so. "I know you have not accepted Mr. Gresham's offer, or you would have told me so." "I have not accepted." "Nor have you refused?" "No; it is still open. I must send my answer by telegram to-morrow--Yes or No,--Mr. Gresham's time is too precious to admit of more." "Phineas, for Heaven's sake do not allow little feelings to injure you at such a time as this. It is of your own career, not of Mr. Gresham's manners, that you should think." "I have nothing to object to in Mr. Gresham. Yes or No will be quite sufficient." "It must be Yes." "It cannot be Yes, Lady Laura. That which I desired so ardently six months ago has now become so distasteful to me that I cannot accept it. There is an amount of hustling on the Treasury Bench which makes a seat there almost ignominious." "Do they hustle more than they did three years ago?" "I think they do, or if not it is more conspicuous to my eyes. I do not say that it need be ignominious. To such a one as was Mr. Palliser it certainly is not so. But it becomes so when a man goes there to get his bread, and has to fight his way as though for bare life. When office first comes, unasked for, almost unexpected, full of the charms which distance lends, it is pleasant enough. The new-comer begins to feel that he too is entitled to rub his shoulders among those who rule the world of Great Britain. But when it has been expected, longed for as I longed for it, asked for by my friends and refused, when all the world comes to know that you are a suitor for that which should come without any suit,--then the pleasantness vanishes." "I thought it was to be your career." "And I hoped so." "What will you do, Phineas? You cannot live without an income." "I must try," he said, laughing. "You will not share with your friend, as a friend should?" "No, Lady Laura. That cannot be done." "I do not see why it cannot. Then you might be independent." "Then I should indeed be dependent." "You are too proud to owe me anything." He wanted to tell her that he was too proud to owe such obligation as she had suggested to any man or any woman; but he hardly knew how to do so, intending as he did to inform her before they returned to the house of his intention to ask Madame Goesler to be his wife. He could discern the difference between enjoying his wife's fortune and taking gifts of money from one who was bound to him by no tie;--but to her in her present mood he could explain no such distinction. On a sudden he rushed at the matter in his mind. It had to be done, and must be done before he brought her back to the house. He was conscious that he had in no degree ill-used her. He had in nothing deceived her. He had kept back from her nothing which the truest friendship had called upon him to reveal to her. And yet he knew that her indignation would rise hot within her at his first word. "Laura," he said, forgetting in his confusion to remember her rank, "I had better tell you at once that I have determined to ask Madame Goesler to be my wife." "Oh, then;--of course your income is certain." "If you choose to regard my conduct in that light I cannot help it. I do not think that I deserve such reproach." "Why not tell it all? You are engaged to her?" "Not so. I have not asked her yet." "And why do you come to me with the story of your intentions,--to me of all persons in the world? I sometimes think that of all the hearts that ever dwelt within a man's bosom yours is the hardest." "For God's sake do not say that of me." "Do you remember when you came to me about Violet,--to me,--to me? I could bear it then because she was good and earnest, and a woman that I could love even though she robbed me. And I strove for you even against my own heart,--against my own brother. I did; I did. But how am I to bear it now? What shall I do now? She is a woman I loathe." "Because you do not know her." "Not know her! And are your eyes so clear at seeing that you must know her better than others? She was the Duke's mistress." "That is untrue, Lady Laura." "But what difference does it make to me? I shall be sure that you will have bread to eat, and horses to ride, and a seat in Parliament without being forced to earn it by your labour. We shall meet no more, of course." "I do not think that you can mean that." "I will never receive that woman, nor will I cross the sill of her door. Why should I?" "Should she become my wife,--that I would have thought might have been the reason why." "Surely, Phineas, no man ever understood a woman so ill as you do." "Because I would fain hope that I need not quarrel with my oldest friend?" "Yes, sir; because you think you can do this without quarrelling. How should I speak to her of you; how listen to what she would tell me? Phineas, you have killed me at last." Why could he not tell her that it was she who had done the wrong when she gave her hand to Robert Kennedy? But he could not tell her, and he was dumb. "And so it's settled!" "No; not settled." "Psha! I hate your mock modesty! It is settled. You have become far too cautious to risk fortune in such an adventure. Practice has taught you to be perfect. It was to tell me this that you came down here." "Partly so." "It would have been more generous of you, sir, to have remained away." "I did not mean to be ungenerous." Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his neck, and burying her face upon his bosom. They were at the moment in the centre of the park, on the grass beneath the trees, and the moon was bright over their heads. He held her to his breast while she sobbed, and then relaxed his hold as she raised herself to look into his face. After a moment she took his hat from his head with one hand, and with the other swept the hair back from his brow. "Oh, Phineas," she said, "Oh, my darling! My idol that I have worshipped when I should have worshipped my God!" [Illustration: Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his neck.] After that they roamed for nearly an hour backwards and forwards beneath the trees, till at last she became calm and almost reasonable. She acknowledged that she had long expected such a marriage, looking forward to it as a great sorrow. She repeated over and over again her assertion that she could not "know" Madame Goesler as the wife of Phineas, but abstained from further evil words respecting the lady. "It is better that we should be apart," she said at last. "I feel that it is better. When we are both old, if I should live, we may meet again. I knew that it was coming, and we had better part." And yet they remained out there, wandering about the park for a long portion of the summer night. She did not reproach him again, nor did she speak much of the future; but she alluded to all the incidents of their past life, showing him that nothing which he had done, no words which he had spoken, had been forgotten by her. "Of course it has been my fault," she said, as at last she parted with him in the drawing-room. "When I was younger I did not understand how strong the heart can be. I should have known it, and I pay for my ignorance with the penalty of my whole life." Then he left her, kissing her on both cheeks and on her brow, and went to his bedroom with the understanding that he would start for London on the following morning before she was up. CHAPTER LXXIX. AT LAST--AT LAST. As he took his ticket Phineas sent his message to the Prime Minister, taking that personage literally at his word. The message was, No. When writing it in the office it seemed to him to be uncourteous, but he found it difficult to add any other words that should make it less so. He supplemented it with a letter on his arrival in London, in which he expressed his regret that certain circumstances of his life which had occurred during the last month or two made him unfit to undertake the duties of the very pleasant office to which Mr. Gresham had kindly offered to appoint him. That done, he remained in town but one night, and then set his face again towards Matching. When he reached that place it was already known that he had refused to accept Mr. Gresham's offer, and he was met at once with regrets and condolements. "I am sorry that it must be so," said the Duke,--who was sorry, for he liked the man, but who said not a word more upon the subject. "You are still young, and will have further opportunities," said Lord Cantrip, "but I wish that you could have consented to come back to your old chair." "I hope that at any rate we shall not have you against us," said Sir Harry Coldfoot. Among themselves they declared one to another that he had been so completely upset by his imprisonment and subsequent trial as to be unable to undertake the work proposed to him. "It is not a very nice thing, you know, to be accused of murder," said Sir Gregory, "and to pass a month or two under the full conviction that you are going to be hung. He'll come right again some day. I only hope it may not be too late." "So you have decided for freedom?" said Madame Goesler to him that evening,--the evening of the day on which he had returned. "Yes, indeed." "I have nothing to say against your decision now. No doubt your feelings have prompted you right." "Now that it is done, of course I am full of regrets," said Phineas. "That is simple human nature, I suppose." "Simple enough; and the worst of it is that I cannot quite explain even to myself why I have done it. Every friend I had in the world told me that I was wrong, and yet I could not help myself. The thing was offered to me, not because I was thought to be fit for it, but because I had become wonderful by being brought near to a violent death! I remember once, when I was a child, having a rocking-horse given to me because I had fallen from the top of the house to the bottom without breaking my neck. The rocking-horse was very well then, but I don't care now to have one bestowed upon me for any such reason." "Still, if the rocking-horse is in itself a good rocking-horse--" "But it isn't." "I don't mean to say a word against your decision." "It isn't good. It is one of those toys which look to be so very desirable in the shop-windows, but which give no satisfaction when they are brought home. I'll tell you what occurred the other day. The circumstances happen to be known to me, though I cannot tell you my authority. My dear old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, in the performance of his official duties, had to give an opinion on a matter affecting an expenditure of some thirty or forty thousand pounds of public money. I don't think that Laurence has generally a very strong bias this way or that on such questions, but in the case in question he took upon himself to be very decided. He wrote, or got some one to write, a report proving that the service of the country imperatively demanded that the money should be spent, and in doing so was strictly within his duty." "I am glad to hear that he can be so energetic." "The Chancellor of the Exchequer got hold of the matter, and told Fitzgibbon that the thing couldn't be done." "That was all right and constitutional, I suppose." "Quite right and constitutional. But something had to be said about it in the House, and Laurence, with all his usual fluency and beautiful Irish brogue, got up and explained that the money would be absolutely thrown away if expended on a purpose so futile as that proposed. I am assured that the great capacity which he has thus shown for official work and official life will cover a multitude of sins." "You would hardly have taken Mr. Fitzgibbon as your model statesman." "Certainly not;--and if the story affected him only it would hardly be worth telling. But the point of it lies in this;--that he disgusted no one by what he did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks him a very convenient man to have about him, and Mr. Gresham feels the comfort of possessing tools so pliable." "Do you think that public life then is altogether a mistake, Mr. Finn?" "For a poor man I think that it is, in this country. A man of fortune may be independent; and because he has the power of independence those who are higher than he will not expect him to be subservient. A man who takes to parliamentary office for a living may live by it, but he will have but a dog's life of it." "If I were you, Mr. Finn, I certainly would not choose a dog's life." He said not a word to her on that occasion about herself, having made up his mind that a certain period of the following day should be chosen for the purpose, and he had hardly yet arranged in his mind what words he would use on that occasion. It seemed to him that there would be so much to be said that he must settle beforehand some order of saying it. It was not as though he had merely to tell her of his love. There had been talk of love between them before, on which occasion he had been compelled to tell her that he could not accept that which she offered to him. It would be impossible, he knew, not to refer to that former conversation. And then he had to tell her that he, now coming to her as a suitor and knowing her to be a very rich woman, was himself all but penniless. He was sure, or almost sure, that she was as well aware of this fact as he was himself; but, nevertheless, it was necessary that he should tell her of it,--and if possible so tell her as to force her to believe him when he assured her that he asked her to be his wife, not because she was rich, but because he loved her. It was impossible that all this should be said as they sat side by side in the drawing-room with a crowd of people almost within hearing, and Madame Goesler had just been called upon to play, which she always did directly she was asked. He was invited to make up a rubber, but he could not bring himself to care for cards at the present moment. So he sat apart and listened to the music. If all things went right with him to-morrow that music,--or the musician who made it,--would be his own for the rest of his life. Was he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the world. But so had Lady Laura regarded him when he first told her of his love at Loughlinter. She had been his dearest friend, but she had declined to become his wife; and it had been partly so with Violet Effingham, whose friendship to him had been so sweet as to make him for a while almost think that there was more than friendship. Marie Goesler had certainly once loved him;--but so had he once loved Laura Standish. He had been wretched for a while because Lady Laura had refused him. His feelings now were altogether changed, and why should not the feelings of Madame Goesler have undergone a similar change? There was no doubt of her friendship; but then neither was there any doubt of his for Lady Laura. And in spite of her friendship, would not revenge be dear to her,--revenge of that nature which a slighted woman must always desire? He had rejected her, and would it not be fair also that he should be rejected? "I suppose you'll be in your own room before lunch to-morrow," he said to her as they separated for the night. It had come to pass from the constancy of her visits to Matching in the old Duke's time, that a certain small morning-room had been devoted to her, and this was still supposed to be her property,--so that she was not driven to herd with the public or to remain in her bedroom during all the hours of the morning. "Yes," she said; "I shall go out immediately after breakfast, but I shall soon be driven in by the heat, and then I shall be there till lunch. The Duchess always comes about half-past twelve, to complain generally of the guests." She answered him quite at her ease, making arrangement for privacy if he should desire it, but doing so as though she thought that he wanted to talk to her about his trial, or about politics, or the place he had just refused. Surely she would hardly have answered him after such a fashion had she suspected that he intended to ask her to be his wife. At a little before noon the next morning he knocked at her door, and was told to enter. "I didn't go out after all," she said. "I hadn't courage to face the sun." "I saw that you were not in the garden." "If I could have found you I would have told you that I should be here all the morning. I might have sent you a message, only--only I didn't." "I have come--" "I know why you have come." "I doubt that. I have come to tell you that I love you." "Oh Phineas;--at last, at last!" And in a moment she was in his arms. It seemed to him that from that moment all the explanations, and all the statements, and most of the assurances were made by her and not by him. After this first embrace he found himself seated beside her, holding her hand. "I do not know that I am right," said he. "Why not right?" "Because you are rich and I have nothing." "If you ever remind me of that again I will strike you," she said, raising up her little fist and bringing it down with gentle pressure on his shoulder. "Between you and me there must be nothing more about that. It must be an even partnership. There must be ever so much about money, and you'll have to go into dreadful details, and make journeys to Vienna to see that the houses don't tumble down;--but there must be no question between you and me of whence it came." "You will not think that I have to come to you for that?" "Have you ever known me to have a low opinion of myself? Is it probable that I shall account myself to be personally so mean and of so little value as to imagine that you cannot love me? I know you love me. But Phineas, I have not been sure till very lately that you would ever tell me so. As for me--! Oh, heavens! when I think of it." "Tell me that you love me now." "I think I have said so plainly enough. I have never ceased to love you since I first knew you well enough for love. And I'll tell you more,--though perhaps I shall say what you will think condemns me;--you are the only man I ever loved. My husband was very good to me,--and I was, I think, good to him. But he was many years my senior, and I cannot say I loved him,--as I do you." Then she turned to him, and put her head on his shoulder. "And I loved the old Duke, too, after a fashion. But it was a different thing from this. I will tell you something about him some day that I have never yet told to a human being." "Tell me now." "No; not till I am your wife. You must trust me. But I will tell you," she said, "lest you should be miserable. He asked me to be his wife." "The old Duke?" "Yes, indeed, and I refused to be a--duchess. Lady Glencora knew it all, and, just at the time I was breaking my heart,--like a fool, for you! Yes, for you! But I got over it, and am not broken-hearted a bit. Oh, Phineas, I am so happy now." Exactly at the time she had mentioned on the previous evening, at half-past twelve, the door was opened, and the Duchess entered the room. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, "perhaps I am in the way; perhaps I am interrupting secrets." "No, Duchess." "Shall I retire? I will at once if there be anything confidential going on." "It has gone on already, and been completed," said Madame Goesler rising from her seat. "It is only a trifle. Mr. Finn has asked me to be his wife." "Well?" "I couldn't refuse Mr. Finn a little thing like that." "I should think not, after going all the way to Prague to find a latch-key! I congratulate you, Mr. Finn, with all my heart." "Thanks, Duchess." "And when is it to be?" "We have not thought about that yet, Mr. Finn,--have we?" said Madame Goesler. "Adelaide Palliser is going to be married from here some time in the autumn," said the Duchess, "and you two had better take advantage of the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter, let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned. Before dinner on that day every one of the guests at Matching Priory knew that the man who had refused to be made Under-Secretary of State had been accepted by that possessor of fabulous wealth who was well known to the world as Madame Goesler of Park Lane. "I am very glad that you did not take office under Mr. Gresham," she said to him when they first met each other again in London. "Of course when I was advising you I could not be sure that this would happen. Now you can bide your time, and if the opportunity offers you can go to work under better auspices." CHAPTER LXXX. CONCLUSION. There remains to us the very easy task of collecting together the ends of the thread of our narrative, and tying them into a simple knot, so that there may be no unravelling. Of Mr. Emilius it has been already said that his good fortune clung to him so far that it was found impossible to connect him with the tragedy of Bolton Row. But he was made to vanish for a certain number of years from the world, and dear little Lizzie Eustace was left a free woman. When last we heard of her she was at Naples, and there was then a rumour that she was about to join her fate to that of Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, with whom pecuniary matters had lately not been going comfortably. Let us hope that the match, should it be a match, may lead to the happiness and respectability of both of them. As all the world knows, Lord and Lady Chiltern still live at Harrington Hall, and he has been considered to do very well with the Brake country. He still grumbles about Trumpeton Wood, and says that it will take a lifetime to repair the injuries done by Mr. Fothergill;--but then who ever knew a Master of Hounds who wasn't ill-treated by the owners of coverts? Of Mr. Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor, living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect to see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin took him in hand somewhat sharply, made him travel abroad during the summer, and brought him out the next season, "as fresh as paint," as the members of the Brake Hunt declared. It was known to every sportsman in the country that poor Mr. Spooner had been in love; but the affair was allowed to be a mystery, and no one ever spoke to Spooner himself upon the subject. It is probable that he now reaps no slight amount of gratification from his memory of the romance. The marriage between Gerard Maule and Adelaide Palliser was celebrated with great glory at Matching, and was mentioned in all the leading papers as an alliance in high life. When it became known to Mr. Maule, Senior, that this would be so, and that the lady would have a very considerable fortune from the old Duke, he reconciled himself to the marriage altogether, and at once gave way in that matter of Maule Abbey. Nothing he thought would be more suitable than that the young people should live at the old family place. So Maule Abbey was fitted up, and Mr. and Mrs. Maule have taken up their residence there. Under the influence of his wife he has promised to attend to his farming, and proposes to do no more than go out and see the hounds when they come into his neighbourhood. Let us hope that he may prosper. Should the farming come to a good end more will probably have been due to his wife's enterprise than to his own. The energetic father is, as all the world knows, now in pursuit of a widow with three thousand a year who has lately come out in Cavendish Square. Of poor Lord Fawn no good account can be given. To his thinking, official life had none of those drawbacks with which the fantastic feelings of Phineas Finn had invested it. He could have been happy for ever at the India Board or at the Colonial Office;--but his life was made a burden to him by the affair of the Bonteen murder. He was charged with having nearly led to the fatal catastrophe of Phineas Finn's condemnation by his erroneous evidence, and he could not bear the accusation. Then came the further affair of Mr. Emilius, and his mind gave way;--and he disappeared. Let us hope that he may return some day with renewed health, and again be of service to his country. Poetical justice reached Mr. Quintus Slide of The People's Banner. The acquittal and following glories of Phineas Finn were gall and wormwood to him; and he continued his attack upon the member for Tankerville even after it was known that he had refused office, and was about to be married to Madame Goesler. In these attacks he made allusions to Lady Laura which brought Lord Chiltern down upon him, and there was an action for libel. The paper had to pay damages and costs, and the proprietors resolved that Mr. Quintus Slide was too energetic for their purposes. He is now earning his bread in some humble capacity on the staff of The Ballot Box,--which is supposed to be the most democratic daily newspaper published in London. Mr. Slide has, however, expressed his intention of seeking his fortune in New York. Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly did himself a good turn by his obliging deference to the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has been in office ever since. It must be acknowledged of all our leading statesmen that gratitude for such services is their characteristic. It is said that he spends much of his eloquence in endeavouring to make his wife believe that the air of County Mayo is the sweetest in the world. Hitherto, since his marriage, this eloquence has been thrown away, for she has always been his companion through the Session in London. It is rumoured that Barrington Erle is to be made Secretary for Ireland, but his friends doubt whether the office will suit him. The marriage between Marie Goesler and our hero did not take place till October, and then they went abroad for the greater part of the winter, Phineas having received leave of absence officially from the Speaker and unofficially from his constituents. After all that he had gone through it was acknowledged that so much ease should be permitted to him. They went first to Vienna, and then back into Italy, and were unheard of by their English friends for nearly six months. In April they reappeared in London, and the house in Park Lane was opened with great _éclat_. Of Phineas every one says that of all living men he has been the most fortunate. The present writer will not think so unless he shall soon turn his hand to some useful task. Those who know him best say that he will of course go into office before long. Of poor Lady Laura hardly a word need be said. She lives at Saulsby the life of a recluse, and the old Earl her father is still alive. The Duke, as all the world knows, is on the very eve of success with the decimal coinage. But his hair is becoming grey, and his back is becoming bent; and men say that he will never live as long as his uncle. But then he will have done a great thing,--and his uncle did only little things. Of the Duchess no word need be said. Nothing will ever change the Duchess. 
34321	----	{~--- UTF-8 BOM ---~} ============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== SYNDROME They were promised a miracle cure for the deadly diseases destroying their lives. It seemed too good to be true, but to the desperate and dying it was the only chance for survival. Now they're part of a bizarre secret experiment that reverses the aging process - an experiment gone out of control. To stop the madness, one woman must enter a shocking nightmare world, where scientists control your body - and your mind - and living makes you beg for death . . . In her mid-thirties, Alexa Hampton runs her own interior design firm in New York's Soho and has a daily run to keep fit. But now her world is narrowing as a childhood heart mishap increasingly threatens to lethally impact her life. Then out of nowhere her black-sheep younger brother appears and insists she go to a clinic in New Jersey to enter stem-cell clinical trials that are working wonders. The clinic is owned by her brother's boss, the eccentric millionaire Winston Bartlett. Also interested in the clinic is the medical reporter Stone Aimes, who's hoping to penetrate Bartlett's veil of secrecy and find out what's going on there. He has personal as well as professional reasons for wanting to get closer to Winston Bartlett. He is also a long-ago lover of Alexa's and still carrying something of a torch for her though they have long been out of touch. As Alexa investigates the clinic, their paths cross and together they slowly uncover the horrifying truth about what can happen when stem- cell technology is taken to its ultimate limit. A bizarre secret experiment to reverse the aging process has gone out of control. Winston Bartlett's young mistress, the TV personality Kristen Starr, had an anti-aging procedure that went awry and now all her cells are being replaced with new. The side effects are horrific. No one can stop what is happening: she is growing younger, destined to become a child again. Bartlett has had the same procedure and now he knows he's next. It's only a matter of time till he too regresses to childhood, and then . . . no one knows. Alexa and Stone become prisoners in the clinic and then Bartlett and his Dutch medical researcher Karl van der Vliet begin a bizarre experiment on Alexa, hoping to produce antibodies to save Kristen, and Bartlett. In a stunning, blazing finale, Alexa turns the tables on them all, only to discover that she's now, suddenly unlike anyone else who has ever lived. BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info THOMAS HOOVER PINNACLE BOOKS Kensington Publishing Corp. PINNACLE BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright © 2003 by Thomas Hoover Quote copyright © 2000 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. First Pinnacle Books Printing: November 2003 ISBN:0-7860-1314-1 Key Words THOMAS HOOVER (Author) SYNDROME (Novel: Medical Thriller) Heart disease, Alzheimer's, Stem Cells, Aortic Stenosis, Medical Columns, Aging, Fountain of Youth, Regenerative Medicine _"The potential [of stem cells] for saving lives . . . may be unlimited. Given the proper signal or environment, stem cells, transplanted into human tissue, can be induced to develop into brain, heart, skin, bone marrow cells--indeed any specialized cells. The scientific research community believes that the transplanted stem cells may be able to regenerate dead or dying human tissue, reversing the progress of disease." _Michael J. Fox The New York Times (Op-Ed), November 1, 2000 SYNDROME Chapter 1 _Sunday, April 5 6:49 A.M. _ Alexa Hampton was awakened by a sensation in her chest. The alarm wasn't set to go off for another eleven minutes, but she knew her sleep was finished. Not again! She rolled over and slapped the blue pillowcase. That little sound from her heart and the twinges of angina, that catchall for heart discomfort, was happening more and more now, just as Dr. Ekelman had warned her. But she wasn't going to let it stop her from living her life to the fullest as long as she could, and right now that meant having her morning run. She curled her legs around, onto the floor, reached for a nitroglycerin tab, and slipped it under her tongue. Known as a vasodilator, the nitro lowered the workload on her heart by expanding her veins. It should get her through the workout .... That was when she felt a warm presence rub against her leg. "Hi, baby." Still sucking on the tab, she reached over and tousled Knickers' gray-and-white hair, then pushed it back from her dog's eyes. Her Old English sheepdog, a huge hirsute off-road vehicle, turned and licked her hand. Knickers was ready to hit the trail. She'd been dreaming of Steve when the chest tightness came, and maybe the emotion that stirred up had caused the angina. She still dreamed of him often, and it was always someplace where they had been together and loved, and they were ever on the brink of some disaster. That frequently caused her heart to race, waking her. This time it was the vacation they took six years ago, in the spring. They were sailing off Norman's Cay in the Bahamas. She was raising the jib, the salt spray in her hair, but then she looked up and realized they were about to ram a reef. She felt the dreams were her unconscious telling her to beware her current precarious condition. If, as is said, at the moment of your passing, your entire life flashes before your eyes, then the dreams were like that, only in slow motion. It was as though she were being prepared for something. The dreams were a premonition. She had a pretty good idea of what. Ally had had rheumatic fever when she was five, which went undetected long enough to scar a valve in her heart. The formal name was rheumatoid aortic stenosis, a rare, almost freakish condition that had shaped her entire life. The pediatrician at Mount Sinai had told her parents they should think twice about allowing her to engage in any vigorous activity. Her heart's function could be deceptively normal during childhood but when she got older . . . Well, why stress that organ now and hasten the inevitable day when it could no longer keep up with the rest of her body? She had refused to listen. She'd played volleyball in grade school, basketball in high school, and she became a disciplined runner when she went to Columbia to study architecture. She wanted to prove that you could make your heart stronger if you believed hard enough and wanted to live hard enough. Now, though, it was all catching up. She'd had a complete checkup two weeks ago Thursday, including a stress test and Doppler echocardiogram, and Dr. Ekelman had laid out the situation, gazing over her half-lens glasses and pulling at her chin. The normal twinkle in her eyes was entirely absent. "Alexa, your condition has begun worsening. There's a clear aortic murmur now when your pulse goes up. How long can you go on living in denial? You really can't keep on stressing your heart the way you have been. You can have a normal life, but it's got to be low-key. Don't push your luck." "Living half a life is so depressing," she'd declared, not entirely sure she meant it. "It's almost worse than none at all." "Ally, I'm warning you. If you start having chest sensations that don't respond to nitro, call me immediately. I mean that. There's a new drug, Ranolazine, that temporarily shifts your heart over to using glucose as a fuel instead of fatty acids and provides more energy for a given amount of oxygen. It will make the pain back off, but I only want to start you on that as a last resort. That's the final stop before open- heart surgery and a prosthetic aortic valve." Day by day, the illusion of normality was getting harder and harder to maintain. She had been playing second violin in an amateur string quartet called the West Village Oldies, but a month ago she'd had to drop out. She didn't have the endurance to practice enough to keep up with the others. Blast. It was having to give up things you love that really hurt. Still, she was determined to keep a positive attitude. There was your heart, and then there was heart. You had to understand the difference. She lay back to wait for the alarm and try to compose her mind. This Sunday morning was actually the one day of the year she most dreaded. The anniversary. It had been back when Steve was still alive. They were living in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, in a brownstone town house they were renting. The rent was high, but they were doing all right. Steve was a political consultant, who had helped some fledgling candidates overcome the odds and win important elections. In between campaigns here, he also got work in the nominal democracies in Latin America. She was a partner in a small firm of architects who had all been at Columbia together and decided to team up after graduation and start a business. There were four of them--she was the only woman--and it was a struggle at the beginning. For the first three years they had to live off crumbs tossed their way by the big boys, subcontracts from Skidmore and other giants. They felt like they were a high-paid version of Manpower, Inc., doing grunt work, designing the interiors of shopping malls in the Midwest and banks in Saudi Arabia, while their prime contractors got to keep all the sexy, big-budget jobs that called for creativity, like a glass-and-steel office tower in L.A. But then interesting work finally started to trickle in, including a plum job to convert a massive parking garage in Greenwich Village into a luxury condominium. Through a wild coincidence (or luck) she had personally designed the apartment she later ended up buying for herself. Just when everything seemed to be turning around and going her way, an event happened that stopped her in her tracks. Five years ago on this very day, April 5, her mother, Nina, phoned her at six-thirty in the morning and, in a trembling voice that still haunted, announced that her father was dead. Arthur Wade Hampton was fifty-nine and he'd been cleaning his Browning shotgun for an early-morning hunting trip to Long Island--so he'd claimed the night before--and ... she was awakened by the explosion of a discharge. A horrible accident in the kitchen of their co-op in the West Village. Like Hemingway. Thinking back, they both realized it was the wrong time of year to hunt anything--but they both also knew he wanted the world to think that. Moreover, it was precisely the kind of vital lie they'd need to get through the pointed questions and skeptical looks that lay ahead. It was a knowledge all the more palpable for being unspoken. There's no time like those first moments after a tragedy to create a special reality for yourself. It was only in the aftermath that she managed to unravel the reason. He owned and operated an interior-design firm in SoHo called CitiSpace, and he had mortgaged it to the hilt. He was on the verge of bankruptcy. (That was why Ally had not spoken to her younger brother, Grant, in the last 4 1/2 years.) She felt she had no choice but to try to salvage what was left of the business and her father's reputation. She left the architectural firm and took over CitiSpace. It turned out she was easily as good an interior designer as she had been an architect, and before long she had a backlog of work and was adding staff. She restructured and, eventually paid off the firm's debt; it was now on a sound financial footing. These days CitiSpace specialized in architectural rehabs in the Greenwich Village area, with as many SoHo and TriBeCa lofts as came her way. The work was mostly residential, but lately some lucrative commercial office jobs were beginning to walk through the door. Anything dependent on luxury real estate can be vulnerable in dicey times, but she'd been able to give everybody a holiday bonus for the past couple of years. She'd even given herself one this year, in the form of this new condo apartment, which she loved. Another major reason she'd taken over CitiSpace was to try to provide her mother some peace and dignity in her twilight years. But then, irony of ironies, Nina, who was a very lively sixty-six, was diagnosed eighteen months ago with early-onset Alzheimer's. Now her consciousness was rapidly slipping away. All the things that had happened over the last few years had called for a special kind of heart. She had known Steve Jensen, a freelance political consultant, for eight years, and they'd lived together for three of those, before they got married. He was warm and tender and sexy, and she'd envisioned them in rocking chairs forty years down the road. They'd been married for only six months when he got a job to help reelect the president of Belize. At first he was reluctant, concerned about human rights issues, but then he decided the other candidate, the alternative, was even worse. So he went. How many things can be destined to go wrong in your life? Exactly seven months after her dad died, she received a phone call from the American Embassy in Belmopan, Belize. Steve had been flying with the presidential candidate over a stretch of southern rain forest in a single-engine Cessna when a sudden thunderstorm came out of the Caribbean and the plane lost radio contact. That was the last, etc. She rushed there, but after two weeks the "rescue" officially became a "recovery" mission. Except there was never any recovery. After two months she flew back alone, the loneliest plane ride of her life. She still had his clothes in her closet, as though to keep hope alive. When you love someone so much you think you could never live without them--and then one day you're forced to--it resets your thinking. Her dad's death and then Steve's . . . She wanted to love life, but life sometimes felt like it was asking more than she should have to give. She currently had no one special to spend her weekends with, but she hadn't given up, nor was she pushing it. All things in time, except time could be running out. . . . Brrrring went the alarm and Knickers responded with a lively "Woof" She was anxious to get going. "Come on, baby," Ally said. "Time for a treat." She struggled up and made her way into the kitchen and got down a box of small rawhide chews. It would give Knickers something to occupy her mind for the few minutes it took to get ready. Since she lived at the west end of Barrow Street, right across the highway from the new Hudson River Park esplanade that defined that mighty river's New York bank, she had a perfect course for her morning runs. She usually liked to run down to the park at the rejuvenated Battery Park City and then back. She didn't know what the distance was exactly, maybe three-quarters of a mile each way, maybe slightly more, but it fit her endurance nicely. The weather was still cool enough in the mornings that Knickers could accompany her at full trot. In the heat of summer, however, they both had to cut back. She'd put on blue sweats, got her Walkman prepped with a Beethoven quintet, and was just finishing cinching her running shoes when the phone jangled. _Sunday, April 5 7:18 A.M. _ Grant Hampton listened to the ringing and felt the sweat on his palms. For a normal person, this would be an insane time to call, but knowing his nutbag sister, she was probably already up and about to go out for her daily run. And this on a Sunday morning, for chrissake, when rational people were drinking coffee or having sex or doing something sensible like retrieving the Times from the hallway and reading the columns in the Business section. He had left Tanya, his runway model live-in, to get her beauty sleep and had driven downtown at this unthinkable hour on a mission. He was chief financial officer of Bartlett Medical Devices, Inc., which was in imminent danger of going under and taking him with it. Come on, Ally. Pick up the frigging phone. He gazed out the windshield of his blue Porsche, now parked directly across the street from Alexa's lobby, and tried to calm his pulse. He hadn't entirely worked out the pitch, but that was okay because he wanted to sound spontaneous. Who was it said, "Sincerity, if you can just fake that, you've got it made?" That was what-- "Hello." Thank God she's picked up. "Hi, sis, remember the sound of my voice? Long time, right?" Come on, he thought, give me an opening here. There was a pause that Grant Hampton thought lasted an eternity. "You picked a funny time to call." Is that all she has to say? Four and a half frigging years she shuts me out of her life, blaming me, and then ... "Well, Ally, I figured there's gotta be a statute of limitations on being accused of something I didn't do. So I decided to take a flier that maybe four years and change was in the ballpark." "Grant, do you know what time it is? This is Sunday and--" "Hey, this is the hour you do your Sunday run, right? If memory serves. So I thought I might drive down and keep you company." He didn't want to let her know that he was already there. That would seem presumptuous and probably tick her off even more. But by God he had to get to her. Again there was a long pause. Like she was trying to collect and marshal her anger. "You want to come to see me? Now? That's a heck of a--" "Look, there's something really important I need to talk to you about. It's actually a big favor for you, sis. You've surely heard of Winston Bartlett?" "I've also heard of Donald Trump. So?" "Well, he's got a clinic out in New Jersey that--" "Grant, I know you're a big shot in his medical conglomerate or whatever it is, but I'm not interested in whatever you're peddling. I'm going out to run now." He heard the sound of the phone clicking off, without so much as a good-bye. Jesus, he thought, she really is ticked. This is going to be harder than I thought. Okay, here goes Plan B. He started the Porsche and slowly backed to the corner of Washington Street, where he parked again and then hunkered down, loving the smell of the new leather seat. Ally was going to come charging out of the front door in about two minutes, with that damned sheepdog that Steve gave her, assuming it was still around. Grant Hampton was three years younger than Alexa and he lived in a different world. Whereas she'd never wanted to be anything but an architect, he had aimed directly for NYU School of Business. After that, he had gone to Wall Street and gotten a broker's license and begun an extremely lucrative career as a bond trader for Goldman Sachs. He discovered he had the nerves, as well as a gift for handling big numbers in his head. Soon he had a duplex co-op on the twenty-sixth floor of a new building on Third Avenue in the East Sixties. He loved the money and the pad He also liked how easy it was to pick up models at downtown clubs if you had your own co-op, a Porsche, and were six feet tall with a designer wardrobe. That was where he met Tanya, also six feet tall, a striking (natural) redhead who did a lot of runway work for Chloe. He thought he was making a lot of money, but Tanya, who could order a two-hundred-dollar bottle of Dom Perignon to have something to pass the time while the hors d'oeuvres were being whipped up at Nobu, taught him he was just barely getting by. She was accustomed to screwing men who had some depth to their money. But when he tried a financial endeavor on the side, it turned into a disaster. Time to move on. He sent around his resume and managed to get an interview with BMD, which was looking for someone to help them hedge their exposure in foreign currencies. The next thing he knew, he was trading bonds for Winston Bartlett's personal account. When Bartlett's CFO died of a heart attack at age forty-nine (while undergoing oral sex in the backseat of a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car), Grant Hampton got temporarily drafted to take over his responsibilities. That was two years ago. He was aggressive enough that there was never a search for a replacement. He had made the big time, and he had done it before he was thirty-five. But now it all hung in the balance. If this didn't work out, he could end up cold-calling widows out of Dun & Bradstreet, hawking third-rate IPOs. Tanya would be gone in a heartbeat. _Ally, work with me for chrissake. Sunday, April 5 7:57 A.M._ As Alexa stepped out of the lobby, the morning was glorious and clear. Spring had arrived in a burst of pear and cherry blossoms in the garden of St. Luke's Church, up the street, but here by the river the morning air was still brisk enough to make her skin tingle. The sun was lightening the east, setting a golden halo above the skyscrapers of mid-town. Here, with the wind tasting lightly of salt, the roadways were Sunday-morning silent and it was a magic time that always made her feel the world was young and perfect and she was capable of anything. This was her private thinking time--even dreaming time--and she shared it only with Knickers, who was trotting along beside her now, full of enthusiasm. Ally suspected that her sheepdog enjoyed their morning runs along the river even more than she did. As she headed south, toward Battery Park City, she pondered the weird phone call she'd just gotten from Grant Seth Hampton. That was his full name. She called him Grant, but her mother, Nina, always called him Seth. Unfortunately, by whatever name, Grant Seth Hampton, an unremitting hustler, was still her brother. She wished it were not so, but some things couldn't be changed. In truth, she actually thought Grant had exhibited a kind of sequential personality over his life. When they were kids, he'd seemed rakish but also decent. At the time, of course, she was impulsive and rebellious herself, admiring of his spunk. Now she viewed that as his Early Personality. Later, when he was pushing thirty and the Wall Street pressure and the coke moved in, he evolved into Personality Number Two. He lost touch with reality and in the process he also lost his inner moral compass. His character bent and then broke under the stress, proving, she now supposed, that he was actually a weak reed after all. Now she didn't know what his personality was. Grant, Grant, she often lamented, how did everything manage to turn out so bad with you? He'd been a bond trader for Goldman, and at family gatherings he'd brag about making three hundred thou a year. But he had a high-maintenance lifestyle involving downtown models he was constantly trying to impress with jewelry and expensive vacations, so that wasn't enough. He decided to freelance on the side. He set up a Web site and, with his broker's license, opened a retail business trading naked futures contracts on Treasuries. He managed to get some naive clients and for a while made a profit for them. But then the market turned against him, or maybe he lost his rabbit's foot, and he began losing a lot of other people's money. A couple of his clients with heavy losses felt that he'd misrepresented the risk, and they were getting ready to sue. They also were threatening to file a complaint with the SEC. There was a real possibility he could be barred from the financial industry for life. The only thing that would put the matter to rest was if he made good some of their losses. But Grant, who lived hand to mouth no matter what his income, didn't have any liquidity. A reserve? That's for guys who don't have any balls. She pieced this story together after the fact. Somehow he'd gotten to their father, who bailed him out mainly to save the family from disgrace. In doing so, he had mortgaged CitiSpace right up to the breaking point. When she finally unraveled this poignant tale, she realized her father believed he was going to have to declare bankruptcy and close the firm, laying everybody off and leaving Nina a pauper. He thought the only way to save the family from ruin was to collect on his life insurance. Unfortunately, however, he botched the plan. Nobody believed his death was accidental and suicide voided the 3-million-dollar policy.... Grant had always inhabited another planet from her dad but surely these days he was able to support any lifestyle he chose. For the last two years he'd been some kind of hotshot financial manager for the high- stakes conglomerate owned by Winston Bartlett, or so Nina said. He should be making big bucks. Had he managed to screw that up somehow? Anytime he came crawling back to the family for anything, it was because he was in some kind of trouble. She hadn't seen him in so long she wondered if she'd even recognize him--not that she had any plans to see him. But what could Grant possibly want from her now? Also, why would he pick this morning, this anniversary morning, to reappear? Didn't he know what day this was? Or maybe he didn't actually care. He'd been living on the East Side that fateful morning of their dad Is death, in a doorman co-op he surely couldn't afford, and she'd taken a cab there to tell him in person rather than do it over the phone. When she did, her voice breaking, she could see his eyes already filtering out any part of it that touched him. By today he'd probably purged it out of his memory entirely.... She had reached the vast lawn that had been built on the landfill behind Stuyvesant High, the Hudson River on one side and the huge expanse of green on the other. It was manicured and verdant, a La Grande Jatte expanse of grass where you could see visions of wicker picnic baskets and bottles of Beaujolais. The space was deserted now and smelled of new grass. Knickers had gotten ten paces ahead of her, as though impatient that Alexa was slowing her down, but then she paused in midstride to sniff at a bagel somebody had tossed. "Come on, honey." Ally caught up with her, wheezing. "Time to backtrack. My chest is getting tight again. Goodies at home." Knickers glared at her dolefully for a moment, not buying the argument. "Let's go." She resumed her stride back north, knowing--well, hoping-- Knickers would follow. "Home." Her senses must have been slowing down too, because she honestly didn't hear him when he came up behind her three minutes later.... _Sunday, April 5 8:29 A.M. _ "Didn't think I could keep up, did you?" Grant Hampton quipped from ten paces back. "Guess you didn't know I've started playing handball every other morning. Half an hour, with the Man. Great for the stamina. Not to mention brown- nosing the boss, since naturally I let him win." She doesn't look half bad, he thought. Maybe she's getting out ahead of that heart problem. Maybe she's actually okay and I'm screwed. Fuck. But why is she still so fried at me? Sure, I had a little trouble, but everybody has ups and downs. Nina, that hardhearted bitch, wants to blame me for Arthur's death, when it was nobody's fault but his own that the old fart pulled the plug. Hell, I was going to pay back the money. He just didn't believe in me. He never did. "What are you doing here, Grant?" When she turned to look back at him, she realized she wasn't prepared for this moment at all, but here he was, complete with a trendy CK running outfit. She'd only seen him a couple of times after the funeral, and he looked like life was treating him well. The perfect tan, the lush sandy hair with an expensive cut that covered the top of his ears like a precise little helmet. He was a touch over six feet, with athletic shoulders, a trim figure, and a graceful fluidity to his stride. No wonder he scores with models. Damn. How could such a creep look that great? "I told you, I'm trying to do you a favor." He momentarily pulled ahead, as though to head her off, then looked back and grinned. She thought she detected a vaguely demented quality in his gray eyes. "Hey, I've turned my life around, Ally. Lots of good karma. I'm CFO for BMD, and W.B. lets me handle a lot of his personal investing too." She put on a burst of energy, trying unsuccessfully to get out ahead of him. Even though she'd rehearsed this inevitable moment over and over in her mind, she hadn't realized that seeing him again would be this upsetting. Why was he here? But now that he was, maybe she ought to momentarily let go of the anger long enough to find out what he wanted. Fortunately, they were almost back to Barrow Street. So this was going to be quick; no way was she going to ask him up. "Look," Grant declared over his shoulder, "I think it's high time to admit I've been a shit. To you and to a lot of people." Now he slowed enough that she pulled alongside. "For a long time there, back when I worked for Goldman, I was an immature asshole. But at least I'm mature enough now to admit it." "I think the window for owning up is past." She didn't need his belated mea culpa. Nothing was going to bring their father back, and having a scene on this anniversary day would only demean his memory. "Sometimes it's better just to let things rest." "No, that's wrong, Ally, and I want to try and start making amends. For all the money Dad helped me out with. I want to do a kindness for you, to repay you and Mom as best I can." Now he was jogging along beside her as smooth as a stroll, barely breathing. It was adding to her humiliation. "Grant, it's a little fucking late for that. Dad's gone. Money's not going to bring him back. And I'm okay, Mom's okay--at least for money." Well, she thought, that's true for now, but who knows what lies ahead? "So what's a couple of million or so between siblings, anyway? Right? It's the price of finding out who everybody is." Just now, she told herself, the biggest "kindness " he could do would be to disappear. Forever. She'd thought she was over the bulk of the pain and the feelings of humiliation, but seeing him again, hearing his voice, and looking at his eyes was bringing all of it back. She realized she was never going to be over it. "Ally, go ahead and say whatever you need to ... Look, I can't really do anything about the money, at least not right this minute--though I've got a big ship on the horizon, assuming a deal I'm working on comes through. But right now I'm about to try to do you a favor." "I think I can muddle through without any of your 'favors,' Grant. And I really don't appreciate your showing up out of the blue like this, bullying your way back into my life." She glanced over and saw his gray eyes were hangdog. It was the soulful look he used to melt her resolve. But not this time. She was yelling at herself inside not to give an inch. If she let him anywhere close to her life again, she was sure she'd only regret it. "Well, like it or not, I am here at the moment," he said, once more jogging a pace ahead then twisting his head back. They were at the crossing and he could see her building from where they were. He had to get a hook into her before she disappeared into that damned lobby. Time for the bait. "By the way, Ally, how's your ticker doing these days? You still have to watch out for... that heart thing?" "Look, Grant, I've got a busy morning. I'm going up to see Mom, not that you'd give a damn. So thank you for inquiring about my health, but frankly what do you care?" She paused. "Tell you what. If your 'favor' is so wonderful, I'll give you one phone call. Tonight, at home." She had Knickers' leash on a short hold and was waiting for the light to change. "But I've got to go now." Shit, he thought, the hook didn't catch. "Can't be on the phone, I'm telling you. I needed to see you. Why the hell do you think I took the trouble to catch you before your day got started? You know I hate getting up this early." He stepped onto the curb and stopped. "Ally, please listen. This is something I can do for you. I won't insult you by saying it's for old times' sake, but in a way it is. I got you a shot at a big job. Bartlett wants to redo the ground floor of his place on Gramercy Park. I told him about CitiSpace, and he sounded interested and said he'd like for you to come by and meet him and help him kick around some ideas." She looked at him, not believing a word. "You hacked into my life at seven o'clock Sunday morning for that. You had to see me? Give me a break. What do you really want? And this better be good." Okay, he thought. Cut to the chase. "You're correct. It's about your heart." "What about it?" Make it real, he told himself. This could be your only shot. "All right, here's the unvarnished deal. What I really did for you. About five years ago, Bartlett bankrolled a start-up bio-med firm called the Gerex Corporation. It was the brainchild of a Dutch doctor whose research project had just been sawed off at the knees by Stanford University. Then Bartlett moved the entire operation to a clinic at the BMD campus out in New Jersey called the Dorian Institute. It's all very hush-hush, but I can tell you Gerex has a new procedure in clinical trials that can literally work miracles. The head researcher, this Dutch doctor, has pioneered a new treatment using a stem cell procedure to trick an organ into regenerating itself, even a heart. It's like you grow your own transplant." Now she was finally listening. "I was talking to the Dutch guy late last week," he went on, picking up a faint positive vibe and hoping desperately he could build on it, "and he said he's looking for someone in their thirties with a rheumatic- heart thing--I think it's like what you have--to be part of this big clinical trial they're wrapping up. But they have to do it immediately, so they can put the data in their final report to the National Institutes of Health." "And you thought about me? That's very touching, Grant. Your idea of doing me a favor is to let some Dutch quack experiment on me?" "Hey, don't be so fast to turn up your nose at this." Shit, he thought, how am I going to make any headway? "His procedure operates at the cell level. The way they say it works is he takes cells from your bone marrow or blood or . . . whatever and makes them 'immortal' with this special enzyme and then injects them into organ tissue. It causes that organ to start regenerating itself." "That sounds completely like science fiction. Besides, I'm not--" "Well, he's doing it. Trust me. But there're only a couple of weeks left in the clinical trials, so everything's on a fast track now. If you're the least bit interested, you've got to call him tomorrow. If you don't, I'm sure he'll find somebody else by the middle of the week." He reached down and tried to give Knickers a pat, but she drew away. Good for her, Ally thought. Then he looked up and his voice grew animated. "Ally, the Dutch doctor--his name is Van de Vliet, by the way-- is the smartest man I've ever met. I'd say he's a good bet for the Nobel Prize in Medicine this time next year. I'd put my last dime on it. What he's doing is so incredible I shouldn't even be talking about it. At least not till the clinical trials are finished. But I wanted to do you this favor." Uh-huh, she thought. What it amounted to was, he was coming to her with another one of his hustles. Probably they needed somebody to round out their clinical trials and she was conveniently handy. "You know, Grant, maybe I'll just pass. I already have a cardiologist." She found herself wondering what Dr. Ekelman would say to this radical new treatment. "All right, Ally, do you want to make me beg? I need you to do this. When I described you to Dr. Van de Vliet, I could tell he was very excited. This could change everything for you." He paused, perhaps becoming aware of the pleading tone in his voice. "For chrissake, give me a break. Is there someplace we can have coffee? I'm not asking to come upstairs or anything. I just want to see if we can be on speaking terms long enough to help each other out." In a way she was relieved though she was secretly hurt all over again too. He wasn't crawling back to her to beg forgiveness for destroying lives. No, he was back and groveling because he thought she could help him butter up his boss. How could she not feel used? God, that was so like him. At that moment she knew there was never any chance he'd change. "Come on," he said again. "A lousy cup of coffee. There's that little French bistro on Hudson Street." He tried a grin. "Hey, I'll even buy." For a moment she thought she felt her resolve slipping. It's funny, but after you break up a family, no matter how dysfunctional, you start repressing the bad memories. But then something comes along to remind you all over again. "Grant, are you hearing yourself?" She stared at him. "You sound like you're selling snake oil." "Why was I afraid you'd back off? You're really doing it because you're pissed. Okay, you've got a right. But I've brought you something I think you ought to at least look at." He was unzipping his fanny pack and taking out a Gerex Corporation envelope, folded in half. Christ, he thought miserably, why is she doing this to me? I've got to keep the door open. "Read this and then give me a call tonight, like you promised. It'll tell you more about him." She hesitated before taking it. It was thick with papers and she was planning to spend the day visiting Nina. "I think I've heard enough already." "Just look at his CV. Van de Vliet's. He's done a lot of things. You've got to take him seriously." He urged it into her hand. "Look at it and call me. Please." She took it, and then she reached down and patted Knickers. "Come on, baby. Let's go up." He watched her disappear into the lobby and start shooting the breeze with the doorman, some red-haired jerk with a ponytail who'd just come on duty. Damn. Maybe the best thing would be just to chloroform her and let her wake up in the lab. W.B. needs her. Chapter 2 _Sunday, April 5 8:20 A.M. _"Okay, you'd better take it from here," Winston Bartlett declared to Kenji Noda over the roar of the engine. He had lifted his feet off the pedals and was unbuckling the cockpit seat belt. He liked having a turn piloting his McDonnell Douglas 520N helicopter on the commutes between his corporate headquarters in Lower Manhattan and his medical research park in northern New Jersey, but prudence dictated a more experienced hand on the collective during descent and landing. For that he had Noda, formerly of the Japanese Defense Forces. A tall, wiry man of few words, Noda was also his bodyguard, chauffeur, and curator of his museum-quality _katana _sword collection. With the sharp, delicious aroma of the pine forest below wafting through the cabin, Noda quickly put aside the origami he'd been folding, to center his mind and slid around a special opening in the bulkhead. He strapped himself into the seat, then took the radio headphones. The sky was the purest blue, with not another craft in the visual perimeter. They were, after all, over a forest. As Bartlett settled himself in the passenger compartment, he thought about where matters stood. There was the very real prospect he had rolled the dice one time too many. The daily blood tests at his clinic in New Jersey were showing he was disturbingly close to using up his nine lives. To look at him, though, you'd never suspect. At sixty-seven he was still trim and athletic, confident even cocky, with a full head of steel dark hair and probing eyes that instantly appraised whatever they caught in their gaze. He played handball at a private health club near his Gramercy Park mansion for an hour every other morning and he routinely defeated men half his age, including Grant Hampton. Remaining a player in every sense of the term was the main reason he enjoyed flying his M-D chopper, even though his license had been lapsed for eight years. It was the perfect embodiment of his lust for life. As he never failed to point out, his lifelong business success wasn't bad for a City College grad with a bachelor's degree in Oriental art history. He had gotten this far because he wanted success enough to make it happen. He'd started out in New York real estate, but for the last twenty years he had concentrated on buying up small, under- priced medical-device manufacturers with valuable patents and weak bottom lines. He dismantled some of the companies and sold off the pieces, always for more than he'd paid for the whole. Others he restructured with new management, and when a profitable turnaround was in sight, he took them public or sold them to a major player like Johnson & Johnson. The potential winners, though, the ones with promising pipelines of medical devices or drugs whose FDA approval was imminent, he relocated here at the BMD campus in northern New Jersey. But competition was fierce, and the bigger players like Merck and J&J had limitless research capital. They could write off dead ends a lot easier. Thus it was that five years ago, when his pipeline was drying up, Winston Bartlett took the biggest gamble of his life. He acquired a cash-strapped new start-up called the Gerex Corporation, whose head scientist was at the cutting edge of stem cell research. Karl Van de Vliet, M.D., Ph.D., had just had his funding terminated and his laboratory at Stanford University closed after a political flap by right-wingers. Bartlett had moved Van de Vliet here to New Jersey and poured millions into his stem cell efforts, bleeding BMD's working capital white and racking up 85 million in short-term debt just to keep the rest of the company afloat. Now, though, the gamble was paying off. This month Gerex was winding up stage-three clinical trials for the National Institutes of Health. These trials validated a revolutionary procedure that changed the rules of everything known about healing the human body. Already his CFO, Grant Hampton, was heading a negotiating team hammering out a deal with the British biotech conglomerate Cambridge Pharmaceuticals to sell them a 49 percent stake in Gerex. Over 650 million in cash and stock were on the table, and there were escalators, depending on the results of the trials now under way. The problem was, Cambridge had only seen the financial and summaries of data from Gerex's successful clinical trials. They knew nothing about the fiasco of the Beta procedure. "Karl called just before we left and said she's worse this morning," Bartlett remarked to Noda. He was removing his aviator shades and there was deep frustration in his eyes. "God I feel so damned responsible. She was--" "Having the Beta was Kristen's idea," Noda reminded him. "She wanted to do it." What he didn't say was on both their minds: what about Bartlett himself? After Kristen Starr had had the Beta, and it had seemed successful, Bartlett decided to have it too. Now his daily blood tests here at the institute were showing that the telomerase enzyme was starting to metastasize and replicate in his bloodstream, just as it had in hers. "Well," Bartlett went on, "Karl thinks he's got a new idea that might save us. Hampton is supposed to be on the case this very morning." He stared out the chopper's window, down at the rooftops of his empire. At the north end of the industrial park was the main laboratory, where stents and titanium joint replacements were tested on animals--mostly sterile pigs, though some primate testing also was under way. The central area had two large manufacturing facilities where the more complex devices were made. The buildings were all white cinder block, except for the one they were hovering above now. It was at the far south end, a massive three-story mansion nestled among ancient pines and reached by a long cobblestone driveway. Though it was actually the oldest building of the group by a hundred years, it was the latest acquisition for the complex. It fronted a beautiful ten-acre lake, and had been a summer _palacio_ of a nineteenth-century railroad baron. Around mid-century it was turned into a luxury retirement home, complete with nursing services. Its ornate appointments reminded patients of the Frick Gallery, if one could imagine those marble halls teeming with wheelchairs and nurses. Bartlett had bought the defunct manufacturing complex next to it eighteen years earlier for the BMD industrial park, but it was only six years ago that the owners of the mansion, a group of squabbling heirs, finally relented and agreed to part with the property. It was now a flagship holding of BMD. He had an eye for design and he had loved remodeling the old mansion and making it into a modern clinic and research facility. He had renamed it the Dorian Institute and moved in Karl Van de Vliet and the research staff of the Gerex Corporation. He also had put a landing pad on the expansive roof, along with a stair leading down to an elevator that could take him directly to the laboratory in the basement. Kenji Noda settled the McDonnell Douglas onto the pad and cut the engines. Bartlett never let himself worry about the noise. The patients in the clinical trials were here at no charge, so they really couldn't complain, particularly since they were now part of what was possibly turning out to be the greatest advance in the history of medicine. If your Alzheimer's had just been reversed at no charge, you weren't going to complain about a little hubbub on the roof. "I'll wait here," Noda said opening the side door. His bald pate, reminiscent of an eighteenth-century samurai, glistened in the early spring sun. Bartlett nodded, knowing that his pilot did not trust physicians and hospitals. Taking care of your body was your responsibility, Kenji Noda frequently declared and he trained his own daily. He ate no meat and drank gallons of green tea. When he practiced _kendo_ swordplay, he had the reflexes of a man half his age. He never discussed why he had left Japan, but Bartlett assumed it was for reasons best left in the dark. Bartlett headed down the metal stairs leading to the self- service elevator. This daily ordeal of flying out to give a blood sample and to see Kristen was increasingly unsettling. As he inserted his magnetic card into the elevator security box, he felt his hand shaking slightly. So close to the eternal dream of humankind. So close. How was it going to end? _Sunday, April 5 8:38 A.M. _ "Dr. Vee, I'm feeling so much better, I can't tell you." Emma Rosen reached out and caught her physician by the collar of his lab coat, pulling him down and brazenly bussing his cheek. She'd been longing to do this for three weeks but hadn't mustered the nerve until now. "This morning I climbed the stairs to the third floor, twice, up and back without any chest pain. Oy, can you believe? It's a miracle." Karl Van de Vliet was a couple of inches over six feet, with a trim face and sandy hair that some older patients judged too long for a physician. His English normally was perfect, though sometimes he made a mistake when trying to sound too colloquial. But everyone, young and old adored his retiring Dutch manner and those deep blue eyes that carried some monumental sadness from the past. They also were sure he would soon be recognized worldwide as the miracle worker he was. The prospect of a Nobel didn't actually seem that far-fetched. "Emma, please, I begged you to rest." He sighed and checked the dancing electronic pens of her EKG. They were in the basement of the Dorian Institute. Upstairs, the "suites"--nobody called them rooms--were intended to invoke a spa more than a clinic, so most of the heavy-duty diagnostic equipment was kept in a row of examining rooms down near the subterranean lab. "For another week at least. Why won't you listen? You've been a very naughty girl. I may have to tell your daughter." He glanced at the seventy-three-year-old woman's readout one last time, made a quick note on his handheld computer, and then laid a thin hand across her brow for a fleeting, subjective temperature check. She's all but fully recovered, he told himself. It's truly astonishing. Five weeks earlier, she had come through the front door of the Dorian Institute in a wheelchair pushed by her youngest, a bottle blonde named Shelly. He took one look and scuttled the normal security precautions, the frisk for cameras and recording devices. Emma's low cardiac output had deteriorated to the point that her left leg below the knee was swollen to almost twice its normal size, owing to renal retention of fluid, and she was so short of breath she required oxygen. He hadn't wanted to complicate the clinical trials by taking on another patient at that late date, but she had been referred by a physician friend in the city, begging. How could he turn her away? He had removed a microscopic amount of bone marrow from her right ankle, extracted the stem cells, applied the hormonal signal that told them to develop into heart muscle, and then injected a thriving cell factory into her heart. Since stem cells could be made to ignore the body's rules to stop replicating after a certain number, they were able to reproduce forever, constantly renewing themselves. The only other cells with that immortal characteristic were cancer cells. In fact, it was as though he had given Emma a new kind of cancer--one that produced cells as healthy as those in a newborn. Today she probably could have run up those stairs. Although his stem cell technology was going to create a new era in regenerative medicine, he had experienced his share of bumps in the road. Five years earlier, Stanford University had canceled his research project there since the work he had been doing involved the special stem cells in unused fertility-clinic embryos. The university claimed there had been death threats to its president. The Board of Regents had finally decided with a sham show of remorse, to revoke his funding. They called him in one sunny afternoon in May and pulled the plug. He thanked them and tore up his contract. By that time he had already demonstrated that, using the right chemical signals, stem cells could be coaxed into becoming almost any organ. Inserted into the heart, they became new heart muscle, replacing scars; inserted into the brain, they became neural tissue. No way was he going to be stopped now. They didn't know what they were losing. What he needed was a "white knight." He did some poking around and came up with Winston Bartlett, then floated feelers to Bartlett's people. What if, he proposed, Bartlett acquired the Gerex Corporation for BMD and made it a for-profit business? No more public funding (and maddening administrative meddling). The research already completed was so close to a payoff, after years and years of grinding lab work and thousands of white mice, that the deal could be considered an investment where 95 percent of the seed money had already been supplied by taxpayers. Winston Bartlett had liked the sound of that, and Karl Van de Vliet had his white knight. Once his financing was secure, he decided to begin by solving the problem that had dogged him at Stanford. Since there would always be a distracting public-relations problem hounding any researcher in the United States who made use of aborted embryos, even if it was to save lives, he was determined to find a less controversial way to trick Mother Nature and garner "pluripotent" stem cells, the name given those that could give rise to virtually any tissue type. He had. After he moved his research team into the Dorian Institute just over 4 1/2 years ago, he had perfected a way to use a human protein, an enzyme called telomerase, to make adult stem cells do most of the miracles once only thought possible with embryonic cells. The phase-three clinical trials over the past seven months had proved conclusively that the technique worked. Adult stem cells, when treated with the telomerase enzyme to arrest the process of cell senescence, could indeed regenerate everything from the human brain to the human heart, from Parkinson's to acute myocardial infarction. Twenty-three days from now, when the phase-three clinical trials were formally scheduled to be completed, Karl Van de Vliet would have enough data for the National Institutes of Health to confirm one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of medicine. Unfortunately, however, there was that other bit of data that he would not be sharing with the NIH. The Beta. Thinking about that, his heart heavy, he turned back to the situation at hand. "Emma, you're making wonderful progress," he continued on with the banter, "but don't push yourself too hard just yet." She laughed, sending lines across her forehead. Her voice was deep and rich, sultry in its own way. "When you get as old as I am, honey, you do anything you can get away with. What am I saving it for? I just might go to Atlantic City next week and pick up a sailor." "Well, then, I may have to have Shelly go along and keep an eye on you," he said with one last programmed smile. Then he checked his watch. Bartlett should be arriving any minute now. Time to get Emma Rosen the hell out of here and back upstairs. He turned and signaled for Ellen O'Hara, the head nurse, to start removing the suction-cup electrodes that had been stuck on Emma for her EKG. Ellen had been with him when he was at Stanford and her loyalty was unquestioned. She had made sure that the Beta disaster with Kristen hadn't become the gossip of the institute. Still, how much longer could it be kept quiet? Then Sandra Hanes, the lively, dark-haired woman in charge of the second floor for this shift, walked into the examination room. She knew nothing about Kristen. "Perfect timing," he said. Then he drew her aside. "Keep an eye on Emma, will you? Try and keep her in her room and quiet as much as you can. The last blood work showed her white-cell count over twelve K/CMM. It could mean there's some minimal rejection rearing its head. Probably nothing to worry about, but can you just keep her away from the stairs for godsake? I don't want her tiring herself out." "I'll tie her to the bed if I have to," Sandra answered. The clinical trials had required a mountain of paperwork, and her face was strained from working long shifts, including a lot of weekends, like this one. But he suspected she actually appreciated the overtime. She was forty- five, divorced and putting a straight-A daughter through Rutgers. She also was a first-rate nurse, like all the others at the institute, and her loyalty couldn't be more secure. Still, he knew that she and all the other staffers were bursting to tell the world about the miracles they'd witnessed. That was why Bartlett had insisted on an ironclad nondisclosure agreement in the contract of every employee to be strictly enforced. (And to put teeth into the security, all employees were body-searched for documents or cameras or tapes on the way in and out.) To violate it would be to open yourself to a life- altering lawsuit. During World War II the claim had been that "loose lips sink ships." Here they would render you a pauper for life. Nobody dared even whisper about the spectacular success of the clinical trials. As the examining room emptied out, he checked his watch one more time. Winston Bartlett was due any minute now and he had nothing but bad news for the man. Trying to control his distress, he walked to the end of the hallway and prepared to enter the lab. Whereas the ground floor and the two above were for reception, common dining, and individual rooms, the basement contained the laboratory, his private office, the examination rooms, and an OR (never yet used, thankfully). There also was a sub-basement, accessible only through an elevator in the lab or an alarmed set of fire stairs. It was an intensive-care area, and it was where Kristen, the Beta casualty, was being kept. He zipped a magnetic card through the reader on the door and entered the air lock. The lab was maintained under positive pressure to keep out the slightest hint of any kind of contaminant. It was as sterile as a silicon chip factory. The room was dominated by a string of black slate workbenches, then rows and rows of metal shelves with tissue- containing vials of a highly volatile solvent cocktail he had engineered especially for this project, along with a computer network and a huge autoclave and several electron microscopes. He walked in and greeted his research team. He'd managed to keep the core group that had been closest to him at Stanford, four people who, he believed, were among the finest medical minds in the country. They were the renowned molecular biologist David Hopkins, Ph.D., the strikingly beautiful and widely published endocrinologist Debra Connolly, M.D., and two younger staffers, a couple who'd met and married at his Stanford lab, Ed and Beth Sparks, both Ph.D.'s who'd done their postdoc under him. They all were here now in the wilds of northern New Jersey because they knew they were making medical history. David was waiting, his long shaggy forelock down over his brow as always. But his eyes told it all. "Karl, Bartlett's blood work from yesterday just got faxed up from the lab at Princeton. His enzyme level has increased another three point seven percent." "Damn." It was happening for sure. "Did you run--" "The computer simulation? A one-standard-deviation estimate is that he's going to go critical sometime between seventeen and nineteen days." "The Syndrome." Van de Vliet sighed. "Just like Kristen." "She faked us out. There were no side effects for weeks." Van de Vliet shook his head sadly as he set his handheld Palm computer onto a side table. Later he would transfer all the day's patient data into the laboratory's server, the Hewlett- Packard they all affectionately called the Mothership. Then he began taking off his white coat. "Bartlett looks to be inevitable now." David exhaled in impotent despair. The frustration and the tension were getting to everybody. They all knew what was at stake. "It's in two and a half weeks, give or take." What had supposedly been a cosmetic procedure had gone horribly awry. Van de Vliet wondered if it wasn't the ultimate vengeance of the quest for something you shouldn't have. "His AB blood type is so rare. If we'd just kept a sample before the procedure, we'd have something to work with now," Van de Vliet said sadly. "We still might be able to culture some antibodies." He hadn't told his research team yet about the other possible option-- using somebody else as an AB blood-type incubator. His last-ditch idea was to find a patient with a blood type of AB positive and introduce a small quantity of the special Beta telomerase enzyme into them. The theory was that this might induce their body to produce compatible antibodies, which could then be extracted and cultured in the laboratory. If a sufficient quantity could be produced they could be injected into Bartlett and hopefully arrest the enzyme's pattern of entering the host's bloodstream and metastasizing into the more complex form that brought on the Syndrome. And if it did work, then there might even be some way to adapt the procedure to Kristen. "Karl, if Cambridge Pharmaceuticals finds out about the Beta fiasco, how's it going to affect--" "How do you think it's going to affect the sale? If this gets out, there'll be no sale. To anybody. Bartlett will be ruined, and Gerex along with him. That's everybody here, in case you're counting." He turned and exited the lab, pushing pensively through the air lock, and then he walked slowly toward his office, collecting his thoughts. He was just passing the elevator when it opened. _Sunday, April 5 8:47 A.M. _ Winston Bartlett looked up to see Van de Vliet as he stepped off the elevator, and the sight heartened him as always. The Dutchman was a genius. If anyone could solve this damned mess, surely he was the one. "First thing, Karl, how is she now?" "I think you'd better go down and see for yourself," Van de Vliet said slowly. "As I told you on the phone, she still comes and goes. I think it's getting worse." Bartlett felt a chill run through him. He had once cared for this woman as much as he was capable of caring for anybody, and what had happened was a damned shame. All he had intended was to give her something special, something no man had ever given a woman before. "Will she know who I am? She still did yesterday." "It depends," Van de Vliet replied. "Yesterday afternoon she was fully lucid, but then earlier this morning I got the impression she thinks she's in a different place and time. If I had to guess, I'd say she's regressing chronologically. I suppose that's logical, though nothing about this makes any sense." Bartlett was following him back through the air lock and into the laboratory. The intensive-care area below was reachable only by a special elevator at the rear of the lab. All these once-cocky people, Bartlett thought, were now scared to death. Van de Vliet and his research team might actually be criminally liable if the right prosecutor got hold of the case. At the very least they'd be facing an ethics fiasco. But I'm the one who's about to be destroyed. In every sense. It had all started when Karl Van de Vliet confided in him that there was an adjunct procedure arising out of stem cell research that might, might, offer the possibility of a radical new cosmetic breakthrough. Just a possibility. He called it the Beta, since it was highly experimental. He also wasn't sure it was reproducible. But he had inadvertently discovered it while testing the telomerase enzyme on his own skin over a decade ago. At the time he was experimenting with topical treatments for pigment abnormalities, but the particular telomerase enzyme he was working with had had the unexpected effect of changing the texture of his skin, softening it and removing wrinkles, a change that subsequently seemed permanent. The idea had lain dormant while they were preparing for the clinical trials. But then Bartlett's _petite amie_, the cable-TV personality Kristen Starr, had had a career crisis that she blamed on aging, and he came up with the idea of having her undergo the skin procedure. In a mistake with unforeseen ramifications, she had then been made an official part of the NIH clinical trials. After she had gone for over a month without any side effects, Bartlett had elected to undergo the procedure himself. Then it began in Kristen--what David had solemnly named the Syndrome. Van de Vliet had immediately (and illegally) terminated her from the clinical trials, removing her from the NIH database. She was now being kept on the floor below, in the subbasement intensive-care area. As they stepped onto the elevator to go down, Bartlett found himself wondering how many of the staff here were aware of the real extent of the crisis. Van de Vliet had said that only three of the nurses knew about Kristen and the Syndrome. Fortunately, they all were trustworthy. Two had even been with him back at Stanford. They would never talk. But what about the rest? They'd all fawned over Kristen, starstruck by her celebrity, and they'd spill the beans in a heartbeat if any of them found out. The story would be everywhere from Variety to the "Page Six" gossip column. It would certainly mean the financial ruin of Bartlett Medical Devices. If Gerex went under, everything else went with it. On the other hand, he thought ruefully, what does it matter? If I end up like her, I won't even know it happened. "W.B., the telomerase enzyme is completely out of control in her now," Van de Vliet continued. "First it metastasized through her skin and into her blood. Then it began directing its own synthesis. I've tried everything I know to arrest it, but nothing has worked. I still have a faint hope, though. If we can make some headway on your own situation . . ." He paused and his voice trailed off. "In the meantime, though, I think it would definitely be wise to move her to another location. There are too many people here. The risk is enormous. Word is bound to get out sooner or later. You must have someplace . . ." "Of course." Bartlett nodded. "I'd rather have her in the city and closer to me anyway. But let me see if I can talk to her first. I need to try to make her understand." Though it's probably too late for that, he told himself. They stepped off the elevator and entered a high-security area, a long hallway illuminated only with fluorescent bulbs. Using a magnetic card as a key, Bartlett opened the first door they came to. As always, he was dismayed by the sight. For a moment he just stood looking at the thirty-two- year-old woman sitting up in a hospital bed, mutely watching a flickering TV screen showing the Cartoon Network. He had truly cared for her, perhaps even loved her for a time. Then he walked over. "Kristy, honey, how're you feeling?" She stared at him blankly. Kristen had been a vivacious blue-eyed blonde who'd had her own showbiz gossip show on the E! channel till it was canceled during a scheduling shake-up six months earlier. She had a nervous breakdown, declaring to Bartlett that her show had been canceled because she looked like a crone. He'd told her it wasn't true, but if she was so distraught about her appearance, then maybe there was something he could do for her. Van de Vliet had once mentioned an experimental skin procedure. . . . Bartlett turned back to Van de Vliet, feeling the horror sinking in. "Karl, goddamit, we've got to reverse this." "Let's talk outside," Van de Vliet said. Bartlett kissed Kristen's forehead in preparation for leaving. Her lifeless blue eyes flickered something. He thought it was a flash of some old anger. Who could blame her? he told himself. But back then, who knew? He'd wanted to give her a gift like none other. Not quite the Fountain of Youth, but maybe a cosmetic version. Her skin would begin to constantly renew itself. And he'd been right. The promise of having her skin rejuvenated was just what she'd needed to get her self-confidence back. For more than a month the miracle seemed to be working, and there were no side effects. Her skin was becoming noticeably softer and more supple. She was elated. Screw NIH trials and the FDA, he then decided. It was working for Kristen. By God he would try it himself. He wasn't getting any younger. But no sooner had he had the procedure too than Kristen started evidencing side effects. First it was little things, like lapses in short-term memory. Next, as it got progressively worse, she could no longer remember why she was at the institute. Then she couldn't recall her name, where she lived. And now . . . Could it be that God can't be cheated? And when it's tried, God brings down a terrible vengeance. When they were outside in the hallway, he said, "I have a place on Park Avenue that's empty. At the moment. We used to spend weekends there and I can arrange for a full-time nursing staff, all of it." He paused. "Has anybody called here about her lately?" "Just her mother, Katherine, who's getting pretty frantic." "The woman is unbalanced. Certifiable. God help us if--" "I told her to see what she could find out from Kristen's publicist." "Good." Bartlett had told Kristen's midtown publicity agent, the nosy Arlene of Guys and Dolls, Inc., that Kristen had gone to a private spa in New Mexico to rethink her career and didn't want to be disturbed. She desired complete solitude. Any communication with her would have to be handled through his office. He looked at Van de Vliet. "Karl, tell me how bad it is for me now." "For you?" He hesitated. This was the question he'd been dreading. "The telomerase numbers from yesterday's blood sample are not encouraging. As I told you, your topical enzyme application has metastasized into your bloodstream and started to replicate, just like it did in Kristen. We're seeing a process known as 'engraftment.' These special cells have learned to mimic any cell they come near. They become the tissue that those cells comprise and begin replacing the healthy tissue with new. In Kristen's case, we think it's now entered her brain and it seems to be supplanting her memory tissue with blanks. The same side effect could eventually evolve in you." That doesn't begin to describe the real horror, Bartlett thought. It's too impossible to imagine. "The only thing left is to find some way to cause your body to reject the enzyme," Van de Vliet said. "I'm optimistic that we might be able to grow some telomerase antibodies in another patient with your blood type, then culture enough of them to stop the Syndrome in its tracks. It's worth a try. Frankly, I can't think of anything else. But your blood type is AB, which is extremely rare. Also, the problem is that we'd possibly be putting that other person at severe risk too." "Let's go back up to the lab," Bartlett said. "That idea of yours-- Hampton thinks he's got somebody. A woman, in her late thirties." He put his hand on Van de Vliet's shoulder. "We're going to get her on board however we have to." Chapter 3 _Sunday, April 5 8:49 A.M. _Stone Aimes was staring at the e-mail on the screen of his Compaq Armada and feeling an intense urge to put his fist through its twisted spiral crystals. What do you do when you've come up with an idea that could possibly save thousands of lives using simple Web-based technology and then the piece gets spiked by your newspaper's owners at the very last minute because it exposes some important New York hospitals to unpleasant (but constructive) scrutiny? What it makes you want to do is tell everybody down on the third floor to stuff it and walk out and finish your book-- undistracted by corporate ass-covering BS ... or, unfortunately, by a paycheck. Around him the newsroom of the New York Sentinel, a weekly newspaper positioned editorially somewhere between the late, lamented New York Observer and the Village Voice, was in final Sunday countdown, with the Monday edition about to be put to bed. The technology was state of the art, and the room flickered with computer screens, blue pages that gave the tan walls an eerie cast. Composition, spell-checking, everything, was done by thinking machines, and the reporters, thirteen on this floor, were mostly in their late twenties and early thirties and universally underpaid. The early morning room was bustling, though it felt to Stone like the end of time. Nobody was paying any attention to him but that was normal: everybody was doing their own thing. Besides, nobody else realized he'd just had a major piece killed at the last minute. Now he felt as though he were frozen in place: in this room, in this job, in this life. The book he had almost finished was going to change a lot of things. It would be the first major explication of stem cell technology for general readers. Stem cells were going to revolutionize everything we knew about medicine and the research was going further than anyone could have dreamed. The possibility of reversing organ degeneration, even extending life, was hovering right out there, just at humankind's fingertips. It cried out for a major book. He had read everything that had made its way into the medical journals, but the study that was furthest along was privately funded and now cloaked in secrecy. It was at the Gerex Corporation, whose head researcher was a Dutch genius named Karl Van de Vliet. The company had been bankrolled by the medical mogul Winston Bartlett after Van de Vliet lost his funding at Stanford. Winston Bartlett, of all people . . . but that was another story. Thirteen months earlier, the Gerex Corporation had trolled for volunteers on the National Institutes of Health Web site, referring to a pending "special study." The notice suggested the study might be using stem cell technology in some fashion. If that study was what Stone Aimes thought it was, it would be the first to use stem cells in stage-three clinical trials. Nobody else was even close. Karl Van de Vliet was the ball game. Unfortunately, however, his study was being held in an atmosphere of military-like secrecy. Why? Even the identities of the participants in the trials were like a state secret. Since Winston Bartlett owned Gerex, it surely had been ordered by him. You had to wonder what that was all about. Whatever the reason, Stone Aimes knew that in order to finish his book with the latest information he had to get to Van de Vliet. But Bartlett had forbidden any interviews, and Gerex's clinic, called the Dorian Institute, was off-limits to the public and reportedly guarded with serious security. But, he thought, perhaps he had just come up with an idea of how to get around that. . . . He stared a moment longer at the dim reflection coming back at him from the antiglare screen, which now informed him that his cover feature had been chopped. Truthfully, it was happening more and more; this was the third time in eight months that a major muckraking piece had been axed. Also, as he stared at it, the reflection told him he wasn't getting any younger. The hairline was no longer where it had been in his college photos--it was up about half an inch--and the blue eyes were sadder, the lines under them deeper. Still, the tousled brown hair was thick enough, the brow mostly wrinkle-free, and he still had hope. He wasn't exactly young anymore, but neither was he "getting on." The "Willy Loman" years remained safely at bay. He was thirty-nine and divorced, with an ex-wife, Joyce, who had departed to be a garden designer in northern California, taking with her their daughter, Amy, on whom he doted. He had a one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment in the East Nineties, on the top floor of a fashionable brownstone. He was socially unattached, as the expression goes, but he was so compulsive about finishing the book that he spent weekends hunched over his IBM Aptiva, nursing a six-pack of Brooklyn Lager and writing deathless prose. The truth was he was lonely, but he didn't allow himself to think about it. He'd always vowed he'd amount to something by forty. And now it was as much for Amy as for himself. She lived with his ex-wife near El Cerrito, California, and she meant the world to him. The mortifying part was, he was a week behind with this month's support check. And he knew Joyce needed the money. It made him feel like a callous deadbeat dad when the real culprit was an unlucky confluence of inescapable bills. He'd make it up next week, but he'd sworn he would never let this happen. That was why he had a larger game plan. Get out of this frigging day job and finish the book. The time for that plan to kick in was approaching at warp speed. This last insult was surely God's not-so- subtle way of informing him that his future was in the freelance world. Every day out there would be a gamble, but he could write anything he damn well pleased. There was a parable set down by the ancient Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu that Stone Aimes reflected on more and more these days. It was the story of two oxen: One was a ceremonial sacrificial ox who, for the year before he meets the axe, was feted with garlands of lotus flowers and plied with ox goodies. The other was a wild ox who had to scrounge in the forest for every scrap. But, the story went, on the day the ax was to drop, what wouldn't that ceremonial ox give to change places with that haggard struggling, underfed wild ox? That's the one he empathized with. The one who was out there, half starved but free. The Sentinel was an iron rice bowl that normally never let anybody go except for grossest incompetence or flagrant alcoholism. On the other hand getting ahead was all about office politics, kissing the managing editor's hindquarters, and copying him on every memo to anybody to make sure nobody else took credit for something you thought of. On the plus side, he knew he was a hell of a medical journalist. There was such a gap between medical research and what most people knew, the field cried out for a Stephen Hawking of health, a medical Carl Sagan. The way he saw it, there was room at the top and he was ready for a major career breakthrough. He had done premed at Columbia before switching to journalism, and these days he read the Journal of the American Medical Association from cover to cover, every issue, along with skimming the many other journals now on the web. The piece that just got cut was intended to show the world that investigative journalism was alive and well and trying to make a difference. He'd documented that hospital mistakes were actually the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. The Institute of Medicine estimated that medical errors caused between fifty and a hundred thousand deaths a year--rivaling the number from auto accidents or AIDS. (He'd gotten enough data to be able to quantify how many of those deaths were in leading New York hospitals.) Yet there was no federal law requiring hospitals to report mistakes that caused serious injury or death to patients. The reason seemed to be that the medical lobby--he'd named names--had successfully turned back all attempts by Congress to pass such a law, even though it was a formal recommendation by the Institute of Medicine. The problem was, once you admitted you screwed up, you could get sued. So there was no formal accountability. But (and here was the constructive part) if patients' medical records were put on the Web--everything, even their medications--it could make a big dent in the all-too-frequent hospital medication foul-ups. That alone could cut accidental hospital deaths in half. He'd pitched Jay Grimes, the managing editor, to let him do a five- thousand-word piece for the Sentinel. Jay had agreed and even promised him the front page. Jay liked him, but since all the real decisions were made by the owners, not-so-affectionately known as the Family, there wasn't much Jay could do to protect his people. Stone now realized that more than ever. The e-mail on his Compaq's screen was from Jane Tully, who handled legal affairs for the paper. Apparently, Jay didn't have the balls to be the hatchet man, so he'd given the job to Jane, who could throw in a little legal mumbo jumbo for good measure. And she hadn't even had the courtesy to pick up the phone to do the deed. Instead, she'd sent a frigging e-mail:_ See attached. Corporate says legal implications convey unacceptable risk. Consider an op-ed piece. That way the liability will be all yours. Love and kisses. _And of course, by "Corporate," she meant the Family (or, more likely, their running-dog attorneys down on Nassau Street). It was really too bad about Jane. She was a young-looking thirty-six and had her own legal practice with a large law firm in midtown, but she always dropped by before her Sunday brunch to answer any legal questions that might be pending before the Sentinel was put to bed. Stone knew pretty well how her mind worked. He should. Jane Tully was his former, very former, significant other. They d lived together for a year and a half on First Avenue in the East Sixties. But she was type A (tailored Armani suits and always on time) and he was a type B (elbow patches and home-cooked pasta). The denouement had been seismic and full of acrimony and accusations. So was she killing this major piece out of spite? he wondered. Just to prove one last time who really had the _cojones_? Actually, it would have been nice to think so. That would put a human face on this gutless travesty. But the attached memo had enough legal jargon that another reason was immediately suggesting itself. The owners of the paper, the Family, the fucked-up twins Harry and Bosco and their mother, Adeline, the heirs of Edward Jordan, actually were afraid of a lawsuit. The attachment had the fingerprints of the Family's attorneys all over it. Jane was just carrying out marching orders. And sure enough, there at the bottom was a second message, unsigned and not part of the original memo. She had written clearly ITMB. That was their old code for "I tried my best." Well, Jane baby, who the hell knows. Maybe you did. Damn, it wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't trying to be a Carl Bernstein, for chrissake. For once, all he wanted was to report a story exactly the way it was, and then try to help. He ultimately wanted to fix, not fault. He hit a button and printed out a copy of everything, then minimized the screen, grabbed his jacket, and walked down the hall. Was this the moment to quit? It was, except he couldn't afford to. He'd never managed to put enough aside to take off a year and live on air and write and still get that fifteen-hundred-dollar check out to Joyce and Amy every first of the month. He got to the bank of elevators and pushed the button for the third floor and stepped on. The inspection sticker framed just above the controls actually told the whole saga of why his cover story about sloppy procedures in New York and national hospitals had been killed. The building was owned by Bartlett Enterprises, the real estate holding company of Winston Bartlett. The Sentinel held a very favorable lease, renewable for another ten years at only a 5 percent increase when it rolled over in seven months. The Jordan family had gotten it in the early 1990s, when New York real estate was still in the toilet from the stock market crash of '87, and for once Winston Bartlett really screwed up. Now it was about a fifth of the going price per square foot. So naturally he was about to do everything he could to break the lease. He was that kind of guy. The Jordan family, owners of the Sentinel, probably figured that a big lawsuit by the AMA or somebody would overtax their legal budget and give Bartlett a shot at their soft underbelly. Thus no boats were to be rocked. The elevator chimed and he stepped off on three. This floor had subdued lighting and understated birch paneling, pale white, in the reception area. It was as though power didn't need to trumpet itself. Everybody knew who had it He waved at Rhonda, the receptionist, and strode past. She glanced up, then said, "Does she know you're coming?" She knew full well he was headed down to see Jane. Unlike most organizations, which take Sunday off, this was always a big day for the Sentinel, with all hands on deck. "Thought I'd give her a little surprise." "No kidding." She was reaching for the phone. "I think maybe I should--" "Not necessary." He was charging down the hall, feeling knee-deep in the thick beige carpet. "I've got a feeling she's expecting me." Jane's door was open and she was on the phone. But when she saw him, she said something abruptly and hung up. He strode through the door, then slammed it. The decor was bold primary colors, like her take on life. Explicit. "Okay," he demanded, "what the hell's going on? How about the real story?" "Love, you know you can't hang the Family out with that kind of liability," she declared, then got up and came around her desk and cracked open the door half a foot. "And you're the one person here I can't have a closed-door meeting with. It'll just get people talking again." "Good. Let the world hear. It's time everybody on this floor learned what a bunch of gutless owners we have." He watched the crisp way she moved, picture-perfect inside her deep blue business suit, complete with a white blouse and a man's red tie. Seeing her here, hair clipped short, glasses, in an office brimming with power, you'd never guess she liked nothing better than to be handcuffed during sex. "Stone, have you ever considered growing up?" She settled back into her chair. The desk was bare except for her notebook computer, an expensive IBM ThinkPad T25. Power all the way. "The Family's attorneys are just trying to keep us from getting dragged into court. At least until we can get the paper's lease on this building renewed. We're going to need to focus on that negotiation, not be distracted by some massive libel suit brought on by an irresponsible, mudslinging piece. You practically accused the AMA of bribery, and you named three senators. One from New Jersey, for chrissake. Stone, there might be a time for that, but this is not it." This was exactly the reason he'd expected. What it really meant was, the Family was scared stiff of Winston Bartlett. They figured he was going to go to court to try to break the Sentinel's lease. "Let me ask you a question. Whatever happened to journalistic ethics around here? Remember that Statement of Purpose they have everybody sign before they could be hired. 'All the news, without regard'. . . you know. We were both so damned proud to be a part of that. Now you're helping them kill anything that's the slightest bit controversial. Is that what we've come to?" "Stone, what the New York Sentinel has come to is to try and stay out of legal shit till their lease is renewed." She brushed an imaginary lock of hair from her face, a residual gesture she once used to stall for time when she actually did have long hair. "Just let it go, won't you? To get the signed and notarized documentation we'd need to run that piece-- assuming we even could--would cost a fortune in time and resources." Well, he told himself, there was possibly something to that, from a legal standpoint. But this was not the moment to let sweet reason run riot. "Okay, look, if you or the Family, or whoever the hell, believe I'm going to go quietly, you'd better get ready for some revisionist thinking. If this piece gets spiked, after all the work I put into it-- and dammit, Jane, you know I can document everything I write; that's the way I work--then I bloody well want something back from this gutless rag. Actually, it's something I want from you." "You're not really in a position to--" "Hey, don't try to ream me twice in the same morning." He walked around her desk and gazed down at the street. The Sunday-morning traffic was light. He also noticed that there was a public phone on the corner. Good, he'd be using it in about eight minutes. Then he took a moment to reflect on how nice it was to actually have a window. Of any kind. "You know the saying, the pen is mightier than the sword. I'm about to prove that once and for all, but there's something I need I need a half hour's face time with one of Bartlett's employees. A certain Dr. Karl Van de Vliet. He runs a company that Bartlett bought out, called the Gerex Corporation. Strictly for fact-checking. They've got some important clinical trials going on at a clinic in New Jersey that I need to hear about." She looked at him in sincere disbelief. "Stone, how on earth am I supposed to--" "You talk to the Family's lawyers. They've gotta be talking to Bartlett's attorneys by now. Make it happen." "And why exactly--?" "Because I have a book contract, Jane. And in the process I need to find out everything there is to know about Winston Bartlett's biggest undertaking ever. He has bankrolled something that could change the face of medicine." "You're doing a book about Bartlett?" Her astonishment continued growing and appeared to be genuine. "Jesus, you didn't tell--" "Hello. That's because who or what I write about on my own dime is nobody's effing business around here." Now he was thinking about Winston Bartlett and wondering why he'd never told her the most important piece of information in his life. It was how he was connected to the man. He often wondered if maybe that was why he was doing this book on stem cells, knowing that half of it would end up being about Bartlett's self-serving, take-no-prisoners business career. His infinite cruelty. Was the book actually revenge? "You know you'll have to get permission to reprint anything you've published in the Sentinel. The paper owns the rights to--" "Didn't you hear me?" He smiled. "It's a book. My book. There's no editorial overlap." "Who's the publisher?" "They exist, trust me." His small publisher wasn't exactly Random House, but they were letting him do whatever he wanted. "It didn't start out being a book about Bartlett, per se," he went on, "but now he's becoming a central figure, because of what's going on--or possibly not going on--at Gerex." She was losing her famous poise. "What . . . what are you writing?" "The end of time. The beginning of time. I don't know which it is. You see, the Gerex clinic in northern New Jersey has clinical trials under way on some new medical procedure involving stem cells. At least that's what I think. They've clamped down on the information, but I believe Van de Vliet, who's the head researcher there, is perilously close to one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. I just need to get all this confirmed from the horse's mouth." "Is that what you want to interview him about?" "He was available for interviews until about four months ago. I actually had one scheduled, but it abruptly got canceled. Bang, suddenly there's a total blackout on the project. They just shut down their press office completely. When I call, I get transferred to his CFO, some young prick who likes to blow me off. For starters, I'd like to know why it's all so hush-hush." "Stone, private medical research is always proprietary, for God's sake. Sooner or later he undoubtedly hopes to patent whatever he's doing. A privately held corporation doesn't have to report to anybody, least of all some nosy reporter." That was true, of course. But Stone Aimes knew that the only way his book would be the blockbuster he needed to get free of the Sentinel was to tell the real story of what Gerex was in the process of achieving. And to be first doing it. For which he needed access. "Make it happen. Because, like it or not, Winston Bartlett is about to be the subject of a major volume of investigative journalism. I've already got a lot of what I need." That wasn't precisely the case, but there was no need to overdo brutal honesty. "The only question is, does he want it to be authorized or unauthorized? It's his choice." Winston Bartlett, Stone knew all too well, was a man who liked nothing better than to see his name in the papers. In fact, he used the free publicity he always managed to get with his jet-setting lifestyle to popularize his various business ventures. Like Donald Trump, he had made himself a brand name. So what was going on here? Was he just playing his cards close to the chest, waiting to make a dramatic big announcement? Or was he keeping this project secret because he was worried about some competing laboratory beating him to a patent? Or was he hiding something? Had the clinical trials out in New Jersey gone off the track? Was he keeping the project hush-hush because something was going on he didn't want the public to hear about? Had stem cell technology turned out to be an empty promise? Or had there been some horrible side effect they didn't want reported? "So could you just raise this with his attorneys? Because if he lets Van de Vliet talk with me directly, he can be sure I'll get the story right. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It's up to him." "Stone, I hope you have an alternative career track in the advanced stages of planning. Because the minute the Family gets wind of this, that you're writing some tell-all about Bartlett, they're going to freak. Even if you're doing it on your own time, you still work here. At least for the moment. Your name is associated in the public's mind with the Sentinel." He knew that, which was why this was going to be all or nothing. "Just do me this one itsy-bitsy favor, Jane. It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you." He was turning to walk out. "And look on the bright side. When the Family finally sacks me for good and all, you won't have to write me any more nasty memos telling me to be a good boy." He walked to the elevator and took it down. The next thing he had to do was make a phone call, and this was one that required a pay phone. He'd thought about it and decided one possible way to encourage Bartlett to open up was to try to bluff him, to make the man think he knew more about the clinical trials than he actually did. There was only one way he could think to do that. In premed days Stone Aimes had shared a dorm room at Columbia with Dale Coverton, who was now an M.D. and a deputy director at the National Institutes of Health. His office was at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. One of the nice things about having friends who go way back is that sometimes, over all those years, something happens that gives one or the other a few chips to call in. Such was the case with Stone Aimes and Dale Coverton. Dale's oldest daughter, Samantha, a blond-haired track star and math whiz, had--at age thirteen--developed a rare form of kidney cancer and needed a transplant. She was given six months, tops, to live. Stone Aimes had done a profile of her in the paper he worked for then, the New York Globe, and he'd found a transplant donor, a young girl on Long Island with terminal leukemia, who was able to the knowing she'd saved another person's life. The two had met and cried together, but Samantha was alive today because of Stone Aimes. It was a hell of a chit to call in, and he'd sworn he never would, but now he felt he had no choice. The truth was, Dale Coverton would have walked through fire for him. The question was, would he also violate NIH rules? Stone hoped he would. He stopped at the pay phone at the corner of Park and Eighteenth Street, an area where nine people out of ten were wearing at least one item of clothing that was black. It also seemed that six out of ten who passed were talking on cell phones. He took out a prepaid phone card and punched in the access number and then the area code for Bethesda, Maryland, followed by Dale's private, at-home number. It was, after all, Sunday morning. "Hey, Atlas, how's it going?" That had been Dale's nickname ever since he lifted two kegs of beer (okay, empty) over his head one balanced on each hand, at a Sigma frat blast their senior year. It now seemed like an eternity: for Dale, two wives ago, and for Stone, one wife and two live-togethers. "Hey, Truth and Justice, over and out." It was their all- purpose old code phrase for "I aced the quiz. I hit with the girl. I'm doing great." "My man, I need some truth," Stone said. "Justice may have to wait." A big delivery truck was backing up against the sidewalk, its reverse- gear alarm piercing and deafening. The mid-morning sun was playing hide-and-seek with a new bank of clouds in the south. "That thing you told me about? Is that it?" Dale's voice immediately grew subdued. He was a balding blond guy with just enough hair left for a comb-over. Beyond that, his pale gray eyes showed a special kind of yearning. He wanted truth and justice to prevail. "Don't do anything that won't let you sleep nights. But this situation is very special. I was hoping I wouldn't have to come to you about what we talked about last month, but I'm running out of time and ideas." He paused, listening to the sound of silence. "I suppose it's too much to ask." "Well, I still haven't seen any data or preliminary reports. The NIH monitor for those particular clinical trials is a woman called Cheryl Gates and she's not returning anybody's phone calls. The truth is, she doesn't have to. But another possibility is, she doesn't actually know beans and she's too embarrassed to admit it. If somebody wants to keep a monitor in the dark for strategic commercial reasons, it's easy enough to do." "Well, how about the other thing? The thing we talked about. The list?" He sighed. "I was afraid you might come to that. That's a tough one, Truth and Justice." "Hey, you know I didn't want to ask. But I'm running out of cards." He sighed again. There was a long silence and then, "You know you're asking me to give you highly restricted access codes to the NIH Web site. We shouldn't even be talking about it. So officially the answer is no. That's for the record." "Strictly your decision." But he had his fingers crossed, even as he was ashamed of himself for asking in the first place. "Maybe this is God's way of letting me even up things a bit. It can't be something easy or it doesn't really count, does it?" "I could end up knowing more about these trials than the NIH does," Stone said. "Because it doesn't sound like you guys actually know much at all." "Let me think about it and send you an e-mail tonight. Whatever comes up, it'll be 'scrambled eggs.'" "Thanks, Atlas." "Scrambled eggs" was a reference to a made-up code system they'd used in college. A name or number was encoded by interlacing it with their old phone number. This time the interlaced number would be an access code for proprietary NIH data. "I do not think I'm long for the world here at the Sentinel. We're forming a mutual hostility society." "I sure as hell hope you've got a new career concept ready for the day when they give you the ax." Dale's attempt at a light tone did not quite disguise his concern. "Funny, but that's the second time I've received that advice in the last half hour. I deem that unlucky." "Stone, sometimes I think you ought to try not living your life so close to the damned edge. Maybe you ought to start practicing a little prudence, just to see what it feels like." "I'm that wild ox we used to talk about I like to scrounge. But I also like to look around for the biggest story I can find. I'm trying to get an interview with a guy on Bartlett's staff. Maybe our 'scrambled eggs' will flush him out." "Just take care of yourself and keep in touch." "You too." And they both hung up. Was this going to do the trick? he wondered. As it happened Stone Aimes already knew plenty about Bartlett's business affairs. He had been a lifelong student of Bartlett the man, and as part of his research into the Gerex Corporation he had pulled together an up-to-date profile of Bartlett's cash-flow situation. If you connected the dots, you discovered his financial picture was getting dicey. Bartlett was overextended and, like Donald Trump in the early 1990s, he needed to roll over some short-term debt and restructure it. But his traditional lenders were backing away. He had literally bet everything on Van de Vliet. If his research panned out, then there was a whole new day for Bartlett Enterprises. That had to be what he was counting on to save his chestnuts. The funny thing was, Bartlett didn't really like to spend his time thinking about money. One of his major preoccupations was to be in the company of young, beautiful women, usually leggy models. Bartlett also had an estranged wife, Eileen, who reportedly occupied the top two floors of his mansion on Gramercy Park. Rumor had it she was a paranoid schizophrenic who refused to separate or give him a divorce. She hadn't been photographed for at least a decade, but there was no reason to think she wasn't still alive and continuing to make his life miserable. Another tantalizing thing to know about Winston Bartlett was that he had bankrolled a Zen monastery in upstate New York twenty years ago and went there regularly to meditate and recharge. He had once claimed in a Forbes interview, that the monastery was where he honed his nerves of steel and internalized the timing of a master swordsman. The Forbes interview was also where he claimed he had quietly amassed the largest collection of important Japanese samurai swords and armor outside of Japan. For the past five years he had been lobbying the Metropolitan Museum of Art to agree to lend its dignity to an adjunct location for his collection, and to name it after him. The Bartlett Collection. Winston Bartlett lusted for the prestige that an association with the Met would bring him. At the moment some of his better pieces were housed in a special ground-floor display in the Bartlett Building in TriBeCa. Most of the collection, however, was in storage. He had recently bought a building on upper Park Avenue and some people thought he was planning to turn it into a private museum. Well, Stone thought, if the stem cell project works out, he could soon be rich enough to buy the Metropolitan. He walked back to the lobby of his building and stood for a moment looking at himself in the plate glass. Yes, the older he got, the more the resemblance settled in. Winston Bartlett. Shit Thank goodness nobody else had ever noticed it. Chapter 4 _Sunday, April 5 9:00 A.M. _ When Ally and Knickers walked into her lobby, Alan, the morning doorman, was there, just arrived, tuning his blond acoustic guitar. Watching over her condominium building was his day job, but writing a musical for Off Broadway (about Billy the Kid) was his dream. He was a tall, gaunt guy with a mane of red hair he kept tied back in a ponytail while he was in uniform and on duty. Everybody in the building was rooting for him to get his show mounted, and he routinely declared that he and his partner were this close to getting backers. "We're gonna have the next Rent, so you'd better invest now" was how he put it. Alan had the good cheer of a perpetual optimist and he needed it, given the odds he was up against. Knickers immediately ran to him, her tail wagging. "Hey, Nicky baby, you look beautiful," he effused. Then he struck a bold E minor chord on his guitar, like a flamenco fanfare, and reached to pat her. "Come here, sweetie." "Hi, Alan. How's everything?" Seeing him always bucked Ally up. He usually came on duty while she was out for her run, and she looked forward to him as her first human contact of the day. He was younger than she was--early thirties--but she thought him attractive in an East Village, alternative-lifestyle sort of way. He was very proud of the new yin and yang tattoos on his respective biceps. She admired his guts and his willingness to stick to his dream, no matter the degradation of his life in the meantime. "Doing great, Ms. Hampton. Things are moving along." "Alan, I've told you a million times to call me Ally." Anything else made her feel like a hundred-year-old matron. "Hey, right, I keep forgetting." Then he nodded at the manila envelope Grant had just given her. "Pick that up on your run?" "I was ambushed by my ex-brother. He passed it along." "What's that mean?" he asked with a funny look. "Brothers are for keeps." "Unfortunately, you're right, Alan. The whole thing was long ago. And not far away enough." She was urging a reluctant Knickers on through the inner door. "Seeing him just now was sort of like an aftershock. From a big earthquake in another life." "Sounds like you need a hard hat," he said, and turned back to his guitar, humming. And dreaming. She took the elevator up to the top floor and let herself into her apartment, as always feeling a tinge of satisfaction at where she lived. Home, sweet home. Her loft-style apartment was in an idiosyncratic building whose six- year-old renovation had been designed by her old architectural firm, just before she had to leave and take over CitiSpace. It was their first big job in the city. She was the one who had designed the large atrium in the middle and the open glass elevators that let you look out at tall trees as you went up and down. She loved the building, but at the time she couldn't have begun to afford an apartment there. Later, when she could, none was available. Then she heard through the managing agent that a German owner, after completely gutting his space, had to return to his homeland in a hurry and was throwing it on the market for half what he'd paid. She'd built a bedroom at one end--walling off an area with glass bricks that let light through--and installed a "country" kitchen at the other, but beyond that it was hardwood floors and open space and air and light, along with a panoramic view of the Hudson River out the north window and a central skylight that kept her in touch with the sky and the seasons. In much of Manhattan it was possible to go for months and not actually walk on soil. You could completely lose the sense memory of the feeling of earth beneath your feet. She didn't want to lose the sky too. Since she couldn't afford a brownstone with a rear garden, the next best thing was to have a giant skylight. What she really dreamed of was to someday have a vacation home on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan, where she could wake to the sounds of the surf and play Bach partitas to the seabirds in the coconut palms. She felt there was something spiritual in the pure sound of a stringed instrument. It was sweetness and joy crystallized. It went with the sound of surf. They belonged together. She had actually researched and designed that dream house already. The place itself would be based on the Mayan abodes of a thousand years ago, on stilts with a bamboo floor and a palm-frond roof to provide natural ventilation. And since this was all a dream, she could fantasize that Steve was alive and was there too. Maybe this was her version of the Muslim Paradise, a land of milk and honey and infinite beauty and pleasure. Sometimes late at night, when the world was too much with her, she would put on headphones and a Bach CD and imagine she was on that beach in the Yucatan, gazing up at the glorious stars. The other thing she wanted to do someday was memorize the first violin score of all the Beethoven late quartets. But now any intensive playing, which was more tiring than it looked brought on chest pains after a few minutes. Shit. She felt like she was slowly being robbed of everything she loved. . . . She decided to stop with the negative thoughts and get ready for the stressful day to come. She just needed a few quiet moments to get mentally prepared for it. The first thing she did was give Knickers an early morning snack, then a fresh bowl of water and a large rawhide chew to occupy her energy for part of the day. After that, she would shower and change for the trip uptown. She had to dress for the rest of the day, which eventually might include going down to the office, if she had the time and inclination, so she decided to just throw on jeans and a sweater. She didn't pay any attention to the envelope Grant had given her; she just tossed it onto the burnt-tile breakfast counter. She told herself there wasn't time to look at it now, but she also realized she had a very serious psychological resistance to opening it. She hadn't anticipated that just seeing him once more would make her this tense and angry. His proposition was surely part of some kind of scam. She'd vowed never to believe him again. It was going to take a lot of persuading to get her to break that resolve. Look at it later. Whenever. She gave Knickers a good-bye pat and headed out the door. In times gone by, she took Knickers with her, since her mother loved to give her sinful sugar treats and fuss over her, but these days Nina's condition was never predictable. Knickers was one confusing element too many. On the trip uptown she always stopped at Zabar's for some smoked fish that she could pass off as "kippers" and some buttery scones. Nina was born in a little place called Angmering-on-Sea, in southern England, and she was an unreconstructed Brit. She insisted on oatmeal (the nutty, slow- cooked kind) for breakfast on weekdays and kippers and dark tea on weekends. Now when Ally visited, she never knew what to expect. Some Sundays Nina could be as spunky as Phyllis Diller, and other times she seemed to barely recognize her. (Though she sometimes wondered if her mom just acted that way so she'd leave sooner and let her get back to her Spanish-language soaps. She claimed to be watching them to study Hispanic culture, but Ally suspected the real reason was their racy clothes and plot lines.) And today, on the anniversary of Arthur's tragic death, would she even remember him? Early-onset Alzheimer's could proceed at a frightening pace. Nina had been a notable Auntie Mame kind of figure around Greenwich Village for decades. She smoked Woodbine cigarettes fiendishly and was forever giving homeless people food and handouts. She had adopted the garden at St. Luke's and worked there weeding and pruning and planting and nurturing from late spring to early autumn. As soon as afternoon tea was completed, she waited an only moderately decent interval before her first scotch and soda. Room temperature. No ice. "One should have a little something, shouldn't one?" Arthur joined her to have a cocktail after work once in a while, but mainly he successfully kept his mouth shut about her smoking and drinking. Everyone knew she was destined to live to a hundred. Cancer was surely terrified to go near her. But then the Alzheimer's struck. One of Nina's greatest gifts was an unerring BS detector. She had been skeptical about Grant since he was in his twenties. She deemed him a hollow suit, full of vapid ambition. She also believed his irresponsible behavior was a contributing factor to Arthur's death, though she did not have the same ferocity of feeling about it that Ally did. She had had him pegged as a no-goodnik for so long that she already had zero expectations about his character. In any case, Grant contributed nothing to the care of Nina and that suited Ally just fine. As part of the post-tragedy financial restructuring, she sold their Greenwich Village condo, which was too big and too full of memories for Nina to continue living there. She then found her a rent-regulated one-bedroom apartment in a wonderful old building on Riverside Drive, and when Nina's early-onset Alzheimer's progressed to the point where she couldn't really be relied upon to take proper care of herself, she arranged for a very conscientious and sprightly woman from the Dominican Republic to be her full-time caregiver. Maria was devoted to Nina, and Ally didn't know anyone who could have been more nurturing. She had been there for nine months and she also used Nina's space to baby-sit periodically for her daughter, Natalie, who had a darling five- year-old son. What would the next stage be, Ally wondered fearfully, and would her mother's medical insurance pay for it, whatever it was? She didn't know the answer and she was terrified. Aging. It was nature's process to make way for the new, but why did the last act have to be so cruel? Seeing her mother this way made her sometimes think that perhaps Arthur was luckier than anyone knew. He'd managed to miss out on having to watch the woman he loved go into a humiliating decline. Then she thought about her own mortality, the heart condition that refused to get any better. Dr. Ekelman had never been more serious. Slow down, take it easy, watch out for warning signs. She'd said everything except start saving up for a transplant. Or maybe she was just postponing that announcement as long as possible. Dammit, why couldn't she do something to make her heart stronger? That was the most frustrating part of all. The rest of her body could still have run a mile before breakfast. She could traipse all over lower Manhattan Saturdays, shopping for herbs in Chinatown and shoes in SoHo. Damn. Why wouldn't her heart get with the program? Half an hour later, a big Zabar's bag on the seat beside her, she found a space for her Toyota right on Riverside Drive, just across from the park. She took a final look at the sky, which was bright and blue and cheerful, and then, bag in hand, she headed up. Nina's building was a dark brick prewar and had no doorman, though the super's apartment was right off the lobby, allowing him to receive packages and generally keep an eye on comings and goings. To Ally, the bland, inevitably tan hallways in many old West Side buildings had a musty quality to them that always left her depressed. But her mother's eighth-floor apartment was light and airy--after Ally had had it remodeled and redecorated--and she couldn't have wanted a more cheerful home. The wallpaper was a light floral pattern and the overstuffed furniture was buried in enough pillows to please Martha Stewart. And in the living room there was the piano her mother once played, now covered with photos from happier times, and a stereo system with a turntable. When she buzzed Maria came to the door with an unusually bright smile. Great! Ally could always tell immediately from Maria's face whether her mom was having a good day or bad day. Today, she knew immediately, was going to be good. "Miss Hampton, she was asking about you, wondering when you'd get here," Maria said. "She remembered this is the day you come." Maria was half a head shorter than Ally, and her hair was dyed a defiant black. She had an olive complexion and her fine features made her a handsome woman for late fifties. She always wore bold silver jewelry that might have done more for her daughters than for her, but Ally liked the spunky persona that went along with too many accessories. She still had a trace of her Spanish accent even after all the years in New York. On days when her mother was cognizant, Maria was the perfect companion for her. Ally handed over the Zabar's bag and walked in. "Hi, sweetie." Nina was on the lounger, where she spent most of her waking hours. Yes, she was definitely having a good day today. She'd done a full makeup number. Her face could only be described as youthful, no matter that she was past sixty-five. She had elegant cheekbones and a mouth that was still sensuous. And her blue eyes remained lustrous, though nowadays they often seemed to be searching for something, or someone, no longer there. She had a colorist come in every three weeks to keep her hair the same brunette it had always been, and that had a way of making Ally fantasize she hadn't aged at all. Ally also felt--hoped--she might be looking at a spitting image of herself some decades hence. You could do a lot worse. The TV was on, sound turned low, and her mother was staring at the multihued screen. Probably the tape of a Spanish-language soap she'd somehow missed. Three cosmetic-heavy women in deeply cut blouses were arguing, all appearing either angry or worried or both. In times past Nina was always starting some new project, claiming that was how she kept her mind alert. She had taught herself French and had a very good accent, particularly for a Brit. Just before the Alzheimer's hit, she decided to try to learn Spanish, as something to divert her mind and keep it active. She also wanted to be able to chat with the increasingly Hispanic workforce in restaurants and delis. Now, though, Ally thought her mom was continuing the language study as part of a program of denial. Nina knew her mind was being stripped from her, but she was determined to try to wrestle it back by giving herself mental challenges. The struggle was hopeless, of course, but her spirit refused to admit that. Ally bent down and kissed her clear white forehead. "Hey, how's it going?" "Look at those pathetic creatures," she declared, only barely acknowledging Ally's presence. "If boobs were brains, they'd all be Einstein. In my day women knew how to make themselves attractive. Simplicity. Less is more." Yep, Ally thought, this is going to be a good day. She's obviously spent an hour on makeup. For all her complaining she probably watches Maria's soaps at least in part to glean cosmetic tips. Who knew, maybe she was learning Spanish too, like she claimed. Dear God, let her do it. Maria was looking into the Zabar's bag. "Oh, she's going to love this. Could you come in the kitchen and help me fix a tray?" That's strange, Ally thought. Maria thinks I'm all thumbs around food preparation and she never wants me in the kitchen. The apartment was old enough that the kitchen was a separate room with an open doorway. When they stepped inside, Maria set down the bag and turned to her. "There was a man here yesterday. I never saw him before. He said he was your brother. Is that true?" Ally felt a chill go through her body. "Your mother seemed to know him," Maria went on, "but I wasn't sure whether she might have just been pretending. Sometimes you never know what she gets or doesn't get. She's a good faker." "What... what did he want?" "Well, the first thing seemed to be that he wanted to ask your mother a question about you. Then he started trying to talk her into going to some clinic out in New Jersey, where they might be able to help ... her mind." Shit. What is he up to? Is he trying to get to me through Nina? "You said he asked Mom a question about me? What--" "What are you two whispering about?" came a voice from the doorway. "All kinds of secrets." Ally glanced up and smiled. "Maria was just telling me about a visitor you had yesterday, Mom. Do you remember if anyone came to see you?" "Pish. Of course I remember. Seth. But sometimes I think I'd just as soon not." She stared at Ally, those searching blue eyes boring in. "Do you ever see him anymore?" Funny you should ask, she thought. Then she wondered, why not tell the truth? She couldn't think of any reason not to. "As a matter of fact, Mom, Grant came by my building this very morning. I hadn't seen him in ages. He called and said he wanted to meet me while I was out running. I told him to bug off, but he came anyway. He wanted me to... Let's just say he's still wheeling and dealing." Nina looked at her for a long moment. "He showed up here yesterday morning, darling, out of the blue. After all those years when he didn't give a shit-- excuse my Francais. I acted like I didn't quite know who he was, but I got every word. He's still spending his salary on clothes. He talked a lot, saying he knew a man--a doctor with some kind of experimental treatment--who could turn back the clock on my ... or at least stop it. He could give me a chance to take my mind back. And then he left his card. He wanted me to talk to you about it and then call him back." Grant, you bastard. You didn't say a word about any of this. What're you trying to do? No need for rocket science. He was using Nina as bait. This was his way to make sure she was dragged into whatever shenanigans he was up to. If he got Nina out to that place in New Jersey, whatever it was, it would be like he had a hostage. She was so angry she was gasping for air. And she felt that damned tightness in her chest coming on. "I told Maria to throw the card away," Nina went on, "but then I got to wondering. What if it's true?" "You don't really think--" "Of course not," Nina declared, but Ally wasn't sure how much she meant it. "Probably he just needs money. That'll come next. I'd guess he's hoping I'll give him a 'down payment' for this 'treatment,' whatever it is. That's surely what's going on. Trying to take advantage of a senile old woman." Nina didn't appear to be fooled. Or was she? Sometimes she did her thinking out loud before coming to a conclusion. "Seth may be barking up the wrong tree with me, Ally," she went on. "I'm not sure I want any of his miracle cures. I've lived my life. I'm tired." She looked away. "When you're young, you never think about what it's like to be old. But then when you do get old you somehow can't imagine being young again. Having to do it all over..." Her voice trailed off. Yes, Ally thought, you've had plenty of pain you wouldn't want to relive. Nina sat back down on her flowered chaise and closed her eyes. "Do you know what day this is?" "I was hoping you'd remember." She reached and grasped her hand. "It's been five years today. Exactly." "I still have nightmares about it, the horror, " Nina said, her eyes still closed "but he did it for me, you know. He thought the insurance was all that would save me. And then when it didn't . . . So now we've got to hang on with all we've got. For him." She opened her eyes and looked directly at Ally. "One day soon, maybe sooner than we think, I'm going to be mad as a hatter. Time, Ally, time has played a cruel joke. God the Prankster is keeping me in physical health so I can experience every step of my own degradation." Then she glanced back at the Spanish soap and went on. "I hope you know how to enjoy life, while you're still full of it. Don't miss a minute." "I'm going to try, Mom." Ally squeezed her hand again and for that moment sensed Nina was her old self. She wasn't going to tell her about Dr. Ekelman and the latest heart news. But if she did the response would probably still be the same. _Just live life for all it's worth. You never know if there's even going to be a tomorrow. _"Would you put on some Janacek?" she said finally, aiming the remote at the TV and clicking it off. "One of the string quartets. I've had my fill of Hispanic tarts. I've learned a good deal of Spanish from them, but sometimes I think understanding what they're saying just makes it all that much cheaper." That was when Ally realized with a burst of joy that Nina still had an interior life that she was carefully hoarding. What else was going on in that mind? The sense of the night closing in? Do not go gentle. Please. Stay awhile with me. She got up and went over to the record cabinet. Her mother still had her collection of old 33s, today they were called vinyl, with conductors from decades ago like Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini. She found a Janacek String Quartet, No. 2, a rare mono pressing by the old Budapest String Quartet fifty years ago, and put it on the turntable, still loving those first crackling sounds that raise your anticipation. She remembered how Nina would put on a record in the evening, after dinner, with room-temperature scotch in hand, and make the family sit and listen. She suspected that had a lot to do with her own desire to play the violin herself someday. And then, in high school, she started lessons. Better late than never. Now, though, she sensed there was something Nina wanted to tell her and this was her way of setting the stage. After the music had played for almost three minutes, Nina listening with eyes closed as though in a rapture as the movement clawed its way toward an initial theme in an elusive minor mode, she turned and looked at Ally. "He didn't tell you he came to see me, did he? Seth?" "I guess he forgot," Ally said. It was a lie neither of them believed. "I've been thinking over all he was trying to say. I didn't get everything at the time, but I guess my feeble mind was recording it. Now it's all coming back. He was talking about Arthur and his suicide-- Ally, we both know that's what it was--and how he felt responsible and how he was finally going to be able to make up for all the harm he'd done to me, and to you. But he was worried you might not want to go along with this special treatment for me." She was studying Ally, as though searching for an answer. Maria had discreetly departed for the kitchen. "He kept talking about this doctor he knew. At this clinic. He swore this man could perform a miracle for me. He said I should do it, whether you approved or not." Ally looked at her, wondering what to say. This was getting too devious for words. Then Nina went on. "I'll probably not remember anything about this by tomorrow. But I just wanted to tell you. When you get as mentally addled as I am now, you compensate by developing your other senses, I call it your sixth sense. And Ally, I think he's involved in something that's evil. And he wants to draw me into it, maybe both of us." She stopped carefully framing her words. "I sensed a kind of desperation about him. I don't know exactly what it was." As Ally listened the Janacek quartet swelling in the room, scratches and all, she felt more and more like an utter dunce. She hadn't caught any of this in Grant's come-on, but now . . . Nina was right about that sixth sense. But what could the real story be? Grant was more a simple con artist than some embodiment of evil. Think the Music Man in designer threads, not Darth Vader. Evil was surely too strong a word He was just the consummate self-promoting hustler. The troubling part was, he was so damned good at it. "Mom, you're wonderful today. Why don't we all three go somewhere for brunch now? Right now. There's a new French place just down Columbus that needs checking out." She had an eerie foreboding it might be their last chance. "No, honey, you brought some smoked fish, didn't you? That's all I want." Nina dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. "Besides, no one in this town knows how to brew a proper pot of tea." Then, the next thing Ally knew, she was back to musing out loud about Grant. "I can't stop wondering. He said this doctor he knows might work a miracle for me. What am I supposed to think?" Ally was trying to decide whether a glimmer of hope, even though it was almost certainly false, might be a healthy tonic for Nina just now. "Mom, Grant gave me some materials about that doctor. I'll read them tonight, I promise." She was listening to the Janacek quartet soar, and it was bucking her up. "Let me see what I can find out." "He wants me to start in right away," Nina pressed. "I think he said there are some studies going on at this clinic, but they're almost over. It's free now, and unless I go soon, I can't get in the program. He said he would take me out there Monday morning if I wanted. But if I go with anybody, I want it to be you." He's such a bastard, Ally thought. She glanced at Maria, who'd been watching from the kitchen door and listening to all that had happened. She was looking very upset and she motioned Ally toward the doorway with her eyes. "Let me get a glass of water, Mom." She headed for the kitchen. "Did you hear all the things she's talking about?" she asked when they were out of earshot. Maria nodded. "A lot of what your mother said is true. It was very strange. At the time she acted like she didn't understand him. Now I realize she did. Or maybe it all just came back to her." "What do you think is really going on?" Ally was studying her, hoping to get at the truth. "She seems a lot better today." Maria paused a moment. "Miss Hampton, I don't believe your mother is going to be with us much longer. I saw my own go through much the same thing. There's always a glimmer just before ..." She looked down and stopped. "You said Grant asked her something about me. What--" "I don't think she remembers. He was asking her about your blood type. It seemed a very strange question." Ally couldn't think of any reason why he would be asking that. "Maria, what was your impression of him? Overall?" "Just that he seemed very nervous. Very uneasy." She hesitated, as though uncertain how to continue. "He wanted something, Miss Hampton. That much I'm sure about. But this doctor he wants to take her to. It sounded to me like he does things that are against the laws of nature." "Grant wants me to go out to that clinic too." "Whatever you do, just stay close to her," Maria said finally, picking up the tray with its smoked fish and teapot covered with a knit cozy. "She may not have that long." Maria had a seer's mystical bent that sometimes troubled Ally. What if she was right? It was moments like this when Ally truly missed having someone special in her life. Chapter 5 _Sunday, April 5 3:19 P.M. _ The afternoon was waning when Ally finally headed back downtown. Days like today she couldn't help coining away buoyed, feeling her mom was going to be cogent forever. In fact, Ally was more worried about herself just now. About two o'clock she'd started feeling that sensation in her chest again, but she hadn't wanted her mother, or Maria, to know she was using vasodilator medication. She casually said her farewells and got down to the car and was sitting behind the wheel before she popped a nitro tab. She immediately felt okay again, and as she drove down Broadway, heading for her office, she reviewed all that had happened. After their brunch of smoked fish and onion chutney and soda bread and a pot of double-strength Earl Grey, she'd tried to sell her mother on a trip to the Bahamas, with Maria joining them. Soon, maybe at the beginning of summer. She wanted Nina to spend some time thinking about it, but she didn't want to wait too long. Was this just going to be a distraction at the end of Nina's life? God, she didn't want to think so. She wanted to think of it as a rebonding. Nina had always liked to revisit the Devonshire countryside of her childhood in midsummer--when Arthur could take time off--always for just a week, but it was as intensively planned as a major military campaign. Her favorite thing was to trek among the hedgerows and stone fences, making charcoal sketches on opened-out brown bags. In the evenings they would dine _en famille_ at a country inn. They went with local favorites, like kidney pie. Then they would stroll the country lanes in the moonlight as a family. No TV, and she and Grant hated everything about the trips. Booooring. But that was long ago and far away, when she and Grant were still kids. Now her mom would surely want something restful. And some guaranteed sunshine wouldn't hurt either. Already she had an idea: why not rent a house with a private pool, say on Paradise Island where Nina could spend a couple of hours each afternoon in the casino? She'd always loved casinos, and never missed a chance to hit the blackjack tables if she was anywhere near one. Her loss limit was a hundred dollars, but she actually beat the house more often than not. The teatime scotch hadn't impaired her card-counting skills. Nina appeared to like the idea, so Ally had started making up a schedule in her head. The beginning of summer would be off-season in the Caribbean and there should be some real bargains to be had. She made a mental note to ask Glenda, her assertive, gum-chewing travel agent at Empress, to start trolling for a package. What was Ally really thinking, hoping? She was fantasizing she could heal Nina all by herself. She so desperately wanted to, she had a premonition she could will it to happen. When she saw her mom on good days, she always found herself believing she could somehow make all her days good. She was sure of it, against all odds. What she wasn't sure about was what her mother really thought about Grant's proposal to enroll her in this clinic in New Jersey. Was this doctor's "miracle" stem cell cure based on a real medical advance, or was he some kind of charlatan? The first thing to do was to find out more about this supposed medical magician, Karl Van de Vliet. The envelope Grant gave her was still lying there on her breakfast bar, unopened. She told herself she'd read it the minute she got home tonight, when the day's work was over and she could concentrate.... The Sunday office. The interior-design job she had on her mind was behind schedule and she was feeling a lot of pressure. It was for a Norwegian couple in their mid-thirties. He was a software programmer working in New York's restructured Silicon Alley, and she was teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Together they pulled down over 250 thou a year and they'd decided to stop throwing away money on obscene New York rents. They bought an entire floor, actually three small apartments, of what was formerly a tenement in the West Fifties, an area once known as Hell's Kitchen but now much gentrified and renamed Clinton. They had dreams of an open-space loft of the kind made famous in SoHo when artists took over abandoned factory buildings and gutted the space, taking out all the walls. Because they had combined three apartments, they had to file their plans with the NYC Department of Buildings and modify the building's Certificate of Occupancy to reflect the change in the number of dwelling units. So far so good, but then a woman who was the local member of the District Council got wind of the project and sent someone from her office to look over the place. The next day, the Department of Buildings' approval of their plans was abruptly withdrawn. It turned out that there was an obscure law on the books concerning Clinton, one that even the Department of Buildings was only vaguely aware of. It said that in order to preserve the "family character" of the neighborhood, no renovation could alter the number of rooms in a residential building. Not the number of apartments, mind you, just the number of rooms. That was when they showed up at CitiSpace in despair. They wanted Ally to help them by doing some kind of design that would satisfy the law and also give them the open, airy feeling they had set their hopes on. On the face of it, their two goals seemed mutually contradictory and impossible. He was short and shy and she was plump and sassy and Ally liked them both a lot. Sometimes in this business she sensed she was helping people realize their dreams and that was a very rewarding feeling. Real estate was an emotional thing. Your home was a part of you. She always tried to get to know people before she did any designs for them. Sometimes design was more psychology than anything else. But this time she had to solve a problem before she could wax creative. If their plan for open space could be stopped by some obscure local provision that even the Department of Buildings was fuzzy about, then maybe there was some other obscure law in the Housing Code that could be used to fight back. The full code had recently been put on the NYC Web site, so she wanted to go over every page and see what she could come up with. And she wanted to do it in the office, undisturbed with all the architectural plans close to hand. The office was deserted when she cruised in and clicked on the lights. She got on the expansive NYC Web site and started poring over the Housing Code, though she was still obsessing about Nina. What if this doctor in New Jersey actually could do something for her? Finish here, she told herself, and then go home and read the guy's CV. A pot of decaf coffee later, she came across a little-known fact, which she now vaguely remembered from her days as a practicing architect. If you installed a fifteen-inch drop across a ceiling, that was technically a wall in the eyes of the NYC Department of Buildings. The space on each side became a separate "room." As they say in the movies, bingo. In fact, why not do a honeycomb ceiling that would actually simulate the industrial look they were seeking, anyway? The ceiling was over eleven feet high; there was plenty of vertical space. Nobody would know it was just a sneaky way to get around a funny local aberration in the Building Code. I'm brilliant, she thought. Yes! Dad would be proud. She made some sketches, and by that time it was after six. Time to go home. Knickers was waiting by the door, and she gave Ally a dirty look and some very disapproving barks. By way of penance, Ally took her on an extra long walk, all the way up to Fourteenth Street and back. Then she picked up some tuna salad and steamed veggies from a new deli on West Tenth Street. As she settled down to eat at the breakfast bar, she felt like a single mom, always eating and doing everything on the run--and all she had to worry about was a friendly dog. How did real working moms do it? It was just past nine when she poured a glass of Chardonnay and picked up Grant's envelope and took it into the living room, pausing to put some Chopin ballades on the CD player. The envelope contained a bound folder that was Dr. Karl Van de Vliet's curriculum vitae, his resume. It was in fact a minibiography that devoted a page to each of his career turns. His life story was presented from a god's-eye view, as though it were a novel. Karl Van de Vliet had done his undergraduate studies at the prestigious University of Maastricht after which he'd migrated to the United States and taken a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Chicago, top of the class. Following that he went to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow, again studying genetics. From the beginning he focused his research on the mechanisms that govern human cell reproduction. Along the way he'd become interested in something known as the Hayflick limit--which concerned the number of times a cell could divide before it became senescent and ceased to replicate. This natural life span controlled the aging process of every organism, and it seemed to be nature's device for nipping undesirable (i.e. mutant) cells in the bud by never letting any cell, unhealthy or healthy, just keep on replicating indefinitely. However, there were "immortal cells" buried within us all, so-called stem cells that could replicate forever, unchanged. They were present at the very beginning of life and all our differing body tissue was created from them. Some still lingered on in our body, as though to be available for spare parts. If one could figure out how to transfer the characteristics of those cells to other cells, then the possibility existed that we could regenerate damaged or aging tissue in our vital organs. The trick was to figure out the mechanism whereby stem cells managed to cheat time. His research, which was accompanied by a flurry of scientific papers, was celebrated and encouraging. After three years he was lured away from Yale to become a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, which offered to double his laboratory budget. He was there for six years, during which time he met Camille Buseine, a neurosurgeon finishing her residency. She had a doctorate from a medical institute near Paris and she was doing research that was similar to his, so the biography said. They married and became a team, and when he was asked by Harvard Medical to found a department for molecular genetics, she was immediately offered a tenured position there too. Harvard considered it a double coup. His research was zeroing in on the telomerase protein, an enzyme many scientists believed was responsible for suppressing the aging process in stem cells. Could it be used to regenerate tissue? He was well along on the task of exploring that tantalizing possibility when tragedy struck. Camille, who had worked around the clock during her residency at Johns Hopkins, began feeling weak at Harvard and was diagnosed with acquired aortic stenosis. After a 2 1/2-year struggle, she died during a severe cardiac episode. My God, Ally thought, that's what I have. After Camille died, he left Harvard and its time-consuming academic obligations and went to work full-time at a research institute affiliated with Stanford University. He even formed a paper company to structure the work, the Gerex Corporation. But then there came a second strike against him. He was doing research using embryonic stem cells obtained from the discarded embryos at fertility clinics. After two years of harassment by right-wing political groups, Stanford decided his research was too controversial and terminated his funding. Three months later, Karl Van de Vliet merged his company with Bartlett Medical Devices and moved his research staff east to New Jersey, to the Dorian Institute. That was five years past, and now his research using stem cells was in third-stage NIH clinical trials. The official history ended there, though with a strong hint that the final chapter was yet to be written. Then at the back there was a bibliography of publications that extended for eight pages, and included a summary of the most important papers. His work on stem cells and the telomerase enzyme appeared to be at the forefront of the field. Oddly, however, some of his writings also were philosophical, an argument with himself whether his work could be misused to alter the natural limitations life imposes. One of those papers, from a conference presentation in Copenhagen, had a summary, and in it he pondered whether the use of stem cells to rejuvenate the body might someday give medical science godlike powers. The Greeks, he declared, had a myth about the punishment reserved for those who sought to defeat our natural life span. When the goddess of the dawn, Aurora, fell in love with the beautiful youth Tithonus and granted him immortality, it turned out to be a curse, since he still reached the decrepitude of age but had to suffer on forever because he could not have the release of death. But, Van de Vliet pondered, if we could find a way to arrest the aging process in our body's tissue, might we escape the process of aging? If so, was this a good thing? Or might this be a step too far that would bring on unintended, and as yet unknown, consequences? _Well_, Ally thought, _I wouldn't mind having Mom's mind restored. Or my own heart, for that matter. _All in all, Karl Van de Vliet was clearly a genius. He also was a very complex man. But might he be a very gifted huckster as well? The inside back cover had a group photo, showing him surrounded by members of his research staff, all in white lab coats. There were two men and two women and each was identified, along with a list of his or her academic credentials. They were standing on the porch of what appeared to be a nineteenth-century mansion, which had large Doric columns in Greek Revival style. The lettering in the marble above their heads read THE DORIAN INSTITUTE. She put down the folder and went into the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine, finishing off the botde. Her mind was chinning, but not because of the words on the page. It was that photograph at the back. It was dated less than two years ago. His Ph.D. at the University of Chicago was granted in 1962. But even if he was a genius and got his first doctorate in his early twenties, he'd still have to be--what? At least sixty years old by now. Probably halfway to seventy. _But in the photo, he looks no more than forty, well, forty-five at most. What the heck is going on? _She went back into the living room and picked up the brochure and stared at it. He had sandy hair that lay like a mane above his elongated brow. He was tall and gaunt, with high cheeks and deep, penetrating eyes. But no matter how you gauged him, the guy hadn't aged a day since his forty-fifth birthday, tops. So what's going on that isn't in the package? She checked the digital clock on the side table--the hour was pushing ten--and decided to give Grant a call. Three chirps, and then, "Yo. Hampton here." My God, she thought, he even does it at home. That synthetic bravado was left over from his trader days: _You're the luckiest person alive, just to have reached me. How can I further make your day?_ his tone implied. "Grant, it's me. I think it's time for that vital chat." It took him a split second to recover, and then, "Hey, I was beginning to wonder what happened to you. If you were going to stand me up or what. Not call, like you said you would." "Long day. I was up at Mom's this morning. You knew she was going to tell me, right? About your little surprise visit and proposal?" "I had a hunch the topic might arise." His voice seemed to shrug nonchalantly. "I thought you should hear it from her instead of from me. So what do you think?" "What do I think? I think I'm wondering what you're up to." "I'm not 'up to' anything, Ally, except exactly what I told her. Trouble is, I don't know whether she got it. I wanted to see how she was doing. You know, I'm thinking maybe Dr. Vee can do something for her. But I had to see her first. She seemed pretty distant, but that woman there--what was her name? Marie, Maria, whatever?--said she has lucid moments. So who knows? He might possibly help her. I think I can arrange to get her into his clinic. Bartlett gives me a few perks. It's the least I can do for her, so..." His voice trailed off expectantly. "Grant, I need to talk to you about this man. I read the stuff you gave me and I still don't know the first thing about him." She paused, about to speak words she never thought she would. "If you want to come over, I'll stand you a drink." "You serious?" "For my sins." "I'll grab a cab. See you in fifteen." It's begun, she thought. I'm about to let Grant screw up my life one more time. No. This round, don't give him the chance. Stay ahead of him. _Sunday, April 5 10:39 P.M. _ "I didn't know if I should have brought a bodyguard" he was saying as he strode in the door, a Master of the Universe with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked stylish, but then he always did. He casually tossed the jacket onto the gray couch, then gazed around. Thankfully, he didn't try the New York cheek kiss. "I guess this is not supposed to seem like old times, but somehow it does. Seeing you again. Hey, we're still blood kin, right?" "Don't push it, Grant." She'd killed the Chopin and put on a Bach sonata. Clear, precise thinking was required not sentimentality. Knickers had rushed to give Grant a hello nuzzle, happier to see him than Ally was. "Whatever this is, it is definitely not old times." He sauntered into her kitchen, looking around--trying to act cool, but clearly ill at ease. "You've done a nice job on this place, sis." He was looking over the rustic counter she'd installed. "You get a deal on the space? A bank repo or something?" "The people who had it wanted to sell fast and I made them an offer." Not that it was any of his damned business. Why didn't she treat the question with the scorn it deserved? She had an old fifth of Dewar's in the cabinet. She poured him some, over ice, then gave herself a shot of tequila _anejo_, neat, to sip. She loved the pure agave flavor. The more she thought about the situation, the more she was sure she needed it. He picked up his scotch, then walked into the living room and helped himself to the couch. "Ally, I know why you're ticked. And I don't blame you. I feel crummy about Dad, I really do. I guess I share some of the blame." He was trying to sound contrite but the reading did not quite rise to the minimal threshold of credibility. "You 'share'... with whom, you self-centered prick? Nobody else was involved. He mortgaged CitiSpace to the hilt and settled those fraud suits to keep you from losing your license. Or worse. You destroyed his business and his life all by yourself." He looked as contrite as she'd ever seen him. "Look, I thought the business plan I had would work out. I really did. I was managing discretionary accounts, but the bond market hit a downdraft when I was long. A few of my clients didn't have the balls to ride it out. What do you want me to say? That I feel like a complete cretin over what happened? That a day doesn't go by that I don't hate myself for it?" His eyes went dead and he seemed to shrivel, his body becoming visibly smaller. "Well, I do. More than you'll ever know." "You didn't seem all that contrite at the time." "I was operating in a high state of denial back then. But now I want to take a shot at growing up. I want to start trying to make up for all that, if you'll just cut me a little slack and give me a chance." "Grant, you're working for Bartlett Enterprises, doing whatever it is you do. Fine. That's your job. But now you want me to become a guinea pig when this Dutch doctor needs one in a crunch. Or maybe Mom too, for all I know. Maybe he needs her as well. Two guinea pigs. So don't try to make this about me and her. Let's keep it honest. It's really about you, just like always." "Ally, a lot of things have gone on since Dad... passed away. I've changed, in more ways than you could ever imagine." He was all sincerity now, his demeanor rapidly evolving to fit the current vibes of the scene. "I'm not like I used to be. I really mean that. I've learned ... learned that I can't always just be thinking about myself." "So ... what changed you?" The truth was, he did seem different. In some way she couldn't quite understand. But he was always talking about turning over a new leaf, especially whenever he'd just gotten himself in trouble. That part hadn't changed at all. "Ally, Dr. Van der Vliet... I don't know how much I should tell you, but he's a miracle worker." He paused and looked down at his scotch. One thing about him was definitely different, she thought. There was a lot less bravado and swagger. "The thing is, what he's doing is so powerful. I'm not sure which worries me most--that it's not true, that it's just some placebo effect, or that it is true. When I think about the implications . . ." His voice trailed off again. "Go on." She could tell he was dead serious. "It's not something I'm sure I should talk about." He reached over and touched her hand. "But it's working, I swear. He's doing things that shouldn't even be possible." Uh-huh, she thought, pulling her hand away. "Grant, please tell me exactly what you think he could do for Mom." She wasn't sure she should be having this conversation. "You want her to go out to the Dorian Institute, right? Where he does his 'research.' And I take it that's where you want me to go too." "It's in northern Jersey, about an hour's drive from the city, maybe not even if traffic's light. But I'd only want Mom to go if you say it's okay. I'm not trying to do anything behind your back." She breathed a long sigh, trying to clear her brain. Every other word he uttered was probably part of some hustle. But what was it? "Why don't we start at the beginning, Grant? I read his CV, and believe me I've got a lot of questions. For starters, how did he convince Winston Bartlett to bankroll him?" She took another sip of her tequila, then set it down. "You're his flunky now, so you should be able to answer that question." "You read the materials I left?" "Just finished them." "Then you know he lost his federal funding at Stanford a few years back, when he was at a critical stage of his research using stem cells. That's when he came to the Man and persuaded him to put up the money to help him take everything private. The only way Bartlett would play ball was if he could buy the Gerex Corporation and get three-quarter interest in all the patents. Van de Vliet kept the other quarter, but now they're both hoping to sell off forty-nine percent to a big pharmaceutical company. Not American. I can't tell you any more than that." "Congratulations," she said. "Sounds like your job is secure." "Yeah, right." That twitch of nonchalance he had when something really mattered--even as a child he would attempt (and fail) trying not to gloat over some personal success. It was moments like this when she realized she'd missed seeing him and talking to him. When you cut a family member off from you, you also cut yourself off from them. After all, he was her closest blood kin, even though he was an unreconstructed shit. At some level she wished she could get past the bitterness she felt toward him. Could it be he really had changed? He didn't like the way the scene was going. What the hell was her problem? He looked at his scotch longingly, then got up and went to the kitchen and got another ice cube for it. Go easy. How was he going to get through to her? If word of the Beta screw-up got out, the buyout was toast and Grant Hampton along with it. But if Ally could be brought in . . . "Grant," she was saying, "I want to start off by asking you if you've ever taken a really good look at that guy Karl Van de Vliet. Does he look anything like his picture? The one that came with that CV of his." "Sure, that's him." "And I assume you've actually read his resume?" "Of course." Here it comes, he thought. The thing everybody asks. "If those dates are right, then he has to be--what?--at least sixty years old. But in the picture he doesn't look a day over forty-five. So what's going on?" "Ally, you're finally getting it." He rattled the ice in his Dewar's, then finally took a deep sip. Maybe, he thought, it would help with the courage. "He's a truly amazing human being." "That's not an answer, Grant. It's a generality." She exhaled in obvious exasperation. "But I want an honest answer about one thing, dammit. Do you actually think he could help Mom's Alzheimer's? Maybe even reverse it? Tell me the truth. Just once." "Ally, I can't guarantee anything. But it's worth a shot." Now, he thought hopefully, she was sounding like she was starting to come around. Thank God. As for whether Dr. Vee could cure the old bird who knew? But he'd overheard the nurses talking about how he and his research staff had had some phenomenal luck with Alzheimer's. . . . "By the way, what happened when you talked to Mom?" he went on. "Did she seem like she understood anything I told her?" "Grant, she probably understood a lot more than you wanted her to. The bad part is, she let you give her some hope. Now, what's going to happen if she goes out there and ends up being disappointed?" It's a real possibility, he told himself. But it's probably the only way I'll ever get you out there, and that's what really matters. "Ally, we'll never know unless ... You should go too." "Look, maybe I'll talk to Van de Vliet. But it's purely information- gathering." She was staring at him. "So why not tell me? The whole story. Are you doing this for Mom and me, or are we just being used like lab animals?" "I'm not sure you're going to believe anything I say." He sipped again at his scotch, then walked over to the skylight and looked up. Finally he turned back. "After Dad . . . and everything, I had trouble sleeping. I know you didn't think it got to me, but it was like some bad force had taken over my mind, haunting me. I became obsessed with death. I took off two months and went to Colorado, camping. Out there, under the stars, I did a lot of thinking. Dad had died suddenly, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. The rest of us, we all die a little every day. Why does time do the things to us it does? Why do we have to grow old and repulsive?" He drew on his scotch again, then continued. "When I came back, I started doing research on aging. That's when Karl Van de Vliet's name popped up on the Internet. Some paper he'd given in Vienna years ago. It was about the physiology of aging. But then Tanya came along and I sort of forgot about him. Then when I went to work for Winston Bartlett, there he was. The very same guy. It was weird, but it was as though God had delivered him." "Is this shaggy-dog story going to end up being about why he looks so young?" "I'm getting there." He smiled. "I kept wondering too, and then finally I saw an opening in his schedule and took him to dinner here in the city, down at Chanterelle. A social thing. Eventually, after a couple of bottles of serious wine, it came out that once upon a time he had done an unconventional experiment. On himself. It was sort of an accident, something about melanoma research." "So he--" "You asked me why he looks so young. Well, some procedure he did apparently stopped his skin from aging. But then he changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it anymore. So do I think he's a miracle worker? I'd say he's walking proof of something. That you can cheat nature." "And?" "There is no 'and.' That's all I know." He came back and settled onto the couch. His scotch glass was empty and he yearned for another, but that small voice inside was urging discretion. This was the moment that could be make or break. "But to get back to you, Ally, you really should meet him. I can't talk specifics about the actual clinical trials, but let me just say they've been very positive. There's every reason to think he can help you. And Mom too." He studied her, trying to read her mind. He wondered if she could detect the anxiety he felt lurking just beneath the surface. Was she seeing through him, the way Nina, for all her mental debility, had seemed to? "Grant, has this doctor Van de Vliet gotten into some kind of medical experiment that's turned into a Faustian bargain? Is his skin rejuvenation a signal that this research has gone over into The Twilight Zone'! When a sixty-something man looks forty-something, there's got to be an unnatural act going on. What does it mean?" "Maybe it means he's found the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. The Fountain of Youth or whatever." "Then he'll probably have to pay for it some other way," she said getting up. "Mother Nature doesn't give out freebies. Look, I've got to give Knickers her midnight walk. That's your exit cue. I'll call him tomorrow. I'll go that far." "Don't blow this chance, Ally," he said setting down his empty scotch glass and getting up. He felt hope and it bucked him up. "It could be the biggest mistake of your life. And Mom's." He was at the door before he turned back. It was time for the insurance. The hedging of bets. Bartlett had authorized it. "By the way, I almost forgot. Jesus, I'm going senile myself. W.B. told me to tell you he'd like you to come over to his place on Gramercy Park tomorrow morning around ten, if you can work it into your schedule." "What for?" "That job on his place that I told you about this morning, I guess. I do know he's planning to renovate the ground floor. But just between us, he's also got a massive renovation job in the wings, so maybe that's what's really on and this is like an audition. Who knows? He bought an old mansion on upper Park and he's planning to heavily redo it and turn it into a museum for his incredible collection of Japanese military stuff, swords and armor and shit. He's going to do over the entire interior. It's part architecture and part design, so I gave him your name. Who knows? But I was over at his place this afternoon and he asked about you. He said he wanted to see you as soon as possible. He even gave me one of his personal cards to give to you. Here. It has the Gramercy Park address and his private cell phone." "Just like that?" She looked skeptical but took the card. "Winston Bartlett is not a man who dawdles. If he decides he wants to do something, he just moves on it. All he asked was that you bring a portfolio, to show him some of your work." _Come on and do it,_ he thought as he headed out the door. _Go and see the Man. Just fucking do it. If he can't close this frigging deal, nobody can. _ Chapter 6 _Sunday, April 5 11:43 P.M. _ Winston Bartlett put the newly glazed creme brulee, still warm from his preparation in the kitchen below stairs, on the bed tray in front of Kristen, next to her untouched champagne flute. She used to love it and he was trying everything he knew to jog her memory. He'd cooked her favorite supper, eggs Florentine, with barely wilted spinach topped by prosciutto, had taken her to bed and now there was champagne and her favorite dessert. But she still seemed distracted and distant. Yes, it was a good idea to get her away from the institute, but that was merely relocating the problem, not fixing it. If it could be fixed. In the meantime, she had to be kept here, out of the public eye. "Thank you," she said and gingerly took a small bite. She had been almost lucid earlier this evening and was leaning against the antique headboard wearing a soft blue nightgown. Her long blond hair was tousled and down over her breasts. Her memory might now be a sometime thing, but her libido was still going strong. "Do you remember how much you used to like that?" he asked, trying to make eye contact. She nodded her head dumbly. Did she actually remember? Increasingly, he had no idea. He had brought her here to stay in this five-story nineteenth- century mansion on Park Avenue. He'd purchased it a year and a half earlier for 23 million and he was intending to have it renovated and converted into a museum. That renovation, however, had been put on hold awaiting a decision by the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Museum. He wanted the building to be a Park Avenue adjunct to the Met, and he also wanted his definitive assemblage of Japanese implements of war to be known as the Bartlett Collection. The tax write-off would be monumental, but that was not nearly so important as the prestige. It was clear now that this project would not have any momentum until he first got himself appointed to the board of the Met. Unfortunately, money alone wasn't adequate. Major-league politics was involved. He was working on it, with a lot of Upper East Side lunches and targeted charity events. He was also taking his time and getting designs and estimates for the renovation. The way things were at the moment, he didn't have the cash to actually start construction anyway. For the moment, the place was furnished but unoccupied except for a security guard, a part of Bartlett's personal staff. Now, with Kristen here, discretion was his uppermost concern. He had sent the security guy home this evening, so he and Kristen could have privacy. In the morning two nurses would come on duty, one to look after her and another to cook. Over the past year he'd brought her here most weekends. It was like having their own Shangri-la. Best of all, unlike his official residence on Gramercy Park, he didn't have a wife upstairs, like some mad (in every sense of the word) aunt in the attic. He had hoped that bringing Kristen back here might do something for her memory. He still hoped, but he wasn't sure. In bed tonight she had been as lithe and enthusiastic as ever. Possibly even more so. Did she know who he was? He couldn't really tell. But he still loved being with her. The soft skin and the voluptuous curves of her breasts and thighs: it made him feel young again. Since she had been out at the Dorian Institute and away from him, he had begun to feel older and older. Winston Bartlett was sixty-seven and--increasingly--felt it. To begin with, his prostate was enlarging itself, in spite of all the special, expensive medicines he used Surgery was increasingly looking like a possibility. And his memory was nowhere near what it once was. He wolfed down ginkgo and ginseng capsules by the handful but was finding it harder and harder to remember people's names, particularly the new wave of donation-hungry politicians who fawned over him. And then there was the matter of teeth. He'd just gone through major periodontal surgery, a sign of aging gums. How long before his ivories would be replaced by ceramic choppers? Oh, and the heart. His cardiologist was talking more and more about stents to alleviate the two constricted arteries in the left ventricle. They were already down to 40 percent. Face it, his whole damned body was falling apart. Probably worst of all, the Johnson was far from what it used to be; not long back, it was a daily triple threat. Soon he might be resorting to Viagra as more than a discretionary recreational drug, something he was still joking about less than a year ago. The dirty secret about living this long is, after you've seen everything you ever wanted to see, done everything you ever wanted to do, bought everything you ever wanted to buy, you gradually lose the only thing really worth having. Youth. To try to hang on to it, he had been through clinics as far- flung as Phoenix and Lucerne. He had undergone regimens of antioxidants and injections of human growth hormone. He'd tried testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone, better know as DHEA. Maybe it had made a difference, maybe not. Sometimes he thought he had more libido and energy, but other times he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just that he'd begun working out even harder, playing handball an extra half hour every other day. He did know his body was continuing to deteriorate. Shit, the Beta had to be made to work "I don't want to stay here alone," Kristen said, putting down her spoon. "I want to go back to work." "Honey, I can't be here all the time, and you're really not well enough to go to work. There'll be someone here with you. It's just till you get better." He studied her, the face that was so young, and felt the full weight of the tragedy sinking in. "Do you remember what it was you used to do?" "I don't remember right now. I mean exactly. I used to talk to people. I was in this room with lots of bright lights." She didn't actually remember, he thought. Her former producer at E!, along with everybody else (including her harridan of a mother, Katherine), had been told she was at a private health spa in New Mexico. It had to be kept that way. No one must know she was here. All the phones had been removed before the ambulance brought her. Starting at six in the morning, there would be a nurse and a nurse/cook downstairs on a twenty-four-hour basis. Under no conditions could she be allowed to leave, not the way her mind was now. "Kristy, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this. I'm so sorry. But Karl is doing all he can. We're ... He has a new idea that he's about to explore. He's going to..." His voice trailed off as he stared at her unblinking eyes. "You don't remember what happened, do you?" But how she looked. My God. The youth. How could a true miracle have such a tragic downside? That was when the cell phone on the stand beside him chirped. It was the only phone in the place, and tomorrow it would be gone. No way could she be allowed to have a phone. The caller ID advised that it was Grant Hampton. "Kristy, I've got a feeling this could take a while." He was reaching for his silk robe. "I'll be downstairs on the first floor if you need anything, okay?" She just stared at him mutely. He shook his head sadly. There wasn't much time left to mend her. How in God's name had it come to this? As he moved down the spiraling grand staircase, he clicked on the phone. "Yeah." "I was just at her place, W.B. I actually got in, which is more than has happened in over four years. I think she's on board but I'm still not entirely sure. So, just to be safe, I told her you wanted to see her tomorrow." "Are you saying you couldn't make this happen? With your own fucking sister?" "It's ... We're not exactly on the greatest of terms, Ally and me." There was an awkward tone in his voice. "It's hard to explain. Like I told you, I confirmed her blood type on Saturday. It's AB, like I thought. And I played the mother angle. At the very least, I think she's willing to drive the old bird out to the institute and meet Karl. That's a start, at least." "And what about her medical . . . Karl wanted to see--" "I'm working on it. I remembered something about her. I've got a guy. He's going to check on it tonight." "Good" Bartlett growled. "There's no time to screw around on this." "I've set it up for you to meet her tomorrow, the way you wanted. I think she'll show. I told--" "The one who really should talk to her is Karl." Bartlett sighed. "He knows how to handle patients." "Then he could call her tomorrow. After she's talked to you. If we all pull together on this, W.B., I'm sure we can get her out there by day after tomorrow, Tuesday." Winston Bartlett looked at his watch. It had just turned Monday, one less day to find something that would stop the Syndrome in its tracks. "We'd better." He was clicking off the phone when he heard a wail of despair from the bedroom upstairs and the sound of a champagne flute being thrown against a wall. Kristen was losing it rapidly now. Was she still conscious enough to know what was happening to her? Chapter 7 _Monday, April 6 7:30a.m. _ The commute from Ally's West Village place to the CitiSpace office in SoHo was normally a twenty-minute brisk stroll, and she brought Knickers with her a lot (the boss's prerogative) since her office was arguably homier than her home. (Knickers loved to wander around and--she thought--guard the computers and drafting tables.) This morning, though, Ally had an appointment for her at Pooch Pros, the dog groomers near her office. A wash and a trim and plenty of pampering. Betty and Misha always fussed over her shamelessly, and she gloried in it. But now a pounding rain had just come through, which meant no walk for either of them. Knickers would show up looking like a bedraggled mop. Definitely the moment to take the car. Alexa Hampton liked to say that she wasn't really an auto person. Hers was a four-year-old Toyota, light blue, and its modesty befitted her needs. In New York, hopping around SoHo and the Village, it made a lot more sense to rely on a bike or on cabs, or just plain walk. Garaging a car in New York cost the equivalent of a studio apartment rental in most normal places, and the bottom-line truth was, she resented the Toyota's presence in her life. But there were moments when cabs weren't the answer, and this was one of them. Fortunately, the parking garage she used was just around the corner, so she and Knickers got there before being totally soaked. Knickers loved riding in the Toyota, and she always seemed to know what was coming the minute they turned the corner for the garage. This morning she gave a gleeful "Woof" and started panting, a sure indicator of joy. As they drove the few blocks downtown, the rain was easing up but the streets were still shiny. Ally reached into her bag and took out the personal card of Winston Bartlett. His private residence was on Gramercy Park. The only reason he could possibly want to meet her there was if he did indeed have a job. She decided she would call him from the office and confirm the appointment, assuming he still remembered it. Then she'd get Jennifer to help her assemble a portfolio of their work and make a color copy to leave with him. She leaned over and rubbed Knickers' ears. Her thoughts were drifting back to Karl Van de Vliet. At some level his stem cell technology sounded like the ultimate snake oil. Was she about to take leave of her common sense to go to see him, or even to consider letting him perform some experimental procedure on her mother's mind? On the other hand, what about him? What kind of "procedure" could Van de Vliet have done that would stop his own skin from aging? If Grant had merely told her that Karl Van de Vliet had finally realized the cosmetician's dream and learned how to make human skin youthful and supple again, she would have passed it off as just more Wall Street IPO hyperbole. But seeing was believing, and it also seemed like there was a lot more going on than just a change in his skin. There was something about him, in his eyes, that felt . . . inconsistent. She was still puzzling on that point when Knickers jumped up and barked. They were passing a garbage truck and the guys were banging the cans into the back. "Shhh." She reached to quiet her. "We're almost there, baby." Then she tugged at her leash and settled her back into the seat. Since the rain was all but over, she decided to park the car where she dropped Knickers off and then walk over to her office, which was only a couple of blocks east. She found a spot right next to the awning of Pooch Pros, and the minute Knickers was liberated from the car, she bounded to the door dragging her leash through the puddles. Misha was already there to meet her. "Come on, my _kraceve_ baby, my beauty." He reached down and gave her a big hug. Misha was a gaunt, balding, blond-haired Russian who had once been the hero of the Soviet Olympic swim team. Now he looked like he could stand a piroshki or two to plump him up. "You be big fluff of cloud after we finishing." Ally followed them in, and there was Betty. Ally figured "Betty" assumed her made-up but totally American name was easier than whatever she'd used in Russia, but to Ally it just felt weird Betty had dark hair, a broad smile that wouldn't die, and approximately thirty pounds that would have looked better on Misha. They reminded her of Jack Sprat, et al. "Honey, there is problem at your office. Woman name Jennifer call. Say she try reach you at home but you leave already. And you don't answer your cell phone." "Shit, I turned it off. Knickers goes nuts if it rings in the car." Jennifer was only a couple of years older than Ally, but she'd been with the firm back when Ally's father, Arthur, ran it and she was the mother figure of CitiSpace. She was also Ally's best friend and had been even before Ally came back to run the firm. Ally felt like she had known her forever. These days Jen spent a lot of effort trying to create a social life for Ally that would include eligible men. She kept nagging her to join some clubs, anything, just get out there. Ally knew she was right, but she was working too hard to take time out. She had the idea, which she wasn't naive enough to actually believe at a rational level, that sooner or later someone who could replace Steve would come along. Yes, she was lonely a lot, but until this last deterioration of her heart she'd spent a lot of evenings and weekends outside, biking and hiking around town, and she knew plenty of people who were interesting and kind. She sometimes thought her problem was that she liked people, all kinds of people, as long as they were kept slightly away, at a psychic distance. Maybe it was the getting close part that never seemed to work out. It had actually been that way ever since Steve disappeared. She had the premonition that if she got too close to somebody, she was destined to lose them. Now she stood for a second, puzzling. She'd mentioned taking Knickers to Pooch Pros, so that's how Jen knew where she'd be, but what could have gone wrong at 7:45 in the morning? Jennifer wasn't usually in this early, but she was finishing a rush job for a marble bathroom for a couple on the Upper East Side. On days when Jennifer did get to the office first, she'd have the coffee going and an extra bagel for Knickers, on the chance Ally might bring her, which she often did. But to phone Betty just to tell her to hurry? That was odd. "Should I call now?" It seemed pointless. She was no more than ten minutes away. What else could go wrong in ten minutes? "She sound very hurry," Betty declared. Ally took her cell phone out of her bag and switched it on. The office rang only once and then Jennifer was there. "Ally, you're not going to believe who called here ten minutes ago, asking for you. Winston Bartlett. My God, it's like Donald Trump called. Well, actually it was some male secretary or something. He said he was calling to confirm your ten o'clock appointment. At an address on Gramercy Park East. What's that about? Jesus, Ally, where are you? I don't know what you're up to, but this could be big. He owns entire buildings, for chrissake." "Did you say I was coming?" "I didn't know what to say. He left a number to call if you can't make it. Otherwise, he'll assume you'll be there. It's only two hours from now." "All right, Jen, let's put together a 'folio' of our biggest jobs. Lead with that gut rehab we did on the building down by the South Street Seaport. And put in those two floor-through lofts we did on that conversion in TriBeCa. The ones with the slate bathrooms and the stainless-steel countertops in the kitchen." "I've already started. Do you know specifically what he has in mind?" She paused. "How did he find out about us, anyway?" "My creepy kid brother works for him." She sighed. "It's a long story. Be there in a couple of minutes." She clicked off the phone. "Betty, thanks a lot. I've gotta run." She turned and gave Knickers a last rumple of the ears. "Be good, baby. I'll pick you up by six at the latest." "What wrong?" Misha was concerned, twisting a white towel he was holding. "Big problem?" "Nothing's wrong. Actually, something probably is wrong. I just don't know what it is yet." She headed out the door. The design firm her father had started and she'd kept going, now with some architecture thrown in, was on the ground floor of an old industrial loft building whose upper floors had been converted into rental apartments in the early 1980s. The owner was an ex-wrestler named Oskar Jacobi, who had turned Zen master (after a fashion) and had a studio upstairs, on the second floor. He had drifted from wrestling into karate during his thirties and thence into the life of the mind, or rather the life of "no-mind," in his late forties. Now he taught meditation as well as karate and insisted they be learned in that order. He served as his own superintendent, mopping the halls and setting out the garbage on pickup days. The ground floor was zoned commercial, and CitiSpace had a lease for all of it, which meant she had tons of space. Oskar had given Ally's dad, Arthur, a ten-year lease, which was now a fraction of the going rate. They both knew that, and she'd more than once offered to renegotiate or move, but he said he didn't need any more income and, besides, he liked having her as a tenant because she reminded him of her father. It was a generosity perfectly in keeping with his philosophy that excess money corrupted the spirit. She'd done the place as a sort of Spanish desert flower, with burnt- orange tile floors and all the natural materials she could cram in. A lot of her clients wanted the hard-edge industrial look in their lofts, which was fine by her, but she found it too cold for a daily working environment. The front was unassuming, with small lettering on the window. CitiSpace was not a walk-in business. And she had no metal gates over the windows. What's to protect? When she marched through the door, everybody looked up from their coffee and computers, and Jennifer led the applause. Winston Bartlett. Had they finally made the A-list? This could be the start of something big. Chapter 8 _Monday, April 6 9:56 A.M. _ Ally stepped out of the cab, holding the large leather-bound portfolio, and checked the number on the card against the bronze plaque above the door. Winston Bartlett lived like a nineteenth-century robber baron. The building had five stories and was adorned with Italian marble window lintels that glowed like mother-of-pearl. Already she liked his sense of style. Bartlett was New Money, but this place had the solemn dignity of Old Money. The front door was eight feet tall and solid mahogany. The odd thing was, there were two doorbells. One read w. BARTLETT and the other read E. BARTLETT. That was when she remembered she had read somewhere that he had a wife named Eileen. But why did she have a separate doorbell? Winston Bartlett had a tabloid reputation as a womanizer. Perhaps they lived apart. If so, there it was, for all the world to see. She found herself examining the late Greek Revival columns on either side of the door. They were marble and meticulously cleaned of soot, whose ubiquitous presence in New York meant that eventually everything not regularly scrubbed turned gray. It told her that Winston Bartlett liked things to be immaculate and that he was a stickler when it came to details. She glanced up and noticed that she was being observed by a security camera. She was reaching out to push the bell for w. BARTLETT when the door magically opened. A tall, trim Japanese man in a crisp black suit was standing in the doorway. But he had a muscular build that would be more appropriate for a bodyguard than a butler. "Hello," she said. "I have an appointment with--" "Yes." He nodded, appearing to know exactly who she was. "He's upstairs in the library. Please . . ." She'd expected a grand central staircase in the Palladian design, but instead there were elevators off to the left of the entryway. But even without an obvious staircase, the ground floor and its fifteen-foot ceiling were palatial in every sense of the term. The marble floors were covered with antique, and expensive, Persian rugs, and the light tan wallpaper was flecked with gold leaf, giving the feeling it could have been meticulously stripped from some palazzo in Venice. The lighting fixtures were a row of chandeliers down the middle of the vast room, and at the back was a dining table that appeared to be large enough to seat thirty dinner guests. The architecture was a showpiece for the extravagant taste of some Victorian "enemy of the people." But what really set it apart was that the walls were lined with exquisitely severe antique swords and armor from Japan. In a way, the room felt like the foyer of a boutique museum, an adjunct of the Asia Society. The Japanese man directed her to one of the elevators, and then got in with her. She still couldn't decide whether he was a butler or a bodyguard. He had the polished demeanor of the first, but the strapping body and deft movements of the latter. Maybe he was both. In any case, he looked like he would be quite at ease brandishing one of those long samurai swords. The elevator had dark paneling and smelled of freshness, partly fresh wood and partly fresh lacquer. It was utterly silent as it glided up to the third floor. When the door opened, she stepped into what appeared to be a large den/library, except that there was a huge four-poster antique bed at the far corner, with its drapes drawn around the side. It was definitely something out of another place and time. Was this Bartlett's bedroom? The space was magisterial. In the other corner was a wide mahogany desk covered with phones and papers and two computers. From his photos, she recognized the man rising to greet her as Winston Bartlett. Seeing him in the flesh, she first noticed that there was something in his eyes that in another man might be called ruthless, but in him it merely came off as determined. They were eyes that were accustomed to getting what they wanted--be it a company, a building, a woman. "Fine, Ken, and please have them hold my calls," Bartlett said nodding to the Japanese man, who tipped his head in acknowledgment and disappeared back into the elevator. Then he turned to her and extended his hand. "Ms. Hampton, I appreciate your making time for me. I'm possibly your newest fan. After Grant told me about you, I had a couple of my people do some research. You've been responsible for some very interesting, even elegant interiors. Grant may have told you I have a big project down the road that you might wish to bid on. But for now, as a way of getting to know each other, I wanted to talk to you about a more modest undertaking." She thanked him, attempting to take it all in. She was trying not to admit to herself that Winston Bartlett was an attractive man, in the way that power brings charisma. "I'd be happy to hear about what you have in mind. I don't necessarily take every job that comes along. I always look for challenges." She listened to herself and wondered why she was starting off the meeting in such a confrontational manner. Probably, she thought, it was because she didn't want to seem intimidated. Doing high-end interior design, you come across a lot of wealth and power, but this was a whole new level. "Well, I guess I'm the same way." He smiled. "A lot of the things I've done over the years have ended up being a challenge. And a risk. But now and then, something is worth it." He gestured toward a couch. "Please, we have a lot to talk about." He returned to the chair behind his desk and turned off the laptop computer he had been using. "I brought a portfolio," she began, "with photos. There's also a DVD with virtual walk-throughs of some of our projects. I'm not sure what you have in mind, but this should give you some idea of the kind of thing we--" "I'll look at it," he said, setting the portfolio aside unopened. "I'm sure you live up to your reputation. Like I said, I have two jobs pending, so first let me outline the smaller one. This building was built just before the prior turn of the century, and it was intended to house a small workforce of cooks and nannies and seamstresses below stairs. The rooms were lit with town gas, and coal was used for heating and cooking. Then in the twenties, everything was gradually switched over to electricity and oil and natural gas. But very little effort was made to accommodate the change aesthetically. It was just retrofitted." "That's typically how it was done." "And I haven't really cared until now," he went on. "But lately I've decided I want to redo this place properly. Starting below stairs and moving up. It's mainly the kitchen down there that concerns me now. I want to remove all the outdated fixtures and go state of the art. There's nothing original there anymore; just somebody's idea of a 'modernization' back in the fifties. So nothing of historic value will be lost. I don't want a restaurant kitchen precisely, but I want a range with enough Btu's that it could be. Granite countertops are all the rage these days. . . ." He paused, then grinned sheepishly. "I promise I won't start telling you how to do your job. Work up some ideas without any interference from me, and then we'll see where we go from there." "Do you have any blueprints of this building? The original plans?" He smiled, as though to say you ask good questions. "As a matter of fact, they were filed downtown, in a little-known cranny of the Department of Buildings and I had an expediter I know track them down." He paused. "Ms. Hampton, there is one little matter I want to clear with you in advance. I know that the newspapers occasionally print things about me that might be termed unsavory. You came to meet me here, so that tells me something about your feelings toward me. But I have discovered that I am a somewhat controversial figure in certain circles. I'd just like to know if you think of me as controversial." She found this unexpected new tack in the conversation puzzling. Was he trying to get a rise out of her? "I barely know you, Mr. Bartlett," she said. "And, frankly, the private life of a client is none of my business. So that question is entirely unnecessary." "Very well." He smiled. "Like I said, there's a much larger job now in the planning stage. I have a building on Park Avenue in the Seventies that I'm planning to convert into a museum. It would be a private undertaking at first, but in the long run, who knows? The job will require extensive alterations of the building, and I also plan to have a museum cafe in the lower level. Anyway, there's a lot of work ahead, and I thought this would be a good way for us to get acquainted. Redoing the first floor here would give us both some idea of whether we could work together on a larger project." She listened and found herself wondering what he was really up to. This conversation felt like he thought he needed to have plenty of bait on the hook. First Grant and then him, a tycoon who's a perfect stranger. Why? _Monday April 6 10:38 A.M. _Winston Bartlett was not finding himself entirely satisfied with the way things were going. As he looked her over, he had a lot on his mind. This was the woman who shared his rare blood type and could represent his last hope. So far, she seemed smart and courageous. Given the gravity of what he'd heard about her heart condition from Karl--which you'd never realize by just looking at her--she had to be courageous to continue on with her kind of spirit. But that was not necessarily all to the good. She might not be so easy to manipulate. Inevitably he found himself comparing her to Kristen. For starters, Alexa Hampton seemed to have a lot more self- assurance. Kristy liked to appear tough on camera, but she was riddled with an aspiring actress's insecurities. Which had played a large part in the current tragedy. But you could say she brought that on herself. Alexa Hampton was struggling with something she had nothing to do with. And to look at her, you'd never know it. That was spunk. In truth, this was the kind of woman he'd often wished he'd married-- someone who shared his own gusto for life. God had dealt her a particularly lousy hand, and yet she still had drive. She had more courage in her little finger than that monster upstairs, Eileen. And the fact was, she was more appealing than Kristen. But don't even think about going there. "Coincidentally," he said, beginning a new tack, "there's a totally unrelated matter I wanted to discuss with you. I understand Grant has already told you about the clinical trials currently winding up at the Dorian Institute, which is part of one of my companies. He told me about your heart condition and about your mother's Alzheimer's. We're working on a new procedure that could be very relevant for both of you. The clinical trials are scheduled to conclude in just a few days from now, but I spoke with the lead researcher there, Dr. Van de Vliet, and he said there's still time to get you into the program." "Yes, Grant came to see me and brought me a brochure." "Your brother is very concerned about you and your mother, and he specifically asked me to inquire if you had any questions about the procedure that I might be able to answer for you." He was watching her carefully, all the while trying to keep his tone casual. "Well, I think my mother is interested. Quite frankly, she doesn't have much to lose, though she may be in denial about that. In my own case, I'm not so sure. I still don't know anything about Karl Van de Vliet." She's still toying with the bait, Bartlett thought. I can't yank the line just yet, but she's close. She's so close. "Truly, the best thing you could do would be to talk to him," Bartlett said getting up from his desk and walking over to the window and pulling the curtains aside. The mid-morning light streamed in, a momentarily blinding presence. I've got to shake this up, he told himself. "As a matter of fact, I'd like for you to meet with Karl before we go any further with this job. We need to get you well first. And your mother. He's had some truly amazing successes with both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's." "It's just that this is all so experimental. Aren't there any side effects? New drugs or new medical procedures always have side effects." Well, he thought, now you've hit on it. But that part is best left to Karl. "If you have questions, that's all the more reason to check out the clinic," he declared. Time to close the sale. He came back and sat down behind the mahogany desk. "I've seen a lot of medical innovation over the years, including a good bit in my own companies. But there's never been anything that remotely compares to the promise of stem cell technology. And these stage-three clinical trials have shown how many miracles are in the realm of the doable." "Grant said Dr. Van de Vliet wanted to include someone with my specific condition in the--" "Let me be frank with you." He looked across at her and smiled. "You would be a perfect fit. But the trials are going to be over very, very soon, so he's anxious to get started." "Truthfully, I'm thinking about taking Mom out there," she said. "And since we're all being so frank, let me say I'm getting the impression that my going out to your clinic is really the reason you wanted to see me today. It's--" "It's the second reason," he said. "The design job is uppermost in my mind, but I see nothing wrong with having two purposes in seeing you. As someone once said, commerce is the mutually beneficial exchange of worth." Was she agreeing to see Van de Vliet? Playing the mother card may have done the trick. "Well, why don't we stick to tangible worth," she said. "Let me take a look at the space downstairs. But you'll have to tell me some more about what you have in mind." "I propose we do it the other way around. You go down and look around, take measurements, make sketches, whatever it is you do, and then get back to me with some ideas. That'll be our starting point." He picked up a walkie-talkie on his desk and punched a button. "Ken, could you please come up. I'd like you to show Ms. Hampton the service floor." He clicked it off without waiting for a reply. "I'm due down at the office. When I get there, I'll have them cut a check for five thousand dollars as a retainer and messenger it over to your shop." Is this going to work? he wondered. Maybe I should be pushing harder. . . . He examined Alexa Hampton one last time as he rose to leave. Yes, she's a rare woman. Wouldn't it be ironic if Karl actually could do something for her heart? _Monday, April 6 10:49 A.M. _ As Ally watched Winston Bartlett sweep from the room, she was still trying to take measure of the man. What troubled her was why Grant and Bartlett were both so anxious to get her and her mother out to the clinic. But give Bartlett his due. He could charm the birds off the trees. She looked around the room, wondering what the old kitchen and staff quarters would be like. Certainly not like this. The library/bedroom had a rich, over-the-top feeling, with a beautifully molded plaster ceiling, a virtual bas-relief of fruits and birds and clouds all meticulously painted. It wasn't the Sistine Chapel but had some of that feeling. The paneling and wainscot were burnished mahogany, and the floor was a mix of hardwoods worked into an isometric design. She decided it was probably the most luxurious private residence she had ever seen. CitiSpace was mainly known for its creative handling of lofts in the abandoned commercial buildings of SoHo and TriBeCa. These old mansions of the nineteenth-century moguls were an entirely different world. It was intimidating, but she was sure she could do something below stairs that would retain the period flavor of the building while creating the kind of semiprofessional space he said he wanted. Still, it was different from anything else CitiSpace had ever done, so he had no way of knowing whether or not she could pull it off. Again that question: why on earth would he hand her this plum job? And where was his wife? Although he liked to be photographed with blond starlets, the tabloids always reminded you that he had a wife someplace. The two doorbells were a tip-off that that someplace was here. Best guess: she probably had the top floors. My God was Madame Bartlett going to get involved in the renovation? A lot of women with superrich husbands and too much time on their hands come to assume that that happenstance creates in them a natural gift for interior design. Big problem. But whatever happened, this could be a sweetheart job. And maybe she'd get a crack at that museum he'd talked about. That was the kind of thing an architect-turned-interior- designer dreamed about. She looked up to see the Japanese man--Bartlett had called him Ken-- stepping into the room. He was all business. _Monday, April 6 11:08 A.M. _Winston Bartlett was on the phone to Van de Vliet the moment he stepped into his limo to head downtown. "She said she's thinking about bringing her mother out to the institute, Karl. I believe she's ready to do it. Before she changes her mind, I want you to talk to her and schedule an appointment for tomorrow morning, if you can." "I'll put in a call to her office." "Karl, she's not there now. Try her cell. Grant has the number. We need to get moving on this. I've done about all I can at the moment." He was watching the midmorning traffic that was clogging the avenue. He always felt claustrophobic in a limo, even a stretch. The only time he felt free was when he was in the McDonnell Douglas chopper. When he was flying the chopper, against all the laws of civil aviation. "Don't you think that's a little pushy, W.B.? We shouldn't seem too anxious. Believe me, I've had a lot of experience with ambivalent patients." "All right. She should be back at her office sometime after lunch." "I'll wait awhile and put in a call there." He paused. "When was the last time you saw . . . Beta One? The situation at Park Avenue?" "I don't want to discuss it over a cell, Karl." This conversation was definitely a bad idea. "She comes and goes. I think it's getting worse." "I'll try to get over there late this afternoon and look in on her," Van de Vliet said. "I want to see her every day." "Karl, we can't give up hope. Never give up hope." He clicked off the phone and thought about his crapshoot with God. Kristen had wanted to play, to experiment with the Beta. But nobody made her undergo the procedure. She should never-- His cell phone rang. "Yeah." "Mr. Bartlett," came a female voice with a Brooklyn accent, "it's Bernd Allen calling." "Put him on." Shit, Bartlett thought, this is news I don't want to hear. Bernd was a Brit who was in charge of day-to-day accounting for Bartlett Medical Devices. He was forty-seven and not a risk taker and he was always worried about something. That was his job. These days he had plenty to be worried about He had been running a weekly projection of the cash flow at BMD, and the drawdown was now getting perilous. The flagship product of Bartlett Medical Devices had been the "balloons" used in heart angioplasty that inflate and expand clogged arteries. They were marketed together with stents, miniature metal mesh supports that keep coronary arteries open after angioplasty. The problem was that in 27 percent of the cases, the stents manufactured by BMD caused scar tissue to form, a process called restenosis, and re- block an artery, requiring a repeat of angioplasty or even a bypass operation. Other manufacturers' numbers were not any better. But a few months back, out of the blue, Hemotronics, a competing company near Boston, had introduced stents coated with drugs that prevented scarring. BMD's piece of the $2.6 billion angioplasty market had plummeted from 13 percent to 4 percent and was still dropping like a stone. Add to that, two titanium joint replacements for arthritis patients that they'd pinned their future on--along with millions in cash--still had at least two years of human trials left before they could hope for FDA approval. Long story short, BMD was in a mature product cycle with its most lucrative hospital hardware, with nothing major in the pipeline for at least two years. They had bet the ranch on the stem cell research at Gerex. "W.B., I just got last week's numbers back from the green- eyeshade chaps downstairs. As you asked, I had them refine all the assumptions. Remember the union contract. There's going to be a three percent wage increase for all hourly personnel at the end of the month. And we didn't hedge our Euro exposure and now it's going against us. That's my own bloody fault. And since we don't have any pricing flexibility in that territory at the moment it's like a four percent haircut right off the bottom line. Remember we ran that in a worst-case scenario a while back. Well, chances are we're about to see it for real." Bartlett had been watching the rate of cash burn and trying not to let the problem be evident. The logical thing to do, start laying off workers in the fabrication divisions, was out of the question. If you had a make-or-break deal cooking, you couldn't afford to look like you were on the ropes. "Give me some parameters," Bartlett said. "You know we've already hit our credit lines at Chase about as hard as we dare without them calling for a review. So unless we try to refinance some real property, say the flagship building downtown--and in this interest-rate environment any rational lender would put a gun to our head--we've got to ink this deal with Cambridge Pharmaceuticals in two months max. Right now we're living on borrowed money and it's about to be borrowed time too." You don't know the half of it, Bartlett thought. I'm already living on borrowed time. What's more, if word of the Beta gets out, we can kiss the buyout _adios_. The adverse publicity and legal problems ... Nobody's going to buy into that kind of liability. Not Cambridge, not anybody. Bernd doesn't know about it yet. If he did, then he'd really be worried. "Bernd, take a deep breath. We're on schedule and we've got to make sure we stay that way. Get hold of Grant and tell him I want him to double-check the regulatory situation for the Cambridge deal. I know he already has, but I want a memo from our attorneys by noon tomorrow. If there are going to be any roadblocks cropping up, we need to know about them now. We can't afford to be blindsided." He clicked off the phone and tried to think. In the confines of a limousine, it was hard. What's it all for? Unknown to the world--but, unfortunately, known to his wife, Eileen-- Winston Bartlett had a natural son. And that son, now in his own career, despised Bartlett. It was one of many sorrows he had long since learned to bear. All the same, he increasingly regretted that he had made such a botch of their relationship. The man who was his natural son had done very well for himself professionally, had plenty of drive. And in fact Bartlett believed he himself deserved some of the credit for that. What he had done was let the boy fend for himself, which was exactly how Bartlett was raised. Make it with your own two hands. How else are you supposed to develop any character? And it had worked. The pity was, he now hated Winston Bartlett's guts. But Bartlett had begun thinking more and more about a legacy. What if he could make peace with that son and bring him into the business? Right now the closest thing he had to a son was Grant Hampton, and Hampton was a little too slick and expedient. Bartlett knew a gold- standard hustler when he saw one. The more he thought about it, the more he was convincing himself to make his natural son his sole heir. Assuming there was anything left to pass on. _Monday, April 6 11:20 A.M. _ "Mr. Bartlett asked me to give you this," Kenji Noda said handing her a large manila envelope as they stepped off the elevator. "It's a copy of the original plans. And also, there's a blueprint for the current layout, along with measurements." She took it, looking him over again as she did. There was something very fluid about his motions. He could have been a dancer. There was a softness about him, and yet you got an unmistakable sense of inner strength. She suspected he had something to do with Bartlett's incredible collection of Japanese _katana_. He looked like he could have a connoisseur's eye. She walked into the below-stairs service space and looked around. The back part, which was the kitchen, had stone walls that had been whitewashed. There also were two massive fireplaces, which, she assumed, had once housed coal-burning stoves. Large grease-and-soot- covered gas ranges were there now. But the space was fabulous. Massive load-bearing columns went down the center, and a partition separated the front half of the space from the back. The front traditionally would have been the nursery and sewing room, in short, the maids' working quarters. She turned to the man Bartlett had called Ken. "Does Mr. Bartlett have a cook?" she asked. "This kitchen doesn't look used." "No," he said. "Actually, he almost never dines here, and Mrs. Bartlett has her meals delivered from various restaurants. Though she does go out sometimes as well." This was the first time she had heard any mention of Eileen Bartlett. "She resides on the top two floors," he went on. "She has her own dining room up there, where she takes her meals, along with an efficiency kitchen." So the Bartletts did live completely separate lives. That explained a lot. "Okay," she said, "I want to look around and get a feeling for the space and start putting together some ideas." She was starting to focus on the job. The ceiling was lower than upstairs, but still the space had enormous possibilities. "Off the top, I'd probably suggest we open this out. Remove that dividing wall and make a great room. With the right kind of kitchen, this could be a marvelous contemporary space for semiformal dining and entertaining." Assuming, she thought, Winston Bartlett actually wanted a renovated space to entertain. She still had the nagging suspicion that he just wanted her. "I'd use materials that have a really warm tone." Mix different materials for the different parts of the kitchen and the room, she thought. The cabinets could be mahogany, to echo the extensive use of that wood upstairs, and the walls around the stove area and the fireplaces could be an earth- colored slate. And that look could be accented with polished granite countertops in a slightly darker hue. There would need to be a high-Btu stove, probably a big Viking, with a slate backsplash all around. A couple of stainless-steel Sub- Zero refrigerators and a large Bosch dishwasher could be spaced along in the slate and granite. And if Bartlett wanted it, there could be a place for a temperature-controlled wine cellar. High-end design. There also would need to be a large stone island--say a Brandy Craig-- with a couple of sinks and--depending on what he wanted--maybe another high Btu stovetop there. She turned to Ken. "If you have something else to do . . . I just need to walk around and live in this space a little. Then I want to make some notes on the plans. Possibly take a few photos." "Take your time," he said. "I'll be upstairs." He disappeared into the elevator, with his curious catlike gait, and was gone in an instant. As she looked around she realized the thing that was missing was light. Wait a minute, she thought, there must be a garden at the rear of this building. There are windows in the front, so why aren't there any at the back? She turned to examine the back wall. It was, in fact, clearly of recent origin, and there was a door at one side. She walked over to the door, which was locked with a thumb latch, and opened it. And sure enough, behind the building was an unkempt space the width of the building that ran back for a good thirty or thirty-five feet. When she stepped out into the late-morning sunshine and looked at the back of the building, she realized there also was a row of windows facing the garden that had been bricked shut. What a travesty. The whole design would depend on whether those windows could be reopened. But if Bartlett would allow it, then there were tremendous possibilities. With all this light, you could-- "Who the hell are you?" came a raspy, oversmoked voice from behind her. "Are you his new tart? We agreed he would never bring his whores here." Ally turned to see a tall, willowy woman, who appeared to be in her mid-sixties. She had shoulder-length blond hair, clearly out of a bottle, and a layer of pancake makeup that looked as though it had been applied by a mortician. "Perhaps it would be helpful if I introduced myself." She squeezed past the woman in the doorway and walked over to the counter, where she had left her bag. She extracted a business card and presented it. The woman squinted at it, obviously having trouble making out the print. "I work with the design firm CitiSpace, and I was asked by Mr. Bartlett to give him an estimate for some renovations." She had quickly acquired the sense that the less said to this woman, the better. "I'm his wife and I still don't know who the hell you are." She squinted at Ally a moment, then glanced back at the card. "What is . . . CitiSpace?" "It's an interior-design firm." "What are you, then? Some kind of decorator?" She grasped the door to steady herself and Ally suddenly wondered if she was slightly tipsy. "Actually, what we do is probably closer to architecture." Ally was collecting her belongings, hoping to get out before Eileen Bartlett decided to do something crazy. "This is the first I've heard about all this." She turned and slammed the rear door. "Mind if I ask you a question?" Ally said. "Do you have any idea why those back windows were bricked over?" "It's for security," she said. "No one is ever down here." That's obvious, Ally thought, which is why this job is so odd. This space clearly isn't being used now, and the social dynamic here doesn't bode well for a lot of cozy entertaining and dinner parties in the foreseeable future. So why is he spending money to renovate? And in this big hurry? And he just happened to pick me to do this as an audition for designing an entire museum. No, this whole thing definitely does not compute. But of course it does. The job is a blatant bribe. To butter me up for something. "Look, Miss Whoever-you-are, I want you to leave. I don't appreciate strange women walking around unescorted in my house." "I'm going right now. Perhaps you should speak to Mr. Bartlett and decide together what you want to do about this space." "I'll tell you right now what I want to do. Nothing. For all I know, he's fixing this up so he can move in some tart. We've lived here for twenty-eight years and he's never done anything down here. So why is that tightfisted SOB suddenly deciding to renovate?" "That would be an excellent question to ask him." "You're screwing him, aren't you?" she demanded, wrinkled brow furrowed and dim eyes seething. "Like that other little whore of his. That's why he hired you. Well, let me tell you something. I'll outlive you both." Without another word she turned and got into the elevator. Chapter 9 _Monday, April 6 12:18 P.M. _"Hey, how did it go?" Jennifer asked the minute Ally came in the door. She wasn't sure she knew the answer to that. Initially the job looked like a lot of fun, but now she felt the interpersonal dynamics of working in Bartlett's home were already a problem even before she started. Also, maybe it was just paranoia, but as she took the cab downtown from the mansion on Gramercy Park, she got the impression that somebody was following her in a black SUV. And the stress of that brought on a tightness in her chest. But as she neared their office in SoHo, the vehicle abruptly veered east. She had a nitro tab at the ready, but she didn't have to pop it. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is he's practically handing us a sweetheart of a job, and dangling another--designing a whole museum--in our face. The bad news is, I don't know why he suddenly thinks we're so terrific. I mean, you and I know that but how did he figure it out?" Jennifer looked puzzled. "You mean he--" "Oh, did I mention that his crazy wife showed up after he left and essentially accused me of being a hooker? I suppose that comes under the heading of bad news." "Great. Does that mean she's going to start second-guessing whatever we do?" "The communication channels between Mr. Bartlett and Mrs. Bartlett don't appear to be all that great. They live on different floors in his place--which really is a huge old mansion on Gramercy Park, by the way-- and the job would be in his part, the lower level." She explained the Bartletts' living arrangements. "He wants to redo the garden-level floor. It was originally the servants' quarters. Like Upstairs, Downstairs." "So he's upstairs and she's way upstairs." "And let's hope she stays there." Ally fetched herself a cup of coffee, checked in with everybody to see how they were doing, and then settled herself at her computer. She had the latest program in computer-aided design (CAD) and she wanted to program in the dimensions and layout of the space. And since she had a copy of the blueprints, the first thing she would do would be to run them through her flatbed scanner and incorporate them into the program. She didn't get a chance to take any digital photos with CitiSpace's snazzy (and expensive) new Nikon. But if the job went forward there'd be plenty of time later. Everybody's computers were connected to the Net via a broadband DSL hookup and they were never turned off. Because of that, the computers were vulnerable to being hacked so Jen had installed a firewall program to keep out snoops. She sat down and stared at the screen saver, which was an ever-changing series of tropical beaches at sunset. She sipped at her coffee--this was the one cup she allowed herself each day, always saved for the moment when she felt she needed to be most alert--and reached to turn on the scanner. The tightness in her chest that she had momentarily experienced in the cab had completely disappeared and she felt perfectly normal. What was she going to do about her mother and the clinic in New Jersey? Nina certainly appeared to want to go. And with the inevitability of what lay in store for someone with early-onset Alzheimer's, taking her out there was surely worth doing. But as for her own heart, she wasn't so sure she thought the reward was worth the risk. But she'd decided to hold off on a decision till she could have a firsthand look at the institute. She took another sip of coffee and then tapped the keyboard. When she did that, the screen would normally bring up the "desktop." But not this time. A file was open, and she was certain she hadn't left it open. What's this? "Jen, could you come here a minute? There's something funny." The first page of the file that had been pulled up and opened was an ID photo of herself. "This is what was running. Has somebody been fooling around with this computer?" Jennifer looked puzzled when she saw it "Not that I know of." "Then how did this get . . . ?" She just sat staring. "I didn't open this file. Does this thing have a mind of its own?" About eight years ago, Kate Gillis at Manhattan Properties--with whom Ally had an occasional after-work drink-- told her she'd scanned all her vital personal documents into her computer at home. She'd said it was an easy way to make a safety backup. Seemed like a good idea, so Ally had stored a copy of her birth certificate, her driver's license, all her credit cards, her passport, a set of medical records, even the mortgage on her apartment. She'd even scanned in an ID photo, just for the heck of it. She also suggested to Grant that he do the same. Brilliant right? Well, maybe not. The reason was, she'd routinely made an updated copy on a ZIP disk and then copied it onto this computer here in the office. Like a second backup. "I had everything ready for you for your meeting with Bartlett, so nobody here has touched your computer this morning." Jennifer furrowed her brow. "Could somebody have picked the locks and come in last night and done this, like a prank or something?" "Come on. That's totally far-fetched." She was trying to imagine how somebody could have gotten in and out and left no trace. Impossible. "This must just be something stupid I did when I came down yesterday after seeing Mom. I don't remember it, but I guess I was pretty tired." "I've never seen you that tired." Jen's right, she thought. I was on the city's Web site checking the Department of Buildings' Housing Code, but I certainly didn't pull up my personal data. Computers do strange things, but to open a data file for no reason? That would require a higher intelligence. Right? "Jen, you're our resident computer expert. We leave these things hooked up all the time. I know we have a firewall, but what are the chances that somebody could defeat it somehow and hack into our computers?" Jennifer was a software whiz and she had all the designs for all the clients on their CAD system, which they used to create a virtual- reality space and allow clients to "walk" through. "Well, that's entirely possible. Our firewall software is over a year old. Let me take a look. Maybe I can reverse-engineer what happened. If somebody went through pulling up files, I might be able to figure it out." Ally relinquished her chair and stood staring as Jennifer started checking the firewall. It was scary to think that some stranger could know everything about you. But on the other hand what difference could it make? She had nothing to hide. Still, it was creepy. Her Social Security and credit card information was in that file. Could that be-- "Shit. Ally, you're not going to believe this. Whoever did this was damned good. We've been seriously hacked." "How do you know?" She bent over to look. "Our firewall software has been disabled. In fact, the actual program was uninstalled. Jesus, that's cool. I think we'd better shut down everybody's Internet connection right this minute, till we can get some new software." "That's incredible. You mean somebody--" "Honey, hackers have gotten into Microsoft's own site. Even the Pentagon, so I've heard. Anything is possible." "This is not good." "What are you thinking?" Jen was still staring at the screen and tapping at the keyboard. "I'm thinking what a jerk I was. I keep all my personal information in that file, like a safety backup in case my apartment burned down or something. Scanned it in. My passport, driver's license, credit cards, medical records, everything." Jennifer looked puzzled. "You can just cancel the credit cards. As for the rest of the stuff, what could anybody possibly want with it?" "I don't know, Jen. I don't even know if we were hacked by somebody who wants to find out about me, or just look at our designs." She was reflecting that when somebody goes through your files, they want the information for a purpose. And that purpose couldn't be positive for you, or they wouldn't have started their undertaking with a surreptitious act. "Well, I'm going to check around and download a new firewall program. Right now." "Shit, I don't need this. I've got enough on my mind already. Mom wants to go out to a clinic in the wilds of northern New Jersey and see a doctor there. And the whole thing makes me nervous." "Oh Jesus, is the place called the Dorian Institute by any chance?" "How did--?" "I'm such a scatterbrain. I took a message for you while you were gone. From a Dr. Van de Something. I think that's the name of the place he's with. He wants you to call him back as soon as possible." _Monday, April 6 11:43 A.m._ Would she call back? Karl Van de Vliet had to believe she would but nothing in this world was sure. On the nineteen-inch screen of his office IBM, he was scrolling the medical file that he'd downloaded earlier that morning. How Grant Hampton got his hands on it, he didn't know and didn't want to know. Yes, Alexa Hampton would be perfect. She had aortic valve stenosis, well along, the same condition that had precipitated the coronary destruction that took Camille from him. It was the great tragedy of his life. He studied the charts carefully, trying to assure himself he was making the right choice. What if the stem cell procedure on her heart didn't work? To fail would mean he couldn't have saved Camille after all. That was actually the main reason he'd kept putting it off. He didn't want to know if he couldn't have rescued her. But Alexa Hampton was the obvious candidate. Her clinical condition had deteriorated to the point that, at some level, you might even say she had nothing to lose by undergoing an experimental procedure. And she was perfect in another way as well. Other than her heart condition, which she could do nothing about, she was in excellent physical shape. Her last blood pressure was 110 over 80 and her pulse was 67. She clearly had been exercising, which had been both good and bad for her heart, though on balance probably a plus. In fact, it was indicative of a strong fighting spirit, which was often the best prognosticator of all. He looked up to see Dr. Debra Connolly walking in. He had just paged her. She was an M.D. who had been his personal research assistant during her grad school days at Stanford. Now she was a full and valued member of the research team. Just turned thirty, she also was a smashing blonde, five-nine, with a figure that would stop traffic, even in her white lab smock. She held Van de Vliet in the reverence always bestowed on a brilliant, beloved mentor. "Hi, Deb, I wanted you to take a look at this." He indicated the screen. She knew all about the Beta and what had happened to Kristen, the Syndrome, but she didn't know about the plan to subject Alexa Hampton to two procedures at once: one for her aortic valve stenosis and another to develop antibodies to combat the looming side effects of the Beta in Winston Bartlett. "This is the patient I was telling you about. I wanted you to see this. Let's pray she signs on for the trials, because she looks like she could be perfect, in a lot of ways." But if she doesn't call back, he told himself, what am I going to do? "What am I looking at?" Debra asked, scrolling the page. "Is this what I think it is?" "It's her medical history." "How did you get it?" She turned back. "Did she send it?" "No, Deb, and I don't think you really want to know." "Somehow, I think I probably should." She looked again at the screen. "We're in this together." "All I know is, I got an e-mail from Grant Hampton, and this was an attachment. She must have been keeping it on a computer somewhere. I understand he's her brother, but how he got it, I have no idea. He said we're not supposed to let her know we have it." "How recent--" "This final battery of tests is less than two weeks old," he said, pointing to the date on the corner of the page. Then he scrolled. "Take a look at her high-speed CT scan. See that degenerative calcification there. Now look at the same test last year." He scrolled past a number of pages. "See." He tapped the screen, then scrolled back to the first image. "Over the past year there's been a significant buildup. She's made-to- order for the clinical trials." And there was another reason he wanted her, which he was reluctant to admit to himself. There was a photo of Alexa Hampton in her medical files and something about her reminded him of Camille. Her eyes had a lot of spirit. They made you want to root for her. It was nothing short of ironic that this woman had the exact same medical condition that took the life of Camille, who had been at his side during the early stages of the research that now might provide a cure. But for Camille it had come too late. It was more than ironic; it was heartbreaking. Now, though, to save Alexa Hampton would be a kind of circular recompense. He took a last look, then closed the file. "Does she want to be in the clinical trials? There's not much time left. We'd have to get her--" "I just left a message at her office," he said revolving around in his chair. "Grant has talked to her, and so has W.B. This very morning. She's aware that time is of the essence. But there's no guarantee she'll do it." He glanced at his mute phone. If she didn't call back today, he had a feeling that Winston Bartlett might just have her seized and brought to the institute by force. "I see that her blood type is AB," Debra said. "Extremely rare." Funny she should notice, he thought. Is she going to put it together? "That's the same as Bartlett's blood type," she continued. "Interesting coincidence, huh?" "Right." "You're already fond of her, aren't you?" Deb asked finally. He detected the usual tinge of rivalry seeping into her voice. "Without even meeting her." Dear God, he thought, don't start that. It's the same with every attractive female patient under the age of fifty. I don't have time for games now. The truth was, Karl Van de Vliet was turned on by Debra Connolly. What red-blooded primate wouldn't be? But she was half his age and to act on that attraction would be to guarantee trouble. He had enough to worry about without a lab romance. Besides, he was still thinking about Camille. They'd had the kind of long-lasting, thick-and-thin love Debra would never understand. However, she did sufficiently understand the problems with the Beta procedure and the Syndrome, so he had to flirt back. She had to be kept on the reservation. Feign an interest but not enough for it to go anywhere. "Deb, she's just an ideal fit for the study, that's all. Nothing more." The stem cell procedure for her stenosis should go forward with only minimal risk. There was every reason to hope he could rejuvenate the tissue in Alexa's left ventricle. It was merely an extrapolation of the kind of heart procedure that had worked such a wonder for Emma Rosen. The real challenge was simultaneously attempting the Beta- related procedure. The trick was to stimulate the development of antibodies through a moderate dosage of the special Beta enzyme, tempering it enough that it didn't go critical and begin replicating uncontrollably, the way it had in Kristen, and (probably) very soon in W.B. Not so low as to be inoperative but not so high that it would go out of control. The "Goldilocks dosage," not too much, not too little. The problem was, he wasn't absolutely sure what that dosage was. Should he tell Alexa Hampton the full story about what he was doing? About the Beta? That ethical question, he had decided, he would leave to Grant Hampton, Bartlett's hustler of a CFO. It was his sister, after all. Presumably, he'd tell her whatever she needed to know to make an informed decision. Let the responsibility be on his head. The phone on his desk finally rang. Chapter 10 _Monday, April 6 12:57 P.M. _ Stone Aimes was floating through cyberspace, through the massive data pages of the National Institutes of Health. Since the Gerex Corporation had a complete clampdown on their clinical-trial results, he was attempting an end run. By going to the source, he was hoping he could find out whether or not Karl Van de Vliet's experiments with stem cell technology were succeeding. He needed that information to finish his book, and he hoped that the remainder of the advance could be used to pay for his daughter Amy's private school in New York, if he got it in time. He was dreaming of a life in which she could come back to live with him at least part of the year. Sometimes, particularly days like this--Monday was his official day off--he couldn't avoid the fact he was incredibly lonely. But first things first He had gone to the section that described the many and varied clinical trials the NIH had under way. Then he used "scrambled eggs," the entry protocol given to him by Dale Coverton, to circumvent security on the site and get him into the second-level NIH data files. He was hoping to find the names of patients who had gone through the Gerex stem cell procedure and could be interviewed. It really wasn't all that difficult, or even--he told himself--unethical to get in this far. No big deal. Entry protocols were available to any high-level NIH employee who had the right security grade. Now he was poking through the reams of proprietary data that the Gerex Corporation had submitted to initiate the clinical trials. It was one of the more ambitious studies he'd ever seen, not in numbers of patients necessarily but certainly in scope. They were indeed running stage-three clinical trials of their stem cell procedure on a variety of maladies. There was no double-blind placebo. You either were cured or you were not. Jesus, it was incredible. They were shooting for nothing less than the unified field theory of medicine, aiming not just to patch some failing element of the human body but to regenerate entire organs. Among their stated objectives were building pancreatic islets, reconstructing the ventricles of the heart, reconstituting the damaged livers of individuals with advanced cirrhosis. They were also accepting patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "Christ," he said, scrolling past page after page, "how come they're suddenly so secretive about this?" If Van de Vliet had achieved results in just a fraction of those trials, it would herald the beginning of a new age in medicine. The NIH monitor for the Gerex trials was Cheryl Gates, just as Dale had said. Her photo was featured along with the introductory description of the trials. Nice-looking, he thought, probably late thirties, dark hair, dark-rimmed glasses. She wasn't wearing much makeup in the photo, probably to emphasize how serious she was. Sooner or later, he told himself, he had to find a way to meet her. . . . He stared at his IBM Aptiva screen a moment longer, overwhelmed at what he was seeing, then got up and walked into the kitchen and made a peanut butter sandwich, whole wheat. It was a rehearsal for the possibly hard times to come. Then he retrieved a Brooklyn Lager from the fridge. It was his day off and the sun was over the yardarm. He lived on the fourth floor of a brownstone in Yorkville, in New York's East Eighties. The apartment was small, but it was rent stabilized which meant he was paying well under market value--$1,128 a month on a place that probably could go for close to twice that on the open market. He'd lucked into it after he and Jane split--even though they weren't married they'd bought a condo in the West Fifties, and at the breakup they'd switched the mortgage to her name--but the problem now was, how was he going to pay even this piddling rent (not to mention child support for Amy) after he got fired from the Sentinel? That day, he sensed was fast approaching. And if it happened before the book was finished he was just three months away from going back to freelancing. That was how long his "nest egg" would last. Carrying the sandwich and beer, he walked back to his "office," a corner of the cramped living room that had an Early American desk, and sat down at the frayed chair in front of his IBM. So here he was, past the first level of security of the NIH site, zeroed in on the Gerex clinical trials. Somewhere here had to be all the data about the patients who had been, and currently were, participating. He moved on to the results section and opened the first page. Yes. Then he looked more closely. Hello, we've got a problem. The patient data he was looking at had only code numbers for names. The categories of trials also were just numbers. Without a key, there was no way to get a single patient name or differentiate Alzheimer's from fallen arches. Then he saw the notice at the top of the page: As part of the NIH policy on privacy, all patient data are aggregated and anonymous. Shit. This was as far as "scrambled eggs" would take him. He needed a higher security protocol to get into individual-case data. Dale either didn't have it or didn't dare give it out. Well, he thought, at least I've got information on the structure of the clinical trials. I should print that before the system realizes it's been hacked. He clicked on the print icon. Let the games begin. His real objective was to try to wangle an interview with Karl Van de Vliet, an interview that would have to be approved by Winston Bartlett. Maybe what could be gleaned from this level of the NIH site would be enough to bluff Bartlett into thinking he knew more than he really did. In truth, interviewing discharged patients would have meant anecdotal information, probably not rigorous enough for use in a definitive book. But at the moment, that would have been a start. He lifted the first printed page and studied it. Stone Aimes had seen enough clinical trials over the years to know that the data were reported according to an established schedule. Obviously, the schedule was always adapted to fit the nature of the trials under way, but studies that produce the kind of short-term results Gerex hinted at in their early press releases--before they clammed up--would probably have a tight reporting schedule, possibly even weekly. He stared at the page for a moment, then lifted out another. He wasn't sure just yet what it all meant, but he might be able to infer something. He was still puzzling over the columns of numbers as the data finished printing. What was it telling him? He went back and clicked on STUDY PROCEDURES. This section explained how the reporting was structured. He still held out hope that the names of the discharged patients in the clinical trials could be accessed somehow. In the past, when the FDA tested drugs, it often happened that the names of the participants were not revealed to the monitor, or to anybody. The policy was intended to preserve the privacy of study participants. But lately it had been under review. All that secrecy and non-accountability had permitted some spectacular fabrication of test data. Surely the NIH had taken this into consideration by now and come up with a system whereby the identities of the participants could be checked and verified. That information had to be stored somewhere. No such luck. It appeared the NIH had begun using a modified version of the new FDA sunshine policy. NIH clinical trials had a "one week of sunshine" provision, during which the suitability of test subjects could be evaluated by a review procedure. During that time, their real identity was in the database. But after that, the identity information of any patient actually selected for inclusion in the clinical trials was encoded--where thenceforth it could only be accessed through a lengthy legal process. Screwed again. At this late date, the Gerex Corporation surely was not going to be adding any new names and giving them that week of sunshine. According to press releases at the beginning of the clinical trials, when Gerex was a lot more communicative, at this date the entire study should be just days away from being wrapped up. He went back to the patient files one last time, out of frustration. As he continued to scroll, he noticed that although the identities of patients and crucial personal data were encrypted, the dates on which they entered and finished the trials were all supplied. Hmmm. It was actually more detailed than that. There were dates for when a patient entered each stage of the procedure: Screening, Initial Evaluation, Admitted into Program, Procedure Under Way, Procedure Monitoring, Results Evaluation, Patient Release, Patient Follow-up. The time between screening and patient release averaged around five weeks, six weeks at most Looking at the time-sequenced data, you couldn't avoid the conclusion that the clinical trials had been a spectacular success. No doubt the specific data would reveal whether there had been any adverse reactions, but as clinical trials go, these seemed to have been without major incident. He had a nose for trouble, and these looked as rigorous as clockwork. . . . Hold on a second. . . . _That's_ odd. What the data structure did not have was a category for Termination. Yet one of the patients had been listed with dates leading up to and including Procedure Under Way, but after that the patient was noted parenthetically as having been "terminated." That was all the information given. What could that mean? He leaned back with a sigh and pulled on his Brooklyn Lager. Okay, patients frequently got dropped from clinical trials because some underlying condition suddenly manifested itself and made them unsuitable trial subjects. In fact, that was preferable to keeping them in a study when they were no longer appropriate. But the thing about clinical trials was, there always had to be a compelling, fully explained reason for terminating a test subject. Otherwise you could just "terminate" non-responsive participants and skew the results. No reason was given here. He thought again about the "one week of sunshine," and as a long shot checked to see if anyone had been admitted this week. Nada, but again that was reasonable. The entire study was wrapping up. Which meant, in short, that he had nothing to work with in terms of people. All he had were dates and encrypted names. What now? He finished the beer and was preparing to go off-line when a drop-down screen flickered NEW DATA. He was being directed to the new applicants' "sunshine" page. He clicked back, then stared at the screen. A name had appeared. He couldn't believe his luck. For some unknown reason, they must still be adding new test subjects at this late date in the trials. NINA HAMPTON. Finally he had a name. This was an incredible stroke of... Wait. A second name was appearing now, the letters popping up one by one as they were being typed in. He rolled the mouse to print, and felt his hopes surge. Then his heart skipped a beat. The second name was . . . ALEXA HAMPTON. Jesus, could it be? No way. Too big a coincidence. But wait, the other was Nina Hampton. Isn't that the name of her Brit mum? That unredeemable piece of work. Impossible. If it was the Ally Hampton he knew, she was a woman he still thought of every day. It went back to when they were both undergraduates. She was taking a degree in architecture at Columbia and he had just switched from premed to the Columbia School of Journalism. Wasn't there a Cole Porter lyric about an affair being too hot not to cool down? They undoubtedly were in love, but they both were too strong-willed to cede an inch of personal turf. It was a combustible situation. When they decided to go their own way, it was done under the agreement that they would make a clean break and never see each other again. Be adult and hold your head high and look to the future. No recriminations and no second thoughts. In respecting that agreement, he had gone out of his way not to keep track of her. He particularly didn't want to know if she'd gotten married had a family, any of it. Thinking back now, he remembered that she had had some kind of heart condition. She refused to talk about it, and now he couldn't remember exactly what it was. But that could possibly explain her entry into the clinical trials, though it didn't clarify why she was only being added now, at the last minute. If it was actually her. And if so, how would he feel talking to her? He hoped time had mellowed her, though he somehow doubted it. Not Ally. What an irony. If it was the same Alexa Hampton, she could end up being his entree into the secretive world of Winston Bartlett's Gerex Corporation. The trouble was, he wasn't sure he actually wanted to see her again. Even after all the years, the wounds still felt fresh. He closed out the NIH file and opened People Search, which he often used to look up phone numbers. He started with New York State as a criterion. The names Alexa and Nina undoubtedly belonged to women, so they might be listed merely by their initials. But start with Alexa and be optimistic. He got lucky. Three names and phone numbers popped up. One was in Manhattan, and Ally was a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, but he wasn't sure he was psychologically prepared to speak to her. That number he decided to save for last, though it was by far the most plausible. The next Alexa Hampton lived in Syracuse, with area code 315. He was still shook up as he dialed the number. "Yeah, who's this?" Sure didn't sound like Ally. But he was playing this straight. As a reporter he always started a conversation by identifying himself, so naturally he answered, "Stone Aimes, New York Sentinel." "The fuck you want?" came the voice. It was female but it definitely was not ladylike. "I don't need any newspapers." Whoa, that definitely didn't sound like Ally. She was direct but she didn't talk like a sailor. "Sorry, ma'am. I have a few questions about your participation in some clinical trials. Sorry to bother you, but I have a deadline. Shouldn't take a minute." "You a fucking reporter?" "I'm doing a story on the Gerex Corporation. Are you--?" "The what corporation? The fuck you talking about?" "Seems like I'm calling the wrong number. I'm very sorry and I apologize." "Listen, if you're some kind of weirdo, I'm going to call the cops and have this call traced." "I said I apologize." He hung up and thought about another beer. This was beginning to feel like the moment. But he resisted the urge and called the next number. Come on. Be the right one and don't be Ally. This one had a 516 area code. That meant Long Island. "Hello," came a rusty old voice that had to be in its seventies. It sounded oversmoked and just hanging on. Again definitely not the Ally he knew. "Hello, ma'am," he said "I'm sorry to bother you, but--" "Are you trying to sell me something, young man," the woman asked. "It's not going to do you much good. I live on a Social Security check, and it's all I can do to make ends meet as is. You sound nice, but--" "No, ma'am, I'm a newspaper reporter. I'm doing a story on ... I just wanted to follow up on your admission to the clinical trials for the Gerex Corporation." He felt a surge of hope. It wasn't Ally, but she did sound like a woman who might well be a candidate for medical treatment. "Do you know what day you plan to start?" "What on earth are you talking about?" she asked. "Young man, it's ill manners to start asking a body silly questions, no matter how nice you might be otherwise. I've never heard of this, whatever you called it, corporation." Click. She sure didn't sound like a patient. Or maybe she was too far gone to even know if she was a patient or not. In any case, this was not a promising lead. Okay, he thought, go with the one you should have in the first place. Blast. He wanted this to be the one, but he just didn't want it to be Ally. Or maybe he did. He took a deep breath and punched in the last number, which had a Manhattan area code, 212. The phone at the other end rang five times and then an answering machine came on. At this hour, she would most likely be at work. "Hello, this is Alexa Hampton. I'm sorry I can't come to the phone now, but if you'll leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If you're calling about design work, the number of CitiSpace is 212-555-8597." He felt his heart flip, then sink. It was Ally. It was a voice he had heard for years in his reveries--or were they the nightmares of roads not taken? She still might not be the new patient in the clinical trials, but at least he knew he could reach her. The sound of her voice. After all this time he didn't realize it would still affect him the way it did. So, he thought, clearing his head, she's running a design business now. He wondered how that had happened. The last time he saw her, she was a single-minded student of architecture. Intensely focused. No message. Don't leave a message. It probably would freak her out. Actually, it might freak them both out. Assuming she was the new patient, how the hell did Ally get involved with Winston Bartlett? It probably would have something to do with that heart condition she didn't like to talk about. He clicked off the phone and settled it onto the desk. Then he glanced again at the computer screen and decided to go back to the NIH files. The other woman, Nina, he would look up later. Ally's Brit mum must be getting on by now, but still it was hard to imagine anything being wrong with her; as he remembered Nina, the woman was well nigh indestructible When he got back to the NIH Web site and went to the "sunshine" page, it was again blank. The two new names, Nina Hampton and Alexa Hampton, were not there anymore. They must have been entered immediately into the clinical trials. But why now? If Van de Vliet kept to the original schedule, the trials would be over in a matter of days. Maybe, he thought, this was a momentary screw-up. I just happened to be at the right place at the right fleeting moment, when somebody, somewhere, was entering those names. Maybe some NIH bureaucrat hit the wrong key on a keyboard someplace in Maryland. But it was the break he'd been waiting for. He turned off the IBM and headed for the fridge and another Brooklyn Lager. Ally, Ally, Ally. Can it be you? This is so weird. Worse than that, it was painful. There was that immortal line from Casablanca: "Of all the gin joints in all... she walks into mine." Why you, dear God? Coming back, he sat down, took a long hit on the icy bottle, and reached for the phone. Chapter 11 _Monday, April 6 1:29 P.M._ As she hung up, Ally wondered again what she was getting into. But she did want to meet this miracle worker. The kind of thing Van de Vliet was talking about sounded as much like science fiction as anything she'd ever heard. Still, his voice was reassuring, even mesmerizing, and there seemed no reason not to at least check out the Dorian Institute firsthand. But then what? Help! She looked at her coffee cup and wished she dared have a refill. But that much caffeine always made her heart start to act up. And maybe she didn't need it. The conversation with Karl Van de Vliet had energized her and sharpened her senses quite enough. She was still thinking about that when the phone rang again. There was an electronic voice directory, but her own phone was the default if a caller did not care to use it. "CitiSpace." "Hi, Ally. Tell me if you recognize the voice. Just please don't hang up." Who was it? The intonations were bouncing around somewhere in the back of her brain, as though they were a computer file looking for a match. The one her unconscious mind was making was being rejected by her conscious mind. Then finally the match came through and stuck. My God, it couldn't be. The last time she'd talked to him was ... what? Almost two decades ago. The irony was, she'd been thinking about him some lately, as part of taking stock of her life. She'd been meditating over all the roads not taken, and he'd been the last man she'd actually loved or thought she loved before Steve. "What . . . How did . . . ?" She found she was at a loss for words. She figured he'd have been the same way if she'd called him out of the blue. "Hey, this isn't easy for me either. But I have a pretty good reason for breaking our vow of silence." She was immediately flooded with mixed emotions. Stone Aimes. She already knew he wrote for the Sentinel. Or at least she assumed the irreverent reporter by that name who did their medical column was him. The tone sounded so much like the way she remembered him. There was a lot of passion and he was always editorializing against "Big Medicine." He had plenty of raw courage, but sometimes he had too much edge. That was one quality he had that had eventually gotten to be nerve-racking back when they were together. Now, in hindsight, she remembered their breakup with both anger and regret. She was angry that, even though she tried like hell, she could never really connect with him at the level she yearned for. He always seemed to be holding something back, some secret he was afraid to divulge. Truthfully, they both were grand masters at never allowing vulnerability. In short, they were overly alike. They shared the same flaws. Still, after Steve was taken away, it was hard not to think of Stone now and then. Before Steve, Stone was the only sane lover she'd ever been close to. But she also knew the bit about letting sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes that was the better part of wisdom. This conversation, she finally decided, was just going to open old wounds. Better to nip it right now. And add to that, she didn't actually know if he was free now or not or what But he'd said he had a good reason for calling--what could that be? "Stone, I read your columns in the Sentinel. So I sort of feel like I've kept in contact. I can almost hear your voice sometimes." "That makes me think you were cheating a little on our deal." "Well," she heard herself say, "some of them were pretty good. Sometimes you sounded like you knew as much as a doctor." "Don't flatter me excessively, or I might want to start believing you." He laughed. "But speaking of doctors, didn't you used to have some kind of heart issue? How is that these days?" "You really want to know?" "Maybe it might have something to do with why I'm calling. Best I recall, you never actually told me, even back when." "Thank you for asking," she said. "I guess it's not much of a secret anymore, with me popping nitro every other day. I have a scarred valve, coronary stenosis, and it's not getting any better. I don't know what to do about it short of going to Lourdes for a miracle." "I see," he said. Then he fell silent. Mercifully, he didn't come up with false bravado about revolutionary treatments and you never can tell, blah, blah, blah. Then he said, "So is that why you've enrolled in the clinical trials at the Dorian Institute? To be part of their work using stem cells?" What! "How the hell do you know about--" "Hey, Ally, you know I can't divulge my sources. After I knew you, I grew up to be a real reporter. That was my grand plan, remember?" "Then this may turn out to be a very short conversation. I have nothing to--" "Okay, okay, let's start over." He paused and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Are you the Alexa Hampton who was formally entered about half an hour ago into the stage-three clinical trials for the National Institutes of Health being held by the Gerex Corporation? Or maybe I should play dumb and begin by asking if you've ever heard of them." "Stone, why . . . why are you asking me this?" It was bizarre. How could he know? And wait a minute, what did he mean about enrolling? She hadn't enrolled in anything. "Ally, I'm finishing a major--I hope--book about stem cell technology, and right now the world leader is the Gerex Corporation. I think, but I can't yet prove, that their Dorian Institute out in New Jersey is the site of some pretty incredible stuff. I was ... fooling around on the Internet, on the NIH Web site, looking for information about them, and-- it must have been some momentary computer glitch--someone with your name popped up for a second. Along with a Nina Hampton. Which made me suspect it was you." She was incredulous. She was being entered into the clinical trials before she had even seen the place? Somebody was pushing the pace. Winston Bartlett or Van de Vliet had taken it for granted that she and her mother would enter the trials. Worst of all, it took a former lover she hadn't talked to in x-zillion years to give her this unnerving information. "Nina is your mom, right?" he went on. "I still remember her fondly. I don't think she thought much of me, however. By the way, how is she?" "She's . . . she's not doing all that great." Ally was still trying to get her mind around what she'd just heard. "But why are you calling me, Stone?" "If anything I've said rings a vague bell, then could we meet someplace and talk? I don't think it would be a great idea to do it over the phone. That's all I really can say now." Maybe, she thought, Stone Aimes might have uncovered a few things of which she ought to be aware. His pieces in the Sentinel showed he was a damned good reporter. "I don't think what little I know about Gerex would be any help to you." She was attempting to get her mind back together. "I actually have a lot of questions about the stem cell procedure myself. I spoke on the phone just now with Dr. Van de Vliet and he described their technology to me in general terms. But maybe I should interview you. Maybe you could explain it to me using that wonderful gift you have for simplification in your columns." "Ally, I don't know anything except what's in the public domain. They're privately held, so they don't have to tell anybody zilch. I assume you've actually been out to the Dorian Institute, which is more than I can say." "Never." "But you're enrolled--" "I'm not enrolled in anything." To say the least. "And it bothers me that anybody thinks so. But I am thinking about taking Mom out there tomorrow, if she still wants to go. When I talked to him on the phone, Dr. Van de Vliet wanted me to start the procedure immediately. That's scary, but he does seem to know what he's doing." "I take it, then, that you're leaning toward going through with it." She hated the way he'd just made her sound so gullible. "The truth is, I'm more concerned for Mom. He claims he can help her early-onset Alzheimer's, and that would mean a lot." Why was she telling him all this stuff? She found herself wondering if he'd ever married. "I'm so sorry to hear that. But the chances are he can." "What are you thinking?" she asked finally. "And why did you call me? Really? What's going on?" "I don't know yet. There's a lot I don't know." He seemed to hesitate. "Ally, is there any chance whatsoever that--while you're out there--you could get me the names of some of the people who've been through the clinical trials? The Dorian Institute is entirely off-limits to the press. I tried several times to schedule an interview with Karl Van de Vliet, the guy you talked to, but no luck. I can't get past the corporate people. My only hope is to try and find some patients who've been treated and released who've completed the clinical trials. But Gerex has been ruthless about keeping their identities secret You are literally the first person I've found who has any connection with the institute and is willing to talk about it. That is, _if_ you're willing." "Stone, it would be like the blind leading the blind. I don't know the first thing about the place." "Well, let me ask you this--when you were talking with him, did Van de Vliet happen to mention any occasion where a subject had been terminated from the trials?" "It never came up. Why do you--?" "Never mind. But when and if you go out there, you might inquire about that." He paused. "Don't get me wrong. I'm actually Gerex's biggest fan. I mean, considering merely what you told me, that they're claiming to have a procedure that treats early-onset Alzheimer's. Think about it. I'm rooting for your mom, sure, but that's a Nobel Prize in itself, right there. We're talking major medical history in the making." "And?" "And I want to publish the first book about it." He paused. "Also, a little birdie tells me that something not entirely kosher may be going on out there. No proof, just a reporter's hunch. There's a little too much sudden secrecy." Ally was having a strange feeling come over her. She was actually enjoying talking to him. "Shit, Stone, I'm glad you called. I lost two men I loved very much since I knew you and I'm feeling very alone at the moment. I could use some moral support I've got a lot of people bugging me to enter those clinical trials. Even people I'd never met before, like Winston Bartlett, the New York big shot. He's suddenly very concerned about my health. I have no idea what that's about. But it makes me uneasy." There was an awkward lull, then, "Ally, all I'm asking is that you just take the measure of the Dorian Institute when you're out there and tell me what you think about the place. Are they performing the miracles they announced as their objective?" "Look, I'll help you when and if I actually can. So give me your number, okay?" He did. "I can tell when I'm being blown off," he went on. "I have a very sensitive blow-off detector. But why don't you try a test? When you're out at the institute, ask Van de Vliet or somebody why that mystery patient was terminated from the clinical trials. See if the question makes them uncomfortable." "Why does that matter so much to you?" "If a patient is dropped for no good reason about the same time they clamp down on information, I think it could be fishy. Beyond that, I cannot speculate. And while you're at it, I'd love the names of some other ex-patients. Anybody. I found a list on the NIH Web site but they're all encoded, so it doesn't do me any good. I just want to ask them if the procedure worked or not. It's information that's going to be made public eventually, no matter what. Come on, Ally, don't you want some testimonials?" "Okay, look, I'll try to see if anybody there will give me any info." She was realizing she was in a comfort zone when she was talking to him. Still, so much about him remained a mystery. He had always said his mother and father were both dead, but it was still suspiciously hard to get him to speak about them. She'd gotten the impression that he didn't actually remember his father. That was the part of his life that he'd always been the most closed off about. Either that or he was repressing some horrible memories. "Thanks a lot, Ally." A pause, then, "Interested in getting together sometime?" "Let me think about it." She put down the phone with her mind in turmoil. She realized she hadn't asked him if he was "attached" but the next time they spoke, she was going to try to ease it into the conversation. Chapter 12 _Tuesday, April 7 9:50 A.M. _Ally steered her Toyota onto the ramp leading to the George Washington Bridge, the entryway to northern New Jersey. She was just finishing a phone call to Jennifer. She wanted her to take a look at the notes and blueprints for Bartlett's Gramercy Park project and scan them into their CAD program. After all the phone calls yesterday, she'd been too sidetracked to do it. Although Bartlett had declared he wasn't in any hurry, he had messengered a certified check to her office Monday afternoon. The project was a go. She wanted to get moving while everything was fresh in her mind. Before leaving her apartment this morning, she'd downloaded a map from MapQuest and from it she had estimated that the drive up to the Dorian Institute would be approximately an hour--give or take. She had begun the trip early because her mother's mind had been lucid the previous evening and she was hoping that interlude might last into this morning. Unfortunately, it had not. Nina was sitting next to her now, in full makeup but completely unresponsive, seemingly in another world. When Ally arrived at the Riverside Drive apartment to pick her up, Maria--now silent and uneasy in the backseat, reading a Spanish novel--met her at the door with a troubled look and shook her head sadly. "Miss Hampton, I know she was all right when you were here last night, but this morning ... she may not recognize you. She'll most likely snap out of it and be okay later on, but right now she's just in a fog. It was all I could do to get her ready." When Ally walked in, Nina was sitting in her favorite chair, dressed in her favorite black suit. Her makeup was perfect Thank you, Maria. "Hey, sweetie, you look great." Nina stared at her as though trying to place the face and said nothing. She just looked confused and very, very sad. Dear God, Ally thought, this is the first time she's completely failed to recognize me. It was so disheartening. Last night, when Ally had come up to discuss whether or not she still wanted to explore Dr. Van de Vliet's experimental treatment, Nina had been completely cognizant. Ally had tried to explain the concept of neural tissue regeneration using stem cells, which was difficult since she barely understood it herself. "Mom," she had said "this might be something that could reverse some of the damage to your... memory. At least keep it from getting worse. I know it sounds scary but everybody says the conventional treatments for what you have don't work very well or very long." "Then let's go out there and talk to him, honey. Just come in the morning and take me. By then I'll probably forget everything you've said tonight." How prescient, Ally thought sadly. Now Nina was just gazing blankly ahead, silent. Does she remember anything from last night? For that matter, what was Nina thinking now? Was she conscious of the fact she was losing her mind? And what about the ultimate question: do we want to live longer merely to be alive, or do we want to stay alive in order to do things? To be or to do? In her mother's case, she knew it was the latter. Nina had always been full of life, ambition, and projects. Would she want to go on living if none of those things were possible? You never know for sure about other people, even your own mother, but Ally suspected she would rather not live to see that day. Now, though, was she even aware it was coming? Ally thought back about the first signs. Nina hadn't yet turned sixty- five when she abruptly started having trouble remembering little things. She began forgetting where she'd put items, and she gave up on remembering phone numbers and dates. Initially it had just seemed like a lot of "senior moments" run together, very puzzling. But then it got worse. She'd always loved music, and she'd always played the piano. She loved Chopin, especially the nocturnes. By the time she was sixty-six, however, she was having trouble remembering the names of her favorite composers. She also completely gave up trying to play, either from memory or with the music. When getting dressed one day, she put on her blouse completely backwards. It was bad. Ally had taken her to see four different specialists and they all had concluded that Nina Hampton suffered from what was known as familial early-onset Alzheimer's. It was caused by a mutated gene and was extremely rare, representing only some 5 percent of all Alzheimer's cases. There were two major drugs currently on the market, Exelon and Reminyl, that could relieve some of the symptoms of Alzheimer's by boosting the action of the brain chemical acetylcholine. However, Nina had not yet declined to the stage where doctors would prescribe those drugs. To resort to them was an admission you were at endgame, since they usually were effective only for a few months. So the Dorian Institute might well be a long shot worth taking. Frankly, what's to lose? This morning, she knew, was going to be difficult. If Nina wanted to stay and checked in, there would surely be a pile of paperwork. Ally had had the foresight to acquire power of attorney for her mother three months earlier, and she'd brought along that document in case it might be needed. And Maria, the wonderful, ultimate caregiver, was there to help. The real challenge, however, might well be trying to help Nina understand what was going on and participate in the decision. This was the moment every child dreads, when you have to face, really face, a parent's mortality. As the green forests of northern New Jersey began to envelop them, she slipped a CD of Bach partitas for unaccompanied violin into the CD player. She had loved to play them all her life, but now Dr. Ekelman had urged her to put her violin into storage. Hearing the violin now reminded her of the other purpose of the trip, the treatment decision she needed to make for herself. In that regard one of the things that kept running through her mind was what Stone Aimes had said about the Gerex Corporation instituting a news blackout simultaneously with a patient being mysteriously dropped from the trials. Those concurrent facts did not need to be ominous, but they also could use an explanation. What was she going to do? Was Van de Vliet's stem cell procedure on her heart really worth the risk? She honestly didn't know. Even though the violin had temporarily been taken away from her, she had hopes she could gradually get it back. There were other ways to try to strengthen a dysfunctional heart. Well, she thought, wait and hear him out. From the George Washington Bridge she had taken 1-4, which turned into 1-208 and now the green forest held sway. It felt like she'd gone through a time warp, from the beginning of the twenty-first century to the end of the eighteenth. Then finally, as the second partita was ending, the icy-cold Greenwood Lake came into view. It was associated with those long Finger Lakes gouged out by glaciers. Driving past remnants of the last Ice Age, she reflected on how insignificant humans are in the scheme of things. Suddenly she thought of Aldous Huxley's novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, about a wealthy madman who'd discovered a way to prolong life by eating the entrails of prehistoric fish. Maybe it was seeing the lake that made her flash on that. She was now on Greenwood Lake Road, which passed around the west side, and there were numbers on several gated driveways as she passed along. She suspected the place would be somewhere along the middle of the lakeshore, and she was right. After a few miles she came to a discreet sign announcing the Dorian Institute, and a large iron gate that protected a paved roadway leading into a forest of trees. That was it: just forest, no hint of a building, though she saw signs of some kind of industrial park farther down the road. When she drove up to the gate, she realized there was a video camera and a two-way intercom. When she reached out of the window and pushed the talk button, she heard "Good morning." And then the gates parted in the middle and slid back. They must be expecting us, she thought, and drove through. The road was cobblestone, or rough paving brick. It wound among the trees for approximately half a mile and then widened. There, framed by the lake in the background, was a magnificent three- story building with eight Doric columns across the front in perfect Greek Revival style. There were windows at ground level, but they were heavily curtained. Built of red brick, the building probably dated from the late nineteenth century, and it looked every bit like an Ivy League dormitory. "Miss Hampton, I don't like the feeling I'm getting about this place," Maria said quietly. "It is very cold and formal from the outside, but inside I sense a place where there is bad magic. In the Dominican Republic, we call it Santeria. I can always tell these things." Ally knew and respected Maria's sixth sense. But then Maria sometimes still acted like a freshly minted citizen just off a green card, and she had an innate suspicion of authority- evoking buildings. Her aversion to the Dorian Institute might be nothing more than that. On the other hand, Ally was having a bit of the same feeling. There was something formidable and foreboding about the place that seemed out of keeping with its supposedly benign purpose. She felt a moment of tightness in her chest. There was a parking area off to the left, and she drove into the nearest slot and turned off her engine. This was the moment she'd been both anticipating and dreading. The clock on the dash read eleven- fifteen; she was fifteen minutes ahead of the appointed hour. "Okay, Mom, how do you feel?" Nina turned and stared at her, uncertainty in her eyes. "Where are we, Ally? I don't recognize anything." "This is the institute I told you about last night. Can you remember anything we talked about then?" "This is the place you were ... Didn't you say there's a doctor here who can do something for my... memory?" "We're both here now to just talk to him." She turned to the backseat. "Maria, can you get Mom's purse?" She nodded, then reached hesitantly for the door. She was clearly reluctant to get out. Ally walked around and opened the door for her mother. "Okay, Mom, time to stretch your legs." Ally held her hand and together they headed across the oval brick driveway. Birds were chirping around them and she could smell the scent of the lake, borne up the hill by a fresh wind. Then, through the trees, she saw two women walking up the trail that led down to the lake. They were, she assumed some of the patients. They both looked to be in their early sixties, but also athletic and nimble. One was wearing Nikes and a pale green pantsuit. The other had on a blue dress and a white cap and Ally realized she must be a nurse. She'd been taking the other woman out for a stroll. They were engrossed in conversation, but as they approached, the woman Ally had decided was on staff looked up and smiled a greeting. "Can I help you?" She introduced herself and Nina and Maria. The woman smiled again but didn't introduce herself in turn. "We're here to see Dr. Van de Vliet," Ally went on, "about the trials. But we're a couple of minutes early and I was wondering if we could look around a bit first? I'm trying to understand what the institute is really like." "Well, dear," the woman said, "even those of us who work here aren't allowed everywhere. You know, into the research lab in the basement. Some places here have to be completely hygienic. Of course, for patients who are in the recovery phase, strolling around outside is definitely recommended, as long as they're able. But that's getting way ahead of ourselves. First we'll have to check you in. There's a lot of paperwork for the clinical trials." She seemed puzzled. "They're almost over, you know. But come along and I'll let him know you're here. He's always down in the lab at this time of the morning. It's well after his rounds. They're so busy now." Then she turned to the other woman. "Sophie, do you think you can find your way back to your room? It's number two-eighteen, on the second floor, remember?" Sophie appeared to be pondering the question for a long moment before she huffed "Don't be silly. I know exactly where it is." As she strode on ahead, the nurse watched her carefully, as though unsure what she might do next. She pushed a buzzer at the door and then a man in a white uniform opened it and let her in. Only after Sophie had disappeared through the doorway did the nurse turn back. "I'm Elise Baker. Please forgive Sophie if she seems a little ... confused. Her procedure is still under way." "Her 'procedure'? What--" "She was diagnosed with Parkinson's before she came here. She's improved an enormous amount, but we're not allowed to say so." "Why is that?" "We're in clinical trials. No one is allowed to discuss our results. Everyone here had to sign a secrecy agreement." Now Maria was helping Nina up the steps. The porch, with its soaring white Doric columns, was definitely magisterial. The front door, however, was not wooden or decorative. It was solid steel, albeit painted white to blend in. Elise walked to the door, which had a video camera mounted above it, and a split second later, it buzzed, signaling it was unlocked. This is a lot of security, Ally thought, for a clinic doing research on cells. Are they worried about spies getting in, or patients getting out? But the locked steel door was just the beginning of the security. Next they entered a small room just inside the door with an X-ray machine to see into purses and parcels. "The first floor is reception and dining," Elise explained as she swept through the metal detector. "There are rooms-- we call them suites-- upstairs for patients, and the research lab and offices are in the . . . lower area." "What . . . what is all this security for?" Ally asked. "The work here is highly proprietary. No one is allowed to bring in any kind of camera or recording equipment." The guard dressed in white looked like a retired policeman, with perhaps a few too many jelly doughnuts over his career. He had a beefy red face and a hefty spare tire. But he was certainly alert to his responsibilities, eyeing the three newcomers with scarcely disguised suspicion. In fact, Ally sensed a palpable paranoia in the air. Well, she told herself, medical research is a high-stakes game. It's understandable they would be concerned about industrial espionage. After the security check, they went through another steel door and entered the actual lobby. The first thing she noticed was a grand staircase leading up to the second floor, and then to the third. Off to the right was a modern elevator with a shiny steel door. A number of patients were coming down the stairs and heading for a hallway leading to the back. They were mostly women, whose ages ranged anywhere from forty-five to well beyond seventy. Who are these people? Ally wondered. They must have been sufferers of various kinds of debilitating afflictions, but now they were certainly ambulatory, if not downright sprightly. She wanted to talk to some of them, watching them moving along chatting and smiling, but this was not the moment. "At eleven-thirty we have meditation in the dining hall," Elise was saying as she led them through the lobby, "for those who care to participate, and after that a vegetarian lunch is served at twelve- thirty sharp." Then she glanced back. "After you see Dr. Van de Vliet-- and assuming you're admitted--there'll be an orientation and then you're welcome to begin participating fully in our activities." "Actually," Ally said, "if people are well enough to be in 'activities,' why can't they be outpatients?" "These clinical trials require twenty-four-hour supervision," Elise explained, heading for the wide desk in the center of the room. "Now, if you would all sign in here at the desk, Ellen can take you downstairs to the medical reception." A dark-haired woman smiled from behind the desk, then got up and came around. A sign-in book was there on a steel stand. Ally finally noticed that light classical music was wafting through the room, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake suite. "You must be Ms. Hampton," the woman said. "And this must be your mother. We were told to expect you." She nodded a farewell to Elise, who said, "It was so nice to meet you. Good luck." She then turned and headed for the back. Ally signed all three of them in. "Good," the woman said as she checked the information. "My name is Ellen O'Hara, by the way. I'm in charge of the nursing staff here. We're ready to go downstairs now." Ellen O'Hara had a knowing, earnest face that fairly lit up when she smiled. She had short brown hair streaked with gray and was pleasantly full-figured. When they reached the elevator, she zipped a small plastic card through the reader on the wall and the doors slid open. As they emerged on the lower level, Ally realized they were in the precincts of a very sophisticated medical laboratory. Occupying most of the floor was a glassed-in area, inside of which she could see three men and two women, all dressed in white. She also noticed rows of steel containers that seemed to be ovens or incubators of some kind as well as racks and racks of vials. At the far end of the laboratory, there was a blackboard on which one of the men was drawing something that looked like hexagonal molecules, linking them together. "That's Dr. Van de Vliet," Ellen said pointing. "I'll let him know you're here. The laboratory is a special environment. The entrance there is actually an air lock. The air inside is filtered and kept under positive pressure." She walked over to a communications module, buzzed then announced into the microphone, "Dr. Vee, your eleven- thirty appointment is here." He turned and stared in their direction, then smiled and waved. Next he walked to a microphone near the center of the room and clicked it on. "I'll be with you in a minute. Can you please wait in the receiving room? And Ellen, can you start getting them ready?" "Of course." She nodded then clicked off the microphone and turned. "Receiving is just down at the end of the hall. Next to his office. Please come with me." She led them through a large wooden door, into a room with a retractable metal table covered in white paper and several chairs. It was a typical examination room, with a device on the wall to monitor blood pressure, a stethoscope, and other examination paraphernalia. "If you'll kindly take a seat," Ellen said, "I'm sure he'll be here as soon as he can, in a few minutes at most. But while we wait, I need to take your temperature and blood pressure, and start a chart." "Ally, where are we?" Nina asked. Her face was becoming alarmed, and Maria reached to comfort her. "Are we in a hospital somewhere?" "Yes, Mom, it's actually the institute I told you about last night The doctor here wants to see if he can do anything to... help you." "Oh," she said, "is he the one you told me about? I thought that was just a dream." "No, he's real. Whether he can help you or not that part is what's still a dream. But we're all praying." She looked around at the pure white walls and wondered again what she was getting into. Meeting a new specialist in the sterile white cold of an examination room, could be frightening in itself. God, how many times before had she done this as she trudged through HMO hell? Maria was so unsettled she was deathly pale. Ellen took their blood pressure and temperature, including Maria's, even though she protested mildly, half in Spanish--a sign of how unsettling it was to her. Ellen had only just finished putting all the numbers on clipboard charts for each of them when Karl Van de Vliet opened the door and strode in. Chapter 13 _Tuesday, April 7 11:39 a.m. _He had a high forehead and prominent cheekbones, just like in the photo. And just as in his photo, there was a genuine dichotomy between his face, which looked to be early forties and unwrinkled, and his gray eyes, which were much older. That was it. That was what seemed odd. He was different ages. Underneath his white lab coat he was wearing a black suit and an open- necked blue shirt. Ally noticed that his fingers were long and delicate, like those of a concert pianist, and overall he had a kind of ghostly presence, as though he were more spirit than man. Although he looked exactly as he did in the photograph in the Gerex Corporation brochure, in person there was an added dimension, a kind of raw magnetism about him. It was more than simply a physician's bedside manner, it was the allure of a pied piper. The first thing you wanted to ask him was _How old are you, really?_ Maybe the next thing you'd want to do was ask him to dinner. What had she expected? Maybe a self-absorbed nerd researcher in wrinkled stained lab attire, anxious to scurry back to his test tubes. But in person Karl Van de Vliet was debonair and youthful, living proof that his photo wasn't retouched and was recent. He had to be twenty years older than she was, easily, but to look at him you'd guess he was close to the same age. She was dying to ask him about that but she couldn't think of a polite way to raise the subject. She introduced herself. "We spoke yesterday." Then she introduced her mother and Maria. "Mom and I talked last night about the clinical trials, and she said she's interested. This morning, unfortunately, I'm not sure she remembers what we discussed." He placed a hand on Nina's shoulder and studied her face as he smiled at her, embracing her with his eyes. "Well, we're going to see what we can do about that aren't we, Mrs. Hampton?" "I've got a question right up front" Ally said. "Have we already been entered into the National Institutes of Health clinical trials?" He seemed taken aback for a moment, caught off guard, but then he stepped up to the question. "As a matter of fact I did take the liberty of authorizing the preliminary NIH paperwork for both of you. Of course it doesn't obligate you in any way. The thing is, there's a lot of red tape, so if you do decide to participate, the sooner we get that part started the better. On the other hand, if you decide not to, we can just terminate everything at this preliminary stage and you won't even be part of the official record." Well, Ally thought, that undoubtedly explains why Stone saw our names on the NIH Web site. But why did Van de Vliet look so funny when I brought it up? He focused on Nina. "Mrs. Hampton, I'm Dr. Van de Vliet. You're a pretty lady, and we've had some luck helping other ladies like you." "Honey, if I had you in my bedroom, then maybe you could help me." Oh my God, Ally thought, she's about to go ribald on us. But that's a sign she's coming out of her funk. But then she had another thought. Maybe Nina sensed he was older than he looked. Like that paranormal perception that told her Grant was involved in something evil. So far, however, that particular perception hadn't panned out (though Grant clearly was up to something). Maria was mortified. She blushed and made a disapproving animal noise low in her throat and turned her face away, but Van de Vliet simply smiled even more broadly. "Mrs. Hampton, I don't think you should be talking that way in front of your daughter." He gave her a wink. "What you and I do together is none of these people's business. But I do think we should consider keeping them informed if only a couple of hints." Ally found herself wanting just to listen to his voice. There was an intelligent warmth about it that reminded her of a kindly professor at Columbia, a truly gifted architect who also could quote Keats and make you cry. You wanted to give yourself to him. My God, she thought, how am I going to stand up to this man? "There're some issues you and I need to discuss," he said turning back to Ally. "The first thing I need to do is take a look at Mrs. Hampton's records. But whatever they say, it won't do any harm to run what we call a 'mental state examination' for her, to establish a general baseline of cognitive impairment as of now." "How long will that take?" "Actually, Ellen can start in just a few minutes," he said "Of course, we'll need to hear about the usual danger signs everybody knows. Does Mrs. Hampton have recent-memory loss? Does she get confused about places and people? Does she have trouble handling money and paying her bills?" "The short answer is yes." All of those things, Ally knew, had accelerated in the last six months. It was the tragic, recognizable onset of the latter stages of Alzheimer's. Already more than once Maria had said there were times when she didn't think Nina recognized her. More and more she seemed to be confused, unable some days to find her way around the apartment, and she'd started repeating herself. She often had trouble finding the right words, and she was increasingly paranoid and suspicious. Maria, who had worked with other Alzheimer's patients, feared she might begin hallucinating soon, seeing things that weren't there. Ally turned to her. It felt obscene to talk about her when she was sitting right there with them. "Mom, sweetie, do you understand what Dr. Van de Vliet is asking? Do you think you have trouble doing everyday things?" She knew the answer but she was determined that her mother not be treated like a potted plant. "Ally, you know that half the time I can't remember a blessed thing. I'm getting crazy as a bloody coot." Then Nina turned and looked Van de Vliet in the eye. "I don't want to lose my mind, Doctor. I don't want to see the shade closing in. I can't do crosswords anymore. I used to do them all the time. And all the music I used to know. It was my love and now . . . now I can't tell Scriabin from Strauss half the time. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. I thought my mind would go on forever." "Mrs. Hampton, if you'll let me, what I want to do is try to work on your recollection. I don't know how much I can help you with crosswords, but then I've never been much good at them myself either. Your memory of music should improve, though. There are no guarantees, but--" "Then I'm ready to try it, Doctor," she cut in. "You're all that stands between me and losing the only thing I have left, my past" Next came a burst of rationality. "Now, I hate to be a pest but could you explain what exactly it is you're going to do. I want Ally to hear this too and then maybe she can go over it with me later and help me understand it." He smiled and reached over and stroked her slightly thinning hair. "I'd be happy to try, Mrs. Hampton. It's actually pretty simple." Then he turned to Ally. "We touched on some of this on the phone. Do you want to hear it again?" "Yes, I'm still trying to get it all into my simple mind." "Well," he began, "to go back to the very beginning of my interest in stem cells the focus of our research has been directed toward challenging the notorious Hayflick limit. Back in the 1960s, Professor Leonard Hayflick discovered that when tissue cells are taken from the body and cultured in a laboratory dish, those cells grow and divide about fifty times, give or take, and then they stop. They have reached old age, senescence. The physical basis of the Hayflick limit is a section of DNA known as telomere, which gets shorter each time the cell divides. Eventually the telomeres become so short that all cell division stops. It's like an internal clock telling them the game is over. They've had their innings." "And you're saying you've found a way to beat the clock, to stop the telomeres from getting shorter?" "All cells possess a gene known as the telomerase gene, which can restore the telomeres to their youthful length. But in most cells the gene is permanently repressed and inactive. It is only found in egg and sperm cells, and in cancer cells." He gazed away for a moment as though collecting his thoughts. Then he turned back. "However, we've found that by isolating and inserting an active copy of the telomerase enzyme into adult stem cells, which can be found in minute quantities throughout the body, we can set their clock back to zero. We extract cells, 'immortalize' them with telomerase, and then return them to the body as a youthful infusion." "And is that what you'd be doing for Mom?" "There'd be a series of injections, but given what appears to be her level of mental awareness right now, the procedure probably can be accelerated." He patted Nina on the shoulder. "All right," Ally said "but can you use the same procedure for someone's heart?" "Well, yes and no," he said. "Did you bring your medical records? I should have a look at them before making any pronouncements." To prepare for this moment, she'd printed off a copy of the medical files she'd scanned into her computer. "There're a lot of files," she said, opening her bag. "I've got copies of my EKGs over the past eleven years. Dr. Ekelman, my cardiologist, says my condition is getting progressively worse." She took the folder out of her bag and handed it to him. He flipped through the files with what seemed an absent manner, almost as though he already knew what was in them and was just going through the motions. Then he looked up. "Well, your physical condition looks pretty good. You clearly exercise. And I don't see anything here that would suggest a complication. As to how your procedure might differ from your mother's, I guess the main area of concern is simply the scale." He laid her files on the steel table. "Your heart has reached the stage of aortic valve stenosis where cardiac output no longer can keep up proportionately with vigorous exercise. And that has put an even larger strain on an already weakened condition. What we are about to undertake here corresponds to what might almost be considered an aortic valve replacement, though it is done at the cellular level. We call it regenerative medicine. Millions of cells will be involved We'll attempt to reverse the calcification and also to develop new blood vessels that supply the heart muscle." "You know, this is so risky. I remember that not long ago they tried to use fetal cell injections into the brain for treating Parkinson's disease. And it turned out that the side effects were horrendous. Why should I assume that this is any safer?" He looked pained. "I assure you we don't do anything here that is remotely like that particular, unfortunate procedure." She stared at the ceiling trying to grasp what he'd just said. "So how risky do you think this is?" she asked finally. "Truth time." He looked away again and sighed. There was a long silence in which he seemed to be pondering some extremely troubling thoughts. Finally he turned back. "In medicine there Is always something that can go wrong. Even the most innocuous procedure can end up being lethal if that's what the gods want that day." He looked at her intently and seemed to try to measure his words. "But I wouldn't recommend we proceed if I didn't feel that the potential benefits far outweigh the risks." She listened wondering. Something in his voice is sounding cagey. What is he leaving out? "I still want to think about it" "Of course, but we can make some preparations in the meantime," Van de Vliet said turning back to Nina. "Mrs. Hampton, do you understand anything of what I've said? Nothing is risk free." "Young man, if you'd lived as long as I have, and then felt it all slipping away, you'd be willing to take a chance with anything." "Mrs. Hampton, Alzheimer's is one of the more promising areas of stem cell research. We've already had successes here. I truly think we can help you. In fact, Ellen can start your preliminaries right now, if you like. A lot of it you may have done before. For example, there's a game where you have to memorize the names of three unrelated objects, and you have to count backwards from one hundred by sevens. Finally there's a test where you copy sentences and symbols." He chuckled and there was a warmth but also a distant sadness. "Some days I'm not sure I could even do it all myself. In any case, it's not something you pass or fail. But if we do enter you into the trials, you'll have to stay here for the duration. That's absolutely essential. We'd also like a caregiver to be here with you, as long as it's necessary." Ally looked at Maria. "Do you think you want to stay here with Mom?" Maria's eyes were very sad "I could stay for a day or two. But ... maybe we should talk." "We can arrange for someone," Van de Vliet interjected "We routinely provide caregivers from our staff when called for. And because we're still in clinical trials, there is no charge." Ally watched Nina brighten and turn to Maria. "You can bring some things from my closet when you go back. I want to start right away. I just know he can help me. I've got a feeling and you know my feelings are always right." Ellen reached and took Nina's hand. "Come, dear, we have a special office where we handle all the paperwork for admissions. We can do the tests there." Ally leaned over and kissed her mother. "I love you, Mom. And I love your spirit. You taught me how to be a fighter a long time ago. And I guess you're still teaching me."_ Tuesday, April 7 12:03 P.M. _ Karl Van de Vliet watched the three women leave. Now he was alone with Alexa. So far, so good, he thought. With her mother checked in, we're partway there. Now what is it going to take to get her with the program? I'm not sensing commitment. She's asking too damned many questions. It looks like we may have to go to Plan B tomorrow. Too bad. After the door was closed, he turned back. "Your mother is quite an inspiration," he said with a smile. "I'll need those tests to create a baseline, but already I can tell she'll almost certainly respond to the treatment. She fits our success profile. I'd say the odds are heavily on her side." Then he darkened his look, for effect. Better let her know I don't have to do this, he reasoned. "The truth is, we already have enough data on Alzheimers that I don't really need any further clinical trials. I know the parameters of what the procedure can do and what it can't. But when Grant told me about his mother's condition, I saw no reason not to work her into the trials. We're winding down now and we have some empty beds." "Don't think I'm not grateful," she said, "even though I may ask a lot of questions." She got the message, he thought. Good. "Alexa, I'm now going to tell you something I've never told anyone else," he went on, feeling a tinge of sadness arise in his chest. He hadn't planned to say this, but for some reason he now wanted to. Perhaps because it was true. "My late wife, Camille, was a brilliant medical researcher. We worked together for many years, first at Johns Hopkins and then at Harvard. What took her from me was a heart condition very similar to your own. That was over a decade ago and I vowed I would dedicate my work to her. I wanted the final clinical trial in this program to be on a young person with advanced valvular stenosis, but I could never find a patient who matched that profile. But you would be perfect." He looked carefully at her. It was all so true, which made this whole scene especially poignant. "I'm sorry about your wife," Ally said. "I read in your--" "You see, if I can succeed with you, it would almost seem as though I'd had a second chance to save her life. You bear such a striking likeness to her in several ways. You look something like her, but more importantly I sense that you share her indomitable will." "So I'm not just another statistic to you?" She seemed to be trying to gauge the depth of his sincerity. "No one here is a statistic, but you would definitely be someone special." "I see," she said still sounding noncommittal. Am I getting anywhere? he wondered Just press on. You've got to make this happen. "All right, whatever you decide, we need to get some preliminaries out of the way. For one thing, we must have a complete new cardiology exam. Nothing in the file you brought presents an obvious red flag, but still, it's essential that we have an up-to-the-minute stress test. Toward that end I've taken the liberty of arranging for a checkup at the New York University Faculty Practice Radiology on East Thirty- fourth Street. Among other things, they can run a high-speed computed tomography screening using ultrafast X rays. Also, I'd like to see a phonocardiogram. A sonic analysis of 'murmurs' can tell us a lot about valve abnormalities. Regardless of what you decide to do here, it's a good idea for you to have this done regularly anyway." "You've already scheduled tests?" Her tone of voice told him she was mildly taken aback at the presumption. "It's just that the NYU Faculty Practice is sometimes difficult to get into on short notice. They can be booked for weeks in advance. But a cardiologist I know there, Lev Amram, has agreed to make room for you this afternoon. It's a professional courtesy. There'll be no charge. After that, and assuming you want to proceed, you should get a good night's rest and then come back here as early as possible tomorrow morning. You should pack for a three-week stay, though we'll provide you with pretty much everything you'll need here." Just get her here. "You know," she said, "I was actually hoping we could do this on an outpatient basis. I know you like to have your patients here for constant observation, but I run a business that needs me there every day." "Alexa," he said, putting every last ounce of authority he had into his voice, "this is not a conventional procedure, and it's possible you might suddenly need special care of some kind. This is an experimental clinical trial, so we don't know what can happen. That's why I really must insist that you be here twenty-four hours a day." He looked at her with great tenderness. "We're talking about the possibility of completely repairing your heart. Surely you don't expect just to drop by now and then for that." "All right, point taken," she said, "but--if we go forward with this-- I'll need to hire at least one temp to be at the office while I'm gone. Somebody to at least handle the phone. That could take time." "Surely someone there could manage to handle that," he said. She's getting resistant again, he told himself. Don't let that happen. "And there's also the matter of your mother. I think it would be wise for you to be nearby during the early stages of her procedure. When her mind starts climbing out of the abyss, it's important for a close family member to be there to provide a visual and emotional anchor. It truly can make all the difference. I fully expect that her functions of attention and recall will return to those normal for a woman her age, or quite possibly even better, but it will happen a lot quicker if you're here to help her, to remind her of things." "This is a lot to digest." Ally turned and sat down in a chair. "All right, I might as well get the exam. It doesn't mean I've agreed to anything here." He heard the ambivalence and knew he had no choice but to do what he was going to have to do tomorrow. "I will proceed on the assumption that you'll be entering the program. Truthfully, if you don't, a week from now your mother is going to be asking you why." He smiled. "In any case, we need to have those tests done in the city. Also some blood work here. We're affiliated with a lab. I want to check your T-cells and certain other markers, like C- reactive protein and homocystine. It's something you should do regularly anyway." "All right, then," she said finally. "But after that, let me go see how Mom's doing. Then I'll arrange things with Maria somehow and drive back to the city." "By the way, before I forget, we have to complete a formal application for your mother to admit her into the clinical trials, and we also need a signed liability waiver. I assume you have power of attorney for her by now. If you don't, then we may not legally be able to proceed." "I have it." "Then let's get started" he declared almost certain he had her. Chapter 14 _Tuesday, April 7 11:35 A.M. _Stone Aimes was in his cubicle, staring at the phone when it rang. He prayed this was the call he'd been waiting for. As a gamble, a long shot, he'd requested that Jane Tully, his former live-in lover and the Sentinel's part-time corporate counsel, do him a small favor. After he hacked the NIH Web site, he'd asked her to pass along just one question concerning Gerex to Winston Bartlett's corporate attorneys: Why had a patient been abruptly and mysteriously terminated, without explanation, from the clinical trials now under way by the Gerex Corporation? If that wouldn't get a rise out of Bartlett, he didn't know what would. It was the only part of the corporation's encrypted NIH file that seemed irregular. But would Bartlett take the bait? He reached for the phone. "Aimes here." Around him came the clatter of computer keys and muted laughter from the direction of the water cooler. Everybody had watched a Tivo of the latest Sunday night and they were still critiquing the shows. Mondays were everybody's day off, so Tuesdays were the first chance to catch up. The staff was also starting to rev up again for the coming week's edition, everybody with the hope that their particular assignment would have legs and make its author a household name. Stone, however, felt like this was either the first day of the rest of his life or the last day of a career built on dealing to inside straights. This cannot go on much longer, he kept telling himself; it was an unstable condition. His soul was already over the fence, keeping company with that wild, free ox he liked to muse about. "Stone," came a husky female voice, strained and yet strong. Just as he'd hoped, it was Jane, whose office was down on the third floor. "Can you come down? Right now." "Did you hear back from--" "Stone," she admonished her voice growing urgent, "just come down. Do it now, all right?" "Sure." He paused a moment, wondering. Why did she sound so upset? Had his plan somehow backfired? "I'm on my way." He glanced up at the fluorescent light over his head like a pitiless hovering spaceship, and wondered if this was going to be the break he had been praying for. There was a nervousness in Jane's voice that indicated something major was afoot. Something was about to change. He switched off his Compaq laptop and reached for his brown corduroy jacket, which was hanging from a hook on the side of the glass-walled cubicle. He straightened his brown knit tie as he stepped on the elevator, and for some reason he found himself thinking of his daughter, Amy. He mimed a toast. Here's looking at you, kid. She was in the fifth grade and lived with her mother, Joyce, in a small condominium nestled in the hills near El Cerrito, where his ex-wife grew up. Joyce was a television producer who had left him to go back out there, where she got work as a garden designer. When he got over the shock, he finally concluded she loved California more than she loved him. Maybe not an unreasonable choice. But then she got custody of Amy, based solely on the fact that his income was inadequate to send her to private school in New York and the public schools were out of the question. But Joyce had agreed that if he ever had the money, she could live with him some of the time. This book, he hoped, would make that happen. He still didn't know why he and Joyce couldn't have made a go of it. It had occurred to him that there was the real possibility she had fallen in love with the idea of a dashing investigative reporter, not the grueling reality. These days she had Amy all the time except for three weeks in July, and he had so many things to regret he scarcely knew where to start. He kept a year-old photograph of Amy on his desk, in a frame far too expensive for a snapshot of a young girl on a black horse named Zena. But it was Zena that his $1,500 a month in child support had helped to pay for, and he felt it somehow bonded them. Hi, Dad, from me and Zena, went the inscription. Why was he thinking about her now? he wondered. The answer was, because he wanted her world to be different from the one he had known as a child. He hadn't had a father around, and that had left him with a lot of anger. He didn't want the same fate for her. Amy's world, he knew, was going to be very different, no matter what he did. To be young like her and starting out was a daunting prospect these days. He wanted to make everything easier for her, but the only thing he could give her now was a measly $1,500 every month and his unshakable love. Even so, that was more than his mother, Karen, got for child support-- from a natural father he had never actually seen in the flesh until he was eleven. And that was a chance encounter.... So, if this book got some traction and he got some recognition, along with some economic security, he might be able to have Amy come back and live with him. It was something she'd said she wanted to do, though he wasn't sure where he would keep Zena. But all in good time. Now everything depended on the book.... The elevator door opened and he stepped out on the third floor. The receptionist, Rhonda, a dark-haired resident of Avenue A who usually tried to flirt, looked at him as though he'd just been convicted of a crime and nodded with her head toward the corridor leading to Jane's office. "Stone, you've really screwed up this time. You'll never guess who's in there and after your scalp. What on earth did you do?" "You mean--" "This is a guy I've only seen in newspaper pictures, though, needless to say, not in this upstanding rag." In her dismay, she unthinkingly reached for the pack of Virginia Slims lying next to the phone, momentarily forgetting that smoking had long-since been forbidden in the building. "You'd better get your ass in there. Jesus, he came in with a bunch of lawyers, but then he told them to split. 'I'm going to handle the fucker myself.' Quote, unquote. Right here by my desk." Stone didn't know, with absolute certainty, who she was talking about, but surely it had to be ... My God, he thought with a thrill, maybe it worked. Maybe I've smoked him out. "Truth tellers have nothing to fear, Rhonda." He winked at her. "I'm protected by the sword of the Lord. 'He is my rod and my staff. He leadeth me beside still waters.'" "You're crazy, you know that?" She'd remembered where she was and began putting the cigarette back into the pack. Then she smoothed her short black hair. "He leadeth you into the shit, handsome. That's where He 'leadeth' you. You're adorable, but you're also a sane person's nightmare." "Thanks," he said giving a thumbs-up as he walked past her desk. "I appreciate your unstinting praise." He headed on down the hall, the plush gray carpet soft against his feet. Could this be the break? he wondered feeling his hopes cautiously rising. Had the Big Man himself shown up? Could it be that there was something funny going on with that patient who got dropped? But what? He still didn't have a clue. As he walked into the room, he felt as though time just stopped. He had fantasized about this moment more and more as the years went by. Now here it was. What next? He thought he had been emotionally prepared, but now he realized he wasn't. Were they going to acknowledge the past, or were they just going to act as though nothing existed between them? That first chance meeting, when Stone was eleven, had been when his mother threatened to sue Bartlett for formal child support. The threat of publicity caused the matter to be immediately settled, as she'd hoped it would be. Stone had been sitting in the law firm's reception area when Bartlett walked through. Each knew who the other was, but Bartlett just stopped and glared at him for a moment before moving cm. Stone had sized up the man who had abandoned his mother and only barely managed to suppress an urge to leap up and lash out at him, if only to say, Look at me. I'm here. He had not been in the same room with his father since, but this time around he was definitely noticed. Winston Bartlett looked just as he did in news photos. He was in his late sixties, with thinning blond hair that was cut too long and shaggy in the back. Stone's first thought was that the tightfisted old rou6 should spring for a better barber. But it was Bartlett's eyes that really caught him. They were strong and filled with anger, but they also contained a hint of desperation. They were very different eyes from the haughty dismissal he remembered from a lifetime ago. Good, Stone thought. I've finally made you squirm, Daddy dearest. Nothing else I've done has ever gotten the slightest notice from you. For a moment they stood sizing up each other. "Stone," Jane said, "this is--" "I know," he said. Even though they had been practically married, he had never told her that he was the unacknowledged son of Winston Bartlett. He had never told anyone. To him, his father had died before he was born and that was the story he stuck to. He naturally had a lot of complex feelings about that. He had seen his mother struggling to give them a decent life, hoofing in the chorus line of Broadway shows long after she should have, and a lot of his anger remained. Now, though, Stone Aimes wanted nothing from the old man. Except the truth. "Miss Tully," Bartlett barked, glowering at her, "I think you'd better leave us alone." "Of course," Jane said with a wry look, and in a tactful instant she had slipped past them and out, gently closing the office door behind her. "I don't believe it," Bartlett said turning back after he watched her leave. "You're trying to blackmail me, you little prick. Which tells me you're not half as smart as I thought you were." Wait a minute! Did that mean Winston Bartlett has been following my career? Stone felt a thrill in spite of himself. "I never knew you thought about me, one way or the other." He was experiencing a curious sensation. Although he was in the same room with his father for only the second time in his life, it felt natural. They were having one of those age-old arguments. The younger generation had just challenged the older generation, and because of that sparks were set to fly. This was the kind of thing that was supposed to happen between fathers and sons all the time. In fact, it felt good. It felt normal. More than that, he was finally being acknowledged. My God, he thought, I share DNA with this man and yet we have so little in common. Then he had a more scary thought: Maybe we have a lot in common. "I think it's time you told me what the hell you're up to," Bartlett declared, ignoring the jibe. "How did you--" "I'm trying to do us both a favor, but you're not cooperating. If the Gerex clinical trials are going half as well as I think they are, then it seems to me you've got everything to gain by publicity. I'm trying to write the first book that tells the Gerex story. So why the hell won't your legal flunkies let me interview Karl Van de Vliet?" "That's actually none of your business." Bartlett's eyes abruptly turned cloudy. "I want you to stay the hell away from--" "Right now I'm the best friend you've got in this world. Believe me." Stone couldn't believe he was saying this. For how many years had he loathed and despised this man? But now, for the first time, he actually needed something from him. "I want to tell the real story of what Van de Vliet has accomplished. What Gerex has accomplished. It'll be the latest word on stem cell technology. But your office keeps giving me the runaround." "We have a damned good reason to keep our work proprietary just now," Bartlett declared. "This is like the Manhattan Project." His eyes bored in. "The results of the clinical trials are going to cause a press feeding frenzy, and I want to be in a position to control that when the time comes." This is incredible, Stone told himself. We 're talking as though we have no history. You have a granddaughter by me whom you've never even seen. Don't you at least care about her? "I've got a pretty good idea of what Gerex is doing and I think it's going to be a milestone in medical history." Stone looked at him, trying to figure him out after all these years. For all his bluster, Winston Bartlett seemed like a man with a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities. He hadn't expected it. "It so happens I'm a damned good medical reporter and all I'm asking is to be the Boswell to Van de Vliet's Johnson. I want to be the one to chronicle this historic moment. There's no one who can do it better, believe me. Ill even agree to embargo everything until I get a green light from Gerex. But I want to start now and get it right" "You can't ethically know any details of the work," Bartlett declared. "So the question I'm waiting to hear answered is, how did you find out- ?" "I can't reveal my source." Because, he told himself, I still don't have one. All 1 have is guesswork. "But I know that Karl Van de Vliet is running the first successful clinical trials using stem cell procedures. And I'm going to report on it whether you want me to or not. So are you going to help make sure my facts are accurate?" "I'm going to help make sure there's no reporting at all till I say so," Bartlett went on. "Anything you print will be-- by definition-- irresponsible speculation and you can expect enough legal action to--" "The original schedule was that they'll be finished in less than a month. I'm not going to publish anything before that I just want to have the manuscript I've been working on ready when the Gerex story finally can be told. It'll be the final chapter, the payoff. I'm going to describe your clinical trials, and it would be better for all concerned if it could be the 'authorized' version. If you force me to publish without your cooperation, it's not going to do either one of us as much good." Again he wondered why Bartlett was so upset. What was it about that one terminated patient that made him freak when he found out somebody knew? So freaked he charged up here personally, all the way from his fancy corporate building in TriBeCa, to breathe fire and brimstone and yell threats? "Do I have to get a court injunction to put a stop to this corporate espionage?" Bartlett demanded. "Everything I know is in the public domain somewhere." Actually, Stone thought that's a serious out-and-out lie. Nobody knows that a patient got mysteriously terminated from the trials. "I just want to work together with you." Even as he was saying it, Stone Aimes realized that it was not in the cards, now or ever. He watched Winston Bartlett's eyes narrow. "What kind of contract do you have with this paper?" "Quite frankly, the terms of the contracts for employees of this paper are confidential." "I knew I should have kept those fucking lawyers here. It takes a shark to deal with a shark." Then he seemed to catch himself. "So if you're planning on writing anything about this, you'd be well advised to get yourself an attorney, because you're sure as hell going to need one." "Thanks, Dad." It just came out. Maybe he'd been wanting to say it all his life. Bartlett's look was shock for a moment, and then it turned pensive. "You don't think I take an interest in you, but I do." "Yeah, you've really been around through thick and thin." He felt the old anger of abandonment welling up. "I took care of your mother. Whatever she did was beyond my control." The eyes were switching to chagrin. "Do you have the slightest idea what I could do for you? I've . . . I'm not getting any younger and I've been thinking about . . . with your medical background you could easily have a place . . . I mean, if you've got a head for business, then someday . . . So why do you fucking want to do this now? " Stone listened, trying to internalize what he was hearing. Not only did Winston Bartlett know about him, he was finally thinking about acknowledging him. Sort of. Or was this just a bribe to hush him up? Either way, it was too little, too late. "You've never given me anything and I've sure as hell never asked. I'd just like for you to get out of my way so I can do my job." Bartlett stalked toward the door. Then he turned back. "You'd better think long and hard about what you're getting into. You can ask some of the two-bit reporters I've dealt with in the past. They're fucking roadkill." With that pronouncement, he slammed the door and was gone. Stone stared after him, feeling his heart pump. It wasn't the threat; it was the mixed emotions. For a moment, in spite of his better judgment, he'd felt like he had a father, but then Bartlett became the enemy again. Then the door cracked open and Jane appeared, dismay in her eyes. "What was _that _about?" "What was _what _about?" "I've gotta tell you, that man doesn't know how to keep his voice down. What was that about helping your mother? Karen. You never talked about her much, but I sure don't remember you ever saying anything about her and Winston Bartlett." "That's because I didn't. Jane, there are parts of my past life that I try not to think about any more than I have to." "After the fact, it's nice to know that there were parts of your life that you didn't see fit to share with me." She sniffed. "Maybe someday." "It's a little late for that," she declared, hurt lingering in her voice. "Look, Stone, I don't know what you know that's got Bartlett so upset, but he's not the best guy in the world to piss off. He stormed in here, fit to be tied, personally demanding to know how the hell did you have proprietary information about the Gerex Corporation's clinical trials. He already seemed to know who you were. Now I realize there's more to the story, somewhere back there in time." "And what did you tell him?" "I was completely blindsided for which I thank you. I told him I didn't know anything about your sources, but I wouldn't reveal them even if I did. He's our landlord but that doesn't give him subpoena power. He doesn't have the right to barge in here and try to intimidate the Sentinel's staff. We're current on the rent." Stone felt a tinge of nostalgia. Sometimes her gold-plated bitchiness was the very thing he admired most about her. "Well, thanks for sticking up for me. Maybe I've got him upset enough that he'll come around eventually and decide it's better to have me inside the tent, where I can be monitored." She snorted at the improbability of that. "No, Stone, as usual you're an idiot idealist and dreamer. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. Bartlett is most likely on his cell phone right now, as we speak, threatening the Family, trying to get you fired. He's saying you're stealing proprietary information somehow and he's going to sue the Sentinel for our last dime if we print a syllable of anything you write about him. That's his next move, Stone. I expect my phone to ring in approximately fourteen and a half minutes. Their attorneys are going to tell me to tell Jay to get you under control. That's what's going to happen. The Family does not want Winston Bartlett pissed off. Especially by the likes of you, somebody who's always writing muckraking articles that make them real nervous. Does anything I've said have the ring of logic to you? Or are you living in some never-never land where the facts don't fucking penetrate?" Hey, he thought, that's pretty good. Jane is in DEFCON 1 mode today. "Depends on what you look at, the doughnut or the hole. That is, the stick approach or the carrot. I'm betting he's going to split the difference and try a little of both. He's going to cool off and then offer me a few crumbs as an inducement to go away." "God, you're so naive." She laughed in derision. "Winston Bartlett is not accustomed to having to ask anybody for anything. So the fact he came up here this morning to try to get you to back off on whatever it is you're doing must mean you've really got him psyched." She stared at him. "What is it, Stone? Tell me. What do you have on him?" "Right now I'm more interested in what he thinks I might have. And the truth is, I don't really know. But it must be something pretty big." "Stone, why is it so hard to hate you? You can make a person's life miserable and that stupid person will still root for you. God, I don't know what it was about you." She paused a moment as though thinking. "Maybe you're just too honest. Or just too sincere. Maybe that's what it was." "Don't try to butter me up. I know my weaknesses. But dammit, Jane, I'm this close to the story of the century. And the paranoid zillionaire who was in here just now yelling at me is trying to freeze me out" "Well, please don't involve me in this anymore, Stone. You've just provided me with a week's worth of unnecessary shit. From now on, any communicating you want to do with Gerex's attorneys is going to have to be done by someone else. Trust me when I tell you I do not need this in my life." "Sweetie, wait till you see what I'm on the track of. What the Gerex Corporation is doing at a small clinic out in New Jersey is going to change everything we know about medicine. And it's going to blow wide open the second they finally let the press in on what's happening at the clinical trials they're now winding up for the NIH. When they finally hold that big press briefing, I want to have a manuscript already in copyediting. I want to be first." "Then why is he so worked up over your question?" she mused. "About somebody being dropped from the clinical trials?" She paused "Incidentally, I can do without being called 'sweetie' by a man I'm no longer screwing." "Sorry about that." He winced. It did just sort of slip out in this orgy of intimacy. "But what I think Bartlett desperately doesn't want me to find out is the reason that patient was dropped. And he's afraid I'm getting close. Unfortunately, I'm not, and I just took my best shot at prying the information out of him and--you're probably right--blew it." He was turning to leave. "But I'm, by God going to find out somehow. Just see if you can keep me from getting fired for a little while longer. If I'm still working for the Sentinel three months from now, you may get honorable mention in my Pulitzer acceptance." It was bluff talk. But he believed it with every fiber of his body. You've gotta believe, right? Come on, Ally, get lucky. Find out who that mystery patient was. The way things look now, you 're the only shot I've got left. Chapter 15 _Tuesday, April 7 8:13 P.M._ What a day! When Ally finally settled onto her couch, after giving Knickers a long walk, she was exhausted. She leaned back and kicked off her shoes. There had been a few moments of tightness in her chest--maybe it was psychological, anxiety-induced--but that was gone now. She thought about calling New Jersey to ask how Nina was doing, but she doubted they would tell her anything. She'd spent the latter part of the afternoon getting yet another heart exam. After driving to northern New Jersey and back, she'd had a formal (and exhausting) stress test for her heart at the New York University Faculty Practice. God, she was sick of examining rooms and those blue paper shifts you put on backwards, as though it was okay for doctors and nurses to see your bare ass. Then she put on shorts and sneakers and an Israeli physician stuck wired suction cups all over her chest and put her on a treadmill for seventeen minutes, boosting her pulse to over 150, which was as high as he dared to go. Then he called Van de Vliet, faxed him the charts, and they reviewed the squiggly lines for another ten minutes. Finally she had a high-speed CT scan, whose results were then sent directly to Karl Van de Vliet's lab computer. The bottom line was, the damaged valve in her aortic ventricle was deteriorating even more rapidly than her regular physician, Dr. Ekelman, had thought, but her heart was still strong enough for the procedure. She wondered if she had gone this far because she was letting hope outweigh a sober evaluation of the risks. Was this the sign of complete desperation? Whatever she decided, tomorrow was the day, D day, decision day. She thought again about her mom, who had been bubbling with hope when she looked in on her. Nina hadn't even been formally checked in, but already she seemed transformed. It was enough for her just to entertain the possibility that her mind could be renewed. That in itself was sufficient to convince Ally to sign the consent agreement for Van de Vliet to go forward with her procedure. He even offered to provide a car service to take Maria home to the Bronx after Nina was settled and resting. In her own case, the special injections for her heart, she was far less sure what she thought. The part that bothered her most was having to give herself entirely over to a person she scarcely knew. It was the kind of ultimate surrender that she abhorred. While Knickers rummaged behind the couch for the remnants of her rawhide chew toy, Ally momentarily considered calling Grant. She couldn't think of a reason why except that he was the only coherent immediate family she had left and this felt like a moment for pulling together. God, she missed Steve. Sometimes she felt so alone. Then she considered calling Stone Aimes, but she decided that would seem pushy. The truth was, she'd enjoyed talking to him and she'd been surprised at how comfortable she'd felt. Looking back over the elapsed years, she couldn't remember exactly why they split up. There must have been a good reason, but now she could only recall the good times. A picnic in Central Park, or the time they took the Staten Island ferry at night just to see the inspiring downtown skyline. With those jumbled thoughts cluttering her mind, she finally got around to remembering she hadn't checked her phone machine. She got up off the couch and went into the bedroom. There were three calls and at first she thought she was too exhausted to check them. But no, that was irresponsible. She was running a business... "Hi, Ally, it's me." The voice was Jennifer's. "No emergency, but call when you get in and let me know how it went, okay?" Not tonight. There was too much to explain and she was too tired. She went to the second message. "Hi, it's me again. I need you to look over the Jameson design, that Italian-marble bath. They're having trouble getting the ocher. Some kind of strike at the quarry. What can they substitute? But remember, it's got to be absurdly overpriced or they'll assume it's crap. If I don't hear back from you, I'll fax you some stuff in the morning." Okay, she thought, these rich clients love to show off. I'll get them what they should have ordered in the first place, knowing them. Stone from the quarry near Agra, where they got the marble for the Taj Mahal. That ought to be ostentatious enough. It'll take an extra couple of months, but that will impress them even more. As she considered going to the third message, she had a feeling of misgiving, though in truth there were several people she wouldn't mind hearing from. Or maybe the Dorian Institute had called about Nina. Maybe she'd freaked. This whole thing was happening way too fast. In any case, she didn't really want to talk to anybody right now. What she really wanted to do was sit and think, maybe run the whole thing by Stone and get his take{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}. She decided to check out the third message. "Hi, it's your intrepid reporter, just checking in to see how it went today. It's just after eight, and I'm at home. I may not be able to afford this place much longer, given all the excitement I've had today, so call me while I still have an apartment and a phone." She felt a ripple of excitement and the feeling pleased her. Maybe she did have someone stable and rational in her corner, someone who understood the risks and possible rewards of going forward with the procedure. She'd put his number in her Palm, which was in her bag, and she went back to the living room, poured herself a glass of wine, and then retrieved it. She heard him pick up on the second ring. "Hi, it's Ally. Thanks for checking on me. I'm really not in the greatest shape at the moment." "Oh yeah? So how'd it go?" "Well, I met Dr. Miracle. . . ." She paused. "I don't know quite how to handle you, Stone. Are we having some kind of reunion? The affair redux. Are we friends all over again? Two days ago, all we had were memories. Then I start getting phone calls from you. I still don't know what I'm supposed to think." "I'll tell you what I think. I think we're playing this by ear. I don't know what you've been doing for the years that I haven't seen you. I don't know what you know about me. So this is kind of like a blind date with a lot of baggage." "I agree," she said, then hesitated. Her resolve was melting. "I might as well say this. Is it too late to come down and talk? I thought I was tough enough to handle this on my own, but I definitely could use psychological support." "Give me the address. I could use a little support myself. I got tlhreatened today, I think, by somebody who would like to crush me like a bug. And easily could. I'll spare you the ironies, but you and I may have more in common than you think. My interest in the Gerex Corporation has just gotten extremely personal." After she hung up, she felt energized and she decided to give Jennifer a call after all. In truth, she wanted to tell her about Stone and to get her take on whether seeing him was a good idea. Aren't these second-time-around things always doomed? "Hi, Jen. I'm home and I'm making all kinds of fateful decisions." "So what happened? Are you going to be a guinea pig for that clinic?" "Is that what you think it amounts to?" She couldn't tell how serious Jennifer intended to be. "I'm still debating it Mom loved the place." "Well, good. Good for her. But you're still not sure about you?" "I'm leaning . . ." She paused. "Jen, somebody I used to see in college is on his way down here right now. He's a medical reporter, but the truth is, I don't know why I asked him." "I guess if I were your shrink, I'd ask, 'How do you feel about that?'" "If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't need you to be a one-woman support group." She bit her lip. "He's doing a book about stem cell procedures. So in a way it's a lucky break that he appeared exactly when he did." "Yeah, Ally, if you ask me, it sounds like it was a lucky break in more than one way. An old flame reappearing can be a positive sign. It's high time something happened in your life." You 're tighter than you know, she thought. I'm ready for this, whether I admit it to myself or not. But is there going to be any chemistry when we actually see each other? There used to be a lot. The embarrassing thing was, her first thought was to wonder if he was still terrific in bed. She remembered thinking he was very adroit back then, but back then she didn't have much experience to compare him with. Mainly, thinking about him now made her painfully aware she was overdue for some closeness. _Tuesday, April 7 10:22 PM. _What's she going to think of me? Stone wondered as he knocked gently on the door. She'd buzzed him up from the lobby without a word. More to the point, he thought, what am I going to say if she wants an opinion about whether she should undergo the procedure or not? So far, the only evidence I have that the clinical trials are working is circumstantial, the patients who've been through the sequence and discharged. So how can I, in good faith, advise her one way or the other? But, he then concluded, I'm getting way ahead of myself. She may take one look at me and decide she was right to dump me the first time. Nice building, though. Housing for grown-ups, not like the one-bedroom starter setup I've been reduced to. He knocked--he always hated the idea of ringing a bell on an apartment door--and a second later, it opened. Alexa Hampton and Stone Aimes just stood awkwardly for a moment and stared, taking each other in. Finally... "You look... great." They both said it simultaneously, and that served to make the moment even more awkward. "Well," he said finally, into the silence, "you do." And he meant it. There was, however, a lot of strain on her face, in her eyes. The mark the years had left seemed more psychic than physical. "You don't look so bad yourself." "God, it seems like a lifetime ago when we went to our separate corners," he said after another long, contemplative pause. Then he stepped in and she closed the door. He didn't try to peck her cheek, for which she looked relieved. "Tell me how you're doing, really." "You really want to know? Okay, this afternoon I had a heavy-duty heart checkup. Nobody wants to put odds on this thing, but my condition is getting worse." She led him through to the living room. "Then we should talk," he said looking around. "I love your loft, by the way. You make me envy you. You should see the makeshift quarters I live in. I'm sort of waiting for my ship to come in." "The truth is, Stone, that I no longer know the first thing about you or your life. And I think I'd like to." " 'Had we but world enough, and time.'" He smiled "We'll get around to the catching up, but I don't flatter myself that you asked me down at this hour to reminisce about our respective pasts." "You've already got me figured out." She made a face. "I don't know whether I like that or not. By the way, would you care for something? You used to like scotch, right?" "The operative part of that statement is 'used to.' These days I try to avoid anything harder than beer. I was starting to have an ethanol dependency problem. I think it's a common occupational hazard for a reporter." "I don't keep beer around. It's fattening. How about some diet cranberry juice?" "Maybe I'll have that scotch after all." He laughed. "I have a feeling it might be more suited to the occasion." "Know what, I think I'll join you." She walked into the kitchen and started making the drinks. "On the rocks, right?" "Good memory." "Stone, I asked you down because I've got to make a big decision." She was bringing the drinks into the living room. "Tonight. You're the closest thing I've got to a knowledgeable sounding board. You have some idea of the risks and rewards here. So do I check into the Dorian Institute and let them start injecting doctored-up stem cells into me or not? Turns out that's what Van de Vliet wants to do." "We're in worse trouble than we thought." He took a scotch. "You've at least seen the place. I don't have a shred of actual physical evidence that those clinical trials are producing results. I can make inferences from what I see on the Web site, but it's nothing you can take to the bank." He ventured a sip, then looked up. "By the way, did you get a chance to ask about the patient who got dropped?" "Oh shit, I forgot." She sighed. "There was so much going on, with Mom and all the rest, that it completely slipped my--" "Don't worry about it," he said with a sigh. Come on, Ally, she thought, this could be really important. You've got to get focused. "I'll try to remember tomorrow." "I do think it's kind of vital. But be careful not to mention my name. I've ... I've just acquired some problems of my own with the Gerex Corporation." "What kind of 'problems'?" "Let me take a rain check on answering that. Suffice to say, they're not thrilled about the idea that I'm doing a book in which they're prominently featured." He paused. "Look, Ally, there's a lot going on here. Including that patient who was dropped for some reason that nobody wants to disclose. But if you do decide to do it you couldn't have a better physician. Karl Van de Vliet is quite possibly the world's leading researcher in stem cell technology. On the other hand, this is the first time there've been actual human trials. If anybody tells you there's no risk, then they're not behaving ethically." "Well, the way things stand now, I'm due out there at the institute at ten A.M. tomorrow. If I want to, I can be formally entered into the clinical trials on the spot. I've passed my qualifying exam." "You know the trials are almost over. It's like they're taking you at the last minute." "That's what he said. I'm going to be the last ... whatever. My friend Jennifer just called me a guinea pig. Van de Vliet also said I'd have to stay out there for at least a couple of weeks, probably longer. That's going to be a bloody drag, since things are really busy down at CitiSpace now." "Ally, given what I know, or don't know, I don't have an entirely good feeling about this. It could be they're hiding something, but I don't have a clue what it is. It's quite possibly connected to that patient who got terminated. And when I tried to raise this with Gerex's attorneys, no less person than Winston Bartlett himself went ballistic." "What are you saying? That I shouldn't do it?" "Hey, I can't make that decision for you. But one possibility would be to just play along for a day or two and see if you can't find out a little more about what went wrong with the patient who was dropped." "Stone, that's maybe a little paranoid. Couldn't a single patient have been dropped for a whole bunch of different reasons?" "Of course, but it's not that simple. A patient was dropped from the Gerex clinical trials, and there was no official reason given in the data file. It made me curious enough that I had our paper's attorney pass along a question about it to their attorneys. That motivated Winston Bartlett to come personally to threaten me. So why is a guy who runs a huge conglomerate suddenly afraid of one tiny question? Is there some problem, some reaction to the procedure that they're terrified will come to light? Ultimately millions and millions of dollars are at stake. I want the book I'm writing to tell the whole story, not just the part they'll want to have told. That's why God put reporters on earth." "Shit, Stone, I'm glad you're here. I think I told you on the phone, I had someone I loved very much disappear on me some years ago, and I'm feeling very alone at the moment." She looked him over. "Okay, I'll ask. We're adults. Are you married, divorced, attached, unattached, seeing someone, alone and suicidal, what? I mean, where do things stand here?" "Where things stand is that I'm very happy that I stumbled into you after all the years. And yeah, I've got a little history. At least I'd like to think so. But nothing is going on at the moment." Then he told her about Joyce, the divorce, Amy. "And what was that you said about having somebody disappear on you?" He studied her, reaching back for the feelings that were still buried. Seeing her was bringing it back. "What did you mean by that? Disappear like a missing person, or disappear as in up and split, or--" "He was my husband, Steve, and he was a political consultant. He was in a single-engine Cessna that went down in the rain forest in Belize and I miss him terribly." "I'm so sorry, Ally. Nothing that's happened to me comes close to that tragedy." "It gets worse. A few months before that, my dad had an accident with a Browning shotgun that was no accident." "Jesus. What's that line about how the troubles tread on one another's heels. Was he depressed? I guess that's a stupid question." "He thought he was going to lose his business. After a lifetime of work. What do you think?" "Ally, I'm really sorry about all that." "Well, I suppose it could be worse. As I recall, you never knew your dad, did you?" When am I going to tell her the truth? he asked himself. "Let's get off the history topic tonight, what do you say. We'll both get ourselves depressed." "Agreed." She sipped at her scotch. "So ... you're saying I should play along and see if I can find out something about this discharged patient, the mere mention of whom causes grown millionaires to become unhinged?" "It's what / would do," he said, finishing off his scotch and settling the glass on a coaster on a side table. Then he got up. "I have to tell you, Ally, you look awfully tired. I'd love to be responsible for keeping you up all night, but I doubt that would be a humane act." "It might remind me of a time long ago and not so far away," she said with a faint smile. "But you're right. When I get this tired, I can precipitate an episode." "I'd offer to drive you out there tomorrow, but that would just get you in trouble. They probably have orders to shoot me on sight. I'm the number one persona non grata with the top management of the Gerex Corporation at the moment. So I'm the last person you want to be seen with. Right now the only way you're going to find out what they're hiding is if nobody suspects anything. Which means you've got to show up alone." Maybe that's true, she thought. But you're a person I'd like to be with tonight. "Thanks for coming over." She walked over and pecked him on the cheek. You 're vulnerable tonight, she told herself, wanting to ask him to stay. Don't start making any big life decisions. Chapter 16 _Tuesday, April 7 10:32 P.M. _Winston Bartlett looked at the white phone on the oak end table beside his chair and argued with himself about picking it up and calling the Dutchman. When Van de Vliet was at his office at the institute, they communicated by encrypted videophone. By this time, though, he was usually home, but he still hadn't called to say what had happened with Alexa Hampton. Now they would have to talk over an open line. Damn him. After his explosive run-in with Stone Aimes--damn him too--Bartlett had gone up to the Park Avenue place to check on Kristen firsthand and try to console her. But he wasn't actually sure she recognized him; at times she seemed to and then at other times she would just stare at him blankly. Her mind increasingly had an in-and-out relationship with reality, and today was an out day. The time had come to be deeply concerned about her. She couldn't be kept under wraps forever. He had checked her into the Dorian Institute under an assumed name, Kirby Parker, to try to avoid any publicity. Now that was the only name she could remember. How had the Syndrome done that to her? Kristen Starr, whose identity was known to several million watchers of cable TV, could no longer remember her own name. Karl had worked with her every day, but no medication he had tried had even minimally slowed the Syndrome's progress. The Beta had seemed so promising. Kristen's body had been rejuvenated-- her face was looking like she'd had perfect plastic surgery, and there'd been no discernible side effects. It was everything they'd all hoped for. Kristen was elated and even the normally cautious Van de Vliet was buoyed. Yes, the Beta was so close. Karl had to find a way to make it work. In spite of all Winston Bartlett's entrepreneurial derring-do, he always knew he was at the mercy of time. He was getting ever closer to that final dance with destiny. But . . . but what if the Beta could be made to work the way Van de Vliet theorized it might? Was there the possibility the music would never stop? Nursing a second Glenfiddich, he looked around the room, the third- floor study/bedroom, finding it pleased him as always. This room of his five-story mansion was a handmade gem from New York's turn-of-the- century Gilded Age, with molded plasterwork ceilings and brass doorknobs and mahogany paneling. Favorites from his superlative Japanese sword collection lined the walls, giving him constant joy. He wanted to live to enjoy it for another three score and ten. The only galling thing about the place was that he had to share it with Eileen, who had the top two floors. They had been living in marital purgatory for the past twenty-eight years, ever since she found out about the existence of his natural son. Because of that humiliation, she had refused to give him the one thing he most wanted from her, his freedom. She let it be known that as long as he flaunted a string of mistresses in the cheap tabloid press, she was determined to stay in his face. He sighed and took a last sip of his scotch, then set it down and clicked on the phone. Van de Vliet had rented a small villa half a mile down the lakeshore, south from the institute, and he lived alone. Until recently he'd been sleeping in the lab. There was no encrypted phone where he lived, so this had damned well better be brief. "Karl, it's me. How did it go today with the new Beta prospect? I contracted her to do some work here, hoping to do my part to get her with the program. I was expecting to hear from you by now." "I've met with her and she had a stress test this afternoon in the city. Other than the aortic stenosis, she seems to be in superb shape, which is important. I'm assuming--make that hoping--that she'll come back in the morning and formally enter the clinical trials. I'll let you know if she does. Till that happens, I have no progress to report." "All right, but how soon after that do you think you could get started with the Beta matter?" There was a pregnant pause, and then . . . "W.B., we truly need to talk, and maybe not on this line. Just before I left the lab, I ran another simulation on the Mothership to try to figure out what dosage level of Beta enzyme would be safe. But it's like trying to extrapolate backwards, and I just don't have enough data. I'm beginning to wonder if using her to try to create telomerase antibodies is actually such a good idea. It's just so risky. . . ." His voice trailed off. "Karl, everything in life is a goddam risk. I know I'm supposed to be the beneficiary here, but if the antibody concept works out, we might still be able to do something for... Beta One." "I'm already doing everything I know how for her. That's a tragedy we're all still in denial about. And now we're talking about risking yet another woman. Yes, maybe it's the answer, but for now I don't know what a safe dosage of enzyme should be. It has to be enough to generate the antibodies, but not so great that . . . You know what I'm talking about." I sure as hell do, Bartlett thought. I'm looking at the Syndrome myself. "Karl, just think of what it could mean if you could get the Beta to work the way the other procedures do. What great medical discovery didn't have a few missteps at the beginning? This is experimental medicine that could change the world. So, dammit, we've got to take risks." "Why are we having this conversation at this time of night? Over an unsecure phone?" "Because we don't have a lot of time," Bartlett growled. "We've got nineteen days left on the clinical trials. That's certainly enough time to conclude the procedure on her heart. But if we also try to--" "Karl," Bartlett said "it's the Beta we should be focusing on. I'm looking at the Syndrome myself now, though I think I've got the strength of will to handle it. My mind is a lot stronger than Kris . . . Beta One's. But I don't want to have to find out. You've got to get this fucking problem fixed." "If we do use her, I can't begin to tell you how unethical this is about to become." Bartlett wanted to remind Van de Vliet that ethics were the least of their problems at the moment, but that wasn't the kind of thing you aired over an unsecure phone connection. "Karl, just fucking do it," he said finally. "If she's not under way with the Beta before the end of this week, ethics are not going to be your primary concern. I may have to revisit some of our agreements. Cross me and you forfeit a lot." "All right" He sighed. "I know what I can do to make sure she's in." "Good. Do it, whatever it is." He now had to warn Van de Vliet about Stone Aimes, but how much information should he provide? He quickly decided to keep it simple. "Oh, and as though we didn't already have enough problems, there's something else I need to alert you about. There's a smart-ass reporter from the New York Sentinel nosing around. Yesterday he got to my legal department and asked about Beta One, though he doesn't know her name yet. He somehow found out she was terminated from the clinical trials. Please tell me you haven't been talking to the press behind my back." "My God, I've been waiting for this to happen." Van de Vliet sounded like someone who had just had the wind knocked out of him. "You know, Grant once mentioned that a reporter had been pestering him about getting an interview with me." "When?" "Maybe two months ago, possibly three." "First I've heard about it," Bartlett said. "I wish he'd told me. I could have taken steps." "It might be the same person. Now that I think about it, I do remember he mentioned the Sentinel. How much do you think he knows?" "I'm not sure. The question in my mind is, how did he find out about her in the first place? He's supposedly doing a book about us, Karl, a book about this project." "Well, that's the first I've heard about that. Christ! A book!" "I think he's just fishing at the moment. But this should be a warning. We've got to keep security tight." "What do you know about him? Is he good?" Yes, Bartlett thought, he's damned good. The truth is, I'm almost proud of him sometimes. "He's the medical columnist for the paper. So happens, I own the building where their editorial offices are." "I don't have time to read newspapers." "Well, he's good enough that we may have to handle him somehow." "What are you trying to say?" Van de Vliet asked, though he sounded like he already knew. "What I'm saying is, he's a pro, and I get the strong impression he's hungry." "Hungry for money or for fame?" "If I knew that, I'd know what to do next," Bartlett said. Probably some of both, he thought, if the kid is anything like his old man. "Then why don't we give him an interview? Meet the whole matter head- on. I've always found it better to shape the news yourself rather than trying to stonewall, which usually means a lot of speculation ends up getting published and then you have to correct it after the fact. It's also the best way to find out how much a reporter already knows." Idiot, Bartlett thought, that's the worst possible thing we could do. This kid would have your balls for a bow tie. "Karl, you've just provided a perfect illustration of why I have my own people handling the press. Some amateur like you starts talking to a guy like that, and the next thing you know, you might as well be on sodium pentathol. Again, his name is Stone Aimes. Remember it. And don't ever even think about exchanging a single word with him." "W.B., my experience is that you can only stonewall the press for so long, if they're any good at all. Sooner or later, they're going to find out more than you want them to. The only way to forestall that is to parcel them carefully controlled information to work with. Trust me. I've had a little experience with reporters too. You can't treat them like they're complete dolts. You have to co-opt them, bring them into your confidence, and then convince them that it's in everybody's interest for them to help you rather than harm you. So why don't you let me talk to this guy? We could always start off with the carrot and then move on to the stick." "This conversation is making me very nervous, Karl. I don't want you or any of your people within a mile of him. I mean it, goddamit." With which Winston Bartlett slammed down the phone. "Shit." What are we going to do? So far, Van de Vliet hadn't helped Kristen in the slightest. Okay, she wanted to try the Beta, but still . . . What happened was a tragedy. And who are we kidding--Stone wasn't going to back off. Seeing his natural (and only) son again after a lot of years had shaken him up more than he had expected. At some level he wanted to feel proud of his own flesh and blood. But now . . . if anything got published about the Syndrome, the financial consequences could be devastating. Stone Aimes had to be kept at bay long enough to complete the buyout. Unfortunately, it might come to involve force. He smiled to think that Kenji Noda would be ready for that challenge. But overt violence really wasn't Winston Bartlett's style. At least it hadn't been his style up to now. But he was staring at the horrific possibility of the Syndrome. Starting very soon, a lot of things might have to be handled differently. Chapter 17 _Wednesday, April 8 1O:15 A.M._ Ally was walking down the second-floor marble hallway of the Dorian Institute, feeling a mixture of hope and dread. She'd parked her blue Toyota in the same slot she'd done the day before, and then she'd gone through the security check at the front entrance, which included verifying (again) a solid ID and a check for any kind of camera or recording equipment. Maria did not come along; she was using this as an occasion to have some well-deserved time off with her grandchild. The caregiver was giving herself some care. The downstairs foyer had been empty except for security and staff, and she'd paused just long enough to sign in and ask the receptionist at the central desk which room Nina Hampton was in. Was her mother going to be as enthusiastic about being here today as she'd been yesterday? Truthfully, just to see her spirits immediately improve yesterday was a high in itself. But who knew? Maybe she could be helped. "I think she's . . . Let me check." She'd pulled up a computer screen. "Right. Mrs. Hampton is in room two-thirteen, second floor." She'd looked up and smiled. "Your mother, I assume. She's quite a card. I hear she's doing very well. You can use the elevator over there." "I'll take the stairs," Ally had said. They were wide and blue marble and had a kind of splendor as they seemed to literally flow down from the upstairs landing. "I didn't have my run this morning." The marble hallway upstairs showed no signs of use. The place felt more like a grandiose palace from another time than a hospital doing cutting-edge research. There was a nurse's station at the far end of the hall and two women were there in blue uniforms. Other than that, however, there was nothing to suggest the Dorian Institute was a medical facility. It could easily have been an exclusive resort hotel. It didn't feel medical or aseptic in any way. Stone should see this, she thought. He'd definitely be impressed. Driving out this morning, alone, she'd been thinking about him a lot. There was something about him that was different from what she'd remembered over all the years. He was as serious as ever about his work, but she suspected he might possibly be more fun now that he seemed to have lightened up some. He used to be wound extremely tight. In any case, she was finding herself surprisingly happy to talk to him again, whether or not it went any further. But was his concern about the mysterious terminated patient justified? And what, if anything, did that have to do with her? She was still musing about that when she heard the Spanish- language TV going in room 213, even before she touched the doorknob. That's a good sign, she thought. She pushed open the door and strode in. The room was decorated in earth tones, including a lovely brown hand-woven carpet, which had Indian symbols in it, probably Navajo. The bed was a single, but it was faux Early American, not a hospital bed. Again the place felt more like a resort than a research institute. Nina was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, and wearing blue silk pajamas underneath a white bed coat. "Mom, how're you feeling? You look great." It was true. She was wearing a lull complement of makeup and her hair looked like it'd been newly washed. Whatever else was going on, the Dorian Institute was making sure patients looked their best. Do they have a beautician on staff ? she wondered. Also, there was a sparkle in her mother's eyes that she hadn't seen since before her father died. "How does it look like I'm feeling?" Nina reached for the remote and muted the sound from the TV Yes, that old twinkle is definitely there. "Gee, I have to say that you seem a lot better than you did yesterday." It was true, thank goodness. She was having one of those supercogent days. She laughed deep and resonant. "Ally, you have no idea. He started in with the injections yesterday evening, after you left. When I woke up this morning, I could remember everything that happened yesterday. I even remembered why I was in this strange place. Try me. Ask me something and see if I can remember it. Go ahead. Ask me anything." "Okay." She thought a moment. It should be something easy. "When was Dad's birthday?" "March twelfth." She didn't even hesitate. "You'll have to do better than that." "How about my birthday? You couldn't remember it last week." Nina paused and looked disoriented for a moment. Uh-oh, Ally thought, I pushed her too hard. "It was October third." A smile abruptly took over her face, as though she was experiencing a live breakthrough. "You were born at Roosevelt Hospital, at three-forty in the afternoon." "Mom, this is incredible." She was joyously stunned though it felt like something resembling shock. "It's a miracle." "Your mother's responsiveness is impressive," Karl Van de Vliet said as he strode through the open door, startling her. "Ellen will run the first battery of monitoring tests later this morning. Short-term memory and the like. But from all appearances, there's been a lot of tissue regeneration under way overnight." "Is . . . is this permanent?" Ally asked, not wanting to let herself get her hopes up too soon. And what is he doing? "No one can answer that question." He looked at Nina and smiled. "But this is not some drug regimen to trick the brain's chemistry, Mrs. Hampton, you have my word. In Alzheimer's, tissue responsible for the production of certain neurotransmitters dies. What we're doing here is enabling your brain to regrow healthy, long-lived tissue to replace what has become damaged and destroyed by an excess of the wrong . . . Let's just say we're not trying to salvage damaged tissue. We're actually replacing the dysfunctional tissue in the cortical and hippocampal regions of the brain, so we're working with the body. And you're responding wonderfully." He turned back to Ally. "I've got to get back to the lab now. Come on down when you're ready, and we'll finish the paperwork." She started to say she wanted to ask him to linger a moment and answer a few questions, but before she could, he'd disappeared into the hallway. "Ally, I haven't felt this alive in months," Nina bubbled on. "Dr. Vee did a minor procedure late yesterday afternoon, using local anesthesia. Then he did something in his laboratory and came back and gave me an injection. Then there was another one this morning. It's supposed to continue for a week or two. Ellen said she'll be giving me one of those little memory tests every day to see if I'm improving, but you know, I already know I can tell a difference. It's just been overnight, but I swear some of the haze is already gone." "I'm so happy for you." Ally felt a surge of joy. Already she was thinking about some new trips they could take together. "Come over here and sit by me," she said, patting the bed. "I was thinking about Arthur again this morning. If Doctor Vee can do something for your heart, it would be a miracle that would have meant so much to him. It's just so sad he can't be here to see this." As Ally settled next to her, Nina reached over and took her hand. "I want to ask you something, darling. Just between us. Why do you think Seth . . . Grant is doing this for me, for us?" "What do you mean?" Ally was trying to read her thoughts, wondering where the topic was headed. Nina had declared on Sunday that she thought there was something evil about Grant. Now this. "I hate to say it about my own son, but caring is not his first nature." "Mom, we see him so seldom, do you really think either one of us still understands him?" Nina and Grant had never been all that close. In fact, he'd always been something of a secretive loner within the family, even though he was very much an extrovert with his friends, of which he had many, or at least used to. Ally had left for college just as he reached high school, which meant she wasn't around during his impressionable teen years. And when she came back to take over CitiSpace, he was virtually a fugitive from the family. "I remember plenty about him. You think I don't know my own son, Lord help me." "Well, Mom, I'm not really prepared to talk about him. It was so upsetting just to see him, I couldn't really take everything in." She smiled and touched Nina's brow, which felt warm and flush. "But I'll tell you something I am taking in. You're really looking great. I don't know what he's doing, but--" "Hope, darling. It's the greatest tonic in the world even if there's no good reason for it." She squeezed Ally's hand. "And I do so wish Arthur could be here now. I miss him so much." "I know, Mom. He was as much a friend to me as he was a dad" She thought back fondly over her father's many passions and how she'd shared a lot of them with him. One had been the nineteenth-century Romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth and Shelley. Then he'd had his astronomy period and they'd spent a lot of time together at the planetarium. But he took an interest in her passions as well. When at age eight she decided to collect coins, he went to the bank and brought back rolls and rolls of dimes and nickels for her to go through. And during the summertime he'd take her and Grant on the LIRR to Long Beach, every other Sunday, all summer long. That was why the pain, the personal loss, of his horrible death had never fully subsided. Perhaps it never would. But the difference between them was that he had finally lost his will to live, whereas Ally found her own will growing all the more with every new adversity she faced. The weaker her heart got, the more determined she was to exercise, whatever it took, to make it strong again. "He would be so proud of the way you pulled CitiSpace back from the brink." She let a tear slide down her left cheek, smearing her makeup. "And I'll tell you something else, young lady. You take after us both when it comes to guts. My memory may be slipping, but I remember you were always willing to take chances. And I guess that's what we're doing here now. Both of us. We're gambling on life. In your case, you've got a lot to lose." Ally looked at her. Nina was having one of her moments of incredible lucidity, but how did she know so much about what was really going on. "Mom, did the doctor tell you what I--" "The head nurse, Ellen, told me that you're going to undergo a procedure for your heart. That you're going to start today." Her eyes darkened. "She also admitted he'd never used the procedure on a condition like yours. It's completely experimental." "You talked to her this morning?" "She took me downstairs, where they did my hair. She said Dr. Vee thinks it's important for everyone here to have a positive attitude. They ask you what you'd like and then they try to do it. Now I'm ready for whatever comes next." She stared directly into Ally's eyes. "But that doesn't mean I still can't be nervous about all this untried stuff." "Mom, don't worry about me. I'm going to get through this. If you'll be strong for me, I promise I'll be strong for you." She got up and walked to the window. From this vantage she could just see the lake down through the trees. They were starting to put out leaves, but it was still early spring and nippy here, so they mostly had just buds. All the same, there was a sense of renewal about them, which made her think of her own body. "Life is so bittersweet." Nina sighed. "But you still want to go on living, even when it's a daily struggle. Either I'm an optimist or I'm pigheaded." "You're just wonderful," Ally said. "That's what you are." She glanced down at her watch. She was scheduled to meet Ellen O'Hara downstairs at ten forty-five, to fill out the paperwork that formally entered her into the clinical trials. If she decided to go ahead and enroll, this would be her last day of freedom. Tomorrow she would have to begin the intense phase of the therapy. Did she really want to do that? She wanted to talk to Van de Vliet one last time. "Look, Mom, I'm going to be downstairs for a while now, but I'll come back up later." "All right. Ellen said there's a little library here somewhere, so I may go down and look. I might even get something in Spanish, to try and keep my mind alert." She sighed. "Oh, Ally, I so want to be the way I was again. Pray for me." Ally knew prayer wasn't something her mother engaged in a lot. In fact, she'd always been a fervent agnostic. What had brought about the change? Was it that she'd finally discovered that both her body and mind had limits and wouldn't do what she wanted forever? "I'll pray for us both, Mom. But we're going to be okay. I have faith." "Good for you." She looked away. "I'll try to have it too." Ally walked over and kissed her, then turned and headed out the door. Where was this all going to end? She had absolutely no idea. But with Nina's miracle change overnight, the concern she'd heard in the voice of Stone Aimes seemed a million miles away. As she walked down the marble stairs, she tried to take the measure of the place. The Dorian Institute did inspire you with its look of utter perfection. It was an appropriate setting for miracles. When she got to the lobby, she saw Ellen stepping off the elevator, coming up from the basement. "All set to get going?" she asked, walking over. "Before we start any procedures, anything at all, we've got to fill out the forms for the NIH. Technically, what is going on here is a clinical trial, a very detailed study in which we constantly monitor the patients and try to measure their progress objectively. So we'll have to take some time and establish a very thorough baseline. We began that yesterday when you went to the clinic in New York for a stress test. Among other things, we'll be running an EKG on you here on a daily basis." "And all this goes into my NIH files?" Ally asked. They were getting on the elevator to go down. "Not the raw data. It's our job to structure our patients' files in ways that will permit the NIH monitor, or other third parties, to assess our results quickly." They were getting off now, entering the starkly lit hallway that connected the laboratory and Dr. Van de Vliet's office with the examination rooms. "Dr. Vee is working in the lab this morning, so we can use his office to fill out all the forms." Ally could see Dr. Van de Vliet and three other people, members of his research team, all dressed in white, clustered around a blackboard, where he was drawing some kind of flowchart. Again she was struck by his youthful appearance. He surely did not look a day older than forty, or forty-five tops. This was the first time she had been in his office, and she paused to look around. As was usual, he had a wall of framed diplomas and certificates. From her cursory checkout, they seemed to correspond to the educational history she remembered from his CV. It was a spacious room, with an executive feeling, and he had an expensive fiat-screen nineteen-inch monitor sitting on the left-hand side of his desk. Next to it was a wooden table and chairs. A pile of NIH forms was there, along with a green _raku _mug, filled with ballpoint pens. "He likes to let people use his office whenever possible," Ellen explained. "It's a lot less institutional than the conference room." Ally settled at the table and picked up the form. "They want a lot of personal information," Ellen went on, "but your mother and I filled out her items yesterday and it wasn't too hard. Needless to say, all personal information is completely confidential. Even your name. After the first week, we only identify you with a coding system." As Ally was reaching for a pen, a petite blond woman with a smashing figure strode through the door. She was wearing a lab coat, not a nurse's uniform, but it still showed off her curves. She was carrying a stainless-steel tray containing a hypodermic needle and three glass vials. "Hi," she said with a smile, "I'm Dr. Connolly. Welcome to the Dorian Institute. We're all very excited about having you here." "Deb, come in," Ellen said seeming slightly startled "Is there something we forgot to--" "No, I just need to take one hundred fifty milliliters of blood. We've got to get started on the cultures we'll be using ASAP." "Hang on a second" Ally said. "I was hoping to talk this over a bit more with Dr. Van de Vliet before I take the final leap." "You're free to dither as much as you like," Dr. Debra Connolly said, her smile vanishing, "but our programs are on a schedule." "I'd still--" "I'll just be taking a small amount of blood. We can then get started on the cultures while you talk." She was already swabbing Ally's arm and feeling for a vein. "Now make a fist." Ally hated giving blood and to distract herself she glanced around the office, trying to construct a life story for Dr. Karl Van de Vliet. Then she noticed a photo of him and a woman standing together on a bridge, next to a sign that said CHARLES RIVER, which meant Boston, and they were holding hands and smiling. The odd thing was, the cars behind them were models at least fifteen years old, yet he looked just the same as he did today. Whoa. There it is again. That odd age thing. There is something very strange about this man. She finally got up her courage to ask. "Dr. Connolly, do you know how old Dr. Van de Vliet is? He looks so young." "There are some things it's not polite to ask." She was capping off the vial and reaching for a second. Her voice had grown genuinely frosty. "Frankly, I don't see why. He knows everything there is to know about me. He has all my files." "You could ask at the front desk for one of our brochures. I'm sure it would clear up any questions you have." She attached the second vial to the needle. "I've seen it. I know when he went to school and all that. But still--" "If you really want to know personal things, you might just ask him yourself. You two seem to get along so well." What is with her? Ally puzzled. Why is she being so hostile and negative? And why that little jab about "getting along"? The truth was, Debra Connolly could have been a runway model, but in a lab coat her blondness and figure just intensified her bitchiness. Okay, maybe the question about his age wasn't overly relevant, more a matter of idle curiosity. But how did he do it? Every woman alive would like to know. Maybe the story Grant had told about Van de Vliet and his experimental skin treatment was actually true. She hadn't put much stock in it at the time, but seeing him out here in the flesh . . ." "There's actually something else I was curious about. Was a patient dropped from the trials a few months back? I was wondering if you could tell me anything about that." "What have you heard that would make you ask such a question?" Debra Connolly's face went blank, but her blue eyes registered alarm. "No one here is allowed to discuss specific cases. That would be a violation of NIH rules and highly unethical. What made you ask that question?" Hey, why so defensive? Could it be Stone is on to something that needs more daylight? "I did a little research on the Gerex Corporation and . . ." Then she had an inspired hunch. "You know, the NIH has a Web site where they post all the clinical trials they have under way." This was actually something she knew to be true. She had used the site to look up information about possible clinical trials for Alzheimer's patients that might accept her mother. But she never could find any in the New York area that seemed to offer any hope. "So naturally, your study was there. I like to know as much as I can about what I'm getting into." "I've been to that Web site many times. The public part doesn't include--" "So, has a patient ever been terminated?" Ally cut her off, hoping to avoid being caught in a lie. "If so, I'd really like to know why." "No one is allowed to discuss any details of the clinical studies." She was capping off the last vial of blood the three cylinders of red against the steel. "I think I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Van de Vliet before I go any further with this program," Ally said feeling her temper and her warning instincts both ratchet up. "I feel like I'm being stonewalled." "You're free to think what you like." Debra Connolly had turned and was brusquely heading for the doorway when it was blocked by another blonde this one in her late fifties, who was standing in the threshold and brandishing a black automatic pistol. Her eyes were wild. The security guard from the entrance and the nurse from the front desk upstairs were both cowering behind her. "Where's Kristen?" she demanded. "Where's my daughter? I know she's alive, goddam you. I've come to take her home." Chapter 18 _Wednesday, April 8 11:03 A.M. _ "Who are you and how did you get in here?" Debra Connolly demanded backing away from the door and quickly settling her steel tray onto a table. Ally got the instant impression that Deb knew exactly who she was. The woman's hair was an ash blond tint above dark roots and was clipped short in a curt style. Her troubled face had stress lines, and her heavy makeup reminded Ally of a younger Sylvia Miles or perhaps a particularly intense real estate agent, except that real estate agents don't charge in on you brandishing a Beretta. "It's all been a lie," the woman declared her cigarette-fogged voice shrill. If she recognized Debra, it wasn't apparent. Ellen hit a button on the desk and spoke into the intercom. "Dr. Vee, could you please come to your office immediately. It's an emergency. There's someone here who--" "You're damned right it's an emergency," the woman barked at her. "Hadn't you better give me the gun?" Debra asked, holding out her hand and stepping toward her. The woman turned and trained the pistol on her. "Just back off, sister. And keep out of this. I know you work for him but you're just a flunky." "Then could you at least keep your voice down," Debra Connolly said, her composure hard as ice. The jab had bounced right off. Underneath the beauty pageant exterior she was all steel and sinew. "There are patients upstairs...." The hapless security man who'd been trailing behind the woman had gone over to the positive-pressure door of the laboratory and was desperately banging on the glass and waving for Dr. Van de Vliet. A moment later, he strode out, still wearing his white lab jacket. "You," the woman hissed, turning to meet him. "You're the one who has her. You and that bastard Bartlett." "Madam, I must ask you to leave," he said warily as he came up to her. "Immediately." He glanced down at the pistol. "Otherwise I'll have to call the police." Although he was giving the impression that the woman was just an anonymous annoyance, Ally was sure she caught a glimmer of recognition, and a patina of poorly disguised panic, in his eyes. "I want to see Kristen, damn you. I want to know what you've done with her. To her. You and that bastard Winston Bartlett who got her into--" "Kristen?" He seemed puzzled. Then he appeared to remember. "There was a patient here briefly a while back, who I believe was named--" "Kristen Starr. That's right, you fucker. And you damned well do remember her. And me. She's my daughter. Where is she?" My God, Ally thought, could she mean that Kristen Starr, the one who had an interview show on cable. The world around this institute just keeps getting smaller. Ally had actually done an interior-design project for Kristen Starr back when she was first getting up to speed at CitiSpace. It was one of her first jobs. At that time Kristen had just signed a two-year contract with E! and she wanted to renovate her co-op in Chelsea. But then just as the job was completed, she sold the place and moved to a brownstone in the West Village, or so she'd said. Ally didn't know why she had done it or where precisely she had moved to, but she got the impression some very rich new sugar daddy was setting her up and he wanted the privacy of a town house. Could it be that Kristen was the mysterious missing patient Stone was trying to locate and interview? Ally hadn't seen her on TV for a while, so maybe she had moved on to other things. "I really don't know where she is now," Van de Vliet said. "She became emotionally unstable in the middle of her treatment. It's a rarity but it has happened. She checked out. After that, I don't--" "That's a damned lie," the woman declared. "I know it now. That's what your receptionists have been telling everybody. It sounded a little like her at first, but now I realize it's preposterous. She didn't just up and run off. You're keeping her somewhere. Where is she? Where's my only child?" "Wherever she is, I can assure you she's most assuredly not here," Van de Vliet intoned smoothly, even as his eyes struggled to stay calm. "Would that she were. She wanted... a procedure done and I think we were having some success. But then she became traumatized for some reason best known to her and insisted on leaving. No one is forced to complete the regimen here against their will. As best I recall, someone said she went to a spa in New Mexico." "I know that's what your flunkies have been telling me over the phone. That she went to New Mexico to hide out. But now I know everybody lied to me. For the last three years she's been sleeping with that bastard Winston Bartlett, but now his office won't even return my phone calls. You all think you're so smart, but I could smuggle a gun past your guards. In my bra!" Her eyes had acquired a further kind of wildness now as she awkwardly began opening her purse, hanging from a shoulder strap, with her left hand while still holding the pistol in her right. "And I got a letter from her just this morning. The postmark is New York City. So--" "What--" Van de Vliet's eyes began to blink rapidly. "She's not in New Mexico now. If she ever was." The woman waved a small tan envelope at him. There was large, loopy writing on the outside. "Could . . . could I see that?" He started to reach for it, but she waved the black Beretta at him and shoved the letter back into her purse. "No you can't. What you _can _do is tell me where the hell you're keeping her. Now." "Before we proceed any further, that gun really isn't necessary," Van de Vliet said as he reached and deftly seized her wrist. He was quick, and his quickness seemed to spook her, because just as he turned the pistol away, it discharged. The round went astray, ricocheting off a metal lighting fixture at the end of the hallway and into the wall. The hapless, unarmed guard who'd followed her downstairs yelled and dived behind a large potted corn plant near the office door. Both Ellen O'Hara and Debra Connolly just stared, momentarily too stunned to move. Ally stepped toward the woman, wanting to help Van de Vliet disarm her. She was feeling her heart race dangerously upward. Van de Vliet was still struggling with the woman when the Beretta discharged again. This time it was aimed downward, at the hard tile floor, and the ricochet was not so harmless. The round bounced back and caught the woman in the chest knocking her sideways. Van de Vliet unsuccessfully grabbed for her as she crumpled. Ally reached for her too, but by that time she was already on the floor. Ally pulled the hot pistol from her fingers, then turned and handed it to Ellen. "Here. For God's sake, do something with this." She realized she had never actually held a real pistol before. Blood was flowing across the floor as Van de Vliet and Debra Connolly began tearing open the woman's blouse. The bullet appeared to have entered her chest just below the rib cage, a jagged wound caused by the projectile's tumble and splattered shape, and then exited a few inches away, at her side. She had passed out. "Get a gurney now," he yelled to Ellen. "We've got to get her into OR one and try to do something about the bleeding." My God, Ally marveled what desperation drove her to threaten him with a gun when she obviously didn't know the first thing about how to use it? The woman's open purse was lying no more than two feet from where she had fallen. With the hallway rapidly filling as nurses from upstairs poured off the elevator, no one was paying any attention to anything but the prostrate woman. Get the letter, Ally! She gingerly moved over to where the purse was resting and peeked in. There was a jumble of the usual things: cosmetics, a ballpoint, a change purse, an address book, and a billfold. There also was the tan envelope. Yes! The scene in the hallway was increasingly chaotic. Two of the researchers from the laboratory had come out, in their sterile whites, with disinfectant and a roll of bandages. As they began to bind her wound to stanch the bleeding, her eyelids fluttered and she groaned. "She's just in shock," Van de Vliet said with relief. "Ellen, page Michael and tell him to bring the ambulance around front. Just in case. But I think we can handle this here." Now two nurses were rolling a gurney off the elevator. While Van de Vliet and the two lab researchers lifted her onto it, Ally realized that nobody seemed to think that calling the police--about any of this-- would be a constructive step. She pulled out the letter and examined it. The oversize script on the front read Katherine Starr, 169 East 81st St. There was no return address. Katherine Starr. She was repeating the name and address, trying to lodge them in her memory, while she was pulling the letter out of the tan envelope. It was in the same rotund script as the address: _Dear Whoever You Are, I think you 're my mother but I'm not sure. Please help me. I don't know where I am or what my name is. But I found a bracelet with Starr on it and I looked in the phone book. Your name sounded kind of familiar. I think I'm . . ._ "I'd better take that," Van de Vliet said, lifting the letter out of Ally's hands. "All her personal effects should be kept with her." "Dr. Vee, OR one is open," Ellen was saying as she marched down the hall toward them. "Debra has the IV and oxygen ready." "Good," he said, glancing at her for a second. As he did, Ally reached into Katherine Starr's purse and palmed the small black address book. Then Van de Vliet turned back to her. "Let me see about her bleeding and then I'll try to explain. I now remember this woman all too well. It's all coming back like a bad dream I'd repressed. I pegged her as schizophrenic the minute I saw her, when she came here and tried to talk her daughter into leaving. She's paranoid and--" "What was Kristen Starr here for?" Ally asked. "I actually did an interior-design job for her a few years back and she never mentioned any health issues." "Actually nothing," he declared quickly. "She was having an early midlife crisis. I gather she'd had some kind of television program and her contract wasn't renewed. She'd decided it was because of her appearance." He shrugged and gestured with empty palms, Iike,_ How absurd but that's the way some women are. _"It turned out we had a . . . mutual acquaintance who told her about the stem cell procedure here at the institute. When he brought her in, I wasn't in a position to turn her away." "That wouldn't be Winston Bartlett, by any chance?" He nodded. "As a matter of fact. He writes the checks, so he has a certain amount of influence around here. As it happened, I had experimented with a procedure some years ago involving stem cells and the epidermis. There seemed to be a regenerative effect. And I thought there was a reasonable chance she might respond to it. Since we had clinical trials for other stem cell procedures already under way, it was easy to fit her in. But I had a lot more important things going on at the time than her cosmetic work, so I didn't pay much attention to her. Then she abruptly left, and since then I've had so much else happening, I just haven't thought about her." "Was it not working? Is that why she left?" "Some of the staff swore it was having results. The truth is, I wasn't following her very closely. In my honest opinion, stem cell technology shouldn't be used for cosmetic purposes. It borders on the obscene." Whoa, Ally thought, according to Grant, you "experimented " with a procedure for the skin on yourself. And you've got the youthful-looking skin to prove it. Let's not have the pot calling the kettle black here. "But if it was working, then why did she decide to stop?" This story sounds way too pat, she thought. "You'll have to ask someone closer to her. Maybe she didn't think it was." "How about Winston Bartlett. I gather he's pretty close." "Well, she's a touchy subject with him. Good luck." Van de Vliet hesitated and his face flushed. "But now I really have to get in there. I'm responsible for whatever happens around here. Particularly whatever bad that happens." He was heading down the hall. "One last thing. If Kristen is here in New York, then how could I contact her?" "I have absolutely no idea," he said over his shoulder. "If her own mother couldn't find . . . Actually, you might check with the front desk. All clinical trial participants are here under a confidentiality agreement, which means that giving out any information about her would be a liability issue, but now . . . See if they have a prior address they can give you. After she left, it never occurred to me to pursue her." He was going through a door marked OR 1, but then he revolved back. There was a darkness in his eyes she hadn't seen before. "I guess I'm wondering why, exactly, you're so interested in this deranged girl. It has no bearing whatsoever on your own treatment." "It's just something I'm curious about." She stopped, her emotions in a jumble. What is going on? "You know, I'm wondering if maybe we shouldn't start my procedure later in the week. All this . . . guns and shooting . . . is a bit much for me to take in." She looked at him. "I guess I can't remember ever seeing anyone pull a pistol on their doctor before." "I can understand your disquiet," he said, his eyes dimming even more, "but I'd really hoped we could get started today. I should be free in an hour or so and we can--" "I've given the blood sample you wanted, but I've just had the fright of my life. I want to go up and see Mom again and then I want a day to recharge." Get hold of Stone, she was thinking, and then try to find Kristen. Something feels very non-kosher here. "Just be aware," he went on, "that this procedure can't wait forever. I told you that we have less than three weeks left. At the end of the month, the clinical trials will be completed and this facility could be temporarily closed because of corporate restructuring." What is he talking about, "corporate restructuring"? You 're pressuring me again, she thought. I really don't like that. "It can wait for a day." "All right. If you must. But that's it. We have to start tomorrow. Seriously." He came back and reached and took her hand. "This means a lot to me, Alexa. I really want to help you. And I truly think we can." With that, he turned and walked into the OR. She stood watching for a moment, and when he was definitely gone, she took the small black leather volume out of her waistband. On a hunch she opened it to the first page and... sure enough, there it was, penciled in down one side: Kristy 555- 1224. No last name and no address. The rest of the book had only a dozen entries, so few that Ally wondered why Katherine Starr bothered carrying it. Compulsive, maybe. She couldn't wait to get to her car and get on the phone to Stone. Kristen Starr could well be the mystery patient he was looking for. In any event, she was missing, freaked out, unsure who she was, and probably in a lot of trouble. But now they had a phone number. Chapter 19 _Wednesday, April 8 12:32 P.M. _ "You think you've got _what_?" Stone Aimes sounded like he'd just won the lottery. "For the patient who was 'terminated'? My God, Ally, you're incredible." "Possibly. But what I know I am is very worried. For one thing, if this is the person you're looking for, the one who got dropped from the trials, it's somebody you've probably heard of, and for another, I've just had a series of very disturbing experiences. . . ." She'd called him on her cell phone the minute she cranked up her Toyota to return to the city. She couldn't get away from the Dorian Institute fast enough. After leaving Karl Van de Vliet, she'd taken the elevator up to the second floor to check in on Nina. "What's all the excitement?" her mother had asked. "One of the nurses just told me that a deranged woman with a gun barged into the lobby looking for Dr. Vee. Then she shot herself." "It's nothing, Mom. Everything is all right now." She hadn't wanted to upset Nina, but she was convinced Karl Van de Vliet had just done some major lying. His uneasy body language told her he knew a lot more about Kristen Starr than he was admitting; for that matter, Debra Connolly probably did too. "Well, thank goodness," Nina had said. "Are you going to start the procedure for your heart today?" "Not yet. I want another day to think about it. But tell me how you're doing really. I mean, are you comfortable with how everything's going here? You can still stop if things don't feel right." Ally half wanted to get her out of the Dorian Institute immediately. She didn't know what either of them had stumbled into. She just knew now that, along with the possibility of miracles, the Dorian Institute had a lot of questions that needed straight answers. She no longer trusted Karl Van de Vliet. She had seen his facade crack momentarily and what lay beneath it made her very uncomfortable. Furthermore, she thought he realized she knew he was lying. And it seemed to make him even more desperate to keep her there. "Ally, what a silly thing to say. Of course I want to stay." She'd fluffed up her pillow and reached for the TV remote. "Some of the smoke has already been blown out of my mind. I'm feeling clearer by the minute." There's surely got to be some "placebo effect" at work here, Ally thought. But still, she does seem more aware. "Okay, Mom, I'm going back into the city now. But I'll be here tomorrow and every day to check on you. Just don't . . . don't let them do anything to you that seems strange." With that, she had given Nina a kiss on the forehead and taken the marble stairs down to the first-floor reception. It was now time to find Kristen Starr. The nurse at the desk was a woman named May Gooden. The main floor had returned to normal after all the excitement, with patients passing through as they came back from the cafeteria. Ally had decided to try a long shot and see if she could pry out any information about Kristen from the patient files. She asked point- blank. "I guess Dr. Van de Vliet was not aware of the legal strictures in our NIH agreement," May had said. "No personal information can be released without a patient's signed authorization." "You do remember her being here, though? Kristen Starr." "My Lord, that's not something that goes unnoticed. She had an assumed name but everybody knew who she was. A nice girl. Nicer than you'd expect from seeing her on television." "So when, exactly, did she leave? Surely you can tell me that harmless piece of information? It was several months ago, right?" May got a strange look in her eyes. "Who told you that?" "I . . . I was downstairs when her mother showed up. I just got the impression that it was--" May glanced furtively around. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but the truth is, I think she was still here until just a few days ago. She was down in intensive care. No nursing staff is allowed down there, just those medical-research people he has working for him, what some of the nurses call the Gang of Four. But they brought her up in the elevator and then an ambulance took her away." "When, precisely, was--" "I've said too much already." She glanced around again. "And I can assure you that Kristen didn't sign an authorization to give out her personal information." She abruptly turned frosty and officious, as though rethinking how open she'd just been. What was she afraid of? "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some things I need to do." Ally had nodded and thanked her and split. Thus the search had already produced an interesting factoid. Karl Van de Vliet was most assuredly engaged in the practice of a big lie about Kristen. . . . "Maybe you should start by telling me about the disturbing experience," Stone was saying. As the shadows of the trees that lined the leafy driveway glided past the Toyota's windshield she told him about Katherine Starr and Kristen Starr. She also told him the disparate versions of Kristen's departure as recounted by Van de Vliet and May Gooden. "Sounds like they've got a situation," Stone declared. "They're trying to hide somebody who's well known. But you've got a number?" "Like I said I palmed Katherine's little black book and it's got what could be the last known phone number for Kristen. Since she probably left the institute in an ambulance a few days ago, I doubt if she's at that number now, but it's someplace to start. I assume the area code is two-one-two. There're reverse directories where you can find the address for a phone number, right? In fact, I think there's a site on the Web that--" "Leave that part to me. If the number's still good I'll have it in five minutes. Then I'll call you back and maybe you could meet me there, assuming it's somewhere in the city. Just give me your cell number." She did and then clicked off the handset. My God, she thought, that's the first time I've "given my number " to a man--not a business acquaintance--since Steve died. Okay, there were dinners with a couple of bachelor clients that turned out to be more than dinner. But neither relationship had lasted past a month. Both the men, nice guys, had complained she wasn't there for them--she wasn't--and had broken it off. She meditated on that as she went through the iron gates (which opened automatically) and headed down the leafy, twisting roadway leading to the expressway. She also found herself wondering what Stone Aimes was really like. There was an openness now that made her feel comfortable--though maybe that was just his deceptive reporter's manner, his calculating way of getting below her radar. He'd definitely picked up a few social skills over the past years. God knows he needed them. Whatever was going on, it was good to have him around again. There was something different about talking to him than talking to Jennifer, though Ally wasn't quite sure what it was--and she was afraid to think too hard about it. But whatever that difference, it was one of the million reasons she so missed having Steve around. Because if there ever was a time when she needed somebody to talk to . . . Why am I thinking all this? she chided herself. I'm trying to psychoanalyze him and put him in a category when I don't know the first thing about what he's actually turned into after all this time. Is all the warmth and sincerity for real? Back in the old days he'd make nice whenever the stakes were low, but then when he had something on the line, he'd push as hard as he needed to get what he wanted. Well, she reminded herself, I'm that way too. That was part of our problem. The phone beeped. "Voila," Stone's voice announced. "I got an address in the West Village. It's Two-Seventeen West Eleventh Street. The phone is unlisted but it's billed to her name, so you were right about the number. And get this, it hadn't been turned off. So I thought, idiot, why don't you do the obvious and just try calling?" "But her mother said she'd disappeared. . . ." "Well, that's highly plausible. There's an answering machine there with a very strange message. It doesn't give a name, but it's a woman's voice and it's like a _cri de coeur_. She's away but she--quote--can't say where. You should listen to it." Greenwood Lake Road had now become Skyline Drive, for no discernible reason, and the traffic was picking up. Ally put on some speed and passed a truck. "I'll do that. But we don't actually know for sure if it's the same Kristen Starr, though it surely has to be. Did you recognize her voice?" "I've never watched her cable show. I just sort of know who she is. But you'd better listen to her announcement. How could there be two screwed-up young women named Kristen Starr in the same town, even if it is New York?" "I'll listen. It's got to be her, though. Give me the address." She hesitated a moment after he did then, "Would you like to meet me there? I think I could probably make it in an hour, or an hour and a quarter to be safe. We could ask around see if anybody in her building or the neighborhood has any idea what's going on with her. Maybe somebody's seen her." "I was supposed to head into the office, but nothing could keep me away," he declared with enthusiasm. A patrol car was speeding by in the opposite direction, siren blaring. She waited for the noise to subside. "Great. I'll try for an hour. Unless the traffic really gets crazy. You never know what to expect at the GW Bridge, even in the middle of the day." She clicked off the phone, then checked the number in the front of the black address book and punched it in. The phone rang twice and then an answering machine started. The voice making the announcement sounded thin, tiny, and fragile. Just hanging on. It was the verbal equivalent of the loopy handwriting on the letter, a transparent attempt to bolster nonexistent courage. "Hi. I'm away for now--I can't say where--and I'm not sure when I'll be back. But you can leave a message or whatever, in case I get a chance to pick them up at some point. Or you don't have to. That's okay too." What an odd thing to say, Ally thought. It's like she s trying not to sound too needful. But it was definitely the Kristen Starr. The slightly ditzy tone was right there. Next came a long series of beeps as the machine proceeded to rewind. This is surreal, she thought. I'm about to leave a message for a person who's God-knows-where. While the machine beeped, she tried to rehearse what she wanted to say, to make it as non-threatening as possible. Finally the machine stopped rewinding. "Kristen, hi, my name is Ally Hampton. You may remember I did an interior-design job for you when you lived in Chelsea. CitiSpace? I just met your mother. She got your letter." Should I tell her about the gun accident? Ally wondered. No, she's weirded-out enough already. "Your real name is Kristen Starr. You seemed a little confused about that in your letter to her, which I read part of. You'd been at the Dorian Institute in New Jersey. Listen, it's really important to me, and to your mother, that you get in touch. I'd like to help you if I can, because from what I saw of your letter. . . Anyway, let me give you my cell phone number. If you pick this up, you can call me anytime, night or day. It's--" "How did you get this number?" a frightened voice burst through. Ally recognized it, though it was nothing like the one she remembered from the confident, brassy TV personality that Kristen used to be. "I just got away and came here. And right after I got here, someone called my machine and then hung up. Are you tracking me? Who are you?" "I . . ." Ally was so startled she couldn't think of anything to say immediately. "Kristen, is that you? I just saw your mother. I. . . I got this number from her. She came out to the Dorian Institute looking for you. She's very worried about--" "You're lying to me. You're trying to trick me and get me back." She was breathing heavily, as though she'd just run a set of stairs. This is a person just barely holding it together, Ally thought. "Anyway, Kristen is not my name. My name is Kirby. They wrote it down for me and ... I'm very confused. I found a bracelet in my suitcase that had 'Starr' on it. Maybe that's my last name. It sounds right, but I can't remember--" "You don't remember having a show on cable?" "I . . . I think I knew someone who had a TV show, but I don't think it was me." "Kirby . . . or whatever your . . . listen carefully. I think you were undergoing an experimental procedure for your skin. At a place in New Jersey called the Dorian Institute. The doctor was Karl Van de Vliet. You were in clinical trials for the National Institutes of Health. Then something happened and you left. Do you remember why you left? Or when?" "No." She stifled a sob. "I can't remember anything." Ally took a deep breath, not liking the vibes she was getting. "Do you want to talk about it?" "No. I don't want to talk to you or to anybody. I got out of that place and--" " 'That place'?" Ally asked. She was being passed by a huge bus and she could barely hear. "You mean the institute?" "You know where I mean. And don't come looking for me down here either, because I'm not going to be here." Jesus, Ally thought, what's with her? "Kris--Kirby, I'm not connected with anybody at the Dorian Institute. I'm supposed to become a patient there myself. I'm just trying to find out what happened to you when you underwent your treatment there." "I can only remember little things." She was moaning. "There was this man. He said I could have anything I wanted. I trusted him. And now . . . I see faces but I can't remember who--" "Kristen--that's your real name, by the way--can we meet? I promise you won't be harmed. I just--" "You don't understand do you? You don't know what's happening to me." Her voice had begun to break. "It's the Beta. I don't know how long it's going to be before--" "Before what? What beta? What are you--Kristen, we've really got to meet. I mean it. I desperately need to talk to you. Maybe we could find another doctor, if that's what you need. Could I come down--" "I have no idea who you are. You could be . . . He says they're trying to help me, but I'm not getting any better." Ally was pulling onto the interstate, heading south. It was hard to concentrate on driving, but at the same time she wanted to push the speed limit. Kristen sounded like she was getting ready to disintegrate or flee. Then she had another thought. "Kristen, it's okay if you don't trust me. But could you tell me more about your . . . side effects? Are they--" "I think that's why he moved me. To that place. But then he ..." She was growing even more agitated and impatient. "Look, I really can't talk anymore." I'm losing her, Ally thought. Try to make her hang on. "Kristen, would you please take my phone number? You sound like you could use a friend." "Oh Christ, I'm so scared. I don't--" "Just take it. No harm. Then if something happens and you want to--" "All right," she said finally. 'Tell me and I'll write it down." Ally gave it to her, then added, "I run an interior-design firm. I actually did some work for you once, so we've met. You can call my office, so let me give you that number too. No way am I connected to the institute where you were." She said she was writing it down. "You know," Kristen went on, "I think this is God's way of punishing me for wanting something nobody should have." Then she began to sob again. "How exactly--" "I found a door that wasn't locked and I just came here. I don't know what guided me. And when I got to this street, I knew exactly which building it was. There was no name on my bell or anything, but I knew. I even knew who had my emergency key. It's like I have a sense memory of this apartment but I can't remember ever actually living here." "Your name is Kristen Starr," Ally said again. "Try to remember that. And will you please stay there till I can get there and talk to you?" Then she made what she immediately realized was a fatal mistake. "There's a reporter, a sweet guy who's doing a book about . . . a medical procedure at the clinic where you were. And he's dying to talk to anybody who's been part of the clinical trials there. Could he talk to you too? It sounds like you've got quite a story to tell." "You've got to be kidding. If they find me, I don't know what they'll do." And the connection was severed. "Shit, don't do this." She quickly tried the cell phone number for Stone Aimes. "It's me again. Listen, she's actually there. Kristen's in the apartment on West Eleventh Street. I just got off the phone with her. She's the one you want. But she's like a frightened rabbit. She said she was about to leave, but if you get there soon, you might be able to catch her." "Damn, we're stuck in traffic at Fifty-ninth Street. There was a fender bender on Lex. But I'll get there as soon as I can." "Okay, maybe get your driver to try Fifth." "Good idea." She clicked off and stared at the road. The George Washington Bridge was just ahead. If she broke the speed limit once she hit the West Side Highway, and caught the lights right, she might even beat Stone there. Chapter 20 _Wednesday, April 8 12:34 P.M. _ "W.B., we've got a problem," Karl Van de Vliet said into the microphone. He was in his private office, on the scrambled videophone. "Kristen's mother showed up just before noon with a pistol, demanding to know where she was. When I tried to take the gun away from her, she accidentally shot herself through the side. Fortunately, it was only a flesh wound, but it took us almost an hour to stabilize her." "Christ! Even Kristy thinks she's crazy. Why did she--?" "Kristen smuggled her a letter somehow. And she came looking for her." He thought about how they shouldn't be having this conversation on any kind of phone, even one that was supposedly scrambled. But there was no choice. "It gets worse. I just called Eight-Eighty Park and they checked her room and Kristen's not there. She was there when Roxanne brought up her breakfast at nine, but nobody's seen her since. They assumed she'd gone back to sleep. Nobody there has any idea where she went." "Shit. What am I paying them for? The staff is there for the sole purpose of making sure something like this didn't happen." "Well, W.B., that's your part of the show. I'm just trying to practice medicine. In any case, she slipped out somehow. So the thing now is, where did she go?" "Well, she didn't come here. Or at least she hasn't yet. Depending on how much she can still remember, she might have gone to her old place down in the Village. Maybe she still has a homing instinct. That's probably the first location we ought to check. Jesus, if she gets recognized and starts acting crazy and then Cambridge Pharmaceuticals finds out--" "W.B., the bigger problem now could be her mother, Katherine. You know her. She's unbalanced but she also still remembers how it all started. She was actually here a couple of times. If she sees Kristen, then God help us." "Karl, I've got everything--and I do mean everything-- riding on this. What happened with that Hampton woman? You've got to get started with her. Is she on board yet or what?" "She was here this morning, but she got temporarily spooked by the gun and the craziness. She'll be back, though." "When?" "I took care of it, trust me," Van de Vliet declared. "In the meantime, I'll try to maintain Kristen's mother under sedation as long as possible. But we can't keep her out of touch forever. That would be flirting with kidnapping." "I'll send Ken over to West Eleventh Street to check out her place," Bartlett said. "If she's there, he'll get her." And he signed off, the image on the computer going dark. Van de Vliet felt a wave of apprehension. Every day it got worse. Would any of the other patients develop the Syndrome? Or was its development unique to the Beta? Kristen had agreed of her own free will to undergo the Beta, and she'd been warned that any experimental procedure involved significant risk. She'd signed release documents absolving Gerex of any liability. But when treatments go awry, patients tend not to recall the releases they signed. Undoubtedly, she'd now conveniently forgotten that fact. Assuming she still remembered anything. Time to go back to the OR and see how Katherine was doing. If she seemed completely stabilized and coherent, she could be moved down to the intensive-care area in the floor below, the subbasement. That way absolutely nobody could get to her. He clicked off the computer and walked back to the OR. "Karl, she's awake," David said as he walked in. He'd been monitoring her. "It's probably okay to move her." Thank God, Van de Vliet thought. Maybe there's some way to reason with her rationally. He moved over and looked down. Her hair was soaked with sweat and she looked very, very tired. "Mrs. Starr, can you understand me? I'm Dr. Van de Vliet. I need to talk to you about your daughter, Kristen." "Who . . . who are you?" she mumbled, her eyes trying to focus. "I'm Kristen's physician. She came to see me some months back. Do you recall? About her . . . skin problem. I seem to remember you came here with her at one point." She stared at him mutely for a moment, then closed her eyes and nodded. "At that time, Mrs. Starr, we discussed some radical treatment options. Things that hadn't been tried before. Do you have any recollection of that?" She opened her eyes again and stared at him, trying to focus. "You said she'd be all right," she mumbled, slurring the words. "Then your receptionist told me she'd gone to New Mexico. But I got a letter-- " "That story was to protect her professionally," he lied. "She was afraid the press might find out she was here and start speculating about her health. But now she's in the post-procedure phase of treatment. It may be a while longer before she's able to return to the normal life she's used to." "She's okay, isn't she?" came a plaintive, slurred mumble. "In her letter it sounded like she'd lost her memory or something. She didn't sound right." It was a question that cut him to the core. "Mrs. Starr, I think we should focus on you right now. You've had a traumatic episode and you've injured yourself pretty seriously. You may have to stay here at the institute for a few days so we can take care of you." He took her hand which felt deathly cold. "Tell me, is there anyone we should notify of your whereabouts so they won't be alarmed?" "There's an address book in my purse." Her eyelids flickered. "Those are all people I'm close to. I just want to sleep. I can't think now." Good, he thought, the sedative is finally kicking in. "All right. You need your rest. We'll talk about this later." He turned and picked up the purse at the foot of the bed. But when he searched inside, he didn't see an address book. Where was it? he wondered. Alexa Hampton had started reading Kristen's letter, which probably was part of the reason she got uneasy. Did she make off with the address book? But why? It didn't matter. She would be back. If Debra had done what she was supposed to do. "David have Mrs. Starr taken downstairs. I need to see Deb." "You've got it." Van de Vliet went down the hall and then through the heavy steel air lock and into the laboratory. "Deb, can I have a word with you?" He motioned for her to follow him to the computer cubicle in the back, past the head-high racks of solvent vials and the giant autoclave. "Is she going to be okay?" Debra asked. "I think so. It's in her interest that we keep her here and away from a hospital. Gunshot wounds raise a lot of questions. I seriously doubt that that pistol was licensed in her name, given how little she seemed to know about its operation." He settled into a chair and began stroking his brow. "Did you manage to take care of that matter with Alexa Hampton?" She nodded. "You know, she's not yet entirely with the program." "Yes, but she will be. Putting her mother in the clinical trials was probably crucial." He grimaced. "God, what a nightmare. A medical experiment that got away from us has turned into guns and virtual kidnapping and God knows what manner of felonies. If this thing gets completely off the track, we could all go to prison. But the real tragedy is that all the successful research we've done here will be buried in infamy." "It's not going to turn out that way. The results here have been so spectacular." She was gazing at him with eyes that seemed too worshipful. More and more, she made him self-conscious. She needed a father, but he did not need a daughter. He still lived on the memory of Camille. "This has all got to be resolved soon, Deb. There's a reporter who found out that we had to drop a patient from the program--which would be Kristen--and W.B. thinks he's a little too close for comfort. Now Kristen's mother shows up. It's all starting to unravel." "Don't worry," she said, getting up. "This Hampton woman is going to be back today. So I've got to get started on her blood." Chapter 21 _Wednesday, April 8 2:41 P.M. _ Ally was very fond of Kristen's West Village neighborhood, since she herself had once had an apartment on West Eleventh Street, just west of Seventh Avenue. The street was tree-lined and many of its nineteenth- century town houses were home to single families, though sometimes the ground floor, with the entry "under the stoop," i.e., beneath the stairs, was rented out to provide a little side income. She had rented one of those "garden apartments"--the upstairs owners were two gay bankers--and had loved it. However, it also was entirely possible that Kristen had the whole town house to herself--that was the kind of thing that a lot of celebrities who lived, or even just spent time, in New York did. There was privacy and there also was the sense of living in an actual house instead of in some cookie-cutter apartment. Then again she could have a downstairs neighbor. A solitary town house seemed somewhat at odds with the extroverted personality Kristen displayed on TV, but the privacy was probably intended more for her sugar daddy, Winston Bartlett, than for her. Ally had been pushing the pace ever since she got off the phone with Stone. At Twenty-third Street she had peeled off the West Side Highway and gone over to Seventh Avenue, where she had a straight shot downtown. She passed St Vincent's Hospital, and the notorious six-way intersection that caused so many accidents, and hung a right on West Eleventh. She was approaching the corner at Bleecker Street when a huge black Lincoln Navigator lumbered in front of her, at an angle that cut her off and blocked the street. Then the vehicle abruptly slammed to a halt. "What--!" She hit her own brakes and managed to slide to a stop just before she collided with the Lincoln's rear bumper. At first she thought they'd deliberately cut her off, but then she realized the move had nothing to do with her. A man and a woman were piling out. He was muscular and balding, with dark hair and sunglasses, and he was dressed in black. She had red hair streaked with white and was dressed in a nurse's whites. They were in a major hurry. That was when she recognized the man she'd met at Gramercy Park, the Japanese sidekick Bartlett had called Ken. Oh shit. Then she realized that a thirtyish woman was running down West Eleventh Street toward them, carrying a dark green backpack in her left hand. They were gesturing for her to come to them and get into the vehicle, though she didn't appear to see them yet. Halfway down the block behind her, a man in a tan flight jacket was running, calling out. "Kristen, wait I just want to talk--" The running woman glanced over her shoulder at him and, at that moment collided with Bartlett's flunky. As she recoiled from the impact the red-haired woman seized her left arm. "Kirby, come," the woman said. "You're not well. We'll take you back." "No!" she yelled, and twisted free of the woman's grasp. But now the Japanese guy had grabbed her other arm. "It's going to be all right," he said as he caught the top of her head and started shoving her through the open door of the Navigator. "You shouldn't go out alone." At that moment the man in the tan flight jacket reached the scene. It was Stone, but he'd been moments too late. He stretched his arm into the Lincoln and tried to take the girl's hand. "Kristen, don't go with them. I just need to talk--" "You don't need to do anything, pal," the man called Ken declared. "Except get out of the way." He chopped the side of Stone's neck with an open hand, sending him sprawling backwards onto the pavement, flight jacket askew. Now something odd was going on. Another girl was running down the sidewalk. "Kristy, wait. Don't . . ." But the redheaded woman had already gotten into the backseat of the SUV, beside the girl, and the Japanese man was heading around the front. Three seconds later, he was behind the wheel and peeling out. They were gone. Ally sat watching, stunned. But now a Chevy sedan was departing a parking space three cars down from where she was and she quickly pulled in. By then Stone Aimes had picked himself up off the sidewalk and was gazing wistfully in the direction of the vanishing Lincoln. The girl who'd been behind him stopped and was talking to him. Ally quickly locked the Toyota and went over. "But why did she run?" Stone Aimes was asking. He was disheveled but then being slugged and knocked to the sidewalk takes a toll on anybody's poise. "She didn't know who you were," the girl replied She looked like she would have been more at home in the East Village than here: late twenties, tattoo on one bicep, eyebrows pierced blue jeans, hair needing a better day. She had serious acne scars on her cheeks. "I think she thought you were them, whoever they were." Ally looked Stone over and felt a surge of admiration. In spite of the fact he just got decked, there was an athletic feeling about the way he carried his body, as though he was ready to pounce on a news source. Only he just didn't pounce quite fast enough this time. She walked up and gave him a hug. For a lot of reasons. "Hey, we can't go on meeting like this." "My God, how humiliating." He winced. "What in heaven's name just happened? That was Kristen, all right. But why was she running from you?" "I saw this woman walking very fast up the street carrying a backpack and I just took a shot and called out 'Kristen.' She glanced back at me, then took off like a rabbit. All I accomplished was to drive her directly into the grasp of those goons." "You scared her," the girl with the pierced eyebrows shouted, gazing angrily at Stone. "Who are you? Why did you--?" "I'm a newspaper reporter," he said. "Who are you?" "I sublet the garden apartment from her. I met her when I was doing her makeup at the E! channel. I mentioned I was looking for a place and she said she liked me and wanted somebody she liked to be her subtenant. The rent is really low. Then they canceled her show and she had a mental meltdown and went to a spa somewhere to regroup. Or at least that's what everybody at E! says." "So that's definitely Kristen Starr?" Ally asked. "I hadn't seen her in over five months, not even to pay the rent, and I couldn't believe it was her when she rang my bell and asked if she could borrow my copy of her key. At first I almost didn't recognize her. She looked . . . different somehow. The odd part was, I got the impression that she didn't recognize me either, at least for a minute or two. When I asked her if she wanted the rent, she just looked at me funny. A few minutes later, she brought the key back and she had a half-open backpack stuffed with clothes and papers. She seemed nervous and disoriented. I was going to try and help her get a cab. But then you showed up." "Hey, look, I had no idea I was going to freak her out like that," Stone said. "What's your name?" Ally asked and then she introduced herself. "My named is Cindy Dobbs. And you know something? Kristen didn't seem like the same person, in a lot of ways. She looked really different. I don't know how to explain it. But something was really, really wrong with her. And she kept saying her name wasn't Kristen, that it's something else--I can't remember what now. All I know is, she was totally spooked." "Talk about bad timing," Stone said. "She was so paranoid she kept babbling about how 'they' knew she was here in her apartment and were coming to get her and she had to get away real quick. I don't know who she was talking about. Some guy used to come by and his white stretch limo would be double-parked for a couple of hours while he went in. But other than him, nobody ever came here." "Cindy, the truth is, I was talking to her this very morning on the phone," Ally said. "I'm the one who called her. I also met her mother today, who just got a crazy letter from her and was walking around with a pistol because of it. I'm getting to be deeply invested in Kristen Starr. Something bizarre seems to have happened to her and I need to find out what it is." Ally didn't want to confess that she felt indirectly responsible for what had just occurred If she hadn't phoned . . . She stood thinking a minute, then, "Did you say you had a key to her place?" Cindy shrugged. "I've had it since I moved in. We had copies of each other's keys. Just in case, you know." She reached into her ragged jeans and pulled it out and stared at it. It was attached to a blue plastic tab, GREENWICH LOCKSMITHS. "Then could we borrow it long enough to go in and take a look around? Maybe we could find some clue to what's going on." "Hey, if you want the key, and you think it can help you find her, you can just have it." She was holding it out. "I don't want to go in there, ever. With my luck, those people would show up again and take me away. But let me know if you find out anything, okay? I really thought of her as a friend, even though we actually didn't know each other that well. She didn't ever introduce me to that older guy who came around. Probably because he was married, at least that's my guess." "I think she knows those people who grabbed her just now," Ally said, taking the key. "Cindy, can we exchange phone numbers?" "Sure. I meant it about letting me know if you find out what's going on with her. Everybody at work is going to be really bummed when they hear about this." Moments later, Ally and Stone were alone on the street, with Stone still appearing dazed. Now, taking measure of him in the daylight, she noticed a bit more of the mileage in his face and body. Still, it was good mileage and it had left him seasoned and lean. Also, she sensed that he really cared about things. This was more like the man she remembered, a mensch in wolf's clothing. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked. "I'm going to be fine," he said. "Jesus, I never dreamed I'd spook her the way I did. By the way, did you get the license number of that Lincoln? I sure as hell didn't." "I didn't need it. That guy is Winston Bartlett's personal bodyguard. He called him Ken. I was at Bartlett's place on Gramercy Park a couple of days ago and I saw him there." "You're not kidding, are you?" "I wish." She paused. "You know, Kristen and Bartlett were being talked about as an item back when. 'Page Six.' " "The Sentinel would never touch it, but that was more than a rumor. Over the years I've had occasion to take more than a passing interest in his affairs." He grinned. "And for the past several days, he's been taking a lot more interest in my affairs, ever since he found out about the book." "Incidentally," she declared, "I didn't have a chance to tell you on the phone, but Kristen seems to have no memory of who she is. Somebody told her that her name is Kirby, and that's what she insists on being called. All in all, she sounded deeply screwed up." She dangled the key. "So why don't we go up and see if we can learn anything?" "Did it seem odd to you that, what's her name, Cindy didn't want to go in with us," he mused as they headed up the steps. "Well, maybe she's already seen it. God only knows what we're going to find. Though the place she had in Chelsea was pretty well maintained. After I redid it, it was a knockout, of course, but she'd already moved down here by then." The building dated from the middle of the nineteenth century and the entryway, painted white, was a slight nod to the fashion for the Greek Revival style that made its way into the New York town houses of that period. She shoved the key into the new lock, a Medico, and pushed open the door. Stone moved past her and switched on the light. What awaited them was a minimally furnished but elegant living room, with a small couch and table. The downstairs "parlor floor" had been "opened up"; a lot of walls had been taken out and a staircase was on one side of the front room. It felt like a modern loft. Memorabilia from E! was all over, the logo on throw pillows and two empty mugs on the table. The main decoration, however, consisted of publicity photos of Kristen around the walls, a smiling blonde with flowing tresses down over her shoulders. In all of them she was wearing heavy makeup and the photos appeared to have been airbrushed. They were both trying to absorb what they were actually seeing. Each photo, and there were at least sixteen, was pinned to the walls with a steak knife, all with matching white bone handles. "Jesus, who do you think did this?" Stone asked. "Could it be that ditzy girl downstairs?" "I'd say she did it herself. Supposedly the reason she went to the Dorian Institute was because she was having some kind of personal crisis over starting to look older. She was consumed with terminal self-hate. That's what this has to be about." "I've never caught her on TV," Stone said, walking over to study one of the photos, "but from what little I saw of her on the street just now, she sure seemed different from these head shots." "Well, this is exactly how she looked on the tube." She told him the alleged story of how Kristen had ended up at the Dorian Institute. Then she gazed around the room, still having trouble taking it in. "Jesus, this is really sick." "Ally, I'm absolutely convinced that whatever happened or didn't happen--keep that possibility in mind--to Kristen is connected somehow to the reason Gerex's clinical trials have been put under ironclad security." "Which is why, no matter what, they've got to get her back on the reservation." Ally thought a moment. "Van de Vliet told me she'd left the clinic of her own accord. Which clearly was BS. Winston Bartlett has her stashed somewhere. Probably in an apartment in one of the buildings he owns." She looked over. "What do you think it all means?" "How's this for a guess? Kristen is experiencing some kind of side effect that's truly horrendous. Losing your memory is bad enough, but there's probably something more too. I can't imagine what it is, but if the truth about it ever gets out, their entire program of stem cell research would be jeopardized." "Well, I don't see much here to help us find her," she declared, looking around. "The knives in the walls don't speak well for her grip on sanity. Who knows? Maybe nothing's physically wrong with her. Maybe it's just all in her crazy head. Look at this place, for goodness' sake. Except for the knives, it looks pretty normal. Maybe she's just a nutcase and imagining that her memory is going." As she gazed around the room one last time, she noticed an answering machine on the floor next to the couch. The message light on it was blinking, and she walked over and pushed the play button. She remembered that Stone had said he hadn't left a message, and Kristen had picked up when she called her, short-circuiting the voice mail. The phone machine announced in an electronic voice, "You have one message, at two-eleven P.M." Then an unctuous male voice came on. "Kirby, we know you're there. You're still in treatment. You shouldn't be wandering around unsupervised. It's a lot better, a lot safer, for you to stay with us now. This is Ken. I'm coming with Delores to pick you up. I know you're upset, but you shouldn't be. We're going to take care of you and help you." Then the phone machine clicked off. "My God" Stone said glancing at his watch, "that's almost exactly when I got here. That's why she thought I was with them." "That's the guy who slugged you. I recognize his voice. Guess they suspected she was here and that phone call was intended to flush her out. It worked." "And I ended up right in the middle of it. Damn." She walked around the empty room, checking it out. Except for the head shots stabbed to the wall, there was not a scrap of paper to be seen. So how do we find Kristen without a clue? she wondered. Should the kidnapping, if that's what it was, be reported to the police? But what proof do we have that any of it actually happened? They're not going to third-degree Winston Bartlett. "You know," Stone said staring closely at one of the photos, "I didn't actually get a really good look at the woman running down the street. She glanced back at me when I called out her name, but the truth is, I'm not a hundred percent sure this is her." "Come on," Ally said "that had to be Kristen. The girl downstairs recognized her. Though she did say she looked different somehow." "You're going to think I'm crazy," he went on, still staring around at the walls, "but it seems to me the girl on the street was a lot younger than this one." He bit a fingernail contemplatively. "Christ, this is some sick material." "Stone, I'm going down to my office, to take care of some things and think about this. Come along if you like. Maybe we've overlooked something obvious. Something that--" That was when the beeper on his belt went off. He looked down at the number. "Whoops. It's my managing editor." "Where you work?" "Right. Only I've got a feeling this call could be about how I used to work there." Chapter 22 _Wednesday, April 8 3:18 P.M. _ Ellen O'Hara, R.N., who was in charge of the nursing staff at the Dorian Institute and chair of the union committee for the Gerex Corporation, looked around the room, which was a conference space just off the laboratory in the first level of the basement. Each of the three other nurses present reported directly to her and they had filed in casually one by one, in order not to draw the attention of the research staff as they passed the laboratory. They all sensed the imminence of crisis and this was a clandestine emergency meeting. The appearance of Katherine Starr and the shooting that transpired had left the entire nursing staff in dismay. Of course they all remembered Kristen Starr, the outgoing and scatterbrained TV personality, who had arrived in the throes of a mental meltdown. Some also remembered her mother, Katherine, who had made a nuisance of herself till she was refused further admittance (on the orders, everyone suspected of the owner, Winston Bartlett, who was widely reported to have a romantic relationship with the girl). They also suspected that something had started going terribly wrong with Kristen's cosmetic procedure. After seeming okay, her behavior had suddenly become erratic and she had been immediately whisked into intensive care in the subbasement and quarantined before anybody on the regular nursing staff could learn what the problem was. She was attended by the research team he had brought from California, and the information officer at the registration desk in the lobby, May Gooden, was instructed to say she had voluntarily left the program. (Well, maybe she had, but she hadn't left the institute.) Then less than a week ago, she was rolled out on a gurney and loaded into the ambulance, which was driven by Winston Bartlett's Japanese thug, and taken God knows where. Ellen had checked and was dismayed, though not entirely surprised, to discover that none of this had been included in the weekly clinical- trial reports being forwarded to the National Institutes of Health. (Which in itself was a flagrant violation of procedural requirements.) And now this. Kristen's own mother showed up deranged and carrying a pistol, looking for her. How much longer would it be before the NIH, or the police, found out that something funny had gone on? Right now the first thing to do was to get the three senior nurses in the room to put a lid on the rumors. They were her lieutenants; it was their job. Elise Baker, single and sharp and acerbic, was in charge of the second floor; Mary Hinds, a kindly mother of two, had responsibility for the third floor, and May Gooden, the queen of communication skills, handled the reception and oversaw the staff responsible for the dining room. All three were in their forties and they reported to Ellen O'Hara, who reported to Karl Van de Vliet. "Elise, could you please close the door." "Sure." She was getting up. "Is this the quorum? You don't want anybody else here?" "We have to decide what to do about Katherine Starr," Ellen began. "In my opinion, the absolute first thing we have to do is make sure the story of what just happened never leaves this building." "Well, I think Dr. Vee should call the police and have her arrested" Elise said as she quietly shut the door. "The very idea. Barging in here with a loaded gun." "I don't feel safe in the lobby anymore," May Gooden declared. Her face was lined and she had streaks of premature gray. "We're all exposed out here in the middle of nowhere. I think Charles should have a pistol. What good is it having a 'security guard' if you're still not secure." "Mary, what do you think?" Ellen asked. She knew Mary would always try to split the difference and reconcile differing opinions. "I don't know. Maybe it was just the case of one crazy person. It's probably not going to happen again." Okay, Ellen thought, that's three different votes. Call the cops, beef up security, or put our collective heads in the sand. She worried about the others, but she was also worried about her own situation. Her husband Harold left her eight years ago for a younger woman, and after reclaiming her maiden name, she'd raised their two young sons on her own. Now the oldest, Eric, was ready to start college and she had no idea how she was going to pay for it if she lost this job. The Gerex Corporation paid her almost twice what she would be earning as an R.N. at an ordinary hospital. With her current salary, she had a shot at providing the boys with an education. Without it--if Gerex got embroiled in some horrible scandal and was put out of business--she had no hope whatsoever. Even worse, she might be named as being complicit in some unethical shenanigans, knowingly putting a patient at risk in a human trial. That would certainly drive a stake into the heart of her nursing career. "Elise, we'd better think long and hard about bringing in the police. They would talk to Katherine and she'd tell them Kristen was missing and we simply have no idea where it would end." She paused. "I'm about to say something I shouldn't, but I guess this is the moment. You all deserve to know an important fact. The NIH has not been told the reason Kristen Starr was terminated from the stem cell program." "How do you know that?" Elise asked. "I just checked the reporting records. Call it a hunch. We all know that, for a formal clinical trial, that's a flagrant violation of NIH rules." "What are you saying?" Mary asked, her voice filling with alarm. "I'm saying we have no choice but to keep this whole matter of Kristen and her mother under cover. If the Dorian Institute gets caught tampering with the data from a clinical trial, it could be the end of everybody's career. Dr. Van de Vliet's certainly, but most probably ours as well." "My God," Elise blurted out "Did we have to wait till some crazy person with a gun barged in here before you got around to telling us that clinical-trial data had been fiddled with?" "Maybe Dr. Vee still intends to provide a full report to the NIH. Whatever he intends, if this whole matter blows up, the less any of us knows about what may have gone on, the better." "Well," Elise declared, "I think they all should be confronted. The clinical trials aren't over yet. There'll be a final report so he can still give the NIH whatever data had been left out. We should confront him and demand that he give a full accounting in the final report Otherwise we all could end up being part of some conspiracy." "Maybe we ought to think this over for a few days before we do anything drastic," Mary said. "We don't know what he intends to do and there's still time. If we start giving Dr. Vee ultimatums, it's just going to upset him even more. He could have been killed taking the gun away from her. He's got enough to worry about just now. Maybe he's going to handle her special case some other way that we don't know about." "My concern right now," Ellen said, "is the people who work under us. I don't think pulling an ostrich number is going to protect anybody. We've got to get out of denial and face up to how serious this might get. And I'll tell you our number one priority right now. If Katherine Starr walks out of here before the Kristen problem is cleared up and gets the ear of someone in the media, then everybody who works here . . . Let's just say we mustn't allow that to happen. That's why we're having this meeting." "Are you suggesting we should keep her . . . sedated?" Mary asked. "All her medications have to be approved by--" "No sedative should be listed on her chart and I'm not telling you what to do, but use your imagination." There was a moment of silence as the implications of the unspoken order settled in. "And starting immediately, we need to hold a meeting of the staff on each floor and impress on them that the story of Katherine Starr must never leave this building. Ever. Remind everybody that that would be a serious violation of a staffer's original security agreement and would subject them to legal action the likes of which they can't even begin to imagine. And if somebody comes around asking questions about Kristen Starr, nobody here knows anything. We can say she was here because that's part of the record and she is no longer here. End of statement. Beyond that, nobody knows zip." This problem is far from over, Ellen told herself. God only knows how it's going to end. Chapter 23 _Wednesday, April 8 3:22 P.M. _ As Stone Aimes stepped off the elevator on the sixth floor, his mind was running through his options. This phone call had to be about Winston Bartlett. He was going to step up the pressure. First there was the hellfire meeting in Jane's office, and now he'd seen a kidnapping. Maybe this was about that. Was Jane going to pass along a threat of legal action if that crime got reported? The managing editor, Jay, had left a message with the third-floor receptionist, Rhonda, to be forwarded to Stone. Gist: he was urgently required in the office of their corporate counsel. What does this tell me? he wondered. That they're going to try to do something to me that could have legal ramifications? No, more likely it means that I'm going to be given an ultimatum, maybe an injunction. And Jane gets to deliver it with all the legal trimmings. Still, he was determined to go on. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you jive." Right? Well, not necessarily. But at the least, the truth could make a hell of a book. And with that came financial freedom, at least for a while. . . . The hallway felt desolate and ominous as he walked through the doorway that opened onto the cubicles. Jane Tully was down on the third floor, but he wanted to stop by his desk first and see if there'd been any further communications from Winston Bartlett. Possibly there still could be a deal in the making The room itself was silent, no one meeting his eye. Maybe, he thought, it's the middle of the afternoon and everybody's dozing off from a late lunch. But when he got to his cubicle, he realized why he had suddenly become invisible. The top of his desk was bare, and there were three large cardboard boxes sitting on the gray carpet next to it. "I think I get the picture," he said to the empty space. It looked like Winston Bartlett had just provided him with a career decision. For a moment he felt his life passing before his eyes, but then all he could think about was the future. This was not just the end of a wage-slave era; it was the beginning of the next phase of his life. He saw everyone still avoiding his eyes as he turned around and walked back to the elevator. How much did Jane know about this? She had to know everything, which was why Jay sent him to see her. She would have no qualms about giving someone the ax, including a former lover. When he stepped off the elevator on the third floor, Rhonda looked at him as though he were a corpse. "She's--" "I know she's here. Don't bother buzzing her." He strode purposefully down the hallway, realizing it was probably the last time he'd ever walk it, and pushed open Jane's door. She was on the phone and looked up startled putting her hand over the mouthpiece. "What--" "Just came to say farewell. Jay told me to come see you. I guess he was sure you'd want to be part of this important life moment." "Stone, for God's sake"--she turned back to the phone--"let me . . . I'll call you tomorrow." She slammed down the receiver. "You have to know I had nothing to do with this. Bartlett got to the Family. I think it was one of those noblesse oblige kind of things. Old Money meets New Money and needs to placate it. The Sentinel is only marginally a profit- making enterprise and the last thing they need is a lot of shit from their landlord. He wanted you gone. And since your job was a small price for them to pay to ensure domestic tranquility, do the math. Sorry, but that's how it had to be. For God's sake, Stone, why did you drive him to this?" The ironic thing was, she was managing to look vaguely contrite--tugging at a lock of short hair. He wasn't sure how she had the brass. Apologies from the executioner are traditionally a tough sell. "Let me tell you something, Jane. I already know more about Winston Bartlett than he wants. He had somebody kidnapped today before my very eyes. I even got slugged trying to stop it. So you can tell his lawyers to tell him he'd better back off. The people who did it were recognized and they work for him. If he wants to play tough, I could have a heartfelt exchange with somebody I know very well at the Sixth Precinct, and also with the tabloids, where I know a shitload of hungry columnists. Winston Bartlett could get real famous, real fast" "Stone, you brought this on yourself. I tried to warn you, but you're hell-bent on your own destruction. You're your own worst enemy." She picked up her Blackberry and switched it off and sighed. "You never listened to me before and I don't expect you to do it now, but take some free advice anyway: try not to piss off important people. It is frequently a negative career move." "Jane, you know John Kennedy once said, 'Sometimes party loyalty asks too much,' and I think that moment for me, is now. From here on, I'm going to be doing what I need to do, not what Bartlett or Jay or whoever tells me to do. I guess that includes you too. There comes a time when I have to do what's in my heart." She was finally focusing, looking at him strangely. "Stone, what did you just say? Bartlett had somebody kidnapped? Today? What on earth are you talking about?" "Did I secure your vagrant attention? Good. Actually, it was less than an hour ago. There's no point in going into details, but I'm pretty sure she was the patient terminated from the clinical trials at the Dorian Institute that I had you ask Bartlett's lawyers about. I think there's the possibility that something really weird began happening to her out there in New Jersey. But I didn't get a chance to talk to her because they grabbed her and took off." "Well, what do you think happened to her out there?" "The only thing I've heard and that's secondhand is that she lost some part of her memory. She's even having trouble remembering her name." "How do you know all this?" she asked staring at him. "Were you--?" "I . . . know somebody who talked with her this morning. Just a few short exchanges on the phone. That's all I can tell you. They're doing something very powerful there at the institute, but in her case it seems to have gone horribly wrong. That's my best guess. So they dropped her from the clinical trials and gave her a new identity and stashed her someplace incommunicado. But she got away for a couple of hours, somehow, and managed to go back to her old apartment. In her case, it's a Village town house. But Bartlett nabbed her back." "If you really believe all that, Stone, shouldn't you be worried for your own safety?" It was clear she was finally taking him seriously. "Bartlett got me fired. That's probably enough for now. I don't know enough to be a threat to him. Yet." "But what if you find out . . . whatever it is you're looking for? Then--" "Then I'll know if medical miracles sometimes come with a strange price." She was looking at him, pity entering her dark eyes. "What are you going to do for money? The child support you send to Amy?" She hesitated. "I'm so sorry about this, Stone. If you need a little help for the short term, I could--" "Don't go there. I can take cash out on a couple of credit cards. And when I turn in the manuscript for the book, I'll get the other two- thirds of the advance. After that, I'm hoping I might get an actual career." "Oh, Stone, I'm really sorry about this," she said with feeling. "Truly I am. I. . . I guess I still enjoy seeing you. Having you around. You're a mensch, you know that? Whatever your other failings, and God knows they're plenty, you were always kind. You're even kind to people who don't necessarily wish you well." "Well, tell that to Amy if you ever get the chance. Sometimes she thinks her dad is the meanest guy alive. Particularly when I don't honor her every whim." "You're a good father too." She sighed. For Stone, this was always the moment that he wanted her back--when she let her guard down. "Dammit, Stone, why couldn't we make a go of it?" "We stopped having fun, Jane. That's all that happened. I started to bore you. Back then I didn't provide enough excitement, enough Sturm und Drang in your life." "You weren't dull, Stone, but sometimes you could be maddeningly smug." "That may be about to change. Now that I'm an unemployed freelancer. And I just ran into a blast from the past. Who knows what my life is about to be like?" He turned to leave. "By the way, give my best to Jay. Hopefully, he'll be the last managing editor I'll ever have to suck up to." "Take care, Stone." She was getting up. "You can fight this, you know. They had me write up some kind of bullshit breach-of- contract brief, in case you wouldn't go quietly. But it's full of holes. I know, since I deliberately wrote it that way." "Hey, thanks anyway. It's not worth it. I'm not going to fight to keep a job I never liked all that much in the first place. Every time I wanted to do some serious journalism--like that piece about using the Internet to store everybody's medical records--Jay always found a reason not to run it. I've only got so much dignity to lose." He turned and strode out of the office, deciding to forego any more farewells. Besides, he had better things to do. Get somebody from the mailroom to carry the boxes--the shards of his erstwhile, so-called career--to the lobby, where he could get a cab. Take the files home, stash them, and then get going. Chapter 24 _Wednesday, April 8 4:40 P.M. _ "Hi," he said, walking through the door of Ally's downtown studio, CitiSpace. Jennifer had the desk at the front and she served as a makeshift receptionist. She looked up as he continued, "I don't have an appointment, but I'd love to see Ally Hampton. Any chance?" "And you're . . . ?" Just as he started to tell her, Ally emerged from her office/cubicle in the back and spotted him. "Stone! What--" "Bet you didn't think you'd see me again quite so soon." She felt her pulse jump. No, she hadn't. She'd told him she was going down to the office, but she'd certainly had no idea (or hope) he'd just show up a couple of hours later. Since she got back to the office she'd been in a struggle with her conscience over what to do about Kristen. Was there any good to be served by bringing in the police? At the time it had seemed pointless and it still felt that way. The whole matter was awfully anecdotal. Worse, she didn't really feel she should talk it over with Jennifer, which she would have loved to do. They supported each other in a lot of things, but this crazy story would just freak her out. Why do that? The more troubling thing was, she'd started feeling tired and slightly dizzy. Now she was just hoping to stay focused long enough to last out the day. What, she wondered was happening to her? It wasn't like a chest-tightening spell of angina--which, thankfully, she hadn't had for a couple of days now. No, this just felt like something was sapping her energy. She couldn't help the suspicion that this queasy condition was somehow related to her encounter with Dr. Van de Vliet's testy blond colleague Debra. While she was supposedly taking that blood sample, was she also doing something else? "Welcome to my home away from home. You're right, I didn't expect--" "CitiSpace," he interjected seeming to try out the word as he looked around She noticed that Jennifer and the others automatically assumed he was a new client of hers and were trying to look preoccupied. Jen, however, was giving him a furtive appraisal, running the numbers. He was a decent looker, actually kind of cute, and he seemed pleasant and outgoing. Not a bad start. That was what she would say the moment he was out of earshot. "You like the name?" "Not bad. Sort of a takeoff on Citibank?" "My dad came up with it back before they copyrighted that name. Maybe they stole the idea from us." She was feeling cheered by the sight of him. Yes, it was good to have him back for a while, maybe longer. "But come on, let me introduce you around" Which she did. Jennifer gave her a telepathic glance that said This guy looks like he might be worth the effort. What's the deal? Then they went to Ally's office, a high-walled cubicle in the back with a computer and a drafting table. She had a CAD program running. "Sorry to just invite myself down like this," he said, "but I got off work early. Matter of fact, I just became a freelancer. My office now consists of three cardboard boxes in my walk-up apartment." "What do you mean? That phone page? Did--" "Winston Bartlett owns the building where the Sentinel's offices are. Seems he convinced the management that it would be in their interest if I were no longer employed there. I gather he thinks I know more than I actually do about what's going on out at the Dorian Institute, and I guess he thought getting me fired would slow me down. What it has done, however, is to give me even more incentive to surpass his most paranoid assumptions. Now I'm going to take him on full-time. I want to know everything." "Oh, Stone, I'm so sorry." She wasn't buying his bravado. He didn't look like a guy who could last very long without a paycheck. "I have to say he gave me fair warning. That meeting where he yelled at me. This little turn of the screw is not a total shock." "But that whole thing with Kristen . . . I'll bet that's what sent him over the edge. I shouldn't have gotten you involved in that." "This had nothing to do with you, believe me." He shrugged "Besides, it gives me even more motivation to finish the book fast. And I'm also looking forward to spending some of my newfound quality time with you again, if you'll let me. In your favor, you've actually been inside the Dorian Institute, which is more than I can say." She wasn't a big believer in the magic of a second time around--that would have to await further evidence--but having Stone back in her life was definitely helping on the psychological-support front. "I'm thinking," he went on, "that maybe we should go back to Kristen's apartment and turn the place inside out. Do it right. We both let ourselves get distracted by the little matter of our other lives." "Stone, I'm not sure"--she lowered her voice and sat down at her desk-- "but I may be having a reaction to something one of Van de Vliet's research assistants did to me out at the institute this morning. I don't know. I'm just feeling sort of weak and... funny. I'm thinking maybe I should call out there and talk to him." She took a deep breath and seemed to be mounting her courage. "Or if he needs to see me, could you possibly drive for me? I'm not sure I'm up to it" "Hey, I'd love a chance to get inside that place." Then his eyes grew uncertain. "But are you sure you want to go back, after what seems to have happened to Kristen? You might consider waiting till we find her and--" "Ally, are you all right?" Jennifer was walking in, carrying a manila folder. "You look kind of queasy. Can I make you some tea or something?" "Thanks but not now," she said. "I'm feeling weird, but maybe I should call out to the institute and see what Van de Vliet says." "Just don't agree to do anything until we talk," Stone said. "Don't worry," she said reaching for the phone. The number for the Dorian Institute was now newly entered on her Palm Pilot and she called it. When the receptionist answered she gave her name and asked for Dr. Van de Vliet. "I was there this morning and gave a blood sample to Dr. Debra Connolly. I don't know if there's any connection, but I'm really feeling strange right now." "What do you mean by 'strange'?" the woman asked. "Can you describe how you feel exactly? He's in the lab downstairs." "That's just it I'm not sure I need to actually see him. I'd just like to talk to him." "He doesn't like to be disturbed. Unless it's something very important." "It's important enough for me to try to call him," she declared feeling herself abruptly seething. "I'm weak and dizzy. And my stomach is not in such great shape either." "What did you have for lunch?" My God, she realized she hadn't actually had any. After the disaster with Kristen, she'd been in such turmoil that she hadn't even thought about food. On the other hand, she knew what food deprivation felt like. This was something else. "I didn't have all that much lunch, but that's not the problem. Now will you please put me through?" "Let me see what I can do," she said. "I'll call down and ask him. He might be able to see you." Ally listened as the line went blank. That was when she remembered she had some smoked turkey in the office fridge. Maybe a quick sandwich was called for. While she waited, Stone was looking around the offices, taking everything in. Carrying the phone, she walked out and followed him. What, she wondered, was the place telling him about her? The meager furniture was low-slung and utilitarian, with lots of beige and dark brown. And there were several huge storage files for blueprints and designs. There also was a comfortable easy chair and lamp near a bookcase in the corner. On the table next to the chair were two British mysteries and a thick, recently written history of New York City. He walked over and picked it up. It was 760 pages long. "This your idea of reading for relaxation?" he asked, waving it at her. "I tried to get through it, but I only got up to the 1930s and then I started having a bout of acute sleeping sickness every time I picked it up." "Hey, the history of this city is a mental hobby of mine. It's always renewing itself." She smiled. "Think about it. When developers convert industrial space to residential, we end up getting a lot of work." Then she heard the phone crackle alive. It was Van de Vliet. "Alexa, what seems to be the problem?" She told him. "Then I think it's important that you come back out here as soon as you can. I can't say anything until I've seen you. This could be something that could affect your procedure." "But what do you think--" "I don't diagnose over the phone. I was about to go home, but I'll wait for you." She listened as he clicked off. "Shit." "What did he say?" Stone asked. "He said I've got to come out." "Do you really want to do that?" "I don't know. But what's the point of going to a doctor here? They wouldn't know--" "Then at least let me drive you," Stone declared. "And I'll make damned sure they don't pull something funny." "Ally," Jennifer said ,"you look absolutely wiped out. Before you do anything, at least let me fix you a sandwich. I think there's some turkey in the fridge." "I was thinking about that." She glanced at Stone. "You want something?" "Sure. I'll have whatever you're having." "Don't be so sure. Jen can tell you I take mayo and mustard both. I know it's weird but that's the way I am." "Then I'll give it a try. I want to get to know you all over again." "Also, I hate to say it, but I think maybe I ought to swing by the apartment and get some things. Just in case." She listened to her own voice and wondered, would whatever happened to Kristen happen to me too? Maybe, she thought, what I really ought to take with me is a gun. Maybe Katherine Starr had the right idea. Jennifer finished the sandwiches and was wrapping them. "Ally, I'll go with you to your place and pick up Knickers. She can stay with me till you know what's going on." "Thanks, Jen. I was hoping you'd volunteer." She knew she could have dropped a hint and made it happen anyway, but this was nicer. She then went around and had a few last words. It felt like a good-bye and she didn't want it to. But it did. Ten minutes later, while Stone waited in her double-parked car, she and Jennifer took the elevator up to her Barrow Street apartment. "Where did you find that man?" Jennifer asked as soon as they got on. "He seems nice. Interesting. He's not a client, is he? And, pardon me for noticing, no wedding ring." "He actually found me," Ally declared, punching her floor. "It's a long story, but he was a guy I was deeply in love with for about fifteen minutes back around college. The old flame I told you about, remember? Then we started getting on each other's nerves. We're both going easy on the personal details right now, but I've got a hunch he's got nobody else percolating. Which, incidentally, goes for me too, or hadn't you noticed." They stepped off the elevator and she unlocked the door to her apartment. Knickers exploded with delight. "Hi, baby." She reached down and ruffled the sheepdog's ears. "I really love her," Jennifer said as she reached down to pet her too. Knickers began a dance of joy, then ran to search for her rubber ball behind the couch, hoping for a game of fetch with Jennifer. "By the way, I can't tell you how I appreciate your taking her. She's going to love being at your place awhile. I'm sure she gets bored crazy being here all the time. I probably should get a puppy or something to keep her company, but then she'd be jealous. And I'm not about to get a stupid cat." "She loves me because she knows I love her," Jennifer said. "I always play with her when you bring her into the office. At least I think she loves me. This may turn out to be the test." Ally headed into the bedroom, opened a drawer, and took out some black sweatshirts. Those and black jeans were her favorite things to wear around the house. She slept in a T-shirt and panties, so it wasn't hard to put together her evening ensemble. Besides, if something went wrong with the experimental stem cell procedure, it wouldn't matter a damn what she was wearing. She threw the clothes into a blue gym bag and headed for the bathroom to fetch some toiletries. By the time she got back to the living room, Jennifer had a measuring cup and was shoveling Science Diet into a large plastic bag. They delivered Jen and Knickers back to the office. After she gave them both a farewell hug, she came around and slipped into the Toyota's driver's seat, moving Stone across. "I'm actually feeling better now, so I'll drive as long as I can. And by the way, I'm famished. How about that turkey sandwich?" "Thought you'd never remember." Five minutes later, they were headed up the West Side, with Ally at the wheel. She checked the gas and was relieved to see that she still had two-thirds of a tank. Stone was leaning back in the seat looking at her. "You know, it's easy for me to say, but trying the stem cell procedure on your heart is probably the right thing for you to do. Still, though, it makes me nervous. If there's a medical glitch of some kind then . . . I mean, what the hell is going on with Kristen?" "I'm going to confront him about that," she said "I damned well want some answers before I just turn myself over to him." After they crossed the George Washington Bridge, she began feeling slightly better. Maybe, she thought, whatever it is is going to pass. As they headed north up the tree-shrouded highway, she decided to ask him a question that had been nagging at her mind. "Stone, I know you hate to have these talks, but something about you doesn't quite compute for me right now. There's a kind of unnatural intensity about your pursuit of Winston Bartlett and his stem cell work. And the same goes for his reaction to you. Way back when, I never really thought I knew you, and it's still true. I mean, is this all just about a book on stem cell technology? Or is it something more?" The question was followed by a long moment of silence as he looked away, into the forest, and appeared to wrestle with his thoughts. "You're very intuitive, Ally," he said at last "Maybe I didn't consciously set out to write about stem cells just because I knew Bartlett's Gerex Corporation was a leader in the field. But writing about stem cells automatically meant that I'd have to get close to him at some point. So was it an unconscious choice? If it was, then I wouldn't be aware of it would I?" "But why would you want to get close to Winston Bartlett?" "I guess that was your original question, right?" "Pretty much." "There are things about my past that I never told you. I could never decide exactly how to go about it. And truthfully, right now doesn't seem exactly the right moment either. You've got enough on your mind" "Want to give me a hint?" What could he mean? she wondered. It was clear that Stone Aimes and Winston Bartlett had some kind of holy war going on between them. "I'll tell you someday soon. But I want us both sitting down in a safe place when I do. It's going to be hard." He looked away again. "Someday soon I've got to tell my daughter, Amy, too. Maybe telling you would be a practice drill." "So what I'm learning is that I'm not crazy. This is about more than it's about?" She sighed. "Nobody's leveling with me. With Van de Vliet I have to worry whether he's telling me the truth every time he opens his mouth. And now you're holding out. It's like that joke about feeling like a mushroom. Everybody keeps me in the dark and feeds me bullshit." She was slowing down, pulling into an open space by the roadside. "Stone, I'm feeling a little dizzy. Maybe it's this conversation, but I think it's time you took the wheel for a while." "Hey, don't pass out on me now," he said, snapping into the moment. "I'm not sure I could actually find this place without your help." "Don't worry," she said, bringing the car to a stop. "I'm all right. I'm just a little worried about my reflexes." He got out and walked around, while she hoisted herself over into the other side. The evening commute had begun in earnest, so there was a lot more traffic than there had been that morning. But Stone turned out to be an aggressive driver, right on the edge, as though he were racing the clock. She gave him directions and then closed her eyes, hoping to rest. But all she could think about was Stone's refusal to tell her about something that loomed very large in his life. "Tell me if I'm bothering you and I'll shut up," he interjected after a few minutes, "but--not to change the subject--did you actually give anybody permission to stick a needle in you this morning? I mean, are you sure you understood what was going on at the time?" She shifted and opened her eyes, looking straight ahead. "Truthfully, I assumed I was just giving a blood sample. That's what his assistant said and I took her at her word. I hate needles and I never actually watch when I give blood. This morning I just sort of went along with what was happening. And nothing seemed particularly ominous till Katherine Starr showed up and started blasting away." "Well," he said, "do your best to get some rest and I'll try to get you there as soon as legally possible." She stared out the window a moment before closing her eyes again. Around them the encroaching greenery of northern New Jersey felt like an ancient forest where magical things could happen. Out here in the forest, was there a magician who had the power literally to save her life? And what about Stone? Setting aside the troubling fact that he was harboring some mysterious connection to Winston Bartlett--and that was hard to set aside--she was feeling a sense of togetherness with him that brought back a lot of positive memories. Which was bizarre, because she knew so little about what kind of man he'd become. If people are worth their salt, they change a lot in their late twenties and early thirties. So what was he really like now? What did he love? What did he hate? What were his priorities? Did he believe in the Golden Rule? Mulling over all this, she slowly drifted away. . . . Dusk was approaching by the time he pulled to a stop at the gated entrance of the Dorian Institute. Along the way he'd begun getting a sense that they were being followed by a dark-colored Lincoln Town Car, but it could have been his imagination. And he hadn't seen it for the past fifteen minutes, after he pulled onto the leafy lakeside drive leading to the institute. "Hey, we're here, Ally. Rise and shine. How're you feeling?" There was no response when he touched her. Chapter 25 _Wednesday, April 8 7:20 P.M. _ "Jesus, Ally, are you all right?" He leaned over and shook her. Finally she jumped, and then her eyelids fluttered open. "Where . . . ?" She looked around. "The sign says this is it. The institute." "Oh shit, Stone, I'm feeling really strange," she said after a moment of getting her bearings. "Everything around me seems like it's moving. It's as though the space I'm in has an extra dimension. I don't know . . . maybe it was totally stupid to come back out here. Maybe I should have just gone to my doctor in the city." "Hey, you've got a seriously deficient sense of timing. We're here now. I've been breaking the speed limit for the last half hour." "I know. Shit. I really don't know what to do. I don't trust anybody." "Well, you could start by trusting me. I'm along to try to make sure nothing bad happens." He paused. "So what do we do?" A brass plaque on a redbrick pillar beside the gate bore a two-inch- high inscription, THE DORIAN INSTITUTE, and just below it was an intercom. She stared at it for a moment, then said, "There, give it a buzz. I think there's a video camera around here somewhere. Last time I was here, they knew I'd arrived." He reached out and touched a black button. "Yes," came back a quick voice. She recognized it as belonging to the woman she'd spoken to on the phone. "It's Alexa Hampton." She leaned over. "We talked--" "Yes, I know, Ms. Hampton. He's been waiting for you." A buzzer sounded and the two wrought-iron gates slid back, welcoming them. As they drove down the tree-lined road, an elegant three-story redbrick structure with white Doric columns across the front slowly came into view. "From here, it's pretty classy-looking," Stone declared, sizing it up. "I know his big manufacturing-and-research campus is right down the road. But still, it sure feels godforsaken and lost out here in the middle of these pines. It's like the place is hiding from the world." "Where better to do secret medical research," she said. "If you want to keep everything proprietary, then the isolation gives you a big jump on security." She directed him to the side parking lot, where she'd left her car that morning. "Stone, here's what we'll tell them. You're next of kin, a cousin on my mother's side." "Works for me," he declared. "I'm beginning to feel part of the family anyway." He pocketed the car keys and helped her out of the Toyota. As they headed up the wide steps, past the white columns, Ally felt a wave of nausea sweep through her. She reached out and took Stone's arm and sank against him. "I'm... I'm not feeling at all well. Please let me hold--" No sooner had she said it than the front door opened and two nurses appeared, their hair backlit from the glow of the reception area. She recognized one as Ellen O'Hara. "Here, dear, let us help you," she said as she strode toward them. She was dressed in white and her eyes were flooded with concern. Ally looked through the doorway to see a waiting wheelchair. "That's fast," Stone said. "Looks like they were ready for you." My God, she thought, did they already know what kind of shape I'd be in? What else do they know? Surely Van de Vliet has heard by now that I'm aware of Kristen. Then she saw him standing behind the nurses. "Alexa, we need to get you downstairs as soon as possible." He was coming forward to help her settle into the wheelchair. He appeared to take no notice of Stone Aimes. "I'm just feeling a little dizzy." He smiled reassuringly. "There's always a small percentage chance that there may be side effects from the initial inoculation." Huh? "What 'initial inoculation'?" She bolted upright in the wheelchair. "I was just supposed to be giving blood." "I thought Debra explained," he said, appearing confused. "There's always an initial . . . antibiotic dosage, just as a prophylactic." He shook his head in self-blame. "I should have insisted you stay here, but after that . . . incident this morning I was so disoriented I let you talk me out of it. You may be having a reaction to the antibiotic, but it can't be all that serious. I didn't see anything about side effects in your file. We just have to get you horizontal for a while. Everything's going to be all right. In fact, this might be a positive development. With you here now, we can begin fine-tuning your procedure immediately." "Dr. Van de Vliet, this is my cousin Stone. He drove me here and I'd--" "I'd really like to stay," Stone said reaching to shake Van de Vliet's hand. "It would mean a lot to both of us. To the whole family." "Family?" Van de Vliet declared. Ally noticed that he was examining Stone with narrowed eyes and seemed to be debating something with himself. "Well, we'll see." Then he turned back to her. "The first thing is to make sure your. . . situation is stabilized. I actually think a good night's rest might do the trick. But I need to run a quick blood test downstairs." She felt her dizziness coming and going, but she was determined to stay awake and in control of what was being done to her. "By the way, I was wondering how is Katherine Starr doing?" His eyes grew somber. "She's a very lucky woman, considering. We've given her some coagulants and stitched her up." "Are you going to press charges?" He looked at her strangely. "Do you think we should?" "I guess it's none of my business." Of course you won't, she told herself. The Kristen matter will not stand the ordinary light of day, let alone a police investigation. "Maybe it's time to let her daughter come and see her." "I looked at that letter," he said with a matter-of-fact tone. "I suspect it's a hoax. And a very cruel one at that." "I don't think so. I talked to her today. The woman formerly known as Kristen. On the phone." She stared at him. "I really think it's time I learned more about what happened to her here at the institute. All I could really find out was that she thinks she's experienced some pretty dramatic memory loss." He looked as though this information was new to him. He also looked startled. "You spoke to her? What . . . did she say? Is she all right?" "No, she's not all right." Don't mention the kidnapping she told herself. Play dumb and see how he behaves. "I want to know what happened to her when she was here." He paused, then took a deep breath. "I told you everything I know this morning. She was a very troubled young person. Her treatment seemed to be going well, but she couldn't accept that. She began to believe there was some kind of conspiracy against her. In a word, she became completely paranoid." Well, Ally thought, there's "paranoid" and then there are times when somebody really is out to get you. So which was it in Kristen's case? She glanced over at Stone, who appeared to be trying to act as though he didn't know what on earth she was talking about. But she could see him efficiently taking mental notes. "When you can't remember who you are," she said turning back to Van de Vliet, "and then someone who does know who you are gives you a new, fake identity, I think it's enough to justify paranoia." He was rolling the wheelchair toward the elevator but abruptly paused "Is that what she's claiming? Good God I told you she was paranoid and that should demonstrate it better than anything. Letting her discharge herself and leave the program, to go off unsupervised was a truly bad idea, but nothing short of physical restraint could have stopped her." "And do you have any idea where she is now?" Ally asked. "I told you . . . Look, if I knew her whereabouts, don't you think I'd do everything I could to contact her, find out how she is?" "Right." She reached out and took Stone's hand as they all moved onto the elevator. She could sense his excitement at finally being inside the Dorian Institute, but at that moment her concentration was drifting and she felt as though she were slowly beginning to drown in a sea of white. "Stone, please don't leave me. Don't let me out of your sight. Something funny is happening and I don't know what it is." Van de Vliet bent over. "Alexa, look at me. I want to see your eyes. I think they may be dilating." He waved a hand across her face. "Can you see me?" "It's the fluorescent lights," she mumbled "There's too much glare. Could someone please turn them down? I think that's what's wrong. They're giving me a headache." "Ally," Stone said, "the lights are not very bright in here. We're going down in an elevator. There aren't any fluorescents." Then the elevator chimed and the door opened. They were in the basement now, where the research lab and the office and the examination rooms were. Debra, wearing a white lab coat, was standing there silently looking at her. Now there really were fluorescent lights, and she turned away and tried to shield her eyes. "God, turn them off. It's so painful. It's like they're shining into the back of my skull." "She's started hallucinating," Van de Vliet whispered to Debra. "I've got to draw blood for a test and give her an injection. We need a gurney now. We've got to take her down to the IC. Her condition is progressing much more rapidly than I expected." "Ally, is this what you want?" Stone demanded. "You don't have to do this." Her breath was coming in rapid pulses now and she was cringing from the light even as she struggled to rise out of the wheelchair. "I want . . . to get . . ." She managed to pull herself onto her feet, but then she sagged and collapsed against Stone as he pulled her to him. As one of the nurses grabbed the newly arrived gurney and pulled it over, Van de Vliet and Ellen O'Hara seized her out of Stone's arms and lifted her onto it. "You'll have to leave now," Van de Vliet said to Stone. "I'm sorry." "I'm not going anywhere. I promised her I'd stay by her side and, by God, I intend to do just that." "I'll determine what's best for her," he replied. "Please go up to the reception area. I'll let you know how she is." "I'm not leaving." "Then I'll call our security and have you removed from the premises." "Stone," Ally said her eyelids flickering, "it's okay. I want you to tell my mother I'm here. She's in room two-thirteen, upstairs, the last time I saw her." "You've got it. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything." She heard him saying that, but then she thought she heard another voice inside her head begging him not to leave. It was the last thought she had before the world went entirely white. _Wednesday, April 8 7:39 P.M. _Ellen O'Hara watched the scene with mounting dismay. She'd overheard Dr. Van de Vliet talking to Debbie about the procedure scheduled for Alexa Hampton. Then she'd checked the schedule that had been put into the database. It turned out that Alexa Hampton had two procedures scheduled. The troubling part was, one was identical to the procedure that had been performed on Kristen Starr several months back, or at least so it seemed. And that had resulted in what she'd just overheard Debra call "the Syndrome." By whatever name, it had produced some horrible side effects. Why on earth were they now repeating that with this new patient? Hadn't they learned anything? Karl Van de Vliet--or whoever ordered this idiotic travesty--was about to put the job of every person at the Dorian Institute at risk. If whatever happened to Kristen was replicated and the word got out, it was going to be the end for everyone who worked here. Most troubling of all, what about Ms. Hampton, who seemed like such a nice person? Did she agree to that experimental procedure? If she knew what had happened to Kristen Starr, surely she wouldn't have. Ellen O'Hara didn't know how she could stop Dr. Vee from doing what he appeared to be planning to do. The procedure was going to be performed in the laboratory. The only way she could think of to stop it was to try to warn Ms. Hampton that what they were about to do was extremely dangerous. But how? Her chart in the database said they were going to keep her quarantined down in the sub- basement. That was specified. On top of all this, Kenji Noda had brought in some unidentified patient this afternoon, wheeled in while strapped to a gurney, and they had taken that patient to the subbasement. Noda was still down there, and Winston Bartlett had come in and gone down also. The unholy pair. And now they'd be holding Alexa Hampton down there too. Was it possible to get past them and warn her? She was determined to find a way. Chapter 26 _Wednesday, April 8 7:40 P.M. _ Stone was deeply troubled as he entered the elevator to return to the lobby. He had promised Ally he'd stay by her side and now he'd let her down. Was this the best he could do? He felt like he had to earn the right to be back in her life, but he seemed to be making a slow start. But he wasn't about to leave the premises until he knew she was okay. Hoping for the best, he reminded himself that although Van de Vliet was wound pretty tight, he clearly was more than competent. The problem was, he'd just offered a transparent song and dance when Ally asked him about Kristen. Now it was easy to understand why she'd said she didn't know whether to believe a word he said. But that didn't necessarily preclude him being a Nobel Prize-quality medical genius. In any case, to finally be inside the Dorian Institute was a major coup in his own quest. Up until now, Bartlett's press heavies at BMD had turned back his every attempt to get a first-hand look at the institute or an interview with Karl Van de Vliet. Now, at last, he'd actually seen the man. So . . . after he visited with Ally's mother upstairs--which ought to be interesting, an actual patient interview--he was going to try to keep a low profile and scout the place. Maybe he could finally talk his way into an interview with the celebrated Van de Vliet himself, or at least with some of his research staff. This was definitely the break he'd been waiting for. Finally he'd have some actual reporting to put in the book. When he stepped off the elevator, he noticed that the uniformed security guard looked him over suspiciously. He and Alexa had been waved through the metal detector when they came in, owing to the urgency of her condition. Now he felt as though the guard, a tall, middle-aged black guy with thinning hair, was trying to frisk him with his penetrating eyes. Stone smiled and nodded toward him and headed for the desk in the middle of the reception area. Around him a number of patients were ambling through the lobby, returning from a room in the back that was identified as DINING HALL. Some were wearing blue gowns, and most appeared to be in their sixties and seventies. But they all were sprightly and animated as they walked along chatting. Somehow the place felt more like a vacation spa than a clinic. He'd like nothing better than to sit them all down right this minute for an interview. "How has the Gerex stem cell procedure affected your condition? Have you had any side effects?" But to do that without official permission would undoubtedly get him evicted on the spot. He took a deep breath and walked over to the reception desk. "Hi." The woman looked up. She was the same middle-aged Hispanic nurse with bold eye makeup who was there when they came in. "Hi. How's your friend feeling?" "Actually, she's my cousin, and I don't know how she's doing because they kicked . . . sent me up here. But she gave me a mission to keep me occupied." "Well," the woman declared with a smile, "I'm sure she'll be fine. Dr. Van de Vliet is a miracle worker." "So everyone says." He smiled back. "My cousin asked me to look in on her mother. Nina Hampton. She is, or was, in two-thirteen." "Mrs. Hampton is your aunt?" "Uh, yeah, right." Whoops. Get this act together. "Funny, but I always just think of her as my cousin Ally's mother. My own weird way to look at it, I guess. I don't really know her all that well." Things are not getting off to a great start, he told himself. I don't even believe me. "Visits to patients, except by those on a pre-established list, require a photo ID." "Well, let's get started." He reached for his wallet and withdrew a driver's license. He made sure his press card was well out of sight. Keep this dumb and innocent as long as possible, he told himself. She glanced at the driver's license, then pointed to the sign-in sheet. "Just sign your name and print it and then also print your relationship to the patient. I have to say this is unusual. There are regular visiting hours and guests are normally approved in advance by Mrs. Young, who's in charge of security. But you came in under extraordinary circumstances, with Ms. Hampton, and you're already here, so I don't see the harm." He signed himself in as quickly as possible. "Mrs. Hampton is still in room two-thirteen." "I'll show myself up." "Please keep it under fifteen minutes. We don't want to tire her out. You understand." "Thanks. I really appreciate this. My cousin Ally likes to get an update on"--he realized he had momentarily blocked her mother's name-- "her mom as often as possible." He headed for the elevator, trying to contain his excitement. The idea was to keep this as below the radar as possible. Was he about to crack the wall of secrecy that Winston Bartlett had erected around Karl Van de Vliet and the Gerex Corporation? Just as the elevator door was closing, he saw a figure emerge through the security entryway. The man clicked a memory-moment from somewhere in the far-distant past, but he couldn't place him. As best he could tell, the guy didn't see him. Just keep moving. Don't look back As he stepped off the elevator onto the second floor, the pale marble floors were lit by small bulbs along the walls. This was a place where medical miracles were supposedly being made to happen and yet it was lit only with a ghostly half-light. The sounds of televisions emanated from several of the rooms. The nurse's station at the end of the hall was empty, which added to the sense of a surreptitious undertaking. He walked quickly to room 213 and tapped lightly on the door. When he heard a bold "Yes?" from inside, he opened it and entered. He hadn't seen Nina Hampton in almost two decades, but she looked pretty much the way he remembered her. Her hair was surely dyed now, but her face was as square and strong as ever. She was reading a paperback book with a tide that appeared to be Spanish. She looked up and stared at him for a moment, adjusting her glasses. "Hello, Stone. That is you, isn't it? You're older but you're still a hell of a looker. How did you get in here? Is Ally here too? I haven't seen her since this morning." "Mrs. Hampton, don't tell me you recognize me." "Of course I do. When you and Ally were . . . going out, I confess I didn't hold out much hope that you'd ever amount to anything, but I've been a fan of your columns for a long time. Though it took me a while to put it together that that newspaper writer I liked so much was you, the man I didn't think was ambitious enough for my daughter." She appraised him a moment. "Does this mean you two are together again?" Good question, he thought. And I don't have a clue about the answer. "I wish I knew. Why don't you ask her the next time you see her?" He smiled and walked over. "She wanted me to come up and see how you're doing." "Come up? Is she here now? When she came to say goodbye this morning, I got the impression that she wanted both of us just to get out of here. But I told her that was silly. I'm already feeling so much better." "Really. Well, she's downstairs now and she'll be happy to hear that." He walked over and smiled. "Mrs. Hampton, I came along with her this time to keep an eye on her. Hope you don't mind." "Of course not." "And there's another reason I'm here. I want to warn you. I'm writing a book about stem cell procedures and anything you say to me about your treatment could well end up in it. So don't tell me anything you don't want everybody to hear about." "Are you really writing a book about Dr. Vee?" She beamed. "That's wonderful! He's a saint. Everyone here says so. He deserves a special place in heaven." This is great, Stone thought. I've got my own Deep Throat. "Then could I ask you what you know about what he did and how you think you've improved." "I don't really understand what he's doing, but I do know what is happening to me. It's as though my mind was full of fog a lot of the time, but now there's a wind that's blowing it away." "And how--" A shaft of light from the hallway pierced across the room as the door opened. Stone turned to see the man he'd first noticed in the lobby. The man walked past him and marched over to the bed. "Hi, how're you feeling?" "I'm touched." Her visage immediately hardened "It's thoughtful of you to finally come by and favor your mother with a visit." That's who he is, Stone finally realized. Ally's kid brother. In his few dealings with the wiseass brat that Ally used to rant about-- what was the kid's name . . . right, Grant--he'd found him devious and pompous. He was particularly deft at cutting ethical corners and using other people any way he could "Stone," Nina Hampton said gesturing toward Grant, "this is--" "I know exactly who he is," Grant said turning around to face Stone. "W.B. has put out an all-points alert for you, pal. You've got a hell of a nerve weaseling your way in here. But not to worry. You won't be here long." "I won't have you talking that way in my presence, young man," Nina declared "Whatever else you may be, I thought I'd raised you to have a civil tongue in your head" Grant replied without taking his eyes off Stone. "He lied to the front desk, Nina. He signed in as Ally's cousin. And that twit-brain down there let him get away with it. He got up here by using a lie. Now what does that tell you about him?" "It tells me he's creative. This man came with your sister. He's helping take care of her, which is more than can be said about her own brother." "This creep is a newspaper reporter, Nina. He's here to spy. He's planning to do a hatchet job on the Gerex Corporation, and Mr. Bartlett has expressly forbidden anyone to speak to him" "I'm not in your corporation, Son, so I guess it's all right for me then." "You signed a secrecy agreement with Gerex when you entered the clinical trials. Now maybe you don't remember it, but you did" He turned to Stone. "Nice try, amigo. Now come on, let's go." "You know, Grant, I remember you," Stone said "Not very nice recollections." "And I remember you too, pal. You were that screwed-up journalism student Ally dated for a while. Thank God she got rid of you." "Sounds like we were awash in mutual admiration," Stone said. "Tell you what. Are we gonna continue this touching reunion outside, or do I have to call for security and take your trespassing ass out of here in handcuffs? It's entirely up to you." "Grant, I see no reason why I can't talk to him if I want," Nina interjected "Who I talk to or what I say is nobody's business but mine." "You wouldn't be here if it weren't for me," Grant declared. "So I have a little say-so too." He turned back. "Come on, pal. We're gone." I'm screwed, Stone told himself. But what about Ally? If I get kicked out, I'll really be leaving her completely defenseless. "Mrs. Hampton, thank you for letting me check up on you," he said quietly. "Alexa is downstairs. I think her procedure is starting whether she's ready for it or not. You seem very alert, and if I were you, I'd try to monitor her . . . progress as closely as you can." "Don't worry," Grant said. "I'll be keeping close tabs on her. And now let's go." With no option short of killing him on the spot, Stone followed along, seething. This little creep obviously works for Winston Bartlett--he wished Ally had warned him about that. Grant was bound to have shown up at some point. They went down the marble staircase and Grant signaled the security man, who leaped up and opened the front door for them. He probably got a tongue-lashing from Grant, Stone told himself. As they stepped onto the wide porch, dusk all around them, Grant turned and headed toward the south end and a long wooden bench. "Want to tell me what the hell's going on?" he said gesturing toward the bench and then sitting down. "W.B. said you claimed to be writing a book about this project. If that's true, then it's a seriously bad idea. You have no idea what he's capable of if he gets pissed." "Oh, I think I'm getting a rough idea, but I'm a little pissed too," Stone said, remaining standing. "For example, there's the matter of Kristen Starr. You see, she was terminated from the clinical trials approximately three months back. So I was wondering, when is Van de Vliet planning to report her current condition to the NIH?" "I don't know what you're talking about." His startled voice said otherwise. "Oh, I think you do. I saw her today." Then he decided to bluff. "She had an interesting tale to tell. She--" "Shit, you interviewed Kristy? Aw, man, don't believe anything she . . ." He hesitated. "What did she say about W.B.?" "Tell you what, we'll play twenty questions. You tell me what you think she said and I'll tell you if you're right or not." "Hey," Grant declared, his eyes intense, "she wanted to do it man. Nobody put a gun to her head or anything. She was freaking out after she got sacked. She thought Dr. Vee could fix her skin and she couldn't wait to try it." "You mean--" "The Beta. Take a look at Van de Vliet. He's a walking testimonial. No side effects for him, so why not? The worst thing that could happen would be nothing, right? So she figured, what did she have to lose? Well, now we all know." "The Beta? That's...?" "You fucker." Grant bounded to his feet. "You don't know the first thing about what I'm talking about do you? How the fuck did you find out about Kristen anyway?" "I told you I spoke to her." Well, it was almost true. He'd yelled at her. "She's very . . . unsettled just now. But I guess you know that" "Hey, she was always fucked-up, but W.B. liked all the energy behind that. He looked right past the eating disorders and the coke and the late-night clubs she went to all the time. But, man, if you think she's spaced, try her mother. That crazy--" "Grant, why not level with me? There's something very wrong going on here. I'm in the business of telling the truth, and I've got a keen nose for medical horse-pucky. So how about coming clean? If it's good, why not, and if it's bad, it's going to come out eventually anyway. Hasn't Winston Bartlett learned anything from all the screw-ups in Washington? It's not the situation--it's the cover-up." "Well, I don't know what Kristy did or didn't tell you, so we're not going in that direction. I heard about her little trip downtown this morning. I assume that's probably when you saw her, if in fact you actually did. Right now she's being taken care of, for her own good." " 'Being taken care of'? So happens I had a close encounter with a couple of her caregivers today. They're taking care of her, all right." "Look, she used to be W.B.'s girlfriend okay? He's still very concerned about her. Everybody's really sorry about her situation, but nobody saw it coming. And now he's got some problems of his own." "You seem to be pretty heavily involved with Winston Bartlett's personal problems." "Yeah, well, the man's been like a father to me. And I think he feels that way too, since he doesn't have a son of his own." Stone let the taunt just hang in the air for a moment. He mainly just wanted to slug the smug little bastard. "You don't know how little you know, about him or about anything. Someday I may take the trouble to straighten you out. But right now you're not worth the effort. All I care about at the moment is what's going to happen to Ally." "Everybody cares what happens to her. A lot depends on it. Dr. Vee thinks she's our best shot" "What . . . what the hell are you talking about?" Stone stared at him through the twilight. "What depends on it?" "Guess you're not as smart as you think you are." He was up and heading for the parking lot. "Come on, pal. Time to hit the road. I'm gonna tuck you in. This conversation is terminated. And it never happened anyway. I'll have them unlock the gates for you." Chapter 27 _Wednesday, April 8 8:25 P.M. _ Alexa watches as the prow of their forty-one-foot Morgan, two-masted, cuts silently through a placid sea. She vaguely remembers the vessel. It was teak and magnificent. Steve had chartered it, bare-boat, for two weeks and taken them cruising through the Bahamas. By the end of that time, she felt they could have sailed it around the world. But that was six years ago, when he was still very much alive. Now the boat feels like a magical carpet taking them someplace together, effortlessly. The genoa, the mainsail, and the mizzen are all full and blossoming outward even though there's no wind. She's at the helm, holding a course toward something white on the horizon, and Steve is with her. He's alive again and he's with her. She feels her body suffused with joy. Then she looks at the reflection of herself in his sunglasses and realizes she's a little girl, still a child. This is all a dream, she realizes, a cruel dream. Then she looks again at the horizon, the blazing white light, and senses that it represents the future. Their destiny. Now the sea around them, which had been placid, starts to roil. The wheel is becoming harder to control, and the sun is starting to burn her. In its pitiless glare she feels herself beginning to age rapidly. She glances at Steve and she can see his skin starting to shrivel. She senses he is dying, right there before her eyes, but her hands feel glued to the wheel and she can't let go to try to help him. Now the sea is growing ever more choppy and the white symbol on the horizon has begun to bob in and out of view. Sometimes she can see the "future" and sometimes she can't. Waves are crashing over the sides, inundating the deck, and she feels anxious about what lies up ahead. Will they ever get there, and if they do, will she want what she finds? Even more important now, will Steve still be with her? As the waves pound against them both, oddly she doesn't feel wet. Instead, what she feels is a stab of muted pain in her upper chest, pain she knows would be searing if she were to experience its full impact. She looks down to see that the wheel she thought she was holding is gone, and her chest is pierced by the steel mechanism to which it was attached. It has gone all the way through her. Next a huge wave comes straight over the bow and slams against her and Steve. Her body convulses with pain and she senses that he is being swept overboard, directly off the stern. She screams at him to hold on, but then he is gone, lost in the dark sea. Now the boat itself is starting to disintegrate, as both masts tip backwards, then come crashing down. Up ahead, the white light that is the future is growing ever more flame-like. It is part of a shoreline she is trying to reach, but now she doesn't think she's going to get there. Around her, the boat's lines and cleats are being swept into the pounding sea. In moments the boat has disappeared, but she continues on, propelled by some force she cannot see, until she finally crashes onto the rocky shore. It is a chiaroscuro landscape of blacks and whites. Oddly, Stone Aimes has appeared and is holding her hand as they make their way along the barren seascape, where everything is hazy and trapped in fog. She thinks she sees figures lurking in the mist around them but can't make out who they are. Everything is static and frozen in place, like the images of motion on the Grecian urn caught for eternity. She reaches out to touch Stone and her hand passes right through. That's when she realizes the white light and this rocky shoreline represent the other side. Is this what death feels like? she wonders. Like the white tunnel drawing you in? But then she has another thought. Maybe she isn't dead at all. Maybe she is in a third place, somewhere suspended between life and death. She looks again at Stone and tells herself they're not dead, they're in some kind of time machine. This voyage is about time. Now time has begun to flow around her like a river. Days, weeks, months, years, they all course by. But she knows it is a chimera. Nothing can make time go faster or slower. Then the bright lights are gone and she feels alone. Very alone. But she isn't. She hears voices around her, drifting, echoing, and she tries to understand what they are saying. "She's stabilized. We're past the critical phase." "Do you want to bring her up now?" "Not yet. We still don't know how it's going to go." There was a pause, and then a male voice. "This was the Beta too, wasn't it, Karl?" Another pause. "Well, wasn't it? The injections. That's the first time since . . ." Again the voices drift off. She listens, not sure what she is hearing. She tries to process the word "beta" but makes no headway. In computer slang, "beta" means a program that is still being tested. Then she remembers hearing the word just hours earlier. She had been talking to some woman. But she can't remember who--" "I changed the procedure this time," comes a voice. "I injected the special Beta enzyme separately from the activated stem cells. Whatever happens will happen at the enzyme's own pace now. And I kept the dosage as low as I could. We'll be monitoring her telomerase levels throughout the day. If there's no rejection, we will be past the first phase." "Is the dosage the only difference from before?" comes the other, accusing voice. "At this point, David, manipulating the Beta is an art, not a science. I'm just attempting to create antigens, the way a smallpox vaccination does. Then we'll try to harvest them. This is not really a full-scale Beta procedure. I don't plan to do that ever again." There was another long silence. "That man who was here with her. Her cousin, did he say? I saw no family resemblance, but he seemed very upset." "That's why I had him sent upstairs. I think he's the reporter W.B. was so concerned about. Anyway, he's gone." Stone. She realizes that's who they're talking about. And now he's gone. She's on her own. Next the voices drift away for a time, into some echo space that mutes them. Finally, though, they come back. "This should be adequate for another four hours. After that, you'll need a glucose IV to keep her hydrated." "I've already put it on her chart. By then we should have some idea of which way this is going. I'm thinking, I'm praying, that this time is going to be the charm. That I've learned how to modulate the enzyme." "Is she ready for transfer to IC?" "Anytime." The voices start drifting away. A fuzziness is enveloping her senses, leaving everything soft and muted. The pain is gone from her body now, and the bright lights around her seem to be dimming. The figures in the white haze on the perimeter are now disappearing, one by one, as though filing out of a room. And now she feels like she's floating, with things moving past her. Then, finally, one lone voice is talking to her, is really talking to her, in a private and unmistakable way. And as she drifts back into the gulf of anesthesia, she listens to words that do not make a lot of sense. "The Fountain. Through all the ages, we've been looking in the wrong place. It's within us. Together, Alexa, we have this chance." She listens as the voice begins to drift away. Yet she feels a genuine sense of closeness to it. She realizes she no longer has control of her destiny. But still she wants to be where she is. Now the sea is coming back, flowing around her, and she tries to remember where she is and why, but all she is aware of is the sea rising, until she is engulfed. Chapter 28 _Thursday, April 9 8:00 A.M. _ Stone awoke in his Yorkville apartment nursing a hangover and a lot of regrets. He'd inhaled a triple scotch after driving Ally's Toyota back and parking it on the street the night before. He'd needed it. Yesterday had been a day where, in sequential order, he'd seen a woman who'd lost her memory get kidnapped (probably); he'd been fired from his day job; he'd finally gotten inside the Dorian Institute, only to blow the opportunity completely. But the most important thing that happened was, he'd rediscovered a woman he'd once been in love with and he currently didn't have the slightest idea what was happening to her. Thinking back over their last few moments together, when she was being checked in by Van de Vliet and his research team and he was being hastily sent up to the lobby, Stone suspected that Ally was about to be subjected to something they didn't want anybody to know about. Now he was determined to get back inside the institute and look out for her. As he pulled himself out of bed and shakily made his way into the kitchen to start the coffee, he was trying to decide where to begin. As it happened he now had all the time in the world He didn't mind all that much losing his position at the Sentinel--come on, that was writ across the sky--but he particularly regretted being denied the pleasure of quitting on his own terms, complete with a flamboyant fuck-you- very-much farewell speech to the managing editor, Jay. He'd actually been rehearsing it for weeks. The dream of just showing up at the Dorian Institute and walking in was no longer even a fantasy. There was a special "not welcome" mat out for him. Even more than the first time, he'd need a calling card. That had to be Kristen Starr. She clearly held the key to whatever it was Winston Bartlett and Karl Van de Vliet were trying to cover up. But how to find her? The only real lead he had was the apartment she'd come back to, apparently returning like a genetically programmed salmon going back upstream but not really knowing why. Okay, why not go back down there and look around again, only do it thoroughly? He and Ally hadn't had time to do much more than a cursory look-around. The specter of the knives in the walls still haunted him. But how to get in? Then he remembered that Ally had been given the key by Kristen's spacey subtenant, Cindy, the one who was renting the ground-floor apartment. Did she leave that key at her CitiSpace office or did she put it on her key ring? Her car keys were lying on the table by the door, where he'd tossed them last night. He walked over and checked them out. There were several house keys on the ring in addition to her Toyota keys. Could she have put Kristen's key on the ring too? Or did she stash it in her desk at CitiSpace? Swing by the apartment and try these, he decided Maybe I'll get lucky. As he headed for the shower, a cup of black Jamaican coffee in hand, he thought again about the last thing Alexa's good-for-nothing brother, Grant, had said, something about how Alexa was their "best shot." Whatever that meant, it couldn't be good. By nine o'clock he had showered, shaved, and was in Ally's Toyota headed for West Eleventh Street. As he turned right on Fourteenth, he had a fresh idea. Kristen's phone was still working, at least as of yesterday. So did she have speed dial, a memory bank of numbers? That could be a gold mine of the people closest to her. But if not, there were other tricks, ways of getting phone information. There might even be information in the phone itself: who do you get on "redial" and who do you get with *69, the last number that dialed in? The last number that dialed in would probably be the Japanese guy who left a message and then kidnapped her. But the last call out could be interesting. He had a nagging feeling that this wasn't the best way to be spending his morning, but he couldn't immediately think of anything else. West Eleventh Street was comparatively empty, so he had no trouble securing a parking space. After he'd turned off the engine, he looked at Ally's key set again. Well, there were four other keys on it besides the Toyota keys. Give it a shot. He got out and locked the car and walked up the steps. It was a perfect spring morning, cool and crisp, and this part of the Village was quiet and residential. He found himself envying the owners of these beautiful nineteenth-century town houses. There was something so dignified and secure about them. Then he saw a man emerge from the apartment below the stoop, just a few feet from where he was standing. "Hi. How's Cindy?" he called down, hoping the social gesture would let the guy know he wasn't about to do a second- story number on Kristen's town house. The man, who looked to be in his late twenties, was dressed in a black suit, with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, and carried a shoulder bag that appeared to be serving as a briefcase. He stared at Stone with a puzzled look. "Who?" "I was here yesterday and . . . a woman named Cindy, friend of Kristen's, said she was leasing the garden apartment. I was just wondering--" "I'm sorry. Maybe you have the wrong address. I've had this place for almost a year and a half now." He was moving on down the street as he called back over his shoulder. "Good luck." What the hell is going on? He looked up and checked the number. Yep, it's 217. Cindy had definitely gone into that apartment yesterday and talked convincingly about living there and working at the E! station. She even had keys to Kristen's place. So who the hell was that guy? He looked back, but now he had disappeared. Did I just imagine that? he puzzled. He moved up the steps to the heavy white wood door and started trying keys. The first one wouldn't enter the lock, nor would the second. The third key entered but would not turn. Okay, last chance. He inserted the fourth and it seemed to stick. But he gave it a wiggle and _voila_, he was in. Thanks, Ally. But when he stepped through the door and switched on the light, he could only stare in disbelief. The apartment had been completely cleared out. The white walls, which had been covered with knifed photos of Kristen only yesterday, were now blank. Even the few pieces of furniture were gone. "Jesus, I don't believe this." His voice echoed off the empty marble mantelpiece and bounced across the room. He looked around. Since late yesterday, somebody had come in and cleaned out the place. Thoroughly. Any hopes of finding old letters, an address book, anything personal, were gone. He knew immediately that he had been outsmarted. Kristen Starr, and now her friend Cindy, had officially ceased to exist. Cindy might still be at E!, but she was going to be terrified and subject to massive memory loss on the subject of Kristen. But wait a second. They left the phone. The answering machine is gone, but maybe they didn't realize that phones can have memories and can sometimes tell tales. That might be worth a try, but check out the place first. He walked into the kitchen alcove and gazed around, not entirely sure what he was looking for. The main thing would be some phone numbers and addresses. He opened the refrigerator and peered in. It was still running and contained two unopened jars of British marmalade and an empty quart jar with traces of orange juice bordered by mold. The freezer compartment was entirely bare. The two kitchen cabinets above the stove had been similarly emptied. He gave them a cursory look, then came back and followed a hallway to a bathroom in the back. When he opened the medicine chest above the sink and peered in, he initially thought it was empty, with a pile of wadded-up Kleenex on the bottom shelf. He was pulling that out when he realized that the tissue had been wadded around an empty prescription drug vial. Kristen Starr had prescription number 378030. It was for Libinol-- whatever that was, probably some kind of screwed-up diet pill--and it had been filled five months ago. It had been delivered from Grove Pharmacy on Seventh Avenue to here, 217 West Eleventh Street. The address was pasted on a sticker on the back. Hmmm, he thought. After she left, rather than transferring the prescription, what if they just had subsequent refills delivered to some other address? There's a long shot that Grove Pharmacy might have a new address for the prescription number. Okay, it would be a very long shot, but still . . . Unless, of course, her new address had been the Dorian Institute. In that case, the prescription would undoubtedly have been discontinued once she became a patient. He reached for his cell phone to call the drugstore. Shit, I forgot it! Damn hangover. He walked back into the living room and stared at Kristen's phone. If it was still working, he could call Grove Pharmacy and-- No, idiot, that would wipe out any number stored in the redial function. Without a cell, the best thing to do is just go over there and check with the pharmacist in person. He settled yoga-style onto the hardwood floor next to the phone and stared at it. What if the line is already disconnected? Why did whoever cleaned this place out leave it here? The phone, of all things. It's-- It rang. He jumped a foot off the floor, and then stared at it. A series of reasons flashed through his mind: 1)They know I'm here and they're going to warn me again to back off. 2)They know I'm here and the last incoming call here was from a number they don't want me to know about. I pick this up and I wipe out any chance of ever finding out what it was. Don't answer it. This phone call is not intended to be helpful. Not picking up the phone was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he was determined to be disciplined. He counted eleven rings and then he couldn't take it anymore and reached for the receiver. It stopped. "Thank God." His hand froze in midair. The timing had been a split- second salvation. All right, he thought, time to find out if I just totally screwed up. Time to dial. He got his pen and notebook poised and then lifted the black receiver. He knew from the message on her machine yesterday that somebody had called her just before he got there. Or maybe whoever came and cleaned out her apartment had received a phone call while they were here. Possibly from whoever sent them. A checkup call. Who knew? But give it a shot. He hit the code. A mechanical voice came on immediately: "Your last call was from area code 212, number 555-3935. If you would like for me to connect you, please push--" "Go for it," he said aloud, scribbling down the number and then following the instruction. At that moment somebody's cell phone began to ring just outside the front door. "Oh shit." It was just too big a coincidence. After two rings it stopped and he heard the voice of Winston Bartlett, both outside the front door and in his ear. "Yes." He was too startled to respond, but he didn't need to, because an instant later he also heard the sound of a key and then the front door opened. A shaft of daylight shot across the room as Bartlett took one look and exploded. "Damn, so it's true. How the hell did--" "Hey, come on in," Stone said, trying to recover some poise and take marginal control of the situation. "I'm here by permission. The downstairs tenant, who you just evicted, or kidnapped too, gave me her key." "You don't get it, do you? I told you to keep--" "But we have signs of progress. I know all about Kristen." Well, that was hardly the case, but it never hurt to start off with a bluff to see how far you could get. "That's why I'm here. The question is, when are we going to start talking to each other? Because I'm putting together a hell of a story." "I don't fucking believe this." Bartlett slammed the door. "By the way, a special thanks for getting me sacked at the Sentinel. Now I'll have the leisure to concentrate full-time on the stem cell book. And Gerex." "I warned you, but you wouldn't fucking listen." He was peering around the living room as though searching for clues to explain why nothing was going right. "Like I said, I talked to Kristen yesterday." Stone stood his ground. "She's not a happy person." "If you bring her into this . . ." Bartlett glared at him. "I can't imagine what makes you think you can just run roughshod through my business and my life." "Here's how it is. You can abuse me, or you can use me. Keep in mind I'm accustomed to working for people who buy ink by the barrel. As I tried to explain before, if you won't let me get at the whole truth, I may end up spreading half-truths." Bartlett walked across the room and ran his fingers along the marble mantelpiece above the fireplace. "You know," he said, turning back, "up until now you've never asked me for anything. I have to say I've always admired that, but I'm curious why." "Maybe I thought it was your place to come to me," Stone said, puzzled by the left turn the conversation had suddenly taken. "You know, I have a life of my own. I have an eleven- year-old daughter you've never seen or--apparently--care to see. I'm wondering what that says about you. Your granddaughter's name, by the way, is--" "I know her name. I know quite a bit about our blood ties, or lack of." "Well, I'd bet she'd be just thrilled by that. Incidentally, she doesn't know a goddam thing about you and I'd just as soon keep it that way." "I knew having this conversation was a fucking mistake. This is why I never had it. Any real son of mine has got to have some of my character, my stature. You're a bean counter." "If you had any character, you wouldn't be hiding behind all this secrecy. I try to tell the truth, as much and as often as I can. That's my take on character." "What we're doing at Gerex is going to change the history of the world. We're at the brink of things mankind has only dreamed about. And I've taken all the risks. In fact, I took the biggest risk of all personally. There's a lot going on that you don't know a damned thing about. We're on the edge of--" "All the more reason you should want the whole story told," Stone interjected. "Yes, stem cell technology is going to change everything, but you can't just tell half the story. I want it to work, but I'm a truth seeker. I want to find out what, if anything, can go wrong too. You've been using people, first Kristen and now--I'm beginning to fear-- Ally, to take your risks for you. I mean, what's going on? Why did you send somebody down to obliterate all evidence of Kristen? And now Cindy, that girl downstairs? My God, she's somehow vanished too. Whatever happened to Kristen to make it come to this?" "What may or may not have gone wrong is nothing that can't be made right. No great medical advance ever succeeded in a direct line." "I don't need the sales pitch," Stone said. "I agree it's going to revolutionize medicine. But you can't--" "That's why you'll never be a son of mine. You always think small. This is about more than mere medicine. It's about doing the one thing mankind has never been able to do. I am this close. Nothing is going to be allowed to destroy this chance. Not even you, my own flesh and blood." "Am I that?" Stone asked, feeling an unexpected satisfaction. "Your own 'flesh and blood'?" "That is something," Bartlett said, "we are about to discover. Whether we are made of the same thing. The best way for you to understand what's going on here is to do what I've done. Have the Beta procedure. Show me you've got the balls." "The 'Beta procedure'? It might help if I knew what it is." "Why don't I just show you," Bartlett said. "You want to be on the inside, see everything up close? Fine. I think the time has come. You seem determined to stick your nose into what I'm doing. You weaseled your way into the institute, and now you show up here. So I guess it's time you were an insider all the way." "Good, maybe then I can start getting some answers. For example, was changing Kristen's name part of the NIH study?" Stone turned to face him. "Or is it your way to hide one of your mistakes?" "Quite frankly, that's none of your goddam business." "Well, let me tell you what is my business. Ally Hampton is a particular friend of mine. I damned well want to know whether she's scheduled to undergo the same procedure as Kristen. I don't know what you and Van de Vliet did to Kristen, but if you turn Ally into a zombie too, I'll personally--" "I think we'll continue this discussion later." He pulled his cell phone out of a jacket pocket, flipped it open, and punched a memory number. "Ken, could you and Jake please come in. We have the problem I was afraid we had." He flipped the phone shut and turned back to Stone. "Karl entered Ms. Hampton and her mother into the clinical trials at the last minute, as a special favor. She's in no danger." Now Stone saw two men come through the front door. One was the tall Japanese man who had slugged him the day before. Shit. I need this? Is he going to work me over again? The other guy was dressed in white, as though he were an orderly or nurse. Stone noticed he had a plastic syringe in his right hand. "Ken, could you and Jake please take care of this. He'll be going with us." Stone examined the three of them. Well, he thought, / guess I'm going to be back inside the Dorian Institute after all. "Look, there's no need for excessive violence here. We could just set some ground rules for this situation." The Japanese man named Ken walked over and seized him around the neck, while at the same time pulling his right arm around behind him, a decisive hammerlock. "You fucker," Stone choked out. "Let--" The man Bartlett had called Jake, the one in white, shoved a needle into his arm. "This could be the experience you've been looking for," Bartlett said. "You've been pursuing me like a dog chasing a car. Now we're about to see if you're man enough to handle the consequences when you've caught it." You're damned right I'll handle it, he tried to say. But he wasn't sure if he actually got it said, the void was closing in so fast. Chapter 29 _Thursday, April 9 10:33 P.M. _ "Grant, is that you?" Ally squinted in the semi-dark of the room, finally making out the silhouette. He was sitting in a chair beside her bed, and his face was troubled, reminding her of when he'd had a bad day in high school. Am I dreaming again? she puzzled. The clock on the wall told her that this was a late hour for whatever he was up to now. "It's me," he said, his voice low, just above a whisper. The door behind him, she noticed, was shut. "Welcome back to the world. They moved you upstairs just for tonight. This is the first chance I've had to get near you." She was still wondering where she was, what day it was. The walls were an icy blue, illuminated only by the silver- and-green glow of the bank of CRT screens that now monitored her heart and her respiration. She lifted her head off the pillow and for a moment, looked past Grant, examining the screen of the heart monitor. It was a phonocardiogram. She knew what to look for. Over the years she'd learned to interpret every irregular pulse, every errant amplitude, but now the sonic abnormalities that typically characterized her stenosis, the struggle of her heart's scarred valve to maintain adequate coronary output, were significantly damped. There'd always been murmurs, abnormal heart sounds, as long as she could remember, so what did this mean? Had the damaged valve already begun restoring and strengthening itself? While she slept? Or was this just more of some dream? Why was she in this hospital anyway, hooked up to monitors? She still couldn't remember exactly. "What . . .?" She tried to rise up out of the bed. Again she wondered, was Grant real or some chimera? Then she realized she was strapped in, though the straps were held only with black Velcro. As she started to pull them open, she noticed she had an IV needle in her arm, with a plastic tube that led to a bag of liquid suspended from a hook above her head. More annoying, however, was the checkerboard of taped-on sensors on her upper body, for the ongoing phonocardiogram. She looked at all the tubes and connected wires and felt like a laboratory animal in the middle of an experiment. "Ally, you're at the Dorian Institute, remember? Dr. Van de Vliet's stem cell clinical trials. Nina's here too." "Oh." That rang a bell, sort of. "What . . . what day is it?" He told her. "You've been under sedation since late yesterday, Ally. But Dr. Vee says your test data show you're responding--" "Mom's here, right?" Now things were starting to come back. "How's she doing? Is she--" "He's talking about discharging her by the end of next week, even before the NIH clinical trials are officially over." Grant tried a smile. "By then, he thinks the procedure will have replaced enough tissue in her brain that she might not even need a caregiver. She's doing crosswords again. Need I say more." "My God." Now she remembered how on-again, off-again Nina's mind had been when she brought her out to the institute. Had she really been given a second chance? And so quickly? If so, it was truly astonishing. But now she found herself staring at Grant, mesmerized. Something about him seemed oddly off. "Grant, what... what's going on with you?" "I've . . ." He was hesitating. "I've been thinking about everything. Now I really wish I hadn't done what I did." "What are you talking about?" This kind of revisionist remorse didn't sound like the Grant she knew. "Have you seen Kristen? They said you know about her, were asking about her." Then he stepped back. "Do you know about her?" Kristen. She tried to remember. Is that the woman everybody . . . Her mother had come to the institute with a pistol trying to find her? Then she was kidnapped. . . . "It's the Syndrome," Grant went on. "She wanted the Beta procedure, and Dr. Vee finally agreed. But nobody expected anything to happen like what eventually did. That's why W.B. went ahead and had it too." Beta. Now she remembered that Kristen had mumbled something about that word. "Ally, I got you into . . . When I told W. B. that I thought you and he had the same rare blood type, AB, he wanted to bring you into the program." "You mean for my heart?" He looked away and his eyes grew pained. "Well, that's part of it. There's another part they haven't told you about." "What's that?" "Antibodies. They think there's a chance you could be made to develop them and then they could use them to help W.B. He doesn't have the Syndrome yet, but it's probably just a matter of time." What, she puzzled, is he talking about? What "antibodies "? What "syndrome "? She was weak and she wasn't sure her mind was fully functional. But after what appeared to be the miracle of her heart, she was willing to forsake a certain amount of momentary rationality. Then more memory started returning. "Kristen. What about her? I saw--" "Ally, the Syndrome started with her over four months ago. At first they didn't fully realize how serious . . . but now it's getting worse every day." He paused and turned away. "Look, I've been thinking. I'm really sorry that I brought you into this. What if something goes wrong?" "What do you mean?" "If you could see Kristen now, you'd understand." "Where is she? Is she still wherever they're hiding her?" "No." He turned back. "Kristen . . . After what happened yesterday, she had to be brought back out here. There's a ward downstairs, on the floor below the offices and lab, that's kind of like an intensive-care unit. That's where you were until tonight. But you can't go back down there on your own. Not even the nurses can go without a special authorization, which is never given." "But if Kristen is--" "Ally, you 're the one I'm worried about. I thought what they were going to do to you was safe. But last night I. . . I heard them all talking and I think you could be in serious danger. They don't actually know what the consequences of what they're doing will be. You need to get out of here and at least get the real story. I don't want this on my hands. Truthfully, there could be some deep legal shit coming out of all this. I can think of at least three felonies. I don't want any part of that liability, and I want you to testify that I got you out of here if it ever comes to that." Finally the straight story, she thought. He's afraid he's about to be an accomplice in a criminal conspiracy. He's getting cold feet. "Grant, do something for me. Get me unplugged. All these sensors. I want to go see her for myself." "Ally, forget it. To begin with, I can't unplug you. Only a nurse can do that. And I don't want to. You've got catheters in places I--" "Then I'll get a nurse to come and do it. I'll say I need to go to the bathroom. That should get me unhooked." Annoyed she looked around. Where's the buzzer? There has to be one somewhere. Then she spotted a set of controls attached to the bed and sure enough, there was a red button. What else could it be? She pushed it and a light came on above her door. Moments later, a short blue-haired woman with the name MARION sewn into her white uniform opened the door and came striding in, flicking on the fluorescent overheads. "My, my, we're looking well," she declared ignoring Grant. "I'm glad you're finally awake. He told us to call him the minute ... They're all saying you and your mother must have special genes. You've both been such terrific patients. He'd been keeping you sedated but he discontinued that medication this afternoon. He wanted you to wake up with your mind clear." "Well, I'd really like to get up and go to the bathroom and get something to eat," Ally said "Mainly, I just want to get out of this bed for a stretch before I start developing bedsores. I'm feeling strong, for now at least. Can you unhook some of these wires and suction cups? And I certainly don't need that IV. I'm so hungry I could inhale a quart of ice cream in one gulp." "Yes, of course," Marion said and began dismantling the intravenous tubes. "We only monitor you and hydrate you when you're not conscious. The standard procedure is to let you get up and start getting some exercise as soon as possible. You should be careful, though, because at this point you're not as strong as you think. Changes are taking place in your body that require a lot of your energy. If you feel up to it, you could walk around for a couple of minutes, but you shouldn't let yourself get tired." As Marion continued now removing the taped-on sensors, Ally looked up and saw another uniformed nurse standing in the doorway. She also was middle-aged, with prematurely gray hair, and she was holding a syringe. "May I come in?" she asked. "At this stage he needs a blood sample every three hours. Just twenty cc's." Ally watched as the new nurse quickly and deftly took a small sample of blood. Then she capped it off and turned to leave. "I need to centrifuge this immediately." And she was gone. Then Marion finished removing the IV tube and catheter and all the taped-on electrodes. "If you want to get up and use the bathroom and walk around a little, I'm sure it would be all right. I'll come back in a few minutes and bring you a tray with a nice healthy bowl of broth." The moment she was out the door, Ally turned to Grant. "I want to see Kristen. Now." "I thought the first thing you wanted was to go to the bathroom." "I'll get to that. You said she was downstairs somewhere. How do I get there?" "It's in the security zone," he said. "You're not authorized--" "You're a big shot around here. Winston Bartlett's right-hand flunky. So why don't you authorize me yourself." "Ally, you know I can't do that." "Then take me there." "I don't want to see Kristen anymore," he declared, biting his lip. "She's completely lost . . . everything. I could deal with it until I saw her this morning. It's just too much." "Has he let her mother see her?" "Are you kidding? Letting that psycho anywhere near her is the last thing anybody's going to do." "Then get me in, dammit." "Ally, forget about it." "Why?" He hesitated, as though marshaling his thoughts. "Sis," he said finally, "there're only so many risks I can take for you, and they have to be about something that matters. Forget about Kristen. Nothing can save her now. But I'm offering to help you get out of here before they go any further. I can't be seen helping you, but they've started you down a road that you don't want to go, believe me. I got you into this, but if there's still time, I want to try to help get you out." She didn't know what was going on, but if Grant of all people was freaked about what Karl Van de Vliet had in store for her, then maybe she'd better take it seriously. But she was through relying on him for anything. "Okay, but I want to call somebody to come and get me." "Are you referring to that reporter, by any chance?" he asked. "The guy who drove you here? W.B. hates him." "Yes." She was puzzled that he would know about Stone. "How do you--" "Bartlett has him." "What do you mean?" "He's radioactive now. I actually kicked him out of here myself yesterday. This is not a moment for press freedom. He could screw up everything. W.B. said he's doing a book. No way is that guy going to be allowed human contact with anybody till the sale of Gerex is in the bank. He had a run-in with Bartlett in the city and they took him somewhere. I don't know the location. And I don't want to know." "Oh my God." "He's most likely okay. It's just temporary safekeeping." "All the more reason I'm not leaving till I see Kristen." "There's no way you're going to get into where they're keeping her, Ally." "All right." There was no arguing with him when he was this freaked. "What do you want me to do?" He pulled a plastic card out of his jacket pocket. It was white, with THE GEREX CORPORATION embossed on one side and a magnetic strip on the other. "This is a master key to this place. Because of security, you can't just go out the front, through the lobby. But if you take the elevator down to the first floor of the basement, where the lab is, there's a fire exit there, in the back, that opens onto a path down to the lake. If you'll go out that door and wait right there, I'll come around and get you to the parking lot. I know a way that will miss their surveillance cameras. I'm scheduled to go back to the city now and I'll take you with me." "But if I wanted to see Kristen?" "You'd have to go into the laboratory and then take the elevator that's inside there. Don't even think about it. It's way too risky." She looked at him, trying to gauge his sincerity. Had he become a new man, finally caring about somebody other than himself? Or had a glimpse of whatever had happened to Kristen scared the hell out him and awakened the specter of being part of a felonious enterprise? "Why are you doing this?" "To make up for a few things," he said, turning to leave. With that, he walked out and quietly closed the door. That remains to be seen, she told herself. She went to the bathroom, then put on a bathrobe and headed out into the hallway. The nurse's station was not occupied. Marion was still in the kitchen on the first floor, presumably. Good. She was feeling shaky, not nearly as strong as she'd initially thought she was, but she pressed on, taking the elevator, her first use of Grant's Gerex master key. She bypassed the first floor and an instant later she was stepping into the basement's laboratory area. At the moment it appeared to be entirely deserted, though the fluorescent lights bathed the space in a stark, pitiless light. Down the hall was Dr. Van de Vliet's office and the examining room, where she and her mother had gone when they were being admitted. At this time of night, everything was closed and probably locked. She turned and looked at the forbidding entryway to the glass-enclosed laboratory. Through the transparent walls she could see the dim glow of CRT screens and incubators filled with petri dishes. And there at the back was--could her eyes be trusted?--the outline of an elevator door. She hadn't noticed it until this minute. It seemed to be built with a nod toward camouflage. It could lead to Kristen, she told herself. Find out what Grant is so freaked about. He can wait a couple of minutes. She was starting to feel even weaker, but she pressed on. Next to the heavy steel, high-security air lock leading into the laboratory was a card reader and she swiped the white card through the slot. The air lock opened silent and perfunctory. When she went through, the door behind her automatically closed and then the hermetically sealed door in front of her opened. She was in. Next a bright fluorescent light clicked on, all by itself. "Jesus!" Maybe it was connected to a motion sensor. Or on a timer. Then she looked around. This, she thought, is the place where the Gerex Corporation has supposedly changed medical history. What was created in this very room had if Grant was telling the truth, saved her mother's sanity. And if she could believe the monitors she had looked at in her room, her own heart condition had begun to be reversed after a lifetime of progressive decline. Yet something about it had been pushed too far. Somewhere in the midst of this miracle, the Gerex Corporation had done something so obscene no one could even talk about it. She looked around the laboratory, wishing she could understand what she was seeing. It smelled like solvent, acetone, with a mingling of more pungent fumes. The black slate laboratory workbenches were spotlessly hygienic and equipped with several large microscopes that featured flat-panel screens. She noticed a heavy server computer at the back, presumably networked to all the terminals in the building, and then she remembered that Van de Vliet had once spoken of computer simulations. Someday soon, she told herself, she was going to understand what really was going on here, but for now she headed for the elevator. Another zip of Grant's white card and the door opened. There was indeed a floor below the laboratory, and she pushed the button. The Dorian Institute was all about security, but this subbasement area was doubly secure. After a quick trip down, the elevator door opened onto another air lock chamber, this an exit from the pressurized environment of the laboratory. Why, she wondered, had no one spotted her yet? Perhaps this part of the clinic was such a lockdown that nurses and guards weren't necessary. As she stepped from the air lock, she was in a hallway. She walked down and tried the first unmarked door. It was locked, but then she saw the slot for her card. She slipped it in and the door opened automatically. The room she entered had a row of beds, each shrouded in a curtain. As she walked down the center aisle, she realized that only one of the beds was occupied. And, yes, it was Kristen. She was lying there and when Ally slid back the curtain, her eyes clicked open, startled. "Hi, don't be afraid. I'm a friend." She quietly finished drawing the curtain aside. Now the once-breezy Kristen Starr was staring at her with angry eyes, the false bravado of a frightened child. And she looked much younger than she had in the head shot she'd attached to the walls of her town house with steak knives. She said nothing for a moment; then she mouthed, "Who are you?" "I talked to you on the phone a couple of days ago," Ally said, not sure herself exactly when it was, "when you went down to your place on West Eleventh Street." "I don't know you," she mouthed again, this time with a slight whisper. "My name is Ally Hampton." She moved next to her so she could keep her voice down. "I'm an interior designer. I once did an apartment for you in Chelsea." "I'm about to go on a journey," she whispered. "I don't remember you, but maybe you're the one who's going with me. There was something otherworldly and chilling about her voice. "What journey do you--" "We were going to go away. That's what he promised. Just us two. Well, I'm ready. I want to go out and play. But he doesn't care anymore. He just wants me to disappear. So that's what I'll do. Only we'll do it together, you and me." She reached up from her bed and ran a finger across Ally's face. "Will you take me out of here? He promised me everything, that I could get it all back. But now I know he didn't care. He was just using me." She stopped, then gave a cruel laugh from the back of her throat. "But now it's going to happen to him too. I can tell. That's why he doesn't want to see me anymore. He doesn't want to see what's in store for him." What has happened? Ally wondered. It sounds like some kind of bizarre experiment gone wrong. "Won't you come with me?" Kristen went on. "We'll go to a place nobody has ever been to before. It'll be just us." Her seductive eyes, at once plaintive and demanding, would have lured anyone toward wherever she wanted to go. For a careless moment Ally found herself wanting to follow them. No, this is madness. Or, Ally thought with horror, is she seeing something in me that I can't see? "Kristen, listen to me. Please. I think it's very possible I've just had a stem cell procedure. For my heart. I don't know if it's like what you had, but I want to know what happened to you." "Don't do it," she mumbled, seeming to come back to a kind of reality. "Just get out of here now. After . . . it starts, he gives you shots and things, but nothing works." Ally felt her consciousness start to wobble. She reached out and seized the edge of the bed for support. "Kristen, talk to me." Her eyes went blank again, and Ally could just barely make out what she mumbled next. In fact, all she could catch were random words, words that only drifted through her consciousness and failed to stick or make any sense. It was as though Kristen were in a stance and sleepwalking among the words of some alien language. "Young," Kristen seemed to say. "You want to be . . . to stay. Old is so horrible. Time. You're young and then suddenly you're old and it turns out you can't . . ." Ally heard the words, but they didn't make any sense. "I'm sorry, Kristen. I'm feeling a little dizzy." "It's started," she said, abruptly coherent again and focusing in on Ally. "That's how it began with me. At first they said everything was okay and then it wasn't." "What are you talking about?" "It's happening throughout my body." She sobbed. "I've stopped having periods and I'm getting acne. Everything is . . . changing." The words drifted through space, and Ally felt like she was hallucinating, in a place where time was sliding sideways. The images were all retro, things from her past that floated through her vision in reverse chronological order. That was it. In her mind, time was going backwards. But was it just in her mind? She looked again at Kristen and gasped. Finally, finally she understood the horror of what was really happening. . . . Oh my God. "I got here as soon as I could after they called me," came a voice from the doorway. She turned and saw Karl Van de Vliet, together with the nurse Marion. "You really shouldn't be down here. I don't know who gave you a card. But we've brought a wheelchair. You really should be resting." Marion rolled the chair through the door and expertly plucked the card from the reader. "Now, please sit down," she said. "We all just want to be on the safe side, don't we? I'll need to give you a sedative." Ally looked at Van de Vliet, wanting to strangle him. "No, you're not giving me a damned sedative. I don't want to be on the 'safe side.' I want the truth. And I want it now." Chapter 30 _Thursday, April 9 11:16 P.M. _ "Let's go into the lab to talk," Van de Vliet said. "I'm very sorry I wasn't here when you came out of sedation. But Marion called me at home, as I'd told her to do, and I came in as quickly as I could. I've got a place on the lake, just down the road, so I'm never far away." He was rolling her through the air lock door, Marion behind them. Then they took the elevator up. She was furious that Kristen was being left behind like an abandoned casualty of war. Ally also was reminding herself about her appointment with Grant to get the hell out. But her mind was having trouble holding a lot of thoughts at once. He pushed her wheelchair into the section of the laboratory where a line of computer terminals was stationed. After he'd fluffed a pillow behind her head and turned off some of the glaring fluorescents, he began. "Alexa, this is a delicate time for you. We need to get you upstairs as quickly as possible and feed you some broth and put you back to bed. However, I want very much to give you an update on the status of your treatment. The headline is, it's going very well. We fused some of the telomerase enzyme with your existing stem cells and your response was immediate. In fact, it appears the new heart tissue has reached critical mass and has already begun replicating itself. We've learned to expect the unexpected around here, but your response has significantly exceeded our simulations." He turned to Marion and asked her to go up and make sure Alexa's bedding had been changed. "We'll be up in a second. And please make sure that bowl of broth is ready and waiting." After she departed through the air lock, he walked over to a lab bench and checked the numbers that were scrolling on a CRT screen. "All right," Ally said "talk to me. I just saw Kristen. I'm still not sure if I believe what I think is happening, but I want the real story and I want it now." "That's part of what I need to discuss with you." He glanced away for a long moment, a pained expression on his face, seeming to collect his thoughts. Finally he turned back. "You see, the clinical trials have demonstrated that we can use the telomerase enzyme to 'immortalize' a patient's own stem cells and then rejuvenate their brain or liver or even their heart. So the next question that's hanging out there in space is obvious. What would happen if we could find a way to generalize the enzyme and disperse it throughout someone's entire body, not restricting it to just one organ? And not just rejuvenate-- regenerate." This question had actually passed fleetingly through her consciousness, though not fully articulated. It had taken the form of wondering where the use of these "immortal" cells could eventually lead. "The trick would be to have just enough enzyme in your bloodstream to replace senescent cells as they are about to the, but not so much that healthy cells are replaced." He paused searching for a metaphor. "If we thought of the process of cell senescence as something inexorable and steady, like a treadmill, then what we want to do is run just fast enough to stay in one place." "This whole thing does sound like Alice in Wonderland." "Yes, well . . . if we could do that, then it's possible, just possible, that one's entire body would simply begin regenerating itself instead of aging. Not just your skin. All of you. That's the theory behind what we've called the Beta procedure." "But is that something you ethically ought to be doing?" she said, feeling a sense of dismay, of playing God. "Isn't that going too far?" "Frankly, I'm beginning to agree with you, but there are others who ask, how far is too far? Half the medicines we now have are intended to trick the body's responses somehow--or to meddle in some other way, turning off stop-and- go signals at the cellular level. For example, some birth control pills make your body think you're already pregnant. They trick our natural mechanisms. That kind of thing is commonplace in medicine today. But our research is poised for the next level, to answer the question of how long we can actually live. So here's the argument. There's no reason the human life span has to be what it is. In some unhealthy nations the average citizen doesn't even reach sixty. Whereas in others, like the United States and Japan, the mean is already well past three score and ten. So what is right? What is reasonable? A hundred? Two hundred? It's entirely possible to believe we could live productive lives at least twice as long as we do now." "And you think we should do this? The world would be thrown into chaos." "But look at the incredible cure rate we've already effected here using the telomerase enzyme. When our clinical trials for the NIH are announced, it will be the medical equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Nothing we know will ever be the same again." "That's where you should leave it. To go further is obscene." "I fear recent events may have proved you right. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and experimented with the Beta procedure. And the results thus far have turned out to be disastrous." "I guess you're referring to Kristen." "One day I casually mentioned the Beta to Winston Bartlett and without telling me, he brought it up with Kristen. She insisted on trying it." His expression grew increasingly pained. "I want you to know I was against it. I warned her that it was highly experimental, that I could not guarantee what the side effects might be, but she begged me to do it anyway. Then Bartlett essentially ordered me to do it." "So what happened?" He grimaced. "I got the dosage wrong. That's my best guess. After I performed the Beta on Kristen, the enzyme was stable in her for over two months and appeared to be having an effect. All signs of aging abruptly stopped. It gave me a false sense of confidence. Also, there were no side effects. That was when Bartlett wanted to try it too. So I went ahead with him. But then, to my horror, she started evincing side effects. I now believe the dosage I gave her was badly calibrated. It was too high--by how much I think I've finally determined--and the enzyme eventually began replicating too rapidly. It got away from me." He paused. "What happened to Kristen, we now call the Syndrome, for lack of a better name. And it's about to happen to Bartlett." "But what does all this have to do with me? Why was I brought out here with all kinds of bribes and pressure and--" "Do you want a simple answer? Of excruciating honesty?" "It would be helpful." "The simple answer is, Winston Bartlett has an extremely rare blood type. It's AB. You have the same." "How did you know--" "Your brother. You see, I need to try to develop antibodies to the telomerase enzyme that won't be rejected by his immune system. I think there's an outside chance that I could culture antibodies taken from someone with the same blood type and use them to arrest the rampant multiplying of telomerase enzyme about to begin in Bartlett's blood." "I'm here because you're using me!" She couldn't believe her ears. And Grant had set it up. No wonder he was finally feeling guilty. "I just need to borrow your immune system for a few days. It's very safe." "I don't think so. I'm out of here." "Actually, the procedure is already under way. While Debra was taking your last blood sample, she also injected a minuscule amount of the telomerase enzyme in active form, the proprietary version used in the Beta, into your bloodstream. Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. The dosage was so minute that there's no way it could have any effect on you." "You have got to be kidding!" My God, she thought, I could sue the hell out of-- "Don't worry, think of it like a smallpox vaccination." He paused. "Now, though, I have to tell you that I just learned the initial dosage probably didn't do the trick. The amount of antibodies created was, unfortunately, minuscule. Which means we need to go to a slightly higher infusion. But again, don't worry. It's still safe." "I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said finally, gasping for air in her fury. "You didn't ask--" "Alexa," he cut in, "right now I have something like two weeks left to try to head off the Syndrome in Winston Bartlett. If we achieve that, then I'm hopeful the antibodies he creates can be successfully used to start reversing the Syndrome in Kristen. We will know how to manage the Beta. Who knows where that could lead? But it all begins with you. You're the clean slate we need to start." "Before we go one step further, I want to know what, exactly, happens with the Syndrome. I think I know, but I'd like to hear--" "Something that's too bizarre to believe. It literally defies every natural law we've ever known." He couldn't bring himself to put it in words, she thought, but she knew she'd guessed right the first time. The Syndrome. Kristen Starr was growing younger. That was the horrible development and nobody could deal with it. And they couldn't stop it. Karl Van de Vliet had created a monstrosity. "I am so out of here," she said struggling to rise from the wheelchair. "If you try to keep me here, that's kidnapping. We're talking a capital crime." "Alexa, I understand you're upset, but you're in no condition to be discharged. I'm very sorry." He pushed a red button on a radio device on his belt. There was genuine agony in his eyes. "I've never in my life coerced a patient in any way. But you have to understand that so much is dependent on you now. There are no easy choices left." He's lost control of the situation here now, she told herself. He's truly terrified of Winston Bartlett. That's who's really got control of my fate. Moments later, the security guard from the lobby, accompanied by Marion, came through the door of the laboratory. "No, I'm not going to let you do this," Ally declared. "I'm not letting you do any more medical experiments on me." As she struggled again to get out of the wheelchair, she felt a prick in her arm and saw the glint of a needle in the dim light. "I'm sorry, Alexa. It should all be over in just a couple of days. And I swear no harm will come to you." She was feeling her consciousness swirl as Marion began rolling her through the steel air lock. The last thing she heard was Van de Vliet saying, "Don't worry. A week from now, all this will seem like a dream." Chapter 31 _Friday, April 10 7:04 A.M. _ Stone felt his consciousness returning as the blast of an engine cut through his sedative-induced reverie. Where was he? There were vibrations all around him and a deafening roar that was slowly spiraling upward in frequency and volume. As the haze that engulfed his mind slowly began to dissipate, he wondered if this wasn't more of the fantasy he'd been having, of flying through some kind of multicolored space-time continuum. Or was he waking up to something spectacularly real? As he opened his eyes and looked around, he realized it was no dream. He was in a cramped airline seat, strapped in with a black seat belt. His head was gently secured to a headrest by a soft cotton scarf, but his hands were free, lying in his lap. Somebody had lifted him into the seat and strapped him down. On his left was a Plexiglas window, and when he looked out, he saw the earth beneath him begin falling away. My God. Then he realized he was in a white-and-gray helicopter that had just lifted off from a rooftop helo pad. He watched spellbound quickly coming awake, as the craft quickly began a flight path that circled around and past the lower end of Manhattan. Then he heard the pilot speaking curtly to an air controller somewhere and he looked up and realized it was the same samurai bastard who'd slugged him on the street and then aided in his kidnapping. But that had to be yesterday, or God knows how many days ago. He was realizing he'd just lost a chunk of his life. And now he was being taken somewhere. In a very big hurry. "Being up here always seems like being closer to God" came a voice from behind him. He recognized it with a jolt. It was the man who thought he was God. Shakily he removed the scarf that had been holding his head and turned around. Winston Bartlett was gazing down through his own plastic window, seemingly talking to himself. "What . . . what the hell is going on?" He could barely get the words out. "Oh," Bartlett said turning to look at him. "Good I particularly wanted you to see this. It should help make my point." Stone struggled to comprehend what was happening. He was with the man he had wanted to call Father for nearly four decades, whether he could admit that to himself or not. It could be the beginning of the kind of bonding he had always hungered for, but he didn't want it like this. They finally had a relationship, and it was completely antagonistic. He had just been drugged and kidnapped by his own father, this after being threatened and fired. Again, Daddy dearest. So what was this evolving chapter about? Winston Bartlett, he knew, could be ruthless, but he also was a visionary in his own way. Then he remembered what had happened. He'd been trying to track down Kristen. "Where . . . where are we going?" "We're going to the place you seem to find so interesting," Bartlett declared over the din of the engine. "But I was hoping that we could have a rational discourse along the way. What's been happening thus far doesn't serve either of us. I'm hoping things have cooled down a bit and we can call a truce." Stone was still trying to clear his head, get the cobwebs away. It was difficult. He'd lost consciousness in a town house in the Village, on solid ground, and regained it here, where the earth itself seemed in motion. And now Bartlett was trying out another bargaining style, so even the rules appeared to be in flux. "Look, down there." Bartlett was projecting through the din around them and pointing toward the wide expanse of New York Harbor. "This McDonnell Douglas is my Zendo, my monastery, and the world below is my contemplative garden. I come up here to find peace. This is an intersection of the great forces of nature, one of a finite number on earth, where a mighty river returns to the salt sea from which it came. These waters have flowed in the same cycle for millions, billions of years, mingling, evaporating, separating again--just as life on this planet continually replicates itself, growing and aging and dying, but not before producing the seeds of its replacement. How can something be at once both timeless and constantly changing? I ponder that a lot and I always end up thinking of this river meeting the sea. Down there, nature is a force unto itself, oblivious to good or evil, to human desires or human laws." Bartlett was doing a riff on some obsession of his own, Stone decided. Or maybe it was some of the Zen philosophy that went along with acquiring a world-class collection of samurai swords (if you believed the published profiles). All the same, looking down at the sprawling city and the harbor full of ships, it was hard not to feel omnipotent and humble at the same time. The thing Bartlett seemed to be getting at, though, was that nature could not be told what to do. And he seemed to be on the verge of declaring himself a part of that unbridled natural force, also powerful enough to do whatever he pleased. Now they were heading up the Hudson, teeming with early bird tourist cruises and small single-masted sailboats. Bartlett paused to take in the view with satisfaction. Finally he continued his monologue. "I know we've had our differences, but I'm prepared to try to get past that. I want to talk to you about something I always think of when I fly across this river. Time. I call my obsession Time and the River. Physicists will tell you that time should be thought of as a kind of fourth dimension. Things are always at a certain place in three dimensions, but when you describe the location of a subatomic particle, for example, you also have to say when it was there. To locate it accurately, you need four dimensions. We think of them all as rigid but what if one of them could be made fluid? What if you could alter the character of time?" In spite of himself, Stone took the bait. "I don't know what this has to do with anything. Nobody can alter the pace of time." He found himself recalling a snippet of verse by John Donne: _O how feeble is man's power, That if good fortune fall, Cannot add another hour, Nor a lost hour recall! _ "Strictly speaking, that's true," Bartlett said gravely, turning away again to stare out the Plexiglas window, down into the morning space below them. The Hudson was now a giant ribbon of blue heading north into the mist. "But what if we could alter the clocks in our body to make them run slower?" He smiled then pointed off to his left. "All this below us has happened in a couple of hundred years. What will it look like down there in another hundred years? Will we still need these puny machines to fly, or will there be teleportation? Whatever it is, what would you give to be around to see that? To have your own time slow down while the world around you went on?" Stone was looking out into space, wondering. . . not whether Winston Bartlett was an egomaniacal madman but rather how truly mad he really was. Flying in the helicopter, he felt like Faust being shown the world by Mephistopheles. Except here Satan was his own father, offering him a teasing prospect of what it would be like to live on and on. It would make a hell of a story. The problem was, miracles always came with some kind of terrible price. What was the price this time? Then he had another thought. Was that what had happened to Kristen? Was she paying the price for some kind of hubris that pushed nature too far? Nobody had claimed she had any kind of medical condition that necessitated a stem cell intervention. So had she been experimenting with some other procedure? Had Mephistopheles now called in his marker? He wanted to ask but the vibration and the noise made his brain feel like it was in a blender. "Do you understand what I'm saying?" Bartlett went on. "Do you want to be part of the most exciting development in the history of medicine? Well, this is your chance. There is a majestic experiment under way. But now we know it's not for the fainthearted. The question is, do you want to live life or just write about it?" "I think it's time I heard the whole story," Stone said finally, forcing out the words. "What's your part in this 'experiment'?" "I've put everything at risk, but now I'm this close to controlling the clock. So . . . are you my son? My flesh and blood? Do you have the balls to try it too?" Stone suspected the question was rhetorical. He was already up to his neck in whatever was going on. He just didn't yet know how big a part of it he was. While he'd been sedated overnight, had they started experiments on him? He knew that some of the buzz about stem cells involved the fantasy that someday they might be used to forestall the aging process. Responsible researchers all said that they weren't trying to extend life; they were only hoping to make a normal lifetime more livable. Rejuvenative medicine. Winston Bartlett, however, had just taken stem cell potential to its obvious conclusion; he was talking about doing what others did not dare. Regenerative medicine. "What would we give to be able to look forward to thousands of mornings like this, ending it all only when we chose?" he declared his hands sweeping over the dense green beneath them. "Time would become something that merely flows endlessly through us, ever renewing. So- called old age would cease to exist, at least for those with the courage to take the necessary risks." Now they were moving above the pine forests that comprised the outer ring of the Greater New York suburbs, as below them the green wilds of New Jersey, north of the GW Bridge, were sweeping by. Hmmm, Stone pondered if a man somehow stopped growing older and nobody else did, at some point he'd end up being the same "age " as his grandchildren. That caused him to think again about Amy and wonder if Bartlett would ever reconcile himself to her existence. . . . A few minutes later, he looked down and saw a wide clearing in the trees and a red-tile roof. They had arrived but from the air, the Dorian Institute gave no clue to the momentous research going on inside. Bartlett said nothing as they began their descent, and in moments they were settling onto the rooftop landing pad. The downdraft from the rotor cleared away a few soggy leaves, which had somehow blown there, and then the Japanese pilot cut the power and the sound died away. When Bartlett opened the side door, the first thing Stone noticed was the fresh, forest-scented morning air against his face. He found himself wondering whether the roar of the engine had disturbed the patients, but that was almost beside the point. The Dorian Institute was not, he now realized, merely about using stem cell technology to heal the sick. Bartlett had been letting him know that it was also about an experiment that was much, much more profound. In the silence that followed, Bartlett stepped onto the pad and lit a thin, filtered cigar. (For somebody who'd just been talking about how long it was possible to live, the act confounded credulity.) He took a deep drag, then tossed it onto the paving and peered back through the opening. "Are you able to walk yet?" "I think I can manage," Stone said. He actually wasn't sure at all. The vibrations of the chopper had done serious damage to his sense of equilibrium. But he did find he could take small steps. As they moved to the stairwell leading down to the third-floor elevator, Bartlett said, "I know you've been here once before. You tried to sneak in. Grant saw you and sent you packing. Well, this time you're here for real. The full experience. We're going to start by taking you down to the lab and checking you in." The man, Stone suspected, was trying to hide everything that was going on in his mind. He wanted to talk about grandiose themes, but his mind was really somewhere else. Beneath all the braggadocio, there was the smell of deep, abiding fear. Winston Bartlett was in some kind of major denial. "You know, life has been good to me," Bartlett declared as though thinking out loud. "I've done and seen things most mortals can only dream of. I'm sixty-seven, but I feel as though I've only just begun to live. And that's what I intend to happen." He turned back to Stone. "Whether I have a son to share this with remains to be seen." A son? Stone glanced back at the man Bartlett had called Ken, who was now shutting down the McDonnell Douglas. Maybe he was a surrogate son for Bartlett. He was clearly a lot more than a bodyguard. He'd been the one who nabbed Kristen and returned her to the reservation. So what did he think of whatever was going on? Or what about Ally's brother, Grant? He'd claimed he was the son Bartlett longed for and had never had. Winston Bartlett already had a surfeit of sons. When they walked through the door and into the hallway of the third floor, it was milling with the breakfast crowd, nurses and patients, but no one took any special notice of Winston Bartlett, the man who had made it all possible. Did they even know who he was? Stone wondered. "We're going downstairs." Bartlett directed him toward the elevator. "I'm still offering you a choice. You can be part of the biggest medical advance in human history, or you can be just another impediment." Stone glanced at his watch. The hour was just shy of nine. Where is Ally? What kind of procedure has she undergone? Is she okay? He had to find her. As they headed down, he felt like it was a descent into some pit of no return. Winston Bartlett had not elaborated on what awaited down there. It was as though he couldn't bring himself to face whatever it really was. What was the worst-case scenario at this point? What he had to do was figure that out and then plan a countermove. Chapter 32 _Friday, April 10 7:48 P.M. _ There are sounds of doors opening and closing, with whispered words that are like alien hisses. She senses she is in motion, on a bed that is gliding past powerful overhead lights. She doesn't know where she is, but that doesn't matter, because wherever it was, she knows it surely is a dream. All she remembers is that Karl Van de Vliet had told her he wants her to undergo a second procedure with the telomerase enzyme, which possibly might create sufficient antibodies to reverse . . . It's all a jumble now in her mind. Or had she just dreamed all that? Now her life seems a flowing river that has no beginning and no end. Her mind is drifting, a cork bobbing helplessly in the current. Then her brother, Grant, drifts alongside her. At least she thinks it's Grant. She recognizes his voice. "Ally, can you hear me?" he seems to be asking. "Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you still want to go through with this?" It's the kind of dream where she can hear things around her, but when she tries to speak, no sounds will come. Instead, she's talking inside her head. I'm afraid. I'm just afraid. "I can still try to get you out, but you have to help. I waited for you last night but you never came." She wants to say, yes, get me out, but she can only speak in the dream. Now the lighting changes and she feels like she is falling. No, she realizes, she's just on an elevator. "Talk to me, Ally," whispers the voice one last time. "I can try to stop them, but I have to know what you want." Then a door opens and she floats through it and out. Then comes the clanking of a door that reminds her of the steel air lock she'd gone through last night looking for Kristen. The smells. She's in the laboratory. "We can take her from here," comes a voice, drifting through her reverie. She fantasizes it's Karl Van de Vliet. Or maybe he really is there. In her dream state it's hard to know. But he isn't alone. "You said you'd make one more attempt to create the antibodies. Is . . . " It's Winston Bartlett. Or at least it sounds like him. "I said I would do all I could, W.B. The first attempt . . . you know what happened. I got almost no results, but I gave you an injection of all I managed to garner. Today I spent the day doing simulations. We're working closer to the edge than I thought. That's why I needed her down at the lab tonight. I want to run some more tests and then try to make a decision. Tonight. There's just a hell of a lot more risk than I first thought." The voice trails off and Ally finds herself trying to comprehend "risk." She hears "beta" again and it floats through her mind, but now its meaning is unclear. It's something she'd heard but can no longer place. "Ally," comes a ghostly voice. Surely this is a dream, and she recognizes it as her father, Arthur. Now she can see him. He's wearing a white cap and they're boating in Central Park. He shows up in her dreams a lot and she feels he's the messenger of her unconscious, telling her truths that she sometimes doesn't want to hear. "Ally," he says, "he's going to perform the full Beta procedure on you. He didn't tell you, but you know it's true. He thinks he's finally calculated everything right. Can't you see? Is that what you want?" She isn't sure what she wants. And right now she isn't entirely clear where she fits on the scale of sleeping/waking. It is so bizarre. The two parts of her mind, the conscious and the unconscious, are talking to each other. Her unconscious is warning her about fears she didn't even know she had. Or at least she hadn't admitted to yet. Then she hears Winston Bartlett's voice again. "Karl, we can't save Kristen now. I've finally realized that. She's gone too far. It's just a tragedy we'll have to figure out how to live with." "The body is a complex chemical laboratory that sometimes gets out of balance. There's always hope. I think--" "Know what I fucking think?" Bartlett cuts him off. "I think I'm in line for the Syndrome if you don't get this right." What Ally wants to do, more than anything else, is to make sense of what her options are. The most obvious one-- in fact, maybe the only one--is to flow along with that infinite river she feels around her, just to lie where she is, in this sedative-induced reverie, and let her body be taken over by Karl Van de Vliet. Perhaps he has marvelous things in store for her. Except she has no idea what's real and what is imaginary. "The simulations are giving me some idea of what went wrong with the Beta before." The voice is Van de Vliet's. "I have one more test to run, but if I handled this the way the simulation now suggests, I think I could actually generate the telomerase antibodies we need and get the Beta to finally work, avoiding the Syndrome. But to prove it would require a full-scale experiment. I'm reluctant to do that without Alexa's permission." "Christ, Karl, are you getting cold feet? This is a hell of a time for that." "Call it a pang of rationality." "But everything is at stake." "I don't know what's eventually going to happen with the Syndrome, but it's criminal to jeopardize any more lives." Van de Vliet sighs. "Look, you had the procedure of your own free will, and you knew the risks. Alexa Hampton didn't volunteer for the Beta. She's not a lab rat. At the very least, we ought to get her to sign a release. The liability is. . . In any case, I'm not doing anything till I run this last test. Then maybe I'll have some idea exactly how much risk is involved." "And then, by God we're going to do it. Tonight. This is it." She feels a cold metal object insinuate itself against her chest. Time rushes around her, sending her forward on a journey that seems increasingly inevitable. Where it's taking her, she has no idea, but she senses she no longer has an option of whether she wants to go or not. Now her dreamscape has become crowded as Grant drifts in once more. He seems to be wearing a white lab coat like the others. He settles beside her and takes her hand "Ally, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be here for you." Grant, why are you here? Do you really give a damn about me? She wants to talk to him, but the words aren't working. Why is this happening? Don't let them give you more medications, she tells herself. Get your mind back and get out of here. Chapter 33 _Friday, April 10 8:45 P.M. _ Ellen O'Hara had not left after the day shift ended at six P.M. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night. The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman. Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa Hampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs. May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she'd met once when they were on a public-health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel. Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton. Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem- cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She'd begun responding in a matter of hours. She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement? Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason. She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight. The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it. She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound like an indictment. Still, she was damned well determined to do it. If nothing else, it would provide a diversion. She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area. "Everything all right, Grace?" she asked the nurse at the desk. "My, you're working late," came the pleasant reply. "Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it'll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over." "Right." But they're not over, Ellen thought. And there may _not _be a celebration. "I'm going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?" "I think he's in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something's scheduled for later on. I don't know. Everybody looks kind of worried." "Well, nobody has said anything to me." They don't need to, she thought. I saw the file. She swiped her card through the security slot and got onto the elevator. When she stepped off, the laboratory was dark and a light was showing under Dr. Van de Vliet's office door. Good. She swiped her card in the reader next to the laboratory air lock and went in. Another swipe and she was on the elevator down to the subbasement, where she was not authorized to be. She went to the second door and slipped her card through the slot, wondering what she would see. The room was dark and smelled of alcohol and disinfectant. She quickly closed the door behind her before turning on the overhead fluorescents. Alexa Hampton was secured to the bed with restraints, and she appeared to be sedated, though she did slowly open her eyes as the light flickered and then stabilized. There was a wheelchair in the corner. "Ms. Hampton, can you hear me?" she whispered, hoping not to alarm her. "Do you remember me? I was the one who helped you when you were first admitted." She watched as Alexa stared at her for a moment and then quietly nodded. "I . . . I want to get out of here." Her eyelids fluttered and then she closed her eyes again. "But I'm too weak. I can't move." "You're strapped down, love. Let me help you." She reached for the Velcro straps and then paused. Was this a decision she wanted to make? If I do this, it's the end of my career here. Have I lost my mind? What will I do after this? But if I don't try to stop them, God knows what . . . we could all end up convicted of criminal conspiracy and in prison. "That reporter friend of yours is here." She pulled open the straps, then helped Alexa sit up in the bed and swing her legs around. "I'm going to take you to him." "It's so horrible," Ally went on. She was settling into the wheelchair as though she expected it. Then she looked up, her eyes dazed. "Where are you taking me? 'Reporter'? Do you mean--" "Like I said I'm moving you into your friend's room." She rolled her to the door, then stopped and cracked it and peeked out. "Don't say a word dear," she whispered as she began pushing Alexa down the hall. There was a pale flickering light under the door at the end. "Debra and David and the others have all gone out to the diner down the road and Dr. Vee is in his office, probably running some last-minute computer simulations. But we need to be quiet." The fluorescent lights seemed to swirl overhead. This all feels so familiar, Ally thought. This is where I saw Kristen. Does Ellen know what happened to her? "You two have to decide what you want to do." "Stone? You're sure he's here?" "Yes," she said "and he's in some kind of battle of wills with Mr. Bartlett." When they reached the door at the end she tried it and it was locked. She pulled out her magnetic card and zipped it through the slot. As they went through, Ally realized the room was lit only by the glow of a laptop computer screen. "Stay here," Ellen said turning to leave. "I'm going to try to talk to Dr. Vee." As the door closed Stone finally looked up. He was wearing a sweater and jeans and had been typing furiously on a Gerex laptop. "Hey, how're you feeling?" He paused to glance down and save what he'd been writing, then clicked off the computer. "I have no idea." Something about him didn't seem quite right. It was like he was on happy pills or something. "How about you? The last time I saw you, I was passing out." "I don't actually remember all that much of what happened after that. I think I went back to the city. But I feel great now. Like I went through a dark tunnel and came out the other side. I feel very different. I don't know what's next, but right now I'm just happy to be in the middle of the biggest story in the history of medical science." What's going on with him? she wondered. He's spacey. He has to be on some kind of drug. What have they done to him? He closed the laptop, then reached and clicked on a light by the bed. "Come on. Want to see something incredible? It's a marvel of medical science, never before happened." "What--" "Come with me. I guarantee you've never seen anything like it." He tossed the laptop onto the bed, then swung his feet around and settled them onto the floor. She noticed that the room was a pale blue, with white linoleum. There was a pair of white slippers next to the bed. He slipped them on and then opened the door and grabbed her wheelchair. The hallway felt colder now, yet it was also stifling, as though someone had drawn the air out of it. "There's nothing we can do," Stone said. There was a hint of madness in his voice. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that he was still sane, and it wasn't working. He was just barely holding it together. Then she realized he was about to go into intensive care, where Kristen had been. "So Kristen's still here?" "Oh, you'd better believe it," he said. "She is most definitely still here." When they got to the door, he revolved back. "Ally, you really don't have to see this, you know. Not if you'd rather . . . Nothing remotely like this is going to happen to you. They assured me." What the hell is he talking about? "On the other hand," he went on, "maybe you should see it. Maybe everybody in the world should see it. It's so astonishing." He pushed open the door and rolled her in. Then he reached down and lifted her to her feet. Standing wasn't that hard, and somehow he had known that. The room seemed to be captured in mist, though surely that was her imagination. Everything must be her imagination. Kristen was in the corner of the room, in a wheelchair, but now her body was shriveled. No, shriveled was not the right word. In fact, there might not be a word to describe the change. Her skin was smooth and flawless. She didn't look like this the last time Ally saw her and now she wondered how long ago that actually was. How many hours, or days? The bones were the same as always; in her cheeks the underlying structure was sharp and severe and elegant. But there wasn't enough flesh on them. They were reminiscent of what happens at puberty, when the body starts changing in ways that aren't well coordinated. That was it. Kristen had become a child--it was in her innocent eyes-- except that her body was now the flesh of a child over the bone structure of an adult. It scarcely seemed like the same person from the last time. She had crossed some mystical divide. She was holding a large rag doll--where did she get that? Ally wondered--and humming the tune of the ditty that ended with "_Now I know my ABC's. Tell me what you think of me_." "She can't talk," Stone was saying. "I mean, actually communicate. Or at least she doesn't seem to want to. I've already tried. But isn't what's happened incredible? There's never been anything like this in history. The replacement cells are making her body newer and newer, so she's getting younger and younger." Ally walked over, slowly, and tried to take her hand. She was grasping the doll and she violently pulled back. "Hey," she said, trying to muster a matter-of-fact air, "how's it going? Do you remember me?" "I don't think she recognizes you," Stone said in a stage whisper. "I wish I knew more about the biology of the brain, but I think there's some kind of aggressive replacement of memory synapses under way. I think it's one of those LIFO things. Last in/first out. She's regressing chronologically, but in reverse. Maybe she's lost use of language, the way Alzheimer's patients do. I don't know." Ally felt herself near to tears. "Van de Vliet was going to use antibodies from me to try to . . . something." "That was always a long shot," he said. "But now the preliminary tests he's just done on you indicate that the level of enzyme in you can be controlled very accurately. He's very excited." She turned back to him. "How do you know all this?" "I've become part of the story, Ally. That's not supposed to happen, but this is the only way to get it all firsthand. I have to live it. And guess what, I now know enough to write the book I've been waiting all my life to write. I have the punch line." "Which is?" "Stem cell technology goes to the very origin of life, and it may turn out that for once Mother Nature can be fooled. Dr. Vee's venturing into areas now where even he doesn't know what's going on. Ally, what's happening in this room is the biggest medical story since . . . Nothing begins to compare." Stone had lost it. There was true madness about him now. She walked back over to Kristen and leaned over and kissed her. Kristen stared at her in unfocused confusion, but then she smiled. "I'm alone in here. Will you take me outside? I want to find my mother." The voice was that of a five-year-old and it sent a chill through Alexa. The "grown-up" memory cells in her brain had been replaced by blanks. It was "last in/first out" and thirty-plus years of life experience were being replaced with brand-new nothingness. The Syndrome. Time had to move in one direction or the other. The body either went forward or in reverse. There was no equilibrium. Then she had a further thought. Winston Bartlett was not going to let this Beta disaster run to its natural conclusion-- a horrifying exposure to the world. He was going to intervene. Kristen was not about to leave this room in her current condition. Either she left cured--which seemed wholly implausible at this point--or she departed in a manner that left no trace. Then yet another thought crossed her befuddled mind. She and Stone knew about Kristen. What does that mean for us? "Stone, we can't leave her here." "What are you proposing we do?" he queried. "Take her to an ER somewhere? Frankly, I don't know how you would describe her problem to an emergency room admissions staffer." "I'll think of something." "By the way, Ally, so you should know, she's wearing diapers. This is the real deal." "And how do you figure in all this?" "I told you. I'm going to be the James Boswell of stem cell technology. I'm going to report on this miracle from the inside. But now, Ally, if the Beta procedure is going to succeed you have to be the one to make it happen." She looked at him, still stunned by the wildness in his eyes. And she had a feeling like her heart was being wrenched out. "You're working with them, aren't you?" She was fuming with anger. She no longer knew who could be trusted. He'd taken leave of his senses. Or had his senses been taken from him? Which was it? "I'm thinking about you. And hopefully about us. You're being offered something you'd be a fool to turn down. That's all I have to say." He took her hand and helped her back into the wheelchair. Then he whispered, "Let's get out of here." He quickly opened the door and rolled her out into the empty hall. When he closed the door behind them, he whispered again. "Didn't you see the surveillance camera and microphone in there? There's one in the room where they had me locked up. They just put them in." "To watch Kristen?" "And me. I heard Bartlett and Van de Vliet talking. If any of this Beta screw-up with her gets out of this building, Bartlett's conglomerate is toast." He bent over near to her and continued whispering. "Listen, we don't have much time. They've got your procedure scheduled for later on tonight. I'm still somewhat of a zombie from something they gave me, but maybe I can help get you out of here. Let me tell you what I've found out so far. Van de Vliet gave you a low-dosage version of the Beta procedure, in hopes he could harvest telomerase antibodies and use them on Bartlett. But there was only a trace. He did inject those into Bartlett, but he doesn't think it's enough to have any effect. So now Bartlett is demanding he give you a massive dose of telomerase. Van de Vliet is freaked about the risks, but Bartlett thinks it's his only chance to head off having what happened to Kristen happen to him too. However, what Bartlett doesn't know is that Van de Vliet has just finished a new computer simulation and he thinks he's finally figured out how to do a successful Beta procedure. For him, that's the Holy Grail." "How do you know all this?" "I heard him talking to his assistant Debra. I was supposed to be sedated. The reason he wants to perform it on you is because he now has so much data on you, as a result of the first procedure. He thinks he's got a real shot at redemption. Ally, if he's calculated wrong, you could end up like Kristen." "What about you?" she asked. "You should get out too." "I should, but . . . Look, I've been trying to get in here for a long time. Now I'm finally in. You could say I'm under duress, but I'm here and this is where it's happening. If I get out alive, I have a hell of a story." Is he thinking clearly? she wondered. He seems to be drifting in and out of a mental cloud. What is wrong with him? "Stone, there's an emergency door on the first level of the basement. If we can get up there, we might be able to escape. And while we're doing it, you might want to seriously reconsider staying in this place. We've both seen Kristen. What makes you think they're planning on either of us ever living to tell that tale?" "I'm having some trouble thinking just now." He was helping her out of the wheelchair. "But I do know you've got to disappear. Whatever plans they have for me remain to be seen, but I know exactly what's in store for you. So come on and try to walk. We can't use the elevator, but there's a fire door at the other end of the hall, which leads up to the lab floor." It's probably alarmed, she thought. Then what do we do? Walking was easier than she'd expected. The strength was rapidly coming back in her legs. But more than that, there was no sense of tightness in her chest as she might have expected. She was always aware of traces of stenosis, but now she felt nothing. Maybe there were miracles. The hallway was dimly lit, and she wondered, Is a surveillance camera tracking our every move? "Shit," Stone announced when they reached the fire door, "it's alarmed." That's exactly what I was afraid of, she thought. "Any chance they're bluffing?" "Don't think so." He pointed. "That little red diode says it's hot." God, she thought we've got to get out of here. "Maybe we could just make a dash for it?" He looked at her and shook his head. "Like you're in shape to dash? No, what's called for is stealth." He was pulling out his wallet. "The thing about these card readers, some of them, like those that get you into bank ATMs, sometimes will open for other cards. I've got four kinds of plastic. Might as well give them a try." "Well, just hurry." She leaned against the wall. "I'm starting to get weak." He slipped his Visa through and nothing happened. He immediately tried MasterCard. Again nothing. "Maybe I should try my all-purpose bankcard." He slipped a Chase plastic through, but once more nothing happened. "This isn't working, Stone." She sighed, feeling her legs weaken as she clasped the wall. "I think we're going to have to chance the elevator." "Don't give up yet." He took out his American Express, kissed it and swiped it through. "One last shot." The red diode blinked off. "Never leave home without it," she whispered. "We will now proceed very, very quietly." He carefully pushed open the door, inches at a time. The stair had metal steps and was lit by a single fluorescent bulb. As he helped her up, Ally was wondering if there was any way to extract her mother too. She couldn't imagine how she could do it and besides, Nina might well refuse to go. No, just get out and make Stone understand that no way was Winston Bartlett going to let him go free to tell the story of Kristen. He clearly wasn't thinking with all cylinders. Stone Aimes was about to disappear, just like Kristen had. The entry to the laboratory level was also alarmed, but American Express once again saved the day. When they pushed open the door, however, the lights were on in the office at the far end of the hallway. Where's that door that Grant was going to use to get me out? she wondered. Then she saw a door marked EXIT next to Van de Vliet's office. Shit, it's all the way at the opposite end of the hall. "Stone, we have to get to that door before anybody sees us. I don't know if it's alarmed or not, but that's the ball game." She reached for his hand. "If we can get there and get out, please come with me. We can make it to the highway. You can't stay here." "Let's get you out. Then we'll talk." "I'll drag you if I have to." As they moved quietly along the wall, they could hear an argument under way. She recognized the voices as Ellen 'Hara's and Karl Van de Vliet's. "I won't allow my staff to be part of this," Ellen was declaring. "I've seen Kristen. Any form of the Beta is dangerous. If you do anything involving that procedure again, you'll put everybody here at risk." "Don't you think I've thought about that, agonized about it? We have one chance to turn all this around. This is it." "I don't want to be involved and I don't want any of my people involved do you hear me?" "Then keep them upstairs." He was striding out of his office, flipping on the lights in the hallway. "Oh shit," Ally whispered. She opened a door and pulled Stone into the examining room, where her mother had first been admitted. Just as she did she heard the ding of the elevator and caught a glimpse of Debra and David Van de Vliet's senior researchers, getting off. When she closed the door, the room should have been pitch black. But it wasn't. A candle was burning on a counter and there was a figure at the far end of the room. He was sitting on the examining table, in the lotus position, his eyes closed. "Are you ready?" Kenji Noda asked. "I think just about everyone is here now." Oh my God, Ally thought. What are we going to do? She watched helplessly as he reached over and touched a button on the desk. A red light popped on above the door. A moment later, it opened. "What are you doing here?" Debra asked, staring at them. "Getting some exercise," Stone said. Then Winston Bartlett appeared in the doorway behind her. "How did they get up here?" "Ally, I'm not going to let them do this to you," Stone declared, seizing her hand. "We're going to--" "Ken, please get him out of here," Bartlett said. 'Take him back downstairs, anywhere." "You shouldn't be out of your wheelchair," Debra was saying. She turned to Ellen. "Would you get--" "I'm not getting you anything," Ellen O'Hara declared. "I've just submitted my resignation. Effective three minutes ago. I don't know a thing about what's going on here and, from now on, I don't want to know." She got on the elevator and the door closed. "Ken," Bartlett said, "first things first. Go after that woman. Don't let her leave the building." Now Debra was rolling in a wheelchair. David had appeared also, deep disquiet in his eyes, and he helped her in. "There's very little risk to this," he said. "Believe me." She felt him giving her an injection in her left arm. No, don't . . . As the room started to spin, she reached out and grabbed Stone's arm and pulled him down to her. "Downstairs," she whispered. "Look around. There's--" She didn't get to finish because Debra was whisking her out the door and toward the laboratory. Stone had just grinned confusedly, seemingly not paying any attention to what she was saying. Instead he ambled toward the open stair door and disappeared. At this point, however, no one appeared to notice or to care. They were rolling her through the steel air lock. On the other side, Winston Bartlett was already waiting, standing next to a gurney with straps. No! Chapter 34 _Friday, April 10 9:34 P.M. _ She was still conscious as David and Debra lifted her onto the gurney. There was no operating table in the laboratory, but this procedure did not require one. It consisted of a series of small subcutaneous injections along both sides of the spine, followed by a larger injection at the base of the skull. As the injections began, she drifted into a mind-set where she was never entirely sure how much was real, how much was fantasy, how much deliberate, how much accidental. She remembered that she felt her grasp of reality slipping away, but there was no sense of pain. Instead, images and sensations in a sequence that corresponded to the passage of time drifted through her mind. It was couched in terms of the people she knew. The first image was her mother, Nina, and they were together, struggling through a dense forest Initially, she thought they were looking for her father's grave, but then it became clear they were searching for some kind of magic potion that would save her mother's life. As they clawed their way through tangled tendrils and dark arbors, she became increasingly convinced their quest was doomed, that she was destined to watch Nina pass into oblivion. But then something happened. The forest opened out onto a vast meadow bathed in sunshine. In the center was a cluster of snow-white mushrooms, and she knew instinctively that these would bring eternal life to anyone who ate them. "Come," she said to Nina, "these can save you." "Ally, I'm too old now. I don't want to be saved. There comes a moment in your life when you've done everything you feel you needed to do. You've had the good times and now all that's left is the slow deterioration of what's left of your body. It robs the joy out of living." "No, Mom, this is different," she said plucking one of the white mushrooms and holding it out. "This prevents you from growing any older. You'll stay just the way you are. You can have a miracle." "'To never escape this vale of tears? To watch everyone you love grow old and wither and die? Is that the 'miracle' you want me to have?" Then she looked up at the flawless blue sky and held out her arms as though to embrace the sun. "My mind Ally. You've given me back my mind. Now I can live out whatever more life God will see fit to give me and actually know who I am and where I am. That's miracle enough for me." As she said it, a beam of white light came directly from the sun and enveloped her. Then the meadow around them faded away and all she could see was Karl Van de Vliet, who was bending over her and lifting back her eyelids. "Alexa, I can't tell you what you're about to feel, because no one has ever been where you're about to be. God help us, but we're on the high wire without a net here. But any new cell configurations should immediately form tissue that's a facsimile of what's already there. That's what the simulations show." She was listening to him, not sure if he was real or a dream. Then she heard Bartlett's voice. "Why are you talking to her, Karl? She can't hear you." "We don't actually know whether she can or not. At some level I think she's aware of her surroundings. In a way we should hope that she is. If there are going to be impacts on her consciousness, I'd rather she be alert and able to remember what it was like." Then the voices drifted away, but she was sure she had no control over anything. The white mushrooms. She was thinking about them again. Only now they were above her and growing toward the sky and then she realized she was underground, buried and looking up from her own grave. What happened next was a journey through time--somewhere in the far- distant future. She seemed to be watching it through a large window, unable to interact with what was happening on the other side. Time. She felt a sensation at the back of her neck and the images faded away. "This damned well better be right" came a voice. "There's not going to be another chance." "I did an activity simulation for a range of antibodies, just to make sure she wouldn't automatically reject the enzyme because of the earlier injection." The voice belonged to Karl Van de Vliet Her mind was clearing and she recognized it "But all the results indicate that the effect of the antibodies is essentially washed out at this concentration of active enzyme. Have the good grace to let me try to get this right." She was listening and trying to understand what was going on. Her mind had been drifting through time and space, but now she was aware that something new was happening. The hallucinations, the conversations around her, all were beginning to focus in, to build in intensity. But that was not what was really happening; it was merely a mask over something that had entered the laboratory, some kind of force. Then her vision began to work in a strange way that felt more like a sixth sense. She was "seeing" what was going on in the room, even though her eyes were shut. Or perhaps they weren't. She didn't know and she was still strapped to the gurney, so she had no way to check. "Kristy," Winston Bartlett said dismay in his voice, "you shouldn't be in here. You should be resting." "What the hell are you doing down here?" Van de Vliet demanded. The pitch of his voice had noticeably gone up. Who? Ally wondered. Who's he talking to? There are definitely new people in the room. "Come on, Ally," said a voice in her ear, urgent. This time she knew who it was. It was Stone. "Damn them all. I'm getting you out of here. Now." Chapter 35 _Friday, April 10 10:07 P.M. _ She felt the straps on the gurney loosening and then she started prying her eyes open. She thought, hoped, it was Stone, but she couldn't see well enough to be absolutely sure. Her mind and her vision were still overflowing with horrifying nightmares of time gone awry. What did all those bizarre dreams mean? She was groggy but was coming alert. Perhaps it was the sense of electricity in the room, but something very unscheduled was going on. When she finally got her eyes open and focused, what greeted her was a blinding row of white lights directly overhead that seemed to isolate her. But there was tumult all around her in the lab, a cacophony of alarmed voices echoing off the hard surfaces of glass and steel. She squinted into the light as she felt Stone slip his arm around her shoulders and raise her up. Thank God, he's here, she thought. "Come on," he was saying. "She's not interested in you. She just wants Kristen out of here. This is the only way." "Who . . . ?" She was startled by the sound of her own voice, mildly surprised to discover she was even capable of speech. She gazed around, trying to find her when . . . Jesus! Katherine Starr was standing next to Kristen. She was moving in a surreal way, gripping Kristen's hand and pulling her along. Stone had found her. He had understood. Katherine Starr appeared to be wearing a blue bathrobe under a gray mackintosh, but the part that got Ally's attention was the knife she was holding, glistening like a scalpel. No, it _was _a scalpel, shiny and sharp as a razor. Tough luck, guys. No pistol this time, but she still managed to come up with a convincing substitute. She didn't look any saner than she did the last time. Now, though, she finally had what she'd come for. She had her daughter. Could it be that Kristen was about to be liberated? Had the world come full circle? "No." The voice belonged to Winston Bartlett. "I want her with me." "You 're the prick responsible for this." Katherine whirled on him, brandishing the scalpel. "Mrs. Starr," Van de Vliet interjected, eyeing the sharp metal, "you can't take Kristen away now. She's at a very delicate stage of her procedure." "I seem to be doing a lot of things I can't," she declared turning back. "I'm not supposed to be out of my room, but I am. And now I'm getting us both out of here. We're going through that air lock and onto the elevator. So whose throat do I need to cut to do it?" Winston Bartlett was edging away, and his eyes betrayed he was more concerned than he wished to appear. "Look at her," Katherine Starr continued shoving Kristen-- who was completely disoriented her eyes blinking in confusion--in front of Van de Vliet. "She doesn't know me; she doesn't know anything. She's acting like a baby. What in hell have you done to her?" "She had the procedure she wanted. At the time I warned there might be side effects we couldn't anticipate." "She's lost her mind. That's what you call a _side effect_?" All this time Kristen was just standing and staring blankly into space, but there were growing storm clouds welling in her eyes. It caused Ally to wonder what was really going on with her. Had this troubled girl been made permanently childlike, or was there a split personality at work? Did she have a new mind now, or a parallel mind? "We're still trying to stabilize her condition," Van de Vliet said in a soothing tone. "We just need a little more time." That was when Kristen wrenched free of her mother's grasp. Her eyes had just gone critical, traveling into pure madness. She strode over and seized a glass jar containing a clear solvent. "I want them all to die," she said in a little girl's voice. "They're going to kill me if I don't kill them first." Now Katherine Starr had turned and was staring at her. "Kristy, honey, put the bottle down. I'm going to take you home. I don't know what he's done to you, but I'm not going to let you stay here anymore. You're coming with me." This is not going to end well, Ally thought. She began struggling to her feet, trying to clear her mind enough for an exit strategy. Nina was upstairs, or at least that was where she had been. Okay, the first order of business is to get her out. Stone could probably manage on his own . . . Now Kristen was walking over to an electric heater positioned on a lab workbench. She switched it on and the tungsten elements immediately began to glow. Then, still holding the bottle, she turned back to Van de Vliet. "I see things that I never saw before. My mind has powers it never had till now." He nodded knowingly. "I always suspected that--" "I'm able to think just like I did when I was little," she continued, cutting him off. "Sometimes I'm there, in that world. Then sometimes I flip back. But I can always tell when grown-ups are lying to me. What did you do to my mind?" "Kristen," Van de Vliet said "the brain has many functions that we still only barely understand. With the Beta procedure, we don't really know what activates general cell replacement or what the nature of the replacement tissue actually is. We're just at the beginning of a marvelous--" "I'm seeing a future in which nothing exists," she muttered despairingly, still holding the glass bottle of solvent. "I don't want to be a part of it." Van de Vliet was staring at her, his eyes flooded with alarm. "What . . . what are you seeing, Kristen?" "I'm seeing you dead." She glared around "All of you." Then, with an animal scream, she whirled and flung the glass liter bottle at the electric heater on the laboratory workbench. It crashed into the shiny steel case with a splintering sound followed by an explosion that sent a ball of fire and a shock wave through the room. In an instant the entire end of the lab was engulfed in a sea of flame. Ally sensed herself being knocked to the floor, but she also felt a surge of adrenaline. This was endgame, the moment when everybody found out who they were. A hand was gripping her like a vise. It was Stone's, but the blast had knocked him to the floor too and he was now motionless, slumped against the side of a laboratory bench. It was like she was being held in a death grip. Was she going to have to carry him out? She wasn't even sure she had the strength in her legs to get herself out. Now something even more horrible was slowly beginning to happen. The central part of the lab had several sets of steel shelving arranged in rows, and each supported a carefully organized arrangement of sample vials filled with some kind of organic solvent. She saw with horror that the first towering set of shelves, easily seven feet high, was slowly tipping from the force of the blast. It teetered for an instant and then fell into the set of shelves next to it with all the ponderous majesty of a giant sequoia. What happened next sounded like the end of the world. As the first set of shelves crashed against the second, like a row of massive steel-and- glass dominoes, each subsequent tower tipped and fell against the next, and on and on. All the while, as the tumbling racks were spewing flammable solvents across the smoky lab space, they were ripping out electrical wiring and sending sparks flying. The whole danger-dynamic of the room had been turned upside down. Katherine Starr and Debra and David now lay pinned beneath a tangled mass of angle-iron supports that had collapsed in the wake of the falling shelves. All three appeared to be unconscious. Winston Bartlett was at the far end of the room. He'd been slammed against the wall by the force of the explosion but was pulling himself up. He seemed to be unhurt, though it was hard to see through the billowing smoke. Karl Van de Vliet was standing in the middle of the laboratory, his eyes glazed, flames and smoke swirling about him. What does this mean to him? Ally wondered. Years of research data being obliterated in an instant. But the horror wasn't over. The fire was depleting the hermetically sealed room's oxygen. Ally sensed that anybody who didn't get out of the lab in the next five minutes wasn't going to be going anywhere standing up. But what was happening with Kristen? She was walking through the flames as though on a country stroll. It was like the fires of hell were all around her and she was ambling through them unscathed. She must be experiencing third-degree burns, Ally thought, yet there's a sense that nothing can harm her. How could it be? And then an astonishing possibility began to dawn on her. With the stem cell enzymes working at full blast, was it possible her body was immediately replacing its damaged cells? Could it be that the telomerase enzyme didn't know the difference between a cell that had aged and one that had been damaged by its environment? "Jesus," Stone said, finally stirring, "what's--" At that moment the overhead lights flickered and died and the emergency lights clicked on, sending battery-powered beams through the smoke. "Christ, Ally," he declared gazing around still dazed as his consciousness seemed to be slowly returning. "We've got to get people out of here." There didn't appear to be a sprinkler system. Probably, she thought, because an onslaught of water would wipe out all the computers. Now she was thinking about the automatic air locks. How did those steel-and-glass doors work without electricity? Did they have a battery backup, or some kind of fail-safe mechanism, which provided a manual override in case of a power outage? Now Winston Bartlett was striding toward the center of the room. From the dazed look in his eyes, it wasn't clear whether he knew where he was or not. Kristen was walking toward him, on a collision course. "You let this happen," she said "You wanted to ruin my life." "Kristy, nobody made you do anything," he said choking from the smoke. "But now we've got to--" "It's too late," she declared lashing out with the side of her hand against his neck. He staggered back, flailing, and seized an iron girder. There was a blast of voltage, a shower of sparks, and he screamed as he crumpled sideways. Then the force of his fall broke his hand loose from the electrical short. He lay prostrate on the smoky floor of the lab, twitching. My God, Ally thought, she really is determined to kill us all before she's through. "Kristen," Van de Vliet was saying, "please. There's still time. I'm going to do everything I can for you." He was gasping for air and now more vials of flammable liquid were exploding from the heat and igniting. He turned and stumbled toward the air lock. There were sounds of yelling on the other side. The people outside can't get through, Ally realized. The security lock has no override. We 're going to die. Van de Vliet pounded on the button controls of the air lock, but there was no response. Smoke was billowing around him and he choked, coughing and dropping to one knee. Then Kristen walked up behind him. She appeared not to notice the flames and smoke swirling around her. "This is where you get what's coming, you bastard. I warned you you'd better do something for me. But you never really intended to help me. I was just an experiment. That's all I ever was. For both of you. You fuckers." And she lashed out with a powerful fist, sending him to the floor. Outside there was now the wail of a siren, the sound faintly filtering through. And the pounding on the other side of the air lock continued, though now it had the force of authority. At last, Ally thought, somebody finally got serious and called the fire department. Now Kristen had bent over the prostrate Van de Vliet and was doing something, though Ally couldn't tell what. "Keep your face close to the floor," Stone was yelling. "It's where the last of the air is. Hang on. We'll be okay." She had a premonition they were not going to be okay. They all were going to suffocate. All, that was, except Kristen. She seemed to possess some magic immunity from the horrors around her. She had risen and was standing over Van de Vliet like a statue, while everybody else was on the floor. As Ally watched her--a serene figure in the middle of chaos and death-- she began to have an odd sensation. The burning in her lungs, from the smoke, started to dissipate. And strength felt like it was pouring into her limbs. The tongues of flame around her had become dancing white figures that invited her to rise and join them. She did, slowly, not quite knowing what she was doing. Then she walked to the jammed air lock. She stepped over Karl Van de Vliet's collapsed frame and placed her hands on the steel. It was already scalding, but she only took fleeting notice of that. While a firefighter's ax futilely pounded on the outside, she seized the wide bar of the door and ripped it open, to the sound of wrenching metal. It was a superhuman effort she didn't realize she was capable of. And it was the last thing she remembered. The space around her had become a blazing white cloud and she didn't feel the hands of the two firefighters who seized her as she fell through the open air lock. Chapter 36 _Friday, June 5 8:39 P.M. _ Days later, Alexa Hampton was still considering herself one of the luckiest people alive. When she'd regained consciousness the next week in Lenox Hill Hospital, hooked up to oxygen and being fed by an IV, she noticed that the nurses were looking at her strangely and whispering to each other. Finally she couldn't stand it anymore and asked why. "It was what you did," a young Puerto Rican woman declared, gazing at her in awe through her rimless glasses. "No one can believe it." Then she explained. What they couldn't believe--as reported by the New Jersey firefighters--was that she had single-handedly wrenched open the steel-door air lock of the laboratory at the Dorian Institute. At the time firefighters were on the other side vainly trying to dismantle the door with their axes. Yet she'd just yanked it aside like paper. It was reminiscent of those urban legends of superhuman strength in times of crisis, like the story of a panicked woman who hoisted an overturned Chevy van to free a pinned child. Later, though, some of the New Jersey fire crew went back and looked again. The steel hinges had literally been sheared off. . . . How did she do that? More important, though, symptoms of her stenosis had entirely disappeared and she felt better than ever in her life. The stem cell technology pioneered by Karl Van de Vliet had indeed produced a miracle. She even had a new kind of energy, periodically. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt. Other things were new as well. She'd been seeing a lot of Stone Aimes and helping him finish his book on the Gerex Corporation's successful clinical trials with stem cell technology. After all the publicity following the fire at the Dorian Institute, the manuscript was generating a lot of buzz. A paperback auction was already in the works, with a half-million floor, and Time had abruptly taken a second look at the "first serial" excerpt his agent had been trying to place with them and come up with six figures. The only part Stone hadn't reported was the ghastly side effect of the early Beta experiment, the Syndrome, because Kristen Starr had disappeared. He had no proof and his publisher refused to print potentially libelous speculation. In the meantime, Winston Bartlett hadn't been seen in public since that tragic day. The business press speculated he had become a Howard Hughes-like recluse in his Gramercy Park mansion. Ally had tried several times to reach him through his office to find out what he wanted to do about the design job, and each time she was told he would get back to her. He never did. Maybe he was still recuperating. When the firefighters pulled him out of the flaming wreckage, his clothes were singed from the electricity that had coursed through his body, his heart was stopped and he appeared to be dead. In fact, he was dead. The paramedics immediately began intensive CPR. Moments later, his heart was beating again. Then he declared he was well enough that he didn't need to go to a hospital. He had his Japanese henchman, Kenji Noda, help him to his McDonnell Douglas and he disappeared into the night. Oxygen had not been to his brain for . . . No one knew how long. The paramedics said he awoke in what seemed another reality. Was he still alive? There had been no reports otherwise, but he most certainly had withdrawn from the world. Karl Van de Vliet, for his part, had been hospitalized for severe burns. He remained in the trauma unit at St. Vincent's Hospital, but when Alexa tried to go visit him, she was told he wasn't accepting visitors but was doing well. Katherine Starr was dead from a massive concussion, along with the two researchers, Debra Connolly and David Hopkins, who had been in the wrong place when the steel racks collapsed. And Alexa never been able to find out what happened to Kristen Starr. Officially, nobody by that name was there. But business was business. With the clinical trials over, the pending sale of the Gerex Corporation to Cambridge Pharmaceuticals was proceeding on autopilot, handled by Grant Hampton, who stood to make a bundle or so he bragged to Alexa. The Dorian Institute had been closed and all the remaining records moved to a converted facility near Liverpool. After six days in Lenox Hill, Ally went home, and three days after that she had returned to her desk at CitiSpace. Now, inevitably, she was back to her workaholic habits and grueling hours. Today, though, she had knocked off early, since Nina had taken a cab down to join her for supper. She marveled just thinking about it. Her mom taking a cab. By herself. It truly was a miracle. Their "light" repast had consisted of cold roast beef and room- temperature stout, two of Nina's favorites. She had never been much for cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off. Afterward, she elected to have a brandy. "The trouble with having your mind back," she said as she settled onto the couch, snifter in hand, "is that sometimes you remember things you'd just as soon forget." Outside thunder boomed from an early evening rainstorm, which had blown in from the northwest. "Well, Mom, at least now you can pick and choose what you want to remember and what you want to forget." She didn't really mind the storm. Having her mother back was such a blessing. It still felt odd, though, having her rescued from what had to be an inevitable, ignominious fate. It was as though time had gone in reverse. A miracle was very much in progress. . . . She was experiencing a miracle too, though of a slightly different sort. She felt pretty much normal, if occasionally shaky and uncertain on her feet. But at unexpected times she would have bursts of energy that defied reality. They were, in fact, scary, like that thing with the steel door. Something weird would sometimes take control of her body and she didn't really know what it was. . . . Truthfully, she was feeling some of that tonight. She had joined her mother with a brandy and was thinking about taking Knickers for an early walk, downpour or not. She wanted to see the river through the mists of a storm. That was when the phone rang. She got up and made her way to the kitchen and took the receiver off the wall. "Hello." She was hoping it was Stone. He'd usually call early in the evening to see what she was doing and ask if she wanted some company. "Alexa, I need to see you," came a voice. The other end of the line was noisy, as though a loud motor was running. "Who--" "I think you know who this is. If you would come down to the river, right now, I will make it very much worth your while." For some reason, maybe it was telepathy, Knickers had begun bouncing about the kitchen, angling for a walk, even though she normally was mortally fearful of thunder. Now Ally did know who it was. What was he doing calling her here at home, in a rainstorm? After all these weeks. Well, she thought, I have nothing left to fear from him or any of them. Why not? "It's raining," she said. "This had better be fast." And she hung up the phone. "Who was that, honey?" Nina asked. "I hope it wasn't anybody I know. You were somewhat abrupt." "Mom, they deserved whatever they got, and it's no big deal. But I think I'm going to take Knickers out. She's making me nuts." Ally couldn't focus on what had just happened. He had a lot of nerve. On the other hand, she loved to be down by the river when it was this way, shrouded in pastel mist. "Honey, it's raining cats and dogs," Nina declared. "You're apt to catch your death." "No, Mom, it's letting up now. I'll be all right, really." She was digging out her tan raincoat and rubber galoshes from the closet by the door. Knickers immediately realized what was up and began a dance of joy, barking as she raced to find her leash. "Come on, honey," Ally said, taking the braided leather. "I want you close to me." The ride down in the elevator felt ominous, though Knickers failed to share any of her apprehension as she bounced around the glass dome and nuzzled Ally's legs. The thunder she was sometimes fearful of had lessened, and that Ally thought had doubtless improved her courage. The condominium no longer had a doorman. In hopes of trimming costs, the condo board had sent out a secret ballot on the subject. By a narrow margin the owners had voted to dispense with that particular frill. Although she missed Alan and his early morning optimism about his Off-Broadway hopes, she realized the economy was probably timely. All those weeks when she hadn't been pulling her weight at CitiSpace, the nut on that operation hadn't diminished any. As she stepped onto Barrow Street, the late-spring air was unseasonably brisk and the rain had blanked visibility down to almost nothing. On other days this would had been that magical moment just after the sun went down, when gorgeous fiery orange clouds hung over the Hudson, but now there was a hint of brooding in the bleak rain. It fit the dark mood she felt growing around her. He wanted to meet her down by the river. Gripping Knickers' leash, she checked the traffic lights, then marched across the West Side Highway. The new esplanade along the river was awash in the rain and was uncharacteristically empty. That was lucky for Knickers. Off-the-leash time. Ally drew her close and clicked open the catch that attached it to her collar. With a "woof" of joy, she dashed off toward the vacant pier, then headed out. "Baby, slow down," Ally yelled but it was to no avail. A second later, her fluffy sheepdog was lost in the rain. But she couldn't go far. The refurbished pier extended out into the river for maybe the length of a football field and change. Beyond that, there was at least half a mile of river before the shores of New Jersey For all her enthusiasm, Knickers wasn't about to dive into the chilly Hudson and swim for the horizon. So where was he? He'd said "down by the river." What to do now? She decided she might as well walk out after Knickers. Now she was noticing something odd. The air was chilly; actually, raw was a better description. A last blast of unusual arctic air had accompanied the rain. She could feel the temperature on her face. She had stupidly gone out with just a light shirt under the raincoat, yet she didn't feel the slightest bit cold. It was as though her metabolism had sped up, the way it did during a run, though she wasn't breathing heavy or anything. It felt like one of those strange moments she'd been having, when she felt superalive. Now Knickers was returning, but she was slinking back as though fearful of something, the rain running off her face. "Come here, baby," Ally said, reaching out. "What is it?" The darkness of the river flowed over her now, and for the first time ever, she wished she'd brought along a flashlight . . . That was when, out of the rain, she finally heard the sound. It was an engine lowering from the sky, which Knickers must have already heard. Then a helicopter, a McDonnell Douglas, materialized, lowering onto the empty sports space on the pier. The downdraft of the rotor threw spray against the FieldTurf and into her eyes. But she gazed through it, unblinking, feeling an unexpected sense of power entering her limbs. The rain should have felt cold, but she didn't really notice. Maybe, she thought, they had to meet. They were bonded. As the pilot cut the power, the engine began to wind down--whoom, whoom, whoom--until it came to a dead stop and there followed an unnatural silence. Finally the door on the side opened and a metal step dropped down. After a moment's pause that seemed to last forever, he appeared, at first a vague figure in the rain, but then he stepped down and came toward her. He was wearing a white hat with a wide brim and a tan raincoat that seemed more like a cloak than a coat. "Alexa, I so appreciate your making time for me." It was hard to tell in the rain, but he appeared to be strong, and there was actually a kind of radiance about him, as though he carried his own special luminosity. He seemed completely transformed. The question was, transformed how? He looked years younger than the last time she saw him. "I thought we should talk. I've been meaning to call you. I wanted to see how you're doing." That's not it at all, she told herself. What do you really want? "Actually, I've been wanting to thank you," Winston Bartlett went on. "It turns out that you saved me after all. Your telomerase antibodies finally kicked in. The initial ones Karl injected in me. It just took a few weeks." "And what about Kristen?" she asked. His look saddened. "You didn't hear?" He shook his head. "She . . . died in the fire." That doesn't sound right, Ally thought. She looked like she was the only one who was going to survive it. "Oh yeah? How did that happen?" "You might as well know. She was burned beyond recognition. The body still hasn't been officially identified. When the firemen found her, she had a shard of glass through her throat. They thought she must have fallen on something, but I fear it's entirely possible she could have done it to herself." Was that story true, or a bald-faced lie? Ally wondered. Were they still hiding her someplace? But why was he here? He certainly hadn't come to discuss the kitchen design job for his Gramercy Park mansion. That was now long ago and far away. "Alexa," he said moving toward her, "please don't be frightened but there's something I have to find out." He reached out with his left hand and seized her wrist. She only saw the glint of the penknife in his right hand for an instant before he slashed it across her palm. "What!" she screamed and yanked her hand away. Knickers gave a loud yelp and then howled mournfully. Only then did she notice that there'd been just a momentary flash of pain. "It's okay," Bartlett said reaching to soothe Knickers. "Just a superficial scratch. Now watch it. I want to know if Karl had time to finish the procedure." My God. She didn't have to watch. She could already feel it beginning to heal. "What's . . . what's going on? Is this--?" "He had hopefully completed the Beta on you just before Kristy's mother showed up. But did it work the way it was supposed to? We didn't know. Until now." "My God. I knew I was feeling--" "You received just the right amount of telomerase injections," Bartlett interjected, "to induce the Beta without any side effects. It was the 'Goldilocks dosage' Karl had been trying to calculate, just enough that only aged or damaged cells are replaced, while healthy tissue is not altered." She now realized that was why she'd been having bouts of incredible energy. "We're the only ones," he went on. "Just us. You and me. We've been given this gift, Alexa. And now we have the responsibility that goes along with it." He glanced down at her hand. "By the way, how's that cut doing?" "What are you getting at?" It was definitely healing. A wave of thunder boomed over the river, sending Knickers scurrying to Ally's side. "What I'm getting at is that you and I are now two very special people. We both are living proof of what the Beta can achieve. The question is, what are we going to do about it?" She was still stunned. "This is a lot to absorb. I'll have to think--" "I've already thought about this and I believe it must be kept secret at all cost. At least for now." "But why? It's a miracle that--" "That must be handled prudently. I need your cooperation with that." She was having extreme difficulty getting her mind around what he was talking about. "I don't really know what's going on. I think I'd better see some doctors. And Stone is finishing his book about . . . I've got to tell him--" "Those things cannot happen, Alexa." He looked out at the river for a moment, then turned back. "A brand-new world has dawned. Finally all things are possible." He moved closer to her, then reached out and took her wrist again. She looked down and realized the cut on her hand was all but healed. "For now, this has to be our secret, yours and mine. Just us." She thought about all that had happened in the weeks since her wayward brother had accosted her running along this very river. It felt like an eternity. "I'm asking you not to talk about this," he continued. "To anyone. You must give me your solemn word." She felt the grip on her wrist get stronger. "Now that we know the Beta can work," he went on, his voice piercing through the rain, "I am forming an elite association, the Methuselah Society. Membership buys a guarantee that you can stop aging; in fact, you can pick the age you want to remain. Karl is sure he can do that, assuming the Beta worked with you. And now we see it has. The first memberships will naturally be somewhat expensive, but as time goes by, the cost will be gradually scaled down to respond to market forces. One may only join with a companion, but for obvious reasons all those who undergo the Beta must be sworn to secrecy, on pain of death, since there's bound to be a hue and cry and government intervention if word leaks out that only individuals with significant resources can have this miracle." "I think that's obscene," she said. "I suspected you might feel that way. Which is why we're having this talk. As I've explained the Methuselah Society will be contingent on the utmost secrecy, at least initially. So the question is, are you on board with this?" "The answer is, I'll do what I please." She was thinking what a bombshell this would be to have in Stone's book. Stem cells--the Fountain of Youth was no longer a dream. Winston Bartlett had won his dice game with God. And now he was planning to sweep the table. But he also was smart enough to realize he had to cash in quickly and discreetly. "Don't you realize how irresponsible that is?" he insisted. "We stand on the threshold of a new era for humankind. But if we let small-minded politicians get involved with this, they might decide to forbid . . . Keep in mind that using stem cell technology to regenerate organs is already controversial. Just imagine what the self-appointed zealots would do with this. The good of humanity is less important to them than their narrow-minded, bigoted constituencies." That was when it finally dawned on her why he had lured her down here by the river on a rainy night. What better place for a convenient "accident" if it came to that. She watched as he turned and raised a finger toward the open door of the McDonnell Douglas. The motor started and then another figure emerged and came down the steps. She squinted through the rain and recognized Kenji Noda, Bartlett's ever-present bodyguard. He was carrying a plastic bottle, along with a small white towel. He's going to chloroform me and then God knows what. I'm about to disappear the same way Kristen did. She stared at them both, wondering what to do. "Alexa, I regret to say that you are either with me or you are a problem I cannot afford to have," Bartlett said, and then he nodded to Noda. Shit. She backed to the edge of the pier as Noda advanced on her menacingly, dousing the cloth. He was a foot taller than she was and he weighed over two hundred pounds. Her first instinct was to run, but then she sensed an impulse to stand her ground. Something told her to try to use her strength against him. He wouldn't expect it. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that a white car had pulled onto the pier and was cruising down the side, slowly inching their way. It looked like a police vehicle, probably a couple of cops curious about the presence of a helicopter on the Field Turf. They were approximately half a minute too late to make any difference. Kenji Noda was five feet away and they were fifty yards away. And they probably couldn't see what was going on anyway. The rain had chosen that moment to begin to gush, shrouding everything in sheets of water. Knickers was nudging at her leg, as though urging her to flee. And again she thought about running, but an instinct told her to stand her ground. She was feeling a sensation of power growing in her limbs. She found herself oddly calm as Kenji Noda reached her, then wrapped his left arm around her neck and with his right hand clamped the cloth over her nostrils. It was infused with chloroform--she knew the smell-- but she held her breath. Then it happened. She casually reached up and took his left arm and pulled it away from her neck. It was so easy. There was the same feeling of strength she'd had when she wrenched open the air lock. Yet it was something that came and went. She had no inkling how long it would last this time. "I don't think you should do that," she said continuing to pull his arm around behind him. Then she twisted it to the side and there was a sickening snap as it came out of its shoulder socket He groaned lightly but did not speak. Instead he reached with his right hand and pulled an automatic out of a holster at the back of his belt dropping the chloroformed cloth in the process. While his left arm dangled uselessly, he brought around the pistol and tried to aim it at her torso. Her senses, though, were coming fully alive now and she seized his wrist and pushed it away just as he fired. The round caught her at the outer edge of her shoulder. She felt it enter and exit, but there was no pain, merely a mild itch. Still holding his wrist, she picked up the white cloth and buried his face in it. She held it against his nostrils until his body twitched and went limp. That was when the spotlight hit them. "Drop your weapons and show your hands," came a basso voice over a megaphone. Who had a weapon? she wondered. The one pistol around was lying on the ground next to the crumpled frame of Kenji Noda. The police must have heard the shot and assumed they were being fired on. She turned around to search for Winston Bartlett and saw him retreating to the McDonnell Douglas. Running, actually. He saw what happened, she told herself. He's afraid of me. "Stop and identify yourself," came the police megaphone. The spotlight was now squarely on Bartlett, who was bounding up the retractable steps. Without looking back, he pulled up the steps and slammed the door. The rotor had already begun revving higher, and in moments the chopper had begun its ascent out over the dark river. "You have been warned to identify yourself," came the futile megaphone. The chopper had all but disappeared into the dark and rain when she heard a shot fired from the direction of the police car. It must have been an accident, she told herself. There's no way-- But the smooth hum of the engine dying away in the fog abruptly changed tone, then started to sputter. Ten seconds later, there was silence. She was so engaged she didn't notice the stirring at her feet. A moment thereafter, she saw the towering bulk of Kenji Noda rise up beside her. Then she felt his grip on her wrist and realized he was dragging, and pulling her to the edge of the pier. Then she felt a shove and a swirl of dark air around her, followed by the splash of cold water. Surprisingly, it didn't really feel freezing--it just felt refreshingly brisk. With one hand she grabbed one of the square concrete pillars that was supporting the pier. The mysterious strength she'd had from time to time was coming back once more. That was when she heard a vicious howl, wolf-like, that transmuted into a growl, and the next thing she saw was a hazy form hurtle past her and splash into the water. Actually, it was two forms, and the darker one was flailing while the lighter one bore down on him, her teeth on his throat. "No!" she screamed "Don't." As the pair drifted past her in the current, still linked she reached out and seized Knickers' collar, yanking her back. Then she watched helplessly as Kenji Noda disappeared into the dark. Could he swim with one arm? The cops were futilely searching the wide river with their searchlight, looking for the helicopter, for anything, but there was nothing left to see. She quietly made for shore, even as she and Knickers were being swept downstream by the current When they finally reached the bank, it was somewhere around Morton Street. Oddly enough, she wasn't cold and she wasn't tired when she drew herself up onto the rocks, Knickers at her side. She just lay panting for a moment. "Come here, baby," she said drawing Knickers to her. The dog was shivering and she knew she had to get her home soon. "Thank God you can't talk. I think something very evil just passed from the world." Epilogue _Thursday, June 25 10:49 P.M. _ "You're really something," Stone declared, falling back onto the rumpled sheets. "What's come over you lately? Don't you ever get tired?" "Maybe I'm just happy to be alive," Ally said, smiling as she ran a finger down his chest. "I'm catching up on all the living I've been missing out on." Her heart was definitely on the mend, in several ways. She was beginning to think she was in love. After Steve went missing, she thought that love would never happen again, but maybe it had. "Know what," he said, rising up, "I've really worked up an appetite. How about you? Think I'll make an omelet. Got any eggs left in the fridge?" "Should be some," she said. "But I'll pass. Anything I eat after ten goes straight to places on my body that don't need further reinforcement." It was so nice just to have someone to be near again. Her nervous system was still recovering from the harrowing experience down on the pier. In fact, she wasn't really sure _what _actually had happened. The crashed McDonnell Douglas was retrieved from the water the next day, but there were no bodies aboard. Had Winston Bartlett drowned and his body been swept out to sea by the tide? Also, there must have been a third person, a pilot. And what about Kenji Noda, who also was missing? Did he make it to shore? In any case, they all had disappeared. The case was closed. And since nobody had found a will, New York State was currently the executor of his fortune. Eileen Bartlett was sole heir. Her waiting game had paid off superbly. The price of her Gerex shares was doubling every two weeks. She was about to become a very rich woman indeed. But had Winston Bartlett really gone to a watery grave? Ally somehow doubted it. He had too much invested in life to cash in so easily. As she watched Stone get up and swathe himself in a huge white towel before heading for the kitchen, she found herself replaying that harrowing scene at the pier. She kept trying to remember something Bartlett had said about forming some kind of society. Was she fantasizing or had he said he was going to do that and then offer the Beta procedure to its members? What was he going to call it? Try as she might, she couldn't remember. She had developed a mental block that her mind was using to shield her psyche from the horror of that evening. That night she'd first considered going to St. Vincent's Hospital emergency room for the gunshot wound but then she'd thought it over and decided there were too many things to explain that couldn't be explained Instead she just went home and washed the wound and filled it up with Neosporin. She didn't even tell Nina. The next morning, scar tissue was already forming. Now it was completely healed and even the scar had all but disappeared. Had the Beta really worked? She wanted to tell Stone about that possibility, but she wasn't sure how he would take it. And she absolutely did not want to end up in the book. She pulled on a terry cloth robe and slippers and padded her way into the kitchen. She wasn't hungry, but she felt like a glass of wine. She poked around in the wine rack in the kitchen closet and came up with a bottle of Bordeaux. Stone was cracking large white eggs into a stoneware bowl. "Sure I can't make some for you?" he asked, leaning over to buss her hair as she searched in the drawer for a corkscrew. "I'm gonna throw in some cheddar, but I'll leave it out if that doesn't work for you." "I just want a glass of red wine," she said, retrieving the corkscrew. "And I need a memory jogging. What's a word that makes you think of living a long time? I . . . I want to look up something on the Internet and I don't know how to start." "What kind of word is it?" he queried. "I'm a wordsmith. Twenty questions. Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective?" "If I could remember that, I might be able to come up with it." He was tossing a quarter stick of butter into the pan. "Hey, I once learned hypnosis. Why don't you let me take you under?" "Does that really work?" "It's how I come up with interview stuff sometimes, from years ago. We really do have a complicated memory system. I think everything you ever knew is buried somewhere, maybe in a tiny little wrinkle." She suspected he might be right. In this case the repressed info was still there; it just had been deliberately covered over and hidden. "So do you want to hypnotize me? You're sure you know how?" "I'm not boasting, but I could make Methuselah remember the day he first got out of diapers." She stared at him. "My God, I think that's it. Methuselah. I think that's the word I couldn't remember." She kissed him on the mouth enthusiastically. "I've got to check something." She popped the cork and poured herself a glass. "Want some?" "I'm not sure what goes with eggs at this time of night. Probably tequila." "Good luck. You know where to find it. There're some limes in the fridge. Right now I'm going to fire up the Dell and do a little search." "Now? " His face dropped. "How about a little romantic . . . whatever?" "Come and join me. Bring your plate. We'll go exploring in cyberspace. It'll be a romantic voyage. I've got a hunch about something." She walked back into the bedroom and clicked on the computer. She sipped at her wine, deep but still fruity and delicious, as it booted up. "What's going on?" he asked as he wandered in. He was carrying a shot glass of tequila and a white plate with the cheese omelette. The aroma was seductive. "I want to check out something. I have to be honest and confess I've been holding out on you a little. When I saw Winston Bartlett that night on the pier, something he said--" "Ally, I need to do some confessing too. The time never seemed quite right. I need to tell you something about him." "Well, don't tell me now. I don't think I can handle anything else to worry about tonight. Please save it." She was logging on to AOL. Then she went to the search engine Google, which she had found to be the best. "I want to check out that name you came up with. It rang a bell." She typed in Methuselah, supposedly the guy who lived for nearly a thousand years. There were pages and pages of references relating to that word. It started with a five-thousand-year-old pine tree, then an article from Modern Maturity on how to extend life, then Caltech research on a longevity gene, then a rock band in Texas (undoubtedly very retro), a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and so it went. "What, exactly, are you looking for?" he asked, holding out a folk. "Here. Want a bite?" She reached and tore off a fluffy corner. He did eggs perfectly. "Thanks," she said, chewing. Now she was moving to the third page. "I think I'm looking for an organization. And Methuselah was in the name. At least . . . that's what I seem to remember. I'm definitely repressing a lot." "Well, what about that one?" he asked, pointing. The line read, the Methuselah Society. "That's it," she declared. "Now I remember. That's the name he used. I swear. So it's real. I'm not crazy." "What are you talking about?" "It's him. That's what he said he was going to do." She clicked on the name. The Web page came up and it was strictly in black and white, with small print. And there it was again, THE METHUSELAH SOCIETY. There was no information beyond a request for a secure e-mail address. "Looks like they want to check you out," Stone said. "To make sure you're not connected to politics or law enforcement." "Then why not give it a shot," Stone said. "You're on AOL. You'd have to be a civilian." She typed in her address and entered it. Immediately a little yellow padlock appeared in the lower right-hand corner, indicating their communication was secure. Then a notice materialized, a small square flickering to life. It contained her phone number and then her name. Next a complete financial record began to scroll down. It had been elicited from banks, mortgage companies, credit services. There was Value of Real Estate owned, Mortgages Outstanding, Bank Accounts, Outstanding Obligations, Estimated Net Worth. It had all appeared in a time span of seconds. "Wow," Stone said. "There are no secrets left from these guys, whoever they are. They are wired." Then a message appeared: The minimum net worth required to be a member is 500 Million Dollars. The fee for membership is 100 Million Dollars. A 10-Million-Dollar retainer is required while your application is being processed. Please be prepared to designate the ages you and your companion wish to remain. "My God," she said, "that's him. He's done it. Winston Bartlett is alive and well, and selling immortality, real or not." Then another message came up: Welcome, Alexa. Please be advised you are already a member. But you have not yet selected a companion. * * * Afterword How much of the foregoing is true or even plausible? In late 2002, medical researchers in Dusseldorf announced they had successfully treated heart-attack victims using stem cells harvested from the patients' own bone marrow. The stem cells were delivered to damaged heart muscle via angioplasty catheters, a minimally invasive procedure. Subsequent monitoring indicated that the stem cells had reduced the damage to heart-muscle tissue and had improved their heart function when compared to similar patients in a control group who had declined the procedure. It's already happening. The miraculous stem cell cures in this story are essentially an extrapolation of research well underway that has been the subject of magazine covers and is possibly the most promising and, yes, problematic field of medical research. The clocks at the Dorian Institute ran faster than ordinary timepieces, and research areas and cures that currently are only speculation were made real there. But that's why it's called fiction. As with the example cited above, many stem cell miracles conjured here may be just over the horizon. As for Kristen and the Methuselah Society, they are a fictional embodiment of misgivings given voice by many, including no less an authority than Professor Leonard Hayflick, whose Hayflick limit, defining the process of how cells grow old could be said to be the underpinning of modern stem cell research. He is now a leading bioethicist who is sufficiently convinced of our potential to use stem cells to arrest the actual aging process that he has worried about its ramifications in print. He makes no claim that such a thing is imminent, but he doesn't dismiss its possibility either. He has far- reaching societal concerns about this, and he also raises biological issues such as, if you've treated your brain malady by using stem cells to grow new neural tissue, have you altered your mind? Are you still you? It's called Regenerative Medicine. Watch for it. BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info 
39417	----	A GAMBLE WITH LIFE SILAS K. HOCKING [Illustration: "OPEN YOUR EYES," HE CRIED, "AND SPRING."] A GAMBLE WITH LIFE BY SILAS K. HOCKING AUTHOR OF "Pioneers," "The Flaming Sword," "God's Outcast," "One in Charity," "The Heart of Man," etc. London JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET E.C. 1906 _All rights reserved_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A STRANGE COMPACT 7 II. DREAMS AND REALITIES 15 III. THE VALUE OF A LIFE 26 IV. PAYING THE PENALTY 35 V. A PERILOUS TASK 44 VI. FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY 54 VII. THE NICK OF TIME 63 VIII. THE SOUL'S AWAKENING 72 IX. THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER 82 X. A VISITOR 92 XI. A TALK BY THE WAY 101 XII. FAIRYLAND 112 XIII. THE AWAKENING 123 XIV. EVOLUTION 134 XV. MISGIVINGS 145 XVI. GROWING SUSPICIONS 157 XVII. RETROSPECTIVE 168 XVIII. THE OLD AND THE NEW 178 XIX. AFTER THREE YEARS 189 XX. FATHER AND SON 200 XXI. GERVASE SPEAKS HIS MIND 211 XXII. A HUMAN DOCUMENT 222 XXIII. MEANS TO AN END 232 XXIV. THE JUSTICE OF THE STRONG 243 XXV. THE END OF A DREAM 254 XXVI. QUESTIONS TO BE FACED 266 XXVII. THE VALUE OF A LIFE 277 XXVIII. THE RETURN OF THE SQUIRE 288 XXIX. GETTING AT THE TRUTH 299 XXX. THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE 310 XXXI. OLD FRIENDS 320 XXXII. FACING THE INEVITABLE 331 XXXIII. WAS IT PROVIDENCE? 342 XXXIV. DISCOVERIES 352 XXXV. CONFLICTING EMOTIONS 363 XXXVI. HIS HEART'S DESIRE 373 A GAMBLE WITH LIFE CHAPTER I A STRANGE COMPACT "Well, of all the hare-brained proposals I ever listened to, this takes the bun"; and Felix Muller adjusted his pince-nez and lay back in his chair and laughed softly. "But why hare-brained?" asked his companion, seriously. "Singular, I admit it may be; startling if you like, but I do not see that there is anything in it to laugh at." "You don't?" and the lawyer's face became suddenly grave. "Do you realise what your proposal implies?" "I think I do," and Rufus Sterne's face flushed slightly; "but you are thinking of a contingency that will never arise." "Perhaps I am; but every contingency must be guarded against," and Felix Muller took off his glasses and wiped them meditatively. "You say you are confident of success, and I am bound to admit, from what I know of you and your scheme, I think your confidence is well founded. But you know as well as I do, that nothing is certain in this world but death." "Well?" "You may fail. Something may happen you cannot foresee." "I grant it, as a remote--an exceedingly remote--possibility. But in such an event you will be covered by my life assurance policy." "But you may live for another fifty years." Rufus Sterne shook his head and smiled gravely. "If I fail," he said, "I shall have no further use for life. You need be under no apprehension on that score. The money for which my life is insured will be paid into your hands without any unnecessary delay. I know the company." "But it would be a direct contravention of the law, and would entitle the company to refuse----" "My dear sir," Sterne interrupted, sharply, "there are many roads into the land of oblivion. Exits can be arranged, if the parties so desire, in a perfectly natural manner. You need not fear that trouble will arise on that score." "Nevertheless, I confess I do not like the proposal." "You seem to have grown suddenly very squeamish," Sterne said, with a slight curl of the lip. "I have always understood that you set no particular value on human life. Indeed, I have heard you argue that a man's life is his own to do as he likes with--to continue it or end it, as seems good in his own eyes." "I am still of the same opinion. No, I am no sentimentalist. The rubbish talked by parsons and so-called humanitarians makes me ill. All the same I would prefer that someone else----" "There is no one else," Rufus Sterne broke in, irritably. "You are my last hope. A thousand pounds now will lead me on to fame and fortune. You have the money. You can lend it to me if you like, and for security I make you my sole legatee." "But the money is not mine, and must be paid back by the 31st of December of next year without fail." "That gives eighteen months and more," and Sterne laughed. "My dear fellow, six months or a little more will see the thing through." "I like to see a man confident," Felix Muller said, a little uneasily. "But there is such a thing as over-confidence, as you know. I should be better pleased if you were a little less cocksure." "But man alive, I have been working at this thing for years. I have tested every link in the chain, if you will allow me to say so. I have faced every possible contingency. I have gone over the ground so often that I know every inch of the way. I have anticipated every objection, every weakness, every flaw, and have provided against it. All I want now is a thousand pounds in hard cash, and in a year's time I shall be able to repay it ten-fold." "You hope so." "I am sure of it; as far as a man can be sure of anything in this stupid world. The more or less unpleasant contingency that you persist in looking at will never occur." "But it may occur," Muller persisted. "Well, if it does you will not suffer; and I shall be glad to hide myself and be at rest." "You say that now." "Do you doubt my courage or my honour?" Sterne demanded, sharply. "No, I doubt neither," Muller said, slowly; "but the instinct of life is strong--especially in the young." "When a man has something to live for--some great purpose to achieve, or some proud ambition to realise, he naturally wants to live. But take away that something, and life is a squeezed orange which he is glad to fling away." "People still cling to life when they have nothing left to live for," Muller said, reflectively. "Sentimentalists and cowards," Sterne broke in, hastily. "Men who have been robbed of their courage by priestly superstitions. But you and I have thrown off the swaddling clothes in which we were reared. Your German philosophers have not reflected and written for nothing." "I am an Englishman," Muller broke in, hastily. "I do not dispute it for a moment," Sterne said, with a laugh. "But let us not get away from the subject we have in hand. The question is will you accommodate me or will you not?" "If I do not you will curse me to-day," Muller said, with a drawl; "and if I do, you may curse me more bitterly eighteen months hence. So it seems to me it is a choice between two evils." "There you are mistaken," Sterne replied. "I certainly shall curse you if you refuse me, but if you become my friend to-day I shall never cease to bless you." "Not if you fail?" "Why will you persist in harping on that one string? I shall not fail. Failure is out of the reckoning. I am as certain of success as I am of my own existence." "'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.'" "Please, Muller, don't quote the Bible to me." "It is sound philosophy wherever it is taken from. Besides, the Bible is good literature." "So is Dante's 'Inferno.' But if you were dosed with it morning, noon and night, for the space of fifteen or twenty years, you would be glad to have a little respite. But we are getting away again from the subject in hand. Let's stick to the one point till we've done with it. If you've made up your mind that you won't help me, say so." "My dear fellow, all that I've been anxious to do is to enable you, if possible, to realise all that such a contract implies." "Well, if I didn't realise it before, I do now. You've been very faithful." "And you still wish to enter into the arrangement?" "Of course I do. What do you take me for?" "Remember, I am no sentimentalist, and whatever may happen to you, I shall be compelled in the end to claim my bond." Sterne laughed a little bitterly. "You do not mean to insult me, I know. Nevertheless your words imply a doubt that I cannot help resenting. If the worst comes to the worst, you will have no need to _claim_ your bond. You will get your own back without effort, and with compound interest." "I have no desire to insult you, certainly. But equally am I desirous of preventing any misunderstanding later on. In a business transaction of this kind one cannot be too explicit. The time-limit I am compelled to insist upon." "It is quite ample," Sterne broke in, impatiently. "I shall know my fate long before the end of next year." "I hope you will succeed even beyond what you hope for." "Let me tell you for the twentieth time that I am bound to succeed. When shall I have the money?" "The day after to-morrow." "That will do. Now I am a happy man." "I hope you will never have cause to regret the bargain." "You shall not, in any case." The lawyer smiled, and lowered his eyebrows. "From a professional point of view," he said, reflectively, "it is not, of course, good business." Sterne looked up suddenly. "I see what you mean," he said, after a pause. "You are not covered against any failure of courage or honour on my part?" The lawyer nodded assent. "I appreciate your trust in me," Sterne replied, with a touch of emotion in his voice. "I do indeed. You are lending me the money without any legal security." "And the money is not mine," the lawyer added. "I understand; and when the time comes you shall be rewarded," and Sterne rose to his feet and picked up his bowler hat, which had been lying on the floor. The lawyer rose also, and held out his hand to his client. "The money shall be ready for you the day after to-morrow." So they parted. Rufus Sterne went out into the street feeling as though all the world lay at his feet. No thought of failure crossed his mind. The thing he had been working for for years was at last to be realised. His invention would not only put money into his own pocket, but it would revolutionise the chief industry of his native county, and find work for thousands of willing hands. In imagination he saw himself not only prosperous, but honoured and respected and hailed as a public benefactor. He had a long walk over the hills to the village in which he resided, but it seemed as nothing to him that evening. His heart was beating high with hope, his eyes sparkled with eager anticipation. From the crest of the second hill the wide sweep of the Atlantic came into view, and for several minutes he stood still, with bared head. He had spent all his life in sight and sound of the sea, and he never tired of it. Relatives, friends, acquaintances by the dozen, slept their last sleep far out in its cool embrace. He had a feeling sometimes that he would like, when his day's work was done, to pillow his head among the seaweed and sleep for ever, while the waves sobbed and sang above him. The sun was slowly sinking in a sea of molten gold. The window-panes of the scattered farmhouses were flashing back the evening fire. From the valley behind him came the bleating of lambs and the answering call of the mother sheep, and with the cooling of the day a breeze stirred faintly in the tree tops and through the hazel bushes. He replaced his hat, and was about to continue his tramp when he was arrested by the sound of carriage wheels behind him. A sharp bend in the road hid the vehicle from sight, but he knew it would be on him in a moment. So he stepped aside, as the road was narrow, and waited for it to pass. The horse came first into sight, and then the Squire's waggonette. Two people sat on the front seat, the coachman and a lady. The back of the vehicle was piled almost to the level of their heads with luggage. The horse came on slowly, which gave Rufus Sterne an opportunity of scanning the face of the lady. "Evidently a stranger," was his first reflection. "Greatly taken with the view of the sea," his second. After that his reflections were of a very mixed character. Two or three points, however, stood out in his mind with great distinctness. The first was the lady was young--"not more than twenty if she is a day," he reflected. The second was that she belonged to a type he had never seen before. "She's not Cornish, that's certain," he said to himself. "I question if she is English." The third was that she was most becomingly dressed. Whether she was richly or expensively attired he did not know. He had had no experience in such matters. But that her dress became her there could be no doubt. The hat she wore might have been designed by an artist for her alone. On some people's heads it might look a fright, but on the head of this fair creature it was a picture. He stood so far back in the shadow of the hedge that she did not notice him. Besides, her eyes were fixed on the distant sea, which flashed in the sunset like burnished gold. "Isn't it just too lovely for words?" Whether she addressed the coachman, or whether she was speaking to herself, he did not know. But her words fell very distinctly on his ear, and touched his heart with a curious sense of kinship or sympathy. "No; she's not English," he said to himself. "An Englishwoman never speaks with an accent just like that. But wherever she comes from she's the loveliest creature I ever saw. I wonder who she is?" He came out into the middle of the road, and followed in the wake of the vanishing vehicle. After a few minutes it disappeared completely, and he did not see it again. "I wonder who she is?" The question occurred to him several times as he tramped steadily on in the direction of St. Gaved. It even pushed into the background his recent interview with Felix Muller, and the strange compact he had made. The twilight was deepening rapidly by the time he reached the cottage in which he rented two tiny rooms. A frugal supper was laid ready for him on the table, but there was no one to give him welcome, no one to say good-night when he retired to rest. Yet no feeling of loneliness or friendlessness oppressed him. He felt that the day had been an eventful one, and that a future of unmeasured possibilities was opening up before him. CHAPTER II DREAMS AND REALITIES Rufus Sterne awoke next morning with a feeling of buoyancy and hopefulness such as he had never before experienced. The sun was streaming brightly through the little window and gilding the humble furniture of the room with thin lines of gold; the house-sparrows were chirruping noisily under the eaves; the fishermen, early in from their night's fishing, were calling "Mackerel" in the winding street below; whilst the memory of pleasant dreams was still haunting the chambers of his brain--dreams in which his own identity had got mixed up in some curious fashion with that of the fair stranger he had seen the evening before. Mrs. Tuke, his landlady, laid his breakfast in silence. It was very rarely now that she spoke to him. On her face was a look of injured innocence or pained resignation. She had done her best in days gone by to lead him to see what she called the error of his ways, but without success. Now she had given him over--though not without considerable reluctance--to the hardness of his heart. She sometimes wondered whether she ought to keep as a lodger a man who was claimed neither by church nor chapel, and whose religious opinions not a man in the entire village would endorse. However, as he paid his bill regularly and gave no trouble, and as moreover he had no bad habits, and was exceedingly gentlemanly both in manners and appearance, she concluded that on the whole she was justified in giving him shelter and taking his money. Rufus did not notice Mrs. Tuke's resigned look and pathetic eyes this morning. His thoughts were intent on other things. At last he was on the road to fame and fortune, so he honestly and sincerely believed. To-morrow he would walk into Redbourne and take possession of a thousand pounds. Then life would begin in earnest. He would give up his position at the Wheal Gregory Mine and devote all his energies to the completion of the great scheme, which would take the whole county by surprise. What a relief it would be to get away from the common-place and humdrum tasks that had filled his hands for the last three or four years--tasks that any young man with a School Board education could discharge without difficulty. He did not despise the work--no honest labour was to be despised. But the work was not of the kind that appealed to him. It was monotonous, mechanical, uninteresting. There was nothing in it to call out latent skill or originality. He might go on doing it till his brain stagnated and the springs of imagination ceased to flow. He was called the secretary of the mine--a high-sounding name enough--but the name was the only important thing about it. He was time-keeper, clerk, and office-boy rolled into one. The salary was just enough to keep him in a position of respectable poverty. The only way he could hope to save any money was by insuring his life until he was a certain age. But there were times when he was half disposed to let his policy lapse. It was such a pinch to find the money to pay the premiums. At last, however, he believed the struggle was over. His thoughts were going to take tangible shape; his nebulous dreams were to be reduced to concrete form. The lines he had so carefully traced on paper would be seen in brass and steel; the mental travail of years would end in the birth of a great invention. He walked away from the house humming a popular waltz, and his steps kept time to the music. Wheal Gregory lay over the hill more than a mile away. Taking a field path he skirted the park of Trewinion Hall, the residence of Sir Charles Tregony, the squire of the parish and the largest landowner in the district. It was Sir Charles's waggonette that passed him the previous evening when returning from Redbourne. He slackened his pace almost unconsciously, and looked over the tall thorn hedge in the direction of the squire's mansion. An opening in the belt of trees brought a portion of the terrace into view, with a strip of lawn and a glimpse of the rose garden. At the moment, however, Rufus saw neither the garden nor the lawn. It was a graceful girlish figure clad in white that arrested his attention. She was flitting in and out among the standard roses with a pair of scissors in one hand and a large bunch of blooms in the other. She stood still at length and looked towards the house, then waved her hand to someone Rufus could not see. Then she turned right about face and looked in his direction. Rufus lowered his head in a moment and peeped at her between the branches of a tree. It might not be the height of good manners, but he could not help it. She was so fair a picture, so graceful, so piquant and fresh, that he would be almost less than human if he did not make the most of his opportunity. A few minutes later she was joined by the squire's daughter, Beryl, and together they walked away till the thick foliage hid them from view. Rufus heaved a little sigh, and then continued his walk in the direction of Wheal Gregory. "I wonder if people who live in big houses, and have lovely gardens and lawns and all the other pleasant things of life are happier than ordinary folks," he said to himself. "I wonder if that girl is happy. I wonder if she knows how pretty she is? I wonder where she came from? I wonder who she is? I wonder if she has come to stay?" He laughed at length quite loudly, for no one was near to listen. It was strange that he should be interested in anyone who had come to stay at the Hall. Sir Charles was one of the proudest and most exclusive men in the county. There was no one in the parish of St. Gaved, excepting perhaps the vicar, that he considered good enough to associate with, and Sir Charles's visitors were generally as exclusive as himself. The rattle of the "fire stamps" down in the valley called him back at length to more mundane affairs. It was nothing to him who the new visitor at the Hall might be, and whether she stayed a week or a year was no concern of his. He had his own work to do, and just now that work would fill his thoughts night and day. He did his best to give all his attention to his ordinary duties, but it was no easy matter. He had lost all interest in Wheal Gregory Mine. His resignation as secretary would be handed in on Saturday morning: for the future he would live on another plane, and more important issues would claim his thought and attention. The day seemed interminably long, but it came to an end at length, and he turned his face towards St. Gaved with a light heart. Every day now would shorten the period of his exile and inactivity. He was eager to get his own great enterprise under weigh, eager to show the people among whom he lived the stuff of which he was made. On the following day he opened a banking account with a thousand pounds to his credit, and the day following that he handed his resignation in as secretary of Wheal Gregory Mine. He walked homeward slowly in the glow of the evening's sun, taking a wide sweep round by the coast. The sky was almost cloudless, but the warmth was tempered by a cool breeze from the West. A pathway skirted the edge of the cliffs which was rarely used by anyone after sunset, for the cliffs were treacherous and a false step might mean instant death. On one of the highest points he sat down on the spongy turf and looked westward. The sun was sinking in a lake of burnished gold. The sea was like glass mingled with fire. He could not help wondering if these bright days and glorious sunsets were an augury of his own future. As yet no cloud dimmed the brightness of his vision, no thought of failure flung a shadow across his path. He was as confident of success as he was that the Atlantic was rolling at his feet. It was this confidence that had blinded his eyes to the moral obliquity of his contract with Felix Muller. "If I fail," he had said, "you shall have my insurance money," and he had said it in the most light-hearted fashion, for he never suspected for a moment that he would fail. Moreover, if he did fail the defeat would be so crushing that he was quite sure he would not want to live. And as he had lost the faith of his childhood, and death meant only an endless and a dreamless sleep, dying gave him no concern. But there was one thing he had never considered, and that was the rights of the insurance company. He did not see that it was a felony he proposed in case of failure. The idea had never crossed his mind. He had laid stress on his honour in making his appeal to Muller, and he failed to see that in case his schemes came to nothing he was proposing an act of deliberate dishonesty. He would save his honour at the expense of his honesty. It was not of failure, however, he thought, as he looked towards the sunset. The future was opening out before his imagination in widening vistas of success. "I shall astonish everybody," he said to himself, a bright, eager smile spreading itself over his face. "Muller believes in me, but he has no idea how great my scheme is. I don't see the end of it myself, for one thing will lead to another. Oh! I shall have a crowded life; for one success will beget other successes, and so I shall go forward--never idle--till my day's work is done." He was roused from his pleasant reverie by a light footstep near him, and looking round quickly he saw the fair stranger who had interested him on two previous occasions. She did not hesitate for a moment in her walk, but came briskly forward till she was directly opposite where he sat. "Pardon me," she said, in a voice that was distinctly musical in spite of its unfamiliar accent, "but can you tell me if there is a path anywhere hereabouts leading down to the beach?" He was on his feet in a moment, and raising his hat he said, with a smile, "The nearest point is down Penwith Cove; that is at least half a mile further on." "And is the path easy?" "Quite easy." "Not dangerous at all?" "Not a bit," he answered, with a smile. "You will excuse me speaking, won't you?" she said, with a mirthful light in her eyes. "I'm not at all sure that it's a bit proper. Sir Charles has read me several lectures already about speaking to people I don't know, but if I only speak to people I know I shall never speak at all when I'm out of the house." "You are a stranger in St. Gaved?" he questioned, nervously. "I come from across the water," she answered, with delightful frankness. "I never saw your country till four days ago." "And do you like it?" he questioned. "Well, yes--up to a certain point. I shall get used to it in time, no doubt. But at present it seems a bit dull and slow." "You've lived in a city, perhaps?"--he was astonished at his boldness, but her whole manner seemed to invite conversation. "That's just it," she replied. "And after New York this place seems a trifle dull and quiet." "I should think so," he said, with a laugh. "Why, even natives like myself find it almost insufferable at times." "Then why do you stay here? Why don't you go right away where the pulse of life beats more quickly?" "Ah! that question is not easy to answer," he said, looking out over the fire-flecked sea. "Our home is here, our work lies here. Beyond is a great unknown. Many have gone out and have never returned." "Got lost, eh?" she questioned, with a musical laugh. "Lost to us who have remained," he answered. "Some have prospered, I have no doubt. Some have failed, and died in obscurity and neglect. Better, perhaps, endure the ills we have than fly to others we know not of." "Well, yes, I guess there's truth in that," she answered, raising frankly her soft brown eyes to his. "Yet there's always fascination in the unknown, don't you think so?" "No doubt of it." "That's the reason, I expect, why I'm just aching to explore these cliffs, and the caves of which Sir Charles says there's any number." "That won't take you very long," he answered, "though it would hardly be safe for you to go alone." "That's what Sir Charles says; but would you mind telling me just where the danger comes in?" "Well, you see, the rocks are often slippery. And if you are not acquainted with the tides you might get caught." "Ah! that would be interesting." "Well, scarcely. Strangers have been caught and drowned before now." "They could not swim?" "It would take a very strong swimmer to clear St. Gaved Point and get into the harbour." She turned her eyes in that direction and looked grave. He studied her face a little more closely and allowed his eyes to wander over her graceful and well-knit figure. She was very simply dressed, without ornament of any kind. A large picture hat shaded her pale face. Her eyes were large and dark, her forehead broad, her nose straight, her lips full and red. She caught him looking at her and he blushed a little. "I don't think I could swim that distance," she said, turning her eyes again in the direction of St. Gaved Point. "I don't think you would be wise to attempt it." Then he blushed again, for she turned on him a swift and searching glance, while her lips parted in a smile that seemed to say, "I did not ask you for advice." For a moment there was silence, then she said, "Do you know the sea has been calling me ever since I came." "Calling you?" he questioned. "Well, I mean it fascinates me, if you understand. I want to get close to it, to paddle in it. It is so beautiful. It looks so cool and friendly. Beryl says she cannot bear the sea; that it is not friendly a bit; that it is cruel and noisy, and treacherous." "Ah! she has lived near the sea most of her life." "And yet you can scarcely see it from the Hall." "But it can be heard on stormy nights, and when a westerly gale is raging its voice is terrible." "You have lived here all your life?" and her lips parted in the most innocent smile. "Here, and in a neighbouring parish," he answered, frankly. "And do you like the sea?" "Sometimes. On an evening like this, for instance, I could sit for hours looking at it, and listening to the low murmur of the waves. But in the winter I rarely come out on the cliffs." "I have never seen the sea real mad," she said, reflectively; "but I expect I shall if I stay here long enough." "Do you expect to stay long?" he questioned. If she asked questions he did not see why he might not. "Well, I guess I shall stay in England a good many months anyhow," she answered slowly, and with an unmistakable accent; and she turned away her eyes, and a faint wave of colour tinged her pale cheeks. He would have liked to have asked her a good many other questions, but he felt he had gone far enough. "I fear I shall have to go back now," she said at length, without looking at him, "or they'll all be wondering what has become of me." "You could not easily get lost in a place like this," he said, with a laugh. "No, nobody would kidnap me," she said, arching her eyebrows. "No, I don't think so," he answered in a tone that was half-mirthful, half-serious. She raised her eyes to his for a moment in a keen searching glance, then, with a hasty "Good evening," turned and walked away in the direction she had come. He stood and watched her until she had passed over the brow of the hill in the direction of Trewinion Hall. Then he slowly resumed his journey towards St. Gaved. That night he awoke from a dream with a feeling of horror tearing at his heart. He dreamed that his great scheme had proved a failure, and that Felix Muller stood over him demanding the immediate fulfilment of the contract. So vivid had been the dream that, for the moment, he seemed powerless to shake off the impression. He sat up in bed, and stared round him, while a cold perspiration broke out in beads upon his brow. For the first time he realised, in any clear and vivid sense, the nature of the compact he had entered into. The possibilities of failure had seemed so infinitely remote that he had never seriously tried to realise what failure would mean. Now that awful contingency forced itself upon his heart and imagination in a way that seemed almost to paralyse him. It was as though some invisible but powerful hand had pushed him to the edge of a dark and awful precipice, and compelled him to look over. His knees shook under him, his head seemed to reel, he struggled to get back to safer ground. The feeling of horror passed away after a few minutes, and he lay down again. "Of course, I shall not fail," he said to himself. "The contingency is so remote that I need not give the matter a second thought." And yet the impression of that dream was destined to remain with him in spite of all his efforts to shake it off. CHAPTER III THE VALUE OF A LIFE During the next few weeks Rufus Sterne was kept so busy that he had very little time for either retrospect or anticipation. His great complaint was that the days were all too short for the work he wanted to crowd into them. He had told Felix Muller that six months would see his scheme well on its way to completion. But he had not been at work many weeks before he began to fear that twelve months would be much nearer the limit. Contractors were so slow, workmen were so careless, and accidents--none of them serious--were so numerous, that delays were inevitable, and the days grew into weeks unconsciously. He maintained, however, a brave and hopeful spirit. Delays and disappointments were, no doubt, inevitable. No one ever carried out a great scheme without encountering a few disappointments. Later on, when victory was assured, they would seem as nothing, and would be quickly forgotten. He saw no more of the beautiful stranger who had so much interested him. For several days he kept a sharp look out, and wondered if by any chance he would cross her path. Then he heard that Sir Charles and all his family had gone to London till the end of the season, and he assumed that she had gone to London with them. He had had a second interview with Felix Muller, which had left an impression that was not altogether pleasant. Muller was in his most cynical and ungenerous mood. He had not a word of encouragement to give to his client. On the contrary, he appeared to take a delight in pricking Rufus with pointed and unpleasant suggestions. "It is well, no doubt, to hope for the best," he said to Rufus; "but it is equally well to be prepared for the worst." "I really think you would not trouble much if I should fail," Rufus said, in a tone of irritation. "Then you do me an injustice," was the suave and tantalising answer. "If you were to fail I might have trouble in getting my own." "You mean that I would back out of the contract at the last?" "No, I don't mean any such thing. I know you are not only a man of honour, but a man of courage; but if you should bungle----" "Look here, we need not go any further into details," Rufus said, impatiently. "My point is you are not a bit troubled about me as long as you get your money back." "Oh, but I am! I would rather you prospered than that you failed, any day. Still, if in the order of chance you should fail--well----," and he shrugged his shoulders, "It would be in the eternal order, that's all." "You would not fret, of course?" "My dear fellow, why should I? We must all pass out into the great silence sooner or later. And now, or next year, or next century for that matter, matters little. You and I have got beyond the region of sentiment in such things. Nature sets no value on human life. We take our place among the ants and flies, and the human is treated as remorselessly as the insect. The wind passeth over both, and they are gone." "Yes, that is true enough," Rufus answered, looking out of the window. "Besides," Muller went on, as if he read his thoughts, "in the business of life we are bound to take risks." "You mean money risks?" "Not only money risks. A man who drives to market, who explores a mine, who crosses the sea in the interests of commerce, who fights for his country, not only risks his property, but he risks his life." "Not always intentionally." "Well, not always, perhaps. But in the greatest and noblest enterprises, yes. And what is more, it is counted to a man an honour when he risks his life in a great cause. If you become a martyr for a great ideal I shall revere your memory." Rufus winced, and looked uncomfortable. "I am not risking my life in the public interest," he said, "but in my own." "It all amounts to the same thing," Muller said, cynically. "You are part of the public, and anything that benefits a part benefits, more or less, the whole. I am taking risks myself on the same chance of doing good." "Doing good to whom?" "To myself in the first place. Charity should always begin at home." "And don't you think also that it should stop there?" "Well, in the main, I do. I am no sentimentalist, as you very well know. Every man for himself is the first law of life." "So while Nature sets no value on human life, you think that each individual should set great value on his own?" "No, I don't. Everything depends on the individual, or on his circumstances. If a man thinks his life is worth preserving, well, let him preserve it by all means. But if he thinks it is worthless, why should he not let it slip?" "There seems no particular reason," Rufus answered, reflectively. "There's no reason at all," Muller went on, dogmatically, "while a man is doing something, something useful I mean, something that is of benefit to himself and to others, he ought to keep agoing as long as he can. But when he is a failure, when he becomes a burden to himself and his neighbours, it is cowardly to hang on, and why should anybody fret because he makes himself scarce?" "You mean this as a little homily to myself?" Rufus questioned. "Oh, not a bit of it! I am not afraid of you not doing the right thing! Besides, you are not going to fail," and he laughed, cynically. "No, I am not going to fail," Rufus answered, rising from his seat; "I am going to succeed." "That's right. I hope you will. But don't forget that there is nothing certain in this world but death," and he smilingly bowed Rufus out of the room. In the street Rufus purchased an evening paper, that he might get the latest news of the war. He did not open it until he got into the quiet lanes outside the town. There had been another big battle in which there had been an appalling loss of life. The work of extermination was going on rapidly. Modern civilisation was showing what it could do in preventing the too rapid growth of the human race. Rufus hurriedly glanced down the columns, then folded the paper and put it into his pocket. "Yes, Muller is right," he mused. "Nature sets no value on human life, neither do governments, and neither does religion. I wonder how many thousands of human beings have been sacrificed during the last few weeks, and who gives to the matter a second thought. Religion accepts it as inevitable and even meritorious. Governments approve and applaud, and make provision for slaughter on a larger scale in the future. Nature, not to be outdone, tries her hand at earthquakes, or famine, or disease. It is only the individual who thinks his own life is of value, and he, of course, is a conceited prig." He paused when he reached the hill-top from which the sea came into view. The days were beginning to shorten a little. The light of the sun was less brilliant, and the green of the fields had given place to harvest gold. "It is curious that we should cling to life so much for its own sake," he said, reflectively. "Curious that the law should label a man a criminal who takes his own life when he has no longer any use for it. What hypocrites men are, especially those who make our laws. The weaklings and worthless they preserve, the able-bodied and useful they destroy. The single life, however pitiful, must be protected. The crowd is mowed down like grass to gratify some coward's insatiable ambition. The creatures who talk about the glory of dying for one's country are careful to keep out of the danger line themselves. The man who fails, after an heroic struggle, and takes his own life rather than be a burden to others, they brand as a coward or dub insane; while he who grows rich by trafficking on the weakness or vices of his fellows is made a Right Honourable, or given a seat in the councils of the State. It is all very sickening, and I refuse to be bound by such traditional falsehood and hypocrisy." He hurried on at a more rapid rate, as if to get away from his thoughts, but his brain persisted in working in the same groove. The possibility of failure obtruded itself with obstinate persistency. "I'm glad Muller does not doubt either my courage or my honour," he went on. "And really if I fail it will not matter to anyone but myself. I have no ties, neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, wife nor child. I am happy in that----" Then he moved to the side of the road for a closed landau drawn by a pair of horses to pass him. "Going to fetch the Hall people from the station very likely," he said to himself, and he turned and looked after the retreating vehicle. "I wonder if she will return?" and a far-away expression came into his eyes. "I should like to see her again," he went on, "she is wonderfully fresh and natural." For the rest of the way home he walked very slowly. Now and then he paused, and turned his head, and listened. But the sound of wheels, which he expected to hear, did not break the evening's stillness, nor did he see the face that he hoped to see. It was nearly a fortnight later that he went out one afternoon on the cliffs alone. A somewhat difficult and complicated problem had unexpectedly presented itself to him, and he fancied he would be better able to see his way through it in the open air than in his workshop or study. Generally speaking, he could think best on his feet, and the sights and sounds of nature, instead of distracting him, soothed him. It was a warm, drowsy afternoon. The wind slept, and a soft impalpable haze imparted a new mystery to the sea. The tide was coming in slowly and imperceptibly, and rippling like silver bells on the shingly beach. The distant landscape was an impressionist picture in which all the sharp outlines melted into space. The sunshine filtered through a veil of gauze. Half-way to Penwith Cove he sat down on a ledge of rock on the very edge of the cliff, and looked seaward. He saw nothing distinctly, heard no song of the sea. He was too intent on the problem that was baffling his brain. Suddenly he started and opened his eyes wide. Was it a human voice he heard, or was it merely fancy? He looked round him swiftly in all directions, but no one was in sight. "It was only the cry of a sea-gull, I expect," he said to himself, and he half closed his eyes again. The next moment he was on his feet and staring round him in all directions. "Surely that was a cry for help," he said, and he looked over the edge of the cliff and swept with his eyes the narrow stretch of sand, but there was no one in sight in any direction. For a moment or two he stood irresolute, listening. "There it is again," he said, with blanched cheeks, and he lay flat on the ground and dragged himself forward slowly till his head and shoulders overhung the cliff. "Help! oh, help!" came a feeble voice from the abyss below. "Where are you? What is the matter?" he called, searching in vain for any sign of life. "Oh, save me!" was the quick response. "I cannot possibly hold on much longer." "Have you fallen over the cliff?" he called. "No, no. I tried to climb up, and I cannot get back again." "Then shut your eyes and hold tight," he called. "I'll be round in a few minutes." "Oh, do be quick, for I'm getting faint." "If you faint you're lost," he called. "Hold on like grim death and don't look down. I'll be with you directly." It was a long way round by Penwith Cove, but there was no nearer way. He ran like a man pursued by wild beasts. The path was narrow and uneven, and followed the irregularities of the cliffs. A dozen times he came within an ace of breaking his neck, but he managed to keep on his feet. The question of his own safety never once occurred to him. Someone was in deadly peril, and a moment later or earlier might be a matter of life or death. The path into the cove was by a series of zigzags; but he took a straight cut in most instances to the imminent risk of life and limb. A few cuts and bruises he did not mind. His clothes might not be fit to wear again. Tobogganning without a toboggan might not be elegant, but it was certainly exciting, and if it did nothing else it would find work for his tailor. He was never quite certain whether he reached the beach head foremost or feet foremost. He found himself stretched full length on the sand, bleeding from innumerable cuts and quite out of breath. There was no time, however, to make an inventory of his own hurts. Indeed, he was scarcely conscious that he had received any damage whatever. Picking himself up, he began to run with all his remaining strength. He limped a good deal, but he was not aware of it; neither did he make any attempt to pick his way. He swept eagerly the face of the cliff as he ran, and feared that he was too late. At length he caught a glimpse of something white perched high above the beach. "Good heavens; how did she get there?" he said to himself; and pausing for a moment he drew in a long breath, then shouted: "Hold tight, I'm coming!" though even as he spoke his heart failed him. How was he to get to her, and even if he succeeded in reaching her side, how was he to get her down? The face of the cliff was almost perpendicular, the footholds were few and treacherous. Empty-handed, he might climb up and back again without very much difficulty; but with a half-fainting woman in his arms the descent would be practically impossible. He was still running while these thoughts were passing through his mind, his breathing was laboured and painful, his bruised limbs were becoming stiff and obstinate. He came to a full stop at length, and the fear that had haunted him from first hearing the cry became a certainty. "Can you hold on a little longer?" he called. "I guess I'll have to try," came the cheery answer, though there was the sound of tears in her voice. It was evident she was making a desperate effort to keep up her courage. "Don't lose heart," he said, with a gasp, "and keep your eyes shut." Then he shut his teeth grimly and began the ascent. "I'll save her or die in the attempt," he said to himself, with a fierce and determined look in his eyes. Then something seemed to whisper in his ear: "Why trouble about a single life? One life more or less can make no difference. If people like to fling away their life in foolish adventures, let them do it; why should you worry?" But his philosophy found no response in his heart just then. His own life might be of little consequence, but this fair creature must be saved at all costs. He made his way up the face of the cliff surely and steadily. "It is easier than I thought," he said. Then he came to a sudden stop, while a groan escaped his lips. "I cannot do it," he gasped; "nobody can do it. Without ropes and ladders she is doomed." CHAPTER IV PAYING THE PENALTY When Madeline Grover got used to the cliffs they did not seem nearly so forbidding or dangerous as at the first. Exploring the caves and crannies for sea shells and lichen and gulls' eggs became a favourite pastime of hers. To stay within the precincts of Trewinion Park she declared was like being in prison. To wander across the level lawns, or through the woods by well-kept paths, was an exercise altogether too tame and unexciting. She loved something that had in it a spice of adventure. To do something that nobody else had ever done was very much more to her taste. Sir Charles took her to task gently on several occasions. It was not quite the proper thing to go out alone and unattended. She would need to put a curb on her exuberant and adventurous spirit. She would have to remember that she was no longer in America, where, in his judgment, girls had far too much freedom. She must learn to fall into English ways and customs, with a good deal more to the same effect. Madeline always listened patiently and good-humouredly to all Sir Charles had to say, and even promised him that she would be all he could desire; but she generally forgot both the lecture and the promise five minutes later. She had been used all her life to go her own way. At home, in America, she received her own friends of both sexes without reference to her father or mother. A liberty of action had been allowed her that seemed almost shocking to Sir Charles and Lady Tregony, and now that she had come to live in England for an indefinite period it was all but impossible for her to drop into English ways at once. As a matter of fact, she did not try very much. She told Beryl Tregony that she had no desire to be a tame kitten, and since she was responsible to no one, she followed in the main the prompting of her own heart. It was by no means difficult to slip away unobserved, and to be absent for hours on the stretch without being missed. She had her own rooms at the big house, and often when she was supposed to be quietly reading somewhere, she was out on the cliffs or down on the shore searching for rare flowers or shells, or else talking to the fishermen. She found life terribly dull after her return from London. Yet, on the whole, she was not unhappy. The great sweep of the Atlantic had an unfailing attraction for her. The cliffs were glorious, and offered infinite scope for adventure. While the people of St. Gaved--particularly the fishermen--caught her fancy amazingly, and she became a prime favourite with them all. Here was a young lady of the upper circle, a distant relative of the squire, who was not in the least exclusive or proud; who went in and out among the ordinary toiling folk as though she was one of them, and who had always a smile and a cheery word for the humblest. It was so different from the Tregony tradition, that it took their honest hearts by storm. Rufus Sterne considered himself particularly unfortunate that when she came into St. Gaved he always missed her. Three or four times he heard of her being in the town--it was really only a big village, but the St. Gavedites all spoke of it as a town; but he was either in his workshop or away directing the operations of others; consequently, she came and went without giving him a chance of renewing their acquaintance. "Not that it mattered," he said to himself. She was nothing to him. She belonged to a circle far removed from his. Yet for some reason he was curious to look again into her bright, laughing eyes, and listen to her naive and unconventional talk. Moreover, when he heard people talking about her, and praising her good looks and charming freeness of manner, he had a feeling that he had been cheated out of something to which he was justly entitled. What added to the interest excited by the pretty young American was the fact that nobody had been able to find out the exact relationship in which she stood to the Tregony family. Neither had anybody been able to discover why she had come, or how long she intended to stay. Any number of guesses had been hazarded, but they were only guesses at best. Some said she had been sent to England by her parents simply to learn society ways and manners. Others, that her parents were dead, and that her mother being related to Sir Charles, the latter had taken her out of charity. Mrs. Tuke, who, in the one glimpse she got of her, had been greatly impressed by the richness of her attire, ventured the opinion that she was an heiress in her own right, and that Sir Charles, who was not noted for his generosity, had not undertaken to be her guardian for nothing. But all these guesses lacked the essential thing, and that was authority. Sir Charles was as close as an oyster about his own family affairs. Moreover, he would no more think of talking to anyone in St. Gaved about his visitors than of taking a journey to the moon. And if he thought they were so impertinent as to desire to know, that would be a double reason why he should, under no circumstances, allude to the matter. Madeline might have given the information desired if her new acquaintances had had the courage to question her. But they were a little shy in her presence as yet; in some instances they were completely over-awed. She was so bright, so quick, so confident, that she almost took their breath away. They felt like fools in her presence. This was how matters stood when Rufus discovered her on a narrow ledge of rock high up the cliffs, unable either to advance or retreat. She had slipped away from the Hall unobserved after going to her own room ostensibly to write letters. Consequently, she had not been missed, and was not likely to be until the family met for dinner. As usual the sea had been "calling her," as she expressed it; and after a short ramble on the beach she turned her attention to the serrated cliffs that loomed high above her. A sea-gull first attracted her attention, then a large patch of lichen, then a path that seemed to zig-zag to the top of the cliff. Wise people think first and act afterwards, but wisdom comes with experience and experience with age. Madeline was quite young, and made no pretension to wisdom, hence she frequently reversed the recognised order, and acted first and did the thinking afterwards. Seeing the path she began to climb. It was an exhilarating ascent. Had it been free from danger it would have been humdrum and fatiguing. And yet it was neither so dangerous nor so difficult as to frighten her away. Indeed, the higher she got, the less dangerous it seemed, and the more she was fascinated by the adventure. She did not think of looking back. Had she done so she might have been warned in time. Looking up, the rim of the cliff came perceptibly nearer, and she conceived the wild idea of reaching the top. Why not? Because nobody had ever done it that was no proof that it could not be done. If fifty feet could be scaled, why not a hundred? Besides, it would be an achievement to be proud of. If she could do what never had been done before she would become something of a hero in her own eyes, and perhaps in the eyes of other people. The path took a horizontal turn at length along the uneven face of the cliff. She was higher up than she knew, and the foothold was less secure than she suspected. It was all over in a moment. She had not time even to scream; before even her thoughts could take shape she was brought up with a jerk, and when she dared turn her head she discovered that she was perched on a narrow ledge of rock with the cliff shelving away underneath her. For a moment she felt sick and faint, and was in imminent danger of falling off the ledge, which would mean almost certain death. After a while she made an effort to regain her feet and reach the path from which she had slipped, but almost with the first movement her head swam and a mist came up before her eyes that blotted out everything. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to remain perfectly still until she had recovered her nerve. But every minute seemed an hour as she lay perched on that dangerous ledge, and yet every time she opened her eyes and looked into the yawning gulf below, her heart failed her, and she became more and more convinced that she would never get down alive. Instead of her nerve steadying she got increasingly excited and terrified. She had plenty of time for reflection now, but her reflections brought her no satisfaction. She discovered--what most people discover sooner or later--that it is easy to be wise after the event. "Oh, how foolish I have been," she said to herself. "Why did I refuse to take advice? Sir Charles warned me, and that handsome young man I met on the cliffs told me how dangerous they were. Now I am paying the penalty of my foolishness and obstinacy." She became so terrified at last that she screamed for help at the top of her voice, but the only answer that came was the weird and plaintive cry of the gulls startled from their perches. She began to wonder, at length, how long her strength would hold out, and whether, if consciousness left her, she would roll off into eternity. The ledge was so narrow that she dared not move in any direction, and she was becoming stiff and cramped from remaining so long in one position. For the most part she kept her eyes tightly shut, and tried to forget the yawning gulf beneath her. Every time she looked down her head grew dizzy. It scarcely seemed possible to her that she had climbed to such a height. She began to count her heart-beats so that she might get some conception of the flight of time. The Tregonys dined at half-past seven; until that hour the chances were she would not be missed. Then a search would be made through the house and grounds--that would take up the best part of an hour. By the time anybody reached the cliffs it would be well on to nine o'clock, and too dark to see a single object. "I shall never hold out till then," she said to herself; "never! I believe I am slipping nearer the edge all the time. I wonder if the fall will kill me outright?" She clutched at the rough wall of rock with desperation, and at length found a narrow crevice into which she thrust her hand and held on with the tenacity of despair. The fear of falling off the ledge was less for a little while, but in time her arm and hand began to ache intolerably, and the old terror came back with redoubled force. So appalling was the situation that she was severely tempted to end it at once and for ever. The deep below fascinated while it terrified. She shrank back with horror from the brink of the ledge, and yet the abyss seemed to draw her like a magnet. If she opened her eyes she felt certain that no power of will she possessed would keep her from falling over. She called at intervals for help, but her voice became as feeble as that of a tired child. Then suddenly the blood began to leap in her veins and her heart to throb with a new hope. From the heights above an answering voice came to her cry--a strong, resolute voice that seemed to beat back her fears and to assure her of deliverance. She recognised the voice in a moment, and the warm blood surged in a torrent to her neck and face. She could be patient now. She lay quite still and waited. How her deliverance was to be effected she did not know. She did not trouble to debate the question. She gave herself up unconsciously to a stronger will and a stronger personality. He had heard her call and _he_ was coming to save her. Who the _he_ was she did not know. She had seen him only once. She did not even know his name. But she felt instinctively that he was a brave man. He had a strong face, a stern yet tender mouth, and kind and sympathetic eyes. The task might be difficult, but, of course, he would succeed. He was strong of limb as well as resolute in purpose. Moreover, a face like his bespoke a resourceful mind. He was no common man. She felt that the moment she saw him; her instinct told her also that he was an honourable man, or she would never have dared to speak to him. Women know without being told when they are in the presence of bad men. She had thought of him scores of times since their one and only meeting. Had wondered who he was and what he was, and had speculated on the chances of meeting him again. He was the only man she had met since her arrival in England who had impressed her. She had enjoyed her conversations with the fishermen and the farmers and the small shopkeepers, had sampled the curate and the vicar and the few county people who had called at the Hall; but her second thought and her third thought had been given to the lonely man who sat on the cliffs, with his big dreamy eyes fixed on the sunset. She was glad for some reason that it was he who had found her, and not Sir Charles. Sir Charles would fume and scold and declare there was no possible way of saving her. The "lonely man" might not talk very much, but he would act. It seemed a long time since he had responded to her cry, but she was not in the least impatient. Confidence was coming steadily back into her heart, and the fascination of the abyss was slowly passing away. She did not dare open her eyes yet. She would wait till the stranger called her again. Her hand and arm were very cramped; she was uncomfortably near the lip of the ledge. Her strength--in spite of the new hope--was a steadily diminishing quantity, but she was quite sure she would be able to hold on a good many minutes yet. Then clear and distinct came the voice again--from below this time, instead of from above. How wildly her heart throbbed in spite of all her efforts to be calm, but she flung her answer back as cheerily as possible. She would not make herself appear a greater coward than she really was. "How did you get there?" The question was abrupt, and the voice sounded almost close to her ears. "My foot slipped and I fell," she replied. "You fell?" he questioned, in a tone of incredulity, and he swept the face of the cliff above her. "Oh! I see," he went on a moment later. "You took a path further to the south." "Cannot you reach me?" she called with an undertone of anxiety in her voice. For a moment he did not answer. He was anxious not to discourage her, and yet he could see no chance of getting her down alive. "Can you hold on much longer?" he asked at length. "Not much," she replied, frankly. "I guess I'm near the end." "No, don't say that," he said, encouragingly; "keep your heart up a little longer. I must try another tack." "You cannot reach me?" the question ended almost in a cry. "Not from this point," he answered, cheerfully. "But we've not got to the end of all things yet," and he began to retrace his steps. "Are you leaving me?" she called, feebly. "Never," he answered, and there was something in his tone that made her heart leap wildly. "I see the path you took," he said a moment later, but though he spoke cheerfully he had no real hope of saving her. CHAPTER V A PERILOUS TASK Rufus reached a point at length from which he was able to look down on the prostrate figure of Madeline Grover. She was lying almost flat on her face, with her right hand thrust into a cleft of the rock. For several minutes no word had passed between them. She was afraid to ask any more questions lest she should hear from his lips that her case was hopeless. He was afraid to buoy her up with empty words that would end in nothing. She could hear distinctly the sound of his footsteps as he threaded his way in and out among the pinnacles of rock, she could even hear his breathing at times. She knew when he stood above her without being told. That there was peril in his enterprise she knew. He was risking his life to save hers. He, a stranger, upon whom she had not the smallest claim. It was a brave and generous thing to do, and she began to doubt whether she ought to allow him to take such risk. His life was of infinitely greater value than hers--at least, so she told herself. He was a man and might accomplish something great for the race. She was only a girl, and girls were plentiful, and a good many of them useless, and she was not at all sure that she did not belong to the latter class. At any rate, she had never done anything yet, had as a matter of fact, never been expected to do anything, and if she lived till she was a hundred she was not sure that she would ever be able to do anything that would be of the least benefit to the world. She was the first to break the silence. "Don't risk your life for my sake," she said, and she managed to keep all trace of emotion out of her voice. "And why not?" he asked. "I am not worth it," she replied. "I had no business to get into danger." "You did not know the risks you ran," he replied, kindly. "I might have known; I had been warned often enough." "We have all to learn by experience," he said, with a short laugh. "Now let us get to work." "What do you want me to do?" she asked. "Get on to your feet, if possible. Don't open your eyes, and keep your face towards the cliff. Do you understand?" "Yes, I understand, and I will try." "Take your time over it," he said, cheerfully. "I expect you feel pretty stiff, don't you? Slip your right hand up the crevice. I will be eyes for you, and tell you what to do." She obeyed him implicitly. His firm, resolute voice gave her courage. The nearness of his presence imparted strength and determination. If she felt a coward she would not let him see it. He might not feel any great admiration for her, that was not at all likely, since she had acted so foolishly, but she hoped he would not feel contempt. She stood at length upright with her face against the cliff. "Now don't open your eyes," he said, "and please do what I tell you." "I am in your hands," she replied. "You will be directly, I hope," he answered, with a laugh, "but in the meanwhile move slowly in this direction." "That's right," he continued, a little later. "Come on, I will tell you when to stop." She sidled on steadily inch by inch, while he watched her with fast-beating heart. "That will do," he said at length. "Now reach out your left hand as far as possible." She obeyed at once, and a moment later he held it in his own firm grasp. The colour came into her face when she felt his fingers close round hers, and her heart beat perceptibly faster. "So far, so good," he said, cheerily. "Now the next step is not with your hand, but with your foot. It will be a very long stride for you, but you've got to do it. Don't open your eyes. And in the first place lean as far as you dare in this direction." She obeyed him instantly. "That will do," he called. "Now just on a level with your chin is a hole in the rock. Get your right hand into it, if you can, and hold tight." "That's right," he said, brightly. "Now for the long stride." She began very slowly and carefully. Her heart was thumping as though it would come through her side. She knew that beneath her was empty space. "That's right," he went on, "just a little farther--another inch--a quarter of an inch more; there you are! Don't speak and don't open your eyes. When you are ready let me know. Push your foot a little farther on the ledge if you can--that is it. It will be a big effort for you, but I have you fast on this side. Bend your body forward as much as you can. When you are ready, say so, and give a lurch in this direction, letting go with your right hand at the same moment. Do you understand?" "Yes." The answer came in a whisper. It was an awful moment for both. She drew a long breath, and cried "now." For a second she seemed poised in mid-air. "Lean forward," he almost shrieked. She clutched eagerly at the bare rocks in front of her, but there was nothing she could grasp. Rufus felt his heart stop. "Open your eyes," he cried, "and spring." It was her last chance, the last chance for both, in fact, for if she fell she would drag him with her. Her confidence in him was absolute. She did in a moment what she was told. He pulled her towards him with a jerk that nearly dislocated her shoulder. Then both his arms closed round her, and he sank back into a deep and safe recess behind a large pinnacle of rock. For several minutes she lost consciousness. Her head drooped upon his shoulder, her cheeks became as pale as the dead. He would have given all he possessed at that moment to have kissed her lips. It was the strongest temptation that ever came to him. It was the first time in his experience that so beautiful a face had been so close to his own, and the impulse to claim toll was all but irresistible; but he fought the temptation, and conquered. He felt that it would be a cowardly thing to do. His reverence for women was one of the strongest traits in his character. Felix Muller had told him more than once in his cynical way that he reverenced women because he did not know them. Rufus admitted that it might be so; but his reverence remained. It was nearly all that was left of his early religious faith--a remnant of a complicated creed, but it influenced his life more profoundly than he knew. He watched the colour come slowly back into Madeline's pale face with infinite interest. How beautiful she was, how finely pencilled were her eyebrows, how perfect the contour of her dimpled chin. Her hair had become loose, and a long rich tress sported itself over the sleeve of his coat. The slanting sunlight played upon it, and turned it to bronze, and then to gold. Her eyelids trembled after a while, then she opened them slowly, and looked up into his face, with a wondering expression, then her lips parted in a smile. A moment later she sat up, while a wave of crimson mounted suddenly to her face. "I am so sorry to have given you so much trouble," she said, hurriedly. "Let us not talk about that until we get safe down from this height," he said, with a smile. "Oh! I was forgetting," she said, with some little confusion. "But the rest is comparatively easy, isn't it?" "Comparatively," he replied. "But there are several very awkward places to be negotiated." "It was wicked of me to put any one to so much trouble and risk. I do hope you will forgive me," and she looked appealingly up into his face. "I hope you will not talk any more about trouble," he answered. "To have served you will be abundant compensation." "It is kind of you to say nice things," she answered, looking at the yellow sand below; "but I feel very angry with myself all the same. You told me when we met on the top weeks and weeks ago that the cliffs were very dangerous. I don't know what possessed me to think I could climb to the top." "You are not the first to make the attempt," he answered. "A visitor was killed at this very point only last summer." "A girl?" "No, a young man." "I shall never attempt to do anything so foolish again, and I shall never forget that but for you I should have lost my life. It was surely a kind providence that sent you; don't you think so?" "Do you think so?" he questioned, with a smile. "I would like to think so, anyhow," she answered, seriously. "And yet it sounds conceited, doesn't it? If I were anybody of importance it would be different. I don't wonder you smile at the idea of providence interfering to save a chit of a girl after all." "I don't know that I smiled at the idea," he answered, turning away his head. "If there is any interference or any interposition in human affairs, why should not you be singled out as well as anybody else?" "Well, you see, it would presuppose, wouldn't it? that I was a person of some value, or of some use in the world?" "You may be of very great use in the world." "Ah! now you flatter me. What can an ordinary girl do?" "I do not know," he answered. "We none of us can tell what lies hidden in the chambers of destiny. You may be----" "What?" "I cannot say." "But you were going to mention something." "Second thoughts are sometimes best," and he turned his head, and smiled frankly in her face. "Now you are tantalising," she said, with a laugh; "but I will not find fault with you. I cannot forget how much you have risked for my sake." "Had we not better try and complete the journey?" he questioned. "We are not out of the wood yet, and the tide is coming in rapidly." She rose slowly to her feet, and steadied herself against the cliff. She was very stiff and cramped, and a good deal bruised. He followed her example with a hardly suppressed groan. "Are you hurt?" she asked, looking at him eagerly. "Not at all," he answered, gaily. "A few scratches, but nothing to speak of. Now let me walk in front, and you can lean on my shoulder." Neither spoke again for a long time. Rufus picked his way with great caution, and she was too frightened to run any more unnecessary risks. They were within a dozen feet or so of the beach, and he with his back to the sea was helping her down a slippery bit of rock, when suddenly a stone gave way beneath his foot, and he was precipitated to the bottom. Feeling himself going he let go her hand, or he would have dragged her with him. With a little cry of alarm she sat down to save herself, while he disappeared from sight. She was on her feet, however, in an instant, and scrambled quickly down to his side. He was lying on a broad slab of rock with his right leg doubled under him. "Are you hurt?" she asked, eagerly and excitedly. "A little," he answered with a pitiful smile. She came and knelt by his side, and took his hand in hers. "Cannot I help you to get up?" she inquired. "I am not sure," he said, pulling a very wry face. "I'm very much afraid I shall have to lie here until you can get assistance. You see it is my turn now." "But what is the matter?" she asked, eagerly. "I fear my leg is broken," he said, knitting his brows, as if in pain. "Something went with a snap, and I'm afraid to move." "But you cannot lie here," she said, "for the tide is coming in. Oh! let me help you to get up. Do try your best." "I will, for your sake," he answered, and he smiled at her in a way she never forgot. "Oh, I shall never forgive myself," she said, chokingly, and the tears filled her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. "All this comes of my stupid folly!" "No, you must not blame yourself," he insisted. "You could not help the stone giving way. Now give me your hand. How strong you are! There, I'm in a perpendicular position once more," but while he spoke he became deathly pale, and the perspiration stood in big drops on his brow. "Lean on me," she said; "lean all your weight on me." He smiled pitifully, but he could not trust himself to speak. He put his right arm about her neck, and used her as a crutch. This was no time to stand on ceremony. But the pain was too intolerable to move more than a few steps. With a groan he fell against the sloping foot of the cliff. "You must leave me here," he said, with a gasp. "Leave you here?" she cried. "Why you will drown." "We shall both drown if you stay," he answered. "It doesn't matter about me a bit," she wailed, and she brushed away the blinding tears with her hand. "But you--you--oh! you must be saved at all costs." "Perhaps, if you make haste you will be able to get help before it is too late," he said. "But how? Oh! I will do anything for you. Tell me what I can do for the best." "Make your way into town as fast as you can. Tell the first man you meet how I am situated. Let one party come round here with a boat, and another party come over the cliffs with a stretcher. Everything depends on the time it takes." "Oh! I will fly all the distance," she said, with liquid eyes; "but who shall I say is hurt? I do not even know your name." "Rufus Sterne," he answered. "Everybody in St. Gaved knows me." She looked at him for a moment, pityingly, pleadingly, then rushed away over the level sand in the direction of Penwith Cove. She forgot her bruises and stiffness, and did not heed that every step was a stab of pain. Rufus Sterne was lying helpless--helpless because he had risked his life to save her from the consequences of her folly. And all the while the tide was coming in, and he would be watching it rising higher and higher, and if help did not reach him before the cold salt water swept over his face, he would be drowned, and she would be the cause of his death. How she climbed the zig-zag path out of Penwith Cove she never knew. She ran and ran until she felt as though she could not go a step farther even to save her life, and if her own life only had been at stake she would have lain down on the cliffs and taken her chance. But it was _his_ life that was in jeopardy, and to her excited imagination his life seemed of more value than the lives of a hundred ordinary people. She had read of heroes in her girlhood days, and thrilled over the story of their exploits, but no hero of fact or fiction had ever so touched her heart as this lonely man who was lying helpless at the foot of the cliffs, watching with patient and suffering eyes the inflowing of the tide. "Oh! he must be saved," she kept saying to herself, "for he deserves to live. And I must be the means of saving him." She stumbled into St. Gaved rather than ran. Her hat had disappeared, her glorious hair fell in billows on her shoulders and down her back, her eyes were wild and tearless, her lips wide apart, her breath came and went in painful gasps. She nearly stumbled over one or two children, and then she pulled up suddenly in front of a policeman. Constable Greensplat stared at her as though she had escaped from Bodmin lunatic asylum. "There's--not--a--moment--to--be--lost," she began, and she brought out the words in jerks. "Rufus Sterne is lying with a broken leg at the foot of the cliffs half-way between here and Penwith Cove." Then she staggered to a lamp-post and put her arm round it. A small group of people gathered in a moment. "How did he break his leg?" Greensplat asked, putting on an official air. "He slipped over a rock," she answered; "but there's no time for explanations. The tide is coming in, and if he's not rescued quickly he'll be drowned. He told me to ask that one party go round with a boat, and the other go over the cliffs with a--a stret----" But she did not finish the sentence. The light of consciousness went out like the flame of a candle before a sudden gust of wind. She reached out her hands blindly and appealingly, staggered toward the nearest house, and before anyone could reach her side she fell with a thud, and lay in a dead faint on the floor. CHAPTER VI FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY Rufus watched the rising tide with as much composure as he could command. It was the first time in his life that his philosophy had been put to the test, and the strain brought it near to breaking-point. He found it easy enough to pick holes in the creed in which he had been reared, and had rather prided himself that he had shaken himself free from what he called the bondage of ecclesiastical superstition. But there was something that still remained and which he was scarcely conscious of until now--something which he could not very well shape into words; something for which he could find no name. His landlady, Mrs. Tuke, called him an unbeliever, and he accepted the description without demur; but a negative implies a positive. Unbelief in one direction means belief in the opposite. He certainly did not believe the dogmas his grandfather insisted upon with so much passion and vehemence. He had laughed to scorn the thunderings of the little Bethel to which he had been compelled to listen as a lad. He had torn the swaddling clothes of orthodoxy into tatters, and cast them from him as though they were unclean. He had wandered for three or four years in the realm of pure negation, scorning all creeds and denying all religion. Yet now, when life seemed narrowing to its final close, he discovered as in a sudden accession of light, that the last word on the subject had not been spoken. For the first time in his life he realised that religion is not a creed, nor an ordinance; that it is not something apprehended by the exercise of the mind, and that it is only remotely related to ecclesiasticism. Its roots went deeper. It is instinct; it is of the very substance of life. He had drawn himself as far up the shelving cliff as possible, though every movement was torture, and with steady eyes he watched the tide rising higher and higher. There was something fascinating in its steady approach. It was not an angry tide, breaking and foaming and struggling to reach its prey. It came on with slow and tranquil movement. There was scarcely a ripple on its surface. Far out in the line of the sinking sun it was like a great sheet of gold. Its voice was a low monotone, as it washed the pebbles in a slow and languid way. Here and there it raised itself like a sleeping monster taking in a long breath, but the swell never broke into sound or foam. And yet to Rufus Sterne it never seemed more relentlessly cruel. Its stealthy creep and crawl seemed positively vindictive. Its voice was no longer the tinkle of silver bells, but the cynical laughter of fiends. He made a desperate effort to pull himself still higher up the cliff, but that proved to be impossible. He could only lie still and wait. When the tide reached its flood it would be a dozen feet above where he lay. Would he sleep soundly or would dreams disturb his rest? He had very little hope of being rescued alive. It was a long way round by Penwith Cove to St. Gaved, and even if the beautiful girl he had rescued--he did not know her name--ran all the distance, and men with the stretcher ran all the way back, it seemed scarcely possible that they could reach him in time. He would like to live. The desire for life was never stronger than now. It was not so much that he was afraid of death--he was a _little_ afraid of it, he was compelled to be honest with himself--but two things seemed to intensify his desire for life. The first was his great invention, which was now in process of being perfected; and the other was---- Well the other was an indefinable something which he was not able to shape into words. Something vaguely connected with the sweet-eyed girl whom he had that afternoon rescued from death. He did not understand what subtle influence had been set in motion; did not comprehend the nature of the spell, but the fact remained that the world seemed a brighter place since she came to the Hall, and life a richer inheritance. It was not a matter that he could discuss even with himself. It was too shadowy and elusive. To attempt to reason the matter out would be to destroy a sweet illusion--for that it was illusion he had no doubt. And yet the illusion, or the impression, or the sensation, or whatever it might be, was so delightful that he had not the courage to touch it. Life had not possessed so many pleasures for him that he could afford to scorch with the white flame of logic even the faintest and most shadowy of them. He had had a hard and unloved childhood, a youth from which all sympathy had been excluded, and a manhood of badly compensated toil and unrealised ambition. And now when life's stern and dusty way seemed opening out into the green pastures of success, and there had strayed across his path a sweet-eyed stranger whose very smile breathed hope and peace, it was not at all surprising that the desire for life burned with an intenser flame than ever. He counted his heart beats, and watched the tide creeping higher and higher. The nearer it came the swifter appeared to be its approach. The gold on the sea was giving place to grey, the fire was dying out of the Western sky, a chill wind sprang up and whispered in the crevices of the cliffs. The gulls circled high above his head, and cried in melancholy tones. He shivered a little, perhaps with fear, perhaps because the evening was growing cold. Did he regret saving the stranger's life and losing his own in doing it? On the whole, he did not think he did. It was surely a noble thing to save a human life. "But why?" The old question pulled him up with a suddenness that almost startled him. "Wherein lay the nobleness?" Nature set no store on human life--earthquake, tempest, pestilence, famine, swept human beings into the jaws of death by the thousand and tens of thousands. And mankind was as contemptuous of human life as nature herself. It's professed regard was but a hollow sham. Was not the first law of life that every man should look after himself? What had he gained by the sacrifice? What had the world gained? Was not the life sacrificed of infinitely greater value than the life saved? His great discovery would now never see the light, the toil of years would be wasted, the travail of his brain would end in darkness and silence, and in return a foolish girl would dance her heedless way through life. But in the great crises of life logic perpetually fails, and philosophy proves but a broken staff. Neither logic nor philosophy comforted Rufus in that solemn and trying hour. He could not reason it out, but deep down in his soul he felt that death was far less terrible than being a coward. Better die in the service of others than live merely for self. The tide had reached his feet, and was beginning to creep round his legs. He drew up the foot that he still had the use of, for the water felt icy cold. All the gold had gone out of the sky by this time, and the sea was of a leaden hue. Moreover the monster seemed as if waking from his sleep. Here and there the long swell broke into a line of foam, and the waves began to leap over the low-lying rocks. He began to talk to himself; perhaps to keep his courage up, for it was very weird and lonely lying under the dark cliffs, while the cruel sea crept steadily higher. "I wonder if dying will be so very painful," he said. "I wonder if the struggle will last long, and when it is over, and I am lying here with the cold waves surging above me, what then? Of course, I shall know nothing about it, for there is nothing beyond. Science can find nothing, and pure reason rejects the suggestion. I shall be as the rocks and the seaweed." He shuddered painfully and tried to drag himself higher up the cliff, then with a groan he laid his head against the rock and closed his eyes. It was foolish to struggle. He had better meet his fate like a man. The tide was rising round him rapidly now. The cold seemed to be numbing his heart. The struggle could not be long at the most. "She will think of me," he said to himself, and a smile played round the corners of his mouth. "I have earned her gratitude and she is not likely to forget. Not that her gratitude can do me any good. And yet----" He opened his eyes again and looked out over the darkening sea. "If one were only sure," he said, with a gasp. "Why does my nature protest so violently? Why this instinctive looking beyond if there is nothing beyond which can respond to the look? Why this longing for reunion, for vision, for immortality?" His lips moved though no sound escaped them. Creeds might be false, and yet religion might be true. The Church might be a sham, and yet the Kingdom of God a reality. Prayer might be degraded or its meaning misunderstood, and yet it might be as natural and as necessary as breathing. Philosophy might be an interesting hone on which to sharpen one's wits, but utterly useless in the crucial moments of life. He swept the horizon with a despairing glance, then closed his eyes once more. * * * * * Meanwhile St. Gaved was in a state of considerable excitement. Madeline Grover's breathless story had set every one on the _qui vive_, and for several minutes everyone was wondering what all the rest would do. Several clumsy, though willing pairs of hands carried the unconscious girl into Mrs. Tuke's cottage, which happened to be the nearest at hand. The policeman hurried down to the quay, to convey the news to the fishermen, after which he made for the police-station and fished out from a lumber room an antiquated ambulance. All this took considerable time, and Madeline had nearly recovered consciousness again when the little procession started out over the cliffs in the direction of Penwith Cove. Madeline might have remained in a state of faint much longer than she did, but for Mrs. Tuke's extreme measures. Sousing the patient's face with cold water appeared to produce no effect. But when she placed a saucer of burnt or burning feathers under her nostrils the result was almost instantaneous. Mrs. Juliff, who assisted in the operation, declared it was enough to make a dead man sneeze, and there was reason for the remark. Madeline came to herself with violent gaspings and splutterings, and stared round her with a look of terror and perplexity in her eyes. "There, my dear, I hope you feel better now?" Mrs. Tuke said, encouragingly, giving the patient another sniff of the pungent odour. "Better," Madeline gasped. "Why you suffocate me," and she made an attempt to reach the door. "No, no, don't try to walk," Mrs. Tuke said, soothingly. "You can't do no good to nobody by being flustered." "But Mr. Sterne is drowning by slow inches," she cried, "and I promised----" "Yes, my dear," Mrs. Tuke interrupted, "and everything is being done as can be done. I'm terribly upset myself. But I always feared evil would befall him." "Why did you fear that?" Madeline asked, in a tone of surprise. "Well, my dear, it's a serious thing to remove the ancient landmarks, to deny the faith, and to put the Bible to open shame as it were." Madeline could hardly help smiling in spite of her anxiety, as Mrs. Tuke further enlarged on Rufus Sterne's moral and spiritual decadence. "Not that I wish to bring against him a railing accusation," Mrs. Tuke said, pulling herself up suddenly; "far be it from me to judge anyone." "But you appear to have judged him very freely," Madeline said, a little indignantly. "But not in anger, my dear, but only in love. He is a good lodger in many ways, pays regular and keeps good hours. But the Sabbaths! Oh, my dear, it cuts me to the heart, and he the grandson of a minister." "He is a very brave man, anyhow," Madeline said, warmly, "and I owe my life to him. Oh, I do hope he will be rescued before it's too late." "And I hope so, too. It will be terrible for him to go unprepared into the other world, and as a lodger he would not be easy to replace." Madeline darted a somewhat contemptuous glance at Mrs. Tuke, then made for the door again. "I cannot stay here doing nothing," she said, "while he may be drowning," and she rushed out into the rapidly-growing twilight. She wondered why she should feel so weak and exhausted, forgetting that she had tasted no food since lunch. In spite of weakness, however, she hurried on back over the cliffs. She could not rest until she knew the best or the worst. She felt acutely the burden of her responsibility. She was the cause of all the trouble. If she had not run in the teeth of everyone whose advice was worth taking this would not have happened. It was hard that the penalty of her foolishness should be paid by another, and if this young man were drowned, she believed she would never be able to forgive herself to the day of her death. Away in front of her the cliffs were dotted with people who had come out from St. Gaved on hearing the news. Some were standing still and looking seaward, others were hurrying forward in the direction of Penwith Cove. A few were crouched on the edge of the cliff and were peering over, to the imminent risk of life and limb. Several fishing boats were rounding St. Gaved's Point, and some were hugging the shore so closely that they could not be seen unless one stood on the very edge of the cliff. Madeline's lips kept moving in prayer as she walked. Her chief concern was lest the burden of this young man's death should be upon her soul. There were other considerations no doubt. She would be sorry in any case for a life of so much promise to be so suddenly cut off. But as she had seen him only twice she would soon get over a very natural regret, so long as no blame attached to her. The thought crossed her mind at length that her prayer was a very selfish one. She was concerned only for her own peace of mind. The welfare of Rufus Sterne apart from her own responsibility was not a matter that troubled her. Then a question slowly entered her brain, and the warm blood mounted in a torrent to her neck and face. The next moment all the people on the cliff began to run in the direction of Penwith Cove. She stood still and pressed her hand to her side to check the violent throbbing of her heart. She felt as though she could not walk a step further, even if her life depended upon it. "They have found him," she whispered to herself. "I wonder whether alive or dead." And she sank down on the turf and waited. The sea was surging among the rocks below with a dirge-like sound, the stars were coming out in the sky above, the distant landscape was disappearing in a sombre haze. A little later her attention was caught by the sound of running feet, and looking up she saw the people who, a few minutes before, were hurrying in the direction of Penwith Cove, were now retracting their steps with all possible haste. She rose slowly to her feet and waited. A swift-footed lad had out-distanced all the rest. "Have they found him?" she questioned, eagerly, as he drew near. "No, Miss," he answered. "The tide is too high; there's no getting along under the cliffs." "Then he's drowned," she said, with a gasp. "Well, it looks like it unless a boat has got to him in time. I want to get down to the quay to see," and without waiting to answer any further questions he hurried away at the top of his speed. CHAPTER VII THE NICK OF TIME On the return journey to St. Gaved Madeline lagged painfully behind. Her strength was completely spent. She was as eager as any of the others to know if the fishermen had rescued Rufus Sterne, but her limbs refused to render obedience to her will. But for her intense desire to know the fate of the man who had rescued her, she would have laid down on the spongy turf, fearless of all consequences. What her friends at the Hall might think of her absence had never once occurred to her. The events of the afternoon had been so painful and startling that all minor matters had been driven out of her mind. Hence when the voice of Sir Charles sounded close to her ear she looked up with a start of mingled inquiry, and surprise. "Madeline, Madeline," he exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself? We've been hunting all over the place for you." "Oh, I am so sorry," she answered, wearily. "I'd forgotten all about you. I've had such a--a--such a terrible adventure." "Such a terrible adventure," he exclaimed, with a note of alarm in his voice. "Has anyone dared----" "No, no," she interrupted. "No one would molest me in these parts, but I have come near losing my life," and she sank to the ground, feeling she could not go a step further. Sir Charles blew a policeman's whistle which he carried in his pocket, and a few minutes later several of the Hall servants came running up. "Miss Grover has met with an accident!" he explained. "One of you go and fetch the brougham at once, and another run into St. Gaved and fetch the doctor." Madeline was too exhausted to protest. She was barely conscious where she was or what had happened. The events of the afternoon seemed more like a dream to her than a reality. She heard other voices speaking near her, Beryl's among the rest, but she was too utterly exhausted to pay any attention. She found herself lifted into a carriage at length, and after that she remembered no more until she opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying snug and warm in her own bed. Meanwhile the little quay had become black with people waiting the return of Sam Tregarrick's boat. Sam had been the first to grasp the purport of Constable Greensplat's message, and without waiting to ask questions or consult with his neighbours, he and his son Tom had bent to their oars and pulled with all possible haste in the direction indicated. Rounding St. Gaved point they hugged the coast as closely as possible, keeping a sharp look out all the time for any moving figure on the dark line of rocks. The beach was completely under water by the time they had rounded the point. "It's us or nobody, father," Tom said to his father, as he gave to his oar a swifter stroke. "What do you mean by that, sonny?" Sam asked, staring hard at the coast line. "I mean that those who've gone over the downs will never be able to get round Penwith Cove way in time." "It looks like it, sartinly," Sam answered. "Why the tide is two foot up the cliffs already," Tom protested. "And Greensplat ain't the sort to wet his feet, if he knows it." "Fortunately there ain't no sea running," the elder man remarked after a pause. "So if he can drag hisself up the rocks a bit, he may come to nothing worse than a bit of a fright." "Rufus Sterne ain't the sort of chap they make cowards of," Tom replied, doggedly. "And if he's got to drown he'll drown, and he won't make no fuss 'bout it, nuther." "Nobody wants to drown, sonny, afore his time," Sam answered, mildly. "It's aisy enough to talk 'bout dying when you're safe and sound and out of danger; but when you're face to face with it--well, a man is on'y a man at best." "I say nothing agin that, father," Tom answered; "but heaps of folks squeal afore they're hurt, and send for the parson to pray with 'em afore the doctor's had time to feel their pulse. But Rufus Sterne don't belong to that class." "I fear he wouldn't send for the parson in no case," Sam answered, thoughtfully; "but do you see anything, sonny, just to the right of that big rock?" Tom slackened his oar for an instant; then he shouted at the top of his voice, "Ahoy there! Ahoy!" A moment later a white handkerchief was fluttered feebly for an instant, and then allowed to drop. "It's he sure 'nough," Tom said, excitedly; "but he's got to the far end. If we don't pull like blazes, father, we shall be too late." From that moment father and son wasted no more of their breath in talk. They felt as though they were engaged in a neck to neck race with death. The distance seemed no more than a stone's throw, and yet though they pulled with might and main it appeared to grow no less. Tom was stroke, and the elder man bravely kept time. The wide Atlantic swell rocked them gently. Now the grey speck on the face of the cliffs disappeared as they sank into a hollow, and now it came into full view again as they rose on the gently heaving tide. "Ahoy!" Tom called once or twice as they drew nearer, but there was no response, and both men began to fear that they were too late. Moreover, as they neared the cliffs they had to pick their way. Hidden rocks showed their dark pinnacles for a moment in all directions. There was no time, however, for excess of caution. If they were to succeed they must be daring, even to the point of recklessness. They could see Rufus now, reclining against a rock; he appeared to be clutching it tightly with both hands. Now and then the swell of the tide surged almost up to his neck. "Pull like blazes, father," Tom shouted, excitedly, and they ran the boat, defying all risks, close up to Rufus' side. "Hold tight, mate," Tom called, encouragingly; "father and I'll do the job, if you keep a steady nerve." "I'll try," was the feeble response. "Leave the getting him in to me, dad," Tom said, turning to his father. "You keep on this side, or we shall capsize in two jiffeys." The elder man obeyed. The boat drifted almost broadside on. Tom laid his oar aside and watched his opportunity. It was clear enough that Rufus had no strength left. Nevertheless his brain was clear still. Tom explained the _modus operandi_ which he proposed, and Rufus smiled approvingly. It was a ticklish operation, the boat was not large, and an inch too near the rocks might prove the destruction of all. At a signal from Tom, Rufus let go his hold of the rocks and reached out his hands to his rescuer. The next moment he felt himself floating on the tide. Sam, with his oar, pushed into deeper water, and then began the delicate operation of getting a half drowned man, handicapped by a broken leg, into the boat. To Rufus it was torture beyond anything he had ever felt or imagined. He felt so sick that he feared he would lose consciousness altogether; even pain at that moment was better than oblivion. Now that life was in sight again, the passion for existence seemed to burn with a stronger flame than ever. Tom dragged him over the side of the boat as tenderly as he was able. It was a breathless moment for the two fishermen. The little craft came within an ace of being capsized, and nothing but the skill of the older man saved her from turning turtle. Rufus was too far gone to realise the danger. The sickening torture was more than he could endure, and unconsciousness mercifully intervened. Father and son laid him in as easy a position in the bottom of the boat as they knew how, then they took their oars again and pulled for home. It was growing rapidly dark by this time, and a cool and grateful breeze was sweeping across the wide expanse of sea. They saw the little harbour black with people when they rounded the point, accompanied by a dozen other boats that had come too late upon the scene to be of any service. A shout went up that could be heard at the far end of the village when it became known that Rufus Sterne had been rescued alive, for though many people regarded him as "a cut above his station," as they expressed it, yet he was with the majority of the villagers exceedingly popular. Besides, it had got to be known by this time that the accident which had brought him into a position of such imminent peril had been caused by trying to save the life of another. In what that effort consisted was as yet by no means clear. But sufficient had been told by the lady visitor at the Hall to leave no doubt that it was through helping her he had met with his accident. Hence, for the moment, Rufus was regarded in the light of a hero, and some people went so far as to suggest that if there was such a thing as gratitude in the world, Sir Charles Tregony would do something handsome for him. It was fortunate, perhaps, for Rufus that he heard none of the irresponsible chatter that went on round him while he was being conveyed from the quay to Mrs. Tuke's cottage. Momentary glimmers of consciousness came back to him, but accompanied by such insufferable torture, that his very brain seemed to stagger under the shock. Dr. Pendarvis had just returned from a long round in the country, and was listening to a more or less incoherent story told him by his wife, when there came a violent ring at the surgery bell. "You say that Chester has gone to the Hall to see Miss Grover?" the Doctor questioned. "That is as I understand it," his wife replied; "though I confess the story is a bit complicated." "In which way?" "Well, late this afternoon Miss Grover rushed into the town considerably dishevelled and in a state of breathless excitement, and told the first man she saw, which happened to be Greensplat, that Rufus Sterne was lying at the foot of the cliffs near Penwith Cove with a broken leg, and that if he wasn't rescued quickly he would be drowned." "And has he been rescued?" "I don't know. But some considerable time after one of the Hall servants came hurrying here for you, saying that you were wanted at once as Miss Grover had met with an accident, and as you were not at home, of course, Mr. Chester went." "I don't see how the two things hang together," Dr. Pendarvis said, with knitted brows. "Neither do I," replied his wife; "but there goes the surgery bell again." Five minutes later Dr. Pendarvis was hurrying down the long main street in the direction of Mrs. Tuke's cottage. He found Rufus in a state of collapse, and with the broken limb so swollen that he made no attempt to set the bone. "We will have to get the swelling down first," he explained in his old-fashioned way. "Meanwhile, we must make the patient as comfortable as possible." What he said to himself was, "This is a case for Chester. These young men, with their hospital practice and their up-to-date methods, can make rings round the ordinary G.P." When he got back to his house he found his assistant waiting for him. "So you have been to the Hall, I understand?" he questioned. "Nothing serious, I hope?" "Oh, no! an attack of nerves mainly. A few cuts and bruises, but they are scarcely more than skin deep. She's evidently had a narrow squeak though." "Ah! I tried to get something out of Sterne, but he's in too much pain to be very communicative." "What was troubling Miss Grover most when I got there," Chester replied, "was the fear that he had not been rescued." "An attachment between them already?" the elder man queried, with a twinkle in his eye. "I don't think so," was the reply, "though naturally if a man saves a woman's life she becomes interested in him." "Unless he happens to be a doctor, eh?" "Oh! well, doctors do not count," Chester said, with a laugh. "Perhaps women have no faith in our ability to save life," Dr. Pendarvis questioned. "Oh, yes, I think they have," the younger man replied, slowly; "but then you see, we do it professionally. There is no touch of romance about it, and we are not supposed to take any risks." "We take the fees instead," the older man laughed. "When we can get them. But do you know in what relationship Miss Grover stands to the Tregony family?" "Not the ghost of an idea. Sir Charles is as close as an oyster on the subject, and as far as I can make out, the girl is not in the habit of talking about herself." "She's distinctly American," Chester said, thoughtfully. "And therefore piquant and interesting?" "I prefer English girls myself; that is, in so far as girls interest me at all." "You think you are proof against their wiles?" "I hope I am, though it is a matter on which one does not like to boast." "Better not," Pendarvis laughed, "better not. I've heard many men boast in my time, and seen them go down like ninepins before the whirlwind of a petticoat." "It's a bit humiliating, don't you think?" "It all depends on how you look at it. You see, we have to take human nature as it is, and not how we would like it to be. It is just because we are men that women triumph over us." "Then you admit that they are our masters?" "Not the least doubt of it. Of course, we keep up the pretence of being the head and all that. But a woman who knows her business can twist a man round her finger and thumb." "I believe you, and for that reason I do not intend to get entangled in the yoke of bondage." "Be careful," the older man laughed. "There are bright eyes and pretty frocks in an out-of-the-way place like St. Gaved. But let us get back to something more practical. I want you to call round and see Sterne first thing to-morrow morning." "He has broken his leg, I suppose?" "I fear it's a very bad fracture, and being tumbled about so much since the accident has not tended to mend matters. I hope by to-morrow morning the swelling will have subsided." "It seems very unfortunate for him, for I understand he has some big scheme on hand which he is labouring to complete." "So it is said. But I have no faith in these big schemes. Young men should keep to their legitimate work. It may be a mercy for him if his scheme is knocked on the head." Saying which he bade his assistant good-night and retired to his own room. CHAPTER VIII THE SOUL'S AWAKENING Two people did not sleep at all that night. Pain kept Rufus Sterne awake--an active brain banished slumber from the eyes of Madeline Grover. Possibly some subtle and intractable current of sympathy ran between the cottage and the mansion--some occult and undiscovered movement of the air between brain and brain or heart and heart, some telepathic communication that science had not scheduled yet. Be that as it may, neither Rufus nor Madeline could woo a wink of sleep. All through the long hours of the night they lay with wide-open eyes--the one weaving the threads of fancy into all imaginable shapes, the other fighting for the most part the twin demons of pain and fear. Madeline lived through that fateful afternoon a thousand times. She recalled every incident, however trivial it might be. Memory would let nothing escape. Things that she scarcely noticed at the time became hugely significant. Simple words and gestures seemed to glow with new meanings. She was not superstitious--at least she believed she was not. Neither was she a fatalist, and yet she had a feeling that for good or ill, her life was in some way or other bound up with this stranger. It was not his fault that he had come into her life. He had not sought her. The beginning of the acquaintanceship was all on her side. She had made the first advance, and the whirligig of chance or the workings of an inscrutable providence had done all the rest. In some respects it was scarcely pleasant to feel that she was so much in debt to a stranger. Whatever might happen in the future, or wherever her lot was cast, she would never be able to get away from the feeling that she owed her life to this Rufus Sterne. To make matters all the worse, he was suffering considerable pain and loss on her account. How much this accident might mean to him she had no means of knowing. All his immediate prospects might be wrecked in consequence. For a young man dependent on his own exertions to be incapacitated for two or three months might be a more serious matter than she could guess. Sometimes she wished that some homely fisherman or ignorant ploughboy had rescued her. She might in such a case have given material compensation, and it would have been accepted with gratitude, and her obligation would be at an end. But Rufus Sterne was a gentleman--that fact was beyond all dispute--and doubtless he had all the pride that generally attaches to genteel poverty. The obligation, therefore, would have to remain. There was, as far as she could see, no possible way of discharging it. To speak of compensation would be to insult him. Behind all this there was another feeling: What did he think of her? Did he resent her intrusion into the quiet sanctuary of his life? Did he wish that she had never crossed his path? Was his thought of her at that moment such as her cheeks would redden to hear? She wished she knew what he thought of her--what in his heart he felt. It would be humiliating if he regarded her with contempt, or even with mild dislike. She would not live to be regarded by him even with indifference. Her cheeks grew hot when she made this confession to herself. If he had been a fisherman or a ploughboy it would not have mattered, and she would not have cared. But he was one of the most noticeable men she had ever seen. A man who would win a second look in any crowd. A man who--given a fair chance--would make his mark in the world. She hoped that he was not very angry with her, that he was not writing her down in his mind as a foolish and headstrong girl. She would like, after all, to have his good opinion--like him to think that in saving her he had saved a life that was worth saving. It might not be true in fact, but she would like him to think so all the same. To what end had he saved her? As she looked at her life stretching forward into the future she saw nothing great or heroic in it. It had all been mapped out for her, and mapped out in a very excellent way. The exhortation "take no thought for the morrow," was not needed in her case. Everything was being settled to everyone's satisfaction, her own included. She had only to fall in with the drift and current of events and all would be as she would like it to be. Other women might have to plan and struggle, and labour and contrive; but in the scheme of her life such unpleasant things had no place. All contingencies had been provided against. She did not need to take any thought for to-morrow. "I'm not sure that my life was worth saving after all," she said to herself, a little bit fretfully. "It seems an aimless, selfish kind of thing as I look at it now. A poor woman who inspires her husband to do some great deed, even if she is incapable of any great deed herself, surely lives a nobler life than that which seems marked out for me." Her cheeks grew red again. How proud she would be if she could be the inspiration of some great achievement! To give hope to some great soul struggling amid adverse circumstances would be an end worth living for. To stand by the side of a man she could look up to, and help him to win in the hard battle of life--that would be the crown of all existence. She began to wonder, after a while, why such thoughts came to her. Why the future should look different from what it had always done. Why a thread of a different hue should show itself in the pattern that had been woven for her. Why a doubt should arise in her heart as to whether the absolutely best had been marked out for her. Until to-night she had been quite content to take things as she found them. Of course, she had had her troubles, like other girls. It was a trouble to her that she had never known the love of her mother, a trouble that she had never been able to get on with her step-mother, a trouble when her father died--though, as she had seen very little of him for seven years previously, the sense of loss was not so keen as it might have been. It was a trouble to her to say good-bye to her schoolfellows and friends, and cross the seas to a new home in England. Of course, the last trouble had its compensations. To an American girl whose forebears were English, "The Old Country," as it is affectionately termed, is the land of romance, the home of chivalry, the cradle of heroes and of history. To see the things she had read about in her childhood, to visit spots made sacred by the blood of the heroic dead, to tread on the ground where kings have stood, to pay homage at the shrine of poets and seers--that would be worth crossing a thousand oceans for. It is true she had been more than a little disappointed. Trewinion Hall was so far away from everywhere, and the people who visited it from time to time were very little to her taste. She would have liked to live in London always. Life and colour and movement were there. Its very streets were historic. Many of its public buildings were hoary with antiquity, and "rich with the spoils of time." The men and women of rank and name and power moved in and out amongst the crowd. History was being made from day to day in its Halls of Assembly. St. Gaved seemed to her like a little place that had got stranded in the dim and distant past. The rest of the world had run away from it. It lived on its traditions because it had no hope of a future. Like the granite cliffs that stretched north and south, it never changed. Its business, its politics, its morals, its religion, were what they had been from time immemorial. A man who said anything new, or advanced an opinion that was not strictly orthodox, was regarded with suspicion. St. Gaved had its charm, no doubt. The charm of antiquity, the charm of leisureliness, the charm of immobility. Moreover, it was beautiful for situation. The cliffs were magnificent beyond anything she had ever dreamed. The great ocean was a never-failing source of interest. The valleys that cleft their way inland, the streams that lost themselves in tangled brakes of undergrowth, the hillsides rich in timber, the hedgerows that were masses of wild flowers, the moorlands yellow with gorse--all these things were a set off against its dull and slow-moving life. Then, besides all that, life would not always be dull. Gervase was returning from India in the spring, and a great many things might happen then. Gervase was Sir Charles' only son, and heir to the title and estates. He was a handsome soldier of the genuine military type, tall and straight, and not over-burdened with flesh. His hair was pale, his complexion ruddy, his voice harsh, his manner that of one born to command. Madeline had met him three years before at Washington, and as he was in some far-off and round-about way related to her, he had escorted her to any number of receptions, and danced with her more times than she could count. She thought him then the most handsome man she had ever seen, especially in his uniform. She liked him, too, because he was so dogmatic and masterful; there was nothing timid, or feeble, or retiring about him. He was a man who meant to have his own way, and generally got it. His courage and daring also touched her heart and imagination. His talk had been mainly about shooting dervishes in Egypt and hunting tigers in India, and some of his exploits had thrilled her to the finger-tips. It puzzled her that he could talk so light-heartedly about the slaughter of human beings, even though they were Arabs and Hindoos, but then he was trained to be a soldier, and soldiers were trained to kill. It was one of those things she had looked forward to with the greatest interest in coming to England. She would see Gervase Tregony again. It seemed to her like a special providence that Sir Charles Tregony should be her trustee until she was twenty-one, and of course nothing could be kinder than that he should invite her to stay at the Hall as long as she liked--to make her permanent abode there if she chose to do so. She was glad to accept the invitation for several reasons. In the first place, it was impossible to live with her step-mother, who for some reason appeared to resent her very existence. In the second place, she longed, with all a school-girl's longing, for change, and to see England and Europe had been the very height of her ambition. And in the third place--and this was a secret that she safely guarded in her own bosom--she would the sooner see Captain Tregony; for if she were in England she would be among the first to give him welcome on his return from India, and she imagined with a little thrill at her heart how his face would light up and his eyes sparkle when he saw her standing behind the rest, waiting to give him the warmest welcome of all. This little secret added a peculiar charm and zest to life, and all the more so because every arrangement had been made respecting her future, as though Captain Tregony had no existence. She imagined sometimes that her father had been under the guidance of a special providence when he made Sir Charles Tregony her trustee, that Sir Charles was under the same kindly influence when he accepted the responsibility and took her to the shelter of his own home. Had she known the scheming and man[oe]uvering that went on at an earlier date, her faith in providence would have been rudely shaken. But she had no idea that she was only a pawn in a game that was being played by others. It was some solace to John Grover, even when dying, that his only child would mix with the English aristocracy and probably become "my lady" before she had finished her earthly course. To John Grover, who had started life with empty pockets, who had struggled through years of grinding poverty, who had "struck oil," as he termed it, in middle life and made a huge fortune before he was fifty--to such a man the thought of his daughter marrying an English officer who was also heir to a baronetcy was a distinction almost too great to be shaped into words. To have married the President of the United States would have been nothing comparable to it. It was a proud day for John Grover when he discovered that his first wife, the mother of Madeline, was remotely connected with the Tregonys of Trewinion Hall, Cornwall. He wrote claiming relationship with Sir Charles on the strength of it, much to the Baronet's annoyance and disgust. But several years later, when John Grover had become a millionaire, Sir Charles decided to hunt him up. A penniless man was one thing, a man with a million was another. Sir Charles himself was as poor as a church mouse, that is taking his position into account. His son and heir, Gervase, was a young man of very expensive tastes and very lax notions of economy. Hence if their ancestral hall could be refurnished by American dollars, and Gervase's debts paid off out of the savings of this John Grover, it would be a happy and an ingenious stroke of business. Of course, diplomacy would be needed, and diplomacy of the most delicate and subtle kind. Sir Charles took Gervase into his confidence, and Gervase confided to his father that he was prepared to marry anybody in reason so long as she had plenty of the needful. Sir Charles took a voyage to the United States and interviewed his relatives. A few months later Gervase went across and paid court to Madeline, and with remarkable success. Madeline was in her seventeenth year at the time, romantic, inexperienced and impressionable. Then came the death of her father, the discovery that Sir Charles Tregony was her trustee, and the option of spending her minority in Trewinion Hall. So far everything had happened as anticipated. There had been no hitch anywhere, and to all appearances the little scheme would be brought to a successful issue. Sir Charles kept Gervase well posted up as to the course of events. "She has not the remotest idea that we have any designs upon her," he said, in one of his early letters. "If she got the smallest hint I fear she might jib. She has grown to be a remarkably handsome girl, high spirited and intelligent. There is nobody here to whom she will lose her heart, and I am keeping her as secluded as possible till you return. I trust to you to put as much warmth in your letters to her as you think advisable. At present she thinks the world of you. I am sure of it. You impressed her mightily when you were in the States. She regards you as a sort of saint and hero rolled into one. She thinks also that you are immensely clever. Hence it is rather a difficult _rôle_ you will have to play. By letter you can do a great deal between now and the new year. Keep up the idealism. She is very puritanic in some of her notions. Don't shock her, for the world. If you can arrange an engagement before you return so much the better. A long courtship, I fear, might spoil everything. She has sharp eyes; and yet you have to guard against being too precipitate. So far, I flatter myself we have both handled the matter with great delicacy. A few months more, and--with care and judgment, you may snap your fingers at the world." Sir Charles had rightly estimated her character in one respect. If Madeline had had the smallest suspicion that he and his son had designs upon her--that a deliberate plot was being hatched--her indignation would have known no bounds. But her own little secret had been, perhaps, the best safeguard against any such suspicion. To her ingenuous mind the world was the best of all possible places. Her friends had so arranged her life and her lot that everything appeared to be working together for the best. She had not to worry about anything. The Captain's letters had as much warmth in them as she could desire. Her future, shaped for her without any contriving of her own--shaped by friends and by Providence, left nothing to be desired. It was clear what the Captain wished. It would have pleased her father had he been alive, it would be satisfactory to Sir Charles, it would fit in with her own conception of life. So she would dance along the primrose way without a want, without a care, without a responsibility. There would be gaiety, and mirth, and music, balls and crushes, and social functions of all sorts and kinds. She would get into social circles she had never known before, and be "Lady" Tregony before she died. It was all as straight as a rule, and as clear as a sunbeam. Why had it never seemed empty and sordid and selfish until to-night? Why did her inward eyes look for a sterner and more heroic way? Why did pleasure look so uninviting and duty wear such a noble mien? Why was all her future outlook changed as in a flash? These were questions she was debating with herself when a new day stole into the room. CHAPTER IX THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER A few days later, Madeline received a letter from Captain Tregony, which contained a carefully-worded, though very definite, proposal of marriage. Gervase had been only too pleased to carry out his father's suggestion. The prospect of fingering at an early date a few of her surplus dollars was a very tempting one. He was not particularly in love with her. He had got through the sentimental age, so he believed. Moreover, he had seen so much of life and the world, and had had such a wide and varied experience of feminine kind that he was not likely to be carried off his feet by a pretty face or engaging manners. Nevertheless, if he was to marry at all--and since he was an only son and heir to a title and estates, marriage seemed a very obvious duty--then there was no one, all things considered, he would sooner take to his heart and endow with all his worldly goods than Madeline Grover. She was very young, very pretty, very sweet-tempered, and, best of all, very rich; and he knew no one else who possessed such a combination of excellencies. It had been a great relief to him when he went out to America to make the acquaintance of John Grover's daughter, to discover that she was such an unspoiled child of nature. He had been haunted by the fear that she might be ugly or ignorant or uneducated. Hence, when he found a charming school-girl, ingenuous, unsophisticated, impressionable, he heaved a big sigh of relief, and set to work at once to make a favourable and an abiding impression. He would have proposed then and there had he considered it politic to do so. His father, however, who was his chief adviser, would not hear of it. "You will spoil the whole game if you do," Sir Charles insisted. "Make a good impression now, and let time and absence deepen it. She will put a halo round your head after a few weeks' absence, and eagerly look forward to the next meeting." In this Sir Charles showed his knowledge of human nature, especially of feminine human nature. Gervase had hinted that, if he was not getting old, he was getting distinctly older, that the crows'-feet were very marked about his eyes, and that his hair was getting decidedly thin. "My dear boy," Sir Charles said, affectionately, "that is all in your favour. If she were eight or nine and twenty, she might cast longing eyes on the youths, but a girl of seventeen always dotes on an elderly man. Always! I don't know why it should be so, but I simply state a fact. Girls have not a particle of reverence or even respect for youths of twenty-one or two. They sigh for a man who bears the scars of years and battle." So Gervase went away to India, leaving his father to work the oracle for him at home. On the whole, Sir Charles's forecast had proved correct. Things had turned out much as he anticipated they would. Madeline read the Captain's letter with a distinct heightening of colour. She was still weak and a little inclined to be hysterical. Her adventure on the cliffs had shaken her nerves to an extent she was only just beginning to realise. She closed her eyes after she had put the letter back in the envelope, and tried to think. The Captain's proposal had not surprised her in the least, while the manner of it was just what she had expected. He had used just the right words and said neither too much nor too little. She admired him for his reticence, and for his strength in holding himself so well in check, and yet there was a passionate earnestness in his well-chosen words that revealed the depth of his affection, as well as his determination to win. Very adroitly and diplomatically also he had hinted of the good time they might have together. They would not settle down in a sleepy place like St. Gaved. They would have a town house, and perhaps a shooting-box in Scotland, and when tired of the United Kingdom they would travel on the Continent--Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, Florence, were delightful places to visit, and to tarry in for a few weeks or months. The common work-a-day world might roar and fret and toil and perspire, but they would live in a serener atmosphere, undisturbed by the jar and strife that went on around them. It was a very fair and enticing picture that his words conjured up, and one that she had often pictured for herself. This was the future that her friends, in conjunction with a kindly Providence, had shaped for her. There seemed nothing for her to do but say "Yes." It was all in the piece. Her life had been beautifully planned, and planned without effort or contrivance by anybody. The current had borne her along easily and gently to the inevitable union with Gervase Tregony. His face and form came up before her again as she last saw him. How handsome he looked in his uniform! How fierce his eyes were when he looked at other people, how gentle when he looked at her! Some people might think his voice harsh and raucous, but there was an undertone of music in it for her. It was the voice of a hero, of a man born to command. Its echoes seemed to be in the air even now. And yet for some reason her heart did not respond as it once did. Was it that her nerves had been shaken--that she had not quite got over the shock of the adventure? Something had happened during the last few days, but what it was she could not quite understand. The life of pleasure, to which she had looked forward, undisturbed by a single note of human pain, did not appeal to her, for some reason, as once it did. A new ingredient had been dropped into the cup, a new thought had come into her brain, a new impulse had shaken her heart. Had she looked at death so closely that life could never be the same to her again, or was it that she looked at life more truly and steadily? Had a change come over other people, or was the change wholly in herself? That something had happened she was certain, but what it was, was a question she could not definitely answer. Of one thing, however, she was sure. If the letter had come three or four days sooner, it would have found her in a wholly different frame of mind. Hence, whatever the change was, it was compassed by these few days. Her meditations were disturbed by a knock at the door, and a moment later Dr. Pendarvis entered. "Ah! you are better this morning," he said, in his bright, cheery fashion. "Now, let me feel your pulse." And he drew up a chair and sat down by her side. "A little inclined to be jumpy still, eh? Ah, well, you had rather a nasty experience. But you'll be all right again in a few days." "I think I am all right now," she said, with a smile. "Don't you think I might go out of doors?" "Well, now, what do you think yourself?" he questioned, stroking his chin and smiling. "I'm just a little shaky on my feet," she answered, "but I guess that would go off when I got into the fresh air." "And how about the bruises?" "Oh, they are disappearing one by one." "And how far do you think you could walk?" "I don't know, but I do know it's awfully dull being in the house." "And do you want to go anywhere in particular?" he asked innocently, and he glanced at her furtively out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, no!" she answered, blushing slightly; "or, at any rate, not just yet. Of course, when I get stronger I shall be glad to walk into St. Gaved again." "You ran into it last time," he said, laughing. "What a day of adventures you had to be sure!" "I was compelled to run," she said, averting her eyes and looking out of the window; "he would have drowned if I hadn't." "Exactly. And it was touch and go by all accounts. He couldn't have held out many minutes longer." "And is he going on all right, doctor?" She turned her eyes suddenly upon him, and waited with parted lips for his answer. "Well, about as well as can be expected," he answered, slowly, "taking all the circumstances into account." "And is he suffering much pain?" "A good deal I should say. In fact, that is inevitable." "He must wish me far enough." "It depends how far that is, I should say," and the old doctor chuckled. "You've not heard him heaping maledictions on my defenceless head?" "No, I have not," he answered, with a satirical smile; "but then you see he's not given to expressing his thoughts in public." "Exactly. I guess his thoughts about me would not bear repeating in any polite society." "That is possible," the old doctor said, pursing his lips, and looking thoughtful. "I suppose no one sees him yet?" "Well, Chester or I myself see him every day--sometimes twice." "I intend seeing him myself soon." "You do?" "Yes I do. There's nothing wrong in it, is there?" "Why do you ask that question?" "Because you've got such stupid notions about propriety in this country. In fact, few things seem to be regarded as proper except what is highly improper. I'm constantly stubbing my toes against the notice tablets, 'keep off the grass,' the dangerous places are left without warning." The doctor laughed. "Isn't it true what I'm saying?" she went on. "Half the people seem to be straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Directly you propose to do some perfectly innocent thing, if it should happen to be unconventional, you are met with shocked looks and outstretched hands and cries of protest. I'm getting rather tired of that word 'proper.'" "But Society must have some code to regulate itself by," he said, with an air of pretended seriousness. "Aren't the Ten Commandments good enough?" she questioned. "Well, hardly," he said, in a tone of banter. "You see they are a bit antiquated and out of date. Society, as at present constituted, must have everything of the most modern type. And modernity is not able to tolerate such an antiquated code as the Decalogue." "What do you mean by Society?" she questioned. "Ah! now you have cornered me," he said, with a laugh. "But just at the moment I was thinking of the idle rich. Men and women who have more money than they know how to spend, and more time than they know how to kill. The people who have never a thought beyond themselves, who live to eat and dress, and pander to the lowest passions of their nature. Who will spend thousands on a dinner fit only for gourmands, while the people around them are dying of hunger. Who waste in folly and luxury and vice what ought to go for the uplifting of the downtrodden and neglected. It is a big class in England, and a growing class, recruited in many instances from across the water----" "You mean from my country?" she questioned. "Yes, from your country," he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice, "they come bringing their bad manners and their diamonds, and they hang round the fringe of what is called the 'Smart Set,' and they bribe impecunious dowagers and such like to give them introductions, and they worm their way into the big houses, and God alone knows what becomes of them afterwards. I have a brother who has a big practice in the West-end. You should hear him talk----" "If people are rich," Madeline retorted warmly, "they have surely the right to enjoy themselves in their own way so long as they do no wrong." "Enjoy themselves," he snorted. "Is enjoyment the end of life?--and such enjoyment! Has duty no place in the scheme of existence? Because people have grown rich through somebody else's toil----" "Or through their own toil," she interrupted. "Or through their own toil--if any man ever did it--are they justified in wasting their life in idle gluttony, and in wasteful and wanton extravagance?" "Extravagance is surely a question of degree," she replied. "A hundred dollars to one man may be more than ten thousand to another." "I admit it. But your idle profligate, whether man or woman, is an offence." "What do you mean by profligate?" "I mean the creature who lives to eat and drink and dress. Who shirks every duty and responsibility, who panders to every gluttonous and selfish desire. Who hears the cry of suffering and never helps, who wastes his or her substance in finding fresh sources of so-called enjoyment, or discovering new thrills of sensation." "But we surely have a right to enjoy ourselves?" "Of course we have. But not after the fashion of swine. We are not animals. We are men and women with intellectual vision and moral responsibility. The true life lies along the road of duty and help and goodwill." "Yes, I agree with you in that. But I do not like to hear anyone speak slightingly of my country people." "For your country and your people as a whole, I have the greatest respect. But every country has its snobs and its parasites; and it is humbling that our own great army of idle profligates should receive recruits from the great Republic of the West." When Dr. Pendarvis had gone Madeline sat for a long time staring out of the window, but seeing nothing of the fair landscape on which her eyes rested. She tried to recall what it was that led their conversation into such a serious channel. To say the least of it, it was not a little strange that he should have taken the hazy and nebulous efforts of her own brain, and shaped them into clear and definite speech. The life of ease and pleasure and self-indulgence to which she had looked forward with so much interest and with such childish delight, he had denounced with a vigour she had half resented, and which all the while she felt answered to the deepest emotions of her nature. She took the Captain's letter from the envelope and read it again. It was a most proper letter in every respect. There was not a word or syllable that anyone could take the slightest exception to. The love-making was intense and yet restrained, the pleading eloquent and even tender, the prospect pictured such as any ordinary individual would hail with delight. What was it that it lacked? It seemed less satisfying since her talk with the doctor than before. The Captain pleaded for an answer by return of post. He wanted to have the assurance before he left India for home. He was tired of roughing it and wanted to look forward to long years of domestic peace. If the engagement were settled now they would be able to set up a house of their own soon after his return. She put away the letter after reading it through twice, and heaved a long sigh. "If it had come a week ago," she said to herself, "I should have answered 'Yes' without any misgiving. But now, everything seems changed. Perhaps I shall feel differently when I get out of doors again." On the following day she took a ramble in the rose garden, and sat for an hour on the lawn in the sunshine. On the second day she strayed into the plantation beyond the park, and on the third day she ventured on to the Downs, and came at length to the high point on the cliffs where she first met Rufus Sterne. Here she sat down and looked seaward, and thought of home and all that had happened since she left it. The plan of her life which had looked so clear was becoming more and more hazy and confused. Was Providence interposing to upset its own arrangements? Was she to tread a different path from what she had pictured. The fresh air brought the colour back to her cheeks again, and vigour to her limbs, but it did not clear away the mists that hung about her brain and heart. The Captain's letter remained day after day unanswered. "If I were engaged to the Captain," she said to herself, reflectively, "It might not be considered proper for me to call on Rufus Sterne. But while I am free, I am free. He saved my life, and it would be mean of me not to call. So I shall follow my heart"; and she rose to her feet and turned her steps towards home. CHAPTER X A VISITOR Mrs. Tuke came into the room on tip-toe, and closed the door softly behind her. There was a mysterious expression in her eyes, and she began at once to straighten the chairs and re-arrange the antimacassars. Her best parlour had been turned, for the time being, into a bedroom. To carry Rufus Sterne up the steep and narrow staircase was a task the fishermen refused to undertake, especially as Rufus had pleaded to be allowed to remain on the sofa. So a bed had been set up in the parlour--not without serious misgivings on the part of Mrs. Tuke, though she admitted the convenience of the arrangement later on. After Mrs. Tuke had arranged the furniture and antimacassars to her satisfaction, she advanced to the side of the bed. "A lady has called to see you," she said, in an awed whisper. "A lady?" Rufus questioned, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows. Mrs. Tuke nodded. "To see me or simply to inquire?" "To see you." "Do I know the lady?" and a faint tinge of colour came into his cheek. "I suppose so. You ought to do at any rate. It's that scare-away American as is staying at the Hall." And Mrs. Tuke turned and looked apprehensively toward the door. Rufus felt his heart give a sudden bound, but he answered quietly enough: "Is she waiting in the passage?" "No, I turned her into your room. Are you going to see her?" "Most certainly. I think it is awfully kind of her to call." "I suppose being a furrener explains things?" "Explains what, Mrs. Tuke?" "Well, in my day young ladies had different notions of what was the proper thing to do." "No doubt, Mrs. Tuke; but the world keeps advancing, you see." "Keeps advancing, do you call it. I am thankful that none of my girls was brought up that way." And Mrs. Tuke walked with her most stately gait out of the room. Rufus waited with rapidly beating heart. For days past--ever since the pain had become bearable, in fact--he had been longing for a glimpse of the sweet face that had captivated his fancy from the first. That she would call to see him he did not anticipate for a moment. That she had made inquiries concerning his condition he knew from his conversations with Dr. Pendarvis. More than that he could not expect, whatever he might desire. Hence, to be told that she was in the house, that she was waiting to see him, seemed to set vibrating every nerve he possessed. He heard a faint murmur of voices coming across the narrow lobby, and wondered what Mrs. Tuke was saying to her visitor. He hoped she would not feel it incumbent upon her to unburden her puritanical soul. When Mrs. Tuke was "drawn out," as she expressed it, she sometimes used great plainness of speech. At such times neither rank nor station counted. To clear her conscience was the supreme thing. On the present occasion, however, Madeline got the first innings. She guessed from the set of Mrs. Tuke's lips that she did not altogether approve. Moreover, she was afraid that on the occasion of her first visit--when Mrs. Tuke revived her with burnt feathers--she had not made a very good impression. Madeline came, therefore, fully armed and prepared to use all her wiles. She waited with a good deal of trepidation until Mrs. Tuke returned from her lodger's room. "What a noble, generous soul you must be, Mrs. Tuke," she said, and she looked straight into the cold, blue eyes and smiled her sweetest. Mrs. Tuke drew herself up and frowned. "And how lovely you keep your house," Madeline went on, "and what taste you have shown in arranging your furniture." Mrs. Tuke's face relaxed somewhat, and she gave the corner of the table cloth a little tug to straighten it. "I think people stamp their character on everything they do, don't you, Mrs. Tuke? If a woman is a lady the house shows it. Look at these flowers how beautifully arranged they are," and Madeline bent down her head and sniffed at them. "Some people never notice such things," Mrs. Tuke said, in an aggrieved tone. "Oh, Mrs. Tuke! how can they help it; I am sure you would recognise taste and beauty anywhere." "So many of the women hereabouts have no taste," Mrs. Tuke replied. "They keep their houses any fashion. I always say you can tell what a house is like by the window curtains. You need not put your head inside the door." "I quite agree with you, Mrs. Tuke. May I ask where you send your curtains to be got up so beautifully?" "I get 'em up myself." "No?" "I do, indeed," and Mrs. Tuke smiled upon her visitor most benignantly. "How clever you must be. Do you know I think we should become quite fast friends? We seem to understand each other so well. Some people never understand each other. Now, if you were like some narrow, uncharitable people you would not approve of my calling to see Mr. Sterne." Mrs. Tuke started, and took a sidelong glance out of the window. "And I have no doubt," Madeline went on, "if some of the people in St. Gaved got to know that I was in the habit of calling here they would say all sorts of uncharitable things." "I've not the least doubt of it," Mrs. Tuke said, severely. "It is so nice to think you are not one of that sort," Madeline said, with a winning smile. "If I came here fifty times I know you would not talk about it. You see you understand people, Mrs. Tuke. And in America, as you know, girls have so much more freedom than they have in this country." "So I've heard." "It's natural, perhaps; they go to the same State schools together, and they grow up to respect each other. The girls learn self-reliance, and the boys chivalry." "That sounds very nice," Mrs. Tuke remarked, with an interested look. "It ought to be so everywhere. I don't think much of a girl who is not able to take care of herself." "But men are not to be trusted, my dear," Mrs. Tuke said, with a pained expression in her eyes. "Then they should be avoided and ostracised." "Yes, I quite agree with you," Mrs. Tuke said, doubtfully; "but had you not better go and see Mr. Sterne now? Between ourselves, I believe he will be terribly impatient." "And we'll renew our interesting conversation some other time." "It's kind of you to want to talk to an old woman like me." "You must not call yourself old, Mrs. Tuke," and Madeline tripped across the hall, and knocked timidly at the parlour door. "Come in," called a clear, even voice, and Madeline turned the handle and entered. Her heart was beating considerably faster than usual, and directly she caught sight of Rufus a choking sensation came into her throat. It was painfully pathetic to see this strong, handsome man lying pale and helpless on his narrow bed, and all because of her. If she had not been foolish and headstrong it would not have happened. And yet a great wave of gratitude surged over her heart at the same moment. His life had been spared. If he had been drowned she would never have forgiven herself to the day of her death. He greeted her with a smile that was all brightness and sunshine. For the moment all the pain and disappointment and foreboding of the last week were forgotten. The presence of this beautiful girl was compensation for all he had endured. "It is good of you to come," he said, in a tone that vibrated with unmistakable gratitude. "No, please don't say that," she answered, a mist coming up before her eyes. "I was afraid you might hate the very sight of me." He smiled at her for answer, and pointed to a chair. "I've been wanting to see you for days," she went on; "wanting to ease my heart by telling you how grateful I am, and how terribly I regret causing you so much loss and suffering." He smiled again. What answer could he make to such words of self-revealing? He would simply have to let her talk on until she gave him something to reply to. "I told Dr. Pendarvis that I expected in secret you were heaping maledictions on my defenceless head." "Have you so poor an opinion of me as all that?" he questioned, looking steadily into her sweet, brown eyes. "Well, you see, I calculate I was judging you by myself somewhat." "And if you had saved me, and slightly damaged yourself in the process, would you have been very angry with me?" "Oh! I am only a girl, and if I were disabled for a year, nobody would be the loser. But with you it is different. I wish it had been the other way about." "I don't." "No?" "No, I am glad things are as they are." "But your invention is at a standstill." "Who told you about my invention?" "Dr. Pendarvis, I think. Oh no, it was Dr. Chester; he said you would be a great man some day." "Dr. Chester will have to cultivate the habit of thinking before he speaks," he said, with a laugh, "If I can be a useful man, I shall be content." "Is it better to be useful than to be great?" she questioned, naïvely. "Oh, well, that all depends, I expect, on the meaning you attach to words," he answered, with a broad smile. "If a man is truly great, he is, of course, useful, while a man may be very useful without being great." "Oh, then, I shall back Dr. Chester," she said, with a pretty shrug of her shoulders. "You had better not," he said, soberly. "Not that it will matter, of course. For whether I win or lose, you cannot be affected by the one or the other." "Why not?" "Oh, for fifty reasons." "Please give me one." "I would rather not." "But I insist upon it." "And if I still refuse?" "I shall stay here till you do answer." "Oh, that will be delightful," he answered, laughing. "How quickly the days will pass." "Oh, Mr. Sterne, I did not know you could be so provoking," she said, with a little pout. "Do you really want a reason?" he said, looking gravely into her eyes. "Really and truly." "Well, then, my invention will affect only the toilers--the poor people if you like. Its success or failure will not matter one whit to Sir Charles Tregony, for instance, and you belong to the same circle, do you not?" "But its success or failure will matter to you, won't it?" "It will matter everything to me." "What do you mean by that?" "Just what I say. Everything means everything. I've staked my all." "Oh, no, you have not," she said, brightly. "You may have staked your fortune, and your reputation as an inventor, and your immediate prospects. But life is left." He caught his breath sharply. "But what is life worth when all you have lived for is swept away?" "And have you nothing else to live for?" she questioned, seriously. "Nothing! I'm a lonely soul in a lonely world." "But there is still life," she persisted. "And no great soul gives up at one failure or at ten." He felt the hot blood rush to his face and he averted his eyes instinctively. He did his best to recover himself before she should notice, but her keen eyes were quick to see the look of pain and distress that swept over his face. "Now I have said something foolish--something that has hurt you----" she began. "My leg hurts me occasionally," he answered, with a poor attempt at a smile. "I have been very thoughtless," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. "I did not think how I must be tiring you." "But you have not tired me at all," he persisted. "You have done me good. You cannot think how intolerably irksome it is lying here helpless day after----" then he checked himself suddenly. It was his turn now to see a look of distress come into her eyes. "And it is all my fault," she interrupted. "Oh, if I could only atone in some measure." "You have atoned, if atonement were needed, by coming to see me. Will you not come again?" "May I? Really and truly it would do me good if I could serve you in some way. I might read to you if you would let me, or write your letters." He felt himself shaken as if with a tempest. He knew, as if by instinct, that he had reached the most fateful--perhaps the most perilous--crisis in his life. He had only to say the word and this beautiful girl would come and sit by his side day after day, come out of pure goodness and gratitude, never dreaming what her presence might mean to him. He was only too painfully conscious that he was half in love with her already. She had touched his heart and imagination as no one had ever done before. From the time he caught that first glimpse of her face as she was driving from the station until now, she had been almost constantly in his thoughts. It was as though the fates--malicious as usual--had conspired to throw them together, for if he learned to love her, only misery and heart-ache could be the result. She would think of him only as someone she ought to be kind to. She was out of his circle. Whoever, or whatever she might have been in America, here she was the ward of Sir Charles Tregony, one of the proudest and most exclusive men in the county. Besides, for all he knew, she might be engaged already. Beyond all, there was the fact that his life was at stake. If his project failed he was bound in honour to see that Felix Muller suffered no loss. The rights of the Life Assurance Company had not occurred to him even yet. There must be no human ties to make the struggle harder. If the worst came to the worst--a possibility that would persist in haunting him--he must go unmourned and unmourning into the darkness. The brain works quickly in times of excitement and emotion, and all these considerations passed through his mind as in a flash. Should he tell this sweet-eyed girl that she must not come to see him again, and let her go away believing that he disapproved of her coming at all? Better so. Better a few hours or days of sharp pain now than a life-long agony after. "I must be brave," he said to himself. "The first lesson in life is self-conquest." The form of words he decided to use shaped themselves quickly. The more explicit the better. He turned his head toward her with resolutions full grown in his heart, and their eyes met again. CHAPTER XI A TALK BY THE WAY Generally speaking, Rufus Sterne was not lacking in courage, either physical or moral. But no man knows his strength till he is tested. Many a man has passed through tempest and flood, fire and sword, unscathed and undaunted, and in the end has gone down helplessly and ignominiously before a pair of soft brown eyes. When Rufus turned his head he meant to say firmly but kindly that it would be better if they did not meet again. And then he would soothe the hurt--if hurt there should be--by telling her how grateful he was for her visit and how much he appreciated her kindness. He was quite sure she would understand. She was not a child and her eyes were more than ordinarily sharp. If she chose to take offence, of course, he would be sorry; but better she should be offended than that he should break his heart. He was bristling all over with courage when their eyes met, and then all his strength departed. Madeline had no thought of conquest. She only wanted to be kind. She felt infinitely pitiful toward this strong man who had been brought low through her, and her pity shone in her eyes and vibrated in every tone of her voice. It was her artlessness, her sweet ingenuousness that broke Rufus down. In addition to which she was so exquisitely beautiful, while the unfamiliar lilt and intonation of her voice were like music in his ears. "It will be just heaven if you will come and read to me sometimes," he heard himself saying, and then he wondered whether he was awake or dreaming. "Then I will come to-morrow. It will be perfectly lovely to do some little bit of good in the world." The room seemed to grow dark when she took her departure, as though a cloud drifted across the face of the sun. For a long time he lay quite still, looking at the door, behind which she had disappeared. His heart was in a strange tumult, but whether pleasure or pain predominated he did not know. What he did know was that the intoxication of her presence was the sweetest thing he had ever known, but below the sweet and struggling to get to the top, was a sense of something exceedingly bitter. He felt like a drunkard steadily gravitating toward the tap-room. His moral sense, his better judgment, urged him to turn aside or turn back; his appetite, his desire for excitement or forgetfulness lured him with irresistible force. "I know I am a fool," he said to himself, "and I shall have to pay dearly enough for my folly later on, but I can't help it." He had rather prided himself on his courage, and this confession of weakness, even to himself, was distinctly humiliating. It was the kind of thing for which he would have allowed no excuse in any other man. It was a pet theory of his that a man ought to be always master of himself, and that any man who allowed himself to be dominated and conquered by a human passion was not worthy of respect or even sympathy. Men who fail to live up to their theories are generally prolific in excuses. To own himself beaten out and out was too much for his self-respect. He had taken a step down, he knew, but there was a reason for it. Perhaps, if he searched diligently enough, he would be able to justify his conduct to the full. [Illustration: "IT WILL BE JUST HEAVEN IF YOU WILL COME AND READ TO ME SOMETIMES"] Before the day was out, he found any number of excuses. This life, he told himself, was all, and youth was the best part of life, in fact, the only part in which enjoyment could find a place, and if a cup of delight was placed to his lips, was it wise to dash it to the ground and spill all its contents, because it was possible and even probable it would leave a bitter taste in the mouth. But even though he was sure the bitter taste would follow, was he not justified in taking the sweet when he had the chance? Had not somebody said: "'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all"? Besides, he had not to consider only himself. That would be selfish. This sweet-eyed girl wanted an outlet for her gratitude and generosity, and if he rudely pushed aside the hand that was outstretched to help, and churlishly refused her sympathy, how hurt she would be. And a man would be a brute to give pain to so sweet a soul; he would rather cut his hand off than do it. Also it did not follow that because he saw more of her he would become more deeply in love with her. He would recognise, of course, all the way through that she was out of his circle--that was a fact he would never allow to pass out of his mind. And keeping that in mind, he would be able to keep guard over his own heart. So before the day was done, he was able to extract all the poison from his surrender. He might not have done the heroic thing, but it did not necessarily follow that he had done a foolish thing. Chance had flung this girl across his path, why should it be an evil chance? Why might there not grow out of the acquaintance something for the good of both? Having arrived at that position, he ceased calling himself a fool, and gave himself up to pleasant dreams and even more pleasant anticipations. Closing his eyes he recalled their conversation, recalled every expression of her sensitive face, every tone of her musical voice. He fancied her sitting again by his bedside. How dainty she was, how unobtrusively and yet how exquisitely attired. Things he had been aware of in a sub-conscious way now clearly defined themselves. He remembered her teeth, even and white, her ears small and coloured like a sea-shell, her eyebrows dark and straight, her eyelashes long, her mouth like Cupid's bow. He remembered, too, how her rich brown hair grew low in her neck, while a massive coil seemed to balance her shapely head. He smiled to himself at length. "How much I noticed," he said, "without seeming to notice. I wonder if other people think her so good to look upon." He slept better that night than he had done since his accident, and through all his dreams Madeline seemed to glide, a healing and an inspiring presence. He awoke with his nerves thrilling like harpstrings, and a happy smile upon his lips. He had dreamed that his invention had realised a thousand times more than he had ever hoped or imagined, that it had lifted him into the region of affluence and power, that he took his place among the successful men of his generation by right of what he had done, and that, thrilling with the knowledge of his success, he had laid his heart at the feet of Madeline Grover. "You have been my inspiration," he said to her. "But for my love for you I could not have wrought and striven as I have done," and for answer she laid her hands in his and lifted her face to be kissed; and then the twittering of the sparrows under the eaves awoke him. "Dreams are curious things," he said, the smile still upon his lips. "Now I dream I fail, and now that I succeed. Both dreams cannot be true, that is certain. I wonder. I wonder." He was still wondering when Mrs. Tuke brought him an early cup of tea. "Have you slept well?" she asked, and there was a sympathetic note in her voice that he did not remember to have heard before. "The best night I have yet had," he said, cheerfully. "Then you don't think having so much company yesterday did you any harm?" "It did me good, Mrs. Tuke. I was beginning to mope." "She is a beautiful creature." "You called her a scare-away American yesterday." "Did I? Oh, well, you see, I didn't know her so well then. Besides, I never denied that she was good-looking." "But looks are only skin deep, I have heard you say." "And that I sticks to. But Miss Grover has sense and judgment. You should have heard her talk yesterday. I never heard a girl of her age speak with so much wisdom. We've quite taken to each other." "I'm very glad to hear it." "She's not to be judged by the ordinary foot-rule either." "No?" "In America girls have more freedom. You see, they've no king there, only a president." Rufus laughed. "And everybody grows up equal, as it were. Girls learn to look after themselves and men to respect 'em." "That's as it ought to be." "But the women of St. Gaved would be envious enough to bite their thumbs off if they knew she made a friend of me; and would talk abominable. I know 'em, and what they are capable of." "Some of them can gossip a bit," he said, reflectively. "And if they know'd I allowed her to see you," Mrs. Tuke went on. "The fat would be in the fire," he interrupted. "But they're not going to know. Do you think I don't know a lady when I sees her, and know also what's due to her? You should hear Miss Grover talk." "She has a taking way with her." "No, 'tisn't that. There's no chaff with her, and as for myself, I can't abide flattery. But I do like common-sense," and with a self-satisfied smile lighting up her severe face, Mrs. Tuke bustled out of the room. Rufus closed his eyes and laughed softly. "The little scare-away American got in the first shot, that's evident," he chuckled, and he kept on smiling to himself at intervals during the day. The afternoon was beginning to wear away before Madeline put in an appearance. She came into the room like a breath of spring--gentle, fragrant, energising. She was not at all shy, neither was she obtrusive. There was never anything self-conscious in her movements. She was trying to be kind, trying to pay in some measure a big debt of gratitude she owed, and she was supremely happy in making the attempt. "Do you know, I feel real pleased with myself to-day," she said, in her quaint American way. "Do you?" he questioned. "Seems to me living up in a big house like Trewinion Hall, one has scarcely a chance of being kind or neighbourly, and when the chance does come, it seems great." "Do you think exclusiveness and selfishness mean the same thing?" "I don't know. That's a sum I haven't figured out yet. But what would you like me to read to you?" "Anything you like. I fear you will not consider my stock of books very interesting." "Have they all to do with science and mechanics, and that sort of thing?" "No, not all." She rose from her chair and went to a table on which several volumes lay, and began to read their titles. "Principles of Western Civilisation," "The Earth's Beginning," "Facts and Comments," "Education and Empire," "Philosophy and Life." "Ah! here is a story book I expect. 'The Buried Temple,' by Maurice Maeterlinck," and she picked up the book and began to turn over the pages, then with a faint sigh she laid it down again. "Would you rather I talked to you?" she questioned, turning her face toward him with a smile. "I think I would," he replied. "I am not much in the mood for philosophy to-day." "But why vex your brains with philosophy at all? What you need when you are ill is a real, good story. The next time I come to see you I'll bring a book along with me." "What will you bring?" "I don't know yet. Do you like poetry?" "When it is poetry." "Are you sure you know it when you see it?" and she laughed good humouredly. "Well, I would not like to dogmatise on that point," he answered. "You've read Whittier, of course?" "No." "Oh, I'm sorry for you. Whittier is great. I like him heaps better than your Browning." "Why?" "Because I understand him better. I expect poetry is like beauty, in the eye of the beholder, don't you think so? Now if poetry don't touch me, don't thrill me, why, whatever it may be to other people it isn't poetry to me. Do I make myself plain?" "Quite plain." "Now Whittier just says what I feel, but what I haven't the power to express; just sums up in great, noble words the holiest emotions I have ever known." "Yes." "Then Whittier is a man of faith and vision, as all poets must be if they are to be great. I like Browning for that. He sees clear. He doesn't merely hope, he believes. He not only 'faintly trusts the larger hope,' he builds on the rock. A man who has no faith is like a bird with a broken wing. Don't you think so?" "But what do you mean by faith?" he asked, uneasily. "Ah, now you want to puzzle me," she said, with a smile. "Oh, no I don't," he replied, quickly. "I only want to get your meaning clearly." "But I'm not a poet," she answered. "I'm only a girl, and I can't find the right words. But I just mean faith. Seeing the invisible, if I may say so. Realising it. Being conscious of it." "The invisible?" he questioned. "Yes, God, and heaven, and immortality. Believing also in goodness and humanity and the sacredness of human life." "Do you believe that human life is a very sacred thing?" "Why, of course I do! What a question to ask." "Does it seem so very strange?" "Why, yes. Think of the care that is taken of everybody, even the worthless. Think of all the hospitals and asylums----" "Yes, that is one side of the question," he said. "What we may call the sentimental side. But place human life in the scale against money or territory or human ambition." "Well?" "We mow men down with machine guns or blow them up with dynamite--not in twos or threes, but in thousands and tens of thousands, and the more we kill the more satisfied we are." "Oh yes, I know. That is all very terrible," she said, with a puzzled expression in her eyes. "But why terrible?" he questioned. "I can't explain myself very well," she answered, slowly; "but, of course, we must defend our country." "Therefore country is more sacred than life." "Oh no, you are not going to catch me that way. To die for one's country must be great, heroic." "Exactly. Therefore, in comparison with what we call country--that is, our particular form of government, or our particular set of rulers, or our particular stake in it--what you call the sacredness of human life occupies a very subordinate position." "But you would risk your life in defence of your country?" she questioned, evasively. "Most certainly I would," he answered, promptly; "but then you see I am not hampered by any notions respecting the sacredness of human life." He was sorry a moment later that their conversation had taken the turn it had. He felt that he would bite his tongue out rather than give this sweet-eyed maiden pain; and that he had pained her was too evident by the look upon her face. And yet, having gone so far, he was bound to be honest. "If I held your views," he went on, "nothing would induce me to take a human life--neither patriotism nor any other ism." "Oh, but," she said, quickly, "there are some things more sacred even than life, honour for instance, and truth." "No doubt. But there is surely a difference between losing one's life, giving it up for the sake of some great principle, and taking the life of another." "Then you would not be afraid to die for something you valued much?" "Why should a man be afraid to die at all? Of course life is sweet while you have something to live for, but to rest and be at peace, should not that be sweet also?" "You want to live?" "Now I do. For the moment I have something to live for. Something that gives zest to existence and fills all my dreams." "I am so sorry to have delayed its execution. Perhaps you will come to it with more zest and insight after the long rest." "I think I shall," he answered, slowly, looking beyond her to where the day grew red in the west. "I wish I could help you," she said, as if thinking aloud; "but women can do so little." He withdrew his eyes from the window and looked at her again. "You will do much," he said, speaking earnestly. "How?" "By inspiring someone to be great. A clod would become a hero with your--your----" then he broke off suddenly and withdrew his eyes. "Won't you finish the sentence?" she questioned, looking at him shyly. "Not to-day," he answered, and a few minutes later she rose to go. CHAPTER XII FAIRYLAND Madeline did not put in an appearance the next day or the day following that. But on the third day she came into the room like a ray of sunshine. "Well, I'm here," she said, in her bright, eager fashion; "but I was just terribly afraid I wasn't going to get--there now, isn't that a sentence to be remembered?" Rufus showed his welcome in every line of his face. It was a dull, rainy day, with a blustering wind from the west and a sky that had not revealed a speck of blue since morning. He had lain mostly in one position, looking through the small window, watching the trees on the other side of the road swaying in the wind, and listening to the fitful patter of the rain. His thoughts had not been always of the most cheerful kind. The days and weeks were passing surely, if slowly, while the great scheme on which he had set his heart and his hopes was at a standstill. He was conscious, too, of a new and terrible hunger that was steadily growing upon him--a hunger for companionship, for sympathy, for love. The coming of Madeline had changed his life, changed his outlook, changed the very centre of gravity. Nothing seemed exactly the same as it did before. Even death had changed its face, and the possibility of a life beyond forced itself upon his brain with a new insistence. To win success had been his ambition--the one dream of his life. The only immortality he desired was to live in a beneficent invention he had wrought out. Now a new desire possessed him. There was something better than success, something sweeter than fame. If he could win love. If he could know the joy of a perfect sympathy. If--if----. His thoughts always broke off at a certain point. It seemed so hopeless, so foolish. Until he had won some kind of position for himself it was madness to think of love. At present he was working on borrowed capital, and there was always before him the grim possibility that he might fail, and failure meant the end of all things for him. Felix Muller should never have reason to doubt his courage or his honour. Then he would start again, dreaming of Madeline. The two preceding days had seemed painfully long. He had listened for her footsteps from noon to night. He had watched for her coming more than they who wait for the morning. He had pictured her smile a thousand times, and felt the warm pressure of her hand in his. When at length she glided into the room his heart was too full for speech. How bright she was, how winsome, how overflowing with life and vivacity! The gloom and chill of autumn went out of the room as if by magic, and the air was full of the perfume of spring violets and the warmth of summer sunshine. She pulled off her gloves and threw them on the table and seated herself in a chair near him. "Have you been very dull these last two or three days?" she questioned. "Rather," he answered. "You see, the fine weather has come to a sudden end." "But I guess it will soon clear up again, though I am told your English climate is not to be relied upon." "The only certain thing about it is its glorious uncertainty." "Well, there may be advantages in that; there's always a certain interest in not knowing. Don't you think so?" "Most things have their compensations," he said, with a smile. "Then there's a chance of your being compensated for this long spell of suffering and idleness." "As a matter of fact I have been compensated already." "No! in which way?" "Ah, that is not easy to explain," he said, turning away his eyes. "And you might not understand me if I tried." "Am I so dense?" "I don't think you are dense at all. But I am not good at saying things as they ought to be said. You will sympathise with me in that, I know." "Oh, that is mere equivocation. You simply don't want to tell me." "I would tell you a lot if I dared." "Dared?" "Yes. I should not like to drive you away or make you angry. Your friendship is very sweet to me--that is one of the compensations." "The friendship of a mere girl is worth nothing to a grown, busy man, who is fighting big problems and aiming at great conquests. If I could only help you that would be just fine. But it is of no use hankering after impossible things, is it? So I am going to read to you." "What are you going to read?" "A piece called 'Snow Bound.' Now listen," and for half-an-hour he did not speak. Her voice rose and fell in musical cadence. He closed his eyes so that he might catch all the melody of her voice. The lines she read did not interest him at first. All his interest was in the sweet-eyed reader. But he grew interested after awhile, and was touched unconsciously by the beautiful faith and tender humanity that flashed out here and there. When she reached the end he opened his eyes and looked at her, her lips were still apart, her eyes aglow with emotion. She was no longer the bright, merry irresponsible girl. She seemed to have changed suddenly into a strong, great-souled woman. "Would you mind reading a few stanzas over again?" he questioned, after a pause. "With pleasure." "Beginning, 'O time and change.'" "Yes, I know," and she opened the book again. He listened with intense eagerness. She dropped her voice a little when she came to the words: Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress trees! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever Lord of death, And Love can never lose its own! She closed the book again and waited for him to speak. "It is a beautiful thought," he said, without opening his eyes. "If one could only be sure it is true." "Be sure that what is true?" she asked, in a tone of surprise. "That Life is ever Lord of death. That Love can never lose its own." "Why do you think there can be any doubt about it?" He opened his eyes again and looked at her, and his heart smote him. It would be a cruel thing to disturb her serene and simple faith with his own doubts. Almost for the first time in his life he felt the utter futility of the agnostic's creed. It had nothing to offer but a catalogue of negations. To the parched and thirsty lips it placed an empty cup, and before tired and longing eyes it held up a blank canvas. He had grown out of his religious creed as he had grown out of his pinafores. His heart and his intellect alike had revolted against the narrow orthodoxy of his grandfather. He had been driven farther into the barren desert of negations by the pitiful parody of religion exhibited by ecclesiastical organisations, and to complete the work Felix Muller had inoculated him with the views of German materialists. He fancied, like many another man who had followed in the same track, that he had got to the bed-rock at last, that after much delving he had found the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yet it was truth that brought no hope, no comfort, no inspiration. He was not eager to proclaim it to others. Men would be just as well off if they never reached this _ultima Thule_--perhaps, better off. To persuade men that there was no God, nor heaven, nor immortality, that this life was all and the grave the end, was not the kind of thing to inspire men to great deeds or heroic achievements. His intellect might mock at the simple faith of the sweet-eyed maiden. He might honestly believe that she was living in a fool's paradise. But if it was a paradise and there was nothing beyond it, why disturb her? If death ended everything, let her enjoy her paradise as long as possible. If it was the only paradise she would ever have, it would be sheer cruelty to drive her out of it. If he destroyed her faith, what had he to give her to fill its place? There was nothing in a string of negations to satisfy the hunger of a human soul. Granted that her faith was folly, that her religion was pure superstition, there was no denying that it was a very beautiful superstition, that it invested life with a grandeur that nothing else could give to it. And, after all, was he so sure that he had found the ultimate truth? He had inscribed on his little banner _Ne plus ultra_, but had he any right to dogmatise more than others? There might be a farther "beyond" which faith could pierce. There might be truth which flesh and sense could never apprehend. There might be spirit as well as matter. "I should like you to read me more from the same book," he said, at length. "Oh! I will do that with pleasure," she said, eagerly. "I knew you would like my dear old Quaker poet." "He has the gift of expression," he answered, cautiously. Then she began to read "The Eternal Goodness," slowly and reverently. He closed his eyes again, and listened with wrapt attention. The beautiful faith of the poet seemed to strike a new chord in his being. Moreover, the religion in which he had been reared, and from which he had broken away, seemed a nobler and a Diviner thing than it had ever appeared to him before. Stripped of its human glosses and paraphrases, released from the rusty fetters of dogma, stated in simple language, it awoke a dormant emotion in his nature that had never been touched until now. "Would you mind leaving the book with me when you go?" he questioned, when she had finished. "Of course I will leave it," she answered. "I am afraid I shall not see so much when I read it for myself," he went on. "There is so much in the right emphasis being given." "Do you mean me to take that as a compliment?" she questioned, playfully. "Not as an empty compliment," he answered, gravely. "You read beautifully." She did not reply to that, but her eyes glowed with pleasure. During the next week or ten days he lived in a kind of fairyland. Every now and then he had an unpleasant feeling that he would wake up sooner or later with a start to discover that the gold was only tinsel, that the rippling streams were dry, and the green and shady meadows a hot and arid desert. Every day or two Madeline came to see him--came quite naturally and without ceremony. She did not hide from herself the fact that she liked to come. She frankly admitted that she liked the invalid. She told herself that she would be an ungrateful little wretch if she didn't. He had saved her life, and saved it at terrible risk to himself and terrible suffering, and it would be selfish, indeed, on her part if she did not try to cheer and brighten the long days that he was enduring, and enduring so patiently on her account. Moreover, Rufus Sterne was no ordinary man. He belonged to a type she had not met before. As yet she did not know how to describe him. He was more or less of a mystery to her, and that in itself kindled and sustained her interest. Most of the young men she had met she "saw through" in ten minutes, and in half-an-hour had weighed them up, classified and labelled them. But Rufus Sterne baffled her. He was altogether too complex for her simple and easy method of analysis, too massive for her six-inch rule. At times he seemed to her a huge bundle of contradictions. His face could be as stern as the granite cliffs, his smile as sweet and winning as spring sunshine. At times he was as silent and mysterious as the sphinx, at other times brimming over with mirth and merriment. His passion for truth and right filled her with admiration, his apparent indifference to all religion struck her with dismay. He was a man of the people in theory, in practice he lived alone, remote and friendless. It seemed to her sometimes a wonderful condescension on his part that he deigned to notice her at all. Like most of her sex, she did not in her heart think much of girls. She would defend them readily enough if they were attacked, and if driven into a corner would acclaim their superiority over men; but in reality she thought little of them. In the main they were small and niggling, and not particularly magnanimous. Neither did she place herself an inch higher than the average girl. She was as conscious of her own limitations as anybody. Hence, that this strong, self-reliant man, who was fighting the world single-handed, and toiling to complete some great invention, should make her his friend, tell her that her friendship was very sweet to him, was a compliment greater than had ever been paid to her before. She had never placed Rufus Sterne for a moment in the same category with Gervase Tregony. Gervase was on her own level. He was not to her a mysterious and unexplored country. She knew him thoroughly, knew what he was capable of; had sounded all his depths and tabulated all his qualifications. Hence, Gervase never over-awed her; never made her feel small or insignificant. On the whole, she thought she liked him all the better for that. Gervase might not be profound--that was hardly to be expected in a soldier; he might not be morally sensitive--that also was incompatible with the profession. But he was a good sort, so she believed. A bit rough and over-mastering, but generous at heart. Not vexed by social or political problems, but fond of life, and intent on having a good time of it if he had the opportunity. She had never doubted for a moment that she and Gervase would get on excellently together. Indeed, they appeared to have been designed for each other, and yet she had hesitated to accept his proposal, and every day her hesitation grew more and more pronounced. The fascination of Rufus Sterne's personality intensified as the days passed away. Her admiration for his character increased. There was nothing small or petty or niggling about him. She did not compare him with Gervase Tregony, and yet unconsciously she found herself contrasting the two men--contrasting them to Gervase's disadvantage. And yet in her heart she was very loyal to the man who had proposed to her--the man who had captivated her girlish imagination by his splendid uniform and masterful ways. Her feeling towards Rufus was of a different order. At first it was merely a sense of gratitude; later on gratitude became suffused with sympathy; but as the days passed away, other ingredients were added, the most marked being admiration. His strength, his patience, his reticence, all called forth her approval, till in time he became something of a hero in her eyes. And all this time Rufus yielded himself more and more to the witchery of her presence, and felt in some respects a better man in consequence. There were compensations, no doubt. Her very presence created an atmosphere that softened and humanised him. His hard, defiant cynicism melted before her smile like snow in spring sunshine. Their conversations touched and unlocked springs of emotion that had been sealed for years; the books and poems she read to him broadened his horizon and led him to re-open questions that he imagined were closed. Her smile, her voice, her look, set all his nerves to music, and made life a more beautiful thing than ever it had seemed before. But he knew all the time that there would come an awakening sooner or later. They were like two happy children sauntering through green and pleasant glades, screened from the storm and recking naught of the desert beyond. For himself he avoided looking into the future. He would enjoy the sunshine and the flowers as long as possible. In the long intervals between her visits he recalled their conversations, and re-read the pieces to which her voice had given so much meaning and melody. Moreover, he turned the pages of the books she had lent him and committed to memory some of the passages she had marked. They were sweet to him because she loved them. So all unconsciously he strayed back from the hard desert of negations in which he had wandered so long. Because he loved this sweet flower, he loved all flowers for her sake. Indeed, love became the medium through which he looked at all things; far distances became near, and new and wider horizons loomed beyond. Whatever pain might come to him later on, the memory of these days would remain an inspiration to him. To have loved so truly was surely in itself an ennobling thing. Nothing would ever take out of his life these golden threads that had been woven into its texture. The song might cease, the voice of the singer be hushed, but the echo of the song would remain in his heart to the very last. So he enjoyed those bright, peaceful days to the full, and tried not to anticipate the future. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he said to himself. But the day of awakening was nearer than he thought. CHAPTER XIII THE AWAKENING Rufus had not seen Madeline for three whole days, and had begun to wonder what had happened. On the fourth day, however, she came during the forenoon. "It was now or never," she said, by way of explanation; "the house has been full of people during the last three days, and this afternoon some others are coming. So I had to pretend!" "Pretend?" he questioned. "I'm afraid they're getting suspicious," she replied. "Suspicious of what?" "That I'm not so great a student, or so devoted to my books, as I seem to be. So I had to pretend I was going to write to the Captain!" "What Captain?" She laughed. "Oh! there's only one Captain, as far as the Tregonys are concerned, and that, of course, is Gervase. Do you know him?" "I've seen him, of course; but I have never spoken to him." "He's very handsome, isn't he?" "I really don't know," he answered, bluntly; "it had never occurred to me." "I suppose men don't notice such things where men are concerned," she said, reflectively; "but in his uniform he is just superb." "Then you think fine feathers make fine birds?" "Well, in some respects, yes," she answered, slowly, "though Gervase looks handsome in ordinary evening dress." Then silence fell for several seconds. The subject was one in which Rufus was not greatly interested, and as yet not a suspicion of the truth had dawned upon him. "Do you like Gervase?" she said at length, speaking abruptly. The question took him by surprise, and almost threw him off his guard. As a matter of fact, he did not like him, and was on the point of saying so, but checked himself in time. "Why do you ask that question?" he stammered, evasively. "Well, you see," she answered, quite frankly, "they want me to marry him." "To marry him?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. "You won't think it strange my talking to you about the matter, will you?" she said, with perfect simplicity. "You see, apart from the Tregonys, I haven't a friend in all England except--except you." "It is kind of you to look upon me as your friend," he said, with heightened colour. "No, no; it is the other way about," she answered; "all the kindness is on your part." Then there was another moment of silence. He felt stunned, bewildered, and was almost afraid to speak lest he should betray his feelings. "I ought to have written days and days ago," she went on, at length. "You see, he expects to be home by the New Year at latest. Sir Charles hopes that he will be able to eat his Christmas dinner with us. And--and--Sir Charles, and Gervase also, would like to have the matter settled before he comes home." "Yes?" "Oh, well! I hardly know why I have hesitated. I expect it is that I am naturally obstinate. When nobody said a word about the matter, and I thought nobody cared very much--why--why, I looked upon the matter as good as settled," and she blushed quite frankly and smiled as she did so. "And have they become anxious all at once?" "Oh! I don't know. Sir Charles tells me that it was a wish of my father's long before he died, and that nothing would please him so much, and all that. And really it looks as if Gervase and I were meant for each other." "Do you believe in fate or destiny?" he questioned, moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. "No, but I believe in Providence," she answered, promptly. "But how can you be sure what Providence means?" he asked. "If Providence speaks how do you know you have interpreted the message aright?" "Yes, there is something in that," she said, reflectively. "On the other hand, one must be careful not to fly in the face of Providence." "Admitting your theory of a Providence," he said, slowly, "is not the true Providence our heart and judgment? Must we not in the last resort fall back on what we feel and believe to be right?" "Yes, go on," she said, eagerly. "And if one goes against his own heart--his own instincts if you like--if one ignores his own clear judgment, would not that be flying in the face of what you call Providence?" "But is our own heart to be trusted?" she questioned; "and is not our judgment often blind?" "Should we be wiser in trusting to somebody else's heart and judgment?" "We might be. You see, I am only a girl. I have had no experience. I know very little of the world or its ways. On the other hand, here is Sir Charles. He is getting old. He knows a good deal more than there is in the copy-books. Then there was my father; he did not talk to me about the matter, but from what I know now he talked freely to Sir Charles. Then there is Gervase, he's over thirty, and has seen a good deal of the world, and he's quite sure. And then there is myself, and I think Gervase is one in a thousand. So, you see, all the streams appear to be flowing in the same direction, and that looks a clear indication of Providence. Now, doesn't it?" "If you are convinced I should say nothing else matters," he answered, with averted eyes. "Well, there's only one thing that worries me," she said, thoughtfully; "and that's only worried me lately." "Yes?" "I used to think nothing else mattered so long as one could enjoy himself or herself. That to have a good time was the chief end of life. Gervase is retiring from the Army, and intends to do nothing for the rest of his days." "Well?" "It seems to me a much nobler thing to do something. You told me once that I should inspire somebody to great deeds. But that would be rather hard on Gervase after he has roughed it for so many years." "If you inspire him, it will not be hardship," he answered. "I am not sure that I could," she said, turning her head, and looking out of the window. "He is very brave and fearless, and all that. But the great things that work for human good--well, you see, he is not an inventor like you." "Do not mock me," he said, almost fiercely. "My poor scheme may never see the light." "Oh, yes it will. You are bound to succeed. You are not the kind of man to give up in despair." "Give up what in despair?" "Anything on which you have set your heart. You're like Gervase in that respect, and it is a quality I admire immensely in a man." "But what if two strong men set their hearts on the same thing?" "What thing?" "Oh, anything. A woman, for instance," he said, with a forced laugh. "Ah, then I expect the stronger and the worthier would win." "Do women admire strength and worth so much? Do they not rather admire position and name and title? Has the poor man a chance against the rich; the plain man any chance against gold lace and epaulets?" "No one can speak in the name of all women. But I must run away now or Sir Charles may go to my room in search of me." "Will you write your letter to-day?" "I don't know. Very likely I shall if I can find time." "And will you say 'Yes?' Pardon me being so inquisitive." "Oh, I expect I shall," she said, with a smile. "It seems the proper thing to do. Gervase and I appear to have been meant for each other." "I hope you will be happy," he said, holding out his hand to her. "Good-bye." Half-an-hour later Mrs. Tuke found him staring fixedly out of the window as though he had been turned to stone. The trees were still swaying in the wind, but he did not see them. Through breaks in the clouds bright gleams of sunshine shot into the room every now and then, but he did not heed. From over the cliffs came the faint roar of the sea, but he did not hear. The world had become suddenly dark and silent. The fairy garden had vanished, leaving a bleak cold desert in its place; his heart seemed to have stopped beating. For the moment all interest had gone out of life. He almost wished that he could close his eyes in sleep and never awake again. "Are you getting impatient to get out of doors?" Mrs. Tuke questioned. "It will be a relief to get out again," he answered, absently. "Well, I'm bound to say you've been wonderfully patient, all things considered. But then, as I often say, what can't be cured must be endured." "Yes; that's sound philosophy." "And then you've been well looked after." "Yes; you are an excellent nurse, Mrs. Tuke, and I shall always be grateful." "Oh, I was not thinking of myself in particular," Mrs. Tuke said, with humility. "The doctors have attended to you as if you were Sir Charles himself. And as for that sweet creature Miss Grover, she's just a sunbeam." "Yes; she's delightful company." "You know, it's my belief," Mrs. Tuke said, mysteriously, "that the folks at the Hall haven't the ghost of an idea that she's been coming here to see you." "What leads you to think that?" "Oh, well, from little 'ints she's dropped now and then; but of course, time will tell," and Mrs. Tuke began to make preparations for his midday meal. Time did tell, and tell much sooner than anyone anticipated. The next morning's post brought a letter from Madeline which scattered the last remnants of fairyland. "I'm afraid I shall not be able to come and see you again," it began. "Sir Charles has found out, and he's angrier than I've ever seen him. He says it's most improper, and that I ought to be ashamed of myself. Such a lecture he's read to me as I guess you never listened to. If he hadn't been so grave and serious I should have fired up and given him a piece of my mind. I suppose, according to English customs, I've done something real awful. Anyhow, my heart doesn't condemn me, and if I've lightened your suffering with my chatter ever so little I'm real glad. As long as I live I shall be in your debt, and I shall never forget it either. It seems real stupid that just because I'm a girl I'm not allowed to play the part of a decent neighbour. England is awfully behind in some things, and your Mrs. Grundy is a terror. "However, I've got to obey, I suppose. You see, Sir Charles is my trustee till I'm twenty-one, and he's angrier than a snake at the present moment, and as I'm here by his favour, why I can't quite do what I would like. But I shall think of you every day, and pray for you, and when you get well and your great invention has astonished everybody, none of your friends will rejoice more or be prouder of you than I shall. I don't know if it's a proper thing to say, but I've said it, and it'll have to stand. One has to be constantly looking round the corner in this old country of yours. I hope you will be as well as ever soon, and that you won't think too hardly of the foolish girl who caused your accident. If you would like to keep my books for yourself, I shall be real glad. Whittier is great, don't you think so? Good-bye till we meet again. Yours very sincerely, "MADELINE GROVER." Rufus read the letter with very mingled feelings. There were touches in it that almost brought the tears to his eyes. The assurance that she would think of him every day and pray for him moved him strangely. He would have told Mrs. Tuke, or the vicar, or anyone else that he had no faith in prayer; that the whole network of religious belief was an ingenious superstition. Yet, with curious inconsistency, the thought of Madeline praying for him was undoubtedly comforting. The general effect of the letter, however, was like that produced by a heavy blow. Coming after her own simple and naive confession of the previous day it seemed almost to paralyse him. He scarcely realised how much her visits had been to him till now, and the knowledge that she would not come again, that her face and smile would no more brighten that little room, was like the sudden falling of night without the promise of rest and sleep. As the day passed away and he was able to think over the matter a little more calmly, he tried to persuade himself that Sir Charles's interposition was the best thing that could have happened. That since any vague hope he might have cherished of winning her love was now at an end, it was desirable from every point of view that he should not meet her or even see her. "The awakening was bound to come," he said to himself, trying hard to be resigned. "I knew, of course, from the beginning that she was not for me, I would have kept myself from loving her if I could; but it was just beyond me. She won my heart before I knew." And yet the bitterest drop in the cup was not that she was beyond his reach, but that Gervase Tregony, would possess the prize. He had no wish to be censorious, and it might be quite true that Gervase would compare favourably with most young men in his own walk of life. He had not been brought up on puritanic lines. Moreover, as the only son of the Squire and heir to the title and estates it was generally conceded in an off-hand way that some latitude ought to be allowed. The rich claimed a larger liberty or a larger licence than the poor, and however much the poor resented it in their hearts, usually they said nothing. Protests did no good, and to get into the black books of the Squire was not a matter to be regarded with indifference. If people with grown-up families looked a little anxious when it was known that Gervase was to be in residence at the Hall, and raised the domestic fence a few inches higher than usual--there was reason in the past annals of St. Gaved's history. Rufus, with his innate chivalry, and his romantic reverence for women as a whole, recoiled with a feeling almost of loathing at the thought of Gervase Tregony taking so sweet and pure a soul to his heart as Madeline Grover. Was it true, he wondered, that women did not care what a man's past had been; that they accepted without demur a social order that condoned any and every offence so long as no public scandal was produced? Or, was it that young women were deliberately kept in ignorance of what was common knowledge? He spent several more or less wakeful nights in striving against his own heart, and in trying to cultivate a philosophic attitude which should give the impression of a supreme unconcern. Fortunately, the broken bone was so far knit that his doctors allowed him to hobble about on a pair of crutches, and though he was not able yet to do any work, he could contemplate some of the things he had done, and shape in his mind what yet remained to be accomplished. He got out of doors as much as possible, but he was still weak, while his crutches were such unwieldy things that he quickly got tired. His favourite resting-place was by the garden gate, he could see the people as they passed up and down the street, and often have a few minutes' chat with his neighbours. He scarcely dared to admit the truth to himself, but there was always a lingering hope in his heart that Madeline might come into the village for some purpose, perhaps to do a little shopping, and that his heart might be cheered by a sight of her face. Mrs. Tuke's cottage stood at a point where the "town" ended and the country began. Toward the Quay the houses were generally close together, and abutted on to the side walk, but in the other direction, there were more trees and fences than houses, and nearly all the cottages had gardens in front of them. Hence, when Rufus stood or sat at the garden gate, he looked down "the street" in one direction, and up "the lane" in the other. The lane led away in the direction of Trewinion Hall, and if Madeline came into the town she would more likely than not pass Mrs. Tuke's cottage. In any case, she would come very near to it. Rufus looked up the lane fifty times a day, and sometimes his heart would flutter for a moment as some girlish figure came into sight. But Madeline never came. Then, one evening, while chatting with Dr. Chester, the doctor mentioned incidentally that the Squire had left the Hall and had taken up his residence in London till the middle of December. Rufus heaved a little sigh, but he did not pursue the topic. It seemed to him like the last nail in the coffin wherein lay hidden all the wild dreams and unexpressed longings and hopes of his heart. Madeline was to be strictly guarded until the return of Gervase from India, and then, perhaps, before she had fully realised what she was doing, or before she had an opportunity of getting a true estimate of his character, she would be tied to him for life. "It is no business of mine," he said to himself; "she is entirely out of my sphere, and even if she were not, it would be foolish of me, under present circumstances, to think of any woman." But his heart protested all the same. For Madeline to marry Gervase Tregony seemed to him an offence against all that was sacred in human life. CHAPTER XIV EVOLUTION It wanted a week to Christmas. Rufus sat in his easy chair with his feet on the fender and an open book on his knee. He had been hard at work till dark, after which he had taken a mile's walk into the country, and was now waiting for his supper to be brought in. He was not impatient, however. The book he had been reading was one that Madeline Grover had left with him. A volume of Tennyson, containing nearly all the poet's published work, and, as was nearly always the case, the writer had set him thinking on the problems of life and death and immortality. Outwardly there had been no change in his life during the last two or three months. Directly his doctors gave him permission he turned again to his invention, glad of the relief that work afforded. As far as he could judge, he was moving, slowly but surely, to complete success. The thought of failure very rarely crossed his mind. But while outwardly there was no change, inwardly there was a distinct evolution. He found himself unconsciously viewing life from a different standpoint. It was easy to laugh at the claims of priests and prelates, and to poke fun at musty and worn-out creeds. Easy to riddle with merciless logic the stupendous dogmas of the Churches, and the monumental follies of so-called theologians, but when all that had been done to his complete satisfaction, he was no nearer the solution of the riddle of life. Moreover, he became painfully conscious of the fact that a philosophy of denials was not sufficient. He wanted something definite and something positive. An iconoclast might be a very useful individual; but when the destructive process had been completed, was there nothing more to be done? Were there no positive blocks of truth with which to erect a temple? There were questions instinctive in the human soul which asked for an answer. Had the broad universe no answer to give? Had faith no place in the eternal and immeasurable scheme. If science could not prove, if philosophy halted and broke down, was there nothing left? Was religion a thing to be dismissed with a sneer? Might not faith be as truly a faculty of the human soul as reason? So all unconsciously he retraced his steps from the barren realm of negation to the region of inquiry. He ceased to be dogmatic. Materialism did not explain everything. Theology, like other sciences, might be empirical, and yet its groundwork and framework might still be truth. When a man begins to inquire he begins to grow, when he ceases to inquire the winter of decay sets in. Moreover, it is not the province of the human will to determine the direction of growth. It may be upward or outward, in this direction or in that. The mind pursues its way with an unerring instinct as the roots of trees follow the courses of the springs. Rufus had been reading "Crossing the Bar" for the fiftieth time, and now he sat with the open book on his knees, wondering where he was intellectually and religiously. He refused however, to question himself too closely. He preferred for the present to drift. Some day he might sight land, and find a safe anchorage. Yet one or two things were becoming daily more clear. One was, that in any perfect scheme a future life was necessary to the completion of this. Another was, that human life, if only because of its relationships and possibilities, was a more sacred thing than he at one time had been willing to grant. And a third was, that love was not a mere physical or mental affinity. It was something that went farther and struck deeper. It was a soul relation that remained untouched and independent of time and change. He had not seen Madeline Grover for considerably more than two months. No message or whisper had passed between them. In the chances of human life he knew that he might never speak to her again. Yet his love remained fixed and unshaken. It was not something that he had put on as an extra garment, and that in the wear and tear of life he might lose again. It was part of himself--woven into the fibre of his being. Perhaps his love for Madeline, more than anything else, made him think of the problem of immortality. Whittier had said: Life is ever Lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own. How well he remembered that afternoon when Madeline read "Snow-Bound" to him, in which these lines occurred. He had never been able to get them out of his mind since. They had followed him like a haunting echo of something long forgotten, had stirred his heart with a thousand vague hopes and dreams. If Love could never lose its own, Madeline might yet be his. In some far-away region beyond the reach of human vision, beyond the stress and passion of earth, beyond the darkness and the doubting, beyond the ravages of time and trouble, they might meet again--the soul finding its mate and life its eternal complement. Madeline had a habit of marking with a pencil the passages in a book she liked, and in one of the volumes she left behind he found these words marked with a double line down the margin: I sometimes think that heaven will be A green place and an orchard tree, And one sweet Angel known to me. Could he have put his wildest dreams and longings into words, nothing could have fitted better. It expressed all the heaven he wanted--all the beauty, and all the companionship his soul desired. He was disturbed in his meditations by a knock on the outer door, and a minute or two later he heard a familiar voice in the passage inquiring if he were at home. He rose to his feet in a moment, and pushed Tennyson into a dark corner out of sight. Then the door of his sitting-room was flung open, and Felix Muller entered unannounced. Rufus greeted him with a look of inquiry in his eyes--an inquiry, however, which he did not attempt to shape into words. Muller made his way to the fire at once, and spread his hands over the grate. "It's a glorious night," he said, "but cold. The roads are as hard as iron, and the moon makes it almost as light as day." "Have you driven over?" Rufus inquired. "Yes, I had to see Farmer Udy at Longridge, and so I thought as I was so near, I would drive a little farther and see you. How have you been getting on this long time?" "Fairly well on the whole, I think. Of course, my accident upset all my calculations for a while, but at present things are moving steadily and in the right direction." "That's right, I'm glad to hear it. And when do you think the thing will be properly launched?" "Well, it is not easy to say positively, but I should give six months as an outside limit." "You expected at first that the whole thing would be completed in six months." "That is true, but I had not reckoned on the contingency of a broken leg." "But apart from your accident you were out of your calculations." "A little. When you are dependent to so large an extent upon other people, it is impossible to be absolutely sure as to dates." "Then your six months may run into nine months?" "Oh, no; six months more gives a wide margin for every contingency." Muller withdrew from the fire and dropped into an easy-chair that Rufus had pulled round for him. For a moment or two there was silence, then Muller, diving his hand into his breast-pocket, said in his most casual tone, "You don't mind my having a smoke, do you?" "My dear fellow, I beg your pardon," Rufus said, hurriedly, "but the truth is I was waiting for supper; won't you have something to eat first? The cold drive ought to have given you an appetite!" "Well, now that you mention it, I think I do feel a bit peckish." "You will have to be content with simple fare, but such as I have, etc.," and he went out of the room to hunt up Mrs. Tuke. Rufus watched his guest narrowly while he ate, and felt sure that he owed this visit not to the proximity of Longridge, but to some other cause that had not yet been revealed. Conversation flagged during the meal. Muller ate like a man whose thoughts were engaged somewhere else, and on something vastly more important than eating and drinking. Rufus began to have an uncomfortable feeling that his visit boded no good, and yet he had not the courage to precipitate matters by asking impertinent questions. As soon as the supper-tray was taken away, Rufus produced a box of cigars, and for a minute or two they blew smoke in silence. Muller was the first to speak. Looking at his cigar carefully, as if examining the brand, he said in his most casual manner, "I suppose, Sterne, you have never considered the possibility of being forestalled in your invention?" "Well, no," he said slowly, but with a startled look in his eyes. "I cannot say that I have ever seriously considered such a possibility." "And yet it is notorious in the realm of discovery and invention, that the same idea has been hit upon by different men in different parts of the world almost at the same time." "I do not remember that fact being brought clearly to my mind," Rufus said, wondering if someone had forestalled him. "It is true, nevertheless. I could give you illustrations if I had time. But what is important at the present moment is that a man away up in Westmorland has got ahead of you." "No!" Rufus said, in a tone of alarm. "Well, perhaps I ought to have said that he appears to have got his claim in first. I do not understand all the technicalities of the case, but he appears to me to have achieved, or to have achieved very largely, the thing you are aiming at," and he took a newspaper cutting out of his pocket, and passed it on to Rufus. Rufus unfolded the cutting with hands that trembled in spite of himself. If he had been forestalled then life with him was at an end. The greater part of the thousand pounds was spent or pledged already. Failure meant that he would have now to employ his ingenuity in devising a method of escaping from the world in a way that would not awaken suspicion. Muller adjusted his _pince-nez_ and watched his companion while he read. Rufus summoned to his aid all the resolution he possessed and preserved a perfectly impassive face. "Well?" Muller questioned, when Rufus had got to the bottom of the slip. "It's a little disconcerting," was the answer. "But I shall not fling up the sponge yet." "But he has got hold of your idea!" "Not exactly." "At any rate he has got uncomfortably near to it." "He has got nearer than I like, I admit. But the greater part of what he claims is mere bluff." "But his objective and yours are precisely the same?" "No, not precisely. I go much farther than he does, as Stephenson went farther than Watt." "That is in your application of the principle. But is not the principle the same?" "It is similar, though not identical. I have gone all over the ground he is travelling now." "And in another month he may be all over your ground." "There is danger, of course, but I think still I shall get in first." "I hope you may. But I confess when I tumbled across that article this morning it made me feel mightily uncomfortable." "It is a little upsetting, no doubt." "You see, he must have secured himself pretty well, or he would not have permitted so much of the scheme to get into print. Don't you see it largely discounts anyone else who comes after, though he may have something better." "Yes, I admit the force of all you say," Rufus answered slowly. "But my game is not up yet." "I hope not, indeed. I should regard it as nothing short of a calamity were you to fail." "If the worst comes to the worst it will have to be faced, that is all. In any case, you will not suffer loss." "There you are mistaken. You are my friend. And friends are not so plentiful that one can contemplate the disappearance of even one of them with equanimity." "That may be true. But mercifully, the dead are soon forgotten. You will soon get used to my absence." "I sincerely hope the occasion will not arise," Muller said, speaking slowly and gravely. "Indeed, as I said before, I should regard your failure as a calamity. Still, there is no getting over the fact that what you regarded as impossible less than six months ago has come very definitely within the realm of possibility." "Yes," Rufus said, with some hesitation. "I am bound to admit that the chance of failure seems less remote than it did." "I am sorry to have to discuss this matter with you again," Muller went on, after a pause. "I can assure you it is almost as painful to me as it must be to you. Still business is business, and I have to think of my own position. If I were a rich man, I would not mention the matter--upon my soul, I wouldn't." "I thought you had no soul," Rufus said, with a pathetic smile. "Oh, don't joke over mere figures of speech," Muller said, staring into the fire. "I tell you I feel terribly upset." "But my cause is not lost yet," Rufus said with forced cheerfulness. "No, it may not be. But, on the other hand, it may be. If your competitor has gone so far, he may during the next week or month go all the rest of the distance." "I must take my chance of that." "The point with me is--supposing the worst comes to the worst, have you anything on which you can raise a loan? I hate the thought of your slipping out of life in the flower of your youth." "Look here, Muller," Rufus said, summoning to his aid all his strength and resolution. "We discussed this matter at the beginning. I counted the cost and took the risk. If the worst comes to the worst I am not going to show the white feather." "I do not doubt your courage for a moment," Muller said. "But I want to point out that it will take a little time to realise your estate. I presume you have made your will." Rufus went to a drawer and took out a large envelope which he passed on to his companion. Muller opened the envelope and drew out the paper slowly. Then he adjusted his _pince-nez_, and began to read. "Yes," he said, after a long pause, "this is quite in order--quite." "And in case I am driven to take my departure," Rufus said, in a hard, even voice, "I will give you sufficient time to wind up my small estate before the end of next year." "You think there is no other way of meeting the case?" Muller questioned. "In case my scheme fails there is no other way," Rufus answered. "Now let us not discuss the matter again. I understand your anxiety. I should be a bit anxious if I were in your place. But you have my word of honour. Let that be enough." "It is enough, my boy--it is enough!" Muller said, gushingly. "Meanwhile we need not count upon failure until forced to do so. I shall not fail if effort and determination can avert it." When Muller had gone, Rufus sat for a long time staring into the dying fire. Then he picked up the newspaper cutting, and read through the article very carefully a second time. "No, he has not got my idea quite," he muttered, "but he has come uncomfortably near to it." Then he drew a long breath and shut his teeth tightly. Life had grown a more precious thing of late, and hope had taken new shapes and forms. Moreover, the possibility of a conscious existence beyond the shadow of death had been looming larger and larger for months past, and with that possibility other possibilities had come into view. What if the consequences of conduct followed men into the unseen? What if sin should separate a soul from the soul it loved? What if this life were a trust for which we should be held responsible? What if suicide should be as heinous a crime as murder? What if dying by one's own hand should stain the soul with deeper dishonour than any broken vow or unfulfilled promise? He drew away his eyes from the fire and shuddered slightly as these thoughts passed through his mind. In whatever direction he turned his thoughts he was faced with possibilities that, to say the least, were not a little disconcerting. "If I had only known six months ago what I know now," he reflected, "I should not have put my head into this noose with so light a heart. I should have been content to have gone on with my work as time-keeper at the mine. But I was impatient for success, and quite certain that death was the end of all things." Then across the frosty air the parish clock fixed high in the church tower struck the hour of eleven. Rufus counted the strokes as they vibrated solemnly through the night. "Do the dead ever hear, I wonder," he said to himself, and he shuddered again. Then his thoughts turned to the book that he had been reading earlier in the evening and he began to repeat almost unconsciously one of the stanzas that Madeline had marked: Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark, And may there be no sadness of farewell When I embark. And though from out the bounds of time and space The floods may bear me far, I hope---- Then he stopped suddenly and rose hurriedly to his feet. "I am growing morbid," he said. "I wish Muller had kept the article to himself. In a case of this kind ignorance is bliss." And he turned out the lamp and climbed slowly upstairs to bed. CHAPTER XV MISGIVINGS The day after Felix Muller's visit to Rufus the squire and his family returned to the Hall. The news soon spread through St. Gaved that the big house was alive once more, and that the captain was expected home in time to eat his Christmas dinner with the family. Rufus heard the news with a curious thrill, but whether of pain or of pleasure it would be hard to say. His heart had been aching for a sight of Madeline's face ever since she went away. And yet there were times when he desired above all things that he might never look into her eyes again. Pain was not to be cured by additional pain. To see Madeline would not appease the hunger, it would only increase it. Hence to keep out of her way would be the wise thing for him; to avoid the field-path in front of the park, and the familiar road across the downs and round by the cliffs. If they met she would be sure to speak, and the very sound of her voice would awaken into life all the wild longings of his soul once more. It was far better, therefore, for him that they never met. Besides, it was more than probable that by this time she was the promised wife of Gervase Tregony. He was coming home to claim her and coming home at express speed. Was he delighted at the prospect, he wondered. Did he love her as she deserved to be loved? "Oh, if it had only been my lot to win so sweet a soul," he said to himself. "Is it true, I wonder, that we always long most passionately for the impossible?" For several days he kept close to business, never venturing out of doors till after sunset. Once he thought he passed her in the bright moonlight, and his heart almost stopped, but he never paused in his walk, never looked back; indeed he strode on with a longer and quicker stride, and did not breathe freely again till a sharp bend in the road prevented any possibility of recognition. When he yielded to the witchery of her presence before, there was some excuse for his doing so, but all the circumstances were different now. He had no excuse to-day, no right. His tenure of life hung on a thread. His chance of success was growing less hopeful day by day. Even if Madeline were free and within his reach he would have no right to speak to her of love. While this sword of Damocles was suspended over his head he was bound in honour to be silent. But since she was neither free nor within his reach, and he was walking across a volcano that at any moment might burst open beneath his feet, it would be the part of a madman to put himself in her way if there was any chance of keeping out of it. So he pursued his work with all the earnestness and intensity he could command, but he was conscious all the time that something had gone out of his life. The enthusiasm that springs from certainty had left him, the chill and lethargy of doubt had crept into his blood. Instead of constantly dwelling on the delights of success, he found himself brooding over the prospect of failure, and wondering what lay beyond the grim shadow of death. By a curious combination of circumstances both life and death had become doubly hard to contemplate. Success had once been his dream. To-day success of itself seemed nothing. The one thing that was of value, that would have turned earth into heaven was love. He would have courted failure--gloried in it--if failure would have given him Madeline. But since Madeline was denied him, neither success nor failure mattered much, and life and death were both robbed of the light of hope. He told himself one minute that he did not care to live since Madeline could never be his, and the next minute he dreaded the thought of death, since death would blot out the sight of her and the thought of her for ever and ever. So, in whatever direction he looked, he found neither solace nor inspiration. The thing that spurred him on from day to day was not so much the hope of victory as the humiliation of defeat. There was any number of people in St. Gaved who had no sympathy whatever with him in his ambitions, whose invincible creed was that a man ought to be content to remain in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. These people had expressed themselves with great freedom and candour on his folly in giving up a good position at the mine, and devoting all his time and energy to something in the clouds; and which, in all likelihood, would never be of any benefit to man or beast. Rufus used to smile at the criticisms of these people, and anticipate the day when he would stand proud and triumphant before them. Now he began to fear that the day might come when they would triumph over him, when they would expand their chests and smile wisely, and say to their neighbours: "There, didn't we tell you so?" It was rather with the object of preventing such a triumph than of winning any triumph for himself that he toiled on from day to day, throwing into his work more of the energy of despair than the inspiration of hope. Meanwhile Madeline had been suffering from what she called "an acute attack of the blues." For no sufficient reason, so she admitted to herself, she became restless and peevish, and generally discontented. She was not ill. Generally speaking, her appetite was as good as it had been, while her energy was greater than ever. But for some reason nothing satisfied her--things that at one time she would have gone into ecstacies over barely interested her. She was in the mood to be pleased at nothing, and to find fault with everything. That this condition of things began on the day Sir Charles took her to task for visiting Rufus Sterne she was well aware; but why it should have continued was a puzzle. She had been angry with Sir Charles at the moment it was true, but after a day's reflection she had been led to see that he was perfectly in the right. Moreover Sir Charles had behaved very handsomely all the way through. She was convinced that it was very largely on her account that they went to London for the autumn, and while in London she had scarcely a wish that was not gratified. She had gone to receptions and balls and dinners by the dozen. She had been taken to every place of interest she wanted to see. She had blossomed out into what she termed "a tame celebrity," and had had more compliments showered upon her than ever before in her life, yet, in spite of all this, she was not happy. Indeed, after a few weeks, she tired utterly of London and wanted to return again to Trewinion Hall. That however, was shown to be an impossibility. The house had been taken practically till the end of the year, and the servants at Trewinion Hall had been put on board wages till Christmas. "Are you sure you are quite well, Madeline?" Sir Charles said to her, when she preferred her request. "Quite sure," she replied. "In fact I was never better in my life." "Then why do you want to go back to the Hall?" "Oh! I don't know. This endless whirl and excitement has got on my nerves, I think." "But you complained of Cornwall getting on your nerves some time ago." "Did I? Well, it did seem rather flat and tame at first." "No, it was not at the beginning. You were delighted with it on your arrival----" "And I am still," she interrupted. "I think it is just too lovely for anything." "But have you really got tired of London life?" "I think it is too stupid for words. Oh! no, I don't mean that exactly. Pardon me, Sir Charles"--seeing the pained look in his eyes--"I won't complain any more if I can help it, I won't really." "I am very anxious that you should enjoy yourself all you possibly can. Beryl is dreading the time when she will have to go back again." "She knows so many people," Madeline said, reflectively. "And you have made hosts of acquaintances, have you not?" "Yes, acquaintances, but they don't mean anything. I never realised before, I think, how many people there are in the world, and how many things there are in the world I can do without." "That oughtn't to be a very startling discovery," he said, with a smile. "But you don't feel it in a place like St. Gaved," she said. "There everybody seems necessary to everybody else." "Indeed?" he questioned, dryly. "Well, I mean that in a little community where each one plays his part, and each one's part is known to all the rest----" "Yes?" he questioned, seeing she hesitated. "Oh! I can't explain myself very well, but you must know very well what I mean." "No; really you flatter me," he said, in a tone of banter, "for in reality your meaning is quite beyond me." "Then I must be stupider than I thought," she answered, with a pout, and relapsed into silence. Sir Charles was not only perplexed, he was more or less troubled. If he dared he would have been angry, but he knew that anger would defeat the particular end he had in view. Whatever Madeline might or might not be she was not the kind of person to be coerced. She might be led in many directions, but no one could drive her. At the least suggestion of the lash, she would jib and back, and nothing short of physical force would move her a step forward. Hence Sir Charles had felt from the first that his task was one of extreme difficulty and delicacy. Moreover, every day as it passed increased the difficulty. Madeline was swiftly growing out of girlhood into womanhood, and the things that fascinated her as a girl quickly palled upon her as a woman, and Sir Charles was growing desperately afraid lest when she saw Gervase again she might be disillusioned, as she evidently had been in other matters. He was more troubled also than he liked to confess over her intimacy with Rufus Sterne. He could not forget the romantic circumstances under which they had met, the signal service he had rendered her, and the long weeks of suffering and idleness that followed as a consequence, and on a romantic and generous nature like Madeline's, these things would make an abiding impression. For that reason he had got her away from St. Gaved as quickly as possible after he had made the discovery that she was in the habit of visiting him, and for the same reason he intended to keep her away until within a few days of his son's return. Sir Charles had counted so long on annexing the American heiress for his son, that any thought of failure now was too humiliating to be entertained. It was his last hope of rehabilitating Trewinion Hall, and the historic name of Tregony. Gervase's record was of such a character that no English heiress would look at him unless, indeed, he consented to marry the daughter of a tradesman, and even in such case as that his chances would be very doubtful. The beautiful thing about an American heiress was that nobody inquired into her antecedents. So long as she had the requisite number of dollars nothing else mattered. Her father might be a pork-butcher, or a pawnbroker, or an oilman; that was no barrier to his daughter becoming a countess or even a duchess. Poor as Sir Charles was, he would have fainted at the idea of Gervase marrying the daughter of a Redbourne tradesman, however rich or beautiful or accomplished she might be. The very suggestion of "trade" was an offence to his aristocratic nostrils. But Madeline came from a country where the only aristocracy was that of cash, hence by virtue of her uncounted millions she was eligible for the highest positions on this side the water. The logic might not be very sound, but it was satisfying. If the Earl of this and the Duke of that had regilded their coronets with American dollars, why might not he refurbish the Tregony coat of arms with the same precious metal? The reasoning appeared to him to be without a flaw. Moreover, there was the additional argument of necessity. In consequence of the low price of corn along with nearly all other articles of food, agriculture was in a terribly depressed condition. In other words, the farmer could pay only about half the amount in rent that he would be able to do if wheat and barley, and bacon and butter, stood at twice their present prices. Sir Charles always grew white with anger when he thought of the foolish men who, in a previous generation, abolished the corn-laws and gave cheap food to the people. "Look at me," he would say; "my rent roll is only about one-half of what it was in my father's day, and there are hundreds and thousands of the best families up and down the country who have been reduced in circumstances by the same means. What the Government ought to do is to put a high duty on all imported corn and foodstuffs, that would send up the price of English wheat, and English beef, and everything else that is English, and so give the English nobility a chance of getting out of their estates all that they are capable of producing." The logic of this, if not quite sound, was also satisfying from his point of view. There seemed, however, no prospect just then that the food of the people would be taxed for the benefit of the noble and indispensable class to which he belonged. The working classes for some selfish reason, appeared to object to it. They were possessed by the stupid idea that the higher their wages and the cheaper their food, the better off they would be; and against such unreasoning prejudice as that, logic spent its strength in vain. Failing, therefore, any Government help in the shape of protection, he would have to guard his interests in some other way, and Madeline appeared to be an excellent way out of the difficulty. In fact, she almost reconciled him to the idea of free imports. If England had suffered loss through the importation of American wheat, it was only fair that England should be compensated by having the pick of America's richest and fairest women. Since there was no duty on corn, it was only just and right that heiresses should be free. But as the time drew near when Sir Charles hoped to see the full fruition of his little scheme, he grew increasingly nervous. Until the last few weeks everything had gone as smoothly as heart could desire. Madeline seemed like a ripe apple that would drop directly the tree was touched. Without any undue influence, with scarcely a suggestion from anyone, she was inclining in the very direction most desired. Then suddenly she had become captious and uncertain. The moment she reached the point when she was desired to make up her mind definitely she drew back. The increasing warmth of the Captain's letters she had appeared to reciprocate to the full. She had talked about him with a simple ingenuousness that had delighted the baronet's heart. The proposal seemed to have arrived in the very nick of time. She had gathered from Sir Charles, in detached fragments, the full story of her father's wish in the matter. She had been given one glimpse of London, with its life and gaiety, she had been supplied with every newspaper cutting that spoke of Captain Tregony's prowess as a hunter of big game, and she had tacitly accepted the situation, as though Providence had shaped her lot, and shaped it to her entire satisfaction. And then she hesitated, and became silent, and demanded time for further consideration. Sir Charles had broached the subject in the most delicate manner possible when they happened to be alone. Gervase's letter to the family had been left on the drawing-room table. The Baronet picked it up and read it again. "Gervase seems terribly impatient to get home this time," he remarked, casually. Madeline glanced up from her book, but did not reply. "I really do not wonder," Sir Charles went on. "Poor old boy, it is nearly three years since he saw you, and he must be pining for a sight of your face." "He seems a little home-sick," Madeline said, indifferently. "I don't think it is that altogether. Now that he has definitely proposed to you, it brings all the longing to a head, if I may say so. I hope you have written to him and put an end to his suspense?" "No, I have not replied yet. I thought of writing this afternoon." "I wish you would; I am sorry you have not written before." "I have been too busy with other things, Sir Charles." "Oh, well, I am not complaining, my dear. Take your own time, of course. But, naturally, I feel for my son, and I know how anxious he will be. It will be nice for him to meet you here in his ancestral home as his affianced wife." "I suppose it would simplify matters, wouldn't it?" "It would simplify matters a very great deal," Sir Charles said, in a tone of relief. "There is no reason why you should not go away on the Continent in the early spring for your honeymoon, and so escape our bitter east winds." "That would be lovely, wouldn't it?" "Lovely! Ah! well, I almost envy you young people. If one could only be young a second time how much he would appreciate it! But I will not detain you now if you are going to write letters," and he thrust Gervase's epistle into his pocket, and walked slowly out of the room. Later in the day he discovered that instead of writing letters she had been visiting Rufus Sterne at St. Gaved, and his anger almost got the better of him. By a tremendous effort, however, he kept himself well in hand, and talked to her with a seriousness that did full justice to the occasion. Two days later he learned that she had not yet replied to Gervase's letter; he made no remark, however, but on the following day he made a proposition that they should spent the late autumn in London. The experiment, however, had not been altogether satisfactory. Madeline had not been at all like her old self. She was moody and absent-minded, and by no means easy to please. That she had written to Gervase he knew, and written more than once, but she gave no hint to anyone of the nature of her communications. Sir Charles hoped for the best, but he was troubled all the time by serious misgivings. Her very uncommunicativeness was a disturbing factor. Several times he was strongly tempted to put a point-blank question to her; but when it came to the point his courage failed him. Moreover, his reason told him that the more anxious he appeared to be the more stubborn and intractable she would become. The only thing he could do was to wait patiently until Gervase's return, and trust to luck or Providence for what would follow. Madeline welcomed the morning of their departure from London more eagerly than any of the others. She was tired of the big city, with its murk and gloom, its dreary streets and muddy crossings, and its never-ceasing roar and turmoil. She longed for the "clean country," as she expressed it, with its quietness and peace and far distances. In truth, she hardly knew what she longed for. Some day her desire would take definite shape, then she would understand. CHAPTER XVI GROWING SUSPICIONS In the big house there were many things to be done in preparation for Christmas. Mottoes had to be selected and cut out of coloured paper, and surrounded with evergreens and hung in the hall, and naturally this task fell to the lot of Madeline and Beryl. Then, it was decided to have a house-party the day but one after Christmas Day, and invitations had to be sent out to all the gentry of the neighbourhood. Lady Tregony undertook this pleasant duty, but soon found the work of filling in cards and addressing envelopes altogether too exhausting; so Madeline, who was swift with her pen, was pressed into the service. In addition to all this, various tokens of affection and regard had to be sent to the extremely poor of the parish--nothing of very much value, it is true--still, the simplest parcel took time to make up and address. The result of all this was that the house was kept in a state of bustle from morning till night, and Madeline had no time to pay a single visit to any of her acquaintances in the village. She did steal out of the house one evening after dinner, and tramped in the bright moonlight nearly to St. Gaved and back again, but the walk did not yield her much satisfaction. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she passed Rufus Sterne on the way, and that he took pains not to be recognised. She turned and looked after the retreating figure, and felt certain she was not mistaken, but he did not halt for a moment or look back. It was a simple and trifling thing in itself, but it set her thinking. Of course, he might not have recognised her, as she for the moment had not recognised him. On the other hand, her face was toward the moonlight, his was in shadow. She scarcely saw his face at all, her face would be plainly visible. Moreover he hurried past, with his hat pulled low, as if he had no wish to be recognised. What did it mean? The more she thought about the matter, the more she was convinced that the man she met was Rufus Sterne, and that he deliberately avoided the chance of recognition. Was he offended with her, then? Was he sorry that they had ever become acquainted, and wished the acquaintanceship to end? Did he regard her as a sort of stormy petrel, heralding bad weather and bad fortune? Did he think that safety and success could be secured only by keeping out of her way? That he would have good reason for cherishing such sentiments there was no denying. She had been his evil genius in the most critical period of his life. She had thrust him back into idleness and helplessness when every day was of the utmost value to him. "I really don't wonder that he shuns me," she said to herself, regretfully. "I really don't, and if his invention should fail, he will hate me more than ever." Under ordinary circumstances her pride would have asserted itself, and she would have resolved--since he had ignored her--never to speak to him again. But the circumstances were not ordinary. The ties of gratitude, if nothing else, bound her to him for all time; the loss that he had suffered on her account made it impossible for her to treat him as she might have treated an ordinary acquaintance. He had good reasons, no doubt, for ignoring her, but that only made the pain the harder to bear. Two days before Christmas it became evident to her that there was a little conspiracy on foot to prevent her going into St. Gaved. She had not noticed at first any significance in the fact that there was always someone at hand to run errands for her and Beryl. But when, for the sixth or seventh time in succession, her suggestion that she should run into St. Gaved was met by the reply, "Oh, don't trouble, dear," or "You are too tired, dear," or "Peter will see to that, dear," or, "We shall not require it to-day, dear," she began to think that solicitude on her account had become a trifle overstrained. When once her suspicions were aroused, she began to put the matter to the test. During the morning of Christmas Eve she discovered on four separate occasions that she was short of something that she particularly needed, and each time, when she suggested that she should run into St. Gaved and get it, a servant was dispatched with most unusual haste to make the purchase. Madeline smiled to herself, but said nothing. But it set her thinking on fresh lines. She began to recall all that had happened since her last visit to Rufus Sterne, then her thoughts travelled farther back still, and after a very little while she saw, or fancied she saw, a tolerably consistent purpose, not to say conspiracy. When once she had got a clue, or what she fancied was a clue, it was easy to read meanings into a thousand little circumstances that otherwise would have had no significance whatever. She had been under the pleasing delusion that she had gone her own way, that practically she had followed her own wishes in everything--that her own wishes happened to exactly coincide with the wishes of her friends was simply a matter for congratulation. No attempt had been made to bring pressure to bear on her at any point. When Sir Charles had talked seriously to her, it was nearly always on questions of English etiquette and customs--subjects she was profoundly ignorant of. If she decided to go into St. Gaved now, she felt sure no direct attempt would be made to stop her. To test the matter, she went to her room, put on her hat and jacket, and announced to Sir Charles, whom she met in the Hall, that she was going into the town for her own amusement. "All right, Madeline," he said, with a smile; "this is Liberty Hall, you know." She was a little bit taken aback by his answer; it was so frank and spontaneous that it almost disarmed her. She walked very slowly toward the village, her thoughts being intent on the new problem. Ever since her meeting with Gervase Tregony nearly three years ago, her life had moved steadily in the same direction, and toward the same seemingly inevitable end. This she had regarded in the past as providential, and had accepted the omen with thankfulness. But she fancied now she saw a human motive running through all. Since her meeting with Gervase, she had practically never a chance of becoming acquainted with another man. As a matter of fact, the only man she had become intimate with was Rufus Sterne, and directly that intimacy was discovered, she was whisked off to London and kept out of his way. She was being guarded and protected until Gervase's return. Gervase was expected home that very day. He had landed at Marseilles the previous day, and was coming straight through without a break. For a man like Gervase such rush and hurry was most unusual. That a man like Gervase wanted to marry her was, no doubt, very flattering. He was a great soldier, a man of immense courage, and a distinguished-looking man to boot. On the other hand, she was a nobody, her father had been an ordinary working man--that he had "got on" late in life she knew. But what his financial position was she would not know till she was twenty-one. So that looking at the matter merely from a social point of view, it was a great condescension on the part of Gervase. But not only did Gervase want to marry her, but it had become extremely clear of late that Sir Charles was as eager as his son. In fact, events were being rushed. It was understood when she arrived in England that Gervase would not be home till the New Year. Now he was risking his neck in an eager rush to be here by Christmas. Why all this haste? Why was everybody so anxious she should marry the heir to a baronetcy, or, to put it the other way about, why were all the Tregonys so eager to marry the heir to an unknown American girl? That American girls by the shoal had married titled Englishmen she knew, and titled foreigners of all sorts and conditions. But it was clear and obvious to outsiders generally that the attractions had been dollars on the one side and titles on the other--a fair exchange, no doubt. There had been a _quid pro quo_ in each case. But in her case----! Then she pulled herself up suddenly, and a hot blush mantled her cheeks. Was she any better than the rest? Had not her girlish imagination been carried away by pictures of a baronial hall, ivy-grown and weather-beaten? and had not the thought of being "My Lady Tregony" dominated nearly everything else? "No," she said, at length, "I admired Gervase for his own sake. He is brave and distinguished-looking and--and--oh! I like a man who is strong and masterful." But the other question still remained unanswered. Why did Gervase want to marry her? He belonged to one of the oldest families in the county. Why did he not seek a wife in his own circle? Lord this and the Duke of that who went to America for their wives, married dollars. But----She stopped again, and looked round her, but no one was in sight. A keen north wind was blowing, and the pale wintry sun had not yet melted the hoar-frost from the grass, and yet she felt as hot as though she had been thrust suddenly into a Turkish bath. Was it possible that dollars lay at the bottom of all this haste and anxiety? For some reason she had been kept in ignorance of her father's financial position. He had never talked to her about the matter. She was at school when he died, and remained at school long after he was laid in his grave. Why she had been kept at school so long was always something of a puzzle to her. That she would have enough money to live upon comfortably she knew. She was allowed a thousand dollars a year now as pin-money--a sum much too large for her needs in St. Gaved, though in London she could easily spend it all. But that she was rich, or in any sense of the word an heiress, was an idea that had never occurred to her. It did not seem at all likely that she could be, or her allowance would be very much larger. On the other hand there might be method in the modest pittance that was meted out to her. To keep her in ignorance of the extent of her possessions might be part of the game. If she were rich and knew it she might be too ready to discover a reason why Gervase wanted to marry her. "I wonder if suspicion always comes with knowledge and experience," she said to herself. "Is it one of the penalties of being grown up? When I was a girl I wasn't suspicious of anything or anybody. Now I'm certain of nothing, not even of myself." She walked on more rapidly after awhile, but she took no notice of anything on the way. She was too absorbed with her own thoughts. "I am glad, at any rate, I did not give Gervase a definite promise," she said to herself. "I hardly know why I didn't, for I meant to at first. But it is best I should see him again before deciding. Best that I should find out everything I can. I think he wants me for my own sake. I'm almost sure he does, but it's well to be quite sure." "Well, anyhow, I shall see him again this evening," she said to herself, after a long pause. "I wonder if he has changed? I wonder if I have changed?" She reached the outskirts of the village, then turned back, and in a moment or two came face to face with Sir Charles. The meeting was unexpected, and the Baronet looked a little confused. "What, turning back so soon?" he questioned, nonchalantly. "I only came out for a little exercise and fresh air," she answered. "And you find the air too keen, eh?" "Oh! not at all; I am enjoying it immensely." So they passed each other. But a little way on, Madeline paused and looked back, but Sir Charles was out of sight. "Now, I wonder if he followed me on purpose?" she said to herself. "Has he begun to suspect me? Did he imagine I had gone to call on Mr. Sterne in defiance of his wishes? I wish I hadn't grown suspicious; it spoils everything." She was so busy with her thoughts that she scarcely noticed the turn in the road leading back to the Hall. Also there was no particular reason why she should return at once. So she tramped on into the country. The roads were dry and frosty. The keen wind hummed in the bare hazel bushes that crowned the tall hedges, the too brief glimmer of sunshine was fading on the hillside. Her thoughts alternated between the Squire, Gervase and Rufus Sterne. It seemed to her as though a big stone had been dropped into the still and placid pool of her life and that the troubled waters refused to settle again. It seemed but yesterday that the plan of her life lay before her like an open book. Everything was just as it ought to be and there was no hitch anywhere. Now the book was shut, the map was destroyed, and her future lay before her a treeless, trackless, mist-shrouded desert. What was the reason of it? Was Sir Charles to blame, or Gervase, or Rufus Sterne? Or should she take all the blame to herself? She was disturbed in her meditations by the sound of a quick and firm step behind her. Her first impulse was to turn her head, but she resisted it. The steps drew nearer; the hard road echoed distinctly. She drew slowly to the side of the road, so that the pedestrian, whoever he might be, might pass her. It was time she turned round and retraced her steps to the Hall, but she would wait a few minutes longer, until the man had passed her. Now he was almost by her side. She turned her head slightly and their eyes met. In a moment her face brightened, and her lips parted in an eager smile. He dropped a small bag he was carrying, so that he might grasp her outstretched hand. It was fate or destiny, and there was no use fighting against it. "I have been wondering if I was ever to see you again," she said, in her bright, unconventional way. "You are quite well again, I see. Oh, I am so thankful! I would have called round, only--well, you see the conventions of this old country have to be observed even by an American." "And you find them rather irksome?" he questioned, an eager light brightening his eyes. "Well, on the whole I fear I do. But we have to take things as we find them, I suppose. Discipline, they say, is good for us." "I believe that is a generally accepted doctrine," he said, with a laugh. "But you doubt it?" she asked, looking coyly up into his face. "I did not say so," he answered, jocularly. "Do you think I am such a doubter that I doubt everything?" "Well, no," she answered, slowly. "I will not go quite so far as that. I guess there are still a few things you stick to." "We all believe what we cannot help believing," he answered, enigmatically. "Oh, what a profound utterance!" she said, laughing brightly in his face. "It is rather profound, isn't it? But how have you enjoyed yourself in London?" "Oh! moderately well. For the first two weeks or so we had rather a gay time, then things got flat, or I got flat. And then the weather, you know, was atrocious. Those London fogs are a treat!" "So I've heard. I've had no experience of them." "Well, you needn't be envious. But how about your invention? I've been looking for your name in the papers. When are you going to astonish us all?" His face clouded in a moment and his eyes caught a far-away look. "It is never safe to prophesy," he said, after a pause. "But you are still quite sure of success?" she questioned, a little anxiously. He smiled a little bit sadly, and answered, "A friend of mine sometimes encourages me by telling me that there is nothing certain in this world but death." "Your friend must be a pessimist," she said, "and I don't like pessimists. But tell me candidly, has your success been imperilled in any way by--by--your accident?" "No, I do not think so," he answered, quickly. "My work has been delayed a little, that is all. If I fail, it will not be on that account." "But you are not going to fail, of course you are not." "I hope I shall not," he answered, seriously. "But in the chances of life there must be a great many failures. Think of the millions of toiling people in England to-day and how few of them have reached their hearts' desire." "Yes, I suppose that is so," she answered, thoughtfully, "or perhaps the bulk of them have never had any large desires. But don't you think that most of the great men who have striven long enough have won in the end?" "I was not thinking of the great men," he answered. "It is given only to a few men to be great, and of the rest, if they fail once, their chance is gone." "And do you mean to tell me that if you don't succeed this time you won't try again?" "If circumstances would let me, I would never cease trying," he answered. "But we are all of us more or less the slaves of circumstances, some more than others." "You told me once that you had staked your all on the success of this enterprise." "That is true." "And if you fail, you will lose everything?" "Everything!" "You mean, of course, your time and your money, and your labour!" "Yes, I mean that," he said, smiling wistfully. "Oh, well! that is not everything, after all," she answered, brightly. "You are young enough to begin again. And, after all, what we call failures may be stepping-stones to success, and you will win in the end, I know you will. God will not let you fail." "I wish I believed in God as you do," he said, with downcast eyes. "So long as God believes in you it won't matter so much," she answered, cheerfully. "But I must be going back now. You are going further, I presume?" "I am going to spend Christmas with my grandfather, at Tregannon." "Is that far?" "About six or seven miles." "And are you going to walk all the distance?" "I expect so, unless someone overtakes me who can give me a lift by the way." "I hope you will have a very happy Christmas." "Thank you. Let me wish the same wish for you." "We shall be gay at any rate," she said, with a little sigh. "The Captain returns this evening." "Ah! then you are sure to be happy. Good-bye!" He took her outstretched hand and held it for a long moment, looking earnestly the while into her sweet, fearless eyes. Then without another word he picked up his bag and hurried away. CHAPTER XVII RETROSPECTIVE Rufus tramped the seven long miles to Tregannon like one in a dream. Up hill and down dale he swung his way, heedless of the milestones and untroubled by distance. The short winter's day faded into darkness before he had covered half the journey. A little later the moon sailed slowly up in the eastern sky and flung weird shadows across the road, but he paid no heed. Through sleepy villages and hamlets he tramped, by lonely cottages and splashing water-wheels, but his thoughts were back in the quiet lane outside St. Gaved, and the warm hand of Madeline Grover still trembled in his. He had tried to forget her, tried to keep out of her way; but what was the use? She had come into his life for good or ill, and she had come to stay. Until he ceased to draw breath she would dominate his heart, and it was only waste of strength and energy to fight against his fate. He hardly knew whether he was sorry or glad. If he had to leave the world, loving her would make it all the harder, he knew. If his enterprise succeeded and his life stretched out to its natural span, the burden of an unrequited love would always press heavy upon him. And yet to love at all was worth living for. The thrill of her touch, the glance of her sweet, honest eyes, made heaven for the moment. Let the future go. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. Twelve months hence he might be sleeping in the dust, and she might be the wife of Gervase Tregony. It was foolish, therefore, to anticipate the future. To-day alone was his, and he would make the most of it, and let his heart go out in free, unfettered affection, giving all and asking for nothing in return. It was in the inspiration and exaltation of this feeling that he swung along the quiet country lanes. No one could hinder him from loving, and love was its own reward. The joy was not so much in receiving as in giving. When love became selfish it ceased to be love. Madeline might never be his in the conventional sense. She might never know how much she had been to him, might never guess how much he loved her. That might not be all loss; it might, indeed, be gain. He felt already that he was a better man for this great passion that had come into his life--less selfish, less self-centred, less bitter and infinitely more pitiful. He found his grandfather, Rev. Reuben Sterne, still active and alert, in spite of the eighty-four winters that had passed over his head. He was no less sure of his election now than he was sixty years ago, when he was first called to the ministry, and he was as anxious to remain a little longer on the earth as he was in the flowery days of his youth. He extended to his grandson a grave and unemotional welcome, and then led the way into the little sitting-room, where his wife sat deep in an easy chair, a little, shrunken thing, who looked as if all the sap had dried out of her veins. Her welcome, however, was much warmer than her husband's, and the tears came into her faded eyes when he bent down to kiss her. While supper was being got ready Rufus stretched himself in an easy chair before the fire and listened while the old people talked. "Ah me, Rufus," Mrs. Sterne said, in her thin, quavering voice. "It is just sixteen years ago yesterday since news came that your father was dead. How time flies, to be sure, and your poor mother survived the shock just six months and a day." Rufus had heard the story recalled nearly every Christmas Eve since. Whoever might forget, the little grandmother remembered, Joshua Sterne--Rufus's father--was her firstborn and only child, and the wound caused by his death never seemed to heal. Rufus listened with no poignant sense of grief. His father had crossed the Atlantic to seek his fortune when he, Rufus, was little more than out-of-arms, and he had never returned. Rufus fancied that he remembered him. But he was never quite sure. The recollection--if such it was--was so vague and indistinct that it seemed little more than the shadow of a dream. He remembered well enough the day when the news came of his father's death. Remembered the grief and anguish of his mother, which, boy-like, he did his best to soothe, but which he could not understand. Six months later the broken-hearted mother slipped unexpectedly away into the land of shadows, and Rufus, bewildered and rebellious, was taken away from the silent house to live with his grandparents. That seemed like the beginning of all his griefs. He had often wondered since what his life would have been like if his mother had lived. How he would have rejoiced to toil for her and fight her battles. But it was not to be. In the cold and gloomy shadow of his grandfather's home it seemed to him that the better side of his nature had never a chance of developing. The sunshine was absent. The real joy of existence was unknown. Reuben Sterne was a disciplinarian of the severest type. A minister of the Gospel who had no real Gospel to preach. A theologian who had no true vision of God. A man severe and stern by nature, and made doubly so by an austere and loveless creed. "God was a jealous God." That lay at the foundation of all his beliefs and coloured all his actions. The burden of the Divine decrees lay heavy upon his heart in the brightest days, and touched every song to sadness. Of his own election he did not doubt. Of his call to preach to the elect he was equally sure. But his only son, Joshua, the child of many prayers, gave no evidence of saving grace, and died uncalled to the favours of the heavenly fold, while his grandson, Rufus, appeared, even from boyhood, to be as pagan as his name. This was a great grief to the old man, though he would not have made any sign of it for the world. It was his place to bow, not only in submission, but in thankfulness to the heavenly will. To kiss the hand that smote, and adore the unrelenting power that consigned to eternal burning those who were dear to him as his own life. At bottom his heart was better than his creed, but he was afraid of showing tenderness or affection lest he should be running counter to the Divine Will, or giving encouragement to the enemies of the cross to blaspheme. Twice every Sunday Rufus was led to the Baptist chapel to hear his grandfather preach, and early indicated the fate to which he was predestined by falling asleep under the old man's most terrible sermons. Among the memories that stood out most clearly in his brain was that of his grandfather in the pulpit. A tall, straight man, with clean-shaved, severe face, and eyes that never smiled. He always wore a frock-coat, tightly buttoned, a tall, stiff collar, and a large white bow, the ends of which touched the lapels of his coat. His grey hair was brushed smoothly from his forehead, his mouth was set in severe lines, his shoulders squared as if for battle. And indeed, every sermon was a battle. He was appointed of God to fight "spiritual wickedness in high places." He asked no quarter and gave none. His voice rang with the thunders of the law. Sinai was nearer to his heart than Calvary. Rufus gave evidence of intellectual revolt before he had reached his teens. "What is the use of preaching, grandfather?" he asked the old man, one Sunday morning, over the dinner table. "The use of preaching?" the Rev. Reuben questioned, aghast at the audacity of the young speaker; while Mrs. Sterne laid down her knife and fork, and stared. "Well, suppose you didn't preach, what would happen?" the boy went on, unconscious of the storm he was raising. "Happen? Happen? Be silent, boy; you know not of what you are speaking." "But if you didn't preach, would the elect be lost?" the boy persisted. "Of course not. How could they be lost? 'Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.'" "And will you save any of those who are not elected by preaching to them?" the boy went on. "It is not in man's power to save at all," the old man said, severely. "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord." "Well, then, I don't see a bit of use in preaching or in going to chapel." The old man raised his eyes and stared. "You ungrateful, unregenerate youth," he said. "How dare you speak in such a way, and at my table?" "But, grandfather," said the boy, with astonishment in his eyes, "why am I ungrateful because I ask questions?" "Why? Because your questions savour of an unregenerate and unbelieving heart; because they make light of the Word of truth; because the Spirit of God is not in you." "But how can I help that, grandfather? Do you think it is that I am not called?" "I fear you are not," he said, with a groan. "I fear you are not." "But you are not sure, grandfather?" "No, I am not sure; but there is no evidence of saving grace in you." "But if I am elected I shall be all right in the end, sha'n't I?" "Yes, yes; the gracious Spirit always finds those who have the mark of the seal." "Then, I don't think I shall go to chapel to-night." "Not go to chapel!" and the old man's eyes flashed fire. "Not go to chapel? Did my ears deceive me? Is it for this I have cared for you since the death of your mother? Boy, boy, be careful how you disobey me!" "But, but----" "Not another word," the old man said, raising his right hand in a threatening attitude. "Not another word, or I will punish you as you were never punished before. How dare you blaspheme, and at my very board?" That was the beginning of open strife and rebellion. The boy went to chapel that night, and for many years after, but never in the same spirit again. Scarcely a Sunday passed that both his heart and intellect did not revolt against his grandfather's teachings, and there was no one to show him the other side of the shield. Had some whisper come to him in those days that truth was many-sided, that the Kingdom of God was broader than Church or Creed, and that the heart of the Eternal was not to be measured by an ecclesiastical tape-line, he might have been saved many long years of darkness and doubt. But in the village of Tregannon, teachers and seers were few, and books that would have helped him were out of his reach. So he grew first into the belief that he belonged to the non-elect, and later into the belief that the whole fabric of the Christian religion was a delusion and a snare. Yet no cloud of unbelief dimmed for a moment the purity of his soul. He loved goodness none the less because he hated human creeds. Right was right, whatever preachers preached or failed to preach; and wrong was wrong though stamped with the Church's approval. It was a great grief to the Rev. Reuben and to his wife when Rufus demonstrated by open and unabashed revolt that he belonged to the non-elect. They had suspected it early in his career; they had prepared themselves for the blow when it should fall. The tender-hearted little grandmother had hoped and prayed till the last, and even continued to pray when she believed that praying was vain and feared that it might be an offence to the Lord. The Rev. Reuben was made of sterner stuff. "Ephraim," he said, "is joined to his idols, let him alone." So the quiet, uneventful years passed away, and the boy grew into a man. A man of fine presence, of considerable intellectual attainments--for Reuben Sterne gave the lad the best education he could afford--and of unblemished character. Rufus wanted to be an engineer, but that was beyond his grandfather's means. His grandmother wanted to apprentice him to a draper, but the boy protested so vehemently that that laudable desire was never carried out. In the end, he found his way into a Redbourne Bank, where he became acquainted with Felix Muller, who was a solicitor's clerk in the town, and who later on succeeded to his master's business. From Redbourne, Rufus removed to St. Gaved as Secretary to the Wheal Gregory Tin Mining Company, Limited, and it was while there that he conceived a scheme for the bettering of his own fortunes and those of the county as a whole. Rufus could not help recalling the past as he stretched his legs before the fire and listened in dreamy fashion to the talk of the old people. All the years that had fled and gone seemed to live again. All the people that he knew in his boyhood's days gathered round him once more. Voices long since hushed in the great silence spoke to him as they used to do; and eyes that long since had fallen into dust smiled with all their old sweetness. He always felt a boy again when he came home to Tregannon. The old people were unchanged. They did not look a day older than ten years previously. The house and its ways had been stereotyped for a generation. The same coarse rug was before the fire, on which he had sprawled as a lad. The same kettle sang on the hob, the same poker and tongs shone in the firelight. The old people still talked on, recalling the events of other years, the one supplying what the other had forgotten. Rufus interposed a monosyllable now and then, but his thoughts in the main were far away from theirs. Suddenly his interest was aroused by an allusion his grandfather made to some wasteful and abortive lawsuit that followed his father's death. "The ways of the law may be crooked in this country," he said, with energy; "and English lawyers may be blood-suckers in the main, but in America things are fifty times worse." "Why do you think that?" he questioned, raising his eyes with interest. "Why, because I've proved it. Your father's title was clear enough, there's no doubt about that. He made his money honestly too. If he'd lived a month or two longer he'd have returned home a rich man." "Well?" "Well, just because some swindler disputed his right, and a blackmailer presented a bogus account, and somebody else claimed on the estate, on the ground of a letter which was clearly a forgery, the lawyers went to work with glee, and the State judge or attorney, or whoever he may be, aided and abetted the plunder. A grosser piece of corruption there never was in this world." "And they ate it all up between them?" "Every dollar. At least, I presume so. It was postponed--I mean the settlement--and postponed month after month, and year after year; and taken to this court and that, the lawyers licking their lips all the time--What cared they for the widow and the fatherless? And when there was nothing left of the estate, why the litigation ceased." "That's usually the case, isn't it?" "But in our English courts there is a chance of an honest man coming by his rights." "Not much if he should happen to be a poor man." "Then you believe we are as bad as the Americans?" "Every whit. Lawyers and law courts, all the world over mean the same thing." "But isn't one of your best friends a lawyer?" "You refer to Felix Muller? Well, yes. Muller has been a very good friend to me. But when it comes to business, like the rest of them, he will have his pound of flesh." "Ah, well!" the old man answered, with a sigh. "It's a sad world. Though many may be called, few are chosen, and Satan must work his will till the appointed time." "He seems to have had a pretty long innings," Rufus said, with a laugh. "And yet, beyond his chain he cannot go," the old man answered. And then supper was brought on to the table. CHAPTER XVIII THE OLD AND THE NEW Rufus awoke next morning to the sound of Christmas bells ringing wildly down the valley and out across the hills. It was a pleasant sound, and awoke many tender memories in his heart. Instinctively his thoughts turned back to the Gospel story, and to the Christ who had changed the history of the world. Whatever might be said of the doctrines and dogmas that his grandfather had preached for fifty years with so much vehemence and energy, there could be no doubt as to the ethical value of Christ's life and sayings. He had not looked into the New Testament for a good many years now, but it suddenly occurred to him that it was scarcely fair to hold Christ responsible for all the foolish things done and taught in His name. He recalled without effort whole paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount, for he had been compelled, as a boy, to get off whole chapters both of the Old and New Testament by heart, and he felt that nothing nobler had been taught in all the history of the world. Besides all that, there was something infinitely beautiful and touching in the tragedy of Christ's life and death. He was a martyr for scorned ideals. He gave up his life rather than compromise with evil, or be a party to the hypocrisies of His time. He was, undoubtedly, the friend of the poor, and outcast, and oppressed, and was the only religious man of His time who had the courage to speak a kind word to publicans and harlots. Rufus began to have an uncomfortable feeling that he had scarcely treated this sacred figure with ordinary chivalry or fair play. The very ideals he stood for and advocated were among those the Man of Nazareth lived for and died for. From what, then, had he revolted? Against what had he protested? He closed his eyes while the bells rang on, and tried to think. He could recall no word of Christ to which he could take exception, no single act that was not in itself a message of goodwill to men. Here was a life absolutely unselfish, and sacrificed in the pursuit of the noblest ideal. Here was teaching that struck at the greed and hypocrisy and lust of a corrupt age. Here was an influence, if taken by itself, which must always be for the common good. Why, then, had he revolted? He had called Christianity a delusion and a snare. A benumbing superstition, an invention of priests for the enslavement of men and women. In his defence of the position he had taken up he had pointed out that Christianity had stood for slavery, for war, for oppression, for persecution, for greed, and for the rule of the strong over the rights and consciences of the weak. Had he been wrong in this contention? And if not, where was the discrepancy? Could it be true that Christ stood for one thing, and Christianity for another? In other words, was the thing that bore the name of Christianity, Christianity at all? Did it bear anything but the most distant resemblance to that sweet and ennobling influence that Jesus breathed into the life of the world? He became interested in the problem. The bells ceased their wild revel, and a little company of carol singers broke out in the front garden: Hark! the glad sound, the Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long, Let every heart prepare a throne, And every voice a song. They sang well and tunefully, sustaining all the parts, and throwing heart and enthusiasm into the exercise. He listened with interest and pleasure. A new chord seemed to have been struck in his nature. A fresh window had been opened in his mind. A year ago the carol might have irritated him, and he would probably have laid the flattering unction to his soul, that he had outgrown a mouldy and moth-eaten superstition. He wondered if loving Madeline Grover had made his heart sensitive to new influences, or if it was the possibility of a speedy escape from life that had turned his heart anew to these questions. The carol-singers had come to honour his grandfather. He was no longer their pastor. He had preached till he was eighty--preached till his once crowded congregation had dwindled down to a mere handful, and the glory of "Zion," as the chapel was called, had become but a memory. Yet his name was revered still. For fifty years and more he had lived in Tregannon, and had lived a life of strict and severe integrity, and, though the younger generation had drifted away from his ministry, and "Zion" was no longer enthusiastic about the terms of its title-deeds, yet there was no one who had not a good word to speak of the white-haired supernumerary. He heard the door open at length. The old servant had gone down to let the singers in, and he knew there would be cocoa and saffron cake, and a word of welcome and exhortation from his grandfather. It was pleasant, after all, to be remembered with so much affection after a life of eighty-four years. Rufus wondered if his name would ever be held in any degree of esteem by his fellows, or if he would live unhonoured, and die unlamented. Why was it his grandfather's name was so much revered? Was it the manner of his life or the character of his preaching that had touched the heart and imagination of Tregannon? He had not much difficulty in answering that question. Nobody cared about his sermons now. The few that were remembered, were remembered only to be discussed and discarded. His criticisms of Luther, his fierce attacks on Arminianism, his deadly assaults on Darwin and Huxley, who were beginning to be talked about, his righteous scorn at infant baptism, his ponderous defence of verbal inspiration, his laboured expositions of the prophecies of Daniel, his flounderings in the deep waters of the Apocalypse, his weighty disquisitions on foreknowledge and predestination, and his nicely-balanced definitions of such terms as atonement, justification, regeneration and the like--what did they all amount to now? Who recalled them or were made the better by them? The thing that mattered was goodness. In so far as he had set an example of uprightness of character, of simplicity of aim, of unselfishness in his dealings with his fellows, he had lived to purpose. The sermon that all Tregannon remembered was his upright life. Austere he had always been, carrying himself with a certain reserve that no one could break down, but beneath a cold and placid surface there had beaten a genuinely human heart. To the poor and suffering and heartbroken he had proved himself through two generations a genuine friend. Hence it was that though he had lived in retirement for the last four years his name was held in reverence still. Rufus found himself debating the question from a fresh standpoint. Was Christianity what his grandfather preached, or what he lived? He had heard him declare from the pulpit, with passionate vehemence, that good works were filthy rags, and that morality might be a millstone around the neck to sink the soul in deeper perdition. Yet who cared for his grandfather's theology in Tregannon? The thing that made his name revered was that very morality which he had so often warned his hearers against. "There's a screw loose somewhere," Rufus said to himself, with a smile. "Perhaps I had better read the New Testament again and try to find out what Christianity is. What passes in its name I like as little as ever I did. Its priestly assumptions, its grotesque dogmas, its truculent grovelling at the feet of wealth, its pitiful squabblings about forms and orders, its defence of oppression and war, and most other abominations, its silence and helplessness in face of public corruption. Great Scott! what does it all mean? Think of Christianity in Russia siding with the brutes who rule that unhappy land; think of it in France, where the people in disgust are trying to kick it out; think of it in England, allied to the State, intriguing for power and resorting to every kind of sharp practice to gain its own ends, and think of Jesus dying for a great ideal. I'll give up the problem, it's beyond me." And he got out of bed and began to dress. After breakfast he rather astonished the old people by announcing that he would go to chapel. "I hope you will go, Rufus, in a proper spirit," the old man said, severely. "I hope so," was the answer; "though I am bound to confess I am prompted mainly by a desire to hear your new minister." The Rev. Reuben looked grave. "It is possible he may say something you may approve of. I grieve to say that even the pulpit is touched by what is called the modern spirit." "But I hear that 'Zion' is regaining some of its former glory." "The congregations are large, I admit; but I fear in these days the people have itching ears." "That has been true, I am told, of every generation." "It may be so. Yet thirty years ago--aye, twenty years ago--the people endured sound doctrine even when it was galling to the flesh." "And to-day, grandfather?" The old man shook his head and smiled sadly. "I fear me they have no stomach for strong meat," he said, pathetically. "Well, it is not a bit of use trying to swallow what we cannot digest," Rufus said, with a laugh. "However, I will hear this Rev. Marshall Brook for myself." He felt painfully conspicuous as he walked into the chapel behind the stooping form of his grandfather--the little grandmother was too feeble to attend. He thought that everybody was eyeing him with an unnecessary amount of curiosity. He slipped into the far corner of the pew, the place where he had spent many a weary and painful hour in the years gone by, and for awhile he kept his eyes fixed upon the floor. A quiet, slow-moving voluntary was being played on the organ, around him was a faint rustle of silks and the shuffling of feet. From the vestibule came a subdued hum of voices as acquaintances met and exchanged Christmas greetings. Rufus was carried back again to the days of his boyhood and youth. The present was forgotten. He had never been away from Tregannon. He was still a lad. He had a jack-knife in his pocket and a white alley and a piece of cobbler's wax and several yards of string. That was Billy Beswarick's suppressed cough coming from a neighbouring pew, and he was sure Dick Daddo was behind him waiting to pull his hair. He raised his eyes at length, and the illusion partially vanished; but not altogether. There was the same organ--how often he had counted its gilt dummy pipes; new brass book-rests had been placed in the gallery front for the convenience of the choir--that was an innovation, and brought him down to more modern days. The iron pillars that supported the galleries were festooned with evergreens, and over the arch of the organ loft was a text of Scripture, conspicuous in white against a scarlet background:--"On earth peace and good will toward men." The text set Rufus thinking again. He rather wondered that anyone had the courage to put it up. Perhaps the young people had done it, unthinkingly, for no sentiment could be more incongruous or out of place. The air was full of the clash of arms, the newspapers contained little else than records of battle and slaughter. Ministers all over the country were preaching sermons on patriotism and Imperialism. Churches and Sunday-schools were organising boys' brigades, and children were being taught how to shoot. Here and there a solitary voice protested against all war as unchristian, but the voice in the main was unheeded. How could war be unchristian? How could killing on a large scale be anything but an ennobling occupation? How could defending homes that were not attacked and destroying homes that were not defended, be anything less than heroic? How could stealing your neighbour's birthright and possessing his inheritance be anything but righteous? "There's evidently a screw loose somewhere," he said to himself, with a smile. "If that text sets forth the objective of Christ's mission, then a good deal that passes muster as Christianity to-day is loathsome hypocrisy." Then his attention was arrested by the entrance of the minister into the pulpit. A young man with a frank, boyish face, large, square forehead, a wide mouth, strong chin and jaw--all this he took in at a glance. A moment later he noticed that his dress was unclerical, his hands small and brown, his eyes deep-set and dark. Rufus felt interested in the man. Accustomed as he had been during all the years of his boyhood and youth to seeing the tall, stiff, clerical figure of his grandfather in the pulpit, there seemed something delightfully free and unconventional about this young man. The pulpit "tone" was absent from his voice, the pulpit manner he had evidently not yet learnt, the pulpit expression had to be acquired. Rufus got far back in his childhood days again during the singing and prayers. But directly the text was announced and the minister began to preach he felt wide awake and interested. To begin with, all his early notions about preaching were rudely upset. Taking his grandfather as a model this young man did not preach at all. He just talked and talked in a most delightfully easy and quickening way. The farther he advanced the more interested Rufus became. There were no attempts at oratory, no flights of rhetoric, no simulated passion, no declamation, but just earnest, lucid talk. He forgot that he was in a chapel and this man in a pulpit. They might be anywhere--in a workshop or by the fireside--and the man was talking to them on a subject of deep and perennial interest. He did not dogmatise; he did not ignore objections and difficulties. He faced every problem fairly and fearlessly, and gave his reason for the faith that was in him. "The desire of all nations shall come," was the text. What was the desire of all nations? What was the deep, passionate longing of all thoughtful, serious people of all ages and of all countries? And how was that longing met in Jesus of Nazareth? On the first point he touched Rufus to the quick. He described every mental emotion through which he had passed, and showed how every merely human philosophy had failed to satisfy the need of the human heart. Every word of this part of the discourse was absolutely true to Rufus's own experience. But when the preacher came to deal with the second part of his subject, Rufus felt all his old scepticism returning with a rush; and yet so reasonably did the preacher talk that he was compelled to listen. He did not speak like an advocate with a bad case. There were no evasions, no special pleadings, no attempts to browbeat witnesses, or to sail off on side issues. He spoke as one who had fought his way through every phase of doubt, and had reached the serene heights of absolute conviction. Christ had met his needs, and had answered his questions, had solved the riddle of life. Rufus shook his head more than once unconsciously. The argument from experience might be satisfactory enough to those who had the experience, but he wanted proof. The experience of another man was of very little value to him. If he could be sure that Christ spoke with absolute authority on these questions that vexed the human mind, then would he find rest also, but how was he to get that assurance. He walked home from chapel by his grandfather's side in silence. The old man was as little disposed to talk as Rufus, but for a different reason. After dinner Rufus went for a long walk alone. He wanted to shake off the effects of the sermon. Some of the conclusions of the preacher had made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. The possibility of life being a sacred trust for the use, or abuse, of which he would be held responsible by a Supreme Being was distinctly disquieting, especially in view of the unpleasant possibility that was hanging over his head. If life were not his own to do as he liked with--to spend or end how or when seemed good in his own eyes--then his attempt to gamble with it was more immoral than for a trustee or a lawyer to gamble with his client's property. Rufus had always prided himself on his honour. It was his sheet-anchor in all the mental storms through which he had passed; but if in throwing his life into pawn he had pawned his honour at the same time what was there left to him that was worth possessing? And if the worst should come to the worst, if, as he sometimes feared, his invention had been forestalled--not only a part of it, but the whole of it--if the demands of what he called honour should necessitate the giving up of his life, in what sort of moral dilemma would he find himself? His compact with Muller began to appear in a more unpleasantly lurid light than it had ever done before. Could a man steal money to pay his debts with, and then boast of his honesty in paying? Could he discharge a debt of honour by an act that in itself was criminal? It was dark when he got back to his grandfather's house, but the influence of the sermon was still upon him. He had passed cottages by the dozen from which had come sounds of mirth and festivity. Tregannon appeared to be enjoying itself to the full. The young people, untroubled about the future, were making merry in the hope and gladness of to-day; while he, having lost the faith of his childhood, had drifted into regions not only of hopelessness, but of peril. "It seems but a poor exchange," he said, sadly, "but I shall have to make the best of it." When he opened the door he was surprised to hear the voices of his grandfather and the Rev. Marshall Brook, in what seemed to him a very animated and even heated discussion. CHAPTER XIX AFTER THREE YEARS After her meeting with Rufus Sterne, Madeline walked slowly back to the Hall with a very thoughtful look upon her face. She knew that this Christmas Eve was to be a fateful time for her, her whole future seemed to be hanging in the balance. On what happened during the next few days--perhaps, during the next few hours--would depend in all probability the happiness, or the misery, of all the years that would follow. The point to which her life had been steadily drifting would be reached to-night. The man who had been waiting for her would ask her to come into his arms, the consummation of her girlish dreams was about to be realised. Why did she shrink from the fateful moment? Why did she contemplate the meeting with Gervase with something like alarm? Before she reached the Hall she put a question boldly to herself that she had never dared ask before. Had Rufus Sterne anything to do with this half-defined fear that haunted her. Suppose he had never crossed her path--had never awakened her gratitude by his courage and chivalry, had never touched her sympathy by his vicarious suffering--would she at this moment be almost dreading the appearance of Gervase Tregony on the scene? Till she met Rufus Sterne, Gervase had been her ideal. His bigness, his masterfulness, his fearlessness, his daring had awakened in her a sense of awe. He was her ideal still in many respects. She never expected to see a more soldierly man, never expected to hear a voice that was more clearly meant to command, never anticipated a stronger arm to lean upon. And yet there was no denying the fact that the brightness of the image had been somewhat dimmed of late. In point of bigness, in point of masterfulness, and, above all, in point of social position, Rufus Sterne was not to be mentioned in the same day with Gervase Tregony, and yet Rufus Sterne, poor and friendless as he was, had touched her heart and her imagination in a way that Gervase had never done. Her fingers were tingling still under the pressure of his hand. The tones of his voice were still vibrating through the chambers of her brain, the colour mounted to her cheeks whenever she thought of him. "Perhaps, when I see Gervase," she said to herself, "all my forebodings will vanish. It will be a comfort to know that I have been worrying myself for nothing. If he loves me for my own sake--and I shall soon find out if he doesn't--and if I--I--like him as I have always done, why there is no reason at all why we should not be two of the happiest people in the world. Nevertheless, I wish Sir Charles was not in such a hurry to arrange things." She found Lady Tregony and Beryl pretending concern at her long absence, but very little was said, and Madeline did not explain why she had been so long. "We have ordered dinner, my dear, for half-past seven," Lady Tregony said, in her blandest tones. "We have had another telegram from dear Gervase while you have been out. It was handed in at Bristol. He seems terribly impatient to be at home. I suppose you would not care to drive into Redbourne with Sir Charles to meet him?" "No, indeed. I would prefer to meet him here, thank you." "I am sure it would be quite proper, my dear, if you would care to go, and really Gervase seems dying to see you." "I don't think it would be proper at all," Madeline answered, quite frankly. "Oh, yes, my dear. Everybody now looks upon the engagement as a settled thing." "Indeed. I did not know people took so much interest in our affairs, or indeed, knew anything about the matter." "Oh, yes, my dear; it is impossible that such things can be kept a secret. I expect you will get tons and tons of congratulations on Friday." "Why on Friday, Lady Tregony?" "Why, because we shall have the house full of people on Friday, to be sure. I wouldn't that there should be a hitch for the world." Madeline walked upstairs to her room, feeling very perturbed, and not a little annoyed. It seemed now as if everybody was beginning to show his or her hand. Now that the game was practically won there was not quite so much need for caution or finesse. Indeed, to take the engagement for granted might be a good way of settling the matter once and for all. "But it is not settled yet," she said to herself, a little bit indignantly; "and what is more I will not have my affairs settled for me by anybody." It had been her intention to dress herself with the greatest care that evening, to don the smartest and most becoming frock she possessed. But she concluded now she would do nothing of the kind. "I am not going to lay myself out to make a conquest as though I were a husband hunter," she said to herself, with heightened colour; "and what is more I am not going to let anybody take things for granted," and she dropped into a basket chair before the fire. It was the first time Lady Tregony had so openly shown her hand, and it made Madeline think more furiously than ever. Her maid came a little later and lighted the lamp and drew the blinds, then quietly withdrew. Madeline sat staring into the fire, watching the faces come and go, and conjuring up all kinds of visions. She heard the brougham drive away; heard the Baronet's voice for a moment or two, then all grew still again. In another hour he would be back again, accompanied by his son. She wanted to get up and walk about the room, but she held herself in check with a firm hand, and sat resolutely still. She did not attempt to hide from herself the fact that she was painfully excited. Her heart was beating at twice its normal rate. She was longing to see Gervase, and yet she dreaded the moment when she would again look into his eyes. She did her best to put Rufus Sterne out of her mind. She had a vague kind of feeling that she was disloyal to her girlish ideals. The hour, to which all the other hours of her life had steadily and consistently moved, was on the point of striking. She ought to be supremely happy. One face only should fill all her dreams. She had grown to believe that Gervase Tregony had been ordained for her and she for him--until the last few months not a doubt had crossed her mind on this point, and now---- She got up and began to walk about the room. She could sit still no longer. The very air had become oppressive. She felt as though a thunderstorm was brooding over the place. Her maid came in at length, much to her relief, and began to help her dress for dinner. While her hair was being brushed and combed she listened intently for the sound of carriage wheels. The roads were hard, and sounds travelled far on the still frosty air. She caught the sounds she had been listening for at length, and her heart seemed to come into her mouth. The beat of the horses' hoofs became as regular as the ticking of a clock. Nearer and nearer drew the sounds, till the maid stopped her brushing, and listened. "They are coming," she said, with a little catch in her breath. "I did not think they would be here so soon," and she dropped the brushes, and began to twist Madeline's glorious hair into a large coil low on her neck. "You need not hurry," Madeline said, quietly; "I shall not go downstairs till just before dinner." "Her ladyship is dressed already," the maid answered. "Naturally," she answered, significantly, and relapsed into silence. A few minutes later they heard the gritting of the carriage wheels on the drive. It curved round under Madeline's window, and pulled up at the front door. She listened for the sound of voices, but Sir Charles and his son alighted in silence. Then a little shrill cry of delight was wafted up from the hall as Lady Tregony fell into her son's arms. The next moment the harsh, raucous voice of the captain echoed distinctly through all the rooms. Madeline felt her heart give a sudden bound. How often she had heard that voice in her dreams, and thrilled at the sound--not a musical voice, by any means, not a voice to lure and soothe, but a voice to command; a voice to inspire confidence and awaken fear at the same time. Then a knock came to the door, and Beryl rushed in. "Gervase has come, dear," she said, excitedly. "Yes, I heard his voice." "But are you not coming down at once?" "I cannot very well," she answered, with a smile. "But he will be terribly disappointed. His first inquiry was for you." "We shall meet in the drawing-room before dinner is announced." "But what must I tell him?" "Anything you like, dear." Beryl departed with a pout, and a look of disappointment in her eyes. A little later there was a sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Madeline disappointed her maid by insisting on wearing her least becoming evening gown, and the only ornament she wore was a bunch of holly berries in her hair. She went downstairs alone, and was surprised to find the drawing-room empty. Where Lady Tregony and Beryl had taken themselves to she could not imagine. A big fire of logs was blazing in the grate, and in all the sconces candles were alight. She expected every moment that either Beryl or Lady Tregony would come to her; they were both dressed, and there was no reason whatever that they should remain in their rooms. After several minutes had gone by she began to suspect the truth. They were keeping away so that she might meet Gervase alone. It was very thoughtful of them certainly, but it was taking rather too much for granted. She disliked so many evidences of management and contrivance. If Providence was arranging all these matters she could not see why Providence might not be allowed a free hand. So much human assistance did not seem at all necessary. She was beginning to feel a little bit resentful when the door was thrown suddenly open, and Gervase entered. For a moment she started back with unfeigned surprise. She had expected seeing him in all the glory and splendour of his uniform, and here he was in ordinary evening dress, looking as common-place as any average country squire. The only splendid thing about him was his moustache, which was waxed out to its fullest dimensions. "Madeline," he said, huskily, coming hurriedly forward, with outstretched hands. "This is the supreme moment of my life." She placed both her hands in his, and looked him steadily in the eyes. She was quite calm again now. Her heart had ceased its wild gallop. "It seemed as if I should never get here," he said, in the same husky tones. "Oh! how impatient I have been to look into your dear eyes." "If you had missed this train you would not have got here for your Christmas dinner," she said, artlessly, "and that would have been horribly disappointing." "Would you have been very much disappointed?" he questioned, trying to throw a note of tenderness into his voice. "Of course, I should have been disappointed," she answered, frankly; "I've been quite consumed with curiosity to see what you look like." "Not with curiosity only, I hope, Madeline." "Why, isn't curiosity bad enough without having any other feeling to torment you?" "Did you think I should have changed toward you?" he said, in hurt tones. "Did you regard me as one of the fickle mob, who hold love so lightly?" "Nay, I have always regarded you as a brave, strong man who would place duty above everything." "In that, I trust, I shall never disappoint you," he said, humbly. "Henceforth my duty and my joy shall be to serve you." "I am only one," she said, quickly. "Is not your first duty to your country and your King?" "My first duty is to my queen," he answered gallantly, "and that is you." She drew her hands from his suddenly, and stepped back a pace. "Had we not better understand each other better before we talk so confidently?" she said, in hard decided tones. "What, after three long years?" he questioned, in an aggrieved voice. "Is it possible that there is anything left unexplained? Have I not opened all my heart to you in my letters? Do I need still to prove my devotion?" "No, no. You have been very candid and very loyal," she said, quickly. "But a matter of so much importance should not be decided in an hour." "But we have known each other for years, and did we not understand each other from the very beginning?" "Perhaps we did," she answered, with downcast eyes. "And everyone else understood," he went on. "It is true little or nothing was said at the beginning, for you--you--were--were--very young. But I was of full age, and when the proper time came I wrote plainly to you." "Yes, I know." "And you were not surprised? You expected I should write in that way, did you not?" "Yes, I think I did." "And yet now you talk of our understanding each other better. Oh, Madeline! Let me assure you that no other woman has crossed my path, that no other face has caught my fancy, that my heart has been true to you from the first, and I am prepared now to devote the rest of my life to you." "But is there not another side to the question?" she asked, seriously. "You said when first we met I was very young. But I have grown to be a woman now." "That is true, by Jove!" he answered, with a harsh laugh, "and a very lovely woman, too. But that only adds force and weight to what I have already said. If you had grown to be ill-favoured or plain, you might hesitate, thinking my heart would change. But no, Madeline, I am not of the fickle sort. If you were not half so handsome as you are I should still come to you eager, devoted, and determined." "You fail to understand my point," she said, quickly. "Not I, indeed," he interposed, with a laugh. "It is natural, I suppose, for a woman to have some doubts about a soldier. I know among the pious folk we have rather a bad reputation, and that we are supposed to have as many wives as Brigham Young. But that's a gross libel. I don't pretend that soldiers are saints, and some of them, I grant, change the objects of their affections frequently. But, Madeline, believe me, I have been true to you. True to that last smile and look you gave me in Washington. I come back offering you a complete and whole-hearted devotion. Now, come and let me kiss you, and settle the matter before dinner." She drew back a step further. "I think we understand each other less now than when we began our talk," she said, in hard, unnatural tones. "Well, by Jove, Madeline, you do astonish me," he said, in a tone of well-feigned surprise. "You surely don't think I'm insincere--that I'm putting it on, as it were; that I'm pretending what I don't feel? Let me assure you I'm absolutely certain of my regard for you. Even if I were in doubt before I got here--though, to tell you the candid truth, I never have been in any doubt. But even if I were, the sight of your face, the loveliness of your ripened womanhood, if you will allow me to say so, has drawn out my heart to you more strongly than ever." "I don't think we shall gain anything by pursuing this subject any further just now," she said, quietly. "And we shall have many opportunities for quiet talks later on." "And you are not going to let me kiss you?" "Most certainly not," she said, the colour rising in a crimson tide to her cheeks and forehead. "Then all I can say, it is a cold welcome," he said, using an adjective that need not be written down. "You do not understand me, Gervase," she said, a pained look coming into her eyes. "By Jove! I don't," he said, "and what is worse still, you persist in misunderstanding me." "I am sorry you put it in that way," she answered; "but there goes the dinner-gong," and the next moment the door was pushed open, and Lady Tregony bustled into the room. "So you have met!" she said, with a little giggle, "and no one to disturb your _tête-à-tête_. Well, that is delightful." Gervase frowned, but did not reply, and Madeline took the opportunity of escaping out of the room. In the dining-room she frustrated Lady Tregony's little design, and instead of seating herself next to Gervase she sat opposite him. She had not seen him for so long a time, that she wanted an opportunity of studying his face. Her first feeling of disappointment was confirmed as she looked at him more closely. In his uniform he looked magnificent--at least, that was the impression left on her mind; but in ordinary swallow-tail coat and patent leather slippers he looked common-place. There was no other word for it. Moreover, three years under the trying skies of India had aged him considerably. His straw-coloured hair no longer completely covered his scalp. The crow's feet about his eyes had grown deeper and more numerous. The skin of his face looked parched and drawn, his cheek bones appeared to be higher, his nose more hooked, and his teeth more prominent. Moreover, under an ordinary starched shirt-front the well-rounded chest had entirely disappeared. Perkins, the butler, could give him points in that respect. Madeline felt the process of disillusionment was proceeding all too rapidly. She wished he had come downstairs arrayed in scarlet and gold. As a study in black and white he was not altogether a success, and it was not pleasant to have her dreams blown away like spring blossoms in a gale. CHAPTER XX FATHER AND SON It was a great disappointment to the Tregonys that they were unable to announce on the night of their "At Home" that Gervase and Madeline were engaged. Madeline, however, was obdurate. She saw no reason for haste, and she saw many reasons for delay. The very anxiety of the Tregonys to get the matter settled at once made her only the more determined not to be rushed. The very masterfulness of Gervase--which she admired so much--for once defeated its own end. In her heart she had no real intention of upsetting what seemed to be the scheme and purpose of her life. It had seemed so long in the nature of things that she should marry Gervase Tregony--(why it should have seemed in the nature of things she hardly knew)--that to refuse to do so now would seem like flying in the face of Providence, and that required more courage than she possessed. Still, as far as she could see, it was no part of the providential plan that she should become engaged to Gervase that very year, and marry him early in the next. Dates did not appear to be included in the general arrangement, and she "guessed that in that matter she might be allowed considerable latitude." Gervase showed much less diplomacy than his father. Sir Charles had more correctly gauged Madeline's disposition than any other member of the family. He knew very well that she would never be driven, that any attempt at coercion would defeat its own end. On this assumption he had acted all the way through, and but for a single incident everything might have gone well. As the days passed away Gervase grew terribly impatient. He was hard up. "Horribly, disgustingly hard up," as he told his father, and here were Madeline's thousands or millions steadily accumulating, and nobody the better for it. If he could once get the knot tied he would be safe. She had so much that she could let him have all he wanted without feeling it, and there seemed no reason in the world why he should not begin to enjoy himself without delay. Madeline listened in the main with much patience to his appeals and protestations, but for some reason she could not understand, they failed to move her. He never touched the heroic side of her nature. His appeal was always to her vanity and selfishness. His pictures of happiness were merely pictures of self-indulgence. The aim and end of life as he shadowed it forth was "to take thy ease, eat, drink, and be merry." A town house, a shooting-box in Scotland. Two or three motor-cars, a steam yacht, and an endless round between times of balls and calls and grand operas. She frankly owned to herself that her idol had been taken off its pedestal, and there was no longer any halo about his head. To live in the same house with Gervase day after day was distinctly disquieting. His civilian attire made him look painfully common-place, his conversation was as common-place as his appearance. She asked him one day why he did not wear his captain's uniform. "Because I have resigned my commission," he answered. "Resigned your commission?" she questioned, slowly. "Why not?" he replied. "I have done my share of roughing it, surely." "But--but--oh! I don't know. I had an idea once an officer, always an officer." "Oh, nothing of the sort," he laughed, "I've given up soldiering to devote myself to you. Isn't that a much nobler occupation?" "I don't think so," she answered, slowly. "Besides, I did not want you to give up your commission to devote yourself to me." "At any rate, I've done it. I thought it would please you. It will show you, at any rate, how devoted I am. There is nothing I would not give up for your sake, and I never thought you would hesitate to speak the one word that would make me the happiest man in the world." "But you could not be happy unless I was happy also?" she interrogated. "But you would be happy. I should just lay myself out to make you as happy as a bird. By my soul, you would have a ripping time!" "I don't think that is just what I want," she said, abstractedly. "Don't you think there is something greater in life than either of us have yet seen?" He looked at her with as much astonishment in his eyes as if she had proposed suicide. "Greater," he said, in a tone of incredulity. "Well, I'm--I'm--. The truth is, Madeline, you're beyond me," he added, twisting suddenly round, and back again. "As if there could be anything greater. We might have a turn at Monte Carlo if you liked, or Homburg in the season, or--but the fact is, we might go anywhere. Think of it! You can't conceive of anything greater!" "Oh, yes! I can," she answered quietly, but firmly. "There's nothing noble or heroic in living merely for self and pleasure." "Noble! heroic!" he repeated, slowly, as if not quite comprehending. "Well, now, I wonder what preaching fool has been putting these silly notions into your head. Have you turned Methodist?" "I don't know why you call such notions silly," she said, ignoring his last question. "Did not Christ say that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth?" "Oh! well, I'm not going to say anything against that as an abstract thing," he said. "But the Bible must not be taken too literally, you know." "What do you mean by that?" "Why, I mean what I say, and what every man, if he's got any sense, means. Religion is a very respectable thing, and all that. And I think everybody ought to go to church now and then and take communion, and be confirmed when he's young, and all that. And if people are very poor there must be a lot of comfort in believing in Providence, don't you see, and in living in hope that they'll have a jolly good time later on, and all that, don't you see. But as for making oneself miserable for other people, and denying oneself that somebody else may have a better time, and turning the other cheek, and all that, don't you see--well, that's just rot, and can't be done." "Why not?" "Why not? Well, it's just too silly for words. Fancy a man or a woman not having a good time if he has the chance." "But it may be more blessed to give than to receive." "Don't you believe it, Madeline. I believe in taking a common-sense view of life. We've only one life to live, and it's our duty to squeeze all the juice out of it that we can." "But may not the pursuit of self end in missing self? Is there not more joy in pursuing duty than in chasing pleasure?" "Look here, Madeline," he said, after a long pause, staring hard at her, "tell me candidly who's been putting these silly notions into your pretty little head." "I wish you would not talk to me as though I had the head of a baby," she said, a little indignantly. "You should remember that I am no longer a child," and she turned and walked slowly out of the room. Gervase went off to the library at once to interview his father. The days were passing away, and he was getting no nearer the realisation of his desire. All his interviews with her ended where they began. Whenever he approached the subject nearest his heart and his interests, she always managed to shunt him off to some side issue. Sir Charles was busy writing letters, but he looked up at once when Gervase entered. "Can you spare time for a little talk?" the son asked, abruptly. "Why, of course I can," was the reply. "Is there something particular you wish to talk about?" "Well, the truth is," he said, in a tone of irritation, "I am not getting on with Madeline a bit." "Perhaps you are too eager and impatient. You must remember that Madeline is not the girl to be driven." "Yes, I've heard that before," he said, angrily. "You have always harped on that string. But you've been in the wrong, I'm sure you have. If you'd only let me have my way I would have proposed to her three years ago." "And spoiled everything." "No, I should have won everything. She was only a girl then, and was immensely gone on me. A soldier in her eyes was a hero, and an officer's uniform the most splendid thing she could imagine. If I'd struck then, when the iron was hot, she'd have fallen into my arms, and once engaged there'd have been no backing out." "My dear boy, you don't know Madeline Grover," Sir Charles said, seriously. "No girlish promise would have bound her if she wanted to get out of it." "Oh, yes, it would. She has tremendously high notions about honour and duty." "Exactly. That's just where you fail to appreciate the difficulties of the situation. Very likely you tell her that some of her notions are silly, because you don't understand them." "That's just what I have been telling her this very morning." "And you think that's the way, perhaps, to win her promise." "But what's a fellow to do? One cannot sit mum while she talks rot about--about----" "About what?" "Oh! I don't know; but you know when a girl gets on to heroics she generally makes a fool of herself." "Madeline is very sane as a general thing." "Then why in the name of common-sense doesn't she jump?" "She wants to make sure of her ground, perhaps." "But she knows who I am and who you are, and, surely, it's something to ask a nameless girl to marry into a family like ours." "I confess I expected she would be more impressed than she is." "Does she know she's got the tin?" "I don't think so. She thinks we have the wealth and the position, and everything else." "And yet she doesn't jump. I'd no idea she'd hold out as she is doing." "You'll have to humour her, Gervase. I've told you from the first she's not to be driven. Sympathise with her in what you call her heroics. Encourage her in her mental flight after great ideals." Gervase shook his head, and looked blank. "It's no use, father," he said, despondingly, "I should only make a fool of myself if I tried. Nature never gave me any wings of that sort." "At any rate, don't contradict her, and call her a goose, and assume the airs of a superior person." "But surely I know a mighty lot more than she does. Think of my age and experience, and remember I haven't travelled over half the world with my eyes shut." "It is not experience of the world, but knowledge of the ways of women you want. It isn't strength, but diplomacy that you need." "You think she will come round in time, don't you?" "Oh, yes! I think so, provided you play your cards with skill. She has never said 'no' has she?" "That isn't the trouble exactly. She has never said 'yes,' and until she says it I'm not safe. You know she comes of age in May." "Well?" "You take it very coolly, father," Gervase said, in a tone of irritation. "I don't think it is at all well. Madeline is my only hope. Unless I marry a rich woman I'm stranded--absolutely stranded." "You've not been getting into deeper debt, I hope?" "I've not been getting into shallower water, you may bet your bottom dollar on that." "Am I to understand that you have been anticipating events?" "I have a little. I thought I was perfectly safe in doing so. Your letters indicated that the way was quite clear, that Madeline looked upon the thing as settled, that she knew it was her father's wish, that you were quite agreeable, that everything was as straight as straight could be." "But I never saw her letters to you." "They were almost entirely satisfactory, I can assure you. She did not accept my proposal, it is true. But--well--she couldn't have written in a more friendly way. She thought we should meet again first, that was all. No hint of any delay after I came back." "I hope you haven't been disappointing her in some way." "I believe she is a bit disappointed at my retiring from the army. Like most girls, she dotes on a soldier. She loves the uniform and the gold braid and all that. But I told her I gave up the army that I might devote myself to her." "And did that satisfy her?" "I don't know. I can't make out exactly where she is. She seems to have changed in some way. If she hadn't lived under your eye ever since she has been in England I should be half disposed to think some other fellow had been making love to her." Sir Charles gave a little start, then turned his head, and contemplated his writing pad. "I suppose she didn't flirt with anybody while you were in London?" Gervase questioned, after a pause. "Not that I am aware of. Oh, no! I'm certain she didn't," Sir Charles replied, looking up again. "And, of course, in St. Gaved there's nobody she would look at for a moment," Gervase went on. Sir Charles nibbled for a moment at the end of his penholder. He hardly knew whether to tell Gervase or no. It was but a vague fear at most. For months--so he believed--she had never seen Rufus Sterne, and his name was never mentioned under any circumstances. Gervase was a violent fellow, and if he were made jealous there was no knowing what he might do or say. On the other hand, it was almost certain that he would hear the story of Madeline's adventure on the cliffs sooner or later, and then he would be excessively angry at not having been told by his own people. On the whole, Sir Charles concluded that he had better let Gervase know all there was to be known. The simple truth might gain in importance in his eyes the longer it was kept from him. "I don't think, Gervase, you need have the least fear that you have a rival," he said, at length, looking up with what he intended to be a reassuring smile. "There was a little circumstance some months ago that caused me a moment's uneasiness; but only a moment's. I soon saw that it meant nothing, that it never could mean anything, in fact." "What was the circumstance?" Gervase asked, with a quick light of interest in his eyes. "Well, it came about in this way," and Sir Charles told in an off-hand and apparently indifferent manner the story of Madeline's escapade. Gervase listened in gloomy silence, tugging vigorously at his moustache all the time. "And you say she visited him in his diggings?" he questioned, sullenly, when Sir Charles had finished. "I understand she called twice. From her point of view it seemed right enough. He had broken his leg in rescuing her, and with her American notions of freedom and independence, she saw no harm in calling to see him when he was getting better." "But you say she went twice?" "She went a second time to take him some books she had promised to lend him." "Are you sure she went only twice?" "I think I may say yes to that question. Madeline is very truthful and very frank, and when I pointed out that it was scarcely in harmony with our English notions of propriety she fell in with the suggestion at once." "And she made no attempt to see him after?" "Not the smallest. She had expressed her gratitude and the episode had closed." Gervase looked thoughtful, and not quite satisfied. "Madeline can be as close as an oyster when she likes," he said, after a pause; "how do you know she has not been thinking about the fellow ever since?" "Why should she?" "Well, why shouldn't she? He saved her life, that is no small matter, especially to a romantic temperament like hers. He broke his leg, and nearly lost his life in doing it; that would add greatly to the interest of the situation. Then, if I remember rightly, he's a singularly handsome rascal, with an easy flow of speech, and a voice peculiarly rich and flexible." "My dear boy, you can make a mountain out of a molehill, if you like," Sir Charles said, with a laugh. "That's your look-out. I thought it right to tell you everything--this incident among the rest; but I can assure you you need not worry yourself five seconds over the matter." "Perhaps I needn't; or it may be there is more at the back of Madeline's mind than you think. One thing is clear to me, something has changed her, and I'm going to find out what it is; and by Jove! if--if----" and he clenched his fists savagely, and walked out of the room. CHAPTER XXI GERVASE SPEAKS HIS MIND On New Year's Day Gervase felt determined, if possible, to bring matters to a head, and with this laudable purpose pulsing through every fibre of his body he made his way to the drawing-room where, he understood from his mother, Madeline was sitting alone. He found her, as he expected, intent on a book. She looked up with a bored expression when he entered, smiled rather wearily, but very sweetly, and then went on with her reading. Gervase felt nettled and frowned darkly, but he had made up his mind not to be driven from his purpose by any indifference--pretended or genuine--on Madeline's part. For a whole week he had been beating the air and getting no nearer the goal of his desire; the time had now come when he would have an explicit answer. His worldly circumstances were desperate, and if Madeline failed him, he would have to exercise his wits in some other direction. Moreover, the story of Madeline's adventure on the cliffs grew in importance and significance the longer he contemplated it. The fact that she and Rufus Sterne never met was nothing to the point. She might be eating her heart out in silence for all he knew. Girls did such foolish things. For good or ill he would have to find out how the land lay in that direction. "Is your book very interesting, Madeline?" he asked, throwing himself into an easy chair near the fire. "Rather so," she answered, without looking up. "You seem very fond of reading," he said, after a brief pause. "I am very fond of it." Another pause. "Don't you think it is very hurtful to the eyes to read so much?" he said, edging his chair a little nearer to the couch on which she sat. "Really, I have never thought of it." "But you ought to think of it, Madeline. The eyesight is most important." "I suppose it is." Another pause, during which Gervase threw a lump of wood on the grate. Madeline went on reading, apparently oblivious of his presence. "I can't understand how people can become so lost in a book," Gervase said, a little petulantly. "No?" "No, I can't. It's beyond me." "Do you never read?" "Sometimes, but not often. I've too much else to do. Besides, doesn't the Bible say that much reading is a weariness to the flesh?" "Does it?" "I don't know; but I've heard it somewhere, and it's true." "You've proved it?" "Over and over again." "What sort of books do you find so wearisome?" "Oh, all sorts. There's not much to choose between them." "Do you really think that?" "Of course I do, or I shouldn't say it. I'm not the sort of man to say what I don't mean. I thought you had found that out long ago." "I don't think I have thought much about it." "I thought as much. It appears that I am of no account with you, Madeline. And yet I had hoped to be your husband. But devotion is lost, affection is thrown away, the burning hope of years is trampled upon." "I thought we were to let that matter drop, Gervase, until we had had more time to think it over?" "But I don't want more time, Madeline. My mind is quite made up. If I wait a year--ten years--it will be all the same. For me there is only one woman in the world, and her name is Madeline Grover." "It is very kind of you to say so, Gervase, and I really feel very much honoured. But, you see, I have only known you about a week." "Oh, Madeline, how can you say that? We have known each other for years." "In a sense, Gervase, but not in reality. In fact, I find that all the past has to be wiped out, and I have to start again." "Why so?" "I cannot explain it very well, but I expect we have both changed. Madeline Grover, the school-girl, is not the Madeline Grover of to-day." "By Jove, I fear that's only too true," he said, almost angrily. "And the Captain Tregony I met in Washington--excuse me for saying it--is not the Gervase Tregony of Trewinion Hall." "Have I deteriorated so much?" he questioned, with an angry flash in his eyes. "I do not say that you have deteriorated at all," she said, with a smile. "Perhaps we have both of us vastly improved. Let us hope so at any rate. But what I am pointing out is, we meet--almost entirely different people." "That you are different, I don't deny," he answered, sullenly. "In Washington you made heaps of me, now you are as cold as an iceberg. But I deny that I have changed. I loved you then, I have loved you ever since, I love you now." "Well, have it that I only have changed," she said, with a touch of weariness in her voice. "I don't want to make you angry, Gervase, but you must recognise the fact that I was only a school-girl when we first met. I am a woman now. Hence, you must give me time to adjust myself if you will allow the expression. You see, I have to begin over again." "That's very cold comfort for me," he said, angrily. "How do I know that some other fellow will not come along? How do I know that some adventurer has not come between us already?" She glanced at him for a moment with an indignant light in her eyes, then picked up her book again. "Pardon me, Madeline," he said, hurriedly, "I would not offend you for the world, but love such as mine makes a fellow jealous and suspicious." "Suspicious of what?" she demanded. "Well, you see," he said, slowly and awkwardly, turning away from her, and staring into the fire, "it's better to be honest about it, isn't it?" "Honest about what?" "I don't think I'm naturally jealous," he explained, "but father has told me all about your--your--well, your escapade with that scoundrel, Sterne." "Is he a scoundrel?" "You know nothing about him, of course, but he is just the kind of fellow that would take advantage of any service he had rendered." "I was not aware----" "Of course not," he interrupted, "but those--well, what I call low-born people have no sense of propriety; and in these days--I am sorry to have to say it--very little reverence for their betters." "Well, what is all this leading to?" "Oh, nothing in particular. Only father told me how he took some risks on your account, and I know that you are nothing if not grateful, and honestly I was half afraid lest the rascal had been in some way imposing on your good nature." "You are quite sure that you know this Mr. Sterne?" "I know of him, Madeline, which is quite enough for me. Of course, I have seen him dozens of times, but he is not the kind of man I should ever think of speaking to--except of course, as I would speak to a tradesman or a fisherman." "Yes?" "You see, those people who are too proud to work, and too ignorant and too poor to be gentlemen, and yet who try to ape the manners of their betters are really the most detestable people of all." "Is that so?" "It is so, I can assure you. As an American you have not got to know quite the composition of our English society. But you will see things differently later on. A good, honest working man, who wears fustian, and is not ashamed of it, is to be admired, but your working class upstart, with vulgarity bred in his bones, is really too terrible for words." "And is there no vulgarity in what you call the upper classes?" "Well, you see, the upper classes can afford to be anything they like, if you understand." "You mean that they are a law unto themselves?" "Well, yes, that is about the size of it. No one would think of criticising a duke, for instance, on a question of manners or taste." "Well, now, that is real interesting," she said, with a cynical little laugh. "It explains a lot of things that I had not seen before." "Then, too," he went on, warming to his theme, "it is largely a question of feeling. You can't explain some things; you can't say why they are wrong or right, only you feel they are so." "That is quite true, Gervase," she answered, with a smile. "For instance, I wear a monocle sometimes. Now that is quite right for a man in my position, and quite becoming." "Most becoming, Gervase." "But for Peter Day, the draper, for instance, to stand in his shop-door with a glass in his right eye would look simply ridiculous." "You would conclude he was cross-eyed, wouldn't you?" "You would conclude he was an idiot, and, between ourselves, that's just the trouble now-a-days. The common people seem to think that they have a perfect right to do what their betters do." "But to copy their virtues----" "That isn't the point exactly," he interrupted. "I don't pretend that we have any more virtues of the homely sort, than the cottage folk, but certain things belong to us by right." "Do you mean vices?" she queried, innocently. "Well, no, not in our case; but they might be vices if copied by the lower classes. I'm afraid I can't explain myself very clearly. But things that would be quite proper for the best people to do, would be simply grotesque, or worse, if the common orders attempted them." "Really, this is most interesting," she said, half-banteringly, half-seriously. "Now, out in our country we have no varying standards of right and wrong." "Ah! well, that is because you have no aristocracy," he said, loftily. "And if I were to marry you, Gervase, and become a lady of quality I should be judged, as it were, by a different set of laws." "You would become Lady Tregony when I succeeded to the title." She laughed. "That, I fear, is scarcely an answer to my question." "Not a full answer, but you see there are so many things that cannot be explained." "Evidently. In the meanwhile I belong to the common herd----" "No, no! Madeline," he interrupted, quickly. "My father was only a working man," she went on, "and across the water we have no blue bloods; we have blue noses, but that's another matter, but we're all on the same footing there." "Not socially, and dollars in America count for what name and titles count for here." "But I haven't even the dollars," she said, with a laugh. "But you have," he protested, quickly. "That is--I mean--you have not to work for your living. You are not a type-writer girl, or anything of that sort." "And should I be any the worse if I were?" "Well, of course, Madeline, you would be a lady anywhere, or under any circumstances," he said, grandiloquently. "Thank you, Gervase, but suppose we get back again now to the point we started from." "I'll be delighted," he said, eagerly. "I do want to start the new year with everything settled; that's the reason I pushed myself on to you, as it were, this afternoon. I hate beating about the bush, and all our friends are wondering why the engagement is not announced." "Oh, dear! you have gone back miles further than I intended," she laughed. "I understood you wanted to warn me against somebody." "I do, Madeline. I'm your best friend, if you'll only believe it. And I do beseech you, if you've been in the least friendly with that fellow Sterne, you'll drop him." "You think he isn't a good man." "Oh, blow his goodness. The point is, he's common, vulgar--bad form in every way, if you understand. Anyone in your position should never be seen speaking to him." "But is there anything against his moral character?" "Oh, confound his moral character," he said, with an oath, for which he apologised at once. "It isn't that I'm squeamish about. The point is, Madeline, he's no gentleman." "He seemed to me to be quite a gentleman." "I'm sorry to hear you say that," he said, mournfully, getting up and throwing another log on the fire. "It shows how you may be deceived by such scoundrels." "But is that a nice word to use of any man against whose moral character you have no complaint to make?" "No, it isn't a nice word, but he isn't a nice person. I don't care to mention such things, but you may not be aware that he is an infidel?" "What is that, Gervase?" "Oh! I don't know, but it's something bad, you bet. I heard the vicar talking about it last time I was at home, and he was pretty sick, I can assure you. If Sterne were to die to-morrow I question if the vicar would allow him to be buried in consecrated ground." "And what would happen then?" she asked, wonderingly. "Oh! don't ask me. I am not up in those things, but I just mention the matter to show you he's a pretty bad sort, and not the sort of person for any one like you to be on speaking terms with." "But what I want to know is, has he ever done anyone any wrong. Ever cheated people, or told lies about them, or stolen their property. Or has he ever been known to get drunk, or to behave in any way unworthy of a gentleman?" "My dear Madeline, I hate saying anything unpleasant about anyone. But a man who never goes to church, who doesn't believe in the Church, who has no respect for the clergy or the bishops, who has been heard to denounce some of our most sacred institutions, such as the land laws, who has even said that patriotism was a curse, and war an iniquity--what can you expect of such a man? He may not have actually stolen his neighbour's property, but he would very much like to." "I don't think that necessarily follows," she said, seriously. "I think it is possible for a man to have very small respect for the clergy, and for what is called the Church, and yet for him to have a profound sense of honour, and an unquenchable love for righteousness." "Then you don't think staying away from church is as bad as getting drunk?" "I should think not, indeed," she answered, quickly. "A man who gets drunk, I mean an educated man, a gentleman--sinks beneath contempt." "Sterne may get drunk for all I know," he said, uneasily. "You see, I have been out of England for a long time." She closed her book with a sudden movement, and rose to her feet. "No, you must not go yet," he said, in alarm. "We have not settled the matter which I wish particularly to have settled to-day." "We have talked quite long enough for one afternoon," she answered, coolly. "But, Madeline, have you no pity?" he said, pleadingly. "It would be folly to rush into such a matter hastily," she answered, in the same tone. "But--but, Madeline, answer me one question," he entreated. "Have you--have you seen this man Sterne since I came back?" "You have no right to ask that question," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. "Nevertheless, I will answer it. I have not," and without another word she swept out of the room. Her heart was in a tumult of conflicting emotions. She was less satisfied with Gervase than she had ever been before, and less satisfied with herself. And yet she saw no way out of the position in which she found herself. It was next to impossible, situated as she was, to upset what had been taken for granted so long, particularly as she had acquiesced from the first in the unspoken arrangement. She felt as if in coming to England she had been lured into a trap, and yet it was a trap she had been eager to fall into. She had hoped when she saw Gervase, that all her old reverence and admiration and hero worship would flame into life again, instead of which his coming had been as cold water on the faggots. Whether he had lost some of the qualities she had so much admired or whether all the change was in herself, she did not know, but the glamour had all passed away, and her eyes ached with looking at the common-place. She wondered if it were always so; if maturity always destroyed the illusions of youth, if the poetry of eighteen became feeble prose at twenty-one. She went to her own room, and donned her hat and jacket, and then stole unobserved out of the house. "I must get a little fresh air," she said to herself, "and, perhaps, a long walk will put an end to this restlessness." She turned her back upon St. Gaved, and made for the "downs" that skirted the cliffs. The wind was keen and searching, and the wintry sun was already disappearing behind the sea. "I suppose I shall have to say yes sooner or later," she went on, as she walked briskly forward. "I don't see how I can get out of it very well. All his people seem to be expecting it, and he is evidently very much in love with me. I am afraid there won't be very much romance on my side, but, after all, we may be very happy together." Then she looked up with a start as a step sounded directly in front of her, and she found herself face to face with Rufus Sterne. CHAPTER XXII A HUMAN DOCUMENT Rufus returned from Tregannon in a condition of mental unrest, such as he had not known before. It was Madeline Grover in the first instance who set him thinking along certain lines, and once started it was impossible to turn back. During all the time he remained a prisoner in the house, his brain had been unusually active. Unconsciously his fierce antagonisms subsided, his revolt against accepted creeds took new shapes, his belief in German philosophy began to waver. The process of mental evolution went on so quietly and silently, that he was almost startled when he discovered that his philosophic watchwords no longer represented his real beliefs. He felt as though while he slept all his beliefs had been thrown into the melting-pot to be cast afresh, and were now being poured out into new moulds. What the result would be when the process was complete it was impossible to say, but already one thing was certain, the blank negatives in which he once found refuge, would never again satisfy him. He might never evolve into an orthodox believer. The religiosity of the Churches appealed to him as little as ever it did. He despised the smug hypocrisy that on all hands usurped the place of Christianity, and defiled its name. He loathed the pretensions of priests and clerics of all sects. But out of the fog and darkness and uncertainty, certain great truths and principles loomed faintly and fitfully. The fog was no longer an empty void. The silence was now and then broken by a sound of words, though the language was strange to his ears. There appeared to be a moral order which answered to his own need, and a moral order implied the existence of what he had so long denied. His visit to his grandparents quickened his thoughts in the direction they had been travelling. Everything tended to serious reflection. The awful mystery and solemnity of life were forced upon him at all points. The old people walked and talked "as seeing Him who is invisible." He was quietly amused when he returned from his long walk on Christmas day to find his grandfather and the young minister engaged in a heated argument on the barren and thorny subject of verbal inspiration. He would have stopped the discussion if he could, for he discovered that his grandfather was getting much the worst of the argument, and was losing his temper in consequence. But the old man refused to be silenced. Getting his chance of reply he poured out a torrent of words that swept everything before it, and to which there seemed to be no end. Fortunately, tea was announced just as the young minister was about to reply, and over the tea-table conversation drifted into an entirely different channel. After tea the Rev. Reuben retired to his study accompanied by his wife, and Rufus and Mr. Brook were left in possession of the sitting-room. As there was no evening service on Christmas Day the young minister felt free to relax himself. Conversation tripped lightly from point to point, from general to particular, from gay to grave, from serious to solemn. They talked till supper time, and after supper Rufus walked with the young minister to his lodgings, and remained with him till long after midnight. The conversation was a revelation to Rufus in many ways. Marshall Brook was a scholar as well as a thinker. He was as familiar with the German writers as with the English. He was alive to all modern questions, conversant with all the work of the higher critics, alive to all that was fundamental in the creeds of the Churches, contemptuous of the narrowness and bigotry that brought religion into contempt, tolerant of all fresh light, patient and even sympathetic with every form of human doubt, and large-hearted and clear-eyed enough to see that there was good in everything. Marshall Brook had often heard of his predecessor's sceptical grandson, and was glad of the opportunity of meeting him, and was charmed with him when they did meet. It was easy to discover where the shoe pinched, easy to see how and when the revolt began, easy to trace the successive steps from doubt to denial, from unbelief to blank negation. Rufus talked freely and well. He knew that the young minister regarded him as an infidel, and he thought he might as well live up to the description. Marshall Brook led him on by easy and almost imperceptible steps. His first business was to diagnose the case, and if possible to find out the cause. For the first hour he allowed all Rufus's arguments to go by default. But when they got to close grips Rufus felt helpless. This young scholar could state his case better than he could state it himself. He had traversed all the barren and thorny waste, and much more carefully than Rufus had ever done. He knew the whole case by heart; knew every argument and every objection. He tore the flimsy fabric of Rufus's philosophy to shreds and left him with scarcely a rag to cover himself with. Rufus remained three days at Tregannon and spent the major portion of the time with Marshall Brook. Apart from the interest raised by the questions discussed, it was a delight to be brought into contact with a mind so fresh and well disciplined. They hammered out the _pros_ and _cons_ of materialistic philosophy with infinite zest. They wrestled with the joy of striplings at a village fair. They fought for supremacy with all their might, but in every encounter Rufus went under. When he returned to St. Gaved he was in a condition of mental chaos. Nearly every prop on which he supported himself had been knocked away. He was certain of nothing, not even of his own existence. It was not an uncommon experience; most thinking men have passed through it at one time or another. Destruction has often to precede construction. The old has to be demolished even to the foundations before the new building can arise. Yet none save those who have passed through it can conceive the utter desolation and darkness of soul, during what may be called the interregnum. The old has been destroyed, the new has not yet taken shape. The ark has been sunk and the mountain peaks have not yet begun to appear above the flood. The frightened soul flits hither and thither across the waste of waters, seeking some place on which to rest its feet, and finding none; and unlike Noah's dove there is no ark to which it can return. It must remain poised on wing till the floods have assuaged and the foundations of things have been discovered. In the last resort every man writes his own creed. No man, even mentally, can remain in a state of suspended animation for very long. A philosophy of negations is as abhorrent to the sensitive soul as a vacuum is to Nature. After destruction there is bound to be construction. Like beavers we are ever building, and when one dam has been swept away by the flood, we straightway set to work to build another. Rufus was trying to evolve some kind of cosmos out of chaos when he met Madeline on the downs. She came upon him suddenly and unexpectedly and his heart leaped like a startled hare. How beautiful she was. How lissom and graceful and strong. "This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, in her bright, frank, ingenuous way. "I am glad we have met." "Yes?" he replied, not knowing what else to say. "I have heard something about you recently and I would like to know if it is true." "What have you heard?" he questioned, with a puzzled look on his face. "That you are an infidel." "Who told you that?" "That is a matter of no consequence since it is common gossip." For a moment he was silent, and turned his eyes seaward as if to watch the sun go down. "Are you pressed for time?" he asked without turning his eyes. "No, I am quite free for the next hour," she answered, with a smile, though she wondered what the Tregonys would think if they knew. "I owe a good deal to you," he began, slowly and thoughtfully. "No, not to me, surely. I am the debtor," she interrupted. "Yes, to you," he went on in the same slow, even way. "And if you care to know--that is, if you are interested--why then it will be a pleasure to talk to you--as it always has been----" Then he paused and again turned his eyes toward the sea. She glanced at him shyly but did not reply. "It is easy to call people names," he said, at length, without looking at her. "I do not complain, however. I have believed the things I could not help believing. Can we any of us do more than that?" "I do not quite understand?" she answered, looking at him with a puzzled expression. "I mean that the things we believe, or do not believe, are matters over which we have no absolute control. You believe what you believe because you cannot help it. You have not been coerced into believing it. The evidence is all-sufficient for you though it might not be for me. On the same ground I believe what I believe--because--because I cannot help myself. Do you follow me? Faith after all is belief upon evidence, and if the evidence is insufficient----" "But what if people reject the evidence without weighing it, stubbornly turn their backs upon the light?" she interrupted. "Then they are not honest," he said, quickly; "but I hope you do not accuse me of dishonesty?" "I accuse you of nothing," she answered. "I have only told you what people are saying." "And you are sorry?" and he turned, and looked her frankly in the face. "I am very sorry," she replied, with a faint suspicion of colour on her cheeks. "It is generous of you to be interested in me at all," he said, after a pause. "And if I were to tell you how much I value that interest you might not believe me." She darted a startled glance at him, but she did not catch his eyes for he was looking seaward again, and for a moment or two there was silence. "I should like to tell you everything about myself," he went on, at length, "my early troubles and battles, my boyish revolt against cruel and illogical creeds, my almost unaided pursuit of knowledge, my steady drift into blank negation; but I should bore you----" "No, no!" she said, quickly. "I should like to hear all the story. I should, indeed. Really and truly." They walked away northward, while the light went down in the West. The twilight deepened rapidly, and the frosty stars began to glimmer in the sky. But neither seemed to heed the gathering darkness nor the rapid flight of time. Rufus talked without reserve; it is easy to talk when those who listen are sympathetic. He told the story of his father's death abroad, of his mother's grief, of his own bitter sense of loss. He sketched his grandfather--upright and severe--preaching a creed that was more fearsome than any nightmare. He spoke of their slender means and their fruitless efforts to get any of the property his father left. Of his granny's wish that he should be a draper, of his own ambition to be an engineer, and the compromise which landed him in Redbourne as a bank clerk. And through all the story there ran the deeper current of his mental struggles till at last he fancied he found the _ultima Thule_ in pure materialism. Madeline listened quite absorbed. It was the most interesting human document that had ever been unfolded to her, and all the more interesting because it was told with such artlessness and sincerity. Yet it was not a very heroic story as he told it. Rufus was no hero in his own eyes, and he was too honest to pretend to be what he was not. Perhaps, in his hatred of pretence he made himself out a less admirable character than he was in reality. Madeline sighed faintly more than once. There were manifest weaknesses where there should have been strength. He had drifted here and there where he should have resisted, and taken for granted what he should have tried and tested. "And you still remain on the barren rocks of your _ultima Thule_?" she questioned, at length. He did not answer for several moments. Then he said quietly, "You will think me sadly lacking in mental balance, no doubt; but at present, I fear, I must say I am at sea again." "Yes?" "You compelled me to face the old problems once more, to re-examine the evidence." "I compelled you?" "Unwittingly, no doubt. You remember our talks when I was _hors de combat_. The fragments of poetry you read to me, the books you lent?" "Well?" "I found myself fighting the old battles over again. Before I was aware, I was in the thick of the strife." "And you are fighting still?" "Yes, I am fighting still." "With your face toward your _ultima Thule_?" "I cannot say that." "What is your desire, then?" "To find the truth. Perhaps I shall never succeed, but I shall try." "You should come to church, which is the repository of truth, our vicar says." He smiled a little wistfully, and shook his head. "At present I am making a fresh study of what Jesus said--or what He is reported to have said." "Then that is all the greater reason why you should come to church." He smiled again, and shook his head once more. "I do not think so," he answered. "You do not?" "No, the contrast is too sharp and startling." "What do you mean by that?" "I hardly like to discuss the matter at present," he said, diffidently; "I do not know sufficiently well where I am. Only I am conscious of this, that while Jesus wins my assent, the Church does the opposite." "That is because of your upbringing." "I do not think so. I have stood apart from all creeds and from all sects. At present I am a humble searcher after truth. I want some great principle to guide me. Some philosophy of life that shall appeal to the best that is in me." "Well?" "I turn to the Church, and I find a great bishop addressing such questions as these to his clergy: 'What ecclesiastical dress do you wear when celebrating the Holy Communion? Do you ever use any ceremony such as the Lavabo, or swinging of the incense immediately before or after the service? Do you have cards on the holy table? If so what do they contain? Do you ever read the first of the three longer exhortations? Do you ever have celebrations without communicants?' with a dozen other questions--to me--equally trivial and unimportant." "To the bishop such questions would not be trivial at all, but vastly important." He smiled a little sadly. "Isn't that the pity of it," he said, "that trifles are treated as though they were matters of life and death? I notice that a neighbouring vicar has even closed the church because women go into it with their heads uncovered." "I admit that that seems straining at a gnat." "But he does not think so. He is evidently righteously indignant, complains of the house of God being desecrated, because people go into it without some piece of millinery on their heads. One wonders whether it is a woman's hair or her head that is the offence." [Illustration: "THEN SUDDENLY FROM OUT THE SHADOW GERVASE APPEARED AND STOOD BEFORE THEM."] "I think it is rather insulting to women, of course," she answered, with a laugh. "But he is only one, and nobody need mind very much." "But how do these things help me? Think of the men who are wrestling with the great problems of life, who are fighting temptation and bad habits, who are groping in the darkness, and crying for the light, and the Church meets them with petty discussions about Lavabos and stoles and chasubles and incense, and hats off or on in church?" "But are they not parts of religion?" "I do not know. If they are, it is not to be surprised at that religion gets water-logged." "But such things may be helpful to some people." "In which way?" "Oh, I don't know! But some day you will see things differently, perhaps." "Perhaps so. I see some things differently already." "Then you are not an infidel?" "You can call me by any name you like. I do not mind so long as you understand me, and I have your sympathy." "My sympathy, I fear, can be of no help to you." "It will help me more than you can understand." "I am so glad we have had this long talk together," she said, brightly. "I shall know what to think now when I hear people calling you names. But here we are close to the lodge gates." She held out her hand to him, and the light from the lodge window fell full upon them. He took her hand in his, and held it for a moment. Then suddenly from out the shadow of the lodge Gervase appeared, and stood stock still before them. CHAPTER XXIII MEANS TO AN END "Where have you been, Madeline?" Gervase said, quietly. "We have all grown so concerned about you." His voice was quite steady, though there was an unpleasant light in his eyes. "I have been for a walk, that is all," she answered, in a tone of unconcern. "I wish you had let some one know," he said, in the same quiet tone. "It is hardly safe for you to be out after dark." "Why not?" she answered. "I know my way about, and there is no one in St. Gaved who would molest me." "You think so, perhaps," and he shot an angry glance at Rufus, who stood quite still, speaking no word. "Of course I think so. Besides, I have not been alone." "So I perceive. But had we not better return to the house and put an end to my mother's anxiety?" "I am sure Lady Tregony is not the least bit anxious," she said, with a pout. "I can assure you she is very much concerned. That is the reason I came to look for you." "Oh, indeed!" and with a hurried good-night to Rufus she walked away toward the Hall. Gervase was by her side in a moment. Rufus watched them till they had disappeared in the darkness, then turned, and made his way slowly in the direction of St. Gaved. He could not help feeling amused at the encounter he had witnessed, though he was almost sorry that Gervase had seen them together. It was clear enough that the Captain was terribly angry, though he did his best not to show it. Possibly he was more than angry. Natures like his were apt to be jealous on the slightest provocation. Rufus smiled broadly at the thought. The idea of a baronet's son being jealous of him was too comic for words. Yet such things had happened. Jealousy was often unreasonable. And if the Captain were really jealous it boded ill for Madeline's future happiness. "I should be sorry to cause unpleasantness," he said, knitting his brows. "If they have to live together, I should like her to be happy. I wonder if she has promised to be his wife?" Meanwhile, Gervase and Madeline were walking up the long drive in silence. Madeline was in no humour for speech. Gervase was bubbling over, and yet was afraid to trust himself to open a conversation. The case seemed to him almost desperate, and yet he knew it was to be met not by scolding, but by diplomacy. The thing that he feared more than anything had happened before his very eyes. And yet he was not disposed to blame Madeline very much, the blame belonged to Rufus Sterne--a handsome, intriguing rascal, who had used the girl's sense of gratitude for all it was worth. "I should like to twist the scoundrel's neck," he said to himself, with an ugly look upon his face. "I wonder what he expects to gain? Of course, he will never dare to make love to her. It might be a good thing if he did----" Then his thoughts took another turn. Madeline was an American, and under the Stars and Stripes social considerations counted for very little. Possibly she thought that Rufus Sterne was just as good as he, and if she did, heaven only knew what would happen. "I was a fool not to make love to her at the first," he thought, with a scowl. "She thought no end of me then, and I could have married her right off. I'm sure I could, but father insisted that waiting was the game. Father was a fool, and I was a fool to listen to him." The lights from the Hall windows began to glimmer through the trees, and he had spoken no word to her since they passed through the lodge gates. He had looked at her once or twice, but she kept her eyes straight in front of her. Did she expect he would scold her, he wondered? Had she begun to realise that her conduct was deserving of censure, or was she only annoyed that she had been seen? The silence was becoming embarrassing. He wished she would speak, and give him the opportunity of reply. To walk side by side like mutes at a funeral promised ill for the future. "Are you tired, Madeline?" He was bound to say something, and one question would serve as well as another. "Not in the least," and she quickened her steps to give point to her statement. "Oh! please don't walk so fast," he said, in a tone of entreaty. "One can't talk when walking so fast." "I don't want to talk." "Why not, Madeline? You are not angry with me, surely?" "Of course not. Why should I be?" "I might be angry with you, but I'm not. I never could be angry with you, Madeline. You have no idea how much I think of you, and how much I appreciate you." "Why might you be angry with me?" she asked, sharply, without turning her head. The question almost staggered him for a moment. Yet as he had brought it upon himself he was bound to answer it. "Well, you see," he said, desperately, "no man cares to see the woman he loves, and whom he expects to marry, walking out with another man, especially after dark." "Oh, indeed!" "But don't think I am angry with you, Madeline," he interposed, quickly. "I could trust you anywhere." "Then why did you come spying on me?" and she turned her eyes suddenly upon him. "No, not spying on you, Madeline," he said, humbly; "that is not the right word to use. But I knew that fellow might be loitering about. He is always hanging about somewhere." "Everybody hangs about somewhere--to quote your elegant phrase," she said, sharply. "Yes, yes. But anybody can see what that fellow is after. He did you a service, there is no denying it, and now he is presuming on your good nature." "In which way?" "Well, in getting you to notice him and speak to him." "Surely I can speak to anyone I choose?" "Of course you can. But he is not the kind of man you would choose to speak to, but for the unfortunate accident." "Why not?" "Well, Madeline, there should be some sense of fitness in everything. Here is a man without religion, who never goes to church or chapel, who has no sense of accountability or responsibility, who doesn't believe even in the Ten Commandments----" "Yes, go on," she interjected, suddenly. "Who at the present time," he continued, slowly, "is actually living by imposing on the credulity and good nature of other people." "How so?" "How so? He is spending money right and left, I am told, on some pretended invention, or discovery of his, which is to revolutionise one of the staple industries of the county. Of course, the whole thing is a fake. You may be quite sure of that. But whose money is he spending? He has none of his own. With his glib tongue I have no doubt he has imposed on a lot of people to lend him their savings. Honourable conduct, isn't it? Perhaps he is trying to interest you in his invention?" "No, he is not." "Not got sufficiently far yet. Oh, well, it will do you no harm to be warned in time." "You take a charitable view of your neighbours, Gervase." "My dear Madeline, charity is all right in its place. But in this world we must be guided by common-sense." They had reached the house, and were standing facing each other to continue the conversation. "Well?" she interrogated. "You may lay it down as a general principle that a man who is an infidel is not to be trusted." "For what reason?" "Because he has no moral standard to hold him in check. You believe in the Bible and in the Commandments and in the teachings of the Church, and you live in obedience to what you believe. But he believes none of these things. He is bound by no commandment except as a matter of policy." "May not a man have a moral instinct which he follows? Are all the unbelievers, all the doubters, all the sceptics, all the infidels--or whatever name you like to call them--are they all bad men?" "I do not say that, Madeline. Besides, policy often holds them in check." "And what holds you in check, Gervase? Is it your passionate attachment to the right, or the fear of being found out?" "I don't think that is quite a fair question," he said, uneasily. "I don't pretend to be a saint, though I do try to live like a Christian gentleman." "And you think Mr. Sterne does not?" "I have no wish to say all I think, or even to hint at what I know. A word to the wise is sufficient. I am sure you will be on your guard in the future." "But you do hint at a great deal, Gervase, whether you know or not." "It is because I love you, Madeline, and would shield you from every harm." She looked at him for a moment, as if about to reply, then turned and walked up the steps into the house. Gervase stood still for a moment or two, then turned slowly on his heel, and began to retrace his steps the way he had come. He chuckled audibly when he had got a few paces away. He felt that he had done a good stroke of business. He had sown tares enough to spoil any crop. If he had not proved to Madeline that Rufus Sterne was a man without moral scruples, he had succeeded in filling her mind with doubts on the subject. If that failed to answer the end he had in view he would have to go a step further. He had no wish to resort to extreme measures, for the simple reason that he did not like to run risks, but if Madeline was still unconvinced that Rufus Sterne was a man not to be trusted, some direct evidence would have to be manufactured and produced. It was clear to him that this man who had saved her life was the one stumbling-stone in his path. But for him she would have raised no objection to their engagement. Everything had gone in his favour until that adventure on the cliffs; everything would go right now if he were out of the way. The best way to get him out of the way would be to blacken his character. Madeline was a girl with high moral ideals. An immoral man she would turn away from with loathing. Gervase shrugged his shoulders significantly. He had already by implication thrown considerable doubt on his character; if that failed, further and more extreme measures would have to be considered. When he reached the lodge gates he turned back again. He walked with a quicker and more buoyant step. He felt satisfied with himself. He had more skill in argument than he knew. He believed he had spiked Rufus Sterne's guns once and for all. Madeline was very silent over the dinner-table, and during the rest of the evening. Evidently the poison was working. Gervase left her in peace. It would be bad policy to pay her too much attention just now. The poison should be left to do its utmost. Nearly a week passed, and nothing happened. Madeline remained silent, and more or less apathetic. She manifested no inclination to go for long walks alone, and kept herself for the most part in her own room. This from one point of view was so much to the good. It seemed to indicate that she had no desire to meet Rufus Sterne. On the other hand, it was not without an element of discouragement. She was no more cordial with Gervase. Indeed, she kept him at arm's length more persistently than ever. Gervase became almost desperate. His financial position was causing him increased anxiety, while his father began to upbraid him for not making better use of his opportunities. To crown his anxiety Beryl told him one day that Madeline was not at all pleased with him for trying to insinuate that Rufus Sterne was a man of bad character. Gervase swore a big oath and stalked out of the house. He was angrier than he had been since his return from India. He was ready to quarrel with his best friend. As for Rufus Sterne, he was itching to be at his throat. It would be a relief to him to strangle him. As fate would have it he had not got five hundred yards beyond the lodge gates before he came face to face with the man whom he believed was the cause of all his trouble and disappointment. Rufus was returning from Redbourne, tired and despondent. Things were not going well with his invention, and the dread possibility which at first he refused to entertain was looming ever more largely on the horizon. The sun had set nearly an hour previously, but the white carpet of snow and the myriads of glittering stars made every object distinctly visible. The two men recognised each other in a moment. Rufus would have passed on without a word. He wanted to be alone with his own thoughts. But Gervase was in a very different humour. Moreover, the sight of Rufus Sterne was like fuel to the fire, it seemed to throw him into a rage of uncontrollable passion. "Hello, scoundrel," he said, "loitering round Trewinion as usual," and he squared his shoulders and looked Rufus straight in the eyes. Rufus stopped short, and stared at the Captain in angry surprise. "What do you mean?" he said, scornfully and defiantly. "I mean that you are a contemptible cad," was the answer. Rufus laughed, mockingly. "Don't laugh at me," Gervase roared. "I won't have it. Because you rendered Miss Grover a service you think you have a right to hang about this place at all hours of the day, so that you may intercept her when she goes out for a walk, and poison her mind against her best friends." "It is a lie," Rufus said, fiercely. "I have neither intercepted her nor poisoned her mind." "Will you call me a liar?" Gervase almost shrieked. "Of course I will call you a liar when you make statements that are false." "Then take----" But the blow failed to reach its mark. Rufus sprang aside, his face white with anger, and almost before he knew what he had done, his heavy fist had loosened one of the Captain's teeth and considerably altered the shape of his nose. With a wild yell of rage the Captain struck out again, but he was so blind with rage that he could hardly see what he did. Moreover, this was a kind of combat he was not used to. With sword or rapier he could have made a very good show, but with his bare fists, in the light of the stars, he was at very considerable disadvantage. His second blow was as wild as the first, and when a blow between his eyes laid him prone on the ground, he began to yell for help at the top of his voice. Micah Martin, the gardener, who lived at the lodge, was on the scene in a very few moments. "Take the drunken brute away," Gervase screamed, "or he'll murder me." Rufus looked at his antagonist for a moment in silence, then staggered away, feeling limp and nerveless. The encounter had been so sudden and so sharp that he hardly realised yet what had happened. Reaching a neighbouring gate, he leaned on it and breathed hard. A few yards away he heard Gervase muttering and swearing, while Martin tried to encourage him with sympathetic words. He saw them walk through the lodge gates a little later and disappear in the darkness. Then Rufus pulled himself together and tried to realise what had taken place. His right knuckles were still smarting from their contact with the Captain's bony face, otherwise he had suffered no harm. The aggressor had clearly got the worst of it. Yet he felt no sense of elation. At best it was but a vulgar brawl, which any right-minded man ought to be ashamed of. It was true the Captain had struck the first blow, but he had returned it with more than compound interest. He wondered what the people of St. Gaved would say when they got to know. He wondered what Madeline Grover would say. He felt so excited, that, tired as he was, he took a long walk across the downs before returning to his lodgings. Mrs. Tuke, as usual, had laid his supper on the table, but she did not show her face. He was too much distressed in mind to eat. The events of the day, followed by the encounter with Gervase Tregony had taken away all his appetite. For a long time he sat in his easy chair staring into the fire. "I don't know why I should distress myself," he said to himself once or twice. "What if everything fails? There is an easy way out of all trouble. And I am not sure that Felix Muller, with all his pretence of friendship, will be sorry." He went to bed at length, but he did not sleep for several hours. The events of the day kept recurring like the refrain of a familiar song. He went about his work next day like a man who had almost abandoned hope. The buoyancy which he experienced at the beginning had nearly all gone. The promise of success was growing very faint and dim. As the day wore on he troubled himself less and less about Gervase Tregony. He thought it likely that for his own credit's sake he would say nothing about the encounter. Hence his surprise was great when toward evening a policeman called on him with a summons for assault. CHAPTER XXIV THE JUSTICE OF THE STRONG Rufus was brought before the magistrates, and remanded for a week. Gervase in the meanwhile made the most of his opportunity. Fate, or Providence, it seemed to him, had delivered his enemy into his hand, and he conceived it to be his duty now to assist Providence, to the best of his ability. Rufus treated the matter very lightly. He was out on bail, and he had little doubt that when he was allowed to tell his story before the magistrates he would be acquitted at once. Indeed, no other result seemed possible. He had only defended himself, and that a man should be punished for protecting his own head was almost unthinkable. He did not consider, however, that nearly all the magistrates belonged to the class of which Gervase was a member. That almost unconsciously they would be predisposed in his favour. That they regarded it almost as a religious duty to uphold the rights and privileges of their class, and that any insult offered to one of their own order meant a distinct weakening of that iron hand which had ruled the country for centuries, unless such insult was promptly met and punished. The magistrates were all of them honourable men. They belonged to the best county families. They had feasted at Sir Charles's table more than once, and ridden to hounds with his son. They had unbounded faith in the wisdom of the ruling classes, and an inborn contempt for what is vaguely termed the rights of the people. Political unrest was a dangerous symptom, and insubordination a crime. The toast they drank with the greatest gusto at their public functions was "His Majesty's Forces" and "The Navy." The Church they did not recognise as a defensive power, and though they repeated nearly every Sunday, "Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God," they did not, in reality, believe it. The Gospel was all right for the social and domestic side of life, but when it came to larger affairs an army or a warship was much more to the purpose. Rufus was not beloved by any of these dispensers of the law. He was reputed to hold Socialistic views; he was not over-burdened with reverence for the "upper classes," and, worse still, was not content with the lowly condition in which he was born. On the day of the trial Rufus discovered that he had made a mistake in treating the matter so lightly. The prosecution had succeeded in working up a case. He was amazed when he discovered that he was charged, not only with assault but with drunkenness, and that the charge of drunkenness was sworn to by at least two witnesses. The terms of the indictment, by some oversight, had been furnished him too late for him to supply rebutting evidence. He had only his simple word of denial, and that stood him in no stead. Gervase swore that the accused struck him without warning and without provocation; that, in fact, he was given no time to defend himself, that almost before he knew what had happened he was lying on the ground bruised and bleeding. The accused, who was clearly mad with drink, sprang upon him out of the darkness, and felled him with a single blow, and but for the interposition of his gardener, Micah Martin, he had little doubt would have killed him. Micah corroborated his young master's evidence. He heard a cry for help, and running out saw the Captain on his back with the prisoner's knee on his chest. He was not absolutely certain as to the latter point, but that was his impression. Seeing him the prisoner staggered away, and leaned against a gate. He seemed to be just mad drunk, and in his judgment did not quite know what he was doing. The next witness was Timothy Polgarrow, barman at the "Three Anchors." He swore that he supplied the prisoner with two whiskies on the evening in question; that he appeared to be excited when he came into the public-house bar, but quite sober. After the second whisky, however, he showed signs of intoxication so that a third whisky which he demanded was refused. It was quite early in the evening when he called, not much after dark. He was able to walk fairly straight when he left the "Three Anchors," but appeared to be terribly angry that he was refused any more drink. Timothy gave his evidence glibly, and with great precision, and stuck to what he called his facts with limpet-like tenacity. Rufus startled the court, and horrified the magistrates by asking Tim how much the Captain had paid him for committing perjury. Rufus denied that he had ever crossed the threshold of the "Three Anchors." He had passed it on the evening in question on his way home from Redbourne, but he did not even slacken his pace, much less call. Tim, however, stuck to his story, and was quite certain that he was not mistaken in his man. As to the assault there could be no doubt. The Captain's face bore evidence of the severity of the attack. Rufus did not deny striking him and knocking him down, but persisted that Gervase was the aggressor. "But why should he attack you?" the chairman asked. "He accused me of something which I very much resented." "What did he accuse you of?" "I decline to say." "Why do you decline?" "Because it would introduce a name that I would not on any account have mixed up in this sordid affair." "Oh! indeed." And the Bench smiled in an ultra superior way. "Well, when he accused you of something you very much resented what did you do?" "I called him a liar." "Yes?" "This angered him, and he struck at me." "And what then?" "I dodged the blow, and struck back." "He didn't dodge the blow, I suppose?" "It appears not by his appearance." There was laughter in court at this reply, which was instantly suppressed. "And what followed then?" "What usually follows in such a case. Each tried to get at the other. I suppose my arm was the stronger or the longer. At any rate, when he found himself on his back he began to bellow for help." "So that you wish us to believe that in a stand-up fight between a soldier and a civilian the soldier got the worst of it?" "It looks as if he got the worst of it, at any rate." "Does it not occur to you that your story does not hang well together? Is it likely that a soldier--or an ex-soldier, a man trained to the use of arms--would allow himself to be felled to the ground unless he were taken unawares?" "Whether it is likely or not I have only stated the simple facts. Why should I attack him unawares, or attack him at all? His existence is a matter of supreme indifference to me. I should not have noticed him had he not charged me with conduct which I repudiate." "But you refuse to say what it is he charged you with?" "I do, and for the reasons I have already stated." At this point the Captain's solicitor took up the running, and insisted that the case had been proved up to the very hilt. Timothy Polgarrow, a man of unimpeachable character, had sworn upon oath that he had served the accused with whiskies on the evening in question. Generally speaking, it was, no doubt, true, that the accused was a very temperate man. Hence, when he took drink at all, he the more quickly got out of bounds. An inveterate toper would have taken half-a-dozen whiskies, and carried a perfectly steady head. The accused was excited when he entered the "Three Anchors." Perhaps he had business worries. It was hinted that his schemes were hanging fire. Perhaps he had imbibed freely before he left Redbourne. People drank sometimes to drown their care. But the one clear fact was that he left the "Three Anchors" considerably the worse for liquor. Liquor makes some people hilarious, others it makes quarrelsome. The accused evidently belongs to the latter class. He was ready to fight anybody. As it happened, Captain Tregony, as he would still call him, though he had resigned his commission, was the first man he met. The Captain was taking a constitutional before dinner. It was a clear, frosty evening with plenty of starlight. The Captain was walking slowly with no thought of evil, when suddenly, out of the night, loomed the accused. The sequel you know. He fell upon the Captain unawares and struck him to the ground, and the chances are, in his drunken fury, would have murdered him, but for the timely assistance of Micah Martin. The case was as simple and straightforward as any bench of magistrates could desire. The facts were borne out by independent testimony. There could be no shadow of doubt as to the drunkenness or the assault. The only matter to be considered was the measure of punishment to be meted out. They all agreed that drunkenness was no excuse for violence, while the offence was aggravated by a man in Rufus Sterne's position attacking a man of the rank of Captain Tregony. One or two of the magistrates were for committing him to gaol without the option of a fine. It was a serious matter for a civilian to attack even an ex-soldier. It was a species of _lèse majesté_ that ought not to be tolerated for a moment. Unfortunately for these extremists a similar case had been tried a fortnight previously, and the accused--a man of considerable means--had got off with a fine of ten shillings and costs. "And," argued the chairman, "we cannot with this case fresh in people's minds give colour to the fiction that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor." So in order to prove their absolute impartiality, and to mark at the same time their sense of what was due to an ex-officer of His Majesty's forces they inflicted a fine of five pounds and costs, or a month's imprisonment. Rufus was disposed at first not to pay the money. He was so angry that he almost felt that the seclusion of a prison cell would be a relief. But better thoughts prevailed. He was absolutely helpless. It was no use kicking or protesting. He could only grin, and abide, and hope that the day would come when justice would find her own. It was a humiliating day for him. He left the court branded as a drunkard and a brawler. The case for the prosecution had been so clear and circumstantial that even his best friends were confounded. That he should deny the accusation was natural enough; but there was an unspoken fear in their hearts that worry had driven him to drink, and that alcohol acting upon a highly-strung temperament had thrown him momentarily off his mental and moral balance. Madeline Grover was almost dumbfounded. Unconsciously she had been idealising Rufus for months past, while their last conversation had further exalted him in her estimation. Here was a man, honest in his doubts, sincere in his beliefs, and faithful to all his ideals. A man who "would not make his judgment blind," and who refused to play the hypocrite whatever the world might say in disparagement of him. Among all her acquaintances there was no man who had struck her fancy so much. He stood apart from the common ruck. His very antagonism to the religious conventions of his time had something of nobleness in it. If he derided the Church it was because he believed it had departed from the spirit and teachings of its founder. His reverence for what was good and helpful had won her admiration. And now suddenly it had been discovered to her that her idol had not only feet of clay, but was clay altogether, that he was a worse hypocrite than the hypocrites he derided. That behind all his pretence---- She stopped short at that. He had made no pretence. If he had talked about himself it was in disparagement rather than praise. He claimed no virtues beyond what his fellows possessed. He had always been singularly modest in his estimate of his own abilities. Yet here were the facts in black and white. The unshaken testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, while poor Gervase's face bore unmistakable evidence of the fierceness of the onslaught. Four days after the trial the local paper came out with a verbatim report. Madeline took a copy to her own room, and spent the whole afternoon in studying its _pros_ and _cons_. The points that fastened themselves upon her memory most tenaciously were first, Rufus's refusal to give the name of someone about whom they quarrelled, and second, his suggestion that Timothy Polgarrow had been bribed by Gervase to give false evidence. Here was a phase of the question that seemed to grow larger and larger the more she looked at it. She would have to keep her eyes and ears open. Perhaps the last word on the subject had not been said. If Gervase was as honourable as she had always believed, then it was wicked of Rufus Sterne to throw out such a base and shameful insinuation. If, on the other hand, Rufus was as black as he had been painted, why this act of chivalry in the defence of the name of some unknown person? The subject was full of knots and tangles. She would have to wait until some fresh light was thrown upon it. As the days passed away she was pleased to note that Gervase showed no sign of triumph over the downfall of Rufus Sterne. He pointed no moral as he might reasonably have done. He did not come to her and say, "There, I told you so." His restraint and reserve were admirable, and she liked him all the better for his silence. When, at length, she herself alluded to the matter, he spoke with genuine feeling and sympathy. "I am really sorry for the fellow," he said. "Of course, he brought it upon himself. I could not possibly pass over the assault in silence. But all the same it is a pity that a man of parts should destroy his own reputation." "It seemed a momentary and unaccountable outburst," she said, reflectively. He smiled knowingly, and shook his head, but would not venture any further remark on the subject. Madeline was greatly puzzled. She supposed she had been mistaken. It seemed for once her instincts had led her wrong, her intuitions were at fault. It was a painful discovery to make, and yet there was no other conclusion she could come to. It was impossible to believe that Gervase had deliberately plotted to ruin him, for Gervase, at any rate, was a gentleman. Yet, somehow, she was never wholly satisfied. In spite of everything her sympathies were still with the accused man. She made no attempt, however, to see him again. She avoided every walk that would lead her across his path. She did her best to put him out of her thoughts and out of her life. Gervase, meanwhile, played his part with great skill. He no longer pestered her with his attentions, no longer blustered. He felt he was safe now from any rival, and that time was on his side. It was very galling to have to wait so long, his fingers itched to touch her dollars, but he was wise enough to see that he would gain nothing by precipitancy. Madeline was not to be hurried or driven. As the winter wore slowly away Madeline became more friendly and confidential. She sometimes asked him to take her a walk across the downs. She allowed him also to give her lessons in riding, she sought his advice in numberless little matters, in which she feared to trust her own judgment, and all unconsciously led him to think that the game was entirely in his own hands. Between the Hall and the village there was little or no intercourse. Lady Tregony did most of her shopping in Redbourne. It was only the common and inexpensive things of household use that St. Gaved was deemed worthy to supply. Hence it happened that sometimes for a week on the stretch no local news found its way into the Hall. Occasionally Madeline wondered whether Rufus Sterne after his sad fall, would give up in despair, and go to the bad altogether, or whether he would pull himself together and fight his battle afresh. She wondered, too, whether the scheme or invention in which he had risked his all would prove to be a success or a failure. She sometimes scanned the columns of the local paper, but his name was never mentioned, and somehow she had not the courage to ask anyone who knew him. The weather continued so cold and cheerless, and so trying to the Captain after his Indian experiences, that it was suggested by Sir Charles that they should spend a month or two in the South of France. Madeline caught at the idea with great eagerness, and that settled the matter. Both Sir Charles and Gervase were anxious to get her away from St. Gaved, but were not quite certain how it was to be accomplished. Madeline had grown so sick of London, and so eager to get back again to Trewinion Hall, that they were afraid she would object to going away again so soon. Gervase glanced at his father knowingly, and his eyes brightened. That evening father and son discussed affairs in the library. "I think the way is clear at last," Sir Charles said, with a smile. "Yes, I think so," Gervase answered, pulling at his briar. "We'll get away as soon as we can, the sooner the better. Under the sunny skies of the Riviera her thoughts will turn to love and matrimony," and Sir Charles laughed. "She's grown almost affectionate of late." "That is good. If she ever cherished any romantic attachment for that scoundrel Sterne it is at an end." "She never mentions his name." "And by the time we have been away a week she will have forgotten his existence." "I hope she will not be caught by some other handsome face." "Not likely, my boy, if you play your cards well." "I think, under the circumstances, I have played them remarkably well. Much better than you did when they were in your hands." "No, no. Everything is going on as well as well can be. I don't think either of us has anything to blame himself with." "I am not sure I did right in giving up my commission so soon. She was immensely taken, if you remember, with my uniform. She likes smart clothes." "Oh, she's got over that. She's a woman now, and a wide-awake woman to boot." "There's no doubt about her being wide-awake. But when shall we start?" "Why not next Monday?" "Aye, that will do. The sooner the better," and Gervase went off to his room to dream of matrimony and unlimited cash. CHAPTER XXV THE END OF A DREAM It was not until March that Rufus realised that his dream was at an end. He had hoped against hope for weeks; had toiled on with steady persistency and tried to banish from his brain the thought of failure. The knowledge came suddenly, though he took a long journey to the North of England to seek it. When he turned his face toward home he knew that all his labour had been in vain. Not that the invention on which he had bestowed so much toil and thought was worthless. On the contrary, he saw greater possibilities in it than ever before. But he had been forestalled. Another brain, as inventive as his own, and with far greater facilities for reducing theories to practice, had conceived the same idea and carried it into effect, while he was still painfully toiling in the same direction. When he looked at the work brought out by his competitor in the North, he felt as though there was no further place for him on earth. "It is better than mine," he said to himself, sadly. "The main idea is the same, but he has shown more skill in developing it." It was the advantage of the trained engineer over the untrained, of experience over inexperience. He had no feeling of bitterness in his heart against the man who had succeeded; he was of too generous a nature to be envious. The man who had won deserved to win. He journeyed home like a man in a dream. The way seemed neither long nor short. The first faint odour of spring was in the air, but he did not heed it. His fellow passengers seemed more like shadows than real people. The world for him was at an end. He had no more to do. One question only was left to trouble him. How to put out life's brief candle without awakening any suspicion of foul play. He was more heavily stunned than he knew. Outwardly he was quite calm and collected, but it was the calmness of insensibility. For the moment he was past feeling; it was as though some powerful narcotic had been injected into his veins. He had an idea that nothing could ruffle him any more. He had fretted a good deal at first over the loss of his good name. It seemed a monstrous thing that any man should have the power to rob him of what he valued more than all else on earth. That Gervase Tregony had deliberately bribed Tim Polgarrow and his own gardener to say he was drunk he had not the least shadow of a doubt, but he had no proof; and to accuse a man of inciting to perjury--especially a man in the position of Gervase Tregony--was a very dangerous thing. So he had to keep his mouth shut, and bear in silence one of the cruellest wrongs ever inflicted upon a man. He was not at all sorry that he had disfigured the not too handsome face of Gervase Tregony for a few days. Indeed, he was human enough to feel that he would not mind paying another five pounds to be allowed to repeat the process. It was not "the assault" part of the affair that troubled him, nobody thought much the worse of him for that side of the episode. Gervase was not so popular in St. Gaved that he had many sympathisers. But to be accused of drunkenness, and to have the accusation sworn to, and set down as proved, was as the bitterness of death to him. If there was any vice in the world he loathed it was drunkenness. It seemed to him the parent of so many other vices as well as the Hades of human degradation. It is true he was not a pledged abstainer. He never cared to pledge himself to anything, but in practice he was above reproach. He knew, of course, why the charge of drunkenness had been tacked on to that of assault, without the former the latter would not hold water. It would be too humiliating to Gervase to admit that a sober man had beaten him in fair fight; hence the fiction that he was pounced upon suddenly and unawares by a man who was mad drunk. But the chief reason lay deeper still. He was not so blind that he could not see that Gervase was jealous of him, and sometimes he half wondered, half hoped, that he had reason to be jealous. It made his nerves tingle when he thought, that in the big house and before the Tregony family, Madeline Grover might have unwittingly let fall some word that could be construed into a partiality for him. It was a thought that would not bear to be looked at or analysed he knew. Nevertheless, it would flash across his brain, and that pretty frequently. Hence, from Gervase's point of view the charge of drunkenness was what the man in the street would call "good business." He often pictured Gervase gloating over his triumph. If ever Madeline thought affectionately of him she would do so no longer. She would try to forget that he ever crossed her path, and, perhaps be sorry to the end of her days that she had shown him so much favour. This was the bitterest part of the whole experience. That Madeline should think ill of him--the one woman that all unwittingly he had learned to love--was more painful than all the rest put together. It was bad enough to be held up as an awful example in Church and Sunday-school and Temperance meeting, as he heard was the case. But all that he did not mind so much. He might live it down in time. But if Madeline was once within his reach, and this cruel slander drove her into the arms of Gervase Tregony, that would be a tragedy that could never be lived down, that would darken his life to the end of the chapter. For several weeks he kept hoping that he would meet Madeline again. He wanted to have one more conversation with her. He hoped that her generous nature would allow him to put his side of the case; or, if that was denied him that he might be allowed to say with all the emphasis he could command, that the accusation was false. But she gave him no such opportunity. He watched for her in the streets of St. Gaved. He took long walks across the downs, he loitered in the road that led past the lodge gates, but never once did she show her face. She evidently meant to let him see that their acquaintanceship was at an end. Then came the news that the whole family had gone abroad, and that no one knew when they would return to Trewinion Hall again. He heard the news with a dull sense of pain at his heart. The brightest--the most beautiful thing--that had ever come into his life had gone out again, and he was left like a man stricken blind in a land of sunshine. Yet, strangely enough, his sense of grief and shame and loss increased his desire for life. He did not want to hide himself--to pass out into silence and forgetfulness. He wanted to live so that he might redeem his life from the shadow that had fallen upon it, and prove to Madeline Grover, however late in the day, how cruelly he had been wronged. On his return from the North, however, this and every other feeling was swallowed up in a strange insensibility to pain, both mental and physical. The one thought that dominated him was that he must keep his pledge to Felix Muller. As an honourable man he was bound to do that, and perhaps the sooner he did it the better. He had spent three-fourths of the money he had borrowed. He had a few assets in the shape of tools, the rest would have to be scrapped, and would only be worth the value of old iron. In case there were no mishaps over the insurance money, Felix Muller would be well repaid for the risks he had taken and the world would go on just as if nothing had happened. After a good deal of cogitation he came to the conclusion that the easiest way out of life would be by drowning. He was not a very good swimmer. He soon got exhausted and so was careful never to venture out of his depth. It would be quite easy, therefore, for him to swim out into deep water or take a header from a rock when the tide was up and then quietly drown. That would mean that he would have to wait until summer. Nobody in St. Gaved bathed in the sea in March. To avoid any suspicion of foul play he would have to follow his normal habits and preserve as far as possible a cheerful temper. It was soon whispered through the town that Rufus's great invention had proved a failure. Some sympathised with him. Some secretly rejoiced. For, curiously enough, no man can live in this world and do his duty without making enemies. There are narrow, ungenerous souls in every community who regard the success of their neighbours as a personal affront, who can see no merit in anyone, and who are never able to shape their lips to a word of praise or congratulation. These people always complained that Rufus was a cut above his station. They said it would do him good "to be taken down a peg." But they were dreadfully sorry for the people whom he had induced to invest money in his wild-cat enterprise. There were talks of his being made a bankrupt, and hints were thrown out that he might soon have to appear in a court of law on a worse charge than that of being drunk and disorderly. Moralists were able to see in his case striking illustrations of the truth that "the way of transgressors is hard." It was against the eternal order that a man should permanently prosper who had turned his back upon the faith of his fathers. His failure was heaven's punishment on him for neglecting church and chapel, and his fall into the sin of drunkenness was to be traced to precisely the same source. Some of these things were repeated to Rufus by not too judicious friends, but they little guessed how deeply they hurt him. It was not his habit to betray his feelings. When he was most deeply stung he said the least. A few days after his return Felix Muller drove over to see him. He came as usual after dark, and his excuse was that he had been to see clients in the neighbourhood. Felix was full of sympathy and generous in his language of commiseration. "We must still hope for the best," he said, after a long pause, looking into the fire with a grave and abstracted air. "You have several months yet to turn round in." "It will be impossible for me to find the money except in the way we agreed upon," Rufus answered, without emotion. "It may look so now," Muller answered, with pretended cheerfulness; "but in this topsy-turvy world there is no knowing what will turn up. I wish it were possible for me to allow you an extension of time." "I fear it would not help me, if you could," Rufus said, absently. "Well, perhaps it wouldn't, but all the same I should like to give you an extra chance or two if that were possible." "I am not asking for any favours," Rufus said, indifferently. "I am getting things straight for you with as little delay as possible." "And I shall loathe myself for being compelled to receive the money when you are gone." Rufus looked at him for a moment with a doubtful light in his eyes. "Why, what can it matter to you?" he questioned. "I thought you were a man without sentiment." "I am in the main. I am just a man of business, and nothing else. Yet there's no denying I am fond of you. You are a man of my own way of thinking. May I not say you are a disciple of mine?" "You may say what you like," Sterne replied, with a hollow laugh. "I believe you helped to destroy some of the illusions of my youth." "And therefore you are grateful to me, and I am interested in you." "I am not sure that I am particularly grateful," Rufus said, wearily, "What is there to be grateful for?" "What is there to be grateful for?" Muller questioned, raising his eyebrows. "Surely it is something to have got out of the fogs of superstition into the clear light of reason. To have escaped from the bondage of creeds into the freedom of humanity. To have discovered the true value and proportion of things, to have been delivered from all fear of the future----" "Are we not playing with words and phrases?" Rufus questioned, suddenly. "My dear friend, what do you mean?" Muller asked in surprise. "Suppose by reason and logic we can destroy everything until nothing is left? Is there any satisfaction in that? Is there any comfort in a philosophy of negations?" "Explain yourself." "Well, we will say for the sake of argument that we have proved there is no God and no future state. That all religions are myths and dreams. That matter explains everything, that thought is only sensation, that morality simply registers a stage in evolution, that death breaks up the elements which compose the individual, and they return to their native state. What then? Have we got any further? Are we not merely playing with words and phrases as children play with pebbles on the shore?" "My dear fellow, whom have you been talking with lately?" "That is nothing to the point," Rufus answered, with a touch of defiance in his voice. "What I want to know is, how or in what way we are better off than say the vicar and his curate?" "My dear fellow, surely you can see that they are the puppets of an exploded superstition." "Well, suppose they are. What are we the puppets of?" "We are not puppets at all. We are free men." "Words again," Rufus answered, with a pathetic smile. "We are as completely hemmed in by the forces that surround us as they are. As completely baffled by the riddle of existence. In what does our freedom consist? We have cast off one dogma to pin our faith to another." "No, no; we are not dogmatists at all." "Words again, Muller. You have your set of beliefs as clearly defined as the vicar has his. You have formulated your creed. That it is largely a denial of all he believes is nothing to the point. A negative implies a positive." "Ah, but he believes in what affects the freedom of the human mind and the human will. He believes in a personal God, in human accountability to that Being; in a Day of Judgment; in a future state of rewards and punishments." "And you believe in extinction?" "Of course I do, and so do you." "But is there any such thing as extinction? Can you destroy anything? If a thing ceases to exist in one form, does it not exist in another?" "Of course, that is the eternal process, the undeviating order. At death you disintegrate and turn to dust. In other words you are resolved into your native elements, those elements are used up again in other forms, they feed a rose, give colour to the grass, pass into the plumage of a bird, or into the structure of an animal." "But I am more than dust, Muller, and so are you. Your philosophy still leaves the riddle unsolved. I am coming round to the conviction that personality is not to be explained away by any such rough-and-ready method." "I am sorry to hear you say so." "Why should you be sorry?" "Because when a man is in the grip of superstition there is no knowing what he will do or leave undone. So-called religion is made an excuse for so many things." "For not committing suicide, for instance?" "Exactly. If a man gets the stupid notion into his head that he is accountable to somebody for his life, or that he will have to give an account at some hypothetical judgment day, that man becomes a slave at once. He is no longer his own master. No longer free to do what he likes." "My dear Muller," Rufus questioned, with a smile. "Are you free to do as you like? Is not the life of every one of us bounded by laws and conditions that we cannot escape?" "Up to a point, no doubt. Freedom is not chaos. Liberty moves within legitimate bounds. Our philosophy is at any rate rational." "Then you believe in a moral order as well as a physical?" "The moral order man has evolved for himself. It is a concomitant of civilisation." "Why not say he has evolved the physical order for himself? Would it not be just as reasonable? He may have evolved considerable portions of his creeds and any number of dogmas. But the moral order is no more a part of ecclesiasticism than earthquakes are. It is part of the universal cosmos before which we stand helpless and bewildered." "My dear Sterne, you talk like a parson. Who has been coaching you?" "No, no, Muller; the subject is too big and complex to be dismissed with a sneer." "I expect I shall hear of you next playing the martyr for moral ideals," Muller said, with a slight curl of the lip. "That seems to be the next item on the programme," Rufus answered, quietly; "for, after all, what is honesty--the just payment of debts--but a moral ideal." "It belongs to that code of honour certainly that civilised peoples have shaped for themselves." "Then you think I am bound to my pledge by nothing more weighty than that?" "What could be more weighty? You could not escape from it without--without--but why discuss the impossible? You are a man of honour, that is enough." "And when is the latest you would like the money, Muller?" "It will need a month or two to clear up things," he said, evasively. "And if I am too precipitate I might be suspected?" "Exactly. You cannot be too wary. Companies have grown suspicious. There have been so many attempts of late to cheat them, and, of course, in the eye of the law robbing a company stands in precisely the same category as robbing an individual." Rufus gave a start, and all the blood left his cheeks, and for several moments he stared at the fire in silence. Muller rose from his chair, and began to brush his bowler hat with his hand. "I'm frightfully sorry it's happened," he said, consolingly, "but, after all, it will soon be over." "Ye--s." "I advised you against it. I did not like the risk from the first." "But you'll profit by the transaction?" "My dear fellow, we're bound to make a little profit now and then or we should starve." "Profit?" Rufus mused, as if to himself, "what shall it profit a man----" "Perhaps you will advise me nearer the time?" Muller said, uneasily, and he moved towards the door. "No. The papers will advise you." "Well, good-night. I will not say good-bye; perhaps something may turn up yet." And he pulled open the door and passed out into the hall. "Good-night," Rufus answered, and he turned back to his easy-chair and sat down. CHAPTER XXVI QUESTIONS TO BE FACED Rufus sat staring into the fire for the best part of an hour, with eyes full of pain and questioning. Unwittingly Felix Muller had startled him out of the condition of semi-insensibility into which he had fallen. The dull apathy, mental and moral, passed from him like a cloud. He was keenly alive once more, keenly sensitive to every question that touched his personal honour. He was amazed that he should have failed to see the moral issue raised by Muller. Amazed that he had never considered the rights of the company in which he had insured his life. Was it true, he wondered, that departure from the Christian faith, the relinquishing of the idea of accountability to a Supreme Being, lowered a man's moral standard? Would he have lost sight of the moral view if he had not drifted into the cold and barren regions of materialistic philosophy? He had prided himself on his personal honour, and yet had he not been sliding downwards, steadily and unconsciously, ever since he cast religion definitely aside? The Churches might concern themselves mainly with questions that were of little account. But, after all, they did keep alive the sense of God, the idea of accountability, the importance of right living. If he had held on, for instance, to the faith of his childhood, would he have lost sight for a moment of the fact that to cheat a public company was just as dishonest as to cheat a private individual? Could he under any circumstances have entered into the compact he had? Would he not have sighted the moral issue in a moment? He felt humiliated and ashamed. How could he patch the garment of his personal honour with stolen material. The conduct of Micawber in paying Traddles with his I.O.U. was nobility itself in comparison with his proposal to pay Muller by cheating an insurance company. The only question that had worried him until now was whether a man had any right to take his own life. And his materialistic philosophy had led him to the conclusion that in such a matter he was responsible to himself alone, that his life was his own to do what he liked with, to end it or use it, just as seemed good in his own eyes. That might be true still for all he knew, though he was beginning to doubt. But on a question of common honesty there was no room for two opinions. Society was built up and held together by the recognition of certain fundamental principles. There was practically universal agreement on certain things. No argument was necessary. No one was asked to prove that fire was hot or that ice was cold, for instance. So with honesty and dishonesty. A man who tried to defend cheating would be ostracised. But why had he failed to see this clear moral issue? That was the question that troubled him. He had struck a blow at his own integrity and was not conscious of it. Just as the worst kind of hell is to be in hell and not know it, so the most terrible state of depravity is to be depraved and to be unconscious of the fact. Rufus felt such a sense of personal loathing as he had never known before. He saw himself as in a mirror--not darkly, but clearly. He realised that in casting away the husks he had cast away the grain also, that in losing the sense of accountability he had obscured his vision of righteousness. There were certain excuses to be made for himself he knew. He had been so certain of the success of his scheme that he had never given himself time to consider the alternative issue. It was only recently that the idea of failure had seriously crossed his mind. At the beginning he had refused to consider it even as a remote contingency. That the company would ever be called upon to pay the money was too absurd to be thought of. In addition to that, there had been a vague idea somewhere at the back of his mind that a company and an individual were not in the same category, that they belonged to a different order of things. A company was something impersonal--something that had neither morals nor conscience, that had neither a body to be kicked nor a soul to be saved. Hence the idea of cheating a company was on a par with trying to cheat a steamship or a railway engine. He had never said this to himself. He had never really looked at the matter, but he was vaguely conscious that there had been some such feeling or idea in his mind. Why such an idea should have possessed his sub-consciousness he did not know. Now that he had become wide-awake to the real issue he was amazed. Then there was another question that went hand in hand with the others. Why did his moral sense become acutely awake at this particular juncture? He had been getting back again to the old landmarks. He had been recovering his lost faith on many points. His visit to Tregannon and his many conversations with Marshall Brook had helped him to discern what was vital in religion. He had been separating, unconsciously, ecclesiasticism from Christianity. He disliked the former as much as ever, but the philosophy of Jesus seemed the noblest thing ever given to the world. If he had been asked if he believed in Jesus Christ and His teachings he would have said yes. Had he been asked if he believed in the Church and its teachings, his answer would have still been a negative, or, if an affirmative it would have been conditioned by so many reservations that he would not have been deemed suitable for church membership in any communion. Yet he was not far from the kingdom of God. The kernel of Christianity he accepted. He knew it and felt it. His quarrel was no longer with Christ, but with those who pretended to represent Him, with an organisation that in the main had lost His Spirit. Was, then, the quickening of his moral sense the outcome of his recovered faith? If he had never known Madeline Grover, never read the books she lent him, never listened to the teachings of Marshall Brook, would he have troubled about the rights of an insurance company? These were questions he could not answer. He had not found his bearings yet. He would need more time. Moreover, the question of all others that hammered at his brain and conscience was, should he pay back the money he owed Muller by fraud? Should he be dishonest in one direction that he might be honest in another? Should he pay a debt of honour by an act of flagrant dishonour? He knew that Muller would answer yes in a moment; that with him honesty and honour did not belong to the same category. He would have said that men might be perfectly honourable without being honest; that honesty, after all, was merely a matter of policy; that perfectly honourable men cheated every day. But with his awakened moral sense Rufus could not see things in that light. What, therefore, was he to do? He stole off to bed at length, but not to sleep. Hour after hour he lay wide awake, thinking, thinking. But he could see no way out of the difficulty. The more he puzzled his brain the more perplexed he became. He was on the horns of a dilemma from which there seemed no escape. As a man of honour he was bound to hand back the money to Muller by the time appointed, and yet to do so he must take his own life and commit at the same time an act of roguery that would cover his name with infamy if men got to know. As far as his own life was concerned he was not in the mood to set much value upon it, and as the days passed away that mood deepened and intensified. He asked himself the question constantly, What had he to live for? The things that made life valuable had been taken from him. What was life without hope and without love? He was so absolutely stranded that even if he lived it would only be a miserable dragging out of existence. Sometimes he gave way to absolute despair, and the very thought of death was a relief to him. Peace and quietness and rest were to be found only in the grave. Why not end the struggle at once? Why wait until summer came? He could gain nothing by waiting, and a few days more or less could make no difference. The sooner the fatal slip was taken the sooner would come relief. And yet in the darkest days of despair his moral sense revolted. The idea of committing a fraud as the final act of his life seemed to jar every fibre of his being. It was not dying he shrank from, though death itself seemed a far more solemn thing than it had done for many years past. But he was no coward. He did not recoil even from suffering; but to die a cheat was what he could not bring himself to look upon with equanimity. Again and again he would say to himself, "What does it matter? I have been a cheat in intention if not in act. The proposal was my own. I entered into the compact with my eyes wide open." But such reasoning did not satisfy him. Even when he told himself that he had no character to lose, that even if the fraud were discovered it would only throw a little darker shadow upon his memory. It did not lessen his repugnance of the contemplated act. So one day of misery succeeded another, and he fancied sometimes he would lose his reason altogether. Fortunately for him his old place at the mine became vacant, and the manager, who had never lost faith in him, was only too glad to reinstate him. "Don't be downhearted, Sterne," he said. "Our greatest successes are won through failure. You will win yet if you have only patience to wait and strength to persevere." They were the first really friendly words that had been spoken to him, and the tears came into his eyes in spite of himself. Captain Tom Hendy turned away his head. He did not like to see tears in a strong man's eyes, and he guessed that Rufus must have suffered terribly for a few friendly words to affect him so much. "It is kind of you, Capt'n Tom, to say so much," Rufus said, at length, "but I am too hopelessly stranded ever to do very much." "Oh, that is all my eye," Captain Tom answered, with a brusque laugh. "You know the old saying, 'Rome was not built in a day.'" "Yes, I know the old saying, but I fear it won't help me very much. Still, I shall be glad to forget my disappointment for a while in my old tasks." "Disappointment is the seed-ground out of which grow the fairest flowers," was the cheery answer. Captain Tom was a Methodist local preacher, and was somewhat given to coining phrases that had a pleasant sound. Moreover, he had a big, kindly heart, a fact which was often unsuspected by those who did not know him. "Can I begin work soon?" Rufus questioned, after a pause. "On Monday morning. Jackson finishes on Saturday, so you can just take up the old threads as though there had been no break." "You are really awfully kind," Rufus said, impulsively. "You see, I come back with a damaged reputation." "Not much, sonny; not much. But, of course, your religious views predisposed people to believe the worst." "Yes, I suppose so. It is a curious world." "Well, it is in some respects; but in the long run people generally get what they deserve." "You think so?" "I am sure of it. There is a moral order that never varies. Don't you make any mistake, my boy. God is at the head of affairs, though you may think the world is run without a head." "I don't know that I have ever said that." "Well, not in so many words, perhaps. But you've drifted a long way. I've been awfully sorry. I'm sorry still. But you'll get back. I've never lost faith in you. You've always been better than your philosophy. But I'm not going to blame you." "You need not be afraid that I shall be offended." "No, 'tisn't that. I know what it is to doubt, myself. I fancy sometimes it's only the people who never think who never doubt. The way into the Kingdom is through tribulation. So long as a man is honest in his doubts, I don't mind. It is the blatant scepticism of ignorance that one resents. I am sure you have been anxious to find the truth." "I am still." "Light will come in good time, my boy. Only be patient and humble," and Captain Tom turned away. "One word more before you go," Rufus said, eagerly. "Yes, sonny, a dozen if you like." "I referred just now to my damaged reputation." "You did. But you'll be able to live that down." "That is not the point exactly. I was cruelly slandered in that matter. I was never drunk in my life, never, in the smallest degree, the worse for drink; and it would be a comfort to me if you could accept my word of honour on that point." "Then it was not a momentary weakness--a sudden lapse as it were?" "It was not. I have never tasted a drop of intoxicants since my leg was broken, and then it was given to me as a medicine by the doctor." "But why should three men swear you were drunk?" "One to damage my character. The other two were bribed." "Have you proof of that?" "No." "Then you had better keep a still tongue." "I have done so; but you have shown yourself so friendly that I could not help speaking. Besides, it is hard to keep silent under so great a wrong." "But why should any man--especially a man in the young Squire's position--bribe others to swear your character away?" "Because he feared I was coming between him and the girl he wanted to marry." Captain Tom started and looked incredulous. "Please don't think me egotistical," Rufus continued, with a painful blush. "I can assure you I have never aspired so high. But----" "You saved her life." "I had that good fortune, and she was grateful, and she showed her gratitude in many ways. One afternoon back in the winter I met her on the Downs, and we had a ramble together, and unfortunately the Captain saw us." "And you think he was jealous?" "I do. What led to the quarrel was, he charged me with loitering round Trewinion so that I might waylay her, and influence her against him." "But why did you not mention that in court?" "What would have been the good of it? He would have denied it on oath. Besides, I'd rather be accused of drunkenness than drag Miss Grover's name into such a sordid squabble." "Oh, indeed!" and the Captain's eyebrows went up perceptibly. "You'll excuse me talking so freely, Capt'n Tom," Rufus went on, "but it really does me good to open my heart to someone, and I know you'll respect my confidence." "I wish you had come to me sooner my boy, though I never thought very seriously of the matter. I concluded it was a sudden lapse, and in all probability would never happen again." "But it was nothing of the sort," Rufus said, with a touch of vehemence in his tone. "I am as innocent of the charge as you are." "Then the men who witnessed against you are guilty of perjury?" "Timothy Polgarrow is, without a doubt. Poor old Micah Martin may have fancied I was not sober. Besides, he would conceive it to be his bounden duty to accept his young master's word." For several seconds Captain Tom remained silent, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. "Such villainy ought to be exposed," he said, at length, raising his eyes suddenly. "But how is it to be done?" "I don't know, my boy," he answered, reflectively, "I don't know." "You said just now that in the long run people got their deserts." "I did, sonny, and I believe it." "But where shall I come in? Suppose they do get their deserts, that won't compensate me." The Captain's grave face relaxed into a broad smile. "Perhaps young Tregony's deserts will be in not getting the girl," he said, and he gave a loud guffaw. "Well?" "That may be where you come in. My stars, but if I were in your shoes, I'd make him jealous for something. By all accounts he hasn't got her yet." "I don't know; I've heard nothing." "Neither have I, for that matter. But if he had got her, it would have been in all the papers. You may be quite sure of that." "Whether he has won her or failed can make no difference to me. I have no dreams in that direction." Captain Tom lowered his eyebrows and puckered his lips. "Sonny," he said, "I've no wish to be inquisitive. But I've been a young man myself. Ah me! I'd like to be young again. Nothing is impossible to youth when there is a stout heart, a clear brain, and a clean conscience." "Which only a few possess." "Look here, sonny," Captain Tom said, after a pause, "you are too young to let the weeds of pessimism overrun the garden. Look up, that's my advice. You've had a big disappointment, I admit, and you've been shamefully slandered; but my belief is God has some big thing in store for you, if you will only wait patiently and trust in Him." Rufus dropped his head, but did not reply. However despondent he might feel, or however tired of life, it would be a fatal policy to show it. "We'll talk this matter over again some time," Captain Tom said at length. "Meanwhile, you keep your eyes open. My stars! but she's a girl worth winning!" Rufus looked up with a start. "I mean it," Captain Tom went on, with a laugh. "Besides, you got the first innings. If I were a sporting man, I know which horse I would back. My stars! but it would be no end of a joke!" and with another laugh, he walked away. CHAPTER XXVII THE VALUE OF A LIFE Rufus settled himself down to his work with as much outward cheerfulness as he could command. It was a great comfort to him to know that Captain Tom believed in him, and that the past would never be flung into his teeth by his employer. The work was not exacting and the pay was proportionate. There was no scope for enterprise or ambition, which exactly suited his mood. He had no ambition left. He was only marking time at best. Before the autumn leaves had carpeted the ground he would be at rest. He faced the issue, most days, grimly and determinedly. There was no other alternative open to him. It seemed a greater wrong to defraud a friend than to take a few hundreds out of the coffers of a great and wealthy company. The company would not be perceptibly the poorer if it lost ten times the amount. It had accumulated funds for all contingencies. It lived by and for the purpose of taking risks. But to defraud Muller might be to ruin him. The money was not his own. The loss to him might mean bankruptcy and worse. Hence, as he was bound to commit a fraud whether he lived or died, it seemed the better part to commit the fraud that would give least pain and trouble, and dying, escape all consequences. It was a terrible alternative, and it filled him with self-loathing and contempt. He felt that he was a living falsehood, practising a daily hypocrisy. And yet what could he do? The dry east winds of March had given place to April's genial showers. Spring was greening the landscape in all directions. The throstles sang in the elm-trees as though glad to be alive, and in the uplands the young lambs sported in the sunshine. Every morning, as Rufus walked over the hills to the mine, he felt the joy of life throbbing in his veins. It was good to live when the world was becoming so fair; good to smell the pungent odours of the earth, and feel the warmth of the ascending sun. There were moments when he forgot the sword that was hanging over his head, and he would revel in the yellow of the gorse and in the changing colours of the sea. Then he would come to himself with a gasp, and a look of horror would creep into his eyes. In spite of himself the strain began to tell upon his health. The burden was becoming heavier than he could bear. In the company of others he simulated a cheerfulness that he never felt. If he spoke of the future, it was with a tone of well-feigned hopefulness in his voice. He pretended to have plans reaching into the next year and the year after that. He loathed himself for being so consummate a hypocrite. But for Muller's sake he would have to avoid waking the smallest suspicion. It is not surprising, perhaps, that the further he got away from the first shock of disappointment, and the nearer he got to the redemption of his pledge, the stronger his passion for life became. It might be the beauty of the springtime that made him so eager to live. It might be the growing sense of the sacredness of life. It might be the increasing moral revulsion from the act itself. It might be the slow lifting of the veil from his spiritual vision, or it might be all these things combined. Certain it is that as the spring advanced and the earth became more and more beautiful, the thought of dying became more and more repugnant. "There is no wealth but life," a great writer has said, and Rufus began to feel more and more the truth of that statement. He was an asset of his age and generation. He belonged to his own time. The treasure of a country was not its dollars but its life. To the individual himself life is his one real possession. Wealth and fame and distinction are nothing to the dead. Moreover, life without wealth, without recognition, without honour, is still worth possessing. It is a gladness merely to live and see the beauty of the earth and feel the warmth of the sun. Rufus began to count the days till the end of August, which he reckoned would mark the limit of his pilgrimage. The time passed all too quickly. He gave himself as little sleep as possible, for sleep seemed to rob him of what little of life was left, and he was anxious to make the most of it. Never a spring seemed so beautiful as that one. Never did the gorse flame so yellow on the moors, never did he see such sapphire in the deep. As the evenings grew longer he sat on the cliffs and watched the sunsets and ticked them off in his calendar as the day faded into night. His eyes grew large and pathetic and his voice took a softer tone. Sometimes he found his thoughts shaping themselves into supplication. The universal instinct asserted itself unconsciously. He wanted guidance and he wanted forgiveness for what he proposed to do. Marshall Brook came across to see him once or twice, and they had long walks and talks together, but he got no help out of their conversation and discussions. On the contrary, every talk seemed to make his task more and more difficult. By slow and almost imperceptible steps he was coming back to the faith he had cast aside. He read the gospels with new interest, and saw in the books Madeline Grover lent him, and which he still kept, new and deeper meanings. But all this only put fresh thorns in his path. He wished sometimes that his philosophy of negations had never been disturbed, that he could still believe what he believed honestly enough when he entered into this fatal compact. It seemed as though everything conspired to put difficulties in his path. He might be the victim of a malicious fate. He had told Muller that if he failed he should not want to live--that there would be nothing left worth living for. How little he knew! How little he guessed that that very day he would see a face that would change the world for him; that from that day a train of circumstances would be set in motion that would alter his entire outlook! He was a different man to-day from what he was nine months ago. He looked at life and the world through different eyes. He had loved, and love had greatened him in spite of the fact that he had loved in vain. He had reasoned about temperance, and righteousness, and a judgment to come, and out of the chaos of his own thinking had appeared the faint glimmerings of an eternal order. He had suffered, and suffering had developed in him the grace of patience, and toughened the fibres of his moral nature. He had come under influences which had quickened his drooping moral sense and made him look with steadier eyes at the meaning and mystery of life. He never more ardently desired to do the right thing, was never so absolutely compelled to do the wrong. He wished sometimes that he could take some one into his confidence, Captain Tom Hendy, for instance. With his clear vision and strong common sense he might see a way out of the difficulty. But to take anyone into his confidence would be to give the whole case away. For Muller's sake he would have to preserve an inviolable silence, and yet the very silence was becoming more and more intolerable. Toward the end of April he paid what he deemed would be his last visit to Muller. It would be a relief to put some of his thoughts into speech. That, however, was not the main purpose of his visit. He had succeeded in putting all his affairs in order, in turning into cash everything that was saleable, and in discharging all outstanding obligations, and he was pleased to discover that he had still three hundred pounds left. "I suppose this belongs to me," he said to himself, "to do what I like with," and he smiled sadly. Some men, under the circumstances, might have spent it in having what they would call a good time, but he was in no mood for feasting or mirth. "I will take it back to Muller," he went on, "and lessen my obligation by that amount." So one Saturday afternoon, when they left off early at the mine, he donned his holiday suit, and trudged off into Redbourne to see his friend. He found Muller in his office as he expected. Muller had no domestic ties, and he preferred his office, as a rule, to any other place in the world. Muller looked up with a little start of surprise when Rufus entered. In the first place, he was not expecting him, and in the second place, he was shocked at his appearance. "Hello, Sterne," he said, "what brings you into Redbourne to-day? Not to see a doctor, I hope," and a curious smile played round the corners of his mouth. "I came to see you," Rufus answered, with a smile. "Doctors are of no use to me." "Well, no," Muller replied, reflectively. "I presume you are right in that. But you look ill all the same--painfully ill." "Do I? I was not aware. I feel about as usual." "Not over cheerful, I presume. Well, I don't wonder. It's beastly hard luck. I think if I were in your place I should get the business over as quickly as possible." "I have to consider your interests as well as my own feelings," Rufus answered, going to the window and looking down into the street. "Well, yes, of course. If people suspected anything there might be old Harry to pay." "Exactly. Then, you know, I have had a good many things to square up, and, on the whole, I have come out fairly well." "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that out of the thousand pounds I borrowed of you, I have three hundred left." "So much?" "Three pounds, seventeen and ninepence over, to be exact. But what I propose to do is to hand over the three hundred pounds to you, and so lessen my obligation by that amount." Muller started, and a puzzled expression came into his eyes. "The burden will seem a little lighter," Rufus went on, looking down into the street again. "I confess I do not quite understand," Muller said, adjusting his pince-nez. "You don't mean t--t----" Then he stopped, and waited for Rufus further to explain himself. "I mean," Rufus answered, walking across the room, and dropping into a chair, "that if there is any profit arising out of the transaction you shall have the full benefit of it." "Oh, thanks, old man; that is good of you," and Muller's face brightened instantly. "There are always expenses, of course?" "A great many expenses, I am sorry to say. But you have been very thoughtful. Extremely considerate, if I may say so, without flattery." "Oh, you can flatter as much as you like," Rufus answered, with a mirthless laugh. "It would be much more to the purpose, however, if you could see some other way out of the difficulty." Muller's countenance changed again in a moment. "You like not the prospect?" he said, cynically. "To be honest, I don't. As a matter of fact, I despise myself for not seeing at the beginning all the issues involved." "What issues do you refer to?" "Moral issues in the main. The repayment of this loan is with us both a question of honour." "That is so. As an honourable man you cannot escape it." "I see that clearly enough. What I failed to see at the first--either because I refused to entertain the idea of failure, or else because my moral sense had become dull--was that I was proposing to pay a debt by fraud." Muller laughed uneasily. "I think I pointed that out to you quite clearly on the day we settled the matter." "I have no recollection of it." "I did so most distinctly. I said if the company scented suicide they would dispute the claim, or words to that effect." "And seeing this clearly you were willing to become a party to the fraud?" Muller's eyes blazed in a moment. "Look here, Sterne," he said, angrily, "this is above a joke. You know very well that the proposal was not mine. You badgered and bullied and persuaded and gave me no peace. I yielded at length, much against my will, to oblige you. I made you angry when I pointed out in the frankest and most explicit way the consequences of failure, and now, confound it, when you have failed you come and blame me." "No, no; you misunderstand me," Rufus said, mildly. "I have no wish to blame you. The proposal was my own, I frankly admit, and you yielded very reluctantly. But the thing that puzzles me is that while we talked about honour we neither of us seemed to realise that the proposal involved a glaring act of dishonour." "Do you refer to the insurance company?" "I do." "My dear fellow, would you consider it a dishonourable act to appropriate a pin from your neighbour's dressing-table?" "Well, no. There is no value in a pin." "Yes, there is. All values are relative. To the company concerned the amount involved is scarcely more than the value of a pin to your landlady." "If I took a penny from her dressing-table it would be theft." "You think that because the disc of copper represents a fixed amount of money. Call it theft if you like. So then taking a pin would be theft." "Perhaps so." "But a theft so small that in any moral or legal reckoning it would not count. It would not count because your landlady would not feel it. So the paltry amount under discussion would not be felt by the company." "You call it a paltry amount, and yet it represents the value of a life." "My dear fellow, human life is not of much account in this world. Governments--especially Christian Governments--sacrifice men by thousands for bits of barren territory that are not worth sixpence." "The Creator, perhaps, sets more value on them." "Use the word Nature and you talk sense. Only your suggestion is absolutely beside the mark. Nature puts no value on human life at all, no more than you do on the creeping things you trample to death at every step you take." "Nature does not destroy. She only changes the form. Nothing is lost." "Except life. That vanishes like the flame of a candle in a gust of wind." "Vanishes! But do you know what the word means?" "I think I do. But what is all this talk leading to? What have you got at the back of your brain? If you are going to funk the business, say so, and let me know the worst." "I don't think I have suggested anything of the kind," Rufus replied, uneasily. "I frankly admit that I do not like the alternative, and wish that some other way of escape could be found." "But if there is no other way?" "Then I must meet my doom, and go into darkness disgraced and dishonoured." "In a hundred years from now nothing will matter." "You are not even sure of that. But, candidly, I am as ready to face death as most other men. I am not aware that I have ever proved myself a coward, but I do abhor the thought of shrinking meanly out of life by a back door in order to cheat an insurance company." "You should have thought of all this earlier." "I know I should. I am simply amazed at myself. But I was so certain of success that I refused to look at failure, or the possible consequences of failure." "Exactly. But that is not my fault. I am sorry for you. More sorry than I can express. But I am powerless to help you." "And you are not concerned at my cheating the insurance company?" "Not in the least. I am only concerned that you do not cheat me." "But suppose I paid you interest on the seven hundred pounds for a year or two?" "It is not the interest I want, but the principal, which I must have by the first of January next, or I'm up a tree." "But could you not borrow the amount from some other client for awhile?" "Where am I to get security? Why don't you ask me to make you a free gift of the amount in question?" "I don't want any free gift. At the same time, I don't want to sacrifice my life if there is any chance of saving it." "You seem to set great store by it." "It is all I have. And of late I have not been able to shake off the conviction that I am responsible to God for it." "I thought as much," Muller said, with a sneer. Rufus raised his eyes questioningly. "Turning Christian again with Christian results," he went on. "I caught an echo of the jargon the last time I called on you, and feared you would turn coward, as all these religious people do." "Don't let us quarrel, Muller," Rufus said, mildly. "I confess I had not much hope that you would be able to help me, so I shall return not greatly disappointed." "I would help you a thousand times if I could," Muller replied, with a great burst of simulated friendliness, "but, alas! I cannot do impossibilities." "Very good, I will not trouble you again." "And you will not burst the thing up by awaking suspicion?" "Not if I can help it." "And take a word of advice. Get rid of those silly notions about accountability and all that rubbish. They don't become a man of your intellectual calibre." "Thank you: we must follow the light that is in us. Good afternoon and good-bye." "Good-bye," Muller said, lugubriously, grasping his outstretched hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm helpless." Rufus did not reply nor did he look back, and a moment later Muller heard his footsteps slowly descending the stairs. CHAPTER XXVIII THE RETURN OF THE SQUIRE Rufus was conscious as he descended the stairs that his feelings towards Felix Muller had undergone considerable change. Felix was not the close and attached friend that he had imagined him to be. Of late he had revealed himself in a new light. It was no doubt true that he had taken considerable risks on his account, but he began to fear that these risks had not been taken on the score of friendship merely. It seemed to Rufus that the passion for speculation and the desire for gain had been the chief factors in the case. "I think he might have helped me," Rufus said to himself, regretfully. "If he had really cared for my friendship he would have set my life before most things. I don't think my death will trouble him in the least." At the street door he paused for a few moments, and contemplated the busy street stretching right and left. It was market-day, and the youth of the entire country side had poured itself into the town. Up and down they sauntered--lads and maidens--aimless, vacant, but entirely happy. Hands in pockets, arms round waists, straws between teeth, caps tilted to the back of heads. The world for them was the best of all possible places, and Fore Street, Redbourne, on a market-day the most wonderful place in the world. Suddenly the crowd divided that a pair of horses drawing an open carriage might pass up the street. The carriage was empty. The coachman and footman sat stiff and erect in blue livery, and surveyed the scene with a look of pitying condescension on their faces. Rufus watched the carriage pass with more than ordinary interest. It was Sir Charles Tregony's carriage and was evidently on its way to the station. Very likely the family were returning to-day, though to put five people into an ordinary landau would be a tight squeeze. Rufus found his heart beating a little more rapidly than usual; the thought of seeing Madeline Grover again quickened his pulse unconsciously. In a moment the busy street faded, the noise died down into silence, and he was back in a quiet country lane, watching a carriage pass, with a strange lady sitting by the side of the driver. He would never forget that first vision of Madeline's face. He had never seen a face before that had so caught his fancy. He had never seen anything comparable to it since. That was one of the red-letter days of his life. He fancied then that all the world lay at his feet. No dream of failure dimmed the sunshine for a moment. He was on the heights of Pisgah, with all the fair land of promise stretched out before him. Now he was in the valley of the shadow, having relinquished his last hope. It was a curious coincidence that Madeline should return that day of all days. Return, possibly, as the wife of Gervase Tregony. To see her sitting by his side would be the last drop in the cup of humiliation, the deepest note in the solemn dirge of his despair. He looked at his watch. The down express from London was due in fifteen minutes, and it was generally well up to time. "I think I will loiter round in town until they have gone," he said to himself. "I need not suffer the humiliation of seeing her the happy bride of that----fellow," and he plunged at once into the throng that jostled each other in the street. But the desire to have another look at Madeline's face proved too strong for him. "It cannot do me any harm," he said to himself, moodily. "Nothing can do me any harm now. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have done their worst." Ten minutes later he was on the station platform waiting for the down express. Very few people were about. He lighted a cigarette, and strolled with apparent unconcern up and down the platform. He gave a little start when the signal dropped just in front of him. A couple of porters hurried across the line from the other platform, a newspaper boy appeared from somewhere round a corner, the people who had been walking up and down came to a sudden stop. The long train glided slowly round a curve, and came to a standstill. Rufus drew to the off side of the platform, and watched the scene. Fifty heads were thrust out of nearly as many windows, but only half a dozen people alighted. Sir Charles and party had a compartment to themselves near the middle of the train. The Baronet alighted first--slowly and stiffly as though cramped with the long journey. Beryl jumped out after him with light springy step, then came Lady Tregony, ponderous, but jaunty still. Rufus found his heart beating uncomfortably fast as he waited for Madeline to appear. The porter entered the compartment, and began handing out the wraps and umbrellas, then the footman hurried away to the luggage van. Rufus heaved a long sigh, partly of disappointment, partly of relief. Madeline had not returned with the others, neither had the Captain. That meant--what? He could think of only one possible explanation. They were man and wife, and were travelling on their own account. Perhaps they had been married recently, and were now on their honeymoon. That seemed the most probable supposition. It was hardly likely they would be married on the Continent. They would wait till they got back to London, and after the ceremony the others would return, of course, to St. Gaved, and the Captain and his bride would wander where they listed. He turned away from the station, and made his way slowly over the hill in the direction of St. Gaved. The Tregony carriage passed him before he had got very far, but no one noticed him. He kept his head bent low, and did not raise his eyes till the carriage had got a considerable distance. It was dark long before he reached St. Gaved, and he was so tired that it was a pain to lift his feet from the ground. It was the first time he fully realised how weak he was. He did not feel ill, though people were constantly telling him how ill he looked; but he was conscious that the spring had gone out of him, that the fires of life were burning low. When he went to bed that night there was an unspoken prayer in his heart that some illness would overtake him from which he would die. That would be a splendid solution of the whole difficulty. A severe illness would quench the passion for life, would dull all the sensibilities, would take the sting out of all earth's disappointments, and ring down the curtain so gently that he would not know when all the lights were turned out. Perhaps, after all, he would be saved the sin and the shame of taking his own life, and with this thought in his mind he fell asleep. The next day, however, brought back all the old pain in its acutest form. Once or twice he felt strongly tempted to let Felix Muller bear the brunt of his failure, and trust to the future and the chapter of accidents to enable him to discharge all his liabilities. Muller was not considering him in any way. Indeed, he had shown himself exceedingly callous. The one thing that concerned him was getting his money back with compound interest. Well, he had got three hundred pounds of it back already. Suppose he kept him waiting for the rest? But after a moment's reflection he would shake his head. "I should never be able to pay him back," he would say to himself. "Seven hundred pounds to a working man is an impossible sum. I should not be able to pay him interest at four per cent out of my earnings. Besides, what would he think? and it might mean bankruptcy and disgrace to him." But the thought of what he would think was the principal crux. How contemptuous he would be. With what scorn he would regard him. How bitter and venomous would be his taunts, with what biting sarcasm he would refer to his courage and chivalry, with what lofty disdain he would speak of his honour and his regard for the truth. Rufus would feel himself growing hot all over with shame. Shame that he let such a temptation have foothold for a single moment. Had he not pledged his word of honour, and was not that enough? Did it not outweigh every other consideration? If he departed from his word of honour he would never be able to hold up his head again, however long he might live, and were a few shadowed years worth purchasing at so great a price? So he debated the question now from one side and now from another, and still the days passed on, and he saw no escape from the doom he had prepared for himself. Sometimes he woke in the night with a start, and with the cry upon his lips, "How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?" and for awhile the thought of his responsibility to a supreme Being would outweigh every other consideration. His pledged word, the thin veneer of honour which took no account of honesty, the anger and contempt of Muller, the irrevocable loss of reputation--would all seem as of no account in comparison with the anger of an offended God. That he should grow pale, and thin, and hollow-eyed was inevitable. The constant nervous strain was exhausting the springs of life. The unresting activity of his brain was consuming his physical energies as with a fire. He was as free from disease as any child in St. Gaved, but he was unwittingly making himself an easy prey to any malady that might be prowling about. Meanwhile St. Gaved was considerably exercised in its mind over the non-appearance of the Captain--as people still called him--and Miss Grover. Mrs. Tuke, who claimed to be on terms of great intimacy with Madeline, and who was prepared to champion her under any and every circumstance, was almost indignant that no reliable information could be extracted from any source. The servants from the Hall came into the village as usual, and certain young men from St. Gaved, it was said, found their way occasionally into the Hall kitchen--though that was a point on which authentic information was difficult to obtain. But neither from the servants, nor from the young men in question, nor from the police, could anything be gathered as to the doings or the whereabouts of Gervase Tregony and Madeline Grover. Gossip, of course, ran riot, and rumour changed its headlines every day, but the true state of affairs remained as much a mystery as ever. Rufus found himself as much interested in the floating gossip as Mrs. Tuke herself, and as eager to listen to the latest canard. "It is said they ain't married at all," Mrs. Tuke remarked one evening, as she laid his supper on the table. "But nobody knows," Rufus said, wearily, looking up from his book. "Well, not for certain. But if they was married, don't you think as how it would have leaked out somehow?" "They may have been married quietly without a dozen people knowing." "But why should they be married on the sly? Sir Charles seemed mighty proud that the Captain was going to marry her before he turned up." "Yes, I believe that is so." "And the young man was that gone on her, that if she'd consented to marry him, he'd never have been able to keep it to himself." "It might be her wish, and I think he would do almost anything to oblige her." "No, he couldn't have done it, however much he'd tried. He'd just burst, that he would." "Then what is your theory, Mrs. Tuke?" "Well, I don't know that I has any theory. You see, if they ain't married, where are they?" "Exactly," Rufus said, with a smile; "that is a very pertinent question." "And if they ain't married, I say they can't be together." "That sounds probable, certainly." "And if they ain't together, where's he?" "Exactly; and where's she?" "That's the very question I was going to ax myself, but you took the words out of my mouth as it were." "I'm sorry I forestalled you, Mrs. Tuke, but----" "Oh, you needn't apologise, Mr. Sterne, not a bit. This is a free country, and anybody is allowed to ax as many questions as he likes. But to come back to the point we was talking about, the question is, where's she, and where's the both of 'em?" "Sir Charles is still silent on the subject, I presume?" "As silent as a boiled periwinkle by all accounts. The servants say they haven't heard him mention the Captain's name since he came back." "Perhaps they have quarrelled." "Well, my belief is that if the Captain failed to carry off the girl as his bride, Sir Charles would be terrible angry." "Then you have a theory after all, Mrs. Tuke?" "Well, no, I don't know that I has. I only puts two and two together, as it were." "But why should Sir Charles be so anxious that his son should marry this particular young lady? There would seem to be any number of eligible spinsters in the country." "But millionairesses ain't to be picked up every day, and I reckon the Captain ain't anything of his own to live upon, except what his father allows him; and Sir Charles, they say, is as poor as a church mouse; but that's all nonsense. I should like to have a quarter of what he's got to live on." "But you haven't his expenses, Mrs. Tuke." "And he needn't have 'em unless he liked. Think of their wintering abroad; it must have cost 'em a heap of money." "No doubt. But what about the 'millionairess'?" "Oh, well, it's this way. Squire Vivian's butler told long Joseph--that's Sir Charles's butler, you know--and he told the housekeeper, and she told Sarah Jelks--who is housemaid at the Hall--and she told Siah Small--who pretends to be courting her--and he told Dick Beswarick, and he told his wife Susan, and she told me, that he heard the family talking about it one day at dinner----." "Who heard the family----?" "Squire Vivian's butler, of course." "Yes, go on." "Well, he heard them saying that it would be the best day's work the Captain ever did if he got married, as the girl had no end of dollars." "How did they know?" "Very likely Sir Charles told them. Those big folks may be as close as oysters to the poor, but they talk to each other." "Well, Mrs. Tuke, and what is the inference you draw from all this?" "I don't draw no inference at all. I don't pretend to be anything but a plain woman, and I only put two and two together, though Miss Grover did say my curtains was a treat." "She took rather a fancy to you, didn't she?" "It's not for me to say that exactly, though it's quite true she never thought any of the other women up to much, and she came here frequent, as you know." "Yes, I remember. But when you have put two and two together, what then?" "Well, between ourselves, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if, after living in the same house with the Captain for a month or two, she found out he weren't her sort and told him so." "You think that is likely?" "Well, I can tell you, Mr. Sterne, he wouldn't be my sort, and Miss Grover ain't the kind of young woman to be hustled into anything against her will." "Well, and what next?" "Well, suppose she told him definite, that the more she'd seen of him the less she liked him, and that she wasn't for taking him on at any price, what would happen then?" "Well, Mrs. Tuke, what do you suppose would happen?" "It seems to me, Mr. Sterne," Mrs. Tuke said, impressively, "that there'd be a kettle o' fish, as it were; a kind of general upset, don't you think so?" "There might be." "She couldn't come back to Trewinion Hall again, could she?" "Why not? I understood from her that Sir Charles was her guardian, or trustee, or something of that kind." "But if they was all bent on her marrying the Captain and she wouldn't?" "The situation would be a little strained, no doubt; but she would not shun the house because she was in no humour to marry the son." "Well, my belief is she's cut the lot of them, as it were; that the Captain's sick, and Sir Charles sulky, and the others too cross to talk about it." "Meanwhile, what has become of Miss Grover?" Mrs. Tuke straightened herself, and looked perplexed. "That is what is atroubling me," she said, sympathetically. "Between you and me I got terrible fond of her. She weren't none of the starchy sort, and the way she would just sit down and talk to me was a treat. I might be her mother, she was that affable; and now to think she may be wandering round this lone world without a friend, as it were, fairly worries me at times." "I don't think you need worry, Mrs. Tuke. She is well able to take care of herself. But I am not convinced yet that she and the Captain are not married." "Well, I be," and Mrs. Tuke sidled out of the room. CHAPTER XXIX GETTING AT THE TRUTH Perhaps the only two people in St. Gaved--outside the Tregony family--who could have thrown any ray of light on the situation were Micah Martin and Timothy Polgarrow, and they, as far as the general public was concerned, were both of them discreet enough to keep their own counsel. Micah's chief characteristic was loyalty to the Tregony family. He had been on the estate as man and boy over fifty years. He had no ambition to be anything other than a servant, and a word of praise from his master now and then would atone for any amount of abuse. Comparative serfdom, continued through several generations, had eliminated from his blood every single corpuscle of independence. He possessed the genuine serf spirit and temper. If his master told him to lie on the floor that he might wipe his boots on him, he would have obeyed with a smile and asked no questions. He had no will of his own, no views or opinions or convictions. His master's politics were his. His master's wish his law. The serf spirit made a machine of him. Even questions of right and wrong were tested by loyalty to the family. If a thing was in the interests of the Tregonys, it was right, if not it was wrong. Yet Micah was not without a measure of shrewdness. He saw more than most people gave him credit for. In his own slow way he put two and two together. But he had the saving virtue of reticence--a most admirable quality in a servant. Micah knew very well that the Captain lied over the Sterne affair; but that was his business. He had a reason for lying, and it was not his place to contradict him. He knew well enough that Rufus was not drunk, but it would be disloyal to his master to say so. If there was one individual about the place who could break down Micah's reticence and get him to talk it was Madeline. She had not been a month at the Hall before she had made herself a general favourite with all the retainers. Micah idolised her and would have given his scalp almost to please her. Madeline discussed horticulture with him and floriculture--the mysteries of grafting and budding, the best aspect for peaches and the best soil for potatoes. Miss Grover was a wonder in Micah's eyes. She knew so much and yet was so teachable--was so beautiful and yet so humble withal. They talked about the Sterne affair one afternoon. Madeline approached the subject with great caution, and carefully felt her way at every step. When Micah became diffident she flattered him a little, and when he obtruded his loyalty to the family she encouraged him. She made him feel also that she was one of the family, and that he would be perfectly justified and perfectly safe in confiding anything to her. She talked to him about her early life, about the scenery and customs of America, and so hypnotised him with her confidence and her sweet graciousness that the old man talked more freely than he knew. "Of course you will not repeat what I have told you, Micah?" she said, with her most winning smile. "Of course not, Miss," Micah said, stoutly. "I wouldn't repeat it for the world." "It's nice to have confidence in people, don't you think so?" she questioned, demurely. "It is, Miss; it's a terrible comfort." "Some people repeat everything they hear. But you and I can trust each other, eh, Micah?" "I could trust you with uncounted gold, Miss," and Micah stuck his fork into the ground, with an energy that was meant to give emphasis to his assertion. For awhile they talked about St. Gaved folks in general, but gradually Madeline led the conversation round to Rufus Sterne and the quarrel outside the Lodge gates. "Mr. Sterne was not drunk, of course!" Madeline suggested, innocently. "Well, no, I shouldn't say as how he was, though he might have been." "Exactly. Now, between ourselves, Micah, how did the quarrel begin?" "Well, Miss, just between you and me, it was this way," and Micah raised his head and looked cautiously around him. "There's no one to hear what you are saying," Madeline said, encouragingly. "One can never be too careful, Miss; but as I was saying, I went out to close the gate after the Captin, and he hadn't gone many yards, before I heard 'im shout out to somebody." "Yes? What did he say?" "Well. I don't remember his words exact. But there's no doubt he meant you, Miss." "Me, Micah?" Micah nodded and smiled. "I should have felt just the same, Miss." "I'm sure you would, Micah." "'You scoundrel,'" he said, "or words like 'em. 'You're loiterin' round here again to waylay her an' poison her mind.'" "And what did the other say?" "Oh! he up and says it was a lie right out to 'is face." "Did he, really?" "It's gospel truth, Miss; and of course the Captin, bein' insulted like that, let fly at 'im." "Do you wonder, Micah?" "I don't, Miss. But lor', that young Sterne is a terrible strong and 'andsome young fellow, and he gived the Captin beans in two seconds." "What a shame!" "Of course, Miss, it's natural that you and me should side with the Captin; but after all, it's human natur' to hit back again, ain't it?" "Yes, I suppose it is. But what happened after that?" "Oh! the Captin cried out, 'Martin, come and take away this drunken brute, or he'll murder me.'" "Of course, the Captain was bound to believe he was drunk?" "Well, he was bound to say so, Miss," Micah answered, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It 'ud never do to own he was beaten by a man as was sober in a stand up fight--and he a sodger." "Of course not, though you must admit, Micah, that the Captain was at a disadvantage if the other was sober." "That's what I've said to myself, Miss, fact is, Sterne was much too sober. He was just as cool as a cucumber, and then he's a younger man than the Captin." "But the Captain got the best of it in the end," she said, with a tone of triumph in her voice. "That he did, Miss. He got his revenge sharp, sudden an' complete." "The right nearly always wins in the end, Micah. But mind you don't repeat a word of our conversation this afternoon." "Me, Miss? You should see me gibbeted first." Madeline walked out of the kitchen garden in a very sober mood. The suspicion that had been haunting her mind for weeks was crystallising rapidly into a certainty. The admissions of Micah threw a new and sinister light on the entire situation. The underlying motive had been laid bare as in a flash, and Gervase stood revealed in his true colours. They were starting for the South of France in a week or so. She thought she saw now the reason of that particular move. She would not act precipitately, however. She would keep her eyes and ears open and her mouth shut. It might be possible, with a little diplomacy, to get the truth out of Tim Polgarrow as she had got it out of Micah Martin; but there was no time to be wasted if she was to accomplish her purpose. She was more than usually gracious with Gervase that evening, and in the highest spirits. She rattled off waltzes on the piano, and sang any number of cheery and sentimental songs. Gervase found the songs for her, and stood behind and turned the leaves. He felt that he was making headway rapidly. Now that Rufus Sterne was disgraced and out of the way, he had no rival; there was no one to distract her thoughts from him, and he flattered himself that something of the old feeling of hero-worship was coming back to her. He had given up pressing her to marry him, given up playing the part of injured and broken-hearted lover, and entertained her instead with stories of his exploits in India. And, generally speaking, he told his stories well, making light of his own courage and powers of endurance, and treating heroism as though it were an ordinary, common-place quality of every soldier. He had very little doubt that when he got her out of England she would consent to an engagement, and Sir Charles, who had watched carefully the progress of affairs, was of the same opinion. On the day following her conversation with Micah, Madeline tried to get an interview with Tim Polgarrow. She had seen Tim two or three times, and had made up her mind as to the kind of man he was and the kind of tactics she would have to adopt. Had she been a man she would have gone into the public-house and demanded an interview with him, but being a girl such a course was impossible. So she had to wait on the chapter of accidents, and fortune did not appear to favour her. She rode past the "Three Anchors" on several occasions, but Tim kept persistently out of sight. She began at last to fear that the opportunity would never come, and that the particular information she wanted would be denied her. In her heart she had little doubt of the truth of the accusation Rufus had flung out on the day of the trial--that Tim had been bribed to swear a falsehood. But she wanted direct evidence. She was anxious to be just to Gervase, whatever happened. On the day before leaving home she resolved on more direct measures. Getting her horse saddled, she rode straight away to the "Three Anchors" and knocked loudly on the front door with the handle of her riding-crop. [Illustration: "HAD MADELINE FIRED A REVOLVER HE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE STARTLED."] A young man with a thick crop of reddish-brown hair, and a blue apron tied round his waist, appeared at length from the recesses of the tavern. "Can I have a drink of barley-water for my horse?" she inquired. "Yes, miss; I'll fetch it in a minute." She backed her horse a few paces and waited. No one appeared to be about. The inn stood at the junction of five roads, commonly known as Five Lane Ends, and there was not another house within half a mile. In a few minutes the shock-headed young man appeared with a pail, which he held under the horse's nose. Madeline felt her heart beating rapidly. She had resolved on a bold stroke. Nothing less than a frontal attack. No flank movement would do in the present case. She would have to stagger him with the first blow. "You are Timothy Polgarrow?" she questioned, looking down from her exalted position. "Yes, miss, that's my name, at your service," he answered, glibly and flippantly. "I'm glad I've met you," she said, quietly. "Yes?" And he looked up with a light of surprise in his eyes. "I want to ask you a question." "A dozen, if you like, miss. I'm always ready to oblige a lady." "Then you will tell me how much money Captain Tregony paid you to swear that Rufus Sterne was drunk?" Had Madeline fired a revolver at him he could not have been more startled. He dropped the bucket, which fell with a rattle on the cobbles, and his freckled face grew ashen. Madeline quickly followed the first blow with a second. "Now, be careful what you say," she went on. "If you lie, it will be the worse for you. You know that you committed perjury, and that you are liable to a long period of imprisonment; but if you tell the truth, I will be very merciful." "Has he been blabbing?" he gasped, trembling in every limb. "Don't trouble to ask questions," she said. "Your business is to answer them." Then he began to pluck up courage. "Nobody can prove nothing," he said, insolently. "There you are making a mistake," she answered. "It may be difficult to prove that you received money, but there will be no difficulty in proving that you committed perjury." "You mean that I'll get all the blame and he'll go scot free." "Exactly. The case against you is as clear as daylight." "Who said so?" "I say so." "What have you found out?" "That you swore falsely, and I cannot imagine that you would do it for nothing." "Look here," he said, still trembling, "you don't know nothing at all. You're trying to gammon me, but I don't take on. Do you understand? I know how to keep my mouth shut as well as other people." "Very good. I came to you as a friend. If you like to risk the consequences of a trial for perjury, that's your look-out." "If I do, I don't go into the dock alone, mind you that." "No, I guess when you get into the dock, you'll have to make a clean breast of it. Why not do it now and avoid going into the dock?" "You mean, if I tell the truth about--about--somebody, you won't proceed?" "I mean, I want to get hold of a certain fact. The fact of your committing perjury is already settled. What I want to know is, how much did the gentleman I have named pay you for doing it?" "Look here," he said, "if I tell you all I know about that blooming trial, will you promise not to split on me?" "Only on one condition." "And what is that?" "That you will tell the whole truth, and that you put it in writing and sign it." "Look here, miss," he said, insolently, "do you take me for a blooming fool?" "If you had been wise," she answered, "you would not have put yourself within reach of the law. However, you can take your own course." And she reined up her horse, as though the interview was at an end. "Don't go yet," he said, seizing the bridle-rein. "You don't give a fellow time to think. How do I know that you're not pretending?" "If I didn't know, how could I tell you?" she answered, severely. "What I don't know I have confessed to." "And if I tell you that, you won't blab about the rest?" "If you put it in writing and sign it, it shall be kept absolutely secret for a year." He laughed scornfully. "I can assure you, miss," he said, "I'm not so green as I look." "Very good," she answered, with a laugh. "You ought to know best," and she again pulled at the rein. But Tim was evidently afraid to let her go. "I'll put nothing in writing," he said; "not a blooming word. But if you'll promise me on your word of honour as a lady that you'll not blab, and that you'll not put the police on me, I'll tell you all I know. Mind you, I've confessed nothing yet. Not a word." "I don't want any confession as to your part. That's proved enough already. What I want to know is how much you were paid for swearing falsely?" "Will you promise me never to say a word? Mind you, I'll go to gaol sooner than put anything in writing." "I don't want to be too hard on you," she said, after a pause. "And the secret will be between our two selves?" "Yes." "And if I don't tell you, you'll set the police on me?" "This very day." "And if I do tell, fair and square, you'll deal fair and square with me?" "Well, yes. You deserve to be sent to prison for robbing an honest man of his character, but for the information I want I will pay the price of silence." "You take your oath on it?" Madeline hesitated for a moment. She would like to clear Rufus Sterne's character if possible. But he had just as much proof of perjury as she had unless this man confessed, and he refused to confess unless she promised secrecy. "I take my oath on it," she answered. "Then he paid me twenty pounds." "Only twenty pounds?" "He offered me five at first, then ten, then fifteen; but when he rose to twenty it was too much to resist. He said 'twouldn't harm Sterne. That every gentleman got drunk now and then, and that as he was drunk it might be as well to prove he got drunk here as anywhere else." "And you didn't serve him with any drink?" "I never served him with a drink in my life. He passed the "Three Anchors" that night, but he didn't call." "Thank you; that is all I wish to know." "And you'll not set the police on me?" "No." She rode home by another way, and rode slowly. She was not an expert horsewoman yet, though she was rapidly becoming one. She entered the house without anyone seeing her, and went at once to her own room. She wanted time to think, to shape her plans for the future. Her life's programme had been torn into shreds. She would have to begin over again. But how, or when, or where? After lunch she took a stroll on the Downs and along the cliffs. "I shall never come back here again," she said to herself. "This must be my farewell." She walked slowly, and with many pauses. She half hoped she would see Rufus Sterne. She wanted to say good-bye to him, and in saying it tell him that she believed in him. But Rufus was busy elsewhere that afternoon, and they did not meet. She looked in all directions as she strolled back across the Downs to the Hall, and with a little sigh she passed through the lodge gates. Another chapter had been completed in the story of her life. To-morrow a fresh page would be turned. CHAPTER XXX THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE Madeline never felt so helpless or friendless as when she left with the Tregonys for the South of France. She had no one to advise her, no one to whom she could turn for a word of counsel. She wished a thousand times that her father had never made Sir Charles her trustee and guardian. He did so with the best intentions, no doubt. He was proud of the distant relationship, flattered by the Baronet's attention, and enamoured of the prospect for his only child; but for her it had meant disillusion and disappointment. She had not courage enough to tell Sir Charles and Gervase what she had discovered. The Baronet almost over-awed her at times, while the Captain was possessed of a dogged tenacity and determination that were anything but easy to deal with. She felt almost like a bird in a cage--a cage into which she had deliberately walked, or had been cleverly lured. To all appearances she was free, and yet in a very real sense she was a prisoner. The meshes of the net had been so deftly and so silently woven round her, that she was not conscious of the fact until the last loophole was closed. What could she do now? To whom could she go? There was the old solicitor in New York City, but there was no time to write to him and get an answer back. Her step-mother was travelling from place to place, and might be on the Pacific slope for all she knew, or in the South Seas, or Japan. She had a good many friends--rich and influential people in the States--but they were often on the wing, and they might be "doing Europe" or enjoying themselves in London or Paris. Besides, how could she explain the peculiarities of the position in which she found herself, and if she tried to explain she questioned if she would get any sympathy? She would have to bide her time till she was of age, and trust in Providence for the rest. She took away with her nearly everything she possessed that was of any value, for she had made up her mind never to return to Trewinion Hall, if there was any possibility of avoiding it, and that something would turn up she had the greatest confidence. Youth is ever optimistic, and Madeline could never look the dark side of things for very long together. She had only one regret in leaving Cornwall, and that was that in all probability she would never see Rufus Sterne again. Since her interview with Micah Martin, and the confession she had wrung from Tim Polgarrow, her thoughts, of necessity, had turned in his direction, and her strongest sympathies had gone out to him afresh. She knew now that he was a much wronged man. Moreover, she could never forget what he had done for her, and the memory of what he had suffered on her account would remain with her to the last. Still, life was made up of meetings and partings. We pass each other like ships in the night, or walk side by side for a mile or two, and then drift in different directions. Rufus Sterne would forget her as she in time might forget him. He would win his way in spite of opposition and misrepresentation, for he was strong and clever, and such men nearly always came into their own in the long run. She looked out for him on the morning they drove away from the Hall. She would have given almost anything for even a smile of recognition, but it was not to be. With a little sigh she resigned herself to the inevitable, and resolved that she would extract as much pleasure out of the tour as possible. They spent only one night in London, and stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel for the sake of convenience. In Paris they remained three or four days. Madeline would gladly have remained longer, but Gervase was anxious to push forward to a sunnier clime. The cold, he declared, got into his bones, and he would have no pleasure of life until he found himself in a more genial climate. At Nice they found letters waiting them which had been forwarded, and a copy of the local paper which Sir Charles had ordered to be sent every week direct from the office. For a couple of days they rested from the fatigues of the journey, and then began to make the usual excursions. Gervase, as might have been expected, was early bitten by the fascinations of Monte Carlo, and took to running over by train most days to see the play. Madeline was extremely grateful to be rid of his company. Not that he was obtrusive in his attentions, for on the whole he was playing his part with great tact and circumspection. But she had learned to mistrust him and despise him. Hence, the less she saw of him the happier she felt. Time slipped away very pleasantly on the whole. Sir Charles did everything possible to make her visit to the Riviera an enjoyable one. Indeed, he played the part of prospective father-in-law with great skill, and now and then threw out a sly hint about her cruelty in not putting poor Gervase out of his misery. But Madeline was in no humour to take hints, and Sir Charles often turned away with a look of disappointment on his face. Beryl talked to Madeline one evening with tears in her eyes. "I'm sure Gervase spends more time in the Casino than he ought to do," she said, reproachfully; "and if he does, whose fault is it, Madeline?" "His own fault, I should say," she answered, sharply. "He's surely old enough to know what is good for himself?" "But people who are labouring under some great disappointment, or are tortured by some secret grief, sometimes gamble merely to forget their trouble." "Then they are very foolish." "You do not know, Madeline. You have never had any bitter disappointment. You have the world at your feet. You are an heiress, and will have millions when you come of age." "Is that so?" she asked, innocently. "Of course it is so!" she answered. "Why do you question me in that way? One might think you did not know how rich you are. But I do not think, for all that, your money gives you any right to treat Gervase badly." "Beryl!" Madeline said, indignantly. "Do you know what you are saying?" "I hope I am not rude, Madeline," was the quiet answer. "But Gervase is my brother, and I am very proud of him, and it cuts me to the heart to see him suffer." "I do not think he is suffering at all," Madeline replied. "Indeed, he seems in very good spirits." "That is all put on, Madeline, as you ought to know. Gervase is deeply, passionately attached to you. He came home from India hoping and expecting to marry you. He thought everything was settled. Cannot you imagine how hurt and humiliated he must feel?" "I do not see why. We were not engaged." "Not formally, perhaps, but it was your father's wish. We were all agreeable, because Gervase seemed devoted to you. You seemed wonderfully pleased with the idea when you first came to Trewinion; and, after all, it is no small thing to marry a man with Gervase's prospects." "Marriage is a serious thing, Beryl," Madeline said, gently. "When I met Gervase first I was only a school girl. I did not know my own mind. I own he attracted me greatly, and all the time he was away I cherished, and almost worshipped, an ideal----" "But surely Gervase has realised your ideal?" Beryl questioned. "He may not be as handsome as some men, but think how brave he is, how self-sacrificing, how devoted! He would almost lay down his life for you!" "I don't want any man to do that," Madeline said, quietly. "But surely such devotion as his is deserving of some recompense? He has waited patiently for you week after week, and month after month, and I am sure your coldness is driving him to the gaming-tables." "Would you have me marry him, Beryl, if I do not love him?" "Oh, you can love him well enough if you try, unless--unless----" "Unless what, Beryl?" "Oh, unless you have given way to some romantic nonsense about another man!" "What do you mean by that?" Madeline asked, raising her eyebrows slightly. "You know well enough what I mean, Madeline; so you need not pretend." "I am not pretending. Besides, it is not fair to fling out mere hints that may mean a great deal, or may mean nothing at all." "Oh, I am not blaming you very much. It was only natural, perhaps, that he should take your fancy for a moment." "That who should take my fancy?" "Why, the young man who saved your life, of course. You knew nothing about him, and there is no denying that he is very good-looking. But you have discovered his true character since." "I have, Beryl." "He pretended, too, to have made a discovery and induced, it is said, a number of people to lend him their savings, so that he might develop it, and now that is gone to smash. I pity the people he has swindled." "Who said it had gone to smash?" Madeline questioned eagerly. "It's in the St. Gaved _Express_ that came by post last evening." "Are you sure?" "Quite sure. There is quite a long paragraph about it. Besides, I heard father talking to mother about it last evening." "I wish I could see the paper. Where can I find it?" "I will run and fetch it for you if you like? But it is quite true, what I have told you." Beryl watched Madeline's face with great interest while she read, but it revealed nothing to her. Madeline was conscious that Beryl's eyes were upon her, and so held herself resolutely in check. Not for the world would she betray what she felt. The St. Gaved _Express_ was printed and published mainly in the interests of the landed and moneyed classes. Its politics were those of the people who held the shares. Its comments on local matters were coloured by its political views. Its snobbery was beyond dispute. Rufus Sterne received scant courtesy at its hands. He had been heard to say that he believed in the government of the people by the people, for the people. That was quite sufficient for the _Express_. Politically he was a dangerous character--a little Englander and a pro-foreigner. When it became known that Rufus had failed, that he had been forestalled with his invention, the _Express_ openly rejoiced. Such unpatriotic characters did not deserve to succeed. It hinted that there was a rough and ready justice in the world that dealt out to men the measure of their deserts--which, being interpreted, meant, that to those who had was given, and from those who had not was taken away even what they had. It further hinted its hope that the dupes of what was little less than a public fraud would do their duty to the public, to themselves, and to the ingenious young gentleman whose exposure was now pretty well complete. Madeline folded the paper without a word and handed it back to Beryl. "I should think you feel sorry now that you ever spoke to him," Beryl said, after a long pause. "There are many things we feel sorry for when it is too late," she answered, quietly, then turned and walked slowly out of the room. She had not thought much of Rufus for several weeks. She never expected to see him again. He had come into her life for a few months and passed out again, and the sooner she forgot him the better. But this story of his failure with the cutting comments and insinuations of the _Express_ called out her sympathies afresh, and in larger measure than ever. She did not think the less of him because he had not succeeded. He had not laboured at an invention that was useless. His failure was not due to the worthlessness of his idea, but simply to the fact that another man had got in before him. "Oh! I am sorry," she said to herself, when she got to her own room. "How terribly disappointed he will feel. It will seem as though everything is against him, and he had staked his all on the enterprise." Once or twice she was strongly tempted to sit down and write him a friendly letter of sympathy. But she could not summon up quite sufficient courage. If she had cared less for him she would have been less sensitive. Beryl had just told her that she had been carried away by a foolish and romantic attachment, or words to that effect, and it would never do to give colour and substance to the insinuation. She must keep her self-respect whatever happened. For several days Rufus was more frequently in her thoughts than was good for her peace of mind. She pictured his disappointment, his helplessness, his despair. She saw him in imagination wandering out on the cliffs alone, with knitted brows and troubled face. She wondered what he would do. She knew he had staked his all--though how much that "all" meant she never guessed--would it be possible for him to rise above this last calamity that had overtaken him, or would he go down in the general crash and ruin, and never be heard of again? He had ability, she knew, and energy and determination; but so had many another man who had absolutely failed. No man could do the impossible. Bricks could not be made without clay. Circumstances were sometimes stronger than the strongest. Rufus Sterne was not only penniless, but in debt. The money he had borrowed had gone with his own, and how was it possible in a sleepy little place like St. Gaved to retrieve his position? She wished she could help him. The beginning of his misfortunes seemed to be associated with her. His broken leg was entirely due to her adventurousness, while the loss of his reputation was the outcome of her friendliness to him. Try as she would she could never wholly dissociate herself from him. She was irretrievably mixed up with his success or failure. She did her best to appear cheerful and unconcerned before the Tregonys. Beryl informed her father that Madeline had seen the account in the paper of Sterne's failure, and had manifested not the slightest interest in the matter. "Did she say nothing at all?" Sir Charles questioned. "Scarcely a word." "And did you say nothing?" "I did suggest that I thought she would feel sorry now she had ever spoken to him." "And what did she reply?" "Oh, she just said, 'There are many things we feel sorry for when it is too late,' and walked out of the room." "She never saw him after the police court affair, I think." "I am sure she never did, father." "So that this will pretty well complete the disillusionment." "If she ever had any illusions." "I am afraid she had, Beryl, I'm afraid she had. That was a most unfortunate adventure on the cliffs--most unfortunate," and Sir Charles turned again to the paper he had been reading. Had the Tregonys been close observers they might have detected a forced and an unnatural note in Madeline's gaiety. She was mirthful at times when there appeared to be no sufficient reason for her mirth, and cheerful when the conditions were most depressing. When alone in her own room she generally paid the penalty. Frequently her spirits sank to zero. The desire to help Rufus Sterne was natural enough; but her helplessness drove her almost to despair. She could not even help herself. In a sense she was as much in the toils of circumstance as he was. She not only wondered what would become of him, but what would become of herself. The weeks were slipping away rapidly, and the Tregonys were beginning to talk about their return to England. The days were often almost insufferably warm, and the birds of passage that crowded the hotels were beginning to take flight to more Northern latitudes. Day after day she had hoped she might discover some way of effecting her deliverance, but no way revealed itself. She was without a friend outside the Tregony family, and yet to return with them to Trewinion Hall would be to put herself in a position as intolerable as it would be compromising. "What helpless things girls are," she would sometimes say to herself. "If I were only a man I could snap my fingers at everybody. But because I'm a girl I can just do nothing." She felt so miserable one morning that she refused everyone's company, and went out for a walk alone. Sir Charles was very cross when he knew, and he was still more cross when lunch time came and she did not return. As the afternoon wore away and she did not put in an appearance, his anger gave place to anxiety, and ultimately to very serious alarm. CHAPTER XXXI OLD FRIENDS "Well, I never! If this ain't the greatest surprise of the trip!" Madeline looked up with a start. She recognised the American accent, before she had any idea she was being spoken to. "Well, now, who _would_ have thought it? I regard this as a real streak of luck." "What, Kitty Harvey?" Madeline exclaimed, in a tone of eager surprise. "Oh, I am so glad!" And a moment later the two girls were embracing each other with a warmth and an effusiveness that would have done justice to an Oriental greeting. "I spied you from the other side of the way," Kitty Harvey said at length, tears of genuine pleasure shining in her eyes, "and I said to mamma, 'If that ain't Madeline Grover, then I'm the blindest coon that ever walked in shoe leather.'" "Is your mother here?" Madeline queried, eagerly. "We're all here, my dear, a regular family party, with sundry relations to keep things lively. But here comes the little mother, two hundred pounds of her, and as cheerful as ever." "But when did you come?" "Cast anchor this morning, my dear. That's our yacht out yonder, flying the stars and stripes." "What, that? I thought she was a transatlantic liner." "Well, I guess she is, or something nearly related to it. But you should talk to Dick; he knows her from stem to stern, and from the keel to the captain's bridge." "Then you are here on a yachting cruise?" "That's what we are here on just. In fact we've been two-thirds round this globe already." "And have you enjoyed it?" "Off and on. There are drawbacks to everything, but in the main it's been just great." Then Mrs. Harvey waddled up, panting, breathless, eager and happy. She almost smothered Madeline with kisses and talked incessantly between whiles. "Kitty said it was you, and I said it wasn't. But you have improved. You see my sight is not quite as good as it used to be." "Another of mother's compliments!" Kitty laughed. "It's nothing of the sort," Mrs. Harvey protested. "I meant what I said, but I really must get my glasses strengthened." "You must, mother. You really won't be able to recognise father at the rate you are going on." "And you are still Madeline Grover? I don't want to be inquisitive my dear, but we understood, you know, you were coming across to marry a title; was it a duke or a knight? I really get mixed up as to the order they stand in." "I'm not going to marry either," Madeline said, impulsively. "I'm going to remain as I am." "No-o?" from both mother and daughter. "It's the honest truth." "Well, with all your money you are independent of a title, my dear," Mrs. Harvey said, absently. "But I haven't any money," Madeline said, "except what my trustee allows me. But really, do you know for certain if I shall be well off when I come of age?" "Don't you know yourself?" "I really know nothing. Father never talked to me about money matters, and Sir Charles copies his example in that respect." "Then you had better come and talk to my husband. If there's anything about money he doesn't know, I should like to discover it." "I should like to see Mr. Harvey very much." "Then come back and have lunch with us on the _Skylark_. There's plenty of room, and you'll be as welcome as the President of the United States." "Oh, it would be just delightful," Madeline said, eagerly, "there's nothing I should enjoy so much." Madeline was almost bewildered at the size and magnificence of the _Skylark_. Mr. Harvey, having struck a copper lode a few years previously, found himself with more money than he knew profitably how to spend, and with more time on his hands than he knew wisely how to use. He built for himself a marble mansion in New York, and purchased one of the largest steam yachts that ever ploughed the seas, and was now doing his best to earn a night's repose by sight-seeing. Peter J. Harvey welcomed Madeline on board the _Skylark_ with many expressions of delight. He was a typical American, tall, square-shouldered, and not over-burdened with flesh. He had straight hair, which he wore rather long, a clean-shaven face, a wide mouth, a strong, square chin, and a most refreshing American accent. He was not exactly a vain man. At any rate, he did his best to keep his vanity under proper control, and if he boasted occasionally he believed he had something to boast of. He was still in the prime of life, being the right side of fifty by two or three years. Kitty was the eldest of six--three boys and three girls, the youngest, Bryant, having celebrated his seventh birthday two days before. Besides the family, there were numerous cousins and uncles and aunts, with others whose relationship to the Harveys was difficult to trace. The lunch was set out in the grand saloon, and was served in the best style. The stewards wore bottle-green coats trimmed with gold braid. Madeline, having got among old friends, talked with a freedom and an abandon that she had not known since she left her native land. The grace of reticence was a virtue the Harveys had never cultivated. It was their boast that they had nothing to hide. Hence they discussed their domestic and business affairs with a freedom that would have staggered an Englishman of the old school. Confidence begets confidence; and so in the seclusion of the yacht's library, with only Mr. and Mrs. Harvey and Kitty present, Madeline explained as far as she dared the peculiarities of her present situation. Peter J. rose to the situation at once. "My dear child," he said, "I guess there ain't no difficulty at all. I don't see none. It's just as easy as falling off a stool. There ain't no occasion for you to go back to their moth-eaten ancestral abode for five minutes. You just come along with us----" "You mean----" "I mean what I say," continued Peter J. "There's room for you in this small frigate and to spare, and there's a welcome as long as from here to the United States and back again." "It would be just delightful," Madeline said, with dilating eyes. "But----" "Then let it be delightful," Mr. Harvey interrupted. "I guess we'd be as delighted as you would be. What say you, Kitty?" "It would be just too fine for words," Kitty replied. "It would be like a Providence," Mrs. Harvey chimed in, "so we'll consider it settled." "But Sir Charles might object," Madeline said, with a half-frightened look in her eyes. "You leave his lordship to me, my dear," Peter J. interposed. "I guess I know my way about, and if he cuts up nasty, I'll treat him to a chapter out of the gospel of Peter J. Harvey." "But what excuse should I make?" "You needn't make any excuse at all. I'll go across and see the General myself and explain things." "But what would you say?" "That we had fallen across you accidentally; that we were old friends; that I knew your father; that you and Kitty were chums at school; that we are cruising round this here little arm of the ocean for a week or two longer; and that we are taking you along with us just to give you a taste of sea-faring life." "But he might not believe you." "Then I would bring him across here and let him see for himself and hear your own wishes out of your own mouth." "But he would not consent for me to be out of his sight for more than a day or two at the outside." "Then to avoid trouble and hard words we will mention a day or two--wind and weather permitting." "Oh! Mr. Harvey, if you could get me clean away from them without any unpleasantness, I should be more thankful than words can tell." "I'll do it, my dear. And when Peter J. Harvey says he'll do a thing, why, that thing is done. Now give me the location of this Lord Tregony." "Oh! he isn't a lord," Madeline laughed, "he's only a baronet." "Well, it's all the same to me. He wouldn't alarm me if he were your Attorney-General." "Don't you think I had better go back with you. I'm afraid they'll be getting alarmed at my long absence." "I thought you tumbled across a page-boy belonging to the hotel and sent word by him that you would not be back till evening." "I did send word that I would not be in to lunch. But those boys are so stupid that it's ten to one if he conveyed my message." "Don't you alarm yourself on that point," Peter J. said, cheerfully. "But if you think you can explain things better yourself, why we'll go along together. But mind you, we return together, even at the risk of an earthquake." "Let Kitty come as well," Madeline said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "All right, my dear. The more the merrier. I'll take the skipper and the crew if you think it might impress his lordship and make the way easier." "No, I think the three of us will be sufficient," Madeline said, with a laugh. "But no hint must be given that I'm to be absent more than two or three days. Sir Charles had made all arrangements to leave for Paris on Monday." "You leave that to P. J. H., my dear. If I'm not quite a full-blown diplomat it's only for want of opportunity. Now let us be off. If Lord Charles What's-his-other-name don't yield without a murmur, I shall be surprised." Half-an-hour later they were walking up the steps of the hotel. Sir Charles was in the lounge, with a cigar in his mouth and his eyes towards the door. He was feeling much more anxious than he cared to admit. Gervase had gone by an early train to Monte Carlo and had not returned. Lady Tregony and Beryl were in their bedrooms. Sir Charles sprang to his feet and heaved a big sigh of relief when the swing door was pushed open, and Madeline entered, radiant and smiling, followed by Kitty Harvey and her father. "My dear Madeline," he said, reproachfully, "you have given us a fright. We have been looking for you everywhere." "Oh! I am sorry," she answered. "But I told one of the page-boys I met outside to tell you I was going to lunch with some friends." "No such message was brought to me," he answered, severely. "It would have been better if you had left word at the office." "I am sorry if I have caused you any anxiety," she answered, quietly. "But I met some American friends on the promenade, and have been with them on their yacht to lunch." At the word yacht Sir Charles pricked up his ears, and a somewhat mollified expression stole over his face. "Allow me to introduce my friend Miss Kitty Harvey," Madeline said, in her most engaging manner, "and this is her father, Mr. P. J. Harvey, of New York City, and a friend of my father's." Sir Charles bowed very pompously, and muttered something under his breath about being delighted to meet them. Peter J. had said nothing up to this point, but stood in the background--as a modest man should--chewing the end of a cigar. "I can assure you, Colonel, the pleasure is reciprocated," he said, in his slowest manner, and with a twinkle in the corner of his eye. "The truth is my daughter and I have come along as a sort of deputation." "Indeed! Will you not be seated?" "Well, thank you. As it's as cheap to sit as to stand, and talking comes easier as a rule when you are sitting down, I guess I'll fall in with the suggestion." Sir Charles waited for Mr. Harvey to proceed. Madeline and Kitty sat on a lounge side by side, the former feeling very uncomfortable. She saw in a moment that Sir Charles did not like the American's free and easy ways, and Mr. Harvey was dimly conscious of the same truth. "Not to waste words over the business," Peter J. went on, "we want to take Miss Grover just for a little run on our steamer, and we came across to ask your consent. These formalities are considered proper I believe, and we fall in with them. Though as a citizen of the United States I presume the lady can just do as she likes." "Well, no!" Sir Charles replied, pompously. "Miss Grover is my ward till she comes of age. At any rate, it amounts to that----" "Of course I am, Sir Charles," Madeline interposed. "But we are not going to talk law or gospel, are we? Mr. Harvey has asked me to go for a little run on his yacht, and I really want to go ever so much!" "But we leave here for Paris on Monday, Madeline. I fear there is no time." Peter J. puckered his face into a knowing smile. "According to my calculations," he said, "Monday is five days off. We could almost circumnavigate this little arm of the ocean in that time. But we are talking of a run of a couple of days more or less." "It seems hardly worth the trouble, does it, Madeline?" Sir Charles questioned, in a bored tone. "Oh! quite worth it, Sir Charles. Think how lovely the sea is, and how beautifully calm, and then you know Mr. Harvey's yacht is as big as an ocean steamer. In a couple of days we could go to Naples and back, and wouldn't it be lovely to see Naples!" "Naples is an interesting place, no doubt. But the weather is getting warm--hot, I may say." "But we need not land unless we like," Mr. Harvey interposed. "Of course----" Sir Charles began, hesitatingly. "Then that is settled, my dears," Peter J. interrupted. "I knew his lordship would not deprive you of a pleasure if you desired it very much. Now, you girls, run away and put a few things in a bonnet-box, sufficient for a forty-eight hours' trip. Perhaps, when we return, your excellency will so far honour us as to come on board and dine with us." "Thank you, it is very kind of you." "Not at all. I believe in showing hospitality when it is in my power to do so. Would you mind trying one of my cigars? I think you will find the flavour excellent." Sir Charles hesitated for a moment, then took the proffered weed and proceeded to cut the end off with a penknife. Meanwhile Madeline and Kitty had rushed off to Madeline's room and began packing boxes with all possible speed. "Rather large bonnet boxes, eh, Madeline?" Kitty questioned, with a laugh. "Do you know, I feel like a burglar," Madeline answered. "I never was a burglar," was the reply, "so I don't know what it feels like to be one." "Everything will be terribly crushed," Madeline went on, "but I can't help it. Will you ring for the porter, Kitty?" "All right, my dear, and I will drive off with the baggage while you and father are paying your adieux to the Baronet. If he were to see you going off with all these boxes he might scent mischief." "How clever you are, Kitty," Madeline said, with a laugh. "That idea is just lovely. But will you lock these boxes, my hands are shaking so I can hardly hold the keys." "Why, we might be escaping from a robbers' castle. What is the use of getting so excited?" "I can't help it, Kitty. I've been looking round for weeks and weeks for some way of getting out of a most uncomfortable position, and you cannot imagine how helpless I have felt. And now I feel--oh, I can't tell you what I feel--but here's the porter." Madeline went down to the office and explained matters, and saw Kitty drive away with her luggage. Then she returned to the lounge, where Sir Charles, looking very bored, was listening to a long account of how Peter J. Harvey made his pile in copper. On catching sight of Madeline, Peter J. brought his story to an abrupt conclusion and rose slowly to his feet. "Need I disturb Lady Tregony and Beryl, do you think?" Madeline inquired, innocently, looking Sir Charles straight in the eyes. "As you think best, Madeline," Sir Charles replied, blandly. "I sent up word to them that you had returned safe and sound." "Then very likely they will be taking their afternoon nap now?" "That is very probable." "Should I awake them, do you think?" "If you were going away for a week I should say yes, certainly. But if you like I will explain your absence till Friday." "That will be best, I think." Then, turning to Mr. Harvey, she said: "Now I am ready. Kitty has gone on ahead, and has taken my few things along with her." "I guess Kitty has some shopping to do on the way. That child is never happy unless she is spending money," and Mr. Harvey smiled, innocently. "You will explain to Gervase, won't you, Sir Charles?" Madeline said, with one of her sweetest smiles. "It is unfortunate he did not come home to lunch. I am sure he would have liked to have seen over Mr. Harvey's yacht." "We shall probably accept Mr. Harvey's invitation to dinner on your return," Sir Charles said, pompously. "Of course you will, Colonel, of course you will," Peter J. said, with a drawl. "I never take a refusal from my friends without a very good reason." "It is good of you to let me go, Sir Charles," Madeline said, reaching out her hand to say good-bye. "But I am sure I shall enjoy myself immensely. You see, I have known Mr. and Mrs. Harvey and Kitty nearly ever since I can remember, and then, I'm tremendously fond of the sea." Sir Charles came with them to the door of the hotel and saw them into a carriage, then returned to the lounge and to his cigar. Madeline could almost have screamed with delight when she found herself once more on the _Skylark_. "At last I am free," she said to herself, "and when Sir Charles sees me again I shall be my own mistress." Half-an-hour later the _Skylark_ weighed anchor and put out to sea. CHAPTER XXXII FACING THE INEVITABLE When Saturday morning arrived and the _Skylark_ had not been sighted, Sir Charles began to grow suspicious. An hour or two later his worst fears were confirmed. A letter was handed to him in Madeline's handwriting. The postmark, he noticed, was Genoa. He could hardly keep his hand steady while he tore open the envelope, and when he began to read his face grew ashen. The letter was brief and quite explicit. She had no intention, she said, of returning again to Nice or to Cornwall. She was going back to America with the Harveys. For many things she was sorry she ever left it. She had been unhappy for months past--ever since the return of Gervase, in fact. To become his wife was simply impossible. She expressed her regret for any pain or annoyance she had caused, and her thanks for all kindnesses she had received. She regarded the appearance of the Harveys on the scene as an interposition of Providence, and her escape from an intolerable position as a direct answer to prayer. Sir Charles had not got over the anger and disgust produced by this frank epistle when Gervase came hurriedly into the room, with blanched cheeks and a wild light in his eyes. "Do you know that Madeline has given us the slip?" he said, in a hoarse whisper. "Have you heard from her also?" "Then you know?" he questioned, with a gasp. "What has she said to you? Let me see her letter." Sir Charles handed him Madeline's letter without a word. Gervase read it carefully, and then handed it back with a little sigh of relief. She had not told his father what she had told him, and for that mercy he was supremely grateful. For several moments the two men looked at each other in silence. Neither had the courage to blame the other, and yet neither was disposed to take the blame himself. Gervase was convinced that his father played the game badly at the beginning, but he had played it worse at the end. Hence it was bad policy to fling stones while he lived in a glass-house himself. A similar train of thought wound its way slowly through Sir Charles's brain. From his point of view Gervase had played the fool again and again, though he saw now that the waiting policy he had advocated was a huge mistake. So while he was inclined to throw the principal share of blame on to Gervase's shoulders, he was bound to take a share himself. "I suppose we may conclude," Gervase said, at length, in a lugubrious tone, "that the game is up." "I'm afraid it is," Sir Charles answered, with suppressed emotion. "It's a beastly shame, for I've been counting on her fortune for years past." "It's an awful miss. Her fortune would have set the Tregonys on their feet." "It's no use trying to get her back, I suppose?" "Do you think you could yet persuade her to marry you?" Gervase blushed, and walked to the window and looked out into the courtyard. "Girls are such curious things," he muttered, evasively. "You never know when you have them." "I can't help thinking you played your cards badly, Gervase. She seemed to idolise you when she came to Trewinion, and looked forward so eagerly to your return." "The mistake was in not marrying her right off when we met at Washington. She would have said 'yes' like a shot, for she was awfully gone on me. She adored soldiers at that time, and regarded me as a hero." Sir Charles heaved a sigh and remained silent for several moments. "Would you mind letting me see her letter to you?" he questioned, at length. "Sorry, father, but--but--I've destroyed it," he blurted out, awkwardly. This was not the truth, but he wouldn't for the world that his father should read what she said to him. "Destroyed it? What did you do that for?" Sir Charles asked, suspiciously. "I was just mad and hardly knew what I was doing. It seemed the only way I could give vent to my anger. I tore it into millions of bits." "What reasons did she give for her outrageous conduct?" "Well, in some respects it was an awfully nice letter she wrote. She said she admired me as a friend immensely. But she didn't love me as she felt she ought to do, which made her unhappy, and so she thought it best to go away without any fuss, and all that, don't you know." "And do you believe she still admires you?" "Why, of course I do. She said so, in fact. I wish I hadn't destroyed her letter. There were some awfully nice sentiments in it, I can assure you." "Then why were you so angry?" "Why, because I saw I was up a tree. When a girl you want to marry talks about being a sister to you, and all that, don't you know, it makes one angrier than anything." "Well, yes, I suppose it does. I'm terribly disappointed, Madeline was a chance in a lifetime." "But rather smacked of trade, don't you think? You know very well if she'd been an English girl, you wouldn't have considered her for a moment." "That may be. But since even dukes marry tradesmen's daughters--provided, of course, they hail from across the water--there was no reason why we should turn up our noses." "I'm too poverty-stricken to turn up my nose at anything. I'd marry a barmaid if she only had sufficient of the needful." "Don't talk nonsense, Gervase, I thought you were really fond of Madeline, apart from her money." "So I am. She's awfully pretty, there's no denying that. But I'm too old to break my heart over any woman. It's the tin--or the lack of it--that is troubling me." "You'll have to curtail your expenses, Gervase; there's nothing else for it. I cannot possibly increase your allowance. The fact is, we shall have to economise all round." "I'm always economising," was the angry retort. "It's been pinch and grind ever since I was born." "That's not my fault, my boy. I'm getting the biggest rents I can possibly squeeze out of the tenants as it is, and there's no chance of things mending unless we can get Protection." "And that we may whistle for." "Why so?" "Because the people have got educated. An awful mistake, I say, to educate the working classes. An ignorant proletariat you may hoodwink and bamboozle to your heart's content; but no enlightened community is going to consent to have its bread taxed for the benefit of the landowners." "The people will have to be shown it's for their benefit. That's the game to play." "No doubt. But it will take a mighty clever man to prove even to a public-house loafer that the dearer things are made, the better off he will be." "But you must not forget that there are some very clever men at work." "They are not clever enough for that." "You don't know. They have undertaken more difficult tasks and succeeded. Think of South Africa!" "I'd rather not. It won't bear thinking about." "Nevertheless, it shows what can be done. The masses of the people are more easily persuaded than you think. Education, you must remember, is not sense. Hit upon a popular cry, and the rest is easy." "But no country can be gulled twice in so short a period. No, dad, our fortunes are not to be mended along those lines." "I am not so sure. A good stirring appeal to patriotism will work wonders still. 'England for the English----'" "England for the English landlords, you mean, for that's what it comes to in the end." "No doubt it does. But while a few people own the land it is well that the masses should think that England belongs to them." "But do they think that England belongs to them?" "Of course they do. There isn't a man-jack among them that will not talk big about defending his country and dying for his country, when he doesn't possess a foot of it, and hasn't money enough to buy a grave to be buried in." "Well, dad, I sincerely trust that your hopes will be realised, and that England will consent to be gulled again for the benefit of a few. Good heavens! if I'd only been an army contractor instead of a soldier, I should have made my fortune." "Your only hope of a fortune, Gervase, is by marrying one," and Sir Charles put Madeline's letter into his pocket and walked out of the room. For the rest of the day Gervase loitered about alone. He was much more troubled than he let his father see. Madeline had accused him of treachery to Rufus Sterne, and had hinted in words too plain to be misunderstood that she had proof that he bribed Tim Polgarrow to commit perjury. If Madeline, therefore, had discovered this, how did he know that other people had not made the same discovery? He felt that he could not return to St. Gaved again until he knew. If Tim had let the secret out, his best course would be to keep out of sight until the storm had blown over, and people had forgotten the incident. So it came about that Sir Charles and the others returned without him. Gervase promised to follow in a week or two at the outside. But a run of luck at Monte Carlo kept him a slave at the Casino. This was followed by a run of bad luck during which he lost all he had won. Then he remained on, trying to recover his lost position, and in the end he had to cable to his father for a remittance to bring him home. Gervase had not been at Trewinion many days before the truth about Madeline began to leak out. Sir Charles had been too chagrined to give the smallest hint as to her whereabouts, or even to mention her name if it could be avoided, and Beryl and Lady Tregony took their cue from him. But Gervase, discovering that he was still in good odour among the people, and that the secret Madeline had discovered appeared to be known to no one else, concluded that nothing was to be gained by a policy of silence. He need not tell all the truth; in fact, he could put his own gloss on the facts as they stood, and so it began to be whispered about that Miss Grover had decided on visiting her friends in America before finally settling in England. Rufus Sterne heard the story from Mrs. Tuke with apparent unconcern. He argued quite naturally that it was a matter of supreme indifference to him whether she went to America or remained in England. His life--by fair means or by foul--was drawing to its inevitable close. There was some sense of satisfaction in the thought that she was not Gervase Tregony's wife. She deserved a better fate than that. He hoped she had discovered his true character and that among her own people in her own country she would find all the happiness she deserved; and with these reflections he tried to put her out of his mind. His thoughts in the main were intent upon the tragedy that was daily drawing nearer. His daily hope and prayer was that God would release him from the burden of life, and so save him from the guilt and shame of dying by his own hand. Failing this, he had no doubt as to how the final act would be brought about. Much as he shrank from the disgrace of dying in the manner contemplated, he shrank more from the disgrace of living, should his courage fail him. To face his ruined friend, his broken pledge, his tarnished honour, would be death repeated every day, and every hour of the day. He was not a little surprised to find, as the days and weeks passed swiftly away, how without effort and without volition his mind fastened itself upon the dominant truths of Christianity. He gave up reading. He still absented himself from church and chapel. But bit by bit the rags of his materialistic philosophy dropped from him, while the simple truths of the gospel possessed him and obsessed him, until he felt that only here was life in any true sense to be found. The philosophisings and hair-splittings of theologians did not concern him. The elaborate edifices built up by the creed-makers possessed for him no interest at all. But the warm sympathy of the Son of Man, the tender influence of the universal Spirit, the growing consciousness of a supreme Ruler, the clearing vision of a life beyond--these things seemed as parts of his being, the stuff out of which his life was woven. He wondered now that his youthful revolt from the narrow creed of his grandfather should have carried him so far; wondered that he had not earlier seen that human creeds must of necessity be ever too narrow to represent the Divine idea; wondered that he had not seen the obvious truth that ecclesiasticism may bear but a faint resemblance to Christianity, and that "the Church," so called, may form but a very small portion of the Kingdom of God. But it was all clear enough to him now. He had cast away what he fancied was only husk, not knowing that the kernel of truth was within. He had tried to wrap his naked spirit in something thinner than a shadow, had sought to choke the soul's deepest instinct in the quagmire of a Godless philosophy, and had prated about happiness, while steeping his senses in the fumes of a deadly narcotic. What lay beyond he did not know. But he had a fancy that the great universal Heart of Love would give him a chance under better conditions, and that at worst it would be better than the awful torture of the last few months. He was not afraid, and he was becoming again so terribly weary that the thought of rest was infinitely sweet. There was very little he had to give up. No home ties bound him to earth, no arms of wife or children hung about his neck. His ambitions had been nipped by the frosts of disappointment, and were now dead. His love for Madeline Grover--which had been the strongest and purest passion of his life--was hopeless from the first. It was only existence amid familiar surroundings that he had to part with--only existence! And yet how much that meant to him, even in the darkest hours, no words could tell. The passion for life nothing could kill, and that seemed to him one of the strong arguments in proof of immortality. One afternoon, in his little office, he fell down in a dead faint, and remained unconscious for several hours. The long summer day was fading into twilight when he opened his eyes, and saw the familiar face of Dr. Pendarvis bending over him. "Have I been ill?" he asked, looking round the room with wondering eyes. "You've had a slight heat stroke, I think, but you needn't be alarmed." "I'm not in the least alarmed," he said, with a pathetic smile; "but I hate giving Mrs. Tuke so much trouble." "You've been overworking yourself rather. I've seen it for months past. When you are a little recovered, I'll give you a complete overhauling," and he smiled cheerfully. "Then you think I shall recover?" "Of course you will recover. But, meanwhile, keep quite still, and don't worry." Rufus hoped for a day or two that his illness would take a fatal turn. He wanted so much to die quietly at home in bed; it would be such a perfect solution of the whole difficulty. But it was not to be. In a few days he was up and about again. "You want toning up," the doctor said to him. "There is really nothing the matter with you except that you are run down. Take more exercise, get a sea bath two or three times a week, and be careful what you eat." Rufus told Mrs. Tuke and Captain Tom Hendy what the doctor had prescribed, and proceeded at once to carry out his orders. But no one knew the thought that was in his mind. Some day he would not return from his short swim in the sea, and then he would be at rest. It would be very easy, and almost as natural as dying at home in bed. The weather was brilliantly fine. The yellow corn was falling before the sickle in all directions, the sea danced and shimmered in the sunshine, the flowers drooped in the windless heat. To all appearances Rufus was recovering his health and spirits. He told Mrs. Tuke that he enjoyed his morning bath. His appetite seemed better than it had been for weeks past, and once or twice she heard him humming a hymn tune after he had gone upstairs to bed. "I'm glad I stood by him," Mrs. Tuke reflected, with a smile of self-satisfaction, "for I believe he is coming back to the fold again." One evening Rufus sat up very late. He had gone through his papers again to see that everything was in order, and now he sat staring at the clock on the mantelpiece, and listening to its solemn and regular tick. "To-morrow will be just as good as next week," he said to himself. "As it must come, better it should come quickly. I could have done it this morning easily enough, and I don't think it will be at all painful. So let it be then," he added, rising to his feet. "The next time I go into the sea I do not return," and he put the lights out, and climbed slowly and silently to his bedroom. Before undressing he knelt down and prayed. He asked for strength and pardon, and a just and merciful judgment. He felt like a child when he rose from his knees, and a few minutes after he laid his head on the pillow he was fast asleep. CHAPTER XXXIII WAS IT PROVIDENCE? When Rufus awoke next morning, the wind was blowing half a gale, and the rain was coming down in torrents. "This puts an end to my morning bath," he said to himself, with a faint sigh. "I can have no excuse for going into the sea on a day like this," and he sighed again. He was not quite sure that he welcomed the respite. "Since it must be," he kept saying to himself, "the sooner the better." Mrs. Tuke greeted him with a sorrowful face. "What a pity the weather's broke before all the harvest is got in," she said. "It does seem a pity," he answered, quietly. "The ways of Providence is past finding out," she replied; "though no doubt it's for some good end." "Do you really think that Providence regulates the weather, Mrs. Tuke?" he questioned, with a smile. "Why, of course I do," she answered, in a tone of reproach. "Providence over-rules everything, and not a sparrow falls to the ground without the notice of His eye," and she walked out of the room without waiting for him to answer. Mrs. Tuke's theology was a puzzle to him still, but all the time he sat at breakfast the word "Providence" kept echoing through the chambers of his brain. What was Providence? How far did God interfere with the operation of His own laws? Did He sometimes reach out a controlling hand? Did He cause events to work together for a special end? That day at the mine seemed one of the longest he had known. The wind moaned through every crevice of door and window, the rain came down unceasingly. Evening came, but there was no chance of a swim in the sea. He would have to wait until the morrow or the day following. Whatever he did, he would have to avoid awaking suspicion. Several times during the night he awoke and listened. The wind was still swishing through the trees, and the patter of rain could be distinctly heard against the window. "If Mrs. Tuke knew," he said to himself, "she would say Providence was interposing to prevent me putting an end to my useless life." He lay in bed an hour longer than he would have done had the weather been fine. "It is of no use getting up till breakfast-time," he reflected. He heard the postman's rat-tat-tat while he was dressing, and wondered if there were any letters for him. He came slowly and listlessly down the stairs. Another day of weariness and mental distress stretched out before him. "I am only prolonging the agony," he said to himself, as he took his lonely seat at the head of the table. Then his eye rested on a large envelope by the side of his place, with a blue stamp in the corner. He was alert in a moment. "An American letter," he said, half aloud, and his thoughts flew off to Madeline Grover unconsciously. The address, however, was in a man's handwriting--there could be no doubt about that. He tore open the envelope quickly and mechanically, and turned to the signature at the end of the letter. "Seaward and Graythorne," he read, and a look of perplexity came into his eyes. He opened out the letter, and an enclosure fluttered on to his plate. He picked it up and stared. "There must be some mistake," he said with a gasp, and he drew his hand across his eyes as though to remove some dimness that had gathered. Yet, there was his own name clear and distinct enough. "Pay to the order of Mr. Rufus Sterne the sum of five thousand dollars." "Five thousand dollars," he muttered. "Why, that is a thousand pounds--a thousand pounds. I must be dreaming surely." He turned to the letter at length, and began to read. Slowly, as he waded his way through the legal jargon, the truth began to dawn upon him. It had to do with the property his father had accumulated. Some Judge Cowley, of the Supreme Court of somewhere, had authorised a distribution, and the enclosed was the sum paid on account. That was about all he could make out. But why a firm of solicitors in New York should be acting in a case of disputed property somewhere out in Pennsylvania, was a problem he could not understand. He was in no mood, however, to worry himself over legal subtleties. The great outstanding fact--the fact that dominated all others--was that he was in possession of a thousand pounds. The revulsion of feeling was so great that for a moment or two it seemed to unman him. The cords that had been strung up so long to the very highest point of tension were suddenly relaxed. The hard stoicism with which he had fortified himself, melted like wax in the flame of a candle. The dull numbness of despair, which was rendering him indifferent to life, vanished like mist before the summer sun. The joy of hope, the dream of love, the fire of ambition, were all kindled afresh as by an electric spark. The wailing wind, instead of sobbing began to sing. The moaning ocean commenced to laugh and rejoice. The rain-drops were tears of joy that Nature shed. Light and love, and beauty and delight were everywhere. His breakfast remained untouched. He was quite unconscious of the fact until Mrs. Tuke came into the room. "Why, you haven't tasted your breakfast," she said, lifting her eyes and hands in astonishment. "Haven't I?" he said, with a smile. "And your bacon is quite cold." "I forgot all about it, Mrs. Tuke." "And your tea is like ditch-water." "I'm very sorry." "It's like throwing money away." "Oh, never mind." "But I do mind, I hate wastefulness, especially in young people." "Well, forgive me this time. I've had a surprise." "Oh, indeed! A pleasant surprise, I hope. You've had enough of the other sort." "A very pleasant surprise. Now, brew me a fresh pot of tea and warm up the bacon. I really feel as if I had got an appetite." "Well, it's time you had. You've been wasting to a shadow the last six months," and Mrs. Tuke hurried out of the room. Rufus laughed aloud when she was gone. He felt he would either have to laugh or cry. "If only granny were here I should hug her," he said to himself. "I feel so buoyant that I could almost hug Mrs. Tuke." The wind was still blowing strong from the west as he made his way over the hill to the mine, but its voice was like a song in his ears. The rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark with clouds; but all the landscape seemed flooded with golden sunshine. His nerves were tingling with a new joy, his eyes sparkling with an unwonted fire. He was glad to be alive again, glad to feel the wind of heaven upon his face. How wearily he had dragged his steps over the hill morning by morning; how dull and continuous had been the pain at his heart! Now all sense of weariness was gone; he seemed to tread on air; his heart was light and buoyant, and all the pain had passed away. He paused a moment where he paused a year before to look at a patch of green lawn that sloped away from Trewinion Hall. A vision of Madeline Grover came back to him for a second and vanished. "If it be God's will," he said to himself, reverently, and with a smile upon his face he continued his way. During the dinner hour he lodged the precious draft in the bank, and then hurried back to the mine again. In a day or two he got word that the draft was quite in order, and had been duly honoured. With that message vanished his last fear, for he had dreamed the previous night that the whole thing was a hoax and the draft not worth the paper on which it was printed. His first act was to pay back Felix Muller what he owed him with interest. This he did by cheque. "I cannot see him," he said to himself. "He would pour ridicule on my beliefs, and laugh my new-found faith to scorn. Moreover, I am not sure that he will be grateful, and I would not like my faith in him to be totally destroyed." Saturday, being half-holiday, he made his way to Tregannon, to see his grandparents and tell them the news. The old folks were greatly excited, and the Rev. Reuben hunted up all the papers and correspondence dealing with his son's property. The names of Seaward and Graythorne did not appear, however, in any of the documents; nor was the name of Judge Cowley ever mentioned. "I do not understand it at all," the old man said in his most solemn tones. "But then what can you expect in a new country like America? Everything appears to be haphazard and go-as-you-like." "Haphazard or no," Rufus replied, "the property has not been all eaten up by the lawyers." "Well, yes," the old gentleman said, reflectively, "there would appear after all, to be some sense of honesty and justice in the country. But why don't you take a journey across and look after things for yourself?" Rufus gave a little start, and looked at his grandfather with a questioning light in his eyes. "I mean it," the old man said, quietly. "If I were a few years younger nothing would please me better." "It had never occurred to me," Rufus replied, slowly and thoughtfully. "Then think about it. You can travel cheaply in these days; besides, you may be able to pick up ideas." "Yes, that is true," he answered, reflectively. "At any rate it is worth considering." For the rest of the evening Rufus thought of little else. Conversation ranged over a dozen topics, but he heard scarcely half of what was said. Constantly his thoughts harked back to his grandfather's suggestion, and his eyes caught a far-away expression. "I think you are tired," his granny said to him at length, and she looked at him with a quizzical smile on her wrinkled face. "I am a little." "Will you remain while we have prayers?" she questioned, hesitatingly. "Yes granny. I would like to hear grandfather pray again." They both started, and looked at him and then at each other, but neither made any remark. The chapter the old man read was a long one, and the prayer was longer still, but Rufus showed no sign of weariness. In fact, the little granny's quick ears fancied they heard a whispered "Amen" when the prayer ended. Rufus rose slowly from his knees with a serene look upon his handsome face. "My dear boy, we have never ceased praying for you," his granny said, placing her thin hands upon his strong shoulders and looking up into his face. "I hope you will continue to pray for me," he answered, quietly. "I shall need all your prayers." "Rufus?" the old man said, in a questioning tone, and he turned suddenly and looked into his grandson's eyes. Rufus felt that, having said so much, he was bound to say more. "No, grandfather," he answered, quietly; "you must not claim me as a returning prodigal. Your creed is as far beyond me as ever. But--I think--I think I have found the Christ." Instantly the old man's arms were about his neck, and, raising his face, he laughed aloud. "It is enough," he said, exultantly. "It is enough! To God be all the praise." The ice being broken, conversation flowed in a deeper channel, and when the Rev. Reuben laid his head upon his pillow that night, it was with a kindlier feeling in his heart for those who doubted, and with a larger charity for those who preached a broader creed. "It is very strange," he mused, "that my preaching should have driven the lad to doubt, while the preaching of my successor should have helped him back to faith." On the following morning Rufus went with the old people to chapel. The place seemed very cool and restful after the glare of the sunshine outside, and while the familiar hymns were being sung he felt like a boy again. Marshall Brook took for his text: "Are ye not better than many sparrows?" It was a quiet, thoughtful, searching sermon, without dogmatism and with no trace of declamation. The care of the Great Father for His children, the doctrine of a Divine Providence, was unfolded carefully, lucidly, reasonably. There was no attempt to ignore difficulties or to give scientific objections the go-by. Providence was not in conflict with the operations of nature. Providence worked on parallel lines. The universal Spirit was ever moving upon the hearts of men, suggesting, inspiring, renewing. "I am hungry and in need," said the preacher, "and someone is moved to bring me help. Why did he think of me at all? Who put the impulse into his heart? Ordinarily, it may be, he is not a generous man; yet he trampled down his selfishness, and came to my succour when I needed it most. "Was it a miracle? Not in the ordinary sense, and yet in truth it was a miracle. To me it was the interposition of God's Providence. God saw my need and sent His help." Rufus did not hear the end of the sermon. He was thinking of his own case. Help came to him when he needed it most. He had prayed for death, prayed that he might be saved from an act which was unworthy of any true man. And in the very nick of time salvation came. Was it a mere accident, a stroke of luck, a fortunate turn in the wheel of chance? Or was it Providence, an impulse or an inspiration from the all-pervading Spirit? His faith was but a tender plant as yet, and it would need much watchfulness and care if it was to grow. He was brought back from his reflections by the announcement of Cowper's well-known hymn: God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm. Rufus stood up with the rest and tried to sing, but a lump rose in his throat constantly and threatened to choke him. It seemed as if every line met his case and expressed some experience of his own: Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His work in vain: God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain. The congregation sang on with deep feeling and emotion. Most of them had known trouble. Many had experienced the joy of deliverance. And the tune was one that seemed exactly to suit the words: His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. How wonderfully true and apposite it all was! More than once he swept his hand across his eyes to remove the mist that had gathered. Surely God had led him to that little chapel that morning. He knelt with the rest when the benediction was pronounced, and breathed an audible "Amen" at the close. Marshall Brook walked home with him and remained to dinner and to afternoon tea. But they did not spend the time in discussing knotty theological problems; their talk ran on the strange happenings and experiences of life. After the evening's service Rufus walked all the way back to St. Gaved, so that he might be in time for his work on the following morning. The way did not seem a bit long. He had so much to think about, so much to dream about, so much to be grateful for and to rejoice in, that the old church tower loomed into sight before he knew he had covered half the distance. He astonished Captain Tom next morning by throwing up his post. "You really don't mean it?" was the incredulous reply. "I do. I am going to America, and the sooner you can let me off the better I shall be pleased." And he told Captain Tom some of the things that had happened. "You are in the right of it, sonny," was the reply. "Yes, you are in the right," and he laughed, good-humouredly. "And, mark my words, we shall see some time what we shall see." "No doubt about that," Rufus answered, with a smile. "I'm glad you think so. Yes, some time we shall see what we shall see," and he laughed again. "But,"--and he took off his hat and scratched his head, "my stars! but won't it be just----Well, well, we'll wait and see. You have my best wishes, sonny, and my blessing." On the following Saturday but one, Rufus sailed for New York. CHAPTER XXXIV DISCOVERIES On reaching New York Rufus made his way at once to the office of Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne. He discovered that Mr. Seaward had been dead a dozen years and that Mr. Graythorne was a man well advanced in life. Mr. Graythorne received him without enthusiasm, and with some slight evidence of embarrassment, and during the time they talked he appeared to be preoccupied and more or less distraught. Rufus wondered if this was some new type of American that he had not heard of, or whether it was merely professional dignity. He had to drag everything out of him, and what he did say appeared to be capable of divers interpretations. Rufus wanted facts about his father's property--why the litigation had continued so long, what was the nature of the claims that had to be considered, in what court or courts the litigants were heard, and on what principle the distribution of funds had been made. But to none of these questions could he get an intelligible answer. Mr. Graythorne talked vaguely and ponderously. He enlarged on American law in general, pointed out how different methods obtained in different States, showed how the interests of clients were safeguarded by the judges of the supreme courts, and how the wastefulness of English Chancery cases was avoided by the simpler American methods. But all this failed to touch the real point at issue. Rufus became pertinacious, and Mr. Graythorne somewhat restive. In the end the lawyer had to admit that he knew little about the matter. It was a very old case, and his partner, Mr. Seaward, had been dead a dozen years. A hint was given that Mr. Seaward had the case in hand at the beginning, but at present the case was entirely in the hands of the judge. The claims were disposed of as they rose; in time they would all be disposed of. He (Mr. Graythorne) had been commissioned to forward five thousand dollars, which he had done. If he received any similar commission he would execute it with the greatest pleasure. Rufus left the lawyer's office feeling not a little perplexed, and ten minutes later Mr. Graythorne descended to the street with a look of annoyance on his face. Getting on to the elevated railway, he was soon speeding in the direction of Central Park. Alighting at length, he made his way slowly along a quiet street for some considerable distance, paused for a moment in front of a house that had no distinguishing features, then ran lightly up the steps and rang the door bell. He was ushered by a maid-servant into a comfortably but modestly furnished room, where he flung himself into an easy chair and waited. In a few seconds a light step sounded outside; the door was pushed quickly open, and Madeline Grover came smiling and radiant into the room. The old lawyer rose slowly, and his face relaxed. "This is an unexpected pleasure," she said, brightly. "Have you been hearing again from Sir Charles?" "Not a word. It's the other man we have to deal with now." "What other man?" "Why the man I sent the money to, of course." "Well, what of him?" "He's in New York, and has nearly worried the life out of me this morning!" "In New York!" and the hot blood rushed suddenly to her neck and face. "In New York! And if he don't clear out soon there'll be complications!" "Why has he come?" "To look after his property, of course. Are you surprised?" "I am a little. It never occurred to me that he might come to America." "Well, he has come, and the question is whether you are going to make--well, a clean breast of it, or allow him to ferret it out himself?" "Oh! he must not know for the world!" she said, in a tone of alarm. "He's bound to get to know sooner or later that somebody has made him a present of five thousand dollars----" "No, it is only a loan," she interrupted, quickly. Mr. Graythorne laughed. "A loan that was never to be paid, eh? A loan by an anonymous lender? Well, what's in a name? Call it a loan if the word pleases you better." "But you know what I mean. Some day, of course,--years and years hence, when nothing matters"--and she blushed uncomfortably; "but just now nothing need be said or even hinted----" "I understand," he said, with a twitching of the lips. "You know very well that he has property out West somewhere, which he is bound to come into possession of soon, and it seemed a pity that he should starve and perhaps die while waiting for it." "Well, yes; the motive does you credit." "You ascertained beforehand, as you know, that he would have plenty to pay me back with later on, and, after all, the sum was only a small one." "To you, perhaps." "But to him it would mean everything, and I owe him more than gold can ever pay. As I told you before, he saved my life and nearly lost his own in doing it." "Quite a pretty little romance, I own; worked up into a story it would read very well. But how about the present situation?" "He must not know, of course." "And you expect me, a lawyer, to equivocate--to say one thing and mean another--to talk, as it were, with my tongue in my cheek? Oh, Miss Grover, what would become of the profession--I mean morally--if all clients were like you?" "It would be much nearer the kingdom," she said, with a laugh. "I don't ask you to tell lies; I only ask you to hold your tongue." "But it is much easier said than done. You know this young man, and he ain't no fool either; and he has a pretty little way of asking point-blank questions. And if I ain't mistaken he can draw an inference as slick as most folks." "But lawyers never reveal secrets," she said, smiling at him with her eyes. "Nothing more quickly awakens suspicion than silence," he said. "And if he once gets on the trail----" "He cannot possibly find me among eighty millions of people scattered over this continent." "But suppose he were to drop on you by accident?" and the old lawyer pretended to be looking at a picture on the other side of the room. She tried her best to keep back the tell-tale blush, but it would come. "Oh, we should shake hands," she said, in a tone of indifference, "and pretend to be surprised, of course, and then we should talk about what had happened in St. Gaved since I left." "He is a very handsome young man," the lawyer said absently. "Yes, he is rather good-looking, isn't he?" and the colour grew deeper on her usually pale face. "I think you told me once you admired his spirit?" "I admire him very much." "And if he calls to-morrow I must say no more than I have said to-day?" "Say what you like so long as you keep my name out of it." "And you don't want to see him? And you wouldn't for the world that he should know you are alive in New York City?" "For the present at any rate." "I think I understand," he said, gravely, but a smile twinkled in the corner of his eye. Meanwhile Rufus was busy reading through once more the papers he had obtained from his grandfather. He folded them up at length and replaced them in his portmanteau. "It's not a bit of use waiting here," he said to himself. "That old lawyer knows no more about it than I do. I'll go westward to-night." The next morning found him in the busy town of Pittsburg, where he spent a couple of days making inquiries; then he pressed forward again until he reached Reboth, on the borders of Ohio. Settling himself in the most comfortable hotel he could find he commenced his investigations. It was here his father had lived for several years. It was here he died. Reboth was only a village then. Its mineral wealth was unknown; its blast furnaces had not been lighted, its coal seams undiscovered. Joshua Sterne foresaw some of its possibilities, and invested all his savings, lived long enough to see the prospect of great wealth, and then almost suddenly passed out of life. After that followed years of litigation, Joshua Sterne had left no one who could fight his battles. The widow quickly yielded up the ghost, and the Rev. Reuben was too far away, too other-worldly, too lacking in business tact, and too suspicious of American lawyers and American ways to follow up any advantage that came to him. The litigants appeared to be numberless. Disputes arose over boundaries. Part of the property appeared to be in Pennsylvania and part in Ohio. Different States had different laws. The findings of one court were rejected by another. So the fight went on in a fitful and desultory way year after year. Some of the claimants died and their heirs dropped the struggle. Others had their claims allowed. Others who never had any real case gave up the contention. But there were a few who held on like grim death. They had no real claim, but they hoped for a good deal, and in the end they succeeded in the case being hung up indefinitely. In time it was practically forgotten. New judges were appointed. Important questions came before them which demanded immediate attention. The papers relating to the Sterne property grew yellow in their pigeon-holes. The rents accumulated, but the mineral wealth remained undeveloped. One of the first discoveries Rufus made was that there had been no distribution of profits. "There must be some mistake," he declared. But the court was positive. There had been some inquiries lately through a New York solicitor, but beyond that there was no record of any kind for several years, but certainly no money had been paid. Rufus felt bewildered. Why should Mr. Graythorne send him five thousand dollars on such a pretence? Why should anybody be so generous? Who was there in the whole of America who knew him or cared two straws whether he lived or died? As a matter of fact, he did not know a single soul on all that broad continent. But stop---- All the colour left his face in a moment. He did know one person. Madeline Grover was in America. Had she done this? He felt himself trembling from head to foot; the very suggestion meant so much. That night he lay awake for hours thinking. He recalled the night after his return from Tregannon--the long walk he had with Madeline Grover across the downs, the frank confession he made to her of his toils and struggles, the generous sympathy she had extended to him. It was their last walk and talk. He remembered now he had told her how his father's savings had been lost at Reboth, and how they had long given up hope of recovering a penny of it. "I must get to know somehow," he said to himself. "Bless her! If she has done this she is the noblest woman on earth." Rufus was not long in getting his father's case reopened. There were only two men left to be dealt with. The claims of the others had gone by default. The court was anxious that the case should be disposed of once for all. Rufus employed the cleverest lawyer he could find, and together they struggled through the whole case from the beginning. "Look here," said the lawyer; "if these fellows are ugly it may last years longer." "Well, Mr. Mason, what do you advise?" Rufus questioned. "Come to terms with them." "They may not be reasonable." "Or they may be. They don't appear to have the ghost of a claim, but they may keep the thing hanging on for ever and ever." "There can be no harm in making the attempt," Rufus said. "Then I will see their solicitors at once." Rufus hung about Reboth two months longer, hoping, expecting, sometimes despairing. But in the end all the parties agreed that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. So terms were accepted and ratified by the court. "Now," said Mr. Mason, "you can begin to develop your property." "You think it is valuable?" "No doubt about that. If it had been worthless the whole thing would have been settled a generation ago." "But how should I begin?" "Form a syndicate. Let me take the matter in hand for you." Rufus was eager to go in search of Madeline. But he found himself, suddenly, one of the busiest men, so he believed, in the United States. Moreover, he refused to be rushed. A good many American methods he did not like, and would not have. There was any number of capitalists ready to stake large sums in the new venture. Any number of Stock Exchange men who flickered around like flies. Any number of sharpers who tried the confidence trick, but tried it in vain. In a great many instances Yankee cuteness was pitted against British caution and common-sense, and in the end the caution and common-sense won the day. Moreover, Rufus's sense of accountability was particularly keen. He had only just come out of the furnace, in which he had been tried as few men have been tried. The consciousness of God had not been blurred by long years of professionalism. There was no latent or acquired taint of Pharisaism in his nature. His faith was as pure and simple as that of a child. He might have made his pile in a week in an exciting gamble. On the mere chance of mineral being found he might have become a rich man; but he refused to proceed on those lines. He wanted occupation for himself. He wanted moral authority for all he did. The breathless haste to be rich which he saw all around him almost made him angry. The majority of men seemed to be too eager to be honest, they were tumbling over each other in their passion to be first in the field. The Rebothites began to understand the young Englishman after a while, and to respect him. His sterling honesty, his refusal to take a mean advantage, won their admiration. It might not be business. Judged by local standards, his conduct was Quixotic. They could not understand a man who was not eager and impatient to scoop up the dollars when he had the chance. But they had to take him as they found him, and in their hearts they admired him while they blamed him. Rufus came slowly to the consciousness that he was a man of considerable importance. Slowly, too, he realised that in time he would be a rich man, not through any merit of his own, but through the judgment and foresight of his father. For months he only thought of Madeline Grover at odd moments. He was too busy with the tasks that had been thrown suddenly upon him. Fresh duties appeared nearly every day, and better still, from his point of view, fresh opportunities were given for the exercise of his inventive talent. He was no longer cribbed, and cabined, and confined. There was a sense of freedom he had never known in other days. He had room to work in, scope for all his energies, and release from the bars and bands imposed by a landed aristocracy. There were many things American he cordially disliked, but the air of freedom that was over everything was most exhilarating. He felt as though his brain worked with only half the effort, and with no slightest sense of weariness. Besides all that, he was free to adopt new methods. Nobody was bound by precedent. He could exercise his inventive faculty without hostility and without criticism. Hence, life became to him a daily unfolding of fresh interests. The days grew rapidly into weeks, and the weeks into months. Autumn gave place to winter, and winter to spring, and spring to summer, and summer began to fade into autumn once more. He had expected to be in Reboth a month, and he had been there a year. And what a year it had been! The most crowded year of his life, and the most formative. He had found his feet at last, had taken the measure of his strength, and realised some of the things of which he was capable. He heard from his grandfather every week, and now and then he got a letter from Captain Tom Hendy; but the old life was becoming more and more distant, while the last six months he spent in St. Gaved seemed like a hideous dream. And yet there were times when it seemed an integral and necessary part of the great scheme of his life. A cog in the wheel that couldn't be dispensed with. How strangely he had been led, step by step, through darkness to light, through pain to peace. It was not until nearly the end of September that he was able to leave Reboth for a little excursion to New York. He felt sure that Madeline was in that city, and his heart was aching for another sight of her face. That he might have great difficulty in finding her he saw clearly enough, but after all he had passed through, nothing seemed impossible. He might fail in his first effort, and in his second, but he resolved to let nothing daunt him or lead him to give up the quest. Life could never be complete for him until he had found her. He must have answers to the questions that were baffling him to-day--must know the best or the worst. So he made preparations for a stay of months, if necessary. But in his heart there was a secret hope that Providence was guiding him still. CHAPTER XXXV CONFLICTING EMOTIONS Madeline was at the Harvey Mansion, having afternoon tea with her friend, Kitty. Since their accidental meeting on the promenade at Nice, not many days passed that they did not see each other. "You will have to go with us," Kitty was saying to her friend. "If you don't I guess I shall mope myself to death." "Oh, no, you won't," Madeline answered. "You will have lots of company, and any amount of excitement." "Oh, I don't know. Father is beginning to think more about the climate than anything else. He fancies that New York winters try his health, and what I fear is he'll steer the _Skylark_ away down into the South Seas somewhere, and stick there." "Well, wouldn't that be very jolly?" "I don't know. It might be jolly miserable. It all depends on one's company. If you'll promise to go with us, I won't raise any more objections." "Have you been raising objections?" "Tons. I much prefer wintering in New York City." "I should like to visit the South Seas very much," Madeline said, meditatively, "only----," then she hesitated. "Only what?" "Well, the truth is, I am going to be a home-bird," Madeline answered, with a slight tinge of colour in her cheeks. "Oh, that's all fiddlesticks. You haven't a single tie on all this continent. You are your own mistress; you can do precisely what you like without any one calling you to account, and----" "I admit all you say," Madeline answered, with a smile. "Nevertheless, it is quite true that what appeals to me most is a quiet life in my own little home." "I wonder you don't get married." "Well, you see," Madeline answered, blushing slightly, "the man I expected to marry did not come up to my expectations." "But surely one hailstone doesn't make a winter." "That is quite true. But perhaps one gets suspicious as one gets older." "You have had offers enough, I am sure." "Have I? How knowing you are, Kitty." "Oh, one needn't be a philosopher to put two and two together. By the bye, do you ever hear anything of your rejected suitor?" "Occasionally. He's recently had another big disappointment." "In the matrimonial line?" "It seems so." "Oh, do tell me all about it." "Well, you know I get all my news through dear old Mr. Graythorne. The Tregonys have dropped me altogether, as you know." "Yes, you've told me that before." "Well, it would seem that Captain Tregony, soon after his return from Nice last year, fell in love with a widow lady, and they were to have been married some time this fall." "Yes." "And now the lady has refused to marry him." "For what reason?" "Oh, well, it's a curious story rather, and I'm not sure that I know all the ins and outs of it. But there was a young fellow in St. Gaved--a very clever young fellow, but poor--whom the Captain for some reason hated. One night they met and quarrelled, and this young fellow punished the Captain terribly. Well, don't you see that for a soldier to be thrashed by a civilian is terribly humiliating. So what did he do in order to cover himself but invent a story that the young fellow was mad drunk, that he sprang upon him unawares, and would have murdered him if the gardener had not come upon the scene, and in order to place his story beyond dispute he bribed the barman of a public-house to swear that on the evening in question the young fellow was so drunk that he (the barman) refused to serve him with any more whisky." "What a shame!" "Well, recently, this barman, who was prosecuted for poaching on Sir Charles Tregony's estates, and who was angry because the Captain did not shield him, just blurted out all the truth. Of course, I know nothing of the details, but from all Mr. Graystone has been able to gather there was immense excitement in St. Gaved. Mrs. Nancarrow, the lady to whom he had become engaged, refused to see him again, while the people were so incensed against him that he was glad to leave Trewinion Hall under cover of darkness, and, at present, no one, outside the members of his own family, appears to know where he is." "What a horrid man!" "And yet, when I met him first, he was most fascinating." "It's a mercy for you the fascination wore off. But tell me: did you know the young man the Captain tried to disgrace?" "A little. But you see the Tregonys had practically no intercourse with what they termed the common people." "He will be greatly relieved that his name has been cleared." "If he knows--which, no doubt, he does by this time." "Why by this time?" "Because he left the country a year ago." "Why did he leave the country?" "To better his fortune, I expect. But would you mind giving me another cup of tea? The year I spent on the other side the water made me an inveterate tea-drinker." "I'll not only give you another cup of tea, I'll give you the entire tea-service if you'll promise to go with us on the _Skylark_." "How generous you are!" "Generosity is my besetting sin as a matter of fact. But say you'll promise." "Oh, you must give me time to think the matter over. I can't decide in a moment." "Why not? You've no one to consult but yourself." "But if self should happen to be divided against self?" "Oh, you are just too tantalising for words. I believe there is someone in New York you want to capture." "No, Kitty, dear, you are quite mistaken. The young men of New York don't appeal to me in the least." "Then I'll go on badgering you until you promise. In fact, I'll set poppa on to you." "Please don't," and Madeline rose from her chair and began to pull on her gloves. That evening, in the privacy of her own room, Madeline debated seriously with herself whether or not she should accept the Harveys' invitation. For many things, she would like to winter in a more genial clime. New York was by no means an ideal city when the thermometer was at zero, and the streets were blocked with snow. In fact, it was not an ideal city under any circumstances, and but that most of her friends were there, she would gladly pitch her tent somewhere else. There was the further fact to be considered, that the departure of the Harveys meant the departure of the people whom she liked best of all, and New York would be terribly dull when their mansion was no longer open to her to run in and out as she liked. "I think I'll accept their invitation," she said to herself. "It will be a change, and it's awfully good of them to ask me." Then she hesitated and looked abstractedly out of the window. "It will mean an absence of six months at least," she went on, after a long pause, and she gave a little sigh and withdrew her eyes from the window. "It is curious that my thoughts will so constantly turn in the same direction," she thought, with another little sigh. "I surely don't owe him any more now. I have paid my debt as far as any human being can pay it. Why cannot I put the whole episode out of my life?" A ring came to the door-bell after awhile, and her old solicitor was shown in. "I am so glad you have come," she said, with a smile. "I want you to help me decide a question that I'm unable to decide for myself." "I'm always at your service," he said, genially; "but what's troubling your little head now?" "The Harveys want me to go with them on a yachting cruise." "Well?" "I can't make up my mind whether to go or not." "What is there to keep you here?" "Nothing." "Then why hesitate?" "I don't know. I'm growing to like my little home very much." "You mustn't become a hermit. My advice is go." "You really mean that?" "I do. Mind you, I shall miss you very much, but all the same, such a chance may not come to you again." "Then I'll take your advice." "By the bye, I heard news this morning of your Cornish friend." "Sir Charles Tregony?" "No; the other one." "You mean----" "The same! He's evidently done well out of the money you lent him." "Yes?" "I've been following him up as well as I could ever since that day he called on me." "So you've told me before." "But a man was in my office this morning who knows him, who lives in Reboth, in fact, and who has watched him closely." "Well?" "He says if he keeps on he'll be one of the most remarkable men in the State of Pennsylvania." "Indeed?" "That's what he says. At the beginning, the financiers swarmed round him like bees. But he wasn't to be had. He just went his own way. Slow according to American notions, but that's the man. Level-headed as they make 'em, and honest to a fault." "A man can't be too honest, surely?" "Well, business is so rushed in these days that a man has no time to look up the commandments before he decides. If he don't seize his chance on the dot it's gone." "Better the chance should go than that he should lose his honour." "Well, that is a very fine sentiment, no doubt--a very fine sentiment. And your friend, it seems, acts up to it." "And what has he lost in consequence?" "Heaps they say. Not permanently, perhaps; for as it happens, the iron is of better quality than was expected. But he might have made his pile right off without trouble or risk." "And without giving any honest _quid pro quo_?" "Those who speculate must take their chance, my child. If people are willing to take risks, why let 'em. Suppose there had been no iron at all?" "Well, what then?" "Why, he would have been the poorer by hundreds of thousands of dollars." "That might not be to his disadvantage. 'A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth.'" "Most people think it does, at any rate." "But you know majorities are nearly always wrong." "Excuse me, I claim no such knowledge. I know that majorities rule." "And rule oppressively frequently." "That may be so. Human nature is essentially tyrannical. Give a man power, and, without great grace, he becomes a tyrant right off." "I don't think Rufus Sterne would ever become a tyrant." "He might, my child, under some circumstances. Never trust a man too far. I hear he is coming east." "Indeed!" "Has some new scheme on hand, I expect," and Mr. Graythorne picked up his hat and smiled knowingly. Left alone again, the look of perplexity in Madeline's eyes deepened. She had told Mr. Graythorne that she would take his advice and accept the Harveys' invitation. But she was disposed to change her mind again. She did not want to leave New York at present. She might hide the truth from other people, but she could not hide it from herself, that if Rufus Sterne came to New York she wanted to see him. She would not own to herself that she was in love, or anything approaching it. But she was undeniably interested. She had been from the first. Rufus Sterne appealed to her as no other man had done. His loneliness, his self-reliance, his courage, his independence made him an object of curiosity, to use no stronger term. Moreover, there was a certain aloofness about him--a curious air of detachment, that quickened her curiosity into something she had no name for. In their last conversation he had been wonderfully frank--had opened his heart to her in a way that touched her sympathies to the quick, yet she knew she had not fathomed him yet. She had a feeling all the time that he was greater than he appeared, that his reticence was much more marked than its opposite. He had suffered wrong without a murmur, and suffered wrong for her sake. He had kept her name out of what he had called a sordid quarrel, and gone on his way in silence, asking no sympathy and seeking no revenge. How was it possible, therefore, that she could fail to be interested in him? He was so different from most of the men she knew. So strong, so self-contained, so doggedly determined. Some day he would find her out; she was sure of that. He was not the kind of man to remain in anyone's debt. She did not doubt for a moment that he guessed long ago who had sent him the money, but with the true instinct of chivalry he had not thrust himself upon her. He had allowed the months to go by, and had made no effort to find her; and during those months he had proved the stuff of which he was made. In an age of rush and greed and money-grabbing he had shown a fidelity to principle that even his detractors admired. He might have "made his pile," in the slang phrase of the time, but he had shown no eagerness to do so. He had gambled once with life itself (though she did not know that); he would not gamble now with the things of life, with what men called "the world." He had learnt his lesson and he would never forget it. To wrong a community was just as wicked as to wrong an individual. He refused to treat his employées as "hands"; they were men, not serfs to be exploited, but human beings to be protected and helped. He introduced a new industrial code and made himself one with his fellows. Mr. Graythorne, who had followed his movements with great interest and curiosity, gave hints to Madeline every now and then, though he was never quite able to take the measure of Madeline's interest in him. In truth, however, her interest had been a growing quantity. Silence and separation but quickened her imagination. The hints and fragments of news that reached her concerning him all helped in the same direction. His apparent indifference to her made her all the more curious to see him again. "No, I cannot leave New York," she said to herself, at length. "If he comes I want to be here. He may think I have tried to discharge my debt with dollars and do not want to see him again. To convey such an impression would be to wrong myself, and--and--him, for there was a time----" She did not finish the sentence, however, but the warm colour stole swiftly to her neck and face and a bright light came into her eyes. On the following day she told the Harveys--much to Kitty's grief and disappointment--that she could not accept their invitation. CHAPTER XXXVI HIS HEART'S DESIRE Rufus made his way to New York with the fixed intention of finding Madeline Grover if that were possible. He had come to very definite conclusions as to the part she had played; but there was a good deal still that wanted explaining, and he was eager to get the riddle solved and his fate determined once for all. Of his own feelings he had no doubt. She was the one woman in the world he loved or ever could love. He owed to her not only his life, but all that made life worth living--his faith, his vision of God, his hope of immortality. It was she who had come to him in the darkest mental and moral night that had ever fallen upon him, and had touched his eyes with a new vision, and had opened up to him the promise of a larger day. But what her feelings were in regard to him he did not know. That she was grateful he had had proof enough, but gratitude might exist where there was little or no love. It might exist even with positive dislike. Her attempts to discharge her debt of gratitude might not be any proof of affection. They might rather be evidence of a desire to get rid of an unpleasant responsibility. He had hope, however, that Providence was in this as in other things. That God had moved her heart to send him help when he needed it most he could no longer doubt. And since she had been the inspiration of what was best in his life, it might be the purpose of that Higher Will that she should stand by his side during the rest of his life. At any rate, he would prove the matter for himself, as far as it could be proved. New York--or even America--was not so big but he might find her with patience and determination. On reaching New York he made his way to Mr. Graythorne's office. Presuming that it was she who had commissioned him to send the money, he would know where she lived. If it was not she, a new riddle would confront him, which he would have to try to solve sooner or later. Mr. Graythorne received him, as before, without enthusiasm, and with no manifestation of surprise. Indeed, he quite expected that sooner or later he would call. Rufus plunged into the object of his visit without any waste of words. Indeed, his first question was so sudden and direct that it threw Mr. Graythorne completely off his guard. "I have called to ask you for the address of Miss Madeline Grover," he said. Mr. Graythorne gave a start, and turned half round in his chair. "Eh--eh? What's that?" he asked, abruptly. "Miss Grover is a client of yours, I believe----" "Who said she was a client of mine?" Rufus smiled. "Of course, if you object to give me her address," he said, "I will not press the matter." "I did not say I refuse, but such a request is somewhat unusual. Miss Grover may not care to have people calling on her. Her business affairs she leaves in my hands." "And she is no doubt well advised in so doing. But I don't think Miss Grover will object to my calling." "You know her?" "A little. We met a few times when she was staying with the Tregonys." "Oh, indeed." Mr. Graythorne expected he would say something about the five thousand dollars, but that was no part of his programme just then. The lawyer felt in a quandary. He did not know what to do for the best. He could not very well refuse her address, and yet he was not sure she would like being pounced upon by this young man without a moment's warning. Unfortunately, he could not ring her up, for she had no telephone in her house. What was he to do? Rufus stood looking at him with a smile on his face. "If you are acquaintances," he said at length, "that of course settles the matter," and he wrote the address on a sheet of paper and handed it to his visitor. Rufus thanked him and turned to go at once. "Your property has turned out all right, I hear?" the lawyer said, insinuatingly. "Oh, yes, excellently." "And you finished the litigation?" "Easily. A little give and take, and the thing was done." "More give than take, I am told." "Perhaps so, but better that than fighting, and bad blood, and ruinous lawyers' fees." Mr. Graythorne winced and grew red in the face, and before he could recover himself Rufus had slipped out of the room. It did not take him long to reach the street in which Madeline lived. He looked down its long length and gave a little sigh of relief. It was not a street of mansions. It was unpretentious and comparatively obscure. His heart was beating very fast when he walked slowly up the steps and rang the door-bell. He felt as though the supreme moment of his life had come. He was shown into a room that harmonised with the street, quiet, cosy, comfortable, but quite unpretentious. He had not to wait many moments. Almost before he had time to turn round, the door was pushed open, and Madeline stood before him, bright, winning, smiling, and radiantly beautiful. There was no trace of stiffness or embarrassment in her manner. Indeed, her greeting was more cordial than he had dared hope for. The embarrassment was on his side; he felt he had undertaken a task that would tax all his nerve. "It is like old times to see you again," she said, in her old frank, ingenuous way. "Do you remember our last long walk over the downs?" "Then you have not forgotten?" he replied, with a little sigh of relief. "Why should I forget? I was so sorry not to see you again." "I looked out for you once or twice; then I heard you had gone away." "Did you look out for me? And I wanted so particularly to see you." "Yes?" he questioned, eagerly. "I wanted to let you know that I had discovered Gervase Tregony's perfidy." "Before you went away?" "Yes; but I was unable to make it known. However, all the truth has come out since." "You have heard?" "Oh, yes. I get Cornish news regularly." "Then you knew I had left?" "Oh, yes," she answered, with a blush and a smile, "I knew that also." "I came to look after that disputed property of my father's I once told you about," he said, after a pause. "Yes, I remember. You said you had given up all hope of ever getting a penny." "You see, my grandfather and I were too far away to look after it, and too poor to fight it. So it was just hung up. You have heard, perhaps, that it has turned out well?" She blushed again, and hesitated for a moment. She felt that his eyes were upon her. She knew she would gain nothing by fencing. The truth would have to come out sooner or later. This man had eyes so clear that he could see through all sham and pretence. So she answered quite frankly. "My solicitor knows a good deal about Reboth, and he has told me." "You mean Mr. Graythorne?" His eyes were still upon her and there was no escape. "Yes," she answered, almost in a whisper. For a moment or two there was an almost painful silence. She felt what was coming, and shrank from meeting it. He knew what he wanted to say, and yet had scarcely the courage to say it. "There is something I want to find out very much," he said, at length; "perhaps you can help me." She looked up with an inquiring light in her eyes, but did not reply. "You heard that my invention failed, or rather that it had been forestalled?" She nodded assent. "What the failure meant to me only God knew. I had borrowed the money to develop and perfect my idea, and when failure came it was overwhelming. I was stripped of everything. I look back now as upon a long and hideous nightmare. I wonder how I endured?" He paused for a moment, but she made no reply, but her eyes were full of eager interest. "Well, when the night was darkest, and I was praying for death as the only escape for me, a letter came from Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne, enclosing a draft for five thousand dollars. The letter was long, and more or less incoherent, but it vaguely hinted that the money was a first instalment of the property left by my father. "During that day, and I think for several days after, I was almost beside myself with joy. Then I went to see my grandfather, and he and I puzzled over the letter, but we could make very little out of it. In the end he suggested that I should come to America and look after the property myself. "So I came, and at once called on Messrs. Seaward and Graythorne. Mr. Graythorne I found, but I left his office more perplexed than ever. He talked in generalities, but he appeared to know little or nothing about the matter, though he admitted, of course, sending me the money. "That night I left New York and made my way to Reboth, where I discovered that no distribution of the property left by my father had been made. That the whole of it was still in Chancery, as we should say in England. "You can imagine how perplexed I felt, and naturally I began to wonder what kind friend had commissioned Mr. Graythorne to send me so much money. I said to myself: 'There is not a soul on the American continent that I know.' Then I remembered that you were here. You will forgive me if I wrong you, but I could think, and can think, of no one else. The money was my salvation. It not only saved me from despair, but from all that follows despair, and now that God has prospered me I want to pay it back. May I give it to you?" Her eyes were full almost to overflowing by this time, but she resolutely beat back her emotion. "Yes, I will take it back," she answered, slowly. "I am glad it served you in the hour of need." "You meant it as a loan, I know," he said, with a smile. "That was as God should will," she answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "I heard in Nice of your misfortune. I knew from what you told me that you had risked your all, and I wondered if I could help you without wounding you. As soon as I reached home I commissioned Mr. Graythorne to make inquiries about your late father's property in Reboth. It seemed certain that you would be well off some day, and so I advanced five thousand dollars on account; it was but a small return for all you had done for me." "But I might not have won the suit, might not have discovered who had befriended me." "I should still have been in your debt," she replied, with a smile. "You saved my life, you know," and she rose and touched the bell. He rose also, and moved towards the door. "No, no," she said, "you must not go, I have rung for tea. I know the English habit, and you must be thirsty after so much talking," and she laughed merrily. "Thank you," he said. "I shall be glad of a cup of tea," and he sat down again. Over the teacups conversation became more general, and flowed more freely in consequence. They talked about St. Gaved, about the Tregonys, and Captain Tom Hendy, and Dr. Pendarvis, and Mrs. Tuke. She related some of her experiences at Trewinion Hall, and in London and Nice, and how and why she escaped from the guardianship of Sir Charles. The afternoon sped like a dream, and when he rose to go, he felt as though a new vision of life had been vouchsafed to him. "You will call again?" she said, when he was leaving. "May I?" he asked eagerly. She laughed brightly in his face. "Does our American freedom or our lack of British formality shock you?" she questioned. "No, no. I was not thinking of that at all," he answered, hurriedly. "May I call again to-morrow?" "At the same hour?" "Yes." "I will wait in for you." * * * * * Rufus remained in New York as many weeks as he had expected to remain days. He fixed the date of his return to Reboth time after time, but when the day arrived he found some excuse for remaining a day or two longer. He did not call to see Madeline every day. Indeed, sometimes for days on the stretch he did not go near her house, but he discovered that New York furnished endless opportunities for meeting. He got to know when she went shopping, and when she rode or drove in the park, and so he way-laid her at all sorts of unexpected times, and discovered that his interest in her movements was the all-absorbing concern of his life. Their conversation that winter evening on the Downs was picked up at the point at which it broke off, and Madeline got a yet clearer insight into the human document that had fascinated her from the first. Rufus opened his heart to Madeline as he never did to any other. Her sympathy touched the deepest chords of his emotion, her generosity won his confidence. Bit by bit the truth was revealed to her that she, under God, had been his salvation. Her quick imagination saw the path along which he had travelled. His loss of faith, his gropings in the desert of a barren philosophy. She saw, too--not that he told her in so many words--that the loss of all sense of accountability was destroying the moral basis of conduct. That his honour was saved to him because he won back his faith. It was no small satisfaction to her that she, in the supreme crisis of his life, had been his helper and his inspiration. If he had saved her, she, in a yet deeper sense, had saved him. That the same thought should grow almost unconsciously in the minds and hearts of both was natural--perhaps inevitable. In due course it would blossom into speech. He returned to Reboth in December--business demanded his presence--but he was back in New York again in January. Madeline looked up with a start of surprise when he was shown into the room in which she was reading. "I hope I do not intrude?" he said, hesitatingly. "No, no," she replied, with almost childish delight. "I am so glad to see you again. But I was not aware you were in New York." "I arrived this morning," he answered, "and so took an early opportunity of looking you up." "You are just in time for afternoon tea, and you must be almost frozen," and she rang the bell at once. Rufus watched her moving about the room with almost hungry eyes. She was so dainty, so lissom, so strong. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her more than all else on earth, but he had not the courage yet. He remained not only to tea, but to dinner; and during the evening conversation strayed over many subjects. He was naturally reticent, and greatly disliked talking about himself. But when he was with Madeline all reticence disappeared. She was the warm sun that thawed the ice. He would have deemed it impossible once that he could have told anyone of his spiritual struggles, of the mental strain and agony through which he passed before his feet touched the rock. But Madeline was like a second self; there was nothing he wanted to hide from her. Before the evening was out he found himself discussing the moral effects of materialism. "It takes away the moral basis of conduct," he said, in reply to one of her questions. "I found myself losing the true sense of right and wrong--_as_ right and wrong. Things might be wise or foolish, profitable or unprofitable, politic or impolitic; but right and wrong were becoming meaningless words in any moral sense. If there is no God there is no moral law, and the highest authority is the State." "But materialists are sometimes very good people?" she questioned. "Yes, that is true; but not because of their philosophy, but in spite of it. And yet is not their goodness mainly negative? Do they build hospitals, or endow charities, or sacrifice themselves in fighting the battles of Temperance and peace and purity? I speak from experience; it dulls the moral sensibilities. For a man to lose his sense of God is to lose his best. The noblest work of the world is done by the men who believe, who endure as seeing Him who is invisible." "Then you think if you had remained a materialist----" "I should have perished," he interrupted, gravely, "and I use that word in no thoughtless sense. But God sent me you----" then he paused, and for awhile silence fell. When they began to talk again it was about some entirely different matter. A few days later he called to say good-bye. He was going back to Reboth again the following day. For a full hour they chatted in the freest manner about matters of no importance. Then he rose suddenly and began to button his coat. He shook hands with her in silence and reached the door. For a moment he paused with his hand on the knob, then turned hurriedly round and faced her. His face was very pale, his lips were trembling. "Madeline," he said, "I cannot go away without telling you that I love you. I belong to you. To you I owe more than life. I owe all that makes life worth living. You befriended me in my hour of greatest need. You led me out of darkness into the light. Will you be my inspiration still, my companion, the light of my eyes?" He paused, almost breathless with the earnestness of his speech. She stood looking at him, all the colour gone out of her face. "Forgive me if I am presumptuous," he went on, in lower tones. "But I have loved you so long, so hopelessly, so passionately, that I could not keep the truth back any longer. Yet if you say there is no hope for me I will not trouble you again." She came toward him slowly, a great light shining in her eyes, and placed her hands in his. "You are sure you are not mistaken?" she said, and her eyes grew full of tears. "Mistaken? Oh! Madeline, if I were only so sure of heaven! I have loved you since the day you read 'Snow Bound' to me--loved you with an ever-growing passion. I have never loved but you--I shall never love another!" "Do not all men say that?" she questioned, with a pathetic smile. "I know not what other men say," he replied, earnestly. "I only know that without you life will be dark. Oh! Madeline, have you no word of hope for me?" "Do you need words?" she asked, smiling through her tears into his face. "Have I not shown my heart all too plainly?" "Do you mean that----" But the sentence was never finished. Swiftly he gathered her in his arms till she could feel the beating of his heart against her own. Silently their lips met in a passionate seal of love. Then he led her to a couch and sat down by her side, and for an hour they talked and the hour seemed but as the flying of a shuttle. * * * * * CATALOGUE OF THEOLOGICAL, ILLUSTRATED AND GENERAL BOOKS Classified according to Prices. Index of Titles and Authors at the end. _New Books and New Editions marked with an asterisk._ PUBLISHED BY JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET ST., LONDON, E.C. 10/6 Net. =THE POLYCHROME BIBLE.= A New English Translation of the Books of the Bible. Printed in various colours, showing at a glance the composite nature and the different sources of the Books. With many Notes and Illustrations from Ancient Monuments, &c. Each volume is the work of an eminent Biblical scholar of Europe or America, and the whole work is under the general editorship of PAUL HAUPT, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, assisted by HORACE HOWARD FURNESS. "Really one of the greatest and most serious undertakings of our time. It has been planned on the grandest scale. It is being produced in magnificent style.... The various books are entrusted to the ablest scholars that are alive."--_Expository Times._ =The Book of Ezekiel.= Translated by the Rev. C. H. TOY, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages, and Lecturer on Biblical Literature in Harvard University, 208 pp. (89 pp. translation and 119 pp. notes). With nine full-page illustrations including a Map of Western Asia and 102 illustrations in the Notes. Cloth, gilt top. 10s. 6d. net. "They [Joshua and Ezekiel] will be of great use to the careful student.... The books include the best results of the higher criticism."--_Birmingham Daily Post._ _For other Volumes in this Series see page 3._ 7/6 =J. Guinness Rogers, D.D.: An Autobiography.= Demy 8 vo, photogravure portrait and illustrations, 7s. 6d. "The reminiscences of Dr. Guinness Rogers go back ever nearly eighty years. It is hard to open the book anywhere without coming on something of interest."--_Manchester Guardian._ =A History of the United States.= By JOHN FISKE, Litt.D., LL.D. For Schools. With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions and Directions for Teachers, by FRANK ALPINE HILL, Litt.D., formerly Headmaster of the English High School in Cambridge, and later of the Mechanic Arts High School in Boston. With 180 illustrations and 39 Maps. Crown 8 vo, half leather, gilt top, 7s. 6d. =Henry Barrow, Separatist; and the Exiled Church of Amsterdam.= By F. J. POWICKE, Ph.D., Author of "John Norris" and "Essentials of Congregationalism." Medium 8 vo. 7s. 6d. net. 6/- Net. =THE POLYCHROME BIBLE.= =The Book of Joshua.= Translated by the Rev. W. H. BENNETT, M.A., Litt.D., Professor of Old Testament Languages and Literature at Hackney and New Colleges, London, formerly Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 94 pp., printed in nine colours (43 pp. translation and 51 pp. notes, including an illustrated Excursus on the Tel-el-Amarna Tablets and a List of Geographical Names). Eleven full-page illustrations (one in colours) and 25 illustrations in the Notes. Cloth, gilt top, 6s. net. =The Book of Judges.= Translated, with Notes, by G. F. MOORE, D.D., Professor of Hebrew in Andover Theological Seminary. 98 pp., printed in seven colours (42 pp. translation, 56 pp. notes). Seven full-page illustrations including a map in colours and 20 illustrations in the Notes. Cloth, gilt top, price 6s. net. _For other Volumes in this Series see page 2_ 6/- =_By S. R. CROCKETT._= =*Kid McGhie.= Large crown 8 vo, cloth boards, gilt top, 6s. "As smart and as pat as ever."--_The Times_. "Admirers of Mr. Crockett will not be disappointed in 'Kid McGhie.'"--_The Daily Chronicle._ =The Loves of Miss Anne.= Large crown 8 vo, 416 pp., cloth, gilt top, 6s. "A fine rousing story, comedy and tragedy being admirably co-mingled, and there are some excellent studies of character. A bright, breezy, well-written book, with clever descriptions of country life."--_Birmingham Post._ =Flower-o'-the-Corn.= Large crown 8 vo, 464 pp., cloth, gilt top, 6s. "Mr. Crockett once more shows his skill in weaving an ingenious plot."--_The Times._ "The narrative moves briskly, and secures the banishment of dullnesss with the frequency of adventure."--_Newcastle Daily Leader._ "Fertile of incident."--_Daily Mail._ =Cinderella.= Illustrated. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. "A decidedly pleasing tale."--_St. James's Gazette._ "Most animated from beginning to end."--_Dundee Advertiser._ "Will assuredly not lack a kindly welcome on its merits."--_Bristol Mercury._ =Kit Kennedy: Country Boy.= With Six Illustrations. Crown 8 vo, cloth, gilt top, 6s. "Mr. Crockett has never given better evidence of originality and dramatic power.... There is no doubt that 'Kit Kennedy' will add to his reputation and popularity."--_Manchester Guardian._ =_By J. BRIERLEY, B.A._= =*Religion and Experience.= By J. BRIERLEY, B.A., Author of "The Eternal Religion," &c. Large crown 8 vo, cloth boards, gilt top, 6s. =The Eternal Religion.= By J. BRIERLEY. B.A., Author of "Ourselves and the Universe," &c. Crown 8 vo, bevelled boards, gilt top, 6s. "Well written and helpful."--_The Times._ "Suggestive of a wide knowledge and scholarship."--_The Scotsman._ =_For other books by "J. B." see page 9._= =The Rise of Philip Barrett.= By DAVID LYALL, Author of "The Land o' the Leal," &c. Crown 8 vo, bevelled boards, gilt top, 6s. "The book is remarkable for the arresting interest of all, or nearly all the characters. Altogether, Mr. Lyall is to be congratulated on an interesting story."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ =A Popular History of the Free Churches.= By C. SILVESTER HORNE, M.A. Crown 8 vo, 464 pp. and 39 full-page illustrations on art paper. Art vellum, gilt top, 6s. "A vigorous and interesting book by an enthusiastic believer in the Puritan spirit and the need of religious equality."--_The Times._ =The Black Familiars.= By L. B. WALFORD, Author of "Stay-at-Homes," &c. Large crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 6s. "... 'Black Familiars' is among the most able and attractive books of a very productive season."--_St. James's Gazette._ =The Atonement in Modern Thought.= By Professor AUGUSTE SABATIER, Professor HARNACK, Professor GODET, DEAN FARRAR, Dr. P. T. FORSYTH, Dr. MARCUS DODS, Dr. LYMAN ABBOTT, Dr. JOHN HUNTER, Dr. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, DEAN FREMANTLE, Dr. CAVE, Dr. R. F. HORTON, Rev. R. J. CAMPBELL, Professor ADENEY, Rev. C. SILVESTER HORNE, Rev. BERNARD J. SNELL, and Dr. T. T. MUNGER. Crown 8 vo, 6s. _New Edition._ "This interesting work.... Among the writers are men of great distinction.... Deserves careful attention."--_The Spectator._ =Friend Olivia.= By AMELIA E. BARR. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 6s. =A Rose of a Hundred Leaves.= By AMELIA E. BARR. Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 6s. =Haromi=: A New Zealand Story. By BANNERMAN KAYE. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. "In every sense it is admirably written, the charming description of localities, none the less than the character-drawing and the construction of the romance, being most engaging."--_Western Daily Mercury._ =Through Science to Faith.= By Dr. NEWMAN SMYTH, Author of "The Place of Death in Evolution," "Old Faiths in New Lights," "The Reality of Faith," &c. Large crown 8 vo, cloth, gilt top, 6s. "We commend Dr. Smyth's work to the attention of all thoughtful readers."--_Liverpool Mercury._ =The Rights of Man.= A Study in Twentieth Century Problems. By LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. "This is one of his best books. It is good throughout."--_Expository Times._ =America in the East.= By WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, formerly of the Imperial University of Japan. Author of "The Mikado's Empire," "Corea, the Hermit Nation," &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth, gilt top, with 19 illustrations, 6s. "We need hardly say that there is much that is interesting in the book."--_Spectator._ =Rev. T. T. Lynch=: A Memoir. Edited by WILLIAM WHITE. With Portrait. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. =The Barbone Parliament= (=First Parliament of the Commonwealth of England=) and the Religious Movements of the Seventeenth Century culminating in the Protectorate System of Church Government. By HENRY ALEXANDER GLASS, Author of "The Story of the Psalters: A History of the Metrical Versions of Great Britain and America." Demy 8 vo, cloth, 6s. "A careful and very instructive account of the period, frankly Puritan in sympathy."--_The Echo._ =Memorials of Theophilus Trinal.= By T. T. LYNCH. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. =The Mornington Lecture.= By T. T. LYNCH. Thursday Evening Addresses. Second Edition. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 6s. 5/- =Theology and Truth.= By NEWTON H. MARSHALL, M.A., Ph.D. Large crown 8 vo, cloth boards, gilt top, 5s. "The book is masterly both in constructive power and in exposition.... It is a book which ought to be widely read."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ PROFESSOR GARVIE says: "... Cordial congratulations to the author for his valuable contribution to the solution of one of the most important and urgent problems of the day." "The author treats his difficult subject with skill and philosophic ability."--_The Notts Guardian._ =A Backward Glance.= The Story of John Ridley, A Pioneer. By ANNIE E. RIDLEY, Author of "Frances Mary Buss and her Work for Education," &c. Crown 8 vo, photogravure portraits and illustrations, 5s. =Church, Ministry and Sacraments in the New Testament.= By W. T. WHITLEY, M.A., LL.D. Demy 8 vo, cloth boards, 5s. =Cartoons of St. Mark.= By R. F. HORTON, M.A., D.D. Third Edition. Crown 8 vo cloth, 5s. "Certainly reproduce to a degree attained by few preachers the vivid picturesqueness of the Gospel."--_The Manchester Guardian._ "This is, we think, the best book Dr. Horton has written."--_The British Weekly._ =The Christ of the Heart, and Other Sermons.= By Z. MATHER. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 5s. "One of the most readable collections of sermons that we have seen for a long time. The style is lucid, limpid, and attractive."--_The Independent._ =Seven Puzzling Bible Books.= A Supplement to "Who Wrote the Bible?" By WASHINGTON GLADDEN. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 5s. =The Incarnation of the Lord.= A Series of Discourses tracing the unfolding of the Doctrine of the Incarnation in the New Testament. By CHARLES AUGUSTUS BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt. Large crown 8 vo, cloth extra, gilt top, 5s. "A scientific and stimulating examination of the New Testament _data_ on the Incarnation. It will fully sustain Dr. Briggs's reputation with those English readers who know his previous works."--_The Christian World._ =The Theology of an Evolutionist.= By LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 5s. =The Growing Revelation.= By AMORY H. BRADFORD, D.D. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 5s. =Christianity and Social Problems.= By LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 5s. "They are very carefully worked out and supported by a mass of argument which entitles them to the most respectful attention."--_Bristol Mercury._ 4/6 Net. =The Life and Letters of Alexander Mackennal, B.A., D.D.= By D. MACFADYEN. Large crown 8 vo, Photogravure Portrait, and Illustrations on Art Paper. Bound in Art Vellum. 4s. 6d. net. "Mr. Macfadyen is to be congratulated on the skill with which he has enabled his hero to stand out in these pages in his native character, as a reverent and yet original thinker, an administrator of singular wisdom and insight, and, above all, as a courageous and attractive man."--_Manchester Guardian_. 4/6 =The Christian World Pulpit.= Half-Yearly Volumes, cloth boards, 4s. 6d. "A notable collection of the utterances of Protestant preachers on a wide variety of subjects which many people will rejoice to ponder at leisure."--_The Glasgow Herald._ 4/- Net. =Where Does the Sky Begin?= By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Author of "Who Wrote the Bible?" &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, gilt top, 4s. net. "Washington Gladden has a great name amongst us. This book is riper and richer than anything he has yet published."--_Expository Times._ =Witnesses of the Light.= By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Author of "Who Wrote the Bible?" &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, with portraits, 4s. net. "A sketch of such lives treated in this entirely free, human manner, with adequate knowledge and a fine gift for interpretation, makes this volume most welcome."--_Yorkshire Observer._ 4/- =How Much is Left of the Old Doctrines.= A Book for the People. By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. "Very able, fresh and vigorous.... There is much to commend in Dr. Gladden's book. Its teaching is manly and direct, and the writer draws his illustrations from a wide field of literature. The chapters on 'Conversion,' 'The Hope of Immortality,' and 'Heaven' could only be written by a man of warm heart and true spiritual insight. The general impression left by the book is invigorating and reassuring."--_The Pilot._ =Social Salvation.= By WASHINGTON GLADDEN. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. "Dr. Gladden's book is eminently sane; his subjects are not treated in any academic spirit, but are viewed in the light of a long and close experience with the problems dealt with."--_The Literary World._ "The book is very broad in its outlook, and its author is very frank in dealing with questions that are discussed everywhere. It will command attention in many quarters."--_The Weekly Leader._ =Tools and the Man.= Property and Industry under the Christian Law. By WASHINGTON GLADDEN. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. "A calmly written, closely reasoned, and trenchant indictment of the still prevalent dogmas and assumptions of political economy."--_The Speaker._ =Ruling Ideas of the Present Age.= By WASHINGTON GLADDEN. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. =*The Rosebud Annual for 1907.= The Ideal Book for the Nursery. Four coloured plates and one-half of the pages in colour. Handsome cloth boards, 4s. Coloured paper boards, varnished, 3s. "An old favourite, and anyone looking through its pages will see at once why it is a favourite. Not a page opens without disclosing pictures. The stories are fresh and piquant, and printed in good large type. A rich fund of enjoyment for the nursery."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ "A veritable treasury of the best of good things."--_Liverpool Mercury._ =Higher on the Hill.= A Series of Sacred Studies. By ANDREW BENVIE, D.D., Minister of St. Aidan's, Edinburgh. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 4s. "A brilliant piece of writing."--_Dundee Advertiser._ 3/6 Net. =*Friars Lantern.= By G. G. COULTON, Author of "From St. Francis to Dante," "Mediæval Studies," &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. net. =The Inward Light.= By AMORY H. BRADFORD, D.D., Author of "The Growth of the Soul," &c. Large crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. net. "A refreshing, stimulating, and enlightening book."--_Aberdeen Free Press._ "A work of real spiritual and intellectual power."--_Dundee Advertiser._ =The Story of the English Baptists.= By J. C. CARLILE. Large crown 8 vo, 320 pages, 8 Illustrations on art paper, 3s. 6d. net. "Possesses a freshness and vivacity not always present in ecclesiastical histories."--_Scotsman._ =The Courage of the Coward.= By C. F. AKED, D.D., Author of "Changing Creeds and Social Problems." Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, with photogravure portrait, 3s. 6d. net. "The sermons are the work of a thoughtful and earnest Nonconformist, whose pointed language and frequent illustrations from general literature leave a distinct impression."--_The Scotsman._ =G. H. R. Garcia. Memoir, Sermons and Addresses.= By Rev. J. G. HENDERSON. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, with photogravure portrait, 3s. 6d. net. "We are grateful to Mr. Henderson for having prepared this memorial of so daring and original a ministry."--_Methodist Times._ =The First Christians; or, Christian Life in New Testament Times.= By ROBERT VEITCH, M.A. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, gilt top, 3s. 6d. net. DR. FAIRBAIRN expresses himself as "charmed" with the author's "knowledge of the world into which Christianity came; and his appreciation of the Christianity that came into the world." 3/6 =*A Gamble with Life.= By SILAS K. HOCKING, Author of "To Pay the Price." Large crown 8 vo, bevelled boards, 3s. 6d. One of the best stories written by this popular author. =The Wanderer; or, Leaves from the Life Story of a Physician.= By MRS. C. L. ABBOT, of Berlin. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. =Burning Questions.= By WASHINGTON GLADDEN. Fourth Edition. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "Is one of the ablest, most opportune, and most readable books it has been our good fortune to enjoy for many a day. The writer is master of his subject. He modestly remarks at the close 'that it has not always been easy, handling realities so vast, to make the truth, in the condensed expression which must here be given to it, so luminous as could have been wished.' But luminous is precisely the word which describes these admirable essays. They shine with light."--_Dundee Advertiser._ =Changing Creeds and Social Struggles.= By C. F. AKED. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "A brave book."--_The Liverpool Mercury._ _By J. BRIERLEY, B.A._ =*The Common Life.= By J. BRIERLEY, B.A. ("J. B."), Author of "Problems of Living," &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. "Fluent, but thoughtful, essays on many aspects of life, written from a Christian standpoint--'Life's Positives,' 'Summits,' 'Rest and Unrest,' &c."--_The Times._ =Problems of Living.= By J. BRIERLEY, B.A. ("J. B."), Author of "Ourselves and the Universe." Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. "It is inspiring to come upon such a fresh and suggestive re-statement of the old faiths as we find in 'Problems of Living.'"--_Echo._ =Ourselves and the Universe: Studies in Life and Religion.= By J. BRIERLEY, B.A. Tenth Thousand. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "We have not for a long time read a brighter, cheerier, or wiser book."--_Daily News._ "Fresh and thoughtful."--_The Times._ =Studies of the Soul.= By J. BRIERLEY, B.A. Seventh Edition. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. MRS. HUMPHRY WARD says:--"There is a delicate truth and fragrance, a note of real experience in the essays that make them delightful reading." DR. HORTON says:--"I prefer this book to the best-written books I have lighted on for a year past." "The supreme charm of the book is not the wealth of fine sayings, gathered together from so many sources, ... it is the contribution of 'J. B.' himself, his insight, his humour, his acute criticisms, and, above all, perhaps, his perfectly tolerant and catholic spirit.... A better book for 'the modern man' does not exist."--REV. C. SILVESTER HORNE in _The Examiner_. _For other books by J. Brierley see page 4._ =Gloria Patri; or, Our Talks About the Trinity.= By J. M. WHITON. Cloth, 3s. 6d. =God's Greater Britain.= With Two Portrait Groups, one showing Dr. Clifford and party "in miner's attire." Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "It should be in the hands of all thinking men."--_East Anglian Daily Times._ =The Christ that is To Be: A Latter-Day Romance.= By J. COMPTON RICKETT, M.P. New Edition. Demy 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. =His Rustic Wife.= By MRS. HAYCRAFT, Author of "A Lady's Nay," &c. Cloth boards, 3s. 6d. "A fresh and very capable story."--_Newcastle Daily Leader._ =Paxton Hood: Poet and Preacher.= With Photographic Portrait. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. =Family Prayers for Morning Use, and Prayers for Special Occasions.= Compiled and Edited by J. M. G. Cloth, pott quarto, 3s. 6d. "We cordially recommend the volume to all who share our sense of the value of family religion."--_Willesden Presbyterian Monthly._ =Industrial Explorings in and around London.= By R. ANDOM. Author of "We Three and Troddles." With nearly 100 Illustrations by T. M. R. WHITWELL. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. =Preaching to the Times.= By CANON HENSLEY HENSON. Crown 8 vo, cloth extra, 3s. 6d. "Sound sense and scholarly solidity."--_Dundee Courier._ "Earnest and eloquent discourses."--_The Scotsman._ =The Dutch in the Medway.= By CHARLES MACFARLANE, Author of "The Camp of Refuge," &c. With a Foreword by S. R. CROCKETT. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. =The Quickening of Caliban.= A Modern Story of Evolution. By J. COMPTON RICKETT, Author of "Christianity in Common Speech," &c. Large crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. =New Points to Old Texts.= By J. M. WHITON. Crown 8 vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. "A volume of sermons to startle sleepy hearers."--_Western Morning News._ =Nineteen Hundred? A Forecast and a Story.= By MARIANNE FARNINGHAM, Author of "The Clarence Family," &c. Crown 8 vo, cloth boards, 3s. 6d. "A pleasant and entertaining story and picture of life."--_Methodist Recorder._ _EMMA JANE WORBOISE'S NOVELS._ Crown 8 vo, uniformly bound in cloth, 3s. 6d. each. =Thornycroft Hall.= =St. Beetha's.= =Violet Vaughan.= =Margaret Torrington.= =Singlehurst Manor.= =Overdale.= =Grey and Gold.= =Mr. Montmorency's Money.= =Nobly Born.= =Chrystabel.= =Millicent Kendrick.= =Robert Wreford's Daughter.= =Joan Carisbroke.= =Sissie.= =Esther Wynne.= =His Next of Kin.= _AMELIA E. BARR'S NOVELS._ Crown 8 vo, cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each. =The Beads of Tasmar.= =A Sister to Esau.= =She Loved a Sailor.= =The Last of the MacAllisters.= =Woven of Love and Glory.= =Feet of Clay.= =The Household of McNeil.= =A Border Shepherdess.= =Paul and Christina.= =The Squire of Sandal Side.= =The Bow of Orange Ribbon.= =Between Two Loves.= =A Daughter of Fife.= _For other books by this Author see pages 4 and 16._ THE MESSAGES OF THE BIBLE. Edited by FRANK KNIGHT SANDERS, Ph.D., Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature in Yale University, and CHARLES FOSTER KENT, Ph.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and History in Brown University. Super royal 16mo, cloth, red top, 3s. 6d. a vol. (To be completed in 12 Volumes.) I. THE MESSAGES OF THE EARLIER PROPHETS. II. THE MESSAGES OF THE LATER PROPHETS. III. THE MESSAGES OF ISRAEL'S LAW GIVERS. IV. THE MESSAGES OF THE PROPHETICAL AND PRIESTLY HISTORIANS. V. THE MESSAGES OF THE PSALMISTS. *VIII. THE MESSAGES OF THE APOCALYPTICAL WRITERS. IX. 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Crown 8 vo, paper cover, 4d. net. "Rich in noble thought, in high purpose, in faith and in courage. Every sentence tells, and the whole argument moves onward to its great conclusion. Dr. Forsyth has put the argument for missions in a way that will nerve and inspire the Church's workers at home and abroad for fresh sacrifice."--_London Quarterly Review._ =The Unique Class Chart and Register.= By Rev. J. H. RIDETTE. Specially arranged and absolutely indispensable for keeping a complete record of the scholars according to the requirements of the Meggitt Scheme of Sunday-school Reform. Linen cover, 4d. net. 3d. Net. =School Hymns, for Schools and Missions.= Words only. Compiled by E. H. MAYO GUNN. Cloth limp, 3d.; cloth boards, 6d.; music, 3s. 2d. Net. =The Sunday Afternoon Song Book.= Containing 137 Hymns. For use at "Pleasant Sunday Afternoons," and Other Gatherings. Compiled by H. A. KENNEDY, of the Men's Sunday Union, Stepney Meeting House. Twentieth Thousand. 2d.; music, 1s. "Contains 137 hymns, the catholic character of which, in the best sense of the term, may be gathered from the names of the authors, which include Tennyson, Ebenezer Elliott, Whittier, G. Herbert, C. Wesley, Thomas Hughes, J. H. Newman, Longfellow, Bonar, and others. While the purely dogmatic element is largely absent, the Christian life, in its forms of aspiration, struggle against sin, and love for the true and the good, is well illustrated."--_Literary World._ Index of Titles. Abbey Mill, The, 16 Adrift on the Black Wild Tide, 17 America in the East, 5 Ancient Musical Instruments, 20 Angels of God, The, 19 Animal Fun, 21 Apocalyptical Writers, The Messages of the, 11 Apostles, The Messages of the, 11 Art of Living Alone, The, 19 Atonement in Modern Thought, The, 4 Aunt Agatha Ann, 24 Awe of the New Century, The, 23 Backward Glance, A, 5 Baptist Handbook, The, 14 Barbone Parliament, The, 5 Barrow, Henry, Separatist, 2 Beads of Tasmar, The, 10 Between Two Loves, 10 Bible Definition of Religion, The, 23 Bible Story, The: Retold for Young People, 15 Bishop and the Caterpillar, The, 24 Black Familiars, The, 4, 16 Border Shepherdess, A, 10 Bow of Orange Ribbon, The, 10, 16 Brudenells of Brude, The, 16 Burning Questions, 8 Canonbury Holt, 16 Cartoons of St. Mark, 6 Challenge, The, 12 Changing Creeds and Social Struggles, 8 Character through Inspiration, 19 Children's Pace, The, 20 Christ of the Children, The, 12 Christ of the Heart, The, 6 Christ that is To Be, The, 9 Christ Within, The, 18 Christ's Pathway to the Cross, 17 Christian Baptism, 18 Christian Life, The, 19, 24 Christian World Pulpit, The, 6 Christianity and Social Problems, 6 Christianity in Common Speech, 24 Chrystabel, 10, 16 Church and the Kingdom, The, 20 Church, Ministry and Sacraments in the New Testament, 5 Cinderella, 3, 16 Comforts of God, The, 14 Common Life, The, 9 Common-sense Christianity, 17 Conquered World, The, 19, 24 Courage of the Coward, The, 8 Crucible of Experience, The, 17 Daughter of Fife, A, 10, 16 Debt of the Damerals, The, 16 Divine Satisfaction, The, 23 Dutch in the Medway, The, 10 Early Pupils of the Spirit, and What of Samuel, 17 Earlier Prophets, The Messages of the, 11 Earliest Christian Hymn, The, 15 Economies of Jesus, The, 17 Emilia's Inheritance, 16 England's Danger, 25 Episcopacy, 11 Epistle to the Galatians, The, 15 Esther Wynne, 10 Eternal Religion, The, 4 Ezekiel, The Book of, 2 Faith the Beginning, Self-Surrender the Fulfilment, of the Spiritual Life, 18, 24 Family Prayers for Morning Use, 9 Father Fabian, 16 Feet of Clay, 10 First Christians, The, 8 Flower-o'-the-Corn, 3, 16 Forgotten Sheaf, The, 18 Fortune's Favourite, 16 Fortunes of Cyril Denham, The, 16 Friars Lantern, 8 Friend Olivia, 4 Funny Animals and Stories about Them, 21 Gain or Loss?, 20 Gamble with Life, A, 8 Garcia, G. H. R., 8 Gloria Patri: Talks about the Trinity, 9 Glorious Company of the Apostles, The, 15 God's Greater Britain, 9 Golden Truths for Young Folk, 21 Grey and Gold, 10, 16 Grey House at Endlestone, 16 Growing Revelation, The, 6 Haromi: A New Zealand Story, 4 Harvest Gleanings, 14 Health and Home Nursing, 22 Heartsease in the Family, 12 Heirs of Errington, The, 16 Helen Bury, 12 Helping Hand to Mothers, 25 Helps to Health and Beauty, 22 Higher on the Hill, 7 His Next of Kin, 10, 16 His Rustic Wife, 9 History of the United States, A, 2 Holy Christian Empire, 25 Household of MacNeil, The, 10 House of Bondage, The, 16 How Much is Left of the Old Doctrines, 7 How to Become Like Christ, 18 How to Read the Bible, 21 Husbands and Wives, 16 Ideals for Girls, 15 Incarnation of the Lord, The, 6 Industrial Explorings in and around London, 10 Infoldings and Unfoldings of the Divine Genius in Nature and Man, 12 Inspiration in Common Life, 17 Inward Light, The, 8 Israel's Law Givers, The Messages of, 11 Jan Vedder's Wife, 16 Jealousy of God, The, 19 Jesus according to the Synoptists, The Messages of, 11 Joan Carisbroke, 10, 16 Job and His Comforters, 14 Joshua, The Book of, 3 Judges, The Book of, 3 Kid McGhie, 3 Kingdom of the Lord Jesus, The, 19, 24 Kit Kennedy: Country Boy, 3, 16 Lady Clarissa, 16 Last of the MacAllisters, The, 10 Later Prophets, The Messages of the, 11 Leaves for Quiet Hours, 12 Letters of Christ, The, 17 Let us Pray, 20 Liberty and Religion, 12 Life and Letters of Alexander Mackennal, The, 6 Louis Wain's Animal Show, 21 Louis Wain's Baby's Picture Book, 21 Loves of Miss Anne, The, 3, 16 Lynch, Rev. T. T.: A Memoir, 5 Making of an Apostle, The, 19 Manual for Free Church Ministers, A, 21 Margaret Torrington, 10 Martineau's Study of Religion, 19, 24 Maud Bolingbroke, 12 Max Hereford's Dream, 25 Messages of the Bible, The, 11 Method of Prayer, A, 12 Millicent Kendrick, 10, 16 Miss Devereux, Spinster, 16 Model Prayer, The, 15 More Tasty Dishes, 22 Morning and Evening Cries, 14 Morning Mist, A, 16 Morning, Noon, and Night, 22 Mornington Lecture, The, 5 Mr. Montmorency's Money, 10, 16 My Baptism, 17 My Neighbour and God, 13 New Mrs. Lascelles, The, 16 New Points to Old Texts, 10 New Testament in Modern Speech, The, 13 Nineteen Hundred?, 10 Nobly Born, 10, 16 Nonconformist Church Buildings, 15 Old Pictures in Modern Frames, 18 Oliver Cromwell, 23 Oliver Westwood, 16 Ordeal of Faith, The, 15 Our Girls' Cookery, 23 Our New House, 12 Ourselves and the Universe, 9 Outline Text Lessons for Junior Classes, 21 Overdale, 10, 16 Passion for Souls, The, 17 Paul and Christina, 10 Paul, The Messages of, 11 Paxton Hood: Poet and Preacher, 19 Personality of Jesus, The, 11 Pilot, The, 13 Poems. By Mme. Guyon, 11 Polychrome Bible, The, 2, 3 Popular Argument for the Unity of Isaiah, A, 14 Popular History of the Free Churches, A, 4, 13 Practical Points in Popular Proverbs, 14 Prayer, 17 Preaching to the Times, 10 Price of Priestcraft, The, 20 Pride of the Family, The, 16 Principles and Practices of the Baptists, 14 Problems of Living, 9 Prophetical and Priestly Historians, The Messages of, 11 Psalmists, The Messages of the, 11 Quickening of Caliban, The, 10 Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers, 11 Race and Religion, 20 Reasonable View of Life, A, 17 Reasons Why for Congregationalists, 17 Reasons Why for Free Churchmen, 20 Reconsiderations and Reinforcements, 19 Reform in Sunday School Teaching, 18 Religion and Experience, 4 Religion of Jesus, The, 17 Religion that will Wear, A, 14 Rights of Man, The, 5 Rise of Philip Barrett, The, 4 Robert Wreford's Daughter, 10 Rogers, J. Guinness, 2 Rome from the Inside, 23 Rosebud Annual, The, 7, 12 Rose of a Hundred Leaves, A, 4 Ruling Ideas of the Present Age, 7 School Hymns, 12, 25 School of Life, The, 12 Sceptre Without a Sword, The, 23 Scourge of God, The, 16 Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 6, 18 Ship of the Soul, The, 19, 24 She Loved a Sailor, 10 Short Devotional Services, 20 Simple Cookery, 17 Singlehurst Manor, 10 Sissie, 10, 16 Sister to Esau, A, 10, 16 Small Books on Great Subjects, 18, 19 Social Salvation, 7 Social Worship an Everlasting Necessity, 19, 24 Spirit Christlike, The, 14 Squire of Sandal Side, The, 10, 16 St. Beetha's, 10, 16 Story of the English Baptists, The, 3 Story of Penelope, The, 16 Studies of the Soul, 9 Sunday Afternoon Song Book, 24, 25 Sunday Morning Talks with Boys and Girls, 14 Sunny Memories of Australasia, 18 Supreme Argument for Christianity, The, 19 Tale of a Telephone, A, 24 Talks to Little Folks, 22 Taste of Death and the Life of Grace, The, 18, 24 Tasty Dishes, 22 Ten Commandments, The, 14 Theology and Truth, 5 Theology of an Evolutionist, The, 6 Theophilus Trinal, Memorials of, 5 Thornycroft Hall, 10, 16, 25 Through Science to Faith, 4 Tommy, and Other Poems, 22 Tools and the Man, 7 Town Romance, A; or, On London Stones, 16 Trial and Triumph, 14 Types of Christian Life, 18 Undertones of the Nineteenth Century, 13 Unique Class Chart and Register, 25 Unknown to Herself, 16 Value of the Apocrypha, The, 17 Violet Vaughan, 10, 16 Wanderer, The, 8 Warleigh's Trust, 16 Way of Life, The, 19 Wayside Angels, 22 What Shall this Child Be?, 14 Where does the Sky Begin?, 7 Who Wrote the Bible?, 17 Why We Believe, 13 Wideness of God's Mercy, The, 17 Wife as Lover and Friend, The, 15 William Jeffrey, 13 Witnesses of the Light, 7 Woman's Patience, A, 16 Women and their Saviour, 20 Women and their Work, 18 Words by the Wayside, 18 Woven of Love and Glory, 10 Young Man's Religion, A, 13 Index of Authors. Abbot, C. L., 8 Abbott, Lyman, 5, 6 Adeney, W. F., 21 Aitchison, George, 20 Aked, C. F., 8 Andom, R., 10 Andrews, C. C., 16 Armstrong, Richard A., 19, 24 Bainton, George, 15 Barr, Amelia E., 4, 10, 16 Barrett, G. S., 15 Barrows, C. H., 11 Bennett, Rev. W. H., 3, 15 Benvie, Andrew, 7 Blake, J. M., 17 Bloundelle-Burton, J., 16 Bradford, Amory H., 6, 8, 19 Brierley, J., 4, 9 Brock, W., 14 Brooke, Stepford A., 19, 24 Brown, C., 14, 17 Burford, W. K., 22 Campbell, Rev. R. J., 19 Carlile, Rev. J. C., 8, 22 Clifford, Dr., 19, 24 Coulton, G. G., 8 Crockett, S. R., 3, 16 Cubitt, James, 15 Cuff, W., 18 Davidson, Gladys, 21 Dode, Marous, 18 Elligott, Minnie, 25 Ellis, J., 21 Evans, H., 20 Farningham, Marianne, 10, 14, 18, 20 Fiske, J., 2 Forsyth, Rev. Principal, 18, 24, 25 Fraser, J., 11 Funeke, O., 12 Gibbon, J. Morgan., 15 Giberne, Agnes, 16 Gladden, Washington, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18, 20 Glass, Henry Alexander, 5 Glover, R., 14 Greenhough, J. G., 14, 18 Griffith-Jones, E., 17, 18 Griffis, William Elliot, 5 Gunn, E. H. Mayo, 12, 25 Guyon, Madame, 11, 12 Haweis, H. R., 15 Haycraft, Mrs., 9 Heddle, E. F., 16 Henderson, J. G., 8 Henson, Canon Hensley, 10 Hocking, S. K., 8 Horder, W. Garrett, 19 Horne, C. Silvester, 4, 13, 15, 17, 20 Horton, Dr. R. F., 6, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 Hunter, John, 19 "J. B." of _The Christian World_, 23 Jefferson, C. E., 11 J. M. G., 9 Jones, J. D., 15, 17, 20 Jowett, J. H., 17 Kane, James J., 17 Kaye, Bannerman, 4 Kennedy, H. A., 24, 25 Kennedy, John, 14 Lansfeldt, L., 16 Lee, W. T., 13 Llewellyn, D. J., 13 Lyall, David, 4 Lyall, Edna, 25 Lynch, T. T., 5 Lynd, William, 20 Macfadyen, D., 6 Macfarland, Charles S., 14 Macfarlane, Charles, 10 Mackennal, Alexander, 19, 24 Manners, Mary E., 24 Marchant, B., 16 Marshall, J. T., 14 Marshall, N. H., 5 Martineau, James, 18 Mather, Lessels, 22 Mather, Z., 6 Matheson, George, 12, 18, 23 Maver, J. S., 20 Meade, L. T., 16 Metcalfe, R. D., 24 Meyer, F. B., 17 Moore, G. F., 3 Morgan, Rev. G. Campbell, 14 Mountain, J., 17 Munger, T. T., 19 Peake, A. S., 18 Pharmaceutical Chemist, A, 22 Picton, J. Allanson, 17 Powicke, F. J., 2 Pulsford, John, 19 Rees, F. A., 14 Rickett, J. Compton, 9, 10, 24 Ridette, J. H., 25 Ridley, A. E., 5 Robarts, F. H., 14 Roberts, J. E., 18 Rogers, Dr. Guinness, 2 Rudge, C., 18 Russell, F. A., 17 Sanders, Frank Knight, 11 Scottish Presbyterian, A, 14 Sinclair, Archdeacon, 19, 24 Smyth, Dr. Newman, 4 Snell, Barnard J., 17, 20 Stevenson, J. G., 12 Thomas, H. Arnold, 19 Trotter, Mrs. E., 13 Toy, Rev. C. H., 2 Tytler, S., 16 Veitch, R., 8 Wain, Louis, 21 Walford, L. B., 4, 16 Waters, N. McG., 13 Watkinson, W. L., 17 Watson, W., 17 Weymouth, R. F., 13 White, William, 5 Whitley, W. T., 5 Whiton, J. M., 9, 10, 17, 19, 23 Williams, C., 14 Williams, T. R., 18 Wilson, Philip Whitwell, 12, 13 Worboise, Emma J., 10, 16, 25 _W. Speaight and Sons, Printers, Fetter Lane, E.C._ * * * * * Transcriber's Note: On page 172 the word "lapels" was written as "lappels" and has been changed. On page 378 the name "Seaward" was written as "Seward" and has been changed. The oe ligature is represented by [oe]. Words marked in bold are surrounded by =. Words marked in italics are surrounded by _. 
34319	----	============================================================== This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/ ============================================================== THOMAS HOOVER "A high-tech launch site, a missing nuke, and Arab terrorists with nothing to lose . . ." In the sun-dappled waters of the Aegean, ex-agent Michael Vance pilots the _Odyssey II_, a handmade replica of the sailcraft of the ancient hero Ulysses. Out of nowhere, a Russian Hind gunship with Arab terrorists at the helm fires upon the tiny ship below. The terrorists' destination is a tiny Aegean island where a U.S. aerospace corporation carefully guards the Cyclops 20-megawatt laser launch facility. But the company security force is no match for the firepower of the Arab invasion and the launch site is quickly overrun. With helpless horror, the executives can only watch as renegade technicians convert the launch vehicle into a ballistic missile that can deliver their stolen thermonuclear warhead to any city in the U.S. Left for dead amid the smoking ruins of _Odyssey II_, Michael Vance washes up on the occupied island - and becomes America's only hope. BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info PROJECT CYCLOPS A Bantam Falcon Book/September 1992 All rights reserved. Copyright © 1992 by Thomas Hoover. Cover art copyright © 1992 by Alan Ayers. ISBN 0-553-29520-9 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OPM 0987654321 Grateful acknowledgment is made to reprint from the following: "On forelands high in heaven" from More Poems from The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman. Copyright © 1936 by Barclays Bank Ltd., Copyright © 1964 by Robert E. Symons. Copyright © 1965 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc. KEY WORDS: THOMAS HOOVER (Author) PROJECT CYCLOPS (Novel: Techno Thriller) Arab Terrorists, Laser, Aegean, Odyssey, Aerospace, Ballastic Missile, Thermonuclear Warhead, Ulysses, U.S. Navy, Israeli Terrorist, Hind, Spacecraft, satellite, Pakistan nuclear bomb, mercenaries PROJECT CYCLOPS PREFACE 7:22 P.M. "Keep her above three hundred meters on the approach." Ramirez's hard voice cut through the roar of the 2,200-hp Isotov turboshafts. Down below, the cold, dusk-shrouded Aegean churned with a late autumn storm. "Any lower and there'll be surface effect." "I'm well aware of that," the Iranian pilot muttered, a sullen response barely audible above the helicopter's noise and vibration. It stopped just short of open disrespect. Sabri Ramirez did not mind. The two Iranians had been an unfortunate necessity, but in three days they would be dead. The others, the professionals, were the ones who counted. When he hand-picked the European terrorists now resting on the four litters in the main cabin, he had gone for the best. Each man had a track record and a purpose. Ramirez, however, was the leader, fully in control. He had planned, financed, and now commanded the operation. In the ghostly light of late evening, his sleek cheeks, iron- shaded temples, and trim mustache gave no hint of the extensive plastic surgery that had created this, his latest face. He wore a black jumpsuit, like the others, but under his was a $2,000 Brioni charcoal double-breasted--perhaps more suited for a three-star dinner in Paris, at L'Ambroisie or La Tour d'Argent, than the operation at hand. All the same, he felt comfortably at home in this Hind-D helicopter gunship, the most lethal assault machine ever. Their operation had two objectives, and the first had just appeared on the bright green cockpit radar. It was the 2,600-ton U.S. frigate Glover, Garcia class, which the National Security Agency had converted into a Mid-East spy platform. Loaded with missile-tracking and communications-monitoring antennas, it had to go. Ramirez expected no difficulties. Like the USS Stark, the frigate disabled by Iraqi Exocet missiles in the Persian Gulf in 1988, it was a perfect target. With only one gun, it would be child's play for a fully-armed Hind. "Activate IFF," he ordered, glancing back at the instrument panels. "They should acquire us on radar within two minutes now." "IFF on." Salim Khan, the still-brooding Iranian, nodded and reached for the interrogator/responsor in the panel on his right. They were using the NATO Identification System, a low-band interrogator, into which they had programmed the false Israeli Identification Friend or Foe code. The gray box would receive the electronic query, "Are you a friend?" and it would automatically reply, "Yes, this aircraft is friendly." Ramirez watched with satisfaction as the green numbers flashed. Deception, he thought. The key to everything. In the intelligence dossiers of Mossad, and the U.S. CIA, he was known as the Hyena, killer of hundreds in Europe and the Middle East. But his most cherished recent fact in those dossiers was the item declaring the disbanding of his private organization. He thankfully had been written off. Of course, the self-important analysts reasoned over their pipes and printouts, of course the chimera named Sabri Ramirez must be dead. His unmistakable touch had not been on a bombing in years. The playboy terrorist who flaunted silk suits, had cellars of rare vintage wines in Tripoli, Damascus, Baghdad, and Beirut . . . that man wouldn't just retire. He had to be _gone_. They were half right. He had wearied of the squabbles and disputes of a far-flung organization; however, he had not lost his taste for money. Or his hatred of the United States. Now that NATO was falling apart, America was trying to take over the Middle East--aided by its European lackeys. But he had put together a plan that would end America's global military intimidation once and for all. Not coincidentally, he was going to acquire eight hundred million dollars in the process. "We'll be exposed," he continued, "but just for about three minutes. They only have one gun, a .38 caliber DP Mark 30, mounted on the forward deck. It is in plain view. Remember I need a clear ten-second window for the Swatter. After we neutralize their main ordnance, we come about and strafe the communications gear." He hoped this dense Iranian understood the approach profile. He had briefed the man over and over, but still he was not sure it had sunk in. He examined Salim Khan one last time--the bulky face with sunken, almost depressed eyes--and stifled a sigh of exasperation. Iranians. Still, he had better not offend the man's much-vaunted honor. After all, Salim had single-handedly stolen the Hind gunship they were now flying from the Iranian Air Force, providing a crucial component in the overall operation. A rare prize, the Hind had been secretly purchased by the IAF from an Afghan rebel unit--which had captured it in 1987. Iran had wanted to see one up close, against the day the Soviets might turn their anti-Islamic paranoia against them and try to invade. That day had never come. And now this disaffected air force lieutenant had simply stolen it. At last, Ramirez thought with satisfaction, their valued prize would be put to use. Salim Khan had mastered the Hind's controls years before, had flown it often, and just four days ago he had taken it up, shot his weapons operator, and used a fake identity to file a new flight plan, setting down to refuel in Rawalpindi. The theft had caused a tempest. When they discovered it, the mullahs had blamed America and engineered a demonstration in the streets of Tehran so they could bray in the press. But by that time he had already taken it out over the gulf and landed it on the camouflaged Greek cargo ship they had waiting. After navigating the Suez Canal, that ship was now anchored safely off Crete's main port of Iraklion. For Salim Khan, who had twice been passed over for promotion to captain, the taste of revenge in that theft was sweet indeed. "The most important part of the approach," Ramirez went on, "is to make sure we're ID'd by their VIS, their Visual Identification System. It's crucial they make our Israeli markings." The Hind-D looked like nothing else in the world, one of a kind. Its visual profile, dark green against the sunset hues of the sky, should be unmistakable. Or so he hoped. Almost sixty feet long and over twenty feet high, it had a main rotor fifty-five feet in diameter and a heavy, retractable landing gear. The tandem stations in the nose for the weapons operator, and the pilot above him, had individual canopies, with the rear seat raised to give the pilot an unobstructed forward view. Any schoolboy should be able to identify one a mile away, as well as its Israeli markings--the blue Star of David in a white circle. "I still think it's unnecessary," Salim Khan mumbled into his beard. "It only adds to our risk. It would be better--" "A visual ID is essential." Ramirez cut him off. "When they make it, they'll go through the Sixth Fleet HQ in Gournes for verification, then--" 'They just acquired us on radar," the Iranian interjected, as a high- pitched alert sounded from the instrument panel and a line of green warning diodes turned red. "Right on schedule." Ramirez nodded. "The U.S. Navy never sleeps." He turned and motioned to one of the men crouched on a litter in the main cabin, shouting above the noise. "Peretz, it's time to start earning your share." Dore Peretz, a veteran of the Weizman Institute, was a specialist in strategic weapons and their delivery. But that was another life. Now he was free-lance. Ramirez had picked him for his technical skills, and his greed. He rose and made his way forward, working carefully through the jumble of legs and automatic weapons. He was younger than he appeared; his prematurely salt-and-pepper hair made him look late forties, though he actually was only thirty-nine. He settled into the weapons station below Salim, pulling down his black turtleneck, the better to accommodate a flight helmet, and went to work. "Are you ready?" he asked Salim, in perfect Farsi. "I am ready if God is ready," the Iranian replied grimly, his eyes beginning to gleam from the strain. Peretz reached down and switched the radio to 121.50 megahertz, the military emergency channel. "Mayday. Mayday. Israeli Hawk One requesting permission for emergency approach." He then repeated the announcement in Hebrew. It was, of course, a pointless gesture for the illiterate Americans, but for now verisimilitude counted. "We copy you, Hawk One. This is USS Glover. We've acquired you on radar," came back the response, a Southern drawl, young and slightly nervous. "What seems to be the problem?" "One of our turboshafts has started losing oil pressure. We could use a visual check. What's your position?" He glanced down at the green radar screen and grinned. It showed the frigate's coordinates to within meters. The radioman complied with his request, then continued. "There could be a problem, Hawk One. The storm's just pushed the sea over four feet. It's a helluva--" "Permission to approach. We have a situation here," he continued in English. "Have to check that with the TAO. We've got a perimeter," came back the uneasy answer. "Fuck your perimeter, sailor." Peretz' voice was harder now. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Leon Daniel, Israeli Air Force. We've got an emergency and we're coming in. Tell that to your TAO, and get us perimeter clearance. We're coming by." He switched off his mike. "Well done." Ramirez nodded his approval. "Just the right combination of entreaty and bravado. I think the Americans will be stymied. The good-neighbor policy they like to talk about." He leaned back and wished he had a cigar. The other men waiting, crouched in the dark, had understood only some of the English. They were four Germans, a Frenchman, and a Greek. "Conditional clearance granted," crackled the radio. "But we have to visual ID you first. Approach from vector three-two-zero. Emergency rescue op being readied, just in case." "Roger, USS Glover," Peretz spoke back sharply, in his best military style. "Keep the coffee hot." "It's always hot, sir. This is the U.S. Navy." "Appreciated." "Glad to be of help, Hawk One." Peretz clicked off the radio and turned around. "I think they bought it." "So far so good," Ramirez nodded. He descended the three steps down into the lower cockpit, the weapons station, and stood behind Peretz, looking it over again. The Hind's offensive capability included a four-barrel Gatling-type 12.7mm machine gun in a turret under the nose, as well as 32-round packs of 57mm rockets secured on hardpoints on each stubby auxiliary wing. Finally, the wingtips carried four Swatter homing antitank missiles, two on each side. Plenty of firepower for what he intended. "Remember," he said to Salim as he moved back up, "no hint of hostile action until after they make the ID." Would the stubborn Iranian hold steady? Stick to the procedure? He checked his watch. Four and a half minutes should take them inside the VIS range. The altimeter showed that they were now at eleven hundred meters, and so far the Iranian was bringing her in perfectly. Of course, after the frigate confirmed they were flying a Hind . . . but by then it would be too late. . . . _"I was doubling Cape Maleas when the swell, the current, and the North Wind combined to drive me sidelong off my course and send me drifting past Kythera. The force of the gusts tore my sails to tatters, and for nine days I was chased by those accursed winds across the fish-infested seas. But on the tenth I made the country of the Lotus-Eaters." From The Odyssey: Book Nine_ CHAPTER ONE 7:25 P.M. "Do you read me, _Odyssey II_? Come in." The radio crackled on channel sixteen, the ocean mariner's open line. "Goddammit Mike, do you copy? Over." Michael Vance was exhilarated, and scared. The salty taste of the Aegean was in his mouth as he reached for the black mike of his radio, still gripping the starboard tiller. His waterproof Ross DSC 800 was topside, since there was no other place for it. He was lean, with leathery skin and taut tanned cheeks all the more so for his having spent the last three days fighting the sea. He had dark brown hair and a high forehead above eyebrows that set off inquiring blue eyes. His face had mileage, yet was curiously warm, with a slim nose that barely showed where it had been broken year before last-- during an ARM special op in Iran. "Is that you, Bill? Good to hear your voice, but this is a hell of a time--" "Who else would it be, you loony gringo? Hey, I'm getting a damned lot of static. How about switching channels? Over to seventy." "Seventy, confirmed." He pushed in the code, his fingers slippery and wet. The wind was already gusting up to thirty knots, while his boat was crabbing across the growing swell. "Okay, Lotus-Eater, you're on." "Listen, old buddy," the voice continued, clearer now that it was digital, "our weather radar shows a squall building in the north, up in the Sporades, and it looks like it could be a real bear. It's going to be all over your butt in no time. Thought I'd better let you know. You ought to try and hole up down on the south side of Kythera." Kythera was an island just off the southeast tip of Greece's Peloponnesos. It was now looming off Vance's starboard bow, barren mountains and sheer cliffs. "I've been watching it," he yelled back into the mike, holding it close to shield it from the howl of wind. The gale was coming in at an angle to the waves, creating two swells running at ninety degrees, and the sea was getting short and confused. "But I think I can ride it out. I'm making probably seven or eight knots." He paused, then decided to add a little bravado. No point in admitting how worried he was. "Just a little rock and roll." 'That's horseshit, friend. This thing's for real. You'd better head for cover." It was the profane, oversmoked voice of Bill Bates, CEO of SatCom, who'd been monitoring his trip using the awesome electronics he'd installed on the little island of Andikythera, fifteen kilometers south of Kythera. "Even old Ulysses himself had that much sense, and it's common knowledge that guy didn't know fuck-all about sailing. Took him ten years to get home. Remember that inlet on the south side of the island, that little harbor at Kapsali? We put in once for a drink last year. I respectfully suggest you get your ass over there and drop anchor as soon as possible." "And let you win? No way, Jose." He was jamming his weight against the starboard tiller, and the radio was distracting. As far as he was concerned, the wager with Bates was ironclad: retrace Ulysses' route in a fortnight and do it without ever touching land. "I just think you're getting worried. You suddenly remembered we've got ten large riding on this. Somebody's got to lose, and it's going to be you, pal." "You're a headstrong idiot, Michael," Bates sputtered. "Fuck the ten grand. I don't want it and you don't need it. I'm hereby going on record as taking no responsibility for this idiotic stunt, from this point on. You're really pushing your luck." "We both know this ain't about money. I've got a reputation to live up to." Like finding out how many ways I can kill myself, he thought. Jesus! How did I get into this? He reached to secure the linen sail line to a wooden cleat. The heightening swell was churning over the gunwales, soaking him as it drove the bow to leeward. "Well, for once in your life use some sense. The risk isn't worth it. Our weather radar here at the facility tells no lies, and you should see it. This is going to be a granddaddy. I've triangulated your position and you're only about four klicks off the east side of Kythera. You could still run for that little harbor down south before it hits." "I know where I am. I can just make out the island off my starboard bow. About two o'clock." It's tempting, he told himself. Damned tempting. But not just yet. 'Then go for it." Bates coughed. "Listen, you crazy nut-cake, I have to get back out to Control. We've got a major run-up of the Cyclops laser system scheduled tonight for 2100 hours. So use your head for once, goddammit, and make for that anchorage." "Your views are taken under advisement. But a great American philosopher once said it ain't over till it's over." He pushed the thumb switch on the microphone, clicking it off. Then he switched it on again. "By the way, amigo, good luck with the test." The Cyclops was going to power the world's first laser-driven space vehicle. Who knew if it would work? 'Thanks, we may need it. Catch you again at 2300." "See you then." If I'm still around, he thought. He clicked off his mike, then switched back to channel sixteen. The radio was the only electronic equipment he had permitted himself. He enjoyed monitoring the Greek chatter coming from the island fishing boats and trawlers, which worked nights. Lots of bragging. Now, though, the bursts of talk on the open channel were all about the building storm. The fishing boats this night had abandoned the Aegean to the massive inter-island ferries. In fact, those white multi-deck monsters were his real concern, more than the storm. _Odyssey_ _II_ had no radar, and his tiny mast lantern would just melt into the rain when the storm hit. Sailing in the dark and in a squall was a game of pure defense; he had to keep every sense alert--sight, hearing, even smell. He prayed the ferry lanes would be empty tonight. A Nomicos Line triple-decker could slice his little homemade toy in half without ever knowing he was there. _Odyssey II_ was a thirty-eight-foot wooden bark, planked construction of cypress on oak, that no sane man would have taken out of a marina. But Michael Vance was hoping to prove to the world that the fabled voyage of Ulysses from Troy back to Greece could have happened. Unlike anything seen afloat for almost three thousand years, his "yacht" was, in fact, an authentic replica of a single-masted Mycenaean warship. Painted lavender and gold--the ancient Greeks loved bold colors--she could have been a theme-park ride. But every time he looked her over, he felt proud. His browned, cracked fingers gripped the wet wood as the sea churned ever higher, now blotting out the dim line of the horizon. The storm was arriving just as daylight faded-- the worst moment. Enough thinking, he ordered himself, audibly above the gale. It's bad for the reflexes. Just keep the tiller to leeward and don't shorten sail. Go for it. Just get around Kythera, then heave to and lie in the lee till the worst is over. Another five, maybe six kilometers should do it. Vance wasn't Greek; he was American and looked it. As for Greece and things Greek, he preferred tequila over ouzo, a medium-rare sirloin to chewy grilled octopus. All the same, years ago he had gotten a Ph.D. in Greek archaeology from Yale, taught there for two years, then published a celebrated and radical theory about the Palace of Knossos on Crete. The book had caused an uproar in the scholarly community, and in the aftermath he had drifted away from the world of the ancient Greeks for several years. With this project, he liked to think, he was coming back home. He had just turned forty-four, and it was about time. Age. More and more lately he realized he preferred old, well-crafted things: stick-shift transmissions, tube amplifiers, vinyl recordings. Anything without numbers that glowed. _Odyssey_ _II_ was as close to that feeling as he could get. Coming in now was his first real weather, and he had his numb, pained fingers crossed. His creation had certain historically precise features yet to be fully tested in high seas. He had built her in the style of ships in Homer's time, which meant she was hardly more than a raft with washboard sides. Four meters across the beam, with a shallow draft of a meter and a half, she was undecked except for a longitudinal gangway over the cargo and platforms at the bow and stern, protected with latticework to deflect enemy spears. It did not help much, however, against the swell. The keel extended forward at the bow, supposedly for additional lateral plane, and that was a plus when reaching with the wind abeam or tacking to windward, but now, running downwind, it increased her tendency to sheer about. All his strength was needed on the tillers just to keep her aright. There were other problems. Maybe, he thought, Ulysses had them, too. He'd reproduced the ancient Aegean practice of tying the ends of the longitudinal wales together at the stern, then letting them extend on behind the ship and splay outward like the tail feathers of some magnificent phoenix. Although he loved the beauty of it, now that "tail" was catching the wind and making steering even tougher. Probably should have left the damn thing off, he'd often lectured himself. But no: _Odyssey II _had to be exactly authentic . . . or what was the point? No guts, no glory. The ancient Greeks were the astronauts of their age, the Aegean their universe, and he wanted to recapture the triumphs and the fears of Homer's time, if only for a fortnight. 7:28 P.M. "Sir, we got an RQ from the Glover." Alfred Konwitz, a twenty-year-old Oklahoman with a thirty-eight-inch waist and known to the evening radio shift affectionately as Big Al, lifted off his headphones and reached for his coffee, extra cream and sugar, which he kept in a special Thermos cup. The United States has two bases on the southern Mediterranean island of Crete, strategically close to Libya and the Middle East in general. They are the naval and air base at Souda Bay, which is large enough to accommodate the entire Mediterranean Sixth Fleet, and the communications base at Gournes, in the southern outskirts of Iraklion, Crete's capital city. He and Staff Sergeant Jack Mulhoney were at Gournes, on the fourth floor of the faceless gray building that housed operations for the massive battery of antennas. They both knew the Glover was a Garcia- class frigate, technically part of the Sixth Fleet, on a routine but classified intelligence-gathering assignment a hundred kilometers northwest of Souda Bay. "They've got an Israeli chopper Mayday," Konwitz continued. "They need a verify. See if it's a scheduled op or what." Jack Mulhoney was busy with paperwork--more damned forms every day--and did not really want to be bothered. He got off at midnight, and the staff officer had ordered it completed and on his desk, by God, by 0800 tomorrow. Or else. 'Then run it by Traffic," he said without looking up. Forms. "Maybe it's some exercise. You could call down to the Mole and see if it's on his schedule." The Mole was Charlie Molinsky, who ran the Traffic Section on the second floor. If the Israeli chopper was on a regular op, he would have it in the computer. "Roger." Konwitz punched in the number and asked Molinsky to check it out. As he waited, he found himself wishing he were back in Oklahoma, hunting white-tail deer on his uncle's ranch. They were as thick as jackrabbits. He only had six months more to go, and he could not wait to get out. He had joined at age seventeen to get a crack at electronics, and--true to its word--the Navy came through. When he got out, he was going to open his own shop and get rich fixing VCRs. Hell, everybody who had one was always saying how they broke down all the time and how much they cost to fix. Who said the Japs didn't create jobs in America. . . . Suddenly he came alive. "He's got a negative, sir. He's asking if we could get Glover to reconfirm." "Christ, switch me on." Mulhoney shoved aside the pile of paper and reached for his headset. "Glover, this is Gournes. Do you copy? Over." He listened a second, then continued. "Roger. We have no ID on that bogey. Repeat, negative ID. Can you reconfirm?" While he was waiting, he punched up a computer screen and studied it. The Glover had reported a position at latitude 36°20' and longitude 25° 10' at 1800 hours. And their bearing was last reported to be two-five- zero. Nothing else was in the vicinity. Damn. He didn't like the feel of this one. His instincts were telling him something was wrong. Then his headphones crackled. "Verified IFF. Definitely Israeli code. Do you copy?" "I copy but I don't buy it. Proceed with caution. Configure for a bogey unless you can get a good visual." "Roger. But can you get through to Israeli Control? There's a hell of a storm coming down out here right now, and visuals don't really cut it." "I copy you, Glover. Hang on and we'll try to get something for you." He flipped off the headset and revolved in his chair, concern seeping into his ruddy features. "Al, see if the people downstairs can get through on their hot line to Israeli Air Control. Military. Ask them if they know anything about a chopper in the vicinity of the Glover. Tell them we need a response now. Priority. Could be we've got a bogey closing on one of ours, maybe using a phony IFF. I want them to clear it." "Aye, aye, sir," he said crisply, then reached for the phone again. He spoke quickly, then waited, drumming his fingers on the vinyl desk. . . . 7:31 P.M. As another gust hit, Vance glanced up at the rigging, praying it would hang together. Instead of canvas, the wide, shallow square sail was made of small linen cloths sewn together, like those made on the tiny looms of ancient times. It was a single-masted reefing sail, invented just in time for the Trojan War, with an upper yard fitted with a system of lines whereby it could be furled up and then secured aloft. When he got south of the island and hove to, he would drop the sea anchor and reef her, but for now he wanted every square inch. He was tired and thirsty, but he had no time for even a sip of water. With the sea rising, waves were pounding over the primitive sideboards and soaking him to the skin. Next the squalls would come--though maybe a little rain would feel good, improve the personal hygiene. . . . He was used to problems. For the past five years he had operated a three-yacht charter sail business out of Nassau, the Bahamas, living aboard one of the vessels, a forty-four-foot Bristol two-master christened _The Ulysses_. In fact, this whole enterprise had begun there when, after a day of sailing, he and Bill Bates were unwinding over drinks one hot and humid afternoon at a club near the Hurricane Hole Marina. Vance, attired in shorts and a T-shirt, his standard sailing outfit, was sipping his Sauza Tres Generaciones tequila and feeling great. "You know, Bill, I've been thinking," he had said. "I want to try something that's never been done before." "What? You mean try paying your bills on time?" Bates had laughed, knowing Vance seemed to have a perennial cash-flow problem. "Very funny." He had ignored the crack and swirled the ice in his glass, then pulled out a piece to chew. "No, this is serious. Ever check out the paintings of the early ships on Greek vases?" "Can't say as I have." Bates had reached down and was brushing a fleck of dirt off his perfectly white leather Sperry Top-Siders. As always, his pale blue Polo blazer remained crisp, his West Marine "Weatherbeater" cap immaculate. "Well, hear this out. I think there's enough detail in some of the pictures I've seen to actually re-create one. And I checked it out: there's also a pretty good description of one in The _Odyssey_." Bates had looked up from his Bacardi and Perrier. "So you want to try and build--" "Not just build one; anybody could do that." He had leaned back, hoping to add a touch of drama to what was next. "I want to sail one through the Aegean. Do a rerun of the _Odyssey_, the classic quest." "Get serious." Bates laughed. "Couldn't be more. I want to build one--single mast, square sail--and go for it. Recreate Ulysses' _Odyssey_. And no nav gear. Just the stars." "But what route would you take?" Bill was digging into the pocket of his blazer for a weathered briar pipe. "Does anybody really know?" "I've looked into it, and just about everything Homer talked about has been located, in some place or another. We know exactly where the site of Troy was, so that'd be the spot to push off. Starting at the Dardanelles Strait, Ulysses first went north and sacked a city on the coast of Thrace. Then he took a heading almost due south, passing through the Cyclades islands and by the north side of Crete, then put in at the north shore of Africa, where--" "So, you intend to do it by the book," Bates had interjected. "Only way." He had sipped his tequila, feeling his excitement growing, then continued. "From there it's up to the western tip of Sicily, Polyphemus land, then northwest to Sardinia. Then over to Italy and down the west coast, where Ulysses ran afoul of Circe. Next it's south, past the Galli Islands, where the Sirens sang, after which I make the Straits of Messina and down to Malta, the island of Calypso. Finally it's northeast to Corfu, and from there it'd be a straight shot on down to Ithaca. Home plate." "You'll never make it." Bill was thoughtfully filling his pipe. "Bet you ten grand I can do it in a fortnight." "I'll probably never see the money, but you're on." Bates had grabbed the bet, with a big, winner's grin. . . . So far, it had gone virtually without a hitch. Using old paintings, he had worked up precise engineering drawings for the vessel, then engaged with a small shipyard in Istanbul to build it. The Turkish workers could scarcely believe their eyes. The ship was a Greek vase come to life, and already the world press had given him plenty of coverage. Everybody liked the idea of a long shot. He had taken plenty of long shots sailing the Caribbean over the last eight years, but he had no experience with an early October storm in the Aegean. Tonight was building into a serious problem. All signs pointed to a typical autumn blowout. He glanced at the low-lying clouds moving in from the north, darkening the sky and building rapidly. He knew that in these waters, light autumn breezes could easily whip into thrashing gales. Yeah, Bill's radar was right. The weather was real. And it scared him, a lot. Well, he figured, it was time. He had been lucky so far. The Ross DSC radio still worked, and the patchwork sail hadn't ripped--yet. . . . Then it happened. The nightmare. Without warning the winds suddenly changed around to the north, going from thirty knots to sixty in what seemed only a second. As the linen sail strained, he threw his weight against the tiller, hoping to hold his course. Now more than ever, with the storm on him, he wanted to keep on all his canvas and try to get into the lee of the island as soon as possible. It was definitely time to cut the bravado and start thinking about the sea anchor. "_Odyssey II_, come in," the radio crackled, and he recognized Bates' voice once more. "Do you read?" He reached down and picked up the small black mike, then yelled against the howl of wind. "I copy you, but make this quick. No time to chat." "I had another look-see at the radar, Mike, and I just noticed something else you should know about. We show you at almost the same position as a U.S. Navy ship of some kind. Part of the Sixth Fleet probably. Take care you miss her." He clicked the mike to transmit. This time he didn't want to bother switching channels. "Some kind of exercise, probably. What's her class?" "Can't tell. But she's still a hell of a lot bigger than you are, pal. They may pick you up on their radar, but again maybe not. Just take care." "I'll keep an eye out for lights. Thanks." He clicked off the mike again, then looked around. But the Aegean, what he could see of it, remained dark and empty. Somehow, though, the black made it just that much scarier. He leaned back into the tiller, still trying to hold as much of the wind in the sail as possible. The waves were lashing him now, cold and relentless. And _Odyssey II _was beginning to heel precariously, forcing him to apply helm, throwing his full hundred and eighty pounds against the heavy wooden portside tiller. It was one of a pair, port and starboard--the old Greek idea being that whenever a ship leaned away from the wind, lifting the windward rudder out of the water, the helmsman still had a lee rudder for control. But when he took her to starboard and tried to round the island, the wind and tides would be full abeam. With a shallow-draft, low-ballast vessel like this, that was going to be dicey. . . . He reached for the life jacket he had secured to the mast, a new Switlik Fastnet Crew Vest MK_II_. Normally he did not bother, but this was not the time to go macho. It had a 35-pound buoyancy and a 4,000- pound breaking strength, enough for any seas. Now the wind was gusting even harder, kicking up yet more swell. The Aegean sunset was concluding, its red clouds turned purple and darkening fast, a presage that visibility would shortly be a thing of the past. The past, _a la recherche du temps perdu_. This trip, regardless of his bet with Bill, was also about recent times gone by. His father had died, the revered Michael Vance, Sr., the undisputed Grand Old Man of archaeology at Penn. It turned out to be a far greater loss than he had anticipated, like a chunk of himself torn away. He still missed their late-hours "discussions"--heated arguments, really. He had been trying to wrench away the future, the old man trying to hang on to what he knew best: the past. It had been a dynamic tension filled with mutual love. And now he felt guilty. But why? There was no reason. He also had gone through another of life's milestones, a divorce. Eva Borodin, a dark-haired daughter of Russian aristocracy, a college sweetheart, had come back into his life after a digression of ten years. The second time around was supposed to be a charm, right? The soap operas were wrong on that one, the same way they were about most other things in real life. Although the divorce, now a year ago, had been businesslike and amicable, it still had hurt. For the past year he had been sitting around and brooding--about life, love, middle age, death. He still found himself wearing his wedding ring. Why? It just made him think of her even more. No, the truth was, everything reminded him of her and how much he needed her. What he had not realized--until she was gone--was that needing somebody was the richest experience of life. He sighed into the wind. The challenge of his _Odyssey_ enterprise was supposed to take his mind off all that. Was it working? Maybe. But so far the jury was still out. . . . He gripped the tiller harder and glanced up at the sail. Running downwind, the cutwater on the bow was going to be a real problem. But just another half hour, probably, and-- Christ! Bill's warning was on the mark. A massive hulk loomed dead ahead, running with no lights. It was as long as a football field, the bow towering up like a battering ram. She was moving in off his portside stern--he guessed she was making at least fifteen knots. High above the bridge, antennas and communications gear showed faintly against the twilight gloom, gray and huge. Not recommended for close encounters . . . but he still had time to tack and give her a wide berth. He threw his weight against the tiller, veering to leeward. Once clear, he would bring the bow about and let the cutwater top her wake like a surfboard, keeping him from taking water. Then he would be on his way, into the storm and the night. Maybe he did not even have a problem. They probably had picked him up on their radar by now. It did not mean they would veer off course, but they might throttle her down a few notches, just to be neighborly. . . . He was still leaning on the tiller, watching the monolithic hulk skim silently past, when he noticed a throaty roar beginning to drown out the slap of the ship's wake against the side of _Odyssey II'_s_ _hull. After a few moments, as it grew in ominous intensity, he realized it was coming in from the south. What in hell! He whirled to look, and spotted a chopper, altitude about eight hundred meters. What was it doing here? Had Bill been that worried, enough to risk sending his hot new Agusta Mark _II_ out in this weather to . . . No, it was way too big. When he finally saw it clearly, the stubby wings and rocket pods, he realized it was a Soviet Mi- 24D, a Hind. Over the mottled camouflage paint he discerned the blue star and white background of the Israeli Air Force. Odd. He knew they had captured one once, an export model from the Syrian Air Force, but they would never fly it this far into international airspace. It was a prize. What's more, this bird was fully armed--with dual heat-seeking missiles secured at the tips of each stubby wing, just beyond the twin rocket pods. Then it assumed an attack mode. . . . 7:43 P.M. Sabri Ramirez stepped down to the weapons station again, gazed out through the huge bubble, and smiled. "Shut down the radar. Their IWB must not have any reason for alarm. They're probably running our IFF through Gournes right now." The Israeli nodded, then reached over to switch off all systems that the Americans might interpret as weapons guidance. Next he clicked on the low-light TV. Unlike radar, it was a passive system that would not alert the ship that she was being ranged. Ramirez pictured the control room of the USS Glover crowded with curious young seamen glued to their monitoring screens, probably happy to have a little excitement. Their IFF would be reporting an Israeli chopper. But the minute the visual ID came through, all hell would break loose. So far, he told himself, it had been a textbook approach. Airspeed was down to ninety-five knots, altitude eight hundred meters. Carefully, carefully. First rule. Don't spook the quarry. We don't need radar. We'll be passive, heat-seeking. No ECM they can throw at us will make any difference. "Under two minutes now," he said. "It's time." "No pain, no gain." Peretz flipped on the radio. "USS Glover, we're going to have to ditch. We have a crew of three--pilot, copilot, and navigation trainee." "We have emergency crews on starboard side, ready to pick you up. Do you have Mae Wests?" "Life jackets on. Standard-issue yellow. With dye markers and saltwater-activated beacons. We'll--" "Hawk One, our Traffic guys at Gournes just reported they can't get a positive verify on you." 'Tell them to check again," Peretz suggested matter-of-factly. "Maybe they screwed up in--" "We'll have them run it through one more time. Routine security. But you've got to keep a three-thousand-meter perimeter till--" "Dammit, sailor, oil pressure's in the red. We're taking her by your starboard bow. Ready your crews." Suddenly another voice came on the radio. It was older. "Israeli Hawk One, this is Tactical Action Officer Vince Bradley. Who the hell are you? We VID you as a Mi-24 gunship." Peretz had switched off his mike and was loosening his helmet strap. "You got it right, asshole." 7:44 P.M. _ _Vance watched as the Hind approached on the starboard side of the destroyer, heading straight for it and dropping altitude. What in hell was going on? He lunged for the radio, and switched it to the military emergency frequency, hoping to pick up some clue that would explain it all. Probably not much of a chance. If this was a Sixth Fleet operation, they would be scrambling everything. Nothing. So he flipped over and started scanning the U.S. Navy tracking frequencies--216.8 through 217.1 megahertz--in the meantime trying to keep the tiller in hand. The radio was alive, agitated voices yelling back and forth. It was an argument, the helo claiming it was making a flyby for an emergency ditch, the frigate not exactly buying the story. No kidding. He'd checked out the chopper in close-up as she came over, and he'd seen nothing wrong. Everything looked to be in perfect working order. The only obvious thing out of the ordinary was that she was fully armed. Whoever was flying her was using some kind of bogus Mayday to get in close. But by now it was too late to try and give the frigate a warning. 7:45 P.M. "Perfect timing," Ramirez said, moving down to the weapons station and taking Peretz' place. "We're inside forty-five seconds. Now just keep her on the deck. First we neutralize the forward gun turret." "Taking airspeed to fifty knots." Salim was praying now. "_Allau Akbar_!" "USS Glover." Ramirez had switched on the helmet mike again. "We have a confirmed ditch. Oil pressure just went entirely. We'll be taking her by the bow." "I repeat, who the hell are you?" the TAO's voice came back on the radio. "We still have no confirm on your IFF. If you make a pass, I'll assume hostile intent." "Sorry. No time to play this by the book," he replied. "We're ditching." He immediately clicked on the radar. In less than ten seconds he'd be in position to lay a Swatter directly into the forward gun turret. Command on the _Glover _knew it, and at that moment the gun was swiveling, coming around. Suddenly a blaze streaked past them in the sky as the forward gun fired and a telltale tracer ripped by. It was intended as a warning. But now the gun glowed on the IR interrogation screen. Thank you very much, Ramirez thought, and flipped a switch, activating the starboard Swatter's heat-seeking guidance system. 7:46 P.M. "Right." Alfred Konwitz snapped to attention. "Yes, sir." He slammed down the phone and whirled around to Jack Mulhoney. "Full denial, sir. Israeli Control says they have no military aircraft operating anywhere in that sector of the Aegean. They double-confirm. That's Class A. Hard." "We're in the shit. Some son of a bitch is closing on one of ours, and we don't even know who he is." He picked up the headphones, then switched on the scrambler. "_Glover_, do you read me? I think it's a bogey. I can't tell you that officially, but you'd better alert your TAO in the next five seconds or it'll be your ass, sailor." "This is Bradley," came back a new voice. "We just-- Jesus!" "_Glover_, what--?" "Hostile action . . . do you copy? We've got a hostile." "How many--?" "It's visual ID'd as a Russian Mi 24-D. With Israeli markings. We're taking fire forward--" "What are--?" Sounds behind the radio voice had erupted in turmoil. Something catastrophic was going on. "Al," he turned quickly, "get Command. I think we've got an Israeli- ID'd Hind taking hostile action on the _Glover_." He didn't realize it, but with those words he had played directly into Sabri Ramirez's hands. The scenario was now a lock. When Jack Mulhoney turned back to his radio, he only heard static. 7:47 P.M. Vance watched as the frigate got off a warning tracer, but to no effect. The Hind ignored it, as a stream of 57mm rockets from under the chopper's stubby starboard wing flared down, while the radar-slaved machine gun beneath the nose opened fire. Then the weapons operator on the Hind loosed a starboard-mounted heat-seeking Swatter, and an instant later flames erupted on the frigate's bow, an orange and black ball where the forward gun turret had been. As it spiraled upward into the night, the turret and its magazine exploded like a giant, slow- motion cherry bomb. He could see sailors running down the decks, could hear the sound of a shipboard fire alarm going off, the dull horn used for emergencies. They were calling all hands to station, but their response had come too late. The false-flag approach had caught the U.S. Navy off guard, its defenses down. The radio crackled alive with a Mayday. Were there any other ships in the area? he wondered. Anybody to take out the bastards in the chopper? Now it was banking, coming around, bringing the frigate's stern into its deadly view. Then a blaze of 57mm rockets poured in, engulfing the communications gear and antennas. Next the weapons operator loosed a second Swatter directly into the bridge. Christ! Seconds later it had transformed the midsection of the frigate into a ball of fire. He watched aghast as the blast flung the men on the bridge outward through the glass partition. He plunged for cover just as the first airborne shock wave ripped _Odyssey II's _linen sail loose from its lines. When he rose to try and grab the starboard tiller, a second shock wave caught him and flung him savagely against the mast. The next thing he knew, he was clinging to the portside gunwale, one hand still tangled in the lines that had been ripped from the sail. The night sky had turned a blood red, reflecting down off the low-lying clouds. Then he felt a tremor in the hull as a massive wave caught him and the pegs that held the stern together--so lovingly installed--sheared. The aft section of _Odyssey_ _II_ instantaneously began to come apart. The light woods would float-- she was, after all, hardly more than a raft with sides--but she would be helpless. His handmade marvel had been reduced to a bundle of planks, barely holding together, sail in shreds, twin rudders demolished. For a moment he counted himself lucky. His body unscathed, he probably could weather the storm by just hanging on. Then it happened. Whether through luck or skill, the chopper's weapons operator laid another one of the Swatter missiles into the frigate's stern section, causing a massive secondary explosion, a billowing ball of fire that punched out near the waterline. This time, he knew, a wall of water would come bearing down on him, sending a terminal shock wave through what was left of _Odyssey II_. You've got to try and keep her aright, he told himself. Try and lash yourself down with one of the lines. . . . The wall of water hit, hurtling him over the side. He grasped for a section of gunwale, but it was too late. The wave obliterated everything. Now the swell was churning against his face as he tried to stroke back, his lungs filling with water. His arms were flailing, hands trying desperately to grasp the slippery cypress planking. The Switlik vest was holding, so he was in no danger of drowning. Yet. Fighting the swell with his left hand, spitting water, he reached out with his right, trying to catch any piece of wreckage floating by. Finally, he succeeded in wrapping a line around his wrist. He gasped, choking, and caught his breath. Then, still grasping the line, he draped his left arm across _Odyssey II's _shattered side and used the line to pull himself over, into what was left of the hold. If he could stay with her, he figured, he might still have a chance. Just as he tried to rise to his feet, however, he looked up to see the mast slowly heeling over, coming straight down. He toppled backward, hoping to dodge it, but it slammed him just across the chest. The world swirled into blackness, as even the light from the blazing ship behind him seemed to flicker. Stay conscious, he told himself. Stay alive. Holding onto the toppled mast, using it as a brace, he managed to rise. And now the Hind had completed its gruesome handiwork and was banking. Again it was going to pass directly overhead. By God, he thought, this thing isn't over. Those bastards are not going to get off scot-free. 7:50 P.M. _ _"You used the Swatters!" Salim was shoving the throttle levers forward as he banked. His voice was incredulous. "You said we were just going to disable the TRSSCOMM system and the radars with rockets." TRSSCOMM was short for Technical Research Ship Special Communications. The frigate was equipped with batteries of listening antennas, an elaborate system of sensors and sophisticated computers, and various hydraulic systems on the stern needed to twist and turn the various dishes. But it also was manned. What was the point of mass murder? Ramirez had explained that the _Glover _was a spy ship that worked for the U.S. National Security Agency, the NSA. Normally it operated within a small region, in a special "hearability" area just off Crete where a fluke in the weather allowed it to eavesdrop on all the Middle East; the crew could even watch Cairo television. Salim was stunned. Ramirez, he had suddenly realized, was a madman. It was one thing to require an occasional killing in an operation this complex--after all, he had had to shoot his weapons operator in order to steal the Hind--but an all-out attack on a U.S. frigate was pointless. The stakes had just gone through the roof. However, Salim's younger brother, Jamal, had exactly the opposite reaction. With a surge of pride he exclaimed, "Praise be to God," and fell to his knees on the rear litter. This was a leader he would follow anywhere. The others did not share Jamal's joy. They considered themselves professionals, and overkill was not businesslike. However, they merely glanced at each other and kept silent. Squabbling with Ramirez served no purpose. "We were only going to take out their tracking capability," Salim said again, his anger growing. "It's time you understood something." Ramirez handed his headset to the Israeli, Dore Peretz, and stepped up from the weapons station, his voice sounding above the roar of the engines. "I am in charge of this operation. If I think an action is necessary, I will take it. Does anyone here want to disagree?" The question was answered with silence. He had just killed dozens of men. They all knew one more would hardly matter. 7:52 P.M. Vance pulled himself across the planking and stretched for a box of gear stowed beneath the stern platform. In it was a constant traveling companion: his chrome-handled 9mm Walther. Although the concept of downing a Hind gunship with small-arms fire had been tested in Afghanistan and found wanting, he was so angry his better judgment was not fully in play. The pistol remained in its waterproof case. Quickly he took it out, unwrapped it, and clicked a round into the chamber. Then he tried to steady himself against the fallen mast. The Hind was about a hundred meters away now, coming in low. Were they going to strafe? No, they probably didn't realize he was there. They were about to be in for a surprise. He could see the weapons-system operator inside the lower bulletproof bubble. Forget it. And the pilot, seated just above him, was similarly invulnerable. No way. Furthermore, the dual rocket pods beneath each short wing were probably armored. Again no vulnerability. Aside from the poorly protected gas tanks there was only one point worth the trouble. If . . . It was about to pass directly overhead, and he saw that he was going to be lucky. One Swatter missile remained, secured on the hardpoint tip of the stubby starboard wing. It was the only shot he had. But if he didn't get it, they would get him. One touch of the red firing button by the weapons operator and _Odyssey II_ would be evaporated. He took careful aim at the small white tube on the wing, still nestled on its launcher, and squeezed off a round. But at that instant _Odyssey II_ dipped in the swell and he saw sparks fly off the fuselage instead. The chopper passed blissfully overhead, its engine a dull roar above the howl of the sea. 7:54 P.M. "We're taking fire!" Peretz shouted from the weapons station down below. "What? That's impossible." Ramirez whirled, then stepped in behind him to look. Lights from the control panel winked over his shoulders, while below them the Aegean was dark and gray. "Check the look-down radar." Peretz flipped a switch on his left and scanned the screen. 'There's something down there. Maybe a fishing--" "Idiot, nobody's fishing here now. Not with this weather." He looked up and shouted to the cockpit. "Salim, take her about, one-eighty, and we'll strafe the son of a bitch." The 12.7mm nose cannon was slaved to the radar, another of the Hind's many well-designed, and lethal, features. While Ramirez watched--he would have moved back into the gunnery seat himself, but there was no time--Dore Peretz switched on the nose cannon. When the target locked on the radar, he pushed the fire control under his right hand. 7:55 P.M. A flare of machine-gun fire, hopping across the churning sea, caught the side of _Odyssey II_ and sprayed flecks of wood around him. But the swell was making him an elusive target. The line of fire had not really done any damage, not this time. They knew he was there, though. Now the chopper was banking and returning for another pass. Maybe, he thought, they're going to stick with the nose cannon. They won't bother wasting rockets or a multi- thousand-dollar Swatter missile on the wreckage of a raft. The bastards are just having some target practice, a little fun and games. He saw the flames from the nose cannon begin as the massive Hind started its second pass. This was it. _Odyssey II _was about to be history. But not before he gave her one last blaze of glory. Holding to the gunwale and readying himself, he took careful aim at the starboard Swatter, still perched like a thin white bird on the stubby wingtip. He steadied the Walther, on semiautomatic, and began firing-- oblivious to the line of strafing coming his way. He saw the rounds glancing off the armored wing, and the sparks guided his aim. The clip was going fast, but then . . . Bingo. A flare erupted, then an orange fireball, neatly severing the starboard wingtip. The missile had detonated, but just as it did, the Hind's strafing caught _Odyssey II_ right down the middle, shearing her in half. 7:56 P.M. "Stabilize her!" Peretz felt himself flung against the bulletproof bubble that shielded the weapons station. A blinding explosion jolted the Hind, and the accompanying shock wave from the detonating Swatter spun it around thirty degrees. Several gauges in the instrument panel had veered off scale. Salim reached up and cut the power to the main rotor, then eased the column and grabbed the collective pitch lever with his left hand. In less than a second the Hind had righted herself. Slowly the instruments began coming back as the electrical system recovered from the impact. "Tail rotor's okay," he reported, checking the panel. "Altimeter reads five hundred meters." He looked up. "What in the name of God happened?" "Our last Swatter detonated. The question is, why?" Ramirez answered. He was staring angrily out the high-impact plastic of his bubble at the wreckage of the starboard wing. Dore Peretz, now in the weapons station in the nose, was talking to himself. "I got the bastard." 7:57 P.M. _ _He shoved the Walther into his belt and dove into the swell, the cold waters crashing against his face. The _Odyssey II _was reduced to debris. His labor of love, half a year's work, all evaporated in an instant. The Zen masters were right: never get attached to physical things. He avoided the deadly shards of wood, then seized onto a section of the mast that had blown in his direction. The Hind was banking and turning now, assuming a heading due south. That, he realized, was the direction of Andikythera, site of SatCom's new complex. Was it their next target? That didn't make any sense. Bill's project was commercial; it had no military value. Or at least none he could imagine. But now he had only one thing on his mind. He secured his life vest tighter and held on to the mast, the salty Aegean in his face. The current was taking him due south, the same direction the chopper had headed. CHAPTER TWO 7:58 P.M. "Damn it!" Ramirez looked down at the weapons' readouts. "Did you have the Swatter armed? The system should have been off. If it was on, he could have detonated it by impact." Peretz stared a second longer at the wreckage of the vessel below, then glanced back at his instruments and paled. "I thought it was . . . it must have malfunctioned. No fucking way--" "Carelessness. Stupid carelessness." Ramirez bent his head and examined the wing, then checked the status readouts on the weapons system. "We lost the starboard rocket pod, too." Peretz took one look and realized it was true. The rocket pod had been shorn away, leaving the tangled metal of the wing completely bare. But the Hind did not need its wings for stability; they were merely for armaments. "Well, so what? I wasted the fucker, whoever he was." He tried a smile, sending a web of lines through his tan as the lights of the weapons panel played across his face. It was the way he always disguised nervousness. Damn you, Ramirez was thinking. An Israeli cowboy. I would kill you on the spot except that I need you. It was an arrogant mistake, and I can't let it happen again. It won't happen again. He turned and moved back up to the cockpit. "What's our status?" "Sideslip is nominal," Salim reported grimly, his dark eyes glancing down at the churning sea only a couple of hundred meters below them. "I think we're going to be all right." "We have just had an example of how an oversight can destroy an operation," Ramirez declared, turning back to the main cabin. "We will not succeed if we get careless, lose discipline. I have planned this operation down to the last small detail. You have all been briefed, over and over." He paused and examined the men. Sometimes he felt as if he were lecturing children, but these were no children. "Each of you knows what his job is. I expect you to do it with exactness and precision. The next oversight anyone here makes will be his last. Am I understood?" There was silence, then finally a voice came from the litters in the darkened cabin aft, barely audible above the roar of the twin engines. It was Jean-Paul Moreau, the Frenchman. He hated flying, and he particularly hated flying with an Iranian at the controls. "What the hell happened?" "Someone on . . . presumably a raft of some kind. We took a couple of rounds of small-arms fire." He glanced back, making sure his voice reached Peretz in the weapons station. "The last Swatter was left turned on, armed, and it must have been hit. Probably the detonator. A stupid oversight." "Looks like the mistake was mine," came the voice of Peretz, trying, unsuccessfully, to sound contrite. "Can't win them all, baby." Back to his smart-ass self, Ramirez thought, still gritting his teeth in anger. But he pushed it aside. "Forget it. In this business you only look back if you can profit from your mistakes. We just learned what happens when we forget our mission. The matter is closed." "Now"--he returned his attention to the main cabin-- "when we set down at the facility, I expect total discipline. Nothing less will be tolerated. Is that understood?" He motioned Peretz out of the weapons station and took his place there. Would these men hold together the way he required? As he looked them over, he felt confident. He had had enough experience to smell success. Sabri Ramirez had definitely been around the track. Born in Venezuela almost half a century earlier, the son of a prominent Marxist lawyer, he had become an ardent revolutionary by age twenty. At twenty-five he went off to Cuba, but it was only later, while attending Patrice Lumumba University in the Soviet Union, that he discovered his true ideological core --it turned out he actually despised "the oppressed of the earth," along with curfews, books, and lectures. No, what he really wanted to join was not the Party, but the party--good living, women, fame. And he wanted the last most of all. After nine months his lack of ideological fervor got him summarily expelled. He actually felt relief. With an eye to where the action was, he immigrated to Beirut . . . and prudently became a Muslim by conversion. Then he started making contacts--Beirut had always been a good place to make contacts. The payoff was quick. He was young, obviously brilliant, and he would do anything. In the early 1970s he was recruited by the terrorist group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and assigned leadership of its European unit. Off he went to Paris, the posting of his dreams. He had long fantasized about making himself a legend as one of the world's leading terrorists, and he was soon succeeding beyond his fondest imaginings. In 1974 he graduated from the PFLP and formed his own group. A Middle Eastern gun-for-hire, it was known as the Organization of the Armed Arab Struggle. The designation, he thought, had a nice revolutionary ring, which he had long since learned mattered. His new enterprise--terrorism-to-go--soon attracted such major clients as Libya and Iraq. Among his more celebrated achievements were the bombing of a French Cultural Center in West Berlin, exploding a suitcase bomb at a Marseilles railroad station, and placing an incendiary device aboard the French "bullet train." Although he never had cared about ideology, he appreciated the importance of a correct political stance in the Islamic world, and therefore he frequently posed as the leader of an "armed struggle" against the "Zionist Enemy." But always, however, at a profit. He had, in fact, perfected the fine art of extortion, pressing the "reactionary" regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf sheikdoms into paying protection money disguised as "revolutionary donations." After he engineered the 1975 OPEC incident in Vienna in which eleven oil ministers were taken hostage, and then blew up a seaside resort, killing a Kuwaiti official, he began receiving regular payoffs from all the Gulf states. Finally, in 1984, he closed out operations under the OAAS name, moved to Damascus, and began training Syrian intelligence agents. By that time, he had become a chimera, a legend whose nickname, the Hyena, was linked to every car bomb in Europe. And by that time also, the Hyena (a name he despised) had become the stuff of popular fiction, as well as of dossiers on three continents. Having reduced terrorism to a science--a boring science --he then temporarily retired. But now, after the American invasion of the Middle East, he had decided to come back for one last score, to do what he had been dreaming about for years. The Americans had unwittingly provided the perfect opportunity. Why not seize it? This time, however, he wanted to do it himself, not with an army of half-crazed radical Muslims. . . . He stepped up to the cockpit and examined the rows of gauges. "Hold the airspeed under a hundred knots. And make sure you keep her on the deck." Then he checked down below. "Peretz, this time make sure all the weapons stations are switched off. That's _off."_ The Israeli nodded, this time without his usual grin. Now the Hind had begun its final approach. The low-light TV showed a small landing pad approximately thirty meters on each side with a private helicopter parked in the middle of a black and white bull's-eye in the center. He knew that ARM--a group he had long hated-- had ringed the island with a first-class industrial security system. Five years ago, he recalled, they had killed three of his operatives in Beirut, in a futile attempt to kill him. What's more, it never made the papers. Typical. The security system they had developed for the island was good, but it made no provision for this kind of penetration. It pleased him to at last make fools of them. "We're coming in," Salim announced. He touched the rudder pedal with his left foot to hold their heading and grasped the collective pitch lever as he eased the engines toward idle. "There's already a helo on the pad. Looks like a new Agusta." "I know about it. Just set down next to it, inside the landing perimeter. I want this to be simple." Tonight, he knew, they had scheduled the first full power-up of the Cyclops. Everything depended on how that test went, but he couldn't postpone the takeover any longer. This was it. . . . Abruptly he wondered if the damaged wing would affect stability on touchdown? They would soon find out. 8:10 P.M. The current swept him inexorably southward, while behind him the bundle of planks that remained of _Odyssey_ _II_ was dispersing rapidly. He cursed himself for having lost the Ross DSC radio. On the other hand, he considered himself lucky just to be in one piece. Luckier than the crewmen of the USS Glover. It was heartrending. Seeing a tragedy coming and not being able to stop it: that was the worst possible nightmare. He wanted to go back to try and help, but the sea made it impossible. He pulled himself over the bobbing, drifting mast, feeling it slam against his face as the sea tossed it like a matchstick. All around him lethal splinters of _Odyssey_ _II_ sliced through the water, jagged spears driven by the swell. The dark engulfed him, lightened only by the billowing remains of the Navy frigate now some thousand yards away. Somewhere, dear God, it's got to be somewhere. Let it still be strapped to the mast. The idea seemed stupid at the time, but now . . . He felt his way down until his fingers touched a slippery nylon cord. Was it . . . yes. Maybe there is a God. The straps were tangled, which was not supposed to happen, and fragments of cypress planking from the sides of the ship had punctured the nylon cover, but his Switlik search-and-rescue raft was still dangling from the remains of the mast. Now for one more minor miracle: Could he manage to pull it free before everything disappeared into the dark and the swell? He flailed with one hand to keep his head afloat, while his fingers grappled with the bowline knot. Finally the knot loosened, and he wrenched it loose. Jesus, is there going to be anything left? Would it still inflate? He grappled with the fiberglass canister that contained the raft, then popped it open. With his last remaining strength he pulled on the tether, discharging the bottled carbon dioxide that caused the Switlik to hiss to life. Part of it. He realized the lower buoyancy tube had been ripped to shreds by the 12.7mm machine gun of the Hind that had destroyed the mast, but the upper one had somehow escaped intact. So he was half-lucky. It was yellow, hexagonal, and it looked like heaven. He had never used one before, and he had never realized how it felt. Like an oversized inner tube. With a surge of relief, he pulled himself aboard, inching in as he felt the swell pound over him, and then he drew out the folding oars and extended them. With his new course he knew he would miss the harbor at Kythera recommended by Bates--no way could he battle the current and make it. The vagaries of wind and sea were driving him almost due south. It was the direction the chopper had taken--straight for the little island of Andikythera. Could they breach SatCom's security and get in? Probably. The setup installed by ARM was industrial-level only. He had cautioned Bill about that. He grimaced and plied his strength to the two small aluminum oars. The way the wind and seas were taking him, he would find out soon enough. Again he lamented the loss of the radio--with it he could get out a Mayday alerting any ships around that might mount a rescue of the frigate's survivors. He also could try warning the SatCom facility that trouble was headed their way. The problem was, the Hind had a top speed of over a hundred and fifty knots. If Andikythera was its destination, it probably was already there. The cold sea stung his face and the tossing waves were making him slightly seasick, but he felt alive again. Almost by instinct he looked up to try to find the stars, loving how crisp and striking they could be over the Aegean. Nothing yet, but there were glimmers in the north. A good sign. The storm was blowing over now, the clouds starting to open up again. If Bill tries the radio, he'll probably figure I've just vanished from the earth. He half felt like it. As the cold autumn waters of the Aegean surged around him, its six-foot waves washing over his partially inflated Switlik, he thought about Bill Bates. He was a friend, a very good friend. Was he about to be in trouble? Although Bates was a world-class executive, he also was a dedicated family man. He had a model wife back in Arlington and two model sons, both deposited in model private academies. His wife, a blond WASP old- fashioned enough to have the same family name as a prominent Philadelphia bank, never seemed to tire of her charity obligations, so it was his sons he took with him sailing in the summers. That was how Vance had met him, sailing with the boys in the Bahamas. Bill was highly regarded in industry circles as the CEO's CEO, and not without reason. For one thing, less inconsequential than most would think, he looked the part. His steel-gray hair was always trimmed to the precise millimeter, his tanned cheeks were forever sleek from a workout at his club, or whatever club was handy on his perpetual travels. He had once claimed he knew the location of more health clubs than any man in America. Best of all, though, he knew how to raise money. When he described a pending enterprise, he did it with the gleaming eye of the true believer. Even in a dicey investment environment, he always generated the enthusiasm sufficient to ensure that a new stock issue sold out and closed higher than the offering price on the day it was floated. The man could sell sunlamps in the Sahara. He competed hard in everything he did. When he decided, some years after he and Vance had become acquainted, that he wanted to spend summers racing, he did not bother buying his own yacht; instead he flew to Nassau and leased the fastest boat he knew. At that moment, the vessel filling that description was the Argonaut, owned by Windstalker, Ltd. It was a forty-four-foot sloop, highly regarded throughout the racing fraternity. Its owner, however, never let any of his three yachts out of the harbor without first undertaking a personal checkout of the new skipper--even if it was an old friend. Vance remembered it well. Bill manned the helm, a mahogany wheel always kept well polished, and they were making a solid eight knots on the Speedo. It was one of those mornings in the islands when everything seemed as clear as a desert sky. No cruise ships were scheduled into the harbor, and the stinkpot powerboats were mercifully in limited supply. The wind was perfect and the water as smooth as a glittering mirror. Best of all, Bates was handling the helm as though he had been there all his life. "Think we can get her up to ten knots?" he'd asked, shielding his eyes as he studied the genoa, a gleaming triangle of white above the bow. Vance had leaned back and tested the wind. "Give her a little touch on the helm, to starboard, and I think she might come through for you." He was proud of his recent refurbishing of the boat--the latest Northstar digital satnav gear, brand-new sails that cost a fortune, a complete renovation of the instrument station down below. Bates tapped the wheel and the genoa bellied even more. "I like this fucking boat a lot, Mike," he declared. "So here's the deal. I want to lease her for three months, take her to Norfolk, get a crew together, and get everybody comfortable with her." "I think we can talk." Vance had to smile. The yacht would be in good hands, and a three-month charter was a dream come true for a guy in his business. "Matter of fact, I wanted to ask you to help me out with something else, too. Some security work." "Hey, I'm just a simple charter-boat operator. Not my line." "Don't bullshit me, pal." He laughed. "You know SatCom is building a new industrial facility in the Aegean." "A private space facility." "I think American technology is getting a bum rap, Michael," he said with sudden seriousness. "I plan to change that." "The Journal says you want to try and give the Europeans a run for the roses." He looked over, the wind whipping his glistening hair. "You keep in touch pretty damned good for a simple sailor. But I tell you, if we succeed, we'll literally change the way space is used. I'll be able to put a satellite into orbit for a song. Just between us, I'm building the biggest private spaceport anywhere. The French operation in Guiana won't hold a candle to it. I've already got ten geostationary orbital slots locked up with the World Administrative Radio Conference. Even NASA better keep a grip on their jockstrap." "Where's the money coming from? The usual suspects?" "Who else." He laughed, then tapped the helm slightly more to starboard. "The stock was over-the-counter and it was hell and gone in three fucking hours. Bang. Out the door. Matter of fact, it's now trading almost fifteen percent above the original offering price." He shrugged. "I should have issued more. But like a stupid son of a bitch, I had a failure of nerve. Didn't go with my instincts." "Next time, how about letting me in on the action?" "You're a goddamn piece of work, Michael. And so's this boat. Tell you what. I'll make you a deal. I figure you're expecting about four thou a week for this baby, correct?" "Anything for a friend." "Right." He laughed. "I want her for twelve weeks. So . . . what if I paid you with some of my personal SatCom stock? Fifty thou worth at the current price? How's that sound?" "Deal," Vance said, without hesitation. He'd heard a lot of big-time bull in the charter business, but Bates was a straight shooter. The temporary gap in cash flow was going to make meeting the three mortgages--one for each boat--tough, but he liked the sound of the project." "This isn't going to leave you strapped, is it?" Bates looked a trifle worried. "I'll manage. As I always say, two in the bush is worth one in the hand." "Michael, half the time you don't have a pot to piss in. I know that. You're the lousiest personal-finance manager I know." He laughed out loud and tapped the helm, bringing her to port a notch. "Which is one of the world's great ironies, considering what you do for ARM." "You hear things, too." He had never really discussed his ARM work with Bates. "You're good. I know that. Word gets around." He paused. "Matter of fact, I wanted to ask you a favor. I was hoping you could work up a contract for me with your people. As I said, I need some security for that facility in Greece." "What kind?" "That's for your guys to say. It just has to be good. We're going to be installing some proprietary technology that's light-years beyond anything that's ever been seen before. And we're going to rock a lot of boats in the business. There're a hell of a lot of Europeans who'd love to know what we're up to. There's a real chance of industrial espionage." "So what's the program? Perimeter surveillance? Security guards? We could probably arrange the subcontracting." "I'd appreciate it. Your guys know Europe, the local scene. I've got a feeling that's going to be important." "No problem." The truth was, this was exactly the kind of no-risk work the boys at ARM liked. Nobody shooting at you. "I'll put in a call to Paris if you like. Something probably can be arranged." "Good." Bates nodded, as though a handshake were already involved. One more thing off his checklist. "Mainly I want some physical-security stuff. You know--fences, alarms, that kind of crap." "We've got a guy in Athens who specializes in that. He won't give estimates over the phone, but if you'll let him look over the site, he'll price the job for you right down to the drachma. With various options. But you'd be smart to go with his top-of-the-line recommendation. Try to nickel and dime him and he'll walk. I've seen him do it." "So what's this so-called 'top of the line' likely to run me?" Bates had asked. "Well, there are the systems you can see and the ones you can't." He'd laughed. "The ones you can't see cost more." "I already told you I need the best." "Then you probably want to go MAD," Vance said, his eyes hiding a twinkle. "What the hell are you talking about?" He looked over, annoyed and puzzled. "Magnetic anomaly detectors. You bury special transmitting cables beneath the ground, outside the perimeter, so that they build an invisible electromagnetic field around and above their location. Anything--doesn't even have to be metal--that enters the field will distort it. If you go with the Sentrax system, made by an outfit in Switzerland called Cerberus, you can have the whole thing linked to a central console that displays the layout of the perimeter on computer screens." "Sounds good. We're practically going to have computers in the bathrooms." "Won't come cheap." Bates shrugged into the wind. "As long as you guys don't ask for the store, I see no problem. I've budgeted for security, and there's always contingency money." "I'll see what I can do." He had glanced up and ascertained that the sun had passed the yardarm. But even if it had not, what the hell. He saw the prospects for a fat commission looming. "How about a Heineken?" He was reaching into the cooler in the well. "You read my mind." "By the way, want to tell me the location of the site? You've managed to keep that out of the papers so far. I'd guess it's probably an uninhabited island, right?" "Good guess. It's north of Crete, about twenty square kilometers. It's privately owned, but I've just signed a long- term lease." Vance tried to envision the place. Most of the Greek islands tended to be granite, with nothing growing on them but scrub cedar. "What's the terrain like?" "That's actually what makes it so attractive. Cliffs all around the shoreline--you couldn't put in with so much as a dinghy--and then one really marvelous deepwater inlet. But the best part is, the interior is mostly level and perfect for what we need. And there's a granite mountain at one end that's ideal for our telemetry." "A protected docking location and a natural telemetry base." "Right. All the electronics will be set up high above the launch facility, and we can use the inlet for bringing in materials. We should only have to dredge it a bit and sink some pilings. It's well along. I've already signed off on a lot of the prime contracts." He stared at the blue horizon and adjusted the wheel again. "And I'll let you in on another secret, Michael. I've bet the ranch on this one. The stock offering wasn't nearly enough to capitalize the enterprise. I've had to raise money from everybody in town--junk bonds, the fucking banks, you name it. Just the hardware ran close to three hundred million. I've even put up my stock in all my other companies. If this project doesn't fly"--he laughed--"literally, I'm going to be joining America's homeless. I even put up my house in Arlington. Worth two million, and I owned the goddamn thing free and clear. I'll just have to hand over the keys. Dorothy'll kill me." "Then we'll make sure nobody snoops." He popped open an ice-cold beer for Bates, then one for himself. "From land or sea." "Land or sea." Bates hoisted his icy green bottle. "Which actually raises an interesting question." He took a sip, cold and bracing. "How about security from the air? Flyovers, that kind of action?" "Let them come. There'll be nothing to see. Except for the launch pad and telemetry, everything's going to be underground. There're a lot of caves on the island--like that famous one on Antiparos. We're going to use those for the computers and assembly areas. And what we can't find in place, we'll just excavate." It's beginning to sound a little too pat, Vance found himself thinking. But that's what security experts were for. They were the guys who got paid to find holes in a project like this. . . . The thing that kept gnawing at his mind, however, was the phrase "by land or sea." All along he'd worried about penetration from the air. Had he been right after all? CHAPTER THREE 7:48 P.M. Sitting at Main Control, the central desk facing the large display screen, Cally Andros had just reached a conclusion. She was getting old. Two more weeks to her thirty-fifth birthday, then a measly five years till the big four-oh. After that she could only look forward to a holding action, fighting sags and crow's-feet. Building dikes to hold back the deluge of time. It was depressing. She sipped at a cup of black coffee emblazoned with the SatCom logo, the laser eye of the Cyclops, and impatiently drummed her fingers on the workstation keyboard, trying not to be distracted by meditations on mortality. Tonight for the first time they would nin up the superconducting coil all the way, in their most important test yet. The tech crews at the other end of the island predicted it would reach peak power in--she glanced at the huge digital clock on the blue wall next to the screen--twenty-seven minutes. . . . What was wrong with her? She had thought that one over a lot and decided the answer was nothing. She had dark Greek eyes, olive skin, and a figure that would stop a clock-- a perfect size eight. But it got better. She had the best legs in the world. The absolute very best. If they wouldn't necessarily stop a timepiece, they'd sure as heck slowed a lot of traffic over the years. No, her problem was opportunity. Whereas on paper this island was every single girl's dream--males trapped here by the carload--all the attractive/interesting men were either too young or too old or too dumb or too married. Moreover, those in the control room--mostly Ph.D.'s in their late twenties--saw her only as Dr. C. A. Andros, Director-in- Charge. There seemed to be an unspoken rule around Control that you didn't make a move on the boss lady. Anybody who could run this project had to be treated with the distance befitting authority. Especially since they believed all she really cared about was work. Thanks a lot, whoever dreamed that one up. The sickest part of all, though, was they were half right. She did not wish herself anywhere else in the world right now, men or no men. She occupied the center of the universe, was poised for the winner-take-all shot she could only have dreamed about five years ago, back when she was still fighting the mindless bureaucrats at NASA. With Project Cyclops she was running a half-billion-dollar gamble for the last big prize of the twentieth century. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never be handed anything this terrific ever again. Born Calypso Andropolous thirty-four years ago, daughter of strong- minded Greek farmers, she had learned to believe in herself with a fierce, unshakable conviction. Until now, though, she had never really had the opportunity to test that faith. Until now. It had not been an easy journey. After getting her doctorate in aerospace engineering from Cal Tech, she had struggled up through NASA's Kennedy Center bureaucracy to the position of chief analyst. But she had never achieved more than a desk job. She had wanted more, a lot more. Now, thanks to SatCom, in three days she would have it. Using a fifteen-gigawatt microwave laser nicknamed Cyclops, she was about to put SatCom in the forefront of the private race for space. Ironically, the company had built its spaceport barely three hundred kilometers from her birthplace on the island of Naxos. She often thought about life's ironies: sometimes you had to return home to change the future. She barely remembered that rugged little island now; the images were faint and overly romantic. Those times dated back to when the junta of right-wing colonels had seized power in Greece. Soon thereafter her parents had emigrated; they and their nine-year-old daughter joining a large exodus of freedom-minded Greeks to New York. They had been there only three months when her father died--the hospital said it was pneumonia; she knew it was mourning for Greece and all he had lost. He had loved it more than life. She was afraid, down inside in a place where she didn't visit much anymore, that he loved it more than he had loved her. So along the way she tried to forget all of it, to bury her memories of Greece. And now here she was back again. In New York, Cally Andropolous had, in spite of herself, thought incessantly of Greece; back here now, all she could think about was New York. The strongest recollection was the third floor of a walk-up tenement on Tenth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, a section of town widely known as Hell's Kitchen--and for good reason. The schools were designed to make sociopaths of all those trapped inside; only New York's famous Bronx High School of Science, one of the finest and most competitive public institutions in the nation, offered an escape from their horror. Accepted when she was thirteen, Calypso Andropolous graduated third in her class. For her senior science project, she created a solid-fuel rocket, using, as the phrase goes, ordinary household chemicals. And she did it all by herself, with a little help from a skinny French Canadian boy named Georges LeFarge, who lived with his mother in Soho. By that time, she knew exactly what she wanted. Her ambition was to be the first woman in space. Nobody said it would be easy. But after the rocket--she and Georges had launched it from the Morton Street Pier in Greenwich Village--she felt she was on her way. She had blossomed--in every way, much to her frustration--a lot quicker than Georges did. At age seventeen his idea of sex was still to swap chemical formulas. So she finally gave up on him as a lover and decided to wait till college. She chose Cal Tech, selected after turning down acceptances from half a dozen prestigious universities in the East. By then, Calypso Andropolous had decided she wanted to get as far away from West Forty- ninth Street as possible. And she never wanted to see another eggplant moussaka as long as she lived. She also wanted a shorter name, and thus it was that her long Greek surname became merely Andros. That simple change had a liberating effect on her far beyond what she had expected. At last she felt truly American . . . and able to admit to loving nothing better than living off Whoppers and fries. Junk food was, in fact, the thing she missed most here. No, what she missed most was Alan. Still. Georges had picked MIT, and she did not see him again until he came to Cal Tech for grad school. By that time she was deeply in love with Alan Harris, who was twenty years her senior. She was discovering things about herself she didn't want to know. Harris was a biochemistry professor, tall and darkly handsome, and she wanted desperately to live with him. She knew he was a notorious womanizer, but that didn't matter. She was looking for a missing father and she didn't care. It was what she wanted. When he broke it off, she thought she wanted to die. The only one she had left to turn to was Georges. And they restarted a friendship as platonic as it had been back at Bronx Science, though it was deeper this time. Georges told her to forget about Harris and just concentrate on a first-rate dissertation. It was not easy, but she did. Her project involved compressing a big computer program that calculated spacecraft trajectories into a small one that could be operated on a Hewlett-Packard hand calculator. She then devised a way to create voice commands that could free up an astronaut's hands while he--soon, she told herself, it would be she--handled other controls. After reading every NASA report that NTIS had released on microfiche, she knew no one there had created anything like it. She also figured out that NASA was a hotbed of careerists, all protecting their own turf. The only obstacle to their accepting her new computer program would be the NIH syndrome--Not Invented Here. It turned out she was right, and wrong. By happy chance, her dissertation came to the attention of Dr. Edward Olberg, a deputy director of trajectory control at the Kennedy Space Center, who hired her a week later, with a GS rating a full two grades higher than customary. He knew a good thing when he saw it. And now Dr. Cally Andros' computer work was the creation of a NASA employee. End of problem. She still wanted to be in the astronaut program, but she figured she had made a good start. She was wrong. It turned out that she was far too valuable in the guidance section to let go. She published a lot of papers, grew very disillusioned, and was on the verge of telling them to stuff it, when . . . An executive unknown to her, named William Bates, called one May morning three years ago, said he had read all her papers, and then offered her a job that caused her to postpone her dreams of space flight. He wanted her to head up a private space program. She was, he told her, too good to work for the government. She should be out in the real world, where things happened. When she recovered from the shock, she felt an emotion she had not known since her first day at Bronx Science--she was scared. In the business world, the responsibilities were clear-cut and fatal. You were not blowing some anonymous taxpayer's money: it was real cash. Furthermore, your responsibilities doubled. Not only did you have to make it work, you had to make a profit. She loved the challenge, but she quaked at the enormous risk. Finally she made a deal. Yes, she would give up a sure career for a risky long shot, but on two conditions. First, she got to pick her staff, and second, someday she would get to go into space herself. Although he clearly thought the second demand rather farfetched for SatCom, he assented to both. . . . "How's it looking, Cally?" Bates was striding into Command, having just emerged from his office at the far end of the cavernous room. Fifties, gray-templed but trim, he wore a trademark open-necked white shirt and blue trousers--a touch of the yachtsman, even ashore. A former Vietnam fighter pilot, he had flown over from the company's head office in Arlington, Virginia two days ago--setting down the company's Gulfstream IV at Athens--to be on hand when the first vehicle, VX-1, went up. As he stalked up, he was his usual crabby self, seemingly never satisfied with anything that was going on. She looked him over and stifled the horrible impulse she had sometimes to call him Alan. He was short-tempered, the way Alan Harris was, and he had the same curt voice. Otherwise, though, they were nothing alike. The mind works in strange ways. "Cyclops countdown is right on the money, Bill. to the second. Big Benny is humming, and coil temps are nominal. Georges says it's a go for sure this time. We're going to achieve the power levels needed to lase." (They had tried two preliminary power-ups previously, but the supercomputer had shut them down in the last hour of the countdown both times.) "Looks like tonight is the night we get lucky." Georges LeFarge had served as her personal assistant throughout the project, even though he formally headed up the computer section. These days he was still slim, almost emaciated, with a scraggly beard he seemed to leave deliberately unkempt, just as he had at Cal Tech. Bates had bestowed on him the title of Director of Computer Systems, which did not sit well with his leftist politics. His conscience wanted him to be a slave to the exploiting capitalists, not one of them. However, he always managed to cash his bonus checks. He had carried on a flirtation with Cally, sending messages back and forth on the Fujitsu's workstations, for the last two years. She had finally taken him up on it; and it was a bust all around. _C'est la vie_. At this moment he was blended into a sea of shirt-sleeved technicians glued to the computer screens in Command Central, the nerve center of the entire operation. The young Americans all worked in a room slightly smaller than three tennis courts, with rows of light-beige workstations for the staff and three giant master screens that faced out from the far wall. The soft fluorescents, cheerful pale-blue walls spotted with posters and the large SatCom laser-eye logo, muted strains of Pink Floyd emanating from speakers somewhere in the corner, and circulated air carrying a hint of the sea--all made the perfect environment for the nineteen young workers spaced comfortably apart at the lines of desks this evening shift. As they watched, the superconducting coil ratcheted increasingly larger bursts of energy into the accelerator, pumping it up. At twelve gigawatts the Cyclops should--if all went well--begin to lase. The coil, a revolutionary new concept for storing electrical energy, was situated deep in the island's core. It was a near-perfect storage system, permitting a huge current of electricity to circulate indefinitely without resistance, ready to produce the massive, microsecond pulses of power. The heart of the system was an electromagnetic induction coil 350 feet in diameter and 50 feet high embedded in a natural cave in the island's bedrock. The coil itself was a new niobium-titanium alloy that became superconducting, storing electricity without resistance losses, at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. A vacuum vessel almost like a giant Thermos bottle surrounded the coil and its cryogenic bath. The coil fed power into a particle accelerator that drove the complex's centerpiece, the Cyclops--a free-electron laser designed to convert the energy stored in the coil into powerful pulses of coherent microwaves. The supercomputer would then focus these with the phased-array antennas into the propulsion unit of the space vehicle. That unit contained simple dry ice--the only thing simple about the entire system--which would be converted to plasma by the energy and expand, providing thrust for the vehicle. "Cally, we have ten point three gigs," LeFarge announced confidently. He was absently stroking his wisp of beard. "Power is still stable." "Good." She watched the readout on the computer screen in front of her as the numbers continued to scroll. If the Cyclops performed the way the engineers were all predicting, the world's most powerful laser was about to go critical. A thrill coursed through her. The idea was brilliant. By directing the energy to a space vehicle, you kept the power plant for its rockets on the ground. Unlike conventional rockets, the vehicle's weight would be virtually all payload, instead of almost all fuel. It would cut the cost of launching anything by a factor of at least a hundred. . . . Now a green oscilloscope next to the computer screens was reading out the buildup, a sine curve slowly increasing in frequency. "Eleven point one," Georges announced, barely containing a boyish grin. "We're still nominal." Cally glanced at the screen. "Let's keep our fingers crossed. Almost there." "By the way," Bates interjected, "assuming everything goes well here tonight and the storm lets up, I've scheduled myself on the Agusta over to Kythera in the morning. A friend of mine was sailing near there, and I'm a little worried. I just tried to reach him on the radio and got no answer. Maybe his radio got swamped, but I want to find out." He was turning to head back to his office. "Now, though, I've got some calls in to Tokyo. So keep me informed on the countdown, and your feelings on the weather." More investors, she caught herself thinking. Begging. Which must mean the money's getting tight again. But hang in there just a couple more days, Bill, and we're gonna show the world a thing or two. They'll be begging _you _to let them invest. "I just came in to give you some moral support," Bates continued, pausing, "and to tell you I think you're doing a terrific job." "Bullshitting the help again?" She laughed, not quite sure she believed his tone. "Why not? It's free." A scowl. "But just keep up the good work." He had extracted a leather tobacco pouch from his blue blazer and begun to fiddle with his heavy briar pipe. She started to ask him to please not smoke here with all the sensitive Fujitsu workstations, but then decided they were his workstations. "If this thing flies, literally, I'm going to give you a vulgar stock option. Another one. For putting up with me." "How about a bottle of aspirin?" She made a mock face. "I don't have any time to spend the money." "I'm going to take care of that, too. After this is over, I'm going to have you kidnapped by a Greek beachboy and taken to some deserted island where there's only one way to pass the time." He frowned back, a wry crinkle passing through the tan at the corner of his eyes. "Twenty years ago I might have tried to do it myself." "Still hoping to get me laid?" She gave him her best look of shock, and they both had to laugh. The sexual electricity was there, whether either of them wanted to admit it or not. "There's a time and place for everything," he went on, showing he could hint and not hint at the same time. "You're definitely working too hard." "I can't take all the credit." She knew when to be self-effacing and when to change the subject, fast. "We owe all this to the Bed Sox's oldest living fan." By which she meant Isaac Mannheim, the retired MIT professor whose revolutionary propulsion idea had made the whole project possible. In 1969 he had demonstrated his ground-based laser concept to NASA, but they had backed away, claiming they had too much invested in conventional chemical rockets. But he knew it would work, knew it would change the way space was used, so he had taken the idea to entrepreneur William Bates and offered to sign over the patents for a piece of the profits. Bates was impressed. He took him up on the offer, raised the money, and then hired the best aerospace engineer he could find to head up the project. Together they were a perfect team. Mannheim, with flowing white hair and tweedy suits, was now in his seventies and lived in retirement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was due in tomorrow, just in time to watch the first lift-off of a full- scale vehicle. When he arrived in Athens, Cally always dispatched the company Agusta to pick him up. A first-class corporation, she figured, ought to behave like one. "If the Cyclops power-up goes off without a hitch tonight, then we should have plenty of good news for him this trip," Bates said. "I'll let you be the one to brief him." "Oh, he'll know it all before he gets here. He calls me every day at 1700 hours, our time, to check things out. I could use him to set my watch." "Isaac's like the voice of our conscience, always telling us to work harder and better. Well, good for him." He smiled and flicked a gold lighter. The young technicians around the room gave him a disapproving glance, but kept their silence. The boss was the boss. Besides, everybody in Command, poised in front of their screens, had other things to worry about. 8:22 P.M. Eric Hamblin, formerly of Sweetwater, Texas, had worked as a guard for SatCom for the past two and a half years and he loved the job. He was twenty-four, a college-dropout casualty of the go-go eighties who got to spend his afternoons hanging out on one of Greece's most beautiful islands. He was tall, thin, and bronzed to perfection. During his weekends on Crete he could almost pass for French as he cruised the German Frauleins who lined the sands in their string bikinis. Tonight he had come on duty at seven o'clock--actually a couple of minutes later than that, since he'd been on the phone to a girl from Dresden to whom he had made some pretty overreaching promises. She wanted to come back to Crete this weekend and do it all over again. He grinned with satisfaction, kiddingly asking himself if he had the stamina. He sighed, then strolled on down the east perimeter. The security here at this end of the island was good, as it was everywhere: the tall hurricane fence was topped with razor wire and rigged with electronic alarms. Of course you couldn't see all the security, which meant the place did not feel confining or scary. Which suited him fine. He was wearing a .38, but it was mainly for show. He wasn't sure he could hit anything if--God forbid--he should ever have to draw it. Besides, the island was surrounded by miles and miles of water, the deep blue Aegean. The whole scene was a fucking hoot, and he gloried in it. Sea, sand, and--on weekends--hot-and-cold running German snatch. Who could ask for more? Andikythera was, indeed, a travel poster come to life. Though it still was owned by the Greek shipbuilder Telemachus Viannos, as part of his major investment in the company, Bates had negotiated a long-term lease for SatCom, and by the time the technical staff started arriving, the few Greek shepherds on the island had been comfortably relocated to Paros. Construction began almost immediately after Bates took over, and soon it was almost like one giant Cal Tech laboratory. Everything from Big Benny, SatCom's Fujitsu supercomputer, to the phased-array microwave installation was state of the art. Here SatCom had created a launch facility that was within ten degrees latitude of Cape Canaveral, totally secure from industrial espionage, and perfectly situated to send up a major network of communication satellites. Even now, though, the island remained unbelievably picturesque--its sharp white cliffs abutting the deep blue sea, then rising up in craggy granite to a single peak at one end, where the phased-array transmission antennas were now. Its flawless air sparkled in the mornings, then ripened to a rosy hue at sunset. For security and safety, as much as for aesthetics, the major high-technology installations had been secured deep in the island's core. Command was at one end, situated behind sealed security doors, and a tunnel from there led down to the power plant, installed a hundred and fifty meters below sea level. Guarding this small piece of paradise had been a snap. . . . Hamblin scratched at his neck and moved on through the sand. He despised the shoes they made him wear and wished he could be barefoot, untie his ponytail and let his sandy hair flow free around . . . What was that? The east perimeter was totally dark, but he caught a sound that almost could be . . . what? A chopper approaching? But there were no lights anywhere on the eastern horizon, and the pad was dark. Nobody flew Mr. Bates' fancy new Agusta 109 Mark II at night. Especially with no lights. No mistaking it now, though. A whirlybird was coming in. He could clearly make out the heavy drumbeat of the main rotor. 8:24 P.M. Salim altered the throttles when they were about ten meters above the pad, and they started drifting sideways. For a second it looked as though they might ram the Agusta, but then he applied the clutch, stopcocked the engines, and hit the rotor brake. The Hind safely touched down, tires skidding. They were in. Best of all, there'd been no radar warning alert from the instrument panel. Around them the facility was dark and, as he shut down the engines, deathly quiet. The wheels of the retractable landing gear had barely settled onto the asphalt before the main hatch was open and the men were piling out, black Uzis ready, the first rounds already chambered. 8:25 P.M. Hamblin thought briefly about raising Guard Command at the front desk on his walkie-talkie and inquiring what in hell was going on. But then he knew how they hated false alarms. Particularly when the top brass was busy, like tonight. He turned and studied the blinding white glow surrounding the two launch vehicles, VX-1 and VX-2, down by the superstructure on the western end of the island. They were basking in glory, as though anticipating tonight's power-up of the Cyclops. He automatically glanced at his watch: the big test was scheduled for about twenty minutes from now. No, instead of running the risk of looking like a jerk by reporting the expected arrival of SatCom execs he should have known about, he'd check this out himself. Jesus, why didn't anybody tell him anything? He mused that security precautions here had been intended to guard against infiltration through the fences, not to prevent a chopper from coming in. Guess they figured nobody would be crazy enough to try and sneak in using a helicopter. As he moved toward the landing pad, just over a hundred yards farther on down the fence line, he searched his memory for something he might have forgotten. No, he'd glanced over the schedule for the pad this afternoon and nothing was listed. Dr. Andros--what a fox she was, made those plump German broads look like leftover hamburger--always had been good about keeping the schedule up to date. He liked that and counted on it. But then maybe this was some kind of unscheduled situation, connected with the test. Who the hell knew? He was about to find out. Fifty yards to go. He could see the chopper now and it was huge, much bigger than anything he'd ever known the company to use. Maybe it was a last-minute delivery. An emergency. They had touched down, but still no landing lights. That didn't make any sense. Suddenly nothing made any sense. Another ten seconds, though, and he'd zap them with his big flashlight. He flipped the securing strap on his .38 and tested the feel of the grip. Just to be ready. He was thirty yards away and he could hear them talking now, though he still did not recognize all the languages. He realized right away, however, that these clowns weren't connected with SatCom. He'd had an uneasy feeling all along, and now he was sure. Were they industrial spies trying to pull a fast one? Maybe sneak in and take some photos? He had no time now to radio for help. He was on his own. He drew out the .38 and cocked it. Suddenly it felt very heavy. Then in his left hand he rotated the long flashlight till his thumb felt the switch. Now. He flicked on the light, beaming it through the wire security fence and catching the side of the chopper--God, it was huge--just in time to see several men stepping down. They were wearing black commando outfits and they most definitely were not anybody from the company. "_You_!" he yelled, his courage growing. "Stop right where you are and identi--" One of the intruders whirled in his direction, and before he could finish, he felt a deep burning sensation in his chest that slammed him backward. Next a piercing pain erupted in his neck and his head dropped sideways. The asphalt of the pavement came up, crashing against his nose. He heard the dull thunk of silencers just as the world went forever black. 8:26 P.M. "Pad perimeter secure," Jamal Khan, Salim's intense younger brother said in Farsi, his voice matter-of-fact. He'd just wasted some stranger; no big deal. Then he slipped the Uzi's strap over his shoulder and turned back. Come to think of it, this was the thirteenth man he d killed with an Uzi. Maybe the number would be lucky. . . . Ramirez looked out over the facility, confident. Posing as an electronics supplier, he had fully reconnoitered the site two months earlier, meticulously memorizing the location of everything they needed. Once again he reflected on how fortuitous its geometry was. The facility was made to be penetrated from the air. Stelios Tritsis, their Greek, was busy scanning the walkie- talkie channels, but he heard no alerts from any of the guards--which meant no more surprises in this remote corner. For reasons of safety, SatCom deliberately had located the helicopter pad as far as possible from the Cyclops and the launch installation. All staff were engaged down at the other end. This guard had been a loner, and he had paid for his stupidity. "Phase two complete," Ramirez announced quietly as he looked back at the Hind. "Now, remember. No heroics. Everybody on semiauto." The only obvious security out here was at the entry gate to the chopper pad. After Peretz quickly aborted its alarm by short-circuiting the copper contacts, they moved through single-file. Ramirez stood at the opening, studying each man one last time and hoping he could keep them together as a team. So far almost everything had gone according to plan. He had hand- picked, assembled, and trained them four months in Libya, rehearsing them for all the standard antiterrorist techniques that might be used against them--from stun grenades to "Thunder Strips"--then afterward had rendezvoused with them in Yemen to pick up the Hind, the other helicopter, and the two packages. He had made cash arrangements with enough officials in both countries to ensure that no questions would be asked. The most unreliable team member was Salim Khan, tonight's pilot. Ramirez watched him pat a twenty-two-round clip into his Uzi and draw back the gnarled walnut cocking knob on the top as he stepped through the gate. He looked trustworthy, but he really wasn't. Ramirez suspected Salim was too bitter, was too strongly of the opinion life had given him a screwing--which meant he was now devoted to settling the score. He liked to live on the edge, push the rules. On the other hand, this mission was all about that, and thus far Ramirez had exploited the Iranian to the hilt. It also meant, however, that he had to be watched: he was a cynical realist who held nothing but contempt for the militant cadres of young firebrands who marched through the streets of Tehran with photos of some ayatollah attached defiantly to their chest, chanting slogans against the Great Satan . . . while wearing jeans whose back pockets read "Made in U.S.A." Because Salim didn't believe in anything anymore, he was difficult to control. Always dicey. Following close behind him, also carrying a black Uzi, was Jamal, his younger brother. Jamal, with crazy eyes and a coal-black beard, was the exact opposite--he only fought for a cause. Jamal had come to Lebanon years ago to join Hizballah, a radical organization headquartered in West Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Since he joined, as many as five hundred Hizballah had been directly involved in terrorist acts in the Middle East and Europe. He believed God wanted him to carry out a jihad, a holy crusade, against the Americans and Zionists who had surrounded and were choking the Muslim peoples. To prove his faith, he had been part of the team that commandeered a Libyan Arab Airlines 727 in flight between Zurich and Tripoli, leading to the longest hijacking in history. The plane had traveled six thousand miles, bouncing from Beirut to Athens, then Rome, again Beirut, and even Tehran before ending on its third stop in Lebanon three days later. Miraculously Jamal had walked free. He was a hothead, but he also was a survivor. Jamal prayed five times a day, neither drank nor smoked, and had been one of the explosives experts on the U.S. Embassy job in Beirut that killed 218 Marines. He was truly a living contradiction. That was fine with Ramirez. He could care less about Hizballah's radical politics. On the other hand, he'd always made good use of them. After Jamal's famous hijacking, Ramirez had gone to the Bekaa Valley and found him, and through him Salim--who, by stealing the Hind, had turned out to be much more valuable than his rabid younger brother. All the same, he had problems with them. Iranians sometimes had difficulty discerning the difference between fact and fantasy: as with most Muslims, they thought that saying something was so made it happen. The tall man striding through after Jamal, nursing a slight limp, was Stelios Tritsis, their only Greek. In 1975, as a young firebrand, he had been a founding member of the famous terrorist organization Epanastaiki Organosi 17 Noemvri. In his heart he was still a radical, dedicated to forcing Greece out of NATO and ending the U.S. military domination of his country. The new American imperialism in the Persian Gulf had only proved he was right all along. Because of an incident long ago in his youth--a torture episode at the hands of the infamous Colonels--Stelios's eyes never seemed entirely focused. He had become addicted to the morphine given to relieve the pain and never kicked it. Even so, he was their most lethal marksman, and he considered this operation his final revenge against America and her lackeys. The man didn't care, honestly didn't care, about his share of the money. Even Ramirez had to admire that. Following him was Jean-Paul Moreau, head of the famous Action Directe, whose international wing was headquartered in Paris. Jean-Paul was tall, had long flowing blond hair and determined eyes. He also had a famous bullet scar across his cheek from an attempt in the early eighties to assassinate former Justice Minister Alain Peyrefitte with a bomb attached to his car. He merely killed the chauffeur and was wounded by the security guards. But in November 1986 he got his revenge, masterminding the murder of Georges Besse, the chairman of Renault. He wanted nothing more than for Europe to rid herself of Americans and Zionists--toward which end Action Directe had cooperated with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction on several attacks carried out in France, which was how Ramirez had first met him. In the past Action Directe had financed its operations primarily through bank robberies. After this, Moreau was told, their money problems would be over. The next man was Wolf Helling, the lanky, balding leader of Germany's Revolutionare Zellen. Ramirez suspected his real goal in life was to look as Aryan as possible. Politically he was an anarchist--who had, in 1984, bombed a NATO fuel pipeline near Lorch in Baden-Wurttemberg. RZ's official aim was to pressure the U.S. out of Germany through terrorist attacks and to destroy the West German "system" by conducting guerrilla terrorism against Zionists and militarists. RZ had long-standing ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations, which was again how Ramirez had met him. How ironic for Helling, just when he had lived to see the Zionist American military begin to depart Europe, it had become the de facto ruler of the Middle East. He wanted to teach America one final lesson: the propertied classes of the world could never be secure. Following behind him were three beefy former members of East Germany's Stasi--now being sought by authorities in the new unified Germany for torture and other crimes of the past. With few friends left, they had thrown in their lot with RZ. They had always reminded Ramirez of the three monkeys of folklore: Rudolph Schindler, with his dark sunglasses, could see no evil; Peter Maier remained such a rabid ideologue he still could hear no evil (of Communism); and Henes Sommer spoke nothing but evil, against everyone. They were sullen and bitter, but they were perfect goons for auxiliary firepower, or should be. They were men without a country, guns for hire who already had lost everything. Dore Peretz, their renegade Israeli, walked through last, closing the wire gate behind him. He had fixed his steady dark eyes on only one outcome: he had come for the money, the money only. No politics or mock-heroics for him. He already had selected a seaside villa in Hadera. Despite his annoying tendency to shoot off his mouth, to make jokes at the wrong time, his contribution would be crucial. Ramirez did not wholly trust him, but he needed his computer and weapons expertise. He asked himself what Peretz would do if the chips were really down. With luck, however, that question would never have to be answered. Ramirez almost liked him--he was not sure why--and would hate to have to kill the smart-ass fucker. . . . They were in. Command lay at one end of SatCom's setup, the two vehicles at the other, and in between was the living quarters--known as the "Bates Motel"--as well as rows of small warehouses that contained supplies for personnel and equipment maintenance, used for storage but now darkened and locked. As they moved along the walkway, carefully staying out of the circles of light that illuminated the doorways of the warehouses, their black slipovers blended into the Aegean night. The minimal lighting in this area caused him no hesitation: he had thoroughly memorized the site. He knew they would find the control center with the computers just below their present location. Now they were approaching the entry-point to Command, the high-security "lobby." Just inside the glass-doored space a uniformed Greek guard occupied a teakwood desk, attentively studying the sports section of an Athens newspaper. They paused in the last shadows before the open space fronting the entryway, giving Stelios Tritsis time to shuck his black pullover. Underneath he was wearing the brown uniform of a SatCom guard, complete with epaulets and the regulation .38. He also had what, upon casual inspection, looked like a SatCom photo ID. While the others waited, holding their breath, he stepped through the glass entry doors, feigning a jaunty pace and flipping the pass impatiently against the leg of his uniform. When the SatCom guard looked up, puzzled, and started to challenge him, Tritsis was only five feet away. He sang out a hello in Greek, then reached to scratch an itch in the small of his back. When his hand came away, it was holding a small Glock-17 automatic. The shot was directly in the forehead, a dull thunk, and the guard tumbled backward in his chair, his eyes disbelieving, his .38 still holstered. It took only seconds. Without a word the rest of them moved in. "What's next?" Ramirez said quietly to Peretz. "The code for the doors has to be punched in there--" he pointed. Behind the desk was a computer terminal that reported the security status of all the sectors. Its green screen remained blank, flashing no alerts. "Disable them," Ramirez ordered, the first test of the Israeli's technical skills. In the hours to come, he would prove indispensable. Or so he claimed. "Then deactivate the access code and we ought to be able to just walk in." While Jamal was rearranging the guard's body, leaving him slumped over the desk as though asleep, Ramirez locked the entry doors behind them, then stepped behind the desk and dimmed the lobby lights. Finally he slipped off his flight suit and tossed it behind the desk. Right on schedule. They headed toward Command. He knew that if you control the brain, you are master of the body, and now they had to seize that brain. So far their smooth progress surpassed his hopes. But the next phase was crucial, allowed for no foul-ups. He still feared his ad hoc troops might get trigger-happy and destroy some of the critical equipment; he had even considered making them use blanks, but that was taking too big a risk. "The gates of Paradise are about to be opened," Jamal declared through his black beard, his crazed eyes reflecting back the lights on the security door as they changed from red to green and a muted buzzer sounded. "Allah has given this to us." Ramirez said nothing, merely straightened the hand-tailored cuffs of his charcoal Brioni. Then he stepped back to watch as the door to Command Central slowly began sliding to the left. 8:39 P.M. Cally was thinking about how much she would love a pizza, heavy on the cheese and Italian sausage. No, just heavy on the cholesterol. Why was it that the only things that tasted good were all supposed to be bad for you? She had long ago determined never to let it bother her. Like Scarlett, she'd think about it tomorrow. The heck with it. Everybody needed a secret sin. And that was the worst part of being here on Andikythera. You couldn't just pick up a phone. . . . She stared across the cavernous room, her stomach grumbling, and looked at the large overhead screen intended to track the space vehicle after lift-off. Then she glanced around at the rows of desks with computer workstations that lined the floor. It was almost as though she had a small army under her command. All this power, and she still couldn't order up a pizza. What was wrong with this picture? She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she completely failed to notice the new arrivals. 8:40 P.M. As Ramirez took position, he quickly noticed everything. At the far end, beneath the huge master screens, a wide desk commanded the room. And behind it sat a dark-haired woman whose history he had committed to memory. She was the one that counted. Odd that a woman should be in charge . . . but then a woman had even been elected president of a major Muslim country. Once. All things were possible, now and then. It did not matter to him, not the way he knew it mattered to these two Iranians. He lived in the real world; they lived in a world that did not exist. They, he knew, would say it did not exist _yet_. Well, that was their problem, not his. . . . Gradually, as one technician after another became aware of them standing in the doorway, all activity ceased. Ten men, dressed in black, all armed with Uzis. Their image triggered a reflexive response of fear throughout the room, nurtured by decades of terrorism in the news. Ramirez surveyed the room. None of the American technicians had any weapons. As anticipated, he had caught the prey unprepared. Indeed, he had hoped to avoid gunfire. Keep the staff calm. They would be needed. "You will continue, please, as you were." His voice sounded over the room, English with only a trace of accent. But that trace of accent was bloodless. The authority with which he spoke let everybody know that the command chain had just changed. Cally turned to stare at the intruders, puzzled. They were strangers . . . now the sight of their automatic weapons registered . . . and they were armed. They sure didn't work for SatCom. How the hell did they get through facility security? Their leader--she noted that he was wearing a sharp Italian suit, not commando mufti, and he was doing the talking-- was scanning the room as though he already owned it. And, in truth, he did. Like the American embassy in Tehran, SatCom had been caught sleeping. But there was no gesturing of weapons. He seemed to want to maintain normality. They're terrorists, her intuition was screaming. But no, her rational mind answered back. It couldn't be true. Terrorism operated a universe away from Andikythera; it wasn't supposed to touch the lives of anybody outside the hot spots. Now their spokesman was strolling down the aisle between the computer terminals, headed her way. She figured him for late forties, educated, subject to reason. He seemed rational, or at least businesslike. He could have been a SatCom VP from Arlington dropping by for a surprise inspection. The rest, except for a couple of Arabs with beards, looked like Eurotrash hoods. "Miss Andros, I presume," the man said, then laughed. "It is a pleasure to meet you. At last." "What are you doing here?" Her disorientation was being rapidly replaced by anger. "This is a restricted area." The man smiled . . . almost politely . . . and seemed to ignore the question. "You are absolutely correct. Very reasonable, and proper. But please, you and your staff must just continue on and pay no attention to us. Your head-office check-in is scheduled for 2200 hours. You will, of course, report nothing amiss. Which will be true." He bowed lightly. "I'm sure they will want to know how the Cyclops power-up went. In fact, we are all anxious for the answer to that." His words echoed off the hard, neon-lit surfaces. Command Central, its pale blue walls notwithstanding, had never seemed more stark. "I'd appreciate it very much if you would leave," she said, holding her voice quiet. "This is private property. You are trespassing." The man just smiled again and walked over to examine the big screens. "These things have always intrigued me. Like something in the movies. Buck Rogers." He turned back. "Please, don't let my layman's curiosity interfere with your work." Bill, Bill. She thought of SatCom's CEO in his office, just beyond the doors at the far end of the room. You've got a radio. And you can see this room on a security monitor. Can't you-- The door at the far end opened, and there stood William Bates. "Who the hell are you?" his voice boomed over the room. "My name need not concern you," the terrorist in the suit answered. "Just call me Number One. But I will favor you by returning your question." "And I'll give you the same answer, Number One, or whoever the hell you are," Bates replied, not moving. "Whatever you're thinking, there's nothing here to steal. You're wasting your time. What's more, you're trespassing on American property. So take those goons with you and get the hell out the same way you came in." "American property? Americans seem to think the whole world is their property." He smiled once more. "But let me put your mind at ease. We are not here to steal. And if you cooperate, no one in this room will be harmed." Cally looked him over, asking herself whether she believed him. Not for a minute. She suddenly realized this man would kill anyone who got in his way; it was etched into his eyes. "Now, Miss Andros . . . you should order your people to proceed with the countdown. My understanding is that the first vehicle is scheduled to be launched in less than sixty-five hours. We certainly want nothing to disrupt your timetable." She stared at him more closely, puzzled. If he and these creeps weren't here for blackmail, threatening to destroy the facility, against a payoff, then what could they possibly want? "You don't give the orders here." Bates moved toward the man. "I do." He dropped his voice as he passed Cally. "Don't do a goddamn thing." Then he looked up. "You will leave right now, or I'll call my security staff." "That would be most unwise. At least two of them would be unable to respond." He nodded toward the door. "You are welcome to check outside. But come, we're all wasting precious time." "You son of a bitch. I won't--" "Well, well," the man interrupted, "could it be I am luckier than I dreamed possible? Could it be that I have the honor to be speaking to none other than William Bates? Have we snared the CEO? No, that would be too much good luck." We're screwed, Cally thought. He knows. Now they'll hold Bill for ransom. He's pure gold. Rich and famous. "You will kindly take a seat, Mr. Bates," the man went on. "The hell I--" One of the bearded men carrying an automatic weapon stepped forward and slammed the metal butt into Bates' stomach, sending him staggering backward. He tried to catch his balance, but failed and collapsed ignominiously onto the gray linoleum. "Again, we're squandering time," the spokesman, the one in charge, continued calmly. "Where were we? Oh yes, the power-up." He turned around. "Now, Miss Andros, none of us wants that report to be late, do we? It would look bad for everybody." CHAPTER FOUR 7:02 A.M. When Vance caught his first clear sight of Andikythera's sheltered inlet, the storm had passed over in the night and Homer's "rosy- fingered dawn" was displaying all her splendored glory. With only a slight effort he had altered his course and reached the island. Now, as he rowed in through the still, turquoise waters, only light surface ripples lapped against his Switlik. As quickly as it had come, the turmoil in the seas had vanished. He hoped it was a good omen. He looked down and realized the water was so crystalline he could see the bottom, now at least ten meters below. Although he had visited many islands, he had never seen anything more perfect than Andikythera. Despite being bone-tired and soaked to the skin, conditions that exacerbated his anger, the sight of the island momentarily buoyed his spirits. It reminded him of a thousand Caribbean mornings, the feeling of rebirth and renewal. Andikythera had always been private, and never more so than now. It was an industrial site these days, pure and simple. No ferries deposited tourists here, no fishing boats docked in the mornings. Nothing but granite cliffs surrounded the secrets held inside. The heavy construction equipment, the prefabricated buildings, the facility's high-tech components, all had come through this harbor. Now, however, the dock was deserted; the off-loading cranes and giant mechanical arms highlighted against the morning sky stood idle. Everything had been delivered, was in place, and was humming. The only vessel now tied up was a sailing yacht, Bill's twenty-eight-foot Morgan, leased specially so he could keep his hand in while here. Great boat. . . . Abruptly he stopped rowing. Think a minute, he told himself. You can't risk using the inlet. No way. On the right and left sides of the harbor, steep crags of white granite speckled with scrub cypress guarded the shore, while the towering cliffs of the north mirrored the coastline of a thousand Greek islands. Unlike the postcard photos for sale everywhere on the tourist islands-- featuring topless Swedish blondes and trim Italian playboys, gold chains glinting--this was the real Greece, harsh and severe. Only a few seabirds swirling over the near shore, adding their plaintive calls to the silence-breaking churn of surf pounding over the rocks, broke the silence. He studied the island, trying to get his bearings. Just as Bill had said, it appeared to be about three miles long, maybe a couple of miles wide. As though balancing the radar-controlled mountain at one end, at the opposite terminus stood the launch vehicles, now just visible as the tip of two giant spires, gleaming in the early sunshine like huge silver bullets. And somewhere beneath this granite island, he knew, was the heart of the Cyclops, SatCom's computer-guided twenty- gigawatt laser. . . . There was no sign of anybody monitoring his approach. The early light showed only pristine cliffs, cold and empty. Careful now. First things first. He rowed under a near cliff, then slipped off the yellow raft and into the knee-deep waters of the near shore, still dazzlingly clear. It reminded him again of the Caribbean. Maybe Bill unconsciously had an island there in mind when he decided to move everything here. The water was cold, refreshing as he moved in. He collected what he needed from the raft and stood a minute wondering what to do with it. Then inspiration struck. It only weighed sixty-five pounds, so why not use it? It was a standard Switlik, which meant inflation had been automatic. The deflation would take a while, so he started it going as he hefted the heavy yellow hulk and headed up the hill. He wanted it empty, but not entirely. The security Dimitri Spiros had installed was high-tech and good. He had not gone to the trouble of burying cables all around the place with magnetic anomaly detectors. That would have required blasting through a lot of granite and did not really seem worth the tab. Instead he had surrounded the place with a chain-link fence and topped that with free- spinning wheels of razor wire known as Rota-Barb, which prevented an intruder from smothering the cutting edges with cloth. Then, just to make sure, across the top and at several levels below, he had added lines of Sabretape with an enclosed fiber-optic strand. A pulse of light was transmitted through the length of the tape, and if it was disturbed, detectors at a central guard location would know immediately when and where. Now Vance had to try to penetrate a system he had actually been involved, indirectly, in setting up. The ultimate irony. The jagged granite tore at his hands as he struggled up, picking his way through the clusters of scrub cedar that clung to the steep ascent and dragging the Switlik by its nylon straps. The cliff rose a good two hundred feet and was almost sheer, but he located enough niches to haul himself forward. Finally, exhausted and hands bleeding, he pulled himself over the top. Then he dragged up the remains of the raft. Ahead, just in front of the towering communications mountain, he discerned ARM's industrial security installation, a ten-foot-high chain-link fence interwoven with fiber optics. Beyond it on a helicopter pad sat Bill's new Agusta, a hot 109 Mark II with all the latest modifications, including two 450-hp Allison engines. It sat there, its blue trim like ice, a ghostly apparition against the lightening sky. Poised alongside was a brooding hulk that dwarfed the Agusta--a Soviet Mi-24D, one of its stubby wings a tangled mass of metal. So the bastards were here. He'd guessed right. He saw no guards around it, but who knew. He would find out soon enough, but one thing was sure: it must have a radio on board. The U.S. Navy would be very interested in identifying the location of its hostile. Maybe he should just switch on the Hind's cockpit IFF, let it start broadcasting. If the ship that was attacked had been interrogating the Hind, there'd probably be knowledge somewhere of the codes it was transmitting. Easy. Just take it easy. Go in behind the chopper, handle the fence, and then rush the thing from the back. If anybody's guarding it, you'll be taking them from their blind side. Grasping the Switlik, with the Walther tucked firmly into the waist of his soaked trousers, he dashed for the corner of the fence behind the Hind. He was barefoot, the way he always sailed, and the granite felt sharp and cutting under his feet. But being barefoot was going to help him take the fence. Okay, he thought, the fiber-optic alarm system is going to blow, no matter what. Just get in and get on the radio quick, then worry about what comes next. He knew the only way to defeat a Rota-Barb system was at the corners, where the spinning rolls of wire intersected at a right angle. As he approached the corner, he looked up and checked out his chances. Yep, with the Switlik to smother the barbs it might just be possible. He looped one of the nylon straps, then leaned back and heaved the raft up onto the top of the fence. It caught and was hanging there but--just as he had hoped--the strap passed over and down the other side. Next he reached through, seized it, and tied it securely to the heavy chain links of the fence. Now it would hold the raft in place as he climbed from the outside. Holding the hand straps of the raft, he clambered up and made it to the top. Then he rolled himself into the rubber and pushed over. A second later he dropped shoulder-first onto the asphalt of the landing pad. Home. The razor wire had shredded the raft, and the fiber-optic security system would have detected the entry, but he was in. If any guards were left alive, they probably had other things to worry about. Or so he hoped. At that instant he thought he heard a sound, and whirled back. No, he had only caught the chirp of a morning bird, somewhere in the cluster of trees down toward the shore. The island again seemed as serene as a paradise. He crouched a moment, grasping the Walther, then shoved a round into the chamber. The early morning light showed the Hind in all its glory. It was dark green, with a heavy, retractable landing gear--a magnificent machine. And a lethal one. Originally intended as an antitank weapon, the Mi-24 had quickly become a high-speed tool for air-to- ground combat. To reduce vulnerability to ground fire, its makers substituted steel and titanium for aluminum in critical components and replaced the original blade-pocket design with glassfiber-skinned rotors. . . . The only defect of this particular example was the absence of the starboard auxiliary wing, including the rocket pod. Its arrival and accurate landing here spoke volumes for the flying skills of whoever had been at the controls. If the weapons operator had possessed comparable talent, Vance reflected, he might not be standing here now. But, he noted again, it had Israeli markings. Had the Israelis really attacked a U.S. frigate? That made no sense. For one thing, they couldn't have flown a Hind this far without refueling. Its combat radius was only about a hundred miles. Then he looked more closely and realized that the Israeli Star of David in a circle of white had merely been papered on. So it was a false-flag job. Which more than ever left open the question--who the hell were they? Gripping the Walther, he slid open the door to the cargo bay and examined the darkened interior. It was empty save for a few remnants of packing crates. He climbed in and checked them over. They had been for weapons. He saw some U.S. markings on one: a crate of M79 grenade launchers. Another had contained Czech ZB-26 light machine guns, with spare boxes for C-Mag modifications, giving them 100-round capability. Jesus! If these were just the discarded crates, what else did these guys have? He turned and moved up the gray metal steps to the cockpit, a raised bubble above the weapons station. Nice. He settled himself, looking out the bulletproof windscreen at the first tinge of dawn breaking over the island. His first impulse was to crank her up and fly her out. He resisted it. Switching on the IFF would be a chore; he was not even sure he knew how. He could, however, get on the airwaves. The pilot's flight helmet was stashed on the right-hand panel where it had been tossed. He picked it up and slipped it on, then clicked on the electronics. The helicopter's main panel and screens glowed to life, a patchwork of green and red lights and LEDs. He flicked more switches overhead and the infrared and radar systems came on-line, their displays like Christmas-tree lights briskly illuminating one by one in rows. Now for the radio. It was Soviet-made, of course, with heavy metal knobs and a case that looked as though it could withstand World War III. He clicked it on and began scanning through the aviation channels, checking to see if anybody was out there. Maybe . . . Nothing, except a few routine exchanges of civilian pilots. Well, he thought, could be it takes a while for the news of major world events to get down to the trenches. Word would circulate soon enough. The military channels, however, would be another matter. The Hind had them all. He clicked over to the frequencies and began scanning. There were a lot of scrambled communications; the radio traffic was sizzling. He figured the Sixth Fleet was on full alert. Except they didn't know where to look for their hostile. He remembered that the military emergency channel was 121.50 megahertz. He punched it in, then unhooked the black mike and switched to transmit. The green diodes blinked to red. 7:09 A.M. Jean-Paul Moreau, who had perfect command of English, was catching the BBC on a small Sony ICF-PR080 in Command Central, keeping abreast of the news. The World Service was just winding up its morning broadcast, circumspect as always. ". . . A reminder of the main story: there are unconfirmed rumors emanating from the southern Aegean that an American naval vessel, the USS Glover, was attacked by a helicopter gunship late last evening, with considerable damage and loss of life. It is said the gunship was Israeli. No confirmation or denial of this report has yet been issued by the government in Tel Aviv. And that's the end of the news from London. . . ." "Guess we had a hit." He laughed, then switched frequencies and started monitoring the military channels. Ramirez had also heard the broadcast, with satisfaction. The attack would soon blossom into a world event, with accusations flying. After that had played its course, he would drop his bombshell. Now it was daylight. Time to begin phase three of the operation. It had been a productive night. The first order of business had been to off-load their hardware. In addition to the Uzis they had carried in, they had broken out a compliment of AK- 47s. The Germans had also brought out and limbered up a crate of MK760 submachine guns, fully automatic with folding stocks, as well as some Czech mortars and grenade launchers. That was finished by 0300 hours, after which the men caught catnaps, rotating to keep at least three on guard at all times. Now that the test had gone off successfully, most of the facility staff was lounging at the blank terminals, dazed. Ramirez, however, had no intention of letting the SatCom staff become rested. He looked over the room at the young engineers, all of whom were showing the first signs of hostage behavior. They were frightened, stressed, tired--already in the early stages of "hostile dependency." Soon they would melt, become totally pliable. But to achieve that, they could not be allowed to get enough sleep. Food also had to be kept to a minimum. Most importantly, all telephone and computer linkages with the outside world had been cut--with the exception of one. The single telephone remaining was on the main desk down at the other end of Command. Otherwise, Peretz had methodically shut down everything, including the telemetry equipment located up on the mountain. While they would need to reactivate it later on, for the moment they could keep it on standby. Peretz had proved reliable so far, Ramirez told himself. The man was seasoned and competent, unlike the young Muslims who acted first and thought later. An operation like this required precision, not unbridled impetuosity, which was why he valued the Israeli so highly. . . . As he surveyed Command, he decided it was time for champagne. He had brought a small bottle, a split of Dom. . . . But what was champagne without the company of a beautiful woman. He turned toward Miss Andros-- "_Merde_!" His meditations were interrupted by the startled voice of Moreau. "There's a Mayday on one-twenty-one point five megahertz. It's so close, I think someone is transmitting from here on the island." Ramirez cursed, while the buzz in Command subsided. Then Moreau continued. "In English. He's talking about the _Glover_, and he's giving our location." "Probably one of the guards." Ramirez paused, thinking. "But how could he know about the _Glover_?" "Maybe he's in the Hind, monitoring the radio," Helling said, rubbing at his balding skull. "We--" "You brought backup. Time to use it." Ramirez turned and beckoned for the three ex-Stasi: Schindler, Maier, and Sommer. It was time for the three monkeys to start earning their keep. "Go out to the chopper," he barked to them in German, "and handle it. You know what to do." They nodded seriously and checked their Uzis. They knew exactly. 7:23 A.M. The transmit seemed to be working, and he was getting out everything he knew--the location of the Hind, the fake nationality, the attack on the frigate. But was anybody picking it up? The heavy Soviet radio was rapidly drawing down its batteries, but he figured it was now or never. Get it out quick and hope, he thought. Pray some Navy ship in this part of the Aegean will scan it and raise the alarm. He was still trying to piece it all together when he spied the figures, approaching from far down the central walkway. Three men dressed in black, looking just like a hit squad. He had not expected so fast a response, and for a second he was caught off guard. They must have been monitoring the radio. If you had any sense, he told himself, you'd have expected that. You're about to have some really lousy odds. The Hind was armored like a tank, he knew, and even the bubbles over the cockpit and the weapons station were supposedly bulletproof. How bulletproof, he guessed, he was about to learn. With the three men still a distance away, he realized he had only one choice. Although he had never actually flown a Hind, this seemed an ideal time to try and find out how difficult it was. Probably harder than he knew. He reached up and flicked on the fuel feeds, then pushed the starter. To his surprise, there came the sound of a long, dull whine that began increasing rapidly in intensity and frequency. The main rotor had kicked on--he could tell from the vibration--and the tail stabilizer, too, if the rpm dials were reporting accurately. All right, he told himself, the dial on the right side of the panel is rotor speed. Keep it in the green. And over to the left is engine speed. Come on, baby. Go for the green. Red line means you crash and burn. Pedals, okay. But this isn't like a regular airplane; the stick is cyclic, controls the angle of your blades. The instruments were now on-line--temperature, fuel gauges, pressure, power output. The two Isotov turboshafts were rapidly bringing up rpm now, already past three thousand. He grabbed hold of the collective, eased back on the clutch, and felt the massive machine shudder, then begin to lift off. As the three men breached the gate leading into the asphalt-paved landing area, a fusillade of automatic-weapons fire began spattering off the bubble windscreen, leaving deep dents in the clear, globelike plastic. So far, so good, he thought. It's holding up to manufacturer's specs. Now for the power. It's controlled by the collective, but when you increase power you increase torque, so give her some left pedal to compensate. The Hind had started to hover, and now he moved the columns to starboard, bringing it around. He could not reach the weapons station, but the 12.7mm machine gun in the nose had an auxiliary fire control under the command of the pilot. With his hand on the stick, he activated the fire button. He might not be able to hit anything, but he'd definitely get somebody's attention. . . . The machine gun just below him erupted, a deadly spray that knocked sparks off the hurricane fence surrounding the pad as the chopper slowly revolved around. Somewhere now off to his left came a new burst of automatic fire. He found himself in a full-scale firefight, trapped like a tormented bull in a pen. But the Hind was up and hovering . . . and also beginning to slip sideways because of the damaged wing. He grappled with the collective pitch lever in his left hand, trying to regain control, but he didn't have the experience. The chopper was now poised about ten feet above the ground, its engines bellowing, nosing around and drifting dangerously. He'd lost control. As it tilted sideways, the fence began coming up at him, aiming directly for the nose bubble. Even more unnerving, though, was the heavyset terrorist in a black pullover who was standing directly in front of the bubble and firing his Uzi point-blank. Worse still, he was handling it like second nature. The plastic splintered with a high-pitched shriek as the rounds caught it head-on. The curvature had helped before, but now the gunman was able to fire straight into it. The game was about to be up. He ducked for the floor of the cockpit just as the bubble windscreen detonated, spewing shards of plastic both outward and inward. Now the helicopter was coming about and lifting off again, pulling up strands of the wire fence that had gotten tangled in the landing gear. No time to worry about it. He rose up, grasped the collective, and urged more power, trying to compensate for the torque. But the mottled gray behemoth was increasingly unstable, shunting sideways, drifting over the security fence and spiraling upward toward the mountain that bristled with SatCom's communications gear. The gunner holding the Uzi slipped in another clip and raised up to finish him off, but at that instant Vance squeezed the fire button one last time and the man danced a pirouette, disappearing from view. As he started to spiral in earnest, more automatic fire ricocheted off the fuselage. Then came a sickening whine. The stabilizer, he thought. They must have hit the damned stabilizer. This is going to be a very short trip. Panic caught him as the Hind started into autorotation, round and round like a bumper-car ride at an amusement park. He cut the power--hoping he could bring her down using the energy stored in the blades--then quickly put the right pedal to the floor, held the collective down, and tried to keep rotor speed in the green. He was drifting to the east now, headed for a copse of trees halfway up the mountain. Not a bad place to set down, he thought, and started to flare the blades with the stick, hoping he could bring her in with the collective. The Hind was still spinning in autorotation, but not yet dangerously. Slowly, slowly . . . He was about thirty feet above the trees when a splatter of automatic fire erupted from the open doorway. He whirled around to see the terrorist he'd bulldozed into the fence now hanging onto the metal step and trying to pull himself in. What now . . . ! The man--Vance guessed he was pushing forty, with a face of timeless brutality--was covered with blood and his aim was hampered by trying to hold the Uzi as he fired one-handed, the other hand grasping the step. He was cursing in German. . . . At that instant the Hind took a sickening dip, and the Uzi clattered onto the doorway pallet as the terrorist relinquished it to try to hold on with both hands. But he was losing it, his hands slippery with his own blood, and all that held him now was the torn section of his own shirt that had somehow sleeved over the step. Then his grasp gave way entirely, and he dangled for a moment by the shirt before it ripped through and he fell, a trailing scream. He landed somewhere in the trees twenty feet below, leaving only the shirt. In the meantime the Hind continued spiraling and drifting down, and Vance looked out to see the gray granite of the side of the mountain moving toward him, with only a bramble of trees in between. But at least the chopper's autorotation was bringing him in for a soft crash. He braced himself as a clump of trees slapped against the side of the fuselage. Then the twelve-ton helicopter plunged into them, its landing gear collapsing as it crunched to a stop. He felt himself flung forward, accompanied by the metallic splatter of the rotor collapsing against the granite, shearing and knocking the fuselage sideways in a series of jolts. As the two turboshaft engines automatically shut down, he held onto the seat straps and reflected that this was his first and probably last turn at the stick of a Hind. And all he'd managed to do was total it. Heck of a way to start a morning. The Uzi was still lying on the floor of the cabin, while the shirt of the man he had shot was wrapped around the metal step and lodged beneath the crushed landing gear. When he reached back and checked to see that the Walther 9mm was still secured in his belt, he noticed that his arm had been lacerated by the jagged plastic of the shattered canopy. He noticed it, but he didn't feel it. He was feeling nothing, only a surge of adrenaline and the certain knowledge he had to get out fast, with the Uzi. He scooped it up and stumbled through the doorway, to the sound of muted gunfire down the hill, as the other two hoods continued to advance. He had the German's automatic now, but the last thing he wanted was a shootout. Nonetheless, rounds of fire sang around him as he ripped the black shirt loose from the chopper's step and felt the pockets. One contained what seemed like a small leather packet. He yanked it out, then plunged in a direction that would bring the Hind between him and the other two assailants. But when he tried to catch his footing in the green bramble of brush, he fell on his shoulder and rolled, feeling a spasm of pain. Christ, this was no longer any fun! About twenty feet away was an even denser copse of cypress scrub than the one he had crashed in. If he could make that, he told himself, he'd have some cover. He just had to get there in one piece. Half scrambling, half rolling, he headed for the thicket of trees, occasionally loosing a round of covering fire down the hill. Then he felt the scratchy hardness of the low brush and threw himself into the bramble. Dirt spattered as rounds of fire--or was it flecks of granite?-- ricocheted around him, and then he felt a nick across one shoulder--he was not sure from what. A couple more rounds cut past, but now they were going wide. He collapsed into the dense bramble and tried to catch his breath. What next? The Uzi still had a half-full clip. Maybe he could hold them off. He stilled his breathing and listened, but heard nothing. The mountainside was deathly quiet, so much so he could almost hear the crash of waves on the shore below. It was probably only wishful imagination, but the quiet gave hope he might temporarily be out of danger. He turned and looked up the mountain, finally able to see it clearly. The near hillside was covered with brush, the only objects visible above the green being the tip of a high-tech jungle. SatCom had a hell of a communications installation. Outlined against the blue sky were huge parabolic antennas used for microwave uplinks, a phased-array transmission system for powering the space vehicles, a myriad of dishes for satellite uplinks and downlinks, and various other antennas used for conventional radio. It was all set inside a high-security hurricane fence with a gray cinderblock control hut at the near corner. Well, he thought, with that battery of antennas, there's surely a way to do what has to be done next. . . . This time he wouldn't waste radio access with Maydays. 9:35 A.M. As the landing announcement sounded through British Air flight 1101 from London to Athens, Isaac Mannheim took off his thick spectacles, wiped them futilely with a greasy handkerchief, settled them back, and stared down. The plane was now on final approach, and he had already taken down his flight bag and stuffed it under the seat in preparation, ready to march off. Mannheim was professor emeritus at MIT, Department of Engineering, and he retained the intellectual curiosity of a mischievous schoolboy. He had the flowing white hair of a nineteenth-century European philosopher, the burning eyes of a Jules Verne visionary, the single- minded enthusiasm of a born inventor, the discursive knowledge of a Renaissance man, and the self-assurance of a true genius--which he was. Wearing a tweedy checked suit, a frayed brown overcoat, smudgy horn- rims, and a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, he also looked every bit as eccentric as his reputation said. The baseball cap was tribute to another of his eclectic concerns--the statistics of that particular team. Those he kept on a computer file and subjected to daily updates. As Issac Mannheim saw it, he was the undisputed father of Project Cyclops; Bill Bates was merely in charge of its delivery room down on Andikythera. It was a half-truth, perhaps, but not entirely untrue either. He had dreamed up the idea and proved in his MIT lab that it could work. The rest, he figured, was merely scaling it up--which any dimwit with half a billion dollars could do with ease. He had already seen to the hard part. Mannheim liked to check in on his baby every other week, just to make sure that Bates--who was going to make a fortune off his idea--was doing it right. Although the long flight to Athens and then the helicopter ride down to Andikythera were starting to make him feel his seventy- five years, he did not really mind. When you're my age, he'd claim, you don't have time to sit around on your butt all day. He always flew British Air from London rather than taking a direct Olympic flight from Boston, mainly because he was an Anglophile but also because he wasn't quite sure he trusted Greek maintenance. Isaac Mannheim was old school in all things. As the tires screeched onto the asphalt, he glanced out the window again, marveling how small the Athens airport was. But then his mind quickly traveled on to other pressing matters: namely, the day's agenda. He was anxious to go over the power-up data number by number with Georges LeFarge. The young French Canadian had been his best student in Cambridge, ten years ago, and Isaac Mannheim was secretly pleased, very pleased, that Georges had been given a leading role in the project. Together, years ago, they had ironed out many of the technical problems in the system. The work back then had been done on a lab bench, and a shoestring, but LeFarge knew everything that could go wrong. With Georges as Director of Computer Systems here, Mannheim knew the project was in good hands, at least the crucial computer part of it. When the doors opened, he was one of the first to step out of the BA 757 and down the steel stairway onto the runway. He reflected that he'd had a good flight this time, with only an hour layover in Heathrow's infamously crowded Terminal Four. Now, as the airport bus arrived to carry the bleary-eyed London passengers into the Athens terminal, he anticipated getting an early start on the day. He glanced down toward the far end of the airport, the civilian aviation terminal, expecting to catch sight of Bates' blue-and-white- striped Agusta helicopter. Funny, he couldn't see it today; usually you could. It was odd; they were always here, waiting. Customary promptness was just one more example of how well that young Dr. Andros was handling the project. He chafed to admit it, but she was pretty damned good. Although he had long scoffed at the idea that women could compete successfully with male engineers, he had to admit she was as professional as any male project manager he'd ever worked with. Carrying his overstuffed black briefcase in his left hand and his tattered nylon flight bag in his right, he waited till the airport bus was almost full before stepping on. Airport buses, he noted as an engineer, operated on the old-time LIFO computer storage principle: last in, first out. No random access. And he was indeed first out as they pulled into the sheltered awning of the terminal. The Athens morning sun was already burning through the growing layer of brown haze. He thought ruefully how it would look from the south, down around Piraeus, as they flew out. From there Athens seemed to be encased in an ugly brown tomb. World air quality was yet another of the topics weighing on his mind these days. It was, in fact, a frequent subject of the long letters he addressed to another former student, an average-IQ Danish boy majoring in physics whom he had seen fit to flunk in junior-year thermodynamics. Afterward Mannheim had taken the lad aside and bluntly suggested he might wish to consider a less intellectually demanding career path. The advice had been heeded, and these days he was doing reasonably well at his cushy new job, down in Washington. Still, Isaac Mannheim felt it necessary to post the boy long typewritten letters from time to time concerning various avenues for self-improvement. Yes, he had turned out reasonably well after all, considering, but he still needed to work harder. Don't be a slacker, John; nobody ever got ahead that way. The forty-second President of the United States, Johan Hansen, read his old professor's missives, usually written on the back of semi-log graph paper or whatever was handy, and dutifully answered every one of them. Maybe he was afraid he'd get another "F" and a humiliating lecture. Isaac Mannheim stared around the half-filled terminal, wondering. The SatCom pilot usually met him right at the gate, but today nobody was there. Incompetent Greeks. This one, in fact, was particularly feckless: just out of the Greek Air Force with no real grasp of the value of time. Or had Dr. Andros forgotten he was arriving? That was hard to imagine, since he had talked with her just before he left Cambridge. One thing you had to say for her, she never forgot appointments. Strange. No helicopter. No pilot. Damned peculiar. He had no alternative but to phone Dr. Andros on her private line. He walked over to the booth near the entrance to the terminal lobby and got some drachmas. Then he located a pay phone and placed the call. She answered on the first ring. Good. "Cally, what in blazes is going on down there?" He tried to open the conversation as diplomatically as he knew how. "I'm here, sitting on my butt in the Athens airport, as though I had nothing else to do. I don't see Alex anywhere. Or the Agusta. You're going to have to get rid of that boy if this happens again. Where in hell are they?" A long uncomfortable pause ensued, and it sounded as though she was listening to someone else. Finally she answered in a shaky voice. "Dr. Mannheim, it's been a very long night here. Maybe you--" "Well, how did the power-up go? I need to go over the data with Georges right away." "Dr. Mannheim, maybe--" The phone seemed to go dead. Then she came back on. "The Mark II is temporarily out of service. Can you take the ferry?" "What! You know perfectly well that damned thing only runs once a week. And that was yesterday. Now what about the Agusta?" "It's . . . it's just not possible. So--" 'Tell you what, then, I'll just rent one here. It'll cost a few dollars, but I can't wait around all day." "Isaac, I--" She never used his first name, at least not to him, but he took no notice. "Don't worry about it. It'll just go into project overhead. Be a tax write-off for Bates." He laughed, without noticeable humor. "He understands all about such things." 'That's awfully expensive," she said, her voice still sounding strange. "Maybe it'd be better to wait--" "Damn it. I'll be there in a couple of hours." "Dr. Mannheim . . ." Her voice would have sounded an alarm to most people. But then most people listened. Isaac Mannheim rarely bothered. Especially where women were concerned. You simply did what had to be done. It was that simple, but most women seemed unable to fathom matters of such obvious transparency. He slammed down the phone and strode out into the morning sunshine. The private aviation terminal was about a half mile down an ill-paved road, but he decided the walk would do him good. The breeze would feel refreshing after the smoky, stuffy terminal. The problem was, Athens was already getting hot. That's why he liked the islands. They were always cooler this time of year. CHAPTER FIVE 7:48 A.M. Vance stared up the mountain, puzzled. The silence baffled him, and then he realized why. He was not hearing the usual high-tension hum of transformers; nothing was operating. They had shut down the power. He heaved a sigh, then dropped down beside a tree trunk and clicked out the magazine of the black Uzi. It had about fifteen rounds left, so the time had come to start making them count. Here, amid the brush, he had a chance to lie low for a while and figure out what to do next. Besides feeling thirst and fatigue, he had a throbbing sprain in his shoulder, incurred somehow during the crash of the chopper. But the pain was helping to clear his mind. Maybe, he thought, he could find some provisions stowed in the Hind, left or overlooked. A stray canteen or some MREs. But did he want to risk going back down? The answer was yes because--even more important--the radio might still be operating. It was definitely time to activate the warranty on this job. But first things first. Who are these creeps? Hoping to find out something, he pulled out the leather packet he had retrieved from the terrorist's torn shirt and cracked it open. Crumpled inside was a wad of Yemeni dinars, and a crinkled ID card in German. On the back was a phrase scrawled in English ... it looked like The Resistance Front for a Free--it was smudged, but yes--Europe. Back when he and Bates had first talked about the security question, Bill had insisted ARM focus on industrial security. Truthfully, there hadn't been any real thought given to antiterrorist measures. It had just seemed unimaginable. Looked at another way, though, Bates had been trying to be cost-effective, had gambled on an assumption. Now it was beginning to look as though that had been a bad bet. Although for a ground-based setup Dimitri's handiwork-- contracted out of Athens--was top-notch, it had made no provisions against aerial penetration. From land or sea. That haunting phrase kept coming back. But Bill had laughed it off, and the client was always supposed to be right. Besides, the SatCom facility already had a nest of radars up on the hill, there as part of the Cyclops and also to monitor the local weather. Why clutter up the place any more? The fact was, these guys had probably come in under the facility's electronic eyes anyway, using the Hind's ability to detect an interrogation and keep low enough to avoid a significant radar signature. The background noise from the choppy sea must have been enough to mask their approach. Maybe Spiros should have considered that, but at this point such meditations amounted to Monday-morning quarterbacking. So now the parameters of the job had changed, from industrial security to counterterrorism. SatCom was fortunate in its choice of security services, because an ARM job always came with a guarantee: if a problem came up, the boys would be there immediately to solve it. Which meant that alerting Paris was now his first priority. Until reinforcements arrived, though, he was ARM's on-site rep. Lots of problems came to mind. First off, he was operating on the perimeter: he had no map of the facility, no idea where to find the hostages. However, the communications station up the hill represented a redoubt he probably could defend reasonably well, unless they brought up some really heavy artillery. Maybe there would be some way to disrupt the proceedings, provide a diversion. Sooner or later, he figured, there's bound to be some action out of the U.S. air and naval base down at Souda Bay, on Crete. Hopefully somebody down at Gournes had picked up his Mayday. But even if they had, could they send in a team? This was Greek soil, and Greeks tended to be fussy about their sovereignty. Now that NATO had no idea what its new mission was, America's heavy presence in Europe more and more looked like Yankee imperialism. They might convince the Greeks to let them bring in the Navy SEALs or even the antiterrorist Delta Force from Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but that would require a lot of negotiation, might take days. Time could run out by then. And the Greeks had no capability themselves to do anything but make matters worse. He looked down the hill, toward the half-visible wreckage of the Hind. Okay, he thought, time to see about that radio. Slowly he rose, chambered a round in the Uzi with a hard click, and started through the brush. The Greek scrub tore through his thin shirt and rasped at his skin, while the morning sun, glimmering off the proud silver spires of the vehicles at the other end of the island, beat down. The island remained eerily calm, the sleep of the dead. The takeover was complete, no question about that. Through the brush the wreckage of the Hind showed its mottled coloring, a mix of grays and tans among the green of the branches. As he approached, he could discern no sign of his attackers, which either meant they were pros and lying in wait for him or they were amateurs and had fled. He looked around the copse of scrub cypress, then gingerly stepped through the open doorway. By some miracle the electronics were still lined up in rows of readiness, lights and LEDs glowing. A tough bird. And the radio was still operating, and on. Dawn had long since ripened the clear blue of the sky, and he could feel the beat of warm sunshine on the shattered bubble of the canopy. Now, he knew, the terrorists would be scanning the military frequencies, so it was time to be circumspect and use some caution for a change. He checked it over. Good, it had sideband. That was perfect, because he figured they probably wouldn't monitor those offbeat marine frequencies. If he could raise Spiros in Athens, he could then contact Paris. They could put together a team overnight and fly it down. He fiddled with the sideband channels, hoping. He heard some amateur action and a ship-to-shore--funny, he thought, that the minute yachtsmen put to sea they're anxious to get in contact with someone on dry land. What would Ulysses have done with a shortwave radio? Talked back to the Sirens? . . . The broadcasts, however, were mainly about the weather. Sailors did not waste their time on world events. When that news finally trickled down, however, these sideband channels would probably no longer be safe to use--maybe they weren't now, but he had to take the risk. . . . He tried a few frequencies and then he got lucky. It was a Greek ham operator, probably having a second cup of strong native coffee and waiting for the traffic in Athens to subside. As are all amateurs, he was delighted to talk. He sounded youthful and enthusiastic, eager to help. "I read you, Ulysses. You're coming in loud and clear on SSB 432.124 megahertz. This is SV5VMS, Athens. What is your callsign?" "Don't have a handle," Vance replied into the mike, in Greek. "This is a Mayday." "I copy." The voice suddenly grew serious. "What is your location?" He paused a second, wondering what to say. No, he couldn't take a chance. Who knew who else was listening in? "Don't have that either. What I need is a phone patch to a number in Athens. Can you set it up?" "No problem," came the confident response, using the international English phrase. Vance tried to imagine what he looked like. Probably mid-twenties, with the swagger acquired by all young Greek men along with their first motor scooter. They wanted to impress you with how wonderful their country was, and they also wanted you to know that they were the biggest stud in all the land. "But whoever you want may be gone to work by now." "This guy probably won't even be out of bed yet. He's a night owl," Vance replied into the mike. He didn't add that the best thing Dimitri did at night was handle an infrared-mounted H&K MP5. "It's Athens city code and the number is 21776." He knew that Spiros kept a lovely whitewashed house on the western side of town, just out of the major smog centers. Moments later the patch was through and he had Spiros on the radio. The patch was scratchy and hill of static, but not so much he couldn't hear. "Michael, you woke me up. I hope the world just ended." It was Spiros's gruff voice. A thirty-year veteran of an antiterrorist unit in Brussels, he was as tough as he sounded. "By the way, everybody's heard about that _Odyssey_ stunt of yours. Are you in trouble already? We've got a pool going on you. I have ten thousand drachmas saying you'll never make it." "I appreciate the confidence. Anyway, you can start spending the money. You'll be relieved to know I blew it. She sank on me." 'Too bad." He laughed. "So what was the problem?" "Mostly it was some twelve-mil machine-gun fire. Took the wind right out of her sails. I took a swim and then I think a 57mm Euclid finished her off." 'That's Russian." The voice quickly grew serious. "Sounds like vou made the wrong people mad. Who in hell did it?" "Don't know, but they're very meticulous about their work. They used a false-flag approach and shelled an American frigate down here north of Crete. Should be making the news any time now." "Sounds like somebody's getting hot about inviting the Sixth Fleet out of the Med." Then Spiros's pensive tone turned businesslike. "Are you okay? Where are you now?" "I'm fine, I think. But you've got to get some of the boys down here." "What do you mean?" "Remember that job you did for Bill Bates?" Maybe, he thought, we can talk around the problem. "Looks like the security didn't stick." "That was a good job," Spiros said with a growl. "Need some updating?" "It's going to be a little more than that. I think maybe a dozen hostiles, give or take, came in by chopper. A Hind-D. Had all the factory extras." "Had?" "It just met with an accident." "And I'll bet you had nothing to do with it." He laughed. "So what kind of hardware do they have?" "Uzis for sure. Probably also some grenade launchers. Also light machine guns, ZB-26. The odds are good they're going to be here for a while. They've dug in and it's a long swim to anywhere." "Should we be having this conversation on the phone?" Caution was entering his voice. "Can we secure up these communications?" "Bight now we've got no choice," Vance answered. "Nothing where I am is secure." Including my skin, he thought. "All right, then, give it to me fast." He was all business. "What do you have on nationality?" "It has a Beirut feel about it. But I managed to get some material off one of them, and I think he was a former East German Stasi type. Whoever they are, they're operating under some phony front name." "I read you. Usual terrorist MO?" "Best I can tell." 'Then we have to worry about civilians. That's going to make it tougher." "Bill may be among them. And all his staff." "Bad news." "He's a prize." "What do you think their game is?" Spiros asked after a pause. "Ransom?" "That'd he my first guess. Though it doesn't synch with the attack on the U.S. ship--unless it was intended as a deliberate diversion. Maybe they're planning something else. But my hunch is money's involved. Anyway, we'll find out soon enough." "You're damned right we will." The line was silent for a moment as static intervened. "Well, this will teach us to guarantee our work. It's going to be an expensive insurance policy." "Nothing in life is supposed to be easy." "So we keep finding out." He seemed to be thinking. "You know, I sent the layout to Paris when the job was finished. For the files." He didn't want to mention Pierre Armont, the head of ARM, on an unsecured line. "I'll see what the office there can get together for us." "Do we have any people left on site?" Vance asked. "Just contract," Spiros responded. "Locals and probably not worth much." "Well, whoever they are, chances are good they've been neutralized by now. As a matter of fact, I fear the worst." "That's our motto. Assume everything will go to hell and then work around it." "Time to get off the air. I'll try to raise you at 1700 hours. On 2150 megahertz. By that time you'd better have the team lined up and ready to move in. I owe Bates this one. A nice clean job." "Right. Who do you think we ought to use?" "Anybody who worked on the security here would be good." 'That's got to be me," Spiros said ruefully. "Okay. Beyond that, we'll need a first-class SWAT team. This one is going to be rough. We need somebody who can handle explosives like a brain surgeon, maybe Marcel, out of Antwerp. Get him if you can find him sober. Also, we probably could use a negotiator. Somebody who can keep them busy while we get the real insertion in place. And a good sniper will be essential. Lots of friendlies." "Okay. That sounds like Reggie. I'll run some names past Paris. But what are you going to do in the meantime?" "Well, they know I'm here, but they don't know who I am. I'll concentrate on staying alive, and try to find out whatever I can about the MO. Catch you at 1700." "Talk to you then," Dimitri said, and hung up. Right, Vance thought. I'd definitely rather be in Philadelphia. 8:39 A.M. "It's a go in five," Caroline Shaeffer announced in a stage whisper, leaning over his shoulder. A blond Ohio debutante, she was press secretary--a job she had fought for and loved --and she structured the President's media appearances with the bloodless efficiency of a Nazi drill sergeant. This hastily arranged breakfast speech at New York's Plaza was no different. She had put it together in less than ten days, and anybody who mattered in New York politics was in attendance, smiling their way dirough stale _prosciutto con melone _and soggy eggs Benedict, for an awe-inspiring hour of "quality time" with President Johan Hansen. The head table had the usual crowd: Mayor Jarvis, senators, representatives, state senators, state officials of every stripe, even the borough presidents. Hansen was almost as popular as Ronald Reagan had been in his heyday. The election was coming up in less than six weeks, and Johan Hansen held a commanding lead--twenty-eight points if you believed the latest Newsweek/Gallup poll. A "nonpolitical" event in the middle of the campaign allowed everybody to show up for a photo, regardless of party. President Hansen's speech was scheduled to begin at 8:44 A.M. sharp, perfectly timed to let Today and Good Morning America carry the opening remarks live eastern and central and not have to look like the networks were trailing CNN, indeed wiping its ass, yet again. In any case, it would definitely make the evening news on all three. Precisely as Hansen intended. Johan Hansen, whose perfect white hair and granite chin made him look every inch a chief of state, had mixed feelings about his trips to the Big Apple. He relished the automatic media attention they received (Caroline claimed that whereas $2-million-a-year network anchors usually considered themselves above travel, in New York one or two might deign to show up), but chafed at the mechanics--the helicopters, traffic jams, awesome security. He also despised political food, which was why Caroline had packed his own private breakfast of shredded wheat and skimmed milk, to be downed discreetly while everybody else was busy clogging their arteries. He was speaking on worldwide nuclear disarmament, and he intended his address to be a warm-up for one at the United Nations General Assembly three weeks hence (which meant another damned trip to New York). Alter opening with his standard stump remarks, all partisan digs excised, he would then go on to assure his audience that the New World truly was here--which always got everybody in a receptive mood. He would then remind them that three years earlier (i.e., "When I assumed this office"), America was still spending $7 billion a year on new nuclear warheads. He had put an end to that, but now it was time to take the next step. Total nuclear disarmament worldwide. It was a stance that normally received polite applause at best, and stony silence at worst. But it never failed to make the news. This morning the broadcast networks and CNN had combined their resources--after all, the space was limited--to provide pool coverage. Although the usual ganglia of lights and wires were reduced to an absolute minimum, the back of the room still looked like a makeshift convention bureau. The broadcast correspondents all had their own "instant analysis" cameras set up, and the print people were all next to their own newly installed, dedicated phones. Johan Hansen's acquisition of the Oval Office had come at the end of a hard-fought election battle that saw several firsts in American politics. For one thing, it proved, finally, that America truly was the land of opportunity. He was a first-generation Danish American, and he was Jewish--the latter being a part of his heritage that seldom, if ever, got press play. He scarcely noticed either. In truth, it was only on his father's side-- which in Judaism did not really count. Hansen's father, Joost, had been a young Copenhagen college student in 1943 when the people of Denmark one night heroically evacuated all the country's Jews to Sweden, out of the looming grasp of the Nazis. Shortly thereafter he had married Hansen's mother, a Swede named Erica who had helped in the evacuation, and then, after the war, they had immigrated to America. Joost Hansen had finished his doctorate in physics at Princeton--being a promising physicist was one of the reasons he could so readily get into the United States--and then had gone to work at Los Alamos. On the liner that brought them, the birth of Johan Hansen was due any minute, and one hour after it docked on the pier on the west side of New York, he came bawling into the world--a brand-new citizen and native-born, thereby eligible by a matter of minutes to be President someday. Who could have known? Young Johan remembered little of Princeton, New Jersey, but in Los Alamos he had gloried in the clear air of the mountains, had loved the old White Sands rocket test area where they vacationed, had loved everything about America. He'd gone on to try engineering at M IT, but he had soon realized he didn't have the makings to follow in his father's technical footsteps. He cared too much about human affairs to stay in the bloodless world of formulas and machines. As a result, he shifted to political science, and after graduating he became an aide to one of Massachusetts's liberal congressmen. Eventually he ran for the House on his own. The Democratic primary was a model of rough-and-tumble Boston politics, but he won a squeaker and became a full-fledged member at thirty-one. Thus began a career that continued through the Senate and, after two terms, to the Presidency. He had achieved his ambitions, and his soaring popularity was all the more amazing for accruing to a man who had restructured the military during the painful transition of the United States to a post-Cold-War economy. Turning swords into plowshares was never as easy as it sounded, but America's excess armaments capacity had gone back to reinvigorate her high-tech sectors. If you could make an F-15, he had declared, you could by-God make anything. Now retool and get on with it. America had. In his most important contribution to history, however, John Hansen had presided over the dismantling of more than half the world's nuclear arsenal. It's easy, he'd declared to the Russians, we just do nothing. And in so doing, the tritium in all those warheads will simply decay. End of bombs. You monitor our plants at Oak Ridge and Savannah River; we monitor you; and together we watch the nuclear threat to humanity simply tick away. It was working, he often noted with pride. Maybe we're not going to melt the planet after all. Not only would future generations thank him; there would be future generations. But would they know enough history to appreciate what he'd done? he wondered ruefully. Only if the dismal state of American education could be improved. . . . It was now 8:40 A.M. and the television lights had been switched on, turning the fake gold leaf on the ceiling into an intense white. The TelePrompTer had been readied, and the Secret Service detail was making last-minute checks around the room as unobtrusively as conditions would permit. Correspondents, for their own part, were poring over an advance copy of the text that Caroline's aide had just passed out, making notes for the brief question period scheduled to follow. The time was 8:41 when she walked up behind him and laid down a large gray envelope marked Top Secret. It was, she whispered, a couple of pages fresh off the secure fax that had been installed in the room just down the hall. What was it? he wondered. Some eleventh-hour revisions by Jordan McCormick, a young new speechwriter from Harvard who liked to tinker till the very last minute? Puzzled, he ripped open the envelope. The first page was a covering memo from his personal secretary, Alicia Winston. Miss Winston, as she insisted on being called, was a spinster, fifty- eight, who guarded access to Johan Hansen with the ferocity of a pit bull. Get past her, junior members of Congress often declared, and you're home free. It was, however, more often a dream than a realization. Seduction was frequently discussed. Alicia's note was brief and pointed. The second page, it said, was a copy of a fax that had just arrived on her desk from Ed Briggs, head of the Joint Chiefs. Hansen's chief of staff, Morton Davies, had asked her to fax it on to New York immediately. They both knew Morton was not a man to squander time. Hansen glanced over to see a white phone, complete with scrambler, being nestled next to the official text of his speech. When he scanned the second sheet, he knew why. "He's on the line," Caroline said. He nodded and checked his watch. Eight forty-three. Shit. "Caroline, tell them there's been a five-minute hold. And see if you can have them kill those damned lights." "You've got it." She signaled to the pool producer, pointed to the lights, and made a slashing motion across her throat. With a puzzled nod, he immediately complied, barking an order to his lighting director. Hansen picked up the phone. "Ed, what the hell is this about? I'm looking at the fax. You say this happened over six hours ago?" "Mr. President, that came in about ten minutes ago from naval intel. They've been trying to get the story straight. The BBC was carrying a rumor, but it was soft. We wanted to get all the facts before--" "It was in the Med?" Hansen impatiently cut him off. "Why so long--?" "They claim they took all this time trying to nail down who's responsible, and they still don't know for sure. All they've got that's hard is what I sent you. A frigate under contract to NSA got hit. About fifty known casualties. It could be our friends the Israelis, up to their old tricks, or it could be somebody who wants us to think it's them." "Ed, I'm staring down half the press in the country right now, as we speak. I can't do anything till I get back. But check with Alicia. I think I'm scheduled in around noon, and I'd like to try and have a statement out by three today." "All right, Mr. President, we'll do what we can. Let me secure-fax Morton everything I've got so far, and he can forward anything he thinks might help. But we've got to talk. This could be a tough call." "What are the Israelis saying?" 'Their military intel told Morton they don't know a damned thing about it. But their embassy here's already on red alert, getting ready to start pushing out smoke." 'Typical." Hansen had no love for Israel. In his view, their intransigence had caused the lion's share of America's problems in the Middle East. They never told the truth about anything until three days later, when it was too late to matter. In the meantime, they just did whatever they wanted. "Well, this time I almost think they may be straight," Briggs said. "It doesn't have any of their trademarks. For one thing, it had their name all over it--not their style." Hansen scanned the fax again, noting the large-print Top Secret across the top, and tried to make it sink in. Concentration was difficult, considering the expectant stirrings in the room, the clank of silverware. But this was nothing short of a major episode. What did it mean? "Okay, Ed, I want to see you first thing. And bring Bob with you"-- Robert Barnes was his assistant, Navy--"in case we need to scramble out of Crete." "Roger, sir. I'll have Alicia get everything we need set up in the Sit Room." "Good." Hansen hung up the phone and looked around the room. Damn. Who was trying to screw up the Med? Already he had a bad feeling it might involve terrorists, but where did they get the Soviet helicopter? Okay, he told himself, time to call in all the heavy guns, all the advisers who get paid so much to do your thinking. He would face his first problem when the press got hold of the story. He could already see the cartoons, that bastard in the Moonie-owned Washington Times who was always accusing him of being a pansy on defense. They'd want blood, an eye for an eye, while he was trying his best to change that way of thinking. This latest stupidity damned sure wasn't going to make it any easier. With that grim thought, he smiled his widest smile and signaled Caroline to alert the pool producer to switch on the television lights. 8:14 A.M. "What happened?" Ramirez asked. Helling had alerted him by walkie- talkie and summoned him to the lobby. There the Germans were returning, Henes Sommer covered with blood and being carried by Rudolph Schindler and Peter Maier. "Henes got caught in a firefight. Then he tried to take the chopper . . . and fell." Schindler was struggling to find the words, thinking that he would have to be the one to tell Henes' wife, in what used to be East Berlin. Henes Sommer, forty-five, had joined Ramirez's operation out of idealism, as a step toward driving the Zionist scourge from Europe. Ramirez had made the operation sound so easy. "It's even worse," Helling said slowly, addressing his words to Ramirez. "He must have been a guard who escaped our notice, but he managed to start the Hind. Then he crashed it against the hillside." "Why didn't you go after him and kill him?" Ramirez asked quietly, his anger smoldering. "There was no need. He's trapped up there. For now he can rot." An uncomfortable pause ensued before he continued. "Besides, he's armed. We probably should wait till nightfall. What can he do?" He can do a lot, Ramirez was thinking. This could be trouble. The three Germans had been brought along as a favor to Wolf Helling, and now they had demonstrated just how worthless they actually were. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have shot them all on the spot, as an example to the rest of the team. "You say the Hind has been crashed?" he went on, his eyes hidden behind his shades. "We don't need it any more. What does that matter?" Helling shrugged, not sure he believed his own words. "In any case, this is what comes of having amateurs involved." Schindler's eyes darkened in resentment. It had never really occurred to him until this moment that his and his friends' lives were at risk. Ramirez was trying hard to mask his own chagrin, telling himself he should never have sent these untried goons out to do a man's work. A good attorney never asked a question in court that he didn't already know the answer to; and you never turned your back on an operation if you weren't already fully certain how it would turn out. That was one mistake he didn't plan to make again. "Life is never simple," he said, turning back to the German threesome. The wounded man was wheezing from a hole in his chest. "There's only one thing to do with him." He withdrew a Walther from inside his coat and, with great precision, shot Henes Sommer directly between the eyes, as calmly as though dispatching a racehorse with a broken leg. The body slumped into the arms of Rudolph Schindler, who looked on in horror. "It was merely a minor miscalculation, but now it's been handled." He turned to Helling. "Now go back and watch the hill. And try to act like a professional." The German nodded. He dared not tell Ramirez the true extent of their trouble. Not only had the mysterious stranger escaped with Henes' Uzi, he also still might have a radio, if the Hind had not been totally wrecked. Helling, their boss, didn't seem yet aware of this problem. If it was still working, what would he do? "Now," Ramirez continued, "rather than waste our time on fruitless recriminations, we must proceed." He turned and walked back through the doors leading into Command. Across the room, past the rows of computer terminals, Bates sat at the Main Command desk, talking to Dr. Andros. "Problem?" Bates asked, looking up. Although he had not slept all night, his blue blazer remained immaculate. "Having some trouble, you son of a bitch?" "You will be relieved to know nothing is amiss," Ramirez replied as smoothly as he could manage. "One of your guards, it would seem, decided to make a nuisance of himself. But he has been neutralized." Bates did not believe it. He had overheard the broadcast on the BBC, and now he was starting to put it all together. These thugs had come in by chopper, after attacking a U.S. ship. They must have left the attack helicopter out on the pad. But somebody got to it . . . "Now, Miss Andros . . ." Ramirez lifted a clipboard from her desk and examined it. "My, my, today we all have a busy schedule. Review the test data from the power-up, final calibrations of the Cyclops, flight prep of the vehicle. . . ." He put it down. "Yes, it does look like a busy day. For us all. All you have to do is cooperate, and no one here will be harmed." The second chopper is on its way now, he was thinking, if everything was on schedule. The next item was the launch vehicle. He estimated they would need a day and a half to make the retrofit. The scheduled first test launch had been programmed for three days away--now it was two--so there was ample time . . . exactly as he had planned. 9:27 A.M. Vance leaned back against the scrub cypress and listened to the whistle of the light wind through the granite outcroppings. He had perched himself on one of the rugged cliffs, from which he could see virtually everything that went on aboveground. Around him ants crawled, oblivious to the heat of the sun, which now seared the bone-colored rocks on all sides, while down below the languorous surf beckoned. How ironic, and tragic: all the violence and killing, right here in the middle of paradise. He had managed to remove the battery-powered radio from the Hind; it would serve as his lifeline to the rest of the world. The military channels were all scrambled now, which told him that plenty was going on out there over the blue horizon. Trouble was, all communications had been secured. He had no idea what was happening. What the hell to do next? He was barefoot--with nothing but an Uzi, a 9mm, and a radio. He felt waves of grogginess ripple over him as the sun continued to climb. He was dead tired, and in spite of himself he sensed his mind drifting in the heat, his body losing its edge. Pulling himself together, he snapped alert. This was no time to ease up. He noticed that some of the men had left the command section and gone down to Launch Control, the flight-prep sector. They were carrying AK-47s now. Much better for sniper work. They know I've only got an Uzi, he reminded himself, which is why they realize they're in no danger. From up here it'd be next to useless. But with a scope, those Kalashnikovs are bad news. . . . At that moment he heard a dull roar, coming in from the south. Was it somebody who'd picked up his radio Mayday? He squinted against the sun and tried to see. As he watched, a dark, mottled shape appeared over the blue horizon. It was another helicopter--not a Hind this time. As it came in for a landing at the pad down by Launch Control, Vance checked it over. It was a Sikorsky S-61R, military, with a main rotor almost sixty feet across, a retractable tricycle landing gear, and a rear cargo ramp. It went back to the sixties--the U.S. had used them to lift astronauts from the sea--but it was a warhorse and reliable as hell. It had an amphibious hull, twin General Electric turboshaft engines located up close to the drive gearbox, and an advanced flight- control system. Whether or not this one had the latest bells and whistles, he did know its speed was over a hundred and sixty miles per hour and its range was over six hundred miles. What's that all about? he wondered. Is this the getaway car? Whatever it was, they were not landing on the regular pad; they were putting her down as close as they could to the vehicles. No, he decided, what they're doing is setting up something, getting ready for the big show. He already had a feeling he knew what it was going to be. The modus was standard operating procedure. But this was going to be a waiting game, at least for a while, and he thought about trying to catch a couple of winks. There was nothing to be done now. He'd have to wait till dark. To pass the time, he clicked on the radio again, to see if they were using walkie-talkies. After scanning the civilian channels he finally got a burst of traffic. They were chatting, all right--a lot of coded talk in a mixture of German, English, and French. He paused a minute, even picked up the mike, attached by a coiled black cord to the radio, and pushed the red button. But then he thought better of it and clicked it off. The time would come soon enough to get in on the fun, but not yet. 9:32 A.M. Jamal Khan, the younger brother of Salim, watched as the Sikorsky set down, then pushed the starter button on the white electric cart, urging it to life. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Nothing he had ever done in years past matched up to this, not even the airline hijackings. The only drawback was his comrades. Like, for example, this wise-ass Israeli, Peretz. Dore Peretz, for his own part, waited until the cart--a three-wheel, on- site mover--had started, and then he swung onto the back. Neither spoke as they silently motored through the sunshine, the breeze in their hair, headed for the just-landed helo. The sparkling morning did not improve the atmosphere between the two men: only the sunshine contributed warmth to the moment. Peretz had contempt for the Iranian's arrogance and intensity; the bearded Iranian resented the Israeli's technical skills, his attitude, and the fact that he was Israeli. None of it could easily be forgiven. Jamal further could not forgive the Israeli for having no commitment to driving the Americans from the Middle East, for being here only for the money. When they reached the Sikorsky, now settled on the tarmac, Jamal pulled the cart to a halt, then switched off the motor and stepped down. It would take all hands to manage the off-loading. Helling and the two other Germans were already waiting in the sunshine, and as Jamal looked them over, he found himself liking them even less than he did Peretz. The truth was, they were little more than bureaucrats, regardless of whatever they called themselves. They ranted about America being the prisoner of the Zionists, but it was just rhetoric. . . . The door of the Sikorsky was opening now and "Abdoullah," the first of the three Pakistani engineers, was emerging, followed by "Rais" and "Shujat." All three had their dark hair swathed in a traditional Palestinian black and white _kaffiyeh_, part of their "disguise." Jamal tried not to smile as he watched them--grim-faced college boys-- awkwardly slam clips into their Uzis and look around, as though they were about to lead an assault. It was a wonderful joke. "Abdoullah" actually had a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Berkeley. While in America he had developed a taste for the good life--cars, designer clothes, and gold jewelry--and then when he came back and went to work at Kahuta, Pakistan's top-secret uranium enrichment plant, he had discovered sex. The instrument of this discovery was a hard-eyed Palestinian girl, Ramala, whose fiery politics were matched only by her skills in bed. He became a convert to her and then to her cause--which played directly into the hands of Ramirez. Ramirez had, Jamal knew, been working on this setup for five years. Money here, information there, it all had finally paid off. Of all Ramirez's recruits, "Abdoullah's" contribution had been the most crucial, since he had been the one who had arranged the theft of the two items now crated and ready in the cargo bay of the Sikorsky. He and his two engineer-colleagues spoke English by choice, and to Jamal they looked almost identical, all with new coal-black beards and designer "commando" sweatbands under their _kaffiyeh_. They were trying to get with the look of revolutionary chic, he thought with disdain. They'd just made the big time, but they still thought they were in a Chuck Norris movie. Fortunately, they'd already served their main purpose. In two more days, they would be totally expendable. The Sikorsky had landed approximately fifty yards from the entrance to the blockhouse of the launch facility, placing them a mere two hundred yards away from the SatCom space vehicles, VX-1 and VX-2. Those spires seemed to preside over everything, casting long shadows, and the three Pakistani engineers paused, still gripping their Uzis, to gaze up and admire them. "Don't stand there gawking." Peretz curtly brought them to attention. "We've got to get moving. If anybody has started any satellite recon of this place, we could be on TV by now. A U.S. KH-12 can read the address on a fucking postcard." He signaled for the pilot to release the rear entry ramp. "Let's get going. We're taking them in immediately." The Pakistanis saluted in paramilitary style, secured their Uzis into their black leg-holsters, and moved expectantly to the rear of the helo. As the ramp slowly came down, there strapped and waiting in the aft bay were two wooden crates cushioned in a bed of clear plastic bubble-wrap, each approximately a meter square and weighing just under a hundred kilos. Phase four had begun. CHAPTER SIX 12:03 P.M. Cally Andros felt disgusted, physically nauseated. And partly it was with herself. Blame the victim. She wondered if all hostages felt this way: powerless, angry, and scared. What would she feel next? She had heard that strange things happened to your mind when you lost all control. You started forgetting recent events and remembering oddities from long ago, childhood memories you'd totally repressed, stashed away somewhere down in the lower cortex. It had already started, dwelling on her father's death and blaming herself, when the real reason was his overwork and grief. And other memories were creeping in, little things that only the child inside would regard as anything but trivial. That first bumbling sexual disaster, in the Cal Tech dorm that weekend, when she got drunk, then threw up on his pillow. She'd repressed that one completely, never told anybody about that, hoping the memory would just go away. God! It was horrible. And now it was back, right at the top of the remembrance file. More memories, the first year at Bronx Science, when her very first real date stood her up, and she ended up sitting home all night crying and praying everybody was going to believe her when she told them she'd had the cramps and couldn't go out after all. (They didn't. Everybody found out exactly what had happened.) Humiliations? Stupid things that meant so much at the time that they stuck. You felt your life had been a string of mistakes and you wanted to go back and get it right before you checked out. And try as you might, you didn't care at all about the triumphs--degrees, ceremonies, honors. No, all you could remember were the little, trivial things, joys and sadnesses that were yours alone. Remembrances of trivialities past. That's what being a hostage was all about. On the other hand--and she hated herself for this feeling--there was something almost erotic about men with so much sudden, ill-gotten power. Evil had its own allure, just as surely as good. Were they just two opposite sides of the same emotion? Wasn't Satan the real hero of Paradise Lost ? Was Ramirez that same figure? The sexiness of power. Bill Bates had the same aura. . . . Georges and his young staff engineers were sitting listlessly and staring at their computer screens, looking exhausted and defeated. Bill had been confined to his office, where he could do nothing but fume since his radio had been shut down and there was now only one phone remaining connected to the outside world--the one on her desk, which they monitored. It got worse. Isaac was coming in, which meant they'd have a real prize for a hostage. As if Bill weren't enough, to have a famous American Jewish professor in hand would be the topping on their whole grab. She tried to catch Georges's eye, across the room. He seemed to be drowsing at his terminal, almost as though nothing had happened. Since he had always held a political stance slightly to the left of Che Guevara, maybe he secretly enjoyed being taken hostage by these self- appointed enemies of American Capitalism. No . . . she saw an eyelid flutter ... he was just faking his calm. He was scared to death. And he was thinking. About what? She had done some thinking of her own, about the guy who called himself Number One, the terrorist now sitting at the other end of Command, calmly smoking a thin cigar. As she examined him, the gray temples and perfect tan, the beige sunglasses, she began to find his appearance a little incongruous. What was it? Well, for one thing, he looked too perfect. Something about him . . . He had to be at least in his late forties, but nobody's face looked like that at his age. It was too smooth, too tight. Plastic surgery. The bastard had changed his appearance. So who was he, really? He hadn't given his name, but his face must have mattered once. Who? Try and put it together, she told herself. He's not Middle Eastern. Maybe he's trying to pass as an Arab, but he's not fooling me. No, he's Latin. It's in the way he moves, the way he brushes at his sleeve, the way he holds his cigar. He's just like Domingo, the guy in junior year, who thought he was God's gift to the feminine gender. Yes, Domingo was a Latin caricature, but this guy has all the same moves. They can't escape it. They're just so proud of being male. The ironic part was, half the time Domingo couldn't get it up unless some act of violence was involved. He liked to dominate, or be dominated. Power was what he was all about. Power. Think. Can you use that some way to get to this guy? No, she told herself, this killer has all the power he needs. He's about image. And money. She moved through the rows of workstations, now merely flashing updates of the status of the various components of the Cyclops system. The power plant was idling now, the superconducting coil in standby mode. The crew of technicians, armed with a punch list of post-power-up items, was checking out the Cyclops itself. The test had been a total success. "Miss Andros, you are a beautiful woman." Ramirez glanced up as she approached. He had seemed to be meditating on his cigar, inspecting the ash as he slowly allowed it to accumulate. "I was wondering why a creature of such beauty would want to submit herself to this kind of manly trade?" "Not as 'manly' a trade as yours. Killing for profit." She felt her anger coming back, and her courage. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between a so-called 'terrorist' and a common murderer. You disgust me." His face flushed for a millisecond as he impassively drew on his cigar. "It would be better if you would consider me, and the rest of these men, as economic freedom fighters. Perhaps I'm a modern-day Robin Hood." "Right." She felt like spitting on him, a definitely unladylike response. "You steal from the rich and give to yourself. But you've made a big mistake this time. All you're going to do is ruin SatCom." "Ruin you?" He seemed amused at the notion, taking another puff on his cigar. "I have no desire to ruin your precious American corporation. As a matter of fact, I'm going to make you the beneficiary of a billion dollars' worth of free publicity. Truly, no money in the world could purchase what I am about to do for you. And all I want in return is to borrow your Cyclops laser for a few days. If anything, you should pay me . . . though there will be others to do that." "I don't know who you expect to come up with any money. It sure as hell isn't going to be SatCom. We're totally tapped out. If this launch doesn't meet our schedule, day after tomorrow, a bunch of banks in Geneva and Tokyo are going to take us over. And I doubt very much they're going to pay off you and your goons. They'll tell you to go screw yourself." "They can do whatever they wish. They're not the ones who're going to pay." There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice. "We are going to make the Americans pay. For their crimes against the Muslim peoples of the world." 'That's a lot of crap." She hated the man, really hated him. "You don't care a damn about the 'Muslim peoples,' do you, senor?" He pulled up sharply and stared at her, startled. For the first time since he had barged in, he seemed momentarily at a loss for words. But he covered it quickly by reaching out to tap his cigar ash into a half- filled trash can. "What are you suggesting?" "You're a fake, through and through." Keep him on the defensive, she thought. "As phony as they come. Who are you, really?" His composure was returning, an instinct for chivalry that could operate on autopilot if need be. "I'm flattered by your interest in me, but who I am need not concern you. All you need to worry about is following my instructions. Then you and I will get along nicely." "Listen, you creep, there's no way we are going to get along, nicely or otherwise." She felt her resolve growing. "You don't know me. I'm going to fight you with everything I have. You're going to have to kill me to stop me." "Do yourself a favor, Miss Andros." He pulled again on his cigar, inhaling the harsh smoke. "Don't make that necessary." 1:17 P.M. Isaac Mannheim gazed down through the glass partition of the old Bell Jetranger and wondered again what he was seeing. The pilot couldn't raise Command on the radio, and now he was grumbling that the pad looked unsafe. The boy had a point. The surrounding hurricane fence had been half ripped away, and there was oil everywhere on the asphalt. The place looked as though a raging bull elephant had powered its way through, knocking aside everything in its wake. What in blazes had happened? A tornado? He surveyed the area, and something even more ominous caught his eye. What was it, that thing half-buried in the trees, about two-thirds the way up the mountain? Now he strained to see through the smudgy windows, just making out the wreckage of some sort of military helicopter. Next he turned and looked in the other direction, down toward the launch vehicles. That's odd. Another helicopter was parked down there. It was big, a military gray, but no one was around it. "It looks like there was a crash on the pad or something," the young Greek pilot shouted over the roar of the engines, his dark, serious eyes fixed gravely on the scene. His name, sewn in Greek on his tan shirt, was Mikis; his father owned the 1981 Jetranger, and the business. Flying this far from Athens meant he would have to refuel to make it back, and nobody was around to take care of that. Moreover, the situation definitely looked unsafe. "I can see that," Mannheim responded dryly, his voice faint above the noise. "Which is why you need to be careful. We don't want to add another casualty." "Something funny is definitely going on," Mikis continued, to no one in particular. He had already discovered the eccentric American professor with a baseball cap didn't care all that much for small talk. And he had no patience whatsoever for small talk that pointed out the obvious. "I don't like this, but I'll have to put her down. I'm already on my auxiliary tank." For once Mannheim allowed his thoughts to stray to the concerns of someone else. "There's an airfield at Kythera. You could make it there, if you just touched down here and dropped me off." "Are you sure you want to do that?" Mikis was gripping the stick, frowning behind his aviator shades. "We can't raise anybody here on the radio, and now there's this mess. Let me take you to Kythera with me. The whole deal looks weird." "No," Mannheim shouted back. "I have to find out what's happened." This project is like Sarah, he thought, his estranged daughter coming to mind. I had to do everything I knew how to try to keep her from making the wrong decisions. Then he remembered ruefully that she had gone ahead and made them anyway. But he had been there always, ready to give her advice. Mikis shrugged, clearly worried, and gave the Jetranger some pedal, circling to search for signs of life. There was nothing. The bleak granite cliffs were barren, and the cool blue of the light surf washed against an empty shoreline. He had not seen this space facility before, but everybody had heard about it. The most impressive sight was, of course, those silver spires down at the other end of the island. Those had to be their vehicles, but nobody was around them now. Puzzled, he examined the huge dormitory-type residence in the middle of the island and the supply buildings, lined along a paved segment connecting the landing pad with the main building, and still saw no one. "Look, I'm going to just drop you off and then get the hell out of here," he yelled over. He was easing up on the collective, taking her in. "I'll buy petrol on Kythera. I don't see anybody around, and this place gives me the creeps." "You've done all you need to," Mannheim shouted back. "Something . . ." His voice trailed off as he finally saw some movement. A figure was coming down the mountain, carrying what looked like an automatic weapon. "We'd better make this quick." 1:21 P.M. Vance was moving as fast as he could and watching as the helicopter--now about a thousand yards from the pad--began its final approach. Friend or foe? With the second arrival in as many hours, the place resembled an airport. He assumed by now they surely had seen the wreckage of the Hind, but they seemed determined to come in anyway. He watched as the old Bell gingerly began to hover above the landing pad, the pilot dispensing with preliminaries. While it was settling in, he chambered a round in the Uzi, pulled back the gnarled cocking lever on the top, and continued on down the hill at a brisk pace. With any luck he would beat the guys in black. Or maybe they were deliberately keeping a low profile, hoping to lure in the prey. They were also luring him out, he knew, but he had to take the chance. He was moving quickly, the sharp rocks cutting into his feet, and now only a hundred yards or so remained between him and the approaching helo. Only then did he first notice he had bumped Bill's new Agusta when he tried to fly the Hind, leaving a bad dent. Now he owed Bates for repairs. Great. He wondered fleetingly if SatCom had terrorist insurance. There was now an opening in the pad's protective fence, where the Hind had ripped it away, and as the din of the approaching helicopter rang in his ears, he raced across the last clearing, headed for it. But his instincts caused him to look around, and just in time . . . Approaching on the run down the asphalt road leading from the launch facility were three of the terrorists. He recognized two of them as his earlier assailants, together with a third who looked like he might actually know what he was doing. They must have seen the arriving Jetranger, and now they were coming out to give it a welcome. The way they were moving, and the AK-47s they were carrying, told him a lot. The chopper's occupants were the good guys. As the Bell settled in and its door opened, he dropped onto the granite and nestled the metal stock of the Uzi against his cheek. It felt warm from the morning sun, like the touch of a comfortable friend. He flipped the fire control to semiautomatic and caught the approaching goons in the metal sight. Then he gently squeezed the trigger. The Uzi kicked back, sending a round upward into the morning air. He realized he was out of practice. Next time he would handle it better, but for now he had blown the operation. The three in black who had been running toward the landing pad dropped onto the asphalt and opened fire, spattering flecks of granite around him as he took cover. Then he looked up to see an elderly man fairly tumble out of the chopper and make a dash for the safety of the SatCom Agusta. He need not have hurried; no one was shooting at him. As the Jetranger started to lift off, however, the gunmen's focus switched away from Vance, and he realized they had no intention of letting it escape. As it left the pad and banked to gain altitude, the lead terrorist dropped to a prone position on the asphalt and took aim directly at the cockpit, where the pilot was just visible behind the glare of the windscreen. With a range of only fifty yards, Vance realized, taking him out would be easy. It was. The AK-47 was on full auto, and one burst splintered away the windscreen, exploding it and leaving what remained spattered with blood. The pilot was thrown against the shattered glass, then left hanging halfway through. He never knew what hit him. The fuselage began to pirouette into a sickening spiral, but the firing continued, as though to kill what was already dead. The gunman's obsessed, Vance thought. He's also emptying his magazine. Now's the time. Make a move while he's still distracted. These thugs want the old man alive, whoever he is. So why not try and ruin their day, get him before they do. The Bell continued to autorotate in a series of circles. Then it abruptly nosed straight downward, and a second later it veered toward the side of the cliff abutting the sea. A splintering crash replaced the sound of the engine as the rotors slammed against the granite, shearing away--whereupon the fuselage bounced down the steep wall of the cliff and into the water. In moments the seabed swallowed it up. In the meantime Vance had reached the landing pad, a few meters away from the old man, who was stumbling distractedly across the asphalt, staring in the direction the chopper had disappeared and so shocked by the sight he seemed not to realize he was walking directly into the hands of the men who had killed the pilot. Vance wanted to shout, but then he thought better of it. What was the point? The old man clearly was unable to think. He had to be pulled out quickly and with a minimum of risk. No, the best thing to do was lay down a line of covering fire and go for him. He opened up the Uzi on semiauto and dashed for the Agusta. 1:25 P.M. Wolf Helling hit the ground rolling, bringing up his Kalashnikov, set on automatic. The renegade guard was back to shoot it out, firing from somewhere in the area of the pad. Good. He was going to trap the fucker. This time he would handle the situation personally; he would not have to depend on a bunch of incompetent East German Stasi burnouts. He glanced back and saw the two trailing behind him. When the guard had opened fire, they'd dived and stumbled pell-mell for the cover of the storage sheds. They wouldn't be any help, but he'd known that already. It didn't matter. This was going to be one-on-one. And easy. The chopper had been lost, which was a shame. Although Ramirez's orders were to seize it when it arrived, that had not been possible. You win some, you lose some. Amid the gunfire the old man had reached the SatCom helicopter, while the guard was now making a dash for its protection, too, even as he covered himself with another spray from the automatic that the damn fools had let him get. Fortunately his aim was wild again, probably because he was running, and the rounds sailed by harmlessly. And he was in the open. Now. Helling trained his AK-47, long barrel and heavy clip, on him and pulled the trigger. . . . His clip was empty. _Scheisse_! He cursed himself for having used the gun on automatic. At ten pops a second, you could wipe out a 35- round clip before you could sneeze. Still cursing, he pushed the button releasing the clip and slammed in another. But he was too late; by that time the guard had disappeared behind the SatCom helicopter. The two East Germans were firing randomly and ineffectually from the safety of the storage sheds, holding their weapons around the corners and spraying blindly. Idiots. They were providing cover, but since they had no idea where they were aiming, they were endangering him at least as much as their target. And now the bastard had reached the cover of the helicopter. He was safe for the moment. But only for the moment. 1:27 P.M. _ _"Don't shoot," Isaac Mannheim shouted as he saw the unshaven, barefoot man roll next to him, an Uzi giving off bursts of rounds. "Get down," Vance yelled back, then shoved him onto the asphalt beside the blue-and-white Agusta. "You picked a hell of a time to come visiting. There're some new natives, and they're not overly friendly." "Who are you?" The old man's ancient eyes were brimming with alarm and confusion. "What are you doing here?" "At the moment I'm trying to keep you alive." Vance checked the clip of the Uzi. There were about seven rounds left. With three hoods out there, all with Kalashnikovs, seven rounds would not go very far. Was anything usable in the Agusta? he asked himself. He peered through the glass of the cockpit, searching. It looked empty. Except for-- A blast of fire careened by the canopy, and he again yanked Mannheim down onto the asphalt. Then he cautiously raised up enough to recon the situation. The hoods were all advancing now, scurrying forward from building to building as they gave covering blasts from their automatics. However, the two farthest back did not seem to be overly enthusiastic. "They're going to kill us, too," Mannheim stammered. "Can you--?" "Just stay down," Vance interrupted him. "I'm probably the one they want to get rid of. If they'd wanted you dead, believe me, you would be by now." He opened the door and hurriedly surveyed the cockpit more closely. Yes, he had seen it right . . . Attached to the back firewall, ready for emergency use, was a rack of smoke grenades, factory fresh, the kind used for signaling in case the helo went down. He remembered that grenade smoke was designed to cling to the ground rather than rise, and with a burn time between one and two minutes, a good grenade could produce a quarter million cubic feet of HC smoke. Maybe, he thought, I just got lucky. He peeled one off the rack and checked it over. Yep, American M-18, which everybody knew was the best. The can was about the size of a Diet Coke, and it was military gray. It even gave the flavor on the side-- this one was red, but they also came in yellow and white. Nice to have around if you went down in wooded terrain. He looked toward the gunmen approaching and made the decision on the spot. With a quick motion he clenched the handle with his right hand and yanked the steel pin with his left. When he looked up again, they had closed the distance, now only about thirty yards. Time for a touchdown. He drew back and lobbed the can directly at the lead terrorist. The time delay was one and a half seconds. It landed just in front of the first man, bounced once, and blew--an eruption of red that engulfed him. Beautiful. With a quick twist he yanked the rack from the side of the cockpit and began hurling the cans as fast as he could. Finally, he grabbed the startled old professor by the arm, then dropped the last grenade at their feet. "Time to move the party. There's cover in the rocks up there." Mannheim stumbled backward as the smoke bomb exploded, and Vance realized he would never make it. He would have to be dragged, or carried. And since dragging was out of the question, there really was only one option. He bent down and grabbed the old man around the waist, then lifted him over his shoulder. It turned out he was hardly more than skin and bones, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, tops. After spending the last four days heaving the tillers of the late, lamented _Odyssey_ _II_, the load seemed like a feather. Some more random gunfire exploded behind them as he struggled and stumbled up the rocky slope, but now a dense cloud of red completely obliterated the scene below. The M-18 grenades were still billowing, totally obscuring the landing pad and the roadway. When they reached the first clump of brush leading up the mountain, he settled Mannheim onto the ground. The old professor was choking from the smoke, totally disoriented, and babbling. Vance clapped a hand over his mouth, then urged him onward. "No talking. If they find us, we're going to have some really lousy odds." He removed his hand, and immediately Mannheim started again. "Whoever you are, I guess I have to thank you for saving my life." He puffed over the stones. "Who are you?" "I'm a friend of Bill Bates, the man supposedly in charge around here." "I'm Isaac Mannheim. This project--" "The godfather." Vance looked him over. "Bill's talked about you. MIT, right?" "The Cyclops is my--" "Nice to meet you. Now who in the hell are these thugs?" "I have no idea." "Well, we can assume they're not part of Bill's technical support team." He glanced down the hill, toward the drifting cloud of red smoke, then back at the old man. "But if you've been involved in this project, then you must know the layout here." "I know it very well. But--" "Good. We're going to have to keep moving, at least till it gets dark, but while we're doing that, I want you to get me up to speed on where things are. Give me the setup. And tell me how many personnel are here and where they are." Mannheim pointed down the hill, at a point just past the storage sheds. "The people are housed in the Bates Motel, which is over there, beyond that row of buildings." Vance looked it over. At the moment it seemed deserted. "Where's the entrance?" "You can go in directly from the connecting corridor underground, or you can use the front entrance, there." "What if the entrance topside were locked? Then it would he secure, right?" "I suppose so." He still seemed disoriented, though he was recovering. "Of course there are fire exits at various places in the underground network, as well as the security lobby over there. And then, the storage sheds can be accessed from below." "But all of those entry-points can be sealed, right?" "Yes. In fact, they can be sealed electronically, from Command. The staff controls everything from there." Vance looked down at the white surf rippled across the blue. "So if somebody wanted to take over this place, that's where they would start, right? Hit that and you're in like a bandit. It's the head office." "That's correct." Mannheim nodded. "Good. We know where to focus. Now you're going to tell me how I can get there." CHAPTER SEVEN 2:18 P.M. Pierre Armont was forty-six, with gray temples and a body appropriate to an Olympic wrestler. He had full cheeks, a heavy mustache, and suspicious dark eyes that constantly searched his surroundings. It was an innate survival instinct. He never went out without a tie and a perfect shoeshine, not to mention a crisp military bearing that sat as comfortably on him as a birthright. He prided himself on his ability to instill discipline while at the same time leading his men. Although he liked to command, he wanted to do it from the front, where the action was. Here in Paris he ran a worldwide business from a gray stone townhouse situated on the Left Bank in an obscure cul-de-sac at the intersection of Saint-Andre des Arts and rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. Fifty meters away from his ivy-covered doorway, the rue de Seine wound down to the river, playing host to one of Paris's finer open-air produce markets, while farther down, rows of small galleries displayed the latest in Neo-Deconstructionist painting and sculpture. An avid amateur chef and art collector, he found the location ideal. From his house, where the French aviator Saint-Exupery once wrote, he could march a few paces, along cobblestones as old as Chartres, and acquire a freshly plucked pheasant, a plump grouse, aromatic black truffles just hours away from the countryside, or an abstract landscape whose paint was scarcely dry. It was the best of all worlds: everything he loved was just meters away, and yet his secretive courtyard provided perfect urban privacy and security, with only the occasional blue-jeaned student from the Academie de Beaux-Arts wandering into his courtyard to sketch. He was rich and he knew how to live well; he also risked his life on a regular basis. He claimed it made his _foie gras _taste even better. He worked behind a wide oak desk flanked by a line of state-of-the-art communications equipment, and along one walnut-paneled wall stood rows of files secured inside teak-wood-camouflaged safes. His wide oak desk could have belonged in the office of a travel agent with a very select clientele. However, it served another purpose entirely: it was where he planned operations for ARM. Pierre Armont headed up the Association of Retired Mercenaries, and he had been busy all day. But he was used to emergencies. What other people called problems, ARM thought of as business. The Association of Retired Mercenaries was a secretive but loose group of former members of various antiterrorist organizations. The name was an inside joke, because they were far from retired. Although they were not listed in the Paris phone book, governments who needed their services somehow always knew how to find Pierre. ARM took on nasty counterterrorism actions that could not occur officially. They rescued hostages unreported in newspapers, and they had terminated more than a few unpleasant individuals in covert actions that never made the evening news. At the moment, as he was thinking over the insertion strategy for Andikythera, he was gazing down on his private courtyard and noticing that the honking from the boulevard Saint-Germain indicated that Paris's mid-afternoon traffic had ground to a halt. Again. He had just hung up the scrambled phone, after a thirty-minute conversation with Reggie Hall, the second today. London was on board, so everything was a go. He was looking forward to this one. Some _batards_ had mucked with an ARM job. They had to be taken down. Armont was retired from France's antiterrorist Groupement d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, known as GIGN, ideal experience for his present occupation. Over the years "Gigene" had carried out, among other things, VIP protection in high-threat situations and general antiterrorist ops. Mostly commandos in their twenties and early thirties, Gigene operatives had to pass a grueling series of tests, including firing an H&K MP5 one-handed while swinging through a window in a quick entry called the pendulum technique. Known for their skills in inserting by helicopter, either by rappelling or by parachuting, they could also swim half a mile under water and come out blasting, using their specially loaded Norma ammo. Armont's particular claim to fame was the invention of a sophisticated slingshot that fired deadly steel balls for a silent kill. He had trained antiterrorist units in a number of France's former colonies, and had secretly provided tactical guidance for the Saudi National Guard when they ejected radical Muslims from the Great Mosque at Mecca. These days, however, he was a private citizen and ran a simple business. And as with all well-run businesses, the customer was king. If problems arose, they had to be resolved; if a job did not stick, you sent in a repair team. An American member of ARM named Michael Vance, who normally did not participate in the operations end of the business, had turned up at the wrong place at the right time. A Reuters confirmation of the loss of the U.S. communications ship definitely meant some bad action had gone down in the eastern Med. Vance's analysis that it was a preliminary to seizure of the SatCom facility on Andikythera probably was correct. Armont's secretary had spent the day on the phone trying to reach the island, but all commercial communications with the site were down. There was no way that should have happened, even with last night's rough storm. He had liked Michael Vance the minute he met him, three years earlier. He considered Mike reliable in completing his assignments--be they quick access to a "secure" bank computer file or a paper trail of wire transfers stretching from Miami to Nassau to Geneva to Bogota. Vance's regular missions for ARM, however, were those kinds of transactions, not the street action, and Armont could only hope he could also manage the rougher end of the business. The organization had checked out the man extensively, as they did all new members, and ARM's computer probably knew as much about him as he did himself. It was an oddball story: son of a famous Penn archaeologist, he had been by turns an archaeologist himself, a yachtsman, and a low-level spook. After he finished his doctorate at Yale and had taught there for two semesters, he had published his dissertation--claiming the famous Palace of Minos in Crete was actually a hallowed necropolis--as a book. It had caused a lot of flap, and to get away for a while, he had taken a vacation in Nassau to do some big- game fishing. Before the trip ended, he had bought an old forty-four- foot Bristol sailboat in need of massive restoration. It was a classic wooden vessel, which meant that no sooner had he finished varnishing the thing from one end to the other than he had to start over again. But he apparently liked the life. Or maybe he just enjoyed giving the academic snakepit a rest. The computer could not get into his mind. Whatever the reason, however, the sailboat, which had begun as a diversion, soon became something else. By the time he had finished refurbishing her, she was the most beautiful yacht in the Caribbean, and everybody around Nassau wanted a shot at the helm. He had a charter business on his hands. Then his saga took yet another turn. The Nassau Yacht Club, and the new Hurricane Hole Marina across the bridge on Paradise Island, comprised a yachting fraternity that included a lot of bankers. Nassau, after all, had over three hundred foreign commercial banks, and its "see no evil" approach to regulation and reporting made it a natural haven for drug receipts. With a lot of bankers as clients, before long Vance knew more than any man should about offshore money laundering. He did not like that part of the scene, but the bankers loved his yacht, and they paid cash. As he once told it, he eventually found out why. At least for one of them. One sunny afternoon the vice president of the European Consolidated Commercial Bank, an attractive blond-haired young Swiss mover known to Vance only as "Werner," was docking _The Ulysses_ at Hurricane Hole, bringing her back from a three-day sail, when the DEA swooped down, flanked by the local Bahamian police. Armed with warrants, they searched the boat and soon uncovered fifty kilos of Colombian export produce. Seems "Werner" had sailed _The Ulysses _to some prearranged point and taken it on, planning to have divers stash the packages in the rudder-trunk air pocket of one of the giant cruise ships that tied up at Nassau's four-berth dock. Vance heard about it when he got a call from the harbormaster advising him that his prized Bristol had just been seized as evidence in a coke bust. He was out of business. That afternoon Bill Bates had coincidentally flown in on Merv Griffin's Paradise Island commuter airline and come over to Hurricane Hole, wanting to charter _The Ulysses _for a week of sailing and fishing. Vance had to inform him his favorite Bahamian yacht had just acquired a new owner. Bates could not believe he had flown into such a screw-up. Vance was having his own problems with disbelief, too, but paying the mortgage was his more immediate concern. The DEA had the boat, but before long he wouldn't have to worry about that any more. That problem, and the boat, would soon belong to the mortgage-holding bank over on Bay Street. He immediately slapped the DEA with a two-million-dollar lawsuit, just to put on some heat. His lawyer claimed he didn't have a hope in hell. But two weeks later a Bahamian judge, after lunch with the mortgage- holding banker, summarily ordered the DEA to release the yacht. To Vance's surprise, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration cheerfully complied and turned it over the same afternoon. He immediately dropped the lawsuit, writing off the whole affair as a triumph for truth, justice, and the Bahamian way of banking. Or so it seemed. Only later did he unearth the Byzantine complexities of what really had happened. The affair had somehow come to the attention of The Company, and there had been a flurry of phone calls to the DEA in New Orleans from Langley, Virginia. A month later, while he was in the States attending a Yale alumni function, he'd found himself talking to two earnest Washington bureaucrats, who congratulated him on beating the system. Huh? They then described their need for a "financial consultant" in Nassau, somebody who knew the right people. Maybe he would consider taking the job; it could merely be a favor for--they hinted broadly--a favor. Here was the problem: the CIA desperately needed help in trying to keep track of the cocaine millions being laundered through Nassau's go-go banks. The Company wanted some local assistance getting certain off- the-record audits, from clean bankers who were tired of Nassau being a haven for dirty cash. He hated drugs and drug money, so he had seen nothing wrong with the idea. He even ended up training some greenhorns out of Langley in the subtle art of tracing wire transfers. Two years later he got his payoff. They formed their own in-house desk to do what he had been doing and retired him. He was, it turned out, too successful. But the word on such skills got around, and two months later Pierre Armont had approached him about joining ARM. They needed somebody good at tracing hot money, frequently the most reliable trail of a terrorist operation, and everybody close to the business had identified him as the best around. By that time he had formally incorporated a charter operation in Nassau as Windstalker, Ltd., with three boats, three mortgages, and a big monthly nut. So he had signed on, only later discovering that along with ARM's extra cash came a lot of travel, many responsibilities, and occasional death threats. He took them seriously enough to start carrying his own protection, a chrome-plated 9mm Walther. Armont approved. Vance had always been well paid. It was expected. Anybody who hired ARM--usually because there was nowhere else left to turn--knew the best did not come cheap. A good two-week op could pull down fifty thousand pounds sterling for every man on the team, which was why the boys drove BMWs and drank twelve-year-old Scotch. But no client ever complained about the price. Or if they did, they didn't complain to Pierre. Payment was always cash, half up front and the rest on delivery. Any client who welshed on the follow-through would be making a very ill- considered career decision. He pulled the blinds and turned to his desk. Faxes sent via ARM's secure, encrypted system covered the surface. The team was coming together. His secretary Emile, a young Frenchman who came in mornings and worked in the next room, had already booked the necessary flights. By 1800 hours tomorrow everybody would be assembled in Athens and ready to insert. Armont intended to lead the operation himself . . . unless Vance, as the man on the ground, proved the logical choice. Since he was already in place, always the best location, he would in any case have to be point man. He had talked the job over with "Hans" in Frankfurt at 1030 hours, just after he had gotten the call from Athens, and together they had picked six operatives. Vance would make seven. He calculated that would be plenty. "Hans" was the _nom de guerre _of a former GSG-9, Germany's green- beret-sporting Grenzschutzgruppen 9. GSG-9, headquartered at St. Augustin just outside Bonn, had a nine- million-dollar underground training range that included a communications and intel unit, aircraft mockups, an engineer unit, a weapons unit, an equipment unit, a training unit, and a strike unit. In his fifteen years with GSG-9, Hans had been known to achieve 95 percent accuracy with an H&K MP9 when firing from a moving vehicle or even rappelling down a rope from a hovering chopper. Now retired, he brought to ARM many talents: as well as participating in the on-site op, he usually acted as liaison officer because of his flawless English. He also knew which old-timers from GSG-9--that was anybody over thirty- five--were looking for an op, and if the job required some younger talent he used his connections to get current members temporarily released from their units. When needed, he could arrange for special-purpose weapons otherwise "unavailable" or restricted. Once, when a sniper-assault situation called for a hot new IR scope, he borrowed one from the St. Augustin armory overnight, made a drawing, then had it copied in Brussels by noon the next day. He knew where to find ARM field operatives and what shape they were in--which ones had been shot up, broken legs in parachute drops, or gone over the edge with a case of nerves and too much booze. Best of all, though, he could usually locate a wanted terrorist. GSG-9 was hooked directly into a massive computer in Wiesbaden informally known as the Kommissar. Hans could still tap into the Kommissar, which tracked various world terrorist groups, constantly updating everything known about their methods, their membership, and--most importantly--their movements. These days he operated a rundown _biergarten_ in Frankfurt, at least as his cover, and there were suspicions he managed to drink up a lot of its profits. In any case, he was in ARM for the money, and he never pretended otherwise. So when Armont rang him, he was immediately all ears. Never failed. "Pierre, _alio! Comment allez vous?" _Even at ten-thirty in the morning Hans could be cheerful. Armont, definitely a night person, never understood how he did it. "_Bien_, considering." Armont knew Hans was more comfortable in English than in French, and he hated speaking German. "What're you doing for the next couple of days?" "Got something?" The German's interest immediately perked up. "There's a little cleanup . . ." After he gave him a quick briefing on the situation via their secure phone, Hans was extremely unhappy. "Dimitri screwed up. It's not our problem." "I say it's our problem," Pierre replied. "We guarantee our work and you're either in, or you're out. Permanently. Those are the rules." "All right." Hans sighed. "Can't blame me for not liking it, though." "So who do you think we need?" Armont asked. Hans knew the people better than he did. "Well, we definitely should have Reggie," he replied straightaway. "He's the best negotiator we've got, and also he can get us some of the hardware we'll be needing." The man in question was Reginald Hall. Just under fifty, he was a stocky ex-small-arms instructor, regimental sergeant major, retired, of the SAS, Britain's Special Air Service. In the old days he headed up a unit known in the press as the CRW, Counter Revolutionary Warfare section, called "the special projects blokes" by those on the inside. He finally quit after successfully leading an assault on the Iranian embassy in London on 5 May 1980--which, to his astonished dismay, was televised live. He'd gotten famous overnight, and after thinking it over for a weekend, he decided the time had come to cash it in. These days he ran a small company that purportedly bought and sold used sports firearms. That was a polite way of saying he dabbled in the international arms trade, though not in a big way. But whenever ABM needed a special piece of equipment, as often as not Reggie found a way to take care of it. He did not do it for love. Even though he was happily retired down in Dorset, Thomas Hardy country, with a plump Welsh common-law wife, he occasionally slipped away--much to her chagrin--to take on special ops for ARM. Maybe his neighbors thought he had bought their matching Jaguars with his army pension or the sale of used Mausers. "I'll call him as soon as we hang up. He spent some time in the Emirates or some damn place and claims to speak a little Arabic." He was thinking. "Okay, who else could we use?" "How about the Flying Dutchmen?" Hans said. He was referring to the Voorst brothers, Willem and Hugo, both former members of the Royal Dutch Marines' "Whiskey Company." That was the nickname of a special group officially known as the Marine Close Combat Unit. Both bachelors, though never short of women, they lived in Amsterdam and took on any security job that looked like it would pay. They also ran a part-time aircraft charter operation. "We might need a chopper for the insert. Think they can handle it on such short notice?" The Voorst brothers would occasionally arrange, through their old connections, for a Dutch military helicopter to get lost in paperwork for a weekend. Whiskey Company was a club, and everybody was going to retire someday. What went around came around. Besides, there was plenty of spare change in it for those who made the arrangements. "With nobody paying? It'll take some fast talking." "So far, this thing's being done on spec. We're just making good on a job." "Don't remind me," Hans groaned. "Don't want to hear it. I think we'd better just rent something in Athens." He paused. "But I also think we ought to take along the Hunter. He'd be the man to handle grenades. He loves those damned things better than his wife." They were both thinking of Marcel, formerly of the Belgian ESI, Escadron Special d'lntervention. While with ESI, he had fathered their famous four-man units, pairs of two-man teams, and had come up with the idea of carrying a spare magazine on the strong-side wrist to facilitate rapid mag change. ESI was known informally as Diana Unit, and since Diana was the huntress of mythology, Marcel had become known as the Hunter. But not till after he had earned the sobriquet. A former Belgian paratrooper, ex-Angola, he got the nickname after a special op there, when he had saved an entire ARM team by taking out a room of terrorists with three stun grenades, tear gas, and an Uzi--while wearing an antiflash hood called a balaclava plus a gas mask, a little like working under water. Marcel liked the nickname. "I'll see if I can reach him. The Antwerp number." "Well, we'll probably need him." Hans paused. "And Vance is already on site. That'll make all the difference." "He's good. If you can get all the others, I think we'll have what we need." 'Then, let's get started. I'll try to reach everybody and have them in Athens by late tomorrow. Fax me an equipment list and I'll talk that over with Spiros. See what he can get together for us down there and save having to ship it." "You know, _mon cher_," Hans had said, "this is no way to start a day." 1:29 P.M. "It was there for the National Security Agency, the NSA," admitted Theodore Brock, his special assistant for national security affairs. The atmosphere in the Oval Office was heating up. "I'm now well aware of that," the President snapped, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "What I'm not well aware of is who the hell authorized it?" The Oval Office, in the southeast corner of the White House West Wing, was, in the eyes of many, a small, unimposing prize for all the effort required to take up residence. John Hansen, however, seemed not to notice. He commandeered whatever space he happened to occupy and made it seem an extension of his own spirit. In fact, he rather liked the minimalist quarters, heritage of a time when U.S. presidents had much less weight on their shoulders. From here the wide world opened out. For one thing, the communications here and in the Situation Boom in the basement put the planet at his fingertips. Next to a gigantic push- button multiline telephone was another, highly secure and modernistic, digital voice transmission system that could take him anywhere. As the old-fashioned Danish grandfather clock--his only personal item in the office--began to chime the half hour, he glanced once more over the crisis summary that Alicia Winston had hastily assembled and had waiting on his desk when he returned from New York. Her office was conveniently just behind one of the three doors that led into the Oval Office. Another led to his personal study, passing through a small kitchen, from which now came the aroma of fresh-brewed Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. The third opened onto a corridor, with the standard six Secret Service people, through which he expected to see his national security adviser appear at 1:45 P.M. Then, according to his schedule, he had to try to put all this out of his mind at 2:30, when he was due to host a delegation of troglodytes from the Hill. Nuclear disarmament did not have a lot of friends in Tennessee and Washington State. He was going to have to make some concessions, he knew, but politics was about compromise, always had been. "Apparently the ship was put into place without authorization," Brock went on. "There was some back-channel request from NSA. They wanted to keep tabs on a space project on an island in the Aegean." "SatCom. Now we're spying on Americans, is that it?" Hansen leaned back in his high, Kevlar-protected chair and tossed a telling glance toward Morton Davies, his chief of staff, who monitored most of his incoming calls. They both had received an earful on the Cyclops project from his old professor, Isaac Mannheim--who claimed it would demonstrate to the world that America's private sector still had plenty of life left, could stand up to the Europeans and the Japanese when it came to innovation. SatCom's independence from government, at least to Mannheim's way of thinking, was precisely its greatest virtue. "Well, damn NSA," he continued. "This is an outrage." He recalled that he'd sent the new director, Al Giramonti, a pointedly worded memo on that very subject. When John Hansen took office, the National Security Agency was still liberally exercising its capacity to monitor every phone call in America from its vast array of listening antennas at Fort Meade. He had resolved to terminate the practice. He thought he had. "It was just routine surveillance," Brock insisted, squirming. He was in his late fifties, bright, with horn-rimmed glasses and a high forehead. He also was black, and he felt he had more than the usual obligation to make his President look good. "There was a satellite test launching in the works. The whole project has been kept under wraps, and NASA wanted to know what was going on. The National Security Agency had a platform in the area, so it all more or less meshed. There was nothing--" "And what do the Israelis have to say for themselves?" the President pushed on. "The Hind had their markings." "They deny they had anything to do with it." He squinted toward Hansen, trying to seem knowledgeable yet uncommitted. Which way was the wind going to blow next? "Even though the helo was plainly ID'd by--" "That's what they claimed in '67," Hansen fumed, cutting him off, "when they strafed, torpedoed, and napalmed NSA's Liberty, which was clearly in international waters. They were hoping to prolong the Six-Day War long enough to roll into Syria, and they didn't want us to monitor their plans. So they took careful pains to knock out all our SIGINT capability in the region, just happening to kill a dozen seamen in the process. Afterwards the lying fuckers told our embassy in Tel Aviv it was all a mistake and sent flowers. If anybody else in the world had done that, we'd have nuked them." "Well, at the time the Glover was hit, it wasn't monitoring Israeli SIGINT," Brock noted, adjusting his glasses. "We think they're clean on this one. At least what we have from Fort Meade so far seems to bear that out. They're still running a computer analysis, though, pulling out all the voice and code used by the Israeli Air Force during that time. We didn't have that capability back in 1967. In a few more hours we'll be able to put that question to rest, one way or another." "Okay, maybe we should go slow till then. So in the meantime, let's take them at their word for a moment and examine the other possibilities." Hansen revolved in his chair and stared out the bulletproof window behind him. The Washington sky was growing overcast. And the clock was running. This whole screw-up would be in tomorrow's Washington Post, garbled, just as sure as the sun was going to come up. CNN had already picked up the BBC's "rumor" and was running it on their "Headline" service, hinting the U.S. intelligence community had been caught with its pants around its ankles, again. "There's more," Brock said, interrupting his thoughts. "The Iranians have been screaming about a stolen Hind for four days, blaming us, of course. But they've quietly let Mossad know they think it may have strayed into Pakistan, maybe as a diversion, and then ended up heading out for one of the Gulf states, probably Yemen. The Israelis have reason to believe it was delivered to a Yemeni-flagged freighter in the Persian Gulf, then taken through the Suez Canal and into the eastern Med. After that, all contact was lost." Iran, the President thought. Pakistan. None of it sorted into a picture. Unless . . . "Incidentally," Morton Davies, Chief of Staff, interjected, "the Israelis also have one other bit of intel that seems to have somehow gotten lost in all of NSA's Cray supercomputers. An Israeli 'fishing trawler' picked up a Mayday they triangulated as coming from somewhere north of Crete. It supposedly claimed--the transmission was a bit garbled--to emanate from the very Hind that had attacked the ship. The broadcast said that terrorists had taken over the SatCom facility on the island of Andikythera. If that's true, it would be the one that the Glover was monitoring." Hansen stared at him. "Are we supposed to believe any of this? That unknown terrorists are behind this whole thing? That's exactly the kind of disinformation the Israelis have used on us in the past. Besides, it doesn't click. If terrorists did do it, they'd damned sure want the credit. Nobody throws a rock this size through your window unless there's a note attached. So where is it?" That's when the import of what Davies had said hit him. SatCom. It was going to be the pride of America, a symbol . . . My God, it was a rocket launch facility. He reached down and touched the blue button on the desk intercom on the right side of his desk. "Alicia." "Sir," came back the crisp reply. "Have NSA send over any recent PHOTOINT they have on the Greek island of Andikythera. By hand. I want it yesterday." "Yes, sir." "Ted," he said, turning back to Brock, "somehow this time I've got an uncomfortable feeling the medium may be the message." 1:49 P.M. "To understand the operation of this facility," Isaac Mannheim was saying, "you need to appreciate the technology we've installed here." He was resting against the trunk of a tree, gazing wearily down the mountain at the sun-baked asphalt of the facility stretching below. "I've already got a rough idea how it works," Vance replied. He was pondering the quiet down below. "It's the people I want to know more about." "Well, of course, that's my primary concern as well." The old man shrugged. "But we are on the verge of an experiment that will change the world for all time. That's just as important." "Not in my book." "Perhaps. But all the same, I think I should tell you a few technical details about the facility. Since you say you're familiar with its general workings, you probably know that its heart is a twenty-gigawatt laser we call the Cyclops. Using it, we can send a high-energy beam hundreds of miles into space without losing appreciable energy. Our plan is to use that beam of energy, which we can direct very accurately, to power a satellite launch vehicle." "I understand that." "Excellent," he said, as though encouraging a student. Then he pushed on. "In any case, the Cyclops itself is a repetitive-pulsed, free- electron laser, which means the computer can tune it continuously to the most energy-efficient wavelength, a crucial feature. It starts with an intense beam of electrons which it accelerates to high velocity, then passes through an array of magnets we call the 'wiggler.' Those magnets are arranged in a line but they alternate in polarity, which causes the electrons passing through to experience rapid variations in magnetic-field strength and direction. What happens is, the alternating magnetic field 'wiggles' the beam of electrons into a wave, causing them to emit a microwave pulse--which is itself then passed back and forth, gaining strength at every pass. Eventually it saturates at a level nearly equal to the power of Grand Coulee Dam, and then--" "Maybe you ought to get to the point," Vance said, feeling he was receiving a college lecture. He used to give college lectures, for chrissake, in archaeology. Were they just as tedious? he suddenly wondered. "Of course." He pushed on, oblivious. 'The whole operation is controlled by our Fujitsu supercomputer. The hardest part is getting the microwave pulses and the electron pulses to overlap perfectly in the wiggler. That part of the Cyclops, called the coaxial phase shifter, requires delicate fine-tuning. The alignment has to be critically adjusted, the focusing perfect, the cavity length--" "Get back to the vehicle. I think I've heard all I need to know about the wonders of the Cyclops." "Very well. The energy is focused, in bursts, from up there." He turned and pointed up the mountain. "That installation is a phased-array microwave transmission system, which delivers it to the spacecraft. To a port located on the sides of the vehicles down there. The port is a special heat-resistant crystal of synthetic diamond. Once inside, the beam is directed downward into the nozzle, where it strikes dry ice and creates plasma, producing thrust. The vehicle is single-stage-to- orbit." "Nothing is burned." Vance had to admit it was a nifty idea. If you could do it. "That's correct. The laser beam creates a shock wave, a burst of superheated gas moving at supersonic velocity out of the nozzle. By pulsing the beam, we form a detonation wave that hits the nozzle chamber and--" "So it's really Star Wars in reverse," Vance interjected. "Bates is using all that fancy research in high-powered lasers to put up a satellite instead of shooting one down." "The power is comparable. The superconducting coil we use to store power can pulse as high as twenty-five billion watts. The dry ice that is the 'propellant' is only about three hundred kilograms, a tiny percentage of the vehicle's weight, and since the vehicle is virtually all payload, we should be able to put it into a hundred-nautical-mile orbit in a matter of minutes. The beam energy will be roughly five hundred gigawatts per second and--" "I get the picture," Vance interjected, tired of numbers. "But what you're really saying is that this transmission system up here on the mountain is the key to everything. If it goes down, end of show." He was thinking. The terrorists had not destroyed anything, at least not up here. Which probably meant they intended to use it. The prospect chilled him. "Okay, let's work backward to where the people are," he continued. "What's down below us here? The power has to get up here somehow. "We're at one end of the island, down a bit from Command, which is underground. That's where the computer is, which handles the output frequencies of the Cyclops and also the trajectory analysis. It gets data from a radar up here on the mountain and uses that to provide guidance for the laser beam as the vehicle gains altitude. There are giant servo-mechanisms that keep the parabolic antennas trained on the vehicle as it lifts off the pad and heads into orbit. They also retrieve all the telemetry from the spacecraft, and--" "What's belowground down there?" He was pointing toward the vehicles. "That area has an excavated space below it for the multi- cavity amplifier bay. It's--" "The what?" "That's where the free-electron laser, the Cyclops, begins pumping up. Then the energy is sent up here"--he pointed back up the mountain--"to the phased-array transmission system." "Right. So underground it's shaped something like a dumbbell, with the technical management staff at this end and then the operating people down there. What's in between? Just a big connecting tunnel?' "Correct. And, of course, the communications conduits. For all the wiring." Okay, Vance thought. Now we're getting somewhere. The terrorists will be split up. That's going to make things easier, and harder. They could be taken out one group at a time, but there also could be hostages at peril all over the place. These situations are always a lot cleaner when all the hostages are in one location. "Any other connections?" "Well, there's really only one." He shrugged, and ran his hand through his mane of white hair. Vance thought it made him look like an aging lion. "As you can imagine, these levels of power mean there are enormous quantities of waste heat. So Bates tunneled water conduits between a submerged pumping station on the other side of the island and a number of locations." Vance's pulse quickened. "What do they lead to?" "They run from the computer in Command, and the power plant down at the other end of the island, right beneath where we are now and . . . actually, one leads up to those heat exchangers there--" He was pointing up the mountain, past a large cinderblock building at the edge of the phased-array radar installation. A tunnel filled with water, Vance thought. There's been enough swimming for a while. But if the system is off, then . . . "Then there must be an entry-point up there somewhere." He smiled and nodded wistfully. "I assume there must be. But I don't know where it is." "Think it's big enough for somebody to get into?" "It should be. Everything was over-engineered, since we weren't sure how much waste heat there would be." "So all I have to do is get into the heat exchanger, then hope there's some air left in Bill's granite water pipe." The old man looked worried. "Do you realize the kind of energy that goes through that conduit? If they should turn on the pumps, you'd be drowned in an instant and then dumped out to sea." "I've already been drowned once on this trip. Another time won't matter." He shrugged. "But I've got to get inside and find out how many terrorists there are and where they're keeping the people.'' Once I figure out their deployment, he was thinking, we can plan the assault. "It's dangerous," Mannheim mumbled. "That conduit was never intended to have anybody--" "I'm forewarned." He was apprehensively rising to his feet and wincing at his aches. "All you have to do is get me inside." 2:36 P.M. Georges LeFarge felt like he was getting a fever. Or maybe the room was just growing hot. All he knew was, he was miserable. He swabbed at his face with a moist paper towel and tried to breathe normally, telling himself he had to keep going, had to stick by Cally. This was no time to give in to these creeps and get sick. Ardent and intense, Georges looked every inch the computer hacker he was; but he also was one of the finest aerospace engineers ever to come out of Cal Tech. Although his long hair and so-so beard were intended to deliver a fierce political statement, his benign blue eyes negated the message. He was an idealist, but one filled with love, not hate. His politics were as simplistic as his technical skills were state-of- the-art: he never managed to understand why everyone in the world did not act rationally. He had grown up in New York's Soho district, living in a mammoth, sparsely furnished loft with his mother, a widely praised painter of massive, abstract oils--usually in black and ocher. Her depressing paintings were huge, but her income only occasionally was, and Georges's memory of his childhood was years of alternating caviar and spaghetti. His French Canadian father had long since returned to a log- and-clay cabin in northern Quebec, never to be heard from again. He also remembered his mother's string of lovers, an emotional intrusion he never quite came to accept. The day he went off to MIT, on a National Merit Scholarship, was the happiest of his life. Or at least he had thought so until he got a call from Cally Andros asking him to come to work for SatCom. He was now thirty-four, single, and he loved girls, or the idea of girls. No, the truth was that he loved one girl, and had forever. She was now his boss. After years of separation, they had finally dabbled at an affair here on Andikythera, but he had to admit it hadn't worked. At first it had seemed a good idea, his boyhood dream come true, but now he had realized maybe they were better off just being friends. She became a different person in bed, and one he found slightly terrifying. But given what had just happened, all that seemed part of another, forgotten place and time. In addition to having a fever, he was bone-tired and his neck ached. But he wanted desperately to stay alert. He stroked the wispy beard he had been trying to grow for the last four months, gazed at the terminal, and warned himself to stop thinking like an engineer and try to think like a terrorist. These European criminals had shown up just in time for the first space shot, which meant they had something planned that needed a vehicle. They weren't going to hold the facility for ransom: there was nothing here they could steal. Also, they had been very careful not to damage any of the systems. Which meant their real program, whatever it was, needed the Cyclops to work and a vehicle to lift off. If that didn't happen, they were screwed. So, he thought, you sabotage Thursday's shot and you nix their plot, whatever it is. But Cally would have a fit. Mr. Bates needed a success, and soon, or the whole SatCom gamble would go down the tubes. It was a lose-lose scenario. What to do? Simple. Just keep working for now and hope. What else was there? On the screen in front of him now was the output of a program in progress, this one called HI-VOLT, which was a daily low-power warm-up of the coils of the phased-array radar system on the mountain. The computer methodically checked all the power systems for any hint of malfunction, and the program had to be run, rain or shine. It was now time to kick on the pumps and heat exchangers and get going. Something to do. . . . The cursor was flashing, ready for the "power on" command. He hit the Enter key, activating the pumps for the heat exchangers, then turned to see Cally approaching, winding her way through the workstations, led by the head terrorist, the fucker who called himself Number One. LeFarge could not get over the fact the bastard looked like an executive from the Arlington office, only better dressed. "Georges, you've got to kill HI-VOLT," Cally said. Although she looked normal, there was extreme anxiety in her voice. The strain was coming through. "We have to do a different run." She was passing her fingers nervously through her hair. He loved her dark, Mediterranean tresses. "A trajectory analysis using SORT." The Fujitsu supercomputer they were using was programmed with a special NASA program developed by McDonnell-Douglas Astronautics Co. Called SORT, an abbreviation for Simulation and Optimization of Rocket Trajectories, it minimized the laser energy required for an insertion trajectory into low earth orbit. It also calculated the on-board nozzle vectors to adjust altitude while the vehicle was in flight. Midcourse corrections. All you had to do was program everything in. "Now? But I just started--" "Here's a list of what he wants." She glanced at Number One again, then handed over a sheet of blue paper. He took it and looked down. Maybe they were about to tip their hand. But what could they know about computers? He finally focused on the sheet. What? These weren't satellite trajectories, these were longitude and latitude coordinates. Then he studied it more carefully. They were abort targets. CHAPTER EIGHT 2:37 P.M. The conduit was roughly a meter and a half in diameter and pitch dark. He had expected that and had extracted a waterproof flashlight from an emergency kit in the wreckage of the Hind. It was helping, but not all that much. With the heat exchangers off, no water was flowing. The stone walls were merely moist, the curved sides covered with slime. The tunnel sloped downward from the installation on the mountain as a gentle incline, and although the gray algae that swathed its sides now covered him, he had found niches in the granite to hang onto as he worked his way down. Then it had leveled out, matching the terrain, and that was when he encountered the first water, now up around his waist. The radars up the hill, he realized, were only one of the producers of waste heat. Ahead, the tunnel he was in seemed to join a larger one from another site, as part of a general confluence. Thank God all the systems are in standby, he thought. If those massive pumps down by the shore start up, they'll produce a raging torrent that'll leave no place to hide. . . . As he splashed through the dark, he found himself pondering if this was what he had been placed on the planet to do. Maybe he should never have left Yale. The pay was decent, the hours leisurely, the company congenial. Poking around in the hidden secrets of the past always gave solace to the spirit. What did humanity think about three thousand years ago? Five thousand? Five hundred? What were their loves, their hates, their fears, their dreams? Were they the same as ours? And why did humanity always need to worship something? Where did the drive come from to create--poetry, music, painting? These were all marvelous mysteries that we might never unravel, but they were among the most noble questions anyone could ask. What makes us human? It was the immortal quandary. But when you asked that, you also had to ask the flip-side question. How could humanity create so much that was bad at the same time? So much tyranny, greed, hurt? How did all that beauty and ugliness get mixed up together down in our genes? Maybe he was about to find out more about the evil in the heart of man, coming up. . . . He splashed and paddled his way onward, his flashlight sending a puny beam ahead, and tried to relate his location to the rest of the facility. Before entering through the heat exchanger atop the mountain, he had grilled Mannheim on the specifics of site layout. The old man, however, hadn't really known much about the nuts and bolts of the facility; his head was out in space somewhere. All the same, Vance found himself liking him, in spite of his encroaching senility. Even Homer was said to nod. Just hope you live long enough to get senile yourself. Back to business. Ahead, settled into the top of the conduit, was a metal door just large enough for a man to work through. What was that for? he wondered. Maintenance access? If so, it must lead into the main facility somewhere. He felt his way around the curved sides of the conduit, searching for flaws in the granite where he could get a handhold. Then he reached up and tested the door. The metal was beginning to rust from the seawater, but it still looked workable. A large black wheel in the center, inset with gears, operated sliding bolts that fit into the frame. This has to be fast, he told himself. Do a quick reconnoiter of the place and make mental notes. Look for entry-points and escape routes. Then get back in time for the radio chat with Pierre. About three hours, two to be on the safe side. He braced himself against the stone sides of the conduit and--holding the flashlight with one hand--tried to budge the metal wheel. Nothing. The contact with seawater had frozen it with rust. He tried again, shoving the flashlight into his belt and, grappling in the dark, twisting the wheel with both hands. Was it moving? He felt a faint vibration make its way down the stone walls of the conduit, then there was a hum of huge electric motors starting somewhere. Somebody was turning on the systems. He listened as the vibration continued to grow, and now the water level was beginning to rise, as the pumps down by the shore began priming. Were they about to turn them on full blast? The involuntary rush of his pulse and his breathing made him abruptly aware of how close the confining tunnel felt, the tight hermetic sense of claustrophobia. For the first time since landing on Andikythera he felt real fear. He hated the dark, the enclosed space, and now he was trapped. Idiot, how did you get yourself into this? You're going to be drowned in about thirty seconds. Now the roar of water began to overwhelm the hum of the pumps. The conduit was filling rapidly, and flow had begun. He realized that only about a foot of airspace remained at the top. Praying for a miracle, he heaved against the metal wheel one last time, and finally felt it break loose, begin to turn. 2:38 P.M. "Abdoullah" had finished unpacking the second crate, and now he examined what he had: two fifteen-kiloton nuclear devices, made using enriched uranium-235 from the Kahuta Nuclear Research Center. He smiled again to think they had been smuggled out right from under the noses of the officials at Kahuta, directly up the security elevators leading down to the U235 centrifuge at Level Five. The research center was situated more or less in between the sister cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, in northeast Pakistan, where it was surrounded by barren, scrub-brush rolling hills that looked toward the looming border of Afghanistan. Kahuta was the heart of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program, and its many levels of high-security infrastructure were buried deep belowground. The only structure visible to a satellite was the telltale concrete cupola and an adjacent environmental-control plant for air filtration. Security was tight, with high fences, watchtowers, and an army barracks near at hand. The security was for a reason. In 1975 Pakistan began acquiring hardware and technology for a plant capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. Bombs require 90 percent enrichment, and when the U.S. discovered the project, it had threatened to cut off aid if any uranium was enriched beyond 5 percent. Pakistan agreed, then went right ahead. Between 1977 and 1980, using dummy corporations and transshipments through third countries, the government smuggled from West Germany an entire plant for converting uranium powder into uranium hexafluoride, a compound easily gasified and then enriched. Two years later the Nuclear Research Center purchased a ton of specially hardened "maraging" steel, from West Germany, which was delivered already fabricated into round bars whose diameter exactly matched that of the (also) German gas centrifuges under construction at Kahuta. Shortly thereafter, the plant at Dera Ghazi Khan was on-line, producing uranium hexafluoride feedstock for the Kahuta enrichment facility, and the Kahuta facility was using it to turn out U235 enriched uranium in abundance. At the same time, Pakistani operatives were hastening to acquire high- speed American electronic switches called krytrons, the triggering devices for a bomb. Their efforts to obtain nuclear detonators required several tries, but eventually they got what they needed. They dispensed with above-ground testing of the nuclear devices they had assembled, having procured the necessary data from China, and instead just went ahead and made their bombs. They then secured them on Level Five of the Kahuta reprocessing facility--against the day they would be needed. Until now. Liberating two of those well-guarded A-bombs had required a lot of unofficial cooperation from the plant's security forces. Batteries of surface-to-air missiles protected Kahuta from air penetration, and elite paratroopers and army tanks reinforced the many checkpoints, making sure that no vehicle, official or private, could enter or leave the complex without a stamped authorization by the security chief. Only a lot of money in the right hands could make two of the devices disappear. Sabri Ramirez had seen to that small technicality. . . . Abdoullah patted one of the nuclear weapons casually and admired it. The bomb itself was a half meter in diameter, its outer casing of Octol carefully packed inside a polished steel sheath embedded with wires. Expensive but available commercially, Octol was a 70-30 mixture of cyclote-tramethvlenetetranitramine and trinitrotoluene, known colloquially as HMX and TNT. It was stable, powerful, and the triggering agent of choice for nuclear devices. Inside the Octol encasing each device were twenty-five kilograms of 93 percent enriched U235. When the external Octol sphere was evenly detonated, it would compress the uranium core sufficiently to create a "critical mass,-' causing the naturally occurring radioactive decay of the uranium to focus in upon itself. Once the radiation intensified, it started an avalanche, an instantaneous chain reaction of atom-splitting that converted the uranium's mass into enormous quantities of energy. The trick to making it work was an even, synchronous implosion of the outer sphere, which was the job of the high-tech krytron detonator switches. . . . Which, Abdoullah realized, were still in the Sikorsky. The krytrons were packed separately and handled as though they were finest crystal. "Rais," he said, looking up and addressing his Berkeley classmate now standing by the door, "I need the detonators." "Well, they're in the cockpit, where we stowed them." He was tightening his commando sweatband, itching to try out his Uzi, still unfamiliar. Would the others notice? In any case, he wasn't here to run errands. "Then go get them, for chrissake." He had considered Rais to be an asshole from the day they first met in the Advanced Quantum Mechanics class at college. Nothing that had happened since had in any way undermined that conviction. The guy thought he was hot stuff, God's gift to the world. It was not a view that anybody who knew him shared. "Why don't _you_ go get them?" Rais said, not moving. "Because I want to check these babies over and make sure everything is a go." What a jerk. "Come on, man, don't start giving me a lot of shit, okay? This is serious. Everybody's got to pull his weight around here." Rais hesitated, his manhood on the line, and then decided to capitulate. At least for now. Abdoullah was starting to throw his weight around, get on the nerves. The guy was real close to stepping out of line. "All right, fuck it." He clicked the safety on his Uzi on and off and on, then holstered it. "As long as you're at it, why don't you just take them directly down to the clean room. We'll be assembling everything there anyway, since that's where the elevator is they use to go up and prep the vehicles." "That's cool. See you down there." Rais closed the door and walked out into the Greek sunshine. He was starting to like this fucking place. 2:39 P.M. Vance shoved the metal door open just as the roar of the onrushing water reached the confluence at the intersection of the tunnel, a mere hundred yards ahead. The tunnel was almost full now, the water flow increasing. They're about to turn on the Cyclops, he thought. You've got about fifteen seconds left. He pulled himself through the metal door, soaked but alive, and rolled onto a cement floor. With his last remaining strength he reached over and tipped the metal door shut, then grabbed the wheel and gave it a twist. Down below he could feel the wall of water surge by. He thought he was going to faint, but instead he took a deep breath and pulled out the flashlight. . . . . . . And found himself in a communications conduit, consisting of a concrete floor with Styrofoam insulation overhead. All around him stretched what seemed miles of coaxial cables, wrapped in huge circular strands. The conduit also contained fiber-optics bundles for carrying computer data to guide the parabolic antennas up on the mountain as they tracked the space vehicle. The major contents of the conduit, however, were massive copper power- transmission cables. What had Mannheim warned? How many gigawatts per second? The numbers were too mind-boggling to comprehend, or bother remembering. All they meant was that if the Cyclops were suddenly turned on, the Gaussian fields of electromagnetic flux would probably rearrange his brain cells permanently. He rose and moved down the conduit, feeling along its curved sides, his back braced against the large bundle of power wires in the center while ahead of him the darkness gaped. A few yards farther, though, and the probing beam of his flashlight revealed a terminus where some of the shielded fiber optics had been shunted off into the wall, passing through a heavy metal sleeve. Although it was welded into a steel plate bolted to the side of the wall, large handles allowed the bolts to be turned without the aid of special wrenches. Whoever designed the fiber optics for this tunnel, he thought, didn't want a lot of Greek workmen down here waving tools around after a long lunch of guzzling retsina. The fibers were too vulnerable to stand up to any banging. He grasped the handles and began to twist one, finding the bolts well lubricated. After four turns, it opened. The second yielded just as easily. Then the third and the fourth. He took a deep breath, thinking this might be his first encounter with the hostages, and the terrorists. Then he slid the metal plate back away from the wall and tried to peer through. The opening was approximately a meter wide, with the bundle of fiber-optics cables directly through the middle. Still, he found just enough clearance to slip past and into the freezing cold of the room used to prep the payloads for the vehicles. 2:40 P.M. "What's this all about?" LeFarge looked again at the sheet, then up at Number One. "SORT is intended to calculate orbital parameters. Optimize them." "And if there is an abort? It has to go down somewhere." "You're talking about a pre-specified abort?" LeFarge was trying to sound dumb. "The Cyclops can't power an ICBM." It probably could, but he didn't want to mention that. The terrorist who called himself Number One was not impressed. "That's a question we will let the computer decide. I happen to believe it can. You just send it up, then you abort. When you fail to achieve orbital velocity, it comes down. The nose has a reentry shield, since you are planning to reuse the vehicle. It should work very nicely." Georges looked at Cally. He did not want to admit it, but this guy was right. He had thought about that a lot. Any private spaceport could be seized by terrorists and turned into a missile launch site. Was that their plan? "I won't do it," he heard himself saying. "I refuse." "That is a mistake," Number One replied calmly. "I will simply shoot one of your technicians here every five minutes until you begin." He smiled. "Would you like to pick the first? Preferably someone you can manage without." "You're bluffing." He felt a chill. Something told him what he had just said wasn't true. This man, with his expensive suit and haircut, meant every word. He was a killer. Georges knew he had never met anyone remotely like him. "Young man, you are an amateur." His eyes had grown narrow, almost disappearing behind his gray aviator shades. "Amateurs do not know the first thing about bluffing. Now don't try my patience." He turned and gestured one of the technicians toward them. He was a young man in his mid-twenties. He came forward and Number One asked his name. "I'm Chris Schneider," he said. His blond hair and blue eyes attested to the fact. His father was a German farmer in Ohio, his mother a primary-school teacher. He had taken a degree in Engineering from Ohio State, then stumbled upon the dream job of his life. He was now thinking about moving to Greece. "I'm sorry to have to make an example of you, Chris," Number One said, drawing out his Walther. . . . 2:41 P.M. Vance realized he was in a satellite "clean room," painted a septic white with bright fluorescents overhead. Along one wall were steel tables, several of which held giant "glove boxes" that enabled a worker to handle satellite components without human contamination. Alongside those were instruments to measure ambient ionization and dust. Other systems in the room included banks of electronic equipment about whose function he could only speculate. And what was that? . . . there, just above the door . . . it looked like a closed-circuit TV monitor, black-and-white. It seemed to be displaying the vague movements of a large control room, one with banks of computer screens in long rows and marshaled lines of technicians monitoring them. He studied the picture for a second, wondering why it seemed so familiar, and then he realized it looked just like TV shots of the Kennedy Space Center. Shivering from the cold, he moved closer to the screen, which was just clear enough to allow him to make out some of the figures in what had to be the command center. However, he saw only staffers; no sign of Bill Bates. One individual stood out, his suit and tie a marked contrast to the general open-shirt atmosphere, and he looked like he was giving the orders. He was now chatting with a woman and another, younger man, seated at a keyboard. Then the well-dressed guy turned and beckoned one of the staffers forward. He said something to him and then--Jesus!--he pulled a pistol. . . . 2:42 P.M. "No!" Cally screamed, but it was already too late. Before Chris Schneider even saw it coming, Ramirez shot him precisely between the eyes, neatly and without fanfare. The precision was almost clinical, and he was dead by the time he collapsed onto the gray linoleum tiles of the floor. His body lay motionless, his head nestled in a growing pool of dark blood. Georges LeFarge looked on unbelieving. Had he really seen it? No, it was too grotesque. Chris, murdered in cold blood right before his eyes. They had been talking only yesterday about going to Crete for the weekend, maybe renting a car. . . . Death had always been an abstraction, never anything to view up close. He had never seen a body. He had never even imagined such things could really happen; it was only in the movies, right? Until this moment he had never confronted actual murder ever in his life. Calypso Andros felt a shock, then a surge of emotional Novocain as her adrenaline pumped. Right then and there she decided that she was going to kill this bastard herself, personally, with her own hands. Number One, whoever he was, was a monster. No revenge . . . Then the superego intervened. He's still got the gun. Wait, and get the son of a bitch when he's not expecting it. "Georges," she said quietly, finally collecting herself, "you'd better do what he says." LeFarge was still too astonished to think, let alone talk. This horror was outside every realm of reason. He had no way to file it within any known category contained in his mind. "She is giving you excellent advice," Number One was saying. "You would be wise to listen. In any case, I merely want you to demonstrate the technical capabilities of this system." He smiled as though nothing had happened. "An intellectual exercise." Georges looked at Cally and watched her nod. Her eyes seemed almost empty. Was it shock? How could she manage to carry on? Well, he thought, if she can do it, then so can I. Slowly he revolved and examined the computer terminal in front of him. The cool green of the screen was all that remained recognizable, the only thing to which he could still relate. "All right." He barely heard his own words as he glanced down at the sheet. "I'll see if I can put in a run." The room around them was paralyzed in time, the single thunk of the pistol having reverberated louder than a cannon shot. Like Georges, none of the other young technicians had ever witnessed an overt act of violence. It produced a new reality, a jolt that made the senses suddenly grow sharper, the hearing more acute, the periphery of vision wider. Still in shock, he typed an instruction into his Fujitsu workstation, telling it to start back-calculating the trajectory of an abort splashdown for various locations. Then he began typing in the numbers on the sheet. The first coordinates, he realized at once, were somewhere close. But where? 2:43 P.M. Vance watched the control room freeze as the body slumped to the floor, and he felt his fingers involuntarily bunch into a fist. The bastards were killing hostages already. They definitely were terrorists, right out of the textbook. Kill one, and frighten a thousand. Except they might not stop with one. He foresaw a long day. And night. The victim had been hardly more than a college kid. Murdered at random, and for no other apparent reason than to frighten the rest into submission. A technique that was as old as brutality. But that terrorist trick, management by intimidation, worked both ways. Take away their Uzis and these smug bastards could just as easily be turned into quivering Jell-O. All human beings had psychological pressure points that could be accessed. What separated the wheat from the chaff was what happened when somebody got to those points. He often wondered what he would do. He prayed he would never have to find out. . . . Then he watched as the young man at the terminal began typing in something off a sheet of paper. Whatever the terrorist had intended to accomplish by his wanton murder, apparently it had worked. The other technicians were all staring down at their screens, scared to move. Whatever had gone on, everybody was back to business. But what did these thugs want? Sadly he turned away from the screen to reexamine his surroundings . . . and noticed a workstation, situated off to the left side of the door. What had Bill once said? They practically had computer terminals in the bathrooms. This one obviously was intended for quick communications with the command crews from here in this freezing white room. Keeping an eye on the TV monitor, he moved over to take a look. Instructions began appearing on the bright green screen, indicating it was tied into a computer network at the facility. Yes, somebody-- probably the young analyst out there--was typing in a complex series of commands. Above that, on the screen, another sequence had been aborted. It had been some sort of run called HI-VOLT. That must have been what had jolted him when he was out in the conduit. He studied the screen, trying to figure out what was going on. Only the hum of air conditioning broke the silence, and the quiet helped him to think. . . . Of course! These bastards were planning to use the Cyclops--or worse, its spacecraft--to . . . what? He recalled seeing the second chopper arrive and the boys unload two crates. Its cargo wasn't going to be a Christmas present to the world. Whatever it was, they were poised to deliver it just about anywhere on the globe. So what was their target? He studied the computer screen, hoping to get an inkling. But he saw only numbers. In pairs. They looked like . . . latitude and longitude. Coordinates. What did that mean? The first ones were nearby, maybe somewhere near Crete. So what were they doing? Reprogramming the vehicle into a missile? Terrific. That was the first half of the bad news. The second half was that whatever they were up to, there also seemed a good chance they might try to blow up the SatCom facility after they were finished, just to cover their tracks. Dead men make no IDs in some faraway courtroom years from now. He could probably terminate that plan by just sabotaging some of the fiber optics in the conduit, thereby putting the whole facility out of commission. But that would screw Bill too, and probably end up costing SatCom millions. Bates was close enough to being suicidal already. This was probably going to put him over the edge in any case. Keep that as a last-ditch option, he told himself. And besides, everything at the moment was only guesswork. The thing to do first was to get a better handle on the situation without the terrorists knowing. The question was how. He looked around the room again, wondering. And then his eye fell on the terminal and a thought dawned. Why not see if you can interrupt the computer run in progress and have a chat with the analyst at the keyboard, the one with the beard now typing in the numbers appearing on the green screen? He reached down and tested one of the keys, but nothing happened. The data being typed in just kept on coming. What now? How to cut into the system and send him a little personal E-mail? Get his attention. Something. Then he realized the keyboard had an on/off switch, which was currently shunting it out of the system. Guess that's to keep somebody from screwing up a run by leaning against it, he thought. How much time is there? Any minute now somebody could come wandering in. Probably this window of opportunity only had a few minutes to go. He switched on the keyboard and again gave a letter a tap. This time it instantly appeared on the screen, highlighted. A glance at the TV monitor told him that the startled analyst at the keyboard had frozen his fingers in mid-tap, bringing everything to a halt. Quickly he started typing, hoping that none of the terrorists had the brains to be monitoring the computers. DON'T STOP. JUST ANSWER. The young analyst, he could tell from the monitor, had a funny look on his face, obvious even through his scraggly beard. But he was cool. WHO ARE YOU? came back the answer. A FRIEND. NEED INFORMATION. FAST. HOW MANY TERRORISTS? TEN. The reply appeared. BUT I THINK ONE WAS KILLED. Plus those who came in on the Sikorsky this morning, Vance thought. Looked like another three. Then he typed in another question. WHAT DO THEY WANT? DON'T KNOW. MAYBE USE VEHICLES. The typing was quick and experienced. THEY SAY FACILITY TO KEEP OPERATING NORMALLY. WHERE IS BATES? Vance typed back. IS HE OKAY? IN HIS OFFICE. THINK HE'S OKAY. That's a relief, he thought. Guess Bill's still got some hostage value to them. TELL HIM ULYSSES HAS LANDED. BE OF GOOD CHEER. The answer came back. WHO ARE YOU? I'M SCARED. THEY KILLED CHRIS. I SAW IT. BUT THAT'S PROBABLY ALL FOR A WHILE. STANDARD TERROR TACTICS. NOW ERASE THIS CONVERSATION. Something was typed on the screen and their words immediately all disappeared. And just in time. . . . 2:48 P.M. Rais had finished retrieving the box of krytrons from the cockpit of the Huey and was headed down the elevator for the area directly below and south of the launch facility, the clean room where SatCom's expensive communications satellites were going to be prepped for launch. Abdoullah was a jerk, but he had been right about that: it was the obvious location to install the detonators and set the timing mechanisms. As the elevator door opened, his Uzi was still holstered just below his right hip and in his hands was the box of detonators, all carefully secured in their beds of bubble-wrap. He stepped into the hallway, then headed down for the closed door of the clean room. 2:58 P.M. "William Bates, I must say, made a wise choice when he hired you to run this project, Miss Andros," Ramirez was saying. He had just lit a new cigar. "I have to commend his judgment." "Well, if you think I'm doing such a great job, you'd better let me go on doing it," Cally managed to answer, trying to get a grip on herself. She had her arms crossed, mainly to try to keep her hands from shaking. When Chris was shot, she was so stunned she'd repressed the horror. Now the numbness was wearing off and she wanted to scream. Just one long wail to purge everything. She was biting her lip to try to repress the impulse. "I need to go down to the launch facility and check with the tech crews." Toughen up and think, she told herself. These terrorists are up to something, and the sooner you figure out what it is, the better for everybody. "As a matter of fact"--he nodded--"I need to go down myself and see how things are proceeding. So why don't we both go, Miss Andros." "Around here I'm called Dr. Andros." She was feeling her control coming back. Two could play the power game. "But of course." He nodded. "In a professional environment we all like to be treated accordingly. I respect that, and expect no less myself." He surveyed the room, its SatCom technicians still stunned. Then his eye caught the tall, bearded Iranian, Salim, now lounging by the door with his Uzi, and motioned him over. "Get this body out of here." The Iranian nodded and strolled over. Cally studied him, wondering. She had been trying to size up the team for some time, and she still had not figured them all out. But this one, heavy-set and defiantly bearded, seemed somewhat at odds with the others. He clearly had no taste to clean up Number One's murder; you could see it in his eyes. "Where--?" "In the lobby. It's disrupting the professional environment." He nodded again and without a word grabbed Chris Schneider by the shoulders and began dragging him past. "Dr. Andros"--Number One turned back to her--"already I feel closer to you than I do to half of my men. I think you and I will make a good team." "You have got to be fucking kidding." He merely laughed, then spoke to another of the terrorists, a young Arab. After apparently ordering him to stay behind in Command to keep an eye on things, he motioned Cally to lead the way through the security doors. They edged around Salim, still moving the body, and out into the lobby. The first thing she noticed was that the guard was missing from the front security station. Instead a wide dark stain covered the desk. Blood. She whirled on Number One. "What happened to Milos, you bastard?" "Regrettably he is no longer with us." He shrugged, not pausing as he took her arm and shoved her on. "You mean you murdered him, too?" She felt herself about to explode. She had loved that Greek, who spent more time worrying about soccer scores than he did about security. Thinking about his death, she felt a wave of nausea sweep over her. "You bloodthirsty--" "Please, we're going to try to be professionals, remember," he interrupted her calmly. "We will be working together in the days ahead, and animosity will serve no purpose." She thought of several responses, but squelched them all. Talking wasn't going to make things any better. In that respect, he was right. Talk would have no effect. They were facing the tunnel leading to the mechanical- systems sector at the other end of the island. The large metal doors, operated from the security system at the desk, had been opened, slid back, and permanently secured. The short- circuiting of the security system had disabled all the electronic locks in the facility. Scrutinizing them, she felt sadness. All the months of fine-tuning and technical calibration throughout the facility, had all that effort been wasted? Probably not, she suspected. These goons, true to their word, had taken great pains not to disturb anything in Command. So far everything had apparently conformed to their plan, except for something to do with a helicopter. Whatever that was, it had taken them by surprise. What was it? Ramirez said nothing as they started down the asphalt pavement of the underground passageway. Over a thousand meters long and illuminated by fluorescent lighting, its cinderblock walls were wide and high enough to accommodate a standard Greek truck or two small lorries. Cally noted the deserted guard desk at the far end. Had he been killed as well? she wondered. "Let me put your mind at ease," Number One announced, as though reading her thoughts. "The other guards have merely been disarmed and locked in their quarters. As I said, we have no desire for any unnecessary bloodshed." "More lies?" She tossed her hair. "You should try to believe me. Again, trust will make things easier for us both." She pushed past the doors at the end of the passageway and together they entered the first sector, Launch Control. Beyond, another set of doors led to the giant underground installation for the superconducting coil, which fed into a massive glass tube holding the wiggler, heart of the Cyclops. Above that, now unseen, stood the launch vehicles, "rockets" that carried no fuel. Neither was yet primed; they planned to ready the vehicle designated VX-1 just before launch. In fact, nothing had happened since the test the night before. Tech crews were checking the instruments, knowing only that a communications breakdown with Command had occurred and some strange visitors had shown up in a helicopter. Something was going on, but nobody knew what. "A very impressive installation," Number One said, watching as the technicians all nodded their greetings. "Incidentally, there is no point in alarming any of them now. For the moment, you should just proceed normally." "That's why you're here, right?" she shot back. "To make sure there's all this normality. Things were pretty normal before you and your band of thugs barged in." "We are colleagues now, Dr. Andros. I'm here to observe the lift-off we all are so anxious for. Please, for starters I would like to tag along and have you show me around. You're a congenial guide." You bet, she thought. You'll discover how "congenial" I am soon enough. Of course, she had not yet formulated a strategy. One bright spot was the voice on the radio this morning? Was somebody on the island still free? She had peeked out into the lobby long enough to learn that the mysterious "guard" had shot one of the Germans and then escaped. So who was it? That was what she wanted to find out next. . . . But first, business. She approached Jordan Jaegar, a young Cal Tech graduate and friend of Georges who had been with the project from the start. "J.J., how long did the coil temperature stay nominal?" Although he had a master's in mechanical engineering, Jordan sported shoulder-length hair and had just gotten a tattoo on his right bicep--an elaborate rendering of his initials, J.J., which he much preferred to be called. He liked the fact Dr. Andros remembered that. "For just over twenty-one minutes," he announced with pride, his eyes discreetly taking in her hourglass figure. "Long enough. Then it started creeping up, but we'd have almost inserted into orbit by that time. And after twenty-nine minutes it was only five degrees Celsius higher. No sweat, Dr. Andros." Who, J.J. was wondering, was this hotshot standing next to Dr. Andros? He had seen a lot of SatCom brass come and go, but this dude was definitely new. What was his scene? No question, though, the boss lady was really pissed about something. She also did not seem interested in introducing this new creep to anyone. Fine. There was enough to worry about without more head-office brass. Cally nodded. "The on-line readout in Command showed that the Cyclops reached saturation at twelve point three-five gigawatts." "Right," J.J. agreed. "The wiggler went critical and we used the phased array to dissipate the energy." He beamed. "Hell, we could have sent her up last night. The whole thing was textbook." He knew she already knew all that. But he figured there was no harm in impressing this front-office creep that all the money they'd spent hadn't been wasted. SatCom was definitely on-budget from his section. Management had to be happy. Payoff time was just around the corner. This time next week, SatCom's stock was going to be pure gold. After VX-1 went up, there wouldn't be any more shit from Arlington. They'd be passing out stock bonuses like fucking peppermints. He figured a hot new Nissan was definitely in his future. "Good," Dr. Andros said, but she seemed distracted, having trouble staying focused. Something was definitely wrong, but she was hiding it. "How about sending a data summary to my terminal in Command." Cally walked on past J.J., thinking as fast as she could. None of the technicians here knew what had happened. When they found out, were they going to fall apart, endangering everybody and everything? Maybe, she thought; it would be better now to just continue normally as long as possible. Number One, whoever he was, wasn't carrying an Uzi now; instead he had a 9mm skillfully concealed beneath his double-breasted. It was all very stylish. He was keeping the takeover on low profile, at least down here where the vehicles were. Maybe, she told herself, he doesn't feel as sure of himself here, or maybe he needs to keep their plans a secret. So they're definitely up to something. As they walked past the massive steel housings enclosing the wiggler's controls, Ramirez suddenly paused and cleared his throat. "Dr. Andros, what is the payload for the test launching? You certainly wouldn't put a multimillion-dollar communications satellite at peril during your maiden run." He isn't stupid, she thought. He understands the economics of the satellite business. "It's just a test. With a dummy payload." "Good. We will have a real payload for you. It won't be low-cost, but it will definitely get you some attention. We--" At that moment his walkie-talkie crackled. 3:00 P.M. Abdoullah had completed his inspection and, together with Shujat, was loading the crates back onto the small trucks intended to move them down to the clean room. "We'll have to adjust the timers very carefully," he was saying to Shujat, now bent over with him, "make sure they're synched critically with the trajectory." The second Pakistani engineer nodded. "Right. So we'll do it when the trajectory computer runs are completed. That's scheduled for 2200 hours tonight." "Sounds good." Abdoullah clicked on his black walkie-talkie, a small Kenwood, and tried to sound professional. "Firebird Two to Firebird One. Do you read?" There was a burst of static, and then Ramirez's voice sounded. "I copy you, Firebird Two. Any problems?" "Negative. The items look in perfect condition. We are taking them down to the clean room now to install the detonators." "Fine," Ramirez replied. "I'll meet you there." The radio voice paused. "Incidentally, be aware there is somebody loose on the island who seems a trifle out of synch with the situation." "Where is he?" He was signaling for Shujat to come over and listen. Having a problem or two always made things more fun. "Probably up at the communications complex on the mountain. So far he's only been a nuisance, but the matter will have to be resolved. In the meantime, don't let anything slow down your work. We need to be prepared for the next phase, including whatever time flexibility we might need." Abdoullah did not exactly like the sound of that. He had a troubling feeling that Number One wasn't exactly telling everybody the whole plan. He was not a man you instinctively trusted. Who the hell was he. really. Of course, in this business you didn't necessarily trust anybody, but still, when you were working together it was nice to think that everybody was on the same wavelength. In his view, a lot of questions still needed answering. Like where had the money come from to mount this operation? The preparations, the bribes, the equipment and the second chopper, the Sikorsky--the Hind, he knew, had been stolen --the payments to all the third parties involved. Everything had required money, tons of it, but the man known as Number One clearly had all he needed. So how had this character come up with all those millions of bucks? His intuition told him that not everybody was going to make it to the safe house in Malta when the time came. At the moment he had confidence only in Rais and Shujat. And Rais was a jerk. In fact, he hadn't seen him since he went out to get the krytrons from the cockpit of the Sikorsky, but he should be down in the clean room by now. . . . 3:01 P.M. Vance heard a sound outside the clean room, footsteps. Somebody was approaching, but not with a walk that suggested familiarity with the place. This might turn out to be his hoped-for break. Maybe he was about to have a nice face-to-face with one of the terrorists. At last, an opportunity for some answers. He slipped back against the wall next to the door, his wet clothes chilling him in the low temperature. But he sensed that things were about to warm up. The person behind the door paused for a second, then shoved it open. A box appeared, then a face. It was young and cocky. "Don't even think about making a sound, asshole." He slapped his Walther against the guy's cheek, then yanked the Uzi from his leg holster and pulled him into the room. Next he kicked the door shut and shoved his new guest to the floor. The box he was carrying thumped down beside him. In the glare of the fluorescents the "terrorist" looked like an aging graduate student, except he was wearing a Palestinian _kaffiyeh_. Vance ripped it away, rolled him over, and inserted the Uzi into his mouth. A metal barrel loosening the teeth, he knew, did marvels for a wiseguy's powers of concentration. That was one of the first lessons he'd picked up from the boys at ARM. And this one was no exception. He stared up, genuine terror in his eyes, and moaned. "Speak English? Just nod." He dipped his forehead forward, eyes still in shock. "Good. Now we're going to play Twenty Questions. That's about the number of teeth you've got, so each time I get an answer I don't buy, one of them goes. And when we run out of teeth, you won't be able to talk any more, so I'll just blow your head off. Okay, how're we doing? We understand each other so far?" He nodded again and gave an airless grunt. "Great. Looks like we're on a roll. Now, how many more of your team is in there? Hold up fingers. Very slowly. I was never good at fast arithmetic." His eyes were cloudy, but he managed to lift five fingers. This guy is one of the new arrivals, Vance thought. I counted three of them. So that means two others are down here as well. Those first guys were the pros, but this kid barely knows which end of an Uzi to hold. "Do they know you came back here?" He rattled the barrel of the Uzi around in his mouth, just to keep him focused. Again he nodded, even more terrified. Okay, he thought, we're going to have to make this a short chat. "Are there hostages down here?" Again the man nodded. "How many?" He just shrugged, clearly having no idea. Well, Vance thought, maybe it's time to get this show on the road. He slowly removed the barrel, then ripped off a portion of the kaffiyeh lying on the floor, balled it, and stuffed it into his mouth. Next he tore off a longer strip and tied it around his head, securing the gag. The eyes were still terrified. "By the way," he said, "what's in the box?" A new look of even-greater horror entered the eyes. He's really scared now, Vance thought. Interesting. "Well, well, maybe we ought to take a look." He reached over and opened the lid. There, nestled inside several layers of bubble-wrap, were what looked like large, oversized blue transistors. Bingo, he thought, what have we here? Could it be these are the tickets to the upcoming show. This ain't chopped liver. "Okay, pal, on your feet. We're going to get moving. Just you and me. And we're going to take along your little box of toys. You can tell me what they are later." The young terrorist started to rise, gingerly. "See that opening over there"--he pointed--"where the wires enter into the conduit? We're going through there, you first. You're about to have some experience in mountain climbing. The workout might do you good." That was when the door opened. CHAPTER NINE 3:18 P.M. Vance cocked the Pakistani's Uzi and trained it on the door, not sure what to do. The fear was that he might inadvertently kill a friendly. Hostage situations always presented that harrowing possibility. Quick identifications and quick decisions were what made good antiterrorist teams. He was afraid he had neither skill. He wasn't even that great a shot. But events were to break his way for a change. As the door swung in, he saw a woman framed there. He needed only to lock eyes with her to know she was a friendly. Okay, one ID out of the way. Then a man behind her, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, reached out to seize her and pull her in front of him. No good. As Vance watched, mesmerized, she elbowed him in the chin, sending him reeling backward and out into the hallway. Then, before he could recover, she slammed the door, using her other elbow to hit the blue Airlock button next to the frame. With electronic efficiency, the red "Sealed" light above the door blinked on and bolts around the edges clicked into place. She turned, still shaking, and looked at him. "Please tell me you're not one of them, too." "No way. I'm just a tourist." Vance examined her and liked her on the spot. She was a stunner, with dark hair and an eye-catching sweater emblazoned with the SatCom logo-- one of those take-charge women made for the modern age. Exhibit A: she'd just iced the thug in the hallway. "And who are you?" Instead of answering, she glanced over at the Pakistani, his mouth gagged. "I see you've already met one of our new guests." "We got acquainted informally. Not exactly a meaningful relationship." He stared at the door, wondering how long it would hold. "By the way, is that guy outside who I think he is? Didn't he just shoot somebody in your control room?" "He did. And you were probably about to be next." She took time to examine him more closely. He couldn't tell if she liked what she saw, but her look quickly turned to puzzlement. "You're soaking wet." "I had an afternoon dip." "What? You swam here?" She looked about the room, then back. "How--" "In a manner of speaking." "Who are you?" "Mike Vance." He extended his hand. "Friend of Bill's. It's a long story. In real life I run a sailboat charter operation back in the Bahamas. And you?" "Cally Andros. I run this place, or at least I did until last night." She shook his hand, tentatively. "So what are you doing here?" "As I said, just an island tourist. But I've got to tell you, Greek hospitality isn't what it used to be." He reached down and picked up the box with the krytrons. "Now what do you say we get out of here before that guy outside comes blasting in?" "Through that door?" She laughed. 'That's an inch and a half of steel. Even better, it's fail-safe, which means that if the electronics fail, it stays in the locked mode anyway." He liked her snappy answers. "Nothing lasts forever. I strongly recommend we do ourselves a favor and move along." He turned and indicated the open panel where the wiring entered. "How does the back way sound to you?" "You came in through there?" She clearly was startled. "You're either very smart, or very stupid. That's where--" "I'll tell you what's really stupid. Standing around while those goons figure out how to take out that door. Because there's something in here I've got a feeling they're going to want back very badly." "You mean him?" She pointed at the Pakistani, still gagged, hunching down on the floor. 'This one? Doubt that. He's just a water carrier. No, I'm talking about the gadgets inside this box." "What . . . ?" "Check them out." He passed it over. "What do you think?" She lifted out one of the glass-covered units, three wires extending from one end, and her dark eyes widened. "My God, do you know what this is?" 'Tell me." "It's a krytron." She rotated it in her hand, gently, as though it were crystal. "I've never actually seen one before, only pictures. You can trigger a nuclear device with one of these. They're worth millions on the black market." "Guess we just made the Fortune Five Hundred." He laughed. "If we live long enough to cash them in. Should be lots of buyers around the Middle East." "Do you realize--?" 'The nightmare's finally come true? Looks that way." He sighed. "Terrorists are building a bomb. Or, more likely, they've managed to steal one somewhere." "One?" She shivered from the cold and pulled at her sweater. 'There must be more than one, if they've got all these detonators." "But a bomb is just another chunk of enriched uranium without these, right?" "Well, if they're planning to do more than threaten . . . Oh, my God." She froze. "That explains why they've got Georges changing trajectories. They--" "What! Are they tinkering with your rockets?" "So far just the computer-guidance part. But if they put a bomb on VX- 1, who knows what they could end up doing?" "How does nuclear blackmail sound? But nobody goes to this much trouble just to shake down a corporation. There're lots of easier ways." He paused to ponder. Ten to one it's not SatCom they're holding for ransom. They're aiming for a lot higher stakes. They're probably planning to shake down a country somewhere. No prizes for guessing which one." "The U.S.," she guessed anyway. "Think they can get away with it?" "Probably not without these." He closed the box. "Maybe we've just pulled the plug. So let's take these and get out of here." She glanced down at the surly Pakistani. "What about him?" "We could take him with us, as a bargaining chip, but I don't think he's worth the bother." Vance reached over and turned his face up. "How about it? Do your buddies out there care whether you live or die?" His eyes betrayed his fear they did not. "Didn't really think so," Vance revolved back. "I say we leave him. They'll probably execute him anyway, for being a screw-up and losing these." He tucked the box under his arm, then turned back one last time. 'Tell your chief we're going to take good care of them. They're the world's insurance policy." He pointed toward the opening into the wiring shaft. "Want to go first?" 'The conduit?" She frowned. "You get used to it. It's just--" "I really can't believe any of this is happening." She turned, walked over, and--with only minor hesitation--began climbing through. At that moment, the Pakistani suddenly rolled to his feet and lunged for the sealed door. Vance whirled to try and catch him, but it was too late. He had already thrown his body against the release button. The seal clicked off, and in an instant their security evaporated. "Go!" he turned back and yelled, but she was already through. What now? he wondered fleetingly. Stay and shoot it out, or disappear. The second option had more appeal. He dived for the open grate of the conduit, but the door was already opening. The Paki couldn't yell, but when the door slid back, he pushed through . . . and was cut down by a fusillade of automatic-weapons fire. The impact blew him back into the room, sending his riddled body full length across the floor. Vance swung around the Uzi and laid down a blast of covering fire through the doorway, which had the effect of clearing the opening for a second. He got off a couple of last rounds, just for good measure, then turned and hurled himself into the communications shaft. No sooner had he pulled himself inside than rounds of fire began ricocheting through behind him. The aim, however, was wide, and he managed to flatten himself and stay out of the way. Then the firing abruptly stopped. They must have seen what's in here, he realized, all the wiring. "Are you all right?" It was Cally's voice, somewhere in the dark ahead. "I'm doing fine." He paused, hating the next part. "Only one small problem." "What--?" "I managed to drop our insurance policy on the floor in there. They're back in business." 3:20 P.M. Isaac Mannheim checked his watch and then gazed down the hill, marking the time with growing impatience. Coping with inactivity, he felt, was the most extraordinarily difficult task in life. In fact, he never understood how anybody could retire, when three lifetimes would not be adequate for all one's dreams. The tall man who had saved his life earlier in the day had departed almost an hour and a half ago. Where was he? This waiting around was not accomplishing a damned thing. He rose off the rock where he'd been sitting, and stretched. Enough of this lollygagging about; he had to get down there and find out what was happening. Already he assumed that something had interfered with the schedule. This afternoon's agenda included a communications power-up of the servomechanisms that guided the phased-array transmitter through the trajectory. He had even warned the tall stranger about it before he descended into the conduit. Well, he seemed to carry luck around with him, because the power-up had begun, then suddenly halted. But that meant somebody was mucking with the timetable. It was necessary to stop these people, whoever they were, from causing any more interference. In times like these, he figured, it paid to be pragmatic. So give them a piece of whatever it was they wanted and they'd go away. It always worked. Even the student sit-ins of the sixties could have been tamed with a few gestures, a handful of concessions. If he'd been in charge, the problem would have disappeared. So this time he would take the initiative. These people had no reason to want to stop the project--which meant, logically, that they had to be after something else. So why not just let them have it and then get on with matters? After squinting at his watch one last time, he shrugged and started down the hill, working his way through the rocks and scrub brush. The sun beat down fiercely, making him thirsty and weak, while the sharp rocks pierced the lightweight shoes he had worn for the plane. But the other, sturdier pair he had packed was lost with the helicopter. . . . Well, so be it. The first rule of life was to make do with what you had, manage around problems, and he intended to do exactly that. Shrugging again, he gingerly continued his climb. On his left he was passing the landing pad, with the slightly beat up Agusta, the sight of which momentarily discomfited him. But surely Bates had it insured. Still, the whole business was damned irritating, start to finish. As he walked onto the asphalt of the connecting roadway and headed for the entrance to Command, he puzzled over how these thugs could have penetrated the facility in the first place and why Security had not handled the problem. That was bloody well what SatCom was paying its layabout Greek guards to do. Thev should have nipped the whole mess in the bud. He turned and scanned the mountain one last time, but still spied nobody. The chap who saved his life must have gotten lost. Or killed. With a shrug he walked directly up to the SatCom entry lobby and shoved open the glass door. To his surprise nobody was manning the security station. And an ominous dark stain covered the desk. Why hadn't anybody cleaned that up? Readying his lecture, he dug out his security card and headed across toward the door to Command. 3:21 P.M. "Let them go," Ramirez said. "We have what we need." He bent down and picked up the box. "What about the woman?" Wolf Helling asked. "Can we work without her?" "She'll be back." Ramirez seemed to be thinking aloud. "I'll see to it." "But--" "There are ways." He cut him off. "It's not a problem." "What do you want us to do here?" Helling inquired finally, skepticism in his voice. He stepped over to look at the body of Rais, staring down dispassionately. One less amateur to deal with. He had shot the Pakistani by accident, but the kid was unreliable. And this job had no room for unreliability. "Just get on with arming the devices," he said, checking his Rolex. "I'm going back to Command." It's time, he was thinking, for an important phone call. 3:39 P.M. "I figure it like this," Vance said, trying to sound confident. "We take out the guy in charge, behead the dragon, and we've solved a large part of the problem. He seems to like shooting people, even his own men." He paused, then looked at her. "By the way, do you know who he is? Could be a real help." "I have no idea," Cally said, shaking her head. "Just that he's a killer." She was straightening her clothes after climbing out of the conduit and through the heat exchanger. "He murdered Chris for no reason. Why would he do that?" Her voice began to choke, and she stopped. Vance reached over and patted her hand. She had been through a lot. "He needs to scare you and everybody working for you. But try and hang on. You'll be getting some professional reinforcements soon. A few friends of mine known as ARM." "ARM? Isn't that the security bunch that wired this facility in the first place?" She stared at him, then made a face. "Some job." "What can I say?" He winced. "They don't usually have these problems." "And now these same guys are going to come back and save us? That's really comforting." "Try thinking positive." It was the best he could do. She clearly viewed that response as inadequate, but she was too exhausted to argue. "Well, at this point I don't have any better ideas. But I'm worried about what may happen if there's a lot of shooting." "Part of our job is to try and make sure nobody gets hurt. Keep the friendlies out of harm's way." "Great." Her spunk was coming back. "We're probably going to have to keep them out of the way of your incompetent rescuers as well." "Have faith. These guys've had plenty of experience. It won't be the first time." "And what about you?" She looked him over again. "How much experience have you had?" "You want an honest answer?" "I take it that means none." "Pretty close. So till they get here we just ad-lib." He settled under a tree and leaned back against the trunk. "Now, how about describing their leading man. I didn't get a very good look at him." She was quiet for a moment, as though to collect her memories, and then she produced a description so thorough it would have impressed a Mossad intelligence officer. By the time she finished, Vance was grinning. "Well, what do you know. He's alive after all. Looks like ARM is in for some unfinished business." "What do you mean?" "I think you just described somebody who slipped past Pierre in Beirut about five years ago. He's been in the terrorist game a long, long time, but he hasn't been heard from since. Everybody started believing he was dead. Or hoping." "You know who he is?" "It could only be one guy. Sabri Ramirez." He felt mixed emotions. This would be a real prize for Pierre and the others, if they could get him. The problem was getting him. Nobody had ever managed to come close. "Who's that?" Vance wondered if he really ought to tell her. Or shade the truth down a bit. "Let me put it like this. He's no ordinary criminal. He's probably murdered a hundred people if you added up all the bombings. Mossad has been trying to assassinate the bastard for fifteen years." Vance leaned back, his mind churning, and touched his fingertips together. "This puts things in a whole new perspective. I knew he was a pro, had to be, but we're about to go up against the world's number-one terrorist. The king." His blue eyes grew thoughtful. "I've got to warn Pierre ASAP. The tactics may have to be changed." "What's that supposed to mean?" "If Ramirez thinks he's trapped, he'll just lash out. Always happens. He goes crazy and gets irrational when he's cornered, which means negotiations are useless." "Jesus." She shuddered, her eyes seeming to go momentarily blank. "I didn't sign on for this." "Makes two of us." He settled back in the grass, then yanked up a handful, fresh and fragrant, and sniffed it. "I came for sun and sea. Not to help re-kill a dead man." "What's that supposed to mean?" She plopped down beside him under the tree. "Seems reasonable to guess he's been quote dead unquote for five years because he wants to be. It's not a bad condition to be in. For one thing, people stop looking for you. You can start reusing your old hideaways. And then you can put together a really big score. The Hyena returns." "The Hyena?" "That's what Mossad calls him. The story is he hates it, but it sort of sums up his line of work. The Hyena. The world's number-one killer-for- hire." "God. I knew there was something about him, although in a way he seemed so . . . the man in the Brooks Brothers suit. But when he gunned down Chris in cold blood . . . still, this goes way beyond anything I could ever have dreamed." "Looks like SatCom just made the big time. Right up there with the OPEC ministers he kidnapped in 1975, then auctioned off all over the Middle East. This is even bigger. It's going to be the crown jewel of his career." He stopped to muse. "What's it like to be famous and officially dead at the same time?" "Maybe the best thing would be if he were really dead." "You read my mind." 2:18 P.M. "Mr. President." It was the voice of Alicia on the intercom. 'There's a call holding on line three. It's Dr. Mannheim." He glanced up, distracted. In the interest of more space, the operation had moved from the Oval Office to the Cabinet Room, where Stuart's wooden-jawed portrait of George Washington gazed down on the papers strewn around the eight-sided table. Seated there with him were his chief of staff, Morton Davies; the special assistant for national security affairs, Theodore Brock; head of the Joint Chiefs, Ed Briggs; as well as the head of the CIA and the secretary of defense. The Vice President was giving a speech at a California fund-raiser, but his contribution was not particularly desired, or missed. Let him make speeches and wave the flag. He reached over and picked up the handset. "Tell him I'll get back to him. Is he at home?" "He's calling from somewhere in Greece. The SatCom--" "Damn. Can't I call him back? I really don't have time--" "I think you might want to take this, sir." Her voice was crisp and neutral as always, but he knew what the edge in her intonation meant. This is priority. "SatCom?" Suddenly it clicked. He had been too distracted for the name to register at first. "He's almost babbling. Something about a helicopter. He's--" "Put him on. And have the damned thing traced." He hit the speaker button. "Isaac. What's--" "Johan, he's got a gun at my head." The voice was unmistakable. It had made students quake for forty years. It had made _him _quake. Now it was quivering. He had never heard his old professor in such a state. Very, very unlike Isaac. "Dr. Mannheim?" "They made me call this number. I know I'm not supposed--" "Who's they?" The connection was intermittent, but he still could make it out. "The . . ." He paused, then seemed to be reading. "The Resistance Front for a Free Europe. They've taken over the SatCom facility here, everybody. They shot down my helicopter. They killed--" "What did you say? Helicopter?" Hansen's pulse quickened. Was Isaac talking about the Israeli Hind that had attacked the Glover? And what was this Resistance Front--for something or other . . . "Free Europe?" Europe was already free. Maybe too damned free, given all the ethnic turmoil. The connection chattered, then another voice sounded. Hansen noted a trace of an accent, but he couldn't identify it. "Johan Hansen, this is to inform you that all the American engineers here are safe at the moment. We have no desire to harm anyone. We merely want our demand addressed." Hansen glanced at Brock, who nodded, then pushed a button next to the phone that allowed him to record both sides of the conversation. "This had better not be a prank." "It's no prank. The staff of SatCom is now hostage." "Listen, whoever you are, the United States of America doesn't negotiate with hostage takers. We never have before and we're not about to start now." "I'm afraid the rules of the past no longer apply. In fact, I have no desire to negotiate either. There is nothing to negotiate. We have a very simple demand. And you have no alternative." "You've got that backwards, whoever you are. You have no alternatives. You can release whatever hostages you have and get the hell out of there. That's your one option." "We would be delighted to comply. As I said to you, we merely have a small nonnegotiable demand. I assume we are being recorded, but you may wish to take notes nonetheless. In case you have any questions." "If you're talking about ransom, I can tell you now it's absolutely unthinkable." "That kind of intransigence will get us nowhere." He sighed, a faint hiss over the line, and then continued. "You may consider our demand as merely a small repayment to the Muslim peoples, large portions of whose homeland America has seen fit to devastate. That payment will be eight hundred million dollars, to be delivered according to conditions that will be specified by fax. I assume you will wish some time to make the arrangements. You have twenty-four hours." "You're out of your mind," Hansen said firmly. "You've got a hell of a nerve even--" "Don't make me repeat myself. I will fax you the bank information. As I said, you have twenty-four hours. If you have not wire-transferred the funds by that time, an American military installation in Europe will be incinerated. And without your frigate Glover, sent to spy on the Islamic peoples of the region, you will have no inkling where that installation will be." "Just what do you think you're going to do?" "The same thing America once did to Japan. Only this time with a little help from one of your so-called 'non-nuclear' allies." Hansen pulled up short. Was this the nightmare every U.S. President had feared--a nuclear device in the hands of terrorists. No, this took it one step further; the terrorists had just seized the means to deliver the device. It was that nightmare compounded. He glanced at Ed Briggs, whose face had just turned ashen. They both were thinking the same thing: What kind of military action was possible? The answer was not going to be simple. Then he turned back to the phone. "Listen, I want . . ." He paused, because the line had gone dead. 9:04 P.M. "How does an ETA of 0200 hours sound to you?" Dimitri Spiros was using an unsecured radio, but he had no choice. "That'll give us about twenty-nine hours. Enough time to get everything together." "I'll have the welcome mat out." Vance's radio voice was interrupted periodically with static. The man sounded stressed out, but Spiros had already interrogated him about the overall situation. "Our plan right now is to come in by seaplane, set down two klicks to the north, and stage the actual insertion using Zodiacs. Pierre wants to get everything together here in Athens by 1600 hours tomorrow. That's firm. We'll have a briefing and then--you know the rest." "Try not to overfly this place. It's pretty small and there are lots of islands down in this part of the world." "Michael, I'm Greek, for godsake." He bristled. "We'll make it, seas permitting. And the weather looks like a go for now." "All right, here's the drill. Right now there are friendlies in Command and down at Launch. You have the plans for that, right?" "Right. And how about the Bates Motel?" "The living quarters? At the moment I think they've got some friendlies in there, too, but it's currently cut off from the rest of the facility, no communications of any kind, and it's not heavily guarded. We can worry about it last. The heavy hitters and the hardware will be at the two other places." "What else do you know?" Spiros pressed. "It gets even better. These guys have got at least one nuclear device. All signs are they have plans--probably to use the Cyclops system for delivery." "I don't like the sound of that," Spiros said. "Who's leading it?" "This is the very best part. I think it might be Ramirez." "Sabri? The Hyena?" "Could be." He snorted in disbelief. "No way. The Kommissar has had him dead for three years." "The Hyena has many lives. I actually got a look at him. Plastic surgery, maybe, but I've got a feeling it's none other than." There was a pause as Vance seemed to be checking something. "You know, we probably should cut this short. These guys have long ears. But just a word of warning: don't underestimate what he's capable of. I saw him shoot a staffer here in cold blood, just to get everybody's attention. When the time comes, things are going to get rough." "That's how we're used to playing. Until somebody shows us a better way." "Well, there's a good chance they're planning to arm at least one of the vehicles. After that it's anybody's guess." "Nuclear blackmail?" "Could be. Anyway, the fun part is, I got hold of the triggering mechanisms. For about five minutes." "And then you politely gave them back?" "It's a long story." "Aren't they all," Spiros said. Then, "Well, do us all a favor, stay alive till we can make the insertion." "That's an idea I could get with." "By the way, do you have anything on their schedule? When does the balloon go up?" "I don't know. You might hear something at your end. Ramirez has got to be talking to somebody by now. Demands, the usual. We need to find out what he wants. Maybe it'll all be over by the time you get here." "Don't count on it. These things take a while. In the meantime, I'll get Pierre to have Hans chat up the Kommissar. If Germany's intel computer files have anything, he can probably pull it out quick enough." "I do have another information source." Vance paused. "A new partner. And she's tough." "She? What the hell are you talking about? Michael, this is not really the time for such things." "I should get to fraternize with the hostages. One of the perks. Otherwise what do I get out of this job? She also happens to be the one who runs this place. She gave Ramirez the slip." A laugh sounded over the line, mixed with the static. "Incidentally, she doesn't think too much of your security job." "Very funny." Spiros's gruff voice suggested he didn't mean it. "But maybe you should send her back inside. Might actually be safer there." "Highly doubtful." "All right. What about Bates?" "The word is he's still okay. But they know who he is and I expect they'll put on the pressure when the time comes. There's an old professor here, too, the guy who dreamed this whole thing up, and they've got him. Name's Mannheim. First name Isaac. Why don't you find out anything you can about him. I had him here with me, but when I went down to reconnoiter, he disappeared. My guess is he wandered off and got himself taken." "Sounds like you're on the case. Let's synchronize and talk again tomorrow at 0800 hours, local." "Okay. We're counting on you. Don't mind telling you I'm scared. We're outgunned and Ramirez has started killing people." "Michael, we're working as fast as we can. Just be by a radio tomorrow." Dimitri Spiros switched off the microphone and lapsed into troubled thought. 3:29 P.M. Events were getting serious enough that the operation had been moved down to the Situation Room, in the White House basement. Scarcely twenty feet on a side, it was dominated by a teak conference table, with leather-bound chairs lining the walls. Although it appeared cramped by corporate standards, especially when the full National Security Council met, its close quarters intensified the focus needed for international crisis management. Besides, in the new age of electronic decisions, it was state-of-the-art, making up in technology what it lacked in spaciousness. Installed behind the dark walnut panels that covered three of the walls was the latest in high-tech electronic equipment, including a variety of telecommunications terminals, video monitors, and apparatus for projecting and manipulating images on the large screen on the fourth wall--normally concealed by a drawn curtain but now open and ready. "We'll have to work through Joint Special Operations Command," the President was saying as he looked around the room. The five people there were intensely at work--their coat jackets crumpled across the chairs, shirt sleeves pushed back, ties loosened or off. They included Chief of Staff Morton Davies, Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Ted Brock, and Head of the Joint Chiefs Ed Briggs. "So we're about to find out if this country has any counterterrorist assault capability." Special Operations Command had been created in the eighties after the string of embarrassing communication snafus during the Grenada invasion. Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, it had overall control and supervision of America's major commando units. "I guess the first decision they'll have to make," he continued, "is who we should send in." There were two options. The Navy had a 175-frogman unit, Sea-Air-Land Team Six, operating out of the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base near Norfolk, Virginia. SEAL Team Six specialized in underwater demolitions, clandestine coastal infiltrations, hand-to-hand operations. The other unit trained to carry out hostage-rescue missions was Delta Force, headquartered in a classified installation at Fort Bragg. The SEALs were high profile, whereas everybody denied the very existence of Delta's assault team--called "shooters" in military parlance. Delta Force was probably the worst-kept secret in America. "Shouldn't we hold up a minute and talk first about the hostages?" Morton Davies wondered aloud. "How much risk is there?" "There's always risk," Hansen declared. "With anything you do in this office, there's always a downside. What was it Harry Truman said about the place where the buck stops? Well, I've got an uncomfortable feeling I'm about to find out what he was talking about." He turned and hit the intercom. "Alicia, get hold of Admiral Cutter and tell him to get over here. We've got to get Special Operations in on this ASAP." "Yes, sir," came the quick reply. Despite the migraine now increasing her tension, she continued to offer Johan Hansen total support. In fact, she rejoiced at the opportunity. His wife, off somewhere dedicating flower parks in America's inner cities, certainly provided none. That, at least, was what Alicia Winston preferred to think. "Another worry I've got," the President continued after he had clicked off the intercom, "is how to keep this out of the press as long as possible. If there's any truth to their bomb hints, we'll need to try and minimize the panic factor. From here on, every aspect, even the smallest insignificant detail, is classified. Top Secret." 'The Israelis will most certainly get with that," Ted Brock observed wryly, nervously cleaning his horn-rims for what seemed the tenth time that hour. The strain was all over his face. "Now," the President continued, "SatCom is on Andikythera. Do we have any KH-12 PHOTOINT of the island here yet?" "It's in, Mr. President," Briggs said, then pushed two green buttons on an electronic console on the conference table. A photo came up on the screen behind them, a dull black-and-white rectangle. 'That's it?" Hansen said, annoyed. He scanned the photo, then looked around. "Ed, there's not enough detail here to use. How long before we can get some computer enhancement of this? A blowup." "I thought you would want that," Briggs answered, "so I've already made the arrangements. We're on-line to NSA. We should be able to get it in about ten minutes." "Then we'll wait." He switched off the screen and turned back. "Okay, we have to start planning our first move. For the moment let's talk about logistics. If we have to make an insert, what do we need?" "Well, to begin with, ISA would have to have twenty-four hours, minimum, to get somebody in there on the ground to gather enough intel to support a move," Briggs announced, almost apologetically. The President sighed. ISA was the Army's Intelligence Support Activity, which provided intelligence for Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. As an intelligence organization, ISA was required to secure Central Intelligence Agency approval before entering foreign countries--which meant institutional gridlock and bureaucratic tie-ups before they could even get started. "Then forget it. We'll just have to use satellite PHOTOINT and pray. The next problem is, who can we get there and how long would it take?" He knew that the Air Force's Special Operations Wing and the Army Task Force supported long-range missions by Delta Force and the SEALs. Were they ready? "Well, let's back up a second,'' Briggs interjected. "We can't just send in a task force cold. They'd need to practice an assault on something resembling the same kind of terrain." No country in Europe, the President knew, had ever given permission for American commando bases on their territory. So why would they suddenly permit an assault rehearsal? "That's going to be a tough sell. We're talking about Greek soil. But if these terrorists really have a nuclear device, then the government of Greece might well take an interest in what happens to it. Still, we don't know for sure. It'd be--" "They'd damned well better take an interest," Briggs declared. "If these terrorists plan a demonstration bombing, they could just be thinking about the air and naval facility at Souda Bay. Which would mean taking out the western end of Crete. Every anti-American in the world would doubtless cheer. They'd claim that our presence in a country makes it a military target. There'd be a groundswell of sentiment worldwide to send us packing. Everywhere." The chief of staff was thinking. "Do you suppose these fuckers have really got a bomb? What did he mean about checking with our closest allies?" The President had already been pondering that. "Well, the Israelis have a nuclear arsenal, of course, but they also have enough safeguards to take care of anything. They even shot down one of their own planes once when it accidentally strayed over the Dimona plutonium-reprocessing facility. Nobody is going to steal one of theirs. The same goes for South Africa." "So who does that leave?" Stubbs asked. He had a feeling he already knew. "Let's save the obvious for last," Hansen answered. "And let me give you a quick briefing on who's in the bomb business on this planet. It just happens to be a particular interest of mine." He leaned back. "In the Middle East proper, only one country presently has full capability. That is, obviously, Israel. They have, in fact, a lot more bombs than anybody realizes. Their plutonium-reprocessing plant at Dimona extracts plutonium from the spent fuel in their research reactor there, and CIA claims they've got at least two hundred strategic nuclear weapons. Normal plutonium bombs need eight kilograms of the stuff, but we think they've come up with a sophisticated way to make one with five. Then there're the tactical nukes. They've got nuclear artillery shells, nuclear landmines in the Golan Heights, and hundreds of low-yield neutron bombs. That's more or less common knowledge, but what's less well known is that they've also got fusion capability-- H-bombs. Which, God help us, I assume is not our problem here today. Then there's Libya, though they're still trying to get enough enriched uranium together to become a credible threat. Having only one or two bombs means that if you start anything, somebody else is going to finish it, so you need a lot before you get going. Iraq, thankfully, has been put out of business. Of course, there's still India, which has plenty of unrestricted plutonium and they've even claimed they could make a bomb in a month. We happen to think they've already done it. Because . . ." He paused. "Because we know damned well Pakistan has." "There's your non-Caucasian in the fuel supply," Davies noted. "The fuckers." The special assistant for national security affairs, Theodore Brock, who happened to be black, did not find Davies' Alabama good-old-boy remark especially amusing. "Exactly," Hansen continued, wondering when he would have a good public excuse to send Davies to greener pastures. 'That's got to be the 'ally' the bastard was talking about. It's a Muslim country, and their controls are a joke. It's the obvious choice." Brock agreed solemnly. "We can start with an inquiry through their embassy. But it's going to be sticky." The President nodded, wishing he had a hot line to the desk of every head of state in the world. It would make this kind of crisis so much more manageable. Part of the problem, he thought, was how do you ask somebody if they've lost something that they've never admitted having in the first place? A marvel of diplomacy was in order. Still, he would have to do it. At worst, a denial wouldn't prove the terrorists did not have a bomb, but if the answer was affirmative, then knowing the size of the device could be crucial. "We're receiving the enhanced satellite photos now." Briggs was pulling the first sheet off the machine. "Looks like ten-meter grids." He scanned over it. "But I don't see much. There're two big rockets here, but they seem to be all right." "Which is in line with their threat to use them," Hansen observed dryly. "I don't suppose a surgical air strike is possible?" Briggs wondered aloud. If the Gulf War had shown anything, it was the power of air superiority. Hansen tried unsuccessfully to smile. "You're asking me to go to the Greek government and ask them if they would mind terribly if we bombed one of the islands in their Aegean tourist paradise, their cash cow. And, by the way, we'd probably kill a few hundred Greek civilians in the process. But we'd explain that we need to do this because I got an unsettling phone call. With no proof of anything." He sighed. "Keep thinking. This has to be a commando insertion. And, frankly, I'd just as soon Athens got a phone call after it happened, not before. For a lot of reasons." "You know, there's something funny right here." Briggs was bent over, squinting. "Here, next to what appears to be a radar complex." He looked up. "Gentlemen, I think I've located our Hind. Or what's left of it. Looks like it was smashed into the side of the mountain, just below where the radars are." "Let me have a look." The President stepped over. "You mean there?" He picked up a magnifying glass. "I'm no expert, but whatever it is, it's big. It could be a Soviet assault helicopter, you're right." "There appear to be two other choppers on the site as well." Briggs continued to study the photo. "One down here on the helipad looks to be a light commercial model. But there's another one over here, down by the launch vehicles. It's bigger." The President looked. "You're right. I see them. That big one down by the vehicles is probably how they brought in the damned bomb, if they actually have one. Most likely the Hind wasn't up to the job, maybe took some fire from the Glover. So they used a second one to deliver the package. Nice logistics." "Too damned nice. I'm beginning to believe this is in no way a hoax." "Roger." Ted Brock had been on the phone and now was hanging up. "That was Special Operations Command, sir. Cutter's people want to use a Delta task force, but they'll need at least forty-eight hours to get them in place for an operation." "Forty-eight hours!" Hansen exploded. "Our crack counterterrorist assault force needs two days just to get into position to do what they're trained for?" "Well, we'll be using an Air Force C-130 to deploy the Deltas to Souda Bay. And then they'd need at least two Combat Talons for the final insertion. Those are all kept down at the Air Force's First Special Operations Wing, you know, Hurlburt Field in Florida." "I know that, Ted," Hansen said. Brock nodded sheepishly, then continued. "Well, after the insertion, they'd need support from our long-range HH-53 Pave-Low choppers, but only three are flying at the moment. And--" "I get the picture." The President cut him off. "Transportation is lousy and half the equipment we need is somewhere else or in maintenance. Any other bad news?" "One thing, an assault would have to be at night. It's the only way that makes any sense. Which means more special equipment. If they go in during daylight, it's going to be a slaughter of the hostages, particularly if these bastards are armed the way we have to assume. And from the looks of everything so far, I'd say they know how the game is played. Which means that even if we do our best, it's going to be tricky. They're going to assume we're coming. The way I figure it, even with no rehearsals, forty-eight hours would be tight." "We invest millions training the finest counterterrorist units in the world and then they can't be deployed in less than half a week?" He exhaled angrily, remembering a classified internal Pentagon study that claimed the best time to launch a successful assault with the least number of casualties among hostages was within twenty-four hours of their capture. "It's a goddamn outrage." "Forty-eight hours, minimum, Mr. President. And even so, that's pushing it." He squirmed. "There's a lot of paperwork that'll have to be processed, and--" "Well, tell Cutter to get the Special Forces mobilized and moving," Hansen interjected. "In the meantime, our job is going to be to try and find out what happened. Do they really have a nuke, and if they do, how in hell did they get it and what are they planning to do with it?" CHAPTER TEN 9:22 P.M. "It's very simple," Ramirez said to Jean-Paul Moreau. After the phone call, he had sent Mannheim to the Bates Motel and returned to Launch. Let Washington stew awhile. They were probably now trying to figure out how to get their antiterrorist units into Greece. Their nightmare logistics would be fun to watch. "We have to find them. And get him. Alive if possible, but we can't be fussy. The time to do it will be just after midnight, when we're finished here." Moreau disagreed. "I'd say the sooner the better. The longer they're free, the more problems they can cause." Crossing Ramirez was not something to be done lightly, but he felt strongly that the operation was not going as smoothly as it should have. It was time for a little damage control. "Well, he's probably back on the mountain," Ramirez said calmly. "If you want to, then go on up and get him. Take the RPG-7; it's light. But be careful you don't damage anything." He was right about the weight. At slightly over ten kilos, the RPG-7 was one of the best bangs-for-the-ounce around. It was a guerrilla special, a Soviet-designed 40mm launcher that loosed a rocket with an oversize hollow-charge rocket-warhead 85mm in diameter. Fired from the shoulder, it was deadly against lightly armored vehicles and structures. Used on personnel, it was lethal. They had brought along a Pakistani clone of the latest Soviet model, a two-piece version that was easy to move about, yet assembled quickly. "But remember," Ramirez went on, "so far all we have to show for trying to take out this nuisance is a wrecked helo. Don't botch it again." "That was because you left the work to German amateurs," Moreau remarked dryly. "This time I'll take care of it myself. Personally." "I'm counting on that," Ramirez said, his eyes expressionless behind his gray shades. 9:43 P.M. "We'll be working together, kid," Dore Peretz was saying. "We're a team." He swept back his mane of salt-and-pepper hair, then moved next to Georges LeFarge. The young engineer didn't like anything about the Israeli, right down to the cheap aftershave he was wearing, but he had to admit the guy seemed unfazed by all the hardware that controlled Big Benny, the Fujitsu supercomputer. It was a correct assessment. Dore Peretz was definitely in his element. He had taken his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1984, then returned to Israel to accept a high-paying research job at the Weizman Institute, Israel's top- secret nuclear facility near Tel Aviv. During the next seven years he had advanced to the level of senior institute scientist, becoming an expert in every technology connected with nuclear weapons. From the specialty of mass destruction he graduated to another hot topic--the emerging preeminence of smart weapons. Conventional delivery technologies, the war in the Gulf had shown, were no match for the new "smart" antimissile systems. It was back to the drawing board. What Israel needed in her arsenal was the next generation of weaponry. He had gone on to head up a research team that played computerized war games, studying the "what ifs" of whole new generations of technologies matched against each other. The end result of this fascination was that he became a computer and missile-guidance expert--which, when added to his knowledge of nuclear weapons, made him a double-threat man. It also made him perfect for what Sabri Ramirez wanted to do. When Ramirez found him, he already had departed the institute, and also for reasons that suited Ramirez perfectly. Whereas Dore Peretz had an IQ off the scale, his social development was considered--even by those who tried to like him--as scarcely progressed beyond the infantile. His was an independent . . . make that irreverent . . . temperament that was bound to clash with the bureaucracy of a straitlaced place like the institute. He had particular trouble fitting in with the deadly- serious, high-security environment that surrounded military contract research. The problem had been obvious from the first day he arrived, but his genius was such that it had been overlooked and worked around by both sides. His final rupture with the Israeli defense establishment resulted from what--to his mind--was a totally compelling event. He had personally developed a computer-assist program that provided special procedures for the quick arming of a nuclear device in case Israel found itself facing an imminent attack. It was important, and it worked. He had expected, reasonably enough, a rousing financial tribute for this effort, or at the very least a citation. What he got instead was screwed. When the yearly Summary of Technical Research arrived on his desk January last, he discovered the computer program had been "created" by the vice president in charge of his section, with the "assistance" of someone named Dr. D. Peretz. A reaming by an incompetent bureaucrat whom he had hated from the beginning was the last straw. He resigned in traditional style, papering the institute with a fusillade of memos that reviewed in detail the failings of its top management and then for good measure scrambling the electronic combination on his personal safe as he was readying to walk out the door. At that point he did not know what he wanted to do next, but he was damned sure it would not involve further interaction with a bureaucracy. Being no dummy, he also fully anticipated the response to his outrage. And sure enough, he found he had transformed himself into a high- profile security risk that Mossad suddenly found very interesting. Israel's intelligence service remembered all too well the case of Mordecai Vanunu, the thirty-one-year-old technician who had worked at the plutonium separation facility at the Dimona complex for nine years, then left in a huff and sold pictures and a detailed description of the facility to the London Sunday Times. Mossad had no intention of letting it happen again. Dore Peretz was interrogated for weeks, threatened repeatedly, then placed under close surveillance. They had no grounds to arrest him, but they were going to intimidate the hell out of him. Their harassment, however, achieved precisely the opposite effect. They galvanized his anger. In a degree of soul searching quite foreign to his normal mental activity, he found himself wondering why he owed Israel such allegiance in the first place. This was their thanks for all his service. So why not give it back to the bastards, in spades? He became a "scientific adviser" to the PLO. That only confirmed Mossad's fears and intensified their harassment: his phone was tapped, his mail opened, his stylish Tel Aviv apartment repeatedly and blatantly searched in his absence. The overall effect was cumulative, rendering him an ever-more-vociferous critic of Israel's conservative coalition government. It was at this time, when his name was being linked to the PLO, that Sabri Ramirez got wind of him and knew he had found a gold mine--a disaffected, activist Israeli nuclear and rocket expert looking for a cause. He sounded perfect, and he was. Ramirez approached him at a demonstration supporting a Palestinian homeland, and made him an offer he could not refuse. How would he like to get rich? He would not need to betray his country, merely lend his skills to help teach the Americans a lesson. Fuck Israel, he had declared. Then in a lower voice he had added--come to that, fuck the Palestinians, who were basically a pain in the ass. Acquiring personal wealth was a much more inspiring cause. He could not get work in Israel, any kind of work, and he was fast running through his savings. Ramirez advanced him thirty thousand American dollars on the spot, in crisp hundreds. He immediately dropped his PLO affiliation and began lowering his profile--much to Mossad's relief. Their surveillance eased up as they gratefully turned to more pressing matters, and four months later he took advantage of his new freedom to slip into Jordan one night and from there make his way, a week later, to Beirut. It was in that ravaged city that he and Sabri Ramirez worked out the technical details of the plan. . . . Which thus far had gone perfectly. "We'll be modifying the payload," he announced, turning to the keyboard. "Therefore the weight will be different, so we'll have to factor that into the SORT program on the Fujitsu and run it again." Shit, LeFarge thought, he knows about SORT. Which probably means he knows everything he needs to make VX-1 fly. 9:45 P.M. "I have a question," Michael Vance was saying. They were still resting on the hill, and he felt himself fighting back waves of exhaustion. "Could they get that vehicle down there off the ground without you being in Command?" "I hate to admit it"--Calypso Andros exhaled ruefully and leaned back against the tree--"but they probably could. We've already had a final test of the power-up, everything. The Fujitsu has all the controls set. There's nothing left to do except initiate the launch routine and then let the computer take over." "So Bill was about to be rich." He grinned, then picked up a small white stone and flung it down the hill. "He might even have been able to pay off our bet. If I'd won." "What bet was that?" "Long ago and in another country." He shrugged, hardly caring anymore. "It was a damned stupid stunt. We had a sailor's bet, and I lost. As it happens, your new guests here pitched in to help. But those are the breaks." "Well, let's talk about the real world." She seemed scarcely to hear what he had said. Or maybe she wasn't interested. Vance sensed she was trying to feign normality, adopting a facade that denied the horror of watching her young technician being shot dead. "Do you think they're going to kill anybody else?" What should I say? he wondered. Feed her a comforting lie, or tell her the truth? He looked her over and decided on the latter. "Hate to say it, but if it's really Ramirez, he'll kill anybody he vaguely feels like. I saw him hit a U.S. frigate with a Swatter. You've got to call that mass murder. A ton of casualties, and for no good reason. He caught himself before he said more, the memory still chilling. "Then again, I'd guess he's not going to take out anybody important or technically crucial, at least for now. Which should include Bates and Mannheim. He's got to be figuring he can use the big names for headlines and leverage, if he needs it." "I can't believe that the U.S. isn't going to send in the Marines, especially when they find out he's got a bomb." "Don't get your hopes up. There are a couple of problems with that. The first is that they may not be allowed on Greek soil, and even if they are, it could take several days for them to mount an operation." "That's one." She looked at him. "What's the other?" "The other is that if the U.S. should decide to mount an assault, it could well turn into a bloodbath. I'm almost wishing they don't. Delta Force and the SEALs are well trained, but as far as anybody knows, they've never been used to carry out a straight hostage-rescue. They'd probably come in here like John Wayne and tear this place apart. I don't even want to think about the carnage." His voice trailed off. "Take it from me. The people ARM is sending in are better suited for the job at hand. They also can deploy a lot quicker than the U.S. government." "Well, somebody better come. And soon." She had caught a strand of her tangled hair and was twisting it, distractedly making the tangle worse. "What do you think these thugs really want?" "I'd guess money's part of the package. But since Ramirez doesn't seem to be trying to extort SatCom, at least not yet, he probably has something bigger in mind." He slowly turned to her. "Tell me something. These vehicles are intended to go into orbit, right? But what if one didn't make it." He had a sudden thought. "Or what if one of them did make it, and then the orbital trajectory got altered somehow? Retrofire and reentry. You could set it down pretty much where you wanted, couldn't you?" She stared at him uncertainly. "What are you suggesting?" "That there are two ways to play this. Somebody could use these vehicles to deliver a bomb someplace. Or they could be used to put a bomb into orbit, to be delivered later." He leaned back. "Am I right or not?" Her eyes darkened, and she suddenly found herself sorry she had ever come back to Greece. For this. Then she caught herself and answered him. "I suppose either one is possible. The reentry trajectory is precisely controlled. In fact, we power it down, more or less like the space shuttle." "And the whole thing can be done within an hour or so, right? That is, once it's in orbit." "A low-earth insertion means a full orbit of about ninety minutes for a satellite." She was thinking. "If the vehicle itself stays in orbit, then--" "Everything would still be controlled from down here, correct?" "We beam power up to the vehicle using the Cyclops. That's the whole idea." She was thinking. "What you're saying is, once they get a vehicle, and a bomb, into orbit, they've got a loaded gun pointed at any place they choose." "Doesn't that sound like the worst-case scenario?" "They'll never pull it off." It was more a hope than a statement of fact. "How are you going to stop them? If Ramirez thinks you're not cooperating, then all he has to do is start killing more of your staff until you do." He looked down the hill, where the facility was now dark except for the yellow sodium lights around the storage sheds and the blaze of floods that illuminated the two vehicles. "But I definitely think they're going to try some kind of launch. You said they're being very careful not to disturb anything. So what are the possibilities?" "The easiest thing would be not to bother putting it into orbit at all," she answered after a moment. "In fact, Number One or Sabri Ramirez or whoever he is had Georges running some trajectory aborts. It all fits." "Also, you've got two vehicles, and that box had enough detonators for several bombs. So, say they had two nuclear devices? They use the first one as a small demo, to prove they're serious. Sort of like we did on Hiroshima. And hold the second one in reserve. For more blackmail." He reached up and touched the bark of the tree above. "But any way you look at it, they seem to be dead serious about delivering a nuke somewhere. Where?" "You know, there's a U.S. base not far from here." "Souda Bay?" "It's on Crete." "So close they probably couldn't miss." He thought about it. "Taking out that base could decimate the U.S. Sixth Fleet. It would be a very attention-getting demonstration. Think they could really do it?" "Crete would just be a short hop for VX-1." "It's easy and it's a nightmare. Sounds pretty good for . . . uh-oh." He pointed down. Moving through the shadows at the far edge of the facility, past the bright circles cast by the sodium lights, was a group of black figures. "Guess it had to happen." 9:46 P.M. "But I'm still finishing the trajectory-default analysis I was supposed to do," LeFarge said to Dore Peretz, hoping he could stall. "I'm only half--" "I'm telling you to abort those runs." The truth, Peretz reflected, was that Ramirez had jumped the gun on the trajectory analysis. Maybe he just wanted to keep this computer jockey busy, or maybe he didn't understand the technical side of things well enough. In any case, it had to be redone since the crucial payload parameters were going to be new, a substantial weight differential that would impact the power input controls. "Kill what you're doing and let me see what you've got so far. If you're on the right track, then we'll do a quick rerun with revised numbers." LeFarge grimaced, then turned back to the keyboard and gave the order to abort, directing the output to the battery of printers. The quiet hum of zipping lasers began, barely audible above the ambient noise of the room. When the first printer finished, Peretz ripped out the stack of paper and began looking it over. "All right." He nodded with satisfaction. "This is enough. The power inputs"--he pointed--"right here, will need to be reentered to conform to the altered weight coefficients of the new payload. I'll have to get them." He turned away and clicked on his black Kenwood walkie-talkie. Moments later he was asking somebody some technical questions. He then waited, humming to himself, while the answers were procured. Finally he nodded and jotted them down on the bottom of the printout. "Got it. You double-verified, right? Okay. Ten-four." He clicked off the handset and looked up. "All fixed." He walked back and laid down the paper on LeFarge's desk. "Okay, start over and run it with these." Georges looked at the numbers. The new payload was 98.3 kilograms. There it was. What now? He knew the answer. He had no choice but to give Peretz what he wanted. He had planned to make some changes in SORT that would screw up the whole launch routine, but now, with the Israeli looking over his shoulder, that was going to be impossible. This creep knew exactly how the program worked. He probably could spot any changes a mile away. Cally, Cally, where are you? Are you okay? Are you getting help? Let me know where you are, at least. I can't stop these guys all by myself. He sighed, tugged at his wisp of beard, and called up the data input file for SORT. Then he began inserting the new parameters. Around Command the other staffers were perfunctorily carrying out housekeeping chores at their workstations, the routine checks and runs they did every day. LeFarge suspected the stakes had just been raised, but he had no idea what they were. 9:48 P.M. She looked down. "Where? I don't see anything." "Over there. By the side of the sheds. There's a saying: in the darkness, only the shadows move. See them?" He rose and looked around. "Guess we'd better start thinking up a plan here." Although trees shielded the base of the mountain, the top had been cleared and flattened to accommodate the battery of antennas. The only possible protection was a low cinderblock structure on the side nearest the facility. "You're right," she said finally, squinting. "I do think I see something. Yes. They look like they're headed our way. Toward the trees and then right up the hill. Oh, shit." The sight made something click in her head, and her fear turned again to anger. Terrorists, she knew, always planned to wear down their captives, make them pliable. She wasn't going to let it happen. "Looks like three or maybe four." Who needed this? he sighed to himself. "Uh-oh, I think I see something else. They're carrying something with them and I don't like the looks of what I think it is." As he stared down, he was wondering: How would they choose to try and take the mountain? A direct assault? A two- pronged pincer? Or would they use some other technique? And what were they carrying? Some of the hardware they'd brought in the Hind? "At least we've got the high ground," he continued finally, trying to think through the odds. "Let's hope that counts for something. It's mostly open, so we can see them." Then he reflected on the downside. "But they can see us if we make a run for the top of the hill. It's too far. So there's not much we can do except just wait. The one little Uzi isn't going to do much good." "Let's think a minute," she said, turning and looking up the hill. 'They're about to pass through the trees down there, which should give us enough time to get to the blockhouse. . . ." She pointed. There at the dark crest was the cinderblock emplacement that housed the on-site operation controls for the radars. "Let's go up there. I've just had an idea." "I'm game." He nodded, feeling his adrenaline starting to build again. "Standing here is not going to do anything for us." It was a quick climb, through the slivers of granite outcropping that cut their way out of the shallow soil. When they reached the cinderblock structure, she punched in a security code on the keypad beside its black steel door and shoved it open. "If they haven't shut down the terminal in here yet, maybe I can get Georges on the computer net. He can shunt over control of those servomechanisms up there and then . . ." He followed her inside. As he did, fluorescent lights clicked on to reveal an array of radar screens and a main computer terminal. "Hey, can we kill the beacon?" He frowned. "Whatever you're planning better be doable in the dark." "No problem." She activated the terminal, then pointed toward the door. "The light switch is right there. Think you can handle it?" He clicked it off and let the wisecrack pass. Then he turned back. "Now what?" "God, I've never had anybody coming to kill me. The stories are right. It really does concentrate the mind." She began typing on the keyboard. "I had a thought. We're networked into the Fujitsu from all over the facility with LAN, so--" "And that's computer lingo for a local-area network, or something." "Right." She nodded. "At one point we had to hook all the workstations together, for a special test. Part of this area was connected into the network, so we could do some of the work from up here, but we always kept the larger servomechanisms on the main system, for safety reasons. Georges set it all up so everything has to be operated from down there, where the power drain can be monitored. Right now I need to get hold of him and have him do some things." She was still typing. And then she got what she wanted. 9:51 P.M. . . . HELLO, SOHO. BLUEBIRD NEEDS A FAVOR. CAN YOU SWITCH ON THE SERVOS? LeFarge stared at the screen, not believing his eyes. Cally was on the LAN. A window had appeared at the lower right- hand of his screen, and her terminal ID was . . . terrific, it was the blockhouse up the hill. He slipped a glance at Peretz, standing over by the water cooler, then quickly typed in an acknowledgment. SOHO NEVER LETS BLUEBIRD DOWN Then came the specific directions. She was asking him to switch control of the servos for Radar One over to her terminal. What was she doing? The radars were always controlled by Big Benny, the Fujitsu here in Command. He grimaced. Switching the big radar over to her workstation was a tall order. And the Israeli bastard was waiting for his SORT run. So now the trick was to try to do both things at once. He split the screen and went to work. 9:52 P.M. "Georges is a genius," she said, turning back, "but this may not actually be possible. Nobody's ever done it before." "Whatever you're planning had better be possible or we've got to begin thinking up a Plan B, and quick." He was staring out the open door. "Because our new friends are definitely on their way and ready for a close encounter." "Georges has got to hook this terminal directly to the Fujitsu--which isn't how we normally use it--and then give me control of the routine that runs the servos. In effect he has to put them on manual." "Don't think you're going to manage it in time," he said. He was thinking this was no time to get experimental, but he decided to keep the thought to himself. Instead he nervously checked the Uzi. Three rounds were left in the last remaining clip. He regretted all the random firing he had done over the last few hours. Now every round had to be hoarded as though it were the last. On the other hand, maybe he was lucky just to have the damned Uzi at all, along with the few puny rounds left. The trick now was to try not to have to use them. Down below them the four black figures had already moved past the helicopter landing pad and were about to be swallowed up in the copse of trees that began at the base of the hill. But now a sliver of moon had appeared from behind a bank of clouds in the east, casting an eerie pale glow onto the scene. He found himself deeply wishing for an IR scope, which would be a great help, bring them right up. "I just lost them in the trees," he said, turning back. "Which means we've got about five minutes left for whatever you've got in mind." "Trust me." She was still typing. 'This workstation just logged onto the big system, so the main servo program is now accessible from here. Georges, I love you. Now all I have to do is try and override the internal checks that go through the Fujitsu down in Command." Vance was staring, not quite sure what he was expected to say. "Then what?" "Hopefully it's a surprise," she laughed, a trifle grimly. Just be quiet and let me work." Then her voice swelled with nger. "The bastards. This is going to be a pleasure. After what they did to Chris, maybe I'll get to return the favor." Vance started to say something, but stopped when he noticed the first signs of motion at the edge of the copse of brush. The killers were emerging, and the sight gave him a chill. They're the hunters and we're the quarry, he thought, it's going to be like a giant turkey-shoot, played with automatics. "You know . . ." He turned back. '"here's still time for you to give yourself up. They'd probably rather have you live anyway. You could do the white-flag thing and I could use the confusion to try and make it into the brush down here, toward the shore. Those guys are carrying something that looks suspiciously like heavy weaponry. But that's a riddle we don't want to solve empirically." "Look, trust me," she shot back. "I know what I'm doing . . . I think. Don't you have any faith?" "We may not know each other well enough to be having his conversation." "As a matter of fact, you're exactly right." She hurriedly finished typing. "Okay, Georges has the control set up now and we're on line. Hang on." She reached down to flip a large red switch on the side of he console. Immediately one of the large green cathode-ray tubes began to glow. What it showed, however, was not the usual sweeping line going round and round. Instead it dismayed the crisp outline of the VX-1 space vehicle at the other end of the island. Next she flipped another switch, then reached for a mouse that was connected to the keyboard. She zipped it across, and the focus of the radar picture changed, almost as though it were a zoom lens. The image of the vehicle became larger and smaller. He realized the radar could be focused. Then she called in another routine. "I'm going to cut the power for a second, take it down cross the facility and onto the base of the mountain, and then I'll power up again." He watched as the outline of the island, in exquisite detail, swept over the screen. "I thought this thing was only for transmission. How can it be sending back images?" "There's the phased-array section for powering the vehicle with microwaves--that's part of the Cyclops--but we also have to have a guidance section, for keeping the beam on track. The Cyclops is the gun, but the guidance radar here is what we use to aim it." She was concentrating on the screen "Now, where do you think our friends are down there?" 'They're probably halfway up the hill by now." "Let's take a look." She brought down the focus, then began scanning. "Hold on." He stayed her hand, bringing the mouse to halt, and then pointing to the lower left corner of the large screen. "Didn't something move just then, right there?" "Where?" There." He took the mouse and guided the image to center screen. "Where is that in the real world? It's got to be close." She zipped the mouse again, bringing up the detail. A number scrolled at the bottom of the screen. "Four hundred meters, to be exact." 9:59 P.M. As Moreau emerged from the last copse of cypress, he scanned the mountain, towering upward in the moonlit night, and wondered where the bastard would be holed up. There was one obvious place--in the cinderblock control house. Yeah, ten to one that's where he had to be. The guy was stupid, riding a lucky streak. It was over. On the other hand, he thought, there's no reason not to take this slow. Just in case. The fucker wasn't _that_ stupid. He looked down as a limb of thorny bramble caught his black trousers, tearing a hole near the knee. "_Je m'en fiche!_" Although he lived by terrorism, Jean-Paul was a confirmed denizen of Paris's _rive gauche_ and he had little use for roughing it here on this godforsaken island in the bowels of the Aegean. Who needed it? On the other hand, tonight's expedition promised some diversion. It was always a pleasure to take out some jerk who was specializing in making a bloody nuisance of himself. If he could assassinate the chairman of Renault, he figured, he could handle this asshole guard. Moreau had brought along Stelios Tritsis, reasoning that a native Greek could best guide them up this rugged mountain, but he also had Helling's two Stasi fuck-ups. _Merde! _What a lousy idea it had been to include them in the first place. Ramirez had lost sight of his better judgment. He looked back to check them over. They were carrying he RPG-7, as ordered, but he doubted they had the slightest idea how it was fired. Though possibly they were teachable retardates. He revolved and stared up the mountain, wondering whether the blockhouse contained any technical apparatus that he had to be wary of. Maybe, he thought, I'd better just use a stun grenade. . . . What was that? He checked through the IR scope of his Kalashnikov just to be sure: one of the giant radar dishes was turning. What in hell did that mean? Then he caught a flicker of light from the blockhouse. So he bastard was in there. But was he trying to pull something? Okay, time to get serious. The place is well away from the radars and antennas. So just send a stun grenade through the door and take out the fucker's eardrums. No frags: no muss, no fuss. Then clean up the place at leisure. He motioned for Schindler and Maier to bring up the launcher. 10:01 P.M. "What are you doing?" Peretz asked. He sensed the lad at he terminal was up to something because he'd split the screen and was typing in a second batch of commands on the lower half. CC to Ian NET.RAD "Just some systems cleanup." LeFarge tried to lie as convincingly as he knew how. EXPN to JRAD "Better not try to bullshit me, pal. It could be very unhealthy." LeFarge was already aware of that. But he kept on typing trying to look as casual as he could. Almost, almost there. 10:02 P.M. "The bastard is in the blockhouse. There." Moreau motioned for the first German Stasi, Schindler. "But get a move on. He may be up to something." With Moreau directing them, they quickly slipped the two sections of the launcher together to form a single tube approximately a meter and a half in length. The rocket grenade on the forward end looked like a round arrowhead while the back was flared to dissipate the exhaust gases. The sight and rangefinder occupied the center, and just in front of that was the handgrip and trigger. When they had finished, he checked it over, then surveyed the mountain, where the heavy servomechanisms controlling the radars continued to rotate. Wait a minute, he told himself with a sudden chill in his groin. Something's wrong. He's tilting the radar dishes _down._ _Mon Dieu! _"Get ready." 10:03 P.M. "We just ran out of time," Vance said, slamming the door shut. "Looks like they've got a grenade launcher. If they can manage to blast through this door, it's going to ruin our day once and for all." "Georges is still on-line, and I'm turning the servos as fast as I can." Her voice betrayed the strain. "Well, get on with it. They're setting up to fire. I'd guess you've got about thirty seconds to pull off this miracle of yours." "I think a hundred and sixty degrees will do it," she said, her voice now deceptively mechanical, all business. Suddenly he could envision her running this facility and barking orders right and left. "We're at one-twenty now. I just don't know if I can focus it in time. Georges always handled this." She was tapping on the keyboard, some message to LeFarge. A cryptic reply appeared on the screen, next to what appeared to Vance to be computer garbage. Then the motion of the giant servomechanisms seemed to pick up speed. The radar antennas were swiveling around, and down. "We're almost ready. Let me get Georges to transfer the power controls to full manual." "Christ!" He cocked his Uzi. "Look," she exploded. "I'm doing my part. How about you doing yours? Slow them down." "I don't want to waste any rounds until it's absolutely necessary." But it looked like that time had come. He opened the door again and stepped through. Down below, the moon glistened on the rocks, and one of the gunmen was aiming a grenade launcher. "How long--?" "Just a couple more seconds now. . . ." "It's now or never." He took careful aim on the man holding the launcher. "I'm going to count to five." That was when he heard her say, "Got it." 10:04 P.M. "All right," Moreau barked, "fire on three." Schindler had just finished fine-adjusting the crosshairs, the rangefinder portion of the complex optical sight. With inflight stability for the rocket provided by tail fins that folded out after launch, the RPG-7 had a 500-meter range against static targets. Though a crosswind could affect the accuracy, tonight, thankfully, there was none. This one couldn't miss, if there wasn't a sudden gust. He tested the trigger confidently, sights on the open doorway, and hoped Moreau was right when he claimed the concussion grenade would render anybody inside totally incapacitated. His eyes on the target, he failed to notice a flashing green light that had just clicked on next to the main antenna up above, atop the mountain. . . . . . . When jet fighters are launched from carriers, it is standard practice to turn off an aircraft's radars until the planes are airborne, the reason being that the energy in the intense electromagnetic radiation can literally knock a man flat with an invisible wave. Memorable things happened to the eyes and ears. In this case, however, the radar could have no such total effect, since the random clumps of trees down the hill scattered and diffused the energy. It was, however, one of the most powerful radars on earth. . . . 10:05 P.M. Vance watched as something hit the men below, something that seemed like a giant, invisible mallet. They stumbled backward, while a grenade rocketed harmlessly into the night sky. "Congratulations." He lowered his Uzi. "I'm impressed. I think our new friends down there are, too. Yep, you made a very definite impression. Now, how about leaving that thing on long enough for us to get out of here and back up the hill? Maybe just fry the bastards for a while." "How does eight minutes sound to you?" "Should be time enough for us to scurry back down the rabbit hole. Maybe take a moonlight swim in a tunnel." He was liking her more and more all the time. Not a bad piece of work. "I'll tell Georges to cut the power in eight," she said. Then she added, "Look, why don't we head for the hotel. You look bushed." "You mean go down to the Bates Motel?" I'm being invited to a motel by this woman? He smiled. I must be dreaming. "We can cut around by the shore. That's probably the last place anybody is going to look for us now." "Sounds good." It did. He was dead tired and hungry. Tomorrow was going to be a long, long day. "The other reason I want to go down is to try and find Isaac," she added. "The half-cracked professor?" "Well, he only seems that way. Behind all those eccentricities is a mind you wouldn't believe. But whatever we find, I think we both need to knock off for a while and get recharged." "Let's give it a try. I think everybody's brain, and nerves, could use a breather. I know mine could." "We're out of here." She was already typing instructions into the keyboard. CHAPTER ELEVEN 9:15 P.M. Fayette-Nam--as they called Fayetteville, North Carolina, in the 1960s-- hosts the largest army base in the world: Fort Bragg, home of the XVIII Airborne Corps. Breaking the monotony of the harsh red Carolina clay around it, the town sports a variety of go-go bars, honkytonks, and tattoo parlors to refresh and spiritually solace the base's hundred thousand personnel. Known far and wide as a "macho post," Fort Bragg houses front-line units ready to mobilize on a moment's notice. During the Persian Gulf crisis, they were among the first to ship. The post deserves its macho reputation for a number of reasons, not the least being a highly classified square-mile compound, referred to locally as the Ranch, that nestles in a remote and secure corner of its sprawling 135,000 acres. There, protected by a twelve-foot-high fence, with armed guards and video cameras along the perimeter, is the nerve center for Delta Force, America's primary answer to terrorism. Now part of the Joint Special Operations Command--informally known as "jay-soc"-- Delta Force is the pick of the U.S. Special Forces, a unit of some seventy men specifically organized, equipped, and trained to take down terrorist situations. Of course, Delta Force formally does not exist-- "The only Delta we know about is the airline," goes the official quip. Although they rarely have an opportunity to display their capability, Delta personnel practice free-fall parachute jumps from thirty thousand feet, assault tactics on aircraft using live ammo and "hostages," high- tech demolitions, scuba insertions, free-climbing techniques on buildings and rock faces-- all the skills needed to take terrorists by surprise, neutralize them, and rescue hostages. The leadership of this nonexistent organization occupies a large windowless concrete building topped by a fifty-foot communications bubble--which recently replaced Delta's former shabby quarters in the old Fort Bragg stockade. Since the late 1980s, Delta Force has been led by Major General Eric Nichols, a fifty-three-year-old Special Forces veteran of Vietnam who holds an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. He is short--barely five feet ten--with darting gray eyes and an old scar down his left cheek. He also moves with the deftness of a large cat. Like his hand- picked men, he is highly intelligent, physically honed to perfection, and possessed of a powerful survival instinct. His only weakness is a taste for Cuban cigars, which he satisfies with Montecristos smuggled to him by resistance forces on the island--acquaintances whose identity no conceivable amount of torture could extract. When Nichols breached the open doorway of the new officers' lounge, those in attendance were deep in a cosmic game of five-card stud, with two--Lieutenant Manny Jackson and Captain Philip Sexton--particularly engrossed, hoping desperately that the hand they now had in play would somehow miraculously recoup their staggering losses for the evening. He paused a moment, involuntarily, and surveyed the men, feeling a surge of pride, as always, in the way they carried themselves. A bearing that in others might have seemed arrogance on them only affirmed their competent self-assurance. And why not? Usually fewer than half a dozen volunteers finished out of a class of fifty: a lightweight like Chuck Norris wouldn't stand a chance. Mostly in their early thirties, with the powerful shoulders of bodybuilders, the "shooters" of Delta Force did not resemble run-of- the-mill service types. For one thing, since they had to be ready for a clandestine op at a moment's notice, they deliberately looked as unmilitary as possible, right down to their shaggy civilian haircuts. Although they wore olive-drab one-piece jumpsuits during daily training, here--informally "off the Ranch"--it was sports shirts, tattered jeans, and sneakers. Naturally he noticed the poker game--bending the regs was, after all, Delta Force's modus operandi--and he just as routinely suppressed a smile. He simply wouldn't "see" it. But with the monetary stakes he counted on the table, he realized that his news could not have come at a worse time. On the other hand, legitimate ops were few and far between, and they were always eager for action. Some real excitement, at last. He knew every man in the vinyl- trimmed gray room would feel a rush of adrenaline. He took a deep breath and broke up the party. "Heads up, you screw-offs." It was his everyday formal greeting. "Bad news and good news. Report to the briefing room at 2130 hours, with all personal gear. Be ready to ship." There was a scramble to salute, followed by a frenzied bustle to collect the money still lying on the table. In seconds everybody was reaching for his jacket. They had only fifteen minutes, but they were always packed. The briefing room was a windowless space next to the Ranch's new headquarters building. It contained a long metal table in the center, blackboards and maps around the walls, and the far end was chockablock with video screens and electronic gear. As the unit members filed in, they noticed that maps of the eastern Mediterranean now plastered the left-hand wall. Next to these they saw blowups of KH-12 photos of a small island, identified only by latitude and longitude coordinates. "All right, listen up," Nichols began, almost the instant they had settled. He had just fired up a brand-new Cuban Montecristo and was still trying to get it stoked to his satisfaction. "I've picked twenty- three men. I'll read off the list, and if you don't hear your name, you're dismissed." He read the list, watched much of the room clear, and then continued. "Okay, you're God's chosen. I picked the guys I happen to think are best suited to the way I see the op shaping up. To begin with, we're going to be airborne by 2300 hours, which a check of your watches will inform you is less than an hour away. Which means no bullshit between now and when we ship out. We'll be flying Bess--everybody's favorite C- 130-- with two in-flight refuelings. Destination officially classified, but if you guessed Souda Bay I'd have to say 'no comment.' Wherever it is we're going, we're scheduled in at 1630 hours local tomorrow. For now I want to go over the general outlines of the op. There'll be a detailed briefing after we land. In the meantime, I've put together a packet of maps and materials for everybody to study on the plane. I suggest you hone your reading skills. Now, here's what I'm authorized to tell you." They listened intently and without interruption as he proceeded to give a rundown. They would be making a scuba insertion onto a Greek island-- operational maps with the general geography were in the packet--where an unknown number of hostiles had seized an American industrial facility and were holding hostages. He then provided a rough description of the SatCom facility using satellite maps. They would rehearse the insertion at an appropriate location in the vicinity and then chopper to a carrier some twenty klicks south of the island, where they would undergo their final prep. It was a thorough, if circumspect, briefing--which was what they expected. Since its inception, Delta had always operated on a top- security basis. Information always came as late into an operation as possible, on the theory that it was a two-edged sword and lives were at stake. Frequently the command did not divulge the real background and strategic purpose of an op until after its conclusion, thereby avoiding sending in men with extractable information. Questions? Right away they all had plenty. What was the layout of the facility on the island? How many hostiles were there? How were they equipped? What was the disposition of the hostages? How many? Was their objective merely to extract the friendlies, or were they also ordered to "neutralize" all the hostiles? Answer: You'll get a further briefing at the appropriate time. The biggest question of all, however, was why the urgency? Why was Delta being called in to take down a situation that had no military dimensions. Where were the civilian SWAT teams? If this was merely an industrial matter, why wasn't somebody negotiating? They knew "Bess" was already being loaded with the gear the brass would think they would need. In addition, however, each man had certain nonissue items, something to take along as a talisman for luck--a backup handgun strapped onto the ankle, an extra knife. Carrying such paraphernalia was against the regs, of course, but Major General Nichols always took such niceties in stride. If the job got done, he had selective blind spots as far as such things were concerned. Nichols actually knew a lot more than he had told his men. He had already planned the op in his head. For the insertion, backup would be provided by two Apaches that would be armed and ready to carry out a rocket attack on the facility radars and the two launch vehicles. Once they had secured the hostages, they were going to treat the terrorists to a goddamn big surprise. There would be no place to hide. If he had to, he was prepared to blow the place to hell. Let the insurance companies worry about it. 11:43 P.M. The electric sign MEETING IN PROGRESS over the door to the Situation Room had been illuminated for hours. Inside, Hansen sat in a tall swivel chair at one end of a long table staring at a detailed map of the eastern Mediterranean now being projected on the giant screen at the end of the room. In the subdued, recessed lighting, half-drunk cups of cold coffee stood around the central teakwood table. A fourth pot was already brewing in the kitchenette, while the rotund Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Edward Briggs, had resorted to doing knee bends to stay alert. "All right," Hansen was saying, "we've got the Special Forces in the game. That gives us a military option. But I'm wondering . . . maybe we should just go ahead and evacuate Souda. At the minimum get the Sixth Fleet out of there. As a safety precaution. We could manufacture some exercise that would at least get most of our assets clear." If the bastards had a nuke, he was thinking, a well-placed hit could make Pearl Harbor look like a minor skirmish. Right now the entire complement of carriers in the Mediterranean was there, not to mention destroyers, frigates, and a classified number of aircraft. The destruction would run in the untold billions; the loss of life would be incalculable. "Where would we deploy them?" Briggs rose, bent over one last time to stretch his muscles, then straightened. "Assuming we could get them clear within twenty-four hours, which would be pushing our luck, we'd have to figure out what to do next." "Well, assuming there's available draft, we could deploy some of them around the island. We'd give those bastards who hijacked the place a little something to occupy their minds. Might make them think long and hard about getting back to Beirut or wherever the hell they came from." "You're talking about a tall order. I don't think we could really mobilize and evacuate the base in that kind of time frame. And even if we could, our operations in the Med would be disrupted to the point it would take us months to recover." "Well, Ed," the President snapped, "those are the kinds of problems you're supposedly being paid to solve. If we're not mobile, then what the hell are we doing in the Med in the first place?" The question was rhetorical, but it stung--as intended. "I'll see if I can get a scenario ready for you by 0800 hours tomorrow." He tried not to squirm. They both knew he had already cut the orders deploying Fort Bragg's Special Forces to Souda, to be ready in case an assault was needed. The last resort. "In the meantime, I certainly could arrange for the base to go on a practice alert--cancel all leave and get everybody on a ship-out basis." "I think you should do that, at the very least." Should I inform the Greek government? Hansen wondered again. No, let's see if this can be handled without opening a can of worms about whose sovereign rights are uppermost here. The relationship with Greece had, for all its ups and downs, been generally cordial. With any luck they would never have to be involved or, with supreme good fortune, even know. . . . "Then have Alicia get Johnson over at the Pentagon on the line," Briggs said, "and he can cut the orders. We've never moved this fast before, so we're about to find out where our glitches are. Don't be surprised if there aren't plenty." "Just be happy if the American taxpayer never finds out what he's getting for his money," the President responded. "And speaking of money, we've been faxed a string of account numbers for a bank in Geneva. This is going to have to come out of a budget somewhere, so who do I stiff to pay off these bastards? Or make them temporarily think I'm paying them off. It's got to be some discretionary fund that has minimal accountability. And I don't want the CIA within a mile of this: that place is like a sieve." Briggs pondered. "I can probably come up with the money by juggling some of the active accounts in Procurement. Cash flow is a marvelous thing if it's handled right. You can rob Peter to pay Paul, and then make Peter whole by robbing somebody else. Then the end of the fiscal year comes around and you withhold payment from some contractor while you hold an 'investigation.'" He smiled. "Believe me, there are ways." The President wasn't smiling. "Don't tell me. I don't think I want to hear this. But if you're going to play bingo with the books, then you'd damned well better do it quick, and on the QT." "That'll be the easiest part. I've already got some ideas." "Just make sure I don't end up with another Iran-Contra brouhaha on my neck. I won't be able to plead senility and let a few fall guys take the rap." Briggs had foreseen as well the glare of television lights in the Senate hearing room. Worse still, it did not take too challenging a flight of imagination to figure out who would end up being the patsy. He would have to fall on his sword to protect the Presidency. Washington had a grand tradition of that. He could kiss good-bye to a comfortable retirement in Arizona next to a golf link. "You can be sure I will take the utmost care, Mr. President." And he was smiling even though Hansen was not. "All right, now about the Special Forces. Once we get them to Souda Bay, I want a quick rehearsal and then I want them deployed just offshore, on the Kennedy, ready to move. Which means that whatever support they'll need has to be ready by the time they arrive. What have you got on that?" "A task force shipped out for Souda tonight, Mr. President. Their C-130 is already in the air. The problems are at the other end. Once they're in-theater, we're still looking at a prep time of twelve hours, minimum. There's just no way they can mount an assault any sooner than that." The President winced, already thinking about his other problem. If they did have a nuclear device, or devices, whose was it? The signs all pointed in one direction. The Israelis claimed the stolen Iranian Hind had stopped over in Pakistan. There probably was no need to look any further. But now he needed somehow to get a confirmation. Or was the threat of a bomb just a hoax? He had a meeting at ten o'clock in the morning with the Pakistani ambassador. It would have to be handled delicately, with a lot of circumlocutions and diplomatic niceties, but he damn well intended to get some plain answers. 10:41 P.M. "So this is the Bates Motel I've heard so much about," Vance said, casting a glance down the dull, cinderblock walls. "Hitchcock's version had a lot more character." "You're right," Cally agreed. "But wait till you see what it's like upstairs. It sort of gives new meaning to the phrase no frills.' A hell of a place to cut corners, given all the money Bill poured into this facility, but he said he wasn't building a resort." She gestured around the utilities room, where a maze of insulated steam and hot-water pipes crisscrossed above their heads like a huge white forest. "Anyway, welcome back to the slightly unreal real world." "Maybe what we need is less reality, not more. But if you can find us a beer, I think I could start getting the hang of the place. Let's just try not to bump into anybody." "Okay, my feeling is that if we stay out of Level Three, upstairs, we'll be all right. That's got to be where they're holding everybody who's not on duty. Locked away for safekeeping." They had entered Level One via a trapdoor in the stone water conduit that picked up waste heat from the environmental control unit in the residential quarters. Around them now was silence, save for the clicks and hums of motors and pumps. "All right, who do we see about something to eat?" He had just finished drinking deeply from a spigot on one of the incoming cold-water pipes. Even though he was still soaking wet from the trip through the conduit, he was feeling severely dehydrated and the water tasted delicious, as though it had come from a well deep in the island's core. It had. "You see me," she replied. "We're going to head straight for the kitchen. There's got to be something edible there. So let's take the elevator up and see what's on the menu. I think today was supposed to be calamari." "I'd settle for a simple American T-bone if you've got one in the freezer. The more American the better. I'm sort of down on Greece at the moment." "You can have pretty much what you want here. As long as it's not a pizza or a decent hamburger." She was pushing the button to summon the elevator. The lights above the door told the story of the facility: three levels, with the top being the living quarters; Level Two being services such as food preparation and laundry; Level One, utilities. "Hit two," she said as the bell chimed, and she stepped on, taking one last glance about the basement. The elevator whisked them up quickly, then opened onto another empty hallway. "You know," she said, her voice virtually a whisper, "this corridor is almost always full of people. I guess they really do have everybody confined to quarters. Lucky us." "They're thorough, and they know what they're doing. They--" That's when he noticed the line of explosives that had been placed along the wall next to the elevator, neat yellow bars of Semtex, wrapped in cellophane. The first was wired to a detonator, which was in turn connected to a digital timer. "Hello, take a look." He nodded down. "Guess my wild hunch was right. They're not planning to leave any witnesses when this is over. When they're finished, they'll just pack everybody in here and blow up the place. Nice and tidy. Won't even interfere with the computers, just in case they need to keep them running for a while after they leave." He bent down and examined the timer, now scrolling the minutes in red numbers. It was set to blow in just over twenty-nine hours. "Guess we just got the inside track on their timetable." "My God," she said, looking at the device as though it were a cobra. "Can't we just turn it off?" "Sooner or later we'd better, but it's still got plenty of time left on it." His voice turned slightly wistful. "Tell you the truth, I'd rather some of the guys from ARM did it. I'm slightly chicken when it comes to bomb-squad operations. Cut the wrong wire and . . . eternity takes on a whole new perspective." He shrugged. "Also, there's a chance it's booby-trapped somehow. The thing's a little too obvious, sitting out here in plain view. When something looks too easy, I always get suspicious. Maybe for no reason, but . . ." He motioned her away. "I suggest we forget about that for now and focus on finding a steak. I also wouldn't fling a hot shower back in your face." "That's only on Level Three. It may have to wait." She took his arm. "Come on. I don't like being around bombs, even if they have timers." She led the way down the abandoned corridor, its lighting fluorescent and its floor covered with gray industrial carpet. There was a total, almost palpable silence about the place that made it feel all the more eerie and abandoned. It seemed utterly strange and alien. "The kitchen is in here," she said, pushing open a large steel door. Vance stepped in and surveyed it: all the fixtures needed for a mess that served several hundred people three meals daily. In fact, it looked as though the evening's cleanup operation had been halted in mid-wash. Dirty pots sat cold on the big industrial stoves, and piles of half-peeled vegetables were on the wide aluminum tables. The storage lockers, refrigerators, and freezers were located across the room, opposite. "By the way." He had a sudden thought. 'This place must have TV monitors somewhere, am I right? Every other place here does." "Well, you're right and you're wrong. It does, but they're on the blink. It always seemed like a stupid idea anyway, almost like spying, and then one day somebody just cut the wires. Probably one of the cooks. I never bothered getting them fixed. I just couldn't think of any good reason to bother." "Well, for once laziness paid off. Maybe we're safe here for a while." He had opened the freezer. "Hello, Lady Luck has decided to get with the program." He was pulling out two thick steaks. "Care to join me?" "Those are there for Bill," she noted, then laughed. "I'd still rather have a pizza, but I don't guess he'll mind if we dip into his private stock." "So I repeat the question." He was already unwrapping two, both thick. "Yes, of course. I'm famished." She shivered. "And I also wouldn't mind a set of dry clothes." "Maybe one of these will warm you up." He was popping the steaks into a gleaming white microwave for a quick thaw. "Right." "And while dinner is coming along, how about drawing me a diagram of what's up there. Maybe we can go up later, take a look around." "Let's eat first. I'm too wired to think." She switched on one of the large, black electric grills. "My vote is that we just sit tight for now." And why not? This man with the sexy eyes and healthy laugh attracted her. Mercurial in his spirits, he appeared willing to take chances. Just the way she remembered her father. And Alan. But she wondered why he was here risking his life for a bunch of total strangers. Even Alan wouldn't have done that. "You know, Mike Vance, I have to tell you, you don't look much like a commando." "Guess what? I'm not." "You know what I mean. For that matter, you don't look like the guys who came and installed our wonderful security system. I'd like to know your real story." "How are retired archaeologists supposed to look? But I wasn't good enough at it, or maybe I was too good at it--I'm not sure which--and as a result I ended up doing what I really wanted to for a living. Running a sailboat business." He looked her over. "You seem to like what you're doing, too. And from what I've seen, I'd say Bill's getting a bargain, no matter what he's paying you." She laughed. "I'd say you're an even better bargain. He's getting you for free." "Freebies are only a deal if they pan out." He lifted their steaks out of the microwave and flipped them onto the grill. They immediately sizzled deliciously, a sound he had loved since he was a child growing up in Pennsylvania. It all mingled together with the scent of trees and summer. "God, those smell great." She came over to take a look. "I think the aroma is giving me some backbone. There's nothing like the smell of grease." "I figured you'd come around." He patted her chastely on the back, half imagining it was farther down, then lifted one of the steaks to see how they were going. Well. Just like his spirits. But now she was moving off again into a space of her own. She scrutinized his weathered face, feeling a little hopeful that maybe, finally, she had run across somebody like Alan. Though she still hardly knew a damned thing about him. "With people I meet for the first time, I like to play a little game," she said finally. "It's always interesting to try and guess. What are they really like? Does character show?" "What happens if you guess right?" He nudged a steak. "Do you own their soul? Like some primitive tribes think a photograph captures their spirit?" "Guess you'll have to find out, won't you?" She checked him over again. "Okay." He smiled and gave her the same look back. "But it's only fair if we both get to play. So, if one of us hits the truth, what happens then. Do we get to go for Double Jeopardy?" "Be warned. The prince who learns the princess's secrets can end up getting more than he bargained for." She came back, full of feeling. Then she paused for a second, thinking, and began. "All right, I get to go first. Woman's prerogative. And I want to start with the sailboat-- what did you call it? _Odyssey_ _II_?--and what it says about you. I think it means you're a doer, not a talker. I like that." "Maybe." He felt uncomfortable, not sure what to say, so he decided to let it pass. "Now it's my turn." He leaned back and examined her, hoping to get it right. Make a good first impression. Ignore the fact she's a knockout, he lectured himself, at least for now. Look for the inner woman. "You like it here," he started. "But the isolation means everybody knows everybody. No privacy. And you're a very private person. So--to use that famous cliche--you bury yourself in your work. You could be happier." "That goes for you, too," she quickly began, a little startled that his first insight had been so close to the mark. "And you're a loner. The good news is . . . I think you're pretty loyal. To friends. To women. The downside is you keep your friends to a close circle." "Hey, I'd almost think you've been reading my mail." He seemed vaguely discomfited. "But I'll bet you suffer from the same malady. You made some tight friends early on, but not much in that department since. They're all engineers, and mostly you talk shop. Oh, and no women. You want them but you don't respect them enough. They're not as committed as you are. In fact, your last good friend was in college. Sometimes you have trouble getting next to anybody." "Well, for the record I'll admit that my best friend was from before college, and it's a he. Georges." She decided to skip over the matter of Alan Harris. He had been a friend as well as a lover. A good friend, or so she thought. Once. "But I think the buzzer just went off. Game over." "Whoa, don't bail out now, just when it's getting good. This was your idea, remember? And I'm not through." He leaned back. "Okay, let's really get tough. Go personal. You figure falling for some guy might just end up breaking your heart. Maybe it already happened to you once or twice. So these days you don't let things go too far." He rubbed at his chin as he studied her. "How'm I doing?" "The rules of the game don't include having to answer questions." She took a deep breath. Mike Vance was definitely better at this than she'd reckoned. "But if you want to keep going, we'll have round two. Back to you. I'd guess you're always in control, or you want to be. So what happens is, you co-opt the things and people around you, make them work for you. And from the way things have gone so far, I'd say luck seems to be on your side; some people are like that and you're one of them." "Don't be too sure." He checked the steaks again, then flipped them over. They were coming along nicely, the fat around the edge beginning to char the way he liked. "Luck always has a way of running out eventually." "Tell me about it . . ." she said, letting her voice trail off. "But I'd also guess you're a homebody in your soul. You like a roaring fire and a glass of wine and a good book over going out to paint the town." "And you're probably just the opposite. You want to be out in the sun and wind and rain. Sitting around bores you." "Guilty." He nodded. "Now for round three. That glass of wine you have with the book is probably something tame. Say, Chablis." "You drink . . . mmmm, let me see. Scotch is too mundane. I'll bet it's tequila. Straight." "You're psychic. But you missed the lime." "Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing." She grew somber. "You like a good battle. So taking on these thugs is going to be the most fun you've had all week." "That's where you just went off the track." His eyes narrowed, the corners crinkling. "We're definitely on the wrong end of the odds here. These bastards are dug in, they've probably got A-bombs, and we know for sure they've got a lot of helpless people in their grasp. That's not a recipe for heroics. It's more like one for pending tragedy." He paused, deciding it was definitely time to change the subject. "Speaking of tragedies, it would be a major one if we didn't have a Greek salad to go with those steaks." He walked over and checked the fridge. Sure enough, there was a massive bowl of ripe, red tomatoes sitting next to a pile of crisp cucumbers. Most important of all, there was a huge chunk of white feta cheese. Yep, the chef had to be Greek. And up there, on a high kitchen shelf, were rows and rows of olives, curing in brine. Throw them all together with a little oregano, lemon juice, and olive oil, and the traditional side dish of Greece was theirs. "Just the stuff." He pulled down a jar of olive oil and one of dark Greek olives. Then he selected some tomatoes and a cucumber and went to work. "You know, you're not a half-bad Greek chef. My mother would have loved you. You're making that salad exactly the way she used to." She made a face. "Every day. God, did I get sick of them. All I wanted to eat was french fries. So when I finally got away, off at college, I practically lived on cheeseburgers and pizza for years after that." "Shame on you. This is very wholesome. Very good for your state of mind." He finished slicing the tomatoes, then opened the fridge and fished out a couple of brown bottles of the local beer. "Retsina would be the thing, but this will have to do." He looked over. "By the way, how're the steaks coming?" "Looks like our feast is ready." She pulled them off the grill and onto plates. "How long has it been since you ate?" "Think it's about two days now." He finished tossing the salad and served them each a hearty helping. "Didn't realize how famished I was till I smelled those T-bones broiling." He popped the caps on the beers and handed her one. "Bon appetit. Better eat hearty, because this may be the last food we're going to see for a while." She took a bite, then looked up, chewing. "It's delicious. And I want to say one more thing about our game a while ago." She stopped to swallow. "And I mean this. It's always a little sad when I see a person who can do a lot of things but doesn't really find total satisfaction in any of them. Nothing they ever do really makes them happy. And I think that's you, really. I'll bet that whenever you're doing one thing, you're always thinking about some other things you could be doing. Which means you're never really content. You always want more." "That's pretty deep stuff." He had launched hungrily into his steak. "Maybe you're right, but I'm not going to come out and admit it. It's too damning. So let me put it like this. Maybe I happen to think it's possible to care about a lot of things at once. That's--" "Such as?" "Well, okay, I'll give you a 'for instance.' I like sailing around these islands, but all the time I'm doing it, I'm thinking about what it must have been like two, three thousand years ago. The archaeology. It's intrigued me as long as I can remember. My dad was the same; he spent his life digging around in Crete. I thought that was the most marvelous thing in the world, so I did it, too. For years. Even wrote a book about that island once. I loved the place. Still do." "That's funny. I was born practically in the shadow of Crete, and yet I've only been there a couple of times." She sighed. "Well, what happened? I mean to your love affair with Crete. Sounds like that's what it was." "Maybe I loved the place too much. I don't know." He paused to take a drink of the beer, cold and refreshing. "Well, when you love somebody, or something, you want to find out everything there is to know about them. But when I did that, and told what I'd concluded was the real story, or what I passionately believed was the real story, nobody wanted to hear it. I had some ideas about the island's ancient age of glory that didn't jibe with the standard theories. Made me very unpopular in the world of academia. Scholars don't like their boats to be rocked." "And you let that get you down?" She snorted. Being a woman, she'd had an uphill battle all her life. Men could be such babies sometimes. "See, when the world's against you, that's when you're supposed to fight hardest. That's always been my rule. I'm not a quitter. Ever." He winced and stopped eating. "Hey, I'm back, aren't I? In Greece." He looked at her, impulsively wanting to touch her again. "But it's nice to have somebody like you to pitch in and help. Maybe we'll manage something together." "Maybe you should have had somebody around the first time." God, he was really reminding her of Alan. The same buttons. "Maybe you're not as tough as you think." "Adversity depresses me. Like bad weather. I prefer life without too many psychodramas." And this Greek fireball, he told himself, had psychodrama written large all over her. Still . . . "Then the question now is what I should do." She looked at him, taking a last bite. "Go back, or stay with you." "We need to learn from _Ulysses'_ experience with the Cyclops," Vance said, clicking back into the real world. "The one-eyed giant had trapped him and his crew and was devouring them one by one. So how did they overcome him? They got him plastered on some good Greek wine, then put out his eye with a burning post. That done, they proceeded to exploit his disability." "What are you saying?" She frowned. "This guy is killing off your people, right? Pierre is coming in with his crew to try and take this place down, but in the meantime it would be good if we took a shot at putting out their eyes." "Put out their eyes?" She was still puzzled. "It's a metaphor. It would be extremely helpful if we could blind them enough that they didn't know ARM was coming in. Couldn't 'see' the team. Maybe shut down the radars, something." "Michael"--it was the first time she had used his name, and she liked it--"that's why we're in this mess in the first place. There are no radars that could spot an insertion. That's how these bastards got in here in the first place. Bill gets the Saddam Hussein Military Preparedness Award. There is no radar to monitor the shore." He laughed. "Okay, but now that oversight has turned into a plus. What's good for the goose is good for the you- know-what. If there are no peripheral radars, then they're not going to know where Pierre and the boys make their insertion." "Right. The bad guys are already blind. It's got to make a difference." 'Then what we need to do"--he was thinking aloud--"is to get them all together in one place." 'They're not going to let it happen." She was questing, too. "Unless . . . unless we can make it happen. Something . . ." "Keep thinking," he said. "I don't have any ideas either, but somebody better come up with one." "Well, let's go back up on the mountain before they find us here," she said finally, clearly itching to get going and do something. "We're going to screw these guys, wait and see." Vance nodded, wishing he could believe it as confidently as she did. 10:49 P.M. Sabri Ramirez stood watching as the last of the krytron detonators was secured in the ganglia of wiring that surrounded the explosive Octol sphere. Now one of the bombs was armed. He liked the looks of it. The next-- "They haven't come back yet," Wolf Helling said, interrupting his thoughts. "Do you think there was a problem?" He was warily watching the bomb and its timer being assembled, trying to calm his nerves. This was not like playing with a yellow lump of Sematach. One false move and you would be vaporized. Any man who pretended it didn't scare him was a liar, or worse, a fool. Maybe both. The bomb did not frighten Ramirez; his mind did not dwell on risk. He assumed the Pakis knew their job--they damned well better. No, his current concern also was what had happened to Moreau. He had expected his unit to return before now. So far they had taken over an hour on what should have been a simple operation. With hostages dispersed in three locations, Ramirez feared that things were getting spread thin. Gamal had been keeping watch over the guards and the off-duty shifts on Level Three of the accommodations facility, while Peretz was holding things together in Command, but still it would be better if four of the team were not out chasing over the island trying to find some rogue guard. He had tried to reach them on his walkie-talkie, but so far he had not been able to raise anybody. That was particularly troubling. Why should all the radios suddenly go dead? "If there was some difficulty up the hill, surely they're handling it." Ramirez tried to push aside his misgivings. He actually felt it was true, or should be true. He had checked out Moreau's credentials carefully, investigating beyond the popular myth, and what he had found did nothing to diminish the legend of the blond demon, Jean-Paul. . . . "Now, we're ready to secure this baby into the payload container," Abdoullah was saying. "I measured it already, and it should fit with no problem. But we'll need to hook up the detonators with the telemetry interface, and for that we need Peretz' input. He'll use the Fujitsu in Command to blow this thing, but it all has to be synchronized with the trajectory control." "He's there now," Ramirez said, "updating the trajectory runs. That's scheduled to be completed in"--he checked his watch--"about twenty minutes. When he gets through, we can go ahead with the detonators. Everything is on schedule." For some reason Abdoullah did not like the precise tone of Ramirez's voice. Right, he thought, everything is on schedule. So when Shujat and I have finished our part, what then? Will we be "accidentally" gunned down, the way Rais was? You claimed that was a screw-up, but you're not the kind of guy who makes that kind of mistake. Okay, so maybe Rais got careless. Was that your way of making an example of him? He motioned Shujat to help lift the first shiny sphere into the heat- resistant Teflon payload container. On a conventional launch, the container was designed to be deployed by radio command when the VX-1 vehicle had captured low earth orbit. The nose of the vehicle would open and eject it, after which the satellite payload would release. This launch, however, was-- "Hey, they're back," Helling announced, watching the door of the clean room open. Ramirez looked up, and realized immediately that something was wrong. Jean-Paul Moreau's eyes seemed slightly unfocused, and his sense of balance was obviously impaired --a man stumbling out of a centrifuge. He also was rubbing at his ears, as though his head were buzzing. "What in hell happened?" He had never seen anyone with quite this set of symptoms before. They looked like men who had been too close when a homemade bomb went off. "The bastard was up on the hill, and he managed to get control of one of the radars. Let me tell you, there's nothing like it in the world. You feel your head is going to explode. I can barely hear." He then lapsed into French curses. Stelios Tritsis still had said nothing. He merely watched as Rudolph Schindler and Peter Maier set down the RPG-7 and collapsed onto the floor. "Then let him go for now." Ramirez wanted to kill them all, then and there. "But get that damned thing out of here." He indicated the grenade launcher. "And the rest of you with it. Take turns getting some sleep and report back to me at 0600 hours. We'll soon have our hands full. The natives here are going to start getting restless. When that happens, the next man who fucks up will have to answer to me." They all knew what that meant. 11:16 P.M. Dore Peretz had just finished checking over the trajectory analyses and he was satisfied that guidance would not pose a problem. With SORT controlling the trajectory at lift-off, a vehicle could be set down with pinpoint accuracy. Midcourse correction, abort--the whole setup was going to be a cakewalk. The kid LeFarge was good, good enough to make him think he could do without the Andros bitch. Right now nothing indicated that it could not all be handled from right here in Command, with the staff at hand. Okay, he thought, one more chore out of the way. Now it's time to start setting up the telemetry hookup with the radio-controlled detonators. . . . CHAPTER TWELVE 10:05 P.M. "Is there anything we need to go over again?" Pierre Armont inquired, looking around the dusty, aging Athens hangar with a feeling of wary confidence. The weather-beaten benches and tables were cluttered with maps of Andikythera and blueprints of the SatCom facility, scattered among half-empty bottles of ouzo and Metaxa. He had just completed his final briefing, which meant the time had come to board the Cessna seaplane that would be their insertion platform. The team seemed ready. Hans had come through with the troops they needed; Reggie sat bleary- eyed but prepared, nursing a final brandy; the brothers Voorst of the Royal Dutch Marines were austerely sipping coffee; Dimitri Spiros was quietly meditating on the condition of the equipment; and Marcel of the Belgian ESI was sketching one last paper run-through of the insertion. When nobody spoke, Armont glanced at his watch and frowned. This final briefing had gone longer than expected, but he had to cover more than the usual number of complexities. For one thing, the hostages apparently were scattered all over the place, always a problem. Unless the team could strike several locations simultaneously, the element of surprise would be forfeited. That meant the insertion had to be totally secure, giving the team time to split up, get positioned, and stage the final assault with split-second coordination. Carrying out one op was dicey enough: he was looking at three, all at once. The alternate strategy would be to focus exclusively on Ramirez. Take him out first, blow their command structure, and hope the others would fold. The decision on that option would have to be made in about two hours, just before they set down the plane two kilometers west of the island and boarded the Zodiacs for insertion. That was when Vance was scheduled to radio his intel on the disposition of the hostiles and the friendlies. What a stroke of luck to have him there, a point man already in place to guide the team in. "All right, then," Spiros said, finally coming alive, "let's do a final check of the equipment. We need to double-inventory the lists and make sure everything got delivered. I don't want to hear a lot of crap from you guys if somebody can't find something later on." The others nodded. Dimitri had had to scramble to get all the hardware together, and Reginald Hall had had to make some expensive last-minute arrangements to obtain a set of balaclava antiflash hoods for everybody. When there were hostages everywhere, the safest way to storm the terrorists was with nonlethal flash grenades, which produced a blinding explosion and smoke but did not spew out iron fragments. But their use required the assault to function in the momentarily disruptive environment they created. The hoods, which protected the wearer's face and eyes from the smoke and flash, were crucial. And since your local hardware store did not stock them, he had borrowed a set from the Greek Dimoria Eidikon Apostolon, a SWAT unit of the Athens city police trained to provide hostage rescue, securing six on a "no questions asked" basis, even though everybody there knew they had only one use. Word of the hostage-taking down on Andikythera had not yet leaked out to the world, so DEA had not been consulted. But their record of security at the Athens Hellinikon Airport was so miserable he doubted they ever would be considered for a job like this. Though the DEA had trained with the German GSG-9, the British SAS, and the Royal Dutch Marines, they still were basically just cops. A real antiterrorist operation would be out of their league. DEA had no illusions about that, and they also knew that Spiros was with ARM, arguably the best private antiterrorist organization in the world. So if they granted Dimitri a favor, they knew they could someday call on ARM to repay in kind. In the antiterrorist community, everybody was on the same team. Everybody understood the meaning of quid pro quo. Most of the rest of the equipment had been retrieved from the ARM stocks the organization kept stored in Athens. Governments frowned on the transportation of heavy weaponry around Europe, so the association found it convenient to have its own private stocks at terminals in London, Paris, and Athens. It made life simpler all around. Reggie Hall had dictated the equipment list as he drove in to London in his black Jaguar, cursing the glut of traffic on the A21. Once he reached the ARM office there, a small inconspicuous townhouse in South Kensington, he faxed the list to Athens, then caught a plane. Dimitri had checked out the list against the ARM inventory in the warehouse and quickly procured whatever was lacking. It had been packaged into crates, then taken by lorry to this small side terminal of the Hellinikon Airport, ready to be loaded on the unobtrusive Cessna seaplane he had leased for the operation. By that time the rest of the team had already started arriving. Then, two and a half hours ago, Pierre had begun the briefing. A counterterrorist operation always had several objectives: protecting the lives of hostages and procuring their safe release, isolating and containing the incident, recovering seized property, and preventing the escape of the offenders. But this time there was a twist to the usual rules. In a special-threat situation like this, possibly involving nuclear weapons, the recovery of those devices was the paramount priority. The way Armont had planned the assault, ARM could manage with a seven- man team instead of the nine most special-reaction outfits normally used. He would be team leader, which meant his responsibilities included supervision as well as being in charge of planning and execution, controlling cover and entry elements, and determining special needs. Since Vance was already on the ground, he would be point man, providing reconnaissance and recommending primary and alternate routes of approach. The point man in an assault also led the entry element during approach and assisted the defense men in the security. Finally, he was expected to pitch in and help with the pyrotechnics as needed. The defense man would be Marcel, the Belgian, who would cover for the Voorst brothers during the assault and provide security for Vance during the approach. He would also double as point man when required and protect the entry team from ambush during approach. Another duty was to cover the entry element during withdrawal and handle the heavy equipment. Hans would serve as the rear security man, following the entry element during movement and providing close cover during withdrawal. He would be second in command, and also would bring in whatever equipment was needed. Since Reggie was a crack shot, the best, he would be the standoff sniper, maintaining surveillance on the subject area from a fixed position, monitoring radio frequencies, and providing intelligence on hostile movements. He also would neutralize by selective fire anybody who posed an imminent threat to the entry team. Spiros would be the observer, keeping a record of everything for an after-action summary, providing security for Reggie, and assisting in locating hostile personnel. He would relieve Hall as necessary, and handle the CS or smoke if Pierre signaled for it. That was it for assignments. Everybody would be doing more or less what they always did. So far so good. The next item was intelligence. Normally you tried to gather as much as you could on-scene, and presumably Vance was taking care of that. For the rest of it, Armont had dug up blueprints for all the buildings from the files, and on the plane from Paris he had meticulously numbered the levels, sectorized the windows, and labeled all the openings, ventilation shafts, et cetera. At the briefing just completed, he had used the blueprints to designate primary and secondary entry-points. He would fine-tune his strategy with Vance by radio once they had made the insertion; and then, after he had located all the terrorists and confirmed the situation of the hostages, they would use the blueprints to plan the assault. Next came the equipment. Since the assault would be at night, they would need vision capabilities. That included M17A1 7x50 binoculars, starlight scopes, and infrared scopes. Then the radios, which had to be multi-channeled, with one channel reserved strictly for the team, and have cryptographic (secure voice) capability. The surveillance radio package--compact in size, with a short antenna--included a lapel mike, push-to-talk button, and earpiece. All members of the team would have a radio, worn in a comfortable position and out of the way. As usual they would employ strict communication discipline, using their established call signs and codes as much as possible. Other personal equipment included chemical light wands, luminous tape, gloves, protective glasses, disposable inserts for hearing protection, black combat boots, lightweight body armor, balaclavas, flashlights, knives, first-aid pouches. Insertion gear included grapple hooks, several hundred feet of half-inch fibrous nylon rope, locking snaplinks, and rappelling harnesses. Finally there was the weaponry. Everybody would carry a .45 caliber automatic pistol and a .38 caliber revolver with a special four-inch barrel. The assault team would use H&K MP5s except for Armont and Hall: Pierre preferred a Steyr-Mannlicher AUG and Reggie had brought along an Enfield L85A1, in addition to his usual AK-47. Then, just in case, they had the heavy stuff: M203 40mm launcher systems, M520-30 and M620A shotguns, modified 1200 pump shotguns, and 9mm PSDs. God help us, Armont thought, if we need all this. Naturally there also were grenades. They had plenty of the standard M26 fragmentation type, but since these frequently were next to useless in a hostage situation, they planned to rely more on stun grenades and smoke grenades. The same was true of the AN-M14 incendiary hand grenade, a two-pound container of thermite that burned at over four thousand degrees Fahrenheit for half a minute. It was fine for burning up a truck, but not recommended for a room full of hostages. Better for that was the M15 smoke grenade, which spewed white phosphorus over an area of about fifteen yards. Smoke, of course, could work both ways, also slowing up the deploying team. Last but not least were the tear-gas grenades. To temporarily neutralize an entire room, ARM had long used the M7 tear-gas grenade, which dispersed CN, chloraceteophenone. It was not a gas but a white crystalline powder similar to sugar that attacked the eyes, causing watering and partial closing, and simulated a burning sensation on the skin. If conditions seemed to require, they sometimes used a stronger chemical agent called CS--military shorthand for orthochlorobenzalmalononitrile. It, too, was a white crystalline powder similar to talc that produced immediate irritating effects that lasted from five to ten minutes. The agent (in a cloud form) caused a severe burning sensation of the chest. The eyes closed involuntarily, the nose ran, moist skin burned and stung--thereby rendering anybody in the immediate area incapable of effective action. He would choose which one to use when the time came. . . . After Hans had helped Dimitri double-inventory the equipment list, Armont looked over the dark-brown crates one last time, then gave the go-ahead for loading. One good thing, he thought: since Andikythera is Greek, we won't be crossing any international borders; nothing will have to be smuggled through customs. Reggie, impatient as always, was eyeing the clock at the far end of the hangar. "We've already filed the fight plan. I think it's time we made this a go op. What time is the next radio check with Vance?" "That's scheduled for 2340 hours," Armont answered. "After we're airborne. We'll go over the blueprints and compare them against the disposition of the friendlies and hostiles using his intel. Then we can decide the best way to take the place down." The boys are getting itchy, he told himself. They want to get this over with and get back to their lives. Who can blame them? This screw-up never should have happened in the first place. Spiros let the client set the parameters for a job--which violates the first rule. He is going to have a lot to answer for when this is over. But settling that will have to wait till later. "All right," he said, starting up the Cessna's metal stairs and heading for the cockpit. "Let's get tower clearance and roll." 11:32 P.M. The technicians in Command were all sprawled across their desks, demoralized and still in shock. Georges LeFarge shared their mood. Cally had disappeared hours ago, and he was beginning to think he was on his own. The trajectories that Peretz wanted computed were finished. Now the Israeli wanted to work on the telemetry. And he wanted to do it himself. He had taken his place at the console and started programming a new set of instructions into Big Benny, the Fujitsu supercomputer. It looked as if he was coordinating some of the trajectory telemetry with the electronic signaling to the vehicle, and he was setting some sort of timer. LeFarge pondered the significance of these actions. He wants something to happen when the VX-1 aborts and begins descent, he told himself. And it has to be done with split-second timing. What can he be planning? He felt helpless as he sat watching, the control room around him now silent and listless. Locked out of his own computer, he felt rudderless and lost. He was realizing computers were a friend that could easily be turned against you. It was a moment of recognition that brought with it pure anguish. 10:01 A.M. Dr. Abdoul Kirwani, ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United States of America, sat rigidly facing the small desk in the Oval Office. When the call requesting a meeting had come from Johan Hansen's chief of staff the previous evening, he had hastily sent a secure telex to Islamabad to inquire if he needed any updating. He did. And it was a disaster. "It's past due time we met personally, Mr. Ambassador," President Johan Hansen was saying. "I regret that the press of affairs over the last month forced me to postpone receiving you sooner. State tells me your credentials are impeccable and you're doing a first-class job of getting up to speed." Abdoul Kirwani nodded his thanks, modestly but with ill- concealed pride. He was a tall, elegant man with a trim mustache and deep, inquisitive eyes. Some said he could have been a double for Omar Sharif. A deeply guarded secret was that he cared more about the ragas of Indian classical music than he did about diplomacy. He had made no secret, however, of his admiration for Johan Hansen. The American President's refocus of the superpower's priorities was a refreshing breath of rationality and sanity in an irrational, insane world. All of which made this particular meeting even more distressing. "Thank you, Mr. President. My government wishes me to express its appreciation for the excellent cooperation we have received and the traditional American hospitality my family and I have enjoyed since we arrived. Shireen, I must say, loves this country as much as I do. She studied at Smith many years ago, and is especially fond of New England." He smiled. "We Pakistanis always yearn for places with a cool climate." "Then perhaps someday you'll accord me the honor of letting Christin and me show you my new presidential hideaway in the Berkshires." Hansen smiled back, chafing to cut the diplomatic bullshit. "Perhaps sometime this autumn. We think it's one of the most beautiful spots on earth." "We would be most honored." He nodded again, reading the President's mind-state perfectly. "Now." Hansen could contain himself no longer. "I want you to understand, Mr. Ambassador, that what I am about to say is not directed toward you personally. My staff tells me you have been a private advocate, for some years now, of reducing and even eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. That, as you know, is my desire as well. So you and I see eye to eye. Unfortunately, however, we live in a world where realities still assume precedence over noble ambitions." "I agree with you, Mr. President, sadly but wholeheartedly." The Pakistani ambassador nodded lightly, dreading what he knew was about to come. So the U.S. already knows, he realized. This disaster is going to turn out even worse than I'd feared. "The topic of nuclear proliferation brings us, I am afraid, to the subject at hand. You will forgive me if we set aside our views on the scenic American countryside for another day. Time, unfortunately, is short. I think you will understand why when you hear what I have to say." Hansen leaned back in his heavy chair, hoping he had given the right signals. He had been entirely sincere when he said he liked Kirwani and did not relish the task immediately at hand. "Mr. Ambassador, you will not be surprised to learn that this country is well aware of the gross violations of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty that have taken place since Pakistan refused to sign in 1968. The entire world knows about your uranium hexafluoride plant at Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kahuta facility where it is enriched using German centrifuges. We also know what that enriched uranium"--he glanced down at his notes--"in the ninety-five percent range, is being used for. However, we have not been able to dissuade your government from the course it has taken." He paused. "Quite frankly, there's not a hell of a lot we could do about it without having to make some very undiplomatic accusations against our staunchest ally on the Asian subcontinent." Kirwani turned slightly pale. Although he worried about India's growing nuclear capacities as much as the next Pakistani, he still did not particularly like the idea of his country having its own secret nuclear program, developed in part to counter India's. The world needed more dialogue, he believed, not more destruction. However, he wasn't being paid to defend his personal views. "Mr. President, I'm not authorized to discuss the strategic security arrangements of my country, as I am sure you can appreciate." "Yes," Hansen said, "I can appreciate a hell of a lot, Mr. Ambassador. For instance, I can appreciate the multi-billions in military and economic assistance we've lavished on Pakistan over the years. There are those in this administration who think that gives us the right to a hearing. You know, back when Ronald Reagan was President, his administration argued that we could slow down Pakistan's nuclear program by giving you every other possible kind of military aid. So we poured in everything you asked. However, all that aid seems not to have slowed your government's nuclear efforts for so much as a minute. "In fact," Hansen went on, the memory still making him seethe, "what you did was turn to China for the data you needed to manufacture nuclear weapons without testing. That was the thanks we got. Then--" "An unproven accusation, Mr. President," Kirwani interjected lamely. "Yes, China denied it, too, but the Reagan administration took it seriously enough that they halted formal approval of a trade pact with China for almost a year in retaliation. We had hard evidence, believe me. And then--" "Mr. President, we are not, I'm sure, here to give each other history lectures. Certainly neither of us has forgotten that during those years there were 120,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, just over our border. We had legitimate security concerns that could not always--I am speaking hypothetically, of course--be addressed with a strictly conventional deterrent." Kirwani tried to smile. "You do understand, of course, that this conversation is entirely hypothetical." "Of course, so let's travel a little farther into never-never land. What we do know is that the Soviet threat in Afghanistan is now a thing of the past; world conditions have changed dramatically; and there are those in Congress who may choose to wonder why Pakistan still has any justification to stockpile--hypothetically, of course--these 'unconventional' weapons. American aid is not written in stone. Now, is that diplomatic enough for you, Mr. Ambassador?" "We are allies, Mr. President," Kirwani replied calmly, "and allies work in concert toward mutual goals, each bringing to their alliance whatever contribution can further the ends of both. I do hope your government believes it has received as much as it has contributed over the years." Hansen tried not to smile. We never "receive" as much as we "contribute," he was thinking. But then that's how the damned game is played. "In the interest of diplomacy, Mr. Ambassador, I suggest we move this 'theoretical' discussion along. We have reason to believe that a certain number of 'unconventional' weapons may now be in hands neither of us would wish. The question is, how many weapons are involved and what is their yield?" Ambassador Kirwani had been expecting the inquiry. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. The government in Islamabad was beside itself, appalled that controls had been so lax and that now the world was going to know exactly the extent of Pakistan's nuclear program. Before this ghastly situation was resolved, years of secrecy were going to be blown away. Yet in truth part of him was half-relieved that the cat was out of the bag, finally. For either India or Pakistan to loose nuclear weapons on the Asian subcontinent would be to unleash the wrath of Allah upon billions of innocents. It was truly unthinkable. "You do understand, Mr. President, that before this conversation continues we must both agree that it never took place. Furthermore, even if it should take place, it would be purely hypothetical." After Hansen nodded grimly, Kirwani continued. "We both know the Israelis have had uranium bombs, not to mention hydrogen bombs, for many years and yet they have never admitted it publicly. By maintaining a diplomatic fiction they have kept their Arab neighbors quiet on the subject. They are never called to account. The government of Pakistan merely asks to be accorded the same latitude to conduct our security arrangements as we best see fit. The Israelis know it is not in their interest to rattle nuclear sabers, and we know that as well." He edged forward in his chair. "That is, assuming we possessed such sabers, which I in no way acknowledge." "I think we're beginning to understand each other." Hansen nodded. "So perhaps that counts as progress. Of course this conversation never took place, and lest you're wondering, I don't have the Oval Office bugged, the way that idiot Nixon did. I believe terms like 'confidentiality' and 'off the record' still have meaning." Kirwani found himself yearning for a cigarette, though he knew smoking was forbidden here in this presidential sanctuary. "Very well, then, speaking hypothetically and confidentially, I am authorized to inform your government that we have reason to believe that there may be two uranium bombs, in the fifteen-kiloton-yield range, that may be . . . in the wrong hands somewhere in the world. Needless to say, my government is extremely concerned about this and is currently taking steps to establish a full . . . accounting of the situation." Kirwani realized it sounded lame. But his government had authorized him to deliver those words only. "God help us," Hansen sighed. It's true. Or maybe just a coincidence. "When were these hypothetical weapons found to be missing?" "If such a thing were to be true," Kirwani continued, ever cautious; "it might well have been just over a week ago." A final pause. "And we have no idea where they are." 12:15 A.M. Ramirez watched with satisfaction as Abdoullah and Shujat began loading the first device into the payload capsule. Shujat had carefully attached the wiring of the krytrons to a "black box" of computer chips, which was itself connected to a radio receiver, part of the telemetry for VX-1. With the bomb primed, the unsuspecting SatCom crew could now move the weapon--its fifteen kilograms of weapons- grade U235 waiting to be imploded upon itself--up the gantry and into the satellite bay of VX- 1. That completed, work would begin on preparing the second device, which was going to serve as a backup. When Peretz finished, only the computer would know the location of the first target. Total security, which meant nobody would be able to activate any antimissile defense systems. All of Europe would be at risk, though the real target would in fact be among the most obvious. With the U.S.'s entire Mediterranean Sixth Fleet now anchored at Souda Bay, a nuclear explosion there would change the equation of power throughout Europe and the Middle East. It was high time. The so-called Eastern Bloc had turned its back on its Muslim friends in the region, leaving them to fend for themselves. The East had betrayed the Arab cause, just as it had betrayed him. In the old days, Eastern European governments hired him in desperation, then half the time tried to kill him after he had carried out their objectives. Even a long-term purchaser of his services, Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu, had eventually turned against him. But he had seen it coming, even back when he had been the personal gun-for-hire of that late strongman, enjoying the hospitality of his plush seaside resort. That time, his Beretta 9mm had saved the day. And now, here, now that the launch time for the first vehicle was drawing near, he was feeling more and more comfortable about the 9mm under his jacket. This ad hoc collection of operatives he had brought along was going to start getting edgy, more so as the hours ticked by. The first to crack, he knew, would be the two remaining Pakistani engineers. But they were amateurs, which meant they posed no real threat. More than that, their usefulness was soon going to be at an end. . . . No, they weren't the problem now. The problem was going to be egress when this was all over. But the old man who had been the President's professor years ago was a hostage made in heaven. And then, of course, there was the CEO, Bates. Nobody was going to shoot down a chopper with those two luminaries aboard. Although egress was the long-term consideration, there also was a short-term concern. Salim was reporting from Command that the radio had a lot of scrambled traffic. The airwaves were beginning to have the feeling of an assault in the making. . . . "Okay, we're ready," Shujat announced, standing back to admire his handiwork: the armed bomb nestled in its case, surrounded with bubble- wrap. The truck that would take it from the clean room to the gantry area was standing alongside the bench. The weapon itself, accompanied by its electronics, weighed over a hundred kilograms, but they used a forklift to lower it down. Very carefully. Shujat was nervous. Although Octol was an extremely stable compound, which made it an ideal explosive to implode the enriched uranium, still . . . your instincts said to be careful. One nice thing about a nuke, though: if it went off accidentally, you'd never know. You'd be vaporized before your neurons and synapses had a chance to get their act together. You were gone, baby. Atoms. "Take it up and get it on the vehicle," Ramirez ordered. "From now on we work straight through." The two Pakistanis nodded and began slipping a large plastic covering around the crate. The clean-room procedure, which they were following, involved encasing a satellite payload in a sterile plastic wrap to protect it from contamination when it was being transferred to the gantry area. They zipped up the plastic, after which Shujat unsealed the airlock door and returned to help Abdoullah roll the white three- wheeled truck through. Down the hallway they glided, with all the insouciance of two grocery boys delivering a case of beer. The launch facility was compact and efficient, and the gantry elevator was only some fifty meters from the clean room. The hallway itself was now deserted, as all the SatCom personnel were dutifully in their prescribed work areas. Via computer messages Peretz had advised the SatCom tech crews that the Arlington office had put the launch schedule on a crash basis and everybody had to stay at his post. There had been grumbling, but everybody was determined to get with the program. After all, SatCom was a team. An electronic eye opened the sealed doors leading into the gantry area. It, too, was spotlessly clean, with technicians busying to ready the elevator. Everything was being prepared for a countdown. Ramirez looked the scene over, straightening his tie. How ironic, and amusing, to have all these fresh-faced young Americans doing your bidding. The sense of power, and irony, was delicious. "This is the new payload," he announced, with the authority that had long since become second nature. "Open the elevator and take it up." J.J. was there and he looked Ramirez over again, still wondering who this guy was. Dr. Andros hadn't been around for a while, and all of a sudden this asshole was calling the shots. Was he Bill Bates' new second-in-command? It didn't make any sense, but then something funny was definitely going on. The communications system with Command was all screwed up; nobody could reach Dr. Andros; everybody was ordered to stay at their posts and not take a break; and there had even been what sounded like gunfire from the sector where the clean room was. None of these things boded well. But he said nothing, just nodded in acquiescence and opened the door leading to the gantry module. The two new SatCom technicians, who had also shown up with the new AIC (asshole in charge), rolled on the cart-- which was carrying some mysterious new payload. The gantry elevator itself operated inside a mobile tower that rolled on rails, thereby allowing it to be motored next to the vehicle and--at the lower level--opened into the launch facility. From the lower level, technicians could insert the payload module, which then would be hoisted to the top of the gantry and inserted into the vehicle's nose cone. When the vehicle was fully prepped and ready for launch, they would roll the gantry, with its elevator, some fifty meters down the track. Until thirty minutes earlier, the gantry elevator had been stationed at the midpoint of the vehicle, where technicians were loading the "propellant" and making the final adjustments to the quartz mirrors and nozzles. Now that they had finished that task, they could begin the countdown. Only the payload remained to be installed. J.J. watched as the technicians secured the trolley, its plastic- wrapped package, and the two new dudes--a couple of camel jockeys some of the guys said they thought they'd seen at Berkeley--into the module and closed the door. In half an hour's time it would be installed and the countdown could begin. 11:24 P.M. Willem Voorst was at the controls of the Cessna as they powered through the Aegean night, their heading 210 as they closed rapidly on Andikythera. He was holding their altitude at five hundred meters, their airspeed just under a hundred knots, barely above stall. When they were about ten klicks out, he would take the plane down to two hundred meters, then set down about two kilometers northeast of the island. The last stage of the insertion would be via two Zodiac rubber raiding craft and then, finally, scuba. Everything still looked like a go. Reggie was leading Hans and the rest of the team through a final review of the facility blueprints, while Armont was in the cockpit, on the sideband radio to Vance. . . . "Roger, Sirene," Vance was saying, "we're in the communications blockhouse, up on the mountain, so we're a little out of touch, but our best guess is that Terror One is still down at Launch. Everybody else is scattered all over the facility. That suggests an obvious option." "Copy, Ulysses," Armont replied. "That means Plan B. We'll have to take down that point, and then secure the devices. Behead the dragon, then see what's left." "My hunch," Vance concurred, "is that if you take out Ramirez the rest of them will fold. He's their main man. But I suggest extreme caution. He's a pro." "Copy that, Ulysses. Hang on while I put you on standby. Don't go away." "I copy." Armont paused to search the sea below with his IR goggles while he scanned the military frequencies. Neither pleased him. A new storm was growing, building in intensity, and it would complicate matters. But even worse, the military frequencies on the radio were abuzz. "Reggie, something's going on around here and I don't like it," he shouted back to the cabin, his voice strong above the roar of the engines as he scanned frequencies. "There's too much radio traffic in the area, all scrambled. What do you think? I'm worried the Americans are--" Then it came. The radio crackled in crisp military English. "Unidentified aircraft, this is United States Navy warship Yankee Bravo. You are entering a controlled sector. This airspace is currently off limits to civilian aviation. Please identify yourself. Repeat, we must have your ID and destination." "Shit," Armont blanched. He turned back to the cabin and motioned for Dimitri Spiros to come to the cockpit and take the headset. "Give them the cover. We're a medical charter. Delivering emergency blood supplies to Apollonion General in Heraklion. Strictly civilian." Spiros nodded, took the headset, and settled himself in the copilot's seat. 'This is Icarus Aviation's Delta One. We have an approved flight plan from Athens to Iraklion, Crete. What's the problem, Yankee Bravo?" "Icarus Delta One, we've got an exercise under way for the next seventy-two hours. No civilian aircraft are allowed within a sector from latitude 33°30' to 36°30' and longitude 20°00' to 22°30'. We're going to vector you back to Athens." Spiros switched off his mike and yelled back at Armont. "Problem. Looks like the U.S. Navy's cordoned off Andikythera. It's hot. Doesn't sound like they're going to take no for an answer." "So that's what all the radio activity was about." Armont's dark eyes flashed satisfaction that at least one mystery was solved, but they quickly turned grim. "Well, we've got to go in. Give them the cover again and insist it's an emergency. They can check it out. It's all in the flight plan we filed." Which was, of course, bogus. The routing was intended to take them directly over Andikythera, where they would ditch. "See if they'll buy the 'medical emergency' story and give us an IFF and clearance," he continued. "But whatever happens, we're damned sure not going to turn back." "I'll give it a shot," Spiros yelled, "but I don't think it's going to happen. They're going to insist we exit from the area, then file another flight plan that takes us around it. Standard." "Well, try anyway," Armont barked, knowing that the Greek was right. Things were definitely headed off the track. Spiros clicked on the mike. "Yankee Bravo, we have a flight plan filed with Athens Control. Nobody advised us this airspace was off limits. We're making an emergency delivery of blood plasma to the Apollonion General Hospital in Iraklion. We filed a manifest with the flight plan. It's a perishable cargo and we have to have it in their hands by 0600 hours tomorrow." "Sorry about that, Delta One, but this airspace has been quarantined to all civilian traffic as of 2100 hours. No matter what's on your manifest. You're going to have to radio Athens and amend your filing." Spiros shrugged, clicked off his mike, and glanced back with an "I told you so" look. "Now what? They've acquired us on radar, so there's no way we can proceed. We try it and they'll scramble something and escort us out of the area at gunpoint. I'd say we're reamed." It was a tough call, but Armont made it without hesitation. He strode toward the cockpit and shouted to Voorst, "Take her down to three hundred meters. And get ready." The Dutchman nodded as Armont stepped back to the cabin. "Okay, gentlemen, listen up. We have to make a decision and I think we'd better vote on it. We've got three options. We can cancel the op and turn back; we can go on the deck and try our luck at evading their radar; or we can abort and take our chances. If we do that, they'll probably mount a search, but with any luck we'll be written off. I say we do it. Word of warning, though--if we screw this one up, the organization is going to take some heat." The men looked at each other, each doing his own quick calculus. It wouldn't be the first time ARM had found itself having to work outside the system to save the system. Frequently the group or government that hired them ended up--for political expediency--formally denouncing whatever they had done. But it was a flap accompanied by a wink, and it always dissipated after any obligatory moral indignation was ventilated. This time, however, if the op went sour it might not be so easy to explain away. Reginald Hall, the most conservative of them all, looked the most worried. He had a good civilian cover and he wanted to keep it that way. "You know, if we get picked up and detained, it's going to be bloody sticky. Half of the new chaps at Special Projects these days think I raise radishes for a living. It would be bloody awkward to end up in a Greek jail, or worse. Don't think I'd get invited to the Queen's Birthday anymore." Hans was smiling. "Reggie, you old fossil, let me get this straight. You don't mind getting killed on an op, but you don't want to get embarrassed socially. I'd say you've got a priorities problem." "The difference," Hall replied testily, "is that I can control what happens on a regular op. But now you're saying we might have to fight our way through the U.S. Navy just to get in. That's bloody imprudent, mates." "Well," Armont interjected, shouting as he gazed around the cabin, "I'm waiting. We're still about thirty klicks out, which means that if we ditch her now, an insert tonight is out of the question. Plus, we'll be exposed. I'm waiting to hear a veto. If we're going to risk everybody's balls just to save Vance, it's got to be unanimous. Whatever we do, we do together." He paused. "I know what you're thinking--can Vance handle it for another twenty-four hours? Personally, I think he can put together enough moves to gain us the time, but who knows." He looked around with an air of finality. "Okay, I take it silence is consent." That was when Willem shouted from the cockpit. "Pierre, we've just acquired an 'escort.' About fifteen klicks out and closing fast." "All right, lads," Armont ordered. "Time to get the show going. Break out the Zodiacs and assemble your gear." The cabin erupted in action. They had been expecting to deplane at sea, but this was not how they had planned to do it. "I've suspected all along we were a bunch of damned fools," Armont laughed as he strode toward the cockpit. "Now I know for sure." He glanced at his watch. "Sixty seconds." He passed Spiros as he reclaimed the copilot's seat next to Willem Voorst. "What was our ETA for Andikythera?" "We would have made the set-down site in twenty-three more minutes." "Okay, I've got to alert Michael." He flicked on the sideband. "Ulysses, do you copy?" "Loud and clear, Sirene." "Looks like we've got a problem, old buddy. The trusty USN has shut down the airspace around the island. Closed it to commercial traffic." "Don't like the sound of that. It's getting a little lonesome down here." "From the look of things, it may get worse. We're going to have to slip the original insertion. We'll need another twenty-four hours. Can you hang on that long?" "Hey, I'm making new friends all the time. No problem. The downside is that the rockets may start going up. I'm still trying to get a handle on that end of it. Now it sounds like I may have to look into trying to reschedule things a little." "We need a breather," Armont said. "Our options don't look too good at this end. But we'll be there, so don't believe anything you hear on the radio. All things may not be what they appear." "Copy that. Have a nice day." "Roger." Armont clicked off the mike. "All right." He turned and motioned Spiros back to the cockpit. "Tell them we're losing radio contact. And our navigation gear is going. Say we're going to have to reduce altitude and fly with a compass and visuals. Maybe that will muddy things long enough to get us down." Dimitri Spiros hit the radio and delivered the message. To total disbelief. "That's a crock, Delta One. Assume a heading of three-four-zero immediately and get the hell out of this airspace. Immediately. Do you acknowledge?" "Transmission breaking up," Spiros replied, toggling the switch back and forth as he did to add some credibility to his assertion. "That's more bullshit, Delta One. Either you acknowledge or--" Spiros switched off the microphone. "We've got to put her in. Now." 11:26 P.M. Captain Jake Morton was piloting the F-14D Super Tomcat and he honestly couldn't believe this was all that serious. He and his radar-intercept officer, Frank Brady, had been scrambled on short notice and, though he relished the chance to clock a little flight time, he felt in his bones that this was a red herring. He didn't even have a wingman, which told him that Command on the Kennedy probably wasn't too excited either. The blip on the VSD, vertical simulation display, was some tin can cruising just above the chop down there, pulling around a hundred knots and now losing altitude. Obviously just some civilian asshole, who wasn't going to make it unless he pulled out damned soon. He had to be close to stall. Problem was, though, the bogey had responded to the Kennedy's radio room with some "medical charter" malarkey and then shut down. What was that all about? And now? Were these guys really having radio and nav problems, like they'd said, or were they about to try something funny, some amateur attempt at evasion? Well, he thought, if that's their game, they're pretty fucking dumb. So what the hell was the real story? He'd learned one thing in fifteen years of Navy: when you didn't know what could happen, you planned for the worst. He switched on the intercom and ordered Brady to turn on the television-camera system (TCS), the F-14's powerful nose video, and use the radar to focus it, bringing up the image from down below for computer optimization. "Yankee Bravo, this is Birdseye," he said into his helmet mike. 'That bogey that ID'd itself as Icarus Delta One has still got a heading of about two-seventy, but now he's definitely losing altitude. In fact, he's practically in the drink. We're trying to get him on the TCS and take a look." "Roger," came back the voice. "We've lost radio contact. Advise extreme caution. Whoever the hell he is, he's a bogey. I want him the hell out of this airspace. Don't waste time with the TCS. Get a visual." "Copy, Yankee Bravo, want me to fly down for a look-see?" "Confirmed, Birdseye. And assume you've got a hostile on your hands. Caution advised. Repeat, assume he's a hostile." "Roger. We copy." Morton tapped the stick and his F-14 banked into a steep dive, 74,000 pounds of steel plummeting downward. What am I doing? he asked himself again as he watched his altimeter begin to spin. I buzz the guy and I'll probably scare hell out of him. He'll wind up in the soup for sure. And if he still doesn't respond, then what? Am I supposed to shoot down a civilian? The very thought made his new mustache itch, a clear sign of nerves. Such things had been done before, but Captain Jake Morton had never done them and he had no interest in starting a new trend in his career. He had a wife and kids he still had to look in the face. On the other hand, a close encounter would definitely get their attention. But then, these were international waters, and the legality of interdicting civilian traffic was not all that obvious, and might be even less obvious in a court of law some faraway day. Particularly if it really was a medical emergency situation like those bozos down there claimed. Could make for exceptionally bad press. Which didn't do a thing for promotions in the U.S. Navy. 11:31 P.M. "All right," Armont said, reaching for the microphone. "We've got to confirm with Mike. He's got to know what's going on." He flicked the dial on the radio. "Ulysses, do you read? Come in." "I copy. What's the story?" "Insert is a definite abort. Repeat, abort insert. We're expecting some company. Red, white, and blue." "That's going to blow everything." "You've got a roger, Ulysses." "How far are you from Andikythera?" "Looks like about twenty klicks," Armont answered. "You were timed for 0200. Can vou still make it tonight at all?" "Doubtful. Even with the two Zodiacs and outboards, by the time we reached there it'd be almost daylight. We may have to revise the insert, plus twenty-four." "How about your gear?" Vance's voice betrayed his concern. "We'll need hardware. The hostiles are loaded for bear. You--" "We'll do what we can. We don't like it either. . . . Uh- oh." He had just glanced at the radar. "Company's here, Ulysses. Stay up on this frequency." "Copy." Armont turned to Voorst. "Okay, we've got to ditch now. That's probably an F-14"--he pointed to the radar screen-- "and he's going to be on us in less than two minutes. We have to give him something to talk about back in the briefing room." Willem Voorst was staring through the cockpit windscreen at the dark, choppy sea skimming by just below the fuselage. "Hang on." The ARM gear was packed in waterproof containers, and the Zodiac rafts were by the doors, ready to eject. Willem loosened his flight helmet and dropped the flaps. "I hope this baby is insured by somebody." "It's insured," Armont said, grimacing to think of the paperwork that lay ahead. "We just had a malfunction. That's my professional opinion." 11:33 P.M. The storm had cut visuals to a minimum, and the puddle hopper down there was still not responding. Morton figured if giving the guy a flyby didn't get his attention, then Command would want to hand him a little heat, say a tracer from the Tomcat's 20mm cannon. He prayed it wouldn't come to that, because that might well cause the guy to pee in his pants and go down for sure. What the hell was going on, anyway? The wing had shipped out of Souda, battle-ready, with less than an hour's notice. There still hadn't been a briefing. The whole thing was some top-secret exercise nobody could figure. And now this bullshit. He thought again about the rumor going around the flight deck of the Kennedy that an AWACS had been brought up from Saudi to monitor all air traffic in the area. What the hell was that about? Command had dropped a hint about terrorists, but this whole mobilization seemed like using a Phoenix missile on a mosquito. Then, just as he had feared, the radio crackled again. "Birdseye, this is the TAO. I've just got you authorization to lay a tracer alongside that bogey if he refuses to acknowledge your flyby." "Please repeat for verify." Morton had expected it, but he wasn't about to jeopardize his career over a misunderstood radio transmission. "You have positive authorization to lay one tracer in the vicinity of Icarus Delta One. Monitor her response and we will advise follow-up procedure." "Roger. But first let me try to raise them on the radio one last time." That cooks it, Morton told himself. Guess they want to play hardball with these assholes. Whatever this so- called "exercise" is all about, somebody upstairs is taking it all very seriously. But then who knew? Maybe those guys down there were terrorists. Word had already reached the Kennedy's lower decks about the Glover being shot all to hell in a false-flag attack, which meant caution was the byword. The rumor mill also had it that terrorists had seized one of the small Greek islands in this area. Was that it? Was the Navy's quarantine intended to keep them from bringing in reinforcements? To interdict them if they tried to get away? Had the U.S. Navy been made into a watchdog?--a pretty lowly station after the glories in the Gulf. He spoke over the cockpit intercom, the ICS, advising Brady of the authorization. It was a formality, since Frank had monitored all the radio talk. Brady said, "Shit," then flipped on the F-14's weapons station and armed it. "We're hot." 11:38 P.M. The radio crackled again, and this time Willem Voorst flicked a switch so the entire cabin could hear. "Delta One, this is Captain Jake Morton, United States Navy. I'm giving you one last warning. You have been instructed to alter your heading to three-four-zero and exit this airspace. If you do not comply, I am authorized to employ whatever degree of force is necessary to make sure you do not proceed. What is your intention? I repeat, what is your intention?" "All right," Armont said, "this is it." The pontoons bounced across the chop as Voorst touched down. He reversed the props and in seconds had brought the Cessna to an abrupt halt, its frail fuselage bobbing like a cork. With the storm coming up, the sea was rougher than it looked. Hans immediately opened the door, then nodded back to the cabin and reached for the line attached to the first raft. He had done this dozens of times before, but it always was scary. You had to watch out for the motor, inflate the raft from the doorway, then get your gear in, all the while keeping hold of the line. Do it wrong and you could lose the whole thing. "Okay, Reggie," Armont yelled, "time to earn your share." "What bloody share? It's fifteen percent of nothing." Hall sighed and stared out the Cessna's open doorway. Even in the dim moonlight he could see the whitecaps thrown up by the chop, and he felt his testicles tighten. "This is going to be a hell of an insertion." He re- cinched the straps of the backpack containing his gear. Armont watched him swing out and down, knowing he hated the moment, then motioned for Hugo Voorst to step up to the doorway. "Hurry. We may be eating some cannon fire any time now." Voorst moved up quickly. He glanced toward the cockpit one last time, then seized his gear and dropped down. His brother, who was still setting the charge, would be the last out. "Our new escort is going to have us dead to rights in about sixty seconds," Willem announced from up front. "Everybody out, now." Armont was securing the last of the gear needed for the insertion and the assault, readying it to be passed through the hatch, while Willem Voorst was finishing with the charge of C-4. Armont looked around the cabin one last time, hoping they had gotten everything they absolutely needed. Several crates of backup gear would have to be left, but unexpected contingencies went with the territory. With that sober last thought, he signaled to Voorst, who was ready with the detonator. "Set it for forty-five seconds. That should be enough." As the Dutchman nodded, he reached for the rope and dropped. Willem spun the dials on the timer, then wrapped it against the dull orange stick of C-4 and tossed it into the copilot's seat. In seconds he was at the open doorway, swinging down the line and into the dark below. 11:40 P.M. Now Morton was really puzzled. The pilot had just gone into the drink. What had happened? Maybe, he was thinking, he should call in a Huey for a rescue op? No, this setup was starting to smell to high heaven. They had refused to change their heading, so the bastards had to be up to no good. No legitimate civilian aircraft would ignore a U.S. Navy wave-off. . . . Now . . . finally he could make a visual, rough through the downpour, but it looked like . . . it was a fucking seaplane. So instead of responding to orders to vector out of the airspace, they had settled in. Wiseguys. Well, even with the stormy sea down there, they still could take off, leave the same way they came in, and nothing would be made of it. First, though, they needed a short lesson in aviation protocol. "Frank, let me handle this. I'm going to get their fucking attention." Using his right thumb, he toggled the weapons selector on the side of the throttle quadrant down from SP/PH, past SW, and into the setting marked GUNS. The 20mm cannon was primed with two tracers, which should give the bastards something to think about. Now the red radar lock on his HUD was flashing. That asshole down there, whoever it was, was in for a big fucking surprise . . . His thumb was about to depress the red "fire" button when the first explosion came: down below a giant fireball illuminated the night sky, followed by secondaries! Jesus! Medical supplies, right! That innocent-looking little Cessna was a flying munitions bin. They really _were _terrorists. A pillar of black smoke now covered the entire area. He ordered Brady to switch off the weapons station, and then, his hand trembling, he toggled his oxygen regulator up a notch, trying to catch his breath as he pulled back on the stick. 11:45 P.M. "Ulysses," Armont's voice was coming over the radio, mixed with static. "Do you copy?" At least they're okay, Vance thought. "Transmission is lousy, Sirene. What happened?" "We had to take a swim. About twenty klicks too soon." "Which means we definitely scratch the original ETA, right? Does the twenty-four still look firm?" "Assuming we don't get any more surprises. This one is turning into a bitch." "Don't they all?" Vance said. "Everybody is in good shape. So nothing else has changed." Vance looked around the mountain and wished he could believe that. The whole thing could have been over in another three or four hours. Now the terrorists had time to arm the vehicles and maybe even get one up. Life was about to get a lot more complicated. He finally spoke into the mike. "Let's keep in radio contact. The deployment here keeps changing. Who knows what it'll be like by then." "We roger that." Armont spoke quickly to somebody else, then came back. "There should be plenty of time to chat." "For you, maybe, but I'm not so sure how much spare time there's going to be on this end. I'll try to hold everything down till 0200 tomorrow, but it's going to be tough. If you can't raise me, then just proceed as planned. I'll be expendable." "That's a touching sentiment, Ulysses, but you know that's not the way we work. Our people always come first." "Keep thinking that way. It's an inspiring concept." "Okay, we'll review procedures and wait to hear from you. That's all for now." "Roger. Have fun." He sighed. 12:23 A.M. Up ahead through the dark rain loomed the rugged atoll of an island. It was not large enough to have any vegetation; it really was only a giant granite outcropping that nearly disappeared every time a breaker washed over it. This, Pierre reflected with chagrin, is going to be our staging area, as well as our new home for a full day. A little camouflage would handle the problem of detection by any snooping USN flyovers, but the boys weren't going to get much sleep. "This is a hell of a deployment base," Reggie was saying, his voice barely audible over the sputter of the two out- boards. The two black Zodiac rafts were now side by side, keeping together. His normally florid complexion had turned even more deeply ruddy from the cold and frustration. "How in bloody hell did it come to this?" Armont was so frustrated he could barely manage a civil answer. "It came to this because we let a client spec a job. We left a piece of security to the client, always a bad idea." He climbed over the side of the Zodiac, splashing through the surf, and began securing the first line to a jagged outcropping. Around them the cold waves of the Aegean lapped through the rain. Dawn was hours away, and there was nothing to do now--except recriminate. Dimitri Spiros, who had installed the security system for the SatCom facility, waded ashore looking as sheepish as he felt. He had only himself to blame for the penetration, he knew, and he had no intention of trying to defend it now. "What can I say?" He grimaced and caught the line Hans was tossing to him. "I should have put my foot down. Sometimes pleasing the client up front means not pleasing him at the end. If something goes wrong, it's always your fault, not his. Human nature. I didn't listen to my own better judgment. Bates claimed they had enough security, and I let him get away with it." "It's in the past now," Armont said, biting his tongue. "We all keep learning from our mistakes. Just as long as the education doesn't get too expensive." Hans was setting up the camouflage that would cover them during the daylight hours to come. They had prepared for most contingencies and had brought enough camouflage netting to cover them and the rafts, which they now had dragged onto the atoll to serve as beds. They would take turns sleeping, letting whoever felt like it grab a few winks. Now Armont was staring into the dark sky, thinking . . . thinking there must be a better way to pay for your caviar. CHAPTER THIRTEEN 11:47 P.M. "We're on our own," Vance said, clicking off the mike and looking around the darkened blockhouse. "Marooned." Cally, who had been listening to the radio exchange, already had other things to think about. She was engaged by the computer terminal, checking out the status of the facility. "Hate to tell you this, but it's worse than you know." She was staring at the screen. "They've taken over the Fujitsu. They've locked out all the other workstations and there's a countdown in process. Look! Somebody's on Big Benny who knows all about SORT." "About _what_? Sort?" "SORT's the program that sets up the automatic lift-off sequence. Once it's started, it proceeds like clockwork. The Cyclops comes up to power; the radars are all switched on; and the vehicle's electronics go to full alert status. The main console in Command controls everything and nothing can prevent the launch from proceeding unless it's stopped from there." "How long have we got?" "It's in the abbreviated mode. That's a six-hour countdown." He looked at her. "So you're saying we've got roughly six hours to get down there and stop it?" "Six hours on the nose." "How about your friend, Georges?" "He's logged off the computer. Like I said, it's somebody else. They must have brought along their own specialist. Guess they came prepared." "One more problem," Vance observed with a sigh. "First Ramirez, and then this one. Guess we'll have to neutralize him, too. If that's the only way to stop the launch. This is getting dirtier all the time." "There's no way to do it except get into Command," Cally went on. "But even then shutting it down's not that simple. Once it goes into auto mode, you can't just flip a switch. But still, that's the only place--" "You're talking about a frontal assault that could get bloody," Vance said. "They might kill more of your technicians. No, the assault will have to wait for ARM. We're going to need to work a different way." He paused. "Maybe it's time we blew up something." "You mean--?" "What's the definition of a terrorist? It's somebody who uses well- placed acts of violence to disrupt society's normal functions, right? Murder one and frighten a thousand. A terrorist is somebody who takes on a more powerful organization by hit-and-run tactics. Scaring them." "So?" She looked at him quizzically, her dark eyes puzzled. "Well, they've taken over the facility now, which means they're the establishment, and we're the outsiders. The tables are turned, which means we have to become terrorists against them." "But--" "We don't have much to work with, so we're going to have to do some improvising." He turned thoughtful, scratching at his chin. "How about some 'mollys'--throw together some gasoline, sulfuric acid, sugar . . . and maybe a little potassium chlorate for ignition?" "Mollys? You mean--" "Molotov cocktails. And if you design them for acid ignition, then you can blow them with a bullet. Not a bad little standoff bomb." "I'm not so keen on blowing up equipment. It's hard enough to get things to work around here when we try." "Ditto the fiber-optics cables, I suppose?" "That would be even worse. We'd be down for months." "Okay, nothing crucial." He strolled to the open doorway and looked down the hill, pondering. "We just need to put something out of commission that could be fixed easily later on. And you know what: I think I see the perfect target." "What are you talking about?" She rose, stepped over, and followed his gaze. "Right down there. That gantry. It's the only way to prep the satellite payload, right? Maybe we could take that out. It would keep them from installing a bomb, put them out of business without damaging the vehicle. Nothing serious. They won't be able to use it, but you can put it back into operating condition in a couple of days, with the right parts. Think that's possible?" She seemed disposed to the concept, though still none too keen. "Okay, but I've got a better idea. How about just blowing up a portion of the rails it moves on? Then they couldn't roll it away from the vehicle to launch." "Sounds intelligent to me, but I've got a hunch we'd better not wait too long." He was feeling energized after the steak. "Matter of fact, I'd say there's no time like the present. Where can we find some chemicals? Even the kitchen would be a place to start." "I've got a better idea," she interjected. "There's a construction shed. It might have something left from back when." Then why don't we go down and have a look?" he mused. "Figure out if there's anything we can liberate." That's fine with me." She sighed, not sounding as though she meant it. "All we have to do is manage to get down there without being spotted and killed." "I don't know how much more excitement I can take." He definitely felt out of control, human prey, and he hated every minute of it. "That goes for me, too." But she was already switching off the workstation. By now the trek down the hill was getting to be all too familiar--the bristly Greek scrub, the rough outcroppings. Some night birds twittered nervously, but otherwise only their labored breathing broke the silence. The harshness of the terrain made him think again about the Greek character, ancient and modern. To stand up to a land like this, you had to be tough. Which brought his thoughts again to the dark-haired woman by his side. Once in a while you ran across somebody with whom you absolutely clicked. He believed in love at first sight--he had been an incorrigible romantic all his life--and this was definitely the feeling he had now. And he thought-- well, hoped--she felt the same. Could it be true? Maybe it was just the fact they were working together. They were both strong- willed, and he sensed real potential for friction. "What are you going to do when this is all over?" she was asking, a wistful tone entering her voice. "Just go back to sailing?" "You sound as though you already assume it's going to be over." He laughed, in spite of himself. Was she thinking the same thing? "I admire your optimism. But to tell you the truth, if we live through this, I'm hoping to try my _Odyssey_ trek all over again." He took her hand as they navigated the stones. "Want to come along? Make it a twosome?" "Maybe." Her tone said she was intrigued, and she didn't drop his hand. "It sounded pretty heroic." "Well, it was mainly just . . . a challenge." He shrugged, continuing on down the dark trail. "Calling it heroic is maybe a bit much." "No way." Her voice had a wonderful finality. "I think your attempt to recreate the voyage of Ulysses was a heroic undertaking. Period." She paused. "You know, maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but you remind me an awful lot of somebody I used to know." "Who's that?" "His name doesn't matter, but it was Alan Harris. He was a biochemistry professor. Tall like you, older than me. I guess I made a fool of myself over him, looking back." Vance didn't know quite what to say. "What happened?" "What do you think happened? Older guy, smart, lovesick student looking for . . . never mind. When I think about it, I don't know whether to laugh or cry." Then her mood abruptly changed. "Okay, the construction shed is right over there." She was pointing through the dark and the light spatters of rain that had suddenly appeared. Was it beginning to storm again? "It's always locked, but it's got its own separate computer control, so it won't be shut down like everything else. All anybody has to do to get in is just to code in a requisition. That's how we keep inventory." He led the way, keeping to the shadows. "Well, can you tell it to 'open sesame' and let us in?" She nodded, then entered a small portico next to the entryway. There, on a terminal, she typed in the code that would disconnect the heavy electronic locks on the shed's door. Moments later he heard a click and watched the green diodes on the locks start to glow. Next it swung open and the fluorescent lights came on to reveal a perfect high-tech fabrication shop, with rows of precision machine tools lined up in neat rows, the floors spotless. Looking around, he wondered what kind of chemicals he could scrounge. There had to be something. . . . 12:10 A.M. "Everything checks here," Wolf Helling said, looking at the wide board of lights in Launch Control. 'The Pakis went up on the elevator and wired in the device. Nobody here had any inkling what it is." He was speaking on his walkie-talkie to Dore Peretz, who was still operating the Fujitsu out of Command. "I think we're ready." 'Then you d better roll the gantry the hell back, away from the vehicle," Peretz' voice barked. "My next item in the countdown is to test the alignment on the Cyclops, make sure the vehicle is receiving power." "Okay," Helling replied. 'The electronics are all in a positive state of mind here, but I guess you can't be too safe. By the way, how's everybody doing there? Having any trouble?" "Our guests are getting with the program," came the answer. "I've even got an engineer friend here named Georges who's going to be a great help when the time comes. Small attitude problem, but nothing I can't manage." "Well, keep them all frightened. It's the best way. I'll get started with the rollback. Should only take a few minutes." "Go for it," Dore Peretz said. 12:15 A.M. Vance felt the cold steel rails, glistening lightly in the thin moonlight, and wondered how long it would take to set the charge. He also wondered if his impromptu bomb would work as planned. It should. In the shop Cally had led him directly to a cache of British- made gelignite, left over from the days of excavation. He had shaped a so-called "diamond" charge which, when wrapped around a rail and detonated with a fuse, would produce shock waves that would meet at the center, then be deflected at right angles, shattering the metal. It was a little-known bomber's trick--one he learned from Willem Voorst--that usually produced total deformation and fracture. He had insisted that she let him handle this one alone, claiming there was no need to endanger two people, and finally she had agreed. Dr. Calypso Andros: she had already proven she could take control of a situation, like the one up the mountain, and handle it. That cool would come in handy later. He also liked her New York street smarts. Yet beneath it all, he sensed something was wrong. She mentioned some guy named Alan, then clammed up. Funny. Reminding a woman of some old boyfriend could be a mixed blessing. Sometimes you got to take credit for the other guy's failings. . . . Well, that cuts both ways. Admit it, he finally lectured himself. Calypso Andros reminds you of Eva Borodin. She was the temperamental Slavic beauty who had been the love--on and off--of his life. That was the bottom line. He still wore her wedding ring. He had loved her more than anything, and after she left he had tried everything he could think of to help forget her. None of it had worked. Even now, here, the thought of her kept coming back. . . . But enough. Concentrate on the job at hand and get going. Quickly he began securing the soft explosive. Although his instinct still was just to blow the whole gantry and have done with it, he agreed with Cally that that was a no-no. The idea was sabotage, not demolition. The difference might not be all that subtle, but there was a difference. The gantry, a huge derrick on wheels, was illuminated by intensely focused floodlights from a battery across from the vehicles. The tracks were about sixty meters long, which suggested the distance it had to be away from VX-1 before the vehicle could lift off. So if he could destroy the tracks close enough, the gantry would be stuck in place, making a launch impossible. The gelignite should do it, he told himself. The charge was going to wrap almost perfectly around the rails. This ought to be a snap. . . . At that moment, he felt a tremor in the rails and looked up to see the lights on the gantry flicker as its motors revved to life. Then it started rolling; like a monolith, slow and assured, it began inching away from the vehicle and toward him. 12:18 A.M. "Okay, it's moving back," Helling said. "I guess this thing--" Suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, the gantry halted, its steel wheels screeching to a stop along the tracks. "What happened?" Ramirez's eyes narrowed as he gazed out through the viewing window. A red indicator had come up on the console, flashing. The gantry, bathed in floodlights, was just standing there, stubbornly still. "The control went into a safety mode." The German was staring at the console. "According to the lights here, the track sensors shut it down. Maybe the rails are obstructed." 12:19 A.M. Good safety system, Vance thought. He could feel them now, beneath the explosive--electronic sensors on the tracks, a thin line of parallel wires held by insulators, had detected his tampering and halted the gantry. Wait a minute, he suddenly thought, maybe I don't have to blow the track after all. Why not just short-circuit these wires and let the thing's own safety system shut it down? They may not figure out for hours what the problem is. With a grin he began going along the track, feeling his way through the dark as he twisted the parallel safety tripwires together every few feet, making certain they shorted. 12:20 A.M. "Well, we don't have time to tinker with it now," Ramirez declared, feeling his pique growing. "There's only a problem if it's a malfunction of the motors, and they don't report a problem." He pointed down to the console. "So just switch it over to manual." Helling stirred uneasily. "I'm not sure it's such a good idea to override the safety system. We don't know--" "When I'm in need of your views, I'll ask for them." Ramirez cut him off. "Now go to manual and get on with it." Wolf Helling was a risk-taker, but only when he knew the downside. If the gantry motors shut down, he figured there probably was a reason. On the other hand, the first device already had been loaded onto VX-1, all systems checked, the preflight punch lists taken care of. Maybe it was better to go ahead and keep Ramirez's mind at ease rather than worry too much about the technicalities. After all, unanimity was as important as perfection. "If you say so," he declared finally. "But it's risky. I take no responsibility for this." He flipped the gantry control motors to override and shoved the operating lever forward. . . . Outside the glass partition the huge gantry again began to inch along its steel tracks, moving away from the vehicle. "See," Ramirez said coldly and with satisfaction. "It was probably a malfunction of the indicator lights. We don't have time to troubleshoot every little glitch that crops up. Now increase the speed and let's get on with it." Wolf Helling, his precise Prussian mind clicking, was liking Ramirez's recklessness less and less. On the other hand, he knew better than to contradict the temperamental South American he'd hired on with. "Let's keep the speed the way it is. And I think I ought to go out and check the track, just to be sure." "If you want to, but don't take too long." 12:21 A.M. Uh-oh. Vance felt the tracks suddenly shiver. Then with what sounded like a painful grind of metal on metal, the gantry started moving again. They'd decided to override the safety shutoff. Okay, he thought, back to the original plan. He turned and retraced his steps to the place where he had left the gelignite, feeling along the track until his fingers touched it. It was still in place, but there was no time now to set up a fuse. Which meant there was only one other way to blow it. Quickly he secured the diamond-shaped patch more tightly around the steel, then looked up to check the gantry. It was now about five meters away, its wheels inching along the rails with a ponderous inevitability as its electric motors hummed. He pulled out his sailor's tin of matches and withdrew one. Relieved it was still dry, he scraped the match across the bottom of the can and it flamed in the dark. Next he quickly pressed the wooden end into the soft gelignite, making a target he could see from a distance. After checking it one last time, he rose and dashed for the safety of the nearest shed, pulling the Uzi from his belt and chambering a round. He leaned against a darkened wall and took careful aim, on semi-auto. The gantry was only a meter away from the charge when he finally squeezed off a round. It kicked up a spray of gravel next to the rails, the small stones glistening in the floodlights like small shining stars as they erupted slightly to the left of where he had placed the charge. Damn. He knew the match could be seen, as well as the flare of the Uzi, but maybe nobody was watching. In any case, he adjusted his aim and quickly fired again. But this time he had moved the sight too far to the right. Again the gravel splayed, another sparkle under the lights, but once more nothing happened. Now the gantry's wheels were about to pass directly over the explosive. If the thing was going to be immobilized, he had one shot left. He took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. . . . To the sound of a dull click. His last round had misfired. 12:22 A.M. "Something's going on out there," Ramirez yelled, grabbing Helling's arm. "I saw flashes of light. Somebody's shooting. See it? Over there." He was pointing. "That's exactly why I wanted to check it out." At last, Helling thought. Maybe now he'll listen to reason. "Look, I'm going to shut this damned thing down right now. Till we know what's going on." He hit the control and applied the brakes. 12:23 A.M. He had just squandered his last rounds and his chance to cripple the gantry. He sighed involuntarily. _C'est la vie._ At that instant, however, whoever was manning the controls locked the wheels and there was the loud screech of metal on metal. He watched the wheels slide across the patch of gelignite, creating instantaneous frictional heat. Immediately a blinding white flare erupted from the tracks, followed by the loud crack of an explosion. He watched as the first steel wheel was sheared away and the gantry lurched awkwardly forward. Next the axle ground into the gravel next to the track as the motion of the giant tower tilted it askew. It had not toppled over, but it was leaning dangerously. Whatever might be required to repair it, the gantry was no longer functional. SatCom was shut down for the foreseeable. He was less than happy with his handiwork. Cally's going to kill me-- that was his first thought--after her long diatribe about not doing any big damage. Then he watched as it got worse. The gantry jerked again as the axle cracked from the stress and began slowly to heel. Like the slow crash of a tumbling redwood--he almost wanted to shout "timberrrr"--it toppled forward, landing with an enormous crash that shook the very ground around him. Angle-iron and lights splintered into the granite-strewn soil that separated the launch pad from the rest of the facility. Now the gantry lay like a fallen giant. . . . As he watched, he slowly recognized he had achieved nothing but malicious damage. By collapsing, the gantry was now out of the way, below the sight lines between the Cyclops system on the mountain and the vehicle. They still could launch. VX-1 must already be armed, he realized; the bomb is aboard and set to fly. 12:24 A.M. "Goddammit I warned you it was a mistake," Helling exploded, still stunned by the view out the window. The gantry had just heeled over and collapsed onto the track. "At least it fell out of the way," Bamirez declared calmly. "No problem." He cursed himself for not taking Helling's advice. For once the German had been right. "Nothing's changed. We launch on schedule. But right now we have some unfinished business." "What--?" "That bastard from up on the mountain. He had to be the one responsible. I know it was him. I can smell it." He drew out his 9mm Beretta and clicked off the safety, then angrily motioned for Helling and headed out the door. "Come on, let's get the son of a bitch. I'm going to kill him personally." 12:25 A.M. Now what? Vance rose and started walking toward an opening he saw that led into the underground launch facility. Maybe, he was thinking, he could slip into Launch Control and somehow sabotage the vehicle itself. A dark tunnel branched off on his right--the lights were off--so he probably could go directly Okay, he thought, assume one of the bombs must already be installed on the first vehicle and ready for launch. But given all the krytron detonators the Pakistani had, there could well be more. Maybe you should try and find them, see what you can learn. Could there be a way to disable the weapon now poised up there without having to reach it? Maybe disarm it electronically? He tried to guess what the firing mechanism could be. Clearly if you were planning to deliver a nuke, you were going to need some way to control the detonation. So how did it work? Maybe a pressure apparatus that could blow it on the way down, during the reentry phase? Why not? As the vehicle encountered denser and denser atmosphere, pressure could activate a switch that sensed the altitude and instigated detonation at a preprogrammed height. Or . . . another possibility was a radio-controlled device connected to the guidance system in the computer. That would be trickier, but it might ultimately be more reliable. It also might be easier to abort. In fact, the whole thing might be doable from here on the ground. . . . But what if he got caught? His Uzi was empty; Cally had his Walther; and nothing now stood between him and the terrorists except his own . . . bad luck. As he edged into the darkened tunnel, he felt the coolness envelop him. The whole operation now felt as though it were in a shroud. . . . He was almost at the end when he heard the steel door behind him slam shut. He whirled to look, but nothing betrayed any sign of life. Instead there was only stony silence, punctuated by the mechanical hum of the facility's underground environmental control system. But as he turned back, two figures stood in the doorway ahead. Oh, shit! He hit the floor just as it started, a ricochet of bullets slapping around him. Then, as abruptly as the fusillade had begun, it stopped. He was so astonished to still be alive he barely heard the voice from the smoky doorway cut through the sudden silence. Then it registered, accent and all. "Is that you, my friend?" A pause. "You are like the cat with nine lives, and until a second ago you had used only eight. I assume your ninth got you through my colleagues' burst of impetuosity just now. But I want to see you before I kill you." "Your counting system needs work," Vance said, still in shock. He gingerly pulled himself up off the floor, fully expecting to be shot then and there. The thought made him giddy, feeling like a Zen master living as though already dead. "I've got eight and a half left." "So it is you." The accent was unmistakable. "Don't make me sorry I didn't let Wolf here finish you just now. However, this matter is personal. I want the satisfaction of doing it myself." Vance stepped into the light. "Sabri Ramirez. I can't really say it's a pleasure to meet you." The giddy feeling was growing. "I feel like I'm going to need a shower, just being in the same space." Ramirez stared at him, startled. "How do you know who I am?" "I'll bet half the bozos who came with you don't know, do they?" Vance looked him over, feeling his life come back. Stand up and take it like a man. "Back from the dead. It's a miracle." "Yes, I am back. But you soon will be entering that condition, and I doubt very much you will be returning." Vance's mind flashed a picture of Ramirez strafing the Navy frigate, shooting the SatCom technician. Not to mention, he was planning to detonate a nuclear device somewhere in the world. Not a man given to idle threats. He was also known to love torture, part of his personal touch. "Incidentally," Ramirez went on, "perhaps you should pass me that Uzi. I assume the clip is empty, but it's liable to make my friend Wolf here nervous." "Wouldn't want that, would we." Vance handed it over, metal stock first. "Thank you." Ramirez took it and tossed it to the emaciated, balding man standing next to him. "By the way, you know my name but I still do not know yours." "Vance. Mike Vance." Why not tell him? he thought. It hardly matters now. "Vance . . . that name rings a bell . . . from somewhere . . ." The thoughtful look turned slowly to a smile. "Ah yes, as I recall you work free-lance for ARM." He paused, the smile vanishing as he mentioned the name. "So tell me, are they planning to try to meddle here? That would be a big mistake, Mr. Vance, I can assure you." More bad news, Vance thought. Ramirez is no fool. He must have known we did the security for this place. "I've got a feeling they're going to be interested in what happens to me, if that's what you mean." Ramirez moved closer, looking squarely in his face. "You know, the eyes of a man always tell more about him than any words he can say. And your eyes give you away. You're lying, and you're scared." He stepped back and smiled. "And I'll tell you something," Vance continued, meeting his stare. "When I look in your eyes, I don't see anything. But even a hyena can know fear. Your time will come." It was pointless bravado, but it felt good to say it. "We'll see who can know fear." Ramirez scowled angrily at the use of the nickname he hated. "We will also learn something about your tolerance for pain, Mr. Vance. In very short order. You are not very popular with some of my men." "They're not very popular with me." The defiance just kept coming; he wasn't sure from where. "And I've got some other news for you. You're about to find out that Andikythera is a very small, vulnerable objective." "You persist in trying to antagonize me, Mr. Vance. I could easily have had you killed just now, and spared myself this pointless interview." "Why didn't you?" The giddy feeling was coming back. "I wanted to show you how stupid you really are." He's right about that, Vance told himself. I think I've just proved it. "But your nine lives have run out. I'm afraid I'm no longer interested in this conversation." He turned away and motioned for Wolf Helling. "Let me just shoot him and get it over with," the German said. "Not just yet," Ramirez replied after a moment's thought. "No, I think Jean-Paul would enjoy softening him up first." 6:15 A.M. "Mr. President," the voice said, "have you made your decision yet?" John Hansen felt his anger growing. The voice on the other end of the phone exuded the self-assurance of a man who was holding something unspeakably horrible over your head. Either he could bluff with the best of them, or he knew exactly what he was doing. Which was it? He looked over at Theodore Brock, who had been at his desk, just down from the Oval Office, early, arranging for the wire transfers of the funds to Geneva. The eight hundred million dollars had been placed in a numbered account in a branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland, just in case. The objective, however, was never to take the final step and transfer it into the accounts the terrorist had designated in Banco Ambrosiano. Brock now sat on the couch across, fiddling with his glasses. A cup of coffee sat next to him, untouched. "We've accepted your proposal, in principle," Hansen replied, nervously drumming his fingertips on the desk. He scarcely could believe the words were emerging from his mouth. "We have some conditions of our own, concerning the hostages, but I think it's possible to come to terms, given time. Arrangements are being made concerning the money." "According to the procedures I faxed you?" the voice asked. "Not entirely," Hansen went on, beginning what was going to be his own gamble. "The funds will have to be handled through our embassy in Switzerland. It may take a few days." There was a moment of silence on the other end, then, "You don't have a few days, Mr. President. Time has run out. You have to make a decision. Either you honor our demands or you must be prepared to accept the consequences. And I assure you they are terrible. Which will it be?" "It is going to be neither," Hansen replied coolly, sensing he still had leverage. "It is in both our interests to satisfy our objectives. Including the safety of the hostages on the island. If we have to work together to accomplish that, then we should. It's the logical, rational way to proceed." "Mr. President, this world is neither logical nor rational," came back the voice, now noticeably harder. "The timetable does not allow latitude for delays. You--" "Let me put it like this," Hansen interjected, trying to catch him off balance. "You have the choice of doing it the way it can be done, or not doing it at all. Which do you want it to be?" "I've given you an ultimatum," the voice replied tersely, its sense of control returning. "The only question left is whether or not you intend to honor it." Hansen stole a glance at his wristwatch, thinking. He needed to stall for time, but clearly it wasn't going to be so easy. The Special Forces had reached Souda Bay, but they would not be in position to begin an assault for several more hours. "I told you I'm working on it," he said finally. "These things take--" "The funds can be wire-transferred in minutes to the Geneva accounts I listed for you." The voice was growing cocky. "There's no need for brown paper bags and unmarked bills." Hansen suddenly felt his anger boil, his composure going. Sometimes it was better to go with your gut than with your head. Then the scenario could be played out on your own terms. The hell with this bastard. Why not just call his bluff? He wasn't going to use the weapon, or weapons, even if he had them. He would gain nothing by that. The threat of using a bomb was his only bargaining chip. "You know," he said, "I'm thinking maybe I don't want to play your game at all." "That is a serious error in judgment, Mr. President. I am not playing games." "As far as I'm concerned, you are." Hansen looked up to see Alicia ushering Ed Briggs into the office. God, he thought, do I look as haggard as he does? "I'm offering you a deal." His attention snapped back to the phone and he continued. "Give me another day to arrange for the money. Another twenty-four hours. That's the best you're going to get." "We both know that is a lie," came back the voice. "If you expect me to accept that, you are an even bigger fool than I imagined. Since you don't appear to believe my seriousness, the time has come for a demonstration." "I'm waiting. The chances of you delivering a nuke, which is what I assume you have, are about the same as Washington being hit by a meteorite. The odds are a lot better that you'll just blow yourself up. Criminals like you are long on tough talk and short on technology." "This conversation is getting us nowhere. So just to make sure we understand each other, let me repeat the terms once again. The eight hundred million must be wired to the accounts I listed at the Geneva branch of Banco Ambrosiano within the next five hours. If it is not, the consequences will be more terrible than I hope you are capable of imagining. The loss of life and property will be staggering." "Keep him talking," Briggs whispered across. "Keep a line open. Dialogue the fucker till--" Hansen cleared his throat and nodded. "Look, if you'll just hold off a few more hours, maybe something can be done about the problems with the money. You have to try and understand it's not that easy . . ." His voice trailed into silence and he looked up. "The bastard cut the line, Ed. He's gone." He cradled the hand piece. "Shit." Will the son of a bitch be ruthless enough to use one of those nukes? he was wondering. You can't really know, he answered himself. With a lunatic, you damned well never know. 12:40 A.M. Bill Bates was still in his office, trying to do some heavy thinking and put his problems into sequential order. The first problem was that the bastards were killing his people, mostly just to make an example and instill terror. The next one he wasn't so sure about, but from what he had seen in his occasional glimpses of Control, Cally was missing. Apparently she had gone off with the fucker who called himself Number One and hadn't come back. Was she down at Launch? Doing what? Well, Calypso Andros was a tough cookie. They might pressure her and threaten her, but she would stand up to them. These terrorists were just cowards with automatics; he could smell that much a mile away. The next problem was SatCom itself. He hated to find himself thinking about it at a time like this, but the company was built on a pyramid of short-term debt--construction loans that could be rolled over and converted to long-term obligations only if the test launch proceeded as scheduled. It already had been postponed once, and the banks were getting nervous. If these thugs derailed the Cyclops for any length of time, the banks were going to move in and try to foreclose on all the computers and equipment. The litigation would stretch into the next century. SatCom. On the brink. High-risk all the way, but what a dream. Almost there, and now this. He found himself thinking about his wife, Dorothy. She had been supportive--she always was--from the very first. Maybe after eighteen years of struggle she had had misgivings about gambling everything on this one big turn of the roulette wheel, but she had kept her thoughts to herself. Which was only one more reason why he loved her so. She had been all their married life, always there with a real smile and a hug when the going got the roughest. It made all the difference. But now, now that the whole enterprise was in danger of going down the tubes, he felt he had let her down. For the first time ever. Even his briar pipe tasted burned out, like ashes. He had taken every cent he could beg or borrow and had gambled it all on space. Only to have a group of monsters barge in and wreck everything. Now what? He honestly didn't know. He had flown an A-6 Intruder in Vietnam, but hand-to-hand with terrorists was something else entirely. The bastards had shut down all the communications gear when they moved in. The phones were out, the radio, and even his personal computer terminals had been shunted out of the system. He could count and he knew what automatic weapons could do. No, this one was out of his control. He glanced around his office, paneled in light woods and hung with photographs of Dorothy and the two boys--his favorite was during a regatta in Chesapeake Bay. There also were photos of the Cyclops system and the VX-1 vehicle, the latter caught in the austere light of sunrise, the blue Aegean in the background. He shook his head sadly, rose, and made his way out into the cavernous room that was Command. The fluorescent lights glared down on a depressing sight--the staff disheveled and living in stark fear--one armed hood at the computer, another lounging by the doorway. . . . 12:45 A.M. Georges LeFarge looked up to see Bates coming out of his office and into the wide, vinyl-floored expanse that was Command. He assumed the CEO had been sitting moodily in his office, dwelling on the imminent foreclosure of SatCom's creditors. He must have been puffing up a storm on his pipe because a cloud of smoke poured out after him. And he looked weary--his eyes told it. Nobody down at Launch Control knew they had been taken over by terrorists. Peretz had carefully made sure that all communications from Command were monitored and controlled. Number One had gone down there, but he apparently had managed to fool everybody into thinking he and all his hoods were SatCom consultants. One thing you had to say for them, they were masters of deceit. Number One could pass for a high- powered European executive, and he was playing the authority thing to the hilt. "Are you bastards having fun?" Bates walked over and addressed Dore Peretz. The Israeli looked up and grinned. "More than that, we're making history. Fasten your seat belt, 'cause your first test launch is going to be a real show-stopper. A one-of-a-kind." "This facility doesn't need any more 'show-stoppers,' as you put it, pal." Bates looked him over with contempt. "We were doing just fine before you barged in." "Live a little, baby." Peretz beamed back. "Lie back and enjoy it." "Let me break some news to you, chum. This organization isn't going to just roll over and give you the store. Now I want to talk to that greaseball who calls himself Number One. It's time we got some consideration for my people here. They need food and they need to be rotated so they can get some rest. There's going to be hell to pay, and in short order. I can guarantee it." "Hey, man, ease up." Peretz leaned back, then rotated away from the console. "Everybody's okay. Don't start getting heavy. We're just about ready to party." "Right." Bates walked past, headed for the door. "I want to see what you fuckers have done to my people down at Launch. I'm going over there." "You're not going anywhere, asshole," Peretz declared, "so just sit down and make yourself comfortable." He turned and signaled the Iranian lounging at the door, barking something to him in Farsi. The man was carrying his Uzi by the strap, almost as though it were a toy, but in a second he clicked to attention, brought it up, and chambered a round. Bates glared at him, then turned away, knowing when he was licked. He might try and take the bastard, but it probably wasn't worth the risk. Not yet. The time would come. CHAPTER FOURTEEN 1:45 A.M. "Isaac, wake up." She shook him, trying to be as quiet as possible. Outside a new storm was building, but the large barracks room in Level Three of the Bates Motel was dark and deserted, with the staff all now mobilized for the upcoming launch. 'Thank God I found you." His eyelids fluttered, and then he slowly raised up and gazed at her, his look still somewhere between sleep and waking. He seemed to be in a drug-induced, or shock-induced, torpor. "What? . . . Cally, is that you?" "Isaac, there's been a disaster. I don't know where Bill is, but the gantry's been destroyed. He blew it up. Jesus, when I told him to be careful and--" "Cally." He finally managed to focus on her presence. Then he looked around. "What's going on? Where--?" "Everybody's down at Launch," she interjected impatiently. 'These hoods have taken over the Cyclops and they've started a countdown. I want to get you out of here, and then try to radio someone. Now." "What . . . what are you talking about?" He was still staring at her groggily. "Radio who?" "The people who set up the original security system. They-- "ARM?" "They're coming in. To get rid of these hoodlums." "Well, good luck. But the man who saved me, what was his name? He mentioned something about it. Then he disappeared. I don't--" "That's who blew up the gantry. His name is Vance." She quickly recounted the story. "I told him not to blow it up, but he didn't listen. All he accomplished was to make things worse." She was so outraged she could barely speak. The idiot! The fuck-up! Mannheim's mind seemed to be clearing. "A countdown. But why would Georges--?" "He isn't involved, at least I don't think so. He's been replaced by one of their people. They've taken over Big Benny, somebody who knows how to run SORT." Mannheim exhaled. "Then, what are we supposed to do?" "It gets worse. Not only is the gantry gone, but I'm afraid they've taken Mike prisoner." "Mike?" He was still trying to get his bearings. "Vance." She was suddenly embarrassed by the implied familiarity. Isaac, she noted, hadn't missed it, and he raised an eyebrow. "Look," she continued, "he may be dead by now, who knows. But I want to get you out of here, and then try to raise ARM on the radio. They were going to delay everything for a day, but now they've got to get in here and stop the launch." She paused, shaking from the strain. "Isaac, I'm not as strong as I thought I was." Her voice quavered. "I'm scared to death. For you, for Bill, for Georges, for Mike. For all of us. Even worse, I'm scared for the world." "What do you mean?" He was finally coming alive. With a faint groan he rubbed his glassy eyes and brushed back his mane of white hair. "I've got a sneaking suspicion that those bastards have put a nuclear weapon in the payload bay of VX-1." "Good God. And now you say the gantry is gone? How will we get it down?" "Look, let's not worry about that part just yet. We just have to stop them from going through with the countdown. We can disarm the bomb later." "All right, then." He was on the side of his bed, searching for his shoes. "Get me out of here." She led him out into the darkened hallway. The separate rooms were all locked, giving no clue who was still around. Where was the SatCom security staff? she suddenly wondered. Were they locked up in their own safe little enclave somewhere? Wherever they were, they wouldn't be any help now. They undoubtedly were unarmed and demoralized. With a sigh she pushed open the door and they stepped out into the storm. Wind was tearing across the island, bringing with it the taste of the Aegean, pungent and raw. It felt cool, a refreshing purge after the stuffiness of the Bates Motel. The rain lashed their faces, cleansing away some of the feeling of the nightmare, and she knew that the few wild goats that had not been captured and removed would now be huddled in the lee behind a granite ledge they liked, bleating plaintively. There was a wildness, a freeness about Andikythera, as the winds tore across and through the granite outcroppings--and the sea churned against the timeless rocks of the shore--that made it feel like nowhere else on earth. Get practical, she ordered herself, forget the romance. The storm would probably be over well before morning, but in the meantime it would just make things that much harder for ARM to reach the island. If they made it at all, it would be around dawn, just in time to watch the launch. Damn Vance. 2:05 A.M. "Somebody's on the frequency," Hans declared abruptly. The ARM team had been settled in for just slightly over an hour, trying to keep plastic sheets over them to ward off the rain as they attempted to alternate taking naps. However, in spite of the weather he had kept open the single-sideband frequency Vance had been using, just in case. Up until now, it had been a continuous hiss of empty static. "What the hell . . . ?" Armont pulled back the plastic, wiped the rain from his eyes, and lifted a questioning eyebrow. Around them the dark Aegean churned against their granite islet. "Vance's crazy to be on the radio now. He'd better have a blasted good reason." "It's not him. It sounds like a woman." Hans had a puzzled look on his face as he handed Pierre the headset, shielding it haphazardly from the rain. "He mentioned something about a woman when we talked yesterday," Spiros said, snapping out of his morose reverie. "Maybe it's the same one. She was with him then." "Well, whatever's going on, I think we all should hear this." Armont unplugged the headphones from the radio, then turned up the volume, the better to overcome the rain and roar of surf. "Sirene, do you read me?" the voice was saying. "Oh, God, please answer." "I copy," Spiros said into the microphone. He was as puzzled, and troubled, by this development as by all the rest. "Who the hell is this?" "Thank God," came back the voice. "You can't wait. You've got to come in now." "I repeat," Spiros spoke again, "you must identify yourself. Otherwise I will shut down this frequency." "They've started a countdown. They plan a launch in less than six hours. And Mike is gone. I don't even know if he's dead or alive." Spiros glanced around at the others, wondering what to do. The frequency was being compromised, but probably it was worth the risk. His instincts were telling him she was for real. "Miss, whoever you are, you must identify yourself." He paused a moment, thinking. Then he asked, "Where is Ulysses?" "I told you, he's disappeared. He screwed up and destroyed the gantry, and then he vanished. But I think they've already loaded a bomb in the payload bay of VX-1." Spiros clicked off the microphone. "She knows Vance's code name. But half the Aegean probably knows that by now." He clicked the mike back on. "I'm giving you one more opportunity to identify yourself, or this conversation will be terminated." "I'm Cally Andros, project director for SatCom. I was with Michael Vance when he talked to somebody in Athens named Dimitri yesterday morning. And I was with him a couple of hours ago when he was talking to you. How do you think I knew this frequency? What in hell do I have to do to convince you people that the assault can't wait? They have a countdown in progress. I don't know what they plan to do, but there's a very good chance a bomb is going somewhere." "I think she's legit," Spiros said, clicking off the microphone again. "It adds up. Sounds like Mike was trying to shut them down and must have managed to muck things up. I thought he was better than that. But this is very bad news." By now everybody was rousing, intent on the radio conversation. A storm was coming down, and now the whole plan was about to get revised. Again. Worse still, the insert would have to be managed without a point man. Unless . . . "Dr. Andros," Armont began, "please tell me precisely what happened to Michael Vance. I want to know if he is still alive, and if so, where he is." She told him what she knew, in a way that was repetitive and rambling. It also was convincing. "Do you think they can launch in this kind of weather?" "The storm will probably let up by daybreak. That's how the weather usually works here. I don't think it's going to be a problem." "All right," Armont interjected. "Looks like we'd better come in. I would ask you where you are now, but that might compromise your safety. I do have one more request, though. Could you stay by the radio and assist us after insertion, telling us--as best you know--how the hostiles are deployed? It could be very helpful. And possibly save a lot of lives." "Yes, I'll do anything you want me to. But you can't wait until tomorrow night. If you do, there may not be any point in coming at all." "Then stay up on this frequency," Armont said, and nodded to the others. "You'll be hearing from us." It was a gamble, taking the word of some anonymous voice on the radio, but sometimes you had to go with your instincts. As he looked around, they all agreed. 2:09 A.M. "Did you get it?" Radioman First Class Howard Ansel asked. The radio room at Gournes had been particularly hectic the last few hours, but he was glad he had thought of scanning single-sideband. Ansel was twenty- eight and had eyes that reminded people of the German shepherds he raised back home in Nebraska. "It's on the tape," Big Al replied, lifting off his headphones and scratching at his crew cut. "But I don't have the goddamnedest idea what it means." "Doesn't matter. It was somewhere off Andikythera. Which means it's automatically classified Top Secret. Whatever the hell's going on, it sounds like some bad shit. What was that about a launch? Going in? Is this some kind of priority exercise?" "Who the hell knows? But we've got orders." He picked up the phone and punched in the number for his supervising officer. 2:12 A.M. Armont felt the cold surf slam against his leg as they slipped the two black Zodiacs back into the swell, taking care to avoid the jagged rocks along the water's edge. The surf was washing over them, and everything felt cold and slippery. Reginald Hall was the first to pull himself aboard, after which he looked back, as though trying to account for everybody and everything. The weather was starting to clamp down now, faster than anybody could have expected. "Pierre, _vite, vite_," Hans was already in the second Zodiac, tossing a line across. Their "insertion platforms," both equipped with small outboard motors, were lashed together with a nylon line. "Hurry up." He turned and used an oar to hold the raft clear. "We need to get moving before this thing gets ripped to pieces." Neoprene was tough, but there were limits. Willem Voorst tossed the last crate of equipment into the second craft, then grasped a line Hugo had thrown and pulled himself aboard. Dimitri Spiros went next, and then Armont. The wind and current were already tugging them toward the south, so the outboards would have some help in battling the choppy sea. Reggie Hall was muttering to himself as he tried to start the engine. He bloody well didn't fancy anything about the way things were going. Everything about this op was starting to give him the willies. When this much went wrong this soon, you hated to think about what things would be like when the going really got tough. As they motored into the dark, Willem Voorst kept an eye on the eastern horizon, watching for the first glimmer, and prayed the storm would keep down visibility. He also monitored the compass and hoped they could stay on course. Where had the weather come from? The woman who had said her name was Andros was probably right, though; this one would blow out by dawn, but in the meantime it was a hell of a ruckus. And the reception coming up on the island wasn't going to be brandy and a dry bed, either. "You know," Reggie was yelling, "this bloody weather might even be a help with the insertion. If it keeps up, it could be the perfect cover." "What we really have to hope," Armont shouted back, "is that a storm like this might force them to delay the launch. She said it wouldn't, but who knows. Still, we can't count on it. By the way, how're we doing?" "I think we've already made a kilometer or maybe a klick and a half," Hans yelled. "If we can keep making this kind of headway, we should make landfall just before 0500 hours. In time to join everybody for morning coffee." He looked around. "This has got to be the stupidest thing we've ever tried to do. We're just motoring into a shitstorm." He shook his head, and the raindrops in his hair sprayed into the dark. "I can't fucking believe we're doing it. I really can't fucking believe it." 2:15 A.M. "Damn," Major General Nichols said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. He was on the Kennedy, in Mission Planning, talking on secured satellite phone to JSOC Control in the Pentagon. "Gournes picked up some radio traffic on sideband. Some assholes are talking about trying to go in. Whoever the hell they're working for, they could screw things up royally." He spoke again into the receiver. "Do you have a lead on where they are?" He nodded. "Right, my thinking exactly. Which means they probably blew up that plane as a diversion. And our F-14 jockey suckered for it." He paused again. "No, we're not scheduled to go in for another twenty-four hours. But that may have to be pushed up. I'd say we have two choices. Either we interdict these dingbats, or we just go ahead and get it over with, take out the launch vehicle and--" He paused again. "What do you mean, we can't?" His eyes narrowed. "Don't give me that 'classified' bullshit. I've got Top Secret clearance and I damned well have a 'need to know.' " A long pause ensued. "Jesus! Now you tell me. 'Nuclear material'? What the hell does that mean? You're planning to send in my boys to take down a nuke! This is the first I've heard . . . Thanks a lot for telling me. Good Christ!" He paused once more. "Okay, let me think. I'll get back to you." He settled the phone back in its cradle and looked around Mission Planning, the gray walls covered with maps. "Shit, this whole thing is coming apart." "What is it?" General Max Austin asked. He was two-star, with steel- gray hair. As the base commander for Souda, he had been placed in charge of Operation Lightfoot, code name for the action to retake Andikythera. Even though they had known each other for fifteen years, Nichols was not necessarily pleased to have this REMF, rear-echelon motherfucker, running the show. Austin had been given the undemanding post on Crete for a year mainly as an excuse to bump up his rank in preparation for retirement. "The whole op is rapidly going to hell in a handbag," Nichols said. "The Pentagon conveniently left one small fact out of my briefing papers. I'd kill somebody, if only I knew who." He looked up. "Max, we may have to send the Deltas in tonight. Just get this damned thing over with." "That's not possible," Austin declared without hesitation. "This operation can't go off half-cocked. You of all people ought to know that." "Well, sometimes circumstances don't wait around for the textbooks. The Gournes SIGINT team just intercepted some radio traffic. Somebody's out there talking, and they know more than we do. They're probably free- lance clowns, most likely mercenaries, but they're claiming the bad guys may be about to launch one of the vehicles, within the next few hours. So they're planning to hit the place tonight." "Well, they won't stand a chance," Austin said. "I agree, but what they can do is royally fuck up our insertion. They'll disrupt the hell out of everything and probably get a lot of the hostages killed." "Okay," Austin mused, sipping at his coffee, "we've got two problems here. Maybe they should be handled separately. First we interdict these guys going in, and then we decide what to do next." 'The best way to solve them both at once, two birds with one stone, is with a preemptory strike on the island," Nichols insisted again. "Right now. Tonight. We just go in and take the place down." "No way, Eric," Austin interjected. 'That's going to skew the risk parameters in our ops analysis. We'd have to scrap our computer simulation and virtually start over. Hell, that alone could take us three hours." All those fancy analyses are best employed wiping your bum, Nichols heard himself thinking, almost but not quite out loud. We've got nobody on the ground, so we're working with satellite intel, and SIGINT--which ain't giving us shit 'cause those bastards aren't talking on their radios. "Let me make sure I heard it right a minute ago," Nichols went on. "We can't just take out the launch vehicles, a surgical strike, because there's a chance there could be nuclear material on board?" "You've got it right. I'd hoped not to have to tell you. So consider this Classified. The whole op has been jacked up to a Vega One. We've never had anything that serious before." That's nuclear, Nichols told himself. Well, he figured, why not. If the terrorists did have a bomb. "This damned thing is hot," Austin continued. "They don't get any hotter. So there's no way in hell I'm going to go around procedures. If you and your boys don't do this clean, it's going to mean our next command, yours and mine, will be somewhere within sight of Tierra del Fuego. If there's a nuclear incident here, the Greek government would probably tear up our mutual-defense treaty and convert the base at Souda into a souvlaki stand. Am I making myself clear?" "If I hear you right, what you're saying is, no way can we afford to fuck this one up." "I've always admired your quick grasp of the salient points in a briefing. So, we're going to do this by the goddamn book; we're going to dot every goddamn 'i' and cross every goddamn 't' and get every goddamn detail of this op, right down to the color of our goddamn shoelaces, approved, signed off, and ass-kissed in triplicate. That Iranian hostage disaster did not exactly make a lot of careers. Again I ask you, Eric, am I getting the fuck through?" "In skywriting. The only small problem I see, sir, is that while everybody is carefully protecting their pension, those assholes on the island may start slaughtering hostages, or put this 'nuclear material'-- which I have just learned about in such a timely fashion--into goddamn orbit. And then my Deltas are going to be in the middle of a shitstorm they easily could have prevented if they'd been given the chance. They're my boys, and I don't really take kindly to that happening. _Sir_." He reached in his breast pocket for a cigar, the chewing of which was his usual response to stress. "So what exactly do you propose we do?" Austin asked. "The most obvious first thing would be to interdict this bunch of mercenary jerkoffs and keep them from going in there and getting a lot of people killed. I say we should find them and stop them, using whatever force it takes. There are enough civilians in harm's way as it is." He leaned forward. "Look, if we have to dick around waiting on the Pentagon before we can go in, at least we can stop these mercenary assholes. It has to be done. And we don't need some computer study before we get off our ass. I want to take them down, and nobody has to even know about it. If it comes out in some debriefing someday, we'll worry about it then." "All right, maybe I agree with you," Austin sighed. "They should be interdicted. What do you want? A Pave-Low?" "Just give me an SH-60. To pick them up. I'm going to put the love of the Lord into these amateurs, then bring them in. Hell, they're probably well-intentioned, just doing what somebody paid them to do." And who could blame that somebody, he found himself thinking, if it takes the U.S. of A. this long to cut through its damned bureaucracy and mount an operation. "All right, I'll give you a Seahawk," Austin said. "It can be prepped and ready to go by"--he glanced at his watch--"0300 hours. Will that be enough?" "Guess it'll have to be." By that time, he was thinking ruefully, we could be taking the island. And with that thought he decided to hell with protocol and fired up his well-chewed cigar. "Look, Eric, I know what you're thinking," Austin said after a pause. "That an old fart like me is cramping your guys' style. And, dammit, maybe there's a grain of truth in that-- hell, more than a grain. But here's the downside. If your Deltas go in half-cocked and get cut up, we're going to get blamed. On the other hand, if they don't go in till Washington says so, then, yes, maybe it'll be too late, but it's going to be on somebody else's service record, not ours. I'm protecting your boys, whether you see it or not. If we only go in on orders, then the Deltas are not going to be the ones taking the heat if this thing falls apart." "Just get me the damned chopper," Nichols said quietly. 3:15 A.M. Mannheim looked at her. "Cally, we need to try and find him. This Vance fellow. If his friends are going to try and come in, then they'll need him to help them. He'll know what they require a lot better than you will." She found herself nodding grimly, agreeing. Isaac Mannheim was no dummy. "They must either have captured him or shot him," she said. "Or both. He would have come back by now unless there was a problem. But if he's still alive, then they probably have him down at Launch. And it's going to be very dangerous for us to go down there, Isaac." "I'm an old man. Maybe I've outlived my usefulness." It was strange talk for Isaac Mannheim, but he was turning wistful, perhaps even defeated. "I do know one thing. He risked his life for me. I owe it to him to at least find out what happened. So let me go by myself." She did not like the sound of that. "Look, maybe I--" "No, not you. They've got to be looking for you. But they probably just think I'm an old fool"--he laughed--"and maybe they're right. At any rate, at least I can go down there and wander around a bit. Everybody knows I'm harmless. As long as it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere, I don't think they'll bother with me. At least not right now. If they're busy with the countdown, they're not going to trouble with a deranged old man. I'm small potatoes." "Isaac, you're a very big potato." She wanted to hug him. "But you're also just about the most wonderful man I know. I love you to death. Just be careful, please?" Now it was his turn to smile, the old face showing its wrinkles more than ever. "I'm not dead yet. And with any luck I won't be for a while." He looked at his watch. "By the way, when do you think those friends of his are likely to show up?" 'They didn't say, but I expect they might get here in a couple of hours." "Well, Dr. Andros, we're not licked yet. With any luck there won't even be a launch. Maybe the weather. In the meantime, why don't I check the empty storage bays in Launch. Just a hunch." He rose and kissed her, then began to shuffle down the hill. 3:20 A.M. "I'd guess he's at about a thousand meters now," Pierre was saying. Above them the SH-60F Seahawk was sweeping past, clearly on a recon. "Maybe he won't pick us up, not with the swell this high." Armont didn't really believe his own words. The Seahawk carrier-based helo, the U.S. Navy's preeminent ASW platform, had come in hard from the south and it was searching. The question was, what for? Whatever it was, the guy was all business. And given his APS-124 radar-- not to mention his forward-looking IR capabilities--eluding detection was going to be tough. 'They must have figured out we scammed them," Reggie declared. "I was afraid it was going to catch up with us. What with the electronic assets the U.S. has got deployed in this region, you'd almost have to expect it. Probably the fucking radio. Which means we've got to keep silence from here on in. Damn." Armont squinted through the dark. "Let's wait and see what happens. As far as I know, those things don't carry any cannon, just a couple of ASW torpedoes. We're a pretty small fish. Let's hold firm for now." They hunkered down and motored on, watching as the Navy chopper growled on toward the north. Maybe, everybody was thinking, the crew had missed them. Maybe they were after somebody else. Maybe . . . No, it was coming back again, sweeping, on a determined mission to locate something. "They're going to pick us up sooner or later," Willem Voorst predicted. "It's just a matter of time." The wind and sea were growing ever more unruly. But that was not going to save them. They all knew it. "I've got a terrible idea," Reggie said, almost yelling to be heard. "It's going to mean we go in with a bare-bones complement of equipment, but I'm beginning to think we don't have any choice." "What are you suggesting?" Armont asked, his voice almost swept away by the storm. "We cut loose one of the rafts, leave a radio transmitting a Mayday. By the time they realize they've been had, we'll be at the island." "What about their IR assets?" Armont wondered back. "Okay, good point. So we set a flare, and maybe attach a couple of life jackets with a saltwater beacon. That'll engage their IR." "And what do we do? This motor will still have an IR signature." Hall thought a moment. "We could cover everything with some of the plastic camouflage. That should cut down the heat signature enough." "Reggie, I don't think that's such a hot idea," Spiros yelled, the rain in his face. "We're not going to be able to shake them that easily." "Don't be so sure. There's a good chance a decoy would keep them off our scent for a while. Might just give us enough time, mates." The Seahawk had swept past again, banked, and now was coming back. Clearly working a grid, maybe getting her electronics up to speed. Nothing about it boded particularly well--for some reason it was lit, a long white streak in the dark. Long and lean and ideal to drop ASW drogues, the carrier-based Sikorsky SH-60F incorporated 2,000 pounds of avionics and was even designed to carry nuclear depth bombs, though the choppers were never "wired" for the weapon. Its maximum cruising speed was 145 mph, with a one-hour loitering capability. Given time, it would find them. "Willem, how much farther do you reckon we've got to go to make the island?" Armont shouted over the growing gale and the roar of the two outboards. "My guess is we're looking at another eight or ten kilometers. But I vote with Reggie. We've got no choice but to try a decoy setup. Let's keep this raft--the engine is running better--and start moving over whatever gear we absolutely have to have." He knew there might well be some dispute over that, with each man having a pet piece of equipment he deemed himself unable to live without. But the men of ARM were pragmatists above all, and they would bend over backward to reach a consensus. They began sorting the gear, hastily, and the selections being made cut down their assault options. Balaclavas would be kept, along with rappelling harnesses and rope. The heavier ordnance had to be left, the grenade launchers and shotguns. They quickly pulled over a case of tear-gas grenades, but the others they left. Radios, of course, had to be saved, and the Heckler & Koch MP5s and the Mac-10s. No Uzis: those were for cowboys. Each man had his own handgun of choice, but the rounds of ammo were cut down to a bare minimum. As they sorted the gear, they were making an unspoken strategic decision concerning how the insertion would be structured. Without the heavy firepower, they would be fighting a guerrilla war, focusing on taking out Ramirez, and hoping the firefight would be over in seconds. If it lasted more than fifteen minutes, they were finished. The result might well be an assault more risky than it otherwise would have been. But, as Reggie was fond of saying, you can't have everything. Sometimes you can't even come bloody close. 3:33 A.M. "Seahawk One, this is Bravo Command. Come up with anything yet?" It was the radio beside Delta Captain Philip Sexton, who was flying copilot in the Seahawk. Lieutenant Manny Jackson was pilot, while the airborne tactical officer was Lieutenant James Palmer II and the sensor operator was Lieutenant Andrew McLeod. "Any hint of unintelligent life down there?" "Andy says the damned radar's picking up too much chop, Yankee Bravo. Don't think we're going to find these bastards. It's the proverbial needle in the you-know-what. This baby finds subs, not dinghies. Looks like all we're getting so far is fish scatter. Just noise." "Then you might want to see if the IR will give you anything," came Nichols's voice. "The fuckers have clamped down, total radio silence, but they've got to be there somewhere." "Roger, we copy. Don't know if we've got the sensitivity to pick up a thermal, though. Not with this weather and sea." "Copy that. So try everything you've got, even sonar. Or the mag anomaly detector. Hell, try all your toys. These bastards are close to slipping through, and no way can that be allowed to happen." "You've got a rog, sir," Sexton replied. "I'll have Andy give the IR a shot and see what we get." 3:39 A.M. "They're staying right on us," Hugo Voorst observed, looking up. "They don't have us yet, but they've probably figured out we'd make a beeline for Andikythera, so all they have to do is just work the corridor for all it's worth." "Then let's get on with it." Armont nodded through the rain. "Do we have everything you think we might need?" "We've got everything we can bloody well keep afloat," Reggie yelled back. "We're leaving half of what we need." He knew that seven men in the single Zodiac, together with their gear, was going to be pushing it to the limit. The sea was still rising, which meant they would be bailing for their lives as soon as they cut loose. "All right, then, Willem, set the timer on the flares." Armont shook his head sadly. "If we keep having to abandon equipment," Hall could be heard grumbling, "this is going to be a damned expensive operation. Where in bloody hell is it going to end? When we're down to a bow and arrow each?" "It's beginning to feel that way now," Willem Voorst groused. He had finished and was clambering into the single raft. With his weight aboard, it listed precariously, taking water as the waves washed over. He settled in, grabbed a plastic bucket, and started bailing. Now the Seahawk was coming down the line again, making an even slower pass. Time had run out. "All right, cut her loose," Armont ordered. The radio they left had been set to broadcast a Mayday; the engine was locked at full throttle; and a couple of life jackets with saltwater- activated beacons had been tied to a line and tossed overboard. The flares had been set to a timer, giving them three minutes to put some blue water between them and the decoy. With a sigh, Dimitri Spiros leaned out and severed the last connecting line. 3:47 A.M. "I've just picked up a Mayday," Jackson yelled. "From somewhere in this quadrant. I think we've located our bogey, and he's in trouble." He banked the Seahawk, trying to get a fix. "Not surprising with these seas." He gave the instruments a quick check. "They can't be far away. Andy, anything happening on IR?" "Nothing to write home about. There's--Jesus! It looks like . . ." He glanced out the cockpit window. "The hell with the IR. We've got a visual on this baby. He's right down there." He pointed. "See it? Let's take her in and see what we can see." "You've got it." Jackson hit the collective and banked, heading down. Yep, he thought, no doubt about it. There was an emergency flare. Maybe the fuckers had capsized. Maybe there was a God. 3:51 A.M. "I think they went for it," Armont declared, his voice almost lost in the storm. It's going to take them a while to figure out the raft is empty, and then some more time to make sure there's nobody in those life jackets. I think we've milked maybe half an hour out of this." "Then we're home free," Dimitri said, staring toward the dark horizon. "We should make landfall just before first light" "One thing, though," Reginald Hall reflected. "We can't risk any more radio contact. We're clearly being monitored. So whatever happened to Michael, he's on his own." Armont said nothing in reply, merely scanned the turbulent skies. Maybe, he thought, the weather had worked to their advantage, had saved them from interdiction by the U.S. Navy. But would it be enough to delay the launch? He was beginning to think the storm might clear in time--given the way Aegean downpours tended to come and go--and not even put a dent in the schedule. 3:54 A.M. Ramirez walked into Command, wondering. Peretz was at the main workstation, the one normally controlled by Georges LeFarge, and he was wearing a big grin, the stupid one he sported so often. So what was the problem? He had sent a computer message to Launch, saying they needed to talk. What was this about? He suspected he already knew. The room was busy, resounding with the clatter of key boards, the whir of tape drives, the buzz of fans, the hum of communication lines, the snapping of switches. Above them a digital clock showed the countdown, clicking off the hours, minutes, and seconds, while next to it were the three master video screens: the first giving the numerical status of the Cyclops power-up sequence, the second depicting the Fujitsu's latest orbital projection, being lines across a flat projection of the globe, and the third showing a live feed from the base of VX-1, where the antlike images of SatCom Launch Control staffers could be seen methodically readying the vehicle, not having any idea what was about to go up. "Got a little item to go over with you," Peretz said, in Arabic, not looking up from his screen. "A minor business matter." "What's on your mind?" Ramirez asked in English. "We're all busy." Peretz glanced in the direction of Salim, who was standing by the door, keeping a watchful eye on the staffers. Salim, he knew, spoke Farsi as a first language and English as a second. Like many Iranians, he had not deigned to learn Arabic. Peretz, on the other hand, spoke it fluently. Furthermore, he had brushed up on it in his recent experiences with the Palestinians. Ramirez, of course, had spoken it for almost twenty years, finding it indispensable for his business dealings in the Islamic world. "The time is overdue for us to have a business chat," Peretz continued in Arabic, revolving around in his chair. "I've been thinking over the money. It strikes me that the split ought to be 'to each according to his ability,' if you know what I mean. You're a card-carrying Marxist, right?" "If you insist," Ramirez replied, immediately realizing he had been right about the direction the conversation was going to take. He also understood the reason for the Arabic. "You may have the quotation in reverse, but I assume you did not call me down here to discuss the finer points of collectivist ideology." "Nobody ever called you dumb, friend," Peretz went on, now settling comfortably into the mellifluous music of the Arabic. He actually liked the language better than Hebrew, understood why it was the perfect vehicle for poetry. "So I expect you won't have any trouble understanding this.'' He was handing Ramirez a plain white business envelope, unsealed. Sabri Ramirez suppressed an impulse to pull out his Beretta and just shoot the fucker between the eyes. The only thing that surprised him was why this extortion--for that surely was what it was--had been so long in coming. Peretz had been planning this move all along. After a moment's pause, he took the envelope and held it in his hand, not bothering even to look down at it. Instead he let his gaze wander around the room, taking in the rows of video terminals, some with data, some with shots of the working areas, together with the lines of shell- shocked staffers. Then his gaze came back to Peretz, a novice at the trade. This inevitable development, in fact, almost saddened him. He had, over the past couple of months, acquired almost a fondness for the Israeli. He even had come to tolerate his irreverent humor, if that's what it could be called. Thus he had begun to wonder, in a calculated way, if they might have a partnership that could continue beyond the current episode. A good tech man was hard to find. . . . "Do I need to bother opening this?" he said finally. "Why don't I just guess. At this point you feel your services have become indispensable, so you want to restructure the distribution of the money. You want to cut out the others, and I suppose there's even a chance you want to cut me out as well." "Cut you out?" Peretz grinned again. "Never crossed my mind. The way I see it, we're business partners, baby, colleagues. I'd never, ever try and screw a partner, surely you know that. What do you take me for? No, man, I just think there's no point in giving monetary encouragement to all these other assholes." "And what if I don't choose to see it your way?" Ramirez kept his voice calm. "Well, there could be a lot of problems with the countdown, if you know what I mean. There's only one guy around here who could fix it. So I think teamwork is essential. You do your part and I do mine. The old 'extra mile.'" "Your 'extra mile,' I take it, is to finish the job you were hired for in the first place." Ramirez found keeping his voice even to be more and more difficult. But he had to bide his time. A quick glance at Salim told him that the Iranian did not have an inkling of what was going on. "You might say that." Again the inane grin. "And mine is to restructure the dispersals of the money afterwards." Ramirez's eyes had just gone opaque behind his gray shades. "Something like that." "Not 'afterwards.' Now. It's all in the envelope." 'Tell you what," Ramirez said finally, his anger about to boil over. "I'm going back to Launch, and I'll take this with me. What's the point in opening it here, raising questions." "You'd better take this problem seriously, believe me," Peretz interjected, vaguely unnerved by Ramirez's icy noncommittal. "I'm not kidding around." "Oh, I take you quite seriously, Dr. Peretz." He was extracting a thin cigar from a gold case. "I always have. You will definitely get everything you deserve." "I intend to." 3:55 A.M. Isaac Mannheim stumbled through the torrential rain, wondering if the terrorists were stupid enough to try a launch in this kind of weather. Actually, he found himself thinking, it might just be possible. The guidance system would be tested to the limit, but if the weather eased up a little . . . The aboveground structures for Launch were just ahead, including the two pads with the vehicles sprouting into the sky. From the looks of things, they were both unharmed, with VX-1 clearly prepped and ready for launch. Then he paused to examine the collapsed gantry and shook his head in dismay, heartsick at the sight. That was going to cost a fortune to repair. He shrugged sadly and moved on. He knew it was going to be a beehive of activity inside the tech areas now. The entire SatCom Staff was on duty, which was standard for a "go" power-up situation. Which meant that they had to be holding Vance somewhere out of the way. The question was where. Where? He tried to think. There were some spare-parts bays, locations where items that constantly needed replacing could be held ready to hand. But everything was clicking now, with those areas pretty much out of the loop. So . . . maybe that would be the place to start checking. The main entry-points for the bays were, naturally enough, from the inside. But there also was a large loading dock on the south that allowed gear to be delivered directly from the warehouse. Maybe that would be the logical place to try and slip in. He was feeling better now, energized. Why not go in, have a look. 4:22 A.M. Jean-Paul Moreau punched him again, then waited for a response. There wasn't one, but only because Michael Vance was near to passing out. They had taken him not to the Bates Motel but to an unused room at the periphery of Launch. Its original purpose wasn't clear, but whatever it was, it no longer appeared to be used for anything--the ideal location to beat somebody's brains half out. "You have a remarkably low tolerance for this, you sleazy _batard_." Vance merely moaned. He had been trying mystical techniques for blocking out the pain. God, he hated pain. So he attempted to focus his mind on something else, on little things like working on his boat, on making love, on Caribbean sunsets. Instead what he got was the vision of a nuclear bomb going off somewhere, and the anger he had felt when Ramirez and his thugs blew up the U.S. frigate. Still, any emotion, any feeling he could muster, seemed to drive back the pain, make it more endurable. Now he was focusing as best he could on the long-haired, blond French goon who was pummeling him. Whack. Love. Whack. Hate. Whack. Anger. Boiling, seething anger. It was almost working. Almost. He moaned again. Then for one last time he tried to smile. "Jesus, what sewer did Ramirez dredge to come up with you guys?" "Good. Good. Keep talking," Moreau said. "Sounds mean you are still alive. It means you still can feel." And he hit him again, hard in the stomach, taking his breath away once more. The moans had become airless grunts. Jean-Paul Moreau had readily accepted the job of softening up the fucker who had caused them so much trouble. It was intended to be a partial compensation for his having endured the radar treatment, and also it felt good to be able to work over the very son of a bitch who had done it. There was, indeed, justice in the world. Justice that you made for yourself. He was now making his own justice, and it felt terrific. Vance knew he couldn't take much more of a pounding without passing out. Moreau was a professional who didn't specialize in breaking bones; instead he confined himself to internal trauma. That seemed to be his particular area of expertise. He also was careful to make sure his victim remained conscious. Which meant, Vance knew, that this part of the program was drawing to a close. He couldn't handle much more pain, the fact of which he knew this French thug with the streaming blond hair was well aware. What, he wondered, was the point anyway? Sadism? Ramirez was still waiting in line to dish out his own particular brand of revenge. And Ramirez had forgotten more about dispensing pain than this creep would ever know. . . . Thunk. Another blow to the stomach took his breath away once more. He felt his consciousness swim back and forth, scarcely there any more. When was this going to end? He would have signed away anything just to stop the punishment for a few seconds, and he was on the verge of throwing up. Surely it had to be over soon. He felt like a boxer who had just gone fifteen rounds with no referee. Time for the bell. His battered mind tried to put together a guess about what was next. Maybe after this Eurotrash had had his fun, Ramirez would show up for the coup de grace. It would almost be welcome. Or maybe nothing was going to happen. Maybe Ramirez would just leave him to be blown up with the rest of the facility. Where was Pierre? If ARM wasn't coming in for another whole day, who knew where this disaster was headed. What was Cally doing? And Bill? Were they safe? He cursed himself again for screwing up the golden opportunity to deactivate the gantry and bring the proceedings to a halt. Instead of doing what he had planned, he tried to take a shortcut. Now he realized that had been a major mistake. And now, with ARM not coming in for another whole day, the only chance left was to try and stall. 4:37 A.M. The wind was howling and rain spattered on the loading dock--it should have been protected, but you can't do everything--as Mannheim briskly made his way up the metal steps. The large sliding door was locked, but he still had the magnetized card that clicked it open. A button on the wall started it moving along the rollers . . . just enough to slide through . . . there, he was in. Inside was a long hallway cluttered with various crates-- either just delivered or ready to be removed, he was not sure --and he had to feel his way along, not wanting to risk turning on the lights. For an instant, as he stumbled among the sharp corners, he really felt his age. This was not something for a retired engineering professor to be muddling with. He should be back in Cambridge growing orchids in his greenhouse. What in blazes was he doing . . . ? Then he noticed the light emerging from under one of the doors, and as he stepped closer, he heard two voices. One of them belonged to the man who had saved him, Michael Vance. The other . . . the other had to be one of the terrorists. Now what? 4:51 A.M. "You know, I hate to spoil all the fun you're having." Vance tried to look at Moreau, but he could barely see through the swelling of his puffy eyelids. "But I've got some unsettling news. You and the rest of Ramirez's hoods are about to be in a deep situation here. The minute you try to send that bomb up, you can tip your hat and kiss your ass good-bye. Better enjoy this while you can." "What do you mean?" "That nuke you've got primed. It pains me to tell you, pardon the joke, but your gang isn't exactly the crew of rocket scientists you think you are. The second the Cyclops laser hits the first vehicle, there's going to be a lift-off, all right. Only it's likely to be this island that's headed for orbit. And you with it. Why in hell do you think I was trying to stop it?" Was it true? he wondered. Think. Try to make it sound convincing. "What are you talking about?" Moreau's blue eyes bristled. "Just thought you ought to know the bottom line. If you're planning to liberate the oppressed masses or whatever, this is a hell of a way to start. By nuking yourself. That should really impress everybody with your dedication." "You are going to die anyway, so what do you care?" "Got a point there. Guess I'm just wasting my time. But there are a few people here on the island that I like--you, incidentally, are not among them--and I would kind of hate to see them get blown away because of your fucking incompetence." He paused, trying to breathe. "As it happens, I had a chat with the project director. She told me how that system works. The nuts and bolts are a little complicated, but it boils down to what happens inside the rocket when the Cyclops laser starts up. Surely you know the energy in the Cyclops creates plasma in the vehicle--that's loose atoms--which becomes the propellant." Vance looked at him. "You do know that, don't you?" Moreau nodded, almost but not quite understanding what he was talking about. "Good, because the interesting part comes next. You don't create this atomic soup called plasma without generating a lot of electromagnetic noise--in other words, radio garbage." You know, he thought to himself, it's getting to sound better and better all the time. "These technical things do not concern me," Moreau declared with a shrug. "They may not concern you, pal, but they might concern the bomb. What if one of the radio signals produced just happens to be the one that triggers its detonator? And believe me, with the smorgasbord of radio noise that plasma produces, the chances are easily fifty-fifty. I hope you feel lucky, asshole." "I don't believe you." He sat down, in a spare chair, beginning to appear a little uncertain. "You hotshots are a little over your head here. Maybe you ought to pass that information to the chief." Anything to get him out of here, Vance was thinking. Anything to give me a little time to recover. "I suggest you think about it." He struggled to rise, but then realized he was tied into the chair. 'Congratulations. I think you just about beat me to a pulp." "It was my pleasure." Moreau looked him over, his expression now definitely troubled. "Now I should beat you again for lying." "If it's all the same, I think you might be smart to keep me conscious for a while longer. Maybe I can tell you how to solve your problem." "If you are so wise, then tell me now." Moreau said. "With all due respect, I don't talk to messenger boys." He tried to shift his weight, but his body hurt no matter what he did. "You wouldn't understand anyway. It's too technical. Why don't you let me have a chat with that genius you've got running the computer? He's the only one around here who could possibly understand what I'm talking about." And he's the one, Vance told himself, who now holds the key to everything. Remove him and their whole house of cards crumbles. "You mean the Israeli." He fairly spat out the words. "He's--" "So, this operation is multinational." "Peretz is handling the computer." "Peretz. Is that his name?" Now we're getting somewhere, Vance thought. If I can get in the same room with the bastard, maybe I can rearrange his brain cells. "He is supposed to be a computer specialist." Moreau's voice betrayed his contempt. "Maybe he is. But he thinks he knows everything. Whenever anybody tries to tell him anything, he just laughs and makes bad jokes. He won't listen to you." "Well, why don't we give it a shot anyway?" Moreau examined him closely, still skeptical but beginning to have second thoughts. "Why would you want to do this, anyway? Help us?" "Like I told you, I figure you're going to end up detonating that bomb somewhere. Frankly I'd just as soon it wasn't fifty feet from where I'm standing, make that sitting. I do have a small sense of self- preservation left. So why don't you do everybody a favor and let me talk to this Peretz? He has to change the radio frequency that detonates the bomb to digital mode. If that thing is controlled with plain old UHF the Cyclops may just set it off before it ever leaves the pad." Vance knew he was talking over this thug's head. He was talking over his own head. But who knew? His fabrication might even be true. The story, though, probably could use some work. "Look," he said finally, "why don't you raise him on that walkie-talkie and let me talk to him?" Moreau frowned at the idea. "We've gone to radio silence except for emergencies." "I'd say this qualifies." "That remains to be seen." He paused. "I'll go and tell him what you said. Then he can decide for himself what he wants to do." "I don't want to belabor the obvious here, but time is running a little short." "I'll be back. If he says you are lying, I may just kill you myself." Whereupon he opened the door and walked straight into a befuddled Isaac Mannheim. CHAPTER FIFTEEN 5:03 A.m. They had used the same insertion procedure off Beirut three years earlier, so there was nothing about this that was new. Standard procedure. As had been planned all along, they donned scuba gear at five hundred meters out, packed their equipment in waterproof bags, and entered the churning water. After the raft was punctured, obliterating all evidence, the seven men of ARM set out, underwater, for the rugged shoreline of Andikythera. Their scuba gear was invisible against the dark sea as, one by one, they emerged through the breakers and into the last remnants of rain from the storm. They faced a short ledge of surf-pounded rocks immediately abutted by a sheer granite cliff--exactly what they expected, indeed what they wanted. They were greeted by silence from up above, which gave lope that the insertion had gone undetected. So far. They were in, with the only problem being they no longer had Vance to serve as point man. They would be proceeding blind. But not too blind. Back in Athens they had studied the schematics of the facility carefully and had concluded the most vulnerable insertion point would be Launch Control. Added to that, Ramirez was last reported to be there, and the objective was to take him out as quickly and efficiently as possible. That also was the place where they believed they could shut down the operation quickest and get their hands on the weapons. Everything came together: hit Launch. They had discussed renewing radio contact with the woman named Andros, in hopes she might be able to give them an update on the disposition of the hostiles and friendlies. But they decided to wait and see first if they could handle it alone. Radio security was nonexistent, as they had already discovered. For now, the downside of breaking radio silence outweighed the upside. Later, perhaps, when it no longer mattered. After he had pulled off his scuba gear, Armont took out his IR scope and surveyed the top of the cliff and the coastline. Both looked clear. "All right, it's going to be light soon," he whispered. "Let's get up there and get to work." Dimitri Spiros nodded, then began donning an old SatCom uniform he had brought, left over from his days on the island, hoping to pass himself off as a company staffer if need be and get in position to act as point man--since Vance was not part of the picture now. Spiros would guide the unit in, using a secure radio to coordinate the overall operation with Pierre, and with Reggie, who would be standoff sniper. By the time Dimitri was finished, they were ready. Marcel tossed a grapple up the side of the steep cliff and it lodged somewhere near the top. Next Spiros tested the line, then started making his way up, inserting silent spikes into the crevasses as he climbed. The granite was firm, with enough irregularities to hold onto. When he reached the top and signaled the all-clear, the others immediately followed, with Hans bringing up the rear after he had secured the gear with ropes, ready to hoist. As the last black satchel topped the cliff, they went to work, breaking out the hardware they would need. The light of dawn had opened just enough for everybody to see what they were doing, yet remain little more than shadows in the early mist. Or was it fog? The dark made it hard to tell, but it was a magic moment that would not last long. Since Reggie was the standoff sniper, he normally would have begun installing his IR scope, but now, with dawn so near, the need for IR capability was problematical. Not being seen was as great a concern as seeing. Just ahead, barely visible, was the Rota-Barb fence. Since Spiros had installed it, he strode ahead and did the honors, cutting the razor wire quickly and efficiently. With daylight approaching, there was no time for niceties such as scaling; they would just have to take the chance that the security system was no longer operative. They carried the equipment through, then scouted the approach. Up the rocky hill they could see two silver spires, now illuminated with spotlights. After a few moments of thoughtful silence, Reggie Hall nodded and pointed toward an outcropping of rocks located near the north entrance to Launch Control, indicating with hand signs that they would provide the best location for overall surveillance. He would set up there, a look-down spot from where he could handle the standoff- sniper chores, ready at any time to neutralize any hostiles who might emerge from Launch. It also was a good spot from which to monitor hostile radio traffic. Having done this many times before, they were ready. Armont and Hans, together with the brothers Voorst, would lead the assault, while Marcel would be at the rear of the entry element, serving as defense man, covering for them and providing security. As point man, Spiros would supply backup for Marcel if things got hot or if somebody tried to ambush the entry team during approach and entry, or during withdrawal. The Greek would also be in charge of directing any pyrotechnics. In addition to acting as commander, Armont would assume his usual role as security man, providing covering fire for the entry element during the assault and more close cover during withdrawal. He also would be in charge of any other equipment they might need. Since the assignments reflected ARM's standard configuration, with everybody in their usual slot, there was no need to squander time reviewing who would be where. . . . In moments they were ready, silencers attached, poised to move through the dark, early morning haze. It was providing a small semblance of cover, but not for long. They hoped they could take Launch Control fast enough that there would be no time for the terrorists to use hostages as human shields. If that happened, there was sure to be bloodshed. Just to be on the safe side, Armont did a quick run-through of the assault with hand signals. He was just finishing when Reggie Hall's radio came alive in a burst of static. "Sirene, please come in." It was a woman's voice. "Do you read?" "Blast," he whispered, his face rapidly turning florid in the dim mist. "Didn't we tell her radio silence was essential?" He quickly switched on the microphone. "Ulysses One, get off this channel. Sirene is here." "Thank God. But you've got to try and find Mike. Isaac went to look for him, but he hasn't come back." "You mean Mannheim?" Armont took the microphone. "Where did he go?" "He said he was going to try the empty loading bays down at Launch," she said. "He hasn't come back, so maybe he found him. Could you try there?" Reggie turned to Armont with a questioning look that needed no words. It was, simply, What do we do now? On this one, Armont had no better idea than anyone else. They all knew where the loading bays were, since the blueprints had made that plain enough. The problem was the sequence. Should they go ahead with the assault as planned, to take the time to try to find him and pull him out? Her intel on his location was just a guess, but it was a start. ARM's rules always had been that their own people came first. So if they knew where Vance might possibly be, nothing else mattered. According to the rules, they had to drop everything and try to pull him out. Even if it jeopardized the operation. Those were the rules. No exceptions. For that matter, Armont suddenly thought, why not try and bring her in out of the cold, too? Then they would have a personal guide to the whole layout. It seemed to make a lot of sense, particularly since radio security was already shot to hell. He clicked on the microphone again. "Can you meet us there? Where you think he is?" "Copy. Give me eight minutes." And the radio clicked off. I hope we've got eight to spare, Armont thought, checking his Krieger watch. The minutes were ticking away. "Okay, we'll change the plan," he whispered. "We'll make the insertion through the loading bays." He nodded to Hans and the Voorst brothers, and without so much as a word they tightened their black hoods and headed up through the mist. 5:19 A.M. She heaved a sigh of relief as she put down the microphone and prepared to stumble down the hill. She realized she had violated protocol by breaking radio silence, but she was almost as worried about Michael Vance as she was about the facility. And it was a disturbing realization. Or maybe not so disturbing. True, he had screwed up, but then everybody did that from time to time. Even Alan . . . there it was again. But come on, the resemblance was almost scary. And she was also beginning to hate him for the same reasons she had hated Alan. It was the anger, and maybe the guilt. . . . She had told them eight minutes. So get moving. It was going to be tight. First find Mike, and Isaac. If that was possible. And then go on to the real business of the morning. Whoever was on the Fujitsu had to be stopped, even if it meant more damage to the facility. The cost no longer mattered. SatCom could be rebuilt, everything. But if one of those Third World bombs were set off somewhere, it would be another Hiroshima. The horror of it would be unthinkable. She prayed a short prayer, something she hadn't done in twenty-five years, and started down the hill. 5:20 A.M. Out the wide windows of Launch Control the searchlight- illuminated spires of VX-1 and VX-2 gleamed through the early mist. Sabri Ramirez studied them, thinking about logistics. With all the scrambled radio traffic in the area, he had a sneaking suspicion--more than a suspicion-- that a Special Forces assault was being set up. But that's what all the hostages were for. Everything was on schedule, just as planned. According to Peretz, the last tests of the telemetry had been completed and the countdown was proceeding without a hold. Outside, in the vast bay that was Launch, technicians buzzed, a sea of white coats. Lines of workstations showed voltage and amperage values for the power buildup in the coil. Calculations of wind shear were being made, and preliminary tests were being run on the guidance system. The "orbops" team, orbital operations, was busy running up orbital and attitude numbers, readying their input commands. The irony was, they still didn't have a clue they were about to send up a nuclear device. American ingenuity turned on itself, in a fearsome symmetry. . . . 'Take a look at what I found." Ramirez whirled, hearing the voice, and was startled to see Jean-Paul Moreau coming in through the doorway of Launch Control leading the old Jew professor, Isaac Mannheim. Where did he come from? The old man was supposed to be sedated and sequestered away for safekeeping in the living quarters. Guess it hadn't worked. Here he was, bumbling about. On the other hand, maybe this was a stroke of timing. He was about to be needed again, and this saved the trouble of having to go and get him. "Where was he?" "Wandering around the loading docks," Jean-Paul said, still shoving Mannheim ahead of him. "I think there's a technical question we need to run by him." "What?" "That bastard Vance just claimed that the Cyclops laser may set off the device when it starts up. I didn't get it exactly. He wants to talk to Peretz. Something about plasma and stray radio frequencies." "Sounds like an invention to me," Ramirez said, looking Mannheim over. The old man, his baseball cap askew, was clearly as mad as a loon. What would he know about anything? On the other hand, he was a scientist, so it wouldn't hurt to ask. "Well, what about it, Herr Doctor Professor?" He walked over and straightened the old man's cap. "Is your laser going to produce random radio signals?" "Of course not," Mannheim declared. 'That's what is so ideal about this system. There's nothing to interfere with the telemetry. No static. No-- " "I thought so," Moreau muttered, cutting him off. With a flourish of his blond hair, he turned to go back to the loading bay. "I'm leaving him here. Vance was lying. Just as I thought. He's going to regret--" The walkie-talkie on Ramirez's belt crackled and he grabbed it instantly. "What do you want? I ordered radio silence." "Firebird One, this is Hacker," came the voice of Peretz. "I turned on the security system for a look-see, and lo and behold I think there's a possible penetration in progress. Down on the south shore. In sector fifty-six of the fence. Could be a malfunction, but maybe somebody ought to check it out." Ramirez groaned silently. Was this the assault he had been half expecting? If so, it was coming quicker than he had planned. Which meant that having Mannheim here was definitely a stroke of luck. "Wait." He motioned for Moreau, who had turned and was headed through the doorway. "I want you here till we find out what this is. Could be a false alarm, but then maybe not." Okay, he thought quickly, where is everybody? Time to batten down. Peretz, of course, was in Command, along with Salim. Wolf Helling was here in Launch, coordinating telemetry between Peretz and the Pakistanis. Stelios was keeping tabs on the prisoners now in the living quarters, the Bates Motel. Jamal was on patrol around the perimeter--why hadn't he noticed anything?--together with the two Stasi. And Jean-Paul was here. The first thing to do would be to raise Jamal on the radio and have him check out the situation there in the south. And if it really was a penetration, then the two most expendable members of the team right now were the Stasi. They were the cannon fodder. Let them earn their share. "All right," he said to Peretz, "we'll check it out. Ten- four." While Jean-Paul watched, he quickly raised Jamal on the walkie-talkie and repeated what Peretz had said. "It could be a malfunction of the sensors, but who the hell knows. If this is the real thing, then we'll have to take steps. But once we escalate, everything is going to get more complicated." "I'll have Schindler check it out and get back to you in three minutes," Jamal barked back. "We'll keep the line open till I know for sure what's going on." "All right, but you'd better get ready for trouble. My hunch is that this may be the beginning. If it is, then we've got our work cut out. You know what I mean." He clicked it off, then turned to Jean-Paul. "Okay, forget about Vance for now. I want you to go over to Command and help Salim get the security into shape. I'm not sure he knows what the hell he's doing." "Check," Jean-Paul Moreau said. "I'll take care of everything." He walked out the door and into Launch, then headed for the tunnel leading to Command. Ramirez, he knew, had a contingency that was supposed to stop an assault in its tracks. He only hoped it would work as planned. 5:23 A.M. As she moved down the hill, dawn was beginning to show dimly through the fog to the east, promising an early morning clearing of the skies. The prospect made her fearful. The dark had been better, a shroud to cover mistakes. Now, without the fog, she would be almost as exposed as the barren rocks that pockmarked the hillside. The birds this morning were strangely silent, as though they knew ill doings were afoot. Even the pale, fog-shrouded glimpse of VX-1 and VX-2 down at the other end of the island had never seemed more plaintive. She had worked for almost three years to put those vehicles into space, and now she had to try and stop the very thing she had been aiming for all that time. She had told the ARM team she could be there in eight minutes, but now she realized that was optimistic. Though she was moving as fast as she could manage, hugging the line of the security fence, the island seemed to be getting bigger all the time. And smaller. The fence, which had seemed so reassuring when it was installed, wove among the trees and rocks as it went down the hill, almost a meandering presence. But it was not hard to follow, even in the reduced visibility of the half-dark and fog. The trick, she realized, was going to be finding the ARM team. Or maybe they would find her. Finding things was what they were supposed to be good at. . . . Thank God. There was somebody up ahead, barely visible through the dim light. Only one, however, which immediately made her wonder. She paused, drew a deep lungful of the fresh morning air, and waited to see what he would do. For one thing, he was moving along as though he was searching, yet with an air of owning the terrain. Shit, it was one of Ramirez's men, out on patrol. She recognized him. It was one of the European hoods who had barged into Command the fateful evening now half a lifetime away. Quickly she tried to melt into the shadow of a tall bush, but she was too late. His head jerked around and he saw her. Up came an automatic. He was dressed in black, and as he approached her, he flashed a crooked smile, then produced a German accent. "So, it's you. We've been missing you." "Which one of them are you?" She didn't know what else to say. "I am Max Schindler," he replied, in heavily accented English. He was at least thirty pounds overweight, the hard-earned rewards of a lifetime of potatoes and strudel. He looked like a puffing, black balloon. "Number One vill be pleased to have you return to us. He thought you were an assault." He laughed as he gestured her forward with the weapon. "Come on. This morning, I think, is going to go quickly. Just another couple of hours and the real excitement will begin." "I can hardly wait." "Good"--it sounded more like goot--"you are going to have a circle-side seat." He seemed extremely pleased with himself, both with his own humor and with the fact that he had been the one who would be bringing her back. "You mean ringside. Great." The time was already flashing by, she thought--the eight minutes she had given ARM were undoubtedly up--which meant they probably would be changing plans again, working their way. Would they just forget about her and move on? "Tell me, how did a smart guy like you end up working for a maniac like Ramirez?" "Who?" 'The guy you call Number One. I hear he's really Sabri Ramirez. Didn't you know?" The German's startled look betrayed his disbelief. His small, pig-like eyes narrowed. "Who told you such a thing?" "Just a little birdie." Schindler shrugged, unconvinced, then pushed her on. "That's impossible. Everybody knows Sabri Ramirez has been dead for two, maybe three years." Well, she thought, with any luck he soon will be. "Whatever you say," she continued. "It's absurd. Ramirez was South American. Number One is from Beirut. Now come on, hurry. Just keep your hands where I can see them." Schindler was almost shoving her around a rocky outcrop. "We have to get up to Launch before he gets impatient and sends somebody else out looking." "Well, if you're in such a big rush, there's a quicker way to get into Launch than the way we're going. We can just enter through the loading bays"--she pointed--"up there. We don't have to go all the way around." "Are they unlocked?" He looked up and squinted through the mist. The bays were distinguishable by tall metal doors that were sized to accommodate some of the large vehicle components that had been delivered over the past couple of years. They could just be seen now, dark silhouettes against the horizon. "The big doors are probably locked, but there's a side entrance that's always open." She paused. "Do what you want. But I guarantee you it's quicker than going around." "All right"--he nodded, a quick bob of his beefy neck-- "you lead the way." What she really was thinking about was the rocks and trees covering that back route. This German blimp escorting her would be no match if she simply took matters into her own hands and made a dash. Why not? It was a desperate move, but this was a desperate moment. "Wait . . ." She bent over, as though to tie a shoelace, and when she came up, she was swinging. Schindler was tired, and perhaps because of that he was caught completely off guard, staggering backward. It was the moment of disorientation she needed. She grabbed at the Uzi, hoping to wrench it from his grasp. He may have been surprised, and overweight, but he had lost none of his dogged Stasi tenacity. His one- handed grip tightened on the weapon as his other hand flew up to defend his face. Now she had one hand on the breech of the automatic, and with the other she reached out and seized the muzzle. It was the leverage she needed to swing the butt of the metal stock up against his jaw. The blow caught him with his mouth open, smashing his lower lip against his teeth and slicing his tongue. He emitted a moan and yanked the Uzi away with both hands. But now Calypso Andros was already stumbling through the brush, up the hill and into the fog. Schindler felt his bleeding lip as he recovered his balance, and he fleetingly considered just taking her out with a quick burst, nice and simple. Though Number One had insisted she be returned alive, he told himself he was mad enough he didn't care. He wanted to kill the bitch. But the second he took to make that calculation proved to be crucial. She had gotten into the heavy brush that ringed the hill farther up. _Scheisse_. He plunged after her, puffing and seething. It was one thing not to have found her; it was another to have had her within his grasp and then let her escape. He would be a laughingstock, again. Wolf Helling, who had given him this job, would be humiliated once more. It was unacceptable, unthinkable. The rocks along the fenceline were jagged, cutting into his boots as he half ran, half stumbled through the dim light. She was up there, somewhere. She had said something about the loading bay, so she probably was headed there. In any case, there weren't that many places to hide. It was just a matter of time. Just a matter of time. . . . 5:24 A.M. Ramirez was talking to Peretz again on his walkie-talkie. "I've been monitoring the scrambled radio traffic, and I've begun to have a sixth sense about the situation. I think we're about to have some uninvited guests from the U.S. Special Forces; ten to one it's Delta. Are you ready?" "Jean-Paul just came in, and he says we're totally secure, baby. SatCom thoughtfully lined this place with steel. Ain't nobody gonna waltz into this little enclave of ours without a press pass. Rest easy, man. Keep cool." "Well, I'm thinking I should send you some more backup, just in case." What I really should do is shoot you and just use the backup. "By the way, how does the schedule look?" "The countdown's now being handled entirely by the computer. So far there are no holds. Lift-off is coming up exactly as scheduled." "Good," Ramirez spoke back, "keep me updated on a ten- minute framework." He paused, thinking. "Incidentally, is there any way we possibly could speed it up?" "Things are pretty tight as they stand. There might be some shortcuts, but I'm not sure I know this system well enough to start fooling around. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, know what I mean?" "An original sentiment," Ramirez responded dryly. "But don't be surprised at anything that may happen here in the next ninety minutes. There may be a setup for an assault, but I'll take care of it." "It's a tough game coming down here. But ain't nobody gonna fuck with us, 'cause we got all the big cards." "They may try it, though. So make sure that place is tight, and have Jean-Paul and Salim double-check all the entries. The chances are good we're going to take a hit, and soon." "No problem from down here. I told you we're covering it." What do you know, you smart-ass? Ramirez asked himself grimly. "All right, but as soon as Jamal checks in, I'm sending him over there, too. And one of the Stasi. Stelios can handle the living quarters by himself. Just keep the countdown going, no matter what else happens." "Okay, but the only way this thing is gonna fly is if you made those bank arrangements the way I wanted. One hand washes the other, as the saying goes. Otherwise, I'm just going to shut the whole thing down. I mean it, man." "It has been taken care of," Ramirez said. "I faxed Geneva. They'd just opened that desk, but I should have a confirmation back in a few minutes." With that announcement he clicked off the mike. And smiled. Peretz' memo had explained he wasn't demanding blackmail; what he wanted was more like an equitable readjustment of the take. And why not? the memo had reasoned. Without his computer skills, nothing could have been possible. He wanted written proof that when the ransom money came in, it would automatically be split, with half going to a new account he specified. What an amateur. It was almost depressing. 5:27 A.M. She stumbled through the brush wondering where they were. They must have come in from the south, which meant they were already near the entrance to the loading bay. Go for that, she told herself, pushing on. The bramble was scraping her face and hands, tearing her clothes. She was going to look like she'd been run through a shredder, she thought. A bloody mess. Then she heard something whiz by, the first shot, and knew the German was closing in, his weapon on semiauto. With a rush of desperation, she threw herself on the ground and tried to merge with the damp leaves and underbrush. And she felt terrible. Mike had screwed things up, but she hadn't done much better. Then, out of the mist just up the hill, a figure appeared. Two figures. Three. Moving with quick, catlike motions. She wanted to yell, to warn them, but maybe all she would be doing was alerting the damned German hood trying to kill her. No, they were supposed to be professionals, so let them handle it their own way. Then she heard another whiz of a round singing by and saw a fleck of dirt fly up only inches from where she lay. Again the hard crack of the German's automatic followed. All right, ARM. You're supposed to be such hotshots. Do something and do it now! The three dark figures answered the shots as though they were in a ballet, all dropping to a crouch virtually in unison. They were using silencers, so the rounds came as a series of dull thunks, but each figure fired only once, or at most, twice. And when she turned to look back, her pursuer was nowhere to be seen. . . . No, he was slumped over a bush, motionless. As one of the hooded figures came up to her and began lifting her to her feet, two of the others advanced cautiously on the German. Their caution, however, was unnecessary. He was as lifeless as the granite rocks around them. Well, she thought, these guys sure know how to treat a lady. 5:28 A.M. Jamal cursed the morning fog that had settled in, understanding it was probably moisture left over from the storm. Then he checked his watch and realized that Schindler was overdue. Which was typical. He was beginning to wonder how the German nation had acquired its famous reputation for punctuality. And efficiency. Both were, in his opinion, grossly undeserved. Helling's recommendation that those three screw-ups be brought along did not reflect well on his judgment. He clicked on his walkie-talkie. "Firebird Six, do you copy? Is everything CQ where you are? It's check-in time." There was no answer. The jerk had gone down by the south security fence, where something was amiss. Was he in trouble? Everybody was tied up now, getting ready for the launch. He wondered if they were going to find themselves shorthanded, not having as much firepower as they needed. "Firebird Six, come in. Cut the games." Again silence. Which gave him a very bad feeling. There was no reason for the radio to conk out suddenly. The rule was they always kept their channels open. This was trouble. Time to alert Ramirez. Either Schindler had fucked up, or they had been penetrated. 5:30 A.M. Major General Eric Nichols was so relieved he scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry, and he rarely had been seen to do either. Actually, his feeling was more one of surprise. For once something was going right. After diddling and dabbling for almost ten hours, the Pentagon--Fort Fuck-up--had actually made a decision. It was so unprecedented it might even merit a place in the annals of military history. Such rare moments were to be savored. Maybe they had gotten tired of running computer "risk analyses." Or maybe their damned computer had broken down. Whatever the reason, however, the exalted pay grades upstairs had decided to get off dead center and just let him assault the damned island. The op was a go. The civilian assholes had been headed off at the pass, which meant one less thing to worry about. Now all that remained was to figure how to get the boys in safely and take down the place. And at last he knew there were nukes. Great communication system the Army had, making sure everybody had been briefed and was totally up to speed. Christ! He sat still a moment after setting down the phone, breathing a short prayer. Although appearances would not suggest it, he was in fact a religious man at the core. He had been close enough to death enough times to conclude that there were indeed no atheists in foxholes, and he figured what was good enough for foxholes was good enough for the rest of the time. Besides, what harm did it do? "All right." He turned and glanced at Max Austin. "I guess the computer has got everything planned. Looks like we can go in after all. How's that for efficiency? Just as it gets bright enough for my guys to be risking their asses, we get the green light. I'd say that's just about perfect timing." Austin nodded slowly, then rose to check the teletype machine to see if the orders had really come through. This op was going to be by the book or not at all. If it turned into a nuclear incident, there were going to be inquiries up the wazoo. "Looks like it's really going down," Austin said, yanking off a sheet. "So I'll cut the orders and get us mobilized here. How long before you can get your boys in the air?" "Well, since this is going to have to be a daylight op, we might as well use the Apaches and not fuck around. We'll just hit the bastards with enough firepower to take out the command-control radars up on the hill. That ought to shut down any chance they could get anything launched. Then we've just got a hostage situation to deal with, and if we have to, we can just starve them out. It'll only be a matter of time. Maybe, God willing, we can keep the friendly casualties to a minimum." Austin did not like the image of the headlines Nichols's assault plan suddenly conjured up. Any heavy property damage and there was going to be hell to pay. "I don't like it, Eric," he said. "The word I get is that we're not to damage the infrastructure any more than is absolutely essential. Which means no first strikes on command-and-control. This isn't Iraq, for godsake; this is American property." "You're saying my main orders are to save the infrastructure?" Nichols's tone was deliberately wry. "You've got it. I want you to get in there fast, take down the hostiles, and get this situation the hell over with. That's the best way to put this problem behind us and fast. The last thing this man's army needs is a month's worth of gory headlines. Some quick casualties can look unavoidable and be over with in a day. A long-drawn-out situation can make us all look like jerks." "I can't believe I'm hearing this." "You didn't hear a damned thing, at least not from me. But if you know what's good for the Army, and for the country, you'll get in there and take down the place in a morning, neutralize the hostiles with extreme prejudice, and let the Army write the headlines with a press release." Nichols knew what he was hearing: the groundwork for "deniability." And he despised it. This kind of "cover your ass" bullshit was one of the things that gave him such contempt for desk jockeys. "All right," he said smoothly, covering his disgust, "if you want to play it that way, then we can sure as hell do it. I don't suppose my opinion in the matter is of a hell of a lot of interest to the Pentagon." "Truthfully, no." "Okay." He leaned back. "Doing it the Pentagon's way, there would be two points we need to assault. There's the computer control center, and then there's the launch facility. There're probably terrorists at both, so we've got to take down both locations simultaneously. And both, unfortunately, are underground, which also means we've got to figure out how to get in, get down there, and do it fast." "What would be your insertion strategy, given what we've just discussed?" "Well, I've already got the alternatives rehearsed. Right now I think we should stage a diversionary landing on the coast by a SEAL team, then use the confusion to let the main assault team insert from choppers. My main worry is not the hostages, but getting my own boys shot up going in. It's going to be a cluster-fuck if some of those bastards can get a bead on the task force that's arriving by chopper. Could mean a lot of casualties. Let something go wrong and I don't even want to think about how many of my men could get chewed up. But we've been rehearsing that assault option and I think we can get twenty men on the ground in about ninety seconds." The difference, he was thinking, was that he had been planning to do it under cover of darkness. To suddenly have to revise the entire strategy and try and take down the place in broad daylight was calling every assumption into question. But there was no time to try and devise yet another assault. Shit. All because Washington kept changing its signals, and when it did get them straight, somebody came up with this bullshit about minimizing property damage. It was a goddamn outrage. But that's what you had to expect when REMFs got mixed up in planning an op. Shit. "Well, twenty men should do it," Austin said. "And there'll always be backup from the SEAL team that's providing the coastal diversion. They'll be there, in-theater so to speak." "Right." You don't know fuck-all about how an op like this goes down, Nichols was thinking, and you have the balls to sit there and tell me how to deploy my resources. On the other hand, it sounds easy. Too easy. That's what's wrong with it. The place would appear to be a crackerbox. But these bastards are pros, so they must already have thought through everything we have. Time to plan ahead of them. "All right," Nichols concluded, rising. "I'll have everybody airborne in fifteen minutes." 5:38 A.M. Vance twisted around and tried to see his watch. He couldn't make out the hands, but they both seemed to be pointing in the general direction of down. Whatever that meant exactly, the time had to be getting on toward dawn. The six hours that Cally had talked about, the six hours left before the liftoff: how much of that time was left? It had to be half gone. What now? Maybe his cock-and-bull story had impressed the French hood enough to get him out of the room for a while, but it wasn't going to cut any ice with anybody who knew anything about lasers. Sooner or later, he was going to come back. Not something to let the mind dwell on. One thing was sure: he felt like he had been run over by a truck. The blood from the beating was slowly starting to coagulate, crusting on his face. It had begun to itch, and something where his liver used to be was emitting stabbing bursts of pain. It would come, then subside, then come again. He tried to focus his eyes on the room, the piles of empty crates, wondering if maybe a sharp object was protruding somewhere, maybe something he could use to cut away at the cord that held his hands. Nothing, and it was a stupid idea anyway, left over from too many B movies. But now his mind was beginning to attempt to function with a little more rationality, and along with that came the glimmerings of an idea. The bomb was aboard one of the vehicles and a countdown was under way, now being handled by Bill's supercomputer. There was no obvious way to stop it. Maybe, however, there was a not-so-obvious way. A last- minute reprieve. Assuming he ever got the chance. He groaned and leaned back, wondering . . . What happened next came so fast he couldn't really comprehend it at the time. Only later could he roughly reconstruct the dizzying confluence of events. But that was as it should have been. The door was suddenly slammed wide, and two smoke grenades plummeted into the room, followed by a flash grenade. Next, through the smoke and confusion three men dressed in black pullovers plunged through the opening and dropped to their knees, MP5s at the ready. Jesus! He gasped for breath, blinded by the flash grenade but still trying to see through the billowing CS that was engulfing everything. In what seemed like less than a second, one of the men appeared by his side, and he saw a knife blade flash. A hand was slapped over his mouth as another rough set of hands yanked him from the chair. His legs were numb from the bindings, but they came alive as his weight went back onto them. Terra firma had never felt better. The men's faces were all covered in balaclavas, but one of them gave two sharp clicks and, on that signal, they began to drag him out the door. He knew better than to say a word. The whole operation had been carried out with clockwork precision and in perfect silence--except for the destruction of the door. Had there been any terrorists in the room, they would have been dead, scarcely knowing what had happened. As they entered the hallway, one of the men pulled back his antismoke hood. "You look like hell," Willem Voorst said. "Can you walk?" "In a manner of speaking." He felt pain shooting up through his wobbly legs. "I suppose I should ask what took you so long, only it hurts to talk. You weren't scheduled in for another day. What happened?" "We moved up the timetable, though you'd be amazed how many people didn't want us to show up," Marcel remarked, his Belgian calm returning. "The entire U.S. Navy, to be exact. We were made to feel very unwanted." "That's going to seem like a Welcome Wagon compared to what's coming up." He paused and tried to inhale the comparatively smokeless air of the hallway. "What's the plan? Do you want to try and take out Launch Control, or do you want to move on Command? . . ." That was when he saw Cally. "How did you get down here?" "Somebody had to lead these guys in," she said matter-of- factly. Her face was scratched and her shirt torn. "No thanks to you. All we have to thank you for is blowing up the gantry" He just groaned. "Things got complicated." "But you waited until it moved over the explosive before you blew it. I saw the whole thing. How could you be so crazy!" Her anger was boiling. "That wasn't what we agreed to." "Like I said, things---" "Please, give me a break. If you worked for me, I'd fire you on the spot." It was clear she meant every word. "So after you screwed that up, what was I supposed to do? I had no choice but to get on the radio. Now look at the mess we're in. What happened?" "To tell you the truth," Vance answered, "I'm not even quite sure myself." "Great. Just great." "It's a jungle out there." "No kidding." "Later. I'll tell all," he said lamely, wanting desperately to change the subject. "Right now, though, there's the matter of Ramirez. And by the way, it is him. We had a one-on-one." "What did he tell you?" Armont asked, his interest suddenly alive. "Did he say what he wanted out of all this? Ransom or what?" "We didn't make it that far. A personality conflict got in the way." "No hint? Nothing?" "Just that he knows exactly what he's doing. They're going to launch an atomic bomb. Kill a lot of people somewhere. And I don't think the payment of ransom is going to make them call it off. They're going to take the money, then go ahead and do it anyway." He rubbed a hand across his face, trying to feel a cut, then drew it away and examined the blood in the half-light, not quite sure what he was seeing. "But I still think that if we take him out, the rest of them will fold." He looked at Cally, trying to meet the outraged glare she was bestowing on him. "Any idea where he is now?" 'The last I knew, he was in Launch," she said, still visibly fuming. "Then I guess that's the first objective." "Jesus, do you want to go in shooting?" She looked around at the motley men of ARM. "Those are my people in there, you know, my friends. It could be a bloodbath." "Doesn't have to be." Spiros had pulled back his balaclava and was shaking Vance's hand with an air of genuine contrition. Maybe trying to cheer him up after Cally Andros's blast. "Michael, I'm damned sorry about all this. The whole thing is my fault, really." "Spilt milk," Vance replied. "Now we have to look ahead." "Well, it's my spilt milk, as you say," Spiros declared, "and I want to clean it up myself. If all we need to do is take down Ramirez, I think I can get in there and maybe do it without too much in the way of pyrotechnics." "What do you mean?" Armont asked. "Let me go in by myself, alone. I've got a uniform, so I'll just be another Greek mechanic. At least we should try that first. See what I can do." "Dimitri, that's a heroic offer," Armont said, "but--" "No, it's not heroic, it's realistic. It's a chance, but one I think we should take." "We don't stay in business by taking chances," Armont declared, vetoing him on the spot. "We go in as a team." "All or nobody," Hans said. "It may not always be best, but those are the rules." "Exactly." Armont closed out the subject. "All or nothing. So let's get out the blueprints and start assigning the entry-points." CHAPTER SIXTEEN 11:16 P.M. "It's him," Alicia's voice came back over the intercom in the Oval Office. By now it looked as disheveled as the Situation Room in the basement. "What?" Hansen said. "The son of a bitch is on the phone again? At this hour?" "What do you want me to do?" she asked. "Just a minute." He clicked off the intercom and returned to his other call. "Caroline, I don't know. Just play it by ear and do the best you can. Press Secretaries get paid for giving non-answers. Tell the goddamn Post we have no comment. Try and make a deal. Say you'll give their team an exclusive, deep background, just for them, if they'll hold off another few hours to give us time to sort this out. Tell him we promise not to give the Times anything fit to print until after their deadline tomorrow. The late edition." He paused. "You're probably right, but give it a shot anyway. Look, I've got to go." He reached over and pushed a second button on the console. "Yes." "Mr. President," came the voice, its accent more pronounced now, "I know you think you can recover this facility with an assault, but I want to assure you that any such action would be a very costly mistake." "The only mistake that's been made so far was made by you. Going there in the first place." Hansen glanced at the listing of his commitments for the next day. Ted would have to cancel all of them. This wasn't how the presidency was supposed to be. Nobody told him he would be spending days on end negotiating with a criminal threatening mass murder. "Let me put it like this," the voice went on. "If there is an assault, all I have to do is retire to the lower level of the facility and then detonate one of the nuclear devices I now have armed. It's radio- controlled." "If you want to commit suicide, then go ahead," Hansen said. What kind of bluff was that? he wondered. "Let me put your mind at ease," came the voice, as measured and secure as it was foreboding. "My revolutionary colleagues and I will be at the main power coil, which is buried at least three hundred feet below the bedrock here. It is a ready-made bomb shelter. Any invading force, however, would be vaporized, along with all the civilians." "You'd never escape," Hansen shot back. "What's the point?" "That remains to be seen. But what you have to ask yourself is whether you are prepared to have a nuclear disaster in the Aegean." On that point, Hansen admitted to himself, the son of a bitch had a point. The political costs, not to mention the economic costs, would be staggering. "Look," he said, "you're proposing a scenario neither of us wants. It would be irresponsible and immoral. Though I suppose those points don't disturb you very much." "Let me help your thought processes. You have twenty minutes, starting now. If at the end of that time you can't assure me that the assault has been called off--please don't bother to deny that one is imminent-- then what will happen will be on your hands." He paused. "Incidentally, I also will bring Professor Mannheim to the phone then, and you can explain to him why he is about to die. I am putting this line on hold. You now have nineteen minutes and forty seconds." The phone went silent. Hansen stared at Ed Briggs, sitting bleary-eyed across on the couch, then returned his gaze to the desk, noting the time on the digital clock. 6:25 A.M. "Alpha Leader, this is SEAL One," crackled the radio. "Bearing two- zero-niner. Range five hundred meters. No hostile fire." "Roger," Nichols replied. "Continue inbound." He clicked off his walkie-talkie, then turned around and yelled to the men in the back of the Huey. "Okay, heads up. The assault is now in progress. We go in at 0630 hours." The Deltas nodded as they checked their watches and spare ammo clips. The twenty-three men were all wearing black pullover hoods, each with a thin plastic microphone that looked like a phone operator's. Over these they had Kevlar helmets with protective goggles and light balaclavas, while their bulletproof assault vests included pockets filled with grenades and extra ammo for their H&K MP5 assault submachine guns. Nichols was using a squad of ten Navy SEALs to stage a diversionary assault on the shoreline, the same kind of diversion that had been employed so successfully by the SEALs in the war to liberate Kuwait. After leaving the carrier, they would approach the island at forty mph in a pair of Fountain-33 speedboats, powered by 1,000-hp MerCruiser engines. About one kilometer offshore, they were scheduled to disembark into two motorized Zodiac rubber raiding craft that they had lashed to the bow. If all went according to plan, they would hit the coastline in full view and provide diversionary fire, giving the real assault team an opening to take the two main objectives. That's when the serious action would begin. Nichols and his men would then come in using Army choppers--two HH-1K Huey gunships and two AH-64A Apaches. The Hueys would hover and drop off the insertion teams, while the Apaches would provide backup firepower that--with their 30mm chain guns, Hellfire missiles, and 70mm folding-fin rocket pods--could easily be mistaken for the end of the world. The assault was timed down to the second. Three minutes after the diversionary SEAL action began, the two Hueys would set down in the middle of the island and pour out the real assault teams, one team to storm Command and the other to hit Launch Control, massively. He figured if they took both at once, there would be no place for the terrorists to hide. That was the best way they knew to accomplish their first objective, which was to neutralize any nuclear devices safely. The outstanding unknown, of course, was the location of those devices, and their state of readiness. You had to assume terrorists weren't suicidal, Nichols told himself . . . but yet, what about Beirut and the Marine barracks, demolished by a suicide mission? Such things were never outside the realm of possibility. So if these crazy fuckers decided to go out in a blaze of glory, it wouldn't exactly be a first. . . . "Alpha Leader." The radio came alive again. "SEAL One objective secure. No sign of any hostiles down here." "Copy, SEAL One." Shit, Nichols thought. The bastards didn't go for it. They're battening down, planning to make a stand. And why not? They've got hostages. They think we're not going to hit the place. They've got another thing coming. It's just going to be bloodier than we had hoped. If they start using the hostages for human shields . . . "Request permission to advance toward Launch Control," came the radio again. "If we're going to provide that diversion, we're going to have to go in." Why not? Nichols thought. We're already improvising, but maybe the bastards can still be drawn out. It's worth a try. "Roger, SEAL One," he said, checking his watch. "Watch yourself. It could be a setup." He knew the SEALs were lightly armed, with only a German Heckler & Koch submachine gun each, plus a couple of M16s specially equipped with M203 grenade launchers, the so-called "bloop tube." Still, those boys could raise some hell. "Confirmed." "Copy. We'll slip in here for five. Kick hell out of anything that's not nailed down." "Roger, Alpha Leader. If they show their heads, they're gonna know we're in town." 6:26 A.M. "All right," Armont declared, "we make the insert here." He tapped his finger on the blueprint. "We hit the nerve center of Launch with flash- bangs and tear gas, and take it down. If we're lucky, Ramirez will still be there, and that should be the end of it. He always controls an operation totally. Nobody else will have any authority. That's his style. If we handle it surgically, there shouldn't be any major casualties among the friendlies." The area around Launch Control was still foggy, illuminated mainly by the lingering spotlights on two vehicles. No technicians were in evidence, since the final stages of the countdown were underway and nothing remained to be done to the exterior of VX-1. The dry ice "propellant" had been installed and now the action was underground, where the subterranean energy-storage system, the superconducting coil, was being primed. At this point, most of the staffers were monitoring the last-minute computer checks of the in-flight systems. "Sounds good," Reggie said, pointing to a spot on the blueprint. "I'll position myself right there, where I'll have a clear shot at the main points of ingress and egress. Now let's move it before somebody checks in with the security system and picks up our penetration." Everybody else agreed, signifying it by a last-minute review of weapons and gear. Everybody, that is, except Michael Vance, who had been thinking, and worrying, about the irreversible step that a frontal assault would represent. What if Ramirez had left Launch and gone back to Command? The man had a habit of keeping on the move. It was an innate part of his inner nature. "You know . . ." He rubbed at his swollen face and winced at the pain. "I'd like to suggest a different tack. A sort of 'look before you leap' approach." "What do you mean?" Armont asked distractedly, anxious to get the assault under way while there was still a lingering cover of fog and semi dark. "Pierre, before the team assault, why don't you let me test the waters a bit. See if I can't be a decoy long enough to make them show their hand." "Care to explain exactly what you have in mind?" Armont asked, always willing to listen, if skeptically. "They know I'm here. They don't know about the team, at least not yet. And, more to the point, we don't know if Ramirez is really in there or not. But assuming he is, instead of storming the place, why not let me first see if I can't draw him out, at least give us a preview of his resources." "How would anybody go about doing that?" Reggie was double-checking the sight on his Enfield L85A1 assault rifle, still anxious to get moving. "Well," Vance went on, "he wants me. So maybe this is not the worst time to use our heads instead of hardware. Why not use _me _as bait?" "Michael," Armont interjected, "whatever you have in mind, you've done enough already. This isn't your fight, and I can't in good conscience ask you to do anything more. You just take care of those bruises and let us handle it from here on out. Tell you the truth, you look like hell." Vance paused, trying to get a grip on his own feelings. "All right, maybe it's just a vendetta on my part, unprofessional, but the real truth is I'd like the chance to take him down myself." He realized he had truly come to hate Ramirez, a killer without a conscience who deserved anything he got. "Besides, there's another reason. I think he's got an old professor in there somewhere, and I confess a certain fondness for the man, in spite of all his bungling. If you rush the place, God only knows what he's liable to do. Probably get himself killed." "I can understand you might feel you have a personal stake in this," Reggie Hall said finally, "but what exactly do you think you can do? Remember the old saying, Shakespeare or somebody, a hero is the bloke who died a-Wednesday." "I don't plan to try and get killed. But why not let me take some flash grenades and a gun? Go up there by the gantry and generate a little excitement. If he's still there, maybe I can draw him out. He won't realize I've got backup. You take it from there." "I'm not sure I like it," Armont grumbled, slamming a clip into his automatic. "If you ask me, there's been too damned much impromptu strategy on this op already." "On the other hand, Michael has a point," Hans interjected with Germanic logic. "If we can separate Ramirez from the hostages, it could prevent a lot of danger to the friendlies. My only worry is that if it doesn't work, then we've blown the element of surprise. All of a sudden we've got a firefight on our hands." "We've got a firefight anyway," Marcel observed, "no matter what happens. So why not?" "I agree it's a gamble," Vance paused. "But the alternative could be a genuine disaster." He took an MP5 from the bag of hardware they had brought and checked the clip. "Does anybody strenuously object?" "I do," Cally finally spoke up, her anger at him seeming to soften. "We'll probably have to come and pick up the pieces. But you're right about Isaac. Knowing him, he's liable to just walk into a line of fire, out of sheer absentminded-ness." "All right." Vance looked around. "While the fog is still in, I want to go up." He was pointing. Why wait for a vote? Nobody seemed to be strongly against it. "I'll come in from up there"--he pointed--"by the base of what's left of the gantry, and try to draw him out. If nothing else, it'll be diversion. If it doesn't work, you can still go in." "All right, you win," Armont said. His eyes betrayed his lingering misgivings. "But you're making yourself a target, so don't try any heroics. If Ramirez does show his face, let us take it from there. This isn't your game." Willem Voorst nodded and pulled out an extra vest, already festooned with grenades. He handed it to Vance, who slipped it on and secured it, wincing silently from the pain in his rib cage. "Just be bloody careful," Reggie Hall said. That and nothing more. British understatement. Calypso Andros had no such reserve. Her hair plastered across her face, she reached up and impulsively kissed him on a swollen cheek. Then she whispered good luck. 6:31 A.M. "Alpha Leader, this is SEAL One. I think we've spotted some hostiles." With a smile, Nichols clicked his radio to transmit. He was in the lead Huey, now hovering slightly more than a kilometer away from the shoreline of Andikythera. "I copy, SEAL One. What's your status?" "We're ready to get acquainted. Are you synchronized?" "Roger," Nichols's terse voice replied back. "I want all hell to break loose. And any bad guys you can pin down or neutralize will be much appreciated. We insert in ninety seconds." "We roger that, Alpha Leader. SEAL One team on full auto." Nichols turned to his pilot, Manny Jackson. "Okay, it's a go. I want us on the ground in nine-zero seconds." 6:32 A.M. Vance moved quickly up the hill, toward the toppled gantry. Already he had a view of the wide sloping window that was the center of Launch Control, and he could see figures there, though not clearly enough to know if Ramirez was one of them. Maybe they were SatCom staffers or . . . No. There was Ramirez, talking on the phone. And standing beside him was the man Vance had come to love . . . Isaac Mannheim. The old professor looked haggard, a perfectionist man who had despaired. He clearly had lost touch with time and place. Then Ramirez handed him the phone and barked something at him. Dejectedly he took it and started speaking. Damn. Any half-competent sniper could take out Ramirez here and now. He thought he was safe, and he had never been more exposed. But this was not a job for an amateur, not with Mannheim so close. Okay, he thought, guess this is going to have to happen the hard way. He extracted a flash grenade from the vest Willem had given him and got ready to pull the pin. 6:33 A.M. "Johan, he'll do it," Isaac Mannheim was saying into the handset that Ramirez had thrust into his face. 'They have two devices. One is on VX- 1, ready for launch, and the other one is here. They say they've rigged a radio-controlled detonator on it. He's going to use it if you don't do whatever it is he wants." "Let me talk to the son of a bitch again," Hansen said. "All right, Johan. Please talk to him." Mannheim handed back the receiver. His hand was shaking. "Have you made a decision, Mr. President?" Ramirez inquired. "Yes, goddammit. I've got an open line to Gournes. You can listen while I issue the order to hold off the assault for six hours. Does that satisfy you?" "It will do for a start," Ramirez said. "Then we can talk about the money." And he listened as Hansen spoke tersely through the secure communications link to Mission Control on the Kennedy. What he did not hear in Hansen's conversation was the incredulity on the other end of the line. But the assault is already under way, General Max Austin was declaring, stunned. They were in communication with Nichols, and the SEALs were about to open fire on the hostiles. "Just scrub the operation," Hansen barked. "That's an order." "That was a wise decision," Ramirez said, listening. "Now about the money." "Check with the bank in fifteen minutes," Hansen said, a note of resignation in his voice. "It will be deposited. Now, I want you out of there, all hostages safe, and those weapons disarmed and left." "You have nothing to worry about," Ramirez declared, scarcely able to contain his sense of triumph. "You have made a decision for humanity." "Just get the hell gone. And don't try my patience." This time it was Hansen's turn to abruptly break the connection. Ramirez was cradling the receiver, savoring his triumph, when a blinding flash erupted from the direction of the fallen gantry. And there, in the momentary glare, stood Michael Vance. 6:34 A.M. The leader of the SEALs, Lieutenant Devon Robbins, spoke into his thin microphone. "Can you see them? We could use an IR scope." The SEALs had split into two teams, as was their practice, and he was leading the first. "Hard to make out much in this fog," came back his point man, Lieutenant Philip Pease, who was leading the second team. Pease was exactly twenty meters away, all but invisible because of his dark commando gear. He was studying the men up the hill with a pair of 8x30mm Steiner stereo-optic binoculars. Though they were designed for low light, he still could not see clearly. "But they're dressed in black, and they look like they're armed." "What else can you ID?" "They're not together, exactly. It's almost as though they're deploying for something." "What the hell are they doing outside in the first place? Does it mean the fuckers haven't gotten around to taking over the launch facility yet? Maybe they're getting set up for their next move." "Can't confirm anything, SEAL One. Just too much damned fog. . . . Wait, yeah, they've got assault rifles of some kind. Looks like some big-time shit. That's a definite confirm." "Do they look like they're setting up?" "All I can tell for sure is they're moving, spreading out. Something's about to go down. Got to be baddies. Who else could they be?" "All right, SEAL Two, our mission is to create a diversion, shake them up, and let Nichols's chopper teams handle the heavy lifting. Those Apaches can make a man give his heart to Jesus." "You've got a rog on that, SEAL One. But if we're here to make an impression, I say let's give them a big Navy welcome. Time for a close encounter." "We came to play. Get--" A flare blossomed from somewhere up in the vicinity of the vehicles, illuminating the fog into a huge white cloud, vast and mysterious. "What in hell!" yelled Pease's voice on the radio. "That was farther up. Maybe it's a two-point assault." "Looked like it was over to the left. Can you tell what happened?" "Must have been a flash-bang. These assholes brought their own boombox." "Okay, SEAL Two, we've got a mission. First things first. For now we just neutralize those bastards in black. Looks like half our hostiles are outside and in the clear. On the count of three." The SEALS all clicked off the safeties on their MP5s and took aim, wishing they could see something more than dark, vague outlines in the fog. 6:35 A.M. How the hell, Ramirez wondered, did Vance get on the loose again? Moreau was supposed to have taken care of him. Had he screwed up, too? I should have just let Wolf kill him in the first place and had done with it. This time, I'll just handle it myself. He checked his pockets, making sure he had extra clips for his Beretta 9mm and then he headed through the door leading into the open bay of Launch. The SatCom systems engineers and ground-control specialists, not privy to the wide windows of Launch Control, had no idea what had just happened outside. They were too busy worrying about the fog, making the final checks of the electronics, monitoring the countdown clicking off. And all of them had laid side bets on whether the launch, now scheduled for less than an hour and a half away, would be able to proceed. The wagering leaned toward the fog clearing in time. Ramirez strode past the bustling gray SatCom uniforms with a single- mindedness that characterized his every move. How the hell, he was wondering, did Michael Vance get on the island in the first place? He was one of the back-office support types for ARM, a financial guy. Nobody had ever ID'd him in an assault. It made no sense that he was here, when none of the rest of the ARM operatives were around. Why Vance, who was a nobody? All the same, he had specialized in screwing up things ever since the initial penetration. He had managed to wreck the Hind, destroy the gantry, make a general nuisance of himself. The time had come to put a stop to the annoyance and then get moving. If the money had been delivered, as Hansen had claimed, then it was time to move on to the next phase. Just take care of a few banking transactions, then put the egress plan into motion. He hit the lock control on the door, which had long since been defaulted to manual, and strode out, his Beretta ready. The problem now was finding that bastard Vance in the fog, but the reflected light off the spots illuminating the vehicles was going to provide visibility. Besides, the bastard was a cowboy, took chances right and left. He also didn't seem to be a particularly competent marksman. . . . 6:36 A.M. "There he is," Pierre Armont said, peering through the fog with his Tasco Infocus Zoom binoculars. They did not require focusing, and with a touch of a lever he jacked up the power from six to twelve. "I want the sucker myself. We missed him in Beirut, but this time . . ." Up above, Sabri Ramirez was gliding along the side of the fallen gantry, an automatic in his hand. Ramirez, Armont knew, was famous for his Beretta 9mm, used to such deadly effect over the years. It was his trademark, always employed for assassinations. But now, finally, after all the years. There was the Hyena, exposed and clear. One shot. One shot would do it. "He's mine." Armont leveled his MP5, captured Ramirez in the sight, and clicked it to full auto. Vance was a genius. He had lured the Hyena from his lair. Take him out, and the whole op would be over in time for morning coffee. 6:37 A.M. Ramirez was edging down the side of the gantry, the cold angle-iron against his back, when there was an eruption of gunfire down the hill. It was controlled, professional fire that seemed to be coming from two locations. An assault. Well, fuck Hansen. The President had lied, claiming he had called it off. Had he lied about the money, too? The fleeting thought made him seethe. But one problem at a time. He quickly ducked behind the fallen gantry, disappearing into the shadows. One more phone call, then a check with Geneva. If the money hadn't been transferred, Souda Bay and the American Sixth Fleet were both going to disappear in a nuclear cloud. In fact, they were anyway. What better way to cover an egress? 6:38 A.M. "What in--" Armont emitted a curse as all hell broke loose behind them. A fusillade of automatic-weapons fire rained around, from somewhere in the direction of the shoreline. It was almost like covering fire, not well directed, and since everybody on the ARM team had long made a practice of minimizing exposure at all times, he didn't expect immediate casualties. But what in hell! Had Ramirez's terrorist team encircled them, drawn them in? He felt like an idiot. "Hostile fire!" He gave the signal to get down and take cover, swinging his hand from above his head to shoulder level, but that was nothing more than redundant instinct. The ARM team was already on the ground, ready to return fire if so ordered. Nobody, however, was wasting ammo on the darkness. The team had little enough to spare, and besides--why give away your position and create a target? The third consideration was that ARM never fired on an unknown. They were, after all, civilians and answerable. An army could wreak whatever havoc it pleased and later blame everything on the heat of battle. ARM had to be damned sure who it was taking down. By the time Armont's yell died away, everybody on the team had already found cover behind the random outcroppings of rocks. Everybody, that is, except Hugo Voorst, who spun around and stumbled backward, moaned, then collapsed. 6:39 A.M. "Hold your fire! Goddammit, hold your fire." The SEAL leader, Lieutenant Devon Robbins, was pressing in his earpiece, incredulous at what he was hearing. Around him the team was on the ground, in firing position, keeping the terrorists up the hill pinned down. Next would come the assault. "Roger, Alpha Leader, I copy. Does anybody know what's going on with this whole fucked-up op? . . . I copy." He looked around. "We just got aborted." "What the fuck do you mean," the SEAL next to him, John McCleary, said. He was slamming another clip into his MP5. "The team is extracted. Now." Robbins could scarcely believe his own words. "You have got to be fucking kidding," came the radio voice of Lieutenant Philip Pease. "We've got the assholes. A couple of grenades from the blooper and then we take them. They're history." "Hey, I just report the orders, I don't give them," Robbins replied. "Immediate egress. That's the word. Who the fuck knows?" "But what about the choppers? Nichols is coming in with the Apaches." "Goumes says they're scrubbed, too. Everybody's on hold. Nichols just about ate the fucking radio. He's going apeshit." "Well, the hell with Gournes," came a third voice, through a black pullover. "Maybe we had a 'radio failure.' The fuckers are pinned down. Let's just go ahead and take them down. The whole op is blown. Now they're going to know we're coming in." "They probably figured on it anyway," Robbins said, clicking on the safety of his MP5. "But who the hell cares. We're out of here. Flint, you've got the rear. Use it. I'm on point. Let's hit the beach. In five. Pass it on." He switched on his radio. "Listen up. Anybody not in a Zodiac in five mikes swims." 6:40 A.M. Georges LeFarge had been studying Peretz, trying to figure out what was going on. One thing was sure: the countdown was about to switch into auto mode--which meant the priming of the superconducting coil would begin. When that happened, the Cyclops would be entering a very delicate, and dangerous, phase. Shutting it down after auto mode commenced required the kind of familiarity with the system he was sure Peretz did not have. Mess up then and you could literally burn out the huge power storage ring buried deep in the island's core--which was why the Fujitsu was deliberately programmed to thwart any straightforward command to abort. Ironically, the fail-safe mechanism was designed not to shut down the Cyclops, but rather to carry through. At this stage, the only way to abort the launch sequence safely was to bleed off the power using the Cyclops's main radar, the way they had done early last night. To simply flip a switch and turn everything off would be to risk melting the multimillion-dollar cryogenic storage coil down under. The whole thing was as bizarre as it was real. By continuing the countdown until everything went into auto mode, Peretz was creating a monster of inevitability. He was currently trying to explain this to the Israeli, hoping the guy could conceive the gravity of what he was about to do. "You don't understand," he was pleading, his voice plaintive above the clicks of switches and buzz of communications gear in Command, "you're going to risk--" "Hey, kid, chill out." Peretz did not bother to look up from his terminal. A strip-chart recorder next to him was humming away as voltage and amperage checks proceeded. "But look." Georges pointed to the screen of an adjacent workstation. "You've got less than three minutes left to abort the power-up. After the auto-test sequence it's doing now is finished, the superconducting coil starts final power-up. That's when everything switches to auto mode. It's all automatic from then on. For a very good reason." "Hey, that's why we're here, kid." Peretz was grinning his crazy grin. 'This is not some fucking dry run. This is the big one. I've got no intention of shutting it down. We're gonna launch, dude." Dore Peretz knew exactly what the critical go/no-go points in the countdown were; he had researched the Cyclops system extensively. He also knew that after auto mode, there would be no altering the orbital abort and the timing of the detonation. Once auto mode began, he was home free. He could split. The trajectory he had programmed with SORT was not for Souda Bay but for low orbit. One orbit. The abort had been preset. The bomb was going to be delivered right back here on Andikythera. It was brilliant. Get the money in place, get out, and then wipe out the island, all evidence of the operation. Including Sabri Ramirez. The world would then think that all the terrorists were dead. And they would be--all, that is, except Dr. Dore Peretz. In truth, he was thinking, this was almost the most fun he'd had in years. The actual most fun had been the memo he had presented to Sabri Ramirez concerning the new split of the money. All along he had thought the phrase fifty-fifty had a nice solid ring. What point was there in spreading the ransom all over the place? Giving it to a bunch of assholes? Which was why Dore Peretz had, two weeks earlier, established an account in the same Geneva bank where Ramirez was having the money delivered. The memo had instructed Ramirez to advise the bank to move half the money into that account as soon as it arrived. And when funds were deposited into that account, the bank was instructed to move them yet again--well beyond the reach of anybody. All he needed now was proof that Ramirez had faxed the bank with the new instructions. So had he? The time had come to check in with the bastard and find out. Then it was over. All he would have to do after that was commandeer the chopper and get the hell out. The only missing link was somebody to fly the Sikorsky, and the perfect choice for that little task was in the next room, a certain Vietnam fighter-pilot turned CEO. . . . He motioned for Georges LeFarge. "Okay, everything's set. Auto mode. We've got exactly sixty-eight minutes to liftoff. Is that enough excitement for you?" LeFarge did feel something of a thrill, in spite of his better judgment. He didn't know why Peretz would want to abort the flight-- which he knew was what SORT had been programmed to do--but at least VX-1 was going up. And when you worked on a project like this, there was only one real payoff--when the vehicle left the pad. All the months, years, of preparations led up to that final moment. . . . "I want Bates," Peretz declared, pointing toward the closed office door. "So, go and get him. That's an order. It's time he got in on the fun. After all, this is his baby. Georges turned away from his useless workstation, still shaken by the sight of auto mode clicking in, and walked back toward the door. Bates had been locked in there, mainly to keep him quiet. But now things were starting to happen. Several members of the terrorist group had come in, started readying weapons, and were acting nervous. Well, Georges thought, maybe they're worried the U.S. might just get off its ass and come in, do something about this outrage. The terrorists had plenty of heavy weapons, and now they were checking them out and slapping in clips of ammunition. Bill Bates was not going to like what he saw. . . . He opened the door and motioned for Bates to come out. He slowly rose from his chair, looking beat and haggard, and came. Georges's first impression was that he was missing a large slice of his old zip. He looked like a man near defeat-- exhausted, even disoriented. "How are you feeling?" Peretz asked. "How do you think?" Bates growled, looking around at all the assembled terrorists now readying their weapons. The place was turning into an armed camp. "Just a friendly inquiry," Peretz went on, flashing his empty grin. "We're about to start the fireworks up at Launch, and I didn't want you to miss out on any of it." He paused to check the countdown scrolling on the terminal in front of him. "So . . ." he continued, turning back, "I think it's time we three--you, me, and Georges here--took a small stroll and checked out how things are going." "Mind telling me what in blazes you're up to?" Bates demanded. His voice was still strong even though he had lost much of the spring in his step. "If you fuckers have killed any more of my people, I'm going to see to it personally that--" "Take it easy, man," Peretz interjected. "As long as nobody causes any trouble, then nobody gets hurt." He turned and motioned for Jean-Paul Moreau. "Keep an eye on this place. He swept his arm over the sea of technicians and systems analysts. "Everything's right on target with the countdown." It was an impromptu private joke, a spur-of-the-moment thing, that he found delightful. Jean-Paul Moreau, his reflexes now slowing slightly from lack of sleep, did not get the joke, and he did not like the feeling he was getting. Dore Peretz was a canny little fucker, and he suddenly seemed in a great hurry to get out of Command. Was the _batard_ up to something? It was puzzling, and troubling. He adjusted his blond ponytail and gazed around the room, now a cacophony of preflight activity. Keeping everybody in line was the least of his problems. These white-shirted engineers were so scared that if you said jump, they'd all stand up and ask how high. No, what bothered him was not knowing what the damned Israeli had up his sleeve. Peretz was planning something, probably intending to leave somebody to hold the bag. And it wasn't hard to figure out who that somebody was. . . . "You know," he said to Peretz, "everybody has orders to stay at their posts and keep security, in case there's an assault. You pulling out of here is not part of the plan." "Hey, I've been handling this thing so far, and the launch is set. Now I need to check on the telemetry and data hookups at Launch--if that's okay with you. I've taken care of my end, so now all you've got to do is keep any of these assholes from getting on the computer and trying to screw things up. Nobody so much as touches a keyboard, got it?" "Got it." Moreau nodded, hating the little son of a bitch even more. "Good," he said, turning back to Bates. "Okay, baby, we're gone." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 6:58 A.M. Hugo Voorst was lying propped against a rock, his shoulder bandaged with white strips of gauze from the first-aid kit. Now that the flow of blood had been staunched, Marcel was injecting him with a shot of morphine to quell the looming pain. Happily the hit was clean, just a flesh wound and nothing serious, but he would be of no further use on the mission. Worse still, he actually had become a liability. The only thing to do was to leave him where he was, with an H&K machine pistol for protection, and proceed. You didn't like to abandon anybody, but . . . Voorst, for his own part, mainly felt sheepish. Giddy though he was, the result of mild shock, his Dutch stoicism was still holding up. "I'll be all right," he was saying, a slow grin covering his face as the narcotic kicked in. "Sorry to be a party pooper." "You got lucky," Hans soothed, checking the bandage one last time. "You get to take a little time off. But you may still have a chance to give us some backup if things get hot." Armont had not said anything, leaving the kidding around to the younger men. They needed it to keep up their macho. The hard truth was, the whole operation was rapidly turning into a disaster of the first magnitude. Everything possible had gone wrong. And now he had no idea where Vance was. The situation had gone red, the odds deteriorating rapidly. Ramirez had been lured out, but he had been saved by the _deus ex machina _of an unexpected but short-lived attack from their rear. What had that been all about? Then he noticed a glint in the sky, through the early dawn, and realized it was a helo, far in the distance, banking as its pilot began turning back. He looked more carefully and counted four. All egressing. "Take a look." He pointed toward the cluster of tiny dots slowly diminishing in the dim sky. "Looks like somebody showed up just long enough to screw us, then aborted. And now Mike is back in the Belly of the Beast." He turned and peered at the fog-swathed floodlights, now growing pale as dawn began arriving in earnest. Around them the dull outlines of trees and rocks were lightening into greens and granite- grays. "With the damned rocket still sitting up there ready to blast off. "All right," he continued after a thoughtful pause, "we know where Ramirez is, but after all the shooting around here, the idea of a nice clean insertion will have to go by the boards." He returned his gaze to Launch Control. "No way in hell could we take Launch by surprise now. Ramirez has got to know something is brewing. Which means we're going to have to do things the old-fashioned way. Bad news for the hostages if they don't know how to get out of the way, but we've got to deal with the bomb, no matter what." There was muttering and grumbling. ARM men did not fancy excessive gunfire. They had all long passed that age of youthful denial when men thought they were invulnerable. They had seen too much. "By the way," Armont abruptly interrupted everybody's chain of thought, "what happened to the woman who was here, Dr. Andros? Was she hit?" Nobody had noticed, up until that point, that she was absent. They quickly checked the rocks around the area, but she was nowhere to be found. "Forget about her," he finally decreed. "If she doesn't want to stay with us, then she's not our problem." He thought a minute. "Maybe we should break radio silence and see if we can raise Vance. He took a unit with him." "I'm against it," Willem Voorst declared. "As a matter of fact, I'm against doing anything. If the U.S. is planning to come in here and take down this place, then why should we risk our own ass. Let's just get in a secure position and let them do our work for us. We've never had that kind of help before. It might be refreshing. I think Michael can take care of himself. Why--" "No, we can't wait for them, whoever it was." Armont cut him off. "I don't know what the hell they were really up to. And besides, if that little demonstration we just had was any indication, their mode is going to be to shoot first and ask questions later. So we have to finish our job, just get it over with. And I'll tell you what I think. Since Launch is a muck-up now, our best bet is to keep Ramirez off guard for a while and go ahead and take down Command. Immediately, before they realize what's going on. With any luck, maybe they won't be expecting it." He looked around. "Make a three-point entry, flash-bangs and tear gas. Just blow out the place." He paused to let the words sink. "Well," he continued finally, "does anybody disagree?" There were nervous frowns, but nobody did. Instead, they began silently collecting their gear. 11:59 P.M. Hansen had returned to the basement Situation Room, where maps and operation plans cluttered the teakwood table and littered meal trays, grease encrusting on the white china, were piled up in the corner. No stewards were allowed in the room, and nobody else was going to clean up. He had not slept for a day and a half, and he was now showing a ragged shadow of beard. Ted Brock had heard some of his aides upstairs commenting to each other _sotto voce_ that he had never seemed older. "All right," he said. "I've called off the assault and given the bastard six hours to clear out. I've also released the money, had it wired to the account he wanted. So maybe now he'll leave quietly. Our deal is that he frees the hostages unharmed, disarms the bombs, and gets the hell out of there. But I'll tell you something else: he's not going to live to spend a dime. The minute he's airborne, his ass is ours. I want him shot out of the sky, and the hell with the consequences." "He'll probably take some civilians along with him," Briggs said. "Hostages. We could be looking at some dicey press." "All right, then, so we won't shoot him down; we'll just force him down, the way we handled that Libyan passenger jet with terrorists aboard. There was official flack for a week or so from the usual quarters, but off the record everybody was applauding. When you do the right thing, the world makes allowances for how you manage it." Briggs remained skeptical, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He wanted to have as little to do with the operation as possible. Sooner or later there would be loss of life, he was sure of it, and the chances were the losses would be massive. He had no interest in making the history books as the author of a civilian massacre, terrorists or no terrorists. "All right, Mr. President, I'll tell the Deltas to keep their powder dry until we play this one out." He had already heard from General Max Austin, who said Nichols was fit to be tied, eating his cigars instead of smoking them. Who could blame him? To have a Commander-in-Chief micromanaging an anti-terrorist op violated every known canon of military strategy. There might be a more surefire recipe for disaster, but it was hard to conjure one offhand. Hansen, for his own part, recognized the pitfalls of giving the terrorists more time. However, he hoped it would end up being the rope-- make that false confidence--that would hang them. He had wired the "ransom" money to the numbered account at Banco Ambrosiano, as requested. There, his intelligence on the ground was reporting, the eight hundred million had been split and transferred to several other accounts. Then portions of it had been immediately wired out--to a destination not yet known, though it damned well would be. What, he wondered, was that all about? Were the terrorists in the process of screwing each other? It was a possibility. Everything was a possibility. But it also was smart, because it made recovering the funds that much more difficult. They were, in effect, laundering it even before they had made their getaway. These characters, whoever they were, were taking no chances. 7:03 A.M. "Load it on now," Ramirez was saying. "We're taking it with us." He flashed a smile from behind his aviator shades. "You never know when you'll need a nuke." Abdoullah couldn't believe his luck. He had been sure that Number One intended to try and kill him. But now it turned out to be the others, the ones he'd sent over to Command, that he planned to leave in the lurch. Dawn was breaking, but there still was enough early fog to mask their movements partially. It was definitely time to get the show on the road. One of the bombs had been installed on the VX-1 vehicle and a countdown was under way. When that bomb devastated Souda Bay, nobody was going to be worrying about a lone chopper somewhere over the Med. And with the other weapon still in their hands, the whole operation was going like clockwork. The money was in place --he was now rich--and they were packing to leave. The bomb they were now loading actually made him think. Maybe, he mused fleetingly, he could just kill Number One and return it. It would be the final revenge for what the bastard did to Rais. No, that was stupid. Better to just take the money and run. Lose the heroics. In fact, given how things had gone so far, the whole thing was almost too good to be true. In fact, that bothered him a little. More than a little. He had seen too much double-dealing already to believe anything Number One said or did. He trusted Dore Peretz even less. The Israeli, he was sure, had a private agenda of his own. He always seemed to. Maybe he was planning to divert the bomb and take out Tel Aviv. He was crazy enough. But who cared? They were getting out. Better still, Number One had indicated he intended to take the old professor, the Jew, with them. With him on board, Number One had declared, there was no danger that the U.S. President would order the chopper shot down. The old guy made a perfect passport. But with Souda Bay being incinerated as they made their egress, it hardly seemed to matter. . . . He grasped the lever on the forklift and, aided by Shujat, hoisted the bomb through the cargo hatch, guiding the edges of the crate. It weighed almost as much as they did together, but by now they were used to managing it. Interestingly, it still was wired to its radio- controlled detonator, with the explosive charges intact. He had the momentary thought that it should be disconnected, but now there was no time. That was something that should be done with extreme care. Maybe he would take care of it after takeoff, when they were airborne. "Be careful," Ramirez went on. "But don't waste time. The vehicle is going up, and then we're going to be out of here. In less than an hour." 7:08 A.M. "Team Two CQ," came Hans' voice on the walkie-talkie. He and Marcel were in the overhead ventilation duct above Command, which had been depicted in great detail in the blueprints. Hugo Voorst had been left to fend for himself, while Willem had split off with Dimitri Spiros, forming Team Three. "Team Three CQ," Willem reported next. "Ingress looks like a go." He and Dimitri were at the rear exit, which passed through Bill Bates' office. They had entered through the tunnel that connected Bates' office and the living quarters. The door had been set with C-4 and was ready to blow. "Copy. Team One CQ," Armont whispered into his own radio. He and Reginald Hall were now in the outer lobby, and just ahead of them stood the doors that led into Command. Together the teams formed a three- pronged attack that would seal off all egress. "Take down anybody with anything in their hands. And watch out for Michael. I don't think he's in there, but you never can tell." "If he is," Willem Voorst's voice said, "he'll know what to do." As they waited, Reggie gazed around Reception in disgust. The deserted guard desk looked as though it had been strafed by an automatic, almost as if the terrorists intentionally were wreaking as much destruction as possible. "Cheeky bastards," he muttered under his breath. "Why do these terrorist blokes always think they've got to trash a place?" "Reggie," Armont whispered back, "these gentlemen did not attend Eton. You have to learn to make allowances. And right now they appear to be trying to deliver an atomic bomb into somebody's backyard, which would tend to suggest they're not model citizens. One has to expect a disheartening want of tidiness in such an element." He checked his watch. "All right, get ready." Ahead of them the doors to Command were closed--who knew if they were locked or even booby-trapped? But it didn't matter. The C-4 had already been attached around the frame. Exploding it and the other door opposite would serve as a diversion, drawing the first fire and giving Hans and Marcel the moment they needed to make their own ingress, rappelling in under cover of flash grenades and mopping up. That was the plan, at any rate. A three-point entry, with flash grenades and tear gas. It usually worked. Armont clicked on his walkie-talkie again and checked his watch. "All teams alert. Assault begins in three-zero seconds. Starting now." 7:09 A.M. Peering down into the room through the overhead grating, Hans felt his palms grow sweaty. This was the moment he always hated. Even after all his years with the assault squads, Spezialen-satztrupp, in GSG-9, he had never gotten over this moment of soul-searching panic. Twenty seconds. He glanced up from his watch, then tested the rope he and Marcel would use to rappel down into the room. Finally he adjusted the hood of his balaclava one last time in an attempt to quell his nerves. It never worked, of course, and it wasn't working now. Still, he always did it. More helpful was checking the clip on his MP5. He had a spare taped to the one now loaded, making it possible to just flip them over. A third was taped to his wrist. It should be enough. Ten seconds. That was the moment--it always happened--when he felt his mouth go dry. Bone dry. 7:10 A.M. Reggie, who normally served as standoff sniper, almost always used an old AK-47 he had had for fifteen years and kept honed to perfection. Nothing fancy, just deadly accuracy. Today, however, he was keeping it in reserve, since this was close quarters. At the moment he was going with his sentimental British favorite, an Enfield L85A1 assault rifle that was the last product of the old Enfield Arsenal. Its special sling meant it could be carried behind his back, and it was short, virtually recoilless, and a marvel to behold on full-automatic. For his own part, Armont had a Steyr-Mannlicher AUG assault rifle, augmented with a Beta hundred-round C-Mag supposedly only available to government organizations. He didn't like to bother changing clips, which annoyed him as a waste of precious time, and the circular, hundred-round dual magazine gave him--so he claimed--all the firepower he needed. Besides, he liked to say, if a hundred rounds weren't enough to take down an objective, then you hadn't planned it right and deserved to be in the shit. He gave five clicks into his walkie-talkie, which meant five seconds, then stood back as Reggie got ready to blow the C-4. 7:10 A.M. "Looks like you got it right," Peretz said with a crooked smile. He was examining a fax whose letterhead read Banco Ambrosiano, Geneva. Ramirez had just passed it over, and the correct account number was there, together with the amount in dollars. His piece of the money, his bigger piece, had been transferred to the separate account he had specified. By now, according to the instruction he had left, it was already on its way out. Home free. He counted the zeroes again, not quite believing it. The villa he had set his heart on was his. He had just acquired four hundred million dollars. Some _countries _weren't worth that much, for godsake. "Your generosity is touching." He folded the paper and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He had left ironclad instructions at the bank. The minute the funds were transferred, they would be wired to a bank in Nassau, Bahamas, a bank known only to him. That way, Ramirez would have no chance to fiddle the money back. Ramirez said nothing, merely smiled. The fact was, this little Israeli creep was an amateur. Five minutes after he had wired the instructions, he had sent a second fax, countermanding them. That was the last thing to worry about. More important was that Peretz had left his post at Command and come down here to gloat. So it was a good thing he had sent Jean-Paul and Jamal over there to keep an eye on things. They also had taken the last Stasi, Peter Maier, with them. Schindler had disappeared, presumably lost when the U.S. began its aborted attack. They had proved to be useless, a fact he was going to point out to Wolf Helling just before he shot him between the eyes. This crude attempt at blackmail by Peretz was perfectly in character, had in fact been telegraphed from the start. Which was why all the contingency plans had been necessary. Given Peretz' particularly obnoxious demand, he was tempted to move the plan ahead and just shoot the son of a bitch now. Unfortunately, though, he might still be needed. So the best course for the moment was just to let him think he had gotten away with it. Besides, it was a trifle early to finish thinning the ranks. All in due time. . . . 7:11 a.m. It could have been the sound of a single explosion, even though it had taken place at the two opposite entries to Command. Then, as one, Team One and Team Three were inside, just behind the harmless explosions of flash grenades and charges of CS they had blasted into the room. Willem Voorst of Team Three was in first position as he virtually pounced through the door just blown away with C-4, which now was a curtain of smoke. While he sprayed the ceiling with rounds, sweeping left to right, Dimitri Spiros was in second position, automatically sweeping right to left. "Get down," Voorst yelled in English, hoping the civilians would be quick. Staffers dove for the gray linoleum, many yelling in pure terror. In Voorst's experience, a couple of curious morons always wanted to stand up and watch the action, frequently a lethal form of entertainment. This time, however, everybody fortuitously hit the floor. On the far right, Salim Khan yelled and brought up his Uzi, mesmerized by the balaclava-covered face of Voorst, but the Dutchman was already far ahead of the game, and a single burst from his MP5 dropped him, taking away the left side of his face. The bearded Iranian pilot never realized what had happened, pitching forward without so much as a final prayer. One away, Voorst thought. But that was an easy one. An amateur. On the opposite side of the room, Armont was in first position and Hall was in second--both poised to take down anybody who showed hostile intent. Together with Team Three at the back, their two-point entry was like a Wagnerian crescendo that began a piece of music instead of ending it. The melody was still to come. Armont squinted through the hood of his balaclava into the billowing CS that was enveloping the room. The confusion that obscured the difference between friend and foe dismayed him. ARM had had no photos of the terrorists to work with, no intelligence--other than the ID of Ramirez--concerning their physical appearance. The back of his mind, however, was telling him that they all were dressed in black, just as the members of the ARM team were. So everybody with a gun looked alike; the difference boiled down to who was shooting at whom. Reggie, in number-two position, had the best eyes of any of them, and he had moved in behind Armont, those eyes sweeping the room. Try not to waste the bloody place, he was lecturing himself. Show some class. With the surprise still fresh, it now was time for Team Two to appear, completing the three-point assault. Through the smoke two black figures appeared out of nowhere, rappelling down into the very middle of the chaos. First came Hans, followed by Marcel, both holding the rope in one hand, an MP5 in the other. While Willem Voorst and Dimitri Spiros were still firing, hoping to draw the attention of the hostiles away from Team Two, Hans rotated on his rope, and took measure of the room. He had less than a second to get his bearings and to analyze the immediate threat from hostiles, the peril to friendlies, and the one-time opportunities a quick window of surprise offered. The main thing was to try to cut down the most senior, experienced hostile in the room. In the millisecond before his feet touched the floor, he saw what he had hoped for: a man dressed in black, with long blond hair tied back in a pony tail, carrying an Uzi. Better yet, he recognized him. Jesus! It was Jean-Paul Moreau. Interpol wants that bastard, he told himself, but they want him alive. And there's a private bank-consortium bounty on his head of five hundred thousand francs. He's found money. Alive. 7:11 A.M. "What the hell!" Ramirez glanced at the TV monitor that was next to the array of instruments and video screens looking out onto the launch pad. Peretz whirled to look, as did Bill Bates. The scene was Command and the image had grown fuzzy, as though the room were filled with smoke. But there was no mistaking the chaos. SatCom staffers were on the floor, while flashes of light darted across the screen as the camera automatically panned back and forth. Jesus! Bates thought. It looks like Nam. It's an assault. Who could it be? Had the U.S. decided to get off its butt and start protecting its citizens? They damned well had taken their time about it. . . . Now he could see who was doing the shooting, and most of it seemed to be coming from pairs of men dressed in black. There were-- Abruptly the screen went blank, switching to video noise. The panning camera had been drilled by somebody's stray round. 7:12 A.M. Through the chaos of the flash grenades and the tear gas Moreau had missed seeing Hans and Marcel rappelling down. Instead he paused for half a second, then hit the floor and rolled, ponytail flying, intending to get as many of the hostages as possible between him and the two members of the assault team at the front. He figured the firepower would come from there. The rear entry, with the two guys firing at the ceiling, was the diversion, intended to throw everybody off. He knew better. You never looked where the other side wanted you to. That was playing into their hands. He got off a burst from his Uzi, leaving a line of craters in the cinderblock walls next to the front door. Wide and high. Bad placement. But the game wasn't over; it was just beginning. Now he had repositioned himself so that a terrified cluster of SatCom staffers were between him and the front, and a line of terminals protected him from the rear. Good. In the momentary pause, he slammed a new clip into the Uzi. These assholes aren't going to shoot up the hostages, he told himself. That wasn't how professionals worked. And these guys, wearing balaclavas, were professionals. They were fast, moving quickly, and not providing a real target. _Merde_. But now you've got the advantage. Just concentrate and take them out, one by one. You've been in tougher spots before. Dimitri Spiros, approaching from the rear, also had seen him, the blond-haired terrorist who rolled behind a line of workstations. But Spiros had not recognized him; to the Greek he was merely another hostile to be taken down. He switched his MP5 to semiauto and carefully took aim between the terminals, waiting for the creep to show himself. Hans was not planning to wait. As his boots touched the floor, he took aim and got off a single round, carefully wounding Moreau in the right bicep. The French terrorist spun around, startled, but he sensed no pain. Instead he felt satisfaction at knowing, now, where the third entry-point had been. Life had just been simplified. A three-point entry: standard, no problem. All you had to do was keep your wits. He whirled and got off a burst toward Hans and Marcel, sending them diving to the floor, then returned his attention to the pair at the front. But now those two _batards _had taken cover. Where was Jamal? Salim was dead, the stupid Iranian. Good riddance. But where was his brother? Why wasn't he helping? As it happened, during the first few seconds of the assault, Jamal Khan had been making his own calculations. He had been figuring an assault was overdue, and he had been prepared for it for several hours now. He had long since donned a bulletproof vest, and he had made sure he had two Uzis at hand, both loaded, together with five spare clips. The moment the first flash grenades went off, he rolled beneath a row of workstations and shoved a handkerchief over his face, ready for the tear gas he was sure would come next. Now he was surrounded by a frightened cluster of SatCom staffers. The perfect shield. Marcel had also surveyed the room as he rappelled in, and--by previous arrangement--he had focused on the right half, whereas Hans took the left. He had seen Jamal's roll and started to cut him down with a blast, but then he thought better of it: there were too many friendlies to take a chance on ricocheting lead. Just get into position and do it right. Pierre Armont also had seen Jamal duck out of sight, and he felt his heart sink. The element of surprise had been used with all the effect it could, and the result had been one terrorist killed and one wounded. Now they were entrenching. Bad, very bad. . . . Then a man on the other side of the room shouted something in German, choking from the CS, stood up, and brought around an Uzi. That one was stupid; he had identified himself and he was wide open. Armont dropped him with a single burst, before he could even get off a round. Clearly an amateur terrorist, he was standing in the clear, and Armont's well-placed rounds sent him into a macabre dance of death. Hans watched with satisfaction. Okay, he thought, that's two. Now what about Moreau. It would be nice to take him alive, help salvage something from this damned expensive disaster. Moreau, however, had no intention of being taken alive; in fact, he had no intention of being taken at all. He had rolled into the shelter of a computer workstation and begun to spray the entrance indiscriminately. Fortunately the shots were wild, posing no threat to the ARM team or anybody else unless by ricochet. By now Hans had taken cover behind the terminals situated in the center of the room. This wasn't the movies, with the assault team standing tall and shooting from the hip, particularly with all the friendlies milling in the haze of tear gas. Besides, there were plenty of hostiles, including the young Arab who had provided himself a secure redoubt behind a row of workstations, surrounded by hostages. He knew that stray bullets could not be tolerated. What to do? If Moreau kept this up, he would have to be taken down, lethally, and damn the money. A shame, really. The scene was rapidly turning into a standoff. The worst thing that could happen. But first things first. Determined to bag Moreau alive, he lobbed another canister of CS across the room and into the clump of people and hostages where the Frenchman was. A half-second later it exploded, spraying its noxious powder across a full quarter of the room, and as that was happening, he threw another flash grenade. The friendlies would be blinded and overcome, he knew, but the effects would only last for a few minutes and by that time everybody could be dragged into the open air. It was better than being mowed down in a hail of fire. The two grenades had the desired effect insofar as they momentarily disoriented Moreau. And they gave Hans the opening he needed to get in behind the row of terminals against the wall where the French terrorist crouched. It was the last, best chance he would have to take the bastard alive. Moreau was on the floor now, gasping from the CS as he tried to get an angle on what was happening. He knew he was going to be rushed, but he wasn't sure from which direction. And as Hans moved in, that hesitation proved to be a profound, primal mistake. Before he could plan his next move, the German was on him, an MPS against his neck. He tried to bring up his own Uzi, but by the time he had it halfway around, Hans had kicked it aside and intercepted the move. With a yelp of pain Moreau twisted away, trying to recover, and managed to slam his left leg against Hans, knocking him off balance. Both were now cursing loudly, mingling their epithets with threats. The battle would have been even, had it not been for the fact that Hans was wearing an encumbering balaclava. Hans's flash grenade had illuminated the entire room with its blinding explosion, and now Dimitri Spiros was making an end run along the far wall, just below the huge projection TV screens, trying to encircle Jamal before he had a chance to recover completely from the glare. Across the room, Reggie saw what was happening and opened fire into the ceiling, hoping to keep the Iranian pinned down, or at the very least draw his fire. Confusion reigned. Willem Voorst, who was in the center, analyzed the situation with a clearer eye. The damned little Arab was not going to be taken down easily. Spiros was heading into danger. Not thinking. "Dimitri, no!" 'The little fucker," Spiros yelled. He was already moving, impossible to stop. His Greek passion had superseded his better judgment, for he was not wearing his bulletproof vest--a container of those had been left inadvertently when the seaplane went down--and he was in no position to put himself in harm's way. Jamal was coughing and choking from the CS, but he had not yet been totally immobilized. He saw Dimitri, a hooded figure in the smoke, and responded by instinct, bringing around his Uzi and getting off a burst. Although Spiros had seen it coming and tried to duck and roll, he was not quick enough. Two rounds caught him in the chest, but not before he had gotten off a well-practiced three-round burst from his MP5. One of the slugs entered the center of Jamal's neck, above his bulletproof vest, and literally ripped his throat open. The Muslim radical who had helped kill two hundred and eighteen defenseless Marines in Beirut collapsed in a pool of blood, having exacted one last price. Dimitri Spiros was down, gravely wounded. Willem Voorst was at his side in an instant. He took one look, then rose and sent another blast of automatic fire into the Iranian Jamal, whose life blood was already ebbing rapidly. It was an impulsive act of anger definitely out of character for ARM, but the vengeance of the moment seemed to call for something. Jesus, Hans thought as he watched the tragedy unfold, still grappling with Moreau, this is turning into a disaster. How did we manage such a screw-up. And how many more of the bastards are there? They're like vermin who keep showing up, just when you think you've got them all. The area around him had become a cacophony of gasping, coughing SatCom staffers, many moaning in fear, all near shock. But it works both ways, Hans thought. If there are any more terrorists hiding among the terminals, they're probably in the same condition. Now, though, there was no motion anywhere in the room. It looked to be over. "Clear," Marcel said, the first, his voice garbled by the balaclava. Hans crunched a knee against Jean-Paul Moreau's face and heard him moan. "You little fucker," he yelled in French, and slugged him as hard as he could. It had the desired effect. Moreau's body went limp, but Hans, wanting to take no chances, immediately yanked his arms around behind his back and handcuffed him. "Clear," he yelled, still breathless. "Clear," called Reggie, but not before looking around one last time, squinting through the smoke. He thought, hoped, it was true. A bloody great mess, that's what the assault had been, and Ramirez was still on the loose. "Objective CQ," Armont announced finally, even as he surveyed the scene with bitterness and horror. Dimitri had screwed up twice, unforgivable, and now he was on the critical list, hemorrhaging from the two holes in his chest, barely conscious, with blood seeping out of the corner of his mouth. While Willem Voorst was already bent over him, trying to begin stabilizing the crisis, Armont moved quickly to his side. "Hang on, cheri. Can you hear me?" Spiros nodded, though whether it was in answer to the question no one could tell. "Don't move. The blueprints show there's an emergency medical facility here. They probably have a supply of plasma. We'll pull you through." This time Spiros tried to smile and raised his hand slightly, but Armont gently took it and laid it back on the floor. "Save your strength. We may need you again before this is over." Then he rose up and looked around the room. "Start clearing everybody out of here. And make sure there aren't any more of these fuckers hiding among the friendlies." Was it a clean job? he wondered. Did we hit any civilians? There was enough gunfire to create a real possibility that somebody got nicked, or worse. He watched as Hans began shouting orders for the evacuation. The air in the room was starting to be slightly breathable again, and everybody seemed able to move. Three terrorists lay dead, and a fourth wounded and handcuffed. All wore black pullovers. Maybe, he thought, just maybe we had a little bit of luck on our side after all. It was about time. But who could talk about luck with Dimitri lying there on the floor, gravely critical. God damn the whole operation. It was Spiros's fault, but this was no time to recriminate. He looked like his lung was punctured. In fact, that was an optimistic prognosis. It could be much worse. . . . Well, Armont thought with relief, the SatCom people seem okay. Chalk up one for marksmanship. Guess that's why we get paid so well. He looked up at the large computer screen being projected on the wall at the end of the room, which showed a countdown in progress. Ramirez's scheme was still on track, though there was still almost half an hour's time left. What now? "All right," he declared, "let's make up a stretcher and get Dimitri down to their medical room." Hans pulled a syringe from the medical kit he always had with him and gave the Greek a heavy shot of morphine in his inner thigh. In moments it had surged through his system, causing his eyes to glaze and the moaning to stop. Willem checked the wound again, then took some more gauze pads and continued working. He figured if Spiros could be gotten on intravenous plasma within the next fifteen minutes he might survive. Willem Voorst was finishing the construction of a makeshift stretcher from chairs and cushions, while Hans was checking over the civilians as he ushered them out into the hallway, making sure none were injured . . . and too deeply in shock to realize it. He also was running an interrogation. "Who here knows how to stop the countdown? Just shut the damned thing off?" Nobody offered up his or her services, possibly because nobody wanted to be held responsible for causing a meltdown in the multimillion- dollar storage coil. There also was a more practical reason. "Georges LeFarge was in charge of the countdown," a coughing, nervously shaking young man finally volunteered. "He's not here now. The Israeli guy took him over to Launch." He paused. "But the Fujitsu is in auto mode now. We can't just flip a switch, at least not without doing horrific damage to the coil. It has to be discharged through the Cyclops." "Then can you do that?" Hans asked. "Not without Cally or Georges here," he replied decisively. "You screw it up and you're talking millions of dollars." He shrugged. "No way would I attempt it without somebody's say-so." His voice trailed off. Hans pondered this, then shrugged. "Okay, you're saying everybody here is scared to tinker with the Cyclops. So we'll still have to take down Launch and get to the vehicle." He glanced back toward the smoky room, thinking aloud. "But we were going to have to anyway, to get Ramirez. Once we're there, maybe we can find a way to disable the vehicle some other way." The staffer looked dubious. "I don't know how. There's only one real way to do it, by bleeding off the Cyclops. Anything else would be too dangerous. Maybe--" "Hans," Armont was shouting, interrupting them. "Come and help Willem carry Dimitri through the tunnel. Do you remember where the medical room was from the blueprints?" "I memorized everything," he shouted back. "What do you think I get paid for?" 'Then get on with it. Maybe there'll be somebody there who can help out. Otherwise, you two just became doctors." "I'll save him," Willem declared, trying to sound as confident as he could. He knew, as they all did, that it would be a long shot. "But what are you going to do now? We still have to get Ramirez." "I'm aware of that," Armont snapped back. "But first we've got to get these people out of here and somewhere safe." Then he had a thought. "Maybe you should take them with you. Over to the Bates Motel. We could make that our collection point for friendlies." "All right," Hans agreed, partially, "but this is no time to split up. You'd better come with us. If we run across any more of these assholes, we'll need backup." Armont nodded, realizing it made some sense. "Okay, then get the people." Hans looked down and checked over Jean-Paul Moreau. The Frenchman was bleeding, too, but nothing about his wound appeared to be serious. A tourniquet should hold him. "Some of them can carry out our friend here." For a moment he considered telling Armont who their captive was, but then he decided to do it later. Moreau might be more useful if he didn't realize he had been recognized. Then, with Armont on point and leading the way, they headed through the tunnel that connected Bill Bates' office to the living quarters. Minutes later Command sat as empty as a tomb, impotent and useless as the countdown continued to scroll, the Fujitsu working the will of Dore Peretz. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 7:12 A.M. "Hansen lied," Ramirez was saying as he took one last glance at the snowy TV monitor, which moments earlier had shown the chaos in Command. "The son of a bitch lied. He didn't call off the assault after all. It was just a stalling tactic." He turned to Peretz, anger deep in his eyes. "We've been double-crossed." "What do you care what happens to those assholes?" Peretz remarked calmly, flashing his pale grin. "Good riddance. Let's just take the old guy, like we planned, and get the hell out of here. We've got the money, so who gives a shit." "You have an inelegant but concise way of putting things," Ramirez concurred. "But there's a final phone call I need to make. I want Hansen to know what will happen if he tries to interdict us." "Well, while you're doing that, I'll check out the chopper," Peretz went on. "When we split, I don't want any problems." "Is that why you brought him?" Ramirez pointed at Bates. "Might as well have someone with some aviation experience look it over." Peretz smiled again. "Besides, I think we may have just lost Salim in all that excitement over in Command. So we're going to need a pilot, right? What better than a war hero." William Bates had been monitoring this exchange, not quite understanding the underlying dynamics. He did perceive, however, that Peretz was playing the scene as though he were in a game, and it looked like a contest with only a single winner. Number One, however, was not the kind of guy who struck you as a loser. But then Peretz didn't seem like the losing type either. The Israeli was one wily son of a bitch, and he had something up his sleeve. Was he intending to screw Number One somehow and get away with all the marbles? Just how he intended to do that was not yet clear, but there was no mistaking his faked attempt at calm. If Number One didn't catch it, he was dumber than he looked. And he didn't look dumb. What, he wondered, had happened to Mike? Did the message LeFarge had passed along, "Ulysses has landed," mean he was on the island somewhere? And if he was here, had he called in ARM? Were they the ones who had just stormed Command, not the U.S.? Whoever did it, they hit the wrong place. The murdering bastard who called himself Number One was here, and he was about to get away scot-free. 7:12 A.M. Vance wanted to kick himself. He'd screwed up again, managing to blind himself with his own flash grenade. And having done that, he'd thought it the better part of discretion to take cover and hope Pierre and the team could take out Ramirez with a clear shot. Instead, Ramirez got away. Why didn't they get him? Instead they got into some kind of firefight. Heck, he thought, if I'd known they were going to blow it, I could have tried to take him out myself, half blind or no. Now, though, Ramirez was back in Launch, in the control room. Worse still, he told himself, I've really screwed things up. I blew the element of surprise. Now what? He sat down, feeling like a prisoner of the fog, and began to engage in extensive self-recrimination. He was afraid to use the radio, and he didn't know where the ARM team was. Everything had to be rethought. . . . "Michael, is that you? Are you all right?" Cally was a pale apparition in the half-light, now working her way around the remains of the gantry. "I'm terrific." "Thank goodness. I almost gave up on finding you." "What happened down there?" He was relieved to see her, but otherwise he still felt miserable. Also, he wondered if she was still angry. "We got ambushed by somebody. From the direction of the shoreline. I didn't know there were so many of them." She looked back down the hill, puzzled. "It was strange. There was a lot of firing, and then it just stopped. But one of your guys got hit." "Who?" Our first casualty, he thought. The disaster grows. "I don't know his name. I think he was Dutch." "Willem or Hugo?" Vance loved them both and felt his heart turn. "I don't know, but it looked like he's going to be all right. I decided not to stick around." "So you don't know where they went? Pierre and the team." "Haven't a clue." Vance sighed. "Okay, the way I see it, we've only got one chance left. But I have to get Bill to help." "That's going to be next to impossible. They're still holding him in Command." "Not any more. I think I saw him through the window there a couple of minutes ago." He pointed. "There in Launch." "That's not a good sign." She sighed. "It could mean they may be getting ready to leave. And they're probably going to take him with them." "Then we've got to break protocol. Get on the radio and try to locate Pierre." 12:15 A.M. "Look, you bastard," the President was saying into the phone. "I've done everything you asked. I've deposited the money and pulled back all American forces for six hours. Now you're going to live up to your end of the agreement. You're going to disarm those weapons and get the hell out of there. No hostages. I personally guarantee you safe passage." If he'll believe that, Hansen was thinking, he's still writing letters to Santa. "Who do you think you're talking to?" Ramirez asked. "There's a force on the island right now, that's got my people under fire. I no longer can take responsibility for anything that happens." "I don't know what you're talking about," Hansen replied, genuinely puzzled. Had the Deltas countermanded his orders? Carried out a rogue operation? If so, there was going to be hell to pay. "If there's somebody there, they're not part of the American armed forces. That's your problem, not mine." "It is your problem. I want you to put a stop to it." "How the hell am I supposed to do that, exactly?" What can he be talking about? Hansen was still wondering. "If you can't handle your situation, then maybe you'd better go back to terrorist school. I've kept up my end." Ramirez proceeded to tell the President two things. First, when the Sikorsky took off from the landing pad, Isaac Mannheim was going to be on board, a hostage. He was their insurance. That much was true. The second was a lie. "The other thing you should know is that we have armed a nuclear device and secured it on the island. The detonation sequence is radio- controlled. If there is any interference with our egress, no matter at what point, we will not hesitate to detonate it." "You do that," Hansen said, "and you'll be tracked to the ends of the earth. That's something I can guarantee you for absolute certain." He had visions of his presidency going down in ruins. And if the story of the money ever came out, the headlines . . . "Then you also have the power to guarantee that it doesn't happen. Think about it." With which cryptic farewell, the connection was severed, for the last time. The fact that a fifteen-kiloton nuclear bomb was about to obliterate Souda Bay, Crete, and the Sixth Fleet in a matter of minutes was not mentioned. 7:18 A.M. "Ulysses to Sirene. Do you read me?" When his radio crackled, Armont was in the medical facility of the Bates Motel, watching as a plasma IV was attached to Dimitri's arm. He immediately grabbed for it. "I copy, Mike, but make this quick. Are you all right?" "Never better. Where are you guys? Sorry to break radio silence, but I think Ramirez may be getting ready to pull out. Could be now or never." "We took down Command," Armont said into his walkie- talkie. "Neutralized four of the bastards and cleared it. Looks to be a clean job as far as the friendlies are concerned. A minor miracle, considering. And when we got here to the Motel, there was a Greek, one of them, but we took care of him." "Nice work." 'That's the good news. They're all here with us now, and they seem okay." He leaned out and took a peek down the hall. The SatCom systems engineers were all collapsed on the floor, drinking Cokes from the machine at the end. "There's bad news, too. In the first place, nobody there would shut off the countdown. They're just afraid to do it. Has to do with melting some kind of coil. The bird is still going up." "What's the second place? The other bad news?" "Dimitri got shot up. He's in pretty bad shape. We're in the emergency room now, just keeping him alive. We've got to evacuate him out of here and soon." "I hear you," Vance replied back. "But the only way I know of right now is with one of the helos, either the Agusta or their Sikorsky. How long can he hold on? We still need to take out Ramirez. I haven't given up." "Michael, the airspace is closed around the island. Totally shut down. I guarantee it. There's no way he could get a chopper out. He's trapped, going nowhere. We're staying with Dimitri till we're sure he's stabilized, and then we'll come down there and handle that son of a bitch. All in time." "All right," Vance said. "Take care of Dimitri. In the meantime, let me see what I can do at this end. And while you're there, you might want to sweep that place for explosives. I think they were planning to get everybody inside and blow it. I found some C-4 on a timer down on the second level. By the elevator. There may also be some more of them hanging around there, so be careful." "Only way we know." 7:20 A.M. Major General Eric Nichols was in the Kennedy's Mission Control room, fit to be tied. Now he was beginning to understand how the attempted rescue of the American embassy hostages in Tehran could have turned into such a disaster. He lit a cigar and tried to relax. The op would be back on track in--he checked his watch--another five and a half hours. Unless, of course, the orders got changed again. Then the blue phone on his desk rang. . . . "Well, I'll be damned," he said, hanging up a few moments later. "I knew this was going to be a cluster-fuck, but I think we've just expanded the term." He looked over the Deltas waiting with him. "Would you believe it's back on? Something happened, who knows what. But the sons of bitches are pulling out, and they've threatened to nuke the place if anybody tries to stop them. We're ordered to get in there before anybody can get off the ground, keep them from having the chance. I don't know if we're going to make it. He grinned. "But I'll tell you one thing. This time we're going to just take the place down once and for all. And the hell with micromanaging from Fort Fuck-up or anywhere." "Fuckin' A, S_ir_," Lieutenant Manny Jackson declared, reaching for his flight jacket. "I say we just do a standoff with Hellfire missiles. Take out their damned space vehicles and any choppers they've got. Then they can just stick their nukes up their ass." "Sorry, Jackson, but that's still our last resort. If we hit the vehicles, there's the risk of nuclear material getting loose. No, what we're going to do is take down their radar power source, the so-called Cyclops, and any choppers they have, which ought to put them out of business. And if that doesn't cause the bastards to throw in the towel, then we'll call in a Tomcat and lay a couple of laser-guided missiles right into those underground bunkers." Nichols had studied the satellite photo intelligence they had, as well as site plans and blueprints obtained from SatCom's executive offices in Arlington, and he knew exactly where a missile would have the best chance of penetrating Command and Launch Control. There might be some civilian casualties, but they sure as hell wouldn't have the nukes in there. A quick, decisive operation. "All right," he added in conclusion, "let's rock and roll. And this time there's going to be no recall, I don't care who tries." 7:21 A.M. "How does it look?" Peretz was asking. He and Bill Bates had just climbed aboard the Sikorsky, cold and gray in the light fog. Bates had already checked it over from the outside. It was military, and it appeared to be on loan from the Pakistani Air Force, with the markings clumsily painted over. But it appeared to be in pristine shape. Good maintenance. "Let me see." He walked to the cockpit and looked over the rows of instruments. Nothing obvious seemed amiss. "If there's fuel, it should be able to fly. After all, it got in here from somewhere." Peretz nodded with satisfaction, then clicked on his walkie-talkie. "Firebird One, Bates says there may be some problems with the nav gear. He wants to start it up and give it an instrument check. Probably just feeding me some kind of bullshit, so why don't you send out Helling for a minute? He should be in on this." "What?" Bates mumbled. "I didn't--" "I copy you," came back Ramirez's voice. "What seems to be the problem?" "Probably no big deal. Claims it's the in-flight computer. Something to do with flight control." "All right," Ramirez replied. "I'll send Wolf out if you think you need him." The walkie-talkie clicked off, to the accompaniment of static. "What are you talking about?" Bates looked up, feeling a chill. "I don't see anything here that looks like a problem. Who the hell knows if the in-flight computer is--" "Just shut up," Peretz barked. "Now, start the engines." "But--" "Just do what I tell you." He was now grasping a Walther 9mm with what appeared to be boundless self-assurance. "You're the boss." Bates nodded, settling into the cockpit. He suddenly realized that something not on the schedule was about to go down. All along he'd had a feeling Peretz was up to something. Now it was more than a feeling. With a tremble of apprehension he hit the ignition button, then started spooling up the power on the main rotor. Everything seemed to be working normally, just as it should. This old crate, he figured, had a lot of hours on the engines, but there was nothing to suggest any kind of problem. Coming toward them now, across the tarmac, was the famous German terrorist, Wolf Helling. Bates glanced through the windscreen and looked him over, thinking he looked annoyed. He had the hard face and eyes of a killer, the kind of face you could only earn the hard way. Suddenly the whole scenario clicked into place. This Israeli character was about to try and pull a fast one on everybody. He had set the vehicle to launch and now he was getting out. But what about the German? Was he in on the scam? Probably not, from the disgruntled look he had. Besides, this guy Peretz was the quintessential loner. He had his marbles and the hell with everybody else. "What's the problem?" Helling asked as he stepped lightly up the metal steps of the Sikorsky. "Is something--?" He never had a chance to finish the sentence, as a dull thunk punctuated the placement of a 9mm round directly between his eyes. The half-bald leader of Germany's notorious Revolutionare Zellen pitched into the chopper, dead before he reached the floor pallet. "Fucking Nazi," Peretz said to no one in particular. "I've been waiting a long time." Then he stepped over the body and headed for the cockpit. "Okay, it's about to be post time, baby." "You're going to bug out, aren't you?" Bates had turned around and was staring at him. "You son of a bitch, you've got VX-1 set to launch and now you're leaving while the leaving's good." "It's not going to be that simple," he responded calmly. "But we are about to make an unscheduled departure. You will be flying." "And get shot down?" Bates said, rising and walking back from the cockpit. "Come on, this place has got to be surrounded." He had hoped, now feared, it was so. Surely the word on these terrorists was all over the world by now. "You have got to be kidding. No way am I taking this bird up. You're on your own, pal. I refuse." "That would be a serious mistake, health-wise." Peretz smiled back. "Because if you give me the slightest hint of trouble, you're going to enjoy the same fate as this Nazi klutz, starting with your kneecaps. I would advise you to be cooperative." He smiled again. "Do what you want," Bates said, not quite feeling his own bravado. "But you'll be flying it yourself." "Don't press me, asshole," Peretz said. "Besides, there's a nuclear weapon in that crate there." He pointed. "Nobody's going to lay a finger on us." 7:22 A.M. "Do you know how to handle this?" Vance handed Cally the MP5 he was carrying. He had brought it up the hill to try to take out Ramirez, but after the fiasco with the flash grenades, he hadn't fired a shot. "I've got a pretty good idea," she replied, some of the old pique coming back. "Somebody'd better use it. Besides, it doesn't exactly require postgraduate research." "Sometimes it takes some thought to keep from getting killed." He sighed, then proceeded to show her how the safety worked. "Okay, what I need is for you to give me some cover when I make the move. Call it our last-ditch effort." "What are you going to do?" "What else? It's time I had a talk with Ramirez. If you can't lick them, join them." "You're kidding." She laid down the automatic and glared. "You're going to just give up?" "No, I'm going to offer him a deal. Maybe it'll work, and maybe not. But I don't know what else to do." She stared at him incredulously. "What kind of deal?" "I don't know yet. I'm making this up as I go along. But maybe if I can get in close to him, I can try to slow him down." What would happen, he was wondering, if Ramirez saw him again? Just shoot him on sight? It was possible, but then again maybe not. It was worth a try. "But you've got to help. Create a diversion that'll give me an opening." "All right, then." She shrugged. "Just tell me what you want me to do." Now he was fiddling with his Walther, checking how many rounds were left in the clip. There were two. He cocked it, then slipped it into the back of his belt, pulling down the shirt over it. "See that window there?" He was pointing toward the glassed-in viewing station of Launch Control that overlooked the pad and the vehicles. "I want to get him there, where you can see us both. Then when I give a signal, a thumbs-up, I want you to open fire." "On you both?" She looked incredulous. "How about trying very hard not to hit either one of us. Just start firing and distract them. Then I'll try to take care of Ramirez. Somehow." "You know, I don't know why you're doing this, but it seems awfully dangerous." "Maybe I'm trying to make amends for being such a screw-up." He was half serious. "That's very noble, but frankly I think we'd better wait for your friends from ARM." She picked up the automatic and examined it again, then looked him over. 'To be brutally honest, they've got a slightly better track record." "Good point. Except now they've got a casualty to worry about, and we're running out of time. So this has to be solo." He kissed her, this time on the lips. "Wish me luck." "You're really going to do it, aren't you?" "I'm going to try." He finished tucking in his shirt. "You're crazy. You won't listen to anybody." "Sometimes that's a help." He kissed her again, more lightly than he wanted to. Was she still mad? It was hard to tell, but she was definitely distant. "Okay, get ready. And for God's sake, don't hit me. Fire wide." "Wide?" She grinned. "Extremely wide." 7:24 A.M. "Thought you might be getting lonesome." Vance had walked into Launch Control, directly through the entrance next to where the fallen gantry had been. Ramirez had met him, with his Beretta 9mm trained on him from the instant he came in the doorway. "Always the joker, Mr. Vance." Ramirez did not appear to think he was very humorous. "I see you're roaming around again, like a cat." "Nine lives, remember." "Yes, I should have put an end to them earlier." He gestured Vance forward with the automatic. They now were in Launch Control, the wide windows looking out over the vehicles. "But then I wanted you to myself." "Here I am." He felt a chill. Was Ramirez just going to shoot him before he had a chance to do anything? The terrorist, however, seemed to have other things on his mind. "You know, you've been missing out on a lot of the fun. There was something of a ruckus in Command just now. As it happens, it was on that TV there." He pointed to a monitor, its screen now filled with snow. "A decidedly second-rate entertainment, but I watched awhile anyway." "Sounds exciting. Want to tell me what happened?" "The broadcast encountered technical difficulties before the end. For all I know, the show may still be going on. But perhaps I should break some news to you. That assault force, whoever they were, merely saved me the trouble of tidying up myself." "You were planning just to murder all your helpers anyway, right?" He settled into a sculptured chair next to a console, as casually as he could manage. "Neatness. Guess I should have thought of that." "You should have thought of a lot of things, Mr. Vance." "And how about you? Did the ransom money come through? I assume this operation had a price tag attached." He laughed. "Of course the money came through. All eight hundred million. What do you take me for?" "Respectable chunk of change. So why in hell are you going to still launch an A-bomb?" Even Vance was impressed by his perfidy. "That's not very sporting." "I'm not a sporting person." "That's hardly a news flash." He felt his outrage spilling over. "Mind telling me the target?" "Not at all. I'm going to incinerate the U.S. air and naval base at Souda Bay. The Americans don't care anything about civilians, as they have shown any number of times, but they are very attached to their Sixth Fleet." "Jesus, you're totally mad." It was worse than he had imagined. "You're going to kill hundreds, thousands. How in hell can you do that?" "Easily. As a matter of fact, it's as good as done. In a few minutes." He checked his watch, then glanced up and examined Vance a moment. "It looks like Jean-Paul did a fairly good job. I should have told him to just finish it." "He got close enough, believe me." "Looking at you, I'd have to agree." He smiled, eyes behind his gray shades. "All right, Mr. Vance, I assume you came back in here for a reason. What is it?" "The truth is, I'm dropping by to see if we couldn't talk over a deal." "I don't really think so." "You may be able to set off a bomb, but the way things stand, no way are you going to get out of here in one piece." He was trying out the speech he had been rehearsing. "In case you didn't realize it, the U.S. Navy has the airspace around the island totally closed down. The skies over the eastern Med are currently an F-14 parking lot. But if you'll put a stop to all this insanity, release the hostages, then--" "Don't try to bluff me, Mr. Vance." He gestured him forward. "Come, take a look at my collateral." He led the way across to a second row of workstations, these on the side and closer to the window. "When I leave, which is imminent, I will have company. A certain professor. I think you've met him." And sure enough, there in the comer sat Isaac Mannheim, looking as though the world had already ended. The old man appeared to be in a dark space of his very own, his face pitifully sunk in his hands. "It can't be stopped," he was mumbling, almost incoherently. "Damn them. There should be a special rung in hell for them." "Don't worry," Vance assured him. "There is." He turned back to Ramirez. "It isn't going to work. The U.S. is not going to be bluffed." He hoped it was true. Somehow, though, he didn't feel all that confident. Ramirez was smart, very smart, and the U.S. had a history of screwing these things up. Just outside the window VX-1 awaited, primed and about to lift off. Unlike the space shuttle, it had no clouds of white condensate spewing out; instead, it stood serene and austere, its payload prepared to wreak havoc on thousands of unsuspecting U.S. citizens. The loss of life would be staggering. "He got Johan to call off the assault," Mannheim continued, interrupting his thoughts. "It was because of me. He wanted to save me. He did, but he only made things worse. He should have just let them kill me and have done with it." Vance examined him and stifled a sigh. Now he had Mannheim to worry about. He didn't want Cally to start shooting up the place with him in the room, so he couldn't go to the window and signal her the way he had planned. What to do? "Look," he said finally, turning to Ramirez, "if you need insurance, why not just take me and let Mannheim go? You and I have some unfinished business. He's not part of it." "He will go, all right. With me on the helicopter. You, on the other hand, are . . ." Ramirez glanced out the wide window and fell silent as he studied the Sikorsky. The main rotor was starting to power up, and something about that seemed not to sit well with him. Suddenly he seemed galvanized. He glanced at his watch, then checked the safety on his Beretta. Vance watched this, wondering what to do. Was this the golden moment to try and take him? There were only the Pakis outside to worry about. . . . But Ramirez was already moving, grabbing Mannheim by the arm. Abruptly he stopped, turned, and took aim at Vance, somewhere precisely between his eyes. Vance blanched. Jesus! Go for the Walther and get it over with. But before he could move, Ramirez laughed and slipped the hand holding the Beretta into his pocket, then gave a nod of his head, beckoning. "Mr. Vance, I think I would like to have you join us after all. You're right. We still have a few matters to settle." He stepped aside and motioned. "But the time has come to bid farewell to Andikythera." Ramirez was still dragging Mannheim along as they passed through Launch, pausing only to nod lightly toward the two Pakistanis, who immediately snapped to attention and followed. Amidst all the excitement of the pending launch, nobody seemed to notice. They passed through the outer door and onto the tarmac as an ensemble, Ramirez holding Mannheim by the arm and guiding him. 7:31 A.M. Bill Bates looked through the Sikorsky's wide windscreen and saw them coming. The time had arrived, he realized immediately, to make a move. Now or never. The Israeli's attempt to pull out early had just been cut off at the pass, so why not see what would happen if the scenario got shut down entirely? He reduced the power, listening to the engines wind down, and rose. "Guess my part of this is over," he announced. "You've got a go system, so have a nice day. I'll be seeing you around." Peretz' eyes momentarily flashed confusion, but he was wily enough to recover immediately. "Your help has been much appreciated," he smiled quickly. "Thank you for checking everything out." Should I tip off Number One, Bates asked himself. No, that flicker is nobody's fool; he's already way ahead of this little twerp. And the second he sets foot in here and sees that dead German hood, there's going to be a lot of heavy-duty explaining to do. Now Peretz was moving jauntily down the Sikorsky's folding steps, carrying his Walther with an air that proclaimed nothing amiss. Time to get out of here, Bates told himself. There's going to be hell to pay. He rose and headed down the stairs after Peretz as rapidly as he could. "Mike, where've you been?" He waved at Vance. "We can't go on meeting like this. What do you say we just pack it all in and go sailing?" "Fine with me," Vance yelled back. "No time like the present." At that moment, a shot rang out from somewhere in the direction of the fallen gantry, whereupon Peretz whirled, leveled his Walther into the mist, and got off a burst on full auto. Emptying the clip. The scene froze, like a tableau. Vance's first thought was that Peretz had overreacted. Nervous. And probably with good reason. But at least Cally was trying to do her share. The problem was, the quarters were too close. The two Pakistanis were still standing on the tarmac, not quite understanding what was happening, but Ramirez sized up the situation in an instant. He shoved Mannheim up the steps ahead of him, ducked into the protection of the Sikorsky's open door, and then turned back. Peretz was slower, caught standing on the foggy tarmac next to the bottom step. When he realized his Walther's clip was empty, he fished another out of his pocket and quickly began trying to insert it. "That won't be necessary, Dr. Peretz." Ramirez's voice was like steel. "Let me take care of it." Whereupon he leveled his Beretta 9mm and shot a startled Abdoullah squarely between the eyes. Before Shujat realized it, he shot him, too, point blank in the left temple. "What in hell are you doing?" Peretz yelled, watching them fall. He was still trying to shove a new clip into his automatic, but now he was losing his touch and it jammed. "That's not how we--" "I suppose you thought me some kind of fool," Ramirez replied, shifting his aim. "It's time I laid that fond illusion of yours to rest once and for all." "I don't appreciate your tone of voice." Peretz was still struggling frantically with his Walther. "And I don't appreciate you trying to make off with this helicopter. We have just lost a crucial element of our relationship, the element of trust." "I never knew our 'relationship' had all that much trust in it." Peretz looked up defiantly. "We had a business arrangement. I've kept up my end to the letter." Vance watched the exchange with mixed emotions. He realized that Peretz, being no idiot, knew the situation had just gone critical. He had begun stalling for time. It wasn't going to work. But after Ramirez finishes with this computer clown, he told himself, Bill and I are next. And with that thought, he reached around under his shirt and circled his fingers around the Walther. He had been right. "It's over, you little son of a bitch." Ramirez fired point blank into Peretz' chest. The Israeli jerked backward, stumbled, and crashed, slamming his head against the hard asphalt. He didn't move. Uh-oh, Vance thought. Now it's our turn. He was standing next to Bates, while around them were three bodies of terrorists. Ramirez, however, was safely inside the open doorway, out of range for Cally. Does she realize what's about to happen? She must have, because just as Ramirez leveled his black Beretta to finish off what he had started, there was another burst of fire from the direction of the gantry. It was the diversion Vance needed. He dove for the tarmac, rolled, and extracted the Walther he had shoved into his belt. Come on, baby, keep giving me cover. "Mike," Bates yelled, seeing the pistol as he, too, dove for the tarmac, "shoot the bastard. Now." Vance aimed for the doorway, but it was already closing, the steps coming up. Sabri Ramirez was not a man to engage in gunplay for the fun of it. He was about to be gone. A second later the main rotor, which had been idling, immediately began to whine into acceleration. "We blew it," Bates boomed, his voice now almost drowned by the huge GE turboshafts. "The Hyena," Vance muttered, pulling himself up off the asphalt. "Headed back to his lair. And there's not a damned thing anybody can do about it." "Not with Isaac on board," Bates concurred. "Sorry I yelled. You really didn't have a chance." He was shielding himself from the downdraft as he tried to stand up. "The fucker is getting away without a scratch. Looks like he pulled it off." "Right," Vance said, watching the giant Sikorsky begin to lift. "But maybe there's one thing left we can do. How about trying to remove that bomb"--he pointed up at VX-1--"before that thing goes up?" "What in hell are you talking about?" Bates turned to squint at the silver spire. 'There's no way." "Well, I don't know, what about using the Agusta? It's probably still flyable." He had turned back to watch the Sikorsky bank into the thinning fog. Ramirez was just barely visible through the windscreen, smiling as he disappeared into the mist. "There's no time. Peretz told me that VX-1 is set to lift off at seven forty-eight. The bastard had it timed exactly." Bates glanced at his watch. 'That's just a few minutes." "No balls," Vance snorted. "Bill, for godsake, let's give it a shot. Maybe we can at least disable it, turn it into a dud." Bates was still dubious as he gazed upward. "Buddy, I don't want to be hovering over that thing when the Cyclops kicks in. Do you realize--" "Come on, where's your backbone." He waved to Cally, who was now coming around the corner of the gantry. 'Thanks for not shooting me." "When I saw Ramirez start killing everybody, I assumed you two were next. It was then or never." She looked exhausted. "You assumed right. We were on the hit list. Thanks." He kissed her on the forehead, where her hair was still plastered. "Now will you help me talk some sense into this guy? I say we could at least try to mess up the bomb before the Cyclops launches it. They've got it programmed for Souda Bay." "You're kidding." Bates was transfixed. "That's what he claimed. Come on, let's . . . hang on a second." He turned and trotted over to the doorway of Launch, where he seized a coil of electrical wire. "This may come in handy." Coming back, he punched Bates' arm. "Let's give it a try. No guts, no glory." "Souda Bay. Christ!" Bates glanced again at his watch. "Mike, we've got less than nine minutes." 7:38 A.M. "I copy," Nichols said into his mike. "When did the chopper lift off?" "The AWACS picked it up at . . . just after 0730 hours," came the voice from the Kennedy. It was General Max Austin. "The bastards are bugging out." "So what do we do now? Try and intercept them?" "We're taking care of that from here. Fixed-wing. First, though, we've got to figure out if there really are hostages aboard, like they claim. But don't worry about it. There's nowhere they can hide. Your mission is still the same. Secure the facility. There could still be some of them left, so just interdict anything that tries to egress." "That's a confirm. If it moves, it fucking dies." CHAPTER NINETEEN 7:42 A.M. Dawn had arrived, though the mantle of light fog was still adding a hazy texture to the air. The sun-up had a freshness that reminded Vance of the previous morning, the first glimmerings of daybreak. Now, though, visibility was hampered by the residual moisture in the air, just enough to give the world a pristine sheen. What would the morning look like, Vance wondered, if a nuclear device exploded at Souda Bay on nearby Crete? It was a possibility difficult to imagine, but the results were not. Bates began spooling up the power, and slowly the blue-and-white striped Agusta Mark II started lifting off the pad. Fortunately it had been prepped the previous day and was ready to fly. "This is going to be dicey, Mike," Bates yelled back from the cockpit, his voice just audible above the roar of the engines. "I don't know how exactly you expect to manage this." "I don't know either," Vance yelled in reply. "Try and see if you can hover just above the payload bay. Very gently." Cally was helping him circle the insulated wire about his waist, then his crotch, making a kind of seat. Finally he handed her the free end and shouted, "Here, can you secure this around something?" "Around what?" she yelled back. "Anything that looks sturdy. And then hang onto it." "Ever done this before?" She had found a steel stmt by the door. "I haven't." "Are you kidding! That makes us equally experienced." "Well, remember one thing--the downdraft from the main rotor is going to buffet you like crazy. Be prepared." "Right." He was already trying mental games to avoid vertigo. The closest thing he could think of was looking out the windows of a tall building, and even that scared him. He liked working close to the ground. Very close. As Bates guided the Agusta quickly down toward the launch pad and the vehicles, visibility was no more than a quarter of a mile. And since he had not bothered switching on the radar, he was totally unaware of the two Apache AH-64s now approaching from the south at 180 mph. It was a mistake. 7:44 A.M. "Sir, we've just picked up some new action on the island," Manny Jackson, in the first Apache, said into his radio. He could scarcely wait to get in and take down the island. These camel-jockey terrorists needed to be taught a lesson once and for all. He had lost a cousin, nineteen years old, in the Beirut bombing, and this was the closest he was ever going to get to a payback. "Guess there were more of the bastards. Ten to one they're taking up another chopper." "No way are we going to allow that to happen," Nichols declared. He was in the lead Huey, two kilometers back. "The first batch may have got away, but not these. From now on, nobody down there moves a hair. We're about to teach them a thing or two about air supremacy." "They don't seem to be going anywhere. Just moving down the island. What do you think it means?" He was wondering what a lot of it meant. Why was Souda Bay being evacuated? They weren't calling it that, but an evacuation was exactly what was under way. A big hurry-up to get the fleet into blue water, all nonessentials ordered to take a day off with pay, a sudden token of "thanks" from Uncle Sammy for jobs well done. Bullshit. . . . "Probably picking up hostages," came back Nichols's voice. "Who the hell knows? But our mission is to make sure they don't leave the ground." "You've got it, sir." He reached down to the weapons station and flipped the red switch that armed the Hughes 30mm chain gun. Its twelve hundred rounds, he figured, should be enough to handle the problem. 7:46 A.M. "What in blazes is he doing?" Pierre Armont wondered aloud. He was standing with Beginald Hall at the southern entrance of the SatCom living quarters, the Bates Motel, gazing out over the launch pad and trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Five minutes earlier they had watched in dismay as the Sikorsky lifted off. Now this. "Looks to be some damn-fool trapeze stunt," Reggie Hall muttered, shaking his head. "He's going to get himself killed. What in bloody hell?" He caught his breath as he watched Vance begin rappelling down some kind of thin line dangling out the open door of the chopper, spiraling from the downdraft of the main rotor. It was something of a circus aerial act--definitely not recommended for civilians. He clearly didn't have the slightest idea how to use his arms to stabilize the spin. A rank amateur. . . . What was that sound? His senses quickened and he turned to squint at the southern horizon. Through the light fog he could hear the faint beginnings of a dull, familiar roar, and he realized immediately it was choppers coming in. He quickly pulled out his Tasco binoculars and studied the morning sky--two helos, both looking like ungainly spiders. Yes, they had to be Apaches. What else. Great, he thought, once more the U.S. has got its timing dead on. The first time they showed up and managed to keep us from getting Ramirez, and this time they decide to drop in just after his Sikorsky took off, probably taking him and the last of his goons out, undoubtedly with a few hostages for good measure. From all appearances, he had gotten away. Again. It was sickening. Now the gunships were dropping altitude and moving in, boldly, with the authority their firepower commanded. He wondered if the teams on board might actually be unaware that Ramirez had escaped. "We ought to go out and signal them in," Armont said. "Let them know how useless--" Warning flares erupted from the Hughes 30mm in the nose of the first Apache, missing the Agusta by no more than fifty meters. "Christ! They don't know who the friendlies are." He immediately canceled his impromptu plan to head out and wave. The U.S. Army was in no mood to dialogue. "Do they think Mike's a terrorist?" Reggie asked, incredulous. But even as he said it, he realized that must be exactly what they thought. They were going to try to force down the Agusta. Or shoot it down. "Reggie, draw their fire!" Armont yelled. Almost by instinct, he raised his Steyr-Mannlicher assault rifle and opened up on the lead helicopter, going for the well-protected GE turboshaft on the left. "Don't try to kill anybody, for godsake. Just distract them." 'This is insane," declared Willem Voorst, who had come out to see what all the excitement was about. "What are you doing? I don't want to go to war with the United States of America." Then he noticed the blue-and-white Agusta hovering over VX-1, Vance dangling, and put it all together. Without a further word he aimed his MP5 and got off a burst, watching as it glinted harmlessly off the second Apache's left wing. Miraculously it worked. The Army's favorite helicopters were huge, with a main rotor almost fifty feet in diameter, but they could turn on a dime and these did. They came about and opened fire with their chain guns on the cinderblock portico where Armont and Hall and Voorst were ensconced. The 30mm rounds tore around them, sending chunks of concrete flying, but the structure was temporarily solid enough to provide protection. Armont ducked out and got off another burst, keeping on the heat, then back in again. Now the Agusta was hovering just above the nose of the VX-1 vehicle, and Vance had disappeared on the other side. What, Armont wondered again, could he possibly be doing with the vehicle . . . ? Then the answer hit him, as transparent as day. _Merde!_ He's going to try and retrieve the bomb. Good Christ, he thought, the man has gone mad. He may know how to trace hot money halfway around the globe, but he doesn't know zip about a nuclear device. He'll probably set the thing off by accident and blow the entire island to-- A spray of cannon fire kicked up a line of asphalt next to where he was standing, and he retreated for cover deeper behind the cinderblock portico. They're not going to fool around long with that chain gun, he told himself. We're going to be looking at rockets soon, and then it's game up. "We've done what we can for Michael," he yelled, getting off one last burst. "We've got to get back inside before they get tired of playing around and just fry this place." "I hear you," Willem Voorst agreed, already headed deeper inside. "Mike's on his own." 7:47 A.M. Vance had never been more scared in his life. This made a day at a stormy helm seem like a Sunday stroll. The down-draft was spinning him violently now, a lesson that rappelling was not for the faint of heart. Then he remembered some basic physics and held out his arms, helplessly flapping like a wounded bird. But it was enough, as his spin immediately slowed. He was dizzy now, but when he came around, he got an overview of the launch facility, and the glimpse made him realize that something had gone terribly wrong. What were those? Two Apache helicopters were hovering and they were firing on . . . on the Bates Motel. Just beyond the fallen gantry. Why! Ramirez and all his goons were gone or dead. Bill Bates, who also had seen it all, had a better understanding of what was under way. It was a massive failure of communications. Thinking as quickly as he could, he started negotiating the Agusta around, situating VX-1 between him and the Apaches. The fucking Delta Force had come in like gangbusters and was shooting at the wrong target. There was no time to try to raise them on the radio, and besides, he only had two hands. Down below, Vance slammed against the hard metal of the nose, and then rotated, one-handed, to try to take measure of what to do next. It wasn't going to be easy, that much was sure. The payload bay was sealed with a Teflon ring, which was itself secured with a series of streamlined clamps that were bolted from inside, designed for automated control. But . . . there also was lettering next to a thumb-operated hatch that read EMERGENCY RELEASE. He flipped it open and, bracing himself against the side of the silver cone to try to overcome the destabilizing down- draft, looked in. A red button, held down for safety by another thumb latch, stared back. What the heck, he thought, you've got nothing to lose. He flipped the thumb safety, and then--bracing himself to try to slow his erratic spin-- slammed a heel into the button. Nothing happened for a second, but then the Teflon clamps on the cargo bay began to click open one by one. Up above him, Cally was yelling something, but he couldn't make out her voice above the roar of the engines. Anyway, whatever it was, it would have to wait. There was only one thing left to do, and he had to press on. The clamps were now released, but the cargo bay was still closed. . . . At that moment, he began experiencing yet another failure of nerve. There could only be a minute left, two at most, and he didn't have the slightest idea what to do next. Then he noticed the heavy release levers, positioned beneath the Teflon clamps and circling the three sides of the streamlined door. Once more bracing himself against the slippery side of the nose, he began clicking them open, starting on the left and working his way around. Time is surely running out, he told himself. This could end up being the stupidest stunt ever attempted. The roar of the Agusta above was so deafening he could barely think. He felt all of his forty-nine years, a weight crushing down on him with the finality of eternity. . . . Then the last clamp snapped free, and he watched as the door opened by itself, slowly swinging upward. It was heavy, shaped like the pressure door on an airplane fuselage, and designed to withstand the frictional heat of space flight. But the spring mountings on the recessed hinges were intended to open and close automatically. And there sat a metallic sphere outfitted with a jumble of connectors and switches. So that's what a bomb looks like, he marveled. It was somehow nothing like he had imagined, if he had had time to imagine. Now Bates had lowered the helo just enough to allow him to slide inside and take the weight off the line. Finally he could breathe, but again the matter of passing seconds had all his attention. If the vehicle really was going up at 7:48, then there probably was less than a minute left now to get the device unhooked and out. He looked it over, puzzling, and decided on one giant gamble, one all- or-nothing turn of the wheel. It was a terrifying feeling. Quickly he untied the wire from around his waist, and began looping it around the metal sphere: once, twice, three times. There was no time, and no way, to disconnect the telemetry, so the device would simply have to be ripped out. One thing was sure: if it blew, he would never be the wiser. When he had the wire secure, or as secure as he could make it, he looked out the door and gave Cally a thumbs-up sign, hoping she would understand. She did. She turned and yelled something to Bates, and a moment later the Agusta began to power out as the pitch of the blades slowly changed. The line grew taut, then strained against the sides of the bomb, tightening his knots. Will the wire hold? he wondered, and does this little toy helo have enough lift to yank this thing out of here? It's like pulling a giant tooth. Then there was a ripping sound as the connectors attached to the sphere began tearing loose. So far so good, he thought. At least the telemetry is now history. If the vehicle goes up now, it'll be orbiting a dud. Mission partly accomplished. Then the bomb pulled away from its last moorings and slammed against the side of the door, leaving him pinned against the frame, unable to breathe. But he instinctively grabbed the line and wrapped his legs around the sphere, just as it rotated and broke free. As it bumped against the doorframe of the payload bay, he barely missed hitting the closing door, but he ducked and swung free, into the open air, riding the device as though it were a giant wrecking ball. 7:48 A.M. "Those bastards firing on us have gone inside," Philip Sexton yelled. "Let them wait. Let's stop the damned chopper from egressing." He was pointing through the windscreen of the Apache. "Orders are to keep everybody on the ground." Manny Jackson hit the pedals. Nothing to it. There, almost in his sights, was the striped Agusta chopper, with a terrorist hanging beneath it. Probably fell out. He was hanging on to something, though what it was you really couldn't tell through the thin mist. It didn't matter. The guy was open and in the clear. This was the beginning of what was going to be a marvelous operation, taking these bastards down. With a feeling of immense satisfaction, he reached for the weapons station. And then his world went blue. 7:49 A.M. Cally stared out the open door of the Agusta and felt her heart skip a beat. A beam of energy, so strong it ionized the air and turned it deep mauve, seemed to be engulfing Michael. Staring down, she was almost blinded by its intensity. He was there, she was sure, but where she could not tell. Then it shut off for a second, and she realized it had been directed toward the base of VX-1. Next came an enormous clap of thunder as the splintered air collapsed on itself, sending out shock waves. Just like lightning, she thought. The Cyclops is sending energy as though it were lightning. . . . Then the blue flashed again, and this time it began microsecond pulses, like a massive strobe light. All the action was now highlighted in jerky snippets of vision, as unreal as a disco dance floor. The air around the beam was being turned to plasma, ionized pure atoms . . . but the next burst of energy came from the propulsion unit of VX-1, which slowly began discharging a concentrated plume out of its nozzles, a primal green instead of the usual reds and oranges of a conventional rocket. The Cyclops had just gone critical, right on the money, ionizing the dry-ice propellant in VX-1. Would the impulse be enough to lift it off? she wondered. Was Isaac's grand scheme going to work? Years had been spent planning for this moment. She felt her heart stop as she waited for the answer, totally forgetting the man who was dangling just below the chopper, bathed in the hard, pulsing strobes. 7:50 A.M. As Manny Jackson grappled for the collective, blinded by the intense monochromatic light engulfing him, a clap of thunder sounded about his ears, deafening him to the roar of the Apache's turboshafts. What in hell! Had one of the nuclear devices been detonated? No, his instincts lectured, he was still alive. If it had been a nuke, he would be atoms by now, sprayed into space. This had to be something else. Now his vision was returning, the blue receding into quick flashes, and the chopper seemed to be stabilizing. Maybe, he thought, I'm not going to be permanently blind. But I've got to get this bird on the ground. We'll just have to take our chances. Then the realization of what had happened finally sank in. The damned Cyclops laser had switched on. They had arrived too late. . . . He was thrown against the windscreen as the Apache slammed into the asphalt and collapsed the starboard leg of the retractable gear. "Jesus!" He turned back to the cabin, forehead bleeding, and yelled, "Everybody okay?" The assault team was still strapped in, and nobody seemed the worse for the bumpy landing. The Apache was a tough bird, hero of tank battles in Iraq. "No problem," came back a chorus of yells. They were already unfastening their straps and readying their weapons. "All right," he bellowed, killing the power. "Everybody out. Let's take cover and kick ass." 7:50 A.M. Vance heard the thunder and felt the shock wave almost simultaneously. He gripped the wire, trying to hold on, and felt it cut deep into his palms. The pain seemed to work in opposition to the numbing effects of the shock wave that had buffeted him, assaulting his eardrums and his consciousness. For a moment he forgot where he was, shut out all thought, and just hung onto the wire with his last remaining energy. In the Agusta up above, Bates was struggling with the controls, trying to keep stabilized as the pressure pulse from the Cyclops swept down the island. The dangling bomb, and Vance, were serving as a counterweight, holding the small commercial helo aright. It was all that kept it from flipping as the sudden turbulence assaulted the main rotor. The energy that filled the air now had yet another release. As his eardrums recovered, Vance heard a new roar, deeper and throatier than the sound of the Agusta, welling up around him. Down below, wave after wave of pressure pulses were drumming the air, and he watched spellbound as VX-1 shuddered, then began to inch upward into the morning sky. It was a gorgeous sight, the lift-off of the world's first laser-driven space vehicle. Was Cally watching this moment of triumph? he wondered. She should be ecstatic, even in spite of all the rest. But would the vehicle make it to orbit? he suddenly asked himself. With the payload gone, wouldn't the weight parameters be all out of whack. But then maybe it didn't matter. The mere fact that it was going up should be enough to cover Bates' contractual obligations with his investors. That was down the road. He was so mesmerized by the sight of the lift- off that he had totally forgotten he was wrapped around a nuke, hanging on for all he had as the asphalt loomed fifty feet below, like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down in that famous closing scene from Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Then the pain in his hands refocused his attention. The bomb down below, he figured, was now permanently inoperable. But Ramirez still had Mannheim as a hostage, and he had made good his escape. Which meant he was still in the terrorists' catbird seat. Using innocents for a shield rather than slugging it out fair and square. As the Cyclops continued to pulse, and VX-1 edged upward into the morning mist, Bates steered the Agusta toward the old landing pad where it had originally been parked. In moments he had eased down the bomb, just as though settling in a crate of eggs, no more than twenty feet from where they had taken off five minutes earlier. It was a marvel of professionalism. As the weapon bumped onto the asphalt, Vance had a sudden thought. The damned thing was useless now, and harmless. But what about the other one, the one Ramirez had taken with him in the Sikorsky? "Michael, are you all right?" Cally had leapt from the open door of the Agusta, looking as disoriented as he had ever seen her. "You were only a few feet away when the Cyclops turned on. For a minute there, I couldn't even see you. What was it like?" "Try the end of the world. Like a thousand bolts of lightning, all aimed at one place." "A perfect description." She smiled and reached to help him stand up. "I'd never realized there'd be a thunderclap when it switched on at full power. God, what a sight." She was beaming at the thought, exhilarated that all SatCom's work had been vindicated. "You know," he said, "speaking of the end of the world, we came pretty close. I hate to think what would happen if a bomb actually went off on Crete." "I've got a sinking feeling the end of the road wasn't going to be Crete at all," Bates declared, stepping down from the Agusta. "I've been thinking. Something that little Israeli prick let drop as we were coming out to start up the Sikorsky finally sank in. He was rambling on about retargeting the vehicle. You know, I think it was going to come back here. He had the trajectory set to begin and end right here on Andikythera. After he bugged out, of course." "Nice," Vance said. "I actually kind of admire his balls. He was going to nuke Ramirez." "And us." "That part's a little harder to like, I grant you." He turned and gazed down toward the two Apaches that had landed. "By the way, what were those all about? The Delta Force saving us?" "Who knows?" He seemed to have a sudden thought. "Let me get on the radio and try to call them off. Before they actually end up killing somebody." "While you're doing that, I'd like to try and raise Pierre. Find out what's happening at his end." "There's a walkie-talkie in the cockpit," Bates said. "Use it." 7:55 A.M. "Michael, thank God it's you," Armont said into the mike. "Guess what, we almost went to war against the U.S. Special Forces. We have just surrendered. Incidentally, nice work up there. Or maybe you just got lucky." He laughed. "Seeing you rappelling leads me to suggest that you probably ought to stick to other lines of work." "I hear you," Vance said. "By the way, the bad news is Ramirez got away." "So he was in the Sikorsky?" Armont sighed with resignation. "Blast, I was afraid of that." "Well, this may not be over yet. The vehicle got up, but we're not quite sure where it's headed, bomb or no bomb. I want to try to get into Command, or what's left of it, and try to find out. Before some Delta cowboy fires a Hellfire missile in there." "Good idea," Armont agreed. "It would also be nice to keep a handle on Ramirez's getaway chopper. But I assume somebody will interdict him. The almighty U.S. Navy owns this airspace, as we found out the hard way." "Don't count on anything. He took along Mannheim as a hostage. Insurance. This guy is no slouch. I'd be willing to bet he's got something up his sleeve. One thing he's got is at least one more bomb. Bill saw it on the chopper. And he might be just crazy enough to use it, God knows where." "Then I don't know what the U.S. can do if he's got a hostage, and a bomb. They're sure as hell not going to shoot him down. Where do you think he's headed?" "That's question number two, but if we can get into Command, maybe we can figure out a way to track him from there. Somehow." "Good luck," Armont said quietly, and with feeling. "And stay in touch." 8:01 A.M. Dore Peretz' chest still felt like it was on fire, a burning sensation that seemed to spread across the entire front of his torso; in fact, he felt like shit. And he had almost been blinded by the intense blue laser strobes that had purged the island when the Cyclops kicked on. However, in all the confusion surrounding the lift-off of VX-1, nobody had bothered to wonder where he was. That part suited him fine. Donning the bulletproof vest around midnight had been the best idea of his life. . . . No, that wasn't true. The best of all was coming up. Sometimes, he thought, life could have a moment so delicious it made up for all your past disappointments. And you could either seize that moment, or you could forever let it pass, wondering what it would have been like. Not this one, baby. As he passed through the lobby, he noticed the security door leading into Command had been blown away with some kind of military explosive. Probably C-4. Curious, he paused and assessed the damage. Hey, the television down in Launch hadn't really done the assault justice. Must have been one hell of a show. Then he stepped inside and checked out the scene. Jesus! The place was a mess, showed all the signs of a bloody assault. Luckily, however, the emergency lights were working, their harsh beams perfect for what he wanted to do now. There was definitely plenty of evidence of gunfire, flecked plaster from the walls, and over there . . . Christ! It was Jamal, or what was left of Jamal. Little fucker's neck looked like he'd had a close encounter with a chain saw. Not far away was Salim, shot in the face. Then, on the other side of the room, was the body of the last German Stasi, Peter Maier. His demise had come neatly, right between the eyes. Smooth piece of work, you had to admit. The only asshole unaccounted for was Jean-Paul Moreau. So what happened to that arrogant French prick? Did he escape, get captured? . . . Who gave a shit? Meditations on fate, the absolute. The truth was, it was more than a little chilling to see the bodies of three dudes you'd come in with only a day before. . . . Well, fuck it. These other guys had known the risks. If they didn't, then they were jerks. Down to business. He knew what he was looking for, and he had left it next to the main terminal. And there it was. While he was working, he would block out the ache in his chest by thinking about the money. Hundreds of millions. Tax free. Even if you spent ten million a year, you could never spend it all. What a dream. Then he had an even more comforting reflection. Everybody had seen him shot. They wouldn't find the body, but they would naturally assume he was dead, too. He would have the money, and he would be officially deceased. He almost laughed, but then he sobered, recalling he had only a scant few minutes to wrap things up. He slipped the component into its slot, then rummaged around for the connectors. He had left them dangling when he removed the black box, and they were conveniently at hand. They were color-coded, and besides, he had a perfect photographic memory and knew exactly what went where. Seconds later the diodes gleamed. On line. Okay, baby, let's crank. The real radio gear, he knew, was in Bates' office, which stood at the far end of the room, its door blown away. Bates had plenty of transmission and receiving equipment in there, so that would be the perfect place to take care of business. He picked up the device, now ready, and carried it with him, heading over. The main power switch that controlled Bates' radios had been shut off, but it was just outside the door and easy to access. He pushed up the red handle, and walked on through, watching with satisfaction as the gear came alive. Over by the desk was Bates' main radio, a big Magellan, already warming up. Life was sweet. He clicked on the receiver stationed next to the transmitter and began scanning. Ramirez, he figured, would probably be on the military frequencies now, spewing out a barrage of threats about blowing up Andikythera. That had been the agreed-upon egress strategy, assuming the confusion created when the bomb took out Souda Bay wasn't enough. And sure enough, there he was, on 121.50 megahertz, just as planned. Peretz decided to listen for a minute or so before breaking in. "I won't bother giving you our coordinates," came his voice, "since we show a radar lock already. I warn you again that any attempt to interfere with our egress will mean the death of our hostage and a nuclear explosion on the island." How about that, Peretz thought. The getaway scenario is still intact, right down to the last detail. Gives you a warm feeling about the continuity of human designs. He and Sabri Ramirez had planned it carefully. The Sikorsky would be taken to fifteen thousand feet, its service ceiling, whereupon anybody left would be shot. The controls would then be locked, and they would don oxygen masks and jump, using MT-1X parachutes, the rectangular mattress-appearing chutes that actually are a non-rigid airfoil. MT-lXs had a forward speed of twenty-five miles per hour and could stay up long enough to put at least that many miles between the jump point and the landing. They were, in effect, makeshift gliders, and they presented absolutely no radar signature. While the Sikorsky continued on its merry way, on autopilot, they would rendezvous with the boat that was waiting, then be off to Sicily, with nobody the wiser. The chopper would eventually crash into the ocean halfway to Cypress, leaving no trace. The only part about that plan that bothered Dore Peretz from the first was whether Sabri Ramirez was intending to kill him along with the rest of the exit team. Nothing would prevent it. There was supposed to be some honor among thieves, but . . . Enough nostalgia. The moment had come to have a little fun. He flicked on the mike. "Yo, my man, this is your technical associate. Do you copy?" There was a pause in the transmission, then Ramirez's voice came on, loud and clear. "Get off this channel, whoever you are." "Hey, dude, is that any way to talk? We have a little business to finish. By the way, how's the weather up there? Chutes still look okay?" "What in hell," came back the voice, now abruptly flustered as the recognition came through. "Where are you?" "Dead, I guess. But hey, I'm lonesome. Maybe it slipped your mind I was supposed to be part of the evacuation team." "What do you want?" "Want? Well, let's see. How about starting with a little respect." "Fuck you, Peretz." "Now, is that any way to talk? If that's how you feel, then I just thought of another small request. I also want you to transfer your part of the money into my account at Banco Ambrosiano. As a small gesture of respect. I want you to get on the radio and see about having it arranged. Or I might just blow the scenario for you." He had to laugh. There was radio silence as Ramirez appeared to be contemplating this alternative. It clearly was unpalatable. "You've got a problem there, my friend. One of time. I'm sure we're being monitored, so let me just say there's been a change of plans. You would have been part of it, but unfortunately . . ." "Hey, asshole, there's no change of plans. You figured it for this way all along. But now there is going to be a change. I hate to tell you what the new scenario is . . . yo, hang on a sec." He had looked up to see Bill Bates and Michael Vance entering the office. "Come on in and join the fun, guys." He waved his Walther and grinned. "We're about to have a blast." Vance walked through the door, bloody and exhausted. "And I thought Ramirez was the only one who could manage to return from the dead." He tried to smile, but his face hurt too much. "Either he was using blanks, or you were wearing a bulletproof vest. Somehow I doubt it was the former. So what happened? Have a business disagreement with your partner in crime?" Peretz was grinning. "That's how it is in life sometimes, man. Friendship is fleeting." He gestured them forward. Bates had moved in warily, still stunned by the carnage among the workstations in Command. "I suppose I have you and Ramirez to thank for tearing up the place out there." He walked over to the desk. "Nice to see that my radio gear is back on and working." "It's working fine," Peretz replied, then waved his Walther toward the couch opposite the desk. "Now sit the fuck down. Both of you." "You're staring at beaucoup hard time, pal." Vance did not move. "I can think of several countries who're going to be fighting over the chance to put you away. This might be a propitious moment to consider going quietly." "Quietly?" There was a mad gleam in his eye. "I never did anything quietly in my life. You're in luck, asshole. You're about to have a front-row seat at history in the making." He turned back to the radio and switched to transmit. "Yo, my man, looks like we have nothing more to say to each other. Which means it's time for a fond farewell." What's he about to do? Vance wondered. He's about to screw Sabri Ramirez, but how? Then it dawned. There was one bomb left, and Bill had said it was on the Sikorsky. Probably radio-controlled, and Peretz had a radio, right there. God help us! "Hey," he almost yelled, "get serious. What you're about to do is insane. You don't use a nuke to take out a single thug. Even a thug like Sabri Ramirez. You've gone crazy." In fact, Vance told himself, Peretz was looking a little, more than a little, mad. He had a distant fix in his visage that was absolutely chilling. The world had been waiting decades now for a nutcake to get his hands on a nuclear trigger. Maybe the wait was over. "Look, peckerhead, I'm sorry if you find this unsettling." Peretz was still holding the Walther. "However, don't get any funny ideas." He laughed. "You know, it's almost poetic. For years now Israel has been the world's biggest secret nuclear power, but nobody ever had the balls to show our stuff. I'm about to become my nation's most daring ex- citizen." He turned back to the radio. "You still there, asshole?" There was no reply. The radio voice of Sabri Ramirez didn't come back. "He's jumped." Peretz looked up and grinned a demented grin. "He's in the air. Perfect. Now he'll get to watch." He plugged in the device he had been carrying, a UHF transmitter. Then he flicked it to transmit, checked the liquid crystals that told its frequency, and reached for a red switch. "No!" Vance lunged, trying to seize the Walther as he shoved Peretz against the instruments. The crazy son of a bitch was actually going to do it. Peretz was strong, with the hidden strength of the terminally mad, and after only a second, Vance realized he didn't have a chance; he was too beat up and exhausted. Bill Bates, too, was suffering from absolute fatigue, but he also leapt forward, grappling with Peretz and trying to seize his automatic. With Vance as a distraction, Bates managed to turn the pistol upward. Peretz was still gripping it like a vise, however, and at that moment it discharged, on automatic, sending a spray of rounds across the ceiling. Vance tried to duck away, and as he did, Peretz kneed him, shoving him to the floor. Bates, however, still had a grip on his right wrist, holding the pistol out of range. Again it erupted, another hail of automatic fire, but as it did, Bates managed to shove Peretz against the desk, grabbing his right elbow and twisting. The Walther came around, locked on full automatic, and caught Dore Peretz in the side of his face. As blood splattered across the room, Bates staggered back, while Peretz collapsed onto the desk with a scream, then twisted directly across the transmitter. He was dead instantly. And as he crumpled to the floor, almost by magic, the background noise from the radio on the Sikorsky stopped, replaced by a sterile hiss. "Thank God," Bates whispered, breathless, and reached to help Vance up. "Are you okay, Mike?" "I think so," he mumbled, rising to one trembling knee. "At least we--" The room shook as a blistering shock wave rolled over the island. Outside, the distant sky above the eastern Mediterranean turned bright as the midday sun. Fifteen thousand feet above the Aegean, a blinding whiteness appeared unlike anything a living Greek had ever seen. CHAPTER TWENTY 12:10 A.M. "My God," the President muttered, settling the red phone into its cradle. "They did it. The bastards detonated one of them. NSA says their SIGINT capabilities in the Med just went blank. An electromagnetic pulse." "I don't believe it," Morton Davies declared. Sitting on the edge of his hard chair, the chief of staff looked as incredulous as he felt. "We're tracking their helicopter with one of the AWACS we brought up from Rijad. The minute they set down, we're going to pick them up, rescue Mannheim and any other hostages, and nail the bastards. They know they can't get away, so why . . . ?" "He'd threatened to nuke the island," Hansen went on, "but I assumed that had to be a bluff. Why in hell would he want to go ahead and do it? It didn't buy him anything at this stage." Edward Briggs was on a blue phone at the other end of the Situation Room, receiving an intelligence update from Operations in the Pentagon. As he cradled the receiver, he looked down, not sure how to tell Johan Hansen what he had just learned. Mannheim. "What's the matter, Ed? I don't like that look. What did--?" "Mr. President." He seemed barely able to form the words. "Our people just got a better handle on . . . It wasn't Andikythera." "What?" Hansen jerked his head around, puzzlement in his deep eyes. "What do you mean? Good Christ, not Souda Bay! Surely they didn't--" "The detonation. Our AWACS flying out of southern Turkey monitored it at around fifteen thousand feet. As best they can tell. They still--" "What!" 'They say it looked to be about seventy miles out over the eastern Med, in the direction of Cypress. Which is exactly where they were tracking-- " "You mean . . ." His voice trailed off. 'That's right," Briggs said finally. "They think it was the helicopter. The one they were flying out. An old Sikorsky S-61 series, we believe. It--" "What are you saying?" Hansen found himself refusing to believe it. 'That those idiots nuked themselves?" What the hell was the Pentagon talking about? . . . My God. Isaac was-- "Doesn't exactly figure, does it?" Briggs nodded lamely. 'The electromagnetic pulse knocked out all our non-hardened surveillance electronics in the region, but Souda's intel section was hard-wired into our backup SAT-NET and they claim they triangulated it. Everything's sketchy, but that seems to be what happened." "I can't believe it," Hansen said, running his hands over his face. They were trembling. "The whole situation must have gotten away from him. That's . . . the only way. It must have been a macabre accident. Christ!" "A damned ghastly one," Briggs agreed. "But I think you're right." "It's the only explanation that makes any sense," Hansen went on. "He probably decided to take one of the bombs with him, hoping to try this again, and something went haywire." He suddenly tried a sad smile. "You know, I warned that son of a bitch he didn't know what he was doing, that he'd probably end up blowing himself up. Truthfully, I didn't really think it would actually happen, though." He turned back to Briggs. "The Pakistanis said the weapons they had were about ten or fifteen kilotons. How big is that, Ed, in English?" "Okay," Briggs said, pausing for effect, "that would be like a medium- sized tactical, I guess." Truthfully he wasn't exactly sure. "Well," Hansen mused, "I'm still convinced they intended it for Souda Bay. And if they'd succeeded . . . but as it stands, I guess it was more like a small upper-atmosphere nuclear test. A tactical nuke, you say? The very term is an obscenity. But, you know, NATO had those all over Germany not so long ago, on the sick assumption that the German people couldn't wait to nuke their own cities." After a long moment, during which a thoughtful silence held the room, Hansen continued. "Tell me, Ed. What kind of impact would a weapon like that actually have at that altitude?" "My guess is the effects will be reasonably contained." He was doing some quick mental calculus. "Okay, if you were directly under it, you'd have been about three miles away, so you'd have taken a shock wave that would have knocked out windows. And maybe produced some flash burns. But we had the region cleared of civilian traffic, so maybe we're okay on that score." "What about fallout?" Hansen asked. "Well, at that altitude the radioactive contamination should be mostly trapped in the upper atmosphere and take several days to start settling. By that time, it'll probably be diluted to the point it'll be reasonably minimal. Nothing like Chernobyl. Hell, I don't know the numbers, Mr. President, but then again he was over some fairly open waters. Besides, like I said, we had a quarantine on all civilian air and sea traffic--guess we see now what a good idea that was--so maybe we can be optimistic." "The bloody fools just committed hara-kiri, and took Isaac with them." He found himself thinking about the warning his aged father had given him that the job of President would age him half a lifetime in four years. He now felt it had happened in two days. "There's more," Morton Davies said, clicking off a third phone and glancing at the computerized map now being projected on the giant screen at the end of the room. "SatCom's laser-powered rocket did go up. That's all they know for certain, but they think it's going into orbit. Whatever the hell that means." "What about the Deltas?" Hansen asked finally, remembering all the planning. "And the assault? Did they--?" "Right. Good question." He beamed. "JSOC Command reports that the Deltas are on the island now and have it secured. They even retrieved the bomb that those bastards were planning to put on SatCom's rocket. They managed to get it removed before the launch." "How?" "I haven't heard yet, but at least we can take pride in the fact that this country's antiterrorist capabilities got a full-dress rehearsal. And they were up to the job." The President nodded gravely, not quite sure what, exactly, had been proved. That America could go in with too little, too late? If so, it was sobering insight. "All right, Morton, get Caroline in here first thing in the morning. I want her to schedule a television speech for tomorrow night. Prime- time. I don't know what I'll say, other than our Special Forces minimized the loss of life. It's going to sound pretty lame." "And what about the money? Is that going to get mentioned?" Hansen laughed. "Not in a million years. That money's going to be traced and retrieved today, or else. The Swiss know when to play ball. And by the way, nobody here knows anything. About any of this. No leaks, or off-the-record briefings. And I mean that. The less said, the better." "That might apply to the whole episode, if you want my opinion," Davies observed. "You know, Morton, yes and no." He turned thoughtful. "Maybe some good can come of this disaster after all. It might just be the demonstration we all needed to start the process of putting this nuclear madness to rest, once and for all. The genie managed to slip out of the bottle for a couple of days, and now we see how it can happen. I think it's time we got serious about total disarmament and on-site inspection." Edward Briggs always knew Hansen was a dreamer, but this time he was going too far. He did not like the idea of America scrapping its nuclear arsenal, even if everybody else did the same. "That's going to mean a lot of wheeling and dealing, Mr. President. It's going to be a hard sell in some quarters." Right, Hansen thought. And the hardest sell of all was going to be the Pentagon. "Well, dammit, nothing in this world is easy. But this is one move toward sanity that may have just gotten easier, thanks to that idiot on the island. I'm going to rework that speech I've got scheduled for the General Assembly. We lined up the Security Council, including the Permanent Members, for the right reasons once before. I'm going to see if we can't do it again. This time I think we've got an even better reason." 8:23 A.M. "All right, we can evacuate them on a Huey," Eric Nichols was saying. "They'll take care of them on the Kennedy, courtesy of the U.S. government. But just who the hell are you?" He was in the upper level of the SatCom living quarters, talking to a man in a black pullover who was packing a pile of Greek balaclavas into a crate. What in blazes had gone on? He had arrived in the lead Huey, to find one of the Apaches crash-landed, only one SatCom space vehicle left, and the Deltas on the ground, futilely searching for terrorists. But instead of terrorists, they had only come across this group of men in black pullovers, who had surrendered en masse. Turned out they were friendlies. And now this guy had just asked for a Huey to take out a couple of their ranks who had been shot up, one pretty badly. "My name is Pierre Armont," replied the man. He seemed to be the one in charge, and he had a French accent. "I mean, who the hell _are _you? And all these guys? CIA?" Nichols couldn't figure any of it. Two minutes after he landed, a shock wave pounded the island. Then when he tried to radio the Kennedy, to find out what in good Christ had happened, he couldn't get through. There was no radio traffic, anywhere. He had a sinking feeling he knew what that meant. And now, these clowns. They didn't look like regular military, but there was something about the way they moved. . . . "We're civilians," Armont said cryptically. "And we're not here. You don't see us." 'The hell I don't. What in blazes do you mean?" Nichols didn't like wiseacres who played games. The problem was, these guys clearly weren't desk jockeys, the one type he really despised. No, they seemed more like a private antiterrorist unit, and he didn't have a ready-made emotion for that. "As far as you and the U.S. government are concerned, we don't exist," Armont continued. "It's better if we keep things that way." Nichols looked around and examined their gear, trying to figure it. The stuff was from all over the place--German, British, French, Greek, even U.S. And not only was it from all over the globe, it was all top notch, much of it supposedly not available to civilians. Where . . . and then it hit. "You're the jokers we were trying to keep from coming in." "You did a pretty good job of slowing us down." Armont nodded. "Not good enough, it would seem." He laughed, a mirthless grunt. "You're a crafty bunch of fuckers. I'll grant you one thing, though. At least you knew enough not to put up with micromanaging from the other side of the globe. You ended up doing exactly what we would have if anybody had let us. Vietnam all over again." He was reaching into his pocket for a Montecristo. He pulled out two. "Care to join me? Castro may not be able to run a country for shit, but he can still make a half-decent cigar." "Thank you," Armont said, taking it. He hated cigars. "By the way, I'm Eric Nichols." "I know," Armont said. "JSOC." He had followed Nichols's career for years, always with an idea in the back of his mind. "I also know you've got one more year till retirement, but you don't seem like the retiring type." Nichols stared over the lighted match he was holding out and smiled. "Tell me about it." Then he looked around at the men of ARM, the pile of balaclavas and MP5s, vests of grenades. And discipline, plenty of discipline. It was a sight that did his heart good. "Your boys look like they've been around." "In a manner of speaking." Whereupon Pierre Armont proceeded to give Major General Eric Nichols an overview of the private club known as the Association of Retired Mercenaries. Including the financial dimension. Nichols nodded slowly, taking deep, thoughtful puffs on his Montecristo. He was already way ahead of the conversation. "I think we might need to have a talk when all this is over. A look into the future." "It would be my pleasure," Armont said. "Dinner in Paris, perhaps. I know the perfect restaurant." He did. Les Ambassadeurs, in the Hotel Crillon. French, though not too French. Rough-hewn Americans like Nichols always got slightly uneasy when there was more than one fork on the table and the salad came last. "Sounds good to me," Nichols said. "Just as long as I won't be getting any asshole phone calls from the Pentagon while we talk." "I can virtually guarantee it," Armont replied. "But in the meantime, we do need a favor or two from you. For starters, we would much prefer to just be numbered among the civilians here." He smiled. "That is, after all, what we are. Civilians with toys." "And some pretty state-of-the-art ones at that," Nichols said, looking around again. "But I sometimes have problems with my vision, can't always be sure what I'm seeing. Like right now, for instance. I can't seem to see a damned thing." "Oh, and one other favor," Armont continued, nodding in silent appreciation. "We took one of the terrorists alive, a certain Jean-Paul Moreau, who is wanted in a string of bank robberies all over France. It's Action Directe's idea of fund-raising. We'd like to remove him back to Paris. There're some . . . parties there who will pony up enough bounty to cover the costs of this operation and make us whole. How about it? For purposes of your mission debriefing, can you just say the precise number of hostiles remains to be fully established? When we get back to Paris, he's going to fall out of a bus on the rue de Rivoli and be captured." He paused, hoping. The Americans might not go for this one. "We would be particularly grateful. And so would several financial institutions I could name." Nichols drew again on his Cuban cigar, starting to like this Frog a lot. "Why the hell not? If you're not here, then I can't very well know _who _you take out, can I? Never heard of the guy." "Thank you very much," Armont said, and he meant it. This was indeed a man he could work with. "I'm glad we see the situation eye to eye." "Somebody at least ought to come out of this cluster-fuck whole," Nichols reflected wistfully. "Jesus, what a disaster." Armont had turned to watch as the Deltas began easing Dimitri onto a metal stretcher. He seemed alert, and he even tried to lift a hand and wave. Armont waved back and shouted for him to take it easy. "By the way, that Greek civilian over there is named Spiros. He runs a security business out of Athens and never leaves town, which is why he wasn't here." "Got it." Nichols nodded. "Guess a lot of things didn't happen today." He looked around. "But I've still got one question. We've already counted about half a dozen dead hostiles. So if nobody was here, then who exactly took down all these terrorist motherfuckers?" "Well," Armont explained, "we both know Delta Force doesn't exist either. So maybe this Greek sunshine gave them terminal heatstroke and they all just shot themselves." "Yeah," Nichols concurred with a smile, "damnedest thing." 9:31 A.M. "Georges, what do you think?" Cally asked. "Can it be saved?" "Well, first the good news. The Fujitsu is okay." He wheeled around from the workstation. Command was a shambles, but he had managed to find one auxiliary terminal that would still function. That workstation, and the lights, were on, but not much else. "It was buried deep enough in the bedrock that it escaped the EMP, the electromagnetic pulse, from the blast. If we'd lost our sweetheart, we'd be dead in the water." "Any telemetry?" "Yep." He smiled. "The tapes were on. We had Doppler, almost from liftoff. The Cyclops computed our acceleration from it, and the results look to be right on the money. The not-so-good news is that the last telemetry we recorded, just before the bomb went off and the Cyclops crashed, showed that VX-1 was about three minutes away from capturing orbit. I think we probably made it, but I still can't say. However, since Big Benny was already reducing power, getting ready to shut it off anyway, maybe, just maybe we got lucky." She sighed. "When will you know for sure?" "Right now I'm trying to get Arlington on-line and tied into here. I'm hoping we can patch into their satellite receiving station. Anyway, I should know in a few minutes, assuming the vehicle is still sending back telemetry." "Care to venture a guess?" She collapsed into a chair next to him. This was the first time she had been in Command for several hours and it seemed almost strange. Whereas the staff over at Launch Control had opened the champagne immediately after lift-off, still not fully aware of all the behind-the-scenes drama, the Command technicians were too shell-shocked to think, and they were only now slowly drifting back in. Not the people in Launch, though. All they knew for sure was that they had done their job, even if the gantry had collapsed for some mysterious reason. VX-1 left the pad without a hitch. They had a success. "Well, if I had to lay odds," Georges went on, "I'd guess we captured orbit, but it's going to be erratic. However, if we can get the Cyclops up and running again, maybe we can do a midcourse correction." He tapped something on the keyboard. "Yet another first for the never-say- die SatCom team." She had to laugh. "You look pretty cool, Soho, for somebody who just lived through World War Three." He tried unsuccessfully to smile. "Hey, don't go by appearances. I tried to open a Pepsi just now and my hands were shaking so badly I finally just gave up and went to the water fountain. Cally, I'm a wreck. I'm still quivering. God." He pulled at his beard, then absently added, "I'm going to shave this off. What do you think? It isn't me." "It never was." She had refrained from telling him that earlier, but now he seemed to want to talk about trivia, maybe just to take his mind off all the heaviness around. And there were two new things she did not want to tell him. The first was that millions of dollars were riding on his every keystroke. The second was that she was thinking a lot right now about somebody else. 9:43 A.M. "Mike, I can't believe it," Bates said, hanging up the phone. The one in his office was among the few still working, and it had been ringing off the wall. "Know who that was?" Vance had not been paying heavy-duty attention. He had been thinking about the woman out there now talking to the computer hacker with the scraggly beard. "What? Sorry, Bill, I wasn't listening." "Hey," he laughed. "Your mental condition isn't what it might be. Tell you the truth, you look like a guy who just mixed it with a twenty- horsepower fan, and lost. You really ought to go over to medical and get your face looked after." "The Deltas are probably still over there. If I showed up, I might just get arrested. Don't think I could handle an interrogation right now. Better to hide out for a while longer." The fact was, he still felt too disoriented to think about how he must look. He hurt all over, and he almost didn't care. "Whatever you say." Bates shrugged. "Anyway, that guy on the phone just now was a Jap by the name of Matsugami. He just happens to run NASDA." "What's that?" Vance asked, trying to clear his mind enough to remember the initials. The information was back there somewhere, but he just couldn't reach it. "You really are out of it, buddy. You of all people ought to know perfectly well it's their National Space Development Agency. He says they're disgusted with all the failures they've been having with the American and European commercial rockets. He wants to talk about a contract for SatCom to put up their next three broadcast satellites. That means we get to haggle for six months while they try to trim my foreskin, but I think we'll get the job. Laser propulsion is suddenly the hottest thing since Day-Glo condoms. That bastard who took us over just gave us a billion dollars of publicity." He laughed. "I'd almost like to kiss what's left of his ass, except it's probably somewhere in the ozone about now." "Well, congratulations." "Wait till Cally hears about this. She just may go into orbit herself." "You've been on the phone for an hour." After Peretz was carried out, he had collapsed onto the couch in Bates' office and tried to go to sleep, but the goings-on had made it impossible. Bates had been talking nonstop. "What else is happening out there in the world Ramirez was planning to nuke?" "He did nuke it. He just didn't manage to nuke it the place he intended." Bates leaned back in his chair. "Well, it turns out good news travels fast. Since VX-1 is up, our two prime banks in Geneva are suddenly engaged in intimate contact between their lips and my nether parts. 'Roll over your obligations? _Mais oui, Monsieur Bates. Certainement. Avec plaisir. _Will you need any additional capitalization? We could discuss an equity position.' The cocksuckers. It was almost a shame to piss away that weapon on empty space. I could have thought of a much better use." "Hallelujah." He felt his spirits momentarily rise, though not his energy. "Maybe this means all that stock you paid me for the boat will end up being worth the paper it's printed on. Truthfully, I was beginning to worry." "Told you it'd all work out," he grinned. "No faith. Come on, amigo, I've got to break the news to the troops." He strode to the door, or the opening that was left after the C-4 had removed the door, and surveyed the remains of Command. The technicians and systems analysts were filing back in, but mostly it was a scene of purposeful lethargy. The horror of the last day and a half had taken a terrible toll. Eyes were vacant, hair unkempt, motions slow and aimless. Several of those who had previously quit smoking were bumming cigarettes. He whistled with two fingers, and the desultory turmoil froze in place. "Okay, everybody," he said, his voice not quite a shout. "It's official. We're back in business. You've all still got a job." The glassy-eyed stares he received back suggested nobody's thoughts had extended that far yet. Nobody was in a particular mood to let themselves think about the future. "That's the good part," Bates went on, oblivious. "The other news is there won't be bonuses or stock dividends this year. We'll be lucky just to service our debt. But anybody who hangs in there for twelve months gets half a year's pay extra, as a bonus. I'll do it out of my own pocket if I have to. And if you play your cards right, we could be talking stock options, too." There were a few smiles and thumbs-up signs, more to hearten Bates, whom they revered, than to celebrate. Nobody had the capacity left to feel particularly festive. At the same time, nobody was about to abandon ship. Not now, now that they were needed more than ever. Vance was leaning on the wall behind him, watching it all and thinking. Okay, so Bill was about to be rich, and SatCom had gotten enough free publicity to last into the next century. But the real notoriety should be going to the question that had haunted the world for four decades: what would happen if terrorists got their hands on a nuclear device? This time the consequences--although intended to be devastating--had in fact been peripheral, an inconsequential detonation somewhere halfway into space. But the question that still hung over the world was, what would happen the next time? It was a question Bill Bates had too much on his mind today to think about. Maybe he never would. 9:51 A.M. J.J. shook his head in disgust as he looked over the shambles that was the gantry. Dr. Andros had just phoned from Command, asked him to undertake a preliminary assessment of the condition of the facility, just to ballpark the extent of damage. The assignment was already depressing him. Still, from what he could see so far, things could have been worse. There was no obvious physical injury to VX-2 or to the transmission antennas up on the hill, though the testing and corrections could take weeks. The gantry was a total loss, no doubt about that, but otherwise the major physical structures on the island appeared unscathed. The main reason, naturally, was that almost everything important--including the superconducting coil and the Fujitsu--was well underground. The main scene now was all the bodacious helicopters, Hueys, on the landing pad and all the Army commandos milling around. Jesus! How did everybody in Launch Control miss what was really going on? Looking back, the whole thing was fishy from the word go. Now the Army types were collecting the bodies of the terrorists and acting like they had cleaned up the place all by themselves. Guess that was going to be the official story. . . . Mr. Bates had already come down to Launch, shook everybody's hand, and thanked the crews for hanging in there. He looked a little shook up, but he wasn't talking like it. Totally upbeat. You had to love the guy. He also delivered the news that as soon as things settled down, SatCom was going to kick some ass in the space business. Jordan Jaegar looked up at the brilliant Greek sunshine and grinned in spite of himself. Shit, he couldn't wait. 10:22 A.M. "It's all been handled," Armont was saying. Vance had finally decided to venture out of Bates' office and see how things were going. The Bates Motel had taken some heavy gunfire around the entrance, but it was still usable, with the ARM team milling around and readying to depart. Down below, the sea had never looked bluer. "Nobody knows anything. Our favorite state of affairs." Vance was still trying to take it all in. "How's Spiros doing?" "They took him out on one of the Hueys," Armont said. "Hugo went, too." "Are they going to be all right?" "Hugo's okay. He even knocked back a couple of Guinnesses before he left, saying they would help ease the stabbing pain. Can you believe? As for Dimitri, the Deltas had a medic along, and he gave him a better than fifty-fifty shot. Said nothing vital seemed beyond repair." "Thank goodness for that at least." "Poor guy, he felt personally responsible for the whole mess. I think that was why he sort of lost his better judgment there for a second when we rushed Command and got careless." "It can happen," Vance said. Looking back, he decided he had lost sight of better judgment several times over the past few hours. The rest of the ARM team was checking out the gear and tying crates, all the while working on their second case of beer. Departure was imminent. "Well," Vance added finally, "it was a nightmare, start to finish. What more can you say." "Well, not entirely," Armont observed, a hint of satisfaction creeping into his voice. "Bates is going to let us use the Agusta to fly back to Paris. And when we get there, one of the terrorists who got blown up is going to suddenly reappear. Jean-Paul Moreau." "Know him well," Vance said, remembering the beating and his sense of hopelessness at the time. "Better not let me see the bastard. He might not make it back to Paris in one piece." "Well, Michael, that would be very ill-advised. He's worth a small fortune. If the Greeks were to get hold of him, he could piss on the court system here and keep it mucked up for years, so we're taking him straight back to Paris." He paused to glance around. "Nichols is giving us an Apache escort as far as international airspace will permit. But you don't know anything about any of this. Keep your nose clean." "Nichols?" The name didn't mean anything, but then his mind was still mostly in neutral. "Major General Eric Nichols. No reason you should know him. Runs the Deltas. Good man, by the way. First rate. I've had my eye on him for a number of years. Could be he'll end up being our first Yank. Well, our second besides you." "So this was really a recruiting drive." Vance laughed. Suddenly he was feeling almost giddy again, this time from the release of all the stress. "You take them where you can get them." Armont nodded, then looked around and whistled. "Okay, everybody, bring down the Agusta and start loading the gear. We're gone." He turned back to Vance. "How about you? Coming?" "No," he said, almost not even catching the question. "Think maybe I'll stick around. Make sure Bill is okay. You know, unfinished business." "Right." Armont laughed. "I think I saw your 'unfinished business,' Michael. Don't you think she might be a little young for you. You're starting to get like me now, middle-aged." "Well, working for ARM doesn't help, but then you do have a gift for pointing out the obvious." The way he felt, starting over looked tougher all the time. "On the other hand, why not. As a romantic Frenchman, I can only wish you _bonne chance_." He patted him on the back. "What more can I say." "Thanks." Vance had to smile. Armont was gallant to the end, and a man who prided himself on knowing what things mattered in life. "At my age, you need all the luck you can get." "_Merde_. In this life you make your own luck." With which pronouncement he shook hands, then yelled for Hans to bring over the list of gear for one last inventory. 7:47 P.M. It was the end of the day and he could genuinely have used a tequila, double, with a big Mexican lime on the side. Instead, however, he had something else on the agenda. After an early dinner with Bill Bates, he had talked Calypso Andros into a stroll down to the harbor, there to meditate on the events of the past two days. They had agreed in advance not to talk about Isaac Mannheim's death; Cally declared he would have wanted it that way. His life was his legacy. "I wonder if this island will ever be the same again," she was saying as she leaned back against a rock. "You know, it was peaceful once, before SatCom took over--there actually were sheep, a whole herd--but even then it had a kind of purposefulness that was just the opposite of chaos. We're the ones who disrupted it. SatCom. We remade it in our image, and we tempted fate." She sighed. "God, this whole disaster almost seems like a bad dream now. I wonder if the island will ever know real peace again. There'll always be the memory to haunt everybody." "You know, when Ulysses came back to his island, he discovered it had been taken over by a bunch of thugs. So he took away their weapons, locked the doors, and straightened things out. It set a good precedent." "Well, it didn't exactly happen that cleanly this time, but we did get them all. Every last one. And about half of them, you took care of yourself. One way or another." "Please," he stopped her. "Let's don't keep score. It's too depressing." "I'm not depressed. At least not about them. They came in here and murdered people right and left. They deserved whatever they got. Good riddance. The human race is better off." "That's pretty tough," Vance said. "On the other hand, whereas they claimed to be terrorists, they really were just extortionists. At least Ramirez and Peretz were. For them this was all about money. Kidnapping and ransom. So maybe you're right. The penalty for kidnapping is death. They were looking at the max, no matter what court ended up trying them." "I'd say ARM just spared Greece or somebody a lot of trouble and expense. Performed a public service." "I suppose that's one way to look at it." He smiled. "But somehow I don't think Pierre's going to get so much as a thank-you note. It never happens. Things always get confused like this at the end, but as long as he and the boys come out whole, they don't care." His voice trailed off as he studied the sea. Along the coast on either side, the pale early moon glinted off the breakers that crashed in with a relentless rhythm. Yes, a bomb had exploded somewhere up there in space, but the Aegean, even the jagged rocks around the island, still retained their timeless serenity. The Greek islands. He never wanted to leave. Right now, though, he was trying to work up his nerve to talk seriously with Dr. Cally Andros--and the words weren't coming. How to start . . .? "Are you still here?" She finally broke his reverie. "Or are you just gazing off." "Sorry about that." He clicked back. "I was thinking. Wondering if you'd still be interested in . . . in what we talked about yesterday." "What?" She looked puzzled, then, "Oh, you mean--" "Taking a sail with an old, slightly beat-up yacht-charter operator." "You're beat up, there's no denying it." She laughed. "I hope you keep your boats in better shape." She looked him over and thought again how much he reminded her of Alan. The mistake that affair represented was not one to be repeated blindly. Then again . . . "But I don't consider you old. Experienced, maybe, but still functioning." "Is that supposed to mean yes?" "It's more like a maybe." She touched his hand. "What were you thinking about, exactly?" "What else? The _Odyssey_ thing." He looked out at the horizon, then back. "Seems to me it deserves another try. _Oh, the pearl seas are yonder, The amber-sanded shore; _ If you'll pardon my attempt to wax poetic." She smiled. "Plagiarist. I know that one. And I also know there's another line in it that goes, _Troy was a steepled city, But Troy was far away. _ Far away. Get it? Or maybe it doesn't even really exist at all." "Oh, it exists all right. You just have to want to find it." He picked up a pebble and tossed it toward the surf, now rapidly disappearing in the dusk. "So what are you trying to say?" "I'm saying that maybe Troy was a real place and maybe not. But that's almost beside the point. What it really is is a symbol for that something or somebody we're all looking for. Whatever special it is we each want. Like when I came here to work for SatCom. Space was my Troy. It was what I wanted. And when you tried to re-create the voyage of Ulysses, you were thinking you could make something that was a myth into something that was real. Big impossibility." "You're saying the search for Troy is actually just an inner voyage, and I got caught up in trying to make it literal. The boat and all." "Well, that's what myth is really about, isn't it? We make up a story using real, concrete things to symbolize our inner journey." "You're saying Ulysses could have sailed up a creek, for all it mattered?" 'That's exactly what I'm saying." She leaned back. "Shit, I want a pizza so bad right now I think I'm going crazy." Vance was still pondering her put-down of his _Odyssey_ rerun, wondering if maybe she wasn't onto something. Maybe he had learned more about himself in two days on the island than he would have learned in two years plying the Aegean. "All right," she said finally. "I'm sorry. I've busted your chops enough. You asked if I'd like to take a sail, and I said maybe. The truth is, I would, but I've also got a journey of my own in mind." "What do you mean?" "Well, before I tell you, maybe I'd better make sure you meant it. For one thing, what are you going to sail in?" "Good question." Up until that moment he had not given much thought to personal finance. The truth was, he was broke. "I don't know if I can scrape up enough money to build an _Odyssey_ _III_. It's a problem." "Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think Bill owes you at least a boat for all you did." He shrugged, not quite agreeing with her on that point. You don't pitch in to help out an old friend, then turn around and send him an invoice. "Maybe, maybe not. But in any case, it would be minus the ten grand I owe him for the bet I lost." "Come on"--she frowned--"that's not fair." "Maybe not, but a deal's a deal. Poseidon was the god of the sea, and the god of anger. This is Greece, so maybe the old gods are still around. Maybe I tempted Poseidon and pissed him off. Anyway, the sea got angry, and that's how it goes. The way of the gods. Ten big ones." "Well," Calypso Andros said, "speaking of gods, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. The Greeks were smart enough to give you a selection. So you ought to think about burning some incense to her next time. Or something. Maybe fall in love. I hear she likes that, too." "Good suggestion." He glanced over. "Michael, I feel so rootless," she said finally, leaning against him, strands of hair across his shoulder. "Not close to anybody, really. Now that SatCom doesn't need my mothering any more, I want to try and start a few things over . . . and the place I want to start is Naxos. _My _Odyssey." He just nodded, understanding. "I want to go back to my old home," she went on, almost a sad confession. "I haven't been there for over twenty years. We had such a beautiful little whitewashed house. Looked out on a bay. It was tiny, but I still sneak back there in my dreams. I want to make sure it survived." "Don't think you have to worry. The shock wave was probably well dissipated by the time it hit Paros and Naxos. Fact is, I doubt it did any real damage to any of the islands." 'Then why don't we go there together? Your _Odyssey_ and mine." "It's a done deal." "Good." She straightened, suddenly becoming businesslike. "Just as soon as we find out about VX-1. If it made orbit and if anything is salvageable. Georges should know by tomorrow morning. Then I want to split for a while." "It would do us both good. Have to. And you know, since we're definitely going to need some transportation, I think I'm getting an idea." He nodded down toward the twenty-eight-foot Morgan, pristine white, bobbing at anchor in the harbor. "Looks pretty seaworthy to me. Think Bill would mind?" "With all the SatCom stock I've got now?" She reached out and touched his face. "I'll just fire him if he says a word." * * * BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER Nonfiction Zen Culture The Zen Experience Fiction The Moghul Caribbee Wall Street _Samurai_ (The _Samurai_ Strategy) Project Daedalus Project Cyclops Life Blood Syndrome All free as e-books at www.thomashoover.info 
59828	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the 88 original illustrations. See 59828-h.htm or 59828-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59828/59828-h/59828-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59828/59828-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/stringofpearlsor00ryme Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). THE STRING OF PEARLS; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance. London: Published by E. Lloyd, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street. MDCCCL [Illustration: From A Rare Old Painting By Reading, In The British Museum.] PREFACE. THE ROMANCE OF THE STRING OF PEARLS having excited in the Literary world an almost unprecedented interest, it behoves the author to say a few words to his readers upon the completion of his labours. In answer to the many inquiries that have been, from time to time, made regarding the fact of whether there ever was such a person as Sweeney Todd in existence, we can unhesitatingly say, that there certainly was such a man; and the record of his crimes is still to be found in the chronicles of criminality of this country. The house in Fleet Street, which was the scene of Todd's crimes, is no more. A fire, which destroyed some half-dozen buildings on that side of the way, involved Todd's in destruction; but the secret passage, although, no doubt, partially blocked up with the re-building of St. Dunstan's Church, connecting the vaults of that edifice with the cellars of what was Todd's house in Fleet Street, still remains. From the great patronage which this work has received from the reading public, the author has to express his deep and earnest thanks; and he begs to state, that if anything more than another could stimulate him to renewed exertion to please his numerous patrons, it is their kind and liberal appreciation of his past labours. _London_, 1850. The String of Pearls; or, The Sailor's Gift. A Romance of Peculiar Interest. "And now, Tobias, listen to me, and treasure up every word I say." "Yes, sir." "I'll cut your throat from ear to ear, if you repeat one word of what passes in this shop, or dare to make any supposition, or draw any conclusion from anything you may see, or hear, or fancy you see or hear." [Illustration: The Barber's lesson To His Apprentice.] CHAPTER I. THE STRANGE CUSTOMER AT SWEENEY TODD'S. Before Fleet-street had reached its present importance, and when George the Third was young, and the two figures who used to strike the chimes at old St. Dunstan's church were in all their glory--being a great impediment to errand-boys on their progress, and a matter of gaping curiosity to country people--there stood close to the sacred edifice a small barber's shop, which was kept by a man of the name of Sweeney Todd. How it was that he came by the name of Sweeney, as a Christian appellation, we are at a loss to conceive, but such was his name, as might be seen in extremely corpulent yellow letters over his shop window, by any who chose there to look for it. Barbers by that time in Fleet-street had not become fashionable, and no more dreamt of calling themselves artists than of taking the tower by storm; moreover they were not, as they are now, constantly slaughtering fine fat bears, and yet, somehow people had hair on their heads just the same as they have at present, without the aid of that unctuous auxiliary. Moreover, Sweeney Todd, in common with those really primitive sort of times, did not think it at all necessary to have any waxen effigies of humanity in his window. There was no languishing young lady looking over the left shoulder in order that a profusion of auburn tresses might repose upon her lily neck, and great conquerors and great statesmen were not then, as they are now, held up to public ridicule with dabs of rouge upon their cheeks, a quantity of gunpowder scattered in for beard, and some bristles sticking on end for eyebrows. No. Sweeney Todd was a barber of the old school, and he never thought of glorifying himself on account of any extraneous circumstance. If he had lived in Henry the Eighth's palace, it would be all the same as Henry the Eighth's dog-kennel, and he would scarcely have believed human nature to be so green as to pay an extra sixpence to be shaven and shorn in any particular locality. A long pole painted white, with a red stripe curling spirally round it, projected into the street from his doorway, and on one of the pains of glass in his window, was presented the following couplet:-- "Easy shaving for a penny, As good as you will find any." We do not put these lines forth as a specimen of the poetry of the age; they may have been the production of some young Templar; but if they were a little wanting in poetic fire, that was amply made up by the clear and precise manner in which they set forth what they intended. The barber himself, was a long, low-jointed, ill-put-together sort of fellow, with an immense mouth, and such huge hands and feet, that he was, in his way, quite a natural curiosity; and, what was more wonderful, considering his trade, there never was seen such a head of hair as Sweeney Todd's. We know not what to compare it to; probably it came nearest to what one might suppose to be the appearance of a thick-set hedge, in which a quantity of small wire had got entangled. In truth, it was a most terrific head of hair; and as Sweeney Todd kept all his combs in it--some people said his scissors likewise--when he put his head out of the shop-door to see what sort of weather it was, he might have been mistaken for an Indian warrior with a very remarkable head-dress. He had a short disagreeable kind of unmirthful laugh, which came in at all sorts of odd times when nobody else saw anything to laugh at at all, and which sometimes made people start again, especially when they were being shaved, and Sweeney Todd would stop short in that operation to indulge in one of those cachinatory effusions. It was evident that the remembrance of some very strange and out-of-the-way joke must occasionally flit across him, and then he gave his hyena-like laugh, but it was so short, so sudden, striking upon the ear for a moment, and then gone, that people have been known to look up to the ceiling, and on the floor, and all round them, to know from whence it had come, scarcely supposing it possible that it proceeded from mortal lips. Mr. Todd squinted a little, to add to his charms; and so we think that by this time the reader may, in his mind's eye, see the individual whom we wish to present to him. Some thought him a careless enough, harmless fellow, with not much sense in him, and at times they almost considered he was a little cracked; but there were others who shook their heads when they spoke of him; and while they could say nothing to his prejudice, except that they certainly considered he was odd, yet, when they came to consider what a great crime and misdemeanour it really is in this world, to be odd, we shall not be surprised at the ill-odour in which Sweeney Todd was held. But for all that he did a most thriving business, and considered by his neighbours to be a very well-to-do sort of man, and decidedly, in city phraseology, warm. It was so handy for the young students in the Temple to pop over to Sweeney Todd's to get their chins new rasped; so that from morning to night he drove a good business, and was evidently a thriving man. There was only one thing that seemed in any way to detract from the great prudence of Sweeney Todd's character, and that was that he rented a large house, of which he occupied nothing but the shop and parlour, leaving the upper part entirely useless, and obstinately refusing to let it on any terms whatever. Such was the state of things, A.D. 1785, as regarded Sweeney Todd. The day is drawing to a close, and a small drizzling kind of rain is falling, so that there are not many passengers in the streets, and Sweeney Todd is sitting in his shop looking keenly in the face of a boy, who stands in an attitude of trembling subjection before him. "You will remember," said Sweeney Todd, and he gave his countenance a most horrible twist as he spoke, "you will remember Tobias Ragg, that you are now my apprentice, that you have of me had board, washing, and lodging, with the exception that you don't sleep here, that you take your meals at home, and that your mother, Mrs. Ragg, does your washing, which she may very well do, being a laundress in the Temple, and making no end of money; as for lodging, you lodge here, you know, very comfortably in the shop all day. Now, are you not a happy dog?" "Yes, sir," said the boy timidly. "You will acquire a first-rate profession, quite as good as the law, which your mother tells me she would have put you to, only that a little weakness of the head-piece unqualified you. And now, Tobias, listen to me, and treasure up every word I say." "Yes, sir." "I'll cut your throat from ear to ear, if you repeat one word of what passes in this shop, or dare to make any supposition, or draw any conclusion from anything you may see, or hear, or fancy you see or hear. Now you understand me,--I'll cut your throat from ear to ear,--do you understand me?" "Yes, sir, I won't say nothing. I wish, sir, as I may be made into veal pies at Lovett's in Bell-yard if I as much as says a word." Sweeney Todd rose from his seat; and opening his huge mouth, he looked at the boy for a minute or two in silence, as if he fully intended swallowing him, but had not quite made up his mind where to begin. "Very good," at length he said, "I am satisfied, I am quite satisfied; and mark me--the shop, and the shop only, is your place." "Yes, sir." "And if any customer gives you a penny, you can keep it, so that if you get enough of them you will become a rich man; only I will take care of them for you, and when I think you want them I will let you have them. Run out and see what's o'clock by St Dunstan's." There was a small crowd collected opposite the church, for the figures were about to strike three-quarters past six; and among that crowd was one man who gazed with as much curiosity as anybody at the exhibition. "Now for it!" he said, "they are going to begin; well, that is ingenious. Look at the fellow lifting up his club, and down it comes bang upon the old bell." The three-quarters were struck by the figures; and then the people who had loitered to see it done, many of whom had day by day looked at the same exhibition for years past, walked away, with the exception of the man who seemed so deeply interested. He remained, and crouching at his feet was a noble-looking dog, who looked likewise up at the figures; and who, observing his master's attention to be closely fixed upon them, endeavoured to show as great an appearance of interest as he possibly could. "What do you think of that, Hector?" said the man. The dog gave a short low whine, and then his master proceeded,-- "There is a barber's shop opposite, so before I go any farther, as I have got to see the ladies, although it's on a very melancholy errand, for I have got to tell them that poor Mark Ingestrie is no more, and Heaven knows what poor Johanna will say--I think I should know her by his description of her, poor fellow! It grieves me to think how he used to talk about her in the long night-watches, when all was still, and not a breath of air touched a curl upon his cheek. I could almost think I saw her sometimes, as he used to tell me of her soft beaming eyes, her little gentle pouting lips, and the dimples that played about her mouth. Well, well, it's of no use grieving; he is dead and gone, poor fellow, and the salt water washes over as brave a heart as ever beat. His sweetheart, Johanna, though, shall have the string of pearls for all that; and if she cannot be Mark Ingestrie's wife in this world, she shall be rich and happy, poor young thing, while she stays in it, that is to say as happy as she can be; and she must just look forward to meeting him aloft, where there are no squalls or tempests.--And so I'll go and get shaved at once." He crossed the road towards Sweeney Todd's shop, and, stepping down the low doorway, he stood face to face with the odd-looking barber. The dog gave a low growl and sniffed the air. "Why Hector," said his master, "what's the matter? Down, sir, down!" "I have a mortal fear of dogs," said Sweeney Todd. "Would you mind him, sir, sitting outside the door and waiting for you, if it's all the same? Only look at him, he is going to fly at me!" "Then you are the first person he ever touched without provocation," said the man; "but I suppose he don't like your looks, and I must confess I aint much surprised at that. I have seen a few rum-looking guys in my time, but hang me if ever I saw such a figure-head as yours. What the devil noise was that?" "It was only me," said Sweeney Todd; "I laughed." "Laughed! do you call that a laugh? I suppose you caught it of somebody who died of it. If that's your way of laughing, I beg you won't do it any more." "Stop the dog! stop the dog! I can't have dogs running into my back parlour." "Here, Hector, here!" cried his master; "get out!" Most unwillingly the dog left the shop, and crouched down close to the outer door, which the barber took care to close, muttering something about a draught of air coming in, and then, turning to the apprentice boy, who was screwed up in a corner, he said,-- "Tobias, my lad, go to Leadenhall-street, and bring a small bag of the thick biscuits from Mr. Peterson's; say they are for me. Now, sir, I suppose you want to be shaved, and it is well you have come here, for there aint a shaving-shop, although I say it, in the city of London that ever thinks of polishing anybody off as I do." "I tell you what it is, master barber: if you come that laugh again, I will get up and go. I don't like it, and there is an end of it." "Very good," said Sweeney Todd, as he mixed up a lather. "Who are you? where did you come from? and where are you going?" "That's cool, at all events. Damn it! what do you mean by putting the brush in my mouth? Now, don't laugh; and since you are so fond of asking questions, just answer me one." "Oh, yes, of course: what is it, sir?" "Do you know a Mr. Oakley, who lives somewhere in London, and is a spectacle-maker?" "Yes, to be sure I do--John Oakley, the spectacle-maker, in Fore-street, and he has got a daughter named Johanna, that the young bloods call the Flower of Fore-street." "Ah, poor thing! do they? Now, confound you! what are you laughing at now? What do you mean by it?" "Didn't you say, 'Ah, poor thing?' Just turn your head a little a one side; that will do. You have been to sea, sir?" "Yes, I have, and have only now lately come up the river from an Indian voyage." "Indeed! where can my strop be? I had it this minute; I must have laid it down somewhere. What an odd thing that I can't see it! It's very extraordinary; what can have become of it? Oh, I recollect, I took it into the parlour. Sit still, sir, I shall not be gone a moment; sit still, sir, if you please. By the by, you can amuse yourself with the _Courier_, sir, for a moment." Sweeney Todd walked into the back parlour and closed the door. There was a strange sound suddenly, compounded of a rushing noise and then a heavy blow, immediately after which Sweeney Todd emerged from his parlour, and folding his arms, he looked upon _the vacant chair_ where his customer had been seated, but the customer was _gone_, leaving not the slightest trace of his presence behind except his hat, and that Sweeney Todd immediately seized and thrust into a cupboard that was at one corner of the shop. "What's that?" he said, "what's that? I thought I heard a noise." "If you please, sir, I have forgot the money, and have run all the way back from St. Paul's churchyard." In two strides Todd reached him, and clutching him by the arm he dragged him into the farther corner of the shop, and then he stood opposite to him, glaring him full in the face with such a demoniac expression that the boy was frightfully terrified. "Speak!" cried Todd, "speak! and speak the truth, or your last hour has come. How long were you peeping through the door before you came in?" "Peeping, sir?" "Yes, peeping; don't repeat my words, but answer me at once, you will find it better for you in the end." "I wasn't peeping, sir, at all." Sweeney Todd drew a long breath as he then said, in a strange, shrieking sort of manner, which he intended, no doubt, should be jocose,-- "Well, well, very well; if you did peep, what then? it's no matter; I only wanted to know, that's all; it was quite a joke, wasn't it--quite funny, though rather odd, eh? Why don't you laugh, you dog? Come, now, there is no harm done. Tell me what you thought about it at once, and we will be merry over it--very merry." "I don't know what you mean, sir," said the boy, who was quite as much alarmed at Mr. Todd's mirth as he was at his anger. "I don't know what you mean, sir; I only just come back because I hadn't any money to pay for the biscuits at Peterson's." "I mean nothing at all," said Todd, suddenly turning upon his heel; "what's that scratching at the door?" Tobias opened the shop-door, and there stood the dog, who looked wistfully round the place, and then gave a howl which seriously alarmed the barber. "It's the gentleman's dog, sir," said Tobias, "its the gentleman's dog, sir, that was looking at old St. Dunstan's clock, and came in here to be shaved. It's funny, aint it, sir, that the dog didn't go away with his master?" "Why don't you laugh if it's funny? Turn out the dog, Tobias; we'll have no dogs here; I hate the sight of them; turn him out--turn him out." "I would, sir, in a minute; but I'm afraid he wouldn't let me, somehow. Only look, sir--look; see what he is at now! did you ever see such a violent fellow, sir? why he will have down the cupboard door." "Stop him--stop him! the devil is in the animal! stop him I say!" The dog was certainly getting the door open, when Sweeney Todd rushed forward to stop him! but that he was soon admonished of the danger of doing, for the dog gave him a grip of the leg, which made him give such a howl, that he precipitately retreated, and left the animal to do its pleasure. This consisted in forcing open the cupboard door, and seizing upon the hat which Sweeney Todd had thrust therein, and dashing out of the shop with it in triumph. "The devil's in the beast," muttered Todd, "he's off! Tobias, you said you saw the man who owned that fiend of a cur looking at St. Dunstan's church." "Yes, sir, I did see him there. If you recollect, you sent me to see the time, and the figures were just going to strike three quarters past six; and before I came away, I heard him say that Mark Ingestrie was dead, and Johanna should have the string of pearls. Then I came in, and then, if you recollect, sir, he came in, and the odd thing, you know, to me, sir, is that he didn't take his dog with him, because you know, sir--" "Because what?" shouted Todd. "Because people generally do take their dogs with them, you know, sir; and may I be made into one of Lovett's pies, if I don't--" "Hush, some one comes; it's old Mr. Grant, from the Temple. How do you do, Mr. Grant? glad to see you looking so well, sir. It does one's heart good to see a gentlemen of your years looking so fresh and hearty. Sit down, sir; a little this way, if you please. Shaved, I suppose?" "Yes, Todd, yes. Any news?" "No, sir, nothing stirring. Everything very quiet, sir, except the high wind. They say it blew the king's hat off yesterday, sir, and he borrowed Lord North's. Trade is dull too, sir. I suppose people won't come out to be cleaned and dressed in a mizling rain. We haven't had anybody in the shop for an hour and a half." "Lor' sir," said Tobias, "you forget the sea-faring gentleman with the dog, you know, sir." "Ah! so I do," said Todd. "He went away, and I saw him get into some disturbance, I think, just at the corner of the market." "I wonder I didn't meet him, sir," said Tobias, "for I came that way; and then it's so very odd leaving his dog behind him." "Yes, very," said Todd. "Will you excuse me a moment, Mr. Grant? Tobias, my lad, I just want you to lend me a hand in the parlour." Tobias followed Todd very unsuspectingly into the parlour; but when they got there and the door was closed, the barber sprang upon him like an enraged tiger, and, grappling him by the throat, he gave his head such a succession of knocks against the wainscot, that Mr. Grant must have thought that some carpenter was at work. Then he tore a handful of his hair out, after which he twisted him round, and dealt him such a kick, that he was flung sprawling into a corner of the room, and then, without a word, the barber walked out again to his customer, and bolted his parlour door on the outside, leaving Tobias to digest the usage he had received at his leisure, and in the best way he could. When he came back to Mr. Grant, he apologised for keeping him waiting, by saying,-- "It became necessary, sir, to teach my new apprentice a little bit of his business. I have left him studying it now. There is nothing like teaching young folks at once." "Ah!" said Mr. Grant, with a sigh, "I know what it is to let young folks grow wild; for although I have neither chick nor child of my own, I had a sister's son to look to--a handsome, wild, harum-scarum sort of fellow, as like me as one pea is like another. I tried to make a lawyer of him, but it wouldn't do, and it's now more than two years ago he left me altogether; and yet there were some good traits about Mark." "Mark, sir! Did you say Mark?" "Yes, that was his name, Mark Ingestrie. God knows what's become of him." "Oh!" said Sweeney Todd; he went on lathering the chin of Mr. Grant. CHAPTER II THE SPECTACLE-MAKER'S DAUGHTER. "Johanna, Johanna, my dear, do you know what time it is? Johanna, I say, my dear, are you going to get up? Here's your mother has trotted out to Parson Lupin's, and you know I have got to go to Alderman Judd's house, in Cripplegate, the first thing, and I haven't had a morsel of breakfast yet. Johanna, my dear, do you hear me?" These observations were made by Mr. Oakley, the spectacle-maker, at the door of his daughter Johanna's chamber, on the morning after the events we have just recorded at Sweeney Todd's; and presently, a soft sweet voice answered him, saying,-- "I am coming, father, I am coming: in a moment, father, I shall be down." "Don't hurry yourself, my darling, I can wait." The little old spectacle-maker descended the staircase again, and sat down in the parlour at the back of the shop, where, in a few moments, he was joined by Johanna, his only and his much-loved child. She was indeed a creature of the rarest grace and beauty. Her age was eighteen, but she looked rather younger, and upon her face she had that sweetness and intelligence of expression which almost bids defiance to the march of time. Her hair was of a glossy blackness, and what was rare in conjunction with such a feature, her eyes were of a deep and heavenly blue. There was nothing of the commanding or of the severe style of beauty about her, but the expression of her face was all grace and sweetness. It was one of those countenances which one could look at for a long summer's day, as upon the pages of some deeply interesting volume, which furnished the most abundant food for pleasant and delightful reflection. There was a touch of sadness about her voice, which, perhaps, only tended to make it the more musical, although mournfully so, and which seemed to indicate that at the bottom of her heart there lay some grief which had not yet been spoken--some cherished aspiration of her pure soul, which looked hopeless as regards completion--some remembrance of a former joy, which had been turned to bitterness and grief; it was the cloud in the sunny sky--the shadow through which there still gleamed bright and beautiful sunshine, but which still proclaimed its presence. "I have kept you waiting, father," she said, as she flung her arms about the old man's neck, "I have kept you waiting." "Never mind, my dear, never mind. Your mother is so taken up with Mr. Lupin, that you know, this being Wednesday morning, she is off to his prayer meeting, and so I have had no breakfast; and really I think I must discharge Sam." "Indeed, father! what has he done?" "Nothing at all, and that's the very reason. I had to take down the shutters myself this morning, and what do you think for? He had the coolness to tell me he couldn't take down the shutters this morning, or sweep out the shop, because his aunt had the toothache." "A poor excuse, father," said Johanna, as she bustled about and got the breakfast ready; "a very poor excuse." "Poor indeed! but his month is up to-day, and I must get rid of him. But I suppose I shall have no end of bother with your mother, because his aunt belongs to Mr. Lupin's congregation; but as sure as this is the 20th day of August--" "It is the 20th day of August," said Johanna, as she sunk into a chair and burst into tears. "It is, it is! I thought I could have controlled this, but I cannot, father, I cannot. It was that which made me late. I knew mother was out; I knew that I ought to be down attending upon you, and I was praying to Heaven for strength to do so because this was the 20th of August." Johanna spoke these words incoherently, and amidst sobs, and when she had finished them, she leant her sweet face upon her small hands, and wept like a child. The astonishment, not unmingled with positive dismay, of the old spectacle-maker, was vividly depicted on his countenance, and for some minutes he sat perfectly aghast, with his hands resting on his knees, and looking in the face of his beautiful child--that is to say, as much as he could see of it between those little taper fingers that were spread upon it--as if he were newly awakened from some dream. "Good God, Johanna!" he said at length, "what is this? My dear child, what has happened? Tell me, my dear, unless you wish to kill me with grief." "You shall know, father," she said. "I did not think to say a word about it, but considered I had strength enough of mind to keep my sorrows in my own breast, but the effort has been too much for me, and I have been compelled to yield. If you had not looked so kindly on me--if I did not know that you loved me as you do, I should easily have kept my secret, but, knowing that much, I cannot." "My darling," said the old man, "you are right, there; I do love you. What would the world be to me without you? There was a time, twenty years ago, when your mother made up much of my happiness, but of late, what with Mr. Lupin, and psalm-singing, and tea-drinking, I see very little of her, and what little I do see is not very satisfactory. Tell me, my darling, what it is that vexes you, and I'll soon put it to rights. I don't belong to the city trainbands for nothing." "Father, I know that your affection would do all for me that it is possible to do, but you cannot recall the dead to life; and if this day passes over and I see him not, nor hear from him, I know that, instead of finding a home for me whom he loved, he has in the effort to do so found a grave for himself. He said he would, he said he would." Here she wrung her hands, and wept again, and with such a bitterness of anguish that the old spectacle-maker was at his wit's end, and knew not what on earth to do or say. "My dear, my dear," he cried, "who is he? I hope you don't mean--" "Hush, father, hush! I know the name that is hovering on your lips, but something seems even now to whisper to me he is no more, and, being so, speak nothing of him, father, but that which is good." "You mean Mark Ingestrie." "I do, and if he had a thousand faults, he at least loved me; he loved me truly and most sincerely." "My dear," said the old spectacle-maker, "you know that I wouldn't for all the world say anything to vex you, nor will I; but tell me what it is that makes this day more than any other so gloomy to you." "I will, father; you shall hear. It was on this day two years ago that we last met; it was in the Temple-garden, and he had just had a stormy interview with his uncle, Mr. Grant, and you will understand, father, that Mark Ingestrie was not to blame, because--" "Well, well, my dear, you needn't say anything more upon that point. Girls very seldom admit their lovers are to blame, but there are two ways, you know, Johanna, of telling a story." "Yes; but, father, why should Mr. Grant seek to force him to the study of a profession he so much disliked?" "My dear, one would have thought that if Mark Ingestrie really loved you, and found that he might make you his wife, and acquire an honourable subsistence for you and himself--it seems a very wonderful thing to me that he did not do so. You see, my dear, he should have liked you well enough to do something else that he did not like." "Yes, but father, you know it is hard, when disagreements once arise, for a young ardent spirit to give in entirely; and so from one word, poor Mark, in his disputes with his uncle, got to another, when perhaps one touch of kindness or conciliation from Mr. Grant would have made him quite pliant in his hands." "Yes, that's the way," said Mr. Oakley; "there is no end of excuses: but go on, my dear, go on, and tell me exactly how this affair now stands." "I will, father. It was this day two years ago then that we met, and he told me that he and his uncle had at last quarrelled irreconcilably, and that nothing could possibly now patch up the difference between them. We had a long talk." "Ah! no doubt of that." "And at length he told me that he must go and seek his fortune--that fortune which he hoped to share with me. He said that he had an opportunity of undertaking a voyage to India, and that if he were successful he should have sufficient to return with, and commence some pursuit in London more congenial to his thoughts and habits than the law." "Ah, well! what next?" "He told me that he loved me." "And you believed him." "Father, you would have believed him had you heard him speak. His tones were those of such deep sincerity that no actor who ever charmed an audience with an unreal existence could have reached them. There are times and seasons when we know that we are listening to the majestic voice of truth, and there are tones which sink at once into the heart, carrying with them a conviction of their sincerity, which neither time nor circumstance can alter; and such were the tones in which Mark Ingestrie spoke to me." "And so you suppose, Johanna, that it is easy for a young man who has not patience or energy enough to be respectable at home, to go abroad and make his fortune. Is idleness so much in request in other countries, that it receives such a rich reward, my dear?" "You judge him harshly, father; you do not know him." "Heaven forbid that I should judge any one harshly! and I will freely admit that you may know more of his real character than I can, who of course have only seen its surface; but go on, my dear, and tell me all." "We made an agreement, father, that on that day two years he was to come to me or send me some news of his whereabouts; if I heard nothing of him I was to conclude he was no more, and I cannot help so concluding now." "But the day has not yet passed." "I know it has not, and yet I rest upon but a slender hope, father. Do you believe that dreams ever really shadow forth coming events?" "I cannot say, my child; I am not disposed to yield credence to any supposed fact because I have dreamt it, but I must confess to having heard some strange instances where these visions of the night have come strictly true." "Heaven knows but this may be one of them! I had a dream last night. I thought that I was sitting upon the sea-shore, and that all before me was nothing but a fathomless waste of waters. I heard the roar and the dash of the waves distinctly, and each moment the wind grew more furious and fierce, and I saw in the distance a ship--it was battling with the waves, which at one moment lifted it mountains high, and at another plunged it far down into such an abyss, that not a vestige of it could be seen but the topmost spars of the tall mast. And still the storm increased each moment in its fury, and ever and anon there came a strange sullen sound across the waters, and I saw a flash of fire, and knew that those in the ill-fated vessel were thus endeavouring to attract attention and some friendly aid. Father, from the first to the last I knew that Mark Ingestrie was there--my heart told me so: I was certain he was there, and I was helpless--utterly helpless, utterly and entirely unable to lend the slightest aid. I could only gaze upon what was going forward as a silent and terrified spectator of the scene. And at last I heard a cry come over the deep--a strange, loud, wailing cry--which proclaimed to me the fate of the vessel. I saw its mass shiver for a moment in the blackened air, and then all was still for a few seconds, until there arose a strange, wild shriek, that I knew was the despairing cry of those who sank, never to rise again, in that vessel. Oh! that was a frightful sound--it was a sound to linger on the ears, and haunt the memory of sleep--it was a sound never to be forgotten when once heard, but such as might again and again be remembered with horror and affright." "And all this was in your dream?" "It was, father, it was." "And you were helpless?" "I was--utterly and entirely helpless." "It was very sad." "It was, as you shall hear. The ship went down, and that cry that I had heard was the last despairing one given by those who clung to the wreck with scarce a hope, and yet because it was their only refuge, for where else had they to look for the smallest ray of consolation? where else, save in the surging waters, were they to turn for safety? Nowhere! all was lost! all was despair! I tried to scream--I tried to cry aloud to Heaven to have mercy upon those brave and gallant souls who had trusted their dearest possession--life itself--to the mercy of the deep; and while I so tried to render so inefficient succour, I saw a small speck in the sea, and my straining eyes perceived that it was a man floating and clinging to a piece of the wreck, and I knew it was Mark Ingestrie." "But, my dear, surely you are not annoyed at a dream?" "It saddened me. I stretched out my arms to save him--I heard him pronounce my name, and call upon me for help. 'Twas all in vain; he battled with the waves as long as human nature could battle with them. He could do no more, and I saw him disappear before my anxious eyes." "Don't say you saw him, my dear, say you fancy you saw him." "It was such a fancy as I shall not lose the remembrance of for many a day." "Well, well, after all, my dear, it's only a dream; and it seems to me, without at all adverting to anything that should give you pain as regards Mark Ingestrie, that you made a very foolish bargain; for only consider how many difficulties might arise in the way of his keeping faith with you. You know I have your happiness so much at heart that, if Mark had been a worthy man and an industrious one, I should not have opposed myself to your union; but, believe me, my dear Johanna, that a young man with great facilities for spending money, and none whatever for earning any, is just about the worst husband you could choose, and such a man was Mark Ingestrie. But come, we will say nothing of this to your mother; let the secret, if we may call it such, rest with me; and if you can inform me in what capacity and in what vessel he left England, I will not carry my prejudice so far against him as to hesitate about making what inquiry I can concerning his fate." "I know nothing more, father; we parted, and never met again." "Well, well! dry your eyes, Johanna, and, as I go to Alderman Judd's, I'll think over the matter, which, after all, may not be so bad as you think. The lad is a good-enough looking lad, and has, I believe, a good ability, if he would put it to some useful purpose; but if he goes scampering about the world in an unsettled manner, you are well rid of him, and as for his being dead, you must not conclude that by any means for somehow or another, like a bad penny, these fellows always come back." There was more consolation in the kindly tone of the spectacle-maker than in the words he used; but, upon the whole, Johanna was well enough pleased that she had communicated the secret to her father, for now, at all events, she had some one to whom she could mention the name of Mark Ingestrie, without the necessity of concealing the sentiment with which she did so; and when her father had gone, she felt that, by the mere relation of it to him, some of the terrors of her dream had vanished. She sat for some time in a pleasing reverie, till she was interrupted by Sam, the shop-boy, who came into the parlour and said,-- "Please, Miss Johanna, suppose I was to go down to the docks and try and find out for you Mr. Mark Ingestrie. I say, suppose I was to do that. I heard it all, and if I do find him I'll soon settle him." "What do you mean?" "I means that I won't stand it; didn't I tell you, more than three weeks ago, as you was the object of my infections? Didn't I tell you that when aunt died, I should come in for the soap and candle business, and make you my missus?" The only reply which Johanna gave to this was to rise and leave the room, for her heart was too full of grief and sad speculation to enable her to do now as she had often been in the habit of doing--viz., laugh at Sam's protestations of affection, so he was left to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy by himself. "A thousand d----s!" said he, when he entered the shop: "I always suspected there was some other fellow, and now I know it I am ready to gnaw my head off that ever I consented to come here. Confound him! I hope he is at the bottom of the sea, and eat up by this time. Oh! I should like to smash everybody. If I had my way now I'd just walk into society at large, as they calls it, and let it know what one, two, three, slap in the eye, is--and down it would go." Mr. Sam, in his rage, did upset a case of spectacles, which went down with a tremendous crash, and which, however good imitation of the manner in which society at large was to be knocked down, was not likely to be at all pleasing to Mr. Oakley. "I have done it now," he said; "but never mind; I'll try the old dodge whenever I break anything; that is, I'll place it in old Oakley's way, and swear he did it. I never knew such an old goose; you may persuade him into anything; the idea, now, of his pulling down all the shutters this morning because I told him my aunt had the tooth-ache; that was a go, to be sure. But I'll be revenged of that fellow who has took away, I consider, Johanna from me; I'll let him know what a blighted heart is capable of. He won't live long enough to want a pair spectacles, I'll be bound, or else my name ain't Sam Bolt." CHAPTER III. A MAN IS LOST. The earliest dawn of morning was glistening upon the masts, the cordage, and the sails of a fleet of vessels lying below Sheerness. The crews were rousing themselves from their night's repose, and to make their appearance on the decks of the vessels, from which the night-watch had just been relieved. A man-of-war, which had been the convoy of the fleet of merchantmen through the channel, fired a gun as the first glimpse of the morning sun fell upon her tapering masts. Then from a battery in the neighbourhood came another booming report, and that was answered by another farther off, and then another, until the whole chain of batteries that girded the coast, for it was a time of war, had proclaimed the dawn of another day. The effect was very fine, in the stillness of the early morn, of this succession of reports; and as they died away in the distance like mimic thunder, some order was given on board the man-of-war, and, in a moment, the masts and cordage seemed perfectly alive with human beings clinging to them in various directions. Then, as if by magic, or as if the ship had been a living thing itself, and had possessed wings, which at the mere instigation of a wish, could be spread far and wide, there fluttered out such sheets of canvas as was wonderful to see; and, as they caught the morning light, and the ship moved from the slight breeze that sprang up from the shore, she looked, indeed, as if she "Walked the waters like a thing of life". The various crews of the merchantmen stood upon the decks of their respective vessels, gazing after the ship-of-war, as she proceeded upon another mission similar to the one she had just performed in protecting the commerce of the country. As she passed one vessel, which had been, in point of fact, actually rescued from the enemy, the crew, who had been saved from a foreign prison, cheered lustily. There wanted but such an impulse as this, and then every merchant-vessel that the man-of-war passed took up the gladsome shout, and the crew of the huge vessel were not slow in their answer, for three deafening cheers--such as had frequently struck terror into the hearts of England's enemies--awakened many an echo from the shore. It was a proud and a delightful sight--such a sight as none but an Englishman can thoroughly enjoy--to see that vessel so proudly stemming the waste of waters. We say none but an Englishman can enjoy it, because no other nation has ever attempted to achieve a great maritime existence without being most signally defeated, and leaving us still, as we shall ever be, masters of the seas. These proceedings were amply sufficient to arouse the crews of all the vessels, and over the taffrail of one in particular, a large-sized merchantman, which had been trading in the Indian seas, two men were leaning. One of them was the captain of the vessel, and the other a passenger, who intended leaving that morning. They were engaged in earnest conversation, and the captain, as he shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked along the surface of the river, said, in reply to some observation from his companion,-- "I'll order my boat the moment Lieutenant Thornhill comes on board; I call him Lieutenant, although I have no right to do so, because he has held that rank in the king's service, but when quite a young man was cashiered for fighting a duel with his superior officer." "The service has lost a good officer," said the other. "It has, indeed, a braver man never stepped, nor a better officer; but you see they have certain rules in the service, and everything is sacrificed to maintain them. I can't think what keeps him; he went last night and said he would pull up to the Temple stairs, because he wanted to call upon somebody by the water-side, and after that he was going to the city to transact some business of his own, and that would have brought him nearer here, you see; and there are plenty of things coming down the river." "He's coming," cried the other; "don't be impatient; you will see him in a few minutes." "What makes you think that?" "Because I see his dog--there, don't you see, swimming in the water, and coming towards the ship." "I cannot imagine--I can see the dog, certainly; but I can't see Thornhill, nor is there any boat at hand. I know not what to make of it. Do you know my mind misgives me that something has happened amiss? The dog seem exhausted. Lend a hand there to Mr. Thornhill's dog, some of you. Why, it's a hat he has in his mouth." The dog made towards the vessel; but without the assistance of the seamen--with the whole of whom he was an immense favourite--he certainly could not have boarded the vessel; and when he reached the deck, he sank down upon it in a state of complete exhaustion, with the hat still in his grasp. As the animal lay, panting, upon the deck, the sailors looked at each other in amazement, and there was but one opinion among them all now, and that was that something very serious had unquestionably happened to Mr. Thornhill. "I dread," said the captain, "an explanation of this occurrence. What on earth can it mean? That's Thornhill's hat, and here is Hector. Give the dog some meat and drink directly--he seems thoroughly exhausted." The dog ate sparingly of some food that was put before him; and then, seizing the hat again in his mouth, he stood by the side of the ship and howled piteously; then he put down the hat for a moment, and, walking up to the captain, he pulled him by the skirt of the coat. "You understand him," said the captain to the passenger; "something has happened to Thornhill, I'll be bound; and you see the object of the dog is to get me to follow him to see what it's about." "Think you so? It is a warning, if it be such at all, that I should not be inclined to neglect; and if you will follow the dog, I will accompany you; there may be more in it than we think of, and we ought not to allow Mr. Thornhill to be in want of any assistance that we can render him, when we consider what great assistance he has been to us. Look how anxious the poor beast is." The captain ordered a boat to be launched at once, and manned by four stout rowers. He then sprang into it, followed by the passenger, who was a Colonel Jeffery, of the Indian army, and the dog immediately followed them, testifying by his manner great pleasure at the expedition they were undertaking, and carrying the hat with him, which he evidently showed an immense disinclination to part with. The captain had ordered the boat to proceed up the river towards the Temple stairs, where Hector's master had expressed his intention of proceeding, and, when the faithful animal saw the direction in which they were going, he lay down in the bottom of the boat perfectly satisfied, and gave himself up to that repose, of which he was evidently so much in need. It cannot be said that Colonel Jeffery suspected that anything of a very serious nature had happened; indeed, their principal anticipation, when they came to talk it over, consisted in the probability that Thornhill had, with an impetuosity of character they knew very well he possessed, interfered to redress what he considered some street grievance, and had got himself into the custody of the civil power in consequence. "Of course," said the captain, "Master Hector would view that as a very serious affair, and finding himself denied access to his master, you see he has come off to us, which was certainly the most prudent thing he could do, and I should not be at all surprised if he takes us to the door of some watch-house, where we shall find our friend snug enough." The tide was running up; and that Thornhill had not saved the turn of it, by dropping down earlier to the vessel, was one of the things that surprised the captain. However, they got up quickly, and as at that hour there was not much on the river to impede their progress, and as at that time the Thames was not a thoroughfare for little stinking steam-boats, they soon reached the ancient Temple stairs. The dog, who had until then seemed to be asleep, suddenly sprung up, and seizing the hat again in his mouth, rushed again on shore, and was closely followed by the captain and colonel. He led them through the temple with great rapidity, pursuing with admirable tact the precise path that his master had taken towards the entrance to the Temple, in Fleet-street, opposite Chancery-lane. Darting across the road then, he stopped with a low growl at the shop of Sweeney Todd--a proceeding which very much surprised those who followed him, and caused them to pause to hold a consultation ere they proceeded further. While this was proceeding, Todd suddenly opened the door, and aimed a blow at the dog with an iron bar, but the latter dexterously avoided it, and, but that the door was suddenly closed again, he would have made Sweeney Todd regret such an interference. "We must inquire into this," said the captain; "there seems to be mutual ill-will between that man and the dog." They both tried to enter the barber's shop, but it was fast on the inside; and, after repeated knockings, Todd called from within, saying,-- "I won't open the door while that dog is there. He is mad, or has a spite against me--I don't know nor care which--it's a fact, that's all I am aware of." "I will undertake," said the captain, "that the dog shall do you no harm; but open the door, for in we must come, and will." "I will take your promise," said Sweeney Todd; "but mind you keep it, or I shall protect myself, and take the creature's life; so if you value it, you had better hold it fast." The captain pacified Hector as well as he could, and likewise tied one end of a silk handkerchief round his neck, and held the other firmly in his grasp, after which Todd, who seemed to have some means from within of seeing what was going on, opened the door, and admitted his visitors. "Well, gentlemen, shaved, or cut, or dressed, I am at your service; which shall I begin with?" [Illustration: The captain, the colonel, and Sweeney.] The dog never took his eyes off Todd, but kept up a low growl from the first moment of his entrance. "It's rather a remarkable circumstance," said the captain, "but this is a very sagacious dog, you see, and he belongs to a friend of ours, who has most unaccountably disappeared." "Has he really?" said Todd. "Tobias! Tobias!" "Yes, sir." "Run to Mr. Phillips's, in Cateaton-street, and get me six-pennyworth of figs, and don't say that I don't give you the money this time when you go a message. I think I did before, but you swallowed it; and when you come back, just please to remember the insight into business I gave you yesterday." "Yes," said the boy, with a shudder, for he had a great horror of Sweeney Todd, as well he might, after the severe discipline he had received at his hands, and away he went. "Well, gentlemen," said Todd, "what is it you require of me?" "We want to know if any one having the appearance of an officer in the navy came to your house?" "Yes--a rather good-looking man, weather-beaten, with a bright blue eye, and rather fair hair." "Yes, yes! the same." "Oh! to be sure, he came here, and I shaved him and polished him off." "What do you mean by polishing him off?" "Brushing him up a bit, and making him tidy; he said he had got somewhere to go in the city, and asked me the address of a Mr. Oakley, a spectacle-maker. I gave it him, and then he went away; but as I was standing at my door about five minutes afterwards, it seemed to me, as well as I could see the distance, that he got into some row near the market." "Did this dog come with him?" "A dog came with him, but whether it was that dog or not I don't know." "And that's all you know of him?" "You never spoke a truer word in your life," said Sweeney Todd, as he diligently stropped a razor upon his great horny hand. This seemed something like a complete fix; and the captain looked at Colonel Jeffery, and the colonel at the captain, for some moments, in complete silence. At length the latter said,-- "It's a very extraordinary thing that the dog should come here if he missed his master somewhere else. I never heard of such a thing." "Nor I either," said Ford. "It is extraordinary; so extraordinary that if I had not seen it, I would not have believed. I dare say you will find him in the next watch-house." The dog had watched the countenance of all parties during this brief dialogue, and twice or thrice he had interrupted it by a strange howling cry. "I'll tell you what it is," said the barber; "if that beast stays here, I'll be the death of him. I hate dogs--detest them; and I tell you, as I told you before, if you value him at all, keep him away from me." "You say you directed the person you describe to us where to find a spectacle maker named Oakley. We happen to know that he was going in search of such a person, and as he had property of value about him, we will go there and ascertain if he reached his destination." "It is in Fore-street--a little shop with two windows; you cannot miss it." The dog when he saw they were about to leave, grew furious; and it was with the greatest difficulty they succeeded, by main force, in getting him out of the shop, and dragging him some short distance with them, but then he contrived to get free of the handkerchief that held him, and darting back, he sat down at Sweeney Todd's door, howling most piteously. They had no resource but to leave him, intending fully to call as they came back from Mr. Oakley's; and, as they looked behind them, they saw that Hector was collecting a crowd round the barber's door, and it was a singular thing to see a number of persons surrounding the dog, while he to all appearance, appeared to be making efforts to explain something to the assemblage. They walked on until they reached the spectacle-maker's, there they paused; for they all of a sudden recollected that the mission that Mr. Thornhill had to execute there was of a very delicate nature, and one by no means to be lightly executed, or even so much as mentioned, probably, in the hearing of Mr. Oakley himself. "We must not be so hasty," said the colonel. "But what am I to do? I sail to-night; at least I have to go round to Liverpool with my vessel." "Do not then call at Mr. Oakley's at all at present; but leave me to ascertain the fact quietly and secretly." "My anxiety for Thornhill will scarcely permit me to do so; but I suppose I must, and if you write me a letter to the Royal Oak Hotel, at Liverpool, it will be sure to reach me, that is to say, unless you find Mr. Thornhill himself, in which case I need not by any means give you so much trouble." "You may depend upon me. My friendship for Mr. Thornhill, and gratitude, as you know, for the great service he has rendered to us all, will induce me to do my utmost to discover him; and, but that I know he set his heart upon performing the message he had to deliver accurately and well, I should recommend that we at once go into this house of Mr. Oakley's, only that the fear of compromising the young lady--who is in the case, and who will have quite enough to bear, poor thing, of her own grief--restrains me." After some more conversation of a similar nature, they decided that this should be the plan adopted. They made an unavailing call at the watch-house of the district, being informed there that no such person, nor any one answering the description of Mr. Thornhill had been engaged in any disturbance, or apprehended by any of the constables; and this only involved the thing in greater mystery than ever, so they went back to try and recover the dog, but that was a matter easier to be desired and determined upon than executed, for threats and persuasions were alike ineffectual. Hector would not stir an inch from the barber's door. There he sat with the hat by his side, a most melancholy and strange-looking spectacle, and a most efficient guard was he for that hat, and it was evident, that while he chose to exhibit the formidable row of teeth he did occasionally, when anybody showed a disposition to touch it, it would remain sacred. Some people, too, had thrown a few copper coins into the hat, so that Hector, if his mind had been that way inclined, was making a very good thing of it; but who shall describe the anger of Sweeney Todd, when he found that he was so likely to be so beleaguered? He doubted, if, upon the arrival of the first customer to his shop, the dog might dart in and take him by storm; but that apprehension went off at last, when a young gallant came from the Temple to have his hair dressed, and the dog allowed him to pass in and out unmolested, without making any attempt to follow him. This was something, at all events; but whether or not it insured Sweeney Todd's personal safety, when he himself should come out, was quite another matter. It was an experiment, however, which he must try. It was quite out of the question that he should remain a prisoner much longer in his own place, so, after a time, he thought he might try the experiment, and that it would be best done when there were plenty of people there, because if the dog assaulted him, he would have an excuse for any amount of violence he might think proper to use upon the occasion. It took some time, however, to screw his courage to the sticking-place; but at length, muttering deep curses between his clenched teeth, he made his way to the door, and carried in his hand a long knife, which he thought a more efficient weapon against the dog's teeth than the iron bludgeon he had formerly used. "I hope he will attack me," said Todd, to himself as he thought; but Tobias, who had come back from the place where they sold the preserved figs, heard him, and after devoutly in his own mind wishing that the dog would actually devour Sweeney, said aloud-- "Oh dear, sir; you don't wish that, I'm sure!" "Who told you what I wished, or what I did not? Remember, Tobias, and keep your own counsel, or it will be the worse for you, and your mother too--remember that." The boy shrunk back. How had Sweeney Todd terrified the boy about his mother! He must have done so, or Tobias would never have shrunk as he did. Then that rascally barber, who we begin to suspect of more crimes than fall ordinarily to the share of man, went cautiously out of his shop door: we cannot pretend to account for why it was so, but, as faithful recorders of facts, we have to state that Hector did not fly at him, but with a melancholy and subdued expression of countenance he looked up in the face of Sweeney Todd; then he whined piteously, as if he would have said, "Give me my master, and I will forgive you all that you have done; give me back my beloved master, and you shall see that I am neither revengeful nor ferocious." This kind of expression was as legibly written in the poor creature's countenance as if he had actually been endowed with speech, and uttered the words themselves. This was what Sweeney Todd certainly did not expect, and, to tell the truth, it staggered and astonished him a little. He would have been glad of an excuse to commit some act of violence, but he had now none, and as he looked in the faces of the people who were around, he felt quite convinced that it would not be the most prudent thing in the world to interfere with the dog in any way that savoured of violence. "Where's the dog's master?" said one. "Ah, where indeed?" said Todd; "I should not wonder if he had come to some foul end!" "But I say, old soap-suds," cried a boy; "the dog says you did it." There was a general laugh, but the barber was by no means disconcerted, and he shortly replied. "Does he? he is wrong then." Sweeney Todd had no desire to enter into anything like a controversy with the people, so he turned again and entered his own shop, in a distant corner of which he sat down, and folding his great gaunt-looking arms over his chest, he gave himself up to thought, and if we may judge from the expression of his countenance, those thoughts were of a pleasant anticipatory character, for now and then he gave such a grim sort of smile as might well have sat upon the features of some ogre. And now we will turn to another scene, of a widely different character. CHAPTER IV. THE PIE-SHOP, BELL-YARD. Hark! twelve o'clock at mid-day is cheerily proclaimed by St. Dunstan's church, and scarcely have the sounds done echoing throughout the neighbourhood, and scarce has the clock of Lincoln's-inn done chiming in with its announcement of the same hour, when Bell-yard, Temple-bar, becomes a scene of commotion. What a scampering of feet is there, what a laughing and talking, what a jostling to be first; and what an immense number of manoeuvres are resorted to by some of the throng to distance others! And mostly from Lincoln's-inn do these persons, young and old, but most certainly a majority of the former, come bustling and striving, although from the neighbouring legal establishments likewise there came not a few; the Temple contributes its numbers, and from the more distant Gray's-inn there came a goodly lot. Now Bell-yard is almost choked up, and a stranger would wonder what could be the matter, and most probably stand in some doorway until the commotion was over. Is it a fire? is it a fight? or anything else sufficiently alarming and extraordinary to excite the junior members of the legal profession to such a species of madness? No, it is none of these, nor is there a fat cause to be run for, which, in the hands of some clever practitioner, might become quite a vested interest. No, the enjoyment is purely one of a physical character, and all the pacing and racing--all this turmoil and trouble--all this pushing, jostling, laughing, and shouting, is to see who will get first to Lovett's pie-shop. Yes, on the left-hand side of Bell-yard, going down from Carey-street, was at the time we write of, one of the most celebrated shops for the sale of veal and pork pies that ever London produced. High and low, rich and poor, resorted to it; its fame had spread far and wide; it was because the first batch of these pies came up at twelve o'clock that there was such a rush of the legal profession to obtain them. Their fame had spread even to great distances, and many persons carried them to the suburbs of the city as quite a treat to friends and relations there residing. And well did they deserve their reputation, those delicious pies! there was about them a flavour never surpassed, and rarely equalled; the paste was of the most delicate construction, and impregnated with the aroma of a delicious gravy that defies description. Then the small portions of meat which they contained were so tender, and the fat and the lean so artistically mixed up, that to eat one of Lovett's pies was such a provocative to eat another, that many persons who came to lunch stayed to dine, wasting more than an hour, perhaps, of precious time, and endangering--who knows to the contrary?--the success of some law-suit thereby. The counter in Lovett's shop was in the shape of a horseshoe, and it was the custom of the young bloods from the Temple and Lincoln's-inn to set in a row upon its edge while they partook of the delicious pies, and chatted gaily about one concern and another. Many an appointment for the evening was made at Lovett's pie shop, and many a piece of gossiping scandal was there first circulated. The din of tongues was prodigious. The ringing laugh of the boy who looked upon the quarter of an hour he spent at Lovett's as the brightest of the whole twenty-four, mingled gaily with the more boisterous mirth of his seniors; and, oh! with what rapidity the pies disappeared. They were brought up on large trays, each of which contained about a hundred, and from these trays they were so speedily transferred to the mouths of Mrs. Lovett's customers that it looked quite like a work of magic. And now we have let out some portion of the secret. There was a Mistress Lovett; but possibly our reader guessed as much, for what but a female hand, and that female buxom, young, and good-looking, could have ventured upon the production of those pies. Yes, Mrs. Lovett was all that; and every enamoured young scion of the law, as he devoured his pie, pleased himself with the idea that the charming Mrs. Lovett had made that pie especially for him, and that fate or predestination had placed it in his hands. And it was astonishing to see with what impartiality and with what tact the fair pastry-cook bestowed her smiles upon her admirers, so that none could say he was neglected, while it was extremely difficult for any one to say he was preferred. This was pleasant, but at the same time it was provoking to all except Mrs. Lovett, in whose favour it got up a kind of excitement that paid extraordinarily well, because some of the young fellows thought, that he who consumed the most pies, would be in the most likely way to receive the greatest number of smiles from the lady. Acting upon this supposition, some of her more enthusiastic admirers went on consuming the pies until they were almost ready to burst. But there were others, again, of a more philosophic turn of mind, who went for the pies only, and did not care one jot for Mrs. Lovett. These declared that her smile was cold and uncomfortable--that it was upon her lips, but had no place in her heart--that it was the set smile of a ballet-dancer, which is about one of the most unmirthful things in existence. Then there were some who went even beyond this, and, while they admitted the excellence of the pies, and went every day to partake of them, swore that Mrs. Lovett had quite a sinister aspect, and that they could see what a merely superficial affair her blandishments were, and that there was "A lurking devil in her eye," that, if once roused, would be capable of achieving some serious things, and might not be so easily quelled again. By five minutes past twelve Mrs. Lovett's counter was full, and the savoury steam of the hot pies went out in fragrant clouds into Bell-yard, being sniffed up by many a poor wretch passing by who lacked the means of making one in the throng that were devouring the dainty morsels within. "Why, Tobias Ragg," said a young man, with his mouth full of pie, "where have you been since you left Mr. Snow's in Paper-buildings? I have not seen you for some days." "No," said Tobias, "I have gone into another line; instead of being a lawyer, and helping to shave the clients, I am going to shave the lawyers now. A twopenny pork, if you please, Mrs. Lovett. Ah! who would be an emperor, if he couldn't get pies like these?--eh, Master Clift?" "Well, they are good; of course we know that, Tobias; but do you mean to say you are going to be a barber?" "Yes, I am with Sweeney Todd, the barber of Fleet-street, close to St. Dunstan's." "The deuce you are! well, I am going to a party to-night, and I'll drop in and get dressed and shaved, and patronise your master." Tobias put his mouth close to the ear of the young lawyer, and in a fearful sort of whisper said the one word--"Don't." "Don't! what for?" Tobias made no answer; and, throwing down his twopence, scampered out of the shop as fast as he could. He had only sent a message by Sweeney Todd in the neighbourhood; but, as he heard the clock strike twelve, and two penny pieces were lying at the bottom of his pocket, it was not in human nature to resist running into Lovett's and converting them into a pork pie. "What an odd thing!" thought the young lawyer. "I'll just drop in at Sweeney Todd's now on purpose, and ask Tobias what he means. I quite forgot, too, while he was here, to ask him what all that riot was about a dog at Todd's door." "A veal!" said a young man, rushing in; "a twopenny veal, Mrs. Lovett." When he got it he consumed it with voracity, and then noticing an acquaintance in the shop, he whispered to him,-- "I can't stand it any more. I have cut the spectacle-maker--Johanna is faithless, and I know not what to do." "Have another pie." "But what's a pie to Johanna Oakley? You know, Dilki, that I only went there to be near the charmer. Damn the shutters and curse the spectacles! She loves another, and I'm a desperate individual! I should like to do some horrible and desperate act. Oh, Johanna, Johanna! you have driven me to the verge of what do you call it--I'll take another veal, if you please, Mrs. Lovett." "Well, I was wondering how you got on," said his friend Dilki, "and thinking of calling upon you." "Oh! it was all right--it was all right at first; she smiled upon me." "You are quite sure she didn't laugh at you?" "Sir! Mr. Dilki!" "I say, are you sure that instead of smiling upon you she was not laughing at you!" "Am I sure? Do you wish to insult me, Mr. Dilki? I look upon you as a puppy, sir--a horrid puppy." "Very good; now I am convinced that the girl has been having a bit of fun at your expense.--Are you not aware, Sam, that your nose turns up so much that it's enough to pitch you head over heels. How do you suppose that any girl under forty-five would waste a word upon you? Mind, I don't say this to offend you in any way, but just quietly, by way of asking a question." Sam looked daggers, and probably he might have attempted some desperate act in the pie-shop, if at the moment he had not caught the eye of Mrs. Lovett, and he saw by the expression of that lady's face, that anything in the shape of a riot would be speedily suppressed, so he darted out of the place at once to carry his sorrows and his bitterness elsewhere. It was only between twelve and one o'clock that such a tremendous rush and influx of visitors came to the pie-shop, for although there was a good custom the whole day, and the concern was a money-making one from morning till night, it was at that hour principally that the great consumption of pies took place. Tobias knew from experience that Sweeney Todd was a skilful calculator of the time it ought to take to go to different places, and accordingly since he had occupied some portion of that most valuable of all commodities at Mrs. Lovett's, he arrived quite breathless at his master's shop. There sat the mysterious dog with the hat, and Tobias lingered for a moment to speak to the animal. Dogs are great physiognomists; and as the creature looked into Tobias's face he seemed to draw a favourable conclusion regarding him, for he submitted to a caress. "Poor fellow!" said Tobias. "I wish I knew what had become of your master, but it made me shake like a leaf to wake up last night and ask myself the question. You shan't starve, though, if I can help it. I haven't much for myself, but you shall have some of it." As he spoke, Tobias took from his pocket some not very tempting cold meat, which was intended for his own dinner, and which he had wrapped up in not the cleanest of cloths. He gave a piece to the dog, who took it with a dejected air, and then crouched down at Sweeney Todd's door again. Just then, as Tobias was about to enter the shop, he thought he heard from within, a strange shrieking sort of sound. On the impulse of the moment he recoiled a step or two, and then, from some other impulse, he dashed forward at once, and entered the shop. The first object that presented itself to his attention, lying upon a side table, was a hat with a handsome gold-headed walking cane lying across it. The arm-chair in which customers usually sat to be shaved was vacant, and Sweeney Todd's face was just projected into the shop from the back parlour, and wearing a most singular and hideous expression. "Well, Tobias," he said, as he advanced, rubbing his great hands together, "well, Tobias! so you could not resist the pie-shop?" "How does he know?" thought Tobias. "Yes, sir, I have been to the pie-shop, but I didn't stay a minute." "Hark ye, Tobias! the only thing I can excuse in the way of delay upon an errand is, for you to get one of Mrs. Lovett's pies; that I can look over, so think no more about it. Are they not delicious, Tobias?" "Yes, sir, they are; but some gentleman seems to have left his hat and stick." "Yes," said Sweeney Todd, "he has;" and lifting the stick he struck Tobias a blow with it that felled him to the ground. "Lesson the second to Tobias Ragg, which teaches him to make no remarks about what does not concern him. You may think what you like, Tobias Ragg, but you shall say only what I like." "I won't endure it," cried the boy; "I won't be knocked about in this way, I tell you, Sweeney Todd, I won't." "You won't! have you forgotten your mother?" "You say you have a power over my mother; but I don't know what it is, and I cannot and will not believe it; I'll leave you, and, come of it what may, I'll go to sea or anywhere rather than stay in such a place as this." "Oh, you will, will you? Then, Tobias, you and I must come to some explanation. I'll tell you what power I have over your mother, and then perhaps you will be satisfied. Last winter, when the frost had continued eighteen weeks, and you and your mother were starving, she was employed to clean out the chambers of a Mr. King, in the Temple, a cold-hearted, severe man, who never forgave anything in all his life, and never will." "I remember," said Tobias; "we were starving and owed a whole guinea for rent; but mother borrowed it and paid it, and after that got a situation where she now is." "Ah, you think so. The rent was paid; but, Tobias, my boy, a word in your ear--she took a silver candlestick from Mr. King's chambers to pay it. I know it. I can prove it. Think of that, Tobias, and be discreet." "Have mercy upon us," said the boy; "they would take her life!" "Her life!" screamed Sweeney Todd; "ay, to be sure they would; they would hang her--hang her, I say; and now mind, if you force me by any conduct of your own, to mention this thing, you are your mother's executioner. I had better go and be deputy hangman at once, and turn her off." "Horrible, horrible!" "Oh, you don't like that? Indeed, that don't suit you, Master Tobias? Be discreet then, and you have nothing to fear. Do not force me to show a power which will be as complete as it is terrific." "I will say nothing--I will think nothing." "'Tis well; now go and put that hat and stick in yonder cupboard. I shall be absent for a short time; and if any one comes, tell them I am called out, and shall not return for an hour or perhaps longer, and mind you take good care of the shop." Sweeney Todd took off his apron, and put on an immense coat with huge lapels, and then, clapping a three-cornered hat on his head, and casting a strange withering kind of look at Tobias, he sallied forth into the street. CHAPTER V THE MEETING IN THE TEMPLE. Alas! poor Johanna Oakley--thy day has passed away and brought with it no tidings of him you love; and oh! what a weary day, full of fearful doubts and anxieties, has it been! Tortured by doubts, hopes, and fears, that day was one of the most wretched that poor Johanna had ever passed. Not even two years before, when she had parted with her lover, had she felt such an exquisite pang of anguish as now filled her heart, when she saw the day gliding away and the evening creeping on apace, without word or token from Mark Ingestrie. She did not herself know, until all the agony of disappointment had come across her, how much she had counted upon hearing something from him on that occasion; and when the evening deepened into night, and hope grew so slender that she could no longer rely upon it for the least support, she was compelled to proceed to her own chamber, and, feigning indisposition to avoid her mother's questions--for Mrs. Oakley was at home, and making herself and everybody else as uncomfortable as possible--she flung herself on her humble couch and gave way to a perfect passion of tears. "Oh, Mark, Mark!" she said, "why do you thus desert me, when I have relied so abundantly upon your true affection? Oh, why have you not sent me some token of your existence, and of your continued love? the merest slightest word would have been sufficient, and I should have been happy." She wept then such bitter tears as only such a heart as her's can know, when it feels the deep and bitter anguish of desertion, and when the rock, upon which it supposed it had built its fondest hopes, resolves itself to a mere quicksand, in which becomes engulphed all of good that this world can afford to the just and the beautiful. Oh, it is heartrending to think that such a one as she, Johanna Oakley, a being so full of all those holy and gentle emotions which should constitute the truest felicity, should thus feel that life to her had lost its greatest charms, and that nothing but despair remained. "I will wait until midnight," she said; "and even then it will be a mockery to seek repose, and to-morrow I must myself make some exertion to discover some tidings of him." Then she began to ask herself what that exertion could be, and in what manner a young and inexperienced girl, such as she was, could hope to succeed in her inquiries. And the midnight hour came at last, telling her that, giving the utmost latitude to the word day, it had gone at last, and she was left despairing. She lay the whole of that night sobbing, and only at times dropping into an unquiet slumber, during which painful images were presented to her, all, however, having the same tendency, and pointing towards the presumed fact that Mark Ingestrie was no more. But the weariest night to the weariest waker will pass away, and at length the soft and beautiful dawn stole into the chamber of Johanna Oakley, chasing away some of the more horrible visions of the night, but having little effect in subduing the sadness that had taken possession of her. She felt that it would be better for her to make her appearance below, than to hazard the remarks and conjectures that her not doing so would give rise to, so all unfitted as she was to engage in the most ordinary intercourse, she crept down to the breakfast-parlour, looking more like the ghost of her former self than the bright and beautiful being we have represented her to the reader. Her father understood what it was that robbed her cheeks of their bloom; and although he saw it with much distress, yet he fortified himself with what he considered were some substantial reasons for future hopefulness. It had become part of his philosophy--it generally is a part of the philosophy of the old--to consider that those sensations of the mind that arise from disappointed affection are of the most evanescent character; and that, although for a time they exhibit themselves with violence, they, like grief for the dead, soon pass away, scarcely leaving a trace behind of their former existence. And perhaps he was right as regards the greater number of those passions; but he was certainly wrong when he applied that sort of worldly-wise knowledge to his daughter Johanna. She was one of those rare beings whose hearts are not won by every gaudy flutterer who may buz the accents of admiration in their ears. No; she was qualified, eminently qualified, to love once, but only once; and, like the passion-flower, that blooms into abundant beauty once, and never afterwards puts forth a blossom, she allowed her heart to expand to the soft influence of affection, which, when crushed by adversity, was gone for ever. "Really, Johanna," said Mrs. Oakley, in the true conventicle twang, "you look so pale and ill that I must positively speak to Mr. Lupin about you." "Mr. Lupin, my dear," said the spectacle-maker, "may be all very well in his way, as a parson; but I don't see what he can have to do with Johanna looking pale." "A pious man, Mr. Oakley, has to do with everything and everybody." "Then he must be the most intolerable bore in existence; and I don't wonder at his being kicked out of some people's houses, as I have heard Mr. Lupin has been." "And if he has, Mr. Oakley, I can tell you he glories in it. Mr. Lupin likes to suffer for the faith; and if he were to be made a martyr of to-morrow, I am quite certain it would give him a deal of pleasure." "My dear, I am quite sure it would not give him half the pleasure it would me." "I understand your insinuation, Mr. Oakley: you would like to have him murdered on account of his holiness; but, though you can say these kind of things at your own breakfast-table, you won't say as much to him when he comes to tea this afternoon." "To tea, Mrs. Oakley! haven't I told you over and over again, that I will not have that man in my house?" "And haven't I told you, Mr. Oakley, twice that number of times that he shall come to tea? and I have asked him now, and it can't be altered." "But, Mrs. Oakley--" "It's of no use, Mr. Oakley, your talking. Mr. Lupin is coming to tea, and come he shall; and if you don't like it, you can go out. There now, I am sure you can't complain, now you have actually the liberty of going out; but you are like the dog in the manger, Mr. Oakley, I know that well enough, and nothing will please you." "A fine liberty, indeed, the liberty of going out of my own house to let somebody else into it that I don't like!" "Johanna, my dear," said Mrs. Oakley, "I think my old complaint is coming on, of the beating of the heart, and the hysterics. I know what produces it--it's your father's brutality; and, just because Dr. Fungus said over and over again that I was to be perfectly quiet, your father seizes upon the opportunity like a wild beast, or a raving maniac, to try and make me ill." Mr. Oakley jumped up, stamped his feet upon the floor and uttering something about the probability of his becoming a maniac in a very short time, rushed into his shop, and set to polishing the spectacles as if he were doing it for a wager. This little affair between her father and mother, certainly had had the effect, for a time, of diverting attention from Johanna, and she was able to assume a cheerfulness she did not feel; but she had something of her father's spirit in her as regarded Mr. Lupin, and most decidedly objected to sitting down to any meal whatever with that individual, so that Mrs. Oakley was left in a minority of one upon the occasion, which perhaps, as she fully expected it, was no great matter after all. Johanna went up stairs to her own room, which commanded a view of the street. It was an old-fashioned house, with a balcony in front, and as she looked listlessly out into Fore-street, which was far then from being the thoroughfare it is now, she saw standing in a doorway on the opposite side of the way a stranger, who was looking intently at the house, and who, when he caught her eye, walked instantly across to it, and cast something into the balcony of the first floor. Then he touched his cap, and walked rapidly from the street. The thought immediately occurred to Johanna that this might possibly be some messenger from him concerning whose existence and welfare she was so deeply anxious. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that with the name of Mark Ingestrie upon her lips she should rush down to the balcony in intense anxiety to hear, and see if such was really the case. When she reached the balcony she found lying in it a scrap of paper, in which a stone was wrapped up, in order to give it weight, so that it might be cast with a certainty into the balcony. With trembling eagerness she opened the paper, and read upon it the following words:-- "For news of Mark Ingestrie, come to the Temple-gardens one hour before sunset, and do not fear addressing a man who will be holding a white rose in his hand." "He lives! he lives!" she cried. "He lives, and joy again becomes the inhabitant of my bosom! Oh, it is daylight now and sunshine compared to the black midnight of despair. Mark Ingestrie lives, and I shall be happy yet." She placed the little scrap of paper carefully in her bosom, and then, with clasped hands and a delighted expression of countenance, she repeated the brief and expressive words it contained, adding,-- "Yes, yes, I will be there; the white rose is an emblem of his purity and affection, his spotless love, and that is why his messenger carries it. I will be there. One hour ay, two hours before sunset, I will be there. Joy, joy! he lives, he lives! Mark Ingestrie lives! Perchance, too, successful in his object, he returns to tell me that he can make me his, and that no obstacle can now interfere to frustrate our union. Time, time, float onwards on your fleetest pinions!" She went to her own apartment, but it was not, as she had last gone to it, to weep; on the contrary, it was to smile at her former fears, and to admit the philosophy of the assertion that we suffer much more from a dread of those things that never happen than we do for actual calamities which occur in their full force to us. "Oh, that this messenger," she said, "had come but yesterday! What hours of anguish I should have been spared! But I will not complain; it shall not be said that I repine at present joy because it did not come before. I will be happy when I can; and, in the consciousness that I shall soon hear blissful tidings of Mark Ingestrie, I will banish every fear." The impatience which she now felt brought its pains and its penalties with it, and yet it was quite a different description of feeling to any she had formerly endured, and certainly far more desirable than the absolute anguish that had taken possession of her upon hearing nothing of Mark Ingestrie. It was strange, very strange, that the thought never crossed her that the tidings she had to hear in the Temple Gardens from the stranger might be evil ones, but certainly such a thought did not occur to her, and she looked forward with joy and satisfaction to a meeting which she certainly had no evidence to know, might not be of the most disastrous character. She asked herself over and over again if she should tell her father what had occurred, but as often as she thought of doing so she shrank from carrying out the mental suggestion, and all the natural disposition again to keep to herself the secret of her happiness returned to her in full force. But yet she was not so unjust as not to feel that it was treating her father but slightingly to throw all her sorrows into his lap, as it were, and then to keep from him everything of joy appertaining to the same circumstances. This was a thing that she was not likely to continue doing, and so she made up her mind to relieve her conscience from the pang it would otherwise have had, by determining to tell him, after the interview in the Temple Gardens, what was its result; but she could not make up her mind to do so beforehand; it was so pleasant and so delicious to keep the secret all to herself, and to feel that she alone knew that her lover had so closely kept faith with her as to be only one day behind his time in sending to her, and that day, perhaps, far from being his fault. And so she reasoned to herself and tried to wile away the anxious hours, sometimes succeeding in forgetting how long it was still to sunset, and at others feeling as if each minute was perversely swelling itself out into ten times its usual proportion of time in order to become wearisome to her. She had said that she would be at the Temple Gardens two hours before sunset instead of one, and she kept her word, for, looking happier than she had done for weeks, she tripped down the stairs of her father's house, and was about to leave it by the private staircase, when a strange gaunt-looking figure attracted her attention. This was no other than the Rev. Mr. Lupin: he was a long strange-looking man, and upon this occasion he came upon what he called horseback, that is to say, he was mounted upon a very small pony, which seemed quite unequal to support his weight, and was so short that, if the reverend gentleman had not poked his legs out at an angle, they must inevitably have touched the ground. "Praise the Lord!" he said: "I have intercepted the evil one. Maiden, I have come here at thy mother's bidding, and thou shalt remain and partake of the mixture called tea." Johanna scarcely condescended to glance at him, but drawing her mantle close around her, which he actually had the impertinence to endeavour to lay hold of, she walked on, so that the reverend gentleman was left to make the best he could of the matter. "Stop," he cried, "stop! I can well perceive that the devil has a strong hold of you: I can well perceive--the lord have mercy upon me! this animal hath some design against me as sure as fate." This last ejaculation arose from the fact that the pony had flung up his heels behind in a most mysterious manner. "I am afraid, sir," said a lad who was no more than our old acquaintance, Sam--"I am afraid, sir, that there is something the matter with the pony." Up went the pony's heels again in the same unaccountable manner. "God bless me!" said the reverend gentleman; "he never did such a thing before. I--there he goes again--murder! Young man, I pray you to help me to get down; I think I know you; you are the nephew of the goodly Mrs. Pump--truly this animal wishes to be the death of me." At this moment the pony gave such a vigorous kick up behind, that Mr. Lupin was fairly pitched upon his head, and made a complete summerset, alighting with his heels in the spectacle-maker's passage; and it unfortunately happened that Mrs. Oakley at that moment, hearing the altercation, came rushing out, and the first thing she did was to fall sprawling over Mr. Lupin's feet. Sam now felt it time to go; and as we dislike useless mysteries, we may as well explain that these extraordinary circumstances arose from the fact that Sam had brought from the haberdasher's opposite a halfpenny-worth of pins, and had amused himself by making a pincushion of the hind quarters of the Reverend Mr. Lupin's pony, which, not being accustomed to that sort of thing, had kicked out vigorously in opposition to the same, and produced the results we have recorded. Johanna Oakley was some distance upon her road before the reverend gentleman was pitched into her father's house in the manner we have described, so that she knew nothing of it, nor would she have cared if she had, for her mind was wholly bent upon the expedition she was proceeding on. As she walked upon that side of the way of Fleet-street where Sweeney Todd's house and shop were situated, a feeling of curiosity prompted her to stop for a moment and look at the melancholy-looking dog that stood watching a hat at his door. The appearance of grief upon the creature's face could not be mistaken, and, as she gazed, she saw the shop-door gently opened and a piece of meat thrown out. "These are kind people," she said, "be they whom they may;" but when she saw the dog turn away with loathing, and herself observed that there was a white powder upon it, the idea that it was poisoned, and only intended for the poor creature's destruction, came instantly across her mind. And when she saw the horrible-looking face of Sweeney Todd glaring at her from the partially-opened door, she could not doubt any further the fact, for that face was quite enough to give a warrant for any amount of villany whatever. She passed on with a shudder, little suspecting, however, that that dog had anything to do with her fate, or the circumstances which made up the sum of her destiny. It wanted a full hour to the appointed time of meeting when she reached the Temple-gardens, and partly blaming herself that she was so soon, while at the same time she would not for worlds have been away, she sat down on one of the garden-seats to think over the past, and to recall to her memory with all the vivid freshness of young Love's devotion, the many gentle words which from time to time had been spoken to her two summers since by him whose faith she had never doubted, and whose image was enshrined at the bottom of her heart. CHAPTER VI. THE CONFERENCE, AND THE FEARFUL NARRATION IN THE GARDEN. The Temple clock struck the hour of meeting, and Johanna looked anxiously around her for any one who should seem to her to bear the appearance of being such a person as she might suppose Mark Ingestrie would choose for his messenger. She turned her eyes towards the gate, for she thought she heard it close, and then she saw a gentlemanly-looking man, attired in a cloak, and who was looking around him, apparently in search of some one. When his eye fell upon her he immediately produced from beneath his cloak a white rose, and in another minute they met. "I have the honour," he said, "of speaking to Miss Johanna Oakley?" "Yes, sir; and you are Mark Ingestrie's messenger?" "I am; that is to say, I am he who comes to bring you news of Mark Ingestrie, although I grieve to say I am not the messenger that was expressly deputed by him so to do." "Oh! sir, your looks are sad and serious; you seem as if you would announce that some misfortune had occurred. Tell me that it is not so; speak to me at once, or my heart will break!" "Compose yourself, lady, I pray you." "I cannot--dare not do so, unless you tell me he lives. Tell me that Mark Ingestrie lives, and then I shall be all patience: tell me that, and you shall not hear a murmur from me. Speak the word at once--at once! It is cruel, believe me, it is cruel to keep me in this suspense." "This is one of the saddest errands I ever came upon," said the stranger, as he led Johanna to a seat. "Recollect, lady, what creatures of accident and chance we are--recollect how the slightest circumstances will affect us, in driving us to the confines of despair, and remember by how frail a tenure the best of us hold existence." "No more--no more!" shrieked Johanna, as she clasped her hands--"I know all now, and am desolate." She let her face drop upon her hands, and shook as with a convulsion of grief. "Mark, Mark!" she cried, "you have gone from me! I thought not this--I thought not this. Oh, Heaven! why have I lived so long as to have the capacity to listen to such fearful tidings? Lost--lost--all lost! God of Heaven! what a wilderness the world is now to me!" "Let me pray you, lady, to subdue this passion of grief, and listen truly to what I shall unfold to you. There is much to hear and much to speculate upon; and if, from all that I have learnt, I cannot, dare not tell you that Mark Ingestrie lives, I likewise shrink from telling you he is no more." "Speak again--say those words again! There is hope, then--oh, there is a hope!" "There is a hope; and better is it that your mind should receive the first shock of the probability of the death of him whom you have so anxiously expected, and then afterwards, from what I shall relate to you, gather hope that it may not be so, than that from the first you should expect too much, and then have those expectations rudely destroyed." "It is so--it is so; this is kind of you, and if I cannot thank you as I ought, you will know that it is because I am in a state of too great affliction so to do, and not from want of will; you will understand that--I am sure you will understand that." "Make no excuses to me. Believe me, I can fully appreciate all that you would say, and all that you must feel. I ought to tell you who I am, that you may have confidence in what I have to relate to you. My name is Jeffery, and I am a colonel in the Indian army." "I am much beholden to you, sir; but you bring with you a passport to my confidence, in the name of Mark Ingestrie, which is at once sufficient. I live again in the hope that you have given me of his continued existence, and in that hope I will maintain a cheerful resignation that shall enable me to bear up against all you have to tell me, be it what it may, and with a feeling that through much suffering there may come joy at last. You shall find me very patient, ay, extremely patient--so patient that you shall scarcely see the havoc that grief has already made here." She pressed her hands upon her breast as she spoke, and looked in his face with such an expression of tearful melancholy that it was quite heartrending to witness it; and he, although not used to the melting mood, was compelled to pause for a few moments ere he could proceed in the task he had set himself. "I will be as brief," he said, "as possible, consistent with stating all that is requisite for me to state, and I must commence by asking you if you are aware under what circumstances it was that Mark Ingestrie was abroad?" "I am aware of so much, that a quarrel with his uncle, Mr. Grant, was the great cause, and that his main endeavour was to better his fortunes, so that we might be happy, and independent of those who looked not with an eye of favour upon our projected union." "Yes, but, what I meant was, were you aware of the sort of adventure he embarked in to the Indian seas?" "No, I know nothing further; we met here on this spot, we parted at yonder gate, and we have never met again." "Then I have something to tell you, in order to make the narrative clear and explicit." They both sat upon the garden seat; and while Johanna fixed her eyes upon her companion's face, expressive as it was of the most generous emotions and noble feelings, he commenced relating to her the incidents which never left her memory, and in which she took so deep an interest. "You must know," he said, "that what it was which so much inflamed the imagination of Mark Ingestrie, consisted in this. There came to London a man with a well-authenticated and extremely well put together report, that there had been discovered, in one of the small islands near the Indian seas, a river which deposited an enormous quantity of gold-dust in its progress to the ocean. He told his story so well, and seemed to be such a perfect master of all the circumstances connected with it, that there was scarcely room for a doubt upon the subject. The thing was kept quiet and secret; and a meeting was held of some influential men--influential on account of the money they possessed, among whom was one who had towards Mark Ingestrie most friendly feelings; so Mark attended the meeting with this friend of his, although he felt his utter incapacity, from want of resources, to take any part in the affair. But he was not aware of what his friend's generous intentions were in the matter until they were explained to him, and they consisted in this:--He, the friend, was to provide the necessary means for embarking in the adventure, so far as regarded taking a share in it, and he told Mark Ingestrie that, if he would go personally on the expedition, he should share in the proceeds with him, be they what they might. Now, to a young man like Ingestrie, totally destitute of personal resources, but of ardent and enthusiastic temperament, you can imagine how extremely tempting such an offer was likely to be. He embraced it at once with the greatest pleasure, and from that moment he took an interest in the affair of the closest and most powerful description. It seized completely hold of his imagination, presenting itself to him in the most tempting colours; and from the description that has been given me of his enthusiastic disposition, I can well imagine with what kindness and impetuosity he would enter into such an affair." "You know him well?" said Johanna, gently. "No, I never saw him. All that I say concerning him is from the description of another who did know him well, and who sailed with him in the vessel that ultimately left the port of London on the vague and wild adventure I have mentioned." "That one, be he who he may, must have known Mark Ingestrie well, and have enjoyed much of his confidence to be able to describe him so accurately." "I believe that such was the case; and it is from the lips of that one, instead of from mine, that you ought to have heard what I am now relating. That gentleman, whose name was Thornhill, ought to have made to you this communication; but by some strange accident it seems he has been prevented, or you would not be here listening to me upon a subject which would have come better from his lips." "And was he to have come yesterday to me?" "He was." "Then Mark Ingestrie kept his word; and but for the adverse circumstances which delayed his messenger, I should yesterday have heard what you are now relating to me. I pray you go on, sir, and pardon this interruption." "I need not trouble you with all the negotiations, the trouble, and the difficulty that arose before the expedition could be started fairly--suffice it to say, that at length, after much annoyance and trouble, it was started, and a vessel was duly chartered and manned for the purpose of proceeding to the Indian seas in search of the treasure, which was reported to be there for the first adventurer who had the boldness to seek it." "It was a gallant vessel. I saw it many a mile from England ere it sunk beneath the waves, never to rise again." "Sunk!" "Yes; it was an ill-fated ship, and it did sink; but I must not anticipated--let me proceed in my narrative with regularity. The ship was called the Star; and if those who went with it looked upon it as the star of their destiny, they were correct enough, and it might be considered an evil star for them, inasmuch as nothing but disappointment and bitterness became their ultimate portion. And Mark Ingestrie, I am told, was the most hopeful man on board. Already in imagination he could fancy himself homeward-bound with the vessel, ballasted and crammed with the rich produce of that shining river. Already he fancied what he could do with his abundant wealth, and I have not a doubt but that, in common with many who went on that adventure, he enjoyed to the full the spending of the wealth he should obtain in imagination--perhaps, indeed, more than if he had obtained it in reality. Among the adventurers was one Thornhill, who had been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and between him and young Ingestrie there arose a remarkable friendship--a friendship so strong and powerful, that there can be no doubt that they communicated to each other all their hopes and fears; and if anything could materially tend to beguile the tedium of such a weary voyage as those adventurers had undertaken, it certainly would be the free communication and confidential intercourse between two such kindred spirits as Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie. You will bear in mind, Miss Oakley, that in making this communication to you, I am putting together what I myself heard at different times, so as to make it for you a distinct narrative, which you can have no difficulty in comprehending, because, as I before stated, I never saw Mark Ingestrie, and it was only once, for about five minutes, that I saw the vessel in which he went upon his perilous adventure--for perilous it turned out to be--to the Indian seas. It was from Thornhill I got my information during the many weary and monotonous hours consumed in a home-bound voyage from India. It appears that without accident or cross of any description the Star reached the Indian ocean, and the supposed immediate locality of the spot where the treasure was to be found, and there she was spoken with by a vessel homeward-bound from India, called the Neptune. It was evening, and the sun had sunk in the horizon with some appearances that betokened a storm. I was on board that Indian vessel; we did not expect anything serious, although we made every preparation for rough weather, and as it turned out, it was well indeed we did, for never within the memory of the oldest seamen, had such a storm ravished the coast. A furious gale, which it was impossible to withstand, drove us southward; and but for the utmost precautions, aided by courage and temerity on the part of the seamen, such as I had never before witnessed in the merchant-service, we escaped with trifling damage, but we were driven at least 200 miles out of our course; and instead of getting, as we ought to have done, to the Cape by a certain time, we were an immense distance eastward of it. It was just as the storm, which lasted three nights and two days, began to abate, that towards the horizon we saw a dull red light; and as it was not in a quarter of the sky where any such appearance might be imagined, nor were we in a latitude where electro-phenomena might be expected, we steered toward it, surmising what turned out afterwards to be fully correct." "It was a ship on fire!" said Johanna. "It was." "Alas! alas! I guessed it. A frightful suspicion from the first crossed my mind. It was a ship on fire, and that ship was--" The Star was bound upon its adventurous course, although driven far out of it by adverse winds and waves. After about half an hour's sailing we came within sight distinctly of a blazing vessel. We could hear the roar of the flames, and through our glasses we could see them curling up the cordage, and dancing from mast to mast, like fiery serpents, exulting in the destruction they were making. We made all sail, and strained every inch of canvas to reach the ill-fated vessel, for distances at sea that look small are in reality very great, and an hour's hard sailing in a fair wind, with every stitch of canvas set, would not do more than enable us to reach that ill-fated bark; but fancy in an hour what ravages the flames might make! The vessel was doomed. The fiat had gone forth that it was to be among the things that had been; and long before we could reach the spot upon which it floated idly on the now comparatively calm waters, we saw a bright shower of sparks rush up into the air. Then came a loud roaring sound over the surface of the deep, and all was still--the ship had disappeared, and the water closed over it for ever." "But how knew you," said Johanna, as she clasped her hands, and the pallid expression of her countenance betrayed the deep interest she took in the narration, "how knew you that the ship was the Star? might it not have been some other ill-fated vessel that met with so dreadful a fate?" "I will tell you: although we had seen the ship go down, we kept on our course, straining every effort to reach the spot, with the hope of picking up some of the crew, who surely had made an effort by the boats to leave the burning vessel. The captain of the Indiaman kept his glass at his eye, and presently he said to me,--'There is a floating piece of wreck, and something clinging to it; I know not if there be a man, but what I can perceive seems to me to be the head of a dog.' I looked through the glass myself, and saw the same object; but as we neared it, we found it was a large piece of the wreck, with a dog and a man supported by it, who were clinging with all the energy of desperation. In ten minutes more we had them on board the vessel--the man was the Lieutenant Thornhill I have before mentioned, and the dog belonged to him. He related to us that the ship, we had seen burning was the Star; and that it had never reached its destination, and that he believed all had perished but himself and the dog; for, although one of the boats had been launched, so desperate a rush was made into it by the crew that it had swamped, and all perished. Such was his own state of exhaustion, that, after he had made this short statement, it was some days before he left his hammock; but when he did, and began to mingle with us, we found an intelligent, cheerful companion--such a one, indeed, as we were glad to have on board, and in confidence he related to the captain and myself the object of the voyage of the Star, and the previous particulars with which I have made you acquainted. And then, during a night-watch, when the soft and beautiful moonlight was more than usually inviting, and he and I were on the deck, enjoying the coolness of the night, after the intense heat of the day in the tropics, he said to me,--'I have a very sad mission to perform when I get to London. On board our vessel was a young man named Mark Ingestrie; and some short time before the vessel in which we were went down, he begged of me to call upon a young lady named Johanna Oakley, the daughter of a spectacle-maker in London, providing I should be saved and he perish; and of the latter event, he felt so strong a presentiment that he gave me a string of pearls, which I was to present to her in his name; but where he got them I have not the least idea, for they are of immense value.' Mr. Thornhill showed me the pearls, which were of different sizes, roughly strung together, but of great value; and when we reached the river Thames, which was only three days since, he left us with his dog, carrying his string of pearls with him, to find out where you reside." "Alas! he never came." "No; from all the inquiries we can make, and all the information we can learn, it seems he disappeared somewhere about Fleet-street." "Disappeared!" "Yes; we can trace him to the Temple-stairs, and from thence to the barber' shop, kept by a man named Sweeny Todd; but beyond there no information of him can be obtained." "Sweeny Todd!" "Yes; and what makes the affair more extraordinary, is, that neither force nor persuasion will induce Thornhill's dog to leave the place." "I saw it--I saw the creature, and it looked imploringly, although kindly, in my face; but little did I think, when I paused a moment to look upon that melancholy but faithful animal, that it held a part in my destiny. Oh! Mark Ingestrie, Mark Ingestrie, dare I hope that you live when all else have perished?" "I have told you all that I can tell you, and, according as your own judgment may dictate to you, you can encourage hope, or extinguish it for ever. I have kept back nothing from you which can make the affair worse or better--I have added nothing; but you have it simply as it was told to me." "He is lost--he is lost." "I am one, lady, who always thinks certainty of any sort preferable to suspense; and although, while there is no positive news of death, the continuance of life ought fairly to be assumed, yet you must perceive, from a review of all the circumstances, upon how very slender a foundation all our hopes must rest." "I have no hope--I have no hope--he is lost to me for ever! It were madness to think he lived. Oh, Mark, Mark! and is this the end of all our fond affection? did I indeed look my last upon that face, when on this spot we parted?" "The uncertainty," said Colonel Jeffery, wishing to withdraw as much as possible from a consideration of her own sorrows, "the uncertainty, too, that prevails with regard to the fate of poor Mr. Thornhill, is a sad thing. I much fear that those precious pearls he had, have been seen by some one who has not scrupled to obtain possession of them by his death." "Yes, it would seem so indeed; but what are pearls to me? Oh! would that they had sunk to the bottom of that Indian sea, from whence they had been plucked. Alas, alas! it has been their thirst for gain that has produced all these evils. We might have been poor here, but we should have been happy. Rich we ought to have been, in contentment; but now all is lost, and the world to me can present nothing that is to be desired, but one small spot large enough to be my grave." She leant upon the arm of the garden-seat, and gave herself up to such a passion of tears that Colonel Jeffery felt he dared not interrupt her. There is something exceeding sacred about real grief which awes the beholder, and it was with an involuntary feeling of respect that Colonel Jeffery stepped a few paces off, and waited until that burst of agony had passed away. It was during those brief moments that he overheard some words uttered by one who seemed likewise to be suffering from that prolific source of all affliction, disappointed affection. Seated at some short distance was a maiden, and one not young enough to be called a youth, but still not far enough advanced in existence to have had all his better feelings crushed by an admixture with the cold world, and he was listening while the maiden spoke. "It is the neglect," she said, "which touched me to the heart. But one word spoken or written, one message of affection, to tell me that the memory of a love I thought would be eternal, still lingered in your heart, would have been a world of consolation; but it came not, and all was despair." "Listen to me," said her companion, "and if ever in this world you can believe that one who truly loves can be cruel to be kind, believe that I am that one. I yielded for a time to the fascination of a passion which should never have found a home within my heart; but yet it was far more of a sentiment than a passion, inasmuch as never for one moment did an evil thought mingle with its pure aspirations. "It was a dream of joy, which for a time obliterated a remembrance that ought never to have been forgotten; but when I was rudely awakened to the fact that those whose opinions were of importance to your welfare and your happiness knew nothing of love, but in its grossest aspect, it became necessary at once to crush a feeling, which, in its continuance, could shadow forth nothing but evil." "You may not imagine, and you may never know--for I cannot tell the heart-pangs that it has cost me to persevere in a line of conduct which I felt was due to you--whatever heart-pangs it might cost me. I have been content to imagine that your affection would turn to indifference, perchance to hatred; that a consciousness of being slighted would arouse in your defence all a woman's pride, and that thus you would be lifted above regret. Farewell for ever! I dare not love you honestly and truly; and better is it thus to part than to persevere in a delusive dream that can but terminate in degradation and sadness." "Do you hear those words?" whispered Colonel Jeffery to Johanna. "You perceive that others suffer, and from the same cause, the perils of affection." "I do. I will go home, and pray for strength to maintain my heart against this sad affliction." "The course of true love never yet ran smooth; wonder not, therefore, Johanna Oakley, that yours has suffered such a blight. It is the great curse of the highest and noblest feelings of which humanity is capable, that while, under felicitous circumstances, they produce to us an extraordinary amount of happiness; when anything adverse occurs, they are most prolific sources of misery. Shall I accompany you?" Johanna felt grateful for the support of the colonel's arm towards her own home, and as they passed the barber's shop they were surprised to see that the dog and the hat were gone. CHAPTER VII. THE BARBER AND THE LAPIDARY. It is night; and a man, one of the most celebrated lapidaries in London, but yet a man frugal withal, although rich, is putting up the shutters of his shop. This lapidary is an old man; his scanty hair is white, and his hands shake as he secures the fastenings, and then, over and over again, feels and shakes each shutter, to be assured that his shop is well secured. This shop of his is in Moorfields, then a place very much frequented by dealers in bullion and precious stones. He was about entering his door, just having cast a satisfied look upon the fastening of his shop, when a tall, ungainly-looking man stepped up to him. This man had a three-cornered hat, much too small for him, perched upon the top of his great hideous-looking head, while the coat he wore had ample skirts enough to have made another of ordinary dimensions. Our readers will have no difficulty in recognising Sweeney Todd, and well might the little old lapidary start as such a very unprepossessing-looking personage addressed him. "You deal," he said, "in precious stones." "Yes, I do," was the reply; "but it's rather late. Do you want to buy or sell?" "To sell." "Humph! Ah, I dare say it's something not in my line; the only order I get is for pearls, and they are not in the market." "And I have nothing but pearls to sell," said Sweeney Todd; "I mean to keep all my diamonds, my garnets, topazes, brilliants, emeralds, and rubies." "The deuce you do! Why, you don't mean to say you have any of them? Be off with you! I am too old to joke with, and am waiting for my supper." "Will you look at the pearls I have?" "Little seed pearls, I suppose; they are of no value, and I don't want them, we have plenty of those. It's real, genuine, large pearls we want. Pearls worth thousands." "Will you look at mine?" "No; good night!" "Very good; then I will take them to Mr. Coventry up the street. He will, perhaps, deal with me for them if you cannot." The lapidary hesitated. "Stop," he said; "what's the use of going to Mr. Coventry? he has not the means of purchasing what I can pay present cash for. Come in, come in; I will, at all events, look at what you have for sale." Thus encouraged, Sweeney Todd entered the little, low, dusky shop, and the lapidary having procured a light, and taken care to keep his customer outside the counter, put on his spectacles, and said-- "Now, sir, where are your pearls?" "There," said Sweeney Todd, as he laid a string of twenty-four pearls before the lapidary. The old man's eyes opened to an enormous width, and he pushed his spectacles right upon his forehead as he glared in the face of Sweeney Todd with undisguised astonishment. Then down came his spectacles again, and taking up the string of pearls he rapidly examined every one of them, after which, he exclaimed,-- "Real, real, by Heaven! All real!" Then he pushed his spectacles up again to the top of his head, and took another long stare at Sweeney Todd. "I know they are real," said the latter. "Will you deal with me or will you not?" "Will I deal with you? Yes; I am not quite sure they are real. Let me look again. Oh, I see, counterfeits; but so well done, that really for the curiosity of the thing, I will give fifty pounds for them." "I am fond of curiosities," said Sweeney Todd, "and as they are not real, I will keep them; they will do for a present to some child or another." "What give those to a child? you must be mad--that is to say, not mad, but certainly indiscreet. Come, now, at a word, I'll give you one hundred pounds for them." "Hark ye," said Sweeney Todd, "it neither suits my inclination nor my time to stand here chaffing with you. I know the value of the pearls, and, as a matter of ordinary and every-day business, I will sell them to you so that you may get a handsome profit." "What do you call a handsome profit?" "The pearls are worth twelve thousand pounds, and I will let you have them for ten. What do you think of that for an offer?" "What odd noise was that?" "Oh, it was only I who laughed. Come, what do you say, at once; are we to do business or are we not?" "Hark ye, my friend; since you do know the value of your pearls, and this is to be a downright business transaction, I think I can find a customer who will give eleven thousand pounds for them, and if so, I have no objection to give you eight thousand pounds." "Give me the eight thousand pounds," said Sweeney Todd, "and let me go. I hate bargaining." "Stop a bit; there are some rather important things to consider. You must know, my friend, that a string of pearls of this value are not be bought like a few ounces of old silver of anybody who might come with it. Such a string of pearls as these are like a house, or an estate, and when they change hands, the vendor must give every satisfaction as to how he came by them, and prove how he can give to the purchaser a good right and title to them." "Pshaw!" said Sweeney Todd, "who will question you, you are well known to be in the trade, and to be continually dealing in such things?" "That's all very fine; but I don't see why I should give you the full value of an article without evidence as to how you came by it." "In other words you mean, you don't care how I came by them, provided I sell them to you at a thief's price, but if I want their value you mean to be particular." "My good sir, you may conclude what you like. Show me that you have a right to dispose of the pearls, and you need go no further than my shop for a customer." "I am no disposed to take that trouble, so I shall bid you good night, and if you want any pearls again, I would certainly advise you not to be so wonderfully particular where you get them." Sweeney Todd strode towards the door, but the lapidary was not going to part with him so easy, so springing over his counter with an agility one would not have expected from so old a man, he was at the door in a moment, and shouted at the top of his lungs-- "Stop thief! Stop thief! Stop him! There he goes! The big fellow with the three-cornered hat! Stop thief! Stop thief!" These cries, uttered with great vehemence as they were, could not be totally ineffectual, but they roused the whole neighbourhood, and before Sweeney Todd had proceeded many yards a man made an attempt to collar him, but was repulsed by such a terrific blow in the face, that another person, who had run half-way across the road with a similar object, turned and went back again, thinking it scarcely prudent to risk his own safety in apprehending a criminal for the good of the public. Having got rid thus of one of his foes, Sweeney Todd, with an inward determination to come back some day and be the death of the old lapidary, looked anxiously about for some court down which he could plunge, and so get out of sight of the many pursuers who were sure to attack him in the public streets. His ignorance of the locality, however, was a great bar to such a proceeding, for the great dread he had was, that he might get down some blind alley, and so be completely caged, and at the mercy of those who followed him. He pelted on at a tremendous speed, but it was quite astonishing to see how the little old lapidary ran after him, falling down every now and then, and never stopping to pick himself up, as people say, but rolling on and getting on his feet in some miraculous manner, that was quite wonderful to behold, particularly in one so aged and so apparently unable to undertake any active exertion. There was one thing, however, he could not continue doing, and that was to cry "stop thief!" for he had lost his wind, and was quite incapable of uttering a word. How long he would have continued the chase is doubtful, but his career was suddenly put an end to, as regards that, by tripping his foot over a projecting stone in the pavement, and shooting headlong down a cellar which was open. But abler persons than the little old lapidary had taken up the chase, and Sweeney Todd was hard pressed; and, although he ran very fast, the provoking thing was, that in consequence of the cries and shouts of his pursuers, new people took up the chase, who were fresh and vigorous and close to him. There is something awful in seeing a human being thus hunted by his fellows; and although we can have no sympathy with such a man as Sweeney Todd, because, from all that has happened, we begin to have some very horrible suspicion concerning him, still, as a general principle, it does not decrease the fact, that it is a dreadful thing to see a human being hunted through the streets. On he flew at the top of his speed, striking down whoever opposed him, until at last many who could have outrun him gave up the chase, not liking to encounter the knock-down blow which such a hand as his seemed capable of inflicting. His teeth were set, and his breathing became short and laborious, just as a man sprung out at a shop-door and succeeded in laying hold of him. "I have got you, have I?" he said. Sweeney Todd uttered not a word, but, putting forth an amount of strength that was perfectly prodigious, he seized the man by a great handful of his hair, and by his clothes behind, and flung him through a shop-window, smashing glass, framework, and everything in its progress. The man gave a shriek, for it was his own shop, and he was a dealer in fancy goods of the most flimsy texture, so that the smash with which he came down among his stock-in-trade, produced at once what the haberdashers are so delighted with in the present day, namely, a ruinous sacrifice. This occurrence had a great effect upon Sweeney Todd's pursuers; it taught them the practical wisdom of not interfering with a man possessed evidently of such tremendous powers of mischief, and consequently, as just about this period the defeat of the little lapidary took place, he got considerably the start of his pursuers. He was by no means safe. The cry of "stop thief!" still sounded in his ears, and on he flew, panting with the exertion he made, till he heard a man behind him, say,-- "Turn into the second court on your right, and you will be safe--I'll follow you. They shan't nab you, if I can help it." Sweeney Todd had not much confidence in human nature--it was not likely he would; but, panting and exhausted as he was, the voice of any one speaking in friendly accents was welcome, and, rather impulsively than from reflection, he darted down the second court to his right. CHAPTER VIII. THE THIEVES' HOME. In a very few minutes Sweeney Todd found that this court had no thoroughfare, and therefore there was no outlet or escape, but he immediately concluded that something more was to be found than was at first sight to be seen, and casting a furtive glance beside him in the direction in which he had come, rested his hand upon a door which stood close by. The door gave way, and Sweeney Todd, hearing, as he imagined, a noise in the street, dashed in, and closed the door, and then he, heedless of all consequences, walked to the end of a long dirty passage, and, pushing open a door, descended a short flight of steps, to the bottom of which he had scarcely got, when the door which faced him at the bottom of the steps opened by some hand, and he suddenly found himself in the presence of a number of men seated round a large table. In an instant all eyes were turned towards Sweeney Todd, who was quite unprepared for such a scene, and for a minute he knew not what to say; but, as indecision was not Sweeney Todd's characteristic, he at once advanced to the table and sat down. There was some surprise evinced by the persons who were seated in that room, of whom there were many more than a score, and much talking was going on among them, which did not appear to cease on his entrance. Those who were near him looked hard at him, but nothing was said for some minutes, and Sweeney Todd looked about to understand, if he could, how he was placed, though it could not be much a matter of doubt as to the character of the individuals present. Their looks were often an index to their vocations, for all grades of the worst of characters were there, and some of them were by no means complimentary to human nature, for there were some of the most desperate characters that were to be found in London. Sweeney Todd gave a glance around him, and at once satisfied himself of the desperate nature of the assembly into which he had thrust himself. They were dressed in various fashions, some after the manner of the city--some more gay, and some half military, while not a few wore the garb of countrymen; but there was in all that an air of scampish, off-hand behaviour, not unmixed with brutality. "Friend," said one, who sat near him, "how came you here; are you known here?" "I came here, because I found the door open, and I was told by some one to come here, as I was pursued." "Pursued?" "Ay, some one running after me, you know." "I know what being pursued is," replied the man, "and yet I know nothing of you." "That is not at all astonishing," said Sweeney, "seeing that I never saw you before, nor you me; but that makes no difference. I'm in difficulties, and I suppose a man may do his best to escape the consequences?" "Yes, he may, yet that is no reason why he should come here; this is the place for free friends, who know and aid one another." "And such I am willing to be; but at the same time I must have a beginning. I cannot be initiated without some one introducing me. I have sought protection, and I have found it; if there be any objection to my remaining here any longer, I will leave." "No, no," said a tall man on the other side of the table, "I have heard what you have said, and we do not usually allow any such things; you have come here unasked, and now we must have a little explanation--our own safety may demand it; at all events we have our customs, and they must be complied with." "And what are your customs?" demanded Todd. "This: you must answer the question which we shall propound unto you; now answer truly what we shall ask of you." "Speak," said Todd, "and I will answer all that you propose to me, if possible." "We will not tax you too hardly, depend upon it: who are you?" "Candidly, then," said Todd, "that's a question I do not like to answer, nor do I think it is one that you ought to ask. It is an inconvenient thing to name oneself--you must pass by that inquiry." "Shall we do so?" inquired the interrogator of those around him, and gathering his cue from their looks, he, after a brief space, continued-- "Well, we will pass over that, seeing it is not necessary, but you must tell us what you are--cutpurse, footpad, or what not?" "I am neither." "Then tell us in your own words," said the man, "and be candid with us. What are you?" "I am an artificial pearl-maker--or sham pearl-maker, whichever way you please to call it." "A sham pearl-maker! that may be an honest trade for all we know, and that will hardly be your passport to our house, friend sham pearl-maker!" "That may be as you say," replied Todd, "but I will challenge any man to equal me in my calling. I have made pearls that would pass with almost a lapidary, and which would pass with nearly all the nobility." "I begin to understand you, friend; but I would wish to have some proof of what you say; we may hear a very good tale, and yet none of it shall be true; we are not men to be made dupes of, besides, there are enough to take vengeance, if we desire it." "Ay, to be sure there is," said a gruff voice from the other end of the table, which was echoed from one to the other, till it came to the top of the table. "Proof! proof! proof!" now resounded from one end of the room to the other. "My friends," said Sweeney Todd, rising up, and advancing to the table, and thrusting his hand into his bosom and drawing out the string of twenty-four pearls, "I challenge you, or any one, to make a set of artificial pearls equal to these; they are my make, and I'll stand to it in any reasonable sum, that you cannot bring a man who shall beat me in my calling." "Just hand them to me," said the man who had made himself interrogator. Sweeney Todd threw the pearls on the table carelessly, and then said-- "There, look at them well, they'll bear it, and I reckon, though there may be some good judges amongst you, that you cannot any of you tell them from real pearls, if you had not been told so." "Oh, yes, we know pretty well," said the man, "what these things are, we have now and then a good string in our possession, and that helps us to judge of them. Well, this is certainly a good imitation." "Let me see it," said a fat man: "I was bred a jeweller, and I might say born, only I couldn't stick to it; nobody likes working for years upon little pay, and no fun with the gals. I say, hand it here!" "Well," said Todd, "if you or anybody ever produced as good an imitation, I'll swallow the whole string; and knowing there's poison in the composition, it would not be a comfortable thing to think of." "Certainly not," said the big man, "certainly not, but hand them over, and I'll tell you all about it." The pearls were given into his hands; and Sweeney Todd felt some misgivings about his precious charge, and yet he showed it not, for he turned to the man who sat beside him, saying-- "If he can tell true pearls from them, he knows more than I think he does, for I am a maker, and have often had the true pearl in my hand." "And I suppose," said the man, "you have tried your hand at putting the one for the other, and so doing your confiding customers." "Yes, yes, that is the dodge, I can see very well," said another man, winking at the first; "and a good one too, I have known them do so with diamonds." "Yes, but never with pearls; however, there are some trades that it is desirable to know." "You're right." The fat man now carefully examined the pearls, set them down on the table, and looked hard at them. "There now, I told you I could bother you. You are not so good a judge that you would not have known, if you had not been told they were sham pearls, but what they were real." "I must say, you have produced the best imitations I have ever seen. Why you ought to make your fortune in a few years--a handsome fortune!" "So I should, but for one thing." "And what is that?" "The difficulty," said Todd, "of getting rid of them; if you ask anything below their value, you are suspected, and you run the chance of being stopped and losing them at the least, and perhaps entail a prosecution." "Very true; but there is risk in everything; we all run risks; but then the harvest!" "That may be," said Todd, "but this is peculiarly dangerous. I have not the means of getting introduction to the nobility themselves, and if I had I should be doubted, for they would say a working man cannot come honestly by such valuable things, and then I must concoct a tale to escape the Mayor of London." "Ha!--ha!--ha!" "Well, then, you can take them to a goldsmith." "There are not many of them who would do so: they would not deal in them; and, moreover, I have been to one or two of them; as for a lapidary, why, he is not so easily cheated." "Have you tried?" "I did, and had to make the best of my way out, pursued as quickly as they could run, and I thought at one time I must have been stopped, but a few lucky turns brought me clear, when I was told to turn up this court; and I came in here." "Well," said one man, who had been examining the pearls, "and did the lapidary find out they were not real?" "Yes, he did; and he wanted to stop me and the string together, for trying to impose upon him; however, I made a rush at the door, which he tried to shut, but I was the stronger man, and here I am." "It has been a close chance for you," said one. "Yes, it just has," replied Sweeney, taking up the string of pearls, which he replaced in his clothes, and continued to converse with some of those around him. Things now subsided into their general course; and little notice was taken of Sweeney. There was some drink on the board, of which all partook. Sweeney had some, too, and took the precaution of emptying his pockets before them all, and gave them a share of his money to pay his footing. This was policy, and they all drank to his success, and were very good companions. Sweeney, however, was desirous of getting out as soon as he could, and more than once cast his eyes towards the door; but he saw there were eyes upon him, and dared not excite suspicion, for he might undo all that he had done. To lose the precious treasure he possessed would be maddening; he had succeeded to admiration in inducing the belief that what he showed them was merely a counterfeit; but he knew so well that they were real, and that a latent feeling that they were humbugged might be hanging about; and that the first suspicious movement he would be watched, and some desperate attempt made to make him give them up. It was with no small violence to his own feelings that he listened to their conversation, and appeared to take an interest in their proceedings. "Well," said one, who sat next him, "I'm just off for the north-road." "Any fortune there?" "Not much; and yet I mustn't complain: these last three weeks, the best I have had has been two sixties." "Well, that would do very well." "Yes, the last man I stopped was a regular looby Londoner; he appeared like a don, complete tip-top man of fashion; but, Lord! when I came to look over him, he hadn't as much as would carry me twenty-four miles on the road." "Indeed! don't you think he had any hidden about him?--they do do so now." "Ah, ah!" returned another, "well said, old fellow; 'tis a true remark, that we can't always judge a man from appearances. Lor! bless me, now, who'd 'a thought your swell cove proved to be out o' luck? Well, I'm sorry for you; but you know 'tis a long lane that has no turning, as Mr. Somebody says--so, perhaps, you'll be more fortunate another time. But come, cheer up, whilst I relate an adventure that occurred a little time ago; 'twas a slice of good luck, I assure you, for I had no difficulty in bouncing my victim, out of a good swag of tin; for you know farmers returning from market are not always too wary and careful, especially as the lots of wine they take at the market dinners make the cosy old boys ripe and mellow for sleep. Well, I met one of these jolly gentlemen, mounted on horseback, who declared he had nothing but a few paltry guineas about him; however, that would not do--I searched him, and found a hundred and four pounds secreted about his person." "Where did you find it?" "About him. I tore his clothes to ribands. A pretty figure he looked upon horseback, I assure you. By Jove, I could hardly help laughing; in fact, I did laugh at him, which so enraged him, that he immediately threatened to horse-whip me, and yet he dared not defend his money; but I threatened to shoot him, and that soon brought him to his senses." "I should imagine so. Did you ever have a fight for it?" inquired Sweeney Todd. "Yes, several times. Ah! it's by no means an easy life, you may depend. It is free, but dangerous. I have been fired at six or seven times." "So many?" "Yes. I was near York once, when I stopped a gentleman; I thought him an easy conquest, but not as he turned out, for he was a regular devil." "Resisted you?" "Yes, he did. I was coming along when I met him, and I demanded his money. 'I can keep it myself,' he said, 'and do not want any assistance to take care of it.'" "But I want it," said I; "your money or your life." "You must have both, for we are not to be parted," he said, presenting his pistol at me; "and then I had only time to escape from the effect of the shot. I struck the pistol up with my riding-whip, and the bullet passed by my temples, and almost stunned me. I cocked and fired; he did the same, but I hit him, and he fell. He fired, however, but missed me. I was down upon him; he begged hard for life." "Did you give it him?" "Yes; I dragged him to the side of the road, and then left him. Having done so much, I mounted my horse and came away as fast as I could, and then I made for London, and spent a merry day or two there." "I can imagine you must enjoy your trips into the country, and then you must have still greater relish for the change when you come to London--the change is so great and so entire." "So it is; but have you never any run of luck in your line? I should think you must at times succeed in tricking the public." "Yes, yes," said Todd, "now and then we do--but I tell you it is only now and then; and I have been afraid of doing too much. In small sums I have been a gainer; but I want to do something grand. I tried it on, but at the same time I have failed." "That is bad; but you may have more opportunities by and by. Luck is all chance." "Yes," said Todd, "that is true, but the sooner the better, for I am growing impatient." Conversation now went on; each man speaking of his exploits, which were always some species of rascality and robbery, accompanied by violence generally; some were midnight robbers and breakers into people's houses; in fact, all the crimes that could be imagined. This place was, in fact, a complete house of rendezvous for thieves, cutpurses, highwaymen, footpads, and burglars of every grade and description--a formidable set of men of the most determined and desperate appearance. Sweeney Todd hardly knew how to rise and leave the place, though it was now growing very late, and he was most anxious to get safe out of the den he was in; but how to do that, was a problem yet to be solved. "What is the time?" he muttered to the man next to him. "Past midnight," was the reply. "Then I must leave here," he answered, "for I have work that I must be at in a very short time, and I shall not have too much time." So saying he watched his opportunity, and rising, walked up to the door, which he opened and went out; after that he walked up the five steps that led to the passage, and this latter had hardly been gained when the street-door opened, and another man came in at the same moment, and met him face to face. "What do you do here?" "I am going out," said Sweeney Todd. "You are going back; come back with me." "I will not," said Todd. "You must be a better man than I am, if you make me; I'll do my best to resist your attack, if you intend one." "That I do," replied the man; and he made a determined rush upon Sweeney, who was scarcely prepared for such a sudden onslaught, and was pushed back till he came to the head of the stairs, where a struggle took place, and both rolled down the steps. The door was thrown open, and every one rushed out to see what was the matter, but it was some moments before they could make it out. "What does he do here?" said the first, as soon as he could speak, and pointing to Sweeney Todd. "It's all right." "All wrong, I say." "He's a sham-pearl maker, and has shown us a string of sham pearls that are beautiful." "Psha!" "I will insist upon seeing them; give them to me," he said, "or you do not leave this place." "I will not," said Sweeney. "You must. Here, help me--but I don't want help, I can do it by myself." As he spoke, he made a desperate attempt to collar Sweeney and pull him to the earth, but he had miscalculated his strength when he imagined that he was superior to Todd, who was by far the more powerful man of the two, and resisted the attack with success. Suddenly, by an Herculean effort, he caught his adversary below the waist, and lifting him up, he threw him upon the floor with great force; and then, not wishing to see how the gang would take this--whether they would take the part of their companion or of himself he knew not--he thought he had an advantage in the distance, and he rushed up stairs as fast as he could, and reached the door before they could overtake him to prevent him. Indeed, for more than a minute they were irresolute what to do; but they were somehow prejudicial in favour of their companion, and they rushed up after Sweeney just as he had got to the door. He would have had time to escape them, but, by some means, the door became fast, and he could not open it, exert himself how he would. There was no time to lose; they were coming to the head of the stairs, and Sweeney had hardly time to reach the stairs, to fly upwards, when he felt himself grasped by the throat. This he soon released himself from; for he struck the man who seized him a heavy blow, and he fell backwards, and Todd found his way up to the first floor, but he was closely pursued. Here was another struggle; and again Sweeney Todd was the victor, but he was hard pressed by those who followed him--fortunately for him there was a mop left in a pail of water, this he seized hold of, and, swinging it over his head, he brought it full on the head of the first man who came near him. Dab it came, soft and wet, and splashed over some others who were close at hand. It is astonishing what an effect a new weapon will sometimes have. There was not a man among them, who would not have faced danger in more ways than one, that would not have rushed headlong upon deadly and destructive weapons, but who were quite awed when a heavy wet mop was dashed into their faces. They were completely paralysed for a moment; indeed, they began to look upon it as something between a joke and a serious matter and either would have been taken just as they might be termed. "Get the pearls!" shouted the man who had first stopped him; "seize the spy! seize him--secure him--rush at him! You are men enough to hold one man!" Sweeney Todd saw matters were growing serious, and he plied his mop most vigorously upon those who were ascending, but they had become somewhat used to the mop, and it had lost much of its novelty, and was by no means a dangerous weapon. They rushed on, despite the heavy blows showered by Sweeney, and he was compelled to give way stair after stair. The head of the mop came off, and then there remained but the handle, which formed an efficient weapon, and which made fearful havoc on the heads of the assailants; and despite all that their slouched hats could do in the way of protecting them, yet the staff came with a crushing effect. The best fight in the world cannot last for ever; and Sweeney again found numbers were not to be resisted for long; indeed, he could not have physical energy enough to sustain his own efforts, supposing he had received no blows in return. He turned and fled as he was forced back to the landing, and then came to the next stair-head, and again he made a desperate stand. This went on for stair after stair, and continued for more than two or three hours. There were moments of cessation when they all stood still and looked at each other. "Fire upon him!" said one. "No, no; we shall have the authorities down upon us, and then all will go wrong." "I think we had much better have let it alone in the first place, as he was in, for you may be sure this won't make him keep a secret; we shall all be split upon as sure as fate." "Well, then, rush upon him, and down with him. Never let him out! On to him! Hurrah!" Away they went, but they were resolutely met by the staff of Sweeney Todd, who had gained new strength by the short rest he had had. "Down with the spy!" This was shouted out by the men, but as each of them approached, they were struck down, and at length, finding himself on the second floor landing, and being fearful that some one was descending from above, he rushed into one of the inner rooms. In an instant he had locked the doors, which were strong and powerful. "Now," he muttered, "for means to escape." He waited a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then he crossed the floor to the windows, which were open. They were the old-fashioned bay-windows, with the heavy ornamental work which some houses possessed, and overhung the low door-ways, and protected them from the weather. "This will do," he said, as he looked down to the pavement--"this will do. I will try this descent, if I fall." The people on the other side of the door were exerting all their force to break it open, and it had already given one or two ominous creaks, and a few minutes more would probably let them into the room. The streets were clear--no human being was moving about, and there were faint signs of the approach of morning. He paused a moment to inhale the fresh air, and then he got outside of the window. By means of the sound oaken ornaments, he contrived to get down to the drawing-room balcony, and then he soon got down into the street. As he walked slowly away, he could hear the crash of the door, and a slight cheer, as they entered the room; and he could imagine to himself the appearance of the faces of those who entered, when they found the bird had flown, and the room was empty. Sweeney Todd had not far to go; he soon turned into Fleet-street, and made for his own house. He looked about him, but there were none near him; he was tired and exhausted, and right glad was he when he found himself at his own door. Then stealthily he put the key into the door, and slowly entered the house. CHAPTER IX. JOHANNA AT HOME, AND THE RESOLUTION. Johanna Oakley would not allow Colonel Jeffery to accompany her all the way home, and he, appreciating the scruples of the young girl, did not press his attention upon her, but left her at the corner of Fore-street, after getting from her a half promise that she would meet him again on that day week, at the same hour, in the Temple-gardens. "I ask this of you, Johanna Oakley," he said, "because I have resolved to make all the exertion in my power to discover what has become of Mr. Thornhill, in whose fate I am sure I have succeeded in interesting you, although you care so little for the string of pearls which he has in trust for you." "I do, indeed, care little for them," said Johanna, "so little, that it may be said to amount to nothing." "But still they are yours, and you ought to have the option of disposing of them as you please. It is not well to despise such gifts of fortune; for if you can yourself do nothing with them, there are surely some others whom you may know, upon whom they would bestow great happiness." "A string of pearls, great happiness?" said Johanna, inquiringly. "Your mind is so occupied by your grief that you quite forget such strings are of great value. I have seen those pearls, Johanna, and can assure you that they are in themselves a fortune." "I suppose," she said sadly, "it is too much for human nature to expect two blessings at once. I had the fond, warm heart that loved me without the fortune, that would have enabled us to live in comfort and affluence; and now, when that is perchance within my grasp, the heart, that was by far the more costly possession, and the richest jewel of them all, lies beneath the wave with its bright influences, and its glorious and romantic aspirations, quenched for ever." "You will meet me then, as I request of you, to hear if I have any news for you?" "I will endeavour so to do. I have all the will; but Heaven knows if I may have the power." "What mean you, Johanna?" "I cannot tell what a week's anxiety may do; I know not but a sick bed may be my resting-place, until I exchange it for the tomb. I feel even now my strength fail me, and that I am scarcely able to totter to my home. Farewell, sir! I owe you my best thanks, as well for the trouble you have taken, as for the kindly manner in which you have detailed to me what has passed." "Remember," said Colonel Jeffery, "that I bid you adieu, with the hope of meeting you again." It was thus they parted, and Johanna proceeded to her father's house. Who now that had met her and had chanced not to see that sweet face, which could never be forgotten, would have supposed her to be the once gay and sprightly Johanna Oakley? Her steps were sad and solemn, and all the juvenile elasticity of her frame seemed like one prepared for death; and she hoped that she would be able to glide, silently and unobserved, to her own little bed-chamber--that chamber where she had slept since she was a child, and on the little couch, on which she had so often laid down to sleep that holy and calm slumber which such hearts as hers can only know. But she was doomed to be disappointed, for the Rev. Mr. Lupin was still there, and as Mrs. Oakley had placed before that pious individual a great assortment of creature comforts, and among the rest some mulled wine, which seemed particularly to agree with him, he showed no disposition to depart. It unfortunately happened that this wine, of which the reverend gentleman partook with such a holy relish, was kept in a cellar, and Mrs. Oakley had had occasion twice to go down to procure a fresh supply, and it was on a third journey for the same purpose that she encountered poor Johanna, who had just let herself in at the private door. "Oh! you have come home, have you?" said Mrs. Oakley; "I wonder where you have been to, gallivanting; but I suppose I may wonder long enough before you will tell me. Go into the parlour, I want to speak to you." Now poor Johanna had quite forgotten the very existence of Mr. Lupin--so, rather than explain to her mother, which she knew would beget more questions, she wished to go to bed at once, notwithstanding it was an hour before the usual time for so doing. She walked unsuspectingly into the parlour, and as Mr. Lupin was sitting, the slightest movement of his chair closed the door, so she could not escape. Under any other circumstances probably Johanna would have insisted upon leaving the apartment; but a glance at the countenance of the pious individual was quite sufficient to convince her that he had been sacrificing sufficiently to Bacchus to be capable of any amount of effrontery, so that she dreaded passing him, more especially as he swayed his arms about like the sails of a windmill. She thought at least that when her mother returned she would rescue her; but in that hope she was mistaken, and Johanna had no more idea of the extent to which religious fanaticism will carry its victim, than she had of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the moon. When Mrs. Oakley did return, she had some difficulty in getting into the apartment, inasmuch as Mr. Lupin's chair occupied so large a portion of it; but when she did obtain admission, and Johanna said-- "Mother, I beg of you to protect me against this man, and allow me a free passage from the apartment!" Mrs. Oakley affected to lift up her hands in amazement, as she said-- "How dare you speak so disrespectfully of a chosen vessel? How dare you, I say, do such a thing--it's enough to drive any one mad to see the young girls now-a-days!" "Don't snub her--don't snub the virgin," said Mr. Lupin; "she don't know the honour yet that's intended her." "She don't deserve it," said Mrs. Oakley, "she don't deserve it." "Never mind, madam--never mind; we--we--we don't get all what we deserve in this world." "Take a drop of something, Mr. Lupin; you have got the hiccups." "Yes; I--I rather think I have a little. Isn't it a shame that anybody so intimate with the Lord should have the hiccups? What a lot of lights you have got burning, Mrs. Oakley!" "A lot of lights, Mr. Lupin! Why, there is only one; but perhaps you allude to the lights of the gospel?" "No; I--I don't, just at present; damn the lights of the gospel--that is to say, I mean damn all backsliders! But there is a lot of lights, and no mistake, Mrs. Oakley. Give me a drop of something, I'm as dry as dust." "There is some more mulled wine, Mr. Lupin; but I am surprised that you think there is more than one light." "It's a miracle madam, in consequence of my great faith. I have faith in s--s--s--six lights, and here they are." "Do you see that, Johanna?" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "are you not convinced now of the holiness of Mr. Lupin?" "I am convinced of his drunkenness, mother, and entreat of you to let me leave the room at once." "Tell her of the honour," said Mr. Lupin--"tell her of the honour." "I don't know, Mr. Lupin; but don't you think it would be better to take some other opportunity?" "Very well, then, this is the opportunity." "If it's your pleasure, Mr. Lupin, I will. You must know, then, Johanna, that Mr. Lupin has been kind enough to consent to save my soul, on condition that you marry him, and I am quite sure you can have no reasonable objection; indeed, I think it's the least you can do, whether you have any objection or not." "Well put," said Mr. Lupin, "excellently well put." "Mother," said Johanna, "if you are so far gone in superstition, as to believe this miserable drunkard ought to come between you and heaven, I am so lost as not to be able to reject the offer with more scorn and contempt than ever I thought I could have entertained for any human being; but hypocrisy never, to my mind, wears so disgusting a garb as when it attires itself in the outward show of religion." "This conduct is unbearable," cried Mrs. Oakley; "am I to have one of the Lord's saints under my own roof?" "If he were ten times a saint, mother, instead of being nothing but a miserable, drunken profligate, it would be better that he should be insulted ten times over, than that you should permit your own child to have passed through the indignity of having to reject such a proposition as that which has just been made. I must claim the protection of my father; he will not suffer one, towards whom he has ever shown an affection, the remembrance of which sinks deep into my heart, to meet with so cruel an insult beneath his roof." "That's right, my dear," cried Mr. Oakley, at that moment pushing open the parlour-door. "That's right, my dear; you never spoke truer words in all your life." A faint scream came from Mrs. Oakley, and the Rev. Mr. Lupin immediately seized upon the fresh jug of mulled wine, and finished it at a draught. "Get behind me, Satan," he said. "Mr. Oakley, you will be damned if you say a word to me." "It's all the same, then," said Mr. Oakley; "for I'll be damned if I don't. Then, Ben! Ben! come--come in, Ben." "I'm a coming," said a deep voice, and a man about six feet four inches in height, and nearly two-thirds of that amount in width, entered the parlour. "I'm a coming, Oakley, my boy. Put on your blessed spectacles, and tell me which is the fellow." "I could have sworn it," said Mrs. Oakley, as she gave the table a knock with her fist,--"I could have sworn when you came in, Oakley--I could have sworn, you little snivelling, shrivelled-up wretch, you'd no more have dared to come into this parlour as never was with those words in your mouth, than you'd have dared to have flown, if you hadn't had your cousin, Big Ben, the beef-eater, from the Tower, with you." "Take it easy, ma'am," said Ben, as he sat down in a chair, which immediately broke all to pieces with his weight. "Take it easy, ma'am; the devil--what's this?" "Never mind, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "it's only a chair; get up." "A cheer," said Ben; "do you call that a cheer? but never mind--take it easy." "Why, you big, bullying, idle, swilling and guttling ruffian!" "Go on, marm, go on." "You good-for-nothing lump of carrion; a dog wears his own coat, but you wear your master's, you great stupid, overgrown, lurking hound. You parish-brought-up wild beast, go and mind your lions and elephants in the Tower, and don't come into honest people's houses, you cut-throat, bullying, pickpocketing wretch." "Go on, marm, go on." This was a kind of dialogue that could not last, and Mrs. Oakley sank down exhausted, and then Ben said-- "I tell you what, marm, I considers you--I looks upon you, marm, as a female wariety of that ere animal as is very useful and sagacious, marm." There was no mistake in this allusion, and Mrs. Oakley was about to make some reply, when the Rev. Mr. Lupin rose from his chair, saying-- "Bless you all! I think I'll go home." "Not yet, Mr. Tulip," said Ben; "you had better sit down again--we've got something to say to you." "Young man, young man, let me pass. If you do not, you will endanger your soul." "I aint got none," said Ben; "I'm only a beef-eater, and don't pretend to such luxuries." "The heathen!" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "the horrid heathen! but there's one consolation, and that is, that he will be fried in his own fat for everlasting." "Oh, that's nothing," said Ben; "I think I shall like it, especially if it's any pleasure to you. I suppose that's what you call a Christian consolation. Will you sit down, Mr. Tulip?" "My name aint Tulip, but Lupin; but if you wish it, I don't mind sitting down, of course." The beef-eater, with a movement of his foot, kicked away the reverend gentleman's chair, and down he sat with a dab upon the floor. "My dear," said Mr. Oakley to Johanna, "you go to bed, and then your mother can't say you have anything to do with this affair. I intend to rid my house of this man. Good night, my dear, good night." Johanna kissed her father on the cheek, and then left the room, not at all sorry that so vigorous a movement was about being made for the suppression of Mr. Lupin. When she was gone, Mrs. Oakley spoke, saying-- "Mr. Lupin, I bid you good night, and, of course, after the rough treatment of these wretches, I can hardly expect you to come again. Good night, Mr. Lupin, good night." "That's all very well, marm," said Ben, "but before this ere wild beast of a parson goes away, I want to admonish him. He don't seem to be wide awake, and I must rouse him up." Ben took hold of the reverend gentleman's nose, and gave it such an awful pinch, that when he took his finger and thumb away, it was perfectly blue. "Murder! oh, murder! my nose! my nose!" shrieked Mr. Lupin, and at that moment Mrs. Oakley, who was afraid to attack Ben, gave her husband such an open-handed whack on the side of his head, that the little man reeled again, and saw a great many more lights than the Rev. Mr. Lupin had done under the influence of the mulled wine. "Very good," said Ben; "now we are getting into, the thick of it." [Illustration: Big Ben Compels Mr. Lupin To Do Penance.] With this Ben took from his pocket a coil of rope, one end of which was a noose, and that he dexterously threw over Mrs. Oakley's head. "Murder!" she shrieked. "Oakley, are you going to see me murdered before your eyes?" "There is such a singing in my ears," said Mr. Oakley, "that I can't see anything." "This is the way," said Ben, "we manages the wild beastesses when they shuts their ears to all sorts of argument. Now, marm, if you please, a little this way." Ben looked about until he found a strong hook in the wall, over which, in consequence of his great height, he was enabled to draw the rope, and then the other end of it he tied securely to the leg of a heavy secretaire that was in the room, so that Mrs. Oakley was well secured. "Murder!" she cried. "Oakley, are you a man, that you stand by and see me treated in this way by this big brute?" "I can't see anything," said Mr. Oakley; "there is such a singing in my ears; I told you so before--I can't see anything." "Now, ma'am, you may just say what you like," said Ben; "it won't matter a bit, any more than the grumbling of a bear with a sore head; and as for you, Mr. Tulip, you'll just get down on your knees, and beg Mr. Oakley's pardon for coming and drinking his tea without his leave, and having the infernal impudence to speak to his daughter." "Don't do it, Mr. Lupin," cried Mrs. Oakley--"don't do it." "You hear," said Ben, "what the lady advises. Now, I am quite different; I advise you to do it--for, if you don't, I shan't hurt you, but it strikes me I shall be obliged to fall on you and crush you." "I think I will," said Mr. Lupin: "the saints were always forced to yield to the Philistines." "If you call me any names," said Ben, "I'll just wring your neck," "Young man, young man, let me exhort you. Allow me to go, and I will put up prayers for your conversion." "Confound your impudence! what do you suppose the beasts in the Tower would do, if I was converted? Why, that 'ere tiger, we have had lately, would eat his own tail, to think as I had turned out such an ass. Come, I can't waste any more of my precious time; and if you don't get down on your knees directly, we'll see what we can do." "I must," said Mr. Lupin, "I must, I suppose;" and down he flopped on his knees. "Very good; now repeat after me.--I am a wolf that stole sheeps' clothing." "Yes; 'I am a wolf that stole sheeps' clothing'--the Lord forgive me." "Perhaps he may, and perhaps he mayn't. Now go on--all that's wirtuous is my loathing." "Oh dear, yes--'all that's wirtuous is my loathing.'" "Mr. Oakley, I have offended." "Yes; I am a miserable sinner, Mr. Oakley, I have offended." "And asks his pardon, on my bended--" "Oh dear, yes--I asks his pardon on my bended--The Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!" "Knees--I won't do so no more." "Yes,--knees, I won't do so no more." "As sure as I lies on this floor." "Yes,--as sure as I lies on this floor.--Death and the devil, you've killed me!" Ben took hold of the reverend gentleman by the back of the neck, and pressed his head down upon the floor, until his nose, which had before been such a sufferer, was nearly completely flattened with his face. "Now you may go;" said Ben. Mr. Lupin scrambled to his feet; but Ben followed him into the passage, and did not yet let him go, until he had accelerated his movements by two hearty kicks. And then the victorious beef-eater returned to the parlour. "Why, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you are quite a poet." "I believe you, Oakley, my boy," said Ben, "and now let us be off, and have a pint round the corner." "What!" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "and leave me here, you wretches?" "Yes," said Ben, "unless you promises never to be a female variety of a useful animal again, and begs pardon of Mr. Oakley, for giving him all this trouble; as for me, I'll let you off cheap, you shall only give me a kiss, and say you loves me." "If I do, may I be--" "Damned, you mean." "No, I don't; choked I was going to say." "Then you may be choked, for you have nothing to do but to let your legs go from under you, and you will be hung as comfortable as possible--come along, Oakley." "Mr. Oakley--stop, stop--don't leave me here. I am sorry." "That's enough," said Mr. Oakley; "and now, my dear, bear in mind one thing from me--I intend from this time forward to be master in my own house. If you and I are to live together, we must do so on very different terms to what we have been living, and if you won't make yourself agreeable, Lawyer Hutchins tells me that I can turn you out and give you a maintenance; and, in that case, I'll have my sister Rachel home to mind house for me; so now you know my determination, and what you have to expect. If you wish to begin, well, do so at once, by getting something nice and tasty for Ben's supper." Mrs. Oakley made the required promise, and being released, she set about preparations for the supper in real earnest, but whether was really subdued or not we shall, in due time, see. CHAPTER X. THE COLONEL AND HIS FRIEND. Colonel Jeffery was not at all satisfied with the state of affairs, as regarded the disappointment of Mr. Thornhill, for whom he entertained a sincere regard, both on account of the private estimation in which he held him, and on account of actual services rendered to Thornhill by him. Not to detain Johanna Oakley in the Temple-gardens, he had stopped his narrative, completely at the point when what concerned her had ceased, and had said nothing of much danger which the ship "Neptune" and its crew and passengers had gone through, after Mr. Thornhill had been taken on board with his dog. The fact is, the storm which he had mentioned was only the first of a series of gales of wind that buffeted the ship about for some weeks, doing it much damage, and enforcing almost the necessity of putting in somewhere for repairs. But a glance at the map will be sufficient to show that, situated as the "Neptune" was, the nearest port at which they could at all expect assistance, was the British Colony, at the Cape of Good Hope; but such was the contrary nature of the winds and waves, that just upon the evening of a tempestuous day, they found themselves bearing down close in shore, on the eastern coast of Madagascar. There was much apprehension that the vessel would strike on a rocky shore; but the water was deep, and the vessel rode well; there was a squall, and they let go both anchors to secure the vessel, as they were so close in shore, lest they should be driven in and stranded. It was fortunate they had so secured themselves, for the gale while it lasted blew half a hurricane, and the ship lost some of her mast, and some other trifling damage, which, however, entailed upon them the necessity of remaining there a few days, to cut timber to repair their masts, and to obtain a few supplies. There is but little to interest a general reader in the description of a gale. Order after order was given until the masts and spars went one by one, and then the orders for clearing the wreck were given. There was much work to be done, and but little pleasure in doing it, for it was wet and miserable while it lasted, and there was the danger of being driven upon a lee shore, and knocked to pieces upon the rocks. This danger was averted, and they anchored safe at a very short distance from the shore in comparative security. "We are safe now," remarked the captain, as he gave his second in command charge of the deck, and approached Mr. Thornhill and Colonel Jeffery. "I am happy it is so," replied Jeffery. "Well, captain," said Mr. Thornhill, "I am glad we have done with being knocked about; we are anchored, and the water here appears smooth enough." "It is so, and I dare say it will remain so; it is a beautiful basin of water--deep and good anchorage; but you see it is not large enough to make a fine harbour." "True; but it is rocky." "It is, and that may make it sometimes dangerous, though I don't know that it would be so in some gales. The sea may beat in at the opening, which is deep enough for anything to enter--even Noah's ark would enter easily enough." "What will you do now?" "Stay here a day or so, and send boats ashore to cut some pine trees, to refit the ship with masts." "You have no staves, then?" "Not enough for such a purpose; and we never do go out stored with such things." "You obtain them wherever you may go to." "Yes, any part of the world will furnish them in some shape or other." "When you send ashore, will you permit me to accompany the boat's crew?" said Jeffery. "Certainly; but the natives of this country are violent and intractable, and should you get into any row with them, there is every probability of your being captured, or some bodily injury done you." "But I will take care to avoid all that." "Very well, colonel, you shall be welcome to go." "I must beg the same permission," said Mr. Thornhill, "for I should much like to see the country, as well as to have some acquaintance with the natives themselves." "By no means trust yourself alone with them," said the captain, "for if you live you will have cause to repent it--depend upon what I say." "I will," said Thornhill; "I will go nowhere but where the boat's company goes." "You will be safe then." "But do you apprehend any hostile attack from the natives?" inquired Colonel Jeffery. "No, I do not expect it; but such things have happened before to-day, and I have seen them when least expected, though I have been on this coast before, and yet I never met with any ill-treatment; but there have been many who have touched on this coast, who have had a brush with the natives and come off second best, the natives generally retiring when the ship's company muster strong in number, and calling out the chiefs, who come down in great force, that we may not conquer them." * * * * * The next morning the boats were ordered out to go ashore with crews, prepared for cutting timber, and obtaining such staves as the ship was in want of. With these boats old Thornhill and Colonel Jeffery went both of them on board, and after a short ride they reached the shore of Madagascar. It was a beautiful country, and one in which vegetables appear luxuriant and abundant, and the party in search of timber for shipbuilding purposes soon came to some lordly monarchs of the forest, which would have made vessels of themselves. But this was not what was wanted; but where the trees grew thicker and taller, they began to cut some tall pine-trees down. This was the wood they most desired; in fact, it was exactly what they wanted; but they hardly got through a few such trees, when the natives came down upon them, apparently to reconnoitre. At first they were quiet and tractable enough, but anxious to see and inspect everything, being very inquisitive and curious. However, that was easily borne, but at length they became more numerous, and began to pilfer all they could lay their hands upon, which, of course brought resentment, and, after some time, a blow or two was exchanged. Colonel Jeffery was forward, and endeavouring to prevent some violence being offered to one of the wood-cutters; in fact, he was interposing himself between the two contending parties, and tried to restore order and peace, but several armed natives rushed suddenly upon him, secured him, and were hurrying him away to death before any one could stir in his behalf. His doom appeared certain, for, had they succeeded, they would have cruelly and brutally murdered him. However, just at that moment aid was at hand, and Mr. Thornhill, seeing how matters stood, seized a musket from one of the sailors, and rushed after the natives who had Colonel Jeffery. There were three of them, two others had gone on to apprise, it was presumed, the chiefs. When Mr. Thornhill arrived, they had thrown a blanket over the head of Jeffery; but Mr. Thornhill in an instant hurled one down with a blow from the butt-end of his musket, and the second met the same fate, as he turned to see what was the matter. The third, seeing the colonel free, and the musket levelled at his own head, immediately ran after the other two, to avoid any serious consequences to himself. [Illustration: Thornhill Rescues Colonel Jeffery From The Savages.] "Thornhill, you have saved my life," said Colonel Jeffery, excitedly. "Come away, don't stop here--to the ship!--to the ship!" And as he spoke, they hurried after the crew and they succeeded in reaching the boats and the ship in safety; congratulating themselves not a little upon so lucky an escape from a people quite warlike enough to do mischief, but not civilized enough to distinguish when to do it. When men are far away from home, and in foreign lands with the skies of other climes above them, their hearts become more closely knit together in those ties of brotherhood which certainly ought to actuate the whole universe, but which as certainly do not do so, except in very rare instances. One of these instances, however, would be found in the conduct of Colonel Jeffery and Mr. Thornhill, even under any circumstances, for they were most emphatically what might be termed kindred spirits; but when we come to unite to that fact the remarkable manner in which they had been thrown together, and the mutual services that they had it in their power to render to each other, we should not be surprised at the almost romantic friendship that arose between them. It was then that Thornhill made the colonel's breast the depository of all his thoughts and all his wishes, and a freedom of intercourse and a community of feeling ensued between them, which when it does take place between persons of really congenial dispositions, produces the most delightful results of human companionship. No one who has not endured the tedium of a sea voyage, can at all be aware of what a pleasant thing it is to have some one on board, in the rich stores of whose intellect and fancy one can find a never-ending amusement. The winds might now whistle through the cordage, and the waves toss the great ship on their foaming crests, still Thornhill and Jeffery were together, finding in the midst of danger, solace in each other's society, and each animating the other to the performance of deeds of daring that astonished the crew. The whole voyage was one of the greatest peril, and some of the oldest seamen on board did not scruple, during the continuance of their night watches to intimate to their companions that the ship, in their opinion, would never reach England, and that she would founder somewhere along the long stretch of the African coast. The captain, of course, made every possible exertion to put a stop to such prophetic sayings, but when once they commenced, in a short time there is no such thing as completely eradicating them; and they, of course, produced the most injurious effect, paralysing the exertions of the crew in times of danger, and making them believe that they are in a doomed ship, and consequently all they can do is useless. Sailors are extremely superstitious on such matters, and there cannot be any reasonable doubt, but that some of the disasters that befel the Neptune on her homeward voyage from India, may be attributed to this feeling of fatality getting hold of the seamen, and inducing them to think that, let them try what they might, they could not save the ship. It happened that after they had rounded the Cape, a dense fog came on, such as had not been known on that coast for many a year; although the western shore of Africa at some seasons of the year is rather subject to such a species of vaporous exhalation. Every object was wrapped in the most profound gloom, and yet there was a strong eddy or current of the ocean, flowing parallel with the land, and as the captain hoped, rather off than on the shore. Still there was a suspicion that the ship was making lee-way, which must eventually bring it on shore, by some of the low promontories that were by the maps indicated to be upon the coast. In consequence of this fear, the greatest anxiety prevailed on board the vessel, and lights were left burning on all parts of the deck, while two men were continually engaged making soundings. It was about half-an-hour after midnight, as the chronometer indicated a storm, that suddenly the men, who were on watch on the deck, raised a loud cry of dismay. They had suddenly seen close on to the larboard bow, lights which must belong to some vessel that, like the Neptune, was encompassed in the fog, and a collision was quite inevitable, for neither ship had time to put about. The only doubt, which was a fearful and an agonising one to have solved, was whether the stronger vessel was of sufficient bulk and power to run them down, or they it; and that fearful question was one which a few moments must settle. In fact, almost before the echo of that cry of horror which had come from the men, had died away, the vessels met. There was a hideous crash--one shriek of dismay and horror, and then all was still. The Neptune, with considerable damage, and some of her bulwarks stove in, sailed on; but the other ship went, with a surging sound, to the bottom of the sea. Alas! nothing could be done. The fog was so dense, that coupled, too, as it was with the darkness of the night, there could be no hope of rescuing one of the ill-fated crew of the ship; and the officers and seamen of the Neptune, although they shouted for some time, and then listened, to hear if any survivors of the ship that had been run down were swimming, no answer came to them; and when in about six hours more, they sailed out of the fog into a clear sunshine, where there was not so much as a cloud to be seen, they looked at each other like men newly awakened from some strange and fearful dream. They never discovered the name of the ship they had run down, and the whole affair remained a profound mystery. When the Neptune reached the port of London, the affair was repeated, and every exertion was made to obtain some information concerning the ill-fated ship that had met with so fearful a doom. Such were the circumstances which awakened all the liveliest feelings of gratitude on the part of Colonel Jeffery towards Mr. Thornhill; and hence was it that he considered it a sacred duty, now that he was in London, and had the necessary leisure to do so, to leave no stone unturned to discover what had become of him. After deep and anxious thought, and feeling convinced that there was some mystery which it was beyond his power to discover, he resolved upon asking the opinion of a friend, likewise in the army, a Captain Rathbone, concerning the whole of the facts. This gentleman, and a gentleman he was in the fullest acceptance of the term, was in London; in fact, he had retired from active service, and inhabited a small but pleasant house in the outskirts of the metropolis. It was one of those old-fashioned cottage residences, with all sorts of odd places and corners about it, and a thriving garden full of fine old wood, such as are rather rare near to London, and which are daily becoming more rare, in consequence of the value of land immediately contiguous to the metropolis not permitting large pieces to remain attached to small residences. Captain Rathbone had an amiable family about him, such as he was and might well be proud of, and was living in as great a state of domestic felicity as this world could very well afford him. It was to this gentleman, then, that Colonel Jeffery resolved upon going to lay all the circumstances before him concerning the probable fate of poor Thornhill. This distance was not so great but that he could walk it conveniently, and he did so, arriving, towards the dusk of the evening, on the following day to that which had witnessed his deeply interesting interview with Johanna Oakley in the Temple-gardens. There is nothing on earth so delightfully refreshing, after a dusty and rather a long country walk, as to suddenly enter a well-kept and extremely verdant garden; and this was the case especially to the feelings of Colonel Jeffery, when he arrived at Lime Tree Lodge, the residence of Captain Rathbone. He met him with a most cordial and frank welcome--a welcome which he expected, but which was none the less delightful on that account; and, after sitting awhile with the family in the house, he and the captain strolled into the garden, and then Colonel Jeffery commenced his revelation. The captain, with very few interruptions, heard him to an end; and, when he concluded by saying-- "And now I am come to ask your advice upon all these matters;" the captain immediately replied, in his warm, off-hand manner-- "I am afraid you won't find my advice of much importance; but I offer you my active co-operation in anything you think ought to be done or can be done in this affair, which, I assure you deeply interests me, and gives me the greatest possible impulse to exertion. You have but to command me in the matter, and I am completely at your disposal." "I was quite certain you would say as much. But, notwithstanding the manner in which you shrink from giving an opinion, I am anxious to know what you really think with regard to what are, you will allow, most extraordinary circumstances." "The most natural thing in the world," said Captain Rathbone, "at the first flush of the affair, seemed to be, that we ought to look for your friend Thornhill at the point where he disappeared." "At the barber's in Fleet-street?" "Precisely. Did he leave the barber, or did he not?" "Sweeney Todd says that he left him, and proceeded down the street towards the city, in pursuance of a direction he had given him to Mr. Oakley, the spectacle-maker, and that he saw him get into some sort of disturbance at the end of the market; but to put against that, we have the fact of the dog remaining by the barber's door, and his refusing to leave it on any amount of solicitation. Now the very fact that a dog could act in such a way proclaims an amount of sagacity that seems to tell loudly against the presumption that such a creature could make any mistake." "It does. What say you, now, to go into town to-morrow morning, and making a call at the barber's, without proclaiming we have any special errand, except to be shaved and dressed? Do you think he would know you again?" "Scarcely, in plain clothes. I was in my undress uniform when I called with the captain of the Neptune, so that his impression of me must be of decidedly a military character; and the probability is, that he would not know me at all in the clothes of a civilian. I like the idea of giving a call at the barber's." "Do you think your friend Thornhill was a man likely to talk about the valuable pearls he had in his possession?" "Certainly not." "I merely ask you, because they might have offered a great temptation; and if he has experienced any foul play at the hands of the barber, the idea of becoming possessed of such a valuable treasure might have been the inducement." "I do not think it probable, but it has struck me that, if we obtain any information whatever of Thornhill, it will be in consequence of these very pearls. They are of great value, and not likely to be overlooked; and yet, unless a customer be found for them, they are of no value at all; and nobody buys jewels of that character but from the personal vanity of making, of course, some public display of them." "That is true; and so, from hand to hand, we might trace those pearls until we come to the individual who must have had them from Thornhill himself, and who might be forced to account most strictly for the manner in which they came into his possession." After some more desultory conversation upon the subject, it was agreed that Colonel Jeffery should take a bed for the night at Lime Tree Lodge, and that, in the morning, they should both start for London, and, disguising themselves as respectable citizens, make some attempts, by talking about jewels and precious stones, to draw out the barber into a confession that he had something of the sort to dispose of; and, moreover, they fully intended to take away the dog, with the care of which Captain Rathbone charged himself. We may pass over the pleasant, social evening which the colonel passed with the amiable family of the Rathbones, and, skipping likewise a conversation of some strange and confused dreams which Jeffery had during the night concerning his friend Thornhill, we will presume that both the colonel and the captain have breakfasted, and that they have proceeded to London and are at the shop of a clothier in the neighbourhood of the Strand, in order to procure coats, wigs, and hats, that should disguise them for their visit to Sweeney Todd. Then, arm in arm, they walked towards Fleet-street, and soon arrived opposite the little shop within which there appears to be so much mystery. "The dog, you perceive, is not here," said the colonel; "I had my suspicions, however, when I passed with Johanna Oakley that something was amiss with him, and I have no doubt but that the rascally barber has fairly compassed his destruction." "If the barber be innocent," said Captain Rathbone, "you must admit that it would be one of the most confoundedly annoying things in the world to have a dog continually at his door assuming such an aspect of accusation, and in that case I can scarcely wonder at his putting the creature out of the way." "No, presuming upon his innocence, certainly; but we will say nothing about all that, and remember we must come in as perfect strangers, knowing nothing of the affair of the dog, and presuming nothing about the disappearance of any one in this locality." "Agreed, come on; if he should see us through the window, hanging about at all or hesitating, his suspicions will be at once awakened, and we shall do no good." They both entered the shop and found Sweeney Todd wearing an extraordinary singular appearance, for there was a black patch over one of his eyes, which was kept in its place by a green riband that went round his head, so that he looked more fierce and diabolical than ever; and having shaved off a small whisker that he used to wear, his countenance, although to the full as hideous as ever, certainly had a different character of ugliness to that which had before characterised it, and attracted the attention of the colonel. That gentleman would hardly have known him again any where but in his own shop, and when we come to consider Sweeney Todd's adventures of the preceding evening, we shall feel not surprised that he saw the necessity of endeavouring to make as much change in his appearance as possible, for fear he should come across any of the parties who had chased him, and who, for all he knew to the contrary, might, quite unsuspectingly, drop in to be shaved in the course of the morning, perhaps to retail at that acknowledged mart for all sorts of gossip--a barber's shop--some of the very incidents which he has so well qualified himself to relate. "Shaved and dressed, gentlemen?" said Sweeney Todd, as his customers made their appearance. "Shaved only." said Captain Rathbone, who had agreed to be principal spokesman, in case Sweeney Todd should have any remembrance of the colonel's voice, and so suspect him. "Pray be seated," said Sweeney Todd to Colonel Jeffery. "I'll soon polish off your friend, sir, and then I'll begin upon you. Would you like to see the morning paper, sir? it's at your service. I was just looking myself, sir, at a most mysterious circumstance, if it's true, but you can't believe, you know sir, all that is put in newspapers." "Thank you--thank you," said the colonel. Captain Rathbone sat down to be shaved, for he had purposely omitted that operation at home, in order that it should not appear a mere excuse to get into Sweeney Todd's shop. "Why, sir," continued Sweeney Todd, "as I was saying, it is a most remarkable circumstance." "Indeed!" "Yes, sir, an old gentleman of the name of Fidler had been to receive a sum of money at the west-end of the town, and has never been heard of since; that was yesterday, sir, and here is a description of him in the papers of to-day. 'A snuff-coloured coat, and velvet smalls--black velvet, I should have said--silk stockings, and silver shoe-buckles, and a gold-headed cane, with W. D. F. upon it, meaning "William Dumpledown Fidler"--a most mysterious affair, gentlemen.'" A sort of groan came from the corner of the shop, and, on the impulse of the moment, Colonel Jeffery sprang to his feet, exclaiming-- "What's that--what's that?" "Oh, it's only my apprentice, Tobias Ragg. He has got a pain in his stomach from eating too many of Lovett's pork pies. Aint that it, Tobias, my bud?" "Yes, sir," said Tobias with another groan. "Oh, indeed," said the colonel, "it ought to make him more careful for the future." "It's to be hoped it will, sir; Tobias, do you hear what this gentleman says: it ought to make you more careful in future. I am too indulgent to you, that's the fact. Now, sir, I believe you are as clean shaved as ever you were in your life." "Why, yes," said Captain Rathbone, "I think that will do very well; and now, Mr. Green"--addressing the colonel by that assumed named--"and now, Mr. Green, be quick, or we shall be too late for the duke, and so lose the sale of some of our jewels." "We shall indeed," said the colonel, "if we don't mind. We sat too long over our breakfast at the inn, and his grace is too rich and too good a customer to lose--he don't mind what price he gives for things that take his fancy, or the fancy of his duchess." "Jewel merchants, gentlemen, I presume," said Sweeney Todd. "Yes, we have been in that line for some time; and by one of us trading in one direction, and the other in another, we manage extremely well, because we exchange what suits our different customers, and keep up two distinct connexions." "A very good plan," said Sweeney Todd. "I'll be as quick as I can with you, sir. Dealing in jewels is better than shaving." "I dare say it is." "Of course, it is, sir; here have I been slaving for some years in this shop, and not done much good--that is to say, when I talk of not having done much good, I admit I have made enough to retire upon quietly and comfortably, and I mean to do so very shortly. There you are, sir, shaved with celerity you seldom meet with, and as clean as possible, for the small charge of one penny. Thank you, gentlemen--there's your change; good morning." They had no resource but to leave the shop; and when they had gone Sweeney Todd, as he stropped the razor he had been using upon his hand, gave a most diabolical grin, muttering-- "Clever--very ingenious--but it won't do. Oh dear, no, not at all! I am not so easily taken in--diamond merchants, ah! ah! and no objection, of course, to deal in pearls--a good jest that, truly, a capital jest. If I had been accustomed to be so easily defeated, I had not now been here a living man. Tobias, Tobias, I say." "Yes, sir," said the lad, dejectedly. "Have you forgotten your mother's danger in case you breathe a syllable of anything that has occurred here, or that you think has occurred here, or so much as dream of?" "No," said the boy, "indeed I have not. I never can forget it, if I were to live a hundred years." "That's well, prudent, excellent, Tobias. Go out now, and if those two persons who were here last, waylay you in the street, let them say what they will, and do you reply to them as shortly as possible; but be sure you come back to me quickly and report what they do say. They turned to the left, towards the city--now be off with you." * * * * * "It's of no use," said Colonel Jeffery to the captain; "the barber is either too cunning for me, or he is really innocent of all participation in the disappearance of Thornhill." "And yet there are suspicious circumstances. I watched his countenance when the subject of jewels was mentioned, and I saw a sudden change come over it; it was but momentary, but still it gave me a suspicion that he knew something which caution alone kept within the recesses of his breast. The conduct of the boy, too, was strange; and then again, if he has the string of pearls, their value would give him all the power to do what he says he is about to do--viz., to retire from business with an independence." "Hush! There, did you see that lad?" "Yes; why it's the barber's boy." "It is the same lad he called Tobias--shall we speak to him?" "Let's make a bolder push, and offer him an ample reward for any information he may give us." "Agreed, agreed." They both walked up to Tobias, who was listlessly walking along the streets, and when they reached him, they were both struck with the appearance of care and sadness that was upon the boy's face. He looked perfectly haggard and careworn--an expression sad to see upon the face of one so young; and, when the colonel accosted him in a kindly tone, he seemed so unnerved that tears immediately darted to his eyes, although at the same time he shrank back as if alarmed. "My lad," said the colonel, "you reside, I think, with Sweeney Todd, the barber. Is he not a kind master to you, that you seem so unhappy?" "No, no--that is, I mean yes, I have nothing to tell. Let me pass on." "What is the meaning of this confusion?" "Nothing, nothing." "I say, my lad, here is a guinea for you, if you will tell us what became of the man of a sea-faring appearance, who came with a dog to your master's house, some days since, to be shaved." "I cannot tell you," said the boy, "I cannot tell you what I do not know." "But, you have some idea, probably. Come, we will make it worth your while, and thereby protect you from Sweeney Todd. We have the power to do so, and all the inclination; but you must be quite explicit with us, and tell us frankly what you think, and what you know concerning the man in whose fate we are interested." "I know nothing, I think nothing," said Tobias. "Let me go, I have nothing to say, except that he was shaved, and went away." "But how came he to leave his dog behind him?" "I cannot tell. I know nothing." "It is evident that you do know something, but hesitate either from fear or some other motive to tell it; as you are inaccessible to fair means, we must resort to others, and you shall at once come before a magistrate, who will force you to speak out." "Do with me what you will," said Tobias, "I cannot help it. I have nothing to say to you, nothing whatever. Oh, my poor mother, if it were not for you--" "What then?" "Nothing! nothing! nothing!" It was but a threat of the colonel to take the boy before a magistrate, for he had really no grounds for so doing; and if the boy chose to keep a secret, if he had one, not all the magistrates in the world could force words from his lips that he felt not inclined to utter; and so, after one more effort, they felt that they must leave him. "Boy," said the colonel, "you are young, and cannot well judge of the consequences of particular lines of conduct; you ought to weigh well what you are about, and hesitate long before you determine keeping dangerous secrets: we can convince you that we have the power of completely protecting you from all that Sweeney Todd could possibly attempt. Think again, for this is an opportunity of saving yourself perhaps from much future misery, that may never arise again." "I have nothing to say," said the boy, "I have nothing to say." He uttered these words with such an agonized expression of countenance, that they were both convinced he had something to say, and that, too, of the first importance--a something which would be valuable to them in the way of information, extremely valuable probably, and yet which they felt the utter impossibility of wringing from him. They were compelled to leave him, and likewise with the additional mortification, that, far from making any advance in the matter, they had placed themselves and their cause in a much worse position, in so far as they had awakened all Sweeney Todd's suspicions if he were guilty, and yet advanced not one step in the transaction. And then, to make the matter all the more perplexing, there was still the possibility that they might be altogether upon a wrong scent, and that the barber of Fleet-street had no more to do with the disappearance of Mr. Thornhill than they had themselves. CHAPTER XI. THE STRANGER AT LOVETT'S. Towards the dusk of the evening of that day, after the last batch of pies at Lovett's had been disposed of, there walked into the shop a man most miserably clad, and who stood for a few moments staring with weakness and hunger at the counter before he spoke. Mrs. Lovett was there, but she had no smile for him, and instead of its usual bland expression, her countenance wore an aspect of anger, as she forestalled what the man had to say, by exclaiming-- "Go away, we never give anything to beggars." There came a flush of colour for the moment across the features of the stranger, and then he replied-- "Mistress Lovett, I do not come to ask alms of you, but to know if you can recommend me to any employment?" "Recommend you! recommend a ragged wretch like you?" "I am a ragged wretch, and, moreover, quite destitute. In better times I have sat at your counter, and paid cheerfully for what I wanted, and then one of your softest smiles has ever been at my disposal. I do not say this as a reproach to you, because the cause of your smile was well known to be a self-interested one, and when that cause had passed away, I can no longer expect it; but I am so situated, that I am willing to do anything for a mere subsistence." "Oh, yes, and then when you get into a better case again, I have no doubt but you have quite sufficient insolence to make you unbearable; besides, what employment can we have but pie-making, and we have a man already who suits us very well with the exception that he, as you would do if we were to exchange him, has grown insolent, and fancies himself master of the place." [Illustration: The Stranger At Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop.] "Well, well," said the stranger, "of course, there is always sufficient argument against the poor and destitute to keep them so. If you will assert that my conduct will be the nature you describe, it is quite impossible for me to prove the contrary." He turned and was about to leave the shop, but Mrs. Lovett called after him saying-- "Come in again in two hours." He paused a moment or two, and then, turning his emaciated countenance upon her, said-- "I will if my strength permit me--water from the pumps in the street is but a poor thing for a man to subsist upon for twenty-four hours." "You may take one pie." The half-famished, miserable-looking man seized upon a pie, and devoured it in an instant. "My name," he said, "is Jarvis Williams; I'll be here, never fear, Mrs. Lovett, in two hours; and, notwithstanding all you have said, you shall find no change in my behaviour because I may be well kept and better clothed; but if I should feel dissatisfied with my situation, I will leave it, and no harm done." So saying, he walked from the shop, and when he was gone, a strange expression came across the countenance of Mrs. Lovett, and she said in a low tone to herself-- "He might suit for a few months, like the rest, and it is clear that we must get rid of the one we have; I must think of it." * * * * * There is a cellar of vast extent, and of dim and sepulchral aspect--some rough red tiles are laid upon the floor, and pieces of flint and large jagged stones have been hammered into the earthen walls to strengthen them; while here and there rough huge pillars made by beams of timber rise perpendicularly from the floor, and prop large flat pieces of wood against the ceiling, to support it. Here and there gleaming lights seem to be peeping out from furnaces, and there is a strange hissing, simmering sound going on, while the whole air is impregnated with a rich and savoury vapour. This is Lovett's pie manufactory beneath the pavement of Bell-yard and at this time a night-batch of some thousands is being made for the purpose of being sent by carts the first thing in the morning all over the suburbs of London. By the earliest dawn of day a crowd of itinerant hawkers of pies would make their appearance, carrying off a large quantity to regular customers who had them daily, and no more thought of being without them, than of forbidding the milkman or the baker to call at their residences. It will be seen and understood, therefore, that the retail part of Mrs. Lovett's business, which took place principally between the hours of twelve and one, was by no means the most important or profitable portion of a concern which was really of immense magnitude, and which brought in a large yearly income. To stand in the cellar when this immense manufacture of what, at first sight, would appear such a trivial article was carried on, and to look about as far as the eye could reach, was by no means to have a sufficient idea of the extent of the place; for there were as many doors in different directions and singular low-arched entrances to different vaults, which all appeared as black as midnight, that one might almost suppose the inhabitants of all the surrounding neighbourhood had, by common consent given up their cellars to Lovett's pie factory. There is but one miserable light, except the occasional fitful glare that comes from the ovens where the pies are stewing, hissing, and spluttering in their own luscious gravy. There is but one man, too, throughout all the place, and he is sitting on a low three-legged stool in one corner, with his head resting upon his hands, and gently rocking to and fro, as he utters scarcely audible moans. He is but lightly clad; in fact, he seems to have but little on him except a shirt and a pair of loose canvas trousers. The sleeves of the former are turned up beyond his elbows, and on his head he has a white night-cap. It seems astonishing that such a man, even with the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, could make so many pies as are required in a day; but then, system does wonders, and in those cellars there are various mechanical contrivances for kneading the dough, chopping up the meat, &c., which greatly reduced the labour. But what a miserable object is that man--what a sad and soul-striken wretch he looks! His face is pale and haggard, his eyes deeply sunken; and, as he removes his hands from before his visage, and looks about him, a more perfect picture of horror could not have been found. "I must leave to-night," he said, in coarse accents--"I must leave to-night. I know too much--my brain is full of horrors. I have not slept now for five nights, nor dare I eat anything but the raw flour. I will leave to-night if they do not watch me too closely. Oh! if I could but get into the streets--if I could but once again breathe the fresh air! Hush! what's that? I thought I heard a noise." He rose, and stood trembling and listening; but all was still, save the simmering and hissing of the pies, and then he resumed his seat with a deep sigh. "All the doors fastened upon me," he said, "what can it mean? It's very horrible, and my heart dies within me. Six weeks only have I been here--only six weeks. I was starving before I came. Alas, alas! how much better to have starved! I should have been dead before now, and spared all this agony." "Skinner!" cried a voice, and it was a female one--"Skinner, how long will the ovens be?" "A quarter of an hour--a quarter of an hour, Mrs. Lovett. God help me!" "What is that you say?" "I said, God help me!--surely a man may say that without offence." A door slammed shut, and the miserable man was alone again. "How strangely," he said, "on this night my thoughts go back to early days, and to what I once was. The pleasant scenes of my youth recur to me. I see again the ivy-mantled porch, and the pleasant village green. I hear again the merry ringing laughter of my playmates, and there, in my mind's eye, appears to me the bubbling stream, and the ancient mill, the old mansion-house, with its tall turrets, and its air of silent grandeur. I hear the music of the birds, and the winds making rough melody among the trees. 'Tis very strange that all those sights and sounds should come back to me at such a time as this, as if just to remind me what a wretch I am." He was silent for a few moments, during which he trembled with emotion; then he spoke again, saying-- "Thus the forms of those whom I once knew, and many of whom have gone already to the silent tomb, appear to come thronging round me. They bend their eyes momentarily upon me, and, with settled expressions, show acutely the sympathy they feel for me. I see her, too, who first, in my bosom, lit up the flame of soft affection. I see her gliding past me like the dim vision of a dream, indistinct, but beautiful; no more than a shadow--and yet to me most palpable. What am I now--what am I now?" He resumed his former position, with his head resting upon his hands; he rocked himself slowly to and fro, uttering those moans of a tortured spirit, which we have before noticed. But see, one of the small arch doors open, in the gloom of those vaults, and a man, in a stooping posture, creeps in--a half-mask is upon his face, and he wears a cloak; but both his hands are at liberty. In one of them he carries a double-headed hammer, with a powerful handle, of about ten inches in length. He has probably come out of a darker place than the one into which he now so cautiously creeps, for he shades the light from his eyes, as if it were suddenly rather too much for him, and then he looks cautiously round the vault, until he sees the crouched-up figure of the man whose duty it is to attend the ovens. From that moment he looks at nothing else; but advances towards him, steadily and cautiously. It is evident that great secresy is his object, for he is walking on his stocking soles only; and it is impossible to hear the slightest sounds of his foot-steps. Nearer and nearer he comes, so slowly, and yet so surely, towards him, who still keeps up the low moaning sound, indicative of mental anquish. Now he is close to him, and he bends over him for a moment, with a look of fiendish malice. It is a look which, despite his mask, glances full from his eyes, and then grasping the hammer tightly, in both hands, he raises it slowly above his head, and gives it a swinging motion through the air. There is no knowing what induced the man that was crouching on the stool to rise at that moment; but he did so, and paced about with great quickness. A sudden shriek burst from his lips, as he beheld so terrific an apparition before him; but, before he could repeat the word, the hammer descended, crushing into his skull, and he fell lifeless, without a moan. * * * * * "And so, Mr. Jarvis Williams, you have kept your word," said Mrs. Lovett to the emaciated, care-worn stranger, who had solicited employment of her, "and so, Jarvis Williams, you have kept your word, and come for employment?" "I have, madam, and hope that you can give it to me: I frankly tell you that I would seek for something better, and more congenial to my disposition, if I could; but who would employ one presenting such a wretched appearance as I do? You see that I am all in rags, and I have told you that I have been half starved, and therefore it is only some common and ordinary employment that I can hope to get, and that made me come to you." "Well, I don't see why we should not make a trial of you, at all events, so if you like to go down into the bakehouse, I will follow you, and show you what you have to do. You remember that you have to live entirely upon the pies, unless you like to purchase for yourself anything else, which you may do if you can get the money. We give none, and you must likewise agree never to leave the bakehouse." "Never to leave it?" "Never, unless you leave it for good, and for all; if upon those conditions you choose to accept the situation, you may, and if not, you can go about your business at once, and leave it alone." "Alas, madam, I have no resource; but you spoke of having a man already." "Yes; but he has gone to his friends; he has gone to some of his very oldest friends, who will be quite glad to see him, so now say the word:--are you willing or are you not, to take the situation?" "My poverty and my destitution consent, if my will be averse, Mrs. Lovett; but, of course, I quite understand that I leave when I please." "Oh, of course, we never think of keeping anybody many hours after they begin to feel uncomfortable. If you be ready, follow me." "I am quite ready, and thankful for a shelter. All the brightest visions of my early life have long since faded away, and it matters little or indeed nothing what now becomes of me; I will follow you, madam, freely, upon the conditions you have mentioned." Mrs. Lovett lifted up a portion of the counter which permitted him to pass behind it, and then he followed her into a small room, which was at the back of the shop. She then took a key from her pocket, and opened an old door which was in the wainscoting, and immediately behind which was a flight of stairs. These she descended, and Jarvis Williams followed her, to a considerable depth, after which she took an iron bar from behind another door, and flung it open, showing her new assistant the interior of that vault which we have already very briefly described. "These," she said, "are the ovens, and I will proceed to show you how you can manufacture the pies, feed the furnaces, and make yourself generally useful. Flour will be always let down through a trap-door from the upper shop, as well as everything required for making the pies but the meat, and that you will always find ranged upon shelves either in lumps or steaks, in a small room through this door, but it is only at particular times you will find the door open; and whenever you do so, you had better always take out what meat you think you will require for the next batch." "I understand all that, madam," said Williams, "but how does it get there?" "That's no business of yours; so long as you are supplied with it, that is sufficient for you; and now I will go through the process of making one pie, so that you may know how to proceed, and you will find with what amazing quickness they can be manufactured if you set about them in the proper manner." She then showed him how a piece of meat thrown into a machine became finely minced up, by merely turning a handle; and then how flour and water and lard were mixed up together, to make the crust of the pies, by another machine, which threw out the paste thus manufactured in small pieces, each just large enough for a pie. Lastly, she showed him how a tray, which just held a hundred, could be filled, and, by turning a windlass, sent up to the shop, through a square trap-door, which went right up to the very counter. "And now," she said, "I must leave you. As long as you are industrious you will go on very well, but as soon as you begin to be idle, and neglect the orders which are sent to you by me, you will get a piece of information which will be useful, and which if you be a prudent man will enable you to know what you are about." "What is that? you may as well give it to me now." "No; we seldom find there is occasion for it at first, but, after a time, when you get well fed, you are pretty sure to want it." So saying she left the place, and he heard the door by which he had entered, carefully barred after her. Suddenly then he heard her voice again, and so clearly and distinctly, too, that he thought she must have come back again; but upon looking up at the door, he found that that arose from her speaking through a small grating at the upper part of it, to which her mouth was closely placed. "Remember your duty," she said, "and I warn you, that any attempt to leave here will be as futile as it will be dangerous." "Except with your consent, when I relinquish the situation." "Oh, certainly--certainly, you are quite right there, everybody who relinquishes the situation goes to his old friends, whom he has not seen for many years, perhaps." "What a strange manner of talking she has!" said Jarvis Williams to himself, when he found he was alone. "There seems to be some singular and hidden meaning in every word she utters. What can she mean by a communication being made to me, if I neglect my duty! It is very strange; and what a singular looking place this is! I think it would be quite unbearable if it were not for the delightful odour of the pies, and they are indeed delicious--perhaps more delicious to me, who has been famished so long, and have gone through so much wretchedness; there is no one here but myself, and I am hungry now--frightfully hungry, and whether the pies be done or not, I'll have half a dozen of them at any rate, so here goes." He opened one of the ovens, and the fragrant steam that came out was perfectly delicious, and he sniffed it up with a satisfaction such as he had never felt before, as regards anything that was eatable. "Is it possible," he said "that I shall be able to make such delicious pies? At all events one can't starve here, and if it be a kind of imprisonment, it's a pleasant one. Upon my soul, they are nice, even half-cooked--delicious! I'll have another half-dozen, there are lots of them--delightful! I can't keep the gravy from running out of the corners of my mouth. Upon my soul, Mrs. Lovett, I don't know where you get your meat, but it's all as tender as young chickens, and the fat actually melts away in one's mouth. Ah, these are pies, something like pies!--they are positively fit for the gods!" Mrs. Lovett's new man ate twelve threepenny pies, and then he thought of leaving off. It was a little drawback not to have anything to wash them down with but cold water; but he reconciled himself to this. "For," as he said, "after all it would be a pity to take the flavour of such pies out of one's mouth--indeed it would be a thousand pities, so I won't think of it, but just put up with what I have got and not complain. I might have gone further and fared worse with a vengeance, and I cannot help looking upon it as a singular piece of good fortune that made me think of coming here in my deep distress to try and get something to do. I have no friends and no money; she whom I loved is faithless, and here I am, master of as many pies as I like, and to all appearance monarch of all I survey; for there really seems to be no one to dispute my supremacy. To be sure my kingdom is rather a gloomy one; but then I can abdicate it when I like, and when I am tired of those delicious pies, if such a thing be possible, which I really very much doubt, I can give up my situation, and think of something else. If I do that, I will leave England for ever; it's no place for me after the many disappointments I have had. No friend left me--my girl false--not a relation but who would turn his back upon me! I will go somewhere where I am unknown and can form new connexions, and perhaps make new friendships of a more permanent and stable character than the old ones, which have all proved so false to me; and, in the meantime, I'll make and eat pies as fast as I can." CHAPTER XII. THE RESOLUTION COME TO BY JOHANNA OAKLEY. The beautiful Johanna--when in obedience to the command of her father she left him, and begged him (the beef-eater) to manage matters with the Rev. Mr. Lupin--did not proceed directly up stairs to her apartment, but lingered on the staircase to hear what ensued; and if anything in her dejected state of mind could have given her amusement, it would certainly have been the way in which the beef-eater exacted a retribution from the reverend personage, who was not likely again to intrude himself into the house of the spectacle-maker. But when he was gone, and she heard that a sort of peace had been patched up with her mother--a peace which, from her knowledge of the high contracting parties, she conjectured would not last long--she returned to her room, and locked herself in; so that if any attempt were made to get her down to partake of the supper, it might be supposed she was asleep, for she felt herself totally unequal to the task of making one in any party, however much she might respect the individual members that composed it. And she did respect Ben the beef-eater; for she had a lively recollection of much kindness from him during her early years, and she knew that he had never come to the house when she was a child without bringing her some token of his regard in the shape of a plaything, or some little article of doll's finery, which at that time was very precious. She was not wrong in her conjectures that Ben would make an attempt to get her down stairs, for her father came up at the beef-eater's request, and tapped at her door. She thought the best plan, as indeed it was, would be to make no answer, so that the old spectacle-maker concluded at once what she wished him to conclude, namely, that she had gone to sleep; and he walked quietly down the stairs again, glad that he had not disturbed her, and told Ben as much. Now, feeling herself quite secure from interruption for the night, Johanna did not attempt to seek repose, but set herself seriously to reflect upon what had occurred. She almost repeated to herself, word for word, what Colonel Jeffery had told her; and, as she revolved the matter over and over again in her brain, a strange thought took possession of her, which she could not banish, and which, when once it found a home within her breast, began to gather probability from every slight circumstance that was in any way connected with it. This thought, strange as it may appear, was, that the Mr. Thornhill, of whom Colonel Jeffery spoke in terms of such high eulogium, was no other than Mark Ingestrie himself. It is astonishing, when once a thought occurs to the mind, that makes a strong impression, how, with immense rapidity, a rush of evidence will appear to come to support it. And thus it was with regard to this supposition of Johanna Oakley. She immediately remembered a host of little things which favoured the idea, and among the rest, she fully recollected that Mark Ingestrie had told her he meant to change his name when he left England; for that he wished her and her only to know anything of him, or what had become of him; and that his intention was to baffle inquiry, in case it should be made, particularly by Mr. Grant, towards whom he felt a far greater amount of indignation, than the circumstances at all warranted him in feeling. Then she recollected all that Colonel Jeffery had said with regard to the gallant and noble conduct of this Mr. Thornhill, and, girl like, she thought that those high and noble qualities could surely belong to no one but her own lover, to such an extent; and that, therefore, Mr. Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie must be one and the same person. Over and over again, she regretted she had not asked Colonel Jeffery for a personal description of Mr. Thornhill, for that would have settled all her doubts at once, and the idea that she had it still in her power to do so, in consequence of the appointment he had made with her for that day week brought her some consolation. "It must have been he," she said; "his anxiety to leave the ship, and get here by the day he mentions, proves it; besides, how improbable it is, that at the burning of the ill-fated vessel, Ingestrie should place in the hands of another what he intended for me, when that other was quite as likely, and perhaps more so, to meet with death as Mark himself." Thus she reasoned, forcing herself each moment into a stronger belief of the identity of Thornhill with Mark Ingestrie, and so certainly narrowing her anxieties to a consideration of the fate of one person instead of two. "I will meet Colonel Jeffery," she said, "and ask him if this Mr. Thornhill had fair hair, and a soft and pleasing expression about the eyes, that could not fail to be remembered. I will ask him how he spoke, and how he looked; and get him, if he can, to describe to me even the very tones of his voice; and then I shall be sure, without the shadow of a doubt, that it is Mark. But then, oh! then comes the anxious question, of what has been his fate?" When poor Johanna began to consider the multitude of things that might have happened to her lover during his progress from Sweeney Todd's, in Fleet-street, to her father's house, she became quite lost in a perfect maze of conjecture, and then her thoughts always painfully reverted back to the barber's shop where the dog had been stationed; and she trembled to reflect for a moment upon the frightful danger to which that string of pearls might have subjected him. "Alas! alas!" she cried, "I can well conceive that the man whom I saw attempting to poison the dog would be capable of any enormity. I saw his face but for a moment, and yet it was one never again to be forgotten. It was a face in which might be read cruelty and evil passions; besides, the man who would put an unoffending animal to a cruel death, shows an absence of feeling, and a baseness of mind, which make him capable of any crime he thinks he can commit with impunity. What can I do--oh! what can I do to unravel this mystery?" No one could have been more tenderly and gently brought up than Johanna Oakley, but yet, inhabitive of her heart, was a spirit and a determination which few indeed could have given her credit for, by merely looking on the gentle and affectionate countenance which she ordinarily presented. But it is no new phenomenon in the history of the human heart to find that some of the most gentle and loveliest of human creatures are capable of the highest efforts of perversion; and when Johanna Oakley told herself, which she did, she was determined to devote her existence to a discovery of the mystery that enveloped the fate of Mark Ingestrie, she likewise made up her mind that the most likely man for accomplishing that object should not be rejected by her on the score of danger, and she at once set to work considering what those means should be. This seemed an endless task, but still she thought that if, by any means whatever, she could get admittance to the barber's house, she might be able to come to some conclusion as to whether or not it was there where Thornhill, whom she believed to be Ingestrie, had been stayed in his progress. "Aid me Heaven," she cried, "in the adoption of some means of action on the occasion. Is there any one with whom I dare advise? Alas! I fear not, for the only person in whom I have put my whole heart is my father, and his affection for me would prompt him at once to interpose every possible obstacle to my proceeding, for fear danger should come of it. To be sure, there is Arabella Wilmot, my old school fellow and bosom friend, she would advise me to the best of her ability, but I much fear she is too romantic and full of odd, strange actions, that she has taken from books, to be a good adviser; and yet what can I do? I must speak to some one, if it be but in case any accident happening to me, my father may get news of it, and I know of no one else whom I can trust but Arabella." After some little more consideration, Johanna made up her mind that on the following morning she would go to the house of her old school friend, which was in the immediate vicinity, and hold a conversation with her. "I shall hear something," she said, "at least of a kindly and a consoling character; for what Arabella may want in calm and steady judgment, she fully compensates for in actual feeling, and what is most of all, I know I can trust her word implicitly, and that my secret will remain as safely locked in her breast as if it were in my own." It was something to come to a conclusion to ask advice, and she felt that some portion of her anxiety was lifted from her mind by the mere fact that she had made so firm a mental resolution, that neither danger nor difficulty should deter her from seeking to know the fate of her lover. She retired to rest now with a greater hope, and while she is courting repose, notwithstanding the chance of the discovered images that fancy may present to her in her slumbers, we will take a glance at the parlour below, and see how far Mrs. Oakley is conveying out the pacific intention she had so tacitly expressed, and how the supper is going forward, which, with not the best grace in the world, she is preparing for her husband, who for the first time in his life had begun to assert his rights, and for big Ben, the beef-eater, whom she as cordially disliked as it was possible for any woman to detest any man. Mrs. Oakley by no means preserved her taciturn demeanour, for after a little she spoke, saying-- "There's nothing tasty in the house; suppose I run over the way to Waggarge's, and get some of those Epping sausages with the peculiar flavour." "Ah, do," said Mr. Oakley, "they are beautiful, Ben, I can assure you." "Well, I don't know," said Ben the beef-eater, "sausages are all very well in their way, but you need such a plaguey lot of them; for if you only eat them one at a time, how soon will you get through a dozen or two." "A dozen or two," said Mrs. Oakley; "why, there are only five to a pound." "Then," said Ben, making a mental calculation, "then, I think, ma'am, that you ought not to get more than nine pounds of them, and that will be a matter of forty-five mouthfuls for us." "Get nine pounds of them," said Mr. Oakley, "if they be wanted; I know Ben has an appetite." "Indeed," said Ben, "but I have fell off lately, and don't take to my wittals as I used; you can order, missus, if you please, a gallon of half-and-half as you go along. One must have a drain of drink of some sort; and mind you don't be going to any expense on my account, and getting anything but the little snack I have mentioned, for ten to one I shall take supper when I get to the Tower; only human nature is weak, you know, missus, and requires something to be a continually a holding of it up." "Certainly," said Mr. Oakley, "certainly, have what you like, Ben; just say the word before Mrs. Oakley goes out; is there anything else?" "No, no," said Ben, "oh dear no, nothing to speak of; but if you should pass a shop where they sells fat bacon, about four or five pounds, cut into rashers, you'll find, missus, will help down the blessed sausages." "Gracious Providence," said Mrs. Oakley, "who is to cook it?" "Who is to cook it, ma'am? why the kitchen fire, I suppose; but mind ye if the man aint got any sausages, there's a shop where they sells biled beef at the corner, and I shall be quite satisfied if you brings in about ten or twelve pounds of that. You can make it up into about half a dozen sandwiches." "Go, my dear, go at once," said Mr. Oakley, "and get Ben his supper. I am quite sure he wants it, and be as quick as you can." "Ah," said Ben, when Mrs. Oakley was gone, "I didn't tell you how I was sarved last week at Mrs. Harveys. You know they are so precious genteel there that they don't speak above their blessed breaths for fear of wearing themselves out; and they sits down in a chair as if it were balanced only on one leg, and a little more one way or t'other would upset them. Then, if they sees a crumb a laying on the floor they rings the bell, and a poor half-starved devil of a servant comes and says, 'Did you ring, ma'am?' and then they says 'Yes, bring a dust-shovel and a broom, there is a crumb a laying there,' and then says I--'Damn you all,' says I, 'bring a scavenger's cart, and half-dozen birch brooms, there's a cinder just fell out of the fire.' Then in course they gets shocked, and looks as blue as possible, and arter that, when they see as I aint agoing, one of them says 'Mr. Benjamin Blumergutts, would you like to take a glass of wine?' 'I should think so,' says I. Then he says, says he, 'which would you prefer, red or white?' says he. 'White,' says I, 'while you are screwing up your courage to pull out the red,' so out they pull it; and as soon as I got hold of the bottle, I knocked the neck of it off over the top bar of the fire-place, and then drank it all up. 'Now, damn ye,' says I, 'you thinks all this is mighty genteel and fine, but I don't, and consider you to be the blessedest set of humbugs ever I set my eyes on; and, if ever you catch me here again, I'll be genteel too, and I can't say more than that. Go to the devil, all of ye.' So out I went, only I met with a little accident in the hall, for they had got a sort of lamp hanging there, and somehow or 'nother, my head went bang into it, and I carried it out round my neck; but when I did get out, I took it off, and shied it slap in at the parlour window. You never heard such a smash in all your life. I dare say they all fainted away for about a week, the blessed humbugs." "Well, I should not wonder," said Mr. Oakley, "I never go near them, because I don't like their foolish pomposity and pride, which, upon very slender resources, tries to ape what it don't at all understand; but here is Mrs. Oakley with the sausages, and I hope you will make yourself comfortable, Ben." "Comfortable! I believe ye, I rather shall. I means it, and no mistake." "I have brought three pounds," said Mrs. Oakley, "and told the man to call in a quarter of an hour, in case there is any more wanted." "The devil you have; and the bacon, Mrs. Oakley, the bacon!" "I could not get any--the man had nothing but hams." "Lor', ma'am, I'd put up with a ham cut thick, and never have said a word about it. I am a angel of a temper, and if you did but know it. Hilloa, look, is that the fellow with the half-and half?" "Yes, here it is--a pot." "A what?" "A pot, to be sure." "Well, I never; you are getting genteel, Mrs. Oakley. Then give us a hold of it." Ben took the pot, and emptied it at a draught, and then he gave a tap at the bottom of it with his knuckles, to signify that he had accomplished that feat, and then he said, "I tells you what, ma'am, if you takes me for a baby, it's a great mistake, and any one would think you did, to see you offering me a pot merely; it's an insult, ma'am." "Fiddle-de-dee," said Mrs. Oakley; "it's a much greater insult to drink it all up, and give nobody a drop." "Is it? I wants to know how you are to stop it, ma'am, when you gets it to your mouth? that's what I axes you--how are you to stop it, ma'am? You didn't want me to spew it back again, did you, eh, ma'am?" "You vile, low wretch!" "Come, come, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, "you know our cousin. Ben don't live among the most refined society, and so you ought to be able to look over a little of--of--his--I may say, I am sure, without offence, roughness now and then;--come, come, there is no harm done, I'm sure. Forget and forgive say I. That's my maxim, and has always been, and will always be." "Well," said the beef-eater, "it's a good one to get through the world with, and so there's an end of it. I forgives you, Mother Oakley." "You forgive--" "Yes, to be sure. Though I am only a beaf-eater, I suppose as I may forgive people for all that--eh, Cousin Oakley?" "Oh, of course, Ben, of course. Come, come, wife, you know as well as I that Ben has many good qualities, and that take him for all in all, as the man in the play says, we shan't in a hurry look upon his like again." "And I'm sure I don't want to look upon his like again," said Mrs. Oakley; "I'd rather by a good deal keep him a week than a fortnight. He's enough to breed a famine in the land, that he is." "Oh, bless you, no," said Ben, "that's amongst your little mistakes, ma'am, I can assure you. By the bye, what a blessed long time that fellow is coming with the rest of the beer and the other sausages--why, what's the matter with you, cousin Oakley--eh, old chap, you look out of sorts?" "I don't feel just the thing, do you know, Ben." "Not--the thing--why--why, now you come to mention it, I somehow feel as if all my blessed inside was on a turn and a twist. The devil--I--don't feel comfortable at all I don't." "And I'm getting very ill," gasped Mr. Oakley. "And I'm getting iller," said the beef-eater, manufacturing a word for the occasion. "Bless my soul! there's something gone wrong in my inside. I know there's murder--there's a go--oh, Lord! it's a doubling me up, it is." "I feel as if my last hour had come," said Mr. Oakley--"I'm a--a--dying man--I am--oh, good gracious! there was a twinge!" Mrs. Oakley, with all the coolness in the world, took down her bonnet from behind the parlour-door where it hung, and, as she put it on said,-- "I told you both that some judgment would come over you, and now you see it has. How do you like it? Providence is good, of course, to its own, and I have--" "What--what--?" "_Pisoned_ the half-and-half." Big Ben, the beef-eater, fell off his chair with a deep groan, and poor Mr. Oakley sat glaring at his wife, and shivering with apprehension, quite unable to speak, while she placed a shawl over her shoulders, as she added in the same tone of calmness she had made the terrific announcement concerning the poisoning-- "Now, you wretches, you see what a woman can do when she makes up her mind for vengeance. As long as you all live, you'll recollect me; but, if you don't, that won't much matter, for you won't live long, I can tell you, and now I'm going to my sister's, Mrs. Tiddiblow." So saying, Mrs. Oakley turned quickly round, and, with an insulting toss of her head, and not at all caring for the pangs and sufferings of her poor victims, she left the place, and proceeded to her sister's house, where she slept as comfortably as if she had not by any means committed two diabolical murders. But has she done so, or shall we, for the honour of human nature, discover that she went to a neighbouring chemist's, and only purchased some dreadfully powerful medicinal compound, which she placed in the half-and-half, and which began to give those pangs to Big Ben, the beef-eater, and to Mr. Oakley, concerning which they were both so eloquent? This must have been the case; for Mrs. Oakley could not have been such a fiend in a human guise as to laugh as she passed the chemist's shop. Oh no! she might not have felt remorse, but that is a very different thing, indeed, from laughing at the matter, unless it were really laughable and not serious, at all. Big Ben and Mr. Oakley must have at length found out how they had been hoaxed, and the most probable thing was that the before-mentioned chemist himself told them; for they sent for him in order to know if anything could be done to save their lives. Ben from that day forthwith made a determination that he would not visit Mr. Oakley, and the next time they met he said-- "I tell you what it is, that old hag, your wife, is one too many for us, that's a fact; she gets the better of me altogether--so, whenever you feels a little inclined for a gossip about old times, just you come down to the Tower." "I will, Ben." "Do; we can always find something to drink, and you can amuse yourself, too, by looking at the animals. Remember, feeding time is two o'clock; so, now and then, I shall expect to see you, and, above all, be sure you let me know if that canting parson, Lupin, comes any more to your house." "I will, Ben." "Ah, do; and I'll give him another lesson if he should, and I tell you how I'll do it. I'll get a free admission to the wild _beastesses_ in the Tower, and when he comes to see 'em, for them 'ere sort of fellows always goes everywhere they can go for nothing, I'll just manage to pop him into a cage along of some of the most _cantankerous_ creatures as we have." "But would not that be dangerous?" "Oh dear no! we has a laughing hyaena as would frighten him out of his wits; but I don't think as he'd bite him much, do you know. He's as playful as a kitten, and very fond of standing on his head." "Well, then, Ben, I have, of course, no objection, although I do think that the lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don't expect we shall see him again." "But how does Mrs. O. behave to you?" asked Ben. "Well, Ben, I don't think there's much difference; sometimes she's a little civil, and sometimes she ain't; it's just as she takes it into her head." "Ah! that all comes of marrying." "I have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married." Ben gave a chuckle as he replied-- "Have you though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don't mind telling you, but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort of way." "Indeed!" "Yes. I'll tell you how it was; there was a girl called Angelina Day, and a nice-looking enough creature she was as you'd wish to see, and didn't seem as if she'd got any claws at all; leastways she kept them in, like a cat at meal times." "Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world." "I believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts in the Tower all my life? That's the place to get a knowledge of the world in, my boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does." "Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you speak of?" "I'll tell you; she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and she was as amiable as a lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said nothing but nice, mild, pleasant things, and I really began to think as I had found out the proper sort of animal." "But you were mistaken?" "I believe you, I was. One day I'd been there to see her, I mean, at her father's house, and she'd been as amiable as she could be; I got up to go away, with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask her to say yes, and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the house where they lived--it was out of town some distance--I found I had left my little walking-cane behind me, so I goes back to get it, and when I got into the garden I heard a voice." "Whose voice?" "Why Angelina's, to be sure; she was speaking to a poor little dab of a servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such a speech as I never heard in all my life. She went on a matter of ten minutes without stopping, and every other word was some ill name or another; and her voice--oh, gracious! it was like a bundle of wire all of a tangle--it was." "And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so very odd and unexpected a manner?" "Do! What do you suppose I did?" "I really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow." "Well then, I'll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head, and says I, 'Angelina, I find out that all cats have claws after all; good evening, and no more from your humble servant, who don't mind the job of taming any wild animal but a woman;' and then off I walked, and I never heard of her afterwards." "Ah, Ben, it's true enough! You never know them beforehand; but after a little time, as you say, then out come the claws." "They does--they does." "And I suppose you since, then, made up your mind to be a bachelor for the rest of your life, Ben?" "Of course I did. After such experience as that, I should have deserved all I got, and no mistake, I can tell you; and if ever you catches me paying any attention to a female woman, just put me in mind of Angelina Day, and you'll see how I shall be off at once like a shot." "Ah!" said Mr. Oakley, with a sigh, "everybody, Ben, aint born with your good luck, I can tell you. You are a most fortunate man, Ben, and that's a fact. You must have been born under some lucky planet I think, Ben, or else you never would have had such a warning as you have had about the claws. I found 'em out, Ben, but it was a deal too late; so I had only to put up with my fate, and put the best face I could upon the matter." "Yes, that's what learned folks call--what's its name--fill--fill--something." "Philosophy, I suppose you mean, Ben." "Ah, that's it--you must put up with what you can't help, it means, I take it. It's a fine name for saying you must grin and bear it." "I suppose that is about the truth, Ben." It cannot, however, be exactly said that the little incident connected with Mr. Lupin had no good effect upon Mrs. Oakley, for it certainly shook most alarmingly her confidence in that pious individual. In the first place, it was quite clear that he shrank from the horrors of martyrdom; and, indeed, to escape any bodily inconvenience, was perfectly willing to put up with any amount of degradation or humiliation that he could be subjected to; and that was, to the apprehension of Mrs. Oakley, a great departure from what a saint ought to be. Then again, her faith in the fact that Mr. Lupin was such a chosen morsel as he had represented himself, was shaken from the circumstance that no miracle in the shape of a judgment had taken place to save him from the malevolence of Big Ben, the beef-eater; so that, taking one thing in connexion with another, Mrs. Oakley was not near so religious a character after that evening as she had been before it, and that was something gained. Then circumstances soon occurred, of which the reader will very shortly be fully aware, which were calculated to awaken all the feelings of Mrs. Oakley, if she had really any feelings to awaken, and to force her to make common cause with her husband in an affair that touched him to the very soul, and did succeed in awakening some feelings in her heart that had lain dormant for a long time, but which were still far from being completely destroyed. These circumstances were closely connected with the fate of one in whom we hope, that by this time, the reader has taken a deep and kindly interest--we mean Johanna--that young and beautiful, and gentle, creature, who seemed to have been created with all the capacity to be so very happy, and yet whose fate had become so clouded by misfortune, and who appears now to be doomed through her best affections to suffer so great an amount of sorrow, and to go through so many sad difficulties. Alas, poor Johanna Oakley! Better had you loved some one of less aspiring feelings, and of less ardent imagination, than he possessed to whom you have given your heart's young affections. It is true that Mark Ingestrie possessed genius, and perhaps it was the glorious light that hovers around that fatal gift which prompted you to love him. But genius is not only a blight and a desolation to its possessor, but it is so to all who are bound to the gifted being by the ties of fond affection. It brings with it that unhappy restlessness of intellect which is ever straining after the unattainable, and which is never content to know the end and ultimatum of earthly hopes and wishes; no, the whole life of such persons is spent in one long struggle for a fancied happiness, which like the ignis-fatuus of the swamp glitters but to betray those who trust to its delusive and flickering beams. CHAPTER XIII. JOHANNA'S INTERVIEW WITH ARABELLA WILMOT, AND THE ADVICE. Alas! poor Johanna, thou hast chosen but an indifferent confidante in the person of that young and inexperienced girl to whom it seems good to thee to impart thy griefs. Not for one moment do we mean to say, that the young creature to whom the spectacle-maker's daughter made up her mind to unbosom herself, was not all that any one could wish as regards honour, goodness, and friendship. But she was one of those creatures who yet look upon the world as a fresh green garden, and had not yet lost that romance of existence which the world and its ways soon banish from the breasts of all. She was young, even almost to girlhood, and having been the idol of her family circle, she knew just about as little of the great world as a child. But while we cannot but to some extent regret that Johanna should have chosen such a confidant and admirer, we with feelings of great freshness and pleasure proceed to accompany her to that young girl's house. Now, a visit from Johanna Oakley to the Wilmots was not so rare a thing, that it should excite any unusual surprise, but in this case it did excite unusual pleasure, because they had not been there for some time. And the reason that she had not, may well be found in the peculiar circumstances that had for a considerable period environed her. She had a secret to keep which, although it might not proclaim what it was most legibly upon her countenance, yet proclaimed that it had an existence, and as she had not made Arabella a confidant, she dreaded the other's friendly questions of the young creature. It may seem surprising that Johanna Oakley had kept from one whom she so much esteemed, and with whom she had made such a friendship, the secret of her affections; but that must be accounted for by a difference of ages between them to a sufficient extent in that early period of life to show itself palpably. That difference was not quite two years, but when we likewise state, that Arabella was of that small, delicate style of beauty, which makes her look like a child, when even upon the very verge of womanhood, we shall not be surprised that the girl of seventeen hesitated to confide a secret of the heart to what seemed but a beautiful child. The last year, however, had made a great difference in the appearance of Arabella, for, although she still looked a year or so younger than she really was, a more staid and thoughtful expression had come over her face, and she no longer presented, at times when she laughed, that child-like expression, which had been as remarkable in her as it was delightful. She was as different looking from Johanna as she could be, for whereas Johanna's hair was of a rich and glossy brown, so nearly allied to black that it was commonly called such; the long waving ringlets that shaded the sweet countenance of Arabella Wilmot were like amber silk blended to a pale beauty. Her eyes were nearly blue, and not that pale grey, which courtesy calls of that celestial colour, and their long, fringing lashes hung upon a cheek of the most delicate and exquisite hue that nature could produce. Such was the young, loveable, and amiable creature who had made one of those girlish friendships with Johanna Oakley that, when they do endure beyond the period of almost mere childhood, endure for ever, and become one among the most dear and cherished sensations of the heart. The acquaintance had commenced at school, and might have been of that evanescent character of so many school friendships, which, in after life, are scarcely so much remembered as the most dim visions of a dream; but it happened that they were congenial spirits, which, let them be thrown together under any circumstances whatever, would have come together with a perfect and a most endearing confidence in each other's affections. That they were school companions was the mere accident that brought them together, and not the cause of their friendship. Such, then, was the being to whom Johanna Oakley looked for counsel and assistance; and notwithstanding all that we have said respecting the likelihood of that counsel being of an inactive and girlish character, we cannot withhold our meed of approbation to Johanna, that she had selected one so much in every way worthy of her honest esteem. The hour at which she called was such as to ensure Arabella being within, and the pleasure which showed itself upon the countenance of the young girl, as she welcomed her old playmate, was a feeling of the most delightful and unaffecting character. "Why, Johanna," she said, "you so seldom call upon me now, that I suppose I must esteem it as a very special act of grace and favour to see you." "Arabella," said Johanna, "I do not know what you will say to me when I tell you that my present visit is because I am in a difficulty, and want your advice." "Then you could not have come to a better person, for I have read all the novels in London, and know all the difficulties that anybody can possibly get into, and, what is more important, too, I know all the means of getting out of them, let them be what they may." "And yet, Arabella, scarcely in all your novel reading will you find anything so strange and so eventful as the circumstances, I grieve to say, it is in my power to record to you. Sit down, and listen to me, dear Arabella, and you shall know all." "You surprise and alarm me by that serious countenance, Johanna." "The subject is a serious one. I love." "Oh! is that all? So do I; there's a young Captain Desbrook in the King's Guards. He comes here to buy his gloves; and if you did but hear him sigh as he leans over the counter, you would be astonished." "Ah! but, Arabella, I know you well. Yours is one of those fleeting passions that, like the forked lightning, appear for a moment, and ere you can say behold, is gone again. Mine is deeper in my heart, so deep, that to divorce it from it would be to destroy its home for ever." "But, why so serious, Johanna? You do not mean to tell me that it is possible for you to love any man without his loving you in return?" "You are right there, Arabella. I do not come to speak to you of a hopeless passion--far from it; but you shall hear. Lend me, my dear friend, your serious attention, and you shall hear of such mysterious matters." "Mysterious!--then I shall be in my very element. For know that I quite live and exult in mystery, and you could not possibly have come to any one who would more welcomely receive such a commission from you; I am all impatience." Johanna then, with great earnestness, related to her friend the whole of the particulars connected with her deep and sincere attachment to Mark Ingestrie. She told her how, in spite of all circumstances which appeared to have a tendency to cast a shadow and blight upon their young affection, they had loved, and loved truly; how Ingestrie, disliking, both from principle and distaste, the study of the law, had quarrelled with his uncle, Mr. Grant, and then how, as a bold adventurer, he had gone to seek his fortunes in the Indian seas; fortunes which promised to be splendid, but which might end in disappointment and defeat, and that they had ended in such calamities most deeply and truly did she mourn to be compelled to state. And she concluded by saying-- "And now, Arabella, you know all I have to tell you. You know how truly I have loved, and how, after teaching myself to expect happiness, I have met with nothing but despair; and you may judge for yourself, how sadly the fate, or rather the mystery, which hangs over Mark Ingestrie, must deeply affect me, and how lost my mind must be in all kinds of conjecture concerning him." The hilarity of spirits which had characterised Arabella in the earlier part of their interview, entirely left her as Johanna proceeded in her mournful narration, and by the time she had concluded, tears of the most genuine sympathy stood in her eyes. She took the hands of Johanna in both her own, and said to her-- "Why, my poor Johanna, I never expected to hear from your lips so sad a tale. This is most mournful, indeed very mournful; and, although I was half inclined before to quarrel with you for this tardy confidence--for you must recollect that it is the first I have heard of this whole affair--but now the misfortunes that oppress you are quite sufficient, Heaven knows, without me adding to them by the shadow of a reproach." "They are indeed, Arabella, and believe me, if the course of my love ran smoothly, instead of being, as it has been, full of misadventures, you should have had nothing to complain of on the score of want of confidence; but I will own I did hesitate to inflict on you my miseries, for miseries they have been, and, alas! miseries they seem destined to remain." "Johanna, you could not have used an argument more delusive than that. It is not one which should have come from your lips to me." "But surely it was a good motive to spare you pain?" "And did you think so lightly of my friendship that it was to be entrusted with nothing but what wore a pleasant aspect? True friendship surely is best shown in the encounter of difficulty and distress. I grieve, Johanna, indeed, that you have so much mistaken me." "Nay, now you do me an injustice: it was not that I doubted your friendship for one moment, but that I did indeed shrink from casting the shadow of my sorrows over what should be, and what I hope is, the sunshine of your heart. That was the respect which deterred me from making you a confidant of, what I suppose I must call, this ill-fated passion." "No, not ill-fated, Johanna. Let us still believe that the time will come when it will be far otherwise than ill-fated." "But what do you think of all that I have told you? Can you gather from it any hope?" "Abundance of hope, Johanna. You have no certainty of the death of Ingestrie." "I certainly have not, as far as regards the loss of him in the Indian seas; but, Arabella, there is one supposition which, from the first moment that it found a home in my breast, has been growing stronger and stronger, and that supposition is, that this Mr. Thornhill was no other than Mark Ingestrie himself." "Indeed! Think you so? That would be a strange supposition. Have you any special reasons for such a thought?" "None--further than a something which seemed ever to tell my heart from the first moment that such was the case, and a consideration of the improbability of the story related by Thornhill. Why should Mark Ingestrie have given him the string of pearls and the message to me, trusting to the preservation of this Thornhill, and assuming, for some strange reason, that he himself must fall?" "There is good argument in that, Johanna." "And, moreover, Mark Ingestrie told me he intended altering his name upon the expedition." "It is strange; but now you mention such a supposition, it appears, do you know, Johanna, each moment more probable to me. Oh, that fatal string of pearls!" "Fatal, indeed! for if Mark Ingestrie and Thornhill be one and the same person, the possession of those pearls has been the temptation to destroy him." "There cannot be a doubt upon that point, Johanna, and so you will find in all tales of love and of romance, that jealousy and wealth have been the sources of all the abundant evils which fond and attached hearts have from time to time suffered." "It is so; I believe, it is so, Arabella; but advise me what to do, for truly I am myself incapable of action. Tell me what you think it is possible to do, under those disastrous circumstances, for there is nothing which I will not dare attempt." "Why, my dear Johanna, you must perceive that all the evidence you have regarding this Thornhill, follows him up to that barber's shop in Fleet-street, and no farther." "It does, indeed." "Can you not imagine, then, that there lies the mystery of his fate; and, from what you have yourself seen of this man, Todd, do you think he is one who would hesitate even at murder?" "Oh, horror! my own thoughts have taken that dreadful turn, but I dreaded to pronounce the word which would embody them. If, indeed, that fearful-looking man fancied that, by any deed of blood, he could become possessed of such a treasure as that which belonged to Mark Ingestrie, unchristian and illiberal as it may sound, the belief clings to me that he would not hesitate to do it." "Do not, however, conclude, Johanna, that such is the case. It would appear from all you have heard and seen of these circumstances, that there is some fearful mystery; but do not, Johanna, conclude hastily that that mystery is one of death." "Be it so, or not," said Johanna, "I must solve it, or go distracted. Heaven have mercy upon me!--for even now I feel a fever in my brain that precludes almost the possibility of rational thought." "Be calm, be calm--we will think the matter over calmly and seriously; and who knows but that, mere girls as we are, we may think of some adventitious mode of arriving at a knowledge of the truth; and now I am going to tell you something, which your narrative has recalled to my mind." "Say on, Arabella, I shall listen to you with deep attention." "A short time since, about six months, I think, an apprentice of my father, in the last week of his servitude, was sent to the west-end of the town, to take a considerable sum of money; but he never came back with it, and from that day to this we have heard nothing of him, although, from inquiry that my father made, he ascertained that he received the money, and that he met an acquaintance in the Strand, who parted from him at the corner of Milford-lane, and to whom he said that he intended to call at Sweeney Todd's, the barber, in Fleet-street, to have his hair dressed, because there was to be a regatta on the Thames, and he was determined to go to it whether my father liked or not." "And he was never heard of?" "Never. Of course, my father made every inquiry upon the subject, and called upon Sweeney Todd for the purpose; but, as he declared that no such person had ever called at his shop, the inquiry there terminated." "'Tis very strange." "And most mysterious; for the friends of the youth were indeed indefatigable in their searches for him; and, by subscribing together for the purpose, they offered a large reward to any one who could or would give them information regarding his fate." "And was it all in vain?" "All; nothing could be learned whatever. Not even the remotest clue was obtained, and there the affair has rested, in the most profound of mysteries." Johanna shuddered, and for some few moments the two young girls were silent. It was Johanna who broke that silence, by exclaiming-- "Arabella, assist me with what advice you can, so that I may set about what I purpose with the best prospect of success and the least danger; not that I shrink on my own account from risk, but if any misadventure were to occur to me, I might thereby be incapacitated from pursuing that object, to which I will now devote the remainder of my life." "But what can you do, my dear Johanna? It was but a short time since there was a placard in the barber's window to say that he wanted a lad as an assistant in his business, but that has been removed, or we might have procured some one to take the situation for the express purpose of playing the spy upon the barber's proceedings." "But, perchance, still there may be an opportunity of accomplishing something in that way, if you knew of any one that would undertake the adventure." "There will be no difficulty, Johanna, in discovering one willing to do so, although we might be long in finding one of sufficient capacity that we could trust; but I am adventurous, Johanna, as you know, and I think I could have got my cousin Albert to personate the character, only that I think he's rather a giddy youth, and scarcely to be trusted with a mission of so much importance." "Yes, and a mission likewise, Arabella, which, by a single false step, might be made frightfully dangerous." "It might indeed." "Then it will be unfair to place it upon any one but those who feel most deeply for its success." "Johanna, the enthusiasm with which you speak awakens in me a thought which I shrink from expressing to you, and which, I fear, perhaps more originates from a certain feeling of romance, which, I believe, is a besetting sin, than from any other cause." "Name it, Arabella; name it." "It would be possible for you or I to accomplish the object, by going disguised to the barber's, and accepting such a situation, if it were vacant, for a period of about twenty-four hours, in order that during that time an opportunity might be taken of searching in his house for some evidence upon the subject nearest to your heart." "It is a happy thought," said Johanna, "and why should I hesitate at encountering any risk, or toil, or difficulty, for him who has risked so much for me? What is there to hinder me from carrying out such a resolution? At any moment, if great danger should beset me, I can rush into the street, and claim protection from the passers-by." "And moreover, Johanna, if you went on such a mission, remember you go with my knowledge, and that consequently I would bring you assistance, if you appeared not in the specified time for your return." "Each moment, Arabella, the plan assumes to my mind a better shape. If Sweeney Todd be innocent of contriving anything against the life and liberty of those who seek his shop, I have nothing to fear; but if, on the contrary, he be guilty, danger to me would be the proof of such guilt, and that is a proof which I am willing to chance encountering for the sake of the great object I have in view; but how am I to provide myself with the necessary means?" "Be at rest upon that score. My cousin Albert and you are as nearly of a size as possible. He will be staying here shortly, and I will secure from his wardrobe a suit of clothes, which I am certain will answer your purpose. But let me implore you to wait until you have had your second interview with Colonel Jeffery." "That is well thought of; I will meet him, and question him closely as to the personal appearance of this Mr. Thornhill; beside, I shall hear if he has any confirmed suspicion on the subject." "That is well, you will soon meet him, for the week is running on; and let me implore you, Johanna, to come to me the morning after you have so met him, and then we will again consult upon this plan of operations, which appears to us feasible and desirable." Some more conversation of a similar character ensued between these young girls; and upon the whole, Johanna Oakley felt much comforted by her visit, and more able to think calmly as well as seriously upon the subject which engrossed her whole thoughts and feelings; and when she returned to her own home, she found that much of the excitement of despair which had formerly had possession of her, had given way to hope; and with that natural feeling of joyousness, and that elasticity of mind which belongs to the young, she began to build in her imagination some airy fabrics of future happiness. Certainly, these suppositions went upon the fact that Mark Ingestrie was a prisoner, and not that his life had been taken by the mysterious barber; for although the possibility of his having been murdered had found a home in her imagination, still to her pure spirit it seemed by far too hideous to be true, and she scarcely could be said really and truly to entertain it as a matter which was likely to be true. CHAPTER XIV. TOBIAS'S THREAT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. Perhaps one of the most pitiable objects now in our history is poor Tobias, Sweeney Todd's boy, who certainly had his suspicions aroused in the most terrific manner, but who was terrified, by the threats of what the barber was capable of doing against his mother, from making any disclosures. The effect upon his personal appearance of this wear and tear of his intellect was striking and manifest. The hue of youth and health entirely departed from his cheeks, and he looked so sad and careworn, that it was quite a terrible thing to look upon a young lad so, as it were, upon the threshold of existence, and in whom anxious thoughts were making such war upon the physical energies. His cheeks were pale and sunken; his eyes had an unnatural brightness about them, and, to look upon his lips, one would think they had never parted in a smile for many a day, so sadly were they compressed together. He seemed ever to be watching likewise for something fearful, and even as he walked the streets he would frequently turn and look inquiringly around him with a shudder; and in his brief interview with Colonel Jeffery and his friend the captain, we can have a tolerably good comprehension of the state of his mind. Oppressed with fears, and all sorts of dreadful thoughts, panting to give utterance to what he knew and to what he suspected, yet terrified into silence for his mother's sake, we cannot but view him as signally entitled to the sympathy of the reader, and as, in all respects, one sincerely to be pitied for the cruel circumstances in which he was placed. The sun is shining brightly, and even that busy region of trade and commerce, Fleet-street, is looking gay and beautiful; but not for that poor spirit-stricken lad are any of the sights and sounds which used to make up the delight of his existence, reaching his eyes or ears now with their accustomed force. He sits moody and alone, and in the position which he always assumes when Sweeney Todd is from home--that is to say, with his head resting on his hands, and looking the picture of melancholy abstraction. "What shall I do?" he said to himself, "what will become of me? I think if I live here any longer, I shall go out of my senses. Sweeney Todd is a murderer--I am quite certain of it, and I wish to say so, but I dare not for my mother's sake. Alas! alas! the end of it will be, that he will kill me, or that I shall go out of my senses, and then I shall die in some mad-house, and no one will care what I say." The boy wept bitterly after he had uttered these melancholy reflections, and he felt his tears something of a relief to him, so that he looked up after a little time, and glanced around him. "What a strange thing," he said, "that people should come into this shop, to my certain knowledge, who never go out of it again, and yet what becomes of them I cannot tell." He looked with a shuddering anxiety towards the parlour, the door of which Sweeney Todd took care to lock always when he left the place, and he thought that he should like much to have a thorough examination of that room. "I have been in it," he said, "and it seems full of cupboards and strange holes and corners, such as I never saw before, and there is an odd stench in it that I cannot make out at all; but it's out of the question thinking of ever being in it above a few minutes at a time, for Sweeney Todd takes good care of that." The boy rose, and opened a small cupboard that was in the shop. It was perfectly empty. "Now, that's strange," he said, "there was a walking-stick with an ivory top to it here just before he went out, and I could swear it belonged to a man who came in to be shaved. More than once--ah! and more than twice, too, when I have come in suddenly, I have seen people's hats, and Sweeney Todd would try and make me believe that people go away after being shaved, and leave their hats behind them." He walked up to the shaving chair as it was called, which was a large, old-fashioned piece of furniture, made of oak, and carved; and, as the boy threw himself into it, he said-- "What an odd thing it is that this chair is screwed so tight to the floor! Here is a complete fixture, and Sweeney Todd says it is so because it's in the best possible light, and if he were not to make it fast in such a way, the customers would shift it about from place to place, so that he could not conveniently shave them; it may be true, but I don't know." "And you have your doubts," said the voice of Sweeney Todd, as that individual, with a noiseless step, walked into the shop--"you have your doubts, Tobias? I shall have to cut your throat, that is quite clear." [Illustration: Tobias Alarmed At The Mysterious Appearance Of Todd.] "No, no, have mercy upon me; I did not mean what I said." "Then it's uncommonly imprudent to say it, Tobias. Do you remember our last conversation? Do you remember that I can hang your mother when I please, because, if you do not, I beg to put you in mind of that pleasant little circumstance?" "I cannot forget--I do not forget." "'Tis well; and mark me, I will not have you assume such an aspect as you wear when I am not here. You don't look cheerful, Tobias; and, notwithstanding your excellent situation, with little to do, and the number of Lovett's pies you eat, you fall away." "I cannot help it," said Tobias, "since you told me what you did concerning my mother. I have been so anxious that I cannot help--" "Why should you be anxious? Her preservation depends upon yourself, and upon yourself wholly. You have but to keep silent, and she is safe; but if you utter one word that shall be displeasing to me about my affairs, mark me, Tobias, she comes to the scaffold; and if I cannot conveniently place you in the same mad-house where the last boy I had was placed, I shall certainly be under the troublesome necessity of cutting your throat." "I will be silent--I will say nothing, Mr. Todd. I know I shall die soon, and then you will get rid of me altogether, and I don't care how soon that may be, for I am quite weary of my life--I shall be glad when it is over." "Very good," said the barber; "that's all a matter of taste. And now, Tobias, I desire that you look cheerful and smile, for a gentleman is outside feeling his chin with his hand, and thinking he may as well come in and be shaved. I may want you, Tobias, to go to Billingsgate, and bring me a pennyworth of shrimps." "Yes," thought Tobias, with a groan--"yes, while you murder him." CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND INTERVIEW BETWEEN JOHANNA AND THE COLONEL IN THE TEMPLE GARDENS. Now that there was a great object to gain by a second interview with Colonel Jeffery, the anxiety of Johanna Oakley to have it became extremely great, and she counted the very hours until the period should arrive when she could again proceed to the Temple-gardens with something like a certainty of finding him. The object, of course, was to ask him for a description of Mr. Thornhill, sufficiently accurate to enable her to come to something like a positive conclusion as to whether she ought to call him to her own mind as Mark Ingestrie or not. And Colonel Jeffery was not a bit the less anxious to see her than she was to look upon him; for although in divers lands he had looked upon many a fair face, and heard many a voice that had sounded soft and musical in his ears, he had seen none that, to his mind, was so fair, and had heard no voice that he had considered really so musical and charming to listen to, as Johanna Oakley's. A man of more honourable and strict sense of honour than Colonel Jeffery could not have been found, and, therefore, it was that he allowed himself to admire the beautiful under any circumstances, because he knew that his admiration was of no dangerous quality, but that, on the contrary, it was one of those feelings which might exist in a bosom such as his, quite undebased by a meaner influence. We think it necessary, however, before he has his second meeting with Johanna Oakley, to give such an explanation of his thoughts and feelings as it is in our power. When first he met her, the purity of her mind, and the genuine and beautiful candour of all she said, struck him most forcibly, as well as her great beauty, which could not fail to be extremely manifest. After that he began to reason with himself as to what ought to be his feelings with regard to her--namely, what portion of these ought to be suppressed, and what ought to be encouraged. If Mark Ingestrie were dead, there was not a shadow of interference or dishonour in him, Colonel Jeffery, loving the beautiful girl, who was surely not to be shut out of the pale of all affection because the first person to whom her heart had warmed with a pure and holy passion, was no more. "It may be," he thought, "that she is incapable of feeling a sentiment which can at all approach that which once she has felt; but still she may be happy and serene, and may pass many joyous hours as the wife of another." He did not positively make these reflections as applicable to himself, although they had a tendency that way, and he was fast verging to a state of mind which might induce him to give them a more actual application. He did not tell himself that he loved her--no, the word "admiration" took the place of the more powerful term; but then, can we not doubt that, at this time, the germ of a very pure and holy affection was lighted up in the heart of Colonel Jeffery for the beautiful creature who suffered the pangs of so much disappointment, and who loved one so well, who, we almost fear, if he were living, was scarcely the sort of person fully to requite such an affection. But we know so little of Mark Ingestrie, and there appears to be so much doubt as to whether he be alive or dead, that we should not prejudge him upon such very insufficient evidence. Johanna Oakley did think of taking Arabella Wilmot with her to this meeting with Colonel Jeffery, but she abandoned the idea, because it really looked as if she was either afraid of him or afraid of herself, so she resolved to go alone; and when the hour of appointment came, she was then walking upon that broad gravelled path, which has been trodden by some of the best, and some of the most eminent, as well as some of the worst of human beings. It was not likely that with the feelings of Colonel Jeffery towards her, he would keep her waiting. Indeed, he was then a good hour before the time, and his only great dread was, that she might not come. He had some reason for this dread, because it will be readily recollected by the reader, that she had not positively promised to come; so that all he had was a hope that way tending and nothing further. As minute after minute had passed away, she came not, although the time had not yet really arrived; his apprehension that she would not give him the meeting had grown in his mind almost to a certainty, when he saw her timidly advancing along the garden walk. He rose to meet her at once, and for a few moments after he had greeted her with kind civility she could do nothing but look inquiringly in his face, to know if he had any news to tell her of the object of her anxious solicitude. "I have heard nothing, Miss Oakley," he said, "that can give you any satisfaction concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, but we have much suspicion--I say we, because I have taken a friend into my confidence--that something serious must have happened to him, and that the barber, Sweeney Todd, in Fleet-street, at whose door the dog so mysteriously took his post, knows something of that circumstance, be it what it may." He led her to a seat as she spoke, and when she had recovered sufficiently the agitation of her feelings to speak, she said in a timid, hesitating voice-- "Had Mr. Thornhill fair hair, and large, clear, grey eyes?" "Yes, he had such; and, I think, his smile was the most singularly beautiful I ever beheld in a man." "Heaven help me!" said Johanna. "Have you any reason for asking that question concerning Thornhill?" "God grant I had not; but, alas! I have indeed. I feel that in Thornhill, I must recognise Mark Ingestrie himself." "You astonish me." "It must be so, it must be so; you have described him to me, and I cannot doubt it; Mark Ingestrie and Thornhill are one! I knew that he was going to change his name, when he went out upon that wild adventure to the Indian Sea. I was well aware of that fact." "I cannot think, Miss Oakley, that you are correct in that supposition. There are many things which induce me to think otherwise; and the first and foremost of them is, that the ingenuous character of Mr. Thornhill forbids the likelihood of such a thing occurring. You may depend it is not--cannot be, as you suppose." "The proofs are too strong for me, and I find I dare not doubt them. It is so, Colonel Jeffery, as time, perchance, may show; it is sad, very sad, to think that it is so, but I dare not doubt it, now that you have described him to me exactly as he lived." "I must own, that in giving an opinion on such a point to you, I may be accused of arrogance and presumption, for I have had no description of Mark Ingestrie, and never saw him; and although you never saw certainly Mr. Thornhill, yet I have described him to you, and therefore you are able to judge from that description something of him." "I am indeed, and I cannot--dare not doubt. It is horrible to be positive on this point to me, because I do fear with you that something dreadful has occurred, and that the barber in Fleet-street could unravel a frightful secret, if he chose, connected with Mark Ingestrie's fate." "I do sincerely hope from my heart that you are wrong; I hope it, because I tell you frankly, dim and obscure as the hope that Mark Ingestrie may have been picked up from the wreck of his vessel, it is yet stronger than the supposition that Thornhill has escaped the murderous hands of Sweeney Todd, the barber." Johanna looked in his face so imploringly, and with such an expression of hopelessness, that it was most sad indeed to see her, and quite involuntarily he exclaimed-- "If the sacrifice of my life would be to you a relief, and save you from the pangs you suffer, believe me, it should be made." She started as she said-- "No, no: Heaven knows enough has been sacrificed already--more than enough, much more than enough. But do not suppose that I am ungrateful for the generous interest you have taken in me. Do not suppose that I think any the less of the generosity and nobility of soul that would offer a sacrifice, because it is one that I would hesitate to accept. No, believe me, Colonel Jeffery, that among the few names that are enrolled in my breast--and such to me will ever be honoured--remember yours will be found while I live, but that will not be long--but that will not be long." "Nay, do not speak so despairingly." "Have I not cause for despair?" "Cause have you for great grief, but yet scarcely for despair. You are young yet, and let me entertain a hope that even if a feeling of regret may mingle with your future thoughts, time will achieve something in tempering your sorrow; and if not great happiness, you may know yet great serenity." "I dare not hope it, but I know your words are kindly spoken, and most kindly meant." "You may well assure yourself that they are so." "I will ascertain his fate, or perish." "You alarm me by those words, as well as by your manner of uttering them. Let me implore you, Miss Oakley, to attempt nothing rash; remember how weak and inefficient must be the exertions of a young girl like yourself, one who knows so little of the world, and can really understand so little of its wickedness." "Affection conquers all obstacles, and the weakest and most inefficient girl that ever stepped, if she have strong within her that love which, in all its sacred intensity, knows no fear, shall indeed accomplish much. I feel that, in such a cause, I could shake off all girlish terrors and ordinary alarms; and if there be danger, I would ask, what is life to me without all that could adorn it and make it beautiful?" "This, indeed, is the very enthusiasm of affection, when, believe me, it will lead you to some excess--to some romantic exercise of feeling, such as will bring great danger in its train, to the unhappiness of those who love you." "Those who love me--who is there to love me now?" "Johanna Oakley, I dare not and will not utter words that come thronging to my lips, but which I fear might be unwelcome to your ears; I will not say that I can answer the question that you have asked, because it would sound ungenerous at such a time as this, when you have met me to talk about the fate of another. Oh! forgive me, that, hurried away by the feeling of a moment, I have uttered these words, for I meant not to utter them." Johanna looked at him in silence, and it might be that there was the slightest possible tinge of reproach in her look, but it was very slight, for one glance at that ingenuous countenance would be sufficient to convince the most sceptical of the truth and single-mindedness of its owner: of this there could be no doubt whatever, and if anything in the shape of a reproach was upon the point of coming from her lips, she forbore to utter it. "May I hope," he added, "that I have not lowered myself in your esteem, Miss Oakley, by what I have said?" "I hope," she said gently, "that you will continue to be my friend." He laid an emphasis on the word "friend," and he fully understood what she meant to imply thereby, and after a moment's pause said-- "Heaven forbid that ever, by word or by action, Johanna, I should do aught to deprive myself of that privilege. Let me be yet your friend, since--" He left the sentence unfinished, but if he had added the words--"Since I can do no more," he could not have made it more evident to Johanna that those were the words he intended to utter. "And now," he added, "that I hope and trust we understand each other better than we did, and you are willing to call me by the name of friend, let me once more ask of you, by the privilege of such a title, to be careful of yourself, and not to risk much in order that you may, perhaps, have some remote chance of achieving very little." "But can I endure this dreadful suspense?" "It is, alas! too common an infliction on human nature, Johanna. Pardon me for addressing you as Johanna." "Nay, it requires no excuse. I am accustomed so to be addressed by all who feel a kindly interest for me. Call me Johanna if you will, and I shall feel a greater assurance of your friendship and your esteem." "I will then avail myself of that permission, and again and again I will entreat you to leave to me the task of making what attempts may be made to discover the fate of Mr. Thornhill. There must be danger even in inquiring for him, if he has met with any foul play, and therefore I ask you to let that danger be mine." Johanna asked herself if she should or not tell him of the scheme of operations that had been suggested by Arabella Wilmot, but, somehow or another, she shrank most wonderfully from so doing, both on account of the censure which she concluded he would be likely to cast upon it, and the romantic, strange nature of the plan itself, so she said, gently and quickly-- "I will attempt nothing that shall not have some possibility of success attending it. I will be careful, you may depend, for many considerations. My father, I know, centres all his affections in me, and for his sake I will be careful." "I shall be content then, and now may I hope that this day week I may see you here again, in order that I may tell you if I have made any discovery, and that you may tell me the same; for my interest in Thornhill is that of a sincere friend, to say nothing of the deep interest in your happiness which I feel, and which now has become an element in the transaction of the highest value?" "I will come," said Johanna, "if I can come." "You do not doubt?" "No, no. I will come, and I hope to bring you some news of him in whom you are so much interested. It shall be no fault of mine if I come not." He walked with her from the gardens, and together they passed the shop of Sweeney Todd, but the door was close shut, and they saw nothing of the barber, or of that poor boy, his apprentice, who was so much to be pitied. He parted with Johanna near to her father's house, and he walked slowly away with his mind so fully impressed with the excellence and beauty of the spectacle-maker's daughter, that it was quite clear, as long as he lived, he would not be able to rid himself of the favourable impression she had made upon him. "I love her," he said; "I love her, but she seems in no respect willing to enchain her affections. Alas! alas! how sad it is for me, that the being who above all others I could wish to call my own, instead of a joy to me, I have only encountered that she might impart a pang to my heart. Beautiful and excellent Johanna, I love you, but I can see that your own affections are withered for ever." CHAPTER XVI. THE BARBER MAKES ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO SELL THE STRING OF PEARLS. It would seem as if Sweeney Todd, after his adventure in already trying to dispose of the string of pearls which he possessed, began to feel little doubtful about his chances of success in that matter, for he waited patiently for a considerable period before he again made the attempt, and then he made it after a totally different fashion. Towards the close of night on that same evening when Johanna Oakley had met Colonel Jeffery, for the second time, in the Temple Garden, and while Tobias sat alone in the shop in his usual deep dejection, a stranger entered the place, with a large blue bag in his hand, and looked inquiringly about him. "Hilloa, my lad!" said he, "is this Mr. Todd's?" "Yes," said Tobias; "but he is not at home. What do you want?" "Well, I'll be hanged," said the man, "if this don't beat everything; you don't mean to tell me he is a barber, do you?" "Indeed I do; don't you see?" "Yes, I see to be sure; but I'll be shot if I thought of it beforehand. What do you think he has been doing?" "Doing," said Tobias, with animation; "do you think he will be hung?" "Why, no, I don't say it is a hanging matter, although you seem as if you wished it was; but I'll just tell you now we are artists at the west-end of the town." "Artists! Do you mean to say you draw pictures?" "No, no, we make clothes; but we call ourselves artists now, because tailors are out of fashion." "Oh, that's it, is it?" "Yes, that's it; and you would scarcely believe it, but he came to our shop actually, and ordered a suit of clothes, which were to come to no less a sum than thirty pounds, and told us to make them up in such a style that they were to do for any nobleman, and he gave his name and address, as Mr. Todd, at this number in Fleet-street, but I hadn't the least idea that he was a barber; if I had, I am quite certain the clothes would not have been finished in the style they are, but quite the reverse." "Well," said Tobias, "I can't think what he wants such clothing for, but I suppose it's all right. Was he a tall, ugly-looking fellow?" "As ugly as the very devil. I'll just show you the things, as he is not at home. The coat is of the finest velvet, lined with silk, and trimmed with lace. Did you ever, in all your life, see such a coat for a barber?" "Indeed, I never did; but it is some scheme of his, of course. It is a superb coat." "Yes, and all the rest of the dress is of the same style; what on earth he can be going to do with it I can't think, for it's only fit to go to court in." "Oh, well, I know nothing about it," said Tobias, with a sigh, "you can leave it or not as you like, it is all one to me." "Well, you do seem the most melancholy wretch ever I came near; what's the matter with you?" "The matter with me? Oh, nothing. Of course, I am as happy as I can be. Ain't I Sweeney Todd's apprentice, and ain't that enough to make anybody sing all day long?" "It may be for all I know, but certainly you don't seem to be in a singing humour; but, however, we artists cannot waste our time, so just be so good as to take care of the clothes, and be sure you give them to your master; and so I wash my hands of the transaction." "Very good, he shall have them; but do you mean to leave such valuable clothes without getting the money for them?" "Not exactly, for they are paid for." "Oh! that makes all the difference--he shall have them." Scarcely had this tailor left the place, when a boy arrived with a parcel, and, looking around him with undisguised astonishment, said-- "Isn't there some other Mr. Todd, in Fleet-street?" "Not that I know of," said Tobias. "What have you got there?" "Silk stockings, gloves, lace, cravats, ruffles, and so on." "The deuce you have; I dare say it's all right." "I shall leave them--they are paid for. This is the name, and this is the number." "Now, stupid!" This last exclamation arose from the fact that this boy, in going out, ran up against another who was coming in. "Can't you see where you are going?" said the new arrival. "What's that to you? I have a good mind to punch your head." "Do it, and then come down our court, and see what a licking I'll give you." "Will you? Why don't you? Only let me catch you, that's all." They stood for some moments so closely together that their noses very nearly touched; and then, after mutual assertions of what they would do if they caught each other--although, in either case, to stretch out an arm would have been quite sufficient to have accomplished that object--they separated, and the last comer said to Tobias, in a tone of irritation, probably consequent upon the misunderstanding he had just had with the hosier's boy-- "You can tell Mr. Todd that the carriage will be ready at half-past seven precisely." And then he went away, leaving Tobias in a state of great bewilderment as to what Sweeney Todd could possibly be about to do with such an amount of finery as that which was evidently coming home for him. "I can't make it out," he said. "It's some villany, of course, but I can't make out what it is--I wish I knew; I might thwart him in it. He is a villain, and neither could nor would project anything good; but what can I do? I am quite helpless in this, and will just let it take its course. I can only wish for a power of action I shall never possess. Alas, alas! I am very sad, and know not what will become of me. I wish that I was in my grave, and there I am sure I shall be soon, unless something happens to turn the tide of all this wretched evil fortune that has come upon me." It was in vain for Tobias to think of vexing himself with conjectures as to what Sweeney Todd was about to do with so much finery, for he had not the remotest foundation to go upon in the matter, and could not for the life of him imagine any possible contingency or chance which should make it necessary for the barber to deck himself in such gaudy apparel. All he could do was to lay down in his own mind a general principle as regarded Sweeney Todd's conduct, and that consisted in the fact, that whatever might be his plans, and whatever might be his objects, they were for no good purpose; but, on the contrary, were most certainly intended for the accomplishment of some great evil which that most villanous person intended to perpetrate. "I will observe all I can," thought Tobias to himself, "and do what I can to put a stop to his mischiefs; but I fear it will be very little he will allow me to observe, and perhaps still less that he will allow me to do; but I can but try, and do my best." Poor Tobias's best, as regarded achieving anything against Sweeney Todd, we may well suppose would be little indeed, for that individual was not the man to give anybody an opportunity of doing much; and, possessed as he was of the most consummate art, as well as the greatest possible amount of unscrupulousness, there can be very little doubt but that any attempt poor Tobias might make would recoil upon himself. In about half an hour the barber returned, and his first question was-- "Have any things been left for me?" "Yes, sir," said Tobias, "here are two parcels, and a boy has been to say that the carriage will be ready at half-past seven precisely." "'Tis well," said the barber, "that will do; and Tobias, you will be careful, whilst I am gone, of the shop. I shall be back in half an hour, mind you, and not later; and be sure that I find you here at your post. But you may say, if any one comes here on business, there will be neither shaving nor dressing to-night. You understand me?" "Yes, sir, certainly." Sweeney Todd then took the bundles which contained the costly apparel, and retired into the parlour with them; and, as it was then seven o'clock, Tobias correctly enough supposed that he had gone to dress himself, and he waited with a considerable amount of curiosity to see what sort of an appearance the barber would cut in his fine apparel. Tobias had not to control his impatience long, for in less than twenty minutes, out came Sweeney Todd, attired in the very height of fashion for the period. His waistcoat was something positively gorgeous, and his fingers were loaded with such costly rings, that they quite dazzled the sight of Tobias to look upon; then, moreover, he wore a sword with a jewelled hilt, but it was one which Tobias really thought he had seen before, for he had a recollection that a gentleman had come to have his hair dressed, and had taken it off, and laid just such a sword across his hat during the operation. "Remember," said Sweeney Todd, "remember your instructions; obey them to the letter, and no doubt you will ultimately become happy and independent." With these words, Sweeney Todd left the place, and poor Tobias looked after him with a frown, as he repeated the words-- "Happy and independent. Alas! what a mockery it is of this man to speak to me in such a way--I only wish that I were dead!" But we will leave Tobias to his own reflections, and follow the more interesting progress of Sweeney Todd, who, for some reason best known to himself, was then playing so grand a part, and casting away so large a sum of money. He made his way to a livery-stables in the immediate neighbourhood, and there, sure enough, the horses were being placed to a handsome carriage; and all being very soon in readiness, Sweeney Todd gave some whispered directions to the driver, and the vehicle started off westward. At that time Hyde Park Corner was very nearly out of town, and it looked as if you were getting a glimpse of the country, and actually seeing something of the peasantry of England, when you got another couple of miles off, and that was the direction in which Sweeney Todd went; and as he goes, we may as well introduce to the reader the sort of individual whom he was going to visit in so much state, and for whom he thought it necessary to go to such great expense. At that period the follies and vices of the nobility were somewhere about as great as they are now, and consequently extravagance induced on many occasions tremendous sacrifice of money, and it was found extremely convenient on many occasions for them to apply to a man of the name of John Mundel, an exceedingly wealthy person, a Dutchman by extraction, who was reported to make immense sums of money by lending to the nobility and others what they required on emergencies, at enormous rates of interest. But it must not be supposed that John Mundel was so confiding as to lend his money without security. It was quite the reverse, for he took care to have the jewels, some costly plate, or the title-deeds of an estate, perchance, as security, before he would part with a single shilling of his cash. In point of fact, John Mundel was nothing more than a pawnbroker on a very extensive scale, and, although he had an office in town, he usually received his more aristocratic customers at his private residence, which was about two miles off, on the Uxbridge Road. After this explanation, it can very easily be imagined what was the scheme of Sweeney Todd, and that he considered, if he borrowed from John Mundel a sum equal in amount to half the real value of the pearls, he should be well rid of a property which he certainly could not sufficiently well account for the possession of, to enable him to dispose of it openly to the highest bidder. We give Sweeney Todd great credit for the scheme he proposed. It was eminently calculated to succeed, and one which, in the way he undertook it, was certainly set about in the best possible style. During the ride, he revolved in his mind exactly what he should say to John Mundel, and, from what we know of him, we may be well convinced that Sweeney Todd was not likely to fail from any amount of bashfulness in the transaction; but that, on the contrary, he was just the man to succeed in any scheme which required great assurance to carry it through; for he was most certainly master of great assurance, and possessed of a kind of diplomatic skill, which, had fortune placed him in a more elevated position of life, would no doubt have made a great man of him, and gained him great political reputation. John Mundel's villa, which was called, by the by, Mundel House, was a large, handsome, and modern structure, surrounded by a few acres of pleasure-gardens, which, however, the money-lender never looked at, for his whole soul was too much engrossed by his love for cash to enable him to do so; and, if he derived any satisfaction at all from it, that satisfaction must have been entirely owing to the fact, that he had wrung mansion, grounds, and all the costly furnishing of the former, from an improvident debtor, who had been forced to fly the country, and leave his property wholly in the hands of the money-lender and usurer. It was but a short drive with the really handsome horses that Sweeney Todd had succeeded in hiring for the occasion, and he soon found himself opposite the entrance gates of the residence of John Mundel. His great object now was that the usurer should see the equipage which he had brought down; and he accordingly desired the footman who accompanied him at once to ring the bell at the entrance-gate, and to say that a gentleman was waiting in his carriage to see Mr. Mundel. This was done; and when the money-lender's servant reported to him that the equipage was a costly one, and that, in his opinion, the visitor must be some nobleman of great rank, John Mundel made no difficulty about the matter, but walked down to the gate at once, where he immediately mentally subscribed to the opinion of his servant, by admitting to himself that the equipage was faultless, and presumed at once that it did belong to some person of great rank. He was proportionally humble, as such men always are, and, advancing to the side of the carriage, he begged to know what commands his lordship--for so he called him at once--had for him? [Illustration: The Barber Acts The Duke To Pawn The Pearls.] "I wish to know," said Sweeney Todd, "Mr. Mundel, if you are inclined to lay under an obligation a rather illustrious lady, by helping her out of a little pecuniary difficulty?" John Mundel glanced again at the equipage, and he likewise saw something of the rich dress of his visitor, who had not disputed the title which had been applied to him, of lord; and he made up his mind accordingly that it was just one of the transactions that would suit him, provided the security that would be offered was of a tangible nature. That was the only point upon which John Mundel had the remotest doubt, but, at all events, he urgently pressed his visitor to alight and walk in. CHAPTER XIV. THE GREAT CHANGE IN THE PROSPECTS OF SWEENEY TODD. As Sweeney Todd's object, so far as regarded the money-lender having seen the carriage, was fully answered, he had no objection to enter the house, which he accordingly did at once, being preceded by John Mundel, who became each moment more and more impressed with the fact, as he considered it, that his guest was some person of very great rank and importance in society. He ushered him into a splendidly-furnished apartment, and after offering him refreshments, which Sweeney Todd politely declined, he waited with no small degree of impatience for his visitor to be more explicit with regard to the object of his visit. "I should," said Sweeney Todd, "have myself accommodated the illustrious lady with the sum of money she requires, but as I could not do so without incumbering some estates, she positively forbade me to think of it." "Certainly," said Mr. Mundel, "she is a very illustrious lady, I presume?" "Very illustrious indeed, but it must be a condition of this transaction, if you at all enter into it, that you are not to inquire precisely who she is, nor are you to inquire precisely who I am." "It's not my usual way of conducting business, but if everything else be satisfactory, I shall not cavil at that." "Very good; by everything else being satisfactory, I presume you mean the security offered?" "Why, yes, that is of great importance, my lord." "I informed the illustrious lady, that, as the affair was to be wrapped up in something of a mystery, the security must be extremely ample." "That's a very proper view to take of the matter, my lord. I wonder," thought John Mundel, "if he is a duke; I'll call him 'your grace' next time, and see if he objects to it." "Therefore," continued Sweeney Todd, "the illustrious lady placed in my hands security to a third greater amount than she required." "Certainly, certainly, a very proper arrangement, your grace; may I ask the nature of the proffered security?" "Jewels." "Highly satisfactory and unexceptionable security; they go into a small space, and do not deteriorate in value." "And if they do," said the barber, "deteriorate in value, it would make no difference to you, for the illustrious person's honour would be committed to your redemption." "I don't doubt that, your grace, in the least; I merely made the remark incidentally, quite incidentally." "Of course, of course; and I trust, before going further, that you are quite in a position to enter into this subject." "Certainly I am, and, I am proud to say, to any amount. Show me the money's worth, your grace, and I will show you the money--that's my way of doing business; and no one can say that John Mundel ever shrunk from a matter that was brought fairly before him, and that he considered worth his going into." "It was by hearing such a character of you that I was induced to come to you. What do you think of that?" Sweeney Todd took from his pocket, with a careless air, the string of pearls, and cast them down before the eyes of the money-lender, who took them up and ran them rapidly through his fingers for a few seconds before he said-- "I thought there was but one string like this in the kingdom, and those belonged to the Queen." "Well," said Sweeney Todd. "I humbly beg your grace's pardon. How much money does your grace require on these pearls?" "Twelve thousand pounds is their current value, if a sale of them was enforced; eight thousand pounds are required of you on their security." "Eight thousand is a large sum. As a general thing I lend but half the value upon anything; but in this case, to oblige your grace and the illustrious personage, I do not, of course, hesitate for one moment but shall for one month lend you the required amount." "That will do," said Sweeney Todd, scarcely concealing the exultation he felt at getting so much more from John Mundel than he expected, and which he certainly would not have got if the money-lender had not been most fully and completely impressed with the idea that the pearls belonged to the Queen, and that he had actually at length majesty itself for a customer. He did not suppose for one moment that it was the queen who wanted the money; but his view of the case was, that she had lent the pearls to this nobleman to meet some exigency of his own, and that, of course, they would be redeemed very shortly. Altogether a more pleasant transaction for John Mundel could not have been imagined. It was just the sort of thing he would have looked out for, and had the greatest satisfaction in bringing to a conclusion, and he considered it was opening the door to the highest class of business in his way that he was capable of doing. "In what name, your grace," he said, "shall I draw a cheque upon my banker?" "In the name of Colonel George." "Certainly, certainly; and if your grace will give me an acknowledgment for eight thousand pounds, and please to understand that at the end of a month from this time the transaction will be renewed if necessary, I will give you a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds." "Why seven thousand five hundred only, when you mentioned eight thousand pounds?" "The five hundred pounds is my little commission upon the transaction. Your grace will perceive that I appreciate highly the honour of your grace's custom, and consequently charge the lowest possible price. I can assure your grace I could get more for my money by a great deal, but the pleasure of being able to meet your grace's views is so great, that I am willing to make a sacrifice, and therefore it is that I say five hundred, when I really ought to say one thousand pounds, taking into consideration the great scarcity of money at the present juncture; and I can assure your grace that--" "Peace, peace," said Sweeney Todd; "and if it be not convenient to redeem the jewels at the end of a month from this time, you will hear from me most assuredly." "I am quite satisfied of that," said John Mundel, and he accordingly drew a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds, which he handed to Sweeney Todd, who put it in his pocket, not a little delighted that at last he had got rid of his pearls, even at a price so far beneath their real value. "I need scarcely urge upon you, Mr. Mundel," he said, "the propriety of keeping this affair profoundly secret." "Indeed you need not, your grace, for it is part of my business to be discreet and cautious. I should very soon have nothing to do in my line, your grace may depend, if I were to talk about it. No, this transaction will for ever remain locked up in my own breast, and no living soul but your grace and I need know what has occurred." With this, John Mundel showed Sweeney Todd to his carriage, with abundance of respect, and in two minutes more he was travelling along towards town with what might be considered a small fortune in his pocket. We should have noticed earlier that Sweeney Todd had, upon the occasion of his going to sell the pearls to the lapidary, in the city, made some great alterations in his appearance, so that it was not likely he should be recognised again to a positive certainly. For example--having no whiskers whatever of his own, he had put on a large black pair of false ones, as well as moustachios, and he had given some colour to his cheeks likewise which had so completely altered his appearance, that those who were most intimate with him would not have known him except by his voice, and that he took good care to alter in his intercourse with John Mundel, so that it should not become a future means of detection. "I thought that this would succeed," he muttered to himself, as he went towards town, "and I have not been deceived. For three months longer, and only three, I will carry on the business in Fleet-street, so that any sudden alteration in my fortunes may not give rise to suspicion." He was then silent for some minutes, during which he appeared to be revolving some very knotty question in his brain, and then he said, suddenly-- "Well, well, as regards Tobias, I think it will be safer, unquestionably, to put him out of the way by taking his life, than to try to dispose of him in a mad-house, and I think there are one or two more persons whom it will be highly necessary to prevent being mischievous, at all events at present. I must think--I must think." When such a man as Sweeney Todd set about thinking, there could be no possible doubt but that some serious mischief was meditated, and any one who could have watched his face during that ride home from the money-lender's, would have seen by its expression that the thoughts which agitated him were of a dark and desperate character, and such as anybody but himself would have shrunk from aghast. But he was not a man to shrink from anything, and, on the contrary, the more a set of circumstances presented themselves in a gloomy and a terrific aspect, the better they seemed to suit him, and the peculiar constitution of his mind. There can be no doubt but that the love of money was the predominant feeling in Sweeney Todd's intellectual organization, and that, by the amount it would bring him, or the amount it would deprive him of, he measured everything. With such a man, then, no question of morality or ordinary feeling could arise, and there can be no doubt that he would quite willingly have sacrificed the whole human race, if, by so doing, he could have achieved any of the objects of his ambition. And so, on his road homeward, he probably made up his mind to plunge still deeper into criminality, and perchance to indulge in acts that a man not already so deeply versed in iniquity would have shrunk from with the most positive terror. And by a strange style of reasoning, such men as Sweeney Todd reconcile themselves to the most heinous crimes upon the ground of what they call policy. That is to say, that having committed some serious offence, they are compelled to commit a great number more for the purpose of endeavouring to avoid the consequences of the first lot, and hence the continuance of criminality becomes a matter necessary to self-defence, and an essential ingredient in their consideration of self-preservation. Probably Sweeney Todd had been for the greater part of his life, aiming at the possession of extensive pecuniary resources, and, no doubt, by the aid of a superior intellect, and a mind full of craft and design, he had managed to make others subservient to his views; and now that those views were answered, and that his underlings and accomplices were no longer required, they became positively dangerous. He was well aware of that cold-blooded policy which teaches that it is far safer to destroy than to cast away the tools by which a man carves his way to power and fortune. "They shall die," said Sweeney Todd--"dead men tell no tales, nor women nor boys either, and they shall all die; after which there will, I think, be a serious fire in Fleet-street. Ha! ha! it may spread to what mischief it likes, always provided it stops not short of the entire destruction of my house and premises. Rare sport--rare sport will it be to me, for then I will at once commence a new career, in which the barber will be forgotten, and the man of fashion only seen and remembered, for with this sad addition to my means, I am fully capable of vying with the highest and the noblest, let them be whom they may." This seemed a pleasant train of reflections to Sweeney Todd, and as the coach entered Fleet-street, there sat such a grim smile upon his countenance that he looked like some fiend in human shape, who had just completed the destruction of a human soul. When he reached the livery stables to which he directed them to drive, instead of his own shop, he rewarded all who had gone with him most liberally, so that the coachman and footman, who were both servants out of place, would have had no objection for Sweeney Todd every day to have gone on some such an expedition, so that they should receive as liberal wages for the small part they enacted in it as they did upon that occasion. He then walked from the stables toward his own house, but upon reaching there a little disappointment awaited him, for he found to his surprise that no light was burning; and when he placed his hand upon the shop-door, it opened, but there was no trace of Tobias, although he, Sweeney Todd, called loudly upon him the moment he set foot within the shop. Then a feeling of apprehension crept across the barber, and he groped anxiously about for some matches, by the aid of which he hoped to procure a light, and then an explanation of the mysterious absence of Tobias. But in order that we may, in its proper form, relate how it was that Tobias had had the daring thus, in open contradiction of his master, to be away from the shop, we must devote to Tobias a chapter, which will plead his extenuation. CHAPTER XV. TOBIAS'S ADVENTURES DURING THE ABSENCE OF SWEENEY TODD. Tobias guessed, and guessed rightly too, that when Sweeney Todd said he would be away half an hour, he only mentioned that short period of time, in order to keep the lad's vigilance on the alert, and to prevent him from taking any advantage of a more protracted absence. The very style and manner in which he had gone out, precluded the likelihood of it being for so short a period of time; and that circumstance set Tobias seriously thinking over a situation which was becoming more intolerable every day. The lad had the sense to feel that he could not go on much longer as he was going on, and that in a short time such a life would destroy him. "It is beyond endurance," he said, "and I know not what to do; and since Sweeney Todd has told me that the boy he had before went out of his senses, and is now in the cell of a mad-house, I feel that such will be my fate, and that I too shall come to that dreadful end, and then no one will believe a word I utter, but consider everything to be mere raving." After a time, as the darkness increased, he lit the lamp which hung in the shop, and which, until it was closed for the night, usually shed a dim ray from the window. Then he sat down to think again, and he said to himself-- "If I could now but summon courage to ask my mother about this robbery which Sweeney Todd imputes to her, she might assure me it was false, and that she never did such a deed; but then it is dreadful for me to ask her such a question, because it may be true; and then, how shocking it would be for her to be forced to confess to me, her own son, such a circumstance." These were the honourable feelings which prevented Tobias from questioning his mother as regarded Todd's accusation of her--an accusation too dreadful to believe implicitly, and yet sufficiently probable for him to have a strong suspicion that it might be true after all. It is to be deeply regretted that Tobias's philosophy did not carry him a little further, and make him see, the moment the charge was made, that he ought unquestionably to investigate it to the very utmost. But still we could hardly expect, from a mere boy, that acute reasoning and power of action, which depend so much upon the knowledge of the world and an extensive practice in the usages of society. It was sufficient if he felt correctly--we could scarcely expect him to reason so. But upon this occasion, above all others, he seemed completely overcome by the circumstances which surrounded him; and from his excited manner, one might have almost imagined that the insanity he himself predicted at the close of his career was really not far off. He wrung his hands, and he wept, every now and then, in sad speech, bitterly bemoaning his situation, until at length, with a sudden resolution, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming-- "This night shall end it. I can endure it no more. I will fly from this place, and seek my fortune elsewhere. Any amount of distress, danger, or death itself even, is preferable to the dreadful life I lead." He walked some paces towards the door, and then he paused, as he said to himself in a low tone-- "Todd will surely not be home yet awhile, and why should I then neglect the only opportunity I may ever have of searching this house to satisfy my mind as regards any of the mysteries that it contains?" He paused over this thought, and considered well its danger, for dangerous indeed it was to no small extent, but he was desperate; and with a resolution that scarcely could have been expected from him, he determined upon taking that step, above all others, which Todd was almost sure to punish with death. He closed the shop door, and bolted it upon the inside, so that he could not be suddenly interrupted, and then he looked round him carefully for some weapon, by the aid of which he should be able to break his way into the parlour, which the barber always kept closed and locked in his absence. A weapon that would answer the purpose of breaking any lock, if he, Tobias, chose to proceed so roughly to work, was close at hand in the iron bar, which, when the place was closed at night, secured a shutter to the door. Wrought up as he was to almost frenzy, Tobias seized this bar, and, advancing towards the parlour door, he with one blow smashed the lock to atoms, and the door yielded. The moment it did so, there was a crash of glass, and when Tobias entered the room he saw that upon its threshold lay a wine-glass shattered to atoms, and he felt certain that it had been placed in some artful position by Sweeney Todd as a detector, when he should return, of any attempt that had been made upon the door of the parlour. And now Tobias felt that he was so far committed that he might as well go on with his work, and accordingly he lit a candle, which he found upon the parlour table, and then proceeded to make what discoveries he could. Several of the cupboards in the room yielded at once to his hands, and in them he found nothing remarkable; but there was one that he could not open; so, without a moment's hesitation, he had recourse to the bar of iron again, and broke its lock, when the door swung open,--and to his astonishment there tumbled out of this cupboard such a volley of hats of all sorts and descriptions, some looped with silver, some three-cornered, and some square, that they formed quite a museum of that article of attire, and excited the greatest surprise in the mind of Tobias, at the same time that they tended very greatly to confirm some other thoughts and feelings which he had concerning Sweeney Todd. This was the only cupboard which was fast, although there was another door which looked as if it opened into one, but when Tobias broke that down with the bar of iron, he found it was the door which led to the staircase conducting to the upper part of the house--that upper part which Sweeney Todd, with all his avarice, would never let, and of which the shutters were kept continually closed, so that the opposite neighbours never caught a glimpse into any of the apartments. With cautious and slow steps, which he adopted instantaneously, although he knew that there was no one in the house but himself, Tobias ascended the staircase. "I will go to the very top rooms first," he said to himself, "and so examine them all as I come down, and then if Todd should return suddenly, I shall have a better chance of hearing him, than as if I began below and went upwards." Acting upon this prudent scheme, he went up to the attics, all the doors of which were swinging open, and there was nothing in any of them whatever. He descended to the second floor with the like result, and a feeling of great disappointment began to creep over him at the thought that, after all, the barber's house might not repay the trouble of examination. But when he reached the first floor he soon found abundant reason to alter his opinion. The doors were fast, and he had to burst them open; and, when he got in, he found that those rooms were partially furnished, and that they contained a great quantity of miscellaneous property of all kinds and descriptions. In one corner was an enormous quantity of walking-sticks, some of which were of a very costly and expensive character, with gold and silver chased tops to them, and in another corner was a great number of umbrellas--in fact, at least a hundred of them. Then there were boots and shoes lying upon the floor, partially covered up, as if to keep them from dirt; there were thirty or forty swords of different styles and patterns, many of them appearing to be very firm blades, and in one or two cases the scabbards were richly ornamented. At one end of the front and larger of these two rooms, was an old-fashioned-looking bureau of great size, and with as much wood-work in it as seemed required to make at least a couple of such articles of furniture. This was very securely locked, and presented more difficulties in the way of opening it than any of the doors had done, for the lock was of great strength and apparent durability. Moreover it was not so easily got at, but at length by using the bar as a sort of lever, instead of as a mere machine to strike with, Tobias succeeded in forcing this bureau open, and then his eyes were perfectly dazzled with the amount of jewellery and trinkets of all kinds and descriptions that were exhibited to his gaze. There was a great number of watches, gold chains, silver and gold snuff-boxes, and a large assortment of rings, shoe-buckles, and brooches. These articles must have been of great value, and Tobias could not help exclaiming aloud-- "How could Sweeney Todd come by these articles, except by the murder of their owners?" This, indeed, seemed but too probable a supposition, and the more especially so, as in a further part of this bureau a great quantity of apparel was found by Tobias. He stood with a candle in his hand, looking upon these various objects for more than a quarter of an hour, and then as a sudden and a natural thought came across him of how completely a few of them even would satisfy his wants and his mother's for a long time to come, he stretched forth his hand towards the glittering mass, but he drew it back again with a shudder, saying-- "No--no, these things are the plunder of the dead. Let Sweeney Todd keep them to himself, and look upon them, if he can, with eyes of enjoyment. I will have none of them; they would bring misfortune along with every guinea that they might be turned into." As he spoke, he heard St. Dunstan's clock strike nine, and he started at the sound, for it let him know that already Sweeney Todd had been away an hour beyond the time he said he would be absent, so that there was a probability of his quick return now, and it would scarcely be safe to linger longer in his house. "I must be gone--I must be gone. I should like to look upon my mother's face once more before I leave London for ever perhaps. I may tell her of the danger she is in from Todd's knowledge of her secret; no--no, I cannot speak to her of that; I must go, and leave her to those chances which I hope and trust will work favourably for her." Flinging down the iron bar which had done him such good service, Tobias stopped not to close any of those receptacles which contained the plunder that Sweeney Todd had taken most probably from murdered persons, but he rushed down stairs into the parlour again, where the boots that had fallen out of the cupboard still lay upon the floor in wild disorder. It was a strange and sudden whim that took him, rather than a matter of reflection, that induced him, instead of his own hat, to take one of those which were lying so indiscriminately at his feet; and he did so. By mere accident it turned out to be an exceedingly handsome hat, of rich workmanship and material, and then Tobias, feeling terrified lest Sweeney Todd should return before he could leave the place, paid no attention to anything, but turned from the shop, merely pulling the door after him, and then darting over the road towards the Temple like a hunted hare; for his great wish was to see his mother, and then he had an undefined notion that his best plan for escaping the clutches of Sweeney Todd would be to go to sea. In common with all boys of his age, who know nothing whatever of the life of a sailor, it presented itself in the most fascinating colours. A sailor ashore and a sailor afloat, are about as two different things as the world can present; but, to the imagination of Tobias Ragg, a sailor was somebody who was always dancing hornpipes, spending money, and telling wonderful stories. No wonder, then, that the profession presented itself under such fascinating colours to all such persons as Tobias; and as it seemed, and seems still, to be a sort of general understanding that the real condition of a sailor should be mystified in every possible way and shape by both novelist and dramatist, it is no wonder that it requires actual experience to enable those parties who are in the habit of being carried away by just what they hear, to come to a correct conclusion. "I will go to sea!" ejaculated Tobias. "Yes, I will go to sea!" As he spoke these words he passed out of the gate of the Temple leading into Whitefriars, in which ancient vicinity his mother dwelt, endeavouring to eke out a living as best she might. She was very much surprised (for she happened to be at home) at the unexpected visit of her son, Tobias, and uttered a faint scream as she let fall a flat-iron very nearly upon his toes. "Mother," he said, "I cannot stay with Sweeney Todd any longer, so do not ask me." "Not stay with such a respectable man?" "A respectable man, mother! Alas, alas, how little you know of him! But what am I saying? I dare not speak! Oh, that fatal, fatal candlestick!" "But how are you to live, and what do you mean by a fatal candlestick?" "Forgive me--I did not mean to say that! Farewell, mother! I am going to sea." "To see what, my dear?" said Mrs. Ragg, who was much more difficult to talk to, than even Hamlet's grave-digger. "You don't know how much I am obliged to Sweeney Todd." "Yes, I do, and that's what drives me mad to think of. Farewell, mother, perhaps for ever! If I can, of course I will communicate with you, but now I dare not stay." "Oh! what have you done, Tobias--what have you done?" "Nothing--nothing! but Sweeney Todd is--" "What--what?" "No matter--no matter! Nothing--nothing! And yet at this last moment I am almost tempted to ask you concerning a candlestick." "Don't mention that," said Mrs. Ragg; "I don't want to hear anything said about it." "It is true, then?" "Yes; but did Mr. Todd tell you?" "He did--he did. I have now asked the question I never thought could have passed my lips. Farewell, mother; for ever farewell!" Tobias rushed out of the place, leaving old Mrs. Ragg astonished at his behaviour, and with a strong suspicion that some accession of insanity had come over him. "The Lord have mercy upon us!" she said, "what shall I do? I am astonished at Mr. Todd telling him about the candlestick; it's true enough, though, for all that. I recollect it as well as though it were yesterday; it was a very hard winter, and I was minding a set of chambers, when Todd came to shave the gentleman, and I saw him with my own eyes put a silver candlestick in his pocket. Then I went over to his shop and reasoned with him about it, and he gave it me back again, and I brought it to the chambers, and laid it down exactly on the spot where he took it from." "To be sure," said Mrs. Ragg, after a pause of a few moments, "to be sure, he has been a very good friend to me ever since, but that I suppose is for fear I should tell, and get him hung or transported. But, however, we must take the good with the bad, and when Tobias comes to think of it, he will go back again to his work, I dare say; for, after all, it's a very foolish thing for him to trouble his head whether Mr. Todd stole a silver candlestick or not." CHAPTER XVI. THE STRANGE ODOUR IN OLD ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH. About this time, and while the incidents of our most strange and eventful narrative were taking place, the pious frequenters of old St. Dunstan's church began to perceive a strange and most abominable odour throughout that sacred edifice. It was in vain that old women who came to hear the sermons, although they were too deaf to catch a third part of them, brought smelling bottles and other means of stifling their noses; still that dreadful charnel-house sort of smell would make itself most painfully and most disagreeably apparent. And the Rev. Joseph Stillingport, who was the regular preacher, smelt it in the pulpit; and had been seen to sneeze in the midst of a most pious discourse indeed, and to hold to his pious mouth a handkerchief, in which was some strong and pungent essence, for the purpose of trying to overcome the horrible effluvia. The organ-blower and the organ-player were both nearly stifled, for the horrible odour seemed to ascend to the upper part of the church; although those who sat in what may be called the pit, by no means escaped it. The churchwardens looked at each other in their pews with contorted countenances, and were almost afraid to breathe; and the only person who did not complain bitterly of the dreadful odour in St. Dunstan's church, was an old woman who had been a pew-opener for many years; but then she had lost the faculties of her nose, which, perhaps, accounted satisfactorily for that circumstance. At length, however, the nuisance became so intolerable, that the beadle, whose duty it was in the morning to open the church doors, used to come up to them with the massive key in one hand, and a cloth soaked in vinegar in the other, just as the people used to do in the time of the great plague of London; and when he had opened the doors, he used to run over to the other side of the way. "Ah, Mr. Blunt!" he used to say to the bookseller, who lived opposite--"ah! Mr. Blunt, I is obligated to cut over here, leastways till the _atymouspheric_ air is mixed up all along with the _stinkifications_ which come from the church." By this it will be seen that the beadle was rather a learned man, and no doubt went to some mechanics' institution of those days, where he learned something of everything but what was calculated to be of some service to him. As might be supposed, from the fact that this sort of thing had gone on for a few months, it began to excite some attention with a view to a remedy; for, in the great city of London, a nuisance of any sort or description requires to become venerable by age before any one thinks of removing it; and after that, it is quite clear that that becomes a good argument against removing it at all. But at last, the churchwardens began to have a fear that some pestilential disease would be the result if they for any longer period of time put up with the horrible stench, and that they might be among its first victims, so they began to ask each other what could be done to obviate it. Probably, if this frightful stench, being suggestive, as it was, of all sorts of horrors, had been graciously pleased to confine itself to some poor locality, nothing would have been heard of it; but when it became actually offensive to a gentleman in a metropolitan pulpit, and when it began to make itself perceptible to the sleepy faculties of the churchwardens of St. Dunstan's church, Fleet-street, so as to prevent them even from dozing through the afternoon sermon, it became a very serious matter indeed. But what was it, what could it be, and what was to be done to get rid of it? These were the anxious questions that were asked right and left, as regarded the serious nuisance, without the fates graciously acceding any reply. But yet one thing seemed to be generally agreed, and that was, that it did come, and must come, somehow or other, out of the vaults from beneath the church. But then, as the pious and hypocritical Mr. Butterwick, who lived opposite, said-- "How could that be, when it was satisfactorily proved by the present books that nobody had been buried in the vaults for some time, and therefore it was a very odd thing that dead people, after leaving off smelling and being disagreeable, should all of a sudden burst out again in that line, and be twice as bad as ever they were at first." And on Wednesdays sometimes, too, when pious people were not satisfied with the Sunday's devotion, but began again in the middle of the week, that stench was positively terrific. Indeed, so bad was it, that some of the congregation were forced to leave, and have been seen to slink into Bell-yard, where Lovett's pie-shop was situated, and then and there solace themselves with a pork or a veal pie, in order that their mouths and noses should be full of a delightful and agreeable flavour, instead of one most peculiarly and decidedly the reverse. At last there was a confirmation to be held at St. Dunstan's church, and a great concourse of persons assembled, for a sermon was to be preached by the bishop after the confirmation; and a very great fuss indeed was to be made about really nobody knew exactly what. Preparations, as newspapers say, upon an extensive scale, and regardless of expense, were made for the purpose of adding lustre to the ceremony, and surprising the bishop, when he came, with a good idea that the people who attended St. Dunstan's church were somebodies, and really worth confirming. The confirmation was to take place at twelve o'clock, and the bells ushered in the morning with their most pious tones, for it was not every day that the authorities of St. Dunstan succeeded in catching a bishop, and when they did so, they were determined to make the most of him. And the numerous authorities, including churchwardens, and even the very beadle, were in an uncommon fluster, and running about, and impeding each other, as authorities always do upon public occasions. But, to those who only look to the surface of things, and who came to admire what was grand and magnificent in the preparations, the beadle certainly carried away the palm, for that functionary was attired in a completely new cocked hat and coat, and certainly looked very splendid and showy upon the occasion. Moreover, that beadle had been well and judiciously selected, and the parish authorities made no secret of it, when there was an election for beadle, that they threw all their influence into the scale of that candidate who happened to be the biggest, and consequently, who was calculated to wear the official costume with an air that no smaller man could have possibly aspired to on any account. At half-past eleven o'clock the bishop made his gracious appearance, and was duly ushered into the vestry, where there was a comfortable fire, and on the table in which, likewise, were certain cold chickens and bottles of rare wines; for confirming a number of people, and preaching a sermon besides, was considered no joke, and might, for all they knew, be provocative of a great appetite in the bishop. And with what a bland and courtly air the bishop smiled as he ascended the steps of St. Dunstan's Church. How affable he was to the churchwardens, and he actually smiled upon a poor miserable charity boy, who, his eyes glaring wide open, and his muffin cap in his hand, was taking his first stare at a real live bishop. To be sure, the beadle knocked him down directly the bishop had passed, for having the presumption to look at such a great personage, but then that was to be expected fully and completely, and only proved that the proverb, which permits a cat to look at a king, is not equally applicable to charity boys and bishops. When the bishop got to the vestry, some very complimentary words were uttered to him by the usual officiating clergyman, but, somehow or other, the bland smile had left the lips of the great personage, and, interrupting the vicar in the midst of a fine flowing speech, he said-- "That's all very well, but what a terrible stink there is here!" The churchwardens gave a groan, for they had flattered themselves that perhaps the bishop would not notice the dreadful smell, or that, if he did, he would think it was accidental, and say nothing about it; but now, when he really did mention it, they found all their hopes scattered to the winds, and that it was necessary to say something. "Is this horrid charnel-house sort of smell always here?" "I am afraid it is," said one of the churchwardens. "Afraid!" said the bishop, "surely you know; you seem to me to have a nose." "Yes," said the churchwarden, in great confusion, "I have that honour, and I have the pleasure of informing you, my Lord Bishop--I mean I have the honour of informing you that this smell is always here." The bishop sniffed several times, and then he said-- "It is very dreadful; and I hope that by the next time I come to St. Dunstan's, you will have the pleasure and the honour, both, of informing me that it has gone away." The churchwarden bowed, and got into an extreme corner, saying to himself-- "This is the bishop's last visit here, and I don't wonder at it, for, as if out of pure spite, the smell is ten times worse than ever to-day." And so it was, for it seemed to come up through all the crevices of the flooring of the church, with a power and perseverance that was positively dreadful. The people coughed, and held their handkerchiefs to their noses, remarking to each other-- "Isn't it dreadful?--did you ever know the smell in St. Dunstan's so bad before," and everybody agreed that they never had known it anything like so bad, for that it was positively awful--and so indeed it was. The anxiety of the bishop to get away was quite manifest, and, if he could have decently taken his departure without confirming anybody at all, there is no doubt but that he would have willingly done so, and left all the congregation to die and be--something or another. But this he could not do, but he could cut it short, and he did so. The people found themselves confirmed before they almost knew where they were, and the bishop would not go into the vestry again on any account, but hurried down the steps of the church, and into his carriage, with the greatest precipitation in the world, thus proving that holiness is no proof against a most abominable stench. As may be well supposed, after this, the subject assumed a much more serious aspect, and on the following day a solemn meeting was held of all the church authorities, at which it was determined that men should be employed to make a thorough and searching examination of the vaults of St. Dunstan's, with the view of discovering, if possible, from whence particularly the abominable stench emanated. And then it was decided that the stench was to be put down, and that the bishop was to be apprized it was put down, and that he might visit the church in perfect safety. CHAPTER XVII. SWEENEY TODD'S PROCEEDINGS CONSEQUENT UPON THE DEPARTURE OF TOBIAS. We left the barber in his own shop, much wondering that Tobias had not responded to the call which he had made upon him, but yet scarcely believing it possible that he could have ventured upon the height of iniquity, which we know Tobias had really been guilty of. He paused for a few moments, and held up the light which he had procured, and gazed around him with inquiring eyes, for he could, indeed, scarcely believe it possible that Tobias had sufficiently cast off his dread of him, Sweeney Todd, to be enabled to achieve any act for his liberation. But when he saw that the lock of the parlour-door was open, positive rage obtained precedence over every other feeling. "The villain!" he cried, "has he dared really to consummate an act I thought he could not have dreamt of for a moment? Is it possible that he can have presumed so far as to have searched the house?" That Tobias, however, had presumed so far, the barber soon discovered, and when he went into his parlour and saw what had actually occurred, and that not only was every cupboard door broken open, but that likewise the door which led to the staircase and the upper part of the house had not escaped, he got perfectly furious, and it was some time before he could sufficiently calm himself to reflect upon the probable and possible amount of danger he might run in consequence of these proceedings. When he did, his active mind at once told him that there was not much to be dreaded immediately, for that most probably Tobias, still having the fear before his eyes of what he might do as regarded his mother, had actually run away; and, "in all likelihood," muttered the barber, "he has taken with him something which would allow me to fix upon him the stigma of robbery, but that I must see to." Having fastened the shop-door securely, he took the light in his hands, and ascended to the upper part of his house--that is to say, the first floor, where alone anything was to be found. He saw at once the open bureau, with all its glittering display of jewels, and as he gazed upon the heap, he muttered-- "I have not so accurate a knowledge of what is here as to be able to say if anything be extracted or not, but I know the amount of money, if I do not know the precise number of jewels which this bureau contains." He opened a small drawer which had entirely escaped the scrutiny of Tobias, and proceeded to count a large number of guineas which were there. "These are correct," he said, when he had finished his examination--"these are correct, and he has touched none of them." He then opened another drawer, in which were a great many packets of silver done up in paper, and these likewise he carefully counted, and was satisfied they were right. "It is strange," he said, "that he has taken nothing, but yet perhaps it is better that it should be so, inasmuch as it shows a wholesome fear of me. The slightest examination would have shown him these hoards of money; and since he has not made that slight examination, nor discovered any of them, it seems to my mind decisive upon the subject, that he has taken nothing, and perchance I shall discover him easier than I imagine." [Illustration: Tobias Discovers The Barber's Hidden Plunder.] He repaired to the parlour again, and carefully divested himself of everything which had enabled him so successfully to impose upon John Mundel, and replaced them by his ordinary costume, after which he fastened up his house and sallied forth, taking his way direct to Mrs. Ragg's humble home, in the expectation that there he would hear something of Tobias, which would give him a clue where to search for him, for search for him he fully intended; but what were his precise intentions perhaps he could hardly have told himself, until he actually found him. When he reached Mrs. Ragg's house, and made his appearance abruptly before that lady, who seemed somehow or another to be always ironing and always to drop the iron when any one came in, very near their toes, he said-- "Where did your son Tobias go after he left you to-night?" "Lor! Mr. Todd, is it you? You are as good as a conjuror, sir, for he was here; but bless you, sir, I know no more where he is gone to, than the man in the moon. He said he was going to sea, but I am sure I should not have thought it, that I should not." "To sea!--then the probability is that he would go down to the docks, but surely not to-night. Do you not expect him back here to sleep?" "Well, sir, that's a very good thought of yours; and he may come back here to sleep, for all I know to the contrary." "But you do not know it for a fact?" "He didn't say so; but he may come, you know, sir, for all that." "Did he tell you his reason for leaving me?" "Indeed no, sir; he really did not, and he seemed to me to be a little bit out of his senses." "Ah! Mrs. Ragg," said Sweeney Todd, "there you have it. From the first moment that he came into my service, I knew and felt confident that he was out of his senses. There was a strangeness of behaviour about him, which soon convinced me of that fact, and I am only anxious about him, in order that some effort may be made to cure him of such a malady, for it is a serious, and a dreadful one, and one which, unless taken in time, will be yet the death of Tobias." These words were spoken with such solemn seriousness, that they had a wonderful effect upon Mrs. Ragg, who, like most ignorant persons, began immediately to confirm that which she most dreaded. "Oh, it's too true," she said, "it's too true. He did say some extraordinary things to-night, Mr. Todd, and he said he had something to tell, which was too horrid to speak of. Now the idea, you know, Mr. Todd, of anybody having anything at all to tell, and not telling it at once, is quite singular." "It is!--and I am sure that his conduct is such you never would be guilty of, Mrs. Ragg;--but hark! what's that?" "It's a knock, Mr. Todd." "Hush, stop a moment--what if it be Tobias?" "Gracious goodness! it can't be him, for he would have come in at once." "No; I slipped the bolt of the door, because I wished to talk to you without observation; so it may be Tobias, you perceive, after all. But let me hide somewhere, so that I may hear what he says, and be able to judge how his mind is affected. I will not hesitate to do something for him, let it cost what it may." "There's the cupboard, Mr. Todd. To be sure there is some dirty saucepans and a frying-pan in it, and of course it aint a fit place to ask you to go into." "Never mind that--never mind that; only you be careful, for the sake of Tobias's very life, to keep secret that I am here." The knocking at the door increased each moment in vehemence, and scarcely had Sweeney Todd succeeded in getting into the cupboard along with Mrs. Ragg's pots and pans, and thoroughly concealed himself, when she opened the door; and, sure enough--Tobias, heated, tired, and looking ghastly pale--staggered into the room. "Mother," he said, "I have taken a new thought, and have come back to you." "Well, I thought you would, Tobias; and a very good thing it is that you have." "Listen to me: I thought of flying from England for ever, and of never again setting foot upon its shores. I have altered that determination completely, and I feel now that it is my duty to do something else." "To do what, Tobias?" "To tell all I know--to make a clean breast, mother, and, let the consequences be what they may, to let justice take its course." "What do you mean, Tobias?" "Mother, I have come to a conclusion, that what I have to tell is of such vast importance, compared with any consequences that may arise from the petty robbery of the candlestick, which you know of, that I ought not to hesitate a moment in revealing everything." "But, my dear Tobias, remember that that is a dreadful secret, and one that must be kept." "It cannot matter--it cannot matter; and, besides, it is more than probable that by revealing what I actually know, and which is of such great magnitude, I may, mother, in a manner of speaking, perchance completely exonerate you from the consequences of that transaction. Besides, it was long ago, and the prosecutor may have mercy; but, be all that how it may, and be the consequences what they may, I must and will tell what I now know." "But what is it Tobias, that you know?" "Something too dreadful for me to utter to you alone. Go into the Temple, mother, to some of the chambers you attend to, and ask them to come to me, and listen to what I have got to say. They will be amply repaid for their trouble, for they will hear that which may, perhaps, save their own lives." "He is quite gone," thought Mrs. Ragg, "and Mr. Todd is correct; poor Tobias is as mad as he can be!" "Alas, alas, Tobias, why don't you try to reason yourself into a better state of mind! You don't know a bit what you are saying, any more than the man in the moon." "I know I am half mad, mother, but yet I know what I am saying well; so do not fancy that it is not to be relied upon, but go and fetch some one at once to listen to what I have to relate." "Perhaps," thought Mrs. Ragg, "if I were to pretend to humour him, it would be as well, and, while I am gone, Mr. Todd can speak to him." This was a bright idea of Mrs. Ragg's, and she forthwith proceeded to carry it into execution, saying-- "Well, my dear, if it must be, it must be--and I will go; but I hope while I have gone, somebody will speak to you, and convince you that you ought to try to quiet yourself." These words Mrs. Ragg uttered aloud, for the special benefit of Sweeney Todd, who, she considered, would have been there to take the hint accordingly. It is needless to say he did hear them, and how far he profited by them, we shall quickly perceive. As for poor Tobias, he had not the remotest idea of the close proximity of his arch enemy; if he had, he would quickly have left that spot, where he might well to conjecture so much danger awaited him; for although Sweeney Todd, under the circumstances, probably felt that he dared not take Tobias's life, still he might exchange something that could place it in his power to do so shortly, with the least personal danger to himself. The door closed after the retreating form of Mrs. Ragg, and as, considering the mission she was gone upon, it was very clear some minutes must elapse before she could return, Sweeney Todd did not feel that there was any very particular hurry in the transaction. "What shall I do?" he said to himself. "Shall I await his mother's coming again, and get her to aid me, or shall I of myself adopt some means which will put an end to trouble on this boy's account?" Sweeney Todd was a man tolerably rapid in thought, and he contrived to make up his mind that the best plan, unquestionably, would be to lay hold of Tobias at once, and so prevent the possibility of any appeal to his mother becoming effective. Tobias, when his mother left the place, as he imagined, for the purpose of procuring some one to listen to what he considered to be Sweeney Todd's delinquencies, rested his face upon his hands, and gave himself up to painful and deep thought. He felt that he had arrived at quite a crisis in his history, and that the next few hours could not surely but be very important to him in their results; and so they were indeed, but not certainly exactly in the way that he all along anticipated, for he thought of nothing but of the arrest and discomfiture of Todd, little expecting how close was his proximity to that formidable personage. "Surely," thought Tobias, "I shall, by disclosing all that I know about Todd, gain some consideration for my mother, and after all, she may not be prosecuted for the robbery of the candlestick, for how very trifling is that affair compared to the much more dreadful things which I more than suspect Sweeney Todd to be guilty of. He is and must be, from all that I have seen and heard, a murderer, although how he disposes of his victims is involved in the most complete mystery, and is to me a matter past all human power of comprehension. I have no idea even upon that subject whatever." This, indeed, was a great mystery; for, even admitting that Sweeney Todd was a murderer, and it must be allowed that as yet we have only circumstantial evidence of that fact, we can form no conclusion from such evidence as to how he perpetrated the deed, or how afterwards he disposed of the body of his victim. This grand and principal difficulty in the way of committing murder with impunity, namely, the disposal of a corpse, certainly did not seem at all to have any effect upon Sweeney Todd; for if he made corpses, he had some means of getting rid of them with the most wonderful expedition as well as secrecy. "He is a murderer," thought Tobias. "I know he is, although I have never seen him do the deed, or seen any appearances in the shop of a deed of blood having been committed. Yet why is it that occasionally, when a better dressed person than usual comes into the shop, that he sends me out on some errand to a distant part of the town?" Tobias did not forget, too, that on more than one occasion he had come back quicker than he had been expected, and that he had caught Sweeney Todd in some little confusion, and seen the hat, the stick, or perhaps the umbrella of the last customer quietly waiting there, although the customer had gone; and even if the glaring improbability of a man leaving his hat behind him in a barber's shop was got over, why did he not come back for it? This was a circumstance which was entitled to all the weight which Tobias, during his mental cogitations, could give to it, and there could be but one possible explanation of a man not coming back for his hat, and that was that he had not the power to do so. "This house will be searched," thought Tobias, "and all those things, which of course must have belonged to so many different people, will be found, and then they will be identified, and he will be required to say how he came by them, which, I think, will be a difficult task indeed for Sweeney Todd to accomplish. What a relief it will be to me, to be sure, when he is hanged, as I think he is tolerably sure to be!" "What a relief," muttered Sweeney Todd, as he slowly opened the door, unseen by Tobias--"what a relief it will be to me when this boy is in his grave, as he will be soon, or else I have forgotten all my moral learning, and turned chicken-hearted--neither of them very likely circumstances." CHAPTER XVIII. THE MISADVENTURE OF TOBIAS.--THE MAD-HOUSE ON PECKHAM-RYE. Sweeney Todd paused for a moment at the cupboard door, before he made up his mind as to whether he should pounce upon poor Tobias at once, or adopt a more creeping, cautious mode of operation. The latter course was by far the most congenial to his mind, and so he adopted it in a moment or so, and stole quietly from his place of concealment, and with so little noise, that Tobias could not have the least suspicion that any one was in the room but himself. Treading, as if each step might involve some serious consequences, he thus at length got completely behind the chair on which Tobias was sitting, and stood with folded arms, and such a hideous smile upon his face, that they together formed no inapt representation of the Mephistopheles of the German drama. "I shall at length," murmured Tobias, "be free from my present dreadful state of mind, by thus accusing Todd. He is a murderer--of that I have no doubt: it is but a duty of mine to stand forward as his accuser." Sweeney Todd stretched out his two brawny hands, and clutched Tobias by the head, which he turned round till the boy could see him, and then he said-- "Indeed, Tobias; and did it never strike you that Todd was not so easily to be overcome as you would wish him, eh, Tobias?" The shock of this astonishing and sudden appearance of Sweeney Todd was so great, that for a few moments Tobias was deprived of all power of speech or action, and with his head so strangely twisted as to seem to threaten the destruction of his neck. He glared in the triumphant and malignant countenance of his persecutor, as he would into that of the arch enemy of all mankind, which probably he now began to think the barber really was. If one thing more than another was calculated to delight such a man as Todd, it certainly was to perceive what a dreadful effect his presence had upon Tobias, who remained for about a minute and a half in this state before he ventured upon uttering a shriek, which, however, when it did come, almost frightened Todd himself. It was one of those cries which can only come from a heart in its utmost agony--a cry which might have heralded the spirit to another world, and proclaimed, as it very nearly did the destruction of the intellect for ever. The barber staggered back a pace or two as he heard it, for it was too terrific even for him, but it was for a very brief period that it had that stunning effect upon him, and then, with a full consciousness of the danger to which it subjected him, he sprang upon poor Tobias as a tiger might be supposed to do upon a lamb, and clutched him by the throat, exclaiming-- "Such another cry, and it is the last you ever live to utter, although it cover me with difficulties to escape the charge of killing you. Peace! I say, peace!" This exhortation was quite needless, for Tobias could not have uttered a word, had he been ever so much inclined to do so; the barber held his throat with such an iron clutch, as if it had been in a vise. "Villain," growled Todd, "villain; so this is the way in which you have dared to disregard my injunctions. But no matter, no matter!--you shall have plenty of leisure to reflect upon what you have done for yourself. Fool! to think that you could cope with me--Sweeney Todd! Ha! ha!" He burst into a laugh, so much more hideous, than his ordinary efforts in that way, that, had Tobias heard it--which he did not, for his head had dropped upon his breast, and he had become insensible--it would have terrified him almost as much as Sweeney Todd's sudden appearance had done. "So," muttered the barber, "he has fainted, has he? Dull child, that is all the better. For once in a way, Tobias, I will carry you--not to oblige you, but to oblige myself. By all that's damnable, it was a lively thought that brought me here to-night, or else I might, by the dawn of the morning, have had some very troublesome inquiries made of me." He took Tobias up as easily as if he had been an infant, and strode from the chambers with him, leaving Mrs. Ragg to draw whatever inference she chose from his absence; but feeling convinced that she was too much under his controul, to take any steps of a nature to give him the smallest amount of uneasiness. "The woman," he muttered to himself, "is a double-distilled ass, and can be made to believe anything, so that I have no fear whatever of her. I dare not kill Tobias, because it is necessary, in case of the matter being at any other period mentioned, that his mother shall be in a position to swear that she saw him after this night alive and well." The barber strode through the Temple, carrying the boy, who seemed not at all in a hurry to recover from the nervous and partial state of suffocation into which he had fallen. As they passed through the gate opening into Fleet-street, the porter, who knew the barber well by sight, said-- "Hilloa, Mr. Todd, is that you? Why, who are you carrying?" "Yes, it's I," said Todd, "and I am carrying my apprentice boy, Tobias Ragg, poor fellow." "Poor fellow!--why, what's the matter with him?" "I can hardly tell you, but he seems to me and to his mother to have gone out of his senses. Good night to you, good night. I'm looking for a coach." "Good night, Mr. Todd; I don't think you'll get one nearer than the market--what a kind thing now of him to carry the boy! It ain't every master would do that; but we must not judge of people by their looks, and even Sweeney Todd, though he has a face that one would not like to meet in a lonely place on a dark night, may be a kind-hearted man." Sweeney Todd walked rapidly down Fleet-street, towards old Fleet Market, which was then in all its glory, if that could be called glory which consisted in all sorts of filth, enough to produce a pestilence within the city of London. When there, he addressed a large bundle of great coats, in the middle of which was supposed to be a hackney coachman of the regular old school, and who was lounging over his vehicle, which was as long and lumbering as a city barge. "Jarvey," he said, "what will you take me to Peckham Rye for?" "Peckham Rye--you and the boy--there ain't any more of you waiting round the corner, are there--'cos, you know, that won't be fair?" "No, no, no." "Well, don't be in a passion, master. I only asked, you know, so you need not be put out about it; I will take you for twelve shillings, and that's what I call remarkably cheap, all things considered." "I'll give half the amount," said Sweeney Todd, "and you may consider yourself well paid." "Half, master?--that is cutting it low; but, howsomdever, I suppose I must put up with it, and take you. Get in, I must try and make it up by some better fare out of somebody else." The barber paid no heed to these renewed remonstrances of the coachman, but got into the vehicle, carrying Tobias with him, apparently with great care and consideration; but when the coach door closed, and no one was observing him, he flung him down among the straw that was at the bottom of the vehicle, and resting his immense feet upon him, he gave one of his disagreeable laughs, as he said-- "Well, I think I have you now, Master Tobias; your troubles will soon be over. I am really very much afraid that you will die suddenly, and then there will be an end of you altogether, which will be a very sad thing, though I don't think I shall go into mourning, because I have an opinion that that only keeps alive the bitterness of regret, and that it's a great deal better done without, Master Tobias." The hackney coach swung about from side to side, in the proper approved manner of hackney coaches in the olden time, when they used to be called "bone setters," and to be thought wonderful if they made a progress of three miles and a half an hour. This was the sort of vehicle, then, in which poor Tobias, still perfectly insensible, was rumbled over Blackfriars-bridge, and so on towards Peckham, which Sweeney Todd had announced to be his place of destination. Going at the rate they did, it was nearly two hours before they arrived upon Peckham Rye; and any one acquainted with that locality is well aware that there are two roads, the one to the left, and the other to the right, both of which are pleasantly enough studded with villa residences. Sweeney Todd directed the coachman to take the road to the left, which he accordingly did, and they pursued it for a distance of about a mile and a half. It must not be supposed that this pleasant district of country was then in the state it is now, as regards inhabitants or cultivation. On the contrary, it was rather a wild spot, on which now and then a serious robbery had been committed; and which had witnessed some of the exploits of those highwaymen, whose adventures, in the present day, if one may judge from the public patronage they may receive, are viewed with such a great amount of interest. There was a lonely, large, rambling, old-looking house by the way side, on the left. A high wall surrounded it, which only allowed the topmost portion of it to be visible, and that presented great symptoms of decay, in the dilapidated character of the chimney-pot, and the general appearance of discomfort which pervaded it. There Sweeney Todd directed the coachman to stop, and when the vehicle, after swinging to and fro for several minutes, did indeed at last resolve itself into a state of repose, Sweeney Todd got out himself, and rang a bell, the handle of which hung invitingly at the gate. He had to wait several minutes before an answer was given to this summons, but at length a noise proceeded from within, as if several bars and bolts were being withdrawn; and presently the door was opened, and a huge, rough-looking man made his appearance on the threshold. [Illustration: The Barber Carries Off Tobias To A Private Mad-House.] "Well! what is it now?" he cried. "I have a patient for Mr. Fogg," said Sweeney Todd. "I want to see him immediately." "Oh! well, the more the merrier: it don't matter to me a bit. Have you got him with you--and is he tolerably quiet?" "It's a mere boy, and he is not violently mad, but very decidedly so as regards what he says." "Oh! that's it, is it? He can say what he likes here, it can make no difference in the world to us. Bring him in--Mr. Fogg is in his own room." "I know the way: you take charge of the lad, and I will go and speak to Mr. Fogg about him. But stay, give the coachman these six shillings, and discharge him." The doorkeeper of the lunatic asylum, for such it was, went out to obey the injunctions of Sweeney Todd, while that rascally individual himself walked along a wide passage to a door which was at the further extremity of it. CHAPTER XIX. THE MADHOUSE CELL. When the porter of the madhouse went out to the coach, his first impression was, that the boy, who was said to be insane, was dead--for not even the jolting ride to Peckham had been sufficient to arouse him to a consciousness of how he was situated; and there he lay still at the bottom of the coach alike insensible to joy or sorrow. "Is he dead?" said the man to the coachman. "How should I know?" was the reply; "he may be or he may not, but I want to know how long I am to wait here for my fare?" "There is your money, be off with you. I can see now that the boy is all right, for he breathes, although it's after an odd fashion that he does so. I should rather think he has had a knock on the head, or something of that kind." As he spoke, he conveyed Tobias within the building, and the coachman, since he had got his six shillings, feeling that he had no further interest in the matter, drove away at once, and paid no more attention to it whatever. When Sweeney Todd reached the door at the end of the passage, he tapped at it with his knuckles, and a voice cried-- "Who knocks--who knocks? Curses on you all! Who knocks?" Sweeney Todd did not make any verbal reply to this polite request, but opening the door he walked into the apartment, which is one that really deserves some description. It was a large room with a vaulted roof, and in the centre was a superior oaken table, at which sat a man considerably advanced in years, as was proclaimed by his grizzled locks that graced the sides of his head, but whose herculean frame and robust constitution had otherwise successfully resisted the assaults of time. A lamp swung from the ceiling, which had a shade over the top of it, so that it cast a tolerably bright glow upon the table below, which was covered with books and papers, as well as glasses and bottles of different kinds, which showed that the madhouse-keeper was, at all events, as far as himself was concerned, not at all indifferent to personal comfort. The walls, however, presented the most curious aspect, for they were hung with a variety of tools and implements, which would have puzzled any one not initiated into the matter even to guess at their uses. These were, however, in point of fact, specimens of the different kinds of machinery which were used for the purpose of coercing the unhappy persons whose evil destiny made them members of that establishment. Those were what is "called the good old times," when all sorts of abuses flourished in perfection, and when the unhappy insane were actually punished as if they were guilty of some great offence. Yes, and worse than that were they punished, for a criminal who might have injustice done to him by any who were in authority over him, could complain, and if he got hold of a person of higher power, his complaints might be listened to, but no one heeded what was said by the poor maniac, whose bitterest accusations of his keepers, let their conduct be what it might, was only listened to and set down as a further proof of his mental disorder. This was indeed a most awful and sad state of things, and, to the disgrace of this country, it is a social evil allowed until very late years to continue in full force. Mr. Fogg, the madhouse-keeper fixed his keen eyes from beneath his shaggy brows, upon Sweeney Todd, as the latter entered his apartment, and then he said-- "Mr. Todd, I think, unless my memory deceives me." "The same," said the barber, making a hideous face, "I believe I am not easily forgotten." "True," said Mr. Fogg, as he reached a book, the edge of which was cut into a lot of little slips, on each of which was a capital letter, in the order of the alphabet--"true, you are not easily forgotten, Mr. Todd." He then opened the book at the letter T, and read from it:-- "Mr. Sweeney Todd, Fleet-street, London, paid one year's keep and burial of Thomas Simkins, aged 15, found dead in his bed, after a residence in the asylum of 10 months and 4 days. I think, Mr. Todd, that was our last little transaction; what can I do now for you, sir?" "I am rather unfortunate," said Todd, "with my boys. I have got another here, who has shown such decided symptoms of insanity, that it becomes absolutely necessary to place him under your care." "Indeed!--does he rave?" "Why, yes he does, and it's the most absurd nonsense in the world that he raves about; for, to hear him, one would really think that, instead of being one of the most humane of men, I was, in point of fact, an absolute murderer." "A murderer, Mr. Todd!" "Yes, a murderer--a murderer to all intents and purposes; could anything be more absurd than such an accusation?--I, that have the milk of human kindness flowing in every vein, and whose very appearance ought to be sufficient to convince anybody at once of my kindness of disposition." Sweeney Todd finished his speech by making such a hideous face, that the madhouse-keeper could not for the life of him tell what to say to it; and then there came one of those short, disagreeable laughs which Todd would at times utter, which, somehow or other, never appeared exactly to come from his mouth, but always made people look up at the walls and ceiling of the apartment in which they were, in great doubt as to whence the remarkable sound came. "For how long," said the madhouse-keeper, "do you think this malady will continue?" "I will pay," said Sweeney Todd, as he leaned over the table, and looked in the face of his questioner, "I will pay for twelve months; but I don't think between you and I, that the case will last anything like so long--I think he will die suddenly." "I shouldn't wonder if he did. Some of our patients do die very suddenly, and, somehow or other, we never know exactly how it happens; but it must be some sort of fit, for they are found dead in the morning in their beds, and then we bury them privately and quietly, without troubling anybody about it at all, which is decidedly the best way, because it saves a great annoyance to friends and relations, as well as prevents any extra expense which otherwise might be foolishly gone to." "You are wonderfully correct and considerate," said Todd, "and it's no more than what I expected from you, or what any one might expect from a person of your great experience, knowledge, and acquirements. I must confess I am quite delighted to hear you talk in so elevated a strain." "Why," said Mr. Fogg, with a strange leer upon his face, "we are forced to make ourselves useful, like the rest of the community; and we could not expect people to send their mad friends and relatives here, unless we took good care that their ends and views were answered by so doing. We make no remarks, and we ask no questions. Those are the principles upon which we have conducted business so successfully and so long; those are the principles upon which we shall continue to conduct it, and to merit, we hope, the patronage of the British public." "Unquestionably--most unquestionably." "You may as well introduce me to your patient at once, Mr. Todd, for I suppose, by this time, he has been brought into this house." "Certainly, certainly--I shall have great pleasure in showing him to you." The madhouse-keeper rose, and so did Mr. Todd, and the former, pointing to the bottles and glasses on the table, said-- "When this business is settled, we can have a friendly glass together." To this proposition Sweeney Todd assented with a nod, and then they both proceeded to what was called a reception-room in the asylum, and where poor Tobias had been conveyed and laid upon a table, when he showed slight symptoms of recovering from the state of insensibility into which he had fallen, and a man was sluicing water on his face by the assistance of a hearth broom occasionally dipped into a pailful of that fluid. "Quite young," said the madhouse-keeper, as he looked upon the pale and interesting face of Tobias. "Yes," said Sweeney Todd, "he is young--more's the pity--and, of course, we deeply regret his present situation." "Oh, of course, of course; but see, he opens his eyes, and will speak directly." "Rave, you mean, rave!" said Todd; "don't call it speaking, it is not entitled to the name. Hush! listen to him." "Where am I?" said Tobias, "where am I? Todd is a murderer--I denounce him." "You hear--you hear?" said Todd. "Mad indeed," said the keeper. "Oh, save me from him--save me from him!" said Tobias, fixing his eyes upon Mr. Fogg. "Save me from him; it is my life he seeks because I know his secrets. He is a murderer--and many a person comes into his shop, who never leaves it again in life, if at all." "You hear him?" said Todd. "Was there ever anybody so mad?" [Illustration: Tobias In The Hands Of The Mad-House Keepers.] "Desperately mad," said the keeper. "Come, come, young fellow, we shall be under the necessity of putting you in a strait waistcoat if you go on in that way. We must do it, for there is no help in such cases if we don't." Todd slunk back into the dark of the apartment, so that he was not seen, and Tobias continued, in an imploring tone-- "I do not know who you are, sir, or where I am; but let me beg of you to cause the house of Sweeney Todd, the barber, in Fleet-street, near St. Dunstan's church, to be searched, and you will find that he is a murderer. There are at least a hundred hats, quantities of walking sticks, umbrellas, watches, and rings, all belonging to unfortunate persons who, from time to time, have met with their deaths through him." "How uncommonly mad!" said Mr. Fogg. "No, no," said Tobias, "I am not mad. Why call me mad, when the truth or falsehood of what I say can be ascertained so easily? Search his house, and if those things be not found there, say that I am mad, and have but dreamed of them. I do not know how he kills the people. That is a great mystery to me yet; but that he does kill them, I have no doubt--I cannot have a doubt." "Watson!" cried the mad-house keeper. "Hilloa! here, Watson." "I am here, sir," said the man, who had been dashing water upon poor Tobias's face. "You will take this lad, Watson, as he seems extremely feverish and unsettled. You will take him and shave his head, Watson, and put a strait waistcoat upon him, and let him be put in one of the dark, damp cells. We must be careful of him, and too much light encourages delirium and fever." "Oh! no, no!" cried Tobias; "What have I done that I should be subjected to such cruel treatment? what have I done that I should be placed in a cell? If this be a madhouse, I am not mad. Oh! have mercy upon me!--have mercy upon me!" "You will give him nothing but bread and water, Watson; and the first symptom of his recovery, which will produce better treatment, will be his exonerating his master from what he has said about him; for he must be mad so long as he continues to accuse such a gentleman as Mr. Todd of such things; nobody but a mad man or a mad boy would think of it." "Then," said Tobias, "I shall continue mad; for if it be madness to know and aver that Sweeney Todd, the barber, of Fleet-street, is a murderer, mad am I, for I know it, and aver it. It is true--it is true." "Take him away, Watson, and do as I desired you. I begin to find that the boy is a very dangerous character, and more viciously mad than anybody we have had here for a considerable time." The man named Watson seized upon Tobias, who again uttered a shriek something similar to the one which had come from his lips when Sweeney Todd clutched hold of him in his mother's room. But they were used to such things in that madhouse, and cared little for them, so no one heeded the cry in the least; but poor Tobias was carried to the door half maddened in reality by the horrors that surrounded him. Just as he was being conveyed out, Sweeney Todd stepped up to him, and putting his mouth close to his ear, he whispered-- "Ha! ha! Tobias! how do you feel now? Do you think Sweeney Todd will be hung, or will you die in the cell of a madhouse?" CHAPTER XX. THE NEW COOK TO MRS. LOVETT GETS TIRED OF HIS SITUATION. From what we have already had occasion to record about Mrs. Lovett's new cook, who ate so voraciously in the cellar, our readers will no doubt be induced to believe that he was a gentleman likely enough soon to be tired of his situation. To a starving man, and one who seemed completely abandoned even by hope, Lovett's bake-house, with an unlimited leave to eat as much as possible, must of course present itself in the most desirable and lively colours: and no wonder therefore, that, banishing all scruple, a man so placed, would take the situation, with very little inquiry. But people will tire of good things; and it is a remarkable well-authenticated fact that human nature is prone to be discontented. And those persons who are well acquainted with the human mind, and who know well how little value people set upon things which they possess, while those which they are pursuing, and which seem to be beyond their reach, assume the liveliest colours imaginable, adopt various means of turning this to account. Napoleon took good care that the meanest of his soldiers should see in perspective the possibility of grasping a marshal's baton. Confectioners at the present day, when they take a new apprentice, tell him to eat as much as he likes of those tempting tarts and sweetmeats, one or two of which before had been a most delicious treat. The soldier goes on fighting away, and never gets the marshal's baton. The confectioner's boy crams himself with Banbury cakes, gets dreadfully sick, and never touches one afterwards. And now, to revert to our friend in Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse. At first everything was delightful, and, by the aid of the machinery, he found that it was no difficult matter to keep up the supply of pies by really a very small amount of manual labour. And that labour also was such a labour of love, for the pies were delicious; there could be no mistake about that. He tasted them half cooked, he tasted them wholly, and he tasted them over-done; hot and cold; pork and veal with seasoning, and without seasoning, until at last he had had them in every possible way and shape; and when the fourth day came after his arrival in the cellar, he might have been sitting in rather a contemplative attitude with a pie before him. It was twelve o'clock: he had heard that sound come from the shop. Yes, it was twelve o'clock, and he had eaten nothing yet; but he kept his eye fixed upon the pie that lay untouched before him. "The pies are all very well," he said; "in fact, of course they are capital pies; and now that I see how they are made, and know that there is nothing wrong in them, I, of course, relish them more than ever; but one can't always live upon pies; it's quite impossible one can subsist upon pies from one end of the year to the other, if they were the finest pies the world ever saw, or ever will see. I don't say anything against the pies--I know they are made of the finest flour, the best possible butter, and that the meat, which comes from God knows where, is the most delicate looking and tender I ever ate in all my life." He stretched out his hand and broke a small portion of the crust from the pie that was before him, and he tried to eat it. He certainly did succeed; but it was a great effort; and when he had done, he shook his head, saying-- "No, no!--d--n it! I cannot eat it, and that's the fact--one cannot be continually eating pies: it is out of the question, quite out the question; and all I have to remark is--d--n the pies! I really don't think I shall be able to let another one pass my lips." He rose and paced with rapid strides the place in which he was, and then suddenly he heard a noise; and, looking up, he saw a trap door in the roof open, and a sack of flour begin gradually to come down. "Hilloa, hilloa!" he cried, "Mrs. Lovett--Mrs. Lovett!" Down came the flour, and the trap door was closed. "Oh, I can't stand this sort of thing," he exclaimed; "I cannot be made into a mere machine for the manufacture of pies. I cannot and will not endure it--it is past all bearing." For the first time almost since his incarceration, for such it really was, he began to think that he would take an accurate survey of the place where this tempting manufacture was carried on. The fact was, his mind had been so intensely occupied during the time he had been there in providing merely for his physical wants, that he had scarcely had time to think or reason upon the probabilities of an uncomfortable termination of his career; but now, when he had really become quite surfeited with the pies, and tired of the darkness and gloom of the place, many unknown fears began to creep across him, and he really trembled, as he asked himself what was to be the end of all. It was with such a feeling as this that he now set about a careful and accurate survey of the place; and taking a little lamp in his hand, he resolved upon peering into every corner of it, with a hope that surely he should find some means by which he should effect an escape from what otherwise threatened to be an intolerable imprisonment. The vault in which the ovens were situated was the largest; and although a number of smaller ones communicated with it, containing the different mechanical contrivances for pie-making, he could not from any one of them discover an outlet. But it was to the vault where the meat was deposited upon stone shelves that he paid the greatest share of attention, for to that vault he felt convinced there must be some hidden and secret means of ingress, and therefore of egress likewise, or else how came the shelves always so well stocked with meat as they were? This vault was larger than any of the other subsidiary ones, and the roof was very high, and, come into it when he would, it always happened that he found meat enough upon the shelves, cut into large lumps, and sometimes into slices, to make a batch of pies with. When it got there, was not so much a mystery to him as how it got there; for, of course, as he must sleep sometimes, he concluded, naturally enough, that it was brought in by some means during the period that he devoted to repose. He stood in the centre of this vault with the lamp in his hand, and he turned slowly round, surveying the walls and the ceilings with the most critical and marked attention, but not the smallest appearance of an outlet was observable. In fact, the walls were so entirely filled up with the stone shelves, that there was no space left for a door; and as for the ceiling, it seemed perfectly entire. Then the floor was of earth; so that the idea of a trap door opening in it was out of the question, because there was no one on his side of it to place the earth again over it, and give it its compact and usual appearance. "This is most mysterious," he said; "and if ever I could have been brought to believe that any one had the assistance of the devil himself in conducting human affairs, I should say that by some means Mrs. Lovett had made it worth the while of that elderly individual to assist her; for, unless the meat gets here by some supernatural agency, I really cannot see how it can get here at all. And yet here it is--so fresh, and pure, and white-looking, although I never could tell the pork from the veal myself, for they seemed to me both alike." He now made a still narrower examination of this vault, but he gained nothing by that. He found that the walls at the back of the shelves were composed of flat pieces of stone, which, no doubt, were necessary for the support of the shelves themselves; but beyond that he made no further discovery, and he was about leaving the place, when he fancied he saw some writing on the inner side of the door. A closer inspection convinced him that there were a number of lines written with lead pencil, and after some difficulty he decyphered them as follows:-- "Whatever unhappy wretch reads these lines may bid adieu to the world and all hope, for he is a doomed man! He will never emerge from these vaults with life, for there is a secret connected with them so awful and so hideous, that to write it makes one's blood curdle, and the flesh to creep upon my bones. That secret is this--and you may be assured, whoever is reading these lines, that I write the truth, and that it is as impossible to make that awful truth worse by any exaggeration, as it would be by a candle at mid-day to attempt to add any new lustre to the sunbeams." Here, most unfortunately, the writing broke off, and our friend, who, up to this point, had perused the lines with the most intense interest, felt great bitterness of disappointment, from the fact that enough should have been written to stimulate his curiosity to the highest possible point, but not enough to gratify it. "This is, indeed, most provoking," he exclaimed. "What can this most dreadful secret be, which it is impossible to exaggerate? I cannot, for a moment, divine to what it can allude." In vain he searched over the door for some more writing--there was none to be found, and from the long straggling pencil-mark, which followed the last word, it seemed as if he who had been then writing had been interrupted, and possibly met the fate that he had predicted, and was about to explain the reason of. "This is worse than no information. I had better have remained in ignorance than have received so indistinct a warning; but they shall not find me an easy victim, and, besides, what power on earth can force me to make pies unless I like, I should wish to know?" As he stepped out of the place in which the meat was kept into the large vault where the ovens were, he trod upon a piece of paper that was lying upon the ground, and which he was quite certain he had not observed before. It was fresh and white, and clean too, so that it could not have been long there, and he picked it up with some curiosity. That curiosity was, however, soon turned to dismay when he saw what was written upon it, which was to the following effect, and well calculated to produce a considerable amount of alarm in the breast of any one situated as he was, so entirely friendless and so entirely hopeless of any extraneous aid in those dismal vaults, which he began, with a shudder, to suspect would be his tomb:-- "You are getting dissatisfied, and therefore it becomes necessary to explain to you your real position, which is simply this:--You are a prisoner, and were such from the first moment that you set foot where you now are; and you will find, unless you are resolved upon sacrificing your life, that your best plan will be to quietly give into the circumstances in which you find yourself placed. Without going into any argument or details upon the subject, it is sufficient to inform you that so long as you continue to make the pies, you will be safe; but if you refuse, then the first time you are caught asleep your throat will be cut." This document was so much to the purpose, and really had so little of verbosity about it, that it was extremely difficult to doubt its sincerity. It dropped from the half-paralysed hands of that man, who, in the depth of his distress, and urged on by great necessity, had accepted a situation that he would have given worlds to escape from, had he been possessed of them. "Gracious Heaven!" he exclaimed, "and am I then indeed condemned to such a slavery? Is it possible, that even in the heart of London, I am a prisoner, and without the means of resisting the most frightful threats that are uttered against me? Surely, surely this must be all a dream! It is too terrific to be true!" He sat down upon that low stool where his predecessor had sat before, receiving his death-wound from the assassin who had glided in behind him, and dealt him that crashing blow, whose only mercy was that it had at once deprived the victim of existence. He could have wept bitterly, wept as he there sat, for he thought over days long passed away, of opportunities let go by with the heedless laugh of youth; he thought over all the chances and fortunes of his life, and now to find himself the miserable inhabitant of a cellar, condemned to a mean and troublesome employment, without even the liberty of leaving that, to starve if he chose, upon pain of death--a frightful death, which had been threatened him, was indeed torment! No wonder that at times he felt himself unnerved, and that a child might have conquered him, while at other moments such a feeling of despair would come across him, that he called aloud upon his enemies to make their appearance, and give him at least the chance of a struggle for his life. "If I am to die," he cried, "let me die with some weapon in my hand, as a brave man ought, and I will not complain, for there is little indeed in life now which should induce me to cling to it; but I will not be murdered in the dark." He sprang to his feet, and rushing up to the door, which opened from the house into the vaults, he made a violent and desperate effort to shake it. But such a contingency as this had surely been looked forward to and provided against, for the door was of amazing strength, and most effectually resisted all his efforts, so that the result of his endeavours was but to exhaust himself, and he staggered back, panting and despairing, to the seat he had so recently left. Then he heard a voice, and upon looking up he saw that the small square opening in the upper part of the door, through which he had been before addressed, was open, and a face there appeared, but it was not the face of Mrs. Lovett. On the contrary, it was a large and hideous male physiognomy, and the voice that came from it was croaking and harsh, sounding most unmusically upon the ears of the unfortunate man who was thus made a victim to Mrs. Lovett's pie popularity. "Continue at your work," said the voice, "or death will be your portion as soon as sleep overcomes you, and you sink exhausted to that repose which you will never awaken from, except to feel the pangs of death, and to be conscious that you are weltering in your blood. Continue at your work, and you will escape all this--neglect it, and your doom is sealed." [Illustration: The Stranger In Mrs. Lovett's Bakehouse.] "What have I done that I should be made such a victim of? Let me go, and I will swear never to divulge the fact that I have been in these vaults, so I cannot disclose any of their secrets, even if knew them." "Make pies," said the voice, "eat them, and be happy. How many a man would envy your position--withdrawn from all the struggles of existence, amply provided with board and lodging, and engaged in a pleasant and delightful occupation; it is astonishing how you can be dissatisfied!" Bang! went the little square orifice at the top of the door, and the voice was heard no more. The jeering mockery of those tones, however, still lingered upon the ear of the unhappy prisoner, and he clasped his head in his hands with a fearful impression upon his brain that he surely must be going mad. "He will drive me to insanity," he cried; "already I feel a sort of slumber stealing over me for want of exercise, and the confined air of these vaults hinder me from taking regular repose; but now, if I close an eye, I shall expect to find the assassin's knife at my throat." He sat for some time longer, and not even the dread he had of sleep could prevent a drowsiness creeping across his faculties, and this weariness would not be shaken off by any ordinary means, until at length he sprang to his feet, and shaking himself roughly, like one determined to be wide awake, he said to himself, mournfully-- "I must do their bidding or die; hope may be a delusion here, but I cannot altogether abandon it, and not until its faintest image has departed from my breast can I lie down to sleep and say--Let death come in any shape it may, it is welcome." With a desperate and despairing energy he set about replenishing the furnaces of the oven, and, when he had got them all in a good state, he commenced manufacturing a batch of one hundred pies, which, when he had finished and placed upon the tray, and set the machine in motion which conducted them up to the shop, he considered to be a sort of price paid for his continued existence, and flinging himself upon the ground, he fell into a deep slumber. CHAPTER XXI. THE NIGHT AT THE MADHOUSE. When Sweeney Todd had, with such diabolical want of feeling, whispered the few words of mockery which we have recorded in Tobias's ear, when he was carried out of Mr. Fogg's reception-room to be taken to a cell, the villanous barber drew back and indulged in rather a longer laugh than usual. "Mr. Todd," said Fogg, "I find that you still retain your habit of merriment; but yours ain't the most comfortable laugh in the world, and we seldom hear anything equal to it, even from one of our cells." "No!" said Sweeney Todd, "I don't suppose you do, and for my part I never heard of a cell laughing yet." "Oh! you know what I mean, Mr. Todd, well enough." "That may be," said Todd, "but it would be just as well to say it for all that. I think, however, as I came in you said something about refreshment?" "I certainly did; and, if you will honour me by stepping back to my room, I think I can offer you, Mr. Todd, a glass of as nice wine as the king himself could put on his table, if he were any judge of that commodity, which I am inclined to think he is not." "What do you expect," said Sweeney Todd, "that such an idiot should be a judge of?--but I shall have great pleasure in tasting your wine, for I have no hesitation in saying that my work to-night has made me thirsty." At this moment a shriek was heard, and Sweeney Todd shrank away from the door. "Oh! it's nothing, it's nothing," said Mr. Fogg; "if you had resided here as long as I have, you would get accustomed to now and then hearing a slight noise. The worst of it is, when half a dozen of the mad fellows get shrieking against each other in the middle of the night. Then, I grant, it is a little annoying." "What do you do with them?" "We send in one of the keepers with the lash, and soon put a stop to that. We are forced to keep the upper hand of them, or else we should have no rest. Hark! do you not hear that fellow now?--he is generally pretty quiet, but he has taken it into his head to be outrageous to-day; but one of my men will soon put a stop to that. This way, Mr. Todd, if you please, and as we don't often meet, I think when we do we ought to have a social glass." Sweeney Todd made several horrible faces as he followed the madhouse-keeper, and he looked as if it would have given him quite as much pleasure, and no doubt it would, to brain that individual, as to drink his wine, although probably he would have preferred doing the latter process first, and executing the former afterwards, and at his leisure. They soon reached the room which was devoted to the use of Mr. Fogg and his friends, and which contained the many little curiosities in the way of madhouse discipline that were in that age considered indispensable in such establishments. Mr. Fogg moved away with his hands a great number of the books and papers which were on the table, so as to leave a vacant space, and then drawing the cork of a bottle, he filled himself a large glass of its contents, and invited Sweeney Todd to do the same, who was by no means slow in following his example. While these two villains are carousing, and caring nothing for the scenes of misery with which they are surrounded, poor Tobias, in conformity with the orders that had been issued with regard to him, was conveyed along a number of winding passages, and down several staircases, towards the cells of the establishment. In vain he struggled to get free from his captor--as well might a hare have struggled in the fangs of a wolf--nor were his cries at all heeded; although, now and then, the shrieks he uttered were terrible to hear, and enough to fill any one with dismay. "I am not mad," said he, "indeed I am not mad--let me go, and I will say nothing--not one word shall ever pass my lips regarding Mr. Todd--let me go, oh, let me go, and I will pray for you as long as I live." Mr. Watson whistled a lively tune. "If I promise--if I swear to tell nothing, Mr. Todd will not wish me kept here--all he wants is my silence, and I will take any oath he likes. Speak to him for me, I implore you, and let me go." Mr. Watson commenced the second part of his lively tune, and by that time he reached a door, which he unlocked, and then, setting down Tobias upon the threshold, he gave him a violent kick, which flung him down two steps on to the stone floor of a miserable cell, from the roof of which continual moisture was dripping, the only accommodation it possessed being a truss of damp straw flung into one corner. "There," said Mr. Watson, "my lad, you can stay there and make yourself comfortable till somebody comes to shave your head, and after that you will find yourself quite a gentleman." "Mercy! mercy--have mercy upon me!" "Mercy!--what the devil do you mean by mercy? Well, that's a good joke; but I can tell you, you have come to the wrong shop for that; we don't keep it in stock here, and if we wanted ever so little of it, we should have to go somewhere else for it." [Illustration] Mr. Watson laughed so much at his own joke, that he felt quite amiable, and told Tobias that if he were perfectly quiet, and said "thank you" for everything, he wouldn't put him on the strait waistcoat, although Mr. Fogg had ordered it; "for," added Mr. Watson, "so far as that goes, I don't care a straw what Mr. Fogg says, or what he does; he can't do without me, damn him! because I know too many of his secrets." Tobias made no answer to this promise, but he lay upon his back on the floor of the cell wringing his hands despairingly, and feeling that almost already the very atmosphere of that place seemed pregnant with insanity, and giving himself up for lost entirely. "I shall never--never," he said, "look upon the bright sky and the green fields again. I shall be murdered here, because I know too much; what can save me now? Oh, what an evil chance it was that brought me back again to my mother, when I ought to have been far, far away by this time, instead of being, as I know I am, condemned to death in this frightful place. Despair seizes upon me! What noise is that--a shriek? Yes, yes, there is some other blighted heart beside mine in this dreadful house. Oh, Heaven! what will become of me? I feel already stifled and sick, and faint with the air of this dreadful cell. Help, help, help! have mercy upon me, and I will do anything, promise anything, swear anything." If poor Tobias had uttered his complaints on the most desolate shore that ever a shipwrecked mariner was cast upon, they could not have been more unheeded than they were in that house of terror. He screamed and shrieked for aid. He called upon all the friends he had ever known in early life, and at that moment he seemed to remember the name of every one who had ever uttered a kind word to him; and to those persons who, alas! could not hear him, but were far enough removed away from his cries, he called for aid in that hour of his deep distress. At length, faint, wearied and exhausted, he lay a mere living wreck in that damp, unwholesome cell, and felt almost willing that death should come and relieve him, at least from the pang of constantly expecting it! His cries, however, had had the effect of summoning up all the wild spirits in that building; and, as he now lay in the quiet of absolute exhaustion, he heard from far and near smothered cries and shrieks and groans, such as one might expect would fill the air of the infernal regions with dismal echoes. A cold and clammy perspiration broke out upon him, as these sounds each moment more plainly fell upon his ear, and as he gazed upon the profound darkness of the cell, his excited fancy began to people it with strange unearthly beings, and he could suppose that he saw hideous faces grinning at him, and huge mis-shapen creatures crawling on the walls, and floating in the damp, pestiferous atmosphere of the wretched cell. In vain he covered his eyes with his hands; those creatures of his imagination were not to be shut out from the mind, and he saw them, if possible, more vividly than before, and presenting themselves in more frightfully tangible shapes. Truly, if such visions should continue to haunt him, poor Tobias was likely enough to follow the fate of many others who had been placed in that establishment perfectly sane, but in a short time exhibited in it as raving lunatics. * * * * * "A nice clear cool glass of wine," said Sweeney Todd, as he held up his glass between him and the light, "and pleasant drinking; so soft and mild in the mouth, and yet gliding down the throat with a pleasant strength of flavour!" "Yes," said Mr. Fogg, "it might be worse. You see some patients, who are low and melancholy mad, require stimulants, and their friends send them wine. This is some that was so sent." "Then you don't trouble the patients with it?" "What! give a madman wine, while I am here in my senses to drink it? Oh, dear no! that won't do on any account." "I should certainly, Mr. Fogg, not expect such an act of indiscretion from you, knowing you as I do to be quite a man of the world." "Thank you for the compliment. This wine, now, was sent for an old gentleman who had turned so melancholy, that he not only would not take food enough to keep life and soul together, but he really terrified his friends so by threatening suicide that they sent him here for a few months; and, as stimulants were recommended for him, they sent this wine, you see; but I stimulated him without it quite as well, for I drink the wine myself and give him an infernal good kick or two every day, and that stimulates him, for it puts him in such a devil of a passion that I am quite sure he doesn't want any wine." "A good plan," said Sweeney Todd, "but I wonder you don't contrive that your own private room should be free from the annoyance of hearing such sounds as those that have been coming upon my ears for the last five or ten minutes." "It's impossible; you cannot get out of the way if you live in the house at all; and you see, as regards these mad fellows, they are quite like a pack of wolves, and when once one of them begins howling and shouting, the others are sure to chime in, in full chorus, and make no end of disturbance till we stop them, as I have already told you we do, with a strong hand." "While I think of it," said Sweeney Todd, as he drew from his pocket a leathern bag, "while I think of it, I may as well pay you the year's money for the lad I have now brought you; you see I have not forgot the excellent rule you have of being paid in advance. There is the amount." "Ah, Mr. Todd," said the madhouse-keeper as he counted the money, and then placed it in his pocket, "it's a pleasure to do business with a thorough business man like yourself. The bottle stands with you, Mr. Todd, and I beg you will not spare it. Do you know, Mr. Todd, this is a line of life which I have often thought would have suited you; I am certain you have a genius for such things." "Not equal to you," said Todd; "but as I am fond, certainly, of what is strange and out of the way, some of the scenes and characters you come across would, I have no doubt, be highly entertaining to me." "Scenes and characters--I believe you! During the course of a business like ours, we come across all sorts of strange things; and if I choose to do it, which of course I don't, I could tell a few tales which would make some people shake in their shoes; but I have no right to tell them, for I have been paid, and what the deuce is it to me?" "Oh, nothing, of course nothing. But just while we are sipping our wine, now, couldn't you tell me something that would not be betraying anybody's confidence?" "I could, I could; I don't mean to say that I could not, and I don't care much if I do to you." CHAPTER XXII. MR. FOGG'S STORY AT THE MADHOUSE TO SWEENEY TODD. After a short pause, during which Mr. Fogg appeared to be referring to the cells of memory, with the view of being refreshed in a matter that had long since been a by-gone, but which he desired to place as clearly before his listener as he could, in fact, to make, if possible, the relation real to him, and to omit nothing during its progress that should be told; or possibly, that amiable individual was engaged in considering if there were any salient point that might criminate himself, or give even a friend a handle to make use of against him; but apparently there was nothing of the kind, for, after a loud "hem!" he filled the glasses, saying-- "Well, now, as you are a friend, I don't mind telling you how we do business here--things that have been done, you know, by others; but I have had my share as well as others--I have known a thing or two, Mr. Todd, and I may say I have done a thing or two, too." "Well, we must live and let live," said Sweeney Todd, "there's no going against that, you know; if all I have done could speak, why--but no matter, I am listening to you--however, if deeds could speak, one or two clever things would come out rather, I think." "Ay, 'tis well they don't," said Mr. Fogg, with much solemnity, "if they did they would be constantly speaking at times when it would be very inconvenient to hear them, and dangerous besides." "So it would," said Sweeney, "a still tongue makes a wise head--but then the silent system would bring no grist to the mill, and we must speak when we know we are right and among friends." "Of course," said Fogg, "of course, that's the right use of speech, and one may as well be without it, as to have it and not use it; but come--drink, and fill again before I begin, and then to my tale. But we may as well have a sentiment. Sentiment, you know," continued Fogg, "is the very soul of friendship. What do you say to 'The heart that can feel for another?'" "With all my soul," said Sweeney Todd; "it's very touching--very touching, indeed. 'The heart that can feel for another!'" and as he spoke, he emptied the glass, which he pushed towards Fogg to refill. "Well," said Fogg, as he complied, "we have had the sentiment, we may as well have the exemplification." "Ha! ha! ha!" said Todd, "very good, very good indeed; pray go on, that will do capitally." "I may as well tell you the whole matter, as it occurred; I will then let you know all I know, and in the same manner. None of the parties are now living, or, at least, they are not in this country, which is just the same thing, so far as I am concerned." "Then that is an affair settled and done with," remarked Sweeney Todd, parenthetically. "Yes, quite.--Well, it was one night--such a one as this, and pretty well about the same hour, perhaps somewhat earlier than this. However, it doesn't signify a straw about the hour, but it was quite night, a dark and wet night too, when a knock came at the street-door--a sharp double knock--it was. I was sitting alone, as I might have been now, drinking a glass or two of wine; I was startled, for I was thinking about an affair I had on hand at that very moment, of which there was a little stir. However, I went to the door, and peeped through a grating that I had there, and saw only a man; he had drawn his horse inside the gate, and secured him. He wore a large Whitney riding-coat, with a nap that would have thrown off a deluge. I fancied, or thought I could tell, that he meant no mischief; so I opened the door at once and saw a tall, gentlemanly man, but wrapped up so, that you could not tell who or what he was; but my eyes are sharp, you know, Mr. Todd. We haven't seen so much of the world without learning to distinguish what kind of person one has to deal with?" "I should think not," said Todd. "'Well,' said I, 'what is your pleasure, sir?' "The stranger paused a moment or two before he made any reply to me. "'Is your name Fogg?' he said. "'Yes, it is,' said I; 'my name is Fogg--what is your pleasure with me, sir?' "'Why,' said he, after another pause, during which he fixed his keen eye very hard upon me--'why, I wish to have a little private conversation with you, if you can spare so much time, upon a very important matter which I have in hand.' "'Walk in, sir,' said I, as soon as I heard what it was he wanted, and he followed me in. 'It is a very unpleasant night, and it's coming on to rain harder. I think it is fortunate you have got housed.' "'Yes,' he replied; 'but I am tolerably well protected against the rain, at all events.' "He came into this very parlour, and took a seat before the fire, with his back to the light, so that I couldn't see his face very well. However, I was determined that I would be satisfied in these particulars, and so, when he had taken off his hat, I stirred up the fire, and had a blaze that illuminated the whole room, and which showed me the sharp, thin visage of my visitor, who was a dark man, with keen grey eyes that were very restless--' "'Will you have a glass of wine?' said I; 'the night is cold as well as wet.' "'Yes, I will,' he replied; 'I am cold with riding. You have a lonely place about here; your house, I see, stands alone too. You have not many neighbours.' "'No, sir,' said I, 'we hadn't need, for when any of the poor things set to screaming, it would make them feel very uncomfortable indeed.' "'So it would, there is an advantage in that to yourself as well as to them. It would be disagreeable to you to know that you were disturbing your neighbours, and they would feel equally uncomfortable in being disturbed, and yet you must do your duty.' "'Ay! to be sure,' said I; 'I must do my duty, and people won't pay me for letting madmen go, though they may for keeping them; and besides that, I think some on 'em would get their throats cut, if I did.' "'You are right--quite right,' said he; 'I am glad to find you of that mind, for I came to you concerning an affair that requires some delicacy about it, since it is a female patient.' "'Ah!' said I, 'I always pay great attention, very great attention; and I don't recollect a case, however violent it may be, but what I can overcome. I always make 'em acknowledge me, and there's much art in that.' "'To be sure, there must be.' "'And, moreover, they wouldn't so soon crouch and shrink away from me, and do what I tell 'em, if I did not treat them with kindness, that is, as far as is consistent with one's duty, for I mustn't forget that.' "'Exactly,' he replied; 'those are my sentiments exactly.' "'And now, sir, will you inform me in what way I can serve you?' "'Why I have a relative, a female relative, who is unhappily affected with a brain disease; we have tried all we can do, without any effect. Do what we will, it comes to the same thing in the end.' "'Ah!' said I; 'poor thing--what a dreadful thing it must be to you or any of her friends, who have the charge of her, to see her day by day an incurable maniac. Why, it is just as bad as when a friend or relative is dead, and you are obliged to have the dead body constantly in your house, and before your eyes.' "'Exactly, my friend,' said the stranger; 'exactly, you are a man of discernment, Mr. Fogg. I see, that is truly the state of the case. You may then guess at the state of our feelings, when we have to part with one beloved by us.' "As he spoke, he turned right round, and faced me, looking very hard into my face. "'Well,' said I, 'your's is a hard case; but to have one afflicted about you in the manner the young lady is, is truly distressing; it's like having a perpetual lumbago in your back.' "'Exactly,' said the stranger. 'I tell you what, you are the very man to do this thing for me.' "'I am sure of it,' said I. "'Then we understand each other, eh?' said the stranger. 'I must say I like your appearance, it is not often such people as you and I meet.' "'I hope it will be to our mutual advantage,' said I, 'because such people don't meet every day, and we oughtn't to meet to no purpose; so, in anything delicate and confidential you may command me.' "'I see, you are a clever man,' said he; 'well, well, I must pay you in proportion to your talents. How do you do business--by the job, or by the year?' "'Well,' said I, 'where it's a matter of some nicety, it may be both--but it entirely depends upon circumstances. I had better know exactly what it is I have to do.' "'Why, you see, it is a young female about eighteen, and she is somewhat troublesome--takes to screaming, and all that kind of thing. I want her taken care of, though you must be very careful she neither runs away nor suddenly commits any mischief, as her madness does not appear to me to have any particular form, and would at times completely deceive the best of us, and then suddenly she will break out violently, and snap or fly at anybody with her teeth.' "'Is she so bad as that?' "'Yes, quite. So it is quite impossible to keep her at home; and I expect it will be a devil of a job to get her here. I tell you what you shall have; I'll pay you your yearly charge for board and care, and I'll give you a ten-pound note for your trouble, if you'll come and assist me in securing her, and bringing her down. It will take some trouble.' "'Very well,' said I, 'that will do, but you must double the note and make it twenty, if you please; it will cost something to come and do the thing well.' "'I see--very well--we won't disagree about a ten-pound note; but you'll know how to dispose of her if she comes here.' "'Oh, yes--very healthy place.' "'But I don't know that health is a very great blessing to any one under such circumstances; indeed, who could regret an early grave to one so severely afflicted?' "'Nobody ought,' said I; 'if they knew what mad people went through, they would not, I'm sure.' "'That is very true again, but the fact is, they don't, and they only look at one side of the picture; for my own part, I think that it ought to be so ordained, that when people are so afflicted, nature ought to sink under the affliction, and so insensibly to revert to the former state of nonentity.' "'Well,' said I, 'that may be as you please, I don't understand all that; but I tell you what, I hope if she were to die much sooner than you expect, you would not think it too much trouble to afford me some compensation for my loss.' "'Oh dear no! and to show you that I shall entertain no such illiberal feeling, I will give you two hundred pounds, when the certificate of her burial can be produced. You understand me?' "'Certainly.' "'Her death will be of little value to me, without the legal proof,' said the stranger; 'so she must die at her own pleasure, or live while she can.' "'Certainly,' said I. "'But what terrifies me,' continued the stranger, 'most is, her terror-stricken countenance, always staring us in our faces; and it arose from her being terrified; indeed I think if she were thoroughly frightened, she would fall dead. I am sure, if any wickedly-disposed person were to do so, death would no doubt result.' "'Ah!' said I, 'it would be a bad job; now tell me where I am to see you, and how about the particulars.' "'Oh, I will tell you; now, can you be at the corner of Grosvenor-street, near Park-lane?' "'Yes,' I replied, 'I will.' "'With a coach too. I wish you to have a coach, and one that you can depend upon, because there may be a little noise. I will try to avoid it, if possible, but we cannot always do what we desire; but you must have good horses.' "'Now, I tell you what is my plan; that is, if you don't mind the damages, if any happen.' "'What are they?' "'This:--suppose a horse falls, and is hurt, or an upset--would you stand the racket?' "'I would, of course.' "'Then listen to me; I have had more of these affairs than you have, no doubt. Well, then, I have had experience, which you have not. Now, I'll get a trotting-horse, and a covered cart or chaise--one that will go along well at ten miles an hour, and no mistake about it.' "'But will it hold enough?' "'Yes, four or five or six, and, upon a push, I have known eight to cram in it; but then you know we were not particular how we were placed; but still it will hold as many as a hackney coach, only not so conveniently; but then we have nobody in the affair to drive us, and there can't be too few.' "'Well, that is perhaps best; but have you a man on whom you can depend?--because if you have, why, I would not be in the affair at all.' "'You must,' said I; 'in the first place, I can depend upon one man best; him I must leave here to mind the place; so if you can manage the girl, I will drive, and I know the road as well as the way to my own mouth--I would rather have as few in it as possible.' "'Your precaution is very good, and I think I will try and so manage it, that there shall be only you and I acquainted with the transaction; at all events, should it become necessary, it will be time enough to let some other person into the secret at the moment their services are required. That, I think, will be the best arrangement that I can come to--what do you say?' "'That will do very well--when we get her here, and when I have seen her a few days, I can tell what to do with her.' "'Exactly; and now, good night--there is the money I promised, and now again, good night! I shall see you at the appointed time.' "'You will,' said I--'one glass more, it will do you good, and keep the rain out.' "He took off a glass of wine, and then pulled his hat over his face, and left the house. It was a dark, wet night, and the wind blew, and we heard the sound of his horse's hoofs for some time; however, I shut the door and went in, thinking over in my own mind what would be the gain of my own exertions. * * * * * "Well, at the appointed hour, I borrowed a chaise cart, a covered one, with what you call a head to it, and I trotted to town in it. At the appointed time I was at the corner of Grosvenor-street; it was late, and yet I waited there an hour or more before I saw any one. I walked into a little house to get a glass of spirits to keep up the warmth of the body, and when I came out again, I saw some one standing at my horse's head. I immediately went up. "'Oh, you are here,' he said. "'Yes I am,' said I, 'I have been here the Lord knows how long. Are you ready?' "'Yes, I am; come,' said he, as he got into the cart--'come to the place I shall tell you--I shall only get her into the cart, and you must do the rest.' "'You'll come back with me; I shall want help on the road, and I have no one with me.' "'Yes, I will come with you, and manage the girl, but you must drive, and take all the casualties of the road, for I shall have enough to do to hold her and keep her from screaming when she does awake.' "'What! is she asleep?' "'I have given her a small dose of laudanum, which will cause her to sleep comfortably for an hour or two, but the cold air and disturbance will most probably awaken her at first.' "'Throw something over her, and keep her warm, and have something ready to thrust into her mouth, in case she takes to screaming, and then you are all right.' "'Good,' he replied: 'now wait here. I am going to yon house. When I have entered, and disappeared several minutes, you may quietly drive up, and take your station on the other side of the lamp-post.' "As he spoke he got out, and walked to a large house, which he entered softly, and left the door ajar; and after he had gone in, I walked the horse quietly up to the lamp-post, and as I placed it, the horse and front of the cart were completely in the dark. I had scarcely got up to the spot, when the door opened, and he looked out to see if anybody was passing. I gave him the word, and out he came, leaving the door, and came with what looked like a bundle of clothes, but which was the young girl and some clothes he had brought with him. "'Give her to me,' said I, 'and jump up and take the reins; go on as quickly as you can.' "I took the girl into my arms, and handed her into the back part of the chaise, while he jumped up, and drove away. I placed the young girl in an easy position upon some hay, and stuffed the clothes under her, so as to prevent the jolting from hurting her. "'Well,' said I, 'you may as well come back here, and sit beside her: she is all right. You seem rather in a stew.' "'Well, I have run with her in my arms, and altogether it has flurried me.' "'You had better have some brandy,' said I. "'No, no! don't stop.' "'Pooh, pooh!' I replied, pulling up, 'here is the last house we shall come to, to have a good stiff tumbler of hot brandy and water. Come, have you any change--about a sovereign will do, because I shall want change on the road? Come, be quick.' "He handed me a sovereign, saying-- "'Don't you think it's dangerous to stop--we may be watched, or she may wake.' "'Not a bit of it. She snores too loudly to wake just now, and you'll faint without the cordial; so keep a good look-out upon the wench, and you will recover your nerves again.' "As I spoke I jumped out, and got two glasses of brandy and water, hot, strong, and sweet, I had in about two minutes made, out of the house. "'Here,' said I, 'drink--drink it all up--it will make your eyes start out of your head.' "I spoke the truth, for what with my recommendations, and his nervousness and haste, he drank nearly half of it at a gulp. "I shall never forget his countenance. Ha! ha! ha! I can't keep my mirth to myself. Just imagine the girl inside a covered cart, all dark, so dark that you could hardly see the outline of the shadow of a man, and then imagine, if you can, a pair of keen eyes, that shone in the dark like cat's eyes, suddenly give out a flash of light, and then turn round in their sockets, showing the whites awfully, and then listen to the fall of the glass, and see him grasp his throat with one hand, and thrust the other hand into his stomach. There was a queer kind of voice came from his throat, and then something like a curse and a groan escaped him. "'Damn it,' said I, 'what is the matter now?--you've upset all the liquor--you are very nervous--you had better have another dose.' "'No more--no more,' he said faintly and huskily, 'no more--for God's sake no more. I am almost choked--my throat is scalded, and my entrails on fire!' "'I told you it was hot,' said I. "'Yes, hot, boiling hot--go on. I'm mad with pain--push on.' "'Will you have any water, or anything to cool your throat?' said I. "'No, no--go on.' "'Yes,' said I, 'but the brandy and water is hot; however, it's going down very fast now--very fast indeed, here is the last mouthful;' and as I said so, I gulped it down, returned with the one glass, and then paid for the damage. "This did not occupy five minutes, and away we came along the road at a devil of a pace, and we were all right enough; my friend behind me got over his scald, though he had a very sore gullet, and his intestines were in a very uncomfortable state; but he was better. Away we rattled, the ground rattling to the horse's hoofs and the wheels of the vehicle, the young girl still remaining in the same state of insensibility in which she had first been brought out. No doubt she had taken a stronger dose of the opium than she was willing to admit. That was nothing to me, but made it all the better, because she gave the less trouble, and made it safer. We got here easy enough, drove slap up to the door, which was opened in an instant, jumped out, took the girl, and carried her in. When once these doors are shut upon any one, they may rest assured that it is quite a settled thing, and they don't get out very easy, save in a wooden surtout; indeed, I never lost a boarder by any other means; we always keep one connection, and they are usually so well satisfied, that they never take any one away from us. Well, well! I carried her indoors, and left her in a room by herself on a bed. She was a nice girl--a handsome girl, I suppose people would call her, and had a low, sweet, and plaintive voice. But enough of this. "'She's all right,' said I, when I returned to this room, 'It's all right--I have left her.' "'She isn't dead,' he inquired, with much terror. "'Oh! no, no! she is only asleep, and has not woke up yet from the effects of the laudanum. Will you now give me one year's pay in advance?' "'Yes,' he replied, as he handed the money, and the remainder of the bonds. 'Now, how am I to do about getting back to London to-night?' "'You had better remain here.' "'Oh, no! I should go mad too, if I were to remain here; I must leave here soon.' "'Well, will you go to the village inn?' "'How far is that off?' "'About a mile--you'll reach it easy enough; I'll drive you over for the matter of that, and leave you there. I shall take the cart there.' "'Very well, let it be so; I will go. Well, well, I am glad it is all over, and the sooner it is over for ever, the better. I am truly sorry for her, but it cannot be helped. It will kill her, I have no doubt; but that is all the better: she will escape the misery consequent upon her departure, and release us from a weight of care.' "'So it will,' said I 'but come, we must go at once, if going you are.' "'Yes, yes,' he said hurriedly. "'Well then, come along; the horse is not yet unharnessed, and if we do not make haste, we shall be too late to obtain a lodging for the night.' "'That is very good,' he said, somewhat wildly: 'I am quite ready--quite.' "We left the house, and trotted off to the inn at a good rate, where we arrived in about ten minutes or less, and then I put up the horse, and saw him to the inn, and came back as quick as I could on foot. 'Well, well,' I thought, 'this will do, I have had a good day of it--paid well for business, and haven't wanted for sport on the road.' "Well, I came to the conclusion that if the whole affair was to speedily end, it would be more in my pocket than if she were living, and she would be far happier in heaven than here, Mr. Todd." "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Sweeney Todd, "undoubtedly, that is a very just observation of yours." "Well, then, I set to work to find out how the matter could be managed, and I watched her until she awoke. She looked around her, and seemed much surprised and confused, and did not seem to understand her position, while I remained at hand." "She sighed deeply, and put her hand to her head, and appeared for a time to be quite unable to comprehend what had happened to her, or where she was. I sent some tea to her, as I was not prepared to execute my purpose, and she seemed to recover, and asked some questions, but my man was dumb for the occasion, and would not speak, and the result was, she was very much frightened. I left her so for a week or two, and then, one day, I went into her cell. She had greatly altered in her appearance, and looked very pale. "'Well,' said I, 'how do you find yourself, now?' "She looked up into my face, and shuddered; but she said in a calm voice, looking round her-- "'Where am I?' "'You are here!' said I, 'and you'll be very comfortable if you only take on kindly, but you will have a strait waistcoat put on you if you do not.' "'Good God!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands, 'have they put me here--in--in--' "She could not finish the sentence, and I supplied the word which she did not utter, and then she screamed loudly-- "'Come,' said I, 'this will never do; you must learn to be quiet, or you'll have fearful consequences.' "'Oh mercy, mercy! I will do no wrong! What have I done that I should be brought here?--what have I done? They may take all I have if they will let me live in freedom. I care not where or how poor I may be. Oh, Henry! Henry!--if you knew where I was, would you not fly to my rescue? Yes, you would, you would!' "'Ah,' said I, 'there is no Henry here, and you must be content to do without one.' "'I could not have believed that my brother would have acted such a base part. I did not think him wicked, although I knew him to be selfish, mean, and stern, yet I did not think he intended such wickedness; but he thinks to rob me of all my property; yes, that is the object he has in sending me here.' "'No doubt,' said I. "'Shall I ever get out?' she inquired, in a pitiful tone; 'do not say my life is to be spent here!' "'Indeed it is,' said I; 'while he lives, you will never leave these walls.' "'He shall not attain his end, for I have deeds about me that he will never be able to obtain; indeed, he may kill me, but he cannot benefit by my death.' "'Well,' said I, 'it serves him right. And how did you manage that matter? how did you contrive to get the deeds away?' "'Never mind that; it is a small deed, and I have secured it. I did not think he would have done this thing; but he may yet relent. Will you aid me? I shall be rich, and can pay you well.' "'But your brother,' said I. "'Oh, he is rich without mine, but he is over-avaricious; but say you will help me--only help me to get out, and you shall be no loser by the affair.' "'Very well,' said I. 'Will you give me this deed as a security that you will keep your word?' "'Yes,' she replied, drawing forth the deed--a small parchment--from her bosom. 'Take it; and now let me out. You shall be handsomely rewarded.' "'Ah!' said I; 'but you must allow me first to settle this matter with my employers. You must really be mad. We do not hear of young ladies carrying deeds and parchments about them when they are in their senses.' "'You do not mean to betray me?' she said, springing up wildly and rushing towards the deed, which I carefully placed in my breast coat-pocket. "'Oh dear no! but I shall retain the deed, and speak to your brother about this matter.' "'My God! my God!' she exclaimed, and then she sank back on her bed, and in another moment she was covered with blood. She had burst a blood-vessel. I sent for a surgeon and physician, and they both gave it as their opinion that she could not be saved, and that a few hours would see the last of her. This was the fact. She was dead before another half hour, and then I sent to the authorities for the purpose of burial; and, producing the certificate of the medical men, I had no difficulty, and she was buried all comfortably without any trouble. * * * * * "'Well,' thought I, 'this is a very comfortable affair; but it will be more profitable than I had any idea of, and I must get my first reward first, and if there should be any difficulty, I have the deed to fall back upon. He came down next day, and appeared with rather a long face. "'Well,' said he, 'how do matters go on here?' "'Very well,' said I, 'how is your throat?' "I thought he cast a malicious look at me, as much as to imply he laid it all to my charge. "'Pretty well,' he replied; 'but I was ill for three days. How is the patient?' "'As well as you could possibly wish,' said I. "'She takes it kindly, eh? Well, I hardly expected it--but no matter. She'll be a long while on hand, I perceive. You haven't tried the frightening system yet, then?' "'Hadn't any need,' I replied, putting the certificate of her burial in his hand, and he jumped as if he had been stung by an adder, and turned pale; but he soon recovered, and smiled complaisantly as he said-- "'Ah! well, I see you have been diligent, but I should have liked to have seen her, to have asked her about a missing deed; but no matter.' "'Now about the two hundred pounds,' said I. "'Why,' said he, 'I think one will do when you come to consider what you have received, and the short space of time and all: you had a year's board in advance.' "'I know I had; but because I have done more than you expected, and in a shorter time, instead of giving me more, you have the conscience to offer me less.' "'No, no, not the--the--what did you call it?--we'll have nothing said about that,--but here is a hundred pounds, and you are well paid.' "'Well,' said I, taking the money, 'I must have five hundred pounds at any rate, and unless you give it me, I will tell other parties where a certain deed is to be found.' "'What deed?' "'The one you were alluding to. Give me four hundred more, and you shall have the deeds.' "After much conversation and trouble he gave it to me, and I gave him the deed, with which he was well pleased, but looked hard at the money, and seemed to grieve at it very much. "Since that time I have heard that he was challenged by his sister's lover, and they went out to fight a duel, and he fell--and died. The lover went to the continent, where he has since lived. "Ah," said Sweeney Todd, "you have had decidedly the best of this affair: nobody gained anything but you." "Nobody at all that I know of, save distant relations, and I did very well; but then, you know, I can't live upon nothing: it costs me something to keep my house and cellar, but I stick to business, and so I shall as long as business sticks to me." CHAPTER XXIV. COLONEL JEFFERY MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO COME AT SWEENEY TODD'S SECRET. If we were to say that Colonel Jeffery was satisfied with the state of affairs as regarded the disappearance of his friend Thornhill, or that he made up his mind now contentedly to wait until chance, or the mere progress of time, blew something of a more defined nature in his way, we should be doing that gentleman a very great injustice indeed. On the contrary, he was one of those chivalrous persons who when they do commence anything, take the most ample means to bring it to a conclusion, and are not satisfied that they have made one great effort, which, having failed, is sufficient to satisfy them. Far from this, he was a man who, when he commenced any enterprise, looked forward to but one circumstance that could possibly end it, and that was its full and complete accomplishment in every respect; so that in this affair of Mr. Thornhill, he certainly did not intend by any means to abandon it. But he was not precipitate. His habits of military discipline, and the long life he had led in camps, where anything in the shape of hurry and confusion is much reprobated, made him pause before he decided upon any particular course of action; and this pause was not one contingent upon a belief, or even a surmise in the danger of the course that suggested itself, for such a consideration had no effect whatever upon him; and if some other mode had suddenly suggested itself, which, while it placed his life in the most imminent peril, would have seemed more likely to accomplish his object, it would have been at once most gladly welcomed. And now, therefore, he set about thinking deeply over what could possibly be done further in a matter that as yet appeared to be involved in the most profound of possible mysteries. That the barber's boy, who had been addressed by him, and by his friend, the captain, knew something of an extraordinary character, which fear prevented him from disclosing, he had no doubt, and, as the colonel remarked-- "If fear keeps that lad silent upon the subject, fear may make him speak; and I do not see why we should not endeavour to make ourselves a match for Sweeney Todd in such a matter." "What do you propose then?" said the captain. "I should say that the best plan would be, to watch the barber's shop, and take possession of the boy, as we may chance to find an opportunity of so doing." "Carry him off?" "Yes, certainly; and as in all likelihood his fear of the barber is but a visionary affair after all, it can easily, when we have him to ourselves, be dispelled; and then, when he finds that we can and will protect him, we shall hear all he has to say." After some further conversation, the plan was resolved upon; and the captain and the colonel, after making a careful "reconnoissance," as they called it, of Fleet-street, found that by taking up a station at the window of a tavern, which was nearly opposite to the barber's shop, they should be able to take such effectual notice of whoever went in and came out, that they would be sure to see the boy some time during the course of the day. This plan of operations would no doubt have been greatly successful, and Tobias would have fallen into their hands, had he not, alas! for him, poor fellow, already been treated by Sweeney Todd as we have described by being incarcerated in that fearful madhouse on Peckham Rye, which was kept by so unscrupulous a personage as Fogg. And we cannot but consider that it was most unfortunate for the happiness of all those persons in whose fate we take so deep an interest--and in whom we hope, as regards the reader, we have likewise awakened a feeling of great sympathy--if Tobias had not been so infatuated as to make the search he did of the barber's house, but had waited even for twenty-four hours before doing so; in that case, not only would he have escaped the dreadful doom which had awaited him, but Johanna Oakley would have been saved from much danger which afterwards befel her. But we must not anticipate; and the fearful adventures which it was her doom to pass through, before she met with the reward of her great virtue, and her noble perseverance will speak for themselves, trumpet-tongued indeed. It was at a very early hour in the morning that the two friends took up their station at the public-house so nearly opposite to Sweeney Todd's, in Fleet street; and then, having made an arrangement with the landlord of the house, that they were to have undisturbed possession of the room as long as they liked, they both sat at the window, and kept an eye upon Todd's house. It was during the period of time there spent, that Colonel Jeffery first made the captain acquainted with the fact of his great affection for Johanna, and that in her he thought he had at length fixed his wandering fancy, and found, really, the only being with whom he thought he could, in this world taste the sweets of domestic life, and know no regret. "She is all," he said, "in beauty that the warmest imagination can possibly picture, and along with these personal charms, which certainly are most peerless, I have seen enough of her to feel convinced that she has a mind of the purest order that ever belonged to any human being in the world." "With such sentiments and feelings towards her, the wonder would be," said the captain, "if you did not love her, as you now avow you do." "I could not be insensible to her attractions. But, understand me, my dear friend, I do not, on account of my own suddenly-conceived partiality for this young and beautiful creature, intend to commit the injustice of not trying might and main, and with heart and hand, to discover if, as she supposes, it be true that Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie be one and the same person; and when I say that I love her with a depth and a sincerity of affection that makes her happiness of greater importance to me than my own--you know, I think, enough of me to feel convinced that I am speaking only what I really feel." "I can," said the captain, "and I do give you credit for the greatest possible amount of sincerity, and I feel sufficiently interested myself in the future fate of this fair young creature to wish that she may be convinced her lover is no more, and may so much better herself, as I am quite certain she would, by becoming your wife; for all we can hear of this Ingestrie seems to prove that he is not the most stable-minded of individuals the world ever produced, and perhaps not exactly the sort of man--however, of course, she may think to the contrary, and he may in all sincerity think so likewise--to make such a girl as Johanna Oakley happy." "I thank you for the kind feeling towards me, my friend, which has dictated that speech, but--" "Hush!" said the captain, suddenly, "hush! look at the barber!" "The barber? Sweeney Todd?" "Yes, yes, there he is; do you not see him? There he is, and he looks as if he had come off a long journey. What can he have been about, I wonder? He is draggled in mud!" Yes, there was Sweeney Todd, opening his shop from the outside with a key, that after a vast amount of fumbling, he took from his pocket; and, as the captain said, he did indeed look as if he had come off a long journey, for he was draggled with mud, and his appearance altogether was such as to convince any one that he must have been out in most of the heavy rain which had fallen during the early part of the morning upon London and its suburbs. And this was just the fact, for after staying with the madhouse-keeper in the hope that the bad weather which had set in would be alleviated, he had been compelled to give up all chance of such a thing, and as no conveyance of any description was to be had, he enjoyed the pleasure, if it could be called such, of walking home up to his knees in the mud of that dirty neighbourhood. It was, however, some satisfaction to him to feel that he had got rid of Tobias, who, from what he had done as regarded the examination of the house, had become extremely troublesome indeed, and perhaps the most serious enemy that Sweeney Todd had ever had. "Ha!" he said, as he came within sight of his shop in Fleet-street,--"ha! Master Tobias is safe enough; he will give me no more trouble, that is quite clear. What a wonderfully convenient thing it is to have such a friend as Fogg, who for a consideration will do so much towards ridding one of an uncomfortable encumbrance. It is possible enough that that boy might have compassed my destruction. I wish I dared now chance, with the means I have for the sale of the string of pearls, joined to my other resources, leaving business, and so not be obliged to run the risk and have the trouble of another boy." Yes, Sweeney Todd would have been glad now to shut up his shop in Fleet-street at once and for ever, but he dreaded that when John Mundel found that his customer did not come back to him to redeem the pearls, that he (John Mundel) would proceed to sell them, and that then their beauty and great worth would excite much attention, and some one might come forward who knew more about their early history than he did. "I must keep quiet," he thought,--"I must keep quiet; for although I think I was pretty well disguised, and it is not at all likely that any one--no, not even the acute John Mundel himself--would recognise in Sweeney Todd, the poor barber of Fleet-street, the nobleman who came from the queen to borrow £8,000 upon a string of pearls; yet there is a remote possibility of danger; and should there be a disturbance about the precious stones, it is better that I should remain in obscurity until that disturbance is completely over." This was no doubt admirable policy on the part of Todd, who, although he found himself a rich man, had not, as many people do when they make that most gratifying and interesting discovery, forgotten all the prudence and tact that made him one of that most envied class of personages. He was some few minutes before he could get the key to turn in the lock of his street door, but at length he effected that object and disappeared from before the eyes of the colonel and his friend into his own house, and the door was instantly again closed upon him. "Well," said Colonel Jeffery, "what do you think of that?" "I don't know what to think, further than that your friend Todd has been out of town, as the state of his boots abundantly testifies." "They do, indeed, and he has the appearance of having been a considerable distance, for the mud that is upon his boots is not London mud." "Certainly not; it is quite of a different character altogether. But see, he is coming out again." Sweeney Todd strode out of his house, bareheaded now, and proceeded to take down the shutters of his shop, which, there being but three, he accomplished in a few seconds of time, and walked in again with them in his hand, along with the iron bar which had secured them, and which he had released from the inside. This was all the ceremony that took place at the opening of Sweeney Todd's shop, and the only surprise our friends, who were at the public-house window, had upon the subject was, that having a boy, he, Todd, should condescend to make himself so useful as to open his own shop. And nothing could be seen of the lad, although the hour, surely, for his attendance must have arrived; and Todd, equally surely, was not the sort of man to be so indulgent to a boy, whom he employed to make himself generally useful, as to allow him to come when all the dirty work of the early morning was over. But yet such to all appearance would seem to be the case, for presently Todd appeared with a broom in his hand, sweeping out his shop with a rapidity and a vengeance which seemed to say, that he did not perform that operation with the very best grace in the world. "Where can the boy be?" said the captain. "Do you know, little reason as I may really appear to have for such a supposition, I cannot help in my own mind connecting Todd's having been out of town somehow with the fact of that boy's non-appearance this morning." "Indeed!--the coincidence is curious, for such was my own thought likewise upon the occasion; and the more I do think of it, the more I feel convinced that such must be the case, and that our watch will be a fruitless one completely. Is it likely--for possible enough it is--that the villain has found out that we have been asking some questions of the boy, and has thought proper to take his life?" "Do not let us go too far," said the captain, "in mere conjecture; recollect that as yet, let us suspect what we may, we know nothing, and that the mere facts of our not being able to trace Thornhill beyond the shop of this man, will not be sufficient to found an action upon." "I know all that, and I feel how very cautious we must be; and yet to my mind the whole of the circumstances have been day by day assuming a most hideous air of probability, and I look upon Todd as a murderer already." "Shall we continue our watch?" "I scarcely see its utility. Perchance we may see some proceedings which may interest us; but I have a powerful impression that we certainly shall not see the boy we want. But, at all events, the barber, you perceive, has a customer already." As they looked across the way, they saw a well dressed looking man, who, from a certain air and manner which he had, could be detected not to be a Londoner. He rather resembled some substantial yeoman, who had come to town to pay or to receive money, and, as he came near to Sweeney Todd's shop he might have been observed to stroke his chin, as debating in his mind the necessity or otherwise of a shave. The debate, if it were taking place in his mind, ended by the ayes having it, for he walked into Todd's shop, being most unquestionably the first customer which he had had that morning. Situated as the colonel and his friend were, they could not see into Todd's shop, even if the door had been opened, but they saw that after the customer had been in for a few moments, it was closed, so that, had they been close to it, all the interior of the shaving establishment would have been concealed. They felt no great degree of interest in this man, who was a commonplace personage enough, who had entered Sweeney Todd's shop; but when an unreasonable time had elapsed, and he did not come out, they did begin to feel a little uneasy. And when another man, went in and was only about five minutes before he emerged, shaved, and yet the first man did not come, they knew not what to make of it, and looked at each other for some few moments in silence. At length the colonel spoke--and he did so in a tone of excitement, saying-- "My friend, have we waited here for nothing now? What can have become of that man whom we saw go into the barber's shop; but who, I suppose, we feel ourselves to be in a condition to take our oaths never came out?" "I could take my oath; and what conclusion can we come to?" "None, but that he met his death there; and that, let his fate be what it may, it is the same which poor Thornhill has suffered. I can endure this no longer. Do you stay here, and let me go alone." "Not for worlds--you would rush into an unknown danger; you cannot know what may be the powers of mischief that man possesses. You shall not go alone, colonel, you shall not indeed; but something must be done." "Agreed; and yet that something surely need not be of the desperate character you meditate." "Desperate emergencies require desperate remedies; and yet I think that in this case everything is to be lost by precipitation, and nothing is to be gained. We have to do with one who, to all appearance, is keen and subtle, and if anything is to be accomplished contrary to his wishes, it is not to be done by that open career, which for its own sake, under ordinary circumstances, both you and I would gladly embrace." "Well, well," said the colonel, "I do not and will not say but you are right." "I know I am--I am certain I am; and now hear me: I think we have gone quite far enough unaided in this transaction, and that it is time we drew some others into the plot." "I do not understand what you mean." "I will soon explain. I mean, that if in the pursuit of this enterprise, which grows each moment to my mind more serious, anything should happen to you and me, it is absolutely frightful to think that there would then be an end of it." "True, true; and as for poor Johanna and her friend Arabella, what could they do?" "Nothing, but expose themselves to great danger. Come, now, colonel, I am glad to see that we understand each other better about this business; you have heard, of course, of Sir Richard Blunt?" "Sir Richard Blunt--Blunt--oh, you mean the magistrate?" "I do; and what I propose is that we have a private and confidential interview with him about the matter--that we make him possessed of all the circumstances, and take his advice what to do. The result of placing the affair in such hands will, at all events, be that if, in anything we may attempt, we may by force or fraud be overpowered, we shall not fall wholly unavenged." "Reason backs your proposition." "I knew it would, when you came to reflect. Oh, Colonel Jeffery, you are too much a creature of impulse." "Well," said the colonel, half jestingly, "I must say that I do not think the accusation comes well from you, for I have certainly seen you do some rather impulsive things, I think." "We won't dispute about that; but since you think with me upon the matter, you will have no objection to accompany me at once to Sir Richard Blunt's?" "None in the least; on the contrary, if anything is to be done at all, for Heaven's sake let it be done quickly. I am quite convinced that some fearful tragedy is in progress, and that, if we are not most prompt in our measures, we shall be too late to counteract its dire influence upon the fortunes of those in whom we have become deeply interested." "Agreed, agreed! Come this way, and let us now for a brief space, at all events, leave Mr. Todd and his shop to take care of each other, while we take an effectual means of circumventing him. Why do you linger?" "I do linger. Some mysterious influence seems to chain me to the spot." "Some mysterious fiddlestick! Why, you are getting superstitious, colonel." "No, no! Well, I suppose I must come with you. Lead the way, lead the way; and believe me that it requires all my reason to induce me to give up a hope of making some important discovery by going to Sweeney Todd's shop." "Yes, you might make an important discovery; and only suppose now that the discovery you did make was that he murdered some of his customers. If he does so, you may depend that such a man takes good care to do the deed effectually, and you might make the discovery just a little too late. You understand that?" "I do, I do. Come along, for I positively declare, that if we see anybody else go into the barber's, I shall not be able to resist rushing forward at once, and giving an alarm." It was certainly a good thing that the colonel's friend was not quite so enthusiastic as he was, or from what we happen actually to know of Sweeney Todd, and from what we suspect, the greatest amount of danger might have befallen Jeffery, and instead of being in a position to help others in unravelling the mysteries connected with Sweeney Todd's establishment, he might himself have been past all help, and most absolutely one of the mysteries. But such was not to be. CHAPTER XXV. TOBIAS MAKES AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM THE MADHOUSE. We cannot find it in our hearts to force upon the mind of the reader the terrible condition of poor Tobias. No one, certainly, of all the _dramatis personæ_ of our tale, is suffering so much as he; and, consequently, we feel it to be a sort of duty to come to a consideration of his thoughts and feelings as he lay in that dismal cell, in the madhouse at Peckham Rye. Certainly Tobias Ragg was as sane as any ordinary Christian need wish to be, when the scoundrel, Sweeney Todd, put him into the coach to take him to Mr. Fogg's establishment; but if by any ingenious process the human intellect can be toppled from its throne, certainly that process must consist in putting a sane person into a lunatic asylum. To the imagination of a boy, too, and that boy one of vivid imagination, as was poor Tobias, a madhouse must be invested with a world of terrors. That enlarged experience which enables persons of more advanced age to shake off much of the unreal, which seemed so strangely to take up its abode in the mind of the young Tobias, had not reached him; and no wonder, therefore, that to him his present situation was one of acute and horrible misery and suffering. * * * * * He lay for a long time in the gloomy dungeon-like cell into which he had been thrust, in a kind of stupor, which might or might not be the actual precursor of insanity, although, certainly, the chances were all in favour of being so. For many hours he neither moved hand nor foot, and as it was a part of the policy of Mr. Fogg to leave well alone, as he said, he never interfered, by any intrusive offers of refreshment, with the quiet or the repose of his patients. Tobias, therefore, if he had chosen to remain as still as an Indian fakir, might have died in one position, without any remonstrances from any one. It would be quite an impossibility to describe the strange visionary thoughts and scenes that passed through the mind of Tobias during this period. It seemed as if his intellect was engulphed in the charmed waters of some whirlpool, and that all the different scenes and actions which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been clear and distinct, were mingled together in inextricable confusion. In the midst of all this, at length, he began to be conscious of one particular impression or feeling, and that was, that some one was singing in a low, soft voice, very near to him. This feeling, strange as it was in such a place, momentarily increased in volume, until at length it began in its intensity to absorb almost every other; and he gradually awakened from the sort of stupor that had come over him. Yes some one was singing. It was a female voice, he was sure of that, and as his mind became more occupied with that one subject of thought, and his perceptive faculties became properly exercised, his intellect altogether assumed a healthier tone. He could not distinguish the words that were sung, but the voice itself was very sweet and musical; and as Tobias listened, he felt as if the fever of his blood was abating, and that healthier thoughts were taking the place of those disordered fancies that had held sway within the chambers of his brain. "What sweet sounds!" he said. "Oh! I do hope that singing will go on. I feel happier to hear it; I do so hope it will continue. What sweet music! Oh, mother, mother, if you could but see me now!" He pressed his hands over his eyes, but he could not stop the gush of tears that came from them, and which would trickle through his fingers. Tobias did not wish to weep; but those tears, after all the horrors of the night, did him a world of good, and he felt wonderfully better after they had been shed. Moreover, the voice kept singing without intermission. "Who can it be," thought Tobias, "that don't tire with so much of it." Still the singer continued; but now and then Tobias felt certain that a very wild note or two was mingled with the ordinary melody; and that bred a suspicion in his mind, which gave him a shudder to think of, namely, that the singer was mad. "It must be so," said he. "No one in their senses could or would continue for so long a period of time such strange snatches of song. Alas! alas! it is some one who is really mad, and confined for life in this dreadful place; for life do I say, am not I too confined for life here? Oh! help! help! help!" Tobias called out in so loud a tone, that the singer of the sweet strains that had for a time lulled him to composure, heard him, and the strains which had before been redolent of the softest and sweetest melody, suddenly changed to the most terrific shrieks that can be imagined. In vain did Tobias place his hands over his ears, to shut out the horrible sounds. They would not be shut out, but ran, as it were, into every crevice of his brain, nearly driving him distracted by their vehemence. But hoarser tones soon came upon his ears, and he heard the loud, rough voice of a man say-- "What, do you want the whip so early this morning? The whip--do you understand that?" These words were followed by the lashing of what must have been a heavy carter's whip, and then the shrieks died away in deep groans, every one of which went to the heart of poor Tobias. "I can never live amid all these horrors," he said. "Oh, why don't you kill me at once? it would be much better, and much more merciful. I can never live long here. Help! help! help!" When he shouted this word "help," it was certainly not with the most distant idea of getting any help, but it was a word that came at once uppermost to his tongue; and so he called it out with all his might, that he should attract the attention of some one; for the solitude, and the almost total darkness of the place he was in, was beginning to fill him with new dismay. There was a faint light in the cell, which made him know the difference between day and night; but where that faint light came from he could not tell, for he could see no grating or opening whatever; but yet that was in consequence of his eyes not being fully accustomed to the obscurity of the place; otherwise he would have seen that close up to the roof there was a narrow aperture, certainly not larger than any one could have passed a hand through, although of some four or five feet in length; and from a passage beyond that, there came the dim borrowed light which made darkness visible in Tobias's cell. With a kind of desperation, heedless of what might be the result, Tobias continued to call aloud for help; and after about a quarter of an hour, he heard the sound of a heavy footstep. Some one was coming; yes, surely some one was coming, and he was not to be left to starve to death. Oh, how intently he now listened to every sound, indicative of the near approach of whoever it was who was coming to his prison-house. Now he heard the lock move, and a heavy bar of iron was let down with a clanging sound. "Help! help!" he cried again, "help! help!" for he feared that whoever it was they might even yet go away again after making so much progress to get at him. The cell door was flung open, and the first intimation that poor Tobias got of the fact of his cries having been heard, consisted in a lash with a whip, which, if it had struck him as fully as it was intended to do, would have done him serious injury. "So, do you want it already?" said the same voice he had before heard. "Oh no--mercy! mercy!" said Tobias. "Oh, that's it now, is it? I tell you what it is, if we have any disturbance here, this is the persuader to silence that we always use: what do you think of that for an argument, eh?" As he spoke, the man gave the whip a loud smack in the air, and confirmed the truth of the argument, by inducing poor Tobias to absolute silence; indeed the boy trembled so that he could not speak. "Well, now, my man," added the fellow, "I think we understand each other. What do you want?" "Oh, let me go," said Tobias, "let me go. I will tell nothing. Say to Mr. Todd that I will do what he pleases, and tell nothing, only let me go out of this dreadful place. Have mercy upon me--I am not at all mad--indeed I am not." The man closed the door, as he whistled a lively tune. CHAPTER XXVI. THE MADHOUSE YARD, AND TOBIAS'S NEW FRIEND. This sudden retreat of the man was unexpected by Tobias, who at least thought it was the practice to feed people, even if they were confined to such a place; but the unceremonious departure of the keeper, without so much as mentioning anything about breakfast, began to make Tobias think that the plan by which he was to be got rid of was starvation; and yet that was impossible, for how easy it was to kill him if they felt so disposed. "Oh, no, no," he repeated to himself, "surely they will not starve me to death." As he uttered these words, he heard the plaintive singing commence again; and he could not help thinking that it sounded like some requiem for the dead, and that it was a sort of signal that his hours were numbered. Despair again began to take possession of him, and despite the savage threats of the keeper, he would again have loudly called for help, had he not become conscious that there were footsteps close at hand. By dint of listening most intently he heard a number of doors opened and shut, and sometimes when one was opened there was a shriek, and the lashing of the whips, which very soon succeeded in drowning all other noises. It occurred to Tobias, and correctly too, for such was the fact, that the inmates of that most horrible abode were living, like so many wild beasts, in cages fed. Then he thought how strange it was that even for any amount of money human beings could be got to do the work of such an establishment. And by the time Tobias had made this reflection to himself, his own door was once more opened upon its rusty hinges. There was the flash of a light, and then a man came in with a water-can in his hand, to which there was a long spout, and this he placed to the mouth of Tobias, who fearing that if he did not drink then he might be a long time without, swallowed some not over-savoury ditch water, as it seemed to him, which was thus brought to him. A coarse, brown-looking, hard loaf was then thrown at his feet, and the party was about to leave his cell, but he could not forbear speaking, and in a voice of the most supplicating earnestness he said-- "Oh, do not keep me here. Let me go, and I will say nothing of Todd. I will go to sea at once if you will let me out of this place, indeed I will; but I shall really go mad here!" "Good that, Watson, ain't it?" said Mr. Fogg, who happened to be one of the party. "Very good, sir. Lord bless you, the cunning of 'em is beyond anything in the world, sir; you'd be surprised at what they say to me sometimes." "But I'm not mad--indeed I'm not mad!" cried Tobias. "Oh," said Fogg, "it's a bad case I'm afraid; the strongest proof of insanity in my opinion, Watson, is the constant reiteration of the statement that he is not mad on the part of a lunatic. Don't you think it is so, Mr. Watson?" "Oh, of course, sir, of course." "Ah! I thought you would be of that opinion; but I suppose as this is a mere lad, we may do without chaining him up; and, besides, you know that to-day is inspection day, when we get an old fool of a superannuated physician to make us a visit." "Yes, sir," said Watson, with a grin, "and a report that all is well conducted." "Exactly. Who shall we have this time, do you think? I always give a ten guinea fee." "Why, sir, there's old Dr. Popplejoy, he's 84 years old, they say, and sand blind; he'll take it as a great compliment, he will, and no doubt we can humbug him easily." "I dare say we may; I'll see to it; and we will have him at twelve o'clock, Watson. You will take care to have everything ready, of course, you know; make all the usual preparations." Tobias was astonished that before him they chose thus to speak so freely, but despairing as he was, he little knew how completely he was in the power of Mr. Fogg, and how utterly he was shut out from all human sympathy. Tobias said nothing; but he could not help thinking that, however old and stupid the physician whom they mentioned might be, surely there was a hope that he would be able to discover Tobias's perfect sanity. But the wily Mr. Fogg knew perfectly well what he was about, and when he retired to his own room, he wrote the following note to Dr. Popplejoy, who was a retired physician, who had purchased a country house in the neighbourhood. The note will speak for itself, being as fine a specimen of hypocrisy as we can ever expect to lay before our readers-- "The Asylum, Peckham. "SIR,--Probably you may recognise my name as that of the keeper of a lunatic asylum in this neighbourhood. Consistent with a due regard for the safety of that most unhappy class of the community submitted to my care, I am most anxious, with the blessing of Divine Providence, to ameliorate as far as possible, by kindness, that most shocking of all calamities--insanity. Once a year it is my custom to call in some experienced, able, and enlightened physician to see my patients (I enclose a fee)--a physician who has nothing to do with the establishment, and therefore cannot be biassed. If you, sir, would do me the favour at about twelve o'clock to-day, to make a short visit of inspection, I shall esteem it a great honour, as well as a great favour. "Believe me to be, sir, with the most profound respect, your most obedient and humble servant, "O. D. FOGG." "To Dr. Popplejoy, &c." This note, as might be expected, brought the old purblind, superannuated Dr. Popplejoy to the asylum, and Mr. Fogg received him in due form, and with great gravity, saying, almost with tears in his eyes-- "My dear sir, the whole aim of my existence now, is to endeavour to soften the rigours of the necessary confinement of the insane, and I wish this inspection of my establishment to be made by you in order that I may thus for a time stand clear with the world--with my own conscience I am, of course, always clear; and if your report be satisfactory about the treatment of the unhappy persons I have here, not the slightest breath of slander can touch me." "Oh yes, yes," said the old garrulous physician; "I--I--very good--eugh, eugh--I have a slight cough." "A very slight one, sir. Will you, first of all, take a look at one of the sleeping chambers of the insane?" The doctor agreed, and Mr. Fogg led him into a very comfortable sleeping-room, which the old gentleman declared was very satisfactory indeed, and when they returned to the apartment into which they had already been, Mr. Fogg said-- "Well then, sir, all we have to do is to bring in the patients, one by one, to you as fast as we can, so as not to occupy more of your valuable time than necessary; and any questions you ask will, no doubt, be answered, and I, being by, can give you the heads of any case that may excite your especial notice." "Exactly, exactly. I--I--quite correct. Eugh--eugh!" The old man was placed in a chair of state, reposing on some very comfortable cushions; and take him altogether, he was so pleased with the ten guineas and the flattery of Mr. Fogg--for nobody had given him a fee for the last fifteen years--that he was quite ready to be the foolish tool of the madhouse-keeper in almost any way that he chose to dictate to him. We need not pursue the examination of the various unfortunates who were brought before old Dr. Popplejoy; it will suffice for us if we carry the reader through the examination of Tobias, who is our principal care, without, at the same time, detracting from the genial sympathy we must feel for all who, at that time, were subject to the tender mercies of Mr. Fogg. At about half-past twelve the door of Tobias's cell was opened by Mr. Watson, who, walking in, laid hold of the boy by the collar, and said-- "Hark you, my lad! you are going before a physician, and the less you say the better. I speak to you for your own sake; you can do yourself no good, but you can do yourself a great deal of harm. You know we keep a cart-whip here. Come along." Tobias said not a word in answer to this piece of altogether gratuitous advice, but he made up his mind that, if the physician was not absolutely deaf, he should hear him. Before, however, the unhappy boy was taken into the room where old Dr. Popplejoy was waiting, he was washed and brushed down generally, so that he presented a much more respectable appearance than he would have done had he been ushered in in his soiled state, as he was taken from the dirty mad-house cell. "Surely, surely," thought Tobias, "the extent of cool impudence can go no further than this; but I will speak to the physician, if my life should be sacrificed for so doing. Yes, of that I am determined." In another minute he was in the room, face to face with Mr. Fogg and Dr. Popplejoy. "What--what?--eugh! eugh!" coughed the old doctor; "a boy, Mr. Fogg, a mere boy. Dear me! I--I--eugh! eugh! eugh! My cough is a little troublesome I think, to-day--eugh! eugh!" "Yes, sir," said Fogg, with a deep sigh, and making a pretence to dash a tear from his eye; "here you have a mere boy. I am always affected when I look upon him, doctor. We were boys ourselves once, you know, and to think that the divine spark of intelligence has gone out in one so young, is enough to make any feeling heart throb with agony. This lad though, sir, is only a monomaniac. He has a fancy that some one named Sweeney Todd is a murderer, and that he can discover his bad practices. On all other subjects he is sane enough; but upon that, and upon his presumed freedom from mental derangement, he is furious." "It is false, sir, it is false!" said Tobias, stepping up. "Oh, sir, if you are not one of the creatures of this horrible place, I beg that you will hear me, and let justice be done." "Oh, yes--I--I--eugh! Of course--I--eugh!" "Sir, I am not mad, but I am placed here because I have become dangerous to the safety of criminal persons." "Oh, indeed! Ah--oh--yes." "I am a poor lad, sir, but I hate wickedness; and because I found out that Sweeney Todd was a murderer, I am placed here." "You hear him, sir," said Fogg; "just as I said." "Oh, yes, yes. Who is Sweeney Todd, Mr. Fogg?" "Oh, sir, there is no such person in the world." "Ah, I thought as much--I thought as much--a sad case, a very sad case, indeed. Be calm, my little lad, and Mr. Fogg will do all that can be done for you, I'm sure." "Oh! how can you be so foolish, sir," cried Tobias, "as to be deceived by that man, who is making a mere instrument of you to cover his own villany? What I say to you is true, and I am not mad!" "I think, Dr. Popplejoy," said Fogg, with a smile, "it would take rather a cleverer fellow than I am to make a fool of you; but you perceive, sir, that in a little while the boy would get quite furious, that he would. Shall I take him away?" "Yes, yes--poor fellow!" "Hear me--oh, hear me," shrieked Tobias. "Sir, on your death-bed you may repent this day's work--I am not mad--Sweeney Todd is a murderer--he is a barber in Fleet-street--I am not mad!" "It's melancholy, sir, is it not?" said Fogg, as he again made an effort to wipe away a tear from his eyes. "It's very melancholy." "Oh! very, very." "Watson, take away poor Tobias Ragg, but take him very gently, and stay with him a little, in his nice comfortable room, and try to soothe him; speak to him of his mother, Watson, and get him round if you can. Alas, poor child! my heart quite bleeds to see him. I am not fit exactly for this life, doctor, I ought to be made of sterner stuff, indeed I ought." * * * * * "Well," said Mr. Watson, as he saluted poor Tobias with a kick outside the door, "what a deal of good you have done!" The boy's patience was exhausted; he had borne all that he could bear, and this last insult maddened him. He turned with the quickness of thought, and sprang at Mr. Watson's throat. So sudden was the attack, and so completely unprepared for it was that gentleman, that down he fell in the passage, with such a blow of his head against the stone floor that he was nearly insensible; and, before anybody could get to his assistance, Tobias had so pommelled and clawed his face, that there was scarcely a feature discernible, and one of his eyes seemed to be in fearful jeopardy. The noise of this assault soon brought Mr. Fogg to the spot, as well as old Dr. Popplejoy, and the former tore Tobias from his victim, whom he seemed intent upon murdering. CHAPTER XXVII. THE CONSULTATION OF COLONEL JEFFERY WITH THE MAGISTRATE. The advice which his friend had given to Colonel Jeffery was certainly the very best that could have been tendered to him; and, under the whole of these circumstances, it would have been something little short of absolute folly to have ventured into the shop of Sweeney Todd without previously taking every possible precaution to ensure the safety of so doing. Sir Richard was within when they reached his house, and, with the acuteness of a man of business, he at once entered into the affair. As the colonel, who was the spokesman, proceeded, it was evident that the magistrate became deeply interested. Colonel Jeffery concluded by saying-- "You will thus, at all events, perceive that there is great mystery somewhere." "And guilt, I should say," replied the magistrate. "You are of that opinion, Sir Richard?" "I am, most decidedly." "Then what would you propose to do? Believe me, I do not ask out of any idle curiosity, but from a firm faith, that what you set about will be accomplished in a satisfactory manner." "Why, in the first place, I shall certainly go and get shaved at Todd's shop." "You will venture that?" "Oh, yes; but do not fancy that I am so headstrong and foolish as to run any unnecessary risks in the matter--I shall do no such thing: you may be assured that I will do all in my power to provide for my own safety; and if I did not think I could do that most effectually, I should not be at all in love with the adventure; but, on the contrary, carefully avoid it to the best of my ability. We have before heard something of Mr. Todd." "Indeed!--and of a criminal character?" "Yes; a lady once in the street took a fancy to a pair of shoe-buckles of imitation diamonds that Todd had on, when he was going to some city entertainment; she screamed out, and declared that they had belonged to her husband, who had gone out one morning, from his house in Fetter-lane, to get himself shaved. The case came before me, but the buckles were of too common a kind to enable the lady to persevere in her statement; and Todd, who preserved the most imperturbable coolness throughout the affair, was, of course, discharged." "But the matter left a suspicion upon your mind?" "It did; and more than once I have resolved in my own mind what means could be adopted of coming at the truth: other affairs, however, of more immediate urgency have occupied me, but the circumstances you detail revive all my former feelings upon the subject; and I shall now feel that the matter has come before me in a shape to merit immediate attention." This was gratifying to Colonel Jeffery, because it not only took a great weight off his shoulders, but it led him to think, from the well-known tact of the magistrate, that something certainly would be accomplished, and that very shortly too, towards unravelling the secret that had as yet only appeared to be more complicated and intricate the more it was inquired into. He made the warmest acknowledgments to the magistrate for the courtesy of his reception, and then took his leave. As soon as the magistrate was alone, he rang a small hand-bell that was upon the table, and the summons was answered by a man, to whom he said-- "Is Crotchet here?" "Yes, your worship." "Then, tell him I want him at once, will you?" The messenger retired, but he presently returned, bringing with him about as rough a specimen of humanity as the world could have produced. He was tall and stout, and his face looked as if, by repeated injuries, it had been knocked out of all shape, for the features were most strangely jumbled together indeed, and an obliquity of vision, which rendered it always a matter of doubt who and what he was looking at, by no means added to his personal charms. "Sit down, Crotchet," said the magistrate, "and listen to me without a word of interruption." If Mr. Crotchet had no other good quality on earth, he still had that of listening attentively, and he never opened his mouth while the magistrate related to him what had just formed the subject matter of Mr. Jeffery's communication; indeed, Crotchet seemed to be looking out of the window all the while; but then Sir Richard knew the little peculiarities of his visual organs. When he concluded his statement, Sir Richard said-- "Well, Crotchet, what do you think of all that? What does Sweeney Todd do with his customers?" Mr. Crotchet gave a singular and peculiar kind of grin, as he said, still looking apparently out of the window, although his eyes were really fixed upon the magistrate-- "He _smugs_ 'em." "What?" "Uses 'em up, yer worship; it's as clear to me as mud in a wine-glass, that it is. Lor' bless you! I've been thinking he did that 'ere sort of thing a deuce of a while, but I didn't like to interfere too soon, you see." "What do you advise, Crotchet? I know I can trust to your sagacity in such a case." "Why, your worship, I'll think it over a bit in the course of the day, and let your worship know what I think. It's a awkward job rather, for a wariety of reasons, but howsomdever there's always a something to be done, and if we don't do it, I'll be hung if I know who can, that's all!" "True, true, you are right there; and, perhaps, before you see me again, you will walk down Fleet-street, and see if you can make any observations that will be of advantage in the matter. It is an affair which requires great caution indeed." "Trust me, yer worship: I'll do it, and no mistake. Lor' bless you, it's easy for anybody now to go lounging about Fleet-street, without being taken much notice of; for the fact is, the whole place is agog about the horrid smell as has been for never so long in the old church of St. Dunstan." "Smell--smell--in St. Dunstan's church! I never heard of that before, Crotchet." "Oh, Lor' yes, it's enough to pison the devil himself, Sir Richard; and t'other day when the blessed bishop went to _'firm_ a lot of people, he as good as told 'em they might all be damned first, afore he 'firm nobody in such a place." The magistrate was in a deep thought for a few minutes, and then he said suddenly-- "Well, well, Crotchet, you turn the matter over in your mind and see what you can make of it; I will think it over likewise. Do you hear?--mind you are with me at six this evening punctually; I do not intend to let the matter rest, and you may depend, that from this moment I will give it my greatest attention." "Wery good, yer worship; wery good indeed; I'll be here, and something seems to strike me uncommon forcible that we shall unearth this fox very soon, yer worship." "I sincerely hope so." Mr. Crotchet took his leave, and when he was alone the magistrate rose and paced his apartment for some time with rapid strides, as if he was much agitated by the reflections that were passing through his mind. At length he flung himself into a chair with something like a groan, as he said-- "A horrible idea forces itself upon my consideration--most horrible! most horrible! most horrible! Well, well, we shall see--we shall see. It may not be so: and yet what a hideous probability stares me in the face! I will go down at once to St. Dunstan's and see what they are really about. Yes, yes, I shall not get much sleep I think now, until some of these mysteries are developed. A most horrible idea, truly!" The magistrate left some directions at home concerning some business calls which he fully expected in the course of the next two hours, and then he put on a plain, sad-coloured cloak and a hat destitute of all ornament, and left his house with a rapid step. He took the most direct route towards St. Dunstan's church, and finding the door of the sacred edifice yielded to the touch, he at once entered it; but he had not advanced many steps before he was met and accosted by the beadle, who said, in a tone of great dignity and authority-- "This ain't Sunday, sir; there ain't no service here to-day." "I don't suppose there is," replied the magistrate; "but I see you have workmen here. What is it you are about?" "Well, of all the impudence that ever I came near, this is the worstest--to ask a beadle what he is about; I beg to say, sir, this is quite private, and there's the door." "Yes, I see it, and you may go out at it just as soon as you think proper." "Oh, _conwulsions_! oh, _conwulsions_! This to a beadle." "What is all this about?" said a gentlemanly-looking man, stepping forward from a part of the church where several masons were employed in raising some of the huge flag-stones with which it was paved. "What disturbance is this?" "I believe, Mr. Antrobus, you know me," said the magistrate. "Oh, Sir Richard, certainly. How do you do?" "Gracious," said the beadle, "I've put my blessed foot in it. Lor' bless us, sir, how should I know as you was Sir Richard? I begs as you won't think nothing o' what I said. If I had a knowed you, in course I shouldn't have said it, you may depend, Sir Richard--I humbly begs your pardon." "It's of no consequence--I ought to have announced myself; and you are perfectly justified in keeping strangers out of the church, my friend." The magistrate walked up the aisle with Mr. Antrobus, who was one of the churchwardens; and as he did so, he said, in a low, confidential tone of voice-- "I have heard some strange reports about a terrible stench in the church. What does it mean? I suppose you know all about it, and what it arises from?" "Indeed I do not. If you have heard that there is a horrible smell in the church after it has been shut up for some time, and upon the least change in the weather, from dry or wet, or cold or warm, you know as much as we know upon the subject. It is a most serious nuisance, and, in fact, my presence here to-day is to try and make some discovery of the cause of the stench; and you see we are going to work our way into some of the old vaults that have not been opened for some time, with a hope of finding out the cause of this disagreeable odour." "Have you any objection to my being a spectator?" "None in the least." "I thank you. Let us now join the workmen, and I can only now tell you that I feel the strongest possible curiosity to ascertain what can be the meaning of all this, and shall watch the proceedings with the greatest amount of interest." "Come along then; I can only say, for my part, that, as an individual, I am glad you are here, and as a magistrate, likewise, it gives me great satisfaction to have you." CHAPTER XXVIII. TOBIAS'S ESCAPE FROM MR. FOGG'S ESTABLISHMENT. The rage into which Mr. Fogg was thrown by the attack which the desperate Tobias had made upon his representative, Mr. Watson, was so great, that, had it not been for the presence of stupid old Dr. Popplejoy in the house, no doubt he would have taken some most exemplary vengeance upon him. As it was, however, Tobias was thrown into his cell with a promise of vengeance as soon as the coast was clear. These were a kind of promises which Mr. Fogg was pretty sure to keep, and when the first impulse of his passion had passed away, poor Tobias, as well indeed he might, gave himself up to despair. "Now all is over," he said; "I shall be half murdered! Oh, why do they not kill me at once? There would be some mercy in that. Come and murder me at once, you wretches! You villains, murder me at once!" In his new excitement, he rushed to the door of the cell, and banged at it with his fists, when to his surprise it opened, and he found himself nearly falling into the stone corridor from which the various cell doors opened. It was evident that Mr. Watson thought he had locked him in, for the bolt of the lock was shot back, but had missed its hold--a circumstance probably arising from the state of rage and confusion Mr. Watson was in, as a consequence of Tobias's daring attack upon him. It almost seemed to the boy as if he had already made some advance towards his freedom, when he found himself in the narrow passage beyond his cell door, but his heart for some minutes beat so tumultuously with the throng of blissful associations connected with freedom, that it was quite impossible for him to proceed. A slight noise, however, in another part of the building roused him again, and he felt that it was only now by a great coolness and self-possession, as well as great courage, that he could at all hope to turn to account the fortunate incident which had enabled him, at all events, to make that first step towards liberty. "Oh, if I could but get out of this dreadful place," he thought; "if I could but once again breathe the pure fresh air of heaven, and see the deep blue sky, I think I should ask for no other blessings." Never do the charms of nature present themselves to the imagination in more lovely guise than when some one with an imagination full of such beauties, and a mind to appreciate the glories of the world, is shut up from real, actual contemplation. To Tobias now the thought of green fields, sunshine and flowers, was at once rapture and agony. "I must," he said, "I must--I will be free." A thorough determination to do anything, we are well convinced, always goes a long way towards its accomplishment; and certainly Tobias now would cheerfully have faced death in any shape, rather than he would again have been condemned to the solitary horrors of the cell, from which he had by such a chance got free. He conjectured the stupid old Dr. Popplejoy had not left the house, by the unusual quiet that reigned in it, and he began to wonder if, while that quiet subsisted, there was the remotest chance of his getting into the garden, and then scaling the wall, and so reaching the open common. While this thought was establishing itself in his mind, and he was thinking that he would pursue the passage in which he was until he saw where it led to, he heard the sound of footsteps, and he shrank back. For a few seconds they appeared as if they were approaching where he was; and he began to dread that the cell would be searched, and his absence discovered, in which case there would be no chance for him but death. Suddenly, however, the approaching footsteps paused, and then he heard a door banged shut. It was still, even now, some minutes before Tobias could bring himself to traverse the passage again, and when he did, it was with a slow and stealthy step. He had not, however, gone above thirty paces, before he heard the indistinct murmur of voices, and being guided by the sound, he paused at a door on his right hand, which he thought must be the one he had heard closed but a few minutes previously. It was from the interior of the room which that was the door of, that the sound of voices came, and as it was a matter of the very first importance to Tobias to ascertain in what part of the house his enemies were, he placed his ear against the panel, and listened attentively. He recognised both the voices: they were those of Watson and Fogg. It was a very doubtful and ticklish situation that poor Tobias was now in, but it was wonderful how, by dint of strong resolution, he had stilled the beating of his heart and the general nervousness of his disposition. There was but a frail door between him and his enemies, and yet he stood profoundly still and listened. Mr. Fogg was speaking. "You quite understand me, Watson, I think," he said, "as concerns that little viper, Tobias Ragg; he is too cunning, and much too dangerous to live long. He almost staggered old superannuated Popplejoy." "Oh, confound him!" replied Watson, "and he's quite staggered me." "Why, certainly your face is rather scratched." "Yes, the little devil! but it's all in the way of business, that, Mr. Fogg, and you never heard me grumble at such little matters yet; and I'll be bound never will, that's more." "I give you credit for that, Watson; but between you and I, I think the disease of that boy is of a nature that will carry him off very suddenly." "I think so too," said Watson, with a chuckle. "It strikes me forcibly that he will be found dead in his bed some morning, and I should not in the least wonder if that were to-morrow morning: what's your opinion, Watson?" "Oh, damn it, what's the use of all this round-about nonsense between us? the boy is to die, and there's an end of it, and die he shall during the night--I owe him a personal grudge, of course, now." "Of course you do--he has disfigured you." "Has he? Well, I can return the compliment; and I say, Mr. Fogg, my opinion is, that it's very dangerous having these medical inspections you have such a fancy for." "My dear fellow, it is dangerous, that I know as well as you can tell me, but it is from that danger we gather safety. If anything in the shape of a disturbance should arise about any patient, you don't know of what vast importance a report from such a man as old Dr. Popplejoy might be." "Well, well, have it your own way. I shall not go near Master Tobias for the whole day, and shall see what starvation and solitude does towards taming him down a bit." "As you please; but it is time you went your regular rounds." "Yes, of course." Tobias heard Watson rise. The crisis was a serious one. His eye fell upon a bolt that was outside the door, and, with the quickness of thought, he shot it into its socket, and then made his way down the passage towards his cell, the door of which he shut close. His next movement was to run to the end of the passage and descend some stairs. A door opposed him, but a push opened it, and he found himself in a small, dimly-lighted room, in one corner of which, upon a heap of straw, lay a woman, apparently sleeping. The noise which Tobias made in entering the cell, for such it was, roused her up, and she said-- "Oh! no, no; not the lash! not the lash! I am quiet. God, how quiet I am, although the heart within is breaking. Have mercy upon me!" "Have mercy upon me," said Tobias, "and hide me if you can." "Hide you! hide you! God of Heaven, who are you?" "A poor victim, who has escaped from one of the cells, and I--" "Hush!" said the woman; and she made Tobias shrink down in the corner of the cell, cleverly covering him up with the straw, and then lying down herself in such a position that he was completely screened. The precaution was not taken a moment too soon, for, by the time it was completed, Watson had burst open the door of the room which Tobias had bolted, and stood in the narrow passage. "How the devil," he said, "came that door shut, I wonder?" "Oh! save me," whispered Tobias. "Hush! hush! He will only look in," was the answer. "You are safe. I have been only waiting for some one who could assist me, in order to attempt an escape. You must remain here until night, and then I will show you how it may be done. Hush!--he comes." Watson did come, and looked into the cell, muttering an oath, as he said-- "Oh, you have enough bread and water till to-morrow morning, I should say; so you need not expect to see me again till then." "Oh! we are saved! we shall escape," said the poor creature, after Watson had been gone some minutes. "Do you think so?" "Yes, yes! Oh, boy, I do not know what brought you here, but if you have suffered one-tenth part of the cruelty and oppression that I have suffered, you are indeed to be pitied." "If we are to stay here," said Tobias, "till night, before making any attempt to escape, it will, perhaps, ease your mind, and beguile the time, if you were to tell me how you came here." "God knows! it might--it might." Tobias was very urgent upon the poor creature to tell her story, to beguile the tedium of the time of waiting, and after some amount of persuasion she consented to do so. "You shall now hear," she said to Tobias, "if you will listen, such a catalogue of wrongs, unredressed and still enduring, that would indeed drive any human being mad; but I have been able to preserve so much of my mental faculties as will enable me to recollect and understand the many acts of cruelty and injustice that I have endured here for many a long and weary day. My persecutions began when I was very young--so young that I could not comprehend their cause, and used to wonder why I should be treated with greater rigour or with greater cruelty than people used to treat those who were really disobedient and wayward children. I was scarcely seven years old when a maiden aunt died; she was the old person whom I remember as having been uniformly kind to me; though I can only remember her indistinctly, yet I know she was kind to me; I know also I used to visit her, and she used to look upon me as her favourite, for I used to sit at her feet upon a stool, watching her as she sat amusing herself by embroidering, silent and motionless sometimes, and then I asked her some questions which she answered. This is the chief feature of my recollection of my aunt: she soon after died, but while she lived, I had no unkindness from anybody; it was only after that that I felt the cruelty and coolness of my family. It appeared that I was a favourite with my aunt above all others, either in our family or any other; she loved me, and promised that when she died, she would leave me provided for, and that I should not be dependent upon any one. Well, I was, from the day after the funeral, an altered being. I was neglected, and no one paid any attention to me whatsoever; I was thrust about, and nobody appeared to care even if I had the necessaries of life. Such a change I could not understand. I could not believe the evidence of my own senses; I thought it must be something that I did not understand; perhaps my poor aunt's death had caused this distress and alteration in people's demeanour to me. However, I was a child, and though I was quick enough at noting all this, yet I was too young to feel acutely the conduct of my friends. My father and mother were careless of me, and let me run where I would; they cared not when I was hurt, they cared not when I was in danger. Come what would, I was left to take my chance. I recollect one day when I had fallen from the top to the bottom of some stairs and hurt myself very much; but no one comforted me; I was thrust out of the drawing-room, because I cried. I then went to the top of the stairs, where I sat weeping bitterly for some time. At length, an old servant came out of one of the attics, and said-- "'Oh! Miss Mary, what has happened to you, that you sit crying so bitterly on the stair head? Come in here!' "I arose and went into the attic with her, when she set me on a chair, and busied herself with my bruises, and said to me-- "'Now, tell me what are you crying about, and why did they turn you out of the drawing-room--tell me now?' "'Ay,' said I, 'they turned me out because I cried when I was hurt. I fell all the way down stairs, but they don't mind.' "'No, they do not, and yet in many families they would have taken more care of you than they do here!' "'And why do you think they would have done so?' I inquired. "'Don't you know what good fortune has lately fallen into your lap? I thought you knew all about it.' "'I don't know anything, save they are very unkind to me lately.' "'They have been very unkind to you, child, and I am sure I don't know why, nor can I tell you why they have not told you of your fortune.' "'My fortune,' said I; 'what fortune?' "'Why, don't you know that when your poor aunt died you were her favourite?' "'I know my aunt loved me,' I said; 'she loved me, and was kind to me; but since she has been dead, nobody cares for me.' "'Well, my child, she has left a will behind her which says that all her fortune shall be yours; when you are old enough you shall have all her fine things; you shall have all her money and her house.' "'Indeed!' said I; 'who told you so?' "'Oh, I have heard it from those who were present at the reading of the will, that you are, when you are old enough, to have all. Think what a great lady you will be then! You will have servants of your own.' "'I don't think I shall live till then.' "'Oh yes, you will--or at least I hope so.' "'And if I should not, what will become of all those fine things that you have told me of? Who'll have them?' "'Why, if you do not live till you are of age, your fortune will go to your father and mother, who take all.' "'Then they would sooner I should die than live?' "'What makes you think so?' she inquired. "'Why,' said I, 'they don't care anything for me now, and they will have my fortune if I were dead--so they don't want me.' "'Ah, my child!' said the old woman, 'I have thought of that more than once; and now you can see it. I believe that it will be so. There has many a word been spoken truly enough by a child before now, and I am sure you are right--but do you be a good child, and be careful of yourself, and you will always find that Providence will keep you out of any trouble.' "'I hope so,' I said. "'And be sure you don't say who told you about this.' "'Why not,' I inquired; 'why may I not tell who told me about it?' "'Because,' she replied, 'if it were known that I told you anything about it, as you have not been told by them, they might discharge me, and I should be turned out.' "'I will not do that,' I replied; 'they shall not learn who told me, though I should like to hear them say the same thing.' "'You may hear them do so one of these days,' she replied, 'if you are not impatient: it will come out one of these days--two may know of it.' "'More than my father and mother?' "'Yes, more--several.' "No more was said then about the matter; but I treasured it up in my mind. I resolved that I would act differently, and not have anything to do with them--that is, I would not be more in their sight than I could help--I would not be in their sight at all, save at meal times--and when there was any company there I always appeared. I cannot tell why; but I think it was because I sometimes attracted the attention of others, and I hoped to be able to hear something respecting my fortune; and in the end I succeeded in doing so, and then I was satisfied--not that it made any alteration in my conduct, but I felt I was entitled to a fortune. How such an impression became imprinted upon a girl of eight years of age, I know not: but it took hold of me, and I had some kind of notion that I was entitled to more consideration than I was treated to. "'Mother,' said I one day to her. "'Well, Mary, what do you want to tease me about now?' "'Didn't Mrs. Carter the other day say that my aunt left me a fortune?' "'What is the child dreaming about?' said my mother. 'Do you know what you are talking about, child?--you can't comprehend.' "'I don't know, mother, but you said it was so to Mrs. Carter.' "'Well, then, what if I did, child?' "'Why, you must have told the truth or a falsehood.' "'Well, Miss Impudence!--I told the truth, what then?' "'Why, then I am to have a fortune when I grow up, that's all I mean, mother, and then people will take care of me. I shall not be forgotten, but everything will be done for me, and I shall be thought of first.' "My mother looked at me very hard for a moment or two, and then, as if she was actuated by remorse, she made an attempt to speak, but checked herself, and then anger came to her aid, and she said-- "'Upon my word, miss! what thoughts have you taken into your fancy now? I suppose we shall be compelled to be so many servants to you! I am sure you ought to be ashamed of yourself--you ought, indeed!' "'I didn't know I had done wrong,' I said. "'Hold your tongue, will you, or I shall be obliged to flog you!' said my mother, giving me a sound box on the ears that threw me down. 'Now, hold your tongue and go up stairs, and give me no more insolence.' "I arose and went up stairs, sobbing as if my heart would break. I cannot recollect how many bitter hours I spent there, crying by myself--how many tears I shed upon this matter, and how I compared myself to other children, and how much my situation was worse than theirs by a great deal. They, I thought, had their companions--they had their hours of play. But what companions had I? and what had I in the way of relaxation? What had I to do save to pine over the past, the present, and the future? My infantile thoughts and hours were alike occupied by the sad reflections that belonged to a more mature age than mine; and yet I was so. Days, weeks, and months passed on--there was no change, and I grew apace; but I was always regarded by my family with dislike, and always neglected. I could not account for it in any other way than they wished me dead. It may appear very dreadful--very dreadful indeed--but what else was I to think? The old servant's words came upon my mind full of their meaning--if I died before I was one-and-twenty, they would have all my aunt's money. "'They wish me to die,' I thought, 'they wish me to die; and I shall die--I am sure I shall die! But they will kill me--they have tried it by neglecting me, and making me sad. What can I do--what can I do?' "These thoughts were the current matter of my mind, and how often do they recur to my recollection now I am in this dull, dreadful place! I can never forget the past. I am here because I have rights elsewhere, which others can enjoy, and do enjoy. However, that is an old evil. I have thus suffered long. But to return. After a year had gone by--two, I think, must have passed over my head--before I met with anything that was at all calculated to injure me. I must have been near ten years old, when, one evening, I had no sooner got into bed, than I found I had been put into damp--I may say wet sheets. They were so damp that I could not doubt but this was done on purpose. I am sure no negligence ever came to anything so positive and so abominable in all my life. I got out of bed and took them off, and then wrapped myself up in the blankets and slept till morning, without awaking any one. When morning came, I inquired who put the sheets there? "'What do you mean, minx?' said my mother. "'Only that somebody was bad and wicked enough to put positively wet sheets in the bed; it could not have been done through carelessness--it must have been done through sheer wilfulness. I'm quite convinced of that.' "'You will get yourself well thrashed if you talk like that,' said my mother. 'The sheets are not damp; there are none in the house that are damp.' "'These are wet.' "This reply brought her hand down heavily upon my shoulder, and I was forced upon my knees. I could not help myself, so violent was the blow. "'There,' added my mother, 'take that, and that, and answer me if you dare.' "As she said this she struck me to the ground, and my head came in violent contact with the table, and I was rendered insensible. How long I continued so I cannot tell. What I first saw when I awoke was the dreariness of one of the attics into which I had been thrust, and thrown upon a small bed without any furniture. I looked around and saw nothing that indicated comfort, and upon looking at my clothes there were traces of blood. This, I had no doubt, came from myself. I was hurt, and upon putting my hand to my head, found that I was much hurt, as my head was bound up. At that moment the door was opened, and the old servant came in. "'Well, Miss Mary,' she said, 'and so you have come round again? I really began to be afraid you were killed. What a fall you must have had!' "'Fall,' said I; 'who said it was a fall?' "'They told me so.' "'I was struck down.' "'Struck, Miss Mary! Who could strike you? And what did you do to deserve such a severe chastisement? Who did it?' "'I spoke to my mother about the wet sheets.' "'Ah! what a mercy you were not killed! If you had slept in them, your life would not have been worth a farthing. You would have caught cold, and you would have died of inflammation, I am sure of it. If anybody wants to commit murder without being found out, they have only to put them into damp sheets.' "'So I thought, and I took them out.' "'You did quite right--quite right.' "'What have you heard about them?' said I. "'Oh! I only went into the room in which you sleep, and I at once found how damp they were, and how dangerous it was; and I was going to tell your mamma, when I met her, and she told me to hold my tongue, but to go down and take you away, as you had fallen down in a fit, and she could not bear to see you lying there.' "'And she didn't do anything for me?' "'Oh, no, not as I know of, because you were lying on the floor bleeding. I picked you up, and brought you here.' "'And has she not inquired after me since?' "'Not once.' "'And don't know whether I am yet sensible or not?' "'She does not yet know that.' "'Well,' I replied, 'I think they don't care much for me, I think not at all, but the time may come when they will act differently.' "'No, miss, they think, or affect to think, that you have injured them; but that cannot be, because you could not be cunning enough to dispose your aunt to leave you all, and so deprive them of what they think they are entitled to.' "'I never could have believed half so much.' "'Such, however, is the case.' "'What can I do?' "'Nothing, my dear, but lie still till you get better, and don't say any more; but sleep, if you can sleep, will do you more good than anything else now for an hour or so, so lie down and sleep.' * * * * * "The old woman left the room, and I endeavoured to compose myself to sleep; but could not do so for some time, my mind being too actively engaged in considering what I had better do, and I determined upon a course of conduct by which I thought to escape much of my present persecution. It was some days, however, before I could put it in practice, and one day I found my father and mother together, and I said to her-- "'Mother, why do you not send me to school?' "'You--send you to school! did you mean you, miss?' "'Yes, I meant myself, because other people go to school to learn something, but I have not been sent at all.' "'Are you not contented?' "'I am not,' I answered, 'because other people learn something; but at the same time, I should be more out of your way, since I am more trouble to you, as you complain of me; it would not cost more than living at home.' "'What is the matter with the child?' asked my father. "'I cannot tell,' said my mother. "'The better way will be to take care of her, and confine her to some part of the house, if she does not behave better.' "'The little minx will be very troublesome.' "'Do you think so?' "'Yes, decidedly.' "'Then we must adopt some more active measures, or we shall have to do what we do not wish. I am amused at her asking to be sent to school! Was ever there heard of such wickedness? Well, I could not have believed such ingratitude could have existed in human nature.' "'Go out of the room, you hussy,' said my mother; 'go out of the room, and don't let me hear a word from you more.' "'I left the room terrified at the storm I had raised up against me. I knew not that I had done wrong, and went up crying to my attic alone, and found the old servant, who asked what was the matter. I told her all I had said, and what had been the result, and how I had been abused. "'Why, you should let things take their own course, my dear.' "'Yes, but I can learn nothing.' "'Never mind; you will have plenty of money when you grow older, and that will cure many defects; people who have money never want for friends.' "'But I have them not, and yet I have money.' "'Most certainly--most certainly, but you have it not in your power, and you are not old enough to make use of it, if you had it.' "'Who has it?' I inquired. "'Your father and mother.' "No more was said at that time, and the old woman left me to myself, and I recollect I long and deeply pondered over this matter, and yet could see no way out of it, and resolved that I would take things as easily as I could; but I feared that I was not likely to have a very quiet life; indeed, active cruelty was exercised against me. They would lock me up in a room a whole day at a time, so that I was debarred the use of my limbs. I was even kept without food, and on every occasion I was knocked about, from one to the other, without remorse--every one took a delight in tormenting me, and in showing me how much they dared do. Of course servants and all would not treat me with neglect and harshness if they did not see it was agreeable to my parents. This was shocking cruelty; but yet I found that this was not all. Many were the little contrivances made and invented to cause me to fall down stairs--to slip--to trip, or do anything that might have ended in some fatal accident, which would have left them at liberty to enjoy my legacy, and no blame would be attached to them for the accident, and I should most likely get blamed for what was done, and from which I had been the sufferer--indeed, I should have been deemed to have suffered justly. On one occasion, after I had been in bed some time, I found it was very damp, and upon examination I found the bed itself had been made quite wet, with the sheets put over it to hide it. This I did not discover until it was too late, for I caught a violent cold, and it took me some weeks to get over it, and yet I escaped eventually, though after some months' illness. I recovered, and it evidently made them angry because I did live. They must have believed me to be very obstinate; they thought me obdurate in the extreme--they called me all the names they could imagine, and treated me with every indignity they could heap upon me. Well, time ran on, and in my twelfth year I obtained the notice of one or two of our friends, who made some inquiries about me. I always remarked that my parents disliked any one to speak to, or take any notice of me. They did not permit me to say much--they did not like my speaking; and on one occasion, when I made some remark respecting school, she replied-- "'Her health is so bad that I have not yet sent her, but shall do so by and by, when she grows stronger.' "There was a look bent upon me that told me at once what I must expect, if I persisted in my half-formed resolve of contradicting all that had been said. When the visitor went I was well aware of what kind of a life I should have had, if I did not absolutely receive some serious injury. I was terrified, and held my tongue. Soon after that I was seized with violent pains and vomiting. I was very ill, and the servant being at home only, a doctor was sent for, who at once said I had been poisoned, and ordered me to be taken care of. I know how it was done: I had some cake given me--it was left out for me; and that was the only thing I had eaten, and it astonished me, for I had not had such a thing given me for years, and that is why I believe the poison was put in the cake, and I think others thought so too. However, I got over that after a time, though I was a long while before I did so; but at the same time I was very weak, and the surgeon said that had I been a little longer without assistance, or had I not thrown it up, I must have sunk beneath the effects of a violent poison. He advised my parents to take some measures to ascertain who it was that had administered the poison to me; but though they promised compliance, they never troubled themselves about it--but I was for a long time very cautious of what I took, and was in great fear of the food that was given to me. However, nothing more of that character took place, and at length I quite recovered, and began to think in my own mind that I ought to take some active steps in the matter, and that I ought to seek an asylum elsewhere. I was now nearly fifteen years of age, and could well see how inveterate was the dislike with which I was regarded by my family: I thought that they ought to use me better, for I could remember no cause for it. I had given no deadly offence, nor was there any motive why I should be treated thus with neglect and disdain. It was, then, a matter of serious consideration with me, as to whether I should not go and throw myself upon the protection of some friend, and beg their interference in my behalf; but then there was no one whom I felt that would do so much for me--no one from whom I expected so great an act of friendship. It was hardly to be expected from any one that they should interfere between me and my parents; they would have had their first say, and I should have contradicted all they said, and should have appeared in a very bad light indeed. I could not say they had neglected my education--I could not say that, because there I had been careful myself, and I had assiduously striven when alone to remedy this defect, and had actually succeeded; so that, if I were examined, I should have denied my own assertions by contrary facts, which would injure me. Then again, if I were neglected I could not prove any injury, because I had all the means of existence; and all I could say would either be attributed to some evil source, or it was entirely false--but at the same time I felt that I had great cause of complaint, and none of gratitude. I could hold no communion with any one--all alike deserted me, and I knew none who could say aught for me if I requested their good-will. I had serious thoughts of possessing myself of some money, and then leaving home, and staying away until I had arrived at age; but this I deferred doing, seeing that there were no means, and I could not do more than I then did--that is, to live on without any mischief happening, and wait for a few years more. I contracted an acquaintance with a young man who came to visit my father--he came several times, and paid me more civility and attention than any one else ever did, and I felt that he was the only friend I possessed. It is no wonder I looked upon him as being my best and my only friend. I thought him the best and the handsomest man I ever beheld. This put other thoughts into my head. I did not dress as others did, much less had I the opportunity of becoming possessed of many of those little trinkets that most young women of my age had. But this made no alteration in the good opinion of the young gentleman, who took no notice of that, but made me several pretty presents. These were treasures to me, and I must say I gloated over them, and often, when alone, I have spent hours in admiring them; trifling as they were, they made me happier. I knew now one person who cared for me, and a delightful feeling it was too. I shall never know it again--it is quite impossible. Here, among the dark walls and unwholesome cells, we have no cheering ray of life or hope--all is dreary and cold; a long and horrible punishment takes place, to which there is no end save with life, and in which there is no one mitigating circumstance--all is bad and dark. God help me!" * * * * * "However, my dream of happiness was soon disturbed. By some means my parents had got an idea of this, and the young man was dismissed the house, and forbidden to come to it again. This he determined to do, and more than once we met, and then in secret I told him all my woes. When he had heard all I said, he expressed the deepest commiseration, and declared I had been most unjustly and harshly treated, and thought that there was not a harder or harsher treatment than that which I had received. He then advised me to leave home. "'Leave home,' I said; 'where shall I fly? I have no friend.' "'Come to me, I will protect you; I will stand between you and all the world; they shall not stir hand or foot to your injury.' "'But I cannot, dare not to do that; if they found me out, they would force me back with all the ignominy and shame that could be felt from having done a bad act; not any pity would they show me.' "'Nor need you; you would be my wife--I mean to make you my wife.' "'You?' "'Yes! I dreamed not of anything else. You shall be my wife; we will hide ourselves, and remain unknown to all until the time shall have arrived when you are of age--when you can claim all your property, and run no risk of being poisoned or killed by any other means.' "'This is a matter,' said I, 'that ought to be considered well before adopting anything so violent and so sudden.' "'It does; and it is not one that I think will injure by being reflected upon by those who are the principal actors; for my own part my mind is made up, and I am ready to perform my share of the engagement.' "I resolved to consider the matter well in my own mind, and felt every inclination to do what he proposed, because it took me away from home, and because it would give me one of my own. My parents had become utterly estranged from me: they did not act as parents, they did not act as friends, they had steeled my heart against them; they never could have borne any love to me, I am sure of it, who could have committed such great crimes against me. As the hour drew near, that in which I was likely to become an object of still greater hatred and dislike to them, I thought I was often the subject of their private thoughts, and often when I entered the room my mother and father, and the rest, would suddenly leave off speaking, and look at me, as if to ascertain if I had overheard them say anything. On one occasion I remember very well I heard them conversing in a low tone. The door happened to have opened of itself, the hasp not having been allowed to enter the mortise. I heard my name mentioned: I paused and listened. "'We must soon get rid of her,' said my mother. "'Undoubtedly,' he replied; 'if we do not, we shall have her about our ears: she'll get married, or some infernal thing, and then we shall have to refund.' "'We could prevent that.' "'Not if her husband were to insist upon it, we could not; but the only plan I can now form is, what I told you of already.' "'Putting her into a madhouse?' "'Yes: there, you see, she will be secured, and cannot get away. Besides, those who go there die in a natural way before many years.' "'But she can speak.' "'So she may; but who attends to the ravings of a mad woman? No, no; depend upon it, that is the best plan: send her to a lunatic asylum--a private madhouse. I can obtain all that is requisite in a day or two.' "'Then we will consider that settled?' "'Certainly.' "'In a few days, then?' "'Before next Sunday; because we can enjoy ourselves on that day without any restraint, or without any uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty about us.' * * * * * "I waited to hear no more: I had heard enough to tell me what I had to expect. I went back to my own room, and having put on my bonnet and shawl I went out to see the individual to whom I have alluded, and saw him. I then informed him of all that had taken place, and heard him exclaim against them in terms of rising indignation. "'Come to me,' he said; 'come to me at once.' "'Not at once.' "'Don't stop a day.' "'Hush!' said I, 'there's no danger; I will come the day after to-morrow; and then I will bid adieu to all these unhappy moments, to all these persecutions; and in three years' time I shall be able to demand my fortune, which will be yours.' * * * * * "We were to meet the next day but one, early in the morning; there was not, in fact, to be more than thirty hours elapse before I was to leave home--if home I could call it--however, there was no time to be lost. I made up a small bundle and had all in readiness before I went to bed, and placed in security, intending to rise early, and let myself out and leave the house. That, however, was never to happen. While I slept, at a late hour of the night, I was awakened by two men standing by my bedside, who desired me to get up and follow them. I refused, and they pulled me rudely out of bed. I called out for aid, and exclaimed against the barbarity of their proceedings. "'It is useless to listen to her,' said my father, 'you know what a mad woman will say!' "'Ay, we do,' replied the men, 'they are the cunningest devils we ever heard. We have seen enough of them to know that.' "To make the matter plain, I was seized, gagged, and thrust into a coach, and brought here, where I have remained ever since." CHAPTER XXIX. TOBIAS'S RAPID JOURNEY TO LONDON. There was something extremely touching in the tone, and apparently in the manner in which the poor persecuted one detailed the story of her wrongs, and she had a tribute of a willing tear from Tobias. "After the generous confidence you have had in me," he said, "I ought to tell you something of myself." "Do so," she replied, "we are companions in misfortune." "We are indeed." Tobias then related to her at large all about Sweeney Todd's villanies, and how at length he, Tobias, had been placed where he was for the purpose of silencing his testimony of the evil and desperate practices of the barber. After that, he related to her what he had overheard about the intention to murder him that very night, and he concluded by saying-- "If you have any plan of escape from this horrible place, let me implore you to tell it to me, and let us put it into practice to-night, and if we fail, death is at any time preferable to continued existence here." "It is--it is--listen to me." "I will indeed," said Tobias: "you will say you never had such attention as I will now pay to you." "You must know, then, that this cell is paved with flag-stones, as you see, and that the wall here at the back forms likewise part of the wall of an old wood-house in the garden, which is never visited." "Yes, I understand." "Well, as I have been here so long, I managed to get up one of the flag-stones that forms the flooring here, and to work under the wall with my hands--a slow labour, and one of pain, until I made a regular kind of excavation, one end of which is here, and the other in the wood-house." "Glorious!" said Tobias. "I see--I see--go on." "I should have made my escape if I could, but the height of the garden wall has always been the obstacle. I thought of tearing this miserable quilt into strips, and making a sort of rope of it; but then how was I to get it on the wall? you, perhaps will, with your activity and youth, be able to accomplish that." "Oh, yes, yes! you're right enough there; it is not a wall shall stop me." They waited until, from a church clock in the vicinity, they heard ten strike, and they began operations. Tobias assisted his new friend to raise the stone in the cell, and there, immediately beneath, appeared the excavation leading to the wood-house, just sufficiently wide for one person to creep through. It did not take long to do that, and Tobias took with him a piece of work, upon which he had been occupied for the last two hours, namely the quilt torn up into long pieces, twisted and tied together, so that it formed a very tolerable rope, which Tobias thought would sustain the weight of his companion. The wood-house was a miserable-looking hole enough, and Tobias at once thought that the door of it was fastened, but by a little pressure it came open; it had only stuck through the dampness of the woodwork at that low point of the garden. And now they were certainly both of them at liberty, with the exception of surmounting the wall, which rose frowningly before him in all its terrors. There was a fine cool fresh air in the garden, which was indeed most grateful to the senses of Tobias, and he seemed doubly nerved for anything that might be required of him after inhaling that delicious, cool fresh breeze. There grew close to the wall one of those beautiful mountain-ash trees, which bend over into such graceful foliage, and which are so useful in the formation of pretty summer-houses. Tobias saw that if he ascended to the top of this tree there would not be much trouble in getting from there to the wall. "We shall do it," he said, "we shall succeed." "Thank God, I hear you say so," replied his companion. Tobias tied one end of the long rope they had made of the quilt to his waist, so that he might carry it up with him, and yet leave him free use of his hands and feet, and then he commenced ascending the tree. In three minutes he was on the wall. The moon shone sweetly. There was not a tree or house in the vicinity that was not made beautiful now, in some portions of it, by the sweet, soft light that poured down upon them, Tobias could not resist pausing a moment to look around him on the glorious scene; but the voice of her for whom he was bound to do all that was possible, aroused him. "Oh, Tobias!" she said, "quick, quick--lower the rope; oh, quick!" "In a moment--in a moment," he cried. The top of the wall was here and there armed with iron spikes, and some of these formed an excellent grappling place for the torn quilt. In the course of another minute Tobias had his end of it secure. "Now," he said, "can you climb up by it, do you think? Don't hurry about it. Remember, there is no alarm, and for all we know we have hours to ourselves yet." "Yes, yes--oh, yes--thank God!" he heard her say. Tobias was not where he could, by any exertion of strength, render her now the least assistance, and he watched the tightening of the frail support by which she was gradually climbing to the top of the wall with the most intense and painful interest that can be imagined. "I come--I come," she said, "I am saved." "Come slowly--for God's sake, do not hurry." "No, no." At this moment Tobias heard the frail rope giving way; there was a tearing sound--it broke, and she fell. Lights, too, at that unlucky moment, flashed from the house, and it was now evident an alarm had been given. What could he do? if two could not be saved he might himself be saved. He turned, and flung his feet over the wall; he hung by his hands as low as he could, and then he dropped the remainder of the distance. He was hurt, but in a moment he sprang to his feet, for he felt that safety could only lie in instant and rapid flight. The terror of pursuit was so strong upon him that he forgot his bruises. * * * * * "Thank Heaven," exclaimed Tobias, "I am at last free from that horrible place. Oh, if I can but reach London now, I shall be safe; and as for Sweeney Todd, let him beware, for a day of retribution for him cannot be far off." So saying, Tobias turned his steps towards the city, and at a hard trot, soon left Peckham Rye far behind him as he pursued his route. CHAPTER XXX. MRS. LOVETT'S COOK MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT. There are folks who can and who will bow like reeds to the decrees of evil fortune, and with a patient, ass-like placidity, go on bearing the ruffles of a thankless world without complaining, but Mrs. Lovett's new cook was not one of those. The more destiny seemed to say to him--"Be quiet!" the more he writhed, and wriggled, and fumed, and could not be quiet. The more fate whispered in his ears--"You can do nothing," the more intent he was upon doing something, let it be what it might. And he had a little something, in the shape of a respite too, now, for had he not baked a batch of pies, and sent them up to the devouring fangs of the lawyers' clerks in all their gelatinous, beauty and gushing sweetness, to be devoured. To be sure he had, and therefore having, for a space, obeyed the behests of his task-mistress, he could sit with his head resting upon his hands and think. Thought! What a luxury! Where is the Indian satrap--where the arch Inquisitor--where the grasping, dishonest, scheming employer who can stop a man from thinking?--and as Shakspeare, says of sleep, "From that sleep, what dreams may come?" so might he have said of thought, From that thought what acts may come? Now we are afraid that, in the first place, the cook, in spite of himself, uttered some expression concerning Mrs. Lovett of neither an evangelical or a polite character, and with these we need not trouble the reader. They acted as a sort of safety-valve to his feelings, and after consigning that fascinating female to a certain warm place, where we may fancy everybody's pie might be cooked on the very shortest notice, he got a little more calm. "What shall I do?--what shall I do?" Such was the rather vague question he asked of himself. Alas! how often are those four simple words linked together, finding but a vain echo in the over-charged heart. What shall I do? Ay, what!--small power had he to do anything, except the quietest thing of all--that one thing which Heaven in its mercy has left for every wretch to do if it so pleases him--to die! But, somehow or another, a man upon the up-hill side of life is apt to think he may do something rather than that, and our cook, although he was about as desperate a cook as the world ever saw, did not like yet to say die. Now, in that curious combination of passions, impulses, and prejudices in the mind of this man it would be a hard case if some scheme of action did not present itself, even in circumstances of the greatest possible seeming depression, and so, after a time, the cook did think of something to do. "Many of these pies," he said to himself, "are not eaten in the shop, _ergo_ they are eaten out of the shop, and possibly at the respective houses of the purchasers--what more feasible mode of disclosing my position, and 'the secrets of my prison-house,' can there be than the enclosing a note in one of Mrs. Lovett's pies?" After reviewing all the _pros_ and _cons_ of this scheme, there only appeared a few little difficulties in the way, but, although they were rather serious, they were not insurmountable. In the first place, it was possible enough that the unfortunate pie in which the note might be enclosed might be eaten in the shop, in which event the note might go down the throat of some hungry lawyer's clerk, and it might be handed to Mrs. Lovett, with a "God bless me, ma'am, what's this in the pie?" and then Mrs. Lovett might, by a not very remote possibility, say to herself--"This cook is a scheming, long-headed sort of a cook, and notwithstanding he does his duty by the pies, he shall be sent upon an errand to another and a better world," and in that case the delectable scheme of the note could only end in the total destruction of the unfortunate who conceived it. Objection the second was, that, although nothing is so easy as to say--"Oh, write a note all about it," nothing is so difficult as to write a note about anything without paper, ink, and a pen. The cook rubbed his forehead, and cried-- "D----n it!" This seemed to have the desired effect, for he at once recollected that he was supplied with a thin piece of paper for the purpose of laying over the pies if the oven should by chance be over heated, and so subject them to an over-browning process. "Surely," he thought, "I shall be able to make a substitute for a pen, and as for ink, a little coal and water, or--ah, I have it, black from my lights, of course. Ha--ha! How difficulties vanish when a man has thoroughly made up his mind to overcome them. Ha--ha! I write a note--I post it in a pie--some lawyer sends his clerk for a pie, and he gets _that_ pie. He opens it and sees the note--he reads it--he flies to a police-office, and gets a private interview with a magistrate--a couple of Bow-street runners walk down to Bell Yard, and seize Mrs. Lovett--I hear a row in the shop, and cry--'Here I am--I am here--make haste--here I am--here I am!' Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!" "Are you mad?" The cook started to his feet-- "Who spoke--who spoke?" "I," said Mrs. Lovett, looking through the ingenious little wicket at the top of the door. "What do you mean by that laughing? If you have gone mad, as one cook once did, death will be a relief to you. Only convince me of that fact, and in two hours you sleep the long sleep." "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I am not at all mad." "Then why did you laugh in such a way that it reached even my ears above?" "Why, ma'am, are you not a widow?" "Well?" "Well then, you could not have possibly looked at me as you ought to have done, or you would have seen that I am anything but a bad looking fellow, and as I am decidedly single, what do you say to taking me for better or for worse? The pie business is a thriving one, and, of course, if I had an interest in it, I should say nothing of affairs down below here." "Fool!" "Thank you, madam, for the compliment, but I assure you, the idea of such an arrangement made me laugh, and at all events, provided I do my duty, you don't mind my laughing a little at it?" Mrs. Lovett disdained any further conversation with the cook, and closed the little wicket. When she was gone he took himself seriously to task for being so foolish as to utter his thoughts aloud, but yet he did not think he had gone so far as to speak loud enough about the plan of putting the letter in a pie for her to hear that. "Oh, no--no, I am safe enough. It was the laughing that made her come. I am safe as yet!" Having satisfied himself fully upon this point, he at once set to work to manufacture his note. The paper, as he had said, was ready at hand. To be sure, it was of a thin and flimsy texture, and decidedly brown, but a man in his situation could be hardly supposed to stand upon punctilios. After some trouble he succeeded in making an apology for a pen by the aid of a piece of stick, and he manufactured some very tolerable ink, at least, as good as the soot and water commonly sold in London for the best "japan," and then he set about writing his note. As we have an opportunity of looking over his shoulder, we give the note verbatim. "SIR--(OR MADAM)--I am a prisoner beneath the shop of Mrs. Lovett, the pie female, in Bell Yard. I am threatened with death if I attempt to escape from my now enforced employment. Moreover, I am convinced that there is some dreadful secret connected with the pies, which I can hardly trust my imagination to dwell upon, much less here set it down. Pray instantly, upon receipt of this, go to the nearest police-office and procure me immediate aid, or I shall soon be numbered with the dead. In the sacred names of justice and humanity, I charge you to do this." The cook did not, for fear of accidents, put his name to this epistle. It was sufficient, he thought, that he designated his condition, and pointed out where he was. This note he folded into a close flat shape, and pressed it with his hands, so that it would take up a very small portion of room in a pie, and yet, from its size and nature, if the pie fell into the hands of some gourmand who commenced eating it violently, he could not fail to feel that there was a something in his mouth more indigestible than the delicate mutton or veal and the flaky crust of which Mrs. Lovett's delicacies were composed. Having proceeded thus far, he concluded that the only real risk he ran was, that the pie might be eaten in the shop, and the enclosure, without examination, handed over to Mrs. Lovett merely as a piece of paper which had insinuated itself where it had no right to be. But as no design whatever can be carried out without some risk or another, he was not disposed to give up his, because some contingency of that character was attached to it. The prospect of deliverance from the horrible condition to which he was reduced, now spread over his mind a pleasing calm, and he set about the manufacture of a batch of pies, so as to have it ready for the oven when the bell should ring.--Into one of them he carefully introduced his note. Oh, what an eye he kept upon that individual pie. How often he carefully lifted the upper crust, to have a peep at the little missive which was about to go upon an errand of life or death.--How he tried to picture to his mind's eye the sort of person into whose hands it might fall, and then how he thought he would listen for any sounds during the next few hours, which should be indicative of the arrest of Mrs. Lovett, and the presence of the police in the place. He thought, then, that if his laugh had been sufficiently loud when merely uttered to himself, to reach the ears of Mrs. Lovett, surely his shout to the police would be heard above all other sounds, and at once bring them to his aid. Tingle! tingle! tingle! went a bell. It was the signal for him to get a batch of pies ready for the oven. "Good," he said, "it is done." He waited until the signal was given to him to put them in to be cooked, and then, after casting one more look at the pie that contained his note, in went the batch to the hot air of the oven, which came out upon his face like the breath of some giant in a highly febrile state. "'Tis done," he said. "'Tis done, and I am saved!" He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while delicious dreamy thoughts of freedom came across his brain. Green fields, trees, meadows and uplands, and the sweet blue sky, all appeared before him in bright and beautiful array. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I shall see them all once again.--Once again I shall look, perchance, upon the bounding deep blue sea. Once again I shall feel the sun of a happier clime than this fanning my cheek. Oh, liberty, liberty, what a precious boon art thou!" Tingle! tingle! tingle! He started from his dream of joy. The pies are wanted; Mrs. Lovett knew well enough how long they took in doing, and that by this time they should be ready to be placed upon the ascending trap. Down it came. Open went the oven door, and in another minute the note was in the shop. The cook placed his hand upon his heart to still its tumultuous beating as he listened intently. He could hear the sound of feet above--only dimly though, through that double roof. Once he thought he heard high words, but all died away again, and nothing came of it.--All was profoundly still. The batch of pies surely were sold now, and in a paper bag he told himself his pie, _par excellence_, had gone perhaps to the chambers of some attorney, who would be rejoiced to have a finger in it; or to some briefless barrister, who would be rejoiced to get his name in the papers, even if it were only connected with a story of a pie. Yes, the dream of freedom still clung to the imagination of the cook, and he waited, with every nerve thrilling with expectation, the result of his plan. One, two, three hours had passed away, and nothing came of the pie or the letter. All was as quiet and as calm as though the malignant fates had determined that there he was to spend his days for ever, and gradually as in a frigid situation the narrow column of mercury in a thermometer will sink, sank his spirits--down--down--down! "No--no," he said. "No hope. Timidity or incredulity has consigned my letter to the flames, perhaps, or some wide-mouthed, stupid idiot has actually swallowed it. Oh that it had choked him by the way. Oh that it had actually stuck in his throat.--It is over, I have lost hope again. This horrible place will be my charnel-house--my family vault! Curses!--No--no. What is the use of swearing? My despair is past that--far past that--" "Cook!" said a voice. He sprang up, and looked to the wicket. There was Mrs. Lovett gazing in at him. "Cook!" "Well--well.--Fiend in female shape, what would you with me? Did you not expect to find me dead?" "Certainly not. Here is a letter for you." "A--a--letter?" "Yes. Perhaps it is an answer to the one you sent in the pie, you know." The unfortunate grasped his head, and gave a yell of despair. The letter--for indeed Mrs. Lovett had one--was dropped upon the ground floor from the opening through which she conversed with her prisoner, and then, without another word, she withdrew from the little orifice, and left him to his meditation. "Lost!--lost!--lost!" he cried. "All is lost. God, is this enchantment? Or am I mad, and the inmate of some cell in an abode of lunacy, and all this about pies and letters merely the delusion of my overwrought fancy? Is there really a pie--a Mrs. Lovett--a Bell Yard--a letter--a--a--a--damn it, is there such a wretch as I myself, in this vast bustling world, or is all a wild and fathomless delusion?" He cast himself upon the ground, as though from that moment he gave up all hope and desire to save himself. It seemed as though he could have said-- "Let death come in any shape he may, he will find me an unresisting victim. I have fought with fate, and am, like thousands who have preceded me in such a contest--beaten!" A kind of stupor came over him, and there he lay for more than two hours; but youth will overcome much, and the mind, like some depressed spring, will, in the spring of life, soon recover its rebound; so it was with the unhappy cook. After a time he rose and looked about him. "No," he said, "it is no dream. It is no dream!" He then saw the letter lying upon the ground, which Mrs. Lovett had with such irony cast unto him. "Surely," he said, "she might have been content to tell me she had discovered my plans, without adding this practical sneer to it." He lifted the letter from the floor, and found it was addressed "To Mrs. Lovett's Cook, Bell Yard, Temple Bar;" and what made it all the more provoking was, that it seemed to have come regularly through the post, for there were the official seal and blue stamp upon it. Curiosity tempted him to open it, and he read as follows:-- "SIR--Having, in a most delicious pie, received the extraordinary communication which you inserted in it, I take the earliest opportunity of replying to you. The character of a highly respectable and pious woman is not, sir, to be whispered away in a pie by a cook. When the whole bench of bishops were proved, in black and white, to be the greatest thieves and speculators in the known world, it was their character that saved them, for, as people justly enough reasoned, bishops should be pious and just--therefore, a bishop cannot be a thief and a liar! Now, sir, apply this little mandate to Mrs. Lovett, and assure yourself; but no one will believe anything you can allege against a female with so fascinating a smile, and who attends to her religious duties so regularly. Reflect, young man, on the evil that you have tried to do, and for the future learn to be satisfied with the excellent situation you have. The pie was very good." I am, you bad young man, A Parishioner of St. Dunstan's, SWEENEY TODD." "Now was there ever such a piece of cool rascality as this?" cried the cook, "Sweeney Todd--Todd--Todd. Who the devil is he? This is some scheme of Mrs. Lovett's to drive me mad." He dashed the letter upon the floor. "Not another pie will I make! No--no--no. Welcome death--welcome that dissolution which may be my lot, rather than the continued endurance of this terrible imprisonment. Am I, at my time of life, to be made the slave of such a demon in human shape as this woman? Am I to grow old and grey here, a mere pie machine? No--no, death a thousand times rather!" Tears! yes, bitter scalding tears came to his relief, and he wept abundantly, but those tears were blessed, for as they flowed, the worst bitterness of his heart flowed with them, and he suddenly looked up, saying-- "I am only twenty-four." There was magic in the sound of those words. They seemed in themselves to contain a volume of philosophy. Only twenty-four. Should he, at that green and unripe age, get rid of hope? Should he, at twenty-four only, lie down and say--"Let me die!" just because things had gone a little adverse, and he was the enforced cook of Mrs. Lovett? "No--no," he said. "No, I will endure much, and I will hope much. Hitherto, it is true, I have been unsuccessful in what I have attempted for my release, but the diabolical cunning, even of this woman, may fail her at some moment, and I may have my time of revenge. No--no, I need not ask for revenge, justice will do--common justice. I will keep myself alive. Hope shall be my guiding star. They shall not subdue the proud spirit they have succeeded in caging, quite so easily, I will not give up, I live and have youthful blood in my veins, I will not despair. Despair? No--Hence, fiend!--I am as yet only twenty-four. Ha--ha! Only twenty-four." CHAPTER XXXI. SHOWS HOW TOBIAS GOT TO LONDON. We will now take a peep at Tobias. On--on--on, like the wind, went the poor belated boy from the vicinity of that frightful prison-house at Peckham. Terror was behind him--terror with dishevelled locks was upon his right hand, and terror shrieking in his ear was upon his left. On--on, he flew like a whirlwind. Alas, poor Tobias, will your young intellects yet stand these trials? We shall see! Through the deep mud of the Surrey roads--past pedestrians--past horsemen, and past coaches flew poor Tobias, on--on. He had but one thought, and that was to place miles and miles of space between him and Mr. Fogg's establishment. The perspiration poured down his face--his knees shook under him--his heart beat as though in some wild pulsation it would burst, but he passed on until he saw afar off the old Bridge of London. The route to Blackfriars he had by some chance avoided. Many, who for the last two miles of Tobias's progress, had seen him, had tried to stop him. They had called after him, but he had heeded them not. Some fast runners had pursued him for a short distance, and then given up the chase in despair. He reached the bridge. "Stop that boy!" cried a man, "he looks mad!" "No--no," shrieked Tobias, "I am not mad! I am not mad!" A man held out his arms to stop him, but Tobias dashed past him like a flash of lightning, and was off again. "Stop him!" cried twenty voices. "Stop thief!" shouted some who could not conceive that anybody was to be stopped on any other account. "No, no," gasped Tobias, as he flew onwards--"not mad, not mad!" [Illustration: The Flight Of Tobias From Peckham Mad-House.] His feet failed him. He reeled a few more paces like a drunken man, and then fell heavily upon some stone steps, where he lay bathed in perspiration. Blood too gushed from his mouth. A gentleman's horse was standing at the door, and the man came out to mount him at that moment, and he saw the rapidly collecting crowd. With the reins of his steed in his hand, he pushed his way through the mob, saying-- "What is it? what is it?" "A mad boy, sir," said some. "Only look at him. Did you ever see the like. He looks as if he had run a hundred miles." "Good God!" cried the gentleman. "It is he! It is he!" "Who, sir? who, sir?" "A poor lad that I know, I will take charge of him. My name is Jeffery, I am Colonel Jeffery. A couple of guineas to any strong man who will carry him to the nearest surgeon's. Alas! poor boy, what a state is this to meet him in." It was quite astonishing the numbers of strong men that there were all of a sudden in the crowd, who were each anxious and willing to earn the colonel's two guineas. There was danger of a fight arising upon the subject, when one man, after knocking down two others and threatening the remainder, stepped up, and lifting Tobias as though he had been an infant, exclaimed-- "Ale does it! ale does it! Come on, my little 'un." All gave way before the gigantic proportions of no other than our old friend Big Ben the Beef Eater, who, as chance would have it, was upon the spot, and who, without a thought of the colonel's two guineas, only heard that a poor sick boy had to be carried to the nearest medical man. Tobias could not be in better hands than Ben's, for the latter carried him much more carefully than ever nursemaid carried a child out of sight of its mother. "Follow me," said Colonel Jeffery, as he saw in the distance a party-coloured lamp, which hung over a door appertaining to a chemist. "Follow, and I will reward you." "Doesn't want it," said Ben. "It's ale as does it." "What?" "Ale does it. Here you is. Come on." Colonel Jeffery was rather surprised at the droll customer he had picked up in the street, but provided he carried Tobias in safety, which by-the-bye he (the colonel) would not have scrupled to do himself, had he not been encumbered by his horse, it was all one to him, and that he saw Ben was effectually doing. Tobias had shown some slight symptoms of vitality before being lifted from the step of the door close to which he had fallen, but by the time they all reached the chemist's shop, he was in a complete state of insensibility. Of course the usual crowd that collects on such occasions followed them, and during the walk the colonel had time to think, and the result of those thoughts was, that it would be a most desirable thing to keep the knowledge to himself that Tobias _was_ Tobias. He had, in order to awe the mob from any interference with him, announced who he was, but had not announced Tobias. At least if he had uttered his name, he felt certain that it was in an interjectional sort of way, and not calculated to awaken any suspicion. "I will keep it to myself," he thought, "that Tobias is in my possession, otherwise if such a fact should travel round to Sweeney Todd, there's no saying to what extent it might put that scoundrel upon his guard." By the time the colonel had arrived at this conclusion the whole party had reached the chemist's, and Big Ben walked in with Tobias, and placed him at once upon the top of a plate-glass counter, which had upon it a large collection of trumpery scent bottles and wonderful specifics for everything, through which Tobias went with a crash. "There he is!" said Ben--"ale does it." "Fire! murder! my glass case!" cried the chemist, "Oh, you monster!" "Ale does it. What do you mean, eh?" Big Ben backed a pace or two and went head and shoulders through a glass case of similar varieties that was against the wall. "Gracious bless the beasteses," said Ben, "is your house made of glass? What do you mean by it, eh? A fellow can't turn round here without going through something. You ought to be persecuted according to law, that you ought." Now this learned chemist had in the glass case against which Big Ben had tumbled a skeleton, which, from the stunning and terrible look it had in his shop, brought him many customers, and it was against this remnant of humanity that Big Ben's head met, after going through the glass as a preparatory step. By some means or another Ben caught his head under the skeleton's ribs, and the consequence was that out he hooked him from the glass case, and the first intimation Ben had of anything unusual, consisted of seeing a pair of bony legs dangling down on each side of him. So unexpected a phenomenon gave Ben what he called a "blessed turn," and out he bounced from the shop, carrying the skeleton for all the world like what is called pick-a-back, for the wires that supplied the place of cartilages held it erect, and so awful a sight surely was never seen in the streets of London as Big Ben with a skeleton upon his back. People fled before--some turned in at shop doors; and an old lady with a large umbrella and a pair of gigantic pattens went clean through a silversmith's window. But we must leave Ben and the skeleton to get on as well as they can _en route_ to the Tower, while we turn our attention to Tobias. "Are you a surgeon?" cried Colonel Jeffery. "A--a surgeon? No, I'm only a druggist; but is that any reason why a second Goliath should come into my shop and destroy everything?" Colonel Jeffery did not wait for anything more, but snatching Tobias from the remnants of the plate glass, he ran to the door with him, and handing him to the first person he saw there, he cried-- "When I am mounted give me the boy." "Yes, sir." He sprang upon his horse; Tobias was handed to him like a bale of goods, and laying him comfortably as he could upon the saddle before him, off set the colonel at a good round trot through Finsbury to his own house. Colonel Jeffery had no sort of intention that the chemist should be a sufferer, but in his hurry to be off with Tobias, and speedily get medical advice for him, he forgot to say so, and accordingly there stood the man of physic then fairly bewildered by the events of the last few moments, during which his stock in trade had been materially damaged and a valuable amount of glass broken, to say nothing of the singular and most unexpected abduction of his friend the skeleton. "Here's a pretty day's work!" he said. "Here's a pretty day's work! More mischief done than enough, and the worst of it is, my wife will hear of it, and then there will be a deal of peace in the house. Oh, dear--oh, dear--was there ever such an unfort--I knew it--" A good rap upon his head from a pair of bellows wielded by a little meagre-faced woman, that he was big enough to have swallowed, confined his words. While all this was going on, Colonel Jeffery had ridden fast, and passing through Finsbury and up the City-road, had reached his house in the fashionable--but now quite the reverse, as the man says in the play--district of Pentonville. "This is a prize," thought the colonel, "worth the taking. It will go hard with me but I will extract from this boy all that he knows of Sweeney Todd, and we shall see how far that knowledge will go towards the confirmation of my suspicions regarding him." He carried Tobias himself to a comfortable bed-room, and immediately sent for a medical practitioner of good repute in the neighbourhood, who happening fortunately to be at home, obeyed the summons immediately. He sent likewise for his friend the captain, whom he knew would be overjoyed to hear of what he would call the capture of Tobias Ragg. The medical man made his appearance first, as being much closer at hand, and the colonel led him to the apartment of the invalid boy, saying to him as he went-- "I know nothing of what is the matter with this lad--I have been very anxious to see him on account of certain information that he possesses, and only found him this morning upon a door step in the street, in the state you see him." "Is he very ill?" "I am afraid he is." The medical man followed the colonel to the room in which poor Tobias lay, and after gazing upon him for a few moments, and opening with his fingers the closed eyelids of Tobias, he shook his head. "I wish I knew," he said, "what has produced this state. Can you not inform me, sir?" "Indeed I cannot, but I suspect that the boy's imagination has been cruelly acted upon by a man, whom you will excuse me from naming just at present, but whom I sincerely hope to bring to justice shortly." "The boy's brain, no doubt, is in a bad condition. I do not take upon myself to say that, as an organ, it is diseased, but fractionally it is damaged. However, we must do the best we can to recover him from this condition of collapse in which he is." "Can you form any opinion as to his probable recovery?" "Indeed I cannot, but he is young, and youth is a great thing. The best that can be done shall be done." "I thank you. Spare nothing for the lad, and pay him every attention, as though he were a son or a brother of my own; I long to hear him speak, and to convince him that he is really among friends, who are not only willing to protect him, but have likewise the power to do so." The medical man bowed, as he said-- "May I ask his name, sir?" He had his tablets in his hand ready to book the name of Tobias, but the colonel was so very much afraid that Sweeney Todd might by some means learn that Tobias was in his house, and so take an alarm, that he would not trust even the medical man, who, no doubt, had no other motive in asking the name than merely to place it in his list of calls. "Smith," said the colonel. The medical man gave a short dry sort of cough, as he wrote "Master Smith" upon his tablets, and then promising to return in half an hour, he took his leave. At the expiration of half an hour Tobias was put under a course of treatment. His head was shaved, and a blister clapped upon the back of his neck. The room was darkened, and strict quiet was enjoined. "As soon as he betrays any signs of consciousness, pray send for me, sir," said the surgeon. "Certainly." In the course of the day the captain made his appearance, and Colonel Jeffery detailed to him all that had taken place, only lamenting that, after so happily getting possession of Tobias, he should be in so sorry a condition. The captain expressed a wish to see him, and they both went to the chamber, where a woman had been hired to sit with Tobias, in order to give the first intimation of his stirring. Of course, as it was her duty, and what she was specially hired for, to keep wide awake, she was fast asleep, and snoring loud enough to awaken any one much worse than poor Tobias. But that was to to be expected. "Oh," said the captain, "this is a professional nurse." "A professional devil!" said the colonel. "How did you know that?" "By her dropping off so comfortably to sleep, and her utter neglect of her charge. I never knew one that did not do so, and, in good truth, I am inclined to think it is the very best thing they can do, for if they are not asleep they are obnoxiously awake." The colonel took a pin from his cravat, and rather roughly inserted its point into the fat arm of the nurse. She started up, exclaiming-- "Drat the fleas, can't a mortal sleep in peace for them?" "Madam," said the colonel, "how much is owing to you for sleeping here a few hours?" "Lord bless me, sir, is this you? The poor soul has never so much as stirred. How my heart bleeds continually for him, to be sure. Ah, dear me, we are all born like sparks, and keep continually flying upward, as the psalm says." "How much do I owe you?" "Here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Bless his innocent face." The colonel rung the bell, and a strapping footman made his appearance. "You will see this woman to the door, John," he said, "and pay her for being here about three hours." "Why, you mangy skin-flint," cried the woman. "What do you--" She was cut short in her vituperative eloquence by John, who handed her down stairs with such dispatch that a pint bottle of gin rolled out of her pocket and was smashed, filling the house with an odour that was quite unmistakeable. "What do you propose to do?" said the captain. "Why, as we have dined, if you have no objection we will sit here and keep this poor benighted one company for awhile. He is better with no one than such as she whom I have dislodged; but before night he shall have a more tender and less professional nurse. You know more of the world, after all, than I do, captain." CHAPTER XXII. TOBIAS HAS A MIND DISEASED. With a bottle of claret upon the table between them, Colonel Jeffery and his old friend sat over the fire in the bed-room devoted to the use of poor Tobias Ragg. Alas! poor boy, kindness and wealth that now surrounded him came late in the day. Before he first crossed the threshold of Sweeney Todd's odious abode, what human heart could have more acutely felt genuine kindness than Tobias's, but his destiny had been an evil one. Guilt has its victims, and Tobias was in all senses one of the victims of Sweeney Todd. "I am sufficiently, perhaps superstitious, you will call it," said Colonel Jeffery in a low tone of voice, "to think that my meeting with this boy was not altogether accidental." "Indeed?" "No. Many things have happened to me during life--although I admit that they may be all accounted for as natural coincidences, curious only at the best but still suggestive of something very different, and make me at times a convert to the belief in an interfering special Providence, and this is one of them." "It is a dangerous doctrine, my friend." "Think you so?" "Yes. It is much better and much safer both for the judgment and imagination to account naturally for all those things which admit of a natural explanation, than to fall back upon a special Providence, and fancy that it is continually interfering with the great and immutable laws that govern the world. I do not--mark me--deny such a thing, but I would not be hasty in asserting it. No man's experience can have been without numerous instances such as you mention." "Certainly not." "Then I should say to you, as St. Paul said to the Athenians--'In all things I find you superstitious.' What's that?" A faint moan had come upon both their ears, and after listening for a few moments another made itself heard, and they fancied, by the direction of the sound, that Tobias's lips must have uttered it. Placing his finger against his mouth to indicate silence, the colonel stepped up to the bedside, and hiding behind the curtains, he said, in the softest and kindest voice he could assume-- "Tobias! Tobias! fear nothing now you are with friends, Tobias; and, above all, you are perfectly free from the power of Sweeney Todd." "I am not mad! I am not mad!" shouted Tobias with a shrill vehemence that made both the colonel and his friend start. "Nay, who says you are mad, Tobias? We know you are not mad, my lad. Don't alarm yourself about that, we know you are not mad." "Mercy! mercy! I will say nothing--nothing. How fiend-like he looks. Oh, Mr. Todd, spare me, and I will go far, far away, and die somewhere else, but do not kill me now, I am yet such--such a boy only, and my poor father is dead--dead--dead!" "Ring the bell," said Jeffery to his friend, "and tell John to go for Mr. Chisolm, the surgeon. Come--come, Tobias, you still fancy you are under the power of Todd, but it is not so--you are quite safe here." "Hush! hush! mother--oh, where are you, mother--did you leave me here, mother? Say you took, in a moment of thoughtlessness, the silver candlestick! Is Todd to be a devil, because you were thoughtless once? Hide me from him--hide me--hide! hide! I am not mad. Hark! I hear him--one--two--three--four--five--six steps, and all Todd's. Each one leaves blood in its track. Look at him now! His face changes--'tis a fox's--a serpent's--hideous--hideous--God--God! I am mad--mad--mad!" The boy dashed his head from side to side, and would have flung himself from the bed had not Colonel Jeffery advanced and held him. "Poor fellow," he said, "this is very shocking. Tobias! Tobias!" "Hush! I hear--poor thing, did they say you was mad too?--Hide me in the straw! There--there--what a strange thing it is for all the air to be so full of blood. Do we breathe blood, and only fancy it air? Hush! not a word--he comes with a serpent's face--oh, tell me why does God let such beings ever riot upon the beautiful earth--one--two--three--four--five--six--Hiss--hiss! Off--off! I am not mad--not mad. Ha! ha! ha!" An appalling shriek concluded this paroxysm, and for a few moments Tobias was still. The medical man at this time entered the room. "Oh," he said, "we have roused him up again, have we." Medical men are rather fond of the plural identifying style of talking. "Yes," said Colonel Jeffery, "but he had better have slept the sleep of death than have awakened to be what he is, poor fellow." "A little--eh?" The doctor tapped his forehead. "Not a little." "Far away over the sea!" said Tobias, "oh, yes--in any ship, only do not kill me, Mr. Todd--let me go and I will say nothing, I will work and send my poor mother hard-earned gold, and your name shall never pass our lips. Oh, no--no--no, do not say that I am mad. Do you see these tears? I have--I have not cried so since my poor father called me to him and held me in a last embrace of his wasted arms, saying, 'Tobias, my darling, I am going--going far from you. God's blessing be upon you, poor child.' I thought my heart would break then, but it did not, I saw him put from the face of the living into the grave, and I did not quite break my heart then, but it is broken--broken now! Mad! mad! oh, no, not mad--no--no, but the last--but the last. I tell you, sir, that I am--am--am _not_ mad. Why do you look at me, I am not mad--one--two--three--four--five--six. God--God--God! I am mad--mad. Ha! ha! ha! There they come, all the serpents, and Todd is their king. How the shadows fly about--they shrink--I cannot shrink. Help! God! God! God!" "This is horrible," said Colonel Jeffery. "It is appalling, from the lips of one so young," said the captain. The medical man rubbed his hands together as he said-- "Why, a-hem! it certainly is strangely indicative of a considerable amount of mental derangement, but we shall be able, I dare say, to subdue that. I think, if he could be persuaded to swallow a little draught I have here, it would be beneficial, and allay this irritation, which is partly nervous." "There cannot be much difficulty," said the colonel, "in making him swallow anything, I should think." "Let us try." They held Tobias up while the doctor poured the contents of a small phial into his mouth. Nature preferred performing the office of deglutition to choking, and it was taken. The effect of the opiate was rapid, and after some inarticulate moans and vain attempts to spring from the bed, a deep sleep came over poor Tobias. "Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Chisolm, "I beg to inform you that this is a bad case." "I feared as much." "A very bad case. Some very serious shock indeed has been given to the lad's brain, and if he at all recovers from it, he will be a long time doing so. I do not think those violent paroxysms will continue, but they may leave a kind of fatuity behind them which may be exceedingly difficult to grapple with." "In that case, he will not be able to give me the information I desire, and all I can do is to take care that he is kindly treated somewhere, poor lad. Poor fellow, his has been a hard lot. He evidently has a mind of uncommon sensibility, as is manifest from his ravings." "Yes, and that makes the case worse. However, we must hope for the best, and I will call again in the morning." "Will he awake soon?" "Not for six or eight hours at least, and when he does, it is very unlikely that those paroxysms will again ensue. He will be quiet enough." "Then it will be scarcely necessary, during that time, to watch him, poor fellow?" "Not at all. Of course, when he awakens it will be very desirable that some one should be here to speak to him; for, finding himself in a strange place, he will otherwise naturally be terrified." All this was promised by the colonel, and the medical man left the house, evidently with very slender hopes in his own mind of the recovery of Tobias. The colonel and his friend retired to another room, and then, after a consultation, they agreed that it was highly proper they should inform Sir Richard Blunt of what had taken place, for although poor Tobias was in no present condition to give any information, yet his capture, if it might be called by such a term, was so important an event that it would be unpardonable to keep it from the magistrate. They accordingly went together to his house, and luckily finding him at home, they at once communicated to him their errand. He listened to them with the most profound attention, and when they had concluded, he said-- "Gentlemen, it will be everything, if this lad recovers sufficiently to be a witness against his rascal of a master, for that is just what we want. However, from the account you give me of him, I am very much afraid the poor fellow's mind is too severely affected." "That, too, is our fear." "Well, we must do the best we can, and I should advise that when he awakens some one should be by him with whose voice, as a friendly sound, he will be familiar." "Who can we get?" "His poor mother." "Ah, yes, I will set about that at once." "Leave it to me," said Sir Richard Blunt, "leave that to me--I know where to find Mrs. Ragg, and what's best to say to her in the case. Let me see, in about four hours from now probably Tobias may be upon the point of recovery." "Most probably." "Then, sir, expect me at your house in that time with Mrs. Ragg. I will take care that the old lady's mind is put completely at ease, so that she will aid us in any respect to bring about the recovery of her son, who no doubt has suffered severely from some plan of Todd's to put him out of the way. That seems to me to be the most likely solution to the mystery of his present condition." "Todd, I am convinced," said Colonel Jeffery, "would stop at no villany." "Certainly not. My own belief is, that he is so steeped to the lips in crime, that he sees no other mode of covering his misdeeds already done than by the commission of new ones. But his career is nearly at an end, gentlemen." The colonel and the captain took the rising of the magistrate from his chair as a polite hint that he had something else to do than to gossip with them any longer, and they took their leave, after expressing again to him how much they appreciated his exertions. "If the mystery of the fate of my unhappy friend," said the colonel, "is ever cleared up, it will be by your exertion, Sir Richard, and he and I, and society at large, will owe to you a heavy debt of gratitude for unmasking so horrible a villain as Sweeney Todd, for that he is such no one can doubt." CHAPTER XXXIII. JOHANNA WALKS ABROAD IN DISGUISE. But, amid all the trials, and perplexities, and anxieties that beset the dramatis personæ of our story, who suffered like Johanna? What heart bled as hers bled? What heart heaved with sad emotion as hers heaved? Alas! poor Johanna, let the fate of Mark Ingestrie be what it might, he could not feel the pangs that tore thy gentle heart. Truly might she have said-- "Man's love is of his life a thing apart 'Tis woman's whole existence," for she felt that her joy--her life itself, was bartered for the remembrance of how she had been loved by him whose fate was involved in one of the most painful and most inscrutable of mysteries. Where could she seek for consolation, where for hope? The horizon of her young life seemed ever darkening, and the more she gazed upon it with the fond hope of singing-- "The first faint star of coming joy," the more confounded her gentle spirit became by the blackness of despair. It is sad indeed that the young, the good, and the gentle, should be the grand sufferers in this world, but so it is. The exquisite capacity to feel acutely is certain to find ample food for agony. If human nature could wrap itself up in the chill mantle of selfishness, and be perfectly insensible to all human feeling, it might escape, but such cannot be done by those who, like the fine and noble-minded Johanna Oakley, sympathise with all that is beautiful and great in creation. Already the pangs of hope deferred were feeding upon the damask of her cheeks. The lily had usurped the rose, and although still exquisitely beautiful, it was the pale beauty of a statue that she began to show to those who loved her. In the street people would turn to gaze after her with admiration blended with pity. They already looked upon her as half an angel, for already it seemed as though she had shaken off much of her earthly lurements, and was hastening to "Rejoin the stars." [Illustration: The Schoolfellows, Johanna And Arabella.] Let us look at her as she lies weeping upon the breast of her friend Arabella Wilmot. The tears of the two young girls are mingling together, but the one is playing the part of comforter, while the other mourns over much. "Now, Johanna," sobbed Arabella, "you talk of doing something to save Mark Ingestrie, if he be living, or to bring to justice the man whom you suspect to be his murderer. Let me ask you what you can hope to do, if you give way to such an amount of distress as this?" "Nothing--nothing." "And are you really to do nothing? Have you not agreed, Johanna, to make an attempt, in the character of a boy, to find out the secret of Ingestrie's disappearance, and have not I provided for you all that you require to support the character? Courage, courage, courage.--Oh, I could tell you such stories of fine ladies dressing as pages, and following gallant knights to the field of battle, that you would feel as though you could go through anything." "But the age of chivalry is gone." "Yes, and why--because folks will not be chivalric. To those who will, the age of chivalry comes back again in all its glory." "Listen to me, Arabella: if I really thought that Mark was no more, and lost to me for ever, I could lie down and die, leaving to Heaven the punishment of those who have taken his life, but in the midst of all my grief--in the moments of my deepest depression, the thought clings to me, that he lives yet. I do not know how it is, but the thought of Mark Ingestrie dead, is but a vague one, compared to the thought of Mark Ingestrie suffering." "Indeed?" "Yes, and at times it seems as if a voice whispered to me, that he was yet to be saved, if there existed a heart fair enough and loving enough in its strength to undertake the task. It is for that reason, and not from any romantic love of adventure, or hope of visiting with punishment a bad man, that my imagination clings to the idea of going in boy's apparel to Fleet-street, to watch, and perchance to enter that house to which he last went, and from which, according to all evidence, he never emerged." "And you are really bold enough?" "I hope so--I think, if I am not, God will help me." A sob that followed these words, sufficiently testified how much in need of God's help poor Johanna was, but after a few minutes she succeeded in recovering herself from her emotion, and she said more cheerfully-- "Come, Arabella, we talked of a rehearsal of my part; but I shall be more at ease when I go to act it in reality, and with danger. I shall be able to comport myself well, with only you for a companion, and such chance passengers as the streets of the city may afford for my audience." "I am glad," said Arabella, "that you keep in this mind. Now come and dress yourself, and we will go out together. You will be taken for my brother, you know." In the course of a quarter of an hour, Johanna presented the appearance of as good-looking a lad of about fourteen as the world ever saw, and if she could but have imparted a little more confidence and boyish bustle to her gait and manner, she would have passed muster under the most vigilant scrutiny. But as it was, nothing could be more unlikely than that any one should penetrate her disguise, for what is not suspected, is seldom seen very readily. "You will do capitally," said Arabella, "I must take your arm, you know. We will not go far." "Only to Fleet Street." "Fleet Street. You surely will not go so far as that?" "Yes, Arabella. Now that I have attired myself in these garments for a special purpose, let me do a something towards the carrying it out. By walking that distance I shall accustom myself to the road; and, moreover, a dreadful kind of fascination drags me to that man's shop." Arabella, if the truth must be told, shook a little as they, after watching an opportunity, emerged into the street, for although the spirit of romantic adventure had induced her to give the advice to Johanna that she had, her own natural feminine sensibilities shrunk from the carrying of it out. Ashamed, however, of being the first to condemn her own suggestion, she took the arm of Johanna, and those two young creatures were in the tide of human life that ebbs and flows in the great city. The modest walk and gentle demeanour of the seeming young boy won Johanna many a passing glance as she and Arabella proceeded down Ludgate Hill towards Fleet Street, but it was quite clear that no one suspected the disguise which, to do Arabella justice, in its general arrangement was very perfect, and as Johanna wore a cap, which concealed much of the upper part of her face, and into which was gathered all her hair, she might have really deceived those who were the most intimate with her, so that it was no wonder she passed unobserved with mere strangers. In this way, then, they reached Fleet Street without obstruction, and Johanna's heart beat rapidly as they approached the shop of Sweeney Todd. "It will be imprudent to stop for even a moment at his door or window," said Arabella, "for, remember, you have no opportunity of varying your disguise." "I will not stop. We will pass rapidly on, but--but it is something to look upon the doorstep over which the shadow of Mark has last passed." In another moment they were on a level with the shop. Johanna cast a glance at the window, and then shrunk back with affright as she saw, occupying one of the upper panes of glass, the hideous face of Todd. He was not looking at her though, for with an awful squint that revealed all the whites of his eyes--we were going to say, but the dirty yellows would have been much nearer the truth--he seemed to be observing something up the street. "Come on--come on," whispered Johanna. Arabella had not happened to observe this apparition of Todd in the window, and she looked round to see what occasioned Johanna's sudden terror, when a young Temple clerk, who chanced to be a few paces behind them, immediately, with the modesty peculiar to his class, imagined the glance of the blooming girl to be a tribute to his attractions. He kissed the end of a faded glove, and put on what he considered a first-class fascinating aspect. [Illustration: Johanna's Alarm At The Sight Of Sweeney Todd.] "Come on--come on," said Arabella now in her turn. Johanna, of course, thought that Arabella too had caught sight of the hideous and revolting countenance of Sweeney Todd, and so they both hastened on together. "Don't look back," said Arabella. "Is he following?" "Oh, yes--yes." Johanna thought she meant Todd, while Arabella really meant the Temple gent, but, notwithstanding the mutual mistake, they hurried on, and the clerk taking that as quite sufficient encouragement, pursued them, putting his cravat to rights as he did so, in order that when he came up to them, he should present the most fascinating aspect possible. "No--no." said Johanna, as she glanced behind. "You must have been mistaken, Arabella. He is not pursuing us." "Oh, I am so glad." Arabella looked back, and the Temple gent kissed his dilapidated glove. "Oh, Johanna," she said, "how could you tell me he was not following, when there he is." "What, Todd?" "No. That impertinent ugly puppy with the soiled cravat." "And you meant him?" "To be sure." "Oh, what a relief, I was flying on, fancying that Todd was in pursuit of us, and yet my judgment ought at once to have told me that that could not be the case, knowing nothing of us. How our fears overcome all reason. Do you know that strange-looking young man?" "Know him? Not I." "Well, my darling," said the gent, reaching to within a couple of paces of Arabella, "how do you do to-day?--a-hem! Are you going far? Ain't you afraid that somebody will run away with such a pretty gal as you--'pon soul, you are a charmer." "Cross," whispered Arabella, and the two young girls at once crossed Fleet Street. It was not then so difficult an operation to get from one side of that thoroughfare to the other as it is now. The gent was by no means disconcerted at this evident wish to get out of his way, but he crossed likewise, and commenced a series of persecution, which such animals call gallantry, and which, to any respectable young female, are specially revolting. "Now, my dear," he said, "St. Dunstan's is just going to strike the hour, and you will see the clubs hit the bells if you look, and I shall expect a kiss when it's all over." "You are impertinent," said Johanna. "Come, that's a good joke--why, you little whipper snapper, I suppose you came out to take care of your sister. Here's a penny to go and buy yourself a cold pie at Mrs. Lovett's. I'll see to your sister while you are gone. Oh, you need not look so wild about it. Did you never hear of a gent talking to a pretty gal in the street?" "Often," said Johanna, "but I never heard of a gentleman doing so." "Upon my word, you are as sharp as a needle, so I'll just pull your ears to teach you better manners, you young rascal--come--come, it's no use your kicking." "Help--help!" cried Arabella. They were now just opposite the principal entrance to the Temple, and as Arabella cried "help," who should emerge from under the gateway but Ben the Beef Eater. The fact is, that he was on his way to the Tower just previous to the meeting with Colonel Jeffery and Tobias. Arabella, who had twice or thrice seen him at the Oakley's, knew him at once. "Oh, sir," she cried, "I am Johanna's friend, Miss Wilmot, and this--this gent won't leave me and my cousin here alone." The gent made an effort to escape, but Ben caught him by the hinder part of his apparel, and held him tight. "Is this him?" "Yes--yes." "Oh dear no--oh dear no, my good sir. It's that fellow there, with the white hat. There he goes, up Chancery Lane. My dear sir, you are quite mistaken; I wanted to protect the young lady, and as for the lad, bless his heart. I--oh dear, it wasn't me." Still holding the gent by the first grasp he had taken of him, Ben suddenly crossed the road to where a parish pump stood, at the corner of Bell Yard, and holding him under the spout with one hand, he worked the handle with the other, despite the shrieks and groans of his victim, who in a few moments was rendered so limp and wet, that when Ben let him go, he fell into the sink below the pump, and there lay, until some small boys began pelting him. During the confusion and laughter of the bystanders, Arabella and Johanna rapidly retreated towards the City again, for they thought Ben might insist upon escorting them, and that, in such a case, it was possible enough the disguise of Johanna, good as it was, might not suffice to save her from the knowledge of one so well acquainted with her. "Let us cross, Arabella," she said. "Let us cross, if it be but for one moment, to hear what the subject of the conversation between Todd and that man is." "If you wish it, Johanna." "I do, I do." They crossed, and once again passed the shop of Todd, when they heard the man say-- "Well, if he has gone he has gone, but I think it is the strangest thing I ever heard of." "So do I," said Todd. Without lingering, and so perhaps exciting Todd's attention and suspicion, they could hear no more, but Johanna had heard enough to give the spur to imagination, and when they had again crossed Fleet-street, and were making their way rapidly up Ludgate-hill, she whispered to Arabella-- "Another! another!" "Another what, Johanna? You terrify me by that tone. Oh, be calm. Be calm, I pray you. Some one will observe your agitation." "Another victim," continued Johanna. "Another victim--another victim. Did you not hear what the man said? Was it not suggestive of another murder? Oh, Heaven preserve my reason, for each day, each hour, brings to me such accumulating proof of horrors, that I fear I shall go mad." "Hush! hush! Johanna--Johanna!" "My poor, poor Mark--" "Remember that you are in the street, Johanna, and for my sake, I pray you to be calm. Those tears and that flushed cheek will betray you. Oh, why did I ever advise you to come upon such an enterprise as this? It is my fault, all my fault." The terror and the self-accusation of Arabella Wilmot did more to bring Johanna to a reasonable state than anything else, and she made an effort to overcome her feelings, saying-- "Forgive me--forgive me, my dear friend--I, only, am to blame. But at the moment I was overcome by the thought that, in the heart of London, such a system of cold-blooded murder--" She was unable to proceed, and Arabella, holding her arm tightly within her own, said-- "Do not attempt to say another word until we get home. There, in my chamber, you can give free vent to your feelings, but let the danger, as well as the impropriety of doing so in the open street, be present to your mind. Say no more now, I implore you; say no more." This was prudent advice, and Johanna had sufficient command of herself to take it, for she uttered not one other word until they were both almost breathless with the haste they had made to Arabella's chamber. Then, being no longer under the restraint of locality or circumstances, the tears of Johanna burst forth, and she wept abundantly. Arabella's romantic reading did sometimes, as it would appear, stand her in good stead, and upon this occasion she did not attempt to stem the torrent of grief that was making its way from the eyes of her fair young friend. She told herself that with those tears a load of oppressive grief would be washed from Johanna's spirit, and the result fully justified her prognostications. The tears subsided into sobs, and the sobs to sighs. "Ah, my dear friend," she said, "how much have you to put up with from me. What a world of trouble I am to you." "No," said Arabella, "that you are not, Johanna; I am only troubled when I see you overcome with too excessive grief, and then, I confess, my heart is heavy." "It shall not be so again. Forgive me this once, dear Arabella." Johanna flung herself into her friend's arms, and while they kissed each other, and Arabella was about commencing a hopeful kind of speech, a servant girl, with open mouth and eyes, looked into the room, transfixed with amazement. "Well, Miss Bella," she cried at last, "you is fond of boys!" Arabella started, and so did Johanna. "Is that you, Susan?" "Yes, Miss Bella, it is me. Well I never! The idea! I shall never get the better of this here! Only to think of you, Miss Bella, having a boy at your time of life." "What do you mean, Susan? How dare you use such language to me? Get you gone!" "Oh, yes, I'm a-going in course; but if I had anybody in the house, it shouldn't be a little impudent looking boy with no whiskers." "She must know all," whispered Johanna. "No, no," said Arabella, "I will not, feeling my innocence, be forced into making a confidant of a servant. Let her go." "But she will speak." "Let her speak." Susan left the room, and went direct to the kitchen, holding up her hands all the way, and giving free expression to her feelings as she did so-- "Well, the _idea_ now, of a little stumpy looking boy, when there's sich a lot of nice young men with whiskers to be had just for the wagging of one's little finger. Only to think of it. Sitting in her lap too, and them a kissing one another like--like--coach horses. Well I never. Now there's Lines's, the cheesemonger's, young man as I has in of a night, he is somebody, and such loves of whiskers I never seed in my born days afore; but I is surprised at Miss Bella, that I is--a shrimp of a boy in her lap! Oh dear, oh dear!" CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. FOGG FINDS THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. We feel that we ought not entirely to take leave of that unfortunate, who failed in escaping with Tobias Ragg, from Mr. Fogg's establishment at Peckham, without a passing notice. It will be recollected that Tobias had enough to do to get away himself, and that he was in such a state of mind that it was quite a matter of new mechanical movement of his limbs that enabled him to fly from the madhouse. Horror of the place, and dread of the people who called it theirs, had lighted up the glare of a partial insanity in his brain, and he flew to London, we admit, without casting another thought upon the wretched creature who had fallen in the attempt to free herself from those fiends in human shape who made a frightful speculation in the misery of their fellow creatures. The alarm was already spread in the madhouse, and Mr. Fogg himself arrived at the spot where the poor creature lay stunned and wounded by her fall. "Watson! Watson!" he cried. "Here," said that official, as he presented himself. "Take this carcase up, Watson. I'm afraid Todd's boy is gone." "Ha! ha!" "Why do you laugh?" "Why where's the odds if he has. I tell you what it is, Fogg, I haven't been here so long without knowing what's what. If that boy ever recovers his senses enough to tell a rational tale, I'll eat him. However, I'll soon go and hunt him up. We'll have him again." "Well, Watson, you give me hopes, for you have upon two different occasions brought back runaways. Bring the woman in and--and, Watson? "Aye, aye." "I think I would put her in No. 10." "Ho! ho!--No. 10. Then she's booked. Well, well, come on Fogg, come on, it's all one. I suppose the story will be 'An attempt to escape owing to too much indulgence;' and some hints consequent on that, and then brought back to her own warm comfortable bed, where she went asleep so comfortably that we all thought she was as happy as an Emperor, and then--" "She never woke again," put in Fogg. "But in this case you are wrong, Watson. It is true that twice or thrice I have thought, for the look of the thing, it would be desirable to have an inquest upon somebody, but in this case I will not. The well is not full!" "Full?" "No, I say the well is not full, Watson; and it tells no tales." "It would hold a hundred bodies one upon another yet," said Watson, "and tell no tales. Ha! ha!" "Good!" "It is good. She is to go there, is she? well, so be it." Watson carried the miserable female in his arms to the house. "By-the-bye, it is a second thought," he said, "about No. 10." "Yes, yes, there's no occasion. Watson, could you not at once--eh? It is a good hour. Could you not go right through the house, my good Watson, and at once--eh?" "At once what?" "Oh, you know. Ha! ha! You are not the dull fellow at comprehending a meaning you would fain make out; but you, Watson--you understand me well enough, you know you do. We understand each other, and always shall." "I hope so, but if you want anything done I'll trouble you to speak out. What do you mean by 'couldn't you go through the house at once--eh?'" "Pho! pho! Put her down the well at once. Humanity calls upon us to do it. Why should she awaken to a sense of her disappointment, Watson? Put her down at once, and she will never awaken at all to a sense of anything." "Very well. Come on, business is business." "You--you don't want me?" "Don't I," said Watson, bending his shaggy brows upon him, and looking extra hideous on account of a large black patch over one eye, which he bore as a relict of his encounter with Tobias. "Don't I? Hark you, Fogg; if you won't come and help me to do it, you shall have it to do by yourself, without me at all." "Why--why, Watson, Watson. This language--" "Is nothing new, Fogg." "Well, well, come on.--Come on--if it must be so, it must.--I--I will hold a lantern for you, of course; and you know, Watson, I make things easy to you, in the shape of salary, and all that sort of thing." Watson made no reply to all this, but went through the house to the back part of the grounds, carrying with him his insensible burthen, and Fogg followed him, trembling in every limb. The fact was, that he, Fogg, had not for some time had a refresher in the shape of some brandy. The old deserted well to which they were bound was at a distance of about fifty yards from the back of the house; towards it the athletic Watson hastened with speed, closely followed by Fogg, who was truly one of those who did not mind holding a candle to the devil. The walls of that building were high, and it was not likely that any intruder from the outside could see what was going on, so Watson took no precaution.--The well was reached, and Fogg cried to him-- "Now--now--quick about it, lest she recovers." Another moment and she would have been gone in her insensibility, but as if Fogg's words were prophetic, she did recover, and clinging convulsively to Watson, she shrieked-- "Mercy! mercy! Oh, have mercy upon me! Help! help!" "Ah, she recovers!" cried Fogg, "I was afraid of that. Throw her in. Throw her in, Watson." "Confound her!" "Why don't you throw her in?" [Illustration: The Murder At The Well By Fogg And Watson.] "She clings to me like a vice. I cannot--Give me a knife, Fogg. You will find one in my coat pocket--a knife--a knife!" "Mercy! mercy! Have mercy upon me! No--no--no,--Help! Oh God! God!" "The knife! The knife, I say!" "Here, here," cried Fogg, as he hastily took it from Watson's pocket and opened it. "Here! Finish her, and quickly too, Watson!" The scene that followed is too horrible for description. The hands of the wretched victim were hacked from their hold by Watson, and in the course of another minute, with one last appalling shriek, down she went like a flash of lightning to the bottom of the well. "Gone!" said Watson. Another shriek and Fogg, even, stopped his ears, so appalling was that cry, coming as it did so strangely from the bottom of the well. "Throw something upon her," said Fogg. "Here's a brick--" "Bah!" cried Watson, "bah! there's no occasion to throw anything on her. She'll soon get sick of such squealing." Another shriek, mingled with a strange frothy cry, as though some one had managed to utter it under water, arose. The perspiration stood in large drops upon the face of Fogg.--He seized the brick he had spoken of, and cast it into the well. All was still as the grave before it reached the bottom, and then he wiped his face and looked at Watson. "This is the worst job," he said, "that ever we have had--" "Not a whit.--Brandy--give me a tumbler of brandy, Fogg. Some of our own particular, for I have something to say to you now, that a better opportunity than this for saying is not likely to occur." "Come into my room then," said Fogg, "and we can talk quietly.--Do you think--that--that--" "What?" "That she is quite dead?" "What do I care.--Let her crawl out of that, if she can." With a jerk of his thumb, Watson intimated that the well was the "that" he referred to, and then he followed Fogg into the house, whistling as he went the same lively air with which he had frequently solaced his feelings in the hearing of poor Tobias Ragg. Never had Fogg been in such a state of agitation, except once, and that was long ago, upon the occasion of his first crime. Then he had trembled as he now trembled, but the "Dull custom of iniquity" had effectually blunted soon the keen edge of his conscience, and he had for years carried on a career of infamy without any other feeling than exultation at his success.--Why then did he suffer now? Had the well in the garden ever before received a victim? Was he getting alive to the excellence of youth and beauty?--Oh no--no. Fogg was getting old. He could not stand what he once stood in the way of conscience. When he reached his room--that room in which he had held the conference with Todd, he sank into a chair with a deep groan. "What's the matter now?" cried Watson, who got insolent in proportion as Fogg's physical powers appeared to be upon the wane. "Nothing, nothing." "Nothing?--Well, I never knew anybody look so white with nothing the matter. Come, I want a drop of brandy; where is it?" "In that cupboard; I want some myself likewise. Get it out, Watson. You will find glasses there." Watson was not slow in obeying this order. The brandy was duly produced, and, after Fogg had drank as much as would have produced intoxication in any one not so used to the ardent spirit as himself, he spoke more calmly, for it only acted upon him as a gentle sedative. "You wished to say something to me, Watson." "Yes." "What is it?" "I am tired, completely tired, Fogg." "Tired? Then why don't you retire to rest at once, Watson? There is, I am sure, nothing to keep you up now; I am going myself in a minute." "You don't understand me, or you won't, which is much the same thing. I did not mean that I was tired of the day, but I am tired of doing all the work, Fogg, while you--while you--" "Well--while I--" "Pocket all the profit. Do you understand that? Now hark you. We will go partners, Fogg, not only in the present and the future, but in the past. I will have half of your hoarded up gains, or--" "Or what?" Mr. Watson made a peculiar movement, supposed to indicate the last kick of a culprit executed at the Old Bailey. "You mean you will hang yourself," said Fogg. "My dear Watson, pray do so as soon as you think proper. Don't let me hinder you." "Hark you, Fogg. You may be a fox, but I am a badger. I mean that I will hang you, and this is the way to do it. My wife--" "Your what?" "My wife," cried Watson, "has, in writing, the full particulars of all your crimes. She don't live far off, but still far enough to make it a puzzle for you to find her. If she don't see me once in every forty-eight hours, she is to conclude something has happened to me, and then she is to go at once to Bow Street with the statement, and lay it before a magistrate. You understand. Now I have contrived, with what I got from you by fair means as well as by foul, and by robbing the patients besides, to save some money, and if you and I don't agree, Mrs. Watson and I will start for New Zealand, or some such place, but--but, Fogg--" "Well?" "We will denounce you before we go." "And what is to be the end of all this? The law has a long as well as a strong arm, Watson." "I know it. You would say it might be long enough to strike me." Fogg nodded. "Leave me to take care of that. But as you want to know the result of all this, it is just this. I want to have my share, and I will have it. Give me a couple of thousand down, and half for the future." Fogg was silent for a moment or two, and then he said-- "Too much, Watson, too much. I have not so much." "Bah! At your banker's now you have exactly £11,267." Fogg writhed. "You have been prying. Well, you shall have the two thousand." "On account." Fogg writhed again. "I say you shall have so much, Watson, and you shall keep the books, and have your clear half of all future proceeds. Is there anything else you have set your mind upon, because if you have, while we are talking about business, you may as well state it, you know." "No, there's nothing else--I am satisfied. All I have to add is, that you had better put your head into the fire than attempt to play any tricks with me. You understand?" "Perfectly." Watson was not altogether satisfied. He would have been better pleased if Fogg had made more resistance. The easy compliance of such a man with anything that touched his pocket looked suspicious, and filled the mind of Watson with a thousand vague conjectures. Already--aye, even before he left Fogg's room, Watson began to feel the uneasiness of his new position, and to pay dearly for the money he was to have. Even money may be given an exorbitant price for. When he was by himself, as he traversed the passage leading to his own sleeping room, Watson could not forbear looking cautiously around him at times, as though gaunt murder stalked behind him, and he fastened his bed-room door with more than his usual caution. The wish to sleep came not to him, and sitting down upon his bed-side he rested his chin upon his hand and said to himself in a low anxious shrinking kind of whisper-- "What does Fogg mean to do?" Nor was the recent interview without its after effects upon the mad-house keeper himself. When the door closed upon Watson he shook his clenched hand in the direction he had taken, and muttered curses, "Not loud, but deep." "The time will come," he said, "Master Watson, and that quickly too, when I will let you see that I am still the master spirit. You shall be satisfied for the present, but your death-warrant is preparing. You will not live long to triumph over me by threats of what your low cunning can accomplish." He rose and drank more raw brandy, after which, still muttering maledictions upon Watson, he returned to his bed-room, where, if he did not sleep, and if during the still hours of the night his brain was not too much vexed, he hoped to be able to concoct some scheme which should present him with a prospect of exemplary vengeance upon Watson. CHAPTER XXXV. MRS. LOVETT'S NEW LOVER. Mrs. Lovett was a woman of luxurious habits. Perhaps the constant savoury hot pie atmosphere in which she dwelt contributed a something to the development of her tastes, but certainly that lady, in dress, jewellery, and men, had her fancies. Did the reader think that she saw anything attractive in the satyr-like visage of Todd, with its eccentricities of vision? Did the reader think that the lawyers' clerks frequenting her shop suited her taste, varying, as all the world knows that class of bipeds does, between the fat and flabby, and the white and candle looking, if we may be allowed the expression? Ah, no,--Mrs. Lovett's dreams of man had a loftier range, but we must not anticipate. Facts will speak trumpet-tongued for themselves. It is the hour when lawyers' clerks From many a gloomy chamber stalk; It is the hour when lovers' vows Are heard in every Temple walk. Mrs. Lovett was behind her counter all alone, but the loneliness continued but for a very brief period, for from Carey-street, with a nervousness of gait highly suggestive of a fear of bailiffs--bailiffs were there in all their glory--comes a--a what shall we say? Truly there are some varieties of the genus homo that defy minute classification, but perhaps this individual who hastened down Bell Yard was the nearest in approximation to what used to be called "a swaggering companion," that can be found. He was a gent upon town--that is to say, according to his own phraseology, he lived upon his wits; and if the reader will substitute dishonesty for wits, he will have a much clearer notion of what the swaggering companion of modern days lived upon. He was tall, burly, forty years of age, and his bloated countenance and sleepy eyes betrayed the effects of a long course of intemperance. He wore mock jewellery of an outrageous size; his attire was flashy and gaudy--his linen ... the less we say about that the better--enormous black whiskers (false) shaded his cheeks, and mangey-looking moustache (real) covered his upper lip--add to all this, such a stock of ignorance and impudence as may be supposed to thoroughly saturate one individual, and the reader has the swaggering companion before him. At a rapid pace he neared Mrs. Lovett's, muttering to himself as he went-- "I wonder if I can gammon her out of a couple of guineas." Yes, reader, this compound of vulgarity, ignorance, impudence and debauchery was Mrs. Lovett's gentle fancy--her taste--her--her, what shall we say?--her personification of all that a man should be. Do not start; Mrs. Lovett has many imitators, for, without libelling the fairer, better, and more gentle of that sex, who can be such angels as well as such--a-hem!--there are thousands who would be quite smitten with the "swaggering companion." When he reached the shop-window, he placed his nose against it for a moment to reconnoitre who was in the shop, and seeing the fair one alone, he at once crossed the threshold. "Ah, charmer, how do the fates get on with you?" "Sir--" A smile upon the face of Mrs. Lovett was a practical contradiction to the rebuff which her reception of him by words of mouth seemed to carry. "Oh, you bewitching--a--a--" The remainder of the sentence was lost in the devouring a pie, which the "swaggering companion" took from the shop counter. "Really, sir," said Mrs. Lovett--"I wish you would not come here, I am all alone, and--" "Alone? You beautiful female.--Oh you nice creature.--Allow me." The "swaggering companion" lifted up that portion of the counter which enabled Mrs. Lovett to pass from one side of it to the other, and as coolly as possible walked into the parlour. Mrs. Lovett followed him, protesting at what she called his impudence. But for all that, a bottle of spirits and some biscuits were procured. The "swaggering companion," however, pushed the biscuits aside, saying-- "Pies for me. Pies for me." Mrs. Lovett looked at him scrutinisingly as she said-- "And do you really like the pies, or do you only eat them out of compliment to me?" "Really like them? I tell you what it is; out of compliment to you, of course, I could eat anything, but the pies are delicacies.--Where do you get your veal?" "Well, if you will have pies you shall, Major Bounce."--That was the name which the "swaggering companion" appended to his disgusting corporealty. "Certainly, my dear, certainly. As I was saying, I could freely, to compliment you, eat old Tomkins, the tailor, of Fleet Street." "Really. How do you think he would taste?" "Tough!" "Ha! Ha!" It was an odd laugh that of Mrs. Lovett's. Had she borrowed it from Todd? "My dear Mrs. L.," said the major, "what made you laugh in that sort of way? Ah, if I could only persuade you to go from L to B--" "Sir?" "Now, my charmer, seriously speaking:--Here am I, Major Bounce, a gentleman with immense expectations, ready and willing to wed the most charming woman under the sun, if she will only say 'yes.'" "Have you any objection to America?" "America? None in the least.--With you for a companion, America would be a Paradise. A regular garden of, what do you call it, my dear? Only say the word, my darling." The major's arm was gently insinuated round the lady's waist, and after a few moments she spoke. "Major Bounce, I--I have made money." "The devil!--so have I, but the police one day--a-hem!--a-hem!--what a cough I have." "What on earth do you mean?" "Oh, nothing--nothing--only a joke. You said you had made money, and that put me in mind of what I read in the 'Chronicle' to-day of some coiners, that's all. Ha-ha!" "When I spoke of making money, I meant in the way of trade, but having made it, I should not like to spend it in London, and be pointed out as the well-known pie-woman." "Pie-woman! Oh, the wretches--only let--" "Peace. Hold your tongue, and hear me out. If I marry and retire, it will be far from here--very far indeed." "Ah, any land, with you." The major absolutely saluted the lady. "Be quiet. Pray, in what service are you a major?" "The South American, my love. A much higher service than the British." "Indeed." "Lord bless you, yes. If I was now to go to my estates in South America, there would be a jubilee of ten days at the very least, and the people as well as the government would not know how to make enough of me, I can assure you. In fact, I have as much right to take the rank of general as of major, but the natural modesty of a military man, and of myself in particular, steps in and says 'A major be it.'" "Then you have property?" "Property--property? I believe you, I have. Lots!" The major dealt his forehead a slap as he spoke, which might be taken as an indication that that was where his property was situated, and that it consisted of his ignorance and impudence--very good trading capitals in this world for, strange to say, the parties solely possessing such qualifications get on much better than education, probity, and genius can push forward their unhappy victims. Mrs. Lovett was silent for some minutes, during which the major saluted her again. Then, suddenly rising, she said-- "I will give you an answer to-morrow. Go away now. We shall be soon interrupted. If I do consent to be yours, there will be something to do before we leave England." "By Jove, only mention it to me, and it is as good as done. By-the-bye, there is something to do before I leave here, and that is, my charmer, to pay you for the pies." "Oh, no--no." "Yes, yes--my honour. Touch my honour, even in regard of a pie, and touch my life.--I put two guineas in one end of my purse, to pay my glover in the Strand, and at the other end are some small coins--where the deuce--can--I--have--put--it." The major made an affectation of feeling in all his pockets for his lost purse, and then, with a serio-comic look, he said-- "By Jove, some rascal has picked my pocket." "Never mind me," said Mrs. Lovett, "I don't want payment for the pies." "Well, but--the--the glover. Poor devil, and I promised him his money this morning. For a soldier and a man of honour to break his word is death. What shall I do?--Mrs. L., could you lend me a couple of guineas until I have the happiness of seeing you again?" "Certainly, major, certainly I can." The gallant son of Mars pocketed the coins, and after saluting Mrs. Lovett some half score of times--and she, the beast, liked it--he left the shop and went chuckling into the Strand, where in a few minutes he was in a pot-house, from whence he emerged not until he had liquidated one of the guineas. Was Mrs. Lovett taken in by the major? Did she believe his title, or his wealth, and his common honesty? Did she believe in the story of the purse and of the two guineas that were to be paid to the poor glover because he wanted them? No--no--certainly not. But for all that, she admired the major.--He was her _beau ideal_ of a fine man! That was sufficient. Moreover, being what he was--a rogue, cheat, and common swindler--she could exercise, so she thought, a species of control over him which no decent man would put up with, and so in her own mind she had determined to marry the major and fly; but as she said--"There was a little something to be done first." Did that relate to the disposal of Todd? We shall see. If she calculated upon the major putting Sweeney Todd out of the way, she sadly miscalculated; but the wisest heads will blunder. Compared to Todd, the major was indeed a poor creature; but Mrs. Lovett, in the stern courage of her own intellect, could not conceive the possibility of the great, puffy, bloated, fierce Major Bounce being as arrant a coward as ever was kicked. He was so, though, for all that. After he had left her, Mrs. Lovett sat for a long time in a profound reverie, and as it happened that no one came into the shop; the current of her evil thoughts was uninterrupted. "I have sufficient," she said; "and before it gets too late, I will leave this mode of life. Why did I--tempted by the fiend Todd--undertake it, but that I might make wealth by it, and so assume a position that my heart panted for. I will not delay until it is too late, or I may lose the enjoyment that I have sacrificed so much to find the means of getting. I live in this world but for the gratification of the senses, and finding that I could not gratify them without abundant means, I fell upon this plan. I--ah--that is he--" Suddenly the swaggering companion, the redoubtable Major Bounce, rushed past the shop-window, without so much as looking in for a single moment, and made his way towards Carey Street. Mrs. Lovett started up and made her way into the front shop. Major Bounce was out of sight, but from Fleet Street came a poor, draggled, miserable looking woman, making vain efforts at a speed which her weakness prevented her from keeping up.--She called aloud-- "Stop! stop!--only a moment, Flukes! Only a moment, John. Stop!--stop!" Her strength failed her, and she fell exhausted upon Mrs. Lovett's door-step. "Heartless!--heartless ever!" she cried. "May the judgment of the Almighty reach him--may he suffer--yes--may he suffer only what I have suffered." "Who and what are you?" said Mrs. Lovett. "Poor, and therefore everything that is abject and despicable in London." "What a truth," said Mrs. Lovett. "What a truth that is. Who would not do even as I do to avoid poverty in a widowed life!--It is too horrible. Amid savages it is nothing, but here it is indeed criminality of the deepest dye. Whom did you call after, woman?" "My husband." "Husband. Describe him." "A sottish-looking man, with moustache. Once seen, he is not easily mistaken--ruffian and villain are stamped by nature upon his face." Mrs. Lovett winced a little. "Come in," she said, "I will relieve you for the present. Come in." The woman by a great effort succeeded in rising and crossing the threshold. Mrs. Lovett gave her a seat, and having presented her with a glass of cordial and a pie, she waited until the poor creature should be sufficiently recovered to speak composedly, and then she said to her with perfect calmness, as though she was by no manner of means personally interested in the matter-- "Now tell me--Is the man with moustache and the braided coat, who passed hastily up Bell Yard a few moments only before you, really your husband?" "Yes, madam, that is Flukes--" "Who?" "Flukes, madam." "And pray who and what is Flukes?" "He was a tailor, and he might have been as respectable a man, and earned as honest and good a living as any one in the trade, but a love of idleness and dissipation undid him." "Flukes--a tailor?" "Yes, madam; and now that I am utterly destitute, and in want of the common necessaries of life, if I chance to meet him in the streets and ask him for the merest trifle to relieve my necessities, he flies from me in the manner he has done to-day." "Indeed!" "Yes, madam. If we were in a lonely place he would strike me, so that I should, from the injury he would do me, be unable to follow him, but that in the public streets he dare-not do, for he fears some man would interfere and put a stop to his cruelty." "There, my good woman," said Mrs. Lovett, "there are five shillings for you. Go now, for I expect to be busy very shortly." With a profusion of thanks, that while they lasted were quite stunning, poor Mrs. Flukes left the pie-shop and hobbled homewards. When she was gone the colour went and came several times upon the face of Mrs. Lovett, and then she repeated to herself--"Flukes--a tailor!" "Pies ready?" said a voice at the door. "Not quite." "How long, mum; we want half a dozen of the muttons to-day." "In about ten minutes." "Thank you, I'll look in again." "Flukes--a tailor? Indeed!--Flukes--a tailor? Well I ought to have expected something like this. What a glorious thing it is really to care for no one but oneself after all. I shall lose my faith in--in--fine men." CHAPTER XXXVI. TOBIAS'S MOTHER AWAKENS OLD RECOLLECTIONS. Poor Tobias still remains upon his bed of sickness. The number of hours at the expiration of which the medical man had expected him to recover were nearly gone. In Colonel Jeffery's parlour three persons, besides himself, were assembled. These three were his friend the captain, Sir Richard Blunt, and Mrs. Ragg. The lady was sitting with a not over clean handkerchief at her eyes, and keeping up a perpetual motion with her knee, as though she were nursing some fractious baby, and Mrs. Ragg had been used of late to go out as a monthly nurse occasionally, which, perhaps, accounted for this little peculiarity. "Now, madam," said the colonel, "you quite understand, I hope, that you are not to mention to any living soul the fact of your son Tobias being with me." "Oh, dear me, no, sir. Who should I mention it to?" "That we can't tell," interrupted the captain, "you are simply desired not to tell it." "I'm sure I don't see anybody once in a week, sir." "Good God! woman," cried the colonel, "does that mean that when you do see any one you will tell it?" "Lord love you, sir, it's few people as comes to see you when you are down in the world. I'm sure it's seldom enough a soul taps at my door with a 'Mrs. Ragg, how are you?'" "Now was there ever such an incorrigible woman as this?" "If you were to talk to her for a month," said Sir Robert Blunt, "you would not get a direct answer from her. Allow me to try something else--Mrs. Ragg." "Yes, sir--humbly at your service, sir." "If you tell any one that Tobias is here, or indeed anywhere within your knowledge, I will apprehend you about a certain candlestick." "Goodness gracious, deliver us." "Do you understand that, Mrs. Ragg? You keep silence about Tobias, and I keep silence about the candlestick. You speak about Tobias, and I speak about the candlestick." Mrs. Ragg shook her head and let fall a torrent of tears, which the magistrate took as sufficient evidence that she did understand him and would act accordingly, so he added-- "Shall we all proceed up stairs? for a great deal will depend upon the boy's first impression when he awakens--and in this case we should not lose a chance." In pursuance of this sound advice they all proceeded to poor Tobias's bed-room, and there he lay in that profound repose which the powerful opiate administered to him had had the effect of producing. It did not seem as though he had moved head or foot since they had left him. His face was very pale, and when Mrs. Ragg saw him she burst into tears, exclaiming-- "He is dead--he is dead!" "No such thing, madam," said Colonel Jeffery. "He only sleeps." "But, oh deary me, what makes him look so old and so strange now? He was bad enough when I saw him last, poor fellow, but not like this." "He has received ill-usage from someone, and that is precisely what we want to find out. If you can get from him the particulars of what he has suffered, we will take care those who have made him suffer shall not escape." "Bless you, gentlemen, what's the use of that if my poor boy is killed?" There was a good home truth in these words from Mrs. Ragg, although, upon the score of general social policy, they might well be answered. An argument with Mrs. Ragg, however, upon such a subject was not very a-propos. The colonel made her sit down by Tobias's bed-side, and he was then upon the point of remarking to his friend, the captain, that it would be as well, since so many hours had passed, to send for the medical man, when that personage made his appearance. "Has he awakened?" he asked. "No--not yet." "Oh, I see you have a nurse." "It is his mother. We hope that she, by talking to him familiarly, may produce a good effect, and possibly rid him of that bewilderment of intellect under which he now labours. What think you, sir?" "That it is a good thought. Let us darken the room as much as possible, as twilight will be most grateful to him upon awakening, which he must do shortly." The curtains of the window were so arranged that the room was in a state of semi-darkness, and then they all waited with no small anxiety for Tobias to recover from the deep and death-like sleep that had come over him. After about five minutes he moved uneasily and uttered a low moan. "Speak to him, Mrs. a--a--what's your name?" "Ragg, sir." "Aye, Ragg, just speak to him; of course he is well acquainted with your voice, and it may have the effect of greatly rousing him from his lethargic condition." Poor Mrs. Ragg considered that she had some very extraordinary post to perform, and accordingly she collected to her aid all her learning, which, interrupted by her tears, and now and then by a sob, which she had to gulp down like a large globule of castor oil, had certainly rather a droll effect. "My dear Tobias--my dear--lie a bed, sluggard, you know--well, I never--Put the kettle on, Polly, and let's all have tea. Tobias, my dear--bless us and save us, are you going to stay in bed all day?" Another groan from Tobias. "Well, my dear, perhaps you won't mind getting up and just running towards the corner for a bunch of water cresses? Dear heart alive, there goes the muffin-man like a lamplighter!" It was by such domestic themes that Mrs. Ragg sought to recall the wandering senses of poor Tobias to a cognizance of the present. But alas! his thoughts were still in the dim and misty land of visions. Suddenly he spoke-- [Illustration: Tobias's Delirium.] "Hush--hush! There they come!--elephants!--elephants!--on--on--on. Now for the soldiers, and all mad--mad--mad! Hide me in the straw--deep in a world of straw. Hush! He comes. Sing, oh sing again!--and he--he will not suspect." The surgeon made a sign to Mrs. Ragg to speak again. "Why, Tobias, my dear, what are you talking about? Do you mean the Elephant and Castle?" "Call to his remembrance," said the surgeon, "some old scenes." "Yes, sir, but when one's heart and all that sort of thing is in one's mouth it's very difficult to recollect things oneself. Tobias!" "Yes--yes. Ha-ha!" It was a low, plaintive, strange laugh that, that came from the poor boy whose mind had been so overthrown, and it jarred upon the feelings of all who heard it. "Tobias, do you recollect the little cottage down the lane at Holloway, where we lived, and the cock roaches, and the strange cat, you know, Tobias, that would not go away? Don't you recollect, Tobias, how the coals there were all slates, and how your poor father, as is dead and gone--" "Yes, I see him now." Mrs. Ragg gave a faint scream. "Father!--father!" said Tobias, as he held out his arms, and the big tears rolled down his cheeks. "Father--father, Todd has not got me now. Don't cry so, father. Stand out of the way of the elephants." "My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "do you want to break my heart?" Tobias rose to a sitting position in the bed, and looked his mother in the face-- "Are you, too, mad?" he said. "Are you, too, mad? Did you tell of Todd?" "Yes, the only way," said Colonel Jeffery, "for people not to be mad, is to tell of Todd." "Yes--yes." "And so you, Tobias, will tell us all you know. That is what we want you to do, and then you will be quite happy and comfortable for the remainder of your days, and live with your mother again far from any apprehension from Todd. Do you understand me?" Tobias opened his mouth several times in an eager, gasping sort of manner, as though he would have said something rapidly, but he could not. He placed his hands upon his brain, and rocked to and fro for a few moments, and then he broke out into the same low, peculiar laugh that had before so strangely affected Colonel Jeffery and the others who were there present in that room. The surgeon shook his head as he said, mournfully-- "It is of no use!" "Do you really think so?" said the colonel. "For the present, I am convinced that it is of no use to attempt to recall his wandering senses. Time will do wonders, and he has the one grand element of youth in his favour. That, as well as time, will do wonders. The case is a bad one, and the shock the brain of this lad has received must be a most fearful one." "Do not," said Sir Richard Blunt, "give up so readily, Mrs. Ragg; I would have you try him again. Speak to him again of his father--that seemed to be the topic that most moved him." Mrs. Ragg could hardly do so for her tears, but she managed to stammer out-- "Tobias, do you recollect when your father bought you the rabbit, and out of vexation, the creature eat its way out of a willow-work cage in the night? Do you remember your poor father's funeral, Tobias, and how we went, you and I, my poor boy, to take the last look at the only one who--who--who--" Mrs. Ragg could get no further. "Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Tobias, "who told of Todd?" "Who is this Todd," said the surgeon, "that he continually speaks of, and shudders at the very name of?" Colonel Jeffery glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and the latter, who wished the affair by no means to transpire, merely said-- "We are quite as much in the dark as you, sir. It is just what we should like to know, who this Todd is, whose very name seems to hold the imagination of this poor boy in a grasp of iron. I begin to think that nothing more can be done now." "Nothing, gentlemen, you may depend," said the surgeon. "How old is the lad?" "Sixteen as never was," replied Mrs. Ragg, "and a hard time I had of it, sir, as you may suppose." The surgeon did not exactly see how he was called upon to suppose anything of the sort; however he made no further remark to Mrs. Ragg, but continued in conversation for some time with Colonel Jeffery, who informed him that Tobias should remain for a time where he was, so that there should be every possible chance given for his recovery. "I wish you to continue attending upon him, sir," he added, "for I would spare nothing that medical advice can suggest to restore him. He has, I am convinced, been a great sufferer." "That is sufficiently clear, sir. You may rely upon my utmost attention." "Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, "can you cook?" "Cook, sir? Lord bless you, sir. I can cook as well as here and there a one, though I say it that oughtn't, and if poor Tobias was but all right, I should not go to be after making myself miserable now about bygones. What's to be cured must be endured--it's a long lane as hasn't a turning. As poor Mr. Ragg often used to say when he was alive--'Grizzling ain't fattening.'" "I should think it was not. It so happens, Mrs. Ragg, that there is a vacancy in my house for a cook, and if you like to come and take the place, you can look after Tobias as well, you know, for I intend him to remain here for the present. Only remember, you tell this to no one." "Me, sir! Lord bless you, sir, who do I see?" The colonel was by no means anxious to convince himself a second time of the impossibility of bringing Mrs. Ragg to a precise answer, so he changed the subject, and it was finally arranged that without a word to any one upon the subject, that very night Mrs. Ragg was to take up her abode with Tobias. After this had been all arranged, the three gentlemen proceeded to the dining room, and held a consultation. "Of the guilt of Todd," said the magistrate, "I entertain no doubt, but I own that I am extremely anxious to bring the crime legally home to him." "Exactly," said the colonel, "and I can only say that every plan you can suggest will be cheerfully acquiesced in by me and my friend here." The captain signified his assent. "Be assured, gentlemen," added Sir Richard Blunt, "that something shall be done of a decisive character before many days are past. I have seen the higher powers upon the subject, and have full authority, and you may rest satisfied that I shall not mind running a little personal risk to unravel the mysteries that surround the career of Sweeney Todd. I think one thing may be done conveniently." "What is that, sir?" "Why, It seems to be pretty well understood that no one resides in Todd's house but himself, and as now he has no boy--unless he has provided himself with one already--he must go out sometimes and leave the place to itself, and upon one of those occasions an opportunity might be found of thoroughly searching the upper part, at all events, of his house." "Could that be done with safety?" "I think so. At all events, I feel inclined to try it. If I do so, and make any discovery, you may depend upon my letting you know without an hour's delay, and I sincerely hope that all that will take place may have the effect of setting your mind at rest regarding your friend, Mr. Ingestrie." "But not of restoring him to us?" The magistrate shook his head. "I think, sir," he said, "that you ought to consider that he has, if any one has, fallen a victim to Sweeney Todd." "Alas! I fear so." "All the evidence points that way, and we can only take measures in the best way possible to bring his murderer to justice--that that murderer is Sweeney Todd, I cannot for one moment of time bring myself to doubt." Sir Richard Blunt shortly afterwards left Colonel Jeffery's house and proceeded to the execution of a plan of proceeding, with the particulars of which he had not thought proper to entrust to the colonel, and his friend the captain. Long habits of caution had led the magistrate--who was not one of the fancy magistrates of the present day, but a real police officer--active, cool, and determined--to trust no one but himself with his secrets, and so he kept to himself what he meant to do that night. When he was gone, Colonel Jeffery had a long talk with his friend, and the subject gradually turned to Johanna, whom the colonel yet hoped, he said, to be able one day to call his own. "No one," he remarked, "would be more truly rejoiced than I to restore Mark Ingestrie to her whom he loves, and whose affection for him is of so enduring and remarkable a character, but if, as Sir Richard Blunt supposes, he is really no more, I think Johanna, by being mine, would stand a better chance of recovering her serenity, if not of enjoying all the happiness in this world that she deserves." "Hope for the best," said the captain, "and recollect what the surgeon said as regarded Tobias, that time works wonders." CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SEARCH AT TODD'S. The house in Fleet Street, next door to Todd's, was kept by a shoemaker, named Whittle, and in this shoemaker's window was a bill, only put up on the very day of poor Tobias's escape from Peckham, announcing--"An Attic to Let." This was rather an alluring announcement to Sir Richard Blunt. At about half an hour after sunset on the same evening that had witnessed the utter discomfiture of the attempt to restore poor Tobias Ragg to his senses, two men stood in the deep recess of a doorway immediately opposite to the house of Sweeney Todd. These two men were none other than Sir Richard and his esteemed but rather eccentric officer, Mr. Crotchet. After some few moments' silence, Sir Richard spoke, saying-- "Well, Crotchet--what do you think of the affair now?" "Nothink." "Nothing? You do not mean that, Crotchet?" "Says what I means--means what I says, and then leaves it alone." "But you have some opinion, Crotchet?" "Had, master--had--" "Well, Crotchet; I think we can now cross over the way, and endeavour to get possession of the shoemaker's attic, from which we can get into Todd's house." "And find nothink criminatory." "You think not; but do you know, Crotchet, I am of opinion that the greatest and cleverest rogues not unfrequently leave themselves open to detection, in some little particular, which they have most strangely and unaccountably neglected. I am not without a hope that we shall find the man, Sweeney Todd, to be one of that class, and if so, we shall not fail to do some good by our visit to the house.--You remain here and watch for his going out, and when he is gone, come over the way and ask for Mr. Smith. Have you seen Fletcher?" "No, but he will be here presently, and will wait till that 'ere fellow goes away, if so be as he goes out, and then when you and me hears two notes on the key-bugle, it will be time all for us to go for to come to mizzle." "Very good," said Sir Richard Blunt, and he crossed over to the shoemaker's shop, leaving Crotchet on the watch in the deep doorway. The fact is, they had been waiting there for some time, in the hope that Todd would go out, but he had not stirred, so that the magistrate thought it would be as well to let Crotchet remain while he secured the shoemaker's attic, with a view to ulterior proceedings. The magistrate was dressed as a respectable, staid clerk, and he walked into the shoemaker's shop with a gravity of gait that was quite imposing. "You have an attic to let," he said. "Is it furnished?" "Oh yes, sir, and comfortably too. My missus looks after all that, I can tell you." "Very well, I want just such a place; for, do you know, since I have left a widower, I like to live in some lively situation, and as all my friends are at Cambridge, and not a soul that I know in London, I don't half fancy going into an out-of-the-way place to live; though, I dare say, for all that, London is safe enough." "Why, I don't know that," said the shoemaker. "However, you'll be safe enough here, sir, never doubt. The rent is four shillings a week." "Very good. I think, if you will show it to me, we shall suit each other. The great object with me is to find myself in the house of a respectable man, and one look at you, sir, is quite sufficient to show me that you are one." This was all highly flattering to the shoemaker, and he was so well pleased to get such a respectable, civil-spoken, middle aged gentleman into his house, that he was prepared, upon half a word to that effect, to come down a whole sixpence a week in the rent, if needs were. Of course, the would-be-lodger was well enough pleased with the attic, and turning to the shoemaker, he handed him four shillings, saying-- "As my friends are all so far off, I ought to give you a week's rent in advance, instead of a reference, and there it is." After this, who could ask any further questions? The magistrate, just, of his own accord, added that his name was Smith, and that he would stay a short time in his room if the shoemaker could oblige him with a light, which was done accordingly, and when the shoemaker's wife came home--that lady having been out to gossip with no less a personage than Mrs. Lovett--he was quite elated to tell her what a lodger they had, and as he handed her the four shillings, saying "My dear, that will buy you the ribbon at Mrs. Keating's, the mercer, that you had set your mind upon," how could she be other than quite amiable? "Well, John," she said, "for once in a way, I must say that you have shown great judgment, and if I had been at home myself, I could not have managed better." This, we are quite sure, our lady readers will agree with us was as much as any married female ought to say. Sir Richard Blunt ascended to the attic, of which he was now, by virtue of a weekly tenancy, lord and master, with a light, and closing the door, he cast his eyes around the apartment. Its appointments were decidedly not luxurious. In one corner a stump-bedstead awakened anything but lively associations, while the miserable little grate, the front of which was decidedly composed of some portions of an old iron hoop from a barrel, did not look redolent of comforts. The rest of the apartments were what the auctioneers call _en suite_, the said auctioneers having but a dreamy notion of what _en suite_ means. But the appointments or disappointments of his attic were of little consequence to Sir Richard Blunt. It was the window that offered attractions to him. Softly opening it, he looked out, and found that there was a leaden gutter, with only the average amount of filth in it, the drain being, of course, stopped up by a dishclout and a cracked flower-pot, which is perfectly according to custom in London. He saw enough at a glance, however, to convince him that there would be no difficulty whatever in getting to the attic of Todd's house, and that fact once ascertained, he waited with exemplary and placid patience the return of Crotchet. Now, Sweeney Todd was, during much of that day, in what is denominated a brown study. He could not make up his mind in what way he was to make up for the loss of the senses of Tobias. It was with him an equal choice of disagreeables. To have a boy, or not to have a boy, which to do became an anxious question. "A boy is a spy," muttered Todd to himself--"a spy upon all my actions--a perpetual police-officer in a small way, constantly at my elbow--an alarum continually crying to me 'Todd! Todd! beware!' Curses on them all, and yet what a slave am I to this place without a lad; and, after all, when they do become too troublesome and inquisitive, I can but dispose of them as I have disposed of him." Todd patrolled his shop for some time, thus communing with himself; but as yet he could not make up his mind which to do.--A boy or not a boy?--that was the question. He remained in this unsatisfactory state of mind until sunset had passed away and the dim twilight was wrapping all things in obscurity. Then, without deciding upon either course, he suddenly, in a very hurried manner, shut up his shop, and closing the outer door carefully, he walked rapidly towards Bell Yard. He was going to Mrs. Lovett's, whither we shall follow him at a more convenient opportunity, but just now we have Sir Richard Blunt's enterprise to treat of. Todd had no sooner got fairly out of sight, than Mr. Crotchet emerged from the doorway in which he was concealed, and went a few paces down Fleet Street, towards the Temple.--He soon met a man genteelly dressed, who seemed to be sauntering along in an idle fashion. "All's right, Fletcher," said Crotchet. "Oh, is it?" "Yes. Have you got that ere little article with you?" "The bugle? Oh, yes." "Mind you blows it then, if you sees Todd come home, and no gammon." "Trust to me old fellow." Without another word, Mr. Crotchet crossed over the road, and opened the shop-door of the shoemaker. Now the face of Mr. Crotchet was not the most engaging in the world, and when he looked in upon the shoemaker, that industrious workman felt a momentary pang of alarm, and particularly when Mr. Crotchet, imparting a horrible obliquity to his vision, said-- "How is yer, old un?" "Sir?" said the shoemaker. "You couldn't show a fellow the way up to Smith's _hattic_, I supposes?" "Smith--Smith?--Oh, dear me, that's the new lodger. I'll call him down if you wait here." "No occasion. I'll toddle up, my tulip. He's a relation o' mine, don't you see the likeness atween us?--We was considered the handsomest pair 'o men as was in London at one time, and it sticks to us now, I can tell you." "If you wish, sir, to go up, instead of having Mr. Smith called down, of course, sir, you can, as you are an old friend. Allow me to light you, sir." "Not the least occasion. Only tell me where it isn't, and I'll find out where it is, old chap." "It's the front attic." "All's right. Don't be sich a hass as to be flaring away arter me, with that ere double dip, I can find my way in _worserer_ places than this here. All's right--easy does it." To the surprise of the shoemaker, his mysterious visitor opened the little door at the back of the shop, which led to the staircase, and in a moment disappeared up them. "Upon my life, this Mr. Smith," thought the shoemaker, "seems to have some very strange connexions. He told me he knew nobody in London, and then here comes one of the ugliest fellows, I think, I ever saw in all my life, and claims acquaintance with him. What ought I to do?--Ought I to tell Mrs. W. of it?" At this moment Mrs. W. made her appearance from the mercer's, with the ribbon that had tickled her feminine fancy--all smiles and sweetness. The heart of the shoemaker died within him, for well he knew what visitation he was likely to come in for, if anything connected with the lodger turned out wrong. "A-hem! a-hem! Well, my dear, have you got the ribbon?" "Oh yes, to be sure, and a love it is--" "Ah!--ah!" "What's the matter?" "Nothing, my dove. I was only thinking that it wasn't the ribbon that makes folks look lovely, but the person who wears it. You would look beautiful in any ribbon." "Why, my dear, that may be very true, but still one ought to look as well as one can, you know, for the credit of one's maker." "Oh, yes, yes, but I was only thinking--" "Thinking of what? Bless me, Mr. Wheeler, how mystifying you are to-night, to be sure. What do you mean by this conduct? Was ever a woman so pestered and tormented with a fool of a man, who looks like an owl in an ivy bush for all the world, or a crow peeping into a marrowbone." "My duck, how can you say so?" "Duck indeed? Keep your ducks to yourself. Hoity toity. Duck, indeed. You low good-for-nothing--" "My dear, my dear. I was only thinking, and not in the least wishing to offend." "But you do offend me, you nasty insinuating, sneering wretch.--What were you thinking about? Tell me this moment." "Why, that a pretty silver-grey satin mantle would set off your figure so well, that--" "Oh, John!" "That, though quarter-day is near at hand, I think you ought to have one." "Really, Jackey." "Yes, my dear." "What a man you are. Ah, Jackey, after all, though we have, like all people, our little tiffs and wiffs and sniffs--after all, I say it, perhaps, that should not say it, you are a dear, good, obliging--" "Don't mention it." "Yes, but--" "No, don't. By-the-bye, do you know, Susey, that I begin to have my suspicions--mind, I may be wrong, but I begin to have my suspicions, do you know, that our attic lodger is, after all, no better than he should be." "Gracious!" "Hush! hush! There has been a man here; so ugly--so--so--squintified, if I may say so, that between you and me and the post, my dear, it's enough to frighten any one to look at him, it is indeed.--But as for the silver-grey satin, don't stint the quality for a sixpence or so." "The wretch!" "And take care to have plenty of rich trimming to it." "The monster!" "And have something pretty to match it, so that when you go to St. Dunstan's next Sunday, all the folks will ask what fine lady from court has come into the city out of curiosity to see the old church." "Oh, Jackey." "That's what I call," muttered Mr. Wheeler, "pouring oil upon the troubled waters." He then spoke aloud, saying--"Now, my dear, it is your judgment and advice I want. What shall we do in this case? for you see--first of all, the new lodger denies knowing a soul, and then, in half an hour, an old acquaintance calls upon him here." The silver-grey satin--the flattering allusion to the probable opinion of the people in St. Dunstan's Church on the next Sunday--the obscure allusion to a something else to match it, and the appeal to her judgment, all had the effect desired upon Mrs. Wheeler, who, dropping entirely the hectoring tone, fell into her husband's views, and began calmly and dispassionately, without abuse or crimination, to discuss the merits, or rather the probable demerits, of the new lodger. "I tell you, my dear, my opinion," said the lady. "As for stopping in the house and not knowing who and what he is, I won't." "Certainly not, my love." "Then, Mr. W., the only thing to do, is for you and I to go up stairs, and say that as I was out you did not know a Mr. Jones had spoken about the lodging, but that, if he could give a reference in London, we would still have him for a lodger." "Very well. That will be only civil, and if he says he can't, but must send to Cambridge--" "Why then, my dear, you must say that he may stay till he writes, and I'll be guided by his looks. If I give you a nudge, so, with my elbow, you may consider that it's pretty right." "Very well, my dove." CHAPTER XXXVIII. SIR RICHARD PRIES INTO TODD'S SECRETS. Crotchet soon reached the attic floor of the shoemaker's house, and although in profound darkness, he managed, as he thought, to touch the right door. Tap! tap! went Crotchet's knuckles, and as he did so he followed a habit very general, when the knock is only a matter of ceremony, and opened the door at the same moment. He popped his head into a room where there was a light, and said-- "Here yer is." A scream was the reply to him, and then Crotchet saw, by the state of affairs there, that he had made a little mistake in the topography of the attic landing. The attic in which he found himself, for he had crossed the threshold, was in the occupation of an elderly gaunt-looking female, who was comforting her toes by keeping them immersed in a pan of water by the side of a little miserable fire, which was feebly pretending to look cheerful in the little grate. "Lor, mum!" said Crotchet. "Who'd a thought o' seeing of you?" "Oh, you monster. You base man, what do you want here?" "Nothink!" "Be off with you, or else I'll call the _perlice_." "Oh, I'm a going, mum. How do you bring it in, mum, in a general way?" "Help! Murder!" "Lord bless us, what a racket. Don't you go for to fancy, mum, that I comed up these here attic stairs for to see you. Quite the rewerse, mum." "Then, pray who did you come to see, you big ugly monster you? The other attic is empty. Oh, you base infidel. I believe I knows what men are by this time." "No doubt on it, mum. Howsomedever this here's the wrong door, I take it. No harm done, mum. I wish you and your toes, mum, a remarkably good evening." "Crotchet," said a voice. "Here yer is." Sir Richard Blunt had been attentively listening for Crotchet, and when he heard the screams of the old lady in the next attic, he opened the door of his apartment, and looked out. He soon discovered what was amiss, and called out accordingly. "Bless us, who's that?" "The Emperor o' Russia, mum," said Crotchet. "He's took that 'ere attic next to you, cos he's heard so much o' the London chumbley pots, and he wants to have a good look at them at his leisure." With these words Mr. Crotchet left the old lady's attic, and closed the door carefully, leaving her, no doubt, in a considerable state of bewilderment. In another moment he was with the magistrate. "Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "I thought I told you to do this thing as quietly as you possibly could." "Down as a hammer, sir." "I think it is anything but down." "Right as a trivet, sir, with a hextra leg. Lots o' fear, but no danger. Now for it, Sir Richard. What lay is we to go on?" It certainly never occurred to Sir Richard Blunt to hold any argument with Mr. Crotchet. He had long since found out that he must, if he would avail himself of his services--and for courage and fidelity he was unequalled--put up with his eccentricities; so upon this occasion he said no more about Crotchet's mistake, but, after a few moments' pause, pointing to the attic door, he said-- "Secure it." "All's right." Crotchet took a curious little iron instrument from his pocket, and secured it into the wall by the side of the door. It did not take him more than a moment to do so, and then, fully satisfied of the efficacy of his work, he said-- "Let 'em get over that if they can." While he was so occupied. Sir Richard Blunt himself had opened the window, and fastened it open securely. "Now, Crotchet," he said, "look to your pistols." "All's right, sir." The magistrate carefully examined the priming of his own arms, and seeing that all was right, he at once emerged from the attic through the window on to the parapet of the house. He might have crept along the gutter just within the parapet, but the gutter aforesaid was not exactly in the most salubrious condition. Indeed, from its filthy state, one might have fancied it to be peculiarly under the direction of the city commissioners of sewers. Crotchet followed Sir Richard closely, and in a moment or two they had traversed a sufficient portion of the parapet to find themselves at the attic window of Todd's house. It would have been next thing to a miracle if they had been seen in their progress, for the roof was very dark coloured, and the night had fairly enough set in, so that if any one had by chance looked up from the street below, they would scarcely have discovered that there was anybody creeping along the parapet. Now there was a slight creaking noise for about half a minute, and then the window of Sweeney Todd's attic swung open. "Come on," said Sir Richard, and he softly alighted in the apartment. Crotchet followed him, and then the magistrate carefully closed the window again, and left it in such a way, that a touch from within would open it. Then they were in profound darkness, and as it was no part of the policy of Sir Richard Blunt to run any unnecessary risks, he did not move one inch from the place upon which he stood until he had lighted a small hand lantern, which had a powerful reflector and a tin shade, which in a moment could be passed over the glass, so as to hide the light upon an emergency. "Now, Crotchet," he said, "we shall see where we are." "_Reether_," said Crotchet. By holding the light some height up, they were able to command a good view of the attic. It was a miserable looking room: the walls were in a state of premature decay, and in several places lumps of mortar had fallen from the ceiling, making a litter of broken plaster upon the floor. It was entirely destitute of furniture, with the exception of an old stump bedstead, upon which there lay what looked like a quantity of old clothes. "Safe enough," said Sir Richard. "Stop!" said Crotchet. "What's the matter?" "There's something odd on the floor here. Don't you see as the dust has got into a crevice as is bigger nor all the other crevices, and goes right along this ways and then along that ways? Don't you move, sir. I'll be down upon it in a minute." Mr. Crotchet laid himself down flat upon the floor, and then crept on until he came to that part of the flooring which had excited his suspicions. As soon as he pressed upon it with both his hands it gave way under them plainly, by the elevation of the other end of the three boards of which this trap was composed, proclaiming that it was a moveable portion of the floor, revolving or turning upon one of the joists as a centre. "Oh dear, how clever!" said Crotchet. "If Mr. Todd goes on a cutting away his joists in this here way he'll bring his blessed old house down with a run some day. How nice and handy, now, if any one was to step upon here--they'd go down into the room below, and perhaps break their blessed legs as they went." [Illustration: The Secret Trap Discovered In Todd's House.] "Escape the first for us!" said Sir Richard. "Oh, lor, yes. Now this here Todd thinks, by putting this here man-trap here, as he has _perwided_ again any accidents; but we ain't them 'ere sort o' birds as is catched by chaff, not we. Why he must have spilted his blessed ceiling down below to make this here sort of a jigamaree concern." "It's not a bad contrivance though, Crotchet. Its own weight, you see, restores it to its place again, and so there's no trouble with it." "Oh dear, no. It's a what I calls a self-acting catch-'em-who-can sort o' machine. Yes, Sir Richard, I never did think that 'ere Todd was wery green. He don't know quite so much as we know; but yet he's a rum 'un." "No doubt of it. Do you think, Crotchet, there is anything else in this attic to beware of?" "Not likely; when he'd finished this here nice little piece of handywork, I dare say he said to himself--'This will catch 'em,' and so down stairs he toddled, and grinned like a monkey as has swallowed a whole nut by haccident, and gived himself a pain in the side in consekence. 'That'll catch 'em,' says he." Mr. Crotchet seemed so much amused at the picture he drew to himself of the supposed exultation of Todd, that for some moments he did nothing but laugh. The reader must not suppose, however, that in the circumstances of peril in which they were, he indulged in a regular "Ha! ha!"--quite the contrary. He had a mode of laughing under such circumstances that was entirely his own, and which, while it made no noise, shook his huge frame as though some commotion had taken sudden possession of it, and the most ridiculous part of the process was the alarming suddenness with which he would become preternaturally serious again. But Sir Richard Blunt knew his peculiarities, and paid no attention to them, unless they very much interfered with business. "We must not waste time. Come on, Crotchet." Sir Richard walked to the door of the attic and tried it. It was as fast as though it had been part of the wall itself. "So--so," he said. "Master Todd has taken some precautions against being surprised from the top of his house. He has nailed up this door as surely as any door was ever nailed up." "Has he really, though?" "Yes. Quick, Crotchet. You have your tools about you, I suppose." "Never fear," said Crotchet. "I'm the _indiwedal_ as never forgets nothink, and if I don't have the middle panel out o' this door a'most as soon as look at it, it's only cos it takes more time." With this philosophical and indisputable remark, Mr. Crotchet stooped down before the door, and taking various exquisitely made tools from his pocket, he began to work at the door. He knocked nearly noiselessly, and it looked like something little short of magic to see how the panel was forced out of the door without any of the hammering and flustering which a carpenter would have made of it. "All's right," he said. "If we can't creep through here, we are bigger than I think we is." "That will do. Hush!" They both listened attentively, for Sir Richard thought he heard a faint noise from the lower part of the house. As, however, five minutes of attentive listening passed away, and no repetition of it occurred, they thought it was only some one of those accidental sounds which will at times be heard in all houses whether occupied or not. Crotchet took the lead by creeping clearly enough through the opening that he had made in the door of the attic, and Sir Richard followed him. They were both, now, at the head of the staircase, and Sir Richard held up the lantern so as to have a good look around him. The walls looked damp and neglected. There were two other doors opening from that landing, but neither of them was fastened, so that they entered the rooms easily. They took care, though, not to go beyond the threshold for fear of accidents, although it was very unlikely that Todd would take the trouble to construct a trap-door in any other attic than the one which was so easily accessible from the parapet. "Old clothes--old clothes!" said Crotchet. "There seems to be nothing else in these rooms." "So it would appear," said Sir Richard. He lifted up some of the topmost of a heap of garments upon the floor, and a cloud of moths flew upwards in confusion. "There's the toggery," said Mr. Crotchet, "of the _smugged 'uns_!" "You really think so." "Knows it." "Well, Crotchet, I don't think from what I know myself that we shall disagree about Todd's guilt. The grand thing is to discover how, and in what way he is guilty." "Just so. I'm quite sure we have seed all as there is to see up here, so suppose we toddle down stairs now, sir. There's, perhaps, quite a lot o' wonders and natur', and art, down below." "Stop a bit. Hold the lamp." Crotchet did so, while Sir Richard took from his pocket a pair of thick linsey-woolsey stockings, and carefully drew them on over his boots, for the purpose of deadening the sound of his footsteps; and then he held the light, while Mr. Crotchet, who was similarly provided with linsey-woolseys, went through the same process. After this, they moved like spectres, so perfectly noiseless were their footsteps upon the stairs. Sir Richard went first, while Crotchet now carried the light, holding it sufficiently high that the magistrate could see the stairs before him very well, as he proceeded. It was quite evident, from the state of those stairs, as regarded undisturbed dust, that they had not been ascended for a considerable time; and indeed, Todd, considering the top of his house as perfectly safe after the precautions he had taken, did not trouble himself to visit it. Our adventurers reached the landing upon the second floor in perfect safety; and after giving a few minutes more to the precautionary measure of listening, they opened the first door that presented itself to the observation, and entered the room. They both paused in astonishment, for such a miscellaneous collection of matters as was in this room, could only have been expected to be met with in the shop of a general dealer. Several chairs and tables were loaded with wearing apparel of all kinds and conditions. The corners of the room were literally crowded with mobs of swords, walking sticks, and umbrellas; while a countless heap of hats lay upon the floor in disorder. You could not have stepped into that room for miscellaneous personal appointments of one sort or another; and Mr. Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt trod upon the hats as they walked across the floor, from sheer inability to get out of the way. "Well," said Crotchet, "if so be as shaving should go out of fashion, Todd could set up a clothier's shop, and not want for stock to begin with." "I can imagine," muttered the magistrate to himself, "what a trouble and anxiety all these things must be to Todd, and woollen goods are so difficult to burn. Crotchet, select some of the swords, and look if there are maker's names upon the blades." While Crotchet was preparing this order. Sir Richard was making a hasty but sufficiently precise examination of the room. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE MYSTERIOUS CUPBOARD. "Here they are," said Crotchet. "Some of these are worth something." "Get a cane or two, likewise." "All's right, sir. I tell you what it is, sir. If there's such things as ghosts in the world, I wonder how this Todd can sleep o' nights, for he must have a plaguy lot of 'em about his bed of a night." "Perhaps he satisfied himself upon that head, Crotchet, before he began his evil practices, for all we know; but let us make our way into another room, for I think we have seen all there is to see in this one." "Not a doubt of it. It's only a kind of store-room, this, and from the size of it, I should say it ain't the largest on this floor." Sir Richard walked out of the room on to the landing place. All was perfectly still in the barber's house, and as he had heard nothing of the bugle sound in Fleet-street, he felt quite satisfied that Todd had not returned. It was a great thing, in all his daring exploits in discovering criminals, and successfully ferreting out their haunts, that he (Sir Richard) could thoroughly depend upon his subordinates. He knew they were not only faithful but brave. He knew that, let what might happen, they would never leave him in the lurch. Hence, in the present instance, he felt quite at his ease in the house of Todd, so long as he did not hear the sound of the bugle. Of course, personal danger he did not consider, for he knew he was, if even he had been alone, more than a match for Todd; but what he wanted was, not to overcome Sweeney Todd, but to find out exactly what were his practices. He could, upon the information he already had, have walked into Todd's shop at any time, and have apprehended him, but that would not have answered. What he wanted to do was to "Pluck out the heart of his mystery," and, in order to do that, it was not only necessary that Todd should be at large, but that he should have no hint that such a person as he, Sir Richard Blunt, had his eyes wide open to his actions and manoeuvres. Hence was it that, in this examination of the house, he wished to keep himself so secret, and free from any observation. There were three rooms upon the second floor of Todd's house, and the very next one they met with, was the one immediately beneath the trap in the floor of the attic. A glance at the ceiling enabled them easily to perceive it. This room was larger than the other considerably, and in it were many boxes and chests, as well as in the centre an immense old-fashioned counting-house desk, with six immense flaps to it, three upon each side, while a brass railing went along the middle. "Ah!" said Sir Richard, "here will be something worth the examining, I hope." "Let's take the cupboards first," said Crotchet. "There are two here, and as they are the first we have seen, let's look at 'em, Sir Richard. I never likes to be in a strange room long, without a peep in the cupboard." "Very well, Crotchet. Look in that one to the left, while I look in this one to the right." Sir Richard opened a cupboard door to the right of the fire-place in this room, while Crotchet opened one to the left. "More clothes," said Sir Richard. "What's in yours, Crotchet?" "Nothing at all. Yet stay. There's a something high up here. I don't know what it is, but I'll try and reach it if I can." Crotchet went completely into the cupboard, but he had no sooner done so, than Sir Richard Blunt heard a strange crushing sound, and then all was still. "Hilloa! What's that, Crotchet?" He hastily stepped to the cupboard. The door had swung close. It was evidently hung upon its hinges in a manner to do so. With his disengaged hand, the magistrate at once pulled it open. Crotchet was gone. The astonishment of Sir Richard Blunt for a moment was excessive. There was the flooring of the cupboard perfectly safe, but no Crotchet. Nothing to his eyes had looked so like a magical disappearance as this, and with the trap in his hand, he stood while any one might have counted twenty, completely motionless and transfixed by astonishment. Starting then from this lethargic condition, he drew a pistol from his pocket, and rushed to the door of the room. At this instant, he heard the bugle sound clearly and distinctly in the street. Before the echo of the sound had died away, the magistrate was upon the landing-place outside the door of the second floor. He listened intently, and heard some one below coughing. It was not the cough of Crotchet. What was he to do? If he did not make a signal to the officers in the street that all was safe, the house would soon be stormed, and, for all he knew, that might ensure the destruction of Crotchet, instead of saving him. For a moment, the resolution to go down the staircase at all hazards and face Todd--for he had no doubt but that he had come home--possessed him, but a moment's reflection turned the scale of thought in another direction. If the officers, not finding him make a signal that he was safe, did attack the house, they would not do so for some minutes. It was their duty not to be precipitate. He leant on the balustrade, and listened with an intentness that was perfectly painful. He heard the cough again from quite the lower part of the house, and then he became aware that some one was slowly creeping up the stairs. He had placed the slide over the bull's eye of his little lamp, so that all was darkness, but he heard the breathing of the person who was coming up towards him. He shrunk back close to the wall, determined to seize, and with an iron hand, any one who should reach the landing. Suddenly, from quite the lower part of the building, he heard the cough again. The thought, then, that it must be Crotchet who was coming up, impressed itself upon him, but he would not speak. In a few moments some one reached the landing, and stretching out his right arm, Sir Richard caught whoever it was, and said in a whisper-- "Any resistance will cost you your life." "Crotchet it is," said the new comer. "Ah, how glad I am it is you!" "Reether. Hush. The old 'un is below. Ain't I shook a bit. It's a precious good thing as my bones is in the blessed habit o' holding on, one of 'em to the rest and all the rest to one, or else I should have tumbled to bits." "Hush! hush!" "Oh, he's a good way off. That 'ere cupboard has got a descending floor with ropes and pullies, so down I went and was rolled out into a room below and up went the bit of flooring again. I was very nearly startled a little." "Nearly?" "Reether, but here I is. I got out and crept up stairs as soon as I could, cos, says I, the governor will wonder what the deuce has become of me." "I did, indeed." "Just as I thought. Sir Richard, just listen to me! I've got a fancy for Todd." "A fancy for Todd?" "Yes, and I want to stay here a few hours--yes, go and let them as is outside know all's right, and leave me here, I think somehow I shall like to be in this crib alone with Todd for an hour or two. You have got other business to see to, you know, so just leave me here; and mind yer, if I don't get here by six in the morning, just consider as he's got the better of me." "No, Crotchet, I cannot." "Can't what?" "Consent to leave you here alone." "Bother! what's the row, and where's the danger, I should like to know? Who's Todd? Who am I? Gammon!" Sir Richard shook his head, although Crotchet could not very well see him shake it, and after a pause he added-- "I don't suppose exactly that there is much danger, Crotchet, but, at all events, I don't like it said that I brought you into this place and then left you here." "Bother!" "You go and leave me." "A likely joke that. No, I tell yer what it is, Sir Richard. You knows me and I knows you, so what does it matter what other folks say? Business is business I hope, and don't you believe that I'm going to be such a flat as to throw away my life upon such a fellow as Todd. I think I can do some good by staying here; if I can't I'll come away, but I don't think, in either case, that Todd will see me. If he does I shall, perhaps, be forced to nab him, and that, after all, is the worst that can come of it." "Well, Crotchet, you shall have your own way." "Good." "I will return to the attic as soon as I conveniently can, and, let what will happen to you, remember that you are not deserted." "I knows it." "Good bye. Take care of yourself, old friend." "I means it." "I should be indeed afflicted if anything were to happen to you." "Gammon." Sir Richard left him his own pistols, in addition to the pair which he, Crotchet, always had about him, so that he was certainly well-armed, let what would happen to him in that house of Sweeney Todd's, which had now become something more than a mere object of suspicion to the police. Well, they knew Todd's guilt--it was the mode in which he was guilty only that still remained a mystery. The moment Sir Richard Blunt reached the attic again, he held his arm out at full length from the window, and waved to and fro the little lantern as a signal to the officers in the street that he was safe. This done, he would not return to the room he had hired of the bootmaker, but he resolved to wait about ten minutes longer in case anything should happen in the house below that might sound alarming. After that period of time, he resolved upon leaving for an hour or two, but he, of course, would not do so without apprising his officers of Crotchet's situation. During the time that had been passed by Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt in Sweeney Todd's house, the shoemaker and his wife had had an adventure which created in their minds abundance of surprise. It will be recollected that the shoemaker's wife had decided upon what was to be done regarding the new lodger--namely, that under the pretence that a Mr. Jones was a more satisfactory lodger, he was to be asked to be so good as to quit the attic he had so strangely taken. The arrival of Mr. Crotchet with so different a story from that told by Sir Richard Blunt certainly had the effect of engendering many suspicions in the minds of Sir Richard's new landlord and landlady. "Well, my dear," said the shoemaker, "if you are willing to come up stairs, I will say what you wish to this man, particularly as his pretended friend don't seem to be coming down stairs again." "Very well, my dear; I'll take the kitchen poker and follow you, and while I am behind you, if I think he is a pleasant man, you know, and we had better let him stay, I will give you a slight poke." "A-hem! Thank you--yes." Armed with the poker, the lady of the mansion followed her husband up the staircase, and perhaps we may fairly say that curiosity was as strong a feeling with her as any other in the business. To tell the truth, the shoemaker did not half like the job; but what will a man, who is under proper control at home, not do to keep up the shallow treaty of peace which his compliance produces between him and his better half? Is there anything which a hen-pecked husband dares say he will not do, when the autocrat of his domestic hearth bids him do it? Up--up the long dark staircase they went! Our ancestors, as one of their pieces of wisdom, had a knack of making steep dark staircases; and, to tell the truth, there are many modern architects equally ingenious. At length the attic landing was reached. The shoemaker knew the localities of his house better than to make such a mistake as Crotchet had done; so the old lady, with her feet in the pan of water, was saved such another interruption as had already taken place into her peaceful domains. "Now, my dear, knock boldly," said the lady of the mansion. "Knock like a man." "Yes, my love." The shoemaker tapped at the door with about the energy of a fly. The soft appeal produced no effect whatever, and the lady growing impatient, then poised the poker, and dealt the door a blow which induced her husband to start aside, lest the lodger should open it quickly, and rush out in great wrath. All was profoundly still, however; and then they tried the lock, and found it fast. "He's gone to bed," said the shoemaker. "He can't," said the lady, "for there are no sheets on the bed. Besides, they have not both gone to bed. I tell you what it is. There's some mystery in this that I should like to find out. Now, all the keys of all the attics are alike. Just wait here, and I'll borrow Mrs. Macconikie's." The shoemaker waited in no small amount of trepidation, while this process of key-borrowing from the old lady who enjoyed a pan of water, took place upon the part of his wife. CHAPTER XL. CROTCHET ASTONISHES MR. TODD. The key was soon procured, but it will be recollected that Crotchet had fastened the door rather too securely for it to be opened by any such ordinary implement as a key, and so disappointment was the portion of the shoemaker's wife. "Don't you think, my love," said the shoemaker, "that it will be just as well to leave this affair until the morning, before taking any further notice of it?" "And pray, then, am I to sleep all night, if I don't know the rights of it, I should like to know? Perhaps, if you can tell me that, you are a little wiser than I think you. Marry, come up!" "Oh, well, I only--" "You only! Then only don't. That's the only favour I ask of you, sir, is to only don't." What extraordinary favour this was, the lady did not condescend to explain any more particulars, but it was quite enough for the husband to understand that a storm was brewing, and to become humble and submissive accordingly. "Well, my dear, I'm sure I only wish you to do just what you like; that's all, my dear, I'm sure." "Very good." After this, she made the most vigorous efforts to get into the attic, and if any one had been there--which at that juncture there was not--they might truly have asked "Who's that knocking at the door?" Finding that all her efforts were ineffectual, she took to peeping through the key-hole, but nothing was to be seen; and then, for the first time, the idea struck her that there was something supernatural about the business, and in a few moments this notion gained sufficient strength to engender some lively apprehensions. "I tell you what," she said to her husband, "if you don't fetch a constable at once, and have the door opened, and see all about, I'm afraid--indeed I'm quite sure--I shall be very ill." "Oh, dear--oh, dear." "It's of no use your standing here and saying 'Oh, dear,' like a great stupid as you are--always was and always will be. Go for a constable, at once." "A constable?" "Yes, There's Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, lives opposite, as you well know, and he's a constable. Run over the way and fetch him, this minute." She began hastily to descend the stairs, and the shoemaker followed her, remonstrating, for the idea of fetching a constable, and making him and his house the talk of the whole neighbourhood, was by no means a proposition that met with his approval. The lady was positive, however, and Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, was brought from over the way, and the case stated to him at length. "_Conwulsions!_" exclaimed Otton, "what can I do?" "_Burst_ open the door," said the lady. "_Burst_ a door open, mum! What is you a thinking on? Why, that's contrary to _Habus Corpus_, mum, and all that sort of thing. Conwulsions, mum! you mustn't do it. But I tell you what, now, will be the thing." Here Mr. Otton put his finger to the side of his nose, and looked so cunning that you would hardly have believed it possible. "What?--what?" "Why, suppose, mum, we ask Mr. Todd, next door, to give us leave to go up into his attic, and get out at the window and look in at yours, mum?" "That'll do. Run in--" "Me!" cried the shoemaker. "Oh, M--Mr. Todd is a strange man--a very strange man--not at all a neighbourly sort of man, and I don't like to go to him.--I won't go, that's flat--unless, my love, you particularly wish it." "Conwulsions!" cried the beadle. "Ain't I a-going with you? Ain't I a constabulary force, I should like to know? Conwulsions! What is yer afeard on? Come on. Lor, what's the meaning o' that, I wonders, now; I should just like to take that ere fellow up. Whoever heard of a horn being blowed at such a rate, in the middle o' Fleet-street, afore, unless it was somethin' as consarned the parish? Conwulsions! it's contrary to _Habus Corpus_, it is. Is me a constabulary force, or is me not?" This was the bugle sound which warned Sir Richard Blunt and his friend Crotchet that Sweeney Todd had returned to his shop; and, in fact, while this very conversation was going on at the shoemaker's, Todd had lit the lamp in his shop, and actually opened it for business again, as the evening was by no means very far advanced. Mr. Otton went to the door, and looked about for the audacious bugle player, but he was not to be seen; so he returned to the back parlour of the shoemaker, uttering his favourite expletive of "Conwulsions" very frequently. "Now, if you is ready," he said, "I is; so let's come at once, and speak to Mr. Todd. He may be a strange man, but for all that, he knows, I _dessay_, what's proper respect to a _beetle_." With this strange transformation of his own title upon his lips, Mr. Otton stalked on rather majestically, as he thought, to the street, and thence to Todd's shop door, with the shoemaker following him. The gait of the latter expressed reluctance, and there was a dubious expression upon his face, which was quite amusing to behold. "Really, Mr. Otton," he said, "don't you think, after all, it would be better to leave this affair alone till the morning? We can easily tell my wife, you know, that Mr. Todd won't let us into his attic. That must satisfy her, for what can she say to it?" "Sir," said the beadle, "when you call in the _constabullary_ force, you must do just what they say, or lasteways you acts contrary to _Habus Corpuses_. Come on. Conwulsions! is we to be brought over the street, and then is we to do nothing to go down to prosperity?" The beadle uttered these words with such an air of pomposity and importance that the shoemaker, who had a vague idea that _Habus Corpus_ was some fearful engine of the law at the command of all its administrators, no longer offered any opposition, but, as meekly as any lamb, followed Mr. Otton into Sweeney Todd's shop. The door yielded to a touch, and Mr. Otton presented his full rubicund countenance to the gaze of Sweeney Todd, who was at the further end of the shop, as though he had just come from the parlour at the back of it, or was just going there. He did not at first see the shoemaker, who was rather obscured by the portly person of the beadle, and Todd's first idea was, the most natural one in the world, namely, that the beadle came upon an emergency to be shaved. Giving him an hideous leer, Todd said-- "A fine night for a clean shave." "Werry. In course, Mr. T., you is the best judge o' that 'ere, but I does for myself." As he spoke, Mr. Otton rubbed his chin, to intimate that it was to his shaving himself that he alluded just then. "Hair cut?" said Todd, giving a snap to the blades of a large pair of scissors, that made Mr. Otton jump again, and nearly induced the shoemaker to run out of the shop into the street. "No," said the beadle; and taking off his hat, he felt his hair, as though to satisfy himself that it was all there, just as usual. "No." Todd looked as though he would have shaved him with extreme pleasure, and advancing a few steps, he added-- "Then what is it that you bring your wieldy carcase here for, you gross lump of stupidity? Ha! ha! ha!" "What? Conwulsions!" "Pho!--Pho! Can't you take a joke, Mr. Otton? I know you well enough. It's my funny way to call people, whom I admire very much, all the hard names I can think of." "Is it?" "Oh, dear, yes. I thought you and all my neighbours knew that well enough. I'm one of the drollest dogs alive. That I am. Won't you sit down?" "Well, Mr. Todd, a joke may be a joke." The beadle looked very sententious at this discovery. "But you have the oddest way of poking your fun at any one that ever I heard of; but, I comes to you now as a respectable parishioner, to--" "Oh," said Todd, putting his hands, very deliberately into his pockets, "how much?" "It ain't anything to pay. It's a mere trifle. I just want to go up to your front attic, and--" "What?" "Your front attic, and get out of the window to look into the front attic next door. We won't trouble you if you will oblige us with a candle. That's all." Todd advanced two steps further towards the beadle and looked peeringly in his face. All the suspicious qualities of his nature rose up in alarm. Every feeling of terror regarding the instability of his position, and the danger by which he was surrounded, rushed upon him. At once he conjectured that danger was approaching him, and that in this covert manner the beadle was intent upon getting into the house, for the purpose of searching it to his detriment. As the footpad sees in each bush an officer, so, in the most trivial circumstances, even the acute intellect of Sweeney Todd saw dangers, and rumours of dangers, which no one but himself could have had the remotest idea of. He glared upon the beadle with positive ferocity, and so much affected was Otton by that lynx-like observation of Sweeney Todd's, that he stepped aside and disclosed that he was not alone. If anything could have confirmed Todd in his suspicions that there was a dead-set at him, it was finding that the beadle was not alone. And yet the shoemaker was well known to him. But what will lull such suspicion as Sweeney Todd had in his mind? Once engendered, it was like the jealousy that-- "Makes the meat it feeds on!" He advanced, step by step, glaring upon the beadle and upon the shoemaker. Reaching up his hand, he suddenly turned the lamp that hung from the ceiling clear round, so that, in lieu of its principal light falling upon him, it fell upon the faces of those who had paid him so unceremonious a visit. "Lawks!" said the beadle. "Excuse us, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "I assure you we only meant--" "What?" thundered Todd. Then suddenly softening his voice, he added--"You are very welcome here indeed. Pray what do you want?" "Why, sir," said Otton, "you must know that this gentleman has a lodger." "A what?" "A lodger, sir, and so you see that's just the case. You understand that this lodger--lor, Mr. Todd, this is your neighbour the shoemaker, you know. The front attic, you know, and all that sort of thing. After this explanation, I hope you'll lend us a candle at once, Mr. Todd, and let us up to the attic." Todd shaded his eyes with his hands, and looked yet more earnestly at the beadle. "Why, Mr. Otton," he said, "indeed you do want a shave." "A shave?" "Yes, Mr. Otton, I have a good razor here that will go over your chin like a piece of butter. Only take a seat, sir, and if you, neighbour, will go home comfortably to your own fireside, I will send for you when Mr. Otton is shaved." "But really," said the beadle, rubbing his chin, "I was shaved this morning, and as I do for myself always, you see, why I don't think I require. Conwulsions! Mr. Todd, why do you look at a man so? Remember the _Habus Corpus_. That's what we call the _paladermius_ of the British Constitution, you know." By this time the beadle had satisfied himself that he did not at all require shaving, and turning to the shoemaker, he said-- "Why don't you be shaved?" "Well, I don't care if I do, and perhaps, in the meantime you, Mr. Otton, will go up to the attic, and take a peep into the next one, and see if my lodger is up or in bed, or what the deuce has become of him. It's a very odd thing, Mr. Todd, that a man should take one's attic, and then disappear without coming down stairs." "Disappear without coming down stairs?" said Todd. "Yes, and my wife says--" Todd made an impatient gesture. "Gentlemen, I will look in my attic myself. The fact is, that the flooring is rather out of order, and unless you know exactly where to step you will be apt to fall through a hole into the second floor." "The deuce you are!" said Otton. "Yes; so I would not advise either of you to make the attempt. Just remain there, and I'll go at once." The proposition suited both parties, and Mr. Todd immediately passed through a door at the back of his shop, which he immediately closed behind him again. Instead of going up stairs, however, he slid aside a small opening in the panel of this door, and placed his ear to it. "If people say anything impudent, it is the moment they are free from the company that has held them in check," was one of Sweeney Todd's maxims. His first notion that the beadle and the shoemaker had come covertly to search his house, had given way a little, and he wanted to convince himself of the innocency or the reverse of their intentions, before he put himself to any further trouble. "I don't like it," said the shoemaker. "Like what? Conwulsions! what don't you like?" "Intruding upon Mr. Todd. What does he care about my lodgers? It ain't as if he let any of his own house, and had a fellow feeling with us." "Werry good," said the beadle, "but you send for me, and you ask me what's best, and I tell yer that _Habus Corpus_, and one thing and another, what I advised was the only thing, that was to get into Mr. Todd's attic, and then get on the parapet and into yours. But if so be as there's holes in Mr. Todd's attic, that will alter the affair, you know." "Fool--fool!" muttered Todd. "After all, they only come upon their own twaddling affairs, and I was idiot enough to suspect such muddy pated rascals." In an instant he was in the shop again. "Nobody there, gentlemen; I have looked into the attic, and there's nobody there." "Well, I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "for taking so much trouble. I'll go, and rather astonish my wife, I think." "Conwulsions!" said the beadle. "It's an odd thing, but you know, Mr. Todd, _Habus Corpus_ must have his way." CHAPTER XLI. TODD'S VISION. When they had left, Todd remained for some minutes in an attitude of thought. "Is this an accident?" he said, "or is it but the elaboration of some deep design to entrap me. What am I to think?" Todd was an imaginative man quite. He was just the individual to think, and think over the affair until he made something of it, very different from what it really was, and yet there was some hope that the matter was no more than what it appeared to be, by the character of the parties who had come upon the mission. If anything serious had come to the ears of the authorities, he thought, that surely two such people as the beadle of St. Dunstan's, and his neighbour the shoemaker, would not be employed to unravel such a mystery. He sat down in an arm chair and rested his head upon his hand, and while he was in that attitude the door of his shop opened, and a man in the dress of a carter made his appearance. "Be this Mister Todd's?" "Well," said Todd, "what then?" "Why, then, this be for him like. It's a letter, but larning waren't much i' the fashion in my young days, so I can't read what's on it." Todd stretched out his hand. An instant examination showed him it bore the Peckham post-mark. "Ah!" he muttered, "from Fogg. Thank you, my man, that will do. That will do. What do you wait for?" "Please to remember the carter, your honour!" Todd looked daggers at him, and slowly handed out twopence, which the man took with a very ill grace. "What," said Todd, "would you charge me more for carrying a letter than King George the Third does, you extortionate rascal?" The carter gave a nod. "Get out with you, or by--" Todd snatched up a razor, and the carter was off like a shot, for he really believed, from the awful looks of Todd, that his life was not worth a minute's purchase. Todd opened the letter with great gravity.--It contained the following words:-- "DEAR SIR," "The lad, T. R., I grieve to say, is no more. Let us hope he is gone where the weary are at rest, and where there is neither sin nor sorrow. "I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, "JACOB B. FOGG." "Humph!" said Todd. He held the letter in the flame of the lamp until it fell a piece of airy tinder at his feet. "Humph!" he repeated, and that humph was all that he condescended to say of poor Tobias Ragg, whom the madhouse-keeper had thought proper to say was dead; hoping that Todd might never be undeceived, for the barber was a good customer. If, however, Tobias should turn up to the confusion of Fogg and of Todd, what could the latter do for the deceit that had been practised upon him?--literally nothing. "No sooner," said Todd, "does one cloud disappear from my route than another takes its place. What can that story mean about the attic next door? It sounds to my ears strange and portentous. What am I to think of it?" He rose and paced his shop with rapid strides. At length he paused as though he had come to a determination. "The want of a boy is troublesome to me," he said. "I must get one, but for the present this must suffice." He wrote upon a small slip of paper the words--"Gone to the Temple--will return shortly." He then, by the aid of a wafer, affixed this announcement to the upper part of the half-glass door leading into his shop. Locking this door securely on the inside, and starting a couple of bolts into their sockets, he lit a candle and left his shop. With a stealthy, cat-like movement, Todd passed through the room immediately behind his business apartment, and opening another door he made his way towards the staircase. Then he paused a moment. He thought some sound from above had come upon his ears, but he was not quite sure. To suspect, however, was with such a man as Todd to be prepared for the worst, and accordingly he went back to the room behind his shop again, and from a table-drawer he took a knife, such as is used by butchers in their trade, and firmly clutching it in his right hand, while he carried the candle in his left, he once more approached the staircase. "I do not think," he said, "that for nine years now any mortal footsteps, but my own, have trod upon these stairs or upon the flooring of the rooms above. Woe be to those who may now attempt to do so. Woe, I say, be to them, for their death is at hand." These words were spoken in a deep hollow voice, that sounded like tones from a sepulchre, as they came from the lips of that man of many crimes. To give Todd his due, he did not seem to shrink from the unknown and dimly appreciated danger that might be up stairs in his house. He was courageous, but it was not the high-souled courage that nerves a man to noble deeds. No, Sweeney Todd's courage was that of hate--hatred to the whole human race, which he considered, with a strange inconsistency, had conspired against him; whereas he had been the one to place an impassable barrier between himself and the amenities of society. He ascended the stairs with great deliberation. When he reached the landing upon the first floor, he cast his eyes suspiciously about him, shading the light as he did so with his hand--that same hand that held the knife, the shadow of which fell upon the wall in frightful proportions. "All is still," he said. "Is fancy, after all, only playing me such tricks as she might have played me twenty years ago? I thought I was too old for such freaks of the imagination." Todd did not suspect that there was a second period in his life, when the mental infirmities of his green youth might come back to him, with many superadded horrors accumulated, with a consciousness of guilt. He slowly approached a door and pushed it open, saying as he did so-- "No--no--no. Above all things, I must not be superstitious. If I were so, into what a world of horrors might I not plunge. No--no, I will not people the darkness with horrible phantasies, I will not think that it is possible that men with "Twenty murders on their heads," can revisit this world to drive those who have done them to death with shrieking madness--this world do I say? There is no other. Bah! Priests may talk, and the weak-brained fools who gape at what they do not understand, may believe them, but when man dies--when the electric condition that has imputed to his humanity what is called life, flies, he is indeed "Dust to dust!" Ha! ha! I have lived as I will die, fearing nothing and believing nothing." As he uttered those words--words which found no real echo in his heart, for at the bottom of it lay a trembling belief in, and a dread of the great God that rules all things, and who is manifest in the meanest seeming thing that crawls upon the earth--he entered one of the rooms upon that floor, and glanced uneasily around him. All was still. There were trunks--clothes upon chairs, and a vast amount of miscellaneous property in this room, but nothing in the shape of a human being. Todd's spirits rose, and he held the long knife more carelessly than he had done. "Pho! pho!" he said. "I do, indeed, at times make myself the slave of a disturbed fancy. Pho! pho! I will no more listen to vague sounds, meaning nothing; but wrapping myself up in my consciousness of having nothing to fear, I will pursue my course, hideous though it may be." He turned and took his way towards the landing place of the staircase again. He was now carrying both the light and the knife rather carelessly, and everybody knows that when a candle is held before a person's face, that but little indeed can be seen in the hazy vapour that surrounds it. So it was with Todd. He had got about two paces from the door, when a strange consciousness of something being in his way came over him. He immediately raised his hand--that hand that still carried the knife, to shade the light, and then, horror! horror! He saw standing upon the landing a figure attired in faded apparel, whose face was dabbled in blood, and the stony eyes which were fixed upon the face of Todd, with so awful an expression, that had the barber's heart been made of much more flinty materials than it was, he could not have resisted the terrors of that awful moment. With a shriek that echoed through the house, Todd fell upon the landing. The light rolled from stair to stair until it was finally extinguished, and all was darkness. [Illustration: Sweeney Todd Astonished By Crotchet, The Bow-Street Officer.] "Good," said Crotchet, for it was he who had enacted the ghost. "Good! I'm blessed if I didn't think that ere would nail him. These sort o' chaps are always on the look-out for something or another to be frightened at, and you have only to show yourself to put 'em almost out of their seven senses. It was a capital idea that of me to cut my finger a little, and get some blood to smear over my face. It's astonishing what a long way a little drop will go, to be sure. I dare say it makes me look precious rum." Mr. Crotchet was quite right regarding the appearance which the blood, smeared over his face, gave to him. It made him look perfectly hideous, and any one whose conscience was not-- "With injustice corrupted!" might well have been excused for a cold chill, and, perchance, even a swoon, like Sweeney Todd's, at his appearance. "I rather think," added Crotchet, "that's a settler; so I'll just take the liberty, old fellow, of lighting your candle again, and then _mizzling_, for I don't somehow think much good is to be done in this crib just now." By the aid of his phosphorus match Crotchet soon succeeded in re-illumining the candle, which he found on a mat in the passage; but notwithstanding his opinion that he had seen about as much as there was to see in Todd's house, he, when he had the candle alight, thought he might just as well peep into the parlour immediately behind the shop, before going up-stairs again. The door offered no opposition, for Todd had certainly not expected any one down stairs, and Mr. Crotchet found himself in the parlour about as soon as he had formed the wish to be there. This parlour was perfectly crammed with furniture, and all of the bureau kind, that is to say, large shapeless looking pieces of mahogany, with no end of drawers. Crotchet made an attempt at several before he found one that yielded to his efforts to open it, and that only did so because the hasp into which the lock was shot had given way, and no longer held it close. This drawer was full of watches. "Humph!" said Crotchet, "Todd ought to know the time of day certainly, and no mistake. Ah, these ere machines, if they had tongues now, I rather think, could tell a tale or two. Howsomedever, I'll pocket some of 'em." Mr. Crotchet put about a dozen watches in his pocket forthwith, and then he began to think that, as he did not wish to take Mr. Todd just then into custody, it would be just as well if he left the house. Besides, the barber had only fell into a swoon through fright, so that his recovery was a matter that could be calculated upon with something like certainty in a short time. "It would be a world of pities if he was to find out as the ghost was only me," said Crotchet, "so I'll be off before he comes to himself." Extinguishing the light, Crotchet wound his way up the staircase again, but when he got to the landing he stopped, and said-- "Bless us! I've not got them canes and swords as Sir Richard wanted me to bring away with me. Well, the watches will answer better than them, for all he wants is to compare 'em with the descriptions of some folks as has been missed by their blessed relations in London, so that's all right. Hilloa!" This latter ejaculation arose from Crotchet having trodden upon Todd. "The deuce!" he added, "I thought I had got clear of him." He paused, and heard Todd utter a deep groan. Mr. Crotchet took this as a signal that he had better be off; and accordingly he ascended the next staircase quickly, and in a very few minutes reached the attic of Todd's house. When there, he quickly made his appearance in the shoemaker's attic, and found that Sir Richard Blunt had left the door of it just upon the latch for him. He was upon the point of passing out of the room, and going down stairs, when he heard a confused sound approaching the attic, and he paused instantly. The sound came nearer and nearer, until Crotchet found that some half dozen people were upon the landing, and all talking together in anxious whispers. "What the deuce is up now?" he thought. He approached the door and listened. "I tell you what it is, Mr. Otton," said a female voice. "It's now getting on for ten o'clock, and I positively can't sleep in my bed unless I know something more about this horrid attic." "Well, but, mum--" "Don't speak to me. Here's an attic, and two men go into it. Then all at once there's no men in it; and then all at once, one man comes down and walks out as cool as a cucumber, and says nothing at all; and then we know well enough as there was two men, and only one--" "But, mum--" "Don't speak to me, and only one has come down." "And here's the t'other!" cried Crotchet, suddenly bouncing out of the attic. The confusion that ensued baffles all description. A grand rush was made into the apartments of the lady who was fond of putting her feet into hot water; and in the midst of the confusion, Crotchet quickly enough went down stairs, and made his escape from the shoemaker's house. CHAPTER XLII. THE GREAT SACRIFICE. While all these things were going on at Sweeney Todd's, in Fleet-street, Mrs. Lovett was not quite idle as regarded her own affairs and feelings. That lady's--what shall we say--certainly not affections, for she had none--passions is a better word--were inconceivably shocked by the discovery she had made of the perfidy of her flaunting and moustachied lover. It will be perceived, by this little affair of Mrs. Lovett's, how strong-minded women have their little weaknesses. The hour of the appointment, which she (Mrs. Lovett) had made with her military-looking beau, came round; and there she sat, looking rather disconsolate. "Am I never to succeed," she muttered to herself, "in finding one with whom I can make my escape from this sea of horrors that surrounds me? Am I, notwithstanding I have so fully accomplished all I wished to accomplish, by--by"--she shuddered and paused.--"Well, well, the time will come--I must go alone. Let Todd go alone, and let me go alone. Why should he wish to trammel my actions? He cannot surely think, for a moment, that with him I will consent to pass the remainder of my life!" The scornful curl of the lip, and the indignant toss of the head, which accompanied these words, would have been quite sufficient to convince Todd, had he seen them, of the hopelessness of any such notion. "No," she added, after a pause, "I shall be alone in the world, or, if I make ties, they shall be made in another country. There it is possible I may be--oh, no, no--not happy; but I may be powerful, and have cringing slaves about me, who, finding that I am rich, will tell me that I am beautiful, and I shall be able to drink deeply of the intoxicating cup of pleasure, in some land where prudery, or what is called propriety, has not set up its banner as it has in this land of outward virtue. As for Todd--I--I will try to be assured that he is a corpse before I breathe freely; and if I fail in that, I will hope that we shall be thousands of leagues asunder." A shadow passed the window. Mrs. Lovett started to her feet. "Ah! who comes? 'Tis he--no--God! 'tis Todd." For a moment she pressed her hands upon her face, as though she would squeeze out the traces of passion from the muscles, and then her old set smile came back again. Todd entered the shop. For a few moments they looked at each other in silence, and then Todd said-- "Alone?" "Quite," she replied. He gave one of his peculiar laughs, and then glided into the parlour behind the shop. Mrs. Lovett followed him. "News?" he said. "None." "Hem! The time is coming." "The time to leave off this--" "Yes. The time to quit business, Mrs. Lovett. All goes well--swimmingly. Ha! ha!" She shuddered as she said-- "Do not laugh." "Let those laugh who win," replied Todd. "How old are you, Sarah?" "Old?" "Yes, or to shape the question perhaps more to a woman's liking, how young are you? Have you yet many years before you in which to enjoy the fruits of our labours? Have you the iron frame which will enable you to say--'I shall revel for years in the soft enjoyments of luxury stolen from a world I hate?' Tell me." Mrs. Lovett fell into a musing attitude, and Todd thought she was reflecting upon her age; but at length she said-- "I sometimes think I would give half of what is mine if I could forget how I became possessed of the whole." "Indeed!" "Yes, Todd. Has no such feeling ever crossed you?" "Never! I am implacable. Fate made me a barber, but nature made me something else. In the formation of man there is a something that gives weakness to his resolves, and makes him pause upon the verge of enterprise with a shrinking horror. That is what the world calls conscience. It has no hold of me. I have but one feeling towards the human race, and that is hatred. I saw that while they pretended to bow down to God, they had in reality set up another idol in their heart of hearts. Gold! gold! Tell me--how many men there are in this great city who do not worship gold far more sincerely and heartily than they worship Heaven?" "Few--few." "Few? None, I say, none. No. The future is a dream--an _ignis fatuus_--a vapour. The present we can grasp--ha!" "What is our wealth, Todd?" "Hundreds of thousands." He shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered from the parlour into the shop. "Who is that keeps dodging past the window each moment, and peeping in at every convenient open space in the glass that he can find?" Mrs. Lovett looked, and then, after an effort, she said-- "Todd, I was going to speak to you of that man." "Ah!" "Listen; I suspect him. For some days past he has haunted the shop, and makes endeavours to become acquainted with me. I did not think it sound policy wholly to shun him, but gave him such encouragement as might supply me with opportunities of judging if he were a spy or not." "Humph!" "I think him dangerous." Todd's eyes glistened like burning coals. "Should he come into your shop to be shaved, Todd--" "Ha! ha!" The horrible laugh rang through the place, and Mrs. Lovett's lover, with the moustache, sprung to the other side of Bell Yard, for the unearthly sound even reached his ears as he was peeping through the window to catch a glimpse of the charming widow. "You understand me, Todd?" "Perfectly--perfectly--I shall know him again. Ah, my dear Mrs. Lovett, how dangerous it is to be safe in this world. Even our virtue cannot escape detraction; but we will live in hopes of better times. You and I will show the world, yet, what wealth is." "Yes--yes." Todd crept close to her, and was about to place his arm round her waist, but she started from him, exclaiming-- "No--no, Todd--a thousand times no. Have we not before quarrelled upon this point. Do not approach me, or our compact, infernal as it is, is at an end. I have sold my soul to you, but I have not bartered myself." The expression of Todd's countenance at this juncture was that of an incarnate fiend. He glared at Mrs. Lovett as though with the horrible fascination of his ugliness he would overcome her, and then slowly rising, he said-- "Her soul--ha! She has sold her soul to me--ha! I will call to-morrow." He left the shop, and as he passed the gent who, by force of his moustache, hoped to win the affections of Mrs. Lovett, he gave him such a look that he terrified him and the gent found himself in the shop before he was aware. "Bless me, what a horrid looking fellow! I swear by my courage and honour I never saw such a face. Ah, my charmer! Who was that left your charming presence just now?" "Some one who came for a pie." "'Pon honour, he's enough to poison all the pies! Oh, you beauty, yo--ou--ou--ou--" The gallant's mouth was so full of a veal pie that he had stuffed into it that for some few moments he could not produce an intelligible sound. When he had recovered, he walked into the parlour and sat down, saying-- "Now, Mrs. Lovett, here am I, 'pon honour, your humble servant, and stop my breath if I'd say as much to the commander-in-chief. When's the happy day to be?" "Do you really love me?" "Do I love you? Do I love fighting? Do I love honour--glory? Do I love eating and drinking? Do I love myself?" "Ah, Major Bounce, you military men are so gallant." "'Pon honour we are. General Cavendish used to say to me--'Bounce,' says he, 'if you don't make your fortune by war, which you ought to do, Bounce, 'pon honour, you will make it by love.' 'General,' says I--now I was always ready for a smart answer, Mrs. Lovett--so 'General,' says I, 'the same to you!'" "Very smart." "Yes, wasn't it. 'Pon honour it was, and 'pon soul you looks more and more charming every day that I see you." "Oh you flatterer!" "No--no. Bar flattering--bar flattering. His Majesty has often said, 'Talk of flattery. Oh dear, Bounce is the man for me. He is right down--straight up-off handed. And no sort of mistake, on--on--on.'" Another pie converted the oratory of the major into something between a grunt and a sigh. "But major, I'm afraid that you will regret marrying me. If I convert all I have into money"--the major pricked up his ears--"I could not make of it more than fifty thousand pounds." The major's eyes opened to the size of pint saucers, as he said-- "Fifty--fift--fif.--Say it again!" "Fifty thousand pounds." The major rose and embraced Mrs. Lovett. Tears actually came into his eyes, and gulping down the pie, he cried-- "You have fifty thousand charms. Only let me be your slave, your dog, damme--your dog, Mrs. Lovett, and I shall consider myself the luckiest dog in the world, but not for the money--not for the money. No, as the Marquis of Cleveland once said, 'If you want a thoroughly disinterested man, go to Bounce.'" "Well, major, since we understand each other so well, there are two little things that I must name as my conditions." "Name 'em--name 'em. Do you want me to bring you the king's eye-tooth, or her majesty's wig and snuff-box--only say the word." "One is, that I will leave England. I have a private reason for so doing." "Damme, so have I. That is a-hem! If you have a reason, that is a reason to me, you know." "Exactly. In some other capital of Europe we may spend our money and enjoy all the delights of existence. Do you speak French?" "Ah-hem! Oh, of course. I never tried particularly, but as Lord North said to the Duke of Bridgewater, 'Bounce is the man if you want anything done of an out of-the-way character.'" "Very well, then. My next condition is, that you shave off your moustache." "What?" "Shave off your moustache; I have the greatest possible aversion to moustache, therefore I make that a positive condition without which I shall say no more to you." "My charmer, do you think I hesitate? If you were to say to me, 'Bounce, off with your head,' in a moment it would roll at your feet." "Go, then, to Mr. Todd's, the barber, in Fleet-street, and have them taken off at once, and then come back to me, for I declare I won't speak another word to you while you have them on." "But, dear creature--" Mrs. Lovett shook her head. "'Pon honour!" She shook her head again. "I'll go at once then, 'pon soul, and have 'em taken off. I'll be back in a jiffy, Mrs. Lovett. Oh, you duck, I adore you. Confound the cash! It's you I knuckle under to. Man doats on Venus, and I love Lovett. Bye, bye; I'll get it done and soon be back. Fifty thousand--fifty--fif.--Oh, lor' why Flukes, your fortune is made at last." These last words did not reach the ear of Mrs. Lovett. That lady threw herself into a chair, where the gallant major had left her. "Another!" she said. "Another! Why did he try to deceive me? The fool, to pitch upon me, of all persons, to make his victim. I must have found him out, and poisoned him, if I had married him. It is better that Todd should take vengeance for me, and then the time shall come when he shall fall. Yes, so soon as I can, by cajollery or scheming, get sufficient of the plunder into my own hands, Todd's hours are numbered." After this, Mrs. Lovett fell into a train of musing, and her face assumed an expression so different from that with which she was wont to welcome her customers in the shop, that not one of them would have known her. But we must look at Todd. It was upon his return home from several calls, the last of which had been this recent visit to Mrs. Lovett, that he had heard the noise in his house, which had terminated in his going up stairs, and being so terrified by Crotchet. It will be recollected that he fell insensible upon the staircase, and that Crotchet took that opportunity of making good his retreat. How long he lay there, he, Todd, had no means of knowing, for all was profound darkness upon the staircase, but his first sensation consisted of a tingling in his feet and hands, similar to the sensation which is properly called "your limbs going to sleep." Then a knocking noise came upon his sense of hearing. "What's that? Where am I?" he cried. "No--no. Don't hang me. Where's Mrs. Lovett? Hang her. She is guilty!" Knock!--knock!--knock! "Hush! hush! What is it? Who wants me? Good God--no--no. There is no good God for me!" Knock! knock! knock! came again with increased violence at the door of the shop below. CHAPTER XLIII. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. Todd scrambled to his feet. He held his head in his hand. "What does it all mean? What does it all mean?" Knock! knock! knock! Todd's senses were slowly returning to him. He began to recollect events at first confusedly, and then the proper order of their occurrence--how he had come home, and then heard a noise, and gone up stairs and seen--what? There he paused in his catalogue of events. What had he seen?" Knock! knock! knock! "Curses!" he muttered. "Who can that be hammering with such devilish perseverance at my door? By all that's horrible they shall pay dearly for thus disturbing me. Who can it be? Not any one to arrest me? No--no! They would not knock so long. An enforced entrance long before this would have brought them to me. What did I see? What did I see? What did I see? Dare I give it a name?" He slowly descended the stairs, and reaching the shop, he peeped through a place in the door which he had made for such a purpose. There stood the hero of the moustachios knocking away with all his might to get the behests of Mrs. Lovett obeyed. Todd suddenly flung open the door, and in fell Major Bounce, alias Flukes. "The devil! What do you want?" "'Pon honour. Damn it. Is this the way to treat a military man?" Todd turned to the side of the shop, and hastily put on a wig--by an adroit movement of his fingers, he pulled his cravat sufficiently out from his neck to be able to bury his chin in it, and when he turned to the mock major, the latter had no suspicion that he looked upon the same person who had so alarmed him by a look, in Bell Yard. "Shaved or dressed sir?" said Todd. "Confound you. Why did you open the door so quick?" "Thought you knocked, sir." "I did, but stop my breath, if you haven't given me an ugly fall. But no matter. None but the brave deserve the fair. You perceive I am a military man?" "Oh, yes, sir, anybody may see that by your martial air." "A-hem! You are right. Well then, Mr. Barber, I want my moustache shaved off. It's a fancy of a lady. One of the most charming of her sex. One with a fifty thousand pound charm. 'Pon my valour, she has. Ah! I am a lucky dog. Thirty-eight--handsome as Apollo, and beloved by the fairest of the fair." "Life is a jolly thing, Life is a jolly thing, While I drink deep and go frolicking, Fair maids, wives, and widows, Fair maids, wives, and widows Doat on the youth that goes frolicking." "Ha! ha! ha! Life's a bumper. Upon my valour, Mr. Barber, I feel like a young colt, that I do." "Really, sir. You don't say so?" "Oh, yes, yes! Ha! ha! All's right. All's right. Now, Mr. What's-your-name. Off with the moustache. It's only in the cause of the fair that I would condescend to part with them, that's a fact, but when a lady's in the case--upon my valour, you are an ugly fellow." "You don't say so," replied Todd, as he made a most hideous contortion. "Most people think me so fascinating that they stay with me." "Ha! ha! A good joke." Major Bounce--we may as well still call the poor wretch Major Bounce--placed his hat upon a chair, and his sword upon the top of it. "Pray, sir, be seated," said Todd. "Ah! Damme, is this seat a fixture?" "Yes, sir, it's in the proper light, you see, sir." "Oh, very well--I--pluff, pluff--puff, puff! Confound you, what have you filled my mouth with soap-suds for?" "Quite an accident, sir. Quite an accident, for which I humbly beg your pardon, I assure you, sir. If you keep your mouth shut, and your eyes open, you will get on amazingly. Have you seen the paper to-day, sir?" "No!" "Sorry for that, sir. A very odd case, sir--a little on one side--a most remarkable case, I may say. A gentleman, sir, went into a barber's shop, and--" "Eh!--puff! sleush! puff! Am I to be poisoned by your soap-suds? Upon my valour, I shall have to make an example of you to all barbers." "You opened your mouth at the wrong time, sir." "The wrong devil. Don't keep me here all night." "Certainly not, sir. But as I was saying about this curious case in the paper. A military gentleman went into a barber's shop to be shaved." "Well. The devil--pluff, pluff! Good God! Am I to endure all this?" "Certainly not, sir. I'll show you the paper itself. You must know, sir, that the paragraph is headed 'Mysterious disappearance of a gentleman.'" "Damn it, what do I care about it? Get on with the shaving." "Certainly, sir." Todd gave a horrible scrape to Major Bounce's face with a blunt razor. "Quite easy, sir?" "Easy? Good gracious, do you want to skin me?" "Oh, dear no, sir. What an idea. To skin a military gentleman. Certainly not, sir. I see you require one of my best keen razors--one of the Magnum Bonums. Ha! ha!" "Eh? What was that?" "Only me giving a slight smile, sir." "The deuce it was. Don't do it again, then, that's all; and get your keen razor at once, and make an end of the business." "I will--make an end of the business. Sit still, sir. I'll be back in a moment." Todd went into the parlour. "£50,000!" muttered Major Bounce. "I am a happy fellow. At last, after so many ups and downs, I light upon my feet. A charming widow!--and she wishes to leave England. How lucky. I wish the very same thing. £50,000!--50,000 charms!" * * * * * "Good God! what's that?" said a man, who was passing Todd's window, in Fleet-street. "What a horrid shriek. Did you hear it, mum?" "Oh dear, yes," said a woman. "I'm all of a tremble." "It came from the barber's shop, here. Let's go in, and ask if anything is the matter?" The man and woman crossed Todd's threshold, and opened the shop door. A glance showed them that a man's face was at a small opening of the parlour door. _The shaving chair was empty._ "What's the matter?" said the man. "With whom?" said Todd. "Well, I don't know, but I thought somebody cried out." Todd crept along the floor until he came close to the man, and then he said-- "My friend, have you anything to do?" "Yes, thank God." "Then, go and do it; and the next time you hear me cry out with the stomach-ache, ask yourself if it is your business to come in and ask me any questions about it. As for you, ma'am, unless you want to be shaved, I don't know, for the life of me, what you do here." "Well, we only thought--" Todd gave a hideous howl, which so terrified both the intruders, that they left the shop in a moment. His countenance then assumed that awful satanic expression which it sometimes bore, and he stood for the space of about five minutes in deep thought. Starting then suddenly, he took up the sword and hat of Major Bounce, and was in the act of putting both into a cupboard, when a smothered cry met his ears. Todd unsheathed the sword, and after fastening his shop door, he went into the parlour. He was absent about ten minutes, and when he returned he had not the sword, but he hastily washed his hands. "Done!" he said. Scratch! scratch! scratch! came something at his door, and Todd bent forward in an attitude of listening. Scratch!--scratch!--scratch!--His face turned ghastly pale, and his knees knocked together as he whispered to himself-- "What is that?--what is that?" Todd was getting superstitious. Since his adventure with Mr. Crotchet, his nerves had been out of order, notwithstanding the exertions he had made to control himself, and to convince his judgment that it was all a matter of imagination. Yet now, somehow or another, although there was no visible connection between the two things, he could not help mentally connecting this scratching at the door with the vision on the staircase. It is strange how the fancy will play such tricks, but it is no less strange than true that she does so, yoking together matters most dissimilar, and leading the judgment into strange disorder. Scratch!--scratch!--scratch! "What--what is it?" gasped Todd. But time works wonders, and after the first shock to his nerves, the barber began to think that some one must be playing him a trick, and, for all he knew, it might be the very man whom he had snubbed so for interfering with him, or it might be some boy--the boys would at times tease Sweeney Todd. This supposition gathered strength each moment. "It is a trick--a trick," he said. "I will be revenged!" He took a thick stick from a corner, and stealthily approached the door. The odd scratching noise continued, and he again paused for a few moments to listen to it. "A boy--a boy," he growled. "It is one of the infernal boys." Opening the door a little way with great quickness, Todd aimed a blow through the opening. There was a short angry bark, and his old enemy, the dog that had belonged to the mariner, thrust in his head, and glared at Todd. "Help!--help! Murder!" cried Todd. "The dog again!" He made a vain effort to shut the door; but Hector was too strong for him, and, as he had got his head in, he seemed to be determined to force in his whole body, which he fully succeeded in doing. Todd dropped the stick, and rushed into the back-parlour for safety, from whence, through a small square of glass near the top of the door, he glared at the proceedings of his four-footed foe. The dog went direct to the cupboard from which he had taken his master's hat, and, opening the door, he dragged out an assemblage of miscellaneous property, as though he hoped to find among it some other vestige of the dear master he had lost. When, however, after tossing the things about, he found that they were all strange to him, he gave a melancholy howl. Hector then appeared to be considering what he should do next, and, after a few moments' consideration, he made a general survey of the shop, and finally ended by leaping into the shaving-chair, where he sat and commenced such a series of melancholy howls, that Todd was nearly driven out of his mind at the conviction that the whole street must be soon in a state of alarm. Oh! how glad he would have been to have shot Hector; but then, although he had pistols in the parlour, he might miss him, and send the bullet into Fleet-street through his own window, and, perchance, hit somebody, and that would be a trouble. The report, too, would bring a crowd round his shop, and the old story of him and the accusing dog--for had not that dog accused him?--would be brought up again. But yet something must be done. "Am I to be a prisoner here," said Todd, "while that infernal dog sits in the shaving chair, howling?" Now and then, for the space of about half-a-minute, the dog would be quiet, but then the prolonged howl that he would give plainly showed that he had only been gathering breath to give it. Todd got desperate. "I must and will shoot him," he said. Going to a sideboard he opened a drawer, and took from it a large double-barrelled pistol. He looked carefully at the priming, and satisfying himself that all was right, he crept again to the parlour door. "I must and will shoot him at any risk," he said. "This infernal dog will be else the bane and torment of my life. I thought I had been successful in poisoning the brute as he suddenly disappeared from my door, but he has been preserved by some sort of miracle on purpose to torment me." Howl went the dog again. Sweeney Todd took a capital aim with the pistol. To be sure his nerves were not quite in such good order as they sometimes were, but then the distance was so short that how could he miss such an object as a Newfoundland dog? "I have him--I have him," he muttered. "Ha! ha! I have him!" He pulled the trigger of the pistol--snap went the lock, and the powder in the pan flashed up in Todd's face, but that was all. Before he could utter even an oath the shop door was opened, and a man's voice cried-- "Hasn't nobody seen nothing of never a great dog nowheres? Oh, there you is, my tulip. Come to your father, you rogue you. So you guved me the slip at last did you, you willain!" CHAPTER XLIV. TODD AND THE SILVERSMITH. [Illustration: Sweeney Todd Re-Visited By The Dog Of One Of His Victims.] Hector whined a kind of recognition of this man, but he did not move from the chair in Todd's shop upon which he had seated himself. "Come, old fellow," said the man, "you don't want to be shaved, do you?" Hector gave a short bark, but he wagged his tail as much as to intimate--"Mind, I am not at all angry with you." And indeed it was quite evident, from the manner of the dog to this man, that there was a good understanding between them. "Come now, Pison," said the man, "don't be making a fool of yourself here any more. You ain't on friendly terms here, my tulip." "Hilloa!" cried Todd. The man gave a start, and Hector uttered an angry growl. "Hilloa! Who are you?" "Why, I'm the ostler at the 'Bullfinch!' _oppesite_." "Is that your dog?" "Why in a manner o' speaking, for want of a better master, he's got me." The ostler, by dint of shading his eyes with his hands, and looking very intently, at last saw Todd, and then he added-- "Oh, it's you, master, is it?" "Take away that animal directly," cried Todd. "Take him away. I hate dogs. Curses on both you and him; how came he here?" "Ah, Pison, Pison, why did you come here, you good for nothink feller you? You ought to have knowed better. Didn't I always say to you--leastways, since I've had you--didn't I say to you--'Don't you go over the way, for that ere barber is your natural enemy, Pison,' and yet here yer is." As he spoke, the ostler embraced Hector, who was not at all backward in returning the caress, although in the midst of it he turned his head in the direction of the back-parlour, and gave a furious bark at Todd. "There is some mystery at the bottom of all this," muttered Todd; and then raising his voice, he added--"How did you come by the dog?" "Why, I'll tell you, master. For a matter of two days, you know, he stuck at your door with a hat as belonged--" "Well, well!" "Yes, his master, folks said, was murdered." "Ha! ha!" "Eh? Oh, Lord, what was that?" "Only me; I laughed at the idea of anybody being murdered in Fleet Street, that was all." "Oh, ah! It don't seem very likely. Well, as I was a saying, arter you had finished off his master--" "I?" "Oh, I begs your pardon! Only, you see, the dog would have it that you had, and so folks say so as natural as possible; but, howsomdever, I comed by and seed this here dog in the agonies o' conwulsions all along o' pison. Now where I come from, the old man--that's my father as was--had lots o' dogs, and consekewently I knowed somethink about them ere creturs; so I takes up this one and carries him on my back over the way to the stables, and there I cures him and makes a pet of him, and I called him Pison, cos, you see, as he had been pisoned. Lor, sir, you should only have seed him, when he was a getting a little better, how he used to look at me and try to say--'Bill, don't I love you neither!' It's affection--that it is, blow me!" Todd gave an angry snarl of derision. "I tell you what it is, my man," he said; "if you will hang that dog, I will give you a guinea." "Hang Pison? No, old 'un, I'd much rather hang you for half that ere money. Come along, my daffydowndilly. Don't you stay here any more. Why, I do believe it was you as pisoned him, you old bloak." The ostler seized Hector, or Pison, as he had fresh christened him, round the neck, and fairly dragged him away out of the shop. To be sure, if Hector had resisted, the ostler, with all the power of resistance he possessed, it would indeed have been no easy matter to remove him; but it was wonderful to see how nicely the grateful creature graduated his struggles, so that they fell short of doing the smallest hurt to his preserver, and yet showed how much he wished to remain as a terror and a reproach to Sweeney Todd. When they were both fairly gone, Todd emerged from his parlour again, and the horrible oaths and imprecations he uttered will not bear transcription. With eager haste he again bundled into the cupboard all the things that the dog had dragged out of it, and then stamping his foot, he said-- "Am I, after defeating the vigilance of heaven only knows who, and for so long preserving myself from almost suspicion, to live in dread of a dog? Am I to be tormented with the thought that that fiend of an animal is opposite to me, and ready at any moment to fly over here and chase me out of my own shop. Confound it! I cannot and will not put up with such a state of things. Oh, if I could but get one fair blow at him. Only one fair blow!" As he spoke he took up a hammer that was in a corner of the shop, and made a swinging movement with it through the air. Some one at that moment opened the shop door, and narrowly escaped a blow upon the head, that would have finished their mortal career. "Hilloa! Are you mad?" "Mad!" said Todd. "Yes: do you knock folks' brains out when they come to be shaved?" "Mine's a sedentary employment," said Todd, "and when I am alone, I like exercise to open my chest. That's all. Ain't it rather late to be shaved? I was just about to shut up." "Why it is rather late, Mr. Todd; but the fact is, I am going to York by the early coach from the Bullfinch Inn, opposite, and I want a shave before I get upon my journey, as I shan't have an opportunity you see, again, for some time." "Very well, sir." "Come in, Charley." Todd started. "What's that?" he said. He felt afraid that it was the dog again, under some new name. Truly, conscience was beginning to make a coward of Sweeney Todd, although he denied to himself the possession of such an article. Charley came in the shape of a little boy, of about eight years of age. "Now you sit down, and don't do any mischief," said the father, "while I get Mr. Todd to shave me. I am a late customer indeed. You see the coach goes in two hours, and as I have got to call the last thing upon Alderman Stantons, I thought I would be shaved first, and my little lad here would come with me." "Oh, certainly, sir," said Todd; "I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Brown, the silversmith." "Yes--yes. The alderman gave me some jewels, worth about three thousand pounds, to re-set, and though they are not done, I really don't like to have them at home while I take such a journey, so I want to lodge them with him again until I come back." Todd lathered away at Mr. Brown's chin, as he said with an air of innocence-- "Can you carry so many jewels about with you, sir?" "So many? Aye, ten times as many. Why they are all in a little narrow case, that would not hold a pair of razors." "Indeed!" Todd began the shaving. "And so this is your little boy? A sharp lad, no doubt." "Tolerable." "The whiskers as they are, sir?" "Oh, yes--yes." "I suppose you never trust him out alone in the streets?" "Oh, yes; often." "Is it possible. Well, now, I should hardly have thought it. What a sweet child he looks, and such a nice complexion, too. It's quite a pleasure to see him. I was considered myself a very fine child a good while ago." Todd took care to lift the razor judiciously, so as to give Mr. Brown opportunities of replying; and the silversmith said-- "Oh, yes; he's a nice little fellow. He's got his mother's complexion." "And he shan't lose it," said Todd, "if there's any virtue in _pearlometrical savonia_." "In what?" "Oh, that's the name I give to a soap that preserves the complexion in all its purity. I have only a small parcel of it, so I don't sell it, but I give it away now and then, to my lady customers. Excuse me for one moment." "Oh, certainly." Todd opened a glass case, and took out two pieces of soap, of a yellowish tint. "There, Charley," he said as he handed them to the little fellow. "There's a piece for you, and a piece for mamma." "Really you are very kind, Mr. Todd," said Brown. "Oh, don't mention it. Run home at once, Charley, with them, and by the time you get back your father will be--finished. Run along." "I won't," said Charley. "Ah, come--come," said his father. "I won't go, and I don't like soap." "And why don't you like soap, my little man?" said Todd, as he recommenced operations upon the silversmith's face. "Because I don't like to be washed at all, it scrubs so, and I don't like you, either, you are so dreadfully ugly--that I don't." Todd smiled blandly. "Now, Charley," said his father, "I am very angry with you. You are a very bad boy indeed. Why don't you do as Mr. Todd tells you?" "Because I won't." "Bless him," said Todd, "bless his heart. But don't you think, Mr. B."--here Todd's voice sank to a whisper--"don't you think that it's rather injudicious to encourage this obstinacy--if one may call it such--thus early in life? It may, you know, grow upon the dear little fellow." "You are right, Mr. Todd; and I know that he is spoiled; but I have a more than ordinary affection for him, since, under most critical circumstances, once I saved his life. From that time, I confess that I have been weak enough to allow him too much of his own way. Thank you, Mr. Todd. A very clean comfortable shave indeed." Mr. Brown rose from his chair and approached the little boy. "Charley, my dear," he said; "you will save papa's life some day, won't you?" "Yes," said Charley. The father kissed him; as he added-- "How affected I feel to-night. I suppose it's the thought of the long journey I am going." "No doubt," said Todd. "Good night, Mr. Todd. Come along, Charley." "Won't you give me a kiss, you darling, before you go?" said Todd. "No, ugly, I won't." "Oh, Charley--Charley, your behaviour to Mr. Todd is really anything but right. You are a very bad boy to-night. Come along." Away they went, and Todd stood stropping the lately-used razor upon his hand, as he glared upon them, and muttered-- "Jewels worth three thousand pounds! And so you saved the child's life, did you? By all that's devilish he has returned the obligation." He went to the door and looked after the retreating figures of the silversmith and his child. He saw with what tender care the father lifted the little one over the road-way, and again he muttered-- "Three thousand pounds gone!--gone, when it was almost within my grasp. All this is new. I used not to be the sport of such accidents and adverse circumstances. Time was, when by the seeming irresistible force of my will, I could bend circumstances to my purposes, but now I am the sport of dogs and children. What is the meaning of it all? Is my ancient cunning deserting me? Is my brain no longer active and full of daring?" He crept back into his shop again. The hour was now getting late, and after sitting for some time in silent musing he rose, and without a word, commenced closing his establishment for the night. "I must have another boy," he said, as he put up the last shutter and secured it in its place. "I must have another boy. This state of things will not do. I must certainly have another boy. Tobias Ragg would have suited me very well, if he had not been so--so--what shall I call it, confoundedly imaginative. But he is dead--dead! that is a comfort. He is dead, and I must have another boy." Bang! went Sweeney Todd's shop door. The beautiful moon climbed over the house-tops in old Fleet Street. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of eleven. The streets began to be thin of pedestrians, and the din of carriages had almost entirely ceased. London then, although it was so not long ago, presented a very different aspect at the hour of eleven to what it does now. The old hackney-coaches had not been ousted from the streets by the cabs and the omnibuses, and the bustle of the city was indeed but a faint echo then, of what it is now. Time changes all things. CHAPTER XLV. JOHANNA'S NEW SITUATION. "Johanna, attend to me," said Mrs. Oakley, upon the morning after these events. "Well, mother?" "Your father is an idiot." "Mother, mother! I dissent from the opinion, and if it were true, it comes with the worst possible grace from you, but I am sick at heart. I pray you to spare me reproaches or angry words, mother." "Haity taity, one must not speak next, I suppose. Some people fancy that other people know nothing, but there is such a thing as overhearing what some people say to other people." Johanna had not the most remote notion of what her mother meant, but Mrs. Oakley's tongue was like many pieces of machinery, that when once set in motion are not without considerable trouble brought to a standstill again, so on she went. "Of course. I now know quite well why the godly man who would have made you a chosen vessel was refused. It was all owing to that scamp, Mark Ingestrie." "Mother!" "Marry come up! you need not look at me in such a way. We don't all of us see with the same eyes. A scamp he is, and a scamp he will be." "Mother, he whom you so name is with his God. Mention him no more. The wild ocean rolls over his body--his soul is in heaven. Speak not irreverently of one whose sole crime was that he loved me. Oh, mother, mother, you--" Johanna could say no more, she burst into tears. "Well," said Mrs. Oakley, "if he is dead, pray what hinders you from listening to the chosen vessel, I should like to know?" "Do not. Oh do not, mother, say any more to me--I cannot, dare not trust myself to speak to you upon such a subject." "What is this?" said Mr. Oakley, stepping into the room. "Johanna in tears! What has happened?" [Illustration: Mr. Oakley Defends Johanna From The Violence Of Her Mother.] "Father--dear father!" "And Mr. O.," cried Mrs. Oakley, "what business is it of yours, I should like to know? Be so good, sir, as to attend to your spectacles, and such like rubbish, and not to interfere with my daughter." "Dear me!--ain't she my daughter likewise?" "Oh yes, Mr. O.! Go on with your base, vile, wretched, contemptible, unmanly insinuations. Do go on, pray--I like it. Oh, you odious wretch! You spectacle-making monster!" "Do not," cried Johanna, who saw the heightened colour of her father's cheek. "Oh, do not let me be the unhappy cause of any quarrelling. Father! father!" "Hush, my dear, don't you say another word. Cousin Ben is coming to take a little bit of lunch with us to-day." "I know it," cried Mrs. Oakley, clapping her hands together with a vengeance that made Oakley jump again. "I know it. Oh, you wretch. You couldn't have put on such airs if your bully had not been coming; I thought the last time he came here was enough for him. Aye, and for you too, Mr. O." "It was nearly too much," said the spectacle-maker, shaking his head. "Tow row, row, row, row!" cried Big Ben, popping his head into the parlour, "what do you all bring it in now? Wilful murder with the chill off or what? Ah, mother Oakley, what's the price of vinegar now, wholesale--pluck does it. Here you is. Ha, ha! Aint we a united family. Couldn't stay away from you, Mother Oakley, no more nor I could from that ere laughing hyena we has in the Tower." "Eugh!--wretch!" "Sit down, Ben," said Mr. Oakley. "I am glad to see you, and I am quite sure Johanna is." "Oh, yes, yes." "That's it," said Ben. "It's on Johanna's account I came. Now, little one, just tell me--" Johanna had just time to place her finger upon her lips, unobserved by any one, and shake her head at Ben. "Ah--hem! How are you, eh?" he said, turning the conversation. "Come, Mother O., stir your old stumps and be alive, will you? I have come to lunch with your lord and master, so bustle--bustle." Mrs. Oakley rose, and placing her hands upon her hips, she looked at Ben, as she said-- "You great, horrid, man-mountain of a wretch. I only wonder you ain't afraid, after the proper punishment you had on the occasion of your last visit, to show your horrid face here again?" "You _deludes_ to the physicking, I suppose, mum. Lor bless you, it did us no end of good; but, howsomedever, we provide agin wice in animals when we knows on it aforehand, do you see. Oh, there you is." A boy howled out from the shop--"Did a gentleman order two gallons of half-and-half here, please?" "All's right," said Ben. "Now, Mother O., the only thing I'll trouble you for, is a knife and fork. As for the rest of the combustibles, here they is." Ben took from one capacious pocket a huge parcel, containing about six pounds of boiled beef, and from the other he took as much ham. "Hold hard!" he cried to the boy who brought the beer. "Take this half-crown, my lad, and get three quartern loaves." "But, Ben," said old Mr. Oakley, "I really had no intention, when I asked you to come to lunch this morning, of making you provide it yourself. We have, or we ought to have, plenty of everything in the house." "Old birds," said Ben, "isn't to be caught twice. A fellow, arter he has burnt his fingers, is afeard o' playing with the fire. No, Mrs. O., you gave us a benefit last time, and I ain't a-going to try my luck again. All's right--pitch into the grub. How is the chosen vessel, Mother O.? All right, eh?" Mrs. Oakley waited until Ben had made an immense sandwich of ham and beef; and then in an instant, before he was aware of what she was about, she caught it up, and slapped it in his face with a vengeance that was quite staggering. "Easy does it," said Ben. "Take that, you great, fat elephant." "Go it--go it." Mrs. Oakley bounced out of the room. Johanna looked her sorrow; and Mr. Oakley rose from his chair, but Ben made him sit down again, saying-- "Easy does it--easy does it. Never mind her, cousin Oakley. She must have her way sometimes. Let her kick and be off. There's no harm done--not a bit. Lord bless you. I'm used to all sorts of cantankerous animals." Mr. Oakley shook his head. "Forget it, father," said Johanna. "I only wish, my dear, I could forget many things; and yet there are so many others, that I want to remember, mixed up with them, that I don't know how I should manage to separate them one from the other." "You couldn't do it," said Ben. "Here's luck in a bag, and shake it out as you want it." This sentiment was uttered while Ben's head was deep in the recesses of the two-gallon can of beer, so that it had a peculiar solemn and sonorous effect with it. After drinking about a quart, Ben withdrew the can, and drew a long breath. "Has he brought yours?" he said. "What?--who?" "Why the other two gallons for you and Johanna." "Good gracious, Ben, you don't mean that?" "Don't I, though. Oh, here he is. All's right. Now, my lad, get the little pint jug, with the silver top to it, and if we don't mull a drop, I'm a sinner. Now, you'll see if Mrs. O. don't come round quite handsome." Ben, by the aid of some sugar, succeeded in making a very palatable drink, and just as the steam began to salute the nostrils of old Oakley and himself, the door of the parlour was opened, and who should heedlessly step into the room but the pious Mr. Lupin himself. Mr. Lupin was so transfixed by finding Ben there, that for a moment or two he could not gather strength to retreat; and during that brief period, Ben had shifted his chair, until he got quite behind the reverend gentleman, who, when he did step back, in consequence fell into Ben's lap. "What do yer mean?" cried Ben, in a voice of thunder. "Oh, murder--murder! Have mercy upon me! I only looked in as I was passing, to ask how all the family was." "Yes," said Mr. Oakley, "and because you, no doubt, heard I was going to Tottenham, to Judge Merivale's, to fit him with a pair of spectacles." "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Let me go, sir." "I don't want you," said Ben; "but as you are here, let's make an end of all differences, and have a pint together." "A pint?" "Yes, to be sure. By the look of your nose, I should say it knows pretty well what a pint is." "Oh, dear--man is sinful alway. I bear no malice, and if the truly right-minded and pious Mrs. Oakley was only here, we might drink down all differences, Mr. a--a--" "Ben." "Mr. Ben. Thank you, sir." "Oh, Mr. Lupin," cried Mrs. Oakley, at this moment bursting into the parlour. "Is it possible that you can give your mind in this way to the Philistines? Is not this backsliding?" "Let us hope for the best, sister," said Mr. Lupin, with an evangelical twang. "Let us hope for the best. If people will drink, they had much better drink with the saints, who may take some favourable opportunity of converting them, than with sinners." "Sit down, mum," said Ben, "and let's bury all animosities in the can. Easy does it. Don't you go, Johanna." "Yes, but, Ben, I--" "Now don't." Ben saw by the direction of Johanna's eyes, that the Rev. gentleman was resting one of his red raw-looking hands upon her arm, and, situated as she was, she could not get out of his way but by rising. "Sit still," said Ben. "Easy does it." Lifting up the can, then, he pretended to drink out of it, and then brought it with such a thundering crack upon Mr. Lupin's head, that it quite staggered him. "Paws off," said Ben. "Just attend to that ere gentle hint, old friend." Mr. Lupin sat down with a groan. "Now, mum," said Ben, who all the while had held fast the stone mug of mulled porter. "Now, mum, here's some hot, that don't suit me so well as the cold, perhaps you and Mr. Lupin will take that, while I cuts a few more sandwiches." He placed the jug before Mr. Lupin, who thereupon left off rubbing his head, and said-- "I'm sure it would be highly unchristian of me to bear any malice, so, with the Lord's leave, I will even partake of some of this worldly liquor, called mulled porter." Now while Mr. Lupin drank the savoury stream from the jug, it assailed the senses of Mrs. Oakley, and when the porter was placed before her, she raised it to her lips, saying-- "If folks are civil to me, I'm civil to them, only I don't like my godly friends to be ill-treated. I'm sure nobody knows what I have gone through for my family, and nobody thinks what a mother and wife I have been. What would have become of Oakley if it hadn't been for me, is a question I often ask myself in the middle of the night?" "She's a wonderful woman," sighed Lupin. "Oh, uncommon," said Ben. "Let me go," whispered Johanna to Ben. "No, no! Wait for the fun." "What fun?" "Oh, you'll see. You don't know what a trouble it has cost me, to be sure. Only wait a bit, there's a duck, do." Johanna did not like to say she would not, so she shrunk back in her chair in no small curiosity, to know what was about to happen. Mrs. Oakley lifted the jug to her lips and drunk deep. The aroma of the liquor must have been peculiarly grateful to the palate of Mrs. Oakley, for she certainly kept the jug at her mouth for a length of time, that, to judge by the look of impatience upon the countenance of Mr. Lupin, was something outrageous. "Sister!" he said. "Mind your breath." Down came the jug, and Mrs. Oakley, when she could draw breath, gasped-- "Very good indeed. A dash of allspice would make it delicious." "Oh, sister," cried Lupin as he grasped the jug, that was gently pushed towards him by Ben after Mrs. Oakley had set it down. "Oh, sister, don't give your mind to carnal things, I beg of you. Why, she's drank it all." Mr. Lupin peered into the jug. He shut the right eye and looked in with the left, and then he shut the left eye and looked in with the right, and then he moved the jug about until the silver lid came down with a clap, that nearly snapped his nose off. "What's the matter?" said Ben. "I--I--don't exactly--" Mr. Lupin raised the lid again and again, and peered into the jug in something of the fashion which popular belief supposes a crow to look into a marrow bone. At length he turned the jug upside down, and struck the bottom of it with his pious knuckles. A huge toad fell sprawling upon the table. Mrs. Oakley gave a shriek, and rushed into the yard. Mr. Lupin gave a groan, and flew into the street, and the party in the parlour could hear them in a state of horrible sickness. "Easy does it," said Ben, "it's only a piece of wood shaped like a toad and painted, that's all. Now I'm easy. I owed 'em one." CHAPTER XLVI. TOBIAS'S HEART IS TOUCHED. Tobias is no worse all this time. But is he better? Has the godlike spirit of reason come back to the mind-benighted boy? Has that pure and gentle spirit recovered from its fearful thraldom, and once again opened its eyes to the world and the knowledge of the past? We shall see. Accompany us, reader, once again to the house of Colonel Jeffery. You will not regret looking upon the pale face of poor Tobias again. The room is darkened, for the sun is shining brightly, and an almond tree in the front garden is not sufficiently umbrageous in its uncongenial soil to keep the bright rays from resting too strongly upon the face of the boy. There he lies! His eyes are closed, and the long lashes--for Tobias, poor fellow, was a pretty boy--hung upon his cheek, held down by the moisture of a tear. The face is pale, oh, so pale and thin, and the one arm and hand that lies outside the coverlet of the bed, show the blue veins through the thin transparent skin. And all this is the work of Sweeney Todd. Well, well! heaven is patient! In the room is everything that can conduce to the comfort of the slumbering boy. Colonel Jeffery has kept his word. And now that we have taken a look at Tobias, tread gently on tip-toe, reader, and come with us down stairs to the back drawing-room, where Colonel Jeffery, his friend Captain Rathbone, the surgeon, and Mrs. Ragg are assembled. Mrs. Ragg is "crying her eyes out," as the saying is. "Sit down, Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, "sit down and compose yourself. Come, now, there is no good done by this immoderate grief." "But I can't help it." "You can control it. Sit down." "But I oughtn't to sit down. I'm the cook, you know, sir." "Well, well; never mind that, if you are my cook. If I ask you to be seated, you may waive all ceremony. We want to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Ragg." Upon this Tobias's mother did sit down, but it was upon the extreme edge of a chair, so that the slightest touch to it in the world would have knocked it from under her, and down she would have gone on to the floor. "I'm sure, gentlemen, I'll answer anything I know, and more too, with all the pleasure in life, for, as I often said to poor Mr. Ragg, who is dead and gone, and buried accordingly in St. Martin's, as he naturally might, and a long illness he had, and what with one thing and--" "Yes! yes! we know all that. Just attend to us for one moment, if you please, and do not speak until you thoroughly understand the nature of the question we are about to put to you." "Certainly not, sir. Why should I speak, for as I often and often said, when--" "Hush, hush!" Mrs. Ragg was silent at last, and then the surgeon spoke to her calmly and deliberately, for he much wished her clearly to understand what he was saying to her. "Mrs. Ragg, we still think that the faculties of your son Tobias are not permanently injured, and that they are only suffering from a frightful shock." "Yes, sir, they is frightfully shook." "Hush! We think that if anything that greatly interested him could be brought to bear upon the small amount of perception that remains to him he would recover. Do you now know of anything that might exercise a strong influence over him?" "Lord bless you--no, sir." "How old is he?" "Fifteen, sir, and you would hardly believe what a time of it I had with Tobias. All the neighbours said--'Well, if Mrs. Ragg gets over this, she's a woman of ten thousand;' and Mrs. Whistlesides, as lived next door, and had twins herself, owned she never--" "Good God, will you be quiet, madam?" "Quiet, sir? I'm sure I haven't said two words since I've been in the blessed room. I appeal to the _kernel_." "Well! well! it appears then, Mrs. Ragg, you can think of nothing that is at all likely to aid us in this plan of awakening, by some strong impression, the dormant faculties of Tobias?" "No, gentlemen, no! I only wish I could, poor boy; and there's somebody else wasting away for grief about him; poor little thing, when she heard that Tobias was mad, I'm sure I thought she'd have broke her heart, for if Tobias ever loved anybody in all the world, it was little Minna Gray. Ah! it's affecting to think how such children love each other, ain't it, sir? Lord bless you, the sound of her footstep was enough for him, and his eyes would get like two stars, as he'd clap his hands together, and cry--'Ah! that's dear Minna.' That was before he went to Mr. Todd's, poor fellow." "Indeed!" "Yes, sir, oh, you haven't an idea." "I think I have. Who is this Minna Gray, who so enthralled his boyish fancy?" "Why, she's widow Gray's only child, and they live in Milford Lane, close to the Temple, you see, and even Tobias used to go with me to drink tea with Mrs. Gray, as we was both _bequeathed_ women in a world of trouble." "You were what?" "Bequeathed." "Bereaved you mean, I suppose, Mrs. Ragg; but how could you tell me that you knew of no means of moving Tobias's feelings. This Minna Gray, if he really loves her, is the very thing." "Lor, sir. What do you mean?" "Why, I mean that if you can get this Minna Gray here, the possibility is that it will be the recovery of Tobias. At all events, it is the only chance of that kind that presents itself. If that fails, we must only trust to time. How old is this girl?" "About fourteen, sir, and though I say it--" "Well, well. Do you now, as a woman of the world, Mrs. Ragg, think that she has an affection for poor Tobias?" "Do I think? Lor bless you, sir, she doats on the ground he walks on, that she does--poor young thing. Hasn't she grizzled a bit. It puts me in mind of--" "Yes, yes. Of course it does. Now, Mrs. Ragg, you understand it is an object with our friend the colonel here, that no one but yourself should know that Tobias is here. Could you get this young girl to come to tea, for instance, with you, without telling her what else she is wanted for?" "Dear me, yes, sir; for, as I used to say to Mr. Ragg, who is dead and gone, and buried in St. Martin's--" "Exactly. Now go and get her by all means, and when she comes here we will speak to her, but above all things be careful what you say." "I think Mrs. Ragg is already aware," said Colonel Jeffery, "that her son's safety, as well as her own, depends upon her discretion in keeping his whereabouts a profound secret. We will instruct this young girl when she comes here." Colonel Jeffery, when he heard that the medical man was of opinion that the experiment of awakening the feelings of Tobias, by bringing Minna Gray, was worth trying, at once acquiesced, and urged upon Mrs. Ragg to go and see Minna. After many more speeches, about as much to the purpose as those which we have already formed, Mrs. Ragg got herself dressed and went upon her errand. She was instructed to say that she had found herself unequal to being a laundress in the Temple, and so had thought it was better to return to her own original occupation of cook in a gentleman's family, and that, as she had the liberty to do so, she wished Minna Gray to come and take tea with her. Thus forewarned of the part she was to play, Mrs. Ragg started upon her mission, in which we need not follow her, for the result of it is all that we particularly care about, and that consisted in her bringing Minna in great triumph to the colonel's house. Colonel Jeffery, and Captain Rathbone, who was staying to dine with him, saw the young girl as she came up the garden path. She was one of those small, delicately beautiful young creatures, who seem specially made to love and be loved. Her light auburn hair hung in dancing curls down her fair cheeks, and her beautifully shaped lips and pearly teeth were of themselves features that imparted much loveliness to her countenance. She had, too, about her face all the charm of childish beauty, which bespoke her so young as to have lost little of that springtide grace, which, alas! is so fleeting. Add to all this a manner so timid, so gentle, and so retiring, that she seemed to be an inhabitant of some quieter world than this, and you have Minna Gray, who had crept into the boyish heart of poor Tobias, before your eyes. "What a gentle quiet looking little creature," said the captain. "She is indeed; and what a contrast!" "Between her and Mrs. Ragg, you mean? It does indeed look like an elephant escorting a fawn. But Mrs. Ragg has her good qualities." "She has, and they are numerous. She is honest and candid as the day, and almost the only fault that can be laid to her charge is her garrulity." "How do you mean to proceed?" "Why, Rathbone, I mean to condescend to do what, under any other circumstances, would be most unjustifiable--that is, listen to the conversation of Mrs. Ragg with Minna Gray; I do so with the concurrence of the old lady, who is to lead her to speak of Tobias, and it is solely for the purpose of judging if she really loves the boy, and making a proper report to the surgeon, that I do so." "You are right enough, Jeffery; the end in this case, at all events, sanctifies the means, however defective such a system of philosophy may be as a general thing. May I likewise be an auditor?" "I was going to ask you to so far oblige me, for I shall then have the advantage of your opinion; so you will do me a favour." There was a small pantry called a butler's pantry close to the kitchen, into which Mrs. Ragg had taken Minna Gray. A door opened from this pantry into the kitchen, and another on to the landing at the foot of the kitchen stairs. Now Mrs. Ragg was to take care that the door opening to the kitchen should be just ajar, and the colonel and his friend could get into the pantry by the other mode of entrance. Colonel Jeffery was a gentleman in the fullest sense of the term, and he kept no useless bloated menials about him, so the butler's pantry had no butler to interfere with him, the colonel, in his own house. In the course of a few minutes Jeffery and Rathbone were in the pantry, from whence they could both see and hear what passed in the kitchen. To be sure there was a certain air of restraint about Mrs. Ragg at the thought that her master was listening to what passed, and that lady had a propensity to use hard words, of the meaning of which she was in the most delightful state of ignorance; but as it was to Minna Gray's conversation that the colonel wanted to listen, these little peculiarities of Mrs. Ragg upon the occasion did not much matter. Of course, Minna thought she had no other auditors than her old friend. Mrs. Ragg was quite busy over the tea. "Well, my dear," she said to Minna, "this is a world we live in." Mrs. Ragg, no doubt, intended this as a discursive sort of remark that might open any conversation very well, and lead to anything, and she was not disappointed, for it seemed to give to the young girl courage to utter that which was struggling to her lips. "Mrs.--Mrs. Ragg," she began, hesitatingly. "Yes. My dear, let me fill your cup." "Thank you; but I was going to say--" "A little more sugar?" "No, no. But I cannot place a morsel in my lips, Mrs. Ragg, or think or speak to you of anything else, until you have told me if you have heard any news of poor--poor--" "Tobias?" "Yes--yes--yes!" Minna Gray placed her two little hands upon her face and burst into tears. Mrs. Ragg made a snuffling sort of noise that, no doubt, was highly sympathetic, and after a pause of a few moments' duration, Minna gathered courage to speak again. "You know, Mrs. Ragg, the last you told me of him was that--that Mr. Todd had said he was mad, you know, and then you went to fetch somebody, and when you came back he was gone; and Mr. Todd told you the next day that poor Tobias ran off at great speed and disappeared. Has anything been heard of him since?" "Ah, my dear, alas! alas!" "Why do you cry alas?--Have you any more sad news to tell me?" "He was my only son--and all the world and his wife, as the saying is, can't tell how much I loved him." Minna Gray clasped her hands, and, while the tears coursed down her young fair cheeks, she said-- "And I, too, loved him!" "I always thought you did, my dear, and I'm sure, if you had been an angel out of Heaven, my poor boy could not have thought more of you than he did. There was nothing that you said or did that was not excellent. He loved the ground you walked on; and a little old worsted mitten, that you left at our place once, he used to wear round his neck, and kiss it when he thought no one was nigh, and say--'This was my Minna's!'" The young girl let her head rest upon her hands, and sobbed convulsively. "Lost--lost!" she said, "and poor, kind, good Tobias is lost!" "No, my dear, it's a long lane that hasn't a turning. Pluck up your courage, and your courage will pluck up you. Keep sixpence in one pocket, and hope in another. When things are at the worst they mend. You can't get further down in a well than the bottom." Minna sobbed on. "And so, my dear," added Mrs. Ragg, "I do know something more of Tobias." The young girl looked up. "He lives!--he lives!" "Lor a mussy, don't lay hold of a body so. Of course he lives, and, what's more, the doctor says that you ought to see him--he's up stairs." "Here?--here?" "Yes, to be sure. That's why I brought you to tea." Minna Gray took a fit of trembling, and then, making great efforts to compose herself, she said-- "Tell me all--tell me all!" "Well, my dear, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and so here I am, cook in as good a place as mortal woman would wish to have. I can't tell you all the rights of the story, because I don't know it. But certainly Tobias is up stairs in bed like a gentleman, only they say as his brains is--is something or another that makes him not understand anything or anybody, and so you see the doctor says if you speak to him, who knows but what he may come to himself?" With an intuitive tact that belongs to some minds, and which Minna Gray, despite the many disadvantages of her social position, possessed in an eminent degree, she understood at once the whole affair. Tobias was suffering from some aberration of intellect, which the voice and the presence of one whom he loved fondly might dissipate. Would she shrink from the trial?--would her delicacy take the alarm and overcome her great desire to recover Tobias? Oh, no; she loved him with a love that far outstripped all smaller feelings, and, if ever there was a time when that love took complete possession of her heart, it was at this affecting moment, when she was told that her voice might have the magic power of calling back to him the wandering reason that harshness and ill-usage had for a time toppled from its throne. "Take me to him!" she cried--"take me to him! If all that is wanted to recover him be the voice of affection, he will soon be as he was once to us." "Well, my dear, take your tea, and I'll go and speak to the _kernel_." It was now time for Colonel Jeffery and his friend, the captain, to retire from the pantry, where we need not say that they had been pleased and affected listeners to what had passed between Mrs. Ragg and the fair and intelligent Minna Gray, who, in beauty and intelligence, far exceeded their utmost expectations. CHAPTER XLVII. TOBIAS RECOVERS HIS INTELLECT. In the course of a quarter of an hour the surgeon was sent for, and then Mrs. Ragg tapped at the drawing-room door, to give the colonel an account of the success of her mission; but he at once said to her-- "We know all, Mrs. Ragg. We merely wish to see Tobias first, so that the medical gentleman may see exactly his condition, and then if you will bring Minna Gray here I will speak to her, and, I hope, put her quite at her ease as regards what she has to do." "Certainly, sir, certainly. Hold fast, and good comes at last." The surgeon and the two gentlemen went to Tobias's chamber, and there they found him in the same lethargic condition that, with only occasional interruptions, he had continued in since he had been in the colonel's house. These interruptions consisted in moaning appeals for mercy, and at times the name of Todd would pass his lips, in accents which showed what a name of terror it was to him. The surgeon placed his hand upon Tobias's head. "Tobias!" he said, "Tobias!" A deep sigh was his answer. "Tobias! Tobias!" "Oh, God! God!" cried Tobias, feebly. "Spare me--I will tell nothing. Oh, spare me, Mr. Todd.--Repent now. There, there--the blood! What a crowd of dead men. Dead--dead--dead--all dead!" "No better?" said the colonel. "Not a bit. On the contrary, the longer he remains in this condition, the less chance there will be of his recovery. I shall lose hope, if this last experiment produces no good results. Let us go and speak to the young girl." They all descended to the drawing-room, and Minna Gray was summoned. Colonel Jeffery took her kindly by the hand and led her to a seat, and then he said to her-- "Now, Miss Gray, remember that all here are friends to you and to Tobias, and that we all feel deeply for him and for you. You are very young, both of you, but that is no reason on earth why you should not love each other." Minna looked up at him through her tears, as she said-- "Is he very--very ill?" "He is indeed. We suspect--indeed, I may say we know, that his mind has received so severe a shock that, for a time, it is deranged; but we hope that, as that derangement, you understand, has not arisen from any disease, pleasant and agreeable impressions may restore him. What we want you to do is to speak to him as you, no doubt, have been in the habit of doing in happier times." "Yes, yes, sir." "I think you know exactly what we mean?" "I do, sir--indeed I do." "Oh, bless you, sir, she understands," said Mrs. Ragg. "A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, you know, gentlemen. Handsome is as handsome does--as I used to say to the late Mr. Ragg, who is naturally dead and gone, and accordingly buried in St. Martin's--" "You can tell us that another time, madam," said the surgeon. "At present, you see we are rather busy. Now, Miss Gray, if you will have the goodness to come with me, we will see what can be done for our young friend above stairs." Poor Minna Gray! How her colour went and came like the sunlight of an April day, as she accompanied the three gentlemen and Mrs. Ragg up stairs to Tobias's chamber. How she trembled when they reached the landing; and what a faintness came over her when the door was opened, and she saw that dimly-lighted room. "Courage," whispered Colonel Jeffery to her. "This is a holy errand you are upon." "Yes, yes." "Cut your coat according to your cloth," said Mrs. Ragg, who, provided she thought of a proverb, was not very particular with regard to its applicability to the circumstances under which she uttered it. "Keep your feet to the length of your sheet." "Pray, madam," said the surgeon, who seemed to have quite a horror of Mrs. Ragg. "Pray, madam, oblige me by being silent." "A still tongue makes a wise head." "Good God, colonel! will you speak to her?" "Hush, Mrs. Ragg!" said Colonel Jeffery. "Hush! You will perhaps be the means of spoiling this important effort for the recovery of your son if you are not perfectly quiet." Thus admonished, Mrs. Ragg shrank into the background a little, and the colonel went to the window and let in a little more light. The surgeon conducted Minna Gray to the bed-side, and she looked upon the boy who had won her childish heart through a world of tears. "It is--it is--Tobias!" "Is he much altered?" "Oh, yes; much--much. He--he used to look so happy. His--his face was like a piece of sunshine!" She sank upon a chair that was by the bed-side, and sobbed. "This will never do," said the surgeon. "Wait--oh, wait a little," she whispered. "Only wait a little.--I shall be better soon." The surgeon nodded; and then stepping back to the colonel and the captain, he said-- "This burst of grief must have its way, or it will mar all. We must have patience." They all hid themselves behind the folds of the bed furniture, and Mrs. Ragg sat down in an obscure corner of the room, working her knee up and down, as though she were nursing an imaginary baby. Gradually the sobs of Minna Gray subsided, until all was still. She then gently took one of the thin wasted hands of poor Tobias in her own, and looked at it. Oh, how changed it was. She then bent over him, and looked in his face. What permeative lines of care were there, battling with rounded muscles of early youth! Then she summoned all her courage to speak. She placed her lips close to his ear, and in the soft sweet accents that had long before sank deep into his heart, she said-- "Tobias!--my Tobias!" The boy started. "Dear Tobias, it is I. Minna!" He opened his eyes, which had been closed and seemingly cemented by tears. "Tobias! Tobias, dear!" A smile--a heavenly smile. It was the first that had played upon his lips since he set foot in the shop of Sweeney Todd, now broke like a sunbeam over his face. "I am mad--mad!" he said, gently, "or that is the voice of my Minna." "It is your Minna. It is--it is, Tobias; look at me." He rose up in the bed--he cast one glance at the well-known and dearly remembered face, and then, with a gasping sob of joy, he clasped her in his arms. "It's done," said the surgeon. "Thank God!" said Colonel Jeffery. Mrs. Ragg drew her breath so hard through her nose that she made a noise like some wild animal in the agonies of suffocation. "You really know me, Tobias?" "Know you, dear? Oh, why should I not know you, Minna? God bless you!" "May He bless you, Tobias." They wept together; Minna forgot that there was anybody in the world but herself and Tobias, and parting the long straggling masses of his hair from before his face, she kissed him. "For my sake, Tobias, now you will take care of yourself, and recover quickly." "Dear--dear Minna." He seemed never tired of holding her hands and kissing them. Suddenly the surgeon stepped forward with a small vial in his hand. "Now, Tobias," he said, "you are much better, but you must take this." The look of surprise and consternation with which Tobias regarded him was beyond description. Then he glanced at the bedstead and the rich hangings, and he said-- "Oh, Minna, what is all this? Where am I? Is it a dream?" "Give it to him," said the surgeon, handing the vial to Minna. She placed the neck of it to his lips. "Drink, Tobias." Had it been deadly poison she had offered him, Tobias would have taken it. The vial was drained. He looked in her face again with a smile. "If this is indeed a dream, my Minna, may I never awaken--dear--dear--one--I--I--" [Illustration: Tobias Restored To His Senses By Minna's Assistance.] He fell back upon the pillow. The smile still lingered upon his face, but the narcotic which the surgeon had had administered to him had produced its effect, and the enfeebled Tobias fell into deep sleep. Minna Gray looked rather alarmed at this sudden falling off of Tobias from waking to sleeping, but the surgeon quieted her fears. "All is right," he said. "He will awaken in some hours wonderfully refreshed, and I have the pleasure of now predicting his perfect cure." "You do not know," said Colonel Jeffery, "what pleasure that assurance gives me." "And me," said the captain. Minna looked all that she thought, but she could not speak, and Mrs. Ragg, still kept up the mysterious noise she produced by hard breathing with her mouth close shut. "Now, madam," said the surgeon to her, "our young friend must be left alone for some hours. It is now six o'clock, and I do not expect he will awaken until twelve. When he does so, I am very much mistaken if you do not all of you find him perfectly restored and composed, although very weak." "I will take care to be at hand," said the colonel. "Miss Gray, perhaps you will call and see how he is to-morrow, and all I can say is, that you will be quite welcome to my house whenever you think proper, but let me impress upon you one thing." "What is it, sir?" "The absolute necessity of your keeping Tobias's place of abode and anything concerning him a most profound secret." "I will do so." "If you do not, you will not only endanger the cause of justice, but in all probability his life, for he has an enemy with great resources, and of the most unscrupulous disposition in the use of them: I say this much to you, because the least indiscretion might be fatal." "I will guard the secret, sir, as I would guard his life." "That will do--now come down stairs, and let us have a glass of wine to drink to the speedy restoration to perfect health of Tobias. Come, Rathbone, what do you think? Shall we be one too many yet for Todd?" "I begin to think we shall." "I feel certain of it. So soon as we see that Tobias is sufficiently well to make any statement, it will be necessary to send for Sir Richard Blunt." "Certainly." "And then I hope and trust that we shall get at something that will elucidate the mystery that is still attached to the fate of poor Thornhill." "Ah, I fear he is gone!" "Dead?" "Yes. That fatal string of pearls has heralded him to death, I fear; but, perhaps we shall hear a something concerning that yet from Tobias." They all sat down in the drawing-room, and with tearful pleasure Minna Gray drank a glass of wine to the health of Tobias, after which Mrs. Ragg saw her home again to Milford Lane, and no doubt all the road from this colonel's house to there did not want for a prolific subject of conversation. How happy Minna felt when she put up to Heaven her simple prayer that night, previous to seeking repose. CHAPTER XLVIII. JOHANNA MAKES A NEW CONFIDANT. We left the spectacle-maker and his family rather in a state of confusion. Big Ben the Beef-eater had had his revenge upon both Mrs. Oakley and the Saint, and it was a revenge that really did them no harm, so that in that respect it had turned out well. The Rev. Josiah Lupin did not return to the house, but Mrs. Oakley, in a terrible state of prostration from the effects of the sickness that had come over her, staggered again into the parlour. She looked at Mr. Oakley, as she said-- "If you were half a man you would take the life of that villain for treating me in the way he has; I have no doubt but he meant to take the life of the pious Mr. Lupin, and so add him to the list of martyrs." "My dear," said the spectacle-maker, "if Mr. Lupin intrudes himself into my house, and any friend of mine turns him out, I am very much obliged to him." "Perhaps you would be equally obliged to this monster, whom you call your friend, if he would turn me out?" Mr. Oakley shook his head as he said-- "My dear, there are some burthens which can be got rid of, and some that must be borne." "Come--come, Mother Oakley," said Ben. "Don't bear malice. You played me a trick the last time I came here, and now I have played you one. That's all. It wasn't in human nature not to do it, so don't bear malice." Mrs. Oakley, if she had been in a condition to do so, no doubt would have carried on the war with Big Ben, but she decidedly was not, and after a shudder or two, which looked as though she thought the toad was beginning again to oppress her, she rose to leave the room. "Mother," said Johanna, "it was not a real toad." "But you are!" said Mrs. Oakley, sharply. "You have no more feeling for your mother than as if she were a brickbat." Feeling now that at all events she had had the last word at somebody, Mrs. Oakley made a precipitate retreat, and sought the consolations and solitude of her own chamber. Mr. Oakley was about to make some speech, which he prefaced with a sigh, when some one coming into the shop called his attention, and he left Johanna and Big Ben the Beef-eater together in the parlour. The moment they were alone, Ben began shaking his head and making some very mysterious signs, which completely mystified Johanna. Indeed she began to be afraid that Ben's intellects were not quite right, although an ordinary observer might have very well supposed there was something the matter with his nether garments, for he pointed to them repeatedly, and shook his head at Johanna. "What is the matter, cousin?" she said. "Oh, dear!--oh, dear!--oh--oh--oh!" "Are you ill?" "No, but I only wonder as you ain't. Didn't I see you in Fleet-street with these here on?--oh!--oh!--not these here exactly, but another pair. These would be a trifle too large for you. Oh, dear-a-me! my heart bled all for to see such a young and delicate little puss as you a taking to wear the thingamies so soon." Johanna now began to understand what Ben meant, namely, that he had seen her in Fleet-street disguised in male attire, with her young friend Arabella Wilmot. "Oh, Ben," she said, "you must not think ill of me on that account." "But--but," said Ben, rather hesitatingly, as if he were only putting a doubtful proposition, "wasn't it rather unusual?" "Yes, Ben, but there were reasons why I put on such garments. Surely it was better to do so than--than--to--" "Than to go without any?" said Ben. "No--no, I did not say that--I mean it was better for me to forget a little of that maiden delicacy which--which--than to let him--" She burst into tears. "Holloa!" cried Ben, as he immediately folded her in an immense embrace, that went very near to smothering her. "Don't you cry, and you may wear what you like, and I'll come and help you to put 'em on. Come, come, there's a nice little dear, don't you cry. Lord bless you! you know how fond I am of you, and always was since you was a little tottering thing, and couldn't say my name right. Don't you cry. You shall wear 'em as often as you like, and I'll go behind you in the street, and if anybody only so much as says half a word to you, I'll be down upon 'em. Fetch 'em now and put 'em on, my dear." Johanna must have laughed if her life had depended upon her gravity, for all that Ben said upon the subject was uttered in the sheer simplicity of a kind heart, and well she knew that in his rough way he doated on her, and thought there was not such another being in the whole world as she. And yet he looked upon her as a child, and the imperceptible flight of time had made no difference in Ben's ideas concerning Johanna. She was still to him the sweet little child he had so often dandled upon his knee, and brought fruit and sweetmeats to, when such things were great treasures. After a few moments he let her go, and Johanna was able to draw breath again. "Ben," she said, "I will tell you all." "All what?" "How I came to put on--the--the--" "Oh, these here--very good. Cut on, and let's know all the particulars. I suppose you felt cold, my dear, eh?" "No--no." "No? Well then, tell it quick, for I was always a mortal bad hand at guessing. Your father is fitting an old gentleman with a pair of spectacles, and he seems hard to please, so we shall have lots of time. Go on." "Your good opinion is of such moment to me," said Johanna, "for I have very few to love me; now that you have seen me in such a disguise, I should feel unhappy if I did not tell why I wore it." Ben lent the most attentive ear to what she said, and then Johanna briefly and distinctly told him all the story of Mark Ingestrie, and how he had, as she thought, mysteriously disappeared at the barber's shop in Fleet-street. It will be seen that she still clung to the idea that the Thornhill of the arrived ship was no other than her lover. Ben heard her all out with the most fixed attention. His mouth and eyes gradually opened wider and wider as she proceeded, partly from wonder at the whole affair, and partly from intense admiration at the way in which she told it, which he thought was better than any book he had ever read. When she had concluded, Ben again folded her in his arms, and she had to struggle terribly to get away. "My dear child," he said, "you are a prodigy. Why, there's not an animal as ever I knew comes near you; and so the poor fellow had his throat cut in the barber's for his string of pearls?" "I fear he was murdered." "Not a doubt of it." "You really think so, Ben?" The tone of agony with which this question was put to him, and the look of utter desolation which accompanied it, alarmed Ben, and he hastily said-- "Come, come, I didn't mean that. No doubt something has happened; but it will be all right some day or another, you may depend. Oh, dear!--oh, dear! The idea of your going to watch the barber with some boy's clothes on!" "Tell me what I can do, for my heart and brain are nearly distracted by my sufferings?" Ben looked all round the room, and then up at the ceiling, as though he had a hope and expectation of finding some startling suggestion written legibly before his eyes somewhere. At length he spoke, saying-- "I tell you what, Johanna, my dear, whatever you do, don't you put on them things again. You leave it all to me." "But what will you do?--what can you do, Ben?" "Well, I don't know exactly; but I'll let you know when it's done." "But do not run into any danger for my sake." "Danger? danger? I should like to see the barber that would interfere with me. No, my dear, no; I'm too well used to all sorts of animals for that. I'll see what I can do, and let you know all about it to-morrow, and in the meantime, you stick to the petticoats, and don't be putting on those thingamies again. You leave it to me--will you now?" "Until to-morrow?" "Yes, I'll be here to-morrow about this time, my dear, and I hope I shall have some news for you. Well, I declare, it's just like a book, it is. You are quite a prodigy." Ben would have treated Johanna to another of the suffocating embraces, but she contrived to elude him; and, as by this time the old gentleman in the shop was suited with a pair of spectacles, Mr. Oakley returned to the parlour. Johanna placed her finger upon her lips as an indication to Ben that he was to say nothing to her father of what had passed between them, for, although Mr. Oakley knew generally the story of his daughter's attachment to Mark Ingestrie, as the reader is aware, he knew nothing of the expedition to Fleet-street in disguise. Ben, feeling that he had now an important secret to keep, shut his mouth hard, for fear it should escape, and looked so mysterious, that any one more sharp-sighted than the old spectacle-maker must have guessed that something very unusual was the matter. Mr. Oakley, however, had no suspicions; but as this state of things was very irksome to Ben, he soon rose to take his leave. "I shall look in again to-morrow," he said, "Cousin Oakley." "We shall be glad to see you," said Mr. Oakley. "Yes," added Johanna, who felt it incumbent upon her to say something, "we shall be very glad to see you indeed." "Ah," said her father, "you and Ben were always great friends." "And we always shall be," said Ben. Then he thought that he would add something wonderfully clever, so as completely to ward off all suspicions of Oakley's, if he had any, and he added--"She ain't like some young creatures that think nothing of putting on what they shouldn't. Oh dear, no--not she. Bye, bye. I'll come to-morrow." Ben was quite pleased when he got out of the house, for among the things that he (Ben) found it difficult to do, was to keep a secret. "Well," he said, when he was fairly in the open air, "if I ain't rather nonplussed at all this. What shall I do?" This was a question much easier asked than answered, as Ben found; but, however, he felt an irresistible desire to go and have a look at the shop of Sweeney Todd. "I can easily," he said, "go to Fleet-street, and then, if I find myself late, I can take a boat at Blackfriars for the Tower-stairs, and after all get in to dinner comfortably enough." With this conclusion, Ben set off at a good pace down Snow-hill, and was soon at the beginning of Fleet-street. He walked on until he came to Sweeney Todd's shop, and there he paused. Now we have previously remarked that there was one great peculiarity in the shop-window of Todd, and that was that the articles in it were so well arranged that some one always was in the way of obtaining any view from the outside into the establishment. Todd was therefore secure against the dangers arising from peeping and prying. Big Ben placed himself close to the window, and made an attempt, by flattening his nose against the panes of glass, to peep in; but it was all in vain. He could not obtain the smallest glimpse into the inside. "Confound it," he cried, "what a cunning sort of animal this is to be sure--he won't let one peep through the bars of his cage, that he won't." Now Sweeney Todd became aware, by the additional darkness of his shop, that some one must be quite close to the window, and therefore, availing himself of a peep-hole that he had expressly for the purpose of reconnoitering the passing world without, he took a long look at Big Ben. It was some moments before Ben caught sight of a great eye in the window of Sweeney Todd glancing at him. This eye appeared as if it were set in the centre of a placard, which announced in glowing language the virtues of some condiment for the hair or the skin, and it had a most ferocious aspect. Big Ben looked fascinated and transfixed to the spot, and then he muttered to himself-- "Well, if that's his eye, it's a rum 'un. Howsomdever, it's no use staying outside: I'll pop in and get shaved, and then I shall be able to look about me. Who's afraid?" As Ben turned round, he saw a plainly-attired man close to his elbow; but he took no notice of him, although from his close proximity to him it was quite impossible that the plain-looking man could have failed to overhear what Ben said. In another moment Big Ben was in Todd's shop. "Shaved or dressed, sir?" said Todd. "Shaved," said Ben, as he cast his eyes round the shop. "Looking for anything, sir?" said Todd. "Oh, no--nothing at all. Only a friend of mine, you see, said this was such a nice shop, you understand, to be shaved in." "Was your friend finished off here, sir?" "Well, I rather think he was." "Pray sit down. Fine weather, sir, for the season. Now, pussy, my dear, get out of the way of the hot water." Todd was addressing an imaginary cat. "Are you fond of animals, sir? Lord bless me, I'm fond of all the world. God made us all, sir, from a creeping beetle to a beef-eater." "Very likely," said Big Ben, as he seated himself in the barber's chair. "And so," added Todd, as he mixed up a lather, and made the most horrible faces, "we ought to love each other in this world of care. How is your friend, sir, who was so kind as to recommend my shop?" "I should like to know." "What, is he in eternity? Dear me!" "Well, I rather think he is." "Was it the gentleman who was hung last Monday, sir?" "Confound you, no. But there's somebody else who I think will be hung some Monday. I tell you what it is, Mr. Barber, my friend never got further than this infernal shop, so I'm come to enquire about him." "What sort of man, sir?" said Todd, with the most imperturbable coolness. "What kind of man?" "Yes, sir. If you favour me with his description, perhaps I may be able to tell you something about him. By the bye, if you will excuse me for one moment, I'll bring you something that a gentleman left here one day." "What is it?" "I will satisfy you directly, sir, and I'm quite certain your mind will be at rest about your friend, sir, whoever he was. Remarkable weather, sir, for the time of year." Todd had got only half way from the shop to the parlour, when the shop-door opened, and the plain-looking man walked in--the very same plain man who had stood so close to Big Ben at Todd's window. "Shaved," he said. Todd paused. "If, sir, you will call again in a few minutes, or if you have any call to make and can conveniently look in as you come back--" "No, I'll take a seat." [Illustration: Todd And The Beefeater Have Some Words.] The plain-looking man sat down close to the door, and looked as calm and as unconcerned as any one possibly could. The look with which Todd regarded him for a moment, and only one moment, was truly horrible. He then quietly went into his back parlour. In a moment he entered with a common kid glove, and said to Ben-- "Did this belong to your friend?--a gentleman left it here one day." Ben shook his head. "I really don't know," he said. "Come, Mr. Barber, finish the shaving, for that gentleman is waiting." Ben was duly shaved; while the plain-looking man sat quietly in the chair by the door, and when the operation was finished, Ben looked in Todd's face, and said, solemnly-- "A string of pearls." "Sir," said Todd, without changing countenance in the least. "A string of pearls.--Murder!" "A what, sir?" Ben look staggered. He well knew that if he had cut any one's throat for a string of pearls, that such words said to him would have driven him frantic, but when he saw no change in Todd's face, he begun to think that, after all, the accusation must be unfounded, and muttering to himself-- "It must be nothing but the child's fancy after all," he hastily threw down twopence and left the shop. "Now, sir," said Todd, to the plain-looking man. "Thank you." The plain-looking man rose, and as he did so he seemed just to glance through the door into the street as it was opened by Ben. Immediately his face was full of smiles, as he cried-- "Ah, Jenkins, is that you? Ha, ha! I missed you this morning.--Excuse me, Mr. Barber, I'll look in again. My old friend Jenkins has just gone by." With this, out he flew from Todd's shop like a shot, and was gone towards Temple Bar, before the barber could move or lay down the shaving cloth which he had in his hands all ready to tuck under his chin. Todd stood for a few moments in an attitude of irresolution. Then he spoke-- "What does all this mean?" he said. "Is there danger? Curses on them both, I would have--; but no matter, I must be wrong--very wrong. That string of pearls may yet destroy me.--Destroy! no--no--no. They must have yet more wit before they get the better of me, and yet how I calculated upon the destruction of that man. I must think--I must think." Todd sat down in his own strong chair, and gave himself up to what is popularly denominated a brown study. CHAPTER XLIX. THE VAULTS OF ST. DUNSTAN'S. A ponderous stone was raised in the flooring of St. Dunstan's church. The beadle, the churchwarden, and the workmen shrunk back--back--back, until they could get no further. "Ain't it a _norrid_ smell," said the beadle. Then the plain-looking man who had been at Sweeney Todd's advanced. He was no other than Sir Richard Blunt, and whispering to the churchwarden, he said-- "If what I expect be found here, we cannot have too few witnesses to it. Let the workmen be dismissed." "As you please, Sir Richard. Faugh! what an awful--fuff!--stench there is. I have no doubt they won't be sorry to get away. Here, my men, here's half-a-crown for you. Go and get something to drink and come back in an hour." "Thank yer honour!" cried one of the men. "An' sure, by St. Patrick's bones, we want something to drink, for the stench in the church sticks in my blessed throat like a marrow bone, so it does." "Get out," said the beadle; "I hates low people, and _hirish_. They thinks no more of beetles than nothink in the world." The workmen retired, laughing; and when the church was clear of them, the churchwarden said to Sir Richard Blunt-- "Did you ever, Sir Richard, smell such a horrid charnel-house sort of stench as comes up from that opening in the floor of the old church?" Sir Richard shook his head, and was about to say something, when the sound of a footstep upon the pavement of the church made him look round, and he saw a fat, pursy-looking individual approaching. "Oh, it's Mr. Vickley, the overseer," said the beadle. "I hopes as yer is well, Mr. Vickley. Here's a horrid smell." "God bless me!" cried the overseer, as with his fat finger and thumb he held his snub nose. "What's this? It's worse and worse." "Yes, sir," said the beadle; "talking of the smell, we have let the cat out of the bag, I think." "Good gracious! put her in again, then. It can't be a cat." "Begging your pardon, Mr. Vickley, I only spoke _anatomically_. If you comes here, sir, you'll find that all the smell comes out of this here opening." "What! An opening close to my pew! My family pew, where I every Sunday enjoy my repose--I mean my hopes of everlasting glory? Upon my life, I think it's a piece of--of d--d impudence to open the floor of the church, close to my pew. If there was to be anything of the sort done, couldn't it have been done somewhere among the free sittings, I should like to know?" "Mr. Vickley," said Sir Richard, "pray be satisfied that I have sufficient authority for what I do here; and if I had thought it necessary to take up the flooring of your pew while you had been in it, I should have done it." "And pray, sir," said Mr. Vickley, swelling himself out to as large a size as possible, and glancing at his watch chain, to see that all the seals hung upon the convexity of his paunch as usual--"who are you?" "Oh, dear--oh, dear," said the beadle. "Conwulsions!--conwulsions! What a thing it is to see authorities a-going it at each other. Gentlemen--gentlemen. Conwulsions!--ain't there lots of poor people in the world? Don't you be a-going it at each other." "I am a magistrate," said Sir Richard. "And I am an over--seer. Ah!" "You may be an overseer or an underseer, if you like. I am going to search the vaults of St. Dunstan's." The churchwarden now took the overseer aside, and after a while succeeded in calming down his irascibility. "Oh, well--well," said Mr. Vickley. "Authorities is authorities; and if so be as the horrid smell in the church can be got rid of, I'm as willing as possible. It has often prevented me sleeping--I mean listening to the sermon. Your servant, sir--I shall, of course, be very happy to assist you." The beadle wiped his face with his large yellow handkerchief as he said-- "Now this here is delightful and affecting, to see authorities agreeing together. Lord, why should authorities snap each other's noses off, when there's lots o' poor people as can be said anything to and done anything to, and they may snap themselves?" "Well, well," added Mr. Vickley. "I am quite satisfied. Of course, if there's anything disagreeable to be done in a church, and it can be done among the free seats, it's all the better; and indeed, if the smell in St. Dunstan's could have been kept away from the respectable part of the congregation, I don't know that it would have mattered much." "_Conwulsions!_" cried the beadle. "It wouldn't have mattered at all, gentlemen. But only think o' the bishop smelling it. Upon my life, gentlemen, I did think, when I saw the Right Rev. Father in God's nose a looking up and down, like a cat when she smells a bunch o' lights, and knowed as it was all owing to the smell in the church, I did think as I could have gone down through the floor, cocked hat and all, that I did. _Conwulsions_--that was a moment." "It was," said the churchwarden. "Mercy--mercy," said Mr. Vickley. The beadle was so affected at the remembrance of what had happened at the confirmation, that he was forced to blow his nose with an energy that produced a trumpet-like sound in the empty church, and echoed again from nave to gallery. Sir Richard Blunt had let all the discourse go on without paying the least attention to it. He was quietly waiting for the foul vapours that arose from the vaults beneath the church to dissipate a little before he ventured upon exploring them. Now, however, he advanced and spoke. "Gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to rid St. Dunstan's of the stench which for a long time has given it so unenviable a reputation." "If you can do that," said the churchwarden, "you will delight the whole parish. It has been a puzzle to us all where the stench could come from." "Where is the puzzle now?" said Sir Richard Blunt, as he pointed to the opening in the floor of the church, from whence issued like a steamy vapour such horrible exhalations. "Why, certainly it must come from the vaults." "But," said the overseer, "the parish books show that there has not been any one buried in any of the vaults directly beneath the church for thirty years." "Then," said the beadle, "it's a very wrong thing of respectable parishioners--for, of course, them as has waults is respectable--to keep quiet for thirty years and then begin stinking like blazes. It's uncommon wrong--_conwulsions_!" Sir Richard Blunt took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. "From this plan," he said, "that I have procured of the vaults of St. Dunstan's, it appears that the stone we have raised, and which was numbered thirty, discloses a stone staircase communicating with two passages, from which all the vaults can be reached. I propose searching them; and now, gentlemen, and you, Mr. Beadle, listen to me." They all three looked at him with surprise as he took another letter from his pocket. "Here," he said, "are a few words from the Secretary of State. Pray read them, Mr. Vickley." The overseer read as follows-- "The Secretary of State presents his compliments to Sir Richard Blunt, and begs to say that as regards the affair at St. Dunstan's, Sir Richard is to consider himself armed with any extraordinary powers he may consider necessary." "Now, gentlemen," added Sir Richard Blunt, "if you will descend with me into the vaults, all I require of you is the most profound secrecy with regard to what you may see there. Do you fully understand?" "Yes," stammered Mr. Vickley, "but I rather think I--I would as soon not go." "Then, sir, be silent regarding the going of others. Will you go, sir?" to the churchwarden. "Why yes, I--I think I ought." "I shall be obliged to go. I may feel the want of a witness. We will take you with us, Mr. Beadle, of course." "Me--me? Conwulsions!" "Yes--yes. You go, you know, _ex officio_." "Ex, the deuce, I don't want to go. Oh conwulsions! conwulsions!" "We cannot dispense with your services," said the churchwarden. "If you refuse to go, it will be my duty to lay your conduct before the vestry." "Oh--oh--oh!" "Get a torch," said Sir Richard Blunt, "and I will lower it down the opening in the floor. If the air is not so bad as to extinguish the light, it will not be too bad for us to breathe for a short space of time." Most reluctantly, and with terrible misgivings of what might be the result of the frightful adventure into which he was about to be dragged, the beadle fetched a link from the vestry. It was lighted, and Sir Richard Blunt tying a string to it, let it down into the passage beneath the church. The light was not extinguished, but it burnt feebly and with but a wan and sickly lustre. "It will do," said Sir Richard. "We can live in that place, although a protracted stay might be fatal. Follow me; I will go first, and I hope we shall not have our trouble only for our pains." CHAPTER L. THE DESCENT TO THE VAULTS. Sir Richard commenced the descent. "Come on," he said. "Come on." He got down about half a dozen steps, but finding that no one followed him he paused, and called out-- "Remember that time is precious. Come on!" "Why don't you go?" said the churchwarden to the beadle. "What! Me go afore a blessed churchwarden? Conwulsions--no! I thinks and I hopes as I knows my place better." "Well, but upon this occasion, if I don't mind it--" "No--no, I could not. Conwulsions--no!" "Ah!" said Sir Richard Blunt. "I see how it is; I shall have to do all this business alone, and a pretty report I shall have to make to the Secretary of State about the proceedings of the authorities of St. Dunstan's." The churchwarden groaned. "I'm a coming, Sir Richard--I'm a coming. Oh dear, I tell you what it is, Mr. Beadle, if you don't follow me, and close too, I'll have you dismissed as sure as eggs is eggs." "Conwulsions! conwulsions! I'm a coming." The churchwarden descended the stairs, and the beadle followed him. Down--down they went, guided by the dim light of the torch carried by Sir Richard, who had not waited for them after the last words he had spoken. "Can you fetch your blessed breath, sir?" said the beadle. "Hardly," said the churchwarden, gasping. "It is a dreadful place." "Oh, yes--yes." "Stop--Stop. Sir Richard--Sir Richard!" There was no reply. The light from the torch grew more and more indistinct as Sir Richard Blunt increased his distance from them, and at length they were in profound darkness. "I can't stand this," cried the churchwarden; and he faced about to ascend to the church again. In his effort to do so quickly, he stretched out his hand, and seized the beadle by the ancle, and as that personage was not quite so firm upon his legs as might be desired, the effort of this sudden assault was to upset him, and he rolled over upon the churchwarden, with a force that brought them both sprawling to the bottom of the little staircase together. Luckily they had not far to fall, for they had not been more than six or eight steps from the foot of the little flight. Terror and consternation for a few moments deprived each of them of the power of speech. The beadle, however, was the first to recover, and he in a stentorian voice called-- "Murder! Murder!" Then the churchwarden joined in the cries, and they buffeted each other in vain efforts to rise, each impeding the other to a degree that rendered it a matter of impossibility for either of them to get to their feet. Mr. Vickley, who was waiting in the church above, with no small degree of anxiety, the report from below, heard these sounds of contention and calls for help with mingled horror. He at once made a rush to the door of the church, and, no doubt, would have endangered the success of all Sir Richard Blunt's plans, if he had not been caught in the arms of a tall stout man upon the very threshold of the church door. "Help! murder! Who are you?" "Crotchet they calls me, and Crotchet's my name. London my birth place, is yourn the same? What's the row?" "Call a constable. There's blue murder going on in the vaults below." "The devil there is. Just you get in there, will you, and don't you stir for your life, old fellow." So saying, Mr. Crotchet, who knew the importance of secrecy in the whole transaction, and who had been purposely awaiting for Sir Richard Blunt, thrust Vickley into a pew, and slammed the door of it shut. Down fell the overseer to the floor, paralysed with terror; and then Mr. Crotchet at once proceeded to the opening in the floor of the church, and descended without a moment's hesitation. "Hilloa!" he cried, as he alighted at the bottom of the stairs upon the churchwarden's back. "Hilloa, Sir Richard, where are you?" "Here," said a voice, and with the torch nearly extinguished, Sir Richard Blunt made his appearance from the passage. "Who is there?" "Crotchet, it is." "Indeed. Why, what brought you here?" "What a row." "Why--why, what's all this? You are standing upon somebody. Why bless my heart it's--" Out went the torch. "Fire!--help!--murder!" shouted the beadle, "I'm being suffocated. Oh, conwulsions! Here's a death for a beadle. Murder! robbery. Fire--oh--oh--oh." The churchwarden groaned awfully. "Ascend, and get a light," said Sir Richard. "Quick, Crotchet, quick! God only knows what is the matter with all these people." Both Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt scrambled over the bodies of the churchwarden and the beadle, and soon reached the church. The churchwarden made a desperate effort, and, shaking himself free of the beadle, he ascended likewise, and rolled into a pew, upon the floor of which he sat, looking a little deranged. "If you don't come up," said Sir Richard Blunt, directing his voice down the staircase, "we will replace the stone, and you may bid adieu to the world." "Conwulsions!" roared the beadle. "Oh, don't--conwulsions!" Up he tumbled, with the most marvellous celerity, and rolled into the church, never stopping until he was brought up by the steps in front of the communion-table, and there he lay, panting and glaring around him, having left his cocked hat in the regions below. Sir Richard Blunt looked ghastly pale, which Crotchet observing, induced him to take a small flask from his pocket, filled with choice brandy, which he handed to his chief. "Thank you," said Sir Richard. The magistrate took a draught, and then he handed it to the churchwarden, as he said-- "I'll fill it again." "All's right." The churchwarden took a pull at the brandy, and then the beadle was allowed to finish it. They were both wonderfully recovered. "Oh, Sir Richard," said the churchwarden, "what have you seen?" "Nothing particular." "Indeed!" "No. You can have the stone replaced as soon as you like, over the opening to the vaults." "And you have seen nothing?" said the beadle. "Nothing to speak of. If you have any doubts or any curiosity, you can easily satisfy yourself. There's the opening. Pray descend. You see I have escaped, so it cannot be very dangerous to do so. I will not myself go again, but I will wait for either of you, if you please. Now, gentlemen, go, and you will be able to make your own discoveries." "Me?" cried the beadle. "Me? Oh, conwulsions! I thinks I sees me." "Not I," said the churchwarden. "Cover it up--cover it up. I don't want to go down. I would not do so for a thousand pounds." A covert smile was upon the lips of Sir Richard Blunt as he heard this, and he added-- "Very well; I have no objection, of course, to its being at once covered up; and I think the least that is said about it, will be the better." "No doubt of that," said the churchwarden. "Conwulsions! yes," said the beadle. "If I was only quite sure as all my ribs was whole, I shouldn't mind; but somebody stood a-top of me for a good quarter of an hour, I'm sure." Some of the workmen now began to arrive, and Sir Richard Blunt pointed to them, as he said to the churchwarden-- "Then the stone can be replaced without any difficulty, now; and, sir, let me again caution you to say nothing about what has passed here to-day." "Not a word--not a word. If you fancy somebody stood upon your ribs, Mr. Beadle, I am quite sure somebody did upon mine." The workmen were now directed to replace the stone in its former position; and when that was completely done, and some mortar pressed into the crevices, Sir Richard Blunt gave a signal to Crotchet to follow him, and they both left the church together. "Now, Crotchet, understand me." "I'll try," said Crotchet. "No one, for the future, is to be shaved in Sweeney Todd's shop alone." "Alone?" "Yes. You will associate with King, Morgan, and Godfrey; I will stand all necessary expenses, and one or the other of you will always follow whoever goes into the shop, and there wait until he comes out again. Make what excuses you like. Manage it how you will; but only remember, Todd is never again to have a customer all to himself." "Humph!" "Why do you say humph?" "Oh, nothing partickler; only hadn't we better grab him at once?" "No; he has an accomplice or accomplices, and their discovery is most important. I don't like to do things by halves, Crotchet; and so long as I know that no mischief will result from a little delay, and it will not, if you obey my instructions, I think it better to wait." "Very good." "Go at once, then, and get your brother officers, and remember that nothing is to withdraw your and their attention from this piece of business." "All's right. You know, Sir Richard, you have only to say what's to be done, and it's as good as done. Todd may shave now as many people as he likes, but I don't think he'll polish 'em off in his old way quite so easy." "That's right. Good day." "When shall we see you, Sir Richard?" "About sunset." By the time this little conversation was over, Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet had got through Temple Bar, and then they parted, Crotchet taking his way back to Fleet Street, and Sir Richard Blunt walking hastily to Downing Street. When he got there he entered the official residence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and being well known to the clerk, he was at once conducted into a little room carefully hung round with crimson cloth, so as to deaden the sound of any voices that might be raised in it. In the course of a few minutes a small door was opened, and a shabby looking man entered, with a hesitating expression upon his face. "Ah, Sir Richard Blunt," he said, "is that you?" "Yes, your lordship, and if you are disengaged for a few minutes, I have something to communicate." "Ah, some new plot. Confound those Jacobin rascals!" "No, my lord, the affair is quite domestic and social. It has no shade of politics about it." The look of interest which the face of the secretary had assumed was gone in a moment, but still he could not very well refuse now to hear what Sir Richard Blunt had to say, and the conference lasted a quarter of an hour. At its termination, as Sir Richard was leaving the room, the secretary said-- "Oh, yes, of course, take full discretionary powers, and the Home-office will pay all expenses. I never heard of such a thing in all my life." "Nor I, my lord." "It's really horrible." "It is even so far as we know already, and yet I think there is much to learn. I shall, of course, communicate to your lordship anything that transpires." "Certainly--certainly. Good day." Sir Richard Blunt left the Secretary of State, and proceeded to his own residence, and while he is there, making some alteration in his dress, we may as well take a glance at Crotchet, and see what that energetic but somewhat eccentric individual is about. After parting with Sir Richard Blunt at Temple Bar, he walked up Fleet Street, upon Sweeney Todd's side of the way, until he overtook a man with a pair of spectacles on, and a stoop in his gait, as though age had crept upon him. "King," said Crotchet. "All right," said the spectacled old gentleman in a firm voice. "What's the news?" "A long job, I think. Where's Morgan?" "On the other side of the way." "Well, just listen to me as we walk along, and if you see him, beckon him over to us." As they walked along Crotchet told King what were the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, and they were soon joined by Morgan. The other officer, Godfrey, who had been mentioned by the magistrate, was sent for. "Now," said Crotchet, "here we are, four of us, and so you see we can take it two and two for four hours at a stretch as long as this confounded barber's shop keeps open." "But," said Morgan, "he will suspect something." "Well, we can't help that. It's quite clear he smugs the people, and all we have got to do is to prevent him smugging any more of 'em you see." "Well, well, we must do the best we can." "Exactly; so now keep a bright look out, and hang it all, we have been in enough rum adventures to be able to get the better of a rascally barber, I should think. Look out--look out; there's somebody going in now." CHAPTER LI. JOHANNA RUSHES TO HER DESTINY. Johanna had enough confidants now. Her father--Colonel Jeffery--Big Ben--and Arabella Wilmot, all knew "The sad story of her love." It will be a hard case if, among so many councillors, she hits upon the worst--a most truly hazardous course of proceeding; but then it is a fault of the young to mistake daring for ability, and to fancy that that course of proceeding which involves the most personal risk is necessarily the most likely to be successful. Colonel Jeffery was, of all Johanna Oakley's advisers, the one who was most likely to advise her well, but unfortunately he had told her that he loved her, and from that time, with an instinctive delicacy of feeling which no one could have to greater perfection than Johanna, she had shunned him. And yet the reader, who knows the colonel well, knows that, quite irrespective of the attachment that had sprung up in his bosom for the beautiful and heart-stricken girl, he would have played the part of a sincere friend to her and stood manfully between her and all danger. But it was not to be. From the moment that he had breathed to her the secret of his attachment, a barrier was, in her imagination, raised between them. Her father evidently was not one who could or who would advise anything at all energetic; and as for Big Ben, the conversation she had had with him upon the subject had quite been sufficient to convince her that to take him out of the ordinary routine of his thoughts and habits was thoroughly to bewilder him, and that he was as little calculated to plot and to plan in any emergency as a child. She would indeed have trembled at the result of the confidential communication to Big Ben, if she had been aware of the frightfully imprudent manner in which he had thrown himself into communication and collision with Todd, the consequences of which glaring act of indiscretion he was only saved from by Sir Richard Blunt entering the shop, and remaining there until he (Ben) was shaved. Under all these circumstances, then, Johanna found herself thrown back upon her old friend Arabella Wilmot. Now, Arabella was the worst adviser of all, for the romantic notions she had received from her novel reading, imparted so strong a tone to her character, that she might be said in imagination to live in a world of the mind. It was, as the reader will recollect, to Arabella Wilmot that Johanna owed the idea of going to Todd in boy's apparel--a measure fraught with frightful danger, and yet, to the fancy of the young girl, fascinating upon that very account, because it had the appearance as though she were doing something really serious for Mark Ingestrie. To Arabella, then, Johanna went, after Ben had left her, and finding her young friend within, she told her all that had occurred since they last met. "What shall I do?" she said. "I tell my tale of woe, and people look kind upon me, but no one helps me." "Oh, Johanna, can you say that of me?" "No, no. Not of you, Arabella, for you see I have come to you again; but of all others, I can and may say it." "Comfort yourself, my dear Johanna. Comfort yourself, my dear friend. Come, now--you will make me weep too, if I see those tears." "What shall I do?--what shall I do?" "There, now, I am putting on my things; and as you are dressed, we will go out for a walk, and as we go along we can talk of the affair, and you will find your spirits improve by exercise. Come, my dear Johanna. Don't you give way so." "I cannot help it. Let us go." "We will walk round St. Paul's Churchyard." "No--no. To Fleet Street--to Fleet Street!" "Why would you wish to add to your sorrows, by again looking upon that shop?" "I do not know, I cannot tell you; but a horrible species of fascination draws me there, and if I come from home, I seem as though I were drawn from all other places towards that one by an irresistible attraction. It seems as though the blood of Mark Ingestrie called aloud to me to revenge his murder, by bringing the perpetrators of it to justice. Oh, my friend--my Arabella, I think I shall go mad." Johanna sunk upon her knees by a chair, and hid her fair face in her hands, as she trembled with excess of emotion. Arabella Wilmot began to be really alarmed at the consequences of her friend's excited and overwrought feelings. "Oh, Johanna--Johanna!" she cried, "cheer up. You shall go when you please, so that you will not give way to this sorrow. You do not know how much you terrify me. Rise--rise, I implore you. We will go to Fleet Street, since such is your wish." After a time, Johanna recovered from the burst of emotion that had taken such certain possession of her, and she was able to speak more calmly and composedly to her friend than she had yet done during that visit. The tears she had shed, and the show of feeling that had crept over her, had been a great relief in reality. "Can you pardon me for thus tormenting you with my grief?" said Johanna. "Do not talk so. Rather wonder how I should pardon you if you tell your griefs elsewhere. To whom should you bring them but to the bosom of one who, however she may err in judgment regarding you, cannot err in feeling." Johanna could only press her friend's hand in her own, and look the gratitude which she had not the language to give utterance to. It being then settled that they were to go to Fleet Street, it next became a matter of rather grave debate between them whether they were to go as they were, or Johanna was to again equip herself in the disguise of a boy. "This is merely a visit of observation, Johanna; I will go as I am." "Very well, dear." They accordingly set out, and as the distance from the house of Arabella Wilmot's father was but short to the shop of Sweeney Todd, they soon caught sight of the projecting pole that was his sign. "Now be satisfied," said Arabella, "by passing twice; once up Fleet Street, and once down it." "I will," said Johanna. Todd's shop was closed as usual. There was never an open door to that establishment, so that it was, after all, but a barren satisfaction for poor Johanna to pass the place where her imagination, strengthened by many circumstantial pieces of evidence, told her Mark Ingestrie had met with his death; still, as she had said to Arabella before starting, a horrible sort of fascination drew her to the spot, and she could not resist the fearful attraction that the outside of Todd's shop had for her. They passed rather rapidly, for Arabella Wilmot did not wish Johanna to pause, for fear she should be unable to combat her feelings, and make some sort of exhibition of them in the open street. "Are you content, Johanna?" she said. "Must we pass again?" "Oh, yes--yes. Again and again; I can almost fancy that by continued looking at that place I could see what has been the fate of Mark." "But this is imagination and folly." "It may be so, but when the realities of life have become so hideously full of horrors, one may be excused for seeking some consolation from the fairy cave. Arabella, let us turn again." They had got as far as Temple Bar, when they again turned, and this time Johanna would not pass the shop so abruptly as she had done before, and any one, to see the marked interest with which she paused at the window, would have imagined that she must have some lover there whom she could see, notwithstanding the interior of the shop was so completely impervious to all ordinary gazers. "There is nothing to see," said Arabella. "No. But yet--ha!--look--look!" Johanna pointed to one particular spot of the window, and there was the eye of Sweeney Todd glaring upon them. "We are observed," whispered Arabella; "it will be much better to leave the window at once. Come away--oh, come away, Johanna." "Not yet--not yet. Oh, if I could look well at that man's face, I think I ought to be able to judge if he were likely to be the murderer of Mark Ingestrie." Todd came to his door. "Good God, he is here!" said Arabella. "Come away. Come!" "Never. No! Perhaps this is providential. I will, I must look at this man, happen what may." Todd glared at the two young girls like some ogre intent upon their destruction, and as Johanna looked at him, a painter who loved contrast, might have indeed found a study, from the wonderful difference between those two human countenances. They neither spoke for some few moments, and it was reserved for Todd to break the silence. "What do you want here?" he cried, in a hoarse rough voice. "Be off with you. What do you mean by knocking at the window of an honest tradesman? I don't want to have anything to say to such as you." "He--he did it!" gasped Johanna. "Did what?" said Todd, advancing in a menacing attitude, while his face assumed a most diabolical expression of concealed hatred. "Did what?" "Stop him! Stop him!" cried a voice from the other side of the street. "Stop Pison, he's given me the slip, and I'm blessed if he won't pitch into that ere barber. Stop him. Pison! Pison! Come here, boy. Come here! Oh, lor, he's nabbed him. I knew'd he would, as sure as a horse's hind leg ain't a gammon o' bacon. My eyes, won't there be a row--he's nabbed the barber, like ninepence." Before the ostler at the Bullfinch, for it was from his lips this speech came, could get one half of it uttered, the dog--who is known to the readers by the name of Hector, as well as his new name of Pison--dashed over the road, apparently infuriated at the sight of Todd, and rushing upon him, seized him with his teeth. Todd gave a howl of rage and pain, and fell to the ground. The whole street was in an uproar in a moment, but the ostler rushing over the way, seized the dog by the throat, and made him release Todd, who crawled upon all fours into his own shop. In another moment he rushed out with a razor in his hand. [Illustration: Hector's Attack On Sweeney Todd.] "Where's the dog?" he cried. "Where's the fiend in the shape of a dog?" "Hold hard!" said the ostler, who held Hector between his knees. "Hold hard. I have got him, old chap." "Get out of the way. I'll have his life." "No you won't." "Humph!" cried a butcher's boy who was passing. "Why that's the same dog as said the barber had done for his master, and collected never such a lot of halfpence in his hat to pay the expenses of burying of him." "You villain!" cried Todd. "Go to blazes!" said the boy. "Who killed the dog's master? Ah, ah! Who did it? Ah, ah!" The people began to laugh. "I insist upon killing that dog!" cried Todd. "Do you?" said the ostler; "now, this here dog is a partickler friend of mine, so you see I can't have it done. What do you say to that now, old stick-in-the-mud? If you walk into him, you must walk through me first. Only just put down that razor, and I'll give you such a wolloping, big as you are, that you'll recollect for some time." "Down with the razor! Down with the razor!" cried the mob, who was now every moment increasing. Johanna stood like one transfixed for a few moments in the middle of all this tumult, and then she said with a shudder-- "What ought I to do?" "Come away at once, I implore you," said Arabella Wilmot. "Come away, I implore you, Johanna, for my sake as well as for your own. You have already done all that can be done. Oh, Johanna, are you distracted?" "No--no. I will come--I will come." They hastily left the spot and hurried away in the direction of Ludgate Hill, but the confusion at the shop door of the barber did not terminate for some time. The people took the part of the dog and his new master, and it was in vain that Sweeney Todd exhibited his rent garments to show where he had been attacked by the animal. Shouts of laughter and various satirical allusions to his beauty were the only response. Suddenly, without a word, Todd then gave up the contest and retired into his shop, upon which the ostler conveyed Pison over the way and shut him up in one of the stables of the Bullfinch. Todd, it is true, retired to his shop with an appearance of equanimity, but it was like most appearances in this world--rather deceitful. The moment the door was closed between him and observation he ground his teeth together and positively howled with rage. "The time will come--the time will come," he said, "when I shall have the joy of seeing Fleet Street in a blaze, and of hearing the shrieks of those who are frying in the flames. Oh, that I could with one torch ignite London, and sweep it and all its inhabitants from the face of the earth. Oh, that all those who are now without my shop had but one throat. Ha! ha! how I would cut it." He caught up a razor as he spoke, and threw himself into a ferocious attitude at the moment that the door opened, and a gentleman neatly dressed looked in, saying-- "Do you dress artificial hair?" CHAPTER LII. TODD'S ANNOUNCEMENT. "Yes," said Todd, as he commenced stropping the razor upon his hand as though nothing at all was the matter. "I do anything in an honest and religious sort of way for a living in these bad times." "Oh, very well. A gentleman is ill in bed and wants his peruke properly dressed, as he has an important visit to make. Can you come to his house?" "Yes, of course. But can't the peruke be brought here, sir?" "Yes. But he wants a shave as well, and although he can go in a sedan chair to pay his visit, he is too ill to come to your shop." Todd looked a little suspicious, but only a little, and then he said-- "It's an awkward thing that I have no boy at present, but I must get one--I must get one, and in the meantime, when I am called out I have no resource but to shut up my shop." At this moment a stout man came in, saying-- "Shaved--oh, you are busy. I can wait, Mr. Todd--I can wait," and down he sat. Todd looked at the new-comer with a strange sort of scowl, as he said-- "My friend, have not I seen you here before, or somewhere else?" "Very likely," said the man. "Humph, I am busy and cannot shave you just now, as I have to go out with this gentleman." "Very well, I can wait here and amuse myself until you come back." Todd fairly staggered for a moment, and then he said-- "Wait here--in my shop--and amuse yourself until I come back? No, sir, I don't suffer any one. But it don't matter. Ha! ha! Come in, I am ready to attend you. But stop, are you in a very great hurry for two minutes, sir?" "Oh, dear no, not for two minutes." "Then it will only just take me that time to polish off this gentleman; and if, you will give the address I am to come to, I will be with you almost as soon, sir, as you can get home, I assure you." "Oh, dear no," cried the stranger, who had come in to be shaved, suddenly starting up, "I really could not think of such a thing. I will call again." "It's only in Norfolk Street," said the applicant for the dressing of the artificial hair, "and two minutes can't make any difference to my friend, at all." "Do you think," said the other, "that I would really interrupt business in this way? No, may I perish if I would do anything so unhandsome--not I. I will look in again, Mr. Todd, you may depend, when you are not going out. I shall be passing again, I know, in the course of the day. Pray attend to this gentleman's orders, I beg of you." So saying, the shaving customer bounced out of the shop without another word; and as he crossed the threshold, he gave a wink to Crotchet, who was close at hand, and when that gentleman followed him, he said-- "Crotchet, Todd very nearly got me into a line. He was going out with the person we saw go to the shop, but I got away, or else, as he said, he would have polished me off." "Not a doubt of it, in this here world, Foster," said Crotchet. "Ah, he's a rum 'un, he is. We haven't come across sich a one as he for one while, and it will be a jolly lot o' Sundays afore we meets with sich another." "It will, indeed. Is Fletcher keeping an eye on the shop?" "Oh, yes, right as a trivet. He's there, and so is Godfrey." While this brief conversation was going on between the officers who had been left to watch Sweeney Todd's shop, that individual himself accompanied the customer, whom he had been conversing with, to Norfolk Street, Strand. The well-dressed personage stopped at a good-looking house, and said-- "Mr. Mundell only lodges here for the present. His state of mind, in consequence of a heavy loss he has sustained, would not permit him to stay in his own house at Kensington." "Mr. Mundell?" said Todd. "Yes. That is the gentleman you are to shave and dress." "May I presume to ask, sir, what he is?" "Oh, he is a--a--kind of merchant, you understand, and makes what use of his money he thinks proper." "The same!" gasped Todd. The door of the house was opened, and there was no retreat, although, at the moment, Todd felt as though he would much rather not shave and dress the man of whom he had procured the £8,000 upon the string of pearls; but to show any hesitation now might beget enquiry and enquiry might be awkward, so summoning all his natural audacity to his aid, Todd followed his guide into the house. He was a little puzzled to know who this person could be, until a woman made her appearance from one of the rooms upon the ground floor, and cried-- "There now, go out, do. We don't want you any more; you have got your pocket money, so be off with you, and don't let me see your face again till night." "No, my dear," said the well-dressed personage. "Certainly not. This is the barber." "Good God, Blisset, do you think I am blind, that I can't see the barber. Will you go? The captain is waiting for me to pour out his coffee, and attend to his other concerns, which nobody knows better than you, and yet you will be perpetually in the way." "No, my dear. I--I only--" "Hoity toity, are we going to have a disturbance, Mr. B? Recollect, sir, that I dress you well and give you money, and expect you to make yourself agreeable while I attend to the gentlemen lodgers, so be off with you; I'm sure, of all the troublesome husbands for a woman to have, you are about the worst, for you have neither the spirit to act like a man, nor the sense to keep out of the way." "Ha!" said Todd. Both the lodging-house keeper and his wife started at the odd sound. "What was that?" said the woman. "Only me, madam," said Todd, "I laughed slightly at that blue-bottle walking on the ceiling, that's all." "What a laugh," said Blisset, as he left the house; and then the lady of the mansion turning to Todd, said-- "You are to attend to Mr. Mundell, poor man. You will find him in the front room on the second floor, poor man." "Is he ill, madam?" "Oh, I don't know, I rather think he's grizzling about some of his money, that's all, but it don't matter one way or the other. They say he is as rich as a Jew, and I'll take good care he pays enough here." "Mrs. B--Mrs. B," cried a voice from the parlour. "Yes, captain, I'm coming.--I'm coming, captain." The lady bounced into the breakfast-parlour and closed the door, leaving Todd to find his way up stairs as he best could. After a hideous chuckle at the thought of Mr. Blisset's singular position in society, he commenced ascending the stairs. He accomplished the first flight without meeting with any one, but upon the second he encountered a servant girl with a pail, and Todd gave her such a hideous glance, accompanied by such a frightful contortion of his visage, that down went the pail, and the girl flew up stairs again, and locked herself in one of the attics. Without waiting to ascertain what effect the descent of the pail might have upon the nerves of the captain and the landlady, Todd pursued his course to the room whither he had been directed, and tapped at the door. "Come in," said a meek, tremulous voice. "Come in." Todd opened the door, and stood in the presence of the man over whose long tried skill and habitual cunning he had obtained such a triumph in the affair of the pearls at Mundell Villa. John Mundell now, though, was far from looking like the John Mundell of the villa. He sat by the fire, wrapped up in a flannel dressing-gown, with a beard of portentous length. His cheeks had fallen in. His brow was corrugated by premature wrinkles, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down as though a look of mental distress had become quite a thing of habit with him now. "Who are you?" he growled out, as Todd came into the room, and with a show of carefulness closed the door after him. "Who are you, eh?" "Come to shave you, sir, and dress your hair." "Ah!" cried Mundell, as he gave a start. "Where have I heard that voice before? Why does it put me in mind of my loss? My £8000! My money--my money. Am I to lose another £8000? That will make £16,000. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh dear! Who are you? Speak, friend. Who are you?" "Only a barber, sir," said Todd, "come to shave you, and dress your hair. Ain't you well, sir? Shall I call again?" "No--no--no! My losses distracts me. Only the barber? Ah, yes to be sure--only the barber. I must go to court, and ask for the duke of something. Good God, yes! I will see all the dukes, until I find out my duke. He who had my £8000, and has left me so poor and so wretched. Oh, dear! Oh, dear, my money--my hard-earned money. Oh, gracious, if I were to lose another £8000, I should go mad--mad--mad!" "Shall I begin, sir?" said Todd. "Begin? Begin what? Oh, yes, my hair; and I must be shaved too, or they won't let me in at all. I will have the pearls or my money. I will see all the dukes, and pounce upon _my_ duke. Oh, yes, I will have the pearls or the money." "Pearls, sir?" said Todd, as he began to arrange the shaving apparatus he had brought with him. "Did you say pearls?" "Bah! what do you know about pearls, who, I dare say, never saw one. Bah! You--a poor beggarly barber. But I will have them back, or my money. I will raise London, but I will find them. I will see the queen herself, and know what duke she gave the pearls to, and then I will find him and have my money." "Now, sir. A little this way." "Oh, dear--oh, dear! What do you charge?" "Anything you please, sir. When I come to a gentleman, I always leave it to his generosity to pay me what he pleases." "Ah! more expense. More expense. That means that I am to pay for the service done me, and something else besides for the sake of a compliment upon my liberality. But I ain't liberal. I won't be generous. Where's my money, my pearls; and now to go to all sorts of expense to go to court, and see dukes. Oh, the devil. Eh? Eh?" "Sir?" "Stop. What an odd thing. Why, you are very--very--" "Very what, sir?" said Todd, making a hideous face. "Like the duke, or my fancy leads me astray. Wait a bit. Don't move." Mundell placed his hands over his eyes for a moment, and then suddenly withdrawing them he looked at Todd again. "Yes, you are like the duke. How came you to be like a duke, the villain. Oh, if I could but see my pearls." "What duke, sir?" "I would give £500--no, I mean £100, that is £50, to know what duke," screamed Mundell with vehemence. Then suddenly lapsing into quietness, he added--"Shave me. Shave me, I will go to court, and St. James's shall ring again with the story of my pearls. Lost! lost! lost! Did he abscond from his wife with them, or was he murdered? I wonder? I wonder?--£8000 gone all at once. I might have borne such a loss by degrees, but d--n it--" "Really, sir, if you will go on talking about pearls and dukes, the shaving brush will go into your mouth, and there's no such thing as avoiding it." "Confound you. Go on. Shave me and have done with it. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" John Mundell now contented himself by uttering drawn sighs, with now and then the accompaniment of a hideous groan, while Todd lathered his face with great affected care. The sighs and the groans both, however, ceased soon, and Todd became aware that the eyes of John Mundell were fixed upon him with a steady stare. No doubt, the usurer was recalling bit by bit to his memory the features of the sham duke, and comparing them with Todd's. To be sure, upon the occasion of his visit to Mundell Villa, Todd had taken every precaution to disguise his features; but then it must be admitted that the features of the barber were rather peculiar, and that John Mundell was professionally a more than ordinary keen observer, and thus it was that, as Todd lathered away, he became more and more impressed by the fact that there was a startling resemblance between Todd and the nobleman who had borrowed £8000 upon the string of pearls. "What's your name?" he said. "Todd." "Humph! a well-to-do man?" "Poor as Job." "How very like you are to a great man. Do you ever go to court? I think--I am sure I have seen you somewhere." "Very likely," said Todd, "for I often go there." "What, to court?" "Nay, sir, not to court, but somewhere. Will you have the whiskers left just as they are, or taken off entirely, sir?" Tap! tap! came at the chamber door, and a boy peeped in, saying-- "Please, sir, the tailor has brought the things." CHAPTER LIII. THE MURDER OF THE USURER. "Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a buffoon. Come in. Well, who are you?" "Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir. The full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready to-day, sir." "Oh, you are a tailor?" "Oh, dear no, sir. We are not tailors now a days. We are artists." "Curse you, whatever you are. I don't care. Some artist I'm afraid has done me out of £8000. Oh, dear. Put down the things. What do they come to?" "Eighteen pounds ten shillings and threepence, sir." John Mundell gave a deep groan, and the tailor brushed past Todd to place the clothes upon a side table. As he returned he caught sight of Todd's face, and in an instant his face lighting up, he cried-- "Ah! how do? How do?" "Eh!" said Todd. "How did the Pompadour coloured coat and the velvet smalls do, eh?--Fit well? Lord, what a rum start for a barber to have a suit of clothes fit for a duke." "Duke!" cried Mundell. Todd lifted one of his huge feet and gave the "artist" a kick that sent him sprawling to the door of the room. "That," he said, "will teach you to make game of a poor man with a large family, you scoundrel. What, you won't go, won't you? The--" The artist shot out at the door like lightning, and flew down the stairs as though the devil himself was at his heels. Todd carefully closed the door again, and fastened it by a little bolt that was upon it. A strange expression was upon the countenance of John Mundell. His face looked perfectly convulsed, and he slowly rose from his chair. Todd placed one of his huge hands upon his breast and pushed him back again. "What's the matter?" said Todd. "He--he--knows you." "Well." "The Pompadour coloured coat! Ah, I recollect the Pompadour coloured coat, too. I thought I knew your face. There was a something, too, about your voice that haunted me like the remembrance of a dream. You--you--are--" "What?" "Help--help! Tell me if I be mad, or if you are a duke in the disguise of a barber, or a barber in the likeness of a duke. Ah, that Pompadour coloured coat, it sticks--sticks in my throat." "I wish it did," growled Todd. "What do you mean, Mr. Mundell?--Pray express yourself. What do you mean by those incoherent expressions?" "Are you human?" "Dear me, I hope so. Really, sir, you look quite wild." "Stop--stop--let me think--the face--the voice--the Pompadour coat--the costume fit for a duke. It must be so.--Man or devil, I will grapple with you, for you have got my pearls and my money. My £8000--my gold that I have lived, that I have toiled for--that I have schemed, and cheated to keep up--that I have shut my eyes to all sights for--and my heart to all tender emotions. You have my money, and I will denounce you!" "Stop," said Todd. The usurer paused in what he was saying, but he still glared at Todd fiercely, and his eyes protruded from their orbits, while the muscles of his mouth worked as though he were still trying to utter audible sounds, but by some power was denied the capacity to utter them. "You say you have lost pearls?" "Yes--yes.--Orient pearls." Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of John Mundell, as he said-- "Were they like these?" With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified avarice gushed from his eyes. "My own--my own pearls--my beautiful pearls!--Oh, blessed chance--my pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!" "Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell was sitting. With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound. Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair. Gasp--gasp--gasp--bubble--gasp--bubble.--Ah! ah! ah!--Goggle--goggle. A slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead. Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom again. "How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's only one more--a dirty job rather--but business is business!" He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in perfect secrecy. But then there he was.--Who but he could be accused? There he stood, the self-convicted murderer. Had he not done the deed with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable cold-blooded murder? We shall see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass. Todd was careful--very careful not to tread in it, and he looked down his garments to see if there were any tell-tale spots of gore; but standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been saved from anything of the sort. There he stood, externally spotless, like many a seeming and smirking sinner in this world--but oh, how black and stained within! "Humph!" said Todd; "John Mundell was half distracted by a heavy loss. He was ill, and his mind was evidently affected. He could not even shave himself. Oh, it is quite evident that John Mundell, unable to bear his miseries, real or ideal, any longer, in a fit of partial insanity, cut his throat. Yes, that will do." Todd still kept the razor in his grasp. What is he going to do?--Murder again the murdered?--Is he afraid that a man, "With twenty murders on his head!" will jostle him from his perilous pinnacle of guilty safety?--No. He takes one of the clammy dead hands in his own--he clasps the half rigid fingers over the handle of the razor, and then he holds them until, in the course of a minute or so, they have assumed the grasp he wishes, and the razor, with which he, Todd, did the deed of blood, is held listlessly, but most significantly, in the hand of the dead. [Illustration: The Murder Of The Usurer.] "That will do," said Todd. The door is reached and unfastened, and the barber slips out of the room. He closes the door again upon the fetid hot aroma of the blood that is there, fresh from the veins of a human being like himself--no--no--not like himself.--No one can be like Sweeney Todd. He is a being of his own species--distinct, alone, an incarnation of evil! Todd was in no particular hurry to descend the stairs. He gained the passage with tolerable deliberation, and then he heard voices in the parlour. "What a man you are!" said Mrs. Blisset. "Ah, my dear, I am indeed. Who would not be a man for your sake? As for Mr. Blisset, I don't think him worth attention." "Nor I," said the lady, snapping her fingers, "I don't value him that. The poor mean-spirited wretch--he's not to be compared to you, captain." "I should think not, my love. Have you got any change in your pocket?" "Yes. I--I-think I have about seven shillings or so." "That will do. Much obliged to you, madam--I mean, my dear Mrs. B. Ah, if you would but smother Blisset, so that I might have the joy of making you Mrs. Captain Coggan, what a happy man I should be." Todd tapped at the door. "What was that?" cried the captain in evident alarm; "Is it Blisset?" "No, captain--oh, no; I should like to see him interrupt me, indeed. A pretty thing that I cannot do what I like in the house I keep. Come in." Todd just opened the door far enough to introduce his hideous head; and having done so, stared at the pair with such a selection of frightful physiognomical changes, that they both sat transfixed with horror. At length Todd broke the silence by saying-- "He's frightfully nervous." "What?--what?--who?" gasped the captain. "What?" repeated Mrs. Blisset. "What's his name, upstairs, that I was sent for to shave just now." "What, Mr. Mundell. Ah, poor man, he has been in a very nervous state ever since he has been here. He continually talks of a heavy loss he has had." "Yes," said Todd, "I suppose he means you to pay me." "Me?" "Yes, ma'am. He says he is too nervous and excited for me to shave him just now, but he has borrowed a razor from me and says he will shave himself in the course of an hour or so, and send it back to me." "Oh, very well. Your money will be sent with the razor, no doubt; for although Mr. Mundell is so continually talking of his losses, they tell me he is as rich as a Jew." "Thank you, ma'am. Good morning; good morning, sir." The captain cast a supercilious glance upon Todd, but did not deign to make the remotest reply to the mock civility with which he was bidden good morning. No one stands so much upon his dignity, as he whose title to any at all is exceedingly doubtful. The female heart, however, is mollified by devotion, and Mrs. Blisset returned the adieu of Todd. When he got into the passage, he uttered one of his extraordinary laughs, and then opening the street door, he let himself out. Todd by no means hurried back to Fleet Street, but as he walked along he now and then shrugged his shoulders and shook his huge hands, which, to those acquainted with his peculiarities, would have been sufficient indications of the fact that he was enjoying himself greatly. At length he spoke-- "So--so--what a Providence we have, after all, watching over us. The moment I am in any real danger as regards the string of pearls, up starts some circumstance that enables me to ward it off. Well, well, some day I almost think I shall turn religious and build a church, and endow it. Ha!" Todd was so tickled at the idea of his building a church and endowing it, that he stopped at the corner of Milford Lane, to enjoy an unusual amount of laughter; as he did so he saw no other than Mrs. Ragg, slowly coming towards him. "Ah," he said, "Tobias's mother. The mother of the Tobias that was!--I will avoid her." He darted on, and was through Temple Bar before Mrs. Ragg could make up her mind which way to run, for run she fully intended to do, when she saw Todd standing at the corner of Milford Lane. But she had no occasion for hurrying from him, as he walked in the direction of his shop as speedily as possible. Although he was perfectly satisfied with the clever manner he had ridded himself of the usurer, who probably might have been a source of annoyance to him, and who might eventually have been the means of bringing him to justice, he thought that he might be losing opportunities of making more victims for the accumulation of his ill-gotten wealth. CHAPTER LIV. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S PROGRESS. We will now return, and see with what zeal Sir Richard Blunt and his active co-operators are at work, and how that persevering gentleman has taken the cause of humanity in hand, with a determined will to bring the atrocious criminals to a just tribunal. Sir Richard and his men continued to pass and repass Todd's window, and one or other had an eye upon the door, so that it was almost impossible for any one to go in without the officers seeing them; and as some one of the officers followed each customer into the shop, under some pretence, and did not return till the strangers had been shaved, it was impossible that he could continue his murderous trade. The barouet, however, could not continue to remain long in the vicinity of Todd's shop without exciting the suspicions of that crafty demon in human form. Todd seemed very ill at ease, and his eye was more frequently at the hole which commanded a view of everything within range of his window, and in spite of the various guises the officers assumed, he seemed to take a more close survey of their features than he had done when they had first visited his shop. It was rarely that his customers came in pairs, otherwise it would have continually prevented his schemes; but now none came alone, each one had his companion or attendant. One morning, almost as soon as the barber had opened his shutters, a seafaring man entered his shop in haste, and throwing himself on a chair, requested to be shaved immediately. He appeared to have but lately returned from India, or some other hot climate, for his features were well bronzed, and from his general aspect and conversation, he appeared to be a man of superior station in life. However, in this manner, the barber reasoned and came to the conclusion that he should have a good morning's work if none of his tormentors came to avert his intentions. "A fine morning, sir," said Todd. "Very," said the stranger; "but make haste and accomplish your task; I have a payment to make to a merchant in the city this morning by nine o'clock, and it is now more than half-past eight." "I will polish you off in no time," said the barber, with a grin; "then you can proceed and transact your business in good time. Sit a little nearer this way, sir, the chair will only stand firmly in one position, and it is exceedingly uncomfortable for gentlemen to remain, even for a few moments, on an unsteady chair." Todd adjusted the chair, by dint of what appeared to the stranger to be a deal of unnecessary trouble, and he said-- "You seem remarkably anxious to put the chair in what you call a comfortable position, but we sailors are rather rough, therefore you need not make so much fuss about my comfort for so short a time, but proceed with the business." Todd seemed rather disconcerted at the stranger's remarks, and could not understand whether his words were uttered by chance, or imported more than Todd liked. "It is a maxim of mine, sir," said Todd, "to make everybody that comes to my shop as comfortable as possible during the short time they remain with me. One half-inch further this way, sir, and you will be in a better position." As he spoke he drew the chair to the spot he wished it, which circumstance seemed to please him, for he looked around him, and indulged in one of those hideous grins he executed just when he was on the point of committing some diabolical act. The gurgling noise he made in his throat caused the seaman to give a sudden start, which Todd perceiving, said-- "Did you hear the noise my poor old cat made, sir? she often does so when strangers come in, sir." "It did not sound much like a cat; but if I had an animal that made such a demoniacal noise, I should soon send her to rest. Every one to their taste, though; I suppose you term the noise, that almost startled me, agreeable." "Yes, sir," said the barber; "I like to hear her, because I think she is enjoying herself; and you know men and beasts require a something to stimulate the system." By this time the lather was over the seaman's face. He could not speak, except at the imminent risk of swallowing a considerable quantity of the soap that Todd had covered his face with. The barber seemed dexterously to ply a razor on the seaman's face, which caused him to make wry faces, indicating that the operation was painful; the grimaces grew more fantastic to the beholder, but evidently less able to be withstood by the person operated upon. "Good God, barber," he at length ejaculated, "why the devil don't you keep better materials?--I cannot stand this. The razor you are attempting to shave me with has not been ground, I should think, for a twelvemonth. Get another and finish me off, as you term it, in no time." "Exactly, sir--I will get one more suited to your beard, and will return in one minute, when you will be polished off to my satisfaction." He entered the little parlour at the back of the shop, but previously he took the precaution of putting his eye to the hole that gave a sight into the street; turning round, apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he went in search of the superior razor he spoke of. A low grating sound, like that of a ragged cord commencing the moving of pullies, was to be heard, when Sir Richard Blunt threw the door open, and took a seat in the shop near where the stranger was sitting. He was so disguised that Todd could not recognise him as the same person that had been in his shop so many times before. The barber's face was purple with rage and disappointment; but he restrained it by an immense effort, and spoke to Sir Richard in a tolerably calm tone-- "Hair cut, sir, or shaved, sir? I shall not be long before I have finished this gentleman off--perhaps you would like to call in again in a few minutes?" "Thank you; I am not in a particular hurry, and being rather tired I will rest myself in your shop, if you have no objection." "My shop is but just open, and our ventilation being bad, it is much more pleasant to inhale the street air for a few minutes, than the vitiated air of houses in this neighbourhood." "I am not much afraid of my health for a few minutes, therefore would rather take rest." Todd turned his face away and ground his teeth, when he found that all his arguments were unavailing in moving the will of his new customer; therefore he soon finished shaving the first customer. "At your service, sir," said Todd to Sir Richard, who seemed absorbed in reading a newspaper he took from his pocket. He looked up, and saw that the stranger was nearly ready to leave, therefore he continued reading till the stranger was in the act of passing out of the shop, when he said-- "What time do the royal family pass through Temple-bar to the City this morning?" "Half-past nine," said Todd. "Then I have not time to be shaved now--I will call in again. Good morning." Saying which he also left the shop. In a few minutes after leaving the shop of Todd, Sir Richard and the men employed by him were in consultation; and he urged strongly that the men should remain nearer to the shop than they had hitherto done, for if Sir Richard had been two minutes later, most likely he who had escaped the angry billows, would have been launched into eternity by the villanous barber. For the remainder of the day Todd was more closely besieged than ever, and when night came on, Sir Richard Blunt, with two of his men, set watch upon the house of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard had provided himself with skeleton keys, candles, and other housebreaking implements, for the purpose of entering Mrs. Lovett's house after that lady had retired, as he had the full sanction of the law to use every means he could think of in bringing the culprits to justice. About eleven o'clock Mrs. Lovett was seen in her bedroom, with a candle in her hand, and making every preparation for retiring; in a few minutes the light was put out, and everything seemed still as death. Nothing was to be heard in the adjoining streets but the monotonous tread of the watchmen, with an occasional drawling forth of the hour of the night. This was the time Sir Richard had waited for--it was the time for him to act. He approached the street door and applied his implements with success, for the door yielded to the baronet's tools, and he soon was in the shop of the piemaker. As complete a silence reigned within as was maintained without. He waited for some time yet, though, before he moved. Finding, at length, that all was profoundly still, and feeling quite convinced that Mrs. Lovett had really retired for the night, the magistrate set about procuring a light. By the aid of some chemical matches that he had with him, this was soon accomplished, and a faint blue light shone upon the various articles in the pie-shop of Mrs. Lovett. He then took a small piece of wax taper from his pocket, and lit it. This gave him sufficient light to enable him to distinguish with accuracy any object in the place. Once again he listened, in order to be quite sure that Mrs. Lovett was not stirring, and then, finding himself perfectly satisfied upon that head, he fearlessly commenced an examination of the shop. There was nothing to excite any very particular attention, except the apparatus for lowering the platform upon which the pies were sent up from the ovens below, and in a few moments the whole attention of Sir Richard Blunt was concentrated upon that contrivance. He did not meddle with it further, than looking at it sufficiently to fully comprehend it, for he had other views just then. After, then, making himself quite master of the details of that piece of machinery, he turned his whole attention to the parlour. By the aid of a skeleton-key which he took from his pocket, he opened the door with ease, and at once entered that room, where lay the remains of the supper which Mrs. Lovett had so liberally provided for Sweeney Todd. This parlour was rather a large rambling-room, with a number of snug, handy looking cupboards in various corners. It was towards those cupboards that Sir Richard Blunt directed his attention. They were all locked, but with the means he had with him, ordinary locks presented no impediment to the prosecution of his research. CHAPTER LV. MRS. LOVETT'S WALK. Suddenly he heard, or fancied he heard a noise above in the house, like the sudden shutting of a door. "Oh," thought Sir Richard, "all is safe. She is shutting herself in for the night, I suppose. Well, Mrs. Lovett, we will see what we can find in your cupboards." The little bit of wax light, which Sir Richard had lighted, gave but a weak kind of twilight while he moved about with it in his hand, but when he stuck it on a corner of the mantel-shelf it burnt much clearer, and was sufficient to enable him just to see what he was about. So thoroughly impressed was he with the idea that Mrs. Lovett had retired to rest, that he paid no sort of attention to the house, and may be said, in a manner of speaking, to have negligently shut his ears to all sounds that did not violently attack them. He opened a cupboard, in which were some books, and on the top-shelf, lying in a confused kind of heap, were some watches, and several sets of very rich buckles for shoes. There were, likewise, several snuff-boxes in the lot. Were these little trifles presented to Mrs. Lovett, by Todd, as proofs of the thriving business he was carrying on? Sir Richard put two of the watches in his pocket. "These may be identified," he said. "And now, if I can but find the door by which she descends to the oven below, I--" At this moment he was startled by a sudden accession of light in the room. His first idea, and a natural enough one too, was, that the little wax light was playing some vagaries incidental to all lights, and he turned rapidly from the cupboard to look at it. What was his astonishment to see the door that led to the upper part of the house open, and Mrs. Lovett, partially undressed, standing upon the threshold with a chamber-candlestick in her hand in which was a rushlight, the dim and dubious rays from which had produced the extra illumination that had first startled Sir Richard Blunt. No wonder that, with amazement upon his countenance, he now glanced upon this vision, for such it looked like at the moment; and yet he saw that Mrs. Lovett it was to all intents and purposes, and that he was discovered in his exploring expedition in her parlour appeared to be one of those facts it would have required no small share of moral hardihood to dispute. Seeing, however, should not always be believing, despite the venerable saying which asserts as much. [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett In A State Of Somnambulism.] "I must apprehend her, now," thought Sir Richard Blunt; "I have no resource but to apprehend her at once." With this object he was about to dart forward, when something strange about the appearance of Mrs. Lovett arrested his attention, and stayed his progress. He paused and remained leaning partly upon the back of a chair, while she slowly advanced into the room, and then as she came nearer to him he became convinced of what he had begun to suspect, namely--that she was walking in her sleep. There is something awful in this wandering of the mortal frame when its senses seem to be locked up in death. It looks like a resurrection from the grave--as though a corpse was again revisiting "The glimpses of the pale moon;" and even Sir Richard Blunt, with all his constitutional and acquired indifference to what would be expected to startle any one else could not help shrinking back a little, and feeling an unusual sort of terror. This transient nervousness of his, though, soon passed away, and then he set himself to watch the actions of Mrs. Lovett with all the keenness of intense interest and vividly awakened curiosity. She did not disappoint him. Moving forward into the room with a slow and stately action, so that the little flame of the rushlight was by no means disturbed, she reached the middle of the parlour and then she paused. She assumed such a natural attitude of listening, that Sir Richard Blunt voluntarily shrunk down behind the chair, for it seemed to him at the moment that she must have heard him. Then, in a low and slightly indistinct tone, she spoke-- "Hush! hush! So still. The poison! Where is the poison?--Will he take it? Ah, that is the question, and yet how clear it is. But he is fiend-like in his suspicions. When will he come?" She moved on towards the cupboard, in which the decanter of poisoned wine had been placed, and opening it, she felt in vain upon the shelf for it. It was still upon the table, and if anything more than another could have been a convincing proof of the mere mechanical actions of the somnambulist, this fact, that she passed the wine where it was, and only recollected where it had been, would have been amply sufficient. After finding that her search was ineffectual, she turned from the cupboard, and stood for a few moments in silence. Then a horror shook her frame, and she said-- "They must all die. Bandage your eyes, and you will shut out the death shrieks. Yes, that will be something, to get rid of those frightful echoes. Bandage after bandage will, and shall do it." Sir Richard stood silently watching; but such was the horror of the tones in which she spoke, that even his heart felt cold, as though the blood flowed but sluggishly through its accustomed channels. "Who," he thought to himself, "for the world's wealth, would have this woman's memory of the past?" She still held the light, and it appeared to him as though she were about to go into the shop, but she paused before she reached the half-glass door of communication between it and the parlour, and shook like one in an ague. "Another!--another!" she said. "How strange it is that I always know. The air seems full of floating particles of blood, and they all fall upon me! Off, off. Oh, horror! horror! I choke--I choke. Off, I say. How the hot blood steams up in a sickly vapour. There--there, now! Why does Todd let them shriek in such a fashion?" She now shook so, that Sir Richard Blunt made sure she would either drop the light she carried, or, at all events, shake it out, but neither of these contingencies took place; and, after a few moments, she got more calm. The violent agitation of her nerves gradually subsided. She spoke horrors, but it was in a different tone; and abandoning, apparently, the intention of going into the shop, she approached a portion of the parlour which had not yet been subjected to the scrutiny of Sir Richard Blunt, although it would not ultimately have escaped him. The appearance of this part of the room was simply that there was there a cupboard, but the back of this seeming cupboard formed, in reality, the door that led down the flight of stairs to the other strong iron door that effectually shut in the captive cook to his duties among the ovens. This was just the place that Sir Richard Blunt wanted to find out; and here we may as well state, that Sir Richard had an erroneous, but very natural idea, under the circumstances, that the cook or cooks were accomplices of Mrs. Lovett in her nefarious transactions. Had he been at all aware of the real state of affairs below, our friend, who had become so thoroughly disgusted with the pies, would not have been left for so long in so precarious a situation. Mrs. Lovett paused, after opening the lock of the cupboard, and in a strange, sepulchral sort of voice, she said-- "Has he done it?" "Done what?" Sir Richard would fain have asked; but, although he had heard that people, when walking in their sleep, will answer questions put to them under such circumstances, he was doubtful of the fact, and by no means wished to break the trance of Mrs. Lovett. "Has he done it?" she again repeated. "Is he no more? How many does it make? One--two--three--four--five--six--seven. Yes, seven, it must be the seventh, and I have heard all. Hush! hush! Todd--Todd--Todd, I say. Are you dead? No--no. He would not drink the wine. The devil, his master, whispered to him that it had in it the potent drug that would send his spirits howling to its Maker, and he would not drink. God! he would not drink! No--no--no!" She pronounced these words in such a tone of agony, that her awakening from the strange sleep she was in, seemed to be a natural event from such a strong emotion, but it did not take place. No doubt Mrs. Lovett had been long habituated to these nocturnal rambles. She now began slowly and carefully the descent of the stairs leading to the oven; but she had not got many paces, when a current of air from below, and which, no doubt, came through the small grating in the iron door, extinguished her light. This circumstance, however, appeared to be perfectly unnoticed by her, and she proceeded in the profound darkness with the same ease as though she had had a light. Sir Richard would have followed her as he was, but in the dark he did not feel sufficient confidence in her as a guide to do so; and with as noiseless a tread as possible, he went back, and fetched from the chimney-piece shelf his own little wax light, which was still burning, and carefully guarding its flame from a similar catastrophe to what had happened to Mrs. Lovett's light, he descended the staircase, slowly and cautiously, after her. She went with great deliberation, and it was not until being rather surprised at the total absence of sound from her tread, that upon looking down to her feet, he found that they were bare. After this, he could have no doubt but that, almost immediately upon her lying down in bed, this somnambulistic trance had come over her, and she had risen to creep below, and go through the singular scene we are describing. Step by step they both descended, until Mrs. Lovett came to the iron door. She did not attempt to open it. If she had, Heaven only knows what might have resulted from the desperate risk the captive cook might have made to escape. But even in the madness of Mrs. Lovett--for a sort of madness the scene she was enacting might be called--there was a kind of method, and she had no idea of opening the iron door that shut the cook from the upper world. Pausing, then, at the door leading to the ovens, she, with as much facility as though she had had broad daylight to do it in, unfastened the small square wicket in the top part of the window. A dull reddish glare of light came through it from the furnaces, which night nor day were extinguished. "Hist! hist!" said Mrs. Lovett. "Who speaks?" said a dull hollow voice, which sounded as if coming from the tomb. "Who speaks to me?" Mrs. Lovett shut the small wicket in a moment. "He has not done it, yet," she said. "He has not done it yet. No--no--no. But blood will flow--yes. It must be so. One--two--three--four--five--six--seven. The seventh, and not the last. Horrible! horrible!--most horrible! If, now, I could forget--" She began rapidly to ascend the stairs, so that Sir Richard Blunt had to take two at a step, and once three, in order to be up before her, and even then she reached the parlour so close upon him, that it was a wonder she did not touch him; but he succeeded in evading her by a hair's breadth, and then she stood profoundly still for a few moments with her hands clasped. This quiescent state, however, did not last long, for suddenly, with eagerness, she leaned forward, and spoke again. "No suspicion!" she said; "all is well!--Dear me, heap up thousands more. Oh, Todd, have we not enough?--There, clean up that blood!--Here is a cloth!--Stop it up--don't you see where it is running to, like a live thing?--He is not dead yet.--How clumsy.--Another blow with the hammer!--There--there--on the forehead!--What a crash!--Did the bone go that time?--Why the eyes have started out!--Horror! horror!--Oh, God, no--no--no--I cannot come here again.--Oh, God!--Oh, God!" She sunk down upon the floor in a huddled up mass, and Sir Richard Blunt, who could not forbear shuddering at the last words that had come from her lips now he thought that her trance was over, rapidly approaching her, said-- "Wretched woman, your career is over." She suddenly rose, and with the same stately movement as before, she made her way from the parlour by the door leading to the staircase. During all the strange scenes she had gone through, she had not abandoned the light, and although the air in the narrow passage of the staircase had extinguished it, she still continued to carry it with the same care as though it lit her on her way. Seeing that she still walked in that strange and hideous sleep, the magistrate let her pass him, nor did he make any attempt to follow her. "Be it so," he said. "Let her awaken once again in the fancied security of her guilt. The doom of the murderess is hanging over her, and she shall not escape. But there is time yet." He watched her until, by the turn of the stairs, she disappeared from his sight, and then he sat down to think. And there, for a brief space, we leave Sir Richard, while we take a peep at Tobias. CHAPTER LVI. TOBIAS UNBOSOMS HIMSELF. Mrs. Ragg, when she met Sweeney Todd, after he had so comfortably put out of this world of care, John Mundell, the usurer, was really upon a mission to Minna Gray, to tell her that Tobias was, to use her own expressive phraseology--"Never so much better." Together with this news, Mrs. Ragg, at the colonel's suggestion, sought the company of Minna to tea upon that afternoon; and the consent of all parties whom it might concern being duly obtained to that arrangement, we will suppose Minna upon her way to Colonel Jeffery's. Timidly, and with a bashful boldness, if we may use the expression, did the fair young girl ring the area bell at the colonel's. But he and his friend, Captain Rathbone, were both in the parlour, and saw her advance, so that she was at once welcomed into that portion of the house. The colonel, like most gentlemen, had the happy knack of making those with whom he spoke at their ease, so that Minna in a very short time recovered her first agitation--for if she had gone a thousand times to that house, agitated she would have been at first--and was able to discourse with all that gentle fervour and candid simplicity which belongs to such minds as hers. "A most favourable change," said the colonel, "has taken place in Tobias--a change which I attribute to the strong influence which your visit had upon him; such an opinion is not a mere fancy of mine, for the medical gentleman who is in attendance upon him fully concurs in that view of the case." Minna had no need to say that she was pleased, for she looked all the delight that such a communication was calculated to give her. "Under these circumstances, then," continued the colonel, "that which was only a faint hope of his recovery, has become a certainty." Minna's eyes filled with tears. "Yes," added Captain Rathbone, "and we expect that to you he will make such revelations as shall bring proper punishment upon all those who have in any way been the cause of this calamity." "Oh, forgive them all, now," said Minna. "Since he recovers, we can forgive them all, you know, now." "That cannot be, for the persecution that Tobias has endured is but part of a system which he will be the means of exposing. Will you come up stairs at once now, Miss Gray, and see him?" "Oh, yes--yes." How her heart beat as she ascended the staircase, and how quickly she inspired and respired when she actually got to the door of Tobias's room. But then she heard the kind, although not very musical voice of Mrs. Ragg from within, say-- "But, my dear, you will give her time to come?" "A long time, mother," said Tobias. Ah, how well Minna knew that voice. It was the voice of Tobias as of old. The same voice, in tone perhaps only a little weakened, and rendered more soft by sickness than it had been, but to her it was like the soft memory of some well remembered tone that she had heard, and wept with joy to hear in happier days. "I am here, Tobias! I am here." "Minna--Minna!" She entered the room radiant and beautiful as some fairy come to breathe joy by the magic of some spell, Tobias stretched out his arms towards her. She paused a moment, and then with a soft and gentle movement, embraced him. It was but for an instant she held him in her arms, and then she stepped back a pace or two and looked at him. "Quite well," said Tobias, understanding the look. "Quite?" "Oh, yes, Minna, and as happy--as--as--fifty kings." "Are kings happy?" "Well, I don't know that they are, Minna, but at all events if they are, they can't possibly be happier than I am." "Bless the boy," said Mrs. Ragg, "how he does talk, to be sure." "Why, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery, "you are wonderfully improved within this last hour." "Yes, sir, and still more wonderfully since the best physician in the world has come to see me." The direction of his eyes towards Minna Gray let them know, if they had not guessed it before, who Tobias considered the best physician in the world to him. Minna shook her head, and said-- "But, Tobias, it is to this gentleman that you owe your life." "Yes," replied Tobias, "and if ever I forget to be grateful to him for all that he has done for me, I shall consider myself the worst person in the world. Aye, as bad, quite as--as Sweeney Todd." Tobias shuddered perceptibly as he pronounced Todd's name, and it was quite evident that even in safety, as he could not but feel himself, and profoundly protected from the deadly malice of his late master, he could not divest himself of the absolute horror which even a mere remembrance of him engendered. "Well, Tobias," said the colonel, as he drew a chair close to him, "since you have named Todd, pray tell us all about him." "All?" "Yes, all, Tobias." "I will tell all I know. Come closer to me, Minna; I feel, when you are near me, as though God had sent one of his angels to keep Todd from me. Oh, yes, I will tell all I know. How can he harm me now?" "How indeed, Tobias?" said Minna. Tobias still trembled. What a shock that bold, bad, unscrupulous man had given to the nerves of that boy. His bodily health might be restored, and his mind once more be brought back to sanity, but if Tobias Ragg were to live to the age of a patriarch, the name of Todd would be to him a something yet to shrink from, and the tone of his nervous system could never be what it once was. Minna looked up in his face, and the colonel, too, gazed fully upon him, so that Tobias found he was absolutely called upon to say something. "Yes," he began, "I remember that people came to the shop, and--and that they never went out of it again." "Can you particularise any instance?" "Yes, the gentleman with the dog." Colonel Jeffery showed by his countenance how much he was interested. "Go on," he said. "What about the gentleman with the dog?" "I don't know how it was," added Tobias, "but that circumstance seemed to tell more upon my fancy than any other. I suppose it was the conduct of the dog." "What sort of a dog was it?" "A large handsome dog, and Todd would not let it remain in the shop, so his master made him wait outside." "Did he name the dog?" Tobias passed his hand across his brow several times, and then his countenance suddenly brightening up, he said-- "Hector! Yes, Hector!" Colonel Jeffery nodded. "What then happened, Tobias?" said Minna. "Why, I think Todd sent me out upon some message, and when I came back the gentleman was gone, but not the dog." "Now, Tobias, can you tell us what sort of a man the man with the dog was?" "Yes, fresh-coloured, and good-looking rather, with hair that curled. I should know him again." "Ah, Tobias," said the colonel, "I am afraid we shall none of us ever see him again in this world." "Never!" said Tobias. "Todd killed him. How he did it, or what he did with the body, I know not; but he did kill him, and many more, I am certain as that I am now here. Many people came into the shop that never left it again." "No doubt; and now, Tobias, how came you in the street by London Bridge so utterly overcome and destitute?" "The madhouse." "Madhouse?" "Yes, I shall recollect it all. Where are you, mother?" "Bless us and save us!--here, to be sure," said Mrs. Ragg. "Did I not come to you at your room and find you ironing, and did I not tell you that I had something to say about Todd, and ask you to fetch somebody?" "To be sure." "Well, when you left, Todd came, and after once looking in his face, I almost forgot what happened, except that there was a madhouse and a man named Watson." "Watson?" said Colonel Jeffery, as he made a note of the name. "Yes," added Tobias, "and Fogg." "Good! Fogg, I have it. Now, Tobias, where did you encounter this Fogg and Watson?" "That I cannot tell. I recollect trees, and a large house, and rooms, and a kind of garden, and some dark and dismal cells, and then my mind seems, when I think of all those things, like some large room full of horrors, and anything comes before me just like some dreadful dream. I recollect falling, I think, from some wall, and then running at my utmost speed until I fell, and then the next thing that I remember was hearing the voice of Minna in this house." "One thing," said Captain Rathbone, "is pretty certain, and that is, that this madhouse, if it were one in reality, must be in the immediate vicinity of London, or else the strength of Tobias would not have enabled him to run so far as to London from it." "Mrs. Ragg, I believe Todd told you that he had placed Tobias in a madhouse, did he not?" said the colonel. "Yes, sir, he did, the wagabone!" "Well, I am inclined to think that it was a madhouse--one of those private dens of iniquity which are, and have been for many years, a disgrace to the jurisprudence of this country." "If so, then," said the captain, "there will be no great difficulty in finding it with the clue that Tobias has given us respecting the names." "I will not be satisfied until I have rooted out that den," said the colonel, "but at present all our exertions must be directed to ascertain the fate of poor Ingestrie. Every circumstance appears really to combine in favour of the opinion of Johanna Oakley, to the effect that this Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie were the same." "It does look marvellously probable," said the captain. "Do you recollect any more, Tobias?" said Minna. "Not clearly, Minna, and I am afraid that what I have recollected is not very clear, but it was the dog that made an impression upon my memory. Many things are, however, now each moment crowding to my mind, and I think that I shall soon be able to recollect much more." "Not a doubt, Tobias. Do not attempt to strain your memory too far now. Things will come back to you gently, and by degrees." "I have no doubt of that, sir, but--but--" "But what, Tobias?" "Oh, sir, you are quite sure--" "Sure of what?" "That when I least expect it, round the curtains of my bed, or from behind some chair, or from some cupboard about twilight, I shall not see the hideous face of Sweeney Todd, and feel his eyes glancing upon me?" Poor Tobias covered his eyes with both his hands, as he gave almost frenzied utterance to these words, and both Colonel Jeffery and his friend, the captain, looked on with aspects of deep commiseration. The former, after the pause of a few moments, to allow the renewed excitement of Tobias fully to subside, spoke to him in a kind but firm voice. "Tobias, listen to me. Do you hear me?" "Yes, sir--oh, yes." "Then I have to tell you that it is impossible Sweeney Todd can now come upon you in the way you mention, or in any other way." "Impossible, sir?" "Yes, quite. He is now watched by the officers of justice, day and night. His house door is never lost sight of for a moment while he is within it, and when he is abroad, he is closely followed and carefully watched by men, any one of whom is more than a match for him; so be at peace upon that head, for Sweeney Todd is more securely kept now than any wild beast in his den." CHAPTER LVII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. All left Sir Richard Blunt, not in a critical situation, but in what may be called an embarrassing one, inasmuch as he could not very well make up his mind what to do next. He had heard much towards her enunciation from the lips of Mrs. Lovett, and he had possessed himself of some property, which he hoped would be authenticated as having belonged to some of Todd's victims. He had likewise found out the mode of secret communication with the ovens below, but whether or not to make any further use of that information just then was a question. While he was debating these matters in his mind, he saw that his little wax light was expiring. He accordingly produced another from his pocket, and lit it, and during the process of so doing, he made up his mind to risk a descent into the regions below, so far as the iron door. He at first took his light in his hand to take it with him, but a few moments' reflection decided him to go in the dark, and placing it upon a corner of the shelf, as he had done before, he opened the cupboard, at the back of which was the secret door, and soon found himself upon the little staircase. Of course, the object of Sir Richard Blunt was to make what discovery he could, without betraying the fact of his own presence; and, accordantly with such a design, hastened lightly as foot could fall, so that he was some few minutes in reaching the iron door, which he felt with his left hand, which he kept during his progress outstretched before him. The next object was to get the little wicket open without noise, for he recollected that Mrs. Lovett had made a sharp sound by the sudden withdrawal of a bolt that secured it on the side next to the staircase. By carefully feeling over the door, he at last lit upon this bolt, and then, by taking his time over it, he succeeded in drawing it back without creating the least sound. When this was done, the wicket yielded easily, for it had no other fastening than that bolt, and when it opened, which it did towards the stairs, the same dull reddish glare came through the small aperture that he had noticed when Mrs. Lovett was there, but he found what he had not noticed upon that occasion, namely, that when the wicket was removed there were iron bars farther securing the opening, so that it was quite clear it was intended to be a thing of strength. When, however, the magistrate found that there was nothing between him and the region of the ovens but this grating, he placed his ear close to it, in order to listen if any one was stirring. After a few moments, he heard a deep groan. Somewhat startled at this sound--for it was certainly unexpected--he tried to pierce with his eyes the obscurity of the place, but the darkness, although not absolute, was of that puzzling character that the more he looked the more all sorts of odd images seemed to be conjured up before his eyes. He began, too, to think that the groan must have been only some accidental sound that he had mistaken, but he was quickly relieved from such an opinion by hearing it again, much more distinctly and unequivocally than it had before sounded upon his ears. There was no possibility of mistaking this groan now; but while the certainty that a groan it was came upon his ears, he became only the more puzzled to account for it; and this state of feeling in him certainly arose from the difficulty he naturally had in conceiving the possibility of any one being upon the premises, and engaged in the service of Mrs. Lovett, unless they were accomplices of that lady. The idea of the captive cook was not at all likely to cross the imagination of any one, and in her revelations upon that head, during her somnambulistic tour, Mrs. Lovett had not been sufficiently explicit to enable Sir Richard Blunt to come to a different conclusion. "I will listen for it again," he thought. After a few moments more he was rewarded for his patience by not only hearing another groan, but a voice, in accents of the most woe-begone character, said-- "I cannot sleep. It is of no avail. Alas! who dare sleep here! God help me, for I am past all human aid." "Who on earth can this be?" said the magistrate to himself. "It would be better for them to kill me at once," continued the voice. "Anything would be preferable to this continued horror; but I suppose they have not suited themselves yet with some one to take my place, so I am not to be sent to see my old friends. Oh, bitter--bitter fate. I would that I were dead!" [Illustration: The Captive Piemaker Contemplates Suicide.] There was a heartiness in the pronunciation of the last word, that quite convinced Sir Richard Blunt of their sincerity; but yet he thought he ought to listen to a little more before he ran the risk of falling into any trap that might be laid for him by Mrs. Lovett or her satellites, if she had any. He had not to wait long, for whoever it was that was speaking had got into a good train of groaning, and did not seem inclined to leave off for some time. "Is she a woman, or the devil in petticoats?" said the voice. "Humph!" thought Sir Richard Blunt, "that would be rather a hard question to answer upon oath." "How much longer am I to bear this load of misery?" continued the voice. "No sleep--no food, but just what will sustain nature in her continued sufferings. Oh, it is most horrible. Have I been preserved from death under many adventurous and fearful circumstances, at last to die here like a rat in a hole?" "What on earth can be the matter with this man?" thought Sir Richard. There was a pause in the lamentations of the man now for a few seconds, during which he only groaned once or twice, just as if by way of letting any one know, who might be listening, that he was not pacified. At length, with a sudden burst of passion, he cried-- "I can bear it no longer. Death of my own seeking, and by my own choice as to method, is far preferable to this state of existence. Farewell, all--farewell to you, fair and gentle girl, whom I loved and whose falseness first gave me a pang such as the assassin's dagger could not have inflicted. Farewell, dear companions of my youth, whom I had hoped to see again!" "Stop!" said Sir Richard Blunt. The captive cook was still. "Stop!" cried Sir Richard Blunt again. "Good God! who is that?" said the voice from the region of the oven. "Your good genius, if I save you from doing anything rash; who and what are you? Tell me all." "To be betrayed. Ah, you are some spy of Mrs. Lovett's of course, and you only wish to draw me into conversation for my destruction." "What were you going to do just now?" "Take my own life." "Well, if you find I am an enemy instead of a friend, as I profess to be, you can but carry out your intention." "That's true." The captive cook pronounced these two words in such a solemn tone, that the magistrate was more than ever convinced of his sincerity, and that he was far more a victim of Mrs. Lovett and her associate, the barber, than an accomplice. "Speak freely," said Sir Richard. "Who and what are you?" "I am the most unhappy wretch that ever breathed. I am cribbed and cabined and confined, I live upon raw flour and water. I curse the hour that I was born, and wish I had been a blind kitten and drowned, rather than what I am." "But what do you do here?" "Make numberless pies." "Well?" "It's all very fine for you to say well, whoever you are, but it is anything but well with me. Where are you?" "Upon the staircase, near an iron door." "Ah, you are at the aperture through which that abominable Mrs. Lovett issues to me her commands and her threats. If you have any compassion in your nature, and the smallest desire to hear a story that will curdle your blood, you will find out the means of opening that door, and then I will climb up to it and make one effort for freedom." "My good friend, I am very much afraid it would materially derange my plans to do so." "Derange your what?" "My plans." "And are any plans to be placed in competition with my life and liberty? Oh, human nature--human nature, what a difference there is in you when you are upon the right side of the door from what you are when you are upon the wrong." "My friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that is a very philosophical remark, and I compliment you upon it. But now answer me truly one question, and for your own sake, and for the sake of justice, I beg you to answer me truly." "What is it?" "Are you in present fear of death?" "No. Not while I continue to make the pies." "Very good!" "Very good? Now by all that's abominable, I only wish you had but to make them here for one week, and at the same time know as much as I know--I rather suspect that you would never say very good again." "One week?" "Yes, only a week." "Pray how long have you been here?" "I have lost count of the long weary days and the anxious nights. Oh, sir, be you whom you may, do not sport with me, for I am very--very wretched!" "If I could but be sure that you are a victim of the woman who lives above," said Sir Richard. "Sure that I am a victim? Oh, God, you suspect me of being her accomplice. Well, well, it is but natural, finding me here--I ought to expect as much. What can I say--what can I do to convince you of the contrary?" "Reveal all." "Do you not know then that--that--" "That what? I may suspect much, but I know nothing." "Then--then--" The man's voice sunk to a husky whisper, and when he had spoken a few words there was a death-like silence between him and Sir Richard Blunt. The latter at length said-- "And you affirm this?" "I am willing to swear to it. Release me from here and take me to any court of justice you please, and I will affirm it. If you have any suspicion of my good faith, manacle me--bind me up in iron until I tell all." "I am convinced." "Oh, joy, I shall look upon the blessed sun again. I shall see the green fields--I shall hear the lark sing, and drink in the odour of sweet flowers. I--I am not quite desolate." Sir Richard Blunt could hear him sobbing like a child. The magistrate did not interrupt this burst of feeling. He was, on the contrary, quite glad to be a witness of it, for it convinced him of the sincerity of the man. He could not think it possible he should find attending upon Mrs. Lovett's ovens so consummate an actor as it would have taken to play that part. After a few moments, however, he spoke, saying-- "Now, my friend, are you one who will listen to reason in preference to merely acting upon the feelings and suggestions of the moment?" "I hope so." "Well, then, I think I could set you free to-night, but to do so would materially interfere with the course of that justice which is about speedily to overtake Mrs. Lovett. By remaining here you will keep things as they are for the present, and that, I assure you, is a great object. You say that while you continue making pies, your life is not in positive peril; I ask of you, for the sake of justice, to put up with your present position a short time longer." "Liberty is sweet." "It is, but you would not like such a woman as Mrs. Lovett to take the alarm and escape the consequences of her crimes." "Oh! no--no. I will remain. For how long will it be?" "I cannot say exactly, but the time may be counted by hours, and not one shall be lost. Have but a little patience, and I will come to you again. When next you hear my voice at the grating, it will be to give the signal of liberty." "How can I thank you?" "Never mind that. Good night, and take care of yourself. All will be well." "Good night. Good night." CHAPTER LVII. BIG BEN MAKES A DISCOVERY. At seven o'clock on the morning following these strange events, there were early prayers at St. Dunstan's, and the bells called together the devout at half-past six. Todd was there! Is the reader surprised? Has he never yet in his mundane experience met with a case of sanctimonious villany? Does he think that going to prayer is incompatible with such a life as Todd's? Pho--pho! Live and learn. Todd met the beadle upon the steps of the church. "Ah, Mr. T.," said that functionary. "It does one good to see you, that it does--a deal of good. I say that, of all the tradesmen in Fleet Street, you is the _piousest_." "We owe a duty to our creator," said Todd, "which all the pomps and vanities of this world ought to make us neglect." "Have you heard o' the suicide in Norfolk Street?" Todd shook his head. "Why, the beadle of St. Clement's was asking of me only last night, what sort of man you was." "I?" "Yes, to be sure. It's a gentleman as you went to shave, and as you lent a razor to, as has cut his blessed throat in Norfolk Street." "God bless me," said Todd, "you don't mean that? Dear! dear! We are indeed here to-day and gone to-morrow. How true it is that flesh is grass;--and so the gentleman cut his throat with my razor, did he?" "Above a bit." "Well, well, it is to be hoped that the Lord will be merciful to the little frailties of his creatures." "Conwulsions! Do you call that a little frailty?" Todd had passed on into the body of the church, and any minute observer might have noticed, that when he got there, there was a manifest and peculiar twitching of his nose, strongly resembling the evolutions of a certain ex-chancellor. Then, in a low tone to himself, Todd muttered-- "They make a great fuss about the smell in St. Dunstan's, but I don't think it is so very bad after all." Perhaps one of Todd's notions in going to early morning prayers was to satisfy himself upon the point of the stench in the church. The morning service was very short, so that Todd got back to his shop in ample time to open it for the business of the day. He gave a glance at the window, to be quite sure that the placard announcing the want of a pious lad was there, and then with all the calmness in the world he set about sharpening his razors. Not many minutes elapsed ere a man came in, leading by the hand a boy of about thirteen years of age. "Mr. Todd," he said, "you want a lad." "Yes." "You don't know me, but I am Cork, the greengrocer in the market." "Oh," said Todd. "You see this is Fred, by the first Mrs. C., and the second Mrs. C. thinks he'd better go out to something now; if you will take him 'prentice we will provide him, and he can run into our place for his meals and tell us all the gossip of the shop, which will amuse Mrs. C., as she's in a delicate condition, and I have no doubt you will find him just the lad for you." "Dear! dear!" said Todd. "What's the matter, Mr. T.?" "I'm so aggravated.--Is he pious?" "Decidedly." "Does he know his catechism and his belief?" "Oh, yes. Only ask him, Mr. Todd. Only ask him." "Come here, my dear boy. Who was Shindrad, the great uncle of Joshua, and why did Nebuchadnezar call him Zichophobattezer the cousin of Neozobulcoxacride?" "Eh?" said the boy. "Lor!" "What learning!" said the greengrocer. "Ah, Mr. Todd, you are one too many for Fred, but he knows his catechiz." "Well," said Todd, "if the boy that I have promised to think about don't suit me, I'll give you a call, Mr. Cork. But, you see, I am such a slave to my word, that if I promise to think about anything, I go on thinking until it would astonish you how I get through it." "Well, I'm sure we are very much obliged to you, Mr. Todd. Come along, Fred." "Indeed!" said Todd, when he was once more alone. "That would suit me certainly. A lying, gossiping boy, to be running home three or four times a day with all the news of the shop. Good--very good indeed." Todd stropped away at the razors with great vehemence, until he suddenly became aware that some one must be blocking up nearly the whole of the window, for a sudden darkness, like an eclipse, had stolen over the shop. We have before had occasion to remark that Todd had a kind of peephole amid the multifarious articles which blocked up his windows, so that he was enabled to look out upon the passing world when he pleased. Upon this occasion he availed himself of this mode of ascertaining who it was that had stopped the light from making its way into the shop. It was no other than our old acquaintance, Big Ben from the Tower, who was on his way to Mr. Oakley's. The heart of Ben had been sensibly touched by the distress of Johanna, and he was going to give her a word or two of comfort and encouragement, which would wholly consist of advising her to "never mind." But still Ben's intention was good, however weak might be the means by which he carried it out. As for passing Todd's window without looking in, he could no more help having a good stare, than he could help doing justice to a flagon of old ale, if it were placed before him; and upon this occasion the little placard, announcing the want of a pious youth, fixed the whole of Ben's wonder and attraction. "A pious lad!" said Ben. "Oh, the villain. Never mind. Easy does it--easy does it." "Curses on that fellow!" muttered Todd. "What is he staring at?" "A pious lad!" ejaculated Ben. "Pious--oh--oh. Pious!" "Shaved this morning, sir?" said Todd, appearing at his door with a razor in his hand. "Shaved or dressed? Polish you off surprisingly, in no time, sir." "Eh?" "Walk in, sir--walk in. A nice comfortable shave makes a man feel quite another thing. Pray walk in, sir. I think I have had the pleasure of seeing you before." Ben cast an indignant look at Sweeney Todd; and then, as upon the spur of the moment--for Ben was rather a shrewd thinker--he could not find anything strong enough to say, he wisely held his peace, and walked on. Todd looked after him with a savage scowl. "Not much plunder," he muttered, "but suitable enough in another point of view. Well--well, we shall see--we shall see." Ben continued his course towards the city, ever and anon repeating as he went--"A pious lad!--a pious lad. Oh, the rascal." When he reached within a few doors of the spectacle-maker's, he saw a boy with a letter in his hand looking about him, and probably seeing that Ben had a good-humoured countenance, he said to him-- "If you please, sir, can you tell me which is Mr. Oakley's?" "Yes, to be sure. Is that letter for him?" "No, sir, it's for Miss Oakley." Ben laid his finger upon the side of his nose, and tried to think. "Miss Oakley," he said. "A letter for Miss Oakley;" and then, as nothing very alarming consequent upon that proposition presented itself to him, he said, "Easy does it." "Do you know the house, sir?" asked the boy. "Yes, to be sure. Come along, boy." "Yes, sir." "Who's the letter from?" "A gentleman, sir, as is waiting at the Unicorn, in Addle Street." "A gentleman as is waiting at the Addle in Unicorn Street," said Ben; and then, not being able still to hit upon anything very outrageous in all that, he contented himself once more with an "Easy does it." The boy accompanied him to the door of Mr. Oakley's, and then Ben said to him-- "I'll give the letter to Miss Oakley if you like, and if you don't like, you can wait till I send her to you. Easy does it." "Thank you, sir," said the boy, "I'd rather give it to the young lady myself." "Very good," said Ben. "Rise betimes, and hear early chimes." With this effort of proverbial lore, Ben marched into the shop, where old Oakley was, with a magnifying glass fitted to his eyes, performing some extraordinary operation upon a microscope. Ben merely said "How is you?" and then passed on to the back-room, having received from the old optician a slight nod by way of a return of the friendly salutation. Ben always esteemed it a stroke of good fortune when he found Johanna alone, which, in the present instance, he did. She rose to receive him, and placed one of her small hands in his, where for a moment or two it was completely hidden. "All right?" said Ben. "Yes, as usual. No news." "I saw a boy at the door with a letter from a unicorn." "From a what?" "No, an addle--no. Let me see. A unicorn, waiting with a gentleman in addle something. Easy does it. That ain't it, neither. Where is she?" Guessing that it was some one with a communication from some friend to her, Johanna had glided to the door, and got the letter from the boy. She came with it to the parlour at once, and opened it. It was from Colonel Jeffery, and ran as follows:-- "DEAR MISS OAKLEY,--If you will oblige me with another meeting in the Temple Gardens this evening, at or about six, I have something to tell you, although I am afraid nothing cheering.--Believe me to be your sincere friend, "JOHN JEFFERY." She read it aloud to Ben, and then said-- "It is from the gentleman who, I told you, Ben, had interested himself so much in the fate of poor Mark." "Oh, ah," said Ben. "Easy does it. Tell him, if he'd like to see the beasts at the Tower any time, only to ask for me." "Yes, Ben." "Well, my dear, I came by the barber's, and what do you think?" Johanna shook her head. "Guess again." "Spare me, Ben. If you have any news for me, pray tell me. Do not keep me in suspense." Ben considered a little whether what he had to say was news or not; and then taking rather an enlarged view of the word, he added-- "Yes, I have. Todd wants a pious boy." "A what?" "A pious boy. He's got a bill in his window to say that he wants a pious boy. What do you think of that, now? Did you ever hear of such a villain? Easy does it. And he came out, too, and wanted to 'polish me off.'" "Oh, Ben." "Oh, Johanna. Take things easy." "I mean that you should be very careful indeed not to go into that man's shop. Promise me that you will never do so." "All's right. Never be afeard, or you'd never tame the beastesses. If I was only to go into that fellow's shop and fix a eye on him so--you'd see!" Ben fixed one of his eyes upon Johanna in such a manner, that she was glad to escape from its glare, which was quite gratifying to him (Ben), inasmuch as it was a kind of tacit acknowledgment of the extraordinary powers of his vision. "Easy does it," he said. "All's right. Do you mean to meet this colonel?" "Yes, Ben." "All's right. Only take care of yourself down Fleet Street, that's all." "I will, indeed." "What do you say to taking me with you?" "Where, Ben?" "Why, where you go to meet the colonel, my dear." "Personally, I should not entertain the smallest objection; but there is no danger in the transaction. I know that Colonel Jeffery is a man of honour, and that in meeting him upon such an occasion I am perfectly safe." "Good again," said Ben. "Easy does it. Hilloa! what's that in the shop?" "Only my mother come home." "Only? The deuce! Excuse me, my dear, I must be off. Somehow or another your mother and I don't agree, you see, and ever since I had that dreadful stomach ache one night here, it gives me a twinge to see her, so I'll be off. But remember--easy does it." CHAPTER LVIII. THE GRAND CONSULTATION IN THE TEMPLE. With this sage aphorism, Ben effected a hasty retreat from the optician's house by the private door, so that he should not run the risk of encountering Mrs. Oakley, who had made her appearance by the shop way. When Johanna was alone, she once again read the little missive from the colonel; and then, burying her face in her hands, she tried still to think that it was possible he might have some good news to tell her. And yet, if such had been the case, would he not have written it? Would he, feeling for her as she knew he did, have kept her in a state of suspense upon such a subject? Ah, no. He would rather have, in spite of all obstacles, made his way into the shop, and called to her--"Johanna, Mark Ingestrie lives," if he had really been in a position to say so much. As these thoughts chased each other through the mind of the young girl, she shed abundance of tears; and so absorbed was she in her grief, that she was not aware that any one was present, until she felt a light touch upon her shoulder, and upon starting round suddenly, she saw her friend Arabella Wilmot standing close to her. "Johanna?" "Yes--yes, Arabella. I am here." "Yes, dear Johanna. But you are weeping." "I am--I am. To you these tears shall be no secret, Arabella. Alas! alas! You, who know my heart, know how much I have to weep for. You can bear with me. You are the only one in all the world whom I would willingly let see these bitter--bitter tears." At those words, Johanna wept afresh, and the heart of her young friend was melted; but recovering sooner than Johanna, Arabella was able to speak somewhat composedly to her, saying-- "Have you heard anything, Johanna, new?" "No--no. Except that Mr. Jeffery wishes to see me again to tell me something, and as he has not said in his letter what it is, I can guess it is no good news." "Nay; is not that assuming too much?" "No--no. I know he would, if he had had any joyous intelligence for me, have written it. He would feel of what a suspense even a few hours would be upon such a subject. No, Arabella, I feel that what he has to say is some terrible confirmation of my worst fears." Arabella found it no easy task to combat this course of reasoning upon the part of Johanna. She felt its force, and yet she felt at the same time that it was somewhat incumbent upon her to resist it, and to make at least the endeavour to ward off the deep depression that had seized upon Johanna. "Now listen to me," she said. "Perhaps what Colonel Jeffery has to say to you is, after all, a something hopeful; but, at the same time, being only hopeful, and nothing positive, he may have felt how difficult it was to write it, without exciting undue effects in your mind, and so prefers saying it, when he can accompany it by all the little collateral circumstances which alone can give it its proper value." There was something like a gleam of sunshine in this idea. "Do you understand me, dear Johanna?" "Yes--yes." Johanna spoke more firmly than before. The last argument of her friend had had all its weight with her, and had chased away many of the gloomy thoughts that had but a few moments before possessed her. What a strange compound is the human mind, and how singularly does it take its texture, cameleon-like, from surrounding circumstances? But a few moments since, and, to Johanna the brief epistle of the colonel was suggestive of nothing but despair. How different now was its aspect? Arabella Wilmot had, by a few simple words, placed it in a new light, so that it started to the imagination of Johanna symbols of life. "Ah! you are hoping now," said Arabella. "I am--I am. Perhaps it is as you say, Arabella. I will think it is." Miss Wilmot was now almost afraid that she had gone too far, and conjured up too much hope; but she could not bear the idea of dashing down again the fairy fabric of expectation she had moved in the bosom of Johanna, and merely added-- "Well, Johanna, since you find that the letter will, at all events, bear two interpretations, I am sure that, until you may be convinced it owns to the worst, you will be as composed as possible." "I will. And now, Arabella, will you, and can you accompany me this evening to the Temple Gardens, to meet Colonel Jeffery?" "Yes, Johanna. I both can and will, if such is your wish." "It is, Arabella, much my wish, for I feel that if what our friend, the colonel, has to say, should not be of a hopeful character, I should never be able to repeat it to you, so as to have your opinion of it." "Then we will go together. But we will not pass that dreadful man's shop." "Todd's?" "Yes." "Why not, Arabella? I feel, the moment that I leave this house, as though some irresistible fascination dragged me there, and I think I could no more pass down Fleet Street without directing my eyes to that building, which perchance has proved fatal to poor Mark, than I could fly." "But--but, I shrink from that man recognising us again." "We will pass upon the other side of the way, Arabella; but do not say nay to me, for pass I must." There was such a frantic sort of earnestness in the manner in which Johanna urged this point, that Arabella no longer made any sort of opposition to it, and the two young girls soon arranged a time of meeting, when they would proceed together to the Temple Gardens, to give Colonel Jeffery the meeting he so much desired. As nothing of a very particular character occurred that day, we will at once follow Arabella and Johanna upon the mission, premising that the hours have slipped away which intervened between the time of Johanna receiving the note from Colonel Jeffery, and the time when, if she kept the appointment with him, it would be necessary for her to start from home to do so. Both the young girls made as great alterations in their attire as they could upon this occasion, so that they should not be strikingly recognisable again by Todd; and then Arabella reminding Johanna that the bargain between them was to pass upon the other side of the way, they both set off from the old spectacle-maker's. As they neared Fleet Street, the agitation of Johanna became more and more apparent, and Arabella was compelled to counsel her to calmness, lest the passers-by should notice how much she felt, from some cause to them unknown. "My dear Johanna," she said. "Your arm trembles in mine. Oh! pray be calm." "I will--I will. Are we near?" "Yes. Let us cross." They reached the other side of the way from that on which Todd's shop was situated, to the great relief of Arabella, who as yet knew not of the placard that Todd had exhibited in his window, announcing the want of a pious youth. The sight of the shop, however, seemed to bring that circumstance to the mind of Johanna, and she told her young friend of it at once. "Oh! Johanna," said Arabella, "does it not seem as though--" She paused, and Johanna looked enquiringly at her, saying-- "What would you say, Arabella? What would you say?" "Nothing now, Johanna. Nothing now. A thought struck me, and when we return from this meeting with your friend, the colonel, I will communicate it to you. Oh! do not look opposite. Do not." All such injunctions were thrown away upon Johanna. Look opposite she did, and as she herself had truly said, it would have been quite impossible for her to avoid the doing so, even if the greatest personal risk had been risked in the action. But Todd's shop, to look at from the other side of the way, presented no terrors. It simply presented the idea of a little barber's shop, of no very great pretensions, but of sufficient respectability, as barber's shops were in those days, not to make any decent person shrink from going into it. No doubt, in the crowd of Fleet Street--for Fleet Street was then crowded, although not to the extent it is now--Johanna and her friend passed quite unnoticed by Todd, even if he had been looking out. At all events, they reached Temple Bar without any obstruction or adventure. Finding, then, that they had passed the main entrance to the Temple, they went down the nearest adjacent street, and pursuing a circuitous route through some curious-looking courts, they reached their destination yet a little before the appointed hour. Colonel Jeffery, however, was not likely to keep Johanna Oakley waiting. "There," said Arabella. "Is that the colonel?" Johanna looked up just as the colonel approached, and lifted his hat. "Yes, yes." In another moment he was with them. There was a look upon the countenance of Colonel Jeffery of deep concern, and that look, at one glance that was bestowed upon it by Johanna Oakley, was quite sufficient to banish all hidden hopes that she might yet have cherished regarding the character of the news that he had to impart to her. Arabella Wilmot, too, was of the same opinion regarding the physiognomical expression of the colonel, who bowed to her profoundly. [Illustration: Johanna And Arabella Meet And Consult Colonel Jeffery, In Temple Gardens.] "I have brought my dearest friend with me," said Johanna, "from whom I have no secrets." "Nor I," said the colonel, "now that I hear she stands in such an enviable relation to you, Miss Oakley." Arabella slightly bowed; and Johanna fixing her eyes, in which tears were glistening, upon him, said-- "You have come to tell me that I may abandon all hope?" "No--no; Heaven forbid!" A bright flush came over the face of the young girl, and clasping her hands, she said-- "Oh, sir, do not play with feelings that perhaps you scarcely guess at. Do not tamper with a heart so near breaking as mine. It is cruel--cruel!" "Do I deserve such a charge," said the colonel, "even by implication?" "No--no," said Arabella. "Recollect yourself, Johanna. You are unjust to one who has shown himself to be your friend, and a friend to him whom you hope to see again." Johanna held out her little child-like hand to the colonel, and looking appealingly in his face, she said-- "Can you forgive me? It was not I who spoke, but it was the agony of my heart that fashioned itself at the moment into words my better judgment and my better feelings will not own. Can you forgive me?" "Can I, Miss Oakley! Oh, do not ask me. God grant that I could make you happy." "I thank you, sir, deeply and truly thank you; and--and--now--now--" "Now, you would say, tell me my news." "Yes. Oh, yes." "Then let us walk upon this broad path, by the river, while, in the first instance, I tell you that it was only from a deep sense of duty, and a feeling that I ought not, upon any consideration, to keep anything from you, that I came here to-day to give you some more information, and yet fresh information." "You are very--very good to me, sir." "No--no, do not say that, Miss Oakley. I am a friend. I am only very selfish; but, in brief, the lad who was in the barber's service at the time we think Mark Ingestrie called at the shop with the string of pearls in his possession, has told us all he knows upon the subject, freely." "Yes--yes; and--and--" "He knows very little." "But that little?" "Just amounts to this:--That such a person did come to the shop, and that he is quite clear that he never left it." "Quite clear that he never left it!" repeated Johanna--"that he never left it. Quite clear that--that--" She burst into tears, and clung to Arabella Wilmot for support. The colonel looked inexpressibly distressed, but he did not speak. He felt that any common-place topics of consolation would have been an insult; and he had seen enough of human feelings to know that such bursts of passionate grief cannot be stemmed, but must have their course, and that such tears will flow like irresistible torrents into the ocean of eternity. Arabella was greatly distressed. She had not expected that Johanna would have given way in such a manner, and she looked at Colonel Jeffery as though she would have said--"Is it possible that you can say nothing to calm this grief?" He shook his head, but made no reply in words. In a few moments, however, Johanna was wonderfully recovered. She was able to speak more composedly than she had done since the commencement of the interview. "Tell me all, now," she said. "I can bear to hear it all." "You know all, Miss Oakley. The poor boy, in whose fate I have felt sufficiently interested to take him into my care, says that such a man as Thornhill did come to his master's shop. That he (the boy) was sent out upon some trivial errand, merely to get him out of the way, and that, pending his return, the visitor disappeared. He deposes to the fact of the dog watching the door." "The dog?" "Yes. Thornhill, it seems, had a faithful dog with him." "Ah, Arabella, we must have seen that dog." "Has not the creature, then, fallen a victim to Todd's malevolence?" "We think not, sir," said Arabella. "Go on--go on," said Johanna; "what more?" "The boy states that he is certain he saw the hat of the visitor with the dog in Todd's house, after Todd had declared he had left, and proceeded to the city." "The hat--the dog. Alas! alas!" "Nay, Miss Oakley, do not forget one thing, and that is, that neither you nor any one else have as yet identified this Mr. Thornhill as Mr. Ingestrie." "No, not positively; but my heart tells me--" "Ah, Miss Oakley, the heart is the slave of the feelings and of the imagination. You must not always trust to its testimony or emotions upon cold fact." "There is yet hope, then, Johanna," said Arabella. "A bright hope for you to cling to, for, as this gentleman says, there is nothing positive to prove that Mr. Thornhill was Mark Ingestrie. I would not, were I you, abandon that hope on any account, while I lived, and could still clutch it. Would it not be a great thing, sir, if any papers or documents which this Thornhill might have had about him, could be recovered?" "It would indeed." Arabella at first seemed upon the point of saying something contingent upon this remark of the colonel's, or rather this acquiescence of his in her remark, but she thought better of it, and was silent, upon which Johanna spoke, saying-- "And that is really all, sir?" "It is, Miss Oakley." "But will nothing be done? Will no steps be taken to bring this man, Todd to justice?" "Yes, everything will be done; and indeed, anything that can be done consistently with sound policy is actually now. Sir Richard Blunt, one of the most acute, active, and personally daring of the magistrates of London, has the affair in hand, and you may be quite assured that he will pursue it with zeal." "And what is he doing?" "Collecting such evidence against Todd, that at a moment the law will be enabled to come upon him with a certainty that by no ingenious quibble can he escape." Johanna shuddered. "I thank you, sir, from my heart," she said, "for all the kindness and--and--I need not again trespass upon your time or your patience." "Ah, Miss Oakley, will you deny me your friendship?" "Oh, no--no." "Then why deny me the privilege of a friend to see you sometimes. If I cannot say to you anything positively of a consoling character regarding him whom you so much regret, I can at least share your sorrows, and sympathise with your feelings." Johanna was silent, but after a few moments she began to feel that she was acting both with harshness and injustice towards one who had been all that the kindest and most generous friend could be to her. She held out her hand to the colonel, saying-- "Yes, sir, I shall be always happy to see you." The colonel pressed her hand in his, and then turning to Arabella Wilmot, they parted at the garden. CHAPTER LIX. THE PROPOSAL OF ARABELLA. "Johanna," said Arabella Wilmot, as they passed out of the Temple by the old gate at Whitefriars, "Johanna, if there had been no Mark Ingestrie in the world, could you not have loved some one else truly?" "No, no--oh, no." "Not such a one as Colonel Jeffery?" "No, Arabella, I respect and admire Colonel Jeffery. He comes fully up to all my notions of what a gentleman should be, but I cannot love him." Arabella sighed. The two young girls passed Todd's shop upon the other side of the way, and Johanna shuddered as she did so, and repeated in a low voice-- "He went there, but he never left." "Nay, but you should remember that was Thornhill." "Yes, Thornhill, alias Ingestrie." "You will cling to that idea." "I cannot help it, Arabella. Oh, that I could solve the dreadful doubt. You speak to me of finding consolation and hope from the possibility that this Thornhill might not have been Ingestrie; but I feel, Arabella, that the agony of that constant doubt, and the pangs of never ending thought and speculation upon that subject will drive me mad. I cannot endure them--I must be resolved one way or the other. It is suspense that will kill me. I might in the course of time reconcile myself to the fact that poor Mark had gone before me to that world where we shall assuredly meet again; but the doubt as to his fate is--is indeed madness!" There was a manner about Johanna, as she pronounced these words, that was quite alarming to Arabella. Perhaps it was this alarm which went a long way towards inducing her, Arabella, to say what she now said to Johanna-- "Have you forgotten your idea of going disguised to Todd's, Johanna? And have you forgotten what Mr. Ben, your friend from the Tower, told you?" "What? Oh, what, Arabella--what did he tell me that I should remember?" "Why that Todd had placed a placard in his window, stating that he wanted a boy in his shop. Oh, Johanna, it would be so romantic; and to be sure, I have read of such things. Do you think you would have courage sufficient to dress yourself again in my cousin's clothes, and go to Todd's shop?" "Yes, yes--I understand you--and apply for the vacant situation." "Yes, Johanna; it might, you know, afford you an opportunity of searching the place, and then, if you found nothing which could assure you of the presence at one time there of Mark Ingestrie, you would come away with a heart more at ease." "I should--I should. He could but kill me?" "Who? who?" "Sweeney Todd." "Oh, no--no, Johanna, your stay would not exceed a few short hours." "Oh, what long hours they would be." "Well, Johanna, I almost dread the counsel I am giving to you. It is fraught probably with a thousand mischiefs and dangers, that neither you nor I have sufficient experience to see; and now that I have said what I have, I beg of you to think no further of it, and from my heart I wish it all unsaid." "No, Arabella, why should you wish it unsaid? It is true that the course you suggest to me is out of the ordinary way, and most romantic, but, then, are not all the circumstances connected with this sad affair far out of the ordinary course?" "Yes, yes--and yet--" "Arabella, I will do it." "Oh, Johanna, Johanna--if any harm should come to you--" "Then absolve yourself, Arabella, from all reproach upon the subject. Remember always that I go upon my own responsibility, and against your wishes, feelings, and advice. All that I now ask of you is that you will once more lend me that disguise, and assist me in further making myself look like that I would represent myself, and I shall then, perhaps, ask no more of your friendship in this world." Arabella was horrified. The plan she had proposed had, from her course of romantic reading, such charms for her imagination, that she could not have forborne mentioning it, but, now that in earnest Johanna talked of carrying it out, she became terrified at what might be the consequences. In the open streets she was afraid of making a scene by any further opposition to Johanna, whose feelings, she saw, were in a great state of excitement; but she hoped that she would be able yet to dissuade her from her purpose when she got her home. "Say no more now of it, Johanna, and come home with me, when we will talk it over more at large." "I am resolved," said Johanna. "The very resolution to do something bold and definite has given me already a world of ease. I am different quite in feeling to what I was. I am sure that God is, even now, giving me strength and calmness to do this much for him who would have risked anything for me." To reason with any one impressed with such notions would have been folly indeed, and Arabella forbore doing so at that juncture. She could not but be amazed, however, at the firmness of manner of Johanna now, in comparison with the frantic burst of grief which she had so recently been indulging in. Her step was firm, her lips were compressed, and her countenance, although more than usually pale, was expressive in every feature of highly-wrought determination. "She will do it or die," thought Arabella, "and if anything happens to her, I shall wish myself dead likewise." In this state of feeling--not a very amiable one--the two young girls reached the abode of Arabella Wilmot. The strongly marked feeling of composure and determination by no means left Johanna, but, if anything, seemed to be rather upon the increase, while occasionally she would mutter to herself-- "Yes--yes; I will know all--I will know the worst." When they were alone in the little chamber of Arabella--that little chamber which had witnessed so many of the mutual confidences of those two young girls--Arabella at once began to say something that might provoke a discussion about the propriety of the hazardous expedition to Todd's, but Johanna stopped her by saying as she laid her hands gently upon her arm-- "Arabella, will you do me two favours?" "A hundred; but--" "Nay, hear me out, dear friend, before you say another word. The first of those favours is, that you will not, by word or look, try to dissuade me from my purpose of going in disguise to Todd's. The second is, that you will keep my secret when I do go." "Oh! Johanna! Johanna!" "Promise me." "Yes. I do--I do." "I am satisfied. And now, my own dear Arabella, let me tell you that I do not think that there is any such danger as you suppose in the expedition. In the first place, I do not think Todd will easily discover me to be aught else than what I pretend to be, and if I should see that I am in any danger, Fleet Street, with all its living population, is close at hand, and such a cry for aid as I, being, as I am, forearmed by being forewarned, could raise, would soon bring me many defenders." Arabella sobbed. "And then, after all, I only want to stay until, by one absence of Todd's from the house, I shall be able to make a search for some memorial of the visit of Mark Ingestrie there. If I find it not, I return to you at once better satisfied, and with better hopes than I went forth. If I do find it, I will call upon the tardy law for justice." "Johanna--Johanna, you are not the same creature that you were!" "I know it. I am changed. I feel that I am." Arabella looked at the sweet childish beauty of the face before her, and her eyes filled with tears again at the thought that something near akin to despair had implanted upon it that look of unnatural calmness and determination it wore. "You doubt me?" said Johanna. "Oh! no--no. I feel now that you will do it, and feeling that, I likewise feel that I ought not to drive you to seek assistance from another, in your enterprise. But something must be arranged between us." "In what respect?" "Such as, if I should not hear of you within a certain time, I--I--" "You would feel bound to find me some help. Be it so, Arabella. If I do not come to you or send to you, before the midnight of to-morrow, do what you will, and I shall not think that you have committed any breach of faith." "I am content, Johanna, to abide by those conditions; and now I will say nothing to you to bend you from your purpose, but I will pray to Heaven that you may become successful, not in finding any record of Mark Ingestrie, but in procuring peace to your mind by the utter absence of such record." "I will go now." "No--no, Johanna. Bethink you what pain your unexplained absence would give to your father. Something must be said or done to make him feel at ease during the, perhaps, many hours that you will be absent." "It is well thought of, Arabella. Oh! how selfish we become when overwhelmed by our own strange emotions! I had forgotten that I had a father." It was now agreed between the two young girls that Johanna should go home, and that Arabella Wilmot should call for her, and ask Mr. Oakley's permission for her (Johanna) to come to her upon a visit for two days. It was no very unusual thing for Johanna to pass a night with her friend, so that it was thought such a course now would have the effect of quieting all anxiety on account of the absence of the young girl from her parental home. CHAPTER LX. TODD FINDS A BOY. "Temporary insanity, and a dividend of one shilling upon the razor!" Such was the enlightened verdict of twelve sapient shopkeepers in the Strand upon John Mundell--peace to his manes! He is gone where there are no discounts--no usury laws--no unredeemed pledges, and no strings of pearls! Good day to you, John Mundell! "Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Sweeney Todd. "That affair is settled in an uncommonly satisfactory manner. What an odd thing it is, though, that nobody now comes into my shop, but somebody else, upon some shuffling excuse or another, comes in within two minutes afterwards. Now, if I were superstitious, which--I--I am not--" Here Todd looked first over his right shoulder and then over his left, with two perceptible shudders. "If, as I say, I were superstitious which--Hilloa! who's this?" "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Todd," said a woman in widow's weeds, as she entered the shop, "but they do say that--that--" "What?" screamed Todd, "what?" "That you are charitable to the poor." "Oh, that's all. I--I. That's all. Very good. I am charitable to the poor. Very--very charitable to the poor. What may your business be, madam?" "You don't know me, Mr. Todd, I dare say, but my name is Slick." "Slick--Slick? No, madam, I have not the pleasure of knowing you; and may I again ask why I am honoured with the visit?" "Why, sir, I have got up a little humble petition. You see, sir, my husband, Solomon Slick, is a watch-maker, and one day, about a month ago, he went out to go to the city with two chronometers, to take to Brown, Smuggins, Bugsby, and Podd, who employ him, and he was never afterwards heard of, leaving me with six children, and one at the breast. Now, Mr. Brown is a kind sort of man, and spoke to Podd about doing something, but Bugsby and Smuggins, they will have it that my husband ran away with the watches, and that we are only watching the best time to go to him; but my aunt, Mrs. Longfinch, in Bedfordshire, will do something for us if we go there; so I am trying to get up a pound or two to take me and the little ones." Todd made a chuckling noise, like a hen in a farm-yard, and looked the picture of compassionate commiseration. "Dear--dear, what a shocking thing." "It is indeed, sir." "And have you no idea of what has become of him, madam?" "Not in the least, sir--not in the least. But I said to myself--'I dare say Mr. Todd will be so good as to assist us in our necessities.'" "Certainly, madam--certainly. Do you know what is the most nourishing thing you can give to your children?" "Alas! sir, the poor things, since their poor father went, have had little choice of one thing or another. It was he who supported them. But what is it, sir?" "Mrs. Lovett's pies." "Ah, sir, they had one a-piece, poor things, the very day after poor Solomon Slick disappeared. A compassionate neighbour brought them, and all the while they ate them, they thought of their father that was gone." "Very natural, that," said Todd. "Now, Mrs. Slick, I am but a poor man, but I will give you my advice, and something more substantial. The advice is, that if anybody is moved to compassion, and bestows upon you a few pence for your children, you go and lay it out in pies at Mrs. Lovett's; and as for the more substantial something, take that, and read it at your leisure." Todd, as he spoke, took from a drawer a religious tract, entitled "The Spiritual Quartern Loaf for the Hungry Sinner," and handed it to Mrs. Slick. The poor woman received it with a look of disappointment, and said, with a slight shudder-- "And is this all you can do, Mr. Todd?" "All!" cried Todd. "All? Good gracious, what more do you want? Recollect, my good woman, that there is another world where the poor will have their reward, provided that in this they are not too annoying to the rich and the comfortable. Go away. Dear--dear, and this is gratitude. I must go and pray for the hardness of heart and the Egyptian darkness of the common and the lower orders in general, and you in particular, Mrs. Slick." The woman was terrified at the extraordinary faces that Todd made during the delivery of this harangue, and hastily left the shop, having dropped the "Spiritual Quartern Loaf for Hungry Sinners" in the doorway. "Ha! ha!" said Todd when she was gone. "They thought of their father, did they, while they ate Lovett's pies. Ha! ha!" At this moment a man made his appearance in the shop, and looked with a sly twinkle at Sweeney Todd. The latter started, for in that man he imagined no other than an under attendant at the establishment of Mr. Fogg, at Peckham. That this man came with some message from Fogg, he did not for a moment doubt, but what could it possibly be, since he (Todd) fully believed that Tobias Ragg was no more. "Do you know me?" said the man. As a general proposition, Todd did not like to say yes to anything, so he looked dubious, and remarked that he thought it might rain soon, but if he (the man) wanted a clean shave, he (Todd) would soon do for him. "But, really, Mr. Todd, don't you know me?" "I know nobody," said Todd. The man chuckled with a hideous grimace, that seemed habitual to him, for he at times indulged in it, when, to all appearance, no subject whatever of hilarity was on the topic, and then he said-- "I come from Fogg." "Fogg's, not Fogg?" The man did not at first seem to understand this nice distinction that Todd drew between coming from Fogg's establishment and coming from Fogg himself; but after knitting his brows, and considering a little, he said-- "Oh--ah--I see. No, I don't come from Fogg, confound him, he don't use me well, so I thought I'd come to tell you--" The shop door opened, and a stout burly-looking man made his appearance. Todd turned upon him, with a face livid with passion, as he said-- "Well, sir, what now?" "Eh?" said the stout burly man. "Ain't this a barber's shop?" "To be sure it is; and, once for all, do you want to be shaved, or do you not?" "Why, what else could I come in for?" "I don't know; but you have been here more than once--more than twice--more than thrice, and yet you have never been shaved yet." "Well, that is a good one." "A good what?" "Mistake, for I have only just come to London to-day; but I'll wait while you shave this gentleman. I am in no hurry." "No, sir," said Todd; "this gentleman is a private friend of mine, and don't come to be shaved at all." The stout burly-looking man seemed rather confused for a moment, and then he turned to the stranger, and said-- "Are you really a private friend of Mr. Todd's?" "Very," said the other. "Then I scorn to interrupt any one in their confidential discourse, just because my beard happens to be a day old. No; I trust that time, and old English politeness, will ever prevent me from doing such a thing; so, Mr. Todd, I will look in upon some other occasion, if you please." "No--no," said Todd, "sit down: business is business. Pray sit down. You don't know how disappointed I shall feel if I don't polish you off, now that you are here, sir." "Could not think of it," said the other, in whom the reader has, no doubt, recognised one of Sir Richard Blunt's officers. "Could not for a moment think of it. Good day." Before Todd could utter another remonstrance, he was out of the shop, and when he got about twelve paces off, he met Crotchet, who said-- "Well, what do yer bring it in now?" "I must cut it. Todd is beginning to recollect me, and to think there is something odd going on." Mr. Crotchet gave a slight whistle, and then said-- "Wery good; but did you leave a _hindevidel_ in the shaving crib, to be done for?" "Yes; but he said he was a private friend of Todd's." "Good agin, that will do. He's safe enough, I dare say, and if he isn't, why he ought to be more _petikler_ in a-dressing of his acquaintances. Do you know where the governor is?" "No. I have not seen him; but will you tell him, Crotchet, why I think it's better for me to be scarce for a day or two?" "To be sure, old fellow. You can go on some other day." "Surely--surely." CHAPTER LXI. TODD RECEIVES SOME STARTLING INTELLIGENCE. It took Todd, master as he was, or used to be, in the art of dissimulation, some few minutes to recover his composure, after the officer had left the shop, and during that time, the gentleman from Fogg's looked at him with the quiet sniggering kind of laugh so peculiar to him. Todd was evidently, day by day, losing that amount of nerve which had at one time formed his principal characteristic. It was getting, in fact, clear to himself that he was not near so well fitted for the business he was carrying on as he had been. Turning to the man from Fogg's, he said, while he put on as bland a smile as he could-- "Well, my friend, I suppose you have sought me with some motive? Pray speak out, and tell me what it is." The man laughed. "I have had a row with Fogg," he said, "and we parted in anger. I told him I would split upon the den, but he is a deep one, and he only coughed. Fogg, though, somehow don't laugh as he used. However, as well as he could laugh, he did, and, says he, 'Peter, my lad,' says he, 'if you do split upon the old den, I'll get you transported, as safe as you think yourself.'" "Well?" "Well. I--I--didn't like that." "Then you are probably," said Todd in a bland manner--"you are probably aware that you may be obnoxious to the law." "A few!" said the fellow. "And what followed?" "'Why, Peter,' added Fogg, 'you may leave me if you like, and once a month there will be a couple of guineas here for you. There's the door, so away, I insist;' and it has struck me, that if Fogg gives me a couple of shiners a month to hold my tongue, other gentlemen might do as much, and through one and another, I might pick up a crust and something to moisten it with." The man laughed again. Todd nodded his head, as much as to say--"You could not have explained yourself clearer," and then he said-- "Peter, in your way you have a certain sort of genius. I might just remark, however, that after paying Fogg handsomely for what he has done, it is rather hard that Fogg's cast-off officials should come upon Fogg's best customers, and threaten them out of any more." "I know it's hard," said the man. "Then why do you do it?" "Because, to my thinking, it would be a deuced sight harder for me to want anything; and besides, I might get into trouble, and be in the hands of the police, when who knows but that in some soft moment some one might get hold of me, and get it all out of me. Wouldn't that be harder still for all?" "It would." "Ah! Mr. Todd, I always thought you were a man of judgment, that I did." "You do me infinite honour." "Not at all. I say what I think, you may take your oath of that. But when I saw you come about that last boy, I said to myself--'Mr. Todd is carrying on some nice game, but what it is I don't know. Howsomdever he is a man with something more than would go into a small tea-spoon here-abouts.'" Mr. Peter tapped his forehead with his finger as he spoke, to intimate that he alluded to the intellectual capacity of Todd. "You are very obliging," said Todd. "Not at all. Not at all. How much will you stand, now?" "I suppose, if I say the same as Mr. Fogg, you will be satisfied, Mr. Peter. Times are very bad, you know." Peter laughed again. "No, no! Mr. Todd, times are not very bad, but I do think what you say is very fair, and that if you stand the same as Fogg, I ought not to say one word against it." "How charming it is," said Todd, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, as though communing with himself or some higher intelligence supposed to be in that direction. "How charming it is to feel that you are at any time transacting business with one who is so very obliging and so very reasonable." Somehow Peter winced a little before the look of Todd. The barber had come into his proposal a little too readily. It almost looked as though he saw his way too clearly out of it again. If he had declaimed loudly, and made a great fuss about the matter, Mr. Peter would have been better pleased, but as it was he felt, he scarcely knew why, wonderfully fidgetty. "That boy," he said, "to change the conversation. That boy, used to say some odd things of you, Mr. Todd." "Insanity," said Todd, "is a great calamity." "Oh, very." "And so clouds the faculties, that the poor boy no doubt said things of me, his best friend, that, if he had been restored to reason, he would have heard spoken of with a smile of incredulity." "Ha! ha! By the bye--Ha! ha!" "Well, sir?" said Todd, who did not in the smallest degree join in the odd laugh of Peter. "Well, sir?" "I was merely going to say. Have you, by any chance, heard anything more of him?" Todd walked close to Peter, and placed his two brawny hands upon his shoulders, as he slowly repeated-- "Have I by any chance heard anything more of him? What do you mean? Speak out, or by all that's powerful, this is the last moment of your existence. Speak out, I say." "Murder!" "Fool! Be more explicit, and you are safe. Be open and candid with me, and not a hair of your head shall suffer injury. What do you mean by asking me if I have heard anything more of him?" "Don't throttle me." "Speak." "I--I can't while you hold me so tight. I--I--can--hardly--breathe." Todd took his hands off him, and crossing his arms over his breast, he said in tones of most unnatural calmness-- "Now speak." "Well, Mr. Todd--I--I--only--." "You only what?" "Asked you naturally enough, if you had heard anything of the boy Tobias Ragg, you know, since he ran away from Fogg's. That's all." "Since he what?" "Ran away from Fogg's one night." "Then he--he is not dead? The villain Fogg sent word to me that he was dead." "Did he though? Well I never. That was so like Fogg. Only to think now. Lord bless you, Mr. Todd, he made his escape and ran away, and we never heard anything more of him from that time to this. The idea now of Fogg telling you he was dead. Well, I did wonder at your taking the thing so easy, and never coming down to enquire about it." "Not dead? Not dead?" "Not as I know on." "Curses!" "Ah! that will do you good, Mr. Todd. Whenever I am put out, I set to swearing like a good one, and that's the way I come round again. Don't mind me. You swear as long as you like. It was a shame for Fogg not to tell you he had bolted, but I suppose he thought he'd take his chance." "The villain!" "_Worser!_ _worser!_ nor a _willain_!" said Peter. "Who knows now what mischief may be done, all through that boy. Why, he may be now being gammoned by the police and a parson to tell all he knows. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Todd sunk upon a chair--not the shaving one--and resting his hand upon his head, he uttered a sepulchral groan. Peter shook himself. "You don't seem well, Mr. Todd. I didn't think you was the sort of man to be down on your blessed luck in this sort of way. Cheer up. What's the use of grieving? as the old song says." Todd groaned again. "And if so be as the kid," continued Peter, "did run away, my opinion is as he'd seen enough and felt enough, while he was at Fogg's, to make him as mad as a March hare." There was hope in that suggestion, and Todd looked up. "You really think, then, Mr. Peter, that--that his intellects--" "His what?" "His mind, I mean, has not withstood the shock of what he went through while he was in Fogg's establishment?" "How could it? Once or twice things very nigh infected me, and how should he stand up agin 'em? But arter all, Mr. Fogg, what was it all about? That's what used to bother me. Was there anything in what he said, or wasn't there?" "My good fellow," said Todd, "I have only one question to ask you--" "Fire away." "And that is, if you would prefer to have a sum of money down, and not trouble me any more?" "Down!" "Yes, down." "On the nail? Well, its temptatious, I own. Let me see. Thus Fogg's riglar annuity, as a fellow may call it, and a good round sum down from you, Mr. T. I think you said a good round sum down on the nail, didn't you?" "Yes--yes. Any sum in reason." "Done, then. I'll do it. Honour bright and shining. Mr. T., when I says a thing, it's said, and no mistake, and if I takes something down, you won't hear no more of me; whatever you may think, Mr. T., I ain't one of them fellows as will spend their tin, and then come asking for more--not I. Oh, dear no! Only give me what's reasonable down, and the thing's settled." "Very good," said Todd, in a voice which was calm and composed. "Just step this way, into the back parlour, and I'll satisfy you. As for troubling me any more, I am, I assure you, as perfectly easy upon that point as it is at all possible to be." CHAPTER LXII. TODD CLEARS OFF CIRCUMSTANCES. The arrangement come to between Todd and his visitor seemed to give equal satisfaction to both, and Mr. Peter, if he had what the phrenologists call an organ of caution at all developed, must have had acquisitiveness so large as completely to overpower its action at the present time. The idea of getting from Todd's fears a sum of money at once, and from Fogg's fears a regular small annuity, was to him a most felicitous combination of circumstances, and his reflections upon the pleasant consequences resulting therefrom had such full possession of him, that his scruples vanished, and as he followed Todd into the back parlour from the shop, he muttered to himself-- "I'll try and get enough out of him to open a public-house." Todd heard the wish, and turning quickly with what he intended should be an engaging smile, he said-- "And why not, Peter--and why not? Nothing would give me more sincere gratification than seeing you in a public-house, for although a man may be a publican, he need not be a sinner, you know." "Eh?" "I say he need not be a sinner; and there would be nothing in the world, Peter, to prevent you from having prayers night and morning, and I am sure I should be most happy to come now and then, if it were only to say 'Amen!'" "Humph!" said Peter. "You are too good, you are. Much too good, really." "Not at all, Peter. Let us be as good as we may, we cannot be too good. Human nature is a strange compound, you know, mixed up of several things opposite to each other, like a lather in a shaving dish." With this sentiment Todd held open the door of the sanctum behind his shop, and by a cautious wave of his hand invited Mr. Peter to enter. That gentleman did so. "Now," said Todd, in quite a confidential tone, "what is your peculiar affection in the--" Here Mr. Todd went through the pantomimic action of draining a glass. Peter laughed, and then shaking his head waggishly, he said-- "What a rum 'un you are! Fogg had his funny ways, but I do think you beat him, that you do. Well, if I must say I have a partiality, it's to brandy. Do you know, I think, between you and me and the post, that a drop of good brandy is rather one of them things that makes human nature what it is." "What a just remark," said Todd. Peter looked as sage as possible. He was getting upon wonderfully good terms with his own sagacity--a certain sign that he was losing his ordinary discretion. Todd opened a small cupboard in the wall--what a number of small cupboards in the wall Todd had--and produced a long-necked bottle and a couple of glasses. He held the bottle up to the dim light, saying-- "That's the thing, rather." "It looks like it," said Peter. "And it is," said Todd, "what it looks. This bottle and the liquor within it have basked in the sun of a fairer clime than ours, Peter, and the laughing glades of the sweet south have capped it in beauty." Peter looked puzzled. "What a learned man you are, Mr. T.," he said. "You seem to know something of everything, and I dare say the brandy is to the full as good as it looks." This was decidedly a quiet sort of hint to decant some of it without further loss of time, and Todd at once complied. He filled Peter's glass to the brim, and his own more moderately; and as the golden liquor came out with a pleasant bubble from the bottle, Peter's eyes glistened, and he sniffed up the aroma of that pure champaign brandy with the utmost complaisance. "Beautiful! beautiful!" he exclaimed. "Pretty well," said Todd. "Pretty well? It's glorious!" Mr. Peter raised the glass to his lips, and giving a nod to Todd over the rim of it, he said-- "I looks towards you." Todd nodded, and then, in another moment Peter put down his empty glass. "Out and out!" he gasped. "Out and out! Ah, that is the stuff." Todd tossed off the glass, with the toast of "A long life, and a merry one!" which was duly acknowledged by Peter, who replied-- "The same to you, Mr. T., and lots of 'em." "It's like milk," said Todd, as he filled Peter's glass again. "It's for all the world like milk, and never can do any one any harm." "No--no. Enough. There--stop." Todd did stop, when the glass was within a hair's breadth of running over, but not before; and then again he helped himself, and when he set the bottle upon the table, he said-- "A biscuit?" "Not for me. No." "Nay. You will find it pleasant with the brandy. I have one or two here. Rather hard, perhaps, but good." "Well, I will, then. I was afraid you would have to go out for them, that was all, Mr. T., and I wouldn't give you any trouble for the world. I only hope we shall often meet in this quiet comfortable way, Mr. T. I always did respect you, for, as I often said to Fogg, of all the customers that come here, Mr. Todd for me. He takes things in an easy way, and if he is a thundering rogue, he is at all events a clever one." "How kind!" "No offence, I hope, Mr. Todd?" "Offence, my dear fellow? Oh, dear me! How could you think of such a thing? Offence, indeed! You cannot possibly offend me!" "I'm rejoiced to hear you say so, Mr. T., I am really; and this is--this is--the--very best--ah--brandy that ever I--where are you going, Mr. T.?" "Only to get the biscuits. They are in the cupboard behind you; but don't stir, I beg. You are not at all in the way." "Are you sure?" "Quite." Todd stepped easily between Peter's chair and the wall, and opening another of the mysterious small cupboards, he laid his hand upon a hammer, with a long handle, that was upon the shelf. "If this," said Peter, "was the last word I had to say in the world, I would swear to the goodness of the brandy." As he uttered the words he turned his head sharply, and faced Todd. The hammer was upraised, and would, if he had not so turned, have descended with fatal effect upon the top of his head. As it was, Peter had only time to utter one shriek, when down it came upon the lower part of his face. The crush was hideous. The lower jaw fell crushed and mangled, and, with a frightful oath, Todd again raised the hammer: but the victim closed with him, and face to face they grappled. The hammer was useless, and Todd cast it from him as he felt that he required all his strength to grapple with the man who, at that moment, fastened on him with the strength of madness. Over chair--over the table, to the destruction of all that was on it, they went, coiled up in each other's embrace--dashing here and there with a vehemence that threatened destruction to them both, and yet not a word spoken. The frightful injury that Peter had received effectually prevented him from articulating, and Todd had nothing to say. Down! down they both come; but Todd is uppermost. Yes; he has got his victim upon the floor, and his knee is upon his chest! He drags him a few inches further towards the fire-place--inches were sufficient, and then grappling him by the throat, he lifts his head and dashes it against the sharp edge of an iron fender! Crash!--crash!--crash! The man is dead! Crash again! That last crash was only an injury to a corpse! Once more Todd raised the now lax and smashed skull, but he let it go again. It fell with a heavy blow upon the floor! "That will do," said Todd. [Illustration: Sweeney Todd Butchers The Turnkey.] He slowly rose, and left his cravat in the hands of the dead man. He shook himself, and again that awful oath, which cannot be transcribed, came from his lips. Rap! rap! rap! Todd listened. What's that? Somebody in the shop? Yes, it must be--or some one wanting to come in, rather, for he had taken the precaution to make the outer door fast. Rap! rap! rap! "I must go," said Todd. "Stop.--Let me see." He snatched a glass from the wall, and looked at himself. There was blood upon his face. With his hand, he hastily wiped it off, and then, walking as composedly as he could into the shop, he opened the door. A man stood upon the threshold with quite a smile upon his face, as he said-- "Busy, I suppose?" "Yes, sir," said Todd. "I was just finishing off a gentleman. Shaved or dressed, sir?" "Shaved, if you please. But don't let me hurry you, by any means. I can wait a little." "Thank you, sir, if you will oblige me for a moment or two. You will find some amusements, sir, from the _Evening Courant_, I dare say." As he spoke, he handed the then popular newspaper to his customer, and left him. Todd took good care to close the door leading into the parlour, and then proceeding up to the body of the murdered Peter, he, with his foot, turned it over and over, until it was under the table, where it was most completely hidden by a cover that hung down to within an inch of the floor. Before Todd had got this operation well completed, he heard his shop door open. That door creaked most villanously; by so doing, while he was otherwise engaged, he could always hear if it was opened or attempted to be opened. Todd was in the shop in a moment, and saw a respectable-looking personage, dressed in rather clerical costume, who said-- "You keep powder?" "Certainly, sir." "Then I wish my hair powdered; but do not let me interrupt this gentleman. I can wait." "Perhaps, sir, if you could make it convenient to look in again," said Todd, "you will probably be more amused by looking at the shops, than by waiting here while this gentleman is shaved." "Thank you, you are very kind; but I am rather tired, and glad of the opportunity of having a rest." "Certainly, sir. As you please. The _Courant_, sir, at your service." "Thank you--thank you." The clerical looking old gentleman sat down to read the _Courant_, while Todd commenced the operation of shaving his first customer. When that operation was half completed, he said-- "They report, sir, that St. Dunstan's is giving way." "Giving way," said the clerical looking gentleman. "How do you mean about giving way?" "Why, sir," said Todd, with an air quite of reverential respect, "they say that the old church has a leaning towards Temple Bar, and that, if you stand at the opposite side of the way, you may just see it. I can't, but they do say so." "Bless me," said the clerical looking gentleman. "That is a very sad thing indeed, and nobody can be more sorry than I am to hear such a tale of the old church." "Well sir, it may not be true." "I hope not, indeed. Nothing would give me greater pain than to be assured it was true. The stench in the body of the church that so much has been said about in the parish is nothing to what you say, for who ought to put his nose into competition with his eternal welfare?" "Who, indeed, sir! What is your opinion of that alarming stench in old St. Dunstan's?" "I am quite at a loss to make it out." "And so am I, sir--so am I. But begging your pardon, sir, if I am not making too free, I thought as you were probably a clergyman, sir, you might have heard something more about it than we common folks." "No--no. Not a word. But what you say of the church having a leaning to Temple Bar is grievous." "Well, sir, if you were to go and look, you might find out that it was no such thing, and by the time you return I shall have completely finished off this gentleman." "No--no. I make no sort of doubt in the world but that you would by that time have finished off the gentleman, but as for my going to look at the old church with any idea that it had a leaning to anything but itself, I can only say that my feelings as a man and a member of the glorious establishment will not permit me." "But, my dear sir, you might satisfy yourself that such was really not the case." "No--no. Imagination would make me think that the church had a leaning in all sorts of directions, until at last fancy might cheat me into a belief that it actually tottered." The clerical-looking gentleman pronounced these words with so much feeling, that the person who was being shaved nearly got cut by twisting his head round in order to see him. "True, sir," said Todd. "Very true--very true indeed, and very just; imagination does indeed play strange freaks with us at times, I well know." The horrible face that Todd made as he spoke ought to have opened the eyes of any one to the fact that he was saying anything but what he thought, but no one saw it. When he pleased, Todd generally took care to keep his faces to himself. "I don't wonder, Rev. sir," he said, "that your feelings prompt you to say what you do. I'm afraid I have taken off a little too much whisker, sir." "Oh, never mind. It will grow again," said the person who was being shaved. Todd suddenly struck his own head with the flat of his hand, as a man will do to whose mind some sudden thought has made itself apparent, and in a voice of doubt and some alarm, he pronounced the one word-- "Powder!" "What's the matter? You are a long time shaving me." "Powder!" said Todd again. "Gunpowder," said the three-quarter shaved man, while the clerical-looking personage entirely hid his face, with the _Courant_. "No," said Todd. "Hair powder. I told this gentleman, whose feelings regarding the church do him so much honour, that I had hair powder in the house, and it has just come over me like a wet blanket that I have not a particle." The clerical-looking gentleman quickly laid down the _Courant_, and said wildly-- "Are you sure you have none?" "Quite sure, sir." "Then I won't occupy your shop and read your _Courant_ for nothing, and as I am here I will have a shave." "That's very kind of you, sir," said Todd. "Very kind." "Not at all," said the gentleman, taking up the paper again with all the coolness in the world. "Not at all. Don't mention it, I always like to carry out the moral maxim of--Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." "How charming!" exclaimed Todd, lifting up his hands, in one of which was the razor. "How charming it is in this indifferent and selfish age to meet with any one who is so charitable as to do more than merely speak of such a sentiment as a curiosity in morals." "You are above your condition as regards education," said the clerical-looking gentleman. "Why, to tell the truth, sir--" "Psha!" said he who was being or rather not being shaved--"psha! And all this while the very soap is drying upon my face." "A thousand pardons," said Todd. "Many apologies," said the clerical gentleman, hastily resuming the perusal of the _Courant_. "Sir," added Todd, as he finished the shaving and whipped off the cloth from the patient. "Sir, I should have finished you five minutes ago, so that I am sure no one would have heard the slightest complaint from you, but for the truly engaging conversation of this gentleman here, whom I shall have great pleasure now in polishing off." "Oh, don't name it," said the shaved customer, laying down a penny. "Don't name it, I said I was in no hurry, so I can hardly blame you for taking your time." He went through the usual operation of a partial sloush of cold water from a pewter basin, and then dried himself upon a jack towel, and left the shop. "Now, sir," said Todd. The clerical-looking gentleman waved his hand as though he would have said-- "For goodness sake don't interrupt me until I have finished this paragraph." Todd fixed his eyes upon him, and began slowly stropping the razor he had been recently using. "Now, sir, if you please." "One moment--one--mo--ment, I shall get through the deaths in an in--stant." Todd continued stropping the razor, when suddenly the _Courant_ dropped from the hands of the clerical-looking gentleman, and he uttered a groan that made Todd start. "Hopkins--Hopkins--Gabriel Hopkins!" "Sir." "Hop--kins! my friend--my councillor--my fellow student--my companion--my Mentor--my--my Hopkins." The clerical-looking gentleman shut up his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro in an agony of grief. "Good God, sir," cried Todd, advancing. "What is the meaning of this?" "In that paper you will find the death of Hopkins inserted, sir. Yes, in the obituary of that paper. Gabriel Hopkins--the true--the gentle--the affectionate--the christian--Hop--kins!" "How sorry I am, sir," said Todd. "But, pray sit in this chair, sir, a shave will compose your feelings." "A shave! You barbarian. Do you think I could think of being shaved within two minutes of hearing of the death of the oldest and best friend I ever had in the world. No--no. Oh, Hopkins--Hop--kins!" The Rev. gentleman in a paroxysm of grief rushed from the house, and Todd himself sunk upon the shaving chair. "It is, it must be so," cried Todd, as his face became livid with rage and apprehension. "There is more in these coincidences than mere chance will suffice to account for. Why is it that, if I have a customer here, some one else will be sure to come in, and then after waiting until he is gone himself, leave upon some frivolous excuse? Do I stand upon a mine? Am I suspected?--am I watched? or--or more terrible, ten times more terrible question still, am--am I at length, with all my care, discovered?" CHAPTER LXIII. JOHANNA STARTS FOR TODD'S. We will leave Todd to the indulgence of some of the most uncomfortable reflections that ever passed through his mind, while we once again seek the sweet companionship of the fair Johanna, and her dear romantic friend, Arabella Wilmot. The project which these two young and inexperienced girls were bent upon, was one that might well appal the stoutest heart that ever beat in human bosom. It was one which, with a more enlarged experience of the world, they would not for one moment have entertained, but by long thought and much grief upon the subject of her hopeless love, Johanna had much observed that clearness of perception that otherwise would have saved her from what to all appearance is a piece of extravagance. As for Arabella, she had originally conceived the idea from her love for the romantic, and it was only when it came near to the execution of it that she started at the possible and indeed highly probable danger of the loss to one whom she loved so sincerely as she loved Johanna. But all that has passed away. The remonstrances have been made, and made in vain; Arabella is silenced, and nothing remains but to detail to the reader the steps by which the courageous girl sought to carry out a plan so fraught with a thousand dangers. Both Arabella and Johanna sought the abode of the latter's father, for the first step in the affair was to say something there which was to account seemingly satisfactorily for any lengthened stay of Johanna from home. This was by no manner of means a task of any difficulty, for in addition to the old spectacle maker being innocence itself as regarded the secreting anything in the shape of a plot, Arabella Wilmot was the very last person in all the world he would have thought capable of joining in one. As for Mrs. Oakley, she was by far too intent, as she said herself frequently, upon things which are eternal, to trouble herself much about terrestrial affairs, always except they came to her in the shape of something enticing to the appetites. What a state of things, that a mother should forget the trust that is placed in her when she is given a child, and fancy she is really propitiating the Almighty by neglecting a stewardship which He has imposed upon her! But so it is. There are, we fear, in different ways, a great many Mrs. Oakleys in the world. "Ah, my dear Miss Wilmot," said the old spectacle-maker to Arabella, when he saw her. "How glad I am to see you. How fresh you look." Arabella's face was flushed with excitement, and some shame that the errand she came upon was to deceive. She had not heard yet of the spurious philosophy that the end sanctifies the means. "I have come to--to--to--" "Yes, my dear. To stay awhile, and let us look at your pretty face. Come, my dear Johanna, your mother is out. What can you get for your friend, Miss Wilmot? Here, my dear, take this half-crown and get some sweetmeats, and I will open for you a bottle of the old Malaga wine." [Illustration: Johanna's Farewell Of Her Father Prior To Her Encounter With Todd.] Johanna's eyes filled with tears, and she was compelled to turn aside to conceal those tell-tale traces of emotion from her father. Arabella saw that if anything was to be said or done in furtherance of the affair upon which Johanna had now set her heart, she must do it or say it. Summoning all her courage, she said-- "My dear sir--" "Sir?--sir? Bless me, my child, when did you begin to call your old kind friend sir?" "My dear Mr. Oakley--" "Ah, that's nearer the old way. Well, my dear Arabella, what would you say to me?" "Will you trust Johanna with me to-night, and perhaps to-morrow night?" "I don't think Johanna can come to much harm with you, my dear," said Mr. Oakley. "You are older than she a little, and at your age a little goes a long way, so take her, Arabella, and bring her back to me when you like." With what a shrill of agony did Arabella hear Johanna thus committed to her care. She was compelled to grasp the back of the old spectacle-maker's chair for support. "Yes, yes, sir," she said. "Oh, yes, Mr. Oakley." "Well, my dears, go, and God bless you both." To both Arabella and Johanna's perception there was something ominous about this blessing, at such a time, and yet it had really about it nothing at all unusual, for Mr. Oakley was very much in the habit of saying to them "God bless you," when they left him; but feeling, as they did, the hazard that she (Johanna) might encounter before again she heard that voice say "God bless you," if, indeed, she ever again heard it, no wonder the words sank deep into their hearts, and called up the most painful emotions. Johanna certainly could not speak. Arabella tried to laugh, to hide an emotion that would not be hidden, and only succeeded in producing an hysterical sound, that surprised Mr. Oakley. "What's the matter, my dear?" he said. "Oh, nothing--nothing, dear Mr. Oakley, nothing." "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps I only fancy it; but you both seem--seem--" "What do we seem, father?" said Johanna, looking very pale, and speaking with a great effort. "Not quite as usual, my darling." "That--that," gasped Johanna, "can only be--be fancy." "Of course not," said Oakley. "Fancy, I think I said it was, or if I did not, I meant to say so, my love." "Come," said Arabella. "Yes--yes. Father--father. Good day." She kissed his cheek; and then, before the old man could say another word, she rushed to the door. "Farewell!" said Arabella. "Good day, Mr. Oakley. I--I thank you, sir. Good day, sir." "Dear, dear," said the old man, "what is the matter with the girls? How odd they both seem to-day. What can be the cause of it? I never before saw them so strange in their manner. Ah! I have it. My wife has met them, I dare say, and has said some unkind things to them about hats or ribbons, or some harmless little piece of girlish pride. Well--well. All that will pass away. I'm glad I hit upon it, for--" At this moment old Oakley was astounded by the sudden entrance of Johanna, who, clasping him in her arms, cried in a voice, half choked with tears-- "Good bye, father--good bye. God help me!" Without, then, waiting for a word from the spectacle-maker, she again rushed from the shop, and joining Arabella a few doors off, they both hurried to the house of the latter. Old Oakley tottered back until he came to a seat, upon which he sank, with an air of abstraction and confusion, that threatened to last him for some time; and in that, for the present, we must leave him, while we look narrowly at the conduct of the two young creatures, who have, in the pride of their virtue and their nobleness of purpose, presumed to set up their innocence against the deep craft of such a man as Sweeney Todd. Well might Johanna say "God help me!" "It is done!" said Johanna, as she clutched her friend by the arm. "It is done now. The worst is over." "Oh, Johanna--Johanna--" "Well, Arabella, why do you pause? What would you say?" "I scarcely know, and yet I feel that it ought to be something that I have promised you. I would not say." "Let your lips be sealed, then, dear friend; and be assured that now nothing but the visible interposition of God shall turn me from my purpose. I am calm and resolved." These words, few as they were, were too significant, and spoken with too evident sincerity to permit a doubt of their deep intensity and truth, and from that moment Arabella Wilmot looked upon the scheme of Johanna going in disguise to Todd's as quite settled so far as regarded the attempt. It was the result now only that had to be looked to. "I will say no more, Johanna, except as regards detail. In that I may offer you advice." "Oh, yes--yes, Arabella. Thankfully received advice, as well you know. What is it you would say?" "That you ought to wait until the morning." "And so perhaps lose precious hours. Oh, no--no. Do not ask me now to submit to any delays, Arabella." "But if there be reason, Johanna?" "Well, the reason, then--the reason?" "I think that, if possible, it would be well to avoid the necessity of remaining a night at Todd's; and so if you go in the morning, you see, Johanna, you may have an opportunity before nightfall of making all the discoveries you wish, or of satisfying yourself that they are not to be made at all." "It might be so, and yet--yet I almost think night will be the best time of all." "But by waiting until to-morrow morning, Johanna, you will have both day and night." "Yes, yes. I wish I knew what would be the best, Arabella. My feelings are wound up to this enterprise, and I am altogether in such a frightful state of excitement concerning it, that--that I know not how I should be able to support myself under the delay of the remainder of to-day and the whole of the ensuing night." "In the night you will have repose, and to-morrow morning, with much more calmness and effect, you will be able to start upon your errand. Believe me, Johanna, I don't counsel this delay with any hope, or wish, or expectation, that it will turn you from your purpose, but simply because I think it will the better ensure its successful termination." "Successful! What will you call successful, Arabella?" "Your coming back to me uninjured, Johanna." "Ah, that speaks your love for me, while I--I love him for whose sake I am about to undergo so much, sufficiently to feel that were I sure he was no more, my own death at the hands of Sweeney Todd would be success." "Johanna--Johanna, don't speak in such a strain. Have you no thought for me? have you no thought for your poor father, to whom, as you well know, you are the dearest tie that he has in the world? Oh, Johanna, do not be so selfish." "Selfish?" "Yes, it is selfish, when you know what others must suffer because they love you, to speak as though it were a thing to be desired that you should die by violence." "Arabella, can you forgive me? can you make sufficient allowances for this poor distracted heart, to forgive its ravings?" "I can--I do, Johanna, and in the words of your father, I am ever ready to say 'God bless you!' You will not go till to-morrow?" After the pause of a few moments, Johanna said faintly-- "I will not--I will not." "Oh that is much. Then at least for another night we shall enjoy our old sweet companionship." They by this time had reached the home of Arabella, and as it was an understood thing that Johanna was not expected home, the two young girls retired to converse in unrestrained freedom upon all their hopes and fears. CHAPTER LXIV. TODD COMMENCES PACKING UP. "Yes," said Todd, as he suddenly with a spring rose from the shaving-chair, upon which we left him enjoying reflections of no very pleasant character. "Yes, the game is up." He stood for a few moments now in silence, confronting a small piece of looking glass that hung upon the wall exactly opposite to him, and it would appear that he was struck very much by the appearance of his own face, for he suddenly said-- "How old and worn I look." No one could have looked upon the countenance of Todd for one moment without fully concurring in this opinion. In truth, he did look old and worn. But a comparatively short time has elapsed since we first presented him to the readers of this most veracious narrative. Then he was a man whose hideous ugliness was combined with such a look of cool triumphant villany, that one did not know which most to ponder upon. Now his face had lost its colour; a yellowish whiteness was the predominating tint, and his cheeks had fallen. There was a wild and an earnest restlessness about his eyes that made him look very much like some famished wolf, with a touch of hydrophobia to set him off; and certainly, take him for all in all, one would not be over anxious "To see his like again!" "Old and worn," he repeated, "and the game is up; I am decided. Off and away! is my game--off and away!--I have enough to be a prince anywhere where money is worshipped, and that of course must be the case in all civilised and religious communities. I must keep in some such. In the more savage wilds of nature man is prized for what he is, but, thank God, in highly cultivated and educated states he is only prized for what he has been. Ha! ha! If mankind had worshipped virtue, I would have been virtuous, for I love power." A thought seemed suddenly to strike Todd; and he went into the parlour muttering to himself-- "My friend Peter must be effectually disposed of." He raised the cover which was upon the table, and with a grunt of satisfaction, added-- "Gone!--that will do." There was no trace of the body that he had kicked under the table. By some strange mysterious agency it had entirely disappeared, and then Todd went somehow to the back of the house and got a wet mop, by the aid of which he got rid of some stains of blood upon the floor and the fender. "All's right," he said, "I have done some service to Fogg, and I will, when I am far enough off for any sting not to recoil upon myself, take good care that the law pays him a visit. The villain as well as the fool, to deceive me regarding the boy Tobias. What can have become of him?" This was a question that gave Todd some uneasiness, but at length he came to the conclusion that the dreadful treatment he, Tobias, had received at the asylum had really driven him mad, and that in all human probability he had fallen or cast himself into the river, or gone into some field to die. "Were it otherwise," he said, "I should and must have heard something of him before now." Todd then fairly began packing up. From beneath several tables in the room he dragged out large trunks, and opening then some of the drawers and cupboards that abounded in his parlour, he began placing their valuable contents in the boxes. "My course is simple enough," he said--"very simple; I must and will, by violence--for she is by far too wily and artful to allow me to do so by any other means--get rid of Mrs. Lovett. Then I must and will possess myself of all that she calls her share of the proceeds of business. Then, at night--the dead hour of the night--after having previously sent all my boxes full of such valuables as from their likelihood to be identified I dare not attempt to dispose of in England, to Hamburgh, I will set the whole house in a flame." The idea of burning down his house, and if possible involving a great portion of Fleet Street in the conflagration, always seemed to be delightful enough to Todd to raise his spirits a little. "Yes," he added, with a demoniac grin. "There is no knowing what amount of mischief I may do to society at large upon that one night, besides destroying amid the roar of the flames a mass of accumulated evidence against myself that would brand my memory with horrors, and, for aught I know, cause a European search after me." As he spoke, watches--rings--shoe buckles--brooches--silver heads of walking canes--snuff boxes, and various articles of bijouterie were placed row upon row in the box he was packing. "Yes," he added, "I know--I feel that there is danger; I know now that I have spies upon me--that I am watched; but it is from that very circumstance that I ground my belief that as yet I am safe. They fancy there is something to find out, and they are trying to find it out. If they really knew anything, of course it would be--Todd, you are wanted." Having placed in one of the boxes as many articles of gold and silver as made up a considerable weight, Todd lifted it at one end, and feeling satisfied that if he were to place any more metal in the box it would be too heavy for carriage, he opened a cupboard which was full of hats, and filled up the box with them. By this means he filled up the box, so that the really valuable articles within it would not shake about, and then he securely locked it. "One," he said. "Some half-dozen of such will be sufficient to carry all that I shall think worth the taking. As for my money, that will be safest about me. Ah, I will outwit them yet, I will be off and away--only just in time. Suspicion will take a long time to ripen into certainty, and before it does, the flaming embers of this house will be making the night sky as fair and magnificent as the most golden sunset of summer." Another box was now opened, and in that, as it was of considerable length, he began to pack swords of a valuable character. He went to the rooms above stairs, which, as the reader is already aware, contained much valuable property, and brought down troops of things, which with complacent looks he carefully placed in the chest. Ever and anon, as he went through this process, he kept muttering to himself his hopes and fears. "What is to hinder me, in some principality of Germany, from purchasing a title which shall smother all remembrance of what I now am, and as the Baron Something, I shall commence a new life, for I am not old; no--no, I am not old--far from old, although late anxieties have made me look so. I am not so nervous and fearful of slight things as I was, although my imagination has played me some tricks of late." Some slight noise, that sounded as if in the house, although it was in all probability in the next one, came upon his ears, and with a howl of terror he shrunk down by the side of the box he had been packing. [Illustration: Todd Alarmed At Strange Sounds Whilst Packing His Plunder.] "Help! mercy! What is that?" The noise was not repeated, but for the space of about ten minutes or so, Todd was perfectly incapable of moving except a violent attack of trembling, which kept every limb in motion, and terribly distorted his countenance, if it might be called so. "What--what was it?" he at length gasped. "I thought I heard something, nay, I am sure I heard something--a slight noise, but yet slight noises are to me awfully suggestive of something that may follow. Am I really getting superstitious now?" He slowly rose and looked fearfully round him. All was still. True, he had heard a voice, but that was all. No consequences had resulted from it, and the fit of trembling that had seized him was passing away. He went to the cupboard where he kept that strong stimulant that had so much excited the admiration of Peter. He did not go through the ceremony of procuring a glass, but placing the neck of the bottle to his throat, he took a draught of the contents which would have been amply sufficient to confound the faculties of any ordinary person. Upon Todd, however, it had only a sort of sedative effect, and he gradually recovered his former diabolical coolness. "It was nothing," he said. "It was nothing. My fears and my imaginations are beginning now to play the fool with me. If there were none others, such would be sufficient warnings to me to be off and away." He continued the packing of the box which had been temporarily suspended, but ever and anon he would pause, and lifting up one of his huge hands, placed it at his ear to listen more acutely, and when nothing in the shape of alarm reached him he would say with a tone of greater calmness and contentment-- "All is still--all is still. I shall be off and away soon--off and away!" The dusky twilight had crept on while Todd was thus engaged, and he was thinking of going out, when he heard the creaking noise of his shop door opening. As he was but in the parlour, he made his way to the shop at once, and saw a young man, who spoke with an affected lisp, as he said-- "Mr. Todd, can you give my locks a little twirl? I'm going to a party to-night, and want to look fascinating." "Allow me," said Todd, as he rapidly passed him and bolted the door. "I am annoyed by a drunken man, so, while I am dressing your hair, I wish to shut him out, or else I might scorch you with the tongs." "Oh, certainly. If there's anything, do you know, Mr. Todd, that I really dislike more than another, it's a drunken man." "There's only one thing in society," said Todd, "can come near it.--Sit here, sir." "What's that?" "Why, a drunken woman, sir." "Werry good--Werry good." Some one made an effort to enter the shop, but the bolt which Todd had shot into its place effectually resisted anything short of violence sufficient to break the door completely down. "Mr. Todd--Mr. Todd," cried a voice. "In a moment, sir," said Todd. "In a moment." He darted into the parlour. There was a loud bang in the shop as though something had fallen, and then a half-stifled shriek. Todd reappeared. The shaving chair in which the young man had been sitting was empty. Todd took up his hat, and threw it into the parlour. He then unbolted the door, and admitted a man who glanced around him, and then, without a word, backed out again, looking rather pale. Todd did not hear him mutter to himself, as he reached the street-- "Sir Richard will be frantic at this. I must post off to him at once, and let him know that it was none of our faults. What an awkward affair to be sure." CHAPTER LXV. A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO ST. DUNSTAN'S VAULTS. For the remainder of that day Todd was scarcely visible, so we will leave him to his occupation, which was that of packing up valuables, while we take a peep at a very solemn hour indeed at old St. Dunstan's Church. The two figures on the outside of the ancient edifice had struck with their clubs the sonorous metal, and the hour of two had been proclaimed to such of the inhabitants of the vicinity who had the misfortune to be awake to hear it. The watchman at the gate of the Temple woke up and said "past six," while another watchman, who was snugly ensconced in a box at the corner of Chancery Lane, answered that it was "four o'clock and a rainy morning." Now it was neither four o'clock nor a rainy morning--for the sky, although by no means entirely destitute of clouds, was of that speckled clearness which allows the little stars to pass out at all sorts of odd crevices, like young beauties through the jalousies of some Spanish Castle. The moon, too, had, considering all things, a pretty good time of it, for the clouds were not dense enough to hide her face, and when behind them, she only looked like some young bride, with the faint covering of bashful blonde before her radiant countenance. And at times, too, she would peep out at some break in that veil with such a blaze of silvery beauty as was dazzling to behold, and quite stopped the few passengers who were in the streets at that lone hour. "Look," said one of four gentlemen, who were walking towards Temple Bar from the Strand. "Look! Is not that lovely?" "Yes," said another. "A million fires are out in London now, and one can see the blue sky as it was seen when--" "Wild in the woods the painted savage ran." "But, after all," said another, "I prefer good broad cloth to red ochre. What say you, Sir Richard?" "I am of your lordship's opinion," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was one of the party of four: "I certainly think we have gained something by not being Ancient Britons any longer than was absolutely necessary. This is, in truth, a most splendid night." "It is--it is," they all said. By this time, strolling along in an independent sort of fashion, they had reached Temple Bar, and then Sir Richard, bowing to the one who had not yet made any sort of remark, said-- "Mr. Villimay, you have not forgotten the keys?" "Oh no, Sir Richard; oh no." "Then, gentlemen, we are very near our place of destination. It will be advisable that we look about us, and use the utmost precaution, to be sure that we are not watched by any one." "Yes--yes," said the other. "You will be the best judge of that Sir Richard; with your tact, you will be able to come to a conclusion upon that subject much better than we can." Sir Richard Blunt made a slight kind of bow in acknowledgment of the compliment to his tact, and then, while what we may call the main body waited under the arch of Temple Bar, he advanced alone into Fleet Street. After advancing for a short distance, he took from his pocket a small silver whistle, and produced upon it a peculiar thrilling note. In a moment a tall man, with a great coat on him, merged from behind a column that lent its support to a door-way. "Here you is," said the man. "Is all right, Crotchet?" said Sir Richard. "Yes; everything is quiet enough. Not a blessed mouse hasn't wagged his tail or smoothened his whiskers for the last half hour or so." "Very good, Crotchet. I'm afraid, though, I cannot dismiss you just yet, as the business is very important." "What's the odds," said Crotchet, "as long as you are happy?" Sir Richard Blunt smiled, as he added-- "Well, Crotchet, you deserve, and you shall have an ample reward for the services you are doing and have done, in this affair. I and some gentlemen will go into the church, and I wish you to remain at the porch, and if you find occasion to give any warning, I think your whistle will be quite shrill enough to reach my ears." "Not a doubt on it, Sir Richard. If what they calls the last trumpet is only half as loud as my last whistle, it will wake up the coves, and no mistake." "Very good, Crotchet. Only don't make any profane allusions in the hearing of the gentlemen with me, for one of them is the Under Secretary of State, and the other two are men of account. We have to meet some one else in the church." "Then he hasn't come." "That's awkward. The Lord Mayor was to meet us. Ah! who is this?" A private carriage stopped on the other side of the way, and some one alighted, and a voice cried-- "Go home now, Samuel, and put up the horses. I shall not want you any more to-night. Go home." "Shan't we call anywhere for you, my lord?" said Samuel, the coachman. "No--no, I say. Go away at once." "That's the Lord Mayor," said Sir Richard. "He is pretty true to his time." As he spoke, Sir Richard crossed the road, and addressed the chief magistrate of the city, saying-- "A fine night, my lord." "Oh, Sir Richard, is that you? Well, I am very glad to meet with you so soon. If I were to tell you the difficulty I have had to get here, you would not believe me. Indeed you could not." "Really, my lord." "Yes. You must know, Sir Richard, between you and I, and--and"--Here the Lord Mayor, who did not like to say post, looked about him, and his eyes falling upon Temple Bar, added--"Bar, I say; between you and me and the Bar, the Lady Mayoress, although a most excellent woman--indeed I may say an admirable woman--has at times her little faults of temper. You understand?" "Who is without?" said Sir Richard. "Ah, who indeed--who indeed, Sir Richard. That is a very sensible remark of yours. Who is without? as you justly enough say." "The Lord Mayor!" said Sir Richard, who had been gradually leading his lordship to Temple Bar, and now announced his arrival to the three gentlemen who were there in waiting. The three gentlemen professed themselves to be quite delighted to see the Lord Mayor, and the Lord Mayor professed to be quite in raptures to see the three gentlemen, so that a pleasanter party than they all made, could not have been imagined. "Now," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, with all deference, gentlemen, that the sooner we proceed to business the better." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Villimay, who was the senior churchwarden. "Oh, yes--certainly." "And yet," said the Lord Mayor, "we must be very cautious." "Oh, very--very cautious," cried Villimay. "But a bold front is the best," remarked Sir Richard. "Yes. As you say, sir, there's nothing like a bold front," cried Villimay. Sir Richard, with a quiet smile, said to the under secretary-- "A very obliging person, you perceive, Mr. Villimay is." "Oh, very," laughed the secretary. Preceded now by the churchwarden, they all made their way towards the church, but the watchman at the corner of Chancery Lane must have had something upon his mind, he was so very wakeful, for after they had all passed but Crotchet, he looked out of his box, and said--"Thieves!" "What's that to you?" said Crotchet, facing him with a look of defiance, "eh? Can't you be quiet when you is told?" "Murder!" said the watchman, as he began to fumble for his rattle. "Hark ye, old pump," said Crotchet. "I've settled eight watchmen atween this here and Charing Cross, and you'll make nine, if you opens your mouth again." The appalled watchman shrank back into his box. "Eight, did you say?" "Yes." Crotchet took the lantern off its hook in front of the box, and smashed it upon the head of the guardian of the night, whereupon the aforesaid guardian shrank completely down to the bottom of the box, with the fragments of the lantern hanging about him, and said not another word. "I rather think," said Mr. Crotchet to himself, "as I've settled that old fellow comfortable." With this conviction upon his mind--the amiability or the non-amiability of which we shall not stop to discuss--Mr. Crotchet ran hastily after the rest of the party, and stationed himself by the church porch, according to orders. By this time, Mr. Villimay, the churchwarden, had produced a little gothic-looking key, and proceeding to a small side door, he, after some rattling, partly consequent upon the lock being in a state of desuetude, and partly from personal nervousness, he did succeed in turning the rusty wards, and then, with an ominous groan, the door yielded. Sir Richard Blunt had quite satisfied himself that there were no eaves-droppers at hand, so he was anxious to get the party housed--perhaps in this instance churched would be a more appropriate expression. "Gentlemen," he said, "the night is stealing past, and we have much to do." "That is true, Sir Richard," said the secretary. "Come on, Donkin, and let us get through it." The Lord Mayor shook a little as he passed through the little door, last, having, although king of the city, given the _pas_ to every one of his companions, upon that most mysterious mission to old St. Dunstan's church at such an hour. Perhaps he had a faint hope that they might leave him entirely behind, and shut the door precipitately, so that he could not get in. If he had any such hope, however, it was doomed, like too many human hopes, to bitter disappointment, for Sir Richard Blunt held the door open for him, saying blandly-- "Now, my lord. We could not get on without you." "Oh, thank you--thank you. You are very good." The Lord Mayor crossed the threshold, and then Mr. Villimay, who had occupied a remote and mysterious position at the back of the door, closed it, and locked it on the inside. "If--if you were to lose the key, Mr. Villimay?" said the Lord Mayor. "Why, then," interposed Sir Richard Blunt, "I'm afraid we should have to stay there until Sunday, unless some couple kindly got married in the meantime." The Lord Mayor gave a very odd kind of cough, as he said-- "What would the Lady Mayoress say?" The air without had been cold, but what was that compared with the coldness within? At least, the street breeze had been dry, but in the church there was such a fearful dampness pervading the narrow passage in which the party found itself, that every one felt as though his very marrow was cold. "This passage," said Mr. Villimay, "hasn't been opened for many a long day." "Indeed!" said the secretary. "No, my lord, it has not: and it's only a wonder that, after a good hunt in the vestry cupboard, I at all found the key of it." "Fortunate that you did," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was all this time making exertions to procure a light, which were as often defeated by the dampness of the air. At length he was successful in igniting a piece of wax candle, and he said-- "Gentlemen, this will show us our way through the church to the vestry, where we can get lanthorns." "Yes," said the Lord Mayor, who was getting so nervous that he thought himself called upon to make some reply to anything and anybody. "Yes, lanthorns in the vestry." "Well," said the secretary, "my Lord Mayor, your mayoralty will be distinguished by this dreadful affair for all time to come." "Many thanks to your lordship, it will." The secretary smiled as he whispered to his friend Donkin-- "The city magistrate don't seem happy, Donkin." "Far from it." At the end of the little narrow, damp, gloomy, cobwebby passage in which they were, was another little door, the upper half of which was of highly ornamented iron fret work, the side of which next to the church interior being gilt. This door likewise yielded to a key which Mr. Villimay produced, and then they found themselves at once in the western aisle of the church. "The stench don't seem so bad," said Sir Richard. "No, sir," said Villimay. "We have got all the windows open far up above there, and there's quite a current of air, too, right up the belfry." CHAPTER LXVI. THE COOK'S VISITORS. Sir Richard shaded with his hand the little light that he carried as he walked solemnly across the nave towards the chancel, where the vestry room was situated. He was followed closely by the whole party, and the audible breathing of the Lord Mayor sufficiently proclaimed the uneasy state of his lordship's nerves. "How strange it is," said the secretary, "that men will pile up stones and timber until they make something to enter, which then terrifies their weak natures, and they become the slaves of the very materials that they have made to enclose and roof in a certain space upon which otherwise they would stand unmoved." "It is so," said Donkin. "Why the fact is, I suppose," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that it is what is called original sin that sticks to us, and so-- 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!' whether we are personally or not obnoxious to the pangs of the still small voice." "Upon my word, Sir Richard," said the secretary, "you are quite a free-thinker--indeed you are." Suddenly the whole party paused, for something resembling a moan was heard from among the pews in the centre of the church, and every one was anxious to listen for a repetition of the sound. "Did you hear it?" whispered the secretary. "In faith, I did," said Mr. Donkin. "And I," said Sir Richard Blunt. "And we," said the Lord Mayor, in defiance of grammar. "I--I--feel rather unwell, gentlemen, do you know." "Hush! let us listen," said the secretary. They all stood profoundly still for a few minutes, and then, just as they were one and all beginning to think that after all it must be a mere thing of fancy, the same mournful moan came once more upon their ears. "There can be no mistake," said Sir Richard. "We all hear that; is it not so, gentlemen?" "Yes--yes!" said everybody. "I'm getting worser," said the Lord Mayor. "This mystery must be cleared up," said the secretary. "Is it a trick upon us, do you think, Sir Richard?" "No, my lord, certainly not." "Then we cannot go on until this is cleared up. You are armed, of course, Sir Richard?" "Yes, my lord." Sir Richard Blunt took from his pocket a double-barrelled pistol. There was now a sort of pause, as though each of those present expected the others to say or to do something which should have the effect of discovering what the singular noise portended. Of course, Sir Richard Blunt felt that in such an emergency he would be the man naturally looked to. "It is absolutely necessary," he said, "that we should find out what this means before proceeding farther." "Yes, yes," said the Lord Mayor, "no doubt of it; and in the meantime I'll run to the Mansion House and get some assistance, gentlemen." "Oh, no, my lord--oh, no," said the secretary to the chief magistrate of the city. "We cannot think of sparing you." "But--but--" "Certainly not," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was keenly alive to the tone of irony in which the secretary spoke. "Certainly not; and as I fancy the sound which has excited our curiosity comes from about the centre of the pews, you and I, my lord, will go and find out who it is. Come, if you please, at once." "I--I--" stammered the Lord Mayor, "I really--humph! If I felt quite well, do you know, Sir Richard, I should not hesitate a moment." "Pho! pho!" said Sir Richard, taking his arm, and leading him unwillingly forward. "Remember that the eyes of those are upon you whose opinions are to you of importance." With a groan the unfortunate Lord Mayor, who from the first had shrunk from the enterprise altogether, being fearful that it might possibly involve dangerous consequences, allowed himself to be dragged by Sir Richard Blunt in the direction of the pews. "If you have a pistol," said the magistrate, "you had better keep it in your hand ready for service." "Lord bless you," said the Lord Mayor, in a nervous whisper, "I never fired off a pistol in all my life." "Is that possible?" "I don't know about being possible, but it's true." "Well, you do surprise me." "So--so you see, Sir Richard," added his temporary lordship, suddenly popping into the churchwarden's pew, which they had just reached--"so I'll stay here and keep an eye upon you." Sir Richard Blunt was not at all sorry to get rid of such a companion as the Lord Mayor, so with a cough, he left him in the pew, and went forward alone, determined to find out what it was that made the extraordinary noise. As he went forward, towards the spot from whence it had come, he heard it once again, and in such close proximity to him, that albeit, unaccustomed to allow anything to affect his nerves, he started back a pace. Shading, then, the little bit of wax candle that he had in his hand, he looked steadily in the direction of the low moaning sound. In an instant he found a solution of the mystery. A couple of pigeons stood upon the hand rail of one of the pews, and it was the peculiar sound made by these birds, that, by the aid of echo in the silent empty church, had seemed to be of a very different character from its ordinary one. "And from such simple causes," said Sir Richard, "arise all the well-authenticated stories of superstition which fancy and cowardice give credence to." He looked up, and saw that in the wish to ventilate the church, the windows had been liberally opened, which had afforded the means of ingress to the pigeons, who, no doubt, would have slumbered soundly enough until morning, if not disturbed by the arrival of the party at the church. As Sir Richard Blunt retraced his steps, he passed the pew where the Lord Mayor was; and willing to punish that functionary for his cowardice, he said, in a well-affected voice of alarm-- "Gracious Heaven! what will become of us?" With a groan, the Lord Mayor flopped down to the floor of the pew, and there he lay, crouching under one of the seats in such an agony of terror, that Sir Richard felt certain he and the others would be able to transact all the business they came about, before he would venture to move from that place of concealment. The magistrate speedily informed the rest of the party what was the cause of the alarm, and likewise hinted the position of the Lord Mayor, upon which the secretary said-- "Let him be. Of course, as a matter of courtesy, I was obliged to write to him upon the subject; but we are as well, and perhaps better without him." "I am of the same opinion," said Sir Richard. They now went at once to the vestry, and two good lanterns were then procured, and lit. The magistrate at once led the way to the stone that had been raised by the workmen, in the floor of the church, and which had never been effectually fastened down again. In a corner, where no one was likely to look, Sir Richard placed his hand for a crow-bar which he knew to be there, and, having found it, he quickly raised the stone on one side. The other gentlemen lent their assistance, and it was turned fairly over, having exposed the steps that led down to the vaults of old St. Dunstan's church. "Let us descend at once," said the secretary, who, to tell the truth, in the whole affair, showed no lack of personal courage. "Allow me to precede you, gentlemen," said Sir Richard Blunt; "and you, Mr. Villimay, will, perhaps, bring up the rear." "Yes, oh, yes," said the churchwarden, with some degree of nervousness, but he was quite a hero compared to the Lord Mayor. Sir Richard handed one of the lanterns, then, to Mr. Villimay, and took the other himself. Without another moment's delay, then, he began the descent. They could all, as they went, feel conscious that there was certainly a most unearthly smell in the vaults--a smell which, considering the number of years that had elapsed since any interments had taken place in them, was perfectly unaccountable. As they proceeded, this stench became more and more sickening, and the secretary said, as he held a handkerchief to his mouth and nose-- "The Bishop of London spoke to me of this, but I really thought he was exaggerating." "It would be difficult to do that," said Sir Richard. "It is as bad almost as it can very well be, and the measures taken for the purpose of ventilation, have not as yet had a very great effect upon it." "I should say not." With tolerable speed the magistrate led the party on through a vast number of vaults, and through several narrow and rather tortuous passages, after which he came to an iron door. It was locked, but placing the lantern for a few moments upon the floor, he soon succeeded in opening it with a skeleton key. The moment he had done so, the secretary exclaimed-- "Hey day! This is something different." "In what respect, my lord?" "Why, if my senses don't deceive me, the horrible charnel-house smell, which we have been enduring for some time past, has given way to one much more grateful." "What is it like, my lord?" "Well, I should say some delicious cooking was going on." "You are right. There is cooking going on. We are not very far from Mrs. Lovett's pie manufactory." "Indeed!" "Yes; and the smell, or rather I ought to say the odour of which the air is full, comes from the bakehouse." The secretary gave a perceptible shudder, and Mr. Villimay uttered a groan. The gentleman who was with the secretary was about to say something, but the magistrate, in a low voice, interrupted him, saying-- "Pardon me, but now we are in close proximity to the place of our destination, I would recommend the profoundest caution and silence." "Certainly--certainly. We will only be silent spectators." "It is better, I think," added Sir Richard Blunt, "to allow me to carry on the whole of the conversation that is to ensue; and at the same time, any of you gentlemen can suggest to me a question to ask, and I will at once put it to the man we come to speak to." "That will do, Sir Richard, that will do." The magistrate now hurried on as though those savoury steams that scented the air from the bakehouse of Mrs. Lovett's pies were to him more disagreeable than the horrible smell in the vaults that made everybody shake again. In a few minutes he arrived at a room, for it could not be called a vault. It had a floor of rough stone flags, which seemed as though they had originally belonged to some of the vaults, and had been pulled up and carried to this place to make a rude flooring. There was nothing very remarkable about the walls of this place, save at one part, and there there was evidently a door, across which was placed a heavy iron bar. "It is through there," said Sir Richard. "But--but you do not intend to open it?" "Certainly not. There is a small crevice through which there will be no difficulty in maintaining a conversation with the imprisoned cook, if I can only make him hear me from this spot." CHAPTER LXVII. THE REVELATIONS IN THE VAULTS. The object of Sir Richard Blunt was, of course, to make the cook hear him, but no one else. With this aim he took a crown-piece from his pocket and tapped with the edge of it upon the stone-work which at that place protruded from the wall to the extent of nearly a foot. The stone shelves upon the other side were let into the wall in that fashion. The monotonous ringing sound of the coin against the stone was likely enough to reverberate through the wall, and that the cook was rather a light sleeper, or did not sleep at all, was soon sufficiently manifest, for a voice, which the magistrate recognised as his, cried from the other side-- "Who is there? If a friend, speak quickly, for God knows I have need of such. If an enemy, your utmost malice cannot make my situation worse than it is." Sir Richard placed his mouth close to a crevice, and said-- "A friend, and the same who has spoken to you before." "Ah! I know that voice. Do you bring me freedom?" "Soon. But I have much to ask of you." "Let me look at the daylight, and then ask what you will, I shall not tire of answering." "Nay, the principal thing I have to ask of you is yet a little more patience." "Patience! patience! It seems that I have been years in this place, and yet you ask me to have more patience. Oh, blessed liberty, am I not to hail you yet?" "Can you forget that you have another object--namely, to bring to the just punishment of the law those who have placed you and others in this awful position?" "Yes--yes. But--" "But you would forego all that to be free, a few short hours before you would be free with the accomplishment of all that justice and society required?" "No--no. God help me! I will have patience. What is it that you demand of me now? Speak." "Your name?" "Alas!--alas!" "Surely you cannot hesitate to tell one, who has run some risks to befriend you, who you are?" "If, by my telling that, I saw that those risks were made less, I would not hesitate; but, as it is, London, and all that it contains now, is so hateful to me, that I shall leave it the instant I can. Falsehood, where I most expected truth, has sunk deeply, like a barbed arrow, into my heart." "Well, I certainly had hoped you would have placed in me that amount of confidence." "No. I dare not." "Dare not?" "Yes, that is the word. The knowledge of my name spread abroad--that is to say, my real name, would inflict much misery for all, I can just now say to the contrary, upon one whom I yet wish all the happiness that God can give his creatures in this world. Let it be thought that I and the world have parted company." "You are a strange man." "I am. But the story I have to tell of the doings in this den of infamy, will come as well from a Mr. Smith as from any one else." "I wish you now, in a few words, to relate to me what you know, fully and freely." "Anticipating that a statement would be wanted, I have, with no small amount of trouble, manufactured for myself pens and ink, and have written all that I have to say. How can I give you the document?" "There is a chink here in the wall, through which I am addressing you. Can you pass it through?" "I will try. I see the chink now for the first time since my long and painful residence here. Your light upon the other side has made it quite apparent to me. I think, by folding my paper close, I can pass it through to you." "Try it." In about half a minute Sir Richard Blunt got hold of a piece of folded paper, which was pushed partly through the chink. He pulled it quite through, and handed it to the secretary, who, with a nod, at once put it in his pocket. "And now for how long," said the cook, "am I to pine for freedom from this dreadful place? Recollect that each hour here has upon its passing wings a load of anxieties and miseries, such as I only can appreciate." "I have brought a letter for you," said Sir Richard, "which will contain all the intelligence you wish, and give you such instructions as shall not only ensure your safety, but enable you to aid materially in bringing your persecutors to justice. Place your hand to the crevice and take it." "I have it." "Well, read it at your leisure. Have you any means of knowing the time of day in your prison?" "Oh yes. There is a clock in the bakehouse, by which I am forced to regulate the different batches of pies." "That will do. Have you had any more threats from Mrs. Lovett?" "None. As long as I perform my loathsome duty here, I see no one and hear of no one." "Be of good cheer, your desolate condition will not last long. It is not easy under present circumstances to enter at large into matters which might induce you to declare who you really are, but when you and I meet in the bright sunshine from which you have been debarred for so long, you will think very differently from what you do now upon many things." "Well, sir, perhaps I shall." "Good night to you. Take what rest and refreshment you can, my good friend, and believe that there are better days in store for you." "I will strive to think so.--Good night." There was such a mournful cadence in the voice of the imprisoned young man, as he said "Good night," that the secretary remarked in a low voice to Sir Richard-- "Would it not be a mercy now to let him free, and take him away with us?" "I don't like his concealing his name, my lord." "Well, it is not the thing exactly." "His imprisonment now will be of very short duration indeed, and his liberation is certain, unless by some glaring act of imprudence he mars his own fortune. But now, gentlemen, I have a sight to show you in these vaults that you have come to see, and yet, that I think it would have been wise if you had left unseen." "Indeed!" "Yes. You will soon agree with me in opinion." Sir Richard, bearing the lantern in his hand, led the way for a considerable distance back again, until they were fairly under the church, and then he said-- "A large vault belonging to a family named Weston, which is extinct I fancy, for we can find no one to claim it, has been opened near this spot." "By whom?" "That you will have no difficulty in guessing. It is that vault that I wish to show you. There are others in the same condition, but one will be enough to satiate your appetites for such sights. This way, gentlemen, if you please." As the light from the two lanterns fell upon the faces of Sir Richard Blunt's companions, curiosity and excitement could be seen paramount upon their features. They followed him as their guide without a word, but they could not but see that he trod slowly, and that now and then a shudder crossed his frame. "Even you are affected," said the secretary, when the silence had lasted some minutes. "I were something more or less than human," replied Sir Richard Blunt "if I could go unmoved into the presence of that sight, that I feel it to be my duty to show to you." "It must be horrible indeed." "It is more horrible than all the horrors your imagination can suggest. Let us go quicker." Apparently with a desperate feeling of resolution, such as might actuate a man who had some great danger to encounter, and who after shrinking from it for a time, should cry "Well, the sooner it is over the better," did the magistrate now quicken his steps, nor paused he until he arrived at the door of the vault of which he had spoken. "Now, Mr. Villimay," he said. "Be so good as to hold up your lantern as high as you can, at the same time not to get it above the doorway, and I will do the same by mine. All that we want is a brief but clear view." "Yes, yes. Quite brief," said the secretary. Sir Richard Blunt laid his hand upon the door of the vault, which was unfastened, and flung it open. "Behold!" he said, "one of the vaults of old St. Dunstan's." For the space of about a minute and a half no one uttered a word, so it behoves us to state what that vault contained, to strike such horror into the hearts of bold educated men. Piled one upon each other on the floor, and reaching half way up to the ceiling lay, a decomposing mass of human remains. Heaped up one upon another, heedlessly tossed into the disgusting heap any way, lay the gaunt skeletons with pieces of flesh here and there only adhering to the bones. A steam--a foetid steam rose up from the dead, and upon the floor was a pool of corruption, creeping along as the declivities warranted. Eyes, teeth, hands half denuded of flesh--glistening vermin, shiny and sleek with the luxurious feeding they there got, slipped glibly in and out of the heaped-up horror. [Illustration: Todd's Victims In The Vaults Of Old St. Dunstan's Church.] "No more--no more!" cried the secretary. "I sicken," said his friend, "I am faint." Sir Richard Blunt let go the door, and it slammed shut with a hollow sound. "Thank God!" he said. "For--for what?" gasped Mr. Villimay. "That you and I, my friend, need not look upon this sight again. We are all sufficient evidence upon our oaths that it is here to see." "Yes--yes." "Come away," said the secretary. "You told me something of what was to see, Sir Richard Blunt, but my imagination did not picture it to be what it is." "I told you that likewise, my lord." "You did--you did." With hurried steps they now followed the magistrate; and it was with a feeling of exquisite relief that they all found themselves, after a few minutes, fairly in the body of the church, and some distance from that frightful spectacle they had each thought it to be their duty to look upon. "Let us go to the vestry," said the secretary, "and take something. I am sick at heart and stomach both." "And I am everything, and hungry too," cried a voice, and the Lord Mayor popped his head up from the churchwardens' pew. No one could help laughing at this, although, to tell the truth, those men, after what they had seen, were in no laughing mood, as the reader may well imagine. "Is that our friend, the King of the City?" said the secretary. "It is," said Sir Richard. "Well, I must say that he has set a good example of bravery in his dominions." "He has indeed." "Gentlemen--gentlemen," added the Lord Mayor, as he rolled out of the churchwardens' pew, "don't think of going into the vestry without me, for it was I who gave a hint to have refreshments put there, and I have been dying for some of them for this last half-hour, I assure you." CHAPTER LXVIII. RETURNS TO JOHANNA. We return to Johanna Oakley. "What is the meaning of all this?" said Sweeney Todd, as he sat in his shop about the hour of twelve on the morning following that upon which Johanna Oakley and her friend Arabella had concerted so romantic a plan of operations regarding him. "What is the meaning of all this? Am I going mad?" Now Todd's question was no doubt a result of some peculiar sensations that had come over him; but, propounded as it was to silence and to vacancy, it of course got no answer. A cold perspiration had suddenly broke out upon his brow, and, for the space of about ten minutes, he was subject to one of those strange foreshadowings of coming ills to him, which of late had begun to make his waking hours anything but joyous, and his dreams hideous. "What can it mean?" he said. "What can it mean?" He wiped his face with a miserable looking handkerchief, and then, with a deep sigh, he said-- "It is that fiend in the shape of a woman!" No doubt he meant his dear friend, Mrs. Lovett. Alas! what a thorn she was in the side of Sweeney Todd. How poor a thing, by way of recompense for the dark and terrible suspicions he had of her, was his heaped up wealth? Todd--yes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded knee-deep--knee-deep do we say?--lip-deep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was something more precious still which he had bartered for it--peace! That peace of mind--that sweet serenity of soul, which, like the love of God, is beautiful, and yet passeth understanding. Yes, Todd was beginning to find out that he had bartered the jewel for the setting! What a common mistake. Does not all the world do it? They do; but the difference between Todd and common people merely was that he played the game with high stakes. "Yes," added Todd, after a pause, "curses on her, it is that fiend in the shape of a woman, who 'Cows my better part of man,' and she or I must fall. That is settled; yes--she or I. There was a time when I used to say she and I could not live in the same country; but now I feel that we cannot both live in the same world. She must go--she must lapse into the sleep of death." Todd rose, and stalked to and fro in his shop. He felt as if something was going to happen: that undefinable fidgetty feeling which will attack all persons at times, came over him, and yet it was not a feeling of deep apprehension that was at his heart. "Oh," he muttered, "it is the recollection of that dreadful woman--that fiend, who, with a seeming prescience, knows when there is poison in her glass, and baffles me. It is the dim and shadowy thought of what I must do with her that shatters me. If poison will not do the deed, steel or a bullet must. Ah!" Some one was trying the handle of the shop door, and so timidly was it tried, that Todd stood still to listen, without saying "Come in," or otherwise encouraging the visitor. "Who is it?" he gasped. Still the handle of the door-lock only shook. To be sure, it was a difficult door to open to all who did not know it well. Todd had taken care of that, for if there was anything more than another which such a man as he might be fairly enough presumed to dislike, it would be to be glided in upon by the sudden opening of an easy-going door. "Come in," he now cried. The person without was evidently anxious to obey the invitation, and a more strenuous effort was made to unfasten the door. It yielded at length. A young and pretty looking lad, apparently of about thirteen or fourteen years of age, stood upon the threshold. He and Sweeney Todd looked at each other in silence for a few moments. If a painter or a sculptor could have caught them as they stood, and transferred them to canvas or to marble, he might have called them an idea of Guilt and Innocence. There was Todd, with evil passions and wickedness written upon every feature of his face. There was the boy, with the rosy gentleness and innocence of Heaven upon his brow. God made both these creatures! It was Todd who broke the silence. A gathering flush was upon the face of the boy, and he could not speak. "What do you want?" said Todd. He rattled his chair as he spoke, as though he would have said, "It is not to be shaved." The boy was too much engaged with his own thoughts to pay much attention to Todd's pantomime. He evidently, though, wished to say something, which he could not command breath to give utterance to. Like the "Amen" of Macbeth, something he would fain have uttered, seemed to stick in his throat. "What is it?" again demanded Todd, eagerly. This roused the boy. The boy, do we say. Ah, our readers have already recognised in that boy the beautiful and enthusiastic Johanna Oakley. "There is a bill in your window--" [Illustration: Johanna Applies To Todd To Become His Errand Boy.] "A what?" Todd had forgotten the announcement regarding the youth he wanted, with a taste for piety. "A bill. You want a boy, sir." "Oh," said Todd, as the object of the visit at once thus became clear and apparent to him. "Oh, that's it." "Yes, sir." Todd held up his hand to his eyes, as though he were shading them from sunlight, as he gazed upon Johanna, and then, in an abrupt tone of voice, he said-- "You won't do." "Thank you, sir." She moved towards the door. Her hand touched the handle. It was not fast. The door opened. Another moment, and she would have been gone. "Stop!" cried Todd. She returned at once. "You don't look like a lad in want of a situation. Your clothes are good--your whole appearance is that of a young gentleman. What do you mean by coming here to ask to be an errand boy in a barber's shop? I don't understand it. You had different expectations." "Yes, sir. But Mrs. Green--" "Mrs. who?" "Green, sir, my mother-in-law, don't use me well, and I would rather go to sea, or seek my living in any way, than go back again to her; and if I were to come into your service, all I would ask would be, that you did not let her know where I was." "Humph! Your mother-in-law, you say?" "Yes, sir. I have been far happier since I ran away from her, than I have been for a long time past." "Ah, you ran away? Where lives she?" "At Oxford. I came to London in the waggon, and at every step the lazy horses took, I felt a degree of pleasure that I was placing a greater distance between me and oppression." "Your own name?" "Charley Green. It was all very well as long as my father lived; but when he was no more, my mother-in-law began her ill-usage of me. I bore it as long as I could, and then I ran away. If you can take me, sir, I hope you will." "Go along with you. You won't suit me at all. I wonder at your impudence in coming." "No harm done, sir. I will try my fortune elsewhere." Todd began sharpening a razor, as the boy went to the door again. "Shall I take him?" he said to himself. "I do want some one for the short time I shall be here. Humph! An orphan--strange in London. No one to care for him. The very thing for me. No prying friends--nowhere to run, the moment he is sent of an errand, with open mouth, proclaiming this and that has happened in the shop. I will have him." He darted to the door. "Hoi!--hoi!" Johanna turned round, and came back in a minute. Todd had caught at the bait at last. She got close to the door. "Upon consideration," said Todd, "I will speak to you again. But just run and see what the time is by St. Dunstan's Church." "St.--St. who?" said Johanna, looking around her with a bewildered, confused sort of air. "St. who?" "St. Dunstan's, in Fleet Street." "Fleet Street? If you will direct me, sir, I dare say I shall find it--oh, yes. I am good at finding places." "He _is_ strange in London," muttered Todd. "I am satisfied of that. He is strange. Come in--come in, and shut the door after you." With a heart beating with violence, that was positively fearful, Johanna followed Todd into the shop, carefully closing the door behind her, as she had been ordered to do. "Now," said Todd, "nothing in the world but my consideration for your orphan and desolate condition, could possibly induce me to think of taking you in; but the fact is, being an orphan myself--(here Todd made a hideous grimace)--I say, being an orphan myself, with little to distress me amid the oceans and quicksands of this wicked world, some very strong sense of religion--(another hideous grimace)--I naturally feel for you." "Thank you, sir." "Are you decidedly pious?" "I hope so, sir." "Humph! Well, we will say more upon that all-important subject another time, and if I consent to be your master, a--a--a--" "Charley Green, sir." "Ay, Charley Green. If I consent to take you for a week upon trial, you must wholly attribute it to my feelings." "Certainly, sir." "Have you any idea yourself as to terms?" "None in the least, sir." "Very good. Then you will not be disappointed. I shall give you sixpence a week, and your board wages of threepence a day, besides perquisites. The threepence I advise you to spend in three penny pies, at Mrs. Lovett's, in Bell Yard. They are the most nutritious and appetizing things you can buy; and in the Temple you will find an excellent pump, so that the half hour you will be allowed for dinner will be admirably consumed in your walk to the pie shop, and from thence to the pump, and then home here again." "Yes, sir." "You will sleep under the counter, here, of a night, and the perquisites I mention will consist of the use of the pewter wash-hand basin, the soap, and the end of a towel." "Yes, sir." "You will hear and see much in this place. Perhaps now and then you will be surprised at something; but--but, master Charley, if you go and gossip about me or my affairs, or what you see, or what you hear, or what you think you would like to see or hear, I'll cut your throat!" "Charley" started. "Oh! sir," he said, "you may rely upon me. I will be quite discreet. I am a fortunate lad to get so soon into the employment of such an exemplary master." "Ha!" Todd, for a space of two minutes made the most hideous and extraordinary grimaces. "Fortunate lad," he said. "Exemplary master! How true. Ha!"--Poor Johanna shuddered at that dreadful charnel-house sort of laugh. "My God," she thought, "was that the last sound that rung in the ears of my poor Mark, ere he bade adieu to this world for ever?" Then she could not but utter a sort of groan. "What's that?" said Todd. "What, sir?" "I--I thought some one groaned, or--or sighed. Was it you? No.--Well, it was nothing. See if that water on the fire is hot. Do you hear me? Well--well don't be alarmed. Is it hot?" "I think." "Think! Put your hand in it." "Quite hot, sir." "Well, then, master Charley--Ah! A customer! Come in, sir; come in, if you please, sir. A remarkably fine day, sir. Cloudy, though. Pray be seated, sir. A-hem! Now, Charley, bustle--bustle. Shaved, sir, I presume? D--n the door!" Todd was making exertions to shut the door after the entrance of a stout-built man, in an ample white coat and a broad brimmed farmer looking hat; but he could not get it close, and then the stout-built man cried out-- "Why don't you come in, Bob--leave off your tricks. Why you is old enough to know better." "It's only me," said another stout-built man, in another white coat, as he came in with a broad grin upon his face. "It's only me, Mr. Barber--ha! ha! ha!" Todd looked quite bland, as he said-- "Well, it was a good joke. I could not for the moment think what it was kept the door from shutting, and I always close it, because there's a mad dog in the neighbourhood, you see, gentlemen." Crack went something to the floor. "It's this mug, sir," said Charley. "I dropped it." "Well--well, my dear, don't mind that. Accidents, you know, will happen; bless you." Todd, as he said this, caught up a small piece of Charley's hair in his finger and thumb, and gave it a terrific pinch. Poor Johanna with difficulty controlled her tears. "Now, sir, be seated if you please. From the country, I suppose, sir?" "Yes. A clean shave, if you please. We comed up from Barkshire, both on us, with beasts." "You and your brother, sir?" "My cousin, t'other'un is; ain't you Bill?" "Yes, to be sure." "Now, Charley, the soap dish. Look alive--look alive, my little man, will you?" "Yes, sir." "You must excuse him being rather slow, gentlemen, but he's not used to the business yet, poor boy--no father, no mother, no friend in all the world but me, sir." "Really!" "Yes, poor lad, but thank God I have a heart--Leave the whiskers as they are, sir?--Yes, and I can feel for the distresses of a fellow creature. Many's the--Your brother--I beg pardon, cousin, will be shaved likewise, sir?--pound I have given away in the name of the Lord. Charley, will you look alive with that soap dish. A pretty boy, sir; is he not?" "Very. His complexion is like--like a pearl." Johanna dropped the soap dish, and clasped her hands over her eyes. That word "pearl" had for the moment got the better of her. CHAPTER LXIX. TAKES A PEEP AT ARABELLA. We regret to leave Johanna in such a predicament, but the progress and due understanding of our tale compel us briefly to revert to some proceedings of Arabella Wilmot, a short detail of which can nowhere come in so well as at this juncture. Up to the moment of parting with Johanna, when the latter went upon her perilous interprise, Arabella had kept up pretty well, but from that moment her spirits began to fail. All the romantic feelings which had at first prompted the advice that concentrated Johanna's expedition to Todd's, evaporated before the hard truthful fact that she, Arabella, had led her young friend into a situation of the greatest peril. Each moment added to the mental agony of the young girl; and at length her sufferings became too acute for further dallying with, and wringing her hands, all she could ask herself was-- "What shall I do to save her?--What shall I do to save her?" Arabella felt that it would kill her to endure the suspense of one hour instead of four-and-twenty; but to whom was she to turn in this sad condition of her feelings? If she went to old Mr. Oakley, what could she expect but the greatest reproaches for leading one so dear to him into such a path of danger; and those reproaches would not be the less stinging on account, probably, of their being only implied, and not spoken. If she appealed to her own friends, it would only be a kind of second-hand mode of appealing to Mr. Oakley, for they, of courses, would go to him. "Oh, wretched girl that I am," she cried, as she wrung her hands. "What shall I do?--What ought I to do?" It was very improbable that, in the midst of such a state of feeling as this, Arabella Wilmot should think of the wisest and best thing to do; and yet strange to say, she did. By mere accident the name of Sir Richard Blunt came to her mind. She had heard Colonel Jeffery speak of him; and from common report, too, she knew he was a man who, of all others, was likely, from inclination as well as power and duty, to aid her. The idea of going to him gained strength and consistency each moment in her mind, as good ideas will. "Yes--yes!" she exclaimed, as with frantic eagerness she arrayed herself for the event, for she had gone home after seeing Johanna on her way; "yes--yes! I will go to him--I will tell him all. He shall know what a silly, foolish, wicked girl I have been, and how by my mad--mad council, I have perhaps destroyed Johanna. But he will save her--oh, yes, he will save her from the consequences of the visit to Todd, and save me from madness." Now, a more decidedly prudent resolve than this could not possibly have been aimed at by Arabella, had she been as cool and collected; as, on the contrary, she was nervous and excited, and it had all the effect upon her mind; for it was astonishing how the mere feeling that she was about to take a good course calmed her down. She had the prudence to interpose no delays by speaking to any one of her intention; but hastily getting into the street, she ran on for some time without reflecting that she had but a very vague idea of where Sir Richard Blunt was to be found. It is astonishing how, under the passions of extraordinary circumstances, people will boldly do things which ordinarily they would shrink from. It was so with Arabella Wilmot. She walked into a shop, and at once asked if they could tell her the exact address of Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate. "Yes, it is at No. 6, Essex Street, Strand." Off she went again. Fleet Street was passed. True, she lingered a little opposite to Todd's shop, and the idea came across her of rushing in, and saying, "Johanna, come away." But she controlled that feeling, from a conviction that she was doing better by going to the magistrate, who, if it were necessary to take that course, could take it much more effectually than she could. Essex Street was gained, and Arabella's trembling hand sounded an alarm upon the knocker. "Is Sir Richard within?" "No. But if you particularly want him, he is at his private office in Craven Street." To Craven Street then she sped. The number she had been told was 10, and upon the door of that house being opened, she asked a man who was big enough to block up all the passage, and who did so, for the magistrate. "Yes, but you can't see him. He's busy." "I must." "But you can't, my dear." "I will." The man whistled. "Will is a short word, my dear, for you to use. How do you mean to do it, eh?" A door opened, and with his hat on, ready to go out, Sir Richard Blunt himself appeared. Another minute and Arabella would have missed him, and then God knows where, for the next twelve hours, he would be. "What is this, Davis?" he said. "Here's a little 'un, says she will see you, Sir Richard." "Ah, thank God!" cried Arabella, rushing forward and catching a tight hold of the magistrate by the arm. "Yes, I will see you, sir; I have a matter of life and death to speak to you of." "Walk in," said Sir Richard. "Don't hurry yourself in the least, Miss. Pray be composed; I am quite at your disposal." Arabella followed him into a small room. She still kept close to him, and in her eagerness she placed her hand upon her breast, as she said-- "Sir--sir. You--and you only. Todd, Todd--oh, God! he will kill her, and I am more her murderer than he. Johanna--Johanna, my poor Johanna!" Sir Richard slightly changed colour at the sound of those names; and then he said, calmly and slowly-- "I don't think, unless you can assume a greater command of your feelings, that you will ever be able to tell me what you came about." "Oh, yes--yes." "Be seated, I pray you." "Yes--yes. In a moment. Oh, how calm and unimpassioned you are, sir." "It would not do for us both to lose our judgment." Arabella began to feel a little piqued, and that feeling restored her powers to her, probably quicker than any other could have possibly done. She spoke rapidly, but distinctly. "Sir, Miss Johanna Oakley has gone to Sweeney Todd's to find out what has become of Mr. Mark Ingestrie, and I advised her to do so; but now the knowledge that I did so advise her has driven me nearly mad. It will drive me quite mad!" Sir Richard rose from the arm chair into which he had thrown himself, and said-- "'Miss Oakley?' said you? Why--why--what folly. But she has gone home again." "No, she is disguised as a boy, and has taken the situation that Todd put a placard in his window about, and she will be found out of course, and murdered." "No doubt of it." "Oh, God! Oh, God! Is there no lightning to strike me dead?" "I hope not," said Sir Richard Blunt; "I don't want a thunder storm in my parlour." "But, sir--" "But, Miss Wilmot. Is she there now?" "She is--she is." "When did she go?" "About two hours since. Oh, sir--you must do something--you shall do something to save her, or I will run into the streets, and call upon any passenger I meet, that has the form of a man, to aid me; I will raise the town, sir, but I will save her." "That course would be about as wise as the original advice to Miss Oakley to go upon the expedition at all. Now answer me calmly what I shall ask of you." "I will--I will." "What is the prime cause of action that Miss Oakley projects as the result of this disguised entrance into Todd's shop, provided he be deceived by it?" "To search the place upon the first opportunity for some relic of Mark Ingestrie, and so put an end to the torturing suspense regarding his fate." Sir Richard Blunt shook his head. "Do you think that Sweeney Todd would leave such relics within such easy acquisition and inspection? Is he the sort of man, think you, to expose himself to such danger? Oh, Miss Wilmot, this is indeed a hair-brained scheme." "It is--it is, and I have come to you for aid, and--" "Hush! Is the secret of this expedition entirely confined to you and to Miss Oakley?" "It is--it is." "Will her friends not miss her?" "No--no. All has been arranged with what now I cannot help calling a horrible ingenuity. She is like one led to slaughter, and she will pass away from the world, leaving the secret of her disappearance to you and to me only. Sir, I am young, and there are those in this great city who love me, but if Johanna be not saved, I will no longer live to be the most wretched of beings. If there can be found a poison that will let me leave the world, to cast myself at the feet of God, and of Johanna in another, I will take it." Sir Richard looked at his watch. "An hour and a half, you say?" "More than that. Let me think. It was twelve--yes, it was twelve. More you see, sir, than that. Tell me, sir. Tell me at once what can be done. Speak--oh speak to me. What will you do?" "I don't know, Miss Wilmot." With a deep sigh Arabella fainted. * * * * * It was seldom indeed that, even amid his adventurous life, the magistrate found a circumstance that affected him so strongly as that which Arabella Wilmot had related to him. For a short time, even he, with all his powers of rapid thought, and with all the means and appliances which natural skill and practice had given him to meet any emergency, could not think of any mode of escape from the peculiarly awkward position into which this frightfully imprudent step of Johanna had plunged him. "My good girl," he said. "Oh, she has fainted." He rung a hand-bell, and, when a man appeared in answer to the summons, he said-- "Is Mrs. Long within?" "Yes, Sir Richard." "Then bring her here, and tell her to pay every attention to this young lady, who is a friend of mine; and when she recovers, say to her that I shall return in an hour." "Certainly, Sir Richard." In a few moments a matronly-looking woman, who acted in that house as a sort of general manager, made her appearance, and had Arabella removed to a chamber. Before that, the magistrate had hastily put on his hat, and at a quick pace was walking towards Fleet Street. What he intended to do in the emergency--for emergency he evidently thought it was--we shall see quickly. Certain it is that, even by that time, he had made up his mind to some plan of proceeding, and our readers have sufficient knowledge of him to feel that it is likely to be the very best that could be adopted under the circumstances. Certainly Johanna had, by the bold step she had taken, brought affairs to something like a crisis, much earlier than he, Sir Richard Blunt, expected. What the result will be remains to be seen. CHAPTER LXX. RETURNS TO JOHANNA. We left Johanna in rather an awkward situation. The two graziers were in Todd's shop, and she--at the pronunciation of the word "pearl," which had too forcibly at the moment reminded her of the String of Pearls, which no doubt had been fatal to Mark Ingestrie--had dropped the soap-dish, and covered her face with her hands. "What is this?" cried Todd. "What, sir?" "What is that, I say? What do you mean by that, you stupid hound? If I only--" He advanced in a threatening attitude with a razor in his hand; but Johanna quickly saw what a fault she had committed, and felt that, if she were to hope to do any good by her visit to Todd's shop, she must leave all such manifestations of feelings outside the threshold. "I have broken it," she said. "To be sure you have; but--" "And then, you see, sir, I was overcome at the moment by the thought that as this was my first day here, how stupid you would think me." "Stupid, indeed." "Poor little chap," said one of the graziers. "Let him off this once, Mr. Barber--he seems a delicate little lad." Todd smiled. Yes, Todd admirably got up a smile, or a something that looked like a smile. It was a contortion of feature which did duty for a piece of amiability upon his face; and, in a voice that he no doubt fully intended should be dulcet and delightful, he spoke-- "I'm quite a fool to my feelings and to my good nature," he said. "Lord bless you, gentlemen, I could not hurt a fly--not I. I used at school to be called Affectionate Todd." "In joke?" said one of the graziers. "No, gentlemen, no; in earnest." "You don't say so! Well, my boy, you see no harm will come to you, as your master forgives you about the soap-dish, and we are in no sort of hurry." "Well," said Todd, as he bustled about for another article in which to mix the lather. "Well, do you know, sir, I'm so glad to hear that you are in no hurry." "Indeed?" "Yes, sir; because, if you are strangers in London both of you, it will give you an opportunity of seeing some of the curiosities, which will do for you to talk of when you get home, you know." "Why, that would take too much time." "Not at all, sir. Now, for example--Charley, my dear, whip up that lather--there's the church of St. Dunstan's, which, although I say it--Now, Charley, look sharp--is one of the greatest of London curiosities. The figures at the clock I allude to more particularly. I think you said the whiskers were to be left just as they are, sir?" "Yes." "Well then, gentlemen, if you have never seen the figures in the front of old St. Dunstan's strike the chimes, it's one of those things that it's quite a pity to leave London without watching narrowly. They may talk of the Tower, sir, or of the wild beasts at Exeter Change; but give me for a sight where there is real ingenuity, the figures striking the chimes at old St. Dunstan's." "Indeed?" "Yes. Let me see. Ah, it's just a half hour nearly now, and your friend can go, although you are being shaved, and then by the time you are comfortably finished off, the next quarter will be getting on. Charley?" "Yes, sir." "Put on your cap, and go with that gentleman to St. Dunstan's. You must cross over the way, and then you will soon see the old church and the two figures, as large as life, and five times as natural." Johanna took up the cap she had worn in her disguise, and stood by the door. "Why don't you go, Bill?" said the grazier who was being shaved. "Why, the fact is," said the other, "I would not give a pin's head to see it without you. Do you know, Mr. Barber, he makes such comical remarks at anything, that it's worth one half the fun to hear him? Oh, no, I can't go without him." "Very good," said Todd, "then I'll finish him off, and you shall both go together in a few moments, though I am afraid you will miss this time of the chimes striking." There was now a silence of a few moments' duration in the shop; but nothing in the shape of rage or disappointment was visible in the manner of Todd, although both of those passions were struggling at his heart. "Now, sir," he said at length, and with a whisk he took the cloth from under the grazier's chair. "That will do; I thank you, sir. Towel and plenty of water in that corner, sir." "Thank you." "No, I shall do," said the other grazier, in reply to a mute imitation from Todd to sit down in the shaving chair, "I shall do pretty well, I thank you, till to-morrow." "Very good, sir. Hope I shall have the pleasure of your patronage another time, as well as your recommendation, gentlemen." "You may depend," said the grazier, who had been shaved, "that we shall do all we can for you, and shall not lose sight of you." Todd bowed like a Frenchman, and the graziers left the shop. No sooner was the door closed upon them, than his countenance altered, as if by magic, and the most wofully diabolical expression came over it, as with eyes flashing with rage, he cried-- "Curses on you both! But I will have one of you, yet. May the bitterest curse of--but, no matter, I--" "What, sir?" said Johanna. "What do you say, sir?" "Hell's fury! what is that to you? Do dare you, you devil's cub, to ask me what I said? By all that's furious, I'll tear out your teeth with red-hot pincers, and scoop your eyes from their gory sockets with an old oyster knife. D--n you, I'll--I'll flay you!" Johanna shrank back aghast. The pure spirit of the young girl, that had been used to little else but words of love and kindness, started at the furious and brutal abuse that was launched at it by Todd. "Did I not tell you," he continued, "that I would have no prying--no peeping--no remarking about this or the other? I'll crush the life out of you, as I would that from a mad dog!" A strange howling cry at the door at this moment came upon the ears of Todd. His countenance changed, and his lips moved as though he was still saying something, but he had not power to give it audibly. At length, somewhat mastering his emotion, he said-- "What--what's that?" "A dog, sir." "A dog! Confound all dogs." Another howl, and a violent scratching at the door, was farther and most conclusive evidence of the canine character of the visitor. "Charley," said Todd, in quite a soft tone--"Charley." "Yes, sir." "Take the poor dog something to eat--or--or to drink, rather I should say. You will find a saucer in yon cupboard, with some milk in it. If--if he only, bless him, takes one lick at it, I shall be satisfied. You know, Charley, God made all things, and we should be good to his creatures." "Yes, sir," said Johanna, with a shudder. She went to the cupboard, and found the saucer, in which there seemed to be a drop of fresh milk. She walked to the door, while Todd, as though he did not feel by any means sure of the pacific intentions of the dog, at once rushed into his back parlour, and locked himself in. Todd had a peep-hole from the back parlour into the shop, but he could not see further than the shop door. Moreover, Johanna's back was towards him, so he could only guess at what was going on if the dog did not actually come across the threshold. That the milk which Todd was so solicitous should be given to the dog was poisoned, occurred to Johanna in a moment; and just before opening the door, she threw it into a corner, upon some loose shavings, and odds and ends of waste paper, that were there. Johanna then opened the door. In an instant Hector, the large dog of the unfortunate Thornhill, whose identity with Mark Ingestrie appeared to be so established in the mind of Johanna, sprang upon her with an angry growl. It was only for one brief moment, however, that Hector made any such mistake as fancying Johanna to be Sweeney Todd; and then he, with an affectionate whine, licked the hands of the young girl. "Pison! Pison!" cried a loud voice, and in another moment, the ostler, from the coach-office opposite, rushed to the door, and caught the dog around the neck. "Ah, there ye is agin. Why, what a goose of a feller you is, to be sure, Pison. Don't you know, now, as well as I do, that that barber will do you a mischief yet, you great blockhead you? Come home, will yer? Come home, now. Come along wi' yer!" "Yes--yes," said Johanna. "Take him away--take him away." "Won't I, that's all. I suppose you are a young shaver? Only let me catch you a-interfering with Pison, that's all, and won't I let you know what's what, young feller." The ostler having uttered this most uncalled-for threat to poor Johanna, took Pison in triumph over the way. Johanna closed the door. "Is he gone?" said Todd. "Yes, sir." "And the milk? Is that gone, likewise?" "Every drop of it." "Ha! ha! ha! Well--well. Only to think, now. Ha! ha! I hope that milk won't disagree with the noble animal. How fond I am of him! How often he has been over here, in his little pretty playful way, to try and bite pieces out of my legs. Bless him. If now that milk should give him a stomach ache, what a pity it would be. Did I hear a man's voice?" "Yes, sir; some man came and called the dog away." "How good of him, and what a pity it would have been if he had called the noble animal away before the milk was all consumed. Dear me, some people would grudge a creature a drop of milk. A-hem--Charley?" "Yes, sir." "I am going out." Johanna's heart beat rapidly. "If any one should come, you can say it is of no use their waiting, for I am gone to shave and dress a whole family, at some distance off, and may not be back for some hours; but, Charley, for your own private information, let me tell you that I may look in at any moment, and that, although I shall be busy, I shall be able to come in for a minute or so, when I am least expected." Todd gave an awful leer at Johanna as he spoke. "Yes, sir," she said. Todd carefully locked the parlour door. "Charley. How do you like your place?" "Very well, sir; and I think in a little time I shall like it better." "Good lad! Good lad! Well, well. Perhaps I ought not to say too much so soon, but if you merit my esteem, Charley, I shall do as much for you as I did for the last lad I had. After some term of service with me, I provided him with an independant home. A large house, and a garden. Ha!" "How very kind." "Yes. Very." "And is he happy?" "Quite, in a manner of speaking, notwithstanding human nature is prone to be discontented, and there are persons, who would sigh, if in Paradise, for some change, even if it were to a region supposed to be its opposite zone. Charley, however, I think will be of a different mind; and when your time comes--which it certainly will--Ha!--to reap the fruits of your service with me, I am sure that no one will hear you complain." "I will not be ungrateful sir." "Well, well, we shall see; and now while I am gone let there be no peeping or prying about. No attempts to open doors or force locks. No scrambling to look upon shelves or raking in odd corners. If you do--I--Ha! ha! I will cut your throat, Charley, with the bluntest razor I have. Ha!" Todd had got on his gloves by this time, and then he left the shop. Johanna was alone! Yes, there she was, at last, alone in that dreadful place, which now for days upon days had been food for her young imagination. There she was in that place, which her waking thoughts and her dreams had alike peopled with horrors. There she was between those walls, which had perchance echoed to the last despairing death cry of him whom she had loved better than life itself. There she was in the very atmosphere of murders. His blood might form part of the stains that were upon the dingy walls and the begrimed floor. Oh, it was horrible! "God help me now! God help me now!" said Johanna, as she covered her face with her hands and wept convulsively. She heard a faint sound. It was the chiming of St. Dunstan's clock, and she started. It put her in mind that time, her great ally, now was fleeting. "Away tears!" she cried as she dashed the heavy moisture from her long eye-lashes. "Away tears! I have been strong in purpose. I have already waded through a sea of horrors, and I must be firm now. The time has come. The time that I looked forward to when I thus attired myself, and thought it possible to deceive this dreadful man. Courage! Courage! I have now much to do." First she crept to the door and looked out into the street. A vague suspicion that Todd, after all, might only be watching near at hand, somewhere, took possession of her. She looked long and anxiously to the right and to the left, but she saw nothing of him. Then she fastened the door upon the inside. "If he should return very suddenly," she said, "I shall have notice of it by his efforts to open the door. That will give me a moment for preparation possibly." Then with such an anxious look as no language could do justice to in its delineation, Johanna looked round the shop. Where was she to begin her investigation? There were drawers, cupboards, chests, shelves. What was she to look at first? or was she in dread of some contrivances of Todd's to find out that she had looked at all, yet at this the last moment, forego the risk and rush into the street and so home? "No, no! I am in God's hands," she said, "and I will not flinch." And yet, although she felt that she was quite alone in that place, how cautiously she trod. How gently she touched one thing and then another, and with what a shudder she laid her hand for a moment to steady herself, upon the arm of the shaving chair. By so leaning upon it she found that it was a fixture; and upon a further examination of it, she found that it was nailed or screwed to the floor firmly. It was an old fashioned massive chair, with a wide deep reclining seat. A strange feeling of horror came over her as she regarded it. CHAPTER LXXI. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER. What was there in the chair that Johanna should for some few moments, now that she had begun to look at it, not be able to take her eyes off it? She tried to shake it, but it was as fast as a rock, and for all she knew it was quite usual to have a shaving chair fixed to the floor. In all likelihood it was in the best position for light which the dingy shop afforded. She left the chair at last, and then a large cupboard in one corner of the room attracted her attention. It was locked. In vain did she try to force it open. It would not yield. She tried, too, the parlour door without effect. That was quite fast; but as she turned the handle of the lock, she fancied she heard, or she really did hear something move in the room. A faint feeling came over her for a moment, and she was glad to hold by the wall, close at hand, to support herself. "It must have been fancy," she said faintly. "I am learning nothing, and the time is flying fast." A kind of counter ran parallel to the window, and beneath it was a space covered in by doors. Todd surely had forgotten that, for one of the doors was open. Johanna looked in and beheld quite a collection of sticks and umbrellas. Some clothing too lay upon the lowest shelf. With trembling hands, Johanna pulled at the sleeve of some article and found it to be a jacket, such as a sailor of the better sort might wear, for it was exquisitively fine, and had no end of silver buttons upon it. Her sight was dimmed by tears, as she said to herself-- "Oh, God! was this his?" She held the jacket up to the light, and she found the breast portion of it stained, and all the buttons there tarnished. What was it but blood? The blood of the hapless wearer of that article of dress, that produced such an effect; but yet how was she to prove to herself that it had been Mark Ingestrie? Then it was that the thought struck her of how ill conceived had been that undertaking, which might, in the midst of all its frightful dangers, only end in furnishing her with more food for the most horrible surmises, without banishing one sad image of her imagination, or confirming one dreadful dream of the fate of her lover. "'Tis all in vain!" she gasped. "All in vain! I shall know nothing, and only feel more desolate. It would be a mercy if that were to kill me! Ah! no. Not yet--not yet!" Some one was trying the handle of the shop door. With frightful energy Johanna hid the jacket, but not in its proper place, for she only thrust it beneath the cushion of a chair close at hand, and then shutting the door of the receptacle beneath the counter, she rose to her feet, and with a face pale as monumental marble, and her hands clasped rigidly, she said-- "Who--who is there?" "Hilloa! Open the door!" said a voice. Some one again tried the handle, and then kicked vigorously at the lower panel. "Patience," said Johanna, "patience." She opened the door. "Is Mr. Todd at hand?" said a lad. "No--no." "You are his boy, are you not?" "I am." "Then take this." The lad handed a sealed letter to Johanna, and in a moment left the door. She held the letter in her hand scarcely looking at it. Of course she thought it was for Todd, but after a few moments her eyes fell upon the superscription, and there, to her surprise, she read as follows-- "To Miss Oakley, who is requested to read the enclosed quickly, and secretly, and then to destroy it." [Illustration: Johanna Receives A Mysterious Letter In Todd's Shop.] To tear open the letter was the work of a moment. The sheet of paper tumbled in Johanna's hands as she read as follows-- "From Sir Richard Blunt to Miss Oakley. "Miss Oakley, the expedition upon which you are at present says much more for your courage and chivalrous spirit than it can ever say for your discretion or the discretion of her who permitted you so far to commit your life to such chances. You should, considering your youth and sex, have left it to others to carry out such schemes; and it is well that those others are aware of your position, and so, in a great measure, enabled to shield you from, perhaps, the worst consequences of your great indiscretion, for it cannot be called anything else. "Your young friend, Miss Wilmot, herself awakened, when, thank God, it was not too late, to the utter romantic character of the office, and communicated all to me. I blame both you and her very much indeed, and cannot speak in too strong language of the reprehensible character of your expedition; and now, my dear girl, do not be under any kind of apprehension, for you are well looked after, and Sweeney Todd shall not hurt a hair of your head. "If you should find yourself in any danger, seize the first small heavy article at hand and throw it, with all the strength you can, through the shop window. Assistance will immediately come to you. "And now, as you are where you are, I pray you to have confidence in me, and to remain until some one shall come to you and say 'St. Dunstan,' upon which you will know that he is a friend, and you will follow his directions. "God bless you.-- "RICHARD BLUNT." Every word of this letter fell like sunshine upon the heart of Johanna, and she could not help mentally ejaculating-- "I am saved--I am saved! Yes--yes? I am not deserted. Strong, bold, good men will look to me. Oh! what kindness breathes in every sentence of this letter! Yes--yes; I am not forsaken--not forsaken!" Tears came into the eyes of the young girl, and she wept abundantly. Her overcharged heart was relieving itself. After a few moments she began to be more composed, and had just crumpled up the letter and cast it into the fire for fear of accidents, when a shadow darkened the door-way, she saw Todd looking in above the curtain that was over the upper half of the door, and partially concealed some panes of glass that were let into it. As soon as Todd saw Johanna's eyes upon him, he entered the shop. "What's that?" he said, pointing to the burning letter. "Paper, sir." "What paper?" "A bill that a boy left. Something about Churchwardens, sir, and the parish of St. Brides, Fleet Street, and how things mean to--" "Bah! any one else been?" "No, sir." Todd stood in the middle of the shop, and cast his eyes slowly round him, to see that all was as he had left. Then in a low growling tone, he added-- "No peeping and prying, eh? No rummaging in odd corners, and looking at things that don't concern you, eh?" "Certainly not, sir." Johanna crept close to the counter upon which lay a tolerably large piece of stone used for grinding razors upon. She thought that would do very well to throw through the window, and she kept an eye upon it with that intent, if such an act should by a trick of Todd's appear to be necessary. Todd took the key of the parlour-door from his pocket, and placed it in the lock. Before he opened the door, though, he turned the handle, and as he did so Johanna thought that he inclined his head and listened attentively. She threw down a chair, which made a lumbering noise. "Confound you," roared Todd. He passed into the parlour; but in a moment, with a glance of fury, he looked out, saying-- "You tried this door?" "I, sir?" said Johanna, creeping closer still to the sharpening stone. "Yes, villain, you. At least, I think so--I am pretty sure; but mark me, if I were quite sure, you should suffer for it." He closed the door again; and then when he was alone, he placed his two hands upon his head for a few moments, and said-- "What does it mean? A boy brought him a letter; I saw him come and go. At least it looked like a letter. Could it be the bill he spoke of, and then the sudden upset of that chair, which prevented me from hearing if the piece of cat-gut I had fastened to the handle of the door had been moved, before I touched it or not. I will kill him. That is safe. It is the only plan; I will kill all who is now in my way. All--all. Yes, I will, if needs be, wade up to my neck in blood to the accomplishment of my wishes." Todd went to a cupboard and got out a large knife, such as is used by slaughtermen in the shambles, and hid it under the table cover, but in such a place that he could lay hold of it and draw it out in a moment. "Charley," he cried, "Charley." "Yes, sir." "Step in here a moment; I want you, my boy." "Shall I or shall I not," thought Johanna. "Is this danger, or only the appearance of it? Heaven direct me now! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" "Charley? Are you coming, my boy?" "Yes, sir, I--I am coming. God protect me!" "The barber at home?" cried a voice at the door; and in another moment a man with a ruddy, jolly-looking countenance, made his appearance in the shop. "Barber at home, eh? my little lad?" "Yes--yes." Johanna heard a bitter execration come from the lips of Todd; and then with quite a serene smile upon his face, as though he were in the most unruffled mood possible, he made his appearance. "Could you make me a wig?" said the man, taking off his hat, and showing that his hair was closely cropped. "Certainly, sir. If you will sit down and allow me to measure your head, I shall have great pleasure--Charley!" "Yes, Sir." "You can go to Lovett's, in Bell-yard, and get your dinner now. There's two-pence for you, my lad, and if you have not yet tasted Mrs. Lovett's pies, you will say when you do, that they are the most delicious things in the whole world of cookery." "Shaved, if you please," said another man, walking into the shop, and pouncing down upon a chair as though it were his own property. "Ah dear me, I'm tired rather. Don't hurry yourself, Mr. Todd, I can wait while you are doing what you have to do for that gentleman." "Charley," said Todd, with quite a sweet expression of face. "You need not go just yet; I want the hot water. See to it." "Yes, sir." Todd then, in the most careful and business-like manner, proceeded to take the measure of the gentleman's head for a "real head of hair," and when he had finished, he said-- "Now, sir, if you will leave it all to me, I will match your hair to a shade." "Match it?" "Yes, sir." "But that's just what I don't want. I have had my hair all cut off, and am going to wear a wig, for the sole reason that I have got tired of the old colour." "Well then, sir, what colour do you propose now?" "A few shades lighter than my own. But pray shave this gentleman, and I will tell you how I wish it to look at my leisure." The man took a seat and crossed one leg over the other with the most home sort of look in the world; and the one who had come in to be shaved plumped into the shaving chair, and gave his chin a rub as though he would say "I don't care how soon you begin." Todd smiled. "Charley, the lather." "Yes, sir. Here it is." "Here, my little man," said the gentleman in want of a wig. "If you can tie a bow, just make one in front of my cravat.--A small one." The gentleman slipped a small piece of paper into Johanna's jacket pocket. CHAPTER LXXII. ANOTHER VICTIM. Johanna started. "St. Dunstan's," said the stranger. "What?" said Todd. "St. Dunstan's last Sunday, I don't think was so highly-scented with the flavour of the grave as usual." "Oh," said Todd. Johanna trembled, for certainly Todd looked suspicious, and yet what could he have seen? Literally nothing, for he was so situated that the slight action of the stranger, in putting the slip of paper into her jacket-pocket, must have escaped him with all his watchfulness. She gathered courage. Todd glanced at her, saying-- "What is the matter, Charley? you don't look well at all, my lad." "I am not very well, sir." "How sorry I am; I think, do you know, Charley,"--Todd was lathering the man's face as he spoke--"that one of Mrs. Lovett's hot pies would be the thing for you." "Very likely, sir." "Then, I think I can manage now to spare you." As he said this, Todd bent an eagle glance upon the gentleman who had ordered the wig, and it seemed as if he doled out his words to Johanna with a kind of reference to the movements of that personage. The gentleman had found a hat-brush, and was carefully rubbing up his hat. "I do hope," he said, "that the wig will be as natural as possible." "Depend upon it, sir," said Todd. "I'll warrant if you look in here, and try it on some day when there's no one here but you and I to set you against it, you will never complain of it." "No doubt. Good morning." Todd made his best bow, accompanied by the flourish of his razor, that made the man who was being shaved shrink again, as the reflected light from its highly-polished blade flashed again in his eyes. "Now, Charley, I think you may go for your pie," added Todd, "and don't hurry, for if anything is wrong with your stomach, that will only make it worse, you know." "You are a good master to the lad," said the man who was lathered ready for shaving. "I hope so, sir," said Todd. "With the help of Providence we all ought to do our best in this world, and yet what a deal of wickedness and suffering there is in it too." "Ah, there is." "I am sure, sir, it makes my heart bleed sometimes to think of the amount of suffering that only twenty-four hours of this sad work-a-day world sees. But I was always of a tender and sympathetic turn from my cradle--yes from my cradle." Todd made here one of his specially horrible grimaces, which the man happened to see in a glass opposite to him, the reflective focus of which Todd had not calculated upon; and then as the sympathetic barber stropped his razor, the man looked at him as though he would have speculated upon how could such an article looked in a cradle. "Now, sir, a little to this side. Are you going, Charley?" "Yes, sir." "That will do, sir. I'll polish you off very shortly, indeed, sir. Are you going, Charley?" Johanna darted from the shop, and the moment she got clear of it, she by natural impulse drew the little slip of paper from her pocket, and read upon it-- "Miss O. do not if you can help it leave any one alone in Todd's shop, as circumstances may prevent us from always following his customers in; but if you should be forced to leave while any one is there, knock at No. 133 Fleet Street. This is from your friend R. B." "133?" said Johanna, as she glanced around her, "133? Ah, it is close at hand. Here--here." The number was only a short distance from Todd's, and Johanna was making her way to it, when some one stopped her. "From Todd's," said a voice. "Yes--yes. A man is there." "Alone?" "Yes, and--" Before she could say another word the stranger darted from her, and made his way into Todd's shop. Johanna paused, and shrinking into a doorway, stood trembling like an aspen leaf. "Oh, Heaven!" she ejaculated, "into what a sea of troubles have I plunged. Murder and I will become familiar, and I shall learn to breathe an atmosphere of blood. Oh, horror! horror! horror!" The crowd in that dense thoroughfare passed on, and no one took heed of the seeming boy, as he wept and sobbed in that doorway. Some had no time to waste upon the sorrows of other people;--some buttoned up their pockets as though they feared that the tears that stood upon that pale face were but the preludes to some pecuniary demand;--others again passed on rapidly, for they were so comfortable and cosy that they really could not have their feelings lacerated by any tale of misery, not they. And so Johanna wept alone. Ding dong! ding dong! What is that? Oh, St. Dunstan's chimes. How long has she been from the shop? Shall she return to it, or fly at once and seek for refuge from all the sorrows and from all the horrors that surround her, in the arms of her father? "Direct me, oh God!" she cried. Some one suddenly clasps her arm. "Johanna! Johanna!" It was Arabella Wilmot. [Illustration: Johanna Disguised As A Boy, Is Found Weeping By Arabella, Near St. Dunstan's.] "Johanna--dear, dear Johanna, you are safe--quite safe. Come home now--oh, come--oh, come--come." "You here, Arabella?" "Yes, I am mad--mad!--at least, I was going mad, Johanna; in my agony to know what had become of you, and notwithstanding I have told Sir Richard Blunt, I had no faith in the love and the courage of any one but myself. I was coming to Todd's." "To Todd's?" "Yes, dear, to Todd's. I could no longer exist unless I saw with my own eyes that you were safe." "What a fatal step that might have been." "It might. Perhaps it would; but God, in his goodness, has again, my dear Johanna, averted it by enabling me to meet you here. Come home now--come at once." "Yes, I--I think--" "Come--come;--you have done already much. Let, for the future, your feelings be, that for Mark Ingestrie you have adventured what not one girl in a million would adventure." At this mention of the name of Mark Ingestrie, a sharp cry of mental agony burst from the lips of Johanna. "Oh, I thank you, Arabella." "Thank me?" "Yes, you have recalled me to myself. You have, by the mention of that name, recalled me to my duty, from which I was shrinking and falling away. You have told me in the most eloquent language that could be used that as yet I have done nothing for him who is, dead or alive, my heart's best treasure." "Oh, Johanna, you will kill me." "No, Arabella--no. Good bye. Go home, love--go home, and--and pray for me--pray for me!" "Johanna, for mercy's sake! what are you about to do? Speak to me. Do not look upon me in that way. What are you about to to do, Johanna?" "Go to the shop." "To Todds?" "Yes. It is my place--I am in search of Mark Ingestrie. If he be living, it is I who must clear that man who is suspected of his murder. If he be no more, it is I, who weak and fragile as I am, must drag him to justice." "No--no--no." "I say yes. Do not stay me if you love me." Arabella clasped the arm of Johanna, but with a strength that only the immense amount of mental excitement she was suffering from could have given her. Johanna freed herself from the hold of her friend, and dashing from the doorway, was in another moment lost to the sight of Arabella in the barber's shop. "What now?" cried Todd, fiercely, as Johanna bounded into the shop so hurriedly. "Nothing, sir--only the dog." "Bolt the door--bolt the door." "Yes, sir." Todd wiped his brow. "That infernal dog," he muttered, "will be the death of me yet; and so, Charley, the malignant beast flew at you, did he? the savage will attack you, will he?" "Yes, sir, so it seems." "We will kill it. I should like to cut its throat. It would be a pleasure, Charley. How strange that strong poisons have no effect upon that dog. Curses on it!" "Indeed, sir." "None whatever. It is very odd." Todd remained in a musing attitude for some time, and then suddenly starting, he said-- "Charley, if that man come again after his wig, get him into talk, will you, and learn all you can about him. I have to go a little way into the city just now, and shall speedily return. I hoped you liked the pie?" "Pie, sir?" "Yes, Lovett's pie." "Oh, yes--delicious." "Ha! ha! he! he! ho!" Drawing on a pair of huge worsted gloves, Todd walked out of the shop without saying another word. The moment he was gone, Johanna passed both her hands upon her breast, as if to stay the wild beating of her heart, as she whispered to herself-- "Alone--alone once more." It was well that she had only whispered that much, for in the next moment Todd gently put his head into the shop. She started. "Oh, sir--oh, sir, you frightened me." "Beware!" was all he said. "Beware!" The frightful head, more terrifying to Johanna than would have been the fabled Medusa's, was withdrawn again, and this time Johanna resolved to be certain that he was gone before she gave the smallest outbreak to her feelings, or permitted herself to glance around her in any way that could be construed into prying curiosity. She made a feint of clearing up the place a little, and, with a broom that had about six hairs only left in it, she swept the hobs of the little miserable grate in which a fire was kept for the shaving-water. This occupied some little time; but still not feeling sure that Todd was really gone, she then went to the door, and looked right and left. He was not to be seen; and so, when she went back, she bolted the shop-door upon the inside again, and really felt that she was alone once more in that dreadful place. That poor Johanna was now in a great state of mental excitement is not a matter of surprise, for the events that had recently taken place were decidedly of a character to produce such a mental condition. The interview with Arabella had, no doubt, materially aided in such an effect. With trembling eagerness she now began again to look about her, and her great aim was by some means to get into the parlour, for if anywhere, she thought that surely there she should find some traces of that lost one who occupied, since the suspicions of the foul usage he had met with, a larger place in her affections than before. Feeling how surrounded she was by friends, probably Johanna was a little more reckless as regarded the means she adopted of carrying out her intention. The parlour-door was quite fast; but surely in the shop she thought she might find some weapon, by the aid of which it could be burst open; and even if Todd should suddenly return, it was but a rush, and she would reach the street; and if he intercepted her in that, as God knew he might, she could take the means of summoning assistance pointed out to her by Sir Richard Blunt, and cast something through the window into the street. Full of these thoughts and feelings, then, and only alive to the mad wish she had of discovering some traces of her lover, Johanna hunted the shop over for some weapon with which to attack the parlour-door. She opened a cupboard. A hat fell from within at her feet! One glance at that hat was sufficient; it was of a peculiar colour--she remembered it. It was the hat of the man whom she had left being shaved when she was sent ostensibly to purchase a pie at Mrs. Lovett's, in Bell-yard. Johanna's hurry was over. A sickening feeling came over her as she asked herself what was the probable fate of the owner of the hat. "Another victim!--another victim!" she gasped. She tottered back overpowered by the thought that there had been a time when, opening that cupboard door, the carelessly cast-in hat of Mark Ingestrie would have fallen to her feet, even as did that of the stranger, who, no doubt, now was numbered with the dead. She sank almost in a state of fainting into the shaving-chair. "Oh, yes, yes," she said. "This is horribly, frightfully condusive. My poor Mark. You have gone before me to that home where alone we may hope to meet again. Alas! alas! that I should live to feel such a truth." She burst into tears, and sobbed so bitterly, that any one who had seen her would have truly thought her heart was breaking in that wild paroxysm of grief. What a mercy it was that Todd did not come in at such a moment as that, was it not? The sobs subsided into sighs. The tears no longer flowed in abundance; and after about five minutes Johanna arose, tottering and pale. She drenched her eyes and face with cold water, until the traces of the storm of emotion were no longer visible upon her face; and then she knelt by the shaving chair, and clasping her hands, she said-- "Great God, I ask for justice upon the murderer!" She rose, and felt calmer than before; and then, sitting down by the little miserable fire, she buried her face in her hands, and tried to think--to think how she should bring to justice the man who had been the blight of her young existence--the canker in the rose-bud of her youth. You would have been shocked if you could just for a moment have looked into Sweeney Todd's shop, and seen that girl in such an attitude, without a sigh and without a tear, while all her dearest hopes lay about her heart in the very chaos of a frightful wreck. CHAPTER LXXIII. STARTLING EVENTS. Business at Mrs. Lovett's was brisk. During the whole of that day--that most eventful day upon which the fair Johanna Oakley had gone upon her desperate errand to Sweeney Todd's--the shop in Bell Yard had been besieged by customers. Truly it was a pity to give up such an excellent business. The tills groaned with money, and Mrs. Lovett's smiles and pies never appeared so perfect as upon that day. At about half-past twelve o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor suddenly got up from his chair, in the great hall of Lincoln's Inn, and put on his furry-looking hat, and when the curtain which shuts in his lordship from invidious blasts was withdrawn with a screaming jerk, and a gentleman was stopped in the middle of an argument, what a rush of lawyer's clerks there was to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. Then was it that the anxious solicitor's fag, who must know something, and have some brains, smiled at the prospect of the luxurious repast he was about to have, and jingled the twopence he had kept in a side pocket for only one pie, and grudged it not out of his hard-earned pittance. Then was it that the bloated barrister's clerk, who had grown shining and obese upon fares, and who is not required to know anything but the complete art of insolence to his brothers, nor to have any more brains than will suffice him to make up his book in the long vacation, smacks his lips at the thought of Lovett's pies, and sends the expectant boy of the chamber--the snob of a snob--for three twopennies. Lean and hungry-looking young men start into Bell Yard from the Strand, producing crumbled pieces of paper, bag their twopenny, and retire to eat it in some corner of the old Temple. All is bustle--all is animation, and the side counter--that one, you know, which ran parallel to the window--was lined by clerks, who sat eating and driving their heels against the boarding, and joking, and laughing "Ha! ha!" how they did laugh! And then what stories they told of their "Governors;" and how such an one was going out of practice; and how such another one was a screw, and so on, to the great delight of the mere boys, who hoped one day to wear their hair long and grey, and to dress in an outrageous caricature of the mode! As the machine that let down at the back of the counter, to bring up the pies, went down for the one o'clock batch, it was noticed that Mrs. Lovett looked a little anxious. The fact was, that the cook had been so prompt upon that day in his movements, that she began to think there must be, as folks say, "Something in it," and she was beginning to terrify herself with the idea that he had some scheme of redemption for himself in view, that might most unseasonably develope itself before the customers. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett," said one young gent, while the gravy ran down the sides of his mouth from the pie he was consuming. "You don't seem at all yourself to-day. Indeed you don't." "Who do I seem, then?" "Ha! ha! Upon my life that's good!" roared another. A small amount of wit did for Lovett's pie shop. It was like the House of Commons in that particular, and "loud laughter" was sure to welcome the smallest joke. Mrs. Lovett's eyes were bent upon the abyss, down which the trap had descended but a moment before. "Ain't they a-coming, mum?" said one. "Oh, don't I sniff 'em," said another, working his nose like an ex-chancellor. "Don't I sniff 'em." "De--licious!" cried another. A feeling of relief was visible upon the face of Mrs. Lovett as the trap slowly ascended, bringing with it the one o'clock batch, in all their steaming glory. The whole shop was in a moment filled with the fresh appetite-giving aroma of those bubbling hot pies; and as the French newspapers say, when a member of the extreme right, or half way to the left, or two degrees from the centre, swerves, there was "a sensation." Five minutes--only five minutes--and the whole batch was cleared off, not one was left! "Another batch of one hundred, gentlemen, at two," said Mrs. Lovett, with a bland look. "At two, mum?" cried a customer. "Why, what's to become of the half-past one batch?" "We are rather short of--of meat," said Mrs. Lovett, with one of her strange metallic smiles. "The devil you are! Ain't there butchers enough?" "Oh, dear, yes; but we could not get such meat as we put in our pies, at the butcher's." "You kill your own, mum, then, I suppose?" "We do," replied Mrs. Lovett, with another smile, more metallic than the former. "And where is your farm, mum?" "Really, sir, you want to know too much. I appeal to those gentlemen if any of them know where my farm is." "No--no. D--n it, no, nor don't care," said all the lawyer's clerks. "Don't know anything about it." "And don't care," said another. "Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof." "Very good--Ha! ha!--Very good." The crowd gradually dispersed. Mrs. Lovett put a placard in the window, announcing-- "A hot batch at two o'clock." She then closed the shop door, and retired to the parlour. She cast herself upon a sofa, and hiding the light from her eyes with one of her arms, she gave herself up to thought. Yes, that bold bad woman was beginning to have her moments of thought, during which it appeared to be as though a thousand mocking fiends were thronging around her. No holy thoughts or impulses crossed her mind. Solitude, that best of company to the good and just, was to her peopled with countless horrors; and yet there must have been a time when that woman was pure, and her soul spotless--a time when it was free from "The black engraved spots" which now deformed it. And yet who, to look upon her now, could fancy that she was ever other than what she seemed? Who could bring themselves to think that she had not been placed at once by the arch-fiend as she was upon the beautiful world, to make in the small circle around her a pestilence, a blight, and a desolation? There are persons in the world that it would be the greatest violence to our feelings ever to attempt to picture to our imaginations as children; and as such, surely were Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Was she ever some gentle little girl, fondly clinging to a mother's arms? Was he ever a smiling infant, with pretty dimples? Was there at his or her birth much joy? Did a mother's tears ever fall upon his or her cheek, in sweet gratitude to God for such a glorious gift? No--no. We cannot--we will not believe that such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett ever came into this world otherwise than ready-made man and woman! Any other belief, concerning such fiends in human shape is too repugnant. But we are forgetting that Mrs. Lovett is upon the sofa all this while, and that her metallic smile has quite vanished, giving way to such a look of utter abandonment of spirit, that you would have shuddered to have cast but one glance upon her. She could bear the quietude of the attitude she had assumed but for a very short time, and then she sprang to her feet. "Yes," she said, "it must, and it shall come to an end!" She stood for some few moments trembling, as though the dim echo of that word end, as she had jerked it forth, had awakened in her mind a world of horrifying thoughts. Again she sank upon the couch, and speaking in a low, plaintive voice, she said-- "Yes. I have need of the waters of oblivion, one draught of which shuts out for ever all memory of the past. Oh, that I had but a cup of such nectar at my lips!" Not a doubt of it, Mrs. Lovett. It is the memory of the wicked that constitutes that retribution, which is assuredly to be found in this world as day follows night. "I--I must have this," she muttered. "Let Todd be dead or alive, I must have it. I am going mad--I feel certain. That I am going mad, and the only way to save myself, is to flee. I must collect as much money as I can and then flee far away. If I cannot quite obliterate the past from my memory, I can at least leave it as it is, and add nothing to it. Yes, that man may live. He seems to bear a charmed life. But I must flee." She rested her head upon her hands, and in a softer voice, said-- "Let me think--let me think of the means, now that I have yet a little time. What do I dread most? The man below? Yes. He is at work for his deliverance. I feel that he is, and if he succeed before I flee from here, all is lost--all is lost! I must speak to him." Filled with this idea, and with an unknown dread of what the discontented cook might do, Mrs. Lovett stepped into the shop first, and made the door fast by slipping a bolt at the back of it. It was not very often that immediately after the disposal of a batch of pies any customers came in, and if they should attempt to do so for the purpose of purchasing any stale pies, she was by far too intent upon what she was come about, and considered it by far too important to heed what they might think or say upon finding the door fast. She then opened the seeming cupboard in the parlour, which conducted to the strong iron door, with the small grating at the top of it. She reached that point of observation with great rapidity, and peered into the cavernous dungeon-like bakehouse. At first she could see nothing by the uncertain light that was there, but as her eyes got accustomed to the absence of daylight, she could just see the figure of the cook sitting upon a stool, and apparently watching one of the fires. "It is a long--long time." "What is a long time?" cried Mrs. Lovett. The captive cook sprang to his feet in a moment, and in a voice of alarm, he said-- "Who spoke? Who is that?" "I," replied Mrs. Lovett. "Do you not know me?" "Ah," said the cook, directing his eyes to the grating above the door, "I know you too well. What do you want with me? Have I failed in doing your bidding here? Have I disappointed you of a single batch of those execrable pies?" "Certainly not, but I have come to see--if--if you are quite comfortable." "Comfortable! What an insult!" "Nay, you wrong me." "That is impossible. This is the commencement only of some new misery. Speak on, madam. Speak on. I am helpless here, and condemned to suffer." Notwithstanding these words of the cook there was a certain tone of hilarity about him, that Mrs. Lovett might well be surprised at, and she asked herself what does he hope. The fact is that much as he wished still to enact the character of a man full of despair, the cook could not get out of his head and heart the promises of Sir Richard Blunt--promises which still rung in his ears, like a peal of joy bells. "Come, come," said Mrs. Lovett, "you are getting reconciled to your fate. Confess as much." "I reconciled? Never." "But you are not so unhappy?" "Worse--worse. This apathetic condition that I am now in, and which to you may look like the composure of resignation, will end, in all likelihood, in raging madness." "Indeed?" "Yes, madam, I feel already the fire in my brain." "Be calm." "Calm--calm! Ha!--ha! Calm. It is all very well for you upon that side of the iron door to talk of calmness, madam, but upon this side the words sound strange." "It will not sound so strange when I tell you that I have absolute compassion upon you, and that the cause of my present visit was to talk to you of some means by which the worst portion of your fate here might be in some measure ameliorated, and your existence rendered tolerable." CHAPTER LXXIV. BIG BEN CREATES A SENSATION. The cook was so surprised at these words from Mrs. Lovett that for some moments he made no answer to them. "Pray, speak again," he said at length, when he could find words in which to express himself. "I repeat," she said, "that I am desirous, as far as lies in my power, to ameliorate your condition, of which you so much complain." "Indeed!" "Ah, you are too suspicious." "Humph! I think, madam, when you come to consider all things, you will hardly think it possible for me to be too suspicious." "You are wrong again. I dare say now, in your mind, you attribute most of your evils to me." "Well, madam, candidly speaking, should I be far wrong by so doing?" "You would be quite wrong. Alas! alas! I--" "You what, madam? Pray, speak up." "I am the victim of another. You cannot suppose that, of my own free will, I should shut up in these gloomy places a person of your age, and by no means ill-looking." "I have him there," thought Mrs. Lovett; "what human heart is proof against the seductions of flattery? Oh, I have him there." The cook was silent for some few moments, and then he said, quite calmly, as though the tribute to his personal appearance had not had the smallest effect-- "Pray go on, madam, I am quite anxious to hear all that you may have to say to me." This composed manner of meeting her compliments rather discomposed Mrs. Lovett; but after all, she thought--"He is only acting an indifference he is far from feeling." With this impression she resolved to persevere, and she added, in a kind and conciliating tone of voice-- "I grant that circumstances are such that you may well be excused for any amount of doubt that you may feel regarding the honesty of my words and intentions towards you." "I quite agree with you there, madam," said the cook. "Then all I have to do is, by deeds, to convince you that I am sincere in my feelings towards you. As I have before said, I am in the power of another, and therefore is it that, contrary to my nature, I may seem to do cruel things at which my heart revolts." "I cannot conceive anything so distressing," said the cook, "except being the unfortunate victim as I am of such a train of circumstances." "That is what I am coming to." "Are you? I wish you were." There was a tone of irony about the enforced cook which Mrs. Lovett did not at all like; but she had an object to gain, and that was to fully persuade him that the shortest way to his freedom would be to remain profoundly quiet for a day or two, and then she would be able to make her own arrangements and be off without troubling either him or Todd with any news of her departure or her whereabouts. "You still doubt me," she said. "But listen, and I think you will soon be of opinion that although I have wronged you as yet, I can do something to repair that wrong." "I am all attention, madam." "Then, in the first place, you are quite tired of eating pies, and must have some other kind of food." "You never said a truer thing in all your life, madam." "That other food, then, I will provide for you. You shall, within an hour from now, have anything to eat or to drink that you may please to name. Speak, what is it to be?" "Well," he said, "that is kind indeed. But I can do without food further than I have here, for I have hit upon a mode of making cakes that please me. Nevertheless, if you can bring me a bottle of brandy, in order that I may slightly qualify the water that I drink, I shall be obliged to you." "You shall have it; and now I hope you will be convinced of the sincerity of my desire to be of service to you." "But my liberty, madam, my liberty. That is the grand thing after all that I must ever pant for." "True, and that is what you shall have at my hands. In the course of two, or it may be three days, I shall have perfected some arrangements which will enable me to throw open your prison for you, and then--" "Then what?" "May I hope that you will not think so harshly of me as you have done?" "Certainly not." "Then I shall be repaid for all I do. You must believe me to be the victim of the most cruel circumstances, of which some day you may be informed. At present, to do so, would only be to involve both you and myself in one common destruction." "Then don't mention it." "I will not. But beware of one thing." "What is that?" "Simply this, that any attempts upon your own part to escape from here previous to the time when I shall have completed my arrangements to set you free, will not only derange all that I am planning for you, but end in your utter destruction; for he who has forced me into my present cruel situation will not for one moment hesitate at the murder of us both; so if you wish to be free in a few days you will try nothing, but if on the contrary you wish to destroy both yourself and me, you will make some attempts to rescue yourself from here." Mrs. Lovett waited rather anxiously for his answer to this speech. "I dare say you are right," he said at length. "You may be assured I am." "Then I consent." Mrs. Lovett drew a long breath of relief, as she muttered to herself-- "It will do--I have him in the toils; and come what may, I am free from the torturing thought that he may achieve something that may have the effect of delivering me up to the hands of justice. When I am gone, he may remain where he is, and rot for all I care."--"You have done wisely," she said aloud, "and if anything could more powerfully than another incite me to the greatest exertions to liberate you, it would be the handsome manner in which you have placed confidence in me." "Oh, don't mention it." Again there was that tone of sarcasm about the cook's voice, which created a doubt in the mind of Mrs. Lovett if, after all, he was not merely playing with her, and in his heart utterly disregarding all that she said to him. It is quite questionable if this doubt was not in its bitterness worse than the former anxieties that had preyed upon the mind of the lady; but she found she could do nothing to put an end to it, so she merely said-- "Well, I feel much happier now; so I will go at once and get you the brandy that you ask for." "I hope he will drink it freely--it will aid him in drowning reflection." "Thank you," said the cook, "I shall expect it with impatience." "Confound her, she can't very well put anything queer in the brandy. I will take care to taste a very small portion of it first; for Sir Richard Blunt has cautioned me particularly to be careful of poison." "I am going," said Mrs. Lovett. "Good-bye, madam; I only hope you will be able to carry your benevolent intentions into effect--and," added the cook to himself, "that I may some fine morning have the pleasure of seeing you hanged." "Farewell," said Mrs. Lovett; and she, too, had her _aside_ as she ascended the stairs, for she muttered--"If I were only a little better assured than I am that you meditated something dangerous, I would steal upon you while you slept, and with a knife soon put an end to all trouble regarding you." [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett Alarmed At The Strange Faces At Her Window In The Pie-Shop.] Now, it happened that when Mrs. Lovett reached her shop, she saw three people outside the window. The actions of these people attracted her observation. One was a big stout man, of such a size as was rarely seen in the streets of London. The other was a young girl, nicely attired, but with a look of great grief and agitation upon her countenance. The third person of the group was a gentlemanly-looking man, attired in a great coat which was buttoned up to his chin. The big stout man was making a kind of movement towards the door of the pie-shop, and the gentleman with the great-coat was holding up his hand and shaking his head, as though forbidding him. The big stout man then looked angry; and then Mrs. Lovett saw the young girl cling to him, and heard her say-- "Oh, no--no; I said I wanted nothing.--Come away." Then the gentleman with the great-coat pulled his collar down a little; upon which the young girl sprang towards him, and, clasping his arm, cried in tones of intense interest-- "Ah, sir, is it indeed you? Tell me is she saved--oh, is she saved?" "She will be," was the reply of the gentleman in the great-coat. "Come away." The big stout man appeared to be getting rather furious at the idea of the gentleman with the great-coat dictating what he and the young girl should do; but she by a few words pacified him; and then, as if they were the best friends in the world, they all walked away towards the Strand, conversing very seriously and rapidly. "What does this mean?" said Mrs. Lovett. Terror overspread her countenance. Oh, conscience! conscience! how truly dost thou make "Cowards of us all!" What could compensate Mrs. Lovett for the abject terrors that came over her now? What could recompense her for the pang that shot across her heart, at the thought that something was amiss in the fine-drawn web of subtlety that she and Sweeney Todd had drawn? Alas! was the money in the Bank of England, upon which she expected to enjoy herself in a foreign land, now any set-off against that shuddering agony of soul with which she said to herself-- "Is all discovered?" Her strength forsook her. She quite forgot all about the cook, and the brandy she had promised him--she forgot even how necessary it was, in case any one should come, for her to keep up the appearance of composure; and tottering into the back-parlour, she sunk upon her knees on the floor, and shook as though the spirit of twenty agues possessed her. So it will be seen that Todd was not quite alone in his sufferings from those compunctious visitations, which we have seen at times come over him in his shop. But we will leave Mrs. Lovett to her reflections, hoping that even she may be made a little wiser and a little better by those soft "Whisperings of awakened sense;" and that she may find some one among the invisible hosts of spirits of another world who may whisper to her-- "Repent! repent!--it is not yet too late." Let us look at those three persons whose mysterious conduct at the shop windows had, like a match applied to gunpowder, at once awakened a fever in the breast of Mrs. Lovett, which she was scarcely aware slumbered there. These folks made their way, then, into Fleet Street; and as the reader has probably guessed already who they are, we may as well make a merit of saying that the big one was our old friend Ben, the beef-eater--the gentlemanly-looking man was Sir Richard Blunt, and the young lady was no other than Arabella Wilmot. Poor Arabella! Of all the personages concerned in our _dramatis personæ_, we have no hesitation in saying that your sufferings are the greatest. From the moment that Johanna had started upon that desperate expedition to Sweeney Todd's, peace left the bosom of her young friend. We have already traced the progress of Arabella to Sir Richard Blunt's office, and we have seen what was the result of that decidedly judicious movement; but notwithstanding she was assured over and over again subsequently by Sir Richard that Johanna was now well protected, she could not bring herself to think so, or to leave the street. It was by her lingering about in this way that she became in the company of our friend Ben. The fact was, that the kind of statement or confession that Johanna had made to Ben on that occasion of his visit to her father's house, when she found herself alone with him in the parlour, had made such an impression upon the poor fellow, that he described it himself in the most forcible possible language, by saying-- "It interferes with my meals." Now, everything that had such an effect as that, must to Ben be a matter for the most serious consideration indeed. He accordingly, finding that "The peace of the Tower was fled," so far as he was concerned, had come into the City upon a sort of voyage of discovery, to see how matters were going on. As he was proceeding along Fleet Street, he chanced to cast his eyes into the entrance of a court, nearly opposite Sweeney Todd's, and there he saw a female form crouching. There was something about this female form which Ben thought was familiar to him, and upon a close look, he felt certain it was Johanna's friend, Arabella Wilmot. Full of surprise at finding her there, Ben paused, and stared at her so long, that she at last looked at him, and recognising him, immediately flew to his side, and grasping his arm, cried-- "Oh, pity me, Mr. Ben. Pity me!" "Hold!" said Ben, who was not, as the reader is aware, the fastest thinker in the world. "Hold. Easy does it." Ben tried to look very wise then. "Oh, you will hate me, Ben." "Eh?" "I say you will hate me, Ben, when you know all." Ben shook his head. "Shan't do any such thing," he said. "Lord bless your pretty eyes, I hate you? I couldn't." "But--but--" "Come, come," added Ben, "just take your little bit of an arm under mine. Easy does it, you know. Always think of that, if anything goes amiss. Easy does it; and then you will find things come right in the long run. You may take my word for it." CHAPTER LXXV. COLONEL JEFFERY OPENS HIS EYES. Arabella was weeping, so that for some little time she could say nothing more to Ben; and he did not, in the profundity of his imagination, very well know what to say to her, except now and then muttering the maxim of "Easy does it," which Ben thought singularly applicable to all human affairs. But this was a state of things which could not last; and Arabella Wilmot, nerving herself sufficiently to speak in a few minutes, said to Ben in a low self-deprecatory tone-- "Oh, sir, I--I--have done something very wrong." "Eh?" said Ben, opening his eyes to their utmost. "Yes," added Arabella, "very wrong, indeed." "Humph!" "You would not probably have expected it of me, Mr. Ben, would you now?" "Well, a-hem!" said Ben. "Easy does it." "I am a wicked--wicked girl." "Oh, dear--oh, dear!" said Ben. "You cannot guess, Mr. Ben, what I have done; but I feel I ought to tell you, and it will be quite a relief to me to do so." Ben shook his head. "I tell you what it is, my dear," he said. "Your best plan is to go and tell your mother, my dear. That's the proper person to tell. She is sure to find it out somehow or another; and you had better tell her at once, and then--Easy does it." "My mother? Tell my mother? Oh, no--no--no!" "Well, if you have got any respectable old aunt now, who is a good, kind old soul, and would not make too much fuss, you had better tell her; but goodness gracious, my dear, what puts it into your head to tell me?" "Because I think you are kind-hearted." "Well, but--well, but--" "And, then, of course, as you are mixed up, you know, Mr. Ben, in the whole transaction, it is only proper that you should know what has happened at last." Ben turned fairly round, and looked down into the face of Arabella Wilmot with such a coarse expression of alarm upon his face, that at any other than so serious a time she must have laughed. "Me?" he cried. "Me?" "Yes, Mr. Ben." "Me mixed up in the--the--Oh dear!" "Ah, Mr. Ben, you know you are by far too kind not to be; and so I feel as though it would be quite a relief to me to tell you everything." "Everything?" "Yes, all--all." "Not all the particulars, surely. Come--come. I ain't an old woman, you know, my dear." "An old woman, Ben?" "No, my dear, I say I ain't an elderly female, so I don't think I ought to listen to all the particulars, do you know. Come--come, you go home now, and say no more about it to me. Easy does it, you know; and keep your own counsel. I won't say a word; but don't you, because you are in such a state of mind as you hardly know what you are about, go on blubbering to me about all the particulars, when perhaps to-morrow you'll give one of your pretty little ears that you had not said a word to me about it." "Alas!--Alas!" "Pho! Pho! Easy does it." "Who am I to cling to but you?" "Cling to me? Perhaps you'll say it's me?" "What's you, Mr. Ben? Explain yourself. How strange you talk. What do you mean, Mr. Ben?" "Well, that's cool," said Ben. "What's cool?" "I tell you what it is, Miss Arabella W., I'm disappointed in you; ain't you ashamed to look me in the face?" "Ashamed?" "Yes, positively ashamed?" "No, Mr. Ben. I may regret the indiscretion that is past; but I cannot see in it anything to be ashamed of." "You don't?" "Indeed, Mr. Ben, I do not." "Then, Miss A. W., you are about the coolest little piece of goods I have met with for some time. Come--come, easy does it; but haven't you been telling me all this time about something you have been about, that--that--was rather improper, in a manner of speaking?" It might have been the tone in which Ben pronounced the word improper, or it might have been the sagacious shake of the head which Ben accompanied his words with, or it might have been that Arabella was drawing a conclusion from the whole transaction; but certain it is, that she began to have a glimmering perception that Mr. Ben was making a great mistake. "Oh, heaven!" she said. "What are you saying Mr. Ben? I am speaking of the advice I was foolish enough to give Johanna." "Advice?" "Yes, that is all. Into what mischief could you have tortured my meaning? I am much mistaken in you, sir." "What? Then, it isn't--a-hem! That is to say, you haven't--dear me, I shall put my foot in it directly. What a fool I am." "You are, indeed," said the now indignant Arabella, and a slight flush upon her cheeks showed how deeply wronged she was by the unworthy construction Ben had put upon her innocent words. "Good-bye, Miss A. W.," added Ben. "Good-bye; I see I am out of your books; but if you fancy I meant any harm, you don't know me. God bless you. Take care of yourself my dear, and go home. I won't stay to plague you any longer. Good-bye." "Stop! Stop!" Ben paused. "I am sure, Mr. Ben, you did not mean to say a single word that could be offensive to a friendless girl in the street." "Then, then?--Easy does it." "Let us be friends again then, Mr. Ben, and I will tell you all, and you will then blame me for being so romantic as to give Johanna advice which has induced her to take a step which, although my reason tells me she is now well protected in, my imagination still peoples with horror." Ben's eyes opened to an alarming width. "You recollect meeting us in this street, Ben?" "Oh, yes." "When Johanna was disguised?" "Yes, Miss A. When she had on them, a-hem! You may depend upon it, my dear, there's no good comes of young girls putting on pairs of thingamys. Don't you ever do it." "But, Mr. Ben, hear me." "Well--well. I was only saying. You stick to the petticoats, my dear. They become you, and you become them, and don't you be trusting your nice little legs into what-do-you-call-'ems." "Mr. Ben?" "I've done. Easy does it. Now go on and tell us what happened, my dear. Don't mind me. Go on." "Then Johanna, in boy's cloathes, is now--" "Now? Oh, the little vixen. Didn't I tell her not." "Is now filling the situation of errand boy at Sweeney Todd's, opposite. Can I be otherwise than wretched, most wretched!" "Arrant boy?" "No, not arrant boy. Errand boy." "At Todd's--opposite--in--boys--clothes? Oh--oh--just you wait here, and I'll soon put that to rights. I'll--I'll. Only you wait in this door-way, Miss A. W., just a moment or two, and I'll teach her to go and do such things. I'll--I'll--" "No--no Ben. You will ruin all, you will, indeed. I implore you to stay with me. Let me tell you all that has happened, and how Johanna is protected. In the first place, Ben, you must know that Sir Richard Blunt the Magistrate has her under his special protection now, and he says that he has made such arrangements that it is quite impossible she can come to any harm." "But--" "Nay, listen me out. He says that nothing can now expose her to any danger, but some injudicious interference. I ought not, you see, to have told you, Mr. Ben; but since I have, I only ask of you, for Johanna's sake, for her life's sake, to do nothing." Ben looked aghast. "And--and how long is the little lamb to be left there?" he asked. "Only a few hours I think now, Ben--only a few hours. Where are we now, Mr. Ben?" "Why, this, my dear, is Bell-yard we have strolled into; and that is the famous pie-shop of which they talk so much. They say the woman has made an immense fortune by selling them." As Ben made a kind of movement towards Mrs. Lovett's window, it was then that Sir Richard Blunt, who had followed him and Arabella Wilmot from Fleet-street, and who had, in fact, overheard some portion of their conversation, stepped up in the manner that Mrs. Lovett had remarked from within the shop. * * * * * We have before stated that the three personages, consisting of the magistrate, big Ben the beef-eater, and Arabella Wilmot, walked to Fleet-street together from Bell-yard. Sir Richard Blunt shook his head at Arabella Wilmot, as he said-- "Miss Wilmot, I cannot help saying that it would have been better in every respect, and possibly much more conducive to the safety of Miss Oakley, if you had gone home quietly, and not lingered about Fleet-street." "I could not go, sir." "But yet a consideration for Miss Oakley's safety should have induced you to put that violence upon your own feelings." "I felt that when once you, sir, had pledged yourself for her safety, that safe she was; and that my weeping perchance in a doorway in Fleet-street could not be so important as to compromise her." "I am fairly enough answered," said Sir Richard Blunt, with a slight smile. "But what say you to coming with me to the Temple?" "The Temple?" Arabella cast a lingering look towards Todd's shop, which Sir Richard at once translated, and replied to it by saying-- "Fear nothing for your young friend. She knows she is protected; but even she does not know the extent to which she is so protected. I tell you, Miss Wilmot, that I pledge my own life for her safety--and that, although to all seeming she is in the power of Todd, such is not the case." "Indeed?" "I have a force of no less than twenty-five men in Fleet-street now--one half of whom have their eyes upon Todd's shop. By Heaven! I would not have a hair of that young and noble girl's head injured for the worth of this great kingdom!" "Bravo!" cried Ben, as he seized Sir Richard by the hand, and gave it a squeeze that nearly brought the tears into the eyes of the magistrate; "bravo! that's what I like to hear. All's right. Bless you, sir, easy does it. You are the man for my money!" "Will you both come with me, then?" "To be sure," said Ben; "to be sure; and as we go along, I'll tell you what a sad mistake I made about Miss Arabella here. You must know that I met her crying in Fleet-street, and she--" Arabella shook her head, and frowned. "And--and--and--she--nothing." "Well," said Sir Richard, "I must confess I have heard anecdotes with a little more point to them." "You don't say so!" said Ben. "I think I will go home," said Arabella, gently. "If you will," replied the magistrate, "of course, I cannot say anything to stay you; but I think it will be a great disappointment to Colonel Jeffery not to meet with you to-day." "Colonel Jeffery!" exclaimed Arabella, while her face became of the colour of a rose-bud; "Colonel Jeffery?" There was just the ghost of a smile upon the face of Sir Richard Blunt, as he calmly replied-- "Yes; I am on my way to meet that gentleman in the garden of the Temple; and I am sure he would be glad to see you." "Glad to see me?" "Yes, as so true a friend of Johanna's, he will be more than glad; he will be delighted." "Delighted?" "Do you doubt the Colonel's friendly feeling towards you?" "Oh no--no. I--no--certainly not." "Then let me beg of you to come." "No. Not now; I will go home. It will look particular for me to go to the garden to meet him." "It will look much more particular to refuse, I think, Miss Wilmot. You are with me, and with your old friend, and Johanna's relative, Mr. a--a--" "They calls me Ben." "Mr. Ben; and so you cannot refuse," he said, "to go to meet Colonel Jeffery, you know. Come, come, I pray you come. Indeed, I know the Colonel wishes to speak to you; and as it would be obviously out of order for him to call upon you, I think you ought, seeing that you're not alone, to give him, as a gentleman of wealth and honour, this opportunity of doing so." "You say, he wishes to speak to me?" "He does, indeed. What do you say, Mr. Ben? Don't you think Miss Wilmot might as well come with us?" "Easy does it," said Ben, "and that's my opinion all the world over." "Then allow me to look upon it that we have prevailed with you, Miss Wilmot. Pray do me the favour to take my arm." Arabella trembled, but she did take the arm of Sir Richard Blunt, and made no further opposition to proceeding to that Temple Gardens, where already such affecting interviews had taken place between the Colonel and poor Johanna. The gardens appeared to be empty when they reached it, but from behind some shrubs Colonel Jeffery in a moment made his appearance, for Sir Richard, in consequence of his meeting with Ben and Arabella, was considerably behind his time. CHAPTER LXXVI. ARABELLA AND THE COLONEL. If any one had been looking at the face of Arabella Wilmot at this particular juncture, and if the party so looking had chanced to be learned in reading the various emotions of the heart from the expression of the features, they might have chanced upon some curious revelations. It was only one glance that Arabella gave to the Colonel, but that was sufficient. A word slightly spoken, and in due season, may say more than a volume of preaching; and so one transient glance, fleeting as a sun-beam in an English April, may, with most eloquent meaning, preach a sermon that would puzzle many a divine. But we have become so familiar with the reader, and put ourselves upon such a cordial shake-hands sort of feeling, in particular with you, Miss, who are now reading this passage, that we will whisper a secret in your ear, and the more readily, too, as to whisper we must come particularly close to that soft downy cheek, and almost be able to look askance into those eyes in which the light of Heaven seems dancing,--Arabella Wilmot is in love! Yes, Arabella Wilmot is in love with Colonel Jeffery; and small blame to her, as they say in Ireland, for is he not a gentleman in the true acceptation of the term? Not a manufactured gentleman, but one of nature's gentlemen. You will have promised, my dear what's-your-name, that Arabella, to herself even, has hardly confessed her feelings; but still they are creeping upon her most insidiously as such feelings somehow or other will and do creep. To be sure, if any one were to stop her in the street or any where else to say, "Arabella, you are in love with Colonel Jeffery," she would say--"No, no, no!" many times over. But yet it is true. "You read it in her glistening eyes, And thus alone should love be read: She says it in her gentle sighs, And thus alone should love be said." After this, who will be hardy enough, my dear, to dispute the fact with you and I? And now we will watch her, ay, that we will, and see how she will behave herself under such trying circumstances. Colonel Jeffery advanced, and as in duty and gallantry called upon, he, after slightly bowing to the gentlemen, spoke to Arabella. "This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Wilmot," he said. "I hope I see you well. Here is a seat close at hand. May I have the pleasure of conducting you to it?" "Johanna is--is--is--" stammered Arabella. "Well, I hope," interposed the colonel. "Oh, no--no--that is, yes." The colonel looked puzzled. He was not a conjurer, and so might look puzzled, if he looked like any ordinary man, who hears any one say no, and yes in the same breath, without any injury to his reputation. "Mr. Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I have something for your private ear, if you will just step on with me." "My private ear?" said Ben with a confused look, as if he would have liked to add, "which is that?" "Yes. This way if you please." Ben walked on with the magistrate, and Colonel Jeffery was alone with Arabella Wilmot. Yes, alone with the one person who insensibly had crept into her affections. Alas! Is the pure love of that young creature scattered to the winds? Is she one of those who drag about them in this world the heavy chain of unrequited affection? We shall see. Arabella had permitted the colonel to hand her to one of the garden-seats near at hand. How could she prevent him? If he had chosen instead to hand her into the river it would have been just the same, and she would have gone. He led her by that wreath of flowers which in old Arcadia was first linked by Cupid, and which, in all time since, has wound itself around the hearts of all the boy-god's victims. "Miss Wilmot," said the colonel, and now his voice faltered a little, "I have much wished to see you." "Very fine, indeed," said Arabella. "You said something about the weather, did you not?" "Not exactly," he said; "I had much wished to see you." "Me?" "Yes, and to begin at the beginning, you know I--I--loved Johanna Oakley. Yes, I loved her." "Yes--yes." "I loved her for her beauty, and for the gentle and the chivalrous devotion of her character, you understand. I loved her for the very tears she shed for another, and for the very constancy with which she clung to the memory of his affection for her. I saw in her such child-like purity of mind, such generosity of disposition, such enchanting humanity of soul, that I could not but love her." "Yes, yes," gasped Arabella. "Yes." "Will you pardon me for saying all this to you?" "Oh yes. Go on--go on, unless you have said all?" "I have not." "Then, then you have only to add that you love her still?" "Yes, but--" Arabella's heart beat painfully. "Ah," she said, "has true love any reservations? You love her, and yet you have something else to say." "I have. I love her still. But it is not as I loved her. She has convinced me of her constancy to her first affection, that--that--" "Yes, yes." "That being so convinced, I now love her, but with that love a brother might feel for a dear sister, and I almost think it was a kind of preparation to try to awaken in the smouldering fires of her lost love a new passion. She has made me feel that the love of woman once truly awakened is an undying passion and can know no change--no extinction." "True. Oh, how true!" "I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girl--one in whom there are no evil passions, no world-wise failings nor earthly varieties--is touched by the holy flame of affection, it may consume her being, but it never can be extinguished." Arabella burst into tears. "Love," added the colonel, "may be trodden down, but like truth it can never be trodden out!" "Never! never!" sobbed Arabella. "Let me go now! Oh, sir, let me go home now?" "One moment!" She trembled, but she sat still. "Only a moment, Arabella, while I tell you that man's love is different from this. That man can reason upon his affections, and that when the first beauty and excellence upon which he may cast his eyes is denied to his arms, he can look for equal beauty--equal excellence--equal charms of mind and person in another, and--" Arabella tried to go, but somehow she felt spell-bound and could not rise from that garden seat. "And," added the colonel, "with as pure a passion, man can make an idol of her who can be his, as he approached her who could not.--Miss Wilmot, I love you!" "Oh, no, no--Johanna." [Illustration: Colonel Jeffery Declares His Love For Arabella.] "I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I loved Johanna. If she had been fancy-free and would have looked upon me with eyes of favour, I would have made her my wife; but such was not to be, and for the same qualities that I loved her I love you. I am afraid I have not explained my feelings well." "Oh, yes. That is, I don't know." "And now, Miss Wilmot, will you allow me to hope that what I have said to you may not be all in vain? That--" "No, no." "No?" "Allow me to go, now. My mind is too full of the fate of Johanna even to permit me to reject in the language taught--" "Reject?" "Yes," she said, "reject. I wish you all the happiness this world can afford to you, Colonel Jeffery." "Then you will be mine?" "No, no, no. Farewell." She rose, and this time the colonel did not attempt to detain her. He stepped back a pace or two, and bowed, and then rose and walked a pace or two away. Then she turned, and holding out her hand, she cried-- "We may--may be friends." The colonel took the little hand in silence, but the expression of his face was one of deep chagrin. "Good-bye," said Arabella. How courageous she had become all of a sudden, as it were. "And is this all?" said Jeffery. "Yes, all. When I see Johanna I will remember you to her." The colonel bowed again, as he replied-- "I shall be much beholden to you, Miss Wilmot, for that kindness." "And--and I hope you will find--find--that is, meet with some one, who--who don't chance to know that your love is a kind of second-hand--that is, I don't mean that, but a--a--Yes, that is all." Arabella was saying too much. The colonel replied gently-- "I am truly obliged for the highly explanatory speech just uttered by Arabella Wilmot, whom I have the honour to wish a very good-day." Arabella trembled. "No, no. Not thus, Colonel Jeffery. We are friends, indeed." "Remarkable good acquaintances," said the colonel, as he walked away towards Sir Richard Blunt and Ben. Arabella walked hastily on, having but one idea at the moment, and that was to leave the garden, but she could not find the gate, and Ben ran after her as well as he could, calling-- "Miss A. W.--Miss A. W., where are you a-going? Don't you go yet. I'll take care of you and see you all right, you know, or perhaps you'd like to take a wherry here at the Temple stairs, and go to the Tower, and see the animals fed?" "Yes, no--that is, anything," replied Arabella. "I will go home now, I am so very--very wretched!" "What, wretched? Here, Colonel thingumy, she says she--" "If you dare!" said Arabella, as she placed her hand upon the arm of Ben. "If you dare!" "Lor!" said Ben, as he looked down from his altitude upon the frail and beautiful young creature. "Lor! easy does it!" The voice of Ben, however, had brought both the colonel and Sir Richard Blunt to the spot. During that brief time that had elapsed since the colonel had last spoken to Arabella, Sir Richard had told him of the perilous position of Johanna, and the look of anxiety upon his face was most marked. Arabella heard him say-- "Make use of me in any way you please, Sir Richard. Regard my safety or even my life as nothing compared to her preservation." Arabella knew what he meant. "Ben," she said, "will you come with me, and see me a part of my way home?" "Yes, my dear, to be sure. Then you won't come and see the criturs fed to-day, I supposes?" "No, no." "Very well. Easy does it. Come along, my dear--come along. Lord love you! I'll take care of you. I should only like to see anybody look at you while you are with me, my duck. Bless your little bits of twinkling eyes!" "Thank you--thank you." "Lor! it's enough to make a fellow go mad in love, to see such criturs as you, my dear; but whenever I thinks of such things, I says to myself--'I'll just pop in and see Mother Oakley,' and that soon puts it all out of my head, I can tell you." "Indeed?" "Yes. You should go in at feeding time some day, and see her a-coming it strong with fried ingins." "Fried what?" "Ingins--ingins; round things. Ingions--ah! that's it." "Onions?" "Very like--very like. But come on, my dear--come on. Easy does it! Always remember that whenever you gets into any fix. Easy does it!" Did Arabella think the colonel would run after her and say something? Yes she did; but he came not. Did she think he would be loath to part with her upon such terms as they had seemed to part? Yes, yes. Surely he could not let her go without some kinder, softer, word that he had last spoken to her? But he did. He only watched her with his eyes; and when Sir Richard Blunt, who, it would appear, knew something of the colonel's feelings, said to him-- "All right, I suppose, Colonel Jeffery?" He only shook his head. "What, anything amiss?" "She has rejected me!" "Oh, is that all?" "All? And enough too." "Phoo! She was sure to do that. Don't you know the old adage, that-- "Woman's nay still stands for nought." "Why, man, No comes as naturally to the tip of a young girl's tongue when she means Yes, as Don't when she expects to be kissed. I tell you, she loves you. She adores the very ground you walk on." "And yet she taunted me with my passion for Johanna, and called me a second-hand lover." "Did she, though? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Upon my life that was good--was it not?" CHAPTER LXXVII. MRS. LOVETT VISITS THE BANK. Mrs. Lovett, Mrs. Lovett, we are neglecting you! Excuse us, fascinating piece of wickedness. We are now in Bell-yard again. It will be recollected what a mental ferment the appearance of Ben, and Arabella, and Sir Richard Blunt, at the window of her shop had put her in. Not that she knew any of those parties--nor that she connected any of them in any way with her feelings, except so far as their attitudes might at that moment lead her to suppose. The attitudes certainly were such as to create suspicion. All this, joined to the previous state of mind of Mrs. Lovett, did not tend to produce that heavenly calm, which philosophers tell us is such a remarkably nice thing. On the contrary, the mind of Mrs. Lovett rather resembled a raging torrent, boiling and bubbling to some destruction which was afar off, and which could only be reached through the perils and dangers of some stormy passage. She was sighing for peace. She had begun to sicken for the results of her life of iniquity--not those results which an indignant and outraged public would have visited her with, but those results which she and all persons, who deliberately and systematically commence a career of guilt, picture to themselves. Criminality is never engaged in for its own sake. There is always some ultimate object in view, which makes the retrospect less horrible, and the prospect dim and dubious, though it may be yet a thing of pleasurable anticipation. Of course, we are only reasoning upon those minds that reflect. There are many who lead a life of criminality, who do so as the manifestation of an intellect that can picture nothing else. But the reader knows that Mrs. Lovett was not of such an order. She was to some extent an educated, and to a considerable extent a clever woman. Hence, then, she had always pictured to herself wealth and retirement, respect and power, as the ends for which she was striving with such unscrupulous means. But of late, with a shuddering horror, she had begun to dread that all she had hoped for was getting only more distant. She had contracted a strong notion of the bad faith of Todd, and if such were really the case, all was indeed lost. If he allowed his cupidity just to induce him to commit the crime that would be one too many, destruction must fall upon them both. If likewise he instantly made an effort to take to himself all the profits of the unholy traffic that they were mutually engaged in, all would be lost to both; for was she a likely woman to crouch down in silence under such a blow? No! the scaffold prepared by her instrumentality for Todd, would be scarcely less a triumph to her that she herself would share it with him. He ought to have known better than he did. How clear and long-sighted we find people upon subjects that from this distance may be supposed to present difficulties, and yet how shallow they are upon what is close to them. One would have thought that such a man as Todd could easily have said to himself, with regard to Mrs. Lovett, "I dare not tamper with the objects of that woman," and he would have said it with truth; but on the contrary, he only looked upon her as a convenient tool, which was to be thrown aside when it had served all the purposes for which he intended it. There could not have been a more fatal mistake upon the part of Todd as concerned his safety. But to return to Mrs. Lovett. The brandy she had promised to the prisoner was quite forgotten. She sat revolving in her mind, how she could put an end to the state of horrible doubt and perplexity in which she was. There were some little difficulties in the way of Mrs. Lovett emerging from her present condition. It has been before hinted at, that Todd and the fair lady of the pie-shop had between them accumulated a large sum of money, and that the money was duly deposited in the hands of a stock-broker, who was by no means to part with it to either of them, except upon an order signed by both. So far all looked fair enough; and as they were likewise bound together by such a bond of mutual guilt, it did not look likely that either would make an endeavour to get the better of the other. Suppose there was £40,000 in the hands of the stock-broker, it did not seem, we say, under all the circumstances likely that Todd--being fairly entitled as between them, to £20,000--would peril the safety of both their necks, by getting up a quarrel about the division equitably of the spoil. The same reasoning will apply to Mrs. Lovett. But these unlikely things are the very things that do come to pass to upset the finest plans. Todd never from the first--whenever that was--meant that Mrs. Lovett should share with him; no, he thought that he, as the superior genius, the greater villain, would manage to cheat her, and that she would, for her own safety's sake, be obliged to put up with what he chose to give her. That would have been only such a pittance, as to keep her constantly in a state of dependance upon him. Now, to do Mrs. Lovett justice upon the old equitable principle of giving the devil his due, she never had any intention, until she saw symptoms of bad faith in Todd, of attempting to act otherwise than fairly by him. She loathed him; and all she meant to do, was when the division of the spoil should take place, to ascertain where he was going, and then to get as far off him as possible. Of late, however, finding that Todd was getting lucky, and feeling quite convinced that he aimed at her life, other views had dawned upon her, as we are already well aware. She did not so much care for all the money as she would have liked in her retirement, wherever it was, to have felt sure that Todd was not "An inhabitant of the earth;" and hence she had taken the pains, all of which had been frustrated, to put him into another world. But a feeling, superstitiously consequent upon her failure, had started up in her mind that he bore a charmed life; and hence she bethought herself of flying from England; but the money--how was she to get the money to do so? How was she, without his cognisance, to get her share of the funds which had been placed in the hands of a stock-broker? Now, since she had begun to feel uncomfortable regarding the faith of Todd, Mrs. Lovett had kept what cash she saved at home; therefore some weeks had elapsed since she had paid a monetary visit to the city. If she had gone as usual, she might have got some news. To a woman of lively and discursive imagination like Mrs. Lovett, a plan of operation was not long in suggesting itself. Why, she asked herself, should she hesitate to put Todd's name to the document necessary to get her half of the money from the stock-broker? What a natural consequence from this question it was to ask herself another, which was--If I am forging Todd's signature at all, might I not do it for the whole amount as for half, and so take the only revenge upon him which he would feel, or which I dare offer myself the gratification of exacting from him? When such a question as this is asked, it is practically answered in the affirmative. Mrs. Lovett felt quite decided upon it. She was a woman of courage. No faint-hearted scruple interposed between the thought and the execution of a project with her. The recent scene that had taken place in front of her window decided her. Now or never! she told herself. Now or never is the time to escape. I have nothing to encumber myself with. Let Todd keep his jewels and trinkets. All I want is the money which is in the hands of Mr. Anthony Brown, the stock-broker, and that I will have forthwith. Mrs. Lovett did not know the exact amount; but as it was a joint account, such an amount of ignorance need not appear at all surprising to the stock-broker; so she drew up an order for the money, and signed it with both Todd's name and her own, leaving a blank for the amount. She then carefully locked up all doors but that of the outer shop, and having procured the services of a young girl from a greengrocer's shop in the vicinity, to mind the place for an hour, as she said, she considered she was all right. The girl had attended to the shop before for Mrs. Lovett at times when no batches of pies were expected from the regions below, so she did not feel at all surprised at the call upon her services. "I shall be an hour," said Mrs. Lovett. "You can take a pie or two for yourself if you feel at all hungry; and if Mr. Todd should come in, say I'm gone to call upon a dress-maker in Bond-street." "Yes, mum!" Mrs. Lovett left the shop. At the corner of Bell-yard she turned and cast a glance at it. She hoped it was a farewell one--She shuddered and passed on; and then she muttered to herself-- "If I am--which assuredly I shall be--successful in the city, I will take post-horses there at once for some sea-port, and from thence reach the Continent, before Todd can dream of pursuit, or find out what I have done, or where bestowed myself." She was not so impudent as to pass Todd's shop, but she went down one of the streets upon the opposite side of Fleet-street, and came up another, which was considerably past the house which was so full of horrors. A lumbering old hackney coach met her gaze. It was disengaged, and Mrs. Lovett got into it. "To Lothbury," she said; and after swaying to and fro for a few moments, the machine was set in action, and duly steering up Ludgate Hill. The impatience of Mrs. Lovett was so great, that she would gladly have done anything to induce the horses to go at a faster rate than the safe two miles and a half an hour to which they were accustomed, but she dreaded that if she exhibited any signs of extreme impatience she might excite suspicion. To the guilty, any observation of a more than ordinary character is a thing to dread. They would fain glide through life gently, and not at all do they sigh to be-- "The observed of all observers." But the longest journey even in the slowest hackney coach must come to an end. As Ben the beef-eater would have said--"Easy does it;" and as Mrs. Lovett's journey was anything but a long one, the gloomy precincts of Lothbury soon loomed upon her gaze. After the customary oscillations, and wheezing and creaking of all its joints and springs, the coach stopped. "Wait," said Mrs. Lovett with commendable brevity; and alighting, she entered a dark door-way upon the side of which was painted, in letters that had contracted so much the colour of the wood-work that they were nearly illegible, "Mr. Anthony Brown." This was the stock-broker, who held charge of the ill-gotten gains of that pair of un-worthies, Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd. A small door, covered with what had been green baize, but which was now of some perfectly original brown, opened into the outer office of the man of business, and there a spruce clerk held dominion. At the sound of the rustling silks of Mrs. Lovett, he raised his head from poring over the cumbrous ledger; and then seeing, to use his own vernacular, it was "a monstrous fine woman," he condescended to alight from his high stool, and he demanded the lady's pleasure. "Mr. Brown." "Yes, madam. Certainly. Mr. B. is in his private room. What name shall I have the pleasure of saying?" "Lovett." "Lovett? Yes, madam. Certainly--a-hem! Pray be seated, madam, if you please." Mrs. Lovett made a gesture of dissent, and the clerk went upon his errand. He was scarcely absent a moment, and then holding open a door, he said, with quite a chivalric air-- "This way, if you please, madam.--A monstrous fine woman," he added to himself. The door closed after Mrs. Lovett, and she was in the private room of Mr. Anthony Brown. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett. Pray be seated, madam. I am truly glad to see you well. Well, to be sure, you do look younger, and younger, and younger, every time I have the pleasure of a visit from you." "Thank you, Mr. Brown, for the compliment. My visits have not been so numerous as usual of late." "Why, no ma'am, they have not; but I hope we are going to resume business again in the old way?" "Not exactly." "Well, my dear madam, whatever it is that has procured me the honour and the pleasure of this visit, I am sure I am very glad of it, and shall not quarrel with it. He! he! Nice weather, Mrs. Lovett." "Very." "Ah, madam--ah, it was a world of pities to disturb the investments. It was indeed. But ladies will be ladies." "Sir?" "I--I merely said ladies will be ladies you know. And indeed--he! he!--I fully expected the interesting ceremony had come off before now, I did indeed; and I should have wagered a new hat." "Mr. Brown, what are you talking about?" "About?" "Yes, what do you mean?" "Why, a--a--that is--the--a--a--about--concerning--the--my dear madam, if I have inadvertently trodden upon your sensibilities, I--I really--" "You really what?" Mr. Brown looked perplexed. Mrs. Lovett looked a little furious. "Sir," she said. "Before I explain the cause of my visit to you, I insist upon knowing to what all your mysterious hints and remarks allude. Speak freely and plainly, sir." "Well then, madam, when Mr. Todd was last here, he said that you had at last consented to reward years of devotion to you by becoming his, and that the ceremony which was to make him a happy man by uniting him to so much excellence and beauty, was to come off almost immediately, and that that was the reason you had both agreed to withdraw all the money I had in such snug and comfortable safe investments for you both. He! he! he!" CHAPTER LXXVIII. MUTUAL DEFIANCE. Be so good, reader, as to picture to yourself the look of Mrs. Lovett. We feel that one brief moment of imagination will do more to enable you to feel and to see with "Your mind's eye" her aspect, than as if we were to try a paragraph upon the subject. How that he! he! he! of Mr. Brown's rung in her ears. It was at any time almost enough to provoke a saint, and we need not say that this time of all others was not one at which Mrs. Lovett's feelings were attuned to gentleness and patience. Besides, she certainly was no saint. A rather heavy inkstand stood upon the table between Mrs. Lovett and the stock-broker. The next moment it narrowly escaped his head, leaving in its progress over his frontispiece a long streak of ink down his visage. "Wretch!" said Mrs. Lovett. "It is not true." "Murder!" cried Mr. Brown. Mrs. Lovett covered her face with both her hands for a moment, as though, to enable her to think clearly, it were necessary to shut out the external world; and then starting up, she advanced to the door of the room. "Murder!" said the stock-broker again. "Silence!" "A constable." "If you dare to say one word of this interview, I will return, and tear you limb from limb." Mrs. Lovett opened the door of the private room with such a vengeance that the nose of the clerk, who had been listening upon the other side, was seriously damaged thereby. He started back with a howl of pain. "Fool!" said Mrs. Lovett, as she passed him, and that was all she condescended to say to him;--not by any means an agreeable reminiscence of his last words with a lady to a gentleman who prided himself upon his looks--rather! Mrs. Lovett reached the street, and walked for some distance as though street it was not. She was only roused to a sense of the world in which she was, by hearing the sound of a voice calling-- "Mum--mum! Here yer is--mum--mum! woo!" She turned and saw the coach in which she had come to the stock-broker. "Going back, mum?" said the man. "Yes, yes." She stepped into the vehicle, looking more like an animated statue than aught human. The man stood touching what was once the brim of a hat, as he said-- "Where to, mum?" Mrs. Lovett looked at him with an air of such abstraction that it was quite clear she did not see him, but she heard the question, that came to her like an echo in the air. "Where to, mum?" "To Fleet-street!" Wheeze--creak--wheeze--creak--sway--sway, and the coach moved on again. Mrs. Lovett sunk down among the straw with which the lower part of the vehicle was plentifully strewed; and then, with her head resting upon the seat, her throbbing temples clasped in her hands, she tried to think. Yes--she called upon all that calmness--that decision--that talent or tact, call it which you will that had saved her for so long, not to desert her now in this hour of her dire extremity. She called upon everything for aid but upon Heaven! and then, to ease her mind, she cursed a little. Somebody says-- "Swearing when the passions are at war, And light the chambers of the brain with angers flash. Has an effect quite moral--a kind of safety valve, Sparing what might be a tremendous crash!" and so Mrs. Lovett got cooler, but not a whit the less determined, as the crazy vehicle conveyed her to Fleet-street. She fully intended now to measure conclusions with Todd. The distance was so short that even a hackney-coach performed it with tolerable promptitude. Mrs. Lovett did not wish to alight exactly at the door of Todd's shop; so she was rather glad upon finding the coach stop at the corner of Fleet-street by the old Market, and the driver demanded what number? "This will do." She was in the street in another minute. It took a minute to get out of a hackney-coach. It was like watching the moment to spring from a boat to the shore in a heavy surf. And yet, oh much vilified old hackney-coach! how much superior wert thou to thy bastard son, the present odious rattling, bumping, angular, bone-dislocating, horrid cab! The driver received about double his fare, and a cab-man of the present day would have gathered a mob by his vociferations, and blackguarded you into a shop, if you had treated him in such a way. Nothing less than three times what he's entitled to ever lights up the smallest spark of civility in the soul of a modern cab-driver, but the old hackney-coach-man was always content with double; so upon this occasion Mrs. Lovett got a "thank ye, mum;" and a long straw that had taken an affection for the skirt of her dress was arrested by jarvey and restored to the coach again. Mrs. Lovett walked to all appearance composedly up Fleet-street. Alas! in this world who can trust to appearances? She had time, before reaching the shop of Sweeney Todd, to arrange slightly what she should say to that worthy. Of course, he could know nothing of her visit to the City--of her interview with Mr. Brown, and she need not blurt that out too soon. She would argue with him a little, and then she would be down upon him with the knowledge of his knavery and treachery. She reached the shop. No wonder she paused there a moment or two to draw breath. You would have done the same; and after all, Mrs. Lovett was mortal. But she did not hesitate for long. The threshold was crossed--the handle of the door was in her hand--it was turned, and she stood in Todd's shop. Todd was looking at something in a bottle, which he was holding up to the light; and Mrs. Lovett saw, too, that a pretty genteel-looking lad was poking about the fire, as if to rouse it. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett!" said Todd, "how do you do? Some more of that fine grease for the hair, I suppose, madam?" Todd winked towards the lad (our dear friend Johanna), as though he would have said--"Don't appear to know me too well before this boy. Be careful, if you please." "I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd." "Oh, certainly, madam. Pray walk in--this way, if you please, madam--to my humble bachelor-parlour, madam. It is not fit exactly to ask a lady into; but we poor miserable single men, you know, madam, can only do the best we can. Ha! ha! This way." "No." "Eh? Not come in?" "No. I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd; but I will say it here." And now Mrs. Lovett gave a sidelong glance at the seeming boy, as much as to say-- "You can easily send him away if you don't want him to listen to our discourse." Todd saw the glance; and the diabolical look that he sent to Mrs. Lovett in return would indeed have appalled any one of less nerve than she was possessed of. But she had come to that place wound up firmly to a resolution, and she would not shrink. Todd had no resource. "Charley," he said, "you can go and take a little turn--here is a penny to spend; get yourself something in the market. But be sure you are back within half an hour, for we shall have some customers, no doubt." "Yes, sir." Johanna did not exactly know whether to think that Mrs. Lovett came in anger or friendship; but, at all events, she felt that it would be hazardous to remain after so marked a dismissal from Todd, although she would gladly have heard what the subject of the conversation between those two was to be. Neither Mrs. Lovett nor Todd now spoke until Johanna had fairly gone and closed the door after her. Then Todd, as he folded his arms, and looked Mrs. Lovett fully in the face, said-- "Well?" "The time has come." "What time?" "For the end of our partnership--the dissolution of our agreement. I will go on no further. You can do as you please; but I am content." "Humph!" said Todd. "After much thought, I have come to this conclusion, Todd. Of course, let me be where I may, the secret of our road to fortune remains hidden here (she struck her breast as she spoke). All I want is my half of the proceeds, and then we part, I hope, for ever." "Humph!" said Todd. "And--and the sooner we can forget, if that be possible, the past, the better it will be for us both--only tell me where you purpose going, and I will take care to avoid you." "Humph!" Passion was boiling in the heart of Mrs. Lovett; and that was just what Todd wanted; for well he knew that something had gone amiss, and that as long as Mrs. Lovett could keep herself calm and reasonable, he should stand but a poor chance of finding out what it was, unless she chose, as part of her arrangement, to tell it; but if he could but rouse her passion, he should know all. Therefore was it that he kept on replying to what she said with that cold insulting sort of "humph!" "Man, do you hear me?" "Humph!" "You villain!" "Humph!" Mrs. Lovett took from a side-table an iron, which, in the mystery of hair-dressing, was used for some purpose, and in a cool, calm voice, she said-- "If you do not answer me as you ought, I will throw this through your window, into the street; and the first person who comes in, in consequence, I will ask to seize Todd, the murderer! and offer myself as evidence of his numerous atrocities--contrite evidence--myself repenting of my share in them, and relying upon the mercy of the crown, which, in recompense for my denouncing you may graciously pardon me." "And so it has come to this?" said Todd. "You see and hear that it has." It was rather a curious coincidence, that Mrs. Lovett had threatened Todd that she would awaken public attention to his shop by the same means that Sir Richard Blunt had recommended to Johanna to use in case of any emergency--namely, throwing something through the window into the street. If Mrs. Lovett had been goaded by Todd to throw the iron through a pane of his glass, the officers of Sir Richard would quickly have made their appearance to hear her denunciation of the barber. Unhappy woman! If she had but known what the future had in store for her, that act which she threatened Todd with, and which to her imagination seemed such a piece of pure desperation, would have been the most prudent thing she could have done. But it was not to be! There was a few moments silence now between them. It was broken by Todd. "Are you mad?" he said. "No." "Then, what, in the name of all that is devilish, has got possession of you?" "I have told you my determination. Give me twenty thousand pounds--you may profit by the odd sum--give me that amount, and I will go in peace. You know I am entitled to more; but there is no occasion for us to reckon closely. Give me the sum I seek, and you will see me no more. "You take me by surprise. Just step into the parlour, and--" "No--no." "Why not? Do you suspect--" "I suspect nothing; but I am sure of much. Now, for me to set foot within your parlour would be tantamount to the commission of suicide, and I am not yet come to that--you understand me?" Todd understood her. His hand strayed to a razor that lay partially open close to him. Mrs. Lovett raised the iron. [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett And Todd Quarrel.] "Beware!" she said. Todd shrunk back. "Pho! pho! this is child's play," he said. "You and I, Mrs. Lovett, ought to be above all this--far above it. You want your half of the proceeds of our joint business, and I must confess, at the moment, that the demand rather staggered and distressed me; but the more I think of it, the more reasonable it appears." "Very well. Give it to me, then." "Why, really now, my dear Mrs. Lovett, you quite forget that all our joint savings are in the hands of Mr. Brown." Todd glared at her as though he would read her very soul. She felt that he more than suspected she knew all, and she adopted at once the bold policy of avowing it. "I do not forget anything that it is essential should be remembered," she said; "and among other things, I know that, by forging my name, you have withdrawn the whole of the money from the hands of Brown. It is not worth our while to dispute concerning your motives for such an act. Let it suffice that I know it, and that I am here to demand my due." "Ha! ha!" "You laugh?" "I do, indeed. Why, really now--ha! ha!--this is good; and so it is this withdrawal of the money from Brown that has made all this riot in your brain? Why, I withdrew it from him simply because I had certain secret information that his affairs were not in the best order; and from a fear, grounded upon that information, that he might be tempted to put his hand into our purse, if he found nothing in his own." "Well, well; it matters not what were your reasons. Give me my half. It will be then out of your custody, and you will have no anxiety concerning it, while I can have no suspicions." "In a moment--" "You will?" "If I had it here; but I have re-invested the whole, you see, and cannot get it at a moment's notice. I have moved it from the hands of Brown to those of Black." CHAPTER LXXIX. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IN THIS WORLD THERE IS RETRIBUTION. "Black?" said Mrs. Lovett. "Yes, Black." "Do you think me so--" green, she was going to say, but the accidental conjunction of the colours--brown, black, and green--suddenly struck her as ludicrous, and she altered it to foolish. "Do you think me so foolish as for one moment to credit you?" "Hark you, Mrs. Lovett," pursued Todd, suddenly assuming quite a different tone. "You have come here full of passion, because you thought I was deceiving you." "You are." "Allow me to proceed. It is, I believe, one of the penalties of all associations for--for--why do I hesitate about a word?--guilty purposes that there should be mutual distrust. I tell you again, that if I had not moved the money from Brown, we should have lost it all." "But why not come to me and get my signature?" "There--really--was--not--time," said Todd, dropping his words out one by one, with a _staccato_ expression. "That is too absurd." Todd shrugged his shoulders, as though he would have said--"Well, if you will have it so, I cannot help it;" and then he said-- "I was in the City. I heard the rumour of the instability of Brown. I flew into a shop. I wrote the order like a flash of lightning. I went to Brown's like an avalanche, and I brought away the money, as if Heaven and earth were coming together." There was not the ghost of a smile upon Todd's face as he made use of these superlatives. Mrs. Lovett began to be staggered. "Then you have it here?" "No, no!" "You have. Tell me that you have, and that this Mr. Black you mentioned is a mere delusion." "Black may be no colour, but it is not a delusion." "You trifle with me. Beware!" "In a word then, my charming Mrs. Lovett, I dreaded to bring the money here. I thought my house the most unsafe place in the world for it. I and you stand upon the brink of a precipice--a slumbering volcano is beneath our feet. Pshaw! Where is your old acuteness, that you do not see at once how truly foolish it would have been to bring the money here?" "Juggler! Fiend!" "Hard words, Mrs. Lovett." She dashed her hand across her brow, as though by that physical effort she could brush from her intellect the sophistical cobwebs that Todd had endeavoured to move before it, and then she said-- "I know not. I care not. All I ask--all I demand--is my share of the money. Give it to me, and let me go." "I will." "When?" "This day. Stay, the day is fast going, but I will say this night, if you really, in your cool judgment, insist upon it." "I do. I do!" "Well, you shall have. This night after business was over and the shop was closed, I intended to have come to you, and fully planned all this that you have unfortunately tortured yourself by finding out. I regret that you think of so quickly leaving the profits of a partnership which, in a short time longer, would have made us rich as monarchs. Of course, if you leave, I am compelled." "You compelled?" "Yes. How can I carry on business without you? How could I, without your aid, dispose of the--" "Hush, hush!" Mrs. Lovett shuddered. "As you please," said Todd. "I only say, I regret that a co-partnership that promised such happy results should now be broken up. However, that is a matter for your personal consideration merely. If I had thought of leaving, and being content with what I had already got, of course it would have compelled you to do so. Therefore I cannot complain, although I may regret your excuse of a right of action that equally belonged to me." "If I only thought you sincere--" "And why not?" "If I could only bring myself to believe that the money was once more rightly invested--" "You shall come with me yourself, if you like, in the morning to Mr. Black the broker in Abchurch Lane, No. 3, and ascertain that all is right. You shall there sign your name in his book, so that he may know it, and then you will be satisfied, I presume?" "Yes, I should then." "And this dream of leaving off business would vanish?" "Perhaps it would. But--but--" "But what?" "Why did you say to Brown that our union was to take place?" "Because it was necessary to say something, to account for the sudden withdrawal of the money; and surely I may be pardoned, charming Mrs. Lovett, for even in imagination dreaming, that so much beauty was mine." The horrible leer with which Todd looked upon her at this moment made her shudder again; and the expression of palpable hatred and disgust that her countenance wore, added yet another, and not the least considerable, link to the chain of revenge which Todd cherished against her in his cruel and most secret heart. While he was philosophising about guilty associations producing a feeling of mutual distrust, he should have likewise added that they soon produce mutual hatred. For a few moments they looked at each other--that guilty pair--with expressions that sought to read each other's souls; but they were both tolerable adepts in the art of dissimulation. The silence was the most awkward for Todd, so he broke it first by saying-- "You are satisfied, let me hope?" "I will be." "You shall be." "Yes, when I have my money. Henceforward, Todd, we will have much shorter reckonings, so shall we keep much longer friends. If you keep, in some secret place, your half of the proceeds of our--our--" "Business," said Todd. Mrs. Lovett made a sort of gulph of the word, but she adopted it. "If you, I say, keep your half of the proceeds of our business, and I keep mine, I don't see how it is possible for us to quarrel." "Quite impossible." He began to strop a razor diligently, and to try its edge across his thumb nail. Mrs. Lovett's passion--that overwhelming passion which had induced her to enter Todd's shop, and defy him to a species of single combat of wits--had in a great measure subsided, giving place to a calmer and more reflective feeling. One of the results of that feeling was a self-question to the effect of, "What will be the result of an open quarrel with Todd?" Mrs. Lovett shook a little at the answer she felt forced to give herself to this question. That answer was continued in two words--mutual destruction! Yes, that would be the consequence. "Todd," she said in a softened tone, "if I had forged your name, and gone to the city and possessed myself of all the money, what would you have thought? Tell me that." "Just what you thought--that it was the most scandalous breach of faith that could possibly be; but an explanation ought to put that right." "It has." "Then you are satisfied?" "I am. At what time shall we go together, to-morrow morning, to Mr. Black's in Abchurch Lane?" "Name your own time," said Todd with the most assumed air in the world. "Black lives at Ballam Hill, and don't get to business until ten; but any time after that will do." "I will come here at ten, then." "So be it. Ah, Mrs. Lovett, how charming it is to be able to explain away these little difficulties of sentiment. Never trust to appearances. How very deceitful they are apt to be." There was an air of candour about Todd, that might have deceived the devil himself. Notwithstanding all his hideous ugliness--notwithstanding his voice was of the lowest order, and notwithstanding that frightful laugh, and that obliquity of vision that seemed peculiar to himself in its terrible malignancy, there was a plausibility about his manner, when he pleased, that was truly astonishing. Even Mrs. Lovett, with all her knowledge of the man, felt that it was a hard struggle to disbelieve his representations. What must it have been to those who knew him not? "No," said Mrs. Lovett, "it don't do to trust to appearances." She still held the iron in her hand. "Nor," added Todd, giving the razor he had been putting an edge to, a flourish, "nor will it do to listen always to the dictates of compassion; for if we did, what miseries might we inflict upon ourselves. Now, here is a cure in point." "Where?" "I allude to this little affair between us. If you had flown to Bow-street, and there, to spite me, made a full disclosure of certain little facts, why, the result would have been that we might both have slept in Newgate to-night." "Yes, yes." "And then there would have been no recal. You could not have freed us by telling the police that you had made a mistake. Then the gallows would have risen up in our dreams." "Horrible!" "And it being easily discovered that it was no love of public justice or feeling of remorse, that induced you to the betrayal, they would have shown you no mercy, but you would have swung from the halter amid the shouts and execrations of--" "No, no!" "I say yes." "No more of this--no more of this. Can you bear to paint such a picture--does it not seem to you as though you stood upon that scaffold, and heard those shouts? Oh, horror, horror!" "You don't like the picture?" "No, no!" "Ha! ha! Well, Mrs. Lovett, you and I had far better be friends than foes; and above all, you ought by this time to feel that you could trust me. The very fact that to all the world else I am false, ought to prove to you that to you I am true. No human being can exist purely isolated, and I am not an exception." "Say no more--say no more. We will meet to-morrow." "To-morrow be it, then." "At ten." "At ten be it, and then we will go to Black. Come now, since all this is settled, take a glass of wine to our--" "No, no. Not that. I--I am not very well, A throbbing head-ache--a--a. That is, no!" "As you please--as you please. By-the-by, did Black give me a receipt, or did he say it was not usual? Stay a moment, I will look in my secretaire. Sit down a moment in the shaving chair; I will be with you again directly." "We will settle that to-morrow," said Mrs. Lovett; "I feel convinced that Black did not give you a receipt. Good-day." She left the shop, unceremoniously carrying the iron with her. Todd breathed more freely when Mrs. Lovett was gone. He gave one of his horrible laughs as he watched her through the opening in his window. "Ha! ha! Curses on her; but I will have her life first, ere she sees one guinea of my hoard!" He saw Charley Green crossing the road. "Ah, the boy comes back. 'Tis well. I don't know how or why it is, but the sight of that boy makes me uneasy. I think it will be better to cut his throat and have done with him. I--" Todd was suddenly silent. He saw two women pass, and as they did so, one pointed to his shop and said something to the other, who lifted up her hands as though in pious horror. One of these women was Mrs. Ragg, poor Tobias's mother. The other was a stranger to Todd, but she looked like what Mrs. Ragg had been, namely, a laundress in the temple. "Curses," he muttered. Johanna entered the shop. Todd caught up his hat. "Charley?" "Yes, sir." "I shall be gone five minutes. Be vigilant. If any one should come, you can say I have stepped a few doors off to trim Mr. Pentwheezle's whiskers." "Yes, sir." Todd darted from the shop. Mrs. Ragg and her friend were in that deep and earnest course that is a foe to rapid locomotion, so they had not got many yards from Todd's door. He was rarely seen, however, for either to-- "Paint a moral or adorn a tale" Mrs. Ragg turned suddenly and pointed to the shop, and then both the ladies lifted up their hands as though in horror, after which they resumed their deep and all-absorbing discourse as before. Todd followed them closely, and yet with abundance of caution. CHAPTER LXXX. TODD TAKES A JOURNEY TO THE TEMPLE. The two females took their way to the Temple. Todd had been quite right in his conjectures. The friend of Mrs. Ragg was one of the old compatriots of the laundress tribe; and that good lady herself, although, while there was no temptation to do otherwise, she had kept well the secret of her son's residence at Colonel Jeffery's, broke down like a frail and weak vessel as she was with the weight of the secret the moment she got into a gossip with an old friend. Now Mrs. Ragg had only come into that neighbourhood upon some little errand of her own, and with a positive promise of returning to the colonel's house as soon as possible. She would have kept this promise, but that amid the purlieus of Fetter-lane she encountered Martha Jones her old acquaintance. One word begot another, and at last as they walked up Fleet-street, Mrs. Ragg could not help, with many head-shakings and muttered interjectional phrases, letting Martha Jones know that she had a secret. Nay, as she passed Todd's shop, she could not help intimating that she fully believed certain persons, not a hundred miles off, who might be barbers or who might not, would some day come to a bad end in front of Newgate, in the Old Bailey. It was at this insinuation that Martha Jones lifted up her hands, and Mrs. Ragg lifted up hers in sympathy. Todd had seen this action upon the part of the ladies. To overhear what they were saying was to Todd a great object. That it in some measure concerned him he could not for a moment doubt, since the head-shaking and hand-uplifting reference that had been made to his shop by them both as they passed, could not mean anything else. And so, as we have said, he followed them cautiously, dodging behind bulky passengers, so that they should not see him by any sudden glance backwards. One corpulent old lady served him for a shield half up Fleet Street, until, indeed, she turned into a religious bookseller's shop, and left him nothing but thin passengers to interfere between him and the possibility of observation. But Mrs. Ragg and her friend Martha Jones were much too fully engaged to look behind them. In due course, they arrived opposite to the Temple; and then, after much flurrying, in consequence of real and supposed danger from the passing vehicles, they got across the way. They at once dived into the recesses of the legally-learned Temple. Todd dashed after them. "Now, my dear Mrs. Ragg," said Martha Jones, "you must not say No. It's got a beautiful head upon it, and will do you good." "No--no. Really." "Like cream." "But, really, I--I--" "Come, come, it ain't often you is in the Temple, and I knew very well he don't miss a bottle now and then; and 'twix you and me and the pump, I think we has as much a right to that beautiful bottled ale as Mr. Juggas has, for I'd take my bible oath, he don't mean to pay for it, Mrs. Ragg." "You don't say so?" "Yes, I does, Mrs. Ragg. Oh, he's a bad 'un, he is. Ah, Mrs. Ragg, you don't know, nor nobody else, what takes place in his chambers of a night." "Is it possible?" "Yes. I often say to myself what universal profundity he must be possessed with, for he was once intended, he says, for the church, and I heard him say he'd have stuck to it like bricks, if he could have heard of any church that was intended for him." "Shocking!" "Yes, Mrs. Ragg. There's profundity for you." Did Martha Jones mean profanity? "Ah," interposed Mrs. Ragg, "we live in a world." "Yes, Mrs. Ragg, we does; but as you was a saying?" "Eh?" "As you was a saying about somebody being hung, if rights was rights, you know." "Oh, dear, really you must not ask me. Indeed you must not." "Well, I won't; but here we are, in Pump Court." Todd darted into a door-way, and watched them up the staircase of No. 6, in that highly classic locality. He slunk into the door-way, and by taking a perspective glance up the staircase, he saw them stop upon the first floor. He saw that they turned to the right. He darted up a few stairs, and just caught sight of a black door. Then there was a sharp sound, as of some small latch closing suddenly, after which all was still. Todd ascended the stairs. "Curses on them!" he muttered. "What can they mean by looking in such a manner at my shop? I thought the last time I saw that woman, Ragg, that she was cognizant of something. If now she, in her babbling, would give me any news of Tobias--Pho! he is--he must be dead." By this time Todd had got to the top of the first flight of stairs, and stood upon the landing, close to several open doors--that is to say, outer black heavy-looking doors--and within them were smaller ones, armed with knockers. "To the right," he muttered. "They went to the right--this must be the door." He paused at one and listened. Not a sound met his ears, and his impatience began to get extreme. That these two women were going to have a conference about him he fully believed; and that he should be so near at hand, and yet not near enough to listen to it, was indeed galling. In a few moments it became insupportable. "I must and will know what they mean," he said. "My threats may wring the truth from them; and if necessary, I should not scruple to silence them both. Dead men tell no tales, so goes the proverb, and it applies equally well to dead women." Todd smiled. He was always fond of a conceit. "Yes," he muttered, "every circumstance says to me now in audible language, 'Go--go--go!' and go I will, far away from England. I feel that I have not now many hours to spare. This _fracas_ with Mrs. Lovett expedites my departure wonderfully, and to-morrow's dawn shall not see me in London. But I will--I must ascertain what these women are about. Yes, and I will do so at all risks." A glance showed him that the act of temerity was a safe one. The door opened upon a dingy sort of passage, in which were some mops, pails, and brooms. At its further extremity there was another door, but it was not quite shut, and from the room into which it opened, came the murmer of voices. There were other doors right and left, but Todd heeded only that one which conducted to the room inhabited. He crept along the passage at a snail's pace; and then having achieved a station exactly outside the door, he placed one of his hands behind one of his elephantine-looking ears, and while his countenance looked like that of some malignant demon, he listened to what was going on within that apartment. Martha Jones was speaking. [Illustration: Todd Listens And Learns A Dangerous Secret.] "It is good, indeed, Mrs. Ragg, as you may well say, and the glasses sticks to the table, when they is left over-night, showing, as Mr. Juggus says, as it's a gluetenious quality this ale is." "Sticks to the table?" said Mrs. Ragg. "Yes, mum, sticks. But as you was a saying?" "Well, Martha, in course I know that what goes to you goes no farther." "Not a step." "And you won't mention it to no one?" "Not a soul. Another glass?" "No, no." "Only one. Nonsense! it don't get into your head. It's as harmless as milk, Mr. Juggus says." "But ain't you afeard, Martha, he may come in?" "Not he, Mrs. Ragg. Chambers won't see him agin till night. Oh, he's a shocking young man. Well, Mrs. Ragg, as you was a saying?" "Well, it is good. As I was a saying, Martha, I don't feel uneasy now about Tobias, poor boy; for if ever a poor lad, as was a orphan in a half-and-half kind of way, seeing that I am his natural mother, and living, and thanking God for the same, and health, leastways, as far as it goes at this present moment of speakin, I--I--Bless me, where was I?" "At Tobias." "Oh, yes, I was at Tobias. As I was saying, if ever a poor body was well provided for, Tobias is. The colonel--" "The who?" "The colonel, Martha--the colonel as has took the care of him, and who, sooner or later, will have all the truth out of him about the _Toddey Sween_." "Who? Who?" "Bless my poor head, I mean Sweeney Todd. Dear me, what am I thinking of?" "The barber?" "Yes, Martha; that horrid barber in Fleet-street; and between you and me, there isn't in all the mortal world a more horrid wretch living than he is." "I'm all of a shake." "He--he--" "Yes, yes. What--" "He takes folks in and does for 'em." "Kills 'em?" "Kills 'em." "What--why--what--? You don't mean to say--why--? Take another glass Mrs. Ragg. You don't mean to say that Tobias says, that Todd the barber is a murderer?--My dear Mrs. Ragg, take another glass, and tell us all about it; only look at the cream on the top of it." "You'll excuse me, Mrs. Jones, but the truth is, I aught not to say more than I have said; and if the colonel only knew I'd said as much, I can tell you, I think he'd be like a roaring lion. But Tobias is quite a gentleman now, you see, and sleeps in as fine a bed as a nobleman could have for love or money. The colonel is very good to him; and there never was such a kind good--good--." Mrs. Ragg began to run over with tears of ale. "Bless me, and where does he live?" "Who?" "The colonel. The good, kind, colonel--colonel--a--a dear me, I forget what you said his name was." "Jeffery, and may his end be peace. He will get the reward of all his good actions in another world than this, Martha. Ah, Martha, such men as he can afford to smile at their latter ends.--No--no, I couldn't." "Only half a glass; look at the--" "No--no--" "Cream on it." "I must go, indeed. In course the colonel, since I have been his cook, knows what cooking is, for though I say it, perhaps as should not, I am a cook, and not a spiler of folks' victuals. Of course what's said, goes no further. I know I can trust you, Martha." "Oh dear, yes, in course. I'll just put on my shawl and walk a little way with you, Mrs. Ragg. Dear me--dear me!" "What is it, Martha?" "Its a raining like cats and dogs, it is. Well, I never; what shall you do, Mrs. Ragg? What shall you do?" "Call a coach, I shall, Martha. The last words the colonel said to me was, 'Mrs. Ragg, rather than there should be any delay in your return,' says he, 'as Tobias may want you, call a coach, and I will pay for it.'" Todd had only just time to dart down the staircase before the two ladies made their appearance; and then hiding sometimes in doorways, and sometimes behind columns and corners, he dodged them into Fleet-street. A coach was duly called, and Mrs. Ragg by the assistance of Martha Jones, was safely bestowed inside it. Todd heard distinctly the colonel's address given to the coachman, who would have it twice over, so that he should be sure he had it all right. "That will do," said Todd. He darted across the street, and made the best of his way to his shop again. He listened at the door for a few moments before he entered, and he thought he heard the sound of weeping. He listened more attentively, and then he was sure. Some one was sobbing bitterly within the shop. "It must be Charley," thought Todd. He placed his ear quite close to the panel of the door, in the hope that the boy would speak. Todd was quite an adept at listening, but this time he was disappointed, for the sham Charley Green spoke not one word. Yet the deep sobs continued. Todd was not in the best of tempers. He could stand the delay no longer, and bouncing into the shop, he cried-- "What the devil is the meaning of all this? What is the meaning of it, you young rascal? I suspect--" "Yes, sir," said Johanna, looking Todd full in the face, "and so do I." "You--you? suspect what?" "That I shall have to have it out, for its aching distracts me. Did you ever have the tooth-ache, sir?" "The tooth-ache?" "Yes, sir. It's--it's worse than the heart-ache, and that I have had." "Ah!--humph! Any one been?" "One gentleman, sir, to be shaved; he says he will call again." "Very good--very good." Todd took from his pocket the key of the back-parlour--that key without which in his own possession he never left the shop; and then, after casting upon Johanna a somewhat sinister and threatening look, he muttered to himself-- "I suspect that boy. If he refuse to come into the parlour, I will cut his throat in the shop; but if he come in I shall be better satisfied. Charley? Come here." "Yes, sir," said Johanna, and she walked boldly into the parlour. "Shut the door." She closed it. "Humph," said Todd. "It is no matter. I will call you again when I want you." CHAPTER LXXXI. JOHANNA IS ENCOURAGED. Was Todd satisfied with Johanna's excuse about the toothache? Was he satisfied of the good foible of the supposed Charley Green, by the readiness with which she had come into the parlour? We shall see. If he were not satisfied, he was staggered in his suspicions sufficiently to delay--and delay just then was to Sweeney Todd--one of the most fatal things that could be imagined. There are crumbs of consolation under all circumstances. When Johanna was best sent out of the shop, upon the occasion of the visit of Mrs. Lovett to Todd, she had scarcely got a half dozen steps from the door of the barber's, when a man in passing her, and without pausing a moment, said-- "Miss Oakley, be so good as to follow me." Johanna at once obeyed the mandate. The man walked rapidly on until a fruiterer's shop was gained, into which he at once walked. "Mr. Oston," he said to a man behind the counter, "is your parlour vacant?" "Yes, Sir Richard, and quite at your service," said the fruiterer. By this Johanna found that she had made no mistake, and that the person she had followed was no other than Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate, who was interesting himself so much for her safety, as well as for the discovery of what had befallen Mark Ingestrie. The fruiterer's parlour was a prettily fitted up place, where a couple of lovers might in a very romantic manner, if they chose, eat strawberries and cream, and quite enjoy each other's blissful society, in whispered nothing the while. Sir Richard handed Johanna a seat as he said--"Miss Oakley, I am very much pleased, indeed, to have this opportunity of seeing you, and of saying a few words to you." "Ah, Sir, how much do I owe you." "Nay, Miss Oakley, you owe me nothing. When once I happily become aware of your situation, it becomes my duty as well as my inclination to protect you in every way against what, I am sure you will forgive me, for calling your rashness." "Call it what you will, sir." "Well, Miss Oakley, we will dismiss that part of the subject. Are you going upon any errand, or have you a little time to spare." "I have some time." "Then it is a very proper thing that you should enjoy it in taking some proper refreshment." "I want nothing." "Nay, but you shall have something whether you want it or not, before I say any more to you about Todd and his affairs." Johanna, whose mental excitement had prevented her completely from feeling the amount of exhaustion, which otherwise must by that time have come over her, would still have protested that she wanted nothing, but Sir Richard Blunt opened the door of the parlour, and called out-- "Mr. Orton, is your daughter at home?" "Yes, Sir Richard, Ann is up stairs." "Very good. My young friend here can find the way, I dare say. Is it the first floor?" "Yes, don't you hear her practising upon her spinet." The tinkling sounds of a spinet, then all the fashion; came upon their ears, and Sir Richard, said to Johanna-- "Go up stairs, now, to that young lady. She is about your own age, and her father's housekeeper. She will find you something to eat and drink, and then come down to me, as soon as you can." Sir Richard nodded to Mr. Orton, who nodded in return, and then Johanna seeing that it was all right, ascended the staircase, and guided by the sound of the spinet, soon found herself in a tolerably handsome room, upon the first floor. A young girl with a profusion of chesnut curls hanging down her back, was seated at the spinet. Johanna made up to her at once, and throwing her arms round her neck, said-- "And will you say a kind word to me?" The girl gave a slight scream, and rose. "Well, I'm sure, you impertinant--handsome--" "Girl," said Johanna. "Boy," faltered Miss Orton. "No, girl," added Johanna. "Your father sent me to you, and Sir Richard Blunt suggested it. Shall I leave you again." "Oh, no--no," said Ann Orton, as she sprang towards Johanna, and kissed her on both cheeks, "you are Miss Johanna Oakley." "How is it that you know me?" "My father is an old friend of Sir Richard's, and he has told us all your story. How truly delighted I am to see you. And so you have escaped from that odious Todd, and--" "Immediate refreshment, my dear, and all the attention you can cram into a very short space of time to Miss Oakley, my dear," said Mr. Orton, just putting his head so far into the room as to make himself plainly and distinctly heard. "Yes, father, yes." "How kind you all are," said Johanna. "No--no--at least we wish to be, but what I mean is that we are no kinder than we ought to be. My father is so good, I have no mother." "And I, too, am motherless." "Yes, I--I heard that Mrs. Oakley--" "Lived, you would say; and yet am I motherless." Johanna burst into tears. The sense of desolation that came over the young girl's heart whenever she thought how little of a mother the fanatical personage who owned that title was to her, generally overcame all her firmness, as upon the present occasion. Ann flung her arms around Johanna, and the two young creatures wept in unison. We will leave them to their sacred intercourse. * * * * * Sir Richard Blunt remained in conversation with Mr. Orton for about a quarter of an hour, and then both Johanna and Ann came down stairs. Johanna looked calmer and happier. Ann had said some kind things to her--such as none but a young girl can say to a young girl. "I am ready," said Johanna. "Ready for what?" enquired Sir Richard Blunt, with a look of earnest affection in the face of the beautiful heroine--for if ever there were a heroine, we really think Johanna Oakley was one, and we are quite sure that you agree with us. "For my mission," said Johanna, "I am ready." "And can you really find courage to go again to that--that--" Sir Richard could not find a fitting name for Todd's home, but Johanna understood him, and she replied gently-- "I may not pause now. It is my duty." "Your duty?" "Yes. Oh, Mark--Mark, I cannot restore you from the dead, but in the sacred cause of justice I may bring your murderer to the light of day. It is my duty to do so much for your memory." Ann turned aside to hide her tears. Mr. Orton, too, was much affected, and there was an unwonted jar, as though some false note had had been struck in voice of Sir Richard Blunt as he spoke, saying-- "Miss Oakley, I will not--I cannot deny that by your going back to Todd's house, you may materially assist in the cause of justice. But yet I advise you not to do so." "I know you are all careful of my safety, while I--" "Ah, Johanna," said Ann, "you do not know yet that you are so desolate as to wish to die." "Yes, yes--I am desolate." "And so," added Sir Richard, "because you loved one who has been, according to your judgment upon the circumstances that have come to your knowledge, torn from you by death, you will admit no other ties which could bind you to the world. Is that right? Is it like you?" The tones of voice in which these words were uttered, as well as the sentiment embodied in them, sunk deeply into Johanna's heart. Clasping her hands together, she cried-- "Oh, no, no! Do no think me so inhuman. Do not think me so very ungrateful." "Had you forgotten, Arabella Wilmot? Had you forgotten your father? Nay, had you forgotten the brave Colonel Jeffery?" "No, no! I ought not to forget any, when so many have so kindly remembered me, and you too, sir, I ought not, and will not forget you, for you have been a kind friend to me." "Nay, I am nothing." "Seek not, sir, to disparage what you have done, you have been all kindness to me." Before he was aware of what she was about, Johanna had seized the hand of Sir Richard Blunt, and for one brief moment touched it with her lips. The good magistrate was sensibly affected. "God bless me!" said Mr. Orton, "something very big keeps blocking up the whole of my window." They all looked, and as they were silent at that moment, they heard a voice from the street, say-- "Come! Come, my dear! Don't set the water-works a-going. Always remember, that easy does it. You come in here, and have something to eat, if you won't go home. Lor bless me! what will they think has become of me at the tower?" "Why, it is Ben!" cried Johanna. "Ben?" said Ann. "Who is Ben?" "Hush! Stop," said Sir Richard, "I pray you, stop." Johanna would have rushed out to speak to Ben, who certainly was at the window of the fruiterer's shop, with Arabella Wilmot upon his arm, endeavouring to persuade her to enter, and partake of some refreshment. "I will bring him in," said Sir Richard. "Retire into the parlour, I beg of you, Miss Oakley, for he will make quite a scene in the shop if you do not." Johanna knew well Ben's affection for her, and doubted not, but that as Sir Richard said, he would not scruple to show it, even in the open shop, probably to the great edification of the passers by. She accordingly retired to the parlour with Ann. In a few moments, Sir Richard Blunt ushered in both Ben and Arabella Wilmot. Arabella with a shriek of joy, rushed into Johanna's arms, and then with excess of emotion she fainted. Ben caught up Johanna fairly off her feet, as though he had been dancing some little child, and holding her in a sitting posture upon one arm, he said-- "Bless you! Easy does it. Easy I say--does--it. Don't you think I'm a crying. It's a tea-chest has flew in my eye from that grocer's shop opposite. Oh, you little rogue, you. Easy does it. What you have got them what do you call 'ems on, have you?" The kiss that Ben gave her might have been heard at Sweeney Todd's, and then when prevailed upon to sit down, he would insist upon holding her fast upon his knee. "I must go," said Johanna, and then looking at Arabella, she added--"Let me go, before she awakens from her transient forgetfulness to beg me to stay." Ben was furious at the idea of Johanna going back to Todd's, but Sir Richard, overruled him, and after some trouble, got him to consent. Then turning to Johanna, he said-- "The moment night comes on, you will have some visitors, and remember, Miss Oakley, that St. Dunstan's is the watch-word. Whoever comes to you with that in his mouth, is a friend." "I will remember, and now farewell and God bless and reward you for all your goodness to me. I will live for the many who love me yet, and whom I love in this world." * * * * * Was it not a world of wonders that amid all this, Johanna did not go mad? Surely something more than mortal strength must have sustained that young and innocent girl in the midst of all these strange events. No human power that she possessed, could have possibly prevented her mind from sinking, and the hideous fascinations of an overcharged fancy from breeding "Rude riot in her brain." But there was a power who supported her--a power which from the commencement of the world has supported many--a power which while the world continues, will support many more, strengthening the weak and trampling on the strong. The power of love in all the magic of its deep and full intensity. Yes, this was the power which armed that frail and delicate-looking girl with strength to cope with such a man--man shall we call him? no, we may say such a fiend as Sweeney Todd. If it required no small amount of moral courage to go in the first instance upon that expedition--so fraught with danger, to Todd's shop--what did it require now to enable her to return after having passed through much peril, and tasting the sweets of friendship and sympathy? Surely any heart but Johanna's must have shrunk aghast from ever again even in thought, approaching that dreadful place. And yet she went. Yes upon her mission of justice she went. To be sure, she was told that as far as human means went, she would be upheld and supported from those without; but what could that assure to her further than that if she fell she should not fall unavenged? Truly, if some higher, some far nobler impulse than that derived from any consciousness that she was looked after, had not strengthened her, the girl's spirit, must have sunk beneath the weight of many terrors. With a sad smile she once again crossed the threshold of that house, which she now no longer suspected to be the murderer's haunt. She knew it. CHAPTER LXXXII. TODD PLANS. How she sped with Todd we are already aware. Let us take a peep at the arch-demon in that parlour, which he considered his sanctuary, his city of refuge as it were. At least Todd considered it to be such, whether it was or not. He sits at a table, the table beneath which there was no floor, and covering up his face with his huge hands, he sets about thinking. Yes, that man now abandons himself to thought, as to how he is, with a blaze of wickedness, to disappear from the scene of his iniquities. It was not remorse that now filled his brain. It was not any feeling of bitter heart-felt regret for what he had done that oppressed him now. No such feeling might possibly find a home in his heart at the hour of success, but now when he saw and felt that he was surrounded by many difficulties, it had no home in his brain. But yet he thought that they were only difficulties that now surrounded; he did not as yet dream of positive danger. He still reasoned, as you have heard him reason before, namely, that if anything beyond mere suspicion were entertained regarding his mode of life, he would be at once apprehended. He thought that somebody--most likely Colonel Jeffery--was trying to find out something, and the fact that he, Todd, was there in his own parlour, a free man, appeared to him proof-sufficient that nothing was found out. "How fallacious!" If he had but known that he was virtually in custody even then, as he, indeed, really was, for Fleet-street was alive with officers and the emissaries of the police. If he had but guessed so much for a moment what a wild tumult would have been raised in his brain. But he knew nothing and suspected little. After a time from generalizing upon his condition, Todd began to be particular, and then he laid down, as it were, one proposition or fact which he intended should be the groundwork of all in other proceedings. That proposition was contained in the words-- "Before the dawn of to-morrow I must be off!" "That's settled," said Todd, and he gave the table a blow with his hand. "Yes, that's settled." The table creaked ominously, and Todd rose to peep into the shop to see what his boy was doing. Charley Green, alias, Johanna Oakley, was sitting upon a low stool reading a bill that some one had thrown into the shop, and which detailed the merits of some merchandize. How far away from the contents of that bill which she held before her face, were her thoughts? "Good," said Todd. "That boy, at all events, suspects nothing, and yet his death is one of the things which had better not be left to chance. He shall fall in the general way of this place. What proper feeling errand-boy would wish to survive his master's absence. Ha!" Of late Todd had not been very profuse in his laughs, but now he came out with one quite of the old sort. The sound startled himself, and he retired to the table again. By the dim light he opened a desk and supplied himself with writing materials; the twilight was creeping on, and he could only just see. Spreading a piece of paper before him, he proceeded to make a memoranda of what he had to do. It was no bad plan this of Todd's, and the paper, when it was finished was quite a curiosity in its way. It ran thus-- _Mem._--To go to Colonel Jeffery's, and by some means get into the house and murder Tobias. _Mem._--To pack off goods to the wharf where the Hamburg vessel, called the Dianna, sails from. _Mem._--To arrange combustibles for setting fire to the house. _Mem._--To cut Charley Green's throat, if any suspicion arise--if not to let him be smothered in the fire. _Mem._--To have a letter ready to post to Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate, accusing Mrs. Lovett of her own crimes, and mine likewise. "I think that is all," said Todd. He folded the paper and placed it in his bosom, after which he came out of the parlour into the shop, and called to Johanna. "Charles?" "Yes, sir." "Go to the market, and get me a couple of stout porter--I want something carried a short distance." "Yes, sir." Away went Johanna, but before she got half way down to Fleet Market she met Sir Richard, who said-- "What is it?" "He wants a couple of porters to carry something." "Very well, get them. Depend upon me." "I do, sir. I feel now in good heart to go through with anything, for you are near to me, and I know that I am safe." "You are safe. It will need to be some very extraordinary circumstances, indeed, that could compromise you. But go at once for these porters; I, and my men will take good care to find where they go to." There was no difficulty in finding parties in abundance at the end of Fleet Market, and Johanna speedily returned, followed by two sturdy fellows. Todd had quite a smile upon his face, as he received them. "This way," he said--"This way. I hope you have been lucky to day, and have had plenty of work." "No, master," said one, "we haven't, I'm sorry to say." "Indeed," added Todd. "Well, I am very glad I have a little job for you. You see these two little boxes. You can carry one each of you, and I will go with you and show you where to." One of the porters raised one of the boxes, and then he gave a long whistle, as he said-- "I say, master is there penny pieces or paving stones in this here, its deuced heavy, that it is." "And so is this, Bill," said the other. "Oh, my eyes ain't it. There must be a quarter of a pound of goose feathers in here." "Ha! ha!" said Todd, "How funny you both are." "Funny?" "Yes, to be sure, but come. This will put strength into you if you had none before." He took a bottle and glass from a cupboard, and gave each of the men a full measure of such frightfully strong spirits, that they winked again, and the tears came into their eyes, as they drank it. "Now shoulder the little boxes, and come along," he said, "and I tell you what I'll do. If you step in here in the evening, and I should happen to be at home, I'll give each of you a shave for nothing, and polish you off in such a manner, that you will recollect it as long you live." "Thank you, master--thank you. We'll come." One of the porters helped his companion with the chest on to his back and head, and Todd then lent a helping hand with the other. "Charley," he said. "I shall be back in a quarter of an hour." Away he went, preceding the porter by some half dozen steps only, but yet ever and anon keeping a wary eye upon the two chests, which contained cash, and jewels, sufficient to found a little kingdom. If he got clear off with those two chests only, he felt that he would not give himself much uneasiness about what was left behind. But was Todd going to trust these two porters from out his own immediate neighbourhood, with the secret of the destination of the boxes? No. He was by far too crafty for that. After proceeding some distance, he took them round the unfrequented side of St. Paul's Church yard, and stopping suddenly at the door of a house that was to let, he said-- "This will do." "In here, master." "This will do. Put them down." The porters complied, and Todd set down upon one of the boxes, as he said-- "How much?" "A shilling each of us, master." "There's double the money, and now be off, both of you, about your business." The porters were rather surprised, but as they considered themselves sufficiently paid, they made no objection, and walked off with considerable alacrity, leaving Todd, and his treasure in the street. "Now for a coach," he muttered. "Now for a coach. Here boy"--to a ragged boy who was creeping on at some short distance. "Earn a penny by fetching me a coach directly." The boy darted off, and in a very few minutes brought Todd a hackney coach. The boxes, too, were got upon it by the united efforts of Todd, the coachman, and the boy, and then, and not till then did Todd give the correct address of the wharf in Thames Street from which the Hamburg ship was going, and in which he fully intended to embark that night. The ship was advertised to sail at the turn of the tide, which would be about four o'clock in the morning. All this did not take long to do. The coach rumbled along Thames Street, but Todd was not aware that Mr. Crotchet had got up behind the vehicle, but such was the fact, and when the lumbering old machine stopped at the wharf, that gentleman got down, and felt quite satisfied with the discovery he had made. "He's a trying of it on," soliloquised Mr. Crotchet in the bolting line, "but it ain't no manner of a go. He'll swing, and he can't help it, if he were to book himself to the moon, and there was a coach or a ship as went all the way, and no stoppages." "_Mem_," said Todd to himself. "To go to Colonel Jeffery's and murder Tobias--Ha!" "Lor!" said the coachman, "was that you, sir?" "What do you mean?" "Why as made that horrid sort of noise." "Mind your business, my friend, and tell me if you can take me quickly to Islington, for I have no time to lose." "Like the wind, sir, you can go with these here _osses_," replied the coachman, "did you ever see sich bits o' blood, sir, one on 'ems blind, and' t'other on 'em is deaf, which is advantages as you don't get in one pair." "Advantages?" "Lor bless you, yes, sir. The blind 'un goes unknown quick, cos you sees, sir, he thinks he's only in some dark place, and in course he wants to get out on it as soon as he can." "Indeed?" "Yes, sir, and the deaf 'un, he goes quick too, cos as he hears nothink, he thinks as there never was sich a quiet place as he's go's, and he does it out o' feeling and gratitude, sir, yer sees." "Be quick then, and charge your own price." Todd sprang into the vehicle, and stimulated by the idea of charging his own price, the coachman certainly did make the bits of blood do wonders, and in quite an incredibly short space of time, Todd found himself in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel's house. It was now getting dark, but that was what he wished. He dismissed the coach, and took from the angle of a wall, near at hand, a long and earnest look at the Colonel's house, and as he did so dark and hideous thoughts concerning Tobias passed through his mind. CHAPTER LXXXII. TODD VISITS THE COLONEL "Well, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery, as he entered the pretty, cheerful room into which the now convalescent boy had been removed. "Well, Tobias, how are you now?" "Much better, sir. Oh, sir,--I--I--" "What would you say?" "I feel that when I see you, sir, I ought to say so much to convince you of how truly, and deeply grateful I am to you, and yet I can scarcely ever say a word about it. I pray for your happiness, sir, indeed I do. Your name and my mother's, and--and Minna Gray's, are always uttered to God by me." "Now, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery gravely. "I am quite satisfied that as regards all that has passed, you feel as you ought to feel, and for my own part, I beg you to feel and to know that your saying anything about it only distresses me." "Distresses you, sir?" "Yes, it does, indeed. I see your eyes are upon the door. You expect Minna, to day, I am sure." "Yes, sir,--she--she--my mother was to bring her, sir." A ringing at a bell now came upon Tobias's ear, and his colour went and came fitfully. "You are still very weak, my poor boy," said the colonel, "but you are certainly much improved. Do you feel any confusion in your head now?" "None at all, only when I think of Todd suddenly, ever it makes me feel cold and sick, and something seems to rush through my heart." "Oh, that will go away. That is nothing. There, I will draw up the blind for you. The evening is coming, and the sky is overclouded. You can see better now, and there is one coming whom I know you wish to lose no sight of." "I hear her foot upon the stairs," said Tobias. "Do you?--It is more than I do." "Ah, sir, the senses are sharpened, I think, by illness." "Not so much as by love. Tobias! do you hear her footstep now?" "Yes, and it is like music." He had his head on one side in an attitude of listening; and then with joy sparkling from every feature of his face, he spoke again-- "She comes--she comes. Ah, she comes fast. My own--my beautiful. She come--she comes." "This is real love," said the colonel, and he stepped from the room. Nearly on the landing at the head of the stairs, he met Minna Gray. "Welcome," he said as he held out his hand to her. "You will find your young friend up and much better." Minna could only look her thanks. Mrs. Ragg was following her, and as the ascent of stairs was always rather a task to that good Lady, she was making a noise like a stranded grampus in breathing. "Ah, colonel," she said, "young legs get up stairs faster than old ones, sir, as you see. Well--well, there was a time when first I knew poor dear Ragg, who is of course dead and gone, quite premature." "Exactly, Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, as he rapidly descended the stairs. "Did you ever, my dear, know such a strange man?" said Mrs. Ragg to Minna. "Who?" "The colonel, to be sure. So soon as I begin to tell him any little what do you call it. No it ain't _nannygoat_--that's ridiculous. It's--it's--what is it?" "Anecdote do you mean, Mrs. Ragg?" "Yes, to be sure. Well, as I was a saying, no sooner do I begin telling him a little nannygoat--no, I mean anecdote, than off he is like a shot." Minna smiled to herself, and she was far from wondering that the colonel was off like a shot, for well she knew, that when Mrs. Ragg did begin anything concerning the late Mr. Ragg, it usually lasted three quarters of an hour at the very least. "Minna, Minna!" called Tobias. "I am here, Tobias." In another moment she was in the room. Truly it was a pleasant thing to see the face of Tobias, when, his sunshine, as he called Minna, came close to him, and in her soft voice asked him if he was better. "Don't mind me," said Mrs. Ragg, "I am going to darn a stocking or two. that's all. Just say what you both like. Young folks will be young folks. Bless me, I recollect just as if it were only yesterday, when I used to speak to poor departed Mr. Ragg, who is, premature, dead and gone, in a manner of speaking. Ah, dear me! How the world goes round and round--round and round, continually." Tobias and Minna were so well accustomed to the garrulity of Mrs. Ragg, and so well aware that she required no answer, that they let her talk on, and did not mind her, as she requested they would not; and so the evening grew apace, and the light gradually began to wane, as those two young loving hearts spoke together of the future, and indulged in that day dream of happiness which can only belong to youth and love. * * * * * Todd is skulking round the angle of the garden wall, from which he can get a view of the colonel's house, and yet not be seen himself. The more he looked the more the desire grew upon him, notwithstanding the immense risk he ran of personal detection, by so doing, to get into the house, and finish the career of poor Tobias. He would have had no particular objection rather to have taken the life of Mrs. Ragg, if it could be easily and comfortably done. It has been said that there are folks in the world who never forgive any one for doing them a kindness; and such paradoxical views of human nature have been attempted to be laid down as truths; but whether this be so or not, is still to be proved, although it is certain that nothing stirs the evil passions of men who will inflict injury upon the innocent, as to find themselves baffled in their villany. From that moment the matter becomes a personal affair of vengeance. Hence, since Todd had become thoroughly aware that Tobias had escaped from the death he had intended for him at the mad-house, his rage against the boy knew no bounds. Indeed, the reader will conclude that it must have been a feeling of no ordinary strength, that, at such a busy and ticklish time, would take Todd to the colonel's house at all. It was revenge--bitter, uncompromising revenge! Now, you must know the colonel's house was one of those half-villa, half-mansion-like residences, that are so common in the neighbourhood of London. There was a kind of terrace in the front, and a garden with flowering shrubs, that had a pretty enough appearance, and which at night afforded abundance of shelter. It was by this front garden that Todd hoped to reach the house. When it was nearly dark, he slunk in, crouching down among the trees and shrubs, and crawling along like a serpent as he was. He soon came to a flight of stone steps that led to the kitchens. By the time Todd had got thus far, some of her domestic duties had called Mrs. Ragg to the lower part of the house. He saw by the fire-light that some one was going about the kitchen, close to the foot of the stone steps; but he could not exactly, by that dim and uncertain radiance, take upon himself to say that it was Mrs. Ragg. She soon lit a candle, though, and then all was clear. He saw the good lady preparing divers lights for the upper rooms. While Todd was half-way down the stone steps, peeping into the kitchen, one of the other servants of the house came into that receptacle for culinary articles, and commenced putting on a bonnet and shawl. Todd could not hear one word of what was said by Mrs. Ragg and this young woman who was getting ready to go out; but he saw them talk, and by their manner he felt convinced that it was only upon ordinary topics. If the young woman left the house by the steps upon which Todd was, and which it was more than likely she would do, his situation would be anything but a pleasant one, and discovery would be certain. To obviate the chance of this, he stepped back, and crouched down in among the shrubs in the garden. He was not wrong in his conjectures, for in a few moments the servant, who was going out, ascended the steps, and passed him so closely, that by stretching out his hand, he could, if he had been so minded, have touched her dress. In a short time she was out of ear-shot. Todd emerged from his concealment again, and crept down the steps, and once more peeped into the kitchen. Mrs. Ragg was still busy with the candles. He was just considering what he should do, when he heard the tramp of horses' feet in the road above. He ascended sufficient of the steps to enable himself to get a peep at what was going on. He saw a groom well mounted, and leading another horse. Then no other than Colonel Jeffrey himself, although he did not of his own knowledge, feel assured that it was him, come out at the front door of the house and mounted. "Now, William," said the colonel, "we must ride sharply." "Yes, sir," said the groom. Another moment and they were gone. "This is lucky," said Todd. "It is not likely that there is any other room in the house; and if not, I have the game in my own hands." He crept down the remainder of the stone steps, and placed his ear quite close to the kitchen window. Mrs. Ragg was enjoying a little conversation to herself. "Ah!" she said, "it's always the way--girls will be girls; but what I blame her for is, that she don't ask the colonel's leave at once, and say--'Sir, your _disorderly_ has won my _infections_, and may he come here and take a cup of tea?'" This was Greek to Todd. "What is the old fool talking about," he muttered. "But I will soon give her a subject that will last for her life." He now arrived at the door of the kitchen. It was very unlikely to be locked or otherwise fastened, so immediately after the young woman, who had left the house, and passed so close to him, Todd. Yet he listened for a few moments more, as Mrs. Ragg kept making observations to herself. "Listeners hear no good of themselves, says the proverb, and at all events it was verified in this instance." "_Lor' a mussy_," ejaculated Mrs. Ragg, "how my mind do run upon that horrid old ugly monster of a Todd to day. Well, I do hope I shall never look upon his frightful face again, and how awful he did squint, too. Dear me, what did the colonel say he had with his vision--could it be--a something _afixity_? No that isn't it." "Obliquity!" said Todd, popping his head in at the kitchen door. "It was obliquity, and if you scream or make the least alarm, I'll skin you, and strew this kitchen with your mangled remains!" Mrs. Ragg sank into a chair with a melo-dramatic groan, that would have made her fortune over the water in domestic tragedy if she could have done it so naturally. Todd kept his eye upon her. That basilisk-like eye, which had fascinated the good woman often, and this time it acted as a kind of spell, for truly might he have said, or rather might some one have said for him, "He held her with his glittering eye." Todd's first care now was to get between Mrs. Ragg and the kitchen door, lest upon some sudden impulse she should rise and flee. Then he folded his arms, and looked at her calmly, and with such a devilish smile as might have become Mephistopheles himself, while contemplating the ruin of a soul. He took from his pocket a razor. "Mercy," gasped Mrs. Ragg. "Where is Tobias?" [Illustration: Todd Horrifies Mrs. Ragg.] "Up stairs. Back room, second floor, looking into the garden." "Alone?" "No, Minna Grey is with him." "Listen to me. If you stir from here until I come to you again, I will not only murder you, but Tobias likewise, and every one whom I meet with in this house. You know me, and can come to some opinion as to whether or not I am a man likely to keep my word. Remain where you are; move not, speak not, and all will be well." Mrs. Ragg slowly slid off her chair, and fell to the floor of the kitchen, where she lay, in what seemed a swoon. "That will do as well," said Todd as he glanced at her, "and yet as I return." He made a movement with his hand across his throat to indicate what he would do, and then feeling assured that he had little or, indeed, no opposition to expect in the house, he left the kitchen, and walked up stairs. When he reached the top of the kitchen stairs he paused to listen. All was very still in the house. "'Tis well," he said "tis well. This deed of blood shall be done, and long before it can be thought that it was I who struck the blow, I shall be gone." Alas! After passing through so much! After being persued in so almost a miraculous manner from the murderous intentions of Todd, backed by the cupidity of Fogg, and his subordinate Watson, was poor Tobias yet to die a terrible death as a victim to the cruel passions of his relentless persecutor? No, we will not yet believe that such is to be the fate of poor honest Tobias, although at the present time, his prospects look gloomy. Todd may, and no doubt has taken as worthy lives, but we will hope that the hand of Providence will prevent him from taking this one. He reached the landing of the first floor, and he paused to listen again. He thought this time, that he heard the faint sound of voices above, but he was not quite sure. Otherwise all was quiet. This was a critical situation for Todd. If any one, who was a painter of pictures or of morals had but seen him, Sweeney Todd, as he there stood, they would no longer have doubted either that there was a devil, or that some persons in this world, were actuated by a devilish fiend. He looked the incarnate fiend!--the Mephistopheles of the imagination, such as he is painted by the German enthusiast. His laugh too? Was not that satanic? He set himself to listen to the voices that he heard in that quiet rooms and the sounds, holy and full of affection as they were, awakened no chord of answering feeling, in that bold, bad man's breast. He stood apart from human nature, a solitary being. A wreck upon the ocean of society "None loving, and by none beloved." Who would be Sweeney Todd, for all the wealth, real or fabled, of a million Californias? "He is here," he said, "I know his voice. Tobias is here. Ah! he mentions the name of God. Ha! He is more fitting to go to that heaven he can talk of so glibly, but there is none. There is none! No, no! all that is a fable." Of course Todd could not believe in a divinity of goodness and mercy. If he had, what on earth could have saved him from absolute madness? CHAPTER LXXXIII. TOBIAS IN JEOPARDY. "And so you do love me, Minna?" said Tobias. How his voice shook like a reed swayed by the wind, and yet what a world of melody was in it. "Can you ask me to say yes?" was the reply of the fair young creature by his side. "Can you ask me to say yes, Tobias?" "It seems to me," said Tobias, "as though it would be such a joy to hear you say so, Minna, and yet I will not ask you." "How well you have got, Tobias. Your cheek has got its old colour back again. The colour it had long before you knew there was such a man as Sweeney Todd in the world. Your eyes are bright too, and your voice has its old pleasant sound." "Used it to be pleasant to you, Minna?" She held up her hand, and shook her head laughingly. "No questions, Tobias! No questions. I will confess nothing." "Stop!" said Tobias, as he put himself into an attitude of listening, "what was that, I thought I heard something? It was like a suppressed growl. I wish the colonel would come home. Did you not hear it, Minna?" Minna had heard it, but she did not say she had. "Where did it come from, Tobias?" "From the stair-head, Minna." "Oh, it is some accidental noise, such as is common to all houses, and such as always defy conjecture and explanation, and being nothing and meaning nothing, always comes to nothing. Yet I will go and see. Perhaps a door has been left open, and is banging to and fro by the wind, and if so it will only vex you to hear it again, Tobias." It was Todd, who upon hearing the soft and tender speeches from the young lovers, had not been able to suppress a growl, and now that he had heard Minna Grey talk of coming to look what it was, he felt the necessity of instantly concealing himself somewhere. It was not likely she would come down the stairs, so Todd adopted an original mode of keeping himself out of sight. He descended steps sufficient, that by laying at full length along them, his head did not reach the top, and in the darkness he then considered that he should be quite safe from the casual glance, that in all likelihood, merely to satisfy Tobias, Minna would give outside the room door. Todd thought by her manner she had heard nothing. "No, no, Minna," said Tobias, "there is no occasion. It is nothing, I dare say, and I don't like you to be out of my sight a moment." "It is only a moment." She rose, and proceeded to the door. An unknown feeling of dread, she knew not why, was at the heart of Minna. Certainly the slight sound she had heard, and that too in the house of Colonel Jeffery, was not sufficient to warrant such a feeling, and yet there, at her heart, it sat brooding. She stood for a moment at the door. It was only for a moment. "How foolish I am," she thought, and then she passed out on to the landing, where she stood for a moment glancing round her. "It is nothing, Minna," called out Tobias, "or shall I try and come. I feel quite strong enough to do so." "Oh, no--no! It is nothing." Minna stepped lightly back and sat down. She clasped her hands very tight indeed together, and then placed both upon her breast. _She had seen Todd._ Yes, Minna Grey had seen the man that had been, and who was for all she knew to the contrary still to be, the bane of Tobias's existence. The clear eyes of youth had noticed the lumbering figure as it lay upon the stairs before them. And she did not scream--she did not cry for help--she did not faint, she only crept back as we have seen, and held her hands upon her heart, and looked at Tobias. There was no mistaking Todd. Once seen he was known for ever. Like some hideous picture, there dwelt the memory of Sweeney Todd upon the young imagination of the fair Minna Grey. Once before, a long time ago, so it seemed to her, she had seen him in the Temple skulking up an old staircase. From that moment the face was Daguerreotyped upon her brain. It was never to be forgotten, and with the face comes the figure too. That she saw upon the stairs. Alas! Poor Minn! "And so it was nothing but one of those odd accidents that will occur in defiance of all experience, and calculation," said Tobias. "Just that," replied Minna. "Ah, my dear Minna. We are so safe here. It always seems to me as though the very air of this house, belonging as it does to such a man, so full of goodness as the colonel is, such that nothing very bad could live in it for long." "I--I hope so--I think so.--What a calm and pleasant evening it is, Tobias, did you see the new book of the seasons, so full of pretty engravings in the shape of birds and trees, and flowers, that the colonel has purchased." "New book?" "Yes, it lies in his small study, upon this floor. I will fetch it for you, if you wish it, Tobias?" "Nay, I will go." "You are still weak. Remain in peace upon the couch, dear Tobias, and I will go for you." Before she left the room, she kissed the forehead of the boy. A tear, too, fell upon his hand. "Who knows," she thought, "that I shall ever see him in life again?" "Minna, you weep." "Weep? No--no--I am so--so happy." She hastily left the room. Todd had heard what had passed, and had turned to hide himself again. The young girl knew that she passed the murderer within a hair's breadth. She knew that he had but to stretch out his right hand and say--"Minna Gray, you are my victim!" and his victim she would have become. Was not that dreadful? And she so young and so fair--so upon the threshold, as it were, of the garden of her existence--so loving, and so well-beloved. She felt for a moment, as she crossed the landing--just for a moment as though she were going mad. But the eye of the Omnipotent was upon that house. She staggered on. She made her way into a bed-room. It was the colonel's. Above the mantel-shelf, supported on a small bracket, was a pair of pistols. They were of a large size, and she had heard from the current gossip of the house, how they were always loaded, and how the servants feared to touch them, and how even they shrank from making the bed, lest the pistol from some malice aforethought, or from something incidental to such watching, should go off at once of their own accord, and inevitably shoot whoever chanced to be in the room. Minna Gray laid her hand upon the dreaded weapons. "For Tobias! for Tobias!" she gasped. Then she paused to listen. All was still as the grave. Todd was not yet ready for the murder, or he wished to take their lives both together, and in the one room. That was more probable. Then she began to think that he must have some suspicion, and that it was necessary upon her part to do something more than merely make no alarm. The idea of singing occurred to her. It was a childish song that she had been taught, when a pretty child, that she now warbled forth a few lines of-- "If I were a forest bird, I'd shun the noisy town; I'd seek the verdure of the spring The dear autumnal brown. And even when the winter came, By sunny skies bereft, I'd sleep in some deep distant cave, Which wanton winds had left." She crossed the landing. "Minna," said Tobias. "My Minna!" "I come." She passed into the room, and the moment she crossed the threshold--she turned her face to it and presented both the pistols before her. Then as she wound, inch by inch, into the centre of the room, all her power of further concealment of her feelings deserted her, and she could only say, in a strange choking tone-- "Todd!--Todd!--Todd!" "No--no--no! Oh, God, no!" cried Tobias. "Todd!--Todd!--Todd!" "No--no! Help! help!" "D--n!" said Sweeney Todd, as he dashed open the door of the chamber, and stood upon the threshold with a glittering knife in his right hand. "Hold!" shrieked Minna Gray. "Another step, murderer, and I send you to your God!" Todd waited. He could almost see down the barrels of the large pistols, which a touch of the young girl's finger would explode in his face. With a sharp convulsive cry, Tobias fell to the floor. The blood gushed from his mouth, and he lay bereft of sensation. [Illustration: Heroic Conduct Of Minna Gray.] "Away!" cried Minna. "Monster, away! Another moment, and as Heaven hears me, I will fire; once--twice--" Todd darted to the stair head, but he darted away again quicker than he had gone there; for who, to his horror, should he meet, advancing with great speed up the steps, but Mrs. Ragg, who had managed to get out of the kitchen, and who bore, as a weapon of offence and defence, the large kitchen poker, which was of a glowing red heat. Todd caught a touch of it on his face. "Oh, you villain of the world!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "I'll teach you to come here murdering people. My poor Tobias is no more, I know; but I'll take the law of you, I will. Murder! murder! Police! Colonel!" With an alacrity, that was far beyond to all appearance Mrs. Ragg's powers, that good lady pursued Todd with the red-hot poker. He dared not take refuge in Tobias's room, for there stood Minna with the pistols in her hand, so he darted up the first flight of stairs he saw, which led to the top of the house. Mrs. Ragg pursued him; but when she got to the head of the stairs, Minna pressed too hard upon the hair-trigger of one of the pistols, and off it went. Mrs. Ragg fully believed herself shot, and rolled down the stairs, poker included; while Todd, labouring under the impression that the shot was at him, became still more anxious to find some place of refuge. Upon the landing, which he was not a moment in reaching, he found a great show of doors; for he was, in fact, upon the floor from which all the sleeping rooms of the servants opened. It was quite a chance that the first one he bounced into was one that had in the roof a little square trap-door, facetiously called "a fire escape;" but which, in the event of a fire, would have acquired the agility of a harlequin, and the coolness of a tax-gatherer to get through. Todd dragged a bedstead beneath the trap; and then his great height enabled him to thrust it open, and project his head through it. He found that part of his corporality was in the roof as it were--that is to say, in the cavity, between the ceiling of the room and the house. A trap-door of somewhat larger size in the actual roof, opened to the air. Todd dragged himself through, and was fairly upon the top of the colonel's house. A slippery elevation! But surely that was better than facing a red-hot poker, and a pair of hair-trigger duelling pistols; and so, for a time, the desire to escape kept down every other feeling. Even his revengeful thoughts gave way to the great principle of self-preservation; and Todd was only intent upon safely getting away. He glared round him upon the night sky, and a gaudy assemblage of chimney tops. What was he to do? In a minute he uttered a string of such curses, as we cannot very well here set down, and he turned preternaturally calm and still. "Shall I go back," he said, "or escape?" He heard the tramp of horses' feet, and peeping carefully over the front parapet of the house, he saw Colonel Jeffery arrive on horseback, and dismount. His groom led the horse away, and the colonel ascended the steps. Then, and not until then, Todd made up his mind. "Escape," he said, "and be off." There was a long sloping part of the roof close to where he was, and he thought that if he slid down that very carefully he should be able to get on to the roof of the next house, and so perchance through their trap door, and by dint of violence or cunning, or both united, reach the street. It was a desperate resource, but his only one. The top part of the long sloping roof was easily gained, and then Todd began to let himself down very carefully, but the angle of the roof was greater than he had imagined, and by the time he got about half way down he found a dangerous and most uncomfortable acceleration of motion ensuing. It was in vain he tried to stop himself: down he went with a speed into the gutter behind the copping-stone, that left him lying there for a few moments half stunned, and scarcely conscious if he were safe or not. The colonel's house, however, was stoutly built, and Todd's weight had not displaced anything; so that there he lay safe enough, wedged into a narrow rain gutter, from which, when he did recover himself sufficiently to make the attempt, he found some difficulty in wrenching himself out of. Sore and shaken, Todd now looked about him. He was close to the roof of the next-door house. To be sure there was a chasm of sixty feet; but its width was not as many inches, so Todd ought, with his long legs, to easily step it. CHAPTER LXXXIV. TODD'S WONDERFUL ESCAPE. The step was but a trifle; and yet, shaken as Todd was by his fall, it really seemed to him to be one of the most hazardous and nervous things in the world to take it. He made two feints before he succeeded. At length he stood fairly upon the roof of the adjoining house. He did not say "Thank God!"; such words were not exactly in the vocabulary of Sweeney Todd; but he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and seemed to think that he had effected something at last. And yet how far was he from safety? It is some satisfaction to have got such a man as Todd upon the house-tops. Who pities him? Who would be violently afflicted if he made a false step and broke his neck? No one, we apprehend; but such men, somehow, do not make false steps; and if they do, they manage to escape the consequences. Surely it was about as ticklish a thing to crawl up a sloping roof as to come down one. Todd did not think so, however, and he began to shuffle up the roof of the house he was now on, looking like some gigantic tortoise, slowly making its way. Reasoning from his experience of the colonel's house, Todd thought he should very well be able to pitch upon the trap, in the roof of the domicile upon which he was, nor was he wrong. He found it in precisely the same relative position, and then he paused. He drew a long breath. "What a mad adventure this is," he said; "and yet what a satisfaction it would have been to me, before I left England, to be able to feel that I had had my revenge upon that brat Tobias. That he had not altogether failed me after I had paid so much money to be rid of him. But that is over. I have failed in that attempt; but they shall not say it cost me my life. They will be bold people who stop me in my passage to the street in this house." He felt the trap-door. It was fast. "Humph!" he said, "doors are but bonds; and the rains of a few winters rot them quickly enough. We shall see." The knife, with which he would have been well pleased to give poor Tobias his quietus, was thick and strong. He slid it under the wooden trap, and by mere force lifted it up. The nails of the bolt easily withdrew themselves from the rotten wood. Todd was right. The rains of a few winters had done their work. It was not exactly a time in the evening, when, in such a class of house, any one might be expected to be found in the attics; so Todd made no scruple of at once removing the lower trap in the ceiling. He dropped comfortably enough on to the floor. And now, coming suddenly as he did from the light, faint as it was, of the open air in the room, which he found himself, seemed to be involved in profound darkness; but that he knew would wear away in a few moments, and he stood still for his eyes to get accustomed to the semi-obscurity of the place. Gradually, then, as though out of chaos, there loomed a bedstead and all the necessary appointments of a bed-room. It was untenanted; and so Todd, after listening intently, and believing, from the marked stillness that there prevailed, that the upper part of the house was deserted, walked to the door, and opening it, stood upon the landing. "If I can now but step down stairs noiselessly, and open the street door, all will be well. People don't sit upon the staircase, and I may be fortunate enough to encounter no one." There was no time to lose. Affairs in Fleet-street required his presence; and, besides, the present moment might be the most propitious, for all he knew, for the enterprise. Down he went, not clinging to the balustrades--for who should say they might not wheeze and creak?--not walking upon the middle of the stairs, for there was no saying what tell-tale sounds they might give vocality to; but sliding along close to the wall, and stepping so quietly, that it would have required attentive ears to have detected his silent and steady march. And so, flight by flight of these stairs Todd descended in safety, until he reached the passage. Yes, he got to the passage without the shadow of an interruption. Then he heard voices in one of the parlours. "Confound them!" said Todd, "they will hear me open the street door to a certainty; but it must be done." He crept up to the door. There was some complicated latch upon it that defied all his knowledge of latches, and all his perseverance; and yet, no doubt, it was something that only required a touch; but he might be hours in finding out in the dark where to apply that touch. He still heard the voices in the parlour. More than five minutes--precious minutes to him--had already been consumed in fumbling at the lock of the street door; and then Todd gave it up as useless, and he crept to the parlour-door to listen to the speakers, and so, perhaps, ascertain the force that was within. A female voice was speaking. "Oh, dear me, yes, I daresay," it said. "You no doubt think that house can be kept for nothing, and that a respectable female wants no clothes to her back; but I can tell you, Mr. Simmons, that you will find yourself wonderfully mistaken, sir." "Pshaw!" said a man's voice. "Pshaw! I know what I mean, and so do you. You be quiet wife, and think yourself well off, that you are as you are." "Well off?" "Yes, to be sure, well off." "Well off, when I was forced to go to Mr. Rickup's party, in the same dress they saw me in last Easter. Oh! you brute!" "What's the matter with the dress?" "The matter? Why I'll tell you what the matter is. The matter is, and the long and short of everything, that you are a brute." "Very conclusive indeed. The deuce take me if it ain't." "I suppose by the deuce, you mean the devil, Mr. Simmons; and if he don't take you some day, he won't have his own. Ha! ha! you may laugh, but there's many a true word spoken in jest, Mr. Simmons." "Oh, you are in jest, are you?" "No sir, I am not, and I should like to know what woman could jest with only one black silk, and, that turned. Yes, Mr. Simmons, you often call upon the deuce to take this, and to take that. Mind he don't come some day to you when you least expect it sir, and say--" "Lend me a light!" said Todd, popping his awfully ugly face right over the top of the half open door, a feat which he was able to accomplish by standing on his tip toes. There are things that can be described, but certainly the consternation of Mr. and Mrs. Simmons cannot be included in the list. They gazed upon the face of Todd in speechless horror, nor did he render himself a bit less attractive by several of his most hideous contortions of visage. Finding then that both husband and wife appeared spell-bound, Todd stepped into the room, and taking a candle from the table, he stalked into the passage with it. The light in his hand threw a light upon the mystery of the lock. Todd opened the street-door, and passed out in a moment. To hurl the candle and candlestick into the passage, and close the door, was the next movement of Todd, but then he saw two figures upon the steps leading to Colonel Jeffery's house, and he shrunk back a moment. "Now William," said Colonel Jeffery himself, "you will take this letter to Sir Richard Blunt, and tell him to use his own discretion about it." "Yes, sir." "Be quick, and give it into no hands but his own." "Certainly, sir." "Remember, William, this is important." The groom touched his hat, and went away at a good pace, and Colonel Jeffery himself closed the door. "Indeed," muttered Todd. "Indeed. So, Sir Richard Blunt, who is called an active magistrate, is to know of my little adventure here? Well--well--we shall see." He darted from the door of the house, through which he had made so highly successful and adventurous a progress, and pursued William with such strides as soon brought him close up to him. But the thoroughfare in which they were was too public a one for Todd to venture upon any overt act in it. He followed William sufficiently closely however to be enabled to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself to possess himself by violence of the letter. Now William had been told the affair was urgent, so of course he took all the nearest cuts he could to the house of Sir Richard Blunt, and such a mode of progress soon brought him into a sufficiently quiet street for Todd's purpose. The latter looked right and left. He turned completely round, and no one was coming--a more favourable opportunity could not be. Stepping lightly up to William he by one heavy blow upon the back of his neck felled him. The groom lay insensible. Todd had seen him place the colonel's letter in his breast-pocket, and at once he dived his huge hand into that receptacle to find it. He was successful--one glance at the epistle that he drew forth sufficed to assure him that it was the one he sought. It was duly addressed to Sir Richard Blunt--"With speed and private." "Indeed, very private," said Todd. "Wretch! Wretch!" cried some one from a window, and Todd knew then that the deed of violence had been witnessed by some one from one of the houses. With an execration, he darted off at full speed, and soon placed a perfect labyrinth of streets between him and all pursuit. He thrust the letter all crumbled up into his pocket, and he would not pause to read it until he was much nearer to Fleet-street than to the colonel's house, or the scene of his attack upon the groom. Then, by the light of a more than usually brilliant lamp, which with its expiring energies was showing the world what an old oil lamp could do, he opened and read the brief letter. It was as follows. "DEAR SIR RICHARD. "Todd has been here upon murderous thoughts intent. Poor Tobias has, I fear, broken a blood-vessel, and is in a most precarious condition. I leave all to you. The villain escaped, but is injured I think." "Yours very faithfully, "JOHN JEFFERY." "To SIR RICHARD BLUNT. "Broken a blood-vessel," said Todd. "Ha! ha! Broken a blood-vessel. Ha! Then Tobias may yet be food for worms, and the meat of the pretty crawlers to the banquet. Ha!" He walked on with quite a feeling of elation; and yet there was, as he came to think, a something--he could not exactly define what--about the tone of the letter, that began upon second thoughts to give him no small share of uneasiness. The familiar way in which he was mentioned as Todd merely, without further description, argued some foregone conclusion. It seemed to say, Todd, the man whom we both know so well, and have our eyes upon. Did it mean that? A cold perspiration broke out upon the forehead of the guilty wretch. What was he to think? What was he to do? He read the letter again. It sounded much more unmeaning and strange now. He had at first been too much dazzled by the pleasant intelligence regarding Tobias, to comprehend fully the alarming tone of the epistle; but now it waked upon his imagination, and his brain soon became vexed and troubled. "Off--off, and away," he muttered. "Yes, I must be off before the dawn. The interception of this letter saves me for some few hours. In the morning, the colonel will see Sir Richard Blunt, and then they will come to arrest me; but I shall be upon the German Ocean by then. Yes, the Hamburgh ship for me." He was so near his home now that it was not worth while to call a coach. He could run to Fleet Street quicker, so off he set at a great pace till his breath failed him. Then he held on to a post so faint and weak, that a little child might have apprehended him. "Curse them all," he said. "I wish they all had but one throat, and I a knife at it. All who cross me, I mean." Time was rather an important element now in Todd's affairs, and he felt that he could not allow himself a long period even to recover from the state of exhaustion in which he was. After a few minutes rest, he pushed on. One of those sudden changes that the climate of this country is subject to, now took place; and although the sky had looked serene and bright, and there had been twinkling stars in the blue firmament but a short time before, Todd began to find that his clothing was but little protection against the steady rain that commenced falling with a perseverance that threatened something lasting. "All is against me," he said. "All is against me." He struggled on with the rain dashing in his face, and trickling, despite all his exertions to the contrary, down his neck. Suddenly he paused, and laid his finger upon his forehead, as though a sudden thought of more than ordinary importance had come across his mind. "The turpentine!" he said. "The turpentine. Confound it, I forget the turpentine." What this might mean was one of Todd's own secrets; but before he went home, he ran down several streets until he came to a kind of wholesale drug warehouse. He rang the bell violently. "What is it?" said a voice. "The small keg of turpentine that was to be sent to Mr. Todd's in Fleet Street, is particularly wanted." "It was sent about half an hour ago." "Oh, thank you--thank you. That will do. A wet night." In a few minutes more he was at his own shop-door. CHAPTER LXXXV. SIR RICHARD MAKES PLANS. Johanna had had a long time to herself in Todd's shop now. When first he left upon that expedition of murder, she had almost been afraid to stir, for she had feared he might momentarily return; but as his stay became longer and longer protracted, she plucked up courage. She began to look about her. "As yet," she said to herself, "what has been done towards arriving at a solution of the mysteries of this dreadful place?" The more she thought, the more she felt compelled to answer this inquiry in an unsatisfactory manner. What had been done? The only thing that could be said to be settled, was the fact that Todd was guilty, and that Mrs. Lovett was his accomplice. That he, by some diabolical means, murdered people who came into his shop to be shaved, was a fact, incontestable; but how he did the deed, still remained a mystery. The care which Todd always bestowed for the purpose of concealing the manner in which he committed the murder, had hitherto been successful. No one but himself, and probably Mrs. Lovett, knew exactly how he did the deed. It has been of course sufficiently observed that he never attempted anything amiss when two people were in the shop. That he always made it a point to get rid of Johanna upon occasions when he thought he had a chance of making a victim; and that in fact he had, by the very fact that Sir Richard Blunt and his officers had in various disguises followed people into his shop, been for some time prevented from the commission of his usual murders. Now without in the smallest degree disguising what he did know, it is quite clear that Sir Richard Blunt up to that time did not know how Todd did the deeds of blood for which his shop was to become famous, and himself infamous. That people went in and never came out again, was about the extent of what was really known. The authorities, including Sir Richard Blunt, were extremely anxious to know exactly how these murders were committed, and hence they waited with the hope, that something would occur to throw a light upon that part of the subject, before they apprehended Todd. At any moment, of course, he could have been seized, and he little suspected that he was upon such a mine. If anything, however, could be said to expedite the arrest of Todd, it would certainly be what had taken place at the colonel's house. Now, to all appearance, when the colonel came home so close upon the events that had happened in his absence, and had so very nearly been fatal to both Minna Gray and Tobias, Todd had made his escape. A rapid, but effective search of his, the colonel's house, sufficed to prove that there he was not. The appearance of Tobias, with blood gushing from his mouth, was sufficiently alarming, and it was under the impression that he was dying from the rupture of a blood-vessel, that the colonel wrote the note to Sir Richard Blunt, which was intercepted by Sweeney Todd himself. Upon the arrival, however, of the surgeon, who was immediately sent for, it was soon ascertained that the blood-vessel which had given way in poor Tobias, was not on the lungs, and that the danger arising from it was by no means great, provided he were kept quiet and properly attended to. Minna Gray received this information with deep thankfulness, and the colonel, upon hearing it, immediately sought Sir Richard to consult with him upon the subject in its now altered state, for the idea that Tobias was dying, had made him, the colonel, view the affair much more passionately than prudently. By dint of some trouble, the colonel found Sir Richard Blunt, and then to his no small surprise, for he had known his groom long, and thought he could thoroughly depend upon him, he found that the magistrate had received no note at all upon the subject, so that of course no steps had been taken. Upon hearing the affair detailed to him, Sir Richard Blunt said-- "I regret this much, as it will put Todd in a fright and expedite his departure." "But was he not going by the Hamburgh packet before day-dawn? At any rate, I understood you that by the manner in which you had dogged him, you had thoroughly ascertained that fact?" "I had, but had taken steps to prevent him." "You would arrest him to-night?" "No, I do not think it advisable to arrest him just yet. The fact is, I do not know all that I want to know; but in order to stop him from leaving his shop to-night, I have caused the Hamburgh Captain Owners, to write to him, since he had taken a passage, telling him that the ships stores would not be ready until to-morrow, when at one hour before sunrise he would sail." "Then you want to keep him in his shop another day?" "I do. I hope and expect that during that day, something may occur to clear up the mystery that still attaches to the mode in which he commits his murders." "It may so." "I think I can take measures by running some little personal risk to make it do so; but something must be hit upon to calm his mind, regarding this affair at your house now, for he will expect nothing but instant arrest on its account." "What can I do?" "If you will be guided by me you will write Todd a letter, threatening him that if there is any more interference with Tobias, you will prosecute him, but that you will, if you hear no more of him at your house, say nothing of the past. You need be under no fear that he will derive any future advantage from such a promise, as any charge against him connected with poor Tobias will sink into insignificance, compared with other offences." "True! true!" "Such a letter, couched with the one concerning the non-departure of the ship, may keep him in his shop over to-morrow." "And then--" "Then he sleeps in Newgate, from which building he steps on to the scaffold." "But has he not sent many trunks and packages to the ship?" "Yes, and I have as regularly removed them all to the police-office at Bow Street. We have already some thousands of pounds worth of property of the most costly description." "But Johanna? What is to become of her?" "You may depend upon it that Todd will pursue the same course with her that he did with Tobias. He will give her a trifle of money, and tell her to get a night's lodging out; and in that case she knows where to come to be quite safe and comfortable. But if such should not be the case, my protecting arm is over her; I think I can almost defy Todd to do her any injury." "Think you so?" "Yes, I have made such arrangements that if she were missed only for ten minutes, Todd's house would be searched from top to bottom. I would not, for this right hand, that any harm should come to her." "Nor I--nor I." "Be at ease regarding her, colonel." "I know how fully we may trust to you, and therefore I will be at ease regarding her; and I will at once write the letter to Todd you suggest to me." "Do so. His fears upon your account must be calmed down." The colonel accordingly wrote the necessary note to Todd. Of course, neither he nor Sir Richard Blunt knew that Todd had another reason for wishing to be off that night, which consisted in his great unwillingness to meet Mrs. Lovett in the morning; for it will be recollected that he had an appointment with that lady upon money matters at an early hour. The reader is now fully aware of how matters stand, and will be able to comprehend easily the remarkable events which rapidly ensued upon this state of things, and therefore we can at once return to Todd. We left him upon his door-step. It was never Todd's custom to walk at once into his house as any one else would do upon their arrival, whose "Conscience was not redolent of guilt!" but he would peep and pry about, and linger like a moth fluttering around a candle, or a rat smelling at some tempting morsel, which might be connected with some artfully contrived trap, before he entered. He wanted sadly to get a peep at what Charley was doing. Now, poor Johanna, fortunately at that moment, was only sitting before the little miserable fire, holding her face in her hands, and deeply thinking of the once happy past. She had brought out from beneath the counter the sleeve of a sailor's jacket, which she had found upon her former examination of the shop, and after sprinkling it with some tears, for she fully believed it must have belonged to Mark Ingestrie, she had hidden it again. And now as she sat in that house of murder all alone, she was picturing to herself every tone and look of her lover when he had first told her that he loved her before, as she might have said in the words of the old song-- "He loved me, and he sped away Far o'er the raging sea, To seek the gems of other lands, And bring them all to me." At that moment, with all external objects hidden from her perception she could almost fancy she could hear his voice as he had said to her--"My darling, I shall come back rich and prosperous, and we shall be happy." Alas! how sadly had that dream ended. He who had escaped the perils of the deep--he who had successfully battled with the tempest, and all the perils by sea and by land incidental to the life he had embarked in, had returned miserably to perish, almost within hearing of her for whom he had adventured so much. The thought was maddening! "And I live!" she said; "I can live after that! Oh, Mark--Mark--I did not love you well enough, or I could not have existed so long after the horrible certainly of your fate has been revealed to me. They may say what they will to try to make me calmer and happier, but I know that he is Todd's victim." After this she sat for a time in a kind of stupor, and it was during that interval that Todd arrived home. There was no light in the shop but what at times came from a little flickering flame, that would splutter into a moment's brief existence in the fire; but Todd, as he glared through the upper portion of the half-glass door at a spot where he knew the blind did not prevent him, could just see Johanna thus sitting. "Humph!" he said. "The boy is quiet enough, and probably, after all, may suspect nothing; although I don't at all like his manner at times; yet it is safer to kill him before I go. It is absolute security. He shall help me to arrange everything to set the house on fire, and then when I have completed all my arrangements, it will be easy to knock him on the head." With this he opened the door. Johanna started. "Well," said Todd, "well, any one been?" "Only a man to be shaved, sir. I told him you would be home soon, but he could not wait, so he left." "Let him leave and get shaved at the devil!" said Todd. "You are sure no one has been here peeping and prying, and asking questions which you would be quite delighted to answer, eh?" "Peeping and prying, sir?" "Yes, peeping and prying. You know the meaning of that. Don't put on a look of surprise at me. It won't do. I known what you boys are. Curse you all! Yes, I know what you are." Johanna made no answer. Todd took off his hat, and shook the rain from it violently. Then in a voice that made Johanna start again, he cried-- "Light the lamp, idiot!" It was quite clear that the occurrences at the colonel's had not improved Todd's temper at all, and that upon very little pretext for it, he would have committed some act of violence, of which Johanna might be the victim. Anything short of that she could endure, but she had made up her mind that if even he so much as laid his hand upon her, her power of further patience would be gone, and she would be compelled to adopt the means of summoning aid which had been pointed out to her by Sir Richard Blunt--namely, by casting something through the window into the street. She lit the shop-lamp as quickly as she could. "A lazy life you lead," said Todd. "A lazy life, indeed. Well, well," he added, softening his tone, "it don't matter--I shall polish you off for all that, Charley. What a pretty boy you are." "Sir?" "I say what a pretty boy you are. Why, you must have been your mamma's pet, that you must. I was. Ha! ha! Look at me, now. I was fondled and kissed once, and called a pretty boy. Ha!" Johanna shuddered. "Yes," added Todd, as he wiped himself down with a soiled towel, "yes, my mother used to make quite a pet of me. I often used to wish I was strong enough to throttle her! Ha! ha! That I did!" "Throttle her, sir?" "Yes," added Todd, fiercely. "What the devil did she bring me into the world for her own gratifications, unless she had plenty of money to give me that I might enjoy myself in it?" "I don't know, sir." "You don't know? Who the devil supposed you did know? Answer me that, you imp! Well, well, Charley, you and I won't quarrel about such matters. Come, my boy, I want you to be of use to me to-night." "To-night, sir?" "Yes, to-night. Is it broad daylight? Is the sun shining? Is there no such thing as night, under cover of which black deeds are done? Curse you! why do you ask if to-night is the time for action?" "I will do your bidding, sir." "Yes; and--Ah! who is this?" "Is this here keg of turpentine for you?" said a man, with it upon his shoulder. "Mr. Todd's this is, ain't it?" "Yes--yes. Put it down, my good fellow. You ought to have something to drink." "Thank you kindly, sir." "But you must pay for it yourself. There is a public-house opposite." The man went away swearing; and scarcely had he crossed the threshold, when a letter was brought by a lad, and handed to Todd. Before he could ask any questions, the lad was gone. Todd held the letter in his hand, and glared at the direction. It was to him, sure enough, and written in a very clerk-like hand, too. Before he could open it, some one hit the door a blow upon the outside, and it swung open. "Is this Todd's, the barber?" "Yes," said Johanna. "Then give him that letter, little chap, will you?" "Stop!" cried Todd. "Stop. Where do you come from, and who are you? Stop, you rascal. Will you stop? Confound you, I wish I had a razor at your throat." CHAPTER LXXXVI. TODD RECEIVES TWO EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS, AND ACTS UPON THEM. Todd looked the picture of amazement. "Two letters!" he muttered, "two letters to me, who seldom receive any? To me who have no acquaintances--no relations? Bah! It must be some mistake, or perhaps, after all, some infernal nonsense about the parish." He tore open the last received one, and read as follows:-- "Colonel Jeffery informs Sweeney Todd that, although from a variety of reasons he may not think proper to prosecute him for his recent outrage at his house, he will, upon a repetition of such conduct, at once hand him over to the police." Todd's countenance, during the perusal of this brief note, betrayed a variety of emotions; and when he had concluded it, he let it drop from his hands, and knitting his brows, he muttered-- "What does this mean?" That there was--that there must be something much more than met the eye in this boasted clemency of the colonel towards him, he felt quite convinced; but what it was, he was puzzled to think for a time. At length, brightening up, he said-- "Yes, I have it. It is Tobias--it is Tobias. He cannot rid himself from the idea that I have some mysterious power of injuring his mother; and perhaps, after all, he may have made no disclosures to the colonel injurious to me." Comforted by this wide supposition, Todd picked up the letter again, and put it in his pocket carefully. "It is as well," he said, "for I shall not now be hurried. No, I shall not be at all hurried now, which I might have been.--Charley." "Yes, sir." "Trim the lamp." Johanna did so; and while the process was going on, Todd opened the other letter, it was as follows:-- "Sir,--We beg to inform you that our Hamburgh vessel in which you have done us the favour to take passage, will not sail until to-morrow night at four, God willing, and that consequently there will be no occasion for your coming on board earlier.--We are, sir, "Your obedient servants, "BROWN, BUGGINS, MUGGS, AND SCREAMER." "To Mr. S. Todd." Todd ground his teeth together in a horrible manner. He dashed the letter to the floor, and stamped upon it. "Curse Brown and Buggins!" he cried. "I only wish I could dash out Muggs and Screamer's brains with Brown and Buggins's skulls. Confound them and their ships. May they all go to the bottom when I am out of them, and be smashed and d--d!" Johanna was amazed at this sudden torrent of wrath. She could not imagine what had produced it, for Todd had read the letter in a muttering tone, that effectually prevented her from hearing any of it. Suddenly he rose and rushed into the back room, and bolted the door upon himself. He went to think what was best to be done. When he was alone he read both the letters again, and then he burst out into such a torrent of wrath against the ship-owners, that it was a mercy Johanna's ears were spared the dreadful words that came from his lips. Suddenly he saw a postscript at the foot of the ship-owner's letter, which he had at first overlooked. "P. S.--The ship is removed to Crimmins's Wharf, but will be at her old moorings at time mentioned above." "D--n Crimmins and his wharf, too!" cried Todd. He flung himself into a chair, and sat for a time profoundly still. During that period he tried to make up his mind as to what it would be best for him, under the circumstances, to do. Many plans floated through his imagination. He could not for a long time bring himself to believe that the letter of the colonel's was anything but a feint to throw him off his guard in some way. At length he got into a calmer frame of mind. "Shall I leave at once, or stay till to-morrow night, that is the question?" He argued this with himself, pro and con. If he left he would have to secret himself somewhere all the following day, and the fact of his having left would make an active search, safe to be instituted for him, which would possibly be successful. Besides, how was he to conveniently set fire to his house, unless he was off on the moment that the flames burst forth? Then if he stayed he had Mrs. Lovett to encounter, but that was all; and surely he could put her off for a few hours? Surely she, of all people in the world, was not to run to a police-office and destroy both him and herself, just because she did not get some money at ten o'clock that he had promised to hand to her. "She shall be put off," he said, suddenly, "and I will stay over to-morrow. I am safer here than anywhere else, of that I feel assured. If there are any suspicious whisperings about me at all, they will grow to loud clamours the moment I am gone, and then they may reach the ears of these ship-owners, and they may say at once, 'Why we have such a man with a passage taken in one of our Hamburgh ships.' Let them say that when the ship is some twenty hours gone with me on board, and I don't care; but with me on land, and the ship only to sail, instead of having actually sailed, it is quite a different matter." He rose from his seat. His mind was made up. He had not quite decided what he should say to Mrs. Lovett, but he had decided upon staying. "Charley will live another day," he muttered; "but to-morrow night he dies, and his body will be consumed with this house, and, I hope, a good part of Fleet-street. It will not be prudent to get him to assist now in disposing the combustibles to fire the house. He might speak of it before to-morrow night." Todd came out into the shop. "Charley, my boy!" How kindly he spoke! "I am here, sir." "You must not mind what I say when I am vexed. Many things happen to put me out of the way. Sometimes people that I have done I don't know how much for, turn out to be very ungrateful, and then I get chafed, you see, Charley." "Yes, sir, no doubt." "But, after I have retired to the parlour and prayed a little, my mind soon recovers its usual religious tone, and its wonted serenity; and for the sake of the Almighty, who, you know, is good to us all, Charley, I forgive all that is done to me, and pray for the wicked." Johanna shuddered. This hypocrisy sounded awful to her. "Never go to rest, Charley, without saying your prayers. There's threepence for you. You can get yourself a bed in the neighbourhood for that amount somewhere, I daresay. I am very sorry I cannot accommodate you here, Charley. Now go away, and let me have you here by seven in the morning; and mind, above all things, cultivate a religious spirit, and do unto your neighbours as you would that your neighbours should do unto you." Johanna could not reply. "Here is a tract that you can read before you go to sleep, if they allow you a candle, when you get a-bed. It is entitled 'Groans of Grace, or the Sinner Sifted,' a most godly production, from a pious bookseller in Paternoster-row, Charley." "Yes," Johanna just managed to say. "Now you may go." She darted from the shop. "Hilloa! hilloa! Stop--stop, Charley! Stop--stop, will you? Confound you, stop! The infernal shutters are not up. Do you hear? I forgot them." Todd rushed to his door. He looked right and left, and over the way, and, in fact, everywhere, but no Charley was to be seen. The fact is, that Johanna, the moment she felt herself released from the shop, had darted over the way, and into the fruiterers, where she had found so friendly a welcome before, and all this was done in such a moment, that she was housed before Todd could get his shop-door open. "Welcome!" said a voice. She found it proceeded from the fruiterer's daughter, who had behaved so kindly to her. Johanna burst into tears. "What has happened?--what has happened?" cried the young girl. "Nothing, now," said Johanna. "But I cannot keep up longer than when I am in that shop. As soon as I am fairly out of the presence of that dreadful man, I feel ready to faint." "Be of good cheer," said a deep-toned voice. She looked up, and saw Sir Richard Blunt. "You here, sir?" "Yes, Johanna. I have been now for some time watching Todd's shop from our friend's first-floor window. I saw you dart across the road, and for the moment feared something had gone wrong. Did Todd get two letters?" "He did." "They will, I hope, keep him quiet until another night. Dare you go back again, Johanna, to that place?" "Yes, if it be necessary; but he has told me to sleep out, and the gust of pleasure I felt at the permission, almost, I fear, betrayed me." "He came to the door and looked furiously after you, but he did not see which way you had come. You were over here like a flash of light." "He would have had me back again, then?--What could that be for?" "At all events, you shall not go until the morning, and not then, unless after a night's rest here, you feel that you can do so with a good heart." "Oh yes, I will fulfil my mission." "Todd is putting up his shutters," said the fruiterer, as he came in from his front shop. "Ah, then the secret is out," said Sir Richard Blunt. "That is what he wanted you back for, Johanna. He had forgotten at the moment all about the shutters you may depend. I am glad he spared you the trouble, at any rate. I do not like you to perform any service for such a rank villain as he is." "It would not have been for him, sir." "For who, then?" "For the dead. I feel that I am bound to bring to justice the murderer of Mark Ingestrie. When I was here last, sir, you strove to comfort me, by making me feel a sort of hope that he was not dead, but I cannot think that--I would that I could, but indeed I cannot, sir." "Do not be too sure, Johanna." "Nay, look at that." She laid before the magistrate the sleeve of the jacket that she had found at Todd's, and which fancy, for she certainly had no proof that way tending, told her had belonged to Mark Ingestrie. "What is this?" "Look at it, sir. My heart tells me it was his!" "And so you suppose there was never but one sailor's jacket with ivory buttons on the wrist in the world, and never any one who wore one, but Mark Ingestrie?" "Nay, the place in which it was found brings conviction." "Not at all. Do you forget there was such a person as Thornhill in the world, Johanna?" "No; but why will every one persist in fancying Thornhill and Ingestrie to be two persons, when I am convinced they were but one? Let who will identify this as part of Thornhill's apparel, and I will weep for Mark." "I cannot just now shake this supposition." "You never will." "If I live I will, Johanna, I give you my word for so much. Pray who is the best to judge of such things? You, a young girl who have seen little or nothing of the world, and whose natural apprehension is rendered obscure by the conflict of your affections, or I whose business it is to come to an accurate conclusion of such matters? I repeat my conviction, that Thornhill was not Mark Ingestrie." "Oh, if I could think so!" "You will." "You have no doubt, sir, but Thornhill perished by the hand of Todd?" "None whatever." Johanna looked deeply affected. "Come," added Sir Richard, "you want both rest and refreshment, and you can have both here at this house. To-morrow I hope will end all your trials, my dear girl, and I shall live, I trust, to see you smile as you ought to smile, and to be as happy as only a very dim recollection of the past will make you." "Ah, no--never happy." "You must love some one. You must recover, and in the cares and joys of a new existence, you must only look back upon what has passed, as though you pondered upon the phantasma of some fearful dream; and when you see all around you smiling--" "It will be cruel for them to smile, sir; and it is now cruel of you to speak to me of loving another, when you know my affections are with Ingestrie, in that world to which he has gone before me, but to which I look forward to as the place of our happy meeting, where we shall part again no more." "Well, I thought I could find you a lover that would be to your mind when all these affairs were over." "Sir?" "Nay, be not offended. You know I am your sincere friend." "I know you are, and that is what makes it so grievous to me to hear you talk in such a strain, sir." "Then I will say no more." "I thank you, Sir Richard; and I will forget what you have said, because I will recollect nothing from you, or committed with you, but kindness and consideration." Sir Richard smiled slightly for a moment, as he turned aside and spoke to his friend the fruiterer for some minutes in a low tone. The young girl who had before behaved with such kindness to Johanna, took her by the hand, and led her up-stairs. "Come," she said, "you shall tell me all you have suffered opposite since we parted last, and I will speak to you of him whom you love." "You are too good to me." While all this was going on so close to him, Todd, with many oaths and execrations, was putting up his own shutters, which he did with a violence that nearly knocked the front of the window in. When he had finished, he walked into his house, and closing the door, he said, in a low tone-- "I must make up my mind what to say to Mrs. Lovett in the morning. I am afraid she will be hard to pacify." At this moment a man peered out from the inn gateway opposite, and said to himself-- "Now begins my watch. I dare say now Mrs. Lovett has some particular reason for watching this barber, though she did not tell me. However, a guinea for one night's work is not bad pay." CHAPTER LXXXVII. MR. LUPIN MEDDLES WITH OTHER FOLKS' AFFAIRS. "Brother Oakley, is sister Oakley within?" This rather cool speech--cool considering all the circumstances--was uttered by no other than the Reverend Mr. Lupin to Mr. Oakley, who was working in his shop on the morning after Johanna had gone upon her perilous enterprise to Todd's. Mr. Oakley looked up with surprise upon his features. "What?" he said. "Is sister Oakley within, brother?" "Don't call me brother, you canting hypocrite. How do you make out any such relationship, I should like to know?" "Are we not all brothers in the Lord?" "Pho! Go along." "Nay, brother Oakley, my coming to you upon this day hath, in good truth, a meaning." As he said these words, the countenance of the pious man had upon it a malignant expression, and there was a twinkle about his eyes, which said as plainly as possible, "And that meaning is mischief!" Old Oakley looked at him for some few seconds, and then he said-- "Hark you, Mr. Lupin, you have already meddled too much in my affairs, and I desire now that you will be so good as to leave them alone." "Humph! brother Oakley, what I have to say, concerns thee to hear, but I would rather say it to thy wife, who is a sister in the faith, and assuredly one of the elect, than I would say it to you, who will assuredly go to a warm place below for your want of faith; so I say again, is sister Oakley within?" "If you mean my wife," replied the old spectacle-maker, "I am sorry to say that nobody knows less of her going out and coming home than I do." "Truly, she frequents the Tabernacle of the Lord, called Ebenezer, where we all put up a hearty and moving prayer for you." "Nobody asks you. I believe you are a set of rascals." "How pleasant this is." "What is pleasant?" "To be nailed. How charming it is for the friends of Satan to call the Saints hard names. Brother Oakley, you are lost, indeed." "If you call me brother again, you shall be lost, Mr. Lupin. I tell you once for all, I don't know anything of my wife's going out or coming home, and I don't want to see you in my shop any more. If it were not for one person in this world, and that one an angel, if ever one lived upon the earth, I should not care how soon my head was laid low." "Humph! brother Oakley! Humph!" Oakley caught up a file to throw at the head of the hypocrite, but there was such an expression of triumph upon his face, that the heart of the old spectacle-maker sunk within him as he thought to himself, "This man brings ill news, or he would never look as he does." The file dropped from his hands, and pushing his spectacles up to the top of his head, he glared at Lupin as he said-- "Speak--speak! What have you to say?" "Humph!" "Speak man, if you be a man!" "Humph, brother Oakley; you have a daughter--Johanna?" "Yes, yes!" cried old Oakley. "My heart told me that it was of my child this wretch came to speak. Tell me all instantly. Speak--what of my dear Johanna? I will wrest the truth from you. Has anything happened--is she well? Speak--speak!" Mr. Oakley sprang upon the preacher, and seizing him by the throat, forced him back until he fell upon an old chest in the shop that was full of tools and the lid of which giving way with Lupin's weight and the sudden concussion with which he came upon it, precipitated him into the box among a number of pointed implements, the effect of which may be better imagined than described, as the newspapers say. "Murder! murder!" screamed the preacher. "Now you rascal!" cried old Oakley. "Say what you have got to say, and at once, too." "Murder!" again gasped Lupin. "Brother Oakley, spare my life." "I will not spare it if you are not quite explicit as regards what you have hinted of my child. Speak at once. Tell me what you have to say?" "Let me get up. Oh, be merciful, and let me get up." "No. You can stay very well where you are. Be quiet and speak freely, in which case no harm will come to you." "Did you say, be quiet, brother Oakley? Truly you would be anything but quiet in my situation. What induces you to keep all your tools in this chest with the points uppermost?" "You are trying to prevaricate now," said Oakley, suddenly snatching from the wall of his shop an antique sword, that had hung there as a sort of ornament, not entirely inconsistent with his trade. "You are trying to prevaricate with me now, and I must and will have your life. Prepare for the worst. You have now aroused feelings that cannot be so easily quelled again. Your last hour has come!" The sight of the sword awakened the most lively feelings of terror in the mind of the preacher. He gave a howl of dismay, and made the most frantic efforts to get up out of the tool-chest; but that was no easy matter, particularly as old Oakley flourished the antique sword in dangerous proximity to his nose. At length, lifting up his hands in the most supplicating manner, he cried-- "Mercy--mercy, and I will tell." "Go on, then. Quick." "Yes--yes. Oh, dear! Yes. I was sojourning in this ungodly city, and taking my way, deep in thought, upon the wickedness of the world, the greater portion of the inhabitants of which will assuredly go down below, where there is howling and--" "You rascal, I'll make you howl if you do not come to the point quickly." A flourish of the sword, so close to the face of Mr. Lupin that he really believed for the moment it had taken the end of his nose off, admonished him that the patience of Mr. Oakley was nearly exhausted, and in a whining tone, he added-- "Truly, I was in the street called Fleet-street; when as I was crossing the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me, but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of that--that individual." "Well, what is that to me? I ask you what is he to me? Go on." "Oh, oh, oh! Don't say I have not prepared you for the worst. Oh, oh, oh! Now, brother Oakley, I will tell you, even although it provoke an abundance of wrath. That boy--that individual who nearly overthrew me, one of the elect as I am, into the kennel, had the face of your daughter, Johanna." The spectacle-maker looked confused, as well he might. "The face of my daughter, Johanna?" he said. "What do you mean? Is all this cock-and-a-bull story about some boy in the street, who happened in your eyes to bear a resemblance to my child?" "Humph! Ay, truly. Humph! so striking a resemblance, that sitting here, even as I am upon the points of many instruments of steel and of iron, I aver that that boy was Johanna Oakley." Oakley staggered back, and the antique sword dropped from his hand, a proceeding which Mr. Lupin proffited sufficiently by to scramble out of the tool-chest, and make towards the door. In another moment he would have left the shop, for he had done all the mischief he could, by telling the anxious father such a tale, but suddenly Oakley snatched the sword from the floor again, and rushing after Mr. Lupin, he caught him by the skirts at the very nick of time, and dragged him into the shop again. Holding then the sword to his throat, he said-- "Scoundrel! How dare you come and tell me such a thing? Your life, your worthless life, ought to pay the penalty of such an odious falsehood." "No, no!" cried Lupin falling upon his knees, for he saw the sword uplifted. "No! What if it be true? What if it be true?" The old man's hands shook, and the point of the sword which had been in most dreadful proximity to Mr. Lupin's throat, was gradually lowered until it touched the floor. "Tell me again--tell me again!" gasped Oakley. The preacher saw that his danger was over, and rising, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, and began deliberately to dust his knees, as he said in a low snuffling voice-- "Truly, you are a vessel of wrath, brother Oakley." "Stop!" cried Oakley. "I have told you before not to call me brother: I have no fellowship or brotherhood with you. Do not tempt me to more violence by the use of that word." "Let it be as you please," said Lupin, "but as regards the maiden, who for a surety is fair to look upon, although all flesh is grass, and beauty waneth after a season--" "I want none of your canting reflections. To your tale. When and where was it that you saw my child?" "In the street called Fleet, as I and all of us are sinners. She wore nether garments suitable and conformable unto a boy, but not to a girl, as the way of the world goeth; and yet she looked comely did the maiden--ay, very comely. I was moved to see her truly. Her eyes there was no mistaking, and her lips--Ay, it was the maiden; but after sitting in the kennel for one moment into which I fell, and getting up again amid the laughter of the ungodly bystanders, I found that she was gone." "And so you have come on to me with this monstrous tale?" "Monstrous tail?" said Mr. Lupin, turning round as though he expected to find such an appendage flourishing behind him. "I am not aware--" The old spectacle-maker staggered into a seat, and holding his hands clasped before him for a few moments, he strove to think calmly of what had been told to him. The preacher was not slow in taking advantage of this condition into which Mr. Oakley fell, to protect himself against any further danger from the sword. He picked up that weapon from the floor, and not finding any place readily in the shop where he might effectually hide it, he held it behind his back, and finally thrust the long blade of it between his coat and his waistcoat, where he thought it was to be sure wonderfully well hidden. He did not calculate that the point projected above his coat-collar and his head some six inches or so, presenting a very singular appearance indeed. He then waited for Oakley to speak, for to tell the truth, the curiosity of Lupin was strongly excited concerning Johanna, as well as his sense of enjoyment, tickled by the distress of the father whom he considered his enemy. After this he waited patiently enough to see what course the afflicted man would pursue, and, indeed, the whole conduct of Lupin was most convincing of the fact, that he entertained no doubt whatever as to the identity of the supposed boy he had seen in Fleet Street. The time at which he had seen Johanna, must have been when she ran over the road from Todd's shop, and took refuge in the fruiterer's. Well, then, poor Mr. Oakley was trying to think. He was trying to convince himself that it could not possibly have been Johanna who had been seen by the preacher; but then there was still present to his mind, the impression that had been made upon it by the singular manner in which she had bidden him adieu upon the last occasion of his seeing her. He remembered how she had come back, after leaving the shop with her young friend, Arabella Wilmot, and how then, with a burst of feeling, she had taken of him a second farewell. No wonder then that, by combining that with the information Lupin had brought, the father found enough to shudder at; and he did shudder. Mr. Lupin watched him attentively. Suddenly rising, with a face pale as death itself, Oakley advanced to Lupin, and laying his hand upon his breast, he said to him-- "Man, I suspect that there is much hypocrisy in your nature. It may be unjust to do so--it may be that I am doing you a wrong, but yet I do think in my heart that you are one of those who adopt the garb and the language of piety for the selfish purposes of human nature. And yet you must have some feeling: at the bottom of even such a heart as yours, there must be some touch of humanity; and by that I conjure you to say if you have told the truth to me in this matter concerning my child." "I have," said Lupin. "If you have not, I will say nothing to you, I will be guilty of no attempt at revengeful violence. Only tell me so, and you shall go in peace." "What I have told you of the maiden is true," said Lupin. "I saw her--with these eyes I saw her." The spectacle-maker slipped off his working apron and the black sleeves he wore over his coat to protect it from the dust and other destructive matters incidental to his work-bench, and then he snatched his hat from a peg upon which it hung in the shop. "Come," he said. "Come. You and I will walk together to the house, where I was told Johanna was to be; and if I do not find her there, I will thank you for the information you have given to me. I will not stop to inquire what were your motives in giving it, but I will thank you for it. Come. Come with me." "Truly I will come with you," said Lupin, "for I am curious--that is to say, I am in a religious point of view, anxious to know what has become of the maiden, who was so fair to look upon always, although she had not a godly spirit." Oakley locked up his shop, and put the key in his pocket. Then taking the preacher by the arm, he set off at a fast pace for the house of Arabella Wilmot. CHAPTER LXXXVIII. TODD ASTONISHES MRS. LOVETT'S SPY. We return to Todd. After he had put up his own shutters, and properly secured his doors for the night, he lit the lamp in his parlour, and glancing curiously around him, he muttered-- "Yes. This will assuredly be the last night here. How I hate the look of anything, and how eagerly I shall banish from my mind all kind of remembrance of this place when I am in another land, as I shall be shortly. Let me see: I will embrace the catholic religion, and I will be most devout. The regularity of my religious exercises shall do much for me. Indeed, I do not think I could have remained so long in London, if I had not had the prudence to be regular at the church. It is true that of late I have neglected all that, but then I am going soon, and it does not matter." Todd sat down, and looked over the memoranda of things he had to do that he had made. He felt tolerably satisfied with the condition of affairs. That Colonel Jeffery and that others suspected him, he could not doubt; but he felt quite confident that he should be far off, before those suspicions repaired into anything dangerous to him. He still clung to the idea that they knew nothing, or else they would arrest him; and while such did not ensue, he considered himself as in a tolerably safe position. He then set about the preparations for firing his house. We need not follow him through those preparations. We need not state how he soaked clothes in turpentine and oil, and how he placed them in such positions, combined with small packages of gunpowder, and lumps of rosin, that if a torch were to be applied at the lower part of the house, the whole would be in a few moments in a blaze. Suffice it to say, that Todd worked hard for the next two hours, and that by the time they had gone, he had got everything ready for the perpetration of that last crime which he intended to commit, before he crossed the threshold of his house upon the following night, to leave it for ever. [Illustration: Todd Preparing Combustibles To Fire His House.] More than once during these two hours he drank brandy. The ardent spirit had become necessary to the existence of Todd now; and when he took a draught at the conclusion of his labours, he smiled grimly as he said-- "Charley Green will have quite a funeral of flame. He shall die, and his body shall be consumed in the blazing fragments of this house, and it will go hard but this side of Fleet Street suffers. Oh, if the flames would only spread to the old church, I should rejoice much at that, and they may do so.--Yes, they may do so. Ha! ha! I shall be remembered in London." As he spoke, a dull heavy sort of sound at the outer door of his house came upon his ears. It was as though something heavy had been thrown against it. With fear expressed upon every feature of his face, Todd listened for a repetition of the sound. It did not come again. Todd began to breathe a little more freely, and yet he kept asking himself--"What was it?"--and the utmost powers of his imagination could return him no feasible answer to the interesting inquiry. But nothing was more easy than to go to the door and see if any one was there, or if anything had happened to it. Should he open it for such a purpose? Should he unbar and unbolt at the risk of he knew not what? No: he would, from the first floor balcony, and there was a frail one, reconnoitre the street. He should then be easily able to see if there were any danger. He had no sooner made this determination, than he carried it out, by ascending the dark blackened staircase, conducting to the upper part of his house, that staircase which was now so completely covered by combustible materials. At every few steps he took he listened attentively. He thought there might yet be a repetition of the sound; but no--all was still; and by the time he reached his first floor, he was in some sort recovered from his first fright. That was something. He left his light upon the stair-head, for he had no wish to point himself out to the chance passengers in Fleet Street, or perhaps to some enemy, by going into that room with a light in his hand. No, Todd was much too acute for that; so carefully closing the door, so that no ray of light got in from the staircase, he crept to the window. The shutters had to be unfastened, for Todd's house was always carefully closed up like the Duke of Wellington's at the present day. He very quickly unclosed one of the long-disused windows, and opening it gently, looked out over the edge of the little crazy balcony into the street. Something big and black was against his door. The more Todd bent his gaze upon this object, the more a kind of undefined terror took possession of him, and the more puzzled he was to give a name to the dark mass that had been laid upon his threshold. There was no lamp very near his house, or else, miserable as was the light from those old oil apologies for illuminators, some few rays might have fallen upon the dark mass, and told Todd what it was. But no--all was dark and dubious, and he strained his eyes in vain to penetrate the mystery. "I must go down," he said; "I must open the door. Yes, I cannot live and not know what this is. I must open the door, however reluctantly, and ascertain precisely. Ah!" While Todd was talking, and still keeping his eyes fixed upon the mysterious object at his door, he saw suddenly in the midst of it a bright luminous spark, as if something connected with it was of a red heat, and slowly smouldering on fire. If he was before puzzled to account for the phenomenon of a dark object, without shape or form, lying propped up against his door, he was now more than ever confounded, and his imagination started some of the most improbable conjectures in the world, to account for the appearance. He thought that it must be some combustible, which, in the course of a few moments, would go off with a stunning report, and blow his street-door to atoms; but then again, what could be the object of such a thing? The more he considered the affair from above, the more he was puzzled and terrified; so at last, with a feeling of desperation, he ran down stairs and began to unfasten the street-door. He did not pause in his work until he had flung it open, and then the mystery was explained. A man, half asleep, with a lighted pipe in his mouth, rolled backwards into the shop; and as he did so, with the dreamy half-consciousness that he was upon some sort of duty, he said-- "I'll watch him, Mrs. Lovett. He shan't get away without your knowing of it, ma'am." Todd understood the man's errand in a moment. Of course he had been employed to watch him by Mrs. Lovett, who had a slight idea that he might not be forthcoming for the promised morning settlement. Todd seized the man by the collar, and dragging him fairly into the shop, closed the door again. "Ah!" he said, "a good joke." "What's a joke, sir?" said the man. "What's a joke? Murder! Where am I?--where am I? Help!" "Hush!" said Todd. "Hush! It's of no consequence. I know all about it man. Mrs. Lovett employed you to watch me. She was a little jealous, but we have made it all right now, and she asked me, if I saw you, to pay you and give you a glass of something, beside." "Did she, sir?" "To be sure she did; so come in, and you can tell her when you see her in the morning, that you had of me a glass of as good liquor as could be found in London. By-the-bye, what am I to pay you?" "A guinea, sir." "Exactly. It was a guinea, of course. This way, my friend, this way. Don't fall over the shaving-chair, I beg of you. You can't hurt it, for it is a fixture; but you might hurt yourself, and that is of more importance to you, you know. While we do live in this world, if it be for ever so short a time, we may as well live comfortably." Talking away thus all suspicion from the man who was not one of the brightest of geniuses in the world, Todd led the way to the parlour--that fatal parlour which had been the last scene of more than one mortal life. He closed the door, and then in quite a good-humoured way, he pointed to the seat, saying-- "Rest yourself, my friend--rest yourself, while I get out the bottle. And so it is one guinea that I am to give you, eh?" "Yes, sir; and all I can say is that I am very glad to hear that you and Mrs. Lovett have made matters all right again. Very glad, indeed, sir, I may say. In course, I shouldn't have took the liberty of sitting down by your door, sir, if she had not told me to watch the house and let her know, if so, be as you come out of it, or if I saw any packages moving. She didn't say anything to me what it was for; but a guinea is just as well earned easy as not, you see, sir!" "Certainly, my friend, certainly. Drink that." The man tossed off the glass of something that Todd gave him, and then he licked his lips, as he said-- "What is it, sir? It's strong, but I can't say, for my part, that I like the flavour of it much." "Not like it?" "Not much, sir." "Why it's a most expensive foreign liquor that is, and by all the best judges in the kingdom is never found fault with. Very few persons, indeed, have tasted it; but of those few, not one has come to me to say, Mr. Todd--" "Good God!" said the man, as he clasped his head with both of his hands. "Good God, how strange I feel. I must be going mad!" "Mad!" cried Todd, as he leant far over the table so as to bring his face quite close to the man's. "Mad! not at all. What you feel now is part of your death-pang. You are dying--I have poisoned you. Do you hear that? You have watched me, and I have in return poisoned you. Do you understand that?" [Illustration: Todd Poisons Mrs. Lovett's Spy And Tells Him Of It.] The dying man made an ineffectual effort to rise from the chair, but he could not. With a gasping sob he let his head sink upon his breast--he was dead! "They perish," said Todd, "one by one; they who oppose me, perish, and so shall they all. Ha! so shall they all; and she who set this fool on to his destruction shall feel, yet, the pang of death, and know that she owes it to me! Yes, Mrs. Lovett, yes." He closed his arms over his breast, and looked at the body for some moments in silence; and then, with a sneer upon his lips, he added-- "No, Mrs. Lovett, you did not show your judgment in this matter. Had you wished to watch me, you should have done it yourself, and not employed this poor weak wretch who has paid the price of his folly. Go--go!" He struck the chair from under the dead man with his foot, and the corpse that had partially been supported by it and the table, fell to the floor. Another kick sent it under the large table, and then, as another of Todd's victims had once done, it disappeared. "To-morrow night, by this time," said Todd, musingly, "where shall I be!" CHAPTER LXXXIX. MR. OAKLEY IS IN DESPAIR AT THE LOSS OF JOHANNA. The anxiety of poor Mr. Oakley increased each moment as he and the preacher neared the house of Arabella Wilmot's friends. We regret to say that Mr. Lupin did enjoy the mental agony of the father; but it was in his nature so to do, and we must take poor humanity as we find it. It must be recollected that Mr. Lupin had, through Johanna, suffered great malefactions. The treatment he had received at the hands of Big Ben, although most richly deserved, had been on account of Johanna, and as regarded the old spectacle-maker himself, he had always occupied an antagonistic position as regarded Mr. Lupin. No wonder then, we say, that human nature, particularly in its evangelical variety, was not proof against the fascination of a little revenge. Now, Mr. Lupin felt so sure that he had made no mistake, but that it was no other than the fair Johanna whom he had seen in what he called the unseemly apparel, that he did not feel inclined to draw back for a moment in the matter. Curiosity, as well as a natural (to him) feeling of malignity, urged him to stick by the father in order that he might know the result of inquiries that he, Lupin, had no opportunity or excuse for making, but which Mr. Oakley might institute with the most perfect and unquestionable profundity. As we have before had occasion to remark, the distance between Oakley's shop and the residence of the friends of Arabella was but short, so that, at the speed which the excited feelings of the fond father induced him to adopt, he soon stood upon the threshold of the residence, beneath the roof of which he hoped, notwithstanding the news so confidently brought by Lupin, to find his much-loved, idolized child. "You shall see," he said to Lupin, catching his breath as he spoke; "you shall see how very wrong you are." "Humph!" said Lupin. "You shall see," continued poor Oakley, still dallying with the knocker; "you shall see what an error you have made, and how impossible it is that my child--my good and kind Johanna--could be the person you saw in Fleet-street." "Ah!" said Lupin. Mr. Oakley knocked at the door, and, as one of the family had seen him through the blinds of the parlour-window, he was at once admitted, and kindly received by those who knew him and his worth well. He asked, in an odd gasping manner, that Mr. Lupin might have permission to come in, which was readily granted; and with a solemn air, shaking his head at the vanities he saw in the shape of some profane statuary in the hall, the preacher followed Oakley to the dining-room. It was an aunt of Arabella's to whom they were introduced, and, with a smile, she said-- "Really, Mr. Oakley, a visit from you is such a rarity that we ought not to know how to make enough of you when you do come. Why, it must have been Christmas twelvemonths since you were last beneath this roof. Don't you remember when your dear, good, pretty Johanna won all hearts?" "Yes, yes," said Oakley, glancing triumphantly at Lupin. "My dear child, whom all the world loves--God bless her!--She is pure, and good, and faultless as an angel." "That, Mr. Oakley," said the lady, "I believe she is. We are as fond of her here, and always as glad to see her, as though she belonged to us. Indeed, we quite envy you such a treasure as she is." Tears gushed into the grateful father's eyes, as he heard his child--his own Johanna--she who reigned all alone in his heart, and yet filled it so completely--so spoken of. How glad he was that there was some one besides himself present to hear all that, although that one was an enemy! With what a triumphant glance he looked around him. "Humph!" said Lupin. That humph recalled Oakley to the business of his visit, and yet how hot and parched his lips got, when he would have framed the all-important question, "Is my child here?"--and how he shook, and gasped for breath a moment before he could speak. At length, he found courage--_not_ to ask if Johanna was there. No--no. He felt that he dared not doubt that. It would have been madness to doubt it, sheer insanity. So he put the question indirectly, and he contrived to say-- "I hope the two girls are quite well, quite--quite--well." "Two girls!" said the aunt. "Two girls!" "Yes," gasped Oakley. "Johanna and Arabella, you know--your Arabella, and my Johanna--my child." "You ought to know, Mr. Oakley, considering that they are at your house, you know. I hope that neither of them have been at all indisposed? Surely that is not the case, and this is not your strange way of breaking it to us, Mr. Oakley?" The bereaved father--yes, at that moment he felt that he was a bereaved father--clutched the arms of the chair upon which he sat, and his face turned of a ghastly paleness. He made an inarticulate effort to speak, but could only produce a strange gurgling noise. "Gracious Heavens! he is ill," cried Arabella's aunt. "No, madam," said Lupin. "He is only convinced." "Convinced of what?" "Of what he himself will tell you, madam." "Help! help!" cried Oakley. "Help! My child--my Johanna--my beautiful child. Mercy--help. Give her to my arms again. Oh, no--no--no, she could not leave me thus. It is false--it is some desperate juggle! My child--my child, come once again to these arms.--God--God help me!" Arabella's aunt rose in the greatest alarm, and rung the bell so sharply, that it brought everybody that was in the house to that room, and Mr. Lupin, when he saw what a congregation there was, rose up and said in a snuffling voice-- "Is there any objection to a prayer?" "The greatest at present, sir," said Arabella's aunt. "Sir, there is a time for all things. The state of poor Mr. Oakley, now claims all our care. If you are his friend--" At these words, Oakley appeared to shake off much of the prostrating effects of the first dreadful conviction, that what Lupin had told him was true, and he said-- "No--no, he is no friend--he is a bitter enemy. The enemy of my peace, and of my dear child. I am calmer now, and I demand--I implore, that that man be made to leave this house." "Brother Oakley," said Lupin, "you brought me here." "And I now command you hence. Begone, villain, begone; go and exult over the heart-broken father's grief; go and tell the tale where you will. You cannot move me now--go--go--go." "Truly I will go presently, but first of all, I say to you, brother Oakley, hardened sinner as you are, repent. Down upon your knees all of you, and join me in prayer, that the unbelievers may roll upon billows of burning brimstone, and that--" "Come," said a man, who happened to be in the house upon some domestic errand, "Mrs. Wilmot says you are to go, and go you shall. Come, be off--I know who you are. You are the rascal that married the widow in Moorfields, but who, they say, has another wife in Liverpool. If you don't go, I shall give you in charge for bigamy, and the widow says she will spend her last penny in prosecuting you." [Illustration: Mr. Lupin Unmasked.] To meet any one half so well informed about his affairs, would have been a terrible blow to Mr. Lupin; but when he found that this man, who was a kind of jobbing cabinet-maker, knew so much, his great goggle eyes opened to an alarming width, and he made a movement towards the door. Still, he did not like to go without saying something. "Flee, ye wretches," he said, "from the wrath to come! You will all go into the bottomless pit, you will, and I shall rejoice at it; and sing many songs of joy over you. Scoffers and mockers, I leave you all to your fate. The devil will have you all, and that is a great comfort and gratification to the elect and to the saints." With this, Mr. Lupin made a precipitate retreat, having achieved about as little in the way of satisfying his curiosity as could very well be conceived. It was a relief--a great relief to Mr. Oakley to be rid of such a witness to his feelings as Lupin; and when he had fairly gone, and the outer door was closed upon him, the spectacle-maker, with clasped hands, and countenance expressive of the greatest possible amount of mental agony, spoke-- "Dismiss all but ourselves, madam," he said. "There's that to say which may be said to you alone, but which it would break my heart to say to many." The room was soon clear, and then Oakley continued in a low faltering voice to make those inquiries, each answer to which was so fatal to his peace of mind. "Madam," he said, "is not my child--my Johanna--here staying on a visit with Arabella?" "No, no--certainly not." This was so frightfully conclusive, that it was some few moments before he could go on; but when he did, he said-- "Is Arabella in the house?" "That, Mr. Oakley," replied the aunt, "is a question I cannot answer you at the moment; but rest and compose yourself for a few moments, and I will ascertain myself if she be in or out, and if the latter, when she was last seen." "I am much beholden to you, madam. I am a poor old man, much broken in spirit, and with but one strong tie to bind me to a world which has nearly done with me. That tie is the love of my dear child, Johanna. Alas! if that be broken, I am all adrift, and at the mercy of the winds and waves of evil fortune; and the sooner I close my eyes in the long sleep of death, the better for me and all who feel for me." "Nay, Mr. Oakley, I look upon it as a thing almost criminal to despair. There is one maxim which I have learnt in my experience of life, and which I am sure you must have had abundant opportunities of learning likewise. It is, 'Never to trust to appearances.'" The old man looked at her with a saddened aspect. It was quite evident his feelings had been too strongly acted upon to make any philosophy available to him; and when she left the room to make the inquiries concerning Arabella, he wrung his hands, and wept. "Yes," he said, "yes, I am indeed alone now--a wreck--a straw upon the ocean of society. The sooner I drift in the grave now, the better for me, and all who pity the old man. Oh, Johanna--Johanna. My child--my beautiful, why did you not wait until I was dead before you left me? Then I should have slept calmly, and known nothing; but now my days and nights will be dreams of horror." The door opened and the aunt re-appeared. "Arabella is not within," she said, "and has not been seen for some hours now. When last seen her manner was evidently perturbed. But now, Mr. Oakley, sit down by me and tell me as clearly and as distinctly, all you know and all you fear. There are few evils in this world but there are some remedies for, and you shall have my true and calm opinion if you will tell me all." It is something astonishing, and yet one of the most ordinary of mental phenomena, to note what a power a cool and clear intellect will exert over one that is distracted and full of woe and clamorous grief. Mr. Oakley did sit down by the side of Arabella's aunt, and he told her all that happened the girl of which, of course, was the real or supposed appearance of Johanna in Fleet Street, in male attire. The collateral circumstances, such as the hurried and half frantic farewell of him in the shop by Johanna, and the misrepresentation by Arabella, that she (Johanna) was going to stop there, evidently made a deep impression upon the aunt. Her countenance changed visibly, as she said faintly-- "God help us all." "Lost! lost," cried Oakley. "Yes, you--even you, hopeful as you were, and hopeful as you would fain have made me--even you, now that you know all, feel that she is lost. God, indeed, only can help me now." "No, Mr. Oakley," said the aunt, rallying, "I will not yet trust to appearances, although I own that they are bad. I will come to no conclusion until I have seen Arabella, and got the truth from her. It is quite clear that there is some secret between the two young creatures. It is quite clear that there is something going on that we know nothing of, and to speculate upon which may only involve us in an inextricable labyrinth of conjectures. I say, there is some secret, but it may not be a guilty one." "Not--not guilty?" "No, Mr. Oakley, there are many degrees of indiscretion to pass through ere the gulf of guilt is reached at last. I have faith in Arabella--I have faith in Johanna; and even now, admitting for a moment the truth of what that man whom you brought with you here, reports, Johanna may only have to be blamed for folly." "Do--do you think he did so see her?" "I doubt it much." "Mother," said a lad of fifteen, coming hastily into the room. "Mother I--" He paused upon seeing Mr. Oakley there, and stammered out some apology-- "He had only come to tell his mother that a whole suit of his clothes were missing from his room and that he could find them nowhere, and he could not make it out; and one of his hats was gone too, and a pair of shoes, and--" Old Oakley fell back in his chair with a groan. "She has them," he said. "She has them. My child, whom I shall never see again, has them." CHAPTER XC. MORNING IN FLEET STREET AGAIN. Another day has dawned upon the great city--another sun has risen upon the iniquities of hosts of men, but upon no amount of cold-blooded, hardened, pitiless criminality that could come near to that of Sweeney Todd. No, he certainly held the position of being in London, then, the worst of the worst. But who shall take upon himself now to say that in this pest-ridden, loyalty-mad, abuse-loving city of London, there are not some who are more than even Sweeney Todd's equals? Who shall say that hidden scenes of guilt and horror are not transacting all around us, that would, in their black iniquity, far transcend anything that Sweeney Todd has done or dreamt of doing? Let the imagination run riot in its fanciful conjectures of what human nature is capable of, and in London there shall be found those who will reduce to practice the worst frenzied deeds that can be conceived. Yes, the dawn of another day had come, and Todd had made all his preparations. Nothing was wanting, but the match that was to set Fleet Street, he fondly hoped, in a blaze. His own house, he felt quite certain, could not escape. It would be a charred mass long before any effectual means could be procured to check the devastation of the flames, and then as the good ship spread its swelling sails to the wind to bear him to another shore, he should be lighted upon his way by the glare of the great fire in Fleet Street, that no one would be able to guess the origin of. So he told himself. Short-sighted mortals that we are! How little Todd, with all his cleverness--all his far-seeing thrift and fancy--dreamt of the volcano upon which he stood. How little he for one moment imagined it was possible that the sword of justice hung over him by so slender a thread. How he would have glared at any one who might have told him that he only moved about by sufferance; and yet such was the fact. Sir Richard Blunt could put his hand upon him at any moment, and say, "Todd, you are my prisoner. To Newgate--to Newgate, from whence only you will emerge to your trial, and to the scaffold!" No, Todd, good easy soul, had not the slightest idea of his real position upon that morning. He waited rather impatiently for the arrival of Johanna to take down the shutters, and she urged upon Sir Richard Blunt and her friends at the fruiterer's, the propriety of her going and doing that morning piece of work; but they would not hear of it. She at length used an argument which made Sir Richard adopt another course than keeping her at the fruiterer's until Todd should get out of all patience and open his shop himself. "It is possible," she said, "that I may be subjected to ill-usage if I am not there; and then being compelled to call for aid as I might, you would feel that you were forced to take Todd into custody before the time at which you have resolved so to do." "That is true," said Sir Richard; and then, after some little consideration, he added, "I have a plan that will save you both ways. You shall be in time, and yet you shall not take down Todd's shutters." They could none of them conceive at the moment how Sir Richard intended to manage this; but they quickly saw that it was easy enough. Opening just a little way one of the windows of the first floor at the fruiterer's, he blew a whistle that he had suspended round his neck by a small chain. In the course of a few moments, Crotchet walked into the shop. "Governor here?" he said. "I heard him a chirping for me just now--didn't I?" "Yes, Crotchet," said the fruiterer, who knew him quite well. "Step up-stairs; you will find him there." Crotchet was soon in the presence of Sir Richard, and Johanna, and the fruiterer's daughter. He made a rough sort of salute to the whole party, and then remarked again that he had heard the governor a chirping, he rather thought. "Yes, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "you're quite right. You know this young lady here?"--indicating Johanna. "Reether!" said Crotchet. "Well, then, you will seem to be passing Todd's shop when she commences taking down the shutters; and, seeing that they are too heavy for such a mere boy, you good-naturedly take them down for him--you understand? It is the last time that they will be taken down for Todd, I think." "All's right," said Crotchet; "I understands--it's as good as done. Lord! what a scrouge there will be at the hanging o' that barber, to be sure, unless he manages to cheat the gallows; and I takes notice in my _hexperieace_ as them 'ere wery bad 'uns seldom does try that 'ere game on, with all their bounce." "Now, Miss Oakley," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, then, your time has come; and, as Crotchet will take down the shutters, you may as well go over at once. I think you thoroughly understand what you have to do--and if Todd asks you where you lodged, you had better say that the servants here offered to let you sleep by the kitchen fire, and you accepted the offer--for he may be watching for you now, and see you come out of this house, for all we know to the contrary. And now remember, without any reference to my plans or what I would rather do, if you feel yourself, or fancy you feel yourself in the least danger, take the means I have pointed out to you of summoning aid, and aid will come to you." "I will," said Johanna. "Heaven speed you, then! This will be the last day, I think, of the career of that bold bad man. I intend to make such an effort to get under his house to-day, as I hope and expect will enable me to come at the grand secret, namely, of how he disposes of his victims so quickly--for that there is some wonderful jugglery in it, I am certain." Johanna took a kind leave of the fruiterer's daughter, who had lavished upon her all those attentions which, in Johanna's position, became so precious from one of her own sex; and then, assuming a careless manner, with her hat put on in a boyish slovenly sort of way, she boldly crossed the road to Sweeney Todd's. He had been watching through a hole in the upper part of one of the shutters. In a moment all sorts of ugly suspicions took possession of his mind. What could Charley Green, his errand-boy from Oxford, who knew no one, and was unknown to all London, doing at a tradesman's house in Fleet Street at such an hour in the morning? How came he to know the people of that house? How came he to dream of going there? Todd was boiling with anger and curiosity when he opened the door and admitted Johanna, a thing that he was unmindful enough to do before she knocked for admission, which alone would have been amply sufficient to point out to her that she had been watched from some peep-hole in the house. He stretched out his hand and dragged her in. He controlled his temper sufficiently to enable him to gratify his curiosity. He made quite certain that Charley Green would tell him some story of where he had been, which should not convict the fruiterer. By the light of a miserable candle that Todd had burning in the dark closed shop, he glared at Johanna. "Well--well," he said. "A good night's rest, Charley?" "Tolerable, sir!" "Humph! ha! And did you find a place to sleep at cheaply and decently, my good lad, eh?" "I was very fortunate indeed, sir." "Oh, you were very fortunate indeed?" "Yes, sir. I am, through being country bred I suppose, fond of fruit, so when I left you last night, I bought an apple at a shop opposite." "Oh, at Mr. a--a--" "I don't know the name, sir," said Johanna, "but I can run out and ascertain, I dare say." Todd gave a low sort of growl. He did not know if he were being foiled by innocence or by art. With an impatient gesture, he added-- "Never mind the apples, I wish to know where you slept, Charley, that I may judge if it was a proper place, there are so many wicked people in London." "Are there, sir?" "Bah! Go on. Where did you sleep?" "Well, sir, as there was a kind tempered-looking servant in the fruiterer's shop, I thought she might be able to tell me of some place where I could lodge, and when she had heard my story--" "Story--story? What story?" "How destitute I was, sir, and how kind you had been to employ me without a character, and how happy and contented I was in your service, sir. So when she had heard all that, she said, 'It is too late for you to go lodging-hunting to-night. There is an old bench in our kitchen, and if you like you may sleep on that.'" Todd gave a growl. "And so you slept there?" "Yes, sir." He paced the shop for some few moments in deep thought, knitting his brows and trying to make something out of what he had heard, contrary to what it seemed; but Johanna's story was too straightforward and simple for him to find any flaw in it, and after a few moments he felt compelled to admit to himself that it must be the truth. Turning to her with something of the amount of amiability one might expect from a bear, he said-- "Open the shop!" "Yes, sir, directly." Johanna propped the door wide open, and then having, by the dim light of the miserable candle, found a screw which fastened a bar across the shutters, she speedily released it, and then went into the street. At that moment Crotchet came along, whistling in so thoroughly careless a manner, that even Johanna thought he had forgotten his instructions and was about to pass the shop. She had her hand upon the bar when he stopped, saying, in an off-handed manner-- "Why little 'un, them 'ere shutters is too much for you, I'll give you a helping hand. Lor bless you, don't say anything about it. It ain't no sort o' trouble to me my little chap. Here goes." Mr. Crotchet began opening Todd's shop with such a fury and a vengeance, that the clatter and the speed with which the operation was being accomplished, brought Todd out of the parlour to see what on earth Charley was about. When he saw Crotchet coming in with three shutters in his arms at once, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and he roared out-- "What's this? Who are you?" "Easy--easy," said Crotchet. "Don't get in the way old gentleman. Easy. There now!" Crotchet managed to give Todd such a rap on the side of the head with the shutters, that a thousand lights danced in his eyes, and he writhed with pain. "Well, I never," said Crotchet, "I hope I haven't hurt you, old man? You see I was a passing, and seed as these here shutters was rather a bit top-heavy for your little son here, and I thought I'd give him a helping hand. To be sure he didn't want me to, but you see I would, and perhaps as your old head is getting better, you wouldn't mind a pint of beer, old gentleman?" "You atrocious villain," yelled Todd, "I'll cut your throat. I'll polish you off. I'll--I'll--would you like to be shaved?" "I've had a scrape already," said Crotchet, "and if you won't stand the beer, why you won't, and there's no bones broke arter all. Good morning, old Grampus. Good morning my little chap, I wishes you good luck; and if I am passing again, I don't mind lending you a helping hand, though the governor is about one o' the ugliest, nastiest tempered brutes, I ever came near in all my life." Crotchet went away whistling with great composure. CHAPTER XCI. MR. TODD'S FIRST CUSTOMERS. Todd seized Johanna by the arm, and dragged her into the shop. He locked the door, and then confronting her, he said-- "How kind it was of your friend, to take down the shutters for you, Charley Green." "My friend, sir?" "Yes, your friend who declined being shaved, you know, because you told him last night that he had better go to some other shop." "Really, sir," said Johanna, "I don't know what you mean." "Come, come, Charley, confess that you do know some one in London, as well as you know me. Confess, now, that people are so fond of interfering in other folk's affairs, that you have been set on to watch me. I shall not be at all angry, indeed, I shall not, I assure you. Not the least; only tell me the truth. That is all I ask of you, my boy, and you will find that it is no bad thing to make a friend of Sweeney Todd." "If I had, sir, anything to confess," replied Johanna, "except that at times I do feel that I wish I had not run away from my mother-in-law at Oxford, I should soon tell it all to you." "And so that is all, Charley?" "All at present, sir." "What a good lad. What an exemplary lad. Light the shop fire, if you please, Charley. Humph! I am wrong," muttered Todd to himself; "but yet I will cut his throat before I leave to-night. It will be safer and more satisfactory to do so, and besides, he has given me some uneasiness, and I hate him for his quiet gentle ways. I hate everybody. I would cut the throats of all the world if I could. Light the fire quickly, you young hound, will you?" Johanna trembled. She felt that anything but a blow from Todd she could put up with, but in her pocket she kept a jagged piece of flint stone, which would go through the window in a moment; and she felt that through she must throw it, if he only so much as raised his hand against her. The fire blazed up, and Todd at that moment had no further excuse for abusing Charley. With a sulky growl, he said-- "You can call me out if any one comes," and then he retired to his back parlour, closing and locking the door as usual. The morning felt rather raw, and Johanna was glad to warm her hands at the fire in the shop, which soon burnt brightly; but she did not venture upon keeping up a bright blaze for long. Todd's mode of managing the fire, was always to keep a dry turf smouldering upon the top of it, from which ample heat enough was emitted to keep the shaving-pot upon the simmer. She now placed upon the fire one of those turfs, a small pile of which were always ready in the corner of the shop. She had scarcely done so, when the shop door opened, and a man walked in. "Is Mr. Todd in, my little man?" he said. "Yes, sir. Do you wish to see him?" Johanna wished, if it were possible, to discourage visitors, but the man sat down at once in the shaving chair, and placed his hat upon the floor, adding as he did so-- "Yes, a right down good shave I want. As good as if _St. Dunstan_ himself wanted one." The manner in which the man pronounced the words St. Dunstan was so marked that Johanna felt convinced at once he was a friend, and she felt quite a gush of pleasure at the thought that Sir Richard Blunt had such a continual supervising eye upon her safety. She felt that she must not look at this man otherwise than as a stranger. She felt that the least word of recognition might be fatal both to him and to her. She knew that Todd had some small orifice through which from his parlour he peeped into the shop, and that his eye was now upon her she did not doubt. "I will call Mr. Todd, sir," she said in a moment. "He is close at hand." "Thank you," replied the man. "I sit here as comfortable as _St. Dunstan_." "Yes," said Johanna, as she heard the watch-word of safety and friendship once more uttered by that man who was in truth one of Sir Richard's most confidential and trustworthy officers. She at once now proceeded to the door of the parlour, and tapped at it until Todd opened it, and popped his head out with a grim smile. "Oh, Charley my dear," he said, "does a gentleman want me?" "Yes, sir." "A-hem! Good morning, sir," added Todd, as he advanced, tying on his apron. "A shave, I presume, sir? A close shave, sir? I do think of all the luxuries in life, sir, a good close shave--what I call a regular polish off, sir--is one of the greatest in a small way. Charley, ain't it near breakfast time, my good lad?" "Yes, sir," said Johanna. "I daresay it is." "Very good. The hot-water. Thank you my dear--you will take two pence from the till, Charley, and get yourself somewhere about the market a--Well now?" A thin man in a cloak made his appearance at the door of the shop, and taking off his hat, made a bow, as he said-- "I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to the pious Mr. Todd?" "My name is Todd, sir. What is it?" "I am truly delighted," said the tall thin man sitting down upon the nearest seat, and placing his hat upon his knees. "I am truly delighted to see you. Pray go on shaving that gentleman, as I shall be some time." "Some time about what?" almost screamed Todd. "Finding the tract, from which I purpose reading to you a few extracts upon the all-important subject of the election of grace, and the insufficiency of works." Todd stropped a razor, and glared at the intruder, who, fitting on his nose with great precision a pair of blue spectacles, began rummaging in his hat. "Humph! this is it. No--this is not it. Well, I thought I had it here, and so I have. This is--no. This is an imaginary and highly religious discourse upon saints, and _St. Dunstan_ in particular." Johanna knew in a moment that this other man was a friend likewise. He, too, had pronounced the words St. Dunstan in a peculiar manner. Todd suddenly became quite calm. "Sir," he said, "I take it as a very particular favour, indeed, that you should have called here upon such an errand, and I only beg that you will not hurry yourself in the least; I can go on shaving this gentleman, and perhaps when he is gone, you will permit me the honour of operating upon you?" "With great pleasure," replied the man. "Dear me, where can the tract be? Is this it? No--this is about the pious milkmaid, who always put up a prayer for the milking-pail, to prevent the cow from kicking it over. Dear me, where can it be? Oh, is this it? No--this is the story of the pious barber's boy, who, when he had an opportunity, went over the way and found his father there! Dear me, where can it be?" Johanna started. "The barber's boy," she thought, "who went over the way and found his father there? Those words are for me." She was now in quite a fever of anxiety to leave the shop, for she did not doubt but that by some means her father had heard of her position, and she felt that then nothing but the actual sight of her in perfect health and safety would satisfy him. But she dared not show the anxiety she felt. She bent over the fire, and affected to be stirring the turf. "You can go and get your breakfast, Charley," said Todd. "Thank you, sir." Johanna would not betray any haste, but she shook with agitation as she neared the door; and then she recollected that she had not taken the twopence from the till as she had been told to do, and that the circumstance of not doing so might create suspicion. She crept back and possessed herself of the pence. Todd watched her with the eyes of a demon. "Are you going, my dear Charley?" he said. "Yes, sir." She left the shop, and then her first impulse would have induced her to hurry over the road to the fruiterer's shop, but her eyes fell upon the figure of Sir Richard Blunt standing in the fruiterer's doorway. He moved his hand signifying that she should go towards the market, and she did so. He quickly followed her. She did not look behind her, until she was quite in the old Fleet-market; and then, just as she looked round, Sir Richard Blunt touched her arm. "You understood my message?" he said. "Yes. My father." "Exactly. It is concerning him. It appears that some busy-body, a man I understand named Lupin, has seen you in your present disguise, and informed him of it." "I know the man. He is one of those saintly hypocrites, who make religion the cloak for their vices." "Yes, there are not a few of them," said Sir Richard. "They revel in vice, and daily try to make the Almighty an accomplice in their offences against society. Well, then, Johanna, this man has tortured your father with an account of your being in this disguise." "It would torture him." "Naturally, without he knew all the reasons for it; but it appears that he went to the house of Miss Wilmot, and after some trouble saw her, when she, finding that he knew quite enough to make him wretched, and not enough to explain your position, frankly told him all, and brought him to me." "It was the best." "Most decidedly it was, and I need only say that he is anxiously waiting to see you, at our friend the fruiterer's house; but as it would not do for you to go direct from Todd's door to there, I have intercepted you, you see, to take you by a safer route." "How good, and kind, and considerate you are to me," said Johanna, as she looked up in the face of the magistrate, while tears started to her eyes. "Without you how miserably I must have failed in this adventure. Todd would no doubt before this have discovered me, and taken my life." "Don't say a word about that," replied Sir Richard. "Recollect that after all it was my duty to protect you; and if I have been a little more anxious than usual in the performance of that duty, it is because I admire your heroic constancy and courage, and hope to see you happy yet." "Alas! the sun of my happiness has set for ever. I can only now pray to Heaven, that it will endow me with patience to bear its decrees with serenity." "Well," added Sir Richard, "we will say no more upon that subject, just now. Come with me, and I will take you to your father by a safer way than just crossing the road from Todd's shop to the fruiterer's." He led her down a court in Bridge-street, and thence through a complete labyrinth of passages, some of which still exist at the back of Fleet Street, and some of which have been swept away, until they reached a door in a dingy-looking wall, at which he paused. "This is the back of the fruiterer's house," he said, "and I dare say some one is waiting for me." He tapped three times distinctly at the door, and then it was opened immediately by the fruiterer's daughter, who with a smile clasped Johanna in her arms. "Welcome," she said. "Welcome once again." "Ah, my dear friend," said Johanna, "I shall learn to bless the circumstances, commencing in affliction as they did, that have brought me acquainted with such kind hearts." They all three now crossed a little paved yard, and were soon in the fruiterer's house. "Where is my dear father?" said Johanna. "Where is he?" "This way," said the young girl, who took so great an interest in the fate of Johanna. "This way, dear. He is in our room up stairs, and will be no less delighted to see you, then you will be delighted to see him." "I am sure of that," said Johanna. She ran up the stairs with more speed that the fruiterer's daughter could make, and in another moment was in her father's arms. CHAPTER XCII. MR. OAKLEY'S ANXIETIES MUCH DIMINISH. For some few moments after this meeting, neither Mr. Oakley nor Johanna could speak. At length the old spectacle-maker was just able to say-- "Great God, I thank thee, that once again I hold my darling to my heart." "Father--father," said Johanna. "Did you think for one moment that I could have left you?" "No my dear, no; but I was bewildered by all I heard. I was half mad I think until I was told all; and now we will go home, my pretty darling, at once, and we will have no secrets from each other. Dear heart, what a pretty boy you make to be sure. But come--come. I am in an agony until I have you home again." "Father, listen to me." "Yes my child--my darling. Yes." "If it had not been for Sir Richard Blunt I should now have been with the dead, and you and I would never have met again, but in another world, father. I owe him, therefore, you will say, some gratitude." "Some gratitude, my darling? We owe him a world of gratitude. Alas, we shall never be able to repay him, but we will pray that he may be as happy as his noble heart deserves, my dear. God bless him!" "And, father, we will do any little thing he asks of us." "We will fly to obey his commands, my dear, in all things. Night or day, he will only have to speak to us, and what he says shall be our law." "Then, father, he asks of me, for the cause of public justice, that I should go back to Todd's, and wear this dress for the remainder only of to-day. Can we refuse him?" "Alas! Alas!" said the old man, "more trouble--more anxiety--more danger." "No, father. No danger. He will watch over me, and I have faith that Heaven is with me." "Can I part with you again?" "Yes, for such an object. Do not, father, say no to me, for you may say, and I will obey you; but with your own free consent, let me go now, and do the bidding of the great and the good man who has saved me to once more rest upon your breast, and kiss your cheek." The old man shook for a moment, and then he said-- "Go, go, my child. Go, and take with you my blessing, and the blessing of God, for surely that must be yours; but, oh! be careful. Remember, my darling, that upon your safety hangs my life; for if I were to hear that anything had happened to you, it would kill me. I have nothing now but you in the world to live for." "Oh, father, you do not mean to tell me that my mother is no more?" "No, my dear. No.--Ask me nothing now. You shall know all at another time. Only tell me when I shall see you again." "At sunset," said Sir Richard Blunt, as he stepped into the room at this moment. "At sunset, I hope, Mr. Oakley; and in the meantime be assured of her perfect safety. I offer my life as security for hers, and would not hesitate to sacrifice it for her." The manner of the magistrate was such that no one could for one moment doubt that he spoke the genuine sentiments at his heart; and such words, coming from such a quarter, it may be well supposed were calculated to produce a great impression. "I am satisfied," said Mr. Oakley. "I should be more than an unreasonable man if I were not fully convinced now of the safety of Johanna." When she had got her father to say this much, Johanna was anxious to be off, and she signified as much to Sir Richard Blunt, who fully acquiesced in the propriety of the measure, for already her absence had been quite long enough from the shop, and Todd might not be in the best of humours at her return. After one more embrace, Johanna tore herself from her father's arms, and followed the magistrate from the fruiterer's house, by the same route which had conducted her to it. On their way, he explained to her some little matters of which she was in ignorance, or at least concerning which she could only conjecture. "Both the persons, whom you left in Todd's shop," he said, "belong to my force; and the one only went for the protection of the other, as I, of course, surmised that you would be at once sent out of the way upon some real or mock errand, to give Todd opportunity of committing a murder. My great object is to find out precisely how he does the deed; and the man who came in to be shaved was to make what observations of the place he could during the ceremony, while the other distracted Todd's attention." "I understand," said Johanna. "I of course knew that they were friends when they mentioned the watchword of St. Dunstan to me." "Exactly. I gave them instructions to seize the very first opportunity of letting you hear the watch-word. Are there any large cupboards in the shop?" "Yes. There is one of great size." "Would it, do you think, hold two men?" "Oh, yes. Perchance you, who are tall, might have to stoop a little; but with that exception as to height, there is most ample space." "That will do then. I cannot tell you, of course, the exact hour; but be it when it may, the moment Todd leaves the shop to day to go upon any business out of doors, two persons from me will come to hide themselves in that cupboard." "They will use the watch-word?" "Yes, certainly; and you will so dispose any movable article in the shop, as to take away any idea that the cupboard had been visited, or in the slightest degree interfered with." "That I can easily do." "Well, here we are, then, in Fleet-street again; and mind all this that I have planned has nothing to do with your proceedings to call for assistance, if any special or unforeseen danger should occur to you." Johanna, upon this, showed him the jagged stone she had in her pocket, to cast through the window. "Yes, that would do," said Sir Richard; "but I would gladly supply you with arms. Do you think you could manage a pistol, if you had one?" "Yes. I have often looked at some fire-arms that my father had in his shop to sell once, and I have seen them used." "I am glad of that," continued Sir Richard. "Here are two very small pistols loaded. They may be thoroughly depended upon in a room; but they would not carry any distance, in consequence of the shortness of the barrel. If, however, you should be in any sudden and extreme danger from Todd, anywhere else than in the shop, or there, if you are pushed for time, one of these fired in his face will be tolerably effective. You can keep them both in your pocket." The magistrate, as he spoke, handed to Johanna a pair of very small, but exquisitely made pistols, encircled with silver mounting, and she carefully concealed them, feeling still more secure from any treachery upon the part of Todd, now that she held his life as much, if not more, in her hands, than he held hers in his. [Illustration: Sir Richard Gives Johanna Pistols For Her Protection.] She shook her kind friend warmly by the hand, and then hastened to the barber's shop. As she got near to it, she saw the tall thin man who had so perplexed Todd about the religious tract, come out, and Todd followed him to the door, looking after him with such an expression of deadly malice, that Johanna could not but pause a moment to look at him. He suddenly turned his eyes towards her, and saw her. He beckoned with his finger, and she entered the shop. "Well, Charley," he said, with quite an affectation of good humour. "You are a good lad." "I am glad you think so, sir," she replied, seeing that Todd paused for an answer. "I cannot but think so. I shall have to look over some accounts in the parlour this morning, and if anybody--any female, I mean--comes for me, say I have gone to the city, and that, after that, I said I would call in Bell Yard before I came home. You well remember that, Bell Yard. Be vigilant and discreet, and you shall have the reward that I have all along intended for you, and which you should not miss upon any account." "I am much beholden to you, sir. But if any one should come to be shaved while you are in the parlour, what shall I say to them?" "You can say I have gone to the Temple to dress Mr. Block's new wig, if you like, so that you got rid of them, for I must not be disturbed on any consideration." "Very well, sir." "Put another turf on the fire, Charley, and make yourself quite comfortable." What inconsistent amenity this was upon the part of Todd. It seemed as though he had turned over a new leaf completely, and intended to put an end to all suspicions, if he had any, of Charley Green; and after that--after that, Todd still preserved his kind intention of cutting his throat with one of the razors. "The very best thing you can do with people," muttered Todd to himself, as he went into the parlour, "is to cut their throats as soon as they cease to be useful to you, for from that moment, if you do not put them out of the way, they are almost certain to be mischievous to you." What a pleasant lot of maxims Todd had, and what a beautiful system of moral philosophy his was, to be sure! One thing was quite evident, and that was that he fully expected and dreaded the visit of Mrs. Lovett upon money matters. It will be recollected that ten o'clock was named as about the hour when that lady was to bring in her little account in the partnership affair of Todd, Lovett, & Co.; and as he (Todd) had for once in his life been fairly bothered to make any further excuses to so pertinacious a creditor as Mrs. Lovett, he had hit upon the plan of trying to put her off during the day by one means or another, and at night he would, at an earlier hour than he had before intended, be off and away. Everything was in readiness, and he considered Mrs. Lovett his only hindrance--a danger he scarcely thought her--for, at the very worst, he could not conceive that even her passion would be sufficient to induce her to sacrifice herself, for the sake of revenge upon him. His house was prepared so that a match would at any moment suffice to give the touch that would set it in a blaze; and then, as he said--"Who shall say where the conflagration among the old well-dried wooden houses of Fleet-street may reach to?" His passage in the Hamburgh ship was secure--the fearful proceeds of his life of rapine and murder were in her hold. How uncommonly safe Todd thought himself, and how well he considered he had managed his affairs. Short-sighted mortals that we are! How often we mistake the shifting morass of difficulty for the _terra firma_ of prosperity, and how often do we weep for those events, which, in themselves and their results, form the ground-work of the happiness of a life! Truly we are "Such things as air is made of." If Todd now for one moment could have imagined that his plunder, which he believed was so safe on board the Hamburgh ship, was actually, on the contrary, at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Craven-street, what would have been his sensations? Would he have laughed and sniggered over the bumper of brandy he was holding to his lips in his parlour? No, indeed. If he could but have guessed that the ship in which he had intended to embark, was then twenty-four hours on her route, and battling with the surging waves of the German Ocean, how would he have felt! Strange to say, he never had felt so confident of success and triumph as upon that day. He could have said with Romeo in Mantua-- "My bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne," while, like Romeo, he was on the eve of a blow that at once was to topple to the dust the very structure of all his hopes. He of course fully expected a visit from Mrs. Lovett, but he did hope that she would take an answer from Charley, and go away again. If she did not he trusted to the inspiration of the moment to be able to say something to her which might have the effect of producing that which he wanted only, namely, delay. CHAPTER XCIII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S SUBTERRANEAN EXPEDITION. While Todd is thus waiting anxiously for the arrival of his old ally in iniquity, but who now he considered to be his most deadly foe, and his worst possible hindrance to carry out his deeply--by far too deeply--laid schemes, we shall have time to take a peep at some proceedings of Sir Richard Blunt's, which are rather entertaining, and decidedly important. Johanna had not been long gone from the fruiterer's shop, before Sir Richard said to the fruiterer-- "If you are ready we will go now to the church at once. I have left quite a sufficient guard over the safety of Miss Oakley, and besides this affair will not take us I daresay above a couple of hours." "Not so long I think," replied the fruiterer. "I am quite ready, and no doubt your men are in the church by this time. They are apt to be punctual." "They would not suit me for long if they were not," replied Sir Richard. "Punctuality is the one grand principle which is the hinge of all my business, and the secret of by far the larger portion of my success." They walked rapidly up Fleet Street together, until they came opposite to St. Dunstan's Church, and then they crossed the road and tapped lightly at a little wicket in the great door of the building. The wicket was immediately opened by a man who touched his hat to Sir Richard. "All right?" asked the magistrate, "and every one here?" "Yes, sir. Every one." "That will do then. Be sure you fasten the door in the inside, so that that troublesome beadle, if he should be smitten with a desire to visit the church, cannot get in; and if he should come and be troublesome, take him into custody at once, and shut him him up anywhere that may keep him out of harm's way for the next twelve hours or so." "Yes, sir." This man, whose business it evidently was to stay by the door, carefully fastened it, and Sir Richard Blunt with his friend from Fleet Street advanced into the body of the church. He had not gone far before a pew opened, and six persons came out. One of these was a well-dressed elderly man, who said, as the magistrate approached him-- "I have made all the necessary observations, Sir Richard, and am quite easy and confident that I can direct your men how to excavate directly to Todd's house." "Thank you Sir Christopher," said the magistrate. "I am very much indebted to you for the trouble you have taken in this affair, which I think is now near its climax." "I hope so, Sir Richard. This way if you please." The whole party now proceeded to the same slab of stone which the magistrate had had before removed, for the purpose of making his inquiries below the surface of the earth. The slab was standing on its edge against a column of the nearest aisle, and the deep dark opening to the vaults was before them. "There is but little foul air," said Sir Christopher. "The stone has been off they tell me many hours. Shall I go first, or will you, Sir Richard?" "Allow me," said the magistrate; "should there be any risks, it is my duty first to encounter them." "As you please, Sir Richard. As you please, sir. I willingly give place to you, because I know, if there be any difficulty how much better calculated you are than any one here to overcome it." The magistrate made a slight bow to the compliment, and then taking a link in his hand, he descended the stairs leading to the vaults of St. Dunstan's. It will be well recollected that he had been in those vaults before, and that he had made certain discoveries, which to a vast extent implicated Mrs. Lovett in the crimes of Sweeney Todd; but his object upon this present visit was of a different character. In plain language, this was an attempt to ascertain if there were any underground modes of communication between Todd's house, and the vaults of old St. Dunstan's church. That there were some such subterraneous passages had become, after the most mature consideration, a firm conviction upon the mind of Sir Richard Blunt, and hence he had resolved upon such an exploration of the spot as should confirm or dispel the idea for ever. Those whom he had with him, were all persons upon whom he could thoroughly depend; and the ancient architect, who had given his services, was to point out the exact direction in which to proceed. Upon reaching the foot of the stone steps, instead of traversing the passage that led in the direction of Bell Yard, which he had formerly done, Sir Richard turned directly the other way, saying as he did so-- "This, I presume, will be our direction?" "We shall see in a moment," said the architect. "I have taken the bearings so exactly, that I can point out to you the precise course." He forced into the ground to a sufficient depth to make it stand steady, his walking stick, and then removing a little gold cap from the top of it, he disclosed a small compass, which after some oscillations, steadied itself. "Then," said Sir Christopher, "through that wall would lead in a direct line to Todd's house." "This will assist us," said Sir Richard. "We will, before we actually begin excavating, endeavour to find some of the vaults which may run in that direction, and so perhaps save ourselves an immense amount of labour." "Very good," said Sir Christopher Wren, "I can at any time give you, from any place, the exact bearing of Todd's house, for I have it fixed in my mind, and can read it off from the compass plate in a moment." They now at once made their way into the vaults, and by dint of keeping to the right hand, they avoided going much out of their course. These vaults were of great extent, and although some of them, owing to being full of the dead, had been bricked up, yet they were very easily opened, and in many cases a direct thoroughfare for considerable distances was affected. Ever and anon the compass was appealed to, and showed them that they were approaching Todd's house. One of the party, a well-dressed gentlemanly-looking man, now stepped forward, and said to Sir Richard-- "Here, according to the plans of the church, the vaults end." "Then we can get no further?" "Not an inch, Sir Richard." "Then here commences in reality our mission, which is to try to discover some communication between the lower part of the house occupied by Sweeney Todd, and these vaults. Let us each use our utmost discrimination to affect that object." He lighted for himself a small lantern, and commenced a rigorous search of the walls, but for some few minutes could find nothing to excite the least suspicion. At length he paused at one portion of one of the vaults, where a kind of wooden tomb had been erected close to the wall. A large piece of dirty oak was placed upright against the earth work. "If there be any mode of leaving this vault, but the one we have entered," he said, "it is here." At these words, so significant as they were of some discovery having been made by Sir Richard, all those who were with him made their way to that spot, and from their several lanterns, a glare of light was thrown upon the wooden monument. "This," said the person who had before spoken of the plan of the vaults, "this is the monument of a Sir Giles Horseman, who was killed by accident and interred here about twenty-two years ago. It was a very unusual thing to make any such erection in a vault, but his widow wished it, and the authorities saw no good reason for interfering." The monument had evidently consisted of an oaken kind of square ornamental tomb affixed to the wall, and extending out about six feet into the vault. That portion of it which did so extend into the vault had fallen in, but the piece of oak which had been originally affixed to the wall there remained. "What leads you to suppose, Sir Richard," said the architect, "that this place will show us anything?" "This," said the magistrate, as he picked up from amid the rubbish of the broken monument, a nearly new glove of thick leather. "How did this get here?" The glove was passed from hand to hand, and duly examined. No one owned it, and the only remark that could be made upon it was, that it was of an immense size. "Then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "since it belongs to none of us, I give it as my opinion that it belongs to Sweeney Todd, and has fallen from his hand in this place." "It must be so," said the fruiterer. "I know of no hand in the City of London that such a glove would fit but his." "But how came he here?" said Sir Christopher. "That is the question. How could he get here." "We shall see," said the magistrate. "Lend me that small iron crow-bar, Jenkins." The crow-bar was handed to Sir Richard Blunt, and at one touch with it down come the piece of oak that was against the wall. That was conclusive, for, instead of the solid wall beyond it, there was a deep crevice or opening just sufficient to enable one person to go through it. "This is the place," said the magistrate. There was a death-like silence among all present. Every ear was on the stretch, and every eye was fixed upon the narrow opening in the wall of the vault. It would almost seem as though every one expected Sweeney Todd to appear with one of his victims on his back that he had just, to use his own expressive phraseology, succeeded in polishing off. Sir Christopher stuck up his compass again, and it was his voice that first broke the stillness. "The route is direct," he said. "To Todd's house?" asked Sir Richard. "Yes, direct." "Then all we have got to do is to follow it. It is an enterprise perhaps attended with some danger, and certainly with much horror, I think. Now, I do not ask any one to follow me, but go I will." "I will follow you, Sir Richard," said the fruiterer. "I reside in Fleet Street, and rather than not ferret out such a villain as Todd from the neighbourhood, I would run any risks. I am with you, sir." "And I," said Sir Christopher Wren. "And I--and I," cried every one. "Come on," said the magistrate. "Come on. I will take the small lantern, and if I meet Todd, my great aim will be to take him a prisoner, not to kill him; and mind all of you, if by any chance a scuffle with that man should ensue, it would be a scandalous cheating of the gallows to do him any injury that might even delay his execution. Now, come on." It required no small amount of real courage to lead the way in that expedition into the very bowels of the earth as it were; but with the small lantern elevated as far above his head as the roof of the passage would admit of, Sir Richard stepped cautiously and slowly on. The excavation in which they were was roughly but well made. At intervals of about twelve feet each, there always occurred two upright pieces of plank supporting a third piece on the roof, and firmly wedged in, so that there was but little likelihood of a fall of earth from above. Suddenly a scuffling noise was heard, and Sir Richard for a moment paused. "What is it?" said the fruiterer. "Only some rats," he replied. "I daresay there are plenty of such gentlemen in this quarter of the world, and probably they never saw so large a party here before. They are scudding along in a regiment here." After going on for about twenty paces further, Sir Richard found a door completely blocking up the passage. By dint of careful investigation of it, he found it was locked, and the key in the other side of the lock. He pushed it through with some difficulty, and then, with a skeleton key, opened the door in the course of a few moments. "Come on," he said. "Ah! this is a different place." They now found themselves in some regularly constructed vaults, arched with stone, down the sides of which there rolled long streams of moisture. They were all quite at a loss to know what place they had got into, for they knew of nothing of the sort beneath Fleet Street, and they gazed about them with wonder. CHAPTER XCIV. IN THE VAULTS. "Who on earth would have thought of vaults like these in such a situation?" said the fruiterer. "They are," said Sir Christopher, "undoubtedly the remains of some public building, which probably at a very distant date has occupied the site above. They are well built, and really of considerable architectural beauty in some respects. I am quite pleased at the opportunity of seeing such a place." "It looks," remarked the magistrate, "as though it had been long hidden from the world. It is such men as Sweeney Todd who find out more underground secrets in a month than we should in a lifetime; but I hope that we shall find out all his cleverness and most abhorrent iniquities now." The air in this stone place was by no means very bad, and indeed, after the vaults, there was rather an agreeable damp kind of freshness in it; while it was evident, by the manner in which the lights burnt in it, that there was no want of vitality in its atmosphere. At first it was no easy matter to find any kind of outlet from the place. After some searching, however, another door was discovered, very similar, indeed, to the one that Sir Richard Blunt had opened with the picklock, and that, too, was found to be locked on the other side, and the key, as in the former case, in the lock. "All this locking of doors," said the magistrate, "was, I have no sort of doubt, to protect himself from any night visit upon the part of Mrs. Lovett, from whom I feel certain that Sweeney Todd has been expecting attempts upon his life, as much as to my own knowledge he has made attempts upon hers; but by some kind of fatality, or providence, they seem to be unable to harm each other." "It is a providence," said Sir Christopher. "They must both suffer the penalty of outraging, as they have done, the laws of God and man; and the retribution would be by no means complete were they to fall by the hands or each other." "I think you are right, sir," said the fruiterer. The door which was now opened, only led to some other vaults, which somewhat resembled those the party had just left, only that they were by no means so lofty or so carefully constructed as they were; and before they had proceeded far, some evidences of habitation began to show themselves. Some old boots occupied a place in one corner, and some old hats, and other articles of clothing, were lying in a confused heap in another. Sir Richard Blunt looked upon all this as ample testimony that he was quite close to the abode of Sweeney Todd, and he accordingly turned to his friends, saying-- "It is necessary that we proceed with the utmost caution. I think, a very few steps will take us into the cellars of Todd's house, and the object now is not by any means to give him the least alarm, but merely to find out, if possible, by what means he murders and disposes of his victims." Acting upon this caution, they extinguished all the lights, with the exception of one lantern, and that Sir Richard Blunt himself carried, as he still continued to head the expedition. Suddenly he came upon an arched doorway without a door; and hardly had he proceeded a few paces, when he saw something lying in a strange confused mass upon the floor, which, upon a closer examination, proved to be a dead body. The reader will probably in this body see the spy who had been employed by Mrs. Lovett to see that Todd did not run away in the course of the preceding night. [Illustration: The Body Found Under Todd's House.] The body was lying upon some stones, that seemed to have been placed one upon another in such a position that their most jagged corners and uneven surfaces should be uppermost. A glance at the roof showed a square, black-looking hole. Sir Richard Blunt was upon the point of saying something, when overhead they heard the distinct tramp of a man. The magistrate immediately placed his finger upon his lips, and all was as still as the grave in that place. Presently they heard a voice, and they all knew that it was the voice of Sweeney Todd. It came from above, and reached their ears with sufficient clearness to enable them to catch the words-- "Her death is certain if I can but get her to cross the threshold of this parlour!" Then the pacing to and fro of that really wretched man continued. The few words that Todd had spoken, had been sufficient to convince Sir Richard Blunt of one thing, which was, that they were beneath the parlour, and not the shop. It was from the shop the people disappeared, so the heart of Todd's mystery remained yet to be reached. There was another small door-way a little to the left of where he stood, and Sir Richard, upon the impulse of the moment, passed through it alone. He came back again in a moment. "Gentlemen," he whispered, "have we seen enough?" They nodded, and without another word, he led the way back again from the dreary subterranean abode of murder. It was only to the fruiterer he whispered, after they had gotten some distance from the spot upon which the dead body lay-- "I know all." "Indeed?" "Yes. When we get back to your home, I will tell you. Let for the meantime the general impression be, that all there was to learn consisted of the secret of that square hole in the flooring of the parlour." "Yes, yes! But there is more?" "Much more. You and Sir Christopher at present, I think, are the only two persons I shall be communicative with. The whole world will know it all, soon enough, but long and old habits of caution, always induce me to keep my information as quiet as I possibly can." "You are quite right, Sir Richard. Even I shall feel it to be no offence if you keep entirely to yourself what you have seen." "No, no! I wish to avail myself of your advice, which has done me good service upon more than one occasion; so when we get to your house, we will talk the matter fully over." By this time they had got so far from the immediate vicinity of Todd's house, that such excessive caution in conversing was no longer necessary, and the magistrate pausing, made a general remark to all. "The less that is said about what we have seen here, the better it will be. Let me beg of every one not to give the smallest hint to any one, even in the most confidential manner, of the discoveries that have been made here to-day." An immediate assent was of course given to this proposition, and in the course of five minutes they were all in St. Dunstan's church. It was something amusing to Sir Richard, at that moment, to notice the look of relief there was upon every countenance, now that the investigation into that underground and unknown region was over. Each person seemed as if he had just escaped from the toils and hazards of a battle. By a glance at his watch, Sir Richard ascertained that only one hour and a quarter had been consumed in the whole affair, and he was pleased to think how soon again he should be personally superintending the safety of Johanna. Before, however, the party got half way to the door of the church, they heard a vociferous argumentation going on in that quarter, and the voice of the beadle, who was well known to Sir Richard, was heard exclaiming-- "I will come in. I'm the beadle. Fire! Fire! I will come in. What! keep a beadle out of his own church? Oh! Oh! Oh! Conwulsions conwulsions! It ain't possible." "Gentlemen," said the magistrate, "we must repress our friend the beadle's curiosity. Let us all say 'Hush' to him as we go out, and not another word." This was generally understood, and they walked slowly in a kind of procession to the church door. "Pitchforks and hatchets!" cried the beadle. "I will come in. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. Look at my hat and coat; I ain't a himposter, but a real beetle! Bless us, who is here? Why--why, there ain't no service nor a wedding. What a lot of folks. Have they been a grabbing of the Communion plate? Oh, murder, conwulsions, and thieves!" Sir Richard went close up to him, and in the most mysterious way in the world, whispered in his ear "Hush." "Eh?" said the beadle. Sir Christopher took hold of him by the collar of the coat, and said--"Hush." "Well, but--but--" The fruiterer beckoned to him with great gravity, and when he come forward a pace or two, said--"Hush." "But good gracious what am I to hush about? What is it all--what does it mean--tell us, for goodness gracious sake? I don't know anything; I'm an ass--an idiot. What am I to hush about--I shall sit upon no end of thorns and nettles, till I know.--What is it?" "Hush! hush! hush!" said every one as he passed the now nearly distracted beadle, and finally there he was left in the church porch with nothing in the shape of information, but hush! The man who had been left by the magistrate as a sentinel at the church door, was the last to leave, and he took his cue from all the others; and when the beadle laid hold of him crying--"I'll take you up. I won't let you go," he gently sat him on the floor; and then saying "Hush!" away he went likewise. The large slab in the church, that usually covered up the passage leading to the vaults, was left uncovered; but then the beadle perfectly understood that that was for the sole purpose of relieving the vaults, during the week, of the accumulation of mephitic vapours supposed to be in them; and at all events no impulse of curiosity could be sufficiently strong in him to induce so desperate a step as a descent alone into those dreary abodes of the departed; so that he was, in a manner of speaking, compelled to put up entirely with "Hush!" for his portion of the mystery. Sir Richard bade good-day to every one but the fruiterer at the door of the church; and then with him he walked to his shop opposite to Todd's. Crotchet was close at hand, and he came into the shop, at a signal from the magistrate to do so. "Is all right, Crotchet?" "Right as a trivet, sir. Lord bless you about so much as a sneeze, but I'll find it out; and as for little Miss Thingamybob, he shan't hurt a hair of her pretty little bit of a head." "That's right, Crotchet. Remember that the bringing to justice, with ample evidence of all his crimes, of Sweeney Todd, is a great object; but it is an infinitely greater one to preserve the life of Johanna Oakley." "I knows it," said Crotchet. "Resume your charge, then, Crotchet. All will be well, and this will be Todd's last day out of Newgate." Crotchet nodded, and made his exit. In the succeeding half hour, it would seem that Sir Richard Blunt made his old acquaintance, the fruiterer, thoroughly acquainted with all he knew of the way in which Todd got rid of his victims. What that way was will very shortly now appear; and we think it had better appear in this regular and most authentic narrative, than in a chance conversation between Sir Richard Blunt and his friend. It was the special duty of one officer to come into the fruiterer's shop with a report and a description of whoever went into Todd's house, and now this man made his appearance. "Well, Jervis," said the magistrate, "so Todd has a customer, has he?" "I don't know, sir. It is a woman, well dressed, and rather tall than otherwise." "Mrs. Lovett, without a doubt. No one need go and look after that lady, for I don't know any one, except you or I, Jervis, who is so capable of taking care of number one. Todd will find her a troublesome customer, and if she is at all the woman I take her to be, she will not go into his back parlour quite so easily as he would fain persuade her." "Then no one need follow, sir?" "No; but if the young lad comes out, you may just look in and ask some frivolous question to see what is going on. If the female is not in the shop--she is dead." "Dead, sir!" "Yes. She will not live a minute after she leaves the shop; but you may depend she will not do so; she is to the full as well acquainted with Todd as we are, so there is no sort of apprehension of her coming to any harm. I should indeed be sorry to lose her." Sir Richard Blunt was right in his guess. It was no other than Mrs. Lovett, who, agreeably to her appointment with Todd, called upon him for her half of the plunder for the last few years. CHAPTER XCV. MRS. LOVETT IS VERY INTRACTABLE INDEED Before entering the shop, Mrs. Lovett hovered about it, peeping at the things in the window, and glancing about her as though she had some uncomfortable ideas in her mind concerning the place, and was coquetting with her feelings a little before she could make up her mind to go into it. At length she laid her hand upon the handle of the door, and turned it. She stood upon the threshold, and her sharp glance at once comprehended that Todd was not there. Johanna advanced towards her, and waited for her to speak. "Oh," she said. "Is Mr. Todd in?" "No," said Johanna. "No, madam." Johanna did not think it worth while at that time to expose herself to the great danger of disobeying Todd's positive commands, to say he was not at home, merely upon a point of punctilious truth. Mrs. Lovett looked keenly at her. "So," she said, "he is out--is he?" "Yes, madam." "And you are Mr. Todd's _boy_?" The emphasis which Mrs. Lovett placed upon the word boy, rather alarmed Johanna, and she was more terrified when Mrs. Lovett marched twice round her, as though she were performing some incantation, glaring at her all the while from top to toe. Whatever was Mrs. Lovett's opinion of Johanna, however, she magnanimously kept it to herself; but the young girl had a sort of perception, that her suit had not escaped the keen and penetrating eyes of Mrs. Lovett. This conviction gave a great air of timidity to Johanna's manner in speaking to the bold bad woman who confronted her. "And so he is out?" added Mrs. Lovett. "Yes, madam." "How long has he been gone?" "Only a short time." "Well, my principal business this day, is to see Mr. Todd. I have made such arrangements at home, that I can wait here the whole day if necessary, for see him I must--and see him I will; I had a sort of presentiment that he might be out, notwithstanding I have an appointment with him." With this Mrs. Lovett sat down and composed herself evidently for a long wait--she did not sit in the shaving-chair though. Johanna thought that as she passed it, she rather shuddered; but that might have been a mere fancy upon the part of our young friend. Mrs. Lovett was not exactly of the shuddering order of human beings. "Did he say when he should return?" "No, madam." All these questions of Mrs. Lovett's were asked with a sneering kind of incredulity, that was quite sufficient to show Johanna how completely she disbelieved the statement concerning the absence of Todd. That she would wait until Todd was perforce obliged to show himself, Johanna did not doubt. There was something about the pale face and compressed lips of Mrs. Lovett that at once bespoke such a determination; but should any scene of unusual violence ensue, Johanna made up her mind to rush from the shop, if near the door, and if not able to do that, to cast a missile through the window, which she knew would bring her immediate help. "How long have you been with Mr. Todd?" asked Mrs. Lovett of Johanna. "Only a few days, madam." "And what made you come?" "My necessities, madam. I was in want of a situation, and Mr. Todd wanted an errand boy." "Humph!" said Mrs. Lovett. "This is very strange." She rested her head upon her hand for a few moments, and appeared to be lost in thought, and at times Johanna could see that she was keenly eyeing her. Truly, Johanna had never felt so thoroughly uncomfortable since she had been in Todd's shop, for she could not but feel that she was discovered. The only question was now whether, when she did see Todd, Mrs. Lovett would think it worth her while to speak of the affair at all. The probability, however, was that she was too much engrossed in the business that brought her there to pay more than a passing attention to a mystery which, to all appearance, could not in any way concern her. But Todd all this while was a prisoner in his own parlour, and it may easily be imagined how he chafed and fumed over such a state of things. If any convenient mode of taking the life of Mrs. Lovett had but presented itself to him, how gladly he would have embraced it; but none did; and after enduring the present state of affairs for about a quarter of an hour, he coolly opened the parlour door and walked into the shop as if nothing were amiss. Mrs. Lovett was not at all taken by surprise at this proceeding. She merely rose and took a step towards the door, as she said, in a cool sarcastic tone-- "I am glad you have come home." "Come home?" said Todd, with a well-acted look of surprise. "Come home? What do you mean, my dear madam? I am particularly glad to see you, and was particularly desirous to do so." "Indeed!" "Yes, to be sure. Really, do you know, I told the lad here, to deny me to anybody but you." "And he made the slight mistake of denying you to me only." "Is it possible?--Can such things be? Oh, you careless rascal. Upon my word, some employers would pull your ears--that they would. I'm ashamed of you--that I am. Really, Mrs. Lovett, these boys are always annoying one in some way or another; but walk in, if you please--walk in, and we will soon settle our little affairs." "Excuse me," said Mrs. Lovett, "I prefer the shop, Mr. Todd." "You don't say so?" "You hear me say so, and you might know by this time, that when I say anything--I mean it." "Of course, Mrs. Lovett, of course," said Todd; "I know you for a lady of infinite powers of mind--of great susceptibility--of feeling--of uncommon intellect and thrift. Please to step into the parlour, and I will settle with you at once, for I believe you call for a small trifle that you are entitled to from me, Mrs. Lovett." "I do call for what I am entitled to, and I will have it here." "Charley, just go to St. Dunstan's, my lad, and bring me word the exact time; and then, you can do it all under one, you know, just walk down Fleet-market, and see if you can find any love-apples, and if so, you can ask the price of them, and let me know." "Yes, sir," said Johanna. In another moment she was gone. Mrs. Lovett took another step nearer to the door, and actually laid her hand upon it to prevent it closing thoroughly. She did not think that she would be safe if it were shut; and then addressing Todd, she said-- "All disguise between you and I, is useless now, Todd. Give me my half of the money that has been earned by blood. It may have the curse of murder clinging to it, but I will have it--I say I will have it." "Are you mad?" "Not yet--not yet. But I shall be, and then it will be time for you to beware of me." "Mrs. Lovett--Mrs. Lovett, is it not a melancholy thing, that you and I, who may be said to be at war with all the world, should begin to quarrel with each other? If we are not true to one another, what can we expect from others? Have we not for so long carried on our snug little business in safety, merely because we were good friends?" "No, Todd, no. We never were friends--you know that as well as I do. It is a principal of human nature, that those who are associated together for wicked purposes are never friends. You and I have not been exceptions to the rule. We hate each other--we always did and will, you know it." "Dear, dear!" said Todd, lifting up his hands, and approaching a step nearer to Mrs. Lovett. "This is afflicting--this is truly afflicting to hear such words from you, Mrs. Lovett." "Keep off--keep off, I say! Another step, and I will at once into the street, and then to the passers-by scream out for public vengeance upon Todd the murderer!" "Hush!--hush! God of Heaven! woman, what do you mean by speaking of murder in such a tone?" "I mean, Todd, what I say; and what I threaten I will do. Keep off--keep off! I will not have you another step nearer to me with that hang-dog look." "Moderate your tone, woman!" said Todd, as he stamped upon the floor of the shop; "moderate your tone, woman, or you will destroy yourself and me." "I care not." "You care not?--what do you mean by that? Have you gone mad in earnest? What do you mean by you care not? Has the scaffold any charms for you?" "It might have for once, with you for a companion on it, Sweeney Todd; but if I am desperate and reckless, you have yourself to thank for it. Well you know that, Todd. I have toiled, and sinned, and murdered, for what you have done the same, for gold!--Gold was the God of my idolatry, and it was yours. We both seized the same idea. We both saw how gold alone was worshipped in the land. We saw how Heaven was affected to be worshipped by all; but we found out that gold was the real divinity. We saw that it was for the lucre of gain that the priest clothed himself in the garments of his pretended ministry, and spake his mock prayers to the people. We saw that it was for gold only that the rulers of the land struggled and fought. We found that the love and the worship of gold was the true religion of all; and we sought to possess ourselves of the idol." "Mad!--mad!" cried Todd. "No, I speak sanely enough now. I say, we found out that by the possession of gold in christian, canting, religious, virtuous England, we should find many worshippers. We found out that thousands upon thousands would bend the knee to us on that account, and on that account only. If we were paragons of virtue, we might rot and starve; but if we were monsters of vice, if we had but gold, and kept but by the side of the law, we should be kings--emperors upon the earth." "Bah! bah! bah!" cried Todd. "Well, we took a royal road to our object. We murdered for it, Todd. You dipped your hands in gore, and I helped you. Yes, I do not deny that I helped you." "Peace, woman!" "I will not hold my peace. The time has come for you to hear me, and I will make you do so. I will speak trumpet-tongued, and if you like not that word murder, I will shriek it in your ears. If you like not the word blood, I will on the house-tops proclaim and tell the people that it is synonymous with Todd. Ha! ha! You shrink now." CHAPTER XCVI. THE BOAT ON THE RIVER. Todd did shrink aghast. This wild vehemence of Mrs. Lovett's was something that he did not expect. Every word that she uttered filled him with alarm. He began really to think that she had gone mad, and that he might have everything to dread from her wild vehemence, and that probably he had gone too far in cheating her out of the result of her labours. "Peace," he said. "Peace, and you shall be satisfied." "I will be satisfied." "Well, well, of course you shall. But you cannot be if you destroy both yourself and me, which your present conduct threatens." "I tell you I joined with you in murder for the love of gold, and I will have my recompense. Give me that which is mine own. I will have it, or I will drag you with me to the halter. Do you understand that, Sweeney Todd? I ask you, do you understand that?" "It is plain enough," said Todd. "Then give me my gold--gold for blood. Give it to me, and let me go." "You are really so precipitate. Upon my word, Mrs. Lovett, you are quite an altered woman, that you are. I certainly never did expect to hear such language from you. Any one would think that you had an idea I meant to cheat you." Mrs. Lovett made an impatient gesture, but Todd continued-- "Now, anything more repugnant to my feelings than that could not possibly be, I assure you; and I consider you fully entitled to £22,000 8s. 3d., which is precisely your half of the proceeds of the little business." "Give me the money." "Now, do you suppose, Mrs. Lovett, that I am so green as to keep here in the house no less a sum than £22,000 8s. 3d.? You really must think I have taken leave of my senses, to dream for one moment of such a thing." "Where is it, then?--where is it? I see you are bent upon driving me mad." "Why, really, Mrs. L., it would be insulting you to say that you were perfectly in your right senses at this moment; but come, sit down, and we will see what can be done. Sit down, and compose yourself." "In the shaving chair" "Ha--ha, that's a good joke. In the shaving chair! Ha--ha! No Mrs. L., I don't exactly want to polish you off. Sit down where you like, but not in the shaving chair, if you don't fancy it, Mrs. L. Pray sit down." "For you to cut my throat?" "What?" "I say, for you to cut my throat? Do you think I am not sharp sighted enough to see that razor partially hidden in your sleeve? No, Todd, I am well aware that you are panting to murder me. I tell you I know it, and it is useless your making the faintest attempt to conceal it. The fact is broad and evident; but I am upon my guard, and I am armed likewise, Todd." "Armed?" "Yes, Todd, I am armed, and you are terrified at the idea, as I knew you would be. Nothing to you is so horrible as death. You who have sent so many from the world, will yourself go from it howling with fright. I am armed, but I do not mean to tell you how." "You are wrong, Mrs. Lovett. What on earth would be the use of my taking your life?" "You would have all then." "All? What do I want with all? I am not a young man now, and all I wish is the means of enjoyment for the remainder of my days. That I can well command with a less sum than my half of that which we have to divide will come to. I have no one that I care to leave a sixpence to, and therefore what need I trouble myself to hoard? You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Lovett." "Give me my money then." "I will, of course; but I tell you it is at the banker's, Messrs. Grunt, Mack, Stickinton, and Fubbs. Yes, that is the name of the highly respectable firm in whose hands for the present both my money and yours is deposited; and from the high character of the house, I should say it could not possibly be in safer hands." "My share will be quite safe with me, or if unsafe, you need not care. I will have it." "Step into the parlour, and I will write you an order for your half, and you can get it in half an hour." "No Todd. You will make the attempt to murder me if I step into the parlour. I will not even come further into your shop, than here upon the threshold of it, with the door in my hand. Why do you keep a razor concealed in your sleeve?" "Oh--I--It's a little habit of mine; but allow me to assure you how very incorrect your suspicions are, Mrs. Lovett; and if you will not come in, I will write the order, and bring it to you; or what do you say to my going with you to the bankers, where you can yourself ask what is the amount of the sum standing in my name there; and when you have ascertained it, you can have half of it to a sixpence." "Come, then. I confess, Todd, I am sufficiently suspicious of you, that I would rather not lose sight of you." "Dear me, how dreadful it is for friends to be in such a state of feeling towards each other, to be sure. But the time will come, Mrs. Lovett, when you will see my conduct in a different light, and you will smile at the suspicion which you say you now entertain, but which sometimes I cannot help thinking are not the genuine sentiments of your heart." "Come--come, at once." "I must wait for the boy; I cannot leave the shop until the boy is here to mind it in my absence.--Oh, here he is." At this moment, Johanna, who had not troubled herself to go to the market at all, came back. "Well, what is the exact time," said Todd, "by St. Dunstan's?" "A quarter-past eleven, sir." "How very satisfactory. I am only going a little way with this lady, and will soon be back. You can keep up the fire, Charley, and in that corner you will find some religious tracts, which will I hope improve your mind. Above all things, my lad, never neglect your religious exercises. I hope you said your prayers last night, Charley?" "I did, sir," said Johanna, and she said it with a look that added the query, "did you say your's?" Todd hesitated a moment, as though something were passing through his mind respecting Johanna, and then he muttered to himself-- "There is time enough, yet." No doubt he had begun to entertain serious suspicions of Master Charley, and in those few words was alluding to his intention of taking his life before the coming night. "Now, my dear Mrs. Lovett," said Todd, as he put on his hat, and pressed it down unusually over his brows, "I am ready." "And I," she said. Todd only glanced round the shop, to be certain that he had left everything as he wished it, and he tried the parlour door. Then he at once stalked into Fleet Street, followed by Mrs. Lovett. "It will look better for you to take my arm," he said. "I don't care how it looks," she replied. "All I want is my money. Do not touch me, or you will see good cause shortly to me having done so. Go on and I will follow you; but if you attempt to escape me, I will raise the street in pursuit of you, by screaming out that you are Todd the mur--" "Hush--hush, woman. Do you know where you are?" "Yes, in the street, but I do not care. All I want is my money, and I will have it." "Curses on you and your money too," muttered Todd, as he crossed Fleet Street, and turned up Bridge Street at a rapid pace. He passed all the turnings leading to the city, and kept on his way towards the bridge. Mrs. Lovett followed him closely. "Stop!" she said. "Stop!" Todd stopped and turned about. He was mortally afraid that she would carry out some of her threats if he exhibited anything of a restive spirit towards her. "Whither are you going?" she said. "This is not the way to the City." "It is by the Thames." "By the Thames?" "Yes, I go by water; I do not wish to run the risk of meeting all sorts of people in the streets. I have not communicated to you that we are in great danger, but it is a fact. I do not now think that I shall get fairly off, but you will, if I am not interfered with before you get your money. By taking a boat at the stairs here by Blackfriars Bridge, we can be landed at a spot within about twenty yards of the banking-house, which will be by far the safer route." Mrs. Lovett did not much fancy the river excursion; but she considered that after all there would be a waterman in the boat, and that the river at that time of the day was populous, so she thought that Todd dared not attempt anything. "Very well," she said; "so that we are quick, I care not." "I am to the full," said Todd, "as anxious as you can be to get the job settled." Mrs. Lovett thought that there was something ominous in the way in which he pronounced the word "job;" but then she thought perhaps she was too critical, and she followed him to the stairs by the side of the old bridge, certainly not without suspicions, but they were only general ones. The idea struck her, however, that she should be safer with two watermen, and she said-- "We will have two men, and by so doing we shall go quicker down the stream." "So we shall," said Todd; "it is a good idea. Hilloa! first oars, here--first oars!" "Here you are, sir," said a waterman. "We want a couple of you," said Todd. "Yes, your honour. Here we are--me and my mate. All's right, your honour. Now, Bill, look alive.--Mind the step, ma'am. That's yer sort. Where to, your honour?" "To Pigs Quay." "Ay, ay. Give way, Bill, give way. A nice day for the water, your honour; a fine fresh air, and not too much of it. Easy, Bill." "Very," said Todd, as he took his place beside Mrs. Lovett in the stern of the boat, which in a moment, propelled by the vigorous strokes of the two rowers, shot out into the middle of the stream. He whispered to Mrs. Lovett--"Now, how delightful it would be if you and I, with all our money, were going from England to-day!" "No." "No? Why, I cannot conceive anything more pleasant. Ha! ha!" Both Todd and Mrs. Lovett were so much occupied in watching each other, that they did not perceive another boat push off from the same stairs at which they had embarked with two men in it, and which kept in their wake pretty closely. The two watermen of Todd's boat, however, saw it, and they looked at each other, but they said nothing. They went upon the wise plan, that it was no business of theirs; and so they pulled away, while Todd glanced uneasily into the pale face of Mrs. Lovett. To say that Mrs. Lovett kept an eye upon Todd, would be but faintly to express the feline-like watchfulness with which she regarded him, as they sat together in the boat. There was not the slightest movement of his eye--the least twitch of a muscle of his face, that she did not observe, and strive to draw some conclusion from; and he felt that his very soul was being looked into by that bold woman, who had been the companion of his iniquity, and whom he was now plotting and planning, by some mad desperate means, to deprive of her share of that ill-gotten wealth, which never in this world, even if ten times the amount, could make either of them happy. CHAPTER XCVII. THE ATTEMPTED MURDER ON THE THAMES. The boat that followed Todd did not, after a time, keep quite in the wake of the one containing him and Mrs. Lovett. It rather went on a line parallel to it, but it kept at a convenient distance; and there were those in that boat, who never took an eye off Todd and his female accomplice. It must not be for one moment supposed that Mrs. Lovett was quite deceived by Todd's representations concerning the money; but then it must be considered that, with all her cunning, that lady was in a very difficult position indeed--one that it was impossible to change for the better. If she had boldly told Todd that she doubted--nay, that she absolutely disbelieved all that he said about the money being lodged with a firm in the city, she gained nothing, but simply placed herself in a position that forced upon her some violent action. What that action could be would have been Mrs. Lovett's great difficulty. Of course she would have had no trouble in the world in going at once to a police-office, and denouncing Todd. That, to be sure, would have been a great revenge; but then, in the midst of all her anger, she did not forget that by so doing she had to criminate herself, and from that moment put an end to all her dreams of revelling in some foreign land upon the produce of her crimes. Situated, then, as she was, Mrs. Lovett felt that she had no sort of resource but to follow Todd up, as it were--to keep close to him, and partly to worry him, and partly to shame him into doing her justice. Well she knew that he was upon the point of fleeing from the scene of his iniquities; and well she knew what a hindrance it would be to his arrangements to have her at his elbow continually. And so she thought that he would see it was better to pay her, and be rid of her, and so every one would have thought; but Todd's nature was of that mad implacable character, that anything in the shape of opposition only made a wish a passion. "I will not pay her," he muttered to himself, "if my refusal so to do brings us both to the gallows!" If Mrs. Lovett could have dived sufficiently deep into Todd's mind to be aware of this sentiment, she might have changed her tactics; but who could have thought it? Who could have supposed that any passion but self-preservation could master all others in his mind? The two boats sped on towards London Bridge--not the elegant structure that now spans the Thames, but the previous one, with its narrow arches, and its dangerous fall of water when the tide was ebbing, which was the case upon this occasion. The watermen looked uneasily at the arch through which it would be necessary to go, and where the tide was raging with unexampled fury, and lashing the sides of the arch like a mill-stream, bearing upon its surface millions of bubbles, and making such a seething roaring sound, that it was a point of attraction to some idle chance passengers upon the bridge to watch any adventurous wherry as it shot through the dangerous passage. "A rough tide, Bill," growled one of the watermen. "Ay," said the other. "Do you want to go through the bridge, master?" Todd smiled grimly as he replied by asking a question. "Is it dangerous?" "Why, you see, master, it may be or it may not. But we are not the sort to say no, if a fare says as he wants to go through the bridge. To be sure there be times when there is a squall upon the river, and then any man may say no." "But that is not now," said Todd. "No, master, that is not now, so if you must go through the bridge, only say so, and through we go. We have been lots o' times when it's as bad, ay, and perhaps a trifle waser than it is now. Haven't we, Bill?" "Ay, ay." "If," said Todd, "the lady has no particular objection." "Can we not land upon this side of the bridge?" said Mrs. Lovett. "In course, ma'am," said one of the boatmen. "In course, ma'am." "But," added Todd hastily, "we must, then, until to-morrow, abandon the business upon which we came, as landing upon this side of the bridge will not suit me by any means." "Pass through," cried Mrs. Lovett sternly. "I for one will not abandon the business upon which I came, except with my life. It is more than life to me, and I will go upon it, let it lead me where it may." "And I," said Todd, in a voice of great indifference, "I, too, am of precisely that opinion. So through the bridge we must go at any risk, if you, my men, will take us." "Pull away. Bill," was the only reply of the waterman. "Pull away, Bill, and keep her steady. On we go." By this time a curious throng of persons had assembled on the bridge to watch the wherry, for previous to its approach two others had declined the dangerous passage of the arch, and had landed their passengers at a small stairs some distance from the strong eddying current that leaped and bubbled through the arch. It was therefore something of a treat for the crowd to see their boat make for the dreaded spot, an evident determination on the part of the rowers to shoot through the arch of the bridge if it were possible so to do. No one spoke on board the boat. The watermen pulled very steady into the current, keeping over their shoulders a wary eye upon the head of the boat. Todd's eyes gleamed like two coals of fire, and Mrs. Lovett was as pale as death itself. Perhaps at that moment she reflected that she had trusted herself with all her sins on board that little boat amid the wild rush of waters; but if she did, she said nothing. Neither by word nor by action did she give indication of the fear that was tugging at her heart. And now the little wherry was floating in the boiling surge that flew towards the arch, and made when it got there such a battle to get through. There was no occasion for pulling. The only good they could now do with their oars was to steady the little craft, and so far as was possible to keep her head to the current. That this was done by the two watermen with admirable and practised skill, every one who watched the progress of the party from the bridge or elsewhere could perceive; and now the critical moment was at hand, and the boat being caught like a reed, was swept under the bridge by the rapid current. "Easy, Bill," cried one of the men. "Easy it is," said the other. "You will upset us, my dear madam," said Todd, "if you move;" and then, while the two men were fully engaged with the boat, and by far too much occupied with the necessary movements for the preservation of themselves and their little craft, Todd, with one blow upon the head, struck Mrs. Lovett overboard. She uttered a piercing shriek. "What's that?--what's that?" cried the boatmen. The boat scraped against the side of the arch for a moment, and then shot through it with a terrific bound into the comparatively still water on the other side of the bridge. "I'm afraid," said Todd, "that the lady has fallen overboard." "Afraid!" cried one of the watermen. "Why, good God! don't you see she has; and there she goes, along with the stream. Pull away, Bill; don't you see her? There she goes!" "Alas, poor thing!" said Todd. [Illustration: Old London Bridge.--Todd Tries His Murderous Hand On Mrs. Lovett.] He affected to be overcome by his feelings, and to be compelled to rest his head upon his hands, while he kept his hot-looking blood-shot eyes fixed upon the form of Mrs. Lovett in the water. And now a scene ensued of deep interest to Todd--a scene which he watched with the greatest attention. It was a scene upon the issue of which he felt that his life depended. If Mrs. Lovett were saved, his life would not be worth an hour's purchase. If she were drowned, he was, so he fancied, a free man; and he saw that from the shore several boats put off after her, while the two men in his wherry pulled as though their lives depended upon hers. Todd could have struck them for the exertions that they were making, but he dared not even speak one deprecating word to make them pause. He was condemned only to watch what was going on; and truly a most interesting scene it was. Mrs. Lovett had on a large cloak, and it was by the aid of that, as well as by the strength of the current, that she floated so long as to make it quite remarkable, and to induce the opinion in the minds of some of the spectators that she was swimming. Suddenly, just as a boat that had put off from the stairs by the Custom House reached her, down she went. "Gone!" said Todd. "Yes, she's gone," said one of the watermen. "She's gone, poor thing, whoever she was, and no one will get her now." "Are you sure of that?" "Ah, master, as sure as may be; but you are a witness that it was no fault of ours, master." "Certainly," said Todd. "The fact is, that she got alarmed the moment the boat shot under the arch, and rose up. I tried to catch her, but she toppled over into the water." "Natural enough, sir. If she did get up, over she was sure to go. Did you hear what a shriek she gave, Bill? My eye, if I don't dream of that, I'm a Dutchman! I fancy it is ringing in my ears. Yet I have heard a few odd sounds on the river in my time, but that was the very worst." "And she is gone," said Todd. "Why does that boat linger there upon the spot where she went down? Stay--stay, I cannot see if you pull into shore so quick. Now that barge is between me and the boat." "There's nothing to see now, sir." "Well--well. That will do--that will do. Poor creature! Viewing it in one way, my friends, it's a happy release, for she was a little touched in her intellect, poor thing; but it's dreadful to lose one to whom you are much attached; notwithstanding, I shall shed many a tear over her loss, and of the two I had really much rather it had been myself. Alas! alas! you see how deeply affected I am!" "It's no use grieving, sir." "Not a whit--not a whit. I know that, but I can't help it. Take that and divide it between you. I give it to you as a kind of assurance that it is not your fault the poor thing fell overboard." "Thank your honour," said the man in whose huge palm Todd had placed a guinea. "We may be asked who you are possibly, sir, if the body should be found." "Oh, certainly--certainly," said Todd, "that is well thought of. I am the Rev. Silas Mugginthorpe, preacher at the new chapel in Little Britain. Will you remember?" "Oh, yes sir. All's right." Todd ascended the slippery steps of the little landing-place with an awfully demoniac chuckle upon his face, and when he reached the top of them he struck his breast with his clenched hand, as he said in a voice of fierce glee-- "'Tis done--'tis done. Ha, ha, ha! 'Tis done. Why, Mrs. Lovett, you have surely been singularly indiscreet to-day. Ha, ha! Food for fishes, if fishes can live in the Thames. Ha, ha! Farewell, Mrs. Lovett, a long farewell to you. So--so you thought, did you, to get the better of Sweeney Todd? To stick to him like a bear until he should be compelled to, what you called, settle with you? Well, he has settled with you--he has! Ha, ha!" Thus in wild ferocious glee did Todd walk through the city back to his own house after perpetrating this the worst murder, if there can be at all degrees in murder, that he had ever done. People got out of his way as they heard his wild demoniac laugh, and many, after one glance at his awful face, crossed over to the other side of the street with precipitation. "Good-day, Mrs. Lovett," he kept muttering. "A charming day, Mrs. Lovett, and charmingly you look to-day, only a little swelled and bloated with the water. You wish me to settle with you? Oh, of course, I will settle with you before we part. Ha, ha!" Todd had never been so thoroughly pleased in all his life. More than once he stopped in the street to laugh, and twice on his route he called at noted hostels in the city to refresh himself with a glass of something strong and hot. He fancied that he wore upon his countenance quite an amiable aspect, and if one can fancy the devil himself looking sentimental, or an ogre looking religious and humane, we may have some sort of mixed idea of how Todd looked when he was amiable. In this blissful condition he reached Fleet Street, and just as he crossed the way from Ludgate Hill to the top of Fleet Market he was accosted by a miserable-looking woman in widow's weeds, with a girl in one hand and a boy in the other. They were begging, that was evident, for each of the children, and genteel pleasant-looking children they were, although now dejected by destitution, had upon its breast a little written paper with the one word, "Want" upon it. That word ought to have been sufficient to unlock the hearts of the passers by, and yet how the crowd hurried on! [Illustration: The Widow Asks For Charity Of Her Husband's Murderer--Todd.] "Oh, Mr. Todd," said the woman, "can you spare a trifle for the little ones?" "Who are you," he said, "that you address me by my name, woman?" "My name is Cummins, sir. Don't you recollect how my poor husband, John Cummins, went out one day about a month ago, to carry the watch-cases he had to polish to his employers, saying that he would call at your shop and be shaved before he went into the city, and didn't call, sir, as you kindly told me, but has never been heard of since? The city people will have it that he ran away; but ah, sir, I know him better. Would he run away from me and from those that he loved so well? Oh, no--no--no, I know John better." CHAPTER XCVIII. JOHANNA HAS A VISITOR WHILE TODD IS GONE UPON THE RIVER. "Well?" said Todd. "Well, sir, I was thinking that--that you might spare a trifle for the children, sir. They are starving--do you hear, Mr. Todd?--they are starving, and have no father now." "What was the value of the watch-cases your husband had with him, Mrs. Cummins, when he disappeared?" "About a hundred pounds, sir, they tell me. But don't you believe, sir, for one moment that John deserted me and these--ah no, sir." "You really think so?" "I am sure of it, sir, quite--quite sure of it. He loved me, sir, and these--he did indeed, sir. You will help us, Mr. Todd--oh, say that you will do what you can for us." "Certainly, my good woman--certainly. What is this little fellow's name, Mrs. Cummins?" "William--William is his name," said the poor woman, in such a flurry from the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children that she could hardly speak, but caught her breath hysterically. "His name is William, Mr. Todd." "And this little girl, ma'am?" "Ann, sir--Ann. That is her name, Mr. Todd. The same, if you please, sir, as her poor mother's. Look up, Ann, my dear, and courtesy to the gentleman. God bless you, Mr. Todd, for thinking of me and mine. God bless you, sir!" "Ann and William," said Todd, "Ann and William; and very nice children they are, too, in my opinion, Mrs. Cummins." "They are good children, sir." Mrs. Cummins burst into tears at the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children, for the whole of the parish was impressed with the idea that he was well to do. "They are very good children Mr. Todd; and although a charge to me, are still a blessing; for now that John is gone, they seem to hold me to the world, sir." "Well, Mrs. Cummins, I am glad you have applied to me, for if you had not, I certainly should not have known the names of your children. As it is, however, whenever I pray, I will think of them, and of you; and in the meantime, I commend you to the care of that Providence which, of course, cannot permit the widow and the fatherless to want anything in this world, or the next either." Todd walked leisurely on. "Ha! ha!" he laughed. "Good again. What have I to do with charity, or charity with me? I am at war with all the world, and at war with Heaven, too, if there be one, which I will not admit! No, no--I will not admit that." * * * * * While Todd was away upon this errand of getting rid of Mrs. Lovett, which we have seen he has accomplished so much to his satisfaction, Johanna was not entirely without visitors. The excellent watch that was kept upon the movements of Todd, in their minutest particular, by Sir Richard Blunt and his officers, let them know perfectly well that Todd was from home; but it was not from them that Johanna had her first visit after Todd was gone. He had not left the shop above ten minutes when Johanna heard a mysterious noise outside the door of it. It sounded as if someone were scraping it with something. At first she felt a little uneasy at the sound, but as it increased she calmed herself, and resolved upon ascertaining what it was. Turning to the door, cautiously she opened it a little way. That was quite sufficient to dispel any fears that she might have, for the paw of a dog was immediately thrust through the opening; and when upon this Johanna opened the door freely, Hector, with a loud bark, dashed into the shop. So fierce was the dog's demeanour, that Johanna shrank aside, but master Hector saw with half an eye that he had frightened her, so he went up to her, and licked her hand in token of amity, after which he barked loudly at the shop, as though he would have said, "Mind though I am friends with you, I am still the uncompromising foe of all else in this place." "Alas poor dog," said Johanna as the tears rushed to her eyes, "you will never see your master again." The young girl's grief for the loss of her lover seemed all to be roused up freshly from the depths of her heart at this appearance of the dog, which she had some reason to believe had been the companion of Mark Ingestrie. She sat down upon the little stool by the fire, and covering face with her hands, she wept bitterly. In the meantime, Hector, finding that Todd was not there to do battle with him, made up his mind for a grand rummage in the shop; and truly he conducted it with a perseverance and a recklessness of consequences that was wonderful. He was on the counter that ran along under the window--he was under it--he was on every shelf, and he tore open every cupboard; but alas! poor Hector could find no token of his lost master. At length the howling and the scratching that he made induced Johanna to look up to see what he wanted. She was rather appalled at the confusion he had created, and she could not think what he wanted until she found that there was a shelf at the top of the cupboard, that was equally out of her reach as it was out of his. "I cannot help you, my poor friend," she said. "There seems to be nothing on that shelf." Hector, however, having retired to a remote corner of the shop, and got on a chair in order that he might get a good look at the shelf, was of a different opinion; and, finding that he was not to calculate upon any help from Johanna, he made various springs up to the shelf with his mouth open, until at last he caught hold of a little bit of tape that seemed to be hanging over the edge of it. The tape was attached to something, which Hector immediately, with a loud bark of defiance, took possession of, partly by standing upon it, and partly by holding it in his mouth. Upon stooping to see what this was, Johanna discovered that it was a waistcoat of blue cloth. At first Hector did not seem much to fancy even letting her look at it; but after looking intently in her face for a few moments, he very quietly resigned it to her, only he kept very close to it while she turned it round and round and looked at it. It might have been Mark Ingestrie's. It looked something like the sort of garment that a master mariner might be supposed to wear, and the evident recognition of it by the dog spoke wonders in favour of the supposition that it had belonged to his master at one time or another. Johanna thought that in one of the pockets there seemed something, and upon putting in her hand she found a small piece of paper folded in four. To undo it was the work of a moment, and then she saw upon it the following words:-- "Mr. Oakley, Spectacle-maker, 33, Fore Street, City." Her senses seemed upon the point of deserting her. Every object for a moment appeared to whirl round her in a mad dance. Who should know better--ah, who should know half so well as she--the handwriting which conveyed those few words to her senses? It was the handwriting of her lost lover, Mark Ingestrie! "Hilloa! Pison, is you here?" cried a voice at the shop door at this moment. Johanna started to her feet. "Who are you?--what do you want?" she cried. "Murder!--murder! He has been foully murdered, I say; I will swear it--I--I--God help me!" With the little scrap of paper in her hand, she staggered back until she came to the huge shaving-chair, into which she sank with a long-drawn sigh. "Why, what's the row?" said the man, who was no other than Hector's friend, the ostler, from the inn opposite. "What's the row? Now what an out-and-out willain of a dog you is, Pison, to cut over here like bricks as soon as you can git loose to do so. Don't you know that old Todd is a busting to do you an ill turn some o' these days? and yet you will come, you hidiot." "Mr. Todd is out," said Johanna. "Oh, is he, my little man? Well, the devil go with him, that's all I say. Come along, that's a good dog." Pison only wagged his tail in recognition of the friendly feeling between him and the ostler, and then he kept quite close to Johanna and the waistcoat, which the moment he saw her drop, he laid hold of, and held tight with such an expression as was quite enough to convince the ostler he would not readily give it up again. "Now what a hanimal you is," cried the ostler. "Whose blessed veskut is that you as got?" "He found it here," said Johanna. "Did you see his master on the day when he came here?" "No, my little chap, I didn't; but I don't care who knows it--it's my 'pinion that whosomedever his master was, old Sweeney Todd, your master, knows more on him than most folks. Come away, Pison, will you?" The dog did not now show much disinclination to follow the ostler, but he kept the waistcoat firmly in his grasp, as he left the shop after him. Johanna still held that little scrap of paper in her hand, and oh! what a world of food for reflection did it present her with. Was it, or was it not, an establishment of the fact of Mark Ingestrie having been Todd's victim? That was the question that Johanna put to herself, as through her tears, that fell like rain, she gazed upon that paper, with those few words upon it, in the well-known hand of her lover. The more Johanna reflected upon this question, the more difficult a one did she find it to answer in any way that was at all satisfactory to her feelings. The strong presumption that Mark Ingestrie had fallen a victim to Todd had not been sufficiently obliterated by all that Sir Richard Blunt had said to her to free her mind from a strong bias to fancy anything that transpired at Todd's a corroboration of that fact. "Yes," she said, mournfully, "yes, poor--poor Mark. Each day only adds to my conviction that you became this man's victim, and that that fatal String of Pearls, which you fondly thought would be a means of uniting us together by removing the disabilities of want of fortune, has been your death. That waistcoat, which your faithful dog has carried with him, is another relic of you, and this scrap of paper is but another link in the chain of circumstances that convinces me we shall never meet again in this world." Poor Johanna was absolutely reasoning herself into an agony of grief, when the door of the shop opened, and an old man with white hair made his appearance. "Is Mr. Todd within?" he said. "No, sir," replied Johanna. "And is it possible," added the old man, straightening himself up, "that I am disguised so well that even you do not know me, Johanna?" In a moment now she recognised the voice. It was that of Sir Richard Blunt. "Oh, sir," she said, "I do indeed know you now, and I am very--very wretched." "Has anything new occurred, Johanna, to produce this feeling?" "Yes, sir. The dog, that my heart tells me belonged to poor Mark, has been over here, and with a rare instinct he found a piece of apparel, in the pocket of which was this paper. It is in _his_ writing. I know it too--too well to be denied. Ah, sir, you, even you, will no longer now seek to delude me with false hopes. But do not tarry here, sir; Todd has been long gone, and may at any chance moment come back again." "Be at rest upon that point, Johanna. He cannot come back without my being made aware of it by my friends without. But tell me in what way you attach such serious importance to this piece of paper, Johanna?" "In what way, my dear friend? Do I not say that it is in poor Mark's own handwriting? How could it come here unless he brought it? Oh, sir, do not ask me in what way I attach importance to it. Rather let me ask you how, otherwise than upon the supposition of his having become one of Todd's victims, can you account for its being here at all?" "Really," said Sir Richard, "this Mark Ingestrie must have been a very forgetful young man." "Forgetful?" "Yes. It seems that it was necessary for him to carry your name and address in his pocket. Now if he had given such a slip of paper as this to another person for fear he should forget what was not so deeply imprinted in his memory I should not have wondered at it for a moment." Johanna clasped her hands and looked the magistrate in the face, as she said-- "Then, sir, you think--that is, you believe--that--that this is no proof of poor Mark having been here?" "As I hope for mercy in Heaven, it is to my mind a proof the other way, Johanna." She burst into a passion of hysterical weeping. Sir Richard Blunt knew too much of human nature to interfere by word or gesture, with this effort of nature to relieve the overchanged heart, and he waited patiently, affecting to be looking upon some old prints upon the wall until he heard the sobs decrease to sighs. Then he turned with a smile to Johanna, and said-- "My dear girl, gather hope from that scrap of paper, not despair. Depend upon it the address of your father held too conspicuous a place in the heart of him who loved you to require that it should have been written upon a piece of paper. You know that my theory on the subject is that Mr. Thornhill was actually sent to you by Mark Ingestrie, and that it was he who perished here." "And Mark himself--if that were so?" "His fate has still to be elucidated; but that he perished here I do not believe, as I have often told you." "This is an exquisite relief," said Johanna, as she laid her hand upon her heart. "Make much of it," said Sir Richard; "something even yet seems to tell me that you will be happy. I cannot think it possible that Heaven would permit such a man as Todd to destroy your earthly felicity. But how comes the shop in such confusion?" "It was the dog. He would look everywhere, and I had not the heart nor the strength to prevent him. Todd has a horror of him; and fright will keep him quiet when I tell him the cause of the mischief that is done here." "Perhaps then it will be better to leave it as it is," said Sir Richard, "than awaken his suspicions by attempting to put the place to rights, in which you might fail in some particulars known to him. And now tell me, Johanna, what passed between him and this Mrs. Lovett?" "But a few words, sir, before I was sent out. There is one thing though that I suspect, and that is that Mrs. Lovett has found out my secret." "Indeed?" "Yes, she regarded me with a strange gaze that made me feel that she penetrated my disguise. I know not if she will say as much to Todd, but one glance of his eye upon me when he returns will satisfy me upon that, I think." At this moment a bugle sounded in Fleet Street. "That is my signal," said Sir Richard. "Todd is coming. I will be close at hand, Johanna, lest Mrs. Lovett has told him your secret, and you should find yourself in any danger. Farewell! Heaven hold you in its keeping." CHAPTER XCIX. THE COOK FEELS THAT ALL THE WORLD NEGLECTS HIM, AND THEN HE GETS A LETTER. Sir Richard Blunt left the shop, and Johanna had just time to conceal the scrap of paper which she had found in the waistcoat, and to seem to be busy at the fire, when Todd made his appearance. She had never seen such a grim smile upon Todd's face as it now wore. He was for once in his life fairly pleased. When had he made such a morning's work as that? Not even in his acquisition of those fatal Pearls had he gained so much as by that one slight push that had sent Mrs. Lovett and her claims into the river so neatly. No wonder Sweeney Todd was elated and delighted. He had all the money now to himself. There was no one now to say to him "Where is my share?" He had all the produce of another's awful criminality to add to his own. Was he not thus a very happy man for a little while? The sunshine of the heart was not a thing to last long in such a bosom as Sweeney Todd's. His was not that sweet and lasting hilarity of soul that can alone arise from a deep and sincere consciousness of right. No! The fierce delight of a successful stroke of villany may for a time resemble happiness, but it is a resemblance as weak as that between the faint watery ray of a winter's sun and the full blaze of the god-like luminary in all the beauty of the vernal season. But for the time, we say, Todd was pleased, and the demoniac triumph of his soul beamed forth from his eyes and played around the puckered corners of his huge mouth. "Well, Charley," he said, "how goes it with you, my lad?" Johanna stared as well she might to hear Todd speak in such a mild pacific sort of way. "Sir?" she said. "I say, how goes it with you, my good boy. How have you passed the time in my unavoidable absence upon a little business?" "Quite tolerable, sir, thank you, with the exception that a dog pushed his way into the shop, and, as you see, sir, has made some confusion." "A dog?" "Yes, sir. A large one, black and white. I had no strength to turn him out, so he had his will in the shop, and tossed the things about as you see, sir." "My malediction upon that confounded dog. He is mad, Charley, I tell you, he is stark, staring mad. Why did you not throw open razors at him until one had transfixed him?" "I don't like touching the razors, sir." "You don't--you don't? He! he! What will he think when one touches him?" muttered Todd to himself as he turned aside and made a movement as though cutting a throat. "You don't like touching the razors, Charley?" "No, sir, I thought you would be angry if I had, so the dog had all his own way here. I would have put the place to rights, but I thought you aught to see it as it is." "Right, my boy--right. To-morrow will be quite time enough to put it to rights. Yes, to-morrow. Has any one called, Charley?" "No, sir." "Well I am glad of that, for when one is off upon an action of charity one don't like one's business to suffer as well. It's quite unknown what I give away, and I always like to see the object myself, you know, Charley, as I find I can then better adapt my benevolence to their real wants, which is a great--a very great object." "I should think it was, sir." "You are a clever observant lad, Charley, and you will, when you leave me, I feel convinced, drop into a genteel independence. You will want for nothing then, I feel quite assured, Charley." "You are very good, sir." "I strive to be good, Charley, and by the help of the gospel we may all be good to some extent--sinners that we are. Now, simple as is, it's really a great thing to be supplied in an unlimited manner with cold water." "No doubt of it, sir." "Well, I have supplied the person to whom my benevolence has extended this morning, with, I hope, an unlimited quantity, and always fresh. He!" Todd here executed one of his awful laughs, and then went into his parlour grinning at his own hideous facetiousness over the murder he had committed. Johanna had managed to say, from time to time, what was expected by way of answer to him, but it was with a shuddering consciousness that he had been about some great crime that she did so; and when he had left the shop, she said faintly to herself-- "He has murdered Mrs. Lovett." It was sufficient, if Todd went out with an enemy and came home jocular, to conclude what had happened. That person then might be fairly presumed to be no more, and hence, with a shudder of horror pervading her frame, did Johanna whisper to herself-- "He has surely murdered Mrs. Lovett." The first thing that Todd did when he was alone in his parlour, and the door fast, was to produce the memoranda he had made of all that he had to do previous to leaving England. One item ran thus:-- "Mem. To pay Mrs. Lovet in full." After that item he wrote _paid_, and then he laughed again in his hideous way, and leaning his head upon his hand, or rather his chin upon it, he spoke in a chuckling tone. "She will turn up some day--yes, she will turn up some day, and the swollen disgusting mass, that was once the bold and glittering Mrs. Lovett, will be pulled through the river mud by a boat-hook, and then there will be an inquest, and a verdict of found drowned, with a statement that the body was in too advanced a state of decomposition to be identified. Ha!" Todd actually rubbed his hands together, and then he took a good drop of brandy, and felt himself quite a pleasant sort of character, and one upon whom the fickle goddess, Fortune, had taken to smiling in her most bland and pleasant way. "When I am snug and comfortable at Hamburgh," he said, "how eagerly I shall look for the London papers, to let me know how far the fire in Fleet Street, that is to happen to-night, has extended. How I shall laugh if it travel to the old church, and burns that down likewise. Ha! I think I shall take to laughing as a regular thing when I am fairly abroad with all my money, and safe--so safe as I shall be, so very--very safe." Yes, there sat Sweeney Todd rejoicing. He might have said with Romeo in Mantua-- "My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne, And all this day an unaccustomed spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts." But as it was with the young husband of the sainted Juliet, the day of reckoning was coming to Todd, and the spirit that spoke of comfort, joy, and security to his heart and brain, was after all a false one. But we must leave Todd to his self-felicitations, while we request the reader's kind company to Bell Yard, for certain things had taken place in the establishment of Mrs. Lovett which it is highly necessary should find a place in this veracious and carefully collected narrative. When Mrs. Lovett, with a full notion of the projected perfidy of Todd, left home for the purpose of bringing that individual to a sense of his wrong doings, and insisting upon a settlement, she did not awaken popular remark or popular interest by shutting up her shop, but she took such measures as she believed would last very well until she got back again. She was not sanguine upon the subject of getting back very soon, for she had made up her mind that back she would not come without the money. Previously, then, to leaving, she sought the narrow opening in the strong iron-door through which she was accustomed to speak to the discontented cook, and fastening a bottle of wine by the neck to a piece of cord, she let it down into the prison-house of pie-manufactory, saying as she did so-- "I keep my word with you. Here is wine. I trust that you will keep your word with me. A batch is wanted at twelve to-day, as you know." "Very well," said the cook. "Very well. They shall be ready. But you promised me freedom, Mrs. Lovett." "I did, and freedom you shall have shortly. All you have to do now is to attend to business for a little while. When I ring at twelve, send up the batch." "I will--I will. But yet--" "What is it now?" "If you only could fancy, Mrs. Lovett, what it was to pass one's time in this place, you would have some feeling for me. Will you send or bring me some real butcher's meat?" Bang went the wicket-door, and the cook found himself once again shut out from the world in those dismal vaults of Mrs. Lovett's house. "Twelve o'clock," muttered Mrs. Lovett, as she proceeded to her parlour. "I shall surely be home by twelve. Todd will find out that I am too persevering for him. His fears will force him to pay me, although his justice never would. I will threaten him into payment. The odious villain! to attempt yet to deprive me of all that I have toiled for, with the exception of what of late I have had the prudence to keep in the house!" The next thing that Mrs. Lovett had to do was to get some one to effectually mind the shop in her absence, and for that purpose she pitched upon a Mrs. Stag, a tall, gaunt-looking female, who acted as a kind of supernumerary laundress in Lincoln's Inn. With this person Mrs. Lovett felt that she need have no delicacy as regards locking-up and so forth; and as Mrs. Stag laboured under a defect of hearing, she would not be likely to pay any attention to what might take place below; but still Mrs. Lovett was determined to leave nothing to chance, and she left Mrs. Stag a note which was to go down on the movable platform to the cook in case she, Mrs. Lovett, was not at home at the twelve o'clock batch. This note contained the following words, which, as Mrs. Stag's parents and guardians had omitted to include reading in her education, were perfectly safe from her scrutiny-- "Send up the four o'clock batch, and you will be free within twenty-four hours from then." This she concluded would keep him quiet; and within twenty-four hours Mrs. Lovett felt that her affairs must be settled in some way or another; so that it was a very safe promise, even if she had not still retained in her own hands the means of breaking it if there should be occasion so to do. Truly, Mrs. Lovett was, in the full acceptation of the term, a woman of business. Mrs. Stag was sure to look in the first thing in the morning upon Mrs. Lovett; so that as soon as that useful and submissive personage made her appearance in Bell Yard, she was duly installed in authority in the shop--the parlour being properly fastened up against Mrs. Stag and all intruders. "You will be so good as to sit here until I come back, Mrs. Stag?" said Mrs. Lovett; "and sell as many pies as you can. I am going to the christening of a friend's child, who is anxious that I should be its godmother." What a delightful godmother Mrs. Lovett would have made! "Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stag. "I think I shall be back at twelve o' clock; but if I am not, you can let this note go down with the empty tray on the trap-door after you have slid off it the twelve o' clock batch of pies." "Yes, ma'am." "You will answer no questions to any one. All you have to say is, that I am out in the neighbourhood, and may come home at any minute, as indeed I may. I shall, of course, pay you, Mrs. Stag, for your whole day. Pray help yourself to a pie or two, as you feel inclined. Good morning." "Good mornin', ma'am, good mornin'. She's a very pleasant woman," said Mrs. Stag, after Mrs. Lovett had left; "she's a remarkably pleasant woman. What a delicious pie, to be sure!" Mrs. Stag was deep in the mysteries of a yesterday's veal. "It's very odd," added the laundress, as she wiped the gravy from the sides of her mouth; "it's very odd that Mrs. Lovett is so very particular in shutting up her parlour always, when she might know what a likely thing it is that anybody may want to look at the drawers and cupboards. It's a most remarkable thing to think what she can have there that she will lock up in such a way." Upon this, just with a faint forlorn sort of hope that the door might be left open, Mrs. Stag tried it, but it was fast; and, with a sigh of disappointment, she returned to her seat again. In another moment a yesterday's pork yielded up its fascinations to the appetite of Mrs. Stag. This, then, was the sort of life that Mrs. Stag passed in the shop. Lamentations and gravy--gravy and lamentations; and while she was thus occupied, the cook was pacing the cellars in rather a discontented mood, with his hands behind his back, reflecting upon things past, present, and to come, and upon his own dismal situation in particular. "I cannot stand this," he said, "I really cannot stand this. I have had promises from Mrs. Lovett of freedom, and I have had similar promises from he who came to the grating in the door, but none of the promises have been fulfilled. I cannot stand this any longer, it is impossible. I am driven mad as it is already. I must do something. I can no longer exist in this way." The cook looked about him, as many people are in the habit of doing when they say they must do something, without having a very clear notion of what it is to be; but as he at length fixed his eye upon that piece of machinery, far up to the roof, by which the batches of pies went up to the shop, and by which flour and butter and other matters, always excepting meat, found their way down to him, an idea took possession of him. What that idea was will show itself in another place. CHAPTER C. TODD TAKES HIS LAST WALK UP FLEET STREET AND TO BELL YARD. The twelve o'clock batch of pies went up, and down came the little missive of Mrs. Lovett respecting the four o'clock lot to the cook; but no Mrs. Lovett made her appearance, to relieve Mrs. Stag from her duties in the shop. "Ah," said that elongated lady, "it's all very well of Mrs. L. to say she would pay me for the day. I suppose she means to make a day of it, and that's the reason. Now, young man, what's for you?" "A pork with a nob of veal in it to give it a relish," was the reply of the young scion of the law, to whom Stag had addressed herself. "Go along with you, I don't want none o' your impertinence." "Now, ma'am, look alive. Two veals if you please. One pork--five porks--four veals. Do you make half a veal?" "No we don't." "A hot pork--three porks--two porks--eight veals. Don't be pushing in that way--four porks--smash. There, now, I've dropped mine, and it's all along of you." "Do be quiet," said Stag, "gentlemen do be quiet; 'patience,' says Paul, 'and I'll soon serve you all.' What are you laughing at, you little jackanapes? You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be making faces at a female twice you age." "And three times your size," said a voice. There was a great roar of laughter at this, but by degrees poor Stag got through the business of the twelve o'clock batch, and sat down with a sigh, to console herself, by eating two or three of the most luscious-looking that remained. "It ain't to be denied," said Stag, "but they are good. I never met with such gravy in all my life as is in 'em. Yes, they are first-rate. I'll just put one in the crown of my bonnet, for there's no knowing a minute now when Mrs. L. may pop in upon one at unawares-like. It's a comfort to have one of these pies, promiscous like, at one's hand, to lay hold of just in this sort of way, and pass in one's mouth in this kind of way. Oh, heart alive, but this is a good one. I declare the gravy is running out of it like water from a plug, when there's no house on fire, and it ain't wanted." Mrs. Stag would have done very well indeed if she could but have got something to drink. That certainly was a drawback, that at first the lady's ingenuity did not present any means of speedily overcoming; but as necessity is the mother of invention, Mrs. Stag at last hit upon a plan. "There's plenty of money in the till, of course," she said, "and suppose I stand at the door, and wait, till some wretch of a boy passes, and then give him a halfpenny for himself, just to run to the corner and get me a drop of something warm and comfortable." Mrs. Stag had no sooner started this "suppose," than she felt a burning desire to carry it out; and accordingly, history says, that at a quarter to one she might have been seen at the door of Mrs. Lovett's pie-shop, with a shilling in one hand, a halfpenny in another, and a bottle concealed in her pocket, looking like an ogress at every boy who passed, and who looked as though he wanted a halfpenny, and consequently would go upon the secret message, for the purpose of earning one there and then. Presently one came along the centre of Bell Yard, who seemed just the sort of person. "Boy, boy!" cried Mrs. Stag. "Well, old 'un," he replied, "what do you bring it in--Wilful Murder with the chill off, or what?" "Don't be owdacious. If you want to earn a penny--I mean a halfpenny--honestly, take this shilling and this bottle, and go to the corner, and get a quartern of the best." "The best what?" "Oh, you foolish boy. Gin, of course; but remember that my eye is upon you." It was well that Mrs. Stag spoke in the singular regarding her optical organ, for she had but one. The boy professed a ready acquiescence, and away he went, with the bottle and the shilling. Alas! Mrs. Stag was left lamenting. He came not back again, and from thenceforward Mrs. Stag lost the small amount of faith she had had in boyhood. The well-concocted scheme had failed, and there she was, with countless halfpence in the till, and so thirsting for strong water, that she was half inclined to make a grand rush herself to the nearest public-house, and chance any one in the interim helping themselves to the pies _ad lib_. But she was not reduced to that extremity. Suddenly the window was darkened by a shadow, and through one of the topmost panes an immense hideous face, with an awful grin upon it, confronted Mrs. Stag. The good lady was fascinated--not in an agreeable sense, but in quite the reverse--she could not take her eyes from off the hideous gigantic face, as it placed itself close to the frame of ill-made greenish glass, in order to get a good view into the shop. "Goodness gracious, it's _Luficer_ himself!" said Mrs. Stag. "I'm a lost woman. Quite a lost woman. I'm undone. It's _Luficer_ himself, I'm sure and certain!" Probably the hideous eyes that belonged to the hideous face, conveyed the impression to the brain behind them that Mrs. Stag was in a state of apprehension; for suddenly the face was withdrawn, and Todd--yes, Todd himself, for to whom else could such a face belong?--made his way into the shop. Mrs. Stag groaned again, and in a stammering voice, said-- "If you please, sir. I--I ain't ready yet." "Ready for what?" said Todd. "To go to--to--the brimstone beds, if you please, sir. I haven't done half enough yet." "Pho!" said Todd. "My good woman, you don't surely take me for the devil? I am an old friend of Mrs. Lovett's, and a neighbour. I have just stepped in to ask her how she does to day." Mrs. Stag drew a long breath of relief as she said-- "Well, really, sir, I begs your parding. It must have been the pane of glass that--that--that--" "Threw my face out of shape a little," said Todd, making one of his most hideous contortions, and finishing it off with a loud "Ha!" Mrs. Stag nearly fell off her chair. But it was not Todd's wish to frighten her, although he had, in the hilarity of his heart, yielded, like Lord Brougham, to the speculative fun of the moment. He now tried to reassure her. "Don't be at all alarmed at me, madam," he said. "Mrs. Lovett laughs often at my little funny ways. Is she at home?" Todd knew what sort of home he had provided Mrs. Lovett with, and this visit to Bell Yard was one partly of curiosity and partly of triumph, to ascertain how she had left things in her absence from her establishment. "No, sir," said Mrs. Stag, replying to the question of Todd; "she is not at home, sir." "Dear me, I thought she was always in at this time of the day. When, madam, do you expect her?" "Leastways," said Mrs. Stag, "I don't know, sir." "Were you here, madam, when she left home?" "Yes, I _were_." "Oh, and did she leave any message, madam, in case Mr. Todd from Fleet Street should call? Pray recollect yourself, my dear madam, as it may possibly be important. I do not say that it is, but it may be." "No, sir," replied Mrs. Stag; "oh dear, no. All she said was, that she was going to a christening." "A christening? Ha! She has been christened!" "Sir!" "I only said she had been christened, and no stint of the water, that was all, madam; but I perfectly understand you. Mrs. Lovett has gone to the christening of some one of those sweet little innocents, all perfume and flabbiness, that take one's heart completely by storm. Ah, my dear madam, when one looks at the slumbering infant, how one feels an irresistible desire to smother it." "Lor, sir!" "With soft kisses, my dear madam. Only fancy me now a baby!" Todd made so awful a contortion of visage contingent upon this supposition that poor Mrs. Stag, in the nervous condition which the whole adventure had thrown her into, nearly fainted right away. Indeed, the only thing that recovered her was hearing her visitor say-- "I am really very thirsty to-day. How do you feel, madam?" These were delightful words. "Oh, sir," she said, "how very odd. I am thirsty likewise." "Well, that is remarkable," said Todd. "Now, my dear madam, I don't make a common thing of saying as much to anybody, but you, who are a lady evidently of refined taste and intellectual capabilities, I am sure, will understand me, and make allowances for my feelings when I say that I prefer to anything else--gin!" "You don't mean it, sir?" "Indeed, but I do." "Oh, how could I mistake you for anything but a very nice man indeed, and a perfect gentleman. It's one of the most singular things in all the world, but I never do hardly take anything, yet what I do take is--is--" "Gin." Mrs. Stag nodded and smiled faintly. "Well, my dear madam, I don't see why we should not have a drop while I wait for Mrs. Lovett. Don't you trouble yourself, my dear madam. Now really do not. I know that you will like to have to say to that good, delightful, Mrs. Lovett, that you have not left the shop since she was absent; I will get it. They will lend me a bottle, and I have capacious pockets." "But for you, sir, to--" Todd was gone. "Well, really, he is a very nice sort of conversable man," said Mrs. Stag to herself, "when you come to know him, and he ain't near so ugly as he looks after all. I do hope Mrs. Lovett won't trouble herself to come home for the next half hour, since Mr. Todd has been so good as to call and to make himself so very agreeable about the--the gin." Todd went into Fleet Street for the gin, and he returned by the dark archway leading into Bell Yard. It was darker then than it is now, and in the deepness of an ancient doorway, he paused to drop into the gin--not a deadly poison--but such a potion as he knew would soon wrap up the senses of Mrs. Lovett's substitute in oblivion. This narcotic he took from a small phial he had in his breast-pocket. He did not say anything, but he gave one laugh, and then he walked on to the pie-shop, where he was eagerly and warmly welcomed by Mrs. Stag, who very assiduously placed a chair for him, saying, as she did so, that "Mrs. Lovett would quite stare if she were to pop in just then, and see them enjoying themselves, in a manner of speaking, in so delightful a manner." "I should stare!" said Todd. "You would, sir?" "Yes; I rather am inclined to think that that christening business will detain her. By this time she has got into the thick of it, my dear madam, you may depend, although I am quite certain she will be strictly temporate, and take nothing but water." "Do you think so, sir?" "I am sure of it. Can you find a glass, madam? I have not the happiness of knowing your name." "Stay, if you please, sir. I have one glass here without a foot. It's an odd thing, but Mrs. Lovett shuts up the place when she goes out, as if we were all thieves and murderers." "Does she really? Well--well, we will manage with one glass, my dear Mrs. Stag. It is the first time we have had a drop together, and I have only to hope that it will not be the last. I ought not, perhaps, to say it before your face, but you are the most entertaining company that I have met with for a long time.--Drink, madam." "After you, sir." "No--no, I insist." Mrs. Stag drank off the full glass that Todd presented her with, and then affecting to pour one out for himself, but dexterously keeping the bottle between him and the lady, he only carried the empty glass to his lips. Now, Mrs. Stag was a decided connoisseur in gin, and she suddenly assumed a thoughtful air, and looked up to the ceiling as she slightly moved her lips. "Rather an unusual taste after it's down, don't you think, sir?" she said. "Has it? Well, I don't know. Perhaps you have been tasting a pie, madam, and that may have influenced the flavour. Try it again. You never can tell the taste of a glass of gin, in my opinion, until you have taken two at least. Try this, Mrs. Stag." "Really I--I. Thank you, sir." Off went a second glass, and then Todd glared at her with the eyes of a fiend, as he said, placing the bottle upon the counter, "That ought to be a dose, I think." "Sir?" stammered Mrs. Stag. "I--I--God bless me--I--sir--gin--I--that is lots of pies--gin--gravy. Mrs. Lovett--in the crown of a bonnet--I--my dear, my dear--Bless us all. Lock it all up--no--no--no. Gin--I--good again--Pies--gravy." Todd caught her by the throat or she would have fallen; and then, as she became quite insensible, he thrust her under the counter. [Illustration: Todd Performs An Operation On Mrs. Stag.] CHAPTER CI. TODD MAKES HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME IN BELL-YARD. "Idiot!" said Todd, as he spurned the insensible form of Mrs. Stag with his foot. "Idiot! I would kill you, but that it would not do me any good. The narcotic you have taken in the gin may or may not carry you off for all I care. It don't matter to me one straw." He glared around him for a few moments with the fierceness of an ogre, and then walking to the shop-door, he deliberately locked and bolted it, so that no one could get in, even if they were expiring for a pie. "Humph," he said. "This is a time of day when it is not likely the shop will be troubled with many customers. It is between the batches, I know, so I am safe for an hour; and during that time if I do not make some discoveries here, it will surely be my own fault." Again he glared around him with the ogre-like aspect, and he ran his eyes carefully over the whole shop, from corner to corner--from floor to roof, and from roof to floor. At length he said-- "Where now, if I were hiding anything, would I select a place in this shop?" After putting this question to himself Todd again ran his eyes over the shop, and at length he came to the conclusion that it was not there he should seek for any hiding place at all, and he certainly paid the sagacity of Mrs. Lovett one of the highest compliments he possibly could by concluding that she would do as he would under like circumstances. "No," he said. "The shop is no hiding place for the secret store of my late friend Mrs. Lovett. No--no. I must seek in the very centre of her home, for that which I would find. Let me think--let me think." Todd felt himself quite at home in Bell Yard. He was in truth the landlord of the house. It had not been safe to make the extensive under-ground alterations in the place if Mrs. Lovett had been the tenant of a stranger merely; so Todd had purchased the freehold, and such being the case, and his tenant, the charming Mrs. Lovett, being as he firmly believed, at the bottom of the Thames, who should feel at home in the place if he, Sweeney Todd, did not? He felt that he had time, too. There was no hurry in life, and he quite smiled to himself, as he said-- "How often I have longed for a rummage among my dear departed friend Mrs. Lovett's goods and chattels, and now how many happily and singly circumstances have changed about to enable me to gratify my inclination. Ha!" Todd, in the security of his bad heart, uttered one of his old laughs--but then for the whole of that day he had been unusually happy. His good terms with himself shone out even of his eyes, horrible eyes. "Yes," he said, "yes, she is dead--dead--dead. Ha! ha! Mrs. Lovett--clever, fascinating creature--how muddy you lie to-night. Ha!" It was not prudent, however, to waste time, although he had plenty of it--it never is; so up rose Todd, and proceeded to the parlour. How fast-locked the door was! "Now really," he said, "it is a thousand pities that poor dear Mrs. L. has gone down to the bottom of the Thames with her keys in her pocket. It would have made no manner of difference in the world to her to have let me have them. It would have saved me some little trouble, and the doors some little damage." With a malicious grin, as though he delighted in the mischief he had made, he dashed himself bodily against the parlour door, and burst it open with a crash. "That will do," he said. "To be sure, the party who, when my absence gets noised about, comes to take possession of this house, would rather that the doors were whole; but what of that? Ha! I have mortgaged it twice over for its full value, and they may fight about it if they like. Ha! ha! How they will litigate, and I shall read the pleasant account of it in the papers." By this time Todd was in Mrs. Lovett's parlour, and folding his arms across his breast, he gazed about him with a feeling of marked satisfaction, as he said-- "For five years she has been making, of course, a private purse for herself, the dear creature, as well as looking to the share of the money in the bank; and for the last few weeks, since our agreement together has not been quite so perfect, she has kept all her takings herself; so reasoning upon that, she must, bless her provident spirit, have a tolerable sum laid by somewhere, which I, as her executor, will most assuredly pounce upon." At this moment some one clamoured for admission at the shop-door, rapping at it with a penny-piece in a manner that sounded very persevering. "Curses on you," muttered Todd, "who are you?" "A twopenny--a twopenny--a twopenny!" cried a boy, who was at the door, in a sing-song sort of voice--"I want a twopenny--a twopenny." Rap, rap, rap! went one of the penny-pieces against the upper half of the shop-door, which was of glass. Rap, rap, rap! Todd felt quite convinced that that boy would not go without some sort of answer being given to his demand, so he slunk round the shop, crouching down, until he came close to the door, and then assuming one of his most hideous faces, he suddenly rose up, and from within half an inch of the boy's face upon the other side of the glass, he confronted him. So horrible and so completely unexpected was this face to the boy, that for a moment or two he seemed to be absolutely paralysed by it, and then, with a cry of terror, he dropped the penny-piece with which he had been rapping the window, and fled up Bell Yard as though the evil one himself were at his heels. "That will do," said Todd. He went back to the parlour and glared round him again in the hope of finding something there, but the only cupboard which he observed was fast locked. One blow with the poker, using it javelin-like, forced it open, and Todd began flinging out upon the floor the glass and china, with which it was well enough filled, without any mercy. What cared he for such matters? Would he not before twelve hours now be miles and miles away? What, then, was glass and china to him? Nothing--absolutely nothing. He was disappointed, though, for he did not find the supposed concealed hoard of Mrs. Lovett behind the other things in this cupboard. "Be it so," he said. "No doubt she fancies her bed-room is the safest place, after all, for her money--that is easily sought. Bless you, Mrs. Lovett, I will find your gold yet!" With this view, Todd, by the aid of the poker, broke open another door, namely, the one which led from the parlour to the staircase, that would enable him to ascend to the upper part of the house. Truly, Mrs. Lovett was great in the locking-up way--very great indeed. Todd was now getting out of patience just a little, but only a little, that was all. He naturally enough in his own house wanted to make discoveries a little quicker than he was making them, that was all; and so he felt put out of his way a little, as any gentleman might under such circumstances. He swore a little, and was not so polite in his mention of the deceased Mrs. Lovett as he might have been. He ascended the stairs three at a time. "I wonder," he said, when he reached the top of the first flight; "I wonder where the wily wretch slept. She never would let me up stairs since she occupied the house." The locking-up propensities of Mrs. Lovett did not continue past the ground-floor; and Todd found all the doors upon the floor he was now on readily enough yield to his touch. The second one he went into was undoubtedly the room he sought. It was rather elegantly furnished as a bed chamber; and as Todd stood in the centre of the floor, he chuckled to himself, and muttered-- "Ha! when she rose this morning, she did not quite fancy she was taking her last look at this chamber. Ha! ha! Well, my dear Mrs. L., you had some taste, I will admit, for this room is very nicely got up. It is a world of pities you had not sense enough to be my slave, but you must try to be my equal, which in your poor vanity you thought I could permit. No--no--no!--that was impossible. Why should I single you out of all the world, Mrs. Lovett, to be just to?" This, in Todd's estimation, was a very conclusive argument, indeed. Whether it would have been so to Mrs. Lovett is another thing. And now the arch villain commenced a search in the chamber of his victim of the most extraordinary character for minuteness that could possibly be conceived. It was quite clear that there he expected to find something worth looking for, and that if he were foiled, it should not be for want of due diligence in the investigation. [Illustration: Todd Destroys Mrs. Lovett's Furniture.] In the course of ten minutes, the trim and well-kept bedroom was one scene of confusion and disorder. The dressing-glass was thrown down, and, being in his way once, was kicked to the other end of the room, and smashed to fragments. The bed-clothes were tossed hither and thither in the most reckless manner. Boxes were burst open and ransacked, but all in vain. Not one penny-piece could Todd discover. "Confound her!" he said, as he wiped his brow with a lace cap he picked off the dressing-table; "confound her! I begin to suspect that what she had of her own she put in her pocket this morning, and it has gone down to the bottom of the river with her! How infernally provoking!" He peeped up the chimney, and got nothing by that motion but a flop of soot in his eye. He stamped and swore and cursed in the most horrible manner that can possibly be conceived. Feeling that Mrs. Lovett in the matter of her little private savings had been one too many for him, he looked rather hopelessly through the other rooms of the house. They were all completely vacant, and from the appearance of the dust upon the floors of them did not seem to have been entered for years past. He gave up the search in despair, and gloomily walked down stairs to the parlour again. "It is lost," he said. "It is lost. Well, I must even be content with that which I have: I don't think any one will be the richer for what is here. No, no. It could not have escaped my search, and if it has done so by a miracle, or next thing to one, it will remain until the house falls to pieces years hence, perhaps, and fall into the hands of some one when I am de--No--no--what puts that word _dead_ into my mouth? I hate to think of it! I am young in constitution, and shall live many--many years yet; oh, yes, I--I need have no fear of death." Todd glared round him as though he expected that the very impersonification of the grim King of Terrors would rise up before him to take vengeance for being treated so slightingly; but all was still. He wiped his brow again with the lace cap of Mrs. Lovett, which he had mechanically retained when he left the bed-room, and then he began to ask himself what should be done with the shop. "For a few hours yet," he said, "a few short hours, there must be no disturbance and no commotion in this neighbourhood with which my name may possibly be connected. After that, they may do what they like and say what they like, but now all must be peace and silence. What shall I do with this confounded shop, now? I wish I had not given so strong a dose of the narcotic to you, old woman, left in charge by Mrs. Lovett. Ah, what is that?" The sound from the shop as of some one being violently sick, came upon Todd's ears. "Ah," he said, "so the narcotic has taken that effect, has it, upon Mrs. Lovett's representative? Well, well, she will recover from it much sooner than I thought she would, and that will now be all the better, for it absolves me of my difficulty about the shop for the next few hours." He walked into the shop and found Mrs. Stag sitting up behind the counter, and in rather a dubious condition as regarded the peace of her stomach. "Well, ma'am," said Todd. "How are you now?" "The Lord have mercy upon us!" "Amen! But how came you in this state, ma'am?" "The pies, sir. The pies. You really have no idea of how very rich they are, sir. It's all along of the pies, that's all, sir; but I am getting better, though my head is none of the best." "Yes," said Todd. "Of course it was the very rich pies. It could not have been what you drank." "Oh, no, no. Oh, dear no. That wasn't enough to hurt an infant, sir, as you ought to know. What a mercy it is that Mrs. Lovett has not come home, for she is rather a violent woman at times. It's really quite a mercy." "She won't be home just yet, I think," said Todd. "You will have time to get completely to rights before you see her, and when you do see her I would advise you to make your peace with the other world as quickly as you can!" Todd closed the parlour door; and as it was only the lock that had given, it did not show much symptoms of what had happened to it; as that in all likelihood Mrs. Stag, supposing that it was fast as she had first found it, would not pay any attention to it or scrutinise it sufficiently to be aware that it had been at all tampered with by any one. "Only a few hours after all," muttered Todd, "and then I don't care what anybody thinks or says about this shop and its affairs, or about me in connection with them. Ah, I had quite forgotten. I wonder what Mrs. Lovett's cook is about?" Todd paused, and gave some few moments' thought to the cook. He had an idea of going down to the oven cellar, and killing him, so that he might feel quite certain he was out of the way of perpetrating any mischief; but a second thought determined him in the other way. "No--no," he said. "What can he do? No doubt the house will be shut after a time, and then he will starve to death. Ha!" CHAPTER CII. TAKES A SLIGHT GLANCE AT TOBIAS AND HIS INTENDED. The idea of the cook being starved to death, had quite reconciled Todd to the notion of leaving him alone; so he left the shop, and proceeded to his own domicile in Fleet Street, and as nothing of great moment has occurred during his absence, we will take the liberty of conducting the reader to the house of Colonel Jeffery, and taking a slight peep at our old friend Tobias, whom we left in rather a critical position. Tobias had been in so delicate a condition, prior to the last outrage of Todd at the colonel's house, that one might suppose such a thing would go far towards terminating his mortal career, and so indeed it did; but in youth there is such a tenacity to life that we may fairly look for the most extraordinary things in the shape of clinging to the vital principle, and in the way of getting over injuries. Poor Tobias was, to be sure, thrown back by Todd's attack, but he was not destroyed. The medical man gave it as his opinion, that the mental shock was by far worse than the physical injury, and he said to the colonel-- "Some means must be devised to make him believe that he is quite free from any further attack upon the part of Todd, or he will never recover. He will awaken, it is true, from the trance he is now in, but it will be to all the horrors and dread of some expected fresh attack from Todd." "But I will assure him of my protection," said the colonel. "I will in the most positive manner tell him that he shall here be perfectly safe from that man." "Excuse me, colonel," replied the surgeon, "but all that was done before, and yet Tobias has found that Todd reached him, even in one of the rooms of this house. You will find that he will be very sceptical regarding your powers to protect him now from that bold and infamous man. I hope I am not offending you, colonel, by my plain speaking?" "Not at all my dear sir, not at all. Do not think of such a thing. Plain speaking, when it is dictated by friendly feeling, is one of the most admirable things in all the world, and no one can possibly admire it more than I do. I feel, too, the full force of what you have said, and that to the ears of Tobias it would sound like a farce for me to offer to protect him from the further assaults of Sweeney Todd." "But something may be done that is quite of a decisive character upon the subject, colonel." "What do you mean?" "I mean, that to sick folks I say anything that I think will tend to their recovery, even although I may feel that I am a little transgressing the bounds of truth. We must consider what we say to people in the position of Tobias, as so much medicine artfully administered to him." "I quite agree with you, and I feel that you have some important suggestion to make to me regarding Tobias. What is it?" "Then, colonel, if I were you, I should not hesitate for one moment to tell him that Todd was dead." "Dead?" "Yes, that is the only thing that will thoroughly convince Tobias he has nothing further to fear from him. I think it not only one of those delusions that are in themselves harmless, but I think it a justifiable dose of moral medicine." "It shall be done," said the colonel. "It shall be done. I do not hesitate about it for a moment. I thank you for the idea, and if that will do Tobias any good, he shall have the full benefit of it at my hands. Shall we seek him now?" "Yes, I hope that he is in a state to fully comprehend what is said to him, and in that case the sooner we say this from which we expect such good results, the better it will be. I am most anxious to witness the effect it will have upon his mind, colonel. If I mistake not, it will be one far exceeding anything you can suppose." Upon this they both went up stairs to the chamber in which poor Tobias lay. The boy was upon a bed, lying to all appearance bereft of sense. His breathing was rather laborious, and every now and then there was a nervous twitching of the muscles of the face, which bespoke how ill at ease the whole system was. At times too he would mutter some incoherent words, during which both the medical man and the colonel thought they could distinguish the name of Todd. "Yes," said the surgeon, "that is the spectre that is ever present to the imagination of this poor boy and we must speedily get rid of it from him, or it will assuredly kill him. I would not answer for his life another twenty-four hours, if his fancy were still to continue to be tortured by an expectation of the appearance of Todd." "Will you, or shall I, speak to him?" "You, if you please, colonel; he knows your voice better no doubt than he does mine." Colonel Jeffery bent his head close down to Tobias's ear, and in a clear correct voice spoke to him. "Tobias, I have come to say something very important to you. It is something which I hope will do you good to hear. Do you comprehend me, Tobias?" The sufferer uttered a faint groan, as he tossed one of his arms uneasily about upon the coverlet. "You quite understand me, Tobias? Only say that you do so, and I shall be satisfied to go on, and say to you what I have to say." "Todd, Todd!" gasped Tobias. "Oh, God! coming--he is coming." "You hear," said the surgeon. "That is what his imagination runs upon. That is proof conclusive." "It is, poor boy," said the colonel. "But I wish I could get him to say that he fully comprehends my words." "Never mind that. I would recommend that you make the communication to him at once, and abruptly. It will, in all likelihood, thus have more effect than if you dilute it by any great note of preparation before it reaches his ears." The Colonel nodded his acquiescence; and then, once more inclining his mouth to Tobias's ear, he said, in clear and moderately loud accents-- "Sweeney Todd is dead!" Tobias at once sprang up to a sitting posture in the bed, and cried-- "No, no! Is it really so?" "Yes," added the colonel. "Sweeney Todd is dead." For a moment or two Tobias looked from the colonel to the surgeon, and from the surgeon to the colonel, with a bewildered expression of countenance, and then burst into tears. "That will do," said the surgeon. "It has succeeded?" whispered the colonel. "Fully. It could not do better. He will recover full consciousness now when those tears are over. All will go well with him; but do not, by word or look, insinuate the remotest doubt of the truth of what you have told him. It would be better to say the same thing to any of the servants that may come about him." "I will--I will; and particularly to his master, whom I would as soon trust with a secret as I would with the command of a regiment of cavalry." Tobias wept for the space of about ten minutes, and then he looked up with a face in which there was a totally different expression to what it had borne but a short time previously, and with a faltering voice he spoke-- "And so Todd is gone at last?" "He has," replied the colonel; "and, therefore, you may now, Tobias, make your mind quite easy about him." "Oh, quite--quite!" By the long breath that Tobias drew, it was evident what an exquisite relief it was to him to be able to feel that the man who had been the bane of his young life was no more. No assurance of protection from him could have come near the feeling of satisfaction that he now felt in the consciousness of such a release. But Todd being dead, settled the affair at once. There was no drawback upon his satisfaction. "Oh!" he said, "I do indeed feel that life is with me again, and that I can be happy. Where is Minna?" "She cannot remain here always," replied the colonel; "but she will be in the house shortly, upon a visit to your mother, and you shall yourself have the pleasure of communicating the welcome news of Todd's death to her--news which to her bears as great a significance as it does to you." "Oh, yes," replied Tobias. "Minna will be pleased. We ought not to rejoice at the death of any one; but then Todd was so very, very bad a man, that his dying is a good thing, as it keeps him from loading his soul with more wickedness." "That," said the medical man, "is the proper view to take of the matter, Tobias; but now you will permit me to say to you that you should not talk too much, nor overtax your young strength. I will darken the room, by closing the shutters; and it is highly desirable that you should enjoy a few hours calm sleep, which now, with the conviction that Todd is dead, I do not see any difficulty in your doing." "Oh, no--no," said Tobias, with quite a bright expression upon his face. "Oh, no. I shall sleep well now. Quite well, for what have I to fear now?" These few words were spoken in such a tone of calm composure, that the colonel had every reason to rejoice in the experiment he had tried, upon the advice of the medical man. The latter closed the shutters of the room all but one, so that there was but a soft and chastened light in the room; and then, with a smile upon his face, Tobias--after hoping that they would arouse him when Minna should come, and receiving a promise that way--turned his face to his pillow, and composed himself to the first pure rest he had had since the attack that the villain Todd had made upon him in the colonel's house. "It is not much of a deception," said Colonel Jeffery to the surgeon, when the latter was leaving the house, "for I believe now that Todd's hours are indeed numbered. He will be arrested to-night." "I am glad to hear it," replied the surgeon. "Such a notable villain ought to be as quickly as possible put out of the world." "He ought, indeed; and from what I hear from Sir Richard Blunt, I believe that before twenty-four hours are gone over my head, the whole of London will ring with the name of Todd, and the story of his frightful criminality." Tobias slept quietly, and securely for four hours, during which space of time he was twice visited by Minna Gray, who had arrived while he was in that state of repose. The colonel, although he felt the danger of letting Mrs. Ragg know that the report to Tobias of the death of Todd was premature, felt no such scruple with regard to Minna. Indeed he considered that it would have been an insult to her judgment not to have told her exactly how the case stood. When she heard it all, and upon visiting Tobias's bed-room, found what a sweet sleep he was in, and what a quiet gentle smile was upon his face, she tearfully acknowledged what a good thing the innocent deception was which had produced such a result. "It will save him," she said. "It will," replied the colonel; "and be sure that you keep sufficient guard over yourself to keep from betraying the secret." "Oh, sir, trust me, I will." "And remember that in this house, Minna, it is known only to you and to me. If Tobias should ask you anything about it, you had better know nothing, for I promised him that he should have the pleasure of making the communication to you himself, therefore you cannot be puzzled by any questions regarding particulars when he is your informant." Minna joyfully concurred with all that the colonel said upon this head; and then, after a long talk with Mrs. Ragg in the kitchen--that good lady having the most implicit faith in the story of the death of Todd, and the profoundest hope that she should soon hear the full particulars of that event--she betook herself to the bedside of Tobias, there to await his awakening. When he did open his eyes, they were clear and bright, and the fever had left his brow and cheeks. The first object his eye rested upon was Minna, and the first words he said were-- "Todd is dead!" "Ah, then, Tobias, you have nothing now to fear, for you have not an enemy in the world." "No," he cried, "I have now nothing to fear--but, my Minna, my own, my beautiful! how much I have to love! We shall be now, Minna, very, very happy, indeed, and God will bless me for your dear sake!" CHAPTER CIII. MR. LUPIN HAS A SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH MRS. OAKLEY. Amid all the exciting circumstances that it has been our duty to relate--amid the turmoil of events consequent upon the wild villainy of Todd, and the urgent attempts of Mrs. Lovett to get her accounts audited--we have very much lost sight of Mrs. Oakley. Perhaps the reader has not been altogether unwilling to lose sight of a lady who, we will admit, was not calculated to make great advances in his esteem. But yet one thing must be recollected, and that is that Mrs. Oakley is Johanna's mother! That we opine is a fact which she should be given some degree of attention for; and insomuch as the bright eyes of the fair and noble-minded Johanna might be dimmed by an additional tear if anything very serious was to become of Mrs. Oakley, we will go a little out of our way just now to see what that deluded parson-ridden woman is about. The outgoings and the incomings of Mrs. Oakley for a long time past had been so various and discursive, that the poor spectacle-maker had long since left off considering that he had anything in the shape of a domestic establishment. Certainly, Johanna was always at hand, until lately, to attend to her father's comforts--but the wife never. There was either a prayer-meeting, or a love-feast, or some congregation or another assembled to hear or to see Mr. Lupin; so that if the wife and the mother went to such places to learn her duties, it was pretty evident that the lesson occupied the whole of her time. But still at times she did come home. At odd seasons she was to be found groaning and snuffling at the fireside in the little dark parlour at the back of the shop; but now for some few days she had totally disappeared. Mr. Oakley was alone. * * * * * Up a dingy court in the City, not a hundred miles from the dingy purlieus of Monkwell Street, there was a dingy conventicle, upon the front of which the word "Ebenezer" announced its character, or its would-be character. The upper part of this chapel was converted into a dwelling-place, and there luxuriated Mr. Lupin. The flock (geese, of course!) of the reverend gent rented the edifice, so that there he was rent free, and there he was in the habit of inviting to tea such of the females of his congregation who either had money of their own, or whose husbands had tills easily accessible, or pockets into which the wife's hand could be dipped at discretion; and dipped it generally was at in-discretion;--for folks, whether they be wives or not, when they can dip into other folks' pockets, do not always know how much to take just and no more. Now Mr. Lupin had established a Three-days-two-hours and-general-subscription-saving grace-prayer, which consisted of praying every two hours for three days and three nights, and at each prayer making an offering in hard cash for the use of the church and the gospel, he (Mr. Lupin) being both the church and the gospel. Alas! what will not human folly in the name of religion stoop to! There were women--mothers of families, who came to Mr. Lupin's house above the chapel with what plunder they could get together, and there actually stand the three days and three nights, the reverend gent making it is duty to keep them awake at the end of every two hours at least, as he pretended to pray, and sending them away completely placid, but with the comfortable conviction, as they themselves expressed it, that their "souls were saved alive." Mrs. Oakley was one of these dupes. Now, although these proceedings were very profitable to Mr. Lupin, he found that it was very irksome to get up himself in the middle of the night to awaken the sinners to prayer, so he used to introduce brandy-and-water after he had pretty well tired out his devotee, and ascertained the amount of money he was likely to get, and in the confusion of mind consequent upon that gentle stimulant, the time went on very glibly. "Sister Oakley," said Lupin, on the evening of the first day of Mrs. Oakley's residence beneath his highly-spiritual roof. "Sister Oakley, truly you will be a great brand snatched from the burning--How much money have you got?" "Alas!" said Mrs. Oakley, "business must be bad, for I only found in the till three pounds eleven-and-sixpence." Mr. Lupin groaned. "But I will from time to time take what I can, and let you have it, for the welfare of one's precious soul is above all price." "Truly, Sister Oakley, it is, and you may as well give me the small instalment now if it shall seem right unto thee, sister. I thank you in the name of the Lord! Humph--only three pounds eleven-and-sixpence. Well, well, we shall do better another time, perhaps, sister. Rest in peace, and I will from time to time come in and awaken thee to prayer. Truly and verily I have a hard time of it always." It was on the second night that fatigue had had a great effect upon Mrs. Oakley, and upon the reverend gent likewise that he brought her a tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, saying as he placed it by her-- "Truly I have had a dream, and the Lord told me to give you this. I pray you take it, Mrs. O., and may it put you in mind of the glory of the world that is to come--Amen!" Mr. Lupin retired, and as the stimulant was not at all an ungrateful thing to Mrs. Oakley, she was about to raise it to her lips, when a stunning knock at the chapel door made her give such a start, that she dropped glass, and spirit, and spoon to the ground. No doubt, a repetition of the knock at the moment, prevented Lupin from hearing the crash, which the fall in spirits produced. Mrs. Oakley heard him open the window of his room, and in a voice of stifled anger cry-- "Who is there? Who is there?" "It's me, Groggs, and you know it," said a female voice. "Come down and open the door, or I will rouse the whole neighbourhood." "Come, you be off. I have some one here." "What, another idiot? Ho!--ho!--ho! Why, Groggs, they will find you out some day, and limb you. If they only knew that you were Groggs the returned transport, how they would mob you to be sure. But I have come for money, old fellow, and I will have it. I ain't drunk, but I have had enough--just enough, mark me old boy, and you know what I am capable of when that's the case. I am your wife and you know it. Ho! ho!" Dab came the knocker again upon the chapel door. "Do you want to be my ruin?" said Lupin. "Stay a moment and I will throw you out five shillings; but if you make any noise you shall not have one farthing from me." "Shall I not? Ha!--ha! Shall I not? Five shillings indeed!" The lady upon this, feeling no doubt that both her wants and his powers of persuasion were made very light of, commenced such a tremendous knocking at the door, that the terrified Lupin at once descended to let her in, uttering such terrible curses as he went that Mrs. Oakley was petrified with dismay. Foolish woman! Did she expect that her idol would turn out to be anything but a common brazen image? In the course of a few moments she heard the couple coming up stairs again, and when they reached the top, she heard Lupin say, "Confound you, you always will come with your infernal demands at the very worst and most awkward times and seasons to me. Did you not take ten pounds some time ago, and promise to come near me no more?" "Ha!--ha! Yes, I did. But I am here again you see. You thought I would drink myself to death with that amount of money, and that you would get rid of me, but it did me good. Ho!--ho!--ho! The good stuff did me good." "You are a fool," said Lupin. "I tell you, woman, you will be my ruin, my absolute ruin; and then where will your supplies come from I should like to know? Why I have an idiot only in the next room, of whom I hope to make a good thing; and if you had only come in five minutes sooner you would have been heard by her, and I should have been done up here." "And why don't she hear you now? Have you cut her throat like you did the woman's by Wapping?" "Hush!--hush! you devil! Why do you allude to that?" "Because I like, my beauty. Because I know you did it. And whenever I do mention it, the gallows shines out in your face as plain--ay, as plain as this hand; and I like to see you quake and change colour, and be ready almost to fall down with your fears. Ho!--ho! I like that. Yes, it's as good to me as a drop of drink, that it is." "I only wish your throat was cut, that is all." "I know you do. But you won't try that on upon me. No--no. You won't try that on. Look at this, my beauty. Do you think I would step into a place of yours without something in the shape of a friend with me? Oh--no--no--" The lady exhibited the handle and point of the blade of a knife, as she spoke, at which Mr. Lupin staggered back, and then in a faltering voice he said-- "I will go and see how my portion has worked with the idiot I mentioned. I gave her a good dose of laudanum in a glass of brandy and water." It may be imagined with what feelings Mrs. Oakley heard this interesting little dialogue. It may be imagined, if she had at the bottom of her heart any lingering feelings of right or wrong, how they were likely to be roused up by all this--how her thoughts were likely to fly back to the house she had made wretched, and virtually deserted for so long a period of time. And now what was to become of her? Had she not heard Lupin denounced by one who knew him well as a murderer--an allegation which he had not even in the faintest manner denied? Mrs. Oakley went down upon her knees in earnest, and wringing her hands, she cried-- "God save me for my poor husband and my child's sake!" We will suppose that if any appeals at all reach Heaven, that this was one of those that would be sure to get there. Hastily pushing aside with her hands the fragments of the broken glass, Mrs. Oakley flung herself upon the floor, at the moment that Lupin with a light in his hand entered the room. "Hilloa!" he said. All was still. Mrs. Oakley did not move hand nor foot. She scarcely dared to breathe, for she felt that upon his belief that she had swallowed the narcotic her life rested. When he saw her lying upon the floor, he gave a short laugh, as he said-- "I thought she could not resist the brandy and water. The laudanum has done its work quickly indeed. It's well that it has, for if it had not-- Well, well! If I only now had the courage to take a knife to my wife, and get rid of her once and for all, I should do well. Sister Oakley, you will not awaken for many hours, and when you do, you will be by far too much confused to know if you have said all your prayers or not. I shall make a fortune out of these women." Mrs. Oakley felt upon the point of fainting, and if he had but touched her, she was certain that she must have gone off; but he felt so satisfied with the powerful dose of laudanum that he had given her in the brandy and water, that he did not think it worth while in any way further to interfere with her. "Old and ugly too!" he muttered, as he left the room. Perhaps these last words cut Mrs. Oakley to the soul more quickly than all he had previously said. If she was not from that moment cured of what might in her case be called Lupinism, it was a very odd thing indeed. The Rev. gent had been gone more than ten minutes before Mrs. Oakley gathered courage to look up, and to listen to what was taking place in the next room. Then she found that Lupin was speaking. She was still too much overcome by terror to rise, but she managed to crawl along the floor, until she reached the wall between the two rooms. It was a flimsy wall that, composed only of canvas, for the rooms above the chapel had been got up in a very extemporaneous kind of way. Nothing could take place in the way of conversation in the next room, that might be distinctly enough heard in the one that Mrs. Oakley was in. As we have said, Lupin was speaking. Mrs. Oakley placed her ear close to the canvas, and heard every word that he uttered. "Listen to reason," he said, "listen to reason, Jane. Of course, I will give you as much money as I can. I do not attempt to deny your claim upon me, and what is to hinder us working together, and making a good thing of it? Ah, if I could only persuade you to be a religious woman." "Gammon!" said Jane. "I know that very well," said Lupin. "That's the very thing. I know it is gammon as well as you do. What's that?" Mrs. Oakley had made a slight noise in the next room. CHAPTER CIV. MRS. OAKLEY SEES A STRANGE SIGHT, AND THINKS THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME. "What's that, eh?" added Lupin. Mrs. Oakley sank flat upon the floor in a moment; she thought that now surely her last hour was come. "I thought I heard a noise. Did you, Jane?" added Lupin. "I didn't hear anything," said the woman. "It's your conscience, old boy, that makes you hear all sorts of things. You know you are a hard one, and no mistake. You know, there ain't exactly your equal in London for a vagabond. But come, hand out the cash, for I ain't particularly fond of your company, nor you of mine, I take it." "It must have been imagination," muttered Lupin, still alluding to the noise he had heard or fancied he had heard. "It must have been imagination, and the wind at night does certainly make odd noises in the chapel at times, know." "Bother the noises. Give me the money, and let me go, I say. Come, be quick about it, or else I shall think of some way of helping myself, and you know when I begin, that I am apt to be rather troublesome." "A little," said Lupin. "Just a little. But as I was saying, Jane--you and I together might make a fortune quite easily. You are a clever woman." "Am I really? When did you find that out, you old rogue?" "Really, Jane, it is difficult to talk with you while you are in such a humour. Come, will you take something to drink? Say you will, and you shall have the very best I can get you. Only you must promise to take it in moderation, and not get much the worse for it, Jane." "Do you think now that I am such an idiot as to take a drain of anything in your place? No! I am not quite so green as that. Give me some money and I'll fetch something, and as long as I have got my hand on the bottle, where I will take good care to keep it, I shall know that I am safe from you, but not otherwise. You would like to give me a drop of the same stuff you have set the woman in the next room to sleep with, wouldn't you now, my beauty?" "No, Jane. Not you. You are not such a fool as to be taken in as she is. Such poor tricks won't do for you, I know well. There is money, and there is an empty bottle. Go and get what you like for yourself, as you wish not what I may happen to have in the place. I will let you in again, so you need not be afraid of that, Jane." "Afraid? Afraid? That's a likely thing, indeed. I afraid of being kept out by you? No, old boy, if you did keep me out one minute longer than my patience lasted, and that would not be very long I think, I would raise such a racket about your ears, that you would wish yourself anywhere but where you are. How did I get in before, when you would have given one of your ears to keep me out? Why, by frightening you, of course, and I'll do it again. Give me hold of the bottle. I afraid of you, indeed? A likely thing." The lady left the room with the bottle and half a guinea in her hand, while Lupin, with affected solicitude, lighted her to the door of the chapel, and lingered until he heard her footsteps die away right up the dismal dingy-looking court. While Lupin was lighting his wife down the stairs, Mrs. Oakley found a small slit in the canvas that the division between the two rooms, and she industriously widened it, so that she was enabled to see into the adjoining apartment. She then waited in fear and in trembling the return of Lupin. The arch hypocrite was not many minutes in making his appearance. He set the candlestick down upon the table with a force that nearly started the candle out of it, and then in a fierce voice he cried-- "Done--she is done at last! Ha! ha! Jane, you are done at last! I kept that bottle for an emergency. It seemed empty, but smeared all around its inner side is a sufficient quantity of a powerful narcotic to affect the very devil himself if he were to drink anything that had been poured into it. You think yourself mighty clever, Jane; but you are done at last. Now what a capital thing it is that I have sent that old fool, Mrs. Oakley, to sleep, for otherwise I should certainly be under the necessity of cutting her throat." Mrs. Oakley could hardly suppress a groan at this intelligence; but the exigences of her situation pressed strongly upon her, and she did succeed in smothering her feelings and keeping herself quiet. Lupin paced the room anxiously waiting for his wife's return; and in the course of about five minutes, a heavy dab of a single knock upon the chapel door announced that fact. He immediately snatched up the candle and ran down stairs to let her in, lest according to her threat she should get to the end of her very limited stock of patience. They came up the stairs together--Jane was speaking-- "Brandy!" she said; "I have got brandy, and I mean to keep my hand on the bottle, I tell you. Ah, I know you--no one knows you better than I do. You may impose upon everybody but me. You won't find it so very easy a thing to get the better of me; I'll keep my hand on the bottle." "How very suspicious you are," said Lupin, "It's quite distressing." "Is it? Ho! ho! Well, I'll have my drop and then I will go. If you are civil to me whenever I choose to come it will be better for you; but I am not the sort of person to stand any nonsense, I can assure you." "No, Jane, I never said you were," replied Lupin; "and I hope that to-night will see the beginning as it were of a kind of reconciliation and better feeling between us. I am sure I always thought of you with kindness." By this time they were in the room, and the lady half drew the knife she had before exhibited from the bosom of her dress, as she said-- "Look at this--look at this! I distrust you all the more when you talk as you do now, and I tell you that if I have any of your nonsense, I will pretty soon settle you. You mean something, I know, by the twinkle of your eye. I have watched you before, and I know you." "Now, really, this is too bad," said Lupin, as he wiped his face with a remarkably old handkerchief; "this is too bad, Jane. If I am kind and civil to you, that don't suit; and if I am rough and rather stern, you fly out at that too. What am I to do? Will nothing please you?" "Bah!" said Jane. "Hold your nonsence. How much money am I to have when I have finished the brandy? That is the question now." "Will three guineas be enough, Jane, just for the present occasion?" "No, I must have five, or if you don't produce them, I'll make you." "You shall have them, Jane. You see how complying I am to you. But won't you give me a drop of the brandy? You don't mean to take it all?" "Yes I do. It's only half a pint, and what's that? You can drink some of what you said you had in the place. I didn't go out to buy for you. Besides, I won't trust it a moment out of my hands. You would put something in it before I could wink." "Really, really! What a strange woman. But won't you have a glass, Jane, to drink it out of? Let me get you a glass now?" "No, you would put something in that too. Oh, I am up to your tricks, I am, old boy. You won't get the better of me. Very good brandy it is, too. Ah! strong rather." Jane took a hearty pull at the bottle, so hearty a one that two thirds of the mixture vanished, and then with her hand on the neck of it, she sat glaring at Lupin, who was on the opposite side of the table, with an awfully satanic grin upon his ugly features. "It has an odd taste." "An odd taste?" cried Lupin. "It's a capital thing that you bought it yourself, and kept your hand over the bottle. I'm very glad of that, old woman." "But I feel odd--I--I--ain't the thing. I don't feel very well, Lupin." "Ha, ha, ha!" "I--I feel as if I were dying. I--I don't see things very clearly. I am ill--ill. Oh, what is this? Something is amiss. Mercy, mercy!" "Ha, ha, ha!" "I--I--shall fall. Help! The room swims round with me. I am poisoned. I know I am. Mercy! help! murder! Oh, spare me." "Ha, ha, ha!" Lupin rose and went round the table. He caught hold of the wretched woman by the head, and applying his mouth close to her ear, he said-- "Jane! There was something in the bottle, and I intend to cut your throat. I hope the knife you have got with you has a good edge to it?" She tried to scream, but an indistinct, strange, stifled cry only came from her lips. She tried to get up, but her limbs refused their office. The powerful narcotic had taken effect, and she fell forward, her head striking the table heavily, and upsetting the bottle with the remainder of the drugged brandy in it as she did so. "Done!" said Lupin. "Done at last. Oh, how I have watched for such an opportunity as this. How often I have pleased myself with the idea of meeting her in some lonely place when she was off her guard, and killing her, but I never thought that anything could happen half so lucky as this. Let me think. I am quite alone in this building, or as good as alone, for Mrs. Oakley sleeps soundly. I can easily drag the dead body down stairs, and place it in one of the vaults underneath the chapel, to which I have the key. I will wrench open some coffin if that be all, and cram her in on the top of the dead there previously. Ah, that will do, and then I defy any circumstances to find me out. How safe a--mur--I mean a death this will be to be sure. How very--very safe." Mrs. Oakley shook in every limb, but she kept her eyes steadfastly fixed at the small hole in the canvas, through which she could see into the room, and by a horrible species of fascination, she felt that if she had ever so much wished to do so, she could not then have withdrawn it. No! she was as it were condemned as a fiat of destiny, as a punishment for her weak and criminal credulity regarding that man, to be a witness to the dreadful deed he proposed committing, within the sphere of her observation. It was dreadful. It was truly horrible. But it was not now by any means to be avoided. Lupin disappeared for a few seconds into a room where he usually himself slept. From thence he returned with a wash-hand basin in his hand, which he placed upon the floor. He then fumbled about the clothing of his wife until he found the knife that she had twice so threateningly exhibited to him. He held it up to the light and narrowly scrutinised it. "It will do I think," he said. He tried its keenness upon the edge of the sole of his shoe, and he was satisfied that it had been well prepared for mischief. "It will do well," he said. "Well, nothing can be better. From this night I shall be free from the fears that have haunted me night and day for so long. This woman is the only person in all London who really knows me, and who has it in her power to destroy all my prospects. When she is gone, I shall be perfectly easy and safe, and surely never was such a deed as this done with so much positive safety." Mrs. Oakley felt sickened at what she saw, but still she looked upon it with that same species of horrible fascination which it is said--and said truly, too--prevents the victim of a serpent's glittering eye from escaping the jaws of the destroyer. She saw it all. She did not move--she did not scream--she did not weep--but as if frozen to the spot, she, with a statuesque calmness, looked upon that most horrible scene of blood. She was the witness appointed by Heaven to see it done, and she could not escape her mission. Lupin twined his left hand in the hair at the back of the head of the wretched woman, and then he held her head over the wash-hand basin. There was a bright flash of the knife, and then a gushing, gurgling sound, and blood poured into the basin, hot, hissing and frothing. The light fell upon the face of Lupin, and at that time so changed was it, that Mrs. Oakley could not have recognised it, and, but that she knew from the antecedents that it was no other than he, she might have doubted if some devil had not risen up through the floor to do the deed of blood. He dropped the knife to the floor. [Illustration: Lupin Drugs His Wife, And Then Cuts Her Throat.] The murdered woman made a faint movement with her arms, and then all was over. The blood still rolled forth and filled the wash-hand basin. Lupin caught the cover from the table, throwing everything that was upon it to the floor, and wrapped it many times round the head, face, and neck of his victim. "It is done!" he said. "It is done!" He still held the body by the hair of the head, and dragging it along the floor, he dropped it near the door opening on to the staircase. He then went to a cupboard in the room, and finding a bottle, he plunged the neck of it into his mouth, and drank deeply. The draught was ardent spirit, but it had no more effect upon him at that moment than as though it had been so much water from a spring. That is to say, it had no intoxicating effect. It may have stilled some of the emotions of dread and horror which his own crime must have called up from the bottom even of such a heart as his. He was human, and he could not be utterly callous. Leaning against the cupboard-door for a few seconds he gasped out-- "Yes, it is done. It is quite done, and now for the worst. Now for the body, and the vaults, and the dead. Can I do it? can I do it? I must. Yes, I must. There is no safety for me if I do not. I shall come else to the scaffold. I think already that I see the hooting crowd--the rope and the cross-beam. Now they hold my arms. Now they tell me to call upon God for mercy to my wretched blood-stained soul. Now the mob shouts. The hangman touches me--I feel the rope about my neck. They draw the cap over my face, and so shut out the world from me for ever. I die--I struggle--I writhe--I faint--God--God--God help me!" He fell heavily to the floor of the room. CHAPTER CV. MRS. OAKLEY ESCAPES, AND TAKES A DIFFERENT VIEW OF THINGS IN GENERAL. Mrs. Oakley nearly fainted herself at this juncture, but she felt that her life was in jeopardy, and by a strong mental effort, such as she could hardly have supposed herself capable of making, she sustained herself, and preserved her senses. Lupin lay for some minutes quite insensible upon the floor, but he did not lie long enough for Mrs. Oakley to take advantage of his temporary swoon and leave the place. Had she perhaps been very prompt and resolute, and self-possessed, she might have done so, but under the whole of the circumstances, it was not to be supposed that such could be her state of mind; so the slight opportunity, for, after all, it was only a slight one, if one at all, was let slip by her. She was just beginning to ask herself if there was a chance of getting away before Lupin should recover, when he uttered a hideous groan, and moved slightly. After these indications of recovery, Mrs. Oakley was afraid to move; and certainly, the slightest indication of her being otherwise than in the state of insensibility which Lupin believed to be her condition, there is very little doubt it would have been the signal for her death. The man who commits a murder for the attainment of any object of importance to him, will not scruple to commit another to hide the first deed from the eyes of the world. And now Lupin slowly rose to a sitting posture, and glared around him for a few moments in silence. Then he spoke. "What is this?" he said. "What is all this? What is the meaning of all this? Blood!--blood! Is this blood upon my hands? No--no--yes, it is--it is. Ah! I recollect." He held his blood-stained hands to his eyes for a few moments, and then as he withdrew them, he slowly turned his eyes to where the body lay. With a shudder he dragged himself along the floor further off from it, gasping out as he did so-- "Off--off, horrible object!--off--off!" His distempered imagination, no doubt, pictured the body as following him. Is there not, indeed, a prompt retribution in this world? "Off--off, I say! No further!--Not dead?--not dead yet? How much blood have you in you now to shed? Off--off!" He reached the wall. He could get no further, and thus pursued still by the same wild insane idea, he sprung to his feet, and uttering a loud cry, he caught up a chair and held it out at arm's length before him, shouting-- "Keep away--keep away! Keep off, I say--I--I did not do it. Who shall say I did it? Who saw me do it?" He slowly dropped the chair, and then in a more composed voice he said-- "Hush! hush! I am mad to raise these cries. They will alarm the court. I am mad--mad!" Mrs. Oakley had hoped that his ravings would reach some other ears then hers, and that his apprehension, with the bleeding witness of his crime close at hand, would follow as a thing of course, and then how gladly would she have flown from her place of concealment, and cried out-- "He did it! I saw him! That is the man!" But such was not the case. Either he really did not call out loud enough to make himself heard, or the inhabitants of the court were too much accustomed to all sorts of sounds to pay any attention even to the ravings of a murderer! No one came. No one even knocked at the chapel-door to know if anything was amiss, and when she saw him calm, and in a measure self-possessed again, her heart died within her. "Murder! murder!" he said; "I have done murder! Yes, I have steeped my hands in blood--again--again! It is not the first time, but one does not become familiar with murder. I did not feel as I feel now when I took a life before. Oh, horror! horror!" He shook, but soon again recovered himself. "The vaults! The vaults!" he said. "They will hide the dead. Who will look for this woman? What friends has she? Is there one in all the world who cares if she be alive or dead? Not one. Is there one who will stir six steps to find out what has become of her? Not one." Again he solaced himself with a draught of brandy, and then he set about making his preparations for disposing of the dead body of his slaughtered victim. From a drawer in the room he took a large sheet, and spread it upon the floor. Then he kicked and pushed the dead body with his feet on to it, and then he deliberately rolled it up round and round in the sheet, and at each fold feeling that it was further removed from his sight, he seemed to breathe more and more freely. He spoke in something like his old tones. "That will do--that will do. The vaults will be the place. Was there ever such a cunning place for murder to be done in as a chapel, with its ready receptacles of the dead beneath it? There let her rot. She will never come up in judgment against me from there. It is done now. The deed that I often thought of doing, and yet never had the courage, nor the opportunity at the same time, to accomplish until to-night. The vaults--the vaults. Ay, the vaults!" He lit a lantern that he took from the cupboard, and then he opened the door that communicated with the staircase terminating in the chapel. He listened as though he fancied that some one might be below listening to the deed of blood above. "All is still," he muttered, "so very still. It is providential. It is the will of Heaven that this woman should die to night, and after all I am but the instrument of its decrees--nothing more. That is comforting." He now dragged the body to the door he had opened, but he did not carry it. When he got it there he overbalanced it, and let it fall down. Mrs. Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it reached the bottom of the stairs. Lupin followed with the lantern. And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed, as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well as into each other. Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees. "God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make an attempt to leave this frightful place. There will surely be time while Lupin is in the vaults. Oh, yes, there will surely be time." She tottered along with as little strength as though she had been lying for weeks upon a bed of sickness, so completely had she been unnerved by what she had seen. She touched the handle of the door. Even that was support. And then, she turned it. The door did not open. It was locked! Mrs. Oakley felt as if at that moment all her chance of escape was gone. She felt as though she were given over by providence to Lupin to be murdered. Why had he locked the door, but that if by any rare chance she should awaken from the lethargic sleep into which he supposed her to be plunged, she should have no outlet but through the room in which he would be? But he was not there now, and the door of communication between her room and that in which the murder had been done might not be fast. To try it was the work now of a moment; Mrs. Oakley felt a little more self-possessed with the knowledge that Lupin was not close at hand, and she opened the door. It yielded readily enough to her touch. She was in the room of murder--in the very atmosphere of blood. She glanced around her, and, although she had seen all through the opening in the canvas partition, yet she was horrified to find herself closer to the spot upon which the fearful deed had been done. Lupin, when he had lit his lantern with which to go to the vaults, had not extinguished the ordinary light that burnt in his room. That had a long spectral-looking wick; but it gave sufficient light to enable Mrs. Oakley to see the blood upon the floor. She sickened at the sight. But if she were to escape, it must be done at once. Lupin would not be likely to linger longer by one brief moment in the vaults than was absolutely necessary; and he might return before she had effected her purpose yet. She flew to the door of his room, which opened on to the landing. She made an effort to open it. Alas! it was in vain; it, too, was locked, and the key was gone! "I am a prisoner!" said Mrs. Oakley, as she clasped her hands; "I am a prisoner to this dreadful man!" For some few moments now she felt completely overwhelmed by this misfortune. The only outlet from the room that was not fast, was that which Lupin himself had taken, and which led to the chapel. Should she venture that way or not?--that was the question. Could she resolve upon staying where she was, and trusting to an escape in the morning? No, no; she told herself that would be too horrible. She would have, then, to look at Lupin in the face, and to talk to him. "No--no--no! I cannot do that," she said. "I will go down the staircase that he has gone down--I will pass through the chapel--I will try to open the chapel door, and then I will rush out with the cry of murder upon my lips." It was a trembling anxious thing to follow the murderer and his victim down that staircase; but having found all other mode of egress denied to her, Mrs. Oakley attempted it. Slowly she went, step by step; and ever and anon she paused to listen for any sound that should be indicative of Lupin's whereabouts--but she heard nothing. "He must be deep beneath the chapel," she said, "among the vaults--that is where he must be. I shall be safe if I hasten now. Oh, so safe--quite safe!" She did hasten, and another moment brought her to the foot of the stairs. A door in the chapel-wall terminated them. That was the door against which Mrs. Oakley had heard the dead body strike with such a frightful crash when Lupin had cast it down the stairs. It was swinging open now. Another moment and she was in the chapel. From out of the aperture, occasioned by the lifting up of a large square trap-door in the centre of the chapel floor, there came a faint stream of light. Mrs. Oakley knew that that trap-door led to the vaults. She knew that a flight of steps was immediately beneath it which lead to the loathsome receptacles of the dead, where the pious members of Mr. Lupin's flock were laid when they and this world had bidden each other adieu. She knew that he derived no despicable revenue from letting such lodgings to the dead. And he was down there with his victim--the first person that he ever permitted to lie there without a fee! Mrs. Oakley, to reach the chapel door, must needs pass quite close to the open trap-door; and as she neared it, a terrible curiosity took possession of her--it was to see what Lupin was doing below--it was to ascertain in what way he disposed of his victim's body. She thought that she ought to see that. She thought, then, that she could tell all, and bring the hounds of justice to the very spot where the murdered woman lay. She paused for a moment upon the brink of the trap, and then, by an impulse that at the moment seemed, and was, irresistible, she began the descent among the vaults. These vaults were quite dignified by being so called. They were nothing but cellars--nothing in the world but damp gloomy cellars--and Lupin made as much of them as he did of the chapel overhead. The corpses lay there thick and three-fold. A ghostly company! and yet Lupin had many underground lodgings to let. What cared he if the fumes from the dead came up, and made havoc upon hot Sundays among the living? What cared he what mischief the charnel-house beneath the planks did to the old and to the young? His own constitution, he had a strong impression, could be fortified by copious libations of brandy. Probably he was wrong in his practice, but he had faith in his remedy, and that was a great thing--a very great thing, indeed. Mrs. Oakley slowly crept down the steps leading to the vaults. She was guided by the faint light of Lupin's lantern, which was she knew not where. Twice she paused to listen if he were coming, as in such a case she would have flown back upon the wings of terror, but she heard nothing, and she passed onward. Twelve steps led to the lowest depth upon which the vaults were situated. Then there was a kind of passage, upon which were flag stones very roughly and clumsily laid down. Right and left of this passage the vaults were. It wound completely round the chapel, but she had not to go very far to ascertain where Lupin was at work. The light of the lantern guided her to the half-open door of the vault, within which he was at work. CHAPTER CVI. MR. LUPIN FINDS HIMSELF IN AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT. Mrs. Oakley peeped into the vault, but she held herself in readiness to fly at a moment's notice, and then she thought she could easily hide among the pews in the chapel. Nothing, she thought, could be very well easier than such a course. Could she not hide in the very pew that she had for a long time called her own? And then by watching Lupin, she should have the advantage of seeing in a moment when he had done his work, and there would then be little trouble in eluding him. On tip-toe, Mrs. Oakley advanced to the half-opened door of the vault, and peeped in upon the man, who thought himself so very safe. The eye of heaven, he must have thought, saw him; but he would have staked his life forthwith upon the fact, that no human observation was bent upon his actions; and yet there was some one for whom he entertained the greatest contempt--one whom he would have defied to injure him, gathering up evidence to hang him. Go on, Lupin. Bury your victim. But don't think yourself so very safe just yet. It is an old saying, that "Murder will out." Do you think that yours will prove the exception? From a recess in the wall Lupin had dragged a coffin. It was an old one and rather rotten, so that by the aid of a small crowbar that he had there--what use did Lupin find for a crowbar in the vaults beneath his chapel? Was it to rip open the coffins and rob even the dead? Well, well--by the aid of this crowbar, he soon forced open the lid of the coffin. He stood in it then, and stamped down the remains with his feet to make room for the murdered body. [Illustration: Mr. Lupin Crushes The Corpse To Make Room For His Murdered Wife.] Mrs. Oakley sickened at this; she had not quite expected to see such a horror as that. It appeared to her at the moment, to be worse than the murder above stairs. She really felt quite faint as she saw him. When he had flattened the nearly decayed body in the coffin as much as he could, he lifted the corpse of his victim from the floor of the vault. It was still closely enveloped in the large sheet, although at one part the blood had begun to make its way through all the folds upon folds of that wrapper, and he threw it into the coffin. It more than filled it. Poor Mrs. Oakley shut her eyes; she knew what he was going to do. She knew it from what he had done, and she saw it in his eyes. He was of course going to tread down the dead body of her he had murdered, in the same way that he had already trodden down the half-decomposed one in the coffin. Strange companionship! How little the very respectable defunct, who had been expensively placed in one of the vaults, could have imagined that she--it was a female--that she should be trodden down as flat as any pancake, to make room for the Reverend Josiah Lupin's murdered wife! "To what base uses may we come as last." Mrs. Oakley heard him treading and stamping, and then she opened her eyes, and she saw him fitting on the lid of the coffin again. He had made it hold its double burthen. And now she had surely seen all that she came to see, and yet with a frightful fascination she lingered as though spell-bound to the spot. She thought that she had plenty of time. Of course Lupin would put the coffin into its recess again, and that would take him some time. It would, with its additional weight, certainly be no easy task, but he set about it, and it is astonishing what herculean labours people will perform, when their necks are to answer for any delay or dereliction of the duty. Lupin dragged the coffin to its receptacle on a low shelf, and fairly hitched one end of it in the aperture made for its reception. By the assistance of the lever he pushed it fairly in, and then he paused and wiped his brow. "It is done," he said. He leaned heavily against the damp wall. "It is done--it is done. This will be one of the undiscovered murders that are done in London. I am safe now. Nobody will miss her--nobody will look for her--nobody will dream that this vault can possibly conceal such a crime; and now that the terror of it, and the horror of doing it, is all over, I feel like a new man, and am much rejoiced." "Rejoiced," thought Mrs. Oakley with a shudder. "She was the torment of my life," added Lupin. "I knew no peace while she lived. Success had no charm for me. Go where I would, think of what I would, do what I would, I always had the dread of that woman before my eyes; but now--now I am rid of her." He took up his lantern from the floor of the vault. Now it was time for Mrs. Oakley to fly. She turned and hastily ran up the staircase of the vault. The idea took possession, and it was after all only a fancy, that Lupin was pursuing her with the crow-bar in his hand. But how it urged her on. What wings it gave her, but confused her the while, so that instead of hurrying to the chapel door, and making a bold effort to open it as she had meant to do, she only sought the door in the wall, and the staircase down which she had come to the chapel, nor did she pause until she found herself in the murder room. Then with a heart beating so wildly, that she was fain to lay her hands upon it in the hope of stopping its maddening pulsation, she stopped to listen. It was only fancy. It was a delusion. No Lupin was pursuing her from the vaults. "Thank Heaven!" she said. "Thank Heaven! but oh, why am I here? Why have I come here again, instead of making my escape by the chapel door? This is a fatal error. Oh, Heaven save me! Is there yet time? Does he linger yet sufficiently long in the vaults, to enable me to take refuge among the pews?" These were questions which the stillness in the chapel below seemed to answer in the affirmative, and once more Mrs. Oakley approached the staircase to descend it. She got three steps down the stairs, and then she heard a footstep below. It was too late. Lupin was coming up. Yes, it was too late! He approached with a heavy and regular footfall. That heaviness and regularity were sufficient evidences that he had not heard her, and had no suspicion that she nor any one else had been a witness to his crime. So far she was comparatively safe, but the blessed chance of escape without any meeting with him was gone. Up--up, he came! Mrs. Oakley retreated step by step as he advanced. She passed into the chamber, which may for distinction's sake be called her own room, and there she cast herself upon the couch, and closed her eyes shudderingly. She had a presentiment that Lupin would come to look at her to see that she still slumbered. She was right. He had not been in the room where the deed of blood had been committed many minutes, when he opened the door of communication between the two apartments, and came in not with the lantern, but with the candle he had left burning upon the table. He did not come above three steps into the room, and then he spoke-- "Sister Oakley it is time to pray." Mrs. Oakley moved not--spoke not. "Sister Oakley, will you be so good as to rise, and go to the corner of the next street on a little errand for me?" How tempting this was! but Mrs. Oakley had the discretion to imagine the wolf in the sheep's clothing now; she saw in all this only a clear mode of ascertaining if she were awake or not, and she would not speak nor move. This was, in truth, a wise policy upon the part of Mrs. Oakley. That it was so, became abundantly apparent when Lupin spoke again. "All is right," he said. "The opiate has done its work bravely, I feel easy now, and yet I don't know how I came for a moment to feel otherwise, or to imagine for a moment there was danger from this woman. If I only had any proof that there was, I would soon put it beyond her power to be mischievous. But, no--no, she has slept soundly and knows nothing." It required, indeed, no ordinary nerve during this speech of Lupin's, for Mrs. Oakley to preserve the stillness of apparent deep sleep; but we none of us know what we can do until we are put to it; after all, what a just punishment to Mrs. Oakley was all that she was now going through. She had had more faith in that bold, bad, mountebank of a parson than in Heaven itself, and she was justly punished. Having then made this trial of her sleeping state, Mr. Lupin retired with the candle again, quite satisfied--at least one would have thought so; and as he had talked of the amazing ease of mind he felt now that he had, murdered his wife, it was rather surprising that he did not go to bed and sleep serenely instead of pacing his room to and fro for more than four hours mumbling disjointed words and sentences to himself as he did so, for Mrs. Oakley heard him, but she did not dare to move. Suddenly he flung open the door between the two rooms, and in a startling voice he cried-- "Fire! fire!" It was truly a wonder that upon this Mrs. Oakley did not jump up, it sounded so very alarming; but it was not to be, and with a presence of mind that surely was not all her own, she yet remained profoundly still. "Fool that I am," muttered Lupin, "to be continually assailed by dread of this woman, when everything assures me that she has been in a sound sleep caused by a powerful narcotic, during the whole night; but the morning is now near at hand, and she will soon awaken. I have already got what money I can, from her, and I must give her breakfast and then send her off. It would be useless to kill her." The manner in which Lupin pronounced these last words was very alarming for it implied rather that he was asking himself the question whether it would be useless to kill her or not, than the expression of a decided opinion; but still Mrs. Oakley moved not. Lupin, suddenly, as though he had quite made up his mind not to trouble himself about her any more, slammed to the door of communication between the two rooms. Mrs. Oakley breathed freely again--that is, comparatively freely; and yet what a shocking agonizing idea it was that she might have to breakfast with that dreadful man. What should she say to him?--how should she look at him? The dawn was coming, and she shook with apprehension to find that such was the fact, and Lupin had said that she would soon awaken; so, effect to awaken she must, in order to keep up the delusion; but how should she manage then to deceive the suspicious vigilance of such a man? But all this had to be encountered. How was it to be avoided? She could do nothing but arm herself with such fortitude as she could call to her aid. Oh, how she wished herself in her own parlour behind the shop, and upon her knees asking the pardon of her husband for all that she had done, and for all that she had not done! What would she have not given even to have seen the honest face of big Ben, the beef-eater! The light of the coming day grew each moment stronger, and at length Mrs. Oakley thought it would be prudent to seem to wake up, and calling out "Mr. Lupin! Mr. Lupin!" she rose from the couch. Lupin opened the door of communication between the two rooms, and glared at her. "Did you call, sister Oakley?" "Yes, reverend sir, surely I have been sleeping, and have forgotten some of the prayers." "No; truly, sister Oakley, I have watched for you, and I can assure you that you will enter into the kingdom always, provided that you are regular in your contributions to the chapel, for at the last that of a surety will be demanded to be known of you, sister Oakley." "I have been thinking of that, brother Lupin," said Mrs. Oakley, "and this day week I will manage to bring two pounds." "Only two?" "I will make it three, if I can, brother Oakley; but my head feels quite confused and giddy. It is very strange." "Ah," whispered Lupin to himself. "That is the natural effect of the narcotic. It has worked well. Then," he said aloud, "sister Oakley, I pray you to walk in to this room, and I will provide for you what the profane world call the breakfast, for although food for the soul is in alway preferable to food for the body, yet we must not always neglect our earthly tabernacle." "I am much obliged to you," said Mrs. Oakley. "You may depend upon my regular offerings to the chapel." CHAPTER CVII. MRS. OAKLEY DISSEMBLES. With trembling steps, Mrs. Oakley followed Lupin, the murderer, into his own room. Of course she was resolved to see nothing, and to make no remark that could in any way direct the attention of Lupin more closely to her, and, oh, how she panted for some opportunity of rushing into the street and crying aloud to the passers by, that the pious hypocrite was a murderer. But as yet she felt that her life depended upon the manner in which she played her part. "Truly, sister Oakley," said Lupin, "I hope you passed a quiet and peaceful night. Amen!" "Very," replied Mrs. Oakley. "Ah, I wish I could say as much, sister Oakley." "And can you not?" "Alas! no, I had some dreams--some very bad dreams; but Satan always will be doing something, you know, sister. Do you know I dreamt of a murder!" As he uttered these words, no Grand Inquisitor could have looked more keenly into the eyes of a victim, than did Mr. Lupin into the face of Mrs. Oakley; but she divined his motive, she felt that he was trying her, but she had even in such a moment sufficient presence of mind to keep her eyes steadily upon his face, and to say with seeming unconcern, "Murder, did you say, Mr. Lupin?" "Yes, I did say murder, and you--." He pointed at her with his finger, but finding that she only looked surprised, rather, he added--"and you are one of the elect, I rejoice to say, sister Oakley. Amen! It is a capital thing to be saved!" "It is, indeed, Mr. Lupin." "Well--well. Let us have the carnal meal, called breakfast. I will proceed, God willing, to the corner of the court, and purchase two eggs, Mrs. Oakley, if it be pleasing to you." "Anything you like, Mr. Lupin; I have but a poor appetite in the morning, always." Mr. Lupin put on his hat, and after slowly turning round and casting an anxious glance upon the room and every object within, to assure himself that he had left no evidences of his crime behind him, he slowly left to get the eggs. Mrs. Oakley heard him descend the stairs, and she heard the door close behind him. Then she asked herself if that were really and truly an opportunity of escape that she dared attempt to avail herself of, or if it were only one in seeming, and that if she were upon its provocation to attempt to leave the place, she would only be confirming the slight suspicions that might be in the mind of Lupin, concerning her privity to his deed of blood. He had talked of only going to the corner of the court, and how did she know that he had even gone so far? Might not the message about the eggs be merely a pretended one, to see what she would do? This was a consideration that kept her, tremblingly, where she was. About five minutes elapsed, and then she heard a knock at the door below. Who could that be? Mr. Lupin had a key with which he always let himself in, so it could not be he. What was she to think? what was she to do? Suddenly then she heard the door opened, and then after a few moments delay some footstep sounded upon the stairs, but it was very unlike that of Lupin, the murderer. The delightful thought came over the imagination of Mrs. Oakley, that some one was coming to whom she might at once make an avowal of all she knew of Lupin's guilt, and who might be able to protect her from the vengeance of the murderer. She rose, and peeped through the key-hole. She saw Lupin coming up the stairs. He was making quite a laborious effort to tread differently to what was usual with him, and from that moment Mrs. Oakley felt that she was to be subjected to some extraordinary trial of her self-possession. She crept back to her seat, and waited in terror. In the course of a few moments, Lupin, after treading with a heavy thump upon every stair, instead of gliding up in his usual manner, reaching the door at which he tapped, and then in an assumed voice, which if she, Mrs. Oakley, had not known he was there, would have deceived her, he said-- "Hilloa! who's at home?" "Who's there?" said Mrs. Oakley. "It's John Smith," cried Lupin. "I am an officer of the police. Has anybody anything to say to me here? They tell me in the court that some odd noises were heard in the night." "I don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Oakley, "but if you will come in and wait until Mr. Lupin comes in, he may like to see you." "Oh, no, no, no! It's no matter. Good morning, ma'am." Down stairs went Lupin, thinking he had acted the officer to perfection, and making no doubt in the world but that he had thoroughly deceived Mrs. Oakley, who he was now quite satisfied knew absolutely nothing about the murder. In the course of a couple of minutes, Mr. Lupin in his own character came gliding in. "I am afraid I have kept you waiting, sister Oakley." "Oh, not at all, but there has been a man there who says his name is Smith, and he--" "I met him! I met him! It is all right. He heard something going on in the next house, I suppose, and mistook it for this. Pray cook the eggs to your liking, sister Oakley, and help yourself to anything. Don't be particular, sister Oakley, but make yourself at home." "I will, reverend sir, I will." Mrs. Oakley was really playing her part very well, but she fancied each moment that the murderer would see something in her manner to give him a suspicion that she knew too much for his safety. She was wrong though, for upon the contrary, Mr. Lupin felt quite satisfied that the secret of his guilt was confined to his own breast. "I pray you, sister Oakley," he said, "to eat freely of my humble fare, and after breakfast we will have a prayer." It seemed to Mrs. Oakley, now that she had awakened to a sense of the awful hypocrisy of Mr. Lupin, something very horrible for him to talk of having a prayer; but she took care not to show what she felt in that particular. "How kind and good of you," she said. "Ay, truly, sister Oakley, I am kind and good, and yet there are envious folks in the world, who I dare say would not hesitate to give even me a bad name." "Impossible, surely." "I would it were, I would it were, my dear sister Oakley, I would it were impossible." "It seems to me, reverend sir, as though it would not be in the power of poor human nature to praise you too much; but it is time that I should think of going home now, if you please." "Well, sister, if you must go home among the heathens and the Philistines, I will not hinder you; but with the hope of seeing you soon again, I will now offer up a prayer." It was truly sickening even to Mrs. Oakley, whose feelings the reader will think could not be very fine, to see such an arch hypocrite offering up a prayer to that Deity whom he must so bitterly have offended by his awful crimes. But Mr. Lupin cut the prayer tolerably short, and then giving to Mrs. Oakley what he called the kiss of peace, and to which, loathsome as it was from him, she felt herself forced to submit, he bade her good day. And now, indeed, she began to entertain a sanguine hope, that she would be released from his company, and she should soon be in a condition to denounce him to justice for the awful crime which she had seen him commit. She could not possibly avoid a slight feeling of satisfaction to appear upon her face. "You seem pleased," said Lupin. "I am, reverend sir." "May I ask what at?" "Ah, how can I be otherwise than delighted, when I am assured by such a saint upon earth as yourself that I am one of the elect?" This was an answer with which, whether it was satisfactory or not, Mr. Lupin was, as it were, compelled to put up with; but taking up his hat, he said-- "Truly, sister Oakley, it will become me to see you a part of the way home." Mrs. Oakley expressed her satisfaction with the holy man's company, and they both descended the stairs together. She felt, however, an exquisite pang of alarm upon finding that Lupin led her down the staircase that led to the chapel, and not down the one which would have conducted them to the ordinary door of exit from the domestic portion of the building. But even with all the dread upon her soul that he might be meditating some awful act in the chapel, she felt that she must assume a calmness though she felt it not. "Why this leads to the chapel," she said. She thought it would sound more natural for her to make that remark, than to say nothing about it. "Yes, sister it does, and here is the trap-door that conducts to the vaults." He suddenly turned upon her, and clutched her by the arm, as he spoke. Poor Mrs. Oakley then really thought that her last hour was come, and that all along in pretending to have no suspicion of her, he was only dissembling. It was a mercy she did not at that terrible moment commit herself in some way. Surely Heaven supported her, for she did not. "Reverend sir," she said, "what mean you?" "What mean I? I mean will you descend to the vaults with me." "And pray? Yes, if you wish it." "Nothing--nothing," muttered Lupin. "What a fool I am. I might have been well convinced long ago, and yet I cannot forbear new trials. All is safe, all is safe. This way, sister Oakley, this way. I will only see you to the corner of your own street." "Many thanks." They both emerged from the chapel. Lupin slammed the door after him, and arm in arm they walked up the court together. Poor Mrs. Oakley felt that to be the most trying moment of all for her nerves. While she had much to do--while she was alone with Lupin in the domestic portion of the chapel, and while she knew that the least slip of the tongue, or the least want of control over her feelings might be her death--she conducted herself gallantly; but now when she was fairly in the open air, now that she was in comparative safety, her feelings almost got the better of her. It was only by a powerful effort that she could at all control them. She felt that by suddenly quitting the arm of Lupin, and making a rush for it, she might escape him, but then she did not want him to escape the consequences of his crime, for Mrs. Oakley had a woman's sympathy with the fate even of the not very respectable Mrs. Lupin. Besides, with all the vindictive hate that he might be supposed to feel upon finding that his guilt was known, he might yet pursue her, and before she could find aid, kill her. "I must still dissemble," she thought, "and speak this most monstrous villain fairly." "Quite a charming morning, reverend sir," she said. "Very," said Lupin. "I really am afraid that I am sadly intruding upon your time, by letting you come with me?" "Oh, no--no--no." He seemed to be getting very thoughtful, and Mrs. Oakley was proportionably more and more upon her guard, for she felt convinced that if he really thought she knew anything of his guilt he would kill her. Now they emerged from the court; but it was yet rather an early hour in the morning, and but very few passengers were in the streets. The only person that was tolerably close to them was an elderly woman, and Mrs. Oakley much as she panted for an opportunity of separating herself from Lupin, felt that the time to do so had not yet come. On they went, in the direction of Mrs. Oakley's house, that house that she now began to feel she had so much neglected, to look after what, in the language of scripture, might truly have been termed "Strange Idols"--that home which she now looked to as a haven of safety from the terror of death itself. "How silent you are, sister," said Lupin. "Yes, I was thinking." "Of what?" he said, fiercely. "Of how much I should be able to take from Mr. Oakley's till, to bring to you, this day week." "Oh! oh!" "You may depend, reverend sir, it shall be as much as possible. Of course I must be cautious, though." "Oh, yes--yes." They had now reached within a few paces of the corner of the street, and yet Mrs. Oakley had seen no one upon whom, from their appearance, she thought she could rely to call to for aid against the murderer. Suddenly then round the corner, there came a bulky form. The heavy tread of some one of unusual weight sounded upon the street pavement. Big Ben, the beef-eater, with his arms behind him, and in a very thoughtful mood, came pacing slowly along. As Mrs. Oakley said afterwards, her heart, at that moment, was in her mouth. She could not dissemble an instant longer with Lupin, but with a loud shriek that echoed far and wide in the streets, she suddenly sprang from him, crying-- "Ben, Ben, dear strong Ben, seize this man! He is a murderer!" "D--n! Done at last!" cried Lupin. He turned to fly, but treading upon a piece of cabbage-leaf that was upon the pavement, down he fell. "Easy does it," said Ben, and he flung himself upon the top of Lupin, spreading out his arms and legs, and holding him by sheer weight as firmly to the pavement as though he had been nailed there. "Help, help, help! Murder! help!" shouted Mrs. Oakley. "Murder, murder, murder!" People began to flock to them from all parts. Lupin succeeded in getting a knife from his pocket, but Mrs. Oakley held him by the wrist with both hands, and in a minute more he was in the grasp of two strong men, one of whom was a police-officer, and who gloried in the job. CHAPTER CVIII. RETURNS TO MRS. LOVETT, AND SHOWS HOW SHE GOT OUT OF THE RIVER. Our readers have been aware for a long time past that Mrs. Lovett was no common, everyday, sort of woman, and what we are about to relate concerning her, will be further proof that way tending, if it should be by any sceptical person in any way required. To all appearance, Todd had seen the last of her on the river. But Todd was born to be deceived, and at the time he should have recollected an old adage, to the effect that, folks who are born to be hanged are very seldom drowned. We shall see. Mrs. Lovett did go down, but as fortune and the amazingly strong current of the river would have it, she came up again, with a barge between her and Todd, and involuntarily laying hold of the side of the barge, there she remained, too exhausted to cry out, until Todd was far off. She was seen at last by a man who was at the window of a public-house, and in the course of ten minutes after Todd had began to congratulate himself upon the demise of Mrs. Lovett, she was in a warm bed at the public-house, and her clothes drying at the kitchen-fire. She had scarcely been for a moment at all insensible; and as she lay in bed she had a most accurate perception of all that happened. The reader may suppose that the feelings of Mrs. Lovett towards Sweeney Todd, were by no means ameliorated by the morning's proceedings. And yet how calculating she was in her rage! As the effects of her submersion wore off, and her ordinary strength came back to her, her mind became intently fixed upon but one object, and that was how to be completely and bitterly revenged upon Todd. "He shall hang," she said. "He shall hang, but I must think of the means, while I likewise take care to avoid the gallows myself; but he shall hang, let the consequences be what they may." The landlady of the public-house was very assiduous in her attention to Mrs. Lovett, and while she was thus thinking of her revenge upon Todd, she (the landlady) made her appearance in the room with a steaming glass of mulled and spiced wine. "I hope you are better," she said; "and if you will give me the name and address of your friends, I will send to them at once." "Friends!" said Mrs. Lovett. "How came you to think that I had any friends?" "Well, I hardly thought you were without. Don't most folks have friends of some sort or another?" "Ah, I had forgotten. I have a friend with me--a very dear friend, who will not forsake me. I have more of them at home--for I have a home." "Oh," thought the landlady, "she is raving." "Bring me my stays," said Mrs. Lovett. The stays, which, together with the rest of her apparel, now had got quite dry, was brought to her, and in a little secret pocket in them, Mrs. Lovett dived with her two fingers, and found a damp five pound note. "Take that," she said, "for your trouble. I do not want any change. Only be so good now as to help me to dress, and tell me what the time is." "Three o'clock," said the landlady, "and I'm sure you can't think how pleased I am that you are better. Do you really think you are strong enough to go home yet?" "Yes. What I have to do at home will lend me strength, if I wanted it." Mrs. Lovett was soon dressed, and at her request a coach was sent for; and in the course of half-an-hour from the time that the landlady had asked her if she should send for her friends, she, Mrs. Lovett, was bowling along the dense thoroughfares of the city to her home. What pen could describe the dark and malignant thoughts that filled her brain as she proceeded? What language would be strong enough to depict the storm of passion that raged in the bosom of that imperious woman? It must suffice, that she made herself a solemn promise of vengeance against Todd, let the risk or the actual consequences to herself be what they might. If with perfect safety to herself she could be revenged upon him--of course she would; but she resolved not to hesitate, even if it involved a self-sacrifice, so full of the very agony of rage was she. "He shall hang--he shall hang!" Such were the words she uttered as the lumbering hackney-coach reached Fleet Street. For all she knew to the contrary, Todd might be looking from his door, for that he had gone home in great triumph at the thought of having got rid of her she did not doubt; and so as it was just then a great object with her to keep him in that pleasant delusion, she got quite down among the straw at the bottom of the hackney-coach. But she kept her eyes--those bright metallic-looking eyes, which, with a questionable taste, had been so much admired by the lawyers' clerks of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn--she kept her eyes just on the edge of the coach window, so that she might have a passing glance at Todd's shop. Todd was at the door. How pleased and self-satisfied he looked! He was rubbing his huge hands slowly together, and a grim smile was on his horrible features. Mrs. Lovett clinched her hands until her nails made marks in the palms of them that did not come out for hours, and in a harsh growling voice, she said-- "Ah, grin on, grin on, fiend--your hours from now shall be numbered. You shall hang, hang, and I shall hope to see you in your last agony. If any bribe can induce the hangman, by some common bungling to protract your pain, he has but to name his price and he shall have it." The coach rolled on. Mrs. Lovett rose up from among the straw with a shudder. The immersion in the river had not drowned her certainly, but it had done her no good; and she could not conceal from herself, that a serious illness might very probably result from her unexpected cold bath. "Never mind!" she said. "Never mind! What care I so that I complete my revenge against Todd? If I die after that it will not much matter. I will have my revenge." The coach stopped at the corner of Bell-yard. "That will do," said Mrs. Lovett as she pulled the check-string. "That will do. I will alight here." She paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, so he only muttered a few curses between his teeth, and drove off. With quite a staggering step, for Mrs. Lovett was anything but well, she walked to her own shop. The door was closed, and she looked through the upper half of it which was of glass, just in time to see the highly trustworthy personage whom she had left in charge of the concern, place a bottle to her lips, and slowly lift it up. Mrs. Lovett opened the door, just as the titillating contents of the bottle were rippling over the palate of the lady, who had had such an adventure with Todd. "Wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Lovett. Down fell the bottle, and smashed into many fragments on the floor of the shop. An unmistakable odour of gin filled the air. "So," cried Mrs. Lovett, "this is the way you employ your time is it, while I am away?" [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett Finds Somebody Out--At Home.] "T--T--Todd," stuttered the woman, "T--T--Todd is such a nice man." "Todd, do you say?" "Yes--I--I say--T--Todd is a nice man." "Answer me, wretch, instantly. Has he been here? Speak, or I will shake your wretched life out of you." Mrs. Lovett suited the action to the word, and the word to the action, for she clutched her substitute by the throat, and shook her vehemently. "D--D--Don't Mrs. L.--I--will--tell all--all. I will indeed." "Speak then. Has Todd been here?" "In course, and quite a nice man--I--I may say--quite a gin--I mean a nice man--a cordial old Tom. No! Cream of the--Todd." "Wretch!" Mrs. Lovett paced the shop for a few moments in an agony of rage. Todd presuming upon her death had actually been there, no doubt upon an expedition to ransack the place. A touch to the lock of the parlour door, told her at once that it was open, and from that moment she no longer could doubt but that the whole house had been subject to the scrutiny of Sweeney Todd. "The wretch!" she said. "He thought to find enough no doubt to reward his pains, but he has been deceived in that hope, I feel well assured. What I have here, I have too well hidden for any search of a few hours to find it. If they were to pull the house to pieces, brick by brick and timber by timber, they might find something to pay them for their labour." The lady with the partiality for gin, now seemed to be lapsing into a state of somnolency, but Mrs. Lovett gave her rather a rough shake. "Tell me," she said, "when did this man come, and what did he say to you?" "Gin!" "I ask you what Todd said to you?" "Oh, yes. I--really--fine times. Old Tom Todd--cream of the Todd." It was quite clear that she was too far gone in drunkenness for anything distinct or to be relied upon to be got from her, and the only thing Mrs. Lovett had to do, was to consider what to do with her. If she threw her out of the shop into the court, the probability was, that a crowd would collect round her, and that was just what Mrs. Lovett did not want. Indeed, for all she, Mrs. Lovett knew, the drunken woman might stagger round to Todd's, and let him know what of all things, she wished to keep secret from him, namely, that she had returned. Mrs. Lovett had not yet formed her plans, and certainly until she had done so, she did not want any premature knowledge of her rescue from drowning to reach the ears of Todd. But what to do with the drunken woman was the question. Mrs. Lovett had to think a little over that. At length, however, she made up her mind, and approaching the lady who had such a partiality for Old Tom, she said-- "Did you ever taste my cordial spirit, that I have up stairs in my bedroom?" "Eh?" "Come, I will give you a bottle of it, if you will walk up stairs. Only try." By the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, the gin heroine rose and tottered to the staircase; Mrs. Lovett pushed her on, and stair by stair she managed to mount to the first floor. It was by far too great a job to get her any further, so opening the door of the back-room, Mrs. Lovett pushed her in with violence, and slammed the door upon her. "Lie there and rot," she said, "so that you are out of my way. Lie there and rot, idiot." Without then pausing to cast another thought or look at her victim, Mrs. Lovett walked down the staircase again to the shop. When there, she felt a kind of faintness come over her, and she was compelled to sit down for a few minutes to recover herself. "How much I have to think of," she said, when she had a little recovered. "How much I have to think of, and how little a time in which to think. Something must be done before midnight. Todd will fly if I do not do something." A racking pain in her head, compelled her to rest it upon her hands. "If I thought," she said, "that I should get very ill--if I thought that there was any chance that I should die, I would go at once to the police office and denounce him. But no--'tis only a passing pang, and I shall soon be better--shall soon be myself again." She did not speak now for some few moments, and during that time she rocked to and fro, for the pain in her head was excessive. It did not last, however, but gradually went off, leaving only a sensation of dulness behind it, with some amount of confusion. Then Mrs. Lovett, as well as she was able, set about thinking calmly and dispassionately, as she hoped, about the best means of satisfying her revenge against Todd. That that revenge should be complete and ample, she was resolved. Gradually she began to work out a plan of operations, and as she did so, her eyes brightened, and something of her old expression of bold confidence came back to her. She rose and paced the shop. "Yes, the villain shall die," she said, "by the hands of the executioner--I swear it! And he shall know, too, that it is I who have doomed him to such a death. He shall feel that, had he kept faith with we all would have been well; but now he shall hang--hang!--and I shall look on and see his torments!" CHAPTER CIX. JOHANNA HAS PLENTY OF COMPANY AT TODD'S. We return to Johanna, whom for a few hours, owing to the pressure of other circumstances, we have been compelled, with all manner of reluctance, to neglect. Recent events, although they had by no manner of means tended to decrease the just confidence which Johanna had in her own safety, had yet much agitated her; and she at times feared that she should not be able to carry on the farce of composure before Todd much longer. "Charley, my dear boy," said Todd, "you are a very good lad, indeed, and I like you." "I am very glad to hear you say so, sir--very glad." "That is right; but when I say I like any one, I do not confine myself to that mere expression of liking, and there an end. Of course, as a religious man, I love my enemies, and feel myself bound to do so--eh, Charley?" "Of course, sir." Poor Johanna had no resource but to seem to be deceived by this most disgusting hypocrisy. "But although," continued Todd, waving a razor in the air; "although I may love my enemies, I need not to go out of my way, you know, Charley, to do good things to them as I would to my friends; but you I will do all I can for; and as it may very materially help you to get an honest independence in the course of a little time, I will manage to accommodate you with sleeping here to-night and all nights henceforth." "How kind of you, sir!" "I am glad you appreciate it, Charley; and I feel quite sure that your slumber will be most profound." Todd, upon this, made one of his diabolical faces, and then, taking his hat, he marched out, merely adding as he crossed the threshold of the door-- "I shall not be long gone, Charley." The day was on the decline, and a strong impression came over Johanna's mind that something in particular would happen before it wholly passed away into darkness. She almost trembled to think what that something could be, and that she might be compelled to be a witness to violence, from which her gentle spirit revolted; and had it not been that she had determined nothing should stop her from investigating the fate of poor Mark Ingestrie, she could even then have rushed into the street in despair. But as the soft daylight deepened into the dim shadows of evening, she grew more composed, and was better able, with a calmer spirit, to wait the progress of events. "I am alone once more," said Johanna, "in this dreadful place. Again he leaves me with all my dark and terrible thoughts of the fate of him whom I have so fondly loved thronging around my heart; and this night, no doubt, he thinks to kill me! Oh, Mark Ingestrie! if I were only but quite sure that you had gone to that world from whence there is no return, I think I could, with scarce a sigh, let this dreadful man send me after you!" Johanna rested her head upon her hands, and wept bitterly. Suddenly a voice close to her said-- "St. Dunstan." She sprang from the little low seat upon which she was, and, with a cry of alarm, was about to make a rush from the shop, when the intruder caught her by the arm, saying-- "Don't you know me, Johanna?" "Ah, Sir Richard! my dear friend, it is, indeed, you, and I am safe again--I am safe!" "Certainly you are safe; and permit me to say that you have all along been tolerably safe, Johanna. But how very incautious you are. Here I have come into the shop, and actually stood by you for some few moments, you knowing nothing of it! What now if Todd had so come in?" "He would have killed me." "He might have done so. But now all danger is quite over, for you will have protectors at your hand. Do you know where Todd has gone?" "I do not." "Well, it don't matter. Let me look at this largest cupboard. I wonder if it will hold two of my men? Let me see. Oh, yes, easily and comfortably. I will be back in a moment." He went no further than the door, and when he came back, he brought with him Mr. Crotchet and another person, and pointing to the cupboard, he said-- "You will stow yourselves there, if you please, and keep quiet until I call upon you to come out." "I believe you," said Crotchet. "Lord bless you, we shall be snug enough. How is you, Miss O.? I suppose by this time you feels quite at home in your breech--" "Silence!" said Sir Richard. "Go to your duty at once, Crotchet. Miss Oakley is in no humour to attend to you just now." Upon this, Mr. Crotchet and the other man got into the cupboard, and a chair was placed against it; and then Sir Richard said to Johanna-- "I will come in to be shaved when I know that Todd is here, and your trials will soon be over." "To be shaved?--By him?" "Yes. But believe me there is no danger. Any one may come here now to be shaved with perfect safety. I have made such arrangements that Todd cannot take another life." "Thank Heaven!" "Here is a letter from your friend, Miss Wilmot, which I promised her I would deliver to you. Be careful how you let Todd see it. Read it at once, and then you had better destroy it at once. I must go now; but, of course, if you should be in any danger, call upon my men in the cupboard to assist you, and they will do so at once, although it may spoil my plot a little." "Oh! how much I owe you." "Nay, nay, no more upon that head. Farewell now, for a brief space. We shall very soon meet again. Keep a fair and agreeable face to Todd, if you can, for I do not wish, if it can possibly be helped, anything to mar the plot I have got up for his absolute conviction upon abundant testimony." Sir Richard shook hands with Johanna, and then hastily left the shop, for he did not wish just then to be found there by Todd, who might return at any moment. The moment he was gone Johanna eagerly opened the letter that had been brought to her, and found it to contain the following words:-- "MY DEAR JOHANNA,--This is a selfish letter; for as I cannot see you, I think I should go mad if I did not write to you; so I do so for the ease of my own heart and brain. For the love of Heaven, and for the love of all you hold dear in this world, get away from Todd as quickly as you can; and when I see you again, I shall have something to say to you which will give you more pleasure than ever, with my bad advice, I have given you pain. "Sir Richard Blunt has kindly promised to give this to you, and you know that I am--Your ever affectionate ARABELLA." "Yes," said Johanna, when she had finished the epistle. "In truth I know you are ever my affectionate Arabella, and I am most happy in such a friend. But this must not meet Todd's eye. Ah! that footstep, I know it too well. He comes--he comes." She had just hidden the letter, when Sweeney Todd made his appearance. "Anybody been?" he asked. "Yes, one man, but he would not wait." "Ah, wanted to be shaved, I suppose; but no matter--no matter; and I hope you have been quiet, and not been attempting to indulge your curiosity in any way, since I have been gone. Hush! here's somebody coming. Why, it's old Mr. Wrankley, the tobacconist, I declare. Good-day to you, sir--shaved, I suppose? I'm glad you have come, sir, for I have been out till this moment. Hot water, Charley, directly, and hand me that razor." Johanna, in handing Todd the razor, knocked the edge of it against the chair, and it being uncommonly sharp, cut a great slice of the wood off one of the arms of it. "What shameful carelessness," said Todd; "I have half a mind to lay the strop over your back, sir; here you have spoilt a capital razor--not a bit of edge left upon it." "Oh, excuse him, Mr. Todd--excuse him," said the old gentleman; "he's only a little lad, after all. Let me intercede for him." "Very good, sir; if you wish me to look over it, of course I will; and, thank God, we have a stock of razors, of course, always at hand. Is there any news stirring, sir?" "Nothing that I know of, Mr. Todd, except it's the illness of Mr. Cummings, the overseer. They say he got home about twelve to his own house, in Chancery-lane, and ever since then he has been as sick as a dog, and all they can get him to say is, 'Oh, those pies--oh, those pies!'" "Very odd, sir." "Very. I think Mr. Cummings must be touched in the upper story, do you know, Mr. Todd. He's a very respectable man, but, between you and I, was never over bright." "Certainly not, sir--certainly not. But it's a very odd case. What pies can he possibly mean, sir? Did you call when you came from home?" "No. Ha, ha! I can't help laughing; but, ha, ha! I have come away from home on the sly, you see. The fact is, my wife's cousin--hilloa!--I think you have cut me." "No, no--we can't cut anybody for three-halfpence, sir. I think I will just give you another lather, sir, before I polish you off. And so you have the pearls with you; well, how odd things come round, to be sure." "What do you mean?" "This shaving-brush is just in a good state now. Always as a shaving-brush is on the point of wearing out, it's the best. Charley, you will go at once to Mr. Cummings, and ask if he is any better; you need not hurry, that's a good lad. I am not at all angry with you now. And so, sir, they think at home that you have gone after some business over the water, do they, and have not the least idea that you have come to be shaved? There, be off, Charley--shut the door, that's a good lad, bless you." * * * * * When Johanna came back, the tobacconist was gone. "Well," said Sweeney Todd, as he sharpened a razor very leisurely, "how is Mr. Cummings?" "I found out his house, sir, with some difficulty, and they say he is better having gone to sleep." "Oh, very good! I am going to look over some accounts in the parlour, so don't choose to be disturbed, you understand; and for the next ten minutes, if anybody comes, you will say I am out." Sweeney Todd walked quite coolly into the parlour, and Johanna heard him lock the door on the inside; a strange, undefined sensation of terror crept over her, she knew not why, and she shuddered, as she looked around her. The cupboard door was not close shut, and she knew not what prompted her to approach and peep in. On the first shelf was the hat of the tobacconist: it was rather a remarkable one, and recognised in a moment. "What has happened? Good God! what can have happened?" thought Johanna, as she staggered back, until she reached the shaving-chair, into which she cast herself for support. Her eyes fell upon the arm which she had taken such a shaving off with the razor, but all was perfectly whole and correct; there was not the least mark of the cut that so recently had been given to it; and lost in wonder, Johanna, for more than a minute, continued looking for the mark of the injury she knew could not have been, by any possibility, effaced. And yet she found it not, although there was the chair, just as usual, with its wide spreading arms and its worn, tarnished paint and gilding. No wonder that Johanna rubbed her eyes, and asked herself if she were really awake? What could account for such a phenomenon? The chair was a fixture too, and the others in the shop were of a widely different make and construction, so it could not have been changed. "Alas! alas!" mourned Johanna, "my mind is full of horrible surmises, and yet I can form no rational conjecture. I suspect everything, and know nothing. What can I do? What ought I to do, to relieve myself from this state of horrible suspense? Am I really in a place where, by some frightful ingenuity, murder has become bold and familiar, or can it be all a delusion?" She covered her face with her hands for a time, and when she uncovered them, she saw that Sweeney Todd was staring at her with looks of suspicion from the inner room. The necessity of instantly acting her part came over Johanna, and she gave a loud scream. "What the devil is all this about?" said Todd, advancing with a sinister expression. "What's the meaning of it? I suspect--" "Yes, sir," said Johanna, "and so do I; I must to-morrow have it out." "Have what out?" "My tooth, sir--it's been aching for some hours; did you ever have the toothache? If you did, you can feel for me, and not wonder that I lean my head upon my hands and groan." Todd looked about half satisfied at this excuse of Johanna's, and for a few moments as he looked at her, she thought that after all she should have to call upon her friends in the cupboard to save her from the danger that his eyes, in their flashing ghastliness, threatened. Another moment, and her lips would have parted with the shrill cry of "Murder!" upon them, and then Heaven only knows what might have been the result; but he turned suddenly, and went into the parlour, muttering to himself-- "It is not worth while now, and this night ends it all--yes, this night ends it all." He slammed the door violently behind him, and Johanna was relieved from the horror which his gaze had awakened, in her heart. She stood still, but gradually she recovered her former calmness--if calmness it could at all be called, seeing that it was only a stiller species of agitation. But she now began to recall the words of Sir Richard Blunt to the effect that measures had been taken that no more murders could be committed by Todd, and she began to feel comforted. "There is something that I do not know yet," she said; "Sir Richard should have told me how there could be no more murders done here, and then I should not have suffered what I did, and what I still suffer with the thought that almost before my eyes a fellow creature has been hurried into eternity; and yet I ought to have faith, and in defiance of all the seeming evidences of a horrible deed about me, I ought, I suppose, to believe that it has been prevented in some most strange and miraculous way." The more Johanna thought over this promise of Sir Richard Blunt's the more she became convinced that he would never have given utterance to it if he had not felt perfectly sure it would be fulfilled, and so she got comforted, and once again resolved to play her part in that dreadful drama of real life, in the vortex of which, with the purest and the holiest of motives, she had plunged recklessly, we will admit, but yet from motives entitling her to sympathy on earth, and protection in heaven. Todd remained for a considerable time in the parlour; and when he came out, Johanna saw that he had made some alteration in his apparel. The first words he uttered were-- "Keep a good fire, Charley." "Yes, sir." "Did you ever see a house on fire, my boy?" "I never did, sir." "Ah! It must be an amusing sight--a very amusing sight, especially if the conflagration spreads, and one has an opportunity of viewing it from the water. Talking of water, the lady who was here this morning--Mrs. Lovett--was very fond of water, and now she has got plenty of it. Ah!" "Really, sir? Has she gone to the sea-side?" Johanna looked Todd rather hard in the face as she spoke these words, and the close observation seemed to anger him, for he spoke hastily and sharply-- "What is it to you? Get out of my way, will you? and you may begin to think of shutting up, I think, for we shall have no more customers to-night. I am tired and weary. You are to sleep under the counter, you know." "Yes, sir, you told me so. I daresay I shall be very comfortable there." "And you have not been peeping and prying about, have you?" "Not at all." "Not looking even into that cupboard, I suppose, eh? It's not locked, but that's no reason why you should look into it--not that there is any secrets in it; but I object to peeping and prying upon principle." Todd, as he spoke, advanced towards the cupboard, and Johanna thought that in another moment a discovery would undoubtedly take place of the two officers who were there concealed; and probably that would have been the case, had not the handle of the shop door been turned at that moment, and a man presented himself, when Todd turned quickly, and saw that he was a substantial-looking farmer, with dirty top-boots, as if he had just come off a journey. "Well, master," said the visitor, "I wants a clean shave." "Oh," said Todd, not in the best of humours, "it's rather late; but I suppose you would not like to wait till morning, for I don't know if I have any hot water." "Oh, cold will do." "Cold? Oh, dear no; we never shave in cold water; and if you must, you must; so sit down, sir, and we will soon settle the business." "Thank you, thank you. I can't go to bed comfortable without a clean shave, do you see? I have come up from Braintree with beasts on commission, and I'm staying at the Bull's Head, you see." "Oh, indeed," said Todd, as he adjusted the shaving cloth, "the Bull's Head." "Yes, master; why I brought up a matter o' 220 beasts, I did, do you see, and was on my _pooney_, as good a stepper as you'd wish to see; and I sold 'em all, do you see, for 550 _pun_. Ho, ho! good work that, do you see, and only forty-two on 'em was my beasts, do you see; I've got a missus at home, and a daughter; my girl's called Johanna--a-hem!" Up to this point Johanna had not suspected that the game had begun, and that this was no other than Sir Richard himself, most admirably disguised, who had come to put an end to the mal-practices of Sweeney Todd; but his marked pronunciation of her name at once opened her eyes to that fact, and she knew that something interesting must soon happen. "And so you sold them all?" said Todd. "Yes, master, I did, and I've got the money in my pocket now, in bank-notes; I never leaves my money about at inns, do you see, master; safe bind, safe find, you see; I carries it about with me." "A good plan, too," said Todd; "Charley, some hot water; that's a good lad--and--and--Charley?" "Yes, sir." "While I am finishing off this gentleman, you may as well just run to the Temple to Mr. Serjeant Toldrunis and ask for his wig; we shall have to do it in the morning, and may as well have it the first thing in the day to begin upon; and you need not hurry, Charley, as we shall shut up when you come back." "Very good, sir." Johanna walked out, but went no further than the shop window, close to which she placed her eyes, so that, between a pomatum jar and a lot of hair brushes, she could clearly see what was going on. "A nice-looking little lad, that," said Todd's customer. "Very, sir; an orphan boy; I took him out of charity, poor little fellow; but then, we ought to try to do all the good we can." "Just so; I'm glad I have come to be shaved here. Mine's rather a strong beard, I think, do you see." "Why, sir, in a manner of speaking," replied Todd, "it is a strong beard. I suppose you didn't come to London alone, sir?" CHAPTER CX. TODD'S HOUR HAS COME. The hideous face that Todd made above the head of his customer at this moment, was more like that which Mephistopheles might have made, after achieving the destruction of a human soul, than anything human. Sir Richard Blunt quickly replied to Todd's question, by saying-- "Oh, yes, quite alone; except the drovers I had no company with me; why do you ask?" "Why, sir, I thought if you had any gentleman with you who might be waiting at the Bull's Head, you would recommend him to me if anything was wanting in my way, you know, sir; you might have just left him, saying you were going to Todd the barber's, to have a clean shave, sir." "No, not at all; the fact is, I did not come out to have a shave, but a walk, and it wasn't till I gave my chin a stroke, and found what a beard I had, that I thought of it; and then passing your shop, in I popped, do you see." "Exactly, sir, I comprehend; you are quite alone in London?" "Oh, quite; but when I come again, I'll come to you to be shaved, you may depend, and I'll recommend you, too." "I'm very much obliged to you," said Todd, as he passed his hand over the chin of his customer, "I'm very much obliged; I find I must give you another lather, sir, and I'll get another razor with a keener edge, now that I have taken off all the rough, as one may say, in a manner of speaking." "Oh, I shall do." "No, no, don't move, sir, I shall not detain you a moment; I have my other razors in the next room, and will polish you off now, sir, before you will know where you are; you know, sir, you have promised to recommend me, so I must do the best I can with you." "Well, well, a clean shave is a comfort, but don't be long, for I want to get back, do you see." "Not a moment, not a moment." Sweeney Todd walked into his back-parlour, conveying with him the only light that was in the shop, so that the dim glimpse that, up to this time, Johanna from the outside had contrived to get of what was going on, was denied to her; and all that met her eyes was impenetrable darkness. Oh, what a world of anxious agonising sensations crossed the mind of the young and beautiful girl at that moment. She felt as if some great crisis in her history had arrived, and that she was condemned to look in vain into darkness to see of what it consisted. We must not, however, allow the reader to remain in the same state of mystification, which came over the perceptive faculties of Johanna Oakley; but we shall proceed to state clearly and distinctly what did happen in the barber's shop while he went to get an uncommonly keen razor in his back-parlour. The moment his back was turned, the seeming farmer who had made such a good thing of his beasts, sprang from the shaving chair, as if he had been electrified; and yet he did not do it with any appearance of fright, nor did he make any noise. It was only astonishingly quick, and then he placed himself close to the window, and waited patiently with his eyes fixed upon the chair, to see what would happen next. In the space of about a quarter of a minute, there came from the next room a sound like the rapid drawing back of a heavy bolt, and then in an instant, the shaving chair disappeared beneath the floor; and the circumstances by which Sweeney Todd's customers disappeared was evident. There was a piece of the flooring turning upon a centre, and the weight of the chair when a bolt was withdrawn by means of simple leverage from the inner room, weighed down one end of the top, which, by a little apparatus, was to swing completely round, there being another chair on the under surface, which thus became the upper, exactly resembling the one in which the unhappy customer was supposed to be 'polished off.' Hence was it that in one moment, as if by magic, Sweeney Todd's visitors disappeared, and there was the empty chair. No doubt, he trusted to a fall of about twenty feet below, on to a stone floor, to be the death of them, or, at all events, to stun them until he could go down to finish the murder, and--_to cut them up for Mrs. Lovett's pies!_ after robbing them of all the money and valuables they might have about them. In another moment, the sound as of a bolt was again heard, and Sir Richard Blunt, who had played the part of the wealthy farmer, feeling that the trap was closed again, seated himself in the new chair that had made its appearance with all the nonchalance in life, as if nothing had happened. It was a full minute before Todd ventured to look from the parlour into the darkened shop, and then he shook so that he had to hold by the door to steady himself. "That's done," he said. "That's the last, I hope. It is time I finished; I never felt so nervous since the first time. Then I did quake a little. How quiet he went: I have sometimes had a shriek ringing in my ears for a whole week." It was a large high-backed piece of furniture that shaving chair, so that, when Todd crept into the shop with the light in his hand, he had not the remotest idea it was tenanted; but when he got round it, and saw his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of horror that came gurgling and gushing from his throat was horrible to hear. "Why, what's the matter," said Sir Richard. "O God, the dead! the dead! O God!" cried Todd, "this is the beginning of my punishment. Have mercy, Heaven! oh, do not look upon me with those dead eyes." "Murderer!" shouted Sir Richard, in a voice that rung like the blast of a trumpet through the house. In an instant he sprang upon Sweeney Todd, and grappled him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and they were down upon the floor together, but Todd's wrists were suddenly laid hold of, and a pair of handcuffs most scientifically put upon him by the officers who, at the word 'murderer,' that being a preconcerted signal, came from the cupboard where they had been concealed. "Secure him well, my men," said the magistrate, "and don't let him lay violent hands upon himself." [Illustration: Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come.] Johanna rushed into the shop, and clung to the arm of Sir Richard, crying-- "Is it all over! Is it indeed all done now?" "It is, Miss Oakley." The moment Todd heard these few words addressed to Charley Green as he thought him, he turned his glassy blood-shot eyes upon Johanna, and glared at her for the space of about half a minute in silence. He then, although handcuffed, made a sudden and violent effort to reach her, but he was in too experienced hands, and he was held back most effectually. He struck his forehead with his fettered hands, making a gash in it from which the blood flowed freely, as in infuriated accents, he said-- "Oh fool--fool, to be cheated by a girl! I had my suspicions that the boy was a spy, but I never thought for one moment there was a disguise of sex. Oh, idiot! idiot! And who are you, sir?" "I am Sir Richard Blunt." Todd groaned and staggered. The officers would have let him sit down in the shaving chair for a moment or two to recover from the shock his mind had sustained by his capture, but when he found that it was the shaving chair he was led to, he shuddered, and in a wailing voice, said-- "No--no! not there--not there! Anywhere but there. I dare not sit there!" "It isn't worth while sitting at all," said Crotchet. "I'm blowed if I ain't all crumpled up in a blessed mummy by being in that cupboard so jolly long. All my joints is a-going crinkley-crankley." Todd looked in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, and in a faint voice spoke-- "I--I don't feel very well. There's a little drop of cordial medicine that I often take in my coat pocket. You see I can't get at it, my hands being manacled. I only want to take a drop to comfort me." "Get it out, Crotchet," said Sir Richard. "Here ye is," said Crotchet, as he produced a little bottle, with a pale straw-coloured liquid in, from Todd's pocket. "Give it to me. Oh, give it to me," said Todd. "I will thank you much. It will recover me. Give it to me!" "No, Todd," said Sir Richard, as he took the little bottle and put it in his own pocket. "I do not intend, if I can help it, to permit you to evade the law by poisoning yourself." Finding himself thus defeated in his insidious attempt upon his own life, Todd got quite frantic with rage, and had a grand struggle with the officers, in his endeavours to get at some of the razors that were near at hand in the shop; but they effectually prevented him from doing so, and finally he became too much exhausted to make any further efforts. "My curses be upon you all!" he said. "May you, and all who belong to you--" But we cannot transcribe the horrible denunciations of Todd. They were too horrible even for the officers to listen to with patience, and Sir Richard Blunt, turning to Johanna, said-- "Run over the way to your friends at the fruiterer's. All is over now, and your disguise is no longer needed." Johanna did not pause another moment, but ran over the way, and in the course of a few moments she was in the arms of the fruiterer's daughter, where she relieved her overcharged heart by weeping bitterly. "Shut up the shop, Crotchet," said Sir Richard Blunt, "and then get a coach. I will lodge this man at once in Newgate, and then we will see to Mrs. Lovett." At this name Todd looked up. "She has escaped you," he said. "I don't think so," responded Sir Richard. "But I say she has--she is dead: she fell into the Thames this morning and was drowned." "Oh, you allude to your pushing her into the river this morning near London-bridge?" said Sir Richard. "I saw that affair myself." Todd glared at him. "But it was not of much consequence. We got her out, and she is all right again now at her shop in Bell-yard." Todd held his hands over his eyes for some moments, and then he said in a low voice-- "It is all a dream, or I am mad." Crotchet, in obedience to the orders he had received, put up the shutters of Todd's shop, and then fetched a coach, during the whole of which time, Sir Richard Blunt himself kept his hand upon Todd's collar, so that he could control him if he should again become so violent as he had been. The spirit to struggle was, however, gone from Todd for the time being. Indeed, he seemed to be completely stunned by his capture, and to be able only to see things darkly. He was yet to awaken to a full consciousness of his situation, and let that awakening be when it would, it was sure to be awful. "All's right," said Crotchet. "Here's the vehicle, and the crib is shut up." "Crotchet!" "Yes, your worship. What is it? Why, you never looked at a feller in that sort of way before." "I never did have anything so important to say to you, Crotchet, nor did I ever place in your hands so important a trust. It is one that will make you or mar you, Crotchet. I have myself important business here, or I would myself take this man to Newgate. As it is, Crotchet, I wish to entrust you with that important piece of duty, and I rely upon you, Crotchet, for keeping an eye upon him, and delivering him in safety." "It's as good as done," said Crotchet. "If he gets away from me, he has only another individual to do, and that's the old gent as is down below, with the long tail. Lor' bless you, sir, didn't I say from the first, as Todd smugged the people as comed to him to be shaved?" "You did, Crotchet." "Werry good. Then does yer think as I'm the feller all for to let him go when once I've got a hold of him? Rather not!" "I entrust you with him then, Crotchet. Take him away. I give him entirely into your hands." Upon this, Crotchet slid his arm beneath that of Sweeney Todd, and looking in his face with a most grotesque air of satisfaction, he said, "kim up--kim up!" He then, by an immense exertion of strength, hoisted Todd completely over the door step, after which, catching him with both hands about the small of his back, he pitched him into the coach. "My eye," said the coachman, "has the gemman had a drop too much?" "He will have," said Crotchet, "some o' these odd days. To Newgate--to Newgate." Crotchet rode inside along with Todd "for fear he should be dull," he said, and the other officer got up outside the coach, and then off it went to that dreadful building that Todd had often grimly smiled at as he passed, but into which as a resident he had never expected to enter. Sir Richard Blunt remained in the shop of Sweeney Todd. The oil lamp that hung by a chain from the ceiling shed a tolerable light over all objects, and no sooner had the magistrate fastened the outer door after the departure of Crotchet with Todd, than he stamped three times heavily upon the floor of the shop. This signal was immediately answered by three distinct taps from underneath the floor, and then the magistrate stamped again in the same manner. The effect of all this stamping and counter-signals was immediately very apparent. The great chair which has played so prominent a part in he atrocities of Sweeney Todd slowly sunk, and the revolving plank hung suspended by its axle, while a voice from below called out-- "Is all right, sir?" "Yes, Crotchet has taken him to Newgate. I am now alone. Come up." "We are coming, sir. We all heard a little disturbance, but the floor is very thick you know, sir. So we could not take upon ourselves to say exactly what was happening." "Oh, it's all right. He resisted, but by this time he is within the stone walls of Newgate. Let me lend you a hand." Sir Richard Blunt stooped over the aperture in the floor, and the first person that got up was no other than Mr. Wrankley the Tobacconist. "How do you feel after your tumble?" said Sir Richard. "Oh, very well. The fact is they caught me so capitally below that it was quite easy. Todd did not think it worth his while to come down to see if I were alive or dead." "Ah, that was the only chance; but of course if he had done so he must have been taken at once into custody--that would have been all. Come on, my friends, come on. Our trouble with regard to Todd is over now, I think." The two churchwardens of St. Dunstan's and the beadle, and four of Sir Richard Blunt's officers, and the fruiterer from opposite, now came up from below the shop of Sweeney Todd, where they had been all waiting to catch Mr. Wrankley when the chair should descend with him. "Conwulsions!" said the beadle, "I runned agin everybody when I seed him a-coming. I thought to myself, if a parochial authority had been served in that 'ere way, there would have been an end of the world at once." "I had some idea of asking you at one time to play that little part for me," said Sir Richard. "Conwulsions! had you, sir?" "Yes. But now, my friends, let us make a careful search of this house; and among the first things we have to do is, to remove all the combustible materials that Todd has stowed in various parts of it, for unless I am much deceived, the premises are in such a state that the merest accident would set them in a blaze." "Conwulsions!" then cried the beadle. "I ain't declared out of danger yet then!" CHAPTER CXI. MRS. LOVETT PLANS. We hasten to Bell Yard again. Mrs. Lovett's immersion in the Thames had really not done her much harm. Perhaps the river was a little purer than we now find it, and probably it had not entirely got rid of its name of the "Silver Thames"--an appellation that now would be really out of place, unless we can imagine some silver of a much more dingy hue than silver ordinarily presents to the eye of the observer. She soon, we find, settled in her own mind a plan of action, notwithstanding the rather complicated and embarrassing circumstances in which she found herself placed. That plan of action had for its basis the impeachment of Todd as a murderer, at the same time that it looked forward to her own escape from the hands of justice. Her first action was to quiet the cook in the regions below, for if she did not take some such step, she was very much afraid her establishment might come to a stand-still some few hours before she intended that it should do so. With this object, she wrote upon a little slip of paper the following words, and passed it into the cellar through an almost imperceptible crevice in the flooring of the shop-- "Early to-morrow morning you shall have your liberty, together with gold to take you where you please. All I require of you is, that you do your ordinary duty to-night, and send up the nine o'clock batch of pies." This, she considered, could not but have its due effect upon the discontented cook; and having transmitted it to him in the manner we have described, she sat down at her desk to write the impeachment of Todd. In the course of an hour, Mrs. Lovett had filled two pages of writing paper with a full account of how persons met their death in the barber's shop. She sealed the letter, and directed it to Sir Richard Blunt in a bold free hand. "It is done," she said. "When I am far from London, as I can easily find the means of being, this will reach the hands of the magistrate to whom it is addressed, and who has the character of being sharp and active." (Mrs. Lovett did not know how sharp and active Sir Richard had already been in her affairs!) "He will act upon it. Todd, in the midst of his guilt, with many evidences of it about him, will be taken, and I shall escape! Yes, I shall escape, with about a tithe of what I ought to have--but I shall have revenge!" On one of the shelves of the shop--certainly out of reach, but only just so--stood an old dirty-looking tin jar, such as fancy biscuits might be kept in. No one for a moment would have thought of looking for anything valuable in such a place; and yet, keeping the shop door locked the while, lest any intruder should at unawares pop in and see what she was about, it was to this tin can upon its dirty shelf that Mrs. Lovett cautiously went. "Those who hide can find," she muttered. "I warrant now that Todd had searched in every seemingly cunning and intricate hiding-place in this whole house, and he has gone away disappointed. The secret of hiding anything is not to try to find some place where people may be baffled when they look, but to light upon some place into which they will not look at all." With these words, Mrs. Lovett took down the tin can, and having from the upper portion of it removed some dusty, mouldy small biscuits, she dived her hand into it, and fished up a leathern bag. The tape that held its mouth together was sealed, and a glance sufficed to convince Mrs. Lovett that it had not been touched. "Safe, safe!" she muttered. "It is but a thousand pounds, but it is safe, and it will enable me to fly from this place--it will enable me to have vengeance upon Todd; and small as the sum is, in some country, where money is worth more than it is in pampered England, I shall yet be able to live upon it. I will not complain if I have but the joy of reading an account of the execution of Todd. I fear I must deny myself the pleasure of seeing that sight." The little leathern bag she hid about her, and then she carefully replaced the tin case upon the shelf whence she had taken it, to disburthen it of its costly contents. After this Mrs. Lovett got much calmer. She had not the least apprehension now of a visit from Todd. She saw by the state of the house that his search had been a prolonged one, and until he shut up his own shop, she did not expect that he would again think of coming to Bell Yard, and as that would be ten o'clock, she fully believed that before then she would be far away. And then she sat behind her counter, looking only a shade or so paler than was her wont, and moving her lips slightly now and then as she settled in her own mind the course that she would take so as to baffle all pursuit. "With no luggage but my gold and notes," she muttered, "I will leave this place at half past nine, by which time the last batch of pies will have been up and sold, and all will be quiet. That will be a little more money to me. Then on foot I will take my way to Highgate--yes, to Highgate, and I will trust no conveyance, for that might be a ready means of tracing me. I will go on foot. Then passing Highgate, I will go on foot upon the Great North Road until some coach overtakes me. It will not matter whither it be going, so that it takes me on that road; and by one conveyance and another, I shall at length reach Liverpool, from which port I shall find some vessel starting to some place abroad, where I can live free from the chance of detection. Yes, that is the plan! That is the plan!" Mrs. Lovett was a woman of some tact, and the plan of operations she had chalked out was all very well, provided such very malapropos proceedings had not taken place at Sweeney Todd's in the meantime. Little did Mrs. Lovett suspect what was there transpiring. And now we will leave her for a brief space behind her counter, ruminating, and at odd times smiling to herself in a ghastly fashion, while we pop down to the cellars, and take a glance at the impatient imprisoned cook. About ten minutes before he received the letter--if letter the little flattering memorandum of Mrs. Lovett could be called--from his mistress, the cook had been a little alarmed by a noise in the stone pantry, where the mysterious meat used to make its appearance. Upon proceeding to the spot with a light, he found lying upon the floor a sealed paper, upon lifting which he saw was addressed to himself, and at one corner was written the following words-- "Definitive instructions for to-night from Sir Richard Blunt." To tear open the letter and to read it with great care, was the work of a few moments only, and then drawing a long breath, the cook said-- "Thank God! I shall not stop another night in this place. I shall be free before midnight. Oh, what an oppressive--what an overpowering joy it will be to me once more to see the sky--to breathe pure fresh air, and to feel that I have bid adieu for ever to this dreadful--dreadful place." The poor cook looked around him with a shudder, and then he had hardly placed the magistrate's letter securely in his bosom, when the little missive from Mrs. Lovett came fluttering to his feet, through the crack in the roof. "'Tis well," he said, when he had read it. "'Tis very well. This will chime in most admirably with my instructions from Sir Richard Blunt. Mrs. Lovett I thank you. You shall have the nine o'clock batch. Oh, yes, you shall have them. I am all obedience. Alas, if she whom I loved had not been false to me, I might yet, young as I am, feel the sunshine of joy in the great world again. But I can never love another, and she is lost--lost to me for ever. Ay, for ever!" With this the poor cook, who but a few moments before had been so elated by the thoughts of freedom, sat himself down, and in quite a disconsolate manner rested his head upon his hands, and gave himself up to bitter fancy. "That she should be false to me," he said mournfully. "It does indeed almost transcend belief. She, so young, so gentle, so innocent, and so guileless. If an angel from Heaven had come and told me as much I should have doubted still; but I cannot mistrust the evidence of my own senses. I saw her. Yes, I saw her!" The cook rose and paced the gloomy place to and fro in the restlessness of a blighted heart, and no one to look at him could for a moment have supposed that he was near his freedom from an imprisonment of the most painful and maddening description to one of his impatient temperament. But so it is with us all; no sooner do we to all appearance see the end of one evil, than with an activity of imagination worthy to be excited in better things, we provide ourselves with some real or unreal reason for the heartache. "I will so contrive," said the cook, "that before I leave for ever the land of my birth, I will once more look upon her. Yes, I will once again drink in, from a contemplation of her wondrous beauty, most delicious poison; and then when I have feasted my eyes, and perchance grieved my heart, I will at once go far away, and beneath the sun of other skies than this, I will wait for death." The more the poor cook thought of this unknown beauty of his, who surely had behaved to him very ill, or he could not have spoken of her in such terms, the more sorrow got upon his countenance, and imparted its sad sweetness to his tones. Surely the time had not been very far distant when that young man must have been in a widely different sphere of life to that limited one in which he now moved. Suddenly, however, he was recalled to a consciousness of what he had to do, by the clock striking seven. He counted the strokes, and then pausing before one of the large ovens, he said-- "The time has now come when I must cease to be making preparations to obey the mandate of my imperious mistress. She will not now be content merely to have issued her orders, but she will keep an eye upon me to see that they are being executed, and unarmed as I am, and without the knowledge of what power of mischief she may have, I feel that it would not be safe yet to provoke her. No--no. I must seem to do her bidding." With this, the cook set about the manufacture of the pies; and as it would really have been much more troublesome to sham making them than to make them in earnest, he really did manufacture a hundred of them. But it was after all with a very bad grace that the poor imprisoned cook now made the pies; and probably so very indifferent a batch of those delicious pieces of pastry had never before found its way into the ovens of Mrs. Lovett. The cook was not wrong in his idea that his imperious mistress would take a peep at him before nine o'clock. At about eight, the little grating in the high-up door was tapped by something that Mrs. Lovett had in her hand, with which to attract the attention of the cook. He looked up, and saw her dimly. "Are you busy?" she said. "Yes, madam, as busy as the nine o'clock batch usually makes me. Do you not hear the oven?" "I do--'tis well." "Ah, madam," said the dissembling cook, "it will be well, indeed, if you keep your word with me, and set me to-night at freedom." "Do you doubt it?" "I have no particular reason to doubt it, further than that the unfortunate are always inclined to doubt too good news. That is all, madam." "If you doubt, you will be agreeably disappointed, for I shall keep my word with you. You have done for me much better than I ever expected, and I will be grateful to you now that you are going. I have said that you shall not go without means, and you shall have a purse of twenty guineas to help you on your way wherever you wish." "How kind you are, madam! Ah, I shall be able now to forgive you for all that I have suffered in this place--and, after all, it has been a refuge from want." "It has. No one can be better pleased than I am to find you view things so reasonably. Send up the nine o'clock batch; and then wait patiently until I come to you." "I will." "Till then, good-night!" Mrs. Lovett left the grating; and as she went up to the shop, she muttered to herself-- "They will, when they find him here, suspect he is an accomplice. Well, let them hang him, for all I care. What can it matter to me?" CHAPTER CXII. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE. It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs. Lovett's shop is filling with persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine o'clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies. Many of Mrs. Lovett's customers paid her in advance for the pies, in order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths below. "Well, Jiggs," said one of the legal fraternity to another, "how are you to-day, old fellow? What do you bring it in?" "Oh! I ain't very blooming. The fact is, the count and I, and a few others, made a night of it last evening; and somehow or another I don't think whiskey-and-water, half-and-half, and tripe, go well together." "I should wonder if they did." "And so I've come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see I'm rather delicate." "Ah! you are just like me, young man, there," said an elderly personage; "I have a delicate stomach, and the slightest thing disagrees with me. A mere idea will make me quite ill." "Will it, really?" "Yes; and my wife, she--" "Oh, bother your wife! It's only five minutes to nine, don't you see? What a crowd there is, to be sure. Mrs. Lovett, you charmer, I hope you have ordered enough pies to be made to-night? You see what a lot of customers you have." "Oh, there will be plenty." "That's right. I say, don't push so; you'll be in time, I tell you; don't be pushing and driving in that sort of way--I've got ribs." "And so have I. Last night I didn't get a pie at all, and my old woman is in a certain condition, you see, gentlemen, and won't fancy anything but one of Lovett's veal pies; so I've come all the way from Newington to get one for--" "Hold your row, will you? and don't push." "For to have the child marked with a pie on its--" "Behind there, I say; don't be pushing a fellow as if it were half price at a theatre." Each moment added some new comers to the throng, and at last any strangers who had known nothing of the attractions of Mrs. Lovett's pie-shop and had walked down Bell Yard, would have been astonished at the throng of persons there assembled--a throng that was each moment increasing in density, and becoming more and more urgent and clamorous. * * * * * One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Yes, it is nine at last. It strikes by old St. Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker strains the chronometical machine at the pie-shop echoes the sound. What excitement there is to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs. Lovett lets down the square moveable platform that goes on pullies in the cellar; some machinery, which only requires a handle to be turned, brings up a hundred pies in a tray. These are eagerly seized by parties who have previously paid, and such a smacking of lips ensues as never was known. Down goes the platform for the next hundred, and a gentlemanly man says-- "Let me work the handle, Mrs. Lovett, if you please; it's too much for you I'm sure." "Sir, you are very kind, but I never allow anybody on this side of the counter but my own people, sir. I can turn the handle myself, sir, if you please, with the assistance of this girl. Keep your distance, sir, nobody wants your help." "But my dear madam, only consider your delicacy. Really you ought not to be permitted to work away like a negro slave at a winch handle. Really you ought not." The man who spoke thus obligingly to Mrs. Lovett, was tall and stout, and the lawyers clerks repressed the ire they otherwise would probably have given utterance to at thus finding any one quizzing their charming Mrs. Lovett. "Sir, I tell you again that I don't want your help; keep your distance, sir, if you please." "Now don't get angry, fair one," said the man. "You don't know but I might have made you an offer before I left the shop." "Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, drawing herself up and striking terror into the hearts of the limbs of the law. "Sir! What do you want? Say what you want, and be served, sir, and then go. Do you want a pie, sir?" "A pie? Oh, dear no, I don't want a pie. I would not eat one of the nasty things on any account. Pah!" Here the man spat on the floor. "Oh, dear, don't ask me to eat any of your pies." "Shame, shame," said several of the lawyers clerks. "Will any gentleman who thinks it a shame, be so good as to step forward and say so a little closer?" Everybody shrunk back upon this, instead of accepting the challenge, and Mrs. Lovett soon saw that she must, despite all the legal chivalry by which she was surrounded, fight her battles herself. With a look of vehement anger, she cried-- "Beware, sir, I am not to be trifled with. If you carry your jokes too far, you will wish that you had not found your way, sir, into this shop." "That, madam," said the tall stout man, "is not surely possible, when I have the beauty of a Mrs. Lovett to gaze upon, and render the place so exquisitely attractive; but if you will not permit me to have the pleasure of helping you up with the next batch of pies, which, after all, you may find heavier than you expect, I must leave you to do it yourself." "So that I am not troubled any longer by you, sir, at all," said Mrs. Lovett, "I don't care how heavy the next batch of pies may happen to be, sir." "Very good, madam." "Upon my word," said a small boy, giving the side of his face a violent rub with the hope of finding the ghost of a whisker there, "it's really too bad." "Ah, who's that? Let me get at him!" "Oh, no, no, I--mean--that it's too bad of Mrs. Lovett, my dear sir. Oh, don't." "Oh, very good; I am satisfied. Now, madam, you see that even your dear friends here, from Lincoln's Inn--Are you from the Inn, small boy?" "Yes, sir, if you please." "Very good. As I was saying, Mrs. Lovett, you now must of necessity perceive, that even your friends from the Inn, feel that your conduct is really too bad, madam." Mrs. Lovett was upon this so dreadfully angry, that she disdained any reply to the tall stout man, but at once she applied herself to the windlass, which worked up the little platform, upon which a whole tray of a hundred pies was wont to come up, and began to turn it with what might be called a vengeance. How very strange it was--surely the words of the tall stout impertinent stranger were prophetic, for never before had Mrs. Lovett found what a job it was to work that handle, as upon that night. The axle creaked, and the cords and the pullies strained and wheezed, but she was a determined woman, and she worked away at it. "I told you so, my dear madam," said the stranger; "it is more evidently than you can do." "Peace, sir." "I am done; work away ma'am, only don't say afterwards that I did not offer to help you, that's all." Indignation was swelling at the heart of Mrs. Lovett, but she felt that if she wasted her breath upon the impertinent stranger, she should have none for the windlass; so setting her teeth, she fagged at it with a strength and a will that if she had not been in a right royal passion, she could not have brought to bear upon it on any account. There was quite an awful stillness in the shop. All eyes were bent upon Mrs. Lovett, and the cavity through which the next batch of those delicious pies were coming. Those who had had the good fortune to get one of the first lot, had only had their appetites heightened by the luxurious feast they had partaken of, while those who had had as yet none, actually licked their lips, and snuffed up the delightful aroma from the remains of the first batch. "Two for me, Mrs. Lovett," cried a voice. "One veal for me. Three porks--one pork." The voices grew fast and furious. "Silence!" cried the tall stout man. "I will engage that everybody shall be fully satisfied; and no one shall leave here without a thorough conviction that his wants in pies has been more than attended to." The platform could be made to stop at any stage of its upward progress, by means of a ratchet wheel and a catch, and now Mrs. Lovett paused to take breath. She attributed the unusual difficulty in working the machinery to her own weakness, contingent upon her recent immersion in the Thames. "Sir," she said between her clenched teeth, addressing the man who was such an eye-sore to her in the shop. "Sir, I don't know who you are, but I hope to be able to show you when I have served these gentlemen, that even I am not to be insulted with impunity." "Anything you please, madam," he replied, "in a small way, only don't exert yourself too much." Mrs. Lovett flew to the windlass again, and from the manner in which she now worked at it, it was quite clear that when she had her hands free from that job, she fully intended to make good her threats against the tall stout man. The young beardless scions of the law, trembled at the idea of what might happen. And now the tops of the pies appeared. Then they saw the rim of the large tray upon which they were, and then just as the platform itself was level with the floor of the shop, up flew tray and pies, as if something had exploded beneath them, and a tall slim man sprung upon the counter. It was the cook, who from the cellars beneath, had laid himself as flat as he could beneath the tray of pies, and so had been worked up to the shop by Mrs. Lovett! [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett's Cook Astonishes Her Customers, Rather.] "Gentlemen," he cried, "I am Mrs. Lovett's cook. The pies are made of _human flesh_!" * * * * * We shrink, we tremble at the idea of attempting to describe the scene that ensued in the shop of Mrs. Lovett contingent upon this frightful apparition, and still more frightful speech of the cook; but duty--our duty to the public--requires that we should say something upon the occasion. If we can do nothing more, we can briefly enumerate what did actually take place in some instances. About twenty clerks rushed into Bell Yard, and there and then, to the intense surprise of the passers-by, became intensely sick. The cook, with one spring, cleared the counter, and alighted amongst the customers, and with another spring, the tall impertinent man, who had made many remarks to Mrs. Lovett of an aggravating tendency, cleared the counter likewise in the other direction, and, alighting close to Mrs. Lovett, he cried-- "Madam, you are my prisoner!" For a moment, and only for a moment, the great--the cunning, and the redoubtable Mrs. Lovett, lost her self-possession, and, staggering back, she lurched heavily against the glass-case next to the wall, immediately behind the counter. It was only for a moment, though, that such an effect was produced upon Mrs. Lovett; and then, with a spring like an enraged tigress, she caught up a knife that was used for slipping under the pies and getting them cleanly out of the little tins, and rushed upon the tall stranger. Yes, she rushed upon him; but for once in a way, even Mrs. Lovett had met with her match. With a dexterity, that only long practice in dealings with the more desperate portion of human nature could have taught him, the tall man closed with her, and had the knife out of her hand in a moment. He at once threw it right through the window into Bell Yard, and then, holding Mrs. Lovett in his arms, he said-- "My dear madam, you only distress yourself for nothing; all resistance is perfectly useless. Either I must take you prisoner, or you me, and I decidedly incline to the former alternative." The knife that had been thrown through the window was not without its object, for in a moment afterwards Mr. Crotchet made his appearance in the shop. "All right, Crotchet," said he who had captured Mrs. Lovett; "first clap the bracelets on this lady." "Here yer is," said Crotchet. "Lor, mum! I had a eye on you months and months agone. How is you, mum, in yer _feelin's_ this here nice evening?--Eh mum?" "A knife--a knife! Oh, for a knife!" cried Mrs. Lovett. "Ex-actly, mum," added Crotchet, as he with professional dexterity slipped the handcuffs on her wrists. "Would you like one with a hivory handle, mum? or would anything more common do, mum?" Mrs. Lovett fell to the floor, or rather she cast herself to it, and began voluntarily beating her head against the boards. They quickly lifted her up; and then the tall stranger turned to the cook, who, after leaping over the counter, had sat down upon a chair in a state of complete exhaustion, and he said-- "Do you know the way to Sir Richard's office, in Craven Street? He expects you there, I believe?" "Yes, yes. But now that all is over, I feel very ill." "In that case, I will go with you, then. Crotchet, who have you got outside?" "Only two of our pals, Muster Green; but it's all right, if so be as you leaves the lady to us." "Very well. The warrant is at Newgate, and the governor is expecting her instant arrival. You will get a coach at the corner of the yard, and be off with her at once." "All's right," said Crotchet. "I knowed as she'd be nabbed, and I had one all ready, you sees." "That was right, Crotchet. How amazingly quick everybody has left the shop. Why--why, what is all this?" As the officer spoke, about half a dozen squares of glass in the shop window of the house were broken in, and a ringing shout from a dense mob that was rapidly collecting in the yard, came upon the ears of the officer. The two men whom Crotchet had mentioned, with difficulty pressed their way into the shop, and one of them cried-- "The people that were in the shop have spread the news all over the neighbourhood, and the place is getting jammed up with a mob, every one of which is mad, I think, for they talk of nothing but of the tearing of Mrs. Lovett to pieces. They are pouring in from Fleet Street and Carey Street by hundreds at a time." CHAPTER CXIII. THE ROUTE TO NEWGATE--MRS. LOVETT'S DANGER FROM THE MOB. Mrs. Lovett, upon hearing these words, turned ghastly pale, but she did not speak. The officers looked at each other with something like dismay, and then before either of them could say another word, there arose a wild prolonged shout from without. "Out with her--out with her! Kill her! Tear her to bits and hang her on the lamp-post in the middle of Bell Yard! Out with her! Drag her out! Hang her! hang her!" "The coach you say is waiting, Crotchet?" said the officer, who had been intrusted by Sir Richard Blunt with the conduct of the whole business connected with Mrs. Lovett's capture. "It were," said Crotchet, "and that coachman ain't the sort of fellow to move on till I tell him. I knows him." "Very good, then we must make a dash for it, and get her away by main force, it must be done, let the risk and the consequences be what they may, and the sooner the better, too. Come on, madam." "Death--death!" said Mrs. Lovett. "Kill me here, some of you, kill me at once; but do not let me be torn to pieces by a savage mob. Oh, God, they yell for my blood! Save me from them, and kill me here. A knife! oh, for a knife!" "And a fork too, mum," said Crotchet; "in course, if you wants 'em. I tells you what it is, Mr. Green, that there mob is just savage, and we have about as much chance of getting her down to Fleet Street with her head on her shoulders, as all of us have of flying over the blessed house tops." "We must. It is our duty, and if we fail, they must kill us, which I don't think they will do. Come on." "I will go with you," said the cook, starting up from the chair upon which he had on account of his weakness been compelled to seat himself, "I will go with you, and implore the people to let the law take its course upon this woman." "In the cupboard, in the parlour," said Mrs. Lovett, speaking in a strange gasping tone, "there is a letter addressed by me to Sir Richard Blunt. It will be worth your while to save it from the mob. Let me show you where to lay your hands upon it, and if you have any wish to take a greater criminal than I, go to the shop of one Sweeney Todd, a barber, in Fleet Street. His number is sixty nine. Seize him, for he is the head of all the criminality you can possibly impute to me. Seize him, and I shall be content." "The man you mention," said Mr. Green, "has been in Newgate an hour nearly." "Newgate?" "Yes. We took him first, and then attended to you." "Todd--captured--in Newgate--and I in fancied security here remained wasting the previous moments upon which hung my life. Oh, fool--fool--dolt--idiot. A knife! Oh, sirs, I pray you to give me the means of instant death. What can the law do, but take my life? What have you all come here, and plotted and planned for, but to take my life? I will do it. Oh, I pray you to give me the means, and I will satisfy you and justice, and die at once." Another loud roar from the infuriated people without, drowned whatever the officer might have said in reply to this appeal from Mrs. Lovett, and again arose the wild shouts of-- "Out with her!--Out with her!--Hang her!--Hang the murderess!--Hang her in the yard!--Out with her!" "Forward!" cried Mr. Green. "To hesitate is only to make our situation ten times worse. Forward!" "Hold a bit," cried Crotchet, "let me speak to the people; I knows how to humour 'em. Only you see if I don't get her along. Come, mum, just step this a-ways if yer pleases. Open the door, Mr. Cook, and let me out first." The cook opened the door, and before the mob could rush into the place, Crotchet stepped on to the threshold of the shop, and in a tremendous voice that made itself heard above all others, he cried-- "Hurrah! Hurrah!" Nothing is easier than to throw a cry into a crowd, and to get it echoed to your heart's content; and so some couple of hundred voices now immediately cried--"Hurrah!" and when the vast volume of sound had died away, Crotchet in such a voice that it must have been heard in Fleet Street quite plainly, said-- "My opinion is, that Mrs. Lovett ought to be hung outright, and at once without any more bother about it." "Hurrah!--Hang her!--Hang her!" shouted the mob. "And," added Crotchet, "I propose the lamp-post at the top of Fleet Market as a nice public sort of place to do the job in. She says she won't walk, but I have a coach in Fleet Street, and we will pop her into that, and so take her along quite snug." "Yes, yes," cried the people. "Bring her along, that will do." "Oh, will it?" muttered Crochet to himself. "What a precious set of ninnies you are. If I get her once in the coach, and she gets out again except to step into the stone jug, may I be hanged myself." "I think you have managed it, Crotchet," whispered Mr. Green, "I think that will do." "To be sure it will, sir. All's right. Bless your heart, mobs is the stupidest beasts as is. You may do anything you like with them if you will only let them have their own way a little, but if so be as you trys to fight 'em, they is all horns and _porkipines_, quills and stone walls, and iron rails, they is!" "You are right enough, Crotchet; and now then let Smith stay here and mind the house, and shut it all up snug till the morning; when it can be thoroughly searched, and you and I and Simmons here will go with Mrs. Lovett." "And I too," said the cook. "We can go to Sir Richard's afterwards." "So we can--so we can. Come on, now." "You will deliver me up to the mob," screamed Mrs. Lovett. "Mercy! Mercy! I shall be torn limb from limb. Oh, what a death! Are you men or fiends that you will condemn me to it? Mercy!--mercy!" This sudden passion of Mrs. Lovett's was the very thing the officers would have desired, inasmuch as it materially helped to deceive the mob, and to prevent any idea upon the part of the infuriated people, that there was any collusion between the officers and Mrs. Lovett, for the purpose of getting her safely to prison. They dragged her out into Bell Yard, and then the shouts that the mob set up was truly terrific. "Lights! Links!" cried a voice. "Let's show her the way!" In a moment an oil-shop opposite to Mrs. Lovett's was plundered of a score or two of links, and being lighted with great rapidity from the solitary oil-lamp that there stood in the middle of Bell Yard, they sent a bright lurid glare upon the sea of heads, that seemed so close they might have been walked upon all the way to Fleet Street. Another shout echoed far and near, and then Crotchet took hold of one of Mrs. Lovett's arms, and Mr. Green hold of the other, and the cook and the other officers following, they all began slowly to make way through the mob. "Let's get along with her," cried Crotchet. "I have her tight. She won't get away. Some of you get a good stout rope ready, and make a noose in it. We will hang her on the lamp-post at the top of the market. Bring her along. Make way a little. Only a little!" Mrs. Lovett shrieked as she saw the sea of angry faces before, behind, and on all sides of her. She thought that surely her last hour was come, and that a far more horrible death than any she had ever calculated upon in her worst moments of depression, was about to be hers. Her eyes were blood-shot--she bit her under lip through, and the blood poured from her mouth--she each moment that she could gather breath to do so, raised a fearful shriek, and the mob shouted and yelled, and swayed to and fro, and the links were tossed from hand to hand, flashing, and throwing around them thousands of bright sparks, and people rapidly joined the mob. CHAPTER CXIV. THE COOK WAITS UPON SIR RICHARD BLUNT AND HEARS NEWS. It took a quarter of an hour to reach the coach from the door of Mrs. Lovett's shop, a distance that in twenty steps any one might have traversed; and, oh! what a quarter of an hour of horrible suffering that was to the wretched woman, whose crimes had so infuriated the populace, that with one voice they called for her death! [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett's Escort To The Gallows.] The coach door was opened, and Crotchet pushed his prisoner in. Mr. Green, and the other officer and the cook followed her. "I will go on the box," said Crotchet. "Very well," said Green, "but be mindful of your own safety, Crotchet." "All's right. There ain't any more o' my sort in London, and I know I am rather a valuable piece o' goods. Has anybody got the rope ready for the lady?" "Here you are," said a man, "I have one." "You get up behind then," said Crotchet, "for of course you know we shall soon want you." "Yes, I will. That's right! It's all right, friends. I am to get up behind with the rope. Here's the rope!" "Three cheers for the rope!" cried somebody, and the cheers were given with deafening violence. What will not a mob give three cheers for--ay, or any number of cheers you like to name? A piece of poor humanity in tinsel and fine linen, called a king or queen--a popular cry--a murderess--a rope--anything will suffice. Surely, Mr. Crotchet, you know something of the people! "Now," said Crotchet to the coachman, "are you as bold as brass, and as strong as an iron file?" The coachman looked puzzled, but Mr. Crotchet pursued his queries. "Will these 'osses, if they is frightened a bit, cut along quick?" "Rather," said the coachman. "The blessed fact is, that they won't cut along unless you do frighten them a bit; and as for me being an old file and having lots o' brass, I doesn't consider as I'm a bit worser nor my neighbours." "You is as hignorant as a badger!" said Crotchet. "Make yourself easy and give me the reins. The mobs o' people thinks as we is a going to hang the woman at the corner of Fleet Market, but if I lives another ten minutes, she will be in Newgate. There may be something of a scuffle, and if anything happens to you, or to the coach or the 'osses, the county will pay handsomely, so now give me the reins. You may not like to whip through them, but I haven't the least objection." The coachman looked scared and nervous, but he gave up the reins and the whip to Crotchet, and then leaning back on the box, he waited with no small trepidation the result of the expected disturbance, while he had only Mr. Crotchet's word that the county would pay for handsomely. The short distance from the corner of Bell Yard to the end of Fleet Market was rapidly traversed, and when that interesting point was reached, the dense mass of people set up another shout, and began to surround the lamp-post that was there, and to fill up all the avenues. "Get the rope up," said Crotchet. "Yes, yes. Hurrah! hurrah! Pull her out, and hang her!" The highly interesting process of getting the rope fixed upon the little projecting piece of iron, upon which the lamplighter was wont to rest his ladder, had the effect that Crotchet expected, namely, to attract general attention; and then, taking advantage of the moment, he seized the whip and used it with such effect upon the horses, that, terrified and half maddened, they set off with the coach at a tearing gallop. For a moment or two--and in that moment or two Mr. Crotchet with his prisoner got to the corner of the Old Bailey--the mob were so staggered by this unexpected elopement of the hackney-coach, that not a soul followed it. The idea that the horses had of their own accord started, being probably alarmed at the links, was the first that possessed the people, and many voices called out loudly-- "Pull 'em in--pull 'em in! Saw their heads off!" But when they saw Mr. Crotchet fairly turn into the Old Bailey, the trick that had been played upon them became apparent; and one yell of indignation and rage burst from the multitude. The pursuit was immediate; but Mr. Crotchet had too much the start of the mob, and long before the struggling infuriated people, impeding each other as they tore along, had reached the corner of the Old Bailey, Mrs. Lovett was in the lobby of the prison, and the officers safely with her. She looked like a corpse. The colour of her face was that of soiled white wax. But mobs, if they cannot wreak their vengeance upon what may be, for distinction's sake, called the legitimate object of their displeasure, will do so upon something else; and upon reaching the door of Newgate, and finding there was no sort of chance of getting hold of Mrs. Lovett, they took the horses out of the hackney-coach, and started them off through the streets to go where they liked; and then, dragging the coach to Smithfield, they then and there made a bon-fire of it, and were very much satisfied and delighted, indeed. "Now, mum," said Crotchet to Mrs. Lovett, "didn't I say I'd bring yer to the old stone jug as safe as ninepence?" She only looked at him vacantly; and then, glaring around her with a shudder, she said-- "And this is Newgate!" "Just a few," said Crotchet. The governor at this moment made his appearance, and began to give orders as to where Mrs. Lovett should be placed. A slight change of colour came over her face, as she said-- "Shall I see Todd?" "Not at present," said the governor. "I should like to see him to forgive him; for no doubt it is to him that I owe this situation. He has betrayed me!" The look which she put on when she uttered the words "I should like to see him to forgive him," was so truly demoniac, that it was quite clear if she did see Todd, that whether she were armed or not, she would fly upon him, and try to take his life; and although in that she might fail, there would be very little doubt but that, in the process of failure, she would inflict upon him some very serious injury. It was not likely, though, that the officials of Newgate would indulge her with an opportunity. "You had better all of you wait here," said the governor to Mr. Crotchet, and the officers, and the cook, "until the mob is gone." "The street is quite clear, sir," said a turnkey, "They have taken the coach to knock it to pieces, I suppose, sir." "And I'm done up at last!" said the coachman, wringing his hands, for he had, in fear for his own safety, made his way into the lobby of Newgate along with Mr. Crotchet; "I'm done up at last!" "Not at all," said the governor. "We would not have lost such a prisoner as this Mrs. Lovett, for the worth of fifty coaches. Every penny of your loss will be made good to you. There is a guinea, in the meantime--go home, and do not distress yourself upon the subject, my good fellow." Upon this the coachman was greatly comforted, and with Mr. Crotchet and the officers, he left the lobby of Newgate at the same moment that Mrs. Lovett was led off into the interim of that gloomy and horrible abode. The object of the officer was now to get to the private office of Sir Richard Blunt as soon as possible, and let him know of the successful capture of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard, too, it will be remembered, had left a special message with the cook to repair to his office as soon as he could after his release from his bondage in Bell Yard, so that the liberated cook, who felt that he owed that liberation to the advice and assistance of Sir Richard, did not scruple to obey the directions of the magistrate at once. The private-office of Sir Richard, it will be recollected, was in Craven Street, at the bottom of the Strand. Upon the route there, Mr. Crotchet and the cook held a long and very serious discourse about the proceedings of Mrs. Lovett, and if the cook was able to tell the active and enterprising Crotchet much that was curious regarding the underground operations at Mrs. Lovett's, he, in return, received some curious edifying information concerning the lady's business connexion with Sweeney Todd, with the particulars of which the cook had been completely ignorant. By the time they reached Craven Street, therefore, the cook's eyes were considerably opened, and many matters that had been to him extremely obscure, became all at once quite clear, so that he was upon the whole far from sorry for the companionship of the eccentric Crotchet on the road down the Strand to the magistrate's private office. Sir Richard was at home, and anxiously expecting them, so that upon the first hint of their presence they were introduced to him, and he received the report of the officer with evident satisfaction. "Thank God," he said, "two of the greatest malefactors the world ever saw are now in the hands of justice." "Yes," said Crotchet. "They are cotched." "You may depend all of you," added Sir Richard, "that your conduct and great skill in exertions in this affair shall be by me communicated to the Secretary of State, who will not leave you unrewarded. Pray wait for me in the outer room, I have some private business with this gentleman." The officers were a little surprised to hear Sir Richard Blunt call Mrs. Lovett's cook, "this gentleman;" but they of course took no notice of the circumstance while in the presence of their principal, and in a few moments the magistrate was alone with the cook. From a cupboard in his room, then Sir Richard Blunt took wine and other refreshments, and laid them before the cook, saying-- "Refresh yourself, my friend; but for your own sake, as your fare has been but indifferent for some time, I beg you to be sparing." "I will, sir. I owe you much--very much!" "You are free now." "I--am--sir." "And yet you are very unhappy." The cook started and changed colour slightly. He filled, for himself, a glass of wine, and after drinking it he heaved a sigh, as he said-- "Sir, I am unhappy. I do not care how soon the world and I part, sir. The hope--the dream of my life has gone from me. All that I lived for--all that I cherished as the brightest expectation of joy in this world has passed away like a vapour, and left not a rack behind. I am unhappy, and better, far better, would it have been for me if Sweeney Todd had taken my life, or if by some subtle poison, Mrs. Lovett had shuffled me out of the world--I am unhappy." "Indeed! And you really think you have nothing in this world now to live for?" "I do. But it is not a thought only. It is a knowledge--it is a fact that cannot be gainsaid or controverted. I tell you, sir, that I can never now hope to realise the happiness which was the day-dream of my existence, and which has passed from me like a dream, never--never to come again. It was in the despair contingent upon such thoughts and feelings, that I went to Mrs. Lovett and became her slave; but now I will be off far away from England, and on some foreign shore I will lay my bones." "But, my good sir, you will be wanted on the trial of your old friend, Mrs. Lovett." "Cannot you hang the woman without my help?" "Yes, I think we might, but so material a witness to her infamy as yourself cannot be dispensed with. Of course I do not pretend to be a conjuror, or to say to any man--'You shall be happy in spite of all your prognostications to the contrary;' but from what you have told me of your story, I must confess that to my perception you take much too gloomy a view of your condition." "Too gloomy!" exclaimed the cook, as he filled himself up another glass of wine. "Too gloomy! My dear, sir, you don't know how I loved that girl--you don't know how I--I--But it is no matter now--all that is past. Oh God! that she should be false to me--she of all persons in the great world!" "And so you will let this little disappointment of the heart, place you in your youth quite beside all possible enjoyment? Is this wise, sir? Is it even manly?" The poor cook was silent for a few moments, and then in a voice of deep emotion, he said-- "Sir, you don't know how much I loved her. You do not know how I pictured to myself happiness with her alone. You do not know, sir, how, even when death stared me in the face, I thought of her and her only, and how--But no matter--no matter, sir. She is false, and it is madness to speak of her. Let her go, sir. It is just possible that in the time to come, I may outlive the despair that now fills my heart." "You surely will." "I do not think it. But I will hope that I may." "And have you really no hope--no innate lurking supposition in your mind, that you may be doing her an injustice in your suspicions of her faith?" "Suspicions?" "Ay, sir, suspicions, for even you must admit that you know nothing." "Know nothing, sir?" "Absolutely nothing. You will find, if you come to consider the affair, that, as I say, you know nothing, but suspect much; and so upon mere suspicion you will make your future life miserable. I would not so bend to circumstances if the whole world stood up before me, and told me I was right in my dread thoughts of one whom I had loved." The poor cook glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and for the space of about half a minute, not one word passed between them. Then in a low voice, the cook said-- "You have read Romeo and Juliet, sir?" "Yes--what then?" "There is one line there, in which we read that 'He jests at scars who never felt a wound.'" "Well, how would you apply that line to the present circumstances?" "I would say you have never loved, sir, and I have loved." "A broad assumption that, my friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "a very broad assertion, indeed. But come, I have to spare a short time. Will you, in recompense for what I have done for you, relate to me more fully than you have done, how it is that you suspect her whom you loved of falsehood to you?" "Do not say loved, sir; I love her still." "I am glad to hear it. I pray you to go on, and tell me now all, if you feel that you can have sufficient confidence in me, and that you can view me with a sufficient friendly feeling." "Oh, sir, why do you doubt me? Do I not owe to you my life? Do I not owe it to you that I escaped the death that without a doubt was designed for me by Todd? and was it not by your persevering, that at length I had patience enough to wait until the proper time had come for my release, when it could be accomplished without the shadow of a doubt as to the result?" "Well," said Sir Richard Blunt, with a smile, "I hope then that I have established some claim upon you; so now tell me your story, my friend, and at the end of it I will, from my experience, do what I can to bring you substantial comfort." "You shall hear all, sir," said the cook, "but comfort and I have parted long since, I fear, from each other for ever." CHAPTER CXV. THE COOK BECOMES A VERY IMPORTANT PERSONAGE. At this last declaration of Mrs. Lovett's late cook, regarding the tender adieu that he and comfort had taken of each other, Sir Richard Blunt only smiled faintly, and slightly inclined his hand as much as to say-- "That is all very well, but I am waiting to hear your story, if you please." "Well, sir," added the cook. "You already know that I am not exactly what I seem, and that my being in that most abominable woman's employment as a cook, was one of those odd freaks of fortune, which will at times detract the due order of society, and place people in the most extraordinary positions." "Exactly." "I am, sir, an orphan, and was brought up by an uncle with every expectation that he would be kind and liberal to me as I progressed in years; but he had taken his own course and had made up his mind as to what I was to be, how I was to look, and what I was to say and to do, without asking himself the question, if nature was good enough to coincide with him or not. The consequence was then, that directly he found me very different from what he wished me to be, he was very angry indeed, and then I put the finishing stroke to his displeasure, by committing the greatest crime that in his eyes I could commit: I fell in love." "Humph!" "Yes, sir, that was just what he said at first, when some officious friend told of it, and sending for me he said--'You must give up all love nonsense if you wish to preserve my favour,' upon which I said--'Sir, did you never love?' 'That is not the question,' he said. 'It is of your follies now, not mine, that we are speaking,' and so he turned me out of the room." "And what did you do? Did you give up your love?" "No, sir; if he had asked me to give up my life that would have been much easier to me." "Go on. What then happened?" "Why, sir, my uncle and I met very seldom, but there was one upon my track that he paid to follow me, and to report my actions to him; and that spy--oh, that I had caught him! that spy made my uncle acquainted with the fact, that I continued, despite his prohibition, to meet with the only being who ever awakened in my bosom a tender feeling; and so I was abandoned by my relative, and left penniless almost." "But you had youth and health?" "I had, and I resolved to make use of those advantages as best I might, by endeavouring while they lasted, frail and fluttering possessions as they are, to make a home for myself and for her whom I loved." "The feeling, I presume, was reciprocal?" "I thought so." "Was it only a thought, then?" "Alas! no. It was a certainty; and if an angel with wings fresh spread from Heaven, and carrying upon them the soft light of an eternal world, had come to me and told me that she would be false to me, I would not have believed as much." "And yet--" "And yet, as you say, I have found her false. Well--well, Sir Richard--let me proceed. The thought of her unmans me at moments, but in time I may recover from such feelings." "Most unquestionably you will; and then you will look to your present condition of mind with such a smile of incredulity, and only a faint faith in your own memory that paints you such feelings." "I cannot say, sir, that it will not be so, but I do not think so. To proceed, however. I heard that an expedition was about to start to explore some rich islands in the Southern Sea. If successful, every one who took part in it would be enriched; and if unsuccessful, I could not lose my life in a better cause then in trying to make a happy home for her whom I love. I at once embraced the proposition, and became one of the adventurers, much against the inclination of the gentle girl whom I loved, and who in imagination pictured to herself a thousand dangers as involved in the enterprise." "You went?" "I did, and with every hope of returning in about a year an independent man. I thought little of the perils I was about to encounter in my voyage. I and the fair girl upon whom I had fixed my best hopes and affections parted, after many tears and protestations of fidelity. I kept my faith." "And she?" "Broke hers." "As you think--as you think. You cannot be too cautious, my young friend, in making assertions of that character." "Cautious, sir? Am I to believe the evidence of my own eyes, or am I not?" "Not always," said Sir Richard Blunt, calmly. "But I pray you go on with your narrative." "I will. The principal object of the voyage failed entirely; but by pure accident I got possession of a String of Pearls, of very great value indeed, which, provided I could get home in safety, would value in Europe quite a sufficient sum to enable us to live in comfort. But the dangers of the deep assailed us. We were wrecked; and fully believing that I should not survive, I handed the pearls to a stronger comrade, and begged him to take them to her whom I had loved, to tell herself my fate, and to bid her not weep for me, since I had died happy in the thought that I had achieved something for her; and so, my friend and I parted. I was preserved and got on board a merchant vessel bound for England, where I arrived absolutely penniless. But I had a heart full of hope and joy; for if I could but find my poor girl faithful to me, I felt that we might yet be happy, whether my comrade had lived to bring to her the pearls or not." "And you found her?" "You shall hear, sir. I walked from Southampton to London, subsisting on the road as best I could. Sometimes I met with kind treatment at farm-houses, and sometimes with quite the reverse, until at length I reached London tolerably exhausted, as you may suppose, and in anything but a good plight." "Well, but you found your girl all right, I suppose?" "No. I walked up the Strand; and as some of our happiest interviews had taken place in the Temple Gardens, I could not resist turning aside for a moment to look at the old familiar spot, when what do you think was the sight that met my eyes?" "I really can't say." "I will tell you, sir. I saw her whom I loved--the young and beautiful girl for whom I had gone through so much--the being upon whose faith and constancy I would at any time have staked my life--the, as I thought, most innocent, guileless creature upon the face of the earth--" "Well, well, my good friend, what did you see this paragon of perfection about?" "You will not believe it, sir." "Oh, yes, I shall--do not be afraid of that--I shall believe it. Your narrative bears too much the stamp of truth about it for me to doubt it for a moment. I pray you to go on." "I will then. The first object that met my eyes in that Temple Garden was the being whom I loved so fondly leaning upon the arm of a man in a military undress--leaning, did I say, upon his arm? she was almost upon his breast, and he was actually supporting her with one of his arms round her waist." "Well?" "What, sir! Is that all you can say to it? Would you say 'Well?' if you saw the only creature you ever loved in such a situation, sir? Well, indeed!" "My dear friend, do not get excited, now." "Oh, sir, it would excite a stick or a stone." "Excuse me, then, for having said 'Well,' and go on with your story. What did she say to excuse herself to you?" "'Tis well, sir--of course, I cannot expect others to feel as I do upon such an occasion. I did not speak to her, sir. The sight of such perfidy was enough for me. From that moment she fell from the height I had raised her to in my imagination, and nothing she could say, and nothing I could say, would raise her up again." "And you, then, only walked away?" "That is all. With such a pang at my heart at the moment as I wonder did not kill me, I walked away, and left her to her own conclusions." "Then--then, my young friend, you did the very reverse of what I should have done, for you should have gone up to her, and politely taken leave of her, so as to let her know at all events that you were aware of her perfidy. I should not have been content to let her have the satisfaction of thinking I was at the bottom of the sea while she was enjoying a flirtation with her officer; but, of course, different people take different courses upon emergencies. There is one thing, however, that I wonder you did not inquire about." "What was that?" "Your String of Pearls. How could you tell but that your friend had got to London, and had actually given her the Pearls with your message appended to them? I really am surprised that you did not step forward and say, 'Oblige me, miss, with my pearls, if you no longer favour me with your affections!'" "No, no. To tell the truth, I was too heart-broken at the time to care about anything in all the world; I had lost her who was to me the greatest jewel it had ever contained, and I cared for nothing else. I do believe I was a little mad, for I walked about the rest of that day, not knowing where I went to, and at last I found myself, tired, worn out, famishing, opposite to Mrs. Lovett's shop-window, and the steam of those abominable pies began to tempt me, so much that I went into the shop, and after some talk, I actually accepted the situation of cook to her, and there, but for you, I should have breathed my last." "Not a doubt of it. And now, my young friend, you know that I am a police-magistrate, and I dare say you have heard a great deal about my sources of information, and the odd way in which I find out things when folks think they keep them a profound secret. You have told me all your history, but you have thought proper, as you were, if you pleased, quite justified in doing, to withhold your name." "I have done so, but I hardly know why. I will tell it to you, however, now." "Hold, I know it." "You know it, sir?" "Yes, your name is Mark Ingestrie!" "It is, indeed. But how you came to know that, sir, is to me most mysterious." "Oh, I know more than that. The name of the young lady who, you believe, played you such a trick, is Johanna Oakley." Mark Ingestrie, for it was indeed no other, sprang to his feet, exclaiming-- "Are you man or devil, that you know what I have never breathed to you?" "Don't be surprised, my young friend. I can tell you a little more than that even. The friend to whom you intrusted your String of Pearls, was named Francis Thornhill; and his dog--let me see--Oh, his large dog was called 'Hector.'" Mark Ingestrie trembled excessively, and sinking back in his seat, he turned very pale. "This must be a dream," he said, "or you, sir, get your information from the spirits of the dead." "Not at all. But have you faith in my inspiration now sufficient to induce you to believe anything that I may tell you?" "In good truth, I have; and I may well have, for after what you have already told me, your power of knowledge cannot by me be for one moment doubted." "Very well, then. In the first place, Mr. Francis Thornhill reached London in safety." "He did?" "I tell you so. He arrived in London with your String of Pearls in his pocket. He fully believed you were dead. Indeed, he fancied that he had seen the last of you, and was quite prepared to say as much to Miss Johanna Oakley." "And he did? That will be some excuse for her, if she thought that I was gone." "No, he did not. On his route he turned into the shop of Sweeney Todd to be shaved, and there he was murdered." "Murdered!" "Yes, most foully murdered; and the String of Pearls got into the possession of that man, proving ultimately one of the means by which his frightful villainous crime came to light. The dog remained at Todd's door seeking for its master, to the great discomfiture of the murderer, who made every effort within his power for its destruction, in which however he did not succeed." "Gracious Heaven! my poor friend Thornhill to meet with such a fate! Oh God! and all on account of that fatal String of Pearls! Oh, Thornhill--Thornhill! rather would I have sunk for ever beneath the wave, than such a dreadful end should have been yours." "The past cannot be recalled," said Sir Richard. "It is only with the present, and with the future that we have anything to do now. Would you like to hear more?" "More? Of whom? Is he not dead?--my poor friend?" "Yes, he is dead; but I can tell you more of other people. I can tell you that Johanna Oakley was faithful to you. I can tell you that she mourned your loss as you would wish her to mourn it, knowing how you would mourn hers. I can tell you that the gentleman's arm she was leaning upon was only a dear friend, and that the fact of her having to be supported by him at the unlucky moment when you saw this was solely owing to the deep grief she was plunged into upon your account." "Oh no--no--no!" "I say yes. It was so, Mr. Ingestrie; and if you had at that moment stepped forward, you would have saved yourself much misery, and you would have saved her such heart-breaking thoughts, and such danger, as it will frighten you to listen to." CHAPTER CXVI. JOHANNA IS AMPLY PAID FOR HER BRIEF SERVICE AT TODD'S. Upon hearing all this, poor Mark Ingestrie turned very faint and fell back in his chair, looking so pale and wan, that Sir Richard Blunt was compelled to go across the room to hold him up. After giving him a glass of wine, he recovered, and with a deep sigh he said-- "And so I have wronged her after all! Oh, my Johanna, I am unworthy of you!" "That," said Sir Richard, "is a subject entirely for the young lady's own consideration.--N. O. W." Mark Ingestrie looked curiously in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, as with marked emphasis upon each letter he said, "N. O. W!" But he had not to wait long for an explanation of what it meant. A door at the back of the room was flung open, and Johanna sprung forward with a cry of joy. In another moment she was in the arms of Mark Ingestrie, and Sir Richard Blunt had left the room. [Illustration: The Meeting Of Mark And Johanna.] It would be quite impossible, if we had the will to attempt it, for us to go through the scene that took place between Johanna Oakley and Mark Ingestrie in the magistrate's parlour. For about half an hour they quite forgot where they were, or that there was any one in the world but themselves. At the end of that period of time, though, Sir Richard Blunt gently walked into the room. "Well," he said, "have you come to any understanding about that military man in the Temple Gardens?" Johanna sprang towards the magistrate, and placing her arms upon his breast, she kissed him on the cheek. "Sir," she said, "you are our very dear friend, and I love you as I love my father." "God bless you!" said Sir Richard, "You have, by those few words, more then repaid me for all that I have done. Are you happy?" "Very, very happy." "So very happy, sir," said Ingestrie, as his eyes glistened through tears of joy, "that I can hardly believe in its reality." "And yet you are both so poor." "Ah, sir, what is poverty when we shall be together?" "We will face that foe, Mark, I think," said Johanna, with a smile, "and he shall not extort a tear from us." "Well," said Sir Richard, as he opened his desk, "since you are not to be knocked down by poverty, what say you to riches? Do you know these, Mr. Ingestrie?" "Why, that is my String of Pearls." "Yes. I took this from Todd's escritoire myself, and they are yours and Johanna's. Will you permit me always to call you Johanna?" "Oh, yes--yes. Do so. All who love me call me Johanna." "Very well. This String of Pearls, I have ascertained, is worth a sufficient sum to place you both very far above all the primary exigences of life. It will be necessary to produce them at the trial of Sweeney Todd, but after that event they will be handed to you to do what you please with them, when you can realise them at at once, and be happy enough with the proceeds." "If my poor friend, Thornhill," sighed Mark Ingestrie, "could but have lived to see this day!" "That, indeed, would have been a joy," said Johanna. "Yes," said the magistrate; "but the grave has closed on his poor remains--at least, I may say so figuratively. He was one of Todd's victims, one of his numerous victims; for I do believe that, for a long time, scarcely a week passed that did not witness some three or four murders in that man's shop." "Horrible!" "You may well use that expression, in speaking of the career of Sweeney Todd. It has been most horrible; but there cannot be a doubt of his expiating his crimes upon the scaffold, together with his partner in guilt, Mrs. Lovett." Mark Ingestrie gave a shudder as that woman's name was mentioned, for it put him in mind of the cellar where he had lived so long, and where it was only by the most good fortune that he had not terminated his career. Before they could say any more, one of the officers in attendance upon Sir Richard, announced Colonel Jeffery. "Ah, that is your dreadful military rival," said Sir Richard to Ingestrie. "That is the gentleman whom you saw in the garden of the Temple with Johanna." "I have much to thank him for. His conduct to Johanna has been most noble." The colonel smiled when he saw Mark Ingestrie and Johanna, for he well knew, from private information he had got from the magistrate, that Mark Ingestrie and Mrs. Lovett's cook were identical; and holding out his hand to the young man, he said-- "Accept of my best and sincerest wishes, Mr. Ingestrie." "And you, sir," said Mark, "accept of my best thanks. Our gratitude is largely due to you, sir." "I am quite repaid by this very happy result; and I have the pleasure of informing you, Sir Richard, that poor Tobias is very much better indeed." "Which I am rejoiced to hear," said Sir Richard. "And now, my dear Johanna, it is time for you to go home. You will hear from me in the morning, for I intend to do myself the pleasure of calling upon your father, and explaining all to him; for there are some circumstances that he is yet in ignorance of, and particularly concerning Mr. Ingestrie." "I will walk with you to your door, Johanna," said Mark rising and tottering. "No," said Sir Richard Blunt; "that must not be to-night. Do not let him, Johanna. He is by far too weak and unwell to do anything of the kind. A calm and long night's rest here will do him a world of good. Business prevents me from leaving the office; but I daresay the colonel will see Johanna in safety." "With pleasure," said Colonel Jeffery, "if Mr. Ingestrie has no objection to my doing so." "Sir," said Mark, "there is no one in all the world that I would more cheerfully see protecting my Johanna. I feel that I am in too great a state of exhaustion to go out. I leave her to your care, sir." "That is right," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Now, good-night, Johanna, and God bless you. You will see me in the morning, recollect." Mark Ingestrie took a parting embrace of Johanna, and then she went off with the colonel, who, on their road home, told her how he and Arabella had got so far as to fix their wedding day, and how he should not feel at all happy unless both she and Mark Ingestrie were at the ceremony. "Indeed, he hoped," he said, "that they might give the parson only one trouble, by being married upon the same occasion." Johanna warded this last part of the colonel's speech; but she was fervent in her hopes that he and Arabella would be so very happy, and in her praises of her young friend; so in very pleasant discourse indeed, they reached the old spectacle-maker's shop, and then the colonel shook hands with Johanna, and bade her a kind and friendly adieu, and she was let in by--to her immense surprise--her mother! Mrs. Oakley fell upon Johanna's neck in a passion of tears, crying-- "Come, my child--come to your mother's heart, and tell her that you forgive her for much past neglect and unkindness." "Oh, mother," said Johanna, "do not speak so. There is nothing to forgive; and if you are happy and we are all good friends, we will never think of the past." "That's right, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, from the passage; "that's right, my love. Come in, both of you." But it is necessary that we should briefly state how it was that this wonderful change in the behaviour of Mrs. Oakley came about, and for that purpose we must retrace our steps a little. The reader will be so good as to recollect that the last time Mrs. Oakley was introduced to his notice she was encumbered by Mr. Lupin, and had the pleasure of introducing that gentleman to the notice of Big Ben the beef-eater, who had quickly put all idea of escape out of the question, as regarded that highly religious personage. At that point the presence of other events compelled us to leave the lady, and repair to Todd's shop, and to Mrs. Lovett's little concern in Bell Yard. The appearance of Lupin's face when he found that he was in the grasp of Big Ben, would have been quite a study for a painter. It transcended all description, and for the moment seemed as if he were bidding farewell to this world and to all his iniquities in it, without the intervention of the law. But in a few moments he recovered from this condition, and sliding on to his knees, and in a whining tone, he cried-- "Mercy, Mercy! Oh, let me go!" "At the end of a rope," said Big Ben. "Easy does it. What has he been and done, Mrs. O.?" "Murder, murder!" A crowd of people soon began to collect around them, and then Lupin made an effort to thrust himself out of the grasp of Big Ben, but the only result of the effort was very nearly to strangle himself. "You are killing the man, you great brute!" cried a woman. "You are throttling the poor man." "He will be murdered," shouted another female. "Oh, you great wretch, do you want to take his life?" "Listen to me," said Mrs. Oakley. "He has murdered his poor wife, and that is the reason I have asked that he should be held tight." "Murdered his wife!" exclaimed about twelve females in chorus. "Murdered his wife? Then hanging is a great deal too good for him. Hold him tight, sir, do. Oh, the wretch!" The tide of popular feeling fairly turned against Mr. Lupin, and Big Ben had as much difficulty now in preserving the half dead wretch from popular fury as if he had been accused of any other crime, he might have had to prevent popular sympathy from aiding his escape. "Oh!" cried one lady, of rather extensive proportions, who was the wife of a baker, "I should like to have him in a brisk oven for an hour and a half." "And I," said the lady of a butcher, "would see him slaughtered without so much as winking at him." "And serve him right, the wagabone!" cried Big Ben. "Come along, will you, you ill-looking scarecrow! Easy does it. Will you walk? Oh, very well, don't. Who are you?" A little man with a constable's staff in his hand, rushed before Ben, crying out-- "What is it? what is it? I'm a constable. What is it?" "Murder!" said Mrs. Oakley. "I give that man in charge for murdering his wife. I saw him do it." "That will do," said the constable. "Give him to me. I'll take him. He dare not resist me. I'll have him." Big Ben looked at the constable and then he shook his head, as he said very gravely-- "I tell you what it is, my little man, you ain't fit to tussle with such a fellow as this--I'll take him along for you. Where is he to go?" "To the round-house, in course; but I'm a constable. I must take him--I will take him! Give him to me, sir, directly--I will have him--I must go with him!" "Wait a minute," said Ben. "Easy does it! You must go with him, you say? Very good--easy does everything!" With this, Ben grasped Mr. Lupin round the middle, and placed him under his left arm, and suddenly pouncing, then, upon the constable, he caught him up and placed him under the right arm; and then away he walked, to the admiration of the populace, and paying about as much attention to the kicking of the constable and the kicking of Mr. Lupin, as though they were two dogs that he was carrying home. And so the murderer was taken to the round-house, where Mrs. Oakley duly preferred the charge against him, and promised to substantiate it before a magistrate when called upon so to do. CHAPTER CXVII. SHOWS HOW MRS. OAKLEY RECONCILED HERSELF TO EVERYBODY AT HOME. When Ben and Mrs. Oakley had thus disposed of Mr. Lupin, and left him to his solitary and not very pleasant reflections in a cell of the round-house, they found themselves together in the open street, and Ben, as he cast a woeful glance at her, said-- "Well, how does yer feel now? Easy does it! Oh, you aint a-been and behaved yourself properly lately--you is like the old bear as we calls Nosey. He's always a-doing what he shouldn't, and always a-never doing what he should." "Ben?" "Well, blaze away. What is yer going to say now?" "I feel, Ben, that I am a very different woman from what I was--very different." "Then you must have gained by the exchange, for you was, I will say it, anything but a pleasant bit o' goods. There's poor old Oakley a-making of spectacles all days, and a-wearing of his old eyes out--and there's Miss Johanna, bless her heart! as wise a little bit o' human nature as you'd wish to see, whether she's in petticoats or the other things; and yet you neglects 'em both, all for to run arter a canting snivelling wagabone like this Lupin, that we wouldn't have among the beasteses at the Tower, if so be he'd come and offer himself." "I know it, Ben--I know it." "You know it! Why didn't you know it before?" "I don't know, Ben; but my eyes are open now. I have had a lesson that to my dying day I shall never forget. I have found that piety may only be a cloak with which to cover up the most monstrous iniquity." "Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?" "I have, indeed, Ben." "Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows how back'ard some folks is in coming for'ard with their edication." "Yes, Ben." "Well, and what is you going to be arter now?" "I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways, and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a very--very different person than I was." Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried out-- "Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a beef-eater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire there is in the grate, and what a hearth." "I know it--I ought to know it." "You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial attitude. "You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says--'Dear me!'" "Yes--yes." "Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by any means no more." "No doubt, Ben." "Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout, and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a penny-loaf, you see." "Yes--yes." "And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort round the fireside, there ain't none." "But Johanna, Ben--there is Johanna?" "Johanna?" "Yes. Is she not there to see to some of her father's comforts? She loves him--I know she does, Ben!" Ben placed his finger by the side of his nose, and in an aside to himself, he said-- "Now I'll touch her up a bit--now I'll punish her for all she has done, and it will serve her right." Then, elevating his voice, he added--"Did you mention Johanna?" "Yes, Ben, I did." "Then I'm sorry you did. Perhaps you think she's been seeing to the old man's comforts a little--airing his night-cap, and so on--Eh? Is that the idea?" "Yes, I know that she would do anything gladly for her father. She was always most tenderly attached to him." "Humph!" "Why do you say, Humph, Ben?" "Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her mother--her mother who of all ought to be the person to attend to her--turning out well?" "Do not terrify me, Ben." "Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can't be in two places at once, and as she isn't at home, how, I would ask any reasonable Christian, can she attend to the old man?" "Not at home, Ben?" "Not--at--home!" "Oh, Heaven! why did I not stay in that dreadful man's house, and let him murder me! Why did I not tell him at once that I knew of his crime, and implore him to make me his next victim! Oh, Ben, if you have any compassion in your disposition you will tell me all, and then I shall know what to hope, and what to dread." "Well," said Ben, "here goes then." "What goes?" "I mean I'm a-going to tell you all, as you seem as if you'd like to know it." "Do! Oh, do!" "Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o' the ways o' this here world, and the habits and manners o' the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn't good enough for her mother, she naturally enough thought it wasn't good enough for her, you know." "Oh, this is the most dreadful stroke of all!" "I should say it were," said Ben, quite solemnly. "Take it easy though, and you'll get through it in the course of time. Well then, when Johanna found as everything at home was sixes and sevens, she borrowed a pair of what do call 'ems of some boy, and a jacket, and off she went." "She what?" "She put on a pair of thingumys--well, breeches then, if you must have it--and away she went, and the last I saw of her was in Fleet Street with 'em on." "Gracious Heaven!" "Very likely, but that don't alter the facts of the case, you know, Mrs. O. On she had 'em, and all I can say is that you might have knocked me down flat to see her, that you might. I didn't think I should ever have got home to the beasteses in the Tower again, it gave me such a turn." "Lost! Lost!" "Eh? What do you say? What have you lost now?" "My child! My Johanna!" "Oh! Ah, to be sure. But then you know, Mrs. O, you ought to have staid at home, and gived her ever so much good advice, you know; and when you saw she was bent upon putting on the boy's things, you as a mother ought to have said, 'My dear, take your legs out of that if yer pleases, and if yer don't, I'll pretty soon make you,' and then staid and gived the affair up as a bad job that wouldn't pay, and took to morals." "Yes--yes. 'Tis I, and I only, who am to blame. I have been the destruction of my child. Farewell, Ben. You will perhaps in the course of time not think quite so badly of me as you now do. Farewell!" "Hold!" cried Ben as he clutched the arm of Mrs. Oakley only the more tightly in his own: "What are you at now?" "Death is now my only resource. My child is lost to me, and I have driven her by my neglect to such a dreadful course. I cannot live now. Let me go, Ben. You will never hear of me again." "If I let you go may I be--Well, no matter--no matter. Come on. It's all one, you know, a hundred years hence." "But at present it is madness and despair. Let me go, I say. The river is not far off, and beneath its waters I shall at least find peace for my breaking heart. Let my death be considered as some sort of expiation of my sins." "Stop a bit." "No--no--no." "But I say, yes. Things ain't quite so bad as you think 'em, only it was right o' me, you know, just to let you know what they might have been." "What do you tell me?" "Why that there ain't a better girl than Johanna in all the world, and that if all the mothers that ever was or ever will be, had neglected her and set her all their bad examples in the universal world, she would still be the little angel that she is now, and no mistake." "Then she is not from home? It is all a fable?" "Not quite, Mrs. O. just you trot on now comfortably by the side of me, and I will tell you the whole particulars, and then you will find that there ain't no occasion to go plumping into the river on Johanna's account." Poor Mrs. Oakley, with delight beaming upon every feature of her face, now listened to Ben while he explained the whole matter to her, as far as he himself was cognisant of it; and if he did not offer to be very explicit in minor details, she at all events heard from him quite enough to convince her that Johanna was all that the tenderest mother could wish. "Oh, Ben," she said, as the tears coursed each other down her cheeks, "how could you torture me as you have done?" "All for your own good," said Ben. "It only lets you see what might have happened if Johanna had not been the good little thing that she is, that's all." "Well, perhaps it is for the best that I should have suffered such a pang, and I only hope that Heaven will accept of it as some sort of expiation of my wickedness. If you had not held me, Ben, I should certainly have taken my life." "Not a doubt about it," said Ben; "and a pretty kittle of fish you would then have made of the whole affair. However, that's all right enough now, and as for old Oakley, all you have got to do is to go into the shop and say to him. 'Here I am, and I am sorry for the past, which I hope you will forgive, and for the future I will strive to be a good wife.'" "Must I say that, Ben?" "Yes, to be sure. If you are ashamed to say what's right, you may depend upon it you haven't much inclination to do it." "You have convinced me, Ben. I will humble myself. It is fit and proper that I should. So I will say as nearly as I can recollect just what you have told me to say." "You can't do better; and here we are at the corner of the street. Now if you would rather go in by yourself without me, only say the word, and I'm off." Mrs. Oakley hesitated for a moment and then she said-- "Yes, Ben, I would rather go alone." "Very good. I think it's better too, so good-by; and I'll call to-morrow and see how you are all getting on." "Do so, Ben. No one can possibly be more welcome than you will be. You will be sure to come to-morrow?" "Rather." With this Ben walked away, and Mrs. Oakley entered the house. What then passed we do not feel that we ought to relate. The humiliations of human nature, although for the best of purposes, and for the ultimate happiness of the parties themselves, are not subjects for the pen of the chronicler. Suffice it, that Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were perfectly reconciled, and were happy upon that day. CHAPTER CXVIII. TAKES A PEEP AT TOBIAS AT THE COLONEL'S HOUSE. The more stirring events of our story, have compelled us in some measure to neglect poor Tobias. He had suffered very much from that visit of Todd's to the colonel's house, and it had a very prejudicial effect upon his mind too, inasmuch as it deprived him of that feeling of security, which had before possessed him beneath that roof. The colonel felt this very acutely, and he could not help perceiving by Tobias's manner, that the faith he put in his assurance that Todd could not possibly again come near him, was not full and complete. Under these circumstances, then, it was a very great satisfaction to the colonel to be able to make the gratifying communication he had it in his power to make to Tobias, on the morning following the arrest of Todd and Mrs. Lovett. The illness contingent upon the fright that Todd had given the poor boy, or the relapse as we might call it, had in a great measure worn off, and if Tobias's mind could have been quite at ease, his recovery would have been as rapid as any one could possibly have wished or expected. As soon as he was up and about upon the following morning, then, after the arrests, the colonel sought Tobias's room, and with a cheerful smile upon his face he said-- "Well, Tobias, I come to bring you good news." "Indeed, sir?" said Tobias his colour coming and going in flushes. "I am very weak, and--and if--" "Come, come, Tobias. What I am going to tell you will strengthen you, I know. Todd is in Newgate!" Tobias drew a long breath. "Todd is in Newgate?" he replied. "Todd is in Newgate? The walls are very thick. I am safe now." "Yes, you are, indeed, Tobias. The walls of Newgate are thick, and the doors are massive and well-guarded. Be assured that Todd will never issue out at them but to his execution. Your old cunning enemy is at length more powerless by a great deal than you are, and from this moment you may completely banish all fear from your mind upon his account." "And the woman, sir, Mrs. Lovett?" "She is in Newgate likewise." "Both, both, and their crimes then are all known at last, and there will be no more murders, and no more poor boys driven mad as I was! Oh, God be thanked, it is indeed all over now, all over." With this Tobias burst into tears, and relieved his surcharged heart of a load of misery. In the course of about five minutes he looked up with such a great smile of happiness upon his face, that it was quite a joy to see it. "And you, sir, you," he said, "my dear friend have done all this!" "Not all, Tobias. I have helped in every way that lay in my power to bring the affair about, but it is Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who has toiled day and night almost in the matter, and who has at last brought it to so successful an issue, that the guilt of both Todd and Mrs. Lovett can be distinctly and clearly proved, without the shadow of a doubt." "Unhappy wretches!" "They are, indeed, Tobias, unhappy wretches, and may Heaven have mercy upon them. Some other old friends of yours, too, will, before nightfall I think, find a home in Newgate." "Indeed, sir, whom mean you?" "The folks at the madhouse at Peckham. Sir Richard would have had them apprehended some time ago, but he was afraid that it might give the alarm to Todd, before the affair was ripe enough to enable him to be arrested, with a certainty of his crimes being clearly understood and brought home to him. Now, however, that is all over, and they will be punished." "They are very, very wicked. I think, sir, they are almost worse than Sweeney Todd." "They are, if anything; but they will meet with their deserts, never fear; and as Minna Gray is expected every moment, so your mother tells me, I will not deprive you of the gratification of giving her the piece of news yourself. Of course, all the town will know it soon through the medium of the press; and Sir Richard Blunt, too, will be here in the course of the morning, to arrange with you concerning your evidence." "My evidence? Shall I be wanted?" "Yes, Tobias. Surely you would not like so notorious a criminal to find a loop-hole of escape, from the want of your evidence?" "Oh, no, no--I will go. I have only to tell the truth, and that should never be denied for or against. I will go, sir." "You are right, Tobias. It is a duty you owe to society. If some one long ago, and before you even had the evil fortune to go into his shop, had found out and exposed the iniquities of Sweeney Todd, how much misery would have been spared in this world both to you and to others!" "Ah, yes, sir; and yet--" "Yet what, Tobias?" "I was only thinking, sir, that what at times seems like our very worst misfortunes, at times turn out to be the very things that are the making of us." "Indeed, Tobias?" "Yes, sir. If I had not been Sweeney Todd's boy, and if he had not persecuted me in the way he did, I should never have known what it was to have the friend I now have in you, sir; and perhaps she whom I love so dearly, would not have thought so much of me, if she had not deeply pitied me for all that I suffered." "There is profound philosophy in what you say, my poor boy," replied the colonel; "and if we could only bring ourselves to think, when things apparently go wrong with us, that after all it is for the best, we should be much happier than we are now; but with our short-sighted wisdom, we hastily take upon ourselves to decide upon matters concerning the issues of which we know nothing, and so by anticipation we make ourselves pleased or sorrowful, when the precise contrary may be the real result." "Yes, sir," said Tobias, "I have had time to think of that, and of many other strange things, as I lay here." "Then you have done yourself some good, Tobias. But I hear a light footstep upon the stairs, and I will now leave you, for I can guess by that heightened colour that you hear it likewise, and I know that two may be good company but three none." Tobias would have said something deprecatory of the colonel leaving him, and he did begin, but with a smile his kind and hospitable friend took his leave, and Tobias soon had the satisfaction of relating to the young girl, whom he was so tenderly attached to, that nothing further was now to be feared from Sweeney Todd or from Mrs. Lovett. We may now leave Tobias in good company; and it was really surprising to those who have not made a habit of noting the intimate connection there is between the mind and the body, to see how from the very moment that he felt assured there was nothing further to apprehend from Sweeney Todd, Tobias's health picked up and improved. The absolute dread with which that bold impious bad man had inspired the boy, had been the sole cause of keeping him in so delicate a state. His dreams had been all of Todd; but now that word Newgate, in conjunction with Todd's name, was a spell that brought with it peace and security. Tobias, as he sat with the hand of the young and fair girl who had pleased his boyish fancy in his own, was now truly happy. When Johanna got home, after being escorted from Sir Richard Blunt's house in Craven Street by Colonel Jeffery, she found her mother at home, and not a little surprised was she to find herself suddenly clasped in that mother's arms, a most unwonted process for Mrs. Oakley to go through. "Oh, my child, my dear child!" sobbed the now repentant woman. "Can you forgive me as your father has done?" "Forgive you, mother? Oh, do not speak to me in such a way as that. It is quite a joy to find you--you are really my mother?" "You might well doubt it, my dear child; but the future is before us all, and then you will find that it was only when I could not have been in my right mind, that I preferred any place to my own home." Old Oakley wiped his eyes as he said to Johanna-- "Yes, my darling, your mother has come back to us now in every sense of the word, and all the past is to be forgotten, except such of it as will be pleasant to remember. Your good friend, and I may say the good friend of us all, Sir Richard Blunt, sent us a letter to say that you would be here to-night, and God bless him my child, for watching over you as he did." "Oh, how perilous an enterprise you went upon, my darling," said Mrs. Oakley. The door of the adjoining room was partially open, and from it now stepped forward Arabella, saying-- "It is I who ought to ask pardon of you all for advising that step; and you will grant me that pardon I am sure, if upon no other ground, upon that that I have suffered greatly for my folly and precipitation." "My dear Arabella," said Johanna, "you must not blame yourself in such a way. How pleased I am to find you here, my dear friend. Ah! at one time how little did we ever expect to meet all thus, in this little room!" Johanna and Arabella embraced each other, and while they were so occupied, big Ben came out of the room from whence Arabella had proceeded, and flinging his arms round them both, he made a great roaring noise, in imitation of the largest of the bears in the Tower collection. At the moment, Johanna was alarmed, and could not conceive what it was; but Arabella, who knew that Ben had been in the room, waiting for some opportunity of coming out in a highly practical manner, only laughed, and then Johanna knew in a moment who it was, and she cried-- "Ben, it is you!" "Yes, it's me," said Ben, "and I'm only astonished at you two girls fancying I was going to be quiet, and see all that kissing and hugging going on, and not come in for any of it. Don't kick now, for I must kiss you both, and there's an end of it. It's no use a-kicking." To the credit of both Arabella and Johanna we may state, that they neither of them kicked, but very quietly let Ben kiss them both. "Well," said Ben as he plumped himself down upon a chair after the salute. "Well!--Murder! Where am I going to now?" "Dear me," said Mrs. Oakley. "All four legs of the chair are broken off, and Ben is on the floor." "Really, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you ought to be perfectly careful when you sit down." "Easy does it," said Ben. "I really thought I was going to kingdom come. Pull me, Johanna, my dear. Pull me up." Johanna shook her head, and declined the Herculean attempt, so that Ben had to scramble to his feet the best way he could, and then as he sat down upon the sofa which was sufficiently strong to withstand any shocks, Mrs. Oakley asked him what it was he had been upon the point of saying, when the chair had so very unceremoniously given way with him; but Ben had quite forgotten it, only he said he recollected something else that was quite as good, and that was that he ordered to come about that hour a foaming tankard of mulled wine, and then he winked at Mrs. Oakley and hoped she had no medicine in the house to put in it. "Oh, no, Ben," she said, "and if there isn't a knock at the door; and if you ordered it at the Unicorn's Tail, you may depend that's it." "Very good," said Ben, and then he proceeded to the door and found that it was the boy from the Unicorn's dorsal appendage with the spiced wine; and after whispering to bring a similar quantity in half an hour, and to keep on at it every half hour until further orders, Ben took it into the parlour, and a happier party than was there could not have been found in all London. CHAPTER CXIX. THE CRIMINALS IN NEWGATE.--TODD'S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. It is grievous to turn from the contemplation of so pleasant and grateful a scene as that that was taking place at the old spectacle-maker's house, to dive into the interior of Newgate. But thither it is that now we would conduct the reader. The state of mind that Todd was in after his arrest, was one that such a man with such strong passions as he had was exceedingly unlikely to come to. It is difficult to describe it, but if we say that he was mentally stunned, we shall be as near the mark as language will permit us to be. He walked, and looked, and spoke very much like a man in a dream; and it is really doubtful whether, for some hours, he comprehended the full measure of the calamity that had befallen him on his apprehension. At Newgate they are quite accustomed to find this unnatural calmness in great criminals immediately after their arrest, so they take their measures accordingly. Sir Richard Blunt had given some very special instructions to the Governor of Newgate concerning his prisoner, when he should arrive and be placed in his custody, so everything was ready for Todd. How little he suspected that for two days and two nights the very cell he was to occupy in Newgate had been actually pointed out, and that the irons in which his limbs were to be encompassed were waiting for him in the lobby! He was placed in a small stone room that had no light but what came from a little orifice in the roof, and that was only a borrowed light after all, so that the cell was in a state of semi-darkness always. Into this place he was hurried, and the blacksmith who was in the habit of officiating upon such occasions, riveted upon him, as was then the custom, a complete set of irons. All this Todd looked at with seeming indifference. His face had upon it an unnatural flush, and probably Todd had never looked so strangely well in health as upon the occasion of the first few hours he spent in Newgate. "Now, old fellow," said one of the turnkeys, "I'm not to be very far off, in case you should happen to want to say anything; and if you give a rap at the door, I'll come to you." "In case I want to say anything?" said Todd. "Yes, to be sure. What, are you asleep?" "Am I asleep?" "Why, he's gone a little bit out of his mind," said the blacksmith, as he gathered up his tools to be gone. The turnkey shook his head. "Are you quite sure you have made a tight job of that?" "Sure? Ay, that I am. If he gets out of them, put me in 'em, that's all. Oh, no! It would take--let me see--it would take about half a dozen of him to twist out o' that suit of armour. They are just about the best we have in the old stone jug." "Good." "Yes, they are good." "I mean very well. And now Mr. Sweeney Todd, we will leave you to your own reflections, old boy, and much good may they do you. Good-night, old fellow. I always says good-night to the prisoners, cos it has a tender sort o' sound, and disposes of 'em to sleep. It's kind o' me, but I always was tender-hearted, as any little chick, I was." Bang went the cell door, and its triple locks were shot into their hoops. Todd was alone. He had sat down upon a stool that was in the cell; and that stool, with a sort of bench fastened to the wall, was the only furniture it contained; and there he sat for about half an hour, during which time one of the most extraordinary changes that ever took place in the face of any human being, took place in his. It seemed as if the wear and tear of years had been concentrated into minutes; and in that short space of time he passed from a middle aged, to be an old man. Then reflection came! "Newgate!" he cried as he sprang to his feet. The chains rattled and clanked together. "Chains--Newgate--a cell--death! Found out at last! At the moment of my triumph--defeated--detected! Newgate--chains--death!" He fell back upon the stool again, and sat for the space of about two minutes in perfect silence. Then he sprang up again with such a wild yell of rage and mental agony, that not only the cell, but the whole of that portion of the prison, echoed again with it. The turnkey opened a small wicket in the door, which when it was opened from without, still was defended by iron bars across it, and peering into the cell, he said-- "Hilloa! What now?" "Hilloa!" shouted Todd. "Air--air!" "Air? Why what do you mean by gammoning a fellow in that sort o' way for, eh? Haven't you got lots o' air? Well, of all the unreasonable coves as ever I comed across, you is the worstest. Be quiet, will you?" "No--no! Death--death! Give me the means of instant death. I am going mad--mad--mad!" "Oh, no yer ain't. It's only yer first few hours in the stone-jug that has comed over you a little, that's all, old fellow. You'll soon pick up, and behave yourself like any other christian. All you have got to do is never to mind, and then it's nothink at all, old chap." Clap went shut the little wicket door again. "Help! Help!" shouted Todd. "Take these irons off me. It is only a dream after all. Back, back you grinning fiends--why do you look at me when you know that it is not real? No--no, it cannot be, you know that it cannot be real." "Be quiet will you?" shouted the turnkey. "Keep off, I say. All is well. Mrs. Lovett dead--quite dead. The boy to die too. The house in a blaze--all is well arranged. Why do you mock and joke at me?" "Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "I do begin to think now that he's getting queer in the upper story. I have heard of its driving some of 'em mad to be bowled out when they didn't expect it, more 'special when it's a hanging affair. I wonder what he will say next? He's a regular rum un, he is." "What have I done?" shouted Todd. "What have I done? Nothing--nothing. The dead tell no tales. All is safe--quite safe. The grave is a good secret keeper. I think Tobias is dead too--why not? Mrs. Lovett is dead. This is not Newgate. These are not chains. It is only the nightmare. Ha! ha! ha! It is only the nightmare--I can laugh now!" "Oh, can you?" said the turnkey. "It's rather an odd sort o' laugh though, to my thinking. Howsomdever, there's no rule agin grinning, so you can go on at it as long as you like." "Mercy!" suddenly shrieked Todd, and then down he fell upon the floor of the cell, and lay quite still. The turnkey looked curiously in at him, through the little grating. "Humph!" he said, "I must go and report him to the Governor, and he will do whatsomdever he likes about him; but I suppose as they will send the doctor to him, and all that ere sort o' thing, for it won't do to let him slip out o' the world and quite cheat the gallows; oh dear no." Muttering these and similar remarks to himself, the turnkey went, as he was bound in duty to do upon any very extraordinary conduct upon the part of any prisoner in his department, to report what Todd was about to the Governor. "Ah!" said that functionary, the surgeon, "and I will soon come to him. I fully expected we should have some trouble with that man. It really is too bad, that when people come into the prison, they will not be quiet. It would be just as well for them, and much more comfortable for me." "Werry much, sir," said the turnkey. "Well--well, he shall be attended to." "Werry good, sir." The turnkey went back and took up his post again outside Todd's door, and in the course of ten minutes or so, without making the least hurry of the subject, the Governor and the jail surgeon arrived and entered the cell. Todd was picked up, and then it was found that he had struck his head against the stone floor, and so produced a state of insensibility, but whether he had done it on purpose or by accident, they could come to no opinion. "Lay him on the bench," said the surgeon, "I can do nothing with him. He will come to himself again in a little while, I daresay, and be all right again in the morning." "He seems really, indeed, to be a very troublesome man," said the Governor to the surgeon. "Very likely. Have you a mind for a game of cribbage to-night, Governor? I suppose this fellow will hang?" "Yes, I don't mind a game. Yes, they will tuck him up." With this they left Todd's cell, and the turnkey closed the door, and made the highly philosophical remark to himself of-- "Werry good." Todd remained until the morning in a state of insensibility, and when he awakened from it he was very much depressed in strength indeed. He lay for about two hours gazing on the ceiling of his cell, and then the door was opened, and the turnkey appeared with a bason of milk-and-water and a lump of coarse bread. "Breakfast!" he cried. Todd glared at him. "Breakfast; don't you understand that, old cock? However, it's all one to me. There it is--take it or leave it." Todd did not speak, and the not over luxurious meal was placed on the table, or rather upon the end of the bench upon which he lay, and which served the purpose of a table. The moment Todd heard the door of the cell closed behind the turnkey, he rose from his recumbent posture, and, although he staggered when he got to his feet, he seized the bason, and at once, without tasting any of its contents, broke it against the corner of the bench to fragments. "I shall elude them yet!" he said. "They think they have me in their toils--but I shall elude them yet!" He selected a long jagged piece of the broken bason, and dragging down his cravat with one hand, he was upon the very point of plunging it into his throat with the other, when the turnkey sprang into the cell. [Illustration: Todd In Newgate, Tries To Commit Suicide.] "Hold a bit!" he cried. "We don't allow that sort of thing here with any of our customers. You should have thought of those games before you got into the stone jug!" With one powerful blow, the turnkey struck the piece of the broken bason from the hand of Todd, and with another he felled him to the floor. "None o' your nonsense," he said; and then he carefully collected the pieces of the broken bason. "Why should you grudge me the means of death," said Todd, "when you know that you have brought me here among you to die?" "Contrary to rules." "In mercy, I ask you only to give me leave to take my own life, for I have failed in the object of my living." "Contrary to rules." The turnkey left the cell, then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, and carefully locked the door again, while he went to report the attempted suicide of the prisoner to the proper quarter. Foiled, then, in every way, Todd looked round the cell for some means of ridding himself of his life and his troubles together; but he found none. He then paced the cell to and fro like a maniac, as he muttered to himself-- "All lost--lost--lost--all lost! Foiled, too, at the moment when I thought myself most secure--when I had made every preparation to leave England for ever! Oh, dolt that I was, not to have done so long ago, when I had half--ay, when I had only a quarter of the sum that I should this day have fled with! In my dreams I have seen myself as I am now, and the sight has shaken me, but I never thought to be so in reality. Is there any hope for me? What do they know?--what can they know?" Upon these questions, Todd paused in his uneasy walk in the cell, and sat down upon the low stool to think. His head rested upon his breast, and he was profoundly still. CHAPTER CXX. A LUNCHEON AT SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S.--THE DOG AND HIS OLD FRIEND. We willingly leave Todd to his own reflections upon the disastrous state of his affairs, while we solicit the attention of our readers to the private house and office of Sir Richard Blunt again, in Craven Street. The worthy magistrate had quite a party to lunch on that day, and he had fixed the hour as eleven when he wished to see his friends. Those friends consisted of Johanna Oakley, Mark Ingestrie, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Colonel Jeffery, Arabella Wilmot, and Big Ben, who was, at the special request of Johanna, gladly included in the party. A happier party than that could not very well have been found throughout the whole length and breadth of London; and there was but one slight shade of disquietude upon the face of Johanna, when she at times thought that at one o'clock she would have to attend the police-office at Bow Street to give her testimony against Todd the murderer. "Well," said Ben, "here we are alive--all alive, and as merry as so many grigs; and all I can say is, my tulips, that I will show the wild beasteses to anybody as likes to come to the Tower, free, gratis and for nothing. Take it easy, Mr. Ingestrie, and don't be casting sheep's-eyes at Johanna. The little love of a thing ain't at all used to it--indeed, she ain't; and the only person as she lets love her above a bit, and takes it easy with, is me; so don't come any nonsense." "But, Mr. Ben," said Mark, "I may look sometimes?" "Yes, now and then, if you take things easy." Old Mr. Oakley had got on his spectacles, and seemed as if he could not be done looking at Mark Ingestrie; and more than once, or twice, or thrice, the old gentleman would shake hands with him, telling him that he looked upon him quite as one risen up from the dead, in a manner of speaking. "Yes, sir, you may well, indeed, look upon me as such; but I hope now for long life and happiness." A glance at Johanna was sufficiently expressive of with whom he hoped for happiness--and that glance was returned with one of those sweet endearing looks that only those who truly love can cast one upon another. "And I, too," said Colonel Jeffery, "put in my claim to the happiness of the future, for am I not blessed with one whom I feel that I can love!" "Stop!" said Arabella. "We won't have any conversation of this sort before company, colonel, if you please; so I will trouble you to be quiet." "I am all submission," said the colonel; "and I hope my humble conduct upon this occasion will be to you all, ladies and gentlemen, a good example of what I shall be when I am married." This was said in so comical a manner that the whole party laughed amazingly, and then Sir Richard Blunt said rather gravely-- "I expect two old friends here this morning." "Old friends?" said everybody, in surprise. "Yes. The one is the captain of the ship which brought poor Mr. Thornhill and his dog home, and who has been to Hamburgh with his vessel, and the other is the dog himself." At this moment an officer, for Sir Richard was quite wholly attended upon by the police at that private office of his, came in to say that a gentleman wanted to see him. "It is the worthy captain," said Sir Richard; "show him in at once." "If you please, Sir Richard," added the officer, "there is a man, too, with a great dog who wishes to see you, and the dog has been in the hall once, and walked off with a plate of cheese-cakes and a pickled tongue that were coming in to your worship." A roar of laughter testified to the amusement which this freak of Hector's caused, and Sir Richard said-- "Well, I don't know any one who was so much entitled to be invited to lunch as Hector, and no doubt he thought so too; and as we had not the courtesy to open the door for him, and properly accommodate him, he has helped himself on the road, that's all." "Shall I admit him, sir?" "Yes, and the man who is with him. He is one of the witnesses who I trust will help to bring Todd to justice. Show them all in." In a very few minutes the captain of the vessel, with whom the reader had some slight acquaintance at the beginning of this most veritable narrative, made his appearance, and Colonel Jeffery warmly shook hands with him. The dog knew the colonel and the captain likewise, and was most vociferous in his joy to see them. It was an affecting thing then to see the creature pause suddenly in his manifestations of delight, and look sad and solemn, after which he uttered a dismal howl, and catching the colonel by the skirt of his coat, he tried to pull him towards the door of the room. "Poor fellow," said the captain, "he does not forget his master yet, I see." "No," said Colonel Jeffery, "nor never will. If he had his own way now, and we would follow him, I lay any wager he would take us to Sweeney Todd's shop." "In course he would, sir," said the ostler. "In course he would. Lord bless you, gemmen, if this here dog as I calls Pison, cos why he was pisoned, was only to get hold of Todd, I would not give much for his chances. You sees, gemmen, as I have kept him in good condition." "He does look well," said the captain. "Indeed it does you great credit," said Colonel Jeffery; "but his keep must cost something. There is my guinea towards it." The colonel placed a guinea in the ostler's hand, and his example was followed by all present, so that the ostler found himself growing quite a man of substance when he least expected it. "Lor, Pison," he said, "you'll be a fortin for a fellow yet, you will. But I hope, gemmen, as you don't mean to take him away, cos if that's the caper, here's the money agin, and I'd rather keep Pison. He's got fond o' me by this time, poor fellow, and I have got fond on him, as I hav'nt no other brothers and sisters or family of my own." "It would indeed be unfair," said the colonel, "to deprive you of him. But tell me, are you comfortable in your situation?" "Lor bless you, sir, it ain't much of a situation. Lots of hard work, and werry little for it." "Well, if you like to come into my service and bring Hector with you--you are welcome." "Oh, won't I, sir, above a bit. Why, Pison, we is promoted, old fellor. We is a going to a new place, where there will be no end of grub, old chap." "You shall not have any complaints to make in that department," said the colonel. "So then," said the captain, "it is quite clear that Mr. Thornhill was murdered by that rascal of a barber?" "Quite," replied Sir Richard Blunt, "and it is for that murder we mean to try Todd. If, however, by any chance, he should escape conviction upon that, we will be provided with two more indictments against him, so that he is tolerably well cared for; but the murder of Mr. Thornhill is what we mean ostensibly to go upon." "That's right, sir," said the ostler, "and I'll bring Pison as a witness to all the blessed facts. He'll settle the business, even if the jury is half as stupid agin as usual." "He will be committed for trial this morning," said Sir Richard Blunt, "for the murder of Mr. Thornhill; and that woman, Mrs. Lovett, will be arraigned as an accessory before the fact, so that there can be very little doubt of the fate of both of them; and if ever two notorious criminals deserved that the last dread sentence of the law should be carried out against them, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are those two." "They could not be worse," said the captain. "No, that would be impossible," remarked the colonel. "I shall be glad when this gloomy tragedy is over though. The public mind will soon be filled with it, and we shall hear of nothing but of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, with all their sayings and doings, for the next few months to come." "That is true enough," said Sir Richard Blunt. "But I don't think you will find any but one feeling upon the subject, and that will be one of universal condemnation." "Not a doubt of it." "There is another too who will suffer the just reward of his crimes," said the magistrate glancing at Mrs. Oakley. She shook her head and sighed, for she shrunk naturally from the awfully responsible share she was condemned to have in the conviction of Mr. Lupin. "I will do my duty," she said, "in that dreadful piece of business. The guilt of Lupin, although not so extensive as Todd's, is to the full as great." "It is indeed, madam." "Ah, yes!" said Ben. "They are a bad lot altogether, and the sooner they are hung up like a rope of ingions the better. Bless me, I always was delicate, and so was obliged to take things easy; but I have more than once looked into that horrid pie shop in Bell Yard, and thought I should like a smack of about fifteen or twenty of them, just to stay my stomach till I got home to the Tower; and what a mercy it was I never bought 'em." "It was, indeed, my friend," Sir Richard said. "Yes, you may say that, my dear, sir--you may say that. With my very delicate stomach, I should have been as good as done brown if I had had 'em. I should have fallen a victim to the wild beasteses, the very next time as I went a-near 'em; and all I can say is, as I shall be uncommon glad to show these creatures to any of this company, as will come to the Tower at feeding time." Ben had made this liberal offer so often that the company left off thanking him for it; but the ostler whispered to him-- "I'll come and bring Pison." "No, will you though?" said Ben. "Yes, to be sure I will. Who knows but he'd like to see them wild beasteses, as perhaps he has only heard of 'em in a wery promiscous sort o' way." "Not a doubt of it," cried Ben, "not a doubt of it--only when he does come you must tell him to take things easy, and not be discomposed at any of the roaring and bellowing, as the creatures sets up at times." "Oh, I'll hold him." "You needn't go for to hold him. Just you impress upon him afore he comes that easy does it, that's all you need do, and then he'll know very well what to do." "Won't I!" The conversation was rather breaking up into small fragments, when the magistrate rose from his seat. "Now then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "it is time for us to go to Bow Street, where I appear as a witness to-day, instead of as a magistrate." As he spoke, the clock in the office sounded the half-past twelve. All the guests of the magistrate rose, for they knew that his duties were imperative. There was a tone of great gravity now about Sir Richard Blunt as he spoke-- "I fully expect," he said, "that Todd will be committed for trial and Mrs. Lovett likewise. Already she has made repeated applications to her attendants in prison, to be permitted to become evidence against Todd." "Which will surely not be permitted?" said the colonel. "Certainly not; the evidence against him is quite clear enough without the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, while the proofs of her criminality with him, are of too strong a character for her to be given any chance of escape." "She is a dreadful woman." "She is, indeed; but you will all of you soon see how she conducts herself now, for she will be brought up with Todd." CHAPTER CXXI. TODD IS COMMITTED FOR TRIAL, AND EXPECTS THE WORST. By the time the police office at Bow Street opened upon the morning, a wild vague, and uncertain sort of rumour had spread itself over London, concerning the discoveries that had been made at Todd's house in Fleet Street, and at Mrs. Lovett's in Bell Yard, Temple Bar. Of course, the affair had lost nothing from many-tongued rumour, and the popular belief was, that Todd's house had been found full of dead bodies from the attics to the cellars, while Mrs. Lovett had been actually detected in the very act of scraping some dead man's bones, for tid-bits to make a veal pie of. A dense crowd had assembled in Fleet Street, to have a look at Todd's now shut-up house, and that thoroughfare very soon, in consequence, became no thoroughfare at all. Bell Yard too was so completely blocked up, that the lawyers who were in the habit of using it as a short cut from the Temple to Lincoln's Inn, were forced to take the slight round of Chancery Lane instead; and the confusion and general excitement in the whole of the neighbourhood was immense. But it was in Bow Street, and round the doors of the police-office, that the densest crowd, and the greatest excitement prevailed. There it was only with the greatest difficulty that the officers and others officially connected with the public office could get in and out of it as occasion required; and the three or four magistrates who thought proper to attend upon that occasion, had quite a struggle to get into the court at all. By dint of great perseverance, our friends, with Sir Richard Blunt, at length succeeded in forcing a passage through the crowd, to the magistrates private entrance, and having once passed that, they were no longer in the smallest degree incommoded. "Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, as he encountered that individual, "Have you been to Newgate this morning?" "Rather, Sir Richard." "Any news?" "No. Only that Todd has been a trying it on a little, that's all." "What do you mean?" "Why he's only petikler anxious to save Jack Ketch any trouble on his account, that's all, Sir Richard; so he's been trying to put himself out o' this here world, and shove himself into t'other, without going through all the trouble of being hung, that's all, sir." "I fully expected that both Todd and Mrs. Lovett would make some such attempts; but I hope the governor of Newgate has been sufficiently careful to prevent the possibility of either of them succeeding." "It's all right," added Crotchet. "I seed 'em both, and they is as lively as black beetles as has been trod on by somebody as isn't a very light weight." The doors of the court had not been opened, but when they were, the struggle for admission was tremendous, and it required the utmost exertions of the officers of the establishment to keep anything like a semblance of order. The few night charges were rapidly disposed of, and while a gentleman who looked very foolish, was fined five shillings for being drunk and disorderly the evening previous, a roaring shout from the mob in the street proclaimed the arrival of the two important prisoners from Newgate. Up to some time after his arrest, Todd, notwithstanding some stray words that would indicate a contrary state of things, fully believed that he had succeeded in murdering Mrs. Lovett, and it was not until the morning that he became aware of her escape from drowning in the Thames. It did not require a conjuror to tell the authorities that there would be some trouble in getting the prisoners to Bow Street, so it was thought better to make one job of it, and to place Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the same coach along with four officers. With this intent the coach was brought close to the wicket-gate of Newgate, and Todd and Mrs. Lovett, well guarded, were brought to the lobby at the same moment. The moment Todd caught sight of Mrs. Lovett, a kind of spasm seemed to shake his frame, and pointing to her, he cried-- "Does that woman indeed live, or is she but some fiend in the shape of such a one come to torment me?" "That is Mrs. Lovett," said the Governor. "Oh, no--no--no," added Todd, "it is not so--it cannot be. The dark rolling river cannot so give up its dead." "You were well disposed that it should not," said Mrs. Lovett, bending upon Todd a most ferocious glance. "She is saved!" gasped Todd. "Yes, I am saved to your confusion. I call you all to witness," she then added in a loud voice, "that I had no idea of the extent of Todd's iniquity; but what I do know I will freely tell as evidence for the crown against him." Mrs. Lovett looked peculiarly at the Governor while she uttered these words, for she was anxious to know what he thought of them, but that functionary took not the remotest notice. At this moment one of the warders announced the sheriff, and one of the Sheriffs of London with his gold chain of office on, appeared in the lobby. To him Mrs. Lovett immediately turned, saying-- "Sir, I offer myself as king's evidence. Do you understand me?" "Perfectly, madam; but I have nothing to do with the matter." "Nothing to do, sir? Then why do you wear that bauble?" "My office, so far as you are concerned, madam, will be to keep you in safe custody, and see that the sentence of the law is carried into effect upon you, in case you should be convicted of the crimes laid to your charge." "But I turn king's evidence. It is quite a common thing that you have all heard of that often enough." "Now, madam, the coach is ready," said a turnkey. "Where are you going to take me? Is not this Newgate?" "Yes, but you must undergo an examination at the police-office in Bow Street." Without any further ceremony, Mrs. Lovett was handed into the coach, and Todd after her. She was at first placed in the seat immediately opposite to him, but she insisted upon changing it, saying, that she could not bear to look at him all the way that she went, and as it was a matter of no moment which way she sat, the officers so far indulged her as to permit her to change her place. In this way then, both of them upon the same seat, while three officers sat opposite to them, and one with them, dividing them, they arrived at Bow Street, and were met by that roaring shout, that everybody had heard, from without the court. Of course every precaution had been taken to prevent the mob from wreaking their vengeance upon the criminals, which they were well-disposed to do. A number of people were knocked down and some of the officers rather roughly treated; but the result was, that Todd and Mrs. Lovett were got into the office in safety. Sweeney Todd, as he ascended the steps of the office, turned his head for a moment, and looked at the sea of angry faces that was in the street. He shuddered and passed on. Mrs. Lovett did not look round at all. With great difficulty the door of the office was closed, and then in a few moments Todd and Mrs. Lovett were placed side by side at the bar of justice. There was one person sitting on the bench near to Sir Richard Blunt, upon whom Todd fixed his eyes in amazement. That person was Johanna Oakley. The features came at once to his recollection, and as though he really doubted if he were awake or not, he more than once pressed his hand upon his eyes. [Illustration: Todd And Mrs. Lovett At Bow Street Police Office.] His and every one else's attention were, however, speedily taken up by the conduct of Mrs. Lovett. The moment comparative order was restored in the crowded court, so that what she said could be distinctly and clearly heard, she spoke-- "I am willing to turn king's evidence upon this occasion, and to declare all I know of Todd's nefarious transactions. I am quite willing to tell all--I don't perhaps know the full extent of Todd's guilt, but I repeat I will turn king's evidence, and tell all I do know." A gentleman, plainly dressed in black, rose new, and in a calm, assured voice, said-- "Upon the part of the crown I reject the offer of the female prisoner. Anything she may say will be used as evidence against her, if it bear that construction." "Reject?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "And pray, sir, who are you that you dare reject such a proposition for furthering the ends of justice?" "That, madam, is the Attorney-General," said an officer. "Oh," said Mrs. Lovett, "and am I to understand that I am accused of any participation in Todd's crimes?" "You will find by the evidence that will be adduced against you of what you are accused," said the magistrate. "You, I believe, Sir Richard Blunt, give these people in charge?" "Yes," said Sir Richard rising. "I charge them with, in the first place, the wilful murder of Charles James Thornhill. If your worship should think fit, from the evidence that will be brought forward, to commit them upon that charge, I shall not at present trouble you with any others, although I am fully prepared with several." "What is the meaning of all this?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "I will be heard." Sir Richard Blunt paid no manner of attention to her, but brought before the magistrate quite sufficient evidence to warrant him in committing both the prisoners for trial. The only great effect that the proceedings seemed to have upon Todd consisted in his surprise when Johanna Oakley came forward, and to her examination he listened attentively indeed. When she related how, under the name of Charles Green, she had taken the situation of errand boy at Todd's shop, and been in daily communication with Sir Richard Blunt, Todd dashed his clenched fist against his own head, crying-- "Dolt--Idiot--idiot! and I did suspect it once!" Johanna went on then to state how in hunting over Todd's shop and house for some vestige of Mark Ingestrie, the sleeve of a seaman's jacket was found, which she had thought belonged to him, but which would be identified by the captain of the ship as having been part of Mr. Thornhill's apparel when he went on shore upon that fatal morning of his murder, no doubt by Todd. The evidence against Mrs. Lovett consisted of the fact of there being an underground communication all the way from the cellars of Todd's house to her cooking concern; and Mark Ingestrie had quite enough to tell of that to make it tolerably clear they acted in concert. Of course there could be but one opinion in the minds of all present of the guilt of the prisoners; but it was necessary that that guilt should be legally as well as morally proved, and hence the evidence was very carefully arranged to meet the exigencies of the case. "Have you any legal adviser?" said the Magistrate to Todd. "No," was the brief response. The same question was put to Mrs. Lovett, but she did not answer, and the death-like paleness of her countenance sufficiently testified that it was out of her power to do so. In another moment, overcome by dread and chagrin, she fainted. "Is she dead?" said Todd. No one replied to the question, and he added-- "Look to her well or she will yet baffle you. If ever the spirit of a fiend found a home in any human brain it is in that woman's. I say to you, look to her well, or she will still baffle you all by some rare device you little dream of." Mrs. Lovett in her insensible state was carried from the court, and a surgeon was in prompt attendance upon her. It was found that there was nothing the matter with her; she had merely fainted through sheer vexation of spirit at finding that her overtures to be evidence against Todd were not attended to in the way she had wished; for now, with the loss of everything but life, how glad she would have been to back out of those odious transactions which clung to her. Todd was asked if he had anything to say. "Really," he said. "I do not know what it is all about. I am a poor humble man, who get but a scanty living by shaving any kind customer, and all this must be some desperate conspiracy against me on the part of the Roman Catholic, I think." "The Roman Catholics?" "Yes, your worship. I never would shave or dress the hair of a Roman Catholic if I knew it, and more than one of that religion have sworn to be avenged upon me." "And is this your defence?" "Yes, exactly; it is all I can say; and if I perish, it will be as one of the most innocent of men who ever was persecuted to death." "Well," said the magistrate, "I have heard many a singular defence, but never one like this." "It's--it's truth," said Todd, "that staggers your worship." "Well, you can try what effect it will have upon a jury. I commit you for trial on the charge of wilful murder." "Murder of whom?" "Charles James Thornhill." "Oh, your worship, he is alive and well, and now in Havannah. If I have murdered him, where is the body?" "We are prepared," said the Attorney General, "with that objection. At the trial we will tell the jury where the body is." Mrs. Lovett, now having sufficiently recovered, was brought into court to hear that she was committed for trial, but she made no remark upon that circumstance whatever; and in the course of a few moments another shout from the multitude without announced that the prisoners were off to Newgate. CHAPTER CXXII. A LARGE PARTY VISITS BIG BEN AND THE LIONS IN THE TOWER. On the morning following the committal of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd to Newgate for trial, a rather large party met at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Craven Street, Strand. The fact was that after the proceedings at the police-office, Big Ben had earnestly besought them all to name the day to visit him and the lions in the Tower, and as no day was so convenient to Sir Richard as that immediately following, it was arranged that they were all to meet at the private office in Craven Street, and go there by water to the Tower. The sun shone beautifully; and to look at that party no one would have supposed that there had ever been such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the world. The party consisted of Colonel Jeffery, Tobias, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Minna Gray, Johanna, Mark Ingestrie, Arabella Wilmot, and the fruiterer's daughter from Fleet Street, who had been so kind to Johanna during that very sad and anxious time that she had passed while in the temporary service of Todd. [Illustration: Tobias And Minna Rejoice At The Capture Of Todd And Mrs. Lovett.] So happy-looking and smiling a party surely could not have been found in all London, as they made up. It will be seen that there were no less than three couples intent upon matrimony, for although it was understood that Tobias was to wait two years yet before he married, he looked as happy as the rest. A large eight-oared barge was at the stairs at the bottom of the street to convey them, and as they all walked to it arm-in-arm, and in couples, everybody who met them would have it that it was a wedding, and many jocular remarks were made to them by the way. "Upon my word," said Sir Richard, "I shall be considered a match-maker, and folks will say that I keep this office of my own only as a matrimonial speculation." "You certainly," said the colonel, "have been the cause of two or three matches, at all events, for, but for you, I doubt if any of us would have felt as we feel to day, Sir Richard." "He has restored Mark Ingestrie to me," said Johanna. "And my Johanna to me," said Ingestrie. "And my dear Minna to me," cried Tobias. "Stop--stop!" cried Sir Richard. "And I am quite certain," said the colonel, "that I owe to him the joy of calling Arabella mine." Sir Richard Blunt came now to a halt, as he said-- "Stop, all of you, or I will not go one step further. If we get into this kind of talk, who is to say where it will end? Let us enjoy ourselves, and make it a rule to say anything but revert to the past. It has its joys and its sorrows, but it had better upon this occasion be left to itself." "Agreed--agreed," said everybody. The barge was a very handsome one. Indeed Sir Richard Blunt had borrowed it of one of the city companies for the occasion, and beneath the gay awning they could all sit with perfect ease. And now in the course of another five minutes they were going down the river, quite at a slashing pace, towards the old Tower; and as they were animated by the many pleasing sights upon the river, their conversation soon became animated and spirited. "What is that?--A wherry coming towards us from the Temple-stairs," said the colonel. All eyes were bent upon the wherry, which shot out from the little landing-place by the side of the Temple Gardens, and presently they, with one accord, cried out-- "It's Hector!" In truth Hector was there, but with him was the colonel's new groom, the late ostler, who had been so efficient a protector to the dog, and the captain of the ship, whom he knew so well. "Barge a-hoi!" cried the captain. "Ay--ay!" shouted Ingestrie in reply, and the wherry shot alongside the barge. "Well," said the captain, "I do think for you all to go on such a party as this, and not ask me and Hector, is too bad." "But," said Sir Richard Blunt, "you told me you were going to be very busy at the docks." "So I did, but I found our owner had not come to town, and I have nothing to do to-day. I called at your house, colonel, hoping to be in time to come with you, but you had gone. Hector, however, saw me, and made such a racket I was forced to bring him." "And no one can be more glad to see you and Hector than I," cried the colonel. "And I didn't like, sir," said the ostler, "not for to come for to go, when Pison said as he'd like to come." "Very good," said the colonel smiling. "Come on board." The waterman who was with the wherry laid it alongside the barge, and having been liberally paid for his freight, rowed off again, leaving with the barge party, his two customers and the dog. The Tower was soon in sight, for at that time there were not by any means so many obstructions to the navigation of the River Thames as are to be found now, and the stream too was very much clearer than now it can boast of being. The host of manufactories that have since risen upon its banks were not then thought of. "I do think," said Colonel Jeffery, "that I can see our friend Ben at the landing place. Look, Mr. Oakley, is that not Ben?" "Bless you, sir," said Mr. Oakley, "I couldn't see so far if you would make me king of England for doing so. Johanna, my love, you have young eyes, and know Ben well." "Yes, pa, it is Ben, and he is waving his hand to us, and looks so pleased." "He is a most worthy honest fellow," said Sir Richard Blunt. "I like him very much, from what little I have seen of him. He has the simplicity of a child." "Yes," added the colonel, "and the candour and honesty of a lover of human nature. I believe a better heart than Ben's never beat in human bosom." "I am quite sure of it," said Johanna. "I love Ben very much indeed. He has been ever a kind and indulgent friend to me." "Do you hear that, Mr. Ingestrie?" said Arabella. "Yes," laughed Mark, "but I decline investing Ben with any of the attributes of a rival. Now, I love you, Miss Wilmot very much indeed, because you have always been such a dear kind friend to Johanna; and I daresay the colonel will permit me to do so." "To be sure I will--at a distance," said the colonel. Everybody laughed at this, and then, as the rowers increased their exertions to come in to the Tower stairs with some eclat, the barge soon was safely moored at the landing place. "Here you are all of you," cried Ben, capering in his huge delight. "Here you all are. Come along. Oh, how hungry I am." "That sounds as if you meant to eat us, Ben," said Sir Richard, as he stepped from the barge. "Oh, dear no. Only I have got a little bit of lunch ready for you all, and as I helped to place it on the table it made me so hungry that I've been half mad ever since, and I'm as thirsty too as can be. Oh, Mr. Jeffery, I often think if the Thames were only strong ale, what a place the Tower would be." "You may depend," said Sir Richard, "if it were, the government would pretty soon bottle it all off." Johanna was going to step on shore, but Ben made a dash at her, and lifting her up as you would some little child, he seated her on his left arm, and so fairly carried her into the Tower. "You wait, Miss Arabella," he cried. "I'll come for you." This so alarmed Miss Wilmot that she sprang on shore in a moment, and all the party laughed heartily to see Mark Ingestrie flying along after Ben, and shouting as he went-- "Put her down--put her down! Ben!--Ben! She'd rather walk. Put her down!" Ben paid no manner of attention to any of these remonstrances, but carried Johanna right into the Tower before he set her upon her feet again, which he then did as tenderly as though she had been some infant, only just learning to walk. "Mind how you go," he said. "Take it easy. Easy does it." "But I can walk, Ben." "Very good. Mind how you does, you nice little thing. Oh, I likes you a great deal better in the petticoats and not the breeches." "Well, Ben," said Mark Ingestrie, "I am certainly very much obliged to you--very much, indeed." "Don't mention it, my boy," replied Ben, totally oblivious of the manner in which Mark Ingestrie uttered the words--a manner which betrayed some little pique upon the occasion. The laughter of Johanna and his friends, however, soon chased away the temporary cloud. "Where's the t'other little one?" said Ben. "I am here," cried Arabella, laughing. "Oh, you got on without me, did you? Very good: only if you had only waited, I shouldn't have thought it no trouble at all, whatsomedever. Easy does it, you know." "Thank you, Ben. I'd just as soon walk, and a little rather, perhaps, of the two. It was quite amusing enough to see you carry Johanna." "Well--well, there ain't much gratitude in this world. Come on, all of you, for you must be famished; and as for me, I haven't had a bit of anything to eat for a whole hour and a half, and then it was only a pound and three quarters of beef-steak, and a half quartern loaf!" "But we are none of us hungry," said Johanna. "Never mind that," replied Ben, "you don't know what you may be; so always eat when you can get it. That's my maxim, and I find it answers very well. Plenty to eat and drink, and taking things easy, is how I get through the world, and you'll all on you find it the best in the long run." "There are worse philosophies than that going," said Sir Richard Blunt to Colonel Jeffery. "Very much worse," laughed the colonel. Ben now led the way along a narrow arched passage, and through two rather gloomy corridors to a stone room, with a grand arched roof, in the ancient fortress; and there, sure enough, they found the little snack, as he called it, laid out very nicely for their reception. A table ran along the centre of the room, and at one end of it there was placed an immense round of corn beef. At the other was a haunch of mutton, weighing at least thirty pounds. Somewhat about the middle of the table was an enormous turkey; and those dishes, with a ham and four tongues, made up a tolerable repast. Six half-gallon flagons, filled with old Burton Ale, stood at regular distances upon the table. "It's only," said Ben, "a slight snack, after all; but I hope you will be just able to find enough." "Enough!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, there's enough for fifty people." "There's almost enough for a regiment!" said the colonel. "Oh, you are joking," said Ben; "but come, sit down. You, father Oakley, sit here by this little bit of mutton, and I'll cut up the beef." After considerable laughing they were all seated; and then Ben, finding that Johanna was on one side of him, and Miss Wilmot on the other, declared that he was quite satisfied. He cut, first of all, a cold tongue in halves down the middle lengthways, and placed one half upon a plate for Johanna, and the other on a plate for Arabella. Then upon the tongue in each plate, he placed about a pound of ham. "Take that, my little dears," he said, "to begin with, and don't be sparing now, for there's the turkey and the mutton, you know, to fall back upon. Easy does it." The room resounded with shrieks of laughter at the looks of utter distressful dismay which Johanna and Arabella cast upon their plates; and Ben looked from one face to another in perfect astonishment, for he could not see any joke for the life of him. "Dear Ben," said Johanna, "do you really imagine we can eat a tenth part of all this?" "Do I imagine?--In course I does. Only you begin. Lord bless you, that ain't much. Come--come, you want your ale, I suppose. So here it is." Upon this, Ben poured them each out about a quart of the strong ale, and requested them to take an easy pull at that. They found that it was of no use requesting Ben to diminish the quantity he helped them to; so they just, as he advised, took it easy, and ate what they had a mind to do. As for Ben himself, he cut one large slice off the round of beef, and then placed upon it two slices of ham, so that the thickness--for he was not a delicate carver--was about three inches; and so he set to work, every now and then taking up one of the half-gallon ale flagons, and pledging the company all round. Probably, rough and homely as was Ben's lunch, not one of them present had ever enjoyed such a meal more than they this did; and if we might judge by the loud laughter that echoed about the old arched roof, a merrier hour was never spent than in the Tower with Big Ben. But it was a sadness to Ben to find that such little progress was made in the consumption of his eatables and drinkables; and he uttered many groans as he watched Johanna and Arabella. CHAPTER CXXIII. THE BEASTS AT THE TOWER. All good things must have an end, and Ben's lunch in the Tower was not any exception to the rule. At last even he was satisfied that nobody would eat any more, although he was very far indeed from being satisfied that they had had enough. "Won't anybody be so good," he said, "as just to try and pick a little bit of something?" "No--no!" was the general response. "Indeed, Ben," said Colonel Jeffery, "if we take any more we shall positively be ill, and I'm sure you don't wish that." "Oh, dear, no," groaned Ben; "but it's quite clear to me, of course, that you don't like the lunch, or else you could not have took it so very easy." With one accord upon this, everybody declared that they had liked it amazingly well. "Then you will all try a drop more ale?" Upon this, they rose from the table, for they had a well-grounded suspicion that if they staid any longer, Ben would try to force something down their throats, whether they would or not. "Ah, well," said Ben, with a sigh, when he found that they would not be prevailed upon to take anything else. "Then we may as well go and see the lions in the Tower." "Oh, yes," added Johanna, "I have heard so much of them, that I quite long to see them." "Should you, my duck?" cried Ben; "then come along." Here Ben would have carried Johanna again, for somehow he had got the idea fixed in his head that the kindest thing he could possibly do as regarded Johanna was to prevent her from using her feet; but Mark Ingestrie interposed, saying-- "Ben, she would much rather walk. You forget, my kind friend, that she is no longer now a child." "Oh, dear," said Ben, with a look of profound wisdom, "if you come to that, we are all children. Look at me, I'm only a fine baby." Everybody laughed at this sally of Ben's, as well they might; and then, being fully convinced that no more eating nor drinking was at all practicable, Ben proceeded to lead the way to the lions. "Is there any danger?" said Arabella. "I hope you will not let any of them out of their cages, Mr. Ben." "Oh, dear, no, there's no danger, and we don't let any of them out. We only pokes them up a bit with a long pole, to make 'em rather lively to visitors." "And have no accidents ever happened?" said Johanna. "Lord bless you, no. To be sure one of the warders, who was rather a new hand, would put his hand in between the bars of the lion's den and get it snapped off; and once a leopard we had here broke loose, and jumped on the back of a sentinel, and half eat him up; but we haven't had any accidents." "Why, what do you call them, Ben?" "Oh, nothing at all." "I dare say," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that the poor warder and the sentinel would have called those little incidents something." "Well, perhaps they might," said Ben. "In course people will think of themselves before anybody else; but, howsomdever, don't you be after going to be afeard, my little dears; and if any of the beasteses was to get out, always recollect that easy does it, and it's no use making a fuss." "I suppose you think, Ben, that if we are to be eaten up by a lion or a leopard, there's no such thing as avoiding our fate," said the colonel. "Is that your idea?" "Well, I hardly know," said Ben. "But one day we had a young chap--a new warder--who came here out of the country, and he said he had had a dream the night before he came that he should be devoured by a wolf. Now we hadn't a wolf in the Tower collection at all, so, in course, we all laughed at him, and told him he would have to go to foreign parts to bring his dream true. But you'd hardly believe it, that very day afore the young fellow had been one hour in the Tower, there comes a boat to the stairs, with an officer, and he asks to see the keeper of the beasts, and he says to him--'My ship is lying at the Nore, and we have brought from Friesland one of the largest wolves as ever was known for the Tower collection,' says he, 'and he's in a large bag we made on purpose to hold him in the boat.' Well, when the young warder heard this he said--'That's my wolf. He has come for me!' and off he set a trembling like anything. The wolf was brought in in a coal sack, and we got him into an empty den that was shut up with a chain and a staple only; but as all the fastenings were out of his reach, he could not interfere with it if he was ever so cunning. Well, night came, and we all took it easy, and went to bed; but in the middle of the night what should we hear but the most horrid howling that ever you could think of, and when we ran to the Lion Tower, where it came from, we found the iron door of the wolf's den open, and the young warder lying, half in and half out of it, stone dead. The wolf had had him by the throat." "And what became of the wolf?" said Johanna. "He was gone, and we never so much as heard of him from that day to this." "Well, Ben," said the colonel, "that is a very good story of the lions in the Tower, and here we are, I think, close to them." A terrific roar at this moment proved the colonel's words to be tolerably true. "Ah, they are feeding some on 'em," said Ben. "It just the time, and they will not be convinced as easy does it." "It is hard enough, Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "to convince human beings of that piece of philosophy, to say nothing of lions and tigers." "Oh, but," said Ben, with great gravity, "lions and tigers is generally much more reasonable than human beings." Another roar from the menagerie joined in as bass to the laugh with which this piece of philosophy from so unlikely a person as Ben was received. "Come on," he said; "come on. They can make a noise, but that's just about all they can do. Come on, my little dears--and if you fell at all afeard, all you have got to do is to take hold of the lion by the nose, and then you'll find he looks upon you as one of them as takes things easy, and he won't say another word to you anyhow." "We will leave that to you, Ben," said Johanna, "and in the meantime, I will keep close to you, you know." "Do, my little duck; and I'll just carry you." "No--no--no!" Johanna darted away; for if she had not done so, Ben would inevitably have had her up in his arms by way of showing his affection for her. It was a fixed idea of his, and was not to be shaken by any denials or remonstrances. And now in a few minutes, after traversing the highly picturesque and antique passages of the Tower, the little party arrived at where the lions were kept. The colonel gave a caution to the late ostler of the inn in Fleet Street to keep an eye over Hector, who not being accustomed to an introduction to such animals as he was about to see, might fancy himself called upon to do something out of the way upon the occasion. "Oh, I'll watch him, sir," said the man. "Come here, Pison, will you? and don't you be after going and interfering with wild beasteses. Lor bless you, sir, he'll be quite glad to see 'em, and will go on speaking of 'em for ever afterwards--I know he will." "Here you are," said Ben, as he halted opposite the door of a lordly lion. They all looked at the immense creature with a vast amount of interest, for such creatures were rather rarities at that time in London. While our friends are thus examining the king of the forest, as he crunches a huge beef bone with his formidable jaws, we may give a brief account of the wild creatures that in old times were kept in the tower. There was Pedore, a beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to the king by Governor V. Harora. Cæsar, brother to Pedore, brought from the same place, and presented to his majesty, by Captain Haycraft. He has been in the Tower about eight months, is three years and a half old, and supposed to be the finest lion ever seen in England. His looks strike the stoutest beholder with astonishing awe. His head is large, being covered with a long shagged mane that reaches to his shoulders, and adds rather to the terror than majesty of his countenance; for his eyes being very fiery, and darting, as it were, a kind of red flame through his long, shaggy, and dishevelled hair, raises such an idea of fierceness as cannot be excited in a mind unaccompanied with fear, nor can we conceive it possible for human courage to encounter a creature of such a dreadful aspect, without the intervention of some lucky circumstance, notwithstanding the stories that have been related of men killing lions in equal combat. His mouth opens wide, and discovers a frightful set of teeth; and when he roars he may be heard at a great distance. Miss Jane, a beautiful lioness, about six years old, brought from the coast of Barbary, by Sir Jacob Wyatt. Phillis, a large wolf, brought from Boulogne, in France, and presented to his majesty by Colonel Hollingworth. It is in form not unlike a dog of a mixed breed, and has been in the Tower about five years. These are very ravenous creatures, which inhabit the immense forests in France and other parts, and are a terror to men and cattle. In the severe season of the year they come from the woods and fall ravenously upon every living thing they meet, and have been known to enter houses in search of food. Sukey, a North American bear, brought over by Lord Bruce. She has been in the Tower about twelve months. Hector, a most beautiful lion, sent from the Emperor of Morocco as a present to his majesty. He is fourteen years old, and has been in the Tower about ten. He greatly resembles Cæsar. Helena, companion to Hector, a very handsome lioness, and presented also by the Emperor of Morocco. Miss Gregory, a beautiful leopardess, about twenty years of age. She was sent to his late majesty by the Dey of Algiers, and presented by the late Algerine Ambassador. Sir Robert, a fine leopard, of a shining yellow colour intermixed with bright spots. He was brought from Senegal by--Touchit, Esq. He has been in his present situation about eight years, during which he has had seven young ones by two different leopardesses. The young, however, all died soon after being whelped, except one which lived about ten months. Miss Nancy, a very beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to his majesty by -- Brady, Esq. She has been here only about nine months, is not quite two years old, and seems very tractable. A lion monkey. This beast is of a black colour, with very shaggy hair. It was brought from the Cape of Good Hope, and has been here about four months. An American black bear, lately brought over by Colonel Clarke. A racoon, brought from Norway by Colonel Clarke. This is a very small beast, and exceedingly harmless. It lives on the sea-sands, and chiefly on shell fish, which it takes in a very safe and dexterous manner; for whenever the fish opens its shell to receive either air or nourishment, this creature, we are told, puts a small pebble in, so that the shell may not close again, and picks out the fish with its claws. Rose, a large Norway wolf, presented about four years since by Herr Widderman. He is about six years old, and appears very fierce and ravenous. Miss Sally, a beautiful leopardess, presented by the Emperor of Morocco, and brought over in the same ship with Hector. These were the principal inhabitants of what was called the Lion's Tower; and Ben, who was never so much in his glory as when he was describing the creatures and commenting upon them, went through the list of them with commendable accuracy. It was quite impossible but that the party should very much admire these wild inhabitants of the woods and wastes of nature, and Ben was wonderfully gratified at the fearless manner in which both Johanna and Arabella approached the dens. The inspection of the beasts lasted more than an hour, and then, as Sir Richard Blunt had no more time at his disposal, they all again proceeded to the barge that was waiting for them. Ben accompanied the party from the Tower, as the Oakleys had invited him to dine with them. "Ah," he said, "by the time we get to your house, cousin Oakley, I shall be half famished. Thank goodness! I have ordered something to eat to be put on board the barge, in case we should be sharp set." CHAPTER CXXIV. RETURNS TO NEWGATE, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF MRS. LOVETT. While those persons, in whose happiness we and our readers, no doubt, likewise feel a kindly interest, are thus in the happy society of each other, compensating themselves for many of the mischances and deep anxieties of the past, some events were taking place in Newgate of a character well worth the recording. Mrs. Lovett, when she found that her proposition to turn evidence against Todd would not be listened to, but that it was the fixed determination of the authorities to include her in the prosecution, became deeply despondent. Upon being taken back to Newgate, she did not say one word to any one; but when she was placed in her cell, she paced to and fro in its narrow confines with that restless perturbed manner which may be noticed in wild animals when caged. After about an hour, then, she called to one of the attendants of the prison, saying-- "I wish to speak to some one who has authority to hear what I may choose to relate." "The chaplain will come," was the reply. "The chaplain!" repeated Mrs. Lovett with a burst of rage, "what do I want with chaplains? Do I not know perfectly well that when a person is found too idiotic for ordinary duties he is made a chaplain of a jail? No! I will not speak to any of your chaplains." "Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "Our chaplain for certain ain't a conjuror, but I never heard afore that he was sent here on account of being weak in the upper story. It's likely enough though for all that. Perhaps Mrs. Lovett, you'd like to see the Governor?" "Yes, he will do much better." "Very good." Such a prisoner as Mrs. Lovett could command an interview with the Governor of Newgate at any reasonable period; and that functionary having been apprised of her wish to see him, together with what she had said of the chaplain, repaired to her cell with an ill-concealed smile upon his face, for in his heart he perfectly agreed in Mrs. Lovett's estimation of jail chaplains. "Well, madam," he said. "What have you to say to me?" "In the first place, sir, I am here without other clothing then that which I now wear. Is it inconsistent with your regulations for me to have a box of clothes brought me from my home?" "Oh no--you can have them. I will get an order from the committing magistrate for you to have your clothes brought here. Of course they will be scrupulously examined before they reach you." "What for?" "It is our custom, that's all." "You are afraid that I should escape?" "Oh, no--no! No woman ever yet escaped from Newgate, and I don't think any man ever will again." "Perhaps not. For my part, I care not how many men escape, so that you take good care Sweeney Todd does not." "You may make yourself easy upon that score." "Good--then when I get my clothes here, I will make a full confession of all I know, regarding Todd's crimes." "And your own?" "Yes, if you like. And my own. Be it so. But mark me, I will have no pettifogging, prying, canting parsons in the cell. If you bring your chaplain here I am mute." "Very well, I will say as much. Of course, if you are inclined to make a confession, you can make it to whom you please." "I should presume so." With this, the Governor left Mrs. Lovett, and she commenced again her uneasy pacing of the cell. In about two hours, a large box was brought to her with nearly the whole of her clothes from her house in Bell Yard. She selected a dress, with a number of heavy flounces, and put it on, appearing to be much better satisfied than she had been. "Ah," said the turnkey, "that's the way with women. Give them dress, and even in Newgate they feel comfortable, but make 'em go shabby, and you had much better hang them outright." Another hour passed, and then the Governor, with a magistrate and writing materials, came to the cell of the wretched woman. "If Mrs. Lovett," he said, "you still think proper to persevere in your intention of making a confession, this gentleman, who is a magistrate, will in his official capacity receive it, and I will witness it; but you do it entirely at your own risk and peril." "I know it," replied Mrs. Lovett, "and I likewise do it to the risk of the peril of Sweeney Todd." "You can make what statement you please. How far it will be taken as evidence against another, will depend entirely upon how it is in essentials corroborated by others," said the magistrate. "I am content. Now, sir, will you listen to me?" "Most certainly." The Governor arranged his writing materials, and while the magistrate listened, Mrs. Lovett said in a calm clear voice-- "Believing that I am upon the brink of the grave, I make this statement. Todd first connived the idea of that mutual guilt which we have both since carried out. He bought the house in Bell Yard, as likewise the one in Fleet Street, and by his own exertions, he excavated an underground connection between the two, mining right under St. Dunstan's church, and through the vaults of that building. When he had completed all his arrangements, he came to me, and cautiously made his offer; but he did not tell me that those arrangements were then complete, as that he doubtless thought would have placed him too much in my power, in the event of my refusing to co-operate with him in his iniquity. He need not have given himself that amount of trouble; I was willing. The plan he proposed was, that the pie-shop should be opened, for the sole purpose of getting rid of the bodies of people, whom he might think proper to murder, in or under his shop. He said that fearing nothing, and believing nothing, he had come to the conclusion, that money was the great thing to be desired in this world, inasmuch as to it he had found that all people bowed down. He said that after the murder of any one, he would take the flesh from the bones quickly, and convey to the shelves of the bake-house in Bell Yard the pieces, as materials for the pies. Minor arrangements he left to me. He murdered many. The business went on and prospered, and we both grew rich. He refused me my share of the spoil; and so I believe we both fell to our present state." [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett Makes Her Confession To The Governor Of Newgate.] "Have you any more to add?" said the magistrate. "Nothing. But I will answer you any question you may choose to ask of me upon the subject." "No. It is not my province to ask anything. This is clearly a voluntary statement and confession. No questions need be, or ought to be, asked concerning it at all." "Very well." "You are aware that it will be used against you." "And against Todd?" "Yes, it is a strong corroboration of the evidence against him; and as such, if there had been any doubt, would have gone far towards making his conviction certain." "Then I am satisfied, sir." The magistrate slightly inclined his head and left the cell with the Governor. When they were outside he said to the latter-- "I would advise you to keep a sharp watch upon that woman. My firm opinion is, that she contemplates suicide, and that this statement is merely made for the purpose of damaging Todd as much as possible." "No doubt, sir. You may depend upon our keeping a good watch upon her. It is quite impossible she can do herself a mischief. There is literally nothing in the cell for her to convert to any such use; besides, I doubt if really great criminals ever have the courage to die by their own hands." "Well, it may be so; of course your experience of these people is very considerable. I only tell you my impression." "For which, sir, I am much obliged, and will be doubly cautious." Mrs. Lovett, when she was once more alone, paced her cell in the same restless manner that she had done before. It was not then so much as it is now the custom in Newgate to keep such a strict watch upon prisoners before conviction, and with the exception that there was a man in the passage close at hand, boxed up in a sentry-box, and whose duty it was now and then to open the small square wicket in the cell door, and see that the prisoner was all right, Mrs. Lovett had no surveillance over her. As she paced to and fro, she muttered to herself-- "Yes, I will do it. They think that I would go through the formal parade of a trial. They think that I will stand in one of their courts shrinking before a jury; but I will not--I will not. Oh no, Todd may do all that. It is fitting that he should; but I, having failed in my one great enterprise, will bid adieu to life." She paused, for the man was at the wicket. "Do you want anything?" he said. "No, my friend. Only the poor privilege of being alone." "Humph! I thought I heard you speaking." "I was only rehearsing my defence." "Oh, well; that's a new dodge anyhow. You take it easy, Ma'am Lovett, if anybody ever did." "Innocence, my friend, should be composed." The turnkey stared at her through the little bars that crossed even that small orifice in the door, and then closed it without another word. He was scarcely used to such an amount of cool effrontery as he found exhibited by Mrs. Lovett. "Alone again," she said. "Alone again. I must be cautious, or they will suspect my purpose. I must only converse with myself in faint whispers. I would not be thwarted willingly in this my last and boldest act; and I am resolved that I will not live to look upon the light of another day. I am resolved, and wound up to my purpose. Oh, what poor fools they are to fancy they can prevent such a one as I am from dying when and how I wish! They have unwittingly supplied me with the ready means of death to-day." These words were spoken so low, that if the turnkey had been listening with all his might on the other side of the door he could not possibly have overheard them. The recent visit of that functionary, if the peep through the little opening in the door could be called a visit, had taught Mrs. Lovett to be more cautious how she trusted the air of her cell with the secret resolves of her teeming brain. But now that she had really and truly made up her mind to commit suicide, all the worst passions of her nature seemed to be up in arms and to wage wild war in her heart and brain; while amid them all was the intense hatred of Todd, and the hope that she should be revenged upon him, by his being brought to death upon the scaffold, triumphant over every other. "I had hoped," she said; "oh, how I had hoped, that I might have had the satisfaction of witnessing such a scene--but that is past now. I must go before him; but still it is with the conviction that die he must. I feel, I know that he will not have the courage to do as I am about to do, and if he had, I am certain he has not provided himself with the means of success as I have provided myself." These last words she scarcely whispered to herself, so very fearful was she that they might be overheard by the turnkey who was so close at hand. And now a fear came over her that he was watching her through some little hole or crevice of the door, and the very thought was sufficient to make her wonderfully uneasy. If it were so, there was quite sufficient reflected light in the cell to make every one of her actions easily observable, and so her cherished design of taking her own life would be defeated completely. In lieu of a piece of whalebone in the back of her dress, there was a small tin tube, soldered perfectly tight against the escape of any fluid, and made fast at each end. That tin tube had been in the dress she now selected for many months, and it was filled with a subtle liquid poison, a very few drops of which would prove certainly fatal. She dreaded that she should be observed to take this ingenious contrivance from her dress and pounced upon before she could break it open and make use of its contents. She sat down on the miserable kind of bench which served as a bed, and in a very low whisper to herself she said-- "I must wait till night--yes, I must wait till night!" She knew well that the indulgence of a light would be denied to her, and she smiled to herself, as she thought how that mistaken piece of prison policy would enable her to free herself from what now was the bitter encumbrance of existence. "The twilight," she muttered, "will soon creep into this gloomy place, and it will be my twilight, too--the twilight of my life before, and only just before, the night of death begins. That night will know no dawn--that long, long sleep which will know no waking! Yea, I will then escape from this strong prison!" CHAPTER CXXV. MRS. LOVETT SEES SOME TWILIGHT SPECTRES IN HER CELL. After she had sat for some time in this state of feeling, and just before the darkness got so apparent that but little could be seen of the few articles that the place contained, she heard the door open. A flash of light came into the place. "Who is that?" she cried. "Oh, you needn't think as it's robbers--it's only me," said a voice. "You are quite safe here, ma'am. That's one good of being in the stone jug: you needn't be afraid of thieves breaking into your place." She saw that it was the turnkey whose duty it was to keep watch in the passage outside her cell. "What do you want here?" she said, "Cannot I have the poor privilege of being left alone?" "Oh, yes, only it's your rations' time, and here's your boiled rice and water, and here's your loaf, mum. In course, that ain't exactly the sort of thing you have been accustomed to; but it's all the county allows--only between you and me and the post, Mrs. Lovett, as they say you have got a pretty heavy purse, you can have just what you like." "Indeed!" "Yes, in a moderate way you know. You have only to pay, and you can have anything." "Then even Newgate is like the rest of the world. Money rules even here, does it?" "Why, in a manner of speaking, a guinea is worth twenty-one shillings here, just the same as it is outside, ma'am." "Then how much will purchase my liberty?" The turnkey shook his head. "There, ma'am, you ask for an article that I don't deal in. My shop don't keep such a thing as liberty. What I mean is, that you may have just what you like to eat and drink." "Very well. In the morning you can bring me what I order." "Oh, yes--yes." "I will pay handsomely for what I do order, for I have, as you say, a heavy purse. Much heavier, indeed it is, than any of you imagine, my friends." "Your humble servant, ma'am. I only wish Newgate was full of such as you." "Ah, I hear a footstep. Who is it that is about to intrude upon me to-night?" "It's the chaplain." "The chaplain? I thought he understood that I declined his visits completely." "Why, you see, ma'am, so you did, but it's his duty to go the round of all the cells before the prison shuts up for the night, so he will come, you see; and if I might advise you, ma'am, I should say be civil to him whatever you may think, for he can do you an ill turn if he likes in his report. He has more underhanded sort of power than you are aware of, Mrs. Lovett; so you had better, as I say, be civil to him, and keep your thoughts to yourself. Where's the odds, you know, ma'am?" "I am much obliged to you for this advice, and I will pay you for it. There is a couple of guineas for you as a slight remembrance of me, and let others say what they will, you at least will not accuse me of ingratitude for any benefit conferred upon me." "That I won't, ma'am; but here he comes. Mum is the word about what I have said, or else my place would not be worth much, I can tell you." "Depend upon me." The turnkey, with a great show of respect, backed out of the cell as the chaplain entered it. "Well, Mrs. Lovett," said the pious individual, "I hope to find you in a better frame of mind than upon my last visit to you." "Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, "if you will come to me at your own hour in the morning, I shall then present myself to you in a different manner, and I shall no longer object to anything you may be pleased to say to me." "What a blessed conversion. Really, now, this is very satisfactory indeed. Mrs. Lovett, of course you are a very great sinner, but if you attend to me, I can warrant your being received in the other world by ten thousand angels." "I thank you, sir. Half the number would be quite sufficient, I feel assured, for my poor deserts." "Oh no, ten thousand--ten thousand. Not one less than that number. But if you have any doubts about the reality of flames everlasting, I shall have great satisfaction in removing them, by holding your hand for a few moments in the flame of this candle." "You are very kind," said Mrs. Lovett, "but I shall be quite as well convinced if you hold yours, as I shall then I hope see the agony depicted in your countenance." "Humph!--ah! No, I would rather not exactly. But quite rejoicing that you are in so very pious a frame of mind, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock." "That will do very well," said Mrs. Lovett. The chaplain, thinking he had made quite a wonderful convert in Mrs. Lovett, and with serious thoughts of getting somebody to write a tract for him on the subject, left the cell, little suspecting how he was to be duped. "Well, you did gammon him," said the turnkey, "I will say that for you." "Can you not leave me a light?" "Agin the rules. Can't do it; but I'll wait till you have put the mattress to rights, if you like." "Oh, no. It will do very well. Good night." "Good night, Ma'am Lovett, and thank you for me. They may say what they likes about you, but I will stick up for you, so far that you are liberal with your tin, and that's a very good thing indeed. I ain't quite sure that it isn't everything, as this here world goes." The door of the cell was closed, and the last rays of the turnkey's candle disappeared. Mrs. Lovett was alone again in her dreary cell. The darkness now was very intense, indeed: for during the few minutes that she had been conversing with the chaplain, the twilight had almost faded away, dropping quite into night, so that not an object was visible in the cell. She heard the turnkey's footsteps die away in the distance, and then indeed she felt truly alone. "And I shall not see the sunlight of another day," she said. "My pilgrimage is over." She pronounced these words with a shudder, for even she could not at such a moment feel quite at ease. She held in her hands the means of death, and yet she hesitated--not that she had the remotest intention of foregoing her fixed resolve; but feeling that at any moment she had it in her power now to carry it out, she lingered there upon the shores of life. "And it has come to this," she said. "After all my scheming--after all my resolves, it has come to suicide in a felon's cell. Well, I played a daring game, and for heavy stakes, and I have lost, that is all." She covered her eyes with her hands for several minutes, and slowly rocked to and fro. Who shall say what thoughts crossed that bold bad woman's soul at that time? Who shall say that in those few moments her memory did not fly back to some period when she was innocent and happy?--for even Mrs. Lovett must have been innocent and happy once; and the thought that such had been her blessed state, compared to what it was now, was enough to drive her mad--quite mad. When she withdrew her hands from before her eyes she uttered a cry of terror. Memory had conjured up the forms of departed spirits to her; and now so strong had become the impression upon her mind in that hour of agony, that she thought she saw them in her cell. "Oh, mercy--mercy!" she said. "Why should I be tortured thus? Why should I suffer such horrors? Why do you glare at me with such fiery eyes for, horrible spectres!" [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett In Newgate.--Is Conscience-Stricken.] She covered up her eyes again; but then a still more terrible supposition took possession of her, for instead of fancying that the spectres were in the darkness of the cell at some distance from her, she thought that they all came crowding up to within an inch of her face, gibing and mocking. "Off--off!" she cried, as she suddenly stretched out her arm. "Do not drive me quite mad." Her eyes glared in the darkness like those of some wild animal. They looked phosphorescent, and for some time such was the agony and the thraldom of her feelings, that she quite forgot she had the means of death in her hands. She began to question the spirits that fancy presented in the darkness as thronging her cell. "Who are you?" she said. "I know you not. I did not kill you! Why do you glare at me? And you, with your face matted with blood, I did not kill you. Who are you, too, with those mangled limbs? I killed none of you. Go to Sweeney Todd--go to Sweeney Todd!" She kept her hands stretched out before her, and she fancied that it was only by such an action that she kept them from touching her very face. Then she dropped upon her knees, and in the same wild half-screaming voice she spoke again, crying-- "Away with you all! Todd it was that killed you--not I. He would have killed me, too. Do you hear, that he tried to kill me? but he could not. What boy are you? Oh, I know you now. He sent you to the madhouse. You are George Allan. Well, I did not kill you. I see that there is blood upon you! But why do you all come to me and leave Todd's cell tenantless, except by himself? for you cannot be here and there both! Away, I say! Away to him! Do not come here to torture me!" Tap--tap--tap came a sound on the door of the cell. "Hush!" she said. "Hush!" "What's the matter?" said the turnkey. "Nothing--nothing." "But I heard you calling out about something." "It is nothing, my friend. All is right. I was only--only praying." "Humph!" said the turnkey. "If you were, it is something rather new, I reckon. She can't do any mischief, that's one comfort; and many of the worst ones as comes here don't pass very nice, cosy, comfortable nights. They fancies they sees all sorts of things, they does. Poor devils! I never seed nothing worse than myself or my wife in all my time, and I don't think I ever shall." Mrs. Lovett did not now utter one word until she was sure the turnkey was out of hearing. That slight interruption had recalled her to herself, and done much to banish from her disturbed imagination all those fancied monsters of the brain which had disturbed her. "Why did I yield even for a moment," she said, "to such a load of superstition? I thought that even at such a moment as this I should be free from such terrors. How I should have smiled in derision of any one else who had been weak enough to give way to them--and yet how real they looked. How very unlike the mere creations of a disturbed brain. Could they be real? Is it possible?" Mrs. Lovett shook a little as she asked herself these questions, and it was only at such a moment that she could or was at all likely to ask them, for our readers may well believe that such a woman could have had no sort of belief in a providence, or she never, with her active intellect, could have fallen into the mistake of supposing that she was compassing happiness by committing crime. For awhile now the doubt that she had suggested to herself shook her very much. It was the very first time in all her wicked life that anything like a perception of a future state had crossed her mind; and each minute how fearfully to her the possibility, and then the probability, that there really was another world than this, began now to grow upon her. That thought was more full of agony than the appearance of the spectres had been to her--those spectres which were only called into existence by her own consciousness of overpowering guilt and deep iniquity. "I am going now," she said. "I am going. World that I hate, and all upon thee, farewell!" She broke the tin case containing the poison, and applying one of the broken ends to her lips, she swallowed two drops of the deadly liquid, and fell dead upon the floor of her cell. CHAPTER CXXVI. SWEENEY TODD IS PLACED UPON HIS TRIAL. It was about eight o'clock in the morning that the officials of Newgate found their way to the cell of Mrs. Lovett. At first they thought that she was sleeping upon the floor of her prison, but when they picked her up, they soon became aware of what had really happened, and the alarm spread through the prison. The governor was vexed, and the chaplain was vexed, and when the sheriff was sent for, he, too, was vexed, so they all revenged themselves upon the turnkey, whose duty it was to be in the passage adjoining the cell, and they fancied they met the justice of the case by discharging him. Of course, in a very few hours the news of Mrs. Lovett's suicide became known all over London, with very many exaggerations; and there was not one person in the whole of the vast population of the great city who did not know the fact, save and except that man who would feel most interested in it. We, of course, allude to Sweeney Todd. He, in his cell in Newgate, saw no newspapers, and held no conversation with the world without; and as none of the persons in any way connected with the prison chose to inform him of what had happened, he had not the least idea but that Mrs. Lovett was, along with him, suffering all the terrors of suspense antecedent to her trial upon the serious charge impending over her. Of course when the day of his, Todd's, trial should arrive, the fact could no longer be kept secret from him; and that day come at last to wither up any faint hopes that he might cling to. Scarcely ever in London had such an amount of public excitement been produced by any criminal proceedings, as by the trial of Sweeney Todd. While he pursued a monotonous life from day to day in his cell, haunted by all sorts of fears, and the prey of the most dismal apprehensions, the public appetite had been fed by all sorts of strange and vague stories concerning him. The most hideous crimes had been laid to his charge; and in the imagination of the people, the number of his victims was quadrupled, so that when the morning of his trial arrived, so great was the excitement, that business in the City was almost at a stand still, and sober-minded men who did not see any peculiar interest in the sayings and doings of a great criminal, were of course disgusted that the popular taste should run that way. As regarded Todd himself, he had gone into Newgate with a fixed determination in his own mind to commit suicide if he possibly could; but he had not taken the precaution that Mrs. Lovett had long before, in providing the means of so doing; and consequently he was thrown upon the scanty resources that might present themselves to him in the prison. That those resources would be few and limited enough, may be well imagined, for the most special instructions had been given by Sir Richard Blunt to prevent Todd from committing suicide; and since Mrs. Lovett had so disposed of herself despite the authorities, those precautions had been redoubled; so that Todd, after two or three abortive attempts, and thinking the matter over in every way, saw that there was no chance for him in that way, and he made up his mind to abide his trial, with the hope that he might, during the course of it, be able to say enough to make Mrs. Lovett's conviction certain, while he felt certain that he could not possibly make his own situation worse than it was. He thought, too, that perhaps after conviction he might behave so cunningly as to deceive his jailer into an idea that he was full of contrition and resignation, and so, at some ungarded moment, achieve the object that now he felt to be impossible. With these hopes and feelings, then, little suspecting that Mrs. Lovett had already removed her case to a higher tribunal, Sweeney Todd awaited his trial. Probably he had no idea of the amount of excitement that his case had created outside the prison. The customary calm of the officials of the jail, had deceived him into a belief, that after all it was no such great matter; but he quite forgot that that was a professional calm, with which the people had nothing to do, and in which it was not at all likely they would participate. The Governor came into his cell about a quarter before nine o'clock on the morning fixed for his trial. "Sweeney Todd," he said, "you are wanted in court." "I am ready," said Todd. He rose with alacrity, and accompanied the Governor and two turnkeys. It was the custom then to place prisoners accused of such heavy offences as fell to Todd's charge in irons, and if the authorities had any suspicion of violent intentions upon the part of such prisoners, the irons accompanied them to the bar of the Old Bailey. Todd was so accompanied; and as he walked along, his irons made a melancholy clank together. His imprisonment preceding his trial had been uncommonly short, but yet it had been sufficient to bring him down greatly in appearance. He had never been one of the fat order of mortals, but now he looked like some great gaunt, ghost. Every patch of colour had forsaken his cheeks, and his eyes looked preternaturally lustrous. Those who had not been accustomed to the sight of him during his imprisonment in Newgate, shrunk from him as he followed the Governor through the gloomy passages of the prison. Two well-armed officers keep close upon his heels, so that Todd could not complain of a want of attendants. [Illustration: Todd Goes To Take His Trial.] Even he recoiled when he was brought into the court of the Old Bailey, for it was a complete sea of heads; and from the dock he could hear the roar and the shout, and the shrieks of people outside, who were still struggling for admission. It was then that the idea first seemed to strike him that the public, in him, had recognised one of those notorious criminals, that awaken in no small degree popular indignation by their acts. Indeed, upon his first appearance in the court, there was a strange kind of groan of execration, which was tolerably evident to all, and yet not defined enough for the judge to take any notice of. The strife continued at the door of the court, and it was quite evident that the officers were engaged in a severe struggle with the crowd outside. "Let the doors be closed," said the judge; "the court is already inconveniently crowded." Upon this order, the officers redoubled their exertions; and being assisted by some of the spectators already within the court, who were fearful of being trampled to death if the crowd should once get in, the doors were made to shut, and fastened. A yell of rage and disappointment came from the mob; and then a loud voice, that towered above all other noises, shouted-- "Bring Todd out and we will hang him at once without any further trouble. We only want Todd!" The countenance of the prisoner turned as white as paper, and his glaring eyes were fixed upon the doors of the court. "It is quite impossible," said the judge, "that the business of the court can be carried on under these circumstances; I hope that the civil power will be sufficient to repress this tumult without, otherwise it will be my duty to send for a guard of military, and then bloodshed may be the consequence, from which those who create this riot alone will be in any way answerable." "Bring him out!" cried a hundred voices. "Out with him! Todd--Todd! We want Todd." There was then such a furious hammering at the doors of the court, that it was quite impossible to hear what any one said. Sir Richard Blunt suddenly appeared on the bench, and leaning over to the judge, he said-- "My lord, I am collecting a force with which I shall be able to clear the entrances to the court." "I wish you would, Sir Richard. This riot is most disgraceful." "It is, my lord; but it shall be suppressed now with as much speed as may be." With this, Sir Richard immediately retired. He collected together a force of fifty constables, and forming them into a sort of wedge, he suddenly opened a side door, and attacked the mob. The fight, for a hand-to-hand fight it now was, did not last more than ten minutes, when the mob gave way, and "every one for himself" became the cry. In five minutes more the party of officers had possession of all the avenues to the court, and a profound silence succeeded to the riot that had taken place. "I think now," said the judge "we may proceed to business. This riot has been a most disgraceful one, and if the officers will bring any one before me who has taken part in it, I will commit him to prison at once." "They are all dispersed, my lord," said Sir Richard. "The court thanks you, sir," said the judge. "Let the proceedings commence at once." Todd now glared about him, and his lips kept moving as though he were repeating something to himself in a whisper. The Governor of Newgate leant forward, and said-- "Do you wish to say anything?" "Yes. Where is _she_?" "Mrs. Lovett do you mean?" "I do. Why am I here, and she not? Where is she? If she be innocent, why then so am I. I do not see her." "She will not be here." "Not here? How--why?" "She is dead." Todd nearly dropped to the floor, and from that moment a great portion of his courage, small as it was, departed, and he looked like a ghost rather than a living man. At times, he kept muttering to himself the word--"Dead--dead--dead!" The usual formalities were gone through, and then Todd was roused up to plead to the indictment, charging him with the murder of Francis Thornhill. The governor touched him on the shoulder. "Plead to the indictment," he said. "Dead!" cried Todd. "Why is she dead?" "Prisoner at the bar," said the clerk of the arraign. "Do you plead guilty or not guilty to the charge here made against you?" "Not guilty!" cried Todd, as he roused himself up, and glared at the judge like an enraged tiger. Government had entrusted the prosecution to the Attorney General of the time being, and that functionary was in court. He rose to open the case, and spoke as follows, amid the most breathless silence-- "My lord, and gentlemen of the jury-- "The prisoner at the bar was originally indicted along with a female named Lovett--" "Where is she?" said Todd. "Prisoner," said the judge, "at the proper time you will have an opportunity of making any observation you may think fit, but it is scarcely necessary for me to inform you that this is not the time." "She is not dead!" cried Todd. "She has been let escape by some juggling, in order that all the vengeance of the law might be directed against me. It is not true that she is dead. Some of you are chargeable with allowing that woman to escape. I tell you that she is a fiend and not a woman. But she has had gold at her disposal, and she has bribed you all--I say she has bought you all." "Prisoner," said the judge, "this cannot be permitted. You only deeply prejudice your own case by this conduct." "That is impossible. I know that you are all in one large conspiracy against me, and you have let that woman escape, in order that the last drop should not be wanting to fill my cup of bitterness to the overflowing." "It will be impossible," said the Attorney-General, "to proceed with the case, if the prisoner at the bar continues these interruptions." "Prisoner," said the judge, "I, and all here present, are disposed to give any allowance and indulgence to a man in your situation; but let me beg of you to be silent." "I am done," said Todd, "but it is false to say that she is dead. That fiend cannot die. She is a devil, I tell you all, and if there be any here who fancy that she is dead, I tell them that they are mistaken. She cannot be killed. I know that well. Go on with what you call your proceedings; I have no more to say to you." CHAPTER CXXVII. THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED. This ebullition of feeling upon the part of Sweeney Todd was by some of the spectators looked upon as a vague indication of insanity, while some of the members of the bench looked very mysterious, and asked themselves if it were not the first step in the direction of some very clever defence. But then they were gentlemen who never exactly saw anything as the world in general agrees to see it. The judge shook his head as if he rather doubted Sweeney Todd's implicit promise that he would not again interrupt the proceedings; and among the whole of the spectators of that most extraordinary trial, the most intense interest was evidently rather on the increase than the diminution. The judge finding that Todd did not again say anything for a few moments, slightly inclined his head to the Attorney-General, as much as to say--"Pray get on, now that there seems an opportunity of so doing;" and that personage, learned in the law, accordingly rose again, and having adjusted his gown, addressed himself again to the case before him, with his usual skill. "My lords, and gentlemen of the jury-- "If this were only some ordinary everyday proceeding, I should not sit so calmly under the indecorous interruptions of the prisoner at the bar; but when I feel, in common with all here present, that that person has so great a stake as his life upon the issue of this investigation, I am disposed in all charity to allow a latitude of action, that otherwise would not, and could not, be endured. "Gentlemen of the jury, I yet hope that these unseemly interruptions are over, and that I shall be permitted in peace to make those remarks to you, which it is my duty to make on behalf of the crown, who prosecutes in this serious case. "Nothing can be further from my wish than to heighten by any strength of phraseology or domestic detail the case against the prisoner at the bar. I shall confine myself to a recital of the bare facts of the case, feeling that, while I cannot detract from them, they are of such a character of horror, as to require no adventitious aid from the art of the orator. "Gentlemen, it appears that the prisoner at the bar is arraigned for the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. From what information we have been able to collect, the prisoner, Sweeney Todd, is a native of the north of England. He came to London about eighteen years ago, and was in very great poverty, when he opened a small barber's shop in Crutched Friars. He remained in that shop about seventeen months, and then paid one hundred and twenty-five pounds for the lease of a house in Fleet Street, for which he was thus only to pay a rental to the Skinners' Company of seventeen pound ten per annum, he consenting to keep the premises in ordinary repair. "The lower part of this house had been a small hosier's; but the prisoner at the bar altered it into a barber's shop, and he has there continued to reside until his arrest upon the serious charge which we are brought here to investigate. "What were the pursuits of the prisoner during his occupancy of that house, it is not our province just now to inquire, as all our attention must be directed to a consideration of the one charge, to answer to which he stands at the bar of this court; and I shall, therefore, proceed to detail the evidence upon which the prosecution founds that charge:-- "It appears that upon the third day of August last, a ship of 400 tons burthen, called the Star, arrived in the London Docks. On board of that ship was the captain, and a crew of nine seamen, and two boys. As passengers, there was a Colonel Jeffery, and a Mr. Thornhill, whose death is the motive of the present proceedings. There was likewise a large dog named Hector on board the vessel, which was very much attached to Mr. Thornhill. "Now, gentlemen of the jury, it had so happened that Francis Thornhill had been commissioned, during the progress of a wreck at sea by a young gentleman named Mark Ingestrie, to take a certain String of Oriental Pearls, valued at somewhere about sixteen thousand pounds sterling, to a young lady in London, named Johanna Oakley; and this Francis Thornhill, fully believing that Mark Ingestrie had perished at sea, was most anxious to fulfil his request regarding this valuable and important String of Pearls. "As early as possible he landed from the ship, taking the String of Pearls with him, and his faithful dog Hector accompanied him on shore." At this moment, Hector, who was in court, having for the second time heard his name mentioned, began to think probably that something was going on concerning him, and he set up a loud bark of defiance. The effect of this was greatly to interest some of the auditory, while it brought a smile to the faces of others. Todd turned deadly pale, and in a voice of alarm, he cried-- "Keep off the dog--keep off the dog, I say!" "Bow!--wow!--wow!" barked Hector again. "That dog," said the judge, "must be immediately removed from the court. Officers, see to it." "I beg, my lord," said the Attorney-General, "that you will allow him to remain, for I assure your lordship that he is a witness in this most important case." "A witness?" "Yes, my lord; I speak advisedly, and as a favour I hope your lordship will permit him to remain." "Will anybody keep him quiet?" "Oh, yes, your worship," cried the ostler. "I'll keep Pison like a mouse as has fainted clean away." "Who is that man, and what does he say?" said the judge. "My lord," said the Attorney-General, "he says he can keep the dog quite quiet if you will allow him to remain." "Oh, very well. Pray proceed, Mr. Attorney." The Attorney-General then resumed. "With the String of Pearls then, and the dog, which the jury have seen, Mr. Francis Thornhill went into the City to fulfil the request of Mark Ingestrie. The address he had was to Mr. Oakley, a spectacle-maker in the City, with whom Miss Oakley, who was to have the String of Pearls, resided. "Gentlemen of the jury, neither Francis Thornhill nor the String of Pearls ever reach their destination. It appears that on his route, Thornhill went into the shop of the prisoner at the bar to be shaved, and no one ever saw him come out again. The dog though was found sitting at the door of the shop, and when Todd opened his shop-door, the dog rushed in and brought out his master's hat. "Gentlemen, the captain of the ship and Colonel Jeffery, both became very anxious concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, and they made every inquiry. They questioned the prisoner at the bar, who at once admitted that he had shaved him, but stated that he had left his shop when that operation was over. The captain of the Star was compelled to go to Bristol with his ship, but Colonel Jeffery, in conjunction with a friend, pressed his inquiries about Mr. Thornhill without success. The matter appeared to be involved in the most profound mystery, and the only hope of an elucidation of it, consisted in the probability that such a valuable piece of property as the String of Pearls would be sure to turn up some day in some one's possession. Gentlemen, it did so turn up. It appeared that at Hammersmith resided a Mr. John Mundell, who lent money upon securities, and it will be deposed in evidence, that one evening the prisoner at the bar, magnificently attired, and in a handsome coach, went to this Mr. Mundell, and pawned a string of pearls for some thousands of pounds. "It is to be regretted that this Mundell cannot be brought before the jury. He is dead, gentlemen; but a confidential clerk of his, who saw the prisoner at the bar, will depose to the facts. "We thus then, gentlemen of the jury, commit the prisoner with the disappearance of Thornhill, and now we come to the strongest features of this most remarkable case. "It appears that for a considerable time past, the church of St. Dunstan's had become insufferable from a peculiar stench with which the whole of that sacred edifice appeared to be constantly filled, and it baffled all the authorities to account for it. "No one had been entombed in any of the vaults beneath the church for a considerable time, and in fact, there was no apparent reason for the frightful miasmatic odour that upon all occasions filled the edifice, and day by day got worse instead of better. Scientific men, gentlemen of the jury, were consulted with regard to this stench in the church, and various very learned theories were broached upon the subject; but no one thought of making an accurate examination of the vaults beneath the church, until Sir Richard Blunt, the well-known magistrate, privately undertook it. "Gentlemen, Sir Richard Blunt found that almost every vault was full of the fresh remains of the dead. He found that into old coffins, the tenants of which had mouldered to dust, there had been thrust fresh bodies with scarcely any flesh remaining upon them, but yet sufficient to produce the stench in the church, by the effluvia arising from them, and finding its way into the pews. In one vault, too, was found the contents of which were too horrid for description; suffice it that it contained what butchers, when speaking of slaughtered animals, call the offal. The stench in St. Dunstan's Church was no longer a mystery. "Well, gentlemen of the jury, Sir Richard Blunt persevered in his investigations, and found that there was an underground connection from exactly beneath the shaving shop of the prisoner at the bar, and the cellarage of a house in Bell Yard, Temple-bar, which was his property; and which was in the occupation of a female, named Lovett, who this day would have stood at the bar by the side of the prisoner, had she not, despite every vigilance used to prevent such an act, succeeded in poisoning herself, while in prison in Newgate. "Gentlemen of the jury, it will be shown in evidence that the way the larger portion of the flesh of Todd's victims was got rid of was by converting it into meat and pork pies upon the premises of Mrs. Lovett. "Beneath Todd's shop was found a diabolical contrivance, by which he could make any one he pleased fall through the floor upon the chair they sat on to be shaved, while an empty chair, in all respects similar, took the place of the one that had been occupied by the unfortunate victim. If the unhappy man, thus betrayed in a moment of confidence, was not killed by the fall, he would, at all events, be sufficiently stunned to become an easy prey to Sweeney Todd, when he chose to go down and despatch him. "And now, gentlemen of the jury, and you, my lord, I may be told that these wholesale murders have nothing to do with the indictment, which simply charges the prisoner at the bar with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill; but I reply that it was impossible to make apparent to the jury the mode by which Francis Thornhill came by his death, without going into these painful details. Todd's house was found crammed with property and clothing sufficient for one hundred and sixty people!" A thrill of horror pervaded the court at this announcement. "Yes, gentlemen of the jury; and among that clothing is the sleeve of a jacket, which will be sworn to as having belonged to Francis Thornhill; but we have yet more cogent evidence of the fact that Thornhill met his death at the hands of the prisoner at the bar. His hat, gentlemen, will be identified by the dog now in court. But, gentlemen, is that enough? No, the law wisely looks for the body of a murdered man; and I do not call to mind an instance of a conviction following from murder where there has not been some satisfactory identification of the remains of the murdered man. We will produce that proof. Among the skeletons found contiguous to Todd's premises, was one which will be sworn to as being that of the deceased, Mr. Thornhill. One bone of that skeleton will be produced in court, and sworn to by a surgeon who had the care of it, when once fractured on board ship, and who, from repeated examinations such a surgeon only could make, knows it well." This announcement on the part of the Attorney-General, produced an enormous amount of excitement in court, for many persons had come, prepossessed with the idea that the non-production of the dead body of the alleged murdered man would be a serious hitch in the prosecution. Todd looked up, and in a loud clear voice he cried-- "No! no!" "Yes," added the Attorney-General. "Yes. Gentlemen of the jury, that is all I have to say for the prosecution. The facts are as clear as light, and you will hear from the mouths of creditable witnesses the various particulars which it has been my duty on behalf of the prosecution to lay before you this day." CHAPTER CXXVIII. TODD'S TRIAL CONTINUES, AND GOES ALL AGAINST HIM. The Attorney-General sat down. It was quite clear now to the most superficial observer, that the case against Todd had been just picked out for convenience sake, and was one among many. From the moment that the Attorney-General had mentioned what facts he could prove, the fate of the murderer was certain to the minds of all. They looked upon him in every respect as a doomed man. Of course the remarks of the Attorney-General occupied a much greater space than we have felt that, in justice to the other portion of our story, we could give to them; but what we have presented to the reader was the essential portion of what he said. All eyes were turned upon Todd, to note how he took the statement for the prosecution; but there was little to be gleaned from his face. His eyes seemed to be wandering over the sea of faces in the court, as if he were in search of some one whom he was disappointed in not seeing. There was a pause of some few moments duration, and then the Attorney-General called his first witness, who was examined by the Junior Counsel for the prosecution. This witness's deposition was very simple and concise. "I was master of the ship, Star," he said, "and arrived in the Port of London on the day named in the indictment against the prisoner at the bar. Mr. Francis Thornhill had mentioned to me and to Colonel Jeffery that he had a valuable String of Pearls to take to a young lady, named Johanna Oakley, and he left the ship with his dog, Hector, to deliver them. I never saw him again from that hour to this. I was anxious about him, and called at the barber's shop in Fleet Street, kept by the prisoner at the bar. The prisoner readily admitted that such a person had been shaved at his shop, and then had left it, but why the dog remained he could not tell. The dog named Hector was at the door of the prisoner's house. He had a hat with him. My name is Arthur Rose Fletcher, and I am forty two years of age." "Is this the hat that you saw with the dog in Fleet Street?" The hat was produced. "Yes, that is the hat. I will swear to it." "Whose hat is it, or was it?" "It belonged to Mr. Thornhill, who wore it on the day he left the ship to go into the city with the String of Pearls." "That is all then, Mr. Fletcher, that we need trouble you with at present." The judge now interposed; and in a mild voice addressing Todd, he said-- "It is not too late for you to consent to the appointment of counsel to watch your case. I dare say some gentleman of the bar will volunteer to do so." "With the prisoner's consent," said a counsel, who was sitting at the table below the judge, "I will attend to the case." "Be it so," said Todd, gloomily. Upon this the counsel rose, and addressing the captain of the ship, who had not yet left the witness-box, he said to him-- "Mr. Fletcher, how is it that you can so positively identify this hat of the alleged murdered Mr. Thornhill, after such a space of time?" "By a remarkable flaw in the rim of it, sir. An accident occurred on board the ship, by which Mr. Thornhill's hat was burnt, and this is the same hat. When he left the ship we joked him about it, and he said that perhaps he would buy a new one in the City." "Indeed. Then he might have sold this one." "He might, certainly." "And so the dog seeing it left at some place where it was sold or given away, and not comprehending such transaction, might have taken possession of it." "Of that I can say nothing." "Very well, Mr. Fletcher. I don't think I need trouble you any further. This affair of the hat seems to fall to the ground most completely." The Attorney-General did not say a word aloud, but he whispered something to the junior, who nodded in reply. The next witness called, was John Figgs, the groom at the coach office, who had rescued Hector from Todd's malevolence. His testimony was as follows:-- "I saw a crowd of people round the door of Todd's shop, and I went over to see what it was all about. The dog as I calls Pison, but as everybody else calls Hector, was trying to get into the shop. Some one opened the door, and then he came out with a hat in his mouth, after rummaging all over the shop and upsetting no end of things. I tried to coax him away, but he would not come by no means. At last, the next day I found him very bad, and that he had been pisoned, and so I calls him Pison, and took him to the stables and got him over it." "What is it he says he calls the dog?" asked the judge, with a very perplexed look. "Pison, my lord." "But what is Pison?" "He means Poison." "Oh, is that it; then why don't he say Poison? It's very absurd for anybody to say Pison, when they mean Poison all the while." "It's all the same," said the groom. "Pison is my way, and the t'other is yourn, that's all!" "What became of the hat?" asked the junior counsel for the prosecution. "I don't know. When I found the dog, in a wery bad state indeed, it was gone." "Now, John Figgs," said Todd's counsel, "could you identify that hat again among five hundred hats like it?" "Five hundred?" "Yes, or a thousand." "Well, I should say not. It wouldn't be an easy matter to do that, I take it. I could tell you a particular horse among any lot, but I ain't so well known in the way of hats." "Is this the hat? Can you deliberately swear that this is the hat in question?" "I shouldn't like to swear it." "Very well, that will do." John Figgs was permitted to go down upon this, and it was quite evident that some faint hope was beginning to quicken in the eye of Sweeney Todd, as he found that his self-appointed counsel began to make so light of the evidence of the hat. For the moment he quite forgot what proofs were still to come to fix the deed of murder upon him. Colonel Jeffery was now called. He deposed clearly and distinctly as follows:-- "I knew Mr. Thornhill, and much regretted his loss. In company with Mr. Fletcher I went to Todd's shop to make some inquiry about him, to the effect that he had been shaved there, and had then left. I did not feel satisfied, and when Mr. Fletcher was found to be in London, I got the assistance of a friend of mine, named Rathbone, and together we prosecuted what inquiries we could. I picked up a hat from Todd's passage, and after putting myself into communication with Sir Richard Blunt, I delivered the hat to him. I have been in constant communication with Sir Richard Blunt upon the subject of this inquiry for a long time. We found that the prisoner at the bar had a sort of apprentice or errand boy in his shop, named Tobias Ragg, and we endeavoured to get some disclosures from that boy, when he suddenly disappeared. I found him again on a doorstep in the City, and he has made certain disclosures which he will repeat in evidence to the court to-day. On the 4th of last month I accompanied Sir Richard Blunt to a cellar beneath Todd's shop, and he showed me a contrivance in the roof by which any one could be let down. We took workmen with us and made certain alterations. I afterwards accompanied Doctor Steers of the ship Star to the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and I saw Doctor Steers take a bone from there." "Pray look at that hat, Colonel Jeffery. Is it the same you found at Todd's door?" "It is." "Did you mark the bone that Doctor Steers took from the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" "I did, and I may state to save trouble, that I placed upon the hat a private mark by which I am enabled to swear to it." Todd's counsel rose, and in a very respectful voice, he said-- "Did you ever see this String of Pearls, about which so much fuss is made, colonel?" "Yes; Mr. Thornhill showed it to me." "Oh. Do you know a young lady named Johanna Oakley?" "I had that pleasure." "You had? Have you not now?" "I have the honour of her acquaintance since her marriage; she is now Mrs. Ingestrie." The counsel seemed to be a little staggered by this answer, but after a moment or two, he resumed saying-- "Do you know a young lady named Arabella Wilmot?" "I did." "What, colonel, did again? Is she married?" "Yes; that young lady is now Mrs. Jeffery, my wife." The counsel had evidently intended to make some point against the colonel's evidence, which was completely destroyed by the fact of the two marriages. But he resumed the attack by changing his ground. "Colonel," he said, "do you know a boy named Tobias Ragg?" "I do. He is a resident in my house." "Will you take upon your self to swear that that boy, or lad, or whatever he may be called, is in his right senses?" "I will." "Will you swear that he was never confined in a lunatic asylum, from which he made his escape raving mad, and that since then you have not kept him to listen to his wild conjectures and dreamy charges against the prisoner at the bar?" "I will swear that he is not mad, and--" "Come, sir, I want an answer, yes or no." "Then you will not get one. Your question involves three or four propositions, some of which may be answered in the negative, and some in the affirmative; so how can you get a reply of yes or no?" "Come--come, sir. Remember where you are. We want no roundabout speeches here, but direct answers." "It is impossible to give a direct answer to such a speech as you made. Nothing but ignorance or trickery could induce you to ask such a thing." "We cannot allow such language here, sir. I call upon the court for its protection against the insolence of this witness." "The court does not think proper to interfere," said the judge, quietly. "Oh, very well. Then I am done." "But I am not," said the colonel. "I can inform you, and all whom it may concern, that the proprietor of the lunatic asylum, in which the boy, Ragg, was so unjustly confined, is now in Newgate, awaiting his trial for that and other offences, and that I have succeeded in completely breaking up the establishment." The counsel did not think proper to say anything more to the colonel, who was permitted, after firing this last shot at the enemy, to quit the witness-box. Sir Richard Blunt was the next witness called, and as his evidence was expected to be very important indeed, all attention was paid to it. There was that buzz of expectation throughout the court, which is always to be heard upon such occasions, when anything very important is about to take place, and every one shifted his place, in order the more correctly to hear what was going on. The Attorney-General himself arose to pursue the examination of Sir Richard Blunt. It was evident that the appearance of this witness roused Sweeney Todd more than anything else had done since the commencement of the proceedings. His eye lighted up, and setting his teeth hard, he prepared himself, with his left hand up to his ear, to catch every word that should fall from the lips of the man who had been his great enemy, and who had wound around him the web in which he had been caught at last. The appearance of Sir Richard Blunt was very attractive. There was always about him an air of great candour, and the expression of his features denoted generosity and boldness in a most astonishing degree. CHAPTER CXXIX. THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED. The peculiar circumstances under which Sir Richard Blunt had found out all the villany of Todd, and overtook him and Mrs. Lovett in the midst of their iniquities, were well-known to the people assembled in the court, and some slight manifestations of applause greeted him as he stood up in the witness-box. This exhibition of feeling was not noticed by the court, and the Attorney-General at once began his examination in chief. "Sir Richard," he said, "will you have the kindness to put into the form of a narration, what you have to say concerning the charge upon which the prisoner at the bar is arraigned?" "I will do so," replied Sir Richard, and then after a moment's pause, during which you might have heard a pin drop in the court, so intense was the stillness, the magistrate gave his important testimony against the now trembling wretch at the bar of that solemn court. "A considerable time ago," he said, "my attention was drawn to the circumstance that a number of persons had disappeared, who were residents about the neighbourhood of Fleet Street, and its vicinity. Such disappearances were totally and perfectly unaccountable. Not a trace could be found of very many respectable men, who had left their houses upon various objects, and never returned to them. "The most striking peculiarity of this affair was, that the men who disappeared were for the most part great substantial citizens, who were far from likely to have yielded to any of those temptations that at times bring the young and the heedless in this great City into fearful dangers. "I saw the Secretary of State upon the subject; and it was agreed that I was to have a _carte blanche_, as regarded expenses, and that I was to give nearly the whole of my time and attention to the unravelling of the mystery. It was then, that after my careful inquiry I found that out of thirteen disappearances no less than ten had declared their intention to be to get shaved, or their hair dressed, or to go through some process which required them to visit a barber. I then, personally, called at all the barber's shops in the neighbourhood, but never alone. To this fact of having some one waiting for me in the shop, I no doubt owe my life, for I have been eight times shaved and dressed by the prisoner at the bar." Todd uttered a deep groan, and looked at Sir Richard as though he would have said-- "Oh, that I had you the ninth time so much at my mercy!" There was quite a sensation, and a shudder through the court, as Sir Richard then stated how many times he had run the fearful risk of death at the hands of such a man as Todd; and then Sir Richard went on with his narration, which deeply and powerfully interested the judge, counsel, jury, and spectators. "I did not find anything suspicious in the shop itself of the prisoner at the bar; although each of these times that I was within it, I looked at it narrowly; but I did find that he always made an effort to get the person who was with me to leave the shop upon some pretext or another, which, of course, never succeeded; and then without, in the least, appearing vexed at the failure, he would go on with his shaving in the coolest possible manner. "This, however, was only suspicion, and I could take no advantage of it, unless something else developed itself likewise; but that was not long in happening. My attention was directed to the peculiar odour in St. Dunstan's Church, and from the moment that it was so, I in my own mind connected it with Sweeney Todd, and the disappearances of the persons who had so unaccountably been lost in the immediate neighbourhood of Fleet Street. In the midst of all this then, I had a formal application made to me concerning the disappearance of Mr. Francis Thornhill, who had been clearly traced to the shop of the prisoner at the bar, and never seen by any one to leave it. "From that moment I felt that it was in the prisoner's shop that the parties disappeared, but the means by which they were murdered remained a profound mystery, and I felt, that unless these means could be very distinctly proved, a conviction would be difficult. I instituted a careful search of the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's Church, and I found a secret passage communicating with the cellar of the pie shop in Bell Yard, and afterwards I found a similar passage communicating with the cellar under the prisoner's shop. "Upon reaching the latter cellar, the first object that presented itself to me was, a chair fixed to the roof by its legs. That chair I at once recognised as identically like the one in the shop, in which I had so frequently sat, and in a moment the whole truth burst upon me. The plank upon which the shaving chair rested, turned upon a centre, and could be so made to turn by a simple contrivance above, so that any unfortunate person could be let down in a moment, and the vacant or supplementary chair would come up and take the place of the one that had been above. "Prosecuting my researches, I found the skeleton of many persons in the vaults, and much putrid flesh, which fully accounted for the odour in St. Dunstan's Church. I found likewise that no meat from any butcher or salesman ever found its way to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. So upon research actuated by that fact, I found that the supply of flesh was human, and that was the way the prisoner at the bar got rid of a great portion of his victims. "Measures were taken to prevent any more murders, by some persons in my pay always following any one into the shop; and then, when the evidence was all ready by the finding and identification of Mr. Francis Thornhill's leg bone, I took measures to apprehend the prisoner at the bar. I shall, of course, be happy to answer any questions that may be asked of me." The Attorney-General then spoke, saying-- "Have you found out by what means the shaving-chair in the shop of the prisoner was prevented from falling at the moment any one sat in it?" "Yes. By a simple piece of mechanism which communicated with the parlour, he could release the swinging board or keep it firm at his pleasure. I have had a model of the whole of the apparatus and building, which will be laid before the jury. It is here in the hands of an officer." "Here you is," said Crotchet, coming forward with a large parcel in his hands, which, upon being taken from its case, was found to be an accurate representation of Todd's house, with the diabolical contrivances he had got together for the purpose of murder. The model was handed to the jury, and excited immense and well deserved commendation. "I have no further questions to ask of you, Sir Richard," said the Attorney-General; "but I am sure the court and jury cannot but feel much indebted to you for the very lucid manner in which you have given your evidence." "One moment, Sir Richard, if you please," said Todd's counsel as the magistrate was about to leave the witness box. "I will not detain you for long." "I am quite at your service, sir," said Sir Richard Blunt. "How was it then that after you felt convinced of the guilt of the prisoner at the bar, as you state that you were, although I think upon very insufficient grounds, that you did not at once arrest him? Does it not seem very strange that you permitted him for some weeks to go on just as usual?" "I did not permit him to go on just as usual. I took every precaution to prevent him from adding to the list of his offences. It is well known that a person in my situation must not act upon his own convictions of the guilt of any party. It was absolutely necessary that I should be able to bring satisfactory proof before a jury of the guilt of the prisoner at the bar, and it would have been quite premature to arrest him until I had that proof." "And pray, Sir Richard, when did you consider you had that proof?" "When the surgeon was able to swear to a portion of the remains of Mr. Francis Thornhill." "Oh, then I am to understand that you rest the case for the prosecution upon a bone?" "I do not prosecute." "But you took the prisoner into custody, sir; and am I to believe that you did so solely on account of the finding a bone in some of the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" "You can conclude so." "Oh, I can conclude so? Very well then. Gentleman of the jury, it appears that the whole case against the prisoner at the bar, my worthy and exemplary client, rests upon a bone. That will do, Sir Richard; we will not trouble you any further. Perhaps the court will stop the case, as it only rests upon a bone." "Not exactly," said the judge. The next witness was the surgeon, and his evidence was listened to with great attention. He said-- "I was in the vaults of St. Dunstan's church, and I looked over a great quantity of osteological remains. Among those remains I found a male femur." "A what, sir?" said Todd's counsel. "It would be better," said the judge, mildly, "if the witness would be so good as to give the vulgar names to what he may have to speak of, as the jury may well be excused for not being in possession of anatomical and scientific nomenclature." "I will endeavour to do so," said the surgeon. "I beg to assure the court, that it was from no feeling of pedantry that I used the scientific terms; but they are so common professionally, that they are used without thinking that they are other than the terms in common use." "That is just the way I view it," said the judge, "and the court had not the least idea of anything else. Pray go on, sir, with your evidence." "I found, then, a large quantity of human bones," said the surgeon, "in the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and among them a male thigh-bone, which I have with me." Here he produced from his great-coat pocket the bone he spoke of, wrapped up in paper, and deliberately untying the string which bound the paper to it, he handed it to the jury. One of that body, more bold than the rest, took it, but several of the jurymen shrunk from it. "Now, sir," said the Attorney-General, "can you upon your oath, without the slightest reservation, take upon yourself to say whose thigh-bone this was?" "I can. It was the thigh-bone of Mr. Francis Thornhill." "Will you state to the court and jury, the grounds upon which you arrive at that conclusion?" "I will, sir. Mr. Thornhill met with an accident of a tedious and painful nature. The external condyle or projection on the outer end of the thigh-bone, which makes part of the knee joint, was broken off, and there was a diagonal fracture about three inches higher up upon the bone. I had the sole care of the case, and although a cure was effected, it was not without considerable distortion of the bone, and general disarrangement of the parts adjacent. From my frequent examination I was perfectly well acquainted with the case, and I can swear that the bone in the hands of the jury was the one so broken, and to which I attended." "Very well, sir; that is all I wish to trouble you with." The Attorney-General sat down, but Todd's counsel rose, and said-- "Did you ever have a similar case to that of Mr. Thornhill's under your treatment?" "Never a precisely similar one." "But you have heard of such cases?" "Certainly." "They are sufficiently common, not to be positively rare and curious in the profession?" "They are not common, but still they do occur sufficiently often to lose the character of rarity." "Of course. You have no other means of identifying the bone, but by its having been fractured in the way you describe?" "Certainly not." "Then, it may be the thigh-bone of any one who has suffered a similar injury." With this remark, the counsel sat down, and the surgeon was permitted to retire. The bone was laid upon the counsel's table, and there it reposed a sad memento of poor Thornhill, and a mute but eloquent piece of evidence against the prisoner at the bar. Todd, however, did not seem to be at all moved at the sight of the relict of the murdered victim. Probably he had for too long a time been intimate with the remains of mortality, during the frightful trade he had carried on, for such a circumstance to touch him in any perceptible way. The next witness called, was another medical man, who merely corroborated the ship's-surgeon, as to the fact of the bone produced having been fractured in the way described. CHAPTER CXXX. TODD ENTERTAINS SOME HOPES OF AN ACQUITTAL. The next witness was the sexton of St. Dunstan's. "Will you state to the jury, when the last entombment took place in the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" was the question asked of him. "On the 30th. of January, five years ago," he replied, "a gentleman named Shaw, from Chancery Lane, was placed in a vault, but no one since then. The vaults were considered offensive to the living, and was not used." "Let the medical men be called again," said the Attorney-General. They were so called; and the question put to them was, as to the age of the bone produced in court. They both swore that it could not have been six months in its present condition. It had all the aspect of a fresh bone, and they entertained no sort of doubt upon the subject, but that the flesh had been roughly taken off it, and then the slight remainder had rapidly dried and decayed. This, then, was the case for the prosecution, and it will be seen that the evidence or confession of Mrs. Lovett was not at all made use of or attended to, so that even in her dying hope of doing vast injury to Todd, she failed. The case was considered to be good enough without such testimony, and the lawyers, too, were of opinion that it would not be received by the judge, even if tendered, under all the circumstances. The Attorney-General rose again, and said-- "That is the case, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for the prosecution; and we leave it in your hands to deal with as you shall think fit." Todd's counsel now rose to commence the speech for the defence, and he spoke rather ingeniously, as follows-- "My lord, and gentlemen of the jury-- "I have, upon the part of my client, the prisoner at the bar, most seriously to complain of the vast amount of extraneous matter that has been mixed up with this case. To one grain of wheat, we have had whole bushels of chaff; and gentlemen have been brought here surely to amuse the court with long-winded romances. "Gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar is clearly and distinctly charged with the murder of one Francis Thornhill, and instead of any evidence, near or remote, fixing that deed upon him, we have nothing but long stories about vaults, and bad odours in churches, and moveable floor-boards, and chairs standing on their heads, and vaults, and secret passages, and pork pies! Really, gentlemen of the jury, I do think that the manner in which this prosecution has been got up against my virtuous and pious client, is an outrage to your common-sense." Todd rather looked up at this. It was something to hear even an Old Bailey counsel call him virtuous and pious; and a gleam of hope shot across his heart that things might not be quite so hard with him after all. "This, gentlemen of the jury," continued the counsel, "is an attempt, I must say, to take the life of a man from a variety of circumstances external to the real charge to which he is called upon here to plead. Let us examine the sort of evidence upon which it has been thought proper to put a fellow-creature to this bar upon a charge affecting his life. "In the first place, we are told that a number of very respectable men went out from their various respectable houses, and never went back again. Pray, what has that to do with the death of one Francis Thornhill? Then we are told that the respectable men went to get shaved; and then that Sir Richard Blunt had a shave no less than eight times at the prisoner's shop, and yet here he is quite alive and well to give his evidence here to-day, and no one will say that Sir Richard Blunt is not a respectable man. Then we have a bad smell in the church of St. Dunstan's. Really, gentlemen of the jury, you might as well say that the prisoner at the bar committed felony, because this court was not well ventilated. "We are told, to come more particularly to the evidence, such as it is, bearing upon the case, that Francis Thornhill left a certain shop intending to go into the City to a Miss Oakley, and that on the road he went into the prisoner's shop to be shaved, and from that we are asked to infer that he was murdered there, because nobody saw him come out. Really, this is too bad! Hundreds of people may have seen him come out, and no doubt did do so, but they happened not to know him, and so just because no one was passing who could say, 'Ah! Mr. Thornhill, how do you do? I see, you have had a clean shave to-day,' the prisoner at the bar is to be declared guilty of murder. "Then we are told a long story about a bone, and that is declared to be a bone of the deceased. Gentlemen of the jury, what would you think of a man who should produce a brick, and swear that it belonged to a certain house? But this bone is to be identified on account of having been fractured, when the medical witness swears that such fractures are far from rare. "Then again, a hat said to be the hat of the deceased is sworn to, as belonging to him, because of some injury it had received. Granted that it did belong to him. No doubt he sold it in Fleet Street and bought a new one, and there is no proof that that hat produced is the same one that is said to have been taken out of the prisoner's shop. "I do think, gentlemen, that you will see upon what a string of sophistry the evidence against the prisoner at the bar rests. Who shall take upon himself to say that Mr. Thornhill is not now alive and well somewhere? We all know that persons connected with the sea are rather uncertain in their movements. But, gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar has a plain unvarnished tale to tell, which will clear him from any suspicions." At this point, the learned counsel hitched up his gown upon his shoulders, and settled his wig upon his head, as though preparing for a grand effort, and then he continued-- "Gentlemen of the jury, my client is a religious man, as any one may see by the mild and gentlemanly look of his amiable countenance. He took the premises in Fleet Street in the pursuit of his highly useful calling; and he had no more idea that there was a moveable board in his shop, and that his shaving-chair would go down with any one, than the child unborn. Is it likely that a man who could stoop to such baseness as to make money by murder would occupy himself with such a trivial employment as shaving for a penny? The deceased gentleman, Mr. Francis Thornhill, if he be deceased at all, came into my worthy client's shop to be shaved, and was, at that time, a little the worse for some small drops that he had indulged himself with, no doubt, as he came along. The prisoner at the bar did shave him; and then he said that he had to go and see a young lady, and that he should buy a new hat as he went along. The dog, about which so much has been said, came into the shop along with his master, and while the shaving was going on found out, and actually devoured, half a pound of tripe, off which the prisoner at the bar was going to make his humble dinner. "Oh! gentlemen of the jury, ask yourselves if a murderer is likely to make half a pound of tripe satisfy him for dinner! Ask your own consciences, and your own common-sense, that question. "Well, gentlemen of the jury, when he was shaved, and after my client had had to turn this dog twice out of his shop, Mr. Thornhill left and went towards Fleet Market. The prisoner watched him from his door, and actually saw him begin fighting with a porter at the top of the market; and then as another person came in to be shaved, the prisoner at the bar returned into his shop to attend to that customer, and saw no more of Mr. Thornhill. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, the dog pushed the door of the shop open, and brought in a hat in his mouth, but the prisoner turned him out again, and that is all he knows of the transaction. "Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar is well known for his benevolence and his piety. Even at a time when the bad odour in St. Dunstan's induced many of the parishioners to go elsewhere, he always attended his own church, and in the most pious and exemplary manner made the responses. I ask you as men, gentlemen of the jury, if you could do that with the consciousness that you had committed a murder? "Gentlemen, it is for my client a most unfortunate thing that a person named Lovett, who kept the pie-shop in Bell Yard, is not now in the land of the living. If she were so, there is no doubt but that she would have told some true tale of how the vaults beneath the old church connected with her shop, and so have cleared the prisoner at the bar of all participation in her crimes. "That murder has been committed in conjunction with that woman, who committed suicide rather than come forward and clear the prisoner at the bar, against whom she had a spite, there can be no doubt; but, gentlemen, it is the wrong man who now stands at this bar. The real murderer has yet to be discovered; and therefore it is that I call upon you, in the sacred name of justice, to acquit my client." With this the counsel sat down, and Todd looked positively hopeful. He drew a long breath or two, and ventured a keen glance towards the jury-box. "Do you call any witnesses," asked the junior counsel, "for the prosecution?" "No--no--no. Witnesses! Innocence is its own best safeguard." "I waive my right of reply, my lord," said the Attorney-General. Upon this, nothing remained for the judge to do but to sum up the evidence; and after arranging his notes, he proceeded to do so, in that clear and lucid style, for which some of our judges are so famous. "The prisoner at the bar, Sweeney Todd, stands charged with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. It appears that Francis Thornhill left a certain ship for the purpose of proceeding to a Miss Oakley in the City of London, with a String of Pearls, which had been confided to him to deliver to that lady by a Mr. Mark Ingestrie. "We have it in evidence, that Francis Thornhill on his route down or along the northern side of Fleet Street, went into the shaving shop, kept by the prisoner at the bar, and from that instant he is not again seen alive. The prisoner at the bar takes a String of Pearls, similar to those which were in the possession of Francis Thornhill, and raises upon them a considerable sum of money of a man named John Mundell. It appears then, that the hat of Mr. Francis Thornhill is taken from the premises of the prisoner by a dog; and it further appears, upon the clear testimony of respectable persons, that beneath the prisoner's shop is a contrivance by which people might be killed; and there or thereabouts contiguous to that contrivance, a certain bone is found, which is proved to be the thigh-bone of Francis Thornhill. "Gentlemen of the jury, the sequence of evidence by which it is attempted to bring this crime home to the prisoner at the bar, lies in a very small compass indeed. Firstly, there is the tracing of Francis Thornhill to the prisoner's shop, and his disappearance from thence. Then there is the hat found there or taken from there, and then there is the thigh-bone sworn to be that of Francis Thornhill, and certainly found in such contiguity to his premises, as to warrant a belief that he placed it there. "Gentlemen of the jury, the case is in your hands." This was a very short summing up, but the bar quite understood it to mean that the guilt of the prisoner was so clear and transparent, that it was not at all necessary for the judge to go elaborately through the evidence, but merely as a matter of form, leave the facts in evidence to the jury. And now came that awful moment to Todd, when the question of guilty or not guilty hovered on the lips of those twelve men, who were to decide upon his fate. The jury laid their heads together for a few moments only, and then they turned round and faced the court again. The clerk of the arraigns rose, and spoke-- "Gentleman of the jury. How say you? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the crime laid to his charge in the indictment?" "Guilty!" said the foreman. A cheer burst from the auditors, and the judge raised his hand, saying-- "Officers, repress this unmanly exultation that a fellow-creature is found guilty of a dreadful crime. I beg that any person so offending may be brought before me at once." The officer could not or would not find anybody so offending, but the judge's words had the effect of calming the tumult at all events, and then all eyes were turned upon Sweeney Todd, who stood in the dock glaring at the foreman of the jury, as though he had only imperfectly heard what he had said, or if he had perfectly heard him, doubting the evidence of his own senses, as regarded the real, full, and true meaning of the dreadful word "guilty!" CHAPTER CXXXI. TODD MAKES AN ATTEMPT UPON HIS OWN LIFE. In the course of a few minutes the tumult in the court was effectually suppressed, and then as it was known that the judge would sentence Todd at once, all eyes were turned upon the criminal, to note the effect which that awful moment was likely to have upon him. The judge spoke. "Sweeney Todd, you have been by an impartial and patient jury, convicted upon the clearest evidence of the murder of Francis Thornhill. Have you anything to say why sentence of death, according to the law, should not be passed forthwith upon you?" Todd did not seem to understand the question, and the Governor of Newgate repeated it to him. He started then, and glared at the judge, as in a deep hollow voice, he said-- "Death! death!--Did you say death?" "Such says the law--not I. If you have anything to say why that sentence should not be pronounced against you, now is your only time in which to say it." Todd passed his hand twice across his brow before he spoke, and then, in a vehement voice, he said-- "It is false--all false. I did not kill the man. There is a vile conspiracy against me. I say I did not do it. Who saw me--what eye was upon me? I was at chapel--at prayers, when you say among you that I did it. It is a plot--nothing but a plot from first to last. You would make me the victim of it among you. Who saw me kill him? I know nothing of hidden places in the old house. It is not true, I say. A plot--a vile plot for my destruction." "Have you finished?" said the judge. "Have I not said enough? I know nothing of it. I am a poor man, and strive to get a living as best I might, and among you now you bring a bone from some churchyard to kill me with. You swear anything--I know you all well. If the man you say I killed be really dead, I here at this moment summon his spirit from another world, to come and bear witness for me that I did not kill him!" These last words Todd yelled out in such a tone of frantic passion, that everybody looked aghast; and more than once, more than commonly superstitious spectators thought that the appeal to the beings of a supernatural world might yet be answered in some way. There was a death-like stillness in the court for some few moments, and then the Governor of Newgate in a whisper, said to Todd-- "Have you finished?" "Finished what?" he cried, in a startling tone. "Finished what?--Finished pleading for my life? Yes, I have, for I know that they have made up their minds to murder me. I have no witnesses--they are all in the grave now. That woman, Lovett, who is dead, you tell me--I cannot say if she be dead or not, she is hard to kill--that woman could exculpate me; but, as I say, my witnesses are in the grave, and there is no truth in spirits visiting this world again, or she and the man you say I murdered would appear here, and yell in your ears, all of you, that I did not do it." The judge sat quite patiently. He was evidently resolved to hear quietly what Todd chose to say. It could but occupy a little more time; and as his fate was fixed, it did not matter. "If you have finished your observations, prisoner," said the judge, "it will now be my duty to proceed to pass upon you the sentence of the law." "But I have said I did not do it. I am not guilty." "It does not lie within my power to decide that question. The jury have found you guilty, and all I have to do in my capacity here is, in accordance with that finding, to sentence you according to law. If you could have stated any legal impediment to the passing of the sentence, it would have had effect; but now it is my painful duty to--" "Hold! I will, and can state a legal impediment." "What is it?" "I am mad!" The judge opened his eyes rather wider than usual at this statement, and the jury looked at each other in wonder and amazement. Among the spectators there was a general movement, too, of surprise. "Mad!" said the judge. "Yes," added Todd, holding up his arms, "I am mad--quite mad. Do you think any other but a madman would have done the deeds with which you charge me? I either did not do them, and am saved, or I did do all these murders, the consequences of which you would heap upon my head, and am mad. What is there in the wide world would compensate a man for acting as you say I have acted? Could he ever know peace again? What is madness but an affliction of providence? and dare you take the life of a man, who has acted in a certain way, in consequence of a disease with which the Almighty has thought proper to visit him? I tell you you dare not, and that I am mad!" This speech was uttered with a vehemence that made it wonderfully effective; and at its conclusion Todd still held up his arms, and glared upon the judge with the look of one who had advanced something that was utterly and completely unanswerable. The judge leant over to the recorder, and whispered something to him, and the recorder whispered to the judge. "Mad! Mad!" shrieked Todd again. The Attorney-General now whispered something to the judge, who nodded; and then addressing Todd, he said in calm and measured tones-- "However great the novelty of a plea of insanity, put in by the party himself, may be, it will yet meet with every attention. I shall now proceed to pass sentence of death upon you; and after you are removed to the jail of Newgate, certain physicians will see you, and report upon your mental condition to the Secretary of State, who will act accordingly." Todd dropped his arms. The judge put on the black cap, and continued-- "Sweeney Todd, you have been convicted of the crime of murder; and certain circumstances, which it would have been improper to produce before this court in the progress of your trial, lead irresistibly to the belief that your life for years past has been one frightful scene of murder; and that not only the unhappy gentleman for whose murder you now stand here in so awful a position has suffered from your frightful practices, but many others. It will be a satisfaction, too, to the court and the jury to know that the woman named Lovett, who you say would and could have proved your innocence, had she been in life, made, shortly before her death, a full confession, wherein she inculpated you most fearfully." "False! False!" cried Todd. The judge took not the slightest notice of the interruption, but continued his speech-- "It is now my painful duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law, which is, that you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may Heaven have mercy upon you, for you cannot expect that society can do otherwise than put out of life one who, like yourself, has been a terror and a scourge." "Quite mad!" cried Todd. "Quite mad!" "Officers, remove the prisoner," said the judge, who was much disgusted by the attempt of Todd upon their credulity, by stating that he was mad. The Governor of Newgate laid hold of him by the arm, but Todd raised his voice again, saying-- "One moment. Only one moment. Before I leave this court, I have a great desire to say something to Sir Richard Blunt." "If Sir Richard Blunt has no objection," said the judge, "the court can have none. Is that gentleman present?" "I am here," said Sir Richard, as he made his way towards the dock, in which Todd was. "What is it you have to say to me, Sweeney Todd?" "It is for your private ear." "Then, I decline to hear it. If you have anything to say to me, say it out, and openly. I decline any private communications." "Nay, but it really interests those whom you love. Come a little closer to me, and I will speak it." "Now," said Sir Richard, as he reached the front of the dock, "speak at once, and say what it is. The court is too indulgent to you." "Is it, really!" With the rapidity of thought, Todd drew a small table knife from the breast of his apparel, and made a stab at Sir Richard's neck with it; but the magistrate had had by far too long experience with such men as Todd to be so taken at unawares, and he dropped to the floor of the court before the point of the knife reached him. The Governor of Newgate sprung upon Todd, and disarmed him in a moment. [Illustration: Todd, On His Trial, Attempts To Kill Sir Richard Blunt.] From seeing Sir Richard Blunt drop, the general impression in the court was, that he was killed, or seriously injured, by Todd; and in a moment a scene of unparalleled confusion arose. Everybody got up from their seats, and the place was full of cries. "Kill him!" cried some.--"Down with him!" shouted others.--"Hang him at once! A surgeon for Sir Richard!" Amid this Babel of confusion, Sir Richard Blunt rose again, and sprung upon the barrister's table, calling out in a loud voice that rose above every other sound-- "I am perfectly unhurt." Upon this such a cheer arose in the court, that the judge saw that it was perfectly hopeless to attempt to stop it by any ordinary means, and he only held up his hand deprecatingly. The cheer was thrice repeated, and then Sir Richard dismounted from the table, and a death-like stillness ensued in the court as the judge spoke. "How was it possible," he said, "that the prisoner at the bar could be furnished with such a weapon at a time like this?" The Governor of Newgate felt that this question was addressed to him, and he tremblingly spoke, saying-- "My lord, I have not the most distant idea upon the subject. He was searched this morning carefully before leaving his cell. It is beyond my comprehension." "My lord," said a counsel at the table, rising, "there was a very similar case about five years since, when a notorious criminal attacked a witness for the prosecution with a fork, and it appeared afterwards that as he was brought through some of the day-rooms of Newgate to the bar, he had hastily snatched it up from a table that he passed without the officers noticing him." "This is very likely a similar case," said the judge. "It may be so my lord," said the Governor. Todd yelled with rage, when he found that Sir Richard Blunt had escaped his malice. If he could but have taken his life or inflicted upon him some very serious injury, he would have been satisfied almost to have gone to death; but to fail was almost enough to drive him really mad. "Curses on ye all!" he cried; and then he burst into a torrent of such frightful invectives, that everybody shrunk aghast from it, and it is quite impossible that we should transfer it to our pages. How long he would have proceeded in such a storm, there is no knowing, had not the officers rushed upon him, and by main force dragged him from the dock and the court into the dark passages leading to Newgate. His voice was yet heard for several moments, uttering the most dreadful and diabolical curses! It may be supposed that after what had happened, the officials of the prison were not over tender in the treatment of Sweeney Todd, for they well knew that they would be some time before they heard the last of the knife business, and indeed it was a piece of gross carelessness to allow a man in Todd's situation, and such a man as Todd too, to have an opportunity of doing such very serious mischief in a moment as he might have done. There can be very little doubt, that if he had been content to do an injury to any other witness but Sir Richard Blunt, he would really have succeeded; but that personage was too wary to fall in such a way. It was not thought advisable by the prison authorities to take Todd back to the same cell from which they had brought him. It was an idea of the Governor, and by no means a bad one, that desperate criminals were caused to change their cells now and then, as it baffled and cut up completely any combination they might in their own minds have made for an attempted escape; so Todd found himself in a new place. "Why is this?" he said. "Why am I placed here? This cell is darker than the one I before occupied." "It's quite light enough for you," growled a turnkey. "Yes," added one of the officers who had been in court. "Folks who are keen and bright enough to pick up knives, and nobody see 'em, mustn't have too much light in their cell. Oh, won't it be a mercy when you are settled next Monday morning." "The fetters hurt me," said Todd. "Oh, they are too light," said the officer; "and for your satisfaction, I have to tell you that the Governor has ordered you another pair." At this moment a couple of blacksmiths came into the cell, carrying with them the heaviest set of irons in the whole prison, which the Governor had determined Sweeney Todd should be accommodated with. Without a word they proceeded to knock off the fetters that he wore. "So you are not contented," said Todd, "to cage me as though I were some wild animal, but you must load me with irons?" "And a good job too." "And you think to hang me?" "Rather!" "Then thus I disappoint you, and be my own executioner!" As he spoke, he snatched up one of the smith's hammers, and made a blow at his own forehead with it, which if it had taken effect, would unquestionably have fractured his skull, and killed him instantly; but one of the officers just managed to strike his arm at the moment and confuse his aim, so that although he did strike himself, it was not with anything like sufficient force to do himself any hurt. The hammer was wrested from him in a moment, and he was thrown to the floor of the cell, and the heavy irons placed upon him. [Illustration: Todd's Second Attempt At Suicide In The Condemned Cell At Newgate.] CHAPTER CXXXII. TODD MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE IN NEWGATE, AND TRIES AN ESCAPE. In the course of a quarter of an hour more, Todd was left alone. The irons he wore weighed upwards of a hundredweight, and it was with some difficulty that he managed to get up, and sit upon the stone seat that was in the cell. It was close upon evening, and the cell was getting very dark indeed, so that the walls, close as they were together, were only very dimly discernable indeed. Todd rested his head upon his hands, and thought. "Has it then really come to this?" he said. "Am I truly doomed to die? Oh, what a dreadful thing it is for me now to begin to doubt of what I always thought myself so sure, namely, that there was no world beyond the grave. Oh, if I could only still please myself with an assurance of that! But I cannot--I cannot now. Oh, no--no--no." He started, for the cell door opened, and the turnkey brought him in his food for the night, which he placed on the floor. It was not then the custom to sit up with condemned prisoners. "There," said the man, "it's more than you deserve. Good-night, and be hanged to you. Here's the sheriff been kicking up the devil's delight in the prison about that knife affair." "I hope he will discharge you all," said Todd. "Do you?" "Oh, yes. I wish you had all one neck only, and I a knife at it. With what a pleasant gash I would force it in--in--in!" "Well, you are a nice article, I must say." "Bring me two candles, and pens, ink, and paper." The turnkey stared with astonishment. "Anything else," he said, "in a small way that you'd like? Buttered rolls, perhaps, and a glass of something good? Perhaps a blunderbuss would suit you? I tell you what it is, old fellow, it ain't very often that anybody goes out from here on a Monday morning to be scragged, that we don't feel a little sorry for them, but I don't think we shall any of us cry after you. You may sleep or do what you like now until to-morrow morning, for you have got it all to yourself. Two candles, indeed! Well I'm sure--what next? Two candles!--Oh, my eye!" The turnkey banged shut the door of the cell, and barred and bolted it in a passion; and then away he went to the lobby, which was the great gossiping place, to relate the cool demands of Sweeney Todd. Once more the prisoner was alone. For some time he set in silence, and then he muttered-- "All the night to myself. He will not visit this cell until the morning. A long--long night; many hours of solitude. Well, I may chance to improve them. It was well in that scuffle for the hammer, when they threw me down, that I contrived to grasp a handful of tools from the smith's basket, and hid them among my clothing. Let me see what I have--ay, let me see, or rather feel, for by this light, or rather by this darkness, I can only judge of them by the feel." The tools that Sweeney Todd had been clever enough to abstract from the smith's basket, consisted of two files and a chisel. He ran his fingers over them with some feeling of satisfaction. "Now," he muttered, "if the feeling to die were upon me, here are the means; but it has passed away, and even with these small weapons, and in a cell of Newgate, I do not feel quite so helpless as I was. It will be time to die if all should fail else, but yet if I could only for a time live for revenge, what a glorious thing it would be! How I should like yet to throttle Tobias. What a pleasure it would be to me to hold that girl by the throat, who so hoodwinked me as to impose herself upon me for a boy, and hear and see her choking. How I should like to see the blood of Sir Richard Blunt weltering forth while his colour faded, and he expired gradually!" Todd ground his teeth together in his rage. "Yes," he added, while he moved with difficulty under the weight of his iron. "Yes, I have bidden adieu to wealth and the power that wealth would have given me. I have carried on my life of crimes for nothing, and in blood I have waded to accomplish only this world of danger that now surrounds me--to give to myself the poor privilege of suicide; but yet how fain I would live for vengeance!" His chains rattled upon his limbs. "Yes, for revenge. I would fain live for revenge. There are some five or six that I would like to kill! Yes, and I would gloat over their death-agonies, and shriek in their ears, 'I did it! I, Sweeney Todd, did it!'" The fetters entangled about his legs, and threw him heavily to the floor of the cell. He raved and cursed frightfully, until he was too much exhausted to continue such a course, and then he sat upon the floor, and with one of the files he began working away assiduously at the iron, in order to free himself from those clogs to his movements. As he so worked, he heard the prison clock strike ten. "Ten," he said. "Ten already. Of a truth I did not think it was so late. I must be quick. Others have escaped from Newgate, and why should not I? The attempt will and shall be made; and who knows but that it may be successful? A man may do much when he is resolved that he will do all he wishes or die." Todd filed away at the chains. "Who will stop me," he said, "with the feeling that will possess me? Who will say, 'I will stop this man, or he shall kill me?' No one--no one!" The file was a good one, and it bit fairly into the iron. In the course of a quarter of an hour Todd had one wrist at liberty, and that was a great thing. He was tired, however, of the comparatively slow progress of the file, and he made a great effort to break the chains from his ankles; but he only bruised himself in the attempt to do so without succeeding. With a feeling of exhaustion, he paused. "Oh, that I could find an opportunity of exerting so much force against those whom I hate!" he said. At this moment he fancied he heard a slight noise not far from him, and every faculty was immediately strained to assist in listening for a repetition of it. It did not come again then. "It must have been imagination," he said, "or some sound far off in the prison conveyed by echoes to this spot. I will not suffer myself to be alarmed or turned from my purpose. It is nothing--nothing. I will use the file again." He commenced now upon the other wrist, and by the little experience he had gathered from his practice at the one which he had already filed in two, he got on more quickly with this one. He found that a long light movement of the file did more work than a rapid grating process. In much less time, then, this other wrist manacle was off, and he could lift up both his arm in freedom. "This is something," he said, "Nay, it is much, very much indeed. I feel it, and accept it as a kind of earnest of success. Where is the man--where are the two or three men, that will dare to stand in my desperate way, when I have one of these files in each hand, and are free from fetters. They will need be mad to do it. Such an amount of zeal is not to be found. No, they will step aside and let me pass." It now became a matter of great importance with him, to get the other two fetters that bound his ankles undone. He felt as if he should go mad, if he did not quickly release himself from them now. Sitting upon the floor of the cell, he set to work; but he found that the file he had been using did not bite very well. The work it had done already had dulled its powers; but the other was fresh and keen, and with it he made great progress. The left-hand shackle was entirely removed, and now only by his right ankle was he connected with that hundredweight of iron, which held him to the ground. "I shall be free!" he muttered. "I shall be free! Did they think to hold me with these chains? Ha! ha! No. It may be, that there is a dark spirit of evil that aids men, such as I am; and if it be so, I will consent to be wholly his, if--" Todd started, for the same noise that had before come upon his ears, now attracted him. It was plainer though than before; and at the moment he thought that it must be in his cell. A cry of terror rose to his lips, but he smothered it in the utterance, and bent again all his faculties to listen. The sound did not now pass away like an echo as it had done before, but it went on steadily, and he could trace it as localising itself against one of the walls of the cell. It was a profound mystery. He could not make out what it meant. It was a strange dull scraping noise. At times he thought it was some animal in the cell--a rat, probably; but then the sound was too continuous, and although he stamped once, and said 'Hush!' several times, it steadily continued. The darkness in the cell was now so intense, that it was in vain to attempt to pierce it. Any straining of the eyes only peopled the palpable black atmosphere with all sorts of strange shapes, conjured up by the imagination; so Todd was glad to close his eyes after a few moments' experience of that character. "I will know what this is," he said. "I must know what this is, and I will know!" He held out his arms, and he slowly advanced towards the side of the cell from whence the sound came. "Speak," he said, "if you are mortal, speak. If immortal, I fear you not. I am now past all such terrors. You can but kill me." His hands touched the cold stone wall; and then he felt it from the floor upwards, but nothing but the chill surface of the stones was perceptible; and yet the scraping noise continued, and at last he felt convinced that it came from the other side of the wall. Now he did not know what to think, for he had no means of knowing what was upon the other side of that wall. It might be a corridor of the prison. It might be a room belonging to one of the officials, who was about some work that, if explained, would not appear singular at all. He placed his ear to the exact spot from whence the noise came, and he listened attentively. As he so listened, Todd began to have other notions about that noise, and for more than once the square block of stone, against which his ear reposed, shook in its place. "It must be a cell like this," he said, "that is on the other side of the wall, and that, no doubt, is some prisoner at work, trying to effect his escape. If so, it is fortunate. He must be a bold man, and we can help each other." Still Todd hesitated what he should do, notwithstanding the hypothesis regarding the noise he heard appeared so very probable. He was resolved to spend a little more time in listening, for he felt that once to commit himself would possibly be to spoil his own chances of escape. He kept his ear to the stone of the wall, then which shook more and more each passing moment. Suddenly he heard a voice. In a drawling accent, it sang a few lines of a popular thieves' song-- "The beak looked big, and shook his head, Heigho, the beak! He wished such family cares were dead, That honest folks might get their bread, Heigho, the beak! The family cove, he grinned a grin, Heigho, the cove! Says he, to prig I think no sin; For sure a Romany must have tin: Heigho, the cove!" "It must be all right," thought Todd, "or he would not sing that song; but what good it can do him to get from his own cell into this, I cannot imagine. He would be equally confined here as there, and all his labour thrown away. But together, we may do something. I will speak to him. Yes, I think I will speak to him." Todd still waited and lingered before he gave any intimation of his presence and knowledge of what was going on, and then the song ceased, and by the renewed vigour with which the tenant of the next cell worked at the stone, it would seem that he had got very impatient at the length of time it took him. Suddenly, the stone, which was about a foot square, shook so, that Todd withdrew from it, thinking that it would come out of its place altogether; and as it was evidently the object of the prisoner at the other side to push it through into Todd's cell, he thought it better to stand on one side, and let it come. Suddenly, with a crash, it fell through, and then Todd spoke, for the first time, to the prisoner. CHAPTER CXXXIII. THE PROGRESS OF THE OPERATIONS TO ESCAPE FROM NEWGATE. "Who's there? Who are you?" cried Todd. "The deuce!" said a voice, from the adjoining cell. "Sold at last, after all my trouble. Confound you, why didn't you speak before, and save me the last hour's work?" "What do you mean?" cried Todd. "I am a desperate man. Do not tamper with me. Do you belong to the prison, or do you not?" "I belong to the prison! I should think not. Don't you?" "Oh, no--no--no--no." "Why, you don't mean to say that you are a prisoner?" "I am, indeed, and condemned to die." "All's right then. Bravo! This is capital. I thought I was in the end cell, do you know, and that by working through the wall by the assistance of Providence always--Bah! I can't get out of the old trade. I mean to say, that I thought I was working through a wall that would have taken me into one of the corridors of Newgate, and then there would have been a chance of getting off, you know." "I do not know, and did not know," said Todd; "but if there be really any chance of escape, I am a desperate man, and will risk anything for it. Only say that you will help me." "Help you? Of course I will. Do you think I am in love with these cold walls? No, I will get a light in a moment, and we can then have a look at each other. Are you in fetters?" "I was, but I have a file, and have succeeded in freeing myself from them completely. Are you?" "Yes, but I have muffled them with some pieces of my clothing that I have torn up for the purpose, and please the Lord they will make no noise." Todd was rather amazed at the religious expressions of the other prisoner; but he forbore to make any remark concerning them, and as something had been said about getting a light, he resolved to wait patiently until it was procured, when he would be able to see who it was that chance had so very strangely thrown him into companionship with. "You see," added the other prisoner, "a religious lady left me some tracts, and as I told her they did not allow light here, she was kind enough to smuggle me in some phosphorous matches, in case in the night I should wish to read." "Very kind of her," said Todd. "Oh, very. Let us praise the--Bother, I shall never get out of the habit of chaunting, I do believe." In a moment, now, a faint blue light illumed the cell adjoining to Todd's, and as the religious lady had been kind enough to bring some little wax ends of candles, the prisoner lit one, and placing it upon the ledge left by the displaced brick in the wall, he put his face close to it, and looked at Todd. Todd did the same thing, and looked at him. "Humph," said the prisoner. "They are not going to hang you for your beauty, whoever you are, my friend." "Nor you," said Todd, who was a little stung by this cool remark, "for I must say a more villanous looking countenance than yours I never saw in all my life." "Then you certainly never looked in a glass." "Hark you, my friend," said Todd. "If we are to aid each other in getting out of Newgate, it will not be by railing at each other through a square hole in the wall of our cells. We had better leave all remarks about our looks to other folks, and at once set to work about what is much more important, namely, breaking our way out of this most detestable of all places." "Truly," said the other; "you speak wisdom, and the Lord--Pho! The deuce take it, when shall I get rid of the cant of the conventicle? My dear sir, you see before you a man who has been a great victim." "What is your name?" "Lupin they used to call me. The Reverend Josiah Lupin." "Ah," said Todd. "I heard something of your case. I believe you murdered a woman, did you not?" "Why, my friend," said Mrs. Oakley's old acquaintance, for indeed it was no other, "I don't mind confessing to you, that a woman met with a slight accident at my place, and they say I did it. But now that I have been so candid, pray who are you?" "They call me Todd." The Reverend Mr. Lupin screwed up his mouth, and whistled. "Humph," he said. "The religious lady only this morning told me all about you. You used to polish the people off in your barber's shop, and then make them into pork pies, I believe?" "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "And you had a charming assistant in the shape of a lady, named Lovett, I have been informed, who used to help you to scrape the bones of the poor devils who had only just slipped in for a shave, and by no means expected such a scrape." "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "Stop a bit," said Mr. Lupin, "don't come that sort of laugh again. It don't sound at all pleasant. Well, I think we may manage to get out of Newgate, do you know, by a little hard work, if you are willing; but mind you, I don't want to be made a pork or a veal pie of, if you please." "I never ate them myself," said Todd, "so there is no temptation; but I sincerely hope, my friend, that you do not believe one word of the many calumnies that have been heaped upon my character?" "Oh, dear no; and you, too, are well aware that I am the most falsely accused and innocent clergyman that ever lived." "Perfectly." "My dear, sir, you are a very reasonable man, and I don't see any reason on earth that we should not be capital friends from this moment. Just help me to move another of these stones and I shall be able to creep through the opening into your cell." Todd very kindly assisted the Reverend Mr. Lupin, and in the course of a few minutes, another of these large square blocks of stone that formed the wall of the cell being removed, he was able to creep through the aperture with the assistance of Todd. "All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend, I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your fetters, and git rid of mine." "Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is everything." "It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything until I am free of these confounded irons." They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like Todd, he stood so far free from restraint. "Now," he said, "I have some first-rate picklocks, and if providence--Tush! tush! I mean if we are lucky, we shall get on capitally. The next thing we have to do is, to get out of here, and by far the shortest way is to work through the wall. Have you any other tools beside the files, for they are not much use now to us?" "Yes, a chisel." "A chisel? Oh, my friend, you are indeed a wonderful man. A chisel? What may not be done with a chisel! A strong, good chisel, too. Oh, if we do not chisel our way out of Newgate now, it will be very hard indeed. Come, you shall see an old hand at work. Perhaps you have not had much experience at prison-breaking?" "Certainly not," said Todd. "Well, this will be a good lesson to you. Now you will see how nicely I will get one of these old square blocks of stone out of its place." Todd smiled grimly. Perhaps he thought he could have given the Reverend Josiah Lupin a good lesson in some things; but at that time he was only too happy to meet with a companion who promised such great things in the way of immediate escape. Certainly Mr. Lupin showed great dexterity in handling the chisel, with which he had been furnished by Todd; and in a much less space of time than any one would have thought the work could have been performed in, he had loosened the stone in the wall that he wished to dislodge. "Let us both push it," he said, "and we shall get it through easily." "But its fall will make an alarm," said Todd. "Oh, no. The distance is too short, and it will go down easy. Now for it." They pressed upon the stone both of them, and by a skilful joggling movement, Lupin got it to move along until it was beyond its centre of gravity, and then, with a heavy bump, down it went on the other side. They both now paused for some moments, and spoke not a word, for they were anxious to discover if the fall of the stone into the passage beyond the cells had made any noise sufficient to attract the attention of the prison officials. All was still. "It's as right as possible," said Lupin. "They are asleep, the greater part of them. The pretended vigilance in this place, and the sleepless watchfulness, is all a fudge. Turnkeys, and police officers, and Governors of Newgate, are but flesh and blood, and they will take things easy if they can." "You are quite a man of the world," said Todd. "Oh, yes; I have seen a little of it. But I say, Master Todd, deal candidly with me now. Have you not some secret hoard of cash, upon which we can make ourselves comfortable, when we get out of this mousetrap? I have not a penny piece; but you ought to have something, I should say. I don't mean to say but that I had money, but it was not hidden, and the police have got hold of that. If I were acquitted, they kindly said they would let me have it. But if found guilty, of which they did not entertain the smallest doubt, I could not want it." "Curses on them!" said Todd; "they had enough of mine to have made us both rich men--very rich men. Oh, that I had been off a month ago!" "Don't fret about that. We are all in the hands of a gracious provi--Psha! I am forgetting again. Whatever you do, Todd, in this world, don't turn parson to a parcel of old women, for the phraseology will stick to you as long as you live, if you do. But come--tell me now. You do know where to lay your hand upon money?" Todd thought that it would be very indiscreet to say no to this little proposition, so with a nod and a smile he replied-- "Only a few hundreds. That's all." "A few hundreds? That is a pretty good all, and will do very well indeed, my dear friend. Is it an understanding that we go halves?" "Quite, quite." "Then, if we don't get out of the stone-jug pretty soon, it will be a strange thing to me. Now let us work away like bricks, and we will show them that two determined men can laugh at their bolts, and bars, and stone walls." "How confident you are," said Todd. "You surely forget that we must go through much, before we can see the outside of the walls of this dreadful place. I wish I could be as sure of the result as you are, or as you seem to be." "It is one-half the battle to make sure; there goes another of the stones. Now follow me through this opening in the wall. It leads to a passage from which we can reach one of the smaller inner courts; and from that we shall get on through the chapel to the Governor's house, and if we can't get out there, it's a bad case." Mr. Lupin, who had, in a great measure, now that he no longer had any sanctified character to keep up, thrown of his timid nature, ventured to scramble through the opening in the wall, and he assisted Todd to follow him. [Illustration: The Two Murderers, Todd And Lupin, Escaping From The Cell Of Newgate.] They both now stood in a narrow vaulted passage, and then they paused again for several minutes to listen if any noise in the prison gave intimation that any one was stirring; but everything was perfectly still, and so death-like was the silence, that, but that they well knew to the contrary, they might have supposed that they were the only living persons within that gloomy pile of building. The little bit of wax candle that had been brought to Lupin by the pious lady, and which he had lit in his own cell, for the purpose, at first, of having a good look at Todd, was now upon the point of going out; but he was very well provided with wax candle-ends, and he speedily lighted another, as he said in a tone of irony-- "The sheriffs will write a letter of threats to the pious lady, when they find how much she aided us in escaping." "They ought," said Todd. "We will pray for her." Lupin laughed, as he with a light step now crept along the vaulted passage, and reached a massive door at the end of it, up and down which he passed the light several times. Then he muttered to himself-- "Good! Only the lock, and it will need to be a good one if it resist me. I used to be rather an adept at this sort of thing." "Then you are," said Todd, "a professional--" He paused, for he did not like to say thief; but Lupin himself added the word, cracksman, and Todd nodded. "Yes," added Lupin, "I was a cracksman, but I got known, so I thought the chapel dodge would suit me, and it did for a time, and would for some time longer, but that the little accident of which you have heard something took place in the chapel, and that idiot Mrs. Oakley found me out. Ah! you never after all can be a match for a crafty old woman. They will have you at some moment when you least expect it. She regularly sold me." CHAPTER CXXXIV. THE ESCAPE, AND THE RETREAT IN CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. While Mr. Lupin talked, he did not lose time, but he was working away at the lock of the door at the end of the passage. After a few moments there was a crackling sound, and then the lock yielded to the exertion of Mr. Lupin, and went back into its home. The door, with a wheezing sound, slowly opened. "All's right," whispered Lupin. "The less we say now, Todd, the better, for our voices will go farther now that we shall be clear of this passage. Come on. Follow me!" They both emerged into the night air; and crouching down, Lupin ran along the little yard in which they were, and which was not above half-a-dozen yards across. He paused at a door, and then suddenly starting away from it, he muttered-- "It is not this one. Ah! this is it! Stand quite close up against the wall, and then there will be the less chance of any one seeing you. I must work away at this door." "Where does it lead to?" whispered Todd. "To the chapel." Todd screwed himself up into the smallest space that he possibly could against the wall, close to the door, while Lupin tried to open it. That door for more than ten minutes baffled him. Probably that fact was owing in some degree to the circumstance of his being in the dark, for of course, before emerging from the vaulted passage, he had thought it prudent to extinguish the little light he had. "It baffles you," said Todd, in a voice of great anxiety. "As yet, yes. No. It is open." Todd breathed more freely. "Come in," said Lupin. "Come in. We have done wonders as yet, my friend, and we will do wonders yet, I think, if Providence only looks with a gracious--There I go again. When shall I forget that chapel, I wonder?" "It don't matter," said Todd. "I used to find a little religion answer very well myself." "Not a doubt of it. Now, then, that the door is fast, we may muster up a light again." With the aid of one of his matches, Lupin again illuminated the little wax end of the candle, and then Todd found that he was in a small kind of vestibule from which a green baize door led directly into the chapel. In fact, that was the entrance by which the lower class of offenders confined in Newgate were brought to the chapel on Sundays. The little building looked much larger by the faint light of that one candle than it really was, and Todd glared around him with a feeling of terror, as he had not felt since he had left his cell. Perhaps, after all, a good deal of that was owing to the low temperature of the chapel, that lent a chill to his system. "Look at that seat," said Lupin, pointing to one. "Do you know what it is?" "Only a seat," said Todd. "Is there anything particular in it?" "Nothing, except the kind of interest it might have for you, as being the one upon which the condemned prisoners sit, on the Sunday previous to their execution, that is all." Todd turned aside with a shudder. "Enough," he said. "Enough. That is enough. Let us get on, and not waste time in idle talking about such idle matters as these. I do not feel very well." "And I," said Lupin, "would give a few bright pieces out of those hundreds that you have hidden, for a glass of brandy. But that's not to be thought of now. This is a door that leads from the chapel to the Governor's house, through which the parson, and the Governor and Sheriffs come on the occasion of Sunday service here. It is by that we must attempt an escape in this place." Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Lupin looked like two spectres, as they crept noiselessly through the chapel of Newgate; but Lupin appeared to know perfectly well the route which it was necessary for him to take, and he soon went up three small steps, and applied his ear to the panel of a door to listen, as he said-- "Through here lies our route." "Is all still?" said Todd. "Quite. I don't believe, except ourselves, there is any one up and about in Newgate except a couple of lazy fellows in the vestibule; but we are too far off them to be in any danger of their overhearing us. This door will not give any trouble. Ah!" "What is the matter?" "It is bolted on the other side." "Then we are foiled?" "Not at all. It will take us a little time to unbolt it, that's all. Hand me the chisel." Todd handed it to him; and then holding the light for Lupin, the latter set to work upon the panelling of the door, to cut away sufficient of it to enable him to get his head through, to draw back the bolts, one of which was at the top of the door and another at the bottom of it. The door, though, was not built for strength, for it was scarcely imagined that it would ever be attacked, so that the panelling was only of an ordinary character; and as the chisel was a good one, and Mr. Lupin was tolerably expert in its use, the chips from the wood soon began noiselessly to fall about him. He worked in a circle, so that when he should get fairly through the panel, there would be quite space enough for him to get his arm through, and unfasten both the bolts; and this he completed in about ten minutes. "I should never have got on without you," said Todd. "The only notion I had of the affair, was to try and fight my way out of the prison, and if I fell in doing so, I was no worse off than I should be on Monday morning--or, indeed, rather better, for I could not endure the agony of waiting for death." "They would not have killed you." "They must." "Nay, they will go through fire and water here, and suffer anything, rather than that a man should escape the gallows. They would have flung themselves upon you, and overpowered you by numbers, and on Monday morning, if you had a breath of life left in you, you would have been dragged out to death." Todd shuddered. "And you so innocent, too," added Lupin. "But it is the innocent that in this world, verily, are chastened alway." "You are getting into your old habit of preaching again," said Todd, roughly. "So I am. I am much obliged to you, my friend, to put me in mind of it. Very much obliged. I was for a moment preaching; but here is the door open, and now I beg that you will tread as though you trod upon a mine, for we do not know what persons in this portion of this confounded building may be upon the alert." "Oh, that we were only in the open air!" said Todd. "Hush! hush!" The villain Lupin, almost as bad in his way as Todd was in his, now shaded the little light with his hands, and crept on slowly and cautiously, until he reached the staircase, which was nicely empanelled, and up that he slowly took his way. Before he got to the top of it, he blew out the light, and waiting there until Todd was close to him, he said, in the smallest possible whisper-- "Follow me, and be careful, I am afraid the light might gleam through some key-hole, and betray us. Come on, and recollect that a slip or a stumble may be fatal. Think that the rope is about your neck." "I will," said Todd. "I will. I almost seem to feel it actually. Oh, yes, I will be very careful." "Hush! hush! Are you mad to go on talking so?" Todd said no more, and Lupin crept on until he got right to the top of the stairs. Then holding by a balustrade that was continued along the landing, he reached the head of another flight of steps, which led directly down to the hall or passage of the Governor's house. Lupin was terribly afraid that Todd would come upon these second stairs at unawares, and stumble down some of them, so he waited at the head of them, until Todd touched him, and then he whispered the one word, "Stairs." "Yes," replied Todd, and then Lupin commenced the descent, followed by his trembling companion, and for the matter of that, Lupin himself shook now like an aspen leaf. The steps were fourteen in number, and then, by the feel of a mat at the foot of them, Lupin was satisfied that he had actually gained the hall of the Governor's house. Todd was close behind him. "Stop!" whispered Lupin, and Todd stopped as suddenly as though he had been some piece of machinery that could be in a moment arrested in its progress. Lupin well knew now that without a light it would be folly to attempt opening the door of the Governor's house, which, as a matter of course, was well secured; and very reluctantly he lit another match, and ignited the wax candle-end again. He placed Todd in such a position on the mat at the foot of the stairs, that his bulky tall form acted as a screen against the rays of the light ascending the staircase, and then, with something of his old nervousness and abject fear of manner and expression, he narrowly scrutinized the door. "Curses on all these precautions!" he muttered. "We may be detained here until morning." In good truth, the door of the Governor's house was very well fastened up, and Mr. Lupin might well feel a little staggered at the sight of it. A chain that was up across it, he easily removed, and the bolts offered no obstacles; but what was the most serious consisted of a small, but exquisitely made lock that was on the door, and the key of which, no doubt, at such an hour was under the Governor's pillow. Todd at that moment would have given anything to be able just to say-- "How are you getting on?" but in such a place, with, for all he knew to the contrary, the Governor of Newgate within a dozen yards of him, he dared not open his lips. And now Lupin brought all his old skill to bear upon that one little lock upon the Governor's door, and yet it resisted him. One five minutes' attempt to pick it was to him pretty conclusive evidence that it was not to be done. He had the chisel in his pocket, and in despair he inserted it between the door and the post. It broke short off by the handle. Lupin uttered a groan, which was echoed by Todd, and then they both stood glaring at each other in solemn silence. Todd crept towards Lupin, and leaning forward he whispered faintly-- "It can't be done?" "No," said Lupin, "that lock stops us." "Lost--lost!" said Todd. "We are lost, then?" "Hush. Let me think. The key of this lock is with the Governor, of course. Now, Todd, you are a man of strong nerves, you know, or else it would have been quite impossible for you to have gone through life in the way you have done. What do you say to going and trying to get the key?" "I--I?" "Yes, to be sure. I have, up to this moment, you know, done all the work, and if this lock had not baffled me, I would have done the remainder cheerfully; but could you not take one of these files--the end of it is very sharp--and persuade the Governor to give up the key?" "Kill him, you mean?" "You may call it killing." "If I thought it could be done with anything like a certainty of result, I would make no more of the life of the Governor than--than--" Todd was at a loss for a simile, and Lupin helped him out of the difficulty by saying-- "Giving a man a clean shave for one penny, or eating a veal pie." Todd nodded. "Now, hark you," continued Lupin, speaking in the same very low whisper, indeed, that he had conducted the conversation in. "It is quite a maddening thing, you see, to find that there is nothing between us and liberty but this door. Every moment is of the greatest possible importance. Will you do it?" "Are you mad?" "No. I am quite sane, I confess, though that I have not the pluck to do it. You ought to be a man of courage. What is it to you, if you were to murder everybody in this house, so that you got this door open? That is the great object, the only object; and to you, you know, three or four more deaths will not make much consequence." "My friend," said Todd, with a sickly smile, "I am afraid you believe the calumnies that have been heaped upon my innocent head. But, if nothing can be done, but what you say, I will make the attempt. There are two files, though, and they are equally sharp. Do you take one, and I will take the other." "You want me with you?" "I do, most, surely." "Well--well; if it must be so, it must. I will come. Let us set about it at once, and--" Before Mr. Lupin could say another word, there came a sharp rap at the door from the outside with the knocker; and so sudden and so utterly unexpected was the sound at such an hour, that Lupin and Todd fell on each other in their hurry to escape, they knew not where. CHAPTER CXXXV. THE CHASE THROUGH SMITHFIELD, AND THE MURDER. They were afraid to speak, were those two murderers, as they now stood trembling in the passage of the Governor's house in Newgate. They could only be conscious of each other's presence by the hard breathing which their fears gave rise to, and as Lupin had extinguished the little light, the most intense darkness reigned around them. Bang--bang--bang! went the knocker upon the door of the Governor's house again. "Lost--lost!" said Todd. If Lupin was not the most hardened villain of the two, he was certainly at that moment the most courageous. He aimed a blow at Todd in the dark to give effect to his admonition for silence; but it did not take effect. Todd, however, was quite still now, and in the course of a few moments the knock at the door was repeated a third time. Then Lupin whispered to Todd-- "Keep yourself up as close against the wall as you can. Some one will come to the door, and you can throttle whoever it is, while I take the key of the little lock from them." "Yes," said Todd, faintly. The word had hardly escaped his lips, when a flash of light from above came streaming down into the passage, and from each side of the door, close to the passage wall, against which they screwed themselves into as small a compass as possible, they saw a man approaching. The person who came to answer the knock at the Governor's door was evidently only just roused from sleep, for he was looking heavy, and yawning as he came. The candle he carried swayed to and fro in his hand, and it was very unlikely that he would see anything that was not remarkably close to his nose. "Ah, dear me" he yawned. "Can't people come at reasonable times? Who'd be a Governor's clerk, I wonder, to--ah, dear!--get up at all hours of the night in Newgate. Ah, heigho!" Mr. Lupin wanted to say only two words to Todd, and those were "Kill him;" but he was afraid even to whisper them, lest Todd should not be equally discreet in reply. He knew he could whisper softly enough; but he thought his companion might not be so accomplished in that particular, so he was silent. Before the individual who had announced himself to be the Governor's clerk could get into the passage down the flight of stairs, the person on the outside of the door got impatient, and executed another rather startling rap. "Oh, bother you," said the clerk. "I only wish you were at the bottom of the Thames. I'm coming, stupid; don't you see the light through the little bit of glass at the top of the door, that--ah, dear! how gapish I am--you keep hammering away there, as if you thought we were all deaf or stupid?" The clerk was evidently wakening up, but as he carried the light right in front of his eyes, he had not the smallest chance of seeing either Mr. Todd or Lupin, and in that way he reached the passage, or hall it might be called from courtesy. To be sure, how could he for one moment suspect to find two of the most notorious criminals in all Newgate snugly hidden in the hall? We must consider how very improbable such a thing was, before we blame the clerk for any imprudence in the matter. The grand object of Lupin, who kept his sharp little ferret-looking eyes upon the clerk as he descended, was to note if he had a key with him at all; if he had, there could be no doubt of its being the key of the little lock that had so baffled his, Lupin's, attempts to open it, upon the door of the Governor's house. To his great satisfaction he saw that, dangling from the clerk's finger by a piece of tape, he did carry a key, and Lupin at once naturally concluded it was the one he wanted. "Only just let me find out now," said the clerk, "that this is something about nothing, and won't I make a riot about it in the morning. To rouse a fellow out of his bed, it is really too bad, as if any kind of thing could not be just as well done in the day time as in the middle of night. Now stupid, who are you?" These last words he addressed to the person outside, by placing his mouth close to the keyhole. A voice responded something, the only recognisable word of which was "donkey." "What do you say?" cried the clerk, again. "You are--a--a--donkey, do you say?" "No," said the voice from the outside through the key-hole. "But you are." "Oh, am I, you infernal vagabond? I'll soon let you know what's what, I will, you rascal." With this the clerk began to open the door, and the moment he got the key in the little lock, so that Mr. Lupin was thoroughly aware it was the one he wanted, he sprung upon the unfortunate clerk, and dashing his head against the door, which was heavily plated with iron, he knocked him insensible in a moment. To open the lock was the work of an instant, and the door creaked upon its hinges. "Who are you?" said Lupin. "A messenger from the Secretary of State," said the man on the outside, "and I shall report your insolence." "Don't," said Lupin. "Indeed, I shall." "Then take that." With the file he dealt him a frightful wound in the face, and then they both rolled down the whole flight of steps together, for Mr. Lupin had overbalanced himself with that blow. Todd sprang over them both, and gained the open street, just as a watchman who was opposite began to spring his rattle at seeing such a scuffle going on at the Governor's door. The messenger from the Secretary of State, notwithstanding his wound, grappled with Lupin, but that rascal got hold of him by his hair, and knocked his head against the pavement until he was quite dead. Then rising, he cried-- "Through Smithfield, Todd! Follow me." "I will," said Todd, and off they both set, pursued by the single watchman, who had happened to be the sole witness to the whole affair, and who, finding himself outstripped by the two men, wisely stopped at the corner of Giltspur Street to spring his rattle, which he did with a vengeance that soon brought others to his assistance. "An escape from Newgate!" the watchman kept crying--"An escape from Newgate! There they go--through Smithfield; two men, one very big and the other not so big! An escape from Newgate!" [Illustration: The Astonished Watchman.--Leaving Newgate Behind.] These cries soon sent about a dozen persons on the trail of the fugitives, and as the alarm was understood at the prison, four of the most bold and skillful men upon the premises at once started in pursuit. From the watchman who still stood at the end of Giltspur Street, they heard in what direction the prisoners had gone, and they did not lose a moment in dashing after them, calling out as they went-- "Fifty pounds reward for two prisoners escaped from Newgate! Fifty pounds reward for them!" These words summoned up many an idler who was trying to dream away the night in the pens of Smithfield, and the officers soon got together a rabble host for the pursuit of Todd and his villanous companion. But these officers with their fifty pounds reward were rather late in the field. It was the few persons who first heard the rattle and the outcries of the watchman, who were close upon the heels of the men, and they kept them well in sight right across Smithfield and so on towards Barbican. Todd heard the shouts of the pursuers, but he did not look back, for fear of losing time by so doing; and the fact was, that Mr. Lupin was so fleet of foot that it required all the exertion of Todd to keep up with him at all. Upon any less exciting occasion it is extremely doubtful if Todd could have kept up such a race; but as it was, he seemed to lose his wind, and then in some mysterious way to get on without any at all. Mr. Lupin crossed Aldersgate Street, and dashed down Barbican. He then turned down the first opening he came to on the right, and he did so, not because he was making for any known place of safety, but because he knew that a labyrinth of small streets were thereabouts, amid the intricacies of which he hoped to baffle his pursuers; and it was certainly under the circumstances very good policy in him to take the course he did. From the moment of so abruptly turning out of Barbican, they were both out of sight of their pursuers, who had been able to keep them steadily in view up to this; but although that was the case, they were not without their perils, for a watchman met them both and aimed a blow at Lupin's legs with his stick, crying in an Irish brogue-- "Stop that, my beauty--Stop that any way!" Lupin sprang upon him like an enraged tiger, and turning the stick from his hands, he laid him flat with one blow of it and on he rushed, carrying it with him as a defence against the attack of any one else. They now turned a corner and met a string of half-drunken gents of the period, arm-in-arm, and occupying the whole breadth of the pavement. Lupin avoided them by swerving into the road-way, but they caught hold of Todd, crying-- "Here's the devil. Let's make him an offer for his tail!" Certainly, Sweeney Todd was not at that moment disposed for trifling, and he laid about him with his immense fists in such style that the gents were all rolling in the kennel in a moment or two; and then, however, before Todd could again reach Mr. Lupin so closely as he had been, he heard a loud shout of-- "There's one of them. Come on!--Come on!" That was no drunken shout, and Todd immediately felt that the danger was imminent. He rushed on at increased speed, and just got up to Lupin at the corner. They turned it together, and then Todd managed to say-- "They come--they come!" "Officers?" said Lupin. "Yes, I think so. On--on. Oh, push on!" "This way." Lupin crossed the road, and sprung down a narrow court; but even as he did so, came that voice, crying-- "There they go. Stop them--stop them! There they go! Fifty pounds reward!" A frightful oath burst from Todd's lips, as he emerged from the court still close upon the heels of Lupin. They were now in a tolerably wide street, and they saw but one individual in it, and he was evidently, by the curious manner in which he sometimes favoured the curb-stone by walking upon it for a few paces, and then lumbered up against the house, just a little gone in intoxication. This individual, after some fumbling in his pocket, produced a latch key, and having staggered up the steps of a house, he made some ineffectual attempts to open the door. "Hold!" said Todd to Lupin. "Anything is better than this race for life. We can hide in the passage of that house until the pursuit is past. Come." "A good thought," said Lupin. By this time the inebriated individual had succeeded in opening the street-door with his latch-key, and he was so elated at having performed the feat, that he stopped to laugh before he entered the house. The moment, however, that he did get into the passage, Todd sprung up the steps, and very adroitly placed his foot against the door, so that when the person from within slammed it as he thought shut, it was a good two inches off that condition. It was then amusing to hear him, with drunken gravity and precision, as he thought, shooting the bolts into their sockets, after which, often tumbling on his way, he went along the passage, and up stairs. Todd opened the door. "Come," he said. "All's right," said Lupin. "Stop thief! Stop thief!" cried a chorus of voices at the corner of the street. "Indeed," said Lupin, "The Lord be good to you all." He stepped into the house after Todd, and very quietly closed the door. The passage was profoundly dark, and there they both stood, those two convicted murderers, listening to what was taking place outside their place of refuge. They heard the sounds of several voices, and it was quite evident that just about that spot the pursuers were baffled, and did not know now which course to take after the fugitives, who were so snugly ensconced so near them. CHAPTER CXXXVI. TODD AND LUPIN ESCAPE TO CAEN WOOD. "What's to be done?" said a voice. "I'll be hanged if I know," said another, "and yet I feel sure that they came this way. I thought how it would be when they took to all these streets. Lord bless you, we might have passed them in some doorway easy enough--a dozen times." "So we might," said the other voice. "All we can do now, is to go round to the different outlets of the city, and give an alarm." "Well, I won't give it up yet," said a third person; "I feel quite sure they are lingering somewhere about here, and I'll be on the watch yet for a time, and hunt about quietly. You be off and give the notice to the watch, and leave Johnson and I to do what we can." "Very good--I wish you luck." There was a scuffle of feet, and it was quite clear that some of the men had gone off at a quick pace, leaving, no doubt, the two only in the street. "Well," whispered Lupin. "Well, my friend, what do you think of all this?" "I don't know what to think," said Todd. "I'm very tired." "Ah, and so am I, but that can't be helped. I ain't used to such a run as we have had. But it won't do us any harm. If we can get off, it will be a world's wonder, I can tell you. It ain't now every day that a fellow gives Newgate the go-by." "No--no, and I must say that I did not myself expect it. But I was prepared to cheat the hangman." "Pho! That's a poor-enough look out." "Yes, but it's a something. She did it." "She? Who the deuce is she?" "Mrs. Lovett." "Oh, I recollect. I have heard of her--I have heard of her. She was the nice creature who lived in Bell Yard, wasn't she, and accommodated the folks with pies?" "Yes," said Todd, and if Lupin had seen the horrible contortion of visage with which he accompanied the word, even he, with all his nerve in such matters, might well have been excused for a sudden accession of terror. "Well," added Todd, after a pause, "you are a man of judgment Mr. Lupin, and all I want to know now, is what you mean to do?" "Get away from here as soon as possible. But it won't be quite safe to try it yet. This house is very quiet, and no doubt everybody is in bed and asleep, so I shall get a light and look about a little. It would be quite a providential thing to find something to eat." "Yes, and to drink," said Todd. "Just so. I would give something handsome now, if I had it, for a good glass of brandy. That run has made me first hot and then shivery all over; but who knows what luck may be in store for us? Come now--here's a light, and we shall soon, by the help of providence, see what sort of a crib we have got into." It was lucky for them both that Lupin had retained about him the means of getting a light, for if he had not, they would have been left to conjectures merely regarding their position. He ignited one of the little pieces of wax-ends, and when the small flame rose and began to burn steadily, he held up the piece of candle, so they both looked curiously about them. The hall of the house in which they were was well got up. A handsome table and some old carved chairs were in it, with some crests upon the backs, and upon numerous pegs hung hats, cloaks, and coats. "Humph," said Lupin, "this is the very place for us, I shall take the great liberty of making free with some gentleman's coat and hat, and I think you had better do the same." Todd at once practically acquiesced in the suggestion, by slipping on a large cloak with sleeves, and placing upon his head a hat richly bound with silver lace. "Upon my word," said Lupin, "you almost look respectable." "Do I?" said Todd. "It isn't then on account of the company I am in." Lupin smiled, as he said-- "Very good--very good, but the less we cut at each other, my friend, the better." "You began it," said Todd. "So I did, so we will say no more about it, as yours was the hardest hit. How do I look in the cloak and hat?" "Just nice," said Todd, making a frightful face. Lupin laughed again. "Come," he said. "Now that we have a little time to spare, let us see if these people keep a good larder. If they do and they lock it up at night, they will find that the cat has been at it by the morning, I rather think. Tread as lightly as you can, Todd, and keep down your voice as you have done. Sounds go so far in the night time." "They do," said Todd. "I have heard them at odd times." Lupin led the way along the hall, at the end of which was the staircase, and to the right of that a door which was not fast, so that they passed on quite easily to the domestic portion of the house, and soon found the way to a kitchen, which was upon the same floor. Then they opened a door that led into a little sort of outhouse, paved with red bricks, and in one corner of that was a larder, or safe, well stocked with provisions. Lupin took from it a magnificent quarter of venison, with scarcely a quarter of a pound cut from it; and that, with some bread were the only viands that he felt disposed to take from the larder. "It will be wholesome," he said, "and do us a world of good, by the aid of Providence; and we don't know what we may have to go through yet, in this world of woe. Amen!" "You fancy you are in the chapel again." "Dear me; yes, I do--I do. Well, well, it don't matter--it don't matter. Come, friend Todd. Let us recruit ourselves a little. Oh, that I could find the way to the wine cellar of these people; and yet that should not be a difficult matter. Let us think. It must be somewhere hereabouts." "There is a door," said Todd, pointing to one at the end of the outhouse. "It seems to be locked, and if so, it is no doubt that of the cellar." "We will try it," said Lupin. With this he quickly opened the door, by the aid of his picklocks, which no ordinary lock could withstand the fascinations of for a moment, and then sure enough the supposition of Todd was found to be correct, for a goodly collection of bottles in long rows presented themselves to the eye. Lupin at once laid hold of a bottle, and breaking off the neck of it he decanted a quantity of its contents into his throat, rubbing his stomach as he did so in a most ludicrous kind of way, to indicate how much he enjoyed the draught. "Nectar," he said, when he took the bottle from his mouth to enable himself to breathe; "nectar." "Is it?" said Todd, as he seized upon another bottle. "I am partial generally to something a trifle stronger than wine; but if it be really good, I have no particular objection to a drop." With this Todd finished off half a bottle of the rich and rare old port that was in the cellar. They then worked away at the haunch of venison; and having made a very hearty meal, they looked at each other as though they would both say--"What next?" "You say you have money?" said Lupin. "True," said Todd. "But not here of course, my friend; and who knows what difficulties we may find in our way before we reach your nice little hoard? Where did you say it was?" "Hidden beneath a tree in Caen Wood, close to the village of Hampstead. I went one night, and myself placed the cash there in case of accidents." "And how much do you suppose, my friend, there is?" "I know what there is. I put away two thousand pounds, and that you know will be a thousand pounds for you, and another for me. I purpose in that manner equitably to share it, for I am not ungrateful for the great assistance you have been to me in this escape from Newgate." If Mr. Lupin had not swallowed two-thirds of a bottle of old port-wine, the probability is that he would have detected that Todd was deceiving him, by the whining canting tone in which he spoke. The fact was, that Todd had not one farthing hidden in Caen Wood; but he thought it highly desirable while there existed any danger, and while Mr. Lupin was likely to be useful to him, to keep up such a delusion. "Well," added Lupin, "you really are a liberal fellow; but as, I say, there is no knowing what good a trifle may be to us before we reach your snug two thousand pounds in Caen Wood, I propose to see what we can get in this house. People who keep such a good cellar, and such a capital larder, ought to have something in the place worth the taking in the way of cash." "Yes, but I am afraid it will be hazardous," said Todd. "A little, perhaps; but with this carving knife, don't you think we might make things pleasant?" "That is possible. Well, if anything worth having is to be got, let us set about it at once; for I think we have spent time enough in this house; and no doubt our friends are upon the move off, if they have not gone long before this." "Come on, then." They both left the kitchen, and each being armed with a knife, they cautiously opened all the room doors on that floor; but they only found the usual furniture of such apartments, and it was quite clear that no cash was to be had in that portion of the premises. "Come up stairs," said Lupin, with a look of savage determination. "Come on, Todd; we will see what can be done up stairs." They carefully ascended the staircase, but they only just peeped into the drawing-room, and then they went up to the floor upon which the bed-rooms were situated. They paused at the first door they came to, and Lupin very carefully tried the lock. It was only on the latch, and in the room a rushlight was burning. They both crept in, and their footsteps made no noise upon the soft carpeting of the apartment. A bed was in the room, and upon it lay a young lady. Lupin gave a hideous grin as he looked at her, and then stooping down by the bed-side he said, in a whisper-- "If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered!--If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered! If you--Oh, that will do." The young lady awakened with a start, but the words that were twice repeated still rung in her ears, and scream she did not, but she looked half dead from fright. "Now, my dear," said Lupin, "Providence has brought us to your bed-side, and if you make any disturbance, we mean to submit you and the whole of the family to the operation of a carving-knife, the Lord willing. All we want is money, and if we can get that quietly, we will go and not so much as ask your pretty little lips for a kiss." [Illustration: The Murderers In The Young Lady's Chamber.] "Oh, Heaven protect me!" said the young lady. "A--men!" said Lupin. "Now my dear, who is in the house besides you?" "My father, the alderman, and my mother, and the servants above stairs.--Oh, spare my parents." "Very good, where can any money be got hold of?" "Will a hundred pounds content you?" "Yes," said Todd, putting his head between the curtains at the foot of the bed. The young lady gave a faint cry, and Mr. Lupin flourished the carving-knife over her--"Where are the hundred pounds?" he said, "and we will go." "In my father's room. It is the next room. His purse is on the dressing-table. If you will let me go and get it, I will give it to you upon your promise then to leave the house." "How are we to trust you not to say that we are here?" "I swear by all that is holy--I use the name of the great God. Oh, indeed you may trust me." "Go," said Lupin. The young lady got out of bed, and both Todd and Lupin followed her from the room. She crossed the landing, and at once opened the door of a room. Then they heard a man's voice say--"Who's that?" and the young lady replied--"Only me, father. I want something out of your room. I shall not be a minute." "Bless the girl," said a female voice--"What can she want?" In a minute or two the young lady came back to the landing where Todd and Lupin were waiting for her. "Now," said Lupin in a low voice--"Now, my little dear, have you got it?" "Quick--quick!" said Todd, "or you die. I am half a mind to cut your throat as it is, just for the pleasure of the thing." The young lady stood just upon the threshold of the door of her father's room, and then as Lupin held up his light, she raised both her hands, in each of which was a horse-pistol, and presenting one at Lupin's head and one at Todd's, she said-- "Thieves! thieves! thieves!" CHAPTER CXXXVII. THE MURDER AT CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. It would be quite impossible to describe the effect that was produced upon Lupin and Sweeney Todd, by this heroic conduct on the part of the young lady, from whom they did not in the least expect any such active resistance to their proceedings. Lupin was constitutionally, by far the greater coward of the two, and when he saw the bright barrel of the pistol in such startling and unexpected contiguity to his head, he at once stepped back, and missing his footing, fell down the stairs to the landing-place immediately below that flight. Todd thought that there would be just a chance of dashing in upon the young lady and disarming her of her pistols; but now that both of them were levelled at him, and she began to cry out "Help! help! thieves!" again, louder than before, he reluctantly abandoned the idea, and turning, he bounded down the staircase. The young lady leant over the stair-head and fired one of the pistols after him, which so accelerated the movements of Todd, that he tumbled right over Mr. Lupin, and fell down all the way to the hall with Lupin after him. Under any other circumstances than the dangerous and exciting ones in which they were in, no doubt they would both of them have been too much hurt to do anything but lie on their backs in the hall; but the feeling that if they were taken it would be to death, was sufficient to rouse them, and they both scrambled to their feet. Lupin got the street-door open, and dashed out closely followed by Todd. A watchman tried to stop them, but him they felled with a blow, and then off went Lupin down a cross-street, that led him into Old-street Road, and with Todd at his heels, who was very faint. "Stop, stop!" panted Todd, "stop!" "What for?" said Lupin. "I cannot run so fast. Are you hurt? Oh, that I had a knife at that girl's throat!" Lupin paused, and held by a post at the corner of a street, and swore dreadfully, as he too panted a little for breath, although he was by no means so much used-up as Todd was. But then Lupin was a younger man, and much lighter on his feet, than our old friend of murdering notoriety. "Oh, dear," said Todd. "What's to be done now?" "Nothing." "Nothing, did you say? But, my dear friend, something must be done. We have positively wasted half the night, and we are without money, and half dead. I am covered with bruises from head to foot by the fall down the staircase, and it will be daylight in another half hour or so at the utmost." "Ah," said Lupin, "we must breakfast somewhere, I'm thinking, my friend." "And so am I." "Well, well, we have made certainly a mess of our adventure at the alderman's; but it can't be helped now. The idea, only to think of it now, Todd, of you and I, two such men as we are, and as the world refutes us to be, being beaten back, and, you may say, thrown down two pair of stairs, by a girl of sixteen or thereabouts." Todd growled out some malediction. "It was the will of Providence," said Lupin. "But who is this? Stand aside, Todd, and let this old gentleman pass on. We may as well not be seen and described by any one." "Do you think he may likely have enough about him," whispered Todd, "to pay our expenses for the day?" "A lucky thought. It is more than likely that he has. Knock him down and rob him, Todd. There's not a soul in sight. Give him one of the knocks you used to give the poor devils you made the pies of, you know." "Be quiet," said Todd, "I am amazed that a man of your profound sense and sagacity, should give ear to such idle rumours about me! I am really both shocked and surprised, Mr. Lupin!" "Amen!" said Lupin. "You rob the old man, and we won't quarrel about any such nonsense, Todd. Here he comes, grinning like an old polecat. What business has a man of that age out at such a time as this?" "None," said Todd, "except to provide us with a little money." Todd cast a keen glance around him, and was convinced that the report of Mr. Lupin that no one was in sight was quite correct, so he stepped up to the old man, and said-- "Good morning, sir." "Thieves! thieves!" cried the old man, and began to run, but Todd put out one of his long legs and tripped him up. Then pouncing upon him, he extracted a well-filled purse from his pocket, and holding it up to Lupin, he said-- "This will do?" "Rather," replied Lupin. "Come on." Off set Lupin again on a run, rather to the discomfiture of Todd, who had not had such a scampering about for a long time indeed; but yet he felt the necessity of getting as soon as possible out of the immediate vicinity of the old man whom they had just robbed, so they did not stop until they got right away on the northern side of Finsbury Square. That side of the ancient square of Finsbury was not built then; and beyond it, where there is now such a squalid and uninviting neighbourhood, there was nothing but fields. "Now," said Lupin. "Let us look at the purse!" "Here it is," said Todd. "It's very light!" The fact was, that notwithstanding the speed at which he was compelled to run to keep up with Lupin, or rather to keep a few paces only behind him, Todd had contrived to abstract the better part of the contents from the purse, and to pocket them; for the story with which he had tickled the ears of Lupin of his having any money concealed in Caen Wood, Hampstead, was a mere delusion, got up for the purpose of making him, Lupin, more than commonly solicitous concerning his, Todd's, safety in the escape from Newgate. "Yes," replied Todd, "it is light, but such as it is it may be of some service to us. Take it, Mr. Lupin, and you can be the treasurer: you know I can trust to you." "Implicitly," said Lupin, as turning out the contents of the purse into his hand, he said--"Here are four guineas and a half, and about six or seven shillings in loose silver." "Better than nothing," said Todd, with a look of great philosophy. "Our first care now is to get a breakfast." "I don't know," said Lupin. "I took quite enough at the alderman's to last me some time. I should say, get out of London as quickly as we possibly can; and when we are at Caen Wood, we can, at our ease, consider what course we will feel inclined to take with our money in our pockets." "A couple of thousands," said Todd. "Exactly so. I move that we strike across the fields now at once, and make for Highgate and Hampstead, so that at each step we shall be leaving some danger behind us." "Agreed," said Todd. "Come on! For my part I should like very much to find a conveyance of some sort; but that, I suppose, is impossible." "Quite! Besides, on foot we are much less likely to be recognised and described. Come on, Todd; you ought to be able to walk to Hampstead, surely, after the little trifling exercise that you have had only." "Trifling, do you call it?" said Todd, making one of his most hideous faces. "Trifling! I have not a bone in my body that don't ache. Trifling? I am one mass of bruises from top to toe, and I never, in all my life, felt so exhausted; but yet the love of life and of liberty will lend me strength; so, come on; I will go on to Hampstead, and I will reach it, my friend, unless I drop by the way." "Well spoke," said Lupin. They now pursued a course which led them rapidly by the back of the City Road, and through the now well-populated district called Hoxton; and keeping on in that way they crossed the high-road near to Stamford Hill, and soon began to get a good view of the heights of Highgate and Hampstead in the distance. "Brandy," said Todd, "brandy!" "Why, what's the matter?" "My good friend, I can't get on without some brandy. I am rather used to a little stimulant at times, so I must have it. Then we have no risk now to run by going into a public-house." "I don't know that, Todd. But if you can't do without, some brandy you must have. To be sure, we are in luck's way, so far, that we are provided with hats and coats from the alderman's hall, and, therefore, people cannot have a description of us. The first quiet little hotel we come to, Todd, I promise you that I will not object to our stopping at, so that you may have your drop." "Yes," said Todd, "that will do. My good friend, it is the only thing that keeps me up. When I used to feel a little down in spirits I poured some other spirits down, and then I get up again." "Exactly. Here we are, at an old roadside house called the Adam and Eve, which will be the very thing. They may take you for Adam and me for Cain or Abel.--Come along." They halted at the door of the little public-house, but upon going in they found the landlord and landlady bargaining with a man who was hawking something, and the following words came upon the startled ears of Todd. "Only threepence, sir, I assure you, and the most exact likeness of Sweeney Todd, the murderer; taken while he was on his trial at the Old Bailey. You will see what a look he has, and the artist has been most successful in the squint: and only threepence." "He will be hanged on Monday, of course?" said the publican's wife. "Oh yes, ma'am, in course, and there's expected such a crowd as never was known at the execution." "No doubt of it. Well, I'll give twopence." "And a drop of ale," said the publican. "Here you are, master, you shall have it. A capital likeness. If you was only now to catch a sight of the original Todd, you'd know him in a moment by the look of this picture, particularly the squint." "Come in," whispered Lupin to Todd. "Oh no--no--I don't want the brandy now." "But I do. Your speaking about it, has got me into the mind of wanting some now; so come on and let us have it, my friend, at once. Why, you are not afraid that the portrait is too good a likeness, are you?" "Oh dear, I don't know," said Todd. "I believe I have a remarkable nose, and rather an engaging look about the eyes.--Come along." "A quartern of the best brandy," said Lupin. Todd felt that now the safest thing he could do, was to brave the matter out, as anything in the shape of a retreat would be much worse than actually making an appearance at the bar of the public-house; and then it was truly ridiculous to see the manner in which Todd strove to alter the cast of his features, by protruding one lip, and putting on what he thought as a kind of satisfied smirking smile, extremely difficult, indeed, for his usual expression of face. There was only one slight comfort he felt, and that was in the circumstance that the news of their escape from Newgate had not yet reached that place. "A nice, bracing morning, gentlemen," said the publican. "Very, by the goodness of providence," said Lupin. "Amen!" said Todd. "I have just, gentlemen, been buying a portrait of the execrable Todd; and if either of you have happened to see him in London, perhaps you can tell me if it is at all like the villain. We frighten our children now, if they misbehave themselves at all, and tell them that Todd is coming to make them into pies, and then they are as quiet as possible. Ha! ha!" "How funny," said Todd, "Well," said Lupin, as he looked at the twopenny portrait of Todd, with a pretended critical air, "I don't think it's like him at all. I saw him at Newgate; and my friend here, is more like him than this picture." "You don't say so, sir?" said the landlord. "He! he!" laughed Todd--"ho! ho!" How he wished at that moment that he could have taken Lupin by the throat and strangled him! The brandy was duly discussed, and Lupin having paid for it out of the contents of the old gentleman's purse, took a courteous adieu of the landlord, and with Todd left the house. "Gracious goodness!" exclaimed Todd, "how could you dream of saying what you did about me at the bar?" "My good friend, that was for the express purpose of drowning suspicion for you. I saw the landlady staring at you most fixedly, and so I said it on purpose, for fear she should really begin to think you could be no other than Todd the murderer--the execrable Todd, with whom they frighten the children." "Oh, well," said Todd, "don't say anything more about it. I am quite satisfied. Indeed, I am more than satisfied, my dear friend." "I thought you would be, when you come to think--" "Oh, dear, yes." "You may depend, Todd, that the greatest safety always runs alongside of the greatest danger; and that when you think that your fortunes are at the lowest, you may not unfrequently be upon the point of a highly favourable change: and it's all by the goodness of Providence." "Bother you!" said Todd. "I do believe, if you were to live for a hundred years, you would not forget your chapel experience." "Perhaps not; but I made a good bit of money that way, taking one thing with another, Mr. Todd." CHAPTER CXXXVIII. CAEN WOOD AND HAMPSTEAD IN THE OLD TIMES. In such discourse as this, the precious pair beguiled the way to Highgate, from which they proposed crossing to Hampstead. Notwithstanding the liberal potations that they had taken at the Alderman's house; and notwithstanding the brandy that had since been discussed, they neither of them felt any the worse for the imbibition. Probably, the active exercise they took carried off all bad effects. But, certainly, when they reached Highgate, both Todd and Lupin were hungry. "Let us turn into the Old Gate-House Tavern," said Lupin. "Don't you think a more obscure place," suggested Todd, "would be better for us, as we do not by any means court popularity?" "No; there is more safety in a large place like the Gate House, where plenty of guests are coming and going continually, than in a little bit of a public-house where we should be looked at, and scrutinised from top to toe, from the moment we went in to the moment we came out." "Very good," said Todd. "I think you reason well enough upon the point, and I give in to your better judgment completely. Ah! my good friend, I really don't know what I should have done at all without you." "Been hanged!" said Lupin. Todd gave a shudder, which was a tolerably convincing proof of how fully he agreed in what Mr. Lupin said; and then they went into the Old Gate-House Tavern, at Highgate, where they had a very plentiful breakfast; and by getting into a corner of the room, in which they sat, they did not attract any observation beyond the mere casual regards of the visitors to the house. Before they left though, Todd had the horror of hearing a great confusion of voices in the passage, and in a few moments one of the waiters came into the room, quite bursting with his news. "Gentlemen," he said, "the notorious Todd, and a man named Lupin, who was a murderer likewise, have escaped from Newgate!" "Escaped?" said Lupin. "You don't say so?" "Dear me, when?" said Todd. "Last night, gentlemen, last night; and--coming--coming!" The waiter was compelled to leave the room, as a bell rung violently. "Let us go," said Todd. "Yes, I think, now that the news has reached here, it will be wise to do so." "Come along, then." Todd rose in a moment; but Lupin in a whisper strictly cautioned him not to show any symptoms of hurry or alarm; and he was so far master of himself to see the necessity of such a caution, so that they both got safely out of the Gate-House Tavern, and took the route to Hampstead by Swains Lane, without having anything said to them. "This is an escape indeed," said Todd. "Yes," said Lupin, "you may depend that in a very little time there will be some officers at the Gate-House; but if we can get to the wood within the next half hour, I think we are safe enough. What do you think?" "I think that if our safety depends upon getting into Caen Wood in half-an-hour, we ought to be there in half the time." "Do you? Then come on for a run." "Oh, dear," said Todd. "I am all aches and pains, and not at all fit for running; but I suppose I must. Don't go very fast, Mr. Lupin, or I shall never be able to keep up with you." "Then you go first and run as fast as you can without greatly distressing yourself, and I will adopt my speed to yours." "That will be better," said Todd. Off they both set down Swains Lane, and as the first part of that well-known thoroughfare from Highgate to Hampstead goes down hill, they got on speedily with very little exertion; but when the foot of the little slope was reached it was quite another thing, and Todd was fast subsiding into a walk, when Lupin cried to him-- "We are pursued!" At these words, Todd fell flat in the roadway. "Up--up!" said Lupin, "there is a turn in the lane just ahead of us, and when we reach that we must get over the hedge and hide. I don't know that they are actually after us, but there are horsemen in the lane coming from Highgate." Todd got up as far as his hands and knees, and then, as his ears were close to the ground, he said-- "We are lost, for I can hear horsemen coming from the other direction too." "The deuce you can!" Mr. Lupin stooped to listen, and in a moment he was assured of the fact. He seized Mr. Todd by the collar, saying-- "Now, Todd, if you want to escape, rouse yourself and follow me; but if you don't care about it, say so at once, and I will look after my own safety." "Care about it?" cried Todd, "what else do you suppose I care about in all the world?" "Come on, then." "Here I am. Oh, yes I'm coming on--as quick as you like now, Lupin. The dread of capture banishes all fatigue. I can now run like a hunted hare." "There is no occasion," said Lupin. "This way. We must hide now; speed would do us but little good against horsemen.--This way." Lupin ran on until he got to the turn of the lane, which hid the horsemen from Highgate effectually from their view; and as the mounted party coming from the direction of Hampstead had not got so far as to appear, he thought it was just the place to halt at. "Now, Todd," he said, "we must get over the hedge here, and our only chance of safety, if these men are really on the look-out for us, is to hide in the meadow." Without waiting for Todd to make any remark upon the very doubtful means of escape presented, Lupin scrambled through the hedge. Todd then followed him, and the first care of Lupin's was to arrange the twigs that had been displaced in the hedge by their passage through it, so that there should not appear to be any gap at all there. Immediately upon the other side of the hedge which they had thus crossed there was a ditch, and a large heap of manure. Mr. Lupin, without the slightest ceremony, laid himself down, and pulling a lot of the manure heap over him, he nearly covered himself quite up. "This is very shocking," said Todd. "It's quite a luxury compared to a cell in Newgate," replied Lupin. "You had better be quick." The word Newgate acted upon the imagination of Todd as a very powerful spell, and he at once lay down and began to follow the example of his friend, Lupin; and indeed so very anxious was he while he was about it to hide himself completely, that he nearly smothered himself outright in the manure. "I hope this will do," he moaned. "Silence!" said Lupin. Todd was as still as death in a moment. As they now lay close to the earth, all sounds upon it were much more clearly brought to their senses than when they were walking, so that there was no sort of difficulty in distinguishing the tread of the horses that were coming from Highgate from those that proceeded from the other direction, and which latter ones were not quite so near as the others. Faintly, too, they could hear the hum of commotion, which showed that the party consisted of three or four persons. And now the mounted men from Highgate got right down into the hollow, close to the bend in the lane, and they paused, while one said, in a clear voice-- "We ought not to go any further. Those from Hampstead should meet us now, I think." "They are coming," said another. "Ah! so they are. I wonder if they have seen anything of the rascals. I do hope they will soon be nabbed, for this patrolling business is very tiresome." These words were quite sufficient, if any doubt had been upon the minds of Lupin and Todd, to convince them that the mounted men were after them, and of the great peril they would have been in if they had staid in the lane. To be sure there was nothing in what had been said to add to the supposition that the horsemen had any knowledge of the fact that the persons they sought were in that neighbourhood, and that might be considered to decrease the danger a little; but yet it was sufficiently great, under all circumstances. In the course of the next two minutes the Hampstead party came up and joined the others. "Any luck?" said one. "No, we came right on across the heath, but we neither saw nor heard anything of them, and it is quite impossible to say, as yet, that they have come in this direction at all. I don't myself think it at all likely." "Why not?" "Because of all neighbourhoods close to London, it is the most high and exposed, while at the same time it is not thickly peopled." "Well, there may be something in that. We have heard nothing of them in Highgate up to now, so I suppose we may go back again the way we came, and you will do the same." "Have you been in any of the meadows?" "No. But it's easy to get over the gate yonder, and take a look all round. The enclosures are not very numerous about here, and they would find it difficult to hide. Hold my horse, George, and I'll get into the meadows and take a look." When Todd heard these words, he looked upon himself as lost, and could hardly suppress a groan. The man who had last spoken got over a gate that was at some little distance off, and stood upon an elevated spot of the meadows to look about him. "There's nothing moving," he said. "Come along, then," cried another. "Let's get on." "Here's a compost heap; they are perhaps in the middle of that. Is it worth looking at?" "Not exactly. Come on." The man retired to the road again and mounted, and in the course of a few moments the two parties rode back again upon the way that they had come. "Todd?" said Lupin, "Todd?" "Oh!" groaned Todd. "Todd, I say, get up. Are you out of your mind? The danger is past now. They are gone." "Gone!" said Todd, looking up. "You don't say so? Didn't I hear one of them say that he would look in this very place?" "Yes; but that was only a joke." "A joke?" said Todd with a deep groan. "A joke was it? Oh, how very careful people should be when they make jokes, when other people are hiding from their enemies. It might be very funny to him, but it was quite the reverse to me." "That's true enough; but get up now, and in the name of everything that's safe and comfortable, let us get to the wood. These fellows are evidently patrolling the road, and they will be back again in a little while, and still come across us if we don't manage to get out of their way before that time.--Come along. We can get to the wood now quickly." "Ah, dear me!" said Todd, as he shook himself to get rid of as much of the unsavoury mess he had lain in as possible. "Ah dear me! truly I have now hit upon evil times; and fortune, that I thought petted me, has slipped from me like a shadow, leaving me glad of a manure heap in a field as a place of shelter." "All that is very true," said Lupin, "but it don't get us on a bit." "I'm ready--I'm quite ready," groaned Todd. They were upon the point of going into the lane again, but they were compelled--or rather thought it prudent--to wait until a man had passed, who, by the box that he carried on his back, was evidently a hawker of goods about the country. He soon trudged out of their way, and then they both got through the hedge again into the lane. The place of their destination was now close at hand, upon their left; and watching a favourable spot by which to do so, they crossed the hedge upon that side and got into the fields; but although a sharp run across two or three meadows would have taken them at once to Caen Wood, they did not think it at all prudent so to expose themselves to observation. "Skirt the hedge, Todd," said Lupin, "and stoop down so as to keep your head as much below the top of the hedgerow as possible. You are inconveniently tall, just now." Upon this instruction, Todd bent himself almost double, and in that attitude he managed to scramble close to the hedge, and up to his knees, at times, in the ditches and drains that he came across in such a situation. In this way, then, they got on until they reached the outskirts of Caen Wood. Not a creature was to be seen, and the most profound and solemn stillness, reigned around them. Todd was not used to that intense quiet of the country and he shook at it rather, but Lupin took no notice of his emotion. "Here we are, at last," he said, "and all you have to do, Todd, is to point out the spot where you have hidden your money, and then we will divide it, and wait until nightfall before we venture out of this snug place." "Come along," said Todd; "it's all right." And then they both dived amongst the trees, which, in some places, quite shut out the daylight. CHAPTER CXXXIX. THE ADVENTURES IN CAEN WOOD OF THE TWO MURDERERS. Todd was so much exhausted by the time they reached the wood, that he at once cast himself to the ground upon a heap of dry leaves, and he felt that he was speaking only the truth when he said-- "I could not go a step further just now, if it were to save my life, I feel that I could not; and here I must lie and rest." "Dear me!" said Mr. Lupin; "what a poor creature you must be. How old are you, Mr. Todd?" "I don't know," said Todd. "The church I was christened at was burnt down only the day after, and all the books burnt. My father and mother are dead, and the nurse was hanged, and the doctor cut his throat." "Upon my word," said Lupin, "they were a lively set. I suppose it was remorse did all that?" "Remorse! What do you mean by remorse?" "Why that sort of feeling, you know, might be awakened in their minds, by finding that you were not exactly the sort of baby that was expected. You must have looked a beauty in long-clothes, Todd; and as for your age, I should guess it about fifty-five." "Guess your own age," said Todd, "and leave mine alone." "Oh, if it's at all a sore subject I won't say another word about it. But come now, Todd, you charming creature, could you not manage to crawl a little way further?" "What for? If we are safe in the wood at all, we are safe enough here where we are now." "But, my dear friend, you quite forget." "What--what? What do I forget? Don't plague me, Lupin. It is enough just now to remember that we have by almost a miracle made an escape from Newgate; and as for forgetting, I would be right glad to forget if I could that I had ever been there; but that will be impossible." "It won't be very easy," said Lupin, "and if possible, it will take a long time; but what I was just mildly going to remind you of was, that in this wood your two thousand pounds, you know, are hidden, and that we were to share the amount." "Ah, my dear friend, yes, I had not forgotten that little affair. It is, of course, very important; but let me rest a little, if you please." "Oh, certainly--certainly." "And then, my dear companion, it will be necessary to get a spade, you know, to dig it up. Our nails decidedly are neither long enough or strong enough, and I don't at all see how it is to be done without a spade, or something that shall be a good substitute for one." "Oh, nonsense," said Lupin. "How deep do you suppose it lies?" "About two feet." "Very good then, you need give yourself no uneasiness about the digging it up. I have the chisel and the two files here; and if I can't dig two feet into the earth with them, and my hands to shovel out the mould with, I'm a Dutchman, that's all. Only you show me the spot, that's all, and I won't ask you to tire yourself in the matter." "In a little," said Todd, "in a little. Without being so old as you would make me out, I am still older than you are Lupin, and cannot go through the amount of fatigue that you can. Just let me recover myself a little, and then instead of crawling to the spot where my money lies hidden, I shall be well able to walk to it and show it to you." "Very good--very good. Of course I don't want to hurry you too much about the matter, only the sooner we do get a hold of the two thousand pounds the better. I wonder, too, that you don't feel rather anxious to see that it is quite safe, for some accident might have discovered it, for all you know to the contrary." "Oh no, my friend, nothing but an earthquake could do that. You may depend it is quite safe where I put it. In a little time I shall be able to show you the exact spot, which I have so accurately in my mind's eye, that I can walk to it with the greatest of ease; of course I did not trust such a valuable deposit to the ground without accurately marking the spot that I had made my bank." "Is it in gold?" "All--all. I did think of hiding notes, but I was afraid that the damp, if there should come any heavy rains, would have the effect of rotting them, and I had no iron box sufficiently small to place them in; so I brought all gold, and a good weight it was too." "Ah, we will make that weight light by dividing it." "Just so." Lupin's mouth actually watered at the idea of getting possession of such a sum, and as he turned his head aside, he muttered to himself-- "If I don't put Todd out of this world, and save the hangman the trouble, it shall go hard with me, and then I shall have all the money to myself, and I can get to America, and be a free and enlightened citizen for the remainder of my days." Mr. Lupin could hardly forbear an audible chuckle over this delightful prospect; so that it will be seen that both of these villains meditated evil intentions towards each other, from which it may be gathered how much faith is to be put in the association of men for any guilty design. Was it likely that such persons as Todd and Lupin, after being false and ruffianly to all the world, should be true to each other, except so far as their common interests dictated? No, Todd amused Lupin with the story of the buried gold in the wood at Hampstead, because he, Lupin, was of assistance in his escape from Newgate; and Lupin assisted him to escape with the idea of murdering him in the wood, and securing for himself all the money that he believed was there hidden! It was quite evident that Lupin was desperately impatient at the rest Todd was taking, previous to showing him where the money was hidden; and he walked to and fro, looking as vexed as possible, and yet fearing to say too much, lest he should get up a quarrel, the result of which might be, that Todd would refuse to show him where the gold was at all. "I think," he said, "if I were to manage to get a good thick stave off some tree, it would help considerably in digging, would it not?" "Without a doubt," said Todd. "Then I will try, and by the time I have got it, perhaps you will be rested enough, my dear friend, to make an effort to get up and show me the spot where to dig for the gold." "I shouldn't wonder," said Todd. Mr. Lupin found that he was obliged to be contented with this doubtful acquiescence of Todd's; and he busied himself, by the aid of the chisel and the files, in getting off a stout strong bough from a sycamore-tree, which he shaped to a tolerable point. It looked like a formidable bludgeon; and as he eyed it, he thought what a capital knock on the head it would give to Mr. Todd. It was rather odd that the same idea crossed Todd's mind, and as he saw the bit of wood, he muttered to himself-- "That would do it. One blow from that would do it." Now, Todd had but one solitary incentive to the murder of Lupin, and that was, that he feared when he found out how he had been deceived regarding the money, he would find some mode of denouncing him to the police, while he took care of himself; and, therefore, upon that mere idea, Todd would take his life. But then, steeped in blood guiltiness as Todd was, the taking the life of any one always seemed to him to be the readiest way of solving any difficulty connected with them. It was his motive to consider that that was the shortest and easiest mode of settling the affair, if any one became at all troublesome; and he was not all likely to make an exception in favour of such a personage as Mr. Lupin. "All ready?" said Lupin. "Are you rested now?" "Yes," said Todd, as he rose. "Ah, dear me, yes, as much as I can expect, until I get a regular night's repose, you know, friend Lupin. But I don't expect that very soon." "Oh, who knows? We are continually, in this world, getting what we don't expect, and not getting what we do; so you may rest easy enough, Todd, much sooner than you expect. Come, lean on my arm if you feel fatigued." "Oh, no, thank you. Lend me the stick, it will help me on the best, for it seems just about my height." Lupin could not very well refuse Todd's request with any prospect of keeping him in good humour at the same time, so he gave him the stick, although it must be confessed he did not do so with the very best grace in the world. But Todd did get it, and that satisfied him. "Is it far off?" said Lupin. "Oh dear, no. Quite close at hand--quite close. There's a small chesnut-tree, and a large chesnut-tree, and there's a small fir-tree and a large fir-tree, and a large oak-tree and a small oak-tree, and then there is a blackberry bush and a little stream of water." "Good gracious, is there anything else?" said Lupin. "No, my dear friend, that is all." "Well. I must confess, that your description would not have very materially assisted me in finding the spot." "Indeed, I thought nothing could possibly be more clear." "Clear to you, Mr. Todd, it may be, but not to any one else; but that don't matter a bit as you are here yourself to point out the exact spot. Are we near it now?" "Yes, you see that cluster of bushes?" "Yes, oh yes." "Well, the money lies hidden right in there, and you cannot miss it if you scramble in." "Lend me the stick to clear away the brambles and the nettles, and I will creep in." "My dear friend, I shall fall down if I lend you the stick. There is no difficulty in getting in. Don't you see there is a gap that you have only to push through, and there you are?" "Well--well," said Lupin. "That's enough; I will get through. Come on, let us secure the gold." Lupin stooped to push his way through the gap in the hedge, for the bushes grew so close together just there, that they resembled an enclosure carefully planted on purpose. Then Todd took the heavy stick that had been cut from the sycamore tree in both hands, and swinging it in the air, he brought it down with a stunning crack on the back of Lupin's head, just at the juncture of the neck. "God!" said Lupin, and it was the first time in his life that, with true sincerity, he had pronounced that sacred name. He then turned and sunk to the ground, with his face towards Todd. He could not speak now, but the look that he gave to his murderer was awful in the extreme. The injury he had received had quite paralysed him, and his hands hung helplessly. But the quality of mercy belonged not to Todd's composition. Again the huge stick was raised, and this time it fell upon the top of Lupin's head. The wretched man uttered one faint sigh and expired at once. "Dead!" said Todd, as he stood gaunt and erect before his victim, with the stick stretched out in his hand. "Dead--quite dead. Ha!" [Illustration: Todd Kills The Murderer, Lupin.] Todd made one of his old faces. He must at that moment have fancied himself engaged upon his ancient business in the cellars beneath his house in Fleet Street, or he never could have made the sort of face which had become so very incidental to him in that locality. The body fell huddled up, and the change that rapidly took place in the countenance, was something truly awful to behold; but it had not much effect upon Todd. He had struck many a man down to rise no more, against whom he had no cause of suspicion or of dread; and it was not likely that he would scruple to do so to one whom he both feared and hated as he did Mr. Lupin. "That is done!" said Todd, as he slowly let his arm droop until the stick touched the ground; and then relinquishing his grasp of it, he let it fall entirely. "That is done!" A slight noise close at hand made the murderer start, and caused the blood to turn cold around his heart from very abject fear that there had been some witness to his crime. "What was that?" he said, "what was that?" All was still again. It was but some wild bird taking flight from a low branch of a neighbouring tree, not liking the vicinity of man, and especially such a man as Mr. Todd; for we may well suppose even those little feathered fragile things are gifted with some of that physiognomical power that seems to be an attribute or an instinct of all animals, with regard to the human race. "It was nothing," said Todd very gently. "It was nothing at all. This has been an easily done deed, and a safe one. Nearly noiseless, too. It may be many a long day ere the body be discovered. I will drag it in among the bushes, so as to hide it for as long a space as may be, else if it were found early it would be a kind of index to my route, and would, at all events, show that I had been here." Full of this idea, Todd laid hold of the body and turned it back upwards. He even did not like to look in the face more than he could help. Then seizing the corpse by the collar of his coat, he dragged it into the hollow space among the bushes, and cast it down, saying as he did so-- "Rest you there, Mr. Lupin. I have only saved the hangman, after all, the trouble of taking your life, for I can feel well assured, that such would have been your end. You thought yourself a clever fellow, but after all you were nothing to me. Rest there; you were useful up to the moment that we reached the wood, and were in comparative safety. After that, you became an encumbrance, and so I have got rid of you, as I am in the habit of doing all such encumbrances to my views." Sweeney Todd then crept out from among the bushes, and after having cast the stick with which he had done the murder in among the bushes on top of the body, he walked rapidly away to another part of the wood. Ever and anon he stopped to listen if he could catch the slightest indication of the presence of any one else in the wood; but all was still, save now and then the song of some wild bird, as it lit for a few moments upon the branch of some tree, to warble a few notes, and then dart off again into the fresh and fragrant air. "I am safe here," muttered Todd, "I am safe here for the present, and until nightfall I will remain; but between this time and sunset, I must determine what I shall do, and it must be done quickly, for on the morrow the pursuit will be of a wider, as well as of a closer character than what it has been to-day." CHAPTER CXL. SHOWS HOW THE NEWS OF TODD'S ESCAPE WAS RECEIVED BY ALL CONCERNED. Having traced Todd and Lupin thus far in their escape from the meshes in which the law had so properly bound them, we will now for a time leave the arch-villain Todd in Caen Wood, Hampstead Heath, while we take a glance at what ensued in London, upon the escape of the two worthies from Newgate. It has often been remarked, that one person in London does not trouble himself about his neighbour's affairs, as is done in smaller communities, or know what is happening in his immediate vicinity; but it is likewise true, that nowhere does news travel so fast, or acquire so many exaggerations, as in London. Thus, then, in the course of a few hours, there was scarcely a person in the metropolis that was not aware of the escape of Sweeney Todd and Mr. Josiah Lupin from Newgate. And not only were they aware of the mere fact of the escape, but women had added so many extravagances to the whole affair, that it was quite wonderful to think of the fertility of invention of the illiterate persons who had added so many wonders and exaggerations to the real facts of the case, which, after all, lay, as the reader knows well, in a very small compass indeed, considering the magnitude of the result. Nor were the newspapers published on the ensuing morning at all backward in pandering to popular taste by making the affair as striking and as wonderful as they possibly could. In one quarter of the town it was firmly believed that not only had Todd and Lupin set Newgate on fire, but that they had murdered the governor and half a dozen turnkeys, and then made their way into the Old Bailey through the ruins of the prison over the dead bodies of their victims. In another part of London it was currently reported that an infuriated mob had attacked the prison, for the purpose of taking out Todd and hanging him forthwith, and that in the midst of the confusion incidental to such a scene, he had succeeded in making his escape in the disguise of a turnkey, with a huge bunch of keys in his hand as a symbol of his profession. Then again, in the highly religious district of Islington, it was fully believed, and, in fact, cried through the streets, that his Infernal Majesty, in his own proper person, had called at Newgate at about half past twelve at night, and taken away both the prisoners at once without any further ceremony. But all these idle rumours might be safely left to sink or swim as the incredulity or the credulity of their authors and hearers might determine, since it was after all only to a very few persons that the escape of Sweeney Todd was of the smallest importance, and, to still from that, the fate of Mr. Lupin was of any importance at all. The persons with whose feelings and wishes we and our readers feel interested, are those to whom the escape of Todd presented grounds for some anxious and painful reflections; and it is to them and their proceedings that we would now draw the attention of our readers. One of the first persons to whom the news was taken in a clear and compact unexaggerated form, was Sir Richard Blunt, and at an early hour of the morning he was roused from his rest by a messenger, who presented him with a brief note, containing only the following words from the Secretary of Newgate-- "Newgate. "SIR, "The prisoner, Sweeney Todd, has escaped from the jail, along with one Josiah Lupin. I am, Sir, Yours Obediently, "JOHN SMITH." "The deuce he has!" cried Sir Richard, as he sprung out of bed and began to dress himself with unusual speed, for Sir Richard seldom did anything in a hurry, as experience had long since told him how very little was gained by hurry and how much was sometimes lost. As soon as he got his things on, he descended to his private room, and there found an officer from the prison waiting to give him the particulars of the escape, which was done in a very few words. "And they are clear off?" said Sir Richard. "Quite so sir." "Well, after this, I rather think the Secretary of State will agree with my opinion, that it is not bolts and locks and bars that are to be trusted to, to keep notorious and bold malefactors in prison, but a stout and watchful personal superintendence; and until that is the case, there will be continual prison escapes. Such a man as Todd should not have been allowed to be for five minutes quite alone." "I think so, too," said the officer; "and there's another thing must be put a stop to before any good is done in Newgate." "What's that, my friend?" "Why, Sir Richard, the religious ladies must be stopped from coming in. The moment now that any notorious malefactor is cast for death, the prison is besieged by religious ladies, who, if they had their own way, would eat, drink, and sleep with him in his cell; and they bring in all sorts of things that are quite enough to help the fellow out of limbo. Why, Sir Richard, there was Michael Richardson that was cast for death for murdering his wife; a religious lady came to pray with him, and brought him in files and tools enough for him to get out of the stone jug, and off they both went together to America." "It is a serious evil." "I believe you, Sir Richard; and, I think, the only way will be to let 'em all know that before they pass the lobby they will be well searched by a couple of turnkeys." "That ought to stop them," said Sir Richard, as he rung the bell sharply. "You may depend upon it I will mention your suggestion to the Secretary of State." One of the magistrate's servants now made his appearance in answers to the summons by the bell. "My horse directly, Jones," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Yes, sir." In the course of ten minutes, Sir Richard Blunt was mounted, and off at a good trot to the City. Any one would have thought that he was going to Newgate; but such was not the case. The prisoners had flown, and he felt that by going to the prison he could only gratify his curiosity by seeing the precise mode in which they had effected their escape, when by going where he did go, he might do some good. He did not halt until he found himself at the shop of old Mr. Oakley, and then, although the hour was a very early one, he knocked at the door. Mr. Oakley put his head out at the window, and Sir Richard said-- "Don't be alarmed; I only want to speak to you for a few moments." "Oh, dear me, yes," said the old man. "I'm coming down stairs directly--I'm coming." In a few moments the old spectacle-maker opened the door, and came out to the side of the horse, from which the magistrate did not dismount, but leaning down to Mr. Oakley, he said, in an earnest tone-- "There's no occasion for any alarm, but I have come to tell you that Sweeney Todd has escaped from prison." "Oh, Lord!" "Hush! It is of no great moment. Where is your daughter and Mr. Ingestrie? I must put them upon their guard against anything that may arise, for there is no exactly saying what that rascal, Todd, may be at." "Oh, he will murder everybody." "I think, Mr. Oakley that is going just a little too far, for I will take good care that he don't murder me, nor any one else, if I can by any possibility help it. I will soon have him, I think. Where is Mr. Ingestrie, Mr. Oakley?" "Oh, dear, they are at the new house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. It's just opposite to the water if you go--" "I know all about it, thank you, Mr. Oakley. All's right. Be under no apprehension, and above all things, don't you believe one word of anything you hear about Todd from popular rumour or from the newspapers. I will let you know everything that is of any consequence, personally or by letter. Good morning. I hope Mrs. Oakley is quite well this morning?" "Yes, charming; but, dear me!" "Yes, it is dear me. Good morning." Away rode the magistrate, and now he put his horse, which was a good one, to a smart trot, and made his way to Colonel Jeffery's house in a very short space of time; for London was not quite so large as it is now, and it was not a day's journey to go from one house to another if your friends happened to reside at different ends of the town. The colonel, at that hour of the morning, was up and walking in his garden. When Sir Richard Blunt was announced, he guessed at once that something very unusual had taken place; and after shaking hands, he said-- "I know there's some news. Sir Richard. Is it pleasant, or the other way?" "In truth," said Sir Richard, "that is a question I can scarcely answer you yet. All I have got to say is, that you had better look out, for they have let Todd get out of Newgate." "Escaped?" "Exactly so." "Now that is too bad. One would really have thought they would have taken care of such a fellow as that. How in the name of all that's abominable is it, that if any one escapes from Newgate, it is sure to be some notorious rascal who ought by all means to be the most carefully kept in it." "Ah! that I don't know, but I quite agree with you that it is a fact nevertheless." "It's a very awkward thing, and I am particularly obliged to you for coming to let me know." "Why, the fact is, colonel, my opinion of Todd is just this: that now he has lost all his money he is just like a wild beast, and that revenge against all and every one who has been instrumental in bringing him to his present condition, will be the dominant feeling in his breast." "Not a doubt of it." "Then by awaking you to a sense of this danger both to yourself and to your _protege_, young Tobias, I am doing my duty. It is not courage that will protect any one from Sweeney Todd. If that had been the case, this is the last house I should have dreamt of coming to with a warning; but it will be only by the greatest circumspection that his attempt to assassinate may be avoided, and the villain foiled." "I thank you with all my heart, and feel the truth of your observation. I will not mention the matter to poor Tobias, for I feel that it would drive him half mad with terror; but I will take care to keep such a watch upon him, that no harm can come to him from Todd, now that I know that there is danger. He may, of course, hear of the affair from other sources, but he shall not from me." "That is right. Mind you, colonel, I don't think this state of alarm must last long, and as regards Tobias, I am in hope that at the same time he hears of Todd's escape, he may hear of his recapture, for I am going to set about that as soon as I possibly can, after I have warned every one interested to keep themselves on the look-out concerning the rascal." "You think you will have him again?" "Oh, yes. He must be without resources, or, at all events, comparatively so; and under such circumstances, we shall soon trace him. Besides, he is rather a remarkable man, and one who, once seen, is not only easily known again, but easily described; so that when I set all the agencies on foot which I have at my command to find him out, he cannot for long elude me." "I sincerely wish you every success." "Thank you, colonel, for I must now be off, for I have to get to Chelsea to warn the Ingestries of the possible, if not the probable danger of Todd trying some delectable scheme of revenge against them, for he is most furious I know against Johanna." "Off with you, Sir Richard, at once. Do not let me detain you, when you are upon such an errand. I would not have any harm come to Mrs. Ingestrie for worlds." "Nor I. Good morning." The magistrate mounted his horse again, and waving his hand to the colonel, he again started at a good round trot, and made the best of his way by the nearest possible route he could to Chelsea, where Mr. and Mrs. Ingestrie had set up housekeeping in Cheyne Walk. That portion of Chelsea was then very fashionable, and from the appearance of the houses even now, it is very easy to see that it must have been a very desirable place at one time. All the evidences of wealthy ease meet you on every hand, as you look at those broad, well-put together, aristocratic residences, with their pretty bit of highly cultivated garden in front of them, and their massive doorways. It was in one of these houses that Johanna and her young husband had taken up their residence. The string of pearls had been actually purchased by royalty of Johanna, and had produced a sum of money that had not only placed the young couple above all the ordinary pecuniary accidents of life, but had enabled them to surround Mr. and Mrs. Oakley with comforts, although the old spectacle-maker, from very habit, would stick to his shop, declaring, and no doubt with great truth, that his daily labour was now such a thing of habit that he would be miserable without it. It was a very different thing, though, for old Mr. Oakley now to work at the bench in his shop, when he felt that he was placed above the real necessity for doing so, to when he had worked very hard indeed to support himself and Johanna, during the period, too, when in consequence of Mrs. Oakley's rather insane predilection for the Reverend Josiah Lupin, there was no comfort in the house, and, but for Johanna, all would have gone to rack and ruin. The frightfully dirty ditch that lies before and beyond Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was not then in existence, so that the really handsome row of residences was not destroyed--as it is now--by such dubious companionship. The river, too, was much clearer than now of craft, and likewise much sweeter, so that really at times, when the sun shone upon its ripples, it really deserved the title of "The Silver Thames." It was still an early hour when Sir Richard Blunt reached Chelsea--that is to say, it was what then was considered an early hour, for all the world was not in the hurry that is the fashion now, and people did everything in a much more easy and deliberate way than they do now. What is gained, or pretended to be gained, by all the hurry-skurry and jostling and driving that characterises society at present? We must confess ourselves at a loss to imagine, and we are decidedly of opinion that people were both happier and better when everything was taken in an easy way, and when folks did not disturb their dignities by all sorts of frantic manoeuvres to save time, as if the whole end and aim of life was to get through as much of what is called business as possible, and as if the principal business of everybody was not to be as quiet and comfortable as possible. The magistrate could not but pause for a moment as he reached Cheyne Walk and saw the bright sun shining upon the water, and gilding with beauty the sails of some small craft that were taking advantage of a light pleasant breeze to get along without labour. "A pretty enough place this," he said, "and I don't know any that I should prefer to idle away my life in, if I had nothing to do, as I hope to have some of these odd days--but not yet." CHAPTER CXLI. SHOWS HOW TODD MADE UP HIS MIND TO VENGEANCE. Sir Richard drew bridle opposite the house of Mr. Ingestrie, and called to an urchin who was passing to ring the bell for him. The boy complied and in a few moments a servant made an appearance, to whom Sir Richard said-- "If your master is stirring, pray tell him that a gentleman wishes to speak to him for a few moments." These words were hardly past the lips of the magistrate, when some one, with a bunch of flowers in her hand, and one of the prettiest of pretty morning dresses, came to the door. It was our old, dear, young, kind friend, Johanna! We cannot help calling her Johanna still, although, perhaps, it would be more proper for us to name her Mrs. Ingestrie; but it seems so odd to append that title of "Mrs." to our gentle, youthful Johanna, whose dangers in Todd's shop we have watched and trembled at so often in times past. "Ah! my dear friend," she cried, when she saw who it was. "I am so glad to see you!" "And I am equally glad to see you," said Sir Richard, "particularly as you look so well and so happy." [Illustration: Sir Richard Blunt Pays A Visit To Johanna, At Chelsea.] "Yes, I am happy. Mark! Mark! here is Sir Richard come to breakfast with us." "Nay, I did not think of dismounting." "Oh, but you must. I will hold the bridle of the horse, and you will have to ride over me if you attempt to go away. Mark--Mark! where are you!" Upon these repeated calls, Mark Ingestrie make his appearance at the door, and looked pleased enough to see Sir Richard, who, finding that they would take no sort of denial, he felt that he could not do otherwise than dismount and enter the house. A servant of the Ingestries took charge of his horse, and he was soon in the breakfast-room of the pretty house, inhabited by the young couple. It did not escape the observation of Johanna that there was a cloud of seriousness upon the countenance of Sir Richard Blunt; but she did not make any remark, although each moment she felt more and more convinced that it was some matter of business that called the magistrate to their abode so early; for it will be remembered that although he had transacted a good quantity of business, the day was yet very young. Mark Ingestrie did not appear to have any idea beyond the fact that it was very kind of the magistrate to visit them; but the reader will easily excuse him for not being so acute an observer as Johanna. "I hope," said Mark, "that you will often take a canter over here, Sir Richard, before the business of the day commences, and breakfast with us. I know how very hopeless it is to expect you often at any other time." "It is rather so," replied Sir Richard, "and my stay now must be very limited indeed. How do you both like your new house?" "It is charming," said Johanna, "and the view from the windows is full of animation for the greater part of the day." "It's the view in-doors," smiled Mark, "that to me is so delightful and so full of animation." "That is just what I should have supposed," said the magistrate, glancing at Johanna with a smile. "Now, positively, I must go and take my breakfast in some other room," said Johanna, "if there are to be any compliments. They are quite absurd, you know, among married folks." "And a little unfair," said Sir Richard, "at meal times, I think, above all others." "Indeed?" said Mark. "Yes, to be sure," added Johanna, "for you know one is either obliged to hear the compliments, which feed no one but with false viands, or leave the table upon which there may be something much more substantial and decidedly more palatable." "I give in," said Mark, "I give in. I don't for one moment profess to be a match for you alone, my dear; but when you get Sir Richard to side with you, I feel that I had better say as little as possible." "A graceful defeat," said Sir Richard, "is almost as good as a clumsy victory." "Much better," said Johanna, "a great deal better. But now, Sir Richard, you have not ridden over here to help us at our breakfast, or to talk badinage." Mark opened his eyes very wide indeed, and looked from Johanna to the magistrate, and from the magistrate to Johanna, with evident surprise. An expression of great anxiety was each moment gathering over the face of Johanna, which Sir Richard saw, and with all that tact which with him was a kind of second nature, he said-- "I have had the pleasure of seeing your father this morning, and they are all well at the old house, and as comfortable as can be." Johanna drew a long breath of relief, and then Mark Ingestrie cried in a voice of surprise-- "What? Do you mean to say you have been in the city before you came here, sir?" "I have, my friend, and I have been to Colonel Jeffery's, too, before I came here. If I had not, I should not be able to indulge myself with the pleasure of staying here for even the short time that I have been beneath your roof. I must, however, go." "Something has happened!" said Johanna. "So there has," said the magistrate with a smile, "but it cannot be anything very serious, you know, as all our dear friends are well. Anything falls light in comparison with the health and happiness of those whom we love." "Oh, yes--yes," said Johanna. "You are right, and you are very good to preface bad news in so kind a manner, Sir Richard. It is good, and kind, and grateful, and like you in all respects. I thank you from my heart." "But what's it all about?" cried Mark Ingestrie. "Good gracious, what's it all about? Who talks of bad news? If all our friends are well, how can there be bad news? Do not keep us in suspense, Sir Richard!" "No--no," said Johanna. "I will not." Both Johanna and Mark Ingestrie looked most intently at the magistrate, as he said in his quiet way-- "Sweeney Todd has escaped from Newgate, and is now at large!" Mark Ingestrie sprang to his feet, and Johanna, for a moment, turned rather pale. "The villain!" cried Mark. "Hush!" said Johanna. "Oh, hush, Mark!" "It was of the utmost importance," continued Sir Richard Blunt, speaking quite calmly, "that all who were in any way comprehended in the list of what Sweeney Todd would call his enemies, should be speedily informed of this fact, and that is what has brought me to Chelsea at so early an hour in the morning." "We thank you from our hearts," said Johanna. "We do, indeed," said Mark. "But let him beware of me. He dare not, villain as he is, come within the reach of my arm. The spirit of my poor murdered friend, Thornhill, will cry aloud for vengeance, and nothing should save the murderer from death." "Oh, Mark--Mark!" said Johanna, "do not speak in such a strain. You do not know Todd. You know nothing of the character and of the capabilities of that man. He is not only one of the most wicked, but he is likewise one of the most crafty and unscrupulous." "That is true," said the magistrate. "He does not know him. Do you suppose for one moment, Mr. Ingestrie, that I would have ridden over here to give you such a special warning concerning this man, if I apprehended any open attack? No--that I could have trusted to you to ward off. Your life has been one of danger and adventure; but not you, nor I, nor all the world, can be prepared against what Todd may, in the profound depths of his imagination, attempt." "All that is true," said Johanna, "most true." "You now really alarm me!" said Mark. "Then I did not mean to do so. All I wished was that you should be made aware of the real extent of the possible danger. For myself, I look upon all such men as Sweeney Todd as mad men, to a certain extent; and now that he is deprived of his money, there is no knowing but he may be willing to sacrifice his life for the gratification of, no doubt, one of the most powerful feelings of his mind, which is revenge!" "No doubt," said Johanna. A flush of colour came over the cheek of the young husband, and he took the hand of Johanna in his, as he said-- "Oh, Sir Richard, only tell me now I may best secure this treasure against the machinations of that monster in human shape." "Nay, now, Mr. Ingestrie," said Sir Richard, "do not fall into the other extreme, and make too much of this danger. We are very apt to pet some peril, until we make it to our imagination assume a much larger shape than really belongs to it. I hope that Todd will be in custody again soon." "Is it likely, sir?" "I fancy so. From this day I abandon all other objects and pursuits, and devote myself to that task alone." "Then there is a hope," said Johanna. "Yes," added Sir Richard. "My impression is that he has no money, and that I shall soon apprehend him; but if, unknown to me, he has any secret funds, he may make an attempt to leave the kingdom, and so foil me." "And if he does?" "I follow him, for I am determined that sooner or later, dead or alive, Todd shall be given up to the law." "But you will advise us what to do," said Mark Ingestrie. "In your experience you can suggest to us the best mode of proceeding in this emergency." "I have been thinking of that as I came along, and my advice is that you leave London immediately. I do not think that the danger, admitting that there is any at all, is immediate. Todd for some days will be far too intent upon evading pursuit and recognition to think of much else, besides his personal safety, so that you will have ample time to leave." "We will do so," said Johanna, "at once. Where would you advise us to go?" "There is a little fishing village on the south coast, called Brighthelmstone. It lies in a pleasant enough valley stretching to the sea. There you can remain quite unsuspected of Todd, and enjoy the fair sea breezes that make the place delightful, without a thought of danger, for it is not that way he will go, as the place is not a port from which he could take shipping if he wished to leave England; and if he did not wish to leave at all, nothing could be further from his thoughts than going so far from London, and the spot upon which all his revenge could alone be attempted to be gratified." "We will go," said Johanna, appealingly looking at Mark Ingestrie as she spoke. "Certainly," he replied. "Well, then," said Sir Richard, "since that is so far settled, I have a favour to ask of you both." "You have but to name it," said Ingestrie. "You ought rather to say that you have a command to give us both." "Yes," said Johanna, "that is so." "No. If I thought that, I should not like to mention it. But I appeal to your candour to say 'yes,' or 'no,' to the request, according as you really feel inclined when you hear it. You know how anxious Todd has been to take the life of the poor lad, Tobias, who has suffered so much at his hands." "Oh, yes--yes," said Johanna. "Well. Have you any objection to take him with you?" "None in the least," cried Mark. Johanna turned to him with a smile, as she said-- "Mark, I thank you with all my heart for that ready reply and acquiescence with the proposal of Sir Richard Blunt, and I echo it by likewise saying, 'None in the least.'" "You have met the proposal as I anticipated you both would," said the magistrate, "or I should not have made it. You will find poor Tobias one of the most gentle and inoffensive of beings; but his nature has been so acted upon by Todd, that it would drive him to the verge of madness if he thought that the villain were at large; so I do not wish that he should know as much until it can be coupled with information of his recapture." "The secret shall be kept." "Then my business is concluded, and I am sorry to say my pleasure also; for it has been a real one to visit you both; and I must be off at once. I will communicate with Colonel Jeffery about Tobias, and manage how he shall come to you. A post-chaise will take you in six hours to the place I have mentioned, which you will find marked on the map." "I know it," said Ingestrie. "That is well. And now good-day." The Ingestries took a warm and affectionate leave of Sir Richard, who, in ten minutes more, was on his road to London. CHAPTER CXLII. RETURNS TO TODD IN THE WOOD AT HAMPSTEAD. While all this was going on, contingent upon his elopement from Newgate, Todd was still in the wood at Hampstead--that wood in which he had committed so barbarous a murder, in ridding the world of almost as great a rascal as himself, in the shape of Mr. Lupin. Todd was as anxious as possible to leave the wood, but he felt that to do so in daylight would be jeopardising himself much too seriously. He was not without money, as the reader is aware; and after placing some distance between himself and the dead body of Mr. Lupin, he sat down upon the roots of an old tree to think. It was not that Todd had any particular terrors connected with the dead body of Mr. Lupin that induced him to get away from the neighbourhood of the body, but he thought it was just possible some people might come into the wood, and in such a case he did not wish to be connected with the deed in consequence of any contiguity to it. "What shall I do?" said Todd, after he had rested for some time with his head upon his hand. "That is the question--what shall I do? I have some money, but not enough. Oh, that I had but a tithe of the amount that once was mine! I would yet leave England for ever, and forego all my thoughts of vengeance, unless I could contrive from a great distance to do some mischief, and that might be done if very cunningly contrived; but they have taken from me all--all!" Here Mr. Todd indulged in a few expletives, with which we do not think proper to encumber our pages; and after swearing himself into a state of comparative calmness again, he held up his left hand, and separating the fingers, he began to count upon them the names of people. "Let me see," he said. "Let me see, how many throats now it would give me a very special pleasure to cut--Humph--Ha. Sir Richard Blunt--one; Tobias Ragg--two; Colonel Jeffery--three; Johanna Oakley--four; and her husband, that is, I suppose, by this time, five--confound him! Ah! those make up the five that I most specially should like to sacrifice! A whole handful of victims! After they were comfortably despatched, no doubt, I could think of a few more; but it is better to confine one's attention to the principals for a time. The others may drop in afterwards, when one has nothing more important to do." He thought he heard a noise in the wood, and he stooped his head to listen. It was nothing, or if it had been anything, it quickly ceased again, and he was tolerably satisfied that he was alone. "What a delightful thing, now, it would be," he muttered, "if I could poison the whole lot of them at once, with some drug that would give them the most excruciating agony! And then I should like to go round to them all, and shout in their ears--'I did it!--I, Sweeney Todd, did it!' That would be glorious, indeed! Ha! ha!" "Ha!" said a voice behind him, following up his hideous laugh most closely in point of tone. It was almost with what might be called a yell of terror that Todd sprang to his feet, and turned round, fully expecting to see some one; but not the slightest vestige of the presence of any human being met his eyes. After gazing for a moment or two, he thought that surely some one must be hiding behind one of the trees, and he sprang forward, crying-- "Disclose yourself, villain! Crafty wretch, you or I must die!" There was no reply to this; and he could find no one, although he looked narrowly about, for the next quarter of an hour, all over the spot. He felt quite convinced that no one could have slipped away without him hearing something of the footfall, however light it might be; and he was left, by this extraordinary circumstance, in a complete maze of terrified conjecture. He trembled in every limb from positive fright. No man was probably more generally free from what might be called superstitious terrors, than Sweeney Todd. At least, we may certainly say, that no guilty man ever could be more free from them. Had such not been the case, it is quite impossible that he could have carried on the career that he did; but of late, two or three things had happened to him to give his imagination a kind of jog upon such subjects. He might well be excused for a little kind of nervousness now, when he felt quite confident that a laugh from no mortal lungs had sounded within a few inches of his ears, at so strange a moment. "What can it be?" he said, in a voice of terror. "What can it be? Have I all along been mistaken; and is there such a thing as an invisible world of spirits about us? Oh, what can I think?--what excuse can I now give myself for an unbelief, without which I should have gone quite mad long--long ago?" The heavy drops stood upon his brow, and he was forced to stagger back, and hold by a tree for support. After a few moments of this condition, however, the determined spirit of the man triumphed over the fears that beset him, and raising his voice, he said-- "No--no; I will never be the slave of such wild fancies! This is no time for me to give way to a belief in these things, which all my life I have laughed to scorn! If I had believed what the world pretends to believe, I must have been stark staring mad to load my soul with guilt in the way I have done, if my recompense had been the accumulated wealth of all the kingdoms of the earth; for death would, despite all that, come and rob me of all, leaving me poor as any beggar who lays him down by the road side to die!" While he spoke, he glared nervously and apprehensively about him, and then he drew a long breath, as he added-- "I take shame to myself now to have one particle of fear. Have not I, at the hour of midnight, many and many a time threaded the mazes of the dark vaults of St. Dunstan's, when I knew that I was all but surrounded by the festering, gaunt remains of heaps of my victims? and shall I here, with the open sky above me, and only the known neighbourhood of one dead villain, shake in such a way? No--no!" He stamped upon the ground to reassure himself; and then, as though willing to taunt the unseen laugher into a repetition of the mocking sound, he again cried-- "Ha!--ha!" There was no response to this, and it was rather a disappointment to Todd that there was not, for a hope had been growing upon his mind to the effect, that it was only some echo in the wood, to which he had been indebted for his fright; but now, when it did not occur again as it ought to have done, if it had been a result from any natural cause, he was thrown back upon his strength of mind merely to shake it off as best he might. "Fancy! fancy!" he cried. "It was but fancy after all;" but he did not believe himself when he so spoke. Todd remained in the wood tolerably free from any more alarms, until the sun sunk in the west; and while there was positive darkness in that place where he was hiding, a sweet twilight still lingered over the fair face of nature. "I must not venture forth yet," he said, "but in another hour it will be dark alike upon the heath as in the wood, and then I will go into the village and get some refreshment, after which, I rather think, that London, with all its dangers, will be the best place for me. I have heard of people hiding there for many a day. I wonder, now, if a lodging in the Old Bailey would be a good thing? Surely they would never think of looking for me there." Todd rather chuckled over this pleasant idea of a lodging in the Old Bailey. It was just one of the notions that, for its practical extravagance, rather pleased him than otherwise, but although it had something to recommend it, it required rather more boldness than even he was master of to carry it out. But such thoughts sufficed to amuse him until darkness was upon the face of the land, and to withdraw his thoughts from other and more tormenting matters; so that for a time he even forgot the seemingly supernatural laugh that had sounded so oddly behind him, and produced in him such a world of alarm. He heard the clock of Hampstead Church proclaim the hour of nine, and then he thought that he might venture from his place of concealment; and yet it will be seen that Todd had not been able to concoct any definite plan of operations. Then he was wishing to do many things, and yet unable in that anxious state of his fortunes to do anything at all. Truly, Sir Richard Blunt was right enough, when he said that Todd, for a time, would be much too busy with his own affairs to take any active step for the accomplishment of any of his revenges. In the wood, now, the darkness was so great, that literally you could not see your hand before your face; and the only plan by which he could leave it was by blundering right on, and trusting to get out at any point to which his chance steps might lead him. In about a quarter of an hour he came to a rather precipitous bank, which he clambered up, and then he found himself on the outskirts of the wood, and not far from the village. He heard some one coming along the road-way, and whistling as he came. The moon was struggling against the shadowing influence of a mass of clouds in the horizon, and Todd felt that in a little time the whole place would be light enough. "Am I sufficiently unlike myself," he said, "to trust an appearance in the village? I want food, and most of all, I want drink. Yes, now more than ever; I cannot pretend to live without stimulants. Yes, I will risk it, and then I will go to London." He sprang down into the road, and in as careless a manner as he could, he walked on in the direction that he thought would take him to the village. The man who was whistling as he came along, rather increased his pace, and to the great alarm of Todd, overtook him, and said-- "A fine night, sir, we shall have? The moon is getting up nicely now, sir!" Todd breathed a little more freely. After all, it was not an enemy, but only one of those people so common in places a little way out of town, who are talkative to any one they may meet, for the mere love of talking. For once in his life, Todd determined upon being wonderfully gracious, and he replied quite in a tone of serenity-- "Yes, it is a nice night; and, as you say, the moon is rising beautifully." "Yes, sir," added the man, who was carrying something that Todd could not, for the life of him, make out. "Yes, sir, and I am not sorry to get home, now. I have been all round by Hendon, Golders Green, and Finchley, sticking bills." "Bills?" "Yes, sir, about the murderer Todd, you know!" "Oh, ah!" "You know, sir, he has got out of Newgate, and there's five hundred pounds reward offered by the _guvment_ for him. A nice little set up that would be, sir, for any one, wouldn't it, sir?" "Very." "All the bill-stickers round London have had a job in putting up the bills, and they say that if it costs a million of money they intend to have him." "And very proper too," said Todd. "Can you spare a bill, my friend?" "Oh, yes. There's hand ones as well as posters. Here's one, sir, and you'll find a description of him. Oh, don't I only wish I could come across him, that's all; I'd make rather a tidy day's work then, I think. That would be a little better, sir, than the paste-pot, wouldn't it?" "Rather," said Todd; "but he might be rather a dear bargain; for such a man, I should think, would not be very easily taken!" "There's something in that, sir, as you say, but yet I would have a try. Five hundred pounds, you know, sir, is not to be picked up everyday on the road-side." "Certainly not! Is that Hampstead where the lights are, to the left, there?" "Yes, right on. I live at west-end, and my way lays this way. Good night, sir!" "Good night," said Todd. "I hope you may have the luck of meeting with this Todd, and so earning the five hundred pounds you mention; but I am afraid, after all, there is not much chance, for I heard he had gone down to the coast, and had got on board a vessel and was off by this time. That may not be true, though. Goodnight!" CHAPTER CXLIII. TODD TAKES A LOOK AT HIS OLD QUARTERS IN FLEET STREET. The village of Hampstead was, at the time of which we write, really a village. It still retains many of its old houses and picturesque beauties, but it is not quite such a little retired spot as it was. If ever any one walked through Hampstead, however, who was less inclined than another to pause and speculate upon its beauties, certainly that man was our doubtful acquaintance, Sweeney Todd. He did not think it quite prudent to stop in the High Street to solace himself with any worldly comforts, although he saw several public-houses very temptingly open, but passing right on, he descended Red Lion Hill, and paused at a little inn at the foot of it, that is to say, on the London side of the pretty village. Brandy was Todd's request, and he was met by a prompt, "Yes, sir;" but Todd had, among his varied experiences, to find out what Hampstead brandy was, and the moment he placed a portion of it in his mouth, his eyes goggled furiously, and spitting it out, he said, in a voice of anger-- "This is some mistake." "Mistake, sir?" "Yes; I asked for brandy, and you have given me the rinsings of some bottles and dirty glasses." "Oh, dear no, sir; that brandy is the very best that you will get in all Hampstead." "The best in all Hampstead!" repeated Todd, with a groan; "what must the worst be, I wonder?" "I assure you, sir, it is considered to be very good." "Considered?" said Todd. "Then, my friend, there's your money, and as the brandy is considered to be so good, you can drink it; but having some respect, from old companionship, for my inside, I decline it. Good evening." With these words, Todd laid a shilling upon the bar, and strode away. "Well," said the publican, "how singular! that's the eighth person who has refused that one quartern of brandy and paid for it. Here, wife, put this back into the bottle again, and shake it up well." Todd pursued his route down Haverstock Hill, until he came to the then straggling district of Camden Town, and there he did find a house at which he got just a tolerable glass of brandy, and feeling very much invigorated by the drop, he walked on more rapidly still; and a thought took possession of him, which, although it was perhaps not unattended with danger, might turn out to be a very felicitous one. During his career in the shop in Fleet Street, he had collected a number of watches from the pockets of the murdered persons, but he had always been afraid to attempt the disposal of the best of them. The fact was, that at that time everybody had not a watch as at present. It was an expensive article, and Mr. So-and-so's watch was as well known as Mr. So-and-so himself; so that it would have been one of the most hazardous things possible for Todd to have brought suspicion upon himself by going about disposing of the watches of his victims. It was the same, too, with some other costly articles, such as rings, lockets, and so on; and as he had realised as much money as he could previous to his arrangements for leaving England, Todd had left some of this description of property to perish in the fire, which he hoped to be the means of igniting in old Fleet Street upon his departure. Now, as he crept along by Tottenham-Court-Road, he mused upon the state of things. "If," he muttered, "I could only get into my late house in Fleet Street, I know where to lay my hand upon portable property, which was not worth my consideration while I had thousands of pounds in gold, but which now would be a fortune to me in my reduced circumstances. If I could but lay my hand upon it!" The more Todd thought over this proposition, the more pleased he was with it; and by the time he had indulged himself with two more glasses of brandy, it began to assume, to his mind, a much more tangible shape. "It may be done," he said, "it surely may be done. If I could only make my way in the church it might be done well, and surely one of these picklocks that I have about me might enable me to do that." The picklock he alluded to was one that he had put in his pocket to accommodate Mr. Lupin, when they were both so intent upon their escape from Newgate, and when Mr. Lupin was foolish enough to believe that Todd really had two thousand pounds buried in Caen Wood, Hampstead. There was one thing, however, which made Todd pause. He did not think he was sufficiently disguised to venture into the locality of his old residence, and, unfortunately for him, he was rather a peculiar-looking man. His great chance, however, was, that in Fleet Street surely no one would now think of looking for Sweeney Todd. "I must be bold," he said, "I must be bold and resolute. It will not do to shrink now. I will buy a knife." This was a pleasant idea to Todd. Buying a knife seemed almost like getting half-way to his revenge, and he went into an obscure cutler's shop, and bought a long double-edged knife, for which he gave two shillings. He then carefully concealed it in his clothing. After this, he hit upon a plan of operations which he thought would have the effect of disguising him. At that period, wigs were so commonly worn that it was nothing at all particular for a person to go into a wig-makers, and select one--put it on--pay for it--and go away! "Yes," said Todd, "I will buy a wig; for I have art enough and knowledge of wigs to enable me to do so--as shall produce the greatest possible change in my appearance. A wig, a wig will be the thing." Todd had hardly well made this declaration than he came upon a wig-makers, and in he went. Pointing to a wig that was on a block, and which had a very clerical kind of look, he inquired the price of it. "Oh, my dear sir," said the wig-maker, "that is much too old looking a perriwig for you. Let me recommend you a much younger wig. Now, sir, here's one that will take a matter of ten years off your age in a moment." Todd had discretion enough to know well that he could not make up young, so he merely pointed to the wig again and enquired the price. "Well, sir, it is a couple of guineas, but--" Without another word, Todd laid down the couple of guineas, and putting the wig upon his head he left the shop, certainly having given the wig-maker an impression that he was the oddest customer he had had for some time; but little did he suspect that that odd customer was the criminal with whose name all London was ringing, and upon whose head--with or without a wig--so heavy a price was set. After this, Todd made his way to a shop where second-hand clothing was bought and sold, and there he got accommodated with an old gray coat that reached down to the calves of his legs, and he bought likewise a very voluminous white cravat; and when he got into the street with these articles, and purchased at another shop a walking cane, with a great silver top to it, and put one hand behind his back and stooped very much, and moved along as if he were afflicted with all the corns and bunions that his toes could carry, and by bending his knees, decreased his height six inches, no one could have known him. At least, so Todd flattered himself. In this way he tottered on until he got to the immediate neighbourhood of Fleet Street. To be sure, with all his coolness and courage, he could not help shaking a little when he came to that well remembered neighbourhood. "And I," he thought to himself, "and I by this time hoped and expected to be far over the sea, instead of being such a wretch as I am now, crawling about, as it were, amid pitfalls and all sorts of dangers! Alas! alas!" He really shook now, and it was quite astonishing how, with his old wig, and his old gray coat and his stick, and his stooping posture, old and venerable, yes, positively venerable, Sweeney Todd actually looked. "Ain't you well, sir?" said a respectable man, stepping up to him. "Can I assist you?" Todd perpetrated about half a dozen wheezing coughs, and then, not sorry for an opportunity of trying his powers of imitation of age, he replied in a tremulous voice-- "Ah, sir! Yes--old age--old age, sir--eugh!--eugh!--oh, dear me, I feel that I am on my last legs, and that they are on the shake--old age, sir, will come on; but it's a comfort to look back upon a long life well spent in deeds of charity!" "Not a doubt of it," said the stranger. "I was only afraid, sir, you were taken suddenly ill, as you stood there." "Oh, no--no--eugh!--no. Thank you, sir." "Good evening, sir." "Good evening, my good sir. Oh, if I had you only in my old shop with a razor at your throat, wouldn't I polish you off!" muttered Todd, as the stranger left him. In the course of another minute, Todd was on the Fleet Street side of Temple Bar. He could almost see his old house--that house in which he had passed years of deep iniquity, and which he had hoped, ere that time, would have been a heap of ruins. There it was, tall, dismal, and gaunt looking. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck eleven. "Eleven," he muttered. "A good hour. The streets are getting deserted now, and no one will know me. I will stoop yet more, and try to look older--older still." Todd a little over acted his part, as he tottered down Fleet Street, so that some individuals turned to look after him, which was a thing he certainly did not wish, as his great object was to escape all observation if possibly he could; so he corrected that, and went on rather more strongly; and finally he came exactly opposite to his own house, and getting partially into a door-way, he looked long and fixedly at it. What thoughts, at that time, chased each other through the guilty mind of that man, it is hard to say; but he stood like a statue, fixing his regards upon the house for the space of about a quarter of an hour. Once only he clapped his teeth together, and gave a sort of savage growl. It was lucky for Todd that no one saw him just then, or they would have thought him rather an extraordinary old man. The house was perfectly dark from top to bottom. The shutters of the shop, of course, were all up, and the shutters of the first-floor windows were likewise closed. The other windows had their old dingy blinds all down; and, to all outward appearance, that den of murder was deserted. But Todd could not believe such to be the case. In his own mind, he felt fully sure, that Sir Richard Blunt was not the man to leave the house without some sort of custody; and he quite settled with himself, that there was some one or more persons minding it, and, no doubt, by order, sitting there in one of the back rooms, so that no light should show in front. "Curses on them all!" he muttered. "Ah! you are looking at old Todd's house, sir?" said a voice. Todd started; and close to him was a person smoking a pipe, and looking as jolly as possible. "Yes--yes," stammered Todd, for he was taken by surprise rather. "Oh, yes, sir. I am amazed at the great wickedness of human nature." "You may well, sir--you may well! Lord bless me! I never thought him a good looking man, but I never thought any ill of him neither, and I have seen him lots of times." "Indeed, sir? Pray, what sort of man was he? I never saw him, as I live in Soho; and I am so much in years now, that in the bustling day-time I don't care to come into streets like this; for you see, sir, I can't move about as I could sixty years ago; and the people--God help them--are all in such a hurry now, and they push me here and there in such a way, that my failing breath and limbs won't stand it; and--and--eugh!--eugh! Oh, dear." "Poor old gentleman! I don't wonder at your not liking the crowds. How old may you be, sir?'" "A matter of eighty-nine, sir. It's an old age to get to, but I--I am younger than my brother, yet--Ha! ha! Oh dear, if it wasn't now for the rheumatism and the lumbago and a pain in my shoulder, and a few other little things, I should get on very well." "Not a doubt of it. But you asked me what Todd was like, and I'll tell you, sir. He was nigh upon six feet high, and his face was two feet of it. He was just as ugly as any one you would wish to see for a pattern in that way, and that's his house where he murdered all the people." "Peace be to their souls!" "Amen! And there are underground places that lead right away through the vaults of St. Dunstan's to Bell-yard, where Mrs. Lovett's pie-shop was, you know, sir." "I have heard. Ah, dear--dear, I have heard. A very wicked woman, indeed--very wicked; and yet, sir, it is to be hoped she has found mercy in another world." "There would need be plenty of it," said the man with the pipe, "if Mrs. Lovett is to be accommodated with any." "My friend," said Todd, "don't be profane; and now I must go, as I don't like being out late." "And so must I, for my pipe's out. I shall turn in, now. Good night, sir, and a pleasant walk home to you." "Thank you, sir, thank you--eugh! eugh! I think if it were not for my cough, I should do very well." Todd hobbled away, and the man, who lived in Bouverie Street, went home. Todd had not got any real information from this man; but the brief conversation he had had with him, had given him a sort of confidence in his disguise, and in his power of acting, that he had not had before, so that, upon the whole, he was not sorry for the little incident. And now it was quite evident that the streets were getting very much deserted. During the whole length of Fleet Street there was not half a dozen persons to be seen at all, and Todd, after casting a rapid glance around him to note if he were observed, suddenly crossed the way, and boldly went up to the door of old St. Dunstan's Church. When once close to the door of the old building, he was so much in shadow that he felt tolerably secure from observation, but still he lingered a little, for he did not want to do anything so hastily as to rob it of its caution. With his back against the church-door he glanced right and left, and then for the space of five minutes he bent all his faculties to the one task of ascertaining if any one was sufficiently near to watch him, and he got perfectly satisfied that such was not the case. He stood securely against the old church-door. "So far," he muttered, "I am safe--quite safe." CHAPTER CXLIV. TODD MAKES HIS WAY INTO HIS OWN HOUSE. When Todd was satisfied that he was not watched or even observed by any one, he turned and commenced operations upon the door of the church. The cunning person who had put on the lock, had had a notion in his necromantic head, that the larger you made a lock the better it was, and the less likely to be picked; and the consequence of this was, that Todd found no difficulty in opening the church-door. The moment he felt the lock yield to the false key he employed, he took another keen glance around him, and, seeing no one, slipped into the sacred edifice and closed the door behind him. Feeling, then, up and down the door until his hand touched a bolt, he shot it into its socket, and then a feeling of great security took possession of him, although the interior of the church was most profoundly dark, and any one would have thought that such a man as Todd--in such a place--could hardly have been free from some superstitious terrors. An overbearing selfishness, however, mingled with the most vengeful and angry feelings, kept Todd above all these sensations, which are mostly the result of vacant mindedness. The church felt cold, and the silence had about it a character such as the silence of no other kind of place has. It may be imagination, but the silence of a church deserted, always appears to us to be a silence different from any other, as the silence in a wood is entirely different from any other description of stillness. "All is quiet enough here," whispered Todd. "I and the dead have this place to ourselves now, and so we have often had it. Many a time have I waded about this building in the still hours of the night, when all London slept, and opened some little window, with the hope of letting out the stench from the dead bodies before the morning should bring people to the building; but it would not do. The smell of decomposition lingered in the air, and it is here still, though not so bad. Yes, it is here still! I can smell it now, and I know the odour well." Todd was sufficiently familiar with St. Dunstan's church almost to go over it even at that hour, and amid that darkness, without running against anything; but yet he was very careful as he went, and kept his arms outstretched before him. He dreaded to get a light, although he had the means of doing so, for Mr. Lupin had, at his request, given him some of the matches and little wax-candle-ends that the pious lady had supplied him with. Yet Todd knew how small a light would suffice to shine through some of the richly stained glass windows of the church, and therefore he dreaded to give himself a light. He felt confident that he should have no sort of difficulty in getting into the vaults, for in consequence of recent events the stone that covered up the entrance could not be fast, and he knew from past experience that his strength was sufficient to raise it if he once got hold of it, and if it were not fastened down by cement, which, no doubt, was not the case now. "I shall yet get," he said, "into my old house. The time has been rather short, and the goods there deposited by me in old times may there remain; and if so, I will carry away enough with me to keep me far above the necessities of life, and when once I have achieved that much, I will from some obscure place meditate upon my revenge." In the course of about ten minutes he found the flat stone that led into the vaults, and to his satisfaction he found that it was merely laid crosswise over the aperture, in order to prevent any one in day time from heedlessly tumbling in, but at night it was not, of course, expected that any one would be there to fall into such a danger. With one effort Todd removed it. "Good," he said. "Now I can make my way, and once below the level of the floor of the church, there will be no danger in at once accommodating myself with a light, which will be useful enough in the vaults." Getting upon his hands and knees now, Todd, for fear of a fall down the stone steps, cautiously got down the first few of them, and then he paused to light one of the bits of taper with which he was provided. In the course of a few moments the tiny flame was clear and bright, and shading it with his hand, Todd carefully descended the remainder of the stairs. How still everything was in those vaults of old St. Dunstan's. Were there no spirits from another world--spirits of the murdered, to flit in horrible palpability before the eyes of that man who had cut short their thread of life? Surely if ever a visitant from another world could have been expected, it would have been to appear to Todd to convince him that there was more beyond the grave than a forgotten name and a mouldering skeleton. When he reached the foot of the stairs and was satisfied that the little light was burning well, he held it up above his head and bent a keen glance around him. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "so they have been doing their best--poor fools as they are to meddle with such rubbish--to rid the family vaults of some of the new tenants that I took occasion to introduce into them. Well, let them, let them! I did play a little havoc with the gentility of the dead, I must admit!" With this highly jocose remark, Todd passed on, taking a route well known to him, which would conduct him to the cellar that it will be recollected was immediately underneath his shop. It was from this that he hoped to get into the house. [Illustration: Todd In The Scene Of His Murders.] It took Todd much less time than it would have taken any one else to make his way to that cellar; but then no one was or could be so well acquainted with all the windings and turnings of the excavation that led to it as he, and finally he reached it, just as he found the necessity of lighting up another little piece of wax candle, as the one he had already lit had burnt right to his hand. He found a piece of wood, into which he stuck the new one securely, so that it was much handier to hold. Todd now felt the absolute necessity of being much more cautious than before, for he did know who might be in the shop above, and he did know that a very small sound below would make itself heard. Holding up the light, he saw that his nice little mechanical arrangement regarding the two chairs, remained just as it had been as he used to use it. "Ah!" he cried, "it will be some time in London again before people will sit down in a barber's chair with anything like confidence, particularly if it should chance to be a fixture. Ha!" Todd was getting quite merry now. The sight of the old familiar objects of that place had certainly raised his spirits very considerably, and no doubt the brandy had helped a little. Setting the light down in a corner of the cellar, he placed himself in an attitude of intense listening, which he kept up for about five minutes, at the end of which time he gave a nod, and muttered-- "There may be some one in the parlour--that I will not pretend to say no to; but the shop is free of human occupants. And now for the means of getting into it. If anybody can, I can, and that with tolerable ease, too." The apparatus by which Todd had been in the habit of letting down his customers, consisted of a slight system of lever, which he could move from the parlour, but provided he could reach so high, he could just as easily release the loose plank from where he was; in which case the chair that was above would have a preponderating influence, as that was on the heaviest arm of the plank from the centre upon which it turned. "I can manage that," he said; and then taking the knife from his pocket, he found that by its aid he could just reach high enough to touch the lever that acted as a kind of bolt to keep the plank in its place. The moment he removed that bolt the plank slowly moved, and then Todd caught the end of it in his hand, and pulled it right down, so that it assumed a perpendicular aspect completely. Holding then the piece of wood to which he had attached the wax light in his mouth, he climbed carefully and noiselessly up into his old shop; and when there he replaced the plank, and on the end of the board which was the counterpoise to the chair, he placed a weight, which he knew where to lay his hands upon, and which kept the chair in its place, although a very little would have overcome the counterpoise, and sent it down to the cellar below. Todd extinguished his light, and the moment he did so, he saw a very faint illumination coming from the parlour through a portion of the door, into which a square of glass was let in, and through which he, Todd, used to glare at poor Tobias. The sound of voices, too, came upon his ears, and he laid himself flat down on the floor, close to the wall, under a kind of bench that ran along it for a considerable distance. "I am certain I heard something," said a voice, and then the parlour-door was opened, and a broad flash of light came into the shop. "I am quite sure I heard an odd noise." "Oh, nonsense," said some one else. "Nonsense." "But I did, I tell you." "Yes, you fancied it half-an-hour ago, and it turned out to be nothing at all. Lord bless you, if I were to go on fancying things out of what I have heard since I have been in this house, minding it for Sir Richard Blunt, I should have been out of my mind long before this, I can tell you." "But it was very odd." "Well, the shop is not so large: you can soon see if Todd is in it. Ha! ha! ha!" "No, no, I don't expect to see Todd there exactly, I confess; it would not be a very likely place in which to find him." "Well, is there anything now?" "No--no. It all seems much as usual, and yet I thought I did hear a noise; but I suppose it was nothing, or a rat, perhaps, for there are lots, they say, below. It might have been a rat. I did not think that before, and I feel all the easier now at the idea." "Then, come and finish our game." "Very good--all's right. You make a little drop of brandy-and-water, and we will just have this game out before we go to rest, for I am getting tired and it's late." "Not quite twelve yet." "Ain't it? There it goes by St. Dunstan's clock." Todd counted the strokes of the clock, and by the time they ceased to reverberate in the night air, the man who most unquestionably had heard a noise in the shop, had gone into the parlour again, half satisfied that it was a rat, and sat down to the game at cards that had been interrupted. These were two men that had been put into the house to mind it, until the authorities should determine what to do with it, by Sir Richard Blunt. They were not officers of any skill or repute, although they were both constables; but then Sir Richard did not consider that anything in the shape of great intelligence was required in merely taking care of an empty house--for the idea of Todd ever visiting that place again, had certainly been one that did not even enter the far-seeing brain of the magistrate. "It's my deal," Todd heard one of them say, "but you go on, while I mix the brandy-and-water." "Indeed!" muttered Todd, as he gathered up his gaunt form from under the bench. "Indeed! So there are two of you, are there? Well, if there is another world, you can keep each other company on your road to it, for I am not going to let your lives stand in the way of my projects. No--no, I shall yet polish off somebody in my old place, and it is a pleasure that it should be two friends of that man Blunt, whom I so hate, that I have no words in which to express it!" Todd crept up to the parlour door with the long knife in his hand that he had bought at the cutler's in Camden Town, and putting his eyes close to the pane of glass in the door, he looked in at the two men. They really seemed to be quite comfortable, those two men. A bright fire was burning in the grate, and a kettle was singing away upon the hob at a great rate. A pack of cards, some pipes, and some glasses, were upon the table that they had dragged up close to the fire-side; and they were, take them altogether, about as comfortable as anybody could well expect to be in that gloomy parlour of Todd's, at his house of murder in Fleet Street. They were stout strong men though, and as Todd looked, he thought to himself, that with all his strength, and with all his desperate fighting for life, as he would do, it was not a desirable thing for him to come into personal contact with them. "Cunning," he muttered, "will do more than strength. I must bide my time--but I will kill them both if they are in my way, and that they will be, is nearly past a doubt!" "There," said the man who was mixing the brandy-and-water, "there, you will find that a stiff comfortable glass; lots of brandy, and lots of sugar, and only water enough to make it hot and steamy." "You know how to mix, Bill," said the other, as he took a drop and then was obliged to cough and wink again, it was so strong and hot. "Ah!" thought Todd, "if it would only choke you!" The other man then took his drink at the brandy, and he too coughed and winked, and then they both laughed and declared how precious strong it was, and one of them said-- "The fun of it is, that it was old Todd's; and when he laid in such good stuff as this, he little thought that we would be enjoying it. I wonder where he is?" "Oh, he's far enough off by this time, poking about at some of the sea-ports to try to get away, you may depend." "Is he," muttered Todd; "you will find, my kind friend, that I am near enough to cut your throat, I hope." CHAPTER CXLV. TODD HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND HAS A BIT OF REVENGE. It was quite a provoking thing, and gall and wormwood to Todd in a manner of speaking, to see those two boisterous men enjoying themselves in his parlour. There could be no doubt in the world, but that if he had had the means then and there to do so, he would have hurled destruction upon them both forthwith; but he could only look at them now, and wait for a better opportunity. The fact was, that now, for the first time, Todd found that the architecture of his old place of residence was far from being of the most convenient order; inasmuch as you could not reach the staircase leading to the upper part of the residence, without going through the parlour; so that he was a prisoner in the shop. "I tell you what it is, Bill," said one of the men, assuming quite a philosophical look. "That fellow, Todd, as used to live here, after all, was some use to society." "Was he?" "Yes, to be sure. Can't you guess?" "Not I. I can't see what use a fellow can be to society who cuts folks' throats." "Can't you?" "No, nor you neither, if you come to that." "Yes I can. Don't it make folks careful of going into a strange barber's shop, let me ask you that?" "Oh, you idiot. That's always the way with you. You begins with looking as wise as an owl as has found out something wonderful, and then when one comes to find out what it is, it's just nothing at all to nobody. I tell you what it is, old fellow, it strikes me you are getting a drop too much." "No--no; but I have got something on my mind." "It stands on a very small place, then. What is it?" "Just you listen and I'll tell you. I did think of not saying anything about it, because you see I thought, that is to say, I was afraid if I did, you would go off at once." "Off? Off?" "I don't mean dead--I mean out of this place, that's all, not out of this world; but now I feel as if I ought to tell you all about it, you know, and then you can judge for yourself. You know you slept here last night on that large sofa in the corner?" "Yes, in course." "Very good; you had had what one may call just the other drop you know, and so--" "No I hadn't, but you had. I recollect quite well you dropped your light, and had no end of trouble to get it lighted again, and kept knocking your head against the mantel-shelf and saying 'Don't' as if somebody was doing it to you." "Go along with you. Will you listen, or won't you, while I tell the horrid anecdote?" "Horrid, is it?" "Above a bit. It's enough to make all your hair stand on end, like quills on a guinea hen, as the man says in the play; and I expect you'll dream of it all night; so here goes, and don't you interrupt me any more, now." "Go on. I won't." "Well, you know we had a pretty good fire here, as we have now; and as twelve o'clock went ding-dong by old St. Dunstan's, we thought it was time to have some sleep, and you lay down on the sofa, saying as you could see by the fire light, while I took the candle to go up stairs to bed with, you know--old Todd's bed, I suppose it is, on the second-floor, and rather damp and thin, you know." "Goodness, gracious! tell me something I don't know, will you? Do you want to drive a fellow out of his mind?" "Well--well, don't be hasty! I'm getting on. I took the light, and shading it with one hand, for there's always a furious draught upon the stairs of this house; up I went, thinking of nothing at all. Well, in course, I had to pass the first-floor, which is shut up, you know, and has all sorts of things in it." "Yes; go on--go on!" "Is it interesting?" "It is; only you go on. I'll warrant now it's a ghost you are coming to." "No, it ain't; but don't percipitate, and you shall hear all about it. Let me see, where was I?--Oh, on the first-floor landing: But, as I say, I was thinking of nothing at all, when, all of a sudden, I heard a very odd kind of noise in the front room of the first-floor." "I wonder you didn't fall headlong down stairs with fright, candle and all." "No, I didn't. It sounded like the murmur of people talking a long way off. Then I began to think it must be in the next house; and I thought of going up to bed, and paying no attention to it, and I did get up two or three steps of the second-floor stairs, but still I heard it; and it got such a hold of my mind, do you know, that I couldn't leave it, but down I went again, and listened. I thought of coming to you; but, somehow, I didn't do so." "Now, go on!" "Well, after listening with my ear against the door for some time, I was certain that the sound was in the room; and I don't know how I screwed up courage enough to open the door very gently, and look in!" "You did?" "I did; and the very moment I did so, out went the light as clean as if you had taken your fingers and snuffed it out; but in the room there was a strange pale kind of light, that wasn't exactly like twilight, nor like moonlight, nor like any light that I ever saw, but you could see everything by it as plain as possible." "Well--well?" "The room was crammed full of people, all dressed, and looking at each other; and some of them were speaking; and upon all their clothes and faces there was blood, sometimes more, and sometimes less; and all their eyes looked like the eyes of the dead; and then one voice more loud than the rest said--'All murdered!--All murdered by Todd! The Lord have mercy upon his soul!'" "Oh, gracious! What did you do?" "I felt as if my breath was going from me, and my heart kept swelling and swelling till I thought it would burst, and then I dropped the candle; and the next time I come to my senses, I found myself lying on the bed in the second floor, with all my clothes on!" "You dreamt it?" "Oh, no--no. It's no use telling me that. I only wish I thought so, that's all." "But, I tell you, you did." "You may tell me as much as you like; but in the morning when I came down, there was the candle on the first-floor landing, just as I had dropped it. What do you think of that? Of course, after I drew out my head again from the first-floor front room I must have gone up stairs in the middle of my fright, and I dare say I fainted away, and didn't come to myself again till the morning." "Oh, stuff! Don't try to make me believe in your ghost stories. If--if I thought it was true, I should bolt out of the house this minute." "You would, really?" "Yes, to be sure; is a fellow to stay in a place with his hair continually standing on end, I should like to know? Hardly. But it's all stuff. Take another drop of brandy! Now I tell you what, if you have the courage to go with me, I will take the light now and go up to the first-floor, and have a good look all about it! What do you say to that, now? Will you do it?" "I don't much mind." "Only say the word, and I am quite ready." "Well, I will. If so be they are there, they won't do us any harm, for they took no more notice of me than as if I had been nothing at all. But how you do shake!" "I shake? You never were more mistaken in all your life. It's you that's shaking, and that makes you think I am. You are shaking, if you please; and if you don't like the job of going up stairs, only say so; I won't press it upon you!" "Oh, I'll go." "You are sure of it, now? You don't think it will make you ill? because I shouldn't like that. Come now, only say at once that you would rather not go, and there's an end to it." "Yes, but I rather would." "Come on, then--come on. Courage, my friend, courage. Look at me, and be courageous. You don't see me shivering and shaking and shrinking. Keep up your heart, and come on!" "You wretches," muttered Todd. "It shall go hard with me, now, but I will play you some trick that shall go right to drive you out of your shallow wits. Go! It is the very thing I would, of all others, have wished you to do." It was quite clear that the man who had proposed going up stairs to explore the first-floor, was much the more alarmed of the two; and now that he had made the proposal, he would gladly have seized upon any excuse for backing out of it, short of actually confessing that his fears had got the better of him. No doubt he had been greatly in hopes that his companion, who had told the ghost story, would have shrunk from such an ordeal; but as he did not do so, there was no resource but to carry it out or confess that it was but a piece of braggadocio, which he wanted the firmness to carry out. He strove now to talk himself out of his fears. "Come on--come on! Ghosts, indeed! There are no such things, of course, as any reasonable man knows; and if there are, why, what harm can they do us? I say, what harm can they do us?" "I don't know!" "You don't know? No, nor nobody else! Come on, I say. Of course providence is providence, and if there are ghosts, I respect them very much--very much indeed, and would do anything in the world to oblige them!" The valiant proposer of the experimental trip to the first floor uttered these last sentences in a loud voice, no doubt with the hope that if any of the ghostly company of the first-floor were within hearing, they would be so good as to report the same to their friends, so that he might make his way there with quite a good understanding. They trimmed the candle now; and having each of them fortified himself with a glass of brandy that Todd had laid in for his own consumption, they commenced their exploit by leaving the parlour and slowly ascending the staircase that led to the upper portion of the house. Of course, Todd knew well the capabilities of that house, and long before the two men had actually left the parlour he had made up his mind what to do. The door of communication between the shop and the parlour was not fastened, so that he could on open at the moment; and when the men left that latter room he at once entered it. Todd's first movement, then, was to supply himself with a good dose of his own brandy, which he took direct from the bottle to save time. "Ah!" he whispered, drawing a long breath after the draught, "I feel myself again, now!" In order to carry out his plan, he knew that he had no time to spare; for he did not doubt but that the two men would make their visit as short as possible to the first-floor; so--with cautious but rapid footsteps--he slipped into the passage and at once commenced the ascent of the staircase after them. The light they carried guided him very well. How little they imagined that any of its beams shone upon the diabolical face of Sweeney Todd! "Can't you come on?" said one of the men to the other. "Damme, how you do lag behind, to be sure. Any one would think you were afraid." "Afraid? Me afraid! that is a good joke." "Well, come quicker, then." "You will both of you," thought Todd, "come down a little quicker, or I am very much mistaken indeed." The distance was short, and the landing of the first floor was soon gained by the men. He who had seen, or dreamed that he had seen, the strange sight in the room upon a former occasion, was decidedly the most courageous of the two. Perhaps, after all, he was the least imaginative. "I think you said it was the front room?" said the other. "Oh, yes, I heard not a sound in the back one. Here's the door. You hold the light while I listen a little." "Yes--I--I'll hold it. Keep up your courage, and don't shake now. Oh, what a coward you are!" "Well, that's a good one. You are shaking so yourself that you will have the light out, if you don't mind. Do try and be a little steady with it; and your teeth chatter so in your head, that they are for all the world like a set of castanets." "Oh, how you do talk. Come, listen at the door; I must say I don't hear anything; but I have the greatest respect for ghosts, I have. I never say one word against the dead--God bless 'em all!" While this man held the light--or rather waved it to and fro in his agitation--the other, with his ear placed flat against the panel of the door, listened attentively. All was perfectly still in the first-floor, and he said-- "Perhaps they haven't begun yet, you know." "Perhaps not;--shall we go away, now?" "Oh, no--no. There's no end of curious things in the room; and now that we are here, let's go in, at all events, and have a little look about us. Don't be afraid. Come--come." "Oh--I--I ain't exactly afraid, only, you see, I don't see much the use of going in, and--and, you know, we have already heard an odd noise in the shop, to-night." "But that was nothing, for I looked, you know." "Yes--yes,--but--but I'm afraid the fire will go out below, do you know." "Let it go, then. If you are too much of a coward to come with me into this room, say so at once, and you can go down stairs while I have a look at it by myself. You can't have the candle, though, for it is no use my going in by myself." "What! do you expect me to go in the dark? Oh dear, no, I could not do that; open the door, and I will follow you in; I ain't a bit afraid, only, you see, I feel very much interested, that's all." "Oh, well, that's quite another thing." With this, the most courageous of the two men opened the door of the front room on the first-floor, and peeped into it. "All's right," he said. "There ain't so much as a mouse stirring. Come on!" Highly encouraged by this announcement, the other followed him; and they allowed the door to creak nearly shut after them. While this hesitation upon the stairs was going on, Todd had been about half way up from the passage, crouching down for fear they should by chance look that way, and see him; but when he found that they had fairly gone into the front room, he made as much speed to the top of the stairs as was consistent with extreme caution, and laying his hand upon the handle of the lock of the door of the back room on that floor, he noiselessly turned it, and the door at once yielding, he glided in. The two rooms communicated with each other by a pair of folding-doors, and the light that the men carried sent some beams through the ill-fitting junction of the two, so that Todd could see very well about him. CHAPTER CXLVI. THERE IS A FIRE IN FLEET STREET AFTER ALL.--TODD ESCAPES. When once he had gained that back room, Todd considered that his design against the peace of mind of the two men was all but accomplished; and it was with great difficulty that he kept himself from giving a hideous chuckle, that would at once have opened their ears to the fact that some one was close at hand, who, whether of this world or the next, was a proficient in horrid noises. He controlled this ebullition of ill-timed mirth, however, and listened attentively. "There don't seem much else beside lots of clothes," said one of the men, "and hats, and sticks, and umbrellas." "Ah!" said the other, "and they all belong to the murdered men that Todd cut up to make pies of!" "Horrible!--horrible!" "You may say that, old friend. It's only a great pity that Sir Richard has so expressly forbid anything to be touched in the old crib, or else there's some nice enough things here, I should say, that would make a fellow warm and comfortable in the winter nights." "Not a doubt of that. Here's a cloak, now!" "A beauty--quite a beauty, I say. He can't know what is really here. Do you think he can?" "What, Sir Richard?" "Yes." "Oh, don't he. I wouldn't venture to touch so much as an old hat here, for I should feel, as sure as fate, he'd find it out." "Oh, nonsense, he couldn't; and as for the ghosts, they don't seem at all likely to interfere in the matter, for there's not one of them to be seen or heard of to-night." "No, I defy the ghosts--a-hem! I begin to think, do you know, that ghosts are all a sham. Why here we are, two men as brave as lions, or we should not have come here, and yet the deuce a ghost is to be seen. I tell you what I'd do if one was to come. I'd say, 'Old fellow, was this your cloak?' and then if he said 'yes,' I'd say, 'well, old fellow, it's of no use to you now, you know; will you give it to me?'" "Ha!--ha! Capital! Why you have quite got over all your fears." "Fears? Rubbish! I was only amusing myself to hear what you would say." "Was you, though? Only acting, after all?" "Precisely." "Well, then, I must say you did it remarkably well, and if you take to the stage you will make your fortune. Oh, here's a nice brown suit now, that would be just my size. I should feel inclined to say to the ghosts what you would say about the cloak." "Well, let's say it, and if nobody says anything to the contrary, we will take it for granted. I will take the cloak, and you the brown suit; Sir Richard will be none the wiser, and we shall be a little the richer, you know. 'Mr. Ghost, may I have this cloak, if you please, as you can't possibly want it?'" "Upon my life you are a funny fellow," said the other; and then holding up the brown suit, he said, "Mr. Ghost who once owned this, may I have this brown suit, as it is of no use to you now?" It was at this moment that Todd dashed open the two folding doors, and with one of the most frightful, fiendish yells that ever came from the throat of man, he made one bound into the front room. The effect of this appearance, and the sound that accompanied it, was all that Todd could possibly wish or expect. The two men were almost driven to madness. They dropped the light, and with shrieks of dismay they rushed to the door--they tore it open, and then they both fell headlong down the staircase to the passage below, where they lay in a state of insensibility that was highly amusing to Todd. [Illustration: Todd Alarms The Two Bow Street Officers.] "Ha! ha!" he laughed, as he stood at the head of the stairs; "Ha! ha!" He listened, but not so much as a groan came from either of the men, and then he clapped his huge hands together with a report like the discharge of a pistol, and laughed again. Todd had not been so well pleased since his escape from Newgate. He slowly descended the stairs, and more than once he stopped to laugh again. The passage was intensely dark, so that when he reached it he trod upon one of the men, but that rather amused him, and he jumped violently upon the body. "Good," he said. "Perhaps they are both dead. Well, let them both die. It will be a lesson to others how far they interfere with me. Society and I are now fairly at war, and I will win as many battles as I can. They can't say but this is a well-fought one, two to one. Ha! They ought to make me a Field-Marshal. Ha!" Making the most hideous faces, just for the fun of the thing, Todd made his way to the parlour, and taking from a corner, where he knew to lay his hands upon them in a moment, a couple of old newspapers, he twisted them up into a kind of torch, and lighting it then at the fire, he went with it flaming in his hand to the passage. The two men lay profoundly still. Terror and the fall they had had, combined to throw them quite into a swooning state, from which probably it would be hours before they would recover. "This is capital," said Todd. "Lie there, both of you, until I have transacted the business in this house that brought me here. Then I will, perhaps, think of some amusing way of finishing you both off--ha!" Still carrying the flaming papers in his hand, Todd now made his way to the first-floor, and found the candle that the men had dropped. That he lighted, as it would be much more convenient to him than the papers; and then he trod them out, for he did not wish any great light as yet to appear from the windows of that house, and perchance awaken the attention of some passing traveller or curious neighbour. Shading the light with his hand, and looking like some grim ogre, Todd took his way to the second-floor. As he went, he every now and then muttered his satisfaction to himself, or gave utterance to one of his unearthly laughs; for in the whole of that night's adventure there was much to please him. In the first place, he hoped, and fully expected, to get enough booty from the house to place him a little at his ease as regarded money matters, provided that with it he should be fortunate enough to get away from England. Then, again, it was no small satisfaction to Todd to do anything which looked like a triumph over Sir Richard Blunt, and this not only looked like it, but really was. "A good step," he muttered, "a capital step, and a bold one, too; but bold steps are always good ones. Who knows but that from some place of security I may laugh at them all yet; and then, if I do not succeed in killing any of them before I go, I can at my leisure think of and mature some scheme of revenge against them; and there is much to be done with ingenuity, if you are quite unscrupulous. Ha! ha! I have some dainty schemes, if I can but carry them out in the time to come--ha!" When Todd reached the second-floor, he at once went into the front-room, in one corner of which was a large old fashioned bureau. Now it was not to be supposed that this bureau had escaped the scrutiny of Sir Richard Blunt; but then it had so happened that before he came to search it he had all the evidence he wished against Todd, so that the search was not so complete or so scrutinising as it might have been. We shall see that it was not. "Ah" said Todd, as he drew out the drawers one after the other, "all the locks forced! Well, be it so. That was just what I expected. But I do not think they have moved it from the wall by the look of it." The bureau, it was quite evident, had not been removed from the wall. It was of immense weight, but Todd managed to move it by short sudden jerks; and then when he had got it quite away at right angles from the wall, he said-- "Here was it that I hid, until some favourable opportunity should occur for the private disposal of them, various articles of value, that I dare not try to convert into money in my open way, for fear of detection. Here are watches, and rings, and jewels, that were described in hand-bills, offering rewards for missing persons, and in advertisements in the papers; so that it became most unsafe for me to show them even to the not very scrupulous Hebrews, who have from time to time bought goods of me." As he spoke, he removed a portion of the back of the bureau, which slid out of its place softly and easily, for it was made with great skill and care. This sliding piece, when it was fairly removed, disclosed a receptacle capable of holding a great quantity of small articles, and filled up with narrow shelves, as if to hold them securely. There were costly watches--wigs with rare jewels set in them; for the fashion of wearing wigs was so common at the time, that many wealthy residents of the Temple would pop into Todd's shop for a little arrangement of their wigs or a puff of fresh powder, if they were going somewhere in a hurry, and so lost their lives. Then there were some pairs of rich diamond knee and shoe buckles, and a few lockets, and a whole heap of chains of gold. "Ah," said Todd; "here is enough to set me up for a time, if I can dispose of them; and now I must run risks that I would not think of while I had thousands at my command. I must take these things that I was content enough to leave behind me, lest they should at some inopportune moment lead to my detection. Now they shall do me service." Todd commenced filling his pockets with this dangerous kind of property, each article of which was associated with the frightful crime of murder! A couple of thousand pounds certainly would not have paid for what Todd upon this occasion managed to stow away about him; and he thought that if he could get one-fourth of that amount for the articles, that it would not be a very bad night's work, considering the not very flourishing state of his finances at that time, compared with what they had been. During the process, though, of stocking himself with the contents of the secret place in the bureau, he more than once crept to the door of the room, and going out upon the landing, he leant over the staircase and listened. All was most profoundly still, and he was satisfied that Sir Richard Blunt's two men remained in the passage, in the same state of insensibility--if not of death--in which he had left them. Leaving there some articles of smaller importance than those with which he loaded himself, Todd pushed the bureau back into its place again; and then, taking the light in his hand, cautiously descended the stairs. When he reached the passage, there lay the two men as he had left them. Indeed, he had been absent much too short a space of time for any very material change to take place in their condition. "Well," he said. "Now to dispose of you two. What shall it be? Shall I cut your throats as you lie there, or--no, no, I have hit it. No doubt you have both been full of curious speculations respecting how I disposed of those persons whom I polished off in my shop; so you shall both know exactly how it was done. Ha! a good joke." Todd's good joke consisted now of going into the parlour, and fastening the levers which held up the shaving-chair. Then he lifted up one of the insensible bodies of the men, and carried it into the shop. "Sit there, or lie there, how you like," he said, as he flung the man into the large shaving-chair. It was quite a treat now to Todd, and put him in mind of old times, to arrange his apparatus for giving this wretched man a tumble into the vaults below. He went into the parlour and drew the bolt, when away went the man and the chair, and the other chair that was on the reverse side of the plank took the place of that which had gone. "Ha! ha!" shouted Todd. "This is grand--this is most glorious! Ha! ha! Who would have thought, now, that I should ever live to be at my old work again in this house? It is capital! If that fall has not broken his neck, it's a wonder. It used to kill five out of seven; that was about the average--ha!" Todd didn't fasten the bolt again, but went at once for the other man. He was sitting up! Todd staggered back for a moment, when he saw him in that position looking at him. The man rubbed his eyes with his hands and said in a weak voice-- "Good God! what is it all about?" Todd placed the light on the floor within the parlour, so that it shed sufficient rays into the shop to let him see every object in it; and then, with a cry like that of some wild beast rushing upon his prey, he dashed at the man. The struggle that ensued was a frightful one. Despair, and a feeling that he was fighting for his life, nerved the man, who had recovered just in time to engage in such a contest, and they both fought their way into the shop together. Todd made the greatest exertions to overcome the man, but it was not until he got him by the throat, and held him with a clutch of iron, that he could do so. Then he flung him upon the chair, but the man, with a last effort, dragged Todd after him, and down they both went together to the vault below! [Illustration: Todd And The Bow Street Officers--The Death Grapple.] CHAPTER CXLVII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT AND CROTCHET COMMENCE THEIR SEARCH FOR TODD. When Sir Richard Blunt left Chelsea, he felt that he had given a sufficient warning to all who could feel in any way personally interested in the escape of Sweeney Todd from the punishment that his numerous crimes merited. He rode direct to the office of the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and his name at once procured him an interview. This was not the supercilious personage who once before, upon an occasion of Sir Richard Blunt calling upon him regarding Sweeney Todd, had exhibited so much indifference upon the subject, and Sir Richard was received as he ought to be. "I have waited upon you, sir," said the magistrate, "to say that I have now made every arrangement that is possible for the purpose of counteracting any mischief that the man, Todd, might strive to do; and I think it very likely that I may not have the pleasure of seeing or communicating with you for some time." "Then you still think, Sir Richard, of going personally after the notorious ruffian?" "I do, sir. I feel that in some sort I am bound to rid society of that man. I had so large a share in his former apprehension, and in his conviction, that I feel his escape quite a personal matter; and I have no hesitation in saying that I shall not feel at ease until I have again placed him in the hands of the law." "It is most desirable that he should be so placed, Sir Richard, and I have only two things to say to you upon the subject. One is, that I hope you will be careful of your own safety in the affair; and the other is, that anything we can do or any facilities we can throw in your way, you may most unhesitatingly command in the prosecution of your most praiseworthy enterprise." "I thank you, sir. I shall take one man with me. His name is Crotchet; and I should wish that in your name I might tell him that, in the event of our search for Todd being successful, he may count upon an adequate reward." "Certainly! He shall have the whole reward, Sir Richard; and as for yourself, the ministry will not be unmindful of your service in a way that I am sure will be more gratifying to you than an offer of money." "Sir, I thank you. The government has already, upon more than two or three occasions, been sufficiently liberal to me as regards money to place me in a good position, and I have now no further desires of that sort. I will bid you good morning, sir, and at once start upon the expedition in search of Sweeney Todd. If he be alive and above ground in this country, I will have him." "If anybody will, you will, Sir Richard." The magistrate left the place, and repaired at once to his private office, which was close at hand, in Craven Street. There our old friend, Crotchet, was waiting for him. "Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "I have just seen the Secretary of State, and if we catch Todd, you are to have all the money." "All on it, sir? Oh, my eye! No, I doesn't want all on it, Sir Richard. I isn't a pig." "I never thought you were, Crotchet; but you may make up your mind to the whole of the reward, as the government will provide for me in another way; so you know now, at starting, what you have to expect, and it will keep you in good heart during all the botheration we may have in looking after this man." "Why, so it will, sir, you see, so it will, and if I do catch him and get all this tin as is offered as a reward for him, I shall retire from the grabbing business, you see, sir." "What will you do then, Crotchet?" "Set up a public-house, sir, and call it 'The Crotchet's Arms,' to be sure. That's the sort of ticket for me." "Well, Crotchet, you will be quite at liberty to do what you like; and now let us at once start on our errand. We will, from the door of Newgate, see if we cannot trace the progress of this man, with his new friend, that rascal, Lupin." A tap sounded on the panel of the door of the room in which Crotchet and Sir Richard were conversing. "Come in," said the magistrate, and his clerk entered with a written paper in his hand. "Here, sir," he said, "is a report from a city officer, which will give a clue to the route that Todd and Lupin have taken, sir." "Ah, that is welcome. Let me see it. 'Two men broke into the house of Alderman Stanhope; one a tall man with a large face--the other, shorter.' Humph! Not a doubt of it. I will go and see about it. No doubt it was Todd and his new friend Lupin. This is something of a clue, at all events however slight, and may, after all, put us upon the right track. Come on, Crotchet, we will do the best we can in this matter. Have you your pistols in good order?" "Yes, yer honour, and a pair of darbies in my pocket, that if once they get on the wrists of old Todd, he will find it no such easy matter to get them off again." "That is right. I only want to get face to face with the ruffian, and then I will engage that he shall not be much further trouble to society or to individuals." Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet proceeded then at once to the house in the City, into which Lupin and Todd, it will be recollected, had made a violent entry, and from which they had been so gallantly repulsed by the young lady. Then, from the description of the assailants, not a shadow of a doubt remained upon the magistrate's mind that they were the parties he sought; but there all clue seemed to be lost. He and Crotchet stood in the street looking about them rather despairingly; and then they thought of going to the round-house close to Finsbury; and when they got there, they found an officer, who reported that two men answering the description of the fugitives had been seen making their way westward; and he had met a woman who had passed them, and who had heard the words "money," and "Caen Wood." This was, in good truth, most important intelligence, if it could be relied upon; and that was the only kind of doubt that Sir Richard had. He spoke to Crotchet about it. "What do you think, Crotchet? Is it worth while to follow this seeming clue to Highgate?" "Yes, yer honour, it is. We can go there and back again while we are considering about it here. It's clear enough as we shan't get any other news in this part of the town; and so I advises that we go off at once to Highgate, and calls at every public-house on the road." "Every public-house?" "Yes, yer honour. Todd won't do without his drops of something strong to keep him a-going. These kind of feelings go down--down, till they haven't the heart to say don't, when the hangman puts the noose round their necks, if they haven't their drops. It's brandy, yer worship, as keeps 'em a going." "I do believe, Crotchet, that there is a great deal of truth in what you say; and that it is only by use of stimulants that they keep up a kind of artificial strength, as well as drowning reflection; and so they go blundering on in the career of crime." "You may depend upon it, sir. They'd cut their own throats in a week, If it wasn't for the tipple, yer honour." Acting then upon the practical advice of Crotchet, which in a great measure accorded with his own convictions, Sir Richard Blunt repaired to a livery-stable, and hired two good horses. He found no difficulty in getting them, upon declaring who he was; and so, well mounted, he and Crotchet went upon the very road that had been so recently traversed by the two culprits, Todd and Lupin. At the first public-house they came to they got no news; but at the second they were told, that two men, answering the description they gave of those they sought, had called and had some brandy. The magistrate no longer doubted but that he was upon the right track now. With such a feeling, he pushed on, making what inquiries he could on the road; but until Highgate was reached they got no further news, and then, by dint of diligent ferreting out, they found a woman who had seen two men go down Swains Lane, and from the description she gave of them, there could be no doubt but that they were Todd and Lupin. Now as Swains Lane led direct to Caen Wood, it was a great confirmation of the former intelligence; and Sir Richard made up his mind to search the wood, as well as it could be done by him and Crotchet. They engaged a lad from Highgate to come with them, and to take care of the horses, while they should go into the wood; but they did not say one word to him regarding their object in going there, nor could he possibly suspect it. Sir Richard and Crotchet both thought it would be much more prudent to keep that to themselves, than to put it in the power of a boy to gossip about it to every one who might chance to pass that way, while he was minding the horses. When the wood was reached, Sir Richard said to the lad-- "Now, my boy, we shall not be very long gone, but you will bear in mind that if we are absent longer than you expected, you will be paid in proportion; so don't be impatient, but walk the horses up and down this bit of the lane; and think that you have got a very good job." "Thank you, sir," said the boy. "Across that there meadow is the nearest way to the wood. I seed two fellows go that way, early this morning, and one on 'em was the ugliest fellow I ever saw, and he calls out to the other--'Come along Lupin, we shall be all right in the wood now. Come along, Lupin--Ha! ha!'" "You heard that?" "Yes, sir, I did. You see, I was sloe-gathering in the hedge, and they don't let you do it, cos they say you breaks down all the young twigs, and spoils the hedge, and so you does; and so, sir, when I heard footsteps a-coming, I hid myself right down among the long grass, so that they did not see me." Mr. Crotchet gave a long whistle. "Very good," said Sir Richard; "we shall be back with you soon. You take good care of the horses." "I will, sir." "What do you think of that, Crotchet?" said Sir Richard, as they made their way into the very meadow across which Todd and Lupin had run to get to Caen Wood. "It's the finger o' Providence, yer worship." "Well, I cannot deny, Crotchet, but that it may be so. At all events, whether it be Providence or chance, one thing is quite certain, and that is, that we are on the track of those whom we seek." "Not a doubt o' that, sir. Into the wood here they have been, but whether they have staid here or not, you see, sir, is quite another affair. But it's worth looking well to; at all events yer worship, and I shan't leave an old tree in this here place as we is coming to, that I shan't walk right round and have a jolly good look at, somehow or another." "Nor I, Crotchet. They may know of some hiding-place in this wood, for all we know to the contrary, and if they do, it strikes me we shall ferret them out." "In course we shall, sir; and here we is." They had reached the wood by this time, and before plunging into its recesses the magistrate looked carefully about him, and Crotchet did the same. "Do you think, your worship, there's a chance of such a fellow as Todd staying long here?" "Why do you think that?" said Sir Richard. "Why, sir," said Crotchet, putting his head on one side, "this here is a sort of place that makes a man think; and always when I am in a quiet place like this, with the beautiful trees all about me, and the little birds a singing, and the frogs a croaking, it makes me think of things that I don't always think of, and of those as has passed away like spirits, and as we may meet in t'other world nor this, sir." "Indeed, Crotchet, I do not wonder that the silence and solitude of nature should have that effect upon you." "Exactly, sir. In course, it ain't for me to say whether in this ere world there ought to be prigs, and sneaks, and cracksmen, and all that sort of thing or not; but I will say, sir, as I'm not a little surprised how anybody can do anything very wrong, sir, in the country." "Indeed, Crotchet?" "Yes, sir; it has an effect on me. When I gets among the old trees and sees the branches a waving about, and hear the wind a moaning among 'em, it makes me think as there ain't a great deal in this world as is worth the bothering about, you see, sir; and least of all is it worthwhile doing anything that ain't the right thing." "You are quite a philosopher, Crotchet, although you are not the first nor the only one upon whom the beauties of nature have produced an elevating effect. The reason I fear is that you are not familiar with such places as these. You are town-bred, Crotchet, and you pass your life among the streets of London; so such places as this affect you with all the charm of novelty, while those who are born in the country know nothing and care nothing for its sights and sounds." "That's about it, sir, I shouldn't wonder," said Crotchet; "but I feels what I feels and thinks what I thinks." They now had fairly penetrated into Caen Wood; and we may here appropriately remark, that Caen Wood was much more of a real wood then, than it is now, when it is rather an imitation of one than one in reality. The smoke and the vegetation-killing vapours of London have almost succeeded in begriming the green trees even at that distance off; and in a few short years Caen Wood, we fear, will be but a thing of tradition in the land. So time works his changes! Sir Richard Blunt, with long practised sagacity, began his hunt through the wood. It could scarcely be said that he expected to find Todd there, but he would be satisfied if he found some conclusive evidence that he had been there, for that would show him that he was upon the track of the villain, and that he was not travelling wide from the course that Todd had taken. The idea that he might have at once, on foot, made his way to some part of the coast, haunted Sir Richard, notwithstanding all the seemingly conclusive evidence he had to the contrary; and knowing well, as he did, how very little reliance ought to be placed upon personal descriptions, he did buoy himself up with many hopes consequent upon the presumed identity of Todd with the person who had been seen by those who had described him. Taking a small piece of chalk from his pocket, the magistrate marked a few of the trees in the different directions where they searched, so that they might not, amid the labyrinths of the wood, give themselves increased trouble; and in the course of half an hour they had gone over a considerable portion of the wood. They paused at an open spot, and Crotchet lifted from the ground a thick stick that appeared to have been recently cut from a tree. "This is late work," he said. "Yes; and here are the marks of numerous footsteps. What is the meaning of this strange appearance on the ground, as if something had been dragged along it?" Crotchet looked at the appearance that Sir Richard pointed out, and then with a nod, he said-- "Let's follow this, Sir Richard. It strikes me that it leads to something." CHAPTER CXLVIII. SHOWS HOW TODD HAD A VERY NARROW ESCAPE INDEED. There was something in the tone of Crotchet that made the magistrate confident he suspected something very peculiar, and he followed him without a word. The track or trail upon the ground was very peculiar, it was broad and defined, and had turned in the direction that it went every little weed or blade of grass that was within its boundaries. A number of decayed leaves from the forest trees had likewise been swept along it; and the more any one might look at it the more they must feel convinced that something heavy had been dragged along it. What that something heavy was, Mr. Crotchet had his suspicions, and they were right. "This way, your worship," he said, "this way; it goes right into this hedge as nicely as possible, though the branches of these bushes are placed all smooth again." As he spoke, Crotchet began to beat the obstructing branches of a wild nut tree and a blackberry-bush, that seemed, by their entwining arms, to have struck up a very close sort of acquaintance with each other; and then he suddenly cried out-- "Here it is, sir." "What, Crotchet?" "The dead 'un." "Dead! You don't mean to say that one such is here, and that the dead body of Todd is in the thicket?" "Come on, sir, I don't think it is him. It don't seem long enough; but here's somebody, as safe as possible, sir, for all that. Push your way through sir: it's only prickles." The magistrate did push his way through, despite the vigorous opposition of the blackberry-bush; and then--lying upon its face--he saw the dead body of a man. The readers of this narrative could have told Sir Richard Blunt what that body had been named while the breath of life was in it; but neither he nor Crotchet could at first make up their minds upon the subject. "Do you know him?" said Sir Richard. "I guess only." "Yes, and you guess as I do. This is Lupin, Todd's prison companion, and the companion in his escape." Crotchet nodded. "I went to Newgate," he said, "and had a good look at him, so that I should know him, sir, dead or alive; so I'll just turn him over, and have a good look at his face." With this, Crotchet carefully--by the aid of his foot--turned over the body, and the first glance he got at the dead face satisfied him. "Yes, your worship," he said, "Lupin it is, and Todd has killed him. You may take your oath of that." "Not a doubt of it: such is the result of the association of such men. Todd has found him, or fancied he should find him, an encumbrance in the way of his own escape, and has sought this wood to take his life." "That's about it, sir." "And now, Crotchet, we may make certain of one thing, and that is, that Todd is not in this wood, nor in this neighbourhood either. I should say, that after this deed, the first thing he would do would be to fly from this spot." "Not a doubt of that, your worship; but the deuce of it is to find out which way he has gone." "We must be guided in that by the same mode of inquiry, Crotchet, that brought us here. We were successful in tracing him to this wood, and we may be equally successful in tracing him from it. We must go into the village of Hampstead, and give information about this dead body; and we will make there what inquiries we can." They were neither of them very anxious to remain in Caen Wood, after discovering how it was tenanted; and in a very short time they were mounted again, and went along the lane until they emerged upon Hampstead Heath, and so took the road to the village, where Sir Richard gave information to the authorities concerning the finding of the body of Lupin. There, too, he heard that a man answering the description of Todd had passed through the village, and refused to partake some questionable brandy, at a public-house, on its outskirts. This man was evidently proceeding to London. Crotchet heard this information with great attention; and when he and Sir Richard Blunt were alone, he said-- "I tell you what it is, sir--the country will never suit Todd." "How do you mean, Crotchet?" "I mean, sir, that, in my opinion, he has gone back to London again. The country, sir, ain't the sort of place for such men as he is. You may depend upon it, he only came to the little wood to get rid of Lupin, and he has gone back to try and hide in London till the row is over." "You really think so?" "I do, sir; and if we want to find him, we must go, too." "Well, Crotchet, of one thing I am pretty well convinced, and that is, that he is not in this part of the country, for after the murder in the wood, which he will be in continual fear of being discovered, it is not likely he would stay about here; and so, as we have traced him a little on the road to London, we may as well, for all we know to the contrary, assume that he has gone there at once." "Come on, then, sir," said Crotchet; "I feel's what you call's a sort of a--Oh, dear me, what is it? A presentment--" "A presentiment, Crotchet." "Ah, sir, that's it. I feel that sort of thing that old Todd will try and hide himself in some old crib in London, and not at all trust to the country, where everybody is looked at for all the world as though he were a strange cat. Lord bless you, sir, if I had done anything and wanted to hide, I should go into the very thick of the people of London, and I ain't quite sure but I'd take a lodging in Bow Street." Sir Richard Blunt was himself very much of Crotchet's opinion regarding Todd's proceedings, for his experience of the movements of malefactors had taught him that they generally, after their first attempt to try to get away, hover about the spot of their crimes; and it is a strange thing, that with regard to persons who have committed great crimes, there is a great similarity of action, as though the species of mind that could induce the commission of murder from example, were the same in other respects in all murderers. To London, then, with what expedition they could make, Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet went, and although they made what inquiry they could, they found no news of Todd. And now we must leave them for awhile, thrown completely out in all their researches for the escaped criminal, while we once more proceed to the house in Fleet Street, where we left Todd in rather an uncomfortable situation. It will be recollected that, locked in the grasp of the officer, Todd and that individual had gone down with the chair through the opening in the floor of his shop. This was the first time that Todd had undertaken that mode of getting into the cellars of his house; and when he found the chair going, he gave himself up for lost, and uttered a cry of horror. It seemed to him at that moment as if that were the species of retribution which was to come over him--death by the same dreadful means that had enabled him so often to inflict it upon others. No doubt Todd's anticipations of being dashed to destruction upon the stones below would have been correct had he gone down alone, or had there been no one already immediately beneath the trap-door in the shop flooring; but as it was, he fell, fortunately for him, uppermost, and they both, he and the officer, fell upon the other man who had gone down only a short time previous. That saved Todd; but he was terribly shaken, and so was the officer, and it was a few moments before either of them recovered sufficiently to move a limb. The lives of those two depended upon who should recover his strength and energies first. Todd was that man. Hate is so much stronger a passion than every other, and it was under the influence of that feeling that Todd was the first of the two to recover; and the moment he did so, the yell of rage that he uttered really might have been heard in Fleet Street. It was very indiscreet of Todd, but at that moment he thought of nothing but revenge. His own safety became a secondary consideration with him. He grasped the officer by the throat! At the moment that, by the feel only, for that place was in the most profound darkness, Todd felt sure that he had the officer by the throat, he knew that his triumph was certain. It would have been as vain a thing to attempt to escape the chances of destiny, as to dream of avoiding the grasp of that iron hand that now closed upon the throat of the unfortunate officer. It was just then, though, that the officer began to recover a little from the shock of his fall. It was only to recover to die. Better for him would it have been had he slept on in insensibility to the pangs that were awaiting him; but that was not to be. "Ah, wretch!" shrieked Todd, "so you thought you had me? Down--down to death!--Ha!--ha!" The officer struggled much, and dashed about his feet and arms, but all was in vain. "Ha!--ha!" laughed Todd, and that hideous laugh awakened as hideous an echo in the dismal place. "Ha!--ha! I have you now. Oh! but I should like to protract your death and see you die by inches! Only that my time is precious, and for my own sake, I will put you quickly beyond the pale of life." The man tried to cry out; but the compression upon his throat of those bony fingers prevented him. He had his hand at liberty, and he caught Todd by the head and face, and began to do him as much mischief as he could. There was for a few seconds a fierce struggle, and then Todd, keeping still his right hand clasped about the throat of his victim, with the left laid hold of as much of his hair on the front of his head us he could, and raising his head then about six inches from the stone floor on which it had rested, he dashed it down again with all his might. The officer's arms fell nerveless to his sides, and he uttered a deep groan. Again Todd raised the head, and dashed it down, and that time he heard a crashing sound, and he felt satisfied that he had killed the man. There was now no further use in holding the throat of the dead man, and Todd let him go. "Ha!--ha!" he said. "That is done. That is done--Ha! Now am I once more lord and master in my own house--once again I reign here supreme, and can do what it may please me to do. Ha! this is glorious! Why, it is like old times coming back to me again. I feel as if I could open my shop in the morning, and again polish off the neighbourhood. It seems as if all that had happened since last I stropped a razor above, had been but a dream. The arrest--the trial--the escape--Newgate--the wood at Hampstead! All a dream--a dream!" He was silent, and the excitement of the moment of triumph had passed away. "No--no," he said. "No! It is too real--much too real! Oh, it is real, indeed. I am the fugitive! The haunted man without a home--without a friend; and I have this night nor any other night any place in which I may lay my head in safety. I am as one persecuted by all the world, without hope--without pity! What will now become of me?" A low groan came upon Todd's ear. He started, and looked around him. He tried hard to pierce with his half-shut eyes the intense darkness, but he could not; and muttering to himself--"Not yet dead--not yet dead?" he crept to an obscure corner of the cellar, and opened a door that led by a ladder to the floor of the back parlour, where there was a trap door, under which the large table usually stood, and which he could open from below. In the parlour Todd got a light, and feeling then still disturbed about the groan that he had heard below, he armed himself with an iron bar that belonged to the outer door, and with this in his right hand, and the light in his left, he crept back again to the cellar. A glance at the two men who lay there was sufficient to satisfy him that they were no more; and after then taking from them a couple of pairs of pistols, and a small sum of money, he crept back again to the parlour. As he did so, he heard St. Dunstan's clock strike the hour of four. "Four!" he said. "Four. It will not be light for nearly two hours yet, and I may rest myself awhile and think. Yes, it is necessary now that I should think; for I have time--a little time--to do so, and much, oh, so much to think of. There's some of my own brandy, too, in the parlour, that's a comfort." The fire was still burning in the parlour grate. Todd raked the glowing embers together with the iron bar, and then he took a good draught at the brandy. It revived him most wonderfully, and he gave one of his old chuckles, as he muttered-- "Oh, that I could get a few whom I could name in such a position as I had yon man in in the cellar a short time since. That would be well, indeed. Ha! I am, after all, rather lucky, though." A sharp knock come, at this moment, at the outer door of the shop, and Todd sprang in alarm to his feet. CHAPTER CXLIX. TODD IS IN GREAT PERIL IN THE EARLY MORNING IN LONDON. The silence that ensued after that knock at his door, for he had become to consider it as his again, was like the silence of the grave. The only sound that Todd heard then, was the painful beating of his own heart. The guilty man was full of the most awful apprehensions. "What is it?" he said. "Who is it?--who can it be? Surely, no one for me. There is no one who saw me. No--no! It cannot be. It is some accidental sound only. I--begin--to doubt if it were a knock at all.--Oh, no, it was no knock." Bang! came the knock again. Todd actually started and uttered a cry of terror, and then he crouched down and crept towards the door. He might, to be sure, have made his escape from the premises, with some little trouble, by the way he had got into them; but he was most anxious to find out who it was that demanded admittance to the old shop in Fleet Street, with all its bad associations and character of terror; so he crept towards the door, and just as he reached it, the knock came again. If the whole of his future hopes--we allude to the future that might be for him in this world only, for Todd had no hopes nor thoughts of another--had depended upon his preserving silence and stillness, he could not have done so, and he gave another start. "Hush--hush!" he then said. "Hush! I must be very cautious now--very cautious, indeed. Hush--hush!" He then, in a tone of voice that he strove to make as different as possible from his ordinary tone, and which he was very successful indeed in doing, he said-- "Who is there?" "It's me," said a voice, in defiance of all probability or grammar. "It's only me." "Oh! what a mercy," said Todd. "Open the door. Is it you, Joe? Why didn't you come home, eh? You might have got away easy enough. I have brought you something good to eat, old fellow, and some news." "Ah, what news, my boy?" "Why, they say that old Todd is in London." Todd fell to the floor in a sitting posture, and uttered a deep groan. It was some few moments before he could summon strength and courage to speak to the man again. But he began to feel the necessity of doing something, for the man began to hammer away at the door, and the very worst thing that could happen to Todd, just then, would have been that man going away from the door of the shop with an impression that all was not right within it, and spreading an alarm to that effect. "I will open the door just wide enough," muttered Todd, "and then I will drag him in and cut his throat, and throw him down into the cellar along with the two others. That will only make three this morning--yes, this morning, I may say, for it is morning now." Acting upon this resolve, which certainly was diabolically to the purpose, Todd spoke to the man again, saying in the same assumed tone in which he had before addressed him-- "All's right--all's right. I'll open the door." "That's the thing; but you seem to have a bad cold." "So I have--so I have. A very bad cold; and it has affected my voice so that I can hardly speak at all." "So I hear." Todd slowly undid the fastenings of the door, and an infernal feeling of joy came over him at the idea of murdering this unhappy man likewise. It quite reconciled him to the danger in which he was, for he could not but know that the daylight was rapidly approaching, and that each moment increased his peril. "Yes," he muttered, "he will make three this morning, three idiots who fancy they are a match for me; but I will soon convince them of the contrary, I will soon put him out of his pains and anxieties in this world. Ha! he shall be an independent man, for he shall have no wants, and that is true independence." Todd drew the last bolt back that held the door. "Come, Joe, are you coming?" said the man. "Soon enough, my dear friend, soon enough," said Todd. "You will find me quite soon enough. Come in." Todd felt quite certain that if the man caught but the slightest glance at him, it would be sufficient to convince him that it was not Joe, and, therefore, he only now opened the door wide enough to let him slip into the shop, and kept himself back partially behind it, so as to be, with the exception of one arm, quite out of sight. The man hesitated. "Come in," said Todd. "Come in." "Why, what's the matter with you," said the man, "that makes you so mighty mysterious, eh? What is it, old fellow?" "Oh, nothing. Come in." The man stepped one foot across the threshold, and put his head in at the shop-door. "Come, now," he said. "None of your jokes, Joe. Where are you?" Todd felt that that was a critical moment, and that if he failed to take advantage of it, the least thing would give the man the alarm, and he might draw back from the door altogether, and so stop him from executing that summary proceeding against him which he, Todd, thought essential to his interests. "No, old fellow. There's no trick. Come in." "Oh, but I--" The man was drawing back his head, and Todd saw that the moment for action had come. Darting forward, he stretched out his right hand and caught the man by the throat, saying as he did so, in the voice of a demon-- "In, wretch--in, I say!" The man's cravat came away in the hand of Todd, who rolled upon his back on the floor of the shop. The man finding himself free from the terrific grip that had been laid upon him, fled along Fleet Street, crying-- "Help--help! thieves!--murder! Todd!--help! fire! murder--murder!" Todd lay upon his back with the cravat in his hand, and so utterly confounded was he by this accident, that for a few moments he felt disposed to lie there and give up all further contest with that fate that never seemed weary of now persecuting him after the long course of successful iniquity he had been permitted to carry on. He heard the loud cries of the man, and he knew that even at such an early hour how those cries would soon rouse sufficient assistance to be his destruction. He yet did not like to die without a struggle. Newgate, with its lonely cells, came up before his mind's eye, and then he pictured to himself the gibbet; and with a positive yell, partly of rage and partly of fear, he rose to his feet. "What shall I do?" he said. "Dare I rush out now into Fleet Street, and by taking the other direction to that in which this man has gone, try to find safety?" A moment's thought convinced him of the great danger of that plan, and he gave it up. There remained then nothing but the mode of retreat through the church; and no longer hesitating, he took the light in his hand and dashed open the little door that communicated with the narrow stairs that would take him underneath the shop. Before descending them he paused to listen, and he heard the cries and shouts of men afar off. He found that his foes were mustering in strong force to attack him; and clenching his double fist, he swore the most horrible oaths. This was a process that seemed to have some effect upon the spirits of Todd. The swearing acted as a kind of safety valve to his passion. He descended the staircase, and when he reached the foot of it he paused again. The noise in the street was not so acute. It had sobered down to a confused murmur, and he felt that his danger was upon the increase. Shading the light with one hand, for there was a current of air blowing in the cellars and secret passages, he looked like some fiend or vampire seeking for some victim among the dead. "They come," he said. "They come. They think they have me at last. They come to drag me to death. Oh that I had but the power of heaping destruction upon them all, of submitting them all to some wretched and lingering death, I would do it! Curses on them--how I should revel in their misery and pain." He went on a few paces past the dead bodies of the two men, and then he paused again, for he could distinctly hear the trampling of feet upon the pavement near to the house; and then, before he could utter a word, there come such a thundering appeal to the knocker of the outer door, that he dropped his candle, and it was immediately extinguished in the start that he gave. It was quite evident that his foes were now in earnest, and they were determined he should not escape them by any fault of theirs, for the knocking was continued with a vehemence enough to beat in the door; but so long as it did continue, it was a kind of signal that his enemies were upon the outside. "I may escape them yet," he said, tremblingly. "Oh, yes, who shall take upon them to say that I may not escape them yet? I can find my way in the dark well--quite well. I am sufficiently familiar with this place to do so." That was true enough; but yet, although Todd was, as he said, sufficiently familiar with the place to find his way through it in the dark, he could not make such good progress as when he had a lamp or a candle to guide him. He heard a loud crash above. "They have broken open the door," he said, "but yet I am safe, for I have a wonderful start of them. I am safe yet, and I am well armed, too. I hold the lives of several in my hands. They will not be so fond, from their love of me, to throw away their lives. Ha! I shall beat them yet--I shall beat them yet." With his hands outstretched before him, so that he should not run against any obstacle, he took his way through the gloomy passages that led to the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's church. The distance was not great, but his danger was; and yet such was his insatiable desire to know what was going on in his house, that he paused more than once again to listen. From what he heard, he felt convinced that many persons had made their way into the shop and parlour, and he anticipated a thorough search of the house. "Let them," he said, "let them. There is nothing there now that it can interest me to keep secret--absolutely nothing. Let them search well in every room. It will give me the more time." He struggled on in the dark a little further, and then he suddenly paused. A thought had struck him. "Oh, what a glorious thing," he said, "if I could only now fire the old house, and so scorch some of those idiots, who are no doubt running from room to room full of mad delight at the opportunity to do so, and at the prospect that they may light upon me, and so share the money among them that is offered for my blood. It is a tempting thought." Todd felt in his pocket for the matches that had been supplied to him by his departed friend, Mr. Lupin, and he found that he had some of them left, although all the little bits of wax ends of candles were gone. "A match will do as well as a torch to set fire to a house. I will chance it, for afterwards I shall most bitterly repent not having done so. Oh, yes, I will go back and chance it. I know how to do it; and if that Sir Richard Blunt, whom I yet hope to see in death, has not removed the materials I placed for the firing of the house, I can do it easily. Oh, that will be most capital! I think it will make me laugh again! Ha!--ha! yes, it will make me laugh again!" He stood for the space of time of about two minutes in deep thought, with his hands compressed upon his brow; and then he muttered-- "Yes, there is no difficulty. If I can but reach the flooring of that cupboard beneath the parlour, it will do." He rapidly made up his mind to attempt this most perilous act of setting fire to his old house, after all; notwithstanding it was now to his knowledge filled with his enemies, and that his returning was a matter of the greatest danger to himself. He crept back by the way he had gone, and soon reached the cellar again under his shop. That cellar run partially under the parlour likewise; and it was upon that circumstance, well known to him, that Todd based his hopes of being able, with safety to himself, to fire the old house. He shook a little as he reached the cellar underneath the shop. It was a natural thing that he should do so; for he knew that he was doing the very reverse of what impulse would have prompted him to do, namely, fly from his enemies. The mode of getting into that cellar might, for all he knew to the contrary, be found out at the most inopportune moment for him that could be conceived, and he might find himself surrounded almost at any moment by his foes. No wonder Todd shook a little. He quite forgot that the bodies of the two men were there--his two latest victims; and as he went crawling along with excessive care, the first thing he did, was to fall over them both, and measure his great length upon the floor of the cellar. It was quite astonishing how Todd controlled his temper, when he had any object in view which an ebullition of rage would have had the effect of jeopardising in any way. At another time, his oaths upon the occasion of such a fall would have been rather of the terrific order; but now he uttered not a word, but gathered himself up again with all the calmness and serenity of an ancient martyr, who feels that he is suffering for some great and good cause, dear to the interests of humanity. Sweeney Todd, however, was very anxious to discover if in his fall he had made noise enough to alarm those who were above; but he was soon satisfied that such was not the case, and that the lower part of the house was quite deserted, while they had made their way to the upper, intent upon searching in all the rooms for him (Todd). Ah! they little knew the piece of obdurate cunning that they had pitted against them there! "I shall do it!--I shall do it!" muttered Todd, "I shall easily do it. There is no one to prevent me. Ha!--ha! I do believe that I shall smother some of them, before they can possibly find the means of getting down stairs. That would be quite a mercy of providence--oh, quite!" CHAPTER CL. TODD SETS FIRE TO HIS HOUSE, AND THEN HIDES IN THE CHURCH. Immediately beneath the parlour, where a portion of the cellar went, there was a quantity of old lumber. Perhaps if that lumber had been looked very carefully over, among it there might have been found some fragments of old, and some of new coffins from St. Dunstan's; for with the rich, who had vaults of their own, it was the arrogant fashion to adorn the last sad and narrow home of humanity with silver plates and nails; and Todd had despoiled the grave of some of those costly trappings. Upon the heap of rubbish he scrambled, and that just enabled him comfortably to reach the floor of that parlour. That portion of the floor went under a cupboard in one corner, and in the floor of it three or four coarse round holes had been drilled with a centre-bit. Todd had had his own motives for drilling those holes in the cupboard floor. He now put his finger through one of the holes, and when he did so, he gave a chuckle of delight, for he was convinced that the contents of that cupboard had not been in any way interfered with; and that, as a consequence, he should find no difficulty in firing the house completely. "So," he said, "this is the cleverness of your much-vaunted Sir Richard Blunt. He has left a cupboard as crammed with combustible materials as it well can be, to the mercy of the first accident that may set fire to them; and now the accident has come. Ha!" Again Todd listened attentively, and was still further satisfied that all was profoundly still in the parlour, although he heard the racket and the banging of doors in the upper part of the house. "This is good," said Todd. "This is capital. All is well now. The fire will have made most excellent progress before they will discover it, and I will warrant that if once it takes a firm hold of the wood-work of this old house, it is not a trifle that will stop its roaring progress." With this, Todd ignited one of his matches and thrust it alight through one of the holes in the floor of the cupboard. A slight cracking noise ensued immediately. "That will do," said Todd, and he withdrew the match and cast it upon the ground. The crackling noise continued. He turned and fled from the place with precipitation. In the lower portion of that cupboard there was a quantity of hay, upon which oil and turpentine had been poured liberally. High up upon a shelf was a wooden bowl, with eight pounds of gunpowder in it, and Todd did not know a moment when the flames might reach it, when a terrific explosion would be sure to ensue. "It is done now," he said. "It is done, and they do not know it. More revenge--more revenge! I shall have more revenge now, and there will be more death." He knew that there was only one thing that could by any possibility prevent the gunpowder in the wooden bowl from becoming speedily ignited, and that that would be in consequence of the hay being packed too close to do more than smoulder for a little time before bursting into a flame; but that it must and would do so eventually, there could be no possible doubt, and it was in that hearty conviction that Sweeney Todd now most fully gloried. And now, as he had done before, he kept his arms outstretched before him to prevent him from injuring himself against any of the walls or the abrupt turnings in the passages between his own house and old St. Dunstan's. He stooped, likewise, in order that he might not strike his head against the roof at in places where it was very low, and rough, and rugged. Once only Todd got a little bewildered, and did not well know his way, and then he ignited one of the matches, and by its small light he saw in a moment which way he was to go. "All is well," he said, and he rushed on; but yet he began to be a little surprised that he heard no noise from the house--no sound of the explosion; and inclining his ear to the ground, he stopped in one of the old vaults to listen. A low moaning sound came upon his ears like the muttering of distant thunder, and then a report as though some heavy piece of timber had fallen from a great height to the earth. He fancied that the vault in which he was shook a little, and in terror he rushed forward. The gunpowder had exploded in the cupboard, and Todd's imagination was left to revel in the thought of the mischief which it had done to the house and to all within it. In five minutes more he reached the foot of the little flight of stone-steps that led to the church. All was profoundly dark still, as he thought; but he had not got up above six of those steps when he became conscious that the light of early dawn had already found its way through the windows of the church, and was making everything within it dimly visible. Todd recoiled at this. He and daylight were decidedly not upon good terms with each other by any means. "It is morning--it is morning!" he exclaimed. "What will become of me now? It is light." He staggered right back into the vaults again, and there gave himself to painful thought for awhile; as he did so, he heard loud shouts in the streets--shouts that awakened echoes in the old church; and if anything could have given to Todd, at such a time as that, very great satisfaction, it was to hear that those shouts were all commingled with the one prevailing cry of--"Fire--fire--fire!" That was a joy, indeed, to him. "It burns--it burns!" he said; "but I am here a prisoner; I dare not go out into the daylight; but the old house, with all that it contains, is wrapped in flames, and that is much--much! It is now everything. Oh, that I could hear the cries of those who find themselves wrapped up in the unappeasable element, and have no means of escape! They would, indeed, be music to my ears." This state of mental exultation passed away very quickly, as it was sure to do, and gave place to the most lively fears for his own personal safety; for, after all, that was the great thing with Todd--at least it was while any portion of his deep revenges remained yet to be accomplished. "What shall I do?" That was the question that he kept repeating to himself. "What shall I do?" He advanced now right up the steps into the body of the church. There, at least, he knew that he was safe for the present; and as he stood and listened, he thought that in the bustle and in the confusion that men's minds were in regarding the fire, he might emerge from the church and no one notice him, and fairly get away without observation. If he only got a few streets off it would be sufficient, and he should be able to tell himself that he had indeed and in truth escaped. With these thoughts and feelings, he approached the church door. The nearer he got to the old doors of St. Dunstan, the more appallingly and distinctly there came upon his ears the cries and the shouts of the people who were hurrying to the fire, and he muttered to himself-- "Ah, it must be blazing briskly now--very briskly. It must be quite a sight to the whole of London to see the old den burning so bravely." An engine came rattling on, and with a roar and a crash went past the church door. "Capital!" said Todd. "Upon my word this is capital!" Another engine, with the horses at a mad gallop, went by, and Todd quite rubbed his hands at the idea of the scene of confusion that he had by his own unaided efforts succeed in making in old Fleet Street. "They did not think," he said, "when they closed the gates of the old prison upon me, and told me I should die, that there was one half the mischief in me yet that they now find there is. Ay, and there is much more yet, that they dream not of, but which they shall know some day." He laid his hand upon the lock of the church door. A long ray of the faint early gray light of dawn streamed through the massive keyhole, and at the moment Todd laid his hand upon the lock that ray of light vanished. It was obstructed by some one on the outside. He recoiled several steps, and then from the outside he heard a voice say-- "Lor bless us, yes, it's that old villain Todd's house, gentlemen, in course. It's come to a bad end, like its master will come to, if he hasn't. When I saw the flames and heard 'em a-roaring, I said to my missus 'Conwulsions!' says I, 'if that ain't Todd's house in a blaze.'" "You are right, Mr. Beadle," said a voice in reply. "Yes, gentlemen, perhaps I says it as oughtn't to say it, but I is commonly right in my way, you know, gentlemen; and so, as I says, 'Conwulsions! It's Todd's house a fire.'" "And you think," said another voice, "we shall get a good view of it from the old church tower?" "Yes, gentlemen," replied the beadle, whom the reader will not fail to recognise as our old acquaintance. "Yes, gentlemen. I'll warrant as you will get a capital view from the top of the old tower, where I will take you. Lor a _mussy_, how it is a _roorin_, that fire! I know'd it was Todd's house, and I said to my missus, 'Conwulsions!' says I, 'that's old villanous Todd's house a-fire!'" Todd ground his teeth together with rage as he listened to this; but he felt that if he would provide for his own safety, there was indeed now no time to lose, and he rapidly retreated into the body of the church. His first thought was to hide himself in one of the pews, but the divisions between them were not so high as to prevent a person of very moderate height indeed from looking over one of them, and there was quite light enough now for any one in such a case to have seen him, if they had chosen to glance into the pew in which he might take shelter. The case was urgent, however, and he had not much time for thought, so being close to the pulpit he ran up its steps, opened the little door, and ensconced himself within it in a moment. There, at all events, he felt that he was hidden securely from any merely casual observation. The church door was opened almost before he could get the pulpit door shut; but he did manage to close it, and he was satisfied that he had done so without exciting the attention of those who were entering the church. Todd could, of course, from where he was, hear, with the greatest clearness and precision, every word that they said to each other, as they walked up the aisle. [Illustration: Todd Sets Fire To His House, Then Hides Himself In St. Dunstan's Pulpit.] One of the persons who were coming with the beadle to view the fire from the tower of the church went on speaking to his companions. "And so," he said, "I think, if no one be hurt, and the fire can be kept just within the limits of Todd's house, it will be no bad thing to have a place that is such a continual reminder of atrocious guilt, swept from the face of the earth." "Yes," said the other, "the only pity is, that Sweeney Todd is not in it to go with it. Then the good thing would be complete." "It would, gentlemen," said the beadle. "Oh, when you comes to think of what he did and what he might have done--Oh, it makes my hair stand o' end, and my parochial blood curdle, to think of what he might have done, gentlemen." "He could not do worse than he did." "Not _wus_? not _wus_? Oh,--oh!" "How is it possible? He committed a number of murders, and if you can find me anything worse he could have done, I shall indeed be very much surprised." "Gentlemen, he might have polished _me_ off. That's what he might have done, for he has actually had me hold of by the nose. Oh, conwulsions! if I had only then thought that there was a chance of his polishing off, as he used to call it, a parochial authority, I should have--I should have--" "What, Mr. Beadle?" "_Flewed_ through the window, sir, that's what I should have done, and told the world at large what had happened." "Well, certainly, that would have been something." "Everything," said the other gentleman, in a tone of voice that showed how much he was inclined to enjoy a joke at the expense of the beadle. "It would have been everything. But how plain you can hear the roaring of the flames now, even in this church, with the door shut." "You can, indeed," said the other. "Ah, there dashes past another engine. Come, Mr. Beadle, the sooner we get on this tower the better." "In a minute, gentlemen; but now as you is here arter the blessed old church has been shut up all night, I jest ask you to say if it has the _orrid_ smell as it used to have, which offended the holy nose of the bishop when he came to confirm the people." "I smell nothing." "Nor I." "Very good; then that's so far satisfactory. Cos you see, sirs, only yesterday Sir Christopher Wren and two gentlemen come and left in the church a pailful of chemists, for the express purpose of taking away the smell." "A what?" "A pailful of chemists." "Of chemicals, you mean, I suppose, although that would be a singularly inappropriate term. But come on, Mr. Beadle, we are very anxious to get on the tower." "This way, gentlemen, if you pleases. This will lead you nicely and fairly up those little stairs and right on. Oh, what a world we does live in, to be sure!" With this general philosophical remark, the beadle, opening a little door at the extremity of the south aisle, pushed his friends up a narrow staircase that led to the top of the tower of old St. Dunstan's, and from which certainly a very good view of the surrounding streets and of the Temple could be obtained; and in the clear light of early morning, before the million fires in London were lighted, that view was seen to be a tolerably distinct one. Todd muttered the bitterest maledictions upon them, as he heard them go up the little stairs. There he was, certainly, to all appearance, safe enough; and he might, for all he knew, be safe enough until the next Sunday; but how was he to live in a pulpit even for the whole of a day? It might be that he would have to wait there until the dim shadows of the night should come again, and wrap up the whole church in gloom; but how many weary hours must pass before that time would come, and what infinite danger there was, that he might drop into sleep after all his fatigues, and so forget his caution, and discover himself! Already the great fatigues he had passed through, and the many hours he had been debarred from rest, began to tell upon him; and it was with difficulty that he kept himself from dropping into slumber. He began to get fearfully alarmed at his situation. "What shall I do?" he said, "I must escape--escape! Yes. How the fire roars! I will not sleep. Oh, no--no! It is done now; the old house is gone--gone!" Todd fell fast asleep in the pulpit. CHAPTER CLI. SHIFTS THE SCENE TO ONE OF QUIET GOODNESS AND SERENITY. The necessities of our story force us for a short space of time to leave Sweeney Todd in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church, and his house in process of demolition by fire, while we take the reader back again to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where the Ingestries resided in such loving and pleasant union. The communication that Sir Richard Blunt had made to them, had had the effect of disturbing the serenity of Mark Ingestrie to a much greater extent than he would have liked to admit, or than he was at all likely to let Johanna know. She, too, the fair and gentle Johanna, felt an acute pang as she thought on the stern, revengeful character of Todd; and began to fancy, that if he wished to work her any woe, he would take a means of doing so which would touch her much more severely than as if he aimed at her own life, by attacking that of her husband, to whom, after so many perils, she was at length so very happily united. "Oh, Mark," she said, "you will, you must promise me that you will depart at once from here." "We will be gone directly, Johanna. But who have we here? Why, there is an arrival already. I will go and see who it is. It is some one in a coach." "Oh, no--no, Mark, do not go." "Not go?" "No. You do not know but it may be some horrible scheme of that fiend in the shape of man, Todd, to lure you to the door, and kill you. I am full of fears, Mark, and cannot bear to let you go from my sight a moment." "Oh, Johanna, this is unlike you, indeed. There now, look from the window, dear, and you will soon see how little you have to fear. Why, it's your father and your mother. Do you not see them, or does your tears, and your fears together, blind you?" "A little of both, Mark," said Johanna, with a faint smile; "but I see that my dear father is there, and my mother, too. I will fly to welcome them. They have heard of the escape of Todd, and cannot endure to have us out of their sight." As Johanna spoke, she hurried to the door to receive Mr. and Mrs. Oakley. The old man caught her in his arms, as he said-- "Oh, my own dear child! Thank God I see you safe again!" "Safe, father?" "Yes, my darling. You know that dreadful man?--that--that--Oh, I don't know what to call--" "The horrid Todd," put in Mrs. Oakley, as she kissed Johanna. "He has escaped, my dear, from Newgate; but, of course, Sir Richard Blunt has been here to tell you, as he said he would; so you know all about it." "Oh, yes--yes. Come in; I am so glad you have come." "And so am I," said Mark Ingestrie, making his appearance in the hall; "for here is Johanna starting at every little noise, and I do believe if a mouse were now to run across the floor she would fancy that it was that old rascal, Sweeney Todd." "Ah! but, my dear boy," said Mr. Oakley; "you really don't seem to have any idea of what a dreadful man he is--you don't, indeed." "I don't care either, father; but I only wish one thing, and that is, that he would be so good as to trust himself, for about half a minute, within arms-length of me, that's all." "Heaven forbid!" cried Mrs. Oakley. "My dear son, you don't know he used to--to--what did he call it, Johanna?" "Polish people off, ma." "Ah, to be sure." "Well, it's no use talking," said Mark; "but if ever I get hold of him, I'll polish him off to some purpose. But you have just come in time for me to say a very serious thing to you, mother, indeed." "Oh, what is it?" cried Mrs. Oakley. "Don't agitate us," said old Mr. Oakley, putting on his spectacles upside-down. "Don't agitate us, my boy, but tell us at once what the dreadful thing is." "Why, pa," said Johanna, "Mark did not say it was a dreadful thing he was going to say." "Well, then, my dear, what is it?" "Ah, that, indeed, I don't know; but I would wager--yes, I would wager anything, that it is something not dreadful at all. Come, Mark, what is it?--Speak out." "Then, it's just this," said Mark. "We are going out of London, and I want you both to come with us, for I know very well if you don't, that you will be as miserable as possible, thinking of Johanna, and that Johanna will be in much the same state thinking of you, and that you will dream every night of Todd." The old couple looked at each other with surprise and gratification. Mr. Oakley took off his spectacles, and said-- "My dear boy, do you know, I was just going to say that--that--" "That, in fact," put in Mrs. Oakley, "we would be glad to go with you, if you would let us, for Sir Richard said he would advise you both to go out of London, and leave him to find out and hang Todd at his leisure, you know." "Yes, that was it," said the old man. "That was the very thing that brought us over here, my dears; so if you will only be so good--" "Come, come," said Mark, "it is, you must be so good. I asked you first, you know, so you do us the favour. Is not that it, Johanna? Of course it is." "You are very, very good and kind, Mark." "Oh, stuff! not at all; I say what I like, that's all, and when I say that it would please me mightily to have your father and mother with us, Johanna, where we are going, I mean it from my heart, as you know well." "I know you do, Mark. And poor Tobias, father, is to be with us likewise. You have heard all about poor Tobias?" "Oh, yes--yes." "Well, then, Sir Richard Blunt told us that it would be the death of the poor lad if he should be in London and hear that Todd has escaped from Newgate. So we gladly agreed to take him with us, for he--more than any one--has suffered deeply from Todd's wickedness." "Hilloa!" cried Mark, as he glanced from the window. "If here is not another coach at the door!" "Oh, who is it?" said Mrs. Oakley. "It's Todd, of course, come to kill us all!" "I hope it is," said Mark. "I'll soon set you all at rest about him. But only look! If it ain't the colonel, and Arabella, and Tobias. Well, if Todd wants to be down upon us all at once, now is his time certainly to do so." In a few moments, the colonel and Arabella were shown into the room, and they were quite surprised to see the Oakleys there; but while Johanna and Arabella were embracing each other, Mark Ingestrie went up to the colonel, and pointing slightly to Tobias, he whispered-- "Does he know?" "Oh, no--no." "Very good; but he had better, I am convinced, for it will be sure to slip out in conversation, some time or another, and then the poor lad will think much more of it than as if it were told to him in a quiet manner by his friends, for he will think that there is more to conceal than there really is. I am convinced that such will be the case." "Then we will take an opportunity of telling him, but not just now. I want to speak to Johanna." "There she is, then." "And what does he want to say to me?" said Johanna, as she shook hands with the colonel. "Why, a--the fact is that--that, in fact, Sir Richard told me he would advise you to go out of town; and as I am pretty well aware that you set sufficient store by his advice to follow it, I think it is very likely you will go out of town." "And so, dear," put in Arabella, "and so, dear, in a word, we want to go with you, if you think that such an arrangement will not be disagreeable to you." "Now, that is the unkindest thing you have said, Arabella, for a long time. How could you suppose that it would be other than most agreeable to me to have with us such valued friends?" "There, I told you that," said the colonel. "Of course it will be all right, and we shall make quite a merry party, I'll be bound; so that's as good as settled, and a very satisfactory thing it is, and the sooner we all set off the better. Here's Tobias quite delighted with the idea of his little excursion." "Ah, yes," said Tobias, "and it is so kind and good of you, colonel, and of all of you; but you know I leave my heart in London still, let me go where I may." "Never mind, Tobias," said Johanna. "I feel quite sure that you will find it in good keeping when you do come back again; so now we will make preparations at once for departure, and I hope we shall be quite delighted with where we are going. It is one of the pleasantest places, they tell me, on the coast, and will in time be a place of great importance." "Well," said the colonel, with a laugh, "it's quite a pleasant thing to hear that it is on the coast, for that is something towards a knowledge of where it is." "Ah, my dear--By-the-by," said Mrs. Oakley, "I should like to know where you really intend to take us all." "To the little fishing village of Brighthelmstone, for it is nothing more; but then it lies pleasantly between the hills, and you can see the Channel opening fairly before you, and there is an air upon the Downs that is full of life and joy. You will be sure to like it, mother, and so will you, father, and you, colonel, and you, my dear Arabella." "You don't mention me," said Mark. "Oh, that is because you know you are of no sort of consequence at all. You are nobody." "Thank you!" "Well now, my dears," said Mrs. Oakley, "don't begin to quarrel now, I beg of you, for that is the worst thing you can do; and so long as we get out of the way of having all our throats cut by that horrid Todd, I don't care where I go to or how many inconveniences I put up with, so long as it is a great way off; and I do hope that Sir Richard will soon catch him again, and regularly hang him, as he deserves, the wretch, that I do." A complete silence followed the utterance of the indiscreet speech of Mrs. Oakley's, which, if it did not at once open the eyes of poor Tobias to the real reason of the sudden journey, nothing would. All eyes were bent upon the lad; and rising from the seat which Johanna had made him take, he looked about him with dismay. "Oh, tell me, some one," he then said, "what does it all really mean? Believe me, my kind and dear friends, that I shall suffer less from the truth than as if I were left to make myself mad by thought. Oh, tell me all!" "You shall know all," said the colonel. "Oh, mother--mother," said Johanna. "Why did you--" Mrs. Oakley sat looking the picture of dismay, and Colonel Jeffrey added-- "This is an accident that I don't think is to be much lamented. Tobias must have known at some time, and it is better that he should know now that he is surrounded by his friends. Give me your hand, Tobias. You see that I smile, so it cannot be of great moment after all." "Oh, tell me--tell me!" "I will. Todd has made his escape from Newgate, that is all; but he is friendless and penniless, and it will be quite impossible that he can remain many days at large, as Sir Richard Blunt is already upon his track. Let me beg of you not to be in the least alarmed at this intelligence. It ought not to alarm you. Todd will have too much to do to look after his own affairs to enable him to give a thought to anybody else." "You will save me?" said Tobias. "I will. We will all stand between you and any harm; but, I repeat, I do not apprehend any danger to you." They all spoke to Tobias cheeringly, and in the course of half an hour they got him into quite a different state of mind; and then, as he was to form one of the party, it was quite a relief to them all that they did not feel compelled to keep a guard upon their tongues in his presence. In the evening of that day they were all at Brighton. [Illustration: Johanna And Company Leave Chelsea To Avoid The Vengeance Of Todd.] CHAPTER CLII. TODD HAS SOME FURTHER ADVENTURES IN FLEET STREET. We left Todd in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church, while his old house was rapidly burning down. A perilous position for Todd! Perhaps, if he had courage sufficient to have made the attempt, he might have escaped at several junctures, but the dread of the consequences of capture was so strong in his heart and brain, that while he felt that he was undiscovered in the pulpit, he preferred remaining there to making any precipitate means of escape. It will be remembered how the beadle had taken up several gentlemen to the roof of the church, in order that they might get a good view of the fire; and it was during that time that Todd thought of escaping, but the rapid approach of daylight daunted him. "Oh, that I had remained in the wood at Hampstead, or anywhere but here in London, where the hands of all men are raised against me! Oh, I was mad--mad to come here. But I am not quite lost. If I thought that, my senses would go from me this moment. Oh, no--no, I will be calm now again; I will not believe that I am quite lost yet." Of a truth, Todd felt that if he really gave up in despair, that he might commit some extravagance which would at once draw down upon him his enemies; and there he lay in the pulpit, his gaunt form huddled up so as completely to hide himself in it, and dreading to stay as much almost as he dreaded to leave. He heard still the loud shouts of people at the fire, and at times he thought he heard even the flames that were rapidly consuming the old den of iniquity in which he had committed so many crimes. The regular clank, clank, too, of the engine pumps came upon his ears, and he muttered-- "No, no, you may try your hardest, but you will not subdue that fire. It will blaze on in spite of you. You will not--you cannot, I say, subdue it. The house is too well prepared. I had a care for that before I left home. It will burn to the very ground--ay, and below the ground, too; and the spot of earth only will remain that held the foundation of my old house. Would that all whom I hate were at this moment writhing in the flames! Then I might feel some sort of satisfaction with myself, and even this place of peril would be for the time quite tolerable to me." No doubt it would have been a vast satisfaction to Todd to have all that he hated in the flames of his burning house; but as yet he could only tell himself that the puny vengeance he had achieved had been upon the most inferior tools of those who had wreaked his ruin, while the principals remained untouched and most completely unscathed. What had he yet done to Sir Richard Blunt? What to Tobias? What to Johanna? What even to the dog that had played no inconsiderable a part in his final conviction of the murder of its master? Little, indeed; and the thought that his revenges were all to do, scared his imagination, and filled him full of rage as well as terror. He heard the sound of the footsteps of the people who had gone to the roof of the church with the beadle to see the fire, coming down again, and he shrunk still closer into the bottom of the pulpit. "Oh," he said, "if they could but for one moment guess that I was here, what joy it would give them to drag me forth to the light of day! To once again cast me into the condemned one's cell, and then to hoot me to the gallows! But, no--no; I will not die a felon's death. Rather by my own hands will I fall, if my fortune should reach such a wretched extremity. Hush!--oh, hush! Why do I speak? They come--they come." "Well, gentlemen, as you say, the old house is gone at last," said the beadle, "and I must say, though fires always gives me a turn, and, as a parish authority perhaps I ought not to say it, I think it is a very good job." "A good job, Mr. Beadle?" said one. "How do you make that out?" "Why, sir, who would have lived in it? Who would have paid rent, and rates, and taxes, and given his Christmas-box to the beadle like a Christian, in Todd's old house, I should like to know?" "Well, you are right there." "I know I is, sir. The fact is, that house would have been like a great blot, sirs, in the middle of Fleet Street; no one would have taken it for love or money; and it a very good thing as it's gone at last." "You reason the matter very well, Mr. Beadle," said another, "and I for a certainty subscribe to your opinion, that it is a good thing it is gone at last, and I only hope that its late owner will soon be in the hands of justice. Somebody is trying the door of the church." The beadle went to it, and upon opening it two persons entered the church. One of them spoke at once, saying-- "Is the beadle of St. Dunstan's in the church?" Todd knew the voice. It was Sir Richard Blunt, and he shook so that the pulpit creaked again most ominously, so that if the attention of any one had chanced to be directed towards it, they might have felt a kind of suspicion that it was occupied. Luckily for Todd, no one looked up, nor in any way noticed the pulpit. "Lor, sir, yes," said the beadle. "Here I is, and if I don't make a great mistake, sir, you is Sir Richard Blunt." "I am." "Lor bless you, sir, that's the way with me. If I sees a _indiwidal_ once, and knows 'em, I knows 'em again." "It's a capital faculty, Mr. Beadle. But my friend, Mr. Crotchet, here, will just go down with you through the vaults to make sure that the fire in Todd's house has in no way connected with this. We don't want to burn down the church." "Burn down the church, sir? Oh, conwulsions! Me go down into the vaults with this gentleman? Bless you, sir, I should only _obstructify_ him in the discharge of his duty. I couldn't think of doing it, I assure you, sir. He can go by himself, you see, and then he will have the advantage of nobody to contradict him." "I'd rather go without him, Sir Richard," said Crotchet, who was the gentleman. "He's only a idiot!" The beadle marched up to Crotchet, until he got within about two inches of that gentleman's nose, and then slowly shaking his head to and fro, he said-- "Did you call me a _hidiot_?" "Yes, I did." "You did? Now, young man, mind what you say, because if you call me a hidiot, I shall be bound to do--" "What?" "Nothing at all. I see you are rather a low fellow, so I shall treat you with the same contempt as I did the very common person that pulled my nose last week--Silent contempt! That's how I serve people. I despise you, accordingly." "Werry good," said Crotchet. "That's by far the safestest way, old feller. So now I'll go down into the vaults." "No news of Todd yet, Sir Richard?" said one of the gentlemen, walking up to the magistrate. "Oh, Sir Christopher Wren, I beg your pardon," said the magistrate. "I did not see you at the moment. I am sorry to say that although we have some news of Todd, we have not yet been able to catch him. But we must have him, England is not so very large a place after all, and I don't think he has any means of getting away from it." "The sooner the rascal expiates his crimes upon the scaffold the better. I never before heard of a criminal in whose whole career there was nothing found that could excite the faintest feeling of compassion." "He is a desperate bad fellow, indeed," said Sir Richard Blunt, "but I hope that he will not long trouble society. I have determined to give up all other pursuits until I take him, and I have a _carte blanche_ from the Secretary of State to go to any expense, and to do what I please, in the way of capturing him." Todd's heart sunk within him at these words. Had they come from any one else, he would not have heeded them much but from him they were of fearful import. "Oh, that I could kill that man," he muttered, "then I should know some peace; but while he lives and while I live, we are like two planets in one orbit, and cannot long exist together." "I wish you every success," said Sir Christopher Wren. "I am obliged to you, Sir Christopher. The fact is, that Todd left his house pretty full of combustibles, and my men were unwise enough, contrary to my positive orders, to let them be there; and I am afraid that he may have contrived some mode of blowing up the church by a train or some other equally diabolical means, as he had such free and unrestrained access to it for so long." "What!" cried the beadle. "What did you say, Sir Richard?" "I merely said that I was apprehensive Todd might have concocted some means of blowing up the church, that is all." "And me in it! And me in it! Conwulsions!" The beadle did not pause for another moment, but rushing to the door, he flew out of the church as if a barrel of gunpowder had been rolling after him, nor did he stop until he got right through Temple-bar and some distance down the Strand. "I am afraid I have frightened away our friend, the beadle," said Sir Richard Blunt. "And I don't wonder at it," replied Sir Christopher Wren. "I should not like exactly to be blown up along with the fragments of old St. Dunstan's Church myself, so I will go." "Ah, I am sorry I mentioned it." "Are you though? I am very much obliged to you for so doing. Excuse me, Sir Richard, for bidding you good-morning rather abruptly, if you please." Sir Richard Blunt laughed as he bade Sir Christopher and his friend good-morning--by-the-by, the friend had already made his way outside the church-door, and was waiting for Sir Christopher in no small degree of trepidation. "For God's sake," he said, "come along at once, or we may all be blown up together." "Well," said Sir Richard Blunt, as he paced up the aisle of the old church, "I would risk a little scorching, if at the end of it I could only lay my hand upon the shoulder of Sweeney Todd. What on earth can have become of the rascal? But I must be patient--yes, patience will do it, for that we shall come face to face again, I feel to be as established a fact for the future, as that of my own existence now." "Oh," thought Todd, "if I now only dared to shoot him! If I only dared do it! And I would if it were not for the other one in the vaults--that wretch they call Crotchet. And yet I have a pistol here. If I thought that after shooting him through the head or through the heart, I could by one bold rush get out of this church, what a glorious piece of work it would be! This Sir Richard Blunt is the only man that I dread. Were he no more, I should feel completely at peace. I could shoot him now." Todd took a pistol from his pocket and presented it through the little crevice of the very slightly open door of the pulpit. The door would open a little in spite of him. "Yes, oh, yes, I could shoot him now; but the report of the pistol would perhaps bring that other villain they call Crotchet from the vaults, and then who shall say what would happen? And yet I have another pistol, and could shoot him too. Oh, how glorious, if I could take the lives of both these men! It would indeed be a good work." The magistrate paced to and fro waiting for Crotchet, and little suspecting that Todd was so near to him, and with a pistol aimed at him! If he had only guessed as much, he would have freely risked the shot, and would soon have been in the pulpit along with Todd. But it was not to be. Sir Richard Blunt had not any supernatural power by which he could tell of the proximity of Todd from no evidence of that fact at all. "Yes," said Todd suddenly, "I will shoot him. I will risk all and shoot him now. If I die for it, I shall have, at least, had a great and glorious revenge! I will shoot him now, when he turns and walks up the aisle again." Todd felt calm and pleased now that he had actually made up his mind to shoot Sir Richard. He projected the barrel of the pistol about an inch or so through the crevice caused by the spring of the door, and he calmly waited for the opportunity of sending its deadly contents into the heart of the magistrate. The aisle down which Sir Richard had slowly paced was rather a long one, and he had walked down it some half-dozen times, in deep thought, and waiting for Crotchet. There was no reason on earth why he should not come up it again, and so expose himself to the deadly aim of Todd. He did commence the walk up it. If he had taken twenty steps he would have been a dead man; but chance, or providence--it is not for us to say which--had it otherwise. After going about ten paces, he turned abruptly to the left, and made his way down a long narrow passage between the pews to the opening that led down to the vaults, where Crotchet was pursuing his inquiries. Todd was foiled. He drew back with a deep sigh. "He is saved!" he said. "He is saved! It is not to be!" Quite unconscious of the serious danger he had so narrowly escaped, Sir Richard went to the mouth of the opening to the vaults, and called out-- "Crotchet! Crotchet!" "Here you is, sir," replied Crotchet; "I was just coming. It's all right. The old wagabone hasn't done nothing, sir, to spread the fire out of his own blessed premises, as I can see. The church isn't in danger, sir, I take it." "Very good, Crotchet; then we need not remain here any longer. I cannot, for the life of me, think what has become of our man that we left in Todd's house. In all the riot and racket of the fire, no one seems to be at all aware of what has become of him. Is he a steady sort of a man, Crotchet?" "Why yes, Sir Richard, he is. But if the truth must be told, he has got the fault of many. He is fond of the--" Here Crotchet went through expressively the pantomime of placing a glass to his lips and draining it off, after which he rubbed his stomach, as much as to say--"Isn't it nice!" "I understand, Crotchet: he drinks." "Rather, Sir Richard." "Ah, that is the case of all--or of nearly all--men in his class of life. I should not wonder now, at all, if he has not been taking a glass of something, in consequence of feeling lonely, and so set fire to the old house." CHAPTER CLIII. TODD ASTONISHES THE BEADLE, AND ESCAPES PROM ST. DUNSTAN'S. "Oh!" groaned Todd to himself. "Oh, if I had but shot the villain before the other one came up from the vaults, and all would have been well; but I cannot shoot them both at once. It is not often that I lose anything by procrastination, but I have now--Oh, yes, I have now! It is maddening!--It is quite maddening! and I could find in my own heart almost to turn this pistol against my own life, only that I hope yet to live a little while for vengeance." A smart tap came against the church door. "Open the door, Crotchet," said Sir Richard. "We are alone in the church now, for the beadle was too careful of himself to remain after he found that there was some little danger." "Oh, sir," said Crotchet, with an expression of disgust in his face, "beadles is humbugs, sir; and this beadle of St. Dunstan's is the very worst of the worst of beadles. Didn't you notice, sir, what an old humbug he was before, when we was a-coming here on the hunt about Todd and that beautiful creature Mrs. Lovett? Then, sir, we found out what sort of a beadle that was. I rather think I despises beadles, sir; I does, your worship." Tap came the knock at the church door again. "You forget, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, pointing to the door. "Lor, yer worship, so I did. I begs his blessed pardon whosomever it is. Come in. There's nobody but the right sort here, whoever it is. Hilloa! it's our friend, Green." "Ah, Green, are you looking for me?" said Sir Richard. "I was, sir." "Then you have news. What is it?" "Todd is in the neighbourhood, sir, or was an hour or two ago, I am well assured." "Todd?" "Yes, sir. He was in his own house. A man came to the door of it to see the person minding it, and the door was opened a little way, and Todd tried to pull him in, and would have pulled him in, but his neckcloth gave way, and then the fire broke out directly after. The man has been in too great a fright till just a little while ago to venture into the street again." "You have seen him?" "I have, sir." "Bring him here, Green." Green immediately left the church, and Mr. Crotchet set up a long and melancholy whistle. "In my heart I thought this might be," said Sir Richard, "and yet having no evidence to justify the suggestion of my fancy, I did not like to nurse the idea. Todd in this neighbourhood--Todd in his own house! Oh, what a chance!" "Your worship," said Crotchet, shaking his head and speaking slowly, with an appearance of great wisdom. "Your worship, it's mostly always the case. There's a special providence that always brings back folks as has done a murder back again to the place where they has done it; and the next time I'm on the lay for a cove as has done a slaughtering job, I shall sit myself down, yer worship, in the room where he did it and wait for him. It's a special thing of Providence, it is, sir, I feel as sure as though I did it myself, as isn't Providence at all, but just Crotchet, and no sort of mistake." "You are right, Crotchet, as far as examples go. We will only just listen to what this man that Green has gone for has got to say, and then we will be off and do our best." "Yes, yer worship, we will; and here he is." Green, the officer, now brought into the church the very man with whom Todd had had the little adventure at the door of his shop; and notwithstanding the time that had elapsed since that little incident, the man was still in a state of terror, which was quite manifest in every feature of his face. "Why, what's the matter with you?" said Crotchet, as he dealt the man a blow on the back that nearly took all his breath away. "You look as scared as if you had just seen a ghost, old fellow, that you do." "It was worse than a ghost." Sir Richard Blunt stepped up to the man, and said-- "Do you know me? I am Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate." "Oh, yes, sir, I know you." "Answer me then, clearly and distinctly, for much may depend upon it. Who was it opened the door of Todd's house for you, and strove, as I hear, to drag you into it?" "Sweeney Todd, sir." "Are you quite sure? Do you know him well by sight?" "Oh, yes, sir, I could swear it." "And you thought it very natural that he should be there, and if anybody there had so laid hold of you in the dark, you would, of course, at once have naturally concluded that it must be Todd?" "Oh, dear no, sir, I hadn't an idea that it could be him, sir; and if I hadn't seen his face, that I know quite well, I couldn't possibly have believed it to be him." "That is enough. I will not trouble you any further. I am much obliged to you for your information." "You are very welcome, Sir Richard; and I do hope you may catch the rascal soon. I shall never forget his having hold of me, for the longest day I have to live." Still shaking at the bare remembrance of the danger that he had run, the man left the church; and peeping over his shoulder every now and then as he went, for fear Todd should be close at hand, he took his route to quite a different quarter of the town, where he fancied he should feel more secure; for he could not make up his mind to anything but that Todd must have some special desire to lay hold of him, and add him to the already formidable muster-roll of his victims. When he left the church, Sir Richard Blunt turned to Crotchet, and said-- "Crotchet, you may depend, now, that Todd is in London, and fancies that among its crowds will be his greatest chance of safety. I will take measures at once to discover him. Come along with me to Craven-street, and you too, Green, and I will explain to you both what I think will be the best plan to adopt." "All's right, sir; we'll have him," said Crotchet. "I think we shall," said Green, "for, large as London is, I rather think we know how to search it as well as most folks. I attend you, sir, and I will run any risk in the world to take the scoundrel prisoner." "And so will I," said Crotchet. "I know you both well," said Sir Richard, "and I cannot desire to be aided by better men than you both are. Come on. I will not speak further of any plans or projects except in my own office, where I know that there are no spies or eaves-droppers." "This blessed church is pretty safe," said Crotchet. "It ain't very likely that anybody is on the listening lay in it. It would be rather cold work, I take it. But, howsomdever, there's nothing like being on the right side of the hedge, and in one's own crib, that one knows all the ins and all the outs of, after all." They both followed Sir Richard Blunt from the church, and Todd felt that he was once again alone within that sacred edifice, the very atmosphere of which was profaned by the presence of such a wretch, so loaded with crimes as he was. "Gone," said Todd, looking up put of the pulpit, "and may all--" We cannot repeat the maledictions of Todd. They were additionally awful spoken in such a building, and from such a place in that building. It was dreadful that the roof of a place reared to the worship of God, should be desecrated by the raving curses of such a man as Todd. He was silent after he had satisfied his first ebullition of rage, and then he was afraid that he had gone too far, and endangered his safety by making an appearance at all above the level of the pulpit, or by speaking. How did he know but that Sir Richard Blunt might, after all, have some sort of suspicion that he was not far off, and be listening close at hand? As this supposition, wild and vague as it was, and quite unsupported by any evidence, found a home in the brain of Todd, the perspiration of intense fear broke out upon his brow, and again he shook to the extent of making the old pulpit creak dreadfully. "Oh, hush! hush!" he moaned. "Be still--be still. I am safe yet. There is no one here. I am safe, surely. There is no one in the church. Why do I suffer more, much more, from what does not happen, than from what does?" Still the notion clung to him for a little while, and he remained at the bottom of the pulpit quite needlessly for the next half hour, listening with all his might, in order to detect the slightest noise that might be indicative of the presence of a foe. But all was as still as the grave, and by slow degrees Sweeney Todd got more assured. "I breathe again," he said. "They do not suspect that I am here. It is much too unlikely a place for them to dream of for a moment. Even Sir Richard Blunt, with his utmost prescience, does not think of looking for me in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. I am safe--I am safe for the present." He agreed with this feeling that he was quite alone in the church, and he was right. He looked over the edge of the pulpit. How still and solemn the place looked! The morning had advanced quite sufficiently now to shed a dim light into the church, and the noise in the street contingent upon the fire had nearly passed away. The fact was, that the firemen had, after making a few efforts and finding them of no use, let Todd's house burn to the ground, and turned all their efforts towards saving the edifices on either side. In that object they were successful, so that the conflagration was over, and nothing remained but the frail wall of Todd's house. And so the clank of the engine-pumps no longer sounded in his ears, but he could yet be certain that there was a great crowd in Fleet Street, for he heard the hum of voices, and occasionally the trouble that ensued when a vehicle tried to force its way through the dense mass of people that blocked up the thoroughfare, which at the best of times was none of the clearest. "Is there a chance now of escape," said Todd, "if I could only make up my mind to it? I do not forget that I am disguised--I ought not to forget that. Who will know me? and yet that man knew me--that man that I missed killing at the old place. Yes, he knew me. He said he could swear to me. Confound him! I wish I could have sworn to his dead body. I wonder if they have left the church-door open, or, rather, only upon the latch? I--I will descend from here, and make a bold attempt." He opened the pulpit-door, and had got about three steps down the little ornamental flight of winding stairs that led from the pulpit to the body of the building, when the church-door was suddenly opened, and he fled back with a precipitation that made some noise, when he might have done so in perfect quietness, for it was not very likely that any one would have looked up to the pulpit immediately upon their entrance to the building. A glance towards the door convinced Mr. Todd that it was the beadle. "Oh, dear, I thought I heard something," said the beadle, as he closed the door after him. "But I suppose it was only fancy, after all. Now they say that all the fire is out, and that it is quite impossible for the church to be blowed up, I suppose I may come in without any danger. Lor bless us, that Sir Richard Blunt, I do believe, would think no more of blowing up a beadle, than he would of eating a penny bun, that's my opinion of him." "Curses on your head!" muttered Todd. "Bless me, what a world we live in," said the beadle. "Wretch--beast," muttered Todd; "what does he want here at this time of day?" "Yes, to-morrow's Sunday," said the beadle, as if pursuing a train of thought that had found a home in his brain. "How the weeks do run round, to be sure, and one Sunday comes after another at such a rate, that it seems as if there was weeks and weeks and weeks of 'em, without any of the other days at all. I wish I hadn't to come here." Todd uttered faintly some dreadful imprecations, and the beadle continued talking to himself to keep his courage up, as was evident from his nervous and fidgetty manner. "Ah, dear, me. Conwulsions! I tried to persuade my wife to come and dust the communion table and the pulpit-cushions for to-morrow, but she politely declined; she needn't have thrown the bellows at my head though, for all that." "Dust the pulpit-cushions!" thought Todd. "The wretch is coming up here! I shall have to cut his throat, and leave him at the bottom of the pulpit for the parson to tread upon the first thing he does to-morrow, upon coming up here to preach." As Todd spoke, he took a clasped knife out of his pocket, and opened it with his teeth. "Oh, yes, my old friend, I shall, I see, be under the painful necessity of cutting your throat, that I shall, and I shall not hesitate about it at all." "Yes," added the beadle, "I mean to say that to throw the bellows at the man is like adding insult to injury, for it is blowing him up in a kind of way that's anything but agreeable. Lor! how cold and rum the church does feel. Rum? why did I say rum and put myself in mind of it? Oh, don't I like it, rather! If I only now had a glass of real fine old Jamaica rum at this moment, I'd be as happy as a bishop." "Oh, I'll rum you!" growled Todd. "Eh? Eh?" The beadle turned round three times, as though he were going to begin a game at blind-man's-bluff, and then he said-- "I thought I heard something. Oh dear, how shivery I do get to be sure, when I'm alone in the church. I'll just get through the dusting job as quick as I can, and no mistake. Amen! Amen! I'm a miserable sinner--Amen!" CHAPTER CLIV. DETAILS THE PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE BEADLE. Todd had heard all this with anger and impatience rankling at his heart. He began to have the most serious thoughts of sacrificing the beadle--indeed, if any good could have been got to himself by so doing, he would not have scrupled to do so with the greatest speed. As it was, however, he could not concoct any plan of proceedings quickly which would benefit him, and so he was compelled to remain an auditor of the beadle's private thoughts, and a spectator of what he was about, when he chose to peep over the edge of the pulpit. "Well, it's astonishing," continued the beadle, "what a fever that fellow Todd has kept me in for I don't know how long, one way or another: me and Fleet Street have been regularly bothered by him. First of all, I was in all sorts of doubts and uncertainties about the matter before they took him and tried him, and was a-going to hang him, and then I did think that he was as--good--as done--for--" As he uttered these last words, the beadle was banging one of the cushions of the communion-table, so that he was compelled for want of breath to utter them at intervals. "Oh, confound you!" muttered Todd, "if I only had hold of you, I would throttle you, and then think of what to do afterwards." Todd's great difficulty arose from the fact that he thought if he tried to descend from the pulpit, the beadle might see him and get the start of him in leaving the church, in which event the alarm that he would raise in Fleet Street would be such, that any attempt to escape would be attended by the greatest hazard. "There is nothing for it but to wait," said Todd to himself gloomily. "I can do nothing else; but woe to him when I do catch him!" "This dusting job on a Saturday," said the beadle, "does seem to me to be one of the most disagreeable of all that has to be done with the church. I don't mind one's duty on a Sunday, but this is horrid. On a Sunday there's lots of people, and the old place has a sort of cheerful look about it, but now I don't like it, and I've a good mind to get one of the charity-boys of the blessed parish to keep me company." "I will kill him, too, if you do," muttered Todd. The beadle paused upon this thought concerning the charity-boy; but as he had finished the communion-table, he did not think that for the mere dusting the pulpit and its cushions, it was worth while to make any fuss. "It will soon be over," he said, "very soon. I'll just pop up and settle the pulpit, and then get home again as quick as I possibly can. I do wonder, now, if that old Todd will be caught soon? The old wretch!" The beadle began the ascent of the pulpit. "It's my opinion," he said, "that Todd--as he had other folks made up into pies--ought to be made into one himself, and then given to mad dogs for a supper--Ha! ha! That's a very good thought of mine, and when I go to the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth, and Tinder-box,' to-night, I will out with it, and they will knock their pots and glasses against the table beautifully, and cry out--'Well done, bravo!--bravo!' I rather think I'm a great man at the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth and Tinder-box.'" By this time the beadle had got quite to the top of the pulpit stairs, and had his hand on the door. Todd was crouched down at the bottom of the pulpit, waiting for him like some famished tiger ready to pounce upon his prey. He fully intended to murder the unfortunate beadle. "Well, here goes," said that most unhappily-situated functionary, as he stepped into the pulpit. Todd immediately grasped his legs. "If you say one word, you are a dead man!" The shock was too much for the nerves of the poor beadle of St. Dunstan's, and on the instant he fainted, and fell huddled up at the bottom of the little place. Todd immediately stood upon the prostrate form of the parochial authority. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "I have him now, and I shall be able to leave St. Dunstan's yet." He trampled as hard upon the beadle as he could, and then he took the clasp knife from his pocket, and said-- "It will be better to kill him. Rise, idiot, rise, and tell me if you can, why I should not cut your throat?" The beadle neither moved nor spoke. "Is he dead?" said Todd. "Has the fright killed him? It is strange; but I have heard of such things. Why it surely must be so. The sudden shock has been the death of him, and it would be a waste of time for me to touch him. He is dead--he must be dead!" Todd, full of this feeling, retreated two or three steps down the little winding staircase of the pulpit, and then reaching in his hand, he caught hold of the poor beadle by the hair of his head, and dragged him sufficiently out of the pulpit to be enabled to look him in the face. The eyes were closed, the inspiration seemed to be stopped, and there was, in truth, every appearance of death about the unfortunate functionary of the old church. "Yes, dead," said Todd; "but it will be better for me. He will be found here, and as no violence will show upon him, the doctors will learnedly pronounce it a case of apoplexy, and there will arise no suspicion of my having been here at all. It is much better, oh, much, than as if I had killed him." With this feeling, Todd pushed what he considered to be the dead body of the beadle back into the pulpit again, and then himself rapidly descended the little spiral flight of stairs. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of ten, and Todd carefully counted the strokes. "Ten," he said. "A busy hour--a hour of broad daylight, and I with such a price upon my head, and the hands of all men lifted against me, in one of the most populous streets in the City of London! It is a fearful risk!" It was a fearful risk, and Todd might well shudder to find that his temerity had brought him into such a position; but yet he felt that if anything were to save him, it would be boldness, and not shrinking timidity. One great cause of dread had passed away from Todd when Sir Richard Blunt left the church. If in any way Todd had had to encounter him, he would have shrunk back appalled at the frightful risk. When he gained the body of the church, he glanced again up to the pulpit, but all was there profoundly still; and the fact of the death of the beadle appeared to him, Todd, to be so very firmly established, now, as to require no further confirmation. Although the beadle had closed the church door, he had placed the key, most probably for security, in the inner side of the lock, and there Todd found it. He thought it would be a good thing to put it in his pocket, and he did so accordingly; and when the key was removed, he placed his eye to the keyhole, and peeped out into Fleet Street. Todd could see the people passing quickly, but no one cast a glance towards the old church, and he began to reason with himself, that surely there could be no difficulty in getting into the street quite unnoticed, if not quite unobserved. Again he told himself that he was well disguised. "I dread no eye," he said, "but that of Sir Richard Blunt, and he is not here to look upon me. There is not one else, I think, in London that would know me through this disguise. There was never but one who could do so, and she is dead. Yes, Mrs. Lovett might have known me, but she is no more: so I will venture. Yes, I will venture now." His heart failed him a little as he placed his hand upon the lock of the church-door. It well might do so, for the risk he run, or was about to run, was truly fearful. He was on the point of sallying out among a population, the whole of whom were familiar with his name, and to whom he was as a being accursed, who would upon the slightest hint of identity be gladly hunted to the death. Truly, Todd might well hesitate. But yet to hesitate was perhaps to be lost. How could he tell now one moment from another when some one might come to the church-door? and then he would be in a worse position than before. Yes, he felt that he must make the attempt to leave, whether that attempt should involve him in destruction or not, for to stay were far worse. He opened the door and coolly closed it again, and marched into Fleet Street. We say he did this coolly, but it were better to say that he acted a coolness that he was far from feeling. A very tempest of terror was at his heart. His brain for a moment or two felt like a volcano, and he reeled as he felt himself in the broad open light of day in Fleet Street among the throng of the population, and yet in that throng was in truth his greatest safety. "Ain't you well, sir?" said a man. Todd started and placed his hand upon the knife that he had handy in his pocket; and then he thought that after all it might only be a civil inquiry, and he replied-- "Oh, yes, thank you--thank you, sir. But I am old." "I beg your pardon, sir." The man passed on. "Oh, curse you! I should like to settle you," said Todd to himself as he passed through Temple Bar; but what a relief it was to pass through Temple Bar at all! To leave that now frightfully dangerous Fleet Street behind him. Oh, yes, that was a relief indeed; and Todd felt as if some heavy weight had been taken off his heart upon the moment that he set foot in the Strand. "Am I safe?" he muttered. "Am I safe? Oh, no, no. Do not let me be too confident." He was superstitiously afraid of pluming himself upon the fact of having got so far in safety, lest at the moment that he did so, malignant destiny might be revenged upon him, by bringing in his way some one who might know him, even though his capital disguise; so he went on tremblingly. Todd did not like large open thoroughfares now, and yet, perhaps, if he had set to work reasoning upon the subject, he would have come to the conclusion that they were quite as safe, if not a few degrees safer for him, than by-streets but there was something in the glaring publicity of such a thoroughfare as the Strand that he shrunk from, and he was glad to get from it into the gloomy precincts of Holywell Street. That street then, as now, was certainly not the resort of the most choice of the population of London, but Todd liked it, and he was wonderfully attracted by a dirty-looking little public-house which was then in it. A murder was committed in that house afterwards, and it lost its licence, and was eventually destroyed by fire. "Dare I go in here?" said Todd. "I am faint for want of food, and if I do not have something soon I feel that I shall sink, and then there will be a fuss, and who knows what horrible discovery might then take place? This house is dark and gloomy, and in all likelihood is the resort of gentlemen who are not in the habit of having any superfluous questions asked of them; so it will suit me well." He dived in at the narrow doorway, and found himself in one of the smallest and darkest public-houses that he had ever beheld in all his life, for although he had lived so long in Fleet Street so close at hand, he had never ventured into that den. "A nice parlour to the right, sir," said a rather masculine-looking specimen of the fair sex in the bar. "Thank you, madam." Todd went to the right, and opening a little door, which, in consequence of having a cord and pulley attached to it, made a great resistance, he entered a little grimy room, the walls of which were of wainscot, but so begrimed with tobacco smoke were they, that they were of the colour of the darkest rose-wood, and the ceiling in no way differed from them in tint. A fire was burning in a little wretched grate, and the floor was covered with coarse sand, which crackled under Todd's feet. The furniture of this little den, which certainly had the name of 'Parlour' from courtesy only, consisted of the coldest-looking rigid wooden chairs and tables that could be imagined. Two men sat by the fire trying to warm themselves, for a cold wind was blowing in the streets of London, and the season was chilly and wintry for the time of the year. Todd, when he found the parlour had some one in it, would gladly have effected a retreat; but to do so, after he had made his way into the middle of the room, would have only aroused suspicion, so he resolved to go on, and carry the affair through; and for greater safety, he put on a very infirm aspect, and appeared to be bent double by age and disease. He coughed dreadfully. "You don't seem to be very well, sir," said one of the men. "Oh, dear me, no," said Todd. "When you are as old as I am, young man, you won't wonder at infirmities coming upon you." "Young man, do you call me? I am forty." "Ah, forty! When I was forty, and that was thirty years ago, I thought myself quite a youth. Oh, dear me, but what with the gout, and the lumbago, and two or three more little things, I am nearly done for now. Oh, dear me, life's a burthen." "What would you like to have, sir?" said a girl who waited upon the parlour guests, and who came in for Todd's order. "Anything, my dear, you have in the house to eat, and some brandy to drink, if you please." "Sit by the fire, sir," said one of the men; "you will be more comfortable. We ought to make way for age." "Oh, dear no, I thank you. I must be somewhere where I can rest my poor back at times, so I like this corner." It was a dark corner, and Todd preferred it. "It will do very well for me, if you please. Oh, dear me; don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen, on my account, I beg of you. I am an old broken-down man, and have not long to live now in this world of care and sorrow." CHAPTER CLV. TODD GETS THE BETTER OF THE SHARPERS, AND TAKES A BOAT. The girl brought Todd a plate of roast-beef, a loaf, and some brandy, with which he regaled himself tolerably well; but he was uncomfortably conscious that the two men were looking at him all the while. "Gentlemen," he said, "it's a very odd thing, but my appetite continues good notwithstanding all my infirmities. I eat well, and I drink well, and the doctors say that that is what keeps me alive." "I should not wonder," said one of the men drily. "Yes," said the other, with a laugh, "you are like us, old gentleman; we live by victuals and drink." "Ah, I didn't mean that," said Todd; "you young people are so fond of your jokes. Dear me, when I was young I used to be fond of my joke, likewise, but now I am so old, that what with my winter cough, and the gout, and all that sort of thing, my joking days are long since gone by. I lost my poor wife, too, a little while ago--bless her heart! Ah, me!" Todd had the greatest inclination in the world to make up one of his old diabolical faces at this juncture; but he restrained himself, for he felt the danger of doing so; and then affecting to wipe away a tear, he added-- "But I find my consolation in religion. There's where, gentlemen, an old man may look for comfort, and that strength of heart and soul, which in this world is denied to him." "Very true, sir--very true." "Ah, gentlemen, it is true; and there's nothing in all the world like an easy conscience. That's the sort of thing to make a man feel serene and happy in this world, while he is preparing for the joys of the next." "How delightful it is, sir," said one of the men, "for us to meet with a gentleman who has the same opinion as ourselves. Will you join us in a glass, sir, if you please?" "Oh, yes--yes, with pleasure. What a shocking bad fire, they tell me, has been in Fleet Street." "Yes, it's the notorious Todd's house." "In--deed!" The man who had proposed the social glass rang the bell, and ordered three tumblers of brandy-and-water, and then he said-- "Ah, sir! if you or I could only lay hold of Sweeney Todd it would be rather a good day's work." "Oh, dear, God forbid!" said Todd. "He would soon lay me low if I were to try to lay hold of him, with, as I may say in a manner of speaking, one foot in the grave. I am not, in the natural order of things, long for this world, gentlemen, and it is not for me to lay hold of desperate characters." "That's true, sir; but do you know the reward that is offered for him by the Secretary of State?" "No! Is there really a reward for him?" "Yes, a thousand pounds clear to any one who will lodge him in any jail. A thousand pounds! Why, it makes a man's mouth water to think of it. One might retire, Bill, mightn't one, and give up all sorts of--" Bill gave his enthusiastic comrade rather a severe cautionary kick under the table, and it seemed to have the effect of stopping the word 'thieving' from coming past his lips quite at unawares--at least that was the way Todd translated it. He had not the smallest doubt but that the public-house was a very indifferent one, and that the two men whom he was in company with in it were two of the most arrant thieves in all London. Todd resolved to act accordingly, and he did not let them see that he had the least suspicion of them; but he kept such a wary eye upon their movements, that nothing they did or looked escaped him. They little supposed that so keen an observer watched them as Sweeney Todd was. The brandy-and-water that had been ordered soon made its appearance; and Todd, while perpetrating a very well-acted fit of coughing, saw one of the men just slightly wink at the other, and take a little way from his waistcoat pocket a small bottle. "Oh!" thought Todd, "my brandy-and-water will be prepared, I see; and if I do not look sharp, these fellows will rob me of all that I have run so much risk, and took so much trouble to get out of the old house." After a moment's thought, he rose and said-- "I will only go and pay for what I have had at the bar, and you must permit me likewise to pay for this." "Oh, no--no!" "Oh, yes, but I will--I will! I dare say that I have the most money, after all, for I have been very careful in my time, and saved a trifle, so you must permit me." The two thieves were so delighted at getting rid of him for a few moments, that although they declared it was too bad, they let him go. The moment he was gone, one said to the other, with a grin-- "Bill, put a good dose into the old chap's glass. He has got a rare gold watch in his pocket, and there's a ring on his finger, that if it isn't a diamond, it's as near like one as ever I heard of. Give him a good dose." "Well, but you know that even a few drops will settle him?" "Never mind that. It's all right enough; pour it in." They put enough of some deadly drug into the glass of brandy-and water that stood next to where Todd had been sitting to kill a horse; and then he returned and sat down with a groan, as he said-- "It's quite a funny thing! There's a man at the bar inquiring for somebody; and he's got a red waistcoat on." "A red waistcoat!" cried both the the thieves, jumping up. "Did you say a red waistcoat?" "Why, yes; and I think he is what they call a Bow Street thingamy--Lord bless my old brain! what do they call them--" "A runner?" "Ah, to be sure, a Bow Street runner, to be sure." Both the thieves bundled out of the parlour in a moment, and Todd was not idle while they were gone. The first thing he did was to decant his own brandy-and-water--which had been drugged--into an empty glass. Then he filled his glass with the contents of one of the thieves' glasses. After that, he half filled that glass with the drugged spirit, and filled it up from the other thief's glass, and that again he filled up with the drugged spirit. By this means, each of them had half from the glass they had--as they thought--so very cleverly drugged for him, to drink from; and as they had not scrupled to put in an over dose, it may be fairly presumed that there was in each of their glasses quite enough to make them very uncomfortable. They both returned. "There's nobody there now," said one. "Are you sure you saw him, sir? We can't see any one." "Didn't I tell you he was going away when I saw him? It was only the latch of the door catching his top-coat that made me see his red waistcoat; and it was a wonder then that I saw it, for I am not very noticeable in those things. Oh, dear, how bad my cough is." "Take some of your brandy-and-water, sir," said one of the thieves, as he winked at the other. "It will do you good, sir." "Not a doubt of it," said the other. "Do you think so? Well--well, perhaps it may. Here's my friendship to both of you, gentlemen; and I hope we shall none of us repent of this happy meeting. I am much pleased, gentlemen, to see you both, and hope the brandy-and-water will do us all a world of good. I will give you a toast, gentlemen." "Ah, a toast!--a toast!" "But mind gentlemen, you must take a good draught, if you drink my toast--Will you?" "Will we? Ay, to be sure, if you will." "I promise, gentlemen; so here's the toast--It's to the very cunning fox who laid a trap for another, and caught his own tail in it!" "What a droll toast!" said the two thieves. They paused a moment, but as they saw their new friend drink at least one-half of his brandy-and-water in honour of the toast, they did the same thing, and looked at each other quite contented and pleased as possible that the drugged spirit, at the very first pull, had been so freely partaken of--for they had found, by experience, the victims they would have made perceived a disagreeable taste, and would not drink twice. "Hilloa!" said Todd. "What's the matter, old gentleman?" "Do you know, this is very good brandy-and-water?" "Glad you like it." "Like it?--I couldn't be off liking it. It's capital! Let's finish these glasses, and have others at once." As he spoke he finished his glass, and the two thieves were so delighted that he had taken it all, that they at once finished theirs likewise; and then they looked at him, and then at each other, until one said to the other, as he made a wry face-- "I say, Bill, I--I don't much like my glass. How did yours taste, eh, old fellow?" "Very queer." "How strange," said Todd; "mine was beautiful! I hope, gentlemen, you have not made a mistake and put anything out of the way in your own glasses instead of mine?" "Oh, dear. Oh--oh! I am going, Bill." "And so am I. Oh, murder! My head is going round and round like a humming-top as big as St. Paul's." "And so is mine." "Then, gentlemen," said Todd, rising, "I shall have the pleasure of bidding you good day, and I hope you have just sense enough left to appreciate the toast of the 'cunning fox that laid a trap for another, in which he caught his own tail,' and I have the further pleasure of informing you that I am Sweeney Todd." The two thieves, quite overcome by the powerful and death-dealing narcotic they had placed in the liquor, fell to the floor in a state of perfect insensibility, and Todd very calmly walked out of the public-house. [Illustration: Todd Turns The Tables On The Two Sharpers, And Escapes.] "This will not do," he said, when he reached the west-end of Holywell Street. "I must not run such risks as this. I must now be off. But where to? That is the question. Out of London, of course. The river, I think--ay, the river. That will be the best. I will house myself until night, and then I will hire a boat and go to Gravesend. From there I shall not find much difficulty in getting on board some foreign vessel, and with what I have in my pockets I will bid adieu to England for a little while, until I can sell my watches and jewels, and then I will come back and have my revenge yet upon those whom I only live now to destroy." Full of these thoughts, Todd went down one of the narrow streets leading to the Thames, and as he saw a bill in a window of lodgings to let, he thought he should be safer there than in a house of public entertainment. He resolved upon taking a lodging for a week at any cost, and then leaving it in the evening after he should have had some rest at it, which he might do for the remainder of the day, provided the people would take him in, which he had very little doubt of them doing, as he did not intend to object to their terms, and he did intend to pay in advance. Todd knocked at the door. It was answered by a woman of the true landlady species, who, upon hearing that it was the lodging Todd was after, was all smiles and sweetness immediately. "I have come up from the country, madam," said Todd, "and my luggage is at an inn in Gracechurch Street. I intend to send for it in the morning; and as I am weary, if you can accommodate me with a lodging, as I have some business to transact for my son, the Deacon, in London, I shall be much obliged." "Oh, dear, yes sir; walk in. We have every accommodation. The drawing-room floor, sir, at three guineas and a few extras." "That will just do," said Todd. "Will you be so good as to show me the rooms, madam?" Todd saw the rooms, and of course admired them very much; and then he said, in the blandest manner-- "I think the rooms very cheap, madam, and will take them at once, if you please. The reference I will give you, is to the Principal of Magdalen College, Oxford, the Reverend Peter Sly, madam. My own name is Bones, and my son is the Reverend Archdeacon Bones. I will pay you now a week in advance; and all I have to beg of you is, that you do yourself justice as to charges. I will lie down and rest for a few hours, if you please, madam." "Oh, dear, sir! yes, certainly, Mr. Bones. There shall be no noise to disturb you, and anything you want, if you will be so good as to ring for, I will supply you with the greatest pleasure." "Thank you, madam." Thus then was it that Todd secured himself what appeared to be a wonderfully safe asylum until night. He got into the bed with all his clothes on; for he did not know how sudden the emergency might be that might induce him to rise; and he soon fell into a deep sleep, for he had undergone the greatest fatigues of late. CHAPTER CLVI. SIR RICHARD BLUNT IS VERY NEAR TAKING HIS PRISONER. We left the poor beadle in anything but a pleasant situation in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. Now it so happened that the beadle was particularly wanted at home; and as he did not make his appearance, his wife repaired to the church to search for him; but it was locked by Todd, who had swung the door shut after him, and as he had taken the key with him, she could not make her way into the sacred edifice. As she stood at the door, however, she distinctly heard deep groans issuing from some one within the church; and in a state of great alarm, she ran off to one of the churchwardens, who had a duplicate key, and related what she had heard. The churchwarden not being one of the most valorous of men, rather, upon the whole, declined to go into the church with no other escort than the beadle's wife; and as he, too, upon listening at the key-hole, heard the groans distinctly, he called upon the passers-by to assist, and got together quickly enough about twenty people to go into the church with him. "Gentlemen," he said, "I don't know what it is, but there's groans; and in these horrid times, when, for all we know, Sweeney Todd is about the neighbourhood, one can't be too cautious." "Certainly," said everybody. "Then, gentlemen, if we all go in together when I open the door, it will be the very best plan." This was duly agreed to; and the churchwarden, with a trembling hand, turned his key in the lock, and opened the door. He then stepped aside, and let all the crowd go in first, thinking that, as he was a man in office, the parish could not afford to lose him, in case anything serious should happen. "Well, gentlemen," he cried, "what is it?" "Nothing," said everybody. "Then I will soon let nothing see that I, a churchwarden, am not to be frightened with impunity--that is to say, when I say frightened, I don't exactly mean that, but astonished, I mean. Come, come--if any one be here, I call upon them to surrender in the king's name!" A deep groan was the only response to this valorous speech; and the moment the churchwarden heard it, he bolted out of the church, and ran right across the way into a shop opposite. For a moment or two, this precipitate retreat of the churchwarden had something contagious in it, and the whole of the men who had been induced to stop and go into the church with him were inclined to retreat likewise; but curiosity detained some three of four of them, and that gave courage to the others. "What was it?" said one. "A groan," said another; "and it came from the pulpit." "The pulpit!" cried everybody. "Who ever heard of a pulpit groaning?" cried a third. "You stupid!" cried the second speaker: "might it not be some one in the pulpit?--and--Oh Lord--there's a head!" At this they all took to flight; but at the door they encountered a man, who called out-- "What's the matter? Can't you tell a fellow what the blessed row is--eh?" This was no other than our old friend Crotchet, who was returning from a conference with Sir Richard Blunt at his private office in Craven Street. "Oh, it's a ghost! A ghost!" "A what?" "A ghost in the pulpit, and there is his head." "You don't say so?" said Crotchet, as he peered into the church, and shading his eyes with his hand, saw the beadle's head just peeping over the side of the pulpit in a most mysterious kind of way. "I'll soon have him out, ghost or no ghost." Courage is as contagious as fear, especially when somebody else volunteers to run all the risk; and so when Crotchet said he would soon have the somebody out of the pulpit, the whole crowd followed him into the church, applauding him very greatly for his prowess, and declaring that if he had not then arrived, they would soon have had the ghost or no ghost out of the sacred building, that they would. But they kept within a few paces of the door for all that, so that they might be ready for a rush into Fleet Street, if Mr. Crotchet should be overcome in the adventure. That was only prudent. But Crotchet was not exactly the man to be overcome in any adventure, and with an utter oblivion of all fear, he marched right into the middle of the church, and commenced the ascent of the pulpit stairs. "Come--come," said Crotchet. "This won't do, Mr. Ghost, if you please; just let me get hold of you, that's all." "Oh!" groaned the beadle. "Oh, yer is remarkably bad, is yer? but that sort of thing won't answer, by no means. Where is yer?" Crotchet opened the pulpit door, and reaching in his hand, he caught hold of the beadle by the leg, and fairly dragged him out on to the little spiral stairs, down which he let him roll with a great many bumps, until he landed in the body of the church all over bruises. "Why, goodness gracious!" cried the beadle's wife, "it's my wretch of a husband after all!" The beadle had just strength to assume a sitting posture, and then he cried--"Murder!--murder!--murder!" until Mr. Crotchet, seizing a cushion from a pew, held it up before his mouth, to the imminent danger of choking him, and said-- "Hold your row! If you wants to be murdered, can't you get it done quietly, without alarming of all the parish? If you has got anything to say, say it; and if you has got nothink, keep it to yourself, stupid." "Todd!" gasped the beadle, the moment the pew-cushion was withdrawn from his mouth. "Todd--Sweeney Todd!" "What?" cried Crotchet. "Here!--he has been here, and I'm a dead man--no, I'm a beadle. Oh, murder! murder!" "Don't begin that again. Be quiet, will you? If you have got anything to say about Todd, say it, for I'm the very man of all the world as wants to hear it. Speak up, and don't wink." "Oh, I've seen him. He's been here. I came to dust the bellowses, you see, after my wife had thrown the pulpit at my head, for asking her to come with me." "Oh, he's a-raving gentlemen," said the wife. "As I'm a sinner, it was the bellowses as I throwed at his stupid head, and not the pulpit as never was." "Go on," said Crotchet. "Confound the pulpit and the bellows too. It's about Todd I want to hear. Drive on, will you?" "Oh, yes. I'm a coming to that; but it curdles my blood, and makes my wig stand on end. I had dusted the communion table, and banged the cushions, and up I goes to the pulpit, meaning to do for that as soon as I could, when who should be there but Sweeney Todd!" "In the pulpit!" cried everybody. "In the pulpit," said the beadle. "Why didn't you nab him at once?" roared Crotchet. "Because, my good friend, he nabbed me at once. He laid hold of me by this leg--no, it was this--no it wasn't. It was this--that is--no--" "Confound both your legs! Where is he now?" "Why, really I can't exactly say, for after stamping upon my inside for about half an hour, he left me for dead, and I was about half gone that way, and I have been a groaning ever since, till now. I am going fast--very fast, and there will be an election for beadle again in this here parish. Oh dear--oh dear! Murder--murder--mur--" "What, you is coming that agin, is you," cried Crotchet, as he again caught up the pew-cushion. "I shall be obligated, after all, for to push this down your blessed throat. Hold your noise, will you, Mr. What's-your-name." The beadle was so terrified at the idea of the pew-cushion again nearly smothering him, that despite all his injuries, he sprang to his feet and bolted out of the church. "Well, did yer ever know sich a feller?" said Crotchet. "Why, one would think he was afraid of Todd." The spectators thought that nothing was more probable; and as Mr. Crotchet considered that he had got all the information he was at all likely to get from the beadle, he did not at all trouble himself to go after him, but after considering for a few moments, decided upon seeking Sir Richard Blunt, and telling him that he had heard some unexpected news of Todd. Crotchet knew where to pitch upon Sir Richard at once; and when he related to him what had taken place, a look of great chagrin came over the face of the magistrate. "Crotchet," he said, "I have missed Todd, then, by what may be considered a hair's breadth. He must have been in the pulpit while I was in the church alone. Oh, that I could but for a moment have guessed as much! You, if you recollect, Crotchet, were in the vaults, and I was waiting for you." "To be sure, Sir Richard." "And so the rascal was almost within arm's length, and yet escaped me." Sir Richard Blunt paced to and fro in an agony of impatience and regret. To be so near apprehending Todd, and yet to miss him, was truly terrific. "Lor, sir," said Crotchet, "what's the use of fretting and pining about it? That won't bring it back, sir, I can tell you. After all, sir, you can't do better than grin and bear it, you know, which is the out and outest policy on all these here occasions, you know, yer worship. I wish as I'd a knowed he'd been in the church as much as you do; but you don't see me a _cussin_ and a knocking my own head about it, no how." "You are right, Crotchet, but in good truth it is most desperately provoking. You will proceed as I have directed you, and I will run down to Norfolk Street river, for fear Todd should try to escape us that way. You will be so good, Crotchet, as to be as vigilant as possible. You know how to find me if you want me." "Rather, sir." At this moment, and just as Crotchet was upon the point of leaving the room, an officer brought in a little slip of paper to Sir Richard Blunt, upon which was the word "Ben." "Ben--Ben?" said Sir Richard, "who is Ben? Oh, I think I know. Pray show him in at once. It is my friend the beef-eater, from the Tower." "Easy does it," said Ben, popping his head in at the door of the room. "Easy does it." "So it does, Ben. Come in. I am glad to see you. You can go, Crotchet. Pray be seated, Ben, and tell me how I can serve you in any way, my good friend, and you may be assured that I shall have exceeding pleasure in doing so, if I possibly can in any way." "Lord bless you," said Ben, "I hardly knows. There's ups and downs in this here world, and ins and outs." "Not a doubt of it, Ben." "And retreats within retreats, Sir Richard, and foxes, and laughing hyenas, as you can't concilliorate no how, if you wollop 'em till you can't wollop 'em no more." "Precisely, Ben. If I were a hyena, I don't exactly think, do you know, that such a process would conciliate me." "Oh, dear yes--it's the only way. But what I've come about, Sir Richard, is what I calls a delicate affair. Oh, dear yes--I tries to take it easy but I can't--I'm--I'm--" "What, Ben?" "I'm in love! Oh!" "Well, Ben, there is no great wonder in that. I have been in love myself, and I believe very few indeed escape the soft impeachment. I hope your love is prosperous, Ben?" "Thank you kindly, Sir Richard, thank you; but, you see, I thought you might tell me if there was any vice or natural kicking running in the family, and that's why I comed here." "I tell you, Ben? Why I don't even know the name of the family." "Yes, you does, Sir Richard. The young woman as I fell in love with, is Miss Julia Hardman, and her father is one of those chaps as nabs the bad un's for you, you know, Sir Richard." "One of my officers?" "To be sure he is." "Does he reside in Norfolk Street, Strand?" "Does he? Ay, he does; and that's how I came to know the little morsel of a cretur as has made for the first time an impression upon my heart. Oh, Ben, Ben, little could anybody think as you was a marrying sort of person, and here you is in love with Miss Julia!" "It does seem to me a little extraordinary, Ben, for I must confess I have heard you say some rather severe things against the married state." "I have--I have; and if it hadn't a been for all the marrying set-out with those two girls, Johanna and Arabella, I never should have got sich a idea in my head. Howsomedever, there it is, and there it is likely to remain. It's a agravation, but there it is!" "And how did you get acquainted with Julia Hardman?" "Oh, dear! There's a public house at the corner of her street, and after I had been to Cousin Oakley's, I used to go there at times and get a drain of something, you see, and then she used to come tripping in with a mug for the family beer, you see; and once it rained, so I took her up and carried her home beer and all, and that was how we got acquainted, you see, Sir Richard." "A very natural way too, Ben. All I can say is, that I know her father to be a very worthy man indeed, and I believe the daughter is a good and virtuous girl." "You don't say so? Then as there's no vice and kicking, I do believe I shall have to marry her out of hand." CHAPTER CLVII. TODD FINDS THAT HE HAS GOT OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN INTO THE FIRE. After this little explanatory conversation between Ben and Sir Richard Blunt, the reader will probably guess that Todd's evil fortune had actually carried him to that very house in Norfolk Street, Strand, occupied by the Hardman family, to which he, Sir Richard, talked of going to, to give instructions to his officer, and in which resided the identical Julia, that Ben had carried home, beer and all, in the shower, and to whom his large heart had become so deeply attached. Todd could hardly have fairly expected to be way-laid by such a conjunction of events; and certainly when he laid himself down so comfortably and easily in the bed at the lodging-house for the luxury of a few hours' sleep, for which, if sleep he could, he had paid the moderate price of three guineas, he little dreamt that his enemies were rallying, as it were, around that house, and that in a short time their voices would be actually within his hearing. Truly it seemed as though there were henceforth to be no peace in this world for Todd; although, by circumstances little short of absolutely miraculous, he did continue to avoid absolute capture, near as he was to it at times. The great fatigue he had undergone, combined with the little refreshment he had taken at the public-house in Hollywell Street, induced a feeling of sleep in Todd's frame; and after he had lain in the bed at the lodging-house for about a quarter of an hour, and found the house perfectly still, and that the bed was very comfortable, he pulled the clothes nearly right over his face, and fell fast asleep. Nothing but sheer fatigue could have given Todd so unbroken a repose as he now enjoyed. It was for an hour or more quite undisturbed by any images calculated to give him uneasiness; and then he began--for there was some noise in the house--to dream that he was hunted through the streets of London by an infuriate mob; and by one of those changes incidental to dreams, when the reason sleeps and imagination ascends the mental throne, he thought that the heads of all the mob were armed with horns, like those of cattle, and that they come raging after him with a determination to toss him. This was not a dream upon which any one was likely to be very still for any length of time, and Todd groaned in his sleep, and tossed his arms to and fro, and more than once uttered the word--"Mercy!--mercy!" Suddenly he started wide awake as a knock came at the door and roused him. Todd blessed that knock at the moment; for by waking him it had rescued him from the dream of terrors that had been vexing his brain. He sat up in bed, and for a moment or two could hardly collect his scattered senses sufficiently to assure himself that it was all a dream, and that he was in the lodging-house in Norfolk Street; but the brain rapidly recovers from such temporary confusions; and Todd, with a long breath of immense relief, gasped out-- "It was, after all, but a dream--only a dream! Oh, God! but it was horrible!" He fell back upon the pillow again; but sleep did not again come to him, and he began to feel a vague kind of curiosity to know who it was that had knocked at the door; and yet, he told himself, that it could not matter to him, for that in a house like that, of course, there must be plenty of people coming and going, and that, although the persons who kept it might control noises within the house, they could not possibly have any influence upon the knocker. "Oh, it's all right," said Todd. "It's all right. I will sleep again--I must sleep again; for it yet wants hours and hours to the night, when I may, at least, make the attempt to get off from--from England for ever!" A faint sort of doze--it could not be called a sleep--was coming over Todd, when he suddenly heard the sound of voices; and he was startled wide awake by hearing his own name pronounced. Yes, he clearly heard some one say--"Todd!" In a moment he sat up in bed, and intently listened. He held his breath, and he shook again, as his imagination began to picture to him a thousand dangers. There were footsteps upon the staircase, and in a few moments he heard persons go into the next room--that is to say, the front one to that in which he lay, the room that he had paid for a few weeks' occupation of, and which was only divided from that in which he lay by a pair of folding-doors, that he knew were just upon the latch, and might, at any moment, be opened to discover him. He then heard a female voice say-- "I do wish you would be quiet, Mr. Ben." "Ah," said another voice, "keep him in order, Julia, for he has been quite raving about your beauty as we came along the street, I can tell you. Do you think the servant will be able to find your father?" "Oh yes, Sir Richard. If ma were at home she could have said at once where he was; but Martha will find him, I dare say." Todd threw the bed-clothes right over his head. It was no other than Sir Richard Blunt who was in the front-room of that diabolical lodging-house, and Todd looked upon himself as all but in custody. His sense of hearing seemed to be preternaturally acute, and although the bed-clothes covered up his ears, and he could not be said to be exactly in his usual state, inasmuch as terror had half deprived him of his reasoning powers, yet he heard plainly, and with what might be called a perfect distinctness, every word that was spoken in the front room. Perhaps, even in the condemned cell of Newgate, Todd did not suffer such terrors as he was now assailed with in that lodging, where he thought he was so safe, and which he had, as he fancied, managed so cleverly. "Will you be quiet, Ben!" said the girl's voice again. "Make him--make him, Julia," said Sir Richard. "Lor bless your little bits of eyes," said Ben. "Do now come and sit in my lap, and I'll tell you such a lively story of how the leopard we have got at the Tower lost a bit off the end of his tail?" "I don't want to hear it." "You don't want to hear it? Come--come, my lambkin of a Julia--when shall we be married? Oh, do name the day your Ben will be done for for life. I want it over." "Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin." "It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January: you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in." "Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you." "Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me." "Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!" "Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like to catch them laughing." "Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!" "She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!" "But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard. "Do you think she doesn't, sir?" "I am sure of it. Do you, now, Julia?" "Yes, Sir Richard, indeed I do, really now, for he is quite a horrid monster, and I only wonder they don't put him in one of the cages at the Tower along with the other wild beasts, and make a show of him. That's all that he is fit for." "Oh, you aggravating darling," said Ben, making a dart at Julia, and catching her up in his arms as you would some little child. "How can you go on so to your Ben?" "Murder!" cried Julia. "Oh, if you are going to have a fight for it," said Sir Richard, "I will go and wait down stairs, Julia." Bang came a knock at the street-door. "Oh, Ben, there's ma or pa," said Julia. "Let me down directly. Do Ben--oh, pray do. Let me down, Ben." "Do yer love your Ben?" "Anything you like, only let me down." "Very good. There yer is, then, agin on yer little mites of feet. Lor bless you, Sir Richard, that girl loves the very ground as I walks on, she does, and she has comed over me with her fascinations in such a way as never was known. Ain't she a nice 'un?--sleek and shiny, with a capital mane. But you should see her at feeding-time, Sir Richard, how nice she does it--quite delicate and pretty; and you should see her--" The door of the room opened, and Hardman, the officer, made his appearance. "Your humble servant, Sir Richard. I hope I have not kept you waiting long? I was only in the neighbourhood." "No, Hardman, thank you, it's all right. I have not been here above a quarter of an hour." "I am glad of that, sir. How do you do, Mr. Ben?" "Pretty well," said Ben, "only a little hungry and thirsty, that's all; but don't trouble yourself about that, Mr. Hardman; I always do get hungry when I look at Julia." "I hope, Mr. Ben, that don't mean that you will dine off her some day when you are married?" "Oh, lor, no. Bless her heart, no. She loves me more and more, Mr. Hardman." "I am glad to hear it, Ben--very glad to hear it. But I presume, Sir Richard, that you have some orders for me?" "Why, yes, Hardman. There's that rascal Todd, you know, still continues to elude us. What I want you to do is, to take charge entirely on the river, and to make what arrangements you like at the various quays and landing-places, and with all the watermen, so that he shall not have a chance of escaping in that way." "Certainly, sir; I will set about it directly." "Do so, Hardman. Expense in this case is of no object, for the Secretary of State will guarantee all that; but of course I don't wish you to be extravagant on that account." "I quite understand you, Sir Richard, and will do my best." "That I am sure you will, Hardman; and now I will go. I shall feel no peace of mind until that man is dead, or in the cell again at Newgate." Todd popped his head out from under the clothes, and making the most hideous face, he shook one of his clenched fists in the direction of the front room. It would have been some satisfaction to him to have given a loud howl of rage but he dared not venture upon it; so he was forced to content himself with the pantomime of passion instead of its vocal expression. "I do hope, sir, we shall soon have him," said Hardman. "It seems to me to be next thing to impossible he should escape us for long. Do you think he has any money, sir?" "He cannot have much, for all he has, if any, must be but the produce of depredation since his escape from Newgate. He certainly has not extensive means, Hardman." "Then he must fall into our hands, sir. Julia, is that your mother just arrived, do you think?" "Yes, pa, it is ma's step. She has been out to get something or another, but I don't know what, as I was out myself all the morning; but it is ma, I know." Mrs. Hardman came into the room, looking very red and flushed, and with a large basket on her arm. She looked from one to the other of the assembled guests with surprise and horror. "What's the matter?" said her husband. "Why wife, you look panic-stricken. What has happened?" "Oh, gracious! where's the gentleman?" "The gentleman?" cried everybody. "Yes, the lodger. The highly respectable gentleman who took the first-floor only a couple of hours ago. Oh, gracious, where is he? and a capital lodger too, who paid in advance, and didn't mind extras at all." "But what lodger, mother?" said Julia. "Oh, mum, I forgot--I forgot," said Martha, suddenly coming into the room, "I forgot to tell Miss Julia, mum, that an old gentleman had taken the first floor, mum, and gone to bed in the next room." "In bed in the next room?" said Sir Richard Blunt. "I am lost!" thought Todd. "I am lost now, I am quite lost! and the only thing I can do is to kill as many of them as possible, and then blow my own brains out." "Do you mean to say, ma," said Julia, "that there's a gentleman asleep in the next room in the bed?" "Lor!" said Ben, "you don't mean to say that, Mrs. Hardman?" "He may be in bed, but if he is asleep," said Sir Richard, "he is a remarkable man; of course if we had had the least idea of such a thing, we should not have come up here; but here we were shown by the servant." "Oh, yes, it's all that frightful Martha's fault. I'll--I'll kill--no--I'll discharge that odious hussy without a character, and leave her to drown herself! For Heaven's sake go down stairs all of you, and I'll go and speak to the old gentleman, and apologise to him." "Let me go," said Ben, "and roll on him on the bed, and if that don't settle him I don't know what will." "Shall I apologise to him?" said Sir Richard. Todd nearly fainted when he heard this proposition; but when Mrs. Hardman rejected it, and insisted upon going herself, he felt quite a gush of gratitude towards her, and breathed a little more freely once again. CHAPTER CLVIII. TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER. "Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which will be the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all their throats!" Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tip-toe, leaving the folding-door just a little ajar. "My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?" "Oh, go to the deuce," said Todd. "What did you remark, my dear sir?" "Go along--go along--Eugh!--eugh! Oh, dear, how bad my cough is. I dreamt that no end of people were talking and talking away in the next room; but that can't be, as I have paid for it. Oh, dear!--oh!" Mrs. Hardman took her cue from this; and she was at once resolved to pass off the disturbance in the next room as merely a dream of her new lodger. "Dear me, sir," she said in the blandest possible accents; "have you indeed had a dream? What a singular thing!" "Eugh! Is it? I don't think so." "Well, sir, when I say singular, of course I mean that it's very natural. I always dream when I sleep in a strange bed, do you know, sir, and sometimes the most horrid dreams." "Oh, go along." "Yes, sir, directly. Would you like anything got for you, sir? A nice mutton chop for instance, or--or--" "No--no! Good God, why don't you go?" "I am going, sir. Thank you. There will be a very quiet house here, I assure you, sir." With these words, Mrs. Hardman was about to leave the room, flattering herself that it was all passing off quite comfortably as a mere dream, when Ben, thinking it incumbent upon him to do something civil, suddenly popped his head into the room, and in a voice that sounded like the growl of some bear for his food, he said-- "Take it easy, old gentleman. You'll find that easy does it all the world over; and if so be as you ever comes near the Tower, just you ask for Ben, and I'll show you the beasteses, all gratis, and for nothing. Feeding time at four o'clock." "Oh, you great ugly wretch!" cried Mrs. Hardman, dealing Ben a sound box on the ear. "How dared you interfere, I should like to know, you monster in inhuman shape?" "Oh, lor!" said Ben, "I only hope another of the family ain't so handy with her front paws." "Oh--oh!" said Todd. "No peace!--no peace!" Mrs. Hardman at once closed the door of communication between the two rooms; for she quite despaired now of being able to make any apology to her lodger, and she seemed much inclined to execute further vengeance upon Ben, but Sir Richard Blunt interfered, saying-- "Come--come, Mrs. Hardman, you should recollect that what Ben said was with the very best of motives, and any one, you know, may go wrong a little in trying to do good. Let us all adjourn down stairs, and be no further disturbance to this old gentleman, who, taking everything into consideration, has, I think, shown quite an exemplary amount of patience." Todd heard those words. They seemed to him quite like a reprieve from death. "I will come down stairs, of course," said Mrs. Hardman, in an under tone; "but for all that, this great monster of a Ben ought to be put in one of his own cages, at the Tower, and there kept as a warning to all people." "A warning o' what, mum?" said Ben. Mrs. Hardman was not very clear about what he would be a warning of, so she got out of the difficulty by saying--"What's that to you, stupid?"--and as Ben was rather slow in explaining that it did rather concern him, she walked down stairs with a look of triumph that was highly amusing to Sir Richard Blunt, as well as to Mr. Hardman, the officer. How Todd listened to the footsteps as they went down the stairs! How his heart beat responsive to every one of them! and when he felt for certain that that immediate and awful danger had passed away, he peeped out from amid the mass of bed-clothes, with his eyes almost starting from his head. "Gone! gone!" he gasped. "He has really gone. My mortal enemy--the only man who can make me tremble, that terrible Sir Richard Blunt! That he should be within half-a-dozen paces of me; that he should hear me speak; that he should only have to stretch out his hand to lay it upon my shoulder, and yet that I should escape him! Oh, it cannot be real!" Todd heard some accidental noise in the house, and he immediately dived his head under the bed-clothes again. "They are coming again!--they are coming again!" he gasped. The noise led to nothing, and after a few moments, Todd became convinced that it had nothing to do with him, so he ventured, half-suffocated, to look up again. "I must listen--I must listen," he said, in a low anxious tone. "I must listen until he has gone. When I hear the street-door of the house shut, I shall think that they have let him go and then I shall be able to breathe again; but not before. Oh, no--no, not before--hush--hush! What is that?" Every little accidental sound in the house now set the heart of Todd wildly beating. If one had come into the room, and said--"You are my prisoner,"--the probability was, that he would have fainted; but if he did not, it is quite certain that he could not have offered any resistance. A child might have captured him then, during the accession of terror that had come over him in that house, whither he had slunk purposely for safety and for secrecy. At length he heard a noise of voices in the passage, and then the street-door was opened. As he lay, he could feel a rush of cold air in consequence. Then it was closed again, and the house was very still. "He has gone! He has gone!" said Todd. The manner in which Todd pronounced these few words it would be impossible to describe. No shivering wretch reprieved upon the scaffold, with the rope round his neck, could feel a greater relief than did Todd, when he found that the door of that house was really closed upon Sir Richard Blunt. And then he began to felicitate himself upon the fact that, after all, he had come to that place; "for now," he thought, "I know that, although I have been in great danger, it has passed away; and as Sir Richard Blunt has transacted all his business in this house, he is not likely to come to it again." That was a pleasant thought, and as Todd dashed from his brow the heavy drops that intense fear had caused to assemble there, he almost smiled. A very profound stillness now reigned in the house, for Mrs. Hardman was resolved to make up to her lodger--as well as she could--for the noise and disturbance that had been so unwittingly caused in her front room. She had made Ben go away, and as her husband had likewise gone, in pursuance of the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, to take measures lest Todd should make an escape by the Thames, the place remained as calm and still as if no one were in it but herself. Todd closed his eyes, and wearied nature sought relief in sleep. Even Sweeney Todd, with more than twenty mortal murders on his conscience, slept calmly for no less than six hours of that, to him, most eventful day. Twice during this long sleep of her lodger's had Mrs. Hardman stolen into the front-room to listen, and been quite satisfied by the regular breathing, that, at all events, her lodger was not dead; and she kept herself upon the alert to attend to him whenever he should awake from that deep sleep. The long shadows of the houses on the other side of the street had fallen upon the windows of the Hardmans' abode, and a slight fog began to make itself perceptible in London, when Todd awoke. "Help--help! Oh, God, where am I?" he cried. He sprang half out of the bed, and then the full tide of recollection came back to him, and he fully comprehended his situation in a moment. "Hush!--hush!--hush!" he said; and he listened most intently to hear if his sudden exclamation had attracted any attention. He heard a footstep on the stairs. "Hush!--hush!" he said again, "hush--who is it? I must be very careful now!--Oh, very!" The footstep paused at his door, and then he heard it in the next room, and Mrs. Hardman advancing to the folding doors, said, in the blandest of accents-- "Are you awake, sir, if you please?" Todd at once assumed the tone in which he had formerly addressed her, and replied-- "Yes, madam, yes. I am awake!" "And how do you feel now, sir, if you please?" "Oh, a great deal better, ma'am, a great deal better. Indeed, I feel quite refreshed. I will come out directly, my dear madam. Pray have the goodness to take this guinea. I shall want a cup of tea at times, and I think I could take a cup now, my dear madam. You can get it out of that, and keep the change, you know, till I want something else." "Oh, really, sir," said Mrs. Hardman, as she put her hand through a small opening of one of the folding doors and took the guinea. "It is quite delightful to have so pleasant a lodger as yourself--oh, quite.--I will get the tea directly, my dear sir, and pray make yourself quite at home, if you please." "Yes, ma'am, I will--I will." "Do, sir. I should be really unhappy now, if I did not think you were comfortable." "Oh it's all right, ma'am. Eugh! Oh, dear! I do think my cough has been better since I have been here." "How delightful to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardman, speaking in quite a tremulous voice of sympathetic emotion. "I will get the tea, directly, sir." She left the room, and as she went down the stairs, she said to herself-- "What a pearl of a lodger, to be sure! He pays for everything over and over again. I should not, now, in the least wonder but the dear old gentleman will quite forget the change out of this guinea; if he does, it is not for me to vex him by putting him in mind of it. I know well, that old people never like it to be supposed that their memory fails them; so if he says nothing about it, I am sure I shall not. Oh, dear, no!" "Wretch!" muttered Todd, as he crept out of the back room into the front. "Wretch, I find that money will purchase anything in this house; but am I surprised at that? Oh, no--no. Will not money purchase anything in this great world? Of course it will. Why, then, should this house be an exception to the rule so general? No--no. It is no exception; and I may be very safe for a few guineas well spent; and they are well spent, indeed. Oh, so well!" Todd then, as he flung himself into the depths of an easy chair, that was really easy for a wonder, considering that it was in a lodging-house, began to arrange in his own mind his course of proceeding for the night. "Let me think--let me think," he muttered. "I am now very much refreshed indeed, and feel quite strong and well, and equal to any emergency. That sleep has done me a world of good, and it is strange, too, that it has been the calmest and the quietest sleep I have enjoyed for many a month. I hope it is not prophetic of some coming evil." He shuddered at the thought. Todd was each day--ay, each hour, becoming more and more superstitious. "No--no. I will not think that. I will not be so mad as to disarm myself of my courage, by thinking that for a moment. I will take my tea here, and then I will sally forth, telling this woman that I will soon return, and then, after a dose of brandy, I will hire a boat and take to the river. What is that?" The wind with a sudden gust came dashing against the windows, giving them such a shake, that it seemed as if it were intent upon getting into the room to buffet Todd. He immediately rose, and going to the window, he placed his hideous face close to one of the panes, and looked out. The sky was getting very black, and huge clouds were careering about it. The wind was evidently rising, and there was every appearance of its being most squally and tempestuous. Todd bit his lips with vexation. "Always something!" he said. "Always something to annoy me, and to cross me. Always--always!" "The tea, sir, if you please." Todd turned round so suddenly, that he almost upset the servant with the tea equipage. "Oh, very well. That will do--that will do. You are the servant of the house?" "If you please, sir." "Ah, you will then have to attend upon me while I am here, my dear, I presume?" "Yes, sir, if you please." "Very good--very good. You are a very nice young woman, and there's half-a-guinea for you. Eugh! I shall give you that sum every week while I stay here, you know." "Lor, sir, will you?" "Yes, yes. You can go now. Is the tea all right?" "Oh, dear, yes, sir. You are very good indeed. Misses said as you was a very good lodger, which I knowed to mean as you didn't be _petikler_ about your money, and now I sees you ain't. Thank you, sir, for me. I'll get up in the night if you want anythink." CHAPTER CLIX. TODD MAKES A VIGOROUS ATTEMPT TO REACH GRAVESEND. The servant was so profuse in her acknowledgments for the half-guinea, that she seemed as if she would never get out of the room, and Todd had to say-- "There--there, that will do. Now leave me, my good girl--that will do," before she, with a curtsey at every step, withdrew. "Well," she said, as she went down stairs. "If I tell misses of this, I'm a Prussian. Oh, dear, I keeps it to myself and says nothing to nobody, excepting to my Thomas as is in the horse-guards. Ah, he is a nice fellow, and out o' this I'll make him a present of a most elegant watch-ribbon, that he can put a bullet at the end of, and let it hang out of his fob all as if he had a real watch in his pocket." "Humph!" said Todd. "I have bought her good opinion cheap. It was well worth ten-and-sixpence not to have the servant watching me, with, for all I know to the contrary, eyes of suspicion--well worth it." It was not very often that Todd indulged himself with a cup of tea. Something stronger was commonly more congenial to his appetite; but upon this occasion, after his long sleep, the tea had upon him a most refreshing effect, and he took it with real pleasure. Mrs. Hardman, in consideration of the guinea she had received beforehand, had done him justice, as far as the quality of the tea was concerned, and he had it good. "Well," he said, after his third cup, "I did not think that there was so much virtue in a cup of tea, after all; but of a surety, I feel wonderfully refreshed at it. How the wind blows." The wind did, indeed, blow, for all the while that Todd was taking his tea it banged and buffeted against the window at such a rate, that it was really quite a fearful thing to listen to it. A couple of candles had been lighted and brought into the room, but the gale without soon laid hold of their little flames, and tossed them about so, that they gave but a dim and sepulchral kind of light. Todd rose again, and went to the window--again he placed his face close to the pane of glass, and shading his eyes with his hands, he looked out. A dashing rain was falling. "They say that when the rain comes the wind moderates," he muttered; "but I see no signs of that, yet, it is almost a gale already." At that moment there came such a gust of wind howling down the street, that Todd mechanically withdrew his head, as though it were some tangible enemy come to seek him. "Always something to foil me here," he said; "always something; but out I must go. Let it look as strange as it may, I cannot stay a night in this house, for if I were to do so, that would involve the staying a day likewise; and it would be this time to-morrow before I dared venture abroad; and who knows what awful things might happen in that space of time? No, I must go to-night. I must go to-night." He could not help feeling that his going out while the weather was in such a state would excite a great amount of wonder in the house; but that was a minor event in comparison to what might possibly ensue from remaining, so he put on his hat. Tap--tap! came against the panel of his door. Todd muttered an awful oath, and then said,-- "Come in." Mrs. Hardman entered the room. "I hope I don't intrude upon you, sir, but I was so very anxious to know if the tea was just as you like it, sir?" "Oh, yes--yes. I am going out a little way, my good madam. Only a little way." "Out, sir?" "Yes, and why not?--why not? Oh, dear me! How bad my cough is to be sure, to-night. Eugh!--eugh!" "Goodness gracious! my dear sir, you will not think of venturing out to-night? Oh, sir!" "Why not, madam?" "The wind, sir--the rain, sir--and the wind and the rain together, sir. Oh, dear! It isn't a night to turn out a dog in, not that I like dogs, but I beg, sir, you won't think of it. Only listen, sir. How it does blow, to be sure!" "Madam!" said Todd, putting on a solemn look, "I must go. It is my duty to go." "Your duty, sir?" "Yes. Whenever the wind blows and the rain comes down, I put a quantity of small change in my pocket, and I go out to see what objects of distress in the streets I can relieve. It is then that I feel myself called upon in the sacred name of heavenly charity to see to the wants of my poorer fellow-creatures. It is then that I can find many a one whom I can make happy and comfortable for a brief space, at all events; and that's the way that I am always, you see, madam, with a bad cold." "Generous man!" said Mrs. Hardman, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. "Not at all, madam, not at all. It is one's duty, and nothing else. I feel bound to do it. But I shall want a little something for supper. A nice boiled chicken, if you please, and you will be so good as to get it for me, madam. Take this guinea, if you please, and we can talk about the change, you know, when I want anything else, my good madam." "My word!" thought Mrs. Hardman. "He is a wonderful lodger, for he forgets all about his change. I feel that it would only vex the poor old gentleman to remind him of it, and that I do not feel justified in doing. A-hem! yes, sir. Oh, certainly, I will get the finest chicken, sir, that can be had." "Do so, madam, do so. Now I'm going." "Oh, Lord! there's a gust of wind!" "I like it--I like it." "And there's a dash of rain!" "So much the better. Delightful, delightful, my dear madam, I shall find plenty of poor objects to relieve to-night. Under gateways, I shall find them, crouching upon door-steps, and shivering on spots where a little shelter can be found from the inclemency of the weather. This is my time to try and do a little good with that superfluous wealth which Providence has given me." Mrs. Hardman made no further opposition to the benevolent intentions of a lodger who continually forgot his change, and Todd fairly left the house. Little did the landlady think, while she was grasping at the guineas, that there was a reward of a thousand pounds for the apprehension of her lodger, and that it would every penny-piece of it have been duly paid to her at the Treasury, if she could but have managed to lock him in a room until the officers of justice could be sent for, to pounce upon him and load him with irons, and take him off to prison. But poor Mrs. Hardman had really no idea of how near she was to fortune; and when the street-door closed upon Todd, she little suspected that she shut out such a sum as one thousand pounds sterling along with him. "That is managed so far," said Todd, as he shrank and cowed before the storm-laden gale that dashed in his face the rain, as he reached the corner of the street. There Todd paused, for a new fear came across him. It was that no waterman would venture upon the river with him on such a night; and yet after reasoning with himself a little time, he said-- "Watermen are human, and they love gold as much as any one else. After all, it only resolves itself into a question of how much I will pay." Full of this idea, which, in its way, was a tolerably just one, he sneaked down the Strand until he got right to Charing Cross. He had thought of going down one of the quiet streets near that place, and taking a boat there; but now he considered that he would have a much better chance by going as far as Westminster Bridge; and, accordingly, despite the rain and the wind, he made his way along Whitehall, and reached the bridge. A few watermen were lounging about at the head of the stairs. They had little enough expectation of getting a fare at such a time, and upon such a day. One of them, however, seeing Todd pause, went up to him, and spoke-- "You didn't want a boat, did you, sir?" "Why, yes," said Todd, "I did; but, I suppose, you are all afraid to earn a couple of guineas?" "A couple of guineas?" "Yes, or three, for the matter of that; one more or less don't matter to me; but it may to you." "Indeed, it does, sir. You are right enough there. But where do you want to go to sir? Up or down?" "To Greenwich." Todd thought if he mentioned Gravesend, he might frighten the man at once. "Greenwich? Whew!" The waterman perpetrated a long whistle; and then, shaking his head, he said--"I'm very much afraid, sir, that it isn't a question of guineas that will settle that; but I will speak to my mate. Halloa Jack!--Jack! I say, old boy, where are you?" "Here you are," said an old weather-beaten man coming up the steps. "I've only been making the little craft fast. What is the row now, Harry--eh?" "No row, old mate; but this here gentleman offers a matter of three guineas for a cruise to Greenwich." "Ay, and why not, Harry?" "Why not? Don't you hear how it's blowing?" "Yes, I do, Harry; but it won't blow long. I've seen more gales than you have, lad, and I tell you that this one is all but over. The rain, in another quarter of an hour, will beat it all down. It's fast going now. It will be a wet night, and a dark night; but it won't blow, nor it won't be cold." "If you say as much as that, Jack," said the younger waterman, "I will swear to it." The old man smiled, as he added-- "Ah, dear me, yes, and so you may, Harry. I haven't been so long out of doors that I don't know the fancies of the weather. I can tell you a'most what it's a going to do beforehand, better than it knows itself. There, don't you hear how it's coming in puffs, now, the wind, and each one is a bit fainter nor the one as comed afore it? Lord bless you, it's nothing! We shall get a wet jacket, that's all; and if so be, sir, as you really do want a cruise down to Greenwich, come on, and Harry and me will soon manage it for you." These words were very satisfactory to Todd. He had no objection in the world to its being rather a bad night on the river; but he certainly had a great objection to risking his life. Discomfort was a thing that gave him no concern. He knew well that that would pass away. "If you are willing," he said, "let us, then, start at once, and I will not hold you to your bargain if the weather should happen to turn very bad. We can, in such a case, easily, I dare say, put in at some of the numerous stairs on one side or other of the river." "There will be no need of that, sir," said the old waterman. "If you go, and if you choose to go all the way, we will put you on shore at Greenwich." "How about London Bridge?" said the younger man, in a tone of some anxiety. "Better than usual," said Jack. "It is just the time to shoot it nicely, for the tide will be at a point, and won't know exactly whether to go one way or the other." "It's all right, then?" "It is." Todd himself had had his suspicions that the passage of old London Bridge would be one of no ordinary difficulty on such a night as that, but he knew that if the tide was at that point which the old man mentioned, that it might be passed with the most perfect safety, and it was a matter of no small gratification to him to hear from such a competent authority that such was the fact just then. "Let us go at once," he said. "All's right, sir. Our wherry is just at the foot of the stairs, here. I will pull her in, Harry." The old man ran down the slippery stairs with the activity of a boy, and as Todd and Harry followed him, the latter said, in quite a confidential tone of voice-- [Illustration: Todd Encounters Great Perils On The River Thames.] "Ah, sir, you may trust to his judgment on anything that has anything to do with the river." "I am glad to hear it." "Yes, sir, and so am I. Now I thought I knew something, and I shouldn't have ventured to take you, or if I had, it would have been with rather a faint heart; but now that the old man, sir, says it's all right, I feel as comfortable as needs be in the matter." By this time they had reached the foot of the steps, which was being laved by the tide, and there the old man had the boat safely in hand. "Now for it, sir," he said. "Jump in." Todd did so, and the younger waterman followed him. He and his aged companion immediately took their places, and Todd stretched himself in the stern of the little craft. The rain now came down in absolute torrents as the boat was pushed off by the two watermen into the middle of the stream. CHAPTER CLX. THE POLICE-GALLEY ON THE THAMES. What an anxious and protracted glance Todd cast around him when he found that he was fairly upon the river. How his eyes, with fox-like cunning, glistening like two lead-coloured stars, were here, and there, and everywhere, in the course of a few moments. Then he contrived to speak, as he thought, craftily enough. "There are but few boats on the river." "No, sir," said the young waterman. "It isn't everybody that cares to come on the water in such weather as this." "No--no. But I have business." "Exactly so, sir. That's it." "Yes," added Todd, in quite a contemplative tone of voice, "the fact is, that I have just heard that at Gravesend there resides a family, with whom I was once intimate, but had lost sight of. They have, as I hear, dropped into poverty, amounting to destitution, and I could not rest until I had gone after them to relieve them." "Did you say Gravesend?" said the old man. "Why, yes; but I don't ask you to go so far. I will try and find a conveyance on land at Greenwich; but--if--you like to pull all the way to Gravesend, I don't mind paying, for I prefer the water." "Couldn't do it," said the old man. "Certainly not," said the young one. Todd felt mortified that his plan of getting to Gravesend, by the aid of the boat, was thus put an end to; but he could not help feeling how very impolitic it would be to show any amount of chagrin upon such a subject, so he spoke as cheerfully as he could, merely saying-- "Well, of course, I don't want you to do it; I merely offer you the job, as I am so fond of a little boating, that I would not mind a few guineas more upon such an account." "No use trying it," said the old man, sententiously. "There's several turns in the river, and we should be down one at this time before we could get there. Gravesend is quite another thing." "So it is," said Todd. He felt perfectly certain by the tone and the manner of the old man, that it would be of no use urging the matter any further; and the great dread he had of exciting suspicion that he was a fugitive, had the effect of making him as cautious as possible regarding what he said. In stern and moody silence, then, he reclined in the stern of the boat, while it cleaved through the black water; and, as the old boatman prophesied, the wind each moment went down until it left nothing but a freshness upon the surface of the water, which, although it was bitterly cold, in no way effected the progress of the boat. But a slight rain now began to fall, and every moment the night got darker and darker still, until the lights upon the banks of the river looked like little stars afar off; and it was only when they got quite close to it, that they became aware of the proximity of Blackfriars Bridge. It was Todd that saw it first appearing like some gigantic object rising up out of the water to destroy them. He could not resist uttering an exclamation of terror, and then he added-- "What is it? Oh, what is it?" "What--what?" said the young waterman, shipping his oars and looking rather terrified. The old man gave his head a slight jerk as he said-- "I fancy it's Blackfriars." "Oh, yes, yes," said Todd, with a feeling of great relief. "It's the bridge, of course--it's the bridge; but in the darkness of the night, it looked awful and strange; and as we approached it, it had all the effect as if it were something big enough to crush the world rising up out of the water. "Ay--ay," said the old man. "I have seen it on all sorts of nights, and was looking out for it. It's all right. Easy with your larboard over there. That will do--there we go." The boat shot under one of the arches of the old bridge, and for a moment, the effect was like going into some deep and horrible cavern, the lower part of which was a sea of ink. Todd shuddered, but he did not say anything. He thought that after his affected raptures at sailing, that if he made any sort of remark indicative of his terrors at the passage of the bridge, they would sound rather inconsistent. It was quite a relief when they had shot through the dim and dusky arch, and emerged again upon the broad open water; and owing to the terrible darkness that was beneath that arch, the night upon the river, after they had passed through it, did not seem to be nearly so black as it had been before, thus showing that, after all, most of our sensations are those of comparison, even including those dependant upon the physical changes of nature. "This is cheering," said Todd. "It is lighter now upon the river. Don't you think it is?" "Why," said the old man, "perhaps it is just a cloud or two lighter; but it's after coming through the arch that it makes the principal difference, I take it." "Yes," said the other, "that's it; and the rain, to my thinking, will be a lasting one, for it comes down straight, and with a good will to continue. Don't you think so?" The question was addressed to the old man, who answered it slowly and sententiously, keeping time with his words to the oars as they made a slight noise jerking in the rollocks. "If it don't rain till sun-rise, just ask me to eat the old boat, and I'll do it!" "That's settled," said the young waterman. The weather, in so far as rain or not rain was concerned, was not to Todd a matter of much concern. So long as there was no stormy aspect of the elements to prevent him from speeding upon his journey, he, upon the whole, rather liked the darkness and the rain, as it probably acted as a better shield for his escape, and he rather chuckled than not on the idea that the rain would last. Besides, it was evident that as it fell, it smoothed the surface of the river, so that the oars dipped clear into the stream, and the boat shot on the better. "Well--well," he said, "we can but get wet." "That's all," said the old man, "and I hold it to be quite a folly to make a fuss about that. If you sit still, the rain will, of course, soak into your clothes; but if you go on sitting still, it will in time give you up as a bad job, and begin to run out again. So you have nothing, you see, to do, but take it easy, and think of something else all the while." "That is very true, my friend," said Todd, in a kind and conciliatory tone; "but you get wet through in the process." "Just so. Pull away." The younger man, for the last five minutes, had glanced several times through one of his hands along the line of the surface of the river, and the injunction to pull away was probably on account of his having been a little amiss in that particular. The old man had spoken the words rather sharply than otherwise. "Yes--yes," said the other. "I'll pull away; but there's another craft upon the river, in spite of the rain, and they are pulling away with a vengeance rather. Look, they're in our wake." "It's no use me looking. You know that well enough. I ain't quite so good with my eyes as I was a matter of twenty years ago. I suppose it's the police-craft. Of late, you know, they have taken to cutting along at all times." "Yes, it's them!" Todd stooped in the boat, until his eyes went right along the line of the water's edge, and there he saw coming on swiftly a biggish bulky object, and as the oars broke the water, he could see that there were five or six of them on each side. It looked altogether like some great fish striking through the water with a number of strange-looking fins. The coward heart of Todd smote him, as well it might, when he saw this sight. For a moment or two he sat bewildered, and he thought that he should faint in the stern of the boat, and then that nothing in the world could save him from capture, if that were in reality the police-boat. It was, perhaps, only the rain falling upon his face that revived him, as it came upon him with its cold, refreshed splash. To be sure he was well armed for one individual, but what could he do against some dozen of men? Suppose that he did shoot two or three of them, that would be but a poor recompense for his capture by the others. He was bewildered to know what to do. He spoke in a low, anxious tone,-- "Are you, from your knowledge of the river, quite sure that that is a police-boat?" "Ah, to be sure." "Do you, then, think likewise that that is upon our track? Answer me that. Answer it fairly." "Our track!" said the old man, as he almost ceased rowing. "Hilloa! There's something more in this affair than meets the eye. It won't exactly pay us to be overhauled by the police, after a chase. Who and what are you, my friend? If you are afraid of the police-boat, we are not, and you ain't quite the sort of customer to suit us exactly, I should say." "I have both their lives," thought Todd, as in the dark he felt for his pistols. "I have both their lives, and if they show any disposition to give me up, they shall not live another five minutes. I will shoot them both--cast their bodies into the river, and land myself at the first stairs I come to." "Listen to me," he said, in a mild tone of voice. "It would only tire you, and, besides, it would take too long to tell why I have a fear of the police. But I have such a fear. I assure you, that I am quite innocent of what they accuse me. But until I can get from Hamburgh the only witness who can prove my innocence, I do not want to fall into the hands of my enemies. I implore you not to sacrifice me!" "Humph!" said the old man, "What have you done?" "Nothing--nothing! as Heaven is my witness!" "But what do they say you have done?" said the young waterman. "Ay!" said the other, "that's the question!" "Why, they say that I was wrong in helping a poor lad, who certainly had done some wrong thing, to escape from the country; but then it would have broken his poor mother's heart if they had hanged him. It was for forgery only, and it was all owing to bad company he did it. Alas! I did not think it a crime to aid the poor boy to get away. What good would his death have done to any one?" "Was that all?" "Yes; that was all. But it appears in law, you see, a very serious offence to aid and abet, as they call it, a felon. Poor boy!--poor mother!" "Oh, hang it, we won't give you up to the bloodhounds of the law for that," said the old man; "but, hark you, sir, it's out of the question that we two should be able to hold our way against the police-galley, with six young fresh rowers; so all we can do is to put you ashore somewhere, and then you can shift for yourself the best way you may. I don't see what else we can do for you." "Nor I," said the young waterman; "and in a few moments it will be best to do that. Is there a stairs close at hand?" "Not one," said the old man. "It's a done thing. We can't land you, except in the water, if that can be called landing you at all. I don't know what to be at." "Oh, save me!" said Todd. "But how can we?" "Yes," said the young waterman, "there's one way of managing that, I think, will do it, and do it well, too." "Oh, how can I thank you?" "Don't mention it. Suppose we put him on to the first craft we come along-side of in the river, that is moored, and has got no one on board? It won't be noticed, like our putting into a landing would, you know. They would be sure to say we had put some one on shore. But if we just ease the boat for a moment as we pass some craft, our fare can scramble on board, and we can go right on, and let the police overtake us, and overhaul us in due course. I'll be bound that by this light there's not a man on board of yonder craft can take upon himself to say whether there's one, two, or three people in our wherry." "Yes," said the old man, "that will do if anything will, and if that don't do, nothing will." "It will do," said Todd; "it will do. I thank you from my heart for the suggestion. It will do well. All you have to do is to let me board the craft in the river, upon the side furthest removed from the police boat. Oh! you will have the prayers of the widow and the fatherless, for this kind act." "Never mind about that. Pull away." "And--and when the police-boat is past, will you then come and take me off again?" "That's awkward," said the old man. "We will, if we can," said the young one; "but don't depend upon us. We don't know, as yet, what the police may say to us. For all we know, they know more than we would wish them, of your being in our boat; and all we can say, then, is, that we put you ashore; but they may keep a watch upon us after that, and if they do, it will be only to give you up to them that we could push off to you." "Yes--yes, I understand," said Todd. "I thank you, and will take my chance of all that may happen." "You must." "There's something a-head," said the old man. "What is it?" "It's the pile-driving barge. They are mending up the bank of the river. I know that the men leave that all night, as there is nothing to take from it that any one can lift. Will you go on board that, sir?" "Yes, yes," said Todd, "That will do." "Be quick, then, about it," said the old man, "for they gain upon us." "Boat a-hoi!" cried a voice over the river. CHAPTER CLXI. THE POLICE-GALLEY'S FATE. Todd, when he heard that voice, quite sank down into the bottom of the boat, and felt as though his last hour were come. "Don't answer," said the old man. "Pull away for the pile-driving barge as hard as you can." "Oh, yes, pull--pull!" cried Todd. "Save me!" "If you make that noise," added the old man, "we may as well be off at once, for the river, when it is as smooth as it is now, carries voices well." "Boat a-hoi!" cried the voice again. "We must answer them now," said the old waterman. "Ay, ay! Is it here? Boat a-hoi!" "Ay, ay!" came the voice from the police-galley. At that moment the two watermen succeeded in reaching the broad stern of the barge, in which was centred the pile-driving machinery, and the young man said to Todd-- "Now clamber in, and good luck attend you. If we don't come to you in the course of an hour, don't expect us, that's all." Todd was not very young and supple in his joints, but the sense of present and serious danger has an effect upon every one, and in a moment he seized the side of the pile-driving barge, and drew himself in. "All right," said the old man. "Oh, yes--yes," said Todd, as he crouched down with his chin touching the side of the barge. "Good-night, then." "Good-night! You will come for me if you can?" "Yes, but don't expect us. Pull, now, as hard as you can, and get out into the stream. Pull! pull!" By the strenuous united exertions of the two men, the boat shot along at good speed, and soon got to a considerable distance from the barge in which Todd had taken refuge. It was then that the police-galley hoisted a strong light that shed a bright glare through the rain, and over the surface of the river. "Am I saved?" said Todd. "Am I saved, or am I not?" He sank quite down into the body of the barge. There was a sort of platform over one-half of it, and upon that platform he felt the mass of iron, weighing about a couple of hundredweight, or more, which was used for driving piles into the bed of the river, and which, when liberated from a height, and allowed to fall upon the end of the pile, comes with a most tremendous force. That piece of metal so used is called "the monkey." "They come--they come!" said Todd. "Oh, if they only chanced to see the boat place me here, I am lost. Quite lost! What will become of me, then, with nothing but the cold, cold river all round me? Death, indeed, now stares me in the face!" Truly, the situation of Todd now was rather a critical one. There was no saying how far the men on board the police-galley might not think themselves justified in boarding any craft that was moored upon the river; and, indeed, if they were searching for him, and had really any idea that he was trying an escape by the Thames, it was highly improbable that they would omit to have a good look in the barge where he was. There was another great danger, too, that suddenly flashed across his mind, and drove him nearly mad. "If the police, when they overtake the wherry," he thought, "should mention who it is they are in pursuit of, may not the two watermen at once, upon finding that their sympathy has been excited for me, declare where I am, and even aid in my apprehension?" This idea, either because it was the last one that came into his head, or because it really was the one that seemed most full of real dangers, clung to him with desperation; and more than once the thought of ending all his miseries by a plunge into the river, crossed his mind. But it is not such men as Sweeney Todd who commit suicide. "They come--they come!" was all he could now say. The light from the police was, by the aid of a revolving reflector, capable of being cast pretty strongly in any direction that those who had the care and control of it chose; and for a moment it rested upon the barge where Todd was. He felt as if, at that moment, he could have crept right through the bottom of the barge, and taken refuge in the Thames. The broad beam of light was then shifted off the barge on to the little wherry, which was at rest upon the water waiting for the approach of the police-galley. And now, with vigorous sweeps of its six oars, that galley made its way right past the barge. Oh! what a relief it was that it went past! It did not follow that all danger was gone because the police-barge had gone past; but it was a sufficient proof that the glare of light they had sent in that direction, by the aid of the reflector, had not had the effect of discovering him to them. "That is something," muttered Todd. He then slowly permitted his eyes to peer over the side of the barge in order, as far as he could, to watch the interview that was about to take place between the police and the two watermen in the wherry where he had been so lately a passenger. Upon that interview, now, he thought that his fate depended. "Hilloa!" cried one of the police. "Why did you not wait for us when we first called to you?" "We did," said the old man, "as soon as we saw your light, and knew what you were; but there are so many jokes played off upon the river, that if we were to rest-oars to everybody who call--'Boat a-hoi,' we should have enough to do." "Who are you?" "A couple of regestered watermen. Here we are. You can overhaul us at once, if you like." "You have no passenger?" "No. I only wish we had. Times are very bad." "Well, it's all right. But we are placed here by the orders of Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who suspects that the notorious murderer, Sweeney Todd, may try to escape by the Thames." "Sweeney Todd!" cried the young waterman in a tone of horror. "What, the fellow that killed all the people in Fleet Street, and made them into pies?" "The same." "It's coming now," thought Todd. "It's coming now. They will tell him where I am." The next words that were spoken, were uttered in a tone of voice that did not reach his ears. It was the old man who had spoken, and he did not utter his words so clearly as his younger companion; and although he tried his utmost to hear what he said, he could not possibly make it out, and he remained in a perfect agony of apprehension. "Very well," said the officer in the police-barge, who had conducted the brief conversation. "It is a miserable night. Give way, my men. Steady there. Put the light out." In an instant the light was lowered and extinguished, and the darkness that reigned upon the surface of the Thames was like a darkness that could be felt. It was difficult to conceive that it was not really tangible. "Are they coming back?" That was the question that Todd asked of himself, as he grasped, to steady himself, the heavy piece of iron that belonged to the pile-driving machine. He listened most intently, until it was positively painful to do so, and he began to fancy all sorts of strange noises in the air and from the water. In a few moments, though, an actual splashing sound put to route all imaginary noises, and he felt convinced that the boat with the police was slowly returning towards the barge in which he was concealed. There was, to be sure, still a hope that they would pass it; but it was only a hope. Oh, how awfully full of apprehension was each passing moment now. It might be that the police-galley was only going quietly back to its proper station, after overtaking the wherry; but then it might be quite otherwise, and the doubt was terrific. While that doubt lasted, it was worse than the reality of danger. And now it was quite evident to the perception of Todd that the police-boat was close to the barge, and he heard a voice say-- "Is that the pile-driving barge?" "Yes, sir," replied some one. "And they leave it, I suppose, as usual?" "No doubt, sir." "Well, pull alongside, and a couple of you jump in and see if all is right. People leave their property exposed to all sorts of depredations, and then blame us for not looking after it. Mind how you go, my men. Don't run foul of the barge." "No, sir. All's right." From the moment that this conversation had begun, Todd had remained crouching down in the barge, like a man changed to stone. He heard every word--those words upon which hung, or seemed to hang, his life, and his grasp upon the massive piece of iron tightened. The police-boat gradually advanced, and finally just grated against the side of the barge. A sudden thought took possession of Todd. With a yell, like that of a mad-man, he, with preternatural strength, moved the heavy mass of iron, and in one moment toppled it over the edge of the barge. Crash it went into the police-galley. There was then a shriek, and the men were struggling in the water. The piece of iron had gone right through the boat, staving to pieces. It filled and sank. [Illustration: Todd And The Police Galley.] "Help--help!" cried a voice, and then all was still as the grave for a few moments. "It is done," said Todd. "Help! mercy!" said a voice again, and a dark figure rose up by the side of the barge, clinging to it. Todd drew one of his pistols. He levelled it at the head of the figure. He was upon the point of pulling the trigger, when it struck him that the flash and the report might be seen and heard from the shore. The pistol was heavily mounted with brass at the butt-end of it. "Down!" said Todd. "Down!" He struck the clambering, half-drowned man upon the head, and with a shriek he fell backwards into the water and disappeared. In another moment Todd felt a pair of arms twining round him, and a voice cried-- "Murderer, I have you now! You cannot shake me off!" Todd made an effort, but, in truth, those wet and clinging arms held to him like fate. "Fool," he said. "You will find drowning the easiest death for you to meet." [Illustration: The Murder On The Thames--Todd's Narrow Escape.] "Help--help! murder!" shouted his assailant. The pistol was still in Todd's grasp. With a devilish ingenuity, he thrust the barrel of it under his arm and felt that it touched his assailant. He pulled the trigger, and then he and the man who held him fell to the bottom of the barge together. Todd kicked and plunged until he got uppermost, and then he felt for the throat of the other, and when he got a clutch of it he held it with a gripe of iron. "Fool," he said. "Did you think that one driven to such desperation as I am, would be conquered so easily?" There was no reply. Todd lifted up the head of the man, and it hung limply and flaccidly from the neck. He was quite dead. The pistol-bullet had gone through his heart, and death was instantaneous. "Another one," said Todd, as he sprang to his feet and stood upon the dead body. "Another one sacrificed to my vengeance. Let those only interfere with me who are tired of life." He placed his hand to his ear now, to listen if there were any indications of others of the boat's crew stirring; but all was still. No sound, save the lazy ripple of the tide past the old barge on which he was, met his ears. "It is over," he said. "It is quite over now. That one great danger is past now." The rain began to fall quicker, and splashed upon the half deck of the barge. Todd felt that he was thoroughly wet through; but all minor ills he could now laugh at, that he had escaped the one great peril of capture. He felt that his life had hung upon a thread, and that only the recent accident had saved him; for to be captured, was to him equivalent to death. "All gone!" he whispered. "They are all gone! Well--well! They would have dragged me to a prison, and then to a scaffold! Self-defence is a sound principle, and for that I have fought!" A sudden gust of wind got up at that moment, and came howling past Todd, and ruffling upon the surface of the river; but all was still around the barge. There was now no cry for mercy--no shout for help--no bubbling shriek of some swimmer, who was yet sinking to death, as the waters closed over him. "Yes," said Todd, as his long hair blew out like snakes in the wind, "I am alone here now. They are all dead, and I could do it again if it had to be done." CHAPTER CLXII. ANOTHER BOAT. It seemed now as though the lull in the weather was over; for after that one gust of wind, there came others; and in the course of a very short time, indeed, the surface of the water was much agitated, and such a howling noise was kept up by the wind, that Todd thought every moment that he heard the voices of his foes. "What am I to do now?" he said. "Oh, what am I to do? I dare not wait here until daylight. That would be destruction. What is to become of me?" He came round the sides of the barge with the hope that some wherry had been moored to it, but he found that that hope was a fallacious one indeed. There was the gloomy-looking vessel moored far out in the stream, with him as its only passenger. Any one without Todd's load of guilt upon his soul, and upon better terms with human nature, could soon have got assistance, for the distance from the shore was by no means so great but that his voice must have been heard had he chosen to exert it; but that would not do for him. He dreaded that his presence upon the barge should be known, and yet he alike dreaded that the morning's light should come shiningly upon him, without any boat coming to take him off. To be sure, the two men who had brought him there had made a half-promise to come to his aid, but he felt certain he could not depend upon their doing so. The look with which they had regarded him upon the doubt, even, that he might be so frightful a criminal as he really was, was sufficient to convince him that while that doubt remained they would not return. "And what," he said, "is to dissipate the doubt? Nothing--nothing! But anything may confirm it. Accidents always tell for the truth--never to its prevention, and so I am lost--lost--quite lost." The bitterness of death seemed almost to be upon the point of assailing Todd. He could fancy that spirits of the murdered shrieked and wailed around him, as the wind whistled by his trembling frame. In this wretched state an hour passed, and then Todd thought he heard a voice. "What is that?" he said. "Oh, what is that?" He inclined his head as low down to the edge of the water as he could get it, and heard distinctly some one singing to the stroke of a pair of oars, as they were deliberately dipped into the stream. The voice sounded like that of some young lad, and a hope of succour sprung up in the breast of Todd. In the course of a few moments he became perfectly convinced that the boat was approaching the barge, and he shrunk down so that by being prematurely seen he might not alarm the boy who was rowing down the stream. The song continued, and it was quite evident from the manner in which the boy sung it, that he was quite delighted with his own powers in that line. "I must speak to him," thought Todd. "If I let him pass there may not be another chance, now. I must speak to this boy, and speak to him freely too. He comes--he comes." It was not so dark but that Todd could see pretty well the surface of the river, and presently in dusky outline he was conscious of the approach of a wherry in which was a boy, and he could see how the boy moved his head to and fro to the tune that he was amusing himself with. "Hilloa!" cried Todd. Now Todd in this "Hilloa!" had for once in a way tuned his voice to such a gentle pleasant sound, that it was quite a wonder to hear it, and he was rather himself surprised at the manner in which he managed it so as not to be at all alarming. The boy stopped rowing and looked about him. It was evident at the moment that he could not tell where the sound came from. "Hilloa!" said Todd, again. "Ay--ay!" said the boy; "where are you?" "Here, my dear," said Todd, "on board of the barge, bless you. How are you, my fine fellow--eh?" "Oh, I'm pretty well. Who are you?" "Why, don't you know me? I'm Mr. Smith. How is your father, my lad--eh?" "Oh, father's all right enough; but I didn't know as he knowed a Mr. Smith at all." "Oh, yes, he does. Everybody knows a Mr. Smith. Come on, you can give me a lift to shore off the barge here. This way. Just step up to the side and I'll step into your pretty little wherry. And so your father is quite well--eh, my fine lad? Do you know I was afraid he had caught a little cold, and really have been quite uneasy about him." "Have you?" said the boy, as he pulled up to the side of the barge. "Where do you want to go to?" "Oh, anywhere you happen to be going, that's all, my fine lad. How you do grow, to be sure!" "But how came you here, out in the river on the dredging-barge? Do you belong to her?" "To be sure I do. I am Mr. Deputy Inspector Dredger Smith, and am forced to come and superintend the barge, you see; but my boat that I sent to shore for something, has not come back, and I am getting cold, for I am not so young as you are, you know." "Why, I don't suppose you is, sir," said the boy; "but I'll put you ashore, if you like." "Thank you, I should like." "Get in, then, sir. All's right. I'll hold on to the barge. Easy--easy with you, sir. That will do. Which side of the river, sir, would you like to be put ashore at, if you please?" The boy was evidently deeply impressed with the importance of the title of Deputy Inspector Dredger, and was quite deferential to Todd. How delighted was Todd to get off the barge! It seemed to him like a reprieve from death. "Which way is the tide, boy?" he said. "Running down, sir, but not fast." "That will do. I will trouble you, then, to row with it as comfortably and as fast as you can. "But I'm going, sir, to Westminster, to meet father. I can't go down the river, please sir. I would if I could. I said I would put you on shore on either side you like, and that's a waste of time, for the tide is getting fuller every minute, and it will be a hard pull against it, as it is. I can't go down the river, so don't ask me, sir; indeed I can't." "Indeed?" "No, sir. If I put you ashore, you will find lots of watermen who will be glad enough of the job." "What's your name?" "Bill White, sir." [Illustration: Todd Compels Bill White To Assist His Escape From The Thames Police.] "Very well, Bill White. I dare say you have ears at your age, and guess that to have one's brains blown out is not one of the most agreeable things in the world, and perhaps you know a pistol when you see one. This that I take from my pocket and hold at your head is carefully loaded, and if you don't pull away at once with the tide down the river, I will scatter your brains into the river, and throw your lifeless carcass after them. Do you understand that, Mr. Bill White?" Todd uttered these words in such a tone of fiendish malignity, and glared into the eyes of the poor boy so, that he nearly drove him out of his wits, and it was as much as his trembling hands could do to hold the oars. For the space of about half a minute he could only glare at Todd with his eyes and mouth as wide open as they could be. "Speak, devil's whelp!" cried Todd. "Why do you not answer me?" "Murder!" cried the boy. Todd caught him by the throat, and if the oars had not been well up in the rollocks, they must have gone overboard. "Another such cry," said Todd, "and it is the last you shall have the opportunity of making in this world." "Oh, no--no--" "But I say yes. Listen to me! If you row me as I direct you, I will not only do you no harm, but I will pay you well. If you still obstinately refuse, I will murder you, and murder your father likewise, upon the first opportunity." "I will row you down the river, sir. Oh, yes, I will do it. Indeed I will, sir." "Very well. Take your oars, and pull away." The boy was in such a state of trembling, that although it was quite evident he did his best to obey Todd, it was with the greatest difficulty that he could pull a stroke, and it took him some minutes to get the boat's head round to the tide. "Be careful," said Todd. "If I see you willing, I make any allowance for you; but if I fancy, for a moment, that there is any idea of not obeying me, I will kill you!" "I am obeying you, sir." "Very well. Now, listen attentively to what I am about further to say to you, Bill White. You can pull away while you listen. We are going now very well with the stream." "Yes, sir." "We shall, no doubt, pass many wherries, and you may think it a very good thing to call out for help, and to say that I threatened to murder you, and all that sort of thing; but so soon as you do, you die. I will hold this pistol in my hand, and whenever we come near a wherry, my finger will be upon the trigger, and the muzzle at your head. You understand all that, I hope, Bill White?" "Of course I do, sir." "Go on then." Todd reclined back in the stern of the boat, and kept his eyes fixed upon the boy, down whose cheeks the tears rolled in abundance, as he pulled down the stream. Having the tide fully in its favour, the wherry, with very little labour, made great way; and Todd, as he saw the dawn slowly creeping on, began to congratulate himself upon the cleverness with which he had escaped from the barge. The river began to widen--the pool was left behind, and the dull melancholy shore of Essex soon began to show itself, as the tide, by each moment increasing in strength, carried the light boat swiftly along its undulating surface, with its frightfully wicked load. Todd thought it would be as well now to say something of a cheering character to the boy. Modulating his voice, he said-- "Now, you see, my lad, that by obeying me you have done the very best thing you possibly could, and when I think proper to land, I will give you a guinea for yourself." "I don't want it," said the boy. "You don't want it?" "No; and I won't have it." "What do you mean by that, you idiot of a boy? How dare you tell me to my face that you won't have what I offer you?" "I don't see," said Bill White, "how that ought to put you in a passion. All you want is to make me row you down the river. Well, you have made me, cos I don't want to be shot down like a mad dog, of course; but I won't be paid for doing what I don't like--not I." "Well, it don't matter to me. You may please yourself about that; I am just as well pleased at being rowed for nothing as if I paid for it. You can please yourself in that particular; but it would have been better for you to have taken what I chose to give you than to have refused it." The boy made no answer to this speech, but rowed on in sullen silence. He no longer wept now, and it was evident to Todd that indignation was rapidly taking the place of fear in his heart. Todd even began to debate with himself whether it would not be better to throw him into the river and take the oars himself, and trust to his own skill to conduct the boat with the stream to Gravesend, than was the risk of any sudden act of the boy's that might bring danger upon him. It would have been but a poor satisfaction to Todd to have shot the boy at the moment possibly of his calling for help, when the sight of such an act would be sufficient to insure his capture, without people troubling themselves about what he had done or not done before. These were considerations that began to make Todd very unhappy indeed. "Well, Bill White," he said; "as your father, no doubt, expects you by this time, and I daresay you will be glad enough to go back and forget all about the little disagreement that we have had, I will get you to land me at once at those stairs yonder, and then we will shake hands and part." "No we won't." "Ah?" "I say we won't shake hands. I'm willing enough that we should part, but as for the shaking hands, I won't do it; and I'm quite willing to pull in to the stairs." As he spoke he inclined the head of the boat to a little landing-place, where a few wherries were moored. CHAPTER CLXIII. ANOTHER POLICE-GALLEY. "Bill White," said Todd. "Well, what now?" said the boy, in a sulky tone. Todd pointed to the pistol, and merely uttered the one word--"Remember!" and then, with a horrible misgiving at his heart, he let the lad pull into the landing-place. Some half-dozen lazy-looking fellows were smoking their pipes upon the dirty beach, and Todd, concealing the pistol within his capacious cuff, sprang on the shore. He turned and looked at the boy, who slowly pushed off, and gained the deep water again. "He is afraid," thought Todd, "he is afraid, and will be too glad to get away and say nothing." Bill White's actions were now not a little curious, and they soon attracted the observation of all the idlers on the beach, and put Todd in a perfect agony of apprehension. When the boy was about half a dozen boats' length from the shore, he shipped one of his oars, and then, with his disengaged hand, he lifted from the bottom of the boat an old saucepan, which he held up in an odd, dodging kind of way before his face, with an evident idea that if Todd fired the pistol at him, he could interrupt the bullet in that way. Then, in a loud clear voice, he cried-- "Hilloa! Don't have anything to do with that Mr. Smith. He has been threatening to shoot me, and he has got a pistol in his hand. He's a bad 'un, he is. Take him up! That's the best thing you can do. He's well-nigh as bad as old Todd the murderer of Fleet Street, that they can't catch. Take him up. I advises you. Blaze away, old curmudgeon." Todd's rage was excessive, but he thought that the best plan would be to try to laugh the thing over, and with a hideous affectation of mirth, he cried out-- "Good-by, Bill--good-by. Remember me to your father, and tell him all the joke." "It wasn't a joke," said Bill White. "Ha! ha!" laughed Todd. "Well--well, I forgive you, Bill--I forgive you. Mind you take my message to your aunt, and tell her I shall be at the chapel on Wednesday." "Oh, go to the deuce with you," said Bill, as he put down the saucepan upon finding that his late fare was not disposed to carry his threat of shooting him into effect. "You are an old rogue, that you are, and I daresay you have done something that it would be well worth while to take you up for." With this, Bill began vigorously to pull away against the stream, puffing and blowing, and looking as indignant as he possibly could. Todd turned with a sigh to the men at the little landing, and affecting to wipe a tear from his left eye, he said-- "You would not believe, gentlemen, that that boy could say such things to his poor old uncle, and yet you wouldn't believe if I were to tell you the pounds and pounds that boy has cost me and his poor aunt. He don't behave well to either of us; but we are as fond of him as possible. It's in our natures to love him, and we can't help it." "Lor!" said one of the men. "You looks tender-hearted," said another. The others all laughed at this, and Todd thought it was as well to seem as if he thought that some very capital joke was going on, so he laughed too. "I was thinking," he said, when the merriment had a little subsided, "I was thinking of going right on to Gravesend. What do you say to taking me now, a couple of you? There's the tide nicely with you all the way, and I am always a liberal enough paymaster." "What will you give?" said one with a voice like a cracked trumpet with a bad cold. "Why, name your price, and I shall not say no to it." "What shall we take the gemman for, Bill?" said this man to another, who was smoking a short pipe. "A rum 'un," was the reply of Bill. "Don't be a _hass_. I didn't go for to ask you what sort of _indiwiddle_ he was, but what we'd take him to Gravesend for." "Oh, that's the caper, is it?" "Yes it is, idiot." "Well--fifteen bob and a tanner." "Will that do, sir?" said the other to Todd, who thought that it would look bad to acquiesce too readily in the amount, so he said-- "I will give the fifteen shillings." "Very good. We won't go to loggerheads about the tanner; so come along, sir, and we'll soon get you to Gravesend, with this tide a-running all the way there, as comfortably as it can, all of a purpose." Todd was well enough pleased to find that these two men owned the longest and strongest-looking wherry that was at the landing-place. He ensconced himself snugly enough in the stern of the boat and they put aside their pipes, and soon pushed off into the middle of the stream. "Once more," thought Todd, "once more I am on the road to escape; and all may yet be well." The two men now set to work with the oars in earnest. They felt, that as they were paid by the job, the best way was to get it over as quickly as possible; and, aided by the tide, it was perfectly astonishing what progress they made down the river. Todd every now and then cast a long and anxious glance behind him; and presently he saw a boat shooting along, by the aid of six rowers, at great speed, and evidently turning into the little landing-place from where he had just come. His eyesight was either sharpened by the morning light, or fancy deceived him, for he thought he saw the boy, Bill White, seated in the stern of the boat. Todd was in an agony. He knew not whether to attract the attention of the two watermen to the large boat with all its rowers, so that he might get an opinion from them concerning it or not; and then again, he thought that at the moment, there would be a good chance of working upon the cupidity of the men, if any real danger should befall him of capture. "I say, Bill," said one. "Well, say it." "There's one of the police officer's gone into the Old Stairs. There's something afloat this here morning." "Ah! They are always at some manoeuvre or another. Pull away. It ain't no business of our'n." Todd could almost have hugged the man for the sentiment he uttered; and how he longed to echo those two words, "pull away;" but he was afraid to do so, lest, by any seemingly undue anxiety just then for speed upon his part, he should provoke the idea that the police-boat was as interesting to him as it really was. Poor, wretched, guilty Todd surely suffered a hundred times the pangs of death during his progress down the river; and now he sat in the stern of the boat, looking as pale as death itself. "You don't seem very well," said one of the men. "Oh, yes--yes, I am quite well, I thank you." "Well, I'm glad to hear it; for you look just as if you had been buried a month, and then dug up again." "Ha! ha!" laughed Todd,--what a hideous attempt at a laugh it was!--"that is very good." "Oh, lor! do you laugh that way when you are at home? 'cos if you do, I should expect the roof to tumble in with fright, I should." "How funny you are," said Todd. "Pull away." He did venture to say, "pull away!" and the men did pull with right good-will, so that the landing-place, and the long police-boat that was at it, looked just like two specks by the river-side; and, indeed it would have been a long pull and a strong one to catch Todd's wherry. The murderer breathed a little more freely. "How far have we got to go now?" he said. "Oh, a matter of nine miles yet." "And how long will it take you?" "About one hour and a quarter, with the tide running at such a pace as it is. There's some wind, too, and what there is, is all with us, so we cut along favourably. What are they doing away yonder, Bill?" "Where?" said Bill. "Right in our wake, there. Oh, they are getting up a sail. I'll be hanged if they ain't, and pulling away besides! Why, what a hurry they must be in, to be sure, to get down the river. I never knew them do that before." Todd looked along the surface of the water, and he saw the police-boat coming along at such a rate, that the spray was tossed up in the air before her prow in millions of white particles. A puff of smoke came from her side, and a slight sharp report rung upon the morning air. A musket or a pistol had been discharged on board of her. "What's the meaning of that, Bill?" "I can tell you," said Todd, sharply, before Bill had done moving his head from side to side, which was a habit of his preparatory to replying to any very intricate question. "I can tell you easily." [Illustration: The Police-Galley Chasing Todd To Gravesend.] "What is it then?" "You pull away, and I'll tell you. You see that boat with the sail and the six rowers there?" "Yes, yes!" "And you heard them fire a gun?" "To be sure." "Well, pull away. It's enough to make a cat laugh; but it was Mr. Anthony Strong that fired that gun." "How very droll? But what did he do it for?" "Well, pull away, and I'll tell you. You must know that Mr. Anthony Strong, who is in command of that police-boat, is my brother-in-law, and he laid a wager with me, that he would start from the pier at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, at daybreak this morning, and get to Gravesend before me, if I started from Blackfriars, and did the best I possibly could to get on that money and men could do for me. I allowed that he was to take all his six rowers with him, and hoist his sail if he liked, and I was to take no more than two watermen at a time. When he saw me, he was to fire a gun, you see; and the wager is for twenty pounds and a dinner. I should like to win it, and so, if you can fairly beat him, with the start you have, which is above a mile--" "It's above two," said Bill, "Water's deceiving." "Well, I'm glad to hear it; and I was going to say, I would stand five guineas!" "You will, old fellow?" "I will; and to convince you of it, here they are, and I will place them in your hands at once; so now, I do hope that you will pull away like devils!" "Won't we! If Mr. Anthony Strong, with all his sail and his six hands, catches us on this side of Gravesend, I'll give him leave to skin me and eat me at the dinner that he would win. No, no! if we don't know the currents, and the shortcuts of the river a little bit better than ever a captain of police-boat that ever lived, or that ever will live, why you may set me down for a frog or a Frenchman, which, I take it, are much of a muchness." "They is," said the other. Todd shouted with delight, and it was real now the wild laughter that shook his frame, for he began to think he was safe. The confident tone in which the waterman spoke, had quite convinced him that he could do what he said. With a perfect confidence in the power of his two watermen, he looked at the police wherry without any alarm, and the foam that it dashed up as it came bounding on, did not seem to fall coldly upon his breast, as it had seemed to do before. "Two miles," he said. "That's a long start." "In a stern chase," said Bill, "it's half of the blessed world to get over is them two miles." "Yes, yes--exactly; and I shall beat Mr. Anthony Strong, I feel now. You see, my little nephew, Bill White, gave me the first start from Blackfriars; but I knew I could not depend upon him all the way, so I--There's another gun. Hal ha! Mr. Strong, it won't do." "Well," said Bill, with a look of what he, no doubt, thought was great cleverness, "if I didn't know as this was a bit of fun between Mr. Anthony Strong and you, sir, I should have said that them guns was for us to lie-to." "That's just what he wants," cried Todd. "Does he?" "Yes. He thinks that he will frighten whoever is rowing into a dead stop, when they find a police-galley firing guns; but I think he is mistaken in this matter, my friends." "Rather!" said Dick, as he bent his back to the oars, and pulled away like a giant. How the boat shot through the water! and yet to Todd's apprehension, the police-galley gained upon him. Of course, he told himself that it must gain with its sail and six rowers; but the question was, how much it would gain in the seven or eight miles they had got to go? With what a feverish action Todd licked his lips. CHAPTER CLXIV. TODD GOES BACK ON LAND. "Oh, quicker--quicker!" cried Todd. "That would be difficult," said Bill. "But I rather think as we is a doing of it something out of the common way." Bang! went another gun from the pursuing boat, and this time there certainly was the greatest possible hint given by the police-galley that it was in earnest, for a bullet struck the water not above a couple of boats' length from Todd's wherry. "Well," said Bill, "that may be firing, but I'll be hanged if it is at all pleasant." "Oh, heed it not," said Todd; "heed it not. They would have such a laugh at both me and you, if by any means they could frighten you into stopping, and so giving me up--no, no, I mean giving up the wager. What am I saying?" "I tell you what it is," said Bill, "to my mind this is a very odd sort of wager, and if you have no sort of objection to it, sir, we will just pull to the next stairs, and put you ashore. If you don't like that, why, I rather think you must be content to lose your wager." "You will desert me? Oh, no--no. Surely you will not, and cannot. You have but to name your price, and you shall have it." "No. That won't do. You must land now." Todd looked nervously along the bank of the river, and he saw a little miserable landing-place, towards which the men now began to urge the boat. He thought then that if he could get anything like a start of his pursuers on the shore, all might yet be well. "I could get across the country to Gravesend, and if once there, I might find some vessel to take me off." "Pull to shore, then," he said; "I will take my chance. Pull to shore at once, as swiftly as you possibly can." When the boat's head was turned towards the shore, it was pretty evident that the police-galley was much more intent upon getting to Todd than to Gravesend, for the rowers in it on the instant turned the boat's head in the same direction, and it became then, truly, a case of life and death to Todd. Vigorously as the boatmen worked, the little wherry was quickly so close to the shore, that Todd saw he could land by a scramble through the water. "There is your money," he cried, to the men; "and for what you have done, I thank you with all my heart. Good-by to you." He sprang over the side of the boat, although by so doing he was up to his knees in the river; but that he heeded not, and in the course of half a minute he had scrambled to the shore, and going at a great rate up the little steps at the landing-place, he gained the road and began to run at great speed. The two boatmen were not a little amazed at this proceeding, and Bill said,-- "I say, I rather think that this is another queer sort of a piece of work than a wager; but if we don't wish to get ourselves into trouble, we must stick to it tooth and nail, that that was what we believed it to be." "Ay," said the other. "I believe you, we must, or else we shall get into limbo for our share of the affair, and no mistake. Here they come, hand over hand, and they don't look very well pleased, either." The rowers in the police-galley had made such strenuous exertions to reach the landing-place quickly, that they were really not far behind the wherry that had conducted Todd there, and the first thing that was done was to lay hold of the wherry with a boat-hook, and drag it alongside of them. Then the officer in command of the police-boat called out in a voice hoarse with rage-- "What do you mean, you infernal rascals, by running off in this way, when you know by our flag that we were the police? But you will have leisure to repent of it in jail. Clap handcuffs upon them both, my men." "Why, what have we done?" said Bill. "You will win your wager yet, I should say, if you look sharp about it." "Wager? What wager? What do you mean?" "Why, the gentleman told us that he had a wager with you about who was to get to Gravesend first, and he was to take what means he could, and you were to cut along in the galley, and there was to be quite a grand dinner on the strength of it." "Oh, nonsense--nonsense." "Well, that's what he told me, and that's why we pulled away so for; but if so be as it ain't, we are sorry enough, for why should we get into trouble about a man we never saw before, and ain't likely to see again?" "This excuse won't serve you." "But who is he, and what's he done?" "For all we know to the contrary, he is the infamous Todd, the murderer." "What? The fellow that made the people into pies! Oh, if we had only had half a quarter of an idea of that! But, hold--I saw the way he went. It was along that chalky bit of road. If you really want to nab him, why do you waste time here talking to us? Come on shore, and I will go with you, and we will soon have him now, if that will do any good." The officer saw at once that this was the only mode of proceeding that promised him the least chance of capturing the fugitive, whether he were Todd or not; for, after all, the persons in the police-galley had nothing like positive evidence that it was Todd of whom they were in pursuit. A couple of officers were left in the charge of the boats, and the whole of the remainder of them landed along with Bill, and ran up the steps to the road along which Todd had been seen to run. They did not know, however, what a wily, cunning personage they had to deal with. When Todd found himself in such comparatively close quarters with the enemy, he felt perfectly sure that to continue scampering along the high road was not the most likely way to escape. If he were to succeed in eluding his foes, he felt that it must be by _finesse_, and not by speed. With this idea, he did not go along the road for a greater distance than sufficed to bring him to a hedge, across which he then instantly made his way, and then turning, he crouched down and crept back towards the other direction. On the side of the hedge where he was now, there was not a very pleasant kind of field-drain, but Todd's circumstances did not permit of his being very particular, and getting right down into the drain, he crept along, stooping so low that only a portion of his head and back were visible above it. This was certainly the most likely way to baffle his pursuers, who were not very likely to think that he had so rapidly doubled upon them. Knowing now that his destination was Gravesend, they would in all probability run along the road after him, or if they took to the fields it would still be with the idea that he was ahead of them. After proceeding for some distance, Todd thought it would be just as well if he were to reconnoitre the foe a little, and, accordingly, he raised his head sufficiently to enable him just to peep through the hedge, and when he did so, he found that he was on sufficiently high ground to command a view of the road, and the landing-place, and the river. To his immense consternation, he saw the police advancing rapidly towards him. "Lost! lost!" said Todd, as he sunk down into the ditch, with a conviction that he was all but taken. He felt in his pocket for a pistol, and getting one out, he placed it to his ear, and there held it, for he had made up his mind now, to shoot himself, rather than be dragged back to prison, from where another escape would be quite out of the question. "They shall not take me. I will die--I will die," he murmured; and then he concentrated all his attention to the act of listening to the proceedings of the police. They came on in a straggling kind of way from the landing-place, and the principal officer cried out-- "You, Jenkins, get up the first tree you come to, and take a long look about you. The country is flat enough, and he will find it no easy matter to hide from us, I should say." "Oh, it's all right, sir," said another voice. "We have him as safe as if he were lying at the bottom of our boat with the darbies on him; and as far as I can judge of him, sir, I should say it is Todd." "I hope so," said the officer. "It will not be a bad morning's work for you all, my lads, if it is." Not very far off from where Todd lay concealed in the ditch, only, fortunately for him, on the other side of the road, was a stunted tree, rising about twenty feet from the barren soil, and upon this the man, who was named Jenkins, made his way carefully, and took a long look all round him, and particularly in advance. "Do you see him?" said the officer commanding the party. "No, sir, I don't." "Then he is hiding somewhere, and the only plan is to go right on, and hunt him up if he is among the hedges. Come on, now, at once. We must have him. He cannot possibly escape us now." Todd, upon this, again gave himself up for lost; but, as luck would have it, although two of the men got over the hedge, and began looking about, and dashing their cutlasses into the hedge, the officer called to them-- "Oh, he never came so far up the road. You don't suppose he was goose enough to come back again? If he is hiding, it will be more likely by the time he lost breath, I should say. Come now; I saw him myself get past yonder little chestnut trees, and the white cottage." Upon this the men ran on, and Todd felt, for the present, at all events, he was saved. "The idiots!" said Todd, as he looked up and listened. "The idiots!--So they think that I am as far gone in stupidity as they are, and that I have nothing to do, but to run on until they, younger and more fleet of foot, overtake me." He crawled out of the ditch, and a most pitiable figure he was when he did so. In his anxiety to hide himself completely, he had, in fact, lain himself down comfortably enough, as far as regarded the softness of the place, right at the bottom of the ditch, and had only, in the midst of a thick growth of rank weeds, kept his face above the water. "This is horrible," he said; "and they will be back soon, too. What on earth am I to do?" He heard a loud shout at this moment, and he raised his head sufficiently to see along the road to observe the actions of the officers. He found that they had paused, and were talking to a man on horseback, who was pointing in the very direction where he (Todd) stood, or rather crouched. The idea that this man had from some eminence, he being mounted, too, seen him (Todd) hide in the ditch, at once crossed his mind, and from that moment he felt that he was not in the safety that he had fondly hoped he was. To remain where he was, with such an idea prevailing in his mind, would have been madness and, accordingly, crawling down close to the hedge, he ran along, splashing, like some gigantic water-fowl, in the ditch, until he came to a thickly-planted fence, at right angles with the hedge that bordered the road. There he was forced to come to a stand-still. The fence was composed of the common privet, so that there would have been neither difficulty nor danger in forcing his way through it; but what he might encounter upon the other side was a subject of consideration well worth his attention. Through the interstices of the foliage he could see that there was a pretty and well-kept mixed garden on the other side. Roses and other flowers grew in quite loving companionship with all kinds of culinary vegetables, and the little plot of ground was well shadowed by some half-dozen fruit trees. A part of the ground was made into a kind of lawn, and upon that lawn was a child about one year old crawling about, and amusing itself by making weak efforts to pull up the grass. While Todd was observing these things, a woman came out of a little white-washed cottage that was at the farther end of the garden, with some clothes to hang up to dry. The woman spoke to the child, and from the tone in which she did so, it was quite evident she was the mother of it. Todd waited until she had hung the clothes up that she had brought out into the garden, and then when she went into the house for more, he burst his way through the hedge, and with a resolution and firmness that nothing but the exigencies of his situation could possibly have endowed him with, he took the child up in his arms and walked slowly across the lawn towards the cottage. The woman, with another heap of wet clothes in her arms, met him, and uttered a loud scream. "Peace," said Todd. "Peace, I say. There is no danger unless you make some. Listen to me, and I will tell you how you can do a service to me, and spare your child." "Help! help! Murder! Thieves!" cried the woman. Todd took one of his pistols from his pocket, and held it to the head of the child. "Another word," he said, "and I fire!" [Illustration: Todd Resorts To A Frightful Stratagem With A Mother And Child.] The woman fell upon her knees, and holding up her hands in the attitude of prayer, she said-- "Oh, have mercy! Kill me, if you must take a life, but spare the child!" "The child's life," said Todd, "is in your own hands. Why do you seek to destroy me?" "I do not--I do not, indeed." "Then, peace, and do not cry out for help. Do not shout that dreadful word 'Murder!' for that will destroy me. I am hunted by my fellow-men. I am a poor proscribed wretch, and all I ask of you is that you will not betray me." "You will spare my child?" "I will. Why should I harm the little innocent? I was once myself a little child, and considered to be rather a beauty." As Todd said this, he made one of his most hideous faces, so that the woman cried out with terror, and tried to snatch the child from him, but he held it with a firm grasp. CHAPTER CLXV. TODD HIDES IN A CUPBOARD. "It is in vain," said Todd; "my safety is wound up now with the safety of this little one. If you would save it, you will save me." "Oh, no, no. Why should it be so? I cannot save you." "You can, I think. At all events, I will be satisfied if you make the effort to do so. I tell you I am pursued by the officers of the law. It does not matter to you what I am, or who I am, or what crime it is that they lay to my charge; your child's life is as dear to you in any case. Hide me in the cottage, and deny my being seen here, and the child shall live. Betray me, and as sure as the sun gives light, it dies." "Oh, no, no, no!" "But, I say, yes. Your course is easy. It is all but certain that my prosecutors will come to this cottage, as it is the only habitation on the route that I have taken. They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what reward--what sum of money would pay you for your child's life?" "Oh, not all the world's worth!" "So I thought; and so you will deny seeing me, or knowing ought of me, for your child's sake? Is it agreed?" "It is--it is! God knows who you are, or what you have done that the hands of your fellow creatures should be raised against you; but I will not betray you. You may depend upon my word. If you are found in this place, it shall not be by any information of mine." "Can you hide me?" "I will try to do so. Come into the cottage. Ah! what noise is that? I hear the tread of feet, and the shouts of men!" Todd paused to listen. He shook for a moment or two; and then, with a bitter tone, he said-- "My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!--they now know--or think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They come--they come!" "Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!" "Not yet." The woman looked at him in an agony of tears. "Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocent--you feel that! Ah! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?" "I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come in--come in at once! They come--they come! Do you not hear them now?" It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch. With the little child still in his arms, he rushed into the cottage, and the woman followed him, wringing her hands with terror. And yet Todd was gentle with the child. He knew that from the mother he had everything to hope, and everything to dread, and he did not wish to drive her to despair by any display of harshness to the little one. "This way," she cried, "this way," as she led the way into an inner-room. "There is a cupboard here in which you can conceal yourself. If they do not search the house, they will not find you, and I will do all that I can to prevent them." "That will do," said Todd; "but, remember, I will have the child near me, so that upon the least symptom of treachery from you, I can put it to death; and I shall not, under any circumstances, at all scruple so to do. Where is this cupboard that you speak of?" "It is here--it is here!" "Ah! that will do." Todd now cast his eyes around the room, and perceived a little cot, that, at night, was devoted to the slumbers of the child. "Take that," he said, pointing to it, "and place it against the door of the cupboard with the child in it. It will seem then not likely that I am hidden here." "I will do so." Todd did not feel any apprehension of treachery from the mother of the child. He was not slow to perceive that every other feeling was in her breast weak in comparison with the all-absorbing one of love for the infant; and so he calculated that, rather than run the shadow of a risk of injury to it, she would do all that he required. The cupboard was a deep one; but it was not high enough for Todd quite to stand upright in. That, however, was a trifling inconvenience, and he got into it at once. The child's cot was placed against the door; and the young mother, with a thousand fears tugging at her heart, pretended to busy herself about her household affairs. The little interval that now ensued, before Todd's pursuers reached the spot, was certainly to him rather a fearful one; and he felt that his fate hung upon the proceedings of the next few moments. He called to the woman in an earnest tone-- "Courage--courage--all will be well." "Oh, peace--peace!" she said. "They come!" Todd quite held his breath now in the painful effort that he made to listen, so that not the slightest sound that might be indicative of the approach of his enemies might escape him; and he gave such a start, that he nearly threw open the cupboard-door, and upset the cot, as he heard a hoarse man's voice suddenly call out from the garden-- "Hilloa!--House here--house--Hilloa!" "Now--now," he gasped. "Now I live or die! Upon the next few moments hangs my fate!" The cold dew of intense fear stood upon his brow, and his sense of hearing appeared to be getting preternaturally acute. Not a word that was said escaped him, although it was right away in the garden that this, to him, fearfully interesting conversation took place. "What is the matter?" he heard the woman say, and then the rough voice replied to her-- "We are the police, my good woman, and we are in search of a man who is hidden somewhere about this neighbourhood. Has any one come into your place, or have you seen a tall man pass the cottage?" "No," said the woman. Todd breathed a little more freely. "It's very odd," said another voice; "for he must be about this spot, that is quite clear, as he was dodging about the field at the back of here, and hiding in the hedge. We must have passed him." "Well, he can't get away," said a third; "but after all, he may be lying down somewhere in the garden, for all we know to the contrary." "I don't think it," said the woman. At this moment, the child began to cry violently. "Oh, confound you for a brat!" said Todd, "I wish it was only safe to throttle you." "Is that your child?" said one of the officers. "Oh, yes--yes," said the young mother, and hastening into the cottage, she placed a chair by the side of the cot, and began to rock it to and fro, singing while she did so, to lull the child to sleep. "She will keep her word," thought Todd. "I feel confident that she will keep her word, now, with me." "You look all round the garden, while I take a peep about the house," said the principal officer. "Oh, I am lost!" moaned Todd. "I am surely lost now! If the house should be searched well, so obvious a place of concealment as a cupboard will not escape them. All is lost now, indeed." He almost gave up all thought, now, of keeping life or liberty, and he waited only for the fatal moment when the officers should approach and place their hands upon that cupboard door to open it. The child still cried, and the mother sang to it. "'Sleep, sleep, little baby-- Oh, sleep all the day; The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away. Away, away--far away. The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away--'" "Hilloa! What cupboard is that behind the child's cot?" "'And when they return You may open your eyes.' "Oh, it's where we keep our best crockery. Don't disturb the child--I do think it is sickening with the measles. "'And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies, Away, away--far away. And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies.' "Have you found him in the garden? I shall be almost out of my wits, now, till my husband comes home. Who is it that you are looking for, and pray what has he done? He would need to be clever, indeed, to come in here without my knowing it; and as for the garden, why, I was hanging out the clothes there for the last half hour, I tell you." "Oh, he's not here," said the officer. "It would be no bad thing, marm, for any one who could lend a helping hand to find him." "Ah, indeed?" "Yes. You have heard of Todd, the murderer? Well, that's the man we are after, and we have every reason to think that he is somewhere about here, and it is a large reward that is offered for him, I can tell you." "Ah! I should like to get it." "Not a doubt of it. Good-day, marm. If you should see any suspicious-looking fellow about the fields, just give notice of it in some sort of a way, if you can, for you may depend upon it, it will be Todd." "Oh, yes, I will. How very fractious this little thing is to-day, to be sure. I hardly ever knew it to be so before." "Ah, well, they will be so, at times. But I'm off. Mind, now, you get the reward if you see anything of Todd." "Oh, yes. Trust me for that." The man left the room. What a reprieve from death that was for Todd! He thought that during all the perils that he had passed through, he had surely never been quite so near to destruction as then; and when he found that he was saved, temporarily, he could hardly hold himself up in the cupboard, and a sensation of faintness came over him. It was not safe for him yet, by any means, to think of emerging from his place of concealment. Indeed, he felt that the young mother would be the best judge upon that hand, so he did not stir nor speak, and at last he heard the cot with the now sleeping child in it, being gently moved from before the cupboard-door. Then it was opened, and Todd, with his face pale and haggard, stepped out into the room. The young woman only pointed to the door of the little apartment steadily and significantly. "What do you mean?" said Todd. "Go," she said. "I have done that which you require of me. Now go." "To death?" "No. Your enemies are no longer here. At the sacrifice of truth and of feeling I saved you. It was all you asked of me, and now I tell you to go, and no longer pollute this place by your presence. I know who and what you are, now. You are Sweeney Todd, the murderer." "Well, and if I am, what then?" "Nothing--nothing! I ask nothing of you, but that you should leave this house; I have kept my word. I will let the memory of this hour's work sink deeply into my heart, and there remain untold to any one. Not even to my husband will I breathe it. I only ask you to go." "I am going--I am going." Todd felt awed by her manner. He cowered before the look that, full of horror, she bent upon him, and he crept towards the cottage door. But the dread that some of his enemies might be lurking about the spot detained him. "Tell me," he said, "oh! tell me truly--are they gone?" "Wait," she said, "and I will see again." She took the child in her arms, and left the cottage. Todd found, now that the child was no longer in his power as a kind of hostage for the faith of the mother, that he had trusted her too far; but it was too late, now, for him to recede from the position in which he had placed himself, and with all his terror, he had no resource but to calmly--calmly as he could--wait her return. She came back again in a few moments. "You can go with safety. They are all away." "I will trust you, and take your word for it," said Todd. "I thank you for the service you have rendered to me, and I am not ungrateful. Accept of this in remembrance of me, and of this day's adventure." He took from his pocket a splendid gold watch and laid it upon the table, in the outer room, but with vehemence, the woman cried-- "No--no! Take it up, I will not have it. Take it up, or even now I will dare everything and call for help. I will take nothing from your blood-stained hands. Take up the watch, or I will destroy it." "As you please," said Todd, as he placed the watch in his pocket again. "I wish not to force it upon you. I am gone." He went out into the little garden, but he looked about him very nervously indeed, before he trusted himself to walk towards the little white gate that opened upon the high road. Each moment, however, that passed without any one springing upon and attacking him, was a moment of confidence gained. He carried a pistol in his hand, and keeping his eyes keenly around him, he reached the road. "All is safe," he said. "I do, indeed, think she is right, and that they have given up the chase for me. She has not deceived me, and I may yet escape." He kept close to the road-side, so that he was very much covered by the hedge, and then, at as fast a pace as he thought he could keep up for any length of time, he ran on. He had not gone far when he heard the sound of wheels behind him, and he got over a hedge and hid behind it until he could see what sort of vehicle it was that approached. It turned out to be a cart driven by a couple of countrymen, who were talking upon their own affairs in rather loud tones; as they came on, Todd listened intently, and was satisfied that his supposed escape into that neighbourhood was not the subject of their discourse. CHAPTER CLXVI. THE SHIP BOUND FOR HAVRE TAKES A PASSENGER. "Hilloa!" cried Todd, as he came out into the middle of the road and confronted the cart with the two men in it. "Hilloa! Which way are you going?" "One would think you might see that," said one of the men, "by the way the horse's nose points." "What do you want?" said the other, rather sharply. "Not to intrude upon you at all, if you don't like it," replied Todd; "but I am going to Gravesend, and if you will help me on a part of the way, I will pay you well for it. I thought it would be good for my constitution to walk, but I find I am older than I thought I was." "What will you give?" said one of the men, in a dubious tone of voice. "Name your price," said Todd, "and I will give it. I know you will not be unreasonable with me." "Will you give half a guinea?" said the other. "Yes, for I am foot-weary." "Jump up, then, and we will soon take you to Gravesend. You ain't many miles off from it now by the near cuts that we know. Come on." Todd managed to scramble into the cart, and the man who was driving gave the horse an impulse forward, and away they went at a good pace. Todd began to feel a little easier in his mind now, for the quick motion of the cart in the direction that he wished to go in was most satisfactory to him. He felt quite delighted in a little time, when one of the men pointing ahead, cried out-- "There's the first houses in Gravesend, if you really want to go there." "Really," said Todd. "Indeed I do. Can you tell me what vessels are off the Port?" "Perhaps we can, and perhaps we can't, old fellow; but we will have some talk about that soon. Ha! ha!" There was something so peculiar in the laugh of the man, that Todd began to wonder into what hands he had fallen. They, every now and then, too, gave to each other a very significant look, as though there was some secret between them which they would not converse of before him. All this began to make Todd very uneasy, indeed, and the little amount of felicitation which he had been giving to himself so short a time before, rapidly subsided. "Am I a prisoner?" These were the words that occurred to him, but he had no ready means of answering the question. All he could do was to keep upon his guard, and, to tell the truth, well armed and desperate as he was, Todd was no very despicable match for any two men. Suddenly the man who was driving turned the horse's head down a deep declivity that led towards the river, to the right of the road. The country they were in was all of chalk, and this narrow road, or rather lane, at right angles with the high road, was evidently a cutting through the chalk foundation for the sake of a ready passage from the side of the Thames to the high road. A more picturesque spot could not well have been conceived. The small amount of loam upon the surface of the chalk, bore a brilliant vegetation; and upon the tall rugged sides of the deep cutting, wherever a small portion of earth had lodged, tall weeds had grown up, while on each side of the lane, close to the base of the chalky heights, there was a mass of weeds and tall creeping plants, and here and there a young tree, which lent a beautifully verdant aspect to the place. Every step that the horse now went, conducted the cart and its occupants deeper and deeper into the cutting, until, at last, the sky overhead looked only like a thin streak of light, and the gloom of a premature twilight was about the place. "Halt!" cried the man who was not driving, and the horse was stopped in the gloomiest portion of the lane. Todd turned ghastly pale, and kept his hand plunged in his breast upon one of his pistols. "What have you come down here for?" he said. "Why do you come to a stop in such a place as this?" "We will soon let you know," said the man who had not been driving, knitting his brows. "No doubt, you thought you had nailed us nicely, my fine fellow." "Nailed you?" "Yes. You need not put on such an innocent look, I can tell you. We are pretty good judges in these matters, and it's quite sufficient for me to tell you that we know you." "Know me?" "Yes, to be sure. Did you think we were taken in by any such nonsense as your being tired, and so on?--No. We know you, I say, and this hour is your last. You have placed yourself in our power, and we will take good care of you now. There is a well in this lane which keeps secrets capitally." Todd drew his pistol, and held it against the breast of this man. "Attempt any violence," he said, "and I fire!" "Oh, indeed! You are well prepared, are you? I must say that, for an exciseman, you are a bold fellow." "A what?" "An exciseman. You know well you have been on the look-out for us for the last week; so it is of no use denying it. You thought you nabbed us, when you got into our cart." [Illustration: Todd's Adventure With The Smugglers.] Todd lowered his pistol. "This is a foolish enough mistake," he said, "I am no more an exciseman than I am Commander-in-chief of the forces. What could have put such a thing into your heads?" "Say you so?" cried the other. "But how will you make us believe it? That's the question." "Well," said Todd, putting on a very candid look, "I don't know how a man is to set about proving that he is not an exciseman. I only know that I am not. The real truth is, that I am in debt, and being pressed by my creditors, have thought proper to get out of their way; and so I want to make the best of my way to Gravesend, that is all. I fancy, by your anger at the idea of my being an exciseman, that you are smugglers; and if so, I can only say that, with all my heart, you may go on smuggling with the greatest success until the day of judgment, before I would interfere with you in the matter." "Dare we believe him?" said one of the men to the other. "I hardly know," replied the other; "and yet it would be rather a sad thing to take a man's life, when it might turn out that he was not what we took him for." "How on earth am I to convince you?" said Todd. "Where do you want to go to?" "I want to get on board some vessel, I don't care what, so that it is bound to some continental port. My object, I tell you, is to get away, and that is all." "Would the Port of Havre in France suit you?" "Perfectly well." The two men now whispered together for a few moments, and then, one of them, turning to Todd, said:-- "The fact is that we are somewhat connected with a vessel bound for Havre, and it will sail to-night. If you are really what you pretend, and truly want to leave England, you can come with us, and we will give you a passage; but we expect to be paid for it." "Nothing can be more reasonable," said Todd; "I will pay you a liberal price, and as I wish to go on board as soon as I can, you may feel yourself perfectly easy regarding your suspicions of my being an exciseman, by keeping me in your company, and placing me on board your own vessel as quickly as you can." "Hang it, that's fair enough," cried one of them. "Come on, then, and let us get to the Lively William as soon as we can. It's rather a mercy we did not knock you on the head, though, at once." "I am very much obliged," said Todd. "Oh, don't mention it. I always myself, mind, defer anything of that sort till the last. It's a very rough and ugly way of settling matters, at the best; but when you can't reasonably, you know, do anything else, why, you must, and there's an end of it." "Exactly," said Todd. "I perceive that you are quite a philosopher in such transactions. So now that we have a better understanding together, the sooner we get on board this Lively William you talk of, the better." "Not a doubt of that. Come up." The horse's head was turned up the lane again, and in a very few moments the high road was gained, and they went on at a rapid trot for Gravesend. The town was soon reached--that town what is all dirt in winter, and chalk-dust in summer--and the two men, by the manner in which they kept their eyes upon Todd while they passed several throngs of people, showed that it was a very difficult thing indeed to get rid of suspicion when once it took possession of them. After, however, getting right through the town, and finding that Todd did not attempt to give the least alarm, but, on the contrary, shrunk from observation as much as he could, their confidence in him was complete, and they really believed him to be what he pretended to be. Whether, if those men had really known who and what he was, they would have altered their views with regard to him, is a matter difficult to give an opinion upon; but as it was, they had no scruples whatever, provided he would pay them a good price for his passage to Havre. "Now," said one of them, "we know that you have not deceived us, and that it is all right, we don't mind telling you that we are the captain and owner of the Lively William, and that we are in the regular smuggling trade, between the French Ports and this country. We don't make a bad thing of it, one way and another." "I am glad to hear it," said Todd. "Ah, you view this sort of thing in a christian-like spirit, we see; and if you have no objection to a drop of as pure champagne brandy as ever you tasted, provided you have tasted some of the best, you can have a drop." "I should like it much," said Todd. "Just look out ahead, then, and fix your eyes on that old tree yonder, while we get it." Todd did not care to know what mode of hiding spirits the two men had in their cart; so he did as they required of him, and fixed his eyes upon the old tree. After he had kept his eyes upon that object for some few minutes, they called out to him-- "All's right." Todd looked round, and found one of the men with a small bladder of spirits, and a little horn drinking-cup. "Here," he said, "you can give us your opinion of this." Todd tossed off the contents of the cup. "Excellent!" he cried. "Excellent! That, indeed, is brandy. I do not think that such is to be got in London." "Scarcely," said the man, as he helped himself, and then handed the bladder and the cup to his companion; "but we are going to put up our horse and cart now, and if you will be so good as to look at the old tree again, we will send the brandy away." "Certainly," said Todd. The brandy was soon, in some mysterious manner, disposed of, and then the cart was stopped at the door of a little country-looking inn, the landlord of which seemed to have a perfect understanding with the two men belonging to the Lively William. "Now," said one of them to Todd, "as you have no objection to go on board at once, we will put you there." "Objection?" cried Todd. "My objection is to remain on land. I beg that you will let me feel that I am on the deck of your vessel, as quickly as possible." "That will do. This way." They led him down a narrow lane with tall hedges upon each side, and then across a straggling mangy-looking field or two, such as are to be found on the banks of the Thames, and on the northern coasts of some portions of England, the Isle of Wight in particular, and then they came at once to the bank of the river. A boatman hailed them, and upon their making signs to him that his services were required, he pulled in to the shore; and Todd, with his two new friends, were in a few moments going through the water to the vessel. The Lively William did not look particularly lively. It was a slatternly-looking craft, and its black, dingy hull presented anything but an inviting appearance. The genius of dirt and neglect seemed to have taken possession of the vessel, and the nearer Todd got to it, the less he liked it; but still it was a means of his escaping, and had it been ten times a more uncomfortable-looking abode than it was, he would have gladly gone on board it. "Here we are!" cried one of the men. The boat touched the side of the ship, and in another moment, Todd was upon her deck. CHAPTER CLXVII. TODD MEETS WITH A LITTLE ROUGH WEATHER IN THE CHANNEL. Todd almost thought that he was saved, when he felt himself fairly upon the deck of the Lively William. It seemed to him such a miracle to get so far, that his faith in completely getting the better of his enemies increased wonderfully. "Oh, this is a relief," he said. "This is, indeed, a vast relief." "What do you mean?" said one of the men of the cart to him, as he eyed him keenly. Todd was very anxious not to excite any suspicion that he was other than what he had represented himself to be; so he answered quickly-- "I mean that it is a relief to get out of the small boat into the ship. Ever so little a distance in a boat disagrees with me." "Oh, that's it, is it?" "Yes; and if you have no particular objection, I will go below at once. I daresay the cabin accommodation is very good on board the Lively William." "Oh, quite wonderful!" said the captain. "If you will come with me Mr.--a--a--what's your name?" "Wilkins," said Todd. "Oh, Mr. Wilkins. Well, if you will come with me, I shall have the very great pleasure of showing you what a capital berth we can give you." "Thank you," said Todd, and then, rather timidly, for the staircase down which the captain dived seemed to Todd better adapted for poultry than for human beings, he carefully followed his new friend. The cabin of the Lively William was a woful place. Any industrious house-wife would have sneered at it as a linen-cupboard; and if it had been mentioned as a store-room in any establishment of pretentions, it would have excited universal reprobation. It had a roof which nobbed Todd's head if he attempted to stand upright; and the walls sloped to the shape of the sides of the Lively William. The window was a square hole, with a sliding shutter; and the furniture would have made the dingiest broker's shop in London blush to own it. "This is the state cabin," said the captain. "Really?" said Todd. "Why, don't you see it is by its size and looks? You won't often see in a craft of this size a handsomer cabin than that of the Lively William." "I dare say not," said Todd. "It will do very well for me, my friend. When a man is travelling, he must not be very particular, as it is soon over." "That true; but now I want to say something to you, if you please, that's rather particular. It's quite clear to me and my mate, that you want to get out of England as quickly as possible. What you have done, or what you haven't is not much matter to us, except, so far as that, we daresay you have swindled the public to a tolerable tune. We don't mean to take you for nothing." "Nor do I wish you," said Todd. "Nothing can possibly be further from my thoughts." "Very good; then, in a word, we don't intend to do the thing unhandsome; and you shall have all the capital accommodation that the Lively William can give you to the Port of Havre for twenty pounds." "Twenty pounds?" "Yes. If you think it is too much, you may go on shore again, and there is no harm done, you know." "Oh, no--no. That is, I cannot help thinking it is a large price; and if I were to say I thought otherwise, you would not believe me; but as I really wish to go, and you say you will not take less, I must give it." "Very good. That's settled, then. We shall be off at ebb-tide, and I only hope we shall have good luck, for if we do, we ought to make Havre, at all events, this time to-morrow." "I hope we shall." "Keep up your heart, and make yourself comfortable. Here's lots of the most amusing books on this shelf. Let me see. Here is the 'Navy List' for about ten years ago, and here's a 'Ready-reckoner,' and here is 'The Exciseman's Vade Mecum,' and here is a 'Chart of the Soundings of Baffin's Bay,' so you can't say you are out of books." "Oh, how kind," said Todd. "And you can order whatever you like to eat and drink, provided you don't think of anything but boiled beef, biscuits, and brandy." "Oh, I shall do well enough. Rest is now what I want, and a quick voyage." "Very good," said the captain. "You will not be at all interrupted here, so you can lie down in this magnificent berth." "What, on that shelf?" "Shelf? Do you call the state berth of the 'Lively William,' a shelf!" "Well--well, I dare say it is very comfortable, though the roof, I see, is only eight inches or so from one's nose. I am very much obliged. Oh, very!" The captain now left Todd to himself and to his own thoughts, and as he really felt fatigued, he got into the state berth of the Lively William, which, to tell the truth, would have been very comfortable if it had only been a little wider and a little longer, and the roof higher, and not quite so damp and hard as it was. But, after all, what where all these little disagreeables, provided he, Todd, fairly escaped? If he once set his foot upon the shores of France, he felt that, with the great continent before him, he should be free, and he did not doubt for a moment getting in any capital a ready enough market among the Jews for the watches and jewellery that he had about him. The ship as the tide washed slowly by it, moved to and fro with a sluggish motion that rocked Todd to sleep, and he dropped off from a perception of the world and all its cares. How long he slept he knew not, but when he awoke all was darkness around him, and the first attempt he made to move brought his head into violent contact with the partition of his berth. Then Todd felt that the ship was tossing upon the water, and he could hear the dash and ripple of the sea pass her sides, while every now and then a loud splash against the closed shutter of the cabin-window warned him that that sea was not in one of its quietest moods. "We are off!" cried Todd, in the exultation of his spirits at that fact. "We are off, and I am all but free." He attempted to get out of the berth, and he was materially assisted by a roll of the sea that sent him to the other side of the cabin, accompanied by a couple of stools and several articles that happened to be lying loose upon the floor. "Murder!" cried Todd. "Hilloa!" cried a gruff voice from the companion-way. "Hilloa! What now?" "Oh, nothing," said Todd. "Nothing. Where are we now? Oh, dear, what a thing it is to live in a cupboard that won't stand still." The gleam of a lantern flashed in Todd's eyes, and the captain came below with it swinging in his hand. He steadied himself against the table, which was firmly screwed to the floor, and hung the lantern to a short chain dependent from the cabin-roof. "There," said the captain. "The chandelier is alight now, and you will be able to see about you. Hilloa! Where are you now?" "Why, I rather think I fell off the shelf," said Todd. "I beg your pardon, the state berth, I mean." "Then you had better turn in again, for we shall have, I think, a squally sort of night rather. There are symptoms of a sou wester, and if so, you will know a little of what weather is in the Channel." "Where are we now?" said Todd, mournfully. "About fifteen miles off the North Foreland, so we are tolerably quiet just yet; but when we turn the head of the land, it's likely enough we may find out what the wind means to say to us." While the captain spoke, he tugged on a complete suit of waterproof apparel, that seemed as thick and inflexible as so much armour covered with tar, and then up he went upon deck again, leaving Todd to the society of his own reflections and the chandelier. The Lively William was going on just then with a flowing sheet, so that she was carrying a tolerably even keel, and Todd was able to get up and reach his berth; but at the moment that he laid hold of the side of it to clamber in, the ship was tacked, and away went Todd to the opposite side of the state-cabin with the rug in his grasp that did duty as a counterpane in the berth. "This will kill me," he groaned. "Oh, this will kill me. But yet--yet I am escaping, and that is something. There will be a storm, but all ships are not lost that encounter storms." Todd made up his mind to remain where he was, jammed up against the cabin partition, until the ship should right itself sufficiently for him to make another effort to reach his berth. After a few minutes he thought he would make the attempt. "Now," he said. "Now, surely, I can do it. I will try. How the wind howls, to be sure, and how the waves dash against the ship's sides, as though they would stave in her timbers; but all is well, no doubt. I will try again." Very cautiously now Todd crept to his berth, and this time the winds and the waves were kind enough only to move the ship so that he knocked his head right and left a little, and managed then to scramble on to the little inconvenient shelf, with its damp mattress that served for a bed. "Ah," said Todd, "and there are people who might, if they liked, stay on land all their lives, and yet they pretend to prefer the sea. There's no accounting for tastes." By dint of jerking it a little from under him, Todd propped the mattress against the outer edge of the berth; so that provided the vessel did lurch in that direction, it was not so likely to tumble him out, and there he lay listening to the winds and the waves. "A storm in the Channel!" he muttered. "From what that beast of a captain said, it appears we are to have one. Well, well, I have weathered many a storm on land, and now I must put up with one at sea." At this moment, there was a tremendous bustle upon deck, and some orders were issued that were quite unintelligible to Todd. There was, however, a great flapping of canvas, and a rattling of chains. The Lively William was weathering the South Foreland, and just going to do battle with half a gale of wind in the Channel. Up to this point, Todd had, with something approaching to resignation, put up with the disagreeables about him; and upon the principle of the song which states that-- "When a man travels, he mustn't look queer, If he meets a few rubs that he does not meet here," he regarded his position with philosophy; but now there came over him a dreadful sensation. A cold clammy dew burst out upon his face--all strength fled from his limbs, and with a deep groan, Todd began to feel the real horror of sea sickness. Nothing can be like sea sickness but death, and nothing can be like death but sea sickness. Todd had never suffered from that calamity before; and now that it came upon him, in all its aggravated horrors, he could not believe that it was a mere passing indisposition, but concluded that he must have been poisoned by the captain of the ship, and that his last hour was come. And now Todd would fain have made a noise, and called for help. He would have liked to fire one of his pistols in the face of that captain, provided he could but have got him to the side of his berth; but he had not strength left to utter a word above a whisper; and as for moving his hand to his pockets to get out his fire-arms, he could not so much as lift a finger. All Todd could do was to go on, and to get each moment worse and worse with that awful sensation of sickness, which resembles the sickness of the soul at parting from its mortal house, to which it had clung so long. The wind howled upon the deck and through the cordage of the vessel--the spray dashed over her bulwarks, and each moment the storm increased in fury. CHAPTER CLXVIII. TODD GETS A WORLD OF MARITIME EXPERIENCE. The idea that he was poisoned grew upon Todd each moment, and to such a man, it was truly terrific to think that he should come to so fearful an end. "Help! Help!" he groaned; but after all, it was only a groan and not a cry--not that that mattered; for if he had had the lungs of ten men all concentrated in his own person, and had so been able to cry out with a superhuman voice, it would have been most completely lost amid the roar of the wind, and the wild dashing of the waves. The storm was certainly increasing. "Oh, this sickness!" groaned Todd. "Oh, dear--oh, dear!" At the moment that he was so bad that, in his want of experience of what sea sickness really was, he thought every moment would be his last, he heard some one coming down into the cabin, and one of the crew rolled rather than walked into it. "Help!" said Todd; "oh, help!" "You go to the d--l!" said the man. "The captain is washed overboard, and we are all going to the bottom, so I am one who likes to take a little spirits with him to qualify the water that one may be obliged to swallow. That's it. Steady, craft, steady." Practised as this man no doubt was in the art of keeping his footing upon an undulating surface, the pitching of the ship was so tremendous, that even he was thrown to the cabin floor with considerable violence, and had no easy task to rise again. "No!" cried Todd, finding that positive fright lent him strength, "you do not mean that?" "Mean what, you old sinner?" "That we shall be lost?" The man nodded, and having opened a little cupboard, he brought out a little bladder of spirits, and placing it to his lips, he drank a large quantity, while he held by the cupboard door to keep himself from falling. "That will do," he said, as he dropped the bladder to the floor, and then, after several unsuccessful efforts to do so, he scrambled upon deck again. "I, too, will drink," said Todd; "oh, yes, I will drink. I feel that if anything will give me strength to bear the horrors of the night, it will be my old and well-tried friend, brandy." He cast his eyes upon the bladder of spirits that the sailor had thrown to the floor. The spirit was slowly weltering out of the bladder, and running in a stream across the cabin. As the odour of it saluted the nose of Todd, he exclaimed,-- "It is brandy! I must and will have some!" It was all very well for Todd to say that he must and would have some of the brandy, but the difficulty of getting at it was one by no means easy to surmount. He recollected what a job he had to get into his berth again upon the occasion that he had got out of it before, and he dreaded to place himself in a similar predicament; yet he found the vessel was more steady, although the wind had not at all abated. Yes, it certainly was more steady. "I will try," said Todd. "I must have some." With a determination, then, to get at the choice liquor, which was wasting what Todd considered its sweetness upon the cabin floor, he slid out of his little bed-place, and the ship giving a sudden roll in a trough of the sea, he fell sprawling to the floor. "Oh, I shall be killed!" he yelled. "This frightful voyage will be the death of me! It is too terrible! Oh, Heaven! It is much too terrible! Help!--mercy!" Todd lay upon his back on the cabin floor, with his arms and legs stretched out like a gigantic St. Andrew's cross. Something touched his hand; it was the bladder of brandy, that, as the ship rolled, had moved towards him. He clutched it with a feeling of despair, and brought it to his lips. With the exception of about half a pint, the brandy had made its way on to the cabin floor; but it was strong, pure spirit--such brandy, in fact, as smugglers might well reserve for their own private drinking; so that the half pint was a very tolerable dose to take at once, and Todd drained it to the last drop. "Better!" he said; "oh, yes, I am better, now." The fumes of the strong spirit mounted to his brain, and got the better, for the time, of that frightful feeling of sickness which had been so like death, that Todd had mistaken it for the last pangs that he was likely to feel in this world. "Oh, yes, I am better. How the wind howls now, and how the waves dash the ship hither and thither. The deck, yes, the deck will be the place for me. Oh, gracious! what was that?" A loud crash, and a scream from some drowning wretches who had gone overboard along with a mast, had broken upon his ears. Terror sat at his very heart, and unable any longer to endure the frightful suspense of being below, he tried, upon his hands and knees, to crawl upon the deck. By no other mode could Todd have had the slightest hope or expectation of reaching the deck of that fated vessel, but as he tried it, he did, after a time, succeed in dragging himself up from the cabin. The sea was washing over the deck, and for a few moments he could see no one. He watched for a lull in the wind, and then he cried-- "Help! help! Oh, help!" "Who's that?" shouted a voice. "I!" said Todd. "Go to blazes, then!" "Oh, how kind!" groaned Todd. "How very considerate at such a time as this, too." The wind that had lulled for a few moments, now came with a frightful gush, and Todd was glad to find the fragments of a quantity of cordage, belonging to some of the top parts of the mast that had gone overboard, to cling to till the gust had passed over the ship. Then there came some tons of salt water over him, and he was nearly bereft of the power of breathing. "Oh, this is dreadful!" he said. "This is truly dreadful!" "Hands off!" growled a voice. "Everybody for himself here. Hands off, I say." "What do you mean?" said Todd. "Do you speak to me?" The voice had sounded close to him; and now again, with an angry tone, it cried-- "Some one has got hold of my leg!" "Oh, I dare say I have," said Todd, "but I didn't know. There, I have left go. Who are you, sir, eh?" "Oh! don't bother!" "Well, but is there any danger?" "Danger! I rather think there is. I suppose you are the love of a passenger that the captain brought on board?" "Yes, I am the passenger," said Todd. Why he should be called a love of a passenger he did not exactly know; but he repeated his question concerning the condition of the ship; and at the next lull of wind, for it came now very strangely in gusts, he got a not very consolatory reply. "Why, as to danger," said the man, "that's rather past, I reckon; but, perhaps, you are a landsman, and have not yet thoroughly made up your mind." "To what?" "To be drowned, some day or night, as I have." "Oh, no--no! Don't say that. Drowning is a very dreadful death, indeed. I am sure it is." "It may, or it may not be so," said the man, "but whether it is or not, you and I are very likely soon to find out, for the old craft is going at last." "Going?" "Yes. It's all up with her, and it will soon be all down with her, likewise." "But the ship goes easier through the sea." "Oh, ah, she's filling, you see, and settling lower down in the water, so you can't have quite so much pitching and tossing as you had an hour ago, hardly." "You can't mean that? You do not mean to tell me that there is no hope? Oh, say not so!" "Well, you can please yourself. I can tell you that the rudder has gone.--We have not a mast standing. There is already five feet of water in the hold, and we are drifting as hard as we can upon a lee-shore, so if you can make anything satisfactory out of that, I leave you to do it." "Did you say we were drifting to shore?" "A lee-shore." "Oh, dear. I'm glad to hear it. Any shore will do for me, if I can but get out of this confounded ship. What is that afar off? Is it a light? Oh, yes, it is a light." "It is. We are on the Sussex coast, somewhere, but I can't take upon myself to say where; but it don't matter a bit, for we shall go to pieces long before we reach the surf, and then in such a sea as this you might as well try to swallow the Channel at a few draughts as to swim." "But I can't swim at all." "It don't matter a bit." "But, my dear friend--" "Hold your row--I am not your dear friend nor anybody else's, just now. I tell you we shall be all drowned, and the best thing you can do, is to take it as easy as possible. What can be the good of making a fuss about it?" This information was to Todd of so deplorable a character--for to none is death so terrible as to the guilty--that he wept aloud and screamed with terror as the spray of the sea struck him on the face, and the wind roared and whistled over him. "Oh, no--no!" he cried. "I cannot die yet--I must not. Spare me--spare me! I am afraid to die!" "Oh, you stupid," said the sailors. "That comes now of not having had a proper sort of education. I make no doubt but your howling will pretty soon be put an end to." The situation of the ship was undoubtedly one of the greatest possible peril. Having by the violence of the tempest lost all her masts, and having had her rudder torn away, she was quite at the mercy of the winds and the waves; and the set of the sea, as well as the direction of the wind, carried her sometimes stern foremost and at other times head foremost, and at times broadside, on to the coast of Sussex, upon which the lights were at intervals dimly visible through the thick haze of the storm. It was truly a dreadful night, and such as fully merited the worst apprehensions of the sailor, who had spoken so coolly to Todd of his coming fate. There was but one chance for those on board of the vessel, and that was that the wind might abate sufficiently to enable some boats to put off from the Sussex coast, provided they happened to be off a part of it where such accommodation was to be had, and rescue those upon the wreck. The lights that at intervals were visible, rather favoured the supposition that it was a populous part of the coast that the ill-starred struggling ship was driving fast upon. Todd, however, did not know of that slender hope, and he gave himself up to despair. To a landsman nothing could exceed the real horrors of the scene on board the ship, and, indeed, to one well accustomed to the sea, there was quite enough to produce much terror. All but three persons connected with the working of the ship had been washed overboard during the gale. Both of the men with whom Todd had had the meeting in the cart were at the bottom of the sea, and all their struggles and smugglings were over. Todd did not know that, though. It was quite evident to practical observers that the gale was abating, for it no longer was so steady and so continuous a wind that blew with fury over the fated ship; and although the sea still ran high, it did not break over the vessel with such thundering impetuosity. A very faint glow of daylight, too, began to come over the sea. If Todd had had mind enough left to look about him now, he would have seen that there was some food for hope, although not much; but the fact was, that he had so thoroughly made up his mind that all was lost, that he did not look for consolation. How poor and how miserable appeared to him, at this moment, all his struggles for wealth--that wealth, for the attainment of which he had struggled through such gigantic crimes! How much happier, he could not help thinking, it would have been for him to have gone on all his life in plodding industry, than to endeavour as he had done to find a short road to fortune, and only to end in finding a short one to death. One of the seamen cried out in a loud voice-- "Save themselves who can! We shall be on shore, now, in less than five minutes! We are all going now as safe as nuts!" CHAPTER CLXIX. TAKES A PEEP AT SOME FRIENDS OF THE READER. For a brief space, now, in order to connect more closely the events of this narrative, we will leave Sweeney Todd to the perils and chances of the disabled ship, and the storm in the Channel, while we conduct the reader to the society of other persons, in whom it is to be presumed we are largely interested. In the most cheerful room of one of the prettiest houses at Brighton, facing the beach upon the Esplanade, which is unrivalled, was a rather select party. That party consisted of old and well-tried friends of the reader, and when we announce of whom it was composed, it will be seen that their society is decidedly good. First of all, there was Ben the beef-eater. Poor Ben had never before been at a sea-coast town, and everything was consequently to him new and strange. Yet he felt amazingly happy, because he was surrounded by those whom he loved with all his heart; and if he had now and then a wandering thought, it was to the animals in the Tower, to whom he was accustomed, and who, no doubt, missed Ben quite as much, if not more, than he missed them. Then there was Tobias. Yes, Tobias was there, looking so fresh and so well, notwithstanding that he knew Sweeney Todd was at large, that it was quite a congratulation for those who felt that they were his friends to see him. The rest of the party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Ingestrie, and Colonel Jeffrey and his young bride, and Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, so that there was really quite an assemblage in that room. The colonel holds a letter in his hands, and is speaking, while all eyes are turned upon him. "Yes," said the colonel, "this letter is from Sir Richard Blunt, and I will read it to you, if you will be so good as to listen to it." "Oh, yes--yes," said everybody. "Very well. Here it is, then." Upon this, the colonel read as follows:-- "Craven Street, London. "MY DEAR COLONEL,--No news of Todd. We are sparing neither pains nor expense in tracking him; and it is an absolute impossibility that he should escape us long. Accident, I am convinced, much more than any design or luck upon his part, has had the effect as yet of keeping him out of our hands. But I do not think that it would be very difficult to count the time, in hours, between this and the period when he must be dead or a prisoner. "I hope that all our dear friends with you are quite well, and that they will banish from their minds all fear of the revenge of Todd. Nothing is more improbable than that he should dream of finding his way to the obscure little village where you are. I hope all of you are benefiting much by the health-giving breezes of the ocean. "With kind regard to all, I am, my dear colonel, "Yours very truly, "RICHARD BLUNT." "Still at large!" said Mark Ingestrie, upon the conclusion of the letter. "So the rascal is still at large?" "Yes," said the colonel; "but you hear what the magistrate says, that he will soon have him." "Yes, but that is rather a hope than a certainty." Tobias changed colour, and Johanna turned to him, saying, in a kind tone-- "Nay, now, Tobias, you have nothing to fear from Todd. Did you not hear what the letter said upon that point?" "Yes oh, yes!" replied Tobias. "I will fear nothing while you are all so good to me." "I tell's you what it is," said Ben. "That 'ere fellow is for all the world just like one of the wild beastesses as declines being tamed. We had one once as got away one night, and he swam over the river, you see." "And did you catch him?" said Tobias. "After a time, yes. Easy did it." "Who did it, sir?" "Easy--It ain't a who. It's a way of doing things. You take it easy, you know." "Oh, yes, I understand now." "Well, I went arter the fellow, and traced him up and down the streets on the Surrey side, till I got him into a court where there was no thoroughfare, and then I nabbed him." "And he did no mischief?" "None to signify. He settled a couple of old women and five or six children, that was all." Tobias shuddered, and the colonel said-- "I cannot but be surprised that Sir Richard has not yet found out the retreat of Todd, and my own opinion is that he is dead." "It is more than probable," said Ingestrie; "I have thought so several times. When he found that there was no hope for him, and that he was in a state of destitution, or something near it, which must be the fact, it is likely enough that he has laid violent hands upon himself, and his body may not be found for a long time." "Well," said the colonel "let us get out for a stroll upon the beach. It will be dark in another half hour, and as there is no moon to-night, we shall not like to remain out." They all rose upon this suggestion, but the evening dropped so rapidly, and several black clouds piled themselves up in the sky, that Ingestrie, after stepping out upon the balcony and looking at the weather, came back again, and said-- "You had better remain in, all of you. I have seen enough of the sea, and heard enough of the wind, to prophesy that this will be a rough night in the Channel." "Will there be a storm, Mark?" said Johanna. "There will be a very good imitation of one, you may depend, if not a real one." "If there should be," said the colonel, "you will be rather surprised, for, I can tell you, that a gale off this coast is no joke. You would be truly amazed at the violence with which a regular south-western sets upon this shore." "I can easily imagine it," said Mark Ingestrie. "See, it darkens every minute, and what an angry look that small cloud right away in the horizon has." "It has, indeed," said Johanna, as she clung to the arm of her husband. "Do you think, Mark, that any poor souls will be wrecked to-night?" "Probably enough; but the coast of Suffolk and the Irish Channel will be the worst. It will be child's play here in comparison." A strange booming noise came across the sea at this moment, and the colonel cried out-- "Is that a gun, or is it thunder?" "Thunder!" said Ingestrie; "hark! there it is again! There is a storm some forty or fifty miles off. It's right away in the German Ocean, most likely; but only look now even, dark as it is getting, how the sea is rising, and what an odd seething condition it is getting into." They all stood on the balcony and looked out towards the sea. The surface of it was to the eye only undulating quite gently, and yet, strange to say, it was rapidly covering with white foam, and that from no perceptible cause, for as yet the wind was a mere trifle. "How is that?" said Johanna. "The sea is not very rough, and yet it is all white." "It is the worst sign of bad weather," said Ingestrie. "The commotion has begun below the surface in some mysterious way, and that white foam which you see each moment rapidly increasing is cast up; but soon the whole surface will begin to heave, and then you will find out what a storm is." "We may hear it," said the colonel; "but if this darkness continues, I doubt very much if we shall be able to bring any other of our senses into requisition upon the occasion." "Hush!" said Tobias, "what is that?" He held up his hand as he spoke, and as they were then all profoundly still, a strange, low, wailing sound came over the water. "What can it be?" said Johanna. "Only the gale," smiled Ingestrie. "It's coming, now. That's the sigh of the wind over the water. You will soon hear it, I can tell you. Now, only notice how still everything is. There, look how that bird flies in a terrified manner close to the ground. It knows that the gale is coming. The sound you heard with intense listening, you will be able now to hear without listening at all. It will force itself upon your notice. Hilloa! There it comes! Look at the sea!" A few miles out from the shore the sea seemed to rise like a wall of water, tipped with a ridge of foam, and then down it came with such a splash and a roar, that it was plainly heard on the shore, and then, in a moment or two, the impulse so given communicated itself to the whole of the sea, and it was fearfully agitated. With a roar and a shriek, the gale swept on, and from that moment conversation was almost out of the question. The ladies of the party were glad to get into the house again, and in a little time the colonel and Ingestrie found it anything but comfortable to remain in the balcony; and as the night had fairly set in, they likewise retreated. The gale lasted the whole of the evening, and when our friends retired to rest it seemed to be rather increasing than otherwise. It was still dark when Ingestrie was awakened from his sleep by a knocking at the door of his room. "Hilloa!" he said; "who's there?" "It is I," said Colonel Jeffrey. "Will you get up, Mr. Ingestrie? It is nearly morning, and they say a ship is going down about a couple of miles off the coast." "I'm coming!" cried Ingestrie, as he sprang out of bed and dressed himself with amazing rapidity. "If it does go down, it will not be the only one that finds the bottom of the Channel to-night." When he reached the lower part of the house, he found the colonel and Ben waiting for him. "This has been an awful night," said the colonel. "Well, I don't know," said Ingestrie; "for I have been fast asleep." "Asleep!" cried Ben; "I couldn't get a wink of sleep but once, and then I dreamt I was a mermaid. Why, what with the howling of the wind, which is a great deal worse than our lioness when she wants her knuckle of beef, and the washing of the water, I couldn't rest at all." "The voice of the wind," said Ingestrie, "always has the effect of sending me fast asleep. But you said something of a ship in distress, did you not?" "Yes. They say that in the offing there is a large ship, and that she is evidently water-logged, and must go down, unless she drives ashore." "The deuce she must! Let us run down to the beach at once, and see what we can do." With this, they all three left the house, and made the best of their way to the beach along the execrable shingle of the Brighton coast. It was far from being an easy task to proceed, for the wind was terrific, and now and then, when they did reach the beach, there came a sea washing in, that drenched them with spray. A crowd of people had collected upon the coast; some were holding up lanterns on the end of poles, and many were prepared with ropes to cast to the aid of any of the crew of the vessel that might swim to the shore. "There she is," said Ingestrie; "I see her! It's a small craft, and she is a wreck already." "She must go down, then?" said the colonel. "I don't know. She is drifting in shore, but evidently quite unmanageable. She is a sheer hulk. If they had the least control over her, they could run her in in ten minutes on to the beach; but she is going about like a log." "Then, she may go down in deep water yet?" "In truth, she may." "Here are plenty of boats?" "Boats? My dear friend, there never was a boat yet that could live in such a sea as this. It is out of the question. You find no one makes the attempt, and I am quite sure that among the hardy fishermen of this place, there are many would do so if it were at all practicable; but it is most certain that death in the surf would be the result." "I fear it would, indeed." "There she goes!" cried a voice. "Eh?" said Ben, turning round and round, "I don't see anybody in the female line." "The ship!" cried Ingestrie. "They mean the ship. But she is not gone yet. There she is, still. Do you see her, colonel, like a tub upon the water? There, right away, by yon light-coloured cloud." "I do--I do!" The ship had not gone down. She had only settled for a moment or two in the trough of the sea; and it was now quite evident that the wreck was rapidly drifting towards the shore, so that there was an expectation that it might strike in shallow water, and so give the crew a chance of escape from death. CHAPTER CLXX. MARK INGESTRIE RESCUES A SHIPWRECKED MAN. The scene now upon the beach at Brighton was one of the most exciting that can well be imagined. No one who has not stood upon a beach under such circumstances, and seen a brave ship battling with the waters, can have any real idea of it. Language is too weak to paint the feelings of such a conjunction of circumstances. It is so hopeless a thing to stand upon the shore, and listen to the wind roaring in its fury, and to see the waves dashing in mad gyrations hither and thither, while a few frail and creaking timbers only keep some poor mortals from sinking into the sea, which, like a seething cauldron, seems ready to devour them, that it is enough to unman the stoutest heart. No wonder that persons with kindly sympathies and gentle feelings towards human nature, such as Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie undoubtedly had, should suffer acutely to see others so suffer. If there had been any likelihood of a boat reaching the ill-fated ship, Ingestrie would have been the first to propose such a measure, and the first, with hand and heart, to carry it out; but there was no such likelihood. Our friend had seen too much of service afloat, and was by far too good a sailor to suppose for an instant that any boat could live for a cable's length from the shore in such a sea as that! "Is it quite impossible to aid them?" said the colonel. "Quite," said Ingestrie, "unless they strike close in shore. Then, something may, perhaps, be done." "Ay, sir," said a weather-beaten boatman who stood close to Ingestrie, "you are right there. If they only drift a little further in, and are still afloat, when the keel touches ground they may get ashore some of them." "No boat," said the colonel, "could reach her?" "Boat, sir! My little bit of a craft will do now and then things that one ought not to expect, from anything in the shape of a boat; but that surf would toss it up like a piece of cork, and it would only be making bad worse to draw a few brave fellows from land here, because others are going down at sea." "You are right," said Ingestrie. "Do you happen to know the craft out yonder?" "No, sir. She is so swept clear, that it would be hard to know her if she were one's own; but I don't think she belongs to this port at all." "The gale is going down a bit." "It is, sir. Don't you see it's coming in puffs like--It won't last much longer." "Gone!" cried a hundred voices at once. "No--no!" cried Ingestrie. "Don't say that." A wild shriek came across the surface of the water, and the ship that had been doing battle with the winds and the waves, disappeared. "Oh, this is, indeed, terrible," said Colonel Jeffrey. "It is too horrible!" "It is, indeed!" cried Ingestrie. "There is but one chance now of doing any good, and that is in case any poor fellow should get washed on shore through the surf with a few sparks of life in him. Hilloa, my men! Get out your tackle, and let us look out for the survivors. Some one may try to fight for it yet." The sailors and boatmen upon the beach were charmed with the idea that they might be able to do some good in this way; and as they soon found that Ingestrie knew perfectly well what he was about, they listened to his orders, in the course they should take, and obeyed them with alacrity and skill. He had some of the long line connected with the fishing-nets, and to which corks were attached, cast out into the sea by the aid of little kedge anchors, so that the waves did not bring them back again, and as the other ends of the lines were held firmly on the shore, any one might be struggling for life amid the surf, would have had a good chance of preservation by laying hold of one of those lines. "We may do some good," said Ingestrie, as he tied one end of one of the ropes round his waist. "What are you about?" said the colonel. "Oh, nothing. Do not fancy I am going to throw myself into the waves. But if I should chance to see any poor soul struggling for life, it would take something to prevent me from going after him." "But think of yourself." "Oh, I cannot come to any sort of harm, you know. They will easily be able to haul me on shore, you perceive, by the other end of the rope, and I have been rather used to fighting my way through the waves." "Heaven speed you, if the occasion for your doing so again should arise, my gallant friend. Far be it from me to dissuade you against such an attempt; and I am sure that even she who loves you best of all, would be the first to encourage you." "Of course she would." "All lost, sir," said a sailor. "No, don't say that!" cried Ingestrie. "Where is that night glass that some one had here a little while ago?" "Here, sir." Ingestrie placed the telescope to his eye, and looked fixedly in the direction of the wreck. He then handed it to the sailor, and said-- "Who has a good hold of the end of this rope that is about me?" "All's right, sir. There will be no lack of hands with that. But you don't mean to go through the surf, sir?" "I see a human being struggling with the foam, and from his actions he is no swimmer. I cannot stand here and see him die, while there is a chance of saving him. Hark you! Don't wait for me to sing out, but use your own eyes, and begin to pull in the moment you see me close with him. The dawn is coming rapidly, and you will see better each moment. Now, I'm off." "For the love of Heaven be careful!" cried the colonel. Ingestrie smiled, and then dashed into the roaring, bubbling surf of the sea, with the rope round his waist. [Illustration: Mark Ingestrie Risks His Own Life To Save Todd.] A loud cheer burst from the throats of all present, as the heroic action was witnessed. If anything had been wanting, which it was not, to urge the gallant Mark Ingestrie on his brave and noble adventure, that cheer would have done it; but amid the roar and din of the water about his ears, it is doubtful if he could have heard it at all, or any noise of ten times the intensity. The figure in the sea, that had attracted the attention of Ingestrie, was now plainly perceived by the colonel, and by all who were upon the beach. To the practised eyes of the sailors then present, it was evident that the body must be lashed to some very buoyant substance, which enabled it to keep afloat, not-withstanding the roll of the sea, and the breaking of the waves over it. The person was evidently not swimming, although, by the wash of the tide, and the set of the wind, he was being driven into shore. Mark Ingestrie felt that his only chance of getting through the surf was to dive under it, and that manoeuvre he executed with a skill that few could have commanded and to the admiration and delight of all the spectators of his heroic conduct, he appeared outside the roaring edge of the sea, quite able to swim gallantly towards the shipwrecked man. As he had said, the dawn was coming fast now, so that there was no great difficulty in seeing him, and in watching, with some degree of accuracy, his movements. "He will do it!" said the colonel. "Do it?" said the sailor who had the first hold of the rope that was round the body of Mark Ingestrie. "Do it? Of course he will. The man who has the heart and hand to try these sort of things, always does them." "I believe you are right, my friend," said the colonel. "I know I am, sir. I have seen too much of this sort of thing, and if I had not been a little out of sorts in my larboard leg, I should have gone; but I'm not all right, you see, sir, so it won't do. Ah, there he has him! It's all right enough--I told you so." The progress of Ingestrie was watched by many eyes with the most intense interest. Under no circumstances was distance so deceiving as at sea; and although the black object in the water, which the practised eye of Ingestrie had shown him, was a man, appeared to be only just without the line of the surf, he (Ingestrie) knew that the distance was, in reality, much greater, and that he would have a good swim through those troubled waters before he could get within arm's-length of the shipwrecked person. To be sure, as the body was drifting to the shore, he made better progress, and the distance between him and it was diminished much more rapidly than as if it had been stationary. Colonel Jeffrey distinctly saw Ingestrie reach the body, at length, and the sailor who had hold of the rope, likewise saw him, and he sung out-- "Now, pull away; but easy, my lads--a steady pull, and no jerking, or you will hinder him instead of helping. That's it--easy now, easy." "Ah!" said Ben, who had come down to the beach to see what was going on. "Easy does everything, as I always said. Pray, Colonel Jeffrey, what unfortunate animal is that you are dragging out of the water?" "Don't you know, Ben?" "Not I. But I suppose it is some poor half-drowned fellow from the ship." "It is that, as well, I hope; but the person who is with him, and who is being hauled to the shore, is no other than our friend, Mr. Ingestrie." "What, Johanna's husband?" "The same." "Oh, lor! oh, lor! I'm afraid easy won't do it then, and that my little girl will be a widow. Give me hold of the rope. If pulling will do it, I'll soon have him on shore again all right. The idea, now, of a man, with the nicest young creature of a wife in the world, going into the sea at the end of a rope, and covering himself all over with froth and sea-weed! Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's truly dreadful, it is; and easy certainly don't do it." Ben would have lent his aid to pull the rope, but the colonel kept him back, as it was not strength but skill and tact that in the process was required, and the rope was in the hands of men who had both. It was clear that Ingestrie had got hold of the floating object, whatever it was, and that, as he was pulled into shore, he brought it with him. When he reached the edge of the surf again, a quick pull brought him at once through it, and a couple of the sailors, dashing into the waters, got a hold of him, and drew him right up on to the beach between them. Half a dozen more brought to the shore the body of a man, tied to a plank of wood. Poor Mark was nearly exhausted. He was just able only to smile faintly in answer to the colonel's anxious inquiries. "He must be carried home," said the colonel. "Lend me some assistance, my brave fellows, to do so." "No--no!" Ingestrie managed just to say faintly. "Take him--take him!" He pointed to the man whom he had rescued, and the colonel immediately said, "Make yourself easy about him, my dear friend. The sailors will carry him to the house, and if the vital spark has not quite fled, you shall have the pleasure of knowing that you have saved him. But it is yourself that I wish to have got home." "Can you walk?" said Ben. "I--don't think--I will try." Poor Ingestrie did try, but he was really so completely exhausted by the efforts he had made, that it was quite evident that he was unequal to the task of walking along the shingle. "Give it up," said Ben. "You can't do it." "He must be carried," said the colonel. "To be sure he must," said Ben; "and this is the way to do it." With these words, Ben did not hesitate another moment, but taking Mark Ingestrie in his arms as though he had been an infant, he walked over the pebbly beach with him as easily as though he had been only a very ordinary kind of bundle to carry. As he went on, it occurred to Ben that Johanna might see him carrying her husband home, and might imagine that some fearful accident had happened to him, so, by way of putting an end to that idea, he kept crying out as he got near the house-- "Here we are! All alive and kicking! It's only a joke. All alive--alive O! Here we are! it's only a joke! All alive! alive! and ready for feeding time!" CHAPTER CLXXI. A RATHER IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IS MADE. The man, who appeared to be the only one at all--dead or alive--who was preserved from the wreck of the ship off the coast of Sussex, was carried to the house where all our friends were staying, and being taken into the kitchen, was there placed in the care of a couple of medical men, who were hastily sent for, and who quickly restored animation to the seemingly drowned person. It was reported to Ingestrie that the stranger was all right, and as he himself had by that time thoroughly recovered, and had changed his saturated apparel for a dry suit, the news gave him the liveliest satisfaction. "Well," he said, "it is something that I have not gone through that tremendous surf in vain." "Yes, Mark," said Johanna, with the tears starting to her eyes, "but we must, indeed, get away from the sea-coast, and then you cannot be tempted to expose your life in such adventures. Only think of what might be the consequences!" "Yes," said the colonel. "It is hardly fair, although, at the moment, one cannot help admiring the heroism of the act." "I don't know how it can be avoided," said Ingestrie. "If you see a poor fellow struggling for his life, and you feel that you may save him at a little risk to yourself, it seems a strange thing not to do it." "It does," said old Mr. Oakley, "and I should be the last to say no to the noble impulse; only if there are to be many storms off his coast, I shall second the resolution of Johanna that you ought to live somewhere else." "And so shall I," said Arabella. "And I," said Tobias. "He's better, they say," cried Ben, popping his head into the room. "The doctors say he is better, and that, after he has had a sleep, he will be all right." "The sailor belonging to the ship you mean?" said the colonel, "What sort of a person is he, Ben?" "Haven't seen him yet, so can't tell; but they have made up a good fire in the back kitchen, and he is lying on a sofa there, and going to sleep, and the doctor says it will do him no good to disturb him, or bother him by talking." "It certainly will not," said Ingestrie. "It matters very little to us who he is, poor fellow. He is saved--that is the principal thing." "Yes," said Johanna, "that is everything; and, at all events, Mark, there is one human being who through life, let his position and prospects be what they may, must look upon you as his friend and preserver." "Ah!" said poor Tobias, "We should all be very happy if Sweeney Todd were but in the hands of justice. It is very strange why I tremble so to-day at the thought of him; and I did not tremble yesterday." "You have no occasion to tremble to-day, nor yesterday either, Tobias," said Arabella. "Remember how surrounded you are by your best friends, and remember, likewise, that, after all, Todd is but a man, and by this time he must be but a poor, weak, dispirited one, and much more intent upon devising means for his own safety, than in carrying out his revenges." "If, indeed, he lives," said the colonel. "Just so," said Ingestrie. "My opinion will very much incline to the idea that he is dead, if Sir Richard Blunt does not very shortly get some news of him." "That will be a pity," said Tobias, "unless it can be proved past all dispute, for while it continues only a likely thing, the dread of him will still cling to my heart, and I shall never be happy." "Nay, Tobias," said the colonel, "you must pluck up a spirit. The probability is now, that Sweeney Todd, let him be where he may, is much more afraid of meeting you than you can possibly be of meeting him." "I wish I thought so," said Tobias. "But only look now how sweetly the sun is peeping out on the water after the storm there. This is very beautiful." Tobias walked to the window; and his praise of the beauty of the morning caused the breakfast-table to be, in a very few minutes, completely deserted. To be sure, the praise that the imaginative boy had lavished upon the young day, was by no means misapplied; for a more lovely day than that which broke over Brighton, after that terrific gale in the Channel, could not be conceived. It seemed as if the good genii of earth, sea, and sky, were striving to banish from the minds of all the inhabitants of that place the recollections of the frightful storm that had made the world dismal and terrific. "Indeed, it is lovely," said Johanna, "Who, now, to look at that placid sheet of water, with scarce a ripple upon its surface to reflect the sunbeams, would think that only a few hours ago, it presented a scene of such fury that it was a shuddering terror to look upon it?" "And yet," said Ingestrie, "it is these varieties that make the great world beautiful." "Not a doubt of it; but they require more stern minds than mine, Mark, to stand them." The party now, finding that the day was so delightful, sallied out to the beach to make some inquiry among the sailors and boatmen, concerning the damage that the gale had done. The moment Mark Ingestrie appeared with his friends, he was recognised as the person who had performed the gallant exploit of going through the surf to the rescue of the shipwrecked man, and he became immediately the observed of all observers. This sort of homage was at once flattering and embarrassing to Johanna. She felt proud that it was her husband who was entitled to so much popular consideration and respect, and yet, with her natural timidity of disposition, she shrank from sharing it with him. Some eager inquiries were made of Ingestrie now, regarding the man he had saved, and it was a great gratification to him to be enabled to state that he was doing well, although he had not himself seen him since he grappled with him in the water, and brought him to the beach. A few fragments only of the wreck had been washed to the shore, but nothing that could in any way enable them to identify the vessel; so that that was a species of information that must come from the man who had been saved, whenever he should be able to go through the fatigue of an interview with his friend and his deliverer. After an hour's stroll upon the beach, the party, at a slow pace, returned to the house they had hired during their stay at Brighton. The moment they got to the door, the colonel's servant appeared with his horse, which he had ordered to be ready for him at twelve o'clock. "Just walk him up and down," said the colonel, to the man; "I shall be ready in a few minutes. Hilloa! my friend, Hector, are you here?" The dog was with the horse, and the man said, touching his hat-- "We were half a mind, sir, to let Hector loose last night during the storm, for he is a famous fellow in the water; but knowing how much you valued him, we were afraid to do so." "I am glad you didn't," said the colonel. "You were quite right to keep him shut up. I would not have him come to any mischief for any money." The colonel entered the house, and when he and all his friends had got into the drawing-room, they sent for a servant to inquire how the poor wrecked man was getting on; and after a little time, one of the domestics of the house came to say that he was up and sitting, dressed, in the front kitchen, and would be happy to see, and to thank those who had saved him from death in the raging sea. "Shall we have him up here?" said the colonel. "Yes, if you please," said Ingestrie; "and, I daresay, a glass of wine won't hurt him, while he tells us the name of his ship, poor fellow, and who and what he is." "Certainly not," said Mr. Oakley. "I will get out the decanter." "Allow me, my dear," said Mrs. Oakley. "You know you always break every glass that you interfere with." "Oh, stuff!" "But I say, Mr. Oakley, that you do." "Easy does it," said Ben, in his deepest bass voice. "Easy does it, I say--Easy!" "How cold I am," said Tobias. "Cold, Tobias!" said Ingestrie. "My good fellow, we will have a fire if you are cold." "Oh, no--no. Not on my account, Mr. Ingestrie, I shall be better soon; but I feel as if something were going to happen. My heart beats so fearfully, and at the same time, I shake as if--as if--I know not what." "Give him a glass of wine," said Ingestrie to Johanna. Tobias took the glass of wine, and it evidently did him some good; but yet he looked ill and uneasy. Orders were given that the shipwrecked man should be shown up to the drawing-room, for they were all curious to know to what ship he had belonged, and how many had fallen victims to the frightful gale that had made the vessel such a complete wreck. "He is coming, poor fellow," said the colonel. "I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He comes slowly. No doubt he is weak yet." "Poor fellow!" sighed Johanna. "Have the wine ready to give him at once, mother. It will put some heart into him. What must be his feelings towards you, Mark?" "Come now," said Ingestrie; "don't plague him, any of you, about his being saved by me, and all that sort of thing. Just say nothing about it. Sailors are no great orators, at the best of times, and if he begins to make a speech about his gratitude, you may depend he will never get to the end of it." "Yes; but he ought to know," said Mrs. Oakley, "who he owes his life to, under providence." "Hem!" said Ben. He never liked to hear Mrs. Oakley begin to use religious phrases, as they had a tendency to remind him of the late Mr. Lupin. The door of the drawing-room opened, and all eyes were eagerly bent in that direction. A servant came in, and said-- "The poor man is here, if you please. Is he to come in, now? He seems rather timid." "Oh, yes," said Ingestrie, "let him come in, by all manner of means, poor fellow. He and I made acquaintance in the sea, and we ought to be good friends, now." A tall, gigantic figure marched three paces into the room. "_Todd!_" shouted Tobias. "_It is Todd!_" It was Sweeney Todd! With one glance round the room, he recognised an enemy in every face. With a perfect yell of fear and rage, he turned, and dashed down the staircase. The servant who had conducted him up to the drawing-room, and whom he met in his way, he knocked down with one blow, and in another moment he was in the street. The colonel's horse was close to the door. Todd felled the man who held it by a blow on the top of the head, that took him so suddenly, he could not guard against it, and then springing upon the horse, the murderer raised another wild unearthly kind of shout, and set off at a gallop. [Illustration: Todd Seizes The Colonel's Horse, Mounts, And Makes Another Escape.] So sudden--so totally unexpected, and so appalling had been the presence of Todd in the drawing-room, that if a spectre had appeared among the people there assembled, and they had had no possible means of escaping from the belief that it was a spectre, they could not have been more confounded than they were upon this occasion. Poor Tobias, after uttering the exclamation that we have recorded, fell flat upon the floor. Ben swung backwards in his chair, and went with a tremendous crash right away into a corner. Ingestrie and the colonel rose together, and impeded each other in their efforts to follow Todd. Johanna, shrieking, clung to Ingestrie, and Arabella made a vain attempt to delay the colonel. "By Heaven he is off!" cried the colonel, as he heard the clatter of the horse's feet. "No!" shouted Ingestrie; "it cannot be!" "Easy does it," said Ben, from the corner into which he had fallen. "Easy--Easy!" "Johanna, unhand me, I implore you," cried Mark Ingestrie. "Do you wish the murderer to be lost sight of? Come on, colonel--you and I must engage in this pursuit. God of Heaven! the idea of me saving Todd from the waves!" The colonel and Ingestrie seized their hats, and rushed down the stairs, tumbling over the servant in the hall. The next object they came across was the groom who had had charge of the horse. They found him sitting on the pavement, looking as confused as possible. "Which way has he gone?" cried the colonel. "The--the man. Round that corner, and Hector has gone after him, like mad, sir. Oh, dear!" "Hector? Then he will be taken, for I will back Hector to hang upon him like grim death. Come with me to the nearest stable, Ingestrie, and let us get horses! Come--come!" CHAPTER CLXXII. THE PURSUIT OF TODD ON THE LONDON ROAD. The whole of these proceedings had really come with such a rush upon the senses of Mark Ingestrie, that he might well have been excused had he not been able to act with the energy that he did; but the strong desire to capture Sweeney Todd, and so to put an end to all the doubts and fears that were felt concerning him, upon the parts of those to whom he was fondly attached, roused the young man to action. Colonel Jeffrey was cooler than Ingestrie in the affair; but he was not a whit the less determined upon that account. In the course of seven or eight minutes at the outside, they were both mounted, and as there were plenty of people who could tell them in which direction Todd had gone, they were soon upon his track. [Illustration: Todd Pursued By The Colonel And Mark.] Todd had taken the London Road, and had really got a considerable distance onward, and if he had been, which he was far from being, a good horseman, there is very little doubt but that he would either have led his pursuers a long distance, or possibly escaped them altogether, for the animal that he rode was one that in skilful hands would have done wonders. It was no small aggravation to Colonel Jeffrey to be pursuing his own horse, while he himself was mounted upon a hack that was by no means equal to it. Skill, however, will get more work out of an indifferent steed than absolute ignorance will achieve from a first-rate one, so that after getting to the top of a rising ground about three miles out of Brighton, our friends saw Todd not three quarters of a mile in advance, coasting a little water-course to find a safe place to cross at. Notwithstanding the distance was great, the colonel knew his own horse in a moment. "Come on, Ingestrie," he said. "There he is!" "Are you sure?" "Quite. That's the rascal. Ah, there he goes through the water! The horse will carry him well across it, but he did not know that, so it is a bold step. On--on!" They had let their horses come rather easy up the ascent, for the colonel was too good a horseman to break down his steed, merely with an useless burst, when there might be a chase before it of some twenty or thirty miles yet, for all he knew to the contrary; and so, as the country, from the hill-top, sloped very gently right away to the north, they got on wonderfully, and without giving the cattle too much to do. To keep Todd in sight was everything now, for in that case they felt certain that they must eventually have him. From his actions, it did not seem that he was at all aware of his being so closely pursued, but suddenly they saw him pull up on an eminence and turn his horse's head in the direction of Brighton. They saw him shade his eyes with his hands, and take a long look, and then by the sudden start that he gave, and which caused the horse to plunge in alarm, they knew that he had seen them, and that from that moment he would strain every nerve to escape. The slight pause that Todd had made in order to look back and see if he were pursued or not, had given his foes the advantage of about one hundred yards, for they had pushed on during that pause with renewed vigour; but now bending low in the saddle, it was evident that he was doing his best to urge the colonel's horse onwards, and it went like the wind. "There he goes, colonel!" cried Ingestrie. "That pace will do for us pretty quickly. He is leaving us behind fast enough." "He is, by Heaven, and if he gets to a turn of the road, there is no knowing what fox-like trick he may play us. On--on, Ingestrie! There is no help for it, but to do our very best." For another minute and a half, now, not a word was exchanged between the friends. The road did take a turn, and for some time they were out of all sight of Todd, but the moment they themselves got round the elbow of the road, the colonel raised a shout of gratification, and then cried-- "There he is! He has had a fall. On--on!" Todd was in the middle of the road-way trying to mount the horse, from which it would appear as though he had been thrown, for the creature was rearing in evident alarm, and swerving every time that Todd put his foot in the stirrup. Maddened, then, at the idea that each moment his foes were gaining upon him, Todd made such a vigorous effort to mount, that he succeeded in doing so, although both his feet were out of the stirrups. He clung to the horse with desperation, and kicked it violently with his heels, striking it at the same time on the head violently with his clenched fist. The animal was driven half crazy by such unusual treatment, and after plunging and rearing for a few seconds, set off at such a gallop as no one could have believed any mortal horse could have achieved. "Off again!" cried the colonel. "I could have shot him, I think, Ingestrie, just now." "Then, why, in the name of all that's tantalising, did you not do so?" "Why, to tell the truth, I was afraid of hitting the horse. If it had kept still for a moment, it would have been all right; but I could not be certain of my aim as it was. Now, mind, we must have him, and I think he begins to find that fact out." Certainly, if any judgment could be come to, by the desperate manner in which Todd rode, it would appear as though he considered his career as all but at an end. Oh, how at that time he roared and raved that he had no fire-arms, by the aid of which he might turn and cope with his foes! If he had only had but a pair of pistols, he thought that not only would he have escaped, but escaped likewise with the intense gratification of destroying two of his enemies; but, then, he was totally unarmed, and if they should succeed in coming up with him, he had not even the means of self-destruction about him. Indifferent horseman, however, as Todd was, even he could not help seeing that he was far better mounted than those who were pursuing him and so, from that circumstance, he gathered just a faint hope that he might distance them by knocking up their steeds. From what he had already experienced of the mettle of the horse he had got hold of so providentially for him, he felt certain that if his pursuers were obliged to come to a pause only for a quarter of an hour, he should be able to place such a distance between him and them, that he might consider himself to be in comparative, if not absolute safety. To accomplish such a result, then, he felt that his plan was to keep right on within their sight, and let them sooner be tired out by the unwonted exertions that they would compel their inefficient cattle to make, with the vain hope of overtaking him. But Todd had to do with a man, in Colonel Jeffrey, who was quite equal to such an emergency. A stern chace is a long chace, but an escape even at considerable speed is a weary affair, with a foe directly behind; and the colonel calculated that allowing Todd all the difference in speed between the horses, it would be yet a long distance before he could throw them back so far that they would not be in a position to take advantage of any accident that might occur to him. "Cool and easy, Ingestrie," he said; "it's a question of time, now. The longer we can keep our horses on their legs, the better for us. Don't urge your horse too much." Todd had now reached a very wild and romantic part of the road. It wound through a cutting in a mass of chalk, which, as it would be impossible to surmount, and a tedious thing to go round, had been very roughly levelled to the width of a road, and the sides were covered with rank vegetation, for successive rains had washed down upon the face of the chalk a facing of loam, from which had sprung up gigantic weeds, and innumerable wild flowers. Todd had got about half way through this place, when, from the other end of it, there came a party of five horsemen. One man rode at the head of the party upon a black horse, which had evidently gone far that day. Todd and this man met face to face, and they simultaneously pronounced each other's names. "Sir Richard Blunt!" shrieked Todd. "Sweeney Todd!" said the magistrate. "Stop him!" shouted Ingestrie, as he and the colonel just got a sight of the horsemen beyond Todd. "Stop him!" With a yell, like that which might be supposed to come from a fiend, Todd swerved from the grasp of Sir Richard Blunt, who made a dart at his throat, and then, drawing up his knees, he gave his horse the rein, and darting past Sir Richard, he dashed right into the midst of the party of officers, who were behind, and fairly broke his way through them. "Not yet--not yet!" he shouted. "Ha!--ha! not yet!" "Fire!" cried Sir Richard Blunt. The sharp report of four holster-pistols sounded in the narrow road-way. Todd fell from his horse, and, terrified by the shots, the steed went off without him at a mad gallop. Twice Todd rolled over, and grasped handfuls of chalk and dust from the road; and then he lay upon his back profoundly still. In an instant, Sir Richard Blunt dismounted; and then Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie rode up to the spot. "You have--have--" cried Ingestrie. "Yes, at last, Mr. Ingestrie," said Sir Richard. "I had some information that he was hovering about the coast, and came here to see you all. I am sorry to defraud the gallows of its due: but there lies Todd!" A couple of the officers now dismounted, while the others held their horses, and they dragged the wretched man to the side of the road. "Is he dead?" said Ingestrie. "No," said Todd, opening his eyes. "He still lives to curse you all! I--" It was evident that he wished to say more; but he was bleeding internally, and he began to struggle with the volumes of blood that rose to his throat. With a horrible shriek, he rolled over on to his face, and then, after one sharp convulsion of his limbs, he lay perfectly still. One of the officers turned him round again. One glance at the face was sufficient. The guilty spirit of Sweeney Todd had fled at last to its account! "Dead," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Let the body lie here, and we will all ride on to Brighton, and from there send some conveyance for it. Mr. Ingestrie and you, Colonel Jeffrey, are witnesses of his end, and I can only say that I feel now as if a heavy weight were lifted off my breast. The good, and the kind, and true, need no longer live in fear of the wild vengeance of this man. Let us hope that Heaven will have more mercy upon his guilty soul than ever he had consideration for the sufferings of others." [Illustration: The Death Of Sweeney Todd.] CHAPTER CLXXIII. THE CONCLUSION. We have little to say in conclusion, now that the chief actor in the fearful Domestic Drama it has been our fate to record, is no more. Todd was buried in the old church-yard at Brighton, but no record of the spot where the murderer's bones decayed was preserved. Sir Richard Blunt lived long to enjoy the respect and the admiration of all who knew him, and died full of years and honours. The sunshine of the existence of Johanna and Mark was perfectly unclouded, and the colonel and Arabella, likewise, presented a true picture of connubial felicity. In due time Tobias was married to her whom he loved so well; and as he got older and more used to the world, that timidity of disposition that Todd by his cruelties had induced, entirely left him. Ben did not marry after all, and he never ceased to congratulate himself upon his escape. Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were happy in the happiness of Johanna. The mad-house at Peckham was completely pulled down, and in the well at the back of it was found the skeleton of the wretched victim of Fogg's villany. It was by his own hand that Fogg really died. Often as Johanna would sit on a winter's evening, with her children climbing upon her knee, she would, with a faltering voice, tell them what their dear father had suffered to procure for her and for them THE STRING OF PEARLS. PUBLISHED BY E. LLOYD, SALISBURY-SQUARE, FLEET-STREET. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Archaic and colloquial spelling and punctuation were retained. Chapter numbers were retained, even when mis-numbered. Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. Typographical errors were silently corrected. Three unpaired double quotation marks could not be corrected with confidence. 
7890	----	Blind Love by Wilkie Collins (completed by Walter Besant) CONTENTS PREFACE FIRST PERIOD I THE SOUR FRENCH WINE II THE MAN SHE REFUSED III THE REGISTERED PACKET IV THE GAME: MOUNTJOY LOSES V THE GAME: MOUNTJOY PLAYS A NEW CARD VI THE GAME: MOUNTJOY WINS VII DOCTORING THE DOCTOR VIII HER FATHER'S MESSAGE IX MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION X THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT XI MRS. VIMPANY'S FAREWELL XII LORD HARRY's DEFENCE THE SECOND PERIOD XIII IRIS AT HOME XIV THE LADY'S MAID XV MR. HENLEY'S TEMPER XVI THE DOCTOR IN FULL DRESS XVII ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH XVIII PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE XIX MR. HENLEY AT HOME XX FIRST SUSPICIONS OF IRIS XXI THE PARTING SCENE XXII THE FATAL WORDS THE THIRD PERIOD XXIII NEWS OF IRIS XXIV LORD HARRY'S HONEYMOON XXV THE DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES XXVI LONDON AND PARIS XXVII THE BRIDE AT HOME XXVIII THE MAID AND THE KEYHOLE XXIX THE CONQUEST OF MR. VIMPANY XXX SAXON AND CELT XXXI THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS XXXII GOOD-BYE TO IRIS XXXIII THE DECREE OF FATE XXXIV MY LORD'S MIND XXXV MY LADY'S MIND XXXVI THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHIEF XXXVII THE FIRST QUARREL XXXVIII ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS XXXIX THE MYSTERY OF THE HOSPITAL XL DIRE NECESSITY XLI THE MAN IS FOUND. XLII THE METTLESOME MAID XLIII FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD XLIV FICTION: IMPROVED BY THE DOCTOR XLV FACT: RELATED BY FANNY XLVI MAN AND WIFE XLVII THE PATIENT AND MY LORD XLVIII "THE MISTRESS AND THE MAID" XLIX THE NURSE IS SENT AWAY L IN THE ALCOVE LI WHAT NEXT? LII THE DEAD MAN'S PHOTOGRAPH LIII THE WIFE'S RETURN LIV ANOTHER STEP LV THE ADVENTURES OF A FAITHFUL MAID LVI FANNY'S NARRATIVE LVII AT LOUVAIN LVIII OF COURSE THEY WILL PAY LIX THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN ADVERTISEMENT LX ON THE EVE OF A CHANGE LXI THE LAST DISCOVERY LXII THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS LXIII A REFUGE LXIV THE INVINCIBLES PREFACE IN the month of August 1889, and in the middle of the seaside holiday, a message came to me from Wilkie Collins, then, though we hoped otherwise, on his death-bed. It was conveyed to me by Mr. A. P. Watt. He told me that his son had just come from Wilkie Collins: that they had been speaking of his novel, "Blind Love," then running in the _Illustrated London News_: that the novel was, unfortunately, unfinished: that he himself could not possibly finish it: and that he would be very glad, if I would finish it if I could find the time. And that if I could undertake this work he would send me his notes of the remainder. Wilkie Collins added these words: "If he has the time I think he will do it: we are both old hands at this work, and understand it, and he knows that I would do the same for him if he were in my place." Under the circumstances of the case, it was impossible to decline this request. I wrote to say that time should be made, and the notes were forwarded to me at Robin Hood's Bay. I began by reading carefully and twice over, so as to get a grip of the story and the novelist's intention, the part that had already appeared, and the proofs so far as the author had gone. I then turned to the notes. I found that these were not merely notes such as I expected--simple indications of the plot and the development of events, but an actual detailed scenario, in which every incident, however trivial, was carefully laid down: there were also fragments of dialogue inserted at those places where dialogue was wanted to emphasise the situation and make it real. I was much struck with the writer's perception of the vast importance of dialogue in making the reader seize the scene. Description requires attention: dialogue rivets attention. It is not an easy task, nor is it pleasant, to carry on another man's work: but the possession of this scenario lightened the work enormously. I have been careful to adhere faithfully and exactly to the plot, scene by scene, down to the smallest detail as it was laid down by the author in this book. I have altered nothing. I have preserved and incorporated every fragment of dialogue. I have used the very language wherever that was written so carefully as to show that it was meant to be used. I think that there is only one trivial detail where I had to choose because it was not clear from the notes what the author had intended. The plot of the novel, every scene, every situation, from beginning to end, is the work of Wilkie Collins. The actual writing is entirely his up to a certain point: from that point to the end it is partly his, but mainly mine. Where his writing ends and mine begins, I need not point out. The practised critic will, no doubt, at once lay his finger on the spot. I have therefore carried out the author's wishes to the best of my ability. I would that he were living still, if only to regret that he had not been allowed to finish his last work with his own hand! WALTER BESANT. BLIND LOVE THE PROLOGUE I SOON after sunrise, on a cloudy morning in the year 1881, a special messenger disturbed the repose of Dennis Howmore, at his place of residence in the pleasant Irish town of Ardoon. Well acquainted apparently with the way upstairs, the man thumped on a bed-room door, and shouted his message through it: "The master wants you, and mind you don't keep him waiting." The person sending this peremptory message was Sir Giles Mountjoy of Ardoon, knight and banker. The person receiving the message was Sir Giles's head clerk. As a matter of course, Dennis Howmore dressed himself at full speed, and hastened to his employer's private house on the outskirts of the town. He found Sir Giles in an irritable and anxious state of mind. A letter lay open on the banker's bed, his night-cap was crumpled crookedly on his head, he was in too great a hurry to remember the claims of politeness, when the clerk said "Good morning." "Dennis, I have got something for you to do. It must be kept a secret, and it allows of no delay." "Is it anything connected with business, sir?" The banker lost his temper. "How can you be such an infernal fool as to suppose that anything connected with business could happen at this time in the morning? Do you know the first milestone on the road to Garvan?" "Yes, sir." "Very well. Go to the milestone, and take care that nobody sees you when you get there. Look at the back of the stone. If you discover an Object which appears to have been left in that situation on the ground, bring it to me; and don't forget that the most impatient man in all Ireland is waiting for you." Not a word of explanation followed these extraordinary instructions. The head clerk set forth on his errand, with his mind dwelling on the national tendencies to conspiracy and assassination. His employer was not a popular person. Sir Giles had paid rent when he owed it; and, worse still, was disposed to remember in a friendly spirit what England had done for Ireland, in the course of the last fifty years. If anything appeared to justify distrust of the mysterious Object of which he was in search, Dennis resolved to be vigilantly on the look-out for a gun-barrel, whenever he passed a hedge on his return journey to the town. Arrived at the milestone, he discovered on the ground behind it one Object only--a fragment of a broken tea-cup. Naturally enough, Dennis hesitated. It seemed to be impossible that the earnest and careful instructions which he had received could relate to such a trifle as this. At the same time, he was acting under orders which were as positive as tone, manner, and language could make them. Passive obedience appeared to be the one safe course to take--at the risk of a reception, irritating to any man's self-respect, when he returned to his employer with a broken teacup in his hand. The event entirely failed to justify his misgivings. There could be no doubt that Sir Giles attached serious importance to the contemptible discovery made at the milestone. After having examined and re-examined the fragment, he announced his intention of sending the clerk on a second errand--still without troubling himself to explain what his incomprehensible instructions meant. "If I am not mistaken," he began, "the Reading Rooms, in our town, open as early as nine. Very well. Go to the Rooms this morning, on the stroke of the clock." He stopped, and consulted the letter which lay open on his bed. "Ask the librarian," he continued, "for the third volume of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Open the book at pages seventy-eight and seventy-nine. If you find a piece of paper between those two leaves, take possession of it when nobody is looking at you, and bring it to me. That's all, Dennis. And bear in mind that I shall not recover the use of my patience till I see you again." On ordinary occasions, the head clerk was not a man accustomed to insist on what was due to his dignity. At the same time he was a sensible human being, conscious of the consideration to which his responsible place in the office entitled him. Sir Giles's irritating reserve, not even excused by a word of apology, reached the limits of his endurance. He respectfully protested. "I regret to find, sir," he said, "that I have lost my place in my employer's estimation. The man to whom you confide the superintendence of your clerks and the transaction of your business has, I venture to think, some claim (under the present circumstances) to be trusted." The banker was now offended on his side. "I readily admit your claim," he answered, "when you are sitting at your desk in my office. But, even in these days of strikes, co-operations, and bank holidays, an employer has one privilege left--he has not ceased to be a Man, and he has not forfeited a man's right to keep his own secrets. I fail to see anything in my conduct which has given you just reason to complain." Dennis, rebuked, made his bow in silence, and withdrew. Did these acts of humility mean that he submitted? They meant exactly the contrary. He had made up his mind that Sir Giles Mountjoy's motives should, sooner or later, cease to be mysteries to Sir Giles Mountjoy's clerk. II CAREFULLY following his instructions, he consulted the third volume of Gibbon's great History, and found, between the seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth pages, something remarkable this time. It was a sheet of delicately-made paper, pierced with a number of little holes, infinitely varied in size, and cut with the smoothest precision. Having secured this curious object, while the librarian's back was turned, Dennis Howmore reflected. A page of paper, unintelligibly perforated for some purpose unknown, was in itself a suspicious thing. And what did suspicion suggest to the inquiring mind in South-Western Ireland, before the suppression of the Land League? Unquestionably---Police! On the way back to his employer, the banker's clerk paid a visit to an old friend--a journalist by profession, and a man of varied learning and experience as well. Invited to inspect the remarkable morsel of paper, and to discover the object with which the perforations had been made, the authority consulted proved to be worthy of the trust reposed in him. Dennis left the newspaper office an enlightened man--with information at the disposal of Sir Giles, and with a sense of relief which expressed itself irreverently in these words: "Now I have got him!" The bewildered banker looked backwards and forwards from the paper to the clerk, and from the clerk to the paper. "I don't understand it," he said. "Do you?" Still preserving the appearance of humility, Dennis asked leave to venture on a guess. The perforated paper looked, as he thought, like a Puzzle. "If we wait for a day or two," he suggested, "the Key to it may possibly reach us." On the next day, nothing happened. On the day after, a second letter made another audacious demand on the fast failing patience of Sir Giles Mountjoy. Even the envelope proved to be a Puzzle on this occasion; the postmark was "Ardoon." In other words, the writer had used the postman as a messenger, while he or his accomplice was actually in the town, posting the letter within half-a-minute's walk of the bank! The contents presented an impenetrable mystery, the writing looked worthy of a madman. Sentences appeared in the wildest state of confusion, and words were so mutilated as to be unintelligible. This time the force of circumstances was more than Sir Giles could resist. He took the clerk into his confidence at last. "Let us begin at the beginning," he said. "There is the letter you saw on my bed, when I first sent for you. I found it waiting on my table when I woke; and I don't know who put it there. Read it." Dennis read as follows: "Sir Giles Mountjoy,--I have a disclosure to make, in which one of the members of your family is seriously interested. Before I can venture to explain myself, I must be assured that I can trust to your good faith. As a test of this, I require you to fulfil the two conditions that follow--and to do it without the slightest loss of time. I dare not trust you yet with my address, or my signature. Any act of carelessness, on my part, might end fatally for the true friend who writes these lines. If you neglect this warning, you will regret it to the end of your life." To the conditions on which the letter insisted there is no need to allude. They had been complied with when the discoveries were made at the back of the milestone, and between the pages of Gibson's history. Sir Giles had already arrived at the conclusion that a conspiracy was in progress to assassinate him, and perhaps to rob the bank. The wiser head clerk pointed to the perforated paper and the incomprehensible writing received that morning. "If we can find out what these mean," he said, "you may be better able, sir, to form a correct opinion." "And who is to do that?" the banker asked. "I can but try, sir," was the modest reply, "if you see no objection to my making the attempt." Sir Giles approved of the proposed experiment, silently and satirically, by a bend of his head. Too discreet a man to make a suspiciously ready use of the information which he had privately obtained, Dennis took care that his first attempt should not be successful. After modestly asking permission to try again, he ventured on the second occasion to arrive at a happy discovery. Lifting the perforated paper, he placed it delicately over the page which contained the unintelligible writing. Words and sentences now appeared (through the holes in the paper) in their right spelling and arrangement, and addressed Sir Giles in these terms: "I beg to thank you, sir, for complying with my conditions. You have satisfied me of your good faith. At the same time, it is possible that you may hesitate to trust a man who is not yet able to admit you to his confidence. The perilous position in which I stand obliges me to ask for two or three days more of delay, before I can safely make an appointment with you. Pray be patient--and on no account apply for advice or protection to the police." "Those last words," Sir Giles declared, "are conclusive! The sooner I am under the care of the law the better. Take my card to the police-office." "May I say a word first, sir?" "Do you mean that you don't agree with me?" "I mean that." "You were always an obstinate man Dennis; and it grows on you as you get older. Never mind! Let's have it out. Who do _you_ say is the person pointed at in these rascally letters?" The head clerk took up the first letter of the two and pointed to the opening sentence: "Sir Giles Mountjoy, I have a disclosure to make in which one of the members of your family is seriously interested." Dennis emphatically repeated the words: "one of the members of your family." His employer regarded him with a broad stare of astonishment. "One of the members of my family?" Sir Giles repeated, on his side. "Why, man alive, what are you thinking of? I'm an old bachelor, and I haven't got a family." "There is your brother, sir." "My brother is in France--out of the way of the wretches who are threatening me. I wish I was with him!" "There are your brother's two sons, Sir Giles." "Well? And what is there to be afraid of? My nephew, Hugh, is in London--and, mind! not on a political errand. I hope, before long, to hear that he is going to be married--if the strangest and nicest girl in England will have him. What's wrong now?" Dennis explained. "I only wished to say, sir, that I was thinking of your other nephew." Sir Giles laughed. "Arthur in danger!" he exclaimed. "As harmless a young man as ever lived. The worst one can say of him is that he is throwing away his money--farming in Kerry." "Excuse me, Sir Giles; there's not much chance of his throwing away his money, where he is now. Nobody will venture to take his money. I met with one of Mr. Arthur's neighbours at the market yesterday. Your nephew is boycotted." "So much the better," the obstinate banker declared. "He will be cured of his craze for farming; and he will come back to the place I am keeping for him in the office." "God grant it!" the clerk said fervently. For the moment, Sir Giles was staggered. "Have you heard something that you haven't told me yet?" he asked. "No, sir. I am only bearing in mind something which--with all respect--I think you have forgotten. The last tenant on that bit of land in Kerry refused to pay his rent. Mr. Arthur has taken what they call an evicted farm. It's my firm belief," said the head clerk, rising and speaking earnestly, "that the person who has addressed those letters to you knows Mr. Arthur, and knows he is in danger--and is trying to save your nephew (by means of your influence), at the risk of his own life." Sir Giles shook his head. "I call that a far-fetched interpretation, Dennis. If what you say is true, why didn't the writer of those anonymous letters address himself to Arthur, instead of to me?" "I gave it as my opinion just now, sir, that the writer of the letter knew Mr. Arthur." "So you did. And what of that?" Dennis stood to his guns. "Anybody who is acquainted with Mr. Arthur," he persisted, "knows that (with all sorts of good qualities) the young gentleman is headstrong and rash. If a friend told him he was in danger on the farm, that would be enough of itself to make him stop where he is, and brave it out. Whereas you, sir, are known to be cautious and careful, and farseeing and discreet." He might have added: And cowardly and obstinate, and narrow-minded and inflated by stupid self-esteem. But respect for his employer had blindfolded the clerk's observation for many a long year past. If one man may be born with the heart of a lion, another man may be born with the mind of a mule. Dennis's master was one of the other men. "Very well put," Sir Giles answered indulgently. "Time will show, if such an entirely unimportant person as my nephew Arthur is likely to be assassinated. That allusion to one of the members of my family is a mere equivocation, designed to throw me off my guard. Rank, money, social influence, unswerving principles, mark ME out as a public character. Go to the police-office, and let the best man who happens to be off duty come here directly." Good Dennis Howmore approached the door very unwillingly. It was opened, from the outer side, before he had reached that end of the room. One of the bank porters announced a visitor. "Miss Henley wishes to know, sir, if you can see her." Sir Giles looked agreeably surprised. He rose with alacrity to receive the lady. III WHEN Iris Henley dies there will, in all probability, be friends left who remember her and talk of her--and there may be strangers present at the time (women for the most part), whose curiosity will put questions relating to her personal appearance. No replies will reward them with trustworthy information. Miss Henley's chief claim to admiration lay in a remarkable mobility of expression, which reflected every change of feeling peculiar to the nature of a sweet and sensitive woman. For this reason, probably, no descriptions of her will agree with each other. No existing likenesses will represent her. The one portrait that was painted of Iris is only recognisable by partial friends of the artist. In and out of London, photographic likenesses were taken of her. They have the honour of resembling the portraits of Shakespeare in this respect--compared with one another, it is not possible to discover that they present the same person. As for the evidence offered by the loving memory of her friends, it is sure to be contradictory in the last degree. She had a charming face, a commonplace face, an intelligent face--a poor complexion, a delicate complexion, no complexion at all--eyes that were expressive of a hot temper, of a bright intellect, of a firm character, of an affectionate disposition, of a truthful nature, of hysterical sensibility, of inveterate obstinacy--a figure too short; no, just the right height; no, neither one thing nor the other; elegant, if you like--dress shabby: oh, surely not; dress quiet and simple; no, something more than that; ostentatiously quiet, theatrically simple, worn with the object of looking unlike other people. In one last word, was this mass of contradictions generally popular, in the time when it was a living creature? Yes--among the men. No--not invariably. The man of all others who ought to have been fondest of her was the man who behaved cruelly to Iris--her own father. And, when the poor creature married (if she did marry), how many of you attended the wedding? Not one of us! And when she died, how many of you were sorry for her? All of us! What? no difference of opinion in that one particular? On the contrary, perfect concord, thank God. Let the years roll back, and let Iris speak for herself, at the memorable time when she was in the prime of her life, and when a stormy career was before her. IV BEING Miss Henley's godfather, Sir Giles was a privileged person. He laid his hairy hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on either cheek. After that prefatory act of endearment, he made his inquiries. What extraordinary combination of events had led Iris to leave London, and had brought her to visit him in his banking-house at Ardoon? "I wanted to get away from home," she answered; "and having nobody to go to but my godfather, I thought I should like to see You." "Alone!" cried Sir Giles. "No--with my maid to keep me company." "Only your maid, Iris? Surely you have acquaintances among young ladies like yourself?" "Acquaintances--yes. No friends." "Does your father approve of what you have done?" "Will you grant me a favour, godpapa?" "Yes--if I can." "Don't insist on my answering your last question." The faint colour that had risen in her face, when she entered the room, left it. At the same time, the expression of her mouth altered. The lips closed firmly; revealing that strongest of all resolutions which is founded on a keen sense of wrong. She looked older than her age: what she might be ten years hence, she was now. Sir Giles understood her. He got up, and took a turn in the room. An old habit, of which he had cured himself with infinite difficulty when he was made a Knight, showed itself again. He put his hands in his pockets. "You and your father have had another quarrel," he said, stopping opposite Iris. "I don't deny it," she replied. "Who is to blame?" She smiled bitterly. "The woman is always to blame." "Did your father tell you that?" "My father reminded me that I was twenty-one years old, last birthday--and told me that I could do as I liked. I understood him, and I left the house." "You will go back again, I suppose?" "I don't know." Sir Giles began pacing the room once more. His rugged face, telling its story of disaster and struggle in early life, showed signs of disappointment and distress. "Hugh promised to write to me," he said, "and he has not written. I know what that means; I know what you have done to offend your father. My nephew has asked you to marry him for the second time. And for the second time you have refused." Her face softened; its better and younger aspect revived. "Yes," she said, sadly and submissively; "I have refused him again." Sir Giles lost his temper. "What the devil is your objection to Hugh?" he burst out. "My father said the same thing to me," she replied, "almost in the same words. I made him angry when I tried to give my reason. I don't want to make you angry, too." He took no notice of this. "Isn't Hugh a good fellow?" he went on. "Isn't he affectionate? and kindhearted? and honourable?--aye, and a handsome man too, if you come to that." "Hugh is all that you say. I like him; I admire him; I owe to his kindness some of the happiest days of my sad life, and I am grateful--oh, with all my heart, I am grateful to Hugh!" "If that's true, Iris----" "Every word of it is true." "I say, if that's true--there's no excuse for you. I hate perversity in a young woman! Why don't you marry him?" "Try to feel for me," she said gently; "I can't love him." Her tone said more to the banker than her words had expressed. The secret sorrow of her life, which was known to her father, was known also to Sir Giles. "Now we have come to it at last!" he said. "You can't love my nephew Hugh. And you won't tell me the reason why, because your sweet temper shrinks from making me angry. Shall I mention the reason for you, my dear? I can do it in two words--Lord Harry." She made no reply; she showed no sign of feeling at what he had just said. Her head sank a little; her hands clasped themselves on her lap; the obstinate resignation which can submit to anything hardened her face, stiffened her figure--and that was all. The banker was determined not to spare her. "It's easy to see," he resumed, "that you have not got over your infatuation for that vagabond yet. Go where he may, into the vilest places and among the lowest people, he carries your heart along with him. I wonder you are not ashamed of such an attachment as that." He had stung her at last. She roused herself, and answered him. "Harry has led a wild life," she said; "he has committed serious faults, and he may live to do worse than he has done yet. To what degradation, bad company, and a bad bringing-up may yet lead him, I leave his enemies to foresee. But I tell you this, he has redeeming qualities which you, and people like you, are not good Christians enough to discover. He has friends who can still appreciate him--your nephew, Arthur Mountjoy, is one of them. Oh, I know it by Arthur's letters to me! Blame Lord Harry as you may, I tell you he has the capacity for repentance in him, and one day--when it is too late, I dare say--he will show it. I can never be his wife. We are parted, never in all likelihood to meet again. Well, he is the only man whom I have ever loved; and he is the only man whom I ever shall love. If you think this state of mind proves that I am as bad as he is, I won't contradict you. Do we any of us know how bad we are----? Have you heard of Harry lately?" The sudden transition, from an earnest and devoted defence of the man, to an easy and familiar inquiry about him, startled Sir Giles. For the moment, he had nothing to say; Iris had made him think. She had shown a capacity for mastering her strongest feelings, at the moment when they threatened to overcome her, which is very rarely found in a young woman. How to manage her was a problem for patient resolution to solve. The banker's obstinacy, rather than his conviction, had encouraged him to hold to the hope of Hugh's marriage, even after his nephew had been refused for the second time. His headstrong goddaughter had come to visit him of her own accord. She had not forgotten the days of her childhood, when he had some influence over her--when she had found him kinder to her than her father had ever been. Sir Giles saw that he had taken the wrong tone with Iris. His anger had not alarmed her; his opinion had not influenced her. In Hugh's interests, he determined to try what consideration and indulgence would do towards cultivating the growth of her regard for him. Finding that she had left her maid and her luggage at the hotel, he hospitably insisted on their removal to his own house. "While you are in Ardoon, Iris, you are my guest," he said. She pleased him by readily accepting the invitation--and then annoyed him by asking again if he had heard anything of Lord Harry. He answered shortly and sharply: "I have heard nothing. What is _your_ last news of him?" "News," she said, "which I sincerely hope is not true. An Irish paper has been sent to me, which reports that he has joined the secret society--nothing better than a society of assassins, I am afraid--which is known by the name of the Invincibles." As she mentioned that formidable brotherhood, Dennis Howmore returned from the police-office. He announced that a Sergeant was then waiting to receive instructions from Sir Giles. V IRIS rose to go. Her godfather courteously stopped her. "Wait here," he said, "until I have spoken to the Sergeant, and I will escort you to my house. My clerk will do what is necessary at the hotel. You don't look quite satisfied. Is the arrangement that I have proposed not agreeable to you?" Iris assured him that she gratefully acceded to the arrangement. At the same time, she confessed to having been a little startled, on discovering that he was in consultation with the police. "I remember that we are in Ireland," she explained, "and I am foolish enough to fear that you may be in some danger. May I hope that it is only a trifle?" Only a trifle! Among ether deficient sensibilities in the strange nature of Iris, Sir Giles had observed an imperfect appreciation of the dignity of his social position. Here was a new proof of it! The temptation to inspire sentiments of alarm--not unmingled with admiration--in the mind of his insensible goddaughter, by exhibiting himself as a public character threatened by a conspiracy, was more than the banker's vanity could resist. Before he left the room, he instructed Dennis to tell Miss Henley what had happened, and to let her judge for herself whether he had been needlessly alarmed by, what she was pleased to call, "a mere trifle." Dennis Howmore must have been more than mortal, if he could have related his narrative of events without being influenced by his own point of view. On the first occasion when he mentioned Arthur Mountjoy's name, Iris showed a sudden interest in his strange story which took him by surprise. "You know Mr. Arthur?" he said. "Knew him!" Iris repeated. "He was my playfellow when we were both children. He is as dear to me as if he was my brother. Tell me at once--is he really in danger?" Dennis honestly repeated what he had already said, on that subject, to his master. Miss Henley, entirely agreeing with him, was eager to warn Arthur of his position. There was no telegraphic communication with the village which was near his farm. She could only write to him, and she did write to him, by that day's post--having reasons of her own for anxiety, which forbade her to show her letter to Dennis. Well aware of the devoted friendship which united Lord Harry and Arthur Mountjoy--and bearing in mind the newspaper report of the Irish lord's rash association with the Invincibles--her fears now identified the noble vagabond as the writer of the anonymous letters, which had so seriously excited her godfather's doubts of his own safety. When Sir Giles returned, and took her with him to his house, he spoke of his consultation with the Sergeant in terms which increased her dread of what might happen in the future. She was a dull and silent guest, during the interval that elapsed before it would be possible to receive Arthur's reply. The day arrived--and the post brought no relief to her anxieties. The next day passed without a letter. On the morning of the fourth day, Sir Giles rose later than usual. His correspondence was sent to him from the office, at breakfast-time. After opening one of the letters, he dispatched a messenger in hot haste to the police. "Look at that," he said, handing the letter to Iris. "Does the assassin take me for a fool?" She read the lines that follow: "Unforeseen events force me, Sir Giles, to run a serious risk. I must speak to you, and it must not be by daylight. My one hope of safety is in darkness. Meet me at the first milestone, on the road to Garvan, when the moon sets at ten o'clock to-night. No need to mention your name. The password is: _Fidelity."_ "Do you mean to go?" Iris asked. "Do I mean to be murdered!" Sir Giles broke out. "My dear child, do pray try to think before you speak. The Sergeant will represent me, of course." "And take the man prisoner?" Iris added. "Certainly!" With that startling reply, the banker hurried away to receive the police in another room. Iris dropped into the nearest chair. The turn that the affair had now taken filled her with unutterable dismay. Sir Giles came back, after no very long absence, composed and smiling. The course of proceeding had been settled to his complete satisfaction. Dressed in private clothes, the Sergeant was to go to the milestone at the appointed time, representing the banker in the darkness, and giving the password. He was to be followed by two of his men who would wait in concealment, within hearing of his whistle, if their services were required. "I want to see the ruffian when he is safely handcuffed," Sir Giles explained; "and I have arranged to wait for the police, to-night, at my office." There was but one desperate way that Iris could now discern of saving the man who had confided in her godfather's honour, and whose trust had already been betrayed. Never had she loved the outlawed Irish lord--the man whom she was forbidden, and rightly forbidden, to marry--as she loved him at that moment. Let the risk be what it might, this resolute woman had determined that the Sergeant should not be the only person who arrived at the milestone, and gave the password. There was one devoted friend to Lord Harry, whom she could always trust--and that friend was herself. Sir Giles withdrew, to look after his business at the bank. She waited until the clock had struck the servants' dinner hour, and then ascended the stairs to her godfather's dressing-room. Opening his wardrobe, she discovered in one part of it a large Spanish cloak, and, in another part, a high-crowned felt hat which he wore on his country excursions. In the dark, here was disguise enough for her purpose. As she left the dressing-room, a measure of precaution occurred to her, which she put in action at once. Telling her maid that she had some purchases to make in the town, she went out, and asked her way to Garvan of the first respectable stranger whom she met in the street. Her object was to walk as far as the first milestone, in daylight, so as to be sure of finding it again by night. She had made herself familiar with the different objects on the road, when she returned to the banker's house. As the time for the arrest drew nearer, Sir Giles became too restless to wait patiently at home. He went away to the police-office, eager to hear if any new counter-conspiracy had occurred to the authorities. It was dark soon after eight o'clock, at that time of the year. At nine the servants assembled at the supper-table. They were all downstairs together, talking, and waiting for their meal. Feeling the necessity of arriving at the place of meeting, in time to keep out of the Sergeant's way, Iris assumed her disguise as the clock struck nine. She left the house without a living creature to notice her, indoors or out. Clouds were gathering over the sky. The waning moon was only to be seen at intervals, as she set forth on her way to the milestone. VI THE wind rose a little, and the rifts in the clouds began to grow broader as Iris gained the high road. For a while, the glimmer of the misty moonlight lit the way before her. As well as she could guess, she had passed over more than half of the distance between the town and the milestone before the sky darkened again. Objects by the wayside grew shadowy and dim. A few drops of rain began to fall. The milestone, as she knew--thanks to the discovery of it made by daylight--was on the right-hand side of the road. But the dull-grey colour of the stone was not easy to see in the dark. A doubt troubled her whether she might not have passed the milestone. She stopped and looked at the sky. The threatening of rain had passed away: signs showed themselves which seemed to promise another break in the clouds. She waited. Low and faint, the sinking moonlight looked its last at the dull earth. In front of her, there was nothing to be seen but the road. She looked back--and discovered the milestone. A rough stone wall protected the land on either side of the road. Nearly behind the milestone there was a gap in this fence, partially closed by a hurdle. A half-ruined culvert, arching a ditch that had run dry, formed a bridge leading from the road to the field. Had the field been already chosen as a place of concealment by the police? Nothing was to be seen but a footpath, and the dusky line of a plantation beyond it. As she made these discoveries, the rain began to fall again; the clouds gathered once more; the moonlight vanished. At the same moment an obstacle presented itself to her mind, which Iris had thus far failed to foresee. Lord Harry might approach the milestone by three different ways: that is to say--by the road from the town, or by the road from the open country, or by way of the field and the culvert. How could she so place herself as to be sure of warning him, before he fell into the hands of the police? To watch the three means of approach in the obscurity of the night, and at one and the same time, was impossible. A man in this position, guided by reason, would in all probability have wasted precious time in trying to arrive at the right decision. A woman, aided by love, conquered the difficulty that confronted her in a moment. Iris decided on returning to the milestone, and on waiting there to be discovered and taken prisoner by the police. Supposing Lord Harry to be punctual to his appointment, he would hear voices and movements, as a necessary consequence of the arrest, in time to make his escape. Supposing him on the other hand to be late, the police would be on the way back to the town with their prisoner: he would find no one at the milestone, and would leave it again in safety. She was on the point of turning, to get back to the road, when something on the dark surface of the field, which looked like a darker shadow, became dimly visible. In another moment it seemed to be a shadow that moved. She ran towards it. It looked like a man as she drew nearer. The man stopped. "The password," he said, in tones cautiously lowered. "Fidelity," she answered in a whisper. It was too dark for a recognition of his features; but Iris knew him by his tall stature--knew him by the accent in which he had asked for the password. Erroneously judging of her, on his side, as a man, he drew back again. Sir Giles Mountjoy was above the middle height; the stranger in a cloak, who had whispered to him, was below it. "You are not the person I expected to meet," he said. "Who are you?" Her faithful heart was longing to tell him the truth. The temptation to reveal herself, and to make the sweet confession of her happiness at having saved him, would have overpowered her discretion, but for a sound that was audible on the road behind them. In the deep silence of the time and place mistake was impossible. It was the sound of footsteps. There was just time to whisper to him: "Sir Giles has betrayed you. Save yourself." "Thank you, whoever you are!" With that reply, he suddenly and swiftly disappeared. Iris remembered the culvert, and turned towards it. There was a hiding-place under the arch, if she could only get down into the dry ditch in time. She was feeling her way to the slope of it with her feet, when a heavy hand seized her by the arm; and a resolute voice said: "You are my prisoner." She was led back into the road. The man who had got her blew a whistle. Two other men joined him. "Show a light," he said; "and let's see who the fellow is." The shade was slipped aside from a lantern: the light fell full on the prisoner's face. Amazement petrified the two attendant policemen. The pious Catholic Sergeant burst into speech: "Holy Mary! it's a woman!" Did the secret societies of Ireland enrol women? Was this a modern Judith, expressing herself by anonymous letters, and bent on assassinating a financial Holofernes who kept a bank? What account had she to give of herself? How came she to be alone in a desolate field on a rainy night? Instead of answering these questions, the inscrutable stranger preferred a bold and brief request. "Take me to Sir Giles"--was all she said to the police. The Sergeant had the handcuffs ready. After looking at the prisoner's delicate wrists by the lantern-light, he put his fetters back in his pocket. "A lady--and no doubt about it," he said to one of his assistants. The two men waited, with a mischievous interest in seeing what he would do next. The list of their pious officer's virtues included a constitutional partiality for women, which exhibited the merciful side of justice when a criminal wore a petticoat. "We will take you to Sir Giles, Miss," he said--and offered his arm, instead of offering his handcuffs. Iris understood him, and took his arm. She was silent--unaccountably silent as the men thought--on the way to the town. They heard her sigh: and, once, the sigh sounded more like a sob; little did they suspect what was in that silent woman's mind at the time. The one object which had absorbed the attention of Iris had been the saving of Lord Harry. This accomplished, the free exercise of her memory had now reminded her of Arthur Mountjoy. It was impossible to doubt that the object of the proposed meeting at the milestone had been to take measures for the preservation of the young man's life. A coward is always more or less cruel. The proceedings (equally treacherous and merciless) by which Sir Giles had provided for his own safety, had delayed--perhaps actually prevented--the execution of Lord Harry's humane design. It was possible, horribly possible, that a prompt employment of time might have been necessary to the rescue of Arthur from impending death by murder. In the agitation that overpowered her, Iris actually hurried the police on their return to the town. Sir Giles had arranged to wait for news in his private room at the office--and there he was, with Dennis Howmore in attendance to receive visitors. The Sergeant went into the banker's room alone, to make his report. He left the door ajar; Iris could hear what passed. "Have you got your prisoner?" Sir Giles began. "Yes, your honour." "Is the wretch securely handcuffed?" "I beg your pardon, sir, it isn't a man." "Nonsense, Sergeant; it can't be a boy." The Sergeant confessed that it was not a boy. "It's a woman," he said. "What!!!" "A woman," the patient officer repeated--"and a young one. She asked for You." "Bring her in." Iris was not the sort of person who waits to be brought in. She walked in, of her own accord. VII "GOOD Heavens!" cried Sir Giles. "Iris! With my cloak on!! With my hat in her hand!!! Sergeant, there has been some dreadful mistake. This is my god-daughter--Miss Henley." "We found her at the milestone, your honour. The young lady and nobody else." Sir Giles appealed helplessly to his god-daughter. "What does this mean?" Instead of answering, she looked at the Sergeant. The Sergeant, conscious of responsibility, stood his ground and looked at Sir Giles. His face confessed that the Irish sense of humour was tickled: but he showed no intention of leaving the room. Sir Giles saw that Iris would enter into no explanation in the man's presence. "You needn't wait any longer," he said. "What am I to do, if you please, with the prisoner?" the Sergeant inquired. Sir Giles waived that unnecessary question away with his hand. He was trebly responsible--as knight, banker, and magistrate into the bargain. "I will be answerable," he replied, "for producing Miss Henley, if called upon. Good night." The Sergeant's sense of duty was satisfied. He made the military salute. His gallantry added homage to the young lady under the form of a bow. Then, and then only, he walked with dignity out of the room. "Now," Sir Giles resumed, "I presume I may expect to receive an explanation. What does this impropriety mean? What were you doing at the milestone?" "I was saving the person who made the appointment with you," Iris said; "the poor fellow had no ill-will towards you--who had risked everything to save your nephew's life. Oh, sir, you committed a terrible mistake when you refused to trust that man!" Sir Giles had anticipated the appearance of fear, and the reality of humble apologies. She had answered him indignantly, with a heightened colour, and with tears in her eyes. His sense of his own social importance was wounded to the quick. "Who is the man you are speaking of?" he asked loftily. "And what is your excuse for having gone to the milestone to save him--hidden under my cloak, disguised in my hat?" "Don't waste precious time in asking questions!" was the desperate reply. "Undo the harm that you have done already. Your help--oh, I mean what I say!--may yet preserve Arthur's life. Go to the farm, and save him." Sir Giles's anger assumed a new form, it indulged in an elaborate mockery of respect. He took his watch from his pocket, and consulted it satirically. "Must I make an excuse?" he asked with a clumsy assumption of humility. "No! you must go." "Permit me to inform you, Miss Henley, that the last train started more than two hours since." "What does that matter? You are rich enough to hire a train." Sir Giles, the actor, could endure it no longer; he dropped the mask, and revealed Sir Giles, the man. His clerk was summoned by a peremptory ring of the bell. "Attend Miss Henley to the house," he said. "You may come to your senses after a night's rest," he continued, turning sternly to Iris. "I will receive your excuses in the morning." In the morning, the breakfast was ready as usual at nine o'clock. Sir Giles found himself alone at the table. He sent an order to one of the women-servants to knock at Miss Henley's door. There was a long delay. The housekeeper presented herself in a state of alarm; she had gone upstairs to make the necessary investigation in her own person. Miss Henley was not in her room; the maid was not in her room; the beds had not been slept in; the heavy luggage was labelled--"To be called for from the hotel." And there was an end of the evidence which the absent Iris had left behind her. Inquiries were made at the hotel. The young lady had called there, with her maid, early on that morning. They had their travelling-bags with them; and Miss Henley had left directions that the luggage was to be placed under care of the landlord until her return. To what destination she had betaken herself nobody knew. Sir Giles was too angry to remember what she had said to him on the previous night, or he might have guessed at the motive which had led to her departure. "Her father has done with her already," he said; "and I have done with her now." The servants received orders not to admit Miss Henley, if her audacity contemplated a return to her godfather's house. VIII ON the afternoon of the same day, Iris arrived at the village situated in the near neighbourhood of Arthur Mountjoy's farm. The infection of political excitement (otherwise the hatred of England) had spread even to this remote place. On the steps of his little chapel, the priest, a peasant himself, was haranguing his brethren of the soil. An Irishman who paid his landlord was a traitor to his country; an Irishman who asserted his free birthright in the land that he walked on was an enlightened patriot. Such was the new law which the reverend gentleman expounded to his attentive audience. If his brethren there would like him to tell them how they might apply the law, this exemplary Christian would point to the faithless Irishman, Arthur Mountjoy. "Buy not of him, sell not to him; avoid him if he approaches you; starve him out of the place. I might say more, boys--you know what I mean." To hear the latter part of this effort of oratory, without uttering a word of protest, was a trial of endurance under which Iris trembled. The secondary effect of the priest's address was to root the conviction of Arthur's danger with tenfold tenacity in her mind. After what she had just heard, even the slightest delay in securing his safety might be productive of deplorable results. She astonished a barefooted boy, on the outskirts of the crowd, by a gift of sixpence, and asked her way to the farm. The little Irishman ran on before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead--and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature who inhabited the "evicted farm." A decent old woman appeared, and inquired suspiciously "what the ladies wanted." The accent in which she spoke was unmistakably English. When Iris asked for Mr. Arthur Mountjoy the reply was: "Not at home." The housekeeper inhospitably attempted to close the door. "Wait one moment," Iris said. "Years have changed you; but there is something in your face which is not quite strange to me. Are you Mrs. Lewson?" The woman admitted that this was her name. "But how is it that you are a stranger to me?" she asked distrustfully. "If you have been long in Mr. Mountjoy's service," Iris replied, "you may perhaps have heard him speak of Miss Henley?" Mrs. Lewson's face brightened in an instant; she threw the door wide open with a glad cry of recognition. "Come in, Miss, come in! Who would have thought of seeing you in this horrible place? Yes; I was the nurse who looked after you all three--when you and Mr. Arthur and Mr. Hugh were playfellows together." Her eyes rested longingly on her favourite of bygone days. The sensitive sympathies of Iris interpreted that look. She prettily touched her cheek, inviting the nurse to kiss her. At this act of kindness the poor old woman broke down; she apologised quaintly for her tears: "Think, Miss, how _I_ must remember that happy time--when _you_ have not forgotten it." Shown into the parlour, the first object which the visitor noticed was the letter that she had written to Arthur lying unopened on the table. "Then he is really out of the house?" she said with a feeling of relief. He had been away from the farm for a week or more. Had he received a warning from some other quarter? and had he wisely sought refuge in flight? The amazement in the housekeeper's face, when she heard these questions, pleaded for a word of explanation. Iris acknowledged without reserve the motives which had suggested her journey, and asked eagerly if she had been mistaken in assuming that Arthur was in danger of assassination. Mrs. Lewson shook her head. Beyond all doubt the young master was in danger. But Miss Iris ought to have known his nature better than to suppose that he would beat a retreat, if all the land-leaguers in Ireland threatened him together. No! It was his bold way to laugh at danger. He had left his farm to visit a friend in the next county; and it was shrewdly guessed that a young lady who was staying in the house was the attraction which had kept him so long away. "Anyhow, he means to come back to-morrow," Mrs. Lewson said. "I wish he would think better of it, and make his escape to England while he has the chance. If the savages in these parts must shoot somebody, I'm here--an old woman that can't last much longer. Let them shoot me." Iris asked if Arthur's safety was assured in the next county, and in the house of his friend. "I can't say, Miss; I have never been to the house. He is in danger if he persists in coming back to the farm. There are chances of shooting him all along his road home. Oh, yes; he knows it, poor dear, as well as I do. But, there!--men like him are such perverse creatures. He takes his rides just as usual. No; he won't listen to an old woman like me; and, as for friends to advise him, the only one of them that has darkened our doors is a scamp who had better have kept away. You may have heard tell of him. The old Earl, his wicked father, used to be called by a bad name. And the wild young lord is his father's true son." "Not Lord Harry?" Iris exclaimed. The outbreak of agitation in her tone and manner was silently noticed by her maid. The housekeeper did not attempt to conceal the impression that had been produced upon her. "I hope you don't know such a vagabond as that?" she said very seriously. "Perhaps you are thinking of his brother--the eldest son--a respectable man, as I have been told?" Miss Henley passed over these questions without notice. Urged by the interest in her lover, which was now more than ever an interest beyond her control, she said: "Is Lord Harry in danger, on account of his friend?" "He has nothing to fear from the wretches who infest our part of the country," Mrs. Lewson replied. "Report says he's one of themselves. The police--there's what his young lordship has to be afraid of, if all's true that is said about him. Anyhow, when he paid his visit to my master, he came secretly like a thief in the night. And I heard Mr. Arthur, while they were together here in the parlour, loud in blaming him for something that he had done. No more, Miss, of Lord Harry! I have something particular to say to you. Suppose I promise to make you comfortable--will you please wait here till to-morrow, and see Mr. Arthur and speak to him? If there's a person living who can persuade him to take better care of himself, I do believe it will be you." Iris readily consented to wait for Arthur Mountjoy's return. Left together, while Mrs. Lewson was attending to her domestic duties, the mistress noticed an appearance of pre-occupation in the maid's face. "Are you beginning to wish, Rhoda," she said, "that I had not brought you to this strange place, among these wild people?" The maid was a quiet amiable girl, evidently in delicate health. She smiled faintly. "I was thinking, Miss, of another nobleman besides the one Mrs. Lewson mentioned just now, who seems to have led a reckless life. It was printed in a newspaper that I read before we left London." "Was his name mentioned?" Iris asked. "No, Miss; I suppose they were afraid of giving offence. He tried so many strange ways of getting a living--it was almost like reading a story-book." The suppression of the name suggested a suspicion from which Iris recoiled. Was it possible that her maid could be ignorantly alluding to Lord Harry? "Do you remember this hero's adventures?" she said. "I can try, Miss, if you wish to hear about him." The newspaper narrative appeared to have produced a vivid impression on Rhoda's mind. Making allowance for natural hesitations and mistakes, and difficulties in expressing herself correctly, she repeated with a singularly clear recollection the substance of what she had read. IX THE principal characters in the story were an old Irish nobleman, who was called the Earl, and the youngest of his two sons, mysteriously distinguished as "the wild lord." It was said of the Earl that he had not been a good father; he had cruelly neglected both his sons. The younger one, badly treated at school, and left to himself in the holidays, began his adventurous career by running away. He got employment (under an assumed name) as a ship's boy. At the outset, he did well; learning his work, and being liked by the Captain and the crew. But the chief mate was a brutal man, and the young runaway's quick temper resented the disgraceful infliction of blows. He made up his mind to try his luck on shore, and attached himself to a company of strolling players. Being a handsome lad, with a good figure and a fine clear voice, he did very well for a while on the country stage. Hard times came; salaries were reduced; the adventurer wearied of the society of actors and actresses. His next change of life presented him in North Britain as a journalist, employed on a Scotch newspaper. An unfortunate love affair was the means of depriving him of this new occupation. He was recognised, soon afterwards, serving as assistant steward in one of the passenger steamers voyaging between Liverpool and New York. Arrived in this last city, he obtained notoriety, of no very respectable kind, as a "medium" claiming powers of supernatural communication with the world of spirits. When the imposture was ultimately discovered, he had gained money by his unworthy appeal to the meanly prosaic superstition of modern times. A long interval had then elapsed, and nothing had been heard of him, when a starving man was discovered by a traveller, lost on a Western prairie. The ill-fated Irish lord had associated himself with an Indian tribe--had committed some offence against their laws--and had been deliberately deserted and left to die. On his recovery, he wrote to his elder brother (who had inherited the title and estates on the death of the old Earl) to say that he was ashamed of the life that he had led, and eager to make amendment by accepting any honest employment that could be offered to him. The traveller who had saved his life, and whose opinion was to be trusted, declared that the letter represented a sincerely penitent state of mind. There were good qualities in the vagabond, which only wanted a little merciful encouragement to assert themselves. The reply that he received from England came from the lawyers employed by the new Earl. They had arranged with their agents in New York to pay to the younger brother a legacy of a thousand pounds, which represented all that had been left to him by his father's will. If he wrote again his letters would not be answered; his brother had done with him. Treated in this inhuman manner, the wild lord became once more worthy of his name. He tried a new life as a betting man at races and trotting-matches. Fortune favoured him at the outset, and he considerably increased his legacy. With the customary infatuation of men who gain money by risking the loss of it, he presumed on his good luck. One pecuniary disaster followed another, and left him literally penniless. He was found again, in England, exhibiting an open boat in which he and a companion had made one of those foolhardy voyages across the Atlantic, which have now happily ceased to interest the public. To a friend who remonstrated with him, he answered that he reckoned on being lost at sea, and on so committing a suicide worthy of the desperate life that he had led. The last accounts of him, after this, were too vague and too contradictory to be depended on. At one time it was reported that he had returned to the United States. Not long afterwards unaccountable paragraphs appeared in newspapers declaring, at one and the same time, that he was living among bad company in Paris, and that he was hiding disreputably in an ill famed quarter of the city of Dublin, called "the Liberties." In any case there was good reason to fear that Irish-American desperadoes had entangled the wild lord in the network of political conspiracy. The maid noticed a change in the mistress which surprised her, when she had reached the end of the newspaper story. Of Miss Henley's customary good spirits not a trace remained. "Few people, Rhoda, remember what they read as well as you do." She said it kindly and sadly--and she said no more. There was a reason for this. Now at one time, and now at another, Iris had heard of Lord Harry's faults and failings in fragments of family history. The complete record of his degraded life, presented in an uninterrupted succession of events, had now forced itself on her attention for the first time. It naturally shocked her. She felt, as she had never felt before, how entirely right her father had been in insisting on her resistance to an attachment which was unworthy of her. So far, but no farther, her conscience yielded to its own conviction of what was just. But the one unassailable vital force in this world is the force of love. It may submit to the hard necessities of life; it may acknowledge the imperative claims of duty; it may be silent under reproach, and submissive to privation--but, suffer what it may, it is the master-passion still; subject to no artificial influences, owning no supremacy but the law of its own being. Iris was above the reach of self-reproach, when her memory recalled the daring action which had saved Lord Harry at the milestone. Her better sense acknowledged Hugh Mountjoy's superiority over the other man--but her heart, her perverse heart, remained true to its first choice in spite of her. She made an impatient excuse and went out alone to recover her composure in the farm-house garden. The hours of the evening passed slowly. There was a pack of cards in the house; the women tried to amuse themselves, and failed. Anxiety about Arthur preyed on the spirits of Miss Henley and Mrs. Lewson. Even the maid, who had only seen him during his last visit to London, said she wished to-morrow had come and gone. His sweet temper, his handsome face, his lively talk had made Arthur a favourite everywhere. Mrs. Lewson had left her comfortable English home to be his housekeeper, when he tried his rash experiment of farming in Ireland. And, more wonderful still, even wearisome Sir Giles became an agreeable person in his nephew's company. Iris set the example of retiring at an early hour to her room. There was something terrible in the pastoral silence of the place. It associated itself mysteriously with her fears for Arthur; it suggested armed treachery on tiptoe, taking its murderous stand in hiding; the whistling passage of bullets through the air; the piercing cry of a man mortally wounded, and that man, perhaps----? Iris shrank from her own horrid thought. A momentary faintness overcame her; she opened the window. As she put her head out to breathe the cool night-air, a man on horseback rode up to the house. Was it Arthur? No: the light-coloured groom's livery that he wore was just visible. Before he could dismount to knock at the door, a tall man walked up to him out of the darkness. "Is that Miles?" the tall man asked. The groom knew the voice. Iris was even better acquainted with it. She, too, recognised Lord Harry. X THERE was the Irish lord at the very time when Iris was most patiently resigned never to see him more, never to think of him as her husband again--reminding her of the first days of their love, and of their mutual confession of it! Fear of herself kept her behind the curtain; while interest in Lord Harry detained her at the window in hiding. "All well at Rathco?" he asked--mentioning the name of the house in which Arthur was one of the guests. "Yes, my lord. Mr. Mountjoy leaves us to-morrow." "Does he mean to return to the farm?" "Sorry I am to say it; he does mean that." "Has he fixed any time, Miles, for starting on his journey?" Miles instituted a search through his pockets, and accompanied it by an explanation. Yes, indeed, Master Arthur had fixed a time; he had written a note to say so to Mistress Lewson, the housekeeper; he had said, "Drop the note at the farm, on your way to the village." And what might Miles want at the village, in the dark? Medicine, in a hurry, for one of his master's horses that was sick and sinking. And, speaking of that, here, thank God, was the note! Iris, listening and watching alternately, saw to her surprise the note intended for Mrs. Lewson handed to Lord Harry. "Am I expected," he asked jocosely, "to read writing without a light?" Miles produced a small lantern which was strapped to his groom's belt. "There's parts of the road not over safe in the dark," he said as he raised the shade which guarded the light. The wild lord coolly opened the letter, and read the few careless words which it contained. "To Mrs. Lewson:--Dear old girl, expect me back to-morrow to dinner at three o'clock. Yours, ARTHUR." There was a pause. "Are there any strangers at Rathco?" Lord Harry asked. "Two new men," Miles replied, "at work in the grounds." There was another pause. "How can I protect him?" the young lord said, partly to himself, partly to Miles. He suspected the two new men---spies probably who knew of Arthur's proposed journey home, and who had already reported to their employers the hour at which he would set out. Miles ventured to say a word: "I hope you won't be angry with me, my lord"---- "Stuff and nonsense! Was I ever angry with you, when I was rich enough to keep a servant, and when you were the man?" The Irish groom answered in a voice that trembled with strong feeling. "You were the best and kindest master that ever lived on this earth. I can't see you putting your precious life in peril"---- "My precious life?" Lord Harry repeated lightly. "You're thinking of Mr. Mountjoy, when you say that. _His_ life is worth saving. As for my life"---- He ended the sentence by a whistle, as the best way he could hit on of expressing his contempt for his own existence. "My lord! my lord!" Miles persisted; "the Invincibles are beginning to doubt you. If any of them find you hanging about Mr. Mountjoy's farm, they'll try a shot at you first, and ask afterwards whether it was right to kill you or not." To hear this said--and said seriously--after the saving of him at the milestone, was a trial of her firmness which Iris was unable to resist. Love got the better of prudence. She drew back the window-curtain. In another moment, she would have added her persuasion to the servant's warning, if Lord Harry himself had not accidentally checked her by a proceeding, on his part, for which she was not prepared. "Show the light," he said; "I'll write a line to Mr. Mountjoy." He tore off the blank page from the note to the housekeeper, and wrote to Arthur, entreating him to change the time of his departure from Rathco, and to tell no creature in the house, or out of the house, at what new hour he had arranged to go. "Saddle your horse yourself," the letter concluded. It was written in a feigned hand, without a signature. "Give that to Mr. Mountjoy," Lord Harry said. "If he asks who wrote it, don't frighten him about me by telling the truth. Lie, Miles! Say you don't know." He next returned the note for Mrs. Lewson. "If she notices that it has been opened," he resumed, "and asks who has done it, lie again. Good-night, Miles--and mind those dangerous places on your road home." The groom darkened his lantern; and the wild lord was lost to view, round the side of the house. Left by himself, Miles rapped at the door with the handle of his whip. "A letter from Mr. Arthur," he called out. Mrs. Lewson at once took the note, and examined it by the light of the candle on the hall-table. "Somebody has been reading this!" she exclaimed, stepping out to the groom, and showing him the torn envelope. Miles, promptly obeying his instructions, declared that he knew nothing about it, and rode away. Iris descended the stairs, and joined Mrs. Lewson in the hall before she had closed the door. The housekeeper at once produced Arthur's letter. "It's on my mind, Miss," she said, "to write an answer, and say something to Mr. Arthur which will persuade him to take care of himself, on his way back to the farm. The difficulty is, how am I to express it? You would be doing a kind thing if you would give me a word of advice." Iris willingly complied. A second note, from the anxious housekeeper, might help the effect of the few lines which Lord Harry had written. Arthur's letter informed Iris that he had arranged to return at three o'clock. Lord Harry's question to the groom, and the man's reply, instantly recurred to her memory: "Are there any strangers at Rathco?"--"Two new men at work in the grounds." Arriving at the same conclusion which had already occurred to Lord Harry, Iris advised the housekeeper, in writing to Arthur, to entreat him to change the hour, secretly, at which he left his friend's house on the next day. Warmly approving of this idea, Mrs. Lewson hurried into the parlour to write her letter. "Don't go to bed yet, Miss," she said; "I want you to read it before I send it away the first thing to-morrow morning." Left alone in the hall, with the door open before her, Iris looked out on the night, thinking. The lives of the two men in whom she was interested--in widely different ways--were now both threatened; and the imminent danger, at that moment, was the danger of Lord Harry. He was an outlaw whose character would not bear investigation; but, to give him his due, there was no risk which he was not ready to confront for Arthur's sake. If he was still recklessly lingering, on the watch for assassins in the dangerous neighbourhood of the farm, who but herself possessed the influence which would prevail on him to leave the place? She had joined Mrs. Lewson at the door with that conviction in her mind. In another instant, she was out of the house, and beginning her search in the dark. Iris made the round of the building; sometimes feeling her way in obscure places; sometimes calling to Lord Harry cautiously by his name. No living creature appeared; no sound of a movement disturbed the stillness of the night. The discovery of his absence, which she had not dared to hope for, was the cheering discovery which she had now made. On her way back to the house, she became conscious of the rashness of the act into which her own generous impulse had betrayed her. If she and Lord Harry had met, could she have denied the tender interest in him which her own conduct would then have revealed? Would he not have been justified in concluding that she had pardoned the errors and the vices of his life, and that he might without impropriety remind her of their engagement, and claim her hand in marriage? She trembled as she thought of the concessions which he might have wrung from her. "Never more," she determined, "shall my own folly be answerable for it, if he and I meet again." She had returned to Mrs. Lewson, and had read over the letter to Arthur, when the farm clock, striking the hour, reminded them that it was time to retire. They slept badly that night. At six in the morning, one of the two labourers who had remained faithful to Arthur was sent away on horseback with the housekeeper's reply, and with orders to wait for an answer. Allowing time for giving the horse a rest, the man might be expected to return before noon. IX IT was a fine sunshiny day; Mrs. Lewson's spirits began to improve. "I have always held the belief," the worthy old woman confessed, "that bright weather brings good luck--of course provided the day is not a Friday. This is Wednesday. Cheer up, Miss." The messenger returned with good news. Mr. Arthur had been as merry as usual. He had made fun of another letter of good advice, received without a signature. "But Mrs. Lewson must have her way," he said. "My love to the old dear--I'll start two hours later, and be back to dinner at five." "Where did Mr. Arthur give you that message?" Iris inquired. "At the stables, Miss, while I was putting up the horse. The men about were all on the broad grin when they heard Mr. Arthur's message." Still in a morbid state of mind, Iris silently regretted that the message had not been written, instead of being delivered by word of mouth. Here, again, she (like the wild lord) had been afraid of listeners. The hours wore slowly on until it was past four o'clock. Iris could endure the suspense no longer. "It's a lovely afternoon," she said to Mrs. Lewson. "Let us take a walk along the road, and meet Arthur." To this proposal the housekeeper readily agreed. It was nearly five o'clock when they reached a place at which a by-road branched off, through a wood, from the highway which they had hitherto followed. Mrs. Lewson found a seat on a felled tree. "We had better not go any farther," she said. Iris asked if there was any reason for this. There was an excellent reason. A few yards farther on, the high road had been diverted from the straight line (in the interest of a large agricultural village), and was then directed again into its former course. The by-road through the wood served as a short cut, for horsemen and pedestrians, from one divergent point to the other. It was next to a certainty that Arthur would return by the short cut. But if accident or caprice led to his preferring the highway, it was clearly necessary to wait for him within view of both the roads. Too restless to submit to a state of passive expectation, Iris proposed to follow the bridle path through the wood for a little way, and to return if she failed to see anything of Arthur. "You are tired," she said kindly to her companion: "pray don't move." Mrs. Lewson looked needlessly uneasy: "You might lose yourself, Miss. Mind you keep to the path!" Iris followed the pleasant windings of the woodland track. In the hope of meeting Arthur she considerably extended the length of her walk. The white line of the high road, as it passed the farther end of the wood, showed itself through the trees. She turned at once to rejoin Mrs. Lewson. On her way back she made a discovery. A ruin which she had not previously noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely. The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is essential to the picturesque effect of decay: a modern ruin is an unnatural and depressing object--and here the horrid thing was. As she turned to retrace her steps to the road, a man walked out of the inner space enclosed by all that was left of the dismantled house. A cry of alarm escaped her. Was she the victim of destiny, or the sport of chance? There was the wild lord whom she had vowed never to see again: the master of her heart--perhaps the master of her fate! Any other man would have been amazed to see her, and would have asked how it had happened that the English lady presented herself to him in an Irish wood. This man enjoyed the delight of seeing her, and accepted it as a blessing that was not to be questioned. "My angel has dropped from Heaven," he said. "May Heaven be praised!" He approached her; his arms closed round her. She struggled to free herself from his embrace. At that moment they both heard the crackle of breaking underwood among the trees behind them. Lord Harry looked round. "This is a dangerous place," he whispered; "I'm waiting to see Arthur pass safely. Submit to be kissed, or I am a dead man." His eyes told her that he was truly and fearfully in earnest. Her head sank on his bosom. As he bent down and kissed her, three men approached from their hiding-place among the trees. They had no doubt been watching him, under orders from the murderous brotherhood to which they belonged. Their pistols were ready in their hands--and what discovery had they made? There was the brother who had been denounced as having betrayed them, guilty of no worse treason than meeting his sweetheart in a wood! "We beg your pardon, my lord," they cried, with a thoroughly Irish enjoyment of their own discomfiture--and burst into a roar of laughter--and left the lovers together. For the second time, Iris had saved Lord Harry at a crisis in his life. "Let me go!" she pleaded faintly, trembling with superstitious fear for the first time in her experience of herself. He held her to him as if he would never let her go again. "Oh, my Sweet, give me a last chance. Help me to be a better man! You have only to will it, Iris, and to make me worthy of you." His arms suddenly trembled round her, and dropped. The silence was broken by a distant sound, like the report of a shot. He looked towards the farther end of the wood. In a minute more, the thump of a horse's hoofs at a gallop was audible, where the bridlepath was hidden among the trees. It came nearer--nearer---the creature burst into view, wild with fright, and carrying an empty saddle. Lord Harry rushed into the path and seized the horse as it swerved at the sight of him. There was a leather pocket attached to the front of the saddle. "Search it!" he cried to Iris, forcing the terrified animal back on its haunches. She drew out a silver travelling-flask. One glance at the name engraved on it told him the terrible truth. His trembling hands lost their hold. The horse escaped; the words burst from his lips: "Oh, God, they've killed him!" THE END OF THE PROLOGUE THE STORY FIRST PERIOD CHAPTER I THE SOUR FRENCH WINE WHILE the line to be taken by the new railway between Culm and Everill was still under discussion, the engineer caused some difference of opinion among the moneyed men who were the first Directors of the Company, by asking if they proposed to include among their Stations the little old town of Honeybuzzard. For years past, commerce had declined, and population had decreased in this ancient and curious place. Painters knew it well, and prized its mediaeval houses as a mine of valuable material for their art. Persons of cultivated tastes, who were interested in church architecture of the fourteenth century, sometimes pleased and flattered the Rector by subscribing to his fund for the restoration of the tower, and the removal of the accumulated rubbish of hundreds of years from the crypt. Small speculators, not otherwise in a state of insanity, settled themselves in the town, and tried the desperate experiment of opening a shop; spent their little capital, put up the shutters, and disappeared. The old market-place still showed its list of market-law's, issued by the Mayor and Corporation in the prosperous bygone times; and every week there were fewer and fewer people to obey the laws. The great empty enclosure looked more cheerful, when there was no market held, and when the boys of the town played in the deserted place. In the last warehouse left in a state of repair, the crane was generally idle; the windows were mostly shut up; and a solitary man represented languishing trade, idling at a half-opened door. The muddy river rose and fell with the distant tide. At rare intervals a collier discharged its cargo on the mouldering quay, or an empty barge took in a load of hay. One bold house advertised, in a dirty window, apartments to let. There was a lawyer in the town, who had no occasion to keep a clerk; and there was a doctor who hoped to sell his practice for anything that it would fetch. The directors of the new railway, after a stormy meeting, decided on offering (by means of a Station) a last chance of revival to the dying town. The town had not vitality enough left to be grateful; the railway stimulant produced no effect. Of all his colleagues in Great Britain and Ireland, the station-master at Honeybuzzard was the idlest man--and this, as he said to the unemployed porter, through no want of energy on his own part. Late on a rainy autumn afternoon, the slow train left one traveller at the Station. He got out of a first-class carriage; he carried an umbrella and a travelling-bag; and he asked his way to the best inn. The station-master and the porter compared notes. One of them said: "Evidently a gentleman." The other added: "What can he possibly want here?" The stranger twice lost his way in the tortuous old streets of the town before he reached the inn. On giving his orders, it appeared that he wanted three things: a private room, something to eat, and, while the dinner was being cooked, materials for writing a letter. Answering her daughter's questions downstairs, the landlady described her guest as a nice-looking man dressed in deep mourning. "Young, my dear, with beautiful dark brown hair, and a grand beard, and a sweet sorrowful look. Ah, his eyes would tell anybody that his black clothes are not a mere sham. Whether married or single, of course I can't say. But I noticed the name on his travelling-bag. A distinguished name in my opinion--Hugh Mountjoy. I wonder what he'll order to drink when he has his dinner? What a mercy it will be if we can get rid of another bottle of the sour French wine!" The bell in the private room rang at that moment; and the landlady's daughter, it is needless to say, took the opportunity of forming her own opinion of Mr. Hugh Mountjoy. She returned with a letter in her hand, consumed by a vain longing for the advantages of gentle birth. "Ah, mother, if I was a young lady of the higher classes, I know whose wife I should like to be!" Not particularly interested in sentimental aspirations, the landlady asked to see Mr. Mountjoy's letter. The messenger who delivered it was to wait for an answer. It was addressed to: "Miss Henley, care of Clarence Vimpany, Esquire, Honeybuzzard." Urged by an excited imagination, the daughter longed to see Miss Henley. The mother was at a loss to understand why Mr. Mountjoy should have troubled himself to write the letter at all. "If he knows the young lady who is staying at the doctor's house," she said, "why doesn't he call on Miss Henley?" She handed the letter back to her daughter. "There! let the ostler take it; he's got nothing to do." "No, mother. The ostler's dirty hands mustn't touch it--I'll take the letter myself. Perhaps I may see Miss Henley." Such was the impression which Mr. Hugh Mountjoy had innocently produced on a sensitive young person, condemned by destiny to the barren sphere of action afforded by a country inn! The landlady herself took the dinner upstairs--a first course of mutton chops and potatoes, cooked to a degree of imperfection only attained in an English kitchen. The sour French wine was still on the good woman's mind. "What would you choose to drink, sir?" she asked. Mr. Mountjoy seemed to feel no interest in what he might have to drink. "We have some French wine, sir." "Thank you, ma'am; that will do." When the bell rang again, and the time came to produce the second course of cheese and celery, the landlady allowed the waiter to take her place. Her experience of the farmers who frequented the inn, and who had in some few cases been induced to taste the wine, warned her to anticipate an outbreak of just anger from Mr. Mountjoy. He, like the others, would probably ask what she "meant by poisoning him with such stuff as that." On the return of the waiter, she put the question: "Did the gentleman complain of the French wine?" "He wants to see you about it, ma'am." The landlady turned pale. The expression of Mr. Mountjoy's indignation was evidently reserved for the mistress of the house. "Did he swear," she asked, "when he tasted it?" "Lord bless you, ma'am, no! Drank it out of a tumbler, and--if you will believe me--actually seemed to like it." The landlady recovered her colour. Gratitude to Providence for having sent a customer to the inn, who could drink sour wine without discovering it, was the uppermost feeling in her ample bosom as she entered the private room. Mr. Mountjoy justified her anticipations. He was simple enough--with his tumbler before him, and the wine as it were under his nose--to begin with an apology. "I am sorry to trouble you, ma'am. May I ask where you got this wine?" "The wine, sir, was one of my late husband's bad debts. It was all he could get from a Frenchman who owed him money." "It's worth money, ma'am." "Indeed, sir?" "Yes, indeed. This is some of the finest and purest claret that I have tasted for many a long day past." An alarming suspicion disturbed the serenity of the landlady's mind. Was his extraordinary opinion of the wine sincere? Or was it Mr. Mountjoy's wicked design to entrap her into praising her claret and then to imply that she was a cheat by declaring what he really thought of it? She took refuge in a cautious reply: "You are the first gentleman, sir, who has not found fault with it." "In that case, perhaps you would like to get rid of the wine?" Mr. Mountjoy suggested. The landlady was still cautious. "Who will buy it of me, sir?" "I will. How much do you charge for it by the bottle?" It was, by this time, clear that he was not mischievous--only a little crazy. The worldly-wise hostess took advantage of that circumstance to double the price. Without hesitation, she said: "Five shillings a bottle, sir." Often, too often, the irony of circumstances brings together, on this earthly scene, the opposite types of vice and virtue. A lying landlady and a guest incapable of deceit were looking at each other across a narrow table; equally unconscious of the immeasurable moral gulf that lay between them, Influenced by honourable feeling, innocent Hugh Mountjoy lashed the landlady's greed for money to the full-gallop of human cupidity. "I don't think you are aware of the value of your wine," he said. "I have claret in my cellar which is not so good as this, and which costs more than you have asked. It is only fair to offer you seven-and-sixpence a bottle." When an eccentric traveller is asked to pay a price, and deliberately raises that price against himself, where is the sensible woman--especially if she happens to be a widow conducting an unprofitable business--who would hesitate to improve the opportunity? The greedy landlady raised her terms. "On reflection, sir, I think I ought to have ten shillings a bottle, if you please." "The wine may be worth it," Mountjoy answered quietly; "but it is more than I can afford to pay. No, ma'am; I will leave you to find some lover of good claret with a longer purse than mine." It was in this man's character, when he said No, to mean No. Mr. Mountjoy's hostess perceived that her crazy customer was not to be trifled with. She lowered her terms again with the headlong hurry of terror. "You shall have it, Sir, at your own price," said this entirely shameless and perfectly respectable woman. The bargain having been closed under these circumstances, the landlady's daughter knocked at the door. "I took your letter myself, sir," she said modestly; "and here is the answer." (She had seen Miss Henley, and did not think much of her.) Mountjoy offered the expression of his thanks, in words never to be forgotten by a sensitive young person, and opened his letter. It was short enough to be read in a moment; but it was evidently a favourable reply. He took his hat in a hurry, and asked to be shown the way to Mr. Vimpany's house. CHAPTER II THE MAN SHE REFUSED MOUNTJOY had decided on travelling to Honeybuzzard, as soon as he heard that Miss Henley was staying with strangers in that town. Having had no earlier opportunity of preparing her to see him, he had considerately written to her from the inn, in preference to presenting himself unexpectedly at the doctor's house. How would she receive the devoted friend, whose proposal of marriage she had refused for the second time, when they had last met in London? The doctor's place of residence, situated in a solitary by-street, commanded a view, not perhaps encouraging to a gentleman who followed the medical profession: it was a view of the churchyard. The door was opened by a woman-servant, who looked suspiciously at the stranger. Without waiting to be questioned, she said her master was out. Mountjoy mentioned his name, and asked for Miss Henley. The servant's manner altered at once for the better; she showed him into a small drawing-room, scantily and cheaply furnished. Some poorly-framed prints on the walls (a little out of place perhaps in a doctor's house) represented portraits of famous actresses, who had been queens of the stage in the early part of the present century. The few books, too, collected on a little shelf above the chimney-piece, were in every case specimens of dramatic literature. "Who reads these plays?" Mountjoy asked himself. "And how did Iris find her way into this house?" While he was thinking of her, Miss Henley entered the room. Her face was pale and careworn; tears dimmed her eyes when Mountjoy advanced to meet her. In his presence, the horror of his brother's death by assassination shook Iris as it had not shaken her yet. Impulsively, she drew his head down to her, with the fond familiarity of a sister, and kissed his forehead. "Oh, Hugh, I know how you and Arthur loved each other! No words of mine can say how I feel for you." "No words are wanted, my dear," he answered tenderly. "Your sympathy speaks for itself." He led her to the sofa and seated himself by her side. "Your father has shown me what you have written to him," he resumed; "your letter from Dublin and your second letter from this place. I know what you have so nobly risked and suffered in poor Arthur's interests. It will be some consolation to me if I can make a return--a very poor return, Iris--for all that Arthur's brother owes to the truest friend that ever man had. No," he continued, gently interrupting the expression of her gratitude. "Your father has not sent me here--but he knows that I have left London for the express purpose of seeing you, and he knows why. You have written to him dutifully and affectionately; you have pleaded for pardon and reconciliation, when he is to blame. Shall I venture to tell you how he answered me, when I asked if he had no faith left in his own child? 'Hugh,' he said, 'you are wasting words on a man whose mind is made up. I will trust my daughter when that Irish lord is laid in his grave--not before.' That is a reflection on you, Iris, which I cannot permit, even when your father casts it. He is hard, he is unforgiving; but he must, and shall, be conquered yet. I mean to make him do you justice; I have come here with that purpose, and that purpose only, in view. May I speak to you of Lord Harry?" "How can you doubt it!" "My dear, this is a delicate subject for me to enter on." "And a shameful subject for me!" Iris broke out bitterly. "Hugh! you are an angel, by comparison with that man--how debased I must be to love him--how unworthy of your good opinion! Ask me anything you like; have no mercy on me. Oh," she cried, with reckless contempt for herself, "why don't you beat me? I deserve it!" Mountjoy was well enough acquainted with the natures of women to pass over that passionate outbreak, instead of fanning the flame in her by reasoning and remonstrance. "Your father will not listen to the expression of feeling," he continued; "but it is possible to rouse his sense of justice by the expression of facts. Help me to speak to him more plainly of Lord Harry than you could speak in your letters. I want to know what has happened, from the time when events at Ardoon brought you and the young lord together again, to the time when you left him in Ireland after my brother's death. If I seem to expect too much of you, Iris, pray remember that I am speaking with a true regard for your interests." In those words, he made his generous appeal to her. She proved herself to be worthy of it. Stated briefly, the retrospect began with the mysterious anonymous letters which had been addressed to Sir Giles. Lord Harry's explanation had been offered to Iris gratefully, but with some reserve, after she had told him who the stranger at the milestone really was. "I entreat you to pardon me, if I shrink from entering into particulars," he had said. "Circumstances, at the time, amply justified me in the attempt to use the banker's political influence as a means of securing Arthur's safety. I knew enough of Sir Giles's mean nature to be careful in trusting him; but I did hope to try what my personal influence might do. If he had possessed a tenth part of your courage, Arthur might have been alive, and safe in England, at this moment. I can't say any more; I daren't say any more; it maddens me when I think of it!" He abruptly changed the subject, and interested Iris by speaking of other and later events. His association with the Invincibles--inexcusably rash and wicked as he himself confessed it to be--had enabled him to penetrate, and for a time to defeat secretly, the murderous designs of the brotherhood. His appearances, first at the farmhouse and afterwards at the ruin in the wood were referable to changes in the plans of the assassins which had come to his knowledge. When Iris had met with him he was on the watch, believing that his friend would take the short way back through the wood, and well aware that his own life might pay the penalty if he succeeded in warning Arthur. After the terrible discovery of the murder (committed on the high road), and the escape of the miscreant who had been guilty of the crime, the parting of Lord Harry and Miss Henley had been the next event. She had left him, on her return to England, and had refused to consent to any of the future meetings between them which he besought her to grant. At this stage in the narrative, Mountjoy felt compelled to ask questions more searching than he had put to Iris yet. It was possible that she might be trusting her own impressions of Lord Harry, with the ill-placed confidence of a woman innocently self-deceived. "Did he submit willingly to your leaving him?" Mountjoy said. "Not at first," she replied. "Has he released you from that rash engagement, of some years since, which pledged you to marry him?" "No." "Did he allude to the engagement, on this occasion?" "He said he held to it as the one hope of his life." "And what did you say?" "I implored him not to distress me." "Did you say nothing more positive than that?" "I couldn't help thinking, Hugh, of all that he had tried to do to save Arthur. But I insisted on leaving him--and I have left him." "Do you remember what he said at parting?" "He said, 'While I live, I love you.'" As she repeated the words, there was an involuntary change to tenderness in her voice which was not lost on Mountjoy. "I must be sure," he said to her gravely, "of what I tell your father when I go back to him. Can I declare, with a safe conscience, that you will never see Lord Harry again?" "My mind is made up never to see him again." She had answered firmly so far. Her next words were spoken with hesitation, in tones that faltered. "But I am sometimes afraid," she said, "that the decision may not rest with me." "What do you mean?" "I would rather not tell you." "That is a strange answer, Iris." "I value your good opinion, Hugh, and I am afraid of losing it." "Nothing has ever altered my opinion of you," he replied, "and nothing ever will." She looked at him anxiously, with the closest attention. Little by little, the expression of doubt in her face disappeared; she knew how he loved her--she resolved to trust him. "My friend," she began abruptly, "education has done nothing for me. Since I left Ireland, I have sunk (I don't know how or why) into a state of superstitious fear. Yes! I believe in a fatality which is leading me back to Lord Harry, in spite of myself. Twice already, since I left home, I have met with him; and each time I have been the means of saving him--once at the milestone, and once at the ruin in the wood. If my father still accuses me of being in love with an adventurer, you can say with perfect truth that I am afraid of him. I _am_ afraid of the third meeting. I have done my best to escape from that man; and, step by step, as I think I am getting away, Destiny is taking me back to him. I may be on my way to him here, hidden in this wretched little town. Oh, don't despise me! Don't be ashamed of me!" "My dear, I am interested--deeply interested in you. That there may be some such influence as Destiny in our poor mortal lives, I dare not deny. But I don't agree with your conclusion. What Destiny has to do with you and with me, neither you nor I can pretend to know beforehand. In the presence of that great mystery, humanity must submit to be ignorant. Wait, Iris--wait!" She answered him with the simplicity of a docile child: "I will do anything you tell me." Mountjoy was too fond of her to say more of Lord Harry, for that day. He was careful to lead the talk to a topic which might be trusted to provoke no agitating thoughts. Finding Iris to all appearance established in the doctor's house, he was naturally anxious to know something of the person who must have invited her--the doctor's wife. CHAPTER III THE REGISTERED PACKET MOUNTJOY began by alluding to the second of Miss Henley's letters to her father, and to a passage in it which mentioned Mrs. Vimpany with expressions of the sincerest gratitude. "I should like to know more," he said, "of a lady whose hospitality at home seems to equal her kindness as a fellow-traveller. Did you first meet with her on the railway?" "She travelled by the same train to Dublin, with me and my maid, but not in the same carriage," Iris answered; "I was so fortunate as to meet with her on the voyage from Dublin to Holyhead. We had a rough crossing; and Rhoda suffered so dreadfully from sea-sickness that she frightened me. The stewardess was attending to ladies who were calling for her in all directions; I really don't know what misfortune might not have happened, if Mrs. Vimpany had not come forward in the kindest manner, and offered help. She knew so wonderfully well what was to be done, that she astonished me. 'I am the wife of a doctor,' she said; 'and I am only imitating what I have seen my husband do, when his assistance has been required, at sea, in weather like this.' In her poor state of health, Rhoda was too much exhausted to go on by the train, when we got to Holyhead. She is the best of good girls, and I am fond of her, as you know. If I had been by myself, I daresay I should have sent for medical help. What do you think dear Mrs. Vimpany offered to do? 'Your maid is only faint,' she said. 'Give her rest and some iced wine, and she will be well enough to go on by the slow train. Don't be frightened about her; I will wait with you.' And she did wait. Are there many strangers, Hugh, who are as unselfishly good to others as my chance-acquaintance in the steamboat?" "Very few, I am afraid." Mountjoy made that reply with some little embarrassment; conscious of a doubt of Mrs. Vimpany's disinterested kindness, which seemed to be unworthy of a just man. Iris went on. "Rhoda was sufficiently recovered," she said, "to travel by the next train, and there seemed to be no reason for feeling any more anxiety. But, after a time, the fatigue of the journey proved to be too much for her. The poor girl turned pale--and fainted. Mrs. Vimpany revived her, but as it turned out, only for a while. She fell into another fainting fit; and my travelling-companion began to look anxious. There was some difficulty in restoring Rhoda to her senses. In dread of another attack, I determined to stop at the next station. It looked such a poor place, when we got to it, that I hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany persuaded me to go on. The next station, she said, was _her_ station. 'Stop there,' she suggested, 'and let my husband look at the girl. I ought not perhaps to say it, but you will find no better medical man out of London.' I took the good creature's advice gratefully. What else could I do?" "What would you have done," Mountjoy inquired, "if Rhoda had been strong enough to get to the end of the journey?" "I should have gone on to London, and taken refuge in a lodging--you were in town, as I believed, and my father might relent in time. As it was, I felt my lonely position keenly. To meet with kind people, like Mr. Vimpany and his wife, was a real blessing to such a friendless creature as I am--to say nothing of the advantage to Rhoda, who is getting better every day. I should like you to see Mrs. Vimpany, if she is at home. She is a little formal and old fashioned in her manner--but I am sure you will be pleased with her. Ah! you look round the room! They are poor, miserably poor for persons in their position, these worthy friends of mine. I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading them to let me contribute my share towards the household expenses. They only yielded when I threatened to go to the inn. You are looking very serious, Hugh. Is it possible that you see some objection to my staying in this house?" The drawing-room door was softly opened, at the moment when Iris put that question. A lady appeared on the threshold. Seeing the stranger, she turned to Iris. "I didn't know, dear Miss Henley, that you had a visitor. Pray pardon my intrusion." The voice was deep; the articulation was clear; the smile presented a certain modest dignity which gave it a value of its own. This was a woman who could make such a commonplace thing as an apology worth listening to. Iris stopped her as she was about to leave the room. "I was just wishing for you," she said. "Let me introduce my old friend, Mr. Mountjoy. Hugh, this is the lady who has been so kind to me--Mrs. Vimpany." Hugh's impulse, under the circumstances, was to dispense with the formality of a bow, and to shake hands. Mrs. Vimpany met this friendly advance with a suavity of action, not often seen in these days of movement without ceremony. She was a tall slim woman, of a certain age. Art had so cleverly improved her complexion that it almost looked like nature. Her cheeks had lost the plumpness of youth, but her hair (thanks again perhaps to Art) showed no signs of turning grey. The expression of her large dark eyes--placed perhaps a little too near her high aquiline nose--claimed admiration from any person who was so fortunate as to come within their range of view. Her hands, long, yellow, and pitiably thin, were used with a grace which checked to some extent their cruel betrayal of her age. Her dress had seen better days, but it was worn with an air which forbade it to look actually shabby. The faded lace that encircled her neck fell in scanty folds over her bosom. She sank into a chair by Hugh's side. "It was a great pleasure to me, Mr. Mountjoy, to offer my poor services to Miss Henley; I can't tell you how happy her presence makes me in our little house." The compliment was addressed to Iris with every advantage that smiles and tones could offer. Oddly artificial as it undoubtedly was, Mrs. Vimpany's manner produced nevertheless an agreeable impression. Disposed to doubt her at first, Mountjoy found that she was winning her way to a favourable change in his opinion. She so far interested him, that he began to wonder what her early life might have been, when she was young and handsome. He looked again at the portraits of actresses on the walls, and the plays on the bookshelf--and then (when she was speaking to Iris) he stole a sly glance at the doctor's wife. Was it possible that this remarkable woman had once been an actress? He attempted to put the value of that guess to the test by means of a complimentary allusion to the prints. "My memory as a playgoer doesn't extend over many years," he began; "but I can appreciate the historical interest of your beautiful prints." Mrs. Vimpany bowed gracefully--and dumbly. Mountjoy tried again. "One doesn't often see the famous actresses of past days," he proceeded, "so well represented on the walls of an English house." This time, he had spoken to better purpose. Mrs. Vimpany answered him in words. "I have many pleasant associations with the theatre," she said, "first formed in the time of my girlhood." Mountjoy waited to hear something more. Nothing more was said. Perhaps this reticent lady disliked looking back through a long interval of years, or perhaps she had her reasons for leaving Mountjoy's guess at the truth still lost in doubt. In either case, she deliberately dropped the subject. Iris took it up. Sitting by the only table in the room, she was in a position which placed her exactly opposite to one of the prints--the magnificent portrait of Mrs. Siddons as The Tragic Muse. "I wonder if Mrs. Siddons was really as beautiful as that?" she said, pointing to the print. "Sir Joshua Reynolds is reported to have sometimes flattered his sitters." Mrs. Vimpany's solemn self-possessed eyes suddenly brightened; the name of the great actress seemed to interest her. On the point, apparently, of speaking, she dropped the subject of Mrs. Siddons as she had dropped the subject of the theatre. Mountjoy was left to answer Iris. "We are none of us old enough," he reminded her, "to decide whether Sir Joshua's brush has been guilty of flattery or not." He turned to Mrs. Vimpany, and attempted to look into her life from a new point of view. "When Miss Henley was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance," he said, "you were travelling in Ireland. Was it your first visit to that unhappy country?" "I have been more than once in Ireland." Having again deliberately disappointed Mountjoy, she was assisted in keeping clear of the subject of Ireland by a fortunate interruption. It was the hour of delivery by the afternoon-post. The servant came in with a small sealed packet, and a slip of printed paper in her hand. "It's registered, ma'am," the woman announced. "The postman says you are to please sign this. And he seems to be in a hurry." She placed the packet and the slip of paper on the table, near the inkstand. Having signed the receipt, Mrs. Vimpany took up the packet, and examined the address. She instantly looked at Iris, and looked away again. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" saying this she left the room, without opening the packet. The moment the door closed on her, Iris started up, and hurried to Mountjoy. "Oh, Hugh," she said, "I saw the address on that packet when the servant put it on the table!" "My dear, what is there to excite you in the address?" "Don't speak so loud! She may be listening outside the door." Not only the words, but the tone in which they were spoken, amazed Mountjoy. "Your friend, Mrs. Vimpany!" he exclaimed. "Mrs. Vimpany was afraid to open the packet in our presence," Iris went on: "you must have seen that. The handwriting is familiar to me; I am certain of the person who wrote the address." "Well? And who is the person?" She whispered in his ear: "Lord Harry." CHAPTER IV THE GAME: MOUNTJOY LOSES SURPRISE silenced Hugh for the moment. Iris understood the look that he fixed on her, and answered it. "I am quite sure," she told him, "of what I say." Mountjoy's well-balanced mind hesitated at rushing to a conclusion. "I am sure you are convinced of what you tell me," he said. "But mistakes do sometimes happen in forming a judgment of handwriting." In the state of excitement that now possessed her, Iris was easily irritated; she was angry with Hugh for only supposing that she might have made a mistake. He had himself, as she reminded him, seen Lord Harry's handwriting in past days. Was it possible to be mistaken in those bold thickly-written characters, with some of the letters so quaintly formed? "Oh, Hugh, I am miserable enough as it is," she broke out; "don't distract me by disputing what I know! Think of a woman so kind, so disinterested, so charming--the very opposite of a false creature--think of Mrs. Vimpany having deceived me!" There was not the slightest reason, thus far, for placing that interpretation on what had happened. Mountjoy gently, very gently, remonstrated. "My dear, we really don't know yet that Mrs. Vimpany has been acting under Lord Harry's instructions. Wait a little before you suspect your fellow-traveller of offering her services for the purpose of deceiving you." Iris was angry with him again: "Why did Mrs. Vimpany never tell me she knew Lord Harry? Isn't that suspicious?" Mountjoy smiled. "Let me put a question on my side," he said. "Did _you_ tell Mrs. Vimpany you knew Lord Harry?" Iris made no reply; her face spoke for her. "Well, then," he urged, "is _your_ silence suspicious? I am far, mind, from saying that this may not be a very unpleasant discovery. Only let us be sure first that we are right." With most of a woman's merits, Miss Henley had many of a woman's faults. Still holding to her own conclusion, she asked how they could expect to be sure of anything if they addressed their inquiries to a person who had already deceived them. Mountjoy's inexhaustible indulgence still made allowances for her. "When Mrs. Vimpany comes back," he said, "I will find an opportunity of mentioning Lord Harry's name. If she tells us that she knows him, there will be good reason in that one circumstance, as it seems to me, for continuing to trust her." "Suppose she shams ignorance," Iris persisted, "and looks as if she had never heard of his name before?" "In that case, I shall own that I was wrong, and shall ask you to forgive me." The finer and better nature of Iris recovered its influence at these words. "It is I who ought to beg pardon," she said. "Oh, I wish I could think before I speak: how insolent and ill-tempered I have been! But suppose I turn out to be right, Hugh, what will you do then?" "Then, my dear, it will be my duty to take you and your maid away from this house, and to tell your father what serious reasons there are"---- He abruptly checked himself. Mrs. Vimpany had returned; she was in perfect possession of her lofty courtesy, sweetened by the modest dignity of her smile. "I have left you, Miss Henley, in such good company," she said, with a gracious inclination of her head in the direction of Mountjoy, "that I need hardly repeat my apologies--unless, indeed, I am interrupting a confidential conversation." It was possible that Iris might have betrayed herself, when the doctor's wife had looked at her after examining the address on the packet. In this case Mrs. Vimpany's allusion to "a confidential conversation" would have operated as a warning to a person of experience in the by-ways of deceit. Mountjoy's utmost exertion of cunning was not capable of protecting him on such conditions as these. The opportunity of trying his proposed experiment with Lord Harry's name seemed to have presented itself already. He rashly seized on it. "You have interrupted nothing that was confidential," he hastened to assure Mrs. Vimpany. "We have been speaking of a reckless young gentleman, who is an acquaintance of ours. If what I hear is true, he has already become public property; his adventures have found their way into some of the newspapers." Here, if Mrs. Vimpany had answered Hugh's expectations, she ought to have asked who the young gentleman was. She merely listened in polite silence. With a woman's quickness of perception, Iris saw that Mountjoy had not only pounced on his opportunity prematurely, but had spoken with a downright directness of allusion which must at once have put such a ready-witted person as Mrs. Vimpany on her guard. In trying to prevent him from pursuing his unfortunate experiment in social diplomacy, Iris innocently repeated Mountjoy's own mistake. She, too, seized her opportunity prematurely. That is to say, she was rash enough to change the subject. "You were talking just now, Hugh, of our friend's adventures," she said; "I am afraid you will find yourself involved in an adventure of no very agreeable kind, if you engage a bed at the inn. I never saw a more wretched-looking place." It was one of Mrs. Vimpany's many merits that she seldom neglected an opportunity of setting her friends at their ease. "No, no, dear Miss Henley," she hastened to say; "the inn is really a more clean and comfortable place than you suppose. A hard bed and a scarcity of furniture are the worst evils which your friend has to fear. Do you know," she continued, addressing herself to Mountjoy, "that I was reminded of a friend of mine, when you spoke just now of the young gentleman whose adventures are in the newspapers. Is it possible that you referred to the brother of the present Earl of Norland? A handsome young Irishman--with whom I first became acquainted many years since. Am I right in supposing that you and Miss Henley know Lord Harry?" she asked. What more than this could an unprejudiced mind require? Mrs. Vimpany had set herself right with a simplicity that defied suspicion. Iris looked at Mountjoy. He appeared to know when he was beaten. Having acknowledged that Lord Harry was the young gentleman of whom he and Miss Henley had been speaking, he rose to take leave. After what had passed, Iris felt the necessity of speaking privately to Hugh. The necessary excuse presented itself in the remote situation of the inn. "You will never find your way back," she said, "through the labyrinth of crooked streets in this old town. Wait for me a minute, and I will be your guide." Mrs. Vimpany protested. "My dear! let the servant show the way." Iris held gaily to her resolution, and ran away to her room. Mrs. Vimpany yielded with her best grace. Miss Henley's motive could hardly have been plainer to her, if Miss Henley had confessed it herself. "What a charming girl!" the doctor's amiable wife said to Mountjoy, when they were alone. "If I were a man, Miss Iris is just the young lady that I should fall in love with." She looked significantly at Mountjoy. Nothing came of it. She went on: "Miss Henley must have had many opportunities of being married; but the right man has, I fear, not yet presented himself." Once more her eloquent eyes consulted Mountjoy, and once more nothing came of it. Some women are easily discouraged. Impenetrable Mrs. Vimpany was one of the other women; she had not done with Mountjoy yet--she invited him to dinner on the next day. "Our early hour is three o'clock," she said modestly. "Pray join us. I hope to have the pleasure of introducing my husband." Mountjoy had his reasons for wishing to see the husband. As he accepted the invitation, Miss Henley returned to accompany him to the inn. Iris put the inevitable question to Hugh as soon as they were out of the doctor's house--"What do you say of Mrs. Vimpany now?" "I say that she must have been once an actress," Mountjoy answered; "and that she carries her experience of the stage into private life." "What do you propose to do next?" "I propose to wait, and see Mrs. Vimpany's husband to-morrow." "Why?" "Mrs. Vimpany, my dear, is too clever for me. If--observe, please, that I do her the justice of putting it in that way--if she is really Lord Harry's creature, employed to keep watch on you, and to inform him of your next place of residence in England, I own that she has completely deceived me. In that case, it is just possible that the husband is not such a finished and perfect humbug as the wife. I may be able to see through him. I can but try." Iris sighed. "I almost hope you may not succeed," she said. Mountjoy was puzzled, and made no attempt to conceal it. "I thought you only wanted to get at the truth," he answered. "My mind might be easier, perhaps, if I was left in doubt," she suggested. "A perverse way of thinking has set up my poor opinion against yours. But I am getting back to my better sense. I believe you were entirely right when you tried to prevent me from rushing to conclusions; it is more than likely that I have done Mrs. Vimpany an injustice. Oh, Hugh, I ought to keep a friend--I who have so few friends--when I have got one! And there is another feeling in me which I must not conceal from you. When I remember Lord Harry's noble conduct in trying to save poor Arthur, I cannot believe him capable of such hateful deceit as consenting to our separation, and then having me secretly watched by a spy. What monstrous inconsistency! Can anybody believe it? Can anybody account for it?" "I think I can account for it, Iris, if you will let me make the attempt. You are mistaken to begin with." "How am I mistaken?" "You shall see. There is no such creature as a perfectly consistent human being on the face of the earth--and, strange as it may seem to you, the human beings themselves are not aware of it. The reason for this curious state of things is not far to seek. How can people who are ignorant--as we see every day--of their own characters be capable of correctly estimating the characters of others? Even the influence of their religion fails to open their eyes to the truth. In the Prayer which is the most precious possession of Christendom, their lips repeat the entreaty that they may not be led into temptation--but their minds fail to draw the inference. If that pathetic petition means anything, it means that virtuous men and women are capable of becoming vicious men and women, if a powerful temptation puts them to the test. Every Sunday, devout members of the congregation in church--models of excellence in their own estimation, and in the estimation of their neighbours--declare that they have done those things which they ought not to have done, and that there is no health in them. Will you believe that they are encouraged by their Prayer-books to present this sad exposure of the frailty of their own admirable characters? How inconsistent--and yet how entirely true! Lord Harry, as you rightly say, behaved nobly in trying to save my dear lost brother. He ought, as you think, and as other people think, to be consistently noble, after that, in all his thoughts and actions, to the end of his life. Suppose that temptation does try him--such temptation, Iris, as you innocently present--why doesn't he offer a superhuman resistance? You might as well ask, Why is he a mortal man? How inconsistent, how improbable, that he should have tendencies to evil in him, as well as tendencies to good! Ah, I see you don't like this. It would be infinitely more agreeable (wouldn't it?) if Lord Harry was one of the entirely consistent characters which are sometimes presented in works of fiction. Our good English readers are charmed with the man, the woman, or the child, who is introduced to them by the kind novelist as a being without faults. Do they stop to consider whether this is a true picture of humanity? It would be a terrible day for the book if they ever did that. But the book is in no danger. The readers would even fail to discover the falseness of the picture, if they were presented to themselves as perfect characters. 'We mustn't say so, but how wonderfully like us!' There would be the only impression produced. I am not trying to dishearten you; I want to encourage you to look at humanity from a wider and truer point of view. Do not be too readily depressed, if you find your faith shaken in a person whom you have hitherto believed to be good. That person has been led into temptation. Wait till time shows you that the evil influence is not everlasting, and that the good influence will inconsistently renew your faith out of the very depths of your despair. Humanity, in general, is neither perfectly good nor perfectly wicked: take it as you find it. Is this a hard lesson to learn? Well! it's easy to do what other people do, under similar circumstances. Listen to the unwelcome truth to-day, my dear; and forget it to-morrow." They parted at the door of the inn. CHAPTER V THE GAME: MOUNTJOY PLAYS A NEW CARD MR. VIMPANY (of the College of Surgeons) was a burly man, heavily built from head to foot. His bold round eyes looked straight at his fellow-creatures with an expression of impudent good humour; his whiskers were bushy, his hands were big, his lips were thick, his legs were solid. Add to this a broad sunburnt face, and a grey coat with wide tails, a waistcoat with a check pattern, and leather riding-gaiters--and no stranger could have failed to mistake Mr. Vimpany for a farmer of the old school. He was proud of the false impression that he created. "Nature built me to be a farmer," he used to say. "But my poor foolish old mother was a lady by birth, and she insisted on her son being a professional man. I hadn't brains for the Law, or money for the Army, or morals for the Church. And here I am a country doctor--the one representative of slavery left in the nineteenth century. You may not believe me, but I never see a labourer at the plough that I don't envy him." This was the husband of the elegant lady with the elaborate manners. This was the man who received Mountjoy with a "Glad to see you, sir," and a shake of the hand that hurt him. "Coarse fare," said Mr. Vimpany, carving a big joint of beef; "but I can't afford anything better. Only a pudding to follow, and a glass of glorious old sherry. Miss Henley is good enough to excuse it--and my wife's used to it--and you will put up with it, Mr. Mountjoy, if you are half as amiable as you look. I'm an old-fashioned man. The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, sir." Hugh's first experience of the "glorious old sherry" led him to a discovery, which proved to be more important than he was disposed to consider it at the moment. He merely observed, with some amusement, that Mr. Vimpany smacked his lips in hearty approval of the worst sherry that his guest had ever tasted. Here, plainly self-betrayed, was a medical man who was an exception to a general rule in the profession--here was a doctor ignorant of the difference between good wine and bad! Both the ladies were anxious to know how Mountjoy had passed the night at the inn. He had only time to say that there was nothing to complain of, when Mr. Vimpany burst into an explosion of laughter. "Oh, but you must have had something to complain of!" said the big doctor. "I would bet a hundred, if I could afford it, that the landlady tried to poison you with her sour French wine." "Do you speak of the claret at the inn, after having tasted it?" Mountjoy asked. "What do you take me for?" cried Mr. Vimpany. "After all I have heard of that claret, I am not fool enough to try it myself, I can tell you." Mountjoy received this answer in silence. The doctor's ignorance and the doctor's prejudice, in the matter of wine, had started a new train of thought in Hugh's mind, which threatened serious consequences to Mr. Vimpany himself. There was a pause at the table; nobody spoke. The doctor saw condemnation of his rudeness expressed in his wife's face. He made a rough apology to Mountjoy, who was still preoccupied. "No offence, I hope? It's in the nature of me, sir, to speak my mind. If I could fawn and flatter, I should have got on better in my profession. I'm what they call a rough diamond. No, offence, I say?" "None whatever, Mr. Vimpany." "That's right! Try another glass of sherry." Mountjoy took the sherry. Iris looked at him, lost in surprise. It was unlike Hugh to be interested in a stranger's opinion of wine. It was unlike him to drink wine which was evidently not to his taste. And it was especially unlike his customary courtesy to let himself fall into thought at dinner-time, when there were other persons at the table. Was he ill? Impossible to look at him, and not see that he was in perfect health. What did it mean? Finding Mountjoy inattentive, Mr. Vimpany addressed himself to Iris. "I had to ride hard, Miss Henley, to get home in time for dinner. There are patients, I must tell you, who send for the doctor, and then seem to think they know more about it than the very man whom they have called in to cure them. It isn't he who tells them what their illness is; it's they who tell him. They dispute about the medical treatment that's best for them, and the one thing they are never tired of doing is talking about their symptoms. It was an old man's gabble that kept me late to-day. However, the Squire, as they call him in these parts, is a patient with a long purse; I am obliged to submit." "A gentleman of the old school, dear Miss Henley," Mrs. Vimpany explained. "Immensely rich. Is he better?" she asked, turning to her husband. "Better?" cried the outspoken doctor. "Pooh! there's nothing the matter with him but gluttony. He went to London, and consulted a great man, a humbug with a handle to his name. The famous physician got rid of him in no time--sent him abroad to boil himself in foreign baths. He came home again worse than ever, and consulted poor Me. I found him at dinner--a perfect feast, I give you my word of honour!--and the old fool gorging himself till he was black in the face. His wine, I should have said, was not up to the mark; wanted body and flavour, you know. Ah, Mr. Mountjoy, this seems to interest you; reminds you of the landlady's wine--eh? Well, sir, how do you think I treated the Squire? Emptied his infirm old inside with an emetic--and there he was on his legs again. Whenever he overeats himself he sends for me; and pays liberally. I ought to be grateful to him, and I am. Upon my soul, I believe I should be in the bankruptcy court but for the Squire's stomach. Look at my wife! She's shocked at me. We ought to keep up appearances, my dear? Not I! When I am poor, I say I am poor. When I cure a patient, I make no mystery of it; everybody's welcome to know how it's done. Don't be down-hearted, Arabella; nature never meant your husband for a doctor, and there's the long and the short of it. Another glass of sherry, Mr. Mountjoy?" All social ceremonies--including the curious English custom which sends the ladies upstairs, after dinner, and leaves the gentlemen at the table--found a devoted adherent in Mrs. Vimpany. She rose as if she had been presiding at a banquet, and led Miss Henley affectionately to the drawing-room. Iris glanced at Hugh. No; his mind was not at ease yet; the preoccupied look had not left his face. Jovial Mr. Vimpany pushed the bottle across the table to his guest, and held out a handful of big black cigars. "Now for the juice of the grape," he cried, "and the best cigar in all England!" He had just filled his glass, and struck a light for his cigar, when the servant came in with a note. Some men relieve their sense of indignation in one way, and some in another. The doctor's form of relief was an oath. "Talk about slavery!" he shouted. "Find me such a slave in all Africa as a man in my profession. There isn't an hour of the day or night that he can call his own. Here's a stupid old woman with an asthma, who has got another spasmodic attack--and I must leave my dinner-table and my friend, just as we are enjoying ourselves. I have half a mind not to go." The inattentive guest suddenly set himself right in his host's estimation. Hugh remonstrated with an appearance of interest in the case, which the doctor interpreted as a compliment to himself: "Oh, Mr. Vimpany, humanity! humanity!" "Oh, Mr. Mountjoy, money! money!" the facetious doctor answered. "The old lady is our Mayor's mother, sir. You don't seem to be quick at taking a joke. Make your mind easy; I shall pocket my fee." As soon as he had closed the door, Hugh Mountjoy uttered a devout ejaculation. "Thank God!" he said--and walked up and down the room, free to think without interruption at last. The subject of his meditations was the influence of intoxication in disclosing the hidden weaknesses and vices of a man's character by exhibiting them just as they are, released from the restraint which he exercises over himself when he is sober. That there was a weak side, and probably a vicious side, in Mr. Vimpany's nature it was hardly possible to doubt. His blustering good humour, his audacious self-conceit, the tones of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all revealed him (to use one expressive word) as a humbug. Let drink subtly deprive him of his capacity for self-concealment! and the true nature of his wife's association with Lord Harry might sooner or later show itself--say, in after-dinner talk, under skilful management. The right method of entrapping him into a state of intoxication (which might have presented serious difficulties under other circumstances) was suggested, partly by his ignorance of the difference between good wine and bad, and partly by Mountjoy's knowledge of the excellent quality of the landlady's claret. He had recognised, as soon as he tasted it, that finest vintage of Bordeaux, which conceals its true strength--to a gross and ignorant taste--under the exquisite delicacy of its flavour. Encourage Mr. Vimpany by means of a dinner at the inn, to give his opinion as a man whose judgment in claret was to be seriously consulted--and permit him also to discover that Hugh was rich enough to have been able to buy the wine--and the attainment of the end in view would be simply a question of time. There was certainly the chance to be reckoned with, that his thick head might prove to be too strong for the success of the experiment. Mountjoy determined to try it, and did try it nevertheless. Mr. Vimpany returned from his medical errand, thoroughly well satisfied with himself. "The Mayor's mother has reason to thank you, sir," he announced. "If you hadn't hurried me away, the wretched old creature would have been choked. A regular stand-up fight, by Jupiter, between death and the doctor!--and the doctor has won! Give me the reward of merit. Pass the bottle." He took up the decanter, and looked at it. "Why, what have you been about?" he asked. "I made up my mind that I should want the key of the cellar when I came back, and I don't believe you have drunk a drop in my absence. What does it mean?" "It means that I am not worthy of your sherry," Mountjoy answered. "The Spanish wines are too strong for my weak digestion." Mr. Vimpany burst into one of his explosions of laughter. "You miss the landlady's vinegar--eh?" "Yes, I do! Wait a minute, doctor; I have a word to say on my side--and, like you, I mean what I say. The landlady's vinegar is some of the finest Chateau Margaux I have ever met with--thrown away on ignorant people who are quite unworthy of it." The doctor's natural insolence showed itself. "You have bought this wonderful wine, of course?" he said satirically. "That," Mountjoy answered, "is just what I have done." For once in his life, Mr. Vimpany's self-sufficient readiness of speech failed him. He stared at his guest in dumb amazement. On this occasion, Mountjoy improved the opportunity to good purpose. Mr. Vimpany accepted with the utmost readiness an invitation to dine on the next day at the inn. But he made a condition. "In case I don't agree with you about that Chateau--what-you-call-it," he said, "you won't mind my sending home for a bottle of sherry?" The next event of the day was a visit to the most interesting monument of antiquity in the town. In the absence of the doctor, caused by professional engagements, Miss Henley took Mountjoy to see the old church--and Mrs. Vimpany accompanied them, as a mark of respect to Miss Henley's friend. When there was a chance of being able to speak confidentially, Iris was eager in praising the doctor's wife. "You can't imagine, Hugh, how agreeable she has been, and how entirely she has convinced me that I was wrong, shamefully wrong, in thinking of her as I did. She sees that you dislike her, and yet she speaks so nicely of you. 'Your clever friend enjoys your society,' she said; 'pray accompany me when I take him to see the church.' How unselfish!" Mountjoy kept his own counsel. The generous impulses which sometimes led Iris astray were, as he well knew, beyond the reach of remonstrance. His own opinion of Mrs. Vimpany still pronounced steadily against her. Prepared for discoveries, on the next day, which might prove too serious to be trifled with, he now did his best to provide for future emergencies. After first satisfying himself that there was nothing in the present state of the maid's health which need detain her mistress at Honeybuzzard, he next completed his preparations by returning to the inn, and writing to Mr. Henley. With strict regard to truth, his letter presented the daughter's claim on the father under a new point of view. Whatever the end of it might be, Mr. Henley was requested to communicate his intentions by telegraph. Will you receive Iris? was the question submitted. The answer expected was: Yes or No. CHAPTER VI THE GAME: MOUNTJOY WINS MR. HENLEY's telegram arrived at the inn the next morning. He was willing to receive his daughter, but not unreservedly. The message was characteristic of the man: "Yes--on trial." Mountjoy was not shocked, was not even surprised. He knew that the successful speculations, by means of which Mr. Henley had accumulated his wealth, had raised against him enemies, who had spread scandalous reports which had never been completely refuted. The silent secession of friends, in whose fidelity he trusted, had hardened the man's heart and embittered his nature. Strangers in distress, who appealed to the rich retired merchant for help, found in their excellent references to character the worst form of persuasion that they could have adopted. Paupers without a rag of reputation left to cover them, were the objects of charity whom Mr. Henley relieved. When he was asked to justify his conduct, he said: "I have a sympathy with bad characters---I am one of them myself." With the arrival of the dinner hour the doctor appeared, in no very amiable humour, at the inn. "Another hard day's work," he said; "I should sink under it, if I hadn't a prospect of getting rid of my practice here. London--or the neighbourhood of London--there's the right place for a man like Me. Well? Where's the wonderful wine? Mind! I'm Tom-Tell-Truth; if I don't like your French tipple, I shall say so." The inn possessed no claret glasses; they drank the grand wine in tumblers as if it had been vin ordinaire. Mr. Vimpany showed that he was acquainted with the formalities proper to the ceremony of tasting. He filled his makeshift glass, he held it up to the light, and looked at the wine severely; he moved the tumbler to and fro under his nose, and smelt at it again and again; he paused and reflected; he tasted the claret as cautiously as if he feared it might be poisoned; he smacked his lips, and emptied his glass at a draught; lastly, he showed some consideration for his host's anxiety, and pronounced sentence on the wine. "Not so good as you think it, sir. But nice light claret; clean and wholesome. I hope you haven't given too much for it?" Thus far, Hugh had played a losing game patiently. His reward had come at last. After what the doctor had just said to him, he saw the winning card safe in his own hand. The bad dinner was soon over. No soup, of course; fish, in the state of preservation usually presented by a decayed country town; steak that rivalled the toughness of india-rubber; potatoes whose aspect said, "stranger, don't eat us"; pudding that would have produced a sense of discouragement, even in the mind of a child; and the famous English cheese which comes to us, oddly enough, from the United States, and stings us vindictively when we put it into our mouths. But the wine, the glorious wine, would have made amends to anybody but Mr. Vimpany for the woeful deficiencies of the food. Tumbler-full after tumbler-full of that noble vintage poured down his thirsty and ignorant throat; and still he persisted in declaring that it was nice light stuff, and still he unforgivingly bore in mind the badness of the dinner. "The feeding here," said this candid man, "is worse if possible than the feeding at sea, when I served as doctor on board a passenger-steamer. Shall I tell you how I lost my place? Oh, say so plainly, if you don't think my little anecdote worth listening to!" "My dear sir, I am waiting to hear it." "Very good. No offence, I hope? That's right! Well, sir, the captain of the ship complained of me to the owners; I wouldn't go round, every morning, and knock at the ladies' cabin-doors, and ask how they felt after a sea-sick night. Who doesn't know what they feel, without knocking at their doors? Let them send for the doctor when they want him. That was how I understood my duty; and there was the line of conduct that lost me my place. Pass the wine. Talking of ladies, what do you think of my wife? Did you ever see such distinguished manners before? My dear fellow, I have taken a fancy to you. Shake hands. I'll tell you another little anecdote. Where do you think my wife picked up her fashionable airs and graces? Ho! ho! On the stage! The highest branch of the profession, sir--a tragic actress. If you had seen her in Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Vimpany would have made your flesh creep. Look at me, and feast your eyes on a man who is above hypocritical objections to the theatre. Haven't I proved it by marrying an actress? But we don't mention it here. The savages in this beastly place wouldn't employ me, if they knew I had married a stage-player. Hullo! The bottle's empty again. Ha! here's another bottle, full. I love a man who has always got a full bottle to offer his friend. Shake hands. I say, Mountjoy, tell me on your sacred word of honour, can you keep a secret? My wife's secret, sir! Stop! let me look at you again. I thought I saw you smile. If a man smiles at me, when I am opening my whole heart to him, by the living jingo, I would knock that man down at his own table! What? you didn't smile? I apologise. Your hand again; I drink your health in your own good wine. Where was I? What was I talking about?" Mountjoy carefully humoured his interesting guest. "You were about to honour me," he said, "by taking me into your confidence." Mr. Vimpany stared in tipsy bewilderment. Mountjoy tried again in plainer language: "You were going to tell me a secret." This time, the doctor grasped the idea. He looked round cunningly to the door. "Any eavesdroppers?" he asked. "Hush! Whisper--this is serious--whisper! What was it I was going to tell you? What was the secret, old boy?" Mountjoy answered a little too readily: "I think it related to Mrs. Vimpany." Mrs. Vimpany's husband threw himself back in his chair, snatched a dirty handkerchief out of his pocket, and began to cry. "Here's a false friend!" the creature whimpered. "Asks me to dinner, and takes advantage of my dependent situation to insult my wife. The loveliest of women, the sweetest of women, the innocentest of women. Oh, my wife! my wife!" He suddenly threw his handkerchief to the other end of the room, and burst out laughing. "Ho! ho! Mountjoy, what an infernal fool you must be to take me seriously. I can act, too. Do you think I care about my wife? She was a fine woman once: she's a bundle of old rags now. But she has her merits. Hush! I want to know something. Have you got a lord among your circle of acquaintance?" Experience made Mountjoy more careful; perhaps a little too careful. He only said "Yes." The doctor's dignity asserted itself. "That's a short answer, sir, to a man in my position. If you want me to believe you, mention your friend's name." Here was a chance at last! "His name;" Mountjoy began, "is Lord Harry--" Mr. Vimpany lost his dignity in an instant. He struck his heavy fist on the table, with a blow that made the tumblers jump. "Coincidence!" he cried. "How wonderful--no; that's not the word--providential is the word--how providential are coincidences! I mean, of course, to a rightly constituted mind. Let nobody contradict me! When I say a rightly constituted mind I speak seriously; and a young man like you will be all the better for it. Mountjoy! dear Mountjoy! jolly Mountjoy! my wife's lord is your lord--Lord Harry. No; none of your nonsense--I won't have any more wine. Yes, I will; it might hurt your feelings if I didn't drink with you. Pass the bottle. Ha! That's a nice ring you've got on your finger. Perhaps you think it valuable? It's nothing, sir; it's dross, it's dirt, compared to my wife's diamond pin! There's a jewel, if you like! It will be worth a fortune to us when we sell it. A gift, dear sir! I'm afraid I've been too familiar with you. Speaking as a born gentleman, I beg to present my respects, and I call you 'dear sir.' Did I tell you the diamond pin was a gift? It's nothing of the sort; we are under no obligation; my wife, my admirable wife, has earned that diamond pin. By registered post; and what I call a manly letter from Lord Harry. He is deeply obliged (I give you the sense of it) by what my wife has done for him; ready money is scarce with my lord; he sends a family jewel, with his love. Oh, I'm not jealous. He's welcome to love Mrs. Vimpany, in her old age, if he likes. Did you say that, sir? Did you say that Lord Harry, or any man, was welcome to love Mrs. Vimpany? I have a great mind to throw this bottle at your head. No, I won't; it's wasting good wine! How kind of you to give me good wine. Who are you? I don't like dining with a stranger. Do you know any friend of mine? Do you know a man named Mountjoy? Do you know two men named Mountjoy? No: you don't. One of them is dead: killed by those murdering scoundrels what do you call them? Eh, what?" The doctor's voice began to falter, his head dropped; he slumbered suddenly and woke suddenly, and began talking again suddenly. "Would you like to be made acquainted with Lord Harry? I'll give you a sketch of his character before I introduce him. Between ourselves, he's a desperate wretch. Do you know why he employed my wife, my admirable wife? You will agree with me; he ought to have looked after his young woman himself. We've got his young woman safe in our house. A nice girl. Not my style; my medical knowledge certifies she's cold-blooded. Lord Harry has only to come over here and find her. Why the devil doesn't he come? What is it keeps him in Ireland? Do you know? I seem to have forgotten. My own belief is I've got softening of the brain. What's good for softening of the brain? There isn't a doctor living who won't tell you the right remedy--wine. Pass the wine. If this claret is worth a farthing, it's worth a guinea a bottle. I ask you in confidence; did you ever hear of such a fool as my wife's lord? His name escapes me. No matter; he stops in Ireland--hunting. Hunting what? The fox? Nothing so noble; hunting assassins. He's got some grudge against one of them. Means to kill one of them. A word in your ear; they'll kill him. Do you ever bet? Five to one, he's a dead man before the end of the week. When is the end of the week? Tuesday, Wednesday--no, Saturday--that's the beginning of the week--no, it isn't--the beginning of the week isn't the Sabbath--Sunday, of course--we are not Christians, we are Jews--I mean we are Jews, we are not Christians--I mean--" The claret got the better of his tongue, at last. He mumbled and muttered; he sank back in his chair; he chuckled; he hiccupped; he fell asleep. All and more than all that Mountjoy feared, he had now discovered. In a state of sobriety, the doctor was probably one of those men who are always ready to lie. In a state of intoxication the utterances of his drunken delirium might unconsciously betray the truth. The reason which he had given for Lord Harry's continued absence in Ireland, could not be wisely rejected as unworthy of belief. It was in the reckless nature of the wild lord to put his own life in peril, in the hope of revenging Arthur Mountjoy on the wretch who had killed him. Taking this bad news for granted, was there any need to distress Iris by communicating the motive which detained Lord Harry in his own country? Surely not! And, again, was there any immediate advantage to be gained by revealing the true character of Mrs. Vimpany, as a spy, and, worse still, a spy who was paid? In her present state of feeling, Iris would, in all probability, refuse to believe it. Arriving at these conclusions, Hugh looked at the doctor snoring and choking in an easy-chair. He had not wasted the time and patience devoted to the stratagem which had now successfully reached its end. After what he had just heard--thanks to the claret--he could not hesitate to accomplish the speedy removal of Iris from Mr. Vimpany's house; using her father's telegram as the only means of persuasion on which it was possible to rely. Mountjoy left the inn without ceremony, and hurried away to Iris in the hope of inducing her to return to London with him that night. CHAPTER VII DOCTORING THE DOCTOR ASKING for Miss Henley at the doctor's door, Hugh was informed that she had gone out, with her invalid maid, for a walk. She had left word, if Mr. Mountjoy called in her absence, to beg that he would kindly wait for her return. On his way up to the drawing-room, Mountjoy heard Mrs. Vimpany's sonorous voice occupied, as he supposed, in reading aloud. The door being opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand, and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if you had a fellow-feeling for me." Mountjoy did his best to fill the sympathetic part assigned to him, and only succeeded in showing what a bad actor he would have been, if he had gone on the stage. Under the sedative influence thus administered, Mrs. Vimpany put away her book, and descended at once from the highest poetry to the lowest prose. "Let us return to domestic events," she said indulgently. "Have the people at the inn given you a good dinner?" "The people did their best," Mountjoy answered cautiously. "Has my husband returned with you?" Mrs. Vimpany went on. Mountjoy began to regret that he had not waited for Iris in the street. He was obliged to acknowledge that the doctor had not returned with him. "Where is Mr. Vimpany?" "At the inn." "What is he doing there?" Mountjoy hesitated. Mrs. Vimpany rose again into the regions of tragic poetry. She stepped up to him, as if he had been Macbeth, and she was ready to use the daggers. "I understand but too well," she declared in terrible tones. "My wretched husband's vices are known to me. Mr. Vimpany is intoxicated." Hugh tried to make the best of it. "Only asleep," he said. Mrs. Vimpany looked at him once more. This time, it was Queen Katharine looking at Cardinal Wolsey. She bowed with lofty courtesy, and opened the door. "I have occasion," she said, "to go out"----and made an exit. Five minutes later, Mountjoy (standing at the window, impatiently on the watch for the return of Iris) saw Mrs. Vimpany in the street. She entered a chemist's shop, on the opposite side of the way, and came out again with a bottle in her hand. It was enclosed in the customary medical wrapping of white paper. Majestically, she passed out of sight. If Hugh had followed her he would have traced the doctor's wife to the door of the inn. The unemployed waiter was on the house-steps, looking about him--with nothing to see. He made his bow to Mrs. Vimpany, and informed her that the landlady had gone out. "You will do as well," was the reply. "Is Mr. Vimpany here?" The waiter smiled, and led the way through the passage to the foot of the stairs. "You can hear him, ma'am." It was quite true; Mr. Vimpany's snoring answered for Mr. Vimpany. His wife ascended the first two or three stairs, and stopped to speak again to the waiter. She asked what the two gentlemen had taken to drink with their dinner. They had taken "the French wine." "And nothing else?" The waiter ventured on a little joke. "Nothing else," he said--"and more than enough of it, too." "Not more than enough, I suppose, for the good of the house," Mrs. Vimpany remarked. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; the claret the two gentlemen drank is not charged for in the bill." "What do you mean?" The waiter explained that Mr. Mountjoy had purchased the whole stock of the wine. Suspicion, as well as surprise, appeared in Mrs. Vimpany's face. She had hitherto thought it likely that Miss Henley's gentleman-like friend might be secretly in love with the young lady. Her doubts of him, now, took a wider range of distrust. She went on up the stairs by herself, and banged the door of the private room as the easiest means of waking the sleeping man. To the utmost noise that she could make in this way, he was perfectly impenetrable. For a while she waited, looking at him across the table with unutterable contempt. There was the man to whom the religion of the land and the law of the land, acting together in perfect harmony, had fettered her for life! Some women, in her position, might have wasted time in useless self-reproach. Mrs. Vimpany reviewed her miserable married life with the finest mockery of her own misfortune. "Virtue," she said to herself, "is its own reward." Glancing with careless curiosity at the disorder of the dinner-table, she noticed some wine still left in the bottom of her husband's glass. Had artificial means been used to reduce him to his present condition? She tasted the claret. No; there was nothing in the flavour of it which betrayed that he had been drugged. If the waiter was to be believed, he had only drunk claret--and there he was, in a state of helpless stupefaction, nevertheless. She looked again at the dinner-table, and discovered one, among the many empty bottles, with some wine still left in it. After a moment of reflection, she took a clean tumbler from the sideboard. Here was the wine which had been an object of derision to Mr. Vimpany and his friends. They were gross feeders and drinkers; and it might not be amiss to put their opinions to the test. She was not searching for the taste of a drug now; her present experiment proposed to try the wine on its own merits. At the time of her triumphs on the country stage--before the date of her unlucky marriage--rich admirers had entertained the handsome actress at suppers, which offered every luxury that the most perfect table could supply. Experience had made her acquainted with the flavour of the finest claret--and that experience was renewed by the claret which she was now tasting. It was easy to understand why Mr. Mountjoy had purchased the wine; and, after a little thinking, his motive for inviting Mr. Vimpany to dinner seemed to be equally plain. Foiled in their first attempt at discovery by her own prudence and tact, his suspicions had set their trap. Her gross husband had been tempted to drink, and to talk at random (for Mr. Mountjoy's benefit) in a state of intoxication! What secrets might the helpless wretch not have betrayed before the wine had completely stupefied him? Urged by rage and fear, she shook him furiously. He woke; he glared at her with bloodshot eyes; he threatened her with his clenched fist. There was but one way of lifting his purblind stupidity to the light. She appealed to his experience of himself, on many a former occasion: "You fool, you have been drinking again--and there's a patient waiting for you." To that dilemma he was accustomed; the statement of it partially roused him. Mrs. Vimpany tore off the paper wrapping, and opened the medicine-bottle which she had brought with her. He stared at it; he muttered to himself: "Is she going to poison me?" She seized his head with one hand, and held the open bottle to his nose. "Your own prescription," she cried, "for yourself and your hateful friends." His nose told him what words might have tried vainly to say: he swallowed the mixture. "If I lose the patient," he muttered oracularly, "I lose the money." His resolute wife dragged him out of his chair. The second door in the dining-room led into an empty bed-chamber. With her help, he got into the room, and dropped on the bed. Mrs. Vimpany consulted her watch. On many a former occasion she had learnt what interval of repose was required, before the sobering influence of the mixture could successfully assert itself. For the present, she had only to return to the other room. The waiter presented himself, asking if there was anything he could do for her. Familiar with the defective side of her husband's character, he understood what it meant when she pointed to the bedroom door. "The old story, ma'am," he said, with an air of respectful sympathy. "Can I get you a cup of tea?" Mrs. Vimpany accepted the tea, and enjoyed it thoughtfully. She had two objects in view--to be revenged on Mountjoy, and to find a way of forcing him to leave the town before he could communicate his discoveries to Iris. How to reach these separate ends, by one and the same means, was still the problem which she was trying to solve, when the doctor's coarse voice was audible, calling for somebody to come to him. If his head was only clear enough, by this time, to understand the questions which she meant to put, his answers might suggest the idea of which she was in search. Rising with alacrity, Mrs. Vimpany returned to the bed-chamber. "You miserable creature," she began, "are you sober now?" "I'm as sober as you are." "Do you know," she went on, "why Mr. Mountjoy asked you to dine with him?" "Because he's my friend." "He is your worst enemy. Hold your tongue! I'll explain what I mean directly. Rouse your memory, if you have got a memory left. I want to know what you and Mr. Mountjoy talked about after dinner." He stared at her helplessly. She tried to find her way to his recollection by making suggestive inquiries. It was useless; he only complained of being thirsty. His wife lost her self-control. She was too furiously angry with him to be able to remain in the room. Recovering her composure when she was alone, she sent for soda-water and brandy. Her one chance of making him useful was to humour his vile temper; she waited on him herself. In some degree, the drink cleared his muddled head. Mrs. Vimpany tried his memory once more. Had he said this? Had he said that? Yes: he thought it likely. Had he, or had Mr. Mountjoy, mentioned Lord Harry's name? A glimmer of intelligence showed itself in his stupid eyes. Yes--and they had quarrelled about it: he rather thought he had thrown a bottle at Mr. Mountjoy's head. Had they, either of them, said anything about Miss Henley? Oh, of course! What was it? He was unable to remember. Had his wife done bothering him, now? "Not quite," she replied. "Try to understand what I am going to say to you. If Lord Harry comes to us while Miss Henley is in our house--" He interrupted her: "That's your business." "Wait a little. It's my business, if I hear beforehand that his lordship is coming. But he is quite reckless enough to take us by surprise. In that case, I want you to make yourself useful. If you happen to be at home, keep him from seeing Miss Henley until I have seen her first." "Why?" "I want an opportunity, my dear, of telling Miss Henley that I have been wicked enough to deceive her, before she finds it out for herself. I may hope she will forgive me, if I confess everything." The doctor laughed: "What the devil does it matter whether she forgives you or not?" "It matters a great deal." "Why, you talk as if you were fond of her!" "I am." The doctor's clouded intelligence was beginning to clear; he made a smart reply: "Fond of her, and deceiving her--aha!" "Yes," she said quietly, "that's just what it is. It has grown on me, little by little; I can't help liking Miss Henley." "Well," Mr. Vimpany remarked, "you _are_ a fool!" He looked at her cunningly. "Suppose I do make myself useful, what am I to gain by it?" "Let us get back," she suggested, "to the gentleman who invited you to dinner, and made you tipsy for his own purposes." "I'll break every bone in his skin!" "Don't talk nonsense! Leave Mr. Mountjoy to me." "Do _you_ take his part? I can tell you this. If I drank too much of that poisonous French stuff, Mountjoy set me the example. He was tipsy--as you call it--shamefully tipsy, I give you my word of honour. What's the matter now?" His wife (so impenetrably cool, thus far) had suddenly become excited. There was not the smallest fragment of truth in what he had just said of Hugh, and Mrs. Vimpany was not for a moment deceived by it. But the lie had, accidentally, one merit--it suggested to her the idea which she had vainly tried to find over her cup of tea. "Suppose I show you how you may be revenged on Mr. Mountjoy," she said. "Well?" "Will you remember what I asked you to do for me, if Lord Harry takes us by surprise?" He produced his pocket-diary, and told her to make a memorandum of it. She wrote as briefly as if she had been writing a telegram: "Keep Lord Harry from seeing Miss Henley, till I have seen her first." "Now," she said, taking a chair by the bedside, "you shall know what a clever wife you have got. Listen to me." CHAPTER VIII HER FATHER'S MESSAGE LOOKING out of the drawing-room window, for the tenth time at least, Mountjoy at last saw Iris in the street, returning to the house. She brought the maid with her into the drawing-room, in the gayest of good spirits, and presented Rhoda to Mountjoy. "What a blessing a good long walk is, if we only knew it!" she exclaimed. "Look at my little maid's colour! Who would suppose that she came here with heavy eyes and pale cheeks? Except that she loses her way in the town, whenever she goes out alone, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on our residence at Honeybuzzard. The doctor is Rhoda's good genius, and the doctor's wife is her fairy godmother." Mountjoy's courtesy having offered the customary congratulations, the maid was permitted to retire; and Iris was free to express her astonishment at the friendly relations established (by means of the dinner-table) between the two most dissimilar men on the face of creation. "There is something overwhelming," she declared, "in the bare idea of your having asked him to dine with you--on such a short acquaintance, and being such a man! I should like to have peeped in, and seen you entertaining your guest with the luxuries of the hotel larder. Seriously, Hugh, your social sympathies have taken a range for which I was not prepared. After the example that you have set me, I feel ashamed of having doubted whether Mr. Vimpany was worthy of his charming wife. Don't suppose that I am ungrateful to the doctor! He has found his way to my regard, after what he has done for Rhoda. I only fail to understand how he has possessed himself of _your_ sympathies." So she ran on, enjoying the exercise of her own sense of humour in innocent ignorance of the serious interests which she was deriding. Mountjoy tried to stop her, and tried in vain. "No, no," she persisted as mischievously as ever, "the subject is too interesting to be dismissed. I am dying to know how you and your guest got through the dinner. Did he take more wine than was good for him? And, when he forgot his good manners, did he set it all right again by saying, 'No offence,' and passing the bottle?" Hugh could endure it no longer. "Pray control your high spirits for a moment," he said. "I have news for you from home." Those words put an end to her outbreak of gaiety, in an instant. "News from my father?" she asked. "Yes." "Is he coming here?" "No; I have heard from him." "A letter?" "A telegram," Mountjoy explained, "in answer to a letter from me. I did my best to press your claims on him, and I am glad to say I have not failed." "Hugh, dear Hugh! have you succeeded in reconciling us?" Mountjoy produced the telegram. "I asked Mr. Henley," he said, "to let me know at once whether he would receive you, and to answer plainly Yes or No. The message might have been more kindly expressed--but, at any rate, it is a favourable reply." Iris read the telegram. "Is there another father in the world," she said sadly, "who would tell his daughter, when she asks to come home, that he will receive her on trial?" "Surely, you are not offended with him, Iris?" She shook her head. "I am like you," she said. "I know him too well to be offended. He shall find me dutiful, he shall find me patient. I am afraid I must not expect you to wait for me in Honeybuzzard. Will you tell my father that I hope to return to him in a week's time?" "Pardon me, Iris, I see no reason why you should waste a week in this town. On the contrary, the more eager you show yourself to return to your father, the more likely you are to recover your place in his estimation. I had planned to take you home by the next train." Iris looked at him in astonishment. "Is it possible that you mean what you say?" she asked. "My dear, I do most assuredly mean what I say. Why should you hesitate? What possible reason can there be for staying here any longer?" "Oh, Hugh, how you disappoint me! What has become of your kind feeling, your sense of justice, your consideration for others? Poor Mrs. Vimpany!" "What has Mrs. Vimpany to do with it?" Iris was indignant. "What has Mrs. Vimpany to do with it?" she repeated. "After all that I owe to that good creature's kindness; after I have promised to accompany her--she has so few happy days, poor soul!--on excursions to places of interest in the neighbourhood, do you expect me to leave her--no! it's worse than that--do you expect me to throw her aside like an old dress that I have worn out? And this after I have so unjustly, so ungratefully suspected her in my own thoughts? Shameful! shameful!" With some difficulty, Mountjoy controlled himself. After what she had just said, his lips were sealed on the subject of Mrs. Vimpany's true character. He could only persist in appealing to her duty to her father. "You are allowing your quick temper to carry you to strange extremities," he answered. "If I think it of more importance to hasten a reconciliation with your father than to encourage you to make excursions with a lady whom you have only known for a week or two, what have I done to deserve such an outbreak of anger? Hush! Not a word more now! Here is the lady herself." As he spoke, Mrs. Vimpany joined them; returning from her interview with her husband at the inn. She looked first at Iris, and at once perceived signs of disturbance in the young lady's face. Concealing her anxiety under that wonderful stage smile, which affords a refuge to so many secrets, Mrs. Vimpany said a few words excusing her absence. Miss Henley answered, without the slightest change in her friendly manner to the doctor's wife. The signs of disturbance were evidently attributable to some entirely unimportant cause, from Mrs. Vimpany's point of view. Mr. Mountjoy's discoveries had not been communicated yet. In Hugh's state of mind, there was some irritating influence in the presence of the mistress of the house, which applied the spur to his wits. He mischievously proposed submitting to her the question in dispute between Iris and himself. "It is a very simple matter," he said to Mrs. Vimpany. "Miss Henley's father is anxious that she should return to him, after an estrangement between them which is happily at an end. Do you think she ought to allow any accidental engagements to prevent her from going home at once? If she requests your indulgence, under the circumstances, has she any reason to anticipate a refusal?" Mrs. Vimpany's expressive eyes looked up, with saintly resignation, at the dirty ceiling--and asked in dumb show what she had done to deserve the injury implied by a doubt. "Mr. Mountjoy," she said sternly, "you insult me by asking the question."--"Dear Miss Henley," she continued, turning to Iris, _"you_ will do me justice, I am sure. Am I capable of allowing my own feelings to stand in the way, when your filial duty is concerned? Leave me, my sweet friend. Go! I entreat you, go home!" She retired up the stage--no, no; she withdrew to the other end of the room--and burst into the most becoming of all human tears, theatrical tears. Impulsive Iris hastened to comfort the personification of self-sacrifice, the model of all that was most unselfish in female submission. "For shame! for shame!" she whispered, as she passed Mountjoy. Beaten again by Mrs. Vimpany--with no ties of relationship to justify resistance to Miss Henley; with two women against him, entrenched behind the privileges of their sex--the one last sacrifice of his own feelings, in the interests of Iris, that Hugh could make was to control the impulse which naturally urged him to leave the house. In the helpless position in which he had now placed himself, he could only wait to see what course Mrs. Vimpany might think it desirable to take. Would she request him, in her most politely malicious way, to bring his visit to an end? No: she looked at him--hesitated--directed a furtive glance towards the view of the street from the window--smiled mysteriously--and completed the sacrifice of her own feelings in these words: "Dear Miss Henley, let me help you to pack up." Iris positively refused. "No," she said, "I don't agree with Mr. Mountjoy. My father leaves it to me to name the day when we meet. I hold you, my dear, to our engagement--I don't leave an affectionate friend as I might leave a stranger." Even if Mr. Mountjoy communicated his discoveries to Miss Henley, on the way home, there would be no danger now of her believing him. Mrs. Vimpany put her powerful arm round the generous Iris, and, with infinite grace, thanked her by a kiss. "Your kindness will make my lonely lot in life harder than ever to bear," she murmured, "when you are gone." "But we may hope to meet in London," Iris reminded her; "unless Mr. Vimpany alters his mind about leaving this place." "My husband will not do that, dear. He is determined to try his luck, as he says, in London. In the meantime you will give me your address, won't you? Perhaps you will even promise to write to me?" Iris instantly gave her promise, and wrote down her address in London. Mountjoy made no attempt to interfere: it was needless. If the maid had not fallen ill on the journey, and if Mrs. Vimpany had followed Miss Henley to London, there would have been little to fear in the discovery of her address--and there was little to fear now. The danger to Iris was not in what might happen while she was living under her father's roof, but in what might happen if she was detained (by plans for excursions) in Mr. Vimpany's house, until Lord Harry might join her there. Rather than permit this to happen, Hugh (in sheer desperation) meditated charging Mrs. Vimpany, to her face, with being the Irish lord's spy, and proving the accusation by challenging her to produce the registered letter and the diamond pin. While he was still struggling with his own reluctance to inflict this degrading exposure on a woman, the talk between the two ladies came to an end. Mrs. Vimpany returned again to the window. On this occasion, she looked out into the street--with her handkerchief (was it used as a signal?) exhibited in her hand. Iris, on her side, advanced to Mountjoy. Easily moved to anger, her nature was incapable of sullen perseverance in a state of enmity. To see Hugh still patiently waiting--still risking the chances of insult--devoted to her, and forgiving her--was at once a reproach that punished Iris, and a mute appeal that no true woman's heart could resist. With tears in her eyes she said to him: "There must be no coolness between you and me. I lost my temper, and spoke shamefully to you. My dear, I am indeed sorry for it. You are never hard on me--you won't be hard on me now?" She offered her hand to him. He had just raised it to his lips--when the drawing-room door was roughly opened. They both looked round. The man of all others whom Hugh least desired to see was the man who now entered the room. The victim of "light claret"--privately directed to lurk in the street, until he saw a handkerchief fluttering at the window--had returned to the house; primed with his clever wife's instructions; ready and eager to be even with Mountjoy for the dinner at the inn. CHAPTER IX MR. VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to preserve his self-control. Was the man sober again already? His wife approached him with her set smile; the appearance of her lord and master filled Mrs. Vimpany with perfectly-assumed emotions of agreeable surprise. "This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "You seldom favour us with your company, my dear, so early in the evening! Are there fewer patients in want of your advice than usual?" "You are mistaken, Arabella. I am here in the performance of a painful duty." The doctor's language, and the doctor's manner, presented him to Iris in a character that was new to her. What effect had he produced on Mrs. Vimpany? That excellent friend to travellers in distress lowered her eyes to the floor, and modestly preserved silence. Mr. Vimpany proceeded to the performance of his duty; his painful responsibility seemed to strike him at first from a medical point of view. "If there is a poison which undermines the sources of life," he remarked, "it is alcohol. If there is a vice that degrades humanity, it is intoxication. Mr. Mountjoy, are you aware that I am looking at you?" "Impossible not to be aware of that," Hugh answered. "May I ask why you are looking at me?" It was not easy to listen gravely to Mr. Vimpany's denunciation of intemperance, after what had taken place at the dinner of that day. Hugh smiled. The moral majesty of the doctor entered its protest. "This is really shameful," he said. "The least you can do is to take it seriously." "What is it?" Mountjoy asked. "And why am I to take it seriously?" Mr. Vimpany's reply was, to say the least of it, indirect. If such an expression may be permitted, it smelt of the stage. Viewed in connection with Mrs. Vimpany's persistent assumption of silent humility, it suggested to Mountjoy a secret understanding, of some kind, between husband and wife. "What has become of your conscience, sir?" Mr. Vimpany demanded. "Is that silent monitor dead within you? After giving me a bad dinner, do you demand an explanation? Ha! you shall have it." Having delivered himself to this effect, he added action to words. Walking grandly to the door, he threw it open, and saluted Mountjoy with an ironical bow. Iris observed that act of insolence; her colour rose, her eyes glittered. "Do you see what he has just done?" she said to Mrs. Vimpany. The doctor's wife answered softly: "I don't understand it." After a glance at her husband, she took Iris by the hand: "Dear Miss Henley, shall we retire to my room?" Iris drew her hand away. "Not unless Mr. Mountjoy wishes it," she said. "Certainly not!" Hugh declared. "Pray remain here; your presence will help me to keep my temper." He stepped up to Mr. Vimpany. "Have you any particular reason for opening that door?" he asked. The doctor was a rascal; but, to do him justice, he was no coward. "Yes," he said, "I have a reason." "What is it, if you please?" "Christian forbearance," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Forbearance towards me?" Mountjoy continued. The doctor's dignity suddenly deserted him. "Aha, my boy, you have got it at last!" he cried. "It's pleasant to understand each other, isn't it? You see, I'm a plain-spoken fellow; I don't wish to give offence. If there's one thing more than another I pride myself on, it's my indulgence for human frailty. But, in my position here, I'm obliged to be careful. Upon my soul, I can't continue my acquaintance with a man who--oh, come! come! don't look as if you didn't understand me. The circumstances are against you, sir. You have treated me infamously." "Under what circumstances have I treated you infamously?" Hugh asked. "Under pretence of giving me a dinner," Mr. Vimpany shouted--"the worst dinner I ever sat down to!" His wife signed to him to be silent. He took no notice of her. She insisted on being understood. "Say no more!" she warned him, in a tone of command. The brute side of his nature, roused by Mountjoy's contemptuous composure, was forcing its way outwards; he set his wife at defiance. "Then don't let him look at me as if he thought I was in a state of intoxication!" cried the furious doctor. "There's the man, Miss, who tried to make me tipsy," he went on, actually addressing himself to Iris. "Thanks to my habits of sobriety, he has been caught in his own trap. _He's_ intoxicated. Ha, friend Mountjoy, have you got the right explanation at last? There's the door, sir!" Mrs. Vimpany felt that this outrage was beyond endurance. If something was not done to atone for it, Miss Henley would be capable--her face, at that moment, answered for her--of leaving the house with Mr. Mountjoy. Mrs. Vimpany seized her husband indignantly by the arm. "You brute, you have spoilt everything!" she said to him. "Apologise directly to Mr. Mountjoy. You won't?" "I won't!" Experience had taught his wife how to break him to her will. "Do you remember my diamond pin?" she whispered. He looked startled. Perhaps he thought she had lost the pin. "Where is it?" he asked eagerly. "Gone to London to be valued. Beg Mr. Mountjoy's pardon, or I will put the money in the bank--and not one shilling of it do you get." In the meanwhile, Iris had justified Mrs. Vimpany's apprehensions. Her indignation noticed nothing but the insult offered to Hugh. She was too seriously agitated to be able to speak to him. Still admirably calm, his one anxiety was to compose her. "Don't be afraid," he said; "it is impossible that I can degrade myself by quarrelling with Mr. Vimpany. I only wait here to know what you propose to do. You have Mrs. Vimpany to think of." "I have nobody to think of but You," Iris replied. "But for me, you would never have been in this house. After the insult that has been offered to you--oh, Hugh, I feel it too!--let us return to London together. I have only to tell Rhoda we are going away, and to make my preparations for travelling. Send for me from the inn, and I will be ready in time for the next train." Mrs. Vimpany approached Mountjoy, leading her husband. "Sorry I have offended you," the doctor said. "Beg your pardon. It's only a joke. No offence, I hope?" His servility was less endurable than his insolence. Telling him that he need say no more, Mountjoy bowed to Mrs. Vimpany, and left the room. She returned his bow mechanically, in silence. Mr. Vimpany followed Hugh out--thinking of the diamond pin, and eager to open the house door, as another act of submission which might satisfy his wife. Even a clever woman will occasionally make mistakes; especially when her temper happens to have been roused. Mrs. Vimpany found herself in a false position, due entirely to her own imprudence. She had been guilty of three serious errors. In the first place she had taken it for granted that Mr. Vimpany's restorative mixture would completely revive the sober state of his brains. In the second place, she had trusted him with her vengeance on the man who had found his way to her secrets through her husband's intemperance. In the third place, she had rashly assumed that the doctor, in carrying out her instructions for insulting Mountjoy, would keep within the limits which she had prescribed to him, when she hit on the audacious idea of attributing his disgraceful conduct to the temptation offered by his host's example. As a consequence of these acts of imprudence, she had exposed herself to a misfortune that she honestly dreaded--the loss of the place which she had carefully maintained in Miss Henley's estimation. In the contradictory confusion of feelings, so often found in women, this deceitful and dangerous creature had been conquered--little by little, as she had herself described it--by that charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at the time when they first met. "Must I give up all, Miss Henley, that I most value?" she asked. "I hardly understand you, Mrs. Vimpany." "I will try to make it plainer. Do you really mean to leave me this evening?" "I do." "May I own that I am grieved to hear it? Your departure will deprive me of some happy hours, in your company." "Your husband's conduct leaves me no alternative," Iris replied. "Pray do not humiliate me by speaking of my husband! I only want to know if there is a harder trial of my fortitude still to come. Must I lose the privilege of being your friend?" "I hope I am not capable of such injustice as that," Iris declared. "It would be hard indeed to lay the blame of Mr. Vimpany's shameful behaviour on you. I don't forget that you made him offer an apology. Some women, married to such a man as that, might have been afraid of him. No, no; you have been a good friend to me--and I mean to remember it." Mrs. Vimpany's gratitude was too sincerely felt to be expressed with her customary readiness. She only said what the stupidest woman in existence could have said: "Thank you." In the silence that followed, the rapid movement of carriage wheels became audible in the street. The sound stopped at the door of the doctor's house. CHAPTER X THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT HAD Mountjoy arrived to take Iris away, before her preparations for travelling were complete? Both the ladies hurried to the window, but they were too late. The rapid visitor, already hidden from them under the portico, was knocking smartly at the door. In another minute, a man's voice in the hall asked for "Miss Henley." The tones--clear, mellow, and pleasantly varied here and there by the Irish accent--were not to be mistaken by any one who had already hear them. The man in the hall was Lord Harry. In that serious emergency, Mrs. Vimpany recovered her presence of mind. She made for the door, with the object of speaking to Lord Harry before he could present himself in the drawing-room. But Iris had heard him ask for her in the hall; and that one circumstance instantly stripped of its concealments the character of the woman in whose integrity she had believed. Her first impression of Mrs. Vimpany--so sincerely repented, so eagerly atoned for--had been the right impression after all! Younger, lighter, and quicker than the doctor's wife, Iris reached the door first, and laid her hand on the lock. "Wait a minute," she said. Mrs. Vimpany hesitated. For the first time in her life at a loss what to say, she could only sign to Iris to stand back. Iris refused to move. She put her terrible question in the plainest words: "How does Lord Harry know that I am in this house?" The wretched woman (listening intently for the sound of a step on the stairs) refused to submit to a shameful exposure, even now. To her perverted moral sense, any falsehood was acceptable, as a means of hiding herself from discovery by Iris. In the very face of detection, the skilled deceiver kept up the mockery of deceit. "My dear," she said, "what has come to you? Why won't you let me go to my room?" Iris eyed her with a look of scornful surprise. "What next?" she said. "Are you impudent enough to pretend that I have not found you out, yet?" Sheer desperation still sustained Mrs. Vimpany's courage. She played her assumed character against the contemptuous incredulity of Iris, as she had sometimes played her theatrical characters against the hissing and hooting of a brutal audience. "Miss Henley," she said, "you forget yourself!" "Do you think I didn't see in your face," Iris rejoined, "that you heard him, too? Answer my question." "What question?" "You have just heard it." "No!" "You false woman!" "Don't forget, Miss Henley, that you are speaking to a lady." "I am speaking to Lord Harry's spy!" Their voices rose loud; the excitement on either side had reached its climax; neither the one nor the other was composed enough to notice the sound of the carriage-wheels, leaving the house again. In the meanwhile, nobody came to the drawing-room door. Mrs. Vimpany was too well acquainted with the hot-headed Irish lord not to conclude that he would have made himself heard, and would have found his way to Iris, but for some obstacle, below stairs, for which he was not prepared. The doctor's wife did justice to the doctor at last. Another person had, in all probability, heard Lord Harry's voice--and that person might have been her husband. Was it possible that he remembered the service which she had asked of him; and, even if he had succeeded in calling it to mind, was his discretion to be trusted? As those questions occurred to her, the desire to obtain some positive information was more than she was able to resist. Mrs. Vimpany attempted to leave the drawing-room for the second time. But the same motive had already urged Miss Henley to action. Again, the younger woman outstripped the older. Iris descended the stairs, resolved to discover the cause of the sudden suspension of events in the lower part of the house. CHAPTER XI MRS. VIMPANY'S FAREWELL THE doctor's wife followed Miss Henley out of the room, as far as the landing--and waited there. She had her reasons for placing this restraint on herself. The position of the landing concealed her from the view of a person in the hall. If she only listened for the sound of voices she might safely discover whether Lord Harry was, or was not, still in the house. In the first event, it would be easy to interrupt his interview with Iris, before the talk could lead to disclosures which Mrs. Vimpany had every reason to dread. In the second event, there would be no need to show herself. Meanwhile, Iris opened the dining-room door and looked in. Nobody was there. The one other room on the ground floor, situated at the back of the building, was the doctor's consulting-room. She knocked at the door. Mr. Vimpany's voice answered: "Come in." There he was alone, drinking brandy and water, and smoking his big black cigar. "Where is Lord Harry?" she said. "In Ireland, I suppose," Mr. Vimpany answered quietly. Iris wasted no time in making useless inquiries. She closed the door again, and left him. He, too, was undoubtedly in the conspiracy to keep her deceived. How had it been done? Where was the wild lord, at that moment? Whilst she was pursuing these reflections in the hall, Rhoda came up from the servants' tea-table in the kitchen. Her mistress gave her the necessary instructions for packing, and promised to help her before long. Mrs. Vimpany's audacious resolution to dispute the evidence of her own senses, still dwelt on Miss Henley's mind. Too angry to think of the embarrassment which an interview with Lord Harry would produce, after they had said their farewell words in Ireland, she was determined to prevent the doctor's wife from speaking to him first, and claiming him as an accomplice in her impudent denial of the truth. If he had been, by any chance, deluded into leaving the house, he would sooner or later discover the trick that had been played on him, and would certainly return. Iris took a chair in the hall. * * * * * * * It is due to the doctor to relate that he had indeed justified his wife's confidence in him. The diamond pin, undergoing valuation in London, still represented a present terror in his mind. The money, the money--he was the most attentive husband in England when he thought of the money! At the time when Lord Harry's carriage stopped at his house-door, he was in the dining-room, taking a bottle of brandy from the cellaret in the sideboard. Looking instantly out of the window, he discovered who the visitor was, and decided on consulting his instructions in the pocket-diary. The attempt was rendered useless, as soon as he had opened the book, by the unlucky activity of the servant in answering the door. Her master stopped her in the hall. He was pleasantly conscious of the recovery of his cunning. But his memory (far from active under the most favourable circumstances) was slower than ever at helping him now. On the spur of the moment he could only call to mind that he had been ordered to prevent a meeting between Lord Harry and Iris. "Show the gentleman into my consulting-room," he said. Lord Harry found the doctor enthroned on his professional chair, surprised and delighted to see his distinguished friend. The impetuous Irishman at once asked for Miss Henley. "Gone," Mr. Vimpany answered "Gone--where?" the wild lord wanted to know next. "To London." "By herself?" "No; with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy." Lord Harry seized the doctor by the shoulders, and shook him: "You don't mean to tell me Mountjoy is going to marry her?" Mr. Vimpany feared nothing but the loss of money. The weaker and the older man of the two, he nevertheless followed the young lord's example, and shook him with right good-will. "Let's see how you like it in your turn," he said. "As for Mountjoy, I don't know whether he is married or single--and don't care." "The devil take your obstinacy! When did they start?" "The devil take your questions! They started not long since." "Might I catch them at the station?" "Yes; if you go at once." So the desperate doctor carried out his wife's instructions--without remembering the conditions which had accompanied them. The way to the station took Lord Harry past the inn. He saw Hugh Mountjoy through the open house door paying his bill at the bar. In an instant the carriage was stopped, and the two men (never on friendly terms) were formally bowing to each other. "I was told I should find you," Lord Harry said, "with Miss Henley, at the station." "Who gave you your information?" "Vimpany--the doctor." "He ought to know that the train isn't due at the station for an hour yet." "Has the blackguard deceived me? One word more, Mr. Mountjoy. Is Miss Henley at the inn?" "No." "Are you going with her to London?" "I must leave Miss Henley to answer that." "Where is she, sir?" "There is an end to everything, my lord, in the world we live in. You have reached the end of my readiness to answer questions." The Englishman and the Irishman looked at each other: the Anglo-Saxon was impenetrably cool; the Celt was flushed and angry. They might have been on the brink of a quarrel, but for Lord Harry's native quickness of perception, and his exercise of it at that moment. When he had called at Mr. Vimpany's house, and had asked for Iris, the doctor had got rid of him by means of a lie. After this discovery, at what conclusion could he arrive? The doctor was certainly keeping Iris out of his way. Reasoning in this rapid manner, Lord Harry let one offence pass, in his headlong eagerness to resent another. He instantly left Mountjoy. Again the carriage rattled back along the street; but it was stopped before it reached Mr. Vimpany's door. Lord Harry knew the people whom he had to deal with, and took measures to approach the house silently, on foot. The coachman received orders to look out for a signal, which should tell him when he was wanted again. Mr. Vimpany's ears, vigilantly on the watch for suspicious events, detected no sound of carriage wheels and no noisy use of the knocker. Still on his guard, however, a ring at the house-bell disturbed him in his consulting-room. Peeping into the hall, he saw Iris opening the door, and stole back to his room. "The devil take her!" he said, alluding to Miss Henley, and thinking of the enviable proprietor of the diamond pin. At the unexpected appearance of Iris, Lord Harry forgot every consideration which ought to have been present to his mind, at that critical moment. He advanced to her with both hands held out in cordial greeting. She signed to him contemptuously to stand back--and spoke in tones cautiously lowered, after a glance at the door of the consulting-room. "My only reason for consenting to see you," she said, "is to protect myself from further deception. Your disgraceful conduct is known to me. Go now," she continued, pointing to the stairs, "and consult with your spy, as soon as you like." The Irish lord listened--guiltily conscious of having deserved what she had said to him--without attempting to utter a word in excuse. Still posted at the head of the stairs, the doctor's wife heard Iris speaking; but the tone was not loud enough to make the words intelligible at that distance; neither was any other voice audible in reply. Vaguely suspicions of some act of domestic treachery, Mrs. Vimpany began to descend the stairs. At the turning which gave her a view of the hall, she stopped; thunderstruck by the discovery of Lord Harry and Miss Henley, together. The presence of a third person seemed, in some degree, to relieve Lord Harry. He ran upstairs to salute Mrs. Vimpany, and was met again by a cold reception and a hostile look. Strongly and strangely contrasted, the two confronted each other on the stairs. The faded woman, wan and ghastly under cruel stress of mental suffering, stood face to face with a fine, tall, lithe man, in the prime of his health and strength. Here were the bright blue eyes, the winning smile, and the natural grace of movement, which find their own way to favour in the estimation of the gentler sex. This irreclaimable wanderer among the perilous by-ways of the earth--christened "Irish blackguard," among respectable members of society, when they spoke of him behind his back--attracted attention, even among the men. Looking at his daring, finely-formed face, they noticed (as an exception to a general rule, in these days) the total suppression, by the razor, of whiskers, moustache, and beard. Strangers wondered whether Lord Harry was an actor or a Roman Catholic priest. Among chance acquaintances, those few favourites of Nature who are possessed of active brains, guessed that his life of adventure might well have rendered disguise necessary to his safety, in more than one part of the world. Sometimes they boldly put the question to him. The hot temper of an Irishman, in moments of excitement, is not infrequently a sweet temper in moments of calm. What they called Lord Harry's good-nature owned readily that he had been indebted, on certain occasions, to the protection of a false beard, And perhaps a colouring of his face and hair to match. The same easy disposition now asserted itself, under the merciless enmity of Mrs. Vimpany's eyes. "If I have done anything to offend you," he said, with an air of puzzled humility, "I'm sure I am sorry for it. Don't be angry, Arabella, with an old friend. Why won't you shake hands?" "I have kept your secret, and done your dirty work," Mrs. Vimpany replied. "And what is my reward? Miss Henley can tell you how your Irish blundering has ruined me in a lady's estimation. Shake hands, indeed! You will never shake hands with Me again as long as you live!" She said those words without looking at him; her eyes were resting on Iris now. From the moment when she had seen the two together, she knew that it was all over; further denial in the face of plain proofs would be useless indeed! Submission was the one alternative left. "Miss Henley," she said, "if you can feel pity for another woman's sorrow and shame, let me have a last word with you--out of this man's hearing." There was nothing artificial in her tones or her looks; no acting could have imitated the sad sincerity with which she spoke. Touched by that change, Iris accompanied her as she ascended the stairs. After a little hesitation, Lord Harry followed them. Mrs. Vimpany turned on him when they reached the drawing-room landing. "Must I shut the door in your face?" she asked. He was as pleasantly patient as ever: "You needn't take the trouble to do that, my dear; I'll only ask your leave to sit down and wait on the stairs. When you have done with Miss Henley, just call me in. And, by the way, don't be alarmed in case of a little noise--say a heavy man tumbling downstairs. If the blackguard it's your misfortune to be married to happens to show himself, I shall be under the necessity of kicking him. That's all." Mrs. Vimpany closed the door. She spoke to Iris respectfully, as she might have addressed a stranger occupying a higher rank in life than herself. "There is an end, madam, to one short acquaintance; and, as we both know, an end to it for ever. When we first met--let me tell the truth at last!--I felt a malicious pleasure in deceiving you. After that time, I was surprised to find that you grew on my liking, Can you understand the wickedness that tried to resist you? It was useless; your good influence has been too strong for me. Strange, isn't it? I have lived a life of deceit, among bad people. What could you expect of me, after that? I heaped lies on lies--I would have denied that the sun was in the heavens--rather than find myself degraded in your opinion. Well! that is all over--useless, quite useless now. Pray don't mistake me. I am not attempting to excuse myself; a confession was due to you; the confession is made. It is too late to hope that you will forgive me. If you will permit it, I have only one favour to ask. Forget me." She turned away with a last hopeless look, who said as plainly as if in words: "I am not worth a reply." Generous Iris insisted on speaking to her. "I believe you are truly sorry for what you have done," she said; "I can never forget that--I can never forget You." She held out her pitying hand. Mrs. Vimpany was too bitterly conscious of the past to touch it. Even a spy is not beneath the universal reach of the heartache. There were tears in the miserable woman's eyes when she had looked her last at Iris Henley. CHAPTER XII LORD HARRY's DEFENCE AFTER a short interval, the drawing-room door was opened again. Waiting on the threshold, the Irish lord asked if he might come in. Iris replied coldly. "This is not my house," she said; "I must leave you to decide for yourself." Lord Harry crossed the room to speak to her and stopped. There was no sign of relenting towards him in that dearly-loved face. "I wonder whether it would be a relief to you," he suggested with piteous humility, "if I went away?" If she had been true to herself, she would have said, Yes. Where is the woman to be found, in her place, with a heart hard enough to have set her that example? She pointed to a chair. He felt her indulgence gratefully. Following the impulse of the moment, he attempted to excuse his conduct. "There is only one thing I can say for myself," he confessed, "I didn't begin by deceiving you. While you had your eye on me, Iris, I was an honourable man." This extraordinary defence reduced her to silence. Was there another man in the world who would have pleaded for pardon in that way? "I'm afraid I have not made myself understood," he said. "May I try again?" "If you please." The vagabond nobleman made a resolute effort to explain himself intelligibly, this time: "See now! We said good-bye, over there, in the poor old island. Well, indeed I meant it, when I owned that I was unworthy of you. _I_ didn't contradict you, when you said you could never be my wife, after such a life as I have led. And, do remember, I submitted to your returning to England, without presuming to make a complaint. Ah, my sweet girl, it was easy to submit, while I could look at you, and hear the sound of your voice, and beg for that last kiss--and get it. Reverend gentlemen talk about the fall of Adam. What was that to the fall of Harry, when he was back in his own little cottage, without the hope of ever seeing you again? To the best of my recollection, the serpent that tempted Eve was up a tree. I found the serpent that tempted Me, sitting waiting in my own armchair, and bent on nothing worse than borrowing a trifle of money. Need I say who she was? I don't doubt that you think her a wicked woman." Never ready in speaking of acts of kindness, on her own part, Iris answered with some little reserve: "I have learnt to think better of Mrs. Vimpany than you suppose." Lord Harry began to look like a happy man, for the first time since he had entered the room. "I ought to have known it!" he burst out. "Yours is the well-balanced mind, dear, that tempers justice with mercy. Mother Vimpany has had a hard life of it. Just change places with her for a minute or so--and you'll understand what she has had to go through. Find yourself, for instance, in Ireland, without the means to take you back to England. Add to that, a husband who sends you away to make money for him at the theatre, and a manager (not an Irishman, thank God!) who refuses to engage you--after your acting has filled his dirty pockets in past days--because your beauty has faded with time. Doesn't your bright imagination see it all now? My old friend Arabella, ready and anxious to serve me--and a sinking at this poor fellow's heart when he knew, if he once lost the trace of you, he might lose it for ever--there's the situation, as they call it on the stage. I wish I could say for myself what I may say for Mrs. Vimpany. It's such a pleasure to a clever woman to engage in a little deceit--we can't blame her, can we?" Iris protested gently against a code of morality which included the right of deceit among the privileges of the sex. Lord Harry slipped through her fingers with the admirable Irish readiness; he agreed with Miss Henley that he was entirely wrong. "And don't spare me while you're about it," he suggested. "Lay all the blame of that shameful stratagem on my shoulders. It was a despicable thing to do. When I had you watched, I acted in a manner--I won't say unworthy of a gentleman; have I been a gentleman since I first ran away from home? Why, it's even been said my way of speaking is no longer the way of a gentleman; and small wonder, too, after the company I've kept. Ah, well! I'm off again, darling, on a sea voyage. Will you forgive me now? or will you wait till I come back, if I do come back? God knows!" He dropped on his knees, and kissed her hand. "Anyway," he said, "whether I live or whether I die, it will be some consolation to remember that I asked your pardon--and perhaps got it." "Take it, Harry; I can't help forgiving you!" She had done her best to resist him, and she had answered in those merciful words. The effect was visible, perilously visible, as he rose from his knees. Her one chance of keeping the distance between them, on which she had been too weak to insist, was not to encourage him by silence. Abruptly, desperately, she made a commonplace inquiry about his proposed voyage. "Tell me," she resumed, "where are you going when you leave England?" "Oh, to find money, dear, if I can--to pick up diamonds, or to hit on a mine of gold, and so forth." The fine observation of Iris detected something not quite easy in his manner, as he made that reply. He tried to change the subject: she deliberately returned to it. "Your account of your travelling plans is rather vague," she told him. "Do you know when you are likely to return?" He took her hand. One of the rings on her fingers happened to be turned the wrong way. He set it in the right position, and discovered an opal. "Ah! the unlucky stone!" he cried, and turned it back again out of sight. She drew away her hand. "I asked you," she persisted, "when you expect to return?" He laughed--not so gaily as usual. "How do I know I shall ever get back?" he answered. "Sometimes the seas turn traitor, and sometimes the savages. I have had so many narrow escapes of my life, I can't expect my luck to last for ever." He made a second attempt to change the subject. "I wonder whether you're likely to pay another visit to Ireland? My cottage is entirely at your disposal, Iris dear. Oh, when I'm out of the way, of course! The place seemed to please your fancy, when you saw it. You will find it well taken care of, I answer for that." Iris asked who was taking care of his cottage. The wild lord's face saddened. He hesitated; rose from his chair restlessly, and walked away to the window; returned, and made up his mind to reply. "My dear, you know her. She was the old housekeeper at--" His voice failed him. He was unable, or unwilling, to pronounce the name of Arthur's farm. Knowing, it is needless to say, that he had alluded to Mrs. Lewson, Iris warmly commended him for taking care of her old nurse. At the same time, she remembered the unfriendly terms in which the housekeeper had alluded to Lord Harry, when they had talked of him. "Did you find no difficulty," she asked, "in persuading Mrs. Lewson to enter your service?" "Oh, yes, plenty of difficulty; I found my bad character in my way, as usual." It was a relief to him, at that moment, to talk of Mrs. Lewson; the Irish humour and the Irish accent both asserted themselves in his reply. "The curious old creature told me to my face I was a scamp. I took leave to remind her that it was the duty of a respectable person, like herself, to reform scamps; I also mentioned that I was going away, and she would be master and mistress too on my small property. That softened her heart towards me. You will mostly find old women amenable, if you get at them by way of their dignity. Besides, there was another lucky circumstance that helped me. The neighbourhood of my cottage has some attraction for Mrs. Lewson. She didn't say particularly what it was--and I never asked her to tell me." "Surely you might have guessed it, without being told," Iris reminded him. "Mrs. Lewson's faithful heart loves poor Arthur's memory--and Arthur's grave is not far from your cottage." "Don't speak of him!" It was said loudly, peremptorily, passionately. He looked at her with angry astonishment in his face. "You loved him too!" he said. "Can you speak of him quietly? The noblest, truest, sweetest man that ever the Heavens looked on, foully assassinated. And the wretch who murdered him still living, free--oh, what is God's providence about?--is there no retribution that will follow him? no just hand that will revenge Arthur's death?" As those fierce words escaped him, he was no longer the easy, gentle, joyous creature whom Iris had known and loved. The furious passions of the Celtic race glittered savagely in his eyes, and changed to a grey horrid pallor the healthy colour that was natural to his face. "Oh, my temper, my temper!" he cried, as Iris shrank from him. "She hates me now, and no wonder." He staggered away from her, and burst into a convulsive fit of crying, dreadful to hear. Compassion, divine compassion, mastered the earthlier emotion of terror in the great heart of the woman who loved him. She followed him, and laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder. "I don't hate you, my dear," she said. "I am sorry for Arthur--and, oh, so sorry for You!" He caught her in his arms. His gratitude, his repentance, his silent farewell were all expressed in a last kiss. It was a moment, never to be forgotten to the end of their lives. Before she could speak, before she could think, he had left her. She called him back, through the open door. He never returned; he never even replied. She ran to the window, and threw it up--and was just in time to see him signal to the carriage and leap into it. Her horror of the fatal purpose that was but too plainly rooted in him--her conviction that he was on the track of the assassin, self devoted to exact the terrible penalty of blood for blood--emboldened her to insist on being heard. "Come back," she cried. "I must, I will, speak with you." He waved his hand to her with a gesture of despair. "Start your horses," he shouted to the coachman. Alarmed by his voice and his look, the man asked where he should drive to. Lord Harry pointed furiously to the onward road. "Drive," he answered, "to the Devil!" THE END OF THE FIRST PERIOD THE SECOND PERIOD CHAPTER XIII IRIS AT HOME A LITTLE more than four months had passed, since the return of Iris to her father's house. Among other events which occurred, during the earlier part of that interval, the course adopted by Hugh Mountjoy, when Miss Henley's suspicions of the Irish lord were first communicated to him, claims a foremost place. It was impossible that the devoted friend of Iris could look at her, when they met again on their way to the station, without perceiving the signs of serious agitation. Only waiting until they were alone in the railway-carriage, she opened her heart unreservedly to the man in whose clear intellect and true sympathy she could repose implicit trust. He listened to what she could repeat of Lord Harry's language with but little appearance of surprise. Iris had only reminded him of one, among the disclosures which had escaped Mr. Vimpany at the inn. Under the irresistible influence of good wine, the doctor had revealed the Irish lord's motive for remaining in his own country, after the assassination of Arthur Mountjoy. Hugh met the only difficulty in his way, without shrinking from it. He resolved to clear his mind of its natural prejudice against the rival who had been preferred to him, before he assumed the responsibility of guiding Iris by his advice. When he had in some degree recovered confidence in his own unbiased judgment, he entered on the question of Lord Harry's purpose in leaving England. Without attempting to dispute the conclusion at which Iris had arrived, he did his best to alleviate her distress. In his opinion, he was careful to tell her, a discovery of the destination to which Lord Harry proposed to betake himself, might be achieved. The Irish lord's allusion to a new adventure, which would occupy him in searching for diamonds or gold, might indicate a contemplated pursuit of the assassin, as well as a plausible excuse to satisfy Iris. It was at least possible that the murderer might have been warned of his danger if he remained in England, and that he might have contemplated directing his flight to a distant country, which would not only offer a safe refuge, but also hold out (in its mineral treasures) a hope of gain. Assuming that these circumstances had really happened, it was in Lord Harry's character to make sure of his revenge, by embarking in the steamship by which the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy was a passenger. Wild as this guess at the truth undoubtedly was, it had one merit: it might easily be put to the test. Hugh had bought the day's newspaper at the station. He proposed to consult the shipping advertisements relating, in the first place, to communication with the diamond-mines and the goldfields of South Africa. This course of proceeding at once informed him that the first steamer, bound for that destination, would sail from London in two days' time. The obvious precaution to take was to have the Dock watched; and Mountjoy's steady old servant, who knew Lord Harry by sight, was the man to employ. Iris naturally inquired what good end could be attained, if the anticipated discovery actually took place. To this Mountjoy answered, that the one hope--a faint hope, he must needs confess--of inducing Lord Harry to reconsider his desperate purpose, lay in the influence of Iris herself. She must address a letter to him, announcing that his secret had been betrayed by his own language and conduct, and declaring that she would never again see him, or hold any communication with him, if he persisted in his savage resolution of revenge. Such was the desperate experiment which Mountjoy's generous and unselfish devotion to Iris now proposed to try. The servant (duly entrusted with Miss Henley's letter) was placed on the watch--and the event which had been regarded as little better than a forlorn hope, proved to be the event that really took place. Lord Harry was a passenger by the steamship. Mountjoy's man presented the letter entrusted to him, and asked respectfully if there was any answer. The wild lord read it--looked (to use the messenger's own words) like a man cut to the heart--seemed at a loss what to say or do--and only gave a verbal answer: "I sincerely thank Miss Henley, and I promise to write when the ship touches at Madeira." The servant continued to watch him when he went on board the steamer; saw him cast a look backwards, as if suspecting that he might have been followed; and then lost sight of him in the cabin. The vessel sailed after a long interval of delay, but he never reappeared on the deck. The ambiguous message sent to her aroused the resentment of Iris; she thought it cruel. For some weeks perhaps to come, she was condemned to remain in doubt, and was left to endure the trial of her patience, without having Mountjoy at hand to encourage and console her. He had been called away to the south of France by the illness of his father. But the fortunes of Miss Henley, at this period of her life, had their brighter side. She found reason to congratulate herself on the reconciliation which had brought her back to her father. Mr. Henley had received her, not perhaps with affection, but certainly with kindness. "If we don't get in each other's way, we shall do very well; I am glad to see you again." That was all he had said to her, but it meant much from a soured and selfish man. Her only domestic anxiety was caused by another failure in the health of her maid. The Doctor declared that medical help would be of no avail, while Rhoda Bennet remained in London. In the country she had been born and bred, and to the country she must return. Mr. Henley's large landed property, on the north of London, happened to include a farm in the neighbourhood of Muswell Hill. Wisely waiting for a favourable opportunity, Iris alluded to the good qualities which had made Rhoda almost as much her friend as her servant, and asked leave to remove the invalid to the healthy air of the farm. Her anxiety about the recovery of a servant so astonished Mr. Henley, that he was hurried (as he afterwards declared) into granting his daughter's request. After this concession, the necessary arrangements were easily made. The influence of Iris won the goodwill of the farmer and his wife; Rhoda, as an expert and willing needlewoman, being sure of a welcome, for her own sake, in a family which included a number of young children. Miss Henley had only to order her carriage, and to be within reach of the farm. A week seldom passed without a meeting between the mistress and the maid. In the meantime, Mountjoy (absent in France) did not forget to write to Iris. His letters offered little hope of a speedy return. The doctors had not concealed from him that his father's illness would end fatally; but there were reserves of vital power still left, which might prolong the struggle. Under these melancholy circumstances, he begged that Iris would write to him. The oftener she could tell him of the little events of her life at home, the more kindly she would brighten the days of a dreary life. Eager to show, even in a trifling matter, how gratefully she appreciated Mountjoy's past kindness, Iris related the simple story of her life at home, in weekly letters addressed to her good friend. After telling Hugh (among other things) of Rhoda's establishment at the farm, she had some unexpected results to relate, which had followed the attempt to provide herself with a new maid. Two young women had been successively engaged--each recommended, by the lady whom she had last served, with that utter disregard of moral obligation which appears to be shamelessly on the increase in the England of our day. The first of the two maids, described as "rather excitable," revealed infirmities of temper which suggested a lunatic asylum as the only fit place for her. The second young woman, detected in stealing eau-de-cologne, and using it (mixed with water) as an intoxicating drink, claimed merciful construction of her misconduct, on the ground that she had been misled by the example of her last mistress. At the third attempt to provide herself with a servant, Iris was able to report the discovery of a responsible person who told the truth--an unmarried lady of middle age. In this case, the young woman was described as a servant thoroughly trained in the performance of her duties, honest, sober, industrious, of an even temper, and unprovided with a "follower" in the shape of a sweetheart. Even her name sounded favourably in the ear of a stranger--it was Fanny Mere. Iris asked how a servant, apparently possessed of a faultless character, came to be in want of a situation. At this question the lady sighed, and acknowledged that she had "made a dreadful discovery," relating to the past life of her maid. It proved to be the old, the miserably old, story of a broken promise of marriage, and of the penalty paid as usual by the unhappy woman. "I will say nothing of my own feelings," the maiden lady explained. "In justice to the other female servants, it was impossible for me to keep such a person in my house; and, in justice to you, I must most unwillingly stand in the way of Fanny Mere's prospects by mentioning my reason for parting with her." "If I could see the young woman and speak to her," Iris said, "I should like to decide the question of engaging her, for myself." The lady knew the address of her discharged servant, and--with some appearance of wonder--communicated it. Miss Henley wrote at once, telling Fanny Mere to come to her on the following day. When she woke on the next morning, later than usual, an event occurred which Iris had been impatiently expecting for some time past. She found a letter waiting on her bedside table, side by side with her cup of tea. Lord Harry had written to her at last. Whether he used his pen or his tongue, the Irish lord's conduct was always more or less in need of an apology. Here were the guilty one's new excuses, expressed in his customary medley of frank confession and flowery language: "I am fearing, my angel, that I have offended you. You have too surely said to yourself, This miserable Harry might have made me happy by writing two lines--and what does he do? He sends a message in words which tell me nothing. "My sweet girl, the reason why is that I was in two minds when your man stopped me on my way to the ship. "Whether it was best for you--I was not thinking of myself--to confess the plain truth, or to take refuge in affectionate equivocation, was more than I could decide at the time. When minutes are enough for your intelligence, my stupidity wants days. Well! I saw it at last. A man owes the truth to a true woman; and you are a true woman. There you find a process of reasoning--I have been five days getting hold of it. "But tell me one thing first. Brutus killed a man; Charlotte Corday killed a man. One of the two victims was a fine tyrant, and the other a mean tyrant. Nobody blames those two historical assassins. Why then blame me for wishing to make a third? Is a mere modern murderer beneath my vengeance, by comparison with two classical tyrants who did _their_ murders by deputy? The man who killed Arthur Mountjoy is (next to Cain alone) the most atrocious homicide that ever trod the miry ways of this earth. There is my reply! I call it a crusher. "So now my mind is easy. Darling, let me make your mind easy next. "When I left you at the window of Vimpany's house, I was off to the other railroad to find the murderer in his hiding-place by the seaside. He had left it; but I got a trace, and went back to London--to the Docks. Some villain in Ireland, who knows my purpose, must have turned traitor. Anyhow, the wretch has escaped me. "Yes; I searched the ship in every corner. He was not on board. Has he gone on before me, by an earlier vessel? Or has he directed his flight to some other part of the world? I shall find out in time. His day of reckoning will come, and he, too, shall know a violent death! Amen. So be it. Amen. "Have I done now? Bear with me, gentle Iris--there is a word more to come. "You will wonder why I went on by the steamship--all the way to South Africa--when I had failed to find the man I wanted, on board. What was my motive? You, you alone, are always my motive. Lucky men have found gold, lucky men have found diamonds. Why should I not be one of them? My sweet, let us suppose two possible things; my own elastic convictions would call them two likely things, but never mind that. Say, I come back a reformed character; there is your only objection to me, at once removed! And take it for granted that I return with a fortune of my own finding. In that case, what becomes of Mr. Henley's objection to me? It melts (as Shakespeare says somewhere) into thin air. Now do take my advice, for once. Show this part of my letter to your excellent father, with my love. I answer beforehand for the consequences. Be happy, my Lady Harry--as happy as I am--and look for my return on an earlier day than you may anticipate. Yours till death, and after. "HARRY." Like the Irish lord, Miss Henley was "in two minds," while she rose, and dressed herself. There were parts of the letter for which she loved the writer, and parts of it for which she hated him. What a prospect was before that reckless man--what misery, what horror, might not be lying in wait in the dreadful future! If he failed in the act of vengeance, that violent death of which he had written so heedlessly might overtake him from another hand. If he succeeded, the law might discover his crime, and the infamy of expiation on the scaffold might be his dreadful end. She turned, shuddering, from the contemplation of those hideous possibilities, and took refuge in the hope of his safe, his guiltless return. Even if his visions of success, even if his purposes of reform (how hopeless at his age!) were actually realised, could she consent to marry the man who had led his life, had written this letter, had contemplated (and still cherished) his merciless resolution of revenge? No woman in her senses could let the bare idea of being his wife enter her mind. Iris opened her writing-desk, to hide the letter from all eyes but her own. As she secured it with the key, her heart sank under the return of a terror remembered but too well. Once more, the superstitious belief in a destiny that was urging Lord Harry and herself nearer and nearer to each other, even when they seemed to be most widely and most surely separated, thrilled her under the chilling mystery of its presence. She dropped helplessly into a chair. Oh, for a friend who could feel for her, who could strengthen her, whose wise words could restore her to her better and calmer self! Hugh was far away; and Iris was left to suffer and to struggle alone. Heartfelt aspirations for help and sympathy! Oh, irony of circumstances, how were they answered? The housemaid entered the room, to announce the arrival of a discharged servant, with a lost character. "Let the young woman come in," Iris said. Was Fanny Mere the friend whom she had been longing for? She looked at her troubled face in the glass--and laughed bitterly. CHAPTER XIV THE LADY'S MAID IT was not easy to form a positive opinion of the young woman who now presented herself in Miss Henley's room. If the Turkish taste is truly reported as valuing beauty in the female figure more than beauty in the female face, Fanny Mere's personal appearance might have found, in Constantinople, the approval which she failed to receive in London. Slim and well balanced, firmly and neatly made, she interested men who met her by accident (and sometimes even women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never been stirred by a circulation of blood, produced an effect on her fellow-creatures in general which made them insensible to the beauty of her figure, and the grace of her movements. There was no betrayal of bad health in her strange pallor: on the contrary, she suggested the idea of rare physical strength. Her quietly respectful manner was, so to say, emphasised by an underlying self-possession, which looked capable of acting promptly and fearlessly in the critical emergencies of life. Otherwise, the expression of character in her face was essentially passive. Here was a steady, resolute young woman, possessed of qualities which failed to show themselves on the surface--whether good qualities or bad qualities experience alone could determine. Finding it impossible, judging by a first impression, to arrive at any immediate decision favourable or adverse to the stranger, Iris opened the interview with her customary frankness; leaving the consequences to follow as they might. "Take a seat, Fanny," she said, "and let us try if we can understand each other. I think you will agree with me that there must be no concealments between us. You ought to know that your mistress has told me why she parted with you. It was her duty to tell me the truth, and it is my duty not to be unjustly prejudiced against you after what I have heard. Pray believe me when I say that I don't know, and don't wish to know, what your temptation may have been--" "I beg your pardon, Miss, for interrupting you. My temptation was vanity." Whether she did or did not suffer in making that confession, it was impossible to discover. Her tones were quiet; her manner was unobtrusively respectful; the pallor of her face was not disturbed by the slightest change of colour. Was the new maid an insensible person? Iris began to fear already that she might have made a mistake. "I don't expect you to enter into particulars," she said; "I don't ask you here to humiliate yourself." "When I got your letter, Miss, I tried to consider how I might show myself worthy of your kindness," Fanny answered. "The one way I could see was not to let you think better of me than I deserve. When a person, like me, is told, for the first time, that her figure makes amends for her face, she is flattered by the only compliment that has been paid to her in all her life. My excuse, Miss (if I have an excuse) is a mean one---I couldn't resist a compliment. That is all I have to say." Iris began to alter her opinion. This was not a young woman of the ordinary type. It began to look possible, and more than possible, that she was worthy of a helping hand. The truth seemed to be in her. "I understand you, and feel for you." Having replied in those words, Iris wisely and delicately changed the subject. "Let me hear how you are situated at the present time," she continued. "Are your parents living?" "My father and mother are dead, Miss." "Have you any other relatives?" "They are too poor to be able to do anything for me. I have lost my character--and I am left to help myself." "Suppose you fail to find another situation?" Iris suggested. "Yes, Miss?" "How can you help yourself?" "I can do what other girls have done." "What do you mean?" "Some of us starve on needlework. Some take to the streets. Some end it in the river. If there is no other chance for me, I think I shall try that way," said the poor creature, as quietly as if she was speaking of some customary prospect that was open to her. "There will be nobody to be sorry for me--and, as I have read, drowning is not a very painful death." "You shock me, Fanny! I, for one, should be sorry for you." "Thank you, Miss." "And try to remember," Iris continued, "that there may be chances in the future which you don't see yet. You speak of what you have read, and I have already noticed how clearly and correctly you express yourself. You must have been educated. Was it at home? or at school? "I was once sent to school," Fanny replied, not quite willingly. "Was it a private school?" "Yes." That short answer warned Iris to be careful. "Recollections of school," she said good-humouredly, "are not the pleasantest recollections in some of our lives. Perhaps I have touched on a subject which is disagreeable to you?" "You have touched on one of my disappointments, Miss. While my mother lived, she was my teacher. After her death, my father sent me to school. When he failed in business, I was obliged to leave, just as I had begun to learn and like it. Besides, the girls found out that I was going away, because there was no money at home to pay the fees--and that mortified me. There is more that I might tell you. I have a reason for hating my recollections of the school--but I mustn't mention that time in my life which your goodness to me tries to forget." All that appealed to her, so simply and so modestly, in that reply, was not lost on Iris. After an interval of silence, she said: "Can you guess what I am thinking of, Fanny?" "No, Miss." "I am asking myself a question. If I try you in my service shall I never regret it?" For the first time, strong emotion shook Fanny Mere. Her voice failed her, in the effort to speak. Iris considerately went on. "You will take the place," she said, "of a maid who has been with me for years--a good dear creature who has only left me through ill-health. I must not expect too much of you; I cannot hope that you will be to me what Rhoda Bennet has been." Fanny succeeded in controlling herself. "Is there any hope," she asked, "of my seeing Rhoda Bennet?" "Why do you wish to see her?" "You are fond of her, Miss---that is one reason." "And the other?" "Rhoda Bennet might help me to serve you as I want to serve you; she might perhaps encourage me to try if I could follow her example." Fanny paused, and clasped her hands fervently. The thought that was in her forced its way to expression. "It's so easy to feel grateful," she said--"and, oh, so hard to show it!" "Come to me," her new mistress answered, "and show it to-morrow." Moved by that compassionate impulse, Iris said the words which restored to an unfortunate creature a lost character and a forfeited place in the world. CHAPTER XV MR. HENLEY'S TEMPER PROVIDED by nature with ironclad constitutional defences against illness, Mr. Henley was now and then troubled with groundless doubts of his own state of health. Acting under a delusion of this kind, he imagined symptoms which rendered a change of residence necessary from his town house to his country house, a few days only after his daughter had decided on the engagement of her new maid. Iris gladly, even eagerly, adapted her own wishes to the furtherance of her father's plans. Sorely tried by anxiety and suspense, she needed all that rest and tranquillity could do for her. The first week in the country produced an improvement in her health. Enjoying the serene beauty of woodland and field, breathing the delicious purity of the air--sometimes cultivating her own corner in the garden, and sometimes helping the women in the lighter labours of the dairy--her nerves recovered their tone, and her spirits rose again to their higher level. In the performance of her duties the new maid justified Miss Henley's confidence in her, during the residence of the household in the country. She showed, in her own undemonstrative way, a grateful sense of her mistress's kindness. Her various occupations were intelligently and attentively pursued; her even temper never seemed to vary; she gave the servants no opportunities of complaining of her. But one peculiarity in her behaviour excited hostile remark, below-stairs. On the occasions when she was free to go out for the day, she always found some excuse for not joining any of the other female servants, who might happen to be similarly favoured. The one use she made of her holiday was to travel by railway to some place unknown; always returning at the right time in the evening. Iris knew enough of the sad circumstances to be able to respect her motives, and to appreciate the necessity for keeping the object of these solitary journeys a secret from her fellow-servants. The pleasant life in the country house had lasted for nearly a month, when the announcement of Hugh's approaching return to England reached Iris. The fatal end of his father's long and lingering illness had arrived, and the funeral had taken place. Business, connected with his succession to the property, would detain him in London for a few days. Submitting to this necessity, he earnestly expressed the hope of seeing Iris again, the moment he was at liberty. Hearing the good news, Mr. Henley obstinately returned to his plans--already twice thwarted--for promoting the marriage of Mountjoy and Iris. He wrote to invite Hugh to his house in a tone of cordiality which astonished his daughter; and when the guest arrived, the genial welcome of the host had but one defect--Mr. Henley overacted his part. He gave the two young people perpetual opportunities of speaking to each other privately; and, on the principle that none are so blind as those who won't see, he failed to discover that the relations between them continued to be relations of friendship, do what he might. Hugh's long attendance on his dying father had left him depressed in spirits; Iris understood him, and felt for him. He was not ready with his opinion of the new maid, after he had seen Fanny Mere. "My inclination," he said, "is to trust the girl. And yet, I hesitate to follow my inclination--and I don't know why." When Hugh's visit came to an end, he continued his journey in a northerly direction. The property left to him by his father included a cottage, standing in its own grounds, on the Scotch shore of the Solway Firth. The place had been neglected during the long residence of the elder Mr. Mountjoy on the Continent. Hugh's present object was to judge, by his own investigation, of the necessity for repairs. On the departure of his guest, Mr. Henley (still obstinately hopeful of the marriage on which he had set his mind) assumed a jocular manner towards Iris, and asked if the Scotch cottage was to be put in order for the honeymoon. Her reply, gently as it was expressed, threw him into a state of fury. His vindictive temper revelled, not only in harsh words, but in spiteful actions. He sold one of his dogs which had specially attached itself to Iris; and, seeing that she still enjoyed the country, he decided on returning to London. She submitted in silence. But the events of that past time, when her father's merciless conduct had driven her out of his house, returned ominously to her memory. She said to herself: "Is a day coming when I shall leave him again?" It was coming--and she little knew how. CHAPTER XVI THE DOCTOR IN FULL DRESS MR. HENLEY'S household had been again established in London, when a servant appeared one morning with a visiting card, and announced that a gentleman had called who wished to see Miss Henley. She looked at the card. The gentleman was Mr. Vimpany. On the point of directing the man to say that she was engaged, Iris checked herself. Mrs. Vimpany's farewell words had produced a strong impression on her. There had been moments of doubt and gloom in her later life, when the remembrance of that unhappy woman was associated with a feeling (perhaps a morbid feeling) of self-reproach. It seemed to be hard on the poor penitent wretch not to have written to her. Was she still leading the same dreary life in the mouldering old town? Or had she made another attempt to return to the ungrateful stage? The gross husband, impudently presenting himself with his card and his message, could answer those questions if he could do nothing else. For that reason only Iris decided that she would receive Mr. Vimpany. On entering the room, she found two discoveries awaiting her, for which she was entirely unprepared. The doctor's personal appearance exhibited a striking change; he was dressed, in accordance with the strictest notions of professional propriety, entirely in black. More remarkable still, there happened to be a French novel among the books on the table--and that novel Mr. Vimpany, barbarous Mr. Vimpany, was actually reading with an appearance of understanding it! "I seem to surprise you," said the doctor. "Is it this?" He held up the French novel as he put the question. "I must own that I was not aware of the range of your accomplishments," Iris answered. "Oh, don't talk of accomplishments! I learnt my profession in Paris. For nigh on three years I lived among the French medical students. Noticing this book on the table, I thought I would try whether I had forgotten the language--in the time that has passed (you know) since those days. Well, my memory isn't a good one in most things, but strange to say (force of habit, I suppose), some of my French sticks by me still. I hope I see you well, Miss Henley. Might I ask if you noticed the new address, when I sent up my card?" "I only noticed your name." The doctor produced his pocket-book, and took out a second card. With pride he pointed to the address: "5 Redburn Road, Hampstead Heath." With pride he looked at his black clothes. "Strictly professional, isn't it?" he said. "I have bought a new practice; and I have become a new man. It isn't easy at first. No, by jingo--I beg your pardon--I was about to say, my own respectability rather bothers me; I shall get used to it in time. If you will allow me, I'll take a liberty. No offence, I hope?" He produced a handful of his cards, and laid them out in a neat little semicircle on the table. "A word of recommendation, when you have the chance, would be a friendly act on your part," he explained. "Capital air in Redburn Road, and a fine view of the Heath out of the garret windows--but it's rather an out-of-the-way situation. Not that I complain; beggars mustn't be choosers. I should have preferred a practice in a fashionable part of London; but our little windfall of money--" He came to a full stop in the middle of a sentence. The sale of the superb diamond pin, by means of which Lord Harry had repaid Mrs. Vimpany's services, was, of all domestic events, the last which it might be wise to mention in the presence of Miss Henley. He was awkwardly silent. Taking advantage of that circumstance, Iris introduced the subject in which she felt interested. "How is Mrs. Vimpany?" she asked. "Oh, she's all right!" "Does she like your new house?" The doctor made a strange reply. "I really can't tell you," he said. "Do you mean that Mrs. Vimpany declines to express an opinion?" He laughed. "In all my experience," he said, "I never met with a woman who did that! No, no; the fact is, my wife and I have parted company. There's no need to look so serious about it! Incompatibility of temper, as the saying is, has led us to a friendly separation. Equally a relief on both sides. She goes her way, I go mine." His tone disgusted Iris--and she let him see it. "Is it of any use to ask you for Mrs. Vimpany's address?" she inquired. His atrocious good-humour kept its balance as steadily as ever: "Sorry to disappoint you. Mrs. Vimpany hasn't given me her address. Curious, isn't it? The fact is, she moped a good deal, after you left us; talked of her duty, and the care of her soul, and that sort of thing. When I hear where she is, I'll let you know with pleasure. To the best of my belief, she's doing nurse's work somewhere." "Nurse's work? What do you mean?" "Oh, the right thing--all in the fashion. She belongs to what they call a Sisterhood; goes about, you know, in a shabby black gown, with a poke bonnet. At least, so Lord Harry told me the other day." In spite of herself, Iris betrayed the agitation which those words instantly roused in her. "Lord Harry!" she exclaimed. "Where is he? In London?" "Yes--at Parker's Hotel." "When did he return?" "Oh, a few days ago; and--what do you think?--he's come back from the goldfields a lucky man. Damn it, I've let the cat out of the bag! I was to keep the thing a secret from everybody, and from you most particularly. He's got some surprise in store for you. Don't tell him what I've done! We had a little misunderstanding, in past days, at Honeybuzzard--and, now we are friends again, I don't want to lose his lordship's interest." Iris promised to be silent. But to know that the wild lord was in England again, and to remain in ignorance whether he had, or had not, returned with the stain of bloodshed on him, was more than she could endure. "There is one question I must ask you," she said. "I have reason to fear that Lord Harry left this country, with a purpose of revenge--" Mr. Vimpany wanted no further explanation. "Yes, yes; I know. You may be easy about that. There's been no mischief done, either one way or the other. The man he was after, when he landed in South Africa (he told me so himself) has escaped him." With that reply, the doctor got up in a hurry to bring his visit to an end. He proposed to take to flight, he remarked facetiously, before Miss Henley wheedled him into saying anything more. After opening the door, however, he suddenly returned to Iris, and added a last word in the strictest confidence. "If you won't forget to recommend me to your friends," he said, "I'll trust you with another secret. You will see his lordship in a day or two, when he returns from the races. Good-bye." The races! What was Lord Harry doing at the races? CHAPTER XVII ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH IRIS had only to remember the manner in which she and Mountjoy had disappointed her father, to perceive the serious necessity of preventing Mountjoy's rival from paying a visit at Mr. Henley's house. She wrote at once to Lord Harry, at the hotel which Mr. Vimpany had mentioned, entreating him not to think of calling on her. Being well aware that he would insist on a meeting, she engaged to write again and propose an appointment. In making this concession, Iris might have found it easier to persuade herself that she was yielding to sheer necessity, if she had not been guiltily conscious of a feeling of pleasure at the prospect of seeing Lord Harry again, returning to her an innocent man. There was some influence, in this train of thought, which led her mind back to Hugh. She regretted his absence--wondered whether he would have proposed throwing her letter to the Irish lord into the fire--sighed, closed the envelope, and sent the letter to the post. On the next day, she had arranged to drive to Muswell Hill, and to pay the customary visit to Rhoda. Heavy rain obliged her to wait for a fitter opportunity. It was only on the third day that the sky cleared, and the weather was favourable again. On a sunshiny autumn morning, with a fine keen air blowing, she ordered the open carriage. Noticing, while Fanny Mere was helping her to dress, that the girl looked even paler than usual, she said, with her customary kindness to persons dependent on her, "You look as if a drive in the fresh air would do you good--you shall go with me to the farm, and see Rhoda Bennet." When they stopped at the house, the farmer's wife appeared, attending a gentleman to the door. Iris at once recognised the local medical man. "You're not in attendance, I hope, on Rhoda Bennet?" she said. The doctor acknowledged that there had been some return of the nervous derangement from which the girl suffered. He depended mainly (he said) on the weather allowing her to be out as much as possible in the fresh air, and on keeping her free from all agitation. Rhoda was so far on the way to recovery, that she was now walking in the garden by his advice. He had no fear of her, provided she was not too readily encouraged, in her present state, to receive visitors. Her mistress would be, of course, an exception to this rule. But even Miss Henley would perhaps do well not to excite the girl by prolonging her visit. There was one other suggestion which he would venture to make, while he had the opportunity. Rhoda was not, as he thought, warmly enough clothed for the time of year; and a bad cold might be easily caught by a person in her condition. Iris entered the farm-house; leaving Fanny Mere, after what the doctor had said on the subject of visitors, to wait for her in the carriage. After an absence of barely ten minutes Miss Henley returned; personally changed, not at all to her own advantage, by the introduction of a novelty in her dress. She had gone into the farmhouse, wearing a handsome mantle of sealskin. When she came out again, the mantle had vanished, and there appeared in its place a common cloak of drab-coloured cloth. Noticing the expression of blank amazement in the maid's face, Iris burst out laughing. "How do you think I look in my new cloak?" she asked. Fanny saw nothing to laugh at in the sacrifice of a sealskin mantle. "I must not presume, Miss, to give an opinion," she said gravely. "At any rate," Iris continued, "you must be more than mortal if my change of costume doesn't excite your curiosity. I found Rhoda Bennet in the garden, exposed to the cold wind in this ugly flimsy thing. After what the doctor had told me, it was high time to assert my authority. I insisted on changing cloaks with Rhoda. She made an attempt, poor dear, to resist; but she knows me of old--and I had my way. I am sorry you have been prevented from seeing her; you shall not miss the opportunity when she is well again. Do you admire a fine view? Very well; we will vary the drive on our return. Go back," she said to the coachman, "by Highgate and Hampstead." Fanny's eyes rested on the shabby cloak with a well-founded distrust of it as a protection against the autumn weather. She ventured to suggest that her mistress might feel the loss (in an open carriage) of the warm mantle which she had left on Rhoda's shoulders. Iris made light of the doubt expressed by her maid. But by the time they had passed Highgate, and had approached the beginning of the straight road which crosses the high ridge of Hampstead Heath, she was obliged to acknowledge that she did indeed feel the cold. "You ought to be a good walker," she said, looking at her maid's firm well-knit figure. "Exercise is all I want to warm me. What do you say to going home on foot?" Fanny was ready and willing to accompany her mistress. The carriage was dismissed, and they set forth on their walk. As they passed the inn called "The Spaniards," two women who were standing at the garden gate stared at Iris, and smiled. A few paces further on, they were met by an errand-boy. He too looked at the young lady, and put his hand derisively to his head, with a shrill whistle expressive of malicious enjoyment. "I appear to amuse these people," Iris said. "What do they see in me?" Fanny answered with an effort to preserve her gravity, which was not quite successfully disguised: "I beg your pardon, Miss; I think they notice the curious contrast between your beautiful bonnet and your shabby cloak." Persons of excitable temperament have a sense of ridicule, and a dread of it, unintelligible to their fellow-creatures who are made of coarser material. For the moment, Iris was angry. "Why didn't you tell me of it," she asked sharply, "before I sent away the carriage? How can I walk back, with everybody laughing at me?" She paused--reflected a little--and led the way off the high road, on the right, to the fine clump of fir-trees which commands the famous view in that part of the Heath. "There's but one thing to be done," she said, recovering her good temper; "we must make my grand bonnet suit itself to my miserable cloak. You will pull out the feather and rip off the lace (and keep them for yourself, if you like), and then I ought to look shabby enough from head to foot, I am sure! No; not here; they may notice us from the road--and what may the fools not do when they see you tearing the ornaments off my bonnet! Come down below the trees, where the ground will hide us." They had nearly descended the steep slope which leads to the valley, below the clump of firs, when they were stopped by a terrible discovery. Close at their feet, in a hollow of the ground, was stretched the insensible body of a man. He lay on his side, with his face turned away from them. An open razor had dropped close by him. Iris stooped over the prostate man, to examine his face. Blood flowing from a frightful wound in his throat, was the first thing that she saw. Her eyes closed instinctively, recoiling from that ghastly sight. The next instant she opened them again, and saw his face. Dying or dead, it was the face of Lord Harry. The shriek that burst from her, on making that horrible discovery, was heard by two men who were crossing the lower heath at some distance. They saw the women, and ran to them. One of the men was a labourer; the other, better dressed, looked like a foreman of works. He was the first who arrived on the spot. "Enough to frighten you out of your senses, ladies," he said civilly. "It's a case of suicide, I should say, by the look of it." "For God's sake, let us do something to help him!" Iris burst out. "I know him! I know him!" Fanny, equal to the emergency, asked Miss Henley for her handkerchief, joined her own handkerchief to it, and began to bandage the wound. "Try if his pulse is beating," she said quietly to her mistress. The foreman made himself useful by examining the suicide's pockets. Iris thought she could detect a faint fluttering in the pulse. "Is there no doctor living near?" she cried. "Is there no carriage to be found in this horrible place?" The foreman had discovered two letters. Iris read her own name on one of them. The other was addressed "To the person who may find my body." She tore the envelope open. It contained one of Mr. Vimpany's cards, with these desperate words written on it in pencil: "Take me to the doctor's address, and let him bury me, or dissect me, whichever he pleases." Iris showed the card to the foreman. "Is it near here?" she asked. "Yes, Miss; we might get him to that place in no time, if there was a conveyance of any kind to be found." Still preserving her presence of mind, Fanny pointed in the direction of "The Spaniards" inn. "We might get what we want there," she said. "Shall I go?" Iris signed to her to attend to the wounded man, and ascended the sloping ground. She ran on towards the road. The men, directed by Fanny, raised the body and slowly followed her, diverging to an easier ascent. As Iris reached the road, a four-wheel cab passed her. Without an instant's hesitation, she called to the driver to stop. He pulled up his horse. She confronted a solitary gentleman, staring out of the window of the cab, and looking as if he thought that a lady had taken a liberty with him. Iris allowed the outraged stranger no opportunity of expressing his sentiments. Breathless as she was, she spoke first. "Pray forgive me--you are alone in the cab--there is room for a gentleman, dangerously wounded--he will bleed to death if we don't find help for him--the place is close by--oh, don't refuse me!" She looked back, holding fast by the cab door, and saw Fanny and the men slowly approaching. "Bring him here!" she cried. "Do nothing of the sort!" shouted the gentleman in possession of the cab. But Fanny obeyed her mistress; and the men obeyed Fanny. Iris turned indignantly to the merciless stranger. "I ask you to do an act of Christian kindness," she said. "How can you, how dare you, hesitate?" "Drive on!" cried the stranger. "Drive on, at your peril," Iris added, on her side. The cabman sat, silent and stolid, on the box, waiting for events. Slowly the men came in view, bearing Lord Harry, still insensible. The handkerchiefs on his throat were saturated with blood. At that sight, the cowardly instincts of the stranger completely mastered him. "Let me out!" he clamoured; "let me out!" Finding the cab left at her disposal, Iris actually thanked him! He looked at her with an evil eye. "I have my suspicions, I can tell you," he muttered. "If this comes to a trial in a court of law, I'm not going to be mixed up with it. Innocent people have been hanged before now, when appearances were against them." He walked off; and, by way of completing the revelation of his own meanness, forgot to pay his fare. On the point of starting the horse to pursue him, the cabman was effectually stopped. Iris showed him a sovereign. Upon this hint (like Othello) he spoke. "All right, Miss. I see your poor gentleman is a-bleeding. You'll take care--won't you?--that he doesn't spoil my cushions." The driver was not a ill-conditioned man; he put the case of his property indulgently, with a persuasive smile. Iris turned to the two worthy fellows, who had so readily given her their help, and bade them good-bye, with a solid expression of her gratitude which they both remembered for many a long day to come. Fanny was already in the cab supporting Lord Harry's body. Iris joined her. The cabman drove carefully to Mr. Vimpany's new house. CHAPTER XVIII PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE NUMBER Five was near the centre of the row of little suburban houses called Redburn Road. When the cab drew up at the door Mr. Vimpany himself was visible, looking out of the window on the ground floor--and yawning as he looked. Iris beckoned to him impatiently. "Anything wrong?" he asked, as he approached the door of the cab. She drew back, and silently showed him what was wrong. The doctor received the shock with composure. When he happened to be sober and sad, looking for patients and failing to find them, Mr. Vimpany's capacity for feeling sympathy began and ended with himself. "This is a new scrape, even for Lord Harry," he remarked. "Let's get him into the house." The insensible man was carried into the nearest room on the ground floor. Pale and trembling, Iris related what had happened, and asked if there was no hope of saving him. "Patience!" Mr. Vimpany answered; "I'll tell you directly." He removed the bandages, and examined the wound. "There's been a deal of blood lost," he said; "I'll try and pull him through. While I am about it, Miss, go upstairs, if you please, and find your way to the drawing-room." Iris hesitated. The doctor opened a neat mahogany box. "The tools of my trade," he continued; "I'm going to sew up his lordship's throat." Shuddering as she heard those words, Iris hurried out of the room. Fanny followed her mistress up the stairs. In her own very different way, the maid was as impenetrably composed as Mr. Vimpany himself. "There was a second letter found in the gentleman's pocket, Miss," she said. "Will you excuse my reminding you that you have not read it yet." Iris read the lines that follow: "Forgive me, my dear, for the last time. My letter is to say that I shall trouble you no more in this world--and, as for the other world, who knows? I brought some money back with me, from the goldfields. It was not enough to be called a fortune--I mean the sort of fortune which might persuade your father to let you marry me. Well! here in England, I had an opportunity of making ten times more of it on the turf; and, let me add, with private information of the horses which I might certainly count on to win. I don't stop to ask by what cruel roguery I was tempted to my ruin. My money is lost; and, with it, my last hope of a happy and harmless life with you comes to an end. I die, Iris dear, with the death of that hope. Something in me seems to shrink from suicide in the ugly gloom of great overgrown London. I prefer to make away with myself among the fields, where the green will remind me of dear old Ireland. When you think of me sometimes, say to yourself the poor wretch loved me--and perhaps the earth will lie lighter on Harry for those kind words, and the flowers (if you favour me by planting a few) may grow prettier on my grave." There it ended. The heart of Iris sank as she read that melancholy farewell, expressed in language at once wild and childish. If he survived his desperate attempt at self-destruction, to what end would it lead? In silence, the woman who loved him put his letter back in her bosom. Watching her attentively--affected, it was impossible to say how, by that mute distress--Fanny Mere proposed to go downstairs, and ask once more what hope there might be for the wounded man. Iris knew the doctor too well to let the maid leave her on a useless errand. "Some men might be kindly ready to relieve my suspense," she said; "the man downstairs is not one of them. I must wait till he comes to me, or sends for me. But there is something I wish to say to you, while we are alone. You have been but a short time in my service, Fanny. Is it too soon to ask if you feel some interest in me?" "If I can comfort you or help you, Miss, be pleased to tell me how." She made that reply respectfully, in her usual quiet manner; her pale cheeks showing no change of colour, her faint blue eyes resting steadily on her mistress's face. Iris went on: "If I ask you to keep what has happened, on this dreadful day, a secret from everybody, may I trust you--little as you know of me--as I might have trusted Rhoda Bennet?" "I promise it, Miss." In saying those few words, the undemonstrative woman seemed to think that she had said enough. Iris had no alternative but to ask another favour. "And whatever curiosity you may feel, will you be content to do me a kindness--without wanting an explanation?" "It is my duty to respect my mistress's secrets; I will do my duty." No sentiment, no offer of respectful sympathy; a positive declaration of fidelity, left impenetrably to speak for itself. Was the girl's heart hardened by the disaster which had darkened her life? Or was she the submissive victim of that inbred reserve, which shrinks from the frank expression of feeling, and lives and dies self-imprisoned in its own secrecy? A third explanation, founded probably on a steadier basis, was suggested by Miss Henley's remembrance of their first interview. Fanny's nature had revealed a sensitive side, when she was first encouraged to hope for a refuge from ruin followed perhaps by starvation and death. Judging so far from experience, a sound conclusion seemed to follow. When circumstances strongly excited the girl, there was a dormant vitality in her that revived. At other times when events failed to agitate her by a direct appeal to personal interests, her constitutional reserve held the rule. She could be impenetrably honest, steadily industrious, truly grateful--but the intuitive expression of feeling, on ordinary occasions, was beyond her reach. After an interval of nearly half an hour, Mr. Vimpany made his appearance. Pausing in the doorway, he consulted his watch, and entered on a calculation which presented him favourably from a professional point of view. "Allow for time lost in reviving my lord when he fainted, and stringing him up with a drop of brandy, and washing my hands (look how clean they are!), I haven't been more than twenty minutes in mending his throat. Not bad surgery, Miss Henley." "Is his life safe, Mr. Vimpany?" "Thanks to his luck--yes." "His luck?" "To be sure! In the first place, he owes his life to your finding him when you did; a little later, and it would have been all over with Lord Harry. Second piece of luck: catching the doctor at home, just when he was most wanted. Third piece of luck: our friend didn't know how to cut his own throat properly. You needn't look black at me, Miss; I'm not joking. A suicide with a razor in his hand has generally one chance in his favour--he is ignorant of anatomy. That is my lord's case. He has only cut through the upper fleshy part of his throat, and has missed the larger blood vessels. Take my word for it, he will do well enough now; thanks to you, thanks to me, and thanks to his own ignorance. What do you say to that way of putting it? Ha! my brains are in good working order to-day; I haven't been drinking any of Mr. Mountjoy's claret--do you take the joke, Miss Henley?" Chuckling over the recollection of his own drunken audacity, he happened to notice Fanny Mere. "Hullo! is this another injured person in want of me? You're as white as a sheet, Miss. If you're going to faint, do me a favour--wait till I can get the brandy-bottle. Oh! it's natural to you, is it? I see. A thick skin and a slow circulation; you will live to be an old woman. A friend of yours, Miss Henley?" Fanny answered composedly for herself: "I am Miss Henley's maid, sir." "What's become of the other one?" Mr. Vimpany asked. "Aye? aye? Staying at a farm-house for the benefit of her health, is she? If I had been allowed time enough, I would have made a cure of Rhoda Bennet. There isn't a medical man in England who knows more than I do of the nervous maladies of women--and what is my reward? Is my waiting-room crammed with rich people coming to consult me? Do I live in a fashionable Square? Have I even been made a Baronet? Damn it--I beg your pardon, Miss Henley--but it is irritating, to a man of my capacity, to be completely neglected. For the last three days not a creature has darkened the doors of this house. Could I say a word to you?" He led Iris mysteriously into a corner of the room. "About our friend downstairs?" he began. "When may we hope that he will be well again, Mr. Vimpany?" "Maybe in three weeks. In a month at most. I have nobody here but a stupid servant girl. We ought to have a competent nurse. I can get a thoroughly trained person from the hospital; but there's a little difficulty. I am an outspoken man. When I am poor, I own I am poor. My lord must be well fed; the nurse must be well fed. Would you mind advancing a small loan, to provide beforehand for the payment of expenses?" Iris handed her purse to him, sick of the sight of Mr. Vimpany. "Is that all?" she asked, making for the door. "Much obliged. That's all." As they approached the room on the ground floor, Iris stopped: her eyes rested on the doctor. Even to that coarse creature, the eloquent look spoke for her. Fanny noticed it, and suddenly turned her head aside. Over the maid's white face there passed darkly an expression of unutterable contempt. Her mistress's weakness had revealed itself--weakness for one of the betrayers of women; weakness for a man! In the meantime, Mr. Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse. "Do you want to see my lord before you go?" he asked, amused at the idea. "Mind! you mustn't disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready? Now look at him." There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death--there he lay, the reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately renounced him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how her treacherous heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence say, when you look at him now? She felt herself drawn, roughly and suddenly, back into the passage. The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. "Hold up, Miss! I expected better things of you. Come! come!--no fainting. You'll find him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself." After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. "Isn't it pitiable?" she said to her maid as they left the house. "I don't know, Miss." "You don't know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such thing as a heart in you?" "Not for the men," Fanny answered. "I keep my pity for the women." Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession in those words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment! CHAPTER XIX MR. HENLEY AT HOME FOR a month, Mountjoy remained in his cottage on the shores of the Solway Firth, superintending the repairs. His correspondence with Iris was regularly continued; and, for the first time in his experience of her, was a cause of disappointment to him. Her replies revealed an incomprehensible change in her manner of writing, which became more and more marked in each succeeding instance. Notice it as he might in his own letters, no explanation followed on the part of his correspondent. She, who had so frankly confided her joys and sorrows to him in past days, now wrote with a reserve which seemed only to permit the most vague and guarded allusion to herself. The changes in the weather; the alternation of public news that was dull, and public news that was interesting; the absence of her father abroad, occasioned by doubt of the soundness of his investments in foreign securities; vague questions relating to Hugh's new place of abode, which could only have proceeded from a preoccupied mind--these were the topics on which Iris dwelt, in writing to her faithful old friend. It was hardly possible to doubt that something must have happened, which she had reasons--serious reasons, as it seemed only too natural to infer--for keeping concealed from Mountjoy. Try as he might to disguise it from himself, he now knew how dear, how hopelessly dear, she was to him by the anxiety that he suffered, and by the jealous sense of injury which defied his self-command. His immediate superintendence of the workmen at the cottage was no longer necessary. Leaving there a representative whom he could trust, he resolved to answer his last letter, received from Iris, in person. The next day he was in London. Calling at the house, he was informed that Miss Henley was not at home, and that it was impossible to say with certainty when she might return. While he was addressing his inquiries to the servant, Mr. Henley opened the library door. "Is that you, Mountjoy?" he asked. "Come in: I want to speak to you." Short and thick-set, with a thin-lipped mouth, a coarsely-florid complexion, and furtive greenish eyes; hard in his manner, and harsh in his voice; Mr. Henley was one of the few heartless men, who are innocent of deception on the surface: he was externally a person who inspired, at first sight, feelings of doubt and dislike. His manner failed to show even a pretence of being glad to see Hugh. What he had to say, he said walking up and down the room, and scratching his bristly iron-gray hair from time to time. Those signs of restlessness indicated, to those who knew him well, that he had a selfish use to make of a fellow-creature, and failed to see immediately how to reach the end in view. "I say, Mountjoy," he began, "have you any idea of what my daughter is about?" "I don't even understand what you mean," Hugh replied. "For the last month I have been in Scotland." "You and she write to each other, don't you?" "Yes." "Hasn't she told you--" "Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Henley; she has told me nothing." Mr. Henley stared absently at the superbly-bound books on his library-shelves (never degraded by the familiar act of reading), and scratched his head more restlessly than ever. "Look here, young man. When you were staying with me in the country, I rather hoped it might end in a marriage engagement. You and Iris disappointed me--not for the first time. But women do change their minds. Suppose she had changed her mind, after having twice refused you? Suppose she had given you an opportunity--" Hugh interrupted him again. "It's needless to suppose anything of the sort, sir; she would not have given me an opportunity." "Don't fence with me, Mountjoy! I'll put it in a milder way, if you prefer being humbugged. Do you feel any interest in that perverse girl of mine?" Hugh answered readily and warmly: "The truest interest!" Even Mr. Henley was human; his ugly face looked uglier still. It assumed the self-satisfied expression of a man who had carried his point. "Now I can go on, my friend, with what I had to say to you. I have been abroad on business, and only came back the other day. The moment I saw Iris I noticed something wrong about her. If I had been a stranger, I should have said: That young woman is not easy in her mind. Perfectly useless to speak to her about it. Quite happy and quite well--there was her own account of herself. I tried her maid next, a white-livered sulky creature, one of the steadiest liars I have ever met with. 'I know of nothing amiss with my mistress, sir.' There was the maid's way of keeping the secret, whatever it may be! I don't know whether you may have noticed it, in the course of your acquaintance with me--I hate to be beaten." "No, Mr. Henley, I have not noticed it." "Then you are informed of it now. Have you seen my housekeeper?" "Once or twice, sir." "Come! you're improving; we shall make something of you in course of time. Well, the housekeeper was the next person I spoke to about my daughter. Had she seen anything strange in Miss Iris, while I was away from home? There's a dash of malice in my housekeeper's composition; I don't object to a dash of malice. When the old woman is pleased, she shows her yellow fangs. She had something to tell me: 'The servants have been talking, sir, about Miss Iris.' 'Out with it, ma'am! what do they say?' 'They notice, sir, that their young lady has taken to going out in the forenoon, regularly every day: always by herself, and always in the same direction. I don't encourage the servants, Mr. Henley: there was something insolent in the tone of suspicion that they adopted. I told them that Miss Iris was merely taking her walk. They reminded me that it must be a cruelly long walk; Miss Iris being away regularly for four or five hours together, before she came back to the house. After that' (says the housekeeper) 'I thought it best to drop the subject.' What do you think of it yourself, Mountjoy? Do you call my daughter's conduct suspicious?" "I see nothing suspicious, Mr. Henley. When Iris goes out, she visits a friend." "And always goes in the same direction, and always visits the same friend," Mr. Henley added. "I felt a curiosity to know who that friend might be; and I made the discovery yesterday. When you were staying in my house in the country, do you remember the man who waited on you?" Mountjoy began to feel alarmed for Iris; he answered as briefly as possible. "Your valet," he said. "That's it! Well, I took my valet into my confidence--not for the first time, I can tell you: an invaluable fellow. When Iris went out yesterday, he tracked her to a wretched little suburban place near Hampstead Heath, called Redburn Road. She rang the bell at Number Five, and was at once let in--evidently well known there. My clever man made inquiries in the neighbourhood. The house belongs to a doctor, who has lately taken it. Name of Vimpany." Mountjoy was not only startled, but showed it plainly. Mr. Henley, still pacing backwards and forwards, happened by good fortune to have his back turned towards his visitor, at that moment. "Now I ask you, as a man of the world," Mr. Henley resumed, "what does this mean? If you're too cautious to speak out--and I must say it looks like it--shall I set you the example?" "Just as you please, sir." "Very well, then; I'll tell you what I suspect. When Iris is at home, and when there's something amiss in my family, I believe that scoundrel Lord Harry to be at the bottom of it. There's my experience, and there's my explanation. I was on the point of ordering my carriage, to go to the doctor myself, and insist on knowing what the attraction is that takes my daughter to his house, when I heard your voice in the hall. You tell me you are interested in Iris. Very well; you are just the man to help me." "May I ask how, Mr. Henley?" "Of course you may. You can find your way to her confidence, if you choose to try; she will trust you, when she won't trust her father. I don't care two straws about her other secrets; but I do want to know whether she is, or is not, plotting to marry the Irish blackguard. Satisfy me about that, and you needn't tell me anything more. May I count on you to find out how the land lies?" Mountjoy listened, hardly able to credit the evidence of his own senses; he was actually expected to insinuate himself into the confidence of Iris, and then to betray her to her father! He rose, and took his hat--and, without even the formality of a bow, opened the door. "Does that mean No?" Mr. Henley called after him. "Most assuredly," Mountjoy answered--and closed the door behind him. CHAPTER XX FIRST SUSPICIONS OF IRIS FROM the last memorable day, on which Iris had declared to him that he might always count on her as his friend, but never as his wife, Hugh had resolved to subject his feelings to a rigorous control. As to conquering his hopeless love, he knew but too well that it would conquer him, on any future occasion when he and Iris happened to meet. He had been true to his resolution, at what cost of suffering he, and he alone knew. Sincerely, unaffectedly, he had tried to remain her friend. But the nature of the truest and the firmest man has its weak place, where the subtle influence of a woman is concerned. Deeply latent, beyond the reach of his own power of sounding, there was jealousy of the Irish lord lurking in Mountjoy, and secretly leading his mind when he hesitated in those emergencies of his life which were connected with Iris. Ignorant of the influence which was really directing him, he viewed with contempt Mr. Henley's suspicions of a secret understanding between his daughter and the man who was, by her own acknowledgment, unworthy of the love with which it had been her misfortune to regard him. At the same time, Hugh's mind was reluctantly in search of an explanation, which might account (without degrading Iris) for her having been traced to the doctor's house. In his recollection of events at the old country town, he found a motive for her renewal of intercourse with such a man as Mr. Vimpany, in the compassionate feeling with which she regarded the doctor's unhappy wife. There might well be some humiliating circumstance, recently added to the other trials of Mrs. Vimpany's married life, which had appealed to all that was generous and forgiving in the nature of Iris. Knowing nothing of the resolution to live apart which had latterly separated the doctor and his wife, Mountjoy decided on putting his idea to the test by applying for information to Mrs. Vimpany at her husband's house. In the nature of a sensitive man the bare idea of delay, under these circumstances, was unendurable. Hugh called the first cab that passed him, and drove to Hampstead. Careful--morbidly careful, perhaps--not to attract attention needlessly to himself, he stopped the cab at the entrance to Redburn Road, and approached Number Five on foot. A servant-girl answered the door. Mountjoy asked if Mrs. Vimpany was at home. The girl made no immediate reply. She seemed to be puzzled by Mountjoy's simple question. Her familiar manner, with its vulgar assumption of equality in the presence of a stranger, revealed the London-bred maid-servant of modern times. "Did you say _Mrs._ Vimpany?" she inquired sharply. "Yes." "There's no such person here." It was Mountjoy's turn to be puzzled. "Is this Mr. Vimpany's house?" he said. "Yes, to be sure it is." "And yet Mrs. Vimpany doesn't live here?" "No Mrs. Vimpany has darkened these doors," the girl declared positively. "Are you sure you are not making a mistake?" "Quite sure. I have been in the doctor's service since he first took the house." Determined to solve the mystery, if it could be done, Mountjoy asked if he could see the doctor. No: Mr. Vimpany had gone out. "There's a young person comes to us," the servant continued. "I wonder whether you mean her, when you ask for Mrs. Vimpany? The name _she_ gives is Henley." "Is Miss Henley here, now?" "You can't see her--she's engaged." She was not engaged with Mrs. Vimpany, for no such person was known in the house. She was not engaged with the doctor, for the doctor had gone out. Mountjoy looked at the hat-stand in the passage, and discovered a man's hat and a man's greatcoat. To whom did they belong? Certainly not to Mr. Vimpany, who had gone out. Repellent as it was, Mr. Henley's idea that the explanation of his daughter's conduct was to be found in the renewed influence over her of the Irish lord, now presented itself to Hugh's mind under a new point of view. He tried in vain to resist the impression that had been produced on him. A sense of injury, which he was unable to justify to himself, took possession of him. Come what might of it, he determined to set at rest the doubts of which he was ashamed, by communicating with Iris. His card-case proved to be empty when he opened it; but there were letters in his pocket, addressed to him at his hotel in London. Removing the envelope from one of these, he handed it to the servant: "Take that to Miss Henley, and ask when I can see her." The girl left him in the passage, and went upstairs to the drawing-room. In the flimsily-built little house, he could hear the heavy step of a man, crossing the room above, and then the resonant tones of a man's voice raised as if in anger. Had she given him already the right to be angry with her? He thought of the time, when the betrayal of Lord Harry's vindictive purpose in leaving England had frightened her--when he had set aside his own sense of what was due to him, for her sake--and had helped her to communicate, by letter, with the man whose fatal ascendency over Iris had saddened his life. Was what he heard, now, the return that he had deserved? After a short absence, the servant came back with a message. "Miss Henley begs you will excuse her. She will write to you." Would this promised letter be like the other letters which he had received from her in Scotland? Mountjoy's gentler nature reminded him that he owed it to his remembrance of happier days, and truer friendship, to wait and see. He was just getting into the cab, on his return to London, when a closed carriage, with one person in it, passed him on its way to Redburn Road. In that person he recognised Mr. Henley. As the cab-driver mounted to his seat, Hugh saw the carriage stop at Number Five. CHAPTER XXI THE PARTING SCENE THE evening had advanced, and the candles had just been lit in Mountjoy's sitting-room at the hotel. His anxiety to hear from Iris had been doubled and trebled, since he had made the discovery of her father's visit to the doctor's house, at a time when it was impossible to doubt that Lord Harry was with her. Hugh's jealous sense of wrong was now mastered by the nobler emotions which filled him with pity and alarm, when he thought of Iris placed between the contending claims of two such men as the heartless Mr. Henley and the reckless Irish lord. He had remained at the hotel, through the long afternoon, on the chance that she might write to him speedily by the hand of a messenger--and no letter had arrived. He was still in expectation of news which might reach him by the evening post, when the waiter knocked at the door. "A letter?" Mountjoy asked. "No, sir," the man answered; "a lady." Before she could raise her veil, Hugh had recognised Iris. Her manner was subdued; her face was haggard; her hand lay cold and passive in his hand, when he advanced to bid her welcome. He placed a chair for her by the fire. She thanked him and declined to take it. With the air of a woman conscious of committing an intrusion, she seated herself apart in a corner of the room. "I have tried to write to you, and I have not been able to do it." She said that with a dogged resignation of tone and manner, so unlike herself that Mountjoy looked at her in dismay. "My friend," she went on, "your pity is all I may hope for; I am no longer worthy of the interest you once felt in me." Hugh saw that it would be useless to remonstrate. He asked if it had been his misfortune to offend her. "No," she said, "you have not offended me." "Then what in Heaven's name does this change in you mean?" "It means," she said, as coldly as ever, "that I have lost my self-respect; it means that my father has renounced me, and that you will do well to follow his example. Have I not led you to believe that I could never be the wife of Lord Harry? Well, I have deceived you---I am going to marry him." "I can't believe it, Iris! I won't believe it!" She handed him the letter, in which the Irishman had declared his resolution to destroy himself. Hugh read it with contempt. "Did my lord's heart fail him?" he asked scornfully. "He would have died by his own hand, Mr. Mountjoy----" "Oh, Iris--_'Mr.!'"_ "I will say 'Hugh,' if you prefer it--but the days of our familiar friendship are none the less at an end. I found Lord Harry bleeding to death from a wound in his throat. It was in a lonely place on Hampstead Heath; I was the one person who happened to pass by it. For the third time, you see, it has been my destiny to save him. How can I forget that? My mind will dwell on it. I try to find happiness--oh, only happiness enough for me--in cheering my poor Irishman, on his way back to the life that I have preserved. There is my motive, if I have a motive. Day after day I have helped to nurse him. Day after day I have heard him say things to me--what is the use of repeating them? After years of resistance I have given way; let that be enough. My one act of discretion has been to prevent a quarrel between my father and Harry. I beg your pardon, I ought to have said Lord Harry. When my father came to the house, I insisted on speaking with him alone. I told him what I have just told you. He said: 'Think again before you make your choice between that man and me. If you decide to marry him, you will live and die without one farthing of my money to help you.' He put his watch on the table between us, and gave me five minutes to make up my mind. It was a long five minutes, but it ended at last. He asked me which he was to do--leave his will as it was, or go to his lawyer and make another. I said, 'You will do as you please, sir.' No; it was not a hasty reply--you can't make that excuse for me. I knew what I was saying; and I saw the future I was preparing for myself, as plainly as you see it--" Hugh could endure no longer the reckless expression of her despair. "No!" he cried, "you don't see your future as I see it. Will you hear what I have to say, before it is too late?" "It is too late already. But I will listen to you if you wish it." "And, while you listen," Mountjoy added, "you will acquit me of being influenced by a selfish motive. I have loved you dearly. Perhaps, in secret, I love you still. But, this I know: if you were to remain a single woman for the rest of your life, there would be no hope for Me. Do you believe that I am speaking the truth?" "You always speak the truth." "I speak in your interest, at least. You think you see your future life plainly--you are blind to your future life. You talk as if you were resigned to suffer. Are you resigned to lose your sense of right and wrong? Are you resigned to lead the life of an outlaw, and--worse still--not to feel the disgrace of it?" "Go on, Hugh." "You won't answer me?" "I won't shock you." "You don't discourage me, my dear; I am still obstinate in the hope of restoring you to your calmer and truer self. Let me do every justice to Lord Harry. I believe, sincerely believe, that his miserable life has not utterly destroyed in him the virtues which distinguish an honourable man. But he has one terrible defect. In his nature, there is the fatal pliability which finds companionable qualities in bad friends. In this aspect of his character, he is a dangerous man--and he may be (forgive me!) a bad husband. It is a thankless task to warn you to any good purpose. A wife--and a loving wife more than another--feels the deteriorating influence of a husband who is not worthy of her. His ways of thinking are apt to become, little by little, her ways of thinking. She makes allowances for him, which he does not deserve; her sense of right and wrong becomes confused; and before she is aware of it herself, she has sunk to his level. Are you angry with me?" "How can I be angry with you? Perhaps you are right." "Do you really mean that?" "Oh, yes." "Then, for God's sake, reconsider your decision! Let me go to your father." "Mere waste of time," Iris answered. "Nothing that you can say will have the least effect on him." "At any rate," Mountjoy persisted, "I mean to try." Had he touched her? She smiled--how bitterly Hugh failed to perceive. "Shall I tell you what happened to me when I went home to-day?" she said. "I found my maid waiting in the hall--with everything that belongs to me, packed up for my departure. The girl explained that she had been forced to obey my father's positive orders. I knew what that meant--I had to leave the house, and find a place to live in." "Not by yourself, Iris?" "No--with my maid. She is a strange creature; if she feels sympathy, she never expresses it. 'I am your grateful servant, Miss. Where you go, I go.' That was all she said; I was not disappointed--I am getting used to Fanny Mere already. Mine is a lonely lot--isn't it? I have acquaintances among the few ladies who sometimes visit at my father's house, but no friends. My mother's family, as I have always been told, cast her off when she married a man in trade, with a doubtful reputation. I don't even know where my relations live. Isn't Lord Harry good enough for me, as I am now? When I look at my prospects, is it wonderful if I talk like a desperate woman? There is but one encouraging circumstance that I can see. This misplaced love of mine that everybody condemns has, oddly enough, a virtue that everybody must admire. It offers a refuge to a woman who is alone in the world." Mountjoy denied indignantly that she was alone in the world. "Is there any protection that a man can offer to a woman," he asked, "which I am not ready and eager to offer to You? Oh, Iris, what have I done to deserve that you should speak of yourself as friendless in my hearing!" He had touched her at last. Their tender charm showed itself once more in her eyes and in her smile. She rose and approached him. "What exquisite kindness it must be," she said, "that blinds a clever man like you to obstacles which anyone else can see! Remember, dear Hugh, what the world would say to that protection which your true heart offers to me. Are you my near relation? are you my guardian? are you even an old man? Ah me! you are only an angel of goodness whom I must submit to lose. I shall still count on your kindness when we see each other no more. You will pity me, when you hear that I have fallen lower and lower; you will be sorry for me, when I end in disgracing myself." "Even then, Iris, we shall not be separated. The loving friend who is near you now, will be your loving friend still." For the first time in her life, she threw her arms round him. In the agony of that farewell, she held him to her bosom. "Goodbye, dear," she said faintly--and kissed him. The next moment, a deadly pallor overspread her face. She staggered as she drew back, and dropped into the chair that she had just left. In the fear that she might faint, Mountjoy hurried out in search of a restorative. His bed-chamber was close by, at the end of the corridor; and there were smelling-salts in his dressing-case. As he raised the lid, he heard the door behind him, the one door in the room, locked from the outer side. He rushed to the door, and called to her. From the farther end of the corridor, her voice reached him for the last time, repeating the last melancholy word: "Good-bye." No renewal of the miserable parting scene: no more of the heartache--Iris had ended it! CHAPTER XXII THE FATAL WORDS WHEN Mountjoy had rung for the servant, and the bedroom door had been unlocked, it was too late to follow the fugitive. Her cab was waiting for her outside; and the attention of the porter had been distracted, at the same time, by a new arrival of travellers at the hotel. It is more or less in the nature of all men who are worthy of the name, to take refuge from distress in action. Hugh decided on writing to Iris, and on making his appeal to her father, that evening. He abstained from alluding, in his letter, to the manner in which she had left him; it was her right, it was even her duty to spare herself. All that he asked was to be informed of her present place of residence, so that he might communicate the result--in writing only if she preferred it--of his contemplated interview with her father. He addressed his letter to the care of Mr. Vimpany, to be forwarded, and posted it himself. This done, he went on at once to Mr. Henley's house. The servant who opened the door had evidently received his orders. Mr. Henley was "not at home." Mountjoy was in no humour to be trifled with. He pushed the man out of his way, and made straight for the dining-room. There, as his previous experience of the habits of the household had led him to anticipate, was the man whom he was determined to see. The table was laid for Mr. Henley's late dinner. Hugh's well-meant attempt to plead the daughter's cause with the father ended as Iris had said it would end. After hotly resenting the intrusion on him that had been committed, Mr. Henley declared that a codicil to his will, depriving his daughter absolutely of all interest in his property, had been legally executed that day. For a time, Mountjoy's self-control had resisted the most merciless provocation. All that it was possible to effect, by patient entreaty and respectful remonstrance, he had tried again and again, and invariably in vain. At last, Mr. Henley's unbridled insolence triumphed. Hugh lost his temper--and, in leaving the heartless old man, used language which he afterwards remembered with regret. To feel that he had attempted to assert the interests of Iris, and that he had failed, was, in Hugh's heated state of mind, an irresistible stimulant to further exertion. It was perhaps not too late yet to make another attempt to delay (if not to prevent) the marriage. In sheer desperation, Mountjoy resolved to inform Lord Harry that his union with Miss Henley would be followed by the utter ruin of her expectations from her father. Whether the wild lord only considered his own interests, or whether he was loyally devoted to the interests of the woman whom he loved, in either case the penalty to be paid for the marriage was formidable enough to make him hesitate. The lights in the lower window, and in the passage, told Hugh that he had arrived in good time at Redburn Road. He found Mr. Vimpany and the young Irishman sitting together, in the friendliest manner, under the composing influence of tobacco. Primed, as he would have said himself, with only a third glass of grog, the hospitable side of the doctor's character was displayed to view. He at once accepted Mountjoy's visit as offering a renewal of friendly relations between them. "Forgive and forget," he said, "there's the way to settle that little misunderstanding, after our dinner at the inn. You know Mr. Mountjoy, my lord? That's right. Draw in your chair, Mountjoy. My professional prospects threaten me with ruin--but while I have a roof over my head, there's always a welcome for a friend. My dear fellow, I have every reason to believe that the doctor who sold me this practice was a swindler. The money is gone, and the patients don't come. Well! I am not quite bankrupt yet; I can offer you a glass of grog. Mix for yourself--we'll make a night of it." Hugh explained (with the necessary excuses) that his object was to say a few words to Lord Harry in private. The change visible in the doctor's manner, when he had been made acquainted with this circumstance, was not amiably expressed; he had the air of a man who suspected that an unfair advantage had been taken of him. Lord Harry, on his side, appeared to feel some hesitation in granting a private interview to Mr. Mountjoy. "Is it about Miss Henley?" he asked. Hugh admitted that it was. Lord Harry thereupon suggested that they might be acting wisely if they avoided the subject. Mountjoy answered that there were, on the contrary, reasons for approaching the subject sufficiently important to have induced him to leave London for Hampstead at a late hour of the night. Hearing this, Lord Harry rose to lead the way to another room. Excluded from his visitor's confidence, Mr. Vimpany could at least remind Mountjoy that he exercised authority as master of the house. "Oh, take him upstairs, my lord," said the doctor; "you are at home under my humble roof!" The two young men faced each other in the barely-furnished drawing-room; both sufficiently doubtful of the friendly result of the conference to abstain from seating themselves. Hugh came to the point, without wasting time in preparatory words. Admitting that he had heard of Miss Henley's engagement, he asked if Lord Harry was aware of the disastrous consequences to the young lady which would follow her marriage. The reply to this was frankly expressed. The Irish lord knew nothing of the consequences to which Mr. Mountjoy had alluded. Hugh at once enlightened him, and evidently took him completely by surprise. "May I ask, sir," he said, "if you are speaking from your own personal knowledge?" "I have just come, my lord, from Mr. Henley's house; and what I have told you, I heard from his own lips." There was a pause. Hugh was already inclined to think that he had raised an obstacle to the immediate celebration of the marriage. A speedy disappointment was in store for him. Lord Harry was too fond of Iris to be influenced, in his relations with her, by mercenary considerations. "You put it strongly," he said. "But let me tell you, Miss Henley is far from being so dependent on her father--he ought to be ashamed of himself, but that's neither here nor there--I say, she is far from being so dependent on her father as you seem to think. I am not, I beg to inform you, without resources which I shall offer to her with all my heart and soul. Perhaps you wish me to descend to particulars? Oh, it's easily done; I have sold my cottage in Ireland." "For a large sum--in these times?" Hugh inquired. "Never mind the sum, Mr. Mountjoy--let the fact be enough for you. And, while we are on the question of money (a disgusting question, with which I refuse to associate the most charming woman in existence), don't forget that Miss Henley has an income of her own; derived, as I understand, from her mother's fortune, You will do me the justice, sir, to believe that I shall not touch a farthing of it." "Certainly! But her mother's fortune," Mountjoy continued, obstinately presenting the subject on its darkest side, "consists of shares in a Company. Shares rise and fall--and Companies some times fail." "And a friend's anxiety about Miss Henley's affairs sometimes takes a mighty disagreeable form," the Irishman added, his temper beginning to show itself without disguise. "Let's suppose the worst that can happen, and get all the sooner to the end of a conversation which is far from being agreeable to me. We'll say, if you like, that Miss Henley's shares are waste paper, and her pockets (God bless her!) as empty as pockets can be, does she run any other risk that occurs to your ingenuity in becoming my wife?" "Yes, she does!" Hugh was provoked into saying. "In the case you have just supposed, she runs the risk of being left a destitute widow--if you die." He was prepared for an angry reply--for another quarrel added, on that disastrous night, to the quarrel with Mr. Henley. To his astonishment, Lord Harry's brightly-expressive eyes rested on him with a look of mingled distress and alarm. "God forgive me!" he said to himself, "I never thought of that! What am I to do? what am I to do?" Mountjoy observed that deep discouragement, and failed to understand it. Here was a desperate adventurer, whose wanderings had over and over again placed his life in jeopardy, now apparently overcome by merely having his thoughts directed to the subject of death! To place on the circumstances such a construction as this was impossible, after a moment's reflection. The other alternative was to assume that there must be some anxiety burdening Lord Harry's mind, which he had motives for keeping concealed--and here indeed the true explanation had been found. The Irish lord had reasons, known only to himself, for recoiling from the contemplation of his own future. After the murder of Arthur Mountjoy, he had severed his connection with the assassinating brotherhood of the Invincibles; and he had then been warned that he took this step at the peril of his life, if he remained in Great Britain after he had made himself an object of distrust to his colleagues. The discovery, by the secret tribunal, of his return from South Africa would be followed inevitably by the sentence of death. Such was the terrible position which Mountjoy's reply had ignorantly forced him to confront. His fate depended on the doubtful security of his refuge in the doctor's house. While Hugh was still looking at him, in grave doubt, a new idea seemed to spring to life in Lord Harry's mind. He threw off the oppression that had weighed on his spirits in an instant. His manner towards Mountjoy changed, with the suddenness of a flash of light, from the extreme of coldness to the extreme of cordiality. "I have got it at last!" he exclaimed. "Let's shake hands. My dear sir, you're the best friend I have ever had!" The cool Englishman asked: "In what way?" "In this way, to be sure! You have reminded me that I can provide for Miss Henley--and the sooner the better. There's our friend the doctor down-stairs, ready to be my reference. Don't you see it?" Obstacles that might prevent the marriage Mountjoy was ready enough to see. Facilities that might hasten the marriage found his mind hard of access to new impressions. "Are you speaking seriously?" he said. The Irishman's irritable temper began to show itself again. "Why do you doubt it?" he asked. "I fail to understand you," Mountjoy replied. Never--as events were yet to prove--had words of such serious import fallen from Lord Harry's lips as the words that he spoke next. "Clear your mind of jealousy," he said, "and you will understand me well enough. I agree with you that I am bound to provide for my widow--and I mean to do it by insuring my life." THE END OF THE SECOND PERIOD THIRD PERIOD CHAPTER XXIII NEWS OF IRIS AFTER his interview with the Irish lord, Mountjoy waited for two days, in the expectation of hearing from Iris. No reply arrived. Had Mr. Vimpany failed to forward the letter that had been entrusted to him? On the third day, Hugh wrote to make inquiries. The doctor returned the letter that had been confided to his care, and complained in his reply of the ungrateful manner in which he had been treated. Miss Henley had not trusted him with her new address in London; and Lord Harry had suddenly left Redburn Road; bidding his host goodbye in a few lines of commonplace apology, and nothing more. Mr. Vimpany did not deny that he had been paid for his medical services; but, he would ask, was nothing due to friendship? Was one man justified in enjoying another man's hospitality, and then treating him like a stranger? "I have done with them both--and I recommend you, my dear sir, to follow my example." In those terms the angry (and sober) doctor expressed his sentiments, and offered his advice. Mountjoy laid down the letter in despair. His last poor chance of preventing the marriage depended on his being still able to communicate with Iris--and she was as completely lost to him as if she had taken flight to the other end of the world. It might have been possible to discover her by following the movements of Lord Harry, but he too had disappeared without leaving a trace behind him. The precious hours and days were passing--and Hugh was absolutely helpless. Tortured by anxiety and suspense, he still lingered at the hotel in London. More than once, he decided on giving up the struggle, and returning to his pretty cottage in Scotland. More than once, he deferred taking the journey. At one time, he dreaded to hear that Iris was married, if she wrote to him. At another time, he felt mortified and disappointed by the neglect which her silence implied. Was she near him, or far from him? In England, or out of England? Who could say! After more weary days of waiting and suffering a letter arrived, addressed to Mountjoy in a strange handwriting, and bearing the post-mark of Paris. The signature revealed that his correspondent was Lord Harry. His first impulse was to throw the letter into the fire, unread. There could be little doubt, after the time that had passed, of the information that it would contain. Could he endure to be told of the marriage of Iris, by the man who was her husband? Never! There was something humiliating in the very idea of it. He arrived at that conclusion--and what did he do in spite of it? He read the letter. Lord Harry wrote with scrupulous politeness of expression. He regretted that circumstances had prevented him from calling on Mr. Mountjoy, before he left England. After the conversation that had taken place at Mr. Vimpany's house, he felt it his duty to inform Mr. Mountjoy that he had insured his life--and, he would add, for a sum of money amply, and more than amply, sufficient to provide for his wife in the event of her surviving him. Lady Harry desired her kind regards, and would write immediately to her old and valued friend. In the meantime, he would conclude by repeating the expression of his sense of obligation to Mr. Mountjoy. Hugh looked back at the first page of the letter, in search of the writer's address. It was simply, "Paris." The intention to prevent any further correspondence, or any personal communication, could hardly have been more plainly implied. In another moment, the letter was in the fire. In two days more, Hugh heard from Iris. She, too, wrote regretfully of the sudden departure from England; adding, however, that it was her own doing. A slip of the tongue, on Lord Harry's part, in the course of conversation, had led her to fear that he was still in danger from political conspirators with whom he had imprudently connected himself. She had accordingly persuaded him to tell her the whole truth, and had thereupon insisted on an immediate departure for the Continent. She and her husband were now living in Paris; Lord Harry having friends in that city whose influence might prove to be of great importance to his pecuniary prospects. Some sentences followed, expressing the writer's grateful remembrance of all that she had owed to Hugh in past days, and her earnest desire that they might still hear of each other, from time to time, by correspondence. She could not venture to anticipate the pleasure of receiving a visit from him, under present circumstances. But, she hoped that he would not object to write to her, addressing his letters, for the present, to post-restante. In a postscript a few words were added, alluding to Mr. Vimpany. Hugh was requested not to answer any inquiries which that bad man might venture to make, relating to her husband or to herself. In the bygone days, she had been thankful to the doctor for the care which he had taken, medically speaking, of Rhoda Bonnet. But, since that time, his behaviour to his wife, and the opinions which he had expressed in familiar conversation with Lord Harry, had convinced her that he was an unprincipled person. All further communication with him (if her influence could prevent it) must come to an end. Still as far as ever from feeling reconciled to the marriage, Mountjoy read this letter with a feeling of resentment which disinclined him to answer it. He believed (quite erroneously) that Iris had written to him under the superintendence of her husband. There were certain phrases which had been, as he chose to suspect, dictated by Lord Harry's distrust--jealous distrust, perhaps--of his wife's friend. Mountjoy would wait to reply, until, as he bitterly expressed it, Iris was able to write to him without the assistance of her master. Again he thought of returning to Scotland--and, again, he hesitated. On this occasion, he discovered objections to the cottage which had not occurred to him while Iris was a single woman. The situation was solitary; his nearest neighbours were fishermen. Here and there, at some little distance, there were only a few scattered houses inhabited by retired tradesmen. Further away yet, there was the country-seat of an absent person of distinction, whose health suffered in the climate of Scotland. The lonely life in prospect, on the shores of the Solway, now daunted Mountjoy for the first time. He decided on trying what society in London would do to divert his mind from the burdens and anxieties that weighed on it. Acquaintances whom he had neglected were pleasantly surprised by visits from their rich and agreeable young friend. He attended dinner parties; he roused hope in mothers and daughters by accepting invitations to balls; he reappeared at his club. Was there any relief to his mind in this? was there even amusement? No; he was acting a part, and he found it a hard task to keep up appearances. After a brief and brilliant interval, society knew him no more. Left by himself again, he enjoyed one happy evening in London. It was the evening on which he relented, in spite of himself, and wrote to Iris. CHAPTER XXIV LORD HARRY'S HONEYMOON THE next day, Hugh received a visit from the last person in the little world of his acquaintance whom he expected to see. The lost Mrs. Vimpany presented herself at the hotel. She looked unnaturally older since Mountjoy had last seen her. Her artificial complexion was gone. The discarded rouge that had once overlaid her cheeks, through a long succession of years, had left the texture of the skin coarse, and had turned the colour of it to a dull yellowish tinge. Her hair, once so skilfully darkened, was now permitted to tell the truth, and revealed the sober colouring of age, in gray. The lower face had fallen away in substance; and even the penetrating brightness of her large dark eyes was a little dimmed. All that had been left in her of the attractions of past days, owed its vital preservation to her stage training. Her suave grace of movement, and the deep elocutionary melody of her voice, still identified Mrs. Vimpany--disguised as she was in a dress of dull brown, shorn without mercy of the milliner's hideous improvements to the figure. "Will you shake hands with me, Mr. Mountjoy?" Those were the first words she said to him, in a sad subdued manner, on entering the room. "Why not?" Hugh asked, giving her his hand. "You can have no very favourable remembrance of me," she answered. "But I hope to produce a better impression--if you can spare me a little of your time. You may, or may not, have heard of my separation from my husband. Anyway, it is needless to trouble you on the subject; you know Mr. Vimpany; you can guess what I have suffered, and why I have left him. If he comes to you, I hope you will not tell him where Lady Harry is."-- Hugh interposed: "Pray don't speak of her by that name! Call her 'Iris,' as I do." A faint reflection of the old stage-smile trembled on Mrs. Vimpany's worn and weary face. "Ah, Mr. Mountjoy, I know whom she ought to have married! The worst enemy of women is their ignorance of men--and they only learn to know better, when it is too late. I try to be hopeful for Iris, in the time to come, but my fears conquer me." She paused, sighed, and pressed her open hand on her bosom; unconsciously betraying in that action some of the ineradicable training of the theatre. "I am almost afraid to say that I love Iris," she resumed; "but this I know; if I am not so bad as I once was, I owe it to that dearest and sweetest of women! But for the days that I passed in her company, I might never have tried to atone for my past life by works of mercy. When other people take the way of amendment, I wonder whether they find it as hard to follow, at first, as I did?" "There is no doubt of it, Mrs. Vimpany--if people are sincere. Beware of the sinners who talk of sudden conversion and perfect happiness. May I ask how you began your new life?" "I began unhappily, Mr. Mountjoy--I joined a nursing Sisterhood. Before long, a dispute broke out among them. Think of women who call themselves Christians, quarrelling about churches and church services--priest's vestments and attitudes, and candles and incense! I left them, and went to a hospital, and found the doctors better Christians than the Sisters. I am not talking about my own poor self (as you will soon see) without a reason. My experience in the hospital led to other things. I nursed a lady through a tedious illness, and was trusted to take her to some friends in the south of France. On my return, I thought of staying for a few days in Paris--it was an opportunity of seeing how the nurses did their work in the French hospitals. And, oh, it was far more than that! In Paris, I found Iris again." "By accident?" Hugh asked. "I am not sure," Mrs. Vimpany answered, "that there are such things as meetings by accident. She and her husband were among the crowds of people on the Boulevards, who sit taking their coffee in view of the other crowds, passing along the street. I went by, without noticing them. _She_ saw me, and sent Lord Harry to bring me back. I have been with them every day, at her invitation, from that time to this; and I have seen their life." She stopped, noticing that Hugh grew restless. "I am in doubt," she said, "whether you wish to hear more of their life in Paris." Mountjoy at once controlled himself. "Go on," he said quietly. "Even if I tell you that Iris is perfectly happy?" "Go on," Hugh repeated. "May I confess," she resumed, "that her husband is irresistible--not only to his wife, but even to an old woman like me? After having known him for years at his worst, as well as at his best, I am still foolish enough to feel the charm of his high spirits and his delightful good-humour. Sober English people, if they saw him now, would almost think him a fit subject to be placed under restraint. One of his wild Irish ideas of expressing devotion to his wife is, that they shall forget they are married, and live the life of lovers. When they dine at a restaurant, he insists on having a private room. He takes her to public balls, and engages her to dance with him for the whole evening. When she stays at home and is a little fatigued, he sends me to the piano, and whirls her round the room in a waltz. 'Nothing revives a woman,' he says, 'like dancing with the man she loves.' When she is out of breath, and I shut up the piano, do you know what he does? He actually kisses Me--and says he is expressing his wife's feeling for me when she is not able to do it herself! He sometimes dines out with men, and comes back all on fire with the good wine, and more amiable than ever. On these occasions his pockets are full of sweetmeats, stolen for 'his angel' from the dessert. 'Am I a little tipsy?' he asks. 'Oh, don't be angry; it's all for love of you. I have been in the highest society, my darling; proposing your health over and over and over again, and drinking to you deeper than all the rest of the company. You don't blame me? Ah, but I blame myself. I was wrong to leave you, and dine with men. What do I want with the society of men, when I have your society? Drinking your health is a lame excuse. I will refuse all invitations for the future that don't include my wife.' And--mind!--he really means it, at the time. Two or three days later, he forgets his good resolutions, and dines with the men again, and comes home with more charming excuses, and stolen sweetmeats, and good resolutions. I am afraid I weary you, Mr. Mountjoy?" "You surprise me," Hugh replied. "Why do I hear all this of Lord Harry?" Mrs. Vimpany left her chair. The stage directions of other days had accustomed her to rise, when the character she played had anything serious to say. Her own character still felt the animating influence of dramatic habit: she rose now, and laid her hand impressively on Mountjoy's shoulder. "I have not thoughtlessly tried your patience," she said. "Now that I am away from the influence of Lord Harry, I can recall my former experience of him: and I am afraid I can see the end that is coming. He will drift into bad company; he will listen to bad advice; and he will do things in the future which he might shrink from doing now. When that time comes, I fear him! I fear him!" "When that time comes," Hugh repeated, "if I have any influence left over his wife, he shall find her capable of protecting herself. Will you give me her address in Paris? "Willingly--if you will promise not to go to her till she really needs you?" "Who is to decide when she needs me?" "I am to decide," Mrs. Vimpany answered; "Iris writes to me confidentially. If anything happens which she may be unwilling to trust to a letter, I believe I shall hear of it from her maid." "Are you sure the maid is to be relied on?" Mountjoy interposed. "She is a silent creature, so far as I know anything of her," Mrs. Vimpany admitted; "and her manner doesn't invite confidence. But I have spoken with Fanny Mere; I am satisfied that she is true to her mistress and grateful to her mistress in her own strange way. If Iris is in any danger, I shall not be left in ignorance of it. Does this incline you to consult with me, before you decide on going to Paris? Don't stand on ceremony; say honestly, Yes or No." Honestly, Hugh said Yes. He was at once trusted with the address of Iris. At the same time, Mrs. Vimpany undertook that he should know what news she received from Paris as soon as she knew it herself. On that understanding they parted, for the time being. CHAPTER XXV THE DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES SLOWLY the weeks passed. Strictly Mrs. Vimpany kept her promise. When she heard from Iris the letter was always sent to Hugh, to be returned after he had read it. Events in the lives of the newly-married pair, many of which pointed to the end that Mrs. Vimpany saw and dreaded, were lightly, sometimes jestingly, related by the young wife. Her blind belief in her husband, sincerely asserted in the earlier part of the correspondence, began to betray, in her later letters, signs of self delusion. It was sad indeed to see that bright intelligence rendered incapable of conceiving suspicions, which might have occurred to the mind of a child. When the latest news from Paris followed, in due course, Mountjoy was informed of it by a note from Mrs. Vimpany expressed in these terms: "My last letter from Iris is really no letter at all. It simply encloses a circular, with her love, and asks me to send it on to you. If it is in your power to make inquiries in the right quarter, I am sure you will not hesitate to take the trouble. There can be little doubt, as I think, that Lord Harry is engaged in a hazardous speculation, more deeply than his wife is willing to acknowledge." The circular announced the contemplated publication of a weekly newspaper, printed partly in English, and partly in French, having its chief office in Paris, and being intended to dispute the advantages of a European circulation with the well-known Continental journal called "Galignani's Messenger." A first list of contributors included names of some notoriety in the literature of England and the literature of France. Speculators who wished to know, in the first place, on what security they might reckon, were referred to the managing committee, represented by persons of importance in the financial worlds of London and Paris. Being in a position to make the inquiries which Mrs. Vimpany had suggested, Hugh received information which verified the statements contained in the circular, and vouched for the good faith of those persons who were concerned in directing the speculation. So far, so good. But, when the question of success was next discussed, the authorities consulted shook their wise heads. It was impossible to say what losses might not be suffered, and what sums of money might not be required, before the circulation of the new journal would justify the hope of success. This opinion Hugh communicated to Mrs. Vimpany; Iris was informed of it by that day's post. A longer time than usual elapsed before any further news of Lord Harry and his wife was received by Mountjoy. When he did at last hear again from Mrs. Vimpany, she forwarded a letter from Iris dated from a new address, in the suburb of Paris called Passy. From motives of economy (Iris wrote) her husband had decided on a change of residence. They were just established in their new abode, with the advantages of a saving in rent, a pretty little garden to cultivate, and purer air to breathe than the air of Paris. There the letter ended, without the slightest allusion to the forthcoming newspaper, or to the opinion that had been pronounced on the prospects of success. In forwarding this letter, Mrs. Vimpany wrote on the blank page as follows: "I am sorry to add that some disquieting news of my husband has reached me. For the present, I will say no more. It is at least possible that the report may not be worthy of belief." A few days later the report was confirmed, under circumstances which had certainly not been foreseen. Mr. Vimpany himself arrived at the hotel, on a visit to Mountjoy. Always more or less superior to the amiable weakness of modesty, the doctor seemed to have risen higher than ever in his own estimation, since Hugh had last seen him. He strutted; he stared confidently at persons and things; authority was in his voice when he spoke, and lofty indulgence distinguished his manner when he listened. "How are you?" he cried with a grand gaiety, as he entered the room. "Fine weather, isn't it, for the time of year? You don't look well. I wonder whether you notice any change in me? "You seem to be in good spirits," Hugh replied, not very cordially. "Do I carry my head high?" Mr. Vimpany went on. "When calamity strikes at a man, don't let him cringe and cry for pity--let him hit back again! Those are my principles. Look at me. Now do look at me. Here I am, a cultivated person, a member of an honourable profession, a man of art and accomplishment--stripped of every blessed thing belonging to me but the clothes I stand up in. Give me your hand, Mountjoy. It's the hand, sir, of a bankrupt." "You don't seem to mind it much," Mountjoy remarked. "Why should I mind it?" asked the doctor. "There isn't a medical man in England who has less reason to reproach himself than I have. Have I wasted money in rash speculations? Not a farthing. Have I been fool enough to bet at horse races? My worst enemy daren't say it of me. What have I done then? I have toiled after virtue--that's what I have done. Oh, there's nothing to laugh at! When a doctor tries to be the medical friend of humanity; when he only asks leave to cure disease, to soothe pain, to preserve life--isn't that virtue? And what is my reward? I sit at home, waiting for my suffering fellow-creatures; and the only fellow-creatures who come to me are too poor to pay. I have gone my rounds, calling on the rich patients whom I bought when I bought the practice. Not one of them wanted me. Men, women, and children, were all inexcusably healthy--devil take them! Is it wonderful if a man becomes bankrupt, in such a situation as mine? By Jupiter, I go farther than that! I say, a man owes it to himself (as a protest against undeserved neglect) to become a bankrupt. If you will allow me, I'll take a chair." He sat down with an air of impudent independence and looked round the room. A little cabinet, containing liqueurs, stood open on the sideboard. Mr. Vimpany got up again. "May I take a friendly liberty?" he said--and helped himself, without waiting for permission. Hugh bore with this, mindful of the mistake that he had committed in consenting to receive the doctor. At the same time, he was sufficiently irritated to take a friendly liberty on his side. He crossed the room to the sideboard, and locked up the liqueurs. Mr. Vimpany's brazen face flushed deeply (not with shame); he opened his lips to say something worthy of himself, controlled the impulse, and burst into a boisterous laugh. He had evidently some favour still to ask. "Devilish good!" he broke out cheerfully. "Do you remember the landlady's claret? Ha! you don't want to tempt me this time. Well! well! to return to my bankruptcy." Hugh had heard enough of his visitor's bankruptcy. "I am not one of your creditors," he said. Mr. Vimpany made a smart reply: "Don't you be too sure of that. Wait a little." "Do you mean," Mountjoy asked, "that you have come here to borrow money of me?" "Time---give me time," the doctor pleaded: "this is not a matter to be dispatched in a hurry; this is a matter of business. You will hardly believe it," he resumed, "but I have actually been in my present position, once before." He looked towards the cabinet of liqueurs. "If I had the key," he said, "I should like to try a drop more of your good Curacoa. You don't see it?" "I am waiting to hear what your business is," Hugh replied. Mr. Vimpany's pliable temper submitted with perfect amiability. "Quite right," he said; "let us return to business. I am a man who possesses great fertility of resource. On the last occasion when my creditors pounced on my property, do you think I was discouraged? Nothing of the sort! My regular medical practice had broken down under me. Very well--I tried my luck as a quack. In plain English, I invented a patent medicine. The one thing wanting was money enough to advertise it. False friends buttoned up their pockets. You see?" "Oh, yes; I see." "In that case," Mr. Vimpany continued, "you will not be surprised to hear that I draw on my resources again. You have no doubt noticed that we live in an age of amateurs. Amateurs write, paint, compose music, perform on the stage. I, too, am one of the accomplished persons who have taken possession of the field of Art. Did you observe the photographic portraits on the walls of my dining-room? They are of my doing, sir--whether you observed them or not I am one of the handy medical men, who can use the photograph. Not that I mention it generally; the public have got a narrow-minded notion that a doctor ought to be nothing but a doctor. My name won't appear in a new work that I am contemplating. Of course, you want to know what my new work is. I'll tell you, in the strictest confidence. Imagine (if you can) a series of superb photographs of the most eminent doctors in England, with memoirs of their lives written by themselves; published once a month, price half-a-crown. If there isn't money in that idea, there is no money in anything. Exert yourself, my good friend. Tell me what you think of it?" "I don't understand the subject," Mountjoy replied. "May I ask why you take _me_ into your confidence?" "Because I look upon you as my best friend." "You are very good. But surely, Mr. Vimpany, you have older friends in your circle of acquaintance than I am." "Not one," the doctor answered promptly, "whom I trust as I trust you. Let me give you a proof of it." "Is the proof in any way connected with money?" Hugh inquired. "I call that hard on me," Mr. Vimpany protested. "No unfriendly interruptions, Mountjoy! I offer a proof of kindly feeling. Do you mean to hurt me?" "Certainly not. Go on." "Thank you; a little encouragement goes a long way with me. I have found a bookseller, who will publish my contemplated work, on commission. Not a soul has yet seen the estimate of expenses. I propose to show it to You." "Quite needless, Mr. Vimpany." "Why quite needless?" "Because I decline lending you the money." "No, no, Mountjoy! You can't really mean that?" "I do mean it." "No!" "Yes!" The doctor's face showed a sudden change of expression---a sinister and threatening change. "Don't drive me into a corner," he said. "Think of it again." Hugh's capacity for controlling himself gave way at last. "Do you presume to threaten me?" he said. "Understand, if you please, that my mind is made up, and that nothing you can say or do will alter it." With that declaration he rose from his chair, and waited for Mr. Vimpany's departure. The doctor put on his hat. His eyes rested on Hugh, with a look of diabolical malice: "The time is not far off, Mr. Mountjoy, when you may be sorry you refused me." He said those words deliberately--and took his leave. Released from the man's presence, Hugh found himself strangely associating the interests of Iris with the language--otherwise beneath notice--which Mr. Vimpany had used on leaving the room. In desperate straits for want of money, how would the audacious bankrupt next attempt to fill his empty purse? If he had, by any chance, renewed his relations with his Irish friend--and such an event was at least possible--his next experiment in the art of raising a loan might take him to Paris. Lord Harry had already ventured on a speculation which called for an immediate outlay of money, and which was only expected to put a profit into his pocket at some future period. In the meanwhile, his resources in money had their limits; and his current expenses would make imperative demands on an ill-filled purse. If the temptation to fail in his resolution to respect his wife's fortune was already trying his fortitude, what better excuse could be offered for yielding than the necessities of an old friend in a state of pecuniary distress? Looking at the position of Iris, and at the complications which threatened it, from this point of view, Mountjoy left the hotel to consult with Mrs. Vimpany. It rested with her to decide whether the circumstances justified his departure for Paris. CHAPTER XXVI LONDON AND PARIS INFORMED of all that Hugh could tell her relating to his interview with her husband, Mrs. Vimpany understood and appreciated his fears for the future. She failed, however, to agree with him that he would do well to take the journey to France, under present circumstances. "Wait a little longer in London," she said. "If Iris doesn't write to me in the next few days there will be a reason for her silence; and in that case (as I have already told you) I shall hear from Fanny Mere. You shall see me when I get a letter from Paris." On the last morning in the week, Mrs. Vimpany was announced. The letter that she brought with her had been written by Fanny Mere. With the pen in her hand, the maid's remarkable character expressed itself as strongly as ever:-- "Madam,--I said I would let you know what goes on here, when I thought there was need of it. There seems to be need now. Mr. Vimpany came to us yesterday. He has the spare bedroom. My mistress says nothing, and writes nothing. For that reason, I send you the present writing.--Your humble servant, F." Mountjoy was perplexed by this letter, plain as it was. "It seems strange," he said, "that Iris herself has not written to you. She has never hitherto concealed her opinion of Mr. Vimpany." "She is concealing it now," Mr. Vimpany's wife replied gravely. "Do you know why?" "I am afraid I do. Iris will not hesitate at any sacrifice of herself to please Lord Harry. She will give him her money when he wants it. If he tells her to alter her opinion of my husband, she will obey him. He can shake her confidence in me, whenever he pleases; and he has very likely done it already." "Surely it is time for me to go to her now?" Hugh said. "Full time," Mrs. Vimpany admitted--"if you can feel sure of yourself. In the interests of Iris, can you undertake to be cool and careful?" "In the interests of Iris, I can undertake anything." "One word more," Mrs. Vimpany continued, "before you take your departure. No matter whether appearances are for him, or against him, be always on your guard with my husband. Let me hear from you while you are away; and don't forget that there is an obstacle between you and Iris, which will put even your patience and devotion to a hard trial." "You mean her husband?" "I do." There was no more to be said, Hugh set forth on his journey to Paris. * * * * * * * On the morning after his arrival in the French capital, Mountjoy had two alternatives to consider. He might either write to Iris, and ask when it would be convenient to her to receive him--or he might present himself unexpectedly in the cottage at Passy. Reflection convinced him that his best chance of placing an obstacle in the way of deception would be to adopt the second alternative, and to take Lord Harry and the doctor by surprise. He went to Passy. The lively French taste had brightened the cottage with colour: the fair white window curtains were tied with rose-coloured ribbons, the blinds were gaily painted, the chimneys were ornamental, the small garden was a paradise of flowers. When Mountjoy rang the bell, the gate was opened by Fanny Mere. She looked at him in grave astonishment. "Do they expect you?" she asked. "Never mind that," Hugh answered. "Are they at home?" "They have just finished breakfast, sir." "Do you remember my name?" "Yes, sir." "Then show me in." Fanny opened the door of a room on the ground floor, and announced: "Mr. Mountjoy." The two men were smoking; Iris was watering some flowers in the window. Her colour instantly faded when Hugh entered the room. In doubt and alarm, her eyes questioned Lord Harry. He was in his sweetest state of good-humour. Urged by the genial impulse of the moment, he set the example of a cordial reception. "This is an agreeable surprise, indeed," he said, shaking hands with Mountjoy in his easy amiable way. "It's kind of you to come and see us." Relieved of anxiety (evidently when she had not expected it), Iris eagerly followed her husband's example: her face recovered its colour, and brightened with its prettiest smile. Mr. Vimpany stood in a corner; his cigar went out: his own wife would hardly have known him again--he actually presented an appearance of embarrassment! Lord Harry burst out laughing: "Look at him Iris! The doctor is shy for the first time in his life." The Irish good-humour was irresistible. The young wife merrily echoed her husband's laugh. Mr. Vimpany, observing the friendly reception offered to Hugh, felt the necessity of adapting himself to circumstances. He came out of his corner with an apology: "Sorry I misbehaved myself, Mr. Mountjoy, when I called on you in London. Shake hands. No offence--eh?" Iris, in feverish high spirits, mimicked the doctor's coarse tones when he repeated his favourite form of excuse. Lord Harry clapped his hands, delighted with his wife's clever raillery: "Ha! Mr. Mountjoy, you don't find that her married life has affected her spirits! May I hope that you have come here to breakfast? The table is ready as you see"---- "And I have been taking lessons, Hugh, in French ways of cooking eggs," Iris added; "pray let me show you what I can do." The doctor chimed in facetiously: "I'm Lady Harry's medical referee; you'll find her French delicacies half digested for you, sir, before you can open your mouth: signed, Clarence Vimpany, member of the College of Surgeons." Remembering Mrs. Vimpany's caution, Hugh concealed his distrust of this outbreak of hospitable gaiety, and made his excuses. Lord Harry followed, with more excuses, on his part. He deplored it--but he was obliged to go out. Had Mr. Mountjoy met with the new paper which was to beat "Galiguani" out of the field? The "Continental Herald "--there was the title. "Forty thousand copies of the first number have just flown all over Europe; we have our agencies in every town of importance, at every point of the compass; and, one of the great proprietors, my dear sir, is the humble individual who now addresses you." His bright eyes sparkled with boyish pleasure, as he made that announcement of his own importance. If Mr. Mountjoy would kindly excuse him, he had an appointment at the office that morning. "Get your hat, Vimpany. The fact is our friend here carries a case of consumption in his pocket; consumption of the purse, you understand. I am going to enrol him among the contributors to the newspaper. A series of articles (between ourselves) exposing the humbug of physicians, and asserting with fine satirical emphasis the overstocked state of the medical profession. Ah, well! you'll be glad (won't you?) to talk over old times with Iris. My angel, show our good friend the 'Continental Herald,' and mind you keep him here till we get back. Doctor, look alive! Mr. Mountjoy, au revoir." They shook hands again heartily. As Mrs. Vimpany had confessed, there was no resisting the Irish lord. But Hugh's strange experience of that morning was not at an end, yet. CHAPTER XXVII THE BRIDE AT HOME LEFT alone with the woman whose charm still held him to her, cruelly as she had tried his devotion by her marriage, Mountjoy found the fluent amiability of the husband imitated by the wife. She, too, when the door had hardly closed on Lord Harry, was bent on persuading Hugh that her marriage had been the happiest event of her life. "Will you think the worse of me," she began, "if I own that I had little expectation of seeing you again?" "Certainly not, Iris." "Consider my situation," she went on. "When I remember how you tried (oh, conscientiously tried!) to prevent my marriage--how you predicted the miserable results that would follow, if Harry's life and my life became one--could I venture to hope that you would come here, and judge for yourself? Dear and good friend, I have nothing to fear from the result; your presence was never more welcome to me than it is now!" Whether it was attributable to prejudice on Mountjoy's part, or to keen and just observation, he detected something artificial in the ring of her enthusiasm; there was not the steady light of truth in her eyes, which he remembered in the past and better days of their companionship. He was a little--just a little--irritated. The temptation to remind her that his distrust of Lord Harry had once been her distrust too, proved to be more than his frailty could resist. "Your memory is generally exact," he said; "but it hardly serves you now as well as usual." "What have I forgotten?" "You have forgotten the time, my dear, when your opinion was almost as strongly against a marriage with Lord Harry as mine." Her answer was ready on the instant: "Ah, I didn't know him then as well as I know him now!" Some men, in Mountjoy's position, might have been provoked into hinting that there were sides to her husband's character which she had probably not discovered yet. But Hugh's gentle temper--ruffled for a moment only--had recovered its serenity. Her friend was her true friend still; he said no more on the subject of her marriage. "Old habits are not easily set aside," he reminded her. "I have been so long accustomed to advise you and help you, that I find myself hoping there may be some need for my services still. Is there no way in which I might relieve you of the hateful presence of Mr. Vimpany?" "My dear Hugh, I wish you had not mentioned Mr. Vimpany." Mountjoy concluded that the subject was disagreeable to her. "After the opinion of him which you expressed in your letter to me," he said, "I ought not to have spoken of the doctor. Pray forgive me." Iris looked distressed. "Oh, you are quite mistaken! The poor doctor has been sadly misjudged; and I"--she shook her head, and sighed penitently--"and, I," she resumed, "am one among other people who have ignorantly wronged him. Pray consult my husband. Hear what he can tell you--and you will pity Mr. Vimpany. The newspaper makes such large demands on our means that we can do little to help him. With your recommendation he might find some employment." "He has already asked me to assist him, Iris; and I have refused. I can't agree with your change of opinion about Mr. Vimpany." "Why not? Is it because he has separated from his wife?" "That is one reason, among many others," Mountjoy replied. "Indeed, indeed you are wrong! Lord Harry has known Mrs. Vimpany for years, and he says--I am truly sorry to hear it--that the separation is her fault." Hugh changed the subject again. The purpose which had mainly induced him to leave England had not been mentioned yet. Alluding to the newspaper, and to the heavy pecuniary demands made by the preliminary expenses of the new journal, he reminded Iris that their long and intimate friendship permitted him to feel some interest in her affairs. "I won't venture to express an opinion," he added; "let me only ask if Lord Harry's investments in this speculation have compelled him to make some use of your little fortune?" "My husband refused to touch my fortune," Iris answered. "But"--She paused, there. "Do you know how honourably, how nobly, he has behaved?" she abruptly resumed. "He has insured his life: he has burdened himself with the payment of a large sum of money every year. And all for me, if I am so unfortunate (which God forbid!) as to survive him. When a large share in the newspaper was for sale, do you think I could be ungrateful enough to let him lose the chance of making our fortune, when the profits begin to come in? I insisted on advancing the money--we almost quarrelled about it--but, you know how sweet he is. I said: 'Don't distress me'; and the dearest of men let me have my own way." Mountjoy listened in silence. To have expressed what he felt would have been only to mortify and offend Iris. Old habit (as he had said) had made the idea of devoting himself to her interests the uppermost idea in his mind. He asked if the money had all been spent. Hearing that some of it was still left, he resolved on making the attempt to secure the remains of her fortune to herself. "Tell me," he said, "have you ever heard of such a thing as buying an annuity?" She knew nothing about it. He carefully explained the method by which a moderate sum of money might be made to purchase a sufficient income for life. She offered no objection, when he proposed to write to his lawyer in London for the necessary particulars. But when he asked her to tell him what the sum was of which she might be still able to dispose, Iris hesitated, and made no reply. This time, Hugh arrived at the right conclusion. It was only too plain to him that what remained of her money represented an amount so trifling that she was ashamed to mention it. Of the need for helping her, there could be no doubt now; and, as for the means, no difficulties presented themselves to Mountjoy--always excepting the one obstacle likely to be offered by the woman herself. Experience warned him to approach her delicately, by the indirect way. "You know me well enough," he said, "to feel sure that I am incapable of saying anything which can embarrass you, or cause a moment's misunderstanding between two old friends. Won't you look at me, Iris, when I am speaking to you?" She still looked away from him. "I am afraid of what you are going to say to me," she answered coldly. "Then let me say it at once. In one of your letters, written long since--I don't suppose you remember it--you told me that I was an obstinate man when I once took a thing into my head. You were quite right. My dear, I have taken it into my head that you will be as ready as ever to accept my advice, and will leave me (as your man of business) to buy the annuity"-- She stopped him. "No," she cried, "I won't hear a word more! Do you think I am insensible to years of kindness that I have never deserved? Do you think I forget how nobly you have forgiven me for those cruel refusals which have saddened your life? Is it possible that you expect me to borrow money of You?" She started wildly to her feet. "I declare, as God hears me, I would rather die than take that base, that shameful advantage of all your goodness to me. The woman never lived who owed so much to a man, as I owe to you--but not money! Oh, my dear, not money! not money!" He was too deeply touched to be able to speak to her--and she saw it. "What a wretch I am," she said to herself; "I have made his heart ache!" He heard those words. Still feeling for her--never, never for himself!--he tried to soothe her. In the passion of her self-reproach, she refused to hear him. Pacing the room from end to end, she fanned the fiery emotion that was consuming her. Now, she reviled herself in language that broke through the restraints by which good breeding sets its seal on a woman's social rank. And now, again, she lost herself more miserably still, and yielded with hysteric recklessness to a bitter outburst of gaiety. "If you wish to be married happily," she cried, "never be as fond of any other woman as you have been of me. We are none of us worth it. Laugh at us, Hugh--do anything but believe in us. We all lie, my friend. And I have been lying--shamelessly! shamelessly!" He tried to check her. "Don't talk in that way, Iris," he said sternly. She laughed at him. "Talk?" she repeated. "It isn't that; it's a confession." "I don't desire to hear your confession." "You must hear it--you have drawn it out of me. Come! we'll enjoy my humiliation together. Contradict every word I said to you about that brute and blackguard, the doctor--and you will have the truth. What horrid inconsistency, isn't it? I can't help myself; I am a wretched, unreasonable creature; I don't know my own mind for two days together, and all through my husband--I am so fond of him; Harry is delightfully innocent; he's like a nice boy; he never seemed to think of Mr. Vimpany, till it was settled between them that the doctor was to come and stay here----and then he persuaded me--oh, I don't know how!--to see his friend in quite a new light. I believed him--and I believe him still--I mean I _would_ believe him, but for you. Will you do me a favour? I wish you wouldn't look at me with those eyes that won't lie; I wish you wouldn't speak to me with that voice which finds things out. Oh, good Heavens, do you suppose I would let you think that my husband is a bad man, and my marriage an unhappy one? Never! If it turns my blood to sit and eat at the same table with Mr. Vimpany, I'm not cruel enough to blame the dear doctor. It's my wickedness that's to blame. We shall quarrel, if you tell me that Harry is capable of letting a rascal be his friend. I'm happy; I'm happy; I'm happy!--do you understand that? Oh, Hugh, I wish you had never come to see me!" She burst into a passionate fit of weeping, broken down at last under the terrible strain laid on her. "Let me hide myself!" was all that Iris could say to her old friend--before she ran out of the room, and left him. CHAPTER XXVIII THE MAID AND THE KEYHOLE DEEPLY as she had grieved him, keenly as he felt that his worst fears for her threatened already to be realised, it was characteristic of Mountjoy that he still refused to despair of Iris--even with the husband's influence against him. The moral deterioration of her, revealed in the false words that she had spoken, and in the deceptions that she had attempted, would have justified the saddest misgivings, but for the voluntary confession which had followed, and the signs which it had shown of the better nature still struggling to assert itself. How could Hugh hope to encourage that effort of resistance to the evil influences that were threatening her--first and foremost, among them, being the arrival of Vimpany at the cottage? His presence kept her in a state of perpetual contention, between her own wise instincts which distrusted him, and her husband's authoritative assertions which recommended him to her confidence. No greater service could be rendered to Iris than the removal of this man--but how could it be accomplished, without giving offence to her husband? Mountjoy's mind was still in search of a means of overcoming the obstacle thus presented, when he heard the door open. Had Iris recovered herself? or had Lord Harry and his friend returned? The person who now entered the room was the strange and silent maid, Fanny Mere. "Can I speak to you, sir?" "Certainly. What is it?" "Please give me your address." "For your mistress?" "Yes." "Does she wish to write to me?" "Yes." Hugh gave the strange creature the address of his hotel in Paris. For a moment, her eyes rested on him with an expression of steady scrutiny. She opened the door to go out---stopped--considered--came back again. "I want to speak for myself," she said. "Do you care to hear what a servant has to say?" Mountjoy replied that he was ready to hear what she had to say. She at once stepped up to him, and addressed him in these words: "I think you are fond of my mistress?" An ordinary man might have resented the familiar manner in which she had expressed herself. Mountjoy waited for what was still to come. Fanny Mere abruptly went on, with a nearer approach to agitation in her manner than she had shown yet: "My mistress took me into her service; she trusted me when other ladies would have shown me the door. When she sent for me to see her, my character was lost; I had nobody to feel for me, nobody to help me. She is the one friend who held out a hand to me. I hate the men; I don't care for the women. Except one. Being a servant I mustn't say I love that one. If I was a lady, I don't know that I should say it. Love is cant; love is rubbish. Tell me one thing. Is the doctor a friend of yours?" "The doctor is nothing of the kind." "Perhaps he is your enemy?" "I can hardly say that." She looked at Hugh discontentedly. "I want to get at it," she said. "Why can't we understand each other? Will you laugh at me, if I say the first thing that comes into my head? Are you a good swimmer?" An extraordinary question, even from Fanny Mere. It was put seriously--and seriously Mountjoy answered it. He said that he was considered to be a good swimmer. "Perhaps," she continued, "you have saved people's lives." "I have twice been so fortunate as to save lives," he replied. "If you saw the doctor drowning, would you save him? _I_ wouldn't!" "Do you hate him as bitterly as that?" Hugh asked. She passed the question over without notice. "I wish you would help me to get at it," she persisted. "Suppose you could rid my mistress of that man by giving him a kick, would you up with your foot and do it?" "Yes--with pleasure." "Thank you, sir. Now I've got it. Mr. Mountjoy, the doctor is the curse of my mistress's life. I can't bear to see it. If we are not relieved of him somehow, I shall do something wrong. When I wait at table, and see him using his knife, I want to snatch it out of his hand, and stick it into him. I had a hope that my lord might turn him out of the house when they quarrelled. My lord is too wicked himself to do it. For the love of God, sir, help my mistress--or show me the way how!" Mountjoy began to be interested. "How do you know," he asked, "that Lord Harry and the doctor have quarrelled?" Without the slightest appearance of embarrassment, Fanny Mere informed him that she had listened at the door, while her master and his friend were talking of their secrets. She had also taken an opportunity of looking through the keyhole. "I suppose, sir," said this curious woman, still speaking quite respectfully, "you have never tried that way yourself?" "Certainly not!" "Wouldn't you do it to serve my mistress?" "No." "And yet, you're fond of her! You are a merciful one--the only merciful one, so far as I know--among men. Perhaps, if you were frightened about her, you might be more ready with your help. I wonder whether I can frighten you? Will you let me try?" The woman's faithful attachment to Iris pleaded for her with Hugh. "Try, if you like," he said kindly. Speaking as seriously as ever, Fanny proceeded to describe her experience at the keyhole. What she had seen was not worth relating. What she had heard proved to be more important. The talk between my lord and the doctor had been about raising money. They had different notions of how to do that. My lord's plan was to borrow what was wanted, on his life-insurance. The doctor told him he couldn't do that, till his insurance had been going on for three or four years at least. "I have something better and bolder to propose," says Mr. Vimpany. It must have been also something wicked--for he whispered it in the master's ear. My lord didn't take to it kindly. "How do you think I could face my wife," he says, "if she discovered me?" The doctor says: "Don't be afraid of your wife; Lady Harry will get used to many things which she little thought of before she married you." Says my lord to that: "I have done my best, Vimpany, to improve my wife's opinion of you. If you say much more, I shall come round to her way of thinking. Drop it!"--"All right," says the doctor, "I'll drop it now, and wait to pick it up again till you come to your last bank note." There the talk ended for that day---and Fanny would be glad to know what Mr. Mountjoy thought of it. "I think you have done me a service," Hugh replied. "Tell me how, sir." "I can only tell you this, Fanny. You have shown me how to relieve your mistress of the doctor." For the first time, the maid's impenetrable composure completely failed her. The smouldering fire in Fanny Mere flamed up. She impulsively kissed Mountjoy's hand. The moment her lips touched it she shrank back: the natural pallor of her face became whiter than ever. Startled by the sudden change, Hugh asked if she was ill. She shook her head. "It isn't that. Yours is the first man's hand I have kissed, since--" She checked herself. "I beg you won't ask me about it. I only meant to thank you, sir; I do thank you with all my heart--I mustn't stay here any longer." As she spoke the sound of a key was heard, opening the lock of the cottage-door. Lord Harry had returned. CHAPTER XXIX THE CONQUEST OF MR. VIMPANY THE Irish lord came in--with his medical friend sulkily in attendance on him. He looked at Fanny, and asked where her mistress was. "My lady is in her room, sir." Hearing this, he turned sharply to Mountjoy. On the point of speaking, he seemed to think better of it, and went to his wife's room. The maid followed. "Get rid of him now," she whispered to Hugh, glancing at the doctor. Mr. Vimpany was in no very approachable humour--standing at the window, with his hands in his empty pockets, gloomily looking out. But Hugh was not disposed to neglect the opportunity; he ventured to say: "You don't seem to be in such good spirits as usual." The doctor gruffly expressed his opinion that Mr. Mountjoy would not be particularly cheerful, in his place. My lord had taken him to the office, on the distinct understanding that he was to earn a little pocket-money by becoming one of the contributors to the newspaper. And how had it ended? The editor had declared that his list of writers was full, and begged leave to suggest that Mr. Vimpany should wait for the next vacancy. A most impertinent proposal! Had Lord Harry--a proprietor, remember--exerted his authority? Not he! His lordship had dropped the doctor "like a hot potato," and had meanly submitted to his own servant. What did Mr. Mountjoy think of such conduct as that? Hugh answered the question, with his own end in view. Paving the way for Mr. Vimpany's departure from the cottage at Passy, he made a polite offer of his services. "Can't I help you out of your difficulty?" he said. "You!" cried the doctor. "Have you forgotten how you received me, sir, when I asked for a loan at your hotel in London?" Hugh admitted that he might have spoken hastily. "You took me by surprise," he said, "and (perhaps I was mistaken, on my side) I thought you were, to say the least of it, not particularly civil. You did certainly use threatening language when you left me. No man likes to be treated in that way." Mr. Vimpany's big bold eyes stared at Mountjoy in a state of bewilderment. "Are you trying to make a fool of me?" he asked. "I am incapable, Mr. Vimpany, of an act of rudeness towards anybody." "If you come to that," the doctor stoutly declared, "I am incapable too. It's plain to me that we have been misunderstanding each other. Wait a bit; I want to go back for a moment to that threatening language which you complained of just now. I was sorry for what I had said as soon as your door was shut on me. On my way downstairs I did think of turning back and making a friendly apology before I gave you up. Suppose I had done that?" Mr. Vimpany asked, wondering internally whether Mountjoy was foolish enough to believe him. Hugh advanced a little nearer to the design that he had in view. "You might have found me more kindly disposed towards you," he said, "than you had anticipated." This encouraging reply cost him an effort. He had stooped to the unworthy practice of perverting what he had said and done on a former occasion, to serve a present interest. Remind himself as he might of the end which, in the interests of Iris, did really appear to justify the means, he still sank to a place in his own estimation which he was honestly ashamed to occupy. Under other circumstances his hesitation, slight as it was, might have excited suspicion. As things were, Mr. Vimpany could only discover golden possibilities that dazzled his eyes. "I wonder whether you're in the humour," he said, "to be kindly disposed towards me now?" It was needless to be careful of the feelings of such man as this. "Suppose you had the money you want in your pocket," Hugh suggested, "what would you do with it?" "Go back to London, to be sure, and publish the first number of that work of mine I told you of." "And leave your friend, Lord Harry?" "What good is my friend to me? He's nearly as poor as I am--he sent for me to advise him--I put him up to a way of filling both our pockets, and he wouldn't hear of it. What sort of a friend do you call that?" Pay him and get rid of him. There was the course of proceeding suggested by the private counsellor in Mountjoy's bosom. "Have you got the publisher's estimate of expenses?" he asked. The doctor instantly produced the document. To a rich man the sum required was, after all, trifling enough. Mountjoy sat down at the writing-table. As he took up a pen, Mr. Vimpany's protuberant eyes looked as if they would fly out of his head. "If I lend you the money--" Hugh began. "Yes? Yes?" cried the doctor. "I do so on condition that nobody is to know of the loan but ourselves." "Oh, sir, on my sacred word of honour--" An order on Mountjoy's bankers in Paris for the necessary amount, with something added for travelling expenses, checked Mr. Vimpany in full career of protestation. He tried to begin again: "My friend! my benefactor--" He was stopped once more. His friend and benefactor pointed to the clock. "If you want the money to-day, you have just time to get to Paris before the bank closes." Mr. Vimpany did want the money--always wanted the money; his gratitude burst out for the third time: "God bless you!" The object of that highly original form of benediction pointed through the window in the direction of the railway station. Mr. Vimpany struggled no longer to express his feelings--he had made his last sacrifice to appearances--he caught the train. The door of the room had been left open. A voice outside said: "Has he gone?" "Come in, Fanny," said Mountjoy. "He will return to London either to-night or to-morrow morning." The strange maid put her head in at the door. "I'll be at the terminus," she said, "and make sure of him." Her head suddenly disappeared, before it was possible to speak to her again. "Was there some other person outside? The other person entered the room; it was Lord Harry. He spoke without his customary smile. "I want a word with you, Mr. Mountjoy." "About what, my lord?" That direct question seemed to confuse the Irishman. He hesitated. "About you," he said, and stopped to consider. "And another person," he added mysteriously. Hugh was constitutionally a hater of mysteries. He felt the need of a more definite reply, and asked for it plainly: "Does your lordship associate that other person with me?" "Yes, I do." "Who is the person?" "My wife." CHAPTER XXX SAXON AND CELT WHEN amicable relations between two men happen to be in jeopardy, there is least danger of an ensuing quarrel if the friendly intercourse has been of artificial growth, on either side. In this case, the promptings of self-interest, and the laws of politeness, have been animating influences throughout; acting under conditions which assist the effort of self-control. And for this reason: the man who has never really taken a high place in our regard is unprovided with those sharpest weapons of provocation, which make unendurable demands on human fortitude. In a true attachment, on the other hand, there is an innocent familiarity implied, which is forgetful of ceremony, and blind to consequences. The affectionate freedom which can speak kindly without effort is sensitive to offence, and can speak harshly without restraint. When the friend who wounds us has once been associated with the sacred memories of the heart, he strikes at a tender place, and no considerations of propriety are powerful enough to stifle our cry of rage and pain. The enemies who have once loved each other are the bitterest enemies of all. Thus, the curt exchange of question and answer, which had taken place in the cottage at Passy, between two gentlemen artificially friendly to one another, led to no regrettable result. Lord Harry had been too readily angry: he remembered what was due to Mr. Mountjoy. Mr. Mountjoy had been too thoughtlessly abrupt: he remembered what was due to Lord Harry. The courteous Irishman bowed, and pointed to a chair. The well-bred Englishman returned the polite salute, and sat down. My lord broke the silence that followed. "May I hope that you will excuse me," he began, "if I walk about the room? Movement seems to help me when I am puzzled how to put things nicely. Sometimes I go round and round the subject, before I get at it. I'm afraid I'm going round and round, now. Have you arranged to make a long stay in Paris?" Circumstances, Mountjoy answered, would probably decide him. "You have no doubt been many times in Paris before this," Lord Harry continued. "Do you find it at all dull, now?" Wondering what he could possibly mean, Hugh said he never found Paris dull--and waited for further enlightenment. The Irish lord persisted: "People mostly think Paris isn't as gay as it used to be. Not such good plays and such good actors as they had at one time. The restaurants inferior, and society very much mixed. People don't stay there as long as they used. I'm told that Americans are getting disappointed, and are trying London for a change." Could he have any serious motive for this irrelevant way of talking? Or was he, to judge by his own account of himself, going round and round the subject of his wife and his guest, before he could get at it? Suspecting him of jealousy from the first, Hugh failed--naturally perhaps in his position--to understand the regard for Iris, and the fear of offending her, by which her jealous husband was restrained. Lord Harry was attempting (awkwardly indeed!) to break off the relations between his wife and her friend, by means which might keep the true state of his feelings concealed from both of them. Ignorant of this claim on his forbearance, it was Mountjoy's impression that he was being trifled with. Once more, he waited for enlightenment, and waited in silence. "You don't find my conversation interesting?" Lord Harry remarked, still with perfect good-humour. "I fail to see the connection," Mountjoy acknowledged, "between what you have said so far, and the subject on which you expressed your intention of speaking to me. Pray forgive me if I appear to hurry you--or if you have any reasons for hesitation." Far from being offended, this incomprehensible man really appeared to be pleased. "You read me like a book!" he exclaimed. "It's hesitation that's the matter with me. I'm a variable man. If there's something disagreeable to say, there are times when I dash at it, and times when I hang back. Can I offer you any refreshment?" he asked, getting away from the subject again, without so much as an attempt at concealment. Hugh thanked him, and declined. "Not even a glass of wine? Such white Burgundy, my dear sir, as you seldom taste." Hugh's British obstinacy was roused; he repeated his reply. Lord Harry looked at him gravely, and made a nearer approach to an open confession of feeling than he had ventured on yet. "With regard now to my wife. When I went away this morning with Vimpany--he's not such good company as he used to be; soured by misfortune, poor devil; I wish he would go back to London. As I was saying--I mean as I was about to say--I left you and Lady Harry together this morning; two old friends, glad (as I supposed) to have a gossip about old times. When I come back, I find you left here alone, and I am told that Lady Harry is in her room. What do I see when I get there? I see the finest pair of eyes in the world; and the tale they tell me is, We have been crying. When I ask what may have happened to account for this--'Nothing, dear,' is all the answer I get. What's the impression naturally produced on my mind? There has been a quarrel perhaps between you and my wife." "I fail entirely, Lord Harry, to see it in that light." "Ah, likely enough! Mine's the Irish point of view. As an Englishman you fail to understand it. Let that be. One thing; Mr. Mountjoy, I'll take the freedom of saying at once. I'll thank you, next time, to quarrel with Me." "You force me to tell you, my lord, that you are under a complete delusion, if you suppose that there has been any quarrel, or approach to a quarrel, between Lady Harry and myself." "You tell me that, on your word of honour as a gentleman?" "Most assuredly!" "Sir! I deeply regret to hear it." "Which does your lordship deeply regret? That I have spoken to you on my word of honour, or that I have not quarrelled with Lady Harry?" "Both, sir! By the piper that played before Moses, both!" Hugh got up, and took his hat: "We may have a better chance of understanding each other," he suggested, "if you will be so good as to write to me." "Put your hat down again, Mr. Mountjoy, and pray have a moment's patience. I've tried to like you, sir--and I'm bound in candour to own that I've failed to find a bond of union between us. Maybe, this frank confession annoys you." "Far from it! You are going straight to your subject at last, if I may venture to say so." The Irish lord's good-humour had completely disappeared by this time. His handsome face hardened, and his voice rose. The outbreak of jealous feeling, which motives honourable to himself had hitherto controlled, now seized on its freedom of expression. His language betrayed (as on some former occasions) that association with unworthy companions, which had been one of the evil results of his adventurous life. "Maybe I'll go straighter than you bargain for," he replied; "I'm in two humours about you. My common-sense tells me that you're my wife's friend. And the best of friends do sometimes quarrel, don't they? Well, sir, you deny it, on your own account. I find myself forced back on my other humour--and it's a black humour, I can tell you. You may be my wife's friend, my fine fellow, but you're something more than that. You have always been in love with her--and you're in love with her now. Thank you for your visit, but don't repeat it. Say! do we understand each other at last?" "I have too sincere a respect for Lady Harry to answer you," Mountjoy said. "At the same time, let me acknowledge my obligations to your lordship. You have reminded me that I did a foolish thing when I called here without an invitation. I agree with you that the sooner my mistake is set right the better." He replied in those words, and left the cottage. On the way back to his hotel, Hugh thought of what Mrs. Vimpany had said to him when they had last seen each other: "Don't forget that there is an obstacle between you and Iris which will put even your patience and your devotion to a hard trial." The obstacle of the husband had set itself up, and had stopped him already. His own act (a necessary act after the language that had been addressed to him) had closed the doors of the cottage, and had put an end to future meetings between Iris and himself. If they attempted to communicate by letter, Lord Harry would have opportunities of discovering their correspondence, of which his jealousy would certainly avail itself. Through the wakeful night, Hugh's helpless situation was perpetually in his thoughts. There seemed to be no present alternative before him but resignation, and a return to England. CHAPTER XXXI THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS ON the next day Mountjoy heard news of Iris, which was not of a nature to relieve his anxieties. He received a visit from Fanny Mere. The leave-taking of Mr. Vimpany, on the previous evening, was the first event which the maid had to relate. She had been present when the doctor said good-bye to the master and mistress. Business in London was the reason he gave for going away. The master had taken the excuse as if he really believed in it, and seemed to be glad to get rid of his friend. The mistress expressed her opinion that Mr. Vimpany's return to London must have been brought about by an act of liberality on the part of the most generous of living men. _"Your_ friend has, as I believe, got some money from _my_ friend," she said to her husband. My lord had looked at her very strangely when she spoke of Mr. Mountjoy in that way, and had walked out of the room. As soon as his back was turned, Fanny had obtained leave of absence. She had carried out her intention of watching the terminus, and had seen Mr. Vimpany take his place among the passengers to London by the mail train. Returning to the cottage, it was Fanny's duty to ascertain if her services were required in her mistress's room. On reaching the door, she had heard the voices of my lord and my lady, and (as Mr. Mountjoy would perhaps be pleased to know) had been too honourable to listen outside, on this occasion. She had at once gone away, and had waited until she should be sent for. After a long interval, the bell that summoned her had been rung. She had found the mistress in a state of agitation, partly angry, and partly distressed; and had ventured to ask if anything unpleasant had happened. No reply was made to that inquiry. Fanny had silently performed the customary duties of the night-toilet, in getting my lady ready for bed; they had said good-night to each other and had said no more. In the morning (that present morning), being again in attendance as usual, the maid had found Lady Harry in a more indulgent frame of mind; still troubled by anxieties, but willing to speak of them now. She had begun by talking of Mr. Mountjoy: "I think you like him, Fanny: everybody likes him. You will be sorry to hear that we have no prospect of seeing him again at the cottage." There she had stopped; something that she had not said, yet, seemed to be in her mind, and to trouble her. She was near to crying, poor soul, but struggled against it. "I have no sister," she said, "and no friend who might be like a sister to me. It isn't perhaps quite right to speak of my sorrow to my maid. Still, there is something hard to bear in having no kind heart near one--I mean, no other woman to speak to who knows what women feel. It is so lonely here--oh, so lonely! I wonder whether you understand me and pity me?" Never forgetting all that she owed to her mistress--if she might say so without seeming to praise herself--Fanny was truly sorry. It would have been a relief to her, if she could have freely expressed her opinion that my lord must be to blame, when my lady was in trouble. Being a man, he was by nature cruel to women; the wisest thing his poor wife could do would be to expect nothing from him. The maid was sorely tempted to offer a little good advice to this effect; but she was afraid of her own remembrances, if she encouraged them by speaking out boldly. It would be better to wait for what the mistress might say next. Lord Harry's conduct was the first subject that presented itself when the conversation was resumed. My lady mentioned that she had noticed how he looked, and how he left the room, when she had spoken in praise of Mr. Mountjoy. She had pressed him to explain himself---and she had made a discovery which proved to be the bitterest disappointment of her life. Her husband suspected her! Her husband was jealous of her! It was too cruel; it was an insult beyond endurance, an insult to Mr. Mountjoy as well as to herself. If that best and dearest of good friends was to be forbidden the house, if he was to go away and never to see her or speak to her again, of one thing she was determined--he should not leave her without a kind word of farewell; he should hear how truly she valued him; yes, and how she admired and felt for him! Would Fanny not do the same thing, in her place? And Fanny had remembered the time when she might have done it for such a man as Mr. Mountjoy. "Mind you stay indoors this evening, sir," the maid continued, looking and speaking so excitedly that Hugh hardly knew her again. "My mistress is coming to see you, and I shall come with her." Such an act of imprudence was incredible. "You must be out of your senses!" Mountjoy exclaimed. "I'm out of myself sir, if that's what you mean," Fanny answered. "I do so enjoy treating a man in that way! The master's going out to dinner--he'll know nothing about it--and," cried the cool cold woman of other times, "he richly deserves it." Hugh reasoned and remonstrated, and failed to produce the slightest effect. His next effort was to write a few lines to Lady Harry, entreating her to remember that a jealous man is sometimes capable of acts of the meanest duplicity, and that she might be watched. When he gave the note to Fanny to deliver, she informed him respectfully that he had better not trust her. A person sometimes meant to do right (she reminded him), and sometimes ended in doing wrong. Rather than disappoint her mistress, she was quite capable of tearing up the letter, on her way home, and saying nothing about it. Hugh tried a threat next: "Your mistress will not find me, if she comes here; I shall go out to-night." The impenetrable maid looked at him with a pitying smile, and answered: "Not you!" It was a humiliating reflection--but Fanny Mere understood him better than he understood himself. All that Mountjoy had said and done in the way of protest, had been really dictated by consideration for the young wife. If he questioned his conscience, selfish delight in the happy prospect of seeing Iris again asserted itself, as the only view with which he looked forward to the end of the day. When the evening approached, he took the precaution of having his own discreet and faithful servant in attendance, to receive Lady Harry at the door of the hotel, before the ringing of the bell could summon the porter from his lodge. On calm consideration, the chances seemed to be in favour of her escaping detection by Lord Harry. The jealous husband of the stage, who sooner (or later) discovers the innocent (or guilty) couple, as the case may be, is not always the husband of the world outside the theatre. With this fragment of experience present in his mind, Hugh saw the door of his sitting-room cautiously opened, at an earlier hour than he had anticipated. His trustworthy representative introduced a lady, closely veiled--and that lady was Iris. CHAPTER XXXII GOOD-BYE TO IRIS LADY HARRY lifted her veil, and looked at Mountjoy with sad entreaty in her eyes. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. "I ought to be angry with you," he said. "This is a very imprudent, Iris." "It's worse than that," she confessed. "It's reckless and desperate. Don't say I ought to have controlled myself. I can't control the shame I feel when I think of what has happened. Can I let you go--oh, what a return for your kindness!--without taking your hand at parting? Come and sit by me on the sofa. After my poor husband's conduct, you and I are not likely to meet again. I don't expect you to lament it as I do. Even your sweetness and your patience--so often tried--must be weary of me now." "If you thought that possible, my dear, you would not have come here to-night," Hugh reminded her. "While we live, we have the hope of meeting again. Nothing in this world lasts, Iris--not even jealousy. Lord Harry himself told me that he was a variable man. Sooner or later he will come to his senses." Those words seemed to startle Iris. "I hope you don't think that my husband is brutal to me!" she exclaimed, still resenting even the appearance of a reflection on her marriage, and still forgetting what she herself had said which justified a doubt of her happiness. "Have you formed a wrong impression?" she went on. "Has Fanny Mere innocently--?" Mountjoy noticed, for the first time, the absence of the maid. It was a circumstance which justified him in interrupting Iris--for it might seriously affect her if her visit to the hotel happened to be discovered. "I understood," he said, "that Fanny was to come here with you." "Yes! yes! She is waiting in the carriage. We are careful not to excite attention at the door of the hotel; the coachman will drive up and down the street till I want him again. Never mind that! I have something to say to you about Fanny. She thinks of her own troubles, poor soul, when she talks to me, and exaggerates a little without meaning it. I hope she has not misled you in speaking of her master. It is base and bad of him, unworthy of a gentleman, to be jealous--and he has wounded me deeply. But dear Hugh, his jealousy is a gentle jealousy. I have heard of other men who watch their wives--who have lost all confidence in them--who would even have taken away from me such a trifle as this." She smiled, and showed to Mountjoy her duplicate key of the cottage door. "Ah, Harry is above such degrading distrust as that! There are times when he is as heartily ashamed of his own weakness as I could wish him to be. I have seen him on his knees before me, shocked at his conduct. He is no hypocrite. Indeed, his repentance is sincere, while it lasts--only it doesn't last! His jealousy rises and falls, like the wind. He said last night (when the wind was high): 'If you wish to make me the happiest creature on the face of the earth, don't encourage Mr. Mountjoy to remain in Paris!' Try to make allowances for him!" "I would rather make allowances, Iris, for you. Do _you,_ too wish me to leave Paris?" Sitting very near to him--nearer than her husband might have liked to see--Iris drew away a little. "Did you mean to be cruel in saying that?" she asked. "I don't deserve it." "It was kindly meant," Hugh assured her. "If I can make your position more endurable by going away, I will leave Paris to-morrow." Iris moved back again to the place which she had already occupied. She was eager to thank him (for a reason not yet mentioned) as she had never thanked him yet. Silently and softly she offered her gratitude to Hugh, by offering her cheek. The irritating influence of Lord Harry's jealousy was felt by both of them at that moment. He kissed her cheek--and lingered over it. She was the first to recover herself. "When you spoke just now of my position with my husband," she said, "you reminded me of anxieties, Hugh, in which you once shared, and of services which I can never forget." Preparing him in those words for the disclosure which she had now to make, Iris alluded to the vagabond life of adventure which Lord Harry had led. The restlessness in his nature which that life implied, had latterly shown itself again; and his wife had traced the cause to a letter from Ireland, communicating a report that the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy had been seen in London, and was supposed to be passing under the name of Carrigeen. Hugh would understand that the desperate resolution to revenge the murder of his friend, with which Lord Harry had left England in the past time, had been urged into action once more. He had not concealed from Iris that she must be resigned to his leaving her for awhile, if the report which had reached him from Ireland proved to be true. It would be useless, and worse than useless, to remind this reckless man of the danger that threatened him from the Invincibles, if he returned to England. In using her power of influencing the husband who still loved her, Iris could only hope to exercise a salutary restraint in her own domestic interests, appealing to him for indulgence by careful submission to any exactions on which his capricious jealousy might insist. Would sad necessity excuse her, if she accepted Mountjoy's offer to leave Paris, for the one reason that her husband had asked it of her as a favour? Hugh at once understood her motive, and assured her of his sympathy. "You may depend upon my returning to London to-morrow," he said. "In the meantime, is there no better way in which I can be of use to you? If your influence fails, do you see any other chance of keeping Lord Harry's desperate purpose under control?" It had only that day occurred to Iris that there might be some prospect of an encouraging result, if she could obtain the assistance of Mrs. Vimpany. The doctor's wife was well acquainted with Lord Harry's past life, when he happened to be in Ireland; and she had met many of his countrymen with whom he had associated. If one of those friends happened to be the officious person who had written to him, it was at least possible that Mrs. Vimpany's discreet interference might prevent his mischievous correspondent from writing again. Lord Harry, waiting for more news, would in this event wait in vain. He would not know where to go, or what to do next--and, with such a nature as his, the end of his patience and the end of his resolution were likely to come together. Hugh handed his pocket-book to Iris. Of the poor chances in her favour, the last was to his mind the least hopeless of the two. "If you have discovered the name of your husband's correspondent," he said, "write it down for me, and I will ask Mrs. Vimpany if she knows him. I will make your excuses for not having written to her lately; and, in any case, I answer for her being ready to help you." As Iris thanked him and wrote the name, the clock on the chimneypiece struck the hour. She rose to say farewell. With a restless hand she half-lowered her veil, and raised it again. "You won't mind my crying," she said faintly, trying to smile through her tears. "This is the saddest parting I have ever known. Dear, dear Hugh--good-bye!" Great is the law of Duty; but the elder law of Love claims its higher right. Never, in all the years of their friendship, had they forgotten themselves as they forgot themselves now. For the first time her lips met his lips, in their farewell kiss. In a moment more, they remembered the restraints which honour imposed on them; they were only friends again. Silently she lowered her veil. Silently he took her arm and led her down to the carriage. It was moving away from them at a slow pace, towards the other end of the street. Instead of waiting for its return, they followed and overtook it. "We shall meet again," he whispered. She answered sadly: "Don't forget me." Mountjoy turned back. As he approached the hotel he noticed a tall man crossing from the opposite side of the street. Not two minutes after Iris was on her way home, her jealous husband and her old friend met at the hotel door. Lord Harry spoke first. "I have been dining out," he said, "and I came here to have a word with you, Mr. Mountjoy, on my road home." Hugh answered with formal politeness: "Let me show your lordship the way to my rooms." "Oh, it's needless to trouble you," Lord Harry declared. "I have so little to say--do you mind walking on with me for a few minutes?" Mountjoy silently complied. He was thinking of what might have happened if Iris had delayed her departure--or if the movement of the carriage had been towards, instead of away from the hotel. In either case it had been a narrow escape for the wife, from a dramatic discovery by the husband. "We Irishmen," Lord Harry resumed, "are not famous for always obeying the laws; but it is in our natures to respect the law of hospitality. When you were at the cottage yesterday I was inhospitable to my guest. My rude behaviour has weighed on my mind since--and for that reason I have come here to speak to you. It was ill-bred on my part to reproach you with your visit, and to forbid you (oh, quite needlessly, I don't doubt!) to call on me again. If I own that I have no desire to propose a renewal of friendly intercourse between us, you will understand me, I am sure; with my way of thinking, the less we see of each other for the future, the better it may be. But, for what I said when my temper ran away with me, I ask you to accept my excuses, and the sincere expression of my regret." "Your excuses are accepted, my lord, as sincerely as you have offered them," Mountjoy answered. "So far as I am concerned, the incident is forgotten from this moment." Lord Harry expressed his courteous acknowledgments. "Spoken as becomes a gentleman," he said. "I thank you." There it ended. They saluted each other; they wished each other good-night. "A mere formality!" Hugh thought, when they had parted. He had wronged the Irish lord in arriving at that conclusion. But time was to pass before events helped him to discover his error. CHAPTER XXXIII THE DECREE OF FATE ON his arrival in London, Mountjoy went to the Nurses' Institute to inquire for Mrs. Vimpany. She was again absent, in attendance on another patient. The address of the house (known only to the matron) was, on this occasion, not to be communicated to any friend who might make inquiries. A bad case of scarlet fever had been placed under the nurse's care, and the danger of contagion was too serious to be trifled with. The events which had led to Mrs. Vimpany's present employment had not occurred in the customary course. A nurse who had recently joined the Institute had been first engaged to undertake the case, at the express request of the suffering person--who was said to be distantly related to the young woman. On the morning when she was about to proceed to the scene of her labours, news had reached her of the dangerous illness of her mother. Mrs. Vimpany, who was free at the time, and who felt a friendly interest in her young colleague, volunteered to take her place. Upon this, a strange request had been addressed to the matron, on behalf of the sick man. He desired to be "informed of it, if the new nurse was an Irishwoman." Hearing that she was an Englishwoman, he at once accepted her services, being himself (as an additional element of mystery in the matter) an Irishman! The matron's English prejudices at once assumed that there had been some discreditable event in the man's life, which might be made a subject of scandalous exposure if he was attended by one of his own countrypeople. She advised Mrs. Vimpany to have nothing to do with the afflicted stranger. The nurse answered that she had promised to attend on him--and she kept her promise. Mountjoy left the Institute, after vainly attempting to obtain Mrs. Vimpany's address. The one concession which the matron offered to make was to direct his letter, and send it to the post, if he would be content with that form of communication. On reflection, he decided to write the letter. Prompt employment of time might be of importance, if it was possible to prevent any further communication with Lord Larry on the part of his Irish correspondent. Using the name with which Iris had provided him, Hugh wrote to inquire if it was familiar to Mrs. Vimpany, as the name of a person with whom she had been, at any time, acquainted. In this event, he assured her that an immediate consultation between them was absolutely necessary in the interests of Iris. He added, in a postscript, that he was in perfect health, and that he had no fear of infection--and sent his letter to the matron to be forwarded. The reply reached him late in the evening. It was in the handwriting of a stranger, and was to this effect: "Dear Mr. Mountjoy,--It is impossible that I can allow you to run the risk of seeing me while I am in my present situation. So serious is the danger of contagion in scarlet fever, that I dare not even write to you with my own hand on note-paper which has been used in the sick room. This is no mere fancy of mine; the doctor in attendance here knows of a case in which a small piece of infected flannel communicated the disease after an interval of no less than a year. I must trust to your own good sense to see the necessity of waiting, until I can receive you without any fear of consequences to yourself. In the meantime, I may answer your inquiry relating to the name communicated in your letter. I first knew the gentleman you mention some years since; we were introduced to each other by Lord Harry; and I saw him afterwards on more than one occasion." Mountjoy read this wise and considerate reply to his letter with indignation. Here was the good fortune for which he had not dared to hope, declaring itself in favour of Iris. Here (if Mrs. Vimpany could be persuaded to write to her friend) was the opportunity offered of keeping the hot-tempered Irish husband passive and harmless, by keeping him without further news of the assassin of Arthur Mountjoy. Under these encouraging circumstances the proposed consultation which might have produced such excellent results had been rejected; thanks to a contemptible fear of infection, excited by a story of a trumpery piece of flannel! Hugh snatched up the unfortunate letter (cast away on the floor) to tear it in pieces and throw it into the waste-paper basket--and checked himself. His angry hand had seized on it with the blank leaf of the note-paper uppermost. On that leaf he discovered two little lines of print, presenting, in the customary form, the address of the house at which the letter had been written! The writer, in taking the sheet of paper from the case, must have accidentally turned it wrong side uppermost on the desk, and had not cared to re-copy the letter, or had not discovered the mistake. Restored to his best good-humour, Hugh resolved to surprise Mrs. Vimpany by a visit, on the next day, which would set the theory of contagion at defiance, and render valuable service to Iris at a crisis in her life. Having time before him for reflection, in the course of the evening, he was at no loss to discover a formidable obstacle in the way of his design. Whether he gave his name or concealed his name, when he asked for Mrs. Vimpany at the house-door, she would in either case refuse to see him. The one accessible person whom he could consult in this difficulty was his faithful old servant. That experienced man--formerly employed, at various times, in the army, in the police, and in service at a public school--obtained leave to make some preliminary investigations on the next morning. He achieved two important discoveries. In the first place, Mrs. Vimpany was living in the house in which the letter to his master had been written. In the second place, there was a page attached to the domestic establishment (already under notice to leave his situation), who was accessible to corruption by means of a bribe. The boy would be on the watch for Mr. Mountjoy at two o'clock on that day, and would show him where to find Mrs. Vimpany, in the room near the sick man, in which she was accustomed to take her meals. Hugh acted on his instructions, and found the page waiting to admit him secretly to the house. Leading the way upstairs, the boy pointed with one hand to a door on the second floor, and held out the other hand to receive his money. While he pocketed the bribe, and disappeared, Mountjoy opened the door. Mrs. Vimpany was seated at a table waiting for her dinner. When Hugh showed himself she started to her feet with a cry of alarm. "Are you mad?" she exclaimed. "How did you get here? What do you want here? Don't come near me!" She attempted to pass Hugh on her way out of the room. He caught her by the arm, led her back to her chair, and forced her to seat herself again. "Iris is in trouble," he pleaded, "and you can help her." "The fever!" she cried, heedless of what he had said. "Keep back from me--the fever!" For the second time she tried to get out of the room. For the second time Hugh stopped her. "Fever or no fever," he persisted, "I have something to say to you. In two minutes I shall have said it, and I will go." In the fewest possible words he described the situation of Iris with her jealous husband. Mrs. Vimpany indignantly interrupted him. "Are you running this dreadful risk," she asked, "with nothing to say to me that I don't know already? Her husband jealous of her? Of course he is jealous of her! Leave me--or I will ring for the servant." "Ring, if you like," Hugh answered; "but hear this first. My letter to you alluded to a consultation between us, which might be necessary in the interests of Iris. Imagine her situation if you can! The assassin of Arthur Mountjoy is reported to be in London; and Lord Harry has heard of it." Mrs. Vimpany looked at him with horror in her eyes. "Gracious God!" she cried, "the man is here--under my care. Oh, I am not in the conspiracy to hide the wretch! I knew no more of him than you do when I offered to nurse him. The names that have escaped him, in his delirium, have told me the truth." As she spoke, a second door in the room was opened. An old woman showed herself for a moment, trembling with terror. "He's breaking out again, nurse! Help me to hold him!" Mrs. Vimpany instantly followed the woman into the bed-room. "Wait and listen," she said to Mountjoy--and left the door open. The quick, fierce, muttering tones of a man in delirium were now fearfully audible. His maddened memory was travelling back over his own horrible life. He put questions to himself; he answered himself: "Who drew the lot to kill the traitor? I did! I did! Who shot him on the road, before he could get to the wood? I did! I did! Arthur Mountjoy, traitor to Ireland. Set that on his tombstone, and disgrace him for ever. Listen, boys--listen! There is a patriot among you. I am the patriot--preserved by a merciful Providence. Ha, my Lord Harry, search the earth and search the sea, the patriot is out of your reach! Nurse! What's that the doctor said of me? The fever will kill him? Well, what does that matter, as long as Lord Harry doesn't kill me? Open the doors, and let everybody hear of it. I die the death of a saint--the greatest of all saints--the saint who shot Arthur Mountjoy. Oh, the heat, the heat, the burning raging heat!" The tortured creature burst into a dreadful cry of rage and pain. It was more than Hugh's resolution could support. He hurried out of the house. * * * * * * * * Ten days passed. A letter, in a strange handwriting, reached Iris at Passy. The first part of the letter was devoted to the Irish desperado, whom Mrs. Vimpany had attended in his illness. When she only knew him as a suffering fellow-creature she had promised to be his nurse. Did the discovery that he was an assassin justify desertion, or even excuse neglect? No! the nursing art, like the healing art, is an act of mercy--in itself too essentially noble to inquire whether the misery that it relieves merits help. All that experience, all that intelligence, all that care could offer, the nurse gave to the man whose hand she would have shrunk from touching in friendship, after she had saved his life. A time had come when the fever threatened to take Lord Harry's vengeance out of his hands. The crisis of the disease declared itself. With the shadow of death on him, the wretch lived through it--saved by his strong constitution, and by the skilled and fearless woman who attended on him. At the period of his convalescence, friends from Ireland (accompanied by a medical man of their own choosing) presented themselves at the house, and asked for him by the name under which he passed--Carrigeen. With every possible care, he was removed; to what destination had never been discovered. From that time, all trace of him had been lost. Terrible news followed on the next page. The subtle power of infection had asserted itself against the poor mortal who had defied it. Hugh Mountjoy, stricken by the man who had murdered his brother, lay burning under the scarlet fire of the fever. But the nurse watched by him, night and day. CHAPTER XXXIV MY LORD'S MIND HERE, my old-vagabond-Vimpany, is an interesting case for you--the cry of a patient with a sick mind. Look over it, and prescribe for your wild Irish friend, if you can. You will perhaps remember that I have never thoroughly trusted you, in all the years since we have known each other. At this later date in our lives, when I ought to see more clearly than ever what an unfathomable man you are, am I rash enough to be capable of taking you into my confidence? I don't know what I am going to do; I feel like a man who has been stunned. To be told that the murderer of Arthur Mountjoy had been seen in London--to be prepared to trace him by his paltry assumed name of Carrigeen--to wait vainly for the next discovery which might bring him within reach of retribution at my hands--and then to be overwhelmed by the news of his illness, his recovery, and his disappearance: these are the blows which have stupefied me. Only think of it! He has escaped me for the second time. Fever that kills thousands of harmless creatures has spared the assassin. He may yet die in his bed, and be buried, with the guiltless dead around him, in a quiet churchyard. I can't get over it; I shall never get over it. Add to this, anxieties about my wife, and maddening letters from creditors--and don't expect me to write reasonably. What I want to know is whether your art (or whatever you call it) can get at my diseased mind, through my healthy body. You have more than once told me that medicine can do this. The time has come for doing it. I am in a bad way, and a bad end may follow. My only medical friend, deliver me from myself. In any case, let me beg you to keep your temper while you read what follows. I have to confess that the devil whose name is Jealousy has entered into me, and is threatening the tranquillity of my married life. You dislike Iris, I know--and she returns your hostile feeling towards her. Try to do my wife justice, nevertheless, as I do. I don't believe my distrust of her has any excuse--and yet, I am jealous. More unreasonable still, I am as fond of her as I was in the first days of the honeymoon. Is she as fond as ever of me? You were a married man when I was a boy. Let me give you the means of forming an opinion by a narrative of her conduct, under (what I admit to have been) very trying circumstances. When the first information reached Iris of Hugh Mountjoy's dangerous illness, we were at breakfast. It struck her dumb. She handed the letter to me, and left the table. I hate a man who doesn't know what it is to want money; I hate a man who keeps his temper; I hate a man who pretends to be my wife's friend, and who is secretly in love with her all the time. What difference did it make to me whether Hugh Mountjoy ended in living or dying? If I had any interest in the matter, it ought by rights (seeing that I am jealous of him) to be an interest in his death. Well! I declare positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast. There is something about that friend of my wife--that smug, prosperous, well-behaved Englishman--which seems to plead for him (God knows how!) when my mind is least inclined in his favour. While I was reading about his illness, I found myself hoping that he would recover--and, I give you my sacred word of honour, I hated him all the time. My Irish friend is mad--you will say. Your Irish friend, my dear follow, does not dispute it. Let us get back to my wife. She showed herself again after a long absence, having something (at last) to say to her husband. "I am innocently to blame," she began, "for the dreadful misfortune that has fallen on Mr. Mountjoy. If I had not given him a message to Mrs. Vimpany, he would never have insisted on seeing her, and would never have caught the fever. It may help me to bear my misery of self-reproach and suspense, if I am kept informed of his illness. There is no fear of infection by my receiving letters. I am to write to a friend of Mrs. Vimpany, who lives in another house, and who will answer my inquiries. Do you object, dear Harry, to my getting news of Hugh Mountjoy every day, while he is in danger?" I was perfectly willing that she should get that news, and she ought to have known it. It seemed to me to be also a bad sign that she made her request with dry eyes. She must have cried, when she first heard that he was likely to sink under an attack of fever. Why were her tears kept hidden in her own room? When she came back to me, her face was pale and hard and tearless. Don't you think she might have forgotten my jealousy, when I was so careful myself not to show it? My own belief is that she was longing to go to London, and help your wife to nurse the poor man, and catch the fever, and die with him if _he_ died. Is this bitter? Perhaps it is. Tear it off, and light your pipe with it. Well, the correspondence relating to the sick man continued every day; and every day--oh, Vimpany, another concession to my jealousy!--she handed the letters to me to read. I made excuses (we Irish are good at that, if we are good at nothing else), and declined to read the medical reports. One morning, when she opened the letter of that day, there passed over her a change which is likely to remain in my memory as long as I live. Never have I seen such an ecstasy of happiness in any woman's face, as I saw when she read the lines which informed her that the fever was mastered. Iris is sweet and delicate and bright--essentially fascinating, in a word. But she was never a beautiful woman, until she knew that Mountjoy's life was safe; and she will never be a beautiful woman again, unless the time comes when my death leaves her free to marry him. On her wedding-day, he will see the transformation that I saw--and he will be dazzled as I was. She looked at me, as if she expected me to speak. "I am glad indeed," I said, "that he is out of danger." She ran to me--she kissed me; I wouldn't have believed it was in her to give such kisses. "Now I have your sympathy," she said, "my happiness is complete!" Do you think I was indebted for these kisses to myself or to that other man? No, no--here is an unworthy doubt. I discard it. Vile suspicion shall not wrong Iris this time. And yet---- Shall I go on, and write the rest of it? Poor, dear Arthur Mountjoy once told me of a foreign author, who was in great doubt of the right answer to some tough question that troubled him. He went into his garden and threw a stone at a tree. If he hit the tree, the answer would be--Yes. If he missed the tree, the answer would be--No. I am going into the garden to imitate the foreign author. You shall hear how it ends. I have hit the tree. As a necessary consequence, I must go on and write the rest of it. There is a growing estrangement between Iris and myself--and my jealousy doesn't altogether account for it. Sometimes, it occurs to me that we are thinking of what our future relations with Mountjoy are likely to be, and are ashamed to confess it to each other. Sometimes--and perhaps this second, and easiest, guess may be the right one--I am apt to conclude that we are only anxious about money matters. I am waiting for her to touch on the subject, and she is waiting for me; and there we are at a deadlock. I wish I had some reason for going to some other place. I wish I was lost among strangers. I should like to find myself in a state of danger, meeting the risks that I used to run in my vagabond days. Now I think of it, I might enjoy this last excitement by going back to England, and giving the Invincibles a chance of shooting me as a traitor to the cause. But my wife would object to that. Suppose we change the subject. You will be glad to hear that you knew something of law, as well as of medicine. I sent instructions to my solicitor in London to raise a loan on my life-insurance. What you said to me turns out to be right. I can't raise a farthing, for three years to come, out of all the thousands of pounds which I shall leave behind me when I die. Are my prospects from the newspaper likely to cheer me after such a disappointment as this? The new journal, I have the pleasure of informing you, is much admired. When I inquire for my profits, I hear that the expenses are heavy, and I am told that I must wait for a rise in our circulation. How long? Nobody knows. I shall keep these pages open for a few days more, on the chance of something happening which may alter my present position for the better. My position has altered for the worse. I have been obliged to fill my empty purse, for a little while, by means of a bit of stamped paper. And how shall I meet my liabilities when the note falls due? Let time answer the question; for the present the evil day is put off. In the meanwhile, if that literary speculation of yours is answering no better than my newspaper, I can lend you a few pounds to get on with. What do you say (on second thoughts) to coming back to your old quarters at Passy, and giving me your valuable advice by word of mouth instead of by letter? Come, and feel my pulse, and look at my tongue--and tell me how these various anxieties of mine are going to end, before we are any of us a year older. Shall I, like you, be separated from my wife--at her request; oh, not at mine! Or shall I be locked up in prison? And what will become of You? Do you take the hint, doctor? CHAPTER XXXV MY LADY'S MIND "ENTREAT Lady Harry not to write to me. She will be tempted to do so, when she hears that there is good hope of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery. But, even from that loving and generous heart, I must not accept expressions of gratitude which would only embarrass me. All that I have done, as a nurse, and all that I may yet hope to do, is no more than an effort to make amends for my past life. Iris has my heart's truest wishes for her happiness. Until I can myself write to her without danger, let this be enough." In those terms, dearest of women, your friend has sent your message to me. My love respects as well as admires you; your wishes are commands to me. At the same time, I may find some relief from the fears of the future that oppress me, if I can confide them to friendly ears. May I not harmlessly write to you, if I only write of my own poor self? Try, dear, to remember those pleasant days when you were staying with us, in our honeymoon time, at Paris. You warned me, one evening when we were alone, to be on my guard against any circumstances which might excite my husband's jealousy. Since then, the trouble that you foresaw has fallen on me; mainly, I am afraid, through my own want of self-control. It is so hard for a woman, when she really loves a man, to understand a state of mind which can make him doubt her. I have discovered that jealousy varies. Let me tell you what I mean. Lord Harry was silent and sullen (ah, how well I knew what that meant!) while the life of our poor Hugh was in jeopardy. When I read the good news which told me that he was no longer in danger, I don't know whether there was any change worth remarking in myself--but, there was a change in my husband, delightful to see. His face showed such sweet sympathy when he looked at me, he spoke so kindly and nicely of Hugh, that I could only express my pleasure by kissing him. You will hardly believe me, when I tell you that his hateful jealousy appeared again, at that moment. He looked surprised, he looked suspicious--he looked, I declare, as if he doubted whether I meant it with all my heart when I kissed him! What incomprehensible creatures men are! We read in novels of women who are able to manage their masters. I wish I knew how to manage mine. We have been getting into debt. For some weeks past, this sad state of things has been a burden on my mind. Day after day I have been expecting him to speak of our situation, and have found him obstinately silent. Is his mind entirely occupied with other things? Or is he unwilling to speak of our anxieties because the subject humiliates him? Yesterday, I could bear it no longer. "Our debts are increasing," I said. "Have you thought of any way of paying them?" I had feared that my question might irritate him. To my relief, he seemed to be diverted by it. "The payment of debts," he replied, "is a problem that I am too poor to solve. Perhaps I got near to it the other day." I asked how. "Well," he said, "I found myself wishing I had some rich friends. By-the-bye, how is _your_ rich friend? What have you heard lately of Mr. Mountjoy?" "I have heard that he is steadily advancing towards recovery." "Likely, I dare say, to return to France when he feels equal to it," my husband remarked. "He is a good-natured creature. If he finds himself in Paris again, I wonder whether he will pay us another visit?" He said this quite seriously. On my side, I was too much as astonished to utter a word. My bewilderment seemed to amuse him. In his own pleasant way he explained himself: "I ought to have told you, my dear, that I was in Mr. Mountjoy's company the night before he returned to England. We had said some disagreeable things to each other here in the cottage, while you were away in your room. My tongue got the better of my judgment. In short, I spoke rudely to our guest. Thinking over it afterwards, I felt that I ought to make an apology. He received my sincere excuses with an amiability of manner, and a grace of language, which raised him greatly in my estimation." There you have Lord Harry's own words! Who would suppose that he had ever been jealous of the man whom he spoke of in this way? I explain it to myself, partly by the charm in Hugh's look and manner, which everybody feels; partly by the readiness with which my husband's variable nature receives new impressions. I hope you agree with me. In any case, pray let Hugh see what I have written to you in this place, and ask him what he thinks of it.* *_Note by Mrs. Vimpany._--I shall certainly not be foolish enough to show what she has written to Mr. Mountjoy. Poor deluded Iris! Miserable fatal marriage! Encouraged, as you will easily understand, by the delightful prospect of a reconciliation between them, I was eager to take my first opportunity of speaking freely of Hugh. Up to that time, it had been a hard trial to keep to myself so much that was deeply interesting in my thoughts and hopes. But my hours of disappointment were not at an end yet. We were interrupted. A letter was brought to us--one of many, already received!--insisting on immediate payment of a debt that had been too long unsettled. The detestable subject of our poverty insisted on claiming attention when there was a messenger outside, waiting for my poor Harry's last French bank note. "What is to be done?" I said, when we were left by ourselves again. My husband's composure was something wonderful. He laughed and lit a cigar. "We have got to the crisis," he said. "The question of money has driven us into a corner at last. My darling, have you ever heard of such a thing as a promissory note?" I was not quite so ignorant as he supposed me to be; I said I had heard my father speak of promissory notes. This seemed to fail in convincing him. "Your father," he remarked, "used to pay his notes when they fell due." I betrayed my ignorance, after all. "Doesn't everybody do the same?" I asked. He burst out laughing. "We will send the maid to get a bit of stamped paper," he said; "I'll write the message for her, this time." Those last words alluded to Fanny's ignorance of the French language, which made it necessary to provide her with written instructions, when she was sent on an errand. In our domestic affairs, I was able to do this; but, in the present case, I only handed the message to her. When she returned with a slip of stamped paper, Harry called to me to come to the writing-table. "Now, my sweet," he said, "see how easily money is to be got with a scratch of the pen." I looked, over his shoulder. In less than a minute it was done; and he had produced ten thousand francs on paper--in English money (as he told me), four hundred pounds. This seemed to be a large loan; I asked how he proposed to pay it back. He kindly reminded me that he was a newspaper proprietor, and, as such, possessed of the means of inspiring confidence in persons with money to spare. They could afford, it seems, to give him three months in which to arrange for repayment. In that time, as he thought, the profits of the new journal might come pouring in. He knew best, of course. We took the next train to Paris, and turned our bit of paper into notes and gold. Never was there such a delightful companion as my husband, when he has got money in his pocket. After so much sorrow and anxiety, for weeks past, that memorable afternoon was like a glimpse of Paradise. On the next morning, there was an end to my short-lived enjoyment of no more than the latter half of a day. Watching her opportunity, Fanny Mere came to me while I was alone, carrying a thick letter in her hand. She held it before me with the address uppermost. "Please to look at that," she said. The letter was directed (in Harry's handwriting) to Mr. Vimpany, at a publishing office in London. Fanny next turned the envelope the other way. "Look at this side," she resumed. The envelope was specially protected by a seal; bearing a device of my husband's own invention; that is to say, the initials of his name (Harry Norland) surmounted by a star--his lucky star, as he paid me the compliment of calling it, on the day when he married me. I was thinking of that day now. Fanny saw me looking, with a sad heart, at the impression on the wax. She completely misinterpreted the direction taken by my thoughts. "Tell me to do it, my lady," she proceeded; "and I'll open the letter." I looked at her. She showed no confusion. "I can seal it up again," she coolly explained, "with a bit of fresh wax and my thimble. Perhaps Mr. Vimpany won't be sober enough to notice it." "Do you know, Fanny, that you are making a dishonourable proposal to me?" I said. "I know there's nothing I can do to help you that I won't do," she answered; "and you know why. I have made a dishonourable proposal--have I? That comes quite naturally to a lost woman like me. Shall I tell you what Honour means? It means sticking at nothing, in your service. Please tell me to open the letter." "How did you come by the letter, Fanny?" "My master gave it to me to put in the post." "Then, post it." The strange creature, so full of contraries--so sensitive at one time, so impenetrable at another--pointed again to the address. "When the master writes to that man," she went on--"a long letter (if you will notice), and a sealed letter--your ladyship ought to see what is inside it. I haven't a doubt myself that there's writing under this seal which bodes trouble to you. The spare bedroom is empty. Do you want to have the doctor for your visitor again? Don't tell me to post the letter, till I've opened it first." "I do tell you to post the letter." Fanny submitted, so far. But she had a new form of persuasion to try, before her reserves of resistance were exhausted. "If the doctor comes back," she continued, "will your ladyship give me leave to go out, whenever I ask for it?" This was surely presuming on my indulgence. "Are you not expecting a little too much?" I suggested--not unkindly. "If you say that, my lady," she answered, "I shall be obliged to ask you to suit yourself with another maid." There was a tone of dictation in this, which I found beyond endurance. In my anger, I said: "Leave me whenever you like." "I shall leave you when I'm dead--not before," was the reply that I received. "But if you won't let me have my liberty without going away from you, for a time, I must go--for your sake." (For my sake! Pray observe that.) She went on: "Try to see it, my lady, as I do! If we have the doctor with us again, I must be able to watch him." "Why?" "Because he is your enemy, as I believe." "How can he hurt me, Fanny?" "Through your husband, my lady, if he can do it in no other way. Mr. Vimpany shall have a spy at his heels. Dishonourable! oh, dishonourable again! Never mind. I don't pretend to know what that villain means to do, if he and my lord get together again. But this I can tell you, if it's in woman's wit to circumvent him, here I am with my mind made up. With my mind, made up!" she repeated fiercely--and recovered on a sudden her customary character as a quiet well-trained servant, devoted to her duties. "I'll take my master's letter to the post now," she said. "Is there anything your ladyship wants in the town?" What do you think of Fanny Mere? Ought I to have treated this last offer of her services, as I treated her proposal to open the letter? I was not able to do it. The truth is, I was so touched by her devotion to me, that I could not prevail on myself to mortify her by a refusal. I believe there may be a good reason for the distrust of the doctor which possesses her so strongly; and I feel the importance of having this faithful and determined woman for an ally. Let me hope that Mr. Vimpany's return (if it is to take place) may be delayed until you can safely write, with your own hand, such a letter of wise advice as I sadly need. In the meantime, give my love to Hugh, and say to this dear friend all that I might have said for myself, if I had been near him. But take care that his recovery is not retarded by anxiety for me. Pray keep him in ignorance of the doubts and fears with which I am now looking at the future. If I was not so fond of my husband, I should be easier in my mind. This sounds contradictory, but I believe you will understand it. For a while, my dear, good-bye. CHAPTER XXXVI THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHIEF ON the day after Lord Harry's description of the state of his mind reached London, a gentleman presented himself at the publishing office of Messrs. Boldside Brothers, and asked for the senior partner, Mr. Peter Boldside. When he sent in his card, it bore the name of "Mr. Vimpany." "To what fortunate circumstance am I indebted, sir, for the honour of your visit?" the senior partner inquired. His ingratiating manners, his genial smile, his roundly resonant voice, were personal advantages of which he made a merciless use. The literary customer who entered the office, hesitating before the question of publishing a work at his own expense, generally decided to pay the penalty when he encountered Mr. Peter Boldside. "I want to inquire about the sale of my work," Mr. Vimpany replied. "Ah, doctor, you have come to the wrong man. You must go to my brother." Mr. Vimpany protested. "You mentioned the terms when I first applied to you," he said, "and you signed the agreement." "That is in _my_ department," the senior partner gently explained. "And I shall write the cheque when, as we both hope, your large profits shall fall due. But our sales of works are in the department of my brother, Mr. Paul Boldside." He rang a bell; a clerk appeared, and received his instructions: "Mr. Paul. Good-morning, doctor." Mr. Paul was, personally speaking, his brother repeated--without the deep voice, and without the genial smile. Conducted to the office of the junior partner, Mr. Vimpany found himself in the presence of a stranger, occupied in turning over the pages of a newspaper. When his name was announced, the publisher started, and handed his newspaper to the doctor. "This is a coincidence," he said. "I was looking, sir, for your name in the pages which I have just put into your hand. Surely the editor can't have refused to publish your letter?" Mr. Vimpany was sober, and therefore sad, and therefore (again) not to be trifled with by a mystifying reception. "I don't understand you," he answered gruffly. "What do you mean?" "Is it possible that you have not seen last week's number of the paper?" Mr. Paul asked. "And you a literary man!" He forthwith produced the last week's number, and opened it at the right place. "Read that, sir," he said, with something in his manner which looked like virtuous indignation. Mr. Vimpany found himself confronted by a letter addressed to the editor. It was signed by an eminent physician, whose portrait had appeared in the first serial part of the new work--accompanied by a brief memoir of his life, which purported to be written by himself. Not one line of the autobiography (this celebrated person declared) had proceeded from his pen. Mr. Vimpany had impudently published an imaginary memoir, full of false reports and scandalous inventions--and this after he had been referred to a trustworthy source for the necessary particulars. Stating these facts, the indignant physician cautioned readers to beware of purchasing a work which, so far as he was concerned, was nothing less than a fraud on the public. "If you can answer that letter, sir," Mr. Paul Boldside resumed, "the better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication." Mr. Vimpany made a reckless reply: "I want to know how the thing sells. Never mind the letter." "Never mind the letter?" the junior partner repeated. "A positive charge of fraud is advanced by a man at the head of his profession against a work which _we_ have published--and you say, Never mind the letter." The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table. "Bother the letter! I insist on knowing what the sale is." Still preserving his dignity, Mr. Paul (like Mr. Peter) rang for the clerk, and briefly gave an order. "Mr. Vimpany's account," he said--and proceeded to admonish Mr. Vimpany himself. "You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. Our firm has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we shall be under the disagreeable necessity--" Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally interrupted by the author: "If you will have it," said this rude man, "here it is in two words. The doctor's portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn't do it himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that, and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by personal statements. Very well--I tickled the public. There you have it in a nutshell." The clerk appeared at that auspicious moment, with the author's account neatly exhibited under two sides: a Debtor side, which represented the expenditure of Hugh Mountjoy's money; and a Creditor side, which represented (so far) Mr. Vimpany's profits. Amount of these last: 3_l._ 14_s._ 10_d._ Mr. Vimpany tore up the account, threw the pieces in the face of Mr. Paul, and expressed his sentiments in one opprobrious word: "Swindlers!" The publisher said: "You shall hear of us, sir, through our lawyer." And the author answered: "Go to the devil!" Once out in the streets again, the first open door at which Mr. Vimpany stopped was the door of a tavern. He ordered a glass of brandy and water, and a cigar. It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr. Vimpany entered it: and the waiter's unoccupied attention was in want of an object. Having nothing else to notice, he looked at the person who had just come in. The deluded stranger was drinking fiery potato-brandy, and smoking (at the foreign price) an English cigar. Would his taste tell him the melancholy truth? No: it seemed to matter nothing to him what he was drinking or what he was smoking. Now he looked angry, and now he looked puzzled; and now he took a long letter from his pocket, and read it in places, and marked the places with a pencil. "Up to some mischief," was the waiter's interpretation of these signs. The stranger ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, and fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could say, "Thank you." The next place at which he stopped was a fine house in a spacious square. A carriage was waiting at the door. The servant who opened the door knew him. "Sir James is going out again, sir, in two minutes," the man said. Mr. Vimpany answered: "I won't keep him two minutes." A bell rang from the room on the ground floor; and a gentleman came out, as Mr. Vimpany was shown in. Sir James's stethoscope was still in his hand; his latest medical fee lay on the table. "Some other day, Vimpany," the great surgeon said; "I have no time to give you now." "Will you give me a minute?" the humble doctor asked. "Very well. What is it?" "I am down in the world now, Sir James, as you know--and I am trying to pick myself up again." "Very creditable, my good fellow. How can I help you? Come, come--out with it. You want something?" "I want your great name to do me a great service. I am going to France. A letter of introduction, from you, will open doors which might be closed to an unknown man like myself." "What doors do you mean?" Sir James asked. "The doors of the hospitals in Paris." "Wait a minute, Vimpany. Have you any particular object in view?" "A professional object, of course," the ready doctor answered. "I have got an idea for a new treatment of diseases of the lungs; and I want to see if the French have made any recent discoveries in that direction." Sir James took up his pen--and hesitated. His ill-starred medical colleague had been his fellow-student and his friend, in the days when they were both young men. They had seen but little of each other since they had gone their different ways--one of them, on the high road which leads to success, the other down the byways which end in failure. The famous surgeon felt a passing doubt of the use which his needy and vagabond inferior might make of his name. For a moment his pen was held suspended over the paper. But the man of great reputation was also a man of great heart. Old associations pleaded with him, and won their cause. His companion of former times left the house provided with a letter of introduction to the chief surgeon at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris. Mr. Vimpany's next, and last, proceeding for that day, was to stop at a telegraph-office, and to communicate economically with Lord Harry in three words: "Expect me to-morrow." CHAPTER XXXVII THE FIRST QUARREL EARLY in the morning of the next day, Lord Harry received the doctor's telegram. Iris not having risen at the time, he sent for Fanny Mere, and ordered her to get the spare room ready for a guest. The maid's busy suspicion tempted her to put a venturesome question. She asked if the person expected was a lady or a gentleman. "What business is it of yours who the visitor is?" her master asked sharply. Always easy and good-humoured with his inferiors in general, Lord Harry had taken a dislike to his wife's maid, from the moment when he had first seen her. His Irish feeling for beauty and brightness was especially offended by the unhealthy pallor of the woman's complexion, and the sullen self-suppression of her manner. All that his native ingenuity had been able to do was to make her a means of paying a compliment to his wife. "Your maid has one merit in my eyes," he said; "she is a living proof of the sweetness of your temper." Iris joined her husband at the breakfast-table with an appearance of disturbance in her face, seldom seen, during the dull days of her life at Passy. "I hear of somebody coming to stay with us," she said. "Not Mr. Vimpany again, I hope and trust?" Lord Harry was careful to give his customary morning kiss, before he replied. "Why shouldn't my faithful old friend come and see me again?" he asked, with his winning smile. "Pray don't speak of that hateful man," she answered, "as your faithful old friend! He is nothing of the kind. What did you tell me when he took leave of us after his last visit, and I owned I was glad that he had gone? You said: 'Faith, my dear, I'm as glad as you are.'" Her good-natured husband laughed at this little picture of himself. "Ah, my darling, how many more times am I to make the same confession to my pretty priest? Try to remember, without more telling, that it's one of my misfortunes to be a man of many tempers. There are times when I get tired to death of Mr. Vimpany; and there are times when the cheery old devil exercises fascinations over me. I declare you're spoiling the eyebrows that I admire by letting them twist themselves into a frown! After the trouble I have taken to clear your mind of prejudice against an unfortunate man, it's disheartening to find you so hard on the poor fellow's faults and so blind to his virtues." The time had been when this remonstrance might have influenced his wife's opinion. She passed it over without notice now. "Does he come here by your invitation?" she asked. "How else should he come here, my dear?" She looked at her husband with doubt too plainly visible in her eyes. "I wonder what your motive is for sending for him," she said. He was just lifting his teacup to his lips--he put it down again when he heard those words. "Are you ill this morning?" he asked. "No." "Have I said anything that has offended you?" "Certainly not." "Then I must tell you this, Iris; I don't approve of what you have just said. It sounds, to my mind, unpleasantly like suspicion of me and suspicion of my friend. I see your face confessing it, my lady, at this moment." "You are half right, Harry, and no more. What you see in my face is suspicion of your friend." "Founded on what, if you please?" "Founded on what I have seen of him, and on what I know of him. When you tried to alter my opinion of Mr. Vimpany some time since, I did my best to make my view your view. I deceived myself, for your sake; I put the best construction on what he said and did, when he was staying here. It was well meant, but it was of no use. In a thousand different ways, while he was doing his best to win my favour, his true self was telling tales of him under the fair surface. Mr. Vimpany is a bad man. He is the very worst friend you could have about you at any time--and especially at a time when your patience is tried by needy circumstances." "One word, Iris. The more eloquent you are, the more I admire you. Only, don't mention my needy circumstances again." She passed over the interruption as she had already passed over the remonstrance, without taking notice of it. "Dearest, you are always good to me," she continued gently. "Am I wrong in thinking that love gives me some little influence over you still? Women are vain--are they not?--and I am no better than the rest of them. Flatter your wife's vanity, Harry, by attaching some importance to her opinion. Is there time enough, yet, to telegraph to Mr. Vimpany? Quite out of the question, is it? Well, then, if he must come here, do--pray, pray do consider Me. Don't let him stay in the house! I'll find a good excuse, and take a bedroom for him in the neighbourhood. Anywhere else, so long as he is not here. He turns me cold when I think of him, sleeping under the same roof with ourselves. Not with us! oh, Harry, not with us!" Her eyes eagerly searched her husband's face; she looked there for indulgence, she looked for conviction. No! he was still admiring her. "On my word of honour," he burst out, "you fascinate me. What an imagination you have got! One of these days, Iris, I shall be prouder of you than ever; I shall find you a famous literary character. I don't mean writing a novel; women who can't even hem a handkerchief can write a novel. It's poetry I'm thinking of. Irish melodies by Lady Harry that beat Tom Moore. What a gift! And there are fortunes made, as I have heard, by people who spoil fair white paper to some purpose. I wish I was one of them." "Have you no more to say to me?" she asked. "What more should there be? You wouldn't have me take you seriously, in what you have just said of Vimpany?" "Why not?" "Oh, come, come, my darling! Just consider. With a bedroom empty and waiting, upstairs, is my old Vimpany to be sent to quarters for the night among strangers? I wouldn't speak harshly to you, Iris, for the whole world; and I don't deny that the convivial doctor may be sometimes a little too fond of his drop of grog. You will tell me, maybe, that he hasn't got on nicely with his wife; and I grant it. There are not many people who set such a pretty example of matrimony as we do. Poor humanity--there's all that's to be said about it. But when you tell me that Vimpany is a bad man, and the worst friend I could possibly have, and so forth--what better can I do than set it down to your imagination? I've a pretty fancy, myself; and I think I see my angel inventing poetical characters, up among congenial clouds. What's the matter? Surely, you haven't done breakfast yet?" "Yes." "Are you going to leave me?" "I am going to my room." "You're in a mighty hurry to get away. I never meant to vex you, Iris. Ah, well, if you must leave the table, I'll have the honour of opening the door for you, at any rate. I wonder what you're going to do?" "To cultivate my imagination," she answered, with the first outbreak of bitterness that had escaped her yet. His face hardened. "There seems to be something like bearing malice in this," he said. "Are you treating me, for the first time, to an exhibition of enmity? What am I to call it, if it's not that?" "Call it disappointment," she suggested quietly, and left him. Lord Harry went back to his breakfast. His jealousy was up in arms again. "She's comparing me with her absent friend," he said to himself, "and wishing she had married the amiable Mountjoy instead of me." So the first quarrel ended--and Mr. Vimpany had been the cause of it. CHAPTER XXXVIII ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS THE doctor arrived in good time for dinner, and shook hands with the Irish lord in excellent spirits. He looked round the room, and asked where my lady was. Lord Harry's reply suggested the presence of a cloud on the domestic horizon. He had been taking a long ride, and had only returned a few minutes since; Iris would (as he supposed) join them immediately. The maid put the soup on the table, and delivered a message. Her mistress was suffering from a headache, and was not well enough to dine with the gentlemen. As an old married man, Mr. Vimpany knew what this meant; he begged leave to send a comforting message to the suffering lady of the house. Would Fanny be good enough to say that he had made inquiries on the subject of Mr. Mountjoy's health, before he left London. The report was still favourable; there was nothing to complain of but the after-weakness which had followed the fever. On that account only, the attendance of the nurse was still a matter of necessity. "With my respects to Lady Harry," he called after Fanny, as she went out in dogged silence. "I have begun by making myself agreeable to your wife," the doctor remarked with a self-approving grin. "Perhaps she will dine with us to-morrow. Pass the sherry." The remembrance of what had happened at the breakfast-table, that morning, seemed to be dwelling disagreeably on Lord Harry's mind. He said but little--and that little related to the subject on which he had already written, at full length, to his medical friend. In an interval, when the service of the table required the attendance of Fanny in the kitchen, Mr. Vimpany took the opportunity of saying a few cheering words. He had come (he remarked) prepared with the right sort of remedy for an ailing state of mind, and he would explain himself at a fitter opportunity. Lord Harry impatiently asked why the explanation was deferred. If the presence of the maid was the obstacle which caused delay, it would be easy to tell her that she was not wanted to wait. The wary doctor positively forbade this. He had observed Fanny, during his previous visit, and had discovered that she seemed to distrust him. The woman was sly and suspicious. Since they had sat down to dinner, it was easy to see that she was lingering in the room to listen to the conversation, on one pretence or another. If she was told not to wait, there could be no doubt of her next proceeding: she would listen outside the door. "Take my word for it," the doctor concluded, "there are all the materials for a spy in Fanny Mere." But Lord Harry was obstinate. Chafing under the sense of his helpless pecuniary position, he was determined to hear, at once, what remedy for it Vimpany had discovered. "We can set that woman's curiosity at defiance," he said. "How?" "When you were learning your profession, you lived in Paris for some years, didn't you? "All right!" "Well, then, you can't have entirely forgotten your French?" The doctor at once understood what this meant, and answered significantly by a wink. He had found an opportunity (he said) of testing his memory, not very long since. Time had undoubtedly deprived him of his early mastery over the French language; but he could still (allowing for a few mistakes) make a shift to understand it and speak it. There was one thing, however, that he wanted to know first. Could they be sure that my lady's maid had not picked up French enough to use her ears to some purpose? Lord Harry easily disposed of this doubt. So entirely ignorant was the maid of the language of the place in which she was living, that she was not able to ask the tradespeople for the simplest article of household use, unless it was written for her in French before she was sent on an errand. This was conclusive. When Fanny returned to the dining-room, she found a surprise waiting for her. The two gentlemen had taken leave of their nationality, and were talking the language of foreigners. An hour later, when the dinner-table had been cleared, the maid's domestic duties took her to Lady Harry's room to make tea. She noticed the sad careworn look on her mistress's face, and spoke of it at once in her own downright way. "I thought it was only an excuse," she said, "when you gave me that message to the gentlemen, at dinner-time. Are you really ill, my lady?" "I am a little out of spirits," Iris replied. Fanny made the tea. "I can understand that," she said to herself, as she moved away to leave the room; "I'm out of spirits myself." Iris called her back: "I heard you say just now, Fanny, that you were out of spirits yourself. If you were speaking of some troubles of your own, I am sorry for you, and I won't say any more. But if you know what my anxieties are, and share them--" "Mine is the biggest share of the two," Fanny broke out abruptly. "It goes against the grain with me to distress you, my lady; but we are beginning badly, and you ought to know it. The doctor has beaten me already." "Beaten you already?" Iris repeated. "Tell me plainly what you mean?" "Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr. Vimpany has something--something wicked, of course--to say to my master; and he won't let it pass his lips here, in the cottage." "Why not?" "Because he suspects me of listening at the door, and looking through the keyhole. I don't know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You. 'I've learnt something in the course of my life,' he says to my master; 'and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors, when there are women in the house. What are you going to do to-morrow?' he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the newspaper office. The doctor says: 'I'll go to Paris with you. The newspaper office isn't far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens--and in an open part of them, too, where there are no lurking-places among the trees.' My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. 'What is it you have got to tell me?' he says. 'Is it anything like the proposal you made, when you were on your last visit here?' The doctor laughed. 'To-morrow won't be long in coming,' he says. 'Patience, my lord--patience.' There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what am I to do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an open garden, without being seen? There's what I mean when I say he has beaten me. It's you, my lady--it's you who will suffer in the end." "You don't _know_ that, Fanny." "No, my lady--but I'm certain of it. And here I am, as helpless as yourself! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune; it would be quiet still, but for this." The one animating motive, the one exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the mistress's welfare--still the safety of the generous woman who had befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide her ghastly face. "Pray try to control yourself." As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a chair. "There is something that I want to say when you are composed again. I won't hurry you; I won't look at you. Sit down, Fanny." She appeared to shrink from being seated in her mistress's presence. "Please to let me go to the window," she said; "the air will help me." To the window she went, and struggled with the passionate self so steadily kept under at other times; so obstinately conquered now. "What did you wish to say to me?" she asked. "You have surprised--you have perplexed me," Iris said. "I am at a loss to understand how you discovered what seems to have passed between your master and Mr. Vimpany. You don't surely mean to tell me that they talked of their private affairs while you were waiting at table?" "I don't tell lies, my lady," Fanny declared impulsively. "They talked of nothing else all through the dinner." "Before _you!"_ Iris exclaimed. There was a pause. Fear and shame confessed themselves furtively on the maid's colourless face. Silently, swiftly, she turned to the door. Had a slip of the tongue hurried her into the betrayal of something which it was her interest to conceal? "Don't be alarmed," Iris said compassionately; "I have no wish to intrude on your secrets." With her hand on the door, Fanny Mere closed it again, and came back. "I am not so ungrateful," she said, "as to have any secrets from You. It's hard to confess what may lower me in your good opinion, but it must be done. I have deceived your ladyship--and I am ashamed of it. I have deceived the doctor--and I glory in it. My master and Mr. Vimpany thought they were safe in speaking French, while I was waiting on them. I know French as well as they do." Iris could hardly believe what she heard. "Do you really mean what you say?" she asked. "There's that much good in me," Fanny replied; "I always mean what I say." "Why did you deceive me? Why have you been acting the part of an ignorant woman?" "The deceit has been useful in your service," the obstinate maid declared. "Perhaps it may be useful again." "Was that what you were thinking of," Iris said, "when you allowed me to translate English into French for you, and never told me the truth?" "At any rate, I will tell you the truth, now. No: I was not thinking of you, when you wrote my errands for me in French--I was thinking again of some advice that was once given to me." "Was it advice given by a friend?" "Given by a man, my lady, who was the worst enemy I have ever had." Her considerate mistress understood the allusion, and forbade her to distress herself by saying more. But Fanny felt that atonement, as well as explanation, was due to her benefactress. Slowly, painfully she described the person to whom she had referred. He was a Frenchman, who had been her music-master during the brief period at which she had attended a school: he had promised her marriage; he had persuaded her to elope with him. The little money that they had to live on was earned by her needle, and by his wages as accompanist at a music-hall. While she was still able to attract him, and to hope for the performance of his promise, he amused himself by teaching her his own language. When he deserted her, his letter of farewell contained, among other things the advice to which she had alluded. "In your station of life," this man had written, "knowledge of French is still a rare accomplishment. Keep your knowledge to yourself. English people of rank have a way of talking French to each other, when they don't wish to be understood by their inferiors. In the course of your career, you may surprise secrets which will prove to be a little fortune, if you play your cards properly. Anyhow, it is the only fortune I have to leave to you." Such had been the villain's parting gift to the woman whom he had betrayed. She had hated him too bitterly to be depraved by his advice. On the contrary, when the kindness of a friend (now no longer in England) had helped her to obtain her first employment as a domestic servant, she had thought it might be to her interest to mention that she could read, write, and speak French. The result proved to be not only a disappointment, but a warning to her for the future. Such an accomplishment as a knowledge of a foreign language possessed by an Englishwoman, in her humble rank of life, was considered by her mistress to justify suspicion. Questions were asked, which it was impossible for her to answer truthfully. Small scandal drew its own conclusions--her life with the other servants became unendurable--she left her situation. From that time, until the happy day when she met with Iris, concealment of her knowledge of French became a proceeding forced on her by her own poor interests. Her present mistress would undoubtedly have been taken into her confidence, if the opportunity had offered itself. But Iris had never encouraged her to speak of the one darkest scene in her life; and for that reason, she had kept her own counsel until the date of her mistress's marriage. Distrusting the husband, and the husband's confidential friend--for were they not both men?--she had thought of the vile Frenchman's advice, and had resolved to give it a trial; not with the degrading motive which he had suggested, but with the vague presentiment of making a discovery of wickedness, threatening mischief under a French disguise, which might be of service to her benefactress at some future time. "And I may still turn it to your advantage, my lady," Fanny ventured to add, "if you will consent to say nothing to anybody of your having a servant who has learnt French." Iris looked at her coldly and gravely. "Must I remind you," she said, "that you are asking my help in practicing a deception on my husband?" "I shall be sent away," Fanny answered, "if you tell my master what I have told you." This was indisputably true. Iris hesitated. In her present situation, the maid was the one friend on whom she could rely. Before her marriage, she would have recoiled from availing herself, under any circumstances, of such services as Fanny's reckless gratitude had offered to her. But the moral atmosphere in which she was living had begun, as Mrs. Vimpany had foreseen, to exert its baneful influence. The mistress descended to bargaining with the servant. "Deceive the doctor," she said, "and I well remember that it may be for my good." She stopped, and considered for a moment. Her noble nature rallied its forces, and prompted her next words: "But respect your master, if you wish me to keep your secret. I forbid you to listen to what my lord may say, when he speaks with Mr. Vimpany to-morrow." "I have already told your ladyship that I shall have no chance of listening to what they say to each other, out of doors," Fanny rejoined. "But I can watch the doctor at any rate. We don't know what he may not do when he is left by himself, while my master is at the meeting. I want to try if I can follow that rogue through the streets, without his finding me out. Please to send me on an errand to Paris to-morrow." "You will be running a terrible risk," her mistress reminded her, "if Mr. Vimpany discovers you." "I'll take my chance of that," was the reckless reply. Iris consented. CHAPTER XXXIX THE MYSTERY OF THE HOSPITAL ON the next morning Lord Harry left the cottage, accompanied by the doctor. After a long absence, he returned alone. His wife's worst apprehensions, roused by what Fanny had told her, were more than justified, by the change which she now perceived in him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was haggard, his movements were feeble and slow. He looked like a man exhausted by some internal conflict, which had vibrated between the extremes of anger and alarm. "I'm tired to death," he said; "get me a glass of wine." She waited on him with eager obedience, and watched anxiously for the reviving effect of the stimulant. The little irritabilities which degrade humanity only prolong their mischievous existence, while the surface of life stagnates in calm. Their annihilation follows when strong emotion stirs in the depths, and raises the storm. The estrangement of the day before passed as completely from the minds of the husband and wife--both strongly agitated--as if it had never existed. All-mastering fear was busy at their hearts; fear, in the woman, of the unknown temptation which had tried the man; fear, in the man, of the tell-tale disturbance in him, which might excite the woman's suspicion. Without venturing to look at him, Iris said: "I am afraid you have heard bad news?" Without venturing to look at her, Lord Harry answered: "Yes, at the newspaper office." She knew that he was deceiving her; and he felt that she knew it. For awhile, they were both silent. From time to time, she anxiously stole a look at him. His mind remained absorbed in thought. There they were, in the same room--seated near each other; united by the most intimate of human relationships--and yet how far, how cruelly far, apart! The slowest of all laggard minutes, the minutes which are reckoned by suspense, followed each other tardily and more tardily, before there appeared the first sign of a change. He lifted his drooping head. Sadly, longingly, he looked at her. The unerring instinct of true love encouraged his wife to speak to him. "I wish I could relieve your anxieties," she said simply. "Is there nothing I can do to help you?" "Come here, Iris." She rose and approached him. In the past days of the honeymoon and its sweet familiarities, he had sometimes taken her on his knee. He took her on his knee now, and put his arm round her. "Kiss me," he said. With all her heart she kissed him. He sighed heavily; his eyes rested on her with a trustful appealing look which she had never observed in them before. "Why do you hesitate to confide in me?" she asked. "Dear Harry, do you think I don't see that something troubles you?" "Yes," he said, "there is something that I regret." "What is it?" "Iris," he answered, "I am sorry I asked Vimpany to come back to us." At that unexpected confession, a bright flush of joy and pride overspread his wife's face. Again, the unerring instinct of love guided her to discovery of the truth. The opinion of his wicked friend must have been accidentally justified, at the secret interview of that day, by the friend himself! In tempting her husband, Vimpany had said something which must have shocked and offended him. The result, as she could hardly doubt, had been the restoration of her domestic influence to its helpful freedom of control--whether for the time only it was not in her nature, at that moment of happiness, to inquire. "After what you have just told me," she ventured to say, "I may own that I am glad to see you come home, alone." In that indirect manner, she confessed the hope that friendly intercourse between the two men had come to an end. His reply disappointed her. "Vimpany only remains in Paris," he said, "to present a letter of introduction. He will follow me home." "Soon?" she asked, piteously. "In time for dinner, I suppose." She was still sitting on his knee. His arm pressed her gently when he said his next words, "I hope you will dine with us to-day, Iris?" "Yes--if you wish it." "I wish it very much. Something in me recoils from being alone with Vimpany. Besides, a dinner at home without you is no dinner at all." She thanked him for that little compliment by a look. At the same time, her grateful sense of her husband's kindness was embittered by the prospect of the doctor's return. "Is he likely to dine with us often, now?" she was bold enough to say. "I hope not." Perhaps he was conscious that he might have made a more positive reply. He certainly took refuge in another subject--more agreeable to himself. "My dear, you have expressed the wish to relieve my anxieties," he said; "and you can help me, I think, in that way. I have a letter to write--of some importance, Iris, to your interests as well as to mine--which must go to Ireland by to-day's post. You shall read it, and say if you approve of what I have done. Don't let me be disturbed. This letter, I can tell you, will make a hard demand on my poor brains--I must go and write in my own room." Left alone with the thoughts that now crowded on her mind, Iris found her attention claimed once more by passing events. Fanny Mere arrived, to report herself on her return from Paris. She had so managed her departure from Passy as to precede Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany, and to watch for their arrival in Paris by a later train. They had driven from the railway to the newspaper office---with the maid in attendance on them in another cab. When they separated, the doctor proceeded on foot to the Luxembourg Gardens. Wearing a plain black dress, and protected from close observation by her veil, Fanny followed him, cautiously keeping at a sufficient distance, now on one side of the street and now on the other. When my lord joined his friend, she just held them in view, and no more, as they walked up and down in the barest and loneliest part of the Gardens that they could find. Their talk having come to an end, they parted. Her master was the first who came out into the street; walking at a great rate, and looking most desperately upset. Mr. Vimpany next appeared, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, grinning as if his own villainous thoughts were thoroughly amusing him. Fanny was now more careful than ever not to lose sight of the doctor. The course which he pursued led them to the famous hospital called the Hotel Dieu. At the entrance she saw him take a letter out of his pocket, and give it to the porter. Soon afterwards, a person appeared who greeted him politely, and conducted him into the building. For more than an hour, Fanny waited to see Mr. Vimpany come out again, and waited in vain. What could he possibly want in a French hospital? And why had he remained in that foreign institution for so long a time? Baffled by these mysteries, and weary after much walking, Fanny made the best of her way home, and consulted her mistress. Even if Iris had been capable of enlightening her, the opportunity was wanting. Lord Harry entered the room, with the letter which he had just written, open in his hand, As a matter of course, the maid retired. CHAPTER XL DIRE NECESSITY THE Irish lord had a word to say to his wife, before he submitted to her the letter which he had just written. He had been summoned to a meeting of proprietors at the office of the newspaper, convened to settle the terms of a new subscription rendered necessary by unforeseen expenses incurred in the interests of the speculation. The vote that followed, after careful preliminary consultation, authorised a claim on the purses of subscribing proprietors, which sadly reduced the sum obtained by Lord Harry's promissory note. Nor was this inconvenience the only trial of endurance to which the Irish lord was compelled to submit. The hope which he had entertained of assistance from the profits of the new journal, when repayment of the loan that he had raised became due, was now plainly revealed as a delusion. Ruin stared him in the face, unless he could command the means of waiting for the pecuniary success of the newspaper, during an interval variously estimated at six months, or even at a year to come. "Our case is desperate enough," he said, "to call for a desperate remedy. Keep up your spirits, Iris--I have written to my brother." Iris looked at him in dismay. "Surely," she said, "you once told me you had written to your brother, and he answered you in the cruellest manner through his lawyers." "Quite true, my dear. But, this time, there is one circumstance in our favour--my brother is going to be married. The lady is said to be an heiress; a charming creature, admired and beloved wherever she goes. There must surely be something to soften the hardest heart in that happy prospect. Read what I have written, and tell me what you think of it." The opinion of the devoted wife encouraged the desperate husband: the letter was dispatched by the post of that day. If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage, played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant attentions to his friend's wife; he told his most amusing stories in his happiest way; he gaily drank his host's fine white Burgundy, and praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and (wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the dessert was placed on the table--still bent on making himself agreeable to Lady Harry--Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship's pretty little garden, he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris (eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner. "What have you been about," he asked, "since we had that talk in the Gardens to-day? Have you looked at your empty purse, and are you wise enough to take my way of filling it?" "As long as there's the ghost of a chance left to me," Lord Harry replied, "I'll take any way of filling my purse but yours." "Does that mean you have found a way?" "Do me a favour, Vimpany. Defer all questions till the end of the week." "And then I shall have your answer?" "Without fail, I promise it. Hush!" Iris returned to the dining-room with her book; and polite Mr. Vimpany owned in the readiest manner that he had been mistaken. The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the interval, Lord Harry's friend carefully preserved the character of a model guest--he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute Fanny Mere. Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result. The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr. Vimpany's object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as ever. Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry's brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband's room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What the tone of the Earl's inhuman answer had been in the past time, that it was again now. Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is to be done?" He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!" "Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked. "Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left," "Who is the person?" "Who should it be but your own dear self?" She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry, what I can do?" "Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money." He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust. "You refuse?" he said. "Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered. He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him, on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the garden, my lord." Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him. "Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour; "and don't lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your difficulties, or will you not? Which is it--Yes or No?" "You infernal scoundrel--Yes!" "My dear lord, I congratulate you." "On what, sir?" "On being as great a scoundrel as I am." CHAPTER XLI THE MAN IS FOUND. THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate estrangement between man and wife. Iris secluded herself in her own room. Her husband passed the hours of every day away from the cottage; sometimes in the company of the doctor, sometimes among his friends in Paris. His wife suffered acutely under the self-imposed state of separation, to which wounded pride and keenly felt resentment compelled her to submit. No friend was near her, in whose compassionate advice she might have token refuge. Not even the sympathy of her maid was offered to the lonely wife. With the welfare of Iris as her one end in view, Fanny Mere honestly believed that it would be better and safer for Lady Harry if she and her husband finally decided on living separate lives. The longer my lord persisted in keeping the doctor with him as his guest, the more perilously he was associated with a merciless wretch, who would be capable of plotting the ruin of anyone--man or woman, high person or low person--who might happen to be an obstacle in his way. So far as a person in her situation could venture on taking the liberty, the maid did her best to widen the breach between her master and her mistress. While Fanny was making the attempt to influence Lady Harry, and only producing irritation as the result, Vimpany was exerting stronger powers of persuasion in the effort to prejudice the Irish lord against any proposal for reconciliation which might reach him through his wife. "I find an unforgiving temper in your charming lady," the doctor declared. "It doesn't show itself on the surface, my dear fellow, but there it is. Take a wise advantage of circumstances--say you will raise no inconvenient objections, if she wants a separation by mutual consent. Now don't misunderstand me. I only recommend the sort of separation which will suit our convenience. You know as well as I do that you can whistle your wife back again--" Mr. Vimpany's friend was rude enough to interrupt him, there. "I call that a coarse way of putting it," Lord Harry interposed. "Put it how you like for yourself," the doctor rejoined. "Lady Harry may be persuaded to come back to you, when we want her for our grand project. In the meantime (for I am always a considerate man where women are concerned) we act delicately towards my lady, in sparing her the discovery of--what shall I call our coming enterprise?--venturesome villainy, which might ruin you in your wife's estimation. Do you see our situation now, as it really is? Very well. Pass the bottle, and drop the subject for the present." The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the doctor's ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on the stairs. Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr. Vimpany's advice. He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first time, his wife spoke to him. "Do you really mean it?" she asked, The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love, that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal it. He was silent. "If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches. Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A passing flush crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the consciousness of returning love--the blind love that had so cruelly misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked, "that you wish me to leave you?" No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her, could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife without uttering a word--he held out his arms to her. The fatal reconciliation was accomplished in silence. At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany's bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr. Vimpany's rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing in the recovery of his wife's tender regard, drank freely. Understanding and despising him, the doctor's devilish gaiety indulged in facetious reminiscences of his own married life. "If I could claim a sovereign," he said, "for every quarrel between Mrs. Vimpany and myself, I put it at a low average when I declare that I should be worth a thousand pounds. How does your lordship stand in that matter? Shall we say a dozen breaches of the marriage agreement up to the present time?" "Say two--and no more to come!" his friend answered cheerfully. "No more to come!" the doctor repeated. "My experience says plenty more to come; I never saw two people less likely to submit to a peaceable married life than you and my lady. Ha! you laugh at that? It's a habit of mine to back my opinion. I'll bet you a dozen of champagne there will be a quarrel which parts you two, for good and all, before the year is out. Do you take the bet?" "Done!" cried Lord Harry. "I propose my wife's good health, Vimpany, in a bumper. She shall drink confusion to all false prophets in the first glass of your champagne!" The post of the next morning brought with it two letters. One of them bore the postmark of London, and was addressed to Lady Harry Norland. It was written by Mrs. Vimpany, and it contained a few lines added by Hugh Mountjoy. "My strength is slow in returning to me" (he wrote); "but my kind and devoted nurse says that all danger of infection is at an end. You may write again to your old friend if Lord Harry sees no objection, as harmlessly as in the happy past time. My weak hand begins to tremble already. How glad I shall be to hear from you, it is, happily for me, quite needless to add." In her delight at receiving this good news Iris impulsively assumed that her husband would give it a kindly welcome on his side; she insisted on reading the letter to him. He said coldly, "I am glad to hear of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery"--and took up the newspaper. Was this unworthy jealousy still strong enough to master him, even at that moment? His wife had forgotten it. Why had he not forgotten it too? On the same day Iris replied to Hugh, with the confidence and affection of the bygone time before her marriage. After closing and addressing the envelope, she found that her small store of postage stamps was exhausted, and sent for her maid. Mr. Vimpany happened to pass the open door of her room, while she was asking for a stamp; he heard Fanny say that she was not able to accommodate her mistress. "Allow me to make myself useful," the polite doctor suggested. He produced a stamp, and fixed it himself on the envelope. When he had proceeded on his way downstairs, Fanny's distrust of him insisted on expressing itself. "He wanted to find out what person you have written to," she said. "Let me make your letter safe in the post." In five minutes more it was in the box at the office. While these trifling events were in course of progress, Mr. Vimpany had gone into the garden to read the second of the two letters, delivered that morning, addressed to himself. On her return from the post-office, Fanny had opportunities of observing him while she was in the greenhouse, trying to revive the perishing flowers--neglected in the past days of domestic trouble. Noticing her, after he had read his letter over for the second time, Mr. Vimpany sent the maid into the cottage to say that he wished to speak with her master. Lord Harry joined him in the garden--looked at the letter--and, handing it back, turned away. The doctor followed him, and said something which seemed to be received with objection. Mr. Vimpany persisted nevertheless, and apparently carried his point. The two gentlemen consulted the railway time-table, and hurried away together, to catch the train to Paris. Fanny Mere returned to the conservatory, and absently resumed her employment among the flowers. On what evil errand had the doctor left the cottage? And, why, on this occasion, had he taken the master with him? The time had been when Fanny might have tried to set these questions at rest by boldly following the two gentlemen to Paris; trusting to her veil, to her luck, and to the choice of a separate carriage in the train, to escape notice. But, although her ill-judged interference with the domestic affairs of Lady Harry had been forgiven, she had not been received again into favour unreservedly. Conditions were imposed, which forbade her to express any opinion on her master's conduct, and which imperatively ordered her to leave the protection of her mistress--if protection was really needed--in his lordship's competent hands. "I gratefully appreciate your kind intentions," Iris had said, with her customary tenderness of regard for the feelings of others; "but I never wish to hear again of Mr. Vimpany, or of the strange suspicions which he seems to excite in your mind." Still as gratefully devoted to Iris as ever, Fanny viewed the change in my lady's way of thinking as one of the deplorable results of her return to her husband, and waited resignedly for the coming time when her wise distrust of two unscrupulous men would be justified. Condemned to inaction for the present, Lady Harry's maid walked irritably up and down the conservatory, forgetting the flowers. Through the open back door of the cottage the cheap clock in the hall poured its harsh little volume of sound, striking the hour. "I wonder," she said to herself, "if those two wicked ones have found their way to a hospital yet?" That guess happened to have hit the mark. The two wicked ones were really approaching a hospital, well known to the doctor by more previous visits than one. At the door they were met by a French physician, attached to the institution--the writer of the letter which had reached Mr. Vimpany in the morning. This gentleman led the way to the official department of the hospital, and introduced the two foreigners to the French authorities assembled for the transaction of business. As a medical man, Mr. Vimpany's claims to general respect and confidence were carefully presented. He was a member of the English College of Surgeons; he was the friend, as well as the colleague of the famous President of that College, who had introduced him to the chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu. Other introductions to illustrious medical persons in Paris had naturally followed. Presented under these advantages, Mr. Vimpany announced his discovery of a new system of treatment in diseases of the lungs. Having received his medical education in Paris, he felt bound in gratitude to place himself under the protection of "the princes of science," resident in the brilliant capital of France. In that hospital, after much fruitless investigation in similar institutions, he had found a patient suffering from the form of lung disease, which offered to him the opportunity that he wanted. It was impossible that he could do justice to his new system, unless the circumstances were especially favourable. Air more pure than the air of a great city, and bed-room accommodation not shared by other sick persons, were among the conditions absolutely necessary to the success of the experiment. These, and other advantages, were freely offered to him by his noble friend, who would enter into any explanations which the authorities then present might think it necessary to demand. The explanations having been offered and approved, there was a general move to the bed occupied by the invalid who was an object of professional interest to the English doctor. The patient's name was Oxbye. He was a native of Denmark, and had followed in his own country the vocation of a schoolmaster. His knowledge of the English language and the French had offered him the opportunity of migrating to Paris, where he had obtained employment as translator and copyist. Earning his bread, poorly enough in this way, he had been prostrated by the malady which had obliged him to take refuge in the hospital. The French physician, under whose medical care he had been placed, having announced that he had communicated his notes enclosed in a letter to his English colleague, and having frankly acknowledged that the result of the treatment had not as yet sufficiently justified expectation, the officers of the institution spoke next. The Dane was informed of the nature of Mr. Vimpany's interest in him, and of the hospitable assistance offered by Mr. Vimpany's benevolent friend; and the question was then put, whether he preferred to remain where he was, or whether he desired to be removed under the conditions which had just been stated? Tempted by the prospect of a change, which offered to him a bed-chamber of his own in the house of a person of distinction--with a garden to walk about in, and flowers to gladden his eyes, when he got better--Oxbye eagerly adopted the alternative of leaving the hospital. "Pray let me go," the poor fellow said: "I am sure I shall be the better for it." Without opposing this decision, the responsible directors reminded him that it had been adopted on impulse, and decided that it was their duty to give him a little time for consideration. In the meanwhile, some of the gentlemen assembled at the bedside, looking at Oxbye and then looking at Lord Harry, had observed a certain accidental likeness between the patient and "Milord, the philanthropist," who was willing to receive him. The restraints of politeness had only permitted them to speak of this curious discovery among themselves. At the later time, however, when the gentlemen had taken leave of each other, Mr. Vimpany--finding himself alone with Lord Harry--had no hesitation in introducing the subject, on which delicacy had prevented the Frenchmen from entering. "Did you look at the Dane?" he began abruptly. "Of course I did!" "And you noticed the likeness?" "Not I!" The doctor's uproarious laughter startled the people who were walking near them in the street. "Here's another proof," he burst out, "of the true saying that no man knows himself. You don't deny the likeness, I suppose?" "Do you yourself see it?" Lord Harry asked. Mr. Vimpany answered the question scornfully: "Is it likely that I should have submitted to all the trouble I have taken to get possession of that man, if I had not seen a likeness between his face and yours?" The Irish lord said no more. When his friend asked why he was silent, he gave his reason sharply enough: "I don't like the subject." CHAPTER XLII THE METTLESOME MAID ON the evening of that day Fanny Mere, entering the dining-room with the coffee, found Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany alone, and discovered (as soon as she opened the door) that they changed the language in which they were talking from English to French. She continued to linger in the room, apparently occupied in setting the various objects on the sideboard in order. Her master was speaking at the time; he asked if the doctor had succeeded in finding a bed-room for himself in the neighbourhood. To this Mr. Vimpany replied that he had got the bed-room. Also, that he had provided himself with something else, which it was equally important to have at his disposal. "I mean," he proceeded, in his bad French, "that I have found a photographic apparatus on hire. We are ready now for the appearance of our interesting Danish guest." "And when the man comes," Lord Harry added, "what am I to say to my wife? How am I to find an excuse, when she hears of a hospital patient who has taken possession of your bed-room at the cottage--and has done it with my permission, and with you to attend on him?" The doctor sipped his coffee. "We have told a story that has satisfied the authorities," he said coolly. "Repeat the story to your wife." "She won't believe it," Lord Harry replied. Mr. Vimpany waited until he had lit another cigar, and had quite satisfied himself that it was worth smoking. "You have yourself to thank for that obstacle," he resumed. "If you had taken my advice, your wife would have been out of our way by this time. I suppose I must manage it. If you fail, leave her ladyship to me. In the meanwhile, there's a matter of more importance to settle first. We shall want a nurse for our poor dear invalid. Where are we to find her?" As he stated that difficulty, he finished his coffee, and looked about him for the bottle of brandy which always stood on the dinner-table. In doing this, he happened to notice Fanny. Convinced that her mistress was in danger, after what she had already heard, the maid's anxiety and alarm had so completely absorbed her that she had forgotten to play her part. Instead of still busying herself at the sideboard, she stood with her back to it, palpably listening. Cunning Mr. Vimpany, possessing himself of the brandy, made a request too entirely appropriate to excite suspicion. "Some fresh cold water, if you please," was all that he said. The moment that Fanny left the room, the doctor addressed his friend in English, with his eye on the door: "News for you, my boy! We are in a pretty pickle--Lady Harry's maid understands French." "Quite impossible," Lord Harry declared. "We will put that to the test," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Watch her when she comes in again." "What are you going to do." "I am going to insult her in French. Observe the result." In another minute Fanny returned with the fresh water. As she placed the glass jug before Mr. Vimpany he suddenly laid his hand on her arm and looked her straight in the face. "Vous nous avez mis dedans, drolesse!"* he said. *In English: "You have taken us in, you jade!" An uncontrollable look of mingled rage and fear made its plain confession in Fanny's face. She had been discovered; she had heard herself called "drolesse;" she stood before the two men self-condemned. Her angry master threatened her with instant dismissal from the house. The doctor interfered. "No, no," he said; "you mustn't deprive Lady Harry, at a moment's notice, of her maid. Such a clever maid, too," he added with his rascally smile. "An accomplished person, who understands French, and is too modest to own it!" The doctor had led Fanny through many a weary and unrewarded walk when she had followed him to the hospitals; he had now inflicted a deliberate insult by calling her "drolesse" and he had completed the sum of his offences by talking contemptuously of her modesty and her mastery of the French language. The woman's detestation of him, which under ordinary circumstances she might have attempted to conceal, was urged into audaciously asserting itself by the strong excitement that now possessed her. Driven to bay, Fanny had made up her mind to discover the conspiracy of which Mr. Vimpany was the animating spirit, by a method daring enough to be worthy of the doctor himself. "My knowledge of French has told me something," she said. "I have just heard, Mr. Vimpany, that you want a nurse for your invalid gentleman. With my lord's permission, suppose you try Me?" Fanny's audacity was more than her master's patience could endure. He ordered her to leave the room. The peace-making doctor interfered again: "My dear lord, let me beg you will not be too hard on the young woman." He turned to Fanny, with an effort to look indulgent, which ended in the reappearance of his rascally smile. "Thank you, my dear, for your proposal," he said; "I will let you know if we accept it, to-morrow." Fanny's unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr. Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement. "Are you mad?" he asked. "Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English blood in your family?" Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an Englishwoman." Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with a coolness all his own. "It's a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the grandmother's side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be treated like an ordinary servant--I incline to believe that she is a spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat's claws is to turn her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?" "Madder than ever!" "Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a sick man from a hospital coming here--does she know what we want him for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then--if Fanny acts as Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung disease--no crime, my noble friend! no crime!" The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a hurry. "If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!" "Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined. As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the hospital wished to speak to the English doctor. The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary's office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr. Vimpany's care; one last responsibility rested on the official gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical assistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital, it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied the physician in charge of Oxbye's case, the Dane might be removed to his new quarters on the same day. The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr. Vimpany and Fanny Mere actually left Passy together, on their way to Paris! CHAPTER XLIII FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD THE day on which the doctor took his newly-appointed nurse with him to the hospital became an occasion associated with distressing recollections in the memory of Iris. In the morning, Fanny Mere had asked for leave to go out. For some time past this request had been so frequently granted, with such poor results so far as the maid's own designs were concerned, that Lady Harry decided on administering a tacit reproof, by means of a refusal. Fanny made no attempt at remonstrance; she left the room in silence. Half an hour later, Iris had occasion to ring for her attendant. The bell was answered by the cook--who announced, in explanation of her appearance, that Fanny Mere had gone out. More distressed than displeased by this reckless disregard of her authority, on the part of a woman who had hitherto expressed the most grateful sense of her kindness, Iris only said: "Send Fanny to me as soon as she comes back." Two hours passed before the truant maid returned. "I refused to let you go out this morning," Lady Harry said; "and you have taken the liberty of leaving the house for two hours. You might have made me understand, in a more becoming manner, that you intended to leave my service." Steadily respectful, Fanny answered: "I don't wish to leave your ladyship's service." "Then what does your conduct mean?" "It means, if you please, that I had a duty to do--and did it." "A duty to yourself?" Iris asked. "No, my lady; a duty to you." As she made that strange reply the door was opened, and Lord Harry entered the room. When he saw Fanny Mere he turned away again, in a hurry, to go out. "I didn't know your maid was with you," he said. "Another time will do." His permitting a servant to be an obstacle in his way, when he wished to speak to his wife, was a concession so entirely unbecoming in the master of the house, and so strangely contrary to his customary sense of what was due to himself, that Iris called him back in astonishment. She looked at her maid, who at once understood her, and withdrew. "What can you possibly be thinking of?" she said to her husband, when they were alone. Putting that question, she noticed an embarrassment in his manner, and an appearance of confusion in his face, which alarmed her. "Has something happened?" she asked; "and is it so serious that you hesitate to mention it to me?" He sat down by her and took her hand. The loving look in his eyes, which she knew so well, was not in them now; they expressed doubt, and something with it which suggested an effort at conciliation. "I am fearing I shall surprise you," he said. "Don't keep me in suspense!" she returned. "What is it?" He smiled uneasily: "It's something about Vimpany." Having got as far as that, he stopped. She drew her hand away from him. "I understand now," she said; "I must endeavour to control myself--you have something to tell me which will try my temper." He held up his hands in humorous protest: "Ah, my darling, here's your vivid imagination again, making mountains out of molehills, as they say! It's nothing half so serious as you seem to think; I have only to tell you of a little change." "A little change?" she repeated. "What change?" "Well, my dear, you see--" He hesitated and recovered himself. "I mean, you must know that Vimpany's plans are altered. He won't any longer occupy his bedroom in the cottage here." Iris looked inexpressibly relieved. "Going away, at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Harry, if you have been mystifying me, I hope you will never do it again. It isn't like you; it's cruel to alarm me about nothing. Mr. Vimpany's empty bedroom will be the most interesting room in the house, when I look into it to-night." Lord Harry got up, and walked to the window. As a sign of trouble in his mind, and of an instinctive effort to relieve it, the object of this movement was well-known to Iris. She followed him and stood by his side. It was now plain to her that there was something more to be told--and that he was hesitating how to confide it to his wife. "Go on," she said resignedly. He had expected her to take his arm, or perhaps to caress him, or at least to encourage him by her gentlest words and her prettiest smiles. The steady self-restraint which she now manifested was a sign, as he interpreted it, of suppressed resentment. Shrinking, honestly shrinking, from the bare possibility of another quarrel, he confronted the hard necessities of further confession. "Well, now," he said, "it's only this--you mustn't look into the empty bedroom to-night." "Why not?" "Ah, for the best of all good reasons! Because you might find somebody in there." This reply excited her curiosity: her eyes rested on him eagerly. "Some friend of yours?" she asked. He persisted in an assumption of good-humour, which betrayed itself as mere artifice in the clumsiest manner: "I declare I feel as if I were in a court of justice, being cross-examined by a lawyer of skill and dexterity! Well, my sweet counsellor, no--not exactly a friend of mine." She reflected for a moment. "You don't surely mean one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?" she said. He pretended not to have heard her, and pointed to the view of the garden from the window. "Isn't it a lovely day? Let's go and look at the flowers," he suggested. "Did you not hear what I said to you just now?" she persisted. "I beg your pardon, dear; I was thinking of something else. Suppose we go into the garden?" When women have a point to gain in which they are interested, how many of them are capable of deferring it to a better opportunity? One in a thousand, perhaps. Iris kept her place at the window, resolved on getting an answer. "I asked you, Harry, whether the person who is to occupy our spare bedroom, to-night, was one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?" "Say one of Mr. Vimpany's patients--and you will be nearer the truth," he answered, with an outburst of impatience. She could hardly believe him. "Do you mean a person who is really ill?" she said. "Of course I mean it," he said; irritated into speaking out, at last. "A man? or a woman?" "A man." "May I ask if he comes from England?" "He comes from one of the French hospitals. Anything more?" Iris left her husband to recover his good-humour, and went back to her chair. The extraordinary disclosure which she had extracted from him had produced a stupefying effect on her mind. Her customary sympathy with him, her subtle womanly observation of his character, her intimate knowledge of his merits and his defects, failed to find the rational motive which might have explained his conduct. She looked round at him with mingled feelings of perplexity and distrust. He was still at the window, but he had turned his back on the view of the garden; his eyes were fixed, in furtive expectation, on his wife. Was he waiting to hear her say something more? She ran the risk and said it. "I don't quite understand the sacrifice you seem to be making to Mr. Vimpany," she confessed. "Will you tell me, dear, what it means?" Here was the opportunity offered of following the doctor's advice, and putting his wife's credulity to the test. With her knowledge of Vimpany, would she really believe the story which had imposed on the strangers who managed the hospital? Lord Harry made up his mind, to try the experiment. No matter what the result might be, it would bring the responsibilities that were crushing him to an end. He need say no more, if the deception succeeded. He could do no more, if it failed. Under the influence of this cheering reflection, he recovered his temper; his handsome face brightened again with its genial boyish smile. "What a wonderful woman you are!" he cried. "Isn't it just the thing that I am here for, to tell you what I mean--and my clever wife sees through and through me, and reminds me of what I must do! Pay my fee beforehand, Iris! Give me a kiss--and my poor meaning shall be offered in return. It will help me if you remember one thing. Vimpany and I are old friends, and there's nothing we won't do to accommodate each other. Mind that!" Tried fairly on its own merits, the stupid fiction invented by the doctor produced an effect for which Lord Harry was not prepared. The longer Iris listened, the more strangely Iris looked at him. Not a word fell from her lips when he had done. He noticed that she had turned pale: it seemed to be almost possible that he had frightened her! If his bird-witted brains could have coupled cause and effect, this was exactly the result which he might have anticipated. She was asked to believe that a new system of medical practice had been invented by such a person as Mr. Vimpany. She was asked to believe that an invalid from a foreign hospital, who was a perfect stranger to Lord Harry, had been willingly made welcome to a bedroom at the cottage. She was asked to believe that this astounding concession had been offered to the doctor as a tribute of friendship, after her husband had himself told her that he regretted having invited Vimpany, for the second time, to become his guest. Here was one improbable circumstance accumulated on another, and a clever woman was expected to accept the monstrous excuses, thus produced, as a trustworthy statement of facts. Irresistibly, the dread of some evil deed in secret contemplation cast its darkening presence on the wife's mind. Lord Harry's observation had not misled him, when he saw Iris turn pale, and when the doubt was forced on him whether he might not have frightened her. "If my explanation of this little matter has satisfied you," he ventured to resume, "we need say no more about it." "I agree with you," she answered, "let us say no more about it." Conscious, in spite of the effort to resist it, of a feeling of oppression while she was in the same room with a man who had deliberately lied to her, and that man her husband, she reminded Lord Harry that he had proposed to take a walk in the garden. Out in the pure air, under the bright sky, she might breathe more freely. "Come to the flowers," she said. They went to the garden together--the wife fearing the deceitful husband, the husband fearing the quick-witted wife. Watching each other like two strangers, they walked silently side by side, and looked now and then at the collection of flowers and plants. Iris noticed a delicate fern which had fallen away from the support to which it had been attached. She stopped, and occupied herself in restoring it to its place. When she looked round again, after attending to the plant, her husband had disappeared, and Mr. Vimpany was waiting in his place. CHAPTER XLIV FICTION: IMPROVED BY THE DOCTOR "WHERE is Lord Harry?" Iris asked. The reply startled her: "Lord Harry leaves me to say to your ladyship, what he has not had resolution enough to say for himself." "I don't understand you, Mr. Vimpany." The doctor pointed to the fern which had just been the object of Lady Harry's care. "You have been helping that sickly plant there to live and thrive," he said, "and I have felt some curiosity in watching you. There is another sickly plant, which I have undertaken to rear if the thing can be done. My gardening is of the medical kind--I can only carry it on indoors--and whatever else it may be, I tell you plainly, like the outspoken sort of fellow I am, it's not likely to prove agreeable to a lady. No offence, I hope? Your humble servant is only trying to produce the right sort of impression--and takes leave to doubt his lordship in one particular." "In what particular, sir?" "I'll put it in the form of a question, ma'am. Has my friend persuaded you to make arrangements for leaving the cottage?" Iris looked at Lord Harry's friend without attempting to conceal her opinion of him. "I call that an impertinent question," she said. "By what right do you presume to inquire into what my husband and I may, or may not, have said to each other?" "Will you do me a favour, my lady? Or, if that is asking too much, perhaps you will not object to do justice to yourself. Suppose you try to exercise the virtue of self-control? "Quite needless, Mr. Vimpany. Pray understand that you are not capable of making me angry." "Many thanks, Lady Harry: you encourage me to go on. When I was bold enough to speak of your leaving the cottage, my motive was to prevent you from being needlessly alarmed." Did this mean that he was about to take her into his confidence? All her experience of him forbade her to believe it possible. But the doubts and fears occasioned by her interview with her husband had mastered her better sense; and the effort to conceal from the doctor the anxiety under which she suffered was steadily weakening the influence of her self-respect. "Why should I be alarmed?" she asked, in the vain hope of encouraging him to tell the truth. The doctor arrived at a hasty conclusion, on his side. Believing that he had shaken her resolution, he no longer troubled himself to assume the forms of politeness which he had hitherto, with some difficulty, contrived to observe. "In this curious little world of ours," he resumed, "we enjoy our lives on infernally hard terms. We live on condition that we die. The man I want to cure may die, in spite of the best I can do for him---he may sink slowly, by what we medical men call a hard death. For example, it wouldn't much surprise me if I found some difficulty in keeping him in his bed. He might roam all over your cottage when my back was turned. Or he might pay the debt of Nature--as somebody calls it--with screaming and swearing. If you were within hearing of him, I'm afraid you might be terrified, and, with the best wish to be useful, I couldn't guarantee (if the worst happened) to keep him quiet. In your place, if you will allow me to advise you--" Iris interrupted him. Instead of confessing the truth, he was impudently attempting to frighten her. "I don't allow a person in whom I have no confidence to advise me," she said; "I wish to hear no more." Mr. Vimpany found it desirable to resume the forms of politeness. Either he had failed to shake her resolution, or she was sufficiently in possession of herself to conceal what she felt. "One last word!" he said. "I won't presume to advise your ladyship; I will merely offer a suggestion. My lord tells me that Hugh Mountjoy is on the way to recovery. You are in communication with him by letter, as I happened to notice when I did you that trifling service of providing a postage-stamp. Why not go to London and cheer your convalescent friend? Harry won't mind it--I beg your pardon, I ought to have said Lord Harry. Come! come! my dear lady; I am a rough fellow, but I mean well. Take a holiday, and come back to us when my lord writes to say that he can have the pleasure of receiving you again." He waited for a moment. "Am I not to be favoured with an answer?" he asked. "My husband shall answer you." With those parting words, Iris turned her back on him. She entered the cottage. Now in one room, and now in another, she searched for Lord Harry; he was nowhere to be found. Had he purposely gone out to avoid her? Her own remembrance of Vimpany's language and Vimpany's manner told her that so it must be--the two men were in league together. Of all dangers, unknown danger is the most terrible to contemplate. Lady Harry's last resources of resolution failed her. She dropped helplessly into a chair. After an interval--whether it was a long or a short lapse of time she was unable to decide--someone gently opened the door. Had her husband felt for her? Had he returned? "Come in! she cried eagerly--" come in! CHAPTER XLV FACT: RELATED BY FANNY THE person who now entered the room was Fanny Mere. But one interest was stirring in the mind of Iris now. "Do you know where your master is?" she asked. "I saw him go out," the maid replied. "Which way I didn't particularly notice--" She was on the point of adding, "and I didn't particularly care," when she checked herself. "Yesterday and to-day, my lady, things have come to my knowledge which I must not keep to myself," the resolute woman continued. "If a servant may say such a thing without offence, I have never been so truly my mistress's friend as I am now. I beg you to forgive my boldness; there is a reason for it." So she spoke, with no presumption in her looks, with no familiarity in her manner. The eyes of her friendless mistress filled with tears, the offered hand of her friendless mistress answered in silence. Fanny took that kind hand, and pressed it respectfully--a more demonstrative woman than herself might perhaps have kissed it. She only said, "Thank you, my lady," and went on with what she felt it her duty to relate. As carefully as usual, as quietly as usual, she repeated the conversation, at Lord Harry's table; describing also the manner in which Mr. Vimpany had discovered her as a person who understood the French language, and who had cunningly kept it a secret. In this serious state of things, the doctor--yes, the doctor himself!--had interfered to protect her from the anger of her master, and, more wonderful still, for a reason which it seemed impossible to dispute. He wanted a nurse for the foreigner whose arrival was expected on that evening, and he had offered the place to Fanny. "Your ladyship will, I hope, excuse me; I have taken the place." This amazing end to the strange events which had just been narrated proved to be more than Iris was immediately capable of understanding. "I am in the dark," she confessed. "Is Mr. Vimpany a bolder villain even than I have supposed him to be?" "That he most certainly is!" Fanny said with strong conviction. "As to what he really had in his wicked head when he engaged me, I shall find that out in time. Anyway, I am the nurse who is to help him. When I disobeyed you this morning, my lady, it was to go to the hospital with Mr. Vimpany. I was taken to see the person whose nurse I am to be. A poor, feeble, polite creature, who looked as if he couldn't hurt a fly---and yet I promise you he startled me! I saw a likeness, the moment I looked at him." "A likeness to anybody whom I know?" Iris asked. "To the person in all the world, my lady, whom you know most nearly--a likeness to my master." "What!" "Oh, it's no fancy; I am sure of what I say. To my mind, that Danish man's likeness to my lord is (if you will excuse my language) a nasty circumstance. I don't know why or wherefore--all I can say is, I don't like it; and I shan't rest until I have found out what it means. Besides this, my lady, I must know the reason why they want to get you out of their way. Please to keep up your heart; I shall warn you in time, when I am sure of the danger." Iris refused to sanction the risk involved in this desperate design. "It's _you_ who will be in danger!" she exclaimed. In her coolest state of obstinacy, Fanny answered: "That's in your ladyship's service--and that doesn't reckon." Feeling gratefully this simple and sincere expression of attachment, Iris held to her own opinion, nevertheless. "You are in my service," she said; "I won't let you go to Mr. Vimpany. Give it up, Fanny! Give it up!" "I'll give it up, my lady, when I know what the doctor means to do--not before." The assertion of authority having failed, Iris tried persuasion next. "As your mistress, it is my duty to set you an example," she resumed. "One of us must be considerate and gentle in a dispute--let me try to be that one. There can be no harm, and there may be some good, in consulting the opinion of a friend; some person in whose discretion we can trust." "Am I acquainted with the person your ladyship is thinking of?" Fanny inquired. "In that case, a friend will know what we want of her by to-morrow morning. I have written to Mrs. Vimpany." "The very person I had in my mind, Fanny! When may we expect to hear from her?" "If Mrs. Vimpany can put what she has to say to us into few words," Fanny replied, "we shall hear from her to-morrow by telegraph." As she answered her mistress in those cheering words, they were startled by a heavy knock at the door of the room. Under similar circumstances, Lord Harry's delicate hand would have been just loud enough to be heard, and no more. Iris called out suspiciously: "Who's there?" The doctor's gross voice answered: "Can I say a word, if you please, to Fanny Mere?" The maid opened the door. Mr. Vimpany's heavy hand laid bold of her arm, pulled her over the threshold, and closed the door behind her. After a brief absence, Fanny returned with news of my lord. A commissioner had arrived with a message for the doctor; and Fanny was charged to repeat it or not, just as she thought right under the circumstances. Lord Harry was in Paris. He had been invited to go to the theatre with some friends, and to return with them to supper. If he was late in getting home, he was anxious that my lady should not be made uneasy. After having authorised Mr. Vimpany's interference in the garden, the husband evidently had his motives for avoiding another interview with the wife. Iris was left alone, to think over that discovery. Fanny had received orders to prepare the bedroom for the doctor's patient. CHAPTER XLVI MAN AND WIFE TOWARDS evening, the Dane was brought to the cottage. A feeling of pride which forbade any display of curiosity, strengthened perhaps by an irresistible horror of Vimpany, kept Iris in her room. Nothing but the sound of footsteps, outside, told her when the suffering man was taken to his bed-chamber on the same floor. She was, afterwards informed by Fanny that the doctor turned down the lamp in the corridor, before the patient was helped to ascend the stairs, as a means of preventing the mistress of the house from plainly seeing the stranger's face, and recognising the living likeness of her husband. The hours advanced--the bustle of domestic life sank into silence--everybody but Iris rested quietly in bed. Through the wakeful night the sense of her situation oppressed her sinking spirits. Mysteries that vaguely threatened danger made their presence felt, and took their dark way through her thoughts. The cottage, in which the first happy days of her marriage had been passed, might ere long be the scene of some evil deed, provoking the lifelong separation of her husband and herself! Were these the exaggerated fears of a woman in a state of hysterical suspicion? It was enough for Iris to remember that Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany had been alike incapable of telling her the truth. The first had tried to deceive her; the second had done his best to frighten her. Why? If there was really nothing to be afraid of--why? The hours of the early morning came; and still she listened in vain for the sound of my lord's footstep on the stairs; still she failed to hear the cautious opening of his dressing-room door. Leaving her chair, Iris rested on the bed. As time advanced, exhaustion mastered her; she slept. Awakening at a late hour, she rang for Fanny Mere. The master had just returned. He had missed the latest night-train to Passy; and, rather than waste money on hiring a carriage at that hour, he had accepted the offer of a bed at the house of his friends. He was then below stairs, hoping to see Lady Harry at breakfast. His wife joined him. Not even at the time of the honeymoon had the Irish lord been a more irresistibly agreeable man than he was on that memorable morning. His apologies for having failed to return at the right time were little masterpieces of grace and gaiety. The next best thing to having been present, at the theatrical performance of the previous night, was to hear his satirical summary of the story of the play, contrasting delightfully with his critical approval of the fine art of the actors. The time had been when Iris would have resented such merciless trifling with serious interests as this. In these earlier and better days, she would have reminded him affectionately of her claim to be received into his confidence--she would have tried all that tact and gentleness and patience could do to win his confession of the ascendency exercised over him by his vile friend--and she would have used the utmost influence of her love and her resolution to disunite the fatal fellowship which was leading him to his ruin. But Iris Henley was Lady Harry now. She was sinking--as Mrs. Vimpany had feared, as Mountjoy had foreseen--lower and lower on the descent to her husband's level. With a false appearance of interest in what he was saying she waited for her chance of matching him with his own weapons of audacious deceit. He ignorantly offered her the opportunity--setting the same snare to catch his wife, which she herself had it in contemplation to use for entrapping her husband into a confession of the truth. "Ah, well--I have said more than enough of my last night's amusement," he confessed. "It's your turn now, my dear. Have you had a look at the poor fellow whom the doctor is going to cure?" he asked abruptly; eager to discover whether she had noticed the likeness between Oxbye and himself. Her eyes rested on him attentively. "I have not yet seen the person you allude to," she answered. "Is Mr. Vimpany hopeful of his recovery?" He took out his case, and busied himself in choosing a cigar. In the course of his adventurous life, he had gained some knowledge of the effect of his own impetuous temper on others, and of difficulties which he had experienced when circumstances rendered it necessary to keep his face in a state of discipline. "Oh, there's no reason for anxiety!" he said, with an over-acted interest in examining his cigar. "Mr. Oxbye is in good hands." "People do sometimes sink under an illness," she quietly remarked. Without making any reply he took out his matchbox. His hand trembled a little; he failed at the first attempt to strike a light. "And doctors sometimes make mistakes," Iris went on. He was still silent. At the second attempt, he succeeded with the match, and lit his cigar. "Suppose Mr. Vimpany made a mistake," she persisted. "In the case of this stranger, it might lead to deplorable results." Lord Harry lost his temper, and with it his colour. "What the devil do you mean?" he cried. "I might ask, in my turn," she said, "what have I done to provoke an outbreak of temper? I only made a remark." At that critical moment, Fanny Mere entered the room with a telegram in her hand. "For you, my lady." Iris opened the telegram. The message was signed by Mrs. Vimpany, and was expressed in these words: "You may feel it your duty to go to your father. He is dangerously ill." Lord Harry saw a sudden change in his wife's face that roused his guilty suspicions. "Is it anything about me?" he asked. Iris handed the telegram to him in silence. Having looked at it, he desired to hear what her wishes were. "The telegram expresses my wishes," she said. "Have you any objection to my leaving you?" "None whatever," he answered eagerly. "Go, by all means." If it had still been possible for her to hesitate, that reply would have put an end to all further doubt. She turned away to leave the room. He followed her to the door. "I hope you don't think there is any want of sympathy on my part," he said. "You are quite right to go to your father. That was all I meant." He was agitated, honestly agitated, while he spoke. Iris saw it, and felt it gratefully. She was on the point of making a last appeal to his confidence, when he opened the door for her. "Don't let me detain you," he said. His voice faltered; he suddenly turned aside before she could look at him. Fanny was waiting in the hall, eager to see the telegram. She read it twice and reflected for a moment. "How often do things fit themselves to one's wishes in this convenient way?" she asked herself. "It's lucky," she privately decided--"almost too lucky. Let me pack up your things," she continued, addressing her mistress, "while I have some time to myself. Mr. Oxbye is asleep." As the day wore on, the noble influences in the nature of Iris, failing fast, yet still at rare intervals struggling to assert themselves, inspired her with the resolution to make a last attempt to give her husband an opportunity of trusting her. He was not in his room, not in any other part of the house, not in the garden. The hours passed--she was left to eat her dinner in solitude. For the second time, he was avoiding her. For the second time, he distrusted the influence of his wife. With a heavy heart she prepared for her departure by the night-mail. The duties of the new nurse kept her in the cottage. Filled with alarm for the faithful creature whom she was leaving--to what fate, who could say?--Iris kissed her at parting. Fanny's faint blue eyes filled with tears. She dashed them away, and held her mistress for an instant in her arms. "I know whom you are thinking of," she whispered. "He is not here to bid you good-bye. Let me see what I can find in his room." Iris had already looked round the room, in the vain hope of finding a letter. Fanny rushed up the stairs, determined on a last search--and ran down again with a folded morsel of flimsy foreign notepaper in her hand. "My ugly eyes are quicker than yours," she said. "The air must have come in at the window and blown it off the table." Iris eagerly read the letter: "I dare not deny that you will be better away from us, but only for a while. Forgive me, dearest; I cannot find the courage to say good-bye." Those few words spoke for him--and no more. Briefly on her side, but not unkindly, his wife answered him: "You have spared me a bitter moment. May I hope to find the man whom I have trusted and honoured, when I come back? Good-bye." When were they to meet again? And how? CHAPTER XLVII THE PATIENT AND MY LORD THERE now remained but one other person in Lord Harry's household whose presence on the scene was an obstacle to be removed. This person was the cook. On condition of her immediate departure (excused by alleged motives of economy), she received a month's wages from her master, in advance of the sum due to her, and a written character which did ample justice to her many good qualities. The poor woman left her employment with the heartiest expressions of gratitude. To the end of her days, she declared the Irish lord to be a nobleman by nature. Republican principles, inherited from her excellent parents, disinclined her to recognise him as a nobleman by birth. But another sweet and simple creature was still left to brighten the sinister gloom in the cottage. The good Dane sorely tried the patience of Fanny Mere. This countryman of Hamlet, as he liked to call himself, was a living protest against the sentiments of inveterate contempt and hatred, with which his nurse was accustomed to regard the men. When pain spared him at intervals, Mr. Oxbye presented the bright blue eyes and the winning smile which suggested the resemblance to the Irish lord. His beardless face, thin towards the lower extremities, completed the likeness in some degree only. The daring expression of Lord Harry, in certain emergencies, never appeared. Nursing him carefully, on the severest principles of duty as distinguished from inclination, Fanny found herself in the presence of a male human being, who in the painless intervals of his malady, wrote little poems in her praise; asked for a few flowers from the garden, and made prettily arranged nosegays of them devoted to herself; cried, when she told him he was a fool, and kissed her hand five minutes afterwards, when she administered his medicine, and gave him no pleasant sweet thing to take the disagreeable taste out of his mouth. This gentle patient loved Lord Harry, loved Mr. Vimpany, loved the furious Fanny, resist it as she might. On her obstinate refusal to confide to him the story of her life--after he had himself set her the example at great length--he persisted in discovering for himself that "this interesting woman was a victim of sorrows of the heart." In another state of existence, he was offensively certain that she would be living with _him._ "You are frightfully pale, you will soon die; I shall break a blood-vessel, and follow you; we shall sit side by side on clouds, and sing together everlastingly to accompaniment of celestial harps. Oh, what a treat!" Like a child, he screamed when he was in pain; and, like a child, he laughed when the pain had gone away. When she was angry enough with him to say, "If I had known what sort of man you were, I would never have undertaken to nurse you," he only answered, "my dear, let us thank God together that you did not know." There was no temper in him to be roused; and, worse still, on buoyant days, when his spirits were lively, there was no persuading him that he might not live long enough to marry his nurse, if he only put the question to her often enough. What was to be done with such a man as this? Fanny believed that she despised her feeble patient. At the same time, the food that nourished him was prepared by her own hands--while the other inhabitants of the cottage were left (in the absence of the cook) to the tough mercies of a neighbouring restaurant. First and foremost among the many good deeds by which the conduct of women claims the gratitude of the other sex, is surely the manner in which they let an unfortunate man master them, without an unworthy suspicion of that circumstance to trouble the charitable serenity of their minds. Carefully on the look-out for any discoveries which might enlighten her, Fanny noticed with ever-increasing interest the effect which the harmless Dane seemed to produce on my lord and the doctor. Every morning, after breakfast, Lord Harry presented himself in the bedroom. Every morning, his courteous interest in his guest expressed itself mechanically in the same form of words: "Mr. Oxbye, how do you find yourself to-day?" Sometimes the answer would be: "Gracious lord, I am suffering pain." Sometimes it was: "Dear and admirable patron, I feel as if I might get well again." On either occasion, Lord Harry listened without looking at Mr. Oxbye--said he was sorry to hear a bad account or glad to hear a good account, without looking at Mr. Oxbye--made a remark on the weather, and took his leave, without looking at Mr. Oxbye. Nothing could be more plain than that his polite inquiries (once a day) were unwillingly made, and that it was always a relief to him to get out of the room. So strongly was Fanny's curiosity excited by this strange behaviour, that she ventured one day to speak to her master. "I am afraid, my lord, you are not hopeful of Mr. Oxbye's recovering?" "Mind your own business," was the savage answer that she received. Fanny never again took the liberty of speaking to him; but she watched him more closely than ever. He was perpetually restless. Now he wandered from one room to another, and walked round and round the garden, smoking incessantly. Now he went out riding, or took the railway to Paris and disappeared for the day. On the rare occasions when he was in a state of repose, he always appeared to have taken refuge in his wife's room; Fanny's keyhole-observation discovered him, thinking miserably, seated in his wife's chair. It seemed to be possible that he was fretting after Lady Harry. But what did his conduct to Mr. Oxbye mean? What was the motive which made him persist, without an attempt at concealment, in keeping out of Mr. Vimpany's way? And, treated in this rude manner, how was it that his wicked friend seemed to be always amused, never offended? As for the doctor's behaviour to his patient, it was, in Fanny's estimation, worthy of a savage. He appeared to feel no sort of interest in the man who had been sent to him from the hospital at his own request, and whose malady it was supposed to be the height of his ambition to cure. When Mr. Oxbye described his symptoms, Mr. Vimpany hardly even made a pretence at listening. With a frowning face he applied the stethoscope, felt the pulse, looked at the tongue--and drew his own conclusions in sullen silence. If the nurse had a favourable report to make, he brutally turned his back on her. If discouraging results of the medical treatment made their appearance at night, and she felt it a duty to mention them, he sneered as if he doubted whether she was speaking the truth. Mr. Oxbye's inexhaustible patience and amiability made endless allowances for his medical advisor. "It is my misfortune to keep my devoted doctor in a state of perpetual anxiety," he used to say; "and we all know what a trial to the temper is the consequence of unrelieved suspense. I believe in Mr. Vimpany." Fanny was careful not to betray her own opinion by making any reply; her doubts of the doctor had, by this time, become terrifying doubts even to herself. Whenever an opportunity favoured her, she vigilantly watched him. One of his ways of finding amusement, in his leisure hours, was in the use of a photographic apparatus. He took little pictures of the rooms in the cottage, which were followed by views in the garden. Those having come to an end, he completed the mystification of the nurse by producing a portrait of the Dane, while he lay asleep one day after he had been improving in health for some little time past. Fanny asked leave to look at the likeness when it had been "printed" from the negative, in the garden. He first examined it himself--and then deliberately tore it up and let the fragments fly away in the wind. "I am not satisfied with it," was all the explanation he offered. One of the garden chairs happened to be near him; he sat down, and looked like a man in a state of torment under his own angry thoughts. If the patient's health had altered for the worse, and if the tendency to relapse had proved to be noticeable after medicine had been administered, Fanny's first suspicions might have taken a very serious turn. But the change in Oxbye--sleeping in purer air and sustained by better food than he could obtain at the hospital--pointed more and more visibly to a decided gain of vital strength. His hollow checks were filling out, and colour was beginning to appear again on the pallor of his skin. Strange as the conduct of Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany might be, there was no possibility, thus far, of connecting it with the position occupied by the Danish guest. Nobody who had seen his face, when he was first brought to the cottage, could have looked at him again, after the lapse of a fortnight, and have failed to discover the signs which promise recovery of health. CHAPTER XLVIII "THE MISTRESS AND THE MAID" IN the correspondence secretly carried on between the mistress in London and the maid at Passy, it was Fanny Mere's turn to write next. She decided on delaying her reply until she had once more given careful consideration to the first letter received from Lady Harry, announcing her arrival in England, and a strange discovery that had attended it. Before leaving Paris, Iris had telegraphed instructions to Mrs. Vimpany to meet her at the terminus in London. Her first inquiries were for her father. The answer given, with an appearance of confusion and even of shame, was that there was no need to feel anxiety on the subject of Mr. Henley's illness. Relieved on hearing this good news, Iris naturally expressed some surprise at her father's rapid recovery. She asked if the doctors had misunderstood his malady when they believed him to be in danger. To this question Mrs. Vimpany had replied by making an unexpected confession. She owned that Mr. Henley's illness had been at no time of any serious importance. A paragraph in a newspaper had informed her that he was suffering from nothing worse than an attack of gout. It was a wicked act to have exaggerated this report, and to have alarmed Lady Harry on the subject of her father's health. Mrs. Vimpany had but one excuse to offer. Fanny's letter had filled her with such unendurable doubts and forebodings that she had taken the one way of inducing Lady Harry to secure her own safety by at once leaving Passy--the way by a false alarm. Deceit, so sincerely repented, so resolutely resisted, had tried its power of temptation again, and had prevailed. "When I thought of you at the mercy of my vile husband," Mrs. Vimpany said, "with your husband but too surely gained as an accomplice, my good resolutions failed me. Is it only in books that a true repentance never stumbles again? Or am I the one fallible mortal creature in the world? I am ashamed of myself. But, oh, Lady Harry, I was so frightened for you! Try to forgive me; I am so fond of you, and so glad to see you here in safety. Don't go back! For God's sake, don't go back!" Iris had no intention of returning, while the doctor and his patient were still at Passy; and she found in Mrs. Vimpany's compassion good reason to forgive an offence committed through devotion to herself, and atoned for by sincere regret. Fanny looked carefully over the next page of the letter, which described Lady Harry's first interview with Mr. Mountjoy since his illness. The expressions of happiness on renewing her relations with her old and dear friend confirmed the maid in her first impression that there was no fear of a premature return to Passy, with the wish to see Lord Harry again as the motive. She looked over the later letters next--and still the good influence of Mr. Mountjoy seemed to be in time ascendant. There was anxiety felt for Fanny's safety, and curiosity expressed to hear what discoveries she might have made; but the only allusions to my lord contained ordinary inquiries relating to the state of his health, and, on one occasion, there was a wish expressed to know whether he was still on friendly terms with Mr. Vimpany. There seemed to be no fear of tempting her mistress to undervalue the danger of returning to the cottage, if she mentioned the cheering improvement now visible in Mr. Oxbye. And yet Fanny still hesitated to trust her first impressions, even after they had been confirmed. Her own sad experience reminded her of the fatal influence which an unscrupulous man can exercise over the woman who loves him. It was always possible that Lady Harry might not choose to confide the state of her feelings towards her husband to a person who, after all, only occupied the position of her maid. The absence, in her letters, of any expressions of affectionate regret was no proof that she was not thinking of my lord. So far as he was personally concerned, the Dane's prospects of recovery would appear to justify the action of the doctor and his accomplice. Distrusting them both as resolutely as ever, and determined to keep Lady Harry as long as possible at the safe distance of London, Fanny Mere, in writing her reply, preserved a discreet silence on the subject of Mr. Oxbye's health. [At this point Wilkie Collins' health prevented his finishing the novel.] CHAPTER XLIX THE NURSE IS SENT AWAY "YOU have repented and changed your mind, Vimpany?" said Lord Harry. "I repented?" the doctor repeated, with a laugh. "You think me capable of that, do you?" "The man is growing stronger and better every day. You are going to make him recover, after all. I was afraid"--he corrected himself--"I thought"--the word was the truer--"that you were going to poison him." "You thought I was going--we were going, my lord--to commit a stupid and a useless crime. And, with our clever nurse present, all the time watching with the suspicions of a cat, and noting every change in the symptoms? No--I confess his case has puzzled me because I did not anticipate this favourable change. Well--it is all for the best. Fanny sees him grow stronger every day--whatever happens she can testify to the care with which the man has been treated. So far she thought she would have us in her power, and we have her." "You are mighty clever, Vimpany; but sometimes you are too clever for me, and, perhaps, too clever for yourself." "Let me make myself clearer"--conscious of the nurse's suspicions, he leaned forward and whispered: "Fanny must go. Now is the time. The man is recovering. The man must go: the next patient will be your lordship himself. Now do you understand?" "Partly." "Enough. If I am to act it is sufficient for you to understand step by step. Our suspicious nurse is to go. That is the next step. Leave me to act." Lord Harry walked away. He left the thing to the doctor. It hardly seemed to concern him. A dying man; a conspiracy; a fraud:--yet the guilty knowledge of all this gave him small uneasiness. He carried with him his wife's last note: "May I hope to find on my return the man whom I have trusted and honoured?" His conscience, callous as regards the doctor's scheme, filled him with remorse whenever--which was fifty times a day--he took this little rag of a note from his pocket-book and read it again. Yes: she would always find the man, on her return--the man whom she had trusted and honoured--the latter clause he passed over--it would be, of course the same man: whether she would still be able to trust and honour him--that question he did not put to himself. After all, the doctor was acting--not he, himself. And he remembered Hugh Mountjoy. Iris would be with him--the man whose affection was only brought out in the stronger light by his respect, his devotion, and his delicacy. She would be in his society: she would understand the true meaning of this respect and delicacy: she would appreciate the depth of his devotion: she would contrast Hugh, the man she might have married, with himself, the man she did marry. And the house was wretched without her; and he hated the sight of the doctor--desperate and reckless. He resolved to write to Iris: he sat down and poured out his heart, but not his conscience, to her. "As for our separation," he said, "I, and only I, am to blame. It is my own abominable conduct that has caused it. Give me your pardon, dearest Iris. If I have made it impossible for you to live with me, it is also impossible for me to live without you. So am I punished. The house is dull and lonely; the hours crawl, I know not how to kill the time; my life is a misery and a burden because you are not with me. Yet I have no right to complain; I ought to rejoice in thinking that you are happy in being relieved of my presence. My dear, I do not ask you to come at present"--he remembered, indeed, that her arrival at this juncture might be seriously awkward--"I cannot ask you to come back yet, but let me have a little hope--let me feel that in the sweetness of your nature you will believe in my repentance, and let me look forward to a speedy reunion in the future." When he had written this letter, which he would have done better to keep in his own hands for awhile, he directed it in a feigned hand to Lady Harry Norland, care of Hugh Mountjoy, at the latter's London hotel. Mountjoy would not know Iris's correspondent, and would certainly forward the letter. He calculated--with the knowledge of her affectionate and impulsive nature--that Iris would meet him half-way, and would return whenever he should be able to call her back. He did not calculate, as will be seen, on the step which she actually took. The letter despatched, he came back to the cottage happier--he would get his wife again. He looked in at the sick-room. The patient was sitting up, chatting pleasantly; it was the best day he had known; the doctor was sitting in a chair placed beside the bed, and the nurse stood quiet, self-composed, but none the less watchful and suspicious. "You are going on so well, my man," Doctor Vimpany was saying, "That we shall have you out and about again in a day or two. Not quite yet, though--not quite yet," he pulled out his stethoscope and made an examination with an immense show of professional interest. "My treatment has succeeded, you see"--he made a note or two in his pocket-book--"has succeeded," he repeated. "They will have to acknowledge that." "Gracious sir, I am grateful. I have given a great deal too much trouble." "A medical case can never give too much trouble--that is impossible. Remember, Oxbye, it is Science which watches at your bedside. You are not Oxbye; you are a case; it is not a man, it is a piece of machinery that is out of order. Science watches: she sees you through and through. Though you are made of solid flesh and bones, and clothed, to Science you are transparent. Her business is not only to read your symptoms, but to set the machinery right again." The Dane, overwhelmed, could only renew his thanks. "Can he stand, do you think, nurse?" the doctor went on. "Let us try--not to walk about much to-day, but to get out of bed, if only to prove to himself that he is so much better; to make him understand that he is really nearly well. Come, nurse, let us give him a hand." In the most paternal manner possible the doctor assisted his patient, weak, after so long a confinement to his bed, to get out of bed, and supported him while he walked to the open window, and looked out into the garden. "There," he said, "that is enough. Not too much at first. To-morrow he will have to get up by himself. Well, Fanny, you agree at last, I suppose, that I have brought this poor man round? At last, eh?" His look and his words showed what he meant. "You thought that some devilry was intended." That was what the look meant. "You proposed to nurse this man in order to watch for and to discover this devilry. Very well, what have you got to say?" All that Fanny had to say was, submissively, that the man was clearly much better; and, she added, he had been steadily improving ever since he came to the cottage. That is what she said; but she said it without the light of confidence in her eyes--she was still doubtful and suspicious. Whatever power the doctor had of seeing the condition of lungs and hidden machinery, he certainly had the power of reading this woman's thoughts. He saw, as clearly as if upon a printed page, the bewilderment of her mind. She knew that something was intended---something not for her to know. That the man had been brought to the cottage to be made the subject of a scientific experiment she did not believe. She had looked to see him die, but he did not die. He was mending fast; in a little while he would be as well as ever he had been in his life. What had the doctor done it for? Was it really possible that nothing was ever intended beyond a scientific experiment, which had succeeded? In the case of any other man, the woman's doubts would have been entirely removed; in the case of Dr. Vimpany these doubts remained. There are some men of whom nothing good can be believed, whether of motive or of action; for if their acts seem good, their motive must be bad. Many women know, or fancy they know, such a man--one who seems to them wholly and hopelessly bad. Besides, what was the meaning of the secret conversation and the widespread colloquies of the doctor and my lord? And why, at first, was the doctor so careless about his patient? "The time has come at last," said the doctor that evening, when the two men were alone, "for this woman to go. The man is getting well rapidly, he no longer wants a nurse; there is no reason for keeping her. If she has suspicions there is no longer the least foundation for them; she has assisted at the healing of a man desperately sick by a skilful physician. What more? Nothing--positively nothing." "Can she tell my wife so much and no more?" asked Lord Harry. "Will there be no more?" "She can tell her ladyship no more, because she will have no more to tell," the doctor replied quietly. "She would like to learn more; she is horribly disappointed that there is no more to tell; but she shall hear no more. She hates me: but she hates your lordship more." "Why?" "Because her mistress loves you still. Such a woman as this would like to absorb the whole affection of her mistress in herself. You laugh. She is a servant, and a common person. How can such a person conceive an affection so strong as to become a passion for one so superior? But it is true. It is perfectly well known, and there have been many recorded instances of such a woman, say a servant, greatly inferior in station, conceiving a desperate affection for her mistress, accompanied by the fiercest jealousy. Fanny Mere is jealous--and of you. She hates you; she wants your wife to hate you. She would like nothing better than to go back to her mistress with the proofs in her hand of such acts on your part--such acts, I say," he chose his next words carefully, "as would keep her from you for ever." "She's a devil, I dare say," said Lord Harry, carelessly. "What do I care? What does it matter to me whether a lady's maid, more or less, hates me or loves me?" "There spoke the aristocrat. My lord, remember that a lady's maid is a woman. You have been brought up to believe, perhaps, that people in service are not men and women. That is a mistake--a great mistake. Fanny Mere is a woman--that is to say, an inferior form of man; and there is no man in the world so low or so base as not to be able to do mischief. The power of mischief is given to every one of us. It is the true, the only Equality of Man--we can all destroy. What? a shot in the dark; the striking of a lucifer match; the false accusation; the false witness; the defamation of character;--upon my word, it is far more dangerous to be hated by a woman than by a man. And this excellent and faithful Fanny, devoted to her mistress, hates you, my lord, even more"--he paused and laughed--"even more than the charming Mrs. Vimpany hates her husband. Never mind. To-morrow we see the last of Fanny Mere. She goes; she leaves her patient rapidly recovering. That is the fact that she carries away--not the fact she hoped and expected to carry away. She goes to-morrow and she will never come back again." The next morning the doctor paid a visit to his patient rather earlier than usual. He found the man going on admirably: fresh in colour, lively and cheerful, chatting pleasantly with his nurse. "So," said Dr. Vimpany, after the usual examination and questions, "this is better than I expected. You are now able to get up. You can do so by-and-by, after breakfast; you can dress yourself, you want no more help. Nurse," he turned to Fanny, "I think that we have done with you. I am satisfied with the careful watch you have kept over my patient. If ever you think of becoming a nurse by profession, rely on my recommendation. The experiment," he added, thoughtfully, "has fully succeeded. I cannot deny that it has been owing partly to the intelligence and patience with which you have carried out my instructions. But I think that your services may now be relinquished." "When am I to go, sir?" she asked, impassively. "In any other case I should have said, 'Stay a little longer, if you please. Use your own convenience.' In your case I must say, 'Go to your mistress.' Her ladyship was reluctant to leave you behind. She will be glad to have you back again. How long will you take to get ready?" "I could be ready in ten minutes, if it were necessary." "That is not necessary. You can take the night mail _via_ Dieppe and Newhaven. It leaves Paris at 9.50. Give yourself an hour to get from station to station. Any time, therefore, this evening before seven o'clock will do perfectly well. You will ask his lordship for any letters or messages he may have." "Yes, sir," Fanny replied. "With your permission, sir, I will go at once, so as to get a whole day in Paris." "As you please, as you please," said the doctor, wondering why she wanted a day in Paris; but it could have nothing to do with his sick man. He left the room, promising to see the Dane again in an hour or two, and took up a position at the garden gate through which the nurse must pass. In about half an hour she walked down the path carrying her box. The doctor opened the gate for her. "Good-bye, Fanny," he said. "Again, many thanks for your care and your watchfulness--especially the latter. I am very glad," he said, with what he meant for the sweetest smile, but it looked like a grin, "that it has been rewarded in such a way as you hardly perhaps expected." "Thank you, sir," said the girl. "The man is nearly well now, and can do without me very well indeed." "The box is too heavy for you, Fanny. Nay, I insist upon it: I shall carry it to the station for you." It was not far to the station, and the box was not too heavy, but Fanny yielded it. "He wants to see me safe out of the station," she thought. "I will see her safe out of the place," he thought. Ten minutes later the doors of the _salle d'attente_ were thrown open, the train rolled in, and Fanny was carried away. The doctor returned thoughtfully to the house. The time was come for the execution of his project. Everybody was out of the way. "She is gone," he said, when Lord Harry returned for breakfast at eleven. "I saw her safely out of the station." "Gone!" his confederate echoed: "and I am alone in the house with you and--and----" "The sick man--henceforth, yourself, my lord, yourself." CHAPTER L IN THE ALCOVE THE doctor was wrong. Fanny Mere did return, though he did not discover the fact. She went away in a state of mind which is dangerous when it possesses a woman of determination. The feminine mind loves to understand motives and intentions; it hates to be puzzled. Fanny was puzzled. Fanny could not understand what had been intended and what was now meant. For, first, a man, apparently dying, had been brought into the house--why? Then the man began slowly to recover, and the doctor, whose attentions had always been of the most slender character, grew more morose every day. Then he suddenly, on the very day when he sent her away, became cheerful, congratulated the patient on his prospect of recovery, and assisted in getting him out of bed for a change. The cook having been sent away, there was now no one in the house but the Dane, the doctor, and Lord Harry. Man hunts wild creatures; woman hunts man. Fanny was impelled by the hunting instinct. She was sent out of the house to prevent her hunting; she began to consider next, how, without discovery, she could return and carry on the hunt. Everything conspired to drive her back: the mystery of the thing; the desire to baffle, or at least to discover, a dark design; the wish to be of service to her mistress; and the hope of finding out something which would keep Iris from going back to her husband. Fanny was unable to comprehend the depth of her mistress's affection for Lord Harry; but that she was foolishly, weakly in love with him, and that she would certainly return to him unless plain proofs of real villainy were prepared--so much Fanny understood very well. When the omnibus set her down, she found a quiet hotel near the terminus for Dieppe. She spent the day walking about--to see the shops and streets, she would have explained; to consider the situation, she should have explained. She bought a new dress, a new hat, and a thick veil, so as to be disguised at a distance. As for escaping the doctor's acuteness by any disguise should he meet her face to face, that was impossible. But her mind was made up--she would run any risk, meet any danger, in order to discover the meaning of all this. Next morning she returned by an omnibus service which would allow her to reach the cottage at about a quarter-past eleven. She chose this time for two reasons: first, because breakfast was sent in from the restaurant at eleven, and the two gentlemen would certainly be in the _salle 'a manger_ over that meal; and, next, because the doctor always visited his patient after breakfast. She could, therefore, hope to get in unseen, which was the first thing. The spare bedroom--that assigned to the patient--was on the ground-floor next to the dining-room; it communicated with the garden by French windows, and by a small flight of steps. Fanny walked cautiously along the road past the garden-gate; a rapid glance assured her that no one was there; she hastily opened the gate and slipped in. She knew that the windows of the sick-room were closed on the inner side, and the blinds were still down. The patient, therefore, had not yet been disturbed or visited. The windows of the dining-room were on the other side of the house. The woman therefore slipped round to the back, where she found, as she expected, the door wide open. In the hall she heard the voices of the doctor and Lord Harry and the clicking of knives and forks. They were at breakfast. One thing more--What should she say to Oxbye? What excuse should she make for coming back? How should she persuade him to keep silence about her presence? His passion suggested a plan and a reason. She had come back, she would tell him, for love of him, to watch over him, unseen by the doctor, to go away with him when he was strong enough to travel. He was a simple and a candid soul, and he would fall into such a little innocent conspiracy. Meantime, it would be quite easy for her to remain in the house perfectly undisturbed and unknown to either of the gentlemen. She opened the door and looked in. So far, no reason would be wanted. The patient was sleeping peacefully. But not in the bed. He was lying, partly dressed and covered with a blanket, on the sofa. With the restlessness of convalescence he had changed his couch in the morning after a wakeful night, and was now sleeping far into the morning. The bed, as is common in French houses, stood in an alcove. A heavy curtain hung over a rod, also in the French manner. Part of this curtain lay over the head of the bed. The woman perceived the possibility of using the curtain as a means of concealment. There was a space of a foot between the bed and the wall. She placed herself, therefore, behind the bed, in this space, at the head, where the curtain entirely concealed her. Nothing was more unlikely than that the doctor should look behind the bed in that corner. Then with her scissors she pierced a hole in the curtain large enough for her to see perfectly without the least danger of being seen, and she waited to see what would happen. She waited for half an hour, during which the sleeping man slept on without movement, and the voices of the two men in the _salle 'a manger_ rose and fell in conversation. Presently there was silence, broken only by an occasional remark. "They have lit their cigars," Fanny murmured; "they will take their coffee, and in a few minutes they will be here." When they came in a few minutes later, they had their cigars, and Lord Harry's face was slightly flushed, perhaps with the wine he had taken at breakfast--perhaps with the glass of brandy after his coffee. The doctor threw himself into a chair and crossed his legs, looking thoughtfully at his patient. Lord Harry stood over him. "Every day," he said, "the man gets better." "He has got better every day, so far," said the doctor. "Every day his face gets fatter, and he grows less like me." "It is true," said the doctor. "Then--what the devil are we to do?" "Wait a little longer," said the doctor. The woman in her hiding-place hardly dared to breathe. "What?" asked Lord Harry. "You mean that the man, after all--" "Wait a little longer," the doctor repeated quietly. "Tell me"--Lord Harry bent over the sick man eagerly--"you think----" "Look here," the doctor said. "Which of us two has had a medical education--you, or I?" "You, of course." "Yes; I, of course. Then I tell you, as a medical man, that appearances are sometimes deceptive. This man, for instance--he looks better; he thinks he is recovering; he feels stronger. You observe that he is fatter in the face. His nurse, Fanny Mere, went away with the knowledge that he was much better, and the conviction that he was about to leave the house as much recovered as such a patient with such a disorder can expect." "Well?" "Well, my lord, allow me to confide in you. Medical men mostly keep their knowledge in such matters to themselves. We know and recognise symptoms which to you are invisible. By these symptoms--by those symptoms," he repeated slowly and looking hard at the other man, "I know that this man--no longer Oxbye, my patient, but--another--is in a highly dangerous condition. I have noted the symptoms in my book"--he tapped his pocket--"for future use." "And when--when----" Lord Harry was frightfully pale. His lips moved, but he could not finish the sentence. The Thing he had agreed to was terribly near, and it looked uglier than he had expected. "Oh! when?" the doctor replied carelessly. "Perhaps to-day--perhaps in a week. Here, you see, Science is sometimes baffled. I cannot say." Lord Harry breathed deeply. "If the man is in so serious a condition," he said, "is it safe or prudent for us to be alone in the house without a servant and without a nurse?" "I was not born yesterday, my lord, I assure you," said the doctor in his jocular way. "They have found me a nurse. She will come to-day. My patient's life is, humanly speaking"--Lord Harry shuddered--"perfectly safe until her arrival." "Well--but she is a stranger. She must know whom she is nursing." "Certainly. She will be told--I have already told her--that she is going to nurse Lord Harry Norland, a young Irish gentleman. She is a stranger. That is the most valuable quality she possesses. She is a complete stranger. As for you, what are you? Anything you please. An English gentleman staying with me under the melancholy circumstances of his lordship's illness. What more natural? The English doctor is staying with his patient, and the English friend is staying with the doctor. When the insurance officer makes inquiries, as he is very likely to do, the nurse will be invaluable for the evidence she will give." He rose, pulled up the blinds noiselessly, and opened the windows. Neither the fresh air nor the light awoke the sleeping man. Vimpany looked at his watch. "Time for the medicine," he said. "Wake him up while I get it ready." "Would you not--at least---suffer him to have his sleep out?" asked Lord Harry, again turning pale. "Wake him up. Shake him by the shoulder. Do as I tell you," said the doctor, roughly. "He will go to sleep again. It is one of the finer qualities of my medicine that it sends people to sleep. It is a most soothing medicine. It causes a deep--a profound sleep. Wake him up, I say." he went to the cupboard in which the medicines were kept. Lord Harry with some difficulty roused the sick man, who awoke dull and heavy, asking why he was disturbed. "Time for your medicine, my good fellow," said the doctor. "Take it, and you shall not be disturbed again--I promise you that." The door of the cupboard prevented the spy from seeing what the doctor was doing; but he took longer than usual in filling the glass. Lord Harry seemed to observe this, for he left the Dane and looked over the doctor's shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asked in a whisper. "Better not inquire, my lord," said the doctor. "What do you know about the mysteries of medicine?" "Why must I not inquire?" Vimpany turned, closing the cupboard behind him. In his hand was a glass full of the stuff he was about to administer. "If you look in the glass," he said, "you will understand why." Lord Harry obeyed. He saw a face ghastly in pallor: he shrank back and fell into a chair, saying no more. "Now, my good friend," said the doctor, "drink this and you'll be better--ever so much better, ever so much better. Why--that is brave----" he looked at him strangely, "How do you like the medicine?" Oxbye shook his head as a man who has taken something nauseous. "I don't like it at all," he said. "It doesn't taste like the other physic." "No I have been changing it--improving it." The Dane shook his head again. "There's a pain in my throat," he said; "it stings--it burns!" "Patience--patience. It will pass away directly, and you will lie down again and fall asleep comfortably." Oxbye sank back upon the sofa. His eyes closed. Then he opened them again, looking about him strangely, as one who is suffering some new experience. Again he shook his head, again he closed his eyes, and he opened them no more. He was asleep. The doctor stood at his head watching gravely. Lord Harry, in his chair, leaned forward, also watching, but with white face and trembling hands. As they watched, the man's head rolled a little to the side, turning his face more towards the room. Then a curious and terrifying thing happened. His mouth began slowly to fall open. "Is he--is he--is he fainting?" Lord Harry whispered. "No; he is asleep. Did you never see a man sleep with his mouth wide open?" They were silent for a space. The doctor broke the silence. "There's a good light this morning," he said carelessly. "I think I will try a photograph. Stop! Let me tie up his mouth with a handkerchief--so." The patient was not disturbed by the operation, though the doctor tied up the handkerchief with vigour enough to awaken a sound sleeper. "Now--we'll see if he looks like a post-mortem portrait." He went into the next room, and returned with his camera. In a few minutes he had taken the picture, and was holding the glass negative against the dark sleeve of his coat, so as to make it visible. "We shall see how it looks," he said, "when it is printed. At present I don't think it is good enough as an imitation of you to be sent to the insurance offices. Nobody, I am afraid, who knew you, would ever take this for a post-mortem portrait of Lord Harry. Well, we shall see. Perhaps by-and-by--to-morrow--we may be able to take a better photograph. Eh?" Lord Harry followed his movements, watching him closely, but said nothing. His face remained pale and his fingers still trembled. There was now no doubt at all in his mind, not only as to Vimpany's intentions, but as to the crime itself. He dared not speak or move. A ring at the door pealed through the house. Lord Harry started in his chair with a cry of terror. "That," said the doctor, quietly, "is the nurse--the new nurse---the stranger." He took off the handkerchief from Oxbye's face, looked about the room as if careful that everything should be in its right place, and went out to admit the woman. Lord Harry sprang to his feet and passed his hand over the sick man's face. "Is it done?" he whispered. "Can the man be poisoned? Is he already dead?--already? Before my eyes?" He laid his finger on the sick man's pulse. But the doctor's step and voice stopped him. Then the nurse came in, following Vimpany. She was an elderly, quiet-looking French woman. Lord Harry remained standing at the side of the sofa, hoping to see the man revive. "Now," said Vimpany, cheerfully, "here is your patient, nurse. He is asleep now. Let him have his sleep out--he has taken his medicine and will want nothing more yet awhile. If you want anything let me know. We shall be in the next room or in the garden--somewhere about the house. Come, my friend." He drew away Lord Harry gently by the arm, and they left the room. Behind the curtain Fanny Mere began to wonder how she was to get off unseen. The nurse, left alone, looked at her patient, who lay with his head turned partly round, his eyes closed, his mouth open. "A strange sleep," she murmured; "but the doctor knows, I suppose. He is to have his sleep out." "A strange sleep, indeed!" thought the watcher. She was tempted at this moment to disclose herself and to reveal what she had seen; but the thought of Lord Harry's complicity stopped her. With what face could she return to her mistress and tell her that she herself was the means of her husband being charged with murder? She stayed herself, therefore, and waited. Chance helped her, at last, to escape. The nurse took off her bonnet and shawl and began to look about the room. She stepped to the bed and examined the sheets and pillow-case as a good French housewife should. Would she throw back the curtain? If so--what would happen next? Then it would become necessary to take the new nurse into confidence, otherwise----Fanny did not put the remainder of this sentence into words. It remained a terror: it meant that if Vimpany found out where she had been and what she had seen and heard, there would be two, instead of one, cast into a deep slumber. The nurse turned from the bed, however, attracted by the half-open door of the cupboard. Here were the medicine bottles. She took them out one by one, looked at them with professional curiosity, pulled out the corks, smelt the contents, replaced the bottles. Then she went to the window, which stood open; she stepped out upon the stone steps which led into the garden, looking about her, to breathe the soft air of noon among the flowers. She came back, and it again seemed as if she would examine the bed, but her attention was attracted by a small book-case. She began to pull down the books one after the other and to turn them over, as a half-educated person does, in the hope of finding something amusing. She found a book with pictures. Then she sat down in the armchair beside the sofa and began to turn over the leaves slowly. How long was this going to last? It lasted about half an hour. The nurse laid down the volume with a yawn, stretched herself, yawned again, crossed her hands, and closed her eyes. She was going to sleep. If she would only fall so fast asleep that the woman behind the curtain could creep away! But sometimes at the sleepiest moment sleep is driven away by an accident. The accident in this case was that the nurse before finally dropping off remembered that she was nursing a sick man, and sat up to look at him before she allowed herself to drop off. Stung with sudden inspiration she sprang to her feet and bent over the man. "Does he breathe?" she asked. She bent lower. "His pulse! does it beat?" she caught his wrist. "Doctor!" she shrieked, running into the garden. "Doctor! Come--come quick! He is dead!" Fanny Mere stepped from her hiding-place and ran out of the back door, and by the garden gate into the road. She had escaped. She had seen the crime committed. She knew now at least what was intended and why she was sent away. The motive for the crime she could not guess. CHAPTER LI WHAT NEXT? WHAT should she do with the terrible secret? She ought to inform the police. But there were two objections. First, the nurse may have been mistaken in supposing her patient to be dead. She herself had no choice but to escape as she did. Next, the dreadful thought occurred to her that she herself until the previous day had been the man's nurse--his only nurse, day and night. What was to prevent the doctor from fixing the guilt of poisoning upon herself? Nay; it would be his most obvious line of action. The man was left alone all the morning; the day before he had shown every sign of returning strength; she would have to confess that she was in hiding. How long had she been there? Why was she in hiding? Was it not after she had poisoned the man and when she heard the doctor's footstep? Naturally ignorant of poisons and their symptoms, it seemed to her as if these facts so put together would be conclusive against her. Therefore, she determined to keep quiet in Paris that day and to cross over by the night boat from Dieppe in the evening. She would at first disclose everything to Mrs. Vimpany and to Mountjoy. As to what she would tell her mistress she would be guided by the advice of the others. She got to London in safety and drove straight to Mr. Mountjoy's hotel, proposing first to communicate the whole business to him. But she found in his sitting-room Mrs. Vimpany herself. "We must not awake him," she said, "whatever news you bring. His perfect recovery depends entirely on rest and quiet. There"--she pointed to the chimneypiece--"is a letter in my lady's handwriting. I am afraid I know only too well what it tells him." "What does it tell?" "This very morning," Mrs. Vimpany went on, "I called at her lodging. She has gone away." "Gone away? My lady gone away? Where is she gone?" "Where do you think she is most likely to have gone?" "Not?--oh!--not to her husband? Not to him!--oh! this is more terrible--far more terrible--than you can imagine." "You will tell me why it is now so much more terrible. Meantime, I find that the cabman was told to drive to Victoria. That is all I know. I have no doubt, however, but that she has gone back to her husband. She has been in a disturbed, despondent condition ever since she arrived in London. Mr. Mountjoy has been as kind as usual: but he has not been able to chase away her sadness. Whether she was fretting after her husband, or whether--but this I hardly think--she was comparing the man she had lost with the man she had taken--but I do not know. All I do know is that she has been uneasy ever since she came from France, and what I believe is that she has been reproaching herself with leaving her husband without good cause." "Good cause!" echoed Fanny. "Oh! good gracious! If she only knew, there's cause enough to leave a hundred husbands." "Nothing seemed to rouse her," Mrs. Vimpany continued, without regarding the interruption. "I went with her to the farm to see her former maid, Rhoda. The girl's health is re-established; she is engaged to marry the farmer's brother. Lady Harry was kind, and said the most pleasant things; she even pulled off one of her prettiest rings and gave it to the girl. But I could see that it was an effort for her to appear interested--her thoughts were with her husband all the time. I was sure it would end in this way, and I am not in the least surprised. But what will Mr. Mountjoy say when he opens the letter?" "Back to her husband!" Fanny repeated. "Oh! what shall we do?" "Tell me what you mean. What has happened?" "I must tell you. I thought I would tell Mr. Mountjoy first: but I must tell you, although--" She stopped. "Although it concerns my husband. Never mind that consideration--go on." Fanny told the story from the beginning. When she had finished, Mrs. Vimpany looked towards the bedroom door. "Thank God!" she said, "that you told this story to me instead of to Mr. Mountjoy. At all events, it gives me time to warn you not to tell him what you have told me. We can do nothing. Meantime, there is one thing you must do--go away. Do not let Mr. Mountjoy find you here. He must not learn your story. If he hears what has happened and reads her letter, nothing will keep him from following her to Passy. He will see that there is every prospect of her being entangled in this vile conspiracy, and he will run any risk in the useless attempt to save her. He is too weak to bear the journey--far too weak for the violent emotions that will follow; and, oh! how much too weak to cope with my husband--as strong and as crafty as he is unprincipled! "Then, what, in Heaven's name, are we to do?" "Anything--anything--rather than suffer Mr. Mountjoy, in his weak state, to interfere between man and wife." "Yes--yes--but such a man! Mrs. Vimpany, he was present when the Dane was poisoned. He _knew_ that the man was poisoned. He sat in the chair, his face white, and he said nothing. Oh! It was as much as I could do not to rush out and dash the glass from his hands. Lord Harry said nothing." "My dear, do you not understand what you have got to do?" Fanny made no reply. "Consider--my husband---Lord Harry--neither of them knows that you were present. You can return with the greatest safety; and then whatever happens, you will be at hand to protect my lady. Consider, again, as her maid, you can be with her always--in her own room; at night; everywhere and at all times; while Mr. Mountjoy could only be with her now and then, and at the price of not quarrelling with her husband." "Yes," said Fanny. "And you are strong, and Mr. Mountjoy is weak and ill." "You think that I should go back to Passy?" "At once, without the delay of an hour. Lady Harry started last night. Do you start this evening. She will thus have you with her twenty-four hours after her arrival." Fanny rose. "I will go," she said. "It terrifies me even to think of going back to that awful cottage with that dreadful man. Yet I will go. Mrs. Vimpany, I know that it will be of no use. Whatever is going to happen now will happen without any power of mine to advance or to prevent. I am certain that my journey will prove useless. But I will go. Yes, I will go this evening." Then, with a final promise to write as soon as possible--as soon as there should be anything to communicate--Fanny went away. Mrs. Vimpany, alone, listened. From the bedroom came no sound at all. Mr. Mountjoy slept still. When he should be strong enough it would be time to let him know what had been done. But she sat thinking--thinking--even when one has the worst husband in the world, and very well knows his character, it is disagreeable to hear such a story as Fanny had told that wife this morning. CHAPTER LII THE DEAD MAN'S PHOTOGRAPH "HE is quite dead," said the doctor, with one finger on the man's pulse and another lifting his eyelid. "He is dead. I did not look for so speedy an end. It is not half an hour since I left him breathing peacefully. Did he show signs of consciousness?" "No, sir; I found him dead." "This morning he was cheerful. It is not unusual in these complaints. I have observed it in many cases of my own experience. On the last morning of life, at the very moment when Death is standing on the threshold with uplifted dart, the patient is cheerful and even joyous: he is more hopeful than he has felt for many months: he thinks--nay, he is sure--that he is recovering: he says he shall be up and about before long: he has not felt so strong since the beginning of his illness. Then Death strikes him, and he falls." He made this remark in a most impressive manner. "Nothing remains," he said, "but to certify the cause of death and to satisfy the proper forms and authorities. I charge myself with this duty. The unfortunate young man belonged to a highly distinguished family. I will communicate with his friends and forward his papers. One last office I can do for him. For the sake of his family, nurse, I will take a last photograph of him as he lies upon his death-bed." Lord Harry stood in the doorway, listening with an aching and a fearful heart. He dared not enter the chamber. It was the Chamber of Death. What was his own part in calling the Destroying Angel who is at the beck and summons of every man--even the meanest? Call him and he comes. Order him to strike--and he obeys. But under penalties. The doctor's prophecy, then, had come true. But in what way and by what agency? The man was dead. What was his own share in the man's death? He knew when the Dane was brought into the house that he was brought there to die. As the man did not die, but began to recover fast, he had seen in the doctor's face that the man would have to die. He had heard the doctor prophesy out of his medical knowledge that the man would surely die; and then, after the nurse had been sent away because her patient required her services no longer, he had seen the doctor give the medicine which burned the patient's throat. What was that medicine? Not only had it burned his throat, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep, in which his heart ceased to beat and his blood ceased to flow. He turned away and walked out of the cottage. For an hour he walked along the road. Then he stopped and walked back. Ropes drew him; he could no longer keep away. He felt as if something must have happened. Possibly he would find the doctor arrested and the police waiting for himself, to be charged as an accomplice or a principal. He found no such thing. The doctor was in the salon, with letters and official forms before him. He looked up cheerfully. "My English friend," he said, "the unexpected end of this young Irish gentleman is a very melancholy affair. I have ascertained the name of the family solicitors and have written to them. I have also written to his brother as the head of the house. I find also, by examination of his papers, that his life is insured--the amount is not stated, but I have communicated the fact of the death. The authorities--they are, very properly, careful in such matters--have received the necessary notices and forms: to-morrow, all legal forms having been gone through, we bury the deceased." "So soon?" "So soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of death. I think we need not----My dear friend, you look ill. Are you upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So," he went into the _salle 'a manger_ and returned with his medicine. "Take that. Now let us talk." The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which might follow. He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes us tremble in the awful presence of death. Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the room--but returned in a few minutes. "The _croque-morts_ have come," he said. "They are with the nurse engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world. To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse. Unfortunately--but look at it----" "It is the face of the dead man"--Lord Harry turned away. "I don't want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget--I was actually present when--" "Not when he died. Come, don't be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature--he has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble--was a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him." "No, no." "Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed." "Well?" "Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with the camera." In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve. "Admirable!" he said. "The cheek a little sunken--that was the effect of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows--the eyes closed, the face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we cannot make the sun tell lies?" As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord Harry. "There," he said, "we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the first copy." He had mounted it on a frame of card, and had written under it the name once borne by the dead man, with the date of his death. The picture seemed indeed that of a dead man. Lord Harry shuddered. "There," he said, "everything else has been of no use to us--the presence of the sick man--the suspicions of the nurse--his death--even his death--has been of no use to us. We might have been spared the memory--the awful memory--of this death!" "You forget, my English friend, that a dead body was necessary for us. We had to bury somebody. Why not the man Oxbye?" CHAPTER LIII THE WIFE'S RETURN OF course Mrs. Vimpany was quite right. Iris had gone back to her husband. She arrived, in fact, at the cottage in the evening just before dark--in the falling day, when some people are more than commonly sensitive to sights and sounds, and when the eyes are more apt than at other times to be deceived by strange appearances. Iris walked into the garden, finding no one there. She opened the door with her own key and let herself in. The house struck her as strangely empty and silent. She opened the dining-room door: no one was there. Like all French dining-rooms, it was used for no other purpose than for eating, and furnished with little more than the barest necessaries. She closed the door and opened that of the salon: that also was empty. She called her husband: there was no answer. She called the name of the cook: there was no answer. It was fortunate that she did not open the door of the spare room, for there lay the body of the dead man. She went upstairs to her husband's room. That too was empty. But there was something lying on the table--a photograph. She took it up. Her face became white suddenly and swiftly. She shrieked aloud, then drooped the picture and fell fainting to the ground. For the photograph was nothing less than that of her husband, dead in his white graveclothes, his hands composed, his eyes closed, his cheek waxen. The cry fell upon the ears of Lord Harry, who was in the garden below. He rushed into the house and lifted his wife upon the bed. The photograph showed him plainly what had happened. She came to her senses again, but seeing her husband alive before her, and remembering what she had seen, she shrieked again, and fell into another swoon. "What is to be done now?" asked the husband. "What shall I tell her? How shall I make her understand? What can I do for her?" As for help, there was none: the nurse was gone on some errand; the doctor was arranging for the funeral of Oxbye under the name of Lord Harry Norland; the cottage was empty. Such a fainting fit does not last for ever. Iris came round, and sat up, looking wildly around. "What is it?" she cried. "What does it mean?" "It means, my love, that you have returned to your husband." He laid an arm round her, and kissed her again and again. "You are my Harry!--living!--my own Harry?" "Your own Harry, my darling. What else should I be?" "Tell me then, what does it mean--that picture--that horrid photograph?" "That means nothing--nothing--a freak--a joke of the doctor's. What could it mean?" He took it up. "Why, my dear, I am living--living and well. What should this mean but a joke?" He laid it on the table again, face downwards. But her eyes showed that she was not satisfied. Men do not make jokes on death; it is a sorry jest indeed to dress up a man in grave-clothes, and make a photograph of him as of one dead. "But you--you, my Iris; you are here--tell me how and why--and when, and everything? Never mind that stupid picture: tell me." "I got your letter, Harry," she replied. "My letter?" he repeated. "Oh! my dear, you got my letter, and you saw that your husband loved you still." "I could not keep away from you, Harry, whatever had happened. I stayed as long as I could. I thought about you day and night. And at last I--I--I came back. Are you angry with me, Harry?" "Angry? Good God! my dearest, angry?" He kissed her passionately--not the less passionately that she had returned at a time so terrible. What was he to say to her? How was he to tell her? While he showered kisses on her he was asking himself these questions. When she found out--when he should confess to her the whole truth--she would leave him again. Yet he did not understand the nature of the woman who loves. He held her in his arms; his kisses pleaded for him; they mastered her--she was ready to believe, to accept, to surrender even her truth and honesty; and she was ready, though she knew it not, to become the accomplice of a crime. Rather than leave her husband again, she would do everything. Yet, Lord Harry felt there was one reservation: he might confess everything, except the murder of the Dane. No word of confession had passed the doctor's lips, yet he knew too well that the man had been murdered; and, so far as the man had been chosen for his resemblance to himself, that was perfectly useless, because the resemblance, though striking at the first, had been gradually disappearing as the man Oxbye grew better; and was now, as we have seen, wholly lost after death. "I have a great deal--a great deal--to tell you, dear," said the husband, holding both her hands tenderly. "You will have to be very patient with me. You must make up your mind to be shocked at first, though I shall be able to convince you that there was really nothing else to be done--nothing else at all." "Oh! go on, Harry. Tell me all. Hide nothing." "I will tell you all," he replied. "First, where is that poor man whom the doctor brought here and Fanny nursed? And where is Fanny?" "The poor man," he replied carelessly, "made so rapid a recovery that he has got on his legs and gone away--I believe, to report himself to the hospital whence he came. It is a great triumph for the doctor, whose new treatment is now proved to be successful. He will make a grand flourish of trumpets about it. I dare say, if all he claims for it is true, he has taken a great step in the treatment of lung diseases." Iris had no disease of the lungs, and consequently cared very little for the scientific aspect of the question. "Where is my maid, then?" "Fanny? She went away--let me see: to-day is Friday--on Wednesday morning. It was no use keeping her here. The man was well, and she was anxious to get back to you. So she started on Wednesday morning, proposing to take the night boat from Dieppe. She must have stopped somewhere on the way." "I suppose she will go to see Mrs. Vimpany. I will send her a line there." "Certainly. That will be sure to find her." "Well, Harry, is there anything else to tell me? "A great deal," he repeated. "That photograph, Iris, which frightened you so much, has been very carefully taken by Vimpany for a certain reason." "What reason?" "There are occasions," he replied, "when the very best thing that can happen to a man is the belief that he is dead. Such a juncture of affairs has happened to myself--and to you--at this moment. It is convenient--even necessary--for me that the world should believe me dead. In point of fact, I must be dead henceforth. Not for anything that I have done, or that I am afraid of--don't think that. No; it is for the simple reason that I have no longer any money or any resources whatever. That is why I must be dead. Had you not returned in this unexpected manner, my dear, you would have heard of my death from the doctor, and he would have left it to chance to find a convenient opportunity of letting you know the truth. I am, however, deeply grieved that I was so careless as to leave that photograph upon the table." "I do not understand," she said. "You pretend to be dead?" "Yes. I _must_ have money. I have some left--a very little. I _must_ have money; and, in order to get it, I must be dead." "How will that help?" "Why, my dear, I am insured, and my insurances will be paid after my death; but not before." "Oh! must you get money--even by a----" She hesitated. "Call it a conspiracy, my dear, if you please. As there is no other way whatever left, I must get money that way." "Oh, this is dreadful! A conspiracy, Harry? a--a--fraud?" "If you please. That is the name which lawyers give to it." "But oh, Harry!--it is a crime. It is a thing for which men are tried and found guilty and sentenced." "Certainly; if they are found out. Meantime, it is only the poor, ignorant, clumsy fool who gets found out. In the City these things are done every day. Quite as a matter of course," he added carelessly. "It is not usual for men to take their wives into confidence, but in this case I must take you into confidence: I have no choice, as you will understand directly." "Tell me, Harry, who first thought of this way?" "Vimpany, of course. Oh! give him the credit where real cleverness is concerned. Vimpany suggested the thing. He found me well-nigh as desperately hard up as he is himself. He suggested it. At first, I confess, I did not like it. I refused to listen to any more talk about it. But, you see, when one meets destitution face to face, one will do anything--everything. Besides, as I will show you, this is not really a fraud. It is only an anticipation of a few years. However, there was another reason." "Was it to find the money to meet the promissory note?" "My dear, you may forget--you may resolve never to throw the thing in my teeth; but my love for you will never suffer me to forget that I have lost your little fortune in a doubtful speculation. It is all gone, never to be recovered again; and this after I had sworn never to touch a farthing of it. Iris!"--he started to his feet and walked about the room as one who is agitated by emotion--"Iris! I could face imprisonment for debt, I could submit to pecuniary ruin, for that matter; the loss of money would not cause me the least trouble, but I cannot endure to have ruined you." "Oh! Harry, as if I mind. Everything that I have is yours. When I gave you myself I gave all. Take--use--lose it all. As you think, I should never _feel_ reproach, far less utter a word of blame. Dearest Harry, if that is all--" "No; it is the knowledge that you will not even feel reproach that is my constant accuser. At my death you will get all back again. But I am not old; I may live for many, many years to come. How can I wait for my own death when I can repair this wickedness by a single stroke?" "But by another wickedness--and worse." "No--not another crime. Remember that this money is mine. It will come to my heirs some day, as surely as to-morrow's sun will rise. Sooner or later it will be mine; I will make it sooner, that is all. The Insurance Company will lose nothing but the paltry interest for the remainder of my life. My dear, if it is disgraceful to do this I will endure disgrace. It is easier to bear that than constant self-reproach which I feel when I think of you and the losses I have inflicted upon you." Again he folded her in his arms; he knelt before her; he wept over her. Carried out of herself by this passion, Iris made no more resistance. "Is it--is it," she asked timidly, "too late to draw back?" "It is too late," he replied, thinking of the dead man below. "It is too late. All is completed." "My poor Harry! What shall we do? How shall we live? How shall we contrive never to be found out?" She would not leave him, then. She accepted the situation. He was amazed at the readiness with which she fell; but he did not understand how she was ready to cling to him, for better for worse, through worse evils than this; nor could he understand how things formerly impossible to her had been rendered possible by the subtle deterioration of the moral nature, when a woman of lofty mind at the beginning loves and is united to a man of lower nature and coarser fibre than herself. Only a few months before, Iris would have swept aside these sophistrics with swift and resolute hand. Now she accepted them. "You have fallen into the doctor's hands, dear," she said. "Pray Heaven it brings us not into worse evils! What can I say? it is through love of your wife--through love of your wife--oh! husband!" she threw herself into his arms, and forgave everything and accepted everything. Henceforth she would be--though this she knew not--the willing instrument of the two conspirators. CHAPTER LIV ANOTHER STEP "I HAVE left this terrible thing about once too often already," and Lord Harry took it from the table. "Let me put it in a place of safety." He unlocked a drawer and opened it. "I will put it here," he said. "Why"--as if suddenly recollecting something--"here is my will. I shall be leaving that about on the table next. Iris, my dear, I have left everything to you. All will be yours." He took out the document. "Keep it for me, Iris. It is yours. You may as well have it now, and then I know, in your careful hands, it will be quite safe. Not only is everything left to you, but you are the sole executrix." Iris took the will without a word. She understood, now, what it meant. If she was the sole executrix she would have to act. If everything was left to her she would have to receive the money. Thus, at a single step, she became not only cognisant of the conspiracy, but the chief agent and instrument to carry it out. This done, her husband had only to tell her what had to be done at once, in consequence of her premature arrival. He had planned, he told her, not to send for her--not to let her know or suspect anything of the truth until the money had been paid to the widow by the Insurance Company. As things had turned out, it would be best for both of them to leave Passy at once--that very evening--before her arrival was known by anybody, and to let Vimpany carry out the rest of the business. He was quite to be trusted--he would do everything that was wanted. "Already," he said, "the Office will have received from the doctor a notification of my death. Yesterday evening he wrote to everybody--to my brother--confound him!--and to the family solicitor. Every moment that I stay here increases the danger of my being seen and recognised--after the Office has been informed that I am dead." "Where are we to go?" "I have thought of that. There is a little quiet town in Belgium where no English people ever come at all. We will go there, then we will take another name; we will be buried to the outer world, and will live, for the rest of our lives, for ourselves alone. Do you agree?" "I will do, Harry, whatever you think best." "It will be for a time only. When all is ready, you will have to step to the front--the will in your hand to be proved--to receive what is due to you as the widow of Lord Harry Norland. You will go back to Belgium, after awhile, so as to disarm suspicion, to become once more the wife of William Linville." Iris sighed heavily, Then she caught her husband's eyes gathering with doubt, and she smiled again. "In everything, Harry," she said, "I am your servant. When shall we start?" "Immediately. I have only to write a letter to the doctor. Where is your bag? Is this all? Let me go first to see that no one is about. Have you got the will? Oh! it is here--yes--in the bag. I will bring along the bag." He ran downstairs, and came up quickly. "The nurse has returned," he said. "She is in the spare room." "What nurse?" "The nurse who came after Fanny left. The man was better, but the doctor thought it wisest to have a nurse to the end," he explained hurriedly, and she suspected nothing till afterwards. "Come down quietly--go out by the back-door--she will not see you." So Iris obeyed. She went out of her own house like a thief, or like her own maid Fanny, had she known. She passed through the garden, and out of the garden into the road. There she waited for her husband. Lord Harry sat down and wrote a letter. "Dear Doctor," he said, "while you are arranging things outside an unexpected event has happened inside. Nothing happens but the unexpected. My wife has come back. It is the most unexpected event of any. Anything else might have happened. Most fortunately she has not seen the spare bedroom, and has no idea of its contents. "At this point reassure yourself. "My wife has gone. "She found on the table your first print of the negative. The sight of this before she saw me threw her into some kind of swoon, from which, however, she recovered. "I have explained things to a certain point. She understands that Lord Harry Norland is deceased. She does not understand that it was necessary to have a funeral; there is no necessity to tell her of that. I think she understands that she must not seem to have been here. Therefore she goes away immediately. "The nurse has not seen her. No one has seen her. "She understands, further, that as the widow, heir, and executrix of Lord Harry she will have to prove his will, and to receive the money due to him by the Insurance Company. She will do this out of love for her husband. I think that the persuasive powers of a certain person have never yet been estimated at their true value. "Considering the vital importance of getting her out of the place before she can learn anything of the spare bedroom, and of getting me out of the place before any messenger can arrive from the London office, I think you will agree with me that I am right in leaving Passy--and Paris--with Lady Harry this very afternoon. "You may write to William Linville, Poste-Restante, Louvain, Belgium. I am sure I can trust you to destroy this letter. "Louvain is a quiet, out-of-the-way place, where one can live quite separated from all old friends, and very cheaply. "Considering the small amount of money that I have left, I rely upon you to exercise the greatest economy. I do not know how long it may be before just claims are paid up--perhaps in two months--perhaps in six--but until things are settled there will be tightness. "At the same time it will not be difficult, as soon as Lady Harry goes to London, to obtain some kind of advance from the family solicitor on the strength of the insurance due to her from her late husband. "I am sorry, dear doctor, to leave you alone over the obsequies of this unfortunate gentleman. You will also have, I hear, a good deal of correspondence with his family. You may, possibly, have to see them in England. All this you will do, and do very well. Your bill for medical attendance you will do well to send in to the widow. "One word more. Fanny Mere, the maid, has gone to London; but she has not seen Lady Harry. As soon as she hears that her mistress has left London she will be back to Passy. She may come at any moment. I think if I were you I would meet her at the garden gate and send her on. It would be inconvenient if she were to arrive before the funeral. "My dear doctor, I rely on your sense, your prudence, and your capability.--Yours very sincerely, "Your ENGLISH FRIEND." He read this letter very carefully. Nothing in it he thought the least dangerous, and yet something suggested danger. However, he left it; he was obliged to caution and warn the doctor, and he was obliged to get his wife away as quietly as possible. This done, he packed up his things and hurried off to the station, and Passy saw him no more. The next day the mortal remains of Lord Harry Norland were lowered into the grave. CHAPTER LV THE ADVENTURES OF A FAITHFUL MAID IT was about five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. The funeral was over. The unfortunate young Irish gentleman was now lying in the cemetery of Auteuil in a grave purchased in perpetuity. His name, age, and rank were duly inscribed in the registers, and the cause of his death was vouched for by the English physician who had attended him at the request of his family. He was accompanied, in going through the formalities, by the respectable woman who had nursed the sick man during his last seizure. Everything was perfectly in order. The physician was the only mourner at the funeral. No one was curious about the little procession. A funeral, more or less, excites no attention. The funeral completed, the doctor gave orders for a single monument to be put in memory of Lord Harry Norland, thus prematurely cut off. He then returned to the cottage, paid and dismissed the nurse, taking her address in case he should find an opportunity, as he hoped, to recommend her among his numerous and distinguished clientele, and proceeded to occupy himself in setting everything in order before giving over the key to the landlord. First of all he removed the medicine bottles from the cupboard with great care, leaving nothing. Most of the bottles he threw outside into the dust-hole; one or two he placed in a fire which he made for the purpose in the kitchen: they were shortly reduced to two or three lumps of molten glass. These contained, no doubt, the mysteries and secrets of Science. Then he went into every room and searched in every possible place for any letters or papers which might have been left about. Letters left about are always indiscreet, and the consequences of an indiscretion may be far-reaching and incalculable. Satisfied at last that the place was perfectly cleared, he sat down in the salon and continued his business correspondence with the noble family and the solicitors. Thus engaged, he heard footsteps outside, footsteps on the gravel, footsteps on the doorstop. He got up, not without the slightest show of nervousness, and opened the door. Lord Harry was right. There stood the woman who had been his first nurse--the woman who overheard and watched--the woman who suspected. The suspicion and the intention of watching were legible in her eyes still. She had come back to renew her watch. In her hand she carried her box, which she had lugged along from the place where the omnibus had deposited her. She made as if she were stepping in; but the big form of the doctor barred the way. "Oh!" he said carelessly, "it is you. Who told you to come back?" "Is my mistress at home?" "No; she is not." He made no movement to let her pass. "I will come in, please, and wait for her." He still stood in the way. "What time will she return?" "Have you heard from her?" "No." "Did she leave orders that you were to follow her?" "No; none that I received. I thought--" "Servants should never think. They should obey." "I know my duty, Dr. Vimpany, without learning it from you. Will you let me pass?" He withdrew, and she entered. "Come in, by all means," he said, "if you desire my society for a short time. But you will not find your mistress here." "Not here! Where is she, then?" "Had you waited in London for a day or two you would, I dare say, have been informed. As it is, you have had your journey for nothing." "Has she not been here?" "She has not been here." "Dr. Vimpany," said the woman, driven to desperation, "I don't believe you! I am certain she has been here. What have you done with her?" "Don't you believe me? That is sad, indeed. But one cannot always help these wanderings. You do not believe me? Melancholy, truly!" "You may mock as much as you like. Where is she?" "Where, indeed?" "She left London to join his lordship. Where is he? "I do not know. He who would answer that question would be a wise man indeed." "Can I see him?" "Certainly not. He has gone away. On a long journey. By himself." "Then I shall wait for him. Here!" she added with decision. "In this house!" "By all means." She hesitated. There was an easy look about the doctor which she did not like. "I believe," she said, "that my mistress is in the house. She must be in the house. What are you going to do with her? I believe you have put her somewhere." "Indeed!" "You would do anything! I will go to the police." "If you please." "Oh! doctor, tell me where she is!" "You are a faithful servant: it is good, in these days, to find a woman so zealous on account of her mistress. Come in, good and faithful. Search the house all over. Come in--what are you afraid of? Put down your box, and go and look for your mistress." Fanny obeyed. She ran into the house, opened the doors of the salon and the dining-room one after the other: no one was there. She ran up the stairs and looked into her mistress's room: nothing was there, not even a ribbon or a hair-pin, to show the recent presence of a woman. She looked into Lord Harry's room. Nothing was there. If a woman leaves hairpins about, a man leaves his toothbrush: nothing at all was there. Then she threw open the armoire in each room: nothing behind the doors. She came downstairs slowly, wondering what it all meant. "May I look in the spare room?" she asked, expecting to be roughly refused. "By all means--by all means," said the doctor, blandly. "You know your way about. If there is anything left belonging to your mistress or to you, pray take it." She tried one more question. "How is my patient? How is Mr. Oxbye?" "He is gone." "Gone? Where has he gone to? Gone?" "He went away yesterday--Friday. He was a grateful creature. I wish we had more such grateful creatures as well as more such faithful servants. He said something about finding his way to London in order to thank you properly. A good soul, indeed!" "Gone?" she repeated. "Why, on Thursday morning I saw him--" She checked herself in time. "It was on Wednesday morning that you saw him, and he was then recovering rapidly." "But he was far too weak to travel." "You may be quite certain that I should not have allowed him to go away unless he was strong enough." Fanny made no reply. She had seen with her own eyes the man lying still and white, as if in death; she had seen the new nurse rushing off, crying that he was dead. Now she was told that he was quite well, and that he had gone away! But it was no time for thought. She was on the point of asking where the new nurse was, but she remembered in time that it was best for her to know nothing, and to awaken no suspicions. She opened the door of the spare room and looked in. Yes; the man was gone--dead or alive--and there were no traces left of his presence. The place was cleared up; the cupboard stood with open doors, empty; the bed was made; the curtain pushed back; the sofa was in its place against the wall; the window stood open. Nothing in the room at all to show that there had been an occupant only two days before. She stared blankly. The dead man was gone, then. Had her senses altogether deceived her? Was he not dead, but only sleeping? Was her horror only a thing of imagination? Behind her, in the hall, stood the doctor, smiling, cheerful. She remembered that her first business was to find her mistress. She was not connected with the Dane. She closed the door and returned to the hall. "Well," asked the doctor, "have you made any discoveries? You see that the house is deserted. You will perhaps learn before long why. Now what will you do? Will you go back to London?" "I must find her ladyship." The doctor smiled. "Had you come here in a different spirit," he said, "I would have spared you all this trouble. You come, however, with suspicion written on your face. You have always been suspecting and watching. It may be in a spirit of fidelity to your mistress; but such a spirit is not pleasing to other people, especially when there is not a single person who bears any resentment towards that mistress. Therefore, I have allowed you to run over the empty house, and to satisfy your suspicious soul. Lady Harry is not hidden here. As for Lord Harry--but you will hear in due time no doubt. And now I don't mind telling you that I have her ladyship's present address." "Oh! What is it?" "She appears to have passed through Paris on her way to Switzerland two days ago, and has sent here her address for the next fortnight. She has now, I suppose, arrived there. The place is Berne; the Hotel ----. But how do I know that she wants you?" "Of course she wants me." "Or of course you want her? Very good. Yours is the responsibility, not mine. Her address is the Hotel d'Angleterre. Shall I write it down for you? There it is. 'Hotel d'Angleterre, Berne.' Now you will not forget. She will remain there for one fortnight only. After that, I cannot say whither she may go. And, as all her things have been sent away, and as I am going away, I am not likely to hear." "Oh I must go to her. I must find her!" cried the woman earnestly; "if it is only to make sure that no evil is intended for her." "That is your business. For my own part, I know of no one who can wish her ladyship any evil." "Is my lord with her?" "I don't know whether that is your business. I have already told you that he is gone. If you join your mistress in Berne, you will very soon find out if he is there as well." Something in his tone made Fanny look up quickly. But his face revealed nothing. "What shall you do then?" asked the doctor. "You must make up your mind quickly whether you will go back to England or whether you will go on to Switzerland. You cannot stay here, because I am putting together the last things, and I shall give the landlord the key of the house this evening. All the bills are paid, and I am going to leave the place." "I do not understand. There is the patient," she murmured vaguely. "What does it mean? I cannot understand." "My good creature," he replied roughly, "what the devil does it matter to me whether you understand or whether you do not understand? Her ladyship is, as I have told you, at Berne. If you please to follow her there, do so. It is your own affair, not mine. If you prefer to go back to London, do so. Still--your own affair. Is there anything else to say?" Nothing. Fanny took up her box--this time the doctor did not offer to carry it for her. "Where are you going?" he asked. "What have you decided?" "I can get round by the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture to the Lyons station. I shall take the first cheap train which will take me to Berne." "Bon voyage!" said the doctor, cheerfully, and shut the door. It is a long journey from Paris to Berne even for those who can travel first class and express--that is, if sixteen hours can be called a long journey. For those who have to jog along by third class, stopping at all the little country stations, it is a long and tedious journey indeed. The longest journey ends at last. The train rolled slowly into the station of Berne, and Fanny descended with her box. Her wanderings were over for the present. She would find her mistress and be at rest. She asked to be directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre. The Swiss guardian of the peace with the cocked hat stared at her. She repeated the question. "Hotel d'Angleterre?" he echoed. "There is no Hotel d'Angleterre in Berne." "Yes, yes; there is. I am the maid of a lady who is staying at that hotel." "No; there is no Hotel d'Angleterre," he reported. "There is the Hotel Bernehof." "No." She took out the paper and showed it to him--"Lady Harry Norland, Hotel d'Angleterre, Berne." "There is the Hotel de Belle Vue, the Hotel du Faucon, the Hotel Victoria, the Hotel Schweizerhof. There is the Hotel schrodel, the Hotel Schneider, the Pension Simkin." Fanny as yet had no other suspicion than that the doctor had accidentally written a wrong name. Her mistress was at Berne: she would be in one of the hotels. Berne is not a large place. Very good; she would go round to the hotels and inquire. She did so. There are not, in fact, more than half a dozen hotels in Berne where an English lady could possibly stay. Fanny went to every one of these. No one had heard of any such lady: they showed her the lists of their visitors. She inquired at the post-office. No lady of that name had asked for letters. She asked if there were any pensions, and went round them all--uselessly. No other conclusion was possible. The doctor had deceived her wilfully. To get her out of the way he sent her to Berne. He would have sent her to Jericho if her purse had been long enough to pay the fare. She was tricked. She counted her money. There was exactly twenty-eight shillings and tenpence in her purse. She went back to the cheapest (and dirtiest) of the pensions she had visited. She stated her case--she had missed milady her mistress--she must stay until she should receive orders to go on, and money--would they take her in until one or the other arrived? Certainly. They would take her in, at five francs a day, payable every morning in advance. She made a little calculation--she had twenty-eight and tenpence; exactly thirty-five francs--enough for seven days. If she wrote to Mrs. Vimpany at once she could get an answer in five days. She accepted the offer, paid her five shillings, was shown into a room, and was informed that the dinner was served at six o'clock. Very good. Here she could rest, at any rate, and think what was to be done. And first she wrote two letters--one to Mrs. Vimpany and one to Mr. Mountjoy. In both of these letters she told exactly what she had found: neither Lord Harry nor his wife at the cottage, the place vacated, and the doctor on the point of going away. In both letters she told how she had been sent all the way into Switzerland on a fool's errand, and now found herself planted there without the means of getting home. In the letter to Mrs. Vimpany she added the remarkable detail that the man whom she had seen on the Thursday morning apparently dead, whose actual poisoning she thought she had witnessed, was reported on the Saturday to have walked out of the cottage, carrying his things, if he had any, and proposing to make his way to London in order to find out his old nurse. "Make what you can out of that," she said. "For my own part, I understand nothing." In the letter which she wrote to Mr. Mountjoy she added a petition that he would send her money to bring her home. This, she said, her mistress she knew would willingly defray. She posted these letters on Tuesday, and waited for the answers. Mrs. Vimpany wrote back by return post. "My dear Fanny," she said, "I have read your letter with the greatest interest. I am not only afraid that some villainy is afloat, but I am perfectly sure of it. One can only hope and pray that her ladyship may be kept out of its influence. You will be pleased to hear that Mr. Mountjoy is better. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to stand the shock of violent emotion, I put Lady Harry's letter into his hands. It was well that I had kept it from him, for he fell into such a violence of grief and indignation that I thought he would have had a serious relapse. 'Can any woman,' he cried, 'be justified in going back to an utterly unworthy husband until he has proved a complete change? What if she had received a thousand letters of penitence? Penitence should be shown by acts, not words: she should have waited.' He wrote her a letter, which he showed me. 'Is there,' he asked, 'anything in the letter which could justly offend her?' I could find nothing. He told her, but I fear too late, that she risks degradation--perhaps worse, if there is anything worse--if she persists in returning to her unworthy husband. If she refuses to be guided by his advice, on the last occasion on which he would presume to offer any device, he begged that she would not answer. Let her silence say--No. That was the substance of his letter. Up to the present moment no answer has been received from Lady Harry. Nor has he received so much as an acknowledgment of the letter. What can be understood by this silence? Clearly, refusal. "You must return by way of Paris, though it is longer than by Basle and Laon. Mr. Mountjoy, I know, will send you the money you want. He has told me as much. 'I have done with Lady Harry,' he said. 'Her movements no longer concern me, though I can never want interest in what she does. But since the girl is right to stick to her mistress, I will send her the money--not as a loan to be paid back by Iris, but as a gift from myself.' "Therefore, my dear Fanny, stop in Paris for one night at least, and learn what has been done if you can. Find out the nurse, and ask her what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be people who supplied things to the cottage--the restaurant, the _pharmacien,_ the laundress. See them all--you know them already, and we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week. If anything happens here I shall be able to tell you when you arrive. "Yours affectionately, L. Vimpany." This letter exactly coincided with Fanny's own views. The doctor was now gone. She was pretty certain that he was not going to remain alone in the cottage; and the suburb of Passy, though charming in many ways, is not exactly the place for a man of Dr. Vimpany's temperament. She would stay a day, or even two days or more, if necessary, at Passy. She would make those inquiries. The second letter, which reached her the same day, was from Mr. Mountjoy. He told her what he had told Mrs. Vimpany: he would give her the money, because he recognised the spirit of fidelity which caused Fanny to go first to Paris and then to Berne. But he could not pretend to any right to interference in the affairs of Lord and Lady Harry Norland. He enclosed a _mandat postal_ for a hundred and twenty-five francs, which he hoped would be sufficient for her immediate wants. She started on her return-journey on the same day--namely, Saturday. On Sunday evening she was in a pension at Passy, ready to make those inquiries. The first person whom she sought out was the _rentier_--the landlord of the cottage. He was a retired tradesman--one who had made his modest fortune in a _charcuterie_ and had invested it in house property. Fanny told him that she had been lady's-maid to Lady Harry Norland, in the recent occupancy of the cottage, and that she was anxious to know her present address. "Merci, mon Dieu! que sais-je? What do I know about it?" he replied. "The wife of the English milord is so much attached to her husband that she leaves him in his long illness--" "His long illness?" "Certainly--Mademoiselle is not, perhaps, acquainted with the circumstances--his long illness; and does not come even to see his dead body after he is dead. There is a wife for you--a wife of the English fashion!" Fanny gasped. "After he is dead! Is Lord Harry dead? When did he die?" "But, assuredly, Mademoiselle has not heard? The English milord died on Thursday morning, a week and more ago, of consumption, and was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil last Saturday. Mademoiselle appears astonished." "En effet, Monsieur, I am astonished." "Already the tombstone is erected to the memory of the unhappy young man, who is said to belong to a most distinguished family of Ireland. Mademoiselle can see it with her own eyes in the cemetery." "One word more, Monsieur. If Monsieur would have the kindness to tell her who was the nurse of milord in his last seizure?" "But certainly. All the world knows the widow La Chaise. It was the widow La Chaise who was called in by the doctor. Ah! there is a man--what a man! What a miracle of science! What devotion to his friend! What admirable sentiments! Truly, the English are great in sentiments when their insular coldness allows them to speak. This widow can be found--easily found." He gave Fanny, in fact, the nurse's address. Armed with this, and having got out of the landlord the cardinal fact of Lord Harry's alleged death, the lady's-maid went in search of this respectable widow. She found her, in her own apartments, a respectable woman indeed, perfectly ready to tell everything that she knew, and evidently quite unsuspicious of anything wrong. She was invited to take charge of a sick man on the morning of Thursday: she was told that he was a young Irish lord, dangerously ill of a pulmonary disorder; the doctor, in fact, informed her that his life hung by a thread, and might drop at any moment, though on the other hand he had known such cases linger on for many months. She arrived as she had been ordered, at midday: she was taken into the sick-room by the doctor, who showed her the patient placidly sleeping on a sofa: the bed had been slept in, and was not yet made. After explaining the medicines which she was to administer, and the times when they were to be given, and telling her something about his diet, the doctor left her alone with the patient. "He was still sleeping profoundly," said the nurse. "You are sure that he was sleeping, and not dead?" asked Fanny, sharply. "Mademoiselle, I have been a nurse for many years. I know my duties. The moment the doctor left me I verified his statements. I proved that the patient was sleeping by feeling his pulse and observing his breath." Fanny made no reply. She could hardly remind this respectable person that after the doctor left her she employed herself first in examining the cupboards, drawers, _armoire,_ and other things; that she then found a book with pictures, in which she read for a quarter of an hour or so; that she then grew sleepy and dropped the book-- "I then," continued the widow, "made arrangements against his waking--that is to say, I drew back the curtains and turned over the sheet to air the bed"--O Madame! Madame! Surely this was needless!--"shook up the pillows, and occupied myself in the cares of a conscientious nurse until the time came to administer the first dose of medicine. Then I proceeded to awaken my patient. Figure to yourself! He whom I had left tranquilly breathing, with the regularity of a convalescent rather than a dying man, was dead! He was dead!" "You are sure he was dead?" "As if I had never seen a dead body before! I called the doctor, but it was for duty only, for I knew that he was dead." "And then?" "Then the doctor--who must also have known that he was dead--felt his pulse and his heart, and looked at his eyes, and declared that he was dead." "And then?" "What then? If a man is dead he is dead. You cannot restore him to life. Yet one thing the doctor did. He brought a camera and took a photograph of the dead man for the sake of his friends." "Oh! he took a photograph of--of Lord Harry Norland. What did he do that for?" "I tell you: for the sake of his friends." Fanny was more bewildered than ever. Why on earth should the doctor want a photograph of the Dane Oxbye to show the friends of Lord Harry? Could he have made a blunder as stupid as it was uncalled for? No one could possibly mistake the dead face of that poor Dane for the dead face of Lord Harry. She had got all the information she wanted--all, in fact, that was of any use to her. One thing remained. She would see the grave. The cemetery of Auteuil is not so large as that of Pere-la-Chaise, nor does it contain so many celebrated persons as the latter--perhaps the greatest cemetery, as regards its illustrious dead, in the whole world. It is the cemetery of the better class. The tombs are not those of Immortals but of Respectables. Among them Fanny easily found, following the directions given to her, the tomb she was searching after. On it was written in English, "Sacred to the Memory of Lord Harry Norland, second son of the Marquis of Malven." Then followed the date and the age, and nothing more. Fanny sat down on a bench and contemplated this mendacious stone. "The Dane Oxbye," she said, "was growing better fast when I went away. That was the reason why I was sent away. The very next day the doctor, thinking me far away, poisoned him. I saw him do it. The nurse was told that he was asleep, and being left alone presently discovered that he was dead. She has been told that the sick man is a young Irish gentleman. He is buried under the name of Lord Harry. That is the reason I found the doctor alone. And my lady? Where is she?" CHAPTER LVI FANNY'S NARRATIVE FANNY returned to London. Partly, the slenderness of her resources gave her no choice; partly, she had learned all there was to learn, and would do no good by staying longer at Passy. She arrived with thirty shillings left out of Mr. Mountjoy's timely gift. She sought a cheap lodging, and found a room, among people who seemed respectable, which she could have for four-and-sixpence a week, with board at a shilling a day. This settled, she hastened to Mr. Mountjoy's hotel brimful of her news for Mrs. Vimpany. Everyone knows the disappointment when the one person in the world whom you want at the moment to see and to talk with proves to be out. Then the news has to be suppressed; the conclusions, the suspicions, the guesses have to be postponed; the active brain falls back upon itself. This disappointment--almost as great as that at Berne--was experienced by Fanny Mere at the hotel. Mr. Mountjoy was no longer there. The landlady of the hotel, who knew Fanny, came out herself and told her what had happened. "He was better," she said, "but still weak. They sent him down to Scotland in Mrs. Vimpany's care. He was to travel by quick or slow stages, just as he felt able. And I've got the address for you. Here it is. Oh! and Mrs. Vimpany left a message. Will you, she says, when you write, send the letter to her and not to him? She says, you know why." Fanny returned to her lodging profoundly discouraged. She was filled with this terrible secret that she had discovered. The only man who could advise at this juncture was Mr. Mountjoy, and he was gone. And she knew not what had become of her mistress. What could she do? The responsibility was more than she could bear. The conversation with the French nurse firmly established one thing in her mind. The man who was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil with the name of Lord Harry Norland on a headstone, the man who had lingered so long with pulmonary disease, was the man whose death she had witnessed. It was Oxbye the Dane. Of that there could be no doubt. Equally there was no doubt in her own mind that he had been poisoned by the doctor--by Mrs. Vimpany's husband--in the presence and, to all appearance, with the consent and full knowledge of Lord Harry himself. Then her mistress was in the power of these two men--villains who had now added murder to their other crimes. As for herself, she was alone, almost friendless; in a week or two she would be penniless. If she told her tale, what mischief might she not do? If she was silent, what mischief might not follow? She sat down to write to the only friend she had. But her trouble froze her brain. She had not been able to put the case plainly. Words failed her. She was not at any time fluent with her pen. She now found herself really unable to convey any intelligible account of what had happened. To state clearly all that she knew so that the conclusion should be obvious and patent to the reader would have been at all times difficult, and was now impossible. She could only confine herself to a simple vague statement. "I can only say that from all I have seen and heard I have reasons for believing that Lord Harry is not dead at all." She felt that this was a feeble way of summing up, but she was not at the moment equal to more. "When I write again, after I have heard from you, I will tell you more. To-day I cannot. I am too much weighed down. I am afraid of saying too much. Besides, I have no money, and must look for work. I am not anxious, however, about my own future, because my lady will not forsake me. I am sure of that. It is my anxiety about her and the dreadful secrets I have learned which give me no rest." Several days passed before the answer came. And then it was an answer which gave her little help. "I have no good news for you," she said. "Mr. Mountjoy continues weak. Whatever your secret, I cannot ask you to communicate it to him in his present condition. He has been grieved and angry beyond all belief by Lady Harry's decision to rejoin her husband. It is hard to understand that a man should be so true a friend and so constant a lover. Yet he has brought himself to declare that he has broken off all friendly relations with her. He could no longer endure London. It was associated with thoughts and memories of her. In spite of his weak condition, he insisted on coming down here to his Scotch villa. Ill as he was, he would brook no delay. We came down by very easy stages, stopping at Peterborough, York, Durham, Newcastle, and Berwick--at some places for one night, and others for more. In spite of all my precautions, when we arrived at the villa he was dangerously exhausted. I sent for the local doctor, who seems to know something. At all events, he is wise enough to understand that this is not a case for drugs. Complete rest and absence from all agitating thoughts must be aimed at. Above all, he is not to see the newspapers. That is fortunate, because, I suppose, Lord Harry's death has been announced in them, and the thought that his former mistress is a widow might excite him very dangerously. You will now understand why I left that message at the hotel for you, and why I have not shown him your letter. I told him, it is true, that you had returned without finding your mistress. 'Speak no more to me of Lady Harry,' he replied irritably. So I have said no more. As for money, I have a few pounds by me, which are at your service. You can repay me at some future time. I have thought of one thing--that new Continental paper started by Lord Harry. Wherever she may be, Lady Harry is almost sure to see that. Put an advertisement in it addressed to her, stating that you have not heard of her address, but that you yourself will receive any letter sent to some post-office which you can find. I think that such an advertisement will draw a reply from her, unless she desires to remain in seclusion." Fanny thought the suggestion worth adopting. After careful consideration, she drew up an advertisement:-- "Fanny H. to L--H--. I have not been able to ascertain your address. Please write to me, at the Post Office, Hunter Street, London, W.C." She paid for the insertion of this advertisement three times on alternate Saturdays. They told her that this would be a more likely way than to take three successive Saturdays. Then, encouraged by the feeling that something, however little, had been done, she resolved to sit down to write out a narrative in which she would set down in order everything that had happened--exactly as it had happened. Her intense hatred and suspicion of Dr. Vimpany aided her, strange to say, to keep to the strictest fidelity as regards the facts. For it was not her desire to make up charges and accusations. She wanted to find out the exact truth, and so to set it down that anybody who read her statement would arrive at the same conclusion as she herself had done. In the case of an eye-witness there are thousands of things which cannot be produced in evidence which yet are most important in directing and confirming suspicions. The attitude, the voice, the look of a speaker, the things which he conceals as well as the things which he reveals--all these are evidence. But these Fanny was unable to set down. Therefore it behoved her to be strictly careful. First, she stated how she became aware that there was some secret scheme under consideration between Lord Harry and the doctor. Next, she set down the fact that they began to talk French to each other, thinking that she could not understand them; that they spoke of deceiving Lady Harry by some statement which had already deceived the authorities; that the doctor undertook to get the lady out of the house; that they engaged herself as nurse to a sick man; that she suspected from the beginning that their design was to profit in some way by the death of this sick than, who bore a slight resemblance to Lord Harry himself. And so on, following the story as closely as she could remember, to the death of the Dane and her own subsequent conversation with the nurse. She was careful to put in the dates, day after day. When she had done all this--it took a good deal of time--she bought a manuscript book and copied it all out. This enabled her to remember two or three facts which had escaped her at the beginning. Then she made another copy this time without names of people or place. The second copy she forwarded as a registered letter to Mrs. Vimpany, with a letter of which this was the conclusion: "Considering, therefore, that on Wednesday morning I left Lord Harry in perfect health; considering that on the Thursday morning I saw the man who had been ill so long actually die--how, I have told you in the packet enclosed; considering that the nurse was called in purposely to attend a patient who was stated to have long been ill--there can be no doubt whatever that the body in the cemetery is that of the unfortunate Dane, Oxbye; and that, somewhere or other, Lord Harry is alive and well. "What have they done it for? First of all, I suppose, to get money. If it were not for the purpose of getting money the doctor would have had nothing to do with the conspiracy, which was his own invention. That is very certain. Your idea was they would try to get money out of the Insurance Offices. I suppose that is their design. But Lord Harry may have many other secret reasons of his own for wishing to be thought dead. They say his life has been full of wicked things, and he may well wish to be considered dead and gone. Lots of wicked men would like above all things, I should think, to be considered dead and buried. But the money matter is at the bottom of all, I am convinced. What are we to do?" What could they do? These two women had got hold of a terrible secret. Neither of them could move. It was too big a thing. One cannot expect a woman to bring her own husband--however wicked a husband he may be--to the awful shame and horror of the gallows if murder should be proved--or to a lifelong imprisonment if the conspiracy alone should be brought home to him. Therefore Mrs. Vimpany could do nothing. As for Fanny, the mere thought of the pain she would inflict upon her mistress, were Lord Harry, through her interference, to be brought to justice and an infamous sentence, kept her quiet. Meantime, the announcement of Lord Harry's death had been made. Those who knew the family history spoke cheerfully of the event. "Best timing he had ever done. Very good thing for his people. One more bad lot out of the way. Dead, Sir, and a very good thing, too. Married, I believe. One of the men who have done everything. Pity they can't write a life of him." These were the comments made upon the decease of this young gentleman. Such is fame. Next day he was clean forgotten; just as if he had never existed. Such is life. CHAPTER LVII AT LOUVAIN NOT many English tourists go out of their way to visit Louvain, even though it has a Hotel de Ville surpassing even that of Brussels itself, and though one can get there in an hour from that city of youth and pleasure. And there are no English residents at all in the place--at least, none in evidence, though perhaps there may be some who have gone there for the same reasons which led Mr. William Linville and his wife to choose this spot--in order to be private and secluded. There are many more people than we know of who desire, above all things, seclusion and retirement, and dread nothing so much as a chance meeting with an old friend. Mr. William Linville took a small house, furnished, like the cottage at Passy, and, also like that little villa, standing in its own garden. Here, with a cook and a maid, Iris set up her modest _menage._ To ask whether she was happy would be absurd. At no time since her marriage had she been happy; to live under the condition of perpetual concealment is not in itself likely to make a woman any the happier. Fortunately she had no time to experience the full bitterness of the plan proposed by her husband. Consider. Had their scheme actually been carried out quite successfully, this pair, still young, would have found themselves condemned to transportation for life. That was the first thing. Next, they could never make any friends among their own countrymen or countrywomen for fear of discovery. Iris could never again speak to an English lady. If they had children the risk would appear ten times more terrible, the consequences ten times more awful. The children themselves would have to grow up without family and without friends. The husband, cut off from intercourse with other men, would be thrown back upon himself. Husband and wife, with this horrible load laid upon them, would inevitably grow to loathe and hate the sight of each other. The man would almost certainly take to drink: the woman--but we must not follow this line any further. The situation lasted only so long as to give the wife a glimpse of what it might become in the future. They took their house, and sat down in it. They were very silent. Lord Harry, his great _coup_ successfully carried so far, sat taciturn and glum. He stayed indoors all day, only venturing out after dark. For a man whose whole idea of life was motion, society, and action, this promised ill. The monotony was first broken by the arrival of Hugh's letter, which was sent in with other documents from Passy. Iris read it; she read it again, trying to understand exactly what it meant. Then she tore it up. "If he only knew," she said, "he would not have taken the trouble even to write this letter. There is no answer, Hugh. There can be none--now. Act by your advice? Henceforth, I must act by order. I am a conspirator." Two days afterwards came a letter from the doctor. He did not think it necessary to say anything about Fanny's appearance or her journey to Borne. "Everything," he wrote, "has so far gone well. The world knows, through the papers, that Lord Harry is dead. There will be now only the business of claiming the money. For this purpose, as his widow is the sole heiress and executrix, it will be necessary for her to place the will and the policies of insurance in the hands of her husband's lawyers, so that the will may be proved and the claims duly made. Forms will have to be signed. The medical certificate of death and the forms attesting the burial are already in the lawyers' hands. The sooner the widow goes to London the better. She should write to announce her arrival, and she should write from Paris as if she had been staying there after her husband's death. "I have only to remind you, my dear Linville, that you are indebted to me in a good round sum. Of course, I shall be very pleased to receive a cheque for this sum in full as soon as you have touched the amount due to you. I shall be in Paris, at the Hotel Continental, where you may address me. Naturally, there is no desire for concealment, and if the Insurance Companies desire any information from me I am always ready and willing to afford it." Lord Harry gave this letter to his wife. She read it, and laid it open in her lap. "Must it be, Harry? Oh! must it be?" "There is no other way possible, dear. But really, it is nothing. You were not at Passy when your husband died. You had been in London--you were in Brussels--anywhere; when you arrived it was all over; you have seen his headstone. Dr. Vimpany had him in his care; you knew he was ill, but you thought it was a trifling matter which time would cure; you go to the lawyers and present the will. They have the policies, and will do everything else; you will not even have to sign anything. The only thing that you must do is to get a complete rig-out of widow's weeds. Mind--there will not be the slightest doubt or question raised. Considering everything, you will be more than justified in seeing no one and going nowhere." Hugh's letter breaking in upon her fool's paradise had awakened the poor woman to her better self; she had gone so far with the fraud as to acquiesce in it; but she recoiled with horror and shame when this active part was forced upon her. "Oh, Harry!"--she burst into tears. "I cannot--I cannot. You ask me to be a liar and a thief--oh! heavens!--a vile thief! "It is too late, Iris! We are all vile thieves. It is too late to begin crying now." "Harry"--she threw herself upon her knees--"spare me! Let some other woman go, and call herself your widow. Then I will go away and hide myself." "Don't talk nonsense, Iris," he replied roughly. "I tell you it is far too late. You should have thought of this before. It is now all arranged." "I cannot go," she said. "You must go; otherwise, all our trouble may prove useless." "Then I will not go!" she declared, springing to her feet. "I will not degrade myself any further. I will not go!" Harry rose too. He faced her for a moment. His eyes dropped. Even he remembered, at that moment, how great must be the fall of a woman who would consent to play such a part. "You shall not go," he said, "unless you like. You can leave me to the consequences of my own acts--to my own degradation. Go back to England. In one thing only spare me. Do not tell what you know. As for me, I will forge a letter from you--" "Forge a letter!" "It is the only way left open, giving the lawyers authority to act, and inclosing the will. What will happen next? By whose hands the money is to reach me I know not yet. But you can leave me, Iris. Better that you should leave me--I shall only drag you lower." "Why must you forge the letter? Why not come with me somewhere--the world is large!--to some place where you are not known, and there let us begin a new life? We have not much money, but I can sell my watches and chains and rings, and we shall have enough. O Harry! for once be guided--listen to me! We shall find some humble manner of living, and we may be happy yet. There is no harm done if you have only pretended to be dead; nobody has been injured or defrauded--" "Iris, you talk wildly! Do you imagine, for one moment, that the doctor will release me from my bargain?" "What bargain?" "Why--of course he was to be paid for the part he has taken in the business. Without him it could never have been done at all." "Yes--yes--it was in the letter that you gave me," she said, conscious that such agreements belonged to works of fiction and to police courts. "Certainly I have to pay him a good large slice out of the money." "It is fifteen thousand pounds, is it not? How much is to be paid to the--to the doctor?" "We agreed that he was to have the half," said Lord Harry, laughing lightly. "But as I thought that seven thousand five hundred pounds was a sum of money which would probably turn his head and bring him to starvation in a year or two, I told him that the whole amount was four thousand pounds. Therefore he is to have two thousand pounds for his share. And quite enough too." "Treachery on treachery!" said his wife. "Fraud on fraud! Would to GOD," she added with a sigh, "that you had never met this man!" "I dare say it would have been better for me, on the whole," he replied. "But then, my dear, a man like myself is always meeting people whom it would have been better not to have met. Like will to like, I suppose. Given the active villain and the passive consenter, and they are sure to meet. Not that I throw stones at the worthy doctor. Not at all." "We cannot, Harry," said his wife. "We cannot, my dear. _Bien entendu!_ Well, Iris, there is no more to be said. You know the situation completely. You can back out of it if you please, and leave me. Then I shall have to begin all over again a new conspiracy far more dangerous than the last. Well, I shall not drag you down with me. That is my resolution. If it comes to public degradation--but it shall not. Iris, I promise you one thing." For once he looked as if he meant it. "Death before dishonour. Death without your name being mixed up at all, save with pity for being the wife of such a man." Again he conquered her. "Harry," she said, "I will go." CHAPTER LVIII OF COURSE THEY WILL PAY THREE days afterwards a hansom cab drove to the offices of the very respectable firm of solicitors who managed the affairs of the Norland family. They had one or two other families as well, and in spite of agricultural depression, they made a very good thing indeed out of a very comfortable business. The cab contained a lady in deep widow's weeds. Lady Harry Norland expected to be received with coldness and suspicion. Her husband, she knew, had not led the life expected in these days of a younger son. Nor had his record been such as to endear him to his elder brother. Then, as may be imagined, there were other tremors, caused by a guilty knowledge of certain facts which might by some accident "come out." Everybody has tremors for whom something may come out. Also, Iris had had no experience of solicitors, and was afraid of them. Instead of being received, however, by a gentleman as solemn as the Court of Chancery and as terrible as the Court of Assize, she found an elderly gentleman, of quiet, paternal manners, who held both her hands, and looked as if he was weeping over her bereavement. By long practice this worthy person could always, at a moment's notice, assume the appearance of one who was weeping with his client. "My dear lady!" he murmured. "My dear lady! This is a terrible time for you." She started. She feared that something had come out. "In the moment of bereavement, too, to think of business." "I have brought you," she replied curtly, "my husband's--my late husband's--will." "Thank you. With your permission--though it may detain your ladyship--I will read it. Humph! it is short and to the point. This will certainly give us little trouble. I fear, however, that, besides the insurances, your ladyship will not receive much." "Nothing. My husband was always a poor man, as you know. At the time of his death he left a small sum of money only. I am, as a matter of fact, greatly inconvenienced." "Your ladyship shall be inconvenienced no longer. You must draw upon us. As regards Lord Harry's death, we are informed by Dr. Vimpany, who seems to have been his friend as well as his medical adviser--" "Dr. Vimpany had been living with him for some time." --"that he had a somewhat protracted illness?" "I was away from my husband. I was staying here in London--on business--for some time before his death. I was not even aware that he was in any danger. When I hurried back to Passy I was too late. My husband was--was already buried." "It was most unfortunate. And the fact that his lordship was not on speaking terms with the members of his own family--pray understand that I am not expressing any opinion on the case--but this fact seems to render his end more unhappy." "He had Dr. Vimpany," said Iris, in a tone which suggested to the lawyer jealousy or dislike of the doctor. "Well," he said, "it remains to prove the will and to make our claims against the Insurance Office. I have the policy here. His lordship was insured in the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company for the sum of 15,000 pounds. We must not expect to have this large claim satisfied quite immediately. Perhaps the office will take three months to settle. But, as I said before, your ladyship can draw upon us." "You are certain that the Company will pay?" "Assuredly. Why not? They must pay." "Oh! I thought that perhaps so large a sum--" "My dear Madam"--the man who administered so much real and personal property smiled--"fifteen thousand pounds is not what we call a very large sum. Why, if an Insurance Company refused to pay a lawful claim it would cut its own throat--absolutely. Its very existence depends upon its meeting all just and lawful claims. The death being proved it remains for the Company to pay the insurance into the hands of the person entitled to receive it. That is, in this case, to me, acting for you." "Yes--I see--but I thought that, perhaps, my husband having died abroad there might be difficulty--" "There might, if he had died in Central Africa. But he died in a suburb of Paris, under French law, which, in such matters, is even more careful and exacting than our own. We have the official papers, and the doctor's certificate. We have, besides, a photograph of the unfortunate gentleman lying on his death-bed--this was well thought of: it is an admirable likeness--the sun cannot lie--we have also a photograph of the newly erected tombstone. Doubt? Dear me, Madam, they could no more raise a doubt as to your husband's death than if he were buried in the family vault. If anything should remove any ground for doubt, it is the fact that the only person who benefits by his death is yourself. If, on the other hand, he had been in the hands of persons who had reason to wish for his death, there might have been suspicions of foul play, which would have been matter for the police--but not for an insurance company." "Oh! I am glad to learn, at least, that there will be no trouble. I have no knowledge of business, and I thought that--" "No--no--your ladyship need have no such ideas. In fact, I have already anticipated your arrival, and have sent to the manager of the company. He certainly went so far as to express a doubt as to the cause of death. Consumption in any form was not supposed to be in your husband's family. But Lord Harry--ahem!--tried his constitution--tried his constitition, as I put it." He had put it a little differently. What he said was to the following effect--"Lord Harry Norland, sir, was a devil. There was nothing he did not do. I only wonder that he has lived so long. Had I been told that he died of everything all together, I should not have been surprised. Ordinary rapid consumption was too simple for such a man." Iris gave the lawyer her London address, obeyed him by drawing a hundred pounds, half of which she sent to Mr. William Linville, at Louvain, and went home to wait. She must now stay in London until the claim was discharged. She waited six weeks. At the end of that time she learned from her solicitors that the company had settled, and that they, the lawyers, had paid to her bankers the sum of 15,000 pounds being the whole of the insurance. Acting, then, on her husband's instructions, she sought another bank and opened an account for one William Linville, gentleman, residing abroad. She gave herself as a reference, left the usual signature of William Linville, and paid to his account a cheque for 8,000 pounds. She saw the manager of her own bank, explained that this large cheque was for an investment, and asked him to let her have 2,000 pounds in bank notes. This sum, she added, was for a special purpose. The manager imagined that she was about to perform some act of charity, perhaps an expiatory work on behalf of her late husband. She then wrote to Dr. Vimpany, who was in Paris, making an appointment with him. Her work of fraud and falsehood was complete. "There has been no trouble at all," she wrote to her husband; "and there will not be any. The insurance company has already settled the claim. I have paid 8,000 pounds to the account of William Linville. My own banker--who knows my father--believes that the money is an investment. My dear Harry, I believe that, unless the doctor begins to worry us--which he will do as soon as his money is all gone--a clear course lies before us. Let us, as I have already begged you to do, go straight away to some part of America, where you are certain not to be known. You can dye your hair and grow a beard to make sure. Let us go away from every place and person that may remind us of time past. Perhaps, in time, we may recover something of the old peace and--can it ever be?--the old self-respect." There was going to be trouble, however, and that of a kind little expected, impossible to be guarded against. And it would be trouble caused by her own act and deed. CHAPTER LIX THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN ADVERTISEMENT THE trouble was made by Iris herself. In this way-- She saw Fanny's advertisement. Her first impulse was to take her back into her service. But she remembered the necessity for concealment. She must not place herself--she realised already the fact that she had done a thing which would draw upon her the vengeance of the law--and her husband in the power of this woman, whose fidelity might not stand the shock of some fit of jealousy, rage, or revenge for fancied slight. She must henceforth be cut off altogether from all her old friends. She therefore answered the letter by one which contained no address, and which she posted with her own hand at the General Post Office. She considered her words carefully. She must not say too much or too little. "I enclose," she said, "a bank note for ten pounds to assist you. I am about to travel abroad, but must, under existing circumstances, dispense with the services of a maid. In the course of my travels I expect to be in Brussels. If, therefore, you have anything to tell me or to ask of me, write to me at the Poste Restante of that city, and in the course of six mouths or so I am tolerably sure to send for the letter. In fact, I shall expect to find a letter from you. Do not think that I have forgotten you or your faithful services, though for a moment I am not able to call you to my side. Be patient." There was no address given in the letter. This alone was mysterious. If Lady Harry was in London and the letter was posted at the General Post Office--why should she not give her address? If she was abroad, why should she hide her address? In any case, why should she do without a maid--she who had never been without a maid--to whom a maid was as necessary as one of her hands? Oh! she could never get along at all without a maid. As for Iris's business in London and her part in the conspiracy, of course Fanny neither knew nor suspected. She had recourse again to her only friend--Mrs. Vimpany--to whom she sent Lady Harry's letter, and imploring her to lay the whole before Mr. Mountjoy. "He is getting so much stronger," Mrs. Vimpany wrote back, "that I shall be able to tell him every thing before long. Do not be in a hurry. Let us do nothing that may bring trouble upon her. But I am sure that something is going on--something wicked. I have read your account of what has happened over and over again. I am as convinced as you could possibly be that my husband and Lord Harry are trading on the supposed death of the letter. We can do nothing. Let us wait." Three days afterwards she wrote again. "The opportunity for which I have been waiting has come at last. Mr. Mountjoy is, I believe, fully recovered. This morning, seeing him so well and strong, I asked him if I might venture to place in his hands a paper containing a narrative. "'Is it concerning Iris?' he asked. "'It has to do with Lady Harry--indirectly.' "For a while he made no reply. Then he asked me if it had also to do with her husband. "'With her husband and with mine,' I told him. "Again he was silent. "After a bit he looked up and said, 'I had promised myself never again to interfere in Lady Harry Norland's affairs. You wish me to read this document, Mrs. Vimpany?" "'Certainly; I am most anxious that you should read it and should advise upon it.' "'Who wrote it?' "'Fanny Mere, Lady Harry's maid.' "'If it is only to tell me that her husband is a villain,' he said, 'I will not read it.' "'If you were enabled by reading it to keep Lady Harry from a dreadful misfortune?' I suggested. "'Give me the document,' he said. "Before I gave it to him--it was in my pocket--I showed him a newspaper containing a certain announcement. "'Lord Harry dead?' he cried. 'Impossible! Then Iris is free.' "'Perhaps you will first read the document.' I drew it out of my pocket, gave it to him, and retired. He should be alone while he read it. "Half an hour afterwards I returned. I found him in a state of the most violent agitation, without, however, any of the weakness which he betrayed on previous occasions. "'Mrs. Vimpany,' he cried, 'this is terrible! There is no doubt--not the least doubt--in my mind that the man Oxbye is the man buried under the name of Lord Harry, and that he was murdered--murdered in cold blood--by that worst of villains----' "'My husband,' I said. "'Your husband--most unfortunate of wives! As for Lord Harry's share in the murder, it is equally plain that he knew of it, even if he did not consent to it. Good heavens! Do you understand? Do you realise what they have done? Your husband and Iris's husband may be tried--actually tried--for murder and put to a shameful death. Think of it!' "'I do think of it, Heaven knows! I think of it every day--I think of it all day long. But, remember, I will say nothing that will bring this fate upon them. And Fanny will say nothing. Without Fanny's evidence there cannot be even a suspicion of the truth.' "'What does Iris know about it?' "'I think that she cannot know anything of the murder. Consider the dates. On Wednesday Fanny was dismissed; on Thursday she returned secretly and witnessed the murder. It was on Thursday morning that Lady Harry drove to Victoria on her return to Passy, as we all supposed, and as I still suppose. On Saturday Funny was back again. The cottage was deserted. She was told that the man Oxbye had got up and walked away; that her mistress had not been at the house at all, but was travelling in Switzerland; and that Lord Harry was gone on a long journey. And she was sent into Switzerland to get her out of the way. I gather from all this that Lady Harry was taken away by her husband directly she arrived--most likely by night--and that of the murder she knew nothing.' "'No--no--she could know nothing! That, at least, they dared not tell her. But about the rest? How much does she know? How far has she lent herself to the conspiracy? Mrs. Vimpany, I shall go back to London to-night. We will travel by the night train. I feel quite strong enough.' "I began this letter in Scotland; I finish it in London. "We are back again in town. Come to the hotel at once, and see us." So, there was now a Man to advise. For once, Fanny was thankful for the creation of Man. To the most misanthropic female there sometimes comes a time when she must own that Man has his uses. These two women had now got a Man with whom to take counsel. "I do not ask you," said Mr. Mountjoy, with grave face, "how far this statement of yours is true: I can see plainly that it is true in every particular." "It is quite true, sir; every word of it is true. I have been tempted to make out a worse case against the doctor, but I have kept myself to the bare truth." "You could not make out a worse case against any man. It is the blackest case that I ever heard of or read. It is the foulest murder. I do not understand the exact presence of Lord Harry when the medicine was given. Did he see the doctor administer it? Did he say anything?" "He turned white when the doctor told him that the man was going to die--that day, perhaps, or next day. When the doctor was pouring out the medicine he turned pale again and trembled. While the doctor was taking the photograph he trembled again. I think, sir--I really think--that he knew all along that the man was going to die, but when it came to the moment, he was afraid. If it had depended on him, Oxbye would be alive still." "He was a consenting party. Well; for the moment both of you keep perfect silence. Don't discuss the timing with each other lest you should be overheard: bury the thing. I am going to make some inquiries." The first thing was to find out what steps had been taken, if any, with insurance companies. For Iris's sake his inquiry had to be conducted quite openly. His object must seem none other than the discovery of Lady Harry Norland's present address. When bankers, insurance companies, and solicitors altogether have to conduct a piece of business it is not difficult to ascertain such a simple matter. He found out the name of the family solicitor, he went to the office, sent in his card, and stated his object. As a very old friend of Lady Harry's, he wanted to learn her address. He had just come up from Scotland, where he had been ill, and had only just learned her terrible bereavement. The lawyer made no difficulty at all. There was no reason why he should. Lady Harry had been in London; she was kept in town for nearly two months by business connected with the unfortunate event; but she had now gone--she was travelling Switzerland or elsewhere. As for her address, a letter addressed to his care should be forwarded on hearing from her ladyship. "Her business, I take it, was the proving of the will and the arrangement of the property." "That was the business which kept her in town." "Lady Harry," Mr. Mountjoy went on, "had a little property of her own apart from what she may ultimately get from her father. About five thousand pounds--not more." "Indeed? She did not ask my assistance in respect of her own property." "I suppose it is invested and in the hands of trustees. But, indeed, I do not know. Lord Harry himself, I have heard, was generally in a penniless condition. Were there any insurances?" "Yes; happily there was insurance paid for him by the family. Otherwise there would have been nothing for the widow." "And this has been paid up, I suppose?" "Yes; it has been paid into her private account." "Thank you," said Mr. Mountjoy. "With your permission, I will address a letter to Lady Harry here. Will you kindly order it to be forwarded at the very earliest opportunity?" "Iris," he thought, "will not come to London any more. She has been persuaded by her husband to join in the plot. Good heavens! She has become a swindler--a conspirator---a fraudulent woman! Iris!--it is incredible--it is horrible! What shall we do?" He first wrote a letter, to the care of the lawyers. He informed her that he had made a discovery of the highest importance to herself--he refrained from anything that might give rise to suspicion; he implored her to give him an interview anywhere, in any part of the world--alone, he told her that the consequences of refusal might be fatal--absolutely fatal--to her future happiness: he conjured her to believe that he was anxious for nothing but her happiness: that he was still, as always, her most faithful friend. Well; he could do no more. He had not the least expectation that his letter would do any good; he did not even believe that it would reach Iris. The money was received and paid over to her own account. There was really no reason at all why she should place herself again in communication with these lawyers. What would she do, then? One thing only remained. With her guilty husband, this guilty woman must remain in concealment for the rest of their days, or until death released her of the man who was pretending to be dead. At the best, they might find some place where there would be no chance of anybody ever finding them who knew either of them before this wicked thing was done. But could she know of the murder? He remembered the instruction given to Fanny. She was to write to Brussels. Let her therefore write at once. He would arrange what she was to say. Under his dictation, therefore, Fanny wrote as follows:-- "My Lady,--I have received your ladyship's letter, and your kind gift of ten pounds. I note your directions to write to you at Brussels, and I obey them. "Mr. Mountjoy, who has been ill and in Scotland, has come back to London. He begs me to tell you that he has had an interview with your lawyers, and has learned that you have been in town on business, the nature of which he has also learned. He has left an important letter for you at their office. They will forward it as soon as they learn your address. "Since I came back from Passy I have thought it prudent to set down in writing an exact account of everything that happened there under my own observation. Mr. Mountjoy has read my story, and thinks that I ought without delay to send a copy of it to you. I therefore send you one, in which I have left out all the names, and put in A, B, and C instead, by his directions. He says that you will have no difficulty in filling up the names. "I remain, my dear Lady, "Your ladyship's most obedient and humble servant, "FANNY MERE." This letter, with the document, was dispatched to Brussels that night. And this is the trouble which Iris brought upon herself by answering Fanny's advertisement. CHAPTER LX ON THE EVE OF A CHANGE IRIS returned to Louvain by way of Paris. She had to settle up with the doctor. He obeyed her summons and called upon her at the hotel. "Well, my lady," he began in his gross voice, rubbing his hands and laughing, "it has come off, after all; hasn't it?" "I do not desire, Dr. Vimpany, to discuss anything with you. We will proceed to settle what business we have together." "To think that your ladyship should actually fall in!" he replied. "Now I confess that this was to me the really difficult part of the job. It is quite easy to pretend that a man is dead, but not so easy to touch his money. I really do not see how we could have managed at all without your co-operation. Well, you've had no difficulty, of course?" "None at all." "I am to have half." "I am instructed to give you two thousand pounds. I have the money here for you." "I hope you consider that I deserve this share?" "I think, Dr. Vimpany, that whatever you get in the future or the present you will richly deserve. You have dragged a man down to your own level--" "And a woman too." "A woman too. Your reward will come, I doubt not." "If it always takes the form of bank-notes I care not how great the reward may be. You will doubtless, as a good Christian, expect your own reward--for him and for you?" "I have mine already," she replied sadly. "Now, Dr. Vimpany, let me pay you, and get rid of your company." He counted the money carefully and put it in the banker's bag in his coat-pocket. "Thank you, my lady. We have exchanged compliments enough over this job." "I hope--I pray--that we may never set eyes on you again." "I cannot say. People run up against each other in the strangest manner, especially people who've done shady things and have got to keep in the background." "Enough!--enough!" "The background of the world is a very odd place, I assure you. It is full of interesting people. The society has a piquancy which you will find, I hope, quite charming. You will be known by another name, of course?" "I shall not tell you by what name--" "Tut--tut! I shall soon find out. The background gets narrower when you fall into misery." "What do you mean?" "I mean, Lady Harry, that your husband has no idea whatever as to the value of money. The two thousand that you are taking him will vanish in a year or two. What will you do then? As for myself, I know the value of money so well that I am always buying the most precious and delightful things with it. I enjoy them immensely. Never any man enjoyed good things so much as I do. But the delightful things cost money. Let us be under no illusions. Your ladyship and your noble husband and I all belong to the background; and in a year or two we shall belong to the needy background. I daresay that very soon after that the world will learn that we all belong to the criminal background. I wish your ladyship a joyful reunion with your husband!" He withdrew, and Iris set eyes on him no more. But the prophecy with which he departed remained with her, and it was with a heart foreboding fresh sorrows that she left Paris and started for Louvain. Here began the new life--that of concealment and false pretence. Iris put off her weeds, but she never ventured abroad without a thick veil. Her husband, discovering that English visitors sometimes ran over from Brussels to see the Hotel de Ville, never ventured out at all till evening. They had no friends and no society of any kind. The house, which stood secluded behind a high wall in its garden, was in the quietest part of this quiet old city; no sound of life and work reached it; the pair who lived there seldom spoke to each other. Except at the midday breakfast and the dinner they did not meet. Iris sat in her own room, silent; Lord Harry sat in his, or paced the garden walks for hours. Thus the days went on monotonously. The clock ticked; the hours struck; they took meals; they slept; they rose and dressed; they took meals again--this was all their life. This was all that they could expect for the future. The weeks went on. For three months Iris endured this life. No news came to her from the outer world; her husband had even forgotten the first necessary of modern life--the newspaper. It was not the ideal life of love, apart from the world, where the two make for themselves a Garden of Eden; it was a prison, in which two were confined together who were kept apart by their guilty secret. They ceased altogether to speak; their very meals were taken in silence. The husband saw continual reproach in his wife's eyes; her sad and heavy look spoke more plainly than any words, "It is to this that you have brought me." One morning Iris was idly turning over the papers in her desk. There were old letters, old photographs, all kinds of trifling treasures that reminded her of the past--a woman keeps everything; the little mementoes of her childhood, her first governess, her first school, her school friendships--everything. As Iris turned over these things her mind wandered back to the old days. She became again a young girl--innocent, fancy free; she grew up--she was a woman innocent still. Then her mind jumped at one leap to the present, and she saw herself as she was--innocent no longer, degraded and guilty, the vile accomplice of a vile conspiracy. Then, as one who has been wearing coloured glasses puts them off and sees things in their own true colours, she saw how she had been pulled down by a blind infatuation to the level of the man who had held her in his fascination; she saw him as he was--reckless, unstable, careless of name and honour. Then for the first time she realised the depths into which she was plunged and the life which she was henceforth doomed to lead. The blind love fell from her--it was dead at last; but it left her bound to the man by a chain which nothing could break; she was in her right senses; she saw things as they were; but the knowledge came too late. Her husband made no attempt to bridge over the estrangement which had thus grown up between them: it became wider every day; he lived apart and alone; he sat in his own room, smoking more cigars, drinking more brandy-and-water than was good for him; sometimes he paced the gravel walks in the garden; in the evening, after dinner, he went out and walked about the empty streets of the quiet city. Once or twice he ventured into a cafe, sitting in a corner, his hat drawn over his eyes; but that was dangerous. For the most part he kept in the streets, and he spoke to no one. Meantime the autumn had given place to winter, which began in wet and dreary fashion. Day and night the rain fell, making the gravel walks too wet and the streets impossible. Then Lord Harry sat in his room and smoked all day long. And still the melancholy of the one increased, and the boredom of the other. He spoke at last. It was after breakfast. "Iris," he said, "how long is this to continue?" "This--what?" "This life--this miserable solitude and silence." "Till we die," she replied. "What else do you expect? You have sold our freedom, and we must pay the price." "No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer." "You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay." "No," he repeated, "it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this no longer." "You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little society." "What do you care what I do or where I go?" "We will not reproach each other, Harry." "Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy looks and your silence?" "Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life." "Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan. Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad." "And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it. Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness." "I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will leave Louvain." "We can, I dare say," Iris replied coldly, "find another town, French or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a garden, and hide there." "No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding." "Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else's widow?" "We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village, buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the world--you will--" he hesitated--"you will be able to forgive me, and to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake." "It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you that you should expect love?" "Will you go with me to America--love or no love? I cannot stay here--I will not stay here." "I will go with you wherever you please. I should like not to run risks. There are still people whom it would pain to see Iris Henley tried and found guilty with two others on a charge of fraudulent conspiracy." "I wouldn't accustom myself, if I were you, Iris, to speak of things too plainly. Leave the thing to me and I will arrange it. See now, we will travel by a night train from Brussels to Calais. We will take the cross-country line from Amiens to Havre; there we will take boat for New York--no English people ever travel by the Havre line. Once in America we will push up country--to Kentucky or somewhere--and find that quiet country place: after that I ask no more. I will settle down for the rest of my life, and have no more adventures. Do you agree, Iris?" "I will do anything that you wish," she replied coldly. "Very well. Let us lose no time. I feel choked here. Will you go into Brussels and buy a Continental Bradshaw or a Baedeker, or something that will tell us the times of sailing, the cost of passage, and all the rest of it? We will take with us money to start us with: you will have to write to your bankers. We can easily arrange to have the money sent to New York, and it can be invested there--except your own fortune--in my new name. We shall want no outfit for a fortnight at sea. I have arranged it all beautifully. Child, look like your old self." He took an unresisting hand. "I want to see you smile and look happy again." "You never will." "Yes--when we have got ourselves out of this damnable, unwholesome way of life; when we are with our fellow-creatures again. You will forget this--this little business--which was, you know, after all, an unhappy necessity." "Oh! how can I ever forget?" "New interests will arise; new friendships will be formed--" "Harry, it is myself that I cannot forgive. Teach me to forgive myself, and I will forget everything." He pressed her no longer. "Well, then," he said, "go to Brussels and get this information. If you will not try to conquer this absurd moral sensitiveness--which comes too late--you will at least enable me to place you in a healthier atmosphere." "I will go at once," she said, "I will go by the next train." "There is a train at a quarter to two. You can do all you have to do and catch the train at five. Iris"--the chance of a change made him impatient--"let us go to-morrow. Let us go by the night express. There will be English travellers, but they shall not recognise me. We shall be in Calais at one in the morning. We will go on by an early train before the English steamer comes in. Will you be ready?" "Yes; there is nothing to delay me. I suppose we can leave the house by paying the rent? I will go and do what you want." "Let us go this very night." "If you please; I am always ready." "No: there will be no time; it will look like running away. We will go to-morrow night. Besides, you would be too tired after going to Brussels and back. Iris, we are going to be happy again--I am sure we are." He, for one, looked as if there was nothing to prevent a return of happiness. He laughed and waved his hands. "A new sky---new scenes--new work--you will be happy again, Iris. You shall go, dear. Get me the things I want." She put on her thick veil and started on her short journey. The husband's sudden return to his former good spirits gave her a gleam of hope. The change would be welcome indeed if it permitted him to go about among other men, and to her if it gave her occupation. As to forgetting--how could she forget the past, so long as they were reaping the fruit of their wickedness in the shape of solid dividends? She easily found what she wanted. The steamer of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique left Havre every eighth day. They would go by that line. The more she considered the plan the more it recommended itself. They would at any rate go out of prison. There would be a change in their life. Miserable condition! To have no other choice of life but that of banishment and concealment: no other prospect than that of continual fraud renewed by every post that brought them money. When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful city--where all the people except the market-women are young--pleased her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly she remembered the post-office and her instructions to Fanny Mere. "I wonder," she said, "if Fanny has written to me." She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked quickly. At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her--more than a letter, a parcel, apparently a book. She received it and hurried back to the station. In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her new books. Fanny Mere's letter she would read after dinner. At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he said, quite long enough. Give him the society of his fellow-creatures. "Put me among cannibals," he said, "and I should make friends with them. But to live alone--it is the devil! To-morrow we begin our new flight." After dinner he lit his cigar, and went on chattering about the future. Iris remembered the packet she had got at the post-office, and opened it. It contained a small manuscript book filled with writing and a brief letter. She read the letter, laid it down, and opened the book. CHAPTER LXI THE LAST DISCOVERY "I SHALL like to turn farmer," Lord Harry went on talking while Iris opened and began to read Fanny's manuscript. "After all my adventures, to settle down in a quiet place and cultivate the soil. On market-day we will drive into town together"--he talked as if Kentucky were Warwickshire--"side by side in a spring cart. I shall have samples of grain in bags, and you will have a basket of butter and cream. It will be an ideal life. We shall dine at the ordinary, and, after dinner, over a pipe and a glass of grog, I shall discuss the weather and the crops. And while we live in this retreat of ours, over here the very name of Harry Norland will have been forgotten. Queer, that! We shall go on living long after we are dead and buried and forgotten. In the novels the man turns up after he is supposed to be cast away--wrecked--drowned--dead long ago. But he never turns up when he is forgotten--unless he is Rip Van Winkle. By Gad, Iris! when we are old people we will go home and see the old places together. It will be something to look forward to--something to live for--eh?" "I feel quite happy this evening, Iris; happier than I have been for months. The fact is, this infernal place has hipped us both confoundedly. I didn't like to grumble, but I've felt the monotony more than a bit. And so have you. It's made you brood over things. Now, for my part, I like to look at the bright side. Here we are comfortably cut off from the past. That's all done with. Nothing in the world can revive the memory of disagreeable things if we are only true to ourselves and agree to forget them. What has been done can never be discovered. Not a soul knows except the doctor, and between him and ourselves we are going to put a few thousand--What's the matter, Iris? What the devil is the matter?" For Iris, who had been steadily reading while her husband chattered on, suddenly dropped the book, and turned upon him a white face and eyes struck with horror. "What is it?" Lord Harry repeated. "Oh! Is this true?" "What?" "I cannot say it. Oh, my God! can this be true?" "What? Speak, Iris." He sprang to his feet. "Is it--is it discovered?" "Discovered? Yes, all--all--all--is discovered!" "Where? How? Give me the thing, Iris. Quick! Who knows? What is known?" He snatched the book from her hands. She shrank from his touch, and pushed back her chair, standing in an attitude of self-defence--watching him as one would watch a dangerous creature. He swiftly read page after page, eager to know the worst. Then he threw the book upon the table. "Well?" he said, not lifting his eyes. "The man was murdered--murdered!" she whispered. He made no reply. "You looked on while he was murdered! You looked on consenting! You are a murderer!" "I had no share or part in it. I did not know he was being poisoned." "You knew when I was with you. Oh! the dead man--the murdered man--was in the house at the very moment! Your hands were red with blood when you took me away--to get me out of the way--so that I should not know--" She stopped, she could not go on. "I did not know, Iris--not with certainty. I thought he was dying when he came into the house. He did not die; he began to recover. When the doctor gave him his medicine--after that woman went away--I suspected. When he died, my suspicions were stronger. I challenged him. He did not deny it. Believe me, Iris, I neither counselled it nor knew of it." "You acquiesced in it. You consented. You should have warned the--the other murderer that you would denounce him if the man died. You took advantage of it. His death enabled you to carry out your fraud with me as your accomplice. With ME! I am an accomplice in a murder!" "No, no, Iris; you knew nothing of it. No one can ever accuse you--" "You do not understand. It is part of the accusation which I make against myself." "As for what this woman writes," her husband went on, "it is true. I suppose it is useless to deny a single word of it. She was hidden behind the curtain, then! She heard and saw all! If Vimpany had found her! He was right. No one so dangerous as a woman. Yes; she has told you exactly what happened. She suspected all along. We should have sent her away and changed our plans. This comes of being too clever. Nothing would do for the doctor but the man's death. I hoped--we both hoped--that he would die a natural death. He did not. Without a dead man we were powerless. We had to get a dead man, Iris, I will hide nothing more from you, whatever happens. I confess everything. I knew that he was going to die. When he began to get well I was filled with forebodings, because I knew that he would never be allowed to go away. How else could we find a dead body? You can't steal a body; you can't make one up. You must have one for proof of death. I say"--his voice was harsh and hoarse--"I say that I knew he must die. I saw his death in the doctor's face. And there was no more money left for a new experiment if Oxbye should get well and go away. When it came to the point I was seized with mortal terror. I would have given up everything--everything--to see the man get up from his bed and go away. But it was too late. I saw the doctor prepare the final dose, and when he had it to his lips I saw by his eyes that it was the drink of death. I have told you all," he concluded. "You have told me all," she repeated. "All! Good Heavens! All!" "I have hidden nothing from you. Now there is nothing more to tell." She stood perfectly still--her hands clasped, her eyes set, her face white and stern. "What I have to do now," she said, "lies plain before me." "Iris! I implore you, make no change in our plans. Let us go away as we proposed. Let the past be forgotten. Come with me--" "Go with you? With you? With you? Oh!" she shuddered. "Iris! I have told you all. Let us go on as if you had heard nothing. We cannot be more separated than we have been for the last three months. Let us remain as we are until the time when you will be able to feel for me--to pity my weakness--and to forgive me." "You do not understand. Forgive you? It is no longer a question of forgiveness. Who am I that my forgiveness should be of the least value to you--or to any?" "What is the question, then?" "I don't know. A horrible crime has been committed--a horrible, ghastly, dreadful crime--such a thing as one reads of in the papers and wonders, reading it, what manner of wild beasts must be those who do such things. Perhaps one wonders, besides, what manner of women must be those who associate with those wild beasts. My husband is one of those wild beasts!--my husband!--my husband!--and--I--I am one of the women who are the fit companions of these wild creatures." "You can say what you please, Iris; what you please." "I have known--only since I came here have I really known and understood--that I have wrecked my life in a blind passion. I have loved you, Harry; it has been my curse. I followed you against the warnings of everybody: I have been rewarded--by this. We are in hiding. If we are found we shall be sent to a convict prison for conspiracy. We shall be lucky if we are not tried for murder and hanged by the neck until we are dead. This is my reward!" "I have never played the hypocrite with you, Iris. I have never pretended to virtues which I do not possess. So far--" "Hush! Do not speak to me. I have something more to say, and then I shall never speak to you any more. Hush! Let me collect my thoughts. I cannot find the words. I cannot. . . Wait--wait! Oh!" She sat down and burst into sobbings and moanings. But only for a minute. Then she sprang to her feet again and dashed back the tears. "Time for crying," she said, "when all is done. Harry, listen carefully; these are my last words. You will never hear from me any more. You must manage your own life in your own way, to save it or to spoil it; I will never more bear any part in it. I am going back to England--alone. I shall give up your name, and I shall take my maiden name again--or some other. I shall live somewhere quietly where you will not discover me. But perhaps you will not look for me?" "I will not," he said. "I owe you so much. I will not look for you." "As regards the money which I have obtained for you under false pretences, out of the fifteen thousand pounds for which you were insured, five thousand have been paid to my private account. I shall restore to the Company all that money." "Good Heavens! Iris, you will be prosecuted on a criminal charge." "Shall I? That will matter little, provided I make reparation. Alas! who shall make reparation--who shall atone--for the blood-spilling? For all things else in this world we may make what we call atonement; but not for the spilling of blood." "You mean this? You will deliberately do this?" "I mean every word. I will do nothing and say nothing that will betray you. But the money that I can restore, I will restore--SO HELP ME, GOD!" With streaming eyes she raised her hand and pointed upwards. Her husband bowed his head. "You have said all you wished to say?" he asked humbly. "I have said all." "Let me look in your face once more---so--full--with the light upon it. Yes; I have loved you, Iris--I have always loved you. Better, far better, for you had you fallen dead at my feet on the day when you became my wife. Then I should have been spared--I should have been spared a great deal. You are right, Iris. Your duty lies plainly before you. As for me, I must think of mine. Farewell! The lips of a murderer are not fit to touch even the hem of your garments. Farewell!" He left her. She heard the hall door open and shut. She would see her husband no more. She went to her own room and packed a single box with necessary things. Then she called the housemaid and informed her that she had been summoned to return suddenly to England; she must reach Brussels at least that evening. The woman brought a porter who carried her box to the station; and Iris left Louvain--and her husband--for ever. CHAPTER LXII THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT a Board Meeting of the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company, specially convened, the Chairman had to make a communication of a very remarkable character. "Gentlemen," he said, "I call upon the Secretary, without further introduction, to read a letter, to consider which you are called together this day." "The letter," the Secretary began, "is simply headed 'Paris,' dated two days ago." "Only two days ago," said the Chairman, mysteriously. "But, of course, that means nothing. There has been plenty of time for him to change his residence. I dare say he may be in London at our very elbow. Go on, if you please." "Gentlemen"--the Secretary proceeded to read the letter. "It is now three months since a claim was sent in to you by the firm of Erskine, Mansfield, Denham & Co., solicitors of Lincoln's Inn Fields, for the sum of 15,000 pounds due to the heirs of Lord Harry Norland in respect of an insurance effected upon his life." "The claim, gentlemen," said the Chairman, "was duly acknowledged and paid some weeks later. It was a heavy loss; but these things will occur, and there seemed no reason to doubt the facts alleged, or to dispute the claim." "I write this letter," the Secretary continued reading, "in order to inform you that the claim was fraudulent, inasmuch as Lord Harry Norland was at the time, and is still, actually living." Fraudulent! The man still living! At this point there was a sudden awakening. Everybody sat up and listened with all their ears. "I may tell you, gentlemen," the Chairman explained, "that the writer of this remarkable letter is none other than Lord Harry Norland himself. We will now proceed without further interruption." "In conjunction with another person, I devised and carried out successfully a plan by which I was enabled to touch at once, and without the disagreeable necessity of previously expiring and being buried, the whole of the money for which I was insured. Other people have attempted the same design, I believe, but the thing has hitherto been managed clumsily. In my own case, it has been managed with great dexterity and artistic skill. As you will naturally be curious on a subject which interests you so closely I have no objection to reveal the method. It is not enough to write to your office and state that a certain person is dead. One must be prepared with proofs of the death should any doubt arise. No proof of death is quite satisfactory without evidence as to the disposal of the dead body. With that object, we procured from the Hotel Dieu a patient apparently in an advanced state of consumption. My accomplice, being a medical man, highly recommended, was able to do this without suspicion. We nursed him ostentatiously. During the latter part of the illness he was nursed under the name of Lord Harry Norland. He died. His name was entered in the official register as Lord Harry Norland. He was buried in the cemetery at Auteuil, near Paris, as Lord Harry Norland. A headstone marks his grave, which is purchased in perpetuity. The doctor certified the cause of his death, and communicated the fact to the deceased's brother, Lord Malven, and to the deceased's solicitors. The death was also announced to the papers. The difficulties attendant on the successful conduct of the business are so great that you need not fear a repetition. Nobody, in order to assist a fraud, will consent to die and lend his own body. It is seldom, indeed, that a sick man can be found--a foreigner and friendless--whose death will cause no curiosity and raise no questions. Add to this, it is extremely difficult, as I have now experienced, to find the necessary assistance without encountering the objections of conscience." "Upon my word!" cried one of the Directors, "this is a most wonderful letter. I beg your pardon. Pray go on." "We began very well. We buried our man under the name of Lord Harry Norland, as I have said. The difficulty then arose as to the presentation of the claim. It was most desirable that the claim should be made by the person who would most naturally be the deceased's heir and after proving his will and by his own solicitor. "I am married. I have no children. I have not lived on good terms with my family. It was, therefore, quite reasonable to expect that I should leave my wife sole heir and executrix. It was also natural that she should go to my solicitors--the family solicitors--and ask them to manage her affairs. "With this object I confessed to my wife as much of the conspiracy as was necessary. Like many women, she possesses, in addition to every virtue, a blessed devotion to her husband. Where he is concerned she is easily led even from the paths of honour. I practised on that devotion; I used all the arguments and persuasions based on that devotion necessary to convert a woman of honour into the accomplice of a conspiracy. In brief, I made my wife join in the fraud. She consented to act for me, persuaded that if she did not the conspiracy would be discovered. The business has, therefore been carried through with the greatest success. You have paid the claim in full without question. For me there was left the very comfortable provision of 15,000 pounds, with the consciousness of a daring and successful swindle. Unfortunately, my wife has now discovered that her conscience will give her no peace or rest until full restitution of the money has been made. She has informed me of her intention to send back without delay that part of it which lies at her bank in her own name--that is to say, five thousand pounds. "I do not suppose that, as gentlemen, you would be disposed to subject a woman who thus desires to repair a wrong to the degradation of a public prosecution. No useful end, in fact, will be served in so doing. It is, in fact, in the conviction that you will take no proceedings that I write this letter. "Further, as I wish my wife's scruples of conscience to be completely set at rest, I am prepared, on an assurance that the matter will be allowed to drop, to forward to you the remainder of the money, less two thousand pounds, which I have reason to believe will be sent to you in course of time. I am also prepared to instruct my wife, as my heir, in the event of my death to make no claim on the Company; and I have requested my solicitor to cease paying the annual premium. The Company will, therefore, be the gainers of the whole premiums which have been paid--namely, 300 pounds a year for ten years: that is to say, 3,000 pounds. "As for myself, I will take the necessary steps as soon as you have given me that letter of assurance. As regards the other principal in the Conspiracy, it is hardly worth your while to search after him. I shall be obliged if you will be so good as to acknowledge this letter without delay, with any assurance which you may be able to make as regards the person whom I have dragged into the affair. I send you an address where a letter will find me. You may wish to watch the house. I assure you beforehand that it is useless. I shall not go there.--I remain, Gentlemen, "Your obedient servant, "HARRY NORLAND." "Perhaps," said the Secretary, "it is in connection with this letter that I have this day received a packet of bank-notes amounting in all to the sum of five thousand pounds. The packet is endorsed 'Restitution money.'" "Bank-notes, gentlemen," said the Chairman significantly, "may be traced if necessary." The Directors looked at each other. This was, indeed, a very remarkable story, and one never before brought to the notice of any Board. "Gentlemen," said the Chairman, "you have heard the letter; you now have the case before you. I should like to hear your views." "We are likely to get most of our money back," said one of the Directors, "it seems to me, by holding our tongues. That is the main thing." "If we could get Lord Harry himself," said another, "I should say: Go for him, but not for his wife. I wonder we ever took his life at all. If all stories are true about him he is as bad as they make 'em. He ran away when he was a boy, and went to sea: he was a strolling actor after that: he went out to the States and was reported to have been seen in the West: he has been a ship's steward: he has been on the turf. What has he not been?" "We have got the money," said another; "that is the great thing. We must remember that we should never have found out the thing unless--" "The Company must not compound a felony," said the Chairman. "Certainly not. By no means. At the same time, would any good purpose be served by public scandal in connection with a noble House?" "The noble House," said another Director, who was Radical, "may very well take care of itself. Question is, Would it do any good to anybody if we ran in the wife?" "Who is she?" "You would expect a ruffian like Lord Harry to marry a woman like himself. Not at all. He married a most charming creature named Henley--Iris Henley--father very well known in the City. I heard of it at the time. She would have him---infatuated about him--sad business. Mr. Chairman, I submit that it is quite impossible for us to take proceedings against this unfortunate lady, who is doing her utmost to make restitution." "The Company must not compound a felony," the Chairman repeated. "Even if we do not get back that two thousand pounds," said the Secretary, "the Company will lose nothing. The surrender value must be considered." Then another of the Directors spoke. "We do not know where this lady is to be found. She is probably passing under another name. It is not our business to hunt her down." "And if we found her we should have to prove the case, and her guilty knowledge of the conspiracy," said another. "How would this precious letter be taken as evidence? Why, we do not even know that it is true. We might exhume the body: what would that prove after three months? We might open up the case, and spend a heap of money, and create a great scandal, and be none the better for it afterwards. My advice is, let the thing drop." "Well, but," objected another, "suppose we admit that the man is still living. He may die, and then there would be another claim upon us." "Of that," said the Chairman, "I think there need be no apprehension whatever. You have heard his letter. But, I repeat, we must not compound a felony!" "I submit, Mr. Chairman," said one who had not spoken--and he was a barrister--"that the Company knows nothing at all about Lady Harry Norland. We have had to deal with the firm of Erskine, Mansfield, Denham & Co., of Lincoln's Inn Fields: and a most respectable firm too. On their representations we paid the money. If it can be ascertained that we have been defrauded we must look to them. If we have to prosecute anybody it must be that respectable firm." "Good," said the Chairman. "I propose, therefore, that the Secretary write to Lord Harry Norland, informing him that the Company have had nothing at all to do with his wife, and do not recognise her action in any way. We shall then see what happens, and can proceed in accordance." At this moment a card was brought in. It was that of Mr. Erskine himself, senior partner in the very firm. He came in, old, eminently respectable, but shaken. He was greatly shaken. "Gentlemen," he said nervously, "I hasten to bring you a communication, a most extraordinary communication, which I have just received. It is nothing less than a confession--a full confession--from a person whom I had every reason to believe was dead. It is from Lord Harry Norland." "We know already," said the Chairman, superior, "the main facts which you are going to lay before us. We are met to-day in order to discuss our action in view of these facts. There has been a conspiracy of a very artful and ingenious character. It has been successful so far through the action of a woman. By the action of the same woman it is sought to make restitution. The hand of justice, however--" "Perhaps," said the lawyer, "you will oblige me by allowing me to read the letter." "Pray read it"--the Chairman bowed--"though I do not suppose it will add to the information we already possess." "Gentlemen"--the lawyer read--"You will be surprised and pained to learn that I am not--as you were given to understand--dead; but on the other hand, living and in the enjoyment of rude health. I see no reason why my life should not be prolonged to threescore years and ten. "The claim, therefore, which you sent in to the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company was fraudulent. It was the result of a deep-laid conspiracy. You have been made the innocent accomplice of a great crime. "My wife, who now knows the whole truth, is most anxious for restitution to be made. She is about to restore that portion of the money which lies in her name. Most of the rest will be sent back by myself, on certain conditions. "In communicating the fact of my being still alive to the head of my family you will please also to inform him that I authorise the discontinuance of the premium. This will save the family 300 pounds a year. This will be a solatium to him for the fact that his brother still lives to disgrace the name. If I should die before the next premium is due I order my heirs not to claim the money.--I remain, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, "HARRY NORLAND." "The premium which should have been paid under ordinary circumstances," said the Secretary, "was due six weeks ago. The policy has therefore expired." "It is a characteristic letter," said the lawyer. "Lord Harry was born to be a trouble to his family. There has never been a time, so far as I remember, when he was not a trouble and a disgrace. Hitherto, however, he has avoided actual crime--at least, actual detection. Now, I suppose, the game is up. Yet, gentlemen, the letter is not that of an utter villain." "He will not be caught," observed the Chairman. "The letter is from too cool a hand. He has prepared a retreat. I dare say by this time he is in some safe and convenient disguise. We are only concerned--are we not?--for the moment with the lady. She has received the money from you. We paid it to you on your representations." "Observe," said the lawyer, "that the moment she learns the truth she hastens to make restitution." "Humph!" said the Director, turning over Lord Harry's letter so that the lawyer should not be able to read the contents. "Have you seen her?" "I have not. I expect to do so before long. She will certainly call upon me." "She will be ill-advised," said the Chairman, "if she calls upon anybody just at present. Well, sir, I confess that I should be sorry--every member of this Board would be sorry--to see that lady placed in the dock beside her husband." "In the interests of the noble family concerned, I hope that neither of them will be placed in the dock." "Do you know who is the other man--the second principal?" "I can guess. I do not know, however, where he is. All I know is what I have communicated to you--the contents of this letter." "One would like to get hold of the other man," said the Chairman. "Presumably he does not belong to a noble family. Well, sir, I don't know what may be done; but this Company cannot, I repeat, compound a felony." "Certainly not. Most certainly not. At present, however, you have got very little to go upon. And unless evidence is forthcoming--" "We will not discuss that part of the business," said the Chairman. "A conspiracy has been undoubtedly entered into. We may be compelled to bring an action of some kind against your firm, Mr. Erskine. As regards the lady, if she is guilty--" "No--no," said the lawyer, "upon my life! Sinned against--not guilty." The Chairman folded up Lord Harry's letter and gave it to the Secretary. "We are much obliged to you, sir, for your prompt action. It is, of course, only what we should have expected of your firm. Meantime, remember that the claim was made by you, that you received the money, and--but we will communicate with you in a few days." The Secretary wrote such a letter as was suggested. By return of post a cheque was sent, signed by one William Linville, for the sum of eight thousand pounds. The Company had, therefore, recovered thirteen out of fifteen thousand pounds. The Secretary had another interview with Mr. Erskine, the result of which was that the Company recovered the remaining two thousand pounds. Every firm of solicitors contains its own secrets and keeps them. Therefore, we need not inquire whether it was intended that this money should be paid by the firm or by the noble family to which Lord Harry Norland belonged. It is, however, certain that a few days afterwards Mr. Hugh Mountjoy called at the office and had a long conversation with the senior partner, and that he left behind him a very big cheque. The subject has never been brought before the Directors again. It was, indeed, privately discussed, and that frequently. Perhaps the story was whispered about outside the Board-room. These things do get about. There has been, however, a feeling that the thing, which would have been perfectly successful but for the conscience of a woman concerned, might be repeated with less tender consciences, and so the Companies be defrauded. Now the wickedness of the world is already so great that it needs no more teaching to make it worse. On the whole, the less said the better. Besides, the tragic event which happened a day or two later effectively prevented any further step. That in itself was sufficient to wipe out the whole business. CHAPTER LXIII A REFUGE IT was all over. Iris had sent in her money. She was in a small lodging found for her by Fanny Mere, who called her cousin. She stayed indoors all day long, afraid of stirring abroad; afraid to read the papers; afraid that her husband was arrested on the charge of conspiracy and fraud; afraid that some kind of hue and cry might be out after her. Therefore, when she heard a manly step on the stair, she started and turned pale, expecting nothing short of an armed messenger of the law. She never was in this danger for a single minute, but conscience made a coward of her. The step was that of Hugh Mountjoy. "I found you out," he said, "by means of Fanny. The girl knew that she was safe in letting me know your secret. Why are you in concealment?" "You cannot know all, or you would not ask me that." "I do know all; and again I ask, why are you in concealment?" "Because--Oh, Hugh--spare me!" "I know all, which is the reason why I cannot choose but come to see you. Come out of this poor place; resume your own name. There is no reason why you should not. You were not present at Passy when this conspiracy was hatched; you got there after the funeral. You, naturally, went to see the family solicitors. Iris, what has the conspiracy to do with you?" It will be observed that Hugh had not read the letter written to the Directors of the Company. "Do you know about the money?" "Certainly. You sent back all that you could--five thousand pounds. That showed your own innocence--" "Hugh, you know that I am guilty." "The world will think that you are innocent. At any rate, you can come out and go about without fear. Tell me, what are your plans?" "I have no plans. I only want to hide my head--somewhere." "Yes; we will talk about that presently. Meantime, I have some news for you." "News? What news?" "Really good news. I have to tell you a thing which will surprise you." "Good news? What good news is there for me?" "Your husband has sent back the whole of the money." "Sent back? To the Insurance Office?" "All has been sent back. He wrote two letters--one to the solicitors and the other to the Insurance Company. It is not likely now that anything can be said, because the Directors have accepted the money. Moreover, it appears that they might have proceeded against the lawyers for the recovery of the money, but that they have nothing to do either with you or with Lord Harry Norland. That is a difficult point, however. Somebody, it seems, has compounded--or is going to compound--a felony. I do not understand exactly what this means, or what dreadful consequences might follow; but I am assured by the lawyers that we need apprehend nothing more. All is over." Iris heaved a profound sigh. "Then he is safe?" she said. "You think of him first," said Hugh, jealously. "Yes: he is safe; and, I do hope, gone away, out of the country, never to come back any more. The more important thing is that you should be safe from him. As for the doctor--but I cannot speak of the doctor with common patience. Let him be left to the end which always awaits such men. It is to be hoped that he will never, wherever he goes, feel himself in safety." "I am safe," said Iris, "not only from my husband, but from what else beside? You know what I mean. You mean that I, as well as my husband, am safe from that. Oh! the fear of it has never left me--never for one moment. You tell me that I am safe from public disgrace, and I rejoice--when I ought to sink into the earth with shame!" She covered her face with her hands. "Iris, we know what you have done. We also know why you did it. What need we say more? The thing is finished and done with. Let us never again allude to it. The question now is--what will you do next? Where will you live?" "I do not know. I have got Fanny Mere with me. Mrs. Vimpany is also anxious to live with me. I am rich, indeed, since I have two faithful dependants and one friend." "In such wealth, Iris, you will always be rich. Now listen seriously. I have a villa in the country. It is far away from London, in the Scottish Lowlands--quite out of the way--remote even from tourists and travellers. It is a very lonely place, but there is a pretty house, with a great garden behind and a stretch of sand and seashore in front. There one may live completely isolated. I offer you that villa for your residence. Take it; live in it as long as you please." "No, no. I must not accept such a gift." "You must, Iris--you shall. I ask it of you as a proof of friendship, and nothing more. Only, I fear that you will get tired of the loneliness." "No--no," she said. "I cannot get tired of loneliness it is all I want." "There is no society at all." "Society? Society for me?" "I go to the neighbourhood sometimes for fishing. You will let me call upon you?" "Who else has such a right?" "Then you will accept my offer?" "I feel that I must. Yes, Hugh; yes, with deepest gratitude." The next day she went down by the night-mail to Scotland. With her travelled Mrs. Vimpany and Fanny Mere. CHAPTER LXIV THE INVINCIBLES THE proceedings of Lord Harry after he had sent off that cheque were most remarkable. If he had invited--actually courted--what followed--he could not have acted differently. He left London and crossed over to Dublin. Arrived there, he went to a small hotel entirely frequented by Irish Americans and their friends. It was suspected of being the principal place of resort of the Invincibles. It was known to be a house entirely given up to the Nationalists. He made no attempt to conceal his name. He entered the hotel, greeted the landlord cheerfully, saluted the head waiter, ordered his dinner, and took no notice of the sullen looks with which he was received or the scowls which followed him about the coffee-room, where half a dozen men were sitting and talking, for the most part in whispers. He slept there that night. The next day, still openly and as if there was nothing to fear, either from England or from Ireland, he walked to the station and took his ticket, paying no attention to what all the world might have seen and understood--that he was watched. When he had taken his ticket two men immediately afterwards took tickets to the same place. The place where he was going was that part of Kerry where the Invincibles had formerly assassinated Arthur Mountjoy. The two men who followed him--who took their tickets for the same place--who got into the same carriage with him--were two members of that same fraternity. It is well known that he who joins that body and afterwards leaves it, or disobeys its order, or is supposed to betray its secrets, incurs the penalty of death. On the unexpected arrival of Lord Harry at this hotel, there had been hurriedly called together a meeting of those members then in Dublin. It was resolved that the traitor must be removed. Lots were cast, and the lot fell upon one who remembered past acts of kindness done by Lord Harry to his own people. He would fain have been spared this business, but the rules of the society are imperative. He must obey. It is the practice of the society when a murder has been resolved upon to appoint a second man, whose duty it is to accompany the murderer and to see that he executes his task. In the afternoon, about an hour before sunset, the train arrived at the station where Lord Harry was to get down. The station-master recognised him, and touched his hat. Then he saw the two other men got down after him, and he turned pale. "I will leave my portmanteau," said Lord Harry, "in the cloak-room. It will be called for." Afterwards the station-master remembered those words. Lord Harry did not say "I will call for it," but "It will be called for." Ominous words. The weather was cold; a drizzling rain fell; the day was drawing in. Lord Harry left the station, and started with quick step along the road, which stretched across a dreary desolate piece of country. The two men walked after him. One presently quickened his step, leaving the second man twenty yards behind. The station-master looked after them till he could see them no longer. Then he shook his head and returned to his office. Lord Harry walking along the road knew that the two men were following him. Presently he became aware that one of them was quickening his pace. He walked on. Perhaps his cheeks paled and his lips were set close, because he knew that he was walking to his death. The steps behind him approached faster--faster. Lord Harry never even turned his head. The man was close behind him. The man was beside him. "Mickey O'Flynn it is," said Lord Harry. "'Tis a ---- traitor, you are," said the man. "Your friends the Invincibles told you that, Mickey. Why, do you think I don't know, man, what are you here for? Well?" he stopped. "I am unarmed. You have got a revolver in your hand--the hand behind your back. What are you stopping for?" "I cannot," said the man. "You must, Mickey O'Flynn--you must; or it's murdered you'll be yourself," said Lord Harry, coolly. "Why, man, 'tis but to lift your hand. And then you'll be a murderer for life. I am another--we shall both be murderers then. Why don't you fire, man." "By ---- I cannot!" said Mickey. He held the revolver behind him, but he did not lift his arm. His eyes started: his mouth was open; the horror of the murderer was upon him before the murder was committed. Then he started. "Look!" he cried. "Look behind you, my lord!" Lord Harry turned. The second man was upon him. He bent forward and peered in his face. "Arthur Mountjoy's murderer!" he cried, and sprang at his throat. One, two, three shots rang out in the evening air. Those who heard them in the roadside cabin, at the railway-station on the road, shuddered. They knew the meaning of those shots. One more murder to load the soul of Ireland. But Lord Harry lay dead in the middle of the road. The second man got up and felt at his throat. "Faith!" he said, "I thought I was murdered outright. Come, Mick, let us drag him to the roadside." They did so, and then with bent heads and slouched hats, they made their way across country to another station where they would not be recognised as the two who had followed Lord Harry down the road. Two mounted men of the Constabulary rode along an hour later and found the body lying where it had been left. They searched the pockets. They found a purse with a few sovereigns; the portrait of a lady---the murdered man's wife--a sealed envelope addressed to Hugh Mountjoy, Esq, care of his London hotel; and a card-case: nothing of any importance. "It is Lord Harry Norland," said one. "The wild lord--he has met his end at last." The letter to Iris was brief. It said: "Farewell! I am going to meet the death of one who is called a Traitor to the Cause. I am the Traitor of a Cause far higher. May the end that is already plotted for me be accepted as an atonement! Forgive me, Iris! Think of me as kindly as you can. But I charge you--it is my latest word--mourn not for one who has done his best to poison your life and to ruin your soul." In the other letter he said: "I know the affection you have always entertained for Iris. She will tell you what she pleases about the past. If she tells you nothing about her late husband, think the worst and you will not be wrong. Remember that whatever she has done was done for me and at my instigation. She ought to have married you instead of me. "I am in the presence of Death. The men who are going to kill me are under this very roof. They will kill me, perhaps to-night. Perhaps they will wait for a quieter and a safer place. But they will kill me. "In the presence of Death, I rise superior to the pitiful jealousy with which I have always regarded you. I now despise it. I ask your pardon for it. Help Iris to forget the action of her life of which she has most reason to be ashamed. Show that you forgive me--when you have forgiven her--and when you have helped her in the warmth and strength of your love to drive me out of your thoughts for ever. "H. N." EPILOGUE IT is two years after the murder of Lord Harry Norland, the last event connected with this history. Iris, when she accepted Hugh Mountjoy's offer of his Scotch villa, went there resolved to hide herself from the world. Too many people, she thought, knew her history, and what she had done. It was not likely that the Directors of the Insurance Company would all hold their tongues about a scandal so very unusual. Even if they did not charge her with complicity, as they could, they would certainly tell the story--all the more readily since Lord Harry's murder--of the conspiracy and its success. She could never again, she told herself, be seen in the world. She was accompanied by her friend and maid--the woman whose fidelity to her had been so abundantly proved--and by Mrs. Vimpany, who acted as housekeeper. After a decent interval, Hugh Mountjoy joined her. She was now a widow. She understood very well what he wished to say, and she anticipated him. She informed him that nothing would ever induce her to become the wife of any other man after her degradation. Hugh received this intimation without a remark. He remained in the neighbourhood, however, calling upon her frequently and offering no word of love. But he became necessary to her. The frequent visits became daily; the afternoon visits were paid in the morning: the visitor stayed all day. When the time came for Iris to yield, and he left the house no more, there seemed to be no change. But still they continued their retired life, and now I do not think they will ever change it again. Their villa was situated on the north shore of the Solway Firth, close to the outfall of the Annan River, but on the west bank, opposite to the little town of Annan. At the back was a large garden, the front looked out upon the stretch of sand at low tide and the water at high tide. The house was provided with a good library. Iris attended to her garden, walked on the sands, read, or worked. They were a quiet household. Husband and wife talked little. They walked about in the garden, his arm about her waist, or hand in hand. The past, if not forgotten, was ceasing to trouble them; it seemed a dreadful, terrible dream. It left its mark in a gentle melancholy which had never belonged to Iris in the old days. And then happened the last event which the chronicler of this history has to relate. It began in the morning with a letter. Mrs. Vimpany received it. She knew the handwriting, started, and hid it quickly in her bosom. As soon as she could get away to her own room she opened and read it. "Good and Tender Creature,--I ascertained, a good while ago, thinking that probably I might have to make this kind of application to you, where you were living and with whom. It was not difficult; I only had to connect you with Mr. Hugh Mountjoy and to find out where he lived. I congratulate you on being so well able to take care of yourself. You are probably settled for life in a comfortable home. I feel as happy about it as if I had myself contributed to thus satisfactory result. "I have no intention of making myself more disagreeable than I am obliged to do. Necessity, however, knows no law. You will understand me when I tell you that I have spent all my money. I do not regret the manner in which the money has been spent, but the fact that it has all gone. This it is which cuts me to the heart. "I have also discovered that the late lamented Lord Harry, whose death I myself have the greatest reasons to deplore, played me a scurvy trick in regard to certain sums of money. The amount for which he was insured was not less than 15,000 pounds. The amount as he stated it to me was only 4,000 pounds. In return for certain services rendered at a particular juncture I was to receive the half of the insurance money. I only received 2,000 pounds, consequently there is still due to me the sum of 5,500 pounds. This is a large lump of money. But Mr. Mountjoy is, I believe, a wealthy man. He will, doubtless, see the necessity of paying this money to me without further question or delay. "You will, therefore, seek his presence--he is now, I hear, at home. You may read to him any part of this letter that you please, and you will let him know that I am in earnest. A man with empty pockets cannot choose but be in earnest. "He may very possibly object. "Very good. In that case you will tell him that a fraud has been committed in connection with which I am prepared to make a full confession. I consented, on the death of my patient, and at the earnest entreaty of Lord Harry Norland, to represent the dead man as his lordship. I then went away, resolving to have nothing more to do with the further villainy which I believe was carried on to the obtaining of the whole amount for which he was insured. "The murder of Lord Harry immediately afterwards caused the Company to drop their intended prosecution. I shall reveal to them the present residence of his widow, and shall place my evidence at their disposition. Whatever happens I shall make the facts of the case public. This done, nothing can hurt me; while, whether the Public Prosecutor intervenes or not, neither Mr. Hugh Mountjoy nor his wife can ever show face to the world again. "Tell Mr. Mountjoy, I say, whatever you please, except that I am joking. You must not tell him that. I shall call to-morrow morning, and shall expect to find the business as good as done. "A. V." Mrs. Vimpany dropped the letter in dismay. Her husband had vanished out of her life for more than two years. She hoped that she was effectually hidden; she hoped that he had gone away to some far-off country where he would never more return. Alas! This world of ours has no far-off country left, and, even if the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness so far as to go to the Rocky Mountains, an express train and a swift boat will bring him back to his wickedness whenever he desires a little more enjoyment and the society of his old friends. Mr. Vimpany was back again. What should she do? What would Iris do? What would Mr. Mountjoy do? She read the letter again. Two things were obvious: first, that he had no clue of the restitution; and, next, that he had no idea of the evidence against him for the murder of the Dane. She resolved to communicate the latter fact only. She was braver now than she had been formerly. She saw more clearly that the way of the wicked man is not always so easy for him. If he knew that his crime could be brought home to him; that he would certainly be charged with murder if he dared to show himself, or if he asked for money, he would desist. Before such a danger the most hardened villain would shrink. She also understood that it was desirable to hide from him the nature of the evidence and the name of the only witness against him. She would calmly tell him what would happen, and bid him begone, or take the consequences. Yet even if he were driven off he would return. She would live henceforth in continual apprehension of his return. Her tranquillity was gone. Heavens! That a man should have such power over the lives of others! She passed the most wretched day of her whole life. She saw in anticipation the happiness of that household broken up. She pictured his coming, but she could not picture his departure. For she had never seen him baffled and defeated. He would come in, big, burly, with his farmer-like manner confident, bullying, masterful. He would ask her what she had done; he would swear at her when he learned that she had done nothing; he would throw himself into the most comfortable chair, stretch out his legs, and order her to go and fetch Mr. Mountjoy. Would she be subdued by him as of old? Would she find the courage to stand up to him? For the sake of Iris--yes. For the sake of the man who had been so kind to her--yes. In the evening, the two women--Mrs. Vimpany and Fanny--were seated in the housekeeper's room. Both had work in their laps: neither was doing any work. The autumnal day had been boisterous; the wind was getting higher. "What are you thinking of?" asked Fanny. "I was thinking of my husband. If he were to come back, Fanny--if he were to threaten--" "You would loose my tongue--you would let me speak?" "Yes; for her sake. I would have shielded him once---if I could. But not now. I know, at last, that there is no single good thing left in him." "You have heard from him. I saw the letter this morning, in the box. I knew the handwriting. I have been waiting for you to speak." "Hush! Yes, Fanny; I have heard from him. He wants money. He will come here to-morrow morning, and will threaten Mr. Mountjoy. Keep your mistress in her own room. Persuade her to lie in bed--anything." "He does not know what I have seen. Charge him with the murder of the Dane. Tell him," said Fanny, her lips stiffening, "that if he dares to come again--if he does not go away--he shall be arrested for murder. I will keep silence no longer!" "I will--I am resolved! Oh! who will rid us of this monster?" Outside, the gale rose higher--higher still. They heard it howling, grinding branches together; they heard the roaring and the rushing of the waters as the rising tide was driven over the shallow sands, like a mountain reservoir at loose among the valleys below. In the midst of the tempest there came a sudden lull. Wind and water alike seemed hushed. And out of the lull, as if in answer to the woman's question, there came a loud cry--the shriek of a man in deadly peril. The two women caught each other by the hand and rushed to the window. They threw it open; the tempest began again; a fresh gust drove them back; the waters roared: the wind howled; they heard the voice no more. They closed the window and put up the shutters. It was long past midnight when they dared to go to bed. One of them lay awake the whole night long. In the roaring tempest she had seen an omen of the wrath of Heaven about to fall once more upon her mistress. She was wrong. The wrath of Heaven fell upon one far more guilty. In the morning, with the ebbing tide, a dead body was found lashed to the posts of one of the standing nets in the Solway. It was recognised by Hugh, who went out to look at it, and found it the body of Vimpany. Whether he was on his way back to Annan, or whether he intended to call at the villa that evening instead of next morning, no one can tell. His wife shed tears, but they were tears of relief. The man was buried as a stranger. Hugh kept his counsel. Mrs. Vimpany put the letter in the fire. Neither of them thought it wise to disturb the mind of Iris by any mention of the man. Some days later, however, Mrs. Vimpany came downstairs in a widow's cap. To Iris's look of interrogation she replied calmly, "Yes, I heard the other day. He is dead. Is it not better--even for him, perhaps--that he should be dead? He can do no more wickedness; he can bring misery into no more households. He is dead." Iris made no reply. Better--better far--that he was dead. But how she had been delivered from the man, to what new dangers she had been exposed, she knew not, and will never know. She has one secret--and only one--which she keeps from her husband. In her desk she preserves a lock of Lord Harry's hair. Why? I know not. Blind Love doth never wholly die. THE END